Twentieth-century French philosophy
Encyclopedia
20th-century French philosophy is a strand of contemporary philosophy
generally associated with post-World War II
French thinkers
, although it is directly influenced by previous philosophical movement
s.
(1859–1941) is often considered the division point between nineteenth- and twentieth-century French philosophy. Essentially, despite his respect for mathematics and science, he pioneered the French movement of scepticism towards the use of scientific methods to understand human nature and metaphysical reality. Positivism
, of which, for example, the French
sociologist
Durkheim was interested in at the time, was not appropriate, he argued. Unlike later philosophers, Bergson was highly influenced by biology, particularly Darwin
's Origin of Species, which was released the year of Bergson's birth. This led Bergson to discuss the 'Body' and 'Self' in detail, arguably prompting the fundamental ontological and epistemological questions to be raised later in the 20th century. Bergson's work was a major influence on Gilles Deleuze
, who wrote a monograph on him (Bergsonism) and whose philosophical analyses of cinema (Cinema 1: The Movement Image
and Cinema 2: The Time-Image) develop his ideas.
(1854–1912), who opposed Bertrand Russell
and Frege, various French philosophers started working on philosophy of science
, among them Gaston Bachelard
, who developed a discontinuist view of science, Jean Cavaillès
(1903–1944), or Georges Canguilhem
, who would be a strong influence of Michel Foucault
and Gilles Deleuze
, and Jules Vuillemin
. In his introduction to Canguilhem's The Normal and the Pathological, Foucault wrote:
Starting in the 1980s, Bruno Latour
(b. 1947), teacher at the engineering school École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris
, would develop the actor-network theory
, a distinctive approach to social theory and research, best known for its controversial insistence on the agency of nonhumans.
with Xavier Léon
and Elie Halévy
, Martial Guéroult
(1891–1976) and successor of Étienne Gilson
at the Collège de France
in 1951, Ferdinand Alquié
, etc. Jean Wahl
taught between 1936 to 1967 and helped introduce the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard
to French thinkers.
(1905–1950) was a guiding spirit in the French personalist
movement, and founder and director of Esprit
, the magazine which was the organ of the movement. Mounier, who was the child of peasants, was a brilliant scholar at the Sorbonne. In 1929, when he was only twenty-four, he came under the influence of the French writer, Charles Péguy, to whom he ascribed the inspiration of the personalist movement.
Gabriel Honoré Marcel
(1889–1973) was a leading Catholic existentialist
and the author of about 30 plays. He shared a great deal in common with Mounier's ideas. They both show Bergson's influence in their assessment of 'being', specifically the Mystery of Being. Interest of Mounier and Marcel in the problems of technology moved French philosophy forward.
, making it better known to the lay-person than, for instance, deconstruction
. Phenomenology and Marxism
were two other key concerns of his. A leading figure of the French Left, Sartre was opposed on his right by Raymond Aron
.
. Merleau-Ponty is classified as an existentialist thinker because of his close association with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir
, and his distinctly Heideggerian conception of Being.
, many French Philosophers' views on it shifted substantially during their lifetime. Sartre, for instance, became more influenced by Marx during the course of his life.
Alexandre Kojève
(1902–1968) was a Marxist and Hegelian political philosopher, who had a substantial influence on intellectual life in France in the 1930s and on the reading of Hegel in France.
Louis Althusser
(1918–1990) was a key Marxist philosopher, sometimes considered to be the structuralist
equivalent to Marxism that Lacan
was to Psychoanalysis
and Claude Lévi-Strauss
to ethnology
(although all of them rejected the identification). One of his first seminal works was Reading Capital
(1965), co-written with Étienne Balibar
, Roger Establet
, Jacques Rancière
and Pierre Macherey
. He opposed Hegel's teleological
approach to history, drew on Bachelard's concept of "epistemological break" and defined philosophy as "class struggle in theory."
Other Marxist authors include Henri Lefebvre
(1901–1999), who partly influenced the Situationist and Guy Debord
, the group Socialisme ou Barbarie
aforementioned, etc.
movement in French philosophy was highly influenced by the Swiss thinker Ferdinand de Saussure
(1857–1913). His ideas laid the foundation for many of the significant developments in linguistics
in the 20th century. He is widely considered the 'father' of 20th-century linguistics.
Jacques Lacan
(1901–1981) was specifically interested in the philosophy of psychoanalysis
. He could be said to be relevant to the more modern foundations of discursive psychology
.
is, like structuralism
, an ambiguous term in some respect. It is first important to understand the nature of the schools of thought - as often it seems they aren't truly separate 'schools' at all. It is also interesting to note how, much like Sartre's interest in art, both of these movements are important to a wide range of academic disciplines. E.g., English Literature
, Cultural Studies
, Media Studies
/Film Studies
, Anthropology
, etc. etc.
Michel Foucault
(1926–1984), although sometimes considered close to structuralism, quickly drew apart from this movement, developing a specific approach to semiology and history
which he dubbed "archeology." His influence is broad-ranging, and his work includes books such as Madness and Civilization
(1961), The Order of Things
(1966), Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison
(1975) or The History of Sexuality
.
Gilles Deleuze
, who wrote the Anti-Oedipus (1972) with Félix Guattari
, criticizing psychoanalysis, was, like Foucault, one of the key thinkers who introduced a thorough reading of Nietzsche in France, following Georges Bataille
's early attempts — Bataille published the Acéphale
review from 1936 to 1939, along with Pierre Klossowski
, another close reader of Nietzsche, Roger Caillois
and Jean Wahl
. Deleuze wrote books such as Difference and Repetition
, The Logic of Sense
, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy
(1970), and also wrote on Bergson, Leibniz, Nietzsche, etc., as well as other works on cinema (Cinema 1: The Movement Image
). Both Deleuze and Foucault attempted to take distance from the strong influence of Marxism and psychoanalysis in their works, in part by means of a radical reinterpretation of Marx and Freud.
Jacques Derrida
(1930–2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction
. His voluminous work had a profound impact upon continental philosophy and literary theory.
Jean-François Lyotard
(1924–1998) was a philosopher and literary theorist. He is well-known for his articulation of Postmodernism
after the late 1970s.
Other authors include Jean Baudrillard
, who started with a situationist criticism of Consumption Society in the 1970s to evolve towards a reflection on simulation
and virtual reality
, Paul Virilio
, both a philosopher and an urbanist
, Cornelius Castoriadis
, who was, along with Claude Lefort
, co-founder of Socialisme ou Barbarie
and criticized orthodox Marxism, Alain Badiou
, François Laruelle
, who developed "Non-philosophy
" starting in the 1980s, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe
, Paul Ricoeur
(administrator of the University of Nanterre during May '68), Emmanuel Levinas
, Vincent Descombes
, etc.
than much Anglo-American Feminism. Key thinkers include psychoanalytic and cultural theorist, Luce Irigaray
(born 1930), and psychoanalyst and writer Julia Kristeva
(born 1941). See also Simone de Beauvoir
.
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
generally associated with post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
French thinkers
French philosophy
French philosophy, here taken to mean philosophy in the French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced Western philosophy as a whole for centuries, from the medieval scholasticism of Peter Abelard, through the founding of modern philosophy by René Descartes, to 20th century...
, although it is directly influenced by previous philosophical movement
Philosophical movement
A philosophical movement is either the appearance or increased popularity of a specific school of philosophy, or a fairly broad but identifiable sea-change in philosophical thought on a particular subject...
s.
Bergson
The work of Henri BergsonHenri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...
(1859–1941) is often considered the division point between nineteenth- and twentieth-century French philosophy. Essentially, despite his respect for mathematics and science, he pioneered the French movement of scepticism towards the use of scientific methods to understand human nature and metaphysical reality. Positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
, of which, for example, the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
sociologist
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
Durkheim was interested in at the time, was not appropriate, he argued. Unlike later philosophers, Bergson was highly influenced by biology, particularly Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's Origin of Species, which was released the year of Bergson's birth. This led Bergson to discuss the 'Body' and 'Self' in detail, arguably prompting the fundamental ontological and epistemological questions to be raised later in the 20th century. Bergson's work was a major influence on Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
, who wrote a monograph on him (Bergsonism) and whose philosophical analyses of cinema (Cinema 1: The Movement Image
Cinema 1: The Movement Image
Cinema 1: The Movement Image is a book by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze that combines philosophy with film criticism. It was originally published in French as L'Image-mouvement. Cinéma 1 . It was translated into English by Hugh Tomlinson. In the Preface to the French edition Deleuze says that,...
and Cinema 2: The Time-Image) develop his ideas.
Philosophy of science
Following debates concerning the foundation of mathematics around the mathematician and philosopher Henri PoincaréHenri Poincaré
Jules Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science...
(1854–1912), who opposed Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
and Frege, various French philosophers started working on philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
, among them Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter he introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break...
, who developed a discontinuist view of science, Jean Cavaillès
Jean Cavailles
Jean Cavaillès , was a French philosopher and mathematician, specialized in philosophy of science. He took part in the French Resistance within the Libération movement and was shot by the Gestapo on February 17, 1944....
(1903–1944), or Georges Canguilhem
Georges Canguilhem
Georges Canguilhem was a French philosopher and physician who specialized in epistemology and the philosophy of science .-Life and work:...
, who would be a strong influence of Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
and Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
, and Jules Vuillemin
Jules Vuillemin
Jules Vuillemin was a French philosopher, succeeding to Maurice Merleau-Ponty at the Collège de France from 1962 to his death. A friend of Michel Foucault, he supported his election at the College, and was also close to Michel Serres...
. In his introduction to Canguilhem's The Normal and the Pathological, Foucault wrote:
Take away Canguilhem and you will no longer understand much about AlthusserLouis AlthusserLouis Pierre Althusser was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy....
, Althusserism and a whole series of discussions which have taken place among French Marxists; you will no longer grasp what is specific to sociologists such as BourdieuPierre BourdieuPierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher.Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location,...
, Robert CastelRobert CastelRobert Castel is a French sociologist, currently a researcher at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales.-Work:...
, Jean-Claude Passeron and what marks them so strongly within sociology; you will miss an entire aspect of the theoretical work done by psychoanalysts, particularly by the followers of LacanLacanLacan is surname of:* Jacques Lacan , French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist** The Seminars of Jacques Lacan** From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power, a book on political philosophy by Saul Newman** Lacan at the Scene* Judith Miller, née Lacan...
. Further, in the entire discussion of ideas which preceded or followed the movement of '68, it is easy to find the place of those who, from near or from afar, had been trained by Canguilhem.
Starting in the 1980s, Bruno Latour
Bruno Latour
Bruno Latour is a French sociologist of science and anthropologist and an influential theorist in the field of Science and Technology Studies...
(b. 1947), teacher at the engineering school École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris
École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris
The École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris was created in 1783 by King Louis XVI in order to train intelligent directors of mines. It is one of the most prominent French engineering schoolsThe École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (also known as Mines ParisTech, École des Mines de...
, would develop the actor-network theory
Actor-network theory
Actor–network theory, often abbreviated as ANT, is a distinctive approach to social theory and research which originated in the field of science studies...
, a distinctive approach to social theory and research, best known for its controversial insistence on the agency of nonhumans.
The Sorbonne
Many philosophers and historians of philosophy were teachers at the Sorbonne University, including Léon Brunschvicg (1869–1944), co-founder of the Revue de Métaphysique et de MoraleRevue de métaphysique et de morale
The Revue de métaphysique et de morale is a French philosophy journal co-founded in 1893 by Léon Brunschvicg, Xavier Léon and Élie Halévy. The journal initially appeared six times a year, but since 1920 has been published quarterly...
with Xavier Léon
Xavier Léon
Xavier Léon was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy.In 1893 Léon – together with Élie Halévy and others – helped found the French philosophical journal Revue de métaphysique et de morale. Léon remained editor of the journal until his death in 1935, when he was succeeded by Dominique...
and Elie Halévy
Élie Halévy
Élie Halévy was a French philosopher and historian who wrote studies of the British utilitarians, a history of 19th-century England and the acclaimed book of essays, Era of Tyrannies.-Biography:...
, Martial Guéroult
Martial Guéroult
Martial Guéroult was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy, specialized in 17th century philosophy. His work was characterized by a close attention to history of philosophy, which he considered as noble as philosophy itself, and a strong demand for systematicity...
(1891–1976) and successor of Étienne Gilson
Étienne Gilson
Étienne Gilson was a French Thomistic philosopher and historian of philosophy...
at the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
in 1951, Ferdinand Alquié
Ferdinand Alquié
Ferdinand Alquié was a French philosopher and member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques.He taught at the lycée Louis-le-Grand and at the Sorbonne university. He was an instructor of Gilles Deleuze, who, according to Michael Hardt, charged him of drawing on biology, psychology, and...
, etc. Jean Wahl
Jean Wahl
Jean André Wahl was a French philosopher.-Early career:He was professor at the Sorbonne from 1936 to 1967, broken by World War II. He was in the U.S...
taught between 1936 to 1967 and helped introduce the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
to French thinkers.
Personalism
Emmanuel MounierEmmanuel Mounier
Emmanuel Mounier was a French philosopher.Mounier was the guiding spirit in the French Personalist movement, and founder and director of Esprit, the magazine which was the organ of the movement. Mounier, who was the child of peasants, was a brilliant scholar at the Sorbonne...
(1905–1950) was a guiding spirit in the French personalist
Personalism
Personalism is a philosophical school of thought searching to describe the uniqueness of a human person in the world of nature, specifically in relation to animals...
movement, and founder and director of Esprit
Esprit (magazine)
Esprit is a French literary magazine. Founded in October 1932 by Emmanuel Mounier, it was the principal review of personalist intellectuals of the time. From 1957 to 1976, it was directed by Jean-Marie Domenach. Paul Thibaud directed it from 1977 to 1989. The philosopher Paul Ricoeur often...
, the magazine which was the organ of the movement. Mounier, who was the child of peasants, was a brilliant scholar at the Sorbonne. In 1929, when he was only twenty-four, he came under the influence of the French writer, Charles Péguy, to whom he ascribed the inspiration of the personalist movement.
Gabriel Honoré Marcel
Gabriel Marcel
Gabriel Honoré Marcel was a French philosopher, a leading Christian existentialist, and author of about 30 plays.He focused on the modern individual's struggle in a technologically dehumanizing society...
(1889–1973) was a leading Catholic existentialist
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
and the author of about 30 plays. He shared a great deal in common with Mounier's ideas. They both show Bergson's influence in their assessment of 'being', specifically the Mystery of Being. Interest of Mounier and Marcel in the problems of technology moved French philosophy forward.
Jean-Paul Sartre and Existentialism
Sartre (1905–1980) was, if only by birth, the first truly 20th-century French philosopher. He was probably also the most famous, as a dramatist, screenwriter, novelist and critic. Sartre popularized (and named) existentialismExistentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
, making it better known to the lay-person than, for instance, deconstruction
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
. Phenomenology and Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
were two other key concerns of his. A leading figure of the French Left, Sartre was opposed on his right by Raymond Aron
Raymond Aron
Raymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron was a French philosopher, sociologist, journalist and political scientist.He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals, the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people -- in contrast, Aron argued that in...
.
Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Merleau Ponty (1908–1961) was a French phenomenologist philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund HusserlEdmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
. Merleau-Ponty is classified as an existentialist thinker because of his close association with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
, and his distinctly Heideggerian conception of Being.
Marxist philosophers
It is important to realise that, as well as holding many varying degrees and interpretations of MarxismMarxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, many French Philosophers' views on it shifted substantially during their lifetime. Sartre, for instance, became more influenced by Marx during the course of his life.
Alexandre Kojève
Alexandre Kojève
Alexandre Kojève was a Russian-born French philosopher and statesman whose philosophical seminars had an immense influence on twentieth-century French philosophy, particularly via his integration of Hegelian concepts into continental philosophy...
(1902–1968) was a Marxist and Hegelian political philosopher, who had a substantial influence on intellectual life in France in the 1930s and on the reading of Hegel in France.
Louis Althusser
Louis Althusser
Louis Pierre Althusser was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy....
(1918–1990) was a key Marxist philosopher, sometimes considered to be the structuralist
Structuralism
Structuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
equivalent to Marxism that Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
was to Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
and Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
to ethnology
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
(although all of them rejected the identification). One of his first seminal works was Reading Capital
Reading Capital
Reading Capital is a 1965 work of Marxist philosophy and theory. The book collects essays developed by Louis Althusser and his students in a seminar on Karl Marx's Das Kapital which took place earlier in 1965...
(1965), co-written with Étienne Balibar
Étienne Balibar
Étienne Balibar is a French Marxist philosopher. After the death of his teacher Louis Althusser, Balibar quickly became the leading exponent of French Marxist philosophy.- Life and work :...
, Roger Establet
Roger Establet
Roger Establet is a French scholar of the sociology of education. He was a student at lycée Massena in Nice, and in khâgne at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. in 1959, he entered the École normale supérieure, where he earned degrees in philosophy and sociology. He was a professor at the...
, Jacques Rancière
Jacques Rancière
Jacques Rancière is a French philosopher, Professor of Philosophy at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris Jacques Rancière (born Algiers, 1940) is a French philosopher, Professor of Philosophy at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee...
and Pierre Macherey
Pierre Macherey
Pierre Macherey is a French Marxist literary critic at Université Lille Nord de France. A former student of Louis Althusser and collaborator on the influential volume Reading "Capital", Macherey is a central figure in the development of French post-structuralism and Marxism...
. He opposed Hegel's teleological
Teleology
A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
approach to history, drew on Bachelard's concept of "epistemological break" and defined philosophy as "class struggle in theory."
Other Marxist authors include Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre was a French sociologist, Marxist intellectual, and philosopher, best known for his work on dialectics, Marxism, everyday life, cities, and space.-Biography:...
(1901–1999), who partly influenced the Situationist and Guy Debord
Guy Debord
Guy Ernest Debord was a French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International . He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.-Early Life:Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931...
, the group Socialisme ou Barbarie
Socialisme ou Barbarie
Socialisme ou Barbarie was a French-based radical libertarian socialist group of the post-World War II period . It existed from 1948 until 1965...
aforementioned, etc.
Structuralism
The structuralistStructuralism
Structuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
movement in French philosophy was highly influenced by the Swiss thinker Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
(1857–1913). His ideas laid the foundation for many of the significant developments in linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
in the 20th century. He is widely considered the 'father' of 20th-century linguistics.
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
(1901–1981) was specifically interested in the philosophy of psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
. He could be said to be relevant to the more modern foundations of discursive psychology
Discursive psychology
For other uses of the word, see discursive.Discursive psychology is a form of discourse analysis that focuses on psychological themes....
.
Post-structuralism
Post-structuralismPost-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
is, like structuralism
Structuralism
Structuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
, an ambiguous term in some respect. It is first important to understand the nature of the schools of thought - as often it seems they aren't truly separate 'schools' at all. It is also interesting to note how, much like Sartre's interest in art, both of these movements are important to a wide range of academic disciplines. E.g., English Literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
, Cultural Studies
Cultural studies
Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...
, Media Studies
Media studies
Media studies is an academic discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history and effects of various media; in particular, the 'mass media'. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly from its core disciplines of mass...
/Film Studies
Film studies
Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical, historical, and critical approaches to films. It is sometimes subsumed within media studies and is often compared to television studies...
, Anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, etc. etc.
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
(1926–1984), although sometimes considered close to structuralism, quickly drew apart from this movement, developing a specific approach to semiology and history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
which he dubbed "archeology." His influence is broad-ranging, and his work includes books such as Madness and Civilization
Madness and Civilization
Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason by Michel Foucault, is the English edition of Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique, a 1964 abridged edition of the 1961 Folie et déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique. An English translation of the complete 1961...
(1961), The Order of Things
The Order of Things
The Order of Things is a book by Michel Foucault first published in 1966. The full title is Les Mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines...
(1966), Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison
Discipline and Punish
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison is a book by philosopher Michel Foucault. Originally published in 1975 in France under the title Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la Prison, it was translated into English in 1977. It is an interrogation of the social and theoretical mechanisms behind...
(1975) or The History of Sexuality
The History of Sexuality
The History of Sexuality is a three-volume series of books by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault written between 1976 and 1984...
.
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
, who wrote the Anti-Oedipus (1972) with Félix Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
, criticizing psychoanalysis, was, like Foucault, one of the key thinkers who introduced a thorough reading of Nietzsche in France, following Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...
's early attempts — Bataille published the Acéphale
Acéphale
Acéphale designates both a public review created by Georges Bataille and a secret and esoteric society formed by Bataille and some other members who had sworn to keep silence.-Acéphale, the review:Dated 24 June 1936, the first issue was composed of only eight pages...
review from 1936 to 1939, along with Pierre Klossowski
Pierre Klossowski
Pierre Klossowski was a French writer, translator and artist. He was the eldest son of the artists Erich Klossowski and Baladine Klossowska, and his younger brother was the painter Balthus.-Life:...
, another close reader of Nietzsche, Roger Caillois
Roger Caillois
Roger Caillois was a French intellectual whose idiosyncratic work brought together literary criticism, sociology, and philosophy by focusing on subjects as diverse as games, play and the sacred...
and Jean Wahl
Jean Wahl
Jean André Wahl was a French philosopher.-Early career:He was professor at the Sorbonne from 1936 to 1967, broken by World War II. He was in the U.S...
. Deleuze wrote books such as Difference and Repetition
Difference and Repetition
Difference and Repetition is a book by philosopher Gilles Deleuze, originally published in 1968 in France under the title Différence et Répétition...
, The Logic of Sense
The Logic of Sense
The Logic of Sense , a book released by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze in 1969, is an exploration of meaning and meaninglessness, or "commonsense" and "nonsense"...
, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy
Spinoza: Practical Philosophy
Spinoza: Practical Philosophy is a 1970 book by Gilles Deleuze concerned with the explanation of Spinoza's philosophy of The Ethics. It was Deleuze's last work published before his collaboration with Félix Guattari on Anti-Oedipus and it presents the formal Spinozist environment in which his later...
(1970), and also wrote on Bergson, Leibniz, Nietzsche, etc., as well as other works on cinema (Cinema 1: The Movement Image
Cinema 1: The Movement Image
Cinema 1: The Movement Image is a book by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze that combines philosophy with film criticism. It was originally published in French as L'Image-mouvement. Cinéma 1 . It was translated into English by Hugh Tomlinson. In the Preface to the French edition Deleuze says that,...
). Both Deleuze and Foucault attempted to take distance from the strong influence of Marxism and psychoanalysis in their works, in part by means of a radical reinterpretation of Marx and Freud.
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
(1930–2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
. His voluminous work had a profound impact upon continental philosophy and literary theory.
Jean-François Lyotard
Jean-François Lyotard
Jean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher and literary theorist. He is well known for his articulation of postmodernism after the late 1970s and the analysis of the impact of postmodernity on the human condition...
(1924–1998) was a philosopher and literary theorist. He is well-known for his articulation of Postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
after the late 1970s.
Other authors include Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.-Life:...
, who started with a situationist criticism of Consumption Society in the 1970s to evolve towards a reflection on simulation
Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....
and virtual reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
, Paul Virilio
Paul Virilio
Paul Virilio is a cultural theorist and urbanist. He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to speed and power, with diverse references to architecture, the arts, the city and the military....
, both a philosopher and an urbanist
Urbanism
Broadly, urbanism is a focus on cities and urban areas, their geography, economies, politics, social characteristics, as well as the effects on, and caused by, the built environment.-Philosophy:...
, Cornelius Castoriadis
Cornelius Castoriadis
Cornelius Castoriadis was a Greek philosopher, social critic, economist, psychoanalyst, author of The Imaginary Institution of Society, and co-founder of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group.-Early life in Athens:...
, who was, along with Claude Lefort
Claude Lefort
Claude Lefort was a French philosopher and activist.He was politically active by 1942 under the influence of his tutor, the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty...
, co-founder of Socialisme ou Barbarie
Socialisme ou Barbarie
Socialisme ou Barbarie was a French-based radical libertarian socialist group of the post-World War II period . It existed from 1948 until 1965...
and criticized orthodox Marxism, Alain Badiou
Alain Badiou
Alain Badiou is a French philosopher, professor at European Graduate School, formerly chair of Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure . Along with Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Žižek, Badiou is a prominent figure in an anti-postmodern strand of continental philosophy...
, François Laruelle
François Laruelle
François Laruelle is a French philosopher, formerly of the Collège international de philosophie and the University of Paris X: Nanterre. Alumnus of the École normale supérieure, Laruelle is notable for developing a science of philosophy that he calls "non-philosophy"...
, who developed "Non-philosophy
Non-philosophy
Non-philosophy is a concept developed by French philosopher François Laruelle . Laruelle published on non-philosophy throughout the 1980s and 1990s...
" starting in the 1980s, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe
Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe
Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe was a French philosopher. He was also a literary critic and translator....
, Paul Ricoeur
Paul Ricoeur
Paul Ricœur was a French philosopher best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutic interpretation...
(administrator of the University of Nanterre during May '68), Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Lévinas
Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...
, Vincent Descombes
Vincent Descombes
Vincent Descombes is a French philosopher. His major work has been in the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. He is particularly noted for a lengthy critique in two volumes of the project he calls cognitivism, and which is, roughly, the view current in philosophy of mind that mental...
, etc.
20th-century French feminism
The Feminist movement in contemporary France (or at least that of which can be placed in the 'Philosophy' genre) is characterised more by deconstructionism and MarxismMarxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
than much Anglo-American Feminism. Key thinkers include psychoanalytic and cultural theorist, Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray is a Belgian feminist, philosopher, linguist, psychoanalyst, sociologist and cultural theorist. She is best known for her works Speculum of the Other Woman and This Sex Which Is Not One .-Biography:...
(born 1930), and psychoanalyst and writer Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, psychoanalyst, sociologist, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who has lived in France since the mid-1960s. She is now a Professor at the University Paris Diderot...
(born 1941). See also Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
.
See also
- Collège de FranceCollège de FranceThe Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
- Hermeneutics
- List of philosophers born in the nineteenth century
- List of philosophers born in the twentieth century
- French feminism
- Roland BarthesRoland BarthesRoland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...