Existentialism and the philosophy of praxis · 1905–1980

Jean-Paul Sartre

Answer for what you make of your situation.

Paris · Le Havre · Berlin

Portraits: artistic interpretations

Bibliography

Return to the texts.

Works, testimonies and further readings are distinguished. Dates refer to composition or first publication, as specified in each entry.

Bibliographic scope

The catalogue distinguishes philosophy, fiction, theatre, essays and collections, followed by posthumous publications. The volumes of Situations and texts edited after his death were not all books conceived in that form by Sartre. Letter and fragment inventories separately identify their reference edition and coverage.

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01

Work1936–1937

The Transcendence of the Ego

This early essay transforms Husserl's inheritance and prepares the 1943 ontology.

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02

Work1936

The Imagination

The historical inquiry prepares the phenomenological analysis of The Imaginary.

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03

Work1938

Nausea

Sartre's first published novel; sensory scenes perform philosophical work that a conceptual summary cannot replace.

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04

Work1939

The Wall

The collection includes The Wall, The Room, Erostratus, Intimacy and The Childhood of a Leader.

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05

Work1939

Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions

The essay moves psychology toward phenomenological description without providing a complete clinical theory.

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06

Work1940

The Imaginary

Published in 1940, the book develops the positive phenomenological analysis prepared by the historical critique of The Imagination in 1936.

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07

Work1943

Being and Nothingness

The treatise precedes the major writings on social conditions of praxis; its conclusion announces an ethics it does not supply in finished form.

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08

Work1945

The Age of Reason

Published in 1945 but set in prewar Paris, the first Roads to Freedom volume establishes characters whose projects will be transformed by historical crisis.

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09

Work1945

The Reprieve

The second Roads to Freedom volume breaks with the first novel's steadier narrative center.

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10

Work1949

Troubled Sleep / Iron in the Soul

The third completed Roads to Freedom volume; the planned continuation remained fragmentary.

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11

Work1946

Existentialism Is a Humanism

Delivered in October 1945 and published in 1946, it is an accessible intervention whose simplifications do not summarize the entire work.

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12

Work1946

Anti-Semite and Jew

Written after the war, the influential essay remains limited by its sources and restricted attention to Jewish traditions and experiences.

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13

Work1947

Baudelaire

An exercise in existential psychoanalysis, debated for both interpretive force and biographical reduction.

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14

Work1947–1948

What Is Literature?

Published first in a journal and then in Situations II, the essay also circulates independently.

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15

Work1952

Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr

Originally intended as a preface to Genet's works, it became an extensive existential psychoanalysis.

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16

Work1957 · 1960

Search for a Method

The essay precedes Critique of Dialectical Reason and becomes its introduction in the 1960 edition.

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17

Work1960

Critique of Dialectical Reason I

The first volume appeared in 1960 with Search for a Method. It reconstructs conditions for understanding praxis rather than delivering a completed universal chronicle.

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18

Work1964

The Words

This short autobiography appeared the year he refused the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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19

Work1971–1972

The Family Idiot

The monumental inquiry remains unfinished, applying the progressive-regressive method on an exceptional scale.

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20

Work1940 · 1962

Bariona, or the Son of Thunder

Written and performed in captivity in 1940; later publication does not make it a doctrinal confession of faith.

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21

Work1943

The Flies

This rewriting of the Atreus myth was first staged in occupied Paris in 1943, using ancient drama to examine remorse, authority and freedom.

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22

Work1944

No Exit

A one-act play first staged in 1944; its famous line about hell does not summarize all human relationships.

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23

Work1946

Men Without Shadows / The Victors

First staged in 1946, the play returns after the Liberation to tortured resistance fighters and conflicts between solidarity, survival and heroic self-images.

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24

Work1946

The Respectful Prostitute

First staged in 1946, the play places racial domination in the United States beside the authority granted to socially respectable witnesses.

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25

Work1948

Dirty Hands

Seven scenes in a fictional country examine commitment, compromise and political violence.

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26

Work1951

The Devil and the Good Lord

First staged in 1951, the play uses the German peasant wars to test moral purity against responsibility for people caught in historical conflict.

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27

Work1953

Kean

Sartre's adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's play; attribution must preserve that origin.

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28

Work1955

Nekrassov

First staged in 1955 during the Cold War, this satirical comedy examines the newspaper industry and the manufacture of politically useful revelations.

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29

Work1959–1960

The Condemned of Altona

Staged in 1959 and published in 1960, the play examines war, torture, capitalism and responsibility.

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30

Work1965

The Trojan Women

Sartre rewrites ancient tragedy in a world marked by colonial wars; Euripides remains author of the source play.

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31

Work1947

The Chips Are Down

Published as a book in 1947 for Jean Delannoy's film, the screenplay should be distinguished from the decisions made in its cinematic realization.

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32

Work1948

In the Mesh / The Gear

A political screenplay published as a book; its machinery is a historical dynamic, not an automatic excuse.

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33

Work1947

Situations I — Literary Criticism

First volume of the original series; later reorganized editions do not always share its contents.

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34

Work1948

Situations II — The Writer's Situation

This record describes the historical 1948 arrangement; the central essay also has an independent page.

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35

Work1949

Situations III — Aftermath of War

Includes Materialism and Revolution and Black Orpheus, texts with distinct contexts and ambitions.

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36

Work1964

Situations IV — Portraits

The original collection gathers differently dated texts, including the long tribute to Merleau-Ponty.

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37

Work1964

Situations V — Colonialism and Neocolonialism

Includes the preface to Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth; Fanon's and Sartre's voices must remain distinct.

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38

Work1964

Situations VI — Problems of Marxism 1

The 1950s interventions answer specific conflicts; republication does not remove mistakes or blind spots.

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39

Work1965

Situations VII — Problems of Marxism 2

This second Marxism collection reveals political shifts rather than unchanging loyalty.

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40

Work1971

Situations VIII — Around 1968

The volume documents debates around May 1968 and changes in Sartre's public role.

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41

Work1972

Situations IX — Miscellanies

Occasional interventions meet methodological retrospection; translations sometimes redistribute texts with those from Situations VIII.

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42

Work1976

Situations X — Politics and Autobiography

The last original-series volume published during Sartre's lifetime belongs to years of declining sight and increased oral exchanges.

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43

Work1983 · 1947–1948

Notebooks for an Ethics

Notes from 1947–1948 published posthumously, not a definitive completed ethics.

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44

Work1983 · 1995

War Diaries: Notebooks from a Phoney War

First published posthumously in 1983, expanded in 1995 after another notebook emerged; the surviving corpus has gaps.

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45

Work1983

Letters to Simone de Beauvoir and Others

Posthumously edited by Beauvoir, covering 1926–1963; this title does not encompass all surviving Sartre correspondence.

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46

Work1984 · 1958–1960

The Freud Scenario

Written for John Huston's project and published posthumously; the released film does not simply follow this text.

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47

Work1985

Critique of Dialectical Reason II: The Intelligibility of History

An unfinished manuscript published posthumously by Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre, not a systematic closure of volume I.

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48

Work1989 · 1948

Truth and Existence

A 1948 manuscript published posthumously, between ontology and ethical inquiry.

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49

Work1990

Early Writings

A critical collection edited by Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka, not a book Sartre composed under this title.

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50

Work1979

Mallarmé: Lucidity and Its Shadow

Publication of earlier work partly left unpublished, not evidence of a new theoretical conversion in 1979.

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51

Work1980 · 1991

Hope Now

Published in a periodical in 1980 and as a book in 1991; interpretation and conversational conditions remain controversial.

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52

Work1974

It Is Right to Rebel

A three-voice conversation; Pierre Victor is Benny Lévy's activist name.

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53

Work1991

The Queen Albemarle or the Last Tourist

An unfinished manuscript published posthumously; fragmentation belongs to its documentary status.

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54

Work2007 · 1943–1944

Typhus

A wartime screenplay published in 2007, associated with the project that became the different film The Proud and the Beautiful.

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55

Work1949 · 1981

The Last Chance — fragments

The fourth volume was never completed; Strange Friendship appeared in 1949, with materials later edited in the 1981 collected fiction.

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56

Work1973

A Theater of Situations

A collection edited by Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka, not an additional play.

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Sources & reference points

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy · Jean-Paul Sartre Bibliothèque nationale de France · Jean-Paul Sartre