and Nothingness, the principle is better read as an anticipation of the mutuality
prized by theCritique. In this lecture it is more of a stipulation than a self-evident
principle. It helps to remember that Sartre sets this claim on the “plane of free
commitment” (EH 51 ); that is, he takes it as “operating on the level of complete
authenticity” (EH 49 ).The foregoing claims seem to support, if not strictly imply, thatfreedom
unrecognized remains abstract. This is a corollary to Sartre’s thesis that
being-for-others is constitutive of human reality as situated (no. 6 )as
well as to the newly stated formula that choice of self implies
intersubjectivity (no. 5 ). The claim that my freedom depends on that
of others and theirs on mine explicitly appeals to a new and henceforth
paramount ideal, that of thehuman community, though it is only men-
tioned here as a possibility (seeEH 51 ).^23
Reflections on the Jewish Question(Anti-Semite and Jew)
Though faulted for its ignorance of its subject and particularly for its
insensitivity to the religious and general cultural dimension of Jewish life
and tradition, this hastily written occasional piece is commonly recog-
nized by friend and foe alike as a major document in the history of Jewish
relations in post-war France. Written in 1944 , there was controversy
over whether it should be published at all. Some thought it was too soon
to raise this topic in so direct a manner while others insisted that
the time was ripe to face a reluctant public with the harsh realities of
anti-Semitism in France. One could view this work as the major public
expression of what has been called a Jewish “engagement” in Sartre’s
philosophy and personal life.^24 Michel Rybalka remarks that this text,
reflecting the situation of French society in the fall of 1944 , “should be
(^23) The reconstruction of Sartre’s argument in “Existentialism is a Humanism” is taken
24 substantially fromSME^33 –^40 and is gratefully used with permission from that Press.
Sartre confirms Beauvoir’s reference to a draft of a “Constitution” that Sartre sent to De
Gaulle during the occupation for reconstituting the French government after the war. All of
its eleven copies are now lost, but he agrees that, of its 120 articles, there was a large section
on granting specific rights to the Jewish citizens “to speak their language, to practice their
religion, to preserve their culture, and the like” (SeeCe ́r 495 and Steven Ungar’s introduc-
tion toWL, 5 ). Sartre explains that an interview by a young Swiss Jew, Arnold Mendel in
1939 , convinced him that these specific rights had to be assured by any future government.
The text of the original interview is reproduced inOctober 87 (winter 1999 ): 172 – 173.
242 Existentialism: the fruit of liberation