Jean-Paul Sartre : basic writings

348 Pages·2002·13.6 MB·English

by  Priest, Stephen, Sartre, Jean-Paul

Jean-Paul Sartre: BasicW ritings
'This immensely useful volume makes it possible for readerst o get a
substantiala nd comprehensivek nowledgeo f Sartreanp hilosophy.I t is a
remarkablea chievement.'
HazelE . Barnes,U niversity ofC oloradoa t Boulder
' ... this is a worthwhile andi lluminating book.'
BaronessM ary Warnock
' ... bringst ogetherju st the right texts,o rderedin the right way, to draw the
studenti nto Sartre.'
JohnJ . Compton,EmerituPs rofessoro fP hilosophy,V anderbilt University
'StephenP riest'ss uccinct,a nalyticali ntroductionsa rei nvaluable. .. a wide-
rangingc ollectiono f extracts.'
ChristinaH owells, WadhamC ollege, Oxford
Jean-PauSl artrei s one of the most famous philosopherso f the twentieth
century. The principal founder of existentialism,a political thinker and
famousn ovelist and dramatist,h is work hase xertede normousin fluencei n
philosophy,l iterature,p olitics and cultural studies.l ean-PaulS artre: Basic
Writings is the first collection of Sartre'sk ey philosophicalw ritings and
providesa n indispensablere sourcefo r all studentsa ndr eaderso f his work.
StephenP riest'sc leara ndh elpful introductionss ete achr eadingi n context,
makingt he volumea n idealc ompanionf or thosec omingt o Sartre'sw ritings
for the first time.
A key featureo f the anthologyi s that it includest he full text of Sartre's
famousE xistentialisma ndH umanism.
The selectionsa ref rom:
Existentialisma ndH umanism
Beinga ndN othingness
Transcendencoe ft he Ego
The Psychologyo fI magination
Whati s Literature?
Searchf or a Method
Notebooksfo r an Ethics
The Family Idiot
Critique ofD ialectical Reason
Stephen Priest is Readeri n Philosophya t the University of Edinburgh
and a Visiting Scholaro f Wolfson College,O xford. He is the authoro f The
British Empiricists, Theorieso ft he Mind, Merleau-Pontya nd The Subjecti n
Questiona nda lso editoro f Hegel'sC ritique ofK ant.
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Jean-Paul Sartre: BasicW ritings
Edited by
StephenP riest
Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published2 001
by Routledge
2 ParkS quare,M ilton Park, Abingdon Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneouslyp ublishedi n the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 MadisonA venue,N ew York, NY 10016
Reprinted2 002, 2003,2 005 (twice)
Transferredto Digital Printing 2005
Routledgeis an imprint oft he Taylor & Francis Group
© 2001 StephenP riest
Typeseti n Times by
BOOK NOW Ltd
All rights reserved.N o part of this book may be reprintedo r
reproducedo r utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical,o r otherm eans,n ow known or hereafter
invented,i ncluding photocopyinga nd recording,o r in any
information storageo r retrieval system,w ithout permissioni n
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguingi n Publication Data
A cataloguer ecordf or this book is available
from the British Library
Library ofC ongressC atalogingi n Publication Data
Sartre,J ean-Paul1, 905-80
[Selections.E nglish, 2000]
Jean-PauSl artre:b asicw ritings I [edited by] StephenP riest.
p. cm.
Includesb ibliographicalr eferences.
1. Existentialism.I . Priest,S tephen.II . Title.
B2430.S31P 75 2000
194-dc21 00-056017
ISBN 0-415-21367-3( hbk)
ISBN 0-415-21368-1( pbk)
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
1 Sartrei n thew orld 1
2 Existentialism 20
3 Phenomenology 58
4 Imaginationa nde motion 89
5 Being 106
6 Nothingness 135
7 The self 148
8 Temporality 163
9 Freedom 177
10 Responsibility 191
11 Bad faith 204
12 Others 221
13 Psychoanalysis 244
14 Writing 258
15 Thew ork of art 289
16 Politics 300
Bibliography 334
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Acknowledgements
Thee ditora ndt hep ublishersw ish to thankt hef ollowing for permission
to usec opyrightm aterial:
Jean-PauSl artre,E xistentialisma nd Humanism;t ranslationa nd intro-
duction by Philip Mairet. First publishedi n Great Britain in 1948 by
Methuen, now Methuen Publishing Limited, 215 Vauxhall Bridge
Road,L ondonS WIV lEJ. All rights reserved.
Je an-PaulS artre,E squissed 'une tMorie dese motions( Sketchf or a theory
oft he emotions).C opyright© 1939.P aris,H ermann.
Jean-PaulS artre, Being and Nothingness; translated and with an
introductionb y HazelE . Barnes,1 956.U sedb y permissiono f the Philo-
sophical Library, New York and InternationalT homson Publishing
Services.
"The Cogito As Reflective Consciousnessf"r om "the I and the Me"
from Transcendencoe ft he Ego: an ExistentialistT heoryo fC onsciousness
by Jean-PauSl artre,t ranslateda nd annotatedw ith an introductionb y
Forrest Williams and Robert Kirkpatrick. Copyright © 1960, The
NoondayP ress,I nc., New York. Reprintedb y permissiono f Farrar,
Strausa ndG iroux, LLC.
Jean-PaulS artre, The Psychologyo f Imagination. Copyright © 1948.
Reprintedb y permissiono f PhilosophicaLl ibrary Inc. andI nternational
ThomsonP ublishingS ervices.
Jean-PaulS artre, What is Literature?; translated from French by
BernardF rechtman.C opyright © 1950, Methuen.U sedb y permission
of the PhilosophicalL ibrary, New York and InternationalT homson
PublishingS ervices.
viii Acknowledgements
Jean-PaulS artre, Search for a Method (New York: Vintage Books,
1963). Originally publishedi n Frencha s "Questionsd e Methode" in
Critique de la RaisonD ialectique, Vol. 1. Copyright © 1960 by Editions
Gallimard. Reprintedb y permissiono f GeorgesB orchardt,I nc. andb y
permissiono f Alfred A. Knopf, a Division of RandomH ouse,I nc.
Je an-PaulS artre,N otebooksfo r an Ethics; translatedb y David Pellauer.
Reprintedb y permissiono f The Universityo f ChicagoP ress.
GustaveF laubert, The Family Idiot. Reprintedb y permissiono f The
Universityo f ChicagoP ress.
Jean-PaulS artre, Critique of Dialectical Reason, Vol. 1: Theory of
PracticalE nsemblest,r anslatedb y Alan SheridanS mith.L ondon:V erso,
1991.
Every effort hasb eenm adet o tracea ll the copyrighth olders,b ut if any
have beeni nadvertentlyo verlookedt he publishersw ill be pleasedt o
maket he necessarya rrangemenat t the first opportunity.
1 Sartre in the world
StephenP riest
LibertYI EqualitYI Fraternity
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80) is one of the greatest French thinkers. A
polemical and witty essayist, a metaphysician of subjectivity, a political
activist, a revolutionary pol itical theorist, a humanistic novel ist, a didactic
playwright, his genius lies in his powers of philosophical synthesis and the
genre-breaching breadth of his imagination.
In the 1970s, the French journalist Michel Rybalka delivered a lecture
on Sartre which divided his intellectual development into three stages:
liberty, equality and fraternity. The three concepts of the slogan of the
French revolutionaries of 1789 were used to denote three kinds of
philosophy which Sartre endorsed: existentialism, from the mid-1930s,
Marxism, increasingly from the Second World War, and anarchism, in the
last few years before he died in 1980.
Rybalka's threefold taxonomy is too neat, too clean and, however
appealing, it is an over simplification. The adult Sartre was always an
existentialist, a practitioner ofthat style of philosophising which addresses
the fundamental problems of human existence: death, anxiety, political,
religious and sexual commitment, freedom and responsibility, the meaning
of existence itself. It follows that Sartre remained an existentialist during
his long Marxist phase and during his final overtly anarchist phase.
Sartre's existentialism was never a pure existentialism. One of his
outstanding philosophical syntheses is the fusing of existentialism with
phenomenology. The Moravian, German-speaking philosopher Edmund
Hu sserl (1859-1938) and his Austrian teacher, the psychologist and
phi losopher Franz Brentano (1838-1917), are the founders of phenomen-
ology. Phenomenology is the attempt to explain the possibility of all
knowledge, including philosophy, by describing the content and structure
of consciousness. It was Husserl's hope that this partly Cartesian and
partly i<antian project would place all knowledge on indubitable and
incorrigible foundations. Husserlian phenomenology is Cartesian because