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This essay raises some questions concerning the method and conceptual structure of Sartre's Being and Nothingness. Three substantially different types of interpretation of this text have been put forward. One of the main issues separating the three interpretative strategies is the relationship that they each establish between Sartre's three fundamental concepts: consciousness, nothingness and freedom—each of which can be seen to play the fundamental role in the argument. It therefore seems crucial for any interpretation of Being and Nothingness to determine the exact relationship between these terms. However, Being and Nothingness presents a hybrid argument that interweaves metaphysical deduction, phenomenological description and moral-existential argument in a way that makes it almost impossible to decide which of the strands of the argument should be seen to dominate the others. It is therefore perhaps equally difficult to ascertain which of its principal concepts has the most central place in the system. One could therefore argue that a reading of Being and Nothingness should aim to account for (rather than dismiss) the hybridity of the argument and then seek to assign relative functions to its different strands. The following remarks are intended as a step in that direction.

In this article I wish to discuss the problem of self-knowledge in Sartre’s early philosophy with regard to its consequences within the field of ethics. I shall not try to cover all aspects of self-knowledge in Being and Nothingness since all of the major doctrines expounded in that work concerning consciousness, identity, freedom and knowledge have implications for self-knowledge. I would be content if I could draw attention to aspects of Sartre’s thought which are interestingly different from other moral philosophies as well as from certain empirical conclusions it would seem natural to draw from Sartre’s own ontology in the sphere of moral psychology.

Bernard-Henri Lévy, Le Siècle de Sartre, Paris: Grasset, 2000, 663 pp. 148 FF. ISBN 2- 246-59221-6 Review by Keith Reader

Lendemains: ‘Cinquante ans après Le Deuxième Sexe: Beauvoir en débats’ 24. Jahrgang, 1999, 94. ISBN 3-86057-964-9 Review by Reidar Due

James Giles, ed., French Existentialism; Consciousness, Ethics and Relations with Others, Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi, 1999, 219 pp. £19.50 Review by Natascha H. Lancaster