Evaluation
Leszek Kołakowski believes that the Critique of Dialectical Reason represents an abandonment of Sartre's original Existentialism, and depicts Marxism as "invincible", something he finds absurd. Kołakowski nevertheless considers the book an interesting attempt to find room for creativity and spontaneity within Marxism, noting that it rejects the dialectic of nature and historical determinism while preserving the social significance of human behavior. Kołakowski criticizes Sartre for failing to explain how Communism could restore freedom. In his view, Sartre gives such a generalized account of revolutionary organization that he ignores the real difficulties of groups engaging in common action without infringing the freedom of their individual members. Kołakowski criticizes Sartre for introducing many superfluous neologisms, writing that aside from these it does not contain a genuinely new interpretation of Marxism; he sees its view of the historical character of perception and knowledge and its rejection of the dialectic of nature as stemming from the work of György Lukács. According to Kołakowski, neither Sartre's view that freedom must be safeguarded in revolutionary organization nor his view that there will be perfect freedom when Communism has abolished shortages is new in a Marxist context, and Sartre fails to explain how either could have been brought about.
R. D. Laing and David Cooper consider the Critique of Dialectical Reason an attempt to "establish the dialectical bases for a structural anthropology", one which, through a dialectical approach, "seeks to demarcate the limits and validity of dialectical reason." Philosopher Sidney Hook described the work as, "A Metaphysic of Stalinism", i.e., as a philosophical justification for widespread human rights abuses by Communist leadership of the Soviet Union.
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