ANOTHER USE FOR PHILOSOPHY.

ANOTHER USE FOR PHILOSOPHY. During the 1950’s, when I was a college student, Sartre was a dominant figure in philosophy. Agnes Poirier has written LEFT BANK, a history of Parisian life from the end of World War II until 1950. At the time, Sartre’s BEING AND NOTHINGNESS was a key book.

James Campbell reviewed LEFT BANK in the Wall Street Journal (Feb.10-11) and quoted Poirier’s explanation of one of the reasons for the popularity of this difficult book of philosophy: its usefulness to housewives. “Since the book weighed exactly one kilogram, people were simply using it as a weight, as usual copper weights had [been] melted down to make ammunition.”