Talk:Jean-Paul Sartre

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Jean-Paul Sartre was the collaboration of the week for the week starting on July 4, 2004. For details on improvements made to the article, see history of past collaborations.

Contents 1 Communism: doctrine or party? 2 "No center" 3 Foreign titles 4 Change the order of sections 3 and 4 5 "Beatniks" vs. "Academics"? 6 Reference to the absurd needed 7 diacriticals mess up 8 International Warcrimes Tribunal 9 Sartre's anarchism? 10 Munich 1972 11 Sartre declining the Nobel Prize 12 Trix: last word? 13 Political views 14 Sartre after literature - Nobel Prize 15 Sartre's Judaism 16 Pronunciation? 17 Neither a french communist nor a member of resistance 18 Inventor of the Absurd 19 Education 20 Sartre's Mescaline use removed from text 21 Metaphysics 22 Messianic Jew? 23 Died a Theist? 24 Use of bold print 25 Place of birth recorded in the column (Paris) not consistent with the one found in the text (Rome).

[edit] Communism: doctrine or party?

Did Sartre embrace 'communism' or 'Communism'? I would tend to think that the sentence should read something like: "Sartre embraced the philosophy of communism, but never joined any Communist Party." --Jizzbug

Sartre does have a conception of self-consciousness. In fact, he wrote a whole book on it (The Transcendence of the Ego). Here is a quote, "“a consciousness has no need of a reflecting consciousness in order to be conscious of itself” (11). The for-itself does not have a reflective consciousness of itself, but it does have a pre-reflective consciousness of itself. Other than that, all other points are correct.

In Being and Nothingness he wrote of consciousness that its being is only in question when that being implies being other than itself. Reflective consciousness is "thetic consciousness" or "positional self-consciousness". In the French there are two uses of the term reflection. There is self-consciousness, but there is no unity of consciousness, and the two concepts can be confused. Amerindianarts 03:24, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "No center"

Ian Hacking writes

Readers of Camus or the early Sartre can form a picture of a self with absolutely no center, a self that constructs itself by free acts of will.

I assume that "center" is Satre's or Camus' term, and not Hacking's. If so, can someone explain what it means to have no "center"? Does it just mean that there are no fundamental limitations on what the self can choose? Or does it say something more, perhaps that there is no conscious "self" at all, or that there are multiple selves, none or which are at the center? Is "center" a profound idea? --Ryguasu 04:05 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)

What he means is that to Sartre/Camus, the self is purely contingent on the acts of the person, and not on any inherent traits (of the personality, etc.). Hacking is correct, but his choice of words ("center") is his own. Furthermore, It should be noted that Sarte's view of consciousness is also one of contingency; To be conscious, to Sartre, is to be conscious of something other than the self. To be self-conscious then, is an odd and ultimately detached phenomenon (Hence Sartre's views on the self as "being for others") 216.26.202.22

[edit] Foreign titles

Is there a WP guideline on the format of foreign book titles? This article contains a mix of English and French titles, sometimes with the translation together (sometimes French first, sometimes English first.) If there's no official policy, I'd suggest that all titles be listed French first, English in parens, i.e.: Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness). It will give a more polished look to the article. Any thoughts? Ocon 17:14, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Consistency is king, always. [[User:Sverdrup|❝Sverdrup❞]] 17:45, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Change the order of sections 3 and 4

We need to swap Sartre and WW2 to section 3 and Sartre and communism to section 4. Someone? I don't know how. --Xjy

:done. Bmills 09:30, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "Beatniks" vs. "Academics"?

The reason for using "a philosophy of choice for the beatnik" generation is that the beatniks weren't the academics. Academics fell for existentialism. Beatniks like Kerouac, Ginsburg etc went for Zen by preference. Academics read Camus, Sartre (the easy stuff) and Kierkegaard, but beatniks went round trying to be boddhisattvas. Maybe if the word "beatnik" was removed, and replaced by "Modernist students" it would be right to say "the". The Left Bank and its epigones were Existentialists rather than Beatniks. So, without getting into a war over it, I think ' "a" popular philosophy among rebellious students' might do the trick. --Xjy

That is an extreme simplifictation and wrong. --B. Phillips 2 July 2005 06:18 (UTC)

[edit] Reference to the absurd needed

We ought to have a sentence mentioning the absurd, perhaps best in connection with Le mur. -Xjy

[edit] diacriticals mess up

Letters with diacriticals are messed up on my screen. If they are not messed up in your browser, it's because your nonstandard browser is compensating. Need use diacritical insertion bar at the bottem of edit page, for universal operationality. I'd fix them, but I'm not sure what they are intended to be.67.118.119.165 20:11, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] International Warcrimes Tribunal

I'm quite suprised this article doesn't mention the International Warcrimes Tribunal, which he set up.

This has been taken care of under "Sartre and Communism".

[edit] Sartre's anarchism?

Please consider this link.

[edit] Munich 1972

I've added a section on this polemic after the repeated edition attempts by anonymous 62.2.204.234. Althogh anonymous was wrongly masking his critique as neutral commentary, it is indeed a well known argument and should be mentioned. cesarsorm August 10, 2005

What are Levy's references? If Sartre said it, surely one can find a book or newspaper quote or somewhere in which Sartre wrote or was quoted as having said it somewhat more directly than in writings written rather later about him. Schissel | Sound the Note! 17:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sartre declining the Nobel Prize

The bit about Sartre declining the prize implies that he did so because of his personal feelings regarding literature. However, Sartre gave a more comprehensive statement detailing his reasons for declining the prize; this statement by the Swedish Academy references Sartre's writing from Le Figaro wherein it was originally published. The statement says, in part:

"Mr. Sartre expressed his regret that his refusal of the prize had given rise to scandal, and wished it to be known that, unaware of the irrevocability of the Swedish Academy's decisions, he had sought by letter to prevent their choice falling upon him. [...] Mr. Sartre pointed out that due to his conception of the writer's task he had always declined official honours and thus his present act was not unprecedented. [...] He stated that a writer's accepting such an honour would be to associate his personal commitments with the awarding institution, and that, above all, a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution. [...] Mr. Sartre listed his belief that interchange between East and West must take place between men and between cultures without the intervention of institutions. Furthermore, since the conferment of past prizes did not, in his opinion, represent equally writers of all ideologies and nations, he felt that his acceptance might be undesirably and unjustly interpreted."

I believe that an explanation of why he refused the prize is important, as the entire event is one of the things for which he's commonly known. The current article could give people the idea that he was capricious and openly inciting controversy. I think it would be best to cite his official statement from Le Figaro, but I've done a little scouring and can't seem to find it.

I've edited the part about him refusing the prize to say, "In the same year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but he resoundingly declined it, stating that he had always refused official honors and didn't wish to align himself with institutions," but it may also be important to note that he had attempted to avoid having the prize bestowed on him in the first place. --Small Profit 10:31, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Trix: last word?

Anyone have any more information about this? There should be at least one sentence explaining this, or a link to Trix the cereal if that was what he was referring to.

It shouldn't be in the article without more explanation. Very questionable. What is the source, anyway? Amerindianarts 01:12, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I think this may be referring to the The Jean Paul Sartre Cookbook[1], which would make it a joke. This is by far the main result for a Google search on Sartre and trix, so accordingly I'm removing it from the article. One site[2] claims his last words were "I failed." Hallmark 05:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Political views

There needs to be a lot more information in the article about Sartre's political views. There needs to be a sub-section about his love-hate relationship to the French Communist Party. His positive opinion of Israel (citing the exception of his tolerance of the attacks in Munich) and his phil-semetism also need more attention.

I propose creating a section on titled Sartre's political views' in which these two main aspects (his communist and philo-semitic views) of his political ideology are explained.--Carabinieri 14:01, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sartre after literature - Nobel Prize

The 08:38, 23 June 2005 revision by Allanidalen added the following text to Sartre after literature:

"However, in an embarrasing display of lacking integrity, Sartre tried to get the prize money later on, but his plea was refused by the Nobel institution."

This developed into the current revision:

"However, Sartre later tried to claim the prize money but the Nobel committee turned him down. This fact was revealed in the auto-biography of Lars Gyllensten, long time member of the Nobel Prize committee. The French philosopher in 1975 wrote a letter to the Nobel Prize committee, saying that he had changed his mind about the prize, at least when it came to the money (approx $1M). Would it be possible to receive the prize, or the money, after 11 years? The answer was "No"."

I cannot find a source for this, and am proceeding to remove the claim until a verifiable source can be provided. Then, once a source appears, the text should be changed to read:

"However, Lars Gyllensten, long time member of the Nobel prize committee has claimed in his autobiograhy that Sartre later tried to access the prize money, but was subsequently turned down. Allegedly, the French philosopher in 1975 wrote a letter to the Nobel Prize committee saying that he had changed his mind about the prize, at least when it came to the money (approx $1M). At which point the prize committee is said to have declined the request."

--Sycron 04:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Or something to that effect.

The monetary value of the Nobel Prize (at least, assuming the Prizes were of equal value) in 1964 was about $50,000 U.S., about $75,000 in 1969, $200,000 in 1980 and rose in rapid steps to about $1M in the early nineties. (This, from knowing the value of the Physics Prize.) The relative value of the Prize (twenty years salary or so for the average professor ca. 1900) fell after WWII because professors became much better paid. E.g. Feynman's one-third (taxfree, at the time) share of the 1965 Nobel Prize was less than his annual salary at Caltech. 137.82.188.68 03:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sartre's Judaism

I found and listed a source claiming that Sartre converted to Judaism shortly before his life ended. Any discreditation/clarification in the name of furthering education would be greatly appreciated.

• After having checked several other sources, I am quite confident that this is incorrect. "Hope Now," which contains the controversial interview of Sartre by Benny Levy, offers no suggestion of a "conversation." Rather Sartre finds Jewish Messianic and related ethical concepts "interesting," which is something far less dramatic. He also explictly says that he is not a Jew, and has no interest in the Jewish concept of the "Name" (i.e. "God"), which "means nothing to me," but rather in the implications for ethical practice and "metaphysical character" of Judaic Messianism. I have corrected the page accordingly, and urged NNDB to correct their biography as well. The internet has a plethora of sites with a quotation from Sartre indicating that he now believed he was the creation of a God, apparently traceable to a National Review article by Thomas Molner (1980, p677), which gives no citation, but which in turn comes from a 1974 interview with de Beauvoir (found in Adieux and Harper's February 1984, p39). The context makes it clear that Sartre remains a staunch atheist and that the oft-quoted passage is referring to a psychological tendency which might explain, in others, the tendency towards spiritualism, but which Sartre considers erroneous. --ScottForschler 22:28, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation?

How does one pronounce "Sartre"?

Sartre is pronounced sar-tra. The "a" in the second syllable is pronounced like the "a" in sofa.

To be (in my opinion) slightly more accurate, it's pronounced more like "sar-truh" (if you're using an American accent, that is).

[edit] Neither a french communist nor a member of resistance

I have suppressed both categories french communist and member of resistance, jan 19th 2006 french user EdC

Could you explain why there seems to be so much reference to his resistence activites? John (Jwy) 18:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

For those who can read french, see, for example Michel Winock. Michel Winock is a quite respected historian of the period. Coarsely, the group Socialism and Liberté is never mentionned by any historian of the french resistance. The group had a very short life (as a matter of fact, not because some dismantlement by french or german policy). have you ever read a book about french resistance which would mention Sartre as a resistant ? According to the philosoph Vladimir Jankélévitch (actual resistant), Sartre insistence upon the idea of liberty targetted to compensate partially a lack of political involvment with the resistance during german occupation. EdC

Thanks. Perhaps the text of the article should reflect some of this. I added the category based on what I read there. John (Jwy) 03:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The following text seems to me historically correct

…Sartre was released in April 1941. Given civilian status, he recovered his position as a teacher of Lycée Pasteur near Paris, settled at the "Hotel Mistral" near Montparnasse at Paris and was given a new position at Lycée Condorcet for replacing a jew teacher, forbidden to teach by Vichy law. After coming back to Paris in May 1941, he participated in the founding of the an underground group Socialisme et Liberté with other writers Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Toussaint and Dominique Desanti, Jean Kanapa and École Normale students. In August, Sartre et Beauvoir went to french Riviera for asking André Gide and André Malraux some support. Both André were still undecided, and this might be the cause of Sartre desappointment and discouragement. Socialisme et liberté disappeared soon and Sartre decided to write instead of being involved in active resistance. He then wrote Being and Nothingless, The Flies and No exit, none of them being censored by the German. He also contributed to both legal and illegal literary magazines. After August 1944 and the Paris Liberation, he is a very active contributor of Combat, a newspaper created during the clandestinity period by Albert Camus, a philosopher and author who held similar beliefs. Sartre and and remained friends with him until Camus turned away from communism, a schism between them that eventually divided them in 1951.

Later while Sartre was labelled by some authors as a resistant, at the contrary, french philosopher Vladimir Jankelevitch, an actual resistant, has criticized his lack of political commitment during the German Occupation, and interpreted his further struggles for Liberty as an attempt for redeeming himself.

But I am not sure at all the english is correct. EdC

[edit] Inventor of the Absurd

"A whole school of absurd literature subsequently developed."

Umm... no. An interest in the absurd was around a long time before Sartre. Take Kafka, for instance. Although no doubt Sartre would argue otherwise, he's as much a reflection of the ideas of his time as he was originator.

[edit] Education

Can a source be provided showing that Sartre received a doctorate from Ecole Normale Sup. in philosophy? If yes, what is the title of the thesis?

[edit] Sartre's Mescaline use removed from text

Why was it? I´m adding it again

Please sign your contributions to talk pages by adding -~~~~ at the end.

Probably because it was unsourced. See Wikipedia:Cite your sources, Wikipedia:Reliable sources, WP:NOR, and Wikipedia:Common knowledge. -Smahoney 21:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Metaphysics

I will be adding a section on Sartre's metaphysics unless there are any objections.Joseane 08:54, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I was bold. If there are any objections to whatever please let me know.Joseane 09:23, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Too bold. I believe the statement "The basis of Sartre's Existentialism (and Simone de Beauvoir's) " is too presumptive, and generally an overstatement. I can't cite anything off-hand, but they had their conceptual differences, which is enough to make the statement non-NPOV. You could do a better job at inline citation also, but this entire article needs that anyway. I am a member of Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography and before long articles such as these are going to be tagged as "B" quality because of the lack of sourcing WP:CITE. I think Wikipedia:Academic_and_artistic_biographies is worth a look. Amerindianarts 13:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for the "opinion" character of the assertion. It is, however, hard to argure that Sartre's Metaphysics is not the basis of de Beauvoir's work. (I added "possibly") "The Other" as a derivitive of the reflective consciousness forms the basis for expalnation of Racism and Sexism in all of their work. Their differences were not on the Metaphysics, though they disagreed on other things, of that I am certain. Nonetheless, I will try to improve the sourcing in general. Please change anything you feel is too bold. If we paraphrase, we should cite. So I've added one. ps. Paraphrase is NPOV, correct?Joseane 17:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, paraphrasing can be NPOV. However, it is my interpretation of Wiki policy at WP:CITE that if an original work is cited, and then a paraphrase added which includes quotes which refer to the text, that a more specific notation may be required. I still think the reference to de Beauvoir's work should be cited by a secondary source rather than your observations. I say a secondary source because an examination of her work and examples would be lengthy and more appropriate to her article. I could do the citation for Transcendence myself, but I'm busy doing the same thing to the article on Immanuel Kant. Oops. I checked your changes and I think what you did works, except for the notation on de Beauvoir, which I still think needs verification. It may be true, but it has to be verifiable.Amerindianarts 19:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed the notation on de Beauvoir and will add something of that form in her Bio when I find a source. I made a couple more changes which I hope are supported sufficiently. Well, no one said it was going to be easy! Joseane 13:31, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Just another point. I would like to suggest that where Philosophy Bios are concerned we may wish to find a separate rating to the B rating. In an ordinary Encyclopedia, the entry is made by an expert in the field - chosen through rigourous discussions by the board. The difference here is that entries are made by anyone. Facts need a citation. When did Sartre do Mescaline? Refuse the Nobel Prize then ask for the cash. Interpretations of the work, however, must be carried out with the same boldness that any expert in a "private" Phil. encyclopedia would apply. Sourcing to secondary expert is therefore a little problematic. What we want, I would say, is boldness mediated by the test of time in a free environment. Otherwise, the Phil. Bios will be boring Bios about what so-an-so did rather than what their work "means". If someone disagrees with the interpretation made on Sartre's Metaphysics, they will change it. Hopefully for the better. What do you think?Joseane 14:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree to an extent, but "doing philosophy" in the bios is really problematic, and can be worse than POV. Especially when anyone can edit. The points you made about Sartre are rumors I have heard before, but give no credence to. I don't think these can be substantiated which is a good reason for extensive footnoting here at WIki. Inline citation is really not policy at Wiki unless you want to father an "A" quality article. I think what is needed is for someone with some good knowledge of a philosopher to continually monitor an article and be a "dick" about edits. You still need consensus on the talk page about things, but I am doing it at Kant. It was tagged "B". I joined the WIKIbio project and have since tried to maintain a consensus on the talk paage, allowing no new additions or edits without proper citation. If a new, uncited addition is made, I try to either substantiate myself, or get the editor to substantiate, or delete it. I have also went through the article and provided for citation of all of Kant's works and rewriting when needed(still in progress). I know Sartre, and my core is Continental phil., but Kant is my project. Do you know Sartre?? Have at it. This article needs it. If you know Sartre, want to know him better, and want to bring this article to "A" quality, I will try to help/support. Other wise, your questions about quality standards, ratings, etc, are an issue at the appropriate policy talk page. As for a "boring" article, WIKI is an encyclopedia of general knowledge, and is a "tertiary" source, meaning it does rely on secondary source material. Thanks for removing the de Beauvoir thing. It really was not within the scope of the article section. It has been awhile since I read her bio by Bair but it might contain references to her thought. She was definitely her own woman and pinning down her influences may require research. Amerindianarts 18:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Messianic Jew?

"Jean-Paul Sartre, French Philosopher who abandoned the idea of a God at an Early age. He apparently died a Messianic Jew."

Is it true?

See List of ex-Roman Catholics. Rafael, the Gawain 13:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Died a Theist?

In a program produced by either the Archdiocese of New York or EWTN, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, a Franciscan priest, described Sartre's last days before dying. Groeschel indicated that the philosopher came to believe in some type of order and meaning in the universe, though I don't believe Groeschel said it was God that Sartre came to believe in necessarily. Does anyone know anything about this? Is it relevant to his life's story?

Relevant to his life story only insofar as it can be cited and verified by a reputable source. A lot of stories circulate about Sartre's life and lifestyle, and I think most are not credible. Did Sartre die a theist? I think it is a guess. Amerindianarts 16:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of bold print

Wiki Manuel of Style is consensus and dictates that the Chicago Manuel of style be consulted "when all else fails". Italics are recomended-bold is not. Bold in print is an emphasis that can be POV. Amerindianarts 16:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Place of birth recorded in the column (Paris) not consistent with the one found in the text (Rome).

Place of birth recorded in the column (Paris) not consistent with the one found in the text (Rome).

All references to birthplace should be Paris. Amerindianarts 22:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)