Aron reflects with simplicity and depth on industrial society, communism, the future of democracy, peace and war, the nuclear age, and also Charles de Gaulle, Jean-Paul Sartre, Andre Malraux, Henry Kissinger and others.

Jean-Paul Sartre is an undisputed giant of twentieth-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism combined with his creative and artistic flair have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion. This substantial and meticulously researched biography is accessible, fast-paced, often amusing and at times deeply moving. Existentialism and (...) Excess covers all the main events of Sartre's remarkable seventy-five-year life from his early years as a precocious brat devouring his grandfather's library, through his time as a brilliant student in Paris, his wilderness years as a provincial teacher-writer experimenting with mescaline, his World War II adventures as a POW and member of the resistance, his post-war politicization, his immense amphetamine fueled feats of writing productivity, his harem of women, his many travels and his final decline into blindness and old age. Along the way there are countless intriguing anecdotes, some amusing, some tragic, some controversial: his loathing of crustaceans and his belief that he was being pursued by a giant lobster, his escape from a POW camp, the bombing of his apartment, his influence on the May 1968 uprising and his many love affairs. Cox deftly moves from these episodes to discussing his intellectual development, his famous feuds with Aron, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty, his encounters with other giant figures of his day: Roosevelt, Hemingway, Heidegger, John Huston, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, Khrushchev and Tito, and, above all, his long, complex and creative relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. Existentialism and Excess also gives serious consideration to Sartre's ideas and many philosophical works, novels, stories, plays and biographies, revealing their intimate connection with his personal life. Cox has written an entertaining, thought-provoking and compulsive book, much like the man himself. (shrink)

Named one of the Ten Best Books of 2016 by the New York Times, a spirited account of a major intellectual movement of the twentieth century and the revolutionary thinkers who came to shape it, by the best-selling author of How to Live Sarah Bakewell. Paris, 1933: three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher (...) who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called Phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!" It was this simple phrase that would ignite a movement, inspiring Sartre to integrate Phenomenology into his own French, humanistic sensibility, thereby creating an entirely new philosophical approach inspired by themes of radical freedom, authentic being, and political activism. This movement would sweep through the jazz clubs and cafés of the Left Bank before making its way across the world as Existentialism. Featuring not only philosophers, but also playwrights, anthropologists, convicts, and revolutionaries, At the Existentialist Café follows the existentialists' story, from the first rebellious spark through the Second World War, to its role in postwar liberation movements such as anti-colonialism, feminism, and gay rights. Interweaving biography and philosophy, it is the epic account of passionate encounters--fights, love affairs, mentorships, rebellions, and long partnerships--and a vital investigation into what the existentialists have to offer us today, at a moment when we are once again confronting the major questions of freedom, global responsibility, and human authenticity in a fractious and technology-driven world. (shrink)

Arte cuya esencia es la mimêsis, la pintura no imita, de manera más o menos “realista”: el pintor imita lo real, no tal como es, sino tal como aparece, pinta un phantasma, un simulacro. La mimêsis plantea la cuestión central en la filosofía de Platón de los grados del ser: imitación de la apariencia, la pintura se aleja de lo real y de lo verdadero. Platón utiliza el concepto de imitación para estructurar el sistema de la esencia y de sus (...) reproducciones. (shrink)

Es importante entender la posición de Aristóteles y su diferenciacon respecto a la de Platón. No se trata solamente de explicar elporqué del paso de la división tripartita del alma –racional,irascible y concupiscible– a la división bipartita –racional eirracional–, sino, también, de advertir y ser consciente de lasprofundas implicaciones que este paso tiene y, sobre todo, susconsecuencias en el nuevo estatuto del deseo en la vida moral.

La aversión de los renacentistas por el método silogístico les hizo experimentarnuevas formas literarias más “estéticas” que sirvieron a menudo paraencubrir la falta de cualquier especie de lógica o de razonamiento. El usodel método geométrico sería la respuesta de los filósofos del siglo XVII aesta falta de lógica y de razonamiento. Tal parece ser, en efecto, el caso deDescartes quien borró “la lengua de la Escuela y el estilo de la Escuela” ydecretó la universalidad del método matemático. Con todo, según (...) Spinoza,Descartes ni logró sustraerse a la férula escolástica, ya que heredó de lasespeculaciones teológicas medievales, ni alcanzó liberarse del todo delórganon aristotélico. (shrink)

Resumen El concepto de scientia plasmado en la obra de Guillermo de Ockham considera, en primer lugar, la teoría de la suposición, la cual transforma la visión del conocimiento evidente a partir del examen de términos y proposiciones como signos de las cosas. En segundo lugar, el conocimiento intuitivo de los singulares, el cual posibilita la formulación de proposiciones necesarias que describen hechos y estados de cosas. En tercer lugar, una perspectiva lógica de scientia como conjuntos de proposiciones que configuran (...) las distintas ciencias.The concept of scientia established in William of Ockham's work considers firstly, the theory of supposition, which transforms the view of the evident knowledge based on the analysis of terms and propositions as signs of things. Secondly, the intuitive knowledge of singulars, which allows the formulation of necessary propositions that describe facts and state of affairs. Thirdly, a logical approach of science as set of propositions that configure the different sciences. (shrink)

Raymond Aron and his Dialogues in an Age of Ideologies examines the thought and rhetoric of the most interesting thinker of the twentieth century of whom no one has heard. This book investigates Raymond Aron's conversations on politics during the Cold War with several of his more well-known interlocutors including Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Hayek, and Charles de Gaulle. Through exploring these dialogues on the subjects of Marxism, freedom, and nationalism, we see the prudence of Aron's (...) politics of understanding as well as the emphasis he places on and virtue he demonstrates in public discourse. Through his dialogues, Aron shows us not only how to think politically but also how to engage in constructive public debate. He stands as a model for us to emulate in our own age of ideologies. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre's famous autobiography of his first ten years has been widely compared to Rousseau's Confessions. Written when he was fifty-nine years old, The Words is a masterpiece of self-analysis. Sartre the philosopher, novelist and playwright brings to his own childhood the same rigor of honesty and insight he applied so brilliantly to other authors. Born into a gentle, book-loving family and raised by a widowed mother and doting grandparents, he had a childhood which might be described as (...) one long love affair with the printed word. The Words explores and evaluates the whole use of books and language in human experience. (shrink)

In three interviews, the Marxist historian and scholar Perry Anderson takes Sartre on a wide-ranging tour of his philosophy and politics.

The writings published here are not so much an epitome as episodes. But most do not digress. They mark the turns and turning points of a human style, the tropes of an expressive life embodying the changing tempos of an age. Until we fall silent, all of us are trying to say. These fragmentary efforts to speak to, rejoin, and help create a new community of liberated human beings constitute the epigraphs of Sartre's historical inscription.

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. The idea of freedom occupies the center of Sartre’s doctrine. Man, born into an empty, godless universe, is nothing to begin with. He creates his essence—his self, his being—through the choices he freely makes (“existence precedes essence”). Were it not for the contingency of his death, he would never end. Choosing to be this or that is to affirm the value of what we choose. In choosing, therefore, we commit not only ourselves but all of mankind. This book presents a new English translation of Sartre’s 1945 lecture and his analysis of Camus’s _The Stranger_, along with a discussion of these works by acclaimed Sartre biographer Annie Cohen-Solal. This edition is a translation of the 1996 French edition, which includes Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre’s introduction and a Q&A with Sartre about his lecture. (shrink)

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 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. The idea of freedom occupies the center of Sartre’s doctrine. Man, born into an empty, godless universe, is nothing to begin with. He creates his essence—his self, his being—through the choices he freely makes. Were it not for the contingency of his death, he would never end. Choosing to be this or that is to affirm the value of what we choose. In choosing, therefore, we commit not only ourselves but all of mankind. This book presents a new English translation of Sartre’s 1945 lecture and his analysis of Camus’s _The Stranger_, along with a discussion of these works by acclaimed Sartre biographer Annie Cohen-Solal. This edition is a translation of the 1996 French edition, which includes Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre’s introduction and a Q&A with Sartre about his lecture. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the most famous philosophers of the twentieth century. The principal founder of existentialism, a political thinker and famous novelist and dramatist, his work has exerted enormous influence in philosophy, literature, politics and cultural studies. Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings is the first collection of Sartre's key philosophical writings and provides an indispensable resource for readers of his work. Stephen Priest's clear and helpful introductions make the volume an ideal companion to those coming (...) to Sartre's writing for the first time. (shrink)

_Being and Nothingness_ is without doubt one of the most significant books of the twentieth century. The central work by one of the world's most influential thinkers, it altered the course of western philosophy. Its revolutionary approach challenged all previous assumptions about the individual's relationship with the world. Known as 'the Bible of existentialism', its impact on culture and literature was immediate and was felt worldwide, from the absurd drama of Samuel Beckett to the soul-searching cries of the Beat poets. (...) _Being and Nothingness_ is one of those rare books whose influence has affected the mind-set of subsequent generations. Sixty years after its first publication, its message remains as potent as ever - challenging the reader to confront the fundamental dilemmas of human freedom, responsibility and action. (shrink)

Philosopher, novelist, dramatist and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the greatest writers of all time. He was fascinated by the role played by the emotions in human life and placed them at the heart of his philosophy. This brilliant short work - which contains some of the principal ideas later to appear in his masterpiece Being and Nothingness - is Sartre at his best: insightful, engaging and controversial. Far from constraining one's freedom, as we often think, Sartre (...) argues that emotions are fundamental to it and that an emotion is nothing less than 'a transformation of the world'. With a new foreword by Sebastian Gardner. (shrink)

Raymond Aron is best known for his intellectual sparring with Jean-Paul Sartre and for his stature as the pre-eminent Cold War liberal in France. He is credited with establishing an aut...

A cornerstone of Sartre’s philosophy, _The Imaginary_ was first published in 1940. Sartre had become acquainted with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl in Berlin and was fascinated by his idea of the 'intentionality of consciousness' as a key to the puzzle of existence. Against this background, _The Imaginary_ crystallized Sartre's worldview and artistic vision. The book is an extended examination of the concepts of nothingness and freedom, both of which are derived from the ability of consciousness to imagine objects both (...) as they are and as they are not – ideas that would drive Sartre's existentialism and entire theory of human freedom. (shrink)

Philosopher, novelist, dramatist and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the greatest writers of all time. He was fascinated by the role played by the emotions in human life and placed them at the heart of his philosophy. This brilliant short work - which contains some of the principal ideas later to appear in his masterpiece Being and Nothingness - is Sartre at his best: insightful, engaging and controversial. Far from constraining one's freedom, as we often think, Sartre (...) argues that emotions are fundamental to it and that an emotion is nothing less than 'a transformation of the world'. With a new foreword by Sebastian Gardner. (shrink)

Taking as its starting point recent claims that Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique de la Raison Dialectique was written as an attempt to overcome the historical relativism of Raymond Aron's Introduction à la philosophie de l'histoire , the present article traces this covert dialogue back to a fundamental disagreement between the two men over the interpretation of Wilhelm Dilthey's anti-positivist theory of Verstehen or 'understanding'. In so doing it counters a longstanding tendency to emphasise the convergence of Aron (...) and Sartre's philosophical interests prior to the break in their friendship occasioned by the onset of the Cold War, suggesting that the causes of their later, radical political divergence were pregnant within this earlier philosophical divergence. (shrink)

First published in 1972. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Sartre explains the theory of existential psychoanalysis in this treatise on human reality.

G.E. Moore’s open question arguments have been targeted by unsympathetic philosophers for close to a century. Perhaps the most serious criticism directed towards Moore’s OQAs is that they be...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cross and Creation: A Theological Introduction to Origen of Alexandria by Mark E. TherrienJean-Paul JugeCross and Creation: A Theological Introduction to Origen of Alexandria by Mark E. Therrien (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2022), xxii + 303 pp.Although Origen of Alexandria has been misrepresented and maligned since his own lifetime, allies have always arisen to defend him in his stead. Especially after the French Catholic (...) reappraisal of Origen's theology in the twentieth century, the once-dominant interpretation of Origen as a Platonist dressed in Christian garb no longer holds sway among most scholars. As Mark Therrien notes, however, traces of a "metaphysical reductionist" interpretation of Origen, propounded most notably by Adolf [End Page 295] von Harnack, still influences Origenian scholarship (89). Therrien's book vigorously opposes this line of interpretation and provides a rereading of crucial passages in Origen's On First Principles (Peri archōn) and his Commentary on John. In addition to presenting a fresh interpretation of these texts, Therrien also offers an introduction for those who are encountering Origen's theology for the first time. Rather than prefacing with biographical remarks, this book dives straight into Origen's major theological texts, allowing the reader, as Henri de Lubac put it, "to see Origen at work."Therrien operates under the principle that Origen is above all a biblical theologian whose speculation is driven primarily by his commitment to exegesis rather than Platonic presuppositions. Thus, his reading of various controversial excerpts of Origen, particularly from the Peri archōn, pays close attention to the biblical verses that Origen cites, which operate not as mere ornamentation but as the indispensable mechanics of his theology.This book is divided into eight chapters, each of which presents a "fundamental pillar" of Origen's thought: God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, eschatology the soul, the world, the Cross, and deification. Drawing attention to the first two cycles that comprise Origen's Peri archōn, Therrien treats the first cycle as authoritative to Origen's system, since it is here that Origen presents the Church's teaching in a more dogmatic form prior to the zetetic approach of the second cycle. Chapter 1 highlights the anti-Valentinian polemic that contextualizes Origen's account of divine incorporeality and the possibility of genuine knowledge of God. Following the insights of Cyril O'Regan, Therrien notes that an extreme apophaticism led the Valentinian Gnostics to "assimilat[e] God to creaturely categories," as seen in their account of various deities emanating from God as if by a material transfer of substance (36). For Origen, only the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are absolutely incorporeal, and it is their absolute incorporeality that separates the Trinity from all creatures. Despite this fundamental distinction between the Trinity and creation, Origen affirms that a limited knowledge of God is possible for rational creatures with the caveat that, whenever God is likened analogically to a created reality, the dissimilarity is always greater (38). Therrien contends that, unlike the Gnostics, Origen envisions the material world as the positive and even necessary means for creatures to derive knowledge of God.Chapter 2 focuses on Origen's Christology, especially the primacy of Christ's title "Wisdom," which the author accounts for by explaining the logic behind Origen's exegesis of John's Prologue and Prov 8:22. Long before the Arian controversy of the fourth century, Origen insisted that God is eternally Father and thus generates the Son from all eternity. Origen has often been characterized, however, as arguing that God's eternal status as Creator [End Page 296] necessarily entails the existence of creation ab aeterno. Therrien points out that such a reading conflates Origen's two distinct notions of creation: the foreknown existence of creatures as "sketched and prefigured" in Wisdom from all eternity and the concrete, substantial existence of creatures that begins in time (60). The investigation of Origen's pneumatology in chapter 3 shows how Ps 103 (in the Septuagint) informs Origen's notion of the Holy Spirit as Creator. For Origen, creation is not simply a past event, but is instead a dynamic process: "Created beings must, so to... (shrink)

This unique selection presents the essential elements of Sartre's lifework -- organized systematically and made available in one volume for the first time in any language.

Selon Paul Ricœur, « l’anthropologie est devenue une tâche urgente de la pensée contemporaine ». Celle qu’il élabore dans l’ensemble de son œuvre repose sur sa phénoménologie herméneutique (dont l’originalité tient notamment à l’héritage qui lui vient de la philosophie réflexive), au point que cette dernière suffit selon nous à en dessiner les grandes lignes. Elle permet de doter le monde de régularités qui le rendent habitable et de doter chaque homme d’un soi. Elle prend aussi à bras le (...) corps les difficultés de l’intersubjectivité qu’Edmund Husserl ou Martin Heidegger avaient laissé non résolues et fait de cette intersubjectivité une clef de sa philosophie. L’homme est alors plus qu’un habitant du monde : il habite une cité qu’il contribue à édifier. Le thème du « nouveau » permet de consolider l’une des leçons que l’on peut tirer de l’œuvre de Ricœur : pour vivre ensemble, il faut vivre. L’anthropologie ricœurienne ne réclame alors aucune éthique ajoutée pour que cet élan vitaliste apparaisse via sa phénoménologie herméneutique. (shrink)

Raymond Aron was a student of Léon Brunschvicg, a representative of French historical epistemology. This article explores Aron’s relation to this tradition through three claims. First of all, it contests that Raymond Aron’s philosophy of history constituted a complete break with this tradition. Secondly, resituating Aron in this tradition is valuable, because it highlights how Aron’s own philosophy of history is to be understood as a normative project, seen as an alternative to that of Brunschvicg. (...) Finally, Aron’s philosophy can still hold valuable lessons for present-day historical epistemology and history and philosophy of science in general. (shrink)

The Transcendence of the Ego may be regarded as a turning-point in the philosophical development of Jean-Paul Sartre. Prior to the writing of this essay, published in France in 1937, Sartre had been intimately acquainted with the phenomenological movement which originated in Germany with Edmund Husserl. It is a fundamental tenet of Husserl, the notion of a transcendent ego, which is here attacked by Sartre. This disagreement with Husserl has great importance for Sartre and facilitated the transition from (...) phenomenology to the doctrine of Being and Nothingness. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: “The Look”.

Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most important philosophical and political thinkers of the twentieth century. His writings had a potency that was irresistible to the intellectual scene that swept post-war Europe, and have left a vital inheritance to contemporary thought. The central tenet of the Existentialist movement which he helped to found, whereby God is replaced by an ethical self, proved hugely attractive to a generation that had seen the horrors of Nazism, and provoked a revolution in (...) post-war thought and literature. In _What is Literature?_ Sartre the novelist and Sartre the philosopher combine to address the phenomenon of literature, exploring why we read, and why we write. (shrink)

'Caractère', 'densité', 'texture', 'bloc', 'trait', 'profil', 'figure' ou encore 'énergie'... : ces termes, s'ils sont souvent convoqués dans le discours musicologique se référant aux oeuvres des XXe et XXIe siècles, résistent à la clôture d'une définition. De telles notions mobilisent différentes dimensions de l'écriture mais aussi - et peut-être surtout - cherchent chacune à désigner un aspect qualitatif du musical, ce 'devenir illimité' du discours, difficile à neutraliser et à rationaliser. Le colloque organisé à l'Université Paris 8, intitulé 'Manières d'être (...) du musical', dont nous éditons aujourd'hui les actes, proposait ainsi de 'connaître l'individu à travers l'individuation plutôt que l'individuation à partir de l'individu' en interrogeant les outils compositionnels et les catégories qualitatives de l'écriture ayant pour fonction de différencier le musical en comportements ou manières d'être singuliers'"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

_Critical Essays _ contains essays on literature and philosophy from a highly formative period of French philosopher and leading existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre’s life, the years between 1938 and 1946. This period is particularly interesting because it is before Sartre published the magnum opus that would solidify his name as a philosopher, _Being and Nothingness_. Instead, during this time Sartre was emerging as one of France’s most promising young novelists and playwrights—he had already published _Nausea, The Age of Reason, (...) The Flies, _and_ No Exit_. Not content, however, he was meanwhile consciously attempting to revive the form of the essay via detailed examinations of writers who were to become central to European cultural life in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Collected here are Sartre’s experiments in reimagining the idea and structure of the essay. Among the distinguished writers he analyzes are Francis Ponge, Georges Bataille, Vladimir Nabokov, Maurice Blanchot, and, of course, Albert Camus, whose novel _The Stranger _Sartre endeavours to explain in these pages. _Critical Essays _ also contains a famous attack on the Catholic novelist François Mauriac, studies of the great American literary iconoclasts Faulkner and Dos Passos, and brief but insightful essays on aspects of the philosophical writings of Husserl and Descartes. This new translation by Chris Turner reinvigorates the original skill and voice of Sartre’s work and will be essential reading for fans of Sartre and the many writers and works he explores. “For my generation he has always been one of the great intellectual heroes of the twentieth century, a man whose insight and intellectual gifts were at the service of nearly every progressive cause of our time.”—Edward Said. (shrink)

Existentialismen är en humanism är en populär startpunkt för att närma sig och diskutera exisentialistiskt tänkande. Här återfinns resonemangen om friheten, valet och ångesten som människans existentiella livsvillkor, vilket sammanfattas i Jean-Paul Sartres välbekanta devis: "existensen föregår essensen".

This article examines the legitimization process of the public health preventive measures implemented in many Western countries following the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Through concepts such as governmentality, disciplinarization and security mechanisms proposed by Foucault, we trace some of the basic principles and implications of the relationship between biopower and medicine, as well as the media dissemination of an official narrative on scientific truth. These reflections are complemented by the contributions of Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard. Lyotard reflects on the relationship (...) between science and a “performative game”, whose own staging is the core of its criteria of truth. Baudrillard shows the relevance of a “hyperreality” in which the signs presented by the media take precedence over the experience of the subjects. We argue that a mediatized version of science, defined through a strong disciplinarization of knowledge and the censorship of dissident voices, played a key role in the establishment of consensus and the legitimization of policies that granted extraordinary power to governments and transnational elites. Although the work of Foucault in this demonstration is essential, the contributions of Lyotard and Baudrillard provide additional elements to understand a fundamental problem: the public acceptance of “truth” as an instrument of governmentality on a global scale. (shrink)

Ainsi donc parlaient les anciens philosophes. Leurs paroles ne sont point perdues dans les vestiges de temples morts, d'Athènes, d'Ephèse ou de Rome: recueillies, trancrites, commentées, elles ont engendré d'autres paroles qui elles-même en ont nourri d'autres. Ainsi d'âge en âge aura-t-on puisé dans ce trésor de mots, venu de si loin, où les siècles à venir trouveront de quoi se faire l'idée d'un bonheur et d'une sagesse. De ce cercle de penseurs disparus, Jean-Paul Dumont connaissait tout, et (...) mieux que personne: les premiers rôles et les comparses, les figures et les figurants. Il avait tout surpris, tout retenu de leurs conversations, de leurs empoignades, de leurs rognes et de leurs rires. Pour honorer sa mémoire et poursuivre ce dialogue ininterrompu avec les penseurs de l'aurore de la philosophie, vingt-trois de ses élèves, collègues et amis ont, à leur tour, voulu faire parler les Anciens, en particulier Platon et les philosophes du monde hellénistique. De Zénon d'Elée à Philodème, de Diogène de Babylone à Sextus Empiricus, de Platon à Saint Augustin, tous témoignent du bonheur du discours et de la fécondité d'une temps qui ne songeait pas à séparer la vie et la pensée. Outre une étude inédite sur "Le modèle parménidien de l'assimilation: pensée, sensation et vie", le volume comprend aussi la réédition de deux articles devenus introuvables de Jean-Paul Dumont "Diogène de Babylone et la preuve onthologique" et "L'âme et la main, signification du geste de Zénon", ainsi que la bibliographie complète de ses oeuvres. (shrink)

The article reconstructs Jean Cavaillès’s polemical engagement with Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy of mathematics. I argue that Cavaillès’s encounter with Husserl clarifies the scope and ambition of Cavaillès’s philosophy of the concept by identifying three interrelated epistemological problems in Husserl’s phenomenological method: (1) Cavaillès claims that Husserl denies a proper content to mathematics by reducing mathematics to logic. (2) This reduction obliges Husserl, in turn, to mischaracterize the significance of the history of mathematics for the philosophy of mathematics. (3) (...) Finally, Husserl’s phenomenology distorts the nature of mathematical experience. Accordingly, Cavaillès’s philosophy of mathematics is premised on a threefold affirmation designed to overcome these inadequacies. Cavaillès claims that mathematics is an autonomous field of conceptual production that cannot be reduced to logical, psychological, or phenomenological descriptions of conceptual genesis. Two important corollaries follow: the history of mathematics must guide the philosophy of mathematics, and mathematical experience itself must be described according to the mechanisms of a novel theory of mathematical abstraction. In what follows, I demonstrate that Cavaillès’s encounter with Husserl does not merely describe a polemical engagement with a rival philosophical position; it allows us to reconstruct Cavaillès’s own highly original contributions to the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Nearly forty years after its first publication in French, this collection of Sartre’s writings on colonialism remains a supremely powerful, and relevant, polemical work. Over a series of thirteen essays Sartre brings the full force of his remarkable intellect relentlessly to bear on his own country’s conduct in Algeria, and by extension, the West’s conduct in the Third World in general. Whether one agrees with his every conclusion or not, _Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism_ shows a philosopher passionately engaged in using philosophy (...) as a force for change in the world. An important influence on postcolonial thought ever since, this book takes on added resonance in the light of the West’s most recent bout of interference in the non-Western world. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most important philosophical and political thinkers of the twentieth century. His writings had a potency that was irresistible to the intellectual scene that swept post-war Europe, and have left a vital inheritance to contemporary thought. The central tenet of the Existentialist movement which he helped to found, whereby God is replaced by an ethical self, proved hugely attractive to a generation that had seen the horrors of Nazism, and provoked a revolution in (...) post-war thought and literature. In What is Literature? Sartre the novelist and Sartre the philosopher combine to address the phenomenon of literature, exploring why we read, and why we write. (shrink)

A major event in the history of twentieth-century thought, Notebooks for a Ethics is Jean-Paul Sartre's attempt to develop an ethics consistent with the profound individualism of his existential philosophy. In the famous conclusion to Being and Nothingness , Sartre announced that he would devote his next philosophical work to moral problems. Although he worked on this project in the late 1940s, Sartre never completed it to his satisfaction, and it remained unpublished until after his death in 1980. (...) Presented here for the first time in English, the Notebooks reveal Sartre at his most productive, crafting a masterpiece of philosophical reflection that can easily stand alongside his other great works. Sartre grapples anew here with such central issues as "authenticity" and the relation of alienation and freedom to moral values. Exploring fundamental modes of relating to the Other--among them violence, entreaty, demand, appeal, refusal, and revolt--he articulates the necessary transition from individualism to historical consciousness. This work thus forms an important bridge between the early existentialist Sartre and the later Marxist social thinker of the Critique of Dialectical Reason . The Notebooks themselves are complemented here by two additional essays, one on "the good and subjectivity," the other on the oppression of blacks in the United States. With publication of David Pellauer's lucid translation, English-speaking readers will be able to appreciate this important contribution to moral philosophy and the history of ethics. Jean-Paul Sartre (1906-1980) was offered, but declined, the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964. His many works of fiction, drama, and philosophy include the monumental study of Flaubert, The Family Idiot , and The Freud Scenario , both published in translation by the University of Chicago Press. (shrink)