The subtitle ofBeing and Nothingnessis “An Essay on Phenomeno-
logical Ontology.” The subtitle of theCritiquecould be “An Essay in
Social Ontology,” because it discusses the nature and functions of
the basic kinds of social being. What makes possible a valid social
philosophy and a viable theory of history for Sartre is his replacement
or better complement of the visual model of interpersonal relations
employed in BN with the praxis model adopted in the Critique.
Whereas the “Third” party inBNis simply the existential Other writ
large and so could be labeled an “alienating” (objectifying) Third, the
praxis model of interpersonal relations renders positive reciprocity
possible through the practical mediation of a Third (le tiers me ́diateur).
If the model of alienating relations inBNis the objectifying gaze
of the infernal trio caught in Sartre’sNo Exit, the paradigm of
nonalienating relations in the generous gift of the artist, which was
already discussed inNotebooks for an Ethics, is given ontological status
with the “mediating third” that emerges in the Critique.Sartre
remarks inBNthat the existence of the Other is our “original fall”
(BN 289 ). In theCritique he speaks of our relations mediated by
the “practico-inert” as “basic sociality” (CDR 318 ).Andincontrast
with the group, which he sees as the model of nonalienating interper-
sonal relations in theCritique, he discusses the practico-inert ensem-
ble as “the matrix of groups and their grave” (CDR 635 ). We shall sort
out these several technical terms shortly, but suffice it to say that
“practico-inert” assumes and modifies the function of “being-in-
itself ” fromBN.
The initial edition of volumeiof theCritique, the only one published
in Sartre’s lifetime, is scarcely user-friendly, with 700 pages of text
in small print on large pages, with sentences running for over a page
and paragraphs continuing across several pages, and the whole prefaced
by a table of contents with only four entries, one of which is “Question
of Method.” The book resembles Kierkegaard’s analogy of someone
volumeiiof theCritique, for example [seeCDRii: 263 – 271 ]). Admittedly, the P-R method is
mentioned only occasionally in theCritique(seeCDRI: 124 ), whereas it is omnipresent inThe
Family Idiot. But his mention of the regressive and progressive natures of the argument in
volumesiandiirespectively (seeCDRi: 817 – 818 ) should settle the matter regarding the
progressive/regressive nature of theCritiqueas well.Vol. I,Theory of Practical Ensembles 335