13
Individuals and groups:
Critique of Dialectical Reason
Volumei,Theory of Practical Ensembles
Sartre defends the published order ofSearch for a Methodfollowed by
Critique of Dialectical Reasonin his preface to the first edition of the
Critique:^1
I fear that the two works included in this volume may appear to be unequal in
importance and scope. Logically, the second should have come before the first,
since it is intended to supply its critical foundations. But I was afraid that this
mountain of notes might seem to have brought forth a mouse...Moreover, since,
the second work did in fact grow from the first, it seemed to preserve the
chronological order, which, from a dialectical perspective, is always the most
significant.
(CDR 2 nd edn.,annexe 821 )
Given that Sartre later described The Family Idiotas the sequel to
Search for a Method, and in view of the numerous references to
Flaubert that punctuate bothSMandCDR, the question arises whether
the progressive-regressive method introduced inSMand soon to be
observed inThe Family Idiotwill map over the dialectic in theCritique–
in effect, whether it is synonymous with or at least complementary to
the method used in that work.^2
(^1) It served as preface to the entire volumeiin the first edition of theCritique de la raison
2 dialectique (pre ́ce ́de ́de Question de me ́thode) (Paris: Gallimard,^1960 ), hereafterCRD.
Klaus Hartmann overstates the case when he insists thatSearchhas little to do with the
Critique(Hartmann,Sozialphilosophie, 52 – 56 , and “Sartre’s Theory of Ensembles,” in
Schilpp 659 – 660 ,n. 3 ). Even the biographical studies that enter into the latter can be
classified as brief existential psychoanalyses (the study of Stalin’s totalitarian character in
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