Echoing his earlier claims about the important role of “situation” in
conceiving a revolutionary philosophy (“Materialism and Revolution”)
and the decisive function of the “bases and structures” of choice in
fostering an agent’s action (Anti-Semite and Jew), this exchange between
Beauvoir and Sartre underscores again the ambiguity of the “given” and
the “taken” (facticity and transcendence) that has plagued Sartre’s
thought sinceBN. The force of circumstance will continue to grow until
it gains nearly “equal importance” with transcendence in the concepts
of “free organic praxis” and the dialectic of theCritique.
So, in the existentialist tradition, what does Jean Genet “make of
what has been made of him”? The moments in that metamorphosis
anticipate the moments in Flaubert’s transformation from the family
idiot, passively constituted, to the cynical knight of nothingness, to the
poet, to the novelist – all occurring under the aspect of the negative.^25
Sartre admitted that his Flaubert study was a sequel toSaint Genet,but
he allowed that it was a sequel toThe ImaginaryandSearch for a Method
as well. When we reachThe Family Idiot, we will discover that these
characteristics are not mutually exclusive; that they enhance the signifi-
cance of that massive enterprise.^26
Considered to be one of Sartre’s finest achievements, the “biograph-
ical novel” on Genet’s life and works serves a bridge role in Sartre’s
oeuvre. It incorporates many concepts fromBeing and Nothingness– the
ontology of in-itself, for-itself and for-others, bad faith, the cardinal
categories of being and doing, the sadomasochistic conception of love,
an emphasis on the imaginary and consciousness in its prereflective and
reflective levels. But there are indications that problems and concepts
calling for theCritiqueare already present in this ample and intensely
written work. Chief among these are the appeal to “praxis” (already at
work inWL), an emphasis on positive reciprocity as a fact and an
ideal exemplified in “genuine love” (SG 328 ), a sense of the limit of
psychoanalytic explanations, appeal to a dialectic that flattens into the
“circular,” an implicit demand for the “mediating third party” that will
(^25) “Denouncing the real in the name of the irreal [the imaginary],” (IFiii: 147 ), correcting
“unreality” inFIv: 131. We should add to Flaubert’s achievements “playwright,” since late
in life he wrote a comedy in four acts,Le Candidat( 1873 ) that had an unsuccessful run on the
26 Parisian stage the next year.
See below,Chapter 15.
276 Ends and Means: existential ethics