How to Read Sartre

How to Read Sartre

“I can want only the freedom of others.” – Jean-Paul Sartre. Jean-Paul Sartre is best known as the preeminent philosopher of individual freedom. He is the one who told us that we are totally free. Robert Bernasconi shows how the early existentialist Sartre became, in stages, the political champion of the oppressed. Extracts are drawn from the full range of Sartre’s writings: the novel “Nausea”, the drama “No Exit”, the political essay “Communists and Peace”, as well as the major philosophical texts, “Being and Nothingness”, and “Critique of Dialectical Reason.” They show why of all major twentieth century philosophers Sartre was the one who most easily passed beyond the confines of the academy to a general readership.

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Robert Bernasconi – Granta Books