Knowing and History: Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth-Century France 9781501743214

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Knowing and History

Also by Michael

S.

Roth

Psycho-Analysis as History: Negation and Freedom in

Freud

Knowing and History Appropriations of Hegel in

Twentieth-Century France

Michael

S.

Roth

Cornell University Press Ithaca and

London

Copyright

©

1988 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

infor-

mation, address Cornell University Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca,

First

New

York 14850.

published 1988 by Cornell University Press.

International Standard

Book Number 0-8014-2136-5

Library of Congress Catalog Card

Number 87-47870

Printed in the United States of America Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information ap-

pears on the last page of the book.

The paper in this book is acid-free and meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

For Laurence

Contents

Preface

ix

Acknowledgments Introduction. Between Part One.

xiv Crisis

From Humanism

and Closure

i

to Being: Jean Hyppolite

1.

Heroic Hegelianism

2.

Logic in History and the Problematic of

3.

From Humanism

19

Humanism

Part

17

46 66

to Being

Two. After the End: Alexandre Kojeve

81

4.

Absolutes and History

5.

Desire, Dialectic, and History

6.

No Guarantees:

83

Irony and the End of History

94 125

Part Three. Progress and the Elmination of Sens: Eric Weil

8.

From Certainty to From Uncertainty

9.

Styles of Delegitimation:

7.

Participation to Nostalgia

Afterword.

147 149 165

187 leuze,

and Foucault

Nietzsche, De-

189

Contents

Appendix. Participants in Kojeve's

Seminar at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, 1933-1939

225

Bibliography

228

Index

251

Preface

From

the 1930s through the postwar period in France,

Hegehan

phi-

losophers such as Jean HyppoUte, Alexandre Kojeve, and Eric Weil

turned to history as the source of truths and criteria of judgment.

They explored how

philosophy of history could serve as the foundation for understanding the modern world and for providing insight into

how

a

that world might be changed for the better.

They

forged

connections between history and knowing as a means of confronting

key theoretical problems and of engaging contemporary political concerns. All three began publishing in the 1930s, and Hyppolite and Weil taught philosophy in France after World War II. Kojeve, leader of a famous seminar on Hegel in the 1930s, continued to write philosophy after the war but spent much of his time working for the French government on problems of economic development. By the mid-i9sos, however, all three thinkers had withdrawn from the historical in search of a reflection.

more

secure, or

more

hopeful, subject for

Hegelian historicizing declined with the loss of faith in

seemed to undermine even the thought of heroic or radical political change, and the development of sophisticated methodologies of the synchronic in linguistics, anthropology, and cybernetics legitimated a retreat from the meaningfulness of history. Contemporary events

the historical.

have chosen to study the Hegelians because their work illuminates power and the limitation of the philosophic approach to history. In the development of their philosophies, moreover, we can see one I

the

of the crucial transformations in

modern

intellectual history: the shift

Preface

concern with questions of significance to a concern with questions of use or function, from "What does our history mean? " or "How can we make sense of our past?" to "How does our history work?"

from

or

a

"How

is

our past put together?" This

interpretations of our past

shift

which generate

moves us away from

stories that

can guide and

legitimate our actions, and toward analyses (or even deconstructions) that

show how

particular versions of our past serve specific interests,

powers, or desires. The still

not

clear, as

implications of this transformation are

full

they form part of our cultural present.

My

study of

the French Hegelians is intended to clarify the significance of the contemporary retreat from questions of significance (especially, though not exclusively, in France), by providing some of the material

necessary for situating our cultural

moment

in relation to its intel-

lectual antecedents.

This book, then,

is a

re-collection of the Hegelian approach to his-

tory and of the transformation within the

Hegel. of

It

modern appropriation

thought which has fallen by the wayside over the

last

of

mode

should not be read as an expression of nostalgia for a

twenty-five

years as structuralism and poststructuralism have challenged the phi-

losophy of history and even the usefulness of making meaning out of historical change.

The questions

that Hyppolite, Kojeve, and Weil

posed to personal and political history are not our questions, and analysis of their

work

is

my

not intended as an advertisement for their

style of philosophizing. Yet

I

trust that

a history of the present insofar as

what follows

will be read as

an understanding of our connections

with and differences from this style contributes to our ability to make sense of the questions we choose and refuse to pose in order to make meaning out of change over time.

The is

intellectual historian

who

turns to the history of philosophy

confronted immediately with difficult methodological and profes-

sional problems. Perhaps the

most important

of these are difficulties

inherent in any study of the development of culture, most of which

have to do with the relative autonomy of the object of study. One must always try to steer a course between the parallel pitfalls of isolation and reduction. If one treats the cultural object or field as and contemporary sigfully autonomous, then the wider cultural

—

—

nificance of the object or field can be lost.

cance of the object or

If

one locates the

signifi-

field solely in its sociocultural relations,

then

Preface

import or point dissolves as it is replaced by expression of something, or someone, else. its specific

its role

as an

problem has usuterms of the text /context relationship. Whether this relationship was never more than a mere presupposition of mtellecIn the historiography of intellectual history, the

ally

been seen

in

tual history, as

Hayden White has

asserted,'

it

seems

clear that

we

can no longer simply appeal to a "balance" between text and context. Even the terms of such a compromise are now fully ambiguous: What is

a context

if

not a more or less arbitrarily selected group of texts

that refer to events or persons

made

relevant to the primary texts

My is not that nothing outside the text," which has about the same claim on us as "there is nothing outside the void." Instead, the question under consideration? "there

point in raising this question

is

points to the fact that in the study of history, the Real

presented to us as mediated by texts.' best

way

Much

What we want

is

always

to find

is

the

of reading these texts.

on intellectual history in recent years has focused on ways of reading.^ Hermeneutics and semiotics with varying degrees of psychoanalysis and Marxism added to the mix seem to be the techniques most favored in contemporary metahistorical discourse. Their respective foci on content and form have been enhanced by the cross-fertilizations of anthropology and linguistics, both of which have taught intellectual historians to look for meaning in places where otherwise they might not of the interesting theoretical writing

—

—

have strayed. The form of the present work can best be characterized as "historical/internalist." This description does not mean that my analysis of the philosophers' texts excludes side" their work, only that

I

all

consideration of referents "out-

have concentrated on the temporal and

1. Hayden White, "Method and Ideology in Intellectual History: The Case of Henry Adams," in Modern European Intellectual History: Reappraisals and New Perspectives, ed. Dominick LaCapra and Steven L. Kaplan (Ithaca, N.Y., 1982), 281. 2. See, for example, Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a

Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca, N.Y., 1981), 82, 100-102. 3. See LaCapra and Kaplan, Modern European Intellectual History, and LaCapra,

Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (Ithaca, N.Y., 1983), and History and Criticism (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985); Robert Darnton, "Intellectual and Cultural History," in The Past before Us, ed. Michael Kammen (Ithaca, N.Y., 1980); and Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse (Baltimore, Md., 1978).

Preface

thematic development of the

aimed

would be fair to say that the work" in contradistinction

texts.

to explicate the "life of

It

of the philosopher." Intellectual historians

''life

I

have

to the

have usually taken

individual biography as the mediation between particular ideas and

the culture in

which they

are produced.

Although

this

occasionally produced a brilliant picture of a cultural

approach has

moment,

it

has

often resulted in a trivialization of the problematics explored in the

book I have with the French Hegelians without the mediation provided by biography and have adopted a discourse that aims to speak with them at the same time as it addresses our own texts, or else in their excessive personalization. In this

tried to enter into a dialogue

concerns. In so doing,

have on occasion reflected their concerns

I

against the background of important changes in contemporary French culture, but only in order to illuminate the

there

is

a "position"

behind

my own mode

historical /internalist approach to culture

work

of the Hegelians.

of discussion,

it is

If

that a

need not be an oxymoron.

Anyone who writes on modern French intellectual history does so shadow of the great wave of theoretical activity in the human

in the

sciences in France over the last thirty years. Indeed,

I

first

chose this

topic because the French Hegelian philosophers had developed a radical

historicism that was in direct conflict with the succeeding gen-

eration's antihistoricist stance. Here,

I

thought, was the chance to

understand, perhaps obliquely, structuralism and what follows by

movements were reacting against. Instead, found move away from historicism had already begun with Hyp-

seeing what these that the

polite, Kojeve,

I

and Weil

absence in this book, of the

it

at the

may

end

of the 1940s.

If

there

is

a felt

be the lack of any detailed exploration

connection between Hegelianism and the development

of struc-

turalism and poststructuralism. Although not a systematic study of this connection, the last chapter

attempts to explain

how

Nietzsche

replaced Hegel as the locus of philosophic authority in France in the 1960s, and

how

this

replacement was in part effected by Gilles Dework of Michel Foucault. The use of Nietzsche

leuze and informed the

against a so-called metaphysical history

some

was an eventually unsuc-

problems the Hegelians confronted, problems that remain relevant to the projects of both Foucault and Deleuze. The retreat from for some, the advance over the humanist percessful attempt to avoid

—

xii

of the crucial

—

— Preface

was a crucial conmodes of thought. Yet until and nonhumanist approaches becomes

spective essential for the Hegelians in the 1940s dition for the evolution of structuralist

the itinerary of these anti-

—

it seems to me unwise except for programmatic purposes attempt to delineate their historical interrelations. I might add also

clearer,

to

that

it

seems

to

—

me unwise — except for the tactical purposes of certain

individuals to assume that these anti- and nonhumanist approaches have in any way been proved or legitimated by something called philosophy or theory. Certainly, the trope of sophistication makes it difficult to

pretend otherwise, but a history of the academic impor-

lies beyond the bounds of this study. That said, the reader may still find that the present work suffers from a nostalgia for the humanism that "deconstruction" has made depasse. As far as I can tell, this book contains no implicit humanist agenda that would entail a return to earlier notions of the subject. Nevertheless, 1 trust it will become clear that 1 have re-collected the historicist /humanist problematic of French Hegelianism because I think it can speak to present concerns with how and why we make meaning out of change over time. That is, 1 believe that a faithful account of the development of the work of Hyppolite, Kojeve, and Weil can enrich our historical understanding of the cultural present. The other shadow thrown across my study of the French Hegelians is that of Hegel himself. I make no attempt to determine if the French "got Hegel right." 1 treat French Hegelianism as a mode of philosophizing and do not evaluate its interpretations and translations in

tance of that trope

relation to the ificationist

German

"original." For

impulse that

lies at

someone who

retains the ver-

the origins of professional historiog-

would not be a complete waste of time, but it IS not mine. However, insofar as the Hegelian tradition has fed off the negation of a rigid distinction between history and philosophy, my work can be located within that tradition. In researching and

raphy, such a project

writing this book,

I

have

tried to be

mindful

areas and of the exigencies of both disciplines.

developments in both hope that what follows

of I

will speak to the concerns of historians and philosophers; indeed, to

us who have a stake in change over time.

all of

how we

give

meaning and direction

to

Acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Council for European Studies at Princeton University, the French Government Fellowship Program, the Social Science Research Council, and the Whiting Foundation, whose combined support enabled me to spend

two years

in France.

ships have helped

More

me

recently, Scripps College research fellow-

return to France and have freed time for revi-

The American Council of Learned Societies Post-Doctoral Fellowship for the Study of Modern Society and Values supported the sions.

research for the final chapter of the book and gave

put

it

me

the time to

Nancy Burson has shown remarkable and competence in typmg the manuscript.

in final form.

kindness,

Before going to Paris in 1981

I

patience,

benefited from the intellectual stim-

ulation and support of the history department at Princeton University.

The freedom

of intellectual inquiry

which

preserves against the

it

combined with a rigorous critical spirit to promote an openminded but fairly skeptical community of ideas. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to ever-rising tide of professional specialization

participate in

My work

is

it.

in France

was made more

amiable contact with French scholars.

fruitful 1

and more enjoyable by

express

my debt

to

Raymond

book and discussing them with me. The personal generosity and warmth of each man adds to the loss one feels in their deaths. I am most grateful to Claude Lefort for his help throughout my stay in France

Aron and

especially to Michel Foucault for reading drafts of this

Ackn o wJcd^m en ts and for his criticisms and comments on all stages of this project. Eugene Fleischmann shared with me his detailed knowledge of Hegelian philosophy and opened new perspectives for me on philosophy and history. I am grateful to him for his encouragement and shall always value his friendship dearly. The sections on Alexandre Kojeve and Eric Weil would not be what they are without the help I received from Nina Ivanoff, the legatee of Kojeve, and from Anne Weil and Catherine Mendelssohn, the wife and sister-in-law of Weil. Anne Weil gave generously of herself at the end of her life, and like so many others I keep a fond memory of her strong, sensitive spirit. The openness, intelligence, and generosity of these women have been equaled only by their kindness. An earlier version of this book was read by Victor Gourevitch, Jerrold Seigel, and Sheldon Wolin, who gave me detailed comments on early drafts and talked with me at length and in depth about the interrelationship of politics, philosophy, and history. Professor Gourevitch first introduced me to Hegel and Kojeve when I was an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, and he has responded with patience to my questions about history and philosophy ever since. At Princeton, Carl Schorske has also listened to these questions and suffered through my repeated attempts to work out answers to them. His criticism and support vastly improved my work, and his teaching remains

for

me

By continuing

a

model

of pedagogy.

to reveal to

me some

wife, Laurence Roth, has contributed

of the

meanings

more than she

of destiny,

realizes to

my my

understanding of knowing and of history. Although these meanings are rarely very clear, they are never,

I

begin to see, unimportant.

Michael Claremont, California

S.

Roth

Knowing and History

Introduction:

Between

One

Crisis

and Closure

of the truisms of the history of

French philosophy

is

that

it

was the importation of German philosophy, specifically of phenomenology, which loosened the rigid, academic orthodoxy of the neoKantians. This truism, like so many other philosophical myths, comes to us from existentialists, who early on began to think of themselves as historical figures. Perhaps the best story

we have

about the young Sartre who, sitting in a cafe (where

in

tiiis

regard

is

else?), listens to

Raymond Aron's story about how in Germany (where else?) they can make philosophy out of a cocktail.' The human element will come back into French philosophy, so goes the moral of the story, when existentialism becomes the guardian of a radical humanism and keeps its

philosophical lamp on everyday

When

Sartre left for

Germany

life.

in 1933,

however, the French aca-

demic philosophical orthodoxy had already begun to change. Although the stimulus for some of these changes provided by Husserl and Heidegger was far from negligible, the impact of Hegelian philosophy in France was a crucial component of the new ground (or new groundlessness) of philosophy which emerged in the postwar period. The normal discourse of academic philosophy was changing, if not unraveling, by the 1930s, and the French reading of Hegel was a major force in that decomposition." The protean character of He1. 1

Given

in

Simonc de Beauvoir, The Prime

of Life, trans. P.

Green (London,

1963),

12. 2.

For useful summaries of Hegel interpretation in France from the nineteenth cen-

tury through the mid-twentieth, see Iring Fetscher, "Hegel in Frankreich," Antares

3

Introduction

gelianism added to the importance of the philosophy, because in France Hegelianism was ahgned with critical intellectual move-

among them surrealism, Marxism, and existentialism. In most forms French Hegelianism was a vehicle for confronting the historical, for thinking about the connection between history and ments, of its

knowing.

The

work

1 examine in detail in this book was published in symbol for the resurgence of Hegelianism. Jean Wahl's Le malheur de la conscience dans la philosophic de Hegel was in many ways a book about crisis, a book about history, even though the Great Depression would not reach France for some years after the stock market crashed in New York. Instead of focusing on the conditions of rationality or on the bases for the development of scientific knowledge, Wahl examined the centrality of alienation and longing to any form of historical progress. The crisis may be in one's personal life or in one's community, Wahl asserted, but the experience of crises is a necessary component of their progressive resolution. The other forms of French Hegelianism I examine briefly in this chapter those of Alexandre Koyre, surrealism, and Marxism also stress crisis in one form or another. The surrealists, in many ways

first

1929, a fine

—

—

Wahl, make history the object of philosophical reflection in order the irremediable element of alienation or diremption in psychological and social life. In contrast, Koyre and the Marxists have a

like to

show

on these forms of crisis. Koyre is interwhich Hegelianism passes from historical disphilosophical closure as a system. The Marxists, of course,

different reason for focusing

ested in the

junction to

way

in

are also keenly concerned with historical disjunction. For them, the

Hegelian notions of mediation and dialectical change are important not because they resolve crisis in a system but because they point to the closure that can occur through radical historical action.

Jean Wahl and Alexandre Koyre Wahl's Le malheur de la conscience marked a beginning of the Hegel renaissance in France. Wahl aimed consciously to introduce

Hegel to the French, and he did so from the perspective

of the phi-

(lys^l ^-iS; lacqucs d'Hondt, Hcy,cl ct I'lit'^elianismc (Pans, 1982); and Lawrence Pitkethly, "Hesel in Modern France" (Ph.D. diss., London School of Economics, lyysl-

Between Crisis and Closure losopher's early works,

and 1907.' Because

which had hccn puhhshcd in Germany Wahl's hook hecame

of this perspective,

in a

90s point 1

French reading of Hegel. To the extent that Hegel had been studied in France previously, he was read as the author of the Logic and of the System and represented at once the two great sins of philosophical pride and intellectual abstraction: "pride," because he rejected Kant's view that philosophy should follow the sciences and instead thought of philosophy as the supreme science to be followed by other disciplines; "abstraction," because to construct the grand machine of the System, Hegel seemed to omit all properly human elements. Wahl's book took a wholly different tack toward Hegel, for he wrote Le malheur de la conscience after having considof departure in the

ered Kierkegaard's existentialist critique of the System."* In Hegel's early texts

Wahl found

a

budding

existentialist, a

copain

who would

have identified with Kierkegaard's fear and trembling, and with the anxiety that many of Wahl's readers felt at the beginning of the 1930s. Wahl's Hegel, then, is not the creator of a comprehensive philosophical method that can account for all entities in this world. On the contrary, the dialectic is first "an experience by which Hegel passed from one idea to another."^ Wahl shows his reader the theologian behind the scientific philosopher and the romantic behind the rationalist.

Rather than summarize Wahl's book,

I

here point out only

its

major

themes, those which played a role in French Hegelianism generally and in the work of Jean Hyppolite in particular. The first and most important of these themes is the idea of the "unhappy consciousness." Readers of the Phenomenology will recognize this concept as an important part of that work, but for Wahl the idea became emblematic of the Hegelian project and of modern personal and historical existence as a whole. Simply put, the unhappy consciousness is the awareness that

all

human development

is a

product of alienation,- that

is,

personal growth and historical progress take place by virtue of a rad-

3.

By Dilthcy,

ichen

in "Jugendgeschichte Hegel,"

Akademie der Wissenschaften

(Berlin,

Abhandhmg

der koniglichen preuss-

and H. Nohl, Theologische fugendschriften 1907). Hegel's [ena Realphilosophie did not become available until 1931 and (1905),

1932.

Modern France," 382. conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel (Paris, All translations of quotations are my own unless otherwise specified.

4.

As Wahl

5.

Jean Wahl, Le

1929), 9.

said in an interview with Pitkethly, "Hegel in

malheur de

la

Introduction ical separation of the subject

ment

from what

it

desires.

Human

develop-

making the connection between the For the unhappy consciousness, though, the

bridges that separation,

subject and

its

other.

always divided and always longing for reconciliation. Wahl thinks that the dialectic in all its forms can be understood best from this existential /romantic base. The contradiction between

person

thesis

is

and antithesis, and the mediation

(or

mediator) that brings

about a synthesis, he understands as abstractions from the funda-

mental experiential basis

of

human

alienation, despair

and hope. The

reconciliation or synthesis that does take place should produce nei-

ther a system nor a science; instead, fati.

Wahl claims not

it

results in

wisdom and amor

that Hegel's early philosophy ends only with a

romantic longing after a lost unity but that attempts at unification always begin from the experience of this longing. He does not deny the rationalist goal of Hegel's project, but he underlines the romantic inspiration at the core of that project.'^

This emphasis on the unhappy consciousness leads Wahl to consider the role of a concept of history in Hegel's thought. History

is

upon which the quest for reconciliation takes place most the vehicle through which reconciliation is achieved. In

at least the field

and

at

either case,

how

if

we

to achieve

it,

are to

then

know anything about this reconciliation and we have to grasp change over time as triumph

over alienation and separation. History itual progress,

and Wahl

is

the story of moral or spir-

sets the structure of that story

by giving

prominence to the unhappy consciousness. Progress is therefore achieved at severe cost, for alienation and separation are the necessary conditions for history truly to continue

— that

is,

for

man

not to sink

into the oblivion of repetition.

Consolation for the unhappy consciousness

is

the belief that history

will continue, the belief that the story of spiritual progress

makes

sense in the end because in the End, reconciliation will come. Change

over time

is

configured as progress because reconciliation

as the goal of history.

This

is

is

figured

the guarantee that the unhappiness of

Good News that the story of history The Hegelian "cross of the an ultimate homecoming in which the

separation will not be in vain, the is

written in the language of eternity.

present"

is

only a sign of

subject and its objects will be one. 6.

For Wahl's interpretation of

what he saw

as the concept of a "sacred history" in

Hegel, see especially Le malheur, 147, 186, i99n, 2^1, 248.

Between

Crisis

For Wahl's Hegel, then, history has a crucial heuristic than a determining

and Closure

role,

one/ As we come

to

though more

a

understand the

change over time, we gain insight into both the specific diremption of modern man and the necessary connection between all human development and a fundamental unhappiness. Yet structures of personal and collective experience exist that an understanding of history cannot account for and that make such an understanding possible in the first place. To apprehend change over time as progress, and to understand the price paid for our personal and collective advancement, Wahl's Hegel tells us we must look beyond the merely temporal. There we will find a guarantee that change over time has meaning and direction. Wahl's writing on Hegel is part of what Wahl later referred to as the movement toward the concrete.^ By viewing Hegel as a philosopher concerned deeply with history, not just with logic, Wahl was taking steps toward a philosophy that would not only concern itself coherence and continuity

in

with the conditions of possibility for a rational thinking based on experience but also focus on making sense of the stuff of experience as it changes. Wahl's Hegel helps the reader see that experience, when properly viewed, constitutes historical progress.

Wahl turned

to history at a

time

when

the contemporary world

especially shook confidence in progress. France had

emerged

victo-

rious from the Great War, but even a relatively simple notion such

seemed problematic by the end of the 1920s. The nation was having enormous difficulty with the path of progress marked out by modern industrial capitalism, and French thinkers were questioning how the nation could become fully modern without losing its as "victory"

Wahl's Hegel provides an account of history that emphasizes and alienation, elements familiar to Wahl's readers. He also reasons to hope that these elements of crisis, although the stuff

identity.

conflict offers

of historical experience, are not definitive.

are independent of historical

The reasons Wahl provides

change and allow us to affirm our con-

fidence that history leads beyond crisis to a form of closure.

Like Wahl, Alexandre Koyre attempted to introduce Hegel to the

French in large part by translating and commenting on Hegel's early texts. For Koyre, however, these texts did not reveal a romantic or '^

7.

Ibid., 173.

8.

Jean Wahl, Vers le concret (Paris, 1932).

9.

Koyre influenced Hegel studies in France largely through his courses on the Ger-

— Introduction

an existentialist thinker as opposed to the systematic philosopher of the Logic and the Encyclopaedia. On the contrary, Koyre saw the

mature work, as an indication of what needed to be systematized. Without the System, Koyre believed, Hegel's "experiences" the term is Wahl's would have no interest early texts as continuous with the

—

—

for us at all.'"

This

is

not to say that Koyre denies the importance of the unhappy

consciousness in Hegel's work. Koyre, too, emphasizes that philos-

ophy grows out

of alienation

and the painful experience

For him, philosophy enters a society

when

of separation.

traditional avenues for

when the meaning becoming increasingly unclear. Philoso-

unifying diverse beliefs and practices are blocked, of the

common

phy

born of disintegration, but as a result of this heritage it seeks harmony in reason as a replacement for the lost

is

language

is

a totalization, a

coherence of

faith.

the effort to

make

heterogeneity.

On

Thus

the impulse toward totalization

is

not simply

the world conform to a principle that allows no the contrary, the experience of

crisis,

the

felt ab-

what gives rise to philosophy, "that which produces and realizes reason." The object of this production is closure but not, and not to be confused with, a homogenein a significant sence of wholeness,

ous

is

— — whole, the coherence of a system."

Whereas Wahl's Hegel ultimately seeks reconciliation in the promise of divine mediation between subject and object, Koyre's Hegel looks to Reason for the coherence that is felt as a painful absence in the life of the individual or of the community. When Koyre's Hegel looks to Reason, he looks to humanity, to history.

If

Wahl's inter-

is existential and theological, then Koyre's Hegel is historand anthropological. For Wahl, that is, the story of progress is written in the language of eternity, whereas for Koyre that story

pretation ical

makes sense only man

if

it

is

told in

human — temporal

or historical

tradition of speculative thought at the Ecolc des Hautes Etudes, and also by three major articles published in the i9^os: "Rapport sur I'etat des etudes hegeliennes en France" (19^0), "Note sur la langue et la terminologie hegeliennes" (1931), and "Hegel a lena" (19 ^4). All three articles are reprinted in Koyre's Etudes d'histoire de la pensee philosophique (Paris, 1961, 197 1). Koyre is not a Hegelian philosopher but rather is stimulated by Hegel's |ena texts, which became available in the early 1930s. Some of the differences between his emphasis and Wahl's can be ascribed to the fact that these texts were not available when Wahl wrote his study. 10. Koyre, "Hegel a lena," Etudes, 151 and n. i. 1

1.

Ibid.,

I

SS-

Between Oisis and Closure discourse.'' Koyrc's reading

is

based on a detailed consideration of

Hegel's conception of time. Hegel's great originality, Koyre is

in

tells us,

developing a concept of time which gives primacy to the future.

The meaning

now

of a

is

contained in

of that future to the past of the a conception of

human

its

future and in the relation

now. Hegel gives

time, because

us, first

we humans

determine our present by our orientation

and foremost,

are beings

who

— hope, expectation, work—

toward the future and by the connection we see between that future and our past. Thus Koyre's reading of Hegel, although it does not ignore the influence of religious thinkers on the philosopher's development, focuses on the secular, historical, and humanistic thrust of his work. Koyre concludes: all, a human time, the time of man, himself this what he is not and is not what he is"; the being who denies himself in what he is in favor of what he is not, or is not yet; the being who, starting from the present, negates it, attempting to

Hegelian time strange being

is,

above

who

"is

accomplish himself in the future,

who

lives for the future, finding there,

or at least searching there, for his truth; the being this constant transformation of the future into the

who

exists only in

"now," and who stops

when there is no longer a future everything has already when everything is already accomplished. And it is because Hegelian time is human that it is also dialectical, since because it is one

being the day

.

.

.

happened,

and the other

it is

essentially a historical time."

For Koyre's Hegel, history has of things

human

is

nection of a present to of the

more than

a heuristic value.

a product of our ability to

human means

its

future and to

Knowledge

understand the con-

its past.

Indeed, knowledge

understanding the place of the

human

in the

closure provided by the total development of history.

12.

Wahl and Koyre, hkc Hyppolite, Mcrlcau-Ponty,

Ko)evc, and Weil, at

some

point

identify history and progress and give primacy to the future in their analysis of historical

my

I follow them by using "history" to refer change over time. I do not here consider whether an idea of history independent of any notion of progress has been (or could be) coherently established, although my final chapter displays the difficulties that two postmodern writers encounter in leaving behind the problematic of progress. IV Ibid., 177. Although Koyre was in no sense a Heideggerian philosopher, the concept of time that he found in Hegel had significant similarities to the analysis of time in Scin unci ZcAt. Heidegger himself saw in Hegel's philosophy a notion of temporality very much opposed to his own: see Sein unci Zeit, sec. 82.

thinking. In

discussion of the Hegelians

to future- or goal-orientcd

7

Introduction

French Hegelianism attempted to steer a course between the positions that Wahl and Koyre developed. Hyppohte would pose to Wahl questions about the real value of history and of human action as such, given

its

dependence on an atemporal, nonhuman End. Although he

privileged "history" in his

own

reading of Hegel, Hyppolite never

fully accepted Koyre's anthropologism. of

any suprahistorical dimension was,

The primacy of a future devoid for Hyppolite, the

primacy

of

uncertainty, a threatening uncertainty that history alone can neither

guard against nor dissolve. Kojeve, on the other hand, would follow in the footsteps of Koyre, embracing Koyre's anthropologism, as well as his analysis of Hegelian time. For Kojeve, however, the absence of a suprahistorical guarantee for a configuration of history as progress did not result in uncertainty.

On

the contrary, history itself offered a guarantee of universal

nificance once occur.

By the

it

became

late

clear that nothing substantially

sig-

new would

1940s Kojeve was trying to articulate this clarity

within an ironic discourse. Weil, too, started with the radical anthropolization of Hegelian

thought which

is

in accordance

with Koyre's analysis

of time.

Unlike

comes with givuncertainty was a crucial

Kojeve, however, Weil accepted the uncertainty that ing primacy to the future. For Weil, this

component of a culture that had renounced violence in favor of discourse. By the 19SOS, though, Weil was looking for a framework for this uncertainty, a guarantee that the renunciation of violence was not in vain. Here we see shades of Wahl, although Weil's turn was toward a neo-Kantian understanding of morality. Although both Wahl and Koyre became important figures in French intellectual life, their early studies were far from the work being done in mainstream French academic philosophy. On the contrary, their writings were among the first breakthroughs against a general hostility toward Hegel that dated back to the philosopher's own time.'^ After World War I academic philosophy in France was dominated by a transcendental idealism, or neo-Kantianism, whose main proponent was Leon Brunschvicg. For Brunschvicg, all of traditional metaphysics worth saving could be reduced to a theory of knowledge, and history specifically

et Vhe^elianisme, 49-54- The exceptions to the rule of hostility Michael Kelly, "Hegel in France to 1940: A Bibliographical Essay," Journal of European Studies II (1981), 29-52.

14.

d'Hondt, He^cl

arc underlined by

Between

was important

for

Crisis

and Closure

philosophy insofar as one could see scientific prog-

it. Progress in science was the model for all forms of advancement. The chief obstacles to scientific and spiritual development, for Brunschvicg, were egocentric judgments or unfounded prejudices. By

ress in

the 1930s, however, such obstacles, important though they might have been on an abstract level, hardly seemed the most threatening elements on the historical horizon.'^

Many

Wahl

students in the 1930s agreed with Koyre and

neo-Kantian approach to history through

a

that the

study of the development

thought missed the crucial components in the world. In the 1930s competing political forces were fighting to define progress, of scientific

but the crucial arena of this fight had

Simone de Beauvoir complained

little to

do with epistemology.

that the neo-Kantian perspective ig-

nored the "adventure of humanity," while Sartre and Merleau-Ponty agreed that the epistemological approach was a form of "high-altitude thinking" that failed to confront the concrete world. "^

was in Germany they found a philosophic movement which seemed to be born of the desire to make sense of that world. The phenomenology of Husserl and its existentialist development by Heidegger attracted many young philosophers from France, most notably Sartre, MerleauIt

Ponty, and Aron. Koyre himself studied philosophy in Heidelberg

and the discussion in Heidegger's Sein und Zeit of Hegel's understanding of temporality was a crucial aspect of the background for Koyre's article on the same subject. By the 1930s Koyre was coeditor of Recherches philosophiques, an annual journal whose central aim was to introduce German philosophy to the French. In Germany, and later in France, the development of phenomenology and existentialism was a rebellion against the neo-Kantian reduction of philosophy to epistemology. Husserl's call to return to "things themselves" and Heidegger's ontological investigations of being-in-the-world were attempts to open philosophy to questions '^ that the problems of scientific knowledge did not traditionally raise. before

coming

to Paris,

15.

See Rene Boirel, Brunschvicg: Sa

16.

Simone de Beauvoir, Memoirs

1959), 243,

and Jean-Paul

vie,

son oeuvre

(Paris, 1964), 31.

of a Dutiful Daughter, trans.

Sartre, Situations, trans. Benita Eisler

].

Kirkup (New York,

(Greenwich, Conn.,

1965), 158. 17. The debate between Cassirer and Heidegger at Davos in 1929 revealed the extreme differences between the style and substance of neo-Kantianism and existential phenomenology. I return in Chapter 2 to Heidegger's contribution at Davos.

Introduction of Hegelianism in France was a facet of this opening philosophy insofar as the French Hegelians saw scientific knowing

The resurgence of

one aspect of the development of Spirit, one way in which was made by humanity. Whereas the neo-Kantians consigned most of history to the domain of the irrational, the Hegelians saw

as only

history

history as the development of Reason in France, history

itself.

Thus, for the Hegelians

became important not only

as the temporal con-

tainer of scientific progress, but also as the fundamental of our effort to

The French fined to

make

dimension

the world our own.

was not conthe academic world but had an important place in more revival of interest in Hegelian philosophy

overtly political domains. Surrealists and Marxists both turned to

Hegel in order to redirect their political concerns.

Surrealism

The

surrealist

movement seems

at first

glance hardly a propitious

place to look for the Hegelian interest in history as a forgotten of philosophy.

The

domain

rejection of the historical in favor of the instinc-

tual, of history in favor of

automaticity, were crucial facets of the

remark in du surrealisme (1930) is emblematic: "I have more confidence in this moment, now, of my thought, than in everything that one would have declared a completed work, a human life having achieved its goal. ... In matters of revolt, none of us should need any ancestors."'"^ Despite this effort at a radical break from the current of history, however, surrealists were led, by their desire to

surrealist rebellion against the real in the 1920s. Breton's

the Seconde manifeste

alter the course of the entire river, to a study of Hegel.

The

came to Hegel after having immersed themselves The study of Freud or, perhaps more accurately, personal

surrealists

in Freud.

—

experiences with certain psychoanalytic texts richer sense of the irrational

—gave

and the daemonic,

of

be the underside of repressive, bourgeois cultural

these artists a

what they took

life.

to

In a word, they

thought they had discovered the reservoirs of desire untapped by mod-

18.

n6.

Andre Breton, Manifcstes du surrealisme,

ed. (ean-facques

Pauvert (Fans, 1972)

Ik'twccn Crisis and Closure

ern capitalist society.''^ Freud and other depth psych()h)gists

have known ahout these wells

must

were too attached to the security of the surface or conscious Hfe to permit any seepage let alone the floods demanded by the surrealists of the irrational into daily life. The surrealists did not have such attachments and so were ready to open the gates to the sources of energy and power. By the late 1920s, however, surrealists were asking themselves how they were going to channel the waters of desire so as to change the forces that had managed to repress desire so well. Freud was content of instinct also, hut they

—

—

to point out the opposition

the

mechanism used

than helpful. But

between desire and

how

to

change social reality so as to bring the down what Freud seemed to think

opposites together?

How

was

not a natural, conflict?

a necessary,

if

and to identify and he seemed less

reality

to maintain that opposition,

to break

For answers to these questions Breton turned to Hegel, whose Logic

he read as an almost heroic attempt to think through the reconciliation of opposites.

The

dialectic for Breton

was

a technique for bring-

ing together apparent irreconcilables."" Hegel

seemed

to offer

an

opportunity to escape the nihilism or narcissism that was the major legacy of "life in the depths." Breton hoped that the power of the

Hegelian dialectic to overcome Freudian dualisms would allow the surrealists to reconnect to political

life,

to

pump

desire into a history-

yet-to-be-made.

The

is well-known and emphasize only that Hegel seemed to offer the surrealists a bridge from the world of instinct to the world of politics. Hegel's promise was to connect psychology with history, to integrate the subjective realm of the individual with the objective realm of social action. Breton, moreover, did not think that Hegel himself had fulfilled his promise in his mature work. Like Wahl, and unlike Koyre, Breton claimed that the experience of the dialectic had

story of the failure of this reconnection

need not be recounted

here."'

I

19. See Anna Balakian, Surrealism: The Road to the Ahsohite (New York, 1959), loo-ioi; Maurice Nadeau, Histoire du surrealisme (Paris, 1964), 20, 76, 157, 186; and

Breton, Manifestes, 28, 48, 146-147, 165. 20. et

See Balakian, Surrealism, 108, and Ferdinand Alquie,

humanisme

existentialiste," in

L'homme,

le

monde,

"Humanisme

surrealiste

I'histoire (Paris, 1948), is3-

21. See Nadeau, Histoire du surrealisme, and Robert S. Short, "The Pohtics of Surreahsm, 1920-1936," Journal of Contemporary History i, no. 2 (1966), 3-25.

II

Introduction to be isolated

from the avortement colossal of the System in order most important contributions/^ Breton, like young

to grasp Hegel's

French Marxists, saw the dialectic as a technique

for

the possibilities of revolutionary change, while he

System

thinking about

condemned

as a reactionary attempt at totalization or closure.

had begun shortly

critique of totalization

has been repeated

many

after Hegel's death,

the

Such and

a it

times since 1945."

Marxism The surrealists were, of course, only a small group within the fragmented French political scene of the 1920s and 1930s. The deep disappointment with the fruits of the victory of 19 18, and the quest for some form of national identity in the face of rapid international industrialization helped push French political life away from a consensus of the center. On the one hand, the international socioeconomic order built after the war and against the Russians was culturally repulsive to both leftists and rightists, for whom it was a form of modernization that meant Americanization. On the other hand, a refusal to participate in this order could

mean

the further decline of

France on the world scene, so that the nation would lose not only its power but its respectability. Political radicalism feeds on such times,

and there appeared

much

a plethora of

Marxist groups devoted

at least as

to theoretical speculation as to political action.

French Marxism was, of course, stimulated greatly by the revolution in Russia. For

many

great experiment, but

it

intellectuals, the revolution represented a

was not

at all clear

how

the results of this

experiment were to be relevant to French politics. The Russian revolution aroused at once hope and fear; hope, because it pointed to the possibility of radical, even heroic, change; fear, because even a revolutionary

movement could become

22. Breton, Manifcstcs, 23.

On

its

repetition of

148-149.

the connection between surrealism, Marxism, and Hegelianism

see Martin Jay,

Hahermas

slavish in

Marxism and

m

France,

The Adventures of a Concept from Liikdcs to 276-299. Jay focuses on Henri Lefebvre. For a more

Totality:

(Berkeley, Calif., 1984),

detailed account of Lefebvre and his context, see Fred Burkhard, "Priests and Jesters:

Henri Lefebvre, the 'Philosophies' Gang, and French Marxism between the Wars" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1986).

12

— Between

Crisis

and Closure

formulas inappropriate to the particular conditions of French political life.-'

During the twenties and

thirties,

some

as well as the discovery of

new

translations of Marx's work,

of his early

manuscripts, further

stimulated theoretical work in French Marxism. Between 1925 and 1940 the complete works of Marx and Engels were published in French

an inexpensive, popular form. More important for our purposes, the 1844 manuscripts were published, piecemeal, between 1929 and 1937. These texts highlight the connection between Hegel and Marx, showing both Marx's debt to Hegel and the struggle of the later thinker to free himself from the burden of influence. One cannot, however, in

Marx

known, and there is some "no real reading of Marx was possible in France until after the Second World War."''' Here I merely point out that the question of the relation between Marx and Hegel, though even among communists it can hardly be described as a mainstream concern, was indeed raised and discussed in France before 1939"^ works

describe these early truth to

Mark

of

as well

Poster's assertion that

The point is important, because in the Marxist treatment of Hegel we can see some of the same themes as in the interpretations of Wahl, Koyre, and Breton. The Revue marxiste, which was dedicated to introducing Marx and Marxist themes into French intellectual life, published a series of articles on Marx's "method" in which Hegel had a prominent place. The author, Charles Rappoport, followed an orthodox communist line in separating what he called Hegel's method the dialectic from his System. The latter, he affirmed, is reactionary

—

insofar as

it

reifies a particular stage in the

and subordinates social of that stage.

Thus

reality to the

the Idea

society of the philosopher

development

of the Idea

supposedly universal rationality

was used

to justify the status

who produced

quo

of the

the System. Nevertheless,

Rappoport emphasized, with the dialectic Hegel introduced a "rev-

24.

This

IS

Intellectuals

Mark

one of the major themes

(New York,

of

David Caute,

Communism and

the French

1964).

Marxism

in Post-War France (Princeton, N.J., 1975), one that is compatible with existentialism. Compare with Jay, Marxism and Totality, 276-299. 26. Indeed, Jay's Marxism and Totality shows that the relation between Marx and Hegel has been an issue for Western Marxism across Europe at least since Georg Lukacs's History and Class Consciousness was published in 1923. 25.

Poster, Existential

42. For Poster, a "real reading" is

13

Introduction

olutionary principle of change and transformation" into philosophy, a principal that,

when wed

to materialism

by Marx, has progressive

implications for social change. Hegel introduced the idea of move-

ment

in the Logic,

and

this notion

was the foundation

of a scientific

socialism that would put the social world into movement."^ Marx, the reader

is

told,

subordinated the idea of any status quo to the

exigencies of social reality

itself. If

tually

becoming

demands were in contrawould have to change, even-

these

diction with the status quo, then society

a fully developed, socialist reality.

A

second noteworthy connection was made between Hegel and Marx during the interwar period by means of the concept of alienation.

The publication of some of the 1844 manuscripts in 1933 and 1937 seemed to clarify the importance of the idea of alienation in Marx's thinking. The scientificity of the dialectical materialism of Capital was undercut by the straightforwardly humanist concerns of these early texts. (It was the discovery of Hegel's early texts that had allowed Wahl to highlight alienation in his Le malheur de la conscience, and in Marx, too, the alienation discussed in early work seemed to make the thinker more "concrete" and historical even "relevant.") Marxist commentators emphasized that Marx's idea of alienation was even more historical or less spiritual, less abstract than Hegel's. The emphasis was their way of, so to speak, keeping John the Baptist from becoming more important than Jesus.

—

—

—

Rather than divide neatly along political

some

lines, or

even along a

major readings of Hegel underlined particular aspects of his project to show their importance for contemporary concerns. As with most readers of Hegel (and Marx) theological versus secular axis,

of the

during this period, Wahl, the surrealists, and the Marxists saw the early texts as representing the good Hegel,

whereas they viewed with

suspicion or condemnation his mature work, which was less easily applied to the concerns of the 1930s. Koyre was the exception in this regard, not because

because he

he denied the importance of the early works, but

— in good Hegelian fashion — attempted to integrate them

with the philosopher's project as

a

whole. This

is

not to say that

Koyre's reading was less "presentistic" than that of other tators.

27. (iT,;

commen-

Alexandre Kojeve would bring out the contemporary thrust of

Charles Rappaport, "La mcthodc marxistc," Revue marxiste i (1929), no. ^i7-'524; no. s, ss^-S^i; quotation from l^(^. 2, is4-iivre as an

we can

assess

example

of a

how

helpful

it

is

to think of Foucault's

French Nietzscheanism and

how

that

oeuvre refigures the connection between history and knowing. In the

Royaumont Colloquium

of the

summer

of

1964 Foucault

delivered a lecture on Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud. In this talk he

examines what he elsewhere calls a new episteme, a new way of knowing and thinking about the world. This way is the path of interpretation. Of course, interpretation existed well before the nineteenth century, but then it aimed at the discovery of resemblances. In the nineteenth century, and in particular in the work of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, there arises again "the possibility of a hermeneutic."" This possibility is based on an awareness of the reflexivity of interpretation and an increased attention to the meanings of the surface of signs (their interconnections) rather

than a probe into their depths

(their references). It is

particularly the reflexivity of interpretation

32.

Foucault, "Lc rctour dc

33.

Foucault, "Nietzsche,

185.

202

la

— the idea that an

morale," Les nouveUt's, 28 June-s July 1984, p. 40. et Freud," in Cahiers de Royaumont (Paris, 1967),

Marx

Styles of Dclcgitimation

interpretation can best be understood by turning interpretive strate-

—

back on the interpretation itself which leads Foucault to the Second major characteristic of nineteenth-century hermencutics: "Interpretation finally became an infinite task."^' For these thinkers,

gies

the task

infinite

is

because no secure origin or goal acts as a standard

meanings.

for judging

Foucault notes that for Nietzsche, there

As

is

no

meanmg. more funMeaning comes

origin of

interpretation tries to get beneath signs to something

damental,

discovers only

it

more

interpretations.

through the imposition of interpretations.^'^ Signs, then, are not prior to interpretations; instead, signs are

interpretations:

always already the product of

"Beginning in the 19th century, beginning from ,

Freud, Marx and Nietzsche, it seems to me that the sign is going to become malevolent; I mean that there is in the sign an ambiguous and even suspect means of willing evil, and of 'malveiller.' That is insofar as the sign is already an interpretation which does not present itself as such. Signs are interpretations which try to justify themselves,

and not the

meaning

a secure

mysterious

Marx

—

also.

inverse."""^ In a

world without beginnings, without

to search out, the goal of interpretation

Interpretation for Nietzsche

—as

always incomplete, and a total hermeneutic

is

"experience de la folie" than lectical thinking

becomes

Freud and

for

is

closer to

to "absolute knowledge. "^^ Dia-

it is

had erred in trying

to attribute positive

meaning and

direction to the play of meaning. ^^ In contrast to this appropriation

something more secure, and in contrast to the and thus a possible systematization of their relationships— Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud leave us with an hermeneutique qui s'enveloppe sur elle-meme, of interpretation for

semiologist's faith in the existence absolue des signes

—

34. Ibid., 187. 35.

Ibid., 190.

36.

Ibid., 191.

37.

de la

188-189. In 1964 Foucault

Ibid.,

folie.

still

held fast to the notion of a pure experience

For a critical appraisal, see Jacques Dcrrida, "Cogito et histoire de

la folie,"

in L'ecriture et la difference (Paris, 1967), coll. "Points," 51-97- Derrida's critique

originally

made

on madness, see Pierre Macherey, "Aux sources de VHistoire de la folie: 471-472 (1986), 753-774. Nietzsche, Marx et Freud, 191. See also Foucault's resistance to adding Flegel

early views

Une 38.

was

in a lecture given in 1963. For a historical treatment of Foucault's

rectification et ses limites," in Critique 42, nos.

to the trilogy in the discussion following the article, p. 194.

203

Afterword

an endless interpretation without foundation and without

goal. For

Foucault, this legacy defines the current period and, of course, his

own

interpretation of

The problem .

tations,

is;

I

it:

of the plurality of interpretations, of the

believe,

made

war

of interpre-

by the very definition

strictly possible

of the

which goes on to infinity, without there being an absolute point beginning from which it is judged and is decided upon. Thus, the interpretation,

following: the fact that

moment where we

we

are destined to be interpreted at the very

must know it. This plethora which profoundly characterizes

interpret; all interpreters

of interpretations is certainly a trait

Western culture now.'""

Seven years

after the lecture at

Royaumont, Foucault returned

to

Nietzsche in an essay that defined his historical practice for the rest of his life. In "Nietzsche, la genealogie, I'histoire," Foucault showed what was at stake in adopting a Nietzschean perspective, if not method, on the past instead of either the traditional historiographical or the "metaphysical" mode of comprehending historical change. Foucault begins his description of genealogy where his previous

discussion of interpretation

left off.

Genealogy

the minutiae of history, not of great deeds.

and

It

is

an examination of

rejects the

"metahis-

deployment and instead concentrates on the play of interpretations, o^ primal disparity and not bedrock essence."*" In fact, Foucault tries to steer genealogy between two dangerous points: Fiegelian philosophy of history and conventional historiography. The Hegelian philosophy of history "metaphysics" in Foucault's essay looks for an essence beneath historical events. Rather than of ideal significance

torical

of indefinite ideologies"

—

—

seek out the meaning that links

all

events in a coherent whole, the

genealogist recognizes irremediable diversity and discontinuity. Ge-

nealogy thus depends on a notion of hermeneutics, because

it

supposes, the primacy of interpretation over the sign. That

is,

genealogist expects that the past will contain only tions,

more

pre-

the

interpreta-

and he or she does not seek out a basic truth or essence to serve w^re the

as a standard of transhistorical judgment: "If interpretation

39.

Ibid.,

195-196.

(Paris, 1971), 146.

204

—

^

40. Foucault, "Nietzsche, genealogie et I'histoire," in

Hommage

a Jean Hyppolite

Styles of Dclcgitimation

bringing slowly to light of meaning buried in the origin, then only

metaphysies eould intepret pretation

is

the

violent"^

the^

becoming

of

humanity. But

if

inter-

or surreptitious appropriation of a system of

no essential meaning) in order to impose a bend it to a new will, to force its participation in a different game, and to subject it to secondary rules, then the devel-, opment of humanity is a series of interpretations."'" Whereas the metaphysical (Hegelian) historian searches for a sens de I'histoire, the Nietzschean genealogist makes use of a sens historique. The division between these two terms is the chasm that for Foucault separates traditional historiography or philosophy and his own work. The search for a sens de I'histoire has been animated by a desire to give meaning and direction to the present by finding its development in the past. In a crucial sense this practice is always one of rules (which in itself has

direction, to

legitimation.

To know

contemporary "progressive."

the direction of history

is

;cl on, 1,2, 39, 40; and Marx, 34 personal authenticity freedom, 46 Sartre vs.

vs. collective

communists

on, sH

struggle for recognition

in,

Weil on, 166; withdrawal

lo^-ios

of individ-

176 Individual and culture (Hyppolitc/ Heual, 167, 172,

gel ), 36

Individual and state, SS-S6, 68-69, 75 Individual and Universal, 39, 43, 4s, si Individualism, in existentialism, 48, S9 Intellectual(s)

Kojeve denounces, 106, 107,

1

30-1 31,

135

Nietzsche on, 192

158, 180, 184, i8s Interpretation(s) (Foucault /Nietzsche),

202-206, 209 Introduction a la lecture de Hegel (Kojeve, ed. Queneau), 84n, 94-124 Isolation, 152-153, 156, 158. See also Alienation; Separation, as necessary lameson, Frederic, 74, 75, 75n, 1830, 186 Jaspers, Karl, 30, 85

lesus of Nazareth, 25

Judaeo-Christian tradition, aid problem of suffering, 25

Judging action criteria for. See Criteria for judging Kojeve and, 113, 120-121 Marxist view of history and, 52, 54, 5 5

Judging consciousness, dialectic of (Hyppolite/Hegel), 40-41

88-93 Esquisse d'une phenomenoloi^ic du droit, 109-110, I 34 Essai d'une histoire raisonne de la philosophie paienne, 1 37- 1 38 and Heidegger, 85, 89-92, 97n, 102103, 108, io8n,

Kant,

1

17

and Hyppolite, contrasted, 102, io2n, 105 irony in, 141, 144, 145, 173, 180, 190 and Koyre, contrasted, 8, 96-97, 119 and Marx, 89, 89n, 93, 97n, 102-103, 117-1 18

and Nietzschcanism, 223 reviews of Queneau and Sagan, 135 his seminar on Phenomenology 124, 134; Merleau-Ponty and, 47, 96; participants (lists), 225-227;

Weil and, 151 on Soloviev, 85-88, 91, 108 Strauss and, 126-134 and Weil, contrasted, 152, 154, 156, 162, 163, i63n, 169, 174, 177-178, 180, i8on, 181, 183

See also under Criteria for judging; Definitive reality; Desire(s); End of history; EndstatC; Equality; Finitude, human; Freedom; God; Historicism; Intellectual(s); Master/ slave dialectic; Posthistorical condition; Recognition, desire and struggle for; Relativism; Risk and desire for recognition; Satisfaction of desire; Self-consciousness; Violence: necessity of Koyre, Alexandre, 2, 5-7 and Hegelianism, 5-6; on early Hegel works, 14-15 and Heidegger, 9 Hyppolite and, 8 Kojeve and, 8, 95, 96-97, 119

and Wahl, 88,

monism, 90-91, 97n

(1933-1939), 48n, 84, 84n, 94-96,

universal vs. specific (Foucault), 211212, 213-214 Interest in history (Weil), 151-154, 157,

Kandinsky, Vasily,

vs.

early writings, 84-89; short reviews,

8,

9

92n

Immanuel

Hyppolite/Hegel and, 73 Kojeve and, 123, 127, 137, i38n on philosophy and science, 3 on violence, i5 5n Weil and, 150, i55n, 176, 180, 181182, 190 Kierkegaard, Soren Aabye, 3

Lacan, Jacques, 96, 112

Language Foucault on limitation(s)

of,

209

Hegel's: Hyppolite and, 46; Kojeve and, 89, 96-97 Heidegger on, 61-62, 64, 77

Hyppolite and, 46, 66-67, 73, 79-8o;

257

1

6

Index Language (conf.) as connection between

logic

and

existence, 72 Weil and, 151, 152, 172 Lenin, Nikolai, 24

Hegel), ss-56 and violence vs. nonviolence (Merleau-Ponty), 51-52

Logic (Hegel) Breton and, 1 Hyppolite on, 69-70, 71, 72-73

Koyre and, Lenin and,

24,

movement

(concept) in, 14

6

i2on

and Phenomenology, 56-57, 58-59, 69-70, 189

58-59

Wahl

and, 3 Logic of history

individual in, as issue in postwar France, 59 Merleau-Ponty on, 52, 53-54, 57, 122 Longing for reconciliation or salvation

Hyppolite/Hegel on, 44

Wahl

on,

2,

4

See also Certainty and

its loss (Weil):

nostalgia for certainty Loss, problem of, 25, 45. See also Certainty and its loss (Weil) Love, 25, 1 1 5-1 1

Lukacs, Georg, i2i-i22n History and Class Consciousness,

Madness (Foucault), 203nn, 208 Man-God, concept of, 86, 87, 115 Marx, Karl Foucault on, 202, 203 in French translations, 13 and Hegel; French perception of, 13, 14, i2on; Hyppolite on, 34-35; Merleau-Ponty on, 54n Kojeve and, 89, 89n, 93, 97n, 102of),

34-35

Marxism and history (Merleau-Ponty), 50-54 Kojeve and, 93, 102-103, 105, 116, I i9-i2on, 1 21-122 Marxism and Marxists, French and alienation, 39 and events of 1968, 21 in

258

10,

12-

prominence

of (postwar),

33-34

Master/slave dialectic basic dynamic of, 100- loi Bloody Battle stage, 102, 103-109 Deleuze/Nietzsche on, 196 dilemma of master, loo-ioi, 108,

109-110 Kojeve's treatment, 85, 99-119, 215 Reign of the Master stage, 102, 109115 Triumph of the Slave stage, 102,

115-119 Weil and, 162 Meaning and direction in history Cassirer on, i54n Deleuze/Nietzsche on, 200 diminished attention to (1950s1970s), 175, 183 Foucault on, 215 Hegelian negation and, 197 importance of problem (postwar France), 46

necessity of forgiveness for belief

in,

43 as suprahistorical (Merleau-Ponty), 56

Weil on, 149, 151-155, 158, 159, 163, 168, 169, 170, 180, 181, 182-183, 185; in society, 167

See also Sens

Meaning

121

Kojeve and, 93 and Merleau-Ponty, 5i-52n Lyotard, fean-Frangois, 189

103, 108, io8n, 1 17 on suffering (necessity

2,

189 Hyppolite and, 29-30, 33-35 Kojeve and, ii9-i2on 14,

Liberalism and liberals and totalitarianism (Hyppolite/

Sartre and,

and existentialism, 189 and Hegelianism (French),

vs.

function, x

Mediation, divine, historical

4, 6.

See also Supra-

dimension

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 9, 29 and Foucault, 54-55 and Hegelianism, 47-48 and Heidegger, 64 Humanisme et terreur, 47, 48-55, 56, 57, 64, 76, 122, 205 and Hyppolite, 48 and Kojeve's Hegel seminar, 47, 96 on logic of history, 52, 53-54, 57 political stance of, 48,

48n

Monism, anthropocentric

(Kojeve), 90 Moral individual vs. hero, 40-4 1; Heidegger and, 6465; Hyppolite and, 73-74,- MerleauPonty on, 49 views history (Weil), 177, 181, 182 Mysticism

Hegel and, 42n; Hyppolite on, 43, 66 Kojeve and, 84, 86 Soloviev and, 86, 88

7

Index Narrativc(s), historical (Weil), is4, 184-

i8s

Natural 97 n Natural

v.s.

historical (Kojcvc/Hcj;cl),

vs. human (Kojcvc/Hcgcl), Strauss on, 126-127

Nature and history (Strauss on Kojeve/Hcgel), 126-127 -Hobbes on, 10^ mastery over: Kojeve on, 116-117, 128; Weil on, 166, 167, 169 ontological bases for (Heidegger, Ko-

90 philosophers and (Strauss), 132 Sartre on {vs. action), 59 Schelling vs. Hegel on, 21 sens de I'histoire as successor to (Foucault), 206 Nazis (National Socialists) and Nazism communists (French) and, 29-30, 5 jeve),

as

enemy

of progress, 122

French and, 5 3 Weil and, i64n Need, triumph over (Weil), 178 Negation, capacity for, 117, 198 Negativity

Deleuze/Nietzsche on, 197, 199, 200, 214 Foucault /Nietzsche and, 220 Hyppolite/ Hegel on: and freedom, 28, 4S; as history, 26, 73

"problem of" (Hegel), 2s Neo-Kantian philosophy, French affected by Hegelianism (1930s), 1-2, 9,

intellectuals, 192; tion(s),

19,

189

dominates French philosophy (1920s), 8-9 Heidegger's impact on, 60 and history (Hyppolite), 26 Sartre and Merleau-Ponty on, 9 Weil and, 149, 150, 154 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 183, 190-208 as authority in France,

xii,

191, 19 in,

221 Deleuze's interpretation, 186, 192201, 222; critiques of, i93nn; and Foucault's interpretation, con-

219-220; on genealogy, i96n; vs. Hegel, 192194; on pluralism, 195-196 Foucault's interpretation, 193-194, 202-208, 214-215, 218-219; and Deleuze's reading, contrasted [See above under Deleuze's interpretation); on genealogy, 204-207; on trasted, 192, 194, 202,

on interpreta-

202-204

French Hegelianism and, 221-223 and Heidegger, 190; Foucault on, 202 Kojeve and, 29n Nihilism Deleuze/Nietzsche and, 197, 200, 1

201 dialectical thinking

and (Deleuze),

196 history as protection from, 195 Kojeve and, i 35

Merleau-Ponty and, 5 3 Weil and, 176-177, iKi, 185 1968 protests, in France, 211, 21 in Nizan, Paul: Chiens de gardes, Les, 107 Nonviolence. See Violence Nouveaux philosophes, 186

Pan-logicism, 26, 37 Pan-tragedism, 35, 37, 39, 72 Parmenides, 137 Parti

commumste

Communism

frangais (PCF). See

and communists,

French Past finding

meaning and direction in: Deleuze/Hegel on, 200; Foucault/ Nietzsche on, 205-206; Weil on, 1 51-154. See also Meaning and di-

rection in history history as means of perceiving sens in, 22-23, 195 Hyppolite /Hegel and Jaspers on, 30 interest in, reasons for (Weil), 151-

152,

157-158

interpretation of (Foucault/ Nietzsche), 202-204, 206 and reconciliation (Hegel), 30 transcended, in confession and forgiveness, 41 Phenomenology (Hegel) Hyppolite and, 19-20, 26, 35-37, 4045, 69-70, 99 Kojeve and, 84, 90, 94-96, 99; Heidegger and, 108 and Logic, 56-57, 58-59, 69-70, 189

58-59 37n Weil on, 152; and his Logique, i58n Phenomenology, German, 9, 60, 85, 89 Sartre and,

Wahl

and,

3,

Philosopher(s) as "best of men" (Strauss), i28n Kojeve's schema of, 137, i37-i38n

and

politics:

Strauss on,

Kojeve on, 129-13 1; 1

31-132

259

1

Index Kafka on, 125 Kojeve /Soloviev on, 87, 92 and self-consciousness (Kojeve),

Philosopher(s) {cont.) and violence (Weil), 156-157 Philosopher's task Hegel on, 22, 168

Heidegger on, 60-61 Hyppolite on, 80 Kojeve on, 83, 93, 129-131 neo-Kantians on, 26-27 Strauss on, 131- 132 Weil on, 149, 159, 168, 175 Plato, 137, i38n Pluralism (Deleuze/Nietzsche), 195196 Political action

detachment from, 107, 130-131, 167, 172, 176-177 Foucault on: and change, 216; shared tradition and participation in, 212 Heidegger abstains from, 60 philosophers and: Kojeve on, 129131; Strauss on, 1 31-132 philosophy of history as legitimation of, 24-25, 48, 64 revolutionary. See Revolutionary political action violent. See Violence Weil's philosophy of, 165-176 See also Power, political

Pompanazzi, Pietro, 149 Poster, Mark, 13, 59, 94

Postmodernism, 144-145, 183 x, xii, 79, 186 Power, political Foucault on: its effect on individual

Poststructuralism,

Habermas on, 219; and impossibility of community, subjects, 216;

212; and knowledge, 209-210, 211, 213; legitimation of, 205, 209-21O; and truth, 210, 2 ion, 214 philosophy of history as legitimation

24-25

of state vs. individuals', 75

and values, separated (Hyppolite/ Alain), 67

Power, will

to,

198-199, 210

Prison (Foucault), 210 Progress

Deleuze/Nietzsche on, 196-197, 199, 201, 222, 223 as failure (existentialists),

32-33

fascism and Nazism as enemies

of,

122-123 Hyppolite on, 23-24, 39, 44, 55, 77 Hyppolite /Heidegger and, 71, 77

260

Wahl/ Hegel

on, 4-5, 6

Weil and, 169-170; faith in, 182; Kojeve, 174; vs. sens, 150 Progress and history as distinct concepts, 7n

vs.

existentialists and, 32, 33

Heidegger and, 63 Hyppolite /Hegel on, 31-32, 79 Kojeve /Hegel and, 8, 111-112 Nietzsche on, 23 Proletariat, theory of, 51-52, 75 Propaganda, political (Kojeve), 118 Psychoanalytic theory, lo-ii, 33, 77, 1

Purge 7

12 trials 5,

(Moscow,

1930s), 49, 51,

205

Queneau, Raymond, 94-95,

96, 135,

223

Raison impersonelle, 49 Ranke, Leopold von, 206 Rappoport, Charles, 13-14 Reality, definitive (Kojeve), 120-121,

Posthistorical condition (Kojeve), 135, 138-1 39, i63n, 223

of,

143 Strauss on, 131 and values (Hyppolite/Alain), 68

122

Reason "cunning of" (Hegel), 120; Kojeve and, 135; Weil and, 164 development of, as history (Hegeli41-42, 44, 45, 195; and, 52 and progress (Hyppolite /Hegel), 55 and reconciliation (Hegel), 168; Koyre and, 6 ans), 10, 39, 40,

Marxism

Weil on: and competing histories, 152; openness to, 153, 180; satisfaction of, 160-161; and violence, 150, i54n, 155-158 Recherches philosophiques (periodical), 9, 85, 89, 91-92, 1 50-1 5 Recognition, desire and struggle for Deleuze/Nietzsche and, 198 Hyppolite /Hegel on, 38, 39, 58 Kojeve/Hegel on, 97, 99, 107, 113, 134; and class conflict, 103; in master/slave dialectic, 100, loi, 102, 103-105; mutual, 112; philosophers and, 130; in politics, 223; life for, 99; Strauss and, 126, 128; sublimation of, 112, 113,

risking

Index 1 1 6- 1 17; universal, Weil and, 162

117, 126, 128;

Reeonciliation as goal of history (Wahl/ Hegel),

4,

6

Kojeve on, 98; End of history and, 112, 117, 118, 139; and freedom, 112, 113, 8; in master/slave dialectic, 100, IOI-IO2, 109, IIO; Weil and, 77-1 78 1

I

Hegel on: past and, "jO; thmking and, 62n Hyppolite/Hegel on, 26, 27, ^y, 41, 5 5 -

on humanism, 58-59 Satisfaction of desire

Jesus as emblem of, 25 and struggle for recognition (Kojeve),

1

Strauss and, 126, 128, i^i, 178 Satisfaction of Reason (Weil), 160-161,

177 Schelling, Friedrich

Wilhelm Joseph

von, 21, 22, 86, 87

Weil on: and "Absolute," 160; discussion and, 171; and meaning and direction, 168; quest for sens and, I S3; revolt against, 163

Redemption existentialists reject, 31 Hyppolite/Hegel on, 25-26, 28, 29, 39, 40-41, 42, 73 Jesus and, 25 Weil and, 174 Reflection and reflective individual,

91-92, 129-130 Reflexivity of interpretation (Foucault/ Nietzsche), 202-203 of the Master stage of master/ slave dialectic, 102, 109-115

Reign

Relativism Kojeve and, 88; historicism and, 123, i23n, 124, 125, i2sn, 127; Strauss and, 127, 133 Merleau-Ponty and, 49-50, 51, 57

Repression (Foucault), 2i7n Revolutionary political action

communists (French) and, 57 Merleau-Ponty supports, 47, 50-51, 54 as solution to problem of alienation 53,

(Marxists), 39

Revue marxiste

(periodical), 13

Rickert, Heinrich, 88

Risk,

and desire

for recognition (Ko-

jeve), 99, 107,

no, 113

valorization of, 106, 107 Rorty, Richard, 32n, 78, 2o6n

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 31

Royaumont Colloquium

(1964),

202 Russian revolution (French Marxists and), 12-13 Sagan, Fran^oise, 135 Sartre, Jean Paul, i, 9, 29, 46, 191 and Heidegger, 60, 63, 74

Johann Christoph Friedrich von: "Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht," 5 5n, 106, 127 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 133 Science Schiller,

anthropocentric jeve), 90,

monism and

(Ko-

9on 149-

crisis of loss of faith in (Weil),

150 philosophy should follow (Kant), 3

progress in, as concern of philosophers, 9 Self-consciousness Hegel on, 91

Hyppolite on, 73, 129 Kojeve on, 129, 142-144, 145-146; and human desire, 98; in master/ slave dialectic, 102, 105, ii2; Strauss vs., 132 Weil on: history as ascent to, 162; in moral philosophy, 176

Semiotics and semiology Foucault, 203, 204, 2o6n, 211 and Hyppolite and hope, 77-78

22n and change over time, 44

Sens, 22,

de I'histoire

vs. historique (Foucault/ Nietzsche), 205-206, 210-21 1, 222 in Divine, 43, 43n

Kojeve on, 93, 120, 163, 169 in past experience: historicity (Jaspers), 30; history as

and

means

of

perceiving, 22-23, I95; as issue in

postwar France, 47 Weil on quest for, 149, 158, 159, 175, 182; as category of philosophy, 161 destruction of, vs. progress, ;

150; as duty, 183, 185; and exploration of past, 1 51-154; and loss of certainty, 159, 160, 165; opens up history, 168-169, 173; and society's

values, 174; and (the) state, 170, 173-174; and violence, 156, 157,

261

1

Index Sens

critique of historicism, i23n

{cont.)

163, 172-173. See also

and direction

Meaning

in history

Separation, as necessary, 4, 6, 24, 25. See also Alienation; Isolation Sexuality, history of (Foucault), 216-

218

and interpretation (Foucault),

Sign(s),

203, 204 Significance (as major concern), shift to

function/use, as concern, x

Hegelianism and, 190 Hyppolite and, 29, 67, 175 Kojeve and, 85, 140, 142, 175 Weil and, 183

Structuralism ascent of (19505), 175 Foucault and, 208 and Hegelianism, x, xii, 79 and Weil, 186 Struggle contradiction leads to (Hyppolite/He-

Silence, 129, 133 Slave ideology (Kojeve), 113, 11 3n,

gel),

114-

116 Slave /master dialectic. See Master/ slave dialectic Society, 166-168. See also Community;

in master/slave dialectic (Kojeve),

100, loi, 102

philosophy

primacy

of,

of,

107

in political history

for recognition. See Recognition, de-

108

sire

Speaking 213

37

Deleuze/Nietzsche and, 201

(1930s), 24

State(s)

Soloviev, Vladimir, 8s-88, 91, for others (Foucault), 212,

and struggle

for

Subjectivity

and freedom (Sartre), 58-59, 63 Heidegger on, 63, 66; vs. Hegel's con-

Spirit (Hyppolite/Hegel)

and consciousness, 23-24 and moral/historical reconciliation,

cept, 63

Hyppolite/Hegel on,

37, 38, 56

Suffering, necessity of

41

Hyppolite/Hegel and,

and negativity as history, 26 and Reason, 41-42

Kojeve and, 102

Standards for judging. See Criteria for judging State(s)

criticism of (Hegel), 20s Hyppolitc/Hegel on: conflict with, S6; individual and, SS-S6, 68-69, 75; in political redemption, 27,

SSU; recognition derived from, 39; reconciliation with, SS Kojeve/Hegel on: Greek \'.s. socialist, ii6n; replaces Church, 116 resistance to (France, 1968), 21

Weil on, 173-174; his definition, 170; educative function, 170;

tions

rela-

among, is6n

Strauss, Leo, 9s, is8n

Hiero,

129

commentary on Xenophon, On Tyranny [Ko]- (discussion, 171 -172, 17 3; and Reason, ISO, i54n, 155-156, 164; renounces in favor of discourse, 8, 156-158, 157, 163, 172-173; tainty, 172

Totalitarianism Hyppolite/ Hegel and, 56

Trimuph

to,

Vcync, Paul, 213, 2i3n Violence Kant on, ssn

7n, y, 97, 119

Merlcau-Ponty and, Weil and, 169

for, vs.

history as asctnt

i

6211

Time, Hegelian Heidegger and,

1(19

and Hegel, contrasted, 168 Hegel et I'etat, i56n and Hyppolite, contrasted,

a I'his-

102, io2n,

105 and Kojeve, contrasted, 152, 154, 156, 162, 163, i63n, 169, 174, 177-178, 180, i8on, 181, 183 at Kojeve's seminar on Hegel, 151 Koyre's course on Hegel, 95 Logique de la philosophie, 150, i54n, 155-161; and Hegel's Phenomenoat

logy, i58n and Marx, contrasted, 161 his moral philosophy, 165, 176-

186 neo-Kantian perspective of, 150, i55n, 176, 180, 181-182, 190

263

Index Weil, Eric (conf.) Philosophic morale, 150, 165,

176-183 Philosophic politique, 150, 165, 166176 his political philosophy, 165-176; and moral philosophy, 179-180

and Strauss, contrasted, 168-

Wisdom,

desire for (Strauss /Kojeve),

128

Work gel),

37

of

dom, 94n;

free-

of slave, 100, loi, 102,

109, III, 113

History, concept and goal of; Interest in history; Isolation; Meaning and direction of history; Progress;

9on Weil on:

264

(Hegel),

Kojeve on: and death, io2; and

Marx

Reason; Reconciliation; Satisfac-

man"

II in

history; Happiness, reasonable;

Violence

78n, 140, 207n,

Will to power, 198-199, 210 Windelband, Wilhelm, 23

as "essence of

"Valeur et dignite du recit historiographique," 183-186 See also under Certainty and its loss,-

tion of Reason; Sens-, State;

xi,

2i7n

contradiction leads to (Hyppolite/He-

169 his theory of history, 158-164

Community; Discussion; End

White, Hayden,

on, Kojeve's interpretation,

89-

as rejection of coherence, i64n; society values, 167 World War I, 24, 32

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roth, Michael

S.,

1957-

Knowing and

history.

Bibhography:

p.

Includes index. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770History— Philosophy. Hyppolite, Kojeve, 1902—Influence. Alexandre, Jean. Weil, Philosophy, French — 20th century. Title. 1968. 2.

I.

183

1

4.

3.

5.

D16.9.R68

Eric. 6.

1988

ISBN 0-8014-2136-5

I.

87-47870

901 (alk.

paper)