Reading Sartre

Joseph Catalano offers an in-depth exploration of Jean-Paul Sartre's four major philosophical writings.

Joseph S. Catalano (Author)

9780521766463, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 May 2010

240 pages
23.4 x 15.6 x 2 cm, 0.43 kg

"Catalano has written an important book of impressive scope and interest, as Reading Sartre is a well-constructed and coherent volume."
--George L?z?roiu, PhD /IISHSS, New York, Review of Contemporary Philosophy

In this volume, Joseph Catalano offers an in-depth exploration of Jean-Paul Sartre's four major philosophical writings: Being and Nothingness, Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr, The Critique of Dialectical Reason, and The Family Idiot. These works have been immensely influential, but they are long and difficult and thus challenging for both students and scholars. Catalano here demonstrates the interrelation of these four works, their internal logic, and how they provide insights into important but overlooked aspects of Sartre's thought, such as the body, childhood, and evil. The book begins with Sartre's final work, The Family Idiot, and systematically works backward to Being and Nothingness. Catalano then repeats the study by advancing chronologically, beginning with Being and Nothingness and ending with The Family Idiot and an afterword on Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Readers will appreciate Catalano's subtle readings as well as the new insights that he brings to Sartre's oeuvre.

Part I. A Retrospective Overview: 1. The Family Idiot
2. Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr
3. The Critique of Dialectical Reason
4. Being and Nothingness
Part II. The Works Themselves: 5. Being and Nothingness
6. The Critique of Dialectical Reason
7. Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr
8. The Family Idiot
9. The Family Idiot (concluded)
Afterword: Madame Bovary.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy, from c 1900 - [HPCF], Literature & literary studies [D]