EXISTENTIALISM 327Whatever activity the desire may engender, all "technique amoureuse,"accrues to it from outside. The desire itself is "purement et simplementd6sir d'un objet transcendent," namely, "d6sir d'un corps." And thisobject is desired purely and simply as what it is and appears, in its brute"facticit6."In describing the "dUsir sexuel" and its object, Sartre emphasizes thecharacteristics which make this relation the very opposite of the "Pour-soi" and its activity:.. . dans le d6sir sexuel la conscience est comme empatde, il semble qu'onse laisse envahir par la facticitd, qu'on cesse de la fuir et qu'on glisse vers unconsentement passif au ddsir.""4This is the coming-to-rest of the transcending Cogito, the paralysis of itsfreedom, "projects," and performances. And the same force which cancelsthe incessant performance of the "Pour-soi" also cancels its alienation.The "dUsir sexuel" reveals its object as stripped of all the attitudes, gestures,and affiliations which make it a standardized instrument, reveals the"corps comme chair" and thereby "comme r6v6lation fascinante de lafacticit6.45 Enslavement and repression are cancelled, not in the sphere ofpurposeful, "projective" activity, but in the sphere of the "corps v6cucomme chair," in the "trAme d'inertie."" By the same token, the imageof fulfillment and satisfaction is, not in the evertranscending "Pour-soi,"but in its own negation, in its pure "4tre-la," in the fascination of its beingan object (for itself and for others). Reification itself thus turns intoliberation.The "dUsir sexuel" accomplishes this negation of the negation not as amere relapse into animal nature, but as a free and liberating human rela-tion. In other words, the "dUsir sexuel" is what it is only as activity of the"Pour-soi," an activity, however, which is rather the negation of allactivity and which aims at the liberation of the pure presence of its object.This activity is "la caresse":"Le desir s'exprime par la caresse comme la pensde par le langage."4'The breaking of the reified world, the revelation of the "chair... commecontingence pure de la presence" is only brought about by the "caresse":44 Page 457. .. . in sexual desire consciousness is as though dulled; one appearsto let oneself be pervaded by the mere facticity (of one's existence as body), to ceasefleeing from it, and to glide into a passive ascent to desire."45 Page 458. Reveals "the body as flesh," as the "fascinating revelation of fac-ticity."46 "the body lived as flesh," in the "web of inertia."47 Page 459. "Desire expresses itself through caress as thought does throughlanguage."328 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH"La caresse fait nattre Autrui comme chair pour moi et pour lui-mgme."... Elle "rdv~le la chair en d6shabillant le corps de son action, en le scindantdes possibilities qui P'entourent...."48It is thus in complete isolation from its possibilities, oblivious of its free-dom and responsibility, divested of all its performances and achievements,in being a pure "object" ("corps v6cu comme chair") that the Ego findsitself in the Other. The relationships among men have become relation-ships among things, but this fact is no longer concealed and distorted bysocietal fetishes and ideologies. Reification no longer serves to perpetuateexploitation and toil but is in its entirety determined by the "pleasureprinciple."Moreover, the fundamental change in the existential structure causedby the "dUsir sexuel" affects not only the individuals concerned but alsotheir (objective) world. The "dUsir sexuel" has, according to Sartre, agenuinely cognitive function: it reveals the (objective) world in a new form."Si mon corps ... n'est plus senti comme P'instrument qui ne peut qetreutilisd par aucun instrument, c'est-A-dire comme P'organisation synthdtiquede mes actes dans le monde; s'il est vecu comme chair, c'est comme renvois Ama chair que je saisis les objets du monde. Cela signifie que je me fais passifpar rapport A eux.... Un contact est caresse, c'est-A-dire que ma perceptionnWest pas utilisation de l'objet et depassement du present en vue d'une fin;mais percevoir un objet, dans Pattitude ddsirante, c'est me caresser A lui."49The "attitude d6sirante" thus releases the objective world as well as theEgo from domination and manipulation, cancels their "instrumentality,"and, in doing so, reveals their own pure presence, their "chair."Wre have seen that the fixation on the property relation permeatesSartre's entire book: not only the relation between the "Pour-soi" and"En-soi," but also the fundamental relationships between the "Pour-soi"and "L'Autrui," the interhuman relationships are eventually interpretedin terms of "appropriation." Finally, the "d6sir sexuel" is the attempt toappropriate freely the liberty of the Other. That all these appropriationsturn out to be futile and self-defeating only renews and perpetuates theattempt to appropriate. And the one point, the one moment which ap-48 Ibid. "Caress causes the Other to be born as flesh for me and for himself....Caress reveals the flesh by divesting the body of its action, by isolating it from thepossibilities which surround it...."49 Page 461. "If my body . . . is no longer felt to be the instrument which can beused by any other instrument, that is, as the synthetic organization of my acts in theworld, if it is lived as flesh, it is then, as reverberation of my flesh, that I seize theobjects in the world. This means that I make myself passive in relationship to them.... A contact is caress means that my perception is not utilization of an object andnot the transcending of the present with a view to a goal. To perceive an object, inthe attitude of desire, is to caress myself with it."EXISTENTIALISM 329pears as fulfillment, possession, is where and when man becomes a thig:body, flesh; and his free activity becomes complete inertia: caressing thebody as thing. The Ego, thus far separated from the "things" and there-fore dominating and exploiting them, now has become a "thing" itself-butthe thing, in turn, has been freed to its own pure existence. The Cartesiangap between the two substances is bridged in that both have changed theirsubstantiality. The Ego has lost its character of being "Pour-soi," set offfrom and against everything other-than-the Ego, and its objects haveassumed a subjectivity of their own. The "attitude d6sirante" thus reveals(the possibility of) a world in which the individual is in complete harmonywith the whole, a world which is at the same time the very negation of thatwhich gave the Ego freedom only to enforce its free submission to necessity.With the indication of this form of the "realitA humaine," Existentialismcancels its own fundamental conception.In the sphere of the individual existence, the cancellation is only a tem-porary one: the free satisfaction afforded in the "attitude ddsirante" isbound to end in new frustration. Confined within the circle of sadisticand masochistic relationships, man is driven back into the transcendingactivity of the "Pour-soi." But the image which has guided Sartre'sanalysis to seek the reality of freedom in the sphere of reification andalienation also leads him into the socio-bhistorical sphere. He tests hisconception in a critical discussion of Historical Materialism.IVIn Sartre's interpretation of the socio-historical sphere, the reification ofthe subject (which, in the private sphere, appeared as the "corps vdcucomme chair") manifests itself in the existence of the industrial worker.The modern entrepreneur tends to"riduire le travailleur A N'etat de chose en assaimilant ses conduites A des pro-pridt3s.""0In view of the brute mechanization of the worker and his work, in view ofhis complete subjugation to the capitalistic machine process, it would beridiculous to preach him the "internal" liberty which the philosophers havepreached throughout the centuries:"Le rdvolutionnaire lui-m~me . . . se defie de la liberty. Et il a raison. Lesprophetes n'ont jamais manqud, qui lui ont annoncd qu'il stait libre: etc'dtait chaque fois pour le duper.""'50 Les Temps Modernes (July, 1946), p. 15. "reduce the worker to the state of athing by assimilating.his behavior to (that of) properties."" Ibid., p. 14. "The revolutionary himself ... distrusts freedom. And rightly6o. There has never been lack of prophets to proclaim to hiAm that he was free, andeach time in order to cheat him."330 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCHSartre mentions in this connection the Stoic concept of freedom, Christianliberty, and Bergson's idea of freedom:"elles revenaient toutes A une certaine liberty intdrieure que P'homme pour-rait conserver en n'importe qu'elle situation. Cette liberty intdrieureest une pure mystification iddaliste...."62It would seem that Sartre's own ontological concept of freedom wouldwell be covered by this verdict of "idealistic mystification," and L'Etre et leNeant provides little ground for evading it. Now he recognizes the factthat, in the empirical reality, man's existence is organized in such a waythat his freedom is totally "alienated," and that nothing short of a revolu-tionary change in the social structure can restore the development of hisliberty.`3 If this is true, if, by the organization of society, human freedomcan be alienated to such an extent that it all but ceases to exist, then thecontent of human freedom is determined, not by the structure of the"Pour-soi," but by the specific historical forces which shape the humansociety. However, Sartre tries to rescue his idea of freedom from HistoricalMIaterialism.54 He accepts the revolution as the only way to the liberationof mankind, but he insists that the revolutionary solution presupposesman's freedom to seize this solution, in other words, that man must befree "prior" to his liberation. Sartre maintains that this presuppositiondestroys the basis of materialism, according to which man is wholly deter-mined by the material world. But according to Historical Materialism,the revolution remains an act of freedom-in spite of all material deter-mination. Historical Materialism has recognized this freedom in the im-portant role of the maturity of the revolutionary consciousness. Marx'constant emphasis on the material determination of the consciousness in allits manifestations points up the relationships between the subject and hisworld as they actually prevail in the capitalist society, where freedom hasshrunk to the possibility of recognizing and seizing the necessity for libera-tion.In the concrete historical reality, the freedom of the "Pour-soi," to whoseglorification Sartre devotes his entire book, is thus nothing but one of thepreconditions for the possibility of freedom-it is not freedom itself.Moreover, isolated from the specific historical context in which alone the"transcendence" of the subject may become a precondition of freedom,and hypostatized into the ontological form of the subject as such, this62 Ibid. "They all come back to a certain internal liberty which man can preservein any situation whatsoever. This internal liberty is nothing but an idealistic mysti-fication. ...""I Les Temps Modernes (June, 1946), p. 1561.64 Ibid.EXISTENTIALISM 331transcendental liberty becomes the very token of enslavement. The anti-fascist who is tortured to death may retain his moral and intellectual free-dom to "transcend" this situation: he is still tortured to death. Humanfreedom is the very negation of that transcendental liberty in which Sartresees its realization. In L'Etre et le Ndant, this negation appeared onlyin the "attitude ddsirante": it was the loss of the "Pour-soi," its reificationin the "corps vecu comme chair" which suggested a new idea of freedomand happiness.Similarly, in Sartre's interpreatation of the socio-historical sphere, it isthe existence, not of the free but of the reified subject which points the waytoward real liberation. The wage laborer, whose existence is that of athing, and whose activity is essentially action on things, conceives of hisliberation naturally as a change in the relationship between man andthings. Sartre interprets the process between capital and wage labor interms of the Hegelian process between master and servant. The laborer,who works in the service of the entrepreneur on the means of production,transforms, through his labor, these means into the instruments for hisliberation. True, his labor is imposed upon him, and he is deprived of itsproducts, but "within these limitations," his labor confers upon him'-la maitrise sur les choses:""Le travailleur se saisit comme possibility de faire varier A l'infini la formed'un objet materiel en agissant sur lui selon certaines regles universelles. End'autre termes, c'est le determinisme de la matiere qui lui offre la premiereimage de sa libertd.... I1 depasse son dtat d'esclave par son action sur leschoses et les chooses lui renvoient par la rigeur meme de leur enchatnement l'im-age d'une liberty concrete qui est celle de les modifier. Et puisque l'bauchede sa liberty concrete lui apparait dans les maillons du ddterminisme, il n'estpas dtonnant qu'il vise A remplacer la relation d'homme A homme, qui sepresent A, ses yeux conmme celle d'une liberty tyrannique A une obdissance hu-miliee, par celle d'homme A chose et, finalement, puisque l'homme qui governeles choses est chose A son tour, d'un autre point de vue, par celle de chose Achose. "6555 Ibid., pp. 15-16. "The worker sees himself as .the possibility of modifying end-lessly the form of material objects by acting on them in accordance with certain uni-versal rules. In other words, it is the determinateness of matter which offers himthe first view of his freedom.... He transcends his state of slavery through his actionon things, and things give back to him, by the very rigidity of their bondage, theimage of a tangible freedom which consists of modifying them. And since the outlineof tangible freedom appears to him shackled to determinism, it is not surprising thathe visualizes the relationship of man to man, which appears to him as that of tyrannicliberty to humbled obedience, replaced by a relationship of man to thing, and finally,since, from another point of view, the man who controls things is in turn a thing him-self, by the relationship of thing to thing."332 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCHSartre maintains that the materialistic conception of freedom is itselfthe victim of reification insso far as it conceives the liberated world in termsof a new relationship among things, a new organization of things. As theliberation originates in the process of labor, it remains defined by thisprocess, and the liberated society appears only as "une entrepriseharmonieuse d'exploitation du monde."" The result would simply be "amore rational organization of society""-not the realization of humanfreedom and happiness.This critique is still under the influence of "idealistic mystifications."The "more rational organization of society," which Sartre belittles as"simplement," is the very precondition of freedom. It means the aboli-tion of exploitation and repression in all their forms. And since exploita-tion and repression are rooted in the material structure of society, theirabolition requires a change in this structure: a more rational organization ofthe relationships of production. In Historical Materialism, this organiza-tion of the liberated society is so little "defined by labor" ("d~finie par letravail") that Marx once formulated the Communist goal as the "abolitionof labor," and the shortening of the working day as the precondition forthe establishment of the "realm of freedom." The formula conveys theimage of the unfettered satisfaction of the human faculties and desires.thus suggesting the essential identity of freedom and happiness which is atthe core of materialism.Sartre notes that throughout history, materialism was linked with arevolutionary attitude:"Si loin que je remonte, je la (la foi matdrialiste) trouve lide & attituderdvolutionnaire."66Indeed, the materialist faith was revolutionary in so far as it was material-istic, that is to say, as it sifted the definition of human freedom from thesphere of consciousness to that of material satisfaction, from toil to enjoy-ment, from the moral to the pleasure principle. The idealistic philosophyhas made freedom into something frightening and tyrannic, bound up Nithrepression, resignation, scarcity, and frustration. Behind the idealisticconcept of freedom lurked the demand for an incessant moral and practicalperformance, an enterprise the profits of which were) to be invested everagain in the same activity-an activity which was really rewarding onlyfor a very small part of the population. The materialistic conception offreedom implies the discontinuation of this activity and performance: it" Ibid., p. 17.'7Ibid., p. 21." Ibid. (June, 1946), p. 1561. "No matter how far back I go, I find it (materialisticfaith) linked with the revolutionary attitude."EXISTENTIALISM 333makes the reality of freedom a pleasure. Prior to the achievement of this"utopian" goal, materialism teaches man the necessities which determinehis life in order to break them by his liberation. And his liberation isnothing less than the abolition of repression.Sartre hits upon the revolutionary function of the materialistic principlein his interpretation of the "attitude ddsirante": there, and only there, ishis concept of freedom identical with the abolition of repression. But thetendencies which make for the destruction of his idealistic conception re-main confined within the framework of philosophy and do not lead to thedestruction of the ideology itself. Consequently, in Sartre's work, theymanifest themselves only as a disintegration of the traditional philosophical;'style." This disintegration is expressed in his rejection of the "esprit deserieux" (seriousness).VAccording to Sartre, the "esprit de sdrieux" must be banned fromphilosophy because, by taking the "rdalitA humane" as a totality of ob-jective relationships, to be understood and evaluated in terms of objectivestandards, the "esprit de sdrieux" offends agaist the free play of subjectiveforces which is the very essence of the rdalit humane. By its very "style"philosophy thus fails to gain the adequate approach to its subject. Incontrast, the existentialist style is designed to assert, already through themode of presentation, the absolutely free movement of the Cogito, the"Pour-soi," the creative subject. Its "jouir & l'tre" is to be reproducedby the philosophical style. Existentialism plays with every affirmationuntil it shows forth as negation, qualifies every statement until it turnsinto its opposite, extends every position to absurdity, makes liberty intocompulsion and compulsion into liberty, choice into necessity and necessityinto choice, passes from philosophy to Belles Lettres and vice versa, mixesontology and sexology, etc. The heavy seriousness of Hegel and Heideggeris translated into artistic play. The ontological analysis includes aseries of "scenes amoureuses," and the novel sets forth philosophical thesesin italics.59This disintegration of the philosophical style reflects the inner contra-dictions of all existential philosophy: the concrete human existence cannotbe understood in terms of philosophy. The contradiction derives fromthe historical conditions under which Western philosophy has developedand to which it remained committed throughout its development. Theseparation of the intellectual from the material production, of leisure andthe leisure class from the underlying population, of theory from practice69 Simone de Beauvoir, Le Sang des Autres.334 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCHcaused a fundamental gap between the terms of philosophy and the terms ofexistence. When Aristotle insisted that philosophy presupposed theestablishment of the arts directed to the necessities of life, he defined notonly the situation of the philosopher but of philosophy itself. The contentof the basic philosophical concepts implies a degree of freedom from thenecessities of life which is enjoyed only by a small number of men. Thegeneral concepts which aim at the structures and forms of being transcendthe realm of necessity and the life of those who are confined to this realm.Their existence is not on the philosophical level. Conversely, philosophydoes not possess the conceptual instruments for comprehending theirexistence, which is the concreteness of the "realit6 humaine." The con-cepts which do adequately describe this concreteness are not the exempli-fications and particularizations of any philosophical concept. The existenceof a slave or of a factory worker or of a salesclerk is not an "example" of theconcept of being or freedom or life or man. The latter concepts may wellbe "applicable" to such forms of existence and "cover" them by their scope,but this coverage refers only to an irrelevant part or aspect of the reality.The philosophical concepts abstract necessarily from the concrete existence,and they abstract from its very content and essence; their generalitytranscends the existence qualitatively, into a different genus. Man as such,as "kind" is the genuine theme of philosophy; his hic et nunc is the viXq(matter, stuff) which remains outside the realm of philosophy. Aristotle'sdiqtum that man is an ultimate indivisible kind (e~xarov d-roitov; aTroILvethoo; arTo~ov TW OaveA), which defies further concretization pronounces theinner impossibility of all existential philosophy.Against its intentions and efforts, Existentialism demonstrates the truthof Aristotle's statement. We have seen how, in Sartre's philosophy, theconcept of the "Pour-soi" vascillates between that of the individual subjectand that of the universal Ego or consciousness. Most of the essentialqualities which he attributes to the "Pour-soi" are qualities of man as agenus. As such, they are not the essential qualities of man's concreteexistence. Sartre makes reference to Marx' early writings, but not toMarx' statement that man, in his concrete historical existence, is not (yet)the realization of the genus man. This proposition states the fact that thehistorical forms of society have crippled the development of the generalhuman faculties, of the humanitas. The concept of the genus man is thusat the same time the concept of the abstract-universal and of the idealman-but is not the concept of the "realit6 humaine."But if the reality6 humaine" is not the concretization of the genus man, itis equally indescribable in terms of the individual. For the same historicalconditions which crippled the realization of the genus man also crippled theEXISTENTIALISM 335realization of his individuality. The activities, attitudes, and efforts whichcircumscribe his concrete existence are, in the last analysis, not his butthose of his class, profession, position, society. In this sense is the life ofthe individual indeed the life of the universal, but this universal is a con-figuration of specific historical forces, made up by the various groups,interests, institutions, etc., which form the social reality. The conceptswhich actually reach the concrete existence must therefore derive from atheory of society. Hegel's philosophy comes so close to the structure ofthe concrete existence because he interprets it in terms of the historicaluniversal, but because he sees in this universal only the manifestation ofthe Idea he remains within the realm of philosophical abstraction. Onestep more toward concretization would have meant a transgression beyondphilosophy itself.Such transgression occurred in the opposition to Hegel's philosophy.Kierkegaard and Marx are frequently claimed as the origins of existentialphilosophy. But neither Kierkegaard nor Marx wrote existential philos-ophy. lWchen they came to grip with the concrete existence, theyabandoned and repudiated philosophy. Kierkegaard comes to the con-clusion that the situation of man can be comprehended and "solved" onlyby theology and religion. For Marx, the conception of the reality ,humaine" is the critique of political economy and the theory of the socialistrevolution. The opposition against Hegel pronounces the essential in-adequacy of philosophy in the face of the concrete human existence.Since then, the gap between the terms of philosophy and those of exist-ence has widened. The experience of the totalitarian organization of thehuman existence forbids to conceive freedom in any other form than that ofa free society. No philosophy can possibly comprehend the prevailingconcreteness. Heidegger's* existential ontology remains intentionally"transcendental": his category of Dasein is neutral toward all concretiza-tion. Nor does he attempt to elaborate Weltanschauung and ethics. Incontrast, Sartre attempts.such concretization with the methods and termsof philosophy-and the concrete existence remains "outside" the philosoph-ical conception, as a mere example or illustration. His political radical-ism lies outside his philosophy, extraneous to its essence and content.Concreteness and radicalism characterize the style of his work rather thanits content. And this may be part of the secret of its success. He presentsthe old ideology in the new cloak of radicalism and rebellion. Conversely,he makes destruction and frustration, sadism and masochism, sensualityand politics into ontological conditions. He exposes the danger zones ofsociety, but transforms them into structures of Being. His philosophy isless the expression of defiance and revolt than of a morality which teaches336 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCHmen to abandon all utopian dreams and efforts and to arrange themselveson the firm ground of reality: Existentialism"dispose les gens A comprendre que seule compte la rdalit6, que les r~ves, lesattentes, lea espoirs permettent seulement de ddfinir un homme comme ravedequ, comme espoirs avortdes, comme attentes inutiles...."'?Existentialism has indeed a strong undertone of positivism: the reality hasthe last word.HERBERT MARCUSE.WASHINGTON, D. C.EXTRACTOEl existencialismo francs tiene su origen en una repetici6n de la situa-ci6n cartesiana. El terror del periodo fascista y el fracaso en el intento depromoter alguna nueva forma de vida despu~s de la calda del fascismo,son el testimonio de la ruptura de todos los valores y las ideas de la civi-lizaci6n occidental -de la conservadora lo mismo que de la revolucionaria.El pensamiento vuelve otra vez sobre si mismo y encuentra el linico funda-mento seguro en la auto-certeza del Ego. La filosoffa de Sartre delineala estructura ontol6gica del Ego en un mundo "absurdo," en el cual cadaproyecto emana frustraci6n, cada logro significa muerte.Sin embargo, contra la opinion predominante, el existencialismo deSartre es un positivismo optimista, mis que un nihilismo destruction.Intenta rescatar la libertad y la responsabilidad del hombre frente a lascondiciones mas adversas. Si su intento falla es porque su reconstruc-ci6n de la acci6n y el pensamiento en el terreno del absurdo se situa dentrodel marco ontol6gico del idealism trascendental. L'Etre el le Neant es,en grand medida, una reiteraci6n de la Fenomenologia del EsTritu de Hegely del Sein und Zeit de Heidegger. La filosoffa de Sartre alcanza tan solouna posici6n mis avanzada cuando descarta el marco ontol6gico y destruyesu propia concepci6n basica.El intento de Sartre demuestra la interna posibilidad que contiene toda"filosoffa concrete." Por raz6n del abismo hist6rico que separa actual-mente los t6rminos de la filosoffa y los de la existencia, la filosoffa es incapazde alcanzar la esfera de la realidad humana.60 L'Existentialisme est un humanisme, loc. cit., p. 58. Existentialism "leads mento understand that reality alone counts, that dreams, expectations, and hopes onlypermit the definition of a man as a deceived dream, an abortive hope, useless ex-pectation . . ..