Postscript: A Final Word on Sartre

Abstract

Speaking of Sartre ten years after his death, Benny Lévy noted: ‘I have never met anyone with such a capacity to call himself into question’.¹ This willingness to engage in self-criticism, this commitment to seek out new ways of interpreting the world, this refusal to envisage the status quo as unchangeable, this resilient conviction that self-renewal and self-improvement are always a human possibility, would appear to me to be at the heart of the continuing fascination and relevance of Sartre’s life and work. At the end of an itinerary through the work of Sartre that has lasted 30 years, this for me is the final word on Sartre.