« Sur le point d’être » Lire l’Empédocle de Sartre

Bergson used to say that a philosopher only ever attempted to say a single thing. For Sartre, this thing, contingency, is very much on display in an essential text from his youth. My task is to show, in three separate stages (nature on the verge of being; the subject on the verge of being: figurations of individuality; and the verge of being and materiality), the sense in which Sartre’s Empédocle makes the unity and coherence of Sartre’s thought manifest.