Sartre’s reshaping of political philosophy for post-revolutionary times

Originated in a philosophical questioning on the French-Algerian postcolonial situation, this thesis focuses on Sartre’s philosophy as an attempt to answer the theoretical conflicts inherited from the French Revolution. I conceptualise the post-revolutionary era as a conflict between ethics and aesthetics that gave birth to positivism, which was on the road to challenge political philosophy in the twentieth century. I show that, at the very same time, Sartre was finding a solution to the challenges posed to political philosophy by criticising positivism thanks to his pursuit of a reconciliation of existentialism and Marxism. I analyse this pursuit as his own attempt to reconcile ethics and aesthetics, that the French Revolution had pulled apart. In Chapter 1, I lay down my interpretation of the meaning of the French Revolution for political philosophy, and enunciate the premise of the role Sartre has in solving the theoretical conflicts that emerged from it. It leads me to assess the role of subjectivity for him in Chapter 2, where I suggest to shed light on it thanks to the unvoiced Sartrean concept of collective past. From this original understanding of the connection between subjectivity and history, emerges an interpretation of intersubjectivity that leads to a theory of recognition very specific to Sartre, that I present and rebuild in Chapter 3. I the fourth and last chapter, I make the hypothesis that the concept of recognition stands as the connecting link between ethics and aesthetics, and I also give a full account of what aesthetics means for Sartre’s political philosophy. Sartre was involved in this enormously ambitious philosophical work at the very same time that he was politically involved in the anticolonial fight; throughout the thesis, I build a Sartre-inspired network of concepts apt for understanding of the French-Algerian situation.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Aït Mokhtar, Inès

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kelly, Duncan

• Philosophy
• Postcolonial studies
• Sartre

Licence

• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.84133

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/336711