John Locke, Paul Sartre, And Georg L. Hegel - 1710 Words

Shainna Hayes PHL 492 Final Paper April 14, 2015 The subject of essence is not something that the average person thinks about everyday, or ever in their life. There are several varying arguments over essence including arguments from John Locke, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Georg W. F. Hegel. Two of these men argue that essence is something that we gain later in life once we have made the choice of who we want to be. The third argues that we all have the same essence from the time we are born. The arguments of these three philosophers will become very important in answering the question: Is it true or plausible that we humans have no essence until we choose to have an essence? Jean-Paul Sartre and Georg W. F. Hegel will support the affirmative†¦show more content†¦One cannot know that a person will be kind and compassionate before they have done an act to show this to be true. Another important word that will be referred to often in this paper is being, which is defined simply as â€Å"existence.† Being may seem really sim ple but everything has to have basic characteristics to exist in the form that it has come to take. In class we discussed Jean-Paul Sartre’s argument that under the terms of atheist existentialism it is plausible humans are â€Å"a being in whom existence precedes essence, a being which exists before being defined by any concept† (Sartre 1). Sartre is often remembered to have said that humans are condemned to be free. This means that they cannot hide behind excuses or blame their actions on anything but themselves, not even human nature (Sartre 2). However, this also means that humans are free to define themselves through their own choices and cannot be predefined by human nature since, according to Sartre, existence precedes essence. Sartre argues that people are inherently free, whether they like it or not. They are free to make their own decisions and define themselves with their personal actions and values. If Sartre is right, it has to be plausible that existence precedes essence or else humans would not have the freedom to create their own nature, they would be defined from the moment they came to be meaning they are not actually free. In the Phaedrus Socrates argues that no one knows what is