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"The representative, especially of a subordinate group, always stands in an ambiguous position. She tries to speak on behalf of the group’s interests. This raises the whole well-chewed complex of arguments about how the principal (the group) can control its agent (the representative). But there is a more basic problem that needs addressing. This is the interest that the agent has in the preservation of the group as it positively exists."

If the celebrated existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre is remembered today it is likely to be for his novels and fiction, or for his post-war classic Being and Nothingness. Less often discussed is his groundbreaking work of Marxist philosophy, Critique of Dialectical Reason, and the philosophy of praxis he develops in it. But, as Lorenzo Buti argues, it is in this work that his true political power lies.