1. This article first appeared with the title ‘Plaidoyer pour une génétique collective: Une autre lecture des textes de jeunesse de Sartre, 1926–1927’ [Plea for a collective genetics: Another reading of Sartre’s early texts, 1926–1927] as the introduction to Études sartriennes [Sartre Studies] 25, ‘Autour du mémoire sur l’image (1927)’ [Sartre’s dissertation on the image (1927)] (2021): 11–29.
2. Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Empédocle’, Études sartriennes 20, ‘Inédits de jeunesse: Empédocle et le Chant de la contingence’ [Empedocles and The Hymn to Contingency] (2016): 27–50; Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘L’Image dans la vie psychologique: rôle et nature. Mémoire présenté pour l’obtention du diplôme d’etudes supérieures de philosophie 1926–1927’ [The image in psychological life: role and nature. Dissertation submitted for the graduate diploma in philosophy 1927, ed. Gautier Dassonneville], Études sartriennes 22, ‘Sartre inédit: le mémoire de fin d’études 1927’ [Sartre unpublished: The final dissertation] (2018): 43–246.
3. Michel Contat, ed., Pourquoi et comment Sartre a écrit Les Mots [Why and how Sartre wrote The Words] (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1996). The formulation ‘collective genetics’ is used in this other sense by Éric Marty in his review of the work for the periodical Genesis. Cf. Éric Marty, Review of ‘Pourquoi et comment Sartre a écrit Les Mots’, Genesis 11 (1997): 165–166.
4. Quoted in Annie Cohen-Solal, Sartre, 1905–1980 (Paris: Gallimard, 1985), 200. See Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Une vie pour la philosophie’ [A philosophical life] [1975], Le Magazine littéraire 384 (2000): 40–47, here 41: ‘Parce que, finalement, philosophie pour moi, cela voulait dire psychologie’ [‘Because finally, for me, philosophy meant psychology’]. An English translation of this article appears as ‘An Interview with Jean-Paul Sartre’, in Paul-Arthur Schilpp, The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1981), 5-51, here 8.
5. Grégory Cormann, ‘Empédocle, ou comment entrer en philosophie: Sartre et la pensée allemande dans les années 1920’ [Empedocles, or how to get into philosophy: Sartre and German thought in the 1920s], Études sartriennes 20 (2016): 101–146, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48505346.
6. Gautier Dassonneville, ‘Une contribution sartrienne au roman de la psychologie: Le Diplôme sur l’image (1927)’ [A Sartrean contribution to psychology in the novel: The graduate diploma dissertation on the image (1927)’, Études sartriennes 22 (2018): 26–31.
7. Gautier Dassonneville et Grégory Cormann, ‘Traduire la Psychopathologie générale: Sartre avec Lagache et Aron face à Jaspers. Une lecture du mémoire de DES de Sartre sur L’Image dans la vie psychologique (1927)’ [Translating General Psychopathology: Sartre with Lagache and Aron in confrontation with Jaspers. A reading of Sartre’s dissertation for his graduate diploma on The Image in Psychological Life (1927)] Revue germanique internationale 30 Histoire et philosophie de la psychiatrie au xxème siècle, [International Germanic Review, History and Philosophy of Psychiatry in the Twentieth Century], Elisabetta Basso and Emmanuel Delille (éd.), 2019, p. 99-129, https://journals.openedition.org/rgi/2317, consulted on 6th July 2021.
8. Sartre, ‘Une vie pour la philosophie’, 41.
9. Simone de Beauvoir, ‘Entretiens avec Jean-Paul Sartre: Août-septembre 1974’ [Interviews with Jean-Paul Sartre], in La Cérémonie des adieux [Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre] (Paris: Gallimard, 1981), 181-625, here 198. In these interviews with Beauvoir, Sartre evokes the surrealists, alternating between seriousness and self-derision in relation to his first literary efforts (see 197–198, 202, 219 and 277).
10. Ibid., 198.
11. Ibid., 535.
12. Ibid., 534. Beauvoir’s formulation summarises the exchange that she had just had with Sartre about his criticisms of racism and colonisation.
13. Ibid., 534.
14. Alain Ruscio, ‘Contre l’Exposition coloniale de 1931 (Paris-Vincennes): des voix fermes, mais bien isolées’ [Against the 1931 Paris-Vincennes Colonial Exhibition: an overview of the firm but very isolated voices], Aden 8, no. 1 (2009): 104–111, here 107, doi:10.3917/aden.008.010. Philosophies, the group of Pierre Morhange, an older fellow student of Sartre’s at the ENS, then joined up with the surrealists and communists. See Michel Trebitsch, ‘Notice MORHANGE Pierre’, Le Maitron (2010), https://maitron.fr/spip.php?article123160 (accessed 6 July 2021).
15. Zweig’s short story was first published in French in the journal Clarté in five instalments from August to December 1924. It was published in one volume in 1927 by Stock, Delamain and Boutelleau with a preface by Romain Rolland.
16. Stefan Zweig, ‘Amok’, in Amok: Novellen einer Leidenschaft [Amok: Short stories of a passion] (Leipzig: Insel, 1922).
17. Stefan Zweig, Le Monde d’hier: Souvenirs d’un Européen [The world of yesterday: Memoirs of a European, trans. Serge Niémetz (1941, 1944; repr. Paris: Belfond, 1982, 2012), 355–356.
18. See ibid., 356.
19. Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘La Nausée’ [Nausea], in Oeuvres romanesques [Fiction] (1938; repr. Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1981), 43.
20. Jean-Paul Sartre, Réflexions sur la question juive [Reflections on the Jewish question] (1946; repr. Paris: Gallimard, 1998), 50.
21. Romain Rolland, ‘Préface à la première édition française’ [Preface to the first French edition], in Stefan Zweig, Amok (1927; repr. Paris: Stock, 1990), 9.
22. Marcel Mauss, ‘Effet physique sur l’individu de l’idée de mort suggérée par la collectivité (Australie, Nouvelle-Zélande)’ [The physical effect on the individual of the idea of death suggested by the collectivity (Australia, New Zealand)], in Sociologie et Anthropologie [Sociology and anthropology] (1950; repr. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2004), 312-330, here 316.
23. On this point, I will indulge myself by referring to the afterword that I wrote with Jeremy Hamers for the Italian translation of the scenario Typhus, written by Sartre for Pathé-Cinéma in 1943. See Grégory Cormann and Jeremy Hamers, ‘Sartre, Typhus e l’anno 1943’ [Sartre, Typhus in the year 1943], in Sartre, Typhus: Una storia d’orgoglio e redenzione [Typhus: A story of pride and redemption], trans. Maria Russo (Milan: Christian Marinotti, 2021), 199–238.
24. Such an approach in no way prevents us from recognising, on this basis, intellectual dialogues between authors. I have had occasion to demonstrate that in the case of Empédocle as far as the relationship between Sartre and Bernard Groethuysen is concerned. Meeting with Sartre at the Décade de Pontigny in 1926, Groethuysen played a considerable role in Sartre’s transition to philosophy. I will come to this point again in my conclusion.
25. ‘Liste des emprunts de Jean-Paul Sartre à la Bibliothèque des Lettres de l’École Normale Supérieure (1924–1928)’ [List of books borrowed by Sartre from the Arts Library of the École Normale Supérieure (1924–1928)], Études sartriennes 22 (2018): 255–299, here 263, 277, 284, 288, 289.
26. Jean Piaget, ‘Les traits principaux de la logique de l’enfant’ [The principal characteristics of children’s logic], Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 21, no. 1–3 (1924): 48–101; ‘Quelques explications d’enfants relatives à l’origine des astres’ [Some explanations of children in relation to the origin of the stars], Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 22 (1925): 677–702; ‘L’explication de l’ombre chez l’enfant’ [The child and the explanation of the shadow], Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 24, no. 1 (1927): 230–242; ‘Psychopédagogie et mentalité enfantine’ [Educational psychology and the mentality of infants], Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 25 (1928): 31–60.
27. ‘Liste des emprunts de Jean-Paul Sartre’, 285, 298.
28. Sartre, ‘L’Image dans la vie psychologique’, 161.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., 156.
31. Ibid., 157.
32. Ibid., 157. Here Sartre is parodying the title of Léon Brunschvicg’s book, Le progrès de la conscience dans la philosophie occidentale [The progress of consciousness in Western philosophy] (Paris: Alcan, 1927), which had just appeared but whose principal theses he had already learnt through the lectures of his professor at the Sorbonne.
33. Marcel Mauss, ‘Rapports réels et pratiques de la psychologie et de la sociologie’ [The real and practical relationships of psychology and sociology], Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 21 (1924): 892–922; ‘Effet physique sur l’individu de l’idée de mort suggérée par la collectivité (Australie, Nouvelle-Zélande)’, Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 23 (1926): 653–669. Several years later, in 1934, Mauss would also publish his article ‘Les techniques du corps’ [The techniques of the body] in the same journal.
34. Grégory Cormann and Jérôme Englebert, ‘Des situations-limites au dépassement de la situation: phénoménologie d’un concept sartrien’ [From situations-limites to the overcoming of the situation: The phenomenology of a Sartrean concept], Sartre Studies International 22, no. 1 (2016): 99–116.
35. Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Être et le néant [Being and nothingness] (1943; repr. Paris: Gallimard, 2020), 618–620, 637, 751.
36. Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Carnets de la drôle de guerre’, in Les Mots et autres écrits autobiographiques [The Words and other autobiographical writings] (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 2010), 145-651, here 495.
37. Anne Mary, ‘Un salon philosophique au xxe siècle: les vendredis de Gabriel Marcel 21 rue de Tournon dans le VIe arrondissement’ [A philosophical salon in the twentieth century: The Fridays of Gabriel Marcel, 21 rue de Tournon in the 6th arrondissement], Bulletin de la société historique du VIe arrondissement de Paris [Bulletin of the Historical Society of the 6th Arrondissement in Paris] 27 (2014): 91–107.
38. It is concerning Nausea; it appears that Koyré questioned Sartre. The latter recognised, in his diary in any case, that he had not given the past its due place in it: ‘Dans La Nausée j’affirme que le passé n’est pas et, plus tôt, j’essayai de réduire la mémoire à une fiction vraie. Dans mes cours j’exagérais la part de la reconstruction dans le souvenir, parce que la reconstruction s’opère dans le présent. Cette incompréhension s’appariait fort bien avec mon manque de solidarité avec moimême qui me faisait juger insolemment mon passé mort du haut de mon présent’ [‘In Nausea I maintained that the past is not, and, earlier, I tried to reduce memory to a true fiction. In my classes I exaggerated the contribution of reconstruction in memory, because reconstruction operates in the present. This misunderstanding matched my lack of solidarity with myself very well, which made me insolently judge my dead past from the heights of my present’] (Sartre, Carnets de la drôle de guerre, 495).
39. John Heckman, ‘Introduction’, in Jean Hyppolite, Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (Evanston, IL: Northern University Press, 1974), p. xvxli, here xxiiii.
40. Cormann and Englebert, ‘Des situations-limites’.
41. The journal devotes its fifth number to a series entitled ‘Meditations on Time’, with contributions from, among others, Minkowski, Groethuysen, Dumézil and Caillois. Note that, in another section of this number, ‘On Existence and Being’, you can find ‘On Escape’ by Levinas.
42. Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘La transcendance de l’Ego’ [The transcendence of the ego], Recherches philosophiques 6 (1937): 85–123.
43. Jean-Paul Sartre, Lettres au Castor et à quelques autres [Letters to Castor and to a few others] (Paris, Gallimard, 1983), 58.
44. Juliette Simont, ‘Genèse du “Néant”, genèse de L’Être et le néant (À propos de la morale et de l’ontologie de Sartre)’ [The genesis of ‘nothingness’, the genesis of Being and nothingness (On Sartre’s morality and ontology)], in Sartre: L’Être et le néant: Nouvelles lectures [Sartre, Being and nothingness: New readings], ed. Jean-Marc Mouillie and Jean-Philippe Narboux (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2015), 35-36, here 35.
45. Grégory Cormann, ‘Sartre, Heidegger et les Recherches Philosophiques – Koyré, Levinas, Wahl: Eléments pour une archéologie de la philosophie française contemporaine’ [Sartre, Heidegger and Recherches Philosophiques – Koyré, Levinas, Wahl: Elements for an archaeology of contemporary French philosophy], in Questions anthropologiques et phénoménologie: Autour du travail de Daniel Giovannangeli [Anthropological questions and phenomenology: On the work of Daniel Giovannangeli], ed. Grégory Cormann and Olivier Feron (Brussels: Ousia, 2014), 135–166.
46. Grégory Cormann, ‘The Historical Origins of Sartre’s Account of Temporality’, in The Sartrean Mind, ed. Matthew Eshleman and Constance Mui (London: Routledge, 2020), 76–86.
47. Alexandre Koyré, ‘“Introduction” à Martin Heidegger, “Qu’est-ce que la métaphysique?”’ [‘Introduction’ to Martin Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?”’], Bifur 8 (1931): 5–8.
48. Alexandre Kojève, Introduction à la lecture de Hegel [Introduction to the reading of Hegel], (Paris: Gallimard, 1947).
49. Ibid., 575, n. 1, 570.
50. Ibid., 575, n. 1.
51. Ironically, Pierre Macherey could affirm that Kojève had ‘sold, in Hegel’s name, the child that Marx could have given to Heidegger’ (Pierre Macherey, ‘Lacan avec Kojève: philosophie et psychanalyse’ [Lacan with Kojève: Philosophy and psychoanalysis], in Lacan avec les philosophes [Lacan with the philosophers], (Paris: Albin Michel, 1991), 315–321, here 319.
52. Rory Jeffs, ‘The Future of the Future: Koyré, Kojève, and Malabou speculate on Hegelian time’, Parrhesia 15 (2012): 35–53, https://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia15/parrhesia15_jeffs.pdf.
53. Alexandre Koyré, ‘Hegel à Iéna (À propos de publications récentes)’ [Hegel in Jena (On recent publications)], Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses [Review of religious history and philosophy] 5 (1935): 420–458.
54. Ibid., 457.
55. Ibid., 457.
56. Bernard Groethuysen, Introduction à la pensée philosophique allemande depuis Nietzsche [Introduction to German philosophical thought since Nietzsche] (Paris: Stock, 1926), 101, 100. For more details, I refer you to my article ‘Empédocle, ou comment entrer en philosophie’, cited above in note 5.
57. You can find a partial realisation of the proposed perspective concerning the colonial question in the epilogue, ‘Archéologie d’Orphée noir’ [The archaeology of Black Orpheus], of my book Sartre: Une anthropologie politique, 1920–1980 [Sartre: A political anthropology, 1920–1980] (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2021).
