Modern French Philosophy
Whither the French philosopher?
Apart from French wine, food and art,one of the features of the Franco-phonic journey that can draw one eastwards from the Isles of Albion is to befound in the considerable French philosophical tradition.
Already, the scholasticism of Peter Abelard from the 11th and 12th centuries and his revival of Aristotelian logic, laid down a method for rational explanation. Later, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533–1592) developed an anti-dogmatic style of radical scepticism influential with what are seen as the modern philosophers of the following century.
From the 17th to the 19th centuries France produced a wealth of great philosophers many of whom are widely known even if not completely understood in terms of their ideas. Déscartes, Malbranche, Charles de Secondat (baron de Montesquieu) Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, Auguste Comte who came from Montpellier founding Sociology and Positivism, Ferdinand de Saussure and Henri Bergson, who died in 1941 and had an immense influence on French 20th century philosophers.
In the last century, modern French philosophy developed around five main threads of thought. Briefly, the first, existentialism, is preoccupied with the human condition, exploring notions such as purpose, liberty and the experience of the “other”. Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir come from this element of thinking although there are differences in their conceptualisations.
A second, ‘Phenomenology’ from Emmanuel Lévinas and Maurice Merleau-Ponty focus on descriptive explanations of phenomena as consciousness perceives them and how consciousness is given them. A key characteristic is in its avoidance of imposing explanations. This particular strand of philosophy still exerts great influence on philosophy today and on existentialism.
‘Structuralism’, ‘post-structuralism’ and ‘postmodernism’ were of major significance after the Second World War. The first of these analysed the underlying structures which make up, limit and affect society, language and the human mind. It has made its mark on Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology and the Social Sciences. We find it in the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes & Jacques Lacan. Strauss’ studies include the dreams of tribes; Barthes analysed the meanings of signs and symbols in society (semiology) and Lacan was a psychiatrist who became a psychoanalyst of the Freudian school, seeking to explain the mind as a series of structures.
Today, it is arguable of course, that we live in the ‘post-structuralist-postmodernist’ period of philosophy in France. In the first place, many of the philosophers around the country are often difficult to categorise. Some would argue we over-presume our claim of being in a ‘post-modern’ society at all.
Another factor which we ought to note here is that early in the 20th Century, philosophy clearly divided itself into two distinct types: ‘analytic philosophy’ and ‘continental philosophy’. The French have moved towards the latter. This tends to concentrate on broad issues without using logical-steps approaches of the analytical school exemplified in Bertrand Russell’s On Denoting in 1905. Therefore, the phenomenologists would never agree with focussing on single issues and following prescribed logics to resolve them. In fact, it is not even sure how much continental philosophers work to resolve issues objectively since they generally reject the natural sciences as the best way of understanding phenomena.
Other key features of the continental school reject analytics, and, therefore, supposed logical reasoning. There is also a rejection of ‘scientism’ which believes that the natural sciences are the most accurate way of explaining phenomena. In addition, this school adopts ‘historicism’ in its means of contextualising human experiences, determined partly by variable factors such as context, space, time, language, culture, or history. The analytic school insists these are discrete and individual not requiring this approach necessarily. Also, theory and practice are unitary in that philosophical enquiry should be related to a transformation of some kind be it moral, political or individual: philosophers do not only interpret the world but they try to change it.
Finally, here, the continental type emphasises what is known as ‘metaphilosophy’ which is the study of the nature, objectives and methodology of philosophy. This can be found in France in phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism (Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault & Jacques Derrida), western Marxism (Louis Althusser) and French feminism (Simone de Beauvoir and Julia Kristeva).
Another striking development has been the tendency to move the emphasisfrom ‘ontology’ or the study of the nature of being, becoming, existence and reality, towards‘epistemology’ or the study of the nature or theory of knowledge, its acquisition with a penchant for looking at the nature of truth, belief and justification.Obviously, the potential for polemics is a marked one in this regard as politics, economics, religion, culture and the arts are frequently attached.
A criticism of French philosophy suggests that since the 1960s it has a homogeneous nature as a result of the education system. Most major French philosophers of the 20thcentury were graduates of the super-elite École Normale Supérieure. As this has a relatively narrow curricular focus, teachers of philosophy and their students have a view of their subject tailored according to the requirements of the examinations.This restricts its cultural focus.
With regard to ‘metaphilosophy’, analytic philosophy can propose solutions, whereas continental tends to focus more on limit cases with little hope of conceivability. For example, the postmodernists and existentialists are stuck with both facts and values being relative, not absolute, in any case. As was stated earlier, they do not impose explanations. They are hampered by obscure metaphysical claims and limiting political assumptions (especially Marxist ones). Jacques Derrida deconstructs issues and leaves them there, while Deleuze invents new terms such as ‘déterritorialisation’ which have extremely tenuous subjective meanings.
Alain Badiou whose presence is particularly marked at present, has become baffling with his own ideas expressed in ambiguous terms, to the point of meaninglessness. Commentators have likened it to conceptual poetry making anything associate with anything else, for example, religion and philosophy being the same; Maths is ontology and so on. Rhetorical questions are used to excess while almost any combination of verbiage is possible. Impossible is a word readily springing to mind here, together with presumptions of validity or truth for every theory stated.
With the willingness to draw philosophy into any curricular context and to strip it of any underlying conceptual framework, this has opened it up to the vagaries and misuses of the post-modern media machine and its acolytes. All too frequently, it has been pointed out, we have highly influential public figures using ethical, moral and quasi-religious argument couched in philosophical soundinglanguage.
A striking instance of this tendency lies with the French role in the so-called “Arab Spring” and in other polemically fraught politico-religious situations. Take for instance Bernard-Henri Levy, a reputed philosopher though often seen only as a journalist, who has used his evident influence in France and overseas to make a philosophical case that insisted France arm militant Islamist anti-government groups who are in reality diametrically opposed to western democratic cultures. As indicated by some political commentators, underpinning his arguments lie politico-religious ideologies which are more at ease with polemics than they are with philosophy. Jade Lindgaard and Xavier de la Porte have co-written a book, The Imposter (2011) in which they refer to Levy as a “pseudo-philosopher” and “propagandist”.
Thus, it is perhaps with some justification Jean Baudrillard claimed that the French philosopher, as he used to be known, is extinct. Clearly, he is not but in fact it is the content of the message and the manner of conveying it which appear increasingly non-philosophical.
Hugh MacCamley
