not have been as stunning as Beauvoir described. In fact, Sartre recalls
having read Levinas’sThe Theory of Intuition in the Phenomenology of
Husserlprior to that encounter with Aron at the cafe ́, but this may be
attributable to his failing memory.^26 Regardless of the sequence, his
reading of Levinas’s study of intuition in Husserl was a pivotal moment
in Sartre’s thinking.
Sartre continued his strict regimen while at the Maison Franc ̧aise. In
the mornings he studied Husserl, and, after a walk around the city,
afternoons were devoted to his “factum” on contingency. He claims to
have read about fifty pages of Heidegger’sBeing and Timetoward the end
of his stay, but found it too difficult to plow through. Not until Easter of
1939 did he read the entire volume and only while presenting a course on
the book to some priests, who were fellow prisoners in a POW camp, did
he study it carefully. How much of Jaspers he read while in Berlin is
uncertain. Sartre gradually lost interest in Jaspers’s work, even as the
stars of the show. Since portions of the Husserl essay had been published previously in
Brunschvicg’sRevue de Me ́taphysique et de Morale 35 ,no. 4 (Oct.–Dec. 1928 ), it is surprising
if Sartre was encountering Husserl’s thought for the first time in that famous cocktail
conversation of 1933. (See Dominique Janicaud,Heidegger en France, 2 vols. [Paris: Albain
Michel, 2001 ],i: 25 – 26 , hereafterHF; see alsoTE 8 ,n. 2 .) Since Sartre’s public lectures at
Le Havre were also reported to include discussions of “German Philosophers and literary
subjects: ‘Inner Monologue: Joyce’ and ‘Moral Problems of contemporary authors’” (OR
xlviii), it seems unlikely that he would not have consulted this volume on that very topic
available at the time. On the other hand, as noted earlier, that was the title of his lectures
given at Le Havre the year after his return from Berlin: “L’Allemagne en 1933 – 1934 ” (see
ES no. 10 , 19 – 20 ,n. 4 ). More important in assessing when Sartre actually “discovered”
Husserl and phenomenology, is Janicaud’s claim that he certainly must have read A. Bessey’s
admittedly flawed translation of Heidegger’sSatz vom Grund, the expression erroneously
renderedPrincipe de causalite ́and the title of the essay as “De la nature de la cause” in
Recherches philosophiques, ed. Alexander Koyre ́, H.-C. Puech and A Speier (Paris: Bovin,
1931 – 1932 ), 83 – 124 , as well as Jean Wahl’s major essay “Heidegger et Kierkegaard.
Recherche des e ́le ́ments originaux de la philosophie de Heidegger” in another issue of the
same volume ofRecherches philosophiques, 349 – 370 (HFi: 39 ). In fact, Sartre will later refer to
the publication of Heidegger’s “What is Metaphysics?” – the text de Beauvoir claimed she
and Sartre found unintelligible, at least on first reading – as “an historical event” (CDG-F26227 ). For Sartre’s remarks about reading this journal seeCDG-F^228.
See “Une Vie pour la philosophie,” discussion with Jean-Paul Sartre,Magazine Litte ́raire
no. 384 , 2000 ( 1975 ): 40 – 47. He had to be corrected when he attributed to Georges Gurvitch
Lavinas’s book onIntuition in the Phenomenology of Husserlthat reportedly introduced Sartre
to the German phenomenologist (Film 42 n.). On the other hand, this lapsus may have been
an admission that it was Gurvitch’s book on German philosophers that had introduced him
to Husserlian phenomenology prior to the Levinas volume, though it scarcely would have
done so with the depth and insight of the Levinas work.
The Berlin vacation 61