Practice, Power, and Forms of Life

Philosopher Terry Pinkard revisits Sartres later work, illuminating a pivotal stance in Sartres understanding of freedom and communal action. Jean-Paul Sartres Critique of Dialectical Reason, released to great fanfare in 1960, has since then receded in philosophical visibility. As Sartres reputation is now making a comeback, it is time for a reappraisal of his later work. In Practice, Power, and Forms of Life, philosopher Terry Pinkard interprets Sartres late work as a fundamental reworking of his earlier ideas, especially in terms of his understanding of the possibility of communal action as genuinely free, which the French philosopher had previously argued was impossible. Pinkard reveals how Sartre was drawn back to Hegel, a move that was itself incited by Sartres newfound interest in Marxism. Pinkard argues that Sartre constructed a novel position on freedom that has yet to be adequately taken up and analyzed within philosophy and political theory. Through Sartre, Pinkard advances an argument that contributes to the history of philosophy as well as key debates on action and freedom.