Vol. 7 · No. 2 · 2001 · pp. 44-57 (14)
What is Political Writing?Sartre and Merleau-Ponty on Literature and the Expression of Meaning
Joseph C. Bereudzen
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Abstract
Many recent political and ethical theories have stressed the idea that communication should be central to social interactions. At the same time political thought has put more value on the inclusion of voices in political discourse. This has caused people to question what form of rationality, if any, is operative within the communicative situation. These debates usually center around actual speech, but significant ethico-political communication can also take place through other means, such as the work of art. When this is the case, the problem becomes one of determining how meaning is communicated through the work of art and of determining what kind of rationality is necessary for artistic communication to take place. These are some of the core problems that Jean-Paul Sartre took up in his works on literature. He wanted the literary work of art to have an ethico-political significance, and thus explored how it is that communication can happen through writing and reading.