Position

Existential Meaning

Meaning is not found but made by free existence.

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Classification

Position level
specific
Domains
Ethics

Overview

Sartre's slogan is that existence precedes essence: unlike a paper-knife, which a manufacturer designs for a purpose before it exists, a human being simply exists first and only afterward becomes something, through the choices they make. There is no design to live up to and no author to answer to, so nothing about what a person is or ought to be is fixed in advance.

This is a direct denial of the view that meaning must be assigned from outside, by a purpose belonging to God or the universe rather than to the person living the life. Where that view treats a life without such an assigned purpose as one that cannot be meaningful, Sartre treats the absence of any given purpose as the very condition that makes free choice, and so meaning-making, possible at all.

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References