ABSTRACT
At the heart of Sartre’s defense of freedom is the idea that an action, essentially and in principle, differs radically in nature from a mere event. Actions, unlike events, are to be understood teleologically, rather than mechanistically. Whereas events are caused by present forces, bubbling up out of the past, actions are attempts to bring about a desideratum, and thus are oriented toward the future. And actions, in stark contrast to events, depend crucially on an agent’s understanding of the meaning of a situation. Above all else, while an event can be accurately described purely positively, in terms of existing things interacting with other existing things in accordance with the laws of physics (as when a round rock rolls down a hill and then collides with, and displaces, another rock), an action necessarily involves the introduction of negativities into positive being.
