Generation Existential: Heidegger's Philosophy in France, 1927–1961 9781501731648

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
On the Way to France ...
Introduction
1. Emmanuel Levinas: de l'etre...
The First Reading
2. Alexandre Kojève and the Hegel Seminar at the École Pratique des Hautes Études
3. The Dissemination of Kojève's Heideggerian Interpretation of Hegel
4. Jean-Paul Sartre
The Second Reading
5. Jean Beaufret, the First Heidegger Affair, and the "Letter on Humanism"
The Third Reading
6. Maurice Blanchot: The Writing of Disaster
7. Emmanuel Levinas: ... à l'autre
Conclusion
Index

Citation preview

Generation Existential

Generation Existential Heidegger's Philosophy in France 1927-1961

ETHAN KLEINBERG

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND lONDON

Copyright© 2005 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. FIRST PUBLISHED 2005 BY CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

First printings, Cornell Paperbacks, 2006

Printed in the United States of America Library of Congmss Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kleinberg, Ethan, 1967Generation existential: Heidegger's philosophy in France, 1927-1961 I Ethan Kleinberg. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-4391-6 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-7382-1 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. 2. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976-Influence. 3. Philosophy, French-20th century. 4. Philosophy, Modern-20th century. 5. Existentialism. I. Title. B3279.H49K58 2005 2005008836 193-dc22

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Paperback printing

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

List of Abbreviations

ix

On the Way to France . Introduction 1.

Emmanuel Levinas: de l'etre.

3

19

The First Reading 2.

Ale_xandre Kojeve and the He15el Seminar at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

49

3.

The Dissemination ofKojeve's Heideggerian Interpretation of Hegel

84

4. Jean-Paul Sartre

111

The Second Reading 5. Jean Beaufret, the First Heidegger Affair, and the "Letter on Humanism"

157

The Third Reading 6.

Maurice Blanchot: The Writing of Disaster

209

7.

Emmanuel Levinas: ... a !'autre

245

Conclusion

280

Index

289

v

Acknowledgments

This book investigates the initial reception of Heidegger's philosophy in France. In it I demonstrate the ways that a select group of intellectuals engaged and incorporated Heidegger's philosophy into their own work and how this process of translation and transfer disseminated Heidegger's philosophy throughout France. I owe a debt of gratitude to all the teachers, advisers, friends, and colleagues whose guidance and counsel helped me along the way. The comments and suggestions I received showed a deep and abiding knowledge of the material. Any shortcomings in this book are entirely the result of my choices, whereas any advances are the result of the patient guidance and sound advice I received over the years. I would especially like to thank Robert Wahl and Samuel Weber, who have guided me through this project since its inception. Robert Wahl's comments were extremely influential in determining the structure and scope of the present work. I would also like to thank David Myers, Saul Friedlander, Peter Lowenberg, Peter Baldwin, David Sabean, Hubert Dreyfus, and the late jacques Derrida. I owe Martin Jay and Richard Vann an enormous debt of gratitude for taking the time to read this manuscript and provide me with extensive comments, suggestions, and encouragement. I also thank Nathaniel Green and Paul Schwaber for their editorial suggestions and express my gratitude to the anonymous referees who read this work with care and precision. Samuel Moyn and I have been exchanging e-mails about Emmanuel Levinas, Edmund Husser!, and Martin Heidegger for almost ten years and I want to thank him for this potentially infinite conversation. I have learned a great deal from his keen mind and lucid analysis. Peter Gordon offered his time and expertise in reading and commenting on this work and his insights proved to be invaluable. I can only hope that some of his mellifluous prose rubbed off. Thank you, Peter. Eugene Sheppard has been my comrade in intellectual history since our days as graduate students at UCLA. He has helped me think through many of the issues in this book and has served as a sounding board, a critic, and an all-around mensch throughout the writing of this book. Thank you, Eugene. I would also like to thank my fellow participants from the UC Humanities Research Institute, Emily Apter, Ali Behdad,

vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Janet Bergstrom, David Carroll, Valerie Kaussen, Patricia Morton, Kenneth Reinhard, Tyler Stovall, Richard Terdiman, and Georges Van den Abbeele; my colleagues from the UCLA Department of History (Joshua Goode, Gavriel Rosenfeld, Dani Eshet, Dave McBride, Gopal Balakrishnan, Adam Rubin), the Department of History at Iowa State University, and especially from the Department of History and College of Letters at Wesleyan University. A special thanks to Manolis Kaparakis, whose technological savvy and human kindness helped me survive the "lost data hell" that is the fate of all modern scholars. And I would like to thank John G. Ackerman for his patience, persistence, and support, along with thanks to Candace Akins and the editorial and production staff at Cornell University Press. This book would not have been possible without financial support from the UCLA Department of History, the Center for German and European Studies at UC Berkeley, the Monkarsh Foundation, the UCLA Critical Theory in Paris Program, the UC Humanities Research Institute, the]. William Fulbright Commission, and Wesleyan University. Thank you for your support and confidence. To my friends and family, I thank you for your patience and encouragement throughout this long process. To my parents, Marvin and Irene Kleinberg, thank you for everything you have done for me. I love you very much. Thank you, Sarah, Donal, and Ciaran. Thank you, Joel, Letitia, and Maia. Thank you, Nancy, Sol, Scott,Jody, Mike, and Susan. I want to thank my daughters, Lily and Noa, who have made my life a pleasure and filled every day with joy (a scratch on the ears to Robes as well). Finally, I must thank my wife, Tracy, without whom none of this would have been possible. I love you more than anything and I dedicate this book to you.

viii

Abbreviations Maurice Blanchot ED LDM TO

L'ecriture du desastre. Paris: NRF Gallimard, 1980. "La litterature et le droit a la mort." In La Part du feu. Paris: NRF Gallimard, 1949. Thomas l'obscur. Paris: L'Imaginaire Gallimard, 1950.

Martin Heidegger BT LH SZ Q

Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. "The Letter on Humanism." In Basic Writings, edited by David Krell. San Francisco: Harper Books, 1993. Sein und Zeit. Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1986. Questions I et II. Paris: Gallimard, 1968.

Alexandre Kojeve ILH IRH

Introduction a la lecture de Hegel, compiled by Raymond Queneau. Paris: Grasset, 1990. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, edited by Allan Bloom. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969.

Emmanuel Levinas EE TI Tlf

TIHP TIPH

De !'existence a l'existant. Paris: Vrin, 1993. Totality and Infinity. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1980. Totalite et Infini. Paris: Kluwer Academic, 1971. The Theory of Intuition in Husserl's Phenomenology. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973. Theorie de !'intuition dans la phenomenologie de Husserl. Paris: Vrin, 1963.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty SC

La structure du comportement. Paris: Quadrige/PUF, 1942.

ix

ABBREVIATIONS

Jean-Paul Sartre BN EH EN N Nf TE

X

Being and Nothingness. New York: Washington Square Press, 1953. L'existentialisme est un humanisme. Paris: Nagel, 1970. L'etre et le neant. Paris: NRF Gallimard, 1943. Nausea. New York: New Directions, 1969. La nausee. Paris: Gallimard, 1938. The TranscendenceoftheEgo. NewYork: Octagon, 1972.

On the Way to France ...

Introduction

While I was attending a dinner party in Paris some years ago, the conversation turned to the intellectual climate in France after World War II. At first the discussion was dominated by the works of Sartre, an author on whom everyone at the table held an opinion. One of the guests asked a question he thought I might be able to answer: "How was it that Sartre was able to Cartesianize Heidegger?" The question was soon reformulated: "How did Sartre make Heidegger French?" I began to explain that the story of Heidegger's reception in France is complex, that the answer requires an investigation into the intellectual climate of France between the wars as well as into the relation between young French intellectuals such as Sartre, Raymond Aron, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the foreign intellectuals who emigrated to Paris in the 1930s and brought the work of Heidegger with them. Unfortunately, before I could go any further, I found myself fielding a veritable barrage of questions. The first flurry concerned Heidegger's influence on Sartre, in contrast to his influence on the "postmodern" philosophers (the names Derrida, Foucault, and Lyotard were mentioned). The next flurry changed the tenor of the conversation entirely. I was asked to explain Heidegger's affiliation with the National Socialist Party and the relation of his political actions to his philosophical work. As I tried my best to tie all these topics together, the conversation around me degenerated into a mini-Heidegger Affair. Voices were raised, tempers flared, and I was left pondering a familiar question. How could I tell the story of Heidegger's reception in France in a way that would do justice to all these issues without being sidetracked by any one? In many ways the story of Heidegger's reception in France (which is also the story of the intellectual figures who brought Heidegger's work to France and their influence on modern French culture and society)

3

ON THE WAY TO FRANCE

has been eclipsed by the popularity of Sartre and the notoriety of Heidegger's affiliation with National Socialism. Emmanuel Levinas, Alexandre Kojeve, Jean Beaufret, and Maurice Blanchot are hardly household names in the United States. Furthermore, in France these intellectuals have been traditionally understood to be supporting players in Sartre's existential drama. Thus for me, the task at hand was to explain the ways in which Heidegger's philosophy was imported, incorporated, and expanded on in France. At the same time, I had to keep in mind the problematic issue of Heidegger's political choices, while bringing to the fore a number of intellectual figures whose influence on modern French philosophy has been enormous but whose lives and works have been illdefined and underexplored. The reception of Heidegger's philosophy in France is the story of a "generation" of French intellectuals who grew up in the shadow of World War I and subsequently turned away from traditional French philosophy and toward a new and different strain of philosophical thought imported from Germany through an influx of foreign intellectuals. To present it in broad strokes, this was a generation whose earliest intellectual formation took place within a set of institutions devoted to a neo-Kantian and republican-rationalist ideology, and who, when they matured, brought about a qualified break with that ideological context, even as they drafted an "existentialism" still compatible with the more enduring legacies of Descartes and the Enlightenment project. But why did these young French intellectuals, whom I shall call the "generation of 1933," 1 turn away from the traditional French philosophical canon and ultimately toward the philosophy of Martin Heidegger? And why was that philosophy so well received? 1. The term "generation of 1933" is taken from Jean-Frano;:ois Sirinelli's Generation intellectuelle: Khiigneux et norrnaliens dans l'entre-deux-gnerres (Paris: Fayard, 1988), but is guided by Robert Wahl's critique of"generational" history as presented in 77te Generation of 1914 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979). To this end I take Wahl's assertion that "generations are not born; they are made" (5) in the most literal sense. For Sirinelli, the group of French intellectuals born between 1900 and 1910 are the "generation of 1905," a term that denotes the median age of birth. Sirinelli points out that he niight have opted for the "generation of 1925," a reference to these young intellectuals' formative years in French preparatory school and at the Ecole Normale Superieure. In my work I label this same age group of intellectuals the "generation of 1933," referring to the year that the select group investigated in this book turned away from the institutions of their formative years and toward alternative venues for critical and philosophical thought. These varied characterizations of the same age group of intellectuals point to the problematic nature of the term "generation," which probably tells us as much about the goals of the historian employing the term as it does about the intellectuals being investigated. Furthermore, while I do explore certain representatives of the "generation of 1933," I do not attempt to represent the concerns of the entire French age group born between 1900 and 1910. Instead, this work deals with specific representatives of that age group who had an active interest in philosophy and writing. The individuals I investigate tend to be middle-class males.

4

Introduction

The answer lies in the generation of 1933's perception of a grave crisis in French academic philosophy. For students such as Raymond Aron, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean Beaufret (all born between 1900 and 1910), philosophical thought was dictated by the structure of the French academic system. During the 1920s and 1930s, two schools of thought ruled supreme within this structure: neo-Kantian rationalism and Bergsonian spiritualism. 2 Given the educational agenda of the Third Republic from its inception, it is not surprising that the government favored neo-Kantianism. The university professors were given a mission by the state: to impress on their students the legitimacy of the new republican institutions. Two doctrines vied for this role and both were decidedly rationalistic. The first was Durkheim's sociological positivism, the second French neo-Kantian rationalism as embodied in the critical idealism of Leon Brunschvicg. 3 While opposed to each other, both these doctrines taught that humankind, from its distant origins, had never ceased to progress toward an agreement on specific reasonable principles, which were precisely those on which republican institutions are based. 4 The fact that neo-Kantian rationalism prevailed in the end can be attributed to its compatibility with the ideology of the government, which placed Brunschvicg at the head of the jury d'agregation and gave him the power to determine the syllabus for philosophy departments throughout France. Brunschvicg's academic position is essential to our understanding of the educational background of the generation of 1933, who took their exams in philosophy guided by Brunschvicg's syllabus. Nominated directly by the minister of education, the head of the jury d'agregation selects the other members of the jury, presides over its deliberations, and decides which subjects are suitable for the examination. Under Brunschvicg's reign, students studied Plato, Descartes, and Kant, in that order, presented as the logical progression of philosophy. For authors whom Brunschvicg and the French neo-Kantians rejected, such as Aristotle and Hegel, only a cursory refutation was required. 2. The French variant of neo-Kantianism is entirely different from that of the German schools. For a succinct description of the French variant, see Gary Gutting. French Philosophy in the 1loentieth Cent11:ry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 40-48. For an understanding of the German phenomenon, see Thomas Willey, Back to Kant: The Revival of Kantianism in German Social and Historical Thought (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1978). For a detailed account on Bergson and spiritualism, see DominiqueJanicaud, Une ginialogiR du Jpirilualismefranr;ais (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1969). 3. On the life and work of Leon Brunschvicg, see Rene Boirel, Brunschvicg: Sa vie, son oewrre (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964); Dominique Parodi, La philosophie conternjJOraine en France (Paris: Alcan, 1919); and the section on Brunschvicg in Gutting, French l'hilnsophy in the 1ll!entieth Century. 4. Vincent Descombes, Modem French Philosophy, trans. L. Scott Fox and J. M. Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 6-7.

5

ON THE WAY TO FRANCE

Brunschvicg's critical idealism was based in part on Kant and thus belonged to the neo-Kantian tradition, but Brunschvicg was equally indebted to the French positivist tradition and the work of Auguste Comte. Thus Brunschvicg paralleled the German neo-Kantians who, "taking their cue from Kant's critique of metaphysics[,] set out to demonstrate that philosophy properly conceived must confine itself to laying down the formal conditions for knowledge," and allowed no room for transcendentalism or a theory of the dialectic. 5 But Brunschvicg takes the Kantian notion of formal conditions of knowledge and weds it to the positivist understanding of science as the realm of the "most" formal conditions. This leads to a critical idealism that rejects the thing in itself, a priori conditions, and thus transcendentalism as well. All that is left is intellectual judgment, and the most productive scaffold for this is "science."6 In Brunschvicg's philosophy, science provides the foundation for the laws of reality and thus manifests the initiative of the human spirit, which has no limits to its development. Thus he could claim that we are "destined to create a moral universe in the same way we have created the material universe of gravitation or of electricity." 7 As a philosophy that upholds the primacy of formal reason and the unlimited development of rational humanity, Brunschvicg's neo-Kantianism was an ideal match for the Third Republic that held these same values dear. The rise of spiritualism in the person of Henri Bergson came in direct response to the dominant materialist/rationalist tendencies of the Third Republic. The link between the Third Republic and the advancement of philosophical movements that reinforced its own values placed the scientific method on a pedestal in an attempt to define and assert "universal truths." These truths demonstrated the validity of the Enlightenment project and the Third Republic that was its heir. In contrast, Bergson's philosophy was an optimistic affirmation of life that privileged all human beings as the material for the making of"gods." Bergson's work was conceived in opposition to a perceived overemphasis on science and reason. His philosophy catered to the desire of those who needed more than rationality, and in this way he awoke academia from a deep rationalist sleep. Bergson believed that advances in science, and specifically in the theory of determinism, were coming at the expense of the freedom of human thought. Mechanical laws left no room for instinct, pure emotion, or faith. The choices offered to humans were seen as increasingly 5. Peter Gordon, "Science, Finitude, and Infinity: Neo-Kantianism and the Birth of Existentialism," Jewish Social Studies 6 (Fall 1999): 33. 6. See Leon Brunschvicg, La rnodalite du jugernent (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964). 7. Leon Brunschvicg, "Vie interieure et vie spirituelle," Revue de rnitaphysique et de morale 32 (1925):146. Unless otherwise noted, translations from the French are my own.

6

Introduction

limited by the parameters of science. 8 Bergson used the argumentative tools of science and mathematics to open a place for the individual in modern philosophy. It was this validation of instinct, of hope, and of indeterminacy that struck a chord among Bergson's readers-in France and, ultimately, throughout the world-who had been suffering the impersonalization and objectification of the subject at the hands of rationality. Through rigorous method and sound reasoning, Bergson was able to return the ideas of faith, free will, and indeterminacy to the forefront of academic life. Bergson's philosophy was universal in that it allowed for an underlying bond among all peoples, yet it did not sacrifice the importance of particular identities or subjectivity. Indeed, at the apogee of Bergson's popularity before World War I, it seemed the Bergsonian revolution had freed philosophy from the empirical chains of positivism and surpassed the methodical rationalism of French neoKantianism. To the generation that came to maturity between 1890 and 1914, he looked like a philosophical liberator and an opponent of the intellectual establishment. 9 In many ways, Bergson's philosophy of optimism, based on an affirmation of human potential, resembled precisely the teleological, anthropocentric, progressive program asserted by the neo-Kantians. They were all prorepublican in their call for certain specific universal principles and in their unwavering optimism toward the concept of progress. Bergson questioned the fundamental validity of scientific method and rational thought by creating an opening for "irrational" human thought and free will in the modern world of universal mechanisms, but he did so using the tools of positivism and determinism to prove their inherent errors. 10 In the aftermath ofWorld War I, Bergson's optimism seemed naive, and further advances in science and biology showed many of his theories to be faulty. He had disproved the cruder philosophies of positivism and determinism, but the events ofWorld War I disproved his own optimistic philosophy. The generation of 1933 did not see Bergson as a philosophical liberator or as an opponent of the intellectual establishment, but rather as part and parcel of a French academic tradition unprepared to deal with the hardship of concrete existence. This is not to say that his influ8. See John Mullarkey, Bergson and Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 9, 24-27. 9. R. C. Grogin, The Bergsoninn Controversy in France (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1988), ix. Also see Mark Antliff, Inventing Bergson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Philippe Soulez and Frederick Worms, Bergson (Paris: Flammarion, 1997); A. E. Pilkington, Bergson and His Injluence: A Reassessment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 10. See Henri Bergson, Essai sur les donnees irnrnediates de Ia conscience (1889; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1927).

7

ON THE WAY TO FRANCE

ence on the generation of 1933 was not substantial. But the generation of 1933 wanted to move beyond Bergsonian spiritualism, which they considered overly subjective and optimistic, and this created a gap in the French philosophical world. The French neo-Kantians attempted to use recent advances in science to explain the increasingly complex nature of the world, but they too faced the harsh challenge that World War I presented to the French notion of progress. Thus both strains of French philosophy appeared insufficient to the generation of 1933. For them, the starting point of philosophy was the desire to come to grips with the events of World War I in relation to the optimistic view of progress and history embodied by French philosophy and the Third Republic. Neither the spiritualists nor the materialists could explain the senseless killing and mass destruction that marked the "victory" of France in World War I, nor the precarious economic position of an industrializing France. To the generation of 1933, the traditional academic system seemed more concerned with perpetuating itself and its republican ideals than with confronting the realities of a changing world. The events of history had debunked the theory of historical progress that had guided the Third Republic from its inception. The answers the generation of 1933 sought lay beyond the familiar territory of French academic philosophy. A new way of thinking was required to make sense of a world that eluded the grasp of their teacher. It is in this sense that I will describe the reception of Heidegger in France as an intersection of heimisch (familiar, of one's home) and unheimlich (strange, foreign). The term unheimlich is usually translated "uncanny," "curious," or "strange" (all of which are applicable in this case as well), but can be rendered more literally as "not at home." 11 This is a particularly appropriate model to keep in mind when discussing the reception of Heidegger in France because it was an influx of foreign emigres who brought Heidegger to France and provided the basis for the domesticated version of Heidegger's philosophy presented by the generation of 1933. Thus I refer not only to the unheimlich nature of the importation of a German philosopher's works from his "home" to the "foreign" soil of France 12 but also to the principal agents of importation: Emmanuel Levinas, Alexandre Koyre, Alexandre Kojeve, Georges Gurvitch, and Bernard Groethuysen, to name several. All these figures were foreign intellectuals who made them11. Heidegger himself uses the term unheimlich to denote that which questions the status of knowledge, truth, and the limits of appropriability. For Heidegger, the unheimlich is what seems most familiar but is in fact the most strange. "Here 'unheimlich' also means 'not-being-at-home' [das Nicht-zuhause-sein]" (BT, 233). 12. The reverse argument can also be made, that a "foreign" German philosophy was imported onto "native" French soil, thus pointing out the particularly slippery question of national identity or of nation and identity.

8

Introduction

selves "at home" in post-World War I France. The arrival of figures fleeing Russia in 1917 via Germany infused French intellectual life with scholars raised on Russian literature, exposed to Marxist doctrine, and schooled in modern German philosophy. German:Jewish intellectuals fleeing antiSemitism in German universities represented a later wave of intellectuals coming to France. Levinas brought a new way of reading philosophy; Alexandre Koyre and Kojeve imported interpretations of Hegel. 13 These "foreign" intellectuals working on the periphery of the French university system and publishing in French provided concrete answers to the questions the generation of 1933 felt their own philosophical tradition was unable to answer. They also imported interpretations of Heidegger's philosophy, on which such French thinkers as Raymond Aron, Jean Beaufret, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean Hyppolite, and Jean-Paul Sartre (all graduates of the Ecole Normale Superieure) would base their work and thereby secure Martin Heidegger's place in twentieth-century French intellectual life. But this is not to say that Heidegger has found a "home" in France. The very process of rooting Heidegger's work in that country has been tense and often violent, as exemplified by the numerous Heidegger Affairs that continually resurface. The process of amnesia and rediscovery of the "insidious," "foreign," "totalitarian," and "hostile" nature of Heidegger's work is indicative of a larger French trend toward appropriating and then disowning academic traditions. 14 But this process of rediscovery also points to the phenomenon rediscovered. Any serious work on Heidegger, his philosophy, or his disciples 13. See Descombes. Modern French PhilosofJlty; Michael Roth, Knowing and History: Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth-century France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988); Judith Butler, Subjects of Desire: llegelian lujlections in Twentieth Century France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Tom Rockmore. Heidegger and French Philosophy: Hurnanisrn, Antihurnanisrn, and Being (New York: Routledge, 1995). 14. This is perhaps best exemplified by the wave of work in the mid- to late 1940s by such French thinkers as Jean Hyppolite, Jean-Paul Sartre, and even Paul Valery, nominally on the subject of Rene Descartes but more concerned with proving that Heidegger's philosophy was derivative and secondary to the original French genius of Descartes. The most blatant of these works was Sartre's introduction to his own selection of texts by Descartes: Descartes, 1596-1650 (Paris: Traits, 1946). Other works on Descartes from this period include: Leon Brunschvicg, Descartes et Pascal, /ecteurs de Montaigne (Paris: Brentano, 1944); Henri Lefebvre, Descartes (Paris: Editions d'hieret aujourd'hui, 1947); Paul Valery, Les pages irnrnortelles de Descartes, choisies et expliquies par Paul Vatery (Paris: Correa, 1946). I wish to thank George Van den Abbeele for his help in compiling this bibliography. The subsequent attacks on French Heideggerianism can be read as internal conflicts attempting to refocus the future of French philosophy based on purely French philosophical grounds. Alain Renault and Luc Ferry's lleidegger et les Modernes is a particularly transparent attempt to extricate all things German from "French" philosophy in an attempt to right the listing ship of the French intellectual tradition-the dismissal of deconstruction in favor of a return to liberal humanism as exemplified in the more traditional reading of Descartes.

9

ON THE WAY TO FRANCE

necessarily stands in the shadow of Heidegger's political decisions in the 1930s. The problematic nature of Heidegger's political choices and the ramifications of those choices are central issues in this book. But Heidegger's politics is not the main focus of this work. 15 Instead, I approach the relation of Heidegger's politics to his philosophy by focusing on the reception of Heidegger in France in the hopes of addressing specific historical questions concerning the first Heidegger Affair in France, while also shedding some light on the larger historical, philosophical, and ethical questions involved. Most of the historical work on French intellectuals after 1930 addresses the reception of Heidegger's philosophy in France peripherally if at all, exploring the results of Heidegger's influence in France without addressing the origins of that influence. 16 As a result, the French understanding of Heidegger's philosophy looks very different in an investigation into Sartre's work than it does in an investigation into the work of Beaufret or Derrida. This is because the reception of Heidegger's philosophy in France is not the story of a singular French understanding, but of a series of distinct understandings or "readings" of Heidegger's philosophy. For reasons that will become apparent, I have chosen to limit this study to the first three "readings" of Heidegger's philosophy in France, which

15. On the relationship between Heidegger's philosophy and his politics, see Richard Wolin, The Politics of Being: The Political 17tonght of Martin lleidegger (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Tom Rockmore, On lleidegger's Nazism and Phil.osophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Tom Rockmore and Joseph Margolis, eds., '17te Heirlegger Case: On PhilosojJhy and Politics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992); Hugo Ott, Martin lleidegger: Unterweg·s zn seiner BiografJhie (Frankfurt: Campus, 1988); Hans Sluga, lleirlegger's Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); Dominique Janicaud, The Shadow of' That Thought, trans. Michael Gendre (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996); and Victor Farias, lleidegger and Nazism, trans. Gabriel R. Ricci (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989). 16. A notable exception is Rockmore's Heidegger and French Phii (journal), ll7, 119 Blanchot, Maurice, 4, 18, 29-31, 162, 209-244; "disaster," 212, 214-217, 221, 222,225,237,240,242,243,245,247, 279, 282-284, 286; L'ecriture du desastre, 217, 224; "La litterature et le droit a Ia mort," 225-241; Thomas l'obscw; 214, 215, 218-221, 228, 232, 235; Le Tres Haut, 215, 216, 234-236; use of il y a, 218-221, 223, 230,235-237,240,241 Bloch, Marc, 23 Blonde!, Charles, 24, 26, 39, 42 Blum, Leon, 54, 210, 211 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 49, 50, 78 Bougie, Celestin, 88, 90 Boutmy, Emile, 53 Brasillach, Robert, 211 Brehier, Emile, 56, 58, 86, 90, 163, 164, 169, 185 Breton, Andre, 66, 95 Brunschvicg, Leon, 5, 6, 9 n. 11, 23, 36, 39-43,55,56,58,59,86,90, 100,101, 114, 159, 160 Butler,Judith, 72 Carteron, Henri, 24, 26 Cartesian, 32, 40, 44, 68-70, 85, 87, 98, 109, 113, 114, 121, 132, 135, 140, 149, 151, 153, 154, 165, 167, 184, 191, 201, 210, 213,214,218,222,236,237,250,252, 260,281,287

289

INDEX

Cassirer, Ernst, 24, 40, 41, 173, 181 Cassirer, Toni, 40 n. 62, 173 n. 38 Cavailles,Jean, 40, 41 Celan, Paul, 242 Celine, 56 Chaim ofVolon (Chaim ben Isaac of Volozhin), 19 Char, Rene, 202, 204 Cixous, Helene, 279 Cohen, Hermann, 40 College de France, 50-52, 54 Committee of Public Instruction, 49 Compte, August, 6 Confluences (journal), 161, 163, 166, 205 Corbin, Henry, 56, 58, 66, 69-71, 112, 116, 119, 124, 130, 131, 133, 146, 157, 160, 161, 163, 169, 179; translation of Heidegger into French, 69-71, 117, 118, 124, 131, 131 n. 33, 133; Dasein/realitiihurnaine, 70, 71; Gewmjimheit/sa dereliction, 71, 133; Vorhandenheit/realitii-des-choses, 70, 71; Znhandenheit/realitii-ustensiles, 70, 71 Cultural Center at Cerisy-la-Salle, 201-204 Dali, Salvador, 95 David, Catherine, 242 Davos Conference, 39-42, 173 Deleuze, Gilles, 201, 279 Delp, Alfred, 79 Derrida,Jacques, 3, 10, 279, 283, 285, 286 Descartes, Rene, 4, 5, 9 n. 11, 12, 24, 68, 110, 114, 122, 146, 151, 159, 160, 163, 164, 184,188,256,257,263,266,279,281 Descombes, Vincent, 57, 68 Diderot, Denis, 154, 246 Di1they, Wilhelm, 12, 13, 15, 17 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 21, 24, 61, 64 Dreyfus Affair, 25, 53 Dreyfus, Hubert, 81, 101 n. 41 Durkheim, Emile, 5, 24, 88, 91 Ecole Normale Israelite Orientale, 43 Ecole Normale Superiure, 9, 22, 42, 49-57, 84,88,91, 100,113,116,120,158,159, 161, 199, 200; reform ofl903, 54 Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, 17, 44, 49-51,56,59,60,64,65,69, 70,131,280 Einstein, Albert, 39, 67 Enlightenment (project), 4, 6, 19, 78 Farias, Victor, 242 Fauc;onnet, Paul, 90, 91, 94 Faurisson, Robert, 205, 206

290

Febvre, Lucien, 23 Fedier, Franc;ois, 201 Ferry, Luc, 9 n. 11 Fessard, Gaston, 67, 90, 201 Fichte,Johann Gottlieb, 159 Final Solution, 18, 215 Fink, Engen, 40 Fleurquin, "Captain," 162, 163, 164, 168 Foucault, Michel, 3, 279, 283 Freiburg, University of, 31-39, 163, 169 French Communist Party, 148--150, 168 Freud, Sigmund, 12, 26, 95, 96, 154, 283 Gandilac, Maurice de, 40, 41, 170-174, 176-178,183,194,201 Gaon ofVilna (Rabbi Eliyahu ofVilna, Elijah ben Solomon), 19, 21 Gestalt Psychology, 100-103 Goethe, johann Wolfgang, 21 Gogo!, Nikolai, 21, 61 Goldmann, Lucien, 201, 204 Gordin, Jacob, 86 GOttingen circle, 27, 58, 59; Theodor Conrad, 27; Hedwig Conrad-Martins, 27; Johannes Daubert, 27; Moritz Geiger, 27; Roman Ingarden, 27; Hans Lipps, 27; AdolfReinach, 27; Edith Stein, 27 Groethuysen, Bernard, 8, 56, 59 Gurvitch, Georges, 8, 28, 56, 59, 89, 101, 102,200 Gurvitsch, Aron, 66, 69, 101 Haar, Michel, 201 Halbwachs, Maurice, 28, 90 Hegel, G.W.F.: "desire" (Beg;ierde), dialectic, 69; Phenomenology o[Spi1"it, 90, 97, 115, 160, 171, 172, 195, 204; "struggle for life and death" (Karnpf auf Leben und Tod), 82 Heidegger Affair/s, 9, 10, 17, 18, 112, 154,157,158,162,165,168-184,201, 283-286 Heidegger, Elfride, 202, 203 Heidegger, Martin: "authenticity" (Eigentlirhkeit), 17, 139, 144, 148; Being and Tirne, 11, 33--35, 37, 39, 40, 64, 79, 80, 83, 85, 86, 93, 105, 112, 132, 133, 135, 138, 141-143, 154, 160, 161, 165, 168, 172, 177-181, 186-188, 190-192, 194, 195, 197, 198,216,222 n. 17, 223,225,229,237,243,249,250,276, 279, 254, 255, 280, 281; "being-in-theworld," 15, 38, 38, 80, 105, 124, 125, 137, 140, 192; "being-towards-death,"

Index 82,138,223,251-254, 266,267; "call of conscience" ( Rnf des Gewissens), 140; "care" (Sorge), 94, 143, 144, 225, 234; Dasein, 12-17, 43, 80-83, 101, 124-126, 128, 133, 135, 138, 141-144, 146, 165, 166, 178, 188, 191, 192, 194, 210,222,223,225-227,237,249-253, 266, 277; Dnsein andrealitii-hurnaine, 192; "datability" (Datierbarkeit), 142; Dns Man, 13, 15-17, 127, 143, 144; ek-stasis, 141, 220; "estrangement" (Entfremdung), 195; "fall" (verfallen), 138, 143, 144, 146; "homelessness" (Heirnatlosigkeit), 194, 195; inauthenticity ( Uneigentlichkeit), 127, 138, 144; "Letter on Humanism," 18, 83,96, 98,112,154,157,158,162, 167, 171, 183-201,222-224,227,230, 243, 245, 258; Mitsein (being-with), 14, 39, 222, 243, 281; "present-at-hand" (Vorhandenheit), 70, 71, 125, 126, 137, 142; "project" (entwerfen), 143, 144; "ready-to-hand" (Znhandenheit), 70, 71, 105, 125, 126, 137, 142; "resoluteness" (Entschlossenlwit), 82; "significance" (Bedenlsamkeit), 142; "thrownness" ( Gewmfenheit), 122, 124, 140, 143, 275; time, 141-144, 255; "the tum," 186, 187; "uncanny" (nnheimlich), 8 n. 11, 198, 219, 232, 233, 254; "understand" (verstehen), 81; "What is Metaphysics?" (Was ist Metaphysik?), 117-120, 122, 123, 128, 129, 131, 136, 187, 214 Heinemann, Fritz, 60 Hering, Jean, 27, 28, 33, 102 Herr, Lucien, 53, 57 Herriot, Edouard, 54 Hilberg, Raul, 246 Hitler, Adolf, 41, 42, 91, 170, 173, 177, 210-212 Holderlin, F1iederich, 225, 230, 232, 234 Husser!, Edmund, 12, 27-29, 31-40, 56-60, 63,67, 71, 79,83,88,90,93,99-105, 107-109, 112, 115-117, 119-126, 128133, 135, 136 n. 40, 140, 142, 145, 146, 148, 159, 160, 163, 165, 167,179,182, 185,218,252,256,260,263,266,269, 274; Cartesian Meditations, 28, 43, 59, 101; eidetic science, 32 n. 46; intentionality, 37, 38; Wesenschan, 31 Hyppolite,Jean, 9, 9 n. 56, 100, 200 Institut fran.;ais de Berlin, 116, 159 Irigaray, Luce, 279

Ivanov, Nina, 67 n. 41 jahrlmch fil,r PhUosophie und Phiinomenologie Forschung, 28, 58 Janicaud, Dominique, 10 n. 16, 201, 203 Jankelevitch, Vladimir, 149 Jaspers, Karl, 56, 63, 64 Jaures,Jean, 54 junge1; Ernst, 133

Kaiser Wilhelm University. See Strasbourg, University of Kandinsky, Wassily, 61, 63 Kant, Immanuel, 5, 6, 23, 24, 40, 56, 57, 88, 114,160, 173,204 Kantian, 40 Kierkegaard, S0ren, 12-14, 16, 17, 44, 71, 84, 85, 90, 130, 131, 137, 138, 163, 191, 216,263 Kojeve, Alexandre: and Aron, 88-94; "desire" (Begierde), 72-75, 268; "desire for recognition," 75, 80, 272, 273; "end of history," 77-79, 83; on Hegel, 71-83; Hegel seminar, 65-83, 109, 131, 132; and Lacan, 94-99; "master-slave dialectic," 75-78, 80, 81, 230, 273; and MerleauPonty, 99-109; Self-Consciousness, 72-77; "struggle for life and death" (Kampf auf Leben nnd 'J!Jd), 75, 82, 269; teleology, 68; using Heidegger to read Hegel, 68, 79-83; "work" (Arbeit), 76, 229; Angst/ Kampf auf Leben und Tod, 80, 82, 83; Bejindlichkeit/Begierde, 80, 81; Verstehen/ Arbeit, 80, 81 Kojevnikov, Alexandra, 61 Kojevnikov, Vladimir, 60, 61 Kovno (Lithuania), 19-22 Koyre,Alexandre,8,9,27-29,44,45,51,56, 58-60,64-66,69,79,86,89, 169,200; Hegel seminar, 60, 65 Kuki, Baron Shuzo, 116 Lacan,Jacques, 18, 56, 66, 67, 84, 94-98, 111,150,169,186,202-204,206,209, 282, 283, 286; "desire," 96-98; Kojeve's influence, 94-99; language as negation, 98; "master-slave dialectic," 96; "mirror stage," 96-98; "struggle for recognition," 96,97 LaCapra, Dominick, 236 n. 31 Lacoue-Labarthe, Phillipe, 210 n. 4, 279 Lakanal,Joseph, 49 Lavisse, Ernest, 50

291

INDEX Lefebvre, Henri, !l n. 11 Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 114 Lemkul, 61-63 Lenin, Vladmir Ilich, 62 Leninism, 21 Lermontov, Mikhail, 21, 24, 61 Levinas, Emmanuel: critique ofHeidegger, 276-278; critique ofKojeve's Hegel, 272-274; e~itique ofSartre, 274-276; "De !'existence a l'existant," 214,218,225, 229, 247, 249-256, 266; "desire," 268-270; "face to face," 271, 272; "ily a," 218-221, 223,230,235-237,240,241,247-255,262; "infinity," 256, 257, 261-271, 273-275, 278; "Martin Heidegger et !'ontologie," 43; "separated being," 263-273, 276; "Surles ideen de M. Husser!," 34-37; Tlu 17u;my of Intuition in llusserl 's Phenomerwlog;y, 34-38, 42, 44, 103, 105; "totality," 257-262, 264-266, 268, 271-274, 277, 278; Totality and Infinity, 244, 256, 258-279, 282 Levinas, Raissa, 247 Levinas, Simone, 247 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 51, 201 Levy, Paul, 210-212 Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, 39, 53 Liberation, 151 Lichtenberger, Henri, 39 Lowith, Karl, 170, 176-183 Lycee Condorcet, 88, 199, 200 Lycee Henri IV, 161, 199 Lycee Louis le Grand, 84, 100 Lyotard,Jean-Fram;ois, 3, 279, 287 Mallarme, Stephane, 29, 217 n. 11, 222 n. 16 Mannheim, Karl, 89 Marceau, Marcel, 162 Marcel, Gabriel, 44, 45, 86, 100, 102, 183, 185,200,201,204,286 Marjolin, Robert, 66 Marx, Karl, 62, 67, 71, 72, 90, 103, 115, 148, 150, 153, 166, 168, 189, 195 Marxism/t, 9, 49, 99, 100, 103, 131, 150, 153, 195,243,279,281 Maurras, Charles, 43 Mauss, Marcel, 39, 51, 282 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice: "being-in-theworld" (itre-au-rrwnde), I 02, 104-l 08; dialectic, I 06-1 08; interiorityI exteriority, 104; Kojeve's influence, 99-109; "masterslave dialectic," 105; Phenorrunolog;y of Perception, 100, 104, 109, 164; Structun; of Behavior, 103-105; "work" (Arbeit), 107

292

Minotame, Le (journal), 96 Monod, Gabriel, 53 Moscow, University of, 62 Monnier, Emmanuel, 100 Moyn, Samuel, 248 n. 8

Nancy, Jean-Luc, 222 n. 17, 279 Napoleon. See Bonaparte National Socialism, 3, 4, 17, 18, 153, 157, 161, 163-165, 167, 169-181, 183-185, 194, 195, 205, 206, 211, 213, 224 n. 18, 245, 257, 282-286; Third Reich, 89 Neo-Kantian/isrn, 4-8, 12, 13, 23, 24, 29, 35,36,40,41,55-57,59, 69,86,88,89, 100, 101, 104, 110, 114, 115, 159, 160, 217,257 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 14, 44, 55, 84, 198, 216, 283 n. 5 Nizan, Paul, 100 Nouvelle Revue Fran