The wager of Lucien Goldmann : tragedy, dialectics, and a hidden god / Mitchell Cohen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cohen, Mitchell, 1952-

Series:

Princeton Legacy Library ; 1896

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Goldmann, Lucien.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (366 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1994.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In The Wager of Lucien Goldmann, Mitchell Cohen provides the first full-length study of this major figure of postwar French intellectual life and champion of socialist humanism. While many Parisian leftists staunchly upheld Marxism's "scientificity" in the 1950's and 1960's, Lucien Goldmann insisted that Marxism was by then in severe crisis and had to reinvent itself radically if it were to survive. He rejected the traditional Marxist view of the proletariat and contested the structuralist and antihumanist theorizing that infected French left-wing circles in the tumultuous 1960's.Highly regarded by thinkers as diverse as Jean Piaget and Alasdair MacIntyre, Goldmann is shown here as a socialist who, unlike many others of his time, refused to portray his aspirations for humanity's future as an inexorable unfolding of history's laws. He saw these aspirations instead as a wager akin to Pascal's in the existence of God. "Risk," Goldmann wrote in his classic study of Pascal and Racine, The Hidden God, "possibility of failure, hope of success, and the synthesis of the three in a faith which is a wager are the essential constituent elements of the human condition." In The Wager of Lucien Goldmann, Cohen retrieves Goldmann's achievement-his "genetic structuralist" method, his sociology of literature, his libertarian socialist politics. Originally published in 2050.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

A Note on Titles, Abbreviations, and Language in the Text

Introduction: Eppur si Muove??

PART ONE: GENESIS

PART TWO: THE PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND

PART THREE: FAITHFUL HERESY, TRAGIC DIALECTICIAN

Abbreviations Used in the Notes

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612751929

9780691653815

069165381X

9781282751927

1282751921

9781400821266

1400821266

9781400811267

1400811260

OCLC:

700688482