ABSTRACT
A concern with human freedom is the core of existential philosophy, but there are different ways of conceptualising freedom. Sartre’s view is radical, but not subject to simple refutation. The idea that our fundamental choices, which help determine our situations and which provide us with meaning and reasons, are themselves absurd and groundless poses a profound challenge to our ordinary way of thinking about action. Whether the Sartrean position is ultimately defensible is unclear, but his descriptions, his case against determinism, and his insistence of the importance of seeing ourselves as free must be taken very seriously.
