First published in 1945, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s monumental _Phénoménologie de la perception _signalled the arrival of a major new philosophical and intellectual voice in post-war Europe. Breaking with the prevailing picture of existentialism and phenomenology at the time, it has become one of the landmark works of twentieth-century thought. This new translation, the first for over fifty years, makes this classic work of philosophy available to a new generation of readers. _Phenomenology of Perception _stands in the great phenomenological tradition of (...) Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. Yet Merleau-Ponty’s contribution is decisive, as he brings this tradition and other philosophical predecessors, particularly Descartes and Kant, to confront a neglected dimension of our experience: the lived body and the phenomenal world. Charting a bold course between the reductionism of science on the one hand and "intellectualism" on the other, Merleau-Ponty argues that we should regard the body not as a mere biological or physical unit, but as the body which structures one’s situation and experience within the world. Merleau-Ponty enriches his classic work with engaging studies of famous cases in the history of psychology and neurology as well as phenomena that continue to draw our attention, such as phantom limb syndrome, synaesthesia, and hallucination. This new translation includes many helpful features such as the reintroduction of Merleau-Ponty’s discursive Table of Contents as subtitles into the body of the text, a comprehensive Translator’s Introduction to its main themes, essential notes explaining key terms of translation, an extensive Index, and an important updating of Merleau-Ponty’s references to now available English translations. Also included is a new foreword by Taylor Carman and an introduction to Merleau-Ponty_ _by Claude Lefort. Translated by Donald A. Landes. (shrink)

How does literature illuminate the way we live? Maurice Natanson, a prominent champion of phenomenology, draws upon this method's unique power to show how fiction can highlight aspects of experience that are normally left unexamined. By exploring the structure of the everyday world, Natanson reveals the "uncanny" that lies at the core of the ordinary. Phenomenology--which involves the questioning of that which we usually take for granted--is for Natanson the essence of philosophy. Drawing upon his philosophical predecessors Edmund Husserl, (...) Alfred Schutz, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Natanson paves his own way with stories and examples that themselves bear witness to how phenomenology occurs in literature. In considering such works as Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, and Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Natanson shows how literature opens us to the domain of possibility and how metaphor offers philosophical power when we think about freedom and change. This book, written by one of the twentieth century's leading phenomenologists, will interest students in philosophy and in literature. They will value the work particularly for its clarification of concepts and terms that frequently emerge in the contemporary intellectual climate. (shrink)

This is a basic work for students specializing in philosophy & for any scholar studying the works of Sartre.

At the time of his death in May 1961, Maurice Merleau-Ponty held the chair of Philosophy at the College de France. Together with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, he was cofounder of the successful and influential review Les Temps Modernes. However, after Merleau-Ponty's two studies of Marxist theory and practice (Humanisme et Terreur and Les Aventures de la Dialectique), he alienated both orthodox Marxists and "mandarins of the left" such as Sartre and de Beauvoir. Perhaps his (...) most lasting contribution to the interpretation of human existence was his formulation of a positive philosophical approach to psychology the foundations of which were clearly outlined in The Structure of Behavior and later more fully developed in Phenomenology of Perception. (shrink)

Phenomenology of Civilization explores the philosophy of Edmund Husserl and R.G. Collingwood, two of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. Husserl founded phenomenology, which has had a direct effect on contemporary philosophy, and Collingwood, though less formally known, is still one of the most commonly read twentieth century philosophers. Maurice Eisenstein examines their work in relation to recent philosophy, particularly focusing on existentialism, Heideggerian phenomenology, and postmodernism. He brings these two philosophers together because they were contemporaries of (...) each other, addressed the same audience, and, therefore, had similar issues to influence them. This discussion of Husserl and Collingwood's work moves beyond Husserl's phenomenology, and Collingwood's typical association with Hegel or Kant, to a new understanding of their ideas through an association with each other in regard to contemporary philosophy and political theory. Eisenstein's discoveries place Husserl and Collingwood into the main Western liberal political tradition with Dewey and James, rather than the more radical critique of that tradition with Sartre and Heidegger. (shrink)

Maurice Blanchot, the eminent literary and cultural critic, has had a vast influence on contemporary French writers—among them Jean Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida. From the 1930s through the present day, his writings have been shaping the international literary consciousness. The Space of Literature , first published in France in 1955, is central to the development of Blanchot's thought. In it he reflects on literature and the unique demand it makes upon our attention. Thus he explores the process (...) of reading as well as the nature of artistic creativity, all the while considering the relation of the literary work to time, to history, and to death. This book consists not so much in the application of a critical method or the demonstration of a theory of literature as in a patiently deliberate meditation upon the literary experience, informed most notably by studies of Mallarme;, Kafka, Rilke, and Hölderlin. Blanchot's discussions of those writers are among the finest in any language. (shrink)

Text in English and French with added t.p. in French: La quintessence de Sartre. "The essays published in this volume were originally delivered as lectures... in 1968 on the C.B.C. public affairs program "Ideas," under the title Marxism and Existentialism." (p. [9]).

La place généreusement accordée par Sartre dans la Critique de la Raison Dialectique à l'analyse de phénomènes économiques invitait d'elle-même à une réflexion neuve sur les relations de la pensée économique et de la philosophie existentielle. A cause toutefois de l'intérêt constant suscité par des polémiques vieilles déjà d'un quart de siècle sur les rapports de l'existentialisme et du marxisme, il semble que cette question ait été laissée dans l'ombre: on s'est beaucoup plus souvent inquiété, — Raymond Aron n'étant (...) ici qu'un témoin particulièrement éloquent — de savoir si le marxisme de Sartre est ou n'est pas un « marxisme imaginaire » que de savoir quelle est au juste la portée philosophique de ces longues discussions de l'activité économique qui font l'objet d'une part importante de la Critique. Pourtant à réfléchir sur une telle question, on peut aisément reconnaître dans la problématique même de la science économique un terrain d'élection pour le développement de la philosophie sartrienne, —osons dire plus, on peut y découvrir une voie permettant de retrouver et d'éclairer quelques-unes de ses articulations les plus décisives. (shrink)

‘No matter how long I may look at an image, I shall never find anything in it but what I put there. It is in this fact that we find the distinction between an image and a perception.' - Jean-Paul Sartre L’Imagination was published in 1936 when Jean-Paul Sartre was thirty years old. Long out of print, this is the first English translation in many years. The Imagination is Sartre’s first full philosophical work, presenting some of the (...) basic arguments concerning phenomenology, consciousness and intentionality that were to later appear in his master works and be so influential in the course of twentieth-century philosophy. Sartre begins by criticising philosophical theories of the imagination, particularly those of Descartes, Leibniz and Hume, before establishing his central thesis. Imagination does not involve the perception of ‘mental images’ in any literal sense, Sartre argues, yet reveals some of the fundamental capacities of consciousness. He then reviews psychological theories of the imagination, including a fascinating discussion of the work of Henri Bergson. Sartre argues that the ‘classical conception’ is fundamentally flawed because it begins by conceiving of the imagination as being like perception and then seeks, in vain, to re-establish the difference between the two. Sartre concludes with an important chapter on Husserl’s theory of the imagination which, despite sharing the flaws of earlier approaches, signals a new phenomenological way forward in understanding the imagination. The Imagination is essential reading for anyone interested in the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, phenomenology, and the history of twentieth-century philosophy. This new translation includes a helpful historical and philosophical introduction by Kenneth Williford and David Rudrauf. Also included is Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s important review of L’Imagination upon its publication in French in 1936. Translated by Kenneth Williford and David Rudrauf. (shrink)

My friendship with Martin Buber begins -- The cost of my commitment -- On the suspension of the ethical -- Martin Buber's first visit to America -- Sartre, Heidegger, Jung, and Scholem -- The life of dialogue: letters following Buber's first visit -- Personal direction: letters, 1954-1957 -- The Washington School of Psychiatry and the Buber-Rogers dialogue -- Postscript to I and thou: letters following Buber's second visit -- Buber's last visit to America -- Interrogations and responses: letters following (...) Buber's last visit -- Our stay in Jerusalem and Buber's last years -- Epilogue: memorial address. (shrink)

Fifteen years ago, Dorion Cairns concluded an article on phenome nology with a cautious appraisal of its influence in America. "Thus far," he wrote, "it continues to be an exotic." The situation today has changed: translations of the writings of Husserl, Heidegger, Marcel, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty have appeared, and commentaries on these and related thinkers are not uncommon. Moreover, discussion of phenomenological problems is increasingly becoming part of the American (if not the British) philosophical scene. Phenomenology is in danger (...) of domestication! Signs of its accommodation include a willingness to pay tribute to HusserI's Logical Investigations by those who find relatively little to interest them in his later work, a location of what are taken to be common themes and underlying convergences of emphasis in Continental phenomenology and Anglo-American philosophy of the more nearly Wittgensteinian and Austinian varieties, and a growing impatience (shared by some phenomenologists) with expositions, explications, and interpretations of Husserl's work at the expense of original applications of phenomenology. Most bluntly put, the attitude is: Don't talk about it; do it! It would seem that we have arrived at a point where introductions to phenomenology are of doubt ful value, if not superfluous. The present collection of essays is based on different assumptions and points to an alternative conception of the role of both methodology and originality in phenomenological work. (shrink)

Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre counted among his friends and associates some of the most esteemed intellectuals, writers, and artists of the twentieth century. In Portraits, Sartre collected his impressions and accounts of many of his notable acquaintances, in addition to some of his most important writings on art and literature during the early 1950s. Portraits includes Sartre's preface to Nathalie Sarraute's Portrait of a Man Unknown and his homages to André Gide, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The (...) essay on Merleau-Ponty casts considerable light on the recent history of French philosophy, particularly with regard to dominant post-war political conceptions. Featured as well are lengthy studies of Sartre's close friend Paul Nizan and of the young André Gorz that are no less revealing, as well as Sartre's "Reply to Albert Camus," which sealed the ideological and personal break between the two writers on its publication in 1952. Alongside these major writings are fascinating articles on Tintoretto and a number of contemporary artists, including Giacometti and Masson. Finally, Portraits concludes with two travelogue-style accounts of Sartre's time in Italy. This new translation by Chris Turner presents these essays in their complete form as originally intended by Sartre when he first published Situations IV in France and is thus essential reading for anyone interested in the artistic and intellectual history of the time. (shrink)

_Critical Essays _ contains essays on literature and philosophy from a highly formative period of French philosopher and leading existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre’s life, the years between 1938 and 1946. This period is particularly interesting because it is before Sartre published the magnum opus that would solidify his name as a philosopher, _Being and Nothingness_. Instead, during this time Sartre was emerging as one of France’s most promising young novelists and playwrights—he had already published _Nausea, The Age of (...) Reason, The Flies, _and_ No Exit_. Not content, however, he was meanwhile consciously attempting to revive the form of the essay via detailed examinations of writers who were to become central to European cultural life in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Collected here are Sartre’s experiments in reimagining the idea and structure of the essay. Among the distinguished writers he analyzes are Francis Ponge, Georges Bataille, Vladimir Nabokov, Maurice Blanchot, and, of course, Albert Camus, whose novel _The Stranger _Sartre endeavours to explain in these pages. _Critical Essays _ also contains a famous attack on the Catholic novelist François Mauriac, studies of the great American literary iconoclasts Faulkner and Dos Passos, and brief but insightful essays on aspects of the philosophical writings of Husserl and Descartes. This new translation by Chris Turner reinvigorates the original skill and voice of Sartre’s work and will be essential reading for fans of Sartre and the many writers and works he explores. “For my generation he has always been one of the great intellectual heroes of the twentieth century, a man whose insight and intellectual gifts were at the service of nearly every progressive cause of our time.”—Edward Said. (shrink)

Pour faire suite au premier volume, qui couvrait les années 1935 à 1951, Parcours deux rassemble les textes difficilement accessibles de Merleau-Ponty élaborés durant les dix dernières années de sa vie. Y figurent notamment les lettres de la rupture avec Sartre, des écrits politiques, philosophiques (autour de Husserl et Malebranche), ou sur la psychanalyse, ou encore un entretien avec Madeleine Chapsal. Le mérite de cet ensemble est de donner à comprendre l'unité d'une pensée saisie sur le vif à travers (...) la diversité d'écrits théoriques brefs ou de textes d'intervention. (shrink)

A travers cette série d'entretiens et d'articles qui courent de la fin de la guerre au milieu des Trente Glorieuses, on retrouve le Merleau-Ponty d'Humanisme et Terreur et des Aventures de la dialectique, un philosophe engagé dans les questions politiques et sociales de son temps. Après la Libération, dans une France qui entre de plain-pied dans la modernité, prise dans la tourmente de la Guerre froide qui voit s'affronter modèle américain et modèle soviétique, comment trouver une voie nouvelle pour la (...) démocratie sans renoncer aux espoirs d'avant-guerre? Comment penser la question de l'engagement et le rôle du philosophe dans une société en pleine mutation? A la notion d'adversaire, qui suppose un conflit, Merleau-Ponty substitue celle d'adversité, inspirée de l'expérience de l'artiste qui, face à la résistance du matériau, ne saurait cependant renoncer à l'élaboration de l'oeuvre. Ainsi, le philosophe engagé s'exerce-t-il en toute chose, en tout événement, à rechercher la voie d'un " progrès de conscience ". Au fil des conversations, il témoigne de l'expérience des Temps modernes et de son compagnonnage avec Sartre, de la genèse de la phénoménologie, de sa passion pour la littérature et les arts, mais aussi de ses réflexions sur la psychanalyse ou de son regard sur l'Afrique et Madagascar à la veille de l'indépendance. (shrink)

Ancien professeur d'histoire de la philosophie à la Sorbonne, Maurice de Gandillac a traversé le siècle, depuis son Périgord natal jusqu'à Paris où il a côtoyé Sartre, Maurras, Maritain, Jankélévitch, Raymond Aron, Simone Weil, Claudel.

Ce premier volume, qui court des premiers écrits jusqu'en 1951, réunit dans un ordre chronologique l'ensemble des textes difficilement accessibles de Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Ainsi rassemblés, ils montrent la richesse d'une pensée qui s'exerce sur des objets aussi différents que la psychologie, la littérature, l'engagement politique ou la philosophie de l'existence. Y figurent notamment une étude sur les relations avec autrui chez l'enfant, une analyse de L'Homme du ressentiment de Max Scheler, un débat autour du gaullisme, des réflexions sur l'esprit (...) européen, des articles à propos d'ouvrages de Jean-Paul Sartre, Franz Kafka, ou Emmanuel Lévinas. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

In April 1994, two as-yet-unreleased letters by Sartre and one by Merleau-Ponty were published in the "Magazine Littéraire". Their publication sparked new interpretative hypotheses on the political and philosophical motivations behind the break of the relationship of mutual esteem, friendship, and fruitful intellectual collaboration between Merleau-Ponty and Sartre. The bright tone of their personal contrasts testified the profound theoretical differences between the two thinkers, both at philosophical level and political praxis. This volume covers the period between the launch (...) of the magazine "Les Temps Moderns" in 1945 and Sartre's decision to no longer accept Merleau-Ponty's contributions in 1953, offering a detailed analysis of the respective position of the two philosophers and of an irreducible intellectual distance between them. (shrink)

Named one of the Ten Best Books of 2016 by the New York Times, a spirited account of a major intellectual movement of the twentieth century and the revolutionary thinkers who came to shape it, by the best-selling author of How to Live Sarah Bakewell. Paris, 1933: three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves (...) to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called Phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!" It was this simple phrase that would ignite a movement, inspiring Sartre to integrate Phenomenology into his own French, humanistic sensibility, thereby creating an entirely new philosophical approach inspired by themes of radical freedom, authentic being, and political activism. This movement would sweep through the jazz clubs and cafés of the Left Bank before making its way across the world as Existentialism. Featuring not only philosophers, but also playwrights, anthropologists, convicts, and revolutionaries, At the Existentialist Café follows the existentialists' story, from the first rebellious spark through the Second World War, to its role in postwar liberation movements such as anti-colonialism, feminism, and gay rights. Interweaving biography and philosophy, it is the epic account of passionate encounters--fights, love affairs, mentorships, rebellions, and long partnerships--and a vital investigation into what the existentialists have to offer us today, at a moment when we are once again confronting the major questions of freedom, global responsibility, and human authenticity in a fractious and technology-driven world. (shrink)

"[This book is] account of one of the twentieth centurys major intellectual movements and the revolutionary thinkers who came to shape it"--Amazon.com.