Sartre in Ten Minutes

I do not own any of these images. This 10-minute video is intended as an introduction to the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, with an emphasis on Being & Nothingness. It is not intended as a comprehensive or definitive account of his thought. This video is for educational purposes only.

[jeanbordes]

An excellent introduction to jean Paul SARTRE. THANKS

[bobbeckel]

Sounds like Sartre is answer Descarte. Descarte: I think, therefore I am. Sartre: I am, therefore I think.

[AlcibiadesMD]

I think that all of these great masters of Philosophy and Science will be much more proud of us if we as human beings take the risk of thinking for ourselves, I know for a fact that much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to us that way.

[kaseybrown]

"A coffee cup is not a rhinoceros."
*mind blown*

[swhupp]

Thanks for doing these videos. Love the short format. You get to the essence of things and don't leave anything important out. They have helped clarify my understanding of these topics.

[luigipati]

"Hell is other people". Yes. Schopenhauer basically said the same thing in his "Counsels and Maxims"

[angeljacklyn]

Thank you. I am writing a paper for my PHL class and plan on quoting and referencing this video. It not only explains concepts very clearly, it explains them in the best way possible - simple but precise. I am also going to recommend this video in an email to my professor, if I can remember anyway. Hopefully he just takes initiative & posts it for the class on his own, after reading my paper and seeing your an excellent reference.

[StephenWoerner]

This is much more informative than the School of Life video

[jameskerr]

I completely agree that we exist before we express our essence. I've always thought myself to be agnostic, but now I believe myself to be an existentialist.

[ddevee]

Thank you! Just getting started on "Being and Nothingness" and definitely needed something like this to start to wrap my head around it. Greatly appreciated!!

[CoreyAnton]

You have some great videos here.  Thanks.

[leapinthedark]

Thanks for this! I'm attempting to continue directing a production of The Flies, during this Pandemic - online! So I'm digging it to more dramaturgy and deeper exploration and this is really well done, helpful and entertaining. Also timely as we all figure out how to respond to "Shelter in Place" ...and no TP.

[lkjhon]

Just recently discovered your videos Eric, they're all excellent.

[stephenkirby]

The reason Sartre sounds so pessimistic in his writing is that... while he understood how humankind devolved into the morass that Sartre perceived as 'this current situation with the state of humanity' (i.e. each individual's self-denial)... he did not put together a process for humanity to pull itself out of the morass by its figurative and sometimes literal bootstraps... you will find that all the better philosophers have been more pessimistic in their outlook for humankind... that they understood the why... was enlightening to them... and they wanted to pass that 'knowledge' along... but that they could and still cannot find a reasonable and logical process that lifts humankind is what frustrated them and turned them pessimistic...

[jayraskin]

Excellent. Thank you. You hit a lot of the highlights in Sartre and explained them with excellent examples.

[zigbaulrich]

I've been saying that forever! We're not who are so much as who we're not. And everyone just looks at me like I'm stupid or crazy. So good to have your ideas confirmed by others.

[onlyeyeno]

Thanks for this "10 minute introduction to Sartre", it took me the better part of an hour to "listen through" ;)

[LokiBeckonswow]

I really like what you're saying in this video at around 7 minutes in in regards to changing your life from one of 'Bad Faith'.

I'm not sure it's physiologically possible to "decide to adopt different ways of behaving at any and all points" - it is possible, but I think it takes a large amount of energy, time, and the willpower to rewrite our plastic brains.

In avoiding a life of bad faith, the main relevant factor I can think of is that we are creatures of habit, and you cannot change all aspects of your life immediately - I don't think it's physically possible to change every habit/pattern of behaviour in your life immediately - say, in my experience with changing mental habits, I've been reading over and over again that it takes around 6 weeks for these changes of habits to take place. So yeah, you can avoid living in bad faith, but it takes time.

I'm also uncertain of the extent of human ability to change emotional responses as well, as I'm pretty sure our emotional responses precede our intellectual control on a physiological level, in that our reptilian brain affects nervous system responses before we can intellectually interrupt them. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying that you cannot do it immediately - It takes time, persistence, and consistency.

I'm not a brain scientist, nor a psychologist, but I have been studying this stuff over the past few years in my own attempt to refine my mental habits and move out of a lifestyle set in bad faith. I really like the idea of avoiding a life of bad faith, but I also like to understand it in the context of modern science and psychology. This is my understanding, I'd appreciate people with a better understanding to contribute.

Awesome video though, thanks for the thoughts and ideas (not to mention your time and effort!) :)

[oliverpeterfisher]

Great videos, and your replies to comments are very insightful, thanks a lot! I'm at uni in England studying medicine but i find this fascinating and really stretches my thinking!! (although I do have to watch the videos a few times and look up a few words)

[flyingnorseman]

Being a hardcore introvert, I'll have to quote Sartre's, "Hell is other people" because I feel it in my bones.