Knowing and History : Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth-Century France / Michael S. Roth.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Roth, Michael S., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831--Influence.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich.

Hyppolite, Jean.

Kojève, Alexandre, 1902-1968.

Kojève, Alexandre.

Weil, Eric.

France.

Local Subjects:

France.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (272 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Knowing and History charts the development of Hegelian philosophy of history in France from the 1930s through the postwar period, and critically assesses its significance for an understanding of our cultural present and of the possibilities for making meaning out of change over time.Michael Roth provides detailed analyses of the works of three of the most important Hegelian thinkers: Jean Hyppolite, Alexandre Kojève, and Eric Weil. These philosophers turned to history as the source of truths and criteria of judgment: they forged connections between history and knowing as a means of confronting key modem philosophical problems, and of engaging their contemporary political concerns. By the 1950s, however, they had withdrawn from the historical in search of a more secure, hopeful subject for reflection.According to Roth, the French Hegelians' work illuminates the power and limitations of the philosophical approach to history. Further, he finds in the development of their philosophies one of the crucial transformations in modem intellectual history: the shift from a concern with questions of significance to a concern with questions of use or function. He seeks to explicate the contemporary retreat from questions of significance by situating our cultural moment in relation to its intellectual antecedents. In an Afterword devoted to French post-structuralism, the author discusses Hegel's replacement by Nietzsche as the locus of philosophical authority in France in the 1960s, and examines how this shift informs the work of Michel Foucault. Roth argues that the use of Nietzsche against a dialectical philosophy of history contributes to a serious disjunction between philosophical reflection and political judgment.Relevant to a wide variety of disciplines, Knowing and History will appeal to those specializing in intellectual history and political theory, as well as philosophers of history, critical theorists, and students of modem French thought and culture.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments / Roth, Michael S.

Introduction: Between Crisis and Closure

Part One. From Humanism to Being / Hyppolite, Jean

Part Two. After the End / Kojève, Alexandre

Part Three. Progress and the Elmination of Sens / Weil, Eric

Afterword

Appendix

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Nov 2019)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781501743214

150174321X

OCLC:

1129184193