Modern French philosophers

This document is a short abstract of the Dutch compilation “Moderne Franse filosofen” by Th. de Boer et al., Kok Agora, Kampen, Netherlands, 1993. This booklet contains eight transcripts of lectures given at the University of Amsterdam in 1992.
They concern the following philosophers respectively:
Michel Foucault, Paul Ricoeur, Luce Irigaray, Jean Baudrillard, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard and Julia Kristeva.
All of them are modern day philosophers who have performed their philosophic work mostly in Paris.

Michel Foucault:
The lecture on Foucault contains no real news in comparison to my earlier summary. A special note can be made here about Foucault’s use of the term “discours” (discourse). He uses this to demonstrate that all communication (written or oral) takes place within a distinct set of symbols and meanings which limits the possible extent of thought. The available words and symbols dictate which thoughts can be thought and communicated to others. Whoever controls the available words and their definitions therefore also controls most communication.
Thinking, speaking or writing outside a universe of discourse becomes ground for excommunication from a group or culture.

Paul Ricoeur:
This French philosopher seems to be struggling with the loss of universality that is paramount within postmodern philosophy. He tries to find a certain way in between two extremes. Instead of claiming there are universal ethics, or that ethics are purely circumstantial, he distinguishes between morals and ethics, where morals are absolute (valid universally) and ethics are specific to a culture. Somehow he tries to use this distinction for showing the necessity for discussion about ethics and rules for coexistence (which is good) but also as a basis for supporting the defense of Western culture (based on Jewish, Greek and Christian traditions along with the Enlightenment-project). This latter point reeks of cultural supremacy, which I don’t go along with.

Luce Irigaray:
She is mainly concerned with uncovering masculine thinking within mainstream philosophy, and discussing in writing with these philosophers (esp. Sigmund Freud) as to why they see things the way they see them (esp. because they are men). Her alternative is to formulate less universalistic “truths”, to allow more uncertainty to exist. One of her strong points is her uncovering of “rationalization”, which can be described as (feeble) attempts to support prejudices with rational arguments (instead of “rationality” which thinks openly, considers the arguments and draws a conclusion from them).

Jean Baudrillard:
Very much a mobilistic philosopher, who is mainly concerned with images with respect to reality. He claims that more and more, images become reality; it becomes practically impossible to distinguish media images from actual facts. This leads to a so-called hyper-reality. Before uncovering this, Baudrillard stated that personal identity is increasingly tied to consumption patterns; this, too, is mostly initiated by media images / advertisements. True freedom is connected to consumption without following directives. (This phenomenon comes back full force in Netocracy, Bard and Söderqvists book). Finally he discusses the relationship between subject and object, especially with respect to observation, and attacks the presupposed supremacy of the subject. Whereas the subject is mostly driven by desire, by inquisitiveness, the object is mostly concerned with attracting attention. From a perspective of power, the object exerts power over the subject by attracting its attention. Only by not being too concerned with your own desires, can you put enough energy into being attractive to others to be truly seductive. Thus in an attentionalist world, the object is superior to the subject. Generally, women are better tuned for taking on an object role, which means that their position of power will greatly improve once “attentionalism” truly takes hold.

Emmanuel Levinas:
The presentation on Levinas truly doesn’t give me any clue as to the relevance of this philosophers’ views. It is mostly concerned with the definition and meaning of terms and concepts such as “to be”, “to exist”. Very existential, so to speak. Levinas is primarily opposed to the concept of “being” introduced by Heidegger. I have the impression that Levinas is trying to find a way backward from Heidegger’s views to Kant’s views. Whereas Heidegger sees a human being as a means to an end, to Kant it is an end in itself, and this should be reflected in mutual relationships between persons. To Heidegger, mutual relationships between persons are inherent in “being” and have no ethical value.

Jacques Derrida:
Derrida’s main point is that written texts can only be interpreted within the context of the discourse of the reader; the original meaning of the writer is very quickly lost by changes in discourses. This notion is very much a parallel to Foucault’s understanding of the “discours”. Texts only have meaning because of the autonomous character of language. Since languages are dynamic, the meanings of texts (both written and spoken) are very volatile. A writer can only try to evade this dynamism by writing in such a manner that possible misinterpretations are eliminated as much as possible.
Derrida’s thinking is rooted in the thinking of Heraclitus and Nietzsche. These three philosophers, together with Foucault, are exactly those philosophers which Bard and Soderqvist have described as mobilists.

Jean-François Lyotard:
Lyotard states that Western modern philosophy is mainly concerned with realizing universality. This approximately means that it is principally occupied with finding the ultimate formulation of ethics and export these ethics to other parts of the world, thereby implicitly assuming Western thought is superior to any other.
Lyotard is distancing himself from this focus on universality, which has peaked with the philosophies of Hegel and Marx. Instead he returns to Kant and from there explores the thoughts of Nietzsche.
Lyotard distinguishes between two types of knowledge: scientific and narrative. The narrative knowledge is necessary for providing the context needed to make scientific knowledge applicable in real world situations. Or better: scientific knowledge cannot exist without context in the form of narrative knowledge. Current science is mostly founded on narrative knowledge (or ideology) about concepts such as freedom, civilization, labour, brotherhood, universal history, the Great Society. Lyotard attacks the credibility of these meta-stories and thereby indirectly discredits science and its goals.
Lyotard is very much attracted to the sharp distinction by Kant between ideals and reality (which was exactly what Kant’s followers had trouble accepting). Lyotard uses this distinction to do away with the great stories of society (the utopias), but also with universal ethics in general. Lyotard puts all responsibility for ethical behavior back where it belongs: with the individual. There are no longer traditions or institutions to fall back upon (and to blame for the consequences of your actions!).

Personally I find there is not much difference between Lyotard and Kant, strictly speaking. Kant’s universal ethics are purely transcendental, but are practically usable via our consciences. Every claim of a universal ethic (even those made by Kant himself!) should be treated as a personal interpretation of the universal ethic, which is always open for debate.

Julia Kristeva:
Kristeva’s work is very diverse and not easily described as a connected unity of thoughts. This fragmentation has a principal nature. The commentator (J.M. Broekman) describes her work from a perspective in which the tendency to strive for universality is primarily male, whereas the tendency to allow for plurality is predominantly female. I recognize a parallel to the work of both Irigaray and Derrida (and even Baudrillard) in this respect, so I’ll assume this interpretation is correct.
The first point Broekman makes is that Kristeva sees texts as being engendered. This is not an accomplishment of the individual, but is very strongly influenced by, and deeply rooted within, culture. A text should not betray its roots within a culture, otherwise it would be a soulless piece. A text should – from its being written to each new interpretation – be reconsidered; in this process new information is created each time. To speak with Foucault: each time the text is read, the discours is different.
This is especially true in today’s multicultural society, in which individuals can have several cultures to operate within. Kristeva also elaborates on this, and comes up with the suggestion of reevaluating the notion of nationality. She states that nationality can only truly be felt if one has experienced the outside world, experienced emigration or exile. It is primarily a sense of belonging, a sense of a home. This feeling can be mixed, for some. Therefore Kristeva suggests the possibility of multiple nationality. She accepts the fact that people are multi-faceted, complex beings, and that respect for differences (which are always inherently present, even within ourselves!) requires a certain acceptance of ourselves and our own roots. This notion of nationality is radically different from the one practiced in Europe’s welfare states of today, which use nationality as a basis for forced solidarity (legitimized by majority rule, of course). In Kristeva’s notion, it should be much easier to adopt a certain nationality by choice, but on the other hand, not as many “rights” can be based upon this notion.

Conclusions

From the length of the above short summaries (enriched with my own interpretation and opinion here and there) it is clear that Baudrillard, Derrida, Lyotard and Kristeva are the philosophers which I find most interesting of the ones covered in the book. This, of course, along with Foucault, of whom I’ve already made a short summary of his vision last year.

In general I see a cluster of philosophers who are pretty much working in the same direction: Foucault (not any more..), Derrida, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Kristeva and Irigaray. I know Deleuze also should be noticed in this respect. Ricoeur is struggling between the two perspectives as if he can’t choose, and Levinas is concerned with a very existential question which has universalistic tendencies in it.

Michiel van de Sande, July 29, 2005.