Books in Brief

Jean-Paul Sartre, by Arthur C. Danto (Viking, 175 pp., $8.95). This book is more admirable by far than its subject. Arthur Danto makes sense out of Sartre; indeed, I suspect he finds more sense in Sartre than is there: beauty here is in the eye of the beholder. And at times, Professor Danto’s glasses are so rosy that they obscure his view. Sartre’s Marxism is mentioned exclusively in philosophical contexts. Danto is so busy praising Sartre that he does not get around to mentioning Sartre’s indulgence for Soviet death camps, his refusal to protest against them, his refusal even to protest the killing or imprisonment of fellow intellectuals. Sartre’s attitude is so revolting that Solzhenitsyn refused to receive him in Moscow, or anywhere else. Rightly. For such an attitude as Sartre’s, though always wrong, would be forgivable in someone exclusively devoted to literary or philosophical pursuits. But Sartre is an homme de lettres engagé. He prides himself on his participation in politics. Thus, his support for the slave-masters in the Gulag Archipelago is not a moral lapse. It is a selfinduced moral blindness which any biographer has a duty to confront, lest he too be infected. Still, apart from this important caveat, I have nothing but praise for Danto’s book. His expository style is clear and swift. As I said, he perhaps makes Sartre’s philosophy more coherent than it actually is, and gives more credit for originality than is deserved; but generosity in such matters becomes a biographer. Danto presents a sensitive analysis of the literary works; although here I think he sometimes gives philosophical (epistemological) credit where Sartre deserves psychological credit for acute introspective insight and articulation. But whatever their source, Sartre succeeds in embodying his insights and sensibilities in his protagonists, and Danto relays them brilliantly. He deserves even more credit for tackling the major philosophical works, which, though less sustained, rival Heidegger for turgid obscurity, if not for originality. Mirabile dictu, Danto makes them lucid. I cannot think of a better introduction to Sartre.

EH

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Ernest van den Haag

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Jean-Paul Sartre, by Arthur C. Danto (Viking, 175 pp., $8.95). This book is more admirable by far than its subject. Arthur Danto makes sense out of Sartre; indeed, I suspect he finds more sense in Sartre than is there: beauty here is in the eye of the beholder. And at times, Professor Danto’s glasses are so rosy that they obscure his view. Sartre’s Marxism is mentioned exclusively in philosophical contexts. Danto is so busy praising Sartre that he does not get around to mentioning Sartre’s indulgence for Soviet death camps, his refusal to protest against them, his refusal even to protest the killing or imprisonment of fellow intellectuals. Sartre’s attitude is so revolting that Solzhenitsyn refused to receive him in Moscow, or anywhere else. Rightly. For such an attitude as Sartre’s, though always wrong, would be forgivable in someone exclusively devoted to literary or philosophical pursuits. But Sartre is an homme de lettres engagé. He prides himself on his participation in politics. Thus, his support for the slave-masters in the Gulag Archipelago is not a moral lapse. It is a selfinduced moral blindness which any biographer has a duty to confront, lest he too be infected. Still, apart from this important caveat, I have nothing but praise for Danto’s book. His expository style is clear and swift. As I said, he perhaps makes Sartre’s philosophy more coherent than it actually is, and gives more credit for originality than is deserved; but generosity in such matters becomes a biographer. Danto presents a sensitive analysis of the literary works; although here I think he sometimes gives philosophical (epistemological) credit where Sartre deserves psychological credit for acute introspective insight and articulation. But whatever their source, Sartre succeeds in embodying his insights and sensibilities in his protagonists, and Danto relays them brilliantly. He deserves even more credit for tackling the major philosophical works, which, though less sustained, rival Heidegger for turgid obscurity, if not for originality. Mirabile dictu, Danto makes them lucid. I cannot think of a better introduction to Sartre.