Exploration. Sartre Needs Doctrine

Satre is one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. No other philosophers in his era has such an intense influence as Satre had on the modern philosophy history. He is often referred as the"20th century consciences"by many researchers because of his great achievements. His controversial thoughts has brought about widespread and long lasting attention ever since, and it is still the focus of attention of philosophical research even as of today. There has already been a huge collection of books written on Satre's philosophical thoughts, and yet Satre still remains one of the least understood thinkers despite the fact that his works are widely quoted by a lot of scholars. One common misunderstanding about Satre's thoughts is individual freedom is the foundation of Satre's Existential Marxism ; human's freedom is the root of historical development. Some people thought that absolute freedom is the foundation of Satre's ethics, but I disagree. I think human need is the basis of his philosophical thoughts in his later period. Satre considered human needs as the impetus of individual development and freedom, human needs are the origins of human society development and the beginning of society ethics. The purpose of this paper is to understand the most important aspect of Satre's thoughts---human needs, which has been despised by other Satre researchers.This paper has five sections:The first part is Satre's interpretation of the concept of human needs. It starts with the concept of deficiency and points out that deficiency is some kind of territory which the people live with. Based on the concept of deficiency, Satre pointed out that human needs are what humans experience from the environment they live in, it surpasses the current stage of deficiency. There are multiple aspects of human needs, including: the basic material needs from human to preserve their lives, cultural needs, freedom needs and needs of other people's love, needs for perfectness and the purpose of lives.The second part explains that human needs are the impetus of individual development and freedom. This paper points out that human needs are the basis of self esteem, and emphasize the fact that needs play an important role in the formation of children's self esteem. It also points out that human needs are the source of individual lives, and needs gives human the reason for them to live in this world. Lastly, this papers explains needs are the impetus of individual freedom.The third part of this paper analyzes that needs are the drivers of historical development of a society. It starts with the fact that needs links human and the environment that human lives in, needs play the intermediary function between the human and the environment. It also points out needs are the basis and drivers of all human practice. Thirdly, societies are formed to satisfy human needs, human needs are the basis of any society organization. Lastly, human needs are the sources of any society class of they are the impetus of fights between different society classes.The forth part of this paper analyzes the fact that human needs are the root of society ethics from four different aspects: human needs gives ethics the character that ethics regulates what people can do and can't do in a society; any ethics are based on human needs. With that, the paper further explains that human needs give ethics its ultimate purpose.The fifth part of the paper analyze the relationship between Satre's human needs and Maixism, it explains the differences between the two needs. There are also some controversies in Satre's thoughts of human needs, this paper points out where the controversies are resulted from.This paper represents my own opinions about Satre's human needs. I am open to any different opinions and would be happy to discuss with people that have any interest in Satre study.