Existentialism and its critics: Sartre on existential project

For Sept 30 we'll look at Sartre's notion of the existential project from Search for a Method. Please take the time to read and engage with the text, as this is required to participate in the discussion. Find the PDF in the Google Drive folder linked at the bottom of the description 👇

We have seen the basic shape of the existential project: a subject (a for-itself) surpasses, overcomes, transcends a given element (an in-itself, whether a material object, a word, one's own body) by projecting beyond it towards a future end goal. In surpassing it, the subject discloses the given's existential truth and is already on the way to changing it. In his later work, Sartre aims to incorporate the existential project within Marxist dialectics.

Join the Facebook group for more Existentialism resources and on-going discussion throughout the week:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/755460079505498

Existentialism encounters the postmodern
Sartre's early work on nothingness, transcendence, language and the Other set out key themes for the next generation of French thinkers. Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida & co would take up the Sartrean critique of conformity, essentialism and totality. Drawing on Freud, Bataille and de Sade, they would radicalize this critique, while giving it a linguistic turn through structuralist linguistics. By the 1960s, Sartre's embrace of Marxism gave the postmoderns a focal point for critique. Against his dialectical view of history as a totalizing process, they would emphasize the force of difference, historical discontinuity and the event.

Post-war French philosophy was a remarkably productive period, comparable in creativity to German Idealism some 150 years earlier. The encounter between existentialism and (post-)structuralism lies at the heart of the French philosophical event. We are tracing this encounter through several key themes. See the tentative reading list below (note that the list may change):

The question of humanism

• Foucault on the "death of the human"
• Foucault and Barthes on the death of the author
• Sartre’s response to structuralism

Language, writing and difference

• Sartre, “What is Writing?”
• Sartre on existential project (from Search for Method, Pt. 3)
• Sartre on analytic vs. synthetic method (from CDR, Introduction)
• Foucault, “The Thought of the Outside”
• Derrida, Of Grammatology (selections)
• Deleuze on difference (TBA)

History

• Sartre on materialist history (from CDR)
• Althusser on the humanist controversy and ideology (reading TBA)
• Foucault on history (reading TBA)

The other

• Sartre on the Other (from B&N)
• Levinas on the Other
• Deleuze, “Michel Tournier and the World Without Others”

The event

• Sartre on the event (TBA)
• Althusser on philosophy of the encounter (TBA)
• Derrida, “A Certain Impossible Possibility of Saying the Event”
• Badiou on the event (TBA)

Questions for reflection/discussion:

• In what sense could French thinkers such as Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida be called ‘materalist’? Does Sartre anticipate their position in any way? What is ‘transcendental materialism’, and how is this different from materialism in the traditional sense?
• The theme of death preoccupies French thought, from ‘the death of the human’ right down to ‘the little death’. For his part, Sartre explores the theme of nothingness, yet rejects the Heideggerian being-towards-death and the Freudian death drive and the unconscious. What explains Sartre’s stance here, compared to that of Foucault for example? Can we use life and death as basic philosophical categories? If so, where should we place existentialism and postmodernity?
• (Post-)structuralists are critical of phenomenology, whether that of Husserl, Heidegger or Sartre (or even Hegel). What are their criticisms? Are these criticisms decisive, or can phenomenology be defended?
• Postmodern thought emphasizes the "event" as a point of rupture, discontinuity and unknowability. How useful is this category for understanding our contemporary experience? How would an ‘evental’ epoch compare to the existentialist moment of the 30s and 40s, marked as it was by abandonment, anxiety and meaninglessness?

Group rules & process

• Everyone is welcome, but speaking priority will be given to people who have done the reading.
• I suggest spending 1-2 hours per week reading and preparing for the discussion.
• Virtual meeting courtesy applies: let's not interrupt each other and keep mics muted when not speaking.
• Keep comments concise and on topic.
• We'll focus the discussion with key passages and discussion questions. Bring your questions, comments, favorite passages, criticisms, etc to the meeting.

All readings can be found in this Google folder:[ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VPRdvZYmUKBY3cSxD8xC8sTYtSEKBXDs](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VPRdvZYmUKBY3cSxD8xC8sTYtSEKBXDs)
Art: Peasants, Diego Rivera, 1931