• DOI:10.1086/220538
• Corpus ID: 144247304

The Social Thought of Jean-Paul Sartre

@article{Adler1949TheST,
  title={The Social Thought of Jean-Paul Sartre},
  author={Franz Adler},
  journal={American Journal of Sociology},
  year={1949},
  volume={55},
  pages={284 - 294}
}

• F. Adler
• Published 1 November 1949
• Philosophy
• American Journal of Sociology

Disappointment with science characterizes modern existentialism, yet the existentialist Sartre seems to move back to science. Though a philosopher, he deserves the attention of the sociologist because of the hypotheses and thought models he offers. Sartre starts from a phenomenologist epistemology. Man chooses and makes himself by acting. Any action implies the judgment that it is right under the circumstances not only for the actor, but also for everybody else in similar circumstances. Thus, whoever, in man's universal condition, chooses freedom chooses it for everybody. Lately Sartre's view of freedom has been modified in that he attributes greater importance to social and economic conditions surrounding man's choice. Others constitute infringements upon man's freedom. But man needs the other because cannot realize himself except in the other's eyes. Communication is possible only by mutual role-taking. Language is made while it is spoken, not used as a ready-made commodity. In a study of anti-Semitism, Sartre outlines four types-the anti-Semite, the democrat, the authentic Jew, and the inauthentic Jew-which are products of free choice in a more or less constraining environment. He suggests the classless society as the remedy for anti-Semitism. Sartre's ethics may be useful to the teacher of sociology becauses its assumptions are compatible with those of science.