In addition to lectures at the E ́cole, theNormalienstook classes at the
Sorbonne, though Sartre was noticeable by his frequent absence. In fact,
the only lectures he regularly attended there were those of Emile Bre ́hier
on the Stoics, a subject that would continue to hold his interest over the
years. The Sorbonne faculty at that time tended to favor neo-Kantian
idealism or a version of French positivism. But Hegel was scarcely
mentioned. In fact, Sartre reports that Jules Lachelier ( 1832 – 1918 ) used
to thunder: “There won’t be any Hegel [at the university] as long as I’m
around.”^13 Le ́on Brunschvicg, whom Aron described as “the mandarin
of mandarins” at the Sorbonne (Me ́moires 38 ), was an extremely influen-
tial professor at the university from 1890 to 1939. He devoted only a few
pages to Hegel in hisLe Progre`s de la conscience dans la philosophie
occidentale( 1927 ). Ironically, it was Brunschvicg’s nephew by marriage,
Jean Wahl, who contributed to the Hegelian renaissance with his mono-
graphThe Unhappy Consciousness in Hegel’s Philosophy, which appeared
two years later and which both Sartre and Beauvoir appreciated. The
professors whom Sartre mentions in his philosophical critique of
idealist academic epistemology of the 1930 s include E ́mile Boutroux
( 1845 – 1921 ), E ́mile Meyerson ( 1859 – 1933 ), who never held an appoint-
ment in France, and Le ́on Brunschvicg ( 1869 – 1944 ).^14 Though
defending a realist position in epistemology most of his life, or one that
was neither realist nor idealist after he discovered phenomenology,
Sartre seemed always to have been tempted by the idealist sirens of his
days at the Sorbonne. Even in his last interview with Beauvoir, he asked
whether she thought that hisCritique of Dialectical Reasonwasn’t some-
what idealist in character. She, of course, responded in the negative. But
the sincerity of the question is telling. It suggests that the idealist demon
had not been fully exorcized even after so many years (seeCe ́r 215 ). It
was Sartre’s perception that Husserl’s phenomenology had taken an
“idealist” turn that had moved him away from it (seeCe ́r 234 ). Still,
(^13) Film 37.
(^14) See Jean-Paul Sartre, “Une Ide ́e fonde ́mentale de la phe ́nomenologie de Husserl: l’intentio-
nalite ́.” There is some dispute about when this short essay was composed, though it was
published in 1939. Vincent de Coorebyter mounts a strong case in favor of its having been
composed in the early 1930 s while Sartre was in Berlin. This would make it contempor-
aneous withTranscendence of the Ego. This would make “Intentionality” “Sartre’s first
phenomenological writing” (Vincent de Coorebyter,Sartre face a`la phe ́nome ́nology[Brussels:
Ousia, 2000 ], 27 ff.; hereafterSFP).
24 An elite education: student, author, soldier, teacher