[No H1 — WordPress adds the title “To Be: What Sartre Means” automatically]
To Sartre, “to be” means something fundamentally different for humans than for objects. Objects exist as beings-in-themselves (en-soi) — fixed, complete, defined by their nature. Humans exist as beings-for-themselves (pour-soi) — conscious, free, and perpetually unfinished. This distinction is the foundation of Sartre’s existentialism: you are not a thing with a predetermined purpose; you are a being who must create one.
Key Takeaways
- You are not a thing: Sartre distinguishes objects (fixed, defined) from human consciousness (free, unfinished) — and says we often mistake ourselves for the former.
- Existence precedes essence: There is no predetermined human nature or calling. You exist first; you define yourself through choices and actions afterward.
- Bad faith is costly: When we over-identify with a role — a job title, a function, a fixed label — we commit what Sartre calls bad faith, denying our own freedom and capacity to change.
- Freedom is unavoidable: “Condemned to be free” is not poetic pessimism — it’s Sartre’s way of saying you cannot escape the responsibility of choosing who you become.
You Are Not a Job Title
You know that moment at a party when someone asks, “So, what do you do?”
And suddenly you feel it. Not the question itself — but the pressure behind it. Because your answer is supposed to say something true about you. Your title, your company, your function. As if who you are could be summarized in a sentence on a business card.
Now imagine you’ve just lost that job. Or left it. Or realized it no longer fits.
The disorientation that follows isn’t a sign of weakness or poor self-knowledge. It’s a philosophical problem — one Sartre spent 700 pages on in Being and Nothingness (1943). And it starts with a question most people never ask: what does it mean to be at all?
The anxiety of losing a job title isn’t really about income — it’s about identity. Sartre would say you’ve confused being-a-consciousness with being-a-thing.
That confusion is worth unpacking. Because Sartre’s existentialism isn’t just academic philosophy — it’s a framework that cuts right to the heart of why so many people feel stuck, defined, and quietly desperate for permission to become something different. In this article, we’ll work through Sartre’s core ideas — being-as-thing vs. being-as-consciousness, bad faith, authenticity — and translate them into the frameworks that actually change how you think about calling and career.
Two Modes of Being: En-Soi and Pour-Soi {#two-modes-of-being}
Sartre identifies two fundamentally different ways of existing. Everything in the world falls into one of these categories — and which one you belong to has enormous consequences.
The first is en-soi, being-in-itself. (The French terms aren’t jargon for jargon’s sake — they mark a genuinely different kind of existence.) Being-in-itself is the mode of things: a rock, a chair, a penknife. According to Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism, a penknife’s purpose existed before the penknife did — the knife-maker had a design, a function, an essence in mind before crafting it. The knife simply is what it is. No possibilities, no becoming, no capacity to be otherwise. As the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it, being-in-itself exists in complete, independent determination — without consciousness, without relation.
The second is pour-soi, being-for-itself. This is the mode of consciousness. Human beings are never fully defined because we always have the capacity to be otherwise. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy captures Sartre’s formulation: the for-itself is “a being which is what it is not and is not what it is.” It sounds paradoxical because it is. Sartre means that you are not your past (what you were) and not yet your future (what you’ll become). You are perpetually in between — incomplete, future-oriented, always in process.
Here’s a modern version of the same distinction.
| Mode | Characteristic | Example |
|---|---|---|
| En-soi (being-in-itself) | Fixed, complete, defined by nature | A rock, a penknife, a job description |
| Pour-soi (being-for-itself) | Conscious, free, always becoming | A person deciding who to be next |
A spreadsheet is en-soi — it has no say in what it contains. You are pour-soi — you always have a say.
The distinction sounds abstract until you realize most people live as though they were en-soi — as if who they are is already fully determined. That’s the core confusion Sartre wants to expose.
Existence Precedes Essence
“Existence precedes essence” is Sartre’s way of saying humans have no pre-given nature or purpose. We exist first — thrown into the world without a manual — and we define ourselves afterward through what we do.
Contrast this with the traditional view. If God creates human beings with a purpose in mind, then essence precedes existence — just like the penknife. Your meaning would be built in. Fixed. Waiting to be discovered.
But Sartre rejects this. As he writes in Existentialism is a Humanism:
“Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world — and defines himself afterwards.”
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it directly: “To be human is characterised by an existence that precedes its essence.” You are nothing at birth. You become something through what you do.
Not a fixed thing waiting to be found. A project.
The “find your passion” industry depends on the idea that your essence is out there waiting to be discovered. Sartre would call that a fantasy — a comforting one, but a fantasy. Philosophy Break’s analysis shows how Simone de Beauvoir followed the same logic: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” — roles can limit us, but they can also be transcended.
Here’s what people get wrong: most people read “existence precedes essence” as permission to do whatever they want. Sartre means the opposite. It’s a weight, not a permission slip. With no external authority prescribing your purpose, the full responsibility for who you become falls on you. That’s either terrifying or liberating, depending on where you’re standing.
Condemned to Be Free — Anguish and Responsibility
Freedom, for Sartre, isn’t a gift you can decline. You are “condemned to be free” — unable to stop choosing, unable to defer your identity to a job description, a tradition, or a divine plan.
As EBSCO Research Starters documents from Being and Nothingness: “There is no difference between one’s being and one’s being-free.” Freedom isn’t something you exercise occasionally. It’s what you are.
You can’t opt out. That’s the deal.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy adds: “the possibility which every human being has to secrete a nothingness…is freedom.” That nothingness — the gap between what you are now and what you could become — is the space where choice lives. And it’s always open.
Sartre calls the emotional experience of recognizing this freedom anguish. Not clinical anxiety — something more specific. EBSCO quotes him directly: “It is in anxiety that man gets the consciousness of his freedom.” Anguish isn’t something to fix. It’s the feeling of being awake to your own freedom.
Think about the dread that comes during a career pivot when you realize no one can tell you what to do next. No manager. No job description. No five-year plan. That feeling is pure “condemned to be free” territory.
And Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism insists that existentialism is, in fact, optimistic — because it places human beings in full possession of themselves. Dependent on no external authority. Responsible for who they become. That’s a harder kind of hope than most people want. But it’s real. Explore more in Dan’s piece on existential freedom.
Bad Faith — The Waiter and the LinkedIn Profile
Bad faith is Sartre’s term for self-deception about your own freedom — and his most famous example is a café waiter whose movements are “a little too precise, a little too rapid.”
The waiter in Sartre’s account has reduced his entire identity to this single role. Every gesture is too deliberate — too much being the waiter, not enough being a person who plays that role. He’s treating himself as en-soi. Fixed. Finished. Defined.
Philosopher Skye Cleary, quoted by Philosophy Break, explains it cleanly: “A waiter can play at it, but to believe that one is a role is bad faith because we are always becoming and growing, and so to view ourselves as some kind of fixed entity is to fool ourselves.”
But it’s not just waiters. Look around.
Modern bad faith shows up everywhere—
- The LinkedIn bio that flattens a full person into a title and three bullet points
- The professional who says “I’m a consultant” as though that exhausted who they are
- The “I don’t have a choice” statement when what someone actually means is “I don’t like my choices”
Every time you say “I don’t have a choice” when you mean “I don’t like my choices,” that’s bad faith in action.
Here’s what people get wrong about bad faith: it’s not hypocrisy. It’s not performing a role while secretly believing something else. It’s more specific — it’s convincing yourself you have no room to move when you do. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that bad faith “represents inauthentic existence — deceiving ourselves about freedom and responsibility” — and crucially, that it contains “the germ of its destruction.” We remain partially aware of our own inauthenticity. Which is why role over-identification produces that quiet, nagging anxiety so many people feel but can’t name.
Authenticity — Not “Being Yourself,” But Being Honest
Here’s the question bad faith leaves you with: if you can’t become the role, what do you do with it?
Sartre’s answer is authenticity. Not the “follow your bliss” version of authenticity — the harder kind. Refusing to lie to yourself about the freedom you have, and the constraints you face.
The hard part of Sartrean authenticity isn’t freedom — it’s honesty.
You can be a waiter authentically. The difference is knowing you play the role rather than being the role. You can be a consultant, a parent, a VP — authentically — if you hold those identities with open hands rather than clenched fists.
Here’s the distinction that matters—
| Inauthenticity (Bad Faith) | Authenticity |
|---|---|
| “I am my job title.” | “I do this work — and I’m always becoming something more.” |
| “I have no choice here.” | “I have constraints — and I’m choosing within them.” |
| Treating your facticity as the whole story | Holding your facticity and your transcendence honestly |
Sartre gives us two key concepts. Facticity is the given circumstances of your existence — your history, your body, your economic situation, your social location. These are real. He doesn’t pretend otherwise. Transcendence is the capacity to go beyond those circumstances through choice. Freedom is always situated freedom — but it’s freedom.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes authentic existence as “choosing in a way which reflects the nature of the for-itself as both transcendence and facticity.” You can’t escape your facticity. But you can stop pretending it’s the whole story.
Sartre and Frankl — Created vs. Discovered Meaning
Viktor Frankl and Jean-Paul Sartre were born in the same year, wrestled with the same fundamental question — what gives human life meaning? — and arrived at nearly opposite answers.
(Frankl developed his framework partly in Nazi concentration camps; Sartre wrote Being and Nothingness in Nazi-occupied Paris. Both were thinking about meaning under extreme duress.)
As Philosophy Now’s analysis of both thinkers documents, they share more than people expect. Both affirm human freedom. Both reject determinism. Both argue that humans can transcend their conditioning through choice.
But here’s where they diverge.
| Sartre | Frankl | |
|---|---|---|
| Question of meaning | Meaning is invented | Meaning is detected |
| Source of meaning | Created through subjective choice | Discovered — exists independently |
| Freedom | Radical — no ground outside us | Real, but within a framework of objective meaning |
| Implication for calling | Build it through choices and commitments | Search for it — it’s waiting to be found |
Frankl put it directly: “The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.” Sartre: “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself.” (From Existentialism is a Humanism.)
The distinction matters more than it might seem. If you think meaning is discovered and you can’t find it, you blame yourself for not looking hard enough. If you think meaning is created and nothing feels meaningful, you might conclude you’re broken. Understanding which framework you’re operating from — and what it implies — can change how you approach the search.
I find myself returning to both. Some experiences feel genuinely discovered — like something was waiting to be recognized. Others feel built from the ground up. Neither thinker has the last word here, and that’s probably the honest answer.
For more on Frankl’s approach, see Dan’s piece on Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy.
What “To Be” Means for Calling and Purpose
If existence precedes essence, there is no calling waiting to be discovered. But that doesn’t mean calling doesn’t exist — it means calling is something you build, not something you find.
The “find your passion” framing assumes an essentialist universe — that your purpose exists independently and your job is to locate it. If existence precedes essence, that’s backwards. But here’s what I think Sartre’s logic actually implies for how we live: calling becomes an ongoing project of self-creation rather than a treasure hunt.
Not a fixed destination. An ongoing project.
Consider the reframes—
- “What am I meant to do?” → “What am I choosing to do — and is that a choice I want to keep making?”
- “I need to find my purpose.” → “I’m building my purpose through every commitment I make.”
- “I don’t know who I am without my job.” → “I am pour-soi — I’m not finished, and that’s not a failure.”
When someone leaves a corporate job and says “I don’t know who I am without it,” they’re experiencing exactly what Sartre describes. They’ve been living as en-soi — as if the role were the self. The anxiety of not knowing what to do next is not a sign something has gone wrong. It’s the sign of a person confronting genuine freedom.
Sartre doesn’t leave us with a formula. He leaves us with a question — and a responsibility.
Your Existence Is Ongoing
Sartre’s philosophy of being doesn’t offer comfort — it offers something harder and more useful: an honest account of what it means to be human.
You are not a thing. You are a consciousness in motion — defined not by what has been decided about you, but by what you choose next.
The opening question at the party — “What do you do?” — has a Sartrean answer that no business card can contain. You are pour-soi. Always becoming, never finished, never reducible to a title or role. The disorientation after a career transition isn’t a problem. It’s philosophy lived from the inside.
What Sartre asks of you isn’t to find the right answer. It’s to take seriously the responsibility of being the one who chooses.
That responsibility is yours. And I think you’re up to it.
You’re not done. You can’t be. That’s the point.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Sartre mean by “to be”?
For humans, to be is not a fixed state — it is an ongoing act of consciousness and choice. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Sartre distinguishes objects (en-soi) from consciousness (pour-soi): objects simply are what they are; humans are always in the process of becoming. To be, for Sartre, means to be perpetually unfinished — always reaching toward what you are not yet.
What is being-in-itself vs. being-for-itself?
Being-in-itself (en-soi) describes fixed, complete, self-identical objects that exist without consciousness — a rock, a chair, a job description. Being-for-itself (pour-soi) describes human consciousness, defined by freedom, negation, and perpetual incompleteness. As the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains, pour-soi exists relationally, always directed toward something else, characterized by lack and possibility.
What does “existence precedes essence” mean?
It means humans have no predetermined nature or purpose. We exist first, then define ourselves through choices and actions — unlike a penknife, whose purpose is determined before it’s made. Sartre writes in Existentialism is a Humanism: “Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world — and defines himself afterwards.”
What is bad faith in Sartre’s philosophy?
Bad faith is self-deception about your own freedom — treating yourself as a fixed thing rather than a free being. Sartre’s classic example from Being and Nothingness (1943) is a waiter who over-identifies with his role, denying his capacity for growth and change. It’s not hypocrisy — it’s convincing yourself you have no room to move when you do.
Is Sartre pessimistic?
No — Sartre explicitly argued existentialism is optimistic. In Existentialism is a Humanism (1946), he wrote that existentialism “puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders” — which is not despair but possibility. The absence of a predetermined nature means the full capacity for self-creation.
