Where meaning lies is a crucial question. We can theorize all day long, but if we don’t know when to stop; where it ends, what conclusion to come to and rest the brainstorming, what is the point? That is why these philosophers had to come up with some idea of where to find the truth. For Jean-Paul Sartre, the meaning ends in the reader. When these eyes hit the page, I agree that they start hypothesizing, forming opinions, testing, all the material that is in front of him and as other critics say, we are continually critiquing and judging everything that is around us and that as humans, this is impossible to get away from therefore, we conclude at the end of the passage or whatever it is that we are reading, where we stand. For Sartre, this is where the meaning rests.
This is the purpose of the literature, as a kick start to a brain’s formation of thought processes. To ignite the continual interpretation through the freedom that exists within it as he says, “in short, reading is directed creation… the book does not serve my freedom, it requires it.” In other words, we must have freedom in order for the meaning to exist. For Kant, art exists as fact and then it is seen. But for Sartre, art exists as fact when it is seen. The difference is that Kant believes things exist whether there is someone there to perceive it or not. Sartre believes that those eyes, that mind to perceive the thing actually brings it to existence.
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