Critique of Dialectical Reason

Critique of Dialectical Reason, originally Critique de la raison dialectique (1960), was the last of Jean-Paul Sartre's major philosophical works: it attempted to reconcile Marxism and Existentialism building on Search for a Method, an earlier essay that became the introduction for the Critique. By using events of the French Revolution and other historical occasions (including the notion that the endowment by Europeans of certain metals with a "precious" value led inexorably to slavery), Sartre attempted to show how what we call class is a special instance of a human grouping, or rather several levels of human groupings (seriality). He preceded this with complex explanations of groupings of increasing sophistication, ranging from a queue at a bus stop to institutions.
A second and incomplete volume with emphasis on the Stalinization of the Bolshevik revolution was published in French in 1985 and in English in 1992.
Sartre is quoted as having said this was the principal of his two philosophical works for which he wished to be remembered.
==External links==
*Essay on the CDR by Andy Blunden
Excerpts from Sartre's work:
*Full TOC and Partial Text at Google Books
*The Dogmatic Dialectic and the Critical Dialectic
*The Intelligibility of History: Totalisation without a Totaliser
Category:Existentialism
Category:Existentialist works