“This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it.”

— Jean Paul Sartre , book Nausea

Reflections on a chestnut tree root.
Nausea (1938)
Context: Absurd, irreducible; nothing — not even a profound and secret delirium of nature — could explain it. Obviously I did not know everything, I had not seen the seeds sprout, or the tree grow. But faced with this great wrinkled paw, neither ignorance nor knowledge was important: the world of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities. But neither does a circle exist. This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it.

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Jean Paul Sartre 321

French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, sc… 1905–1980

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“This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it.”

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Jean Paul Sartre 321

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