Sartre and Contemporary Political Theory : The Later Sartre and the Challenges of the Present

This edited volume brings together Sartre scholars to address the later Sartre’s relevance for political theory and philosophy, with a focus on the contemporary world. The book develops and expands on the core Sartrean themes relevant for political thinkers.

Does Jean-Paul Sartre's political theory have anything to offer to us today? Are Sartre's ways of reflecting on ethics, praxis, society and political philosophy in terms of hope for a better world, a better future, of interest today? This edited volume brings together Sartre scholars to address the later Sartre’s relevance for political theory and philosophy, with a focus on the contemporary world. Using Critique of Dialectical Reason and Sartre’s later engagements with politics, morality, colonialism, integral humanity and reflections on Marxism as starting points, the book is divided into two sections. The first part develops and expands on the core Sartrean themes of the later Sartre relevant for political thinkers. It deals among other things with the tensions between freedom and compulsion in social human action, with the intelligibility of human action in relation to historical circumstances and with how to understand material conditions and social institutions in congruence with the political world of action. The second part of the book directly poses issues concerning how a Sartrean approach may be developed to fit the contemporary world in order to tackle currently relevant topics such as democracy, populism, colonialism, disability justice and the climate crises.