Merleau-Ponty’s elusive charm contrasted with Sartre’s confrontational directness

Evidence

Despite the fun and games, he retained an elusive quality, especially by contrast with Sartre’s tendency to be upfront and in-your-face. His self-possessed way of smiling off the most serious events could be frustrating, as Simone de Beauvoir found, but it was attractive too. Merleau-Ponty was aware of his appeal and was a noted flirt. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 750

Categorization

• XREF: Fleshes out the Sartre-Merleau-Ponty temperament contrast that foreshadows their later political split in this book. — connects to: Merleau-Ponty differs from Sartre and Heidegger by calmly accepting limitation as constitutive — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 725; Merleau-Ponty and Sartre’s philosophies differ fundamentally in temperament and relation to anxiety — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 753