Philosophy in turbulent times : Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida

203 Pages·2008·0.99 MB·English

by  Elisabeth Roudinesco

“Elisabeth Roudinesco presents a fresh and unique view of some of
the fundamental books of twentieth-century philosophy, showing the way E TRANSLATED BY William MCCUAIG
in which ideas are indebted to contemporary political and biographical lis
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events, but also the way in which ideas contribute to shape those events.” b
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angelica nuzzo, Brooklyn College t
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for elisabeth roudinesco, a historian of psychoanaly- O
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sis and one of France’s leading intellectuals, Canguilhem, Sartre, D
Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, and Derrida belong to a “great genera- IN
tion” of French philosophers. Innovative and troubled, these think- E
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ers accomplished remarkable work and lived incredible lives, and C
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though their cultural horizon was dominated by Marxism and psy-
choanalysis, they were by no means strict adherents to Marxist and P
Freudian doctrines. Having known many of these intellectuals H
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personally, Roudinesco merges an account of their thought and experiences L
with her own reminiscences, launching a passionate defense of their work O
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against late-twentieth-century detractors. Intense, clever, and persuasive,
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Philosophy in Turbulent Times captures the dynamism of French thought P CANGUILHEM,
while also reclaiming the value of Freudian theory and the philosophy of H
Y SARTRE,
radical commitment.

I
N FOUCAULT,
“Indispensable for completing our study of French Freud.”

gayatri chakravorty spivak, Columbia University T
U ALTHUSSER,
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“Beautifully written and translated.”
B DELEUZE,
choice U
L
DERRIDA
elisabeth roudinesco is director of research at the University of Paris E
N
and director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne. She
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is the author of a number of critically acclaimed works, including Columbia
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University Press’s Jacques Lacan and Why Psychoanalysis?
I
M
william mccuaig is most recently the translator of Gianni Vattimo’s The
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Responsibility of the Philosopher. S philosophy in turbulenł times
COLUMBIA
ISBN 978-0-231-14301-1
C
UNIVERSITY O Elisabeth ROUDINESCO
L
PRESS U
M
9 780231 143011 B
NEW YORK IA
www.cup.columbia.edu
cover image: veer
cover design: chang jae lee printed in the u.s.a.
philosophy in turbulent times
Elisabeth ROUDINESCO
TRANSLATED BY William McCUAIG

philosophy in turbulent times
CANGUILHEM, SARTRE,
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS New York
FOUCAULT, ALTHUSSER, DELEUZE, DERRIDA
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2005 Librarie Arthème Fayard
Copyright © 2008 Columbia University Press
Paperback edition, 2010
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Roudinesco, Elisabeth, 1944–
[Philosophes dans la tourmente. English]
Philosophy in turbulent times: Canguilhem,
Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze,
Derrida / Elisabeth Roudinesco; translated by
William McCuaig.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN 978-0-231-14300-4 (cloth: alk.
paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-14301-1 (pbk. : alk.
paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-51885-7 (e-book)
1. Philosophy—France—History—20th
century. 2. Philosophy, French—20th centu-
ry. 3. Philosophers—France—History—20th
century. I. Title.
B2421.R6813 2008
194—dc22
2008021953
Columbia University Press books are printed on
permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
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p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were
accurate at the time of writing. Neither the
author nor Columbia University Press is
responsible for URLs that may have expired or
changed since the manuscript was prepared.
To Christian Jambet

CONTENTS
Introduction: In Defense of Critical Thought—ix
Notes on the Text—xv
1. George Canguilhem: A Philosphy of Heroism–1
2. Jean-Paul Sartre: Psychoanalysis on the Shadowy Banks of the Danube–33
3. Michel Foucault : Readings of History of Madness–65

4. Louis Althusser: The Murder Scene–97
5. Gilles Deleuze: Anti-Oedipal Variations–133
6. Jacques Derrida: The Moment of Death–143
Notes—155
Select Bibliography—177

INTRODUCTION
{In Defense of Critical Thought}
We are certainly living in strange times.
The commemoration of great events, great men, great intellec-
tual achievements, and great virtues never stops; we’ve had the year of
Rimbaud, the year of Victor Hugo, the year of Jules Verne. And yet,
never have revisionist attacks on the foundations of every discipline,
every doctrine, every emancipatory adventure enjoyed such prestige.
Feminism, socialism, and psychoanalysis are violently rejected, and
Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche are pronounced dead, along with every kind
of critique of the norm. All we are entitled to do, it would seem, is to
take stock and draw up assessments, as though the distance that every
intellectual enterprise requires amounted to no more than a vast ledger
full of entries for things and people—or rather people who have become
things.
I am not thinking just of Holocaust denial, which has been outlawed
among professional historians, although its infl uence persists in semi-
secrecy. Instead what I have in mind are those ordinary little revision-
isms that tend, for example, to put Vichy and the Resistance on the same
ix