Starting from Edmund Husserl's innovative conception of human consciousness, we clearly see how Jean-Paul Sartre utters his famous phrase "existence precedes essence." From here, Sartre attempts to establish a dichotomy regarding existence as either being in itself or being for itself. For Sartre, we are doomed to be a being for itself while we strive to reduce our existence to merely being in itself. This false dichotomy is exposed by reference to the writings of Frederick Olafson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gabriel Marcel and Alfred Schutz, revealing that the distinction between being in itself and being for itself is not as clear a division as Sartre would like us to believe.

Patrick Bernas would like to thank their faculty sponsor Fr. Michael Barber for their support of this project.