Jean-Paul Sartre's Anarchist Philosophy

289 Pages·2018·4.102 MB·English

by  William L. Remley

Jean-Paul Sartre's Anarchist Philosophy.indb 1 02-01-2018 11:11:49
Jean-Paul Sartre’s
Anarchist Philosophy
Jean-Paul Sartre's Anarchist Philosophy.indb 1 02-01-2018 11:11:49
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Jean-Paul Sartre’s
Anarchist Philosophy
William L. Remley
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY
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Bloomsbury Academic
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First published 2018
© William L. Remley, 2018
William L. Remley has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
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on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication
can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
A portion of the discussion on dialectical materialism first appeared in:
William L. Remley, ‘Sartre and Engels: The Critique of Dialectical Reason
and the Confrontation on the Dialectics of Nature’, Sartre Studies International 18,
no. 2 (2012): 19–48.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-4824-9
ePDF: 978-1-3500-4825-6
ePub: 978-1-3500-4826-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
Part One: What Is Anarchism?
1 Anarchism: Towards an Understanding 9
2 Anarchist Notions of Human Nature 21
Part Two: The ‘Golden Age’: Nineteenth-Century Anarchism
of Proudhon and Bakunin
Introduction: French Political and Social Life 1815–1870 37
3 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: His Life and Political Philosophy 48
4 Proudhon’s Thoughts on Authority and his ‘Solution to the Social Problem’ 62
5 Mikhail Bakunin and Revolutionary Anarchism 74
Part Three: Jean-Paul Sartre and Twentieth-Century Anarchism: 1914–1960
Introduction: French Political and Social Life 1914–1960 89
6 The Early Development of Sartre’s Political Anarchism 109
7 The Evolution of Sartre’s Anarchism after the Second World War 124
Part Four: Sartre’s Political Manifesto: The Critique of Dialectical Reason
Introduction: The Critique of Dialectical Reason 139
8 From Collectives to Groups (and Back Again) 154
9 The Institution: Sartre’s Concept of Sovereignty 177
10 Institutionalized Sovereignty: Societies and States 192
Sartre the Anarchist: A Conclusion 206
Notes 213
Bibliography 258
Index 268
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Violenta nemo imperia continuit diu
—Seneca, The Trojan Women
People have never given up their right and transferred
their power to another in such a way that they did not fear
the very person who received their right and power, and
put the government at greater risk from its own citizens
than from its enemies.
—Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise
If we place ourselves at the end of this tremendous process,
where the tree at last brings forth fruit, where society and
the morality of custom at last reveal what they have simply
been the means to: then we discover that the ripest fruit is
the sovereign individual.
—Friedrich Nietzsche. On the Genealogy of Morals
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Acknowledgements
Many people played a role in the writing of this book, and I appreciate all of them.
I want to single out several people who talked to me about the project, gave me
helpful suggestions, and provided me with very worthwhile criticism. At Georgetown
University, I benefited from numerous conversations with Wilfried Ver Eecke who
first ignited my interest in Sartre’s work. At the New School for Social Research, I was
greatly aided by my conversations with Simon Critchley, Bernard Flynn and James
Dodd. The latter agreed to oversee an independent study of the Critique of Dialectical
Reason, which solidified my interest in Sartre and, more importantly, the Critique.
I also want to acknowledge and greatly thank Ian Rhoad and Nicolas de Warren for
agreeing to form a reading group that first probed the intricacies (some might say
mysteries, others absurdity) of Sartre’s The Family Idiot – all five volumes and over
3,000 pages. As if that were not enough, they also read and discussed with me both
volumes of the Critique in a succeeding reading group. Each of these reading groups
proved invaluable to my understanding not only of the Critique specifically, but Sartre’s
anarchist political philosophy generally. Lastly, I wish to thank Nicolas de Warren for
engaging in numerous conversations regarding Sartre and the Critique, reading several
drafts of this book, and offering many insightful comments and suggestions. Without
that help, what follows would not be possible.
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viii
Introduction
‘I have always been an anarchist’.
—Interview with Sartre, 1975
Jean-Paul Sartre was not particularly political until the events of the Second World War,
when his prodigious mind eventually engaged in the world, political events swirling
all around him. At that time, most argued that he embraced a form of Marxism tightly
connected to his conception of existentialism. The ensuing scholarly debates of the
1960s and afterwards tended to revolve around the question of Marxism’s compatibility
with existentialism; ignited, no doubt, by Sartre himself when he declared existentialism
to be a parasitic ideology to an overriding Marxism. While he later admitted this was
not possible, few seemed to notice. The overwhelming sentiment was and remains that
Sartre espoused a political philosophy based fundamentally on Marxism.1
This ‘common’ theme fails, however, to come to terms with or even recognize a
foundational aspect of Sartre’s political philosophy, namely his anarchism. Early in his
life, Sartre declared his affinities to anarchism, a feeling he reiterated in the early 1970s
when he identified his anarchism not with the student upheavals of 1968, but with the
anarchist movements of the nineteenth century.2 This sentiment should not appear
overly surprising, since in his own autobiography, The Words, Sartre recognized he was
a product of an earlier time and place, the nineteenth century:
between the first Russian revolution and the first world war, fifteen years after
Mallarmé’s death, when Daniel de Fontanin was discovering Gide’s Fruits of the
Earth, a man of the nineteenth century was foisting upon his grandson ideas
that had been current under Louis Phillippe. … I started off with a handicap of
eighty years.3
In many respects, much of what Sartre espoused derives from the intellectual thought
of the nineteenth century, and, as will become clear, his anarchism is no exception.
While Sartre’s Marxism seems to dominate the discussion, some commentators
have not altogether lost sight of his anarchism, but generally, any references tend to be
offhand remarks concerning his ‘anarchist inclinations’. In some sense, this is a not so
subtle reference to Sartre’s perceived infant terrible persona, but the references are just
that. Significantly, there has been no attempt to both explain what anarchism means and
then apply it to Sartre’s work, or to view his political position from the vantage point of
anarchist thought.4 As if saying he is an anarchist, implies that everyone automatically
knows what the outcome entails. Here, we encounter a substantial problem, which is
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