freedom-and-contingency

This chapter critiques empirical psychology's approach to understanding human desires and individuality, emphasizing that desires are not static contents within consciousness but are expressions of consciousness's transcendent and projective nature. Sartre argues against reducing individual human projects to abstract, universal schemas or basic givens, using Flaubert's literary ambition as an example to illustrate the failure of psychological explanations to capture the concrete individuality and freedom inherent in human existence.