THE INFLUENCE OF EXISTENTIALIST PHYLOSOPHY ON LEGAL THINKING. CASE STUDY: JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
THE INFLUENCE OF EXISTENTIALIST PHYLOSOPHY ON LEGAL THINKING. CASE STUDY: JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

Summary/Abstract: The subject of this article is the relationship between of J.P. Sartre's philosophy and legal thought, as he relies on an initial analysis of the relationship between existential philosophy as a whole, and Law. Existentialism establishes another way to understand the world and man, being able to cause changes in the legal thought. The consciousness conscious of its acts, as Sartre’s strong ontological theme, is one of the universal assumptions of any legal system, based on which the possibility of legal liability is founded, thereby participating in the foundation of approaches regarding the research of the legal consciousness. Building on the interpretation of Heidegger's ontology purpose in the establishment of an ethics developed by Sartre, we consider that ontology is the strength of the ethical vision of the French author, having the ontology of consciousness at its core. As an effort to arrive at self-consciousness, authenticity can make the transition from the presumption of knowing the law and consciously relating each behaviour to it, to the possibility of a substantiation of responsibility on philosophical grounds. Understood as liberation from the constraints of conventions towards experimentation of own experiences, authenticity helped to diminish the importance of some of the social conventions, the dilution of the importance of the family institution being one of the examples in which this existentialist concept determined in the legal area a reconfiguration of a social institution.

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