Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
Major works: Being and Nothingness, Critique of dialectical reason, Nausea.
Keywords: Existentialism, totality, Scarcity, Anthropology, Totalisation, Methodological principle of totality, Anguish, Freedom
Sartre's 'Marxism and existentialism' has an auto-critical character to its exposition that charts a generation's attraction and subsequent critical reaction to Marxism. Written in 1957, this work does not call for an abandonment of Marxism (it claims 'kinship' with Marx), it is still the philosophy of its time, but Sartre rails strongly against a Marxism that has become a system of ossified dictates seperated from the real life experiences within soceity. Sartre contrasts the 'supreme totalization' of the Hegelian system with the specificity of human existence, in short, asserting with Kierkegaard the importance (unreducibility/ non-integrative?) of the particular. This paralells existentialisms concern with giving priority and affirmation to existence, to real life in particualr historical instances, against a Marxism that has straightjacketed itself in an eternalised order of knowledge.
 
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Resources: Totality and totalisation (from Critique of Dialectical Reason)

Sartre.org.uk

Existentialism is a Humanism

Literature links