Conversations with Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre was undoubtedly one of the greatest and most popular philosophers of the 20th Century. Also a prominent novelist, playwright and biographer, Sartre was, above all, the embodiment of the engag intellectual, active in a variety of political causes, as well as an individual who attempted to live his life in accordance with the philosophy he professed. It was this that gave his lifelong preoccupation with freedom, choice and what he came to refer to as social conditioning, its cutting edge. Sartre's life was in many ways an illustration of his brand of existentialism in action. These three interviews, including one with Simone de Beauvoir, take Sartre on a wide-ranging tour of his philosophy and politics. Topics discussed include "freedom of choice," his uneasy relationship with Freudian concepts, his debates with Marx, and his acute observations on drama, the Cultural Revolution, Stalinism, women's rights, the May "Events" and of course, the Vietnam War. Their breadth remains a testimony to one man's attempt to make philosophical sense of the tumultuous world around him.