ABSTRACT
At the end of Violence et ethique I stumbled upon an aporia, which I attributed to the development of Sartre's dialectical works: theater, philosophy and political essays. Those who make the revolution are necessarily personally motivated by reasons that are suspect from the point of view of its universal meaning, and those who give the right reasons to carry out the revolution don't make it. In other words, the project of concrete universality, the revolution, is sustained by people who remain attached to their particular individuality while those who are detached from everything and from themselves by the idiosyncrasy of their psychological development are not willing to undertake it. Those who think that they are concerned with the public good are incorrigible individualists, while those who have eyes only for their own souls are naturally ascetic and therefore singular enough to be already in touch with the universal. In short, those whose detachment from desire is obvious remain attached to their own profile, while those who are driven by desire are detached from the larger scheme of things by the very content of their personal problem. The individualism of the first nourishes itself on the public welfare; the Singularity of the second nourishes itself on the culture of their inner nothingness. The first consider their individuality synonymous with a universal cause; the second expand *Sartre Alive, ed. R. Aronson, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), pp. 211-24.
