It was to correct common misconceptions about his thought that Jean-Paul Sartre?? the most dominent European intellectual of the post-World War II decades???accepted an invitation to speak on October 29?? 1945?? at the Club Maintenant in Paris. The unstated objective of his lecture (??Existentialism Is a Humanism??) was to expound his philosophy as a form of ??existentialism???? a term much bandied about at the time. Sartre asserted that existentialism was essentially a doctrine for philosophers?? though?? ironically?? he was about to make it accessible to a general audience.?The published text of his lecture?quickly became one of the bibles of existentialism and made Sartre an international celebrity.

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