Four cardinal conceptsPraxis
We have already observed this term in Sartre’s vocabulary before the
Critique, but now it assumes in his thought the leading role previously
reserved for the “for-itself ” or consciousness.^5 In a footnote Sartre
translates “praxis” and “practico-inert” into the vocabulary ofBN, while
correcting a misunderstanding of BN that fundamental alienation
derived from some prenatal choice.^6 In one of those “great inexact
equations” that he favors, Sartre announces that “Dialectic and praxis
are one and the same” (CDR 802 ); if not precisely the same, dialectic
constitutes the logic ofpraxis.Praxisoccurs according to the threefold
articulation of the Sartrean dialectic: “contradictions, surpassing
(de ́passement) and totalization” (SM 34 ). Later inSearch for a Method
he remarks that “praxisis inconceivable withoutneed,transcendence, and
theproject”(SM 171 ). And later: “Need, negativity, surpassing, project,
transcendence, form a synthetic totality in which each one of the
(^5) In addition to the “literature of Praxis” mentioned inWhat is Literature?, consider: “It is
praxiswhich integrates [the workers] while differentiating them; it is the apparatus [the
‘collective object’ inCDR, e.g. the machine tools] which carries out the mediation between all
and each. But the origin of the current [the ‘drive’ for change of the status quo] remains
extra-union: it is hunger, anger or terror which sets things in motion or sometimes, as in
1936 [when the Popular Front wins the French elections], it is hope that suddenly bolts from
the blue” (CP 217 ). It is in this sense that the workers’destinyis set by their tools while those
same instruments are the “interest” of the employers. Interest/destiny forms a common
“dialectic” introduced inCPbut elaborated inCDR.
(^6) “For those who have readBeing and Nothingness, I can describe the foundation of necessity as
practice: it is the For-itself, as agent, revealing itself initially as inert or, at best, as practico-
inert, in the milieu of the In-Itself. This...is because the very structure of action as
organization of the unorganised primarily relates the For-itself to its alienated being as Being
in itself. This inert materiality of man as the foundation of all knowledge of himself by himself
is, therefore, an alienation of knowledge as well as a knowledge of alienation. Necessity, for
man, is conceiving oneself originally as Other than one is and in the dimension of alterity.
Certainly,praxisis self explanatory (se donne ses luminie`res); it is always conscious of itself. But
this non-thetic consciousness counts for nothing against the practical affirmation thatIam
what I have done (which eludes me while constituting me as other). It is the necessity of this
fundamental relation which explains why, as I have said, manprojects himselfin the milieu of
the In-Itself-For-Itself. Fundamental alienation does not derive, asBeing and Nothingness
might mislead one into supposing, from some prenatal choice. It derives from the univocal
relation of interiority which unites man as a practical organism with his environment” (CDR
227 – 228 ,n. 68 ). For a helpful commentary on this passage in terms of Marxist “alienation,”
see McBride,Sartre’s Political Theory, 130 ff.
Vol. I,Theory of Practical Ensembles 337