alternative as the contextualized and totalized differ from the a-contextual
and abstract. Read “dialectically” in a spiral manner of “internalization
and externalzation,” Sartre’s account of this particular event on this
boxing card held in this arena on this evening aims to make comprehen-
sible the expanding spiral of the mediating factors that are “enveloped”
by the practice of prize-fighting and “incarnated” by this particular match.
What he calls “enveloping totalization (totalisation d’enveloppement)” can
be pictured as the expanding circles of the dialectical spiral, whereas
“incarnation” (l’incarnation) denotes the contracting circles of that spiral
that point to the race and social condition of these fighters – in sum, their
existential “biographies.”
It may help to consider a similar contrast Sartre drew in his discussion
of language toward the end ofBeing and Nothingness.^15 Inspired by the
Hegelian dialectic, Sartre distinguished between the “truth” and the
“reality” of the Hegelian Dialectic in his discussion of “language.”
French was the reality of “language,” which was the “truth” of French.
Likewise, dialect was the reality of French, which was the “truth” of
dialect and so forth until one arrived at this particular utterance which
was the reality of the patois, which was the truth of the utterance. The
terminus of this spiral was the “reality” of this person in this situation
uttering these words. From this, Sartre draws a properly “existentialist”
though rigorously antistructuralist conclusion: “Freedom is the only
possible foundation of the laws of language” (BN 517 ; EN 600 ).
Returning to the boxing match, the potentially limitless amount of
information that one might gather as the social and historical context
of the match widens is “compressed” into this antagonistic reciprocity.
The fighter is mediated by the match in his practical relation to
the other.
The theme of life and death introduces another existentialist dimen-
sion both into the dialectic of this event and into the volume generally. In
(^15) See Sartre’s use of the Hegelian distinction between “truth” and “reality” in his discussion
of “techniques for appropriating the world” (BN 512 – 513 andSME 28 – 29 ). Already in
Notebooks for an Ethics, Sartre seemed to be anticipating aspects of the dialectical spiral in
Critiquevolumeiiwhen he observed that “every historical event has a physical aspect that
alters it and draws it toward the side of the general...Consequentlychanceis within each
historical event...If Stalin were to die, nothing would be changed. However precisely if – at
least this [would change], that the Soviet myth incarnated in Stalin would not be incarnated
in anyone else in the same way” (NE 27 ;CM 33 ).
348 Individuals and groups:Critique of Dialectical Reason