Continental Philosophy

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2 Responses to “Sartre”

1. Scu Says:
   June 22nd, 2008 at 6:53 pm

   What do you think accounts for Sartre’s intense popularity in american academy, and then strong reaction against Sartre (and the feeling that he was passe) and now this move towards a revitalization of Sartre?
   Or maybe I have it wrong about how Sartre has been perceived in the american academy.

2. Farhang Erfani Says:
   June 23rd, 2008 at 11:47 am

   That is a question that I often ask myself. I think that the initial popularity is not hard to understand. Sartre was popular all over the world. The advent of post-structuralism changed things and the usual – and probably correct – interpretation tells us that Sartre was passe based on this new philosophy. I don’t buy it entirely.

   Post-structuralism is mostly a French phenomenon. I think it is difficult to fully appreciate how big Sartre was in France and this new wave of philosophy avoided Sartre altogether. They did not even attempt patricide; they just left the Sartrean house altogether. You have Foucault say some nasty things about Sartrean subjectivity (and he’s got it all wrong); Derrida avoided Sartre like the plague even though he talked about pretty much anyone under the sun. Those who were influenced by him – Lacan and Levinas for instance – did not give him much credit (partly because it was assumed that everyone knows where they’re coming from).

   American post-structuralism ignored these problems and overplayed the rejection of Sartre by Foucault and Derrida.

   The revitalization, it seems to me, has its roots in 1) re-reading the text to begin with and seeing, as Nik Fox and may others have argued, that Sartre shares a great deal with the post-structuralists. 2) In Sartre’s work on race and postcolonialism, stuff that is now popular and 3) I genuinely believe that Sartre’s emphasis on freedom and liberation is a breath of French air against the heavily localized and sometimes confusing post-structuralist political philosophy.

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