In the canon of great philosophers, where does Jean-Paul Sartre stand?

I love Sartre!!! Unfortunately, I don't think he is among the most widely known philosophers or even the most taught one in Western Philosophy classes. I was able to do a lengthy study on him for an Existentialism class I took and found his ideas to be the best when it came to peeling off the layers of the human condition. But that is always up to the reader and what it is that they like.I defiantly suggest he should be a staple in any upper level Western Philosophy study.|||I love him, but he is very marginal in the world of philosophy. A tiny sidebar. Existentialism was big for about ten minutes, and it hasn't really held up - Existentialism was his thing.|||Over the last century Western Philosophy has been in two schools of thought: Analytic and Continental. Sartre is big in Continental Philosophy, but there are some other guys who certainly overshadow him: Husserl, Heidegger, and the forerunners Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. Sartre's contribution to philosophy is building on and applying the Phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger.





If the tradition of contemporary Continental philosophy (refocusing ontology on human consciousness) stands the test of time he still will probably be taught in 100 years. I am not so sure it will, continental philosophy has mostly been a critique of previous ideas. The really big names - Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, and Kant are all part of the same progressive discussion. One leads to the next. But Nietzsche and Husserl started a new discussion. In the future, if European philosophy picks back up where the idealists left off then Sartre's whole scene might be rejected. But who knows?





Either way, Sartre has become more popular than Heidegger and Husserl amongst the public. He is cooler or something. He is certainly easier to read. Sartre has become a big name in existential and postmodern art. His influence in the long run may be more on culture and art than on philosophy. On Camus' novels for example.|||I'd say on the top five, but I don't know all philosophers.|||In the center of the barrel