Filósofos en la tormenta

by ROUDINESCO ELISABETH

En `Filósofos en la tormenta` Élisabeth Roudinesco rinde un singular homenaje a seis filósofos franceses del siglo XX: Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze y Derrida. Pero este homenaje es también una reivindicación de la filosofía como práctica crítica y de una filosofía en particular: aquella que ejerció la "c rítica de la norma". El recorrido configura a la vez el diseño de una "generación", la de estos "autores que se caracterizan por haber cuestionado la naturaleza del sujeto y por haber develado lo que se esconde detrás del uso de esa palabra". Distintos entre ellos pero con el común denominador de haber atravesado los acontecimientos políticos y sociales más importantes del siglo pasado que imprimieron, tanto en sus obras como en sus vidas, un sello particular. Todos dedicaron sus obras a reflexionar por distintos caminos, sobre la manipulación del cuerpo y del pensamiento en relación con la política y la construcción oficial. Los seis, al negarse a ser los sirvientes de una normalización del hombre, pagaron el precio de una travesía en la tormenta. En este sentido, Élisabeth Roudinesco afirma: "Lejos de conmemorar antiguas glorias o de apegarme con nostalgia a una simple relectura de sus obras, he intentado mostrar -haciendo trabajar el pensamiento de unos a través del pensamiento de los otros, y privilegiando algunos momentos fulgurantes de la vida intelectual francesa de la segunda mitad del siglo XX- que sólo la aceptación crítica de una herencia permite pensar por sí mismo e inventar un pensamiento para el futuro, un pensamiento para tiempos mejores, un pensamiento de la insumisión, necesariamente infiel". Con un registro enriquecido por el intercambio de la autora con los filósofos, como alumna, como interlocutora, tanto la dimensión de las obras y sus proyecciones como la de los hombres, cobran un relieve vivo.

Genres: Philosophy, History, France, Theory

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[John Reis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir/biography was written in 2005.. Roudinesco knew the six thinkers she discusses: Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze and Derrida. She is focused on their various complaints with Freud. Canguilhem worked as a doctor while in the Resistance.

Canguilhem took a PhD in philosophy. He began to study medicine while a teacher. He served in the Resistance and also as a doctor. His focus was philosophy of science. He wrote a book called The Normal and the Pathological, in which he argued that they lay in a continuum. Their differences being only quantitative. “Pathological phenomena are identical to normal phenomena, except for quantitative variations. He vehemently disagreed with behaviorism. He disliked the connection of the life of the mind with biology. Though he disagreed with Bergson’s vitalism.

Sartre purportedly was in the Resistance but was little affected by the War. Althusser was a POW from the beginning. Althusser killed his wife in 1980 but was not tried due to mental illness or temporary insanity. Derrida wrote a book of eulogies to some of these thinkers.

Must writers and thinkers only come from the pool of people who have suffered in life? Or only those who have psychological issues? Why is it the troubled people write? It does seem that in the past people who have had very few troubles have written. It just seems that they are silent now.

Freud runs through this book. He is an idea that the various thinkers Roudinesco mentions deal with. Kirkpatrick says that Freud is a methodology in his recent book. But no one here really wrestles with Freud‘s theory or his evidence such as it is. They merely wrestle with the idea of Freud. Or perhaps it is Roudinesco.

[Gotter · Rating 1 out of 5]

Total trash. How can I take French philosophy seriously when this preposterous, comical romance is offered up as its "defense"? The outdated, Victorian pseudoscience known as Freudianism poisoned French philosophy for nearly a century. That is nothing to celebrate, and its continued perpetuation is insufferable.

[Joe Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bastante bueno y comprensible.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got excited shivers reading the introduction, too bad the rest of the book didn't follow course. Biographical snippets that are more nostalgia than a look at the philosophies of the thinkers therein.