Critique of Dialectical Reason Vol 2 [Paperback]

Does history produce discernible meaning? Are human struggles intelligible? These questions form the starting-point for the second volume of Sartre’sCritique of Dialectical Reason. Drafted in 1958 and published in France in 1985, this magisterial work first appeared in English in 1991 and now reappears with a major new introduction by Fredric Jameson.

Volume Two’s theoretical framework is a logical extension of the predecessor’s. As in Volume One, Sartre proceeds by moving from the simple to the complex: from individual combat (through a perceptive study of boxing) to the struggle of subgroups within an organized group form and, finally, to social struggle, with an extended analysis of the Bolshevik Revolution. The book concludes with a forceful reaffirmation of dialectical reason: of the dialectic as ‘that which is truly irreducible in action’.“This work is a landmark in modern social thought ... a turning point in the thinking of our time.”—Raymond Williams

“TheCritiqueis essential to any serious understanding of Sartre.”—George Steiner

“Of all the published posthumous works, Volume Two of theCritique of Dialectical Reasonmost strongly shows why Sartre is alive to us today ... Unique among this century’s great writers, Sartre—especially in hisCritique II—points towards understandings and actions which may possibly return the world to its creators and so let there be a future.”—Ronald AronsonJean-Paul Sartrewas a prolific philosopher, novelist, public intellectual, biographer, playwright and founder of the journalLes Temps Modernes. Born in Paris in 1905 and died in 1980, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964—and turned it down. His books includeNausea, Intimacy,The Flies,No Exit, Sartre’s War Diaries,Critique of Dialectical Reason, and the monlÓ5