112
PARTISAN REVIEW
FREEDOM FOR WHAT?
LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS.
By
Jeon·Poul Sortre. Criterion
Books. $4.00.
Sartre has become a symbol. He stands for something which,
in the public mind, is loosely called "existentialism" and of which a few
basic concepts, such as freedom, choice, anxiety, ambiguity, and action,
are now public property and commonplace tools for a sophisticated
analysis of the "human situation" in our age. Having contributed his
share to the
Zeitgeist,
Sartre has had his day. Other varieties of existen–
tialism-usually with a religious message-have pushed him off the
stage. His chief contribution to philosophy, a major work called
Being
and N athing)
remains unknown and untranslated; nor has it been fol–
lowed, on his part, by any serious philosophical effort. His long-promised
and long-awaited book on ethics has not appeared. This is a pity; for
the present volume shows again, I think, that Sartre's chief strength
lies in the original, acute, and easy handling of philosophical ideas. Per–
haps he is himself satisfied with the myth he has created: the actively
engaged and deeply committed intellectual who proudly proclaims the
absolute sovereignty of his Promethean freedom from all commitments.
It
is a significant symbol; for the mounting pressures of external and
internal mechanisms of defense and restriction have mobilized every–
where a deep-seated longing for personal autonomy and free expression;
but it is a myth, nonetheless.
The present volume contains a collection of essays written before
and during World War II. Thus it affords some interesting insights into
the genesis of Sartre's ideas which have produced the myth. One source
is Descartes. In an essay, called "Cartesian Freedom," Sartre pays his
tribute to the father of modern French philosophy. Descartes's simple
and ingenious formula,
cagita erga sum)
conceived as the immediate
datum and ultimate truth of consciousness, is retained as the corner–
stone of Sartre's own metaphysics. For the method of doubt by which
Descartes reached his conclusion is, for Sartre, stilI an indispensable
proof for the "negative aspect" of human freedom. In the act of radical
doubt and independent thought, man manifests his freedom from "na–
ture," both external and internal. This serves as point of departure for
Sartre's own postulate that the "negative freedom" must be enlarged
to, or complemented by, a "positive, productive freedom";
i.e.)
a free–
dom
far
autonomous action, of which Descartes deprived man in order
