Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French Marxist philosopher and writer, influential on leftist ideologies such as critical theory.
Life
He was a member of the French resistance/partisans during WWII. Shortly after the liberation of Paris from German occupation in 1944, he wrote Anti-Semite and Jew (original in French: Réflexions sur la question juive, literally: "Reflections on the Jewish Question"). In the book, he tried to explain the causes of "hate" by analyzing anti-Semitism.
Sartre supported the French Communist Party (PCF) until the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. Following that, he supported Maoism, but also claimed to always have been an anarchist.
He is also known for his relationship with the prominent feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir.
Sartre was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, but he had previously stated that literature functioned ultimately as a bourgeois substitute for real commitment in the world and publicly declined it. Sartre or someone close to him is stated to have contacted the Swedish Academy in 1975 with a request for the prize money, but was refused.
See also
- Anti-Semitism
- French State - Including less politically correct views on "Vichy France".
