Final Evaluation

Abstract

In our introduction we described the general area of existential thought, both literary and philosophic, and we attempted to show in this connection that Sartre’s technical philosophy cannot be understood from his popular novels or plays or public lectures, but that he is a serious philosopher attempting to investigate the problem of Being via a phenomenological ontology, and that it is only by an examination of his EN that a real comprehension of his philosophic thought can be attained. We indicated further that certain fundamental questions face Sartre’s projected ontology: Does phenomenology have the inner capacity to expand into a critical theory of knowledge and into an ontology? Is phenomenology a generalized Kantianism? And, finally, in what sense is Sartre’s variety of phenomenology indebted to Husserl and Hegel? We shall return to these questions in order to indicate our final conclusions regarding Sartre’s answers to them.

“Metaphysics is not a sterile discussion about abstract notions which have nothing to do with experience. It is a living effort to embrace from within the human condition in its totality.”

—Sartre