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Existential Marxism in Postwar France: From Sartre to Althusser
The description for this book, Existential Marxism in Postwar From Sartre to Althusser, will be forthcoming.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 28, 2021
Unless you're driven by some indestructible urge to re-fight the battles of the 1970s, you'll recognize Mark Poster's book as a classic of intellectual history. He brings together a wide range of French thinkers, ranging from 'Orthodox' (i.e., Party hack) Marxists, through liberal sociologists, various 'existentialists,' phenomenologists, and Catholic thinkers, and shows how all of these tendencies fought with each other, accommodated each other, and, for better or worse, were shunted into the past by the rise of structuralism and Althusserian ideas.
Nicely written, exceptionally well structured, comprehensive, and rarely tedious. I can't recommend this highly enough to anyone interested in the period.
Nicely written, exceptionally well structured, comprehensive, and rarely tedious. I can't recommend this highly enough to anyone interested in the period.
November 4, 2010
Excellent...thrilling. Much focus on Sartre...the author clearly loves him and so do I. Also increased my already keen interest in Henri Lefebvre...
September 21, 2015
Mark Poster’s Existential Marxism in Postwar France prompts a divisive legacy. The subject material is undoubtedly unique and historically thorough, but the individual analyses are often weak and over-generalized (with the exception of Sartre, I will return to this later). The tension between the Marxists and their response towards the burgeoning hegemony of Stalinism over the claim to ‘Marxism’ as a philosophical practice is depicted well. I also laud the author’s choice on beginning his treatise on documenting the resurgence of Hegelianism in France through Kojeve and Hyppolite.
And now, the dominating issue of the book – Sartre. Or to be more precise, the quandary of what the author labels as the phenomenon of ‘existential Marxism’ as a viable praxis in itself, which is expressed in the symptomatic downfalls of Sartre’s philosophy, which is in turn expressed through the larger thematic messiness of the book in toto.
First of all, there was never a generally accepted notion of an ‘existential Marxism’. Why? Because ‘Marxism’, in its most enlightened and effective form, culminating in figures like Althusser (to whom Poster symptomatically fails to elucidate well), is a critique of the idealism and humanism of ‘existentialism’ as a philosophy. Sartre, recognizing the ideological pretensions of his (self-derogatorily named) ‘bourgeois’ philosophy later on and adapting to the cause of the workers, had sought to rescue existentialism by merging it with Marxism – arguably the most prominent attempt to formulate an ‘existential Marxism’. This explains the strikingly vast exposure of Sartre’s philosophy in the book – it is not simply because of the author’s personal preference to Sartre, but because it is a necessity in order for Poster to most effectively describe this retroactively termed ‘existential Marxism’.
As the mixed reception of Sartre’s most systematic apologetic for his merging of existentialism and Marxism, Critique of Dialectical Reason, demonstrates, the very possibility of an ‘existential Marxism’ is lacking in credibility. In a sense, this book doubly reproduces a philosophical and thematic ineffectiveness in its efforts defending Sartre’s ‘existential Marxism’, as well as defending the possibility of a union between existentialism and Marxism.
However, its redeeming quality lies in its documentation of the long-forgotten Arguments Group (outside of Lefebvre). In fact, as of 2014-15, this book is one of the only English language publications that speak of Kostas Axelos, and one of the only to discuss the group as a whole historically. While the book appears to simply reproduce the failings of Sartre, the rigorous historical research of the author ultimately introduces perhaps a glimmer of hope for his object of study – the possibility of the resurgence of the philosophies of the Arguments philosophers in English circles to, not only re-inform ‘existential Marxism’, but perhaps contemporary Marxism as well. Perhaps the recent return of Heidegger (albeit into renewed notoriety) with the Black Notebooks and the translation of one of Kostas Axelos’s works into English may kindle a way towards a renewed ‘existential Marxism’.
And now, the dominating issue of the book – Sartre. Or to be more precise, the quandary of what the author labels as the phenomenon of ‘existential Marxism’ as a viable praxis in itself, which is expressed in the symptomatic downfalls of Sartre’s philosophy, which is in turn expressed through the larger thematic messiness of the book in toto.
First of all, there was never a generally accepted notion of an ‘existential Marxism’. Why? Because ‘Marxism’, in its most enlightened and effective form, culminating in figures like Althusser (to whom Poster symptomatically fails to elucidate well), is a critique of the idealism and humanism of ‘existentialism’ as a philosophy. Sartre, recognizing the ideological pretensions of his (self-derogatorily named) ‘bourgeois’ philosophy later on and adapting to the cause of the workers, had sought to rescue existentialism by merging it with Marxism – arguably the most prominent attempt to formulate an ‘existential Marxism’. This explains the strikingly vast exposure of Sartre’s philosophy in the book – it is not simply because of the author’s personal preference to Sartre, but because it is a necessity in order for Poster to most effectively describe this retroactively termed ‘existential Marxism’.
As the mixed reception of Sartre’s most systematic apologetic for his merging of existentialism and Marxism, Critique of Dialectical Reason, demonstrates, the very possibility of an ‘existential Marxism’ is lacking in credibility. In a sense, this book doubly reproduces a philosophical and thematic ineffectiveness in its efforts defending Sartre’s ‘existential Marxism’, as well as defending the possibility of a union between existentialism and Marxism.
However, its redeeming quality lies in its documentation of the long-forgotten Arguments Group (outside of Lefebvre). In fact, as of 2014-15, this book is one of the only English language publications that speak of Kostas Axelos, and one of the only to discuss the group as a whole historically. While the book appears to simply reproduce the failings of Sartre, the rigorous historical research of the author ultimately introduces perhaps a glimmer of hope for his object of study – the possibility of the resurgence of the philosophies of the Arguments philosophers in English circles to, not only re-inform ‘existential Marxism’, but perhaps contemporary Marxism as well. Perhaps the recent return of Heidegger (albeit into renewed notoriety) with the Black Notebooks and the translation of one of Kostas Axelos’s works into English may kindle a way towards a renewed ‘existential Marxism’.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews