“I can’t help wondering if ugliness is not indispensable to philosophy. Sartre seems to be suggesting that thinking — serious, sustained questioning — arises out of, or perhaps with, a consciousness of one’s own ugliness.”

In a recent installment of the New York Time’s philosophy column The Stone, Andy Martin ponders the ugliness of Jean-Paul Sartre (and other philosophers) and Sartre’s tragic haircut that started it all.