First published in Great Britain in 1968, this is an authoritative introduction to the life of one of the greatest intellectual figures of the twentieth century. Prompted by the belief that none of the parts of Sartre’s work is fully intelligible apart from the whole, this ambitious volume attempts to provide a synoptic view of Sartre’s oeuvre in its entirety. The editor, Robert Denoon Cumming, has organised the work around certain concepts which are central to Sartrian thought, notably Consciousness in (...) its relation to Being, to ‘the Other’, to Art, Literature, History and Society. The reader can see for himself how Sartre’s aesthetic and highly individual existentialism of _La Nausée_ is systematically transformed into the neo-Marxist sociological theory of his _Critique de la Raison dialectique_. By a skilful process of editing, Professor Cumming has provided an authoritative introduction to the life of one of the greatest intellectual figures of modern times. (shrink)

"Husserl had captured me, I saw everything in terms of the perspectives of his philosophy," wrote Sartre of his conversion to Husserl's phenomenology. In the present volume Cumming analyzes Sartre's transformation of Husserl's phenomenological method into a rudimentary dialectic. Cumming thus provides an introduction to phenomenology itself, and more generally to the ways in which debts to previous philosophies can be refurbished in later philosophies. He shows how phenomenology, which for Husserl was a theory of knowledge in which "we can (...) always presume sincerity," becomes for Sartre a theory in which imagination, self-deception, and role playing are crucial. Cumming also shows that conversion is not merely a personal predisposition of Sartre's--further manifest in his later conversions to Heidegger and to a version of Marxism. Conversion is also philosophical preoccupation, illustrated by the "conversion to the imaginary" whereby Sartre explains how he himself, as well as Genet and Flaubert, became writers. Finally, Cumming details how Husserl's phenomenological method contributed both to the shaping of Sartre's style as a literary writer and to his theory of style. (shrink)

In this final volume of Robert Denoon Cumming's four-volume history of the phenomenological movement, Cumming examines the bearing of Heidegger's philosophy on his original commitment to Nazism and on his later inability to face up to the implication of that allegiance. Cumming continues his focus, as in previous volumes, on Heidegger's connection with other philosophers. Here, Cumming looks first at Heidegger's relation to Karl Jaspers, an old friend on whom Heidegger turned his back when Hitler consolidated power, and who discredited (...) Heidegger in the denazification that followed World War II. The issues at stake are not merely personal, Cumming argues, but regard the philosophical relevance of the personal. After the war Heidegger disavowed Sartre, a move related to Heidegger's renunciation of his association with the phenomenological movement at large, and one that illustrates the dynamics of the history Cumming himself has completed. Serving as convincing punctuation for this remarkable series, this book demonstrates the importance of the history of philosophy in coming to grips with the proclaimed end of philosophy. (shrink)

In the third volume of his history of the phenomenological movement, Robert Denoon Cumming argues that their differences involve differences in method; whereas Husserl follows a "method of clarification," with which he eliminates ...

"Philosophy as... a rigorous science... the dream is over," Edward Husserl once declared. Heidegger, Derrida, and Rorty have propounded versions of "the end of philosophy." Cumming argues that what would count as philosophy's coming to an end can only be determined with some attention to disruptions which have previously punctuated the history of philosophy. He arrives at categories for interpreting what is at issue in such disruptions by analyzing Heidegger's and Husserl's break with each other, Heidegger's break with Sartre, and (...) Merleau-Ponty's break with Sartre. In this analysis Cumming deals with how a philosophy can be vulgarized, with problems of periodization, with how the history of philosophy can be disinguished as a philosophical discipline from intellectual history. Cumming also elaborates an analogy between a philosophical method and style. (shrink)

"Husserl had captured me, I saw everything in terms of the perspectives of his philosophy," wrote Sartre of his conversion to Husserl's phenomenology. In the present volume Cumming analyzes Sartre's transformation of Husserl's phenomenological method into a rudimentary dialectic. Cumming thus provides an introduction to phenomenology itself, and more generally to the ways in which debts to previous philosophies can be refurbished in later philosophies. He shows how phenomenology, which for Husserl was a theory of knowledge in which "we can (...) always presume sincerity," becomes for Sartre a theory in which imagination, self-deception, and role playing are crucial. Cumming also shows that conversion is not merely a personal predisposition of Sartre's—further manifest in his later conversions to Heidegger and to a version of Marxism. Conversion is also philosophical preoccupation, illustrated by the "conversion to the imaginary" whereby Sartre explains how he himself, as well as Genet and Flaubert, became writers. Finally, Cumming details how Husserl's phenomenological method contributed both to the shaping of Sartre's style as a literary writer and to his theory of style. (shrink)

For the time being, however, we are disoriented by his derivativeness. His allusions extend back through the history of philosophy and rhetoric. Thus topique not only may imply "topological," but it may also suggest that "places allude to topoi. Derrida goes on to refer to the use of trace by Nietzsche, Freud, Levinas. Elsewhere he refers to Plotinus, Condillac, Blanchot and Heidegger. Derrida is notorious for his discounting of univocal usage, and one suspects that the difficulty of tracing "trace" to (...) any single predecessor may have guided him to his choice of this term. (shrink)

First published in Great Britain in 1968, this is an authoritative introduction to the life of one of the greatest intellectual figures of the twentieth century. Prompted by the belief that none of the parts of Sartre’s work is fully intelligible apart from the whole , this ambitious volume attempts to provide a synoptic view of Sartre’s oeuvre in its entirety. The editor, Robert Denoon Cumming, has organised the work around certain concepts which are central to Sartrian thought, notably Consciousness (...) in its relation to Being, to ‘the Other’, to Art, Literature, History and Society. The reader can see for himself how Sartre’s aesthetic and highly individual existentialism of La Nausée is systematically transformed into the neo-Marxist sociological theory of his Critique de la Raison dialectique . By a skilful process of editing, Professor Cumming has provided an authoritative introduction to the life of one of the greatest intellectual figures of modern times. (shrink)