Sartre’s Existential Psychoanalysis

Abstract

Since Descartes, Western philosophy has regarded the selves of others as beyond the scope of direct human knowledge. Demonstrating an alternative to this common belief, however, this book reveals how Jean-Paul Sartre’s application of his unique psychoanalytic method to Gustave Flaubert was in fact the culmination of an enduring philosophical project to subvert that longstanding tradition by showing that everything about another self can be communicated. Sartre’s Existential Psychoanalysis: Knowing Others integrates for the first time Sartre’s existential psychoanalysis into his overarching philosophical project. It explores how Sartre’s determination to solve the problem of other minds drove him not only to incorporate insights from Descartes, Husserl, Freud, and Marx into his existential philosophy, but also to develop a psychoanalytic method rooted in that philosophy. Offering a critical interrogation of the role that Sartre’s psychoanalytical studies played in the development of his existentialism, Mary Edwards uncovers the overlooked philosophical significance of