Profession: philosopher

Heidegger and Ortega met each other a number of times and were influential on each other’s work; Heidegger remembered him fondly. Unamuno was a correspondent, and Valéry met him when he travelled to Spain. Ortega described Ocampo, when he met her on the first of his several visits to Argentina, as the Mona Lisa of the Pampas. She was equally enchanted by him, they became occasional lovers, and he chose the title for the influential intellectual review she published.

Priestley was a correspondent and strong influence. Ricardo and James Mill were among the thinkers who gathered around Bentham. Smith, a regular correspondent, was persuaded by Bentham that interest-rates should be free. Dumont, a disciple and collaborator, published his writings and thus broadcast his ideas. Leigh Hunt was a friend, the irascible Hazlitt rented his house and publicly suggested that his ideas were over-rated, while Roget, invited to develop Bentham’s plans for a new design of ice-house, found his unconventional life too hard to stomach. George Bentham was his nephew, J. S. Mill his godson.

Sartre met Nizan and Aron at school, later salvaging Nizan’s reputation. He met Lévi-Strauss, Merleau-Ponty, Weil, Canguilhem and Hyppolite as a student: also de Beauvoir, becoming her famously lifelong intellectual and amatory (but not exclusive) partner. He, de Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty founded a resistance group in WWII, which Gide and Malraux failed to support. He was dismissive of Bataille’s writings, and enjoyed swapping filthy stories with Camus (before they fell out). He wrote a foreword for Fanon, praised Genet, disputed marxism with Althusser, and suggested the faithful communist Arago go to Cuba.