This article analyzes articles and interviews published in Sartre on Theater and focuses on five plays ( Bariona , The Flies , No Exit and The Condemned of Altona ) in order to arrive at a coherent conception of Sartre's theater. Sartre views the stage as “belonging to a different imaginary realm“ in which the characters' language, gestures and the props function in a synecdochical relationship in respect to the spectators. It is their task to grasp these “signs“ (...) and bundle them into a coherent and meaningful whole. Because Sartre views the theater as an imaginary realm, he can free himself from the strictures of his philosophy: 1) the irreversibility of time; 2) the fact that life does not give us a second chance; and 3) that death means that our life falls into the public domain. This freedom allows Sartre to deal with temporality in a novel way and to deal with “life after death“ as life simply continued. Conversely, he can scramble temporality for psychological reasons in order to bring out deep rooted personal conflicts, as he does in The Condemned of Altona. (shrink)

At a time when a "return to Sartre" is being heralded in France and elsewhere in preparation for the celebration of the centennial of his birth, it seems appropriate to ponder the nature and tenor of this renewal. To which aspects of Sartre's work are we returning as the centennial approaches, and are we doing so with fresh eyes or with the same critical prejudices that have obscured our appreciation of this work in the past? If one looks for answers (...) to Bernard-Henri Lévy (aka BHL), the principal instigator of this current renewal, with specific regard to the genre that interests us in these pages—the theater—one is going to be sorely disappointed. For while Lévy considers Sartre "the first [writer]—the only [writer]—to know how to split himself equally well between being a theoretician and an accomplished storyteller," he lavishes this praise solely on the theory and practice of Sartre's novels: "The concept of engagement is not a political concept stressing the social duties of the writer; it is a philosophical concept highlighting the metaphysical powers of language. … Sartre … has never really written a novel with a [totalizing] thesis or message" (BHL 85, 86). (shrink)

Neither the apparently cold-blooded murder of a complete stranger, the central event in The Stranger, nor Hugo's murder of Hoederer in Dirty Hands—a political assassination or crime of passion, depending on how one views it—can be considered unusual acts, in literature or in life. The topic of murder has itself created an extremely popular genre: the detective novel or "whodunit," which has become a huge industry and has aficionados everywhere, Sartre being one. In French theater, the topic of political (...) assassination has resulted in such famous plays as de Musset's Lorenzaccio (1834), which ostensibly deals with Florence in the sixteenth century and the tyrannical Alexandre de Médicis, who is assassinated by his young cousin, but is in fact "a limpid transposition of the failed revolution of July 1830." It is well known that Sartre was an admirer of Musset and Romantic theater. In 1946, Jean Cocteau, who helped with the staging of Les Mains sales (Dirty Hands), wrote L'Aigle ` deux têtes (The Two-Headed Eagle), which was inspired "by the sad life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria and her tragic death by the hand of the Franco-Italian assassin, Luigi Lucheni." Sartre himself, in Nausea, has Anny use the engraving in Michelet's Histoire de France depicting the assassination of the Duke de Guise as a perfect illustration of "privileged situations.". (shrink)

We have become estranged from the cosmic movements, according to Bataille. We are confined by the error linked to the representation of ‘the stationary earth’. We have negated the immersive immanence of the whole and made nature into a fixed world of tools and things. How then do we recognise ourselves as part of the ‘rapture of the heavens’? Bataille urges us to consider life as a solar phenomenon, the free play of solar energy on the earth. This paper argues (...) how Bataille’s cosmic vision anticipates both planetary and ecological thinking. This entails a base materialism of difference based on a radical Nietzschean and Heraclitean theory of becoming and flux. This thought is developed along Bataillean concepts such as the movement of the whole, the labyrinthine, and compound beings, ipseity, as well as the concept of a communifying movement. This materialism paired with Vladimir Vernadsky’s biosphere lays the foundation for the laws of the general economy, which also constitutes an economy inclusive of a general ecology: a tragic vision of Gaia and Dionysos. Finally, poetry is considered, as a way we might reconnect with the universe and stimulate ecological imagination. (shrink)

This overview of Sartre's theater within the context of the symposium focuses on the inherent ambiguities of his theory and practice. His plays, as committed literature, are not always successful in their pedagogical intention of changing the minds of his audiences. On the one hand, he seeks to provide universal situations with which everyone can collectively identify, and on the other he wishes to convince them of the value of freedom and confront them with problems and conflicts they must (...) resolve for themselves. These spectators then exercise that freedom by taking ideological viewpoints that are in conflict with those of the plays. Moreover, the plays are often complex and ambiguous, and set far from a contemporary French context, thus demanding a certain sophistication of interpretation. Sartre's skill as a dramatist is to write plays that engage the public in debates about the key questions of the day, even though, because of his open approach, he does not always succeed in changing their minds. (shrink)

Sartre's play Les Mouches ( The Flies ), first performed in 1943 under German occupation, has long been controversial. While intended to encourage resistance against the Nazis, its approval by the censor indicates that the regime did not recognize the play as a threat. Further, its apparently violent and solitary themes have been read as irresponsible or apolitical. For these reasons, the play has been characterized as ambiguous or worse. Sartre himself later saw it as overemphasizing individual autonomy, and in (...) the view of one critic, it conveys an “existentialist fascism.” In response to this reading, it is necessary to attend to the elements of the play that already emphasize duty to society. From this perspective, the play can be seen as anticipating the concern with collective responsibility usually associated with the later Sartre of the 1960s. More than this, the play's apparent “ambiguity” can be found to exemplify a didacticism that is much more complex than sometimes attributed to Sartre. It is not only an exhortation about ethical responsibility, but also a performance of the difficulties attendant to that duty. (shrink)

Sartre’s scattered commentaries and remarks on theater, published in a variety of media outlets, as well as in the most unlikely of essays, were finally assembled late in Sartre’s career and published in one volume, Un Théâtre de situations, put together by Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka in 1973. Inevitably, a number of later or missing theatrical documents then came to light, and an updated edition of Un Théâtre de situations appeared in 1992. There still remained, however, other documents (...) on theater which for one reason or another were not included in the later volume. Two of these documents are published interviews that Sartre gave to the Russian theater journal, Teatr, in 1956 and 1962. It is those virtually unknown interviews by Sartre on theater that we are pleased to publish here for the first time in English translation. (shrink)

My article focuses on Le Théâtre existentialiste by Simone de Beauvoir, recently translated and published in the volume of the Beauvoir Series on her literary writings. The first part introduces the original sound recording of this text and the circumstances behind its possible production in New York City in 1947 and my discovery of it at Wellesley College in 1996. The second part analyzes the divisions of Beauvoir's remarks as she presents Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and their principal plays from (...) the period of the Occupation: The Flies, No Exit, and Caligula. The third part then evaluates certain of Beauvoir's key concepts in terms of how they were able to define adequately the substance of existentialist theater for a postwar American audience and whether they remain valid for a more contemporary theatrical public some six decades later. (shrink)

Because Sartre's theatre is one of representation and authenticity, plays like The Victors offer Sartrean philosophical explorations of subjects pushed to the limits of existence by torture and oppressive social edicts. It is in extreme situations that a subject most clearly exercises or fails to exercise his freedom and therefore his authenticity. But Sartre's interest in a complete explication of this process wanes before he fully outlines his project of self formation, which leaves the present paper to prove: (1) the (...) unattainability of any final or permanent authenticity, since each subject represents itself alternately in authentic and inauthentic ways and because the representations of a single subject are constantly in flux; (2) the primacy of representation as the force by which the self is formed and authenticity achieved or avoided; and (3) the criteria for the assessment of authenticity levels and how these processes come to light in plays like The Victors. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reflections on How the Theatre TeachesJonathan Levy (bio)PreambleTheatre is, famously, an imitation of an action. It presents the essence, the gist, of human experience, not a narration or recital of that experience. Therefore, any attempt to explain how the theatre works in words will be at best a translation or paraphrase. The real power of the theatre lies in our total experience of it before the mind begins to (...) turn that experience into words. Thus, when we write or speak about the theatrical experience, the best we can hope for is to fall short rather than mislead or, worse, overshadow and obliterate the original. I write what follows with that knowledge always in my mind.The QuestionMuch is said by the friends of theatres about what they might be; and not a few persons indulge the hope that the theatre may yet be made a school of morality. But my business at present is with it as it is, and as it has hitherto been. The reader will be more benefited by existing facts than sanguine anticipations, or visionary predictions.—William A. Alcott, The Young Man's Guide1It is widely assumed that the theatre, particularly theatre for children, can and should teach. It is also widely assumed that the theatre can and does do harm, real harm, especially to children. And it is universally assumed that even if the theatre does not teach, it should do no harm.I believe that these assumptions are true: that the theatre does have the power to teach, and teach profoundly, and that the theatre can and often does do profound harm. However, I do not believe that how it teaches and [End Page 20] the nature of the real harm it does have yet been satisfactorily explained. My purpose in this paper is to reopen the discussion of how theatre teaches and what the real harm it can do is. These two complementary questions seem to me to be the most compelling and elusive questions facing students of theatre for children.The ProblemThere is no shortage of theories about how the theatre teaches. For at least the past two hundred and fifty years, authors of plays for children have felt the need to justify themselves and the odd genre they had chosen to write in. Frequently, these justifications appear in the prefaces and introductions to collections of their plays. Some of these justifications are original with the plays' authors. Others are borrowed from the classical authors, for in much of history classical precedent itself was thought to be powerful argument. Still others were borrowed from defenses of the adult theatre, which arose periodically in reaction to what Jonas Barish has called "the anti-theatrical prejudice."2What all these theories have in common is their insistence that the theatre was, somehow, a tool of instruction. They argued that the theatre taught and often argued that it taught more than one thing, usually a skill and a moral. For example, Louis Jauffret, the author of La Petite Thalie and other didactic plays for children, wrote that his intention in his plays was "to exercise the memory of their students while at the same time forming their hearts to virtue and sensibilité."3But my purpose in this essay is not historical. It is to try to isolate and examine the recurrent rationales and theories about how the theatre teaches. Therefore, for the sake of clarity, I will consider those rationales and theories separately. They sometimes overlap, but again for the sake of clarity, I will describe them separately. And although my purpose is not historical, I will often cite examples from early writers. I do so for three reasons: First, because it is useful for us to know that the discussions we are having today did not begin with us; second, because many of our distinguished predecessors in the field are not known to us, even by name, and deserve to be; and, third, because so much of what our predecessors said still makes such good sense.Eleven RationalesFirst, the theatre teaches by example, which prompts emulation. "The path by precept is long," the argument runs... (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre’s early phenomenological texts reveal the complexity of his relationship to Edmund Husserl. Deeply indebted to phenomenology’s method as well as its substance, Sartre nonetheless confronted Husserl’s transcendental turn from Ideas onward. Although numerous studies have focused on Sartre’s points of contention with Husserl, drawing attention to his departure from Husserlian phenomenology, scholars have rarely examined the way in which Sartre engaged and responded to the early Husserl, particularly to his discussions of intentionality, consciousness, and self in Logical Investigations. (...) This essay focuses on Sartre’s critical response to Logical Investigations, arguing that Husserl’s understanding of these three notions shapes and informs Sartre’s own approach to them in The Transcendence of the Ego, “Intentionality: A Fundamental Idea of Husserl’s Phenomenology”, and Being and Nothingness. By carefully reading Sartre side by side with Husserl, this essay arti... (shrink)

In conclusion of his Being and Nothingness Sartre articulated the problem of freedom as a moral one, promising to write a book concerning the problem. The work was published only posthumously. As a consequence of it he was reproached by his critics either for the absence of the moral problematic in his existentialism or for that in the long run the moral problem disappears . Some of them recognized his moral vision, but only in its negative form . In contrast (...) to these views the author tries to show, that the perspective of meaning and values is the core of Sartre’s phenomenological ontology, which is the necessary background of the ultimate objective of the French philosopher: a conception of morals, which would be concrete and historical at he same time. Her argumentation is based on the passages from Being and Nothingness, as well as from Sartre’s posthumous Cahiers pour un morale . A special attention is paid to problems such as the distinction between ethical anxiety and the everyday mo_rals, the spirit of seriousness, understanding man as useless passion and also the problema_tic of the motive and sense of moral conversion, articulated by Sartre. (shrink)

Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason ranks with Being and Nothingness as a work of major philosophical significance, but it has been largely neglected. The first volume, published in 1960, was dismissed as a Marxist work at a time when structuralism was coming into vogue; the incomplete second volume has only recently been published in France. In this commentary on the first volume, Joseph S. Catalano restores the Critique to its deserved place among Sartre’s works and within philosophical discourse as a (...) whole. Sartre attempts one of the most needed tasks of our times, Catalano asserts—the delivery of history into the hands of the average person. Sartre’s concern in the Critique is with the historical significance of everyday life. Can we, he asks, as individuals or even collectively, direct the course of our history? A historical context for our lives is given to us at birth, but we sustain that context with even our most mundane actions—buying a newspaper, waiting in line, eating a meal. In looking at history, Sartre argues, reason can never separate the historical situation of the investigator from the investigation. Thus reason falls into a dialectic, always depending upon the past for guidance but always being reshaped by the present. Clearly showing the influence of Marx on Sartre’s thought, the Critique adds the historical dimension lacking in Being and Nothingness. In placing the Critique within the corpus of Sartre’s philosophical writings, Catalano argues that it represents a development rather than a break from Sartre’s existentialist phase. Catalano has organized his commentary to follow the Critique and has supplied clear examples and concrete expositions of the most difficult ideas. He explicates the dialogue between Marx and Sartre that is internal to the text, and he also discusses Sartre’s Search for Method, which is published separately from the Critique in English editions. (shrink)

Gary Zukav suggested that we consider reality what we take to be true, what we believe and that is based on our perception (1979). If we assume that this is the case, then we might try to use tangible and intangible tools to reframe our preconception. As human beings we are trying to maintain the relation between our body and soma. In the same way someone might try to understand the body–mind coupling as oneness of duality, in other words not (...) two and not one. Furthermore, we can only use our senses to fulfil what is the present, the now. The now action will lead us to a specific scenario. As history has taught us, social and technological innovations have driven human beings to often perceive themselves as the spark of industrial revolution: an ideal salvation for the most urgent issues. Then, it might be acceptable to consider the marriage between art and science as a tool to achieve a sort of soteriological reward. In the same way, if additive art is object oriented then we might be allowed to explore how the applied arts under the design dimension, as practice and research, are struggling in the search for a new spirituality. Moreover the quest for design education, combined with the analysis of post-dramatic theatre and participatory design, has raised the question of how an alternative basic design course could heighten self- and collective consciousness through an approach based on the relation of body–soma. It is noted that design education, since the initiation of Bauhaus Art School, was considered the ideal path to deliver a physical outcome that represented the balance between art, technology and science, while from a philosophical point of view we can recognise the following as a subtle suggestion on what design education should expand its search: ‘to perceive, to conceive, to image: such are indeed the three types of consciousness by which the same object can be given to us’ (Sartre 1940: 8). Tracing connections between Sartre’s idea and the blend of post-dramatic theatre with participatory design into arts education, this article will describe experiments that aim to break down design students’ preconception: a dimension where the process of fabricated realities became the main outcome, the body–soma dialogues struggling to gain the perpetual unbalance. Experiments were conducted at the micro–macro scale, in a non-tactile society, where, for most people, the practice of Buddhism is embedded in daily life. This article aims to underline how an alternative approach to design education in South East Asia could be the building blocks to develop a reflection, an open-ended dialogue on network effect and the self. (shrink)

Free Will: Art and Power on Shakespeare's Stage is a study of theatre and sovereignty that situates Shakespeare's plays in the contraflow between two absolutisms of early modern England: the aesthetic and the political. Starting from the dramatist's cringing relations with his princely patrons, Richard Wilson considers the ways in which this 'bending author' identifies freedom in failure and power in weakness by staging the endgames of a sovereignty that begs to be set free from itself. The arc of Shakespeare's (...) career becomes in this comprehensive new interpretation a sustained resistance to both the institutions of sacred kingship and literary autonomy that were emerging in his time. In a sequence of close material readings, Free Will shows how the plays instead turn command performances into celebrations of an art without sovereignty, which might 'give delight' but 'hurt not', and 'leave not a rack behind'. Free Will is a profound rereading of Shakespeare, art and power that will contribute to thinking not only about the plays, but also about aesthetics, modernity, sovereignty and violence. (shrink)

This paper argues that Jean-Paul Sartre’s discussion of violence from his Notebooks for an ethics constitutes an attempt to go beyond an instrumental view of violence. An “instrumental view of violence” essentially assumes that violent behavior is a form of pragmatic behavior whose distinguishing feature consists in the kind of means one employs for reaching one’s goals (violent behavior resorting to means that are harmful for others, whereas non-violent behavior does not). For his part, Sartre attempts to provide a stronger (...) demarcation between violent and pragmatic behaviors. First, violent behavior is, for Sartre, not necessarily characterized by the use of particular means, but by a particular manner of using means, one that involves a certain “forcing” or “straining” of the means. Second, I argue that, according to Sartre, in contrast with pragmatic behavior, violent behavior involves a modification of one’s attitude towards one’s goals. Three such modified attitudes with respect to one’s goals are detailed here, namely the non-productive attitude (the assumption that the goal is not to be produced or that it is not to be produced by means that are under our control), the counter-productive attitude (the exacerbation of one’s proximate goal at the expense of more distant goals) and the anti-productive attitude (the active refusal of one’s previously set goal). Moreover, I show that Sartre’s view that violence involves the “straining” of one’s means is undergirded by his idea that violent behavior presupposes the modification of one’s attitude with respect to one’s goals. (shrink)

(Spanish) RESUMEN: La libertad absoluta postulada por Viktor Emil Frankl y Jean-Paul Sartre, la Shoah y la creencia en un dios omnipotente, bueno y justo parecen contradecirse. La pregunta por el sentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas del Holocausto (la verdadera catástrofe, el mayor crimen contra la humanidad), simbolizado por Auschwitz, y como punto de inflexión en la historia, es terriblemente dolorosa y parece no tener una respuesta filosófica ni teológica. A mi juicio, es importantísimo distinguir entre las víctimas inocentes (...) de la Shoah que perecieron y las víctimas inocentes que sufrieron un verdadero infierno y perdieron a sus seres queridos, pero que lograron sobrevivir. Ambas son víctimas, por supuesto, pero así como encontrarle un posible sentido al sufrimiento de las víctimas masacradas y gaseadas podría suponer un insulto a su sufrimiento y agonía –en especial, al horror que sufrieron los niños–, el horrible sufrimiento de los supervivientes pudo dar, tal vez, de alguna manera, un sentido a sus vidas después de la liberación de los campos de concentración y exterminio, ya fuera como voz, como protesta o como simple supervivencia. Frankl apuesta por un sentido último (que abraza el sentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas), y Sartre, aunque parezca no apostar por sentido alguno, volcó su vida al compromiso político después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y ello parece vislumbrar una minúscula pizca de sentido después de la barbarie. La filosofía de Frankl es un sí a la vida incluso en las situaciones más extremas, un grito casi nietzscheano que exalta el valor de la vida más allá de cualquier sufrimiento. Frankl, padre de la logoterapia y superviviente del Holocausto, abre una puerta a Dios al hablar de un dios inconsciente, una dimensión suprahumana y una fe incondicional, y define la religión como espiritualidad y como la búsqueda del hombre por el sentido último. Según Frankl, la libertad no se contradice con Dios, y la religión existe no a raíz de la barbarie, sino a pesar de la barbarie. El existencialismo sartreano es una filosofía de la libertad radical y de la responsabilidad. El hombre está condenado a ser libre. El ser humano es un ser en el que la existencia precede a la esencia. Somos totalmente responsables de lo que somos. Sartre afirma que la libertad humana es incompatible con Dios. En un mundo sin Dios, la moral la construyen los hombres, con sus propias decisiones y sus acciones, y la existencia y el sufrimiento de las víctimas no tienen sentido alguno. Sartre define al hombre como libertad, responsabilidad, angustia y contingencia. Frankl define al hombre como libertad, responsabilidad, espiritualidad y búsqueda de sentido. Con esta tesis me propongo entrar en la resbaladiza dimensión del dolor, la desesperación, el sentido y sinsentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas (teniendo presente los horrores de Auschwitz, que en teología y filosofía ha simbolizado desde la liberación de los campos la muerte de Dios y la muerte de la moral). Es verdad que no solo los hombres, mujeres y niños judíos fueron víctimas de la barbarie alemana, pero, como reza el mensaje de Elie Wiesel en la exposición permanente del Block 27 del Auschwitz-Birkeanu State Museum: "Not all victims were Jewish in this place, but all Jews were victims". La Shoah no es un episodio dentro de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, sino un punto de inflexión en la historia de la humanidad, y es una catástrofe que nos concierne a todos, hombres y mujeres judíos y no judíos, religiosos e irreligiosos, creyentes e increyentes, como seres libres, responsables y morales que somos –o que deberíamos ser. Muchas de las víctimas del Holocausto, en medio de la desesperación, entraron en las cámaras de gas orando, aferrándose a la esperanza de que ese final espeluznante no era un punto final. Con esta tesis no me propongo de ninguna manera responder a la eterna pregunta de si Dios existe o no, sino que propongo interpretar ese grito hacia Dios como un desesperado anhelo de esperanza. También me propongo encontrar una coherencia en las posturas de estos dos grandes pensadores para quienes la libertad y la responsabilidad definen al hombre: Frankl (quien apuesta por una dimensión suprahumana donde existe un sentido último en el que el sufrimiento de las víctimas tiene que tener algún sentido, aunque ese sentido sea completamente incomprensible en la dimensión humana) y Sartre (el existencialista ateo por excelencia, para quien el mundo, la existencia y el sufrimiento son absolutamente contingentes). En el primer capítulo expongo la logoterapia y el existencialismo sartreano: describo las tres dimensiones del hombre y las tres búsquedas de sentido propuestas por Frankl, y expongo las cinco consecuencias de "l'existence précède l'essence", centrándome en la libertad y la responsabilidad, y hablo del suicidio. El segundo capítulo está dedicado al dios inconsciente frankleano, la dimensión suprahumana, la búsqueda por el sentido último y la fe incondicional. En el tercer capítulo ilustro la libertad sin Dios sartreana, la ontología sartreana, el ateísmo sartreano y el humanismo sartreano, y hablo sobre la responsabilidad, la mauvaise foi, la contingencia, la situation y la angustia. El cuarto capítulo es necesariamente histórico (sin dejar de ser filosófico): me pregunto por la muerte de Dios después de Auschwitz, argumento y defiendo la unicidad del Holocausto (la Shoah es un punto de inflexión en la historia de la humanidad), describo las masacres antes de los campos de exterminio (Einsatzgruppen, Ordnungspolizei y Wehrmacht), el gigantesco complejo de Auschwitz (Stammlager, Auschwitz-Birkenau y Monowitz-Buna), reflexiono sobre Dios y el mal (centrándome en los niños de Auschwitz), describo los días de Frankl en Auschwitz, hablo de Dios como esperanza, de la inmortalidad y la escatología, de la crueldad de Dios, de la relación entre el cristianismo y el antisemitismo, del islam y el antisemitismo, critico el silencio de Dios, hablo de la muerte de Dios y del juicio contra Dios. En el quinto capítulo expongo la moral frankleana (una moral que atañe al hombre y no a Dios), basándome en su teoría del amor y en su única obra de teatro (Synchronisation in Binkerwald), y la moral sartreana (una moral que atañe a una humanidad sin Dios), recordando a Dostoyevsky, analizando la famosa cita de Garcin en Huis clos "L'enfer, c'est les Autres", criticando el marxismo de Sartre y cuestionando (con la mirada de Frankl y Sartre) el verso de Brecht "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral"; al final del capítulo incluyo una reflexión propia y las críticas frankleana y sartreana sobre la impunidad de los verdugos y colaboradores después del Holocausto (con el permiso de Dios). Después de la Conclusión, añado un Apéndice sobre las vidas de Frankl y Sartre, para poder entender mejor su obra. PALABRAS CLAVE: logoterapia, existencialismo sartreano, búsqueda de sentido, libertad, responsabilidad, moral, angustia, sufrimiento, supervivientes, víctimas, contingencia, espiritualidad, religión, Dios, esperanza, antisemitismo, culpa, Auschwitz, Holocausto, Shoah. /// (English) ABSTRACT: The absolute freedom defended by Viktor Emil Frankl and Jean-Paul Sartre, the Shoah and the belief in an omnipotent, benevolent and just God seem to contradict each other. The question of the meaning of the victims' suffering of the Holocaust (the true catastrophe, the biggest crime against humanity), simbolised by Auschwitz and as a turning point in History, is terribly painful and doesn't seem to have an answer. In my opinion, it's crucial to distinguish between the innocent victims of the Shoah who perished and the innocent victims who sufferend a real hell and lost their loved ones, but managed to survive. Both are victims, of course, but just as finding a possible meaning to the suffering of the massacred and gassed victims could result in an insult to their suffering and agony –especially to the horror that the children suffered– the gigantic suffering of the survivors could, maybe, somehow, give a meaning to their lives after the liberation of the concentration and extermination camps, either as a voice, as a protest, or as a simple survival. Frankl believes in an ultimate meaning (that embraces the meaning of the victims' suffering), and Sartre, even if it appears not to embrace any meaning, turned his life to political engagement after War World II, and that attitude seems to give a tiny glimpse of meaning after the barbarity. Frankl's philosophy says yes to life even in the most extreme situations, and it's a Nietzschean-like scream that exalts the value of life beyond any monstrous suffering. Frankl, the father of logotherapy and a Holocaust survivor, opens a door to God when he talks about an unconscious God, a supra-human dimension and an unconditional faith; he defines religion as spirituality and as man's search for ultimate meaning. According to Frankl, freedom is not contradictory with God, and religion exists not because of the barbarity but in spite of the barbarity. Sartrean existentialism is a philosophy of radical freedom and responsibility. Men are condemned to be free. We are beings where the existence precedes the essence. We are completely responsible of what we are. Sartre argues that human freedom is incompatible with God. In a godless world, morality is constructed by people, with their own choices and actions, and human existence and the suffering of the victims don't have any meaning. Sartre defines man as freedom, responsibility, Angst and contingency. Frankl defines man as freedom, responsibility, spirituality and search for meaning. With this dissertation I attempt to enter in the slippery dimension of the pain, despair, meaning and meaninglessness of the victims' suffering (having in mind the horrors of Auschwitz, that in theology and in philosophy have simbolised, since the liberation of the camps, the death of God and the death of morality). It's true that not only Jewish men, women and children were victims of the German barbarity, but, as Elie Wiesel's message from the permanent exhibition from Block 27 of the Auschwitz-Birkeanu State Museum reads: "Not all victims were Jewish in this place, but all Jews were victims". The Shoah is not an episode inside War World II, but a turning point in the history of humankind, and a catastrophe that embraces us all, Jewish and not not Jewish men and women, religious and not religious, believers and not believers, as the free, responsible and moral beings that we all are –or that we should be. A lot of the victims, in the midst of their desperation, entered into the gas chambers praying, holding to the hope that their horrifying end was not the ultimate end. With this dissertation I do not attempt to answer the eternal question of the existence of God, rather, I will try to interpret that scream to God as a longing for hope. I also intend to find a coherence between the thought of these two great thinkers for whom freedom and responsibilty define man: Frankl (who argues that there is a suprahuman dimension where an ultimate meaning exists and where the victims' suffering has to have a meaning, even if this meaning is completely incomprehensible in the human dimension) and Sartre (the atheist existentialist par excellence, for whom the world, human existence and suffering are absolutely contingent). In the first chapter I expose logotherapy and Sartrean existentialism: I describe the three dimensions of man, the three searches for meaning, the five consequences of "l'existence précède l'essence" and I speak about suicide. The second chapter delves into the unconscious God, the supra-human dimension, the ultimate meaning and the unconditional faith. In the third chapter I expose the freedom without God defended by Sartre, Sartre's ontology, Sartre's atheism, Sartre's humanism, and his ideas about responsibility, mauvaise foi, contingency, situation, and Angst. The fourth chapter is necessarily historical (while being philosophical too): I wonder about the death of God after Auschwitz, I argue and defend the uniqueness of the Holocaust (the Shoah is a turning point in the history of humankind), I describe the massacres before the extermination camps (Einsatzgruppen, Ordnungspolizei y Wehrmacht), the gigantic Auschwitz camp complex (Stammlager, Auschwitz-Birkenau y Monowitz-Buna), I reflect on God and evil (focusing on the children of Auschwitz), I describe Frankl's days in Auschwitz, I talk about God as hope, about immortality and escathology, I discuss God's cruelty, the relationship between Christianity and antisemitism and Islam and antisemitism, I question the silence of God, and I talk about the death of God and about the trial against God. In the fifth chapter I talk about the Franklean morality (a morality that concerns man and not God), on the basis of his love theory and his only work of theater (Synchronisation in Binkerwald), and the Sartrean morality (a morality that concerns a humanity without God), remembering Dostoyevsky, analysing Garcin's famous quote in Huis clos "L'enfer, c'est les Autres", crticizing Sartre's marxism and questioning (with Frankl's and Sartre's eyes) Brecht's verse "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral"; at the end of the chapter I include my own reflection (and Frankl and Sartre's critique) about the impunity of the executioners and collaborators after the Holocaust (with God's permission). After the Conclusion, I add an Appendix about the lives of Frankl and Sartre, which helps understanding better their work. KEYWORDS: logotherapy, existentialism, search for meaning, freedom, responsibility, morality, Angst, suffering, survivors, victims, contingency, spirituality, religion, God, hope, antisemitism, guilt, Auschwitz, Holocaust, Shoah. (shrink)

One final introductory thought. A great deal of the work that has been done from within the perspective of Whitehead's process metaphysics has been done with the very specific aim of showing how process thought is capable of grounding a modern reinterpretation of the notion of deity, a notion of deity that rests more easily amidst the concepts that engage the modern world than do the more traditional notions of deity. Some of the people I respect most highly in this (...) world are deeply involved in this theistic project, but that project is not, as is quite widely known, my project. I worry that the great attention paid to Whitehead's theistic readjustments has obscured Whitehead's rich availability when attention is turned toward more particularly philosophical issues. If the analyses and suggestions which follow prove to be plausible, perhaps they will encourage more research into ways that Whitehead's categories might be profitably directed upon issues and traditions out there in the wider philosophical world. But now I turn to reflections upon Whitehead, Sartre, and such notions as indeterminism and personhood. (shrink)

While many authors have theorized about the ability of the humanities to enhance business ethics education, scant empirical work exists to support this speculation. We therefore conduct a study to measure the impact of a live theatre performance on ethical reasoning. We asked students to analyze an ethically-laden historical disaster scenario both before and after attending a performance featuring related narrative themes. Our hypothesis is that attending a live performance would cause students to take a more ethical view of an (...) industrial disaster case study. Results show support for the notion that live theatre may impact individuals’ ethical decision-making as applied to a representative business case. Specifically, we found a significant difference in what parties students hold responsible, what actions students think should have been taken, and how cultural norms affect students’ perceptions of ethical obligations. We therefore suggest that live theatre may be a novel pedagogical tool in business ethics education. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre is often portrayed as a philosopher whose ethics would inevitably have subjectivist or relativist outcomes. Yet, even in Sartre’s early works there are several stances that blatantly belie this image, relying rather on an objectivist conception of value that he notably draws from Max Scheler. The aim of this paper is thus to investigate the influence of Scheler’s moral reflection on Sartre, arguing how it can represent an original and fruitful starting point to approach Sartrean ethics. To this (...) aim, we will first report on and discuss some passages from Sartre’s early works where this debt is most noticeable. Then, we will provide an overview of the Schelerean legacy, arguing how it represents for Sartre the very opening of the ethical issue addressable in phenomenological terms, avoiding the dead end of Hume’s and Kant’s more classical positions, while at the same time being consistent with other peculiar themes of Sartrean philosophy, namely existence and historicity. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relevance and the conceptual role, within Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, of a fleeting impression of shame that reverts the threat of solipsism looming over any project of transcendental philosophy. In reading Sartre’s masterpiece, I underscore two methodological points that tend to be bypassed in standard interpretations and lengthy discussions of the book. On the one hand, I safeguard the strictly descriptive core of Sartre’s presentation of the impression of shame and what it reveals about the formal (...) structures of the (pre-reflective) cogito, as Sartre understands it. On the other hand, my analysis explores the different phases of the (conceptual) narrative of the For-Itself, which Sartre inherits from the Idealist tradition in modern philosophy and applies to the concreteness of a phenomenological description of the main stages of one’s experience of the outside world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:FEYERABEND'S EPISTEMOLOGY AND BRECHTS THEORY OF THE DRAMA by S. G. Couvalis In his early paper, "On the Improvement of the Sciences and the Arts," Feyerabend argues that, just as rival hypotheses show the shortcomings of entrenched scientific hypotheses, so theatre which presents hypotheses contrary to common beliefs about human beings shows the shortcomings of these beliefs. It develops understanding of human relations more effectively than intellectual debate because (...) it is a more complex medium whose elements can "represent the contrary hypotheses at the same time."1 He takes Brecht to be the first theorist of such a theatre. I shall argue that Brecht's epistemology is similar to Feyerabend's early epistemology and that his dramatic theory is a consequence of it.2 1 shall also argue, however, that Feyerabend is wrong in saying that Brechtian theatre presents contrary hypotheses at the same time, because plays, like descriptions, are theory-laden and Brecht, in any case, intends to show on stage that tragedies have social origins and not to present contrary hypotheses about human beings. According to Brecht, most people improperly assume that human behavior and social relations follow fixed patterns inherent in nature because they have been unable to compare the human behavior they know with that in other societies. They take what they experience to be typically human. Moreover, they interpret their social world as they have been taught: "A child, living in a world of old men... knows the run of things before he can walk."3 Feyerabend brings out the effect of such training very vividly: "The teaching procedures both shape the 'appearance,' or 'phenomenon' and establish a firm connection with words, so that finally the phenomena seem to speak for themselves...."4 Because these interpretations of the social world which children are taught are descriptive, explanatory, and prescriptive, they are more 117 118Philosophy and Literature complex and more dangerous than the interpretations of physical objects they are taught. For example, children learn different evaluations of precisely the same behavior in males and females through being taught how to describe it. In being taught to describe certain behavior as "manly" they are taught both that it arises from a male's nature and that it is laudable behavior for boys but not for girls. "Manly" behavior in a woman is not "confident" or "forthright," but "aggressive" or "pushy." In order to stop us from regarding traditional behavior patterns and social relations as unchangeable, and to enable us to question our descriptions of them, Brecht argues that the dramatist must cause us to cease to regard such patterns and social relations as familiar givens that can only be described in one way. To achieve this, he must not structure his plays on the Aristotelian model. The Aristotelian model makes audiences incapable of criticizing the dramatic message, imparts the view that the sources of tragedy lie in an inexplicable human essence, and presents social rules as if they were unquestionable natural laws. Instead, he should structure his plays to induce in audiences a scientific attitude to social relations and patterns of behavior. Like Feyerabend, Brecht realizes that a scientific attitude is not displayed by collecting descriptions of experience without considering whether the interpretations contained in the descriptions are correct. In Galileo, his view of those who mechanically describe experience in traditional terms is shown in Galileo's replies to the Aristotelian arguments of Andrea. When Andrea argues, "I can see that the sun's not in the same place in the evening and morning. So it can't stand still. It just can't," Galileo replies, "You 'W! What do you see? You see nothing at all. You're just gaping. Gaping isn't seeing." He then demonstrates to Andrea that the apparent motions of objects need not be their real motions because an apparent motion can be caused in more than one way. 5 Brecht shows that the central question for the scientist is not "How shall I collect descriptions of appearances?" but "What is it that I really perceive and how is it caused?" He argues elsewhere that "there's a vast difference between experiment and experience" because experiments are set up to test... (shrink)

RESUME Jean-Paul Sartre débute comme dramaturge durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale alors qu'il est prisonnier de guerre en Allemagne, dans un camp de 25.000 détenus. Durant sa captivité, le philosophe écrit une pièce de théâtre réunissant des victimes et leurs bourreaux, des juifs, des prisonniers et des allemands. Bariona est la toute première pièce de Sartre et elle restera une référence pour le théâtre de situations que l'auteur ne cessera de réaliser pendant toute sa vie. Traditionnellement la pensée sartrienne est (...) analysée, dans un premier temps, sous le prisme de la philosophie abstraite et individualiste dont L'être et le néant est l'expression fondamentale, puis, dans un second temps, après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, à travers le marxisme dont la Critique de la raison dialectique serait le principal ouvrage. L'objectif essentiel de cet article est de mettre à l'épreuve cette idée en analysant les concepts de l'homme seul et de la collectivité dans la première pièce dramaturgique de Sartre. On verra que l'interprétation que divise la pensée de Sartre en deux n'est pas si juste. RESUMO Jean-Paul Sartre estreia como dramaturgo durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, quando é feito prisioneiro de guerra na Alemanha em um campo de concentração com outras 25 mil pessoas. Durante seu cárcere, o filósofo escreve uma peça de teatro reunindo vítimas e seus algozes, judeus e alemães. Bariona é a primeira peça de Sartre e permanecerá a referência do teatro de situações que o autor continuará a perseguir por toda a vida. Tradicionalmente, o pensamento sartriano é considerado, em um primeiro momento, sob o prisma da filosofia abstrata e individualista, que teria na obra O ser e o nada a expressão fundamental; em seguida, em um segundo momento, depois da Segunda Guerra Mundial, o é por meio do marxismo, do qual a Crítica da razão dialética seria a obra principal. O objetivo fundamental do presente artigo é o de colocar à prova essa ideia, analisando os conceitos de homem solitário e de coletividade na primeira peça de teatro de Sartre. Veremos que a interpretação que divide o pensamento de Sartre em dois não é, com efeito, justa. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article I argue that Sartre’s notions of nothingness and “negatity” are not, as he presents it, primarily reactions to Hegel and Heidegger. Instead, they are a reaction to an ongoing struggle with Husserl’s notion of intentionality and related notions. I do this by comparing the criticism aimed at Husserl in Sartre’s Being and Nothingness to that presented in his earlier work, The Imagination, where he discusses Husserl more elaborately. Furthermore, I compare his criticism to Husserl’s own criticism of (...) the “doctrine of immanent objects”, in order to show that Sartre’s notion of nothingness is a continuation of Husserl’s criticism, and that he turns Husserl’s own arguments against himself. (shrink)

Sartre's moral thinking progressed from an abstract, idealistic ethics of authenticity to a more concrete, realistic, and materialistic morality. Much of Sartre's important unpublished work on ethics - relevant to both his 'first' and his 'second' ethics - has become available to scholars only in the years since his death. Only now has it become possible to give a complete presentation of both the first and the second ethics and to accurately identify their relationship. Sartre's Two Ethics also presents Professor (...) Anderson's original criticisms of Sartre's two ethics, and concludes that the second is a significant advance over the first. (shrink)

In his second book on art, Weiss groups the nine basic arts into three triads in accordance with whether their characteristic products are created spaces--architecture, sculpture, painting; created time--musicry, story, poetry; or created movement --music, the theatre, the dance. The approach of any art to its undertaking and the nature of its achievement is distinctive; none duplicates the task, nor borrows the logic, of the others. Weiss also discusses some "compound arts," including photography and the movies. Through the vigor of (...) his language, and the sensitivity of his appraisals, he provokes fresh insight into both the specific arts and the entire artistic enterprise.--S. M. W. (shrink)

Shakespeare was easily the most inventive writer using the English language. His plays give us intricacies of vocabulary and usage that have enriched us immeasurably. This book provides a series of analytical essays on the marginalia relating to the plays. Each of them is a searching and authoritative account, packed with details, of some of the more peculiar conditions under which Shakespeare and his peers composed their playbooks. Among the essays are two completely new contributions. Altogether they reveal fresh details (...) about the input of the playing companies, playhouses, individual players and even their controller, the Revels Office, to the complex fragments that we now have of the Shakespearean world. Gurr examines Shakespeare's own choice between playwriting and poetry, the requirements of working in a playhouse that wraps itself around the stage, and its impact on the creation of such figures as Henry V, Shylock, Isabella, King Lear and Coriolanus. (shrink)

This article maintains that Jean-Paul Sartre’s early masterwork, Being and Nothingness, is primarily concerned with developing an original approach to the being of consciousness. Sartre’s ontology resituates the Cartesian cogito in a complete system that provides a new understanding of negation and a dynamic interpretation of human existence. The article examines the role of consciousness, temporality and the relationship between self and others in the light of Sartre’s arguments against “classical” rationalism. The conclusion suggests that Sartre’s departure from modern foundationalism (...) has “postmodern” implications that emerge in the areas of ontology, existential analytics and the ethics of human freedom. (shrink)

It was to correct common misconceptions about his thought that Jean-Paul Sartre, the most dominent European intellectual of the post-World War II decades, accepted an invitation to speak on October 29, 1945, at the Club Maintenant in Paris. The unstated objective of his lecture (“Existentialism Is a Humanism”) was to expound his philosophy as a form of “existentialism,” a term much bandied about at the time. Sartre asserted that existentialism was essentially a doctrine for philosophers, though, ironically, he was about (...) to make it accessible to a general audience. The published text of his lecture quickly became one of the bibles of existentialism and made Sartre an international celebrity. The idea of freedom occupies the center of Sartre’s doctrine. Man, born into an empty, godless universe, is nothing to begin with. He creates his essence—his self, his being—through the choices he freely makes (“existence precedes essence”). Were it not for the contingency of his death, he would never end. Choosing to be this or that is to affirm the value of what we choose. In choosing, therefore, we commit not only ourselves but all of mankind. This book presents a new English translation of Sartre’s 1945 lecture and his analysis of Camus’s _The Stranger_, along with a discussion of these works by acclaimed Sartre biographer Annie Cohen-Solal. This edition is a translation of the 1996 French edition, which includes Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre’s introduction and a Q&A with Sartre about his lecture. (shrink)

본 논문은 구조주의에 맞서 의식의 자발성을 주장하는 사르트르의 논의에 주안점을 두고 있다. 특히, 사르트르의 초기 저작 『자아의 초월성』에서 의식과 자아의 문제에 대한 탐구에 집중하면서, 구조주의의 거센 위협에도 불구하고 전통적인 주체에 대한 논의의 흐름을 쇄신하고 있는 그의 실존주의적 사유에 집중하고자 한다. 이에 따라 칸트의 초월적 주체와 후설현상학의 의식 주체에 대한 그의 비판적 입장을 검토한다. 『존재와 무』에서 사르트르는 단도직입적으로 심리적 결정론은 의식의 자기기만이라고 말한다. 곧 주체적인 선택에 대해 구실과 변명거리를 찾는 모든 행동을 자신의 자유를 부정하는 행동으로 치부한다. 또한 선택에 있어서 수동성을 피력하려는 (...) 모든 시도를 자기기만이라고 비판한다. 이러한 급진적 주장은 자아의 구조에 대한 사르트르 자신의 사유를 반영하고 있다. 사르트르는 의식을 두 가지 즉, 대상을 향해 나가는 정립적 의식과 의식 자신에 대해서는 비정립적인(non-thétique de soi) 의식으로 구분한다. 그에 따르면, 의식이 자기 자신에 대해 비명제적으로 인식하고 있더라도, 의식은 항상 의식 자신에 대해 의식하는 것이기 때문에 의식의 존재는 절대적이다. 이 의식 안에는 후설적 의미의 선험적 ‘나’를 위한 장소가 없다. ‘나’라는 것은 의식의 필연적 구조가 아니며 또한 의식과 마주한 세계와 동등한 의식의 대상도 아니다. 어떤 의미로 이러한 ‘나’는 의식의 거주자라고 사르트르는 말한다. 의식의 절대성이 자유로 나타나고 그에 뒤따르는 귀결이 책임이다. 이로부터 사르트르는 칸트와 후설 현상학을 넘어서 구조주의에 맞서는 의식과 자아에 대한 자신의 주장을 전개한다. (shrink)