“One can ask why the I has to appear in the cogito {Descartes’ argument “I think therefore I am.}, since the cogito, if used rightly, is the awareness of pure consciousness, not directed at any fact or action. In fact the I is not necessary here, since it is never united directly to consciousness. One can even imagine a pure and self-aware consciousness which thinks of itself as impersonal spontaneity.”

French philosopher, political activist, and writer

Jean-Paul Sartre was a French philosopher, political activist, and writer. He was a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism, and one of the central thinkers associated with existentialism. He also supported Libertarian Marxism, and his work went on to shape sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. In 1964, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature, though he tried to refuse it, saying that he usually declined official honors and that a writer should not become an institution.