Practice, Power, and Forms of Life: Sartre’s Appropriation of Hegel and Marx
by Terry Pinkard
University of Chicago Press, 2022 eISBN: 978-0-226-81547-3 | Cloth: 978-0-226-81324-0 Library of Congress Classification B2430.S34P545 2022 Dewey Decimal Classification 194
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK Philosopher Terry Pinkard revisits Sartre’s later work, illuminating a pivotal stance in Sartre’s understanding of freedom and communal action.
Jean-Paul Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason, released to great fanfare in 1960, has since then receded in philosophical visibility. As Sartre’s reputation is now making a comeback, it is time for a reappraisal of his later work. In Practice, Power, and Forms of Life, philosopher Terry Pinkard interprets Sartre’s late work as a fundamental reworking of his earlier ideas, especially in terms of his understanding of the possibility of communal action as genuinely free, which the French philosopher had previously argued was impossible.
Pinkard reveals how Sartre was drawn back to Hegel, a move that was itself incited by Sartre’s newfound interest in Marxism. Pinkard argues that Sartre constructed a novel position on freedom that has yet to be adequately taken up and analyzed within philosophy and political theory. Through Sartre, Pinkard advances an argument that contributes to the history of philosophy as well as key debates on action and freedom.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Terry Pinkard is a University Professor at Georgetown University. He is the author of many books, including Does History Make Sense? Hegel on the Historical Shapes of Justice.
REVIEWS
“Pinkard has written a pathbreaking and compelling work that shows the importance of Sartre’s extensive rethinking of his understanding of Hegel and Marx and the role of Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism in his later thought. Key concepts such as subjectivity, agency, reciprocity, dialectic, materiality, and sociality are given original and philosophically rich interpretations, all presented with striking lucidity. Practice, Power, and Forms of Life is an extraordinary tour de force, both as interpretation and as philosophy, and it should lead to a major reassessment of the later Sartre.”
— Robert Pippin, University of Chicago
“In the extensive bibliography about Sartre’s work, his connection to classical German philosophy is seldom taken as a guideline. Focusing in particular on the Critique of Dialectical Reason and Sartre’s late writings, Pinkard’s book fills this gap by luminously considering Sartre’s creative ‘appropriation’ of Hegel and Marx. It shows how this mediation, as well as Sartre’s response to Heidegger’s criticism of humanism, reveals a striking proximity to Wittgenstein’s theme of the forms of life.”
— Jean-François Kervegan, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
"Renders accessible what is complicated and opens a window into the mind of a brilliant man. Highly recommended."
— Choice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
1 Spontaneity and Inertia
1. The Background: The Form of the “I”
2. “I” and “We,” Singular and Plural
3. “I,” “You,” and the “Other”: Dialectical Thought
4. Being Together: “We”
5. Alienation in Inertia
6. Reciprocity in Spontaneity and Reciprocity as Antagonism
2 Spontaneity’s Limits
1. Tragic Counter-Finality
2. Practical Identities, Singular and General: Differing Conceptions of “We”
3. Spontaneity within the Revolt of the Oppressed: The Spontaneous “We”
4. Actualized Freedom’s Fragility in the Myths of Self-Authorization
5. Violence in the Enforcement of Norms
3 Ethics in Politics
1. Rules, Groups, and Functionalist Ethics
2. Active, Passive, or Neither?
3. Humanism and Humanisms
4. System versus Subjective Life
5. Self-Knowledge in the System
6. Ethos
7. Ethos, Inequality, History
8. What Follows Marxism?
9. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Colonialism, Racism
10. Morals on Holiday
11. Power, Practice, Practico-Inert
Dénouement
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Practice, Power, and Forms of Life: Sartre’s Appropriation of Hegel and Marx
by Terry Pinkard
University of Chicago Press, 2022 eISBN: 978-0-226-81547-3 Cloth: 978-0-226-81324-0
Philosopher Terry Pinkard revisits Sartre’s later work, illuminating a pivotal stance in Sartre’s understanding of freedom and communal action.
Jean-Paul Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason, released to great fanfare in 1960, has since then receded in philosophical visibility. As Sartre’s reputation is now making a comeback, it is time for a reappraisal of his later work. In Practice, Power, and Forms of Life, philosopher Terry Pinkard interprets Sartre’s late work as a fundamental reworking of his earlier ideas, especially in terms of his understanding of the possibility of communal action as genuinely free, which the French philosopher had previously argued was impossible.
Pinkard reveals how Sartre was drawn back to Hegel, a move that was itself incited by Sartre’s newfound interest in Marxism. Pinkard argues that Sartre constructed a novel position on freedom that has yet to be adequately taken up and analyzed within philosophy and political theory. Through Sartre, Pinkard advances an argument that contributes to the history of philosophy as well as key debates on action and freedom.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Terry Pinkard is a University Professor at Georgetown University. He is the author of many books, including Does History Make Sense? Hegel on the Historical Shapes of Justice.
REVIEWS
“Pinkard has written a pathbreaking and compelling work that shows the importance of Sartre’s extensive rethinking of his understanding of Hegel and Marx and the role of Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism in his later thought. Key concepts such as subjectivity, agency, reciprocity, dialectic, materiality, and sociality are given original and philosophically rich interpretations, all presented with striking lucidity. Practice, Power, and Forms of Life is an extraordinary tour de force, both as interpretation and as philosophy, and it should lead to a major reassessment of the later Sartre.”
— Robert Pippin, University of Chicago
“In the extensive bibliography about Sartre’s work, his connection to classical German philosophy is seldom taken as a guideline. Focusing in particular on the Critique of Dialectical Reason and Sartre’s late writings, Pinkard’s book fills this gap by luminously considering Sartre’s creative ‘appropriation’ of Hegel and Marx. It shows how this mediation, as well as Sartre’s response to Heidegger’s criticism of humanism, reveals a striking proximity to Wittgenstein’s theme of the forms of life.”
— Jean-François Kervegan, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
"Renders accessible what is complicated and opens a window into the mind of a brilliant man. Highly recommended."
— Choice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
1 Spontaneity and Inertia
1. The Background: The Form of the “I”
2. “I” and “We,” Singular and Plural
3. “I,” “You,” and the “Other”: Dialectical Thought
4. Being Together: “We”
5. Alienation in Inertia
6. Reciprocity in Spontaneity and Reciprocity as Antagonism
2 Spontaneity’s Limits
1. Tragic Counter-Finality
2. Practical Identities, Singular and General: Differing Conceptions of “We”
3. Spontaneity within the Revolt of the Oppressed: The Spontaneous “We”
4. Actualized Freedom’s Fragility in the Myths of Self-Authorization
5. Violence in the Enforcement of Norms
3 Ethics in Politics
1. Rules, Groups, and Functionalist Ethics
2. Active, Passive, or Neither?
3. Humanism and Humanisms
4. System versus Subjective Life
5. Self-Knowledge in the System
6. Ethos
7. Ethos, Inequality, History
8. What Follows Marxism?
9. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Colonialism, Racism
10. Morals on Holiday
11. Power, Practice, Practico-Inert
Dénouement
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE