Once upon a time, a poor Swabian child was born in a little village east of the Black Forest. By the sheer force of his intellect and the tenacity of his own efforts, he became world-famous and conquered the intelligentsia of the “hereditary enemy,” France. How was Heidegger able to occupy, for more than half a century, the privileged position of being a fashionable philosopher, a maître à penser in the intellectual and cultural capital of Paris? Some Americans have posed the question more bluntly: how could minds as acute and intelligent as those of the great French intellectuals, from Sartre to Lacan, have become ensnared in the jargonistic traps of a Swabian peasant, who might have been clever, but who was ultimately a Nazi? They even made him into a French philosopher, by claiming that he was for fifty years the maître à penser of all of French philosophy (which, incidentally, would have been completely mistaken).1
This French “Heideggerianism” has been puzzling for some time in America, but especially in Germany. As early as 1946, Karl Löwith had this to say on the subject: “The fact that Heidegger found during the last war a wide audience among French intellectuals, in contrast to the situation in Germany at that time, is a symptom that merits renewed attention.”2 Is it yet again another almost incomprehensible coquetry on the part of those French? An indulgence? A fancy? An aberration? After all, the German expression, Wie Gott im Frankreich, designates a happiness overflowing with abundance, life in a land of plenty, with all of its supposed and desired delights and follies.3 Not only do the French have the best wines and the finest cheeses, but they also decided that they can understand German philosophers—Nietzsche and Heidegger in particular—better than the Germans themselves. And they produced an unexpected and quite sophisticated French Nietzsche and Gallic Heidegger, who in many respects were more appealing and piquant than the originals. A major newspaper in Germany devoted an entire—and quite sarcastic—page to the “German philosopher’s new adventures in France.”4 Those French!
Heidegger himself did not miss the opportunity to exploit his French connection in the last part of his life. Finding that he was no longer a prophet in his own country after the war, he received something like a consolation prize with the French. But what a prize! It was in no way restricted to a handful of the faithful around Jean Beaufret. In this affair, an even more surprising fact was that Heidegger’s “influence” in France over the course of more than half a century constituted a multi-faceted intellectual adventure that was far from being a passive reception. It was rather a continual creation, a veritable dazzling display whose sparks extended well beyond the sphere of strictly academic philosophy. There really seems to have been a “French Heidegger.”5 What a contrast with Heidegger’s reception in his own country! Whether hostile or favorable, that reception remained mostly confined to academic commentary, even in the cases of Jürgen Habermas and Karl Löwith, with the notable exception of Adorno, whose polemical text, The Jargon of Authenticity,6 did not hold the public’s attention for long. Gadamer was a sort of privileged witness and almost an arbiter of these German debates, without anyone ever knowing which side he favored.7 Whereas in France Heidegger was the object of considerable intellectual debate, certainly with some misfiring or some duds, while serving as a catalyst for linguistic and conceptual inventions and opening new domains of research, by contrast, in Germany, the “Heidegger effect” fell flat, or nearly so: the Heidegger case was only the occasion, a particularly troublesome one, for an examination of the “German guilt.” This settling of accounts was too serious and too personal to be conducive to creative thinking (not to mention the sort of intellectual playfulness found in Lacan, which was unthinkable in Germany).
Heidegger in France: would that be the best as well as the worst? Perhaps, but it would be perilous to speak as a judge here, when the first and foremost concern is to write a history of the French reception of Heidegger’s thought—a project whose value nobody denies.8 But on what conditions? First, of course, on the condition of avoiding any nationalistic pride, or its opposite: a systematically bad conscience. That should be especially easy since the word “France” designates not only a geographical entity or a national community, but also and more importantly a cultural and spiritual home expanded to include French-speaking philosophers (as well as foreign interpretations whose translations would come to enrich the debate within France). Above all, the historian must first narrate and analyze: analyze in order to narrate advisedly, narrate in order to analyze impartially, support one’s analyses through the narrative—and inversely. While remaining a philosopher (as one must in order to be able to confront the difficulties of the project, both terminological and conceptual), I shall undertake first to be a historian, true to the Greek sense of historia: an inquiry that enables one to understand events. The effort at impartiality, however, will not rule out criticism. The reader would be rightfully disappointed if I limited myself to reviewing the various stages of an exceptional “reception,” merely recording its various elements (to the extent that it would even be possible to limit oneself to such an impartial account): should one not set aside what is judged unimportant and at least lay the ground for a philosophical assessment of what is essential?
From the outset, Heidegger’s name had hardly crossed the Rhine when translations and interpretations were already being put forward. It was indispensable for this study, after having introduced and presented them, to assess their philosophical scope and limits. The author, therefore, will assume the inevitable (and salutary) risks that such an undertaking entails.
Is our task, then, to give a mere digest of the history of a fad? This is a question that is partially justified, but only partially. It is clear that Heidegger’s thinking came into the intellectual foreground in France at different times and that the inventiveness of that reception would not have been as intense (and perhaps would not even have existed) without the interest of a vast audience. How could the most difficult and austere philosophy have received such an exceptionally favorable reception? Even if one takes into account the temporary eclipses or the virulent reactions that attempted to get in its way, this fascination with Heidegger does not fail to surprise or trouble the vast majority of interpreters and historians of ideas. More generally: how could it be, is it even acceptable, that matters as serious as philosophical reflection and the most intimate movement of thoughts (which are going to orient action, ethics, politics, and so forth) are subject to external, sudden and superficial influences, or to circumstantial positions imitations? In philosophy, as elsewhere, “fame is in the end only the sum total of all misunderstandings gathered around a new name.” In spite of himself, Heidegger assumed Rilke’s disillusioned assessment for himself.9
The historian that I intend to remain will not censor these misunderstandings, but rather put them in context so that they may be better understood. The moralist is free to take offense, to condemn or condone. The fact is that the history of ideas is just as impure as history tout court: on the one hand, it is a matter of a purely intellectual analysis; on the other hand, it includes all-too-human passions, the most contradictory and violent “mass movement.” Intellectual or philosophical history is no less subject to contingencies, arbitrariness, and absurdity than political or diplomatic history. Certainly, the work of the historian consists in bringing interpretive structures to light in the confused mass of traces and documents. But let the historian beware of trying to impose too much order based upon one’s preferences or political or ideological orientation!
These preliminary reflections on the real difficulties of the undertaking might be discouraging. It is certain that when faced with the complexity of the “Heidegger effect” in France, considering him or herself incompetent to capture the most speculative subtleties, the historian will pass the ball to the philosopher, who will no doubt be tempted in turn to avoid overly scrutinizing such a welter, which will judged to be unrefined, journalistic, or anecdotal. Without claiming to find a definitive or indisputable balance in an inquiry that demands varied, contrasted, and even opposed perspectives, I have decided to itemize all these difficulties in order to arrive at a method sui generis, by weaving together—thanks to the thread of the narration that constitutes this first part—a text fitted to the specificities, singularities, and even the aberrations of the strange story of the eventful reception of an exceptionally difficult thought.
It is true that Heidegger was at the center of French intellectual life, but not continuously and not in the same way over the course of seventy years: before the war, after Liberation, up to “the Farias affair,” and beyond. There was not a continuous expansion of his influence; rather, there were ruptures, upheavals, reversals, and strange delays, too: for example, it took nearly sixty years for two complete translations of Being and Time to finally appear in French!
“What is surprising in the reception of Heidegger in France is its slowness as much as its constancy and intensity,” noted the greatly missed Jean-Michel Palmier.10 Here, I will tell the tale of this unusual history—cryptic (like a mystery novel), at times dramatic (like a love story or a soap opera)—and I will tell it in its highs and lows, at its inspired peaks as well as its polemical episodes or extra-philosophical agendas. I will also endeavor to punctuate the narration with critical analyses. My aim is not only to raise the level of the debate or to restore it to its proper level, which would already be justified since the body of thought in question is so complex and demanding. Not to pursue the investigation all the way to the foundations and choices of that thought would be to condemn oneself to merely following or recording superficial effects. Is it impossible to trace these back to their presuppositions? One must at least try to address all issues throughout the many philosophical and ideological conflicts that I will analyze, in their clashes and in their truces.
This will be an interpretive text, then: no more, no less; and, in order to give it substance, to render it as interesting and as exhaustive as possible, instructive, and (why not?) useful, it is plainly necessary to be respectful of facts, dates, texts—and to meet the demands proper to the genre, by inscribing oneself within the lineage of the “histories of reception.” On this path, with regard to Heidegger, this work will be pioneering, at least in the French-speaking world (whereas, with regard to Nietzsche, for example, the reception of his ideas and texts has already been the subject of significant work).11
These two giants, Nietzsche and Heidegger, however different they may be in other respects, share a common trait: they both were the subject of receptions in France so exceptional that they became, in a sense, “French philosophers.” This recognition is more surprising in the case of Heidegger than Nietzsche: Nietzsche did not hesitate to rail against Prussian heaviness or German bad taste by contrasting them with the wit and style of the French. Heidegger, in contrast—and he has been rather harshly criticized for this—based his meditative power on the German-ness of his language, which he privileged along with Greek; he associated the tasks of essential thought with an approach that rejected universalism. Whereas Nietzsche, inspired by our French moralists and novelists, courted the support of the most distinguished French minds (to receive a letter from Taine filled him with an immense joy), Heidegger at first did little, in the early part of his career, to cultivate such connections. On the contrary, his indisputably nationalistic engagement in 1933, his attacks on Cartesianism, and the relative dearth of significant references to the great French authors (aside from the most classical, Descartes and Pascal, in Being and Time) did not seem destined to strike a chord in France. One should also point out that the French enthusiasm for Heidegger ran counter more than once to the prevailing cultural and political climate: before the war, when anti-German feelings were prevalent (even among intellectuals), one would think that Heidegger would have found his first admirers among those on the extreme right who had been seduced by Italian fascism, and then by Hitler. This was not at all the case, as his first admirers were on the contrary the great liberal intellectuals, who were mostly Jewish. After the war, the collapse of Nazism ought to logically have alienated the French intelligentsia from German thought in general and from Heidegger in particular. Again, this was not at all what happened; one had to wait for the publication of Farias’ book in 1987 for a realignment to occur, one that nonetheless did not associate “Heideggerianism” with the extreme right.12 The French reception of Heidegger was thus not exempt from peculiarities (which some might denounce as a kind of intellectual masochism) and it indisputably appears more disconcerting than that of Nietzsche. This paradoxical aspect, which I am not the first to note,13 should not be minimized: instead, our task shall be to contextualize and analyze it.
Heidegger himself was surprised by this reception, but was able to turn it to his advantage, to the point of exploiting this fame among his compatriots to some extent, and appealing in a rather heavy-handed way to the fact that a few French thinkers “rallied” to his conception of the speculative privilege of the German language.14 Thanks to the warm welcome that he gave his numerous French visitors, particularly thanks to his friendship with Jean Beaufret and then with René Char, and thanks to his sojourns in France (undertaken with great pleasure15), it was in the end a “new Heidegger” who came to us and whose good-natured persona prevailed until it clashed in our imaginary with the dark brown shadows evoked by Farias’ book.16 After all, he did not have to respond to Jean Beaufret with a letter as consequential as the “Letter on Humanism.” Already, before the war, unable (or unwilling) to accompany the German delegation to the 1937 Congrès Descartes in Paris, he composed a text in which, as we shall see, he laid the groundwork—in consistently appropriate and not “imperialistic” terms—for a real dialogue between German thought and French thought. These are signs that Heidegger himself—despite his political error and his strongly held “Germanism”—did not in any way isolate himself, like a hermit lost in his meditations, but was able to be extremely attentive to his reception in France. Certainly, if his own willingness to dialogue does not explain everything, it does allow one to better understand how the paradoxical or “unexpected” character of this reception was compensated by “transmissions” and initiatives that pertain as much to “anecdotal history” as to the domain of pure thought.
In fact, the phrase “Heidegger in France” is also to be taken literally, since the Master made several visits to France, including Paris, Cerisy, Aix-en-Provence, and Le Thor—visits all the more remarkable as they were made by the most sedentary philosopher since Kant: Heidegger never left Europe and was not at all inclined to leave Germany or even his Swabian homeland. In contrast with Nietzsche’s visits to Nice, Italy, or Sils-Maria, Heidegger’s visits were hardly the partially touristic, partially health related escapades of a solitary person, but rather trips that were carefully planned and executed as though for a head of state.
I will not overestimate this first dimension, which, while clearly anecdotal, is nonetheless meaningful (to an extent that will have to be specified further). I will not underestimate it either. The history we are following here also plays itself out on more complex levels. Among these, we shall have to constantly address the problems of translation: indeed, “Heidegger in France” also and perhaps above all denotes an impressive collection of texts that at first glance seem nearly unintelligible, with scraps of meaning appearing gradually, which then offer more or less decipherable reference points and suggestions, and finally constitute semantic constellations that become full-fledged philosophical stakes, often reduced to their ideological currency.
The way in which Heidegger has been translated (well or poorly) has never been immaterial. Felicitous, awkward, or even catastrophic, translations always betray something of the choices, intentions, and ulterior motives of their authors. Translators are comparable to those ambassadors of yesteryears who had the power, depending on their skill or lack thereof, to bring about war or peace. They had the privilege of being the author by proxy, and, in this capacity, they channeled, capitalized on, and sometimes usurped something of the author’s spiritual powers (attractive or repulsive, almost taboo), especially when the author found his or her prestige reinforced by his or her mystery. The translator need only say one word, hazard one expression, and immediately minds are ignited, a polemic begins to rage, the Left Bank trembles. This very French hypersensitivity to the nuances of language is probably subsiding or even disappearing because of the media. For centuries, it served as a blockade against strange or foreign [étranges ou étrangers] malapropisms, since French clarity and distinction had become proverbial. Did this blockade give way over the past fifty years under the pressure of the “Heidegger effect”? So it would seem, since the Germanization of French thought has wreaked havoc by rendering a language that had been previously known for its elegance (although other factors also played a role in causing this refinement to disappear . . .) heavy and “technical.” One can easily imagine Fontenelle dying even younger of apoplexy while reading Sartre, or the uproarious laughter of Molière poring over the anagrams and apothegms of Diafoirus Lacan. But there is no need to go so far back, in a kind of surrealist time-travel. Only eleven years separate The Two Sources of Morality and Religion from Being and Nothingness: what happened between 1932 and 1943 such that Bergson’s lucid reserve gave way to Sartre’s dark and implacable rhetoric? War and the reading of Heidegger . . .
The defenders of our beautiful language should not, however, press their lamento too far. I will take a more serene look, although still as critical as possible, at these linguistic disruptions (which, incidentally, are not entirely new17); philosophy was not the only scene of these seismic events, far from it (the Anglo-Saxon invasion rushes through with other, even more powerful, channels); furthermore, a patient and precise observation enables one to realize that things are sorting themselves out gradually: many monstrosities do not survive; they are promptly cast aside into the museum of horrors or curiosities; just as Attila retreated as quickly as he had arrived, certain translators met swift defeat. I will attempt here to give an account of this sensitive question of the translations of Heidegger, a very touchy and even painful issue, without claiming to render a definitive verdict. Translating Heidegger into French was and remains a very ambiguous experience where the French language sacrifices a part of its beauty to what it believes to be profundity, but where inversely it grants the legitimacy drawn from its age-old stature and dignity to audacities that it takes to be typically Germanic. There was between the Master and Jean Beaufret, so concerned with the beauty of language, an acute awareness of these translation questions.
At a more humble but also more objective level, I shall endeavor to do the reader the service of trying to clarify debates that are often forbiddingly technical. Without claiming to resolve all the difficulties, the present work strives to be both pertinent and useful, to be cognizant of the obvious pitfalls, to respect the work done by several waves of translator-interpreters, while formulating its own propositions.
I have thus begun to take into account the abundant difficulties that stem from the richness of a reception fertile with interesting episodes, reversals, misrepresentations, and displacements. Were they a series of misunderstandings? This cannot be ruled out: but it is far too simplistic to settle the issue by claiming that the whole of the French reception was mistaken.18 Even if this were the case, should the historian of ideas really behave like a tutor correcting arithmetic homework? The most interesting part of this history would then be missed and one would forget that philosophical hermeneutics is at least equal to literature when it comes to dramatic developments! Nor should one overlook the positive aspects of the reception of that thought, in particular the renewal of the history of philosophy, an in-depth work taking place apart from passing trends. Furthermore, it is most likely in this domain that Heidegger’s influence will prove most durable and most beneficial. The “final assessment” will come in its due time.
A further difficulty—which, from another perspective, could be considered an advantage—comes from the fact that the author himself was a witness or actor, albeit modestly, in this history. The risk of being both judge and judged in the trial should not be underestimated. Paradoxically, it is this almost insurmountable aporia that provided the opportunity for the clearest choice concerning the method: the decision to separate the main text from the quite personal “epilogues,” relating what the author experienced, thought, believed, or heard, in the first person, and reporting on encounters and exchanges with Heidegger himself, and, of course, with Jean Beaufret and other French philosophers over the course of many years. Are these the occasion for a confession? At the very least it is a testimony, perhaps a catharsis, in any case a clarification that allows one to put one’s cards on the table and to let personal engagements and philosophical stakes illuminate each other. The development of ideas cannot be completely distinguished from human, all-too-human encounters; we shall have more than one opportunity to confirm this.
This personal involvement in the matter obliges us to raise, with complete frankness and transparency, the question of the author’s impartiality, not only with regard to debates in which he was involved, but also because the issues in question remain very much alive, and often controversial. No more than in any macro-historical inquiry can absolute objectivity be achieved here. Is impartiality even possible? On the basis of his own research on texts, documents, and testimonials, the author had to recognize a fact that was not entirely unexpected: any attempt at neutrality in the reading and interpretation of this mass of information would have deprived the enterprise of its edge and almost any relevance it might have had. Respect for the facts and commitment to integrity are not to be confused with the impossible quest for a cosmic or divine vantage point from which to judge matters here below. The author must accept his limits and especially his responsibilities. Any work of reading implies a selection and choices, which are always open to criticism. Let it be perfectly clear that the philosophical history presented here is both a document and a testimonial. As serious as it may be in its intentions and in its execution (this is what I wanted and hoped for), it certainly could not avoid some deficiencies or flaws; above all, it wants to be and knows itself to be exposed to discussion as well as to new critical reconsiderations. This contribution does not intend to conclude debates that have been raging for nearly half a century, but to carry them farther, pass them on, and even renew them.
The chief obstacle remains: how could we combine narrative and analysis to account for this enormous mass of facts, events, and thoughts, in order to untangle the most essential knots, to mark the necessary divisions? A completely synchronic composition, working on the level of general themes, would drain all the life and even interest from this sequence of discoveries and episodes, which constitute a veritable intrigue, that is often fascinating and almost always unpredictable. Conversely, a purely chronological overview would miss the coherence or incoherence of the positions that are under discussion. We have therefore chosen to respect the diachronic order, punctuating it with divisions that will in each case have to be justified. Each main chapter corresponds in principle to a decade; but we have not applied this rule mechanically, which would have led to absurdities.
To begin from the beginning, let us take the exemplary cases that first come to mind: it is entirely natural and necessary to refer to the first French translations of Heidegger and to the pioneers who mentioned his name or offered introductions to his thought; but how does one discriminate? It is generally agreed that the most historically decisive moment was Corbin’s 1938 translation of “What Is Metaphysics?” It seems reasonable to end the chapter devoted to the first receptions of Heidegger’s work with Corbin, for the war and Sartre’s publication of Being and Nothingness in 1943 would begin a new phase: Heidegger would be recognized as the greatest contemporary German philosopher and his main philosophical theses would help crystallize a new philosophical movement, namely, existentialism.
Even though the division of later phases will prove more delicate, I will follow the same principle: to adhere to the course of events pertaining to the reception of our author and unfold its most incontestable philosophical articulations.
Yet this is not the most decisive element in the play of “reception.” Even the word itself can be heard in French both in the abstract sense of a connection between a transmitter and a receiver and in the infinitely richer and more complex sense of receiving a guest into one’s home. The case of Heidegger magnifies this complexity, since, received in France not only as an author through his texts but also in person, he provoked not only various forms of fascination and rejection, but also unforeseeably creative developments. This explains why, in its various mutations, “Heidegger in France” could have taken on specific forms in which the “original” can barely be recognized: it became, in short, a kind of mutant or even a Genetically Modified Organism!19
Whatever the necessity of taking all the aspects of this strange “presence” into account, the main focus of the work will clearly be the texts. As for the critical assessments that will have to be made of the various stages of translations and interpretations, we should not overlook the “horizon of possibilities” out of which these emerged. The works of Gadamer and Jauss20 taught us both to avoid separating a work from the context of its emergence and to reinscribe the readings that appropriate this work back into the living tradition that continues to enrich itself through this appropriation.
Our progression will be linear only in the sense that it will follow the chronological “framework” of events, from the 1930s to the year 200021; it will nonetheless involve some interruptions and retrospective moments; its rhythm will be uneven, depending on the intensity of publications and discussions.
At first, I had not envisioned a second part completely devoted to interviews with the personalities, translators and/or interpreters who have been significant actors or witnesses in the reception of Heideggerian thought in France. It was the development of the work itself that obliged us to call on these witnesses. A living history is a history that continues to unfold. Such is the case of a “reception” that is continually being revived, revealing in the recesses of its own memory facts, aspects and ideas that until then had remained either unapparent or neglected. The aftershocks provoked by the interviews have stimulated the author’s research and critical reflection. It would have been a shame not to share this with the reader. I would like to express my gratitude to the interviewees, who substantially helped enrich the initial project.
With respect to the narrative itself, the balance was intentionally broken in Chapter 12, because it became apparent that the linear progress had to give the last word to a philosophical meditation, even if any “final assessment” proves elusive in the complex field of the reception of a great thought.
One more word on the problem of impartiality. Though it is plainly necessary to distinguish it from an impossible notion of objectivity in the domain in which we are engaged (the understanding of intellectual and cultural events that are infinitely more complex than the most complex quantum events!), duty demands that we do all we can to avoid making this work narrow and partisan. This, moreover, would provide very little interest. Nonetheless, one must acknowledge that the task is not an easy one: in addition to the brilliant intellectual performances and the various achievements in writing and thought, the history we have to write has also involved some personal rivalries and polemics that were often cruel and no doubt petty. When a light skiff sets out on such tumultuous waters, can it avoid capsizing? Good intentions are never enough. Even if the author were to profess his good faith and desire for impartiality a thousand times, he could not satisfy everyone on every point. Readers will judge for themselves. Let us therefore make a pact: do not put the effort of your humble servant to maintain critical distance into doubt, but do not grant him either any particular indulgence owing to the difficulty of the undertaking. I know that the impartiality I seek is difficult to maintain, despite all the precautions that have been taken to be respectful to persons when there have been clear theoretical disagreements.
If I only manage to shed a little more light on this history, then this work will not have been a complete failure! Whatever judgment the reader finally renders on this narrative about these seventy years of intellectual and philosophical life, let him or her not forget—under the tumult of fashionable trends and cliques—the zeal and courage of those young minds who admired Heidegger’s thought, the philosophical talent and selflessness of the main protagonists and of the Master himself. Let him or her find in the following pages the account of an epic, which, while concerning the “history of ideas,” nonetheless touches upon the passion for truth of flesh-and-blood human beings, with all its collection of illusions and weaknesses—indissociably intertwined—brought about by a perhaps super-human mirage and its incontestably all-too-human reactions. Let him or her also recognize, then, that whatever the imperfections of the present work, it has the merit of being new, at least in its scope. Despite the abundance of translations, interpretations, and polemical interventions, no one has ever attempted to write in French the complete history of the singularly turbulent and unexpectedly fruitful reception of what is quite possibly the most original thought of the twentieth century. Thanks are due to Richard Figuier who helped launch me on this intellectual and philosophical adventure, which I surely would have not have ventured on my own. My sincere thanks also go to Hélène Monsacré, who helped at a difficult moment and very effectively supported my efforts. Incidentally, never did I see (or foresee) myself in the role of a historian, when I had the privilege of briefly meeting Heidegger in person and of being Jean Beaufret’s student, disciple, and close friend. Rightly or wrongly, the author-to-be did not walk around with a notebook in hand, and he never hid a tape-recorder under his coat. He always thought that one had to respect the wonderful evanescence of exceptional moments and let memories sort themselves out. Furthermore, there is no lack of documents and texts, and, in order to enrich this book, we have solicited testimonials from the main translators and interpreters. The inevitably historiographic dimension provided here has been undertaken from the outset with an awareness of the humility and limits of this sort of work. I did not intend to bury what is essential under anecdotes or gossip, but, on the contrary, to reconstitute its native soil. This is a considered—and, let us hope, philosophical—choice: there is not, on the one hand, trivial history, and on the other, grand history. Heidegger himself may have put too much distance between the latter, Geschichte, and the former, Historie. The threads of any history are tangled and the role of the contingency of encounters is no less significant in the case of intellectual history than history itself. Ideas also have their Cleopatra’s nose. Nonetheless, I have always tried to preserve the openness of the philosophical horizon. The reader will assess how well I have managed to respond to challenges that were as formidable as they were difficult to reconcile.
Finally, the author may confess that sketching this tableau has been a fascinating task, even if, on leaving the workshop, he is aware that this varied fresco might need yet a retouching or completion. At the very least, it was worthwhile to conduct this experiment on a terrain less visible, prima facie, than those of economics or diplomacy, but in the long run perhaps more decisive for the fate of our civilization, if it is true that in the end thoughts are what guide the world.
Let me thank here all those who, directly or indirectly, lent me their assistance: Kostas Axelos, Guy Basset, Walter Biemel, Jean Bourgault, Alain Boutot, Lucien Braun, Michel Contat, Jean-François Courtine, Marc Crépon, Françoise Dastur, Michel Deguy, Jacques Derrida, Éliane Escoubas, Jean-Pierre Faye, Didier Franck, Maurice de Gandillac, Claude Geffré, Gérard Granel, Jean Greisch, Michel Haar, Pierre Klossowski, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Marc de Launay, Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, Paule Llorens, Jean-Luc Marion, Henri Mongis, Edgar Morin, Roger Munier, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Orsoni, Nicole Parfait, Alain Pernet, Frédéric Postel, Élisabeth Rigal, Tom Rockmore, Claude Roëls, Michel Rybalka, Jacques Taminiaux, Claude Troisfontaines, Éric Vigne, and François Warin.