Letter on Humanism

• 1. Introduction

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  In December 1946, Martin Heidegger sat down to write Letter on Humanism, and used it to draw a hard line against Sartre. Its German title, Über den Humanismus, sits over pages built around one goal. Heidegger wanted to separate his own thinking from Sartre's position and from existentialism in general. He was answering questions someone else had put to him, but his answer turned into a rejection of an entire philosophical camp. Who asked Heidegger to write this letter, and what exactly did he think Sartre had gotten wrong?

• 2. Origins of a Reply

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  Jean Beaufret put his questions to Heidegger on the 10th of November 1946, asking about the development of French existentialism. Heidegger treated the letter as a chance to answer in detail rather than in outline.

  Before it reached readers, Heidegger reworked the letter for publication in 1947. What he added would matter later: distinctions about being itself that let the letter engage with Sartre point by point.

• 3. The Case Against Sartre

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  Sartre had delivered an address titled Existentialism is a Humanism, and that address is what Heidegger answers directly. He works through modes of being to try to ground his concept of freedom on ontological footing, distinguishing between being-in-itself and being-for-itself as he goes.

  Heidegger writes: "Existentialism says existence precedes essence. In this statement he is taking existentia and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning, which, from Plato's time on, has said that essentia precedes existentia. Sartre reverses this statement. But the reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement. With it, he stays with metaphysics, in oblivion of the truth of Being." Heidegger does not soften the charge or return to it later in gentler terms. It stands in the letter as the sharpest line of the critique preserved here. It marks a disagreement not about conclusions, but about the ground philosophy stands on.