ANSWERS: 5
  • that we create our own world (destiny)..that our lives are not on a predestined course?
  • It means that we define who we are. It sort of like the tabula rasa school of thought. His example was that of the waiter who defines his "waiterhood" by his action, rather than his "waiterhood" determining his action.
  • the opium is working
  • For Sartre things are not made to exist by their essence, they exist and then they are seen to have an essence by us. But this essence is not essential to the thing as it is, it is a contingent production of a perceiving mind. He was wrong. Essence is not contingent, it is only dependant upon being seen. The essence of the sexual is inescapable even if it is only the product of seeing mind.
  • That existence comes before definition. This basically undermines anyone who talks about "Human Nature," because for Sarte, we exist before our meaning and our minds are defined. A tree becomes a tree only after it begins to exist, and therefore the "essence" of treeness does not occur before existence.

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