This is a critical introduction to modern French philosophy, commissioned from one of the liveliest contemporary practitioners and intended for an English-speaking readership. The dominant 'Anglo-Saxon' reaction to philosophical development in France has for some decades been one of suspicion, occasionally tempered by curiosity but more often hardening into dismissive rejection. But there are signs now of a more sympathetic interest and an increasing readiness to admit and explore shared concerns, even if these are still expressed in a (...) very different idiom and intellectual context. Vincent Descombes offers here a personal guide to the main movements and figures of the last forty-five years. He traces over this period the evolution of thought from a generation preoccupied with the 'three H's' - Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, to a generation influenced since about 1960 by the 'three masters of suspicion' - Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. In this framework he deals in turn with the thought of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, the early structuralists, Foucault, Althusser, Serres, Derrida, and finally Deleuze and Lyotard. The 'internal' intellectual history of the period is related to its institutional setting and the wider cultural and political context which has given French philosophy so much of its distinctive character. (shrink)

In this book Gary Gutting tells, clearly and comprehensively, the story of French philosophy from 1890 to 1990. He examines the often neglected background of spiritualism, university idealism, and early philosophy of science, and also discusses the privileged role of philosophy in the French education system. Taking account of this background, together with the influences of avant-garde literature and German philosophy, he develops a rich account of existential phenomenology, which he argues is the central (...) achievement of French thought during the century, and of subsequent structuralist and poststructuralist developments. His discussion includes chapters on Bergson, Sartre, Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, and Derrida, with sections on other major thinkers including Lyotard, Deleuze, Irigaray, Levinas, and Ricoeur. He offers challenging analyses of the often misunderstood relationship between existential phenomenology and structuralism and of the emergence of poststructuralism. Finally, he sketches the major current trends of French philosophy. (shrink)

Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres' work in the context of late 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres' philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers. Simons situates Serres' unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres' work into (...) a promising philosophy of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres' commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres' philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history, and sociology of science. Showing how Serres' philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life. (shrink)

Offering an overall insight into the French tradition of philosophy of technology, this volume is meant to make French-speaking contributions more accessible to the international philosophical community. The first section, “Negotiating a Cultural Heritage,” presents a number of leading 20th century philosophical figures and intellectual movements that help shape philosophy of technology in the Francophone area, and feed into contemporary debates. The second section, “Coining and Reconfiguring Technoscience,” traces the genealogy of this controversial concept and discusses (...) its meanings and relevance. A third section, “Revisiting Anthropological Categories,” focuses on the relationships of technology with the natural and the human worlds from various perspectives that include anthropotechnology, Anthropocene, technological and vital norms and temporalities. The final section, “Innovating in Ethics, Design and Aesthetics,” brings together contributions that draw on various French traditions to afford fresh insights on ethics of technology, philosophy of design, techno-aesthetics and digital studies. The contributions in this volume are vivid and rich in original approaches that can spur exchanges and debates with other philosophical traditions. (shrink)

"Caroline Williams marks what is distinctive about 20th Century French philosophy's interrogation of the subject and demonstrates its historical continuity in a ...

Contemporary French philosophy is laying fresh claim to the human. Through a series of independent, simultaneous initiatives, arising in the writing of diverse current French thinkers, the figured of the human is being transformed and reworked. -/- Christopher Watkin draws out both the promises and perils inherent in these attempts to rethink humanity’s relation to ‘nature’ and ‘culture’, to the objects that surround us, to the possibility of social and political change, to ecology and even to our (...) own brains. This comparative assessment makes visible for the first time one of the most important trends in French thought today. (shrink)

The late 20th century saw a remarkable flourishing of philosophy in France. The work of French philosophers is wide ranging, historically informed, often reaching out beyond the boundaries of philosophy; they are public intellectuals, taken seriously as contributors to debates outside the academy. Gary Gutting tells the story of the development of a distinctively French philosophy in the last four decades of the 20th century. His aim is to arrive at an account of what it (...) was to 'do philosophy' in France, what this sort of philosophizing was able to achieve, and how it differs from the analytic philosophy dominant in Anglophone countries. -/- His initial focus is on the three most important philosophers who came to prominence in the 1960s: Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Derrida. He sets out the educational and cultural context of their work, as a basis for a detailed treatment of how they formulated and began to carry out their philosophical projects in the 1960s and 1970s. He gives a fresh assessment of their responses to the key influences of Hegel and Heidegger, and the fraught relationship of the new generation to their father-figure Sartre. He concludes that Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze can all be seen as developing their fundamental philosophical stances out of distinctive readings of Nietzsche. The second part of the book considers topics and philosophers that became prominent in the 1980s and 1990s, such as the revival of ethics in Levinas, Derrida, and Foucault, the return to phenomenology and its use to revive religious experience as a philosophical topic, and Alain Badiou's new ontology of the event. Finally Gutting brings to the fore the meta-philosophical theme of the book, that French philosophy since the 1960s has been primarily concerned with thinking the impossible. (shrink)

Badiou explores the exponentially rich and varied world of French philosophy in a number of groundbreaking essays, published her for the first time in English or in a revised translation. Included are the often-quoted review of Louis Althussers's canonical works For Marks and Reading Capital and the scathing critique of 'potato fascism' in Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guttari's A Thousand Plateus. There are also talks on Michel Foucault and Jean-Luc Nancy, and reviews of the work of Jean-François Lyotard (...) and Barbara Cassin, notable points of interest on an expansive tour of modern French thought.Guided by a small set of fundamental questions concerning the nature of being, the event, the subject, and truth, Badiou pushes to an extreme the polemical force of his thinking. Against the formless continuum of life, he posits the need for radical discontinuity; against the false modesty of finitude, he pleads for the mathematical infinity of everyday situations; against the various returns to Kant, the argues for the persistence of Hegelian dialectic; and against the lure of ultraleftism, his texts from the 1970s vindicate the role of Maoism as a driving force behind the communist Idea. (shrink)

This book gives a critical assessment of key developments in contemporary French philosophy, highlighting the diverse ways in which recent French thought has moved beyond the philosophical positions and arguments which have been widely associated with the terms 'post-structuralism' and 'postmodernism'. These developments are assessed through a close comparative reading of the work of seven contemporary thinkers: Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Luc Nancy, Bernard Stiegler, Catherine Malabou, Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou and François Laruelle. The book situates the writing of (...) each philosopher in relation to earlier traditions of French thought. In differing ways, these philosophers decisively distance themselves from the linguistic paradigm which dominated so much twentieth-century thought in order to rethink philosophical conceptions of materiality, worldliness, shared embodied existence and human agency or subjectivity. They thereby open the way for a radical renewal of the claims, possibilities and transformative power of philosophical thinking itself. This book will be an indispensable text for students of philosophy and for anyone interested in current developments in philosophy and social thought. (shrink)

Desmond M. Clarke presents a thematic history of French philosophy from the middle of the sixteenth century to the beginning of Louis XIV's reign. While the traditional philosophy of the schools was taught throughout this period by authors who have faded into permanent obscurity, a whole generation of writers who were not professional philosophers--some of whom never even attended a school or college--addressed issues that were prominent in French public life. Clarke explores such topics as the (...) novel political theory espoused by monarchomachs against Bodin's account of absolute sovereignty; the scepticism of Montaigne, Charron, and Sanches; the ethical discussions of Du Vair, Gassendi, and Pascal; innovations in natural philosophy; theories of the human mind from Jean de Silhon to Cureau de la Chambre and Descartes; and novel arguments in support of women's education and equality. The writers involved were lawyers, political leaders, theologians, and independent scholars who acknowledged the authority of the Bible as a source of knowledge, while raising questions about faith and reason. (shrink)

One of the chief virtues of Gutting’s book is its ambition to tell the “relatively self-contained and coherent story” (xi) of French philosophy in this century, not just the parts of the story that American academics have seized upon as distinctive and interesting. Alongside analyses of well-known philosophers like Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, and Derrida (a 30-40 page chapter is devoted to each), Gutting provides excellent chronological summaries of early figures like Félix Ravaisson, Jules Lachelier, Léon Brunschvicg, Henri Bergson, (...) and Gaston Bachelard who are infrequently read or discussed in English. (shrink)

The fourth and final volume of The New Press Postwar French Thought series provides a fresh map and analysis for understanding the history of ideas since 1945. This anthology collects the writings of celebrated philosophers along with work by thinkers highly regarded in France for the first time. It contextualises the material within a larger intellectual and political history and chronology, identifying antecedents and distinguishing four main phases or moments. Indispensable for understanding the development of postwar French (...) class='Hi'>philosophy as a whole. (shrink)

"... no other book undertakes to relate all these French philosophers to each other the way that [Lawlor] does, brilliantly." —François Raffoul For many, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze represent one of the greatest movements in French philosophy. But these philosophers and their works did not materialize without a philosophical heritage. In Thinking through French Philosophy, Leonard Lawlor shows how the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty formed an important current in sustaining the development of (...) structuralism and post-structuralism. Seeking the "point of diffraction," or the specific ideas and concepts that link Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze, Lawlor discovers differences and convergences in these thinkers who worked the same terrain. Major themes include metaphysics, archaeology, language and documentation, expression and interrogation, and the very experience of thinking. Lawlor’s focus on the experience of the question brings out critical differences in immanence and transcendence. This illuminating and provocative book brings new vitality to debates on contemporary French philosophy. (shrink)

This handy guide provides detailed coverage of all the key movements of the last 100 years of French though and gives short but readable accounts of the life, works and influence of famous philosophers and eccentric personalities.

This unique book addresses trends such as vitalism, neo-Kantianism, existentialism, Marxism and feminism, and provides concise biographies of the influential philosophers who shaped these movements, including entries on over ninety thinkers. Offers discussion and cross-referencing of ideas and figures Provides Appendix on the distinctive nature of French academic culture.

Martin Heidegger's impact on contemporary thought is important and controversial. However in France, the influence of this German philosopher is such that contemporary French thought cannot be properly understood without reference to Heidegger and his extraordinary influence. Tom Rockmore examines the reception of Heidegger's thought in France. He argues that in the period after the Second World War, due to the peculiar nature of the humanist French Philosophical tradition, Heidegger became the master thinker of French philosophy. (...) Perhaps most importantly, he contends that this reception - first as philosophical anthropology and later as postmetaphysical humanism - is systematically mistaken. (shrink)

First published in 1964, this is not just a chronicle or encyclopaedia, but deals thoroughly in turn with meaning, view about reason, and views about values, particularly moral values. The author's knowledge of French literature if extensive and thorough, and a feature of the book is his analysis of the philosophical implications of literarry wroks by Sartre, Paul Valery, Camus and others.

Philosophy plays an integral role in French society, affecting its art, drama, politics, and culture. In this accessible, chronological survey, Matthews offers some explanations for the enduring popularity of the subject and traces the developments that French philosophy has taken in the twentieth century, from its roots in the thought of Descartes to key figures such as Bergson, Sartre, Marcel, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Derrida, and the recent French Feminists.

This volume offers a lively and accessible guide to some of the major issues current in French philosophy today and to some of the figures who are or have been influential in shaping its development. The collection is unusual and interesting in bringing together a range of contributors from both Britain and France, and is intended not only for professional philosophers but also for those with a more general interest in the French intellectual scene.

This is a critical introduction to modern French philosophy, commissioned from one of the liveliest contemporary practitioners and intended for an English-speaking readership. The dominant 'Anglo-Saxon' reaction to philosophical development in France has for some decades been one of suspicion, occasionally tempered by curiosity but more often hardening into dismissive rejection. But there are signs now of a more sympathetic interest and an increasing readiness to admit and explore shared concerns, even if these are still expressed in a (...) very different idiom and intellectual context. Vincent Descombes offers here a personal guide to the main movements and figures of the last forty-five years. He traces over this period the evolution of thought from a generation preoccupied with the 'three H's' - Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, to a generation influenced since about 1960 by the 'three masters of suspicion' - Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. In this framework he deals in turn with the thought of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, the early structuralists, Foucault, Althusser, Serres, Derrida, and finally Deleuze and Lyotard. The 'internal' intellectual history of the period is related to its institutional setting and the wider cultural and political context which has given French philosophy so much of its distinctive character. (shrink)

This article examines the multiple relations between the rationalist tradition of French philosophy of science exemplified by the work of Gaston Bachelard, and the rethinking of the relation between science and ideology undertaken by Louis Althusser and a young Alain Badiou in the 1960s. Both Bachelard and Althusser are interrogated for the philosophy of language that underpins their respective visions of scientificity; in turn, the problem of the subject is posed, in part through an investigation of Althusser's (...) inheritance and transformation of Lacanian psychoanalysis. (shrink)

First published in 1964, this is not just a chronicle or encyclopaedia, but deals thoroughly in turn with meaning, view about reason, and views about values, particularly moral values. The author's knowledge of French literature is extensive and thorough, and a feature of the book is his analysis of the philosophical implications of literary works by Sartre, Paul Valery, Camus and others.

This volume offers a lively and accessible guide to some of the major issues current in French philosophy today and to some of the figures who are or have been influential in shaping its development. The collection is unusual and interesting in bringing together a range of contributors from both Britain and France, and is intended not only for professional philosophers but also for those with a more general interest in the French intellectual scene.

Machine generated contents note: Introduction; Part I. Derrida Post-Existentialist: 1. Humanist pretensions: Catholics, Communists and Sartre's struggle for existentialism in post-war France; 2. Derrida's 'Christian' existentialism; 3. Normalization: the École Normale Supe;rieure and Derrida's turn to Husserl; 4. Genesis as a problem: Derrida reading Husserl; 5. The God of mathematics: Derrida and the origin of geometry; Part II. Between Phenomenology and Structuralism: 6. A history of diffe;rance; 7. L'ambiguite; du concours: the deconstruction of commentary and interpretation in Speech and Phenomena; (...) 8. The ends of man: reading and writing at the ENS; Epilogue. (shrink)

The idea of ‘gesture’ is present in the philosophical world in various forms. All of them might find an important theoretical grounding in pragmatist philosophy, if we combine pragmatism with some French philosophies of mathematics and read it as a way out of the Kantian philosophy of representation. The paper uses the insights of Jean Cavaillès to set out the problem of the weakness of the epistemic Kantian defense of mathematical and logical thought. Cavaillès rejected the possible (...) amendments to Kant’s explanation provided by both Husserl and Bolzano and their heirs. He used the word ‘gesture’ in order to explain the activity of mathematicians who have to act synthetically, following rules, with some physical representation, and being aware of the possibility of failure. Cavaillès conceived the use of gesture as an alternative to the Heidegerian idea of event defended by Albert Lautman. The paper then follows the idea of gesture in the French philosophy of mathematics of Gilles Châtelet and Giuseppe Longo. Finally, the paper illustrates how Peirce’s study of Existential Graphs and the main insights of pragmatism complete Cavaillès’s idea by giving to gestures a phenomenological and semiotic structure. The pragmatist philosophy of gesture is thus a new way of overthrowing Kant’s philosophy of representation without surrendering to irrationalism. (shrink)

Reviews : A. Phillips Griffiths, Contemporary French Philosophy ; Raoul Mortley, French Philosophers in Conversation.