anthropology. We have yet to consider the diachronic depth of practical
temporalization by a progressive movement that will complete this
regressive move. But Sartre has been pursuing the goal stated in his
preface toSearch for a Methodand theCritique: “My intention is to raise
one question and only one: do we now possess the materials for consti-
tuting a structural, historical anthropology?” (CDR 2 nd edn.,annexe
822 ). The foundation for such an anthropology has been laid by a
regressive argument. It remains to chart its progressive complement
in the next volume.
Volumeii,Critique
The editor’s subtitle for this unfinished text is “The Intelligibility of
History.” The volume purports to constitute the “progressive” move-
ment which complements the more “regressive” arguments of the first
book, though in fact we will have to wait forThe Family Idiotto view the
“progressive” method fully, in the “existential biography” of Gustave
Flaubert and his times. Like most of Sartre’s major works, it remains
a torso.
The boxing matchHaving described history as we know it as a tale of conflict and violence
due to the scarcity of material goods, and violence as “interiorized
scarcity” (CDRi: 815 ), it was not surprising that Sartre, an amateur
pugilist, would turn to the boxing match as an object lesson in the
intelligibility of History. As he observes toward the end of volumei,
“Struggle as reciprocity is a function of reciprocity of comprehension.
If one of the adversaries should cease to comprehend he would become
the object of the Other”(CDR 816 ,n. 133 ). There is a Hobbesian tone
to this remark and to Sartre’s analysis of practico-inert mediation via
what we have called the “alienating Third,” which resonated throughout
both volumes (a war of all against all). But, as we have seen, a more
Rousseauian situation arises when scarcity is overcome or at least sus-
pended, with the advent of the group and group member as mediating
Third. Again, that is the sudden, if short-lived, emergence of freedom.
Once more, we are in search of the concrete. So the “dialectical”
reading of a particular boxing match differs from its “analytical”
Vol. II,Critique 347