ABSTRACT
This chapter intends to develop the idea that the conditions under which associating occur both arise from and affect forms and terms of association. The focus for this development will be the non-human or natural environment. The key argument will be that in order to understand the way that people relate together in communities it is necessary to understand the way that they relate to the natural environment. Although Sartre does not dwell on this point or explore it in any detail, initially, a particular condition, that of scarcity, was 'the contingent but fundamental relation of man to Nature' and it 'remains the context of the whole investigation'. The main points that emerge from the lengthy quotation concern the significance of human agency, inert matter and interiorisation. Human activity requires inert matter and activity on that matter produces the interiorisation of that inertia.
