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Abstract

According to philosopher Paul Woodruff, reverent awe is a feeling of being limited or dwarfed by something larger than the human, usually accompanied by feelings of respect for fellow human beings. Drawing from Jean-Paul Sartre's early philosophy, this article responds positively to the title question, showing how reverent awe is in bad faith yet is similar to anguish, and unique with respect to both. Especially remarkable in reverent awe is the feeling of connectedness to humankind. In section two, building on this section one framework of how Sartrean consciousness can be reverent, the article explores how being-in-itself (l'être-en-soi) can be an object of reverent awe.

Abstract

This article uses Karl Marx's notions of alienation and antagonism to understand human connection, defined as the interrelationship between human beings that helps transcend self-interest and fosters the sense of solidarity. The Marxian notions are revisited using the works of Amartya Sen, particularly those on identity and violence. Sen's critique of rationality is discussed, invoking his notions of sympathy, antipathy, and commitment. The article uses two texts, Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Manik Bandyopadhyay's Ekannoborti, as vantage points to understand the key concepts of Marx and Sen. It then discusses the backgrounds of the authors and the political interpretations of their work and shows how the overriding importance ascribed to a particular identity may convolute the literary motivation of an author.

Sartre's scattered commentaries and remarks on theater, published in a variety of media outlets, as well as in the most unlikely of essays (spanning philosophical texts, biographies, and literary criticism), were finally assembled late in Sartre's career and published in one volume, Un Théâtre de situations (Sartre on Theater), put together by Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka in 1973. Inevitably, a number of later or missing theatrical documents then came to light, and an updated edition of Un Théâtre de situations appeared in 1992. There still remained, however, other documents on theater which for one reason or another were not included in the later volume. Two of these documents are published interviews that Sartre gave to the Russian theater journal, Teatr, in 1956 and 1962. It is those virtually unknown interviews by Sartre on theater that we are pleased to publish here for the first time in English translation.

Abstract

Beginning with a study of need and its relationship to violence in Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason, this paper argues that need, in the midst of scarcity, can both be a catalyst for violence and a force in the service of love. It warns against an antagonistic view of need and of ethics that emerges in Sartre's Critique, drawing on Sartre's own ongoing commitments to existentialism and also on the work of Primo Levi. In particular, it warns against the danger of reducing an ethics of need to one of Manichean violence. It also introduces the concept of ‘second-person needs’, which include (but are not limited to) needs of one's own for the needs of others to be met. This concept is resonant with the idea of authentic love introduced in Sartre's earlier, unfinished Notebooks for an Ethics, with the suggestions concerning a concrete, material ethics offered in Sartre's Rome Lecture of 1964, as well as with Sartre's concept of the fused group in the Critique itself.

Alfred Betschart has claimed that the project of existential Marxism is a contradiction in terms, but this argument, even when supported by many experts and quotes from Sartre's 1975 interview, misses the point of my Boston Review article, “The Philosophy of Our Time.” I believe the important argument today is not about whether we can prove that Sartre ever became a full-fledged Marxist, but rather about the political and philosophical possibility, and importance today, of existentialist Marxism.

Abstract

Ronald Aronson praises Jean-Paul Sartre's existential Marxism in an essay in the Boston Review. I argue that existential Marxism is a case of a contradictio in adiecto. Sartre was never recognized as a Marxist by his contemporaries. He not only failed to show any interest in the question of economic exploitation, but most of the answers he gave in the Critique even contradicted Marxist theory. His expression of Marxism as the philosophy of our time seems to have rather been more an act of courtesy than the expression of deep conviction. As Sartre himself later said, Marxism and existentialism are quite separate philosophies.

Abstract

Human rights debates seem to be a little bit in a dead end: on the one hand, taken for granted is defined diffusion of human rights; on the other there seems to be in permanent confrontation two incompatible positions, each of them suggesting the other side is in breach of the rules. One is the position that emphasizes the societal dimension of rights; on the other camp, we find those striving for what may be seen as a civic liberty interpretation This article shows that both positions miss a crucial challenge: both human rights theory and practice must be refocused and consider human rights as part of the process of society building, maintenance, and change.

Abstract

The debate on precarization in Germany is, on the one hand, based on the French discussion, it is, on the other hand, oriented toward German models of discourse, which leads to different focuses and objectives. Even if in German contexts the poverty situation and unqualified workers are the main topics of discussion, the French debate on precarization with or following Pierre Bourdieu, Robert Castel, and Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello focuses on precarization as a restructuring of labor relations. In this respect, a change of vectors is taking place here, which sets different priorities. Differences in the classifications result from the different “theoretical localizations,” which are investigated based on the German-French understanding of sociology and are concretized in relation to the problem of precarization.

Abstract

Discrimination against women and other vulnerable groups prevailed throughout the twentieth century; it persists today. This historical case study analyzes the life and times of “Typhoid Mary,” an unmarried, Irish Catholic, immigrant woman who was persecuted as an intransigent carrier of a deadly infectious disease. Being a Mexican immigrant, Muslim, or unattractive woman could condemn someone for similar mistreatment today. The failure to overcome prejudice impedes the effectiveness of public health to protect infected patients and susceptible persons from harm and to interrupt disease transmission in communities; it jeopardizes the realization of social quality. Social justice, solidarity, equal valuation, and human dignity will be achieved through resistance to the human rights violations of the Trump administration and the resilience of strong women like Mary Mallon.

Abstract

In this article, we explore Beauvoir's account of what she claims is an alienated relation to our ageing bodies. This body can inhibit an active engagement with the world, which marks our humanity. Her claims rest on the binary between the body-for-itself and the body-in-itself. She shares this binary with Sartre, but a perceptive phenomenology of the affective body can also be found, which works against this binary and allows her thought to be brought into conversation with Levinas. For Levinas, the susceptibility of the body is constitutive of our subjectivity, rather than a source of alienation. If we develop Beauvoir's thought in the direction of his, an ontological structure is suggested, distinct from Sartre – a structure which makes room for her pervasive attention to affectivity.