Reading Sartre: On Phenomenology and Existentialism

257 Pages·2011·3.579 MB·English

by  Jonathan Webber

READING SARTRE
Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most influential philosophers of the twen-
tieth century. The fourteen original essays in this volume focus on the
phenomenological and existentialist writings of the first major phase of his
published career, arguing with scholarly precision for their continuing
importance to philosophical debate.
Aspects of Sartre’s philosophy under discussion in this volume include:
(cid:1) Consciousness and self-consciousness
(cid:1) Imagination and aesthetic experience
(cid:1) Emotions and other feelings
(cid:1) Embodiment
(cid:1) Selfhood and the Other
(cid:1) Freedom, bad faith, and authenticity
(cid:1) Literary fiction as philosophical writing.
Reading Sartre: On phenomenology and existentialism is an indispensable
resource for understanding Sartre’s philosophy. It is essential reading for
students of phenomenology, existentialism, ethics, or aesthetics, and for
anyone interested in the roots of contemporary thought in twentieth-century
philosophy.
Jonathan Webber is Lecturer in Philosophy at Cardiff University. He is
the author of The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre (Routledge, 2009) and
translator of Sartre’s book The Imaginary (Routledge, 2004).

READING SARTRE
On phenomenology and existentialism
Edited by
Jonathan Webber
Firstpublished2011
byRoutledge
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ReadingSartre:onphenomenologyandexistentialism/editedby
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p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Sartre,Jean-Paul,1905–1980.2.Phenomenology.
3.Existentialism.I.Webber,Jonathan.
B2430.S34R432010
194--dc22
2010008825
ISBN 0-203-84414-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13:978-0-415-55095-6(hbk)
ISBN13:978-0-415-55096-3(pbk)
ISBN13:978-0-203-84414-4(ebk)
CONTENTS
Notes on contributors vii
Preface ix
1 The ethics of authenticity 1
CHRISTINEDAIGLE
2 Imagination in non-representational painting 15
ANDREASELPIDOROU
3 What is it like to be free? 31
MATTHEWC.ESHLEMAN
4 The transcendental dimension of Sartre’s philosophy 48
SEBASTIANGARDNER
5 Being colonized 73
AZZEDINEHADDOUR
6 A Sartrean critique of introspection 90
ANTHONYHATZIMOYSIS
7 Imagination and affective response 100
ROBERTHOPKINS
8 The significance of context in illustrative examples 118
ANDREWLEAK
9 The graceful, the ungraceful and the disgraceful 130
KATHERINEJ.MORRIS
10 Magic in Sartre’s early philosophy 145
SARAHRICHMOND
v
CONTENTS
11 Alienation, objectification, and the primacy of virtue 161
ALANTHOMAS
12 Bad faith and the Other 180
JONATHANWEBBER
13 Pre-reflective self-consciousness and the autobiographical ego 195
KENNETHWILLIFORD
14 Shame and the exposed self 211
DANZAHAVI
Bibliography of Sartre’s works cited 227
Bibliography of other works cited 230
Index 239
vi
CONTRIBUTORS
Christine Daigle is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Brock University
and Past President of the North American Sartre Society. She is the
author of Le nihilisme est-il un humanisme? Étude sur Nietzsche et Sartre
(2005) and Jean-Paul Sartre (2009), is co-editor of Sartre and Beauvoir: The
Riddle of Influence (2008), and has published articles on the ethics of
Nietzsche, Sartre, and Beauvoir.
Andreas Elpidorou is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Boston Uni-
versity andVisiting Scholaratthe UniversityofPittsburgh. Heis writing
his dissertation on the nature of perceptual content.
Matthew C. Eshleman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at University
ofNorthCarolinaWilmington. Heisthe author ofaseries ofarticleson
Sartre and Beauvoir, focusing on their theories of freedom, bad faith,
and normative justification.
Sebastian Gardner is Professor of Philosophy at University College
London. He is the author of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (2009), Kant
and the Critique of Pure Reason (1999), Irrationality and the Philosophy of
Psychoanalysis (1993), and numerous papers on metaphysics, aesthetics,
and psychoanalysis in European philosophy since Kant.
Azzedine Haddour is Senior Lecturer in French at University College
London. He is the author of Colonial Myths: History and Narrative (2001),
editor ofTheFanonReader(2006),co-translatorofacollectionofSartre’s
essays,ColonialismandNeocolonialism(2001),andauthorofvariousarticles
on Sartre and postcolonial theory.
Anthony Hatzimoysis is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Uni-
versity of Athens. He is the author of The Philosophy of Sartre (2010) and
editor of Self-knowledge (forthcoming) and Philosophy and the Emotions
(2003). He has published a range of articles on the nature and knowledge
of emotion.
vii
CONTRIBUTORS
RobertHopkinsisProfessorofPhilosophyandHeadoftheDepartmentof
Philosophy at The University of Sheffield. He is the author of Picture,
Image and Experience (1998) and a range of articles in aesthetics, epistemol-
ogy, and philosophy of mind, focusing on beauty, depiction, testimony,
perception, and imagination.
AndrewLeakisProfessorofFrenchatUniversityCollegeLondon.Heisa
former President of the UK Sartre Society and former editor of Sartre
Studies International. He is the author of The Perverted Consciousness:
Sexuality and Sartre (1989), Jean-Paul Sartre (2006), and numerous articles
on existentialism, literature, and critical theory.
Katherine J. Morris is Fellow in Philosophy at Mansfield College,
University of Oxford. She is the author of Sartre (2008) and editor of
Sartre and the Body (2010), and has published a range of articles on the
nature of embodiment and the philosophy of psychiatry and psycho-
analysis.
Sarah Richmond is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at University College
London. She has published articles on phenomenology, psychoanalysis,
and feminist philosophy, focusing on the nature of lived experience and
drawing particularly on Bergson, Klein, and Sartre.
Alan Thomas is Professor of Ethics at Tilburg University and Director of
the Tilburg Hub for Ethics and Social Philosophy. He is the author of
Value and Context: The Nature of Moral and Political Knowledge (2006)
andnumerousarticlesinphilosophyofmind,moralpsychology,andthe
metaphysics and epistemology of moral value.
Jonathan Webber is Lecturer in Philosophy at Cardiff University. He is
theauthorofTheExistentialismofJean-PaulSartre(2009)andtranslatorof
Sartre’s book The Imaginary (2004). He has published articles on moral
psychology and applied ethics, focusing on the nature and ethical
importance of character and personality.
Kenneth Williford is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University
of Texas at Arlington. He is co-translator of Sartre’s book The Imagina-
tion (2010) and co-editor of Self-representational Approaches to Conscious-
ness (2006), and has published a series of articles on the nature of
consciousness.
Dan Zahavi is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for
Subjectivity Research at University of Copenhagen. He is the author of
numerous books and articles in philosophy of mind and cognitive sci-
ence informed by twentieth-century phenomenological philosophy,
including Self-awareness and Alterity (1999) and Subjectivity and Selfhood
(2005), and is co-author of The Phenomenological Mind (2008).
viii
PREFACE
Reading Sartre is no easy task. Although much of his substantial oeuvre is
characterised by a brisk lucidity, his philosophical writings tend to involve
dense, entangled, abstruse passages at crucial moments and the gradual
development of his own idiosyncratic terminology as he struggles to articu-
late his comprehensive and systematic account of our existence in all of its
dimensions. Yet these writings have proved fertile ground for readers with a
widerange oftheoretical interests, yieldingvaluableinsights and perspectives
in return for exegetical and argumentative labour. This is especially true of
his philosophical output of the 1930s and 1940s, his most clearly phenom-
enological and existentialist works which form the basis of the rest of his
career. Part of the aim of this book is to provide a snapshot of current
scholarlyengagementwiththeseworksandthecontributionthisismakingto
various discussions and debates. In so doing, it documents inevitable inter-
pretive disagreements among those currently working with Sartre alongside
much agreement across their diverse intellectual styles and commitments.
The contributions to this book range across the breadth of Sartre’s
philosophical concerns in the first decade or so of his published career,
including the nature of mind and its relation to the rest of reality, the ways
in which we understand ourselves and one another, the moral and political
dimensions of interpersonal interaction, the nature of communication and
aesthetic experience, and the nature of philosophy itself. Sartre’s thoughts
on these topics are deeply interwoven to form a single fabric. As a result,
they run through this book in such a way that the chapters cannot be
categorised under general headings without breaking many of the threads
thatholdthebooktogetherandtherebymisrepresentingSartre’sthoughtas
a mosaic of distinct ideas. This is why the chapters have been arranged by
alphabetical order of author, an editorial decision that might at first seem
simply lazy but is rather aimed at presenting a fair portrait of his work in
this period and encouraging the various currents of contemporary thought
represented here to influence and benefit from one another.
This book is the culmination of a series of workshops held at Cardiff
University and the Institute of Philosophy in London during the summer
ix