ABSTRACT
Jean-Paul Sartre’s goal in the Critique is to display “the Truth of History,” if there is one. In Sartre’s thought, and perhaps especially in the Critique, ternary logic infuses binary logic, and tends to override it. Throughout the Critique Sartre frequently refers to “analytical reason,” which he tends to equate with “positivist reason,” and he distinguishes both from “dialectical reason”. The Critique can be fruitfully explored on analogy with a forest ecosystem. Mesologics are like the forest understory. Like members of the soil community, micrologics pervade the Critique, too, ubiquitous, secretive, infusing the free process of truth with life. Much of the distinctiveness and efficacy of Sartre’s thought and manner of thinking emerges from the complementary interminglings of this smaller logical majority. Nested hierarchy is the idea that ecosystems are systems of systems. Lower-level systems are embedded within higher system levels, with each level being of differential functional and structural significance to the whole system.
