Jean-Paul Sartre 16340 226129089 2008-07-16T23:08:19Z Sulair.speccoll 7482747 /* On Sartre */ {{Infobox Philosopher | region = Western Philosophy | era = [[20th-century philosophy]] | color = # | image =Jean-Paul Sartre, portrait de tête-et-épaules, faisant face bien, pipe de tabagisme.jpg|250px | image_caption = Jean-Paul Sartre in 1960 | signature = | name = Jean-Paul Sartre | birth = [[June 21]], [[1905]] ([[Paris]], [[France]]) | death = {{death date and age|1980|4|15|1905|6|21}} ([[Paris]], [[France]]) | school_tradition = [[Existentialism]], [[Marxism]] | main_interests = [[Metaphysics]], [[Epistemology]], [[Ethics]], [[Politics]], [[Phenomenology]], [[Ontology]] | influences = [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]], [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]], [[Karl Marx|Marx]], [[Mao Zedong|Mao]], [[Dostoyevsky]], [[Søren Kierkegaard|Kierkegaard]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]], [[Edmund Husserl|Husserl]], [[Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]], [[Karl Jaspers|Jaspers]], [[Simone de Beauvoir|De Beauvoir]], [[Albert Camus|Camus]], [[Alexandre Kojève|Kojève]], [[Gustave Flaubert|Flaubert]], [[Louis-Ferdinand Céline|Céline]], [[Merleau-Ponty]] | influenced = [[Simone de Beauvoir|De Beauvoir]], [[Merleau-Ponty]], [[Frantz Fanon]], [[R.D. Laing]], [[Iris Murdoch]], [[Gilles Deleuze]], [[André Gorz]], [[Felix Guattari]], [[Alain Badiou]], [[Frederic Jameson]], [[Michael Jackson (anthropology)|Michael Jackson]], [[Albert Camus]], [[Kenzaburo Oe]], [[Doris Lessing]], [[William Burroughs]], [[Michel Foucault]], [[Emmanuel Lévinas]] | notable_ideas = "[[Existence precedes essence]]"<br>"[[Bad faith (existentialism)|Bad faith]]"<br>"[[Nothing]]ness" }} '''Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre''' ([[June 21]], [[1905]] &ndash; [[April 15]], [[1980]]), normally known simply as '''Jean-Paul Sartre''' ({{pronounced|ʒɑ̃ pol saʁtʁ<sup>ə</sup>}}), was a [[France|French]] [[existentialism|existentialist]] [[philosopher]] and pioneer, [[playwright|dramatist]] and [[screenwriter]], [[novelist]] and [[literary criticism|critic]]. He was a leading figure in [[Twentieth-Century French Philosophy|20th century French philosophy]]. __TOC__ ==Biography== === Early life and thought=== {{Refimprovesect|date=May 2007}} Jean-Paul Sartre was born in [[Paris]] to Jean-Baptiste Sartre, an officer of the [[French Navy]], and Anne-Marie Schweitzer. His mother was of Alsatian origin, and was a cousin of French Nobel prize laureate [[Albert Schweitzer]]. When Sartre was 15 months old, his father died of a fever. Anne-Marie raised him with help from her father, Charles Schweitzer, a high school professor of [[German language|German]], who taught Sartre mathematics and introduced him to [[Classics|classical literature]] at a very early age. As a teenager in the 1920s while mountaineering in Canada, Jean became attracted to [[philosophy]] upon reading [[Henri Bergson]]'s ''Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness''. He studied in Paris at the elite [[École Normale Supérieure]], an institution of higher education which was the [[alma mater]] for several prominent French thinkers and intellectuals. Sartre was influenced by many aspects of [[Western philosophy]], absorbing ideas from [[Immanuel Kant]], [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]], [[Edmund Husserl]] and [[Martin Heidegger]] among others. In 1929 at the École Normale, he met [[Simone de Beauvoir]], who studied at the [[Sorbonne]] and later went on to become a noted thinker, writer, and [[feminism|feminist]]. The two, it is documented, became inseparable and lifelong companions, initiating a romantic relationship,<ref name="seattletimes.nwsource.com">{{cite news |first=Clark| last=Humphrey| title= The People magazine approach to a literary supercouple|publisher=''[[The Seattle Times]]''|accessdate=2007-11-20|url= http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2002648627_teteatete28.html}}</ref> though they were not monogamous. Sartre graduated from the École Normale Supérieure in 1929 with a [[doctorate]] in philosophy and served as a conscript in the [[French Army]] from 1929 to 1931. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the [[culture|cultural]] and [[society|social]] assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered [[bourgeois]], in both lifestyle and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually-destructive [[conformity (psychology)|conformity]] (''mauvaise foi'', literally, "[[Bad faith (existentialism)|bad faith]]") and an ''"[[authentic]]" state of "[[being]]"'' became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work ''L'Être et le Néant'' (''[[Being and Nothingness]]'') (1943). Sartre's introduction to his philosophy is his work ''[[Existentialism is a Humanism]]'' (1946), originally presented as a lecture. In this work, he defends [[existentialism]] against its detractors, which ultimately results in what Sartre felt was a mistaken understanding of his work; in 1965, Sartre told Francis Jeanson that its publication had been "an error"{{Fact|date=November 2007}}. ===Sartre and World War II=== In 1939 Sartre was drafted into the French army, where he served as a [[meteorologist]].He was captured by [[Germany|German]] troops in 1940 in [[Padoux]], and he spent nine months as a [[prisoner of war]] &mdash; in [[Nancy]] and finally in [[Stalag]] 12D, [[Trier]], where he wrote his first [[theatre|theatrical]] piece, ''[[Barionà, fils du tonnerre]]'', a drama concerning [[Christmas]]. It was during this period of confinement that Sartre read [[Heidegger]]'s ''[[Sein und Zeit]]'' later to become a major influence on his own essay on [[phenomenological ontology]]. Due to poor health (he claimed that his poor eyesight affected his balance) Sartre was released in April 1941. Given civilian status, he recovered his position as a teacher of ''Lycée Pasteur'' near Paris, settled at the Hotel Mistral near Montparnasse at Paris and was given a new position at [[Lycée Condorcet]], replacing a Jewish teacher who had been forbidden to teach by [[Statute on Jews| Vichy law]]. After coming back to Paris in May 1941, he participated in the founding of the underground group [[Socialisme et Liberté]] with other writers [[Simone de Beauvoir]], [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty|Merleau-Ponty]], Jean-Toussaint, Dominique Desanti, Jean Kanapa, and École Normale students. In August, Sartre and Beauvoir went to the French Riviera seeking the support of [[André Gide]] and [[André Malraux]]. However, both Gide and Malraux were undecided, and this may have been the cause of Sartre's disappointment and discouragement. ''Socialisme et liberté'' soon dissolved and Sartre decided to write, instead of being involved in active resistance. He then wrote ''[[Being and Nothingness]]'', ''[[The Flies]]'' and ''[[No Exit]]'', none of which was censored by the Germans, and also contributed to both legal and illegal literary magazines. After August 1944 and the liberation of Paris, he was a very active contributor to ''[[Combat (newspaper)|Combat]]'', a newspaper created during the clandestine period by [[Albert Camus]], a philosopher and author who held similar beliefs. Sartre and Beauvoir remained friends with Camus until he turned away from communism, a schism that eventually divided them in 1951, after the publication of Camus' ''[[The Rebel]]''. Later, while Sartre was labelled by some authors as a resistant, the French philosopher and resistant [[Vladimir Jankelevitch]] criticized Sartre's lack of political commitment during the German occupation, and interpreted his further struggles for liberty as an attempt to redeem himself. According to Camus, Sartre was a writer who resisted, not a resistor who wrote. When the war ended Sartre established ''[[Les Temps Modernes]]'' (''Modern Times''), a monthly literary and political [[review]], and started writing full-time as well as continuing his political activism. He would draw on his war experiences for his great trilogy of novels, ''Les Chemins de la Liberté'' (''[[The Roads to Freedom]]'') (1945&ndash;1949). ===Politics=== [[Image:Beauvoir Sartre - Che Guevara -1960 - Cuba.jpg|thumb|right|230px|Jean Paul Sartre and [[Simone de Beauvoir]] meeting with [[Che Guevara]] in 1960]] The first period of Sartre's career, defined in large part by ''[[Being and Nothingness]]'' (1943), gave way to a second period as a politically engaged activist and intellectual. His 1948 work ''[[Les Mains Sales]]'' (''Dirty Hands'') in particular explored the problem of being both an intellectual at the same time as becoming "engaged" politically. He embraced [[communism]], and defended [[existentialism]], though never officially joining the [[French Communist Party|Communist Party]], and took a prominent role in the struggle against [[French rule in Algeria]]. He became perhaps the most eminent supporter of the [[National Liberation Front (Algeria)|FLN]] in the [[Algerian War]] and was one of the signatory of the ''[[Manifeste des 121]]''. Furthermore, he had an Algerian mistress, [[Arlette Elkaïm]], who became his adopted daughter in 1965. He opposed the [[Vietnam War]] and, along with [[Bertrand Russell]] and others, organized a [[tribunal]] intended to expose alleged U.S. [[war crimes]], which became known as the [[Russell Tribunal]] in 1967. Its effect was limited. As a [[Fellow traveller|fellow-traveller]], Sartre spent much of the rest of his life attempting to reconcile his existentialist ideas about [[free will]] with communist principles, which taught that socio-economic forces beyond our immediate, individual control play a critical role in shaping our lives. His major defining work of this period, the ''Critique de la raison dialectique'' (''[[Critique of Dialectical Reason]]'') appeared in 1960 (a second volume appeared posthumously). In ''Critique'', Sartre set out to give Marxism a more vigorous intellectual defense than it had received up until then; he ended by concluding that Marx's notion of "[[Social class|class]]" as an objective entity was fallacious. Sartre's emphasis on the humanist values in the early works of Marx led to a dispute with the leading Communist intellectual in France in the 1960s, [[Louis Althusser]], who claimed that the ideas of the [[young Marx]] were decisively superseded by the "scientific" system of the later Marx. Sartre went to [[Cuba]] in the '60s to meet [[Fidel Castro]] and spent a great deal of time philosophizing with [[Ernesto "Che" Guevara]]. After Guevara's death, Sartre would declare him: "Not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age"<ref>[http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=27548 "Remembering Che Guevara", October 09 2006, ''The International News'', by Prof Khwaja Masud]</ref> and the "era's most perfect man."<ref> [http://www.amazon.com/Bolivian-Diary-Authorized-Guevara-Publishing/dp/1920888241 Amazon Review of: ''The Bolivian Diary: Authorized Edition'']</ref> Sartre would also compliment [[Che Guevara]] by professing that: "He lived his words, spoke his own actions and his story and the story of the world ran parallel."<ref>[http://www.heyche.org/peopleaboutche.html HeyChe.org - People about Che Guevara]</ref> Following the [[Munich massacre]] in which eleven [[Israel]]i Olympians were killed by the [[Palestinian]] organization [[Black September (group)|Black September]] in [[Munich]] 1972, Sartre said [[terrorism]] "is a terrible weapon but the oppressed poor have no others." Sartre also found it "perfectly scandalous that the Munich attack should be judged by the French press and a section of public opinion as an intolerable scandal."<ref>''Sartre: The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century'', [[Bernard-Henri Lévy]], p.343).</ref> [[Image:Sartre Simon Fieldhouse.jpg|right|thumb|180px|Jean-Paul Sartre, 1905 - 1980]] ===Late life and death=== In 1964, Sartre renounced literature in a witty and sardonic account of the first ten years of his life, ''Les mots'' (''Words''). The book is an ironic counterblast to [[Marcel Proust]], whose reputation had unexpectedly eclipsed that of [[André Gide]] (who had provided the model of ''littérature engagée'' for Sartre's generation). Literature, Sartre concluded, functioned as a bourgeois substitute for real commitment in the world. In the same year he was awarded the [[Nobel Prize for Literature]], but he declined it,<ref>[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1964/press.html The Nobel Prize in Literature 1964 Announcement] Address by Anders Österling, Member of the Swedish Academy, in {{citation |title=Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967 |editor-last=Frenz |editor-first=Horst |publisher=Elsevier Publishing Company |place=Amsterdam |year=1969 }}</ref> stating that "It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form." He was the first Nobel Laureate to voluntarily decline the Nobel Prize, he had previously refused the [[Légion d'honneur]], in 1945. The prize was announced [[1964]] [[October 22]]; on [[October 14]], Sartre had written a letter to the Nobel Institute, asking to be removed from the list of nominees, and that he would not accept the prize if awarded, but the letter went unread;<ref>[http://fondation-la-poste.com/article.php3?id_article=251 Histoire de lettres Jean-Paul Sartre refuse le Prix Nobel en 1964], Elodie Bessé</ref> on [[October 23]], ''[[Le Figaro]]'' published a statement by Sartre explaining his refusal. <!-- This section is discussed at: [[Talk:Jean-Paul_Sartre#Sartre_after_literature_-_Nobel_Prize]] --> However, [[Lars Gyllensten]], long time member of the Nobel prize committee has claimed in his autobiography that Sartre later tried to access the prize money, but was subsequently turned down.<ref>{{citation |last=Gyllensten |first=Lars |author-link=Lars Gyllensten |title=Minnen, bara minnen |publisher=Albert Bonniers förlag |place=Stockholm |year=2000 |page=282 |ISBN=9100571407 }}</ref> Allegedly, the French philosopher in 1975 wrote a letter to the Nobel Prize committee saying that he had changed his mind about the prize, at least when it came to the money. At which point the prize committee is said to have declined the request, stating that the funds had been reinvested in the Nobel institute. Though his name was now a household word (as was "existentialism" during the tumultuous 1960s), Sartre remained a simple man with few possessions, actively committed to causes until the end of his life, such as the [[May 1968|student revolution strikes]] in Paris during the summer of 1968 during which he was arrested for [[civil disobedience]]. President [[De Gaulle]] intervened and pardoned him, commenting that ''"you don't arrest [[Voltaire]]."''<ref>[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE4DF1538F934A35755C0A961948260 "Superstar of the Mind"], by [[Tom Bishop]] in ''[[New York Times]]'' June 7, 1987</ref> In 1975, when asked how he would like to be remembered, Sartre replied: "I would like <nowiki>[people]</nowiki> to remember ''Nausea'', <nowiki>[my plays]</nowiki> ''No Exit'' and ''The Devil and the Good Lord,'' and then my two philosophical works, more particularly the second one, ''Critique of Dialectical Reason''. Then my essay on Genet, ''Saint Genet''...If these are remembered, that would be quite an achievement, and I don't ask for more. As a man, if a certain Jean-Paul Sartre is remembered, I would like people to remember the milieu or historical situation in which I lived,...how I lived in it, in terms of all the aspirations which I tried to gather up within myself." Sartre's physical condition deteriorated, partially due to the merciless pace of work (and using drugs for this reason, e.g., [[amphetamine]]) he put himself through during the writing of the ''Critique'' and the last project of his life, a massive analytical biography of [[Gustave Flaubert]] (''The Family Idiot''), both of which remained unfinished. He died [[April 15]], [[1980]] in Paris from an [[oedema]] of the [[lung]]. [[Image:Sartre Beauvoir grave.jpg|right|thumb|Sartre's grave in the [[Cimetière de Montparnasse]]]] Sartre's [[atheism]] was foundational for his style of existentialist philosophy. In March 1980, about a month before his death, he was interviewed by his assistant, [[Benny Lévy]], and within these interviews he expressed his interest in [[Judaism]] which was inspired by Levy's renewed interest in the faith. Through Sartre's study of Jewish history he became particularly interested in the [[Messiah|messianic]] idea of the faith. Some people apparently took this to indicate a [[deathbed conversion]]; however, the text of the interviews makes it clear that he did not consider himself a [[Jew]], and was interested in the ethical and "metaphysical character" of the Jewish religion, while continuing to reject the idea of an existing [[God]]. In a separate 1974 interview with [[Simone de Beauvoir]], Sartre said that "I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God." But immediately adds that "this is not a clear, exact idea..." During his life, Sartre tried to draw all possible conclusions from the fact that there is no God. "Man," he wrote in 1943, "is a useless passion." He also wrote "everything that exists is born for no reason, carries on living through weakness, and dies by accident." Sartre lies buried in [[Cimetière de Montparnasse]] in [[Paris]]. His funeral was attended by 20,000 mourners. ==Thought== The basis of Sartre's existentialism is found in ''[[The Transcendence of the Ego]]''. To begin with, the [[noumenon|thing-in-itself]] is infinite and overflowing. Sartre refers to any direct consciousness of the thing-in-itself as a "pre-reflective consciousness." Any attempt to describe, understand, historicize etc. the thing-in-itself, Sartre calls "reflective consciousness." There is no way for the reflective consciousness to subsume the pre-reflective, and so reflection is fated to a form of anxiety, i.e. the human condition. The reflective consciousness in all its forms, (scientific, artistic or otherwise) can only limit the thing-in-itself by virtue of its attempt to understand or describe it. It follows, therefore, that any attempt at self-knowledge (self-consciousness - a reflective consciousness of an overflowing infinite) is a construct that fails no matter how often it is attempted. Consciousness is consciousness of itself insofar as it is consciousness of a transcendent object. The same holds true about knowledge of the "[[Other]]." The "Other" (meaning simply beings or objects that are not the self) is a construct of reflective consciousness. One must be careful to understand this more as a form of warning than as an ontological statement. However, there is an implication of [[solipsism]] here that Sartre considers fundamental to any coherent description of the human condition.<ref>Sartre, 1936 ''Transcendence of the Ego, Williams and Kirkpatrick, 1957 pp. 98-106 translation from "La transcendence de l"ego... ''</ref> Sartre overcomes this solipsism by a kind of ritual. Self consciousness needs "the [[Other]]" to prove (display) its own existence. It has a "masochistic desire" to be limited, i.e. limited by the reflective consciousness of another subject. This is expressed metaphorically in the famous line of dialogue from ''[[No Exit]]'', "Hell is other people." The main idea of Jean-Paul Sartre is that we are "condemned to be free."<ref>''Existentialism and Humanism''</ref> This theory relies upon his [[atheism]], and is formed using the example of the [[paper-knife]]. Sartre says that if one considered a paper-knife, one would assume that the creator would have had a plan for it: an essence. Sartre said that human beings have no essence before their existence because there is no Creator. Thus: "existence precedes essence".<ref>''Existentialism and Humanism'', page 27</ref> ===''La Nausée'' and existentialism=== As a junior lecturer at the Lycée du [[Le Havre|Havre]] in 1938, Sartre wrote the novel ''[[Nausea (novel)|La Nausée]]'' (''Nausea'') which serves in some ways as a [[manifesto]] of [[existentialism]] and remains one of his most famous books. Taking a page from the [[Husserl|German]] [[phenomenology|phenomenological]] movement, he believed that our ideas are the product of experiences of real-life situations, and that novels and plays describing such fundamental experiences have as much value as do discursive essays for the elaboration of philosophical theories. With this mandate, the novel concerns a dejected researcher (Roquentin) in a town similar to Le Havre who becomes starkly conscious of the fact that inanimate objects and situations remain absolutely indifferent to his existence. As such, they show themselves to be resistant to whatever significance human consciousness might perceive in them. This indifference of "things in themselves" (closely linked with the later notion of "being-in-itself" in his ''[[Being and Nothingness]]'') has the effect of highlighting all the more the freedom Roquentin has to perceive and act in the world; everywhere he looks, he finds situations imbued with meanings which bear the stamp of his existence. Hence the "nausea" referred to in the title of the book; all that he encounters in his everyday life is suffused with a pervasive, even horrible, taste — specifically, his freedom. The book takes the term from [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'', where it is used in the context of the often nauseating quality of existence. No matter how much Roquentin longs for something else or something different, he cannot get away from this harrowing evidence of his engagement with the world. The novel also acts as a terrifying realization of some of Kant's fundamental ideas; Sartre uses the idea of the autonomy of the will (that [[morality]] is derived from our ability to choose in reality; the ability to choose being derived from human freedom; embodied in the famous saying "Condemned to be free") as a way to show the world's indifference to the individual. The freedom that Kant exposed is here a strong burden, for the freedom to act towards objects is ultimately useless, and the practical application of Kant's ideas prove to be bitterly rejected. The stories in ''Le Mur'' (''[[The Wall (book)|The Wall]]'') emphasize the arbitrary aspects of the situations people find themselves in and the absurdity of their attempts to deal rationally with them. A whole school of [[Theatre of the Absurd|absurd]] literature subsequently developed. ===Sartre and literature=== During the 1940s and 1950s Sartre's ideas remained ambiguous, and [[existentialism]] became a favoured philosophy of the [[beatnik]] generation.<ref>This is debatable. In ''Desolation Angels'', [[Jack Kerouac|Kerouac]] implies that his fantasy of Parisian life had been tarnished by Sartre and existentialism.</ref> Sartre's views were counterposed to those of [[Albert Camus]] in the popular imagination. In 1948, the [[Roman Catholic Church]] placed his complete works on the [[Index Librorum Prohibitorum|Index of prohibited books]]. Most of his plays are richly symbolic and serve as a means of conveying his philosophy. The best-known, ''Huis-clos'' (''[[No Exit]]''), contains the famous line "L'enfer, c'est les autres", usually translated as "Hell is other people". Aside from the impact of ''Nausea'', Sartre's major contribution to literature was the ''[[The Roads to Freedom]]'' trilogy which charts the progression of how [[World War II]] affected Sartre's ideas. In this way, ''Roads to Freedom'' presents a less theoretical and more practical approach to [[existentialism]]. ===Sartre as a public intellectual=== {{Inappropriate tone|section|date=December 2007}} {{Original research|section|date=November 2007}} Sartre has been called "the most written about twentieth-century author."<ref>Jonathan Judaken, "Review of ''Jean-Paul Sartre''," ''The Historian'' 69.4 (Winter 2007): 832.</ref> At the same time, his relationship with the media is not only fraught from his individual perspective but is indicative of the societal issue of the intellectual as a subject of knowledge and the concrete subject of an intellectual and their role. What Sartre encapsulates is the "complex and paradoxical role of the intellectual in post-industrial western societies, and symbolic of the voice of political and cultural dissidence struggling for the freedom of expression in an environment increasingly subject to rapid technological change." (Scriven 1993: 1). Whilst the broad focus of his life revolved around the notion of human freedom, a sustained intellectual participation in more public matters began in 1945. Prior to this, before the Second World War, he was content with the role of apolitical liberal intellectual, "Now teaching at the a lycée in Laon [...] Sartre made his headquarters the Dome café at the crossing of Montparnasse and Raspail boulevards. He attended plays, read novels, and dined <nowiki>[with]</nowiki> women. He wrote. And he was published" (Gerassi 1989: 134). He and his lifelong companion, [[Simone de Beauvoir]], existed in her words where ‘the world about us was a mere backdrop against which our private lives were played out. (de Beauvoir 1958: 339). Sartre portrayed his own pre-war situation in the character Mathieu, chief protagonist in the ''[[The Age of Reason]]'' (completed during Sartre's first year as a soldier in the Second World War), the first episode of the ''[[Road to Freedom]]'' trilogy. By forging Mathieu as an absolute [[rationalist]], analysing the minutae of every situation, and functioning entirely on reason, he removed any strands of authentic content from his character and as a result, Mathieu could “recognize no allegiance except to myself” (Sarte 1942: 13), though he realized that without "responsibility for my own existence, it would seem utterly absurd to go on existing" (Sartre 1942: 14). Mathieu's commitment was only to himself, never to the outside. Restraining him from action each time was that he had no reasons for acting thus. Sartre then, for these reasons, was not compelled to participate in the [[Spanish Civil War]], and it took the invasion of his own country to motivate him into action and the war itself to provide a crystallization of these ideas he had so eloquently written about. It was the war that gave him a purpose beyond himself, and the atrocities of the war can be seen as the turning point in his public stance. The war was to be the most formative experience of Sartre's life – it opened his eyes to a political reality he had not yet understood until forced into this continual engagement with it: "the world itself destroyed Sartre's illusions about isolated self-determining individuals and made clear his own personal stake in the events of the time" (Aronson 1980: 108). Returning to Paris therefore in 1941 he formed the "Socialisme et Liberte" resistance group and later, in 1943, after a lack of [[Communist]] support forced the disbandment of the first, he joined a writers Resistance group, in which he remained an active participant until the end of the war. He continued to write ferociously also, and it was due to this "crucial experience of war and captivity that Sartre began to try to build up a positive moral system and to express it through literature" (Thody 1964: 21). The symbolic initiation of this new phase in Sartre’s work is packaged in the introduction he wrote for a new journal, ''[[Les Temps Modernes]]'', in October 1945. Here he aligned the journal and thus himself, with the Left and called for writers to express their political commitment (Aronson 1980: 107) and yet this alignment was indefinite – directed more to the concept of the Left than a specific party of the Left. Sartre's philosophy lent itself aptly to his being a [[public intellectual]]. He envisaged culture as a very fluid concept – neither pre-determined, nor definitely finished – instead, in true [[existentialism|existential]] fashion, "culture was always conceived as a process of continual invention and re-invention". This marks Sartre, the intellectual, as a [[pragmatist]], willing to move and shift stance along with events. He did not dogmatically follow a cause – other than the belief in [[liberty|human freedom]] - preferring to retain a pacifist's objectivity. It is this over-arching theme of freedom that means his work "subverts the bases for distinctions among the disciplines" (Kirsner 2003: 13) and therefore, in the fashion of a public intellectual, he was able to hold knowledge across a vast array of subjects: "the international world order, the political and economic organisation of contemporary society, especially France, the institutional and legal frameworks that regulate the lives of ordinary citizens, the educational system, the media networks that control and disseminate information. Sartre systematically refused to keep quiet about what he saw as inequalities and injustices in the world" (Scriven 1999: xii). Most often too, his views were divergent from the prevailing political situation. The most clear example of this is in his post-war attitude to the [[French Communist Party]] (PCF), who, following [[Liberation]] were infuriated by Sartre's philosophy and opposition, which appeared to lure young French men and women away from the ideology of Marxism into Sartre’s own existential [[nihilism]] (Scriven 1999: 13). Here we see Sartre telling his own truths to power, a fundamental role of the public intellectual. His troubled and varied relationship with Communism and [[Marxism]] in particular was a consequence of their doctrines that would have prevented his freedom of expression – indeed, to align himself too rigidly with any political movement, would have circumscribed the very freedom he was searching for through, initially his writings and, especially after the [[Second World War]], his public activities, which he had begun to regard as more significant upon recognition of the futility of words in contrast to action. (Kirsner 2003: 60). In the aftermath of a war that had for the first time properly engaged him in political matters, Sartre set about a body of work which "reflected on virtually every important theme of his early thought and began to explore alternative solutions to the problems posed there" (Aronson 1980: 121). The greatest difficulties that he and all public intellectuals of the time faced were the increasing technological aspects of world that were outdating the printed word as a form of expression. So, although in Sartre's opinion, "traditional bourgeois literary forms remain innately superior" there is "a recognition that the new technological '[[mass media]]' forms must be embraced if Sartre's ethical and political achievements as an authentic, committed intellectual are to be achieved: the demystification of [[bourgeois]] political practices and the raising of the consciousness, both political and cultural, of the working class" (Scriven 1993: 8). The struggle for Sartre was against the monopolising moguls who were beginning to take-over the media and defunct the role of the intellectual. His attempts therefore to reach a public were mediated by these powers, and it was often these powers he had to campaign against. He was skilled enough however, to circumvent some of these issues by his interactive approach to the various forms of media – advertising his radio interviews in a newspaper column for example, and vice versa. (Scriven 1993: 22). The role of a public intellectual often leads to the individual placing themselves in danger as they engage with heatedly disputed topics. In Sartre's case this was witnessed in June 1961 especially, when a plastic bomb exploded in the entrance of his apartment building. His public support of Algerian [[self-determination]] at the time, had led Sartre to become a target of the right-wing campaign of terror that mounted as the colonists' position deteriorated. A similar occurrence took place the next year and he had begun to receive threatening letters from [[Oran]]. (Aronson 1980: 157). Sartre clearly held himself and his kind in a high regard, pronouncing the intellectual to be the moral conscience of their age, their task being to observe the political and social situation of the moment and to speak out, freely, in accordance with their conscience. (Scriven 1993: 119). == Sartre in popular culture == * Sartre appears (as ''Jean-Sol Partre'' in the French original and ''Jean-Pulse Heatre'' in the English translation) in [[Boris Vian]]'s classic novel ''[[Froth on the Daydream|L'Écume des Jours]]'' (''Froth on the Daydream''). * In ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'', episode 27, there is a sketch "Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion visit Jean-Paul Sartre" in which two ladies argue what is the crux of ''[[Roads to Freedom]]''. * Sartre appears in the opening of the musical ''Godspell'', arguing his view on the world. * In ''[[Caddyshack]]'', Carl Spackler, in the process of exterminating a golf course gopher by use of explosives refers to Sartre: "In the immortal words of Jean-Paul Sartre: 'Au revoir, gopher.'" * In the MC Lars song: ''Roommate from Hell'', Lars raps that his roommate Satan "Likes holding down Christians and reading Jean-Paul Sartre". * In the Shakira song ''No Creo'' ("I Don't Believe" in Spanish), she claims - in a sense - not to believe in Karl Marx's or Jean-Paul Sartre's ideals. * In the television series ''[[Extras (TV series)|Extras]]'', the character Andy Millman (played by [[Ricky Gervais]]) mutters "Jean-Paul Sartre" in response to a depressing comment made by another character. *In the television series ''[[The Mighty Boosh]]'', in the episode "[[The Nightmare of Milky Joe]]", the character Milky Joe is reported to only talk about Sartre. ==Selected bibliography== * ''L'Imagination'' (''[[Imagination: A Psychological Critique]]''), 1936 * ''La Transcendance de l'égo'' (''[[The Transcendence of the Ego]]''), 1937 * ''La Nausée'' (''[[Nausea (novel)|Nausea]]''), 1938 * ''Le Mur'' (''[[The Wall (book)|The Wall]]''), 1939 * ''Esquisse d'une théorie des émotions'' (''[[Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions]]''), 1939 * ''L'Imaginaire'' (''[[The Imaginary (Sartre)|The Imaginary]]''), 1940, lit. "The Unconscious" * ''Les Mouches'' (''[[The Flies]]''), 1943 - a modern version of the ''[[Oresteia]]'' * ''L'Être et le néant'' (''[[Being and Nothingness]]''), 1943 * ''Réflexions sur la question juive'' (''[[Anti-Semite and Jew]]''; literally, ''Reflections on the Jewish Question''), 1943 * ''Huis-clos'' (''[[No Exit]]''), 1944 * ''Les Chemins de la liberté'' (''[[The Roads to Freedom]]'') trilogy, comprising: ** ''L'Âge de raison'' (''[[The Age of Reason (Sartre)|The Age of Reason]]''), 1945 ** ''Le Sursis'' (''[[The Reprieve]]''), 1947 ** ''La Mort dans l'Âme'' (''[[Troubled Sleep]]'', title formerly translated as ''Iron in the Soul'', literally "Death in Spirit"), 1949 * ''Morts sans sépulture'' (''Deaths without burial''; aka ''The Victors''; ''Men Without Shadows'' in English), 1946 * ''L'Existentialisme est un humanisme'' (''[[Existentialism is a Humanism]]''), 1946 * ''La Putain respectueuse'' (''[[The Respectful Whore]]'') 1946 * ''Qu'est ce que la littérature?'' (''[[What is literature?]]''), 1947 * ''Baudelaire'', 1947 * ''Situations'', 1947 &ndash;1965 * ''[[Les Mains Sales|Les Mains sales]]'' (''Dirty Hands''), 1948 * "Orphée Noir" (Black Orpheus), introduction to ''Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache.'' edited by [[Léopold Sédar Senghor]], 1948 * ''Le Diable et le bon dieu'' (''[[The Devil and the Good Lord]]''), 1951 * ''[[Les jeux sont faits|Les Jeux sont faits]]'' (''[[The Game is Up]]''), 1952 * ''Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr'', 1952 *''[[Edmund Kean|Kean]]'' (adaptation of [[Alexandre Dumas, père]]'s play) 1953, produced Paris 1954, revived London 2007 [http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/17019/kean] * ''Nekrassov'', 1955 * ''Existentialism and Human Emotions'', 1957 * ''[[The Problem of Method]]'', 1957 * ''Les Séquestrés d'Altona'' (''[[The Condemned of Altona]]''), 1959 * ''Critique de la raison dialectique'' (''[[Critique of Dialectical Reason]]''), 1960 * "Preface" to [[Frantz Fanon]]'s ''[[The Wretched of the Earth]]'', 1961 * ''[[Search for a Method]]'' (English translation of preface to ''Critique'', Vol. I), 1962 * ''[[Colonialism and Neocolonialism]]'', 1964 * ''Les Mots'' (''[[Words]]''), 1964, autobiographical * ''L'Idiot de la famille'' (''[[The Family Idiot]]''), 1971&ndash;1972 - on [[Gustave Flaubert]] * ''Cahiers pour une morale'' (''[[Notebooks for Ethics]]''), 1983, 1947-48 notes on ethics * ''Les Carnets de la drôle de guerre: Novembre 1939 - Mars 1940'' (''[[War Diaries|War Diaries: Notebooks from a Phony War 1939-1940]]''), 1984, notebooks from Sartre's time in the [[Phony War]] of 1939-1940 ==Further reading== * [[Annie Cohen-Solal]], ''Sartre 1905-80'', 1985. * Simone de Beauvoir, ''Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre'', New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. * Thomas Flynn, ''Sartre and Marxist Existentialism: The Test Case of Collective Responsibility'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. * John Gerassi, ''Jean-Paul Sartre: Hated Conscience of His Century'', Volume 1: Protestant or Protester?, University of Chicago Press, 1989. ISBN 0226287971. * [[R. D. Laing]] and [[D. G. Cooper]], ''Reason and Violence: A Decade of Sartre's Philosophy, 1950-1960'', New York: Pantheon, 1971. * [[Suzanne Lilar]], ''A propos de Sartre et de l'amour'', Paris: Grasset, 1967. * Axel Madsen, ''Hearts and Minds: The Common Journey of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre'', William Morrow & Co, 1977. * Heiner Wittmann, ''L'esthétique de Sartre. Artistes et intellectuels'', translated from the German by N. Weitemeier and J. Yacar, Éditions L'Harmattan (Collection L'ouverture philosophique), Paris 2001. * Jean-Paul Sartre and Benny Levy, ''Hope Now: The 1980 Interviews'', translated by Adrian van den Hoven, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. * P.V. Spade, [http://pvspade.com/Sartre/pdf/sartre1.pdf Class Lecture Notes on Jean-Paul Sartre's ''Being and Nothingness'']. 1996. * H. Wittmann, ''Sartre und die Kunst. Die Porträtstudien von Tintoretto bis Flaubert'', Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1996. ==References== {{reflist}} ==Sources== * Aronson, Ronald (1980) ''Jean-Paul Sartre - Philosophy in the World''. London: NLB * Gerassi, John (1989) ''Jean-Paul Sartre: Hated Conscience of His Century. Volume 1: Protestant or Protester?'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press * Kirsner, Douglas (2003) ''The Schizoid World of Jean-Paul Sartre and R.D. Lang''. New York: Karnac * Scriven, Michael (1993) ''Sartre and The Media''. London: MacMillan Press Ltd * Scriven, Michael (1999) ''Jean-Paul Sartre: Politics and Culture in Postwar France''. London: MacMillan Press Ltd * Thody, Philip (1964) ''Jean-Paul Sartre''. London: Hamish Hamilton ==External links== {{wikiquote}} ===By Sartre=== * [http://www.laphilosophie.fr/livres-de-Sartre-texte-integral.html Full Ebooks in french] on the website 'La philosophie' * [http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19471018&s=sartre Americans and Their Myths] Sartre's essay in ''[[The Nation (U.S. periodical)|The Nation]]'' ([[October 18]], [[1947]] issue) * [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/index.htm Sartre Internet Archive] on [http://www.marxists.org/ Marxists.org] * [[French language|French]] [http://www.incipitblog.com/index.php/2005/11/01/jean-paul-sartre-les-mots-1964/ Audiobook (mp3)], incipit of The Words (1964), read aloud in French by IncipitBlog. ===On Sartre=== * [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/ft0779n3mg Edith Gombos Papers, 1960-1979](call number M1175; 0.5 linear ft.) are housed in the [http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/spc.html Department of Special Collections and University Archives] at [http://library.stanford.edu/ Stanford University Libraries] * [http://www.ges-sartre.fr Groupe d'études sartriennes], Paris * [http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/sartre.htm Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason] essay by [[Andy Blunden]] * [http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/sartre-ex.htm Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980): Existentialism] Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy * [http://www.sartre.org/ Sartre.org] Articles, archives, and forum * [http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/features/article226073.ece "The Second Coming Of Sartre"], John Lichfield, ''[[The Independent]]'', [[17 June]] [[2005]] * [http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/extras/sartre.htm The World According to Sartre] essay by Roger Kimball * [http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj102/pitt.htm Reclaiming Sartre] A review of [[Ian Birchall]], ''Sartre Against Stalinism'' * [http://atheisme.free.fr/Biographies/Sartre_e.htm Biography and quotes of Sartre] * {{WiredForBooks|anniecohensalal|1987 interview on Jean-Paul Sartre with Annie Cohen-Salal|by [[Don Swaim]]}} * [http://www.sens-public.org/article.php3?id_article=300 Living with Mother. Sartre and the problem of maternity], Benedict O'Donohoe, International Webjournal''Sens Public''. *[http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:zF3nV9Fd9DIJ:igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/student-theses/2006-0912-200835/MA%2520Eindwerkstuk%25202006%2520Eindversie.doc+Sartre+Lilar&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=27&gl=us L’image de la femme dans le théâtre de Jean-Paul Sartre - Jean-Paul Sartre:sexiste? by Stephanie Rupert] * [http://membres.lycos.fr/fabiensolda/darticles%20francais/PM-SartreetMirbeau.pdf Pierre Michel, ''Jean-Paul Sartre et Octave Mirbeau'']. * [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20041007.shtml Listen to Radio 4's In Our Time programme on Sartre - RealAudio] * [http://www.sens-public.org/spip.php?article544 Sartre: philosophy, literature, politics (articles), International Webjournal Sens Public] {{Nobel Prize in Literature Laureates 1951-1975}} {{Persondata |NAME=Sartre, Jean Paul |ALTERNATIVE NAMES= |SHORT DESCRIPTION=French philosopher |DATE OF BIRTH={{birth date|1905|6|21|mf=y}} |PLACE OF BIRTH=[[Paris]] |DATE OF DEATH={{death date|1980|4|15|mf=y}} |PLACE OF DEATH=[[Paris]] }} {{DEFAULTSORT:Sartre, Jean-Paul}} [[Category:French philosophers of the 20th century]] [[Category:Atheist philosophers]] [[Category:Continental philosophers]] [[Category:Existentialists]] [[Category:French atheists]] [[Category:French dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:French Marxists]] [[Category:French novelists]] [[Category:French philosophers]] [[Category:Freudians]] [[Category:Metaphysicians]] [[Category:Nobel laureates in Literature]] [[Category:French Nobel laureates]] [[Category:Scholars of antisemitism]] [[Category:Polyamory]] [[Category:French military personnel of World War II]] [[Category:World War II prisoners of war held by Germany]] [[Category:People from Paris]] [[Category:Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni]] [[Category:Alumni of the École Normale Supérieure]] [[Category:Psychedelic advocates and proponents]] [[Category:French meteorologists]] [[Category:1905 births]] [[Category:1980 deaths]] [[Category:French prisoners of war]] {{Link FA|hr}} [[af:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[ar:جون بول سارتر]] [[az:Jan Pol Sartr]] [[bn:জঁ-পল সার্ত্র্‌]] [[zh-min-nan:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[be-x-old:Жан Поль Сартр]] [[bs:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[bg:Жан-Пол Сартр]] [[ca:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[cs:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[da:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[de:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[et:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[el:Ζαν-Πωλ Σαρτρ]] [[es:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[eo:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[eu:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[fa:ژان پل سارتر]] [[fr:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[fy:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[gd:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[gl:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[ko:장폴 사르트르]] [[hy:Ժան Փոլ Սարթր]] [[hi:ज्यां-पाल सार्त्र]] [[hr:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[io:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[ilo:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[id:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[is:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[it:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[he:ז'אן-פול סארטר]] [[jv:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[ka:ჟან-პოლ სარტრი]] [[sw:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[ku:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[la:Ioannes Paulus Sartre]] [[lv:Žans Pols Sartrs]] [[lb:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[lt:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[hu:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[mk:Жан-Пол Сартр]] [[ml:ഷാണ്‍-പോള്‍ സാര്‍ത്ര്]] [[mr:ज्यॉँ-पॉल सार्त्र]] [[nl:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[ja:ジャン=ポール・サルトル]] [[no:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[nn:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[oc:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[uz:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[pl:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[pt:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[ro:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[ru:Сартр, Жан-Поль]] [[sq:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[simple:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[sk:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[sl:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[sr:Жан-Пол Сартр]] [[sh:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[fi:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[sv:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[th:ฌอง ปอล ซาร์ตร์]] [[vi:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[tr:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[uk:Сартр Жан-Поль]] [[ur:ژاں پال سارتر]] [[vo:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[diq:Jean-Paul Sartre]] [[zh:让-保罗·萨特]]