Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

M odern european philosophy Sartre denied the transcendental ego and tried to account for our identity by means of the notion of fundamental project or original choice. A fundamental project is an act that is responsible for the whole mode of life of a person, which makes him recognizable in every particular situation. The project or choice is neither given nor fixed, but is actively constructed. It is manifested in various actions across many years. Because the project is a choice, we are not passively subjected to the external causal world. We always define ourselves by projecting beyond causality. In this way, our life history should be conceived as a coherent, long-term, and self-determining process of life experience. The project is fundamental and the choice is original through relation to a person's being-in-the-world in its entirety. The project is not related to any particular object in the world and is not empirical. We exist with this choice or project and are therefore responsible for our lives. The fundamental project is the expression of our freedom and is the ground of our responsibility . “This fundamental project must not of course refer to any other and should be conceived by itself. It can be concerned neither with death nor life nor any particular characteristic of the human condition; the original project of a for-itself can aim only at its being.” ... log in or subscribe to read full text