Existence precedes essence is Jean-Paul Sartre's formula for the central claim of his existentialism: that a human being first exists, without any predetermined purpose or nature, and only afterward defines what it is through its own free choices. Sartre contrasts this with a manufactured object such as a paper knife, whose essence, its intended purpose, precedes its existence in the mind of its maker; a human being, on his account, has no maker and so no essence to precede it.
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