The Early Sartre and Marxism (Modern French Identities)

From the middle of the 1940s onwards, Sartre became the personification of the committed intellectual, courageously taking public positions on many of the pressing issues of his time. In the 1950s and 1960s, the theoretical basis for his political commitment lay in his existentialist brand of Marxism, which received its most mature formulation in the Critique of Dialectical Reason . Focusing on the point of departure for later Sartrean thought and political commitment, Sam Coombes highlights key areas of common ground between the ethical, aesthetic, and political content of works from Sartres early period and classic Marxist philosophy. Taking account of both the specificity of early Sartrean thought and the heterogeneity of Marxist theories, this book affirms their lasting importance to radical left critique. It offers in-depth analysis of areas of early Sartrean thought hitherto rarely discussed in the literature such as the conceptual parallels between the concepts of inauthenticity and ideology, the political implications of Sartres pre-war writings, and the first clear signs of Marxist tendencies in Sartres wartime writings. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgements......Page 6 Introduction......Page 10 Part One: Ontological Bases......Page 24 I. Conceptions of Concrete Reality: Sartre’s Refusal of Materialism......Page 26 II. The Free Subject In Situation......Page 60 Part Two: From Ontology and Ethics to Politics and History......Page 84 Introduction......Page 86 III. Inauthenticity and Ideology......Page 90 IV. Sartre’s Search for Authenticity......Page 118 V. Commitment, Humanism and Left Political Thought......Page 138 VI. Towards a Dialectics of History......Page 170 VII. Authentic Ethics and Socialist Politics in Sartre’s Cahiers pour une morale......Page 192 Part Three: Writing and Politics......Page 230 VIII. Les Petits camarades: Personal, Political and Literary Issues Which Defined the Sartre–Nizan Relationship......Page 232 IX. Committed Writing......Page 274 Bibliography......Page 320 Index......Page 330 This work highlights key areas of common ground between the ethical, aesthetic and political content of works from Sartre's early period and classic Marxist philosophy. Taking account of both the specifity of early Sartrean thought and the hetero- geneity of Marxist theories, it affirms their lasting importance to the radical left critique