Kant's Universalism/Heidegger's Obscurantism/Sartre's Cosmopolitanism

In the fourth thesis of his Idea for a Universal History, Immanuel Kant proposes a sociology of conflict anchored in an anthropology of "unsocial sociability." According to Kant, human beings enter into social bonds which they subsequently strain to the breaking point with their desire to assert their individual proclivities.

Kant argues that, far from being a "design flaw," this built-in tendency to conflict is Nature's way of forcing human beings to realize their innate powers.

Hegel will, of course, develop a similar schema into his famous dialectic. Marx will absorb Hegel and, in the process, invent the conflict model of modern social science.

Sartre is heir to this entire Enlightenment project. At the same time, he reaches back to Parmenidean ontology: there is being and there is nothingness. Unlike Parmenides, however, Sartre will not privilege being over nothingness. For Sartre, as for Kant, it is what we lack that drives us to invent ourselves vis a vis the herd.

In the Critique of Dialectical Reason, Sartre doubled back to re-examine the herd and find its potential (previously unremarked by him) as the mass. Following Marx, Sartre became convinced of the revolutionary potential of the mass as individuals struggle with themselves and with each other to realize that which they are not and have not.

This is why I contend that all of Western philosophy is mere prelude to Sartre. Heidegger arrogated to himself the role of Western philosophy's midwife to a new way of thinking, but Heidegger's new way of thinking proved to be little more than the old way of thinking clothed in a German peasant's smock. He abandoned the challenge posed by Kant's universalism after he soured on National Socialism. He pretended to mysticism, but delivered only mystification and "post-modern" obscurantism.

Sartre absorbed Heidegger or, rather, those parts of Heidegger he found useful, and discarded the rest (a truly judicious use of the Heideggerian corpus). Attuned always to what is lacking, Sartre saw clearly that a new way of thinking was not necessary, but new ways to act. Heidegger had begun with that premise (existence precedes essence) but became confounded somehow: he became lost in the labyrinthine lucubrations that characterized his years of post-war exile and silence.

Not so Sartre. Perhaps because he abandoned academic philosophy, perhaps because he remained active in politics, in Paris cafe society, in the world of art and literature, Sartre remained faithful to his Copernican insight that "freedom from" and "freedom for" constitute philosophy's true subject and humankind's true interest. And rather than set himself up as some sort of gnostic eminence (a la Heidegger), knowing "the way" to thinking, knowing "the way" to language, Sartre knew only the way to nothingness. He knew this because he knew that nothingness is what eludes us and that what eludes us is forever with us. The way to nothingness is, therefore, always open.

As Parmenides put it: "What is there for thinking and for being is the same." That sameness bored Sartre. Besides, thinking is a way open only to the few. Action is open to everyone: therefore, nothingness (not being) is where the action is. What we lack is what we strive for; ultimately, it is also what we achieve.

Only the joke's on us. For every achievement is something, not nothing; and every achievement is something we will want freedom from. In this manner, Kant's Nature, Hegel's Spirit, Marx's matter carry on their eternal struggle through Sartre's Cosmopolitan ontology.

Philosophy begins with Parmenides and finds its true "end" (as Heidegger punned) in Sartre--who turned Parmenides on his head. What is not there for thinking and for being is not the same: it is difference. Heidegger wished to bury philosophy but only managed to give it a new lease on life. Sartre did not wish to bury philosophy but finally managed to bring it to rest--so that our true labor could begin. Again.

A Brief Kantian Interlude

Kant's theses on universal history with cosmopolitan intent.

Notes On Sartre and Benjamin

Sartre's late work on existential psycho-biography and a close reading of Walter Benjamin's Theses On the Philosophy of History discloses important parallels.

When writing a particular life (Genet's, Flaubert's, even his own), Sartre sifted his data for what he called, borrowing a term from Merleau-Ponty, the "differential": that which placed his subject out of step with the prevailing spirit or presumptions of his time and, as a consequence, permitted him to undertake a life-project that reflected the peculiar stamp of his individual consciousness. For Sartre, every life is filled with opportunities to step away from the drowse of "bad faith" that encumbers every life and embark upon a career of existential authenticity.

Benjamin, theorizing a Marxist historiography, focused not on specific individuals but rather on the sweep of history itself. And yet he, too, was in search of the "differential" that impregnated historical moments with "chips of Messianic time" (Addendum A): those historical junctures which presented historical actors with opportunities for revolutionary action. In Thesis XV, Benjamin wrote:

"The awareness that they are about to make the continuum of history explode is characteristic of the revolutionary classes at the moment of their action."

Likewise, the recognition of such moments in the course of sifting one's historical data presents the critical historian with the opportunity to salvage them from the ash-heap of the victor's narration of the past and, thereby, transform her scholarship into a mode of revolutionary praxis.

I am, at present, uncertain whether or not Sartre was familiar with Benjamin's Theses. I would be surprised if he were not; but this is a matter for further research.