New French Thought

Download or read book New French Thought written by Mark Lilla and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past fifteen years in France have seen a remarkable flourishing of new work in political philosophy. This anthology brings into English for the first time essays by some of the best young French political thinkers writing today, including Marcel Gauchet, Pierre Manent, Luc Ferry, and Alain Renaut. The central theme of these essays is liberal democracy: its nature, its development, its problems, its fundamental legitimacy. Although these themes are familiar to American and British readers, the French approach to them--which is profoundly historical and rooted in the tradition of continental philosophy--is quite different from our customary one. Included in this collection is a series of reconsiderations of French critics of liberal society (Lévi-Strauss, Foucault, Bourdieu) and of classical European liberals (Kant, Constant, Tocqueville). The continuing controversies over the nature of the modern era and the place of religion within it play a central role throughout the collection. The book includes a debate on the foundations of human rights and on the nature of a liberal political order. The concluding section presents some of the new sociological writing on modern individualism, its pleasures and its discontents. An introduction by Mark Lilla provides the historical background to the revival of French political thought about liberalism, and offers an analysis of what American and English readers might learn from it. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Download or read book The New French Philosophy written by Ian James and published by Polity. This book was released on 2012-05-21 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Columbia History of Twentieth-century French Thought written by Lawrence D. Kritzman and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 820 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This valuable reference is an authoritative guide to 20th century French thought. It considers the intellectual figures, movements and publications that helped define fields as diverse as history, psychoanalysis, film, philosophy, and economics.

Download or read book How the French Think written by Sudhir Hazareesingh and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning historian presents an absorbing account of the French mind, shedding light on France's famous tradition of intellectual life Why are the French such an exceptional nation? Why do they think they are so exceptional? The French take pride in the fact that their history and culture have decisively shaped the values and ideals of the modern world. French ideas are no less distinct in their form: while French thought is abstract, stylish and often opaque, it has always been bold and creative, and driven by the relentless pursuit of innovation. In How the French Think, the internationally-renowned historian Sudhir Hazareesingh tells the epic and tumultuous story of French intellectual thought from Descartes, Rousseau, and Auguste Comte to Sartre, Claude Lé-Strauss, and Derrida. He shows how French thinking has shaped fundamental Westerns ideas about freedom, rationality, and justice, and how the French mind-set is intimately connected to their own way of life-in particular to the French tendency towards individualism, their passion for nature, their celebration of their historical heritage, and their fascination with death. Hazareesingh explores the French veneration of dissent and skepticism, from Voltaire to the Dreyfus Affair and beyond; the obsession with the protection of French language and culture; the rhetorical flair embodied by the philosophes, which today's intellectuals still try to recapture; the astonishing influence of French postmodern thinkers, including Foucault and Barthes, on postwar American education and life, and also the growing French anxiety about a globalized world order under American hegemony. How the French Think sweeps aside generalizations and easy stereotypes to offer an incisive and revealing exploration of the French intellectual tradition. Steeped in a colorful range of sources, and written with warmth and humor, this book will appeal to all lovers of France and of European culture.

Download or read book French Philosophy Since 1945 written by Étienne Balibar and published by New Press Postwar French Thoug. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 philosophy as a whole.

Download or read book French Philosophy Today written by Christopher Watkin and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alain Badiou, Quentin Meillassoux, Catherine Malabou, Michel Serres and Bruno Latour: this comparative, critical analysis shows the promises and perils of new French philosophy's reformulation of the idea of the human.

Download or read book Thinking Through French Philosophy written by Leonard Lawlor and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2003-06-20 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ". . . 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.