Dominique Pagani mostly approaches Sartre through Michel Clouscard. As a member of the thesis jury, Sartre praises L'Être et le Code as "a totalization in progress", but judges it too ambitious for a single author to carry out alone1. Pagani recalls that the book's original title set Rousseau against Sartre, the figure of the intellectual who seeks to be on the left without being communist2. He places Sartre in the postwar French school, standing in Heidegger's shadow. He reads the Critique of Dialectical Reason closely: in his view, Sartre upholds an absolute individualism there and reduces praxis to individual need, which amounts to animalizing man and regressing from Hegel, while still declaring Marxism unsurpassable3. He values, on the other hand, The Roads to Freedom, the Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions and The Family Idiot4. He defends Sartre against Foucault and the structuralist parricide, and prefers "a quarter of Sartre" to today's media philosophers5.
Summary produced automatically from 81 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.
Who is this?
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, US also ; French:; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, political activist, and writer, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology) and was a proponent of Libertarian Marxism. His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. […]
26:43Critique of Dialectical ReasonPraxis there is individual and carried by need, which is an animalization of man and a regression compared to Hegel.
33:09Critique of Dialectical ReasonHe recognizes Marxism as unsurpassable while holding to an absolute individualism that refuses the social.
1:45:39Difference is there primary and final; no new social practice arises from individual praxes.
1:55:01The Communists and PeaceThe working class exists only through the party; the second, unpublished volume of the "Critique" is a failure.
2:00:29In him, without immanent unity, political unity can only be imposed, hence police-like.
31:41Cited for history as the history of scarcity.
59:29Critique of Dialectical ReasonHe loves totalization and hates totality; his work is the anti-Marx, and he admits to failing.
1:09:42Critique of Dialectical ReasonAbsolute individualist, he reduces all praxis to the individual praxis of need: no meaning emerges. Pagani recalls his 'Marxism, the unsurpassable philosophy of our time.'
52:05Sketch for a Theory of the EmotionsFainting magically annihilates the outer world in the face of sudden danger; one would give anything for a quarter of a Sartre today.
20:11Quoting his praise of Clouscard is incoherent: Sartre embodies the leftist intellectual whom Clouscard fought, being on the left without being communist.
15:47An example of the disputes between philosophers that he refuses to cultivate.
1:50:49The Roads to FreedomThe best of Sartre; he Hegelianizes Marx: man is not a having but a doing. He organizes with Russell the tribunal on Vietnam.
Talks · 31 Mar 2018Tonight, we repoliticise (part 2)
