ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author argues that the 'analytic spirit' which Jean-Paul Sartre attributes especially to liberalism, is, however, also closely linked to what Agnes Heller and Ferenc Feher characterize as 'rhetorical discussion'. The chapter argues that a demand for equal freedom is a claim for political justice, whereas the demand for equal life-chances is specifically a claim for social justice. In this way, Sartre's emphasis on individual differences and the consequent avoidance of the reductive totalization performed in the analytic spirit offers an alternative route by which to approach problems of social justice. To overcome the determinism that the author easily succumbs to is, for Sartre, to exercise our freedom and simultaneously to take significant political action. Sartre's argument serves well to remind us that a great many things in life are completely value-neutral. Making a somewhat unnerving epistemological claim, Sartre later takes, however, a bold stand in favour of the possibility of reaching a full understanding of another human being.
