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earlier than the
Theses
at a time when Marx was less critical-minded
and more susceptible to what Andrea Caffi has called "the ingenious
combinations that seemed useful to Engels"?
Why did Mr. Hampshire bring up this matter of the
Theses on
Feuerbach
and the
German Ideology
in his criticism of contemporary
French thought, specifically Sartre's? I think Mr. Hampshire's point
is expressed more clearly later in his review when he objects to Sartre's
philosophical enterprise as such: Sartre's reflection on human existence
and its structures independently of the so-called human sciences: history,
psychology, sociology. Now Sartre is not ignorant in these fields; nor
does Mr. Hampshire suggest that he is. What troubles Mr. Hampshire
is
that Sartre does not feel obliged to accept the conclusions of the
collective effort made in these fields and is ready to review these efforts
on his own in terms of the one discipline he does submit to. What is
that discipline? Philosophy.
It comes down to this. What Mr. Hampshire has against Sartre is
that he is trying to philosophize. This may seem a curious objection com–
ing from a man who is himself a philosopher. But Mr. Hampshire's
philosophy consists in refusing to philosophize. Apparently philosophiz-
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