Which only means that I no longer think with an eye to certain strictures (the Left,
Husserl), etc., but with a total gratuitous freedom, out of pure curiosity and disin-
terestedness, accepting in advance that I could end up a Fascist if that’s where my
reasoning led me. Don’t worry, I doubt that will happen. It interests me and I think
that, beyond the war and the renewed questioning, the notebookformcounts for a
great deal in this; the free and fragmented form isn’t subject to prior ideas, you write
each thing according to the moment and only take stock when you want to. As a
matter of fact, I haven’t reread all of my notebooks and I’ve forgotten any number of
things I’ve said in them.
(January 6 , 1940 ,QMW 14 , emphasis his)
There will be occasion to recall these remarks about the tentative and
hypothetical nature of these often disjointed entries when we “recon-
struct” his existentialist “ethics of authenticity” from another set of
notebooks penned in 1947 – 1948.
We observed how Sartre’s parallel pursuit of his literary and philosoph-
ical concerns became separated and intensified during his research year in
Berlin, where he devoted the mornings to Husserl and the afternoons
to the “factum” that would eventually become Nausea.Thatmodus
operandicontinued during his years in the military both before and during
his captivity. But now his philosophical attention was focused on his
“metaphysical” treatise on nothingness and time and his literary concern
on “the novel.” Specifically, it was his discovery of “historicity” in
Heidegger and the philosophy of history in Raymond Aron’sIntroduction
to the Philosophy of History, published in 1938 , that fueled this interest
in temporality that had been with him since he read Bergson in the lyce ́e.
As usual, the moral dimension was scarcely latent. In theDiariesit
achieved existential urgency with reflections on authenticity. This last
was beginning to weaken his sympathy for Stoicism engendered by
Alain’s lectures at the Lyce ́e Henri-IV.^6 Indeed, Arlette Elkaı ̈m-Sartre
subtitled one of the sections of the first notebook “The Tribulations of a
(^6) Though he and Nizan did sit in on some of Alain’s classes at the Lyce ́e Henri-IV while they
were attending Louis-le-Grand, Sartre claims not to have read the work of this influential
Stoic pacifist until he entered the ENS (Ce ́r 250 ). Then he occasionally attended the lectures
of Sorbonne professor E ́mile Bre ́hier delivered on Stoicism and neo-Platonism at the ENS. In
view of Sartre’s attraction to Stoicism, it is curious to discover that the professor was so
angered by the practice of certain philosophy students skipping his lectures (Sartre and Nizan
were mentioned by name) that he threatened to halt teaching the course. It was future
philosopher and Resistance martyr, Jean Cavielle`s who urged him to continue delivering
them (Me ́moires 192 ).
164 The war years, 1939–1944