“Existentialism is a Humanism” by Jean-Paul Sartre

This short lecture really sums up Sartre’s version of existentialism. It starts with the fact that existence precedes essence foremost in man. Man chooses. Life is all about choices made and choices abandoned, but in all that man is the chooser. “Reality exists only in action…. Reality alone counts.” Furthermore, in choice there is responsibility: a responsibility for one’s own actions affecting the self, but also a responsibility affecting mankind. In one’s conception of the self, in one’s morals, in one’s subjectivity one is also affecting humanity at large. There is a commitment to live authentically in the world and primarily not to live in bad faith with oneself.