Episode 222: Choosing Sartre for All Mankind

David and Tamler don black turtlenecks and light up a couple of Gauloises to talk about Jean Paul Sartre's classic essay “Existentialism is a Humanism.” Why are choices so fundamental to our experience? What does Sartre mean when he says that “existence precedes essence”? Why does he try to shoehorn universalizability into a view that’s clearly hostile to it?

Plus, how much free time is good for you? Is that even the right question?

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Links:

• Too Much Free Time Isn’t Actually Bad For You
• Sharif, M. A., Mogilner, C., & Hershfield, H. E. (2021). Having too little or too much time is linked to lower subjective well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
• Jean-Paul Sartre - Wikipedia
• Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre
• Thrownness - Wikipedia