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Sartre's lecture Existentialism Is a Humanism

1945 · Paris (Paris, France)

On 29 October 1945 Sartre lectures to a packed and quarrelsome Paris hall, defending existentialism against its Catholic and Communist critics: existence precedes essence, man makes himself, and in choosing himself he chooses all men. The lecture, published in 1946, is the movement's public manifesto and the text by which the world learns its name.

Tagged: Existentialism

The Event

Date
1945 (exact)
Era
The Paris Decade; Standard periodization of existentialist history
Location
Paris; today Paris, France
Traditions
Existentialism
Streams
Existentialism
Key figures
Jean-Paul Sartre
Key texts
Existentialism Is a Humanism

Connections

Illustration for Sartre's Being and Nothingness History Event Sartre's Being and Nothingness 1943 the summa defended in public under its new name

Primary Sources

  • Sartre, Jean-Paul. L'existentialisme est un humanisme. Paris: Nagel, 1946 (lecture delivered 29 October 1945).

Secondary Sources

  • Gordon, Lewis R. Fanon and the Crisis of European Man. New York: Routledge, 1995.
  • Kaufmann, Walter, ed. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. New York: Meridian, 1956.
  • Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. New York: Oxford University Press, second edition, 2005.

Provenance: HIST-1428; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.

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