Abstract

The philosophy developed by Sartre is the philosophy of freedom. This is confirmed by his work, whether in literary or theatrical texts, in political interventions and even in travel reports; but it is in technical works that this concern is even more evident: Sartre sustains that his philosophy must fulfill three tasks, of which the first – and most important – is the metaphysical liberation of men and women. Being and Nothingness fulfills precisely this task; it is against Kant and distancing itself from Husserl and Heidegger that, first, freedom reveals itself as phenomenological truth: I am freedom; second, against all determinism, whether of externality, such as History (situation, class, etc.), or of interiority, such as Ego (transcendental Self, character, etc.), Sartre shows that freedom is also the foundation of History and the beginning of every individual adventure (life story, Psyche), both expressions of the same genesis: the singularity of freedom, self-sustaining process of being-in-the-world, is the only source of what man is and, consequently, of everything that can come to Being. Phenomenological ontology is the foundational work of the philosophy of freedom.