What is Subjectivity?

In December 1961, Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the most important figures of twentieth-century thought, was invited to Rome by the Gramsci Institute to give a conference. The subject of the conference is subjectivity, one of the most sinister themes of Marxism and dialectical materialism.

At first glance, Sartre's speech gives the impression of a polemic with György Lukács, the leading figure of Western Marxism; However, both the content of the speech and some of the questions and contributions added to the book by the intellectuals who are members or sympathizers of the Italian Communist Party among the audience take the discussion far beyond this. First of all, the shadow of Hegel and Karl Marx falls on everyone; In addition, traces of some cornerstones of the history of European thought such as Immanuel Kant, Giambattista Vico, Martin Heidegger, Søren Kierkegaard, Antonio Gramsci, Benedetto Croce, Maurice Merleau-Ponty are seen - sometimes without even mentioning their names.

Do not let the physical dimensions and number of pages of the book be misleading; What is Subjectivity? is a philosophically intense, sometimes challenging text. In this intensity, we occasionally see the literary man Sartre, with his evaluation of the Parma Monastery and especially Madame Bovary, with his strong observation while searching for a title for his magazine Les Temps Modernes with his friends, with the example of a worker who is not happy with his reaction to a situation but cannot fully understand it. a different pleasure. With a foreword by Michel Kail and Raoul Kirchmayr, and an afterword by Fredric Jameson...
(From the Promotional Bulletin)



Number of Pages: 152

Year of Printing: 2015


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Can Yayınları

Number of Pages: 152

First Print Year: 2015

Language Turkish