Editing Critique of Dialectical Reason (section)

==Reception==
From the time the ''Critique of Dialectical Reason'' was published in 1960, there has been much discussion about where it stands in relation to Sartre's earlier, seminal work, ''Being and Nothingness''. Some Sartre scholars and critics, like George Kline, see the work as essentially a repudiation of Sartre's existentialist stance. Marjorie Grene thinks that the ''Critique of Dialectical Reason'' can be readily translated into the categories of ''Being and Nothingness''. [[Hazel Barnes]] and Peter Caws see a shift in emphasis between the two works but not a difference of kind.<ref name="Catalano" /> Barnes observes that the title ''Critique of Dialectical Reason'' "suggests both [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]] and [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]]." According to Barnes, the ''Critique of Dialectical Reason'' resembles Kant's ''[[Critique of Pure Reason]]'' in that it is concerned "with the nature, possibilities, and limitations of human reason." She sees this as the only similarity, however, since Sartre's interests are not primarily epistemological or metaphysical and he is more indebted to Hegel than to Kant.<ref name="Search" /> Josef Catalano argues that the ''Critique of Dialectical Reason'' gives a historical and social dimension to the being-for-itself described in ''Being and Nothingness''. Finally, [[Fredric Jameson]] believes that a reading of the Critique forever alters our view of what Sartre meant in ''Being and Nothingness'', that the label "existentialist" as applied to Sartre can no longer have its previous meaning.<ref name="Catalano">{{cite book |author=Catalano, Joseph S. |title=A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason, Volume 1, Theory of Practical Ensembles |url=https://archive.org/details/commentaryonjean0000cata |url-access=registration |publisher=University of Chicago Press  |location=Chicago  |year=1986 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/commentaryonjean0000cata/page/6 6–8] |isbn=978-0-226-09701-5 }}</ref>

Sartre's analysis of "groups-in-fusion" (people brought together by a common cause) resonated with the events of the [[May 1968 events in France|May–June 1968 uprising in France]] and allowed him to sideline for a while the competing influence of [[Louis Althusser|Louis Althusser's]] [[Structuralism|structuralist]] interpretation of Marxism.<ref name="Boulé">{{cite book |author= |title=Existentialism and Contemporary Cinema: A Sartrean Perspective |publisher=Berghahn |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-857-45320-4 |editor-last=Boule |editor-first=Jean-Pierre |location=New York |pages=4 |editor-last2=McCaffrey |editor-first2=Enda}}</ref> Situating the ''Critique of Dialectical Reason'' in the context of May–June 1968, the psychoanalyst [[Didier Anzieu]] stated that "Sartre first described in his book the passive and anonymous forms of individual alienation--this is what he calls the 'practico-inert'--and then he showed how a group introduces negation into history and shapes itself (instead of being shaped), invents itself by breaking with this passive and anonymous society that an American sociologist called 'the lonely crowd.' The students who sparked the outbreak of the revolution of the spring of 1968 were shaped by, if not this second Sartrean philosophy, at least a dialectical philosophy of history. May of 1968 is the historical upsurge of a 'wild-flowering' force of negation. It is the inroad of 'Sartrean' freedom, not that of the isolated individual but the creative freedom of groups."<ref name="Contat">{{cite book |author=Sartre, Jean-Paul and eds. Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka |title=The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Volume 1, A Bibliographical Life |publisher=Northwestern University Press |location=Evanston |year=1974 |pages=524 |isbn=978-0-810-10430-3 }}</ref>

The philosopher [[Sidney Hook]] described the work as a philosophical justification for widespread human rights abuses by the Communist leadership of the Soviet Union.<ref>[[Sidney Hook]] (1966). "Marxism in the Western World: From Scientific Socialism to Mythology". In [[Milorad M. Drachkovitch]] (ed.), ''Marxist Ideology in the Contemporary World: Its Appeals and Paradoxes'', pp. 1-36, NY: Praeger</ref> The psychiatrists [[R. D. Laing]] and [[David Cooper (psychiatrist)|David Cooper]] consider the ''Critique of Dialectical Reason'' an attempt to provide a dialectical basis for structural anthropology, and to establish through a dialectical approach the limits of dialectical reason.<ref name="LaingandCooper">{{cite book |author1=Laing, R. D. |author2=Cooper, David |author3=Sartre, Jean-Paul  |title=Reason and Violence: A decade of Sartre's philosophy 1950-1960 |publisher=Vintage Books |location=New York |year=1971 |pages=26–27 |isbn=0-394-71043-6 }}</ref> [[Gilles Deleuze]] and [[Félix Guattari]] endorsed Sartre's view that there is no "class [[revolutionary spontaneity|spontaneity]]" but only "group spontaneity".<ref name="DeleuzeandGuattari">{{cite book |author1=Deleuze, Gilles |author2=Guattari, Félix |title=Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |location=Minneapolis |year=1992 |pages=256–257 |isbn=0-8166-1225-0 }}</ref>

[[Leszek Kołakowski]] argues that the ''Critique of Dialectical Reason'' represents an abandonment of Sartre's original existentialism and that it absurdly depicts Marxism as "invincible". Kołakowski nevertheless considers the book an interesting attempt to find room for creativity and spontaneity within Marxism, noting that Sartre rejects the dialectic of nature and [[historical determinism]] while preserving the social significance of human behavior. Kołakowski criticizes Sartre for failing to explain how Communism could restore freedom. In his view, Sartre gives such a generalized account of revolutionary organization that he ignores the real difficulties of groups engaging in common action without infringing the freedom of their individual members. Kołakowski criticizes Sartre for introducing many superfluous neologisms, writing that aside from these he does not provide a genuinely new interpretation of Marxism; he sees Sartre's view of the historical character of perception and knowledge and its rejection of the dialectic of nature as stemming from the work of [[György Lukács]]. In his view, neither Sartre's view that freedom must be safeguarded in revolutionary organization nor his view that there will be perfect freedom when Communism has abolished shortages is new in a Marxist context, and Sartre fails to explain how either could have been brought about.<ref name="Kołakowski">{{cite book |author=Kołakowski, Leszek |title=Main Currents of Marxism |publisher=W. W. Norton |location=New York |year=2005 |pages=1171–1172 |isbn=978-0-393-32943-8 }}</ref>

The conservative philosopher [[Roger Scruton]] writes that the ''Critique of Dialectical Reason'' "shows a total rejection of the rules of intellectual enquiry - a determined flight from the rule of truth. To suppose that the book might actually fulfill the promise offered by its title is in fact a gross impertinence."<ref>{{cite book |author=Scruton, Roger |author-link=Roger Scruton |title=Thinkers of the New Left |publisher=Longman |location=Harrow |year=1985 |pages=186 |isbn=0-582-90273-8 }}</ref>