Nonessentialism

Existentialism and Phenomenology

Simply put, this atheist existentialism can be reduced to the claim that existence precedes essence. Sartre made a distinction between beings-in-themselves (en-soi), which encompassed inanimate objects and most animals whose essence precedes or is coincidental with their existence, and beings-for-themselves (pour-soi), predominantly people who exist first and only later define themselves, largely through their actions. In the absence of a God to impose a specific purpose or a particular destiny for humankind, people's existence can be said to precede their essence. For Sartre and the atheist existentialists, people come into the world alone and without purpose, and it is up to each individual to create her or his own unique and individual essential nature.

This nonessentialism is, according to the usual definition, also antihumanist, since it argues against a common or predetermined human nature that can be [Page 558]invoked to justify the decisions and actions of individuals or groups of people. Sartre refers to such an essentialist recourse to human nature as mauvaise foi or bad faith (sometimes translated as self-deception), which is to be avoided if people wish to live authentic lives and be true to their individually chosen paths. However, nonessentialism is not the only ethical response to the nonexistence of God, and Sartre points out that some strands of philosophic atheism, such as those found in the writing of Voltaire and Immanuel Kant, simply replace God with a universal but nonreligious human nature in which each person is a particular example of a universal conception. Confusion arises, however, when Sartre attempts to align this nonessentialist existentialism with the humanist movement, as he does in his published lecture “Existentialism and Humanism.” The difficulty lies in the fact that Sartre is using the term humanism largely to oppose the religious view, in the sense that human actions and human destiny are determined by individual human beings rather than by a transcendental God. This definition is counter to the more usual definition of the term humanism as referring to the existence of a common (and usually positive or good) human nature shared by all. In this latter and more commonly accepted sense, Sartre's nonessentialism is very much antihumanist.

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