Nation Topics - Philosophy | The Nation

Presents Norman Mailer's comments on Jean-Paul Sartre's legacy, on the centenary of the philosopher of existentialism's birth. Claim that Sartre derailed existentialism due, in part, to the fact he did not consider Heidegger's thought; Sartre's atheism, and willing to dismiss the role of divinity despite a lack of philosophical footing; Claim that existentialism requires a god.

The New School University is one of Manhattan's most storied progressive institutions. But don't tell that to the people who work there. On March 11 several dozen students, labor organizers and faculty members gathered for a demonstration outside the Sheraton Hotel on 53rd Street, site of the annual La Guardia Award Dinner, a fundraising event hosted by the New School.Outside, demonstrators handed out fliers calling on the New School to "Quit Mickey Mousing Around" and recognize the right of adjunct faculty members to form a union. It's a right you would think the New School would happily recognize, given that it was founded in 1919 by John Dewey, Charles Beard and other progressive thinkers and in the 1930s formed a "University in Exile" to offer refuge to scholars fleeing fascist Europe. Yet for the past year, the New School has persistently sought to undermine an organizing drive launched by its part-time instructors, who earn on average $2,700 per course, without benefits. On March 5 the university went so far as to appeal the results of an election in which a majority of adjuncts voted to join the United Auto Workers (which represents faculty at NYU and several other universities). While the New School has raised many technical concerns about the unionization process, it has studiously avoided addressing the real issue: that it is an institution facing financial constraints and seeking to maximize its budget flexibility--and it does not want to be tethered to a union contract with its adjuncts.

The article gives information about literary works of Jean-Paul Sartre. The author talks about the crucial part performed by Sartre for at least three decades after the war in the cultural and political battles on the international stage, about his role as the chief critic of the Western world. Prolific and many-sided are ridiculous euphemisms when applied to Sartre. Readers know from "Words" that he acquired in childhood the habit of writing for six to seven hours a day, and much more when the issue fascinated him or the timetable required it. He wrote some philosophy with literary elegance and put philosophical ideas into his novels.

Leftists are successful when they refuse to think in terms of compromise with majority sentiments and stake out radical alternatives that generate their own support by creating social movements in their wake. Yet at the same time, the left has contributed to its current weakness by "failing to unite around economic issues of fairness that join together the interests of all but the wealthiest Americans." The cultural left has given left politics a bad name because of its divisive obsession with race and sex, its arcane "elitist" battles over curriculum, its penchant for pointy-headed social theory and its aversion to the socially and sexually conservative values most Americans uphold.

There is a formula in philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's unwieldy masterpiece "Being and Nothingness," that is so precisely true of the late paintings of painter Ad Reinhardt that if it is also true of human beings, as Sartre supposed it was, then human beings and works of art must be far closer philosophical kin than is commonly realized. Reinhardt's paintings do not stand apart from the history of art by the fact of their annihilations but only by the sheer quantity of those. Reinhardt was a critic though perhaps never a reviewer and a painter whose works realize the intent of his words.

This article presents information on the book "The War Diaries of Jean-Paul Sartre: November 1939-March 1940." The above mentioned book is translated by Quintin Hoare. It is opined that the above mentioned book is brilliant and is valuable for anyone who is vaguely interested in the chief exponent of postwar existentialism. The book was written when Sartre was only 34 years of age and the diaries provide the most human portrait of Sartre the man. However, the diaries represent only a fragment of what Sartre wrote each day from September 1939 to March 1940. Of the fourteen notebooks he filled during that period, only the five that make up the book in question has been found. The loss of the remaining nine is staggering considering the treasures available in this book.

Discusses the breadth and integrity of thought of French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. Identification with the angst of his time; Rebellion against 20th century political creations; Movement from one ideological port to another; Understanding of the porous relationship between the objective and subjective; Sartre's life as teaching on engagement with the world.

Focuses on the advantages of employing police officers with competencies in philosophy in the U.S. Ability of people with doctorate in philosophy to understand changing times; Administration of criminal justice; Challenges of police in modern city.

Presents a letter to the editor in regards to offering amnesty for those who do not want to serve in the Vietnam conflict written by Jean-Paul Sartre.

This article presents a section of the conversation with the French philosopher and novelist, Jean-Paul Sartre when he visited Rome in August 1968. Answering to the question on the role of intellectuals in democratic field in the world, Sartre said that they have the exclusive duty to attempt analysis of events, to examine situations freely, to identify positive and negative peculiarities, to denounce, to scrutinize and to speak out about all false respectful consensus in the world politics. According to him, intellectuals are somewhat the makers of politics. In this context, he gave commented on the industrial revolutionary movement and dispute between students and workers in France during May 1968.