Search for a MethodandThe Critiquein the
context of political existentialism
If the features of existentialist politics can be gathered from Sartre’s
ad hoc statements and essays, then the theoretical foundation for this
approach was laid inCritique of Dialectical Reasonand its introductory
essay, “Search for a Method.” These works have been subjected to
careful commentaries. But a brief reference to aspects of the argument
of each will elucidate how they support features of existentialist
politics enumerated above. We shall devote a more detailed discussion
of each text in terms of history and social ontology in the next two
chapters.
Let us note at the outset that theSearch for a Methodwas not written
as an introduction toCDR. It was a translation with some additions of an
essay, “The Situation of Existentialism in 1957 ,” published in a Polish
journal at the request of its editor. So when it is attached toCDR,one
should not be surprised that the fit is not perfect. Addressing the
question “Do we have today the means to constitute a structural,
historical anthropology?” (SM xxxiv), Sartre frames the hypothesis
that we have indeed achieved that capability and that it is the product
of the union of existentialist psychology (and moral concerns) with
Marxist dialectic (and social causality). The second of its three chapters
is dedicated to “The Problem of Mediations.” Who says (Hegelian)
“dialectic” says “mediation,” as Kierkegaard knew so well and was
alleged to reject. But Sartre here and in theCritiquebut especially in
The Family Idiotis at pains to analyze those factors that “mediate” the
abstract or general (structural) features of the historical situation with
the concrete “praxis” of the “free organic individual.” It is this emphasis
on mediating factors that enables Sartre to bring the Marxist “forces and
relations of production” to bear on the lives of individuals. Chief among
these mediators was the family. An object lesson in such mediation was
Sartre’s Flaubert study.^32 One can say that the mediations preserved the
“structural causality” of Louis Althusser,paceAlthusser himself, by
means of the praxis of concrete, existential individuals. With a bit of
help from the Marxian dialectic, it looks as if Marx and Kierkegaard had
been conjoined after all.
(^32) See below,Chapter 15.
Search for a MethodandThe Critique 309