Abstract

Hartmann gives a careful, succinct, clear exposition, and, integral to it, a criticism of the main systematic outlines of Sartre's L'être et le néant. He interprets Sartre as attempting to use a phenomenological base for an "objective" ontology. He suggests that Sartre's highly formal dialectic, unlike its Hegelian model, is external to its "content" of concrete existential insights. The comparisons of the en-soi and pour-soi with Hegel's Sein, Dasein, Fürsichsein, and the more developed Begriff and Geist go far to challenge the adequacy and richness of Sartre's determinations. The author discusses Husserl's subject-oriented epistemology, and refers to the Heideggerian contributions to Sartre's phenomenological base. A first rate job of opening up serious questioning in the area.--J. M.