Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
PHILOSOPHY
VincentJ?escoll1bes
Translated by L. o t ~ o x and J. M. Harding
, CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED B" THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Th e Pin Building, Trumpington Street , Cambridge CB2 1Rp , United Kingdom
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU , UK http: / / www.cup.cam.ac.uk
40 West 20th Street, New York , NY 10011- 4211, USA ht tp; / /ww w.cup.org
10 Stamford Road, Oaklcigh, Mel bourn e 3166, Australia
Or iginally published in French as Le Mime er L'Alitre
by Lcs Editions de Minu it, Paris, 1979 and
Lcs Editions de Minuit 1979
This book is in copyright. Subject to statuto ry exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reprod uction of any part may take place without
the wr itten permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in English by the Cambri dge
Univers ity Press 1980 as Modem French Philosophy
English translation Cambridge University Press 1980
Re printed 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988 (twice), 1989, 1992, 1993,
1994, 1996, 1998
Type set in Bcmbo
A ,ataloJl. Ile recordfo r this book is availablefrom the British Library
Libraryof Congress CataloJl.Iling- in-PIlbli,ation Data is available
ISBN 0-521-29672-2 paperback
Transferred to digital printing 200 I
Contents
Foreword by Alan Montefiore
vu
Note on abbreviations and translation
IX
Introduction: Philosophy in France 1
1 The humanisation of nothingness (Kojeve)
9
The interpretation of Hegel
9
The search for a concrete philosophy 16
The objection of solipsism 20
The origin of negation 23
The end of history 27
Negativity 32
Identity and difference 36
The q u s ~ o n of enunciation 39
APPENDIX: Nothingness in Being and Nothingness
(Jean-Paul Sartre) 48
2 The human origin of truth (Merleau-Ponty) 55
The soul and the body 57
The earth does not revolve 59
Does the dark side of the moon exist? 62
The phenomenon 65
The phenomenology of history 69
3 Semiology
75
The intellectual scene in 1960 75
Structuralis m
77
What is a structural analysis? (Serres) 82
Communication
92
VI
Structures 100
The humanist controversy 103