Jean-Paul Sartre born - June 21, 1905

On this day in 1905, philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre was born.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello y'all, it's Eves and welcome to This
Day in History Class, a podcast that flips through the
book of history and rips out of page every single day.
Today is June. The day was June one, nineteen o

(00:25):
five French philosopher and writer Jean Paul Sartra was born.
He was a major figure in twentieth century French philosophy
and one of the most well known intellectuals in the country.
Sartra studied psychology, sociology and the history of philosophy in Paris.
While he was at the Acole Normal, he formed a

(00:45):
relationship with Simone de Beauvois, who would also go on
to become a noted philosopher and writer. He spent some
time in the French army during World War Two, and
was even taken as a prisoner of war, but he
was soon released and returned to Paris starta read Edmund
Hussel and Martin Heidegger, studying their phenomenological philosophy. Phenomenology is

(01:09):
the philosophical study of the structures of consciousness as experienced
from the first person point of view. Sarta took part
in the resistance movement and wrote for underground newspapers. But
in three he wrote the first major philosophical work of
his career, being in Nothingness, an essay on phenomenological ontology.

(01:30):
In the book, Starta deals with topics like consciousness, free will,
and perception. The book gained popularity after the war and
garnered start recognition. There's been debate over Simon de beauvois
influence on the book and later developments in Startre's thought.
After the war, Starta also published novels and articles on

(01:50):
literature and politics. Before Sarta had not been deeply interested
or involved in politics, but he eventually became more politicized,
speaking out on issues like France's presence in Southeast Asia.
Over the course of his career, he also co founded
the journal Letant Modern, and he wrote plays, biographies, and

(02:11):
an autobiography. He also served as a philosophy professor and universities,
and he developed a role as a public intellectual. That said,
he began to resent his inevitable acceptance by the bourgeoisie.
He often questioned his previously held attitudes and engaged in debate.
With his earlier works, Sarcha embraced communism but he was

(02:33):
never a member of the French Communist Party. He also
made clear his opposition to Western capitalism and the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance between North American and
European countries. Sarcher continued to write throughout his entire life,
building a body of work impossible to condense in any
meaningful way. But one of the works important to him

(02:56):
was the nineteen sixty book Critique of Dialectical Reason, in
which he expounds when ideas of existentialist Marxism. It wasn't
a popular work, though. In nineteen sixty four, Starta was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he refused to
accept it. He said that he declined to accept official
distinctions and did not want to be institutionalized. He also

(03:18):
said that he was concerned the award would limit the
impact of his writing. In the nineteen sixty four interview,
Sartre said, the following I discovered abruptly that alien nation,
exploitation of man by man under nourishment, relegated to the
background metaphysical evil, which is a luxury. Later in life,
Sarcha participated in demonstrations and marches, and he was vocal

(03:40):
about topics like housing and the Vietnam War. Sarta died
in nineteen eighty. After his death, his daughter authorized the
publication of several collections of his letters, like those he
wrote to Samone de Beauvoir. Sarta is remembered as one
of the foremost intellectual figures of the twentieth century. I'm

(04:00):
Eve Jeff Cote and hopefully you know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. And if you
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at t D I h C podcast. Thanks so much
for listening to the show and we'll see you tomorrow.

(04:26):
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