Abstract

A contribution to the rapidly growing literature on the development of Sartre's thought, this volume is primarily devoted to interpretation and critique of Sartre's evolution from abstract individualist to social philosopher. Challenging Raymond Aron's claim that Sartre's Critique de la raison dialectique offers nothing of significance to sociologists, Stack attempts to show that CRD, while seriously flawed, is both philosophically and sociologically "a valuable study". Sartre achieves a "sociology," Stack argues, not by jettisoning his early existential phenomenology but rather by resituating his "abstract" analysis of free consciousness in L'être et le néant in a concrete, practical social field, historically dominated by economic scarcity.