Critique of Dialectical Reason

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Critique of Dialectical Reason, originally Critique de la raison dialectique (1960), was one of Sartre's major works that loosely tried to reconcile Marxism and Existentialism. By using events of the French Revolution and other historical occasions (including the notion that the endowment by Europeans of certain metals with a "precious" value led ineluctably to slavery), Sartre attempted to show how what we call class is a special instance of a human grouping. He preceded this with complex explanations of less sophisticated forms of groupings, ranging from a queue at a bus stop to institutions.

A second and incomplete volume with emphasis on the Stalinization of the Bolshevik revolution was published in French in 1985 and in English in 1992.

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Excerpts from Sartre's work:

• The Dogmatic Dialectic and the Critical Dialectic
• The Intelligibility of History: Totalisation without a Totaliser