JeanPaul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, novelist, playwright, biographer, and political activist whose ideas made him one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. A central figure in modern existentialism and phenomenology, Sartre contributed to major developments in political theory, literary criticism, sociology, and postcolonial thought. His body of work spans philosophical treatises, novels, essays, and theatre, and he remains a key figure in debates about freedom, authenticity, and social responsibility. In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he declined, asserting that a writer must preserve independence from institutional recognition.
Sartre is also widely known for his lifelong partnership with Simone de Beauvoir. Together, they challenged established conventions of society, gender, and personal relationships, pushing against the bourgeois norms they believed limited human freedom. Central to Sartre’s early philosophy is the notion of mauvaise foi—“bad faith”—a form of self-deception that undermines authenticity. These themes reach their fullest expression in Being and Nothingness (1943), his major philosophical study, and in his introductory lecture Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946).

Early Life and Education

Sartre was born in Paris, the only child of Jean-Baptiste Sartre, a naval officer, and Anne-Marie Schweitzer. His father died when he was two, and Sartre was raised by his mother and maternal grandparents in Meudon. His grandfather, Charles Schweitzer, a teacher of German, introduced him to classical literature and sparked his early intellectual development. When Sartre was twelve, his mother remarried, and the family moved to La Rochelle, where Sartre endured bullying, partly due to his wandering right eye, a condition known as sensory exotropia.
As a teenager in the 1920s, Sartre became drawn to philosophy through reading Henri Bergson’s Time and Free Will. He attended the independent Cours Hattemer school in Paris and later pursued extensive studies at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure (ENS). There he earned qualifications in psychology, logic, ethics, sociology, and philosophy. His master’s thesis, L’Image dans la vie psychologique, was supervised by Henri Delacroix and explored the role of imagery in human consciousness.
ENS shaped Sartre’s intellectual and personal life. He formed enduring if often complex friendships—most notably with Raymond Aron—and first engaged with ideas that would define his later work. He attended Alexandre Kojève’s influential seminars on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, which played a significant role in shaping the philosophical ferment of interwar France. Sartre was also known for mischievous pranks during his student years, most famously a hoax staged after Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight, which led to public spectacle and ultimately the resignation of the ENS director.
In 1929 Sartre met Simone de Beauvoir, then a student at the Sorbonne. Their intellectual partnership and unconventional open relationship lasted throughout their lives. In that same year they both sat for the agrégation in philosophy; Sartre secured first place, with de Beauvoir close behind.

Early Career and Intellectual Influences

Between 1931 and 1945 Sartre taught at various lycées, including posts in Le Havre, Laon, and Paris. His early career coincided with wide reading and intellectual experimentation. In 1932 he read Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night, which he described as profoundly influential. Between 1933 and 1934 Sartre replaced Raymond Aron at the Institut Français in Berlin, where he studied Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, following Aron’s earlier recommendation to explore Emmanuel Levinas’ work on the subject. During these years Sartre also contributed to the revival of interest in Hegel, joining thinkers inspired by Kojève and Jean Hyppolite.
His emerging intellectual identity was shaped by the interaction of phenomenology, existential concerns, and an expanding awareness of the socio-political tensions in Europe during the interwar period.

World War II and Occupation

In 1939 Sartre was drafted into the French Army and served as a meteorologist. Captured in 1940, he spent nine months as a prisoner of war in Nancy and later in Trier, where he wrote an early play, Barion fils du tonnerre. During his imprisonment he read Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, which became pivotal to his future work on existential ontology.
Sartre was released in 1941, officially for health reasons. After returning to civilian life, he resumed teaching and began probing the moral and political implications of the German occupation. That same year he co-founded the resistance-oriented group Socialisme et Liberté with de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Toussaint Desanti, and several ENS students. Although the group dissolved within months due to a lack of practical direction and resources, the experience marked Sartre’s shift toward political engagement.
He spent the remainder of the occupation writing philosophical works, plays, and essays. Notably, he produced Being and Nothingness, The Flies, and No Exit—all of which were permitted by German censors. His writings of this period reflected the complexities of life under occupation, and in essays such as Paris under the Occupation he explored how ordinary behaviours could mask forms of complicity.

Later Influence and Legacy

Sartre’s postwar career expanded into political activism, public debate, and a sustained engagement with Marxism, though always through an existentialist lens. His later works addressed colonialism, oppression, and the responsibilities of intellectuals in political life. Alongside his literary and philosophical output, his partnership with Simone de Beauvoir helped shape new understandings of freedom, gender, and authenticity.