E. Kleinberg-Generation Existential Heidegger's Philosophy in France, 1927-1961

Copyright 2005 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from
the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512
East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
FIRST PUBLISHED 2005 BY CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

First printings, Cornell Paperbacks, 2006
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congrt'ss Cat.alogingi11-Publication Data
Kleinberg, Ethan, 1967-

Generation existential : Heidegger's philosophy in France, 1927-1961/ Ethan Kleinberg.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-8014-4391-6 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-7382-1 (pbk : alk. paper)
1. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. 2. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976-Influence. 3.
Philosophy, French-20th century. 4. Philosophy, Modern-20th century. 5.
Existentialism. I. Title.
B5279.H49K58 2005
193-dc22 2005008836
Carnell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers

aud materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such
materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are
recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further
information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.
Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Paperback printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
List of Abbreviations IX
On the Way to France .
Introduction 3
1. Emmanuel Levinas: de l'etre. 19

The First Reading
2. Ale_xandre Kojeve and the He~el Seminar at the

Ecole Pratique des Halites Etudes 49
3. The Dissemination ofKojeve's Heideggerian

Interpretation of Hegel 84
4. Jean-Paul Sartre 111
The Second Reading
5. Jean Beaufret, the First Heidegger Affair, and the

"Letter on Humanism" 157
The Third Reading
6. Maurice Blanchot: The V\~riting of Disaster 209

7. Emmanuel Levinas: . a l'autre 245
Conclusion 280
Index 289
v
Acknowledgments
This book investigates the initial reception of Heidegger's philosophy

in France. In it I demonstrate the ways that a select group of intellec-
tuals engaged and incorporated Heidegger's philosophy into their own
work and how this process of translation and transfer disseminated Hei-
degger's philosophy throughout France. I owe a debt of gratitude to all
the teachers, advisers, friends, and colleagues whose guidance and coun-
sel helped me along the way. The comments and suggestions I received
showed a deep and abiding knowledge of the material.
Any shortcomings in this book are entirely the result of my choices,
whereas any advances are the result of the patient guidance and sound
advice I received over the years. I would especially like to thank Rob-
ert Wohl and Samuel Weber, who have guided me through this project
since its inception. Robert Wohl's comments were extremely influential
in determining the structure and scope of the present work. I would also
like to thank David Myers, Saul Friedlander, Peter Lowenberg, Peter
Baldwin, David Sabean, Hubert Dreyfus, and the late Jacques Derrida.
I owe Martin Jay and Richard Vann an enormous debt of gratitude
for taking the time to read this manuscript and provide me with exten-
sive comments, suggestions, and encouragement. I also thank Nathan-
iel Green and Paul Schwaber for their editorial suggestions and express
my gratitude to the anonymous referees who read this work with care
and precision. Samuel Moyn and I have been exchanging e-mails about
Emmanuel Levimis, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger for almost
ten years and I want to thank him for this potentially infinite conversa-
tion. I have learned a great deal from his keen mind and lucid analysis.
Peter Gordon offered his time and expertise in reading and comment-
ing on this work and his insights proved to be invaluable. I can only
hope that some of his mellifluous prose rubbed off. Thank you, Peter.
Eugene Sheppard has been my comrade in intellectual history since our
days as graduate students at UClA. He has helped me think through
many of the issues in this book and has served as a sounding board, a
critic, and an all-around mensch throughout the writing of this book.
Thank you, Eugene. I would also like to thank my fellow participants
from the UC Humanities Research Institute, Emily Apter, Ali Behdad,
vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Janet Bergstrom, David Carroll, Valerie Kaussen, Patricia Morton, Ken-

neth Reinhard, Tyler Stovall, Richard Terdiman, and Georges Van den
Abbeele; my colleagues from the UCLA Department of History (Joshua
Goode, Gavriel Rosenfeld, Dani Eshet, Dave McBride, Gopal Balakrish-
nan, Adam Rubin), the Department of History at Iowa State University,
and especially from the Department of History and College of Letters at
We!ileyan University. A special thanks to Manolis Kaparakis, whose tech-
nological savvy and human kindness helped me survive the "lost data
hell" that is the fate of all modem scholars. And I would like to thank
John G. Ackerman for his patience, persistence, and support, along with
thanks to Candace Akins and the editorial and production staff at Cor-
nell University Press.
This book would not have been possible without financial support
from the UCLA Department of History, the Center for German and
European Studies at UC Berkeley, the Monkarsh Foundation, the UCLA
Critical Theory in Paris Program, the UC Humanities Research Institute,
the J. William Fulbright Commission, and Wesleyan University. Thank
you for your support and confidence.
To my friends and family, I thank you for your patience and encour-
agement throughout this long process. To my parents, Marvin and Irene
Kleinberg, thank you for everything you have done for me. I love you
very much. Thank you, Sarah, Donal, and Ciaran. Thank you, Joel, Leti-
tia, and Maia. Thank you, Nancy, Sol, Scott,Jody, Mike, and Susan.
I want to thank my daughters, Lily and Noa, who have made my life
a pleasure and filled every day with joy (a scratch on the ears to Robes
as well). Finally, I must thank my wife, Tracy, without whom none of this
would have been possible. I love you more than anything and I dedicate
this book to you.
viii
Abbreviations
Maurice Blanchot
ED L'ecriture du desastre. Paris: NRF Gallimard, 1980.
LDM "La litterature et le droit a Ia mort." In La Part dufeu. Paris: NRF
Gallimard, 1949.
TO Thomas l'obscur. Paris: L'Imaginaire Gallimard, 1950.
Martin Heidegger
BT Being and Time. Trans.John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson.
NewYork: Harper and Row, 1962.
LH "The Letter on Humanism." In Basic Writings, edited by David
Krell. San Frantisco: Harper Books, 1993.
SZ Sein und Zeit. Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1986.
Q Questions I et II. Paris: Gallimard, 1968.
Alexandre Kojeve
ILH Introduction a la lecture de Hegel, compiled by Raymond Queneau.
Paris: Grasset, 1990.
IRH Introduction to the &ading of Hegel, edited by Allan Bloom. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1969.
Emmanuel Levinas
EE a
De !'existence l'existant. Paris: Vrin, 1993.
TI Totality and Infinity. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1980.
Tlf Totalite et Injini. Paris: Kluwer Academic, 1971.
TIHP The Theory of Intuition in Husserl's Phenomenology. Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1973.
TIPH Theorie de ['intuition dans la phenomenologie de Husserl. Paris: Vrin,
1963.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
SC La structure du comportement. Paris: Quadrige/PUF, 1942.
ix
ABBREVIATIONS
Jean-Paul Sartre
BN Being and Nothingness. New York: Washington Square Press, 1953.
EH L'existentialisme est un humanisme. Paris: Nagel, 1970.
EN L'etre et le neant. Paris: NRF Gallimard, 1943.
N Nausea. New York: New Directions, 1969.
Nf La nausee. Paris: Gallimard, 1938.
TE The Transcendence oftheEgo. New York: Octagon, 1972.
X
On the Way to France ...
Introduction
While I was attending a dinner party in Paris some years ago, the conver-
sation turned to the intellectual climate in France after World War II. At
first the discussion was dominated by the works of Sartre, an author on
whom everyone at the table held an opinion. One of the guest-, asked a
question he thought I might be able to answer: "How was it that Sartre
was able to Cartesianize Heidegger?" The question was soon refomm-
lated: "How did Sartre make Heidegger French?" I began to explain that
the story of Heidegger's reception in France is complex, that the answer
requires an investigation into the intellectual climate of France between
the wars as well as into the relation between young French intellectuals
such as Sartre, Raymond Aron, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the for-
eign intellectuals who emigrated to Paris in the 1930s and brought the
work of Heidegger with them. Unfortunately, before I could go any fur-
ther, I found myself fielding a veritable barrage of questions. The first
flurry concerned Heidegger's influence on Sartre, in contrast to his influ-
ence on the "postmodem" philosophers (the names Derrida, Foucault,
and Lyotard were mentioned). The next flurry changed the tenor of the
conversation entirely. I was asked to explain Heidegger's affiliation with
the National Socialist Party and the relation of his political actions to his
philosophical work. As I tried my best to tie all these topics together, the
conversation around me degenerated into a mini-Heidegger Affair. Voices
were raised, tempers flared, and I was left pondering a familiar question.
How could I tell the story of Heidegger's reception in France in a way that
would do justice to all these issues without being sidetracked by any one?
In many ways the story of Heidegger's reception in France (which is
also the story of the intellectual figures who brought Heidegger's work
to France and their influence on modern French culture and society)
3
ON THE WAY TO FRANCE
has been eclipsed by the popularity of Sartre and the notoriety of Hei-
degger's affiliation with National Socialism. Emmanuel Levinas, Alexan-
dre Kojeve, Jean Beaufret, and Maurice Blanchot are hardly household
names in the United States. Furthermore, in France these intellectuals
have been traditionally understood to be supporting players in Sartre's
existential drama. Thus for me, the task at hand was to explain the
ways in which Heidegger's philosophy was imported, incorporated, and
expanded on in France. At the same time, I had to keep in mind the
problematic issue of Heidegger's political choices, while bringing to the
fore a number of intellectual figures whose influence on modern French
philosophy has been enormous but whose lives and works have been ill-
defined and underexplored.
The reception of Heidegger's philosophy in France is the story of a
"generation" of French intellectuals who grew up in the shadow of World
War I and subsequently turned away from traditional French philosophy
and toward a new and different strain of philosophical thought imported
from Germany through an influx of foreign intellectuals. To present it in
broad strokes, this was a generation whose earliest intellectual formation
took place within a set of institutions devoted to a ne<rKantian and repub-
lican-rationalist ideology, and who, when they matured, brought about a
qualified break with that ideological context, even as they drafted an "exis-
tentialism" still compatible with the more enduring legacies of Descartes
and the Enlightenment project. But why did these young French intellectu-
als, whom I shall call the "generation of 1933,"1 turn away from the tradi-
tional French philosophical canon and ultimately toward the philosophy of
Martin Heidegger? And why was that philosophy so well received?
1. The term "generation of 1933" is taken from Jean-Fran~ois Sirinelli's Ghleration

;nfR[lerfuPlle: Kltli.gneux et normaliRns dans l'nttre-dl'UX-gtte'ffl!S (Paris: Fayard, 1988), but is
guided by Robert Wohl's critique of"generational" history as presented in ThP Generation of
1914 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979). To this end I take Wohl's assertion that
"generations are not born; they are made" (5) in the most literal sense. For Sirinelli, the
group of French intellectuals born between 1900 and 1910 are the "generation of 1905,"
a term thal denotes the median age of birth. Sirinelli points out that he might have opted
for the "generation of 1925," a reference to these young intellectuals' formative years in
French preparatory school and at the Ecole Normale Superieure. In my work I label this
same age group of intellectuals the "generation of 1933," referring to the year that the
select group investigated in this book turned away from the institutions of their formative
years and toward alternative venues for critical and philosophical thought. These varied
characterizations of the same age group of intellectuals point to the problematic nature
of the term "generation," which probably tells us as much about the goals of the historian
employing the tenn as it does about the intellectuals being investigated.
Furthermore, while I do explore certain representatives of the "generation of 1933," I do
not attempt to represent the concerns of the entire French age group born between 1900 and
1910. Instead, this work deals with specific representatives of that age group who had an active
interest in philosophy and writing. The individuals I investigate tend to be middle-class males.
4
Introduction
The answer lies in the generation of 1933's perception of a grave cri-

sis in French academic philosophy. For students such as Raymond Aron,
Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean Beaufret (all born
between 1900 and 1910), philosophical thought was dictated by the
structure of the French academic system. During the 1920s and 1930s,
two schools of thought ruled supreme within this structure: neo-Kantian
rationalism and Bergson ian spiritualism. 2 Given the educational agenda
of the Third Republic from its inception, it is not surprising that the
government favored neo-Kantianism. The university professors were
given a mission by the state: to impress on their students the legitimacy
of the new republican institutions. Two doctrines vied for this role and
both were decidedly rationalistic. The first was Durkheim's sociological
positivism, the second French neo-Kantian rationalism as embodied in
the critical idealism of Leon Brunschvicg. 3 \Vhile opposed to each other,
both these doctrines taught that humankind, from its distant origins,
had never ceased to progress toward an agreement on specific reason-
able principles, which were precisely those on which republican institu-
tions are based. 4 The fact that neo-Kantian rationalism prevailed in the
end can be attributed to its compatibility with the ideology of the gov-
ernment, which placed Brunschvicg at the head of the jury d'agregation
and gave him the power to determine the syllabus for philosophy depart-
ments throughout France. Bnmschvicg's academic position is essential
to our understanding of the educational background of the generation
of 1933, who took their exams in philosophy guided by Brunschvicg's syl-
labus. Nominated directly by the minister of education, the head of the
jury d'agregation selects the other members of the jury, presides over its
deliberations, and decides which subjects are suitable for the examina-
tion. Under Brunschvicg's reign, students studied Plato, Descartes, and
Kant, in that order, presented as the logical progression of philosophy.
For authors whom Brunschvicg and the French neo-Kantians rejected,
such as Aristotle and Hegel, only a cursory refutation was required.
2. The French variant of neo-Kantianism is entirely different from that of the German
schools. For a succinct description ofthe French variant, see Gary Gutting, French Philosophy
in the Twnttieth Cmtury (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 40-48. For an
understanding of the German phenomenon, see Thomas Willey, Back to Kant: ThP Reuival
ofKm1tiani.sm in German Social and Historical Thought (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
1978). For a detailed account on Bergson and spiritualism, see Dominique Janicaud, Une
grnPal.o[!j.e du fpirilualismp fram;ai\ (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1969).
3. On the life and work of Leon Brunschvicg, see Rene Boirel, Bmnschvicg: Sa vie, son
oeuvre (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964); Dominique Parodi, La pltilosophie
co11ternparainP m Fra11ce (Paris: Alcan, 1919); and the section on Brunschvicg in Gutting,
Frmr.h PhiltJ.mphy in the Twentieth Century.
4. Vincent Descombes, ModPTn Hnl('h Philosophy, trans. L. Scott Fox and J. M. Harding
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), G-7.
5
Brunschvicg's critical idealism was based in part on Kant and thus

belonged to the neo-Kantian tradition, but Brunschvicg was equally
indebted to the French positivist tradition and the work of Auguste
Comte. Thus Brunschvicg paralleled the German neo-Kantians who,
"taking their cue from Kant's critique of metaphysics[,] set out to dem-
onstrate that philosophy properly conceived must confine itself to laying
down the formal conditions for knowledge," and allowed no room for
transcendentalism or a theory of the dialectic. 5 But Brunschvicg takes
the Kantian notion of formal conditions of knowledge and weds it to
the positivist understanding of science as the realm of the "most" formal
conditions. This leads to a critical idealism that rejects the thing in itself,
a priori conditions, and thus transcendentalism as well. All that is left is
intellectual judgment, and the most productive scaffold for this is "sci-
ence."6 In Brunschvicg's philosophy, science provides the foundation for
the laws of reality and thus manifests the initiative of the human spirit,
which has no limits to its development. Thus he could claim that we are
"destined to create a moral universe in the same way we have created the
material universe of gravitation or of electricity. "7 As a philosophy that
upholds the primacy of formal reason and the unlimited development of
rational humanity, Brunschvicg's neo-Kantianism was an ideal match for
the Third Republic that held these same values dear.
The rise of spiritualism in the person of Henri Bergson came in direct
response to the dominant materialist/ rationalist tendencies of the Third
Republic. The link between the Third Republic and the advancement of
philosophical movements that reinforced its own values placed the sci-
entific method on a pedestal in an attempt to define and assert "univer-
sal truths." These truths demonstrated the validity of the Enlightenment
project and the Third Republic that was its heir. In contrast, Bergson's
philosophy was an optimistic affirmation of life that privileged all human
beings as the material for the making of "gods." Bergson's work was con-
ceived in opposition to a perceived overemphasis on science and reason.
His philosophy catered to the desire of those who needed more than
rationality, and in this way he awoke academia from a deep rationalist
sleep. Bergson believed that advances in science, and specifically in the
theory of determinism, were coming at the expense of the freedom of
human thought. Mechanical laws left no room for instinct, pure emo-
tion, or faith. The choices offered to humans were seen as increasingly
5. Peter Gordon, "Science, Finitude, and Infinity: Neo-Kantianism and the Birth of
Existentialism," Jnoish Social Studies 6 (Fall 1999): 33.
6. See Leon Brunschvicg, /,a rnodaliti dujugeme11t (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1964).
7. Leon Brunschvicg, "Vie interieure et vie spirituelle," Rcoue d.e rnitnphysiquR f't de rnural.e
32 (1925):146. Unless otherwise noted, translations from the French are my own.
6
Introduction
limited by the parameters of science. 8 Bergson used the argumentative

tools of science and mathematics to open a place for the individual in
modem philosophy. It was this validation of instinct, of hope, and of
indeterminacy that struck a chord among Bergson's readers-in France
and, ultimately, throughout the world-who had been suffering the
impersonalization and objectification of the subject at the hands of
rationality. Through rigorous method and sound reasoning, Bergson
was able to return the ideas of faith, free will, and indeterminacy to the
forefront of academic life. Bergson's philosophy was universal in that
it allowed for an underlying bond among all peoples, yet it did not sac-
rifice the importance of particular identities or subjectivity. Indeed, at
the apogee of Bergson's popularity before World War I, it seemed the
Bergsonian revolution had freed philosophy from the empirical chains
of positivism and surpassed the methodical rationalism of French neo-
Kantianism. To the generation that came to maturity between 1890 and
1914, he looked like a philosophical liberator and an opponent of the
intellectual establishment. 9
In many ways, Bergson's philosophy of optimism, based on an affirma-
tion of human potential, resembled precisely the teleological, anthropo-
centric, progressive program asserted by the neo--Kantians. They were all
prorepublican in their call for certain specific universal principles and
in their unwavering optimism toward the concept of progress. Bergson
questioned the fundamental validity of scientific method and rational
thought by creating an opening for "irrational" human thought and free
will in the modern world of universal mechanisms, but he did so using
the tools of positivism and determinism to prove their inherent errors. 10
In the aftermath of World War I, Bergson's optimism seemed naive, and
further advances in science and biology showed many of his theories to
be faulty. He had disproved the cruder philosophies of positivism and
determinism, but the events of World War I disproved his own optimistic
philosophy.
The generation of 1933 did not see Bergson as a philosophical lib-
erator or as an opponent of the intellectual establishment, but rather
as part and parcel of a French academic tradition unprepared to deal
with the hardship of concrete existence. This is not to say that his influ-
8. See John Mullarkey, Bergson and Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1999), 9, 24-27.
9. R. C. Grogin, The Bergsonian Controvnsy in Frar1ce (Calgary: University of Calgary Press,
1988), ix. Also see Mark Antliff, Inventing Bergson (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1993); Philippe Soulez and Frederick Worms, Bergson (Paris: Flammarion, 1997); A. E.
Pilkington, Berg.1on and /lis Influence: A lvassessment (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1976).
10. See Henri Bergson, F:ssai sur les d011nPes immedintes dP La consciRnre (1889; Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1927).
7
ON THE WAY TO fRANCE
ence on the generation of 1933 was not substantial. But the generation
of 1933 wanted to move beyond Bergsonian spiritualism, which they con-
sidered overly subjective and optimistic, and this created a gap in the
French philosophical world. The French neo-Kantians attempted to use
recent advances in science to explain the increasingly complex nature
of the world, but they too faced the harsh challenge that World War I
presented to the French notion of progress. Thus both strains of French
philosophy appeared insufficient to the generation of 1933. For them,
the starting point of philosophy was the desire to come to grips with the
events of World War I in relation to the optimistic view of progress and
history embodied by French philosophy and the Third Republic. Neither
the spiritualists nor the materialists could explain the senseless killing
and mass destruction that marked the "victory" of France in World War
I, nor the precarious economic position of an industrializing France. To
the generation of 1933, the traditional academic system seemed more
concerned with perpetuating itself and its republican ideals than with
confronting the realities of a changing world. The events of history had
debunked the theory of historical progress that had guided the Third
Republic from its inception. The answers the generation of 1933 sought
lay beyond the familiar territory of French academic philosophy. A new
way of thinking was required to make sense of a world that eluded the
grasp of their teacher.
It is in this sense that I will describe the reception of Heidegger in
France as an intersection of heimisch (familiar, of one's home) and unheim-
lich (strange, foreign). The tem1 unhimlich is usually translated "uncanny,"
"curious," or "strange" (all ofwhich are applicable in this case as well), but
can be rendered more literally as "not at home." 11 This is a particularly
appropriate model to keep in mind when discussing the reception of Hei-
degger in France because it was an influx of foreign emigres who brought
Heidegger to France and provided the basis for the domesticated version
of Heidegger's philosophy presented by the generation of 1933. Thus I
refer not only to the unheimlich nature of the importation of a German
philosopher's works from his "home" to the "foreign" soil of France 12 but
also to the principal agents of importation: Emmanuel Levinas, Alexandre
Koyre, Alexandre Kojeve, Georges Gurvitch, and Bernard Groethuysen, to
name several. All these figures were foreign intellectuals who made them-
I L Heidegger himself uses the term unhrimlir:h to denote that which questions the status
of knowledge, truth, and the limits of appropriability. For Heidegger, the unheimliclt is
what seems most familiar but is in fact the most strange. "Here 'unheimlich' also means
'not-being-at-home' [da.s Nidtt-z.uhnuse-sei11]" (BT, 233).
12. The reverse argument can also be made, that a "foreign" German philosophy was
imported onto "native" French soil, thus pointing out the particularly slippery question of
national identity or of nation and identity.
8
Introduction
selves "at home" in post-World War I France. The arrival of figures fleeing
Russia in 1917 via Germany infused French intellectual life with scholars
raised on Russian literature, exposed to Marxist doctrine, and schooled
in modem German philosophy. German:Jewish intellectuals fleeing anti-
Semitism in German universities represented a later wave of intellectuals
coming to France. Levinas brought a new way of reading philosophy; Alex-
andre Koyre and K.ojeve imported interpretations of Hegel. 13
These "foreign" intellectuals working on the periphery of the French
university system and publishing in French provided concrete answers
to the questions the generation of 1933 felt their own philosophical tra-
dition was unable to answer. They also imported interpretations of Hei-
degger's philosophy, on which such French thinkers as Raymond Aron,
Jean Beaufret, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean Hyppolite, and Jean-Paul
Sartre (all graduates of the Ecole Norrnale Superieure) would base their
work and thereby secure Martin Heidegger's place in twentieth-century
French intellectual life. But this is not to say that Heidegger has found a
"home" in France. The very process of rooting Heidegger's work in that
country has been tense and often violent, as exemplified by the numer-
ous Heidegger Affairs that continually resurface. The process of amnesia
and rediscovery of the "insidious," "foreign," "totalitarian," and "hostile"
nature of Heidegger's work is indicative of a larger French trend toward
appropriating and then disowning academic traditions. 14
But this process of rediscovery also points to the phenomenon redis-
covered. Any serious work on Heidegger, his philosophy, or his disciples
13. See Descombes, Modem French Philosophy; Michael Roth, Knowing and Ilistary:
Appropriations of llegPl in Twentieth-century Franre (Ithaca; Cornell University Press, 1988);
Judith Butler, Subjfcts of DesirP: Hegelian RRjlertions in 1iventiPtlz Cro.tury France (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1999); Tom Rockmore, Jleidegger and French Philosophy:
1-lumanMm, Antihumanism, an.d Being (New York: Routledge, 1995).
14. This is perhaps best exemplified by the wave of work in the mid- to late 1940s by such
French thinkers as Jean Hyppolite, Jean-Paul Sartre, and even Paul Valery, nominally
on the subject of Rene Descartes but more concerned with proving that Heidegger's
philosophy was derivative and secondary to the original French genius of Descartes.
The most blatant of these works was Sartre's introduction to his own selection of texts by
Descartes: Descarte.~. 1596-1650 (Paris: Traits, 1946). Other works on Descartes from this
period include: Leon Brunschvicg, [)psrartes et Pasca~ l.eciPurs de Mont.aign.e (Paris: Brentano,
1944); Henri Lefebvre, De~cartes (Paris: Editions d'hieret aujourd'hui, 1947); Paul Valery,
Vs pagps immort.el~ de Desrart.es, choisi.es et expN.qufes par Paul Valhy (Paris: Correa, 1946). I
wish to thank George Van den Abbeele for his help in compiling this bibliography.
The subsequent attacks on French Heideggerianism can be read as internal
conflicts attempting to refocus the future of French philosophy based on purely French
philosophical grounds. Alain Renault and Luc Ferry's I-leidegger et l.es Mod.emes is a
particularly transparent attempt to extricate all things German from "French" philosophy
in an attempt to right the listing ship of the French intellectual tradition-the dismissal
of deconstruction in favor of a return to liberal humanism as exemplified in the more
traditional reading of Descartes.
9
necessarily stands in the shadow of Heidegger's political decisions in the

1930s. The problematic nature of Heidegger's political choices and the
ramifications of those choices are central issues in this book. But Hei-
degger's politics is not the main focus of this work. 15 Instead, I approach
the relation of Heidegger's politics to his philosophy by focusing on the
reception of Heidegger in France in the hopes of addressing specific his-
torical questions concerning the first Heidegger Affair in France, while
also shedding some light on the larger historical, philosophical, and eth-
ical questions involved.
Most of the historical work on French intellectuals after 1930 addresses
the reception of Heidegger's philosophy in France peripherally if at all,
exploring the results of Heidegger's influence in France without address-
ing the origins of that influence. 16 As a result, the French understanding
of Heidegger's philosophy looks very different in an investigation into
Sartre's work than it does in an investigation into the work of Beaufret
or Derrida. This is because the reception of Heidegger's philosophy in
France is not the story of a singular French understanding, but of a series
of distinct understandings or "readings" of Heidegger's philosophy. For
reasons that will become apparent, I have chosen to limit this study to
the first three "readings" of Heidegger's philosophy in France, which
15. On the relationship between Heidegger's philosophy and his politics, see Richard
Wolin, ThP Politic..r of Being: 11ze Political Thought of Marlin I lf'idegger (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1990); Tom Rockmore, On /leideggt:r:~ Nnzi~rn and Phiwsoplty (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1992); Tom Rockmore and Joseph Margolis, eds., The
/leidpgger Case: On Pltilo.rophy and Poli.tics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992);
Hugo Ott, Martin IlPidRggf'T: l!nfRrloegs zu stini'T Bi.ographie (Frankfurt: Campus, 1988);
Hans Sluga, lleidf'{!J{f'T's Criril: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1993); Dominique Janicaud, The Shadow of 11mt 11wught, trans. Michael
Gendre (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996); and Victor Farias, J/pifkggrr and
Nazism, trans. Gabriel R. Ricci (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989).
16. A notable exception is Rockmore's l!ndeggt:r and Frnuh Phiwsaphy, a substantive
investigation into the "relation between Heidegger's theory and his politics through a self-
contained, independent inquiry into the French reception of Heidegger's thought" (xi).
Rockmore's work differs from my own in that he focuses on the relation between politics
and thought in the French reception. His book is organized thematically around the role
of "humanism" and "antihumanism" in French philosophy and attempts to understand
"how an apparent genius who was drawn to Nazism has continued to attract attention
among many philosophers who do not share his political views, above all those working in
the humanist tradition of French philosophy" (xv). As such it is an excellent companion to
this work's chronological account of the initial importation, reception, and incorporation
of Heidegger's philosophy in France and its subsequent immense popularity. Of equal
importance is Dominique Janicaud's llridPggPT er1 Franc~, vols. 1 and 2 (Paris: Albin
Michel, 2001). The first volume presents Janicaud's own account of the reception of
Heidegger in France from an insider's perspective. The second is a series of interviews
with French intellectuals that provides multiple perspectives on the process of reception.
10
Introduction
occurred between 1927 and 1961, the "first phase" of the reception of
Heidegger in France.
The basis for these divergent readings lies in the tension in Martin Hei-
degger's Being and Time (first published in 1927) between his attempt to
present a primordial collective and his desire to preserve the individuality
of the specific actor. The organizing motif of Being and Time is Heidegger's
investigation of the individual being in relation to the collective back-
ground in which that being finds itself. For this reason, Heidegger orga-
nized Being and Time into two "divisions." Division 1 is concerned with the
''way of being" in the largest sense of the term, Division 2 with the specific
aspects of particular being. But the earliest French readers seem to have
had little interest in the obscure and elusive category of the "way of being,"
and their own interest in "individuality" led them to the later parts of Being
and Time, where Heidegger's concern with the actual conditions of human
existence came to the fore. Heidegger did not intend for the two divisions
to stand in opposition, but in the French reading the emphasis was placed
on the second division, specifically the chapters "Temporality," "Death,"
and "Historicality." This shift created an oppositional dynamic between the
two divisions that emphasized the primacy of the individual who asserts his
individuality through "authentic choice" and "resolute action." This funda-
mentally humanistic, anthropocentric reading of Heidegger's project I will
call the first reading ofHeidegger in France.
In Being and Time, Heidegger is equally concerned with the collective
contextual referent of "the world" (which gives us all our possibilities
and is the social nexus into which we are thrown), and the particular
individual who exists as a being-in-the-world and for whom being is an
issueP But Heidegger's language is difficult and his intentions are at
times unclear. His investigation into the larger ontological issue of being
necessarily begins with the localized investigation into the omic proper-
ties of the specific being for whom being is an issue. 18 But this does not
mean that the individual holds the answer to the question of being. On
the one hand, everything we do and have is based on the world we live
17. On Heidegger's philosophy and &ing and Time, see Hubert L. Dreyfus, Bei11g-in-the-World
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992); Theodore Kisiel, The Gnle'iis of 1/eidPgger:'i Bring and Time
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Jeffrey Barash, Marti11 Hl'idegJ.,Tt'T and the
Problem of I li.'it.orical MP.fJning (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003); Michael Gelven,
ed., A Commentary on !Ieidegger's Being and Time, rev. ed. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University
Press, 1989}; Richard Polt, lleidegger: An Introduction (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999};
Harrison Hall, "Intentionality and World: Division I on Being ami Time," and Piotr lloffman,
"Death, Time, History: Division II of Bnng and TimP," both in The Cambridge Companion to
lll'idegger, ed. Charles B. Guignon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Michael
Murray, ed., llei.dJ>gwrand Modern Phil.ofnphy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978).
18. For Heidegger, on tic properties determine the specific ways we exist on an everyday
level, for example, being a carpenter who builds houses.
11
in and the cultural referents the world presents us with (and thus not
on our individual self); on the other hand, it is only through the indi-
vidual Dasein that we can come to investigate this phenomenon. While
Dasein does imply "human existence," it is not to be confused with any-
thing like the Cartesian cogito, the Freudian ego, or Husserl's concept
of consciousness. Dasein is not a conscious subject. It is not cognitive,
localizable, or definable as a process or event. Instead, Dasein is the way
human beings are. It must be understood as more basic than mental states
and intentionality and therefore as the basis on which these concepts are
grounded. 19
Dasein always understands itself in terms of its existence-in terms of
a possibility of itself: to be itself or not itself. Dasein has either cho-
sen these possibilities itself, or got into them, or grown up in them
already. Only the particular Dasein decides its existence, whether it
does so by taking hold or by neglecting. (BT, 33)
The possibilities that Dasein can "choose'' are based on the world around
it, but, because Dasein is self-interpreting in its nature, it approaches the
world individually. "The 'essence' of Dasein lies in its existence' (BT, 67). Hei-
degger's language can be interpreted to emphasize either the collective
referent or the individual existent. For reasons we will explore, the first
French readers inclined toward the individual, while the proponents of
the second reading, such as Jean Beaufret, inclined toward the collec-
tive. Heidegger wants to explore the difficult dynamic between the indi-
vidual Dasein and the world that gives it its possibilities, but he is not
clear about which of these two themes holds greater weight in the overall
investigation. This is because Heidegger's model represents an intersec-
tion between the often conflicting influences of Wilhelm Dilthey and
S0ren Kierkegaard, which become muddled in Being and Time because
of the free-flowing manner in which Heidegger moves between the two
without really spelling out their differences. The issue is compounded by
Heidegger's attempt to reconcile the communal and the individual by
using impersonal linguistic constructions in German. Heidegger appro-
priated the use of the German impersonal from neo-Kantianism but
modified it to alter its philosophical significance. Heidegger takes the
neo-Kantian es gilt ("it holds," "it is valid") and, by shifting the empha-
sis to the it, produces a philosophical construct that emphasizes that
which is prior to what is valid and which, in fact, gives validity. Thus Hei-
degger presents a pretheoretical "hold" to accompany the theoretical "it
holds" of neo-Kantianism, a "hold" given by the impersonal it. In this
move, Heidegger "gives priority to the impersonal event enveloping the
19. Dreyfus, Bfing-in-II~R-World, 22.
12
Introduction
I which 'takes place' in that event." 20 He_idegger relies on the German

impersonal throughout Being and Time to imply the action that occurs
prior to reflection or cognition. It is thus on the basis of his critique of
neo-Kantianism that the es giht shifts meaning from the Kantian "there
is" to the Heideggerian "it is given." The es gibt as "it is given" removes
the emphasis from the thing in itself and instead emphasizes brute fac-
ticity. The world is given to us a priori. But this impersonal giving also
implies the "who" it is given to. Heidegger's goal (as is evident in the
structural division of Being and Time) is to present the larger collective
issue of the way of being, which is the impersonal basis for all our prac-
tices and possibilities, and then to investigate how that common way of
being is differentiated in each specific case. In this sense we can under-
stand Heidegger's use of the je as in ]emeinigkeit ("in each case mine") as
the relation of the collective facticity of Dasein to the specific differenti-
ated case that is mine. Facticity occurs first (it is given), and that which is
given is understood in relation to the specific case of Dasein, who presses
into the possibilities that are given. This "shows that there is already a
pre--cognitive moment in which the initial categories or forms first pres-
ent themselves as simply given before they are known." 21 But the under-
standing of the je as the specific case of a larger common way is easily
lost in the rhetoric of what is "in each case mine." In the first reading of
Heidegger, the generation of 1933 read ]emeinigkeit as indicative of the
primary importance of the singular and individual Dasein. This reading
of Being and Time focused on the primacy of the individual Dasein, who is
thrown into a world beyond its control. This shift of focus was due largely
to Heidegger's language but also to Kierkegaard 's influence on Being and
Time and the overemphasis on this influence that characterized the first
reading of Heidegger in France.
This reading seemed to be corroborated by chapter 4 of Divi-
sion 1 of Being and Time, titled "Being-in-the-world as Being-with and
Being-one's-self. The One (Das Man)." The purpose of this chapter is
purportedly to explain the relation between referential context (the
world) and the case of specific Dasein that is in the world. 22 But Hei-
degger does not distinguish between the Diltheyan model he is using
and the Kierkegaardian model, which might have shown how these two
structures work together. Furthermore, Heidegger's language betrays an
20. Kisiel, 7711' Genesis of I leid.egger:~ Being and Time, 25.

21. Ibid., 27.
22. Heidegger's term das Man is commonly translated as "the they." It connotes a
separation between the individual Daseirt and the "they" who inhabit the world. I have
instead chosen the term "one" (as in "it is what one does") because it implies that the
individual Da.~t'in is incorporated into the referential whole of dm Man and is not outside
it. As often as possible I will use the original German.
13
individualistic tendency indebted to Kierkegaard (and Nietzsche), which

becomes the central theme for the first reading of Heidegger in France.
Heidegger's description of the "who" of everyday Dasein is ambiguous;
he presents Dasein as equiprimordial with the Mitsein (being-with others)
but also as "an entity which is in each case I myself; its Being is in each
case mine" (BT, 150). Heidegger points out that this conflict underlies
the common assumption that the "I" is the source of all investigation
(which in a sense it is), an assumption that disguises the fact that the
world in which we live is there already.
Just as the ontical obviousness of the Being-in-itself of entities with-
in-the-world misleads us into the conviction that the meaning of this
Being is obvious ontologically, and makes us overlook the phenom-
enon of the world, the ontical obviousness of the fact that Dasein is in
each case mine, also hides the possibility that the ontological prob-
lematic which belongs to it has been led astray. Proximally the "who"
of Dasein is not only a problem ontologically; even ontically it remains
concealed. (BT, 152)
The obviousness of the self leads to the flawed conclusion that it is
the source of ontological investigation, but this conclusion obscures
the antic everyday understanding of the self as well. In this sense the
obviousness of the self makes it difficult to discern. For Heidegger, the
self as the locus of cognition is not primary but derived.
We experience others through our Dasein, which is our own; the
others, however, are not derived from our self but are already there
with us:
Thus in characterizing the encounter of Others, one is again still ori-
ented by that Dasein which is in each case one's own. But even in this
characterization does one not start by marking out and isolating the
"I" so that one must then seek some way of getting over to the Others
from this isolated subject? To avoid this misunderstanding we must
notice in what sense we are talking about "the Others." By "Others"
we do not mean everyone else but me-those over against whom the
"I" stands out. They are rather those from whom, for the most part,
one does not distinguish oneself-those among whom one is too.
(BT, 154)
For Heidegger, the way we encounter others is not from the self that
distinguishes itself from the other but first and foremost as part of a
collective referential system where we exist among others. Others are
experienced first and foremost precognitively, and we do not reflect on
the others unless the situation calls on us to do so.
14
Introduction
Theoretically concocted "explanations" of the Being-present-at-hand

of Others urge themselves upon us all too easily; but over against
such explanations we must hold fast to the phenomenal facts of the
case which we have pointed out, namely, that Others are encountered
environmentally. (BT, 155)
For Heidegger, others are not encountered intentionally as pres-
ent-at-hand objects but instead environmentally as part of the world in
which we live. We do not reflect on others unless something disturbs
the situation in such a way that we are called to reflect on them. 23 In
this sense it is individual Dasein that encounters others, but the others
are always already there for Dasein as Being-in-the-world. "Dasein singly is
already Dasein with Others."
The term that Heidegger designates for this equiprimordial phenom-
enon is das Man.
"The Others" whom one thus designates in order to cover up the fact
of one's belonging to them essentially oneself, are those who proxi-
mally and for the most part "are there' in everyday Being-with-one-an-
other. The "who" is not this one, not that one, not oneself [man selbst],
not some people, and not the sum of them all. The "who" is the neu-
ter, the"one" [dasMan]. (BT, 164)
Based on the influence of Dilthey, the category of the one ( das Man)
is the social nexus that is in fact the basis for all our meanings and pos-
sibilities. Everything we do is conditioned by the way "one" does that
something in our culture. This is why it is natural for "one" to eat with
a knife and fork in France but equally natural for "one" to eat with
chopsticks in China. "We take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as one takes
pleasure; we read, see, and judge about literature and art as one sees
andjudges; likewise we shrink back from the 'great mass' as one shrinks
back; we find shocking what one finds shocking. The one, which is noth-
ing definite, and which all are, though not as the sum, prescribes the
kind of Being of everydayness" (BT, 164). For Heidegger, das Man is an
essential component in the structure of Dasein because it is what gives Das-
ein its values, norms, and practices. It is in this sense that Heidegger says
23. This model of being-with presupposes that there is nothing different or disturbing
about the other that would cause an immediate reflexive reaction. In this sense, the
other must be the same so as to seamlessly fit into the self's environmental nexus of
what an other should be. We will return to this issue in subsequent chapters. For an
account of the ethical possibilities of the Mifseir1, see Lawrence Vogel, 11tf' Fragilf' lVf':
Efhiml bnplimlion.s of 1/eideggPT's Being a11d TimR (Evanston: Northwestern University
Press, 1994). For a contrary account, see Samuel Moyn, "Selfhood and Transcendence:
Emmanuel Levinas and the Origins oflntersubjective Moral Theory, 1928-1961," Ph.D.
diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2000.
15
that "Das Man is an existentiale; and as a primordial phenomenon, it belongs

to Dasein 's positive construction" (BT, 167). Heidegger defines an existen-
tialeas that which makes up Dasein's ontological construction. Therefore,
Heidegger is presenting das Man as a positive component essential to
Dasein's makeup. But this message is largely lost in the substantive cri-
tique of das Man that constitutes the bulk of the chapter.
Heidegger is trying to present das Man as a double-edged sword
because, on the one hand, it is the basis for all shared practices and
is an essential component of Dasein's ontological makeup, but, on the
other, it is the locus of conformity wherein the individual Dasein loses
itself in the anonymity of shared practices. In the first reading of Hei-
degger in France, the latter reading subsumed the former.
Heidegger's critique of das Man as the agent of conformity and the
source of the leveling process mirrors Kierkegaard's critique of the
present age
In this averageness with which it prescribes what can and may be ven-
tured, it keeps watch over everything exceptional that thrusts itself to
the fore. Every kind of priority gets noiselessly suppressed. Overnight,
everything that is primordial gets glossed over as something that has
long been well known. Everything gained by a struggle becomes just
something to be manipulated. Every secret loses its force. (BT, 165)
The particular danger of the present age is the rationality and univer-
sal principles that reinforce the grip of das Man by making everything
appear self-evident, including one's self. But this leads to an obscuring
of Dasein's ontological makeup and to the faulty assumption that exis-
tentiell answers arc existential answers. Heidegger presents these nega-
tive aspects of das A1.an as the result of das Man's "publicness."
Publicness proximally controls every way in which the world and Das-
ein get interpreted, and it is always right-not because there is some
distinctive and primary relationship-of-Being in which it is related
to "Things," or because it avails itself of some transparency on the
part of Dasein which it has explicitly appropriated, but because it is
insensitive to every difference of level and of genuineness and thus
never gets to the "heart of the matter." By publicness everything gets
obscured, and what has thus been covered up gets passed off as some-
thing familiar and accessible to everyone. (BT, 165).
Publicness has an answer for everything, but its answers are what was
known to it already and in this sense it never approaches the real ques-
tion of being. In the interest of uniformity and complete systematic
understanding, publicness invents responses that make all cases conform
to one rule, one logic, and thus removes all differentiation. Thus the
16
emphasis of chapter 4 seems to lie in Heidegger's criticism of the evils
of conformity and the inherent problems of living with others. These
themes become the central focus of Sartre's Being and Nothingness.
By the end of chapter 4, Heidegger appears to understand the appre-
hension of authentic Dasein as the individual's will and resolve to assert
its individuality in the face of the banal confom1ism of the herdlike das
Man. What is obscured in Heidegger's criticisms of das Man and public-
ness is his prior assertion that the collective category of das Man is pre-
cisely what presents the individual with all its possibilities (including the
possibility for authenticity) and that this is not a bad thing. Heidegger's
Diltheyan understanding of das Man as an existentiale, and therefore as
s
a necessary, constructive component of Dasein makeup, is lost in his
Kierkegaardian critique of conformity. As a result, Heidegger's first read-
ers in France understood his structure to be derived from Kierkegaard 's
individualist existentialism and did not sufficiently take into account
the influence of Dilthey or Heidegger's modifications to Kierkegaard's
structure. In contrast, the second wave of readers overemphasized Hei-
degger's ontological antisubjectivism and dismissed his use of Kierkeg-
aard in Being and Time. The internal tensions in Heidegger's Being and
Time ultimately became the fault line that opened when the first reading
of Heidegger's philosophy in France, based on the subjectivist elements
in Heidegger's work, was confronted by the second and third read-
ings, which focused on the ontological, postsubjectivist aspects of his
project. These themes also translated into a political understanding of
Heidegger's thought, so that proponents of the first reading interpreted
Heidegger's work as antithetical to authoritarian collectivism and thus
in opposition to totalitarian movements such as National Socialism, by
virtue of the perceived emphasis on the individual and the individual's
freedom. This in fact is the basis for the first Heidegger Affair. Now that
we have explored the tensions within Heidegger's Being and Time that
allowed for both a humanistic, anthropocentric reading and a postsub-
jectivist ontological reading, let us turn to the main focus of this work,
how these understandings manifested themselves in France. ~
The structure of this book follows chronologically the three "readings"
ofHeidegger's philosophy in France. Part 1, "On the Way to France," dis-
cusses the arrival of Heidegger's philosophy in France through the work
of Emmanuel Levinas in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Part 2, "The First
Reading," explores the initial French understanding of Heidegger's phi-
losophy as anthropocentric, teleological, and fundamentally humanistic.
Chapter 2 explores Alexandre Kojeve's seminar on Hegel at the Ecole
Pratique des Hautes Etudes as both the intersection between German
phenomenology and the generation of 1933, and as the basis for this
first reading of Heidegger's philosophy in France. Chapter 3 looks at the
17
dissemination ofKojeve's interpretation ofHeidegger through the works

of Raymond Aron, Jacques Lacan, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Chapter
4 traces the influence of Heidegger's philosophy on Jean-Paul Sartre, as
well as the popularization of the first reading of Heidegger's philosophy
through the writings and person ofSartre. Part 3, "The Second Reading,"
attempts to situate Heidegger's own response to the French understand-
ing of his work (in his "Letter on Humanism," written to Jean Beaufret
in 1945), in relation to the first "Heidegger Affair" of 1945-1946. The
results of these two phenomena led to a second reading of Heidegger in
France as an "ahumanist" postsubjective philosopher whose work stood
in opposition to the existentialism of Sartre, Aron, and Merleau-Ponty.
Part 4, "The Third Reading," explores responses to both the first and
second readings but also to Heidegger's political affiliation with National
Socialism in the wake of the Final Solution. The works of Maurice Blan-
chot and Emmanuel Levinas are both attempts to use Heidegger's cri-
tique of the Western philosophical tradition to move beyond Heidegger
and to construct a new type of ethics in the aftermath of World War II
and the Shoah.
Finally, I need to say something about the relation between my project
and the critique of history in the work of both Heidegger and Blanchot.
The narrative structure of this sort of intellectual history necessarily
belittles the nature of the questions asked and reduces the plurality of
responses, of possibilities, to a single one. A history of the reception
of Heidegger in France is truly a paradoxical enterprise because to
take Heidegger's philosophy seriously is to forfeit the necessary strat-
egies of narration and representation that make such a chronological
account possible. In essence this is the poverty of this particular work
which, in my desire to present the events that occurred, may obscure the
most important questions, which lie precisely in the issues of represent-
ability, narrative, and repetition. Further reflections on these issues in
relation to historical methodology are necessary, but if readers take seri-
ously Blanchot's critique of history as presented in chapter 6 and apply
it to the structure of this work, they will be able to dislodge the narra-
tive supremacy of the author and engage these philosophical issues in a
more fruitful way.
18
CHAPTER 1
Emmanuel Levinas: de l'etre .
Kovno, 1905-1921
Kovno, Lithuania, might seem an odd place to begin a history of the
reception of Martin Heidegger's philosophical oeuvre in France, yet to
UDC'aoo.y/not at home
borrow a term from Heidegger himself, it is indicative of the unheimlich
nature of the series of events that would root Heidegger's work so firmly
in French intellectual circles. In 1906, the year of Emmanuel Levinas's
birth, Kovno, Lithuania, was still very much a part of czarist Russia.
Thirty percent of its eighty thousand inhabitants were Jewish. Kovno and
the area surrounding it were known for their yeshivas and their history
of Talmudic scholars such as the Gaon of Vilna and Chaim of Vol on.
Equally prevalent was a spirit of Enlightenment and the assimilation of
Russian and Jewish heritages. 1 The enlightened Jewish families spoke
Russian, rejected Orthodoxy, and embraced traditional Russian culture
while keeping kosher and celebrating "Jewish traditions." 2 The Levinas
household was just such a family.
The tension between the desires for assimilation and autonomous
Jewish identity can be seen in the incongruities of the Levinas family's
everyday life. They lived outside the Jewish area, spoke primarily Rus-
sian at home, owned a Russian bookstore, and wanted their children to
attend Russian schools. Yet they interacted in primarily Jewish circles,
kept kosher, celebrated the Jewish holidays, and learned Hebrew, albeit
I. For an overview of the intellectual and religious climate in Lithuania, see Judith
Friedlander, Vilna on the Seine (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). For an account
of the tensions inherent in the Russification of modern Jews, see Michael Stanislawski,
Zioni.srn and the Hrt-d!!-Sikle: Cosrrwpolitanistn and Nalio'Tialism Nordau wjacobotinsky(Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2001 ).
2. Friedlander, Vilna on the Seine.
19
as a modern language. 3 Speaking Russian at home, reading Russian liter-

ature, and becoming schooled in Russian politics and culture were part
of the larger objective of gaining entrance into the Russian school sys-
tem. As Levinas himself points out, the desire was not to assimilate but to
gain access to Russian literature and culture and through this culture to
another intellectual horizon that would be an opening to Europe. This is
why Emmanuel Levinas's parents would speak nothing but Russian with
their children but would communicate in Yiddish between themselves. 4
This is also why Emmanuel Levinas first encountered the Old Testa-
ment as material to be translated into Russian and Hebrew as a way of
learning those languages, without the "famous commentaries that would
later appear to me as being essential. The silence of these marvelous
Rabbinical commentaries was also an homage to modernity." 5
Levinas's father's bookstore provided texts to the Russian high school
and therefore the Levinas family was financially secure. Growing up in
Kovno, Levinas was spared the most blatant and viplent forms of anti-
Semitism that were prevalent in surrounding areas, but he was made well
aware of the limits placed on Jews under the czarist regime. The most
glaring example in Levinas's early childhood was the restriction on the
number ofJews allowed into the Russian high school-the reason for his
parents' emphasis on academic excellence.
In 1915, the German invasion of Lithuania forced the Levinas fam-
ily to leave Kovno. Their original plan was to move to Kiev, but it was
closed to Jews at this time. They moved to the Ukrainian city of Khar-
kov instead. 6 In 1916, Levinas passed several entrance exams designed to
limit the number ofJews accepted into Russian secondary schools. 7 Only
four other Jews were admitted, and the Levinases held "a veritable fam-
ily celebration, a graduation! A Doctorate!!" 8 For five years beginning at
age eleven, he followed the Russian school program with its emphasis
on Russian culture and literature. He began to study German at school
while continuing private lessons in Hebrew.
One year after his entrance into the Russian school, the czar abdi-
cated and the Levinases were once again caught in a situation beyond
their control. As bourgeois jews they had much to fear from the Revolu-
3. ~\1arie-Anne Lescourret, EmmamJRl Levin as (Paris: Flam marion, 1994), 32-33.
4. Ibid., 34.
5. F. Poirie, EtntiUZnURl uvinn.s: Qui eles-vmJ,j? (Lyon: La Manufacture, 1987), 67.
6. See Eric Lohr, "The Russian Army and the Jews: Mass Deportation, Hostages, and
Violence during World War I," Russia.n Rrmno60 Uuly 2001): 404-19; Peter Gatrell, A li-1wle
Empirr Walking: IU>Jugr?es in Russia during World War I (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1999).
7. Friedlander, Vilna on till' St'int, 81.
8. Poirie, E.L.: Qu.i it.es-l!ou.s? 67. On Kharkov, see Arthur E. Adams, Bolslwoiks in tlte
Ukraine: 17te Sermnl Cnmpaig;n, 1918-/9/9 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963).
20
Emmanuel Levinas: de l'itre ...
tion. 9 Levinas found himself in a precarious position. He was too young

to understand the complexities of the Russian Revolution, but he was
caught up in the excitement of the times. He spent his first year of school
under the czarist regime and the following year under the regime of the
February Revolution. Levinas was drawn to the excitement and hope of
communism and Leninism, but his parents insisted adamantly that he
avoid politics and keep to his studies. 10
Mter the German evacuation in 1919, Lithuania declared its inde-
pendence and formed a republic. In 1920, the Levinases took the "first
possible opportunity" to leave Kharkov and the Soviet Ukraine to return
to Kovno. But the Kovno to which the Levinas family returned was not
the Kovno they had left. The Russian bookstore had been sold, since in
an independent Lithuania the need for a Russian bookstore was greatly
diminished. Furthermore, and perhaps more troubling to the Levinas
family, the Russian high school had been closed as part of the reformation
of the Lithuanian national school system. Emmanuel Levinas returned to
the Jewish high school; his hopes of graduating from the Russian school
and being part of the culture of Russia and Europe were dashed. 11
But as one "opening to Europe" closed, a new one opened. The
director of the Jewish school, Dr. Moses Schwabe, was a German Jew
"who had discovered Eastern European Judaism during his captivity in
Russia. He was a doctor of philosophy, and it was he who taught me
German. " 12 Dr. Schwabe taught courses on German literature, and Levi-
nas became enamored with the works of Goethe. Under Dr. Schwabe's
instruction, Levinas finished high school with an emphasis on Russian
literature. Philosophy classes in the traditional sense did not exist in the
Russian or Lithuanian school systems, so it was through authors such
as Nicolay Gogol, Aleksandr Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mikhail Ler-
montov, Leo Tolstoy, and Ivan Turgenev that Levinas was introduced to
what he termed "metaphysical unease" (inquietude metaphysique) .13 While
Levinas was familiar with the Bible and the Jewish traditions, it was the
study of Russian literature, rather than his position in the Lithuanian
Jewish community, that marked his first step toward the investigation
and interrogation of the "sens de la vie." He had not studied the Talmud
or the methods of the Gaon of Vilna. He would not come to his love of
9. Friedlander, Vilna on the Seine, 81.

10. Poirie, E.J. : Qui eti's-vm.ts? 68.
11. For an overview, see Alfred Erich Senn, 11~e Grmt Polllers, J.ifhuania, and the Vilna
Question, 192{}-/928 (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1966).
l2.Myriam Anissimov, "Emmanuel Levin as se souvient," Les nO!lvea'UX cahiers 82 (Fall 1985):
32.
13. Poirie, E.!..: Qui ete.NJ01.U?69.
21
Torah, which he believed was crucial to answering these questions, until

much later in his life.
At age eighteen, Emmanuel Levinas faced the crisis of losing one of
his formative cultures. The czarist Russian Kovno of his youth was now
part of the Lithuanian Republic. His ascension in the Russian world had
been arrested and with it his academic possibilities. Levinas was not "at
home" in Kovno, Lithuania. He found himself "a jew in an age of Chris-
tianity, a Iitvak in a world of Jews, a Russian speaker among people who
spoke Yiddish, enlightened and observant at the same time, rationalist
and sympathetic, panhumanist and an exile." 14
Strasbourg, 1923-1929
Emmanuel's parents had originally planned for him to attend a Russian
university, but after the Revolution it became clear that this was no lon-
ger an option. Given his studies with Dr. Moses Schwabe, his knowledge
of German, and the proximity of Germany, the German university system
seemed a logical choice. But Emmanuel Levinas decided to venture to
the University of Strasbourg, "the city in France closest to Lithuania,"
where he did not speak the language well, and which was certainly more
distant than many universities in Germany. Increasing anti-Semitism in
Germany, the unstable value of a diploma from a jewish school in Lithu-
ania, and the reluctance of German universities to admit Eastern Euro-
pean Jewish immigrants may have determined the choice for him. 15
In any event, Levinas had made a good choice. Strasbourg was a bilin-
gual city and Levinas was able to use his German while he improved his
French. In many ways Strasbourg was the perfect place for Levinas, a city
whose nationality had changed with the multiple redrawings of the map.
Neither ~lly German nor fully French, the Alsatian capital was unheimlich
in the sense that it called the notions of borders and national identity into
question.
After World War I and the return of the Alsatian territory to France, that
country set about reintegrating Kaiser-Wilhelm University into the French
academic system under the name of the University of Strasbourg. It was
the Third Republic's intention to establish a first-rate French university that
would rival Paris in order to assert France's cultural as well as geographi-
cal control over this disputed territory. The university filled its ranks with
France's youngest and brightest scholars, primarily from the Ecole Normale
Superieure, to guarantee the success of French culture. The University of
Strasbourg was different from most French universities in that it comprised
14. Lescourret, Ernrrtar1uel Levina.s, 50.

15. Ibid., 51.
22
Emmanuel Levinas: de l'etre ...
not only the five traditional colleges-Letters, Law, Science, Medicine, and
Pharmacy-but also two schools of theology (Protestant and Catholic) .16
To counterbalance the two religious faculties, the University of Strasbourg
packed the Department of Letters with "nonreligious" staff. Regardless
of the criteria by which the "nonreligious" instmctors were chosen, they
turned out to be extremely avant-garde. By the early 1920s the University of
Strasbourg's Faculty of Letters consisted of such notable scholars as Martial
Gueroult, Maurice Pradines, Maurice Halbwachs, Marc Bloch, and Lucien
Febvre.
But while these young professors sought to challenge the more tradi-
tional Parisian universities, their rebellion would go only as far as their
Parisian education would let it. Furthermore, their isolated position in
Strasbourg kept them out of many of the spirited debates over politics,
academics, and Parisian affairs. How could these Young Turks venture
beyond Paris when they did not know where Paris was going? For this
reason, many of the professors would leave StrclSbourg the first chance
they got for university posts in Paris. By 1925 the dean began referring to
his university as the waiting room for the Sorbonne. 17
By the time Levinas came to Strasbourg, the university was more or less
in step with the rest of the French academic world, with the exception of
the Department of Theology, which still followed its Protestant interests.
The French philosophical world Levinas entered was caught between the
poles of neo-Kantian rationalism as exemplified by Bmnschvicg, which
focused on a rational approach to philosophy based on the model of sci-
entific investigation, and the philosophy of Bergson, with its emphasis on
spiritualism, intuition, and interiority.
During his first year at StrclSbourg, Levinas studied Latin and perfected
his French. To pass his language exam he translated a text by Kant from
Latin in to French: "Principorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio,"
Section 3, part 2.6. The following year he enrolled as a student of philos-
ophy in the Faculty of Letters. This was Levinas's first foray into the aca-
demic world of philosophy. What he lacked in formal training he more
than made up for with his knowledge of the Old Testament and Russian
literature. His approach was not that of a student brought up studying
philosophy in the French school system. Instead, as Lcvinas writes, his
interest in philosophy came from the courses he had taken on
16. Fran~ois-Georges Dreyfus, "Strasbourg et son universite de 1919 a 1929," in Charles-

Oiivier Carbonell and Georges Livet, Au bnr:eau des AnnalPs (Toulouse: Presses de I'Institut
d'Etudes Politiques de Toulouse, 1983), 11. See also John F. Craig, Srltolars!tip artd Nalion-
buildJng: The Univt'TSily of ~trasbourg rmd Alsatian SociRty, 1870---1939 (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1984).
17. Lescourret, Ernmamul Ler.inas, 52-53.
23
Pushkin, Lermontov and Dostoevsky, above all Dostoevsky. The Rus-

sian novel, the novels of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy appeared to me to
be completely preoccupied with fundamental things. Books that were
traversed by anxiety, by the essential, by religious unease; but that
read like a quest for the meaning oflife (sens de la vie). These nov-
els where love in its innocence revealed its dimensions of transcen-
dence prior to all eroticism, and where an expression like "to make
love" would be a scandalous profanation before it became indecency.
It was certainly in the sentimental love of these novels that I found my
first philosophical temptations. 18
Levinas was not interested in the theoretical idealism of neo-Kantian-
ism, which he felt was too abstract to deal with the fundamental things
of everyday life, but turned instead to the work of Bergson and the fields
of sociology, psychology, and theology. The work of Bergson and these
other disciplines seemed much closer in their concerns to the issues
Levinas had been exploring in the work of Pushkin, Lermontov, Dos-
toevsky, and Tolstoy.
Levinas spent his first years in the Department of Philosophy at Stras-
bourg studying with Maurice Pradines, professor of general philoso-
phy, and Henri Carteron, professor of ancient philosophy. But soon he
branched out to psychology under Charles Blondel and sociology under
Maurice Halbwachs.
In contact with these masters the great virtues of intelligence and
intellectual probity were revealed to me, but also those of clarity and
the elegance of the French university. Initiation into the great philoso-
phers Plato and Aristotle, Descartes and the Cartesians, Kant. Not yet
Hegel, in those twenties at the Faculty of Letters at Strasbourg! But
it was Durkheim and Bergson who seemed to me especially alive.
They had incontestably been the professors of our masters. 19
Maurice Pradines was a contemporary of Max Scheler and Ernst Cas-
sirer. A Bergsonian, he was trying to define a new type of rationalism that
would "de-divinize" reason without reducing it to a positivist schematic
of facts. This rationalism was to be based on a philosophy of sensation
that would preserve the understanding of the excess of the soul while
still allowing one to place reason in a position that did not regress into
pure irrational mysticism. Pradines's primary concern in this philosophi-
cal system was the privileged position of ethics and morality, and spe-
cifically the relation of ethics to politics. One of the first courses Levinas
took with Pradines was on just this topic, and as proof of the privileged
18. Poirie, E.L: Qui eii'H101tS?69.

19. Emmanuel Le"inas, f:t1tiq1v 1'1 lrtjitti: J>ialtl{ftu.s avec PbiliptJP Nnno (Paris: Fayard, 1982), 16.
24
position of ethics over politics Pradines gave the example of the Dreyfus
Mfair. 20 This was an essential moment leading up to Levinas's decision to
embrace French culture and society as his own. For Levinas, as for most
Jews in Eastern Europe, the Dreyfus Affair was an event of mythic pro-
portions: "Everywhere in Eastern Europe, Jews knew about Dreyfus. Old
Jewish men with beards who had never seen a letter of the Latin alpha-
bet in their life, spoke of Zola as if he were a saint. And then, suddenly,
there was a professor before me in the flesh, who had chosen this [the
Dreyfus Affair] as his example [of the superiority of ethics over politics].
What an extraordinary world!"2 1
Through Pradines, Levinas was introduced to the works of Henri Berg-
son, a figure as inspirational to Levinas for his Jewish background as for his
philosophical prowess. But while the realization that a Jewish man could
reach the heights of popularity in the field of philosophy was encourag-
ing, if not seductive, to the young Jewish scholar, it was the realization of
how the works of Bergson could guide the future of philosophy that truly
sparked his interest. For Levinas, Bergson represented all that was new in
philosophy, and he was swept up in the novelty of this sensation. Bergson
was seen as the liberator of time and, through time, of free will. 22 For Levi-
nas and the other young students at Strasbourg, Bergson addressed the
fear of being in a world without new possibilities, without a future of
hope, a world where everything is regulated in advance; the ancient
fear before fate, be it that of a universal mechanism, absurd fate, since
what is going to pass has in a sens~ already passed! Bergson, to the
contrary, put forward the proper and irreductible reality of time ...
It is Bergson who taught us the spirituality of the new "being" disen-
gaged from the phenomenon in an "otherwise than being. "23
But Levinas's nuanced reading of Bergson surpasses Bergson in many ways.
Despite the emphasis on fluidity and movement, Le\-inas came to see
Bergson's philosophy as static because it had completed the task it set
out to achieve. In some sense it had nothing more to offer. Bergson's
work opened new horizons and new possibilities. It was the basis without
which "all the new ideas developed by philosophers during the modern
and postmodern periods, and in particular the venerable newness of
Heidegger, would not have been possible." 24 But its impact lay in how it
20. Lescourret, Emmanuel Le'(!ina..~. 61-62.

21. Poirie, E.L.: Qui ete.s-vous? 70, my additions in brackets.
22. This is the central premise of Bergson's E.~.rai sur iPs donnees immidiate.s dP Ia ronscienre
(1889), translated into English as Time a.nd Frt'e Will.
23. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, trans. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University
Press, 1985), 28.
24. Poirie, E.L: Qu.i iles-vou.s? 72.
25
broke the grip of positivism and rationalism by emphasizing the concept

of free will. For Levinas, Bergson's philosophy escaped pure objectivity
but did so by going to the other extreme; it was dangerously close to
pure subjectivity. Levinas did not want to replace the emphasis on the
object with an emphasis on the subject that was equally removed from
our everyday interactions with things in the world we live. For the time
being, Levinas would continue his search for the "concrete meaning of
the very possibility of 'working in philosophy. "' 25
Henri Carteron taught ancient philosophy and was an expert on Aris-
totle and Saint Thomas Aquinas. He was conservative in both his politi-
cal views and his relations with students, preferring to keep a specific and
ordered protocol. He would demand the highest standards of work from
his students and would devote enormous time to them. Always keeping
a critical distance, he would get the best from those who could survive
the rigor of his instruction. To Levinas, Carteron represented all the glory
and tradition of the French university, "the just authority of the Masters
and the happy (bienheureuse) reverence of the students, a mutual relation
based on the respect for knowledge and for France."26 Carteron's work
on religion, specifically Catholicism, in relation to philosophy captured
Levinas's attention. Levinas felt enormous respect and sympathy for Cart-
eron's project of integrating philosophy and religion into a "modern" phi-
losophy. This would become a fundamental tenet of Levinas's later work,
as he attempted to reconcile his particular religious beliefs with a larger
philosophical system. In 1927, Henri Carteron died at the age of thirty-six.
In 1930 Levinas dedicated his first book to the memory of his professor.
If Henri Carte ron represented the old France, Charles Blondel was the
other side of the coin. Blondel's relationship with his students was z.ca-
demic but also very social. He sought to foster camaraderie and openness
among his students by treating them as friends. Of Levinas's instructors,
Blondel was "the one you could tell anything." 27 He would often invite his
students over for dinner and organize infonnal discussion groups. Blonde}
taught psychology from a strictly anti-Freudian perspective. In 1924, Levi-
nas took his course on psychoanalysis, which followed his book of the same
name (La Psychanalyse). 28 Through Blondel, Levinas became acquainted
with the works of Freud, but presented from a hostile perspecti,c. 29
25. Levin as, Ethics and Infinity, 28.

26. Lescourret, f.'mmanuPl Lruina~. 57.
27. Poirie, E.L: Qui e/I'S-VmLf? 70.
28. La Psyrhanafysl' (Paris: Alcan, 1924). The course was roughly based on the chapters of
the first volume titled La dor:trinl'tle Frmd. On Blonde I, see Lucien Febvre, "Un psychologue:
Charles Blonde!," in Combal.f pour l'ltisloire (Paris: A. Colin, 1953).
29. Charles Blonde!, La con.w:iena morf1ide (Paris: Alcan, 1913).
26
While these eminent professors were responsible for the more formal
aspects of Levinas's academic training, perhaps the two most important
figures in Levinas's development at Strasbourg were a fellow student,
Gabrielle Peiffer, and a young instructor and pastor named Jean Hering.
It was Peiffer who introduced Levinas to the work of Edmund Husserl:
In Strasbourg, a young colleague, Miss Peiffer, with whom, later, I
shared the translation of the Husserlian Cartesian Meditations, and
who prepared on Husserl what one then called the Dissertation of
the Superior Studies Degree, had recommended to me a text which
she was reading-! believe it was the Logical /nvestigations. 30
The following year Levinas enrolled in Jean Hering's course at the Fac-
ulty of Protestant Theology at Strasbourg. Hering had been a member of
the GOttingen circle, one of the original phenomenological groups that
gathered to study around Edmund Husserl.
The circle began in 1905 but did not become a cohesive entity until
1910, when the informal discussions and gatherings became a formal
philosophical society. The group consisted primarily of German students,
such as Adolf Reinach (b. 1905),Johannes Daubert (1905), Moritz Gei-
ger (1906), Theodor Conrad (1907), Hedwig Conrad-Martius (1910),
Max Scheler (1910), Hans Lipps (1911), and Edith Stein (1913); they
were joined by foreign students such as Roman Ingarden (1912, from
Poland), Alexandre Koyre (1910, from Russia via Paris), and Jean Hering
(1909, from Strasbourg). 31 From its inception, the circle worked around
Husser! but could not be defined as a school in the strict sense. The stu-
dents in the group met once a week to read papers or hold discussions
outside the university, usually without Husserl. For the members of the
circle, phenomenology had a broader meaning than it did for Husserl
himself, and while he approved of the experimental use of the phenom-
enological method in investigations of art and poetry, he did not see this
application as particularly fruitful and referred to the more frivolous
studies as "Bilderbuch phenomenology." Some of the investigations did
seem frivolous; according to Herbert Spiegelberg, even the scent of a
cigar or the taste of wine served as legitimate topics of phenomenologi-
cal investigations within the circle. In many ways this foreshadows Ray-
mond Aron's famous remark to Sartre that when using phenomenology,
even a beer is philosophy.
30. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 29.

31. The years in parentheses indicate when each member joined the circle. See Herbert
Spiegelberg, TltP Phenomnwlogiral Mmwment (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1960). For the origins
of phenomenology in France, see Eugene H. Frickey, "The Origins of Phenomenology in
France, 1920-1940," Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1979.
27
Furthermore, the members of the circle viewed Husserl's phenomeno-

logical strategy primarily as a universal philosophy of essences ( Wesenphiin-
omenologie), not strictly as the study of the "essence of consciousness." In
this sense the group overemphasized Husserl's ontological concern with
the essence of things and did not take seriously enough Husserl's move-
ment toward phenomenological transcendentalism and idealism. The cir-
cle came to an end with the outbreak ofWorld War I and Husserl's move to
Freiburg in 1916, but its members continued to explore the possibilities of
phenomenology through Husserl's jahrbuch fur Philosophie und Phanomenolo-
gie Forschung, published between 1913 and 1930.
When Levinas enrolled in Hering's course, none of Husserl's work
had been translated into French (Levinas and Peiffer's translation in
1931 would be the first). The German phenomenologist was virtually
unknown in France except for his lecture series on the Cartesian Medita-
tions, which he gave at the Sorbonne in 1929, and a series of lectures on
"the tendencies of German philosophy," delivered by Georges Gurvitch
at the Sorbonne between 1928 and 1930. Gurvitch's lectures focused on
phenomenology and specifically on Max Scheler, with attention paid to
Heidegger as representative of the future of German philosophy. 32 Only
one article had appeared on Husserl prior to the publication of Her-
ing's Phenomenologie et philosophie religieuse in 1925. 33 Like other members
of the Gottingen circle, Jean Hering had taken Husserl's methodology
and applied it to his own concerns. Specifically, Hering was interested in
ontology and the understanding of individual essences. 34 Furthermore,
Hering presented Husserl as the heir apparent to Bergson in the legacy
of philosophy. This can be traced to Hering's relationship with Alexan-
dre Koyre in Gottingen. In a 1939 article Hering cites a remark Koyre
made to him during their GOttingen days: "We [the Gottingen Circle]
are the true Bergsonians." 35 Koyre had studied with Bergson and Hus-
serl; therefore, his statement, though reckless, was taken quite seriously
because of the similarities between Bergson's and Husserl's understand-
ings of the concept of time.
Hering's course and his use of the phenomenological method was
inspired by his personal interest in the ontological investigation of man's
32. These lectures were published as Les tendenr.es acttulles de fa jJhilosophie allemarule (Paris:
J. Vrin,1930).
33. Victor Delbos, "Husserl: Sa critique du psychologisme et sa conception d'une logique
pure," IW.mR dR mPtophysique el df morniR 19 (1911).
34. See Jean Hering's "Bemerkungen iiber das Wesen, die Wesenheit und die Idee,"
jahrbuch fil.r PltilowfJitie 7lTid Pltiinomenologie For.~r.lt'IU/g 4 ( 1921): 495-543.
35. Jean Hering, "La phenomenologie il y a trente ans," IW.nu internalionale de philofophiP
1 (1939):368.
28
Emmanuel Levinas: de retre ...
relation to God, but conserved Koyre's understanding of the philosophi-

cal lineage from Bergson to Husserl. The importance of religion in
philosophy was not lost on Levinas, but while the possibility of religion
was important to him at the time, the future of philosophy was Levinas's
primary concern. "It was with Husserl that I discovered the concrete
meaning of the very possibility of 'working in philosophy' without being
straight away enclosed in a system of dogmas, but at the same time with-
out running the risk of proceeding by chaotic intuitions." 36 Husserlian
phenomenology appeared to Levinas as a methodology that escaped the
closed model of science, which was the basis for French neo--Kantianism;
at the same time, he believed, it avoided the slippery slope of a spiri-
tualism bordering on pure subjectivity and "chaotic intuitions," toward
which Bergson's work veered perilously close.
It was also at Strasbourg that Levinas began his lifelong and complex
friendship with Maurice Blanchot. Two years Levinas's junior, Blanchot was
born on September 23, 1907, in Quain, Saone-et-Loire. He was raised Cath-
olic and as a monarchist, and at the time Levinas made his acquaintance he
was heavily under the influence of Action Fram;aise. Blanchot's social posi-
tion and right-wing political orientation made him an unlikely candidate
for friendship with an immigrant Jew, but the two students soon found they
were driven by the same philosophical concerns. Blanchot's interests in
school were primarily literary, focused on the work of Stephane Mallarme,
Charles Baudelaire, and Arthur Rimbaud. At Strasbourg he had become
interested in the works of Marcel Proust and Paul Valery. But as Blanchot
notes in an interview from 1991, "Mter I met Emmanuel Levinas I was per-
suaded that philosophy was life itself. In his immeasurable passion,
which was always reasonable, thought was constantly renewed in a way that
would suddenly burst forth." 37 Levinas introduced Blanchot to the world
of Russian literature and to the work of Husserl and Heidegger.M In turn,
Blanchot introduced Levinas to the work of Proust and Valery.
The two were virtually inseparable during their time at Strasbourg and
would remain the closest of friends for the rest of their lives. In his essay
Pour l'amitieBlanchot referred to Levinas as the "only friend that I tutoie." 39
But this friendship between the unlikeliest of friends was not without its
troubles. Blanchot's relationship with Levinas led him to rethink his own

37. Blanchot, quoted in R Maggiori, "Le precheur d'autrui," LibemJion, May 30, 1991,23.
38. "It was thanks to Emmanuel Levinas, without whom I would never have come to
understand Being and Time in 1927 or 1928. It was a veritable shock that reading that book
produced in me." Maurice Blanchot, "Pense,J'Apocalypse," I.e nouvel observatntr,January
22-28, 1988, 79.
39. Maurice Blanchot, "Pour l'amitie," preface to A fa TPclwrrhe d'un commu.nisme tk pensee
(Paris: Dionys Mascolo, 1993), 16.
29
political and religious convictions, but he would not come to articulate

the fmits of this labor until after World War II. This is perhaps why Blan-
chot refers to his friendship with Levinas and their complex relationship
throughout the 1930s not in terms of circumstance or chance but as a
pact: "Emmanuel Levinas, the only friend-my old friend-; this came to
be not because we were young but by a deliberate decision, a pact which I
hope I never break." 40 Levinas led Blanchot to rethink his understanding
of his relation to the other, but this was not easy or immediate.
TI1roughout the 1930s, Blanchot's right-wing Catholic tendencies led him
to conceptualize the nation in opposition to the other. He conceived of the
nation as the supreme subject, the "I" speaking in the name of an organic
national community, and saw the other, the stranger or foreigner, not as an
opportunity for dialogue but as a menace:'~ In a certain sense it was Blan-
chot's relationship with Levinas and the philosophical investigations they
undertook together, based on the work of Heidegger, that led Blanchot to
confront the unstable position of the subject and to seek stability at the site
of the nation. At the time he saw this as the antidote to the crisis of moder-
nity that had stripped the nation of its meaning and left it confused and
powerless.12 But his personal relationship with Levinas was also a confronta-
tion with the other. This, however, was an other who came to him in friend-
ship, an other to whom he was infinitely close, but also an other that placed
his own identity in question. Thus the pact to which Blanchot refers involved
rethinking himself in relation to Levinas. In the late 1920s and early 1930s,
the relationship between Levinas and Blanchot existed outside politics but
was always haunted by Blanchot's political choices. Blanchot would not
come to grips with the schizophrenic nature of his political response to what
he perceived as the crisis of modernity until after World War Il. 13
Levinas and Blanchot would continue their dialogue throughout their
lives, and neither's work can be read without taking into account the
other's.11 It was the alterity ofLevinas's understanding of the meaning of
40. Maurice Blanchot, cited in Phillipe Mesnard, "Maurice Blanchot, le sujet de

!'engagement," L'infini 48 (Winter 1994): 113.
41. See Michael Holland's introduction to The Blanrhot H.etukr (Cambridge: Blackwell,
1995), 6-9.
42. For Blanchot, the nation-state, as embodied by France under the Third Republic, was a
result of the crisis of modernity. Blanchot's solution to this crisis was a return to the organic
construct he termed the "Nation." The fact that the concept of the Nation is itself a product
of modernity points to the conflicted and problematic nature ofBianchot's political theories.
43. See below, chap. 6.
44. There are a growing number of studies on the relationship between Blanchot's and
Levin as's work. See, for example, Simon Critchley, "II y ~A Dying Stronger Than Death
(Bianchot with Levinas)," Oxf(JTd Literary' Rroirw 15, 1-2 (1993): 81-131; Paul Davies,
"A Fine Risk: Reading Blanchot Reading Levinas," in 1?11-R.eadirtg /.roinas, ed. Robert
30
Emmanuel Levinas: de nitre ...
philosophy and the strange nature of his concerns that fascinated Blan-
chot and formed the basis of their pact.
Levinas's education was not that of a French student in philosophy,
nor were his concerns. His training in Russian literature and his knowl-
edge of the Bible led him to study in the Department of Philosophy at
Strasbourg, and his work at Strasbourg led him to phenomenology. Levi-
nas had no stake in the French debates over Bergsonianism and neo-
Kantianism. For him, the future of philosophy was phenomenology and
the home of phenomenology was Freiburg. Levinas decided to go to the
source.
Freiburg, 1928-1929
Levinas spent the academic year of 1928-1929 studying with Husserl,
who had just retired from the University of Freiburg but was continuing
his courses until a replacement could be chosen. The course for the first
term was on "the notion of psychology in phenomenology," and for the
second on "the constitution ofintersubjectivity." This was the last course
Husserl taught at Freiburg, and its contents would later become the cen-
tral focus of Levinas's work. But Levinas's immediate concerns were with
phenomenology as a method and the new possibilities that Husserl's
work might open up.
In the first place, there is the possibility sich zu besinnen, of grasping
oneself, or of getting back to oneself, of posing with distinctness the
question: "Where are we?" of taking one's bearings. Perhaps this is
phenomenology in the largest sense of the term, beyond the vision
of essences, the Wesenschau which made such a fuss. A radical reflec-
tion, obstinate about itself, a cogito which seeks and describes itself
without being duped by a spontaneity or ready-made presence, in
a major distrust toward what is thrust naturally onto knowledge, a
cogito which constitutes the world and the object, but whose objec-
tivity in reality occludes and encumbers the look that fixes it. From
this objectivity one must always trace thoughts and intentions back to
the whole horizon at which they aim, which objectivity obscures and
makes one forget. Phenomenology is the recalling of these forgotten
Bernasconi and Simon Critchley (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991), 201-26;
Lars Iyer, "The Sphinx's Gaze: Art, Friendship, and the Philosophical in Blanchot and
Levinas," Soutlwmjournal ofPhilo.~ophy 39, 2 (Summer 2001): 189-206;Joseph Libertson,
Proximity, Leuinas, Blanclwt, Bataille, and Communication (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982); Gary
D. Mole, Leuinas, Blanchot, jahes: Figures of Estrangement (Gainesville: University Press of
Florida, 1997); Thomas C. Wall, Radical Passivity: l.ernnas, Blanchol, and Agamben (New
York: State University ofNewYork Press, 1999).
31
thoughts, of these intentions; full consciousness, return to the misun-

derstood implied intentions of thought in the world. 15
For Levinas, Husserl's phenomenology implemented a complete
reflection that would allow the philosopher to get back to himself, to
include himself in the equation, even at the expense of "objectivity." 4ti
The philosopher near to things in their true status, without illusion or
rhetoric, without the artificial distinction of subject and object in the
Cartesian sense, moves beyond the question of knowing "What is" to the
more essential issues of "How is what is?" and "What does it mean that it
is?" For Levinas, phenomenology was the possibility of moving beyond
the systematic organization of knowledge under the rubric of reason to
the interrogation of the dynamism of the act of knowing and the mecha-
nisms at its origin. In this way it moved past the subject-object split by
emphasizing consciousness as the locus of the relationship between the
subject and the object.
In Husserl, Levinas found a kind and rigorous professor. He would
often dine with the Husserls at their home; at the request of Husserl's
wife he instructed her in the study of French. But ultimately Levinas felt
constricted by Husserl. "At the time conversation with him [Husserl],
after some questions or replies by the student, was the monologue of
the master concerned to call to mind the fundamental elements of his
thought." 47 Again Levinas found himself at an impasse. But this was Hus-
serl's last year as a lecturer, and it was he who suggested to Levinas that
he should remain in Freiburg to continue his studies with Husserl's suc-
cessor, Martin Heidegger.

46. For Husser!, phenomenology represented a more original investigation into philosophy
than those modeled on traditional science. To distinguish his project from such a science,
Husser! called phenomenology "eidetic science," which is prior to any specific field of
investigation because its field of investigation includes all fields of investigation. Eidetic
science is derived from the essence of objects as perceived in a specific given context by
consciousness. The understanding of an apple in the real world is conditioned by such
factors as its redness, its sweetness, its size, as well as the lighting and positioning of the
apple in relation to the subject who observes it. The apple has its own essence and thus
cannot be reduced to subjectivity, but the understanding of that apple is produced in
its relation with consciousness. Thus eidetic science is an enlarged field of investigation
that not only studies the nature of objects (like the science of facts) but also studies how
we come to derive knowledge from objects. In this sense, even the science of facts is a
realm of investigation for eidetic science, and furthermore, it is only on the basis of an
understanding of the relation of the object to the cogito that something like a science of
facts can become possible.
47. Levinas, f.'lhir.s m1d lt!fi.nity, 32-33.
32
Emmanuel Levin as: de l'etre ...
Levinas had already been introduced to the work of Heidegger on a

trip back to Strasbourg. He had gone to visit jean Hering at his hotel, and
Hering had given him a copy of Being and Time (first published in 1927).
Levinas was so impressed he immediately contacted Maurice Blanchot
to tell him of this find. Before he left Strasbourg, he had given several
impromptu lectures on the work of Husserl and Heidegger.
A few words on the relationship between Husserl and Heidegger
before we move on to the first encounters between Levinas and Hei-
degger: in 1928, Husserl and Heidegger were still on very good terms.
When Husserl announced his intention to retire, he suggested only one
candidate as his successor: Martin Heidegger. Their relationship had
been far more than that of professor and student. Husserl looked on
Heidegger as a son, the one man who had the brilliance and fortitude
to continue his work. The Husserls and Heideggers would often dine
together and go on outings; Hugo Ott describes the relations between
the families as having "grown steadily closer since 1918 until the tone was
of easy intimacy, particularly between the two wives."18 When Heidegger
had trouble finding a university post in the mid-1920s, he wrote to Hus-
serl for consolation. Husserl encouraged Heidegger, writing to him of
similar experiences he had had when young. In December 1926, Husserl
wrote a letter to Heidegger in reference to the impending publication of
Being and Time, Heidegger's first major work:
How fortunate that you are about to publish the work through which
you have grown to be what you are, and with which, as you must surely
know, you have begun to realize your own true being as a philoso-
pher. From that beginning you will grow to new and greater stature.
Nobody has more faith in you than 1-faith, too, that no ill feelings
will confuse or divert you from the work that is purely a consequence
of the talent entrusted to you, conferred upon you at birth. 19
It is easy to forget that it is precisely the faith that Husserl held in Hei-
degger as his pupil and his friend that made their later alienation and
estrangement so bitter. 50 Nevertheless, in 1928, at the suggestion of an
enthusiastic and content Husserl, Levinas decided to continue his stud-
ies at Freiburg under Heidegger.
It was with Heidegger that Levinas finally discovered a means to explore
the issues of metaphysical "unease" that had been his interest since his
studies with Dr. Moses Schwabe in Kovno. Husserl's phenomenology had
48. Hugo Ott, Martin lleirlRgger: A Polilicnl Lift, trans. Allan Blunden (New York: Harper
Collins,l993), 175.
49. Ibid., 129.
50. See "Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger," in Ott, Martinlleidrggn; A Political Lifo.
33
begun the radical interrogation that allowed for the possibility of "grasp-
ing oneself," of understanding the relation to things as "consciousness
of," which always implies a self that is conscience, but Heidegger took the
investigation further by shifting the focus away from the intellectual activi-
ties of the specific self and toward an investigation into being. Through
Being and Time and then through Heidegger's own lectures, Levinas was
introduced to "the comprehension of the verb to be.' Ontology would be
distinguished from all the disciplines which explore that which is, beings,
that is, the beings,' their nature, their relations-while forgetting that in
speaking of these beings they have already understood the meaning of the
word Being, without, however, having made it explicit. These disciplines
do not worry about such an explication." 51
Heidegger's project, however, made that explication of being its primary
goal by extending and reshaping Husserl's phenomenological project.
For the young Levinas, the work of Husserl seemed less convincing
precisely because it "seemed less unexpected. This may sound paradoxi-
cal or childish but everything seemed unexpected in Heidegger, the
wonders of his analysis of affectivity, the new access toward the investiga-
tion of everyday life, the famous ontological difference he drew between
being (das Sein) and beings (das seiendes)."52 Like Husserl, Heidegger
looked on science as a "certain modality of intelligibility-but a modality
already derived. "53 Thus Heidegger saw science as a secondary investiga-
tion that took the primary investigation of being for granted and thus
could not address the most important philosophical issues.
Levinas's philosophical transition from Husserlian phenomenology to
Heideggerian ontological phenomenology can be best traced through
two of Levinas 's earliest works: his article "Sur les Ideen' de M. Husserl,"
written for the Revue philosophique de la France et de l'etranger (1929) and
his doctoral dissertation, published as The Theory of Intuition irz Husserl's
Phenomenology (1930). The article was the first comprehensive and articu-
late treatment specifically of the work of Husserl that was able to explain
Husserl's project from the inside. 51 The dissertation would introduce the
philosophy of Martin Heidegger to France through Heidegger's critique
of Husserl's concept of intentionality.
"'When Levinas began to work with Husserl, he was enthralled by the phe-
nomenological methodology that apparently made it possible to reconcile
51. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 38-39.

52. Poirie, I~'.L: Qui ites-vmJS?75.
53. Ibid., 77.
54. The aforementioned works by Hering and Delbos were both parts of alternative
philosophical or theological projects that used in terpretationsofHnsserl 's phenomenological
method.
34
Emmanuellevinas: de nitre ...
the subject-object split by expanding the field of investigation to include

the consciousness who is investigating. For Husserl, consciousness is always
"consciousness of' something; thus the ego is always implied in the relation-
ship with the object. At the time of the publication of "Sur les Ideen' de
M. Husserl," Levinas was interested in those possibilities presented by this
method of investigation that avoided neo-Kantian rationalism without suc-
cumbing to the spiritualism of Bergson. As Levinas phrases it,
Husserl's great originality consists in his seeing the "rapport with the
object" not as something that is inserted in between consciousness
and the object but to see that the "rapport with the object" is con-
sciousness itself. It is the rapport with the object that is the original
phenomenon and not a split between the subject and object who
must then turn towards one another. 55
The attraction ofHusserl's phenomenology for Levinas and those who
read Levinas's 1929 article and the 1930 book based on his dissertation
was that it did not present a rhetorical solution to the problem of the sub-
ject and the object but instead allowed philosophy to move beyond the
problem of the relation between subject and object through the idea of
intentionality. Husserl's phenomenology was not a theory that separated
knowledge from everyday life, but one that presented a "theory of knowl-
edge that is the concrete study of different structures of the original phe-
nomenon which is the rapport with the object of intentionality." 56
In The Themy of Intuition in Husser/'s Phenomenology, Levinas sought to
provide an informed reading of Husserl's work but also included a con-
sistent critique of Husserl's intellectualism based on Levinas's participa-
tion in Heidegger's seminars and on Being and Time. 57 Levinas's book was
extremely influential, but the nature of its influence goes beyond the
subject of Husserl to the understanding of the reception of Heidegger in
France. The structure of the book is threefold. Given the academic cli-
mate in France, Levinas first had to distinguish Husserl's intuition from
Bergson's intuition; second, he had to distinguish Husserl's rationalism
and use of science from French neo-Kantian rationalism, with its empha-
sis on science; finally, Levinas sought to provide an informed critique of
Husserl's work based on his understanding of Heidegger's thought.
55. Emmanuel Levinas, "Surles Ideen' de M. Husserl," in Les irnprevus de l'histoire (Paris:
Fata Morgana, 1994), 62.
56. Ibid., 62.
57. On this, see Adriaan Peperzak, Beyond: The Pht:losophy of Rmmnnuel Leuina5 (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1997), chap. 4; RobertJohn Sheffler Manning, lntl'rprl'ting
Otherwise 11uw Hridegger: Emmanuel Lroinass Ethics as First PhilosojJhy (Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press, 1993); Craig R. Vassey, "Emmanuel Levinas: From Intentionality to
Proximity," Phil.osophy Today 25, 3-4 (Fall 1981): 175-95.
Husserl's phenomenology contained aspects that resembled both

Bergsonism and neo-Kantian rationalism, and it was therefore impor-
tant for Levinas to spend a good deal of time explaining the differences
between them. In the case ofneo-Kantianism, Levinas was able to present
his argument from "Les ldeen," which placed neo-Kantian rationalism
within traditional science and phenomenology within eidetic science.
On this basis Husserl could claim that phenomenology was more scien-
tific than science and thereby present a rational philosophy that made
it possible to interrogate the real without slipping into subjectivity. This
leads to Levinas's distinction between Husserlian intuition and the Berg-
sonian variant. Whereas for Bergson intuition is spiritual and intellec-
tual and therefore always in danger of falsifying concrete existence, for
Husserl the distinction between morphological (perceived) essences and
exact essences allow him to characterize intuition as "intellectual with-
out thereby falsifying the meaning of concrete reality" (TIHP, 119). In
a sense, Husserlian thinking differs from neo-Kantian rationalism in the
primacy it grants to intuition, but differs from Bergsonian intuition in
that Husserl's intuition is rational.
Rather than distinguish Husserl from either of these camps, Levinas's
book served to make Husserl appealing to both: his intuitionism appealed
to the Bergsonians and his rationalism appealed to neo-Kantians such as
Leon Brunschvicg. This is not surprising given that Husserl's work was
largely unknown and thus was read through the lenses of each of these
philosophical traditions. The very Heideggerian perspective of Levinas 's
presentation of Husserl went almost completely unnoticed, but it is from
that perspective that French thinkers such as Sartre and Aron were intro-
duced to Husserl.
Levinas's shift in emphasis can be seen from the very beginning of
The Theory of Intuition. Whereas in "Les Ideen" he presented Husserl's
philosophy as a "theory of knowledge," in The Theory of Intuition he pres-
ents Husserl's philosophy as chiefly concerned with the issue of ontol-
ogy. Levinas wants to demonstrate that the most important question in
Husserl is the ontological, despite Husserl's emphasis on constructions
of knowledge: "We want to show how the intuition which he [Husserl]
proposes as a mode of philosophy follows from his very conception of
Being" (TIHP, liv). Beyond that shift in emphasis, Levinas offers an
explicit critique of Husserl based on his work with Heidegger:
In conformity with our goal, we shall not fear to take into account prob-
lems raised by other philosophers, by students of Husser!, and, in par-
ticular, by Martin Heidegger, whose influence on this book will often
be felt. The intense philosophical life which mns through Heidegger's
philosophy sometimes permits us to sharpen the outline of Husserl's
36
philosophy by accentuating some aporias, raising some problems, mak-

ing certain views more precise, or opposing others. (TIHP, lv)
For Levinas, Heidegger's philosophy serves as more than a critique
of Husserl. It indicates the direction that Levinas thinks phenomenol-
ogy should follow. "It seems to us that the problem raised here by tran-
scendental phenomenology is an ontological problem in the very precise
sense that Heidegger gives to the tenn" (TIHP,lvi). In "Les Ideen" all ref-
erences to ontology relied on Husserl's use of the tenn regarding either
"fundamental" or "regional" ontologies, whereas in The Theory of Intuition
the term "ontology" is defined in Heideggerian terms and becomes the
basis for the phenomenological program.
This emphasis on ontology is a shift away from the primacy of the
cogito and the concept of intentionality. As opposed to his previous
emphasis on consciousness as "consciousness of something," which is the
structure of intentionality, Levinas now tries to emphasize ontology and
the understanding of being so as to minimize the specific subject.
In Husserl's philosophy (and this may be where we will have to depart
from it), knowledge and representation are not on the same level as
other modes oflife, and they are not secondary modes. Theory and rep-
resentation play a dominant role in life, serving as a basis for the whole
of conscious life; they are the forms of intentionality that give a founda-
tion to all others. The role played by representation in consciousness
affects the meaning of intuition. This is what causes the intellectualistic
character proper to Husserlian intuitionism. (TIHP, 53)
Here Levinas's critique of Husserl's intellectualism is based on Hei-
degger's critique of Husserl's use of the cogito as the locus of representa-
tion. While Heidegger subscribed to the methodology of phenomenology,
he believed that Husserl's model was too dependent on the primacy of con-
sciousness and a reflective cogito that makes sense of the world as it goes.
Heidegger wanted to push Husserl's investigation further and explore a
more radical variant of phenomenology that would explore what is prior
to theoretical cognition; this is his program in Being and Time. Heidegger
saw Husserl's phenomenology as insufficient because its emphasis on cog-
nition "stills the waters" of what it investigates. Heidegger did not agree
with Husserl that the primary mode of human existence was cognitive and
theoretical but instead saw our primary mode of existence as pre theoretical
and precognitive. For Heidegger, "philosophy as the primal science is like
no other science, since it is to be a supra- or pre-theoretical science" that
forces us to reconsider the limits of science. 58 Thus Heidegger attempted
58. Kisiel, '17tf' GertP.ru of 1/l'idPgger's Being and Time (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1995), 17.
37
to deepen the phenomenological investigation by removing the primacy

of the cogito and focusing on the phenomena of being-in-the-world. Hei-
degger did not agree with Husserl's concept of intentionality because he
thought that our primary mode of existence was not theoretical but that it
presupposed theory as being-in-the-world.
The critique of intentionality as being overly intellectual and theo-
retical becomes a recurring theme throughout Levinas's presentation of
Husserl's phenomenology. Thus Levinas's book swivels between serving
as a critique of Husser} based on Heidegger and presenting Husserl's
phenomenology in as close a proximity to Heidegger's project as pos-
sible. Levinas attempts to show that Husserl's real goal is ontology but
is never able to incorporate Husserl's intellectualism into this program
because of his preference for Heidegger's model of being-in-the-world.
Therefore, Levinas must concede that "for Husser!, Being is correlative
to theoretical intuitive life, to the evidence of the objectifYing act. This is
why the Husserlian concept of intuition is tainted with intellectualism
and is possibly too narrow" (TIHP, 94).
In the final assessment, Levinas sees Husserl's work as providing a
methodological framework but one still too indebted to traditional meta-
physics and philosophical idealism because it does not leave the world of
theory to come to terms with the way we exist in the everyday world in
which we live.
Even though [Husserl] attains the profound idea that, in the onto-
logical order, the world of science is posterior to and depends on the
vague and concrete world of perception, he may have been wrong
in seeing the concrete world as a world of objects that are primarily
perceived. Is our main attitude toward reality that of theoretical con-
templation? Is not the world presented in its very Being as a center of
action, as a field of activity or of caw-to speak the language of Mar-
tin Heidegger? (TIHP, 119)
Levinas turned away from Husser} because he did not think that his
intellectualist theory came to grips with our principal attitude toward
reality. While Levinas praises Husser! for clearing the ground for the
study of being, it is apparent in The Theory of Intuition that Levinas does
not think that this investigation can be accomplished on Husserl's terms.
The conclusion of the book opens the door to an investigation into
being that follows the model presented by Heidegger. It is in this sense
that Levinas felt that the possibilities of the phenomenological method
were stunted by the very person who invented them.
Finally, in The Theory of Intuition Levinas foreshadows what will later
become his foremost concern, ethics and the place of the other:
38
Emmanuel Levinas: de ritre ...
There is another reason why the phenomenological reduction, as

we have interpreted it so far, does not reveal concrete life and the
meaning that objects have for concrete life. Concrete life is not the
solipsist's life of a consciousness closed in upon itself. Concrete Being
is not what exists for only one consciousness. In the very idea of con-
crete Being is contained the idea of an inter-subjective world. If we
limit ourselves to describing the constitution of objects in an indi-
vidual consciousness, in an ego, the egological reduction can only be a
first step toward phenomenology. We must also discover "others" and
the intersubjective world. (TIHP, 150)
At this point in his career, Levinas saw Heidegger's displacement of
the primacy of the ego as the possibility of an opening to "others." There-
fore, Levinas's movement away from Husser! and toward Heidegger was
derived from the realization that there was no place for "others" in Hus-
serl's phenomenological program. Based on Heidegger's seminar, which
he had attended, and the concept of Mitsein presented in Being and Time,
Levinas saw the work of Heidegger as a philosophy that did not think the
"I'' first and thus allowed space for the other.
Heidegger was very impressed with the young Lithuanian scholar from
France and invited him to attend a philosophical retreat in Davos in 1929.
Heidegger wrote a letter to the organizers of the Davos conference and to
the Department of Philosophy at Strasbourg, recommending that Levinas
be invited as a representative of the French universities. In Strasbourg,
Charles Blondel authorized a grant that would cover Levinas's expenses as
the University of Strasbourg's student delegate to the conference. 59
Davos, 1929
The first conference in Davos, Switzerland, was organized in 1928 to
foster Franco-German relations. The conference was in theory to be an
international event on the neutral soil of Switzerland that would allow all
European intellectuals to participate in friendly discussion and debate as
well as leisure activities (hiking, skiing). In reality, the participants were
primarily from Germany and France and thus the conference focused
on their concerns.
The 1928 conference included among it-, participants Albert Einstein,
Gottfried Salomon, Jean Piaget, Marcel Mauss, and Lucien Levy-Bruhl.
For the second annual conference in the spring of 1929, the theme was
"What Is Man?" and the participants included Henri Lichtenberger, Leon
59. Bulletir1 d' Ia facullP des let/res, 7th year, no. 7 (May-June 1929): 269.
39
Brunschvicg, Maurice de Gandillac,Jean Cavailles, and Engen Fink. But

the real attraction of the conference was the impending debate between
Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger. 60
Levinas points out the irony of this debate between Cassirer the neo-
Kantian, and Heidegger, the author of Being and Time. Heidegger was
scheduled to speak on Kant and Cassirer was scheduled to discuss the
works of Heidegger. 61 But the stakes of this debate were too high in the
spring of 1929 to allow for such reflection. What had been planned as a
refreshing retreat for the international intellectual community became
center stage for the battle over the future of German philosophy.
The subject of the debate was Kantianism and philosophy, but the sub-
text was the tension between the deeply rooted neo-Kantian tradition
embodied by Hermann Cohen and Cassirer, and the new existential phe-
nomenology, which broke radically with Cartesian and Kantian traditions.
These tensions between the "old" and the "new" were further exacerbated
by Cassirer's position as a Germanjewish intellectual and by Heidegger's
conservative tendencies. 62 The situation was made more complex by the
fact that Heidegger had replaced Hermann Cohen at the University of
Marburg, thus ending the succession of neo-Kantians and perhaps deter-
mining the outcome of the Davos debate before it even started.
Cosmopolitan, courteous, knowledgeable about protocol, and ever
attentive to the philosophical tradition, Cassirer represented a certain
humanism based on the primacy of reason and the intelligibility of sci-
ence, and within this humanism he remained faithful to the aesthetic and
political ideas of the nineteenth century. Rural, loud, unmannered, and
without respect for his elders, Heidegger sought to violently break with
all Western metaphysics in his attempt to reinvent the fundamental ques-
tion of philosophy.63 In his investigation of being, Heidegger followed
Husserl's phenomenological method, which presupposed traditional sci-
entific investigation and gave it priority over scientific method and the
physico-mathematic models. In Heidegger's system, the work of Cassirer
and the neo-Kantians was derivative of science and thus had nothing to
60. Pierre Aubenque, "Presentation sur le debat sur le kantisme et Ia philosophie," in Ernst
Cassirer and Martin Heidegger, DPbnt sur le ka11tisme et la pltilosophie (Paris: Beauchesne,
1972), 7-9.
61. Poirit\ E.L.: Qu.i ites-vous? 76.
62. Heidegger's ambivalent feelings toward Jewish intellectuals were revealed in his
decision to invite Levinas and in his behavior toward Cassirer while at the conference.
Cassirer's wife, Toni, later remarked that those at the conference "were not unaware of
Heidegger's anti-Semitism" at the time. See Toni Cassirer, Mein l..ebm mit Ern5t Cassirer
(Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981), 182.
63. Hendrik Pos, "Recollections of Ernst Cassirer," in Tlte Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, ed.
Paul Arthur Schilpp (New York: Tudor, 1949).
40
Emmanuel Levinas: de 1etre ...
say about philosophy in itself. For Heidegger, Cassirer and the neo-Kan-
tians had missed the point ofphilosophy. 64
In the end, most of the audience seemed to have the impression that
Heidegger had "won" the debate. Levinas later pointed out, "Cassirer was
the representative of an order that had been defeated"; it was the end of an
epoch in philosophy and the end of a certain type ofhumanism. 65
For the French, however, the debate was quite a different event. Given
the agenda of philosophy at the time and the absence of phenomenol-
ogy in France, the initial reaction to the debate was only mild curios-
ity. Most of the allegiances among the French professors and students
were to Ernst Cassirer, because of the perceived proximity of the work
of Leon Brunschvicg to the German neo-Kantians. The young normalien
Jean Cavailles wrote to his sister on March 23, 1929: "There was only
one defender of Husserl and Heidegger [among the French], Levinas,
a Lithuanian who is publishing an article on Husser! in the Revue phi-
losophique. 66
Mter the debate, Levinas became the focal point for French scholars
such as Maurice de Gandillac, who were intrigued and embarrassed that
they knew nothing of this Heideggerian language. Levinas held informal
seminars on the work of Husser! and Heidegger and the other students
listened attentively. Later, they would go skiing or have snowball fights.
All in all, the gravity of the debate, which would be overdetermined by
the events of 1933 and the rise of Hitler, was lost on the young Levinas
and the other French students. On the final evening of the conference,
the students put on a show. One of the highlights was a mock Heidegger-
Cassirer debate. A student named Bolnow donned Heidegger's country
clothes and mustache, and none other than Levinas played the role of
Cassirer: "I had at that time an abundance of black hair, and I had to
put a ton of powder on it to replicate the noble gray of Ernst Cassirer." 67
They brought down the house with their caricatures of the two profes-
sors. Later, Levinas would regret very much the part he played in the
conference, precisely because it was not the part of Cassirer. On reflec-
tion, Levinas would consider his choice to follow Heidegger necessary
for the future of philosophy, but it would gnaw at him after the events
64. Heidegger's critique of Cassirer is excessive and unfair. For a detailed account
of Cassirer's relationship to neoKantianism, see John Michael Krois, "Cassirer, Neo
Kantianism, and Metaphysics," RPvue d.P metaphysique ft de moralP 4 (1992): 436-53. On the
affinities between the work of Heidegger and Cassirer as well as a detailed discussion of the
debate at Davos, see Peter Gordon, Rosenz.weig nrullleideggPr: Betwfl!11 judaism arul German
Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), chap. 6.
B5. Poirie, E.L.: Qlli elPs-llmLr? 78.
66. G. Ferrie res, jean CmJail/R.s, u11 phi/{).wphe dans fa guerr11 (Paris: Seuil, 1982), 52.
67. Poirie, E.L.: Qui elPHim.ts?76.
41
of World War II. "I hated myself very much during the years of Hitler for
having preferred Heidegger at Davos. "68
Paris
When Levinas moved to Paris in 1930 and took an administrative post
with the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU), Charles Blondel told him he
was making a mistake not to pursue an academic career. But Levinas was
entering an intellectual world that was not yet ready to accept what he had
to offer. Levinas's phenomenological methodology was largely unknown
in France. It was not until 1933 that Sartre became interested in phenom-
enology, when Aron brought news of this "new" method back to Paris
after studying Husserl in Berlin. And even then it was to Levinas's Theory
of Intuition in Husserl's Phenomenology that Sartre excitedly turned: "Sartre
purchased Levinas's book on Husserl on the Boulevard Saint-Michel and
was in such a rush to read about the philosopher that he leafed through
the work while he was walking along, before he had even cut the pages."69
Thus, in one of Sartre's first encounters with Husserl, he was reading phe-
nomenology from Levinas's Heideggerian perspective.
It is therefore no surprise that in 1930 this Eastern European Jewish
immigrant who had not taken the agregation and who studied decidedly
un-French philosophy did not attempt to find placement in the Parisian
academic world. It was Leon Brunschvicg, a member of the board of the
AIU, who frankly told Levinas, ''With your accent I would never pass you
on the oral part of the examination." 70 Levinas looked at his own position
with resolute optimism: "The thesis had achieved nothing, I didn't know
Greek ... but I was free." It would not be until the work of more rooted
French scholars, all graduates of the Ecole Normale Superieure and all
working from Levinas's thesis, that the mainstream philosophical estab-
lishment in France would be ready to accept what Levinas had to offer.
For the time being, Levinas took advantage of his position outside the
mainstream 71 to continue his philosophical education, while also con-
tributing to the Jewish community in Paris. For Levinas, much of the
1930s was spent setting down roots in France. In 1931, he was allowed
to become a naturalized citizen in France and in 1932 he did his obliga-
tory service in the French army. His knowledge of Russian and Ger-
man allowed him to ascend to the rank of petty officer before he was
68. Ibid., 78.

69. Simone de Beauvoir, l.aforre de l'flgp (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), 141-42.
70. Lescourret, Emrnamu//.roina.~, 90.
71. Alexandre Koyre and Alexandre Kojeve would adopt similar strategies, finding teaching
posts at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, a subsection of the College de France.
42
Emmanuel Lavinas: de l'etre ...
discharged. And somehow amidst his naturalization, his work, and his
service in the army, Levinas managed to travel to Lithuania, marry, and
return to Paris.
Despite the unlzeimlich nature of his work in philosophy, or perhaps
precisely because of it, Levinas adopted an allegiance of "literary chau-
vinism," a faith in the tolerance and equality of France as exemplified in
the rights of man. His was the nationalism not of a Barres or a Maurras
but of a Zola. He believed in a France based not on race and roots but
on culture.
While working at the AIU, Levinas taught several courses at the Ecole
Normale Israelite Orientale (ENIO), but also found time to continue
his education in philosophy, taking courses with Leon Brunschvicg at
the Sorbonne. Brunschvicg and Levinas had met briefly in Davos and
were also in contact through Brunschvicg's association with the AIU, but
it is hard to understand what interest Levinas found in the lectures of
France's most eminent neo-Kantian. Indeed Levinas's correspondence
with Maurice Pradines on completing an article on Heidegger in 1932
exemplifies his dissatisfaction with the results of Brunschvicg's method.
"This article expresses my own preoccupation with the education I
received at Strasbourg and which gave me the taste for philosophy that
two years at the Sorbonne has been unable to stifle. "72 Instead it might
have been an interest in the possibilities of Husserlian phenomenology
that attracted Brunschvicg to Levinas. Brunschvicg had been instrumen-
tal in organizing Husserl's lectures on the Cartesian Meditations at the
Sorbonne.
On the whole, Levinas's philosophical work continued on the course
set by Heidegger in Freiburg. In 1932 Levinas published the first article
on Heidegger to appear in France. 73 "Martin Heidegger et !'ontologie"
touches on the main themes of Heidegger's work according to Levinas.
Levinas summarized what he believed to be the most important issues
of Heidegger's ontology, as opposed to the dominant trends in French
philosophy. To this end he emphasized Heidegger's interest in the dis-
placement of the subject as the primary focus of investigation, a restruc-
turing of the concept of time based on the temporal ek-static structure
of Dasein, and the question of representation in relation to Heidegger's
concept of being-towards-death. There is nothing especially original
about this article, but what is of note is that while Levinas's exegesis of
Heidegger's work appears to be quite faithful to Heidegger, the majority
of the French thinkers who read it do not seem to have absorbed what
72. A. Grappe, ed., Pradines ou l'epofJee d-P /.a raison (Paris: Orphys, 1976), 338.
73. Emmanuel Levinas, "Martin Heidegger et )'ontologie," Rn.me philosophique (May-June
1932).
43
Levinas was trying to present. Despite a clear presentation of the relation

of and distinction between being and beings (etre and etant/das Sein and
das Seiende) ,14 the French interpretation of Heidegger held fast to the
primacy of the subject as the locus of being, following the Cartesian or
Husserlian model.
Levinas sent a copy of his article to Jean Wahl, who immediately
brought both Heidegger and Levinas to the attention of Gabriel Marcel:
"Levinas sent me the proofs of his article on Heidegger for the Revue
philosophique. It's complicated but very interesting." 75 Marcel and Wahl
were renowned in France as philosophers in their own right but even
more important as men who could spot philosophical potential in oth-
ers. Marcel hosted a philosophical salon every Friday and Saturday at
his apartment near the Sorbonne. Young intellectuals seeking material
outside traditional French philosophy would come to hear discussions
about Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and even Heidegger. Levinas recalls:
Jean Wahl-to whom I owe much-was on the lookout for everything
that had a meaning, even outside the forms traditionally devoted to
its manifestation. He thought it was necessary to give the opportu-
nity for nonacademic discourses to be heard. For this he founded this
College in the Latin Quarter. It was a place where intellectual non-
conformism-and even what took itself to be such-was tolerated
and expected. 76
It was in the early 1930s that Paris also benefited from an influx of Rus-
sian and German emigres such as Alexandre Koyre, Alexandre Kojeve,
and Eric Weil. Wahl and Marcel were interested in bringing views from
outside France to their colloquiums, and a small community of intellec-
tuals was formed around the organizations of Wahl and Marcel outside
the confines of the university.
With language and culture in common, Levinas found himself quite at
ease with the two Russian intellectuals Koyre and Kojeve. The former had
worked with Husserl and Hering and had written a review of Levinas's
Theory of Intuition in Husserl's Phenomenology. The latter shared Levinas's
passion for Dostoevsky and was working at the time on texts by Hei-
degger in relation to his work on Hegel. Levinas often attended Kojeve's
seminar on Hegel at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes between 1931
and 1939, and they became a major source of inspiration for much of his
74. Emmanuel Levinas, "Martin Heidegger et I' ontologie," in En dir.ouvranl l'existrnce a.vec
1/usserl et Ill'idegger (Paris:]. Vrin, 1994), 56.
75. Letter from Wahl to Marcel, Archives Gabriel Marcel at the Bibliotheque Nationale,
Paris.
76. Levinas, Ethics nnd lrtjinity, 55.
44
work in the 1950s and 1960s. Between his publications and his presence
at the colloquiums of Wahl and Marcel and of Koyre and Kojeve, Levi-
nas became well respected among a small cadre of intellectuals, includ-
ing such figures as Georges Bataille, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Raymond
Aron, Raymond Queneau, Eric Weil, and jean-Paul Sartre. 77 But working
by day as a clerk and without an official university post, he remained
unknown in broader academic circles.
77. Lescourret, Emmanuel Levinas, 107-8.
45
The First Reading
CHAPTER 2
Alexandre Kojeve and the Hegel Seminar at
the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
The importance of Alexandre Kojeve lies in the dynamic between his semi-
nars on,Hegel and the enthusiastic participants who attended those lectures
at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes between 1933 and 1939. At that
seminar at that time, we find an intersection between traditional French aca-
demics, as embodied in the eleves of the Ecole Normale Supericure (ENS)
and the French university system who attended the seminar, and the arrival
of a melange of new philosophical approaches such as Gennan phenom-
enology and existential ontology as well as Russian theological mysticism
and Marxism embodied in Alexandre K~eve. These young French intellec-
tuals were attracted to a source outside the boundaries of the French canon,
to an alternative way of viewing philosophy and history in the aftermath of
World War I. The relationship between ~eve and the participants in his
Hegel lectures stands at the intersection of the heimisch and the unheimlich.
My investigation requires we understand precisely what was heimischr-the
French educational system and its impact on the students of the 1920s and
I 930s-and what was unheimlich: un-French, foreign, strange and new.
From its inception the French national academic system was focused on
the dissemination of a specific canon and the training of teachers to impose
this canon. To achieve this goal it was essential that the republican gov-
ernment create an institution entrusted with the sole mission of training
teachers how and what to teach. It was with this mission in mind that joseph
Lakanal, representing the Committee of Public Instruction, presented the
proposal for the "ecole normale primaire" to the Convention on 9 Bru-
maire Year III (October 30, 1794). 1 Under the Empire, Napoleon created
l. Robert J. Smith, 171.1! icole Nunnale SupmeuTP arul tlte Third &public (New York: State
University of New York Press, 1982), 7-14. See also Pierre Bourdieu, l.a nobiR.1sr d'Ptat:
Grandrs ecoles t'l rsp-rit d~ r.urfJs (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1989). For an account of the ENS
49
THE fiRST READING
a vast state educational corporation under which the national university

would take charge of primary, secondary, and higher education throughout
France.
The Ecole Normale Superieure, as it came to be called in 1845, was
designed to attract the brightest scholars from all of France, who were
to be selected on the basis of a national examination given to students
on completion of their secondary education in the lycees. The ENS pro-
vided three years of full support, and student would "repay" that support
via a contractual agreement to serve the state for ten years as a teacher.
Mter Napoleon, the substance and the structure changed very little.
Under the Second Empire, a minister could look at his watch at a spe-
cific moment in time and declare, "At this very time, in such a class, all
the scholars of the Empire arc studying a certain page ofVirgil."2 In 1885
Ernest Lavisse explained the educational mission in no uncertain terms:
"It is up to the school to tell the French what France is. It says it with
authority, with persuasion, and with love." 3
The national exams were rigidly structured: a student would take the
concours on completing studies at a lycee to gain entrance to the ENS or
one of the other grandes ecoles. Those students who scored high enough
would be admitted; the others could get their educations in the uni-
versity system or pursue other interests. On graduating from the ENS
or another university, students would take the agregation, which deter-
mined their national ranking and position in the educational hierarchy.
While these national exams were open to the general public, they were
designed for the normaliens (especially the agregation, where normaliens
competed with graduates from the national university). To this day, suc-
cess in French academics requires an ability to recite and interpret the
material that the minister of education deems necessary and important.
The entire national structure of education is based on the mastery of a
specific, government-endorsed, canon.
The government did provide space for original work and research in the
form of research institutes such as the Ecole Prati9ue des Hautes Etudes and
the more prestigious College de France. 4 The Ecole Pratique des Hautes
Etudes was founded in 1868, largely in response to the perceived superi-
ority of German research institutes. In practice the EPHE was an adminis-
trative superstmcture designed to dispense funds for advanced research.
At its inception, there were very few directeurs detudes (they were not called
in the 1920s, see Jean-Fran~ois Sirinelli, Gfnimuum iniRliRctwll: KhligrtnJX et nurm.ali.P.rls dan.\
L'nliTl'-dntx-gunre.\ (Paris: Fayard, 1988).
2. Hippolyte A. Taine, The Modern Regime (New York: Henry Holt, 1894), 2:162.
3. Ernest Lavisse, Question! d'nHeignement national (Paris: A. Colin, 1885), xxvi.
4. Smith, 1hl' ENS and thl' 17tird lVfmblic, 56--58.
50
Alexandre Koieve
professors). In comparison to other academic institutions, the salaries at

the EPHE were quite modest. The instintte became a magnet for intellectu-
als on the periphery of the national educational system-foreigners, those
who professed theories outside the canon, and scholars more interested
in ideas than in exams. The list of instn1ctors at the EPHE included such
notable figures as Koyre and Kojeve, but also Marcel Mauss, Claude Levi-
Strauss, and Ferdinand de Saussure. Despite a dynamic faculty and, unlike
most other institutions, no enrollment requirements (age, nationality, prior
degrees, or even registration fees), the EPHE was consistently underat-
tended. This can be attributed to the EPHE's assigned place in the larger
framework of the French academic system: the EPHE neither helped one
prepare for, nor awarded, any degree of immediate use for a career in the
larger educational system.5 Students were discouraged from taking courses
that had no bearing on the national exams and thus on their future. 6
The College de France also provided a venue for original research,
recruited its instructors from a broad pool, and did not prepare stu-
dents for any particular degree or examination sequence. But unlike the
EPHE, the College de France was built to reward those professors who
had reached the highest levels of popularity in France. The number of
posts was restricted, and, unlike the faculty at the EPHE or even at the
university, there were no junior positions from which one might advance.
While some professors, such as Henri Bergson, lectured to consistently
full halls, others conducted research in relative obscurity. The profes-
sors conducted their work and lectured to the general public but did not
have specific teaching duties. 7 Aspiring students enthralled by a figure at
the College de France would not look to the College to reach the heights
of academia the celebrated institute embodied. Instead, they considered
the Ecole Normale Superieure the fast track to academic success.
But the graduates of the ENS found themselves in a double bind.
Hailed as an intellectual elite and trained in theory and criticism at
small seminars that encouraged class discussion and spirited debate (as
opposed to the large lecture hall format in the national universities),
the normaliens were given specific intellectual tools and then discour-
aged from using them. The fear was they would be discredited at the
national examinations. The normaliens naturally felt quite comfortable in
the small research seminars at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, or
5. That is, for French students looking for posts as instructors. The EPHE did award a
"third cycle doctorate," which allowed emigres an opportunity to earn a French degree
and thus the ability to teach in France without having taken the entire program of CQTlcours,
awegatum, thrse de doctoraL The drawback of this degree is that it only made it possible tO
teach at other small research institutes and not at the Iycee or university level.
6. Terry Clark, PmphPts and PatrQTls (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 42-51.
7. Ibid., 52.
51
THE fiRST READING
at advanced lectures at the College de France; but, knowing full well that
their future depended on their results in the agregation, they were forced
to acquire a very broad (and thin) education based on repetition and
memorization, not in-depth research.
By the beginning of the Third Republic the Ecole Normale Superieure
was well entrenched in its role as the teacher of teachers, and the struc-
ture of the national examination board had created a dogmatic monopoly
on ideas. The governing hand of the national examinations was so effec-
tive that reforms allowing more freedom for each individual professor
and eradicating the standardization of classroom teaching were enacted
without any effect on the overall structure of the system. There were two
reasons behind the educational reforms, but it is essential to keep in mind
that all advances or reforms were always checked by the exam process,
which necessarily limited the field of "acceptable" subjects.
The first reason for the administrative and substantive reforms at the
end of the nineteenth century was the creation of the Third Republic itself.
As its successive governments moved gradually to the left and acquired
increased support from the lower social "strata," the Third Republic devoted
more attention to public education. The intention of these reforms was to
expand the primary and secondary schools and create more scholarships.
The pressure this exerted on the existing structure led to the need for even
more expansion and reform. The second reason was increased envy and
admiration of the German university system. On the heels of a devastating
loss to Germany, a number of studies had been conducted that gauged,
by the number of professors and the number of students, or by the diver-
sity and quality of publications, or by various other measures, that Germany
had surpassed France intellectually. Whether this was the case or not, Hyp-
polite Taine and Ernest Renan, among others, took the issue very seriously.
Revanche was not limited to the battlefield, and in the case of academics, the
strategy of the Third Republic was to know the enemy in order to surpass it.8
While German scholarship enjoyed high prestige in the years following the
Franco-Prussian War, those who admired it were not "uncritical imitators.
Typically the French pursued erudition not for its own sake but to achieve
some broad new synthesis.'o9 The German university became the mark by
which the French system would be measured, but the changes made would
be uniquely French.
Alumni of the ENS played a crucial role in the education programs
and reforms put forth by the Third Republic. In 1880, the Societe de
l'Enseignement Superieure was created to evaluate the existing system in
8. See Claude Digeon, /.a cr~:re allnna.nd.e d.e Ia fJmser. fr,mraise (Paris: Pres.se Universitaire
de France, 1959).
9. Smith, 'HI ENS and the Third Republic, 69-70.
52
Alexandre Kojeve
relation to educational advancements abroad. The members were primarily

partisans of scientific research, republican secularism, and "modernists,:' and
included such noted normaliens as Hyppolite Taine, Gabriel Monod, Emile
Boutmy, as well as Louis Pasteur. They recommended funding advanced stu-
dents to study in Germany, demanded changes in established fields, and dis-
cussed recent developments in the social sciences. 10 This agenda was based
on the perception that the educational system had become mired in the
classics and had lost its ability to deal with the future. The panel wanted to
focus attention on the importance of the scientific method and modem lan-
guages, which would be more practical and would attract students from all
social classes, creating a more democratic educational system. But perhaps
more important was the public impression that graduates of the ENS dic-
tated educational policy from positions in govemment. 11
The most significant event that led to the Third Republic's image as "the
Republic of Professors" and inextricably linked the ENS to the French politi-
cal scene was the Dreyfus Affair. In fact, prior to the Dreyfus Affair most nor-
maliens did not consider themselves political in any way. There were socialist
cliques around the school librarian, Lucien Herr, but in many ways these
groups were more theoretical than political (though certainly not for Herr).
As early as 1894, the year of Dre)fus's sentencing, the library of the ENS
had become a center for pro-Dre)fus sentiment, probably because of Herr's
friendship with Lucien Uvy-Bmhl, a professor at the Sorbonne, an 1876
graduate of the ENS, and a cousin of Dreyfus. By the time the affair came to
a head in 1897, with the revelation of evidence proving Dreyfus's innocence,
the government (in the person of Senator Scherer-Kestner) was attempting
to restrain Gabriel Monod, director of the ENS, from making a public decla-
ration to that effect. Monod ultimately refused and published his argument
for a review of Dreyfus's case in Le temps. Since the Dreyfusard party had
not yet been formed, it appeared that Monod had left himself vulnerable to
the attacks ofanti-Dreyfusards. But on November 15, 1897, the student body
of the ENS sent a unanimous letter in support of Monod and his political
declaration, which was also published in Le temps. The ENS became a power
base for political activity, and as the events of the case played out, the politi-
cal activities of the day became part and parcel of normalien life. 12
In response to the political events of the Dre)fus Affair, opponents of
the politically active students attempted to return the ENS to its origi-
nal mission of teaching teachers. The result was the reformation of the
ENS in 1903, which will loom large in this book. In that year the min-
10. Clark, Patrons and Prophets, 26--28.

11. See Hubert Bourgin, De Jau.res a Leon Blum: L'icole Normale rt fa politique (London:
Gordon and Breach, 1970).
12. See Jean-Fran~ois Sirinelli, Int.ell.ectw>/s el pr~s.,ion r franrr~isrs: Manifeste.\ et pititi.ons au XXf'
siRcle (Paris: Gallimard, 1996); Michel Winock, LP siirle de.r intRll.erluels (Paris: Seuil, 1997).
53
THE FIRST READING
istcr of education decreed that the Ecole Normale Superieure would

be "reunited" with the University of Paris and that the normaliens would
henceforth take their courses alongside all other university students at
the "New Sorbonne." This reform was enacted in part to make the edu-
cational system more democratic, but also to reassert the ENS's original
mission to teach teachers and break up the elite clique of professors and
politicians. The ENS's separate teaching faculty was abolished and the
maitres were given posts at either the Sorbonne or the College de France.
While the reforms were designed to curtail the elitist character of the
ENS, very little changed after the merger with the University of Paris.
The entrance exams continued to stratify the general student popula-
tion, and those who got into the ENS were well aware of their privileged
position. The prestige of former students such as Jean Jaures, Edouard
Herriot, Paul Painleve, and Leon Blum reinforced this understanding
and enticed applicants to the school who were far more interested in
making their mark in politics than in education.
The chief and unforeseen results of these reforms, however, were that
norrnaliens were given more autonomy to choose their own course work
and that interaction between narmaliens and students from other institu-
tions increased without altering the fundamental character of the ENS.
The students were still a proud, envied, and self-conscious community held
togetl1er by shared intellectual interests and the common goal of preparing
for their examinations. 13 The ultimate result of the reform of 1903 was that
the ENS increased the scope of its curriculum without losing the right to
hold its own smaller classes for its elite cadre of students.
The reform of 1903 shows that there were cleavages and differences
between education and government and at times the ENS found itself in
conflict with the ministers of education, only some of whom were gradu-
ates of the institution. In the public perception, however, the govern-
ment and the educational institutions were inextricably linked.
Toward the Outside

By the late 1920s, the intellectual tradition of the Third Republic had been
called into question, partly by the reforms that the Third Republic had
enacted at the end of the nineteenth century, but more seriously by the
impressions that World War I left on the aspiring intellectuals too young to
have fought in it. The generation of 1933 had been brought up amidst the
exaltation of war but were removed from the fighting and hence impotent.
They had witnessed a "victory" that was hardly victorious. Of the 8 million
Frenchmen mobilized, some 5 million were killed or wounded. Fully 10
13. Smith, TlteENS aud tltP Third lvpublir, 72-75.
54
~lexandre Kojeve
percent of the active male population died and many more were partially
or totally incapacitated. 14 But these were more than numbers to the genera-
tion of 1933; these were fathers, brothers, uncles, and friends. These bitter
memories were exacerbated by other wartime conditions such as epidem-
ics, rationing, and the destruction of property. For the generation of 1933,
the starting point of philosophy was the desire to come to grips with the
events of World War I in the face of the optimistic view of progress and his-
tory embodied in French philosophy and tl1e Third Republic. The notion
of progress espoused by both spiritualists and materialists had been com-
promised and neither camp could explain the senseless killing and mass
destruction that marked tl1e "victory" of France in World War I or the pre-
carious economic position of an industrializing France. To the generation
of 1933, the traditional academic system seemed more concerned with per-
petuating itself and its republican ideals than with confronting the realities
of a changing world. The events of history had debunked the theory of his-
torical progress that had guided the Third Republic from its inception.
The generation of 1933 was not ready to scrap the teleological project on
which their education had been founded. Even as they sought to break with
the ideological content of their formative education, they conserved certain
fundamental aspects of it. These young intellectuals were dissatisfied with
the purely theoretical nature of neo-Kantian philosophy and the overly sub-
jective nature of Bergsonian spiritualism and wanted to move beyond the
existing paradigms of French academia. In the late 1920s and 1930s, there-
fore, the generation of 1933 sought to rehabilitate the concept of progress
in history. This dictated turning outward for a methodology they could not
find at home. By 1925, the 1904 reforms of the Ecole Normale Superieure
had created a new structure that allowed more freedom and less connection
with the university proper. The students were still restrained by the yoke of
the national exams but could pursue other interests that often went against
the canon. An anecdote from Raymond Aron 's Mimoirr!s (36) illustrates this
point quite well. Sartre and Aron were in a seminar at the ENS, "The Prog-
ress of Consciousness in Western Thought," given by Leon Brunschvicg.
In a discussion of Nietzsche, Bnmschvicg took an approach based on the
immanent nature of truth and dismissed Nietzsche's philosophical claims
regarding the nature of truth. Sartre loudly protested that truth claims were
based entirely on the fickle and absurd meanings individuals force on the
objects that surround them. Even in a seminar given by the head of the
jury d'agregation there was room for dissent; yet all the students knew that
such dissent would not be tolerated when taking the n~tional exams. Sartre
failed the agregration on his first attempt. 15
14. Gordon Wright, Franr.e in Modt>m TimPs (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987) 307-18.
15. Raymond Aron, Memoiffs: Cinq1.1.nnte ans de rijlexion politique (Paris: Julliard, 1983), 36.
55
THE fiRST READING
But while something as alien as modern German philosophy could not

enter the French canon via the universities, the generation of 1933 c~ould
search for alternativ<: answers via research institutes such as the Ecole
Pratique des Hautes Etudes and journals such as Recherches philosophiques.
Thus a student at the ENS was unable to take a course on modern Ger-
man philosophy at the Sorbonne but could attend Kojeve's lectures on
Hegel at the EPHE or hear Levinas speak on Heidegger at the College
de Philosophic. Furthermore, the generation of 1933 could read French
translations of works by Husser!, Karl Jaspers, and Heidegger in Alex-
andre Koyre's journal Recherches philosophiques, or could read commen-
tary on Gennan phenomenology and Lebensphilosophie in the Revue de la
France et de l'etranger. It was at these research institutes and on the editorial
boards ofjournals that emigres such as Koyre, Kojeve, Eric Weil, Georges
Gurvitch, Bernard Groethuysen, and Jacob Gordin could interact with
established French intellectuals such as Leon Brunschvicg, Emile Breh-
ier, and Jean Wahl. These new and foreign philosophies allowed think-
ers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Raymond Aron,
Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, Henry Corbin, Raymond Queneau, and
Jean Hyppolite to rethink the project of philosophy in the aftermath of
World War I outside the boundaries of traditional French philosophy.
Thus the movement away from the traditional canon was accelerated by
the rise in popularity of philosophical and literary journals. Students saw
it was possible to pursue advanced and innovative thought outside the
constrictions of the French university system.
Finally, a growing sentiment in France since the 1870s that the Ger-
mans had surpassed them intellectually led to the creation of travel
grants. Many of the students at the ENS and French university system
spent a year studying in Germany and were thus exposed to innovations
in the field of philosophy.
The possibility of the failure of the Third Republic and the questioning
of the validity of its academic framework was reinforced by the popular-
ity of writers such as Charles Peguy, Georges Sorel, and Celine, who called
the existing paradigm into question and forced the generation of 1933 to
reconsider their positions. For rwrmaliens such as Sartre, Merleau-Ponty,
Hyppolite, Queneau, and Aron, as well as non-narmaliens such as Georges
Bataille, Henry Corbin, Jacques Lacan, and Simone de Beauvoir, the neo-
Kantian approach presented by Leon Brunschvicg, which approached his-
tory and philosophy using the model of science, appeared to fall short of
the essential mission of philosophy: to make sense of the world in which
we live. The theoretical nature of the French neo-Kantian project failed
to address the concrete world. In a discussion of his education, Raymond
~on spoke of the impact of his first reading of Kant at the ENS as essential
111 his development but deceptive, since Aron "translated an understanding
5G
Alexandre Koieve
of Kant inLo an understanding of the neo-Kantianism of Leon Brunschvicg

where Kant was integrated comfortably into the universalist program of
French thought." 16 In response, Aron and his fellows students turned to the
philosophers Vincent Descombes calls the three H's: Hegel, Husserl, and
Heidegger. Specifically, in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, the
generation of 1933 turned to the philosophy of Hegel as a concrete attempt
to explain teleological progress using the rhetoric of struggle, bloody battle,
repression, work, and desire. This language was far more compatible with
the postwar realities and allowed philosophy to "make sense" of senseless
killing in tenns of a larger teleological project.
Here we see a vital component in understanding these young intel-
lectuals from the generation of 1933. While they sought to reconceptual-
ize French thought, their mission was principally philosophical. Much
has been made of the political engagement of thinkers such as Sartre,
Aron, and Merleau-Ponty in the 1940s and 1950s, but what is equally
compelling is their lack of political engagement in the 1930s. It is diffi-
cult to speak for an entire generation, but in the case of these three and
the majority of young intellectuals in and around the Kojeve seminar,
politics were approached from a theoretical, not practical, standpoint.
Sartre's reflections on his political indifference during the two decades
prior to World War II in his War Diaries are corroborated by Jean-Fran-
(:ois Sirinelli's research based on Sartre's voluminous papers at the ENS.
They show almost no interest in politics and an obsession with philoso-
phy and literature.
It is true that, as a rule, most of the normaliens tended to support social-
ism-largely a result of their contact with Lucien Herr, the librarian at the
ENS-but this was more of a theoretical activity then a tangible political
commitment. In an interview about his politics in the 1930s, Raymond
Aron responded: "I was a socialist, vaguely, at least until I came to study
political economy. All of my friends were for the Popular Front, so
naturally I too voted for the Popular Front." 17 During the 1930s the lines
between right and left were blurred, and contact between intellectuals
of varying convictions was not only possible but accepted without great
reflection. This would all change after World War II.
Mter the war, those who had done nothing to prevent it felt com-
pelled to act: "We all remembered the decadence of the 1930s. In 1944
and 1945, we were resolute, we manifested a profound will to rebuild
our country." 18 The drastic nature of the change can be seen in the shift
of the generation of 1933 from philosophical investigation to political
16. Ibid., 67-68.
17. Raymond Amn, fp ,~pclatP11r engagP. interviews with Jean-Louis Missika and Dominique
Wolton (Paris:Julliard, 1981), 47.
18. Ibid., 113.
57
THE FIRST READING
engagement. A primary example is the difference between Recherches phi-

losophiques and Les temps modernes. Both these journals were outlets for
the writings of the generation of 1933, but the mission of Recherches phi-
losophiques, published between 1931 and 1937, was purely philosophical,
whereas the mission of Les temps modernes was equally philosophical and
political.
Alexandre Koyre and Recherches philosophiques

One could make the argument that Recherches philosophiques, which began
publication in 1931, was the continuation of Husserl's Jahrbuch, which
stopped publication in 1930. Many figures from the early phenomeno-
logical circles were featured prominently in Recherches philosophiques,
and, beginning with the second volume, an entire section was devoted
to presenting and reviewing works of phenomenology. But Recherches
philosophiques wanted to move beyond the scope of phenomenology as
presented by Husser!. Founded by Alexandre Koyre, a member of the
original Gottingen circle, Recherches philosophiques had the goal of expos-
ing the French intellectual world to foreign (and specifically German)
philosophy. As when he was Husserl's student, Koyre wanted to expand
phenomenological investigation into the fields of art, history, and sci-
ence, while at the same time keeping his mind open to other possible
methods of investigation. This allowed Recherches philosophiques to present
an intersection of (principally but not exclusively) German and French
thought. Koyre put together an editorial board that included Leon
Brunschvicg and Emile Brehier, thus enlisting some of the most impor-
tant names in traditional French philosophy. Recherches philosophiques
presented philosophical ideas and methodologies that were completely
foreign to traditional French philosophers. In recalling his friendship
with Koyrc, Henry Corbin remembers the evenings they spent together
preparing the journal:
We had nothing equivalent to it at the time. Boivin, the courageous
editor, took on the burden of publishing the six large volumes (each
over 500 pages) a year which for many of us was a precious labor. If
the researcher of today wants to know, Recherches Philosophiques con-
stituted a rarely seen meeting of a constellation of philosophers who
presented many new su~jects of which phenomenology occupied a
large place. Hl
19. Henry Corbin, "Post-Scriptum biographique a un entretien philosophique," in /lenry

Gurbin, les Calti:r.rJ de l1lernP. (Paris: Editions de !'Heme, 1981), 44.
58
Alexandre Kojeve
Koyre was born in Taganrog, Russia, in 1892. He had mastered both

the French and German languages in school, and his parents intended
for him to attend university in Western Europe. He moved to Paris
around 1905; there he studied Bergson's intuitionism. In 1910, he joined
the Gottingen circle, bringing Bergson's philosophy to the young phe-
nomenologists. Koyre contended that Bergson opened the door to the
philosophical method that would become phenomenology and that, in
fact, Bergson and Husserl were entirely compatible. Husser!, he believed,
had simply given Bergson's intuitionism a scientific foundation. During
his GOttingen days, he was once asked about the phenomenologists' posi-
tion in relation to the Bergsonians, to which he replied: "We are the true

Bergsonians. "2 Koyre served as a bridge between Germany and France
and between Husser! and Bergson. The first proponents of phenomenol-
ogy in France, Jean Hering, Bernard Groethuysen, and Georges Gur-
vitch, would all follow his lead.21
Koyre returned to Paris ~in 1912 and began to work with Leon
Brunschvicg. Impressed by Koyre's acumen, the depth and breadth
of his philosophical knowledge, and his mastery of Russian literature,
Brunschvicg befriended Koyre. At first Brunschvicg was quite skeptical of
the phenomenology presented by Koyre. After Husserl's lectures at the
Sorbonne in 1929, however, Brunschvicg became fascinated with phe-
nomenology, though for very different reasons than those thatattracted
Koyre. Bnmschvicg's neo-Kantian philosophy was oriented toward sci-
ence; he used a Cartesian concept of consciousness. Bussed's lectures
at the Sorbonne titled "The Cartesian Meditations" focused on Husserl's
attempt to construct a program of philosophy as eidetic science, which
appealed to Brunschvicg and the neo-Kantians. In this way, phenomenol-
ogy managed to attract attention from representatives of the two poles of
French philosophy.
Given his status as a foreign intellectual, Koyre was unable to find a
position at a major university. He therefore enrolled at the Ecole Pra-
tique des Hautes Etudes, receiving his diploma in 1919. 22 In 1929 he
received his doctorate from the same institution. Fortunately, money was
never an issue for Alexandre Koyre and he had the freedom to pursue
20. Jean Hering, "La phenomenologie il y a trente ans," RevuR internationale de philosojJitie
1 (1939):368.
21. For a complete account of the reception of phenomenology in France, see Eugene
H. Frickey, "The Origins of Phenomenology in France, 1920-1940," Ph.D. diss., Indiana
University, 1979; and Herbert Spiegelman, The Pltertom.mol.ogir.al Mu11ement, part 3, "The
French Phase of the Movement" (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1960).
22. The diploma awarded by the EPHE allowed the graduate to teach in France at a
research institute.
59
THE FIRST READING
his philosophical interests and teach at the EPHE for a minimal salary.
Kovre taught in the Department of Religious Studies and was granted
en~rmous freedom in the topics he addressed.
It was Koyre who began the Hegel seminar at the EPHE in 1932, as
Corbin later remembered:
Most of the seminars took place at the Harcourt, a comfortable and
historic cafe at the corner of the place de la Sorbonne and boulevard
Saint Michel. ... It was at the Harcourt that we worked out what would
become the French philosophy of that era, Hegel and the renewal
of Hegelian studies. Besides Koyre there was Alexandre Kojeve, Ray-
mond Queneau, myself, and philosophers like Fritz Heinemann, as
well as many Jewish colleagues [collegues israilites] who had chosen
exile and through whose heartbroken accounts we learned about
the course of events in Germany. The arguments would occasionally
become very intense. Kojeve and Heinemann were in complete and
total disagreement over the interpretation of the Phenomenology of
Spirit. There were often confrontations about the phenomenology of
Husserl and that of Heidegger. 23
Koyre's influence on the French academic scene can be attributed
to his lectures at the EPHE, his participation in Recherches Philosophiques,
and three articles published in the early 1930s. Koyre was interested in
reading Hegel's early works, most important the Jena texts published
in German in 1907.24 But, unlike Jean Wahl, Koyre saw no discontinu-
ity between the young "existential" Hegel and the Hegel of the system.
Instead Koyre sought to construct a continuous reading of Hegel relating
the early texts to his entire body of work. 25 Koyre also used Heidegger's
concept of time, which was later employed by Kojeve in his reading of
Hegei.26 In 1933, Koyre was offered a post in Cairo and asked Kojeve to
take over his lectures for him.
Alexandre Kojeve
Born in Moscow to a wealthy merchant family on May 11, 1902, Alex-
andre Kojevnikov enjoyed all the creature comforts of the haute bour-
geoisie. In 1904, at the onset of the war between Japan and Russia,
Alexandre's father, Vladimir Kojevnikov, was sent to Manchuria. Kojeve's
23. Corbin, "Post-Scriptum biographique a un entretien philosophique," 44.

24 Wilhelm Dilthey, DiP jugP.nrlgpsr.hidlte I lewl (Berlin: Verlag der koniglichen Akademie der
Wisse~schaft, 1905); Herman Nohl, 17udtJt..Ti.5dw.J'IJfPUf.!rlrriflm (Tujingen:J.C.B. Mohr,l907).
25. Michael Roth, Knowir1gandllirtory (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), 5-7.
26. I will discuss Heidegger's concept of time in detail in chap. 4.
60
Alexandre Koieve
mother, Alexandra, decided to follow her husband east; leaving the two-
year-old Alexandre with their family in Moscow. In a letter to his half-
brother, the painter Wassily Kandinsky, Vladimir let his relatives know of
his and Alexandra's immediate future: they would leave the Kazans en
route to the Caspian Sea, and from there they would travel to Manchu-
ria, though he did not know exactly where. Alexandra had decided to
become a nurse, and they hoped they could remain together for as long
as possible. 27 It would not be a very long time. Kojeve's father was mor-
tally wounded on the battlefield in March 1905. He was brought back to
a military hospital by his friend, Lemkul, and died shortly thereafter with
his wife attending him.
Alexandra Kojevnikov returned to Moscow alone, but Vladimir's friend
Lemkul followed her. Despite the awkward nature of their first and only
meeting, Lemkul had fallen in love with the wife of his fallen comrade.
Mter a period of courtship, Alexandra married Lemkul and it was he
Kojeve grew up calling father. 28 Lemkul'~ family came from England but
had established themselves as among the premier jewelers in Moscow.
They traveled in high society, believed in progressive democratic reform,
and held education at a premium. Young Alexandre had shown enor-
mous talent in language and mathematics, even at a very young age, and
his stepfather was persistent in assuring him the finest education and
every advantage. In an extract from a letter to Kojeve in 1929, Kandinsky
speaks of staying with Lemkul and Alexandra and of his fascination with
the brilliant young boy they called the "new Gogol." 29
Kojeve attended the Medvednikov Academy, one of the most presti-
gious and demanding secondary schools in Moscow. He could speak,
read, and write in Russian, German, French, and English. He was also
versed in Latin. He excelled in math and science but also in literature
and history. The Russian school system did not offer philosophy per se,
so, as in the case of Levinas, Kojeve's metaphysical investigations began
with the rich field of Russian literature and the works of Gogo!, Push kin,
Lermontov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky. Lemkul had hopes that
Kojeve would attend university in Germany and then return to Russia to
pursue a career in higher education. One reason Lemkul wanted to see
his son go west was because of his skill and potential in science, where
German universities were most advanced. But another reason may have
been the instability of the Russian political climate.
27. Letter from Vladimir Kojevnikov to Kandinsky, Kazan, July 1904, Centre Georges
Pompidou, Musee d'Art Moderne.
28. Dominique Auffret, Alexandre Kojeve (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1990), 39-45.
29. Letter from Kandinsky to Kojeve, March 7, 1929, Centre Georges Pompidou, Musee
d'Art Moderne.
61
THE FIRST READING
In 1917, when Kojeve was fifteen years old, the czar abdicated. Lemkul
left Moscow to defend his property in the country from roving bands of
revolutionaries reclaiming estates for the people. Because he was a bour-
geois businessman and a vocal proponent of liberal democracy, he and
his large estate were prime targets. In an action that seems more circum-
stantial than overtly political, Lemkul was killed and his house burned in
July 1917. For the second time in thirteen years, Alexandre Kojeve lost
his father to the events of history.
Kojeve remained in Moscow, where he was completing his secondary
work at the Medvednikov Academy. He was arrested in 1918 for trafficking
goods on the black market. Why and what Kojeve was buying or selling is
unclear, but it could not have been for need of money, as the family had
secured a large source of capital. Kojeve spent almost a year in prison; this
is where he first came into contact with the works of Karl Marx. As part of
the rehabilitation program, the inmates were assigned passages from Marx
and Lenin. Kojeve was fascinated by Marx and sought to learn more. When
he was released in 1919, he took his college exams and then enrolled at the
University of Moscow in the Department of Philology and Philosophy. But
his professors were not very receptive to his readings of Marx, nor were they
interested in his desire to pursue the more esoteric studies of Sanskrit and
Buddhism. The university was compelled to follow strict guidelines dictated
by the new government, and Kojeve realized that he would have to leave
Russia if he was to pursue original thought.
I was a communist and had no reason to flee Russia. But I knew then
that the communist establishment would mean thirty terrible years. I
have often thought of this. One day I said to my mother, "After all, if
I hadjust stayed in Russia I could have. ."But my mother quickly
responded, "If you had stayed in Russia, you would have been killed
. at least twice!" I suppose that may have been. 30
His ambivalent relationship with the country he never stopped call-
ing "Russia" would never be truly reconciled, even as Kojeve professed,
from the safety of his apartment in Paris, his particular understanding of
Marxism and his support for the Soviet experiment.
.In 1920, Kojeve decided to leave Moscow with his friend George
Wut-a daunting task for two eighteen-year-olds when the borders were
clo~ed and the countryside was unstable. As luck would have it, they
arnved safely in Poland. The Polish authorities assumed they had been
sent by Moscow to spread Bolshevist communism and foster revolution
in Poland. The two were promptly arrested and imprisoned; after six
months they secured their release when the Polish authorities received a
30. Interview with Gilles Lapouge, Quinz.ninelitteraire, no. 500 ( 1980): 2-3.
62
Alexandre Koieve
voucher from Witt's family in Gem1any stating that Witt was of German
descent and that both he and his friend were en route to Germany seek-
ing to escape Soviet rule. Kojeve and Witt were released on the condition
that they leave immediately for Germany. They gladly complied. 31
Witt and Kojeve arrived in Berlin and stayed with Kandinsky while
they pondered their next move. They decided to tour Europe and then
return to Germany to attend university. They spent most of their time in
Austria and Italy, and on returning to Germany Witt decided to forgo
university studies to pursue a career in film; he took up residence in Ber-
lin. Kojeve decided to enroll at the university in Heidelberg. There he
worked with Karl Jaspers, but the young Kojeve was still unfocused and
undisciplined. He and Jaspers shared an interest in Oriental languages
and Eastern religions, but Kojeve devoted so much time to the study of
Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, while taking courses on the religions of
Buddhism and Islam, that he failed to absorb whatJaspers had to offer.
Furthermore, Kojeve had decided he would simultaneously pursue a
degree in physics. The result was that he had very little time to focus on
philosophy. While he did work with Jaspers, he felt he had "no time" to
work with Husser! and did not even know who Heidegger was. At age
eighteen, Kojeve was far more interested in following his whims than in
doing serious work. He relied heavily on his knowledge of Russian litera-
ture to get him through his philosophy courses. Kojeve would later regret
the time he had lost and his failure to study under Husser! or work more
attentively with Jaspers. "I voluntarily avoided the courses of Husser! and
stupidly followed many other Professors, but at least I worked with Jas-
pers. I wasted my time learning Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese. I studied
Buddhism because it seemed so radical-it is the only atheist religion-I
realize now that I took the wrong path, despite my interest. I realize that
I passed over several minor things that happened in Greece 2,400 years
ago, and that those things are the source and the key to everything. "32
The tongue-in-cheek response given in his last interview captures both
his ironic sense of humor and his serious sense of thought.
Kojeve was running out of money, and he convinced George Witt to
return to Moscow and pick up several packages of jewels that he had
inherited from his stepfather, Lemkul. How Kojeve convinced Witt is a
bit of a mystery, but the charismatic Russian was always a persuasive char-
acter.33 Witt successfully carried out his mission and was met by Kojeve
3l. Auffret, Kojime, 68-75.

32. Interview with Gilles Lapouges, 2.
33. Allan Bloom relates that Kojeve would always "convince" Bloom, a graduate student
at the time, to pick up the check after dinner. See Bloom's tribute to Kojeve, "Kojeve, le
philosophe," Cornmentllire no. 9, 1980.
63
THE FIRST READING
in Berlin, where the temptation of the fast life was too much to resist; he
moved there in 1923. He claimed that Berlin had better research insti-
tutes than Heidelberg, but his declining class attendance and increas-
ing cabaret attendance betrayed his rationalizations. Witt had become
close to the film community, and Kojeve loved the fun and decadence of
Berlin in the 1920s. It might be interesting to read Kojeve's concept of
desire in terms of his days in Berlin, but it is enough to say that he did
not resist his desires in any way.
The most important event of Kojeve's wild days in Berlin was meet-
ing Alexandre Koyre, who was there visiting his brother. Kojeve was dat-
ing Cecile Shoutak, ajewish woman ten years his senior. Coincidentally,
Shoutak was recently separated from her husband, who was Koyre's
brother. The first meeting between Kojeve and Koyre was confronta-
tional, and the Koyre family's expectations were that Koyre would dismiss
the younger Kojeve as an upstart. This did not turn out to be the case.
Koyre was impressed by Kojeve's broad knowledge in a number of sub-
jects, and the two talked long into the evening. When Kojeve left, Koyre's
wife sarcastically declared, "Well that's marvelous, he's like a brother to
you," to which Koyre responded: "No no no, he's much better than my
brother, Cecile is absolutely right [elle a tout afait raison]." 34 Koyre had
been living in Paris since 1912 and teaching at the EPHE since 1922.
Koyre repeatedly urged Kojeve to move to the French capital.
Whether Koyre's constant overtures succeeded in convincing Kojeve
or Kojeve simply grew bored with Berlin life, he returned with Cecile
Shoutak to Heidelberg in 1924, determined to finish his degree. He
earned his doctorate in philosophy under Jaspers with a thesis on the
Russian mystic Sergey Solovyov. In 1926 Kojeve moved to Paris, and at
the age of twenty-four he married Cecile Shoutak. From 1926 to 1929
they lived the good life, staying in elegant hotels, eating out every night,
and buying expensive clothes--in essence spending all of Kojeve's inher-
itance. His intellectual life depended heavily on Koyre, who connected
him with a number of academic circles, most of them consisting of Rus-
sian emigres as well. It was through Koyre that Kojeve met Levinas, with
whom he loved to discuss the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Kojeve would
attend salons, listen to lectures at the Sorbonne, and attend seminars at
the EPHE. He also took private lessons in mathematics and physics. In
1927 he read Heidegger's Being and Time, which he came to see as the
key to rethinking philosophy and specifically the concept of history.
By 1929 Kojeve was running out of money and his marriage was falling
apart. His dilettantish approach to academics had left him well read and
well versed in a myriad of subjects but unqualified to teach any of them;
34. Auffret, Kojeve, 154.
64
Alexandre Kojeve
without a French degree he was unemployable. Just as in Heidelberg,

his life in Paris was unfocused. Perhaps still rattled by the constricting
atmosphere he had encountered at the University in Moscow, Kojeve was
distrustful of (or uninterested in) the world of traditional academics. He
wanted neither to receive a degree from, nor to work in concert with,
the accepted institutions, and it was only out of necessity that he turned
to a career in teaching. When he arrived in France, Kojeve invested his
money in the French cheese company La Vache Qui Rit (Laughing Cow).
When asked where his money came from, Kojeve would playfully explain
that he had an uncle who sold cheese and sent him money. Mter the
French stock market crash in 1931, Kojeve lost all his holdings. When
asked to explain why he started working at the EPHE, he replied sim-
ply: "My uncle who sold cheese died and I found myself ruined. "35 In
1929 Koyre convinced Kojeve that he needed to get his French doctoral
d'etat so that he could teach. Kojeve set about achieving this goal but
decided he wanted to get his doctorate in physics. By 1931 Kojeve was
completely broke, he had filed for divorce, and his thesis in physics had
been rejected by the Sorbonne. He was preparing to give up Parisian life
and move back to Germany, where he had a degree and could teach.
Once again it was Koyre who came to Kojeve's rescue. He arranged for
Kojeve to write several book reviews for Recherches philosophiques, which
provided some income, and he convinced Kojeve to translate his Ger-
man thesis on Solovyov into French and submit it to the EPHE. Koyre
also hired Kojeve to write several articles for Recherches philosophiques. In
1933 Kojeve received his diploma from the EPHE, and his these de doc-
torat, titled "The Idea of Determinism in Classic and Modem Physics,"
was accepted by the Sorbonne. Kojeve's timing in earning his diploma
could not have been better; in 1933 Alexandre Koyre accepted a post in
Cairo and suggested Kojeve as his replacement at the EPHE. The semi-
nar was in its second year and a certain rapport had emerged among
the students who met each week at the Cafe Harcourt. What happened
in that seminar between 1933 and 1939 changed the face of modern
French philosophy.
The Seminar
When Koyre conducted the seminar it met every Wednesday at eleven
in the morning. As a participant in Koyre's seminar, Kojeve had become
friends with Georges Bataille; after the seminar they would go for lunch
and discuss the events of the day. When Kojeve took over for Koyre, the
first thing he did was move the seminar to a more civilized time: Fridays
35. In tetview with Gilles Lapouges, 2.
65
I HE t-IRST HEADING
at five thirty in the evening. This allowed Kojeve and BatailJe to go out for
drinks and dinner afterward. (Indeed the social aspects of the seminar are
as fascinating as the seminar itself. With a core group of Kojeve, Georges
Bataille,Jacques Lacan, and Raymond Queneau, and with such figures as
Raymond Aron, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Eric Weil, Andre Breton, Emman-
uel Levinas, Alexandre Koyre, Robert Marjolin, and others dropping by,
the level of conversation and revelry was usually high.) But though Kojeve
and Bataille were the same age, Bataille always looked on Kojeve as the
sage. Kojeve's seminar on Hegel had such a profound effect on Bataille
that he spent his entire career working through the problems Kojeve pre-
sented. In a note from Sur Nietzsche, Bataille described that overwhelming
effect:
From '33 (I think) until '39 I took Alexandre Kojeve's seminar on
[Hegel's] Phenomenology of Spirit. The seminar was based on the text.
I don't know how many times Queneau and I stumbled out of that
little room gasping for air-suffocated, beaten. During those years
I had attended innumerable lectures and I was up to date with the
advances in science; but Kojeve's course left me broken, crushed,
killed ten times. 36
Raymond Aron presents a more nostalgic description of the seminar:
Kojeve first translated several lines of the Phenomenology, emphasizing
certain words, then he spoke, without notes, without ever stumbling
over a word, in an impeccable French made original and fascinating
with his Slavic accent. He captivated an audience of superintellectu-
als who were inclined toward doubt or criticism. Why? Talent, dialec-
tical virtuosity had something to do with it. I do not know if his talent
as an orator survives intact in the book that records the final year
of his course, but this art, which had nothing to do with eloquence,
stemmed from his subject and his person. 37
These "superinte1lectuals" were a cross section of the French cultural
scene and represented the shifting intellectual climate. Although enroll-
ment figures never totaled more than nineteen, the participants would
usually include in equal parts normaliens (Aron, Merleau-Ponty), graduates
of the French university system (Henry Corbin), literary figures (Andre
Breton, Georges Bataille, Raymond Queneau), foreign scholars (Emman-
uel Levinas, Eric Weil, Aron Gurvitsch), and the occasional representative
36. Georges Bataille, Omrm~ rwtTJjJI.i!tPs, vol. 6 (Paris: Gallimard, 1973), 416.
37 Aron, Mhnoir,.s, 94-100. The material covered in the final year of the seminar was
pu~Iished as "En guise d'introdnction" in Me.fures (January 1939). The material for the
entire seminar was published from Raymond Queneau's notes in 1947.
66
Alexandre Kojeve
of the religious community (Father Gaston Fessard).jacques Lacan's pres-

ence also represented a blurring of the lines between the traditional fields
of advanced study. Trained in medicine and psychiatry, Lacan sought a
new route through German philosophy. Other "third party" participants
who were simply interested in what Kojeve had to say came as well. As the
seminar increased in popularity, the "third party" observers increased in
number. Kojeve recalls one participant who came regularly to the seminar
in the late 1930s. At the beginning of 1939 he arrived at the seminar in his
formal military attire and politely asked Kojeve to excuse him for the rest
of the year. Kojeve realized he had been teaching Hegel to an admiral in
the French navy. 38 It is impossible to tell exactly who else was there and
how far-reaching the influence of the seminar was, as enrollment figures
counted only those taking the course for credit. 39
Those attending the seminar represented a melange of intellectuals
who came looking for answers to the concerns of a changing France and
the questions presented by the events of World War I. Kojeve brought
to the table a new way of looking at philosophy. He used no notes: he
translated from German to French as he went and avoided putting any-

thing in writing. 4 Furthermore, the oral nature of the seminar allowed
him to move among philosophies that were often incongruent or con-
tradictory. Kojeve was aware of the confrontational nature of his style
and even attempted to employ what he termed a "propagandistic peda-
gogy" that relied on hyperbole and exaggerationY Kojeve would force
the issue and push the participants further than even Kojeve intended
to go. Some of the most fecund works to come from the participants in
the seminar were attempts to make sense of the troubling contradictions
and extrapolations Kojeve put forward with this strategy. But Kojeve cap-
tivated students with his ability to make connections. Using complex
diagrams and graphs, he presented a reading of Hegel that drew from
Einstein's physics, Bergson's intuitionism, Husserl's phenomenology,
Heidegger's ontology, and Marx's politics. For the young French intellec-
tuals, everything Kojeve gave them seemed new. Lacking previous expo-
sure to Hegel, and (in the case of many participants) any knowledge of
German, the students were seduced by the interpretations that Kojeve
presented so articulately and confidently. 42
38. Interview with Gilles Lapouges, 2.

39. Tom Rockmore characterizes Kojeve as a "French" master thinker in Heidl'(W'T and Fwndt
Phill>Soplty: Ilumanism, Antiltumanism, and Being (New York; Routledge, 1995), 31-39.
40. Kojeve disliked putting anything in writing except in essential situations such as writing
book reviews or articles for income or writing to earn a degree.
41. Nina Ivanoff explained this strategy to me while I was looking through Kojeve's papers
at her home in Vanves.
42. The first complete translation into French of Hegel's Plummneuology ofSpiritwas done by
67
THE FIRST READING
The key to Kojeve's popularity and the lasting influence of his semi-
nar lay in the new answers he provided within a familiar framework. Two
factors were central to Kojeve's interpretation of Hegel. First, his teleo-
logical framework culminated with a radical, but at the time, optimistic
"end of history." This progress was mired in pitfalls and struggle and thus
presented the participants in the seminar with answers to the perplex-
ing questions of war and conflict. Second, the entire project revolved
around a fundamentally humanistic, anthropocentric existentialism that
places the individual at the core of all understanding. Kojeve's anthropo-
centric reading used Heidegger's philosophy to read Hegel in the light
of subjectivist tendencies(see above, introduction). This led to a fun-
damentally anthropocentric understanding of Heidegger's work in the
years to come. The relation of these two factors to the existing tradition
of French philosophy made Kojeve's lectures new and radical but not
unfamiliar. As Vincent Descombes points out in his analysis of Kojeve's
lectures and their influence on French phenomenology, the turn toward
an existential subject in the throes of a conflict of consciousness already
existed in embryonic form in the Cartesian cogito.
For what was known as "the philosophy of consciousness," that is, for
the Cartesian tradition, the "I think, I am," was at once the origin and
the rule of all truth. It is the first truth, the truth which inaugurates
all others; it is the exemplary truth. The ego, as it is given in ego cogito,
ego sum, is the absolut-e to which all else is relative; its truth, indepen-
dent of any other, is the condition of all others. The word "absolute,"
destined for a brilliant career in modem philosophy, is the one used
by Descartes in the Regulae ad directionem ingenii. 43
But as Descombes points out, there can never be more than one abso-
lute at a time. The primacy of the subject becomes a point of contention
when ego 1 (myself) confronts ego 2 (the Other) leading to a struggle for
recognition and dominance. There can be only ONE absolute subject
and therefore the other must be reduced to the position of object. This
modified but fundamentally Cartesian premise is the motor that propels
Jean Hyppolite between 1939 and 1941. The first full-length study of Hegel in French was
Henri Niel's De La miditation dans La phiwsopltie de /lege{ (Paris: Editions Montaigne, 1945).
On the reception of Hegel in France, see Vincent Descombes, ModRrn FTl'ndt Philosophy,
trans. L. Scott Fox and J. M. Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980;
Roth, Ktwwing and IIL~tary; Judith Butler, SubjPrls of /)esirf: Ilegelian RRflections in TwentiRth-
rml11ry France (New York: Columbia University Press. 1999). For interpretations of Hegel
in France, see Irving Fetscher, "Hegel in Frankreich," Antare~ 3 (1953): 3-15; Jacques
d'Hondt, IIPr:,ref et hegelianisrnP (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1982); Lawrence
Pitkethly, "Hegel in Modern France," Ph.D. diss., London School of Economics, 1975.
43. Descombes, Modern French Philo.~ophy, 22.
68
Alexandre Koieve
the Hegelian dialectic as understood by Kojeve. Seen in this light, the

modesty of the revolt against the Cartesian tradition and the tradition of
French philosophy is clear, since Kojeve's work retains the cogito as the
fundamental basis of all philosophy. The confrontation with the other
presents a series of contradictions regarding the place and primacy of
self because, as much as the other is a phenomenon and object for me,
I am a phenomenon and object for the other. The struggle is ultimately
answered through a battle for domination. Kojeve's use of the master-
slave dialectic and the struggle for recognition fit into this Cartesian
mold with litde trouble and found great resonance among the genera-
tion of 1933, who saw it as an answer (from outside French philosophy)
that conformed to their current philosophical vocabulary.
Another reason for the resonance of Kojeve's work was the decline
of Bergsonian spiritualism after World War I. While Bergson's popu-
larity continued to soar among the general public, his work was taken
less and less seriously by the generation of 1933 and this created a vac-
uum. Neo-Kantianism had managed to reinvent itself and continued to
dominate materialist philosophical work in France, but those follow-
ers of Bergson who were looking for more metaphysical answers were
left unsatisfied. Existentialism claimed this position at the end ofWorld
War II, but in the 1930s many young thinkers who had followed the
works of Bergson turned to the phenomenology presented in the lec-
tures by Georges Gurvitch at the Sorbonne from 1928 to 1930, and then
to Koyre and Recherches philosophiques, for an alternative to the neo-Kan-
tian domain of French philosophy. This in turn led them to Kojeve's
reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit, which presented Hegel as the first
phenomenologist.
Kojeve had also developed a sophisticated, if slightly impressionistic,
understanding of Heidegger based on his relationship with Levinas and
Koyre. His knowledge of Heidegger can also be attributed to his friend-
ship with Henry Corbin. Kojeve and Corbin were both participants in
Koyre's seminar and later both worked at the Ecole Pratiques des Hautes
Etudes. They shared a common interest in Orientalism, Eastern lan-
guages, and German philosophy. 44 Corbin had translated Heidegger's
"Was ist Metaphysik?" for the journal Bifur in 1931 and was in the pro-
cess of translating a collection of Heidegger's es~ays for publication. 45 In
April 1934 and July 1936 Corbin visited Heidegger to show the German
44. Corbin, "Post-Scriptum biographique a un entretien philosophique," 40.

45. In his "Post-Scriptum biographique a un entretien philosophique" (44), Corbin
credits Bernhard Groethuysen for securing the publication of this book. "It was thanks
to his [ Gweth uysen 's] tenacity that my translation of Heideggcr, at the time a completely
unknown philosopher, appeared despite the mediocre interest of the publishers."
69
THE FIRST READING
philosopher his translations and obtain suggestions and comments on

his work. Thus it would not be an exaggeration to say that the first trans-
lations of Heidegger's philosophy into French took place in the room
adjacent to Kojeve's Hegel seminar at the EPHE.
Corbin's translations had a profound influence on the first reading of
Heidegger in France and his vocabulary dictated the terms of discussion
used by students of Heidegger such as Merleau-Ponty and Sartre but also
Jean Beaufret in his early work. To this end, a brief summary of Corbin's
translations and their ramifications is in order. The most important issue
is his translation of Heidegger's term Dasein as realite-humaine. Corbin's
choice was in fact approved by Heidegger without hesitation in their
meeting of 1936, and in his preface to the collection of essays published
in 1938, Corbin does define the specific nature of this choice: 46
The existant that is designated by the term Dasein is not simply an
existant to be analyzed as Being in relation to all other existants.
Its Being is the being of man which is the realite-humaine in man. In
French we have recourse to this composite term which refers to the
composition of the term Da-sein. It is essential that we do not lose
sight of the fact that this composite term does not designate a realite
which is first posed and then receives the predicate "human." Instead,
it designates an initial homogeneity specifically distinct from "reality"
in itself and from all realities that are constituted differently. 47
Corbin does try to convey the specific nature of Heidegger's term by dis-
tancing it from the traditional philosophical understanding of "essence"
and "existence," but his decision to use the term rialite-humaine betrayed
his better intentions. The term rialite-humaine does not convey the spatial
character of Dasein, which displaces the suf:tlect as the localizable site of
being. The French scholars who read Corbin's translation were trained
in the Cartesian tradition and therefore assumed that the presence of
being was located in the specific human subject. Thus they assumed that
Heidegger's concern was the investigation of being as presented in the
specific human actor.
This reading, based in the French philosophical tradition, was rein-
forced by Corbin's decision to translate Heidegger's Vorhandenheit as
realiti-des-choses and Zuhandenheit as realite-ustensiles. In English we can use
the terms "present-at-hand" and "ready-to-hand" to convey Heidegger's
presentation of these two modes of being-in-the-world. The problem
with Corbin's translation of Zuhandenheit as realiti-ustensile, the reality of
utensils, is that it does not convey the active nature of Zuhandenheit. One
46. Ibid., 43.

47. Henry Corbin, "Avant-propos de H. Corbin," repr. in Heidegger, Q1ustions I f't l/ (Paris:
Gallimard, 1968), 14.
70
Alexandre Kojeve
could assume that the use of utensils is a theoretical act consistent with
Husserl's concept of intentionality. Furthermore, Corbin's translation of
Vorhandenheit as realite-des-choses does not convey the contemplative and
theoretical aspects of Vorhandenheit and instead implies that Heidegger is
investigating the reality of things. These translations led readers to think
that Heidegger's concept of being-in-the-world was a variation of Hus-
serl's concept of intentionality, with Zuhandenheit representing the model
of consciousness and Vorhandenheit the presence of objects. Therefore, it
was sometimes assumed that Heidegger was emphasizing "human-real-
ity" as the locus of consciousness, which is the basis for intentionality.
This reading was further reinforced by Corbin's translation of Gewor-
Jenheit (thrownness) as sa dereliction. This notion of abandonment, or of
having been abandoned, corroborated Wahl's analysis of Heidegger as
an existentialist in the tradition of Kierkegaard but also led the readers
of Corbin's translations to assume that Heidegger was emphasizing the
specific and individual abandoned subject.
These translations fit Kojeve's anthropological reading of Heidegger,
which he then used in his reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.
Reading the Seminar

To understand Kojeve's impact on the reception of Heidegger in France,
we must understand the contents of the seminar he gave on Hegel from
1933 to 1939. It is difficult to understand the complex relationship
between his original work, his interpretation of Hegel, and his under-
standing of Heidegger. This is made more complicated by the fact that
Kojeve uses Hegel to read Heidegger as much as he uses Heidegger to
read Hegel. Each interpretation is informed by the other and deviates
from the philosophical projects of both German philosophers. Mter Karl
Marx is added to the mix, we arrive at what Aime Patri described as "an
intellectual and moral menage a trois." 48 Marx hovers in the background
of Kojeve's lectures; his reading of Hegel is entirely compatible with his
understanding of Marx. 49 For my own purposes, I will assume Kojeve's
48. Aime Patri, "Dialectique du maitre et de l'esclave," Lf contml socia~ 5, no. 4 Quly-
August 1961): 234.
49. For a succinct and substantive discussion of the relation between Hegel and Marx
in the work of Kojeve, see chap. 2 (especially 64-65) of Butler's Subjfrts of Desire; and
Roth, Knowing and History. On French Marxism, see Arthur Hirsch, The French Nno V~ft: An
lntellertu,al/Iistury from Sartre to Con (Boston: South End Press, 1981 ); Michael Kelly, Modern
French Marxism (Baltimore: johns Hopkins University Press, 1982); Mark Poster, Existmtial
Marxism in Postwar France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975). See also Martin
Jay, Marxism and Totality: The Ad11entuw.s of a Concept from Lului.cs to 1/abrnna.r (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1984).
71
. I..... -I ..... ,LIII.U
informed reading of Marx but will not refer to it except when made
explicit by Kojeve. Instead, I will begin with an explication of Kojeve's
reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit to give the reader the basic
tenets of Kojeve's project as well as his particular understanding and use
of Hegel. I will then try to disentangle exactly how Kojeve used his read-
ing of Heidegger to create an existential reading of Hegel that addressed
the issues most pertinent and compelling to the generation of 1933. But
here we must remain constantly aware that Kojeve's reading of Hegel is
not Hegel. It is contingent on the rhetorical structure of the Phenomenol-
ogy of Spirit, as judith Butler has demonstrated.
Hegelian sentences are read with difficulty, for their meaning is not
immediately given or known, they call to be reread, read with dif-
ferent intonations and grammatical emphases. Because Hegel's
rhetoric defies our expectations of a linear and definite philosophical
presentation, it initially obstructs us, but once we have reflected upon
the assumptions that Hegel wants to release us from, the rhetoric ini-
tiates us into a consciousness of irreducibly multiple meanings which
continuously determine each other. 5
These conditions dictate that a work such as Hegel's Phenomenology of
Spirit will necessarily produce multiple readings and understandings.
The same could certainly be said about the work of Heidegger. In the
case of Kojeve, we encounter a reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit (and
one could say aU of Hegel) that is based entirely on chapter 4 and spe-
cifically on the related concepts of"Self-Consciousness" and "Desire."
According to Kojeve, the key to understanding Hegel lies in the con-
cepts of "Self-Consciousness" and "Desire."51 Kojeve claims that one
becomes conscious of one's self the first time one calls oneself "1." "To
understand man by understanding his 'origin' is, therefore, to under-
stand the origin of the I revealed by speech" (IRH, 3). But Kojeve prob-
lematizes this origin by asking how the word "I" came to be. In so doing
he demonstrates that qualities such as "thought," "reason," "understand-
ing," and all cognitive, contemplative, passive behaviors of being are sec-
ondary qualities in the creation of self-consciousness because they never
force the subject, the one who is contemplating, to contemplate its self.
50. Butler, Suhjf'Ct!; ofDesire, 18.

51. An overview of the lecture series was written by Kojeve and published in the January
14, 1939, issue of Me.ntTPs. This is probably the most widely read version of Kojeve's
interpretation of the Phiiuomnwlogie d~s (lf'irl~s and does indeed cover the essential points
of Kojeve's pmject. I will try to follow the structure of this article but will also turn to
the lectures themselves as recorded by Raymond Queneau and published by Gallimard in
1947. Citations will be taken from the translation byJames H. NicholsJr., which ls included
in the English version of the Introdurti.on to the Reading of Jlegel, edited by Allan Bloom.
72
Alexandre Koje~
It is only when one is 'brought back to oneself' that a being begins to

feel itself as an "I." This bringing back comes about, not through reason
or knowing, but through desire (Beg;ierde). "The man who is 'absorbed'
by the object he is contemplating can be 'brought back to himself only
by a Desire; by the desire to eat, for example. The (conscious) Desire of
a being is what constitutes that being as I and reveals it as such by moving
it to say 'I. '" (IRH, 4-5).
It is through simple biological desires-"! am hungry," "I am thirsty,"
"I am tired," what Kojeve calls animal desires-that the human self is
formed and revealed to itself and others. But we have already noted that
the human self finds itself by being yanked back from the thoughtful
contemplation that is also essential to the formation of self-conscious-
ness. Thus we see that desire at the animal level is sufficient only to make
one conscious of oneself but not to give one self-consciousness.
The very being of man, the self-conscious being, therefore implies

and presupposes Desire. Consequently, the human reality can be
formed only within a biological reality, an animal life. But if animal
Desire is the necessary condition of Self-Consciousness, it is not the
sufficient condition. By itself, this Desire constitutes only the Senti-
ment of self. (IRH, 4)
Furthermore, "reason," "knowing," and "contemplation" are equally
unable to bring about self-consciousness or even self-realization.
Here we see the formation of a "dualism" in Kojeve's interpretation
of Hegel that essentially identifies the human as an animal with animal
desires, but also as a critical, reasonable being who can transcend the
animal realm. This movement above and through the animal becomes
the essential motor in the teleological movement of human existence
and subsequently of history.
Kojeve sees animal desire as pure negation: one sees something and
one eats it. The action is immediate, the satisfaction fleeting. "The I cre-
ated by the active satisfaction of such a Desire will have the same nature
as the things toward which that Desire is directed: it will be a 'thingish' I,
a merely living I, an animal I" (IRH, 4). For the human to move beyond
the realm of animals and to attain self-consciousness, the human must
transcend the given natural reality. For there to be self-consciousness,
desire must be directed toward a nonnatural object. But the only thing
that goes beyond the given natural reality, the only nonnatural object, is
desire itself. By this logic one can deduce that to move beyond the ani-
mal realm is to desire the desire of another. Implicit in t~is movement
is a notion of plurality of being and of society, because this teleological
movement toward self-consciousness can occur only if there is more than
one desire to be obtained.
73
THE FIRST READING
Desire in and of itself is an emptiness in that it is the presence of a

lacking. It is a void of sorts, and thus the desire of another does not lead
to the immediate, if fleeting, gratification that animal desire leads to,
nor to the recurring, unchanging stasis that is the animal realm. Instead,
the I that feeds on desire, that is recognized as action, will be perpetual
action: it is not what it is (static and given being, natural being, "innate
character'') and is what it is not (it is always in the process of becoming
something else) (IRH, 5). What is essential to this formulation is that the
human I, according to Kojeve, is intentional becoming, deliberate evolu-
tion, conscious and voluntary progress. The human I does not realize
itself in space but in and over time. This movement of becoming over
time presents the human I as "an individual, free (with respect to the
given real) and historical (in relation to itself)." This movement is essen-
tial to Kojeve's overall formulation in that it conserves two key themes in
French philosophy: teleology and the notion of free will.
It is human desire that produces this free and historical individual and
we have already determined that human desire is the desire of another
desire. To be human is to wish to be recognized as a human individual
and not as an object or animal. Our own certainty of self is precisely what
is at stake in our desire for recognition in that we know ourselves only
subjectively and thus what we desire is that our sense of self be recog-
nized by an other so as to give us objective certainty of our human self.
In achieving full recognition one reconciles the objective and the sub-
jective and in full mutual recognition one reconciles the particular, the
individual human self, with the universal, the selves of other humans. If
such a mutual recognition is achieved we arrive at self-consciousness.
Simply put, the fruition of human desire is to have the value that I
represent be the value desired by an other. But for my value to be rec-
ognized by the other, the other must see me as a human. Here is where
Kojeve introduces what he claims is the fundamental difference between
the animal and the human realms:
For man to be truly human, for him to be essentially and really dif-
ferent from an animal, his human desire must actually win out over
his animal desire. Now, all desire is desire for a value. The supreme
value for an animal is its animal life. All the desires of an animal are
in the final analysis a function of its desire to preserve its life. Human
desire, therefore, must win out over this desire for preservation. In
other words, man's humanity "comes to light" only if he risks his (ani-
mal) life for the sake of his human Desire. And that is why to
speak of the "origin" of Self-Consciousness is necessarily to speak of
the risk of life (for an essentially nonvital end). (IRH, 6-7)
74
Alexandre Kojeve
The ramifications of this conclusion are staggering. To achieve the

recognition of the other, an individual must prove to the other that he
has overcome his animal self and is no longer afraid of death. For the
other to prove to me that he has overcome his animal self and is indeed
human and thus someone whose recognition I value, he must prove to
me that he has overcome his fear of death. The on~y possible means of
proving this assertion is to risk one's life for the sake of one's desire.
"Therefore, to speak of the 'origin' of Self-Consciousness is necessarily
to speak of a fight to the death for recognition" (IRH, 7). This is what
Hegel calls the Kampf auf Leben und Tod. Thus, in Kojeve's interpreta-
tion, the initial encounter between human beings is necessarily violent
and potentially lethal. Indeed, without this "fight to the death for pure
prestige" there would never have been humans on this earth. Ironically,
if one takes Kojeve's argument to the extreme, one could claim that if
everyone is indeed human and able to overcome animal desire for self-
preservation, then all men would die in battle and there would be no
humans on this earth.
Here, Kojeve follows Hegel more closely and argues that, in fact, the
battle for recognition serves not only to distinguish the animal from the
human but more specifically to distinguish two classes of humans: those
who have overcome their animal desires (masters) and those who have
not (slaves). The fight to the death for recognition is a paradox. If both
combatants turn out to have overcome their animal desires, then one
must die. If one does die then he is returned to the form of a mere thing
and as such his recognition is of no value to the victor, who must journey
off to search for recognition elsewhere. If, as is and must be the case,
one decides that he would rather live than die and gives in to his animal
desire, then the two have distinguished themselves as unequals. The vic-
tor enslaves the loser who now recognizes the victor as master. But the
master is not satisfied with recognition of a slave who has not proven
himself to be human. The master continues to search for the recogni-
tion of another human who desires his desire.
It is in this relationship of master and slave as conditioned by desire
that Kojeve finds the basis for the historical dialectic that creates history
and leads to the evolution of human being over time in the quest for self-
consciousness:
If the human being is begotten only in and by the fight that ends in
the relation between Master and Slave, the progressive realization and
revelation of this being can themselves be effected only in terms of
this fundamental social relation. If man is nothing but his becoming,
if his human existence in space is his existence in time or as time, if
the revealed human reality is nothing but universal history, that history
THE FIRST READING
must be the history of the interaction between Mastery and Slavery: the
historical "dialectic" is the "dialectic" of Master and Slave. (IRH, 9)
We have already seen that the master is not satisfied with the recogni-
tion of the slave and thus does not attain self-consciousness by his appar-
ently superior position of master. Instead, the master remains master in
that he now has the slave to prepare his food, build his houses, and take
care of all his natural desires. The master has overcome his fear of death
but does not evolve because he is in a state of perpetual satiation in rela-
tion to the natural world and of insatiateness in relation to the human
world. There is nothing for the master to do but seek out, confront, and
enslave or kill all others he encounters.
The slave is in a very different position. He must work ( arbeiten) to
satisfy the master. This notion of work is essential because in it the slave
represses his animal desire to consume and instead transforms the
object in question by work for consumption by the master. The slave thus
begins to overcome his natural desire but knows that he cannot attain his
human self until he overcomes his fear of death and revolts against the
master. In this realization, the slave has set himself a goal to be achieved
in the future. The master, however, has no goal and perpetuates his exis-
tence as it is. The slave cannot master the master, so instead the slave
seeks to master nature by work. In so doing the slave creates a human
world that is under the slave's control. The slave thus acts historically in
trying to achieve a goal, but until the goal is attained the slave acts always
under the control of the master. "If idle Mastery is an impasse, laborious
Slavery, in contrast, is the source of all human, social, historical progress.
History is the working of the Slave" (IRH, 20).
Contrary to appearances, the relationship between master and slave is
ultimately beneficial to the slave. The slave overcomes the natural world
and in so doing transforms himself:
In becoming master of Nature by work, then the Slave frees himself

from his own nature, from his own instinct that tied him to Nature
and made him the Master's Slave. Therefore, by freeing the Slave
from Nature, work frees him from himself as well, from his Slave's
nature: it frees him from the Master. In the raw, natural, given World,
the Slave is slave of the Master. In the technical world transformed by
his work, he mles--or at least, one day will mle-as absolute Master.
(IRH, 23)
The future and history belong not to the master, but to the working
slave. The slave represents the evolution of human being and it is the
slave who will attain self-consciousness by first transforming the world
76
Alexandre Koieva
through work and then overcoming the fear of death and overthrowing
the master.
Here, Kojeve's emphasis on chapter 4 is most explicit as he seeks
to expand his commentary beyond the limiting scope of the conflict
between individuals. Kojeve explains the historical progression of the
slave in relation to the master by looking at three periods in time: the
Pagan State, the Christian State, and the Bourgeois State, all as exten-
sions of the master-slave dialectic. It is through these three periods that
Kojeve traces the evolution of the human being, which culminates with
"Self-Consciousness" (the realization of its goal) and the end of "History''
(the pursuit of its goal). Kojeve makes the move from the individual to
society with the simple assertion that ancient society was created under
the structure of the master-slave confrontation, with the masters ruling
society in a hierarchy of mastery. This culminates in the Roman state,
where a complex system of patronage defines the social hierarchy. But it
is also under the Roman state that this system begins to break down. The
territory of the Roman Empire is too vast and the masters can no longer
fight for themselves. Instead they hire mercenaries to fight for them and
become landowners and citizens under the emperor's rule. In so doing
they give up their positions as masters, and, when all is said and done,
they are transformed into slaves of the sovereign because "to be a Master
is to fight, to risk one's life. Hence, the citizens who no longer wage war
cease to be Masters, and that is why they become Slaves of the Roman
Emperor" (IRH, 63). In becoming slaves, the former masters now turn to
what Kojeve calls the three slave ideologies.
The first is Stoicism, where the slave tries to convince himself that he
is actually free simply by knowing that he is free, by having the abstract
idea of freedom. Human beings abandon this ideology because it ren-
ders all action meaningless and leaves humankind bored. This boredom is
not sufficient to convince the slave to act against the master, but it does
drive the slave to action. This action is manifested in the second slave
ideology, skeptic-nihilism. But this new attitude culminates in solipsism,
and the only actions left for the truly skeptical and nihilistic slave is to
confront the master, which the slave cannot yet do, or commit suicide,
which the slave also cannot do. The slave is again left to reconcile the
contradiction between the ifhal of freedom and the reality of slavery. This
contradiction leads the slave to the third and final slave ideology, the
Christian ideology. Here the slave gives up trying to reconcile the con-
tradiction between freedom and slavery but justifies it by saying that all
existence implies this contradiction. "To this end he imagines an 'other
world,' which is 'beyond' the natural World of the senses." Here on earth
one is a slave and docs nothing to free oneself, but one is right in doing
this because in this world everything is slavery and the master is as much
17
THE FIRST READING
a slave before God as the slave is. In the Christian ideology, the place
of the master is transferred to God, and the fear of death is once again
avoided by the promise of the afterlife (IRH, 55).
With the emergence of Christianity, the pagan world becomes a world
of pseudomasters and pseudoslaves, or rather it is simply a world of slaves
without masters. The master is no longer a concrete manifestation but
instead God above. In the Christian State it is theology that has becomes
man's master and it will only be by "overcoming Christian theology" that
man will definitively cease to be a slave and realize his ideal of freedom.
Here what is essential is that in the transition from the pagan to the
Christian world, the role of master as a concrete entity has been abol-
ished, and each slave is in fact a citizen of sorts in the Christian world.
Thus the battle is no longer to overcome the master but to overcome
theism with atheism.
Kojeve claims that this was precisely the role of the French Revolution,
which inaugurated the third historical world in which freedom was finally
conceptualized by philosophy, attained by Napoleon, and understood by
Hegel. Kojeve claims that absolute knowledge, that is, the attainment
of self-consciousness, becomes possible at precisely the time Hegel was
writing the Phenomenology and through the historical figure of Napoleon
spreading the universal truth embodied in the French Revolution. In the
bourgeois world, the citizen sees that "he is the passive subject of a des-
potic Emperor. Just like the slave, therefore he has nothing to lose and
everything to gain by imagining a transcendent World, in which all men
are equal before an omnipotent, truly universal Master, who recognizes
moreover, the absolute value of each Particular as such." In the Christian
world, that master is Jesus Christ, but after the Enlightenment and the
fulfillment of reason, the self-conscious human being realizes that with
absolute knowledge comes absolute reason, which allows one to recog-
nize universal principles by which all human beings can be uniformly
judged and thus objectively recognized as human-beings. The final step
in attaining self-consciousness is to overcome God and, in so doing, to
overcome the fear of death and to accept the finitude that is human
being, a being with an end. "[It is] Hegel, the author of the Phenomenol-
ogy, who is somehow Napoleon's Self-Consciousness. And since the per-
fect Man, the Man fully 'satisfied' by what he is, can only be a Man who
knows what he is, who is fully self-conscious, it is Napoleon's existence as
revealed to all men in and by the Phenomenology that is the realized ideal of
human existence" (IRH, 69-70).
In the person of Hegel writing about Napoleon, human being over-
comes the fear of death, embraces atheism, and attains self-conscious-
ness in a marriage of the universal and the particular made possible by
absolute knowledge, reason, and science ( Wissenscha.ft), thus attaining
78
Alexandre Kojeve
the goal set by the slave at the beginning of history and bringing history
to a close.
Kojeve reads Hegel's understanding of human history as bloody strug-
gle, violent confrontation, and ultimate revolution; but that history also
secures a place for free will, reason, and the eventual progress of human-
kind. These are the qualities that spoke to the generation of 1933. It is
important to note that the pessimistic connotations that Kojeve later gave
to the .. end of history" do not surface until after World War 11. 52 From
1933 to 1939, the end of history was the closure of one set of possibilities
and the opening of another. His interpretation of Hegel gave the partici-
pants in his seminar a new and radical way of interpreting history-a way
that few would argue had much in common with Hegel's original inten-
tions for his Phenomenolog;y ofSpirit. Thus, while Kojeve's reading of Hegel
may tell us little about Hegel's own philosophical project, it can tell us
much about the interests of the generation of 1933 and the reception of
Heidegger in France.
Kojeve began his seminar in 1933-1934 by following Alexandre Koy-
re's analysis of Hegel but also by making it clear that he was deviating
from the path of traditional metaphysics in his attempt to "get Hegel
right." In the Resume du cours 1933-1934 Kojeve sets out to describe
Hegel's Phenomenolog;y of Spirit as a "philosophic anthropology," the same
words he uses to describe Heidegger's Being and Time. He then goes on
to describe the work as "a systematic and complete description, phenom-
enological in the modern (Husserlian) sense of the word, of the existen-
tial comportment of man, which is seen through the ontological analysis
of Being which is its basis and is in fact the theme of the Logik" (ILH,
57). This sort of phenomenological ontology is usually associated with
Heidegger and not with Hegel, but it was one of Kojeve's primary goals
in the first two years of the seminar to show that both Hegel's work and
the concept of the dialectic were primarily ontological and could best be
understood through the work of Heidegger. In doing this Kojeve shifts
the emphasis of each thinker and alters the framework of the Phenom-
enology of Spirit to create an existential Hegel and a historical Heidegger.
In 1936, Kojeve published a review of a work by Alfred Delp in Recher-
ches philosophiques. 53 In preparation for this review he completed a long
52. When asked by Gilles Lapouge about his understanding of the end of history in 1939,
Kojeve replied: "At that time I had read Hegel, but I did not yet really understand that
History was finished. Now." At the time of the seminars the end of history was still fraught
with positive possibilities. This would not be the case after World War II.
53. Alfred Delp, Tragische Existenz: Zur Philosophie Martin Heideggm- (Freiburg im Breisgau:
Herder, 1935). The review by Kojeve can be found in &chnrhes philosopltiquP.s, vol. 5 (1935-
1936): 415-19.
79
THE FIRST READING
note on Hegel's relation to Heidegger; it remained unpublished until

June 1993, when it was finally presented in the journal of the College
International de Philosophie, Rue Descartes. If we read this note from
1936 in relation to Kojeve's interpretation of the Phenomenology of Spirit,
we can grasp the tangled relationship between the three thinkers. Kojeve
takes three key terms from Heidegger and Hegel and imposes a correla-
tion that links each pair. Heidegger's Befindlichkeit is correlated to Hegel's
Begierde; Heidegger's Verstehen is linked to Hegel's Arbeit; and Heidegger's
Angst is linked to Hegel's Kampf auf Leben und Tod. 54 In making these
correlations Kojeve constructs a philosophical structure based on the
ontological problem of being but manifested in ontic reactions to ~he
ontological dilemma.
In Being and Time Heidegger uses the term Befindlichkeit to describe the
state that Dasein finds itself "situated" in as a being-in-the-world. Dasein is
thrown into a world already in existence and is situated in this world as
a being for whom being is an issue. "To be affected by the unservice-
able, resistant, or threatening character of that which is ready-to-hand,
becomes ontologically possible only in so far as Being-in as such has
been determined existentially beforehand in such a manner that what it
encounters within-the-world can 'matter to it in this way" (BT, 176).
In other words, as beings we find ourselves situated in a cultural con-
text where the objects and possibilities we encounter are predetermined.
According to Kojeve, this ontological issue is manifested by the ontic
desire (Begierde) for recognition, which we have previously defined as
human desire. We desire to be desired to satisfy the ontological condi-
tion of finding ourselves in a world as beings whose being matters. To
validate our own being we tun1 to the other to recognize and desire our
worth. According to Kojeve, the situation we find ourselves in (Bejindlich-
keit) as beings in the world is desire (Begierde). Furthermore, it is desire
that separates us from the animal realm. To make this point, Kojeve uses
Heidegger to redefine the term Begierde. For Hegel Begierde in general is
self-consciousness in the sense that "as desire, consciousness is outside
of itself; and as outside itself, consciousness is self-consciousness." But the
exact nature of this "outside" is difficult to determine and becomes a
"crucial ambiguity in the section 'Lordship and Bondage.' "55
Kojeve seizes on this ambiguity and inserts a duality established by Hei-
degger in Being and Time between humans who are "being in the world,"
for whom being is an issue, and nature/animals who "belong to the world."
Thus the human relation to the "world" is differentiated from the natural
54. Alexandre Kojeve, "Note inedite sur Hegel f't Heidegger," Ru; Descarvs, no. 7 Uune
1993): 38-39.
55. Butler, Subjl'rts of Desirl', 7.
80
Alexandre Koieve
world in the very being of each. Kojeve takes this duality one step further,
expanding on a theme he developed in his thesis on Solovyov. For Kojeve,
humans exist in the animal realm but "find" themselves above nature, a
realm they will eventually control. What is at stake here is the notion of
free will, individuality, and freedom that humans achieve through their
mastery of nature, which is brought about by the confrontation between
humans, the direct result of human desire (Begierde), which is the situa-
tion human being finds itself in (Befindlichkeit). Mter the struggle for rec-
ognition, the slave must sublimate his desires to serve the desires of the
master; this conservation of material is brought about by work (Arbeit),
which leads to the slave's mastery of nature.
Kojeve provides the ontological basis for the on tic experience of work
(Arbeit) through Heidegger's term Verstehen. Translated as "understand-
ing" but perhaps best grasped as "coping," this term is used by Heidegger
to explain how Dasein understands and deals with the world into which
it has been thrown. "In understanding [ Verstehen], as an existentiale, that
which we have such competence over is not a 'what,' but Being as exist-
ing. The kind of being which Dasein has, as potentiality-for-Being, lies
existentially in understanding. Dasein is not something present-at-hand
which possesses its competence for something by way of an extra; it is
primarily Being-possible" (BT, 183).
In his lectures at Berkeley, Hubert Dreyfus used to make this point by
explaining that understanding a hammer does not mean understanding
the properties of the hammer or the procedure of hammering. Instead,
to understand the hammer in the sense of Verstehen is simply to hammer.
This is because at the most primordial level we are such skills. We exist as
beings who cope with the world into which we are thrown and deal with
possibilities as they are presented to us. Reading a manual on hammer-
ing, an activity that is present-at-hand, thus in no way equips us for the
possibility of hammering in the sense of Verstehen, ready-to-hand.
Kojeve sees the ontic manifestation of this coping mechanism in
work (Arbeit) wherever humans turn raw material into utensils for our
use and, in so doing, master the world into which we are thrown. In
Kojeve's model it is the slave who performs this task because the mas-
ter cannot. Furthermore, Kojeve's ontological basis only serves as a key
to understanding the slave's ability to cope with and overcome nature,
which in time transforms the slave and leads to the overturning of the
master. While Verstehen is the on to logical basis for Arbeit, it is through
Arbeit that humans can evolve and come to self-consciousness over time.
But despite the slave's mastery over nature, the slave cannot overturn the
master until the slave overcomes the fear of death that forced him into
slavery in the beginning.
81
THE FIRST READING
Here, Kojeve turns to Heidegger's understanding of Angst, which is

fear in the face of death, to give an ontological foundation to Hegel's
Kampf auf Leben und Tod, the struggle of life and death. In Hegel, this is
the moment that distinguishes master consciousness from slave conscious-
ness but, as we have seen, in Kojeve it is more. The slave will never attain
self-consciousness until he can overthrow the master or, more specifically,
overcome his Angst (anxiety), which Kojeve claims is the fear of death in
the Heideggerian sense. For Heidegger, Angst in the face of death is in
far.t the anxiety that one faces when confronted with one's own finitude,
but for Heidegger "anxiety in the face of death must not be confused with
fear in the face of one's demise" (BT, 293). Kojeve's understanding of
Heidegger supposes that the anxiety produced in Heidegger's concept of
being-towards-death is equivalent to the fear for one's life in the struggle
of life and death. Instead, for Heidegger, death is the limit of representa-
tion and understanding because it is "the possibility of the absolute impos-
sibility of Dasein," which is in fact the structure of Dasein:
Death is a possibility-of-Being which Dasein itself has to take over in
every case. With Death, Dasein stands before itself in its ownmost
potentiality-for-Being. This is a possibility in which the issue is noth-
ing less than Dasein's Being-in-the-world. Its death is the possibility of
no longer being-able-to-be-there (Nicht-mehr-Dasein-konnens). If Dasein
stands before itself as this possibility, it has no resort other than to its
ownmost ability to be. (BT, 294,translation modified)
Death is the moment that Dasein completes itself as a totality, but is
also Dasein's demise. As long as Dasein is, death is not yet, but as such
death is always outstanding as Dasein's ultimate possibility, and in this
sense it is Dasein's ownmost potentiality-for-being. Kojeve interprets this
ownmost potentiality-for-being in relation to the possibility of overcom-
ing the fear of death and attaining absolute knowledge. For Heidegger,
an authentic understanding of being-towards-death is not to overcome
death but rather to accept it as the possibility of our own finitude, the
possibility of no longer being possible. Thus for Heidegger, "death, as
possibility, gives Dasein nothing to be 'actualized,' nothing which Das-
ein as actual, could itself be' (BT, 307). This means that death does not
present us with anything that can be "used" in our everyday existence, as
Kojeve supposed, but is always beyond us as our ultimate possibility.
Kojeve's interpretation of Heidegger relies on Kojeve's supposition
that an authentic understanding of death follows the model of overcom-
ing the fear of death, as in his reading of Hegel's system, and thus Kojeve
presents the authentic understanding of death in terms of Heidegger's
concept of resolute action (Entschlossenheit). For Kojeve, resolute action
overcomes the fear of death and thus attains an authentic existence,
82
Alexandre Kojev
which is analogous to Hegel's system, where overcoming tl1e fear of

death entails overcoming theism with atheism, which leads to absolute
knowledge. 56
In Heidegger, the confrontation with death can lead to an authen-
tic understanding of Dasein, of one's relationship with being. In Kojeve,
the final overcoming of the fear of death as manifested in the transition
from theism to atheism and the rule of reason leads to the reconcilia-
tion of the universal with the particular and the end of history. Again in
Kojeve's reading, there is an important place for free will, self-determina-
tion, and a progress that is often reversed by brutal confrontations yet
returns and triumphs in the end.
It is important to note that Kojeve firmly believed that Hegel had got-
ten philosophy right and that Heidegger was incomplete in his work
because he did not take the themes of battle and work seriously and thus
did not take history adequately into account. Kojeve does note, however,
that Hegel had be~n perpetually misread until Heidegger; in a footnote
on the relation of theism to atheism in Hegel, Kojeve writes:
In our times Heidegger is the first to undertake a complete atheistic
philosophy. But he does not seem to have pushed it beyond the phe-
nomenological anthropology developed in the first volume of Being
and Time (the only volume that has appeared). This anthropology
(which is without a doubt remarkable and authentically philosophi-
cal) adds, fundamentally, nothing new to the anthropology of the
Phiinomenologie des Geistes (which, by the way, would probably never
have been understood ifHeidegger had not published his book): but
atheism or ontological finitism are implicitly asserted in his book in a
perfectly consequent fashion. (IRH, 259n. 41) 57
Participants in Kojeve's seminar came to understand Heidegger as a phil-
osophical anthropologist whose concerns mirrored those of Husserl. Hei-
degger's philosophy was seen as an attempt to liberate human being, free
will, and action from the shackles of theism, scientism, and all other systems
that did not take the individual (read: existential) nature of being into ques-
tion. ""hat is essential is the influence that Kojeve's anthropocentric use of
Heidegger's philosophy in the reading of Hegel had on the generation of
1933. This first reading of Heidegger in France would not be called into
question until Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism" to jean Beaufret in 1947.
56. This is also contrary to Heidegger's understanding of resoluteness, as he states it in

&ing and TimP: "One would completely misunderstand the phenomenon of resoluteness
if one should want to suppose that this consists simply in taking up possibilities which have
been proposed and recommended, and seizing hold of them" (345).
57. In this note Kojeve also discusses the deficiencies of Marx in relation to Hegel, given
that Marx does not adequately consider the issue of death.
83
CHAPTER 3
The Dissemination of Kojeve's Heideggerian
Interpretation of Hegel
Alexandre Kojeve introduced the work of Hegel to the generation

of 1933 in a specifically Heideggerian framework. While some partici-
pants had read Levinas's articles, it was through Kojeve that these young
French scholars engaged Heidegger's philosophy for the first time; thus
their understanding of Heidegger relied heavily on Kojeve's interpre-
tations. In this chapter we will explore the philosophical agendas and
development of three participants in Kojeve's seminar: Raymond Aron,
Jacques Lacan, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Kojeve's seminar influenced
these young French intellectuals in different ways and dictated their ini-
tial understanding of Heidegger's philosophy.
We shall also further examine the intersection between the genera-
tion of 1933 and the foreign emigres who came to Paris in the 1920s and
1930s. The move away from traditional French philosophy and toward
German phenomenology was made feasible by these figures, but it would
not have been possible without the influence ofjean Wahl.
Jean Wahl
Born in 1888, an eleve of the Lycee Louis le Grand and of the Ecole Nor-
male Superieure, Wahl held a philosophy position at the Sorbonne. His
work on Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Heidegger was anathema to
those who adhered to the rigid structure of the French canon but seduc-
tive and profound for the young intellectuals who came to study with
him. Raymond Aron claimed that Wahl was the only non-necrKantian
within the walls of the Sorbonne and that he gave his students the chance
to explore philosophy from outside the constraints of the national sys-
tem. Wahl's Le malheur de conscience (1929) introduced the possibility
of an existential Hegel to France by focusing on the young Hegel and
84
Kojeve's Heideggerian Interpretation
reading him through Kierkegaard's work. 1 In this reading, Wahl overem-

phasized the place of the individual subject in Hegel's system and thus
altered the dialectic. For Wahl, it was "the unhappy consciousness" that
served as the fundamental motor for the dialectic in the Hegelian sys-
tem. This interpretation appealed to the angst and uncertainty of the
generation of 1933. Wahl also relied heavily on the works of Kierkegaard
in his reading of Heidegger's Being and Time (a work already indebted
to Kierkegaard). In "Heidegger et Kierkegaard," written for Recherches
philosophiques (1932), Wahl presented Heidegger as the philosophical
successor to Kierkegaard: "That which was the existential cry for Kierkeg-
aard becomes the point of departure for the thinker [Heidegger] who
investigates existence." 2 Wahl saw Heidegger's philosophy as the secular-
ization of Kierkegaard's religious existentialist philosophy in a structure
that reconciled "the two most profound tendencies in contemporary
thought: existential subjectivism and realist objectivism." 3 This is exem-
plified for Wahl in Heidegger's interpretation of the concept of anxiety:
Anxiety is for Heidegger the revelation of the greatest universality: for
the world it is the most personal individuality: for the "I" it is the most
profound possibility, the possibility of death. It is the passage from
the inauthentic to the authentic. It is true that Heidegger transfonns
Kierkegaard's thought by the fact that he situates the "I" in the world
and that anguish is the revelation of Being-in-the-world. It is neces-
sary to add that "in-the-world" can be taken in two different senses
and that the passage between these two senses (authentic and inau-
thentic) is also made with and through the help of the idea of anxiety
whose principal traits were borrowed from Kierkegaard. 4
Wahl saw Heidegger as compatible with Kierkegaard in every aspect
except Kierkegaard's religiosity. This analysis would be essential to Jean-
Paul Sartre's understanding of Being and Time. It also helps explain the
origin of the first reading of Heidegger in France and its overly human-
ist emphasis on the human subject and individualism. In Wahl's pre-
sentation, the philosophy of Heidegger remained foreign and new yet
dovetailed nicely into the Cartesian legacy inherited by the generation
of I 933. But while Wahl's publications moved beyond the boundaries
imposed by his vocation as a professor at the Sorbonne, Wahl too was
1. On Wahl, see Michael Roth, Krwwing ar1d /Jistory (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1988); on Wahl's role in Kierkegaard's reception in Francf', see Samuel Moyn, "Selfhood
and Transcendence: Emmanuel Levinas and the Origins of Intersubjective Moral Theory,
1927-1961," Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2000.
2.Jean Wahl, "Heidegger et Kierkegaard," &dzndtPs phiiosophiq1U.\ 2 (1932-1933): 350.
3. Ibid., 349.
4. Ibid., 353.
85
THE FIRST READING
restricted by the academic structure of which he was a part and had to

look to outside institutions to pursue the type of philosophy he deemed
relevant and necessary.
Jean Wahl's vision was to take French students, normaliens and non-
normaliens alike, and give them access to foreign students and philoso-
phers in order to foster more progressive and profound work on both
sides. This can be seen clearly in his relationship with Emmanuel Levi-
nas. In the early 1930sJean Wahl organized salons with Gabriel Marcel
and invited students they felt could contribute to the topic of discussion.
These salons brought together emigres from Russia and Germany such
as Koyre, Kojeve, Levinas, Eric Weil, and Jacob Gordin with products of
the French educational system. Koyre's relationship to Wahl is especially
important in understanding the dissemination of modern German phi-
losophy to the generation of 1933.
Koyre and Wahl traveled in similar circles, but Wahl possessed a certain
symbolic capital, as a normalien and professor at the Sorbonne, that Koyre,
a Russian intellectual, lacked. Hence the appearance ofJean Wahl's philo-
sophical essay "Vers le concret" as the lead article in the premier issue
of Koyre's journal Recherches Philosophiques was important for two reasons.
First, it emphasized the shift in the balance of power from the university to
journals; with such distinguished French intellectuals as Leon Brunschvicg
and Emile Brehier sitting on its editorial board, Recherches philosophiques
was able to legitimize itself in the eyes of the French philosophical com-
munity. This allowed the journal to serve as an intersection between the
familiar grounds of traditional French philosophy and the influx of for-
eign philosophical methodologies so attractive to a generation of young
philosophers and thinkers. Wahl would lead his students at the Sorbonne
to Recherches philosophiques and subsequently to Koyre and Kojeve. 5 Second,
in "Vers le concret," Wahl argued for a move away from the philosophi-
cal models based on idealism and theory and toward investigatizons into
things as we encounter them in our everyday life, toward the concrete.
This was a call to move away from the theoretical model of neo-Kantian-
ism while at the same time conserving the importance of rigorous philo-
sophical investigation so as to avoid the pitfalls of pure subjectivity.
Jean Wahl presented phenomenology, and specifically the philosophy
ofHeidegger, as essential component.;; in this movement toward concrete
philosophy. "One of the most fecund teachings of phenomenology
is that it allows us to grasp things in all their richness, at their face value,
in the fashion that they are known. "6 Wahl supported the claim by citing
from Being and Time. He also presented Heidegger as compatible with
5. See Regis De bray, !.R pom10ir intA/ectuel e11 France (Paris: Editions Ramsay, 1979), chap. 2.
6.Jean Wahl, "Vers le concret," RrrhPrcltPs jJhil.osopllirpus 2 (1931-1932): 4.
86
Koieves Heideggerian Interpretation
his larger humanist agenda. Furthermore, Wahl established a trend that

lasted throughout the 1930s in his use of Heidegger as a tool for reading
Hegel in such a way as to rehabilitate the notion of historical progress. In
"Heidegger et Kierkegaard," Wahl claims that
one can see in what sense we can sketch the relation between I lei-
degger and Hegel despite their differences. The existential conception
of truth can be applied to certain expressions of Hegel. The return of
the self can be conceived as a synthesis of the past and the future in the
instant that they are absorbed. Hegel exposed a conception of Christi-
anity as a religion of subjectivity, and he established another pan based
on the fusion of spirit and things in a completely filled objectivity; one
can say that Heidegger, at a higher point, carries the sentiment of sub-
jectivity and the sense of objectivity at the same time. He shows our
participation in the world at the same time as our absolute isolation. 7
Wahl establishes the connection between Hegel and Heidegger based on
a mutual reconciliation of the subject-object split that is still based on the
primacy of a subject. This use of Heidegger, while inspired by the work of
Levinas, is decidedly Cartesian in that it places an existential subject, based
on an ego cogito that evolves over time, at the center of the phenomenologi-
cal investigation of ontology. In his interpretation of Heidegger's philoso-
phy, Wahl reified and validated the interpretations of Koyre and Kojeve.
Raymond Aron
Raymond Aron has often been falsely credited with introducing Hei-
degger's work to France. A more accurate, though less grandiose, claim
is that he introduced Heidegger's work to Sartre. But while that introduc-
tion was a definitive moment in the present narrative, Aron's own intel-
lectual development throughout the 1930s and 1940s is significant for
understanding the generation of 1933. Through his memoirs, his inter-
views, and his works from the 1930s and 1940s, one can trace the devel-
opment of the young intellectuals of 1933: the relations and tensions
between them and their teachers, the influence of German philosophy,
the specific concerns that led them to seek an alternative to the French
canon, and the ways that that canon continued to shape their intellec-
tual projects.8 Specifically, Aron can help us understand the influence of
7. Wahl, "Heidegger et Kierkegaard," 365n. 1.

8. On Raymond Aron, see Nicolas Baverez, Rnymond Aron: lin mura.li.slf au tnnps dPs
idiologtu!s (Paris: Flam marion, 1993); Robert Colquhoun, H.t1ymond Amn: The Phiwsoplwr in
1/iswry, 1905-1955, vol. l (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1986). On Aron's early life, seejean-Fran~ois
Sirinelli, "Raymond Aron avant Raymond Aron ( 1923--1933) ," Vingliime siede: llelme d 'hi.~toire
2 (1984), and "Quand Aron etait a gauche de Sartre . . ," Le Monde dimanchl', January
87
THE fiRST READING
K~jeve on these young intellectuals as well as the impact of Heidegger's

philosophy as used by Kojeve in his seminar.
Aron was born in Paris in 1905. He studied philosophy at the Lycee
Condorcet before entering the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1924. He
was a top student and a hard worker, but like many of his contempo-
raries he was dissatisfied with the state of philosophy in France. To Aron,
French philosophy existed solely on a theoretical level and thus could
not prepare the generation of 1933 to understand a world that had devi-
ated from the positivist and optimistic trajectory espoused by their teach-
ers. Reflecting on his formation at the ENS, Aron concluded that
the education I received at the Ecole Normale prepared me to
become a professor of philosophy at a lycee but nothing else. In
1928, after I passed the agregation in philosophy, and I passed in a
brilliant manner with the highest score, I immediately underwent an
internal crisis. I was crushed to realize that I had spent all those years
and learned next to nothing. I exaggerate a little because the courses
on the great philosophers were not sterile, but all the same I knew
almost nothing about the world, about social reality, about modern
science. So what was it for? To work in philosophy for what? For noth-
ing? Or to write another thesis on Kant? So I fled, in a certain manner.
I left France, ce milieu, and I went to find something elseY
There were many instructors in France who were influential in Aron's
de\-elopment, but for his generation there were no mo,itres a penser, as
Bergson and Durkheim had been for the previous generation and Sartre
would be for the next. Instead Aron decided to continue his investiga-
tions on the other side of the Rhine.
Aron was in fact continuing a tradition by going to study abroad. It was
common for French students in philosophy to complete their formation
in Germany. Durkheim himself had completed courses in Germany two
generations before Aron, and Celestin Bougie had also finished his stud-
ies there. But the older generation had gone to finish their training in
Germany, whereas Aron went to Germany to begin his. There he found
the intellectuals he wanted to emulate in the persons ofHusserl and Hei-
degger and in the work of Max Weber. His interest in phenomenology
allowed him to apply philosophy to the concrete world, while his studies
in German sociology allowed him to view history from outside the strict
optimism of the Durkheimian and neo-Kantian schools.
17. 1982. See also the relevant sections in H. Stuart Hughes, The Obstrurtf'd Path: Frenr.h
Social Tlumgltt in the Yean of DPsperalion, 1930-1960 (New York: Harper and Row, 1966).
9. Rnyrrwrul A ron, lR spectateur engage, interviews with Jean-Louis Missika and Dominique
Wolton (Paris:Julliard, 1981), 27.
88
In Germany, Aron discovered "everything I could not find in France,

principally the philosophy of history and political thought. Germany also
led me to phenomenology." 10 Aron saw phenomenology and the philos-
ophy of history as viable alternatives to the overly optimistic rationalism
presented in France, which did not seem to jibe with the realities of an
increasingly unstable Europe. As a result, he and the generation of 1933
found themselves at odds with those of the previous generation who
were their professors. The older generation had been trained during the
Belle Epoque of the Third Republic and had never lost faith in the sys-
tems they professed. The events of World War I had perhaps tempered
their optimism, but France's victory validated their faith. Aron and the
generation of 1933 had grown up during World War I; thus their tem-
perament was totally different. Despite their classical training and their
teachers' emphasis on the values the Third Republic held dear, they
were not beholden to any of the classic understandings of philosophy
and especially not to pure optimism (espoused by Bergson) or progres-
sive rationalism (neo-Kantianism). This is not to say that the generation
of 1933 had given up on the possibility of progress, but rather that they
viewed their teachers' models as overly theoretical and unable to account
for the realities of the world in which they lived.
Thus Aron and the generation of 1933 turned to phenomenology (which
had shown a more rigorous understanding of intuition than the Bergso-
nian variant in the works of Georges Gurvitch) and to German sociology.
It is hardly valid to label either phenomenology or German sociology (in
the tradition of Max Weber, Karl Mannheim, and Georg Simmel) spiritual-
ist in the French sense, but for the generation of 1933 "it was legitimate in
the early thirties to oppose the 'spiritualist' inspiration of German sociology
to the positivist or scientistic inspiration of French sociology." 11 Thus it was
through an infusion of German thought that the generation of 1933 was
able to reinvigorate the "spiritualist" tradition, but only by moving outside
the traditional French canon, to the consternation of their teachers.
When Aron returned to France from Germany in 1933, he found that
he could continue the pursuit of his newfound philosophical interests
at home. His return coincided with what Aron termed the "peaceful
invasion" of France by German intellectuals fleeing the Third Reich. 12
D~spite the skeptical reception he received from his teachers at the Sor-
bonne, Aron found a budding intellectual culture based on a meeting
of minds between French and foreign scholars. Kojeve's Hegel seminar
10. Ibid.,38-39.
11. Aron, Mhnoires: CinquanlP ans de rijlexi.on polilique (Paris: Julliard, 1983), 109. What
Aron calls "spiritualist" we would now call "culturalist."
12. Ibid., 106.
89
THE FIRST READING
was thus a natural fit for Aron, who brought a particularly informed pres-
ence to the group. His years in Germany had given him a fundamental,
though not formal, background in phenomenology and German sociol-
ogy, and a profound interest in the philosophy of history. Furthermore,
Aron knew German and was one of the few participants who could read
Hegel in the original. This also made him one of the most skeptical and
critical members of the seminar; he often challenged Kojeve, particularly
with regard to Kojeve's conclusions about the "end of history," "Absolute
Knowledge," and the "Homogeneous State." 13
Despite Aron's guarded skepticism, Kojeve's influence should not be
underestimated. Indeed, Aron honors Kojeve as one of the three most
important figures in his life. 14 But perhaps the most essential influence lies
not in the critical engagement between the two thinkers but in a series of
interpretations proffered by Kojeve and accepted at face value by Aron.
These were: first, that Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit was in fact a phenome-
nology in the Husserlian sense of the term; second, that Heidegger's under-
standing and use of phenomenology mirrored Husserl's and that both
projects were "anthropological" in their emphasis on a human subject; and
third, that Heidegger's anthropological philosophy was existential in the
Kierkegaardian sense of the term. This particular understanding of Hegel,
Husserl, and Heidegger led to a conflation of Hegel's teleological dialec-
tic with existential phenomenology that presented Marx and Heidegger as
fundamentally compatible and eventually led to existential Marxism.
The influence of Kojeve and Heidegger on Aron is implicit in Aron's
Introduction a la philosophie de l'histoire, written in 1937 as his these de doc-
toral and submitted to a committee consisting of Paul Fauconnet, Celes-
tin Bougie, Emile Brehier, Maurice Halbwachs, and Leon Brunschvicg.
Brunschvicg and Brehier both sat on the board of editors for Recherches
philosophiques, and Bougie had studied in Germany. They were all well
versed in classic German philosophy and sympathetic to foreign intel-
lectuals fostering dialogue between Germany and France, but they were
also the product of a previous era. At Aron 's thesis defense in the Salle
Liard of the Sorbonne (which was recorded by Pere Gaston Fessard
and published in the 1938 supplement of the Revue de metaphysique et de
morale), the differences between the concerns of the generation of 1933
and those of the previous generation became apparent. 15
13. Pere Gaston Fessard, La philosaphiR hi~toriqtJR de Rnyrrwnd Aron (Paris:Julliard, 1980), 51-52.
14. Aron, Mhnoires, 731-33. See Tom Rockmore, lleidPggerruul French Phil.o.wjJity: 1/umnnism,
Antihu:mani1m, and Bn.ng (New York: Routledge, 1995), 36-37.
lJ. For other contemporary reviews of Aron's lntroducti.on a 1~, philo.wphi~ de l1tistoire, see H.
Guuier, "Connaissance his to rique et philosophique de l'histoire," La vie iniRfJpr:tu.eUe 63 (April
25, 1939): 260-66; B. Groethuysen, "Une philosophie critique de l'histoire," NRF53 (October
90
Kojeves Heideggerian lnterpretatio1
Aron 's committee saw his work as an attack on the established edu-
cational paradigms of the Third Republic, and this perception was
exacerbated by the fact that the alternatives Aron offered were almost
exclusively of German origin at a time when German-French relations
were particularly poor. Aron's Introduction a la philosophie de l'histoire was
devoted to the refutation of the overly rational "philosophy of progress"
in favor of a more "realistic" approach employing German sociology and
phenomenology. The stakes were high, given the precarious nature of
the Third Republic and Hitler's proclamation of the Anschluss of Austria
on March 13, 1938, thirteen days before Aron's thesis defense.
Growing up in the shadow of World War I and on the eve of World
War II, the generation of 1933 sought an alternative way of viewing his-
tory and philosophy that could make sense of events that were not pro-
gressive, rational, or necessarily explicable. They found the scientific
method of investigation to be restrictive, stale, and inapplicable to the
human condition. Conversely, the previous generation viewed the gen-
eration of 1933's attack on science, rationalism, and progress as an attack
on the French canon and thus on France itself. Fauconnet's reaction to
the Introduction ala philosophie de l'histoire summarizes the feelings of this
older generation toward their pupils:
Assuredly I commend your honesty and your loyalty to your work, but I
must confess that I do not see where it is going. I cannot determine if
you are diabolic or simply without hope [ un satanique ou un disespere1. 16
Aron recalled that his "refutation of progressive rationalism shocked
all of the idealistic optimists that still dominated the left of the Sor-
bonne."17 Paul Fauconnet, a disciple of Durkheim's, may have felt per-
sonally attacked as Aron 's work gutted the suppositions on which his
scientific sociology was founded and rejected the notion of la mission
civilisatrice, which was a central tenet of his work. Fauconnet proclaimed
Aron 's work a "menace to the sociological constructions advanced by the
previous generation." 18
Aron's committee was disappointed with his break from the rational
optimism that characterized the traditional canon of the Sorbonne, the
ENS, the Republic of Professors, and, by extension, France as they con-
ceived it: "In 1938 my book surprised our teachers at the Sorbonne who
detected in my work, in my preoccupations and themes of reflections, a
1939): 623-29; H.-I. Marrou, "Tristesse de l'historien," E~prit79 (Aprill939): ll-47.

16. Pere Gaston Fessard, Rkit de la soutermnce par le jJhe G. Fi>.w1rd, Annexe 2, in Raymond
Aron, In trod urtio11 iz ln philosopltie de l'hisloire (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), 450.
17. Aron, Mbnoirt's, 117.
18. Supp!nneril rfp La remu de mitnphy.~iq1u et moral11 (July 1938): 28.
91
THE FtRST READING
style of thinking totally foreign to their universe." 19 Thus Aron's thesis

exposed a definitive cleavage between the two generations. At his defense,
Aron described his thesis in opposition to his teachers:
I mean to say that the general direction of this thesis is entirely anti-
scientific and anti-positivist. It does not reject these ideas, however,
in favor of the arbitrary or of an "anarchy" of individual preferences
that concerns itself only with practical decisions. Nor does it favor an
irremediable skepticism that concerns itself only with philosophy. In
our everyday life we are confronted with decisions that we must justify
but by means other than scientific reason. I am therefore trying to
return a sphere of validity to man, to concrete man, by showing the
possibility of a philosophical reflection that is beyond science and by
arguing that this reflection is itself a function of history. 20
Aron wanted to return to an understanding of history based on our
everyday existence in the world and not on scientific formulas or the-
ories. Phenomenology served as a model to examine the relation of
human beings to the objects they use and the world in which they live
in a way that allowed Aron to examine the historian as well as the his-
tory written. In this sense Aron hoped to move past certain intellectual
precepts his teachers held dear but that everyday life had convinced him
were antiquated and inapplicable:
By saying that there is no true history in history, I am neither hopeless,
because thought is not everything-there is also the sphere of action-,
nor diabolic due to the sole fact that I have eliminated a certain num-
ber of ideologies that our times have already apparently condemned.
Among these I number the idea of indefinite progress that expands to
cover all of society and the belief that the activity of objective research
and pure contemplation will exhaust the vocation ofman. 21
Aron wanted to dispel the myth of unbridled progress, but he had
not given up hope on progress altogether. Instead he believed that to
understand progress as it occurred in the real world he had to move past
the ideologies of his professors and toward a philosophical methodology
that could account for the truncated and often violent path of progress.
The most obvious and important influence for Aron 's Introduction a
la philosophie de l'histoire is the work of Max Weber, but implicit in Aron's
use of Weber is the "task to investigate further the question of the limits
of historical objectivity and in so doing to move beyond Weber. "22 To
19. Aron, Memoirt's, 119.

20. Fessard, Recil dt' la smllcnancl', Annexe 2, 452.
21. Ibid., 452-53.
22. Colquhoun, Raymond A ron, 129.
92
Kojeves Heideggerian Interpretation
do so Aron follows the model Kojeve established in his seminar using a

phenomenological methodology to understand the concept and move-
ment of history. Thus, while Aron 's Introduction a Ia philosophie de l'histoire
is explicitly Weberian, it is implicitly Kojevian and carries with it Kojeve's
presentation of Husserl and Heidegger. Again it is important to remem-
ber that while Aron follows Kojeve in applying a "phenomenological"
method to an investigation 'into history, this is not phenomenology as
defined by Husserl or Heidegger. Aron relied heavily on Heidegger's
concept of historicality ( Geschichtlichkeit ) as presented in Being and Time,
but Aron's understanding of Heidegger is based on Kojeve's reading,
which presents Heidegger's concept of resolute action as the locus for the
Hegelian dialectic and the progress of history. Thus Aron derived from
it an anthropocentric existential reading of historicality that focused on
the decisions of the individual subject who acts in history:
This is my central thesis: the relativity of historical knowledge reveals
the moment where the decision intervenes. To establish this I apply
the phenomenological method to the subject who discovers history.
This shows that the subject of historical knowledge is not a pure sub-
ject, a transcendental I, but a living man, a historic I, that seeks to
understand his past and his milieu. 23
Through this selective reading of Heidegger, Aron is able to present a
concrete reading of history that begins with man as the historical subject
who attempts to understand his being-in-the-world historically.
Deviating from Kojeve, Aron eschewed the two-tiered ontological
model (which Kojeve took from Heidegger) in favor of a two-tiered his-
torical model based on "natural history" and "human history." Natural
history is understood in terms of biology and physics (natural phenom-
ena such as gravity) and therefore adheres to scientific laws. Human
history, conversely, is based on choice and action and therefore cannot
be reduced to formulas or theories. In this sense, Aron presents a varia-
tion of Husserl's critique of science because it is only on the basis of the
human realm that we come to construct the natural sciences that apply
to natural history; thus natural history does not apply to human history
even though human history is essential to science. But Aron also fol-
lows Kojeve's assertion that the human realm is derived from the animal
realm and thus always exists in it as well as above it. In both cases, "the
logical truth of natural history in no way contradicts the ontological truth of
human history. "24 Aron conserves the scientific rationalism of his teach-
ers via a natural history that adheres to scientific laws, while at the same
23. Fessard, Rf.ril de Ia soulenanre, Annexe 2,452.

24. Aron, /ntrodu.dion tt La philosopltif de l'ltistoire, 40.
93
T~E FIRST READING
time opening the way for an ontological "human history" that empha-
sizes choice and action, anticipating French existentialism.
Aron presented a reading of history based on Heidegger's historical-
ity but read through Kojeve's interpretation of Hegel presented in the
seminar. As a result, he did not emphasize Heidegger's presentation of
historicality based on the structure of care [Sorge] but instead presented
a version that focused on the individual (thrown into a historical situ-
ation) who must choose a course of action based on the historical sit-
uation: "[My book] invites the reader to renounce the abstractions of
moralism and of ideologies and instead determine the veritable capacity
of our possible choices which are limited by reality itself. "25
Aron's understanding of Heidegger's historicality would play a major
role in Sartre's understanding of the term and serve as a basis for his exis-
ten tialism.
Aron passed his these de doctoral; his committee recognized the origi-
nality and sophistication of his work. But he did not pass without first
hearing their grave reservations about the direction in which he was
heading: "I conclude with an act of charity," said Paul Fauconnet, "I offer
my admiration and my sympathy; an act of faith in the value of the theses
that you have condemned, and of hope, the hope that the youth of the
future will not follow the path you have chosen." 26 Fauconnet's hope and
optimism were not rewarded.
Jacques Lacan
Of the participants in the seminar the figure most directly influenced
by Kojeve was Jacques Lacan. Lacan was a medically trained psychiatrist
who was also schooled in psychoanalysis. 27 He was thus cut from a differ-
ent cloth than the normalierts and other university students in Kojeve's
seminar. But Lacan also represents a change in the French understand-
ing of psychoanalysis in France. 28 Despite his scientific and medical
25. Fessard, Ricit dP la sou/.nltzrtre, Annexe 2, 453.

26. Supplement de la rerJUe de rnflaphysiqu.e el rnural.e Uuly 1938): 28.
27. On Lacan, see Mikkel Borch:Jacobsen, l.aran: The Absolute Master, trans. Douglas Brick
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991); Carolyn]. Dean, '17te Self and Its Pleasures (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1992); Shoshana Felman, jacques Lamn and the Adventure of Insight:
P1ydwanalysis in GmtRTTipurmy Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987); Jane
Gallop, lvadh1g Lncon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985); Alain juranville, Laran f't la
philosophi" (Paris: Presses U niversi taires Fran{aises, 1984) ; An ika Lemaire, Jarque.r Lacnn, trans.
David Macey (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977); David Macey, Lamn in C.mtlext.r
(London: Verso, 1988); Samuel M. Weber, The I_pgn1d of Frewl (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1982); Slavoj Zizek, 11u! Suhlim.e Ofljer/ of Ideology (London: Verso, 1989).
28. In her La batailll' dr rmt anr (Paris: Seuil, 1986), Elisabeth Roudinesco argues that the
94
background, Lacan 's concerns were strikingly similar to those of the

normaliens and university students: he felt constrained by the narrow
purview of the French academic world, specifically in psychiatry, where
Freud and his theories were still viewed with great suspicion. To further
his understanding of Freud, Lacan looked outside France for more
fecund sources than the staid and idealistic interpretations presented by
his country's psychiatric community. Freud's work on the unconscious
had been accepted by the surrealists as a vital tool in breaking away from
the chains of conventional society and was presented as parallel to the
concept of "automatic writing." The surrealists believed they had found
a kindred philosophy in Freudian psychoanalysis that could provide a
theoretical basis for their work. 29
While the traditional psychoanalytic community (in Germany or
France) might not have agreed with the surrealists' interpretations, Lacan
found them intriguing and made himself a regular in the surrealist circles
of the late 1920s, spending much time with Salvador Dali, Andre Breton,
and Georges Bataille. But while Lacan found the surrealists engaging, he
did not think their methodologies were rigorous enough. 30 Lacan, like
Bataille, looked to German philosophy, and specifically Alexandre Kojeve,
to provide the philosophical answers to a myriad of questions untouched by
French philosophy and psychiatry. Lacan represented the future trajectory
of French psychoanalysis but also the specific philosophical concerns of the
generation of 1933. Lacan returned to Freud in the early 1930s to present
psychoanalysis as the investigation of a concrete existence within history,
and, like Aron, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, he looked to phenomenology to
provide a basis for this movement toward the concrete.
For Lacan, Kojeve 's seminar was more than just an exploration of Ger-
man philosophy; it provided a whole new way of reading, understand-
ing, and teaching texts. Kojeve's seminar unsettled participants and
allowed them to engage a text in radical and often violent interpreta-
tions. This fostered an originality in both interpretation and reception
that was entirely alien to the whole lycee system. The texts were not
presented through dogmatic repetition but rather through temporal
textual engagement.. Lacan would later bring this same subversive and
history of psychoanalysis in France can be seen as two distinct movements: the first medical
and clinical, the second literary and philosophical. According to Roudinesco, Lacan was
able to bridge the two through his work and seminars throughout the 1950s and until
his death in 1981. His work plays a major role in the second phase of the reception of
Heidegger in France, but for our purposes we will limit the scope of this investigation to
his early work and his relationship to Kojeve.
29. See Anna Balakian, Surreali.\m: 17te Jwrul to the Absolute (New York: Noonday Press,
1959); Maurice Nadeau, llistoire du surrealisme (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1964). See also
Andre Breton, Mar~yesteJ du surrealisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1973).
30. See Dean, The Sl'/f and Its Plensu11'.s.
95
THE FIRST READING
innovative methodology to his reading of Freud, pre sen ted in his semi-
nars beginning in 1953. Tellingly, the series of works that Lacan pub-
lished chronicling those lectures were simply titled The Seminar, and, like
Kojeve's Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, the book was not written by
Lacan but transcribed from notes taken during the course.
Throughout the 1930s, Lacan followed Kojeve very closely, turning
toward structuralism in the mid-1940s. Lacan's turn reflected his empha-
sis on language, which also led him to Heidegger, who had made a simi-
lar turn toward language in his "Letter on Humanism" (1947). Lacan's
engagement with Heidegger is therefore based on the second reading
of Heidegger in France and is itself a major force in the second phase of
that reception. 31 But Lacan's turn is in fact based on his participation in
Kojeve's seminar and Kojeve's lasting influence on his work.
Lacan made the shift to language based on his understanding of sev-
eral key Kojevian concepts: Desire, Self-Consciousness, and the Master-
Slave dialectic. In an article from 1933 written for Le Minotaure, Lacan
attempted to use the master-slave dialectic as a psychoanalytic category in
his analysis of the Papin sisters. The two sisters had been model employ-
ees working as maids for a woman and her daughter in Le Mans. One
d:ly, after an electrical outage interrupted their dinner preparations,
they attacked and murdered the woman and her daughter, mutilating
them almost beyond recognition with knives and other kitchen utensils.
Mterward, they locked the front door and went upstairs to their room
where they waited for the police. Lacan's assessment of the case was that
the crime manifested a structural paranoia: the murderers sought to
destroy the ideal of the master that they held within themselves in order
to overcome their slavery. He saw it as a pathological manifestation of
the stntggle for recognition. 32
In "Le stade du miroir," first presented in 1936 and then reworked for
presentation at the sixteenth International Congress of Psychoanalysis in
Zurich, Lacan displayed a more sophisticated understanding of Hegel in
relation to psychoanalysis, based on his participation in Kojeve's seminar.
Lacan explains le slade du miroir (the mirror stage) as the moment when
the infant first recognizes himself in the mirror and thus posits himself
as a self. This positing of the "I" is the locus of representation. But the
self that the infant locates is not in fact his real self but a reflection of his
self. "It is sufficient to understand the mirror stage as an identification in
the full sense that analysis gives to the term: namely, the transformation
31. I have identified the first phase of the reception ofHeidegger in France as lasting from
1927 to 1961. The second phase begins in 1961 and continues to the present.
32.Jacques Lacan, ".Motifs du crime paranoiaque: Le crime des soeurs Papin," Le Minotaure
3/4 (1933): 25-28.
96
that is produced in the subject when it assumes an image-the predesti-

nation of this effect of the stage is sufficiently indicated by the use, in
theory, of the ancient term imago. "33
Thus the self that is revealed to the infant transforms the infant
through the production of a self that is not based on its self but on an
imago of its self. For Lacan, this reveals the insufficiency of the self, which
is not grasped in itself but via its reflection in the mirror. "The mirror
stage manifests the effect in man, primarily in the dialectic, of an organic
insufficiency in his natural reality. "34 This insufficiency manifests itself as
a lack. Lacan's "lack" follows Kojeve's model of desire, where the subject
first posits its self as an "I" based on its animal needs; but what is lacking
in Lacan's model is not any thing but precisely the self. In both models,
the positing of the self leads the individual to search for recognition of
its self in the other and this translates into the desire for recognition.
"This is the moment that decidedly tilts all of human knowledge in the
mediation of the desire of the Other." 35 Thus Lacan uses Kojeve's con-
cept of desire but alters the nature of desire so that the initial lack is not
any thing but recognition of the self. In this sense Lacan is very close to
Heidegger in his attempt to remove the self as the locus of being and
to question the nature of representation. But here too, Lacan's work is
based on Kojeve.
In his seminar, Kojeve argued that the initial posing of the self that can
attain self-consciousness was revealed through desire. "The (conscious)
Desire of a being is what constitutes that being as I and reveals it as such
by moving it to say 'I' ." (IRH, 3). In Kojeve's model, the self poses
itself through language. It is the I who can say "I ... " that can attain self-
consciousness. This is a minor point for Kojeve but a point of departure
for Lacan. Kojeve presents language (based on conceptual comprehen-
sion) as negation:
In Chapter VII of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel says that all con-
ceptual-comprehension (Beg;reifen ) is equivalent to murder. For
example, when the Sense (or Essence) "dog" is incarnated in a sen-
sible entity, that Sense (Essence) is alive: the dog is real, it is a living
dog that runs, drinks, and eats. But when the Sense (Essence) "dog"
passes into the word "dog," it becomes an abstract Concept that is dif
ferent from sensible reality that is revealed by its Sense, the Sense (the
Essence) is murdered: the word "dog" does not run, does not drink,
and does not eat; in the word the Sense (Essence) ceases to live; this
33.Jacques Lacan, Ecrits (Paris: Seuil, 1966), 90.

34. Ibid., 93. .
35. Ibid., 95.
97
THE FIRST READING
is to say it has been murdered. This is why conceptual-comprehension

of empirical reality is equivalent to murder. (ILH, 372-73)
Thus the word dog murders/ negates the real dog and replaces it with
the concept dog. Kojeve presents this understanding of language within
the framework of Hegel's larger teleology of self-consciousness and
therefore sees the possibility that words and things will fall into line with
each other, so that words will correspond to the essence of the things
they name at the point of absolute knowledge. Lacan did not agree with
this aspect of Kojeve's interpretation. 36
For Lacan, Kojeve's definition of language as murder/negation
relates back to Kojeve's understanding of the self as constituted by desire
through language. In this sense the subject that posits its self through
language also murders/negates its self through the act of language. For
Lacan, there can never be any possibility of absolute knowledge because
the initial act of posing the self is also the negation of the self. The self
that is named is not the real Sense (Essence) of self but the concept of
self. This describes the mirror stage, where the infant first recognizes
its self based on a reflection that is in fact not its self. The subject of
investigation appears where it is already lost, but because this loss occurs
in the objective act of naming (in representable language) it appears
to us as something we have found. For Lacan this is the problem with
both Cartesian philosophy and ego psychology. This understanding of
the self as the site where being presents itself but not as the site of being
is very close to Heidegger's work. Lacan presents a model of the self that
loses itself in objective presentation. Heidegger sees being as lost in tra-
ditional metaphysics, which considers the ego cogito the site of being and
thus conceals the essence of being.
For Lacan, the self as posited is always a lack and this leads to desire,
manifested in the desire for recognition; this view is compatible with Hei-
degger's understanding, presented in the .. Letter on Humanism," of the
forgetting of being. While Heidegger sees the possibility of recovering
being through language, Lacan sees the structure as a permanent lack,
an infinite desire. The Lacanian subject is the place where being hap-
pens through language, but the positing of the subject as such is its own
negation; thus it is never present to itself. Because Lacan follows Kojeve's
(not Heidegger's) definition of language as murder/negation, language
can never speak to Lacan in the revealing sense it does to Heidegger,
but always remains infinitely ambiguous. Here we have already moved to
the topic of Lacan 's confrontation with the second reading of Heidegger
36. See Phillipe Van Haute, "Lacan's Philosophical Reference: Heidegger or Kojeve?"
I11ternntional Pltilosoplticnl Quarterly 32, no. 2 Uune 1992).
98
in France, which belongs to the second phase of the reception of Ilei-

degger in France and is beyond the scope of this volume. 37
Merleau-Ponty
Among the participants in Kojeve's seminar, Merleau-Ponty is doubtless
the most important figure for the first phase of the reception ofHeidegger
in France. 38 This is due in part to his relation to Sartre, but more impor-
tant is the way Merleau-Ponty used the work of Heidegger throughout
his career. Through Merleau-Ponty's work one can trace the evolution of
the reception of Heidegger's thought in France, from being considered
a continuation of Husserl's phenomenology to being seen as an integral
part of Merleau-Ponty's own understanding of Hegel and Marxism (via
Kojeve), and finally to becoming the focal point of Merleau-Ponty's final
philosophical texts. 39 In fact, the central importance ofMerleau-Ponty in
relation to Sartre has more to do with the influence of Kojeve than Hei-
degger per se, because it was not Merleau-Ponty but Raymond Aron who
introduced Sartre to phenomenology. Merleau-Ponty, however, brought
the Kojevian conflation of Hegel and Heidegger to Sartre's attention and
convinced him of the importance of the dialectic that led Sartre to his
version of existential Marxism. But to read Merleau-Ponty solely in rela-
tion to Sartre would be to minimize his particular role in the reception
37. The second phase of the reception of Heidegger in France is shaped by the rise of
structuralism and the confrontation with Heidegger's political choices. See conclusion.
38. On Merleau-Ponty, see M. R. Barral, The Rnk of the Body-Su~jert in MPrlmu-Ponty
(Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1965); Vincent Descombes, Modrrn Frenrlt
Phi/,osophy, trans. L. Scott Fox and J. M. Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1980); M. C. Dillon, Merl~au-Pon(v's Ontology (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1988); Sonia Kruks, ThP Politiml PhilJJsophy of Merl~au.-Ponf~'V (Atlantic Highlands,
NJ: Humanities Press, 1981); R. Kwant, The Pltroome1wlogiral Philosophy of Mrrl.enu-Ponty
(Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1966); Thomas Langan, Merleau-Ponty's Critiqut>
of Reason (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966). See also the relevant chapters in
Fred R Dallmayr, Tw#ight of Subjedivity: Contributions lo a Post-Individualist 111Pory of
Politics (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981); Hughes, The Obstructed Path,
1966); Martin Jay, Marxism and 1otality: The Advmtu11's of n Conrept from Lukacs to 1/abermas
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Mark Poster, E.xist.mlial Marxism in Postwar
France: From Sart11' to AlthussPT (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975 ).
39. For the influence of Husser) on Merleau-Ponty, see Theodore Geraets, Vt'T'S une
nom1elle pltilosophie tran.w:endffltale: La genhe de Ia philosophie de Maurire MPTleau-Pmi~'Y jusq1ta
In Phbwminol.ogi.l' de la perreption (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971); Herbert Spiegelberg, 11w
Phenomenological Mu11nnent: Mauriu Mf'Tlmu-Ponty (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982), 538-81. See
also Eugene H. Frickey, "The Origins of Phenomenology in France, 1920-1940," Ph.D.
diss., Indiana University, 1979; Joseph Kockelmans, ed., Phenorn~moh1gy: 111P Philosophy o.f
Edmund I Jmserl and Its lnl.erfrretations (New York: Doubleday j Anchor, 1967).
99
THE FIRST READING
of Heidegger in France. In fact, despite the distance Merleau-Ponty kept

from Heidegger throughout his career, Merleau-Ponty's philosophical
project was probably closer to that of Heidegger than to either Husserl's
or Hegel's. Moreover, Merleau-Ponty provides one of the most informed
and lucid readings of Heidegger of any of the initial French interpreters.
In his homage to Merleau-Ponty after the philosopher's sudden death
in 196l,Jean-Paul Sartre divided his estranged friend's life and work into
three distinct phases, separated by specific historical events that changed
the nature of his thought: an early phase during which he was enam-
ored equally of Gestalt psychology and Husserlian phenomenology, and
which concluded with the Phenomenology of Perception in 1945; his Marxist
phase, which began with his work on historical materialism in the Phe-
nomenology of Perception and ended in 1951 with his decision to break with
Marxism; and finally, his return to phenomenology and ontology, which
lasted until his death in 1961. 40 While Sartre's assessment is correct and
the events do correlate with recognizable transitions in Merleau-Ponty's
work, Sartre's model relies entirely on rupture and fails to account for
the continuities in Merleau-Ponty's work, most of which stem from the
formative years spent in Kojeve's seminar. For the purpose of our investi-
gation into the initial reception ofHeidegger in France, we will limit our
exploration to the first phase of Merleau-Ponty's development.
Born in 1908, Maurice Merleau-Ponty was younger than Aron and Sar-
tre but nevertheless a product of the same milieu. While at the Ecole
Normale, he counted Sartre, Paul Nizan, andjean Hyppolite among his
friends. As a boy he was interested in science and took his studies quite
seriously, but by the time he entered the preparatory school at Louis-le-
Grand he had realized that his passion was for philosophy. His Catholic
upbringing may have tempered his faith in science and, while he was
a student at the ENS, his interest in philosophy was oriented toward
Bergson's intuitionism, which allowed for a more religious reading of
philosophy than the neo-Kantian rationalism of Leon Brunschvicg. His
interest in the relation between Catholicism and philosophy remained a
constant throughout his years at the ENS and on till the late 1930s. This
influence is apparent in his relation to the group of Catholic philoso-
phers associated with Emmanuel Monnier's journal L'Esprit, most notably
Gabriel Marcel, whose Etre et avoirwould have a profound effect on Mer-
leau-Ponty. In 1937 Merleau-Ponty broke with the Church when several
clerics he knew refused to condemn fascist violence against workers.
But just as Merleau-Ponty's interest in science was tempered by his
desire to reconcile his religious upbringing with philosophy through
40.Jean-Paul Sartre, "Merleau-Ponty vivant," l.es temjJ!J modrmes, nos. 184--85, 1961, special
issue on Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 360.
100
Bergson, his interest in Bergsonian philosophy was tempered by his

understanding of science. Thus it was no surprise to find Merleau-Ponty
attending Georges Gurvitch's lectures on phenomenology at the Sor-
bonne from 1928 to 1930. At these lectures he was first introduced to
phenomenology through Gurvitch's interpretation, according to which
Bergson and Husserl were compatible. It is also of interest to note that
the majority ofGurvitch's lectures were devoted to the work of Max Sche-
ler, which helps explain Merleau-Ponty's early understanding of Gestalt
psychology as a companion to phenomenology. Finally, Gurvitch's lec-
tures concluded with a section on Heidegger that presented Heidegger's
work as being in complete accord with Husserl's, and furthermore
anointed Heidegger as the heir apparent to Husserl in terms of the phe-
nomenological project and the future of German philosophy. In this
sense, Heidegger's being-in-the-world was considered compatible with
Husserl's concept of intentionality, so that no emphasis was placed on
the pre reflective, precognitive, and pre theoretical nature of Heidegger's
Dasein, as distinct from Husserl's reflective, cognitive, and theoretical
understanding of intentionality.
Merleau-Ponty's main focus in his early work was on the nature of per-
ception, and he saw phenomenology as a methodology that allowed him
access to the concrete world that we perceive and that had been ignored
by the empirical sciences and Brunschvicg's theory-oriented brand of neo-
Kantian philosophy. Merleau-Ponty was so enamored by the possibilities of
this new methodology, which was as rigorous as science but did not sacrifice
its capacity to relate to the actual (not theoretical) world we live in, that he
attended Husserl's lectures on the Cartesian Meditations at the Sorbonne in
1929, despite the fact that he did not yet know German. Merleau-Ponty's
interest in Gestalt psychology and its relation to phenomenology was fur-
ther developed in the years he spent working with Aron Gurvitsch, a Ger-
man scholar who had moved to France in the late 1920s. Aron Gurvitsch
had studied with Max Scheler and was well acquainted with the works of
Husserl. He made a place for himself as the primary French translator of
texts on Gestalt psychology. Merleau-Ponty worked as his assistant on anum-
ber of these texts and specifically on an article that Gurvitsch published in
the Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique titled "Quelques aspects et
quelques developpements de Ia psychologic de la forme. ( 1936). 41
41. Hubert Dreyfus claims that Merleau-Ponty attended a series of lectures by Aron
Gurvitsch that explained Heidegger's account of behavior in terms of Gestalt perception,
which helps establish the connections between Heidegger's and Merleau-Ponty's work.
I have found no evidence of these lectures, and it may be that Dreyfus has confused
Merleau-Ponty's attendance at George Gurvitch's lectures at the Sorbonne with his work
with Aron Gurvitsch on phenomenology and Gestalt psychology. In either case Dreyfus's
deduction is correct.
101
THE FIRST READING
In "La nature de Ia perception," a proposal for an extension of his

grant from the Caisse Nationale des Sciences in 1934, Merleau-Ponty
outlined his first philosophical project. 12 Merleau-Ponty sought to come
to an understanding of the relation between consciousness and nature
via the instrument by which we first come into contact with the world
around us: perception. This investigation was guided (and nuanced) by
a number of contemporary philosophical movements that all pointed in
one way or another to phenomenology.
Merleau-Ponty wanted to explore the body that "existed" in the world
as a prereflected condition of consciousness. That is, he sought to under-
stand our perception of the world as always already there and thus the
primary condition by which we come to make sense of the world. This
notion of being-in-the-world ( etre-au-monde ) owes much to Gabriel Mar-
cel's Etre et avoir, written shortly after Marcel began working with Levinas.
Merleau-Ponty believed that the way to explore the nature of our bodies
as being-in-the-world was through the immediate sensual perceptions by
which we come to make sense of the world around us. Here we see the
influence of Henri Bergson. But Merleau-Ponty did not agree with Berg-
son's spiritualist conclusions that led to pure subjectivity and felt that the
problem of perception was in need of new and detailed examination in
light of the recent work in Gestalt psychology, which moved beyond the
previous criticist and intellectualist theories. 43 Merleau-Ponty sought to
conduct this investigation by using the phenomenological methodology
of Edmund Husser!.
There is a note written in the margin of "La nature de Ia perception"
in which Merleau-Ponty cites the sources for his understanding of Husserl
and phenomenology. The works cited are Emmanuel Levinas's Theone de
l'intuition dans la phinomenologie de Husser~ George Gurvitch's "La philoso-
phie phenomenologique en Allemagne: Edmund Husserl," taken from
Gurvitch's Sorbonne lectures and printed in the Revue de metaphysique et
de morale (1928), Jean Hering's Phinorninologie et philosophie religieuse, and
Levinas 's translation of Husserl 's Meditations cartesiennes. As our previous
investigations have shown, they all read Heidegger as fundamentally com-
patible with Husserl. For Hering and Gurvitch, Heidegger's phenomenol-
ogy follows Husserl's model; and, for Levinas, Husser! should be read as
following Heidegger's movement away from theoretical idealism. There-
fore it should not be surprising that Merleau-Ponty also saw the work of
Husserl and Heidegger as essentially congruous. This is especially the case
42. This proposal and his original grant proposal from 1933, "Projet de travail sur Ia nature
de Ia perception," have been published in Maurice Merleau-Ponty, IR pnmat de /.a perception
(Paris: Verdier, 1996).
43. Spiegelberg, The Pltenomenol.o!Jical MotJnfU'nf, 54 7.
102
for Merleau-Ponty's understanding of Heidegger's project as a continu-

ation of (and not a break with) Husserl's project, but also for his under-
standing of the relation between Husserl's concept of Lebenswelt and
Heidegger's concept of Weltlichkeit.
Merleau-Ponty's grant renewal application exemplifies his growing
interest in phenomenology: whereas the original proposal of 1933 was
concerned with the possibilities of Gestalt psychology as an alternative
to the "criticist" theories that constituted an "objective" and thus the-
oretical universe, the later proposal presented phenomenology as the
method by which to analyze, understand, and investigate perception. 44
Merleau-Ponty told Herbert Spiegelberg in an interview in 1953 that it
was Jean-Paul Sartre who, on his return from Berlin in 1933, convinced
Merleau-Ponty of the importance of Husserl's ldeen and the phenome-
nological methodology as a means for exploring concrete existence. 45
Sartre also came to Husserl through Levinas's Theorie de /'intuition dans
la phenomenologie de Husser[, so they shared a similar base in their under-
standing of Husserl in relation to Heidegger.
One essential difference in the formation of Merleau-Ponty's and
Sartre's thought is Merleau-Ponty's participation in Kojeve's semi-
nar. The most obvious legacy of the Kojeve seminar is Merleau-Ponty's
understanding of the dialectic as ontological and thus compatible with
phenomenology. Thus his understanding of Hegel was from the begin-
ning entirely compatible with his understanding of Husserl and Hei-
degger. This understanding allowed Merleau-Ponty to use both Husserl
and Heidegger in the service of his existential Marxist philosophy after
World War II. Furthermore, in Kojeve 's seminar Merleau-Ponty came
to a sophisticated and articulate understanding of historical material-
ism and the works of Marx-something his friend Sartre did not have in
the 1930s. 46 It was also in Kojeve's seminar that Merleau-Ponty came to
address the relation of individual consciousness to the world in which we
live-a fundamental question that would guide his work from the early
Gestalt phase through his existential Marxism and into his later writings
on language, structure, and ontology.
Merleau-Ponty's first book was La structure du comportement, completed
in 1938 and published in 1942. The dates are important because World
War II had a profound effect on Merleau-Ponty and his work, but also
because it was not until 1939 that Merleau-Ponty discovered Husserl's
unpublished last works in the Husserl archive in Louvain. These texts
44. Merleau-Ponty, "Projet de travail sur Ia nature de Ia perception," 11-14.

45. Merleau-Ponty did not study in Germany nor did he ever meet Husser! in person.
46. For an overview of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty's differing understanding of Marxism,
see Martin jay, Marxism and 1otality, chaps. 11 and 12; and Poster, Existmtifl.l Marxism.
103
THE FIRST READING
are the essential component in understanding Merleau-Ponty's interpre-

tation of 1-Iusserl and phenomenology. The Structure of Behavior should
therefore be looked at both as a prolegomenon to the phenomenologi-
cal project of his second work, The Phenomenology of Perception, and also
as a product of the 1930s and the generation of 1933's attempt to move
beyond Bergson and neo-Kantianism. Its attempt to refute the primacy
of science without falling into pure subjectivity can be seen as an effort
to relocate philosophy within the concrete experience of existing in the
world. It is also an excellent example of the differences between pre-
World War II and post-World War II intellectual production in France.
As a prewar work it is neither political nor prescriptive but profoundly
descriptive and academic.
The Structure of Behavior is the fruit of a research project that Merleau-
Ponty began in 1933 and is largely conceived and structured to explain
the relation of the body to the world it perceives. This exploration
marks Merleau-Ponty's attempt to move away from the presumption of
a subject-object duality based on the distinctions between interiority and
exteriority, and to instead present an understanding of the relation of con-
sciousness to perception as being-in-the-world ( etre-au-monde). Merleau-
Ponty hoped to move beyond behaviorism, which understood behavior
as solely determined by external movements. He also looked to move
beyond Bergson's understanding of immediate sensual perception as
predicated on an internal processing of that perception. Merleau-Ponty
wanted to refute as inadequate both objective science, in its obsession
with the exterior, and Bergsonian philosophy, obsessed with the interior. 47
Merleau-Ponty went on to show that the disagreements between the
two schools of thought were simply two sides of the same coin in their
understandings of the subject-object duality, and that both failed to
adequately define the meaning of perception in relation to the world in
which we live. "The negation of materialist realism is not possible except
to the profit of mentalist realism, and vice versa. One cannot see that
there is neither a material reality nor a psychical reality but a combina-
tion of the two or, better, a structure that does not properly belong to
the external world or to internal life until the moment where behavior is
understood 'in its unity' and in its human sense" (SC, 197).
Merleau-Ponty proposes an understanding of behavior based on an
investigation of our primary perception of the world we live in, which is
neither exterior to us nor interior. Merleau-Ponty's concept of being-in-the-
world (etre-au-monde) is the key to refuting the subject-object/interior-exte-
rior models of behavior. This is because, as beings in the world, we are part
of the world. We exist in the world and thus we are part of the phenomena
47. Merleau-Ponty cites Descartes as the source of both interpretations.
104
we perceive. 'Ibis model is a mixture of Husserl's intentionality (ba-,ed on

the "consciousness of") and Heidegger's being-in-the-world. Within Mer-
leau-Ponty's understanding of etre-au-monde we also see several key Kojevian
themes essential to Merleau-Ponty's structure and which refer back to the
Heideggerian influence already present in Merleau-Ponty's work.
Within his presentation of being-in-the-world (etre-au-monde ) in The
Structure of Behavior, Merleau-Ponty follows Kojeve in positing a dualis-
tic ontology that distinguishes between the human world and the natu-
ral world. As we have seen, this model is imported into Kojeve's model
from Heidegger's Being and Time. For Merleau-Ponty (following Kojeve's
model), the animal world presupposes the human world but it is through
the human world that we come to make sense of the world we live in
and thus to have a project that explores something like perception. But
the act of perceiving also shows that being-in-the-world is the domain
of all beings. In the act of perception, of reaction to the world in which
we live, all beings exert some sort of preconscious behavior. This under-
standing of preconscious behavior is much closer to Heidegger's pre-
cognitive understanding of being-in-the-world as being present-to-hand
(Zuhandenheit). Merleau-Ponty's comprehension of the pretheoretical,
precognitive aspects of Heidegger's philosophy demonstrates the extent
to which Merleau-Ponty was following Levinas's Theory of Intuition in Hus-
serl, where Levinas attempted to reread Husser! through Heidegger's
understanding of precognitive being-in-th.e-world. In this sense existence
is the domain of all beings, but Merleau-Ponty makes it dear that, though
we all exist in the world, there are different levels of that existence. "The
chimpanzee can physically raise himself but will always revert to its animal
posture in the case of an emergency" (SC, 137). (This example is explic-
itly Kojevian: the moment that separates the human from the animal is
the moment of danger, the confrontation with death where the animal
reverts to animal behavior. In Kojeve's understanding, only humans can
overcome their fear of death.)
Merleau-Ponty's understanding of being-in-the-world deviates from
Kojeve's understanding of Hegel. Merleau-Ponty's understanding does
not lead to the master-slave dialectic based on the desire to distinguish
oneself as human and therefore worthy of recognition. Instead, Merleau-
Ponty follows Husser!, seeing consciousness as the nexus of subject and
object. But for Merleau-Ponty the object does not always imply the sub-
ject who perceives it. We exist in the world, but we also belong to the
world. For Merleau-Ponty, we rise above the animal world but also exist
simultaneously in the animal world. We exist ambiguously in both realms,
and one is the condition of the other. But it is in the human realm that
we come to make sense of the world in which we live and this separates
us from the animal world. It is through our use of symbols, language,
THE FIRST READING
and social structures such as work or music that we determine ourselves

as subjects in relation to a world, which is object. "It is this possibility of
expressing many variations on the same theme, in this 'perspective of
multiplicity' that we no longer exhibit 'animal behavior.' It is this that
introduces a cognitive comportment and a path to freedom" (SC, 133).
For Merleau-Ponty, the positing of the cogito does not limit us, but a
reliance on the cogito as the measure of all things misconstrues our own
being and the world in which we live.
Merleau-Ponty actually distinguishes between three orders of exis-
tence, all of which share the same etre-au-monde but are decidedly hierar-
chical. They are the "physical" order, the "vital" order, and the "human"
order. The first is the order of physical forces, where all activity takes
place; the second is the realm of physiological reactions, the realm of
animals and natural response (a rat escaping a maze, a chimpanzee by
chance using a stick to get a banana); and finally, the human order,
which Merleau-Ponty calls the mental field, a world of symbols and stnlc-
tures. This structure conserves a space for universal rules and laws of
science in the lower two levels while allowing for a realm above science
and rationalism; in this way, Merleau-Ponty's stn1cture is not unlike Ray-
mond Aron's in Introduction a la philosophie de l'histoire. The "fields" are
all interrelated-the higher is always already in the lower, and therefore
some scientific investigation is relevant to the human condition but can
in no way exhaust the possibilities of human being. Thus Merleau-Ponty
presents a totally new solution. The "fields" integrate like three differ-
ent structural types and move beyond the antinomies of materialism and
spiritualism, and of materialism and vitalism (SC, 141). Merleau-Ponty
also contends that each of these three fields exists "dialectically," and we
must now begin to question exactly what Merleau-Ponty meant by this
term. A clue lies in his Kojevian approach to Hegel, where the dialectic
is seen as ontological. 48 If all three fields exist as etre-au-monde, then they
are all in a sense subject to ontological investigation, which is revealed to
Kojeve (and to Merleau-Ponty) as the dialectic. It is only because being
is dialectical that thought-the privileged act of humans as possessors
of a conscience-is dialectical. Merleau-Ponty cites Hegel to make this
distinction:
"The spirit of nature is a hidden spirit It is not produced in the same
form as Spirit; it is solely the spirit of the spirit that it knows: it is spirit
in itself but not spirit for itself." In reality, we have already introduced
the conscience and what we have designated under the name of life
is already conscience of life. "The concept is nothing but the interior
48. See chap. 2. See also Sonia Kruks, "Merleau-Ponty, Hegel, and the Dialt'ctic," jou.rual of
the British SociPf.y far PltnwrflR1wlo~-,ry 7, 2 (May 1976).
106
of nature" said Hegel and we have seen that the nature of the living
body is unthinkable without this interior unity of significations which
distinguish a gesture from simply a sum of movements. (SC, 175)
Husserl's "consciousness of. ." is central to understanding this pas-
sage. The phenomenon of living is for us the relation of the interior to the
exterior. The conscience is the projection of symbols and structure into
the world, and the foundation of these symbols and structures is percep-
tion (precognitive), which is the means by which we come to understand
the exterior and translate it into the interior. Merleau-Ponty describes
perception as a dialectic of actions and reactions. Consequently,
different from the physical system which keeps its balance with respect
to the given forces around it, or the animal organisms which arrange
themselves in a stable order that corresponds to the monotonous a
priori of need and instinct, human work inaugurates a third dialectic
because it places use objects ( Gebrauchsobjekte) such as clothes, tables,
gardens, and cultural objects such as books, musical instruments, lan-
guage, in between man and physic<Xhemical stimuli and in so doing
constitutes. the proper human milieu from which emerge entirely
new cycles of behavior. (SC, 175)
Because human "action presents an adaptation of life, the word 'life'

does not have the same meaning for the animal world and the human
world. The conditions of 'life' are defined by the proper essence of the
species" (SC, 188). The dialectical nature of the physical and vital fields
remains unclear, but in Merleau-Ponty's investigation into the human
order of conscience, of work and language, his understanding of the dia-
lectic begins to become clear.
Inasmuch as we exist in the world (etre-au-monde) as humans, we exist
in and as the dialectic that is the source of all culture, social institutions,
and history. Merleau-Ponty distinguishes between the contemporary psy-
chological terms "action" and "reaction," which could relate to the ani-
mal world, and the Hegelian term "work," which implies the activities by
which man transforms the natural world and lives. But Merleau-Ponty
does not find a distinct separation between one world and the next; even
"the acts that are properly_ human (the act of speech, of work, of cloth-
ing oneself) are not significations entirely unto themselves. We come to
understand them only in reference to the world we live in: clothes are an
artificial skin, the instrument replaces an organ" (SC, 176). So that while
work is the originating act of transcendence in which nature is altered
but also created and re-created, we do not surpass nature through
work. Or rather, "what defines man is not the capacity to create a sec-
ond nature-economic, social, cultural-other than biological nature,
107
THE FIRST READING
but our ability to move past the structures we have created by creating
others" (SC, 189). The human dialectic in Merleau-Ponty is ambiguous
because it can never act without the codeterminism of the world we live
in. We create structures, but in a sen11e we are also created by them. We
use language, but language preexists us. "The human dialectic is ambig-
uous: it is manifested in the social and cultural structures it creates and
these structures also imprison it. But cultural objects could not be what
they are if the activity of creating them was not also, in a sense, the act of
negating and surpassing them" (SC, 190).
Merleau-Ponty's reading of Hegel differs from Kojeve's in his under-
standing of work; for Kojeve it is essential that man master nature via the
diatectic to move forward teleologically to the end of history. For Mer-
leau-Ponty what is essential is not a mastery over nature but the creation
and re-creation of structures that allow us to live as humans in nature.
While the structure of the dialectic is ambiguous in the double move-
ment of creation and imprisonment, Merleau-Ponty conserves a progres-
sive, if not teleological, movement that implies a certain freedom within
the realm of human structures. Because the structures we have created
exist to be negated and surpassed, and we are always already involved in
a world we did not create, we can improve on what has come before.
Merleau-Ponty's analysis of work mirrors Kojeve's understanding of
Heidegger's Befindlichkeit as the essential corollary to Hegel's Begierde,
which leads in turn to Hegel's Arbeit as the corollary to Heidegger's Ver-
stehen. But Merleau-Ponty is far more interested in the relation of Befind-
lichkeit to Arbeit. Merleau-Ponty sees the issue of Begierde and the desire
for recognition in the work of Kojeve as inherently tied to the subject-
object split. He hoped to understand the human dialectic through work
in relation to the world that we find ourselves in prior to that split. His
work with Gestalt psychology had introduced him to the concept of a ref-
erential whole, and his readings of Husserl had brought him to the con-
cept of the Lebenswelt (lifeworld), "the world in which we live." Through
Kojeve's seminar he acquired the means for situating Heidegger's con-
cept of Weltlichkeit (which at the time he saw as coterminous with Hus-
serl's Lebenswelt) within the Hegelian system.
The dialectic in Merleau-Ponty cannot be understood as "the motor of
history" but must be seen as an infinite and indeterminate process that
aUows man to transcend and change but does not move toward a specific
goal. A fundamental tension exists between the individual conscience who
perceives the world but who is at the same time part of the world ( etr~au
monde) it perceives. \\'hile human being is dialectic, it is also being-in-the-
world (etre-au-monde). It is prior to cognitive representation and thus prior
to the subject-object split. This is why the Heideggerian concept of Befind-
lichkeit takes on far more significance for Merleau-Ponty than it does for
108
Kojeve, especially as it comes to be dovetailed into Merleau-Ponty's reading

of Husserl 's Lebenswelt in The Phenomenology of Perception. Furthennore, while
Merleau-Ponty follows Kojeve's understanding that the dialectic is always in
motion and that this is the mode by which man acts historically, for Merleau-
Ponty there is no end to this historical movement. Instead, the weight of his
analysis is given to an understanding of being-in-the-world ( etre-au-monde),
which places limits on our possibilities and against which (but also through
which) we attempt to progress by creating and re-creating the structures
through which we come to understand the world in which we live. Through
this infinite act of transcendence we reconcile our being as a su~ect that
perceives the world with being-in-the-world.
The Structure of Behavior is a purely descriptive philosophical essay that
is more concerned with refuting previous philosophical and scientific
models than with presenting a concrete political agenda. However, within
the structure of his investigation, Merleau-Ponty preserves a space for
human action that is not specifically progressive but does follow Hegel's
schema, which implies a notion of progress. This move was essential for
Merleau-Ponty's later political projects.
Kojeve 's Hegel seminar ended on the eve of World War II, in 1939. Kojeve
concluded with the realiza~ion of the end of history reached through the
progressive evolution of the individual and society. But by the end ofWorld
War II, the concepts of progress and history, shored up by the turn to Hegel
after World War I, seemed essentially bankrupt. What do "history" and
"progress" mean in a world where the atom bomb has been unleashed and
the Shoah has occurred? Kojeve's project had an enormous influence on
the generation of 1933, but after World War II his historical project seemed
inadequate to explain the recent past, laying bare the existential ontologi-
cal premise on which Kojeve had based his reading of Hegel.
For the generation of 1933, the move away from the heimisch grounds of
the traditional French canon led to Kojeve. But the attempt to rehabilitate
the notions of history and progress came crashing down in World War II.
The project had failed in one sense, but it had opened the field of French
academics and infused the French intellectual scene with new methodolo-
gies and possibilities. Kojeve's reading of Hegel was foreign and unheimlich
to the students in his seminar, yet it was familiar enough to be domesticated
in a way that has left its mark on French thought even to this day. Kojeve's
reading of Heidegger conserved the Cartesian subject and thus presented
a domesticated Heidegger that became the basis for existentialism in the
works of Aron, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre. 49 Aron, Merleau-Ponty, and
49. For a discussion of the existential nature of Aron's lntmdwtioTI ala jJhilo.fophiP de l'ltisf,(Jirf,
see Tony Judt, 11w B?Lrde'TI oj Responsibility (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1998), 142.
THE FIRST READING
Sartre used the philosophy of Hcidegger to break with the philosophical

training of their youth, but this break was not unqualified. 'While they did
reject the neo-Kantian and republican rationalist ideologies that had dic-
tated their educational formation, their nascent existentialism remained
compatible with certain aspects of these ideologies and specifically with the
more enduring legacy of Descartes.
110
CHAPTER 4
Jean-Paul Sartre
The work of Levinas and the figures surrounding the Kojeve seminar
prepared the ground for the understanding ofHeidegger in France, but
the popularization of Heidegger can be attributed entirely to the work
ofJean-Paul Sartre. In terms of our larger model, we can say that it was
Sartre who domesticated Heidegger's philosophy and made it a main-
stay of French intellectual culture. By presenting Heidegger historically
in his seminar as compatible with Hegel and fundamentalJy anthropo-
centric, Kojeve brought Heidegger's work closer to the French tradition
of a teleological project based on a definitive cogito. But his definitions
and constructions were often slippery and led his students to recon-
sider them in a way that restored Heidegger's strangeness and alterity.
Aron, Lacan, and Merleau-Ponty all returned to Heidegger to rethink
their own projects. Heidegger's philosophy had become less unknown,
less strange, and less uncanny, yet retained its ability to resist assimilation
into the larger French canon. His work continued to shock and perplex
those who sought to apprehend it, precisely because it questioned the
established limits of truth, understanding, and appropriability.
The work ofjean-Paul Sartre represents a shift in emphasis, from Kojeve's
historical understanding of Heidegger veiled by Hegel's teleological dialec-
tic, toward an understanding of Heidegger's work taken on its own terms. In
fact, Sartre reversed the ~ectory of fellow members of the generation of
1933. He came to Hegel after Hcidcgger and thus understood Hegel in the
light of his understanding of Heidegger and not vice versa. It is ironic that
Sartre turned increasingly toward Hegel in the late 1940s based on his rela-
tionship with Merleau-Ponty, while at the same time Merleau-Ponty turned
increasingly toward Heidegger based largely on his relationship with Sartre. 1
1. See Monika Langer, "Sartre and Merleau-Ponty: A Reappraisal," in The PhihJ.Iofihy (if.Jmn-
Paul Sart:rt', ed. Paul A Schilpp (La Salle: Open Court, Library of Living Philosophers, 1981 ).
111
THE FIRST READING
Sartre's work on Heidegger hit the French intellectual scene on the eve
of World War II, when the Hegelian historical project had lost some of its
appeal. Kojeve's seminar had come to an end, and amid the disorienting
events of defeat and collaboration, the teleological project of history could
not satisfY the immediate concerns of the generation of 1933 or the larger
French public. It was in this atmosphere of angst and uncertainty that Sar-
tre's most Heideggerian works appeared-between 1940 and 1945. Sartre
explained the attraction that he and his generation felt toward Heidegger's
work in his War Diaries. On February 1, 1940, Sartre wrote:
The menace of spring 1938 and then autumn slowly led me to search
for a philosophy that was not only contemplation but also wisdom (sag-
esse), heroism, and holiness. I didn't care what as long as it permitted
me to resist I was in the exact situation of Alexander, who had turned
to Aristotelian science to incorporate the most brutal doctrines, more
totalizing than the Stoics and the Epicureans who tried to apprehend
life. What's more, History was all around me. First of all philosophi-
cally: Aron had come to write his Introduction to the Philosophy of His-
tory, and I had come to read it Furthermore, I was enclosed within it
like all of my contemporaries; history made me feel its presence. I was
ill equipped to understand and to grasp but I wanted to with all my
force; I tried with every means I had. It was then that Corbin's book
appeared [Corbin's 1938 translation of Heidegger]. Just when it had
to. I was sufficiently detached from Husser}, and desiring a "pathetic"
philosophy, I was ready to understand Heidegger. 2
It was against the backdrop of the generation of 1933's concern with
history in the 1930s, and their subsequent desire to move from the passive
contemplation that characterized this concern toward a philosophy of active
engagement, that Sartre's interest in Heidegger and his language of "reso-
lute decision" and "authentic understanding" came to the fore. But Sartre's
work on Heidegger cannot be understood as mere derivation or repetition.
George Steiner's claim that Being and Nothingness is a long footnote to Hei-
degger's Being and Time does not give Sartre's work the credit it deserves. If
nothing else, Sartre's understanding of Heidegger is strikingly original, and
his work on such topics as "the gaze" and "the body" enter territories that
Heidegger had not considered within the scope of his project. Indeed, it is
only by investigating Sartre and his understanding of Heidegger's philoso-
phy, especially in its incorporation into Being and Nothingness, that we can
come to understand the popularization and domestication of Heidegger's
work in France, the events surrounding Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism,"
and the first Heidegger Affair.
2.Jean-Paul Sartre, Carnrts de f.a droiR dR {!;'.terre (Paris: Gal\irnard, 1995), 406.
112
Jean-Paul Sartre
Formation
A normalien like his friends Aron and Merleau-Ponty, Sartre was born in
1905 and is very much a member, and some might even say the chief
member, of the geheration of 1933. His interests in school were almost
entirely literary and philosophical. His encounters with the work of
Henri Bergson led him to focus on philosophy at the ENS, but he never
gave up his literary ambitions. 3 In school and in his work, Sartre always
bad something of the rebel about him. The secret of his success may lie
in the fact that while his work and doctrines appear to be quite rebel-
lious, they were always based on quite conservative philosophical notions
such as the Cartesian cogito and did not take the risk of moving into new
and untried territory. In this sense one could argue that despite his more
conservative philosophical methodology, the works of Merleau-Ponty
were far more radical and rebellious than Sartre's ever were.
This is not to say that Sartre's ideas were not original, only that they
guarded within them certain fundamental tenets that made them more
easily accessible to an audience trained by the French school system. Sar-
tre's chief originality and talent lay in his ability to dramatize a philosophi-
cal problem or situation and make it appear extreme. In a letter written in
February 1929, six months after he failed the agregation, Sartre displayed
this talent in his assessment of the fate of philosophy in France:
It is the paradox of the human spirit . that man, whose job it is to
create the necessary, cannot raise himself to the level of Being. It is
for this reason that I see at the root of both man and nature sadness
and boredom. This does not mean that man does not think of him-
self as a being. On the contrary, he puts all his efforts into it. Hence
the notions of good and evil, ideas of man working upon man. But
these are vain ideas. Another vain idea is determinism, which tempts
us strangely to produce the synthesis of existence and Being (existence
et l'etre). We are as free as you please, but powerless .... Everything is
too weak: all things tend to die. 4
3. There is extensive material on Sartre. For biographical material I rely heavily on Ronald
Hayman, Sartre: A Biography (New York: Carroll and Graff, 1992)); the sections on Sartre
in Jean-Franc;ois Sirinelli's Generation intelleclueliR: Khrigru'11X Pt normaliens dam l'entre-drux-
g'IU'1Tes (Paris: Fayard, 1988); Simone de Beauvoir's La force dP l'agP and La Jmre des clwses
(Paris: Gallimard, 1960 and 1963); Annie Cohen-Sola!, Sartre, 1905-1980 (Paris: Gallimard,
1999); and Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka, Les er.rils dP Sartre (Paris: Gallimard, 1970).
See also Ronald Aronson, Jean-Paul Sartre: Philosophy in lhR World (London: NLB, 1980);
Martin Jay, JHnrxisrn and Totality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Maurice
Natanson, A Criti.qW' of]ean-Pnul Sartre's Ontology (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973).
4.Jean-Paul Sartre, letter written to Lel nouvt>Ues liltP.raiTP~, published February 2, 1929, 10.
113
THE FIRST READING
Here we see the themes that run throughout Sartre's work: notably,
his desire to develop an articulate understanding of the relationship
between existence and being that is not a mere synthesis of the two, and
his odd and impotent notion of freedom. Sartre's thinking in 1929 is typ-
ical of the generation of 1933: disillusioned, bored, powerless. But Sartre
presents these concerns with a forceful rhetoric that borders on exagger-
ation. Like the generation of 1933 generally, Sartre felt ensnared within
the narrow confines of French philosophy as defined by the French acad-
emy. Bnmschvicg's brand of neo-Kantianism did not address the "neces-
sary paradox that is man," and this led Sartre to consider it a variant of
determinism. Bergson's philosophy, conversely, seemed to Sartre to pro-
vide an escape from the "vain ideas" of determinism, which understood
man as a "synthesis of existence and Being." At first he thought that Berg-
son provided a solution in his investigation of immediate experience.
But he soon became disenchanted with Bergson for making the same
errors as the determinists, transforming consciousness into a thing and
thus arriving again at a synthesis of existence and being. It was through
his thesis for the ENS in 1927 (an investigation of "the image") that Sar-
tre became disillusioned with Bergson. By the time of the publication of
L'imagination in 1936, he had fully articulated his critique:
Bergson has attempted to substitute his spiritualism for the geometric
and spatial thought of Cartesianism and associationism: but he has
only produced a physico-chemico fiction where the associations are
pre-logical. . . He has created in effect a certain atmosphere, a way
of seeing, a tendency to search everywhere for mobility, the living,
and in this aspect in some respect methodological, Bergsonism repre-
sents the great trend in pre-war thought. The principal characteristic
of this spiritual state appears to us as a superficial optimism without
good faith, in that it believes it has resolved a problem when in fact it
has only diluted the terms into an amorphous continuity. 5
Sartre saw Bergson's work as fundamentally no different from the od1er
classical metaphysical systems (in L'imagination Sartre refutes the work of
Descartes, Kant, Hume, and Leibniz, as well as the French neo-Kantians)
who have all made the same fundamental error of turning consciousness
into a thing. Instead of liberating free will in relation to time, Bergson had
simply conflated the two terms. For "the Bergsonian reality," as for the oth-
ers, "d1e thing is image, the matter is an ensemble ofimages."6 Furiliermore,
Sartre felt that Bergson was worse ilian the others because he claimed to have
solved the problem and thus duped an entire generation. Sartre wanted to
begin his own philosophical project by rectifying the fundamental error of
5.jean-Paul Sartre, /.'imagination (Paris: Quadridge/PUF, 1994), 60, 65.
6. Ibid., 43.
114
Jean-Paul Sartre
the philosophical tradition, which he saw exemplified in the subject-object

split that was the basis for both Bergsonism and neo-Kantianism.
In July 1929, Sartre placed first in the agregation (Simone de Beauvoir
placed second). His ability to practice philosophy at the highest level was
not in question, but his interest in the standardized nature of French
academic philosophy was. Like his contemporaries, he was bored and
unsatisfied with philosophy as it was taught in the French school system.
Like Aron and Merleau-Ponty, he sought an alternative to the twin poles
of spiritualism ~nd neo-Kantianism, and, like his contemporaries, his pri-
mary concern was to rethink the problem of the relation of the subject
to the object in a way that would avoid the pitfalls of idealism and allow
him to make sense of the concrete world in which we live. By extension,
Sartre believed he could expose the fallacy of the distinction between
interior and exterior and thus come to an understanding of the relation
of being and existence that would not rest solely on the contemplative
plane of ideas but could relate to actual experience. In this sense, we can
understand Sartre 's claim, in reference to Merleau-Pon ty, that they "fol-
lowed the same path from 1933-1939 but separately."7 Sartre is referring
to the interest in phenomenology that the members of his generation
developed in their search for an alternative route. But, as we have seen,
this interest led Sartre's friends Merleau-Ponty and Aron to Kojeve's
seminar on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and thus to an understand-
ing of Husserl, Heidegger, and phenomenology in relation to Hegel's
teleological historical system as interpreted by Kojeve. 8 In contrast to his
friends, Sartre did not stay in Paris to take university courses nor did
he attend any of Kojeve's seminars on Hegel. Instead he chose to follow
his own path. Sartre never had any interest in the teaching of others,
and even under the "influence" of such thinkers as Husser! or Heidegger
he did not take their courses or seek them out as instructors. Instead,
he came to his conclusions through his own investigation of their texts. 9
Sartre did not turn to Hegel in the early 1930s and as a result did not
come to an articulate understanding of the dialectic or of Marx and his-
torical materialism until well after his friends Aron and Merleau-Ponty. 10
7.Jean-Paul Sartre, "Merleau-Ponty vivant," Les temps rnodenvs, nos. 184-85, 1961, special
issue on Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 307.
8. See chap. 2.
9. This aversion to intellectual dependency may explain Sartre's habit of planting "false dues"
in interviews and in his journals. In the case of such thinkers as Bergson, Proust, Franz Kafka,
and Heidegger, Sartre either downplays their significance for him or dates his introduction
to them well after his own use of their philosophical ideas. See Tom Rockmore, Ilridpgger and
French Philtw;plty: lhJ.manifm, Antihumanism, and Being (New York: Routledge, 1995), 77.
10. On existential Marxism, see Mark Poster, f:xislt!nlial Marxism in Post-War France (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1975) and Snrtre's MarxiHn (Cambridge: Cambridge University
115
THE FIRST READING
Instead, Sartre turned to the phenomenological method exemplified

in the work of Edmund Husserl. His work throughout the 1930s can be
seen largely in the light of that influence.
Phenomenology
The famous moment of Sartre's introduction to phenomenology is
recounted by de Beauvoir in La force de l'age and by Aron in his Memoires.
According to de Beauvoir,
Sartre was gready attracted by what he had heard of German phenom-
enology. Raymond Aron, preparing a thesis on history, was studying Hus-
ser!. When he came to Paris (1932), we spent an evening together at the
Bee de Gaz, rue Montpamasse; we ordered the specialty of the house:
apricot cocktails. Aron pointed to his glass: "You see, my friend, if you are
a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail, and that is philoso-
phy." Sartre grew pale with excitement, or nearly so. This was precisely
what he had wished for years: to talk of things as he touched them and
that this was philosophy. Aron convinced him that this was exacdy what
fitted his preoccupations: to transcend the opposition of idealism and
realism, to affirm at the same time the sovereignty of consciousness and
the presence of the world as given to us. On the boulevard Saint Michel
he [Sartre] bought the book on Husserl by Levinas, and he was in such a
hurry to inform himself that, while walking, he leafed through the book,
whose pages he had not even cut. ... Sartre decided to study it seriously,
and at Aron's instigation, he took the necessary steps for succeeding his
"friend" at the Institut Franc,;ais de Berlin the following year. 11
According to Aron, the drink in question was a beer. Either way, while
the meeting may have given Sartre the impetus to study phenomenology
seriously, and to spend a year abroad in Germany, it was not his first con-
tact with either Husserl or Heidegger.
References to Husserl can be found in Sartre's works as early as his
thesis on the image, written in 1927 while Sartre was still at the ENS.
In 1928, Sartre met weekly for two and a half months with the Japanese
philosopher Baron Shuzo Kuki. Kuki arrived in Paris, having studied in
Freiburg with Husserl and in Marburg with Heidegger. He thus deserves
credit for steering Sartre toward phenomenology. 12 Even more significant
Press, 1982). See also David Caute, Communism and the Frntch IntelfRctualf, 1914-1960 (New
York: Macmillan, 1964); Michael Kelly, Modern French Marxism (Baltimore: johns Hopkins
LTniversity Press, 1982);Jay, Ma.rxi.sm ar1d Totality.
11. De Beauvoir, La force dP /age, 141-42.
12. See Stephen Light, Sltu.zo Kuki mul jmn-Paul SarlTf' (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1987), part 1.
116
Jean-Paul Sartre
is that Sartre had read Henry Corbin's translation of Heidegger's Was ist
Metaphysik?13 The translation appeared in the June 1931 issue of Bifur,
which also contained Sartre's first article, "The Legend of Truth." In his
War Diaries, Sartre wrote in 1939 that he had read Was ist Metaphysik? in
Bifur, that is, in 1931, "without understanding." 14 But this article had a
far more profound effect on Sartre's work then is usually granted it. In
terms of his interpretation of Husserl, the fact that Sartre did not truly
understand Heidegger's essay only intensified its effect on him.
In Heidegger's Was ist Metaphysik? Sartre found an essay that directly
engaged the questions he sought to answer. The essay's main focus is on
the nature of being, and the text mirrors Sartre's own concerns about
the shortcomings of the metaphysical tradition, as well as his deep mis-
trust of objective science. Furthermore, Heidegger confronted the two
themes that would remain a central focus of Sartre's philosophical and
literary career. These also lead directly to Sartre's interpretation of Hus-
serl and, curiously, of Heidegger himself. The two themes are the rela-
tion of being to things (objects) and the understanding of being in
relation to "nothingness" ( le Neant).
Heidegger begins his critique of science in Was ist Metaphysik? by dem-
onstrating that it is through science and its concern with that "which is"
that we avoid any real metaphysical investigation. Instead of approaching
the-difficult questions of philosophy, we satisfy ourselves with constant
investigations into that which we already know. But, Heidegger con-
tends, if we look beyond that which we already know, that "which is," we
can commence an investigation of being based on the limits of being in
relation to that which is not. For Heidegger, the shortcoming of science
and philosophy is that the domain "which research penetrates is simply
'that which is' and outside of that-nothing (rien): only 'that which is' and
otherwise-nothing: exclusively 'that which is' and beyond that-noth-
ing. "' 15 Thus the issue for philosophy is to move beyond the realm of
science and that "which is," in order to commence an investigation into
the "nothing." This crucial movement is the basis for an understanding
of being that places our entire understanding of truth and the limits of
knowledge in question. According to Heidegger, it is only in relation to
13. This was Heidegger's inaugural lecture at the University of Freiburg-am-Brisgau, given
onjuly 24, 1929.
14. Sartre, f'..arnets dr Ia drole dr r;uerrr, 404.
15. Heidegger, Wrts ist Mrtaphysik? trans. He m-y Corbin as Qu 'rsf-cr que Ia rnetajJhy:.iqtu? for
Bifur, June 1931, repr. in 1/eilkgger: Questions 1/Il (Paris: Gallimard, 1968), 51. This essay,
along with several other of Heidegger's essays translated. by Corbin, was published as
Qu 'rst-ce qut> Ia rnetaphysique? (1938). This collection included two sections from Srirr ur1d
l.eit that had not yet been translated into French.
117
THE FIRST READING
what we are not that we come to define what we are. But what does that
say about that which we already "know"?
The relation of being to nothingness became the central focus of
Sartre's first philosophical treatise, La Transcendence de l'ego. This essay
is primarily an investigation into Husserlian phenomenology, but it also
serves as the prime motor for his displacement of the primacy of"things"
in L'imagination and L'imaginaire, through his use of the relation between
being and nothingness. In Heidegger's Was ist Metaphysik? Sartre found
a formula that could explicate the relation of "existence to Being" and
finally deliver him from what he termed the chosiste philosophies, with
their false distinctions between subject and object, interior and exterior.
It is only by reason of the original manifestation of Nothingness that the
human~reality [Corbin translated Heidegger's Dasein as realiti-humaine]
of man can go toward the existant and penetrate into it. Nothing-
ness is the condition that renders possible the revelation of the existent
as such for the human-reality. Nothingness does not simply form the
antithetical concept of the existan4 instead it is the essence of Being itself
that comports the origin of Nothingness. It is within the Being of the
existant that the negatingqualityofNothingness is produced. (Q, 62-63)
Here Heidegger presents several themes that Sartre will seize on later in
his work, but, for Sartre's early development, what is essential is that Hei-
degger does not fall into the trap of confusing being and things. Instead,
Heidegger asserts that it is only through the concept of nothingness that
we can come to approach things. Furthermore, this nothingness is not
something exterior to what Sartre read as "human-reality" but is in fact the
comportment of our human-reality. Heidegger writes, "Without the origi-
nal manifestation of nothingness, there could not be personal being nor
liberty" (Q, 63), and thus Heidegger also appeals to Sartre's interest in radi-
cal individualism. For Sartre, the question of being was always and only a
question of personal being. The dilemma of the individual confronting the
overwhelming problem of understanding the relationship of consciousness
to things, of being to things, is the central focus of Sartre's novel Nausea,
which he drafted between 1931 and 1934 while teaching at Le Havre.
Heidegger's critique of science maintains that, because science is con-
cerned primarily with the investigation into things, it constantly avoids
the investigation into nothing. Instead, science makes everything fit its
model and serve its purpose so as to avoid the possibility of nothingness.
It is the "privileged character of science to take that which is left by prin-
ciple, expressly and uniquely by the thing itself, as the first and last word"
(Q, 49). Science is not interested in how things reveal themselves to us or
how it is we come to make sense of them through interrogation, which
always implies a negative as well as a positive. Nor does science have any
118
Jean-Paul Sartre
interest in understanding the phenomenon of our need to understand,

which implies our unique existence as beings for whom being is an issue.
Instead, science simply seeks to extract a definition from the "things
themselves" and to present that as unquestionable tntth. In contrast, Hei-
degger looks to the nature of the question as proof of the essential nature
of nothingness in relation to our understanding of being. By exploring
the question, he can commence an investigation into "negated-things"
and the negative, which leads Heidegger to the conclusion that the nega-
tive is presupposed by nothingness, which exists prior to it and is "origi-
nally anterior to the 'No' of negation." By this logic, the entire process of
understanding, which is based on the negating quality of the question, is
dependent on nothingness. Thus, to investigate the nature of our being
as beings who understand, it is necessary to explore the relationship of
being to nothingness, which is the basis on which we come to understand
things (Q, 54-55). For Sartre, nothingness becomes that which distin-
guishes the human-reality (which for Sartre is always equivalent to the
cogito, the I) from things (the object). 16
There is no reason to doubt Sartre's claim, modest as it may be, that
he read but did not understand Heidegger in 1931; but what is certain is
that Corbin's translation in Bifur gave Sartre the vocabulary and the philo-
sophical tools he needed to begin his investigation into an understanding
of consciousness that was not beholden to the subject-oQject split nor to the
distinctions of interior and exterior, which Sartre saw as characteristic of all
French philosophy. But while Sartre acquired the impressionistic basis of
what would become his philosophical and literary project, this project did
not take shape until after he began his formal investigation into the works
ofHusserl and phenomenology. And while Sartre's understanding of noth-
ingness and the relation of being to things was coded by his early reading
of Heidegger, it would be erroneous to deny or downplay the importance
of Husserl on Sartre's intellectual development or to claim that Sartre's
Heideggerian phase antedates his Husserlian one. Sartre did not develop
an articulate and cogent reading of Heidegger's work until the late 1930s.
Tlms we must first tum to Sartre's investigation into the work of Husserl
while keeping in mind the issues raised by Heidegger in Was ist Metaphysik?
La transcendence de /'ego
Mter his meeting with Aron and de Beauvoir in 1933, Sartre turned to
Husserl's phenomenology as the only methodology that could present
16. On the differing interpretations and significance of nothingness for Heidegger and
Sartre, see Charles E. Scott, "The Role of Ontology in Sartre and Heidegger," in Schilpp.
1711' Philosophy oJJmn-Paul Sartre.
119
THE FIRST READING
a philosophy of the concrete. Following Aron's advice, Sartre went to

study in Berlin for the academic year of 1933.17 While in Berlin, Sartre
did not take any university courses or work with Husserl or Heidegger. 18
Sartre's time seems to have been spent reading Husserl and working
on the second draft of Nausea. It was also in Berlin that Sartre wrote La
transcendence de l'ego, which was published in Recherches philosophiques in
1936. 19 In this work, Sartre sought to resolve the conflict between subject
and object through his use of Husserl's concept of intentionality. 20 As
Sartre understood it, phenomenology presented consciousness in a way
that did not define itself by looking inward, as in Bergson or Proust, but
by looking outward to the concrete world around it, to the world we live
in; this is the notion that all consciousness is consciousness of something.
Given that formulation, it is impossible to define an object while cutting
it off from the subject examining it; likewise the subject is always revealed
in its engagement with the object it is examining. For Sartre, phenom-
enology was a means to escape the subject-object dualism and the gen-
eralized hypotheses that inhabited the "world of ideas," which were the
basis of French philosophy as taught at the ENS. Furthermore, Husserl's
phenomenology is descriptive, not deductive, and therefore, unlike sci-
ence or contemporary philosophy, does not rely on objective evidence.
Instead, what is under investigation is human being in the "presence of
things" and, by extension, consciousness itself (TE, 35). The phenom-
enological method is thus intuitive, because consciousness must investi-
gate what it is and what it does and does not include. But it is here in this
possibility that we see a divergence between Sartre and Husserl, based on
the influence of Heidegger's Was ist Metaphysik?
In La transcendence de l'ego, Sartre tried to push Husserl's phenomeno-
logical program further than Husser! wanted to go:
For our part, we readily acknowledge the existence of a constitut-
ing consciousness. We find admirable all of Husserl's descriptions in
which he shows transcendental consciousness constituting the world
17. For an account of Sartre's place in the phenomenological movement, see the chapter
on Sartre in Herbert Spiegelberg's 17te PherwmmouJ{Jical Movrrnmt (The Hague: Nijhoff,
1982); and also Eugene H. Frickey, "The Origins of Phenomenology in France, 1920-
1940," Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1979.
18.Jean-Paul Sartre, "Man muB fUr sich selbst und fiir die anderen Ieben" (interview with
Rupert Neudeck), Merkur33, no. 379 (December 1979): 1210.
19. For a history of Recherr.IIP.s philo.mpluquRs and its position in the reception of Heidegger
in France, see chap. 2.
20. Sartre's initial understanding of Husser! was based on his reading of Levinas's Theory
of Tntuition in lhLuPTl's Plumom~mol.ogy. It is important to remember that the last section
of Levinas's book on Hussed was written after Levinas had become more interested in
Heidegger's work and thus is heavily oriented toward Heidegger.
120
Jean-Paul Sartre
by imprisoning itself in empirical consciousness. Like Husserl, we are

persuaded that our psychic and psycho-physical me is a transcendent
object which must fall before the "phenomenological reduction." But
we raise the following question: is not this psycho-physical meenough?
Need one double it with a transcendental I, a structure of absolute
consciousness? (TE, 36)
While Sartre agreed with Husser! on the concept of a "transcenden-
tal consciousness," he did not agree on the posing of a "transcendental
ego." 21 Sartre refutes this positing of a transcendental I, claiming that
this "I is the producer of inwardness." Instead, he conten.ds there is no
need for the transcendental ego because "the object is transcendent to
the consciousness which grasps it, and it is in the object that the unity
of consciousness is found" (TE, 38). For Sartre, consciousness does not
come from the individual transcendental ego; instead, "individuality stems
from the nature of consciousness" and, in fact, "the phenomenological
conception of consciousness renders the I totally useless. It is conscious-
ness, on the contrary, which makes possible the unity and the person-
ality of my I. The transcendental /, therefore, has no raison d'etre' (TE,
40). By liberating consciousness from the self in its thingness (the I, the
cogito), Sartre is able to liberate consciousness from the object in favor
of pure spontaneity. Furthermore, he considers this move a definitive
refutation of the solipsism of subjectivity because one's own self (as an
object) no longer enjoys any priority over any other self, which is equally
constituted by the same impersonal, or prepersonal, transcendental con-
sciousness. This refutation of the traditional Cartesian subject in favor
of a collective consciousness might seem to contradict the notion that
Sartre is an "individualist" thinker, but it is on the basis of this move that
Sartre inverts the Cartesian premise "I think therefore I am," and that
his notion of freedom emerges.
It is in fact through the pure spontaneity of consciousness that the pos-
sibility of freedom arises: "All is therefore clear and lucid in conscious-
ness: the object with its characteristic opacity is before consciousness, but
consciousness is purely and simply consciousness of being conscious of
that object." By contrast, the lis itself an object and thus contains within
it the "characteristic opacity" of the object. Therefore, far from being the
source of consciousness as Husserl posited it, the transcendental I would
be "a hindrance": "If it existed it would tear consciousness from itself; it
would divide consciousness; it would slide into every consciousness like
an opaque blade. The transcendental I is the death of consciousness"
(TE, 40).
21. See Leo Fretz, "Individuality in Sartre's Philosophy," in 11tt> Cambridgr ComfJa71ion to
Sartrt, ed. Christina Howells (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 71-77.
121
THE FIRST READING
The spontaneity of consciousness is placed in opposltlon to the

encumbered thingness of the self as object. But Sartre does not deny
the importance of the cogito and in fact admits that it is the sole avenue
of investigation by which we come to understand the relation of pure
consciousness to things. Sartre qualifies the cogito's position in relation
to consciousness by positing a primary or "unreflected" consciousness,
which is the pure transcendental consciousness, and a secondary "reflec-
tive" consciousness, which is derived from the first. In the reflective con-
sciousness that is the consciousness of the ego (the I), consciousness
takes consciousness as an object to be observed and posits it as such.
Here, Sartre refutes Descartes while conserving the primacy of the cogito
as the means for all investigation. For Sartre, "the consciousness that says
I think is precisely not the consciousness which thinks"; rather, it is a deri-
vation of the consciousness that thinks. In Sartre's model, the cogito is
an object (the object that is me), which is observed as consciousness, but,
a~ such, it loses its free spontaneity because of the opacity of its thing-
ness. Consciousness as experienced through the cogito loses its charac-
ter of pure spontaneity. Instead, in the I as ego, "consciousness is loaded
down; consciousness loses that character which renders it the absolute
existant by virtue of its non-existence. It is heavy and ponderable" (TE, 40).
And here we arrive at the underlying influence of Heidegger's Was ist
Metaphysik? and, specifically, the importance of the Neant (Nothingness)
in Sartre's interpretation of, and divergence from, Husserl.
Sartre's transcendental consciousness has an absolute existence by
virtue of its nonexistence, its nothingness. Thus, every moment of our
conscious life reveals a spontaneous creation or constitution out of noth-
ing and it is this that is the basis of our freedom. In the revelation of the
impersonal nature of consciousness as nothing, Sartre also approaches
the equally troubling phenomenon of the human being constituted as
object. His concern with the self as object does not dissipate and in fact
anticipates his later work, as well as his understanding of Heidegger's
concept of Geworfenheit ( thrownness):
In fact, I am plunged into the world of objects; it is they that consti-
tute the unity of my consciousness; it is they that present themselves
with values, with attractive and repellent qualities-but me, I have dis-
appeared; I have annihilated myself. There is no place for me on this
level. And this is not a matter of chance, due to a momentary lapse
of attention, but happens because of the very structure of conscious-
ness. (TE, 49)
In Sartre 's understanding, the self does not construct the world around
it; instead, this existant self finds itself, or rather constitutes its self, by a
secondary act of reflection. This is to say that impersonal consciousness
122
Jean-Paul Sartre
is first confronted with reality and comes to "find" its egological nature
later. The ego (self, cogito, I-Sartre does not really distinguish between
the terms) is not the foundation of consciousness but a derivation that
renders consciousness opaque and deprives it of its freedom and sponta-
neity by locking it into a state of objectness. Consciousness is revealed to
Sartre as translucent, as a nothingness that fulfills itself in its intentional
activity. What is for Husserl an emphasis on the noematic aspect of the
phenomenon becomes for Sartre a theory of consciousness where the
non being of the ego (or the relation of the ego to the Nothingness that
is consciousness) is the primary phenomenological datum. 22 Here again
we see the proximity of Sartre's understanding of Husser! to his under-
standing of Heidegger's realite-humaine in its relation to Nothingness in
Was ist Metaphysik 1'-3
But what kind of I is it that exists through consciousness in such way
that it is always its own annihilation? Sartre does not yet answer this ques-
tion, but in La transcendence de l'ego, the I is presented as an "existant" and
as being; so, like Heidegger, Sartre must depart from phenomenology
and move toward the ontological investigation of being.
The ramifications of this movement to a "collective" prepersonal con-
sciousness will be discussed later in relation to Sartre's notions of respon-
sibility and freedom. 24 What is essential at this point is to see how Sartre's
rereading and reinterpretation of Husserl is based on his impressionis-
tic understanding of the themes in Was ist Metaphysik? It is the explora-
tion of these themes that leads Sartre closer to Heidegger in his work on
Husserl. This is especially apparent in Sartre's investigation into human
being as the intersection between being and consciousness. While this
still follows the understanding of intentionality outlined by Husserl, it
shifts the emphasis to an ontological investigation of the particular
human being as the nexus of pure consciousness and object. This is not
to say that Husserl's influence on Sartre was not profound, but, I would
argue, this influence is more substantive in terms of methodology than
in terms of content.
22. Maurice Natanson, "Phenomenology and Existentialism," Modnn Sdwolman 37 (1959):

1-10.
23. See Robert C. Solomon, "Sartre on Emotions," esp. 212-13; and Phyllis Berdt Kenevan,
"Self-Consciousness and the Ego," both in Schilpp, 11te Phi/().mphy ofjP.an-Paul Sarfre.
24. For Sartre, this prepersonal consciousness is "collective" in that it presupposes any
individual consciousness in its objectified form. This is not to say that prepersonal
consciousness is shared but that, inasmuch as consciousness equals nothingness, it does
not belong to any one ego but to all. This differs from Heidegger's category of das Man,
which is the prepersonal collective social nexus that is the basis of all our meanings and
possibilities. See int.-oduction.
123
I HI: riH;:, I nt:AUINll
Nausea
The most striking example of Sartre's proximity to Heidegger and his

movement toward ontology before he came to "seriously study" Hei-
degger's work can be seen in the novel Nausea written in its first form
between 1931 and 1933 and then rewritten while Sartre was studying
Husserl in Berlin. The final version of Nausea is quite apparently writ-
ten during Sartre's phenomenological phase, when he was most heavily
under Husserl's influence. This can be seen from the very beginning of
the novel, when Roqucntin explains the purpose of keeping his diary:
"The best thing would be to write down events from day to day. Keep
a diary to see clearly-let none of the nuances or small happenings
escape though they might seem to mean nothing. And above all, classify
them. I must tell how I see this table, this street, the people, my packet of
tobacco, since those are the things which have changed" (N, 1).
In Nausea, Sartre relies heavily on the descriptive analysis of phenom-
ena, which is the cornerstone of phenomenology. But in the act of keep-
ing a diary, Sartre's concern with the derived and precarious nature of
human consciousness shows his divergence from HusserI. In the diary we
see a concrete example of the act of reflection that transforms conscious-
ness int~ an object: once something is reflected on and written down,
it changes; it becomes an object to be observed. Hence while the tone
of the novel is Husserlian and still conserves the interest in intentional-
ity and the observation of phenomena, the overall content is more con-
cerned with such Heideggerian themes as Geworfenheit ("thrownness,"
which Sartre translates as "contingency"), being-in-the-world, and the
anxiety that arises in the face of nothingness.
Nausea is the story of how an individual existent, Antoine Roquentin,
comes to realize that his self, his ego, is derived from a sort of nothing-
ness. This leads him to the subsequent realization that he is trapped in the
objectness of his self, yet is aware of his consciousness, which is before him.
The concern of Nausea is to understand being as it is manifested in the
human being, and here we see how Sartre's interpretation of Heidegger's
philosophy diverges from Heidegger's own project. Sartre, like Jean Wahl,
Jean Hyppolite, and many others, took Henry Corbin's translation of Das-
ein as realite-humaine quite literally and therefore assumed that Heidegger
was investigating the human actor. 25 For Sartre, Dasein and human being
are equivocal terms. This move will be explored more fully in relation to
Being and Nothingness, but the important point is that Sartre always equated
Dasein with human-reality.
25. On Corbin's translation of Daseirt as realitf-hmnain.e, see Denis Hollier, ed., Le Colvge de
sociologie: 1937-1939 (Paris: Gallimard, 1979), 55.
124
.Jean-t"aul ~artre
The opening of the novel also suggests that Sartre had perhaps read
more Heidegger than he let on. Roquentin is writing his diary to keep
track of things, a Husserlian theme, but the reason he is keeping this diary
is that he has come to the realization that the world around him is totally
contingent. Roquentin first experiences his nausea at the beach while
holding a stone. This episode appears to be based on Husserl 's phenom-
enological tactic of the "epoche," where one withdraws from one's natu-
ral attitude to study and observe objects. In Roquentin's case, however,
the event is more a shock of anxiety, a sudden wave of nausea with the
realization of the arbitrary nature of the world he lives in. This notion of
contingency is much closer to Heidegger's understanding of being-in-the-
world and the two related concepts of present-at-hand ( Vorhandenheit) and
ready-to-hand (Zuhandenheit) than to any Husserlian formulation.
The key to understanding Heidegger's early influence on Sartre is to see
how Heidegger's "forgotten self' relates to Sartre 's "unreflected ego." When
Dasein is doing something, there is a certain transparency to the action, but
this transparency becomes opaque when something goes wrong. If one is
hammering and the hammer breaks or is too heavy for the job, then we
become aware of the hammer as object. When this happens, the activity
or equipment in question becomes present-at-hand: "The modes of con-
spicuousness, obtrusiveness, and obstinacy all have the function of bringing
to the fore the characteristic of presence-at-hand in what is ready-to-hand.
But the ready-to-hand is not thereby just observed and stared at as something
present-at-hand; the presence-at-hand which makes itself known is still
bound up in the readiness to hand of equipment" (BT, 104).
In the realization of the object as present-at-hand in the face of a
breakdown, Heidegger leaves space for the Husserlian understanding of
intentionality. Sartre parallels Heidegger in La transcendence de l'ego by
limiting the consciousness of the "consciousness of ..." (which is inten-
tionality in the Husserlian sense) to reflected consciousness, and leaving
originary consciousness oblivious, thus entirely transparent and fluid,
though still intentional.
For Heidegger, the breakdown revealed through conspicuousness,
obtn1siveness, or obstinacy does not lead to the sort of paralysis that
affects Sartre's Roquentin. In Heidegger's understanding of the break-
down, the equipment in question does not become something per-
manently "present-at-hand" that is observed. Instead, in its capacity as
a "broken hammer" or a "hammer that is too heavy for the job," it is
absorbed back into the world of equipment:
To the everydayness of Being-in-the-world there belongs certain
modes of concern. These permit the entities with which we concern
ourselves to be encountered in such a way that the worldly character
125
THE FIRST READING
of what is within-the-world comes to the fore. When we concern our-

selves with something, the entities which are most closely ready-to-
hand may be met as something unusable, not properly adapted for
the use we have decided upon. The tool turns out to be damaged, or
the material unsuitable. In each of these cases equip11U3nt is here ready-
to-hand. We discover its unusability, however, not by looking at it and
establishing its properties, but rather by the circumspection of the
dealings with which we use it. (BT, 120)
But this sort of breakdown can also reveal things that are unusable or
missing and that make us withdraw from our concern with the ready-to-
hand world in a way that reveals to us the nature of the world we live in.
These things reveal themselves as un-ready-to-hand:
When we notice what is un-ready-to-hand, that which is ready-to-hand
enters the mode of obtrusiveness. The more urgently we need what is
missing, and the more authentically it is encountered in its un-readi-
ness-to-hand, all the more obtrusive does that which is ready-to-hand
become-so much so, indeed, that it seems to lose its character of
readiness-to-hand. It reveals itself as something just present-at-hand
and no more, which cannot be budged without the thing that is miss-
ing. The helpless way in which we stand before it is a deficient mode
of concern, and as such it uncovers the Being-just-present-at-hand
and no more of something ready-to-hand. . Anything which is un-
ready-to-hand in this way is disturbing to us, and enables us to see
the obstinacy of that with which we must concern ourselves in the first
instance before we do anything else. (BT, 103)
lfwe cannot find our hammer, in our intentional contemplation of the
hammer the whole of our referential nexus is lit up in a way that reveals
the nexus to us. This is disturbing to us because we are forced to consider
the framework of the world into which we are thrown and which we did
not create before we can attempt to make sense of anything within that
framework. Because Dasein is a temporal construction (thrown, falling,
projecting), it understands itself as falling by absorbing itself into projects.
But in this un-ready-to-hand state, our absorption in concerned action is
arrested by the contemplation of the world into which we are thrown.
This leaves us in a state of ceaseless wonderment and contemplation.
Sartre's Roquentin does not attempt to understand objects through
detached observation, as Husserl would prescribe, but is constantly
assaulted by objects in their contingency. Every thing appears to Roquen-
tin through the lens of Heidegger's obstinacy, which leads him to real-
ize the complete contingency of the world he lives in and forces him
into a state of ceaseless contemplation, where the arbitrary nature of
the objects that surround him (his self included) consume him. In this
126
Jean-Paul Sartre
light, Roquentin 's diary is not so much a phenomenological study as an

attempt to retain control over the objects around him. But the contin-
gent nature of the object is beyond human control. Sartre's understand-
ing of contingency is based on Heidegger's concept of facti city, but in the
work of Sartre facticity becomes diabolical in nature. Contingency is the
absurdity of the seemingly random factors that surround us: birth, death,
geography, era. For Sartre, as opposed to Heidegger, it does not take a
breakdown of equipment to reveal this state of contingency because it is
always already there in the things themselves. "I knew it was the World,
the naked World suddenly revealing itself, and I choked with rage at this
gross, absurd being" (N, 134). For Sartre, it is the absurdity of this con-
tingency that reveals the ungrounded nature of existence. Confronted
with this groundlessness, Roquentin experiences nausea and anguish
( angoisse): "Anyhow, I was certain that I was afraid or had some other
feeling of that sort" (N, 2). This fear sends Roquentin fleeing back to the
comfort of a predictable anonymous human existence that avoids the
confrontation with that which frightens us, as in Heidegger's account
of Angst. In Heidegger, it is the confrontation with death that leads us
to flee into the anonymity of das Man (the one). In Sartre, it is the dis-
turbance he feels in the face of objects (as un-ready-to-hand) that leads
him to realize the contingency of his existence. This contingency reveals
to him the nothingness that is the basis of his existence. Whereas in Hei-
degger one flees in the face of death, in Sartre one flees in the face of
nothingness. We will return to this crucial distinction between the two in
our discussion of Being and Nothingness.
Roquentin flees in the face of contingency. Before the senselessness of
the world, he attempts to construct sense in the way scientists construct
formulas. He tries to predict what will happen next and by doing so, he
assures himself that the world is under his subjective control:
Ten forty-five: nothing more to fear, they wpuld be here already.
Unless it's the day for the man from Rouen. He comes every week.
They reserve No. 2, on the second floor for him, the room with a
bidet. He might still show up: he often drinks a beer at the "Railway-
men's Rendezvous" before going to bed. But he doesn't make too
much noise .... Here he is now.
Well, when I heard him come up the stairs, it gave me quite a thrill,
it was so reassuring: what is there to fear in such a regular world? I
think I am cured. (N, 3)
This passage is actually a succinct description of what Heidegger terms
''inauthentic" existence, where one goes about the routine of one's life
without ever questioning why one does what one does. Roquentin takes
127
THE FIRST READING
comfort in the routinization of life because it allows him to avoid his con-
frontation with anxiety. But once the transparency of Roquentin's every-
day existence begins to turn opaque, he can no longer simply flee, since
the contingency of the world is revealed even in his flight.
For Sartre, the problem of being-in-the-world is expressed in terms of
the conflict between the subject and the objects it encounters. Roquen-
tin reflects: "Objects should not touch because they are not alive. You
use them, put them back in place, you live among them: they are useful,
nothing more. But they touch me, it is unbearable. I am afraid of being
in contact with them as though they were living beasts" (N, 10).
The problem for Sartre extends beyond the issue of encountering
objects, because he assigns thinglike status to humans as well. In Husserl,
this problem is avoided through the transcendental I as the locus of pure
intentionality. For Heidegger, Dasein is not mentalistic, though it cannot
be said to be entirely outside the mind. In Sartre's understanding of con-
sciousness and its relation to objects via the realiti-humaine (the human
being), this issue is a foremost concern. Deviating from both Husserl and
Heidegger, Sartre's understanding of existence as located in a particular
human being is based on that being's relationship to contingency and by
extension to nothingness.
The essential thing is contingency. I mean that one cannot define
existence as necessity. To exist is to be there; those who exist let them-
selves be encountered, but you can never deduce any thing from
them. I believe there are people who have understood this. Only they
tried to overcome this contingency by inventing a necessary causal
being. But no necessary being can explain existence: contingence is
not a delusion, a probability which can be dissipated; it is the abso-
lute, consequently, the perfect free gift. (N, 131)
This notion of those who have tried to "overcome this contingency by
inventing a necessary causal being" could be a reference to science or to
Husserl himself. In either case, it mirrors the critique of science in Hei-
degger's Was ist MetajJhysik? Sartre's question is, "Why is there something
instead of nothing?" which was also the starting point for Heidegger. The
answer for Sartre in Nausea is that there is no reason, and the conclu-
sions Sartre draws, while more Husserlian than Heideggerian, are based
on his work in La transcendence de l'ego. Roquentin concludes:
Now when I say "I," it seems hollow to me. I can't manage to feel
myself very well, I am so forgotten. The only real thing left in me
is existence which feels it exists. I yawn lengthily. No one. Antoine
Roquentin exists for no one. That amuses me. And just what is
Antoine Roquentin? An abstraction. A pale reflection of myself
128
Jean-~aul :iartre
wavers in my consciousness. Antoine Roquentin ... and suddenly the

"I" pales, pales, and fades out. (N, 170)
Here consciousness exists in its non being, but is always brought back to
the human existant by virtue of the secondary reflection that constitutes
consciousness of"the consciousness of ... "Antoine Roquentin's nausea is
a direct result of his confrontation with the nothingness that is conscious-
ness. Furthermore, for Roquentin to see himself as something instead of
nothing, he would have to be an object in its absurd contingency.
There is a definitive separation between things and consciousness in
Nausea, which is the product of Sartre's reinterpretation of Husserl. The
object (which will later be given the name en-soz) is an existence unto
itself, it is self-contained, it is pure being and thus it is opaque. Conscious-
ness, conversely, is in fact a nonbeing, a nothingness, which is why it is
transparent. The difficulty for Sartre comes in understanding the human
actor who is the site of unreflected pure consciousness and of derivative
self-constituted reflective consciousness, with its objectlike characteristics.
In the end, Sartre believed that Husserl had been unable to move past the
"thinglike" (chosiste) conception of consciousness and that Husserl's work,
with its transcendental ego, could not address the issue of nothingness,
which is essential to an understanding of consciousness and, by exten-
sion, freedom. In Nausea, as in La transcendence de l'ego, Sartre was trying to
rework Husserl so as to address the issues most important to him. But in
his reworking of Husserl, Sartre found himself coming back to the themes
he had absorbed from Heidegger's Was ist Metaphysik?
Existentialism
After Nausea was published in 1938, its success made Sartre a literary
name. It was probably because of this success that L'imaginaire was pub-
lished in 1940. 26 The 1930s brought enormous intellectual development
for Sartre both as a novelist and a philosopher, but like the other mem-
bers of the generation of 1933, his development was entirely intellectual
and not political. Sartre's lack of interest in politics in the 1930s would
become a recurring theme in interviews. 27 It was also the subject of seri-
ous reflection in his War Diaries, written as a soldier in the French army
26. While working on Nausea, Sartre also kept up his philosophical production in the
form of two works, I!imag;ina.ti.on ( 1936), and L'imag;inairf' (1940). Originally intended
as one piece based on his thesis from the ENS, the second half (L'imaginaire) was
rejected by Alcan in 1936, leading to a four-year delay in its publication. This is of note
because between 1936 and 1940 Sartre shifted his emphasis from Husser) to Heidegger.
2'7. Interview with Sartre in SariTf' par b.ti-miuw: lln film, directed by Alexandre Astruc and
Michel Con tat.
129
I nt: I In;) I llt:~UII'IIJ
and as a prisoner of war during World War II. This discussion of political
inactivity is couched in a reflection on his intellectual development and
his turn toward Heidegger as an attempt to find a philosopher who could
lead him from the world of "ideas" to the world of "action." The War Dia-
ries also served as a testing ground for Sartre to "work out" his philosophy
of action in preparation for writing Being and Nothingness. Thus, to under-
stand Sartre's philosophical and literary work in its postwar incarnation,
we must look to Sartre's diaries and the influences he cites in the 1930s
that led him to Husser! and Heidegger-namely, Jean Wahl, Raymond
Aron, and Henry Corbin-within the framework of the influence of the
war itself.
Jean Wahl's Vers le concret first appeared in 1932 as an article for Recher-
ches philosophiques and was published in book form soon after. 28 From
this work, and from Wahl's later Etudes kierkegaardiennes, Sartre became
acquainted with Heidegger, presented in relation to Hegel and Kierkeg-
aard. Significantly, Wahl's analysis of the concept of the "unhappy con-
sciousness" in Hegel would lead Sartre to his own understanding of the
structure of human being as manifested in "bad faith." But the most
important influence that Wahl had on Sanre was through Wahl's under-
standing of Heidegger's concept of angst, 29 which was derived from, and
considered compatible with, Kierkegaard's concept of "anxiety." 30 Sartre
accepted this compatibility between Kierkegaard and Heidegger unques-
tioningly. Citing Wahl as his source, he quotes Kierkegaard to demon-
strate their proximity.
Kierkegaard (Le Concept d'angoisse, 85): "the rapport between anguish
and its object, is a thing which is nothing (and we say this in everyday
language when we state that our anguish is nothing). ."The influ-
ence on Heidegger is clear; his use of the everyday phrase; "we are
anguished by nothing" (it was nothing .), can be found word for
word in Being and Time. But it is true that for Heidegger, anguish is
anguish-in-front-of-Nothing (Neant) which is not the Nothing (Rien)
but, as Wahl says, "the cosmic fact which is the detachment of exis-
tence." In Kierkegaard's case it is a psychological anguish and a noth-
ing/ rien that is in the spirit. This "nothing" is in fact possibility.
Anguish in the face of Nothing in Heidegger? Anguish in the face of
freedom, with Kierkegaard? In my understanding they are one and
the same thing because freedom is the appearance of Nothingness in
the world. 31
28. See the section on jean Wahl in chap. 3.

29. An~l, translated into French as angoisse (anguish).
30. This is presented in jean Wahl's hudes kinkRganrdiennes (Paris: Aubier, 1938).
31. Sartre, CarneL~ de La drole d.e I,'UeTTe, 342-43.
130
Jean-Paul Sartre
Here we see the formulation derived from Sartre's work on Husser} and
Heidegger, but, following \Vahl's emphasis on the relation of Heidegger
to Kierkegaard, Sartre was able to present Heidegger as a philosopher of
the individual. This reinforced his (and his readers') understanding of
Dasein as realiti-humaine (a particular human being).
We have already seen the influence that Raymond Aron had on Sartre
in the early 1930s and his role in Sartre's decision to study in Berlin. In
the late 1930s, the publication of Aron's Introduction a la philosophie de
l'histoire led Sartre to Heidegger's section on historicality in Being and
Time but also to a nascent appreciation of history in the Hegelian sense. 32
Sartre's discussion of Aron in his War Diaries also shows the fascination
with history that consumed the generation of 1933 in the years before
World War II.
Aron led Sartre to consider Heidegger's concept of history, but
through the lens of Alexandre Kojeve's Hegel seminar. Maurice Merleau-
Ponty also played an important role in Sartre's development. While Sar-
tre, playing the role of Aron, led Merleau-Ponty to the study of Husserl
and phenomenology in 1933, Merleau-Ponty led Sartre to an articulated
understanding of Hegel and Marxism after the war. In the late 1930s
it was enough that Sartre came to see the importance of Hegel's work
as a philosophical methodology that could engage the particular prob-
lems philosophy encountered through phenomenological investigation.
This compatibility between phenomenology and Hegel was derived from
Sanre's contact with Aron and Merleau-Ponty and is the direct result of
their participation in Kojeve's seminar on Hegel at the Ecole Pratique
des Hautes Etudes.
But the most important factor in Sartre's understanding of Heidegger
is Henry Corbin's translation of Heidegger's work. Corbin's translation
of Was ist Metaphysik? appeared in 1931 and was republished, along with
translations of Vom We5en des Grundes and two sections of Being and Time,
in 1938. 33 Sartre describes the event of this translation in terms of the
contingency of circumstance and history. It is probably best to consider
it in this light, rather than assign it the position of a specific "influence."
Corbin's translation of Heidegger appeared to Sartre's "situation, his
generation, his epoque" just when it "had to":
It was for us that Corbin made the translation. It stirred our first inter-
est in Heidegger's philosophy but we were not ready for it. It took 12
32. For an analysis of this work in relation to Aron's participation in Kojeve's Hegel
seminar, see chap. 3.
33. Despite reports to the contrary, Heidegger had seen and approved all of Corbin's
translations. The fundamental problem with Corbin's translation of Da.~t'in as rralifi..
h1lmaine may not have seemed as egregious before Sartre's popularization of the term in
his existentialist philosophy. See the section on Corbin in chap. 2.
131
I n1:: I lni) I I lt:I\UIIIIU
or 15 years for Heidegger's thought to arrive in France. It came little by

little through the translations in Bifur ( 1930) and Recherches Philosophiques
(1933) until finally it came to tmly organize itself and to reclaim its
teachings. More profound still is that this enthusiastic interest was com-
plicitly responsible for, and led to, the production of such works as Vtm
le conCTl!t by Jean Wahl which had its source in the antiquated state of
French philosophy and the desire we felt to rejuvenate it. 34
The language of this passage is especially important in light of my claim
that it was the impression that Heidegger's work had on Sartre in 1931 that
coded his whole project in a way that led him back to Heidegger in the
late 1930s. Indeed, Sartre's language implies a return to something that
was already there, and here we have a key to understanding the domes-
tication of Heidegger in France. By the time Sartre and his contempo-
raries were "ready" to encounter Heidegger, on the eve of World War II,
Heidegger's work had already been in France for over a decade. Through
translation, it had been made French, and in the works of Wahl, Kojeve,
and their students, it had taken on many attributes of French philosophy.
In Wahl and Kojeve's use of Heidegger we see the conservation of the
Cartesian cogito, the emphasis on the individual, and the incorporation
of Heidegger's work into a teleological structure. What was strange in
Heidegger's philosophy had become familiar, what had been unheimlich
was now heimisch. Sartre's generation was ready to understand Heidegger's
philosophy precisely because it had become understandable.
Sartre poses the question, "Why Heidegger?"-as opposed to Husserl
or any other philosopher-and claims that his generation's identification
with Heidegger at the time of World War II was based largely on their
identification with his language of resoluteness, being-towards-death,
thrownness, and authenticity. Sartre was not unaware of the proximity of
that language to the language of fascism:
There is no doubt that there was a vague nostalgia for fascism. And I
recognized that in my own thought there was a hint of fascism (histo-
ricity, Being-in-the-world, all that tied man to his era, all that bound
man to his roots in the earth, in his situation). But I hated fascism and
the relation of these terms to fascism served like a pinch of salt that
one puts on a tart just to make it appear all the sweeter by contrast. 35
In Heidegger's philosophy, there is an antiestablishment element that
is not based on a specific political alliance. Being and Time's critique of
science, of the leveling nature of popular culture, and of the ossified
nature of academic philosophy was equally appealing to conservatives
34. Sanre, Carmi.\ riP In drole de guPYTe, 407.

35. Ibid., 361.
132
Jean-Paul 5artre
such as Carl Schmitt and Ernstjiinger as it was with Raymond Aron and
Jean-Paul Sartre. 36
We have briefly discussed the implications of Corbin's translation of
Dasein as realiti-humaine, which led to the inference that Heidegger was
a "humanist" and that his was primarily an investigation into human-
being. By this logic, Heidegger's concern was with the freedom of the
il)dividual. This might explain why Sartre felt he could employ Hei-
degger's work against fascist totalitarianism. Corbin translated Geworfen-
heit (thrownness) as sa dereliction (one's abandonment), which also gave
the work a more subjective tone~ Sartre seized on this and modified the
translation to dilaissement, which added the connotation of helplessness,
of being without recourse to aid, and intensified the identification with a
specific abandoned subject finding its way in the world. This translation
shows the generation of 1933's need to represent being as a being, to fix
a specific representable site for being. Corbin's translation of eigentlich
and uneigentlich as "authentic" and "inauthentic" also had serious rami-
fications for Sartre's work, especially when coupled with his understand-
ing of the concept of "bad faith." But here we have already moved into a
discussion of Being and Nothingness, which is the product of this melange
of philosophical currents and events and which led to the popularization
of Heidegger as an existentialist thinker after World War II.
Being and Nothingness

Being and Nothingness is far more than a long footnote to Being and Time. It
is Sartre's confrontation with Heidegger,just as La transcendence de l'egowas
Sartre's confrontation with Husserl. The difficulty in approaching Being
and Nothingness lies in Sartre's newfound philosophical style, which rel-
ishes wordplay and seemingly paradoxical statements that imply the stmc-
ture of the phenomenon Sartre is describing: "Being is what it is not and
is not what it is." Furthermore, Sartre's habit of shifting from term to term
without rigorous definitions seems to be at its worst. While already in the
previous work there appeared to be almost no distinction between such
terms as "cogito," "ego," "I," and "human reality," in Being and Nothingness
36. This position is contested in works such as Richard Wolin, Tlze Politi.c.s of RPing: The
Political Thought of Martin lleideggf'r (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Tom
Rockmore, On 1/PidPgg"'s Nazism and Philo.wphy (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1992); Tom Rockmore and Joseph Margolis, eds., The J-leidegger Ca.re: On Philosophy a11rl
Polit;cs (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). My point is not that Heidegger's early
philosophical work was antithetical to National Socialism but that its antiestablishment
critique of contemporary philosophy could be used by philosophers from a wide range of
political perspectives.
133
THE FIRST READING
there is a fluidity of shifting terms that evolve as new pieces of the puzzle
are revealed, but without ever concretizing the moments of change. Thus
when "freedom" turns out to be "nothingness," it is not distinguished
from the consciousness from which it is derived, which has previously
been defined as "nothingness." This shifting vocabulary seems to revolve
around the relation of being to nothingness, and can thus be unpacked
by understanding the work as the logical extension of the ideas Sartre had
been working on since 1931. 37
Sartre begins by establishing the two categories of being he is going
to investigate, except that now he employs the language of Hegel in his
definitions. 38 The first category is the en-soi (in-itselO, which is being-in-
itself, the object, totally self-sufficient. The second category is the pour-soi
(for-itself), which is the consciousness of the reflected ego, the cogito.
The en-soi is described as self-sufficient being and as such is always an
object in its opacity. The en-soi "is what it is and as such has no secret."
This is to say that there is nothing more to the en-soi than what it is. The
massive and opaque qualities of objects that were so terrifying in Nausea
are in fact the simple properties of the en-soi, which is impervious to all
becoming, transforming, changing, or temporality. The en-soi is simply
an object in all its contingency. The en-soi has no reason for being, it sim-
ply is, in the sense that a rock has no concern for its own being but is sim-
ply a rock. The en-soi thus cannot be seen as either possible or impossible
because "the possible is the structure of the pour-soi, this is to say that it
[the pour-soi] exists in the other region of Being [ etre.pour-soi] . Being-in-
itself [etre-en-soi] is neither possible nor impossible, it is" (EN, 34). In the
simplest formulation, the en-soi is an object and as such it exists in com-
plete self-sufficiency with no cares or regard. It is without intentionality.
The en-soi, as being, can therefore be reduced to this formula: "Being is.
Being is in-itself [en-soi]. Being is what it is" (EN, 34). The "other region
of Being" is the pour-soi or being-for-itself which is in fact the mode of
human being. The pour-soi is the free subject that continually creates its
own existence. This formula is familiar because what Sartre now calls the
pour-soi is in fact the precarious position of the realite-humaine (human
being) constituted as the opaque object of the reflective consciousness
37. But see also Joseph S. Catalano, A Commrntary onJean-Paul Sartrr! l "Bfing and Nothingne5S"
(Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1980).
38. In "Sartre et Ia conscience malheureuse," Magazine {;t/Rrairr!, no. 293 (November 1991):
59-61, Juliette Simont claims that Sartre had not read Hegel's Plumom.l"TTology of Spiril when
he wrote Being and Notltinr;rvs.5. In Sarfre and llegel: The Varintiom of an Enirr;ma irt "/,'Etre rt fp
Neanl" (Bonn: Bouvier, 1988), Christopher Fry contends that Sartre did not seriously study
Hegel (3). But see also "From Hegel to Sartre," in Judith Butler, Subjn:ts of Desirr! (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1987).
134
Jean-Paul Sartre
(ego) and the nothingness of pure consciousness. 39 This leads us to the

third key element in Sartre's work, which is nothingness.
Transparent consciousness in its nonbeing is the opening for nothing-
ness. In Being and Nothingness, this theme is enunciated through the inves-
tigation into the relationship between the two terms d1at compose the title.
Being in its fullest state is me en-so~ and nomingness is the consciousness mat
manifests itself in its non being. The relationship between these two concepts
is actually the human condition as being-for-itself ( etw-pour-soz), where the
human being exists both as o~ectttnd as consciousness. We exist as beings
with objective qualities, but as Sartre demonstrated in his investigation of me
imagination, the non being of consciousness is also petpetually present in us
and it is this void that "perpetually haunts Being" (EN, 47).
Here it is instructive to take a step back and see how Sartre differs
from Heidegger in two key aspects. Sartre was able to move past the
problem of subject-object dualism by placing consciousness outside the
body, and here he loosely followed Heidegger's model in Being and Time
(although Heidegger did not locate consciousness outside the body);
in Being and Nothingness, Sartre makes it clear that he sees no distinc-
tion between Heidegger's Dasein and his own understanding of human
consciousness and claims that his own formulation opens being to more
extensive analysis: "Certainly we could apply to consciousness the defini-
tion which Heidegger reserves for Dasein and say that it is a being for
whom, in its being, its being is in question. But it would be necessary to
complete this definition and formulate it more' like this: consciousness
is a being for whom, in its being, its being is in question in so far as this
being implies a being other than itself' (EN, 29).
Sartre's modification is reminiscent of Hegel's understanding of self-
consciousness, but also explains Sartre's understanding of Hegel through
the formula he derived to move past Husserl by using Heidegger. Sartre's
use of Hegel is therefore quite particular and primarily shores up his own
construction. Sartre does not follow Hegel but uses Hegel to modify Hei-
degger. "Hegel's failure has shown us that the only possible departure is
from the Cartesian cogito" (EN, 308). Sartre does not distinguish between
Dasein and human consciousness; therefore the sole starting place for his
investigation is the ego cogito. "This is a sufficient condition, for my being
consciousness of being consciousness of that table suffices in fact for me
to be conscious of it. That is of course not sufficient to permit me to affirm
that the table exists in-itself [en-soi]-but rather that it exists for me [pour
moz] " (EN, 18). The pour-soi always implies a negation in its relation to a
being that is not itself but is understood through the structure of reflective
consciousness.
39. This was the conclusion of L'imagi1wire.
135
....... , .. ,..,., , ..... n~uu
This leads us to the second point: in his formulation of the concept of

nothingness, Sartre intentionally sought to engage and move beyond Hei-
degger through his investigation into human being. Taking Heidegger's
H'Gs ist Metaphysik? as his starting point, he attempts to show that noth-
ingness is not, as Heidegger contended, a means by which one comes to
understand being, but instead being's diametrical opposite. The nothing
that is manifested in (and turns out to be) free consciousness is actually
the great threat to being and not merely a means of investigation, as it
was for Heidegger. Thus Sartre's project, as opposed to Heidegger's, is to
explore the fundamentally contentious relationship between being and
nothingness: How does one maintain the opaque resistance of things
and the subjectivity of thought at the same time? This, for Sartre, is the
fundamental problem of ontology.
This conflict between being and nothingness has Hegelian overtones,
but the relationship cannot be seen as dialectical. This is because noth-
ingness has a need for being, but being (en-sot) has no need for nothing-
ness. There is no reciprocity, no resolution, and this is why Sartre does
not present nothingness in opposition to being but in correlation to
being, despite their fundamentally contentious relationship. "Nothing-
ness can be nihilated only on the foundation of Being; if nothingness
can be given, it is neither before nor after Being, nor in a general way
outside of Being. Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of Being like a
worm" (EN, 57).
Sartre attempts to explain this relationship through the pour-soi of
the human being who embodies tpis conflict. Thus the definition of the
pour-soi as that which "is what it is not and is not what it is" becomes
more clear when human being is defined as the locus where nothingness
emerges into being. But to demystify this seemingly paradoxical claim,
we must proceed to an investigation into Sartre's understanding of the
relation between nothingness and the structure of consciousness.
A full exploration of this relationship is conducted in the first section
of Being and Nothingness. Sartre follows Heidegger's model from Being and
Time and begins his investigation by exploring the questioning behavior
of consciousness. 40 As in his earlier works, consciousness in this ques-
tioning mode turns out to be the opening from which the nothingness
emerges. But Sartre moves further away from Heidegger as he expands
his understanding of nothingness, derived from the negative. He devel-
ops this notion based on his work on the imagination and concludes
40. Here, the slippage from Dasrin to human consciousness has occurred. Furthermore,
because Sartre presented our only starting point for investigation into consciousness as
the cogito (this is based on Husserl), these tenns seem to have been conflated as wen,
though Sartre does distinguish between reflective and pure consciousness when it serves
his purpose.
136
Jean-Paul Sartre
that the negative is the fundamental mode of consciousness. For Sartre,

consciousness is the opening for nothingness, and without consciousness
there would be no place for nothingness in the world of being (en-soi),
which is its own self.sufficient totality. Nothingness originates with and
constantly accompanies human being (realite-humaine) and thus mani-
fests itself in the many negations of everyday life by which we make sense
of the world we live in. 41 It is through the nothingness that we constntct
ourselves and the world, hence it is by virtue of nothingness that we are
free. This was Sartre's point in L'imaginaire.
The realization by the reflective consciousness that this freedom is
nothingness also leads the hurn.1n being to anxiety or anguish:
Anguish then is the reflective apprehension of freedom by itself. In
this sense it is mediation, for although it is immediate conscious-
ness of itself, it arises from the negation of the appeals of the world.
It appears at the moment when I disengage myself from the world
where I had been engaged-in order to apprehend myself as a con-
sciousness which possesses a pre-ontological comprehension of its
essence and a prejudicature sense of its possibilities. (EN, 77)
This formulation seems to mirror the concept of breakdown in Hei-
degger's understanding of being-in-the-world, where the transparent cop-
ing of being-ready-to-hand (zuhanden) is interrupted and made opaque
as the intentional reflection of being-present-at-hand ( vorhanden). For
Heidegger, this reveals the constructed character of the world. For Sar-
tre, it relates to the untethered ego that finds itself as self-constitutive
and confronted with the nothingness that is the basis of its constitution.
For Sartre, this angoisse leads to the realization that the individual is
solely responsible for all aspects of its existence as they are constituted
on the basis of nothing:
I emerge alone and in anguish confronting the unique and original
project which constitutes my being; all the barriers, all the guard rails
collapse, annihilated by the consciousness of my freedom. I do not
have nor can I have recourse to any value against the fact that it is I
who sustain values in being. Nothing can ensure me against myself,
cut off from the world and from my essence by this nothingness which
I am. I have to realize the meaning of the world and of my essence: I
decide, alone, without justification and without excuse. (EN, 77)
Sartre's understanding of anguish owes more to Kierkegaard than it
does to Heidegger, but, as we have seen, Sartre was inclined to see the
two as fundamentally compatible.
41. Herbert Marcuse, "Existentialism: Remarks on Jean-Paul Sartre's Lelre d le neant,"

Phil~siJflhy
and Pil.enomenowgical Resmdt 8, no. 3 (March 1948): 309-15.
137
1 tiLt I l l " I IICMUII"U
In Hcidegger's Being and Time, Angst is the reaction to the realization

of the possibility of no longer being possible, as manifested in one's con-
frontation with death. Similarly, Sartre's angoisse can be provoked by a
confrontation with death but is really a confrontation with the nothing-
ness of freedom. For Sartre, this is a crucial distinction because it moves
the fundamental investigation of being away from the relation of being-
towards-death to the relation of being and freedom. Sartre understood
angoisse as the fear of the nothingness of freedom, not the fear of death;
thus he claimed to have moved beyond the issue of death and beyond
Heidegger. Sartre's construction mirrored Heidegger's model in Being
and Time (where Dasein flees from the confrontation with death to the
everydayness of inauthentic existence), but here too Sartre's understand-
ing was as Kierkegaardian as it was Heideggerian. For Sartre, the flight
from anguish is a lie because it attempts to ignore the disquietude of
total and complete responsibility; even when fleeing from anguish we are
still acknowledging it: "In a word, I flee to avoid the anguish but I can-
not avoid [the fact] that I am fleeing and this flight from anguish is thus
a mode of having consciousness of anguish" (EN, 82). This flight in the
face of anguish, and ultimately in the face of responsibility, is what Sartre
calls "bad faith." If one does not experience anguish, it is not because
one does not have it but because one has fled from it in bad faith. Even
in this form, anguish still manifests itself as that from which you have run.
This too mirrors Heidegger and his understanding of uneigentlich (inau-
thentic) existence in Being and Time. For Heidegger, inauthentic exis-
s
tence is produced in the flight from Dasein confrontation with its finite
structure. This confrontation with Dasein's ultimate possibility, the possi-
bility of no longer being possible, is what Heidegger calls being-towards-
death. When confronted with being-towards-death, Dasein's immediate
response is to flee into the everyday concerns that can occupy Dasein and
distract it from the angst that being-towards-death produces. This state
of inauthentic existence is categorized by Heidegger as Verfallen (falling)
and is the realm of our everyday existence. In Sartre's schema, the flight
is not from our own finitude but from our responsibility and freedom.
This flight from responsibility becomes "the source for an infinite num-
ber of excuses for our weaknesses and failures" (EN, 97). But-and here
Sartre makes the same claim as Heidegger in reference to the distinction
between authentic and inauthentic existence-this flight from responsi-
bility and the subsequent refuge in bad faith should not be seen in a nor-
mative sense because, according to Sartre, bad faith is inherent in the
pour-soi's structure. The pour-soi in its negative capacity cannot be what it
is (unlike the en-soi, which is what it is) because of the internal condition
of negativity that lies at the heart of it. Even if in good faith the pour-soi
138
Jean-Paul Sartre
sought to be what it is, it would still be that which it is not. As a result, it

would find itself in bad faith.
Good faith seeks to flee the inner disintegration of my being in the
direction of the in-itself (en-soi), which it should be and is not. Bad
faith seeks to flee the in-itself (en-soi) by means of the inner disinte-
gration of my being. But it denies this very disintegration as it denies
that it is itself bad faith. (EN, Ill)
Bad faith is trying to be what you are not. Good faith is being what
you are. The stn1cture of the pour-soi in good faith is to be "that which
it is not" by virtue of its negativity, and therefore it is alwayi in bad faith
even in good faith. The structure of the pour-soi makes good faith an
impossibility and the attempt to achieve it bad faith. The escape from
this paradox leads to something like Heidegger's category of authentic
existence, and Sartre makes this explicit in a footnote: "It is indifferent
whether one is in good or bad faith, because bad faith re-apprehends
good faith and slides to the very origin of the project of good faith; this
does not mean that we cannot radically escape bad faith. But this sup-
poses a self-recovery of Being which was previously corrupted. This self-
recovery we shall call authenticity, the description of which has no place
here" (EN, Ill). That description never occurs, and the circular nature
of the dilemma as manifested in the very structure of the pour-soi makes
any radical escape from bad faith seem impossible, or at least unfathom-
able, based on Sartre's work to this point.
Furthermore, this paradoxical situation, presented without means of
reconciliation, eliminates the possibility of a dialectical understanding of
being and instead presents what Merleau-Ponty described as a truncated
dialectic, but which appears to be more like a perpetual circle:
The Being of human reality ( realite-humaine) is suffering because it
rises in Being as perpetually haunted by a totality which it is with-
out being able to be it, precisely because it could not attain the in-
itself (en-soi) without losing itself as for-itself (pour-soz). Human reality
therefore is by nature an unhappy consciousness with no possibility
of surpassing its unhappy state. (EN, 134)
The proximity of Sartre's language to Hegel's is attributable to the

influence of Jean Wahl. This passage also foreshadows the second sec-
tion of Being and Nothingness, which seeks to investigate the immediate
structures of the pour-soi and the related phenomena of temporality and
transcendence. In this section Sartre is closest to Heidegger, but there
are deliberate shifts of emphasis related largely to his understanding of
realite-humaine.
139
llt~IIIIUI I.LMUIIVU
What Sartre calls the facticity of human reality is the application of

Heidegger's term from Being and Time to his own understanding of con-
tingency. Whereas Heidegger assigns the term to the situation that Das-
ein finds itself in, Sartre attaches the term to human consciousness and
understands facticity as the contingency of a particular fact or set of facts
that might as well not have been. Sartre's emphasis is on the absurdity
of the situation we find ourselves in as realite-humaine. It is mere happen-
stance that the pour-soi "is in so far as it appears in a condition it has not
chosen, as Pierre is a French bourgeois in 1942, as Schmitt was a Berlin
worker in 1870; it is in so far as it is thrown [jeter/ werfen] into a world and
abandoned [sa dereliction/ Geworfenheit] in a "situation"; it is as pure con-
tingency in that for it [the pour-soiJ, as for other things in the world like
this wall, this tree, this cup, the original question can be posited: 'Why is
this being exactly such and not otherwise?'" (EN, 122). The pour-soi finds
itself in the absurd position of being "something of which it is not the
foundation" and which can only come to make sense of the world via the
reflective cogito. For Sartre, our reaction to the facticity of being-in-the-
world is manifest through the positing of a reflexive cogito that "makes
sense" of the contingent world we live in. This move is a combination
of Husserl's concept of intentionality, where we understand the world
based on the theoretical intuition of an individual ego, with Heidegger's
understanding of being-in-the-world as thrownness ( Geworfenheit). But
Sartre's construct threatens the integrity of both systems because it rede-
fines Husserl 's understanding of facticity in terms of Heidegger and
forces Heidegger's philosophy back toward the intellectualism of the
primacy of theory that it sought to escape. Sartre shifts the conditions
of facticity and Geworfenheit to address the particular anguish of the indi-
vidual human being as abandoned in the world.
This allows Sartre to expand his investigation into the pour-soi as the
being who is not sufficient unto itself by it'i contingency:
But this apprehension of Being as a lack of Being in the face of Being
is first a comprehension on the part of the cogito of its own contin-
gency. I think therefore I am. What am I? A being which is not its own
foundation, which qua Being, could be other than it is to the extent
that it does not account for its being. This is the first intuition of our
own contingency which Heidegger gives as the first motivation for
the passage from the inauthentic to the authentic.
The cogito, and the Cartesian cogito no less, becomes the basis for
Heidegger's "call of conscience" (Ruf des Gewissens). Sartre goes on to
chastise Heidegger for not following this line of investigation into the
field of ethics: "Heidegger's description shows all too clearly his anxiety
to establish an ontological foundation for an ethics, with which he claims
140
Jean-Paul Sanre
not to be concerned, as also to reconcile his humanism with the religious

sense of the transcendent" (EN, 122). How exactly Sartre understands
Heidegger's "humanism" is unclear. What is clear is that Sartre maintains
Heidegger's basic structure while distancing himself from Heidegger's
conclusions. For Sartre, the basis for anything like an authentic existence
is the choices we make in the face of the contingency of our existence.
The pour-soi is revealed as a lack, a totality that can never be total.
Facticity is not then a substance of which the pour-soi would be the

atlribute and which would produce thought without exhausting itself
in that very production. It simply resides in the pour-soi as a memory
of Being, as its unjustifiable presence in the world. Being-in'!itself [en-soi]
can found its Nothingness but not its Being. In its decompression it
annihilates itself as pour-soi and this becomes its foundation as pour-
soi, but its contingency as en-soi remains out of reach. (EN, 127)
Facticity is what remains of the en-soi (pure being) in the pour-soi, and
as such it is the basis on which reflective consciousness is founded, but it
cannot return the pour-soi to the position of en-soi. Instead, it simply indi-
cates the pour-soz"'s relation to pure being through memory.
What the pour-soi lacks is not any thing or object in particular but
being itself. The pour-soi does not find itself as being in relation t.o the
nothingness that is its freedom. "The pour-soi, as the foundation of itself,
is the surge of negation. The pour-soi founds itself in as much as it denies
itself a certain Being or manner of Being" (EN, 131). The being that the
pour-soi denies itself is the being of the en-soi. In its negating capacity,
the pour-soi cannot be simply what "it is" without losing this freedom and
becoming a mere thing.
To better understand this structure of the pour-soi, which is the struc-
ture of human being, Sartre turns his attention to the nature of tempo-
rality. Sartre uses the categories provided by Heidegger in Being and Time
(where Heidegger defines the temporal nature of Dasein as ek-stasis, out-
standing), but Sartre also uses temporality to explain the nature of the
pour-soi as continuous negation. For Heidegger, time is the main prop-
erty of being and thus constitutes being's horizon. Sartre uses the term
to show that the past is what was and therefore is no longer. This nega-
tion of the present transforms it into something that has the properties
of an object via memory. The past is not an object but has all the proper-
ties of an object because it no longer is. "If already I am no longer what I
was, it is still necessary that I have to be so in the unity of an annihilating
synthesis which I myself sustain in Being; otherwise I would have no rela-
tion of any sort with what I am no longer, and my full positivity would be
exclusive of the non-being essential to becoming" (EN, 161).
1 Ht r"ltf:S I ntAUING
Sartre interprets Hegel's Wesen ist was Gewesen ist to fit his own negat-
ing system. Here one's past constitutes one's being in that it is what one
was, but in the present one faces what one will become. It is precisely in
the present that realiti-humaine is continually in contact with being and
nothingness: I confront what I am, which, by the time I reflect on it, is no
longer what I am but what I was: "The present is precisely this negation
of Being, this flight from Being inasmuch as Being is there as that which
one evades. The pour-soi is present to Being in the form of flight; the
present is a perpetual flight in the face of Being. Thus we have precisely
defined the fundamental meaning of the Present: the Present is not"
(EN, 167-68). The present is the manifestation of the negative character
of the pour-soi.
For Sartre, the key property of the pour-soi in its temporality is its
negating capacity as that which is always oriented toward the future. The
pour-soi is constantly constituting and reconstituting itself through its free
acts, which are always future-oriented. "In this sense the pour-soi has to be
its future because it can be the foundation of what it is only before itself
and beyond its Being. It is the very nature of the pour-soi that it must be
an always future hollow" (EN, 172).
Sartre's temporal stnicture implies a profound shift in emphasis
between Sartre and Heidegger. In his temporal structure, Sartre relies
almost entirely on the Aristotelian understanding of time and thus uses
the categories of past, present, and future with little or no reflection on
those categories. By contrast, part of Heidegger's project in Being and
Time was to red1ink Aristotle's concept of time and to provide a new
understanding that corresponds to Dasein's own temporal structure
as being-in-the-world. Sartre adopted Heidegger's categories and his
basic structure but did not take the departure from Aristotle seriously
because he was more interested in defining the negating nature of the
pour-soi (which he does using the traditional categories of past, present,
and future). Heidegger's understanding of time conserves the Aristote-
lian model as what he calls "public" or "now" time. This is time as mea-
surement. This move is similar to the one he uses to redefine human
being's primary mode of being-in-the-world as nonreflective coping
(ready-to-hand), while at the same time conserving Husserl's concept
of intentionality in the contemplation of things (present-at-hand). In
his understanding of time Heidegger wants to show a similar formula
wherein Aristotelian (public) time is understood in terms of that which
is present-at-hand and thus detached from our everyday existence. An
authentic understanding of time conserves the aspect of public "now
time" but also requires an understanding of time in relation to Dasein's
temporal structure and must take into account the categories of "dar-
ability" (Datierbmkeit) and "significance" (Bedeutsamkeit). "The ordinary
142
Jean-Paul Sartre
interpretation of world-time as now time never avails itself of the horizon

by which such things as world, significance, and datability can be made
accessible. These structures necessarily remain covered up, all the more
so because this covering-up is reinforced by the way in which the ordi-
nary interpretation develops its characterization of time conceptually"
(BT, 475).
But how exactly do we avail ourselves of the horizon by which such
things as world, significance, and datability can be made accessible? Hei-
degger does not tell us exactly, but suggests that this availability can be
accessed through the threefold structure of care (Sorge) as thrown ( Gewor-
fenheit), falling (Verfallen), and projecting (entwerfen). But this requires an
understanding of what Heidegger means by "care" and how this relates
to his conception of time. At the beginning of chapter 6 of Being and
Time, "Care as the Being of Dasein," Heidegger writes that being-in-the-
world is a structural whole but is phenomenally so manifold that it is
difficult (and perhaps even impossible) to grasp it as unified. Thus the
way Dasein exists in its everyday mode of being is equally manifold and
equally difficult to grasp as unified. In order to investigate this totality
that is so diverse as to defy a unified definition, Heidegger instead seeks
to demonstrate how Dasein reveals its being as care. This is necessarily
ambiguous and problematic because Heidegger is not providing a defi-
nition of Dasein nor of being. Rather, he is explaining a fundamental
mode, "care," by which Dasein reveals the way it is.
If we think of the term "care" in the most literal sense, concern, inter-
est, oversight, even worry, we can get to the heart of what Heidegger is
trying to say. To "take car< of something or someone is to be concerned
with that entity's well-being and at some level with its future. The caretak-
ing takes place in the present but is done with an eye to the future. When
Heidegger says that "Dasein is an entity for which, in its Being, that Being
is an issue," he is claiming that we are beings who care about the issue
of being and thus are concerned about it (BT, 236). In the sense that
we care about our being, we are concen1ed with what Heidegger calls
our "owmnost potentiality for Being." This is essential for Heidegger's
understanding of time as it implies that in "care" Dasein is always pro-
jecting itself forward toward the possibility of its "ownmost potentiality
for Being," but also toward death. In this sense one aspect of care, pro-
jecting ( entwerfen), is essentially futural. But as we have seen, we are also
creatures who exist as being-in-the-world, and as su.ch we live in a world
of possibilities that are already given to us. We have been thrown into a
world that gives us the possibilities that we can project forward. Thus the
aspect of care, thrownness ( Geworfenheit), that gives us our possibilities
for the future seems to be based on the past. This world of possibilities
implies the shared cultural context of das Man and the realm of everyday
143
THE fiRST READING
existence. Because our possibilities for the future are based on a collec-
tive cultural nexus, the present is a falling ( Verfallen) into "the way things
have been interpreted by das Man" (BT, 239). This leads Heidegger to
the existential crisis, when Dasein will either project itself into the safe
harbor of inauthentic existence or own up to an authentic relationship
"'ith its ownmost potentiality for being. In either case, Dasein follows
the structure of care, which is the basis of everything we do. Simply put,
everything we do, we do with care.
Dasein's concern with the world it lives in manifests itself in the three-
fold structure of care and through this category Heidegger leads us to
an understanding of time that is not simply detached observation of the
phenomena as manifested on a clock. For Heidegger, the theoretical,
limited, and necessarily compartmentalized categories of past, present,
and future are inadequate to understand the kind of beings we are who
exist in a concerned and care-ful relationship with the world. Heidegger
therefore offers an alternative structure wherein our primary mode of
existence in the world is neither compartmentalized nor theoretical.
Indeed, Heidegger's use of time in the structure of care seems to strad-
dle the categories of past, present, and future. In the case of "caring"
Heidegger shows that "the being of Dasein means ahead-of-itself-being-
already-in-(the-world) as being-amidst (entities encountered within-the-
world). This being fills in the signification of the term 'care' [Sorge],
which is used in a purely ontologico-existential manner" (BT, 237).
Dasein is "already in," "ahead of itself," and "amidst." Heidegger
describes temporality as the sense of care (Sorge), and the gerund best
describes this relational movement, which is not merely a flux of "nows"
nor the denial of the present in anticipation of the future but the ek-
static (out-standing) temporal structure of Dasein.
Heidegger does not privilege the future in terms of specific construc-
tions to be finished at a later date (as Sartre supposes) nor does he rely
on a series of "nows" in flux (like Bergson). In Aristotelian language, we
work on projects that are future-oriented but our involvement with the
future is conditioned by our relational position in the present. In fact,
for Heidegger, having too much concern for the future, as in Hegel's
teleological stntcture, is a way to avoid our finitude by placing something
in front of us that we must conclude, which allows us to avoid the pos-
sibility that we ourselves could "conclude" at any moment. This over-
emphasis on the future, which exists in the structure of care as falling
( Verfallen), is the realm of inauthentic existence, of das Man, and as such
can be seen in relation to Dasein's flight in the face of death. For Sartre,
conversely, the future presents the promise of freedom. It is what we are
not yet and thus, in Sartre's construction of the pour-soi as self-constitu-
tive, the future is the realm of pure possibility where we can reconstitute
144
Jean-Paul Sartre
ourselves in whatever manner we choose. This freedom is not freedom as

traditionally conceived; instead, it is freedom as a structural necessity. In
opposition to the past, which is what I was,
the Being of the Future which I have to be, on the contrary, is such
that I can only be it; for my freedom gnaws at its Being from below.
This means that the Future constitutes the meaning of my pres-
ent pour-soi as the project of its possibility, but that in no way pre-
determines my pour-soi which is to come. Since the pour-soi is always
abandoned [dilaisse1 to the annihilating obligation of being the foun-
dation of its Nothingness. (EN, 156) '
Sartre sees the "not yet being" of the future as the site where the
pour-soi constitutes itself, not because it wants to but because it has to. "It
stands on the horizon to announce to me what I am from the standpoint
of what I shall Be." Thus the p~esent and even the past are coded by the
future, which is the site of freedom.
Sartre criticizes Heidegger for placing too much emphasis on the
future and claims that one should instead emphasize the present. His
criticism is misplaced, however, since he makes no distinction between
Heidegger and Aristotle, seeing Heidegger's program as a privileging
of one aspect of time and not as a restructuring of the concept. This
criticism is based partly on Sartre's philosophical training, partly on his
particular understanding of Heidegger, and partly on Sartre's desire
to emphasize the present as the continual meeting point of being and
nothingness. But as we will see when we discuss Sartre's understanding
of "responsibility," the success of his own existential project and notion
of freedom can be achieved only through an emphasis on the future.
It is through Sartre's discussion of "transcendence" that we come to
understand how the temporal nature of the structure of the pour-soi relates
back to the en-soi. Here we might want to take quick note of the distinc-
tions between Sartre's understanding of transcendence and the under-
standings of Husser! and Heidegger. 42 Transcendence for Husserl refers
principally to the intentional object. He uses the example of a cube, which
is constituted by the intentional interpretation of immanent content. The
cube has immanent content as cube but I as the observer can only observe
one, two, or at most three sides of the cube at a time. By means of tran-
scendence, I perceive the cube as cube despite the limited nature of my
perception. Transcendent objects are thus the main field of application
42. For a discussion of the phenomenological use of the term trmt.~cendrorl' in Husserl,
Heidegger, and Sartre, see Spiegelberg, The Plumomenolof!;ical Mm,1'111ent, 511-13. Sec also
Hazel E. Barnes, "Sanre's Ontology: The Revealing and Making of Being" in Howell, 17Je
Camln'idge Compo11ion to Sartrl'.
145
THE FIRST READING
for the transcendental reduction, by which they are removed from the
real world and bracketed for descriptive observation and reflection. This
reveals the ego, which is the source of all phenomenological investigation.
Sartre differed from Husserl on the issue ofhyletic sense data and the con-
stitution of a transcendental ego. For Heidegger, transcendence applies to
a fundamental property of Da.sein that is the basis of intentional acts and
that thus makes it possible for Dasein to refer to objects beyond its acts.
Heidegger's transcendence is therefore unrelated to the static property
of objects in Husserl's immanent sphere and denies the primacy of theory
and reflection. Instead, transcendence can be understood as the present
participle of the verb "to transcend" and characterizes the way human
beings relate to the world and the way beings relate to being.
Sartre was well acquainted with both these models, but his concept
of transcendence seems to relate to the flight in the face of anguish that
the pour-soi experiences when faced with the nothingness that constitutes
freedom. For Sartre, transcendence is the consequence of the fact that
the pour-soi is always a lack. It is an expression of the pour-soi's incomplete-
ness. The pour-soi wants to be the en-soi; what the pour-soi lacks is precisely
an en-soi. This is in fact the revelation of the pour-soi in its totality. Sartre
uses Descartes's second proof to show how the pour-soi in its "imperfect
Being surges past itself toward the perfect Being" (EN, 133). The being
that is founded on nothing but its own nothingness (the pour-soi) surges
toward the being that is founded on its own being (the en-soi). But if the
pour-soi actually became the en-soi it would lose its character as pour-soi,
and thus the pour-soi is always a "detotalized-totality which temporalizes
itself in a perpetual incompleteness" (EN, 229). The notion of the pour-
soi as detotalized-totalization became the basis for Sartre's understanding
of Hegel's dialectic. The pour-soi is transcendence because it is never sat-
isfied with itself and always passes beyond its present to its future, negat-
ing the present that it passes.
Because Sartre employs Corbin's translation (of Heidegger's section
on transcendence), which uses the verb se dipasser (to pass beyond),
one might infer that the structure of Sartre's concept of transcendence
is closer to Heidegger's than to Husserl's. Yet curiously, Sartre's "tran-
scendence" seems to be closer to Heidegger's term Verfallen, the realm
of inauthentic existence (of das Man) where Dasein flees in the face of
anxiety. For Sartre, the flight into the future that negates the past is not
the construction of an inauthentic existence but the structure of tran-
scendence itself (EN, 243).
In the final section of Being and Nothingness, Sartre attempts to come
to an understanding of the concept of freedom for the rialit6-humaine
based on the conclusions of the previous chapters. This is also where
the work becomes most explicitly a "confrontation with Heidegger." In
Jean-Paul Sartre
opposition to Heidegger, who claims to limit his existential analysis to

pure ontology, Sartre attempts to provide a doctrine of action by which
one can live one's life. Thus he embarks on an elucidation of an "exis-
tentialist" doctrine based on his conception of human freedom.
This doctrine is Sartre's understanding of the ontological structure of
the pour-sot'43 as it coincides with actual experience: "Man is free because
he is not merely himself but presence to himself. The Being which merely
is what it is cannot be free. Freedom is, actually, the void which is already
at the heart of man and which forces the realiti-humaine to create itself
rather than to be" (EN, 516).
We are what we choose to be. Every moment of our life is based on
these choices, as Sartre points out, and even not choosing turns out to
be a choice not to choose. This shows the dangerous nature of Sartre's
concept of freedom. In Sartre's existentialist philosophy we are free to
choose anything except not to choose. This is to say that we can choose
to be anything except to not be free, "we are condemned to freedom."
Our freedom is not based on the choice to be free but on the fact that we
must choose. By Sartre's definition freedom is the basis of our self-constitu-
tive nature and thus an essential part of our makeup. Although we have
a past and a given contingent situation, by virtue of our "freedom" we
always change our situation via the choices we make. When "we choose
we annihilate ourselves, this is to say that we make the future tell us who
we are by conferring a meaning to our past" (EN, 543). According to Sar-
tre, we define the past based on the future; this is the meaning of "we are
what we are not and we are not what we are."
Here we arrive at one of the most troubling aspects of Sartre's formu-
lation of freedom. According to Sartre, we are free even in the face of
contingency. This is to say that because we are free to change our situa-
tion there is no essential difference between a quotidian choice, buying
a loaf of bread, and an extreme situation, living interned in a prisoner
of war camp. If a worker in a steel plant, one can always choose not to be
one. Sartre contends that even under the most adverse conditions, such as
torture or anti-Semitic persecution (two examples Sartre presents side by
side), the realiti-humaine retains its structure as freedom. But what kind of
freedom is this? How does one choose not to be the object of anti-Semitic
persecution or not to be tortured? Sartre never makes this clear. 44
43. It is important to note that Sartre has equated the pour-roiwith the cogito, the ego, the
self, the I, and rinlit.i-humaine. While the terms seem to have slightly different meanings at
different points of the book, they all refer to human being.
44. For an excellent critique of Sartre's Bei11g and Nothir1g1U'ss based on these issues,
see Marcuse, "Existentialism," 309-46. See also Natanson, A CritiquR of jmn-Paul Snrtre's
Ontol.ogy.
147
THE FIRST READING
Sartre's doctrine is based entirely on the choice that the pour-soi

makes in the face of its own radical contingency. This leads the pour-soi
to realize its own freedom as it emerges from, and actually is, the noth-
ingness, which causes it to flee in the face of the anxiety that the noth-
ingness produces. Thus if anything like an authentic understanding of
existence can occur it must be in confronting the realization that the
pour-soi is self-constitution based on nothing. The assertion mirrors Hei-
degger's understanding that authentic existence can be derived only
from the confrontation with death, which is the realization of the pos-
sibility of no longer having possibilities. Thus Sartre must engage Hei-
degger to prove that death does not hold this privileged position but
that instead freedom does. For Sartre, death is just another example
of contingency, such as birth or life circumstances. Sartre claimed that
Heidegger acted in bad faith because he took the cognitive reflection
on death to be the personalization of death based on his understand-
ing that Heidegger's interest was the cogito as the locus of being-
towards-death: "It is my subjectivity, defined by the pre-reflexive cogito,
that makes my death an irreplaceable subject and not death that gives
the irreplaceable ipseite ofmy pour-sot' (EN, 619). According to Sartre,
death is no more my ownmost possibility than love or hate. For him,
Heidegger's emphasis on death focuses on personal finitude and avoids
the larger issue of the nothingness that constitutes all realite-humaine as
well as our freedom. Thus Heidegger's use of death avoids the confron-
tation with and explanation of the understanding of authenticity in the
act of free choice and self-constitution. Sartre dismisses Heidegger's
emphasis on death in favor of his own emphasis on choice and recon-
structs the confrontation one faces in anguish as a confrontation with
freedom and responsibility.
In his 1945 play No Exit, Sartre placed his characters in hell, deny-
ing them the possibility of death. They have already died and their con-
frontation with death has not altered their existence; therefore it is only
in the face of others (who limit the freedom of the pour-soi) that they
,can come to achieve freedom in the act of re-creating themselves. If the
conclusion of No Exit is any indication, the possibility of achieving an
authentic understanding of being is bleak. Being and Nothingness ends on
a similar note; the promise of freedom appears to man as a sentence, a
condemnation, and not a right.
Being and Nothingness shows a pronounced debt to Husserl, Hegel,
and especially Heidegger, but cannot be said to agree with any of
them. It was written at a point when Sartre was moving away from the
influence of Heidegger and closer to Hegel and Marx. But in 1943,
Sartre's understanding of Hegel was not very sophisticated and his
knowledge of Marx was limited to the rhetoric of the French Comrnu-
148
Jean-Paul Sartre
nist Party. 45 Therefore the primary concern of the work as a whole lies
in the assimilation of, and confrontation with, the works of Heidegger.
This movement was based on Sartre's particular understanding of Hei-
degger's philosophical project, which ultimately led to his reformula-
tions of Heidegger's philosophical constructions.
Sartre the Celebrity: The Popularization of Heidegger

When it was published in 1943, Being and Nothingness did not sell espe-
cially well and, despite its popularity among a small number of intellec-
tuals, most of them Sartre's friends, it cannot be said to have been the
main factor in the popularization of Heidegger in France. 46 Instead it
was through the fundamentally Cartesian presentation of Heidegger's
philosophy in Sartre's literature, theatrical pieces, and articles that a
wider public became acquainted with the name Martin Heidegger. By
the end of World War II, Sartre was a celebrity. The success of Nausea had
made him a literary name, and the appearance of The Age of Reason and
Le Sursis in 1944 reinforced this success. The impact of his "Resistance"
play, The Flies, first performed on june 6, 1942, made Sartre a force in
the theater as well. The Flies was not a box office hit, but his next play, No
Exit, was, and with the success of No Exit, existentialism came into vogue
and Sartre gained international renown.
The war also marked a shift in Sartre's immediate philosophical con-
cenls. The war and the Occupation led Sartre to an emphasis on choice,
engagement, and activity. This was a departure from the paralysis of the
1930s manifested in Nausea. Vladimir Jankelevitch described Sartre's
shift toward political engagement as a "kind of unhealthy compensation,
a remorse, a quest for the danger he did not want to run during the
war." 47 This may be true, but Sartre's transition from a project of phil-
osophical contemplation in the 1930s to political engagement during,
but mostly after, World War II follows a larger trend among intellectuals
of the generation of 1933.Jankelevitch is essentially describing the guilt
that the generation of 1933 felt for not having acted politically in the
1930s, a guilt that led them to compensate for this shortcoming through
engagement in political life in the 1940s and 1950s.
45. For the influence of Hegel and Marx on Sartre, see above, n. 10; see also the section
on Merleau-Ponty in chap. 3.
46. It should not be surprising that a seven-hundred-page philosophical treatise did not
sell well, especially given the economic conditions in France in 1943 under the German
Occupation. What is surprising is that the book was published, given the paper shortage
and the "restricted" selection of texts under German control. See Henri Michel, "L'activite
culturelle: Evasion ou soumission," in Paris Allemand (Paris: Albin Michel, 1981).
47. Interview in Liheration,]une 8-9 and 10, 1985, published posthumously.
THE FIRST READING
The experience of the war led Sartre to his understanding of free-

dom, and the myth of the Resistance led him to a sense of collectivity
tbat inspired an optimism still lacking in Being and Nothingness. 48 During
his "Resistance" period, working with the group Socialisme et Liberte,
Sartre came under the influence of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who led him
away from individualistic philosophy and toward a philosophy of action
and political engagement. 49 Merleau-Ponty also imparted the sophisti-
cated understanding of Hegel and Marx that he had acquired through
his involvement in Kojeve's seminar and his work in phenomenology. 50
In 1943 Sartre encountered several other members of Kojeve's seminar
in the context of his theatrical career. He became close to Raymond
Queneau and, through Queneau, met Georges Bataille and Jacques
Lacan. Sartre's shift toward Hegel and Marxism was developed through
his contact with these individuals who, by the 1940s, had all moved closer
to Heidegger and were interested in Sartre's understanding of Heideg-
getian philosophy. The inverse trajectories of these intellectuals (from
Hegel to Heidegger for Merleau-Ponty, Bataille, and Lacan; and from
Heidegger to Hegel for Sartre) intersected at the site of a common feel-
ing of solidarity based on the "myth of resistance."
Sartre's movement toward political engagement based on this new-
found sense of collectivity led him to found the journal Les temps mod-
emes in 1944. But he also realized that to reach a larger public-a "total
public" as he called it in his Cahiers pour une morale--he would have to
reformulate his ideas in a manner that would make them accessible. The
forum for this clarification or "popularization" of Sartre's philosophy
came in the form of a refutation of the attacks on his philosophy from
religious thinkers and the French Communist Party. Both the left and
the right assailed Sartre's philosophy as a decadent form of "nihilistic
individualism." Sartre refuted these ~ttacks in the article "A propos de
l'existentialisme: Mise au point"51 for the review Action on December 29,
1944 (republished June 8, 1945), and in the lecture "Existentialism Is a
Humanism" presented in Brussels and then at the Club Maintenant in
Paris in 1945. Both served to simplifY his philosophical works and made
them accessible in the interest of his political agenda.
48. The extent of Sartre's Resistance activities is a subject of debate. What is clear is that
regardless of his actual participation, the "feeling" of collective activity he found in the
idea of Resistance was exhilarating to him. For the myth of Resistance, see Rousso, Thr
Vir:hv Syndrome (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991). See also Gilbertjoseph, l!nr
s douce or:r.upatiott: Simor1r dr Bemwoir et jrm1-Paul Sartre, 1940-1944 (Paris: Albin Michel,
1991); Tony Judt, PasllrnperjPct (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); and Cohen-
Sola I, "Un ecrivain qui resistait," in Sartre, 1905-1980,337-58.
49. Sartre, "Merleau-Ponty vivant," 324-25.
50. See chap. 3.
51. We will explore this article in relation to the first Heidegger Affair in the next chapter.
150
Jean-Paul Sartre
Sartre's lecture at the Club Maintenant confirmed his position as phi-

losoph~celebrite.The auditorium was packed and women fainted. In the
ambiguous atmosphere of the Liberation, Sartre provided a philosophy
of optimism and responsibility that looked to the future as the basis by
which we can always reconstitute ourselves as individuals or as a nation.
The dissemination of Sartre's philosophy through his novels, plays, and
articles presented Heidegger as an integral part of his work and brought
Heidegger to center stage in France. Whereas the question for the gen-
eration of 1933 (and perhaps all of France) had been phrased in terms
of the Hegelian teleology as "Where are we going?" during the 1930s,
after World War II this question was no longer palatable or even applica-
ble. A teleological understanding of historical progress was incompatible
with the catastrophe of World War II. After the war a new question was
needed that could allow philosophy and society to take stock of recent
events and address the uncertain future. Mter World War II the ques-
tion became, "Who are we?" or even, "Who am I?" At issue was no longer
"history" but "ontology," especially difficult to face in the wake of defeat
and collaboration. In "Existentialism Is a Humanism," Sartre sought to
answer this question in a way that would engage the collective guilt that
was the legacy of World War II and provide an ontological basis for a
cultural and political regeneration. Sartre's new interpretation of his
philosophy was phrased in the language of hope and progress; his inter-
pretation of Heidegger remained at the center of this project.
Sartre presented Heidegger's philosophy as coterminous with his brand
of existentialism. He claimed that it was a prime example of "atheistic exis-
tentialism" and defined the essential component of Heidegger's thought
in the formula "existence precedes essence." Sartre cites Heidegger fre-
quently throughout the lecture and takes little time to distinguish between
his ideas and Heidegger's or to establish any differences between the two.
Sartre presents Heidegger's Dasfrin as realiti-humaine and thus reiterates his
incorporation of Dasfrin into the cogito. Sartre's reduction of Heidegger's
philosophy into the phrase "existence precedes essence" is an inversion of
Descartes's formula. In place of"l think, therefore I am," Sartre postulates
"I am, therefore I think" (EH, 64). This inversion c;:onserves the Cartesian
cogito and places it at the center of Heidegger's philosophy, reformulated
by Sartre in the image of the French philosophical tradition. This is the
domestication of Heidegger's philosophy in France.
While the shift to a fundamentally Cartesian Heidegger made Hei-
degger's work more accessible in France, the popularity ofSartre's work was
not the result of his use of Heidegger. Instead, it was Sartre's application
of the reformulated Heidegger in understanding the human condition
in a seemingly senseless world that allowed him to present his philoso-
phy as an apologia for collapse, defeat, and collaboration. Couched in a
151
THE fiRST READING
language that emphasized responsibility and freedom and guaranteed the

possibility that the individual and the collective (France) could redeem
themselves in the future, Sartre's presentation of the senselessness of the
world was precisely the excuse the French people needed. If things do not
make sense, then they are out of my control, thus they are not my fault.
Sartre's existential humanism presented the senselessness of the world
through a language of responsibility that at the same time absolved the
human being of all responsibility. This ambiguous but comforting mes-
sage found a receptive audience in the people of France, who were trying
to come to terms with their own actions during World War II.
Sartre's program in "Existentialism Is a Humanism" drew on the themes
in Being. and Nothingness. His explanation of the human condition as
thrown into being (so that we must choose what we are) implied responsi-
bility and, furthermore, Sartre wrote that "when we choose we choose for
all of humanity." For Sartre, this choice implies a "universality of man" that
"is not given but is created" (EH, 70). Sartre presents this collective move
toward freedom and responsibility in tenns of the "man of good faith,"
who is conspicuously absent from Being and Nothingness: "The acts of man
in 'good faith' have the ultimate signification of the search for freedom in
what it is .... Certainly this freedom, which is the definition of man, does
not depend on the Other but on engagement" (EH, 82-83).52 Good faith
is based entirely on engagement. What one engages in, however, does not
seem to matter: "The only thing that counts is to know if the invention
(the act) that you choose is made in the name of freedom. We can choose
anything under the plan of engaged freedom" (EH, 86).
This strange and seemingly contradictory understanding of freedom
and responsibility is best expressed in Sartre's 1944 essay "La Republique
du silence": "Never have we been more free than under German occu-
pation. . The very question of freedom was posed, and we were at the
verge of the most profound knowledge which man can have about him-
self. . This total responsibility in total solitude, wasn't this the revela-
tion of freedom?" 5 3
We are left to wonder what kind of freedom this is. What does free-
dom mean when you are as free while enduring Occupation, torture,
or extermination as you are while enjoying total autonomy? The nature
of Sartre's responsibility is exposed in his notion of freedom. We do not
52. Frede1ick Olafson points out that Sartre's contention that one cannot consistently
desire one's own freedom without desiring that of others is very Kantian and in "flagrant
conflict" with the line of thought developed in BPing and NolhingnPss and elsewhere. See
Frederick A. Olafson, Heidegger and tltf' Ground '!f Ethirs: A Study of the Mitsein (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998).
53.Jean-Paul Sartre, "La Republique du silence," Les !eftTf's Jranr;a.ises, no. 20 (September 9,
1944): 1.
Jean-Paul Sartr1
choose our situation but react t<? it. The randomness and absurdity of
facticity is simply the site we find ourselves in and, if that site is German
Occupation, then the responsible act is to make choices in that situation
based on our own selves and nothing more. If these choices displayed
cowardice or weak character, we can redeem ourselves through coura-
geous and productive choices in the future. 54
"Existentialism Is a Humanism" is based on Sartre's confrontation with
and appropriation of Heidegger in Being and Nothingness, but despite the
retention of Heidegger's terminology and his frequent references to Hei-
degger as the basis for his work, there is very little, if any, of Heidegger's own
philosophical concerns left in Sartre's existentialism. Sartre conceded that
in "Existentialism Is a Humanism" he accepted "the discussion on the ter-
rain of vulgarization" in order to enter the field of politics and engage the
masses (EH, 101). 55 But Sartre's transformation of Heidegger's philosophy
goes beyond the simplifications in "Existentialism Is a Humanism," as we
have seen in our analysis of Being and Nothingness.
A further consequence of this lecture was that it led to a conflation of
existentialism with Marxism in the 1950s. Sartre presented Heidegger as
fundamentally compatible with Marx. But here we have ventured into the
vast domain ofSanre's existential Marxism, which lies beyond the scope of
this work. 56 What is important here is that Sartre's understanding of Hei-
degger is the basis on which he co~es to present Hegel's dialectic in Being
and Nothingness. Sartre 's articulated use of Hegel (derived from the influ-
ence of Merleau-Ponty) fit into the framework of the en-soi/pour-soi and
the relation of the pour-soi to the other as manifested in the pour-autrui.
There was nothing fundamentally left-wing about Sartre's philosophical
structure at the time of his lecture on humanism. Despite his later turn to
Marx, the essential component in his philosophy is simply choice.
Sartre's use of Heidegger led to the widespread supposition in France
that Heidegger was an existential humanist, and Sartre's own politi-
cal affiliations with various left-wing political groups led to the vague
impression that Heidegger had similar concerns. This in part explains
the stunned reaction of many intellectuals to Heidegger's affiliation with
the National Socialist Party, a "realization" that came about with the first
Heidegger Affair of 1946-1947. Another factor is that Sartre transformed
Heidegger into a French thinker focused on the Cartesian cogito and
54. Sartre's model is especially effective because it works equally well for individuals and
for collectivities.
55. This point is brought up in the question-and-answer period following the lecture.
Sanre later came to the conclusion that it was a mistake to publish this essay, but he never
stopped its publication or its widespread international circulation. Sartre makes this claim
in Francis] eanson's Le problhne rrwml et Ia prnsfp dl' Snrtre (Paris: Seuil, 1965), 46.
56. See Postet, Existmtial Mm-xMm;Jay, Marxism anti 'Jbtafiry; and Judt, Pnstlmperfert.
153
THE FIRST READING
the project of freedom and progress, which had its roots in the work of
Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire. In a move that resembles Freud's return
of the repressed or Heidegger's concept of the unheimlich, the strange-
ness, unfamiliarity, and foreignness ofHeidegger's philosophy returned to
France in Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism" to Jean Beaufret, in which
the German philosopher confronted Sartre's philosophical appropriation
of him. This letter arrived on the heels of the first Heidegger Affair and
revealed Heidegger's philosophy as something other than what it was sup-
posed to be, disturbing the niche that Sartre had carved out for it. This
disturbance, which questioned the primacy of the Cartesian cogito as well
as the metaphysical tradition, returned Heidegger's philosophy to France
with as much force and originality as when it gripped Levinas, Kojeve, or
Sartre. But Heidegger's emphasis had changed during the twenty years
between the publication of Being and Time and the "Letter on Human-
ism." The investigation into being via the particular being-which was the
project of Being and Time and the basis of the first reading of Heidegger in
France-was replaced by an emphasis on the history of being and the rela-
tion of being to language, which defines the second reading of Heidegger
in France. This second reading centers on the relationship between Hei-
degger and Jean Beaufret. Thus we must turn to Jean Beaufret in the
milieu immediately following World War II to understand the confronta-
tion between the two readings.
154
The Second Reading
CHAPTER 5
Jean Beaufret, the First Heidegger Affair,
and the "letter on Humanism"
Sartre's popularity and the subsequent popularity of existentialism had

myriad effects on the reading of Heidegger in France. The most signif-
icant are directly related to Sartre's domestication of Heidegger's phi-
losophy, the "realization" of Heidegger's affiliation with the National
Socialist Party in the 1930s, and the return of his philosophy to chal-
lenge the primacy of this first reading (already in question because of
Heidegger's political activities). To untangle the relations among these
events we must explore the two related phenomena of the first "Hei-
degger Mfair" and Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism," written to Jean
Beaufret in 1946 and published in 1947.
In the case of the first "Heidegger Affair," the news of the philosopher's
association with National Socialism was spread largely through articles
attacking existentialism. In the case of the "Letter on Humanism," it rep-
resented a rpovement of French intellectuals-who found Heidegger
through the works of Sartre-away from Sartre and toward Heidegger. The
two phenomena are structurally linked by the popularity of Sartre and by
the activities of the French army in its investigation into Heidegger's polit-
ical past. In a curious twist of fate, the officer in charge of cultural affairs
for the region that included Freiburg was interested in existentialism, spe-
cifically in the work of Sartre, and thus took particular interest in the case
of Martin Heidegger. He sent a young military attache named Frederic de
Towarnicki to find the German philosopher. Towamicki was acquainted
with his philosophy through the works of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and
through an article on existentialism by a lesser known philosopher named
Jean Beaufret. On finding Heidegger, Towarnicki brought him texts from
France, opening the first direct communication between Heidegger and
the French intellectuals who had used his work since Henry Corbin's visits
in 1936. In his official capacity as a soldier in the French army, Towamicki
157
THE SECOND READING
facilitated the first direct contact between Heidegger and Sartre as well as
between Heidegger and Beaufret.
Towarnicki's visits to Heidegger changed the French understanding
of Heidegger in two ways. First, Towarnicki's article on Heidegger in the
pages of Les temps modemes led directly to the first Heidegger Affair, plac-
ing Heidegger's philosophy in question and forcing many left-wing exis-
tentialists (the champions of freedom, individualism, and responsibility)
to reconsider the first reading of Heidegger derived from the work of
Sartre, Wahl, Kojeve, and others. Second, Towarnicki's visits led to a new
understanding of Heidegger in France based on the "Letter on Human-
ism," distancing the German thinker from the subjectivist tendencies of
French existentialism.
Jean Beaufret
The origins of this second reading of Heidegger in France and its rela-
tion to the first are the keys to understanding the recurring Heidegger
Mfairs. This second reading of Heidegger can be dated to the "Letter on
Humanism" in 1947. Thus we must explorejean Beaufret's role in the
acquisition and dissemination of Heidegger's thought in France and its
opposition to the existential understanding of the first reading presented
by Kojeve, Wahl, Sartre, and to a lesser extent Merleau-Ponty, which was
the dominant reading of Heidegger at the time. Jean Beaufret is instruc-
tive both as an example of the second wave of scholars who came to Hei-
degger via Sartre-the reigning maitre apenser in France-but also as the
porteparole, the mouthpiece, through which Heidegger was able to com-
municate with the French intellectuals who were so fascinated with his
work.
Beaufret was born on May 22, 1907, in Auzances, Creuse. He was tech-
nically of the same generation as Sartre, Aron, and Merleau-Ponty and
he did exhibit some of the characteristics of the generation of 1933, such
as a lack of political engagement in the 1930s, followed by a period of
active participation during the war and immediately following it. But
unlike the other members of that generation we have discussed, Beaufret
h~d no interest in challenging the established borders of French phi-
losophy during his years at preparatory school, the ENS, or immediately
thereafter. Beaufret's interest in Heidegger came after his turn to exis-
tentialism, which was inspired by the widespread popularity of Sartre. By
all accounts, Beaufret was an excellent teacher and a good writer with an
impressive ability to grasp and explain the most difficult philosophical
constructs, but he was not an original thinker. He did not seek to create
a new philosophy or push the limits of the old as Aron, Merleau-Ponty,
Jean Beaufret
and Sartre were doing. Instead, Beaufret was content to follow in the
footsteps of others and explore the philosophical fields cleared for him.
Beaufret grew up in the small rural village of Auzances, the only son
of two grade school teachers. He did not share the same experiences
of World War I that affected Sartre, Aron, and Merleau-Ponty. World
War I passed without directly affecting him, his family, or his immedi-
ate circumstances. He moved to Paris in 1925, where he enrolled in a
preparatory class for the ENS at Louis-le-Grand. In 1928 he entered the
Ecole Normale Superieure. While at the ENS, Beaufret worked under
the direction of Leon Brunschvicg. His academic formation in Paris
was very similar to that of Aron, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, but unlike
the three elder normaliens, Beaufret remained entirely within the fold
of Brunschvicg's neo-Kantian rationalism and centered his studies on
Descartes. 1 While at the ENS, he met Merleau-Ponty, who was two years
ahead of him, but they did not become close until much later. Beaufret
spent a year at the Institut Franc,;ais in Berlin in 1930-1931, but he was
not interested in phenomenology or the work of Husser! or Heidegger.
He spent his time working on the philosophy of Fichte in preparation
for his thesis. On returning to France, Beaufret did his military service
and after completing it took and passed the agregation.
Beaufret's first teaching post was at the Lycee de Gueret in Creuse,
not far from his parents' house. In 1937 he took a post in Auxerre, and
from 1937 to 1939 taught at a French lycee in Alexandria. Beaufret was
away from Paris throughout the 1930s and he did not produce any philo-
sophical texts until well into the 1940s. He did not have the opportunity
to attend any of Kojeve's seminars nor did he strike out on his own as
Sartre did in Le Havre. Instead, Beaufret became a perfect product of
the ENS: a teacher of traditional philosophy. "In 1937, when I was at the
lycee in Alexandria, I taught philosophy in the most academic fashion,
like all the other instructors at the time. There wasn't the slightest trace
of phenomenology. "2
Beaufret's turn to phenomenology, which led him to Heidegger, is
bound up with the events of World War II. In 1939, when he was called
to active duty, he ran into Merleau-Ponty at the military training center
known as the Ecole d'Etat-Major in Vincennes. During their conversa-
tion, Merleau-Ponty told Beaufret about phenomenology and showed
him a text by Husser!. By 1939, Beaufret had become bored with the
abstract and purely theoretical nature of the neo-Kantian model and had
1. Jacques Havet, 'Jean Beaufret," Associati,Qn Arnical.e des Anciem Elives de l'Er.ol.e Narrnnl.e
Supeneure (1984): 82-94.
2. Roger Kempf, "En ecoutant Jean Beaufret," in Jean Beaufret, De l'nti.\ln1.tinli.~rnP a
lleidPgger (Paris:J. Vrin, 1986), 9.
159
THE SECOND READING
come to the conclusion that Brunschwicg's neo-Kantian rationalism was

helpful for understanding "the work of Descartes, Leibnitz and Kant, but
lacked the essential component of the investigation into the foundation
of things. "3 Beaufret felt he had all the tools to teach philosophy satis-
factorily, but he was not satisfied with philosophy. Merleau-Ponty sym-
pathized with Beaufret's concerns and suggested Beaufret read Sartre's
L'imaginaire. Beaufret did not have the time to act on Merleau-Ponty's
suggestion; soon after their meeting, his unit was sent into battle and he
was captured by the Germans.
In September 1940, Beaufret escaped from the transport train that
was taking him to Germany. He fled to the unoccupied zone and in
November of the same year he took a post teaching at the Lycee Cham-
pollion in Grenoble. There Beaufret came across Sartre's article "Une
idee fondamentale de la phenomenologie de Husserl," which appeared
in the Nouvelle revue fran~aise in 1940. Beaufret knew he wanted to study
phenomenology after his meeting with Merleau-Ponty, but he had not
decided whether he would turn to Husser! or Hegel. Mter reading
Sartre's article, he made a clear choice: he would begin with Husserl. 4
Beaufret began serious work on Husserl and phenomenology in 1941.
He started with Husserl but soon turned to Sartre's L'imaginaire, and this
work in turn led Beaufret to Heidegger. While teaching in Grenoble, he
began to read Heidegger's Being and Time and Kant and the Problem of
Metaphysics. The work went slowly. Restricted by his limited knowledge
of German, Beaufret focused on the sections translated by Corbin in
1938. He had only started his investigation when, in October 1942 he
was offered a post in Lyons at the Lycee Ampere.
Beaufret's project took a turn for the better when through mutual friends
he met Joseph Rovan, who was also interested in studying Heidegger, and
the two soon began work together on Heidegger's Being and Time. 5 Rovan
was Jewish; hiding out in Lyons, he could not officially enroll at the univer-
sity or take courses. Rovan's knowledge of German was excellent, but his
philosophical background was not extensive. Beaufret, conversely, had a
good philosophical background but struggled with Heidegger's German.
The two met each night to translate and interpret passages from Being and
Time; they had both heard rumors about Heidegger's political activities
but at the time they were mesmerized by his philosophy. 6
3. Jean Beaufret, Entreliens avec frf.dh-ir d.e 1(Jwarnir.ki (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1984), 6.
4. Ibid., 4-5.
5. Joseph Rovan translated the "Letter on Humanism" into French for the review
Fontaine.
6.Joseph Rovan, Mm1lhnoignagesur llridegwr, 1-e Mo11dt>, December 8, 1987,2.
160
Jean Beaufret
Rovan and Beaufret's relationship went beyond the world of philoso-

phy. Rovan was involved with the Resistance group Pericles; his knowl-
edge of German made him a master forger of documents. Through
Rovan, Beaufret came to join the Resistance. When the Nazis occupied
Lyons and imposed a curfew, Rovan forged papers for himself so that
he could continue his nightly visits to Beaufret's house. 7 Beaufret and
Rovan worked together, on Heidegger and for the Resistance, until Feb-
ruary 1944, when Rovan was arrested by the Gestapo. Beaufret escaped,
thanks to a warning from Rovan, but Rovan was sent to Dachau, where
he remained until the end of the war.
Beaufret U~ft Lyons soon after and returned to Paris, where he found a
job at the Lycee Saint-Louis. Beaufret continued the philosophical work
he had started with Rovan; according to his own testimony, it was on June
6, 1944-amidst all the intensity and excitement of the Allied invasion at
Normandy-that "I finally had the sensation that I had begun to under-
stand Heidegger. "8 This comment by Beaufret is strategic and manipu-
lative. It is an anecdote that Beaufret told to Frederic de Towarnicki in
the late 1970s and that he has repeated in multiple interviews. Beaufret's
intention is to create a link between Heidegger, the liberation of France,
and Beaufret's participation in the Resistance that will distance Heidegger
from his affiliation with the Nazi Party. I will discuss the efficacy of this
strategy later in the chapter. For now I will simply comment that by June
1944 Beaufret had come to have what he considered a fundamental grasp
of Heidegger's philosophy as presented in Being and Time.
In 1945 Beaufret took a post at the Lycee Decor in Paris and in 1946
he was given a position at the Lycee Henri IV. This was one of the main
feeder schools for the ENS, and Beaufret's position as an instructor at
this prestigious preparatory school became an important factor in dis-
seminating Heidegger's philosophy to the students who ~ould become
the next generation of teachers and philosophers. Between March and
September 1945, Beaufret composed an article on existentialism for the
journal Confluences, which was published in serial format under the title
"A propos de l' existentialisme." Towarnicki brought several sections of
this article to Heidegger during his first visit to with him. Thus it was
through Beaufret's article on existentialism that Heidegger became
acquainted with the modern French philosophical scene, the work of
Jean-Paul Sartre, and the French understanding of his own philosophical
project. This article also shows the extent to which Beaufret, as of 1945,
was still in Sartre's shadow and indebted to the translations of Henry
Corbin in his understanding of Heidegger.
7. Ibid., 2.
8. Beaufret, l~nlretiRns aller Fredmr de Townrnicki, 4.
161
THE SECOND READING
That year,just before the first Heidegger Mfair, Beaufret's position was
heavily indebted to the first reading of Heidegger in France and mirrors
the work of the scholars we have investigated so far. In this sense Beau-
fret is indicative of a larger trend among French intellectuals who came
to Heidegger in the 1940s through the work of Sartre and the popularity
of existentialism. It was not until after Beaufret's contact with Heidegger
and after the "Letter on Humanism" that Beaufret came to understand
the difference between Heidegger's own presentation of his philosophi-
cal pr~ject and the understanding of Heidegger in the work of Sartre
and other French existentialists.9 But before we begin our investigation
of Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism," let us first return to Frederic de
Towarnicki to better understand how the phenomenon of the "Letter"
is inextricably linked to the activities of the French army and the first
Heidegger Affair.
Frederic de Towarnicki
Towarnicki had not studied philosophy formally. His interests were lit-
erature and poetry, and he was acquainted with the philosophy of Hei-
degger through the works of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Raymond Queneau,
Maurice Blanchot, and Jean Beaufret. Towarnicki had co~e to existen-
tialism during its wave of popularity in France after World War II. His
mission to visit Heidegger was like an imitation to visit a celebrity. Towar-
nicki was starstruck in Heidegger's presence, and it shows in his articles
and in his reflections on his visits to the Black Forest.
Towamicki was still serving in the French army immediately following
World War II when he was assigned to the service social for the Rhine and
Danube area, which included Freiburg. The officer in charge was a lieuten-
ant named Fleurquin, whom everyone in the company called "Captain." 10
Towarnicki was part of a detachment that included Marcel Marceau and
Alain Resnais. Their mission was to set up a cultural center to get in touch
\vith German writers, artists, and intellectuals and reestablish dialogue
between France and Germany. Part of this entailed ascertaining the extent
9. I disagree with Anson Rabinbach's assertion in "Heidegger's 'Letter of Humanism'
as Text and Event," in In the Shadow of Cala,\lrofJhe: GPrman lrt/elleclua/.s !xlween Apocalypse
and Enlightenment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), that Beaufret's article
was a challenge to Sartre. While I agree that Beaufret attempts to distinguish between
Sartre and Heidegger in this article, I would argue he was still too indebted to the first
reading to seriously challenge Sartre, who provides both the vocabulary and commentarY
that inform his reading of Heidegger at that time. For a full treatment of the 1945 article
in Co11jluPnc.Ps, see Ethan Kleinberg, "The Reception of Martin Heidegger's Philosophy in
France: 1927-1961 ," Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1998, chap. 6.
10. Towarnicki does not explain the reason for this, but all references to Fleurquin in his
memoirs and in lette1s are to "Captain Fleurquin."
162
Jean Beaulret
to which any of these writers, artists, and intellectuals had been aligned with
National Socialism and to report this information through the appropri-
ate channels.U Fleurquin was especially interested in existentialism and
wanted to stage an international debate at their cultural center. Towamicki
was given the mission of establishing contact with the necessary people:
"Captain Fleurquin dreamed of organizing a great philosophical debate on
existentialism. According to him this was also the desire of many officers
in General Arnaud's press service ... but Sartre was impossible to find in
Paris, I did not yet know Beaufret, and nobody knew the exact whereabouts
of Heidegger. "12
While doing preliminary legwork for the debate, Towarnicki came across
accusations that Heidegger had been a high-ranking Nazi. In the summer
of 1945 he was officially ordered by Fleurquin to conduct an investigation
into Heidegger's political past but only so as to make a recommendation
concerning the debate on existentialism. Towamicki read the army's dos-
sier, but at that point there was no conclusive proof of participation other
than his service as rector at the University of Freiburg in 1933.
At the end of summer 1945, Towamicki made his first attempt to see Hei-
degger. It was only partially successful, since Heidegger was not at his home
in Freiburg but at his cabin in Todtnauberg. Towan1icki did see Heidegger's
wife, told her of the planned debate, and gave her two issues of Conflumces.
The two issues contained installments of Beaufret's article on existentialism,
the first, on Kierkegaard and his relation to Heidegger, and the fifth, which
included the discussion of Sartre, Descartes's cogito, and the relationship
between Husserl and Heidegger via the concept of intentionality.
In September 1945, Lieutenant Fleurquin, Alain Resnais, and Towar-
nicki went to see Heidegger and this time found him home. Given the
precarious position of Heidegger's circumstances, both professional and
personal, he was pleased to discover that these representatives of the
French army were interested in his philosophical work and not his poli-
tics. Heidegger was also eager to discuss the state of philosophy in France.
He had been invited by Emile Brehier and Jean Wahl to participate in a
conference on Descartes in 1936, but according to Heidegger relations
between the two countries broke down soon after and the conference
never took place. 13 Based on that invitation and the visit of Henry Corbin
that same year, 14 Heidegger knew there was some French interest in his
work but he had no idea what had happened in the last decade. Heidegger
was especially interested in the work of jean-Paul Sartre. Beaufret's article
11. Frederic de Towarnicki, A /.a renconlre de 1-JPidegger (Paris: Arcades Gallimard, 1993),
18-21.
12. Ibid., 20.
13. Ibid., 31-32. According to Brehier, Heidegger never wrote back.
14. Henry Corbin, llenry Corbin: V.s Cnltiers dR l'llerne (Paris: Editions de L'Heme, 1981), 17.
163
THE SECOND READING
was the first time he had heard mention of this young philosopherI nov-
elist/playwright. Towarnicki attempted to explain Sartre's philosophical
program as best he could, but in the end he offered to bring Heidegger
some samples of Sartre's work. Heidegger in turn gave Towarnicki a copy
of his article on Descartes composed for the conference in 1936. Hei-
degger hoped it might clarify some of his positions that were presented
in an "overly Cartesian fashion" in Beaufret's article. 15 Before they left,
Resnais photographed Heidegger with Towarnicki and Fleurquin.
Between September and December 1945, Towarnicki spent all his time
traveling between Paris and Freiburg in his attempt to organize the con-
ference on existentialism. In this capacity, Towarnicki opened a direct
line of communication between Heidegger and the French philosophers
who had been using his work. Through this line of communication, Hei-
degger's own philosophical texts made their way to France, as did his
defense of his political choices and actions.
Mter his first visit to Heidegger, Towarnicki returned to Paris in the
hope of finding jean-Paul Sartre and enlisting him in the debate on exis-
tentialism. Sartre had recently departed for America, so Towarnicki could
only leave him a note. Towarnicki went next to the Sorbonne to contact
Emile Brehier to see if he still wanted Heidegger to come lecture on Des-
cartes. Brehier was of the opinion that Heidegger had answered his letter
eight years too late. He no longer wanted to deal with Heidegger, whose
questionable political past was now known among intellectuals in Paris. 16
Brchier was also concerned about the negative effects of the influence
of this "typically German philosophy" on the youth of France, especially
as presented in Sartre's work. Towarnicki was no closer to organizing the
debate than before. He picked up several texts that he felt marked the
influence of Heidegger in France and prepared to return to Freiburg.
During this second visit, Towarnicki brought Heidegger copies of Sar-
tre 's Being and Nothingness, Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception,
and Raymond Queneau's Obstacle et valeur} 7
On returning to Paris, Towarnicki had given up all hope of finding Sar-
tre, only to run into him on the rue Jacob, not far from the Cafe de Flore.
Sartre was excited to finally see Towarnicki and, more important, to hear
the news about Heidegger. Sartre invited Towarnicki to join him for a drink
at the Cafe Deux Magots and began to fire question after question at him.
Of the utmost importance to Sartre were two issues: the state ofHeidegger's
work now and his account of his activities during the Nazi regime. while
15. Towarnicki, A la rnu:ontre dP HPidegger, 31-32.

16. Ibid., 36-37.
17. Two of these three texts were written by pat ticipants in Kojeve's st'minar and we have
seen the indirect influence of the seminar on the third.
164
Jean Beaufret
Sartre was visiting the United States he heard a number of rumors about
Heidegger and National Socialism, among them that he had ordered book
burnings and d1at he had locked Husserl out of the school library. Sartre lis-
tened attentively as Towarnicki told him Heidegger's account of the event~
of the 1930s. Sartre told Towarnicki that he believed Heidegger's shortcom-
ing was that he had not addressed the issue of ethics and that Heidegger's
philosophy lacked a concrete motal synthesis of the historical and univer-
sal.18 Sartre's analysis was based on his concept of engagement as presented
in "Existentialism Is a Humanism." While sitting at the Deux Magots, Sar-
tre proposed that Towarnicki write an article on Heidegger for Les temps
modrnes in which Towarnicki could present Heidegger's side of the case as
Towarnicki understood it. Towarnicki agreed; that decision would become
the basis for the first Heidegger Affair in France. The topic of conversation
then turned to Heidegger's current work in philosophy. Towarnicki told
Sartre that Heidegger was in the process of reading Being and Nothingness;
Sartre could not wait to hear Heidegger's comments. Towarnicki promised
to report Heidegger's assessment of the work back to Sartre and tried to
establish a specific date for the debate on existentialism. Sartre's time was
in high demand, so in the end they decided to get together after Towar-
nicki returned from his next visit to the Black Forest.
While Towamicki was in Paris, Heidegger read Being and Nothingness.
He was impressed with Sartre's use of phenomenological description, and
in reading Sartre's philosophical opus Heidegger came to understand the
association between his philosophical work and French existentialism. To
Heidegger, Sartre's emphasis on d1e human actor and the conservation of
the Cartesian ego cogito was a misreading of his work. As a result, he was
impatient to meet Sartre and discuss the discrepancies between their philo-
sophical programs. When Towarnicki returned from Paris, Heidegger set
out to instruct him about the fundamental differences between his philo-
sophical project and Sartre's existentialism. Heidegger explained to Towar-
nicki that, unlike Sartre in Being and Nothingness, he in Being and Time had
been interested solely in the question of being. "And that question was not
an anthropological interrogation of human experience or the foundations
for an ethics, but the question into the truth of Being in itsclf." 19
During this visit, Heidegger also tried to explain what he saw as the
problems with the French presentation of Dasein:
18. Towarnicki, A la rencontre de Hri.degger, 57-59.

19. Ibid., 63. One must be suspicious of the revisionist nature of Heidegger's presentation
of his 1927 project. Both Anson Rabinbach and Tom Rockmore suggest that Heidegger's
representation of his philosophy is a calculated attempt to both distance himself from his
Nazi past and to reinvent himself for French consumption. See Rabinbach, "Heidegger's
'Letter of Humanism' as Text and Event"; and Tom Rockmort>, 1/ri.dPggPT and FrPnch
PhilosojJity: /Iuman ism, A~ttihumanism, and Being (New York: Routledge, 1995).
165
THE SECOND READING
Heidegger smiled with a perplexed air, then he started to laugh:

"You philosophize on the ground like the Greeks." No. Dasein is not
the cogito, the world is not inside of consciousness. Dasein does not
mean "There I am"; it is more like "there." Heidegger pointed to a
grove of magnolias at the edge of the park. He explained to me that
Dasein is (Being) in the world. 20
Heidegger's presentation of his philosophy was nothing like the first
reading of his work in France; Heidegger's concerns were separate from
those of Sartre's existentialism. Towarnicki returned to Paris ready to
spread this information.
In Paris, Towarnicki had become Sartre's ambassador to Heidegger. At
his hotel, he received a letter from Sartre asking him to join Sartre and
Simone de Beauvoir at the Cafe de Flore the next morning so they could
discuss a trip to Strasbourg and then to Freiburg to meet Heidegger. 21
At their meeting the next day, Towarnicki tried to explain to Sartre what
Heidegger had told him, but Sartre was unclear on Heidegger's point
and felt that a move of this nature would make it impossible to construct
an ethics of engagement. Sartre told Towamicki that Heidegger needed
to look more closely into the works of Marx, and the three set about
making travel arrangements so that Sartre could discuss this in person
with Heidegger.
In the time between Towarnicki's first visit to Heidegger and his meet-
ing with Sartre, an article had appeared in the short-lived journal Terres
des hommes. It was accompanied by the picture Resnais had taken of Hei-
degger, Fleurquin, and Towarnicki. It was through this article that Jean
Beaufret learned Heidegger was still alive and could be reached. One
day, while Beaufret was at his local cafe, the Coq d'Or, not far from the
Luxembourg Gardens, he ran into Towamicki, whom he recognized
from the photo. The fact that Towarnicki was wearing the same military
uniform as in the picture surely helped. Towarnicki told Beaufret about
his meetings with Heidegger and that he had brought Heidegger Beau-
fret's article from Confluences.
Beaufret did not come into contact with Heidegger directly through
Towarnicki. As it turned out, a friend of Beaufret's named Jean-Michel
Palmier was serving in the air force and was preparing to leave Paris on a
mission to Freiburg. Beaufret ran into Palmier at the Coq d'Or on the day
he was to leave and asked Palmier if he could deliver a letter to Heidegger
for him. Palmier agreed and Beaufret scribbled a note by hand while sit-
ting at the cafe. 22 Heidegger received this letter from Beaufret and wrote
20. Ibid., 70.

21. This letter is reproduced in its entirety in Towarnicki, A Ia reriC(mfre dR 1/eidegger, 79-80.
22. Palmier gives his account of the reception of Heidegger in France in "Wege und
166
Jean Beaufret
back an epistle dated November 23, 1945. In this letter, which Beaufret
would attach as an appendix to the published version of "Letter on Human-
ism," Heidegger began to engage the French reading of his work. Beaufret
formulated a number of questions for Heidegger based on this letter and
sent it to him. Heidegger's response to these questions was the "Letter on
Humanism. "23
Towarnicki was far more interested in facilitating a meeting between
Heidegger and Sartre than a meeting between Heidegger and Beaufret.
Towarnicki spent most of his time in Paris trying to arrange the necessary
paperwork and passes to coordinate the meeting, which he hoped would
lead to the debate on existentialism. The paperwork did not go through,
the passes were not acquired. Sartre and de Beauvoir were far too busy
to waste time waiting for visas that might not come, and the meeting
had to be postponed. When Towarnicki returned to Freiburg and told
Heidegger that Sartre would not be coming, Heidegger was deeply dis-
appointed. He immediately had Towarnicki help him draft a letter to
Sartre. Towarnicki reproduced and kept a copy of this letter. 24
The letter sheds light both on Heidegger's interest in the phenom-
enological work being done in France and on his own precarious and
desperate position in Germany. Heidegger had been forbidden to teach,
and his work was impeached by his association with National Socialism. 25
He was a man of great pride and perhaps even greater ego. As a philoso-
pher, he was in desperate need of an audience interested in the philoso-
phy he had to offer. From what he had read of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty,
Heidegger believed that the most interesting work in phenomenology
was being done in France, but that this work was falling into the same
errors as Husserl's phenomenology. The French variant of phenomenol-
ogy was simply repeating the old strategies of Cartesianism and idealism
and thus could not approach the essential problem of being, despite the
originality of the philosophers attempting this inqniry. Heidegger saw
it as imperative, both personally and professionally, to establish contact
Wirken Heideggers in Frankreich," DiP HeiriRggp,r Kot~trmerse, ed. Jltrg Altwegg (Frankfurt
am Main: Atheniium, 1988). For Palmier's investigations into the relation between politics
and philosophy in the work of Heidegger, see Jean-Michel Palmier, /,es P.crits poliliquPS de
1/eidegger (Paris: L'Herne, 1968); and idem, "Heidegger et le national-socialisme," Calti.ers
tk l'Her'fll!: Heidegger, ed. Michel Haar (Paris: Editions de !'Herne, 1983). For his most
current views on the subject, see Pahnier's~postface to Hugo Ott, Martin HeidRgger: lb11R11ls
pour 1.t111! biographie (Paris: Payot, 1990), 379-413. .
23. Interview of Jean Beaufret by Frederic de Towarnicki, published in Towamicki, A la
rnteontre tk 1-/rideggn; 264.
24. Towamicki, A Ia rencontre de Jfeidegger, 83.
25. For a succinct presentation of the German context ofHeidegger's "Letter on Humanism,"
see Rabinbach, "Heidegger's 'Letter of Humanism' as Text and Event," 104-18.
167
THE SECOND READING
with France and present his work as he intended it so as to commence a

truly fruitful and important philosophical dialogue.
Heidegger and Sartre did not meet until 1952, by which time they had
both altered their projects and changed course considerably: Sartre had
moved toward the political in his investigation of Marx, and Heidegger
had turned toward poetry in his investigation of language and the cri-
tique of technology. By contrast with the fall of 1945, when they held
similar but diverging theories about the investigation of being, in 1952
they had very little to talk about.
By mid-December 1945, Lieutenant Fleurquin had been reassigned
and the cultural center was being dismantled. The great debate on exis-
tentialism was never to occur, at least not in Rhote-Lache. Towarnicki
paid one last official visit to Heidegger and then prepared to return to
Paris permanently. In Paris, Towarnicki discovered that he was consid-
ered an authority on Heidegger. At a conference at the Hotel Port Royal,
he was interrogated by Jean Wahl and Emmanuel Levinas, who wanted
to hear Heidegger's story but were also eager to know the state of Hei-
degger's philosophical work since Being and Time. Levinas's reflection
on Towarnicki is most perceptive, as it captures the tone ofTowarnicki's
writing and stalwart defense of Heidegger: "You arrived in Freiburg in
uniform, a courageous young man, and you were spellbound. And with
good reason: you had seen the pyramids." 26 Levinas's comment attests
to the charismatic power of Heidegger and the seductive capacity of his
ideas. As we will see, Towarnicki was not the only one to be "spellbound"
by Hcidegger. 27
On January 1, 1946, Towarnicki's article on Heidegger appeared in
Les temps modernes and with it the first Heidegger Affair officially began.
The Heidegger Affair

The first Heidegger Affair began as a result of Sartre's popularity, which
led to a series of attacks on existentialism from both the left and the
center right. 28 The attacks on the left came from the Communist Party
(the PC), who saw the popularity of existentialism as a direct threat to
the party itself, especially in the seductive power it had on French youth.
According to figures such as Henri Lefebvre, existentialism, with its
26. Ibid., 117.

27. Although not addressed in this work, the case of Hannah Arendt comes immediately
to mind. See Richard Wolin, IIPideggPT:r Childwn: Hannah Arrodt, Karl Liiwith, /Ians jo11m,
a11d J/f'Thprt MamL~f' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
28. See Annie Cohen-sotal, Snrlrt', 1905-1980 (Paris: Gallimard, 1999), 426-27. In the
aftermath of Vichy, the extreme right had been discredited and temporarily silenced. See
Henry Rousso, Thf' Virlty Syndrome (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991 ).
168
Jean Beaufret
emphasis on radical individualism, was just an extension of bourgeois

capitalist values. 29 The attacks from the center right came largely from
the Church, which felt that existentialism was an atheist doctrine cor-
rupting the moral fiber of France. Other center right attacks came from
conservative educators who felt that existentialism was "overly German"
and thus a threat to traditional French philosophy. A common thread in
all these attacks was the strategy to discredit existentialism by exploiting
Heidegger's affiliation with National Socialism. Thus the initial presenta-
tion of Heidegger's political activities in the French press and in various
journals was not in the setv'ice of establishing the extent of Heidegger's
culpability. The French reading public was confronted with Heidegger's
National Socialist past in the form of attacks on existentialism, and the
existentialists had to seek a defensive strategy to defend their philosophi-
cal, as well as political, positions.
In certain academic circles, the "news" of Heidegger's relationship to
National Socialism was not news at all. Alexandre Koyre visited Freiburg in
1934 and returned to tell Levinas and Kojeve that Heidegger had joined
the Nazi Party and was serving as rector of the University of Freiburg. 30
Henry Corbin had visited Heidegger in 1936 to discuss his translations
and thus must have known something about Heidegger's politics. Further-
more, ifSartre had had any interest in the political happenings in Germany
while he was studying phenomenology in Berlin in 1933, he too could have
found out. But the French attitudes toward National Socialism were differ-
ent before the war. In 1936, Emile Brehier saw no problem ~th inviting
Heidegger, by then a member of the Nazi Party for three years, to lecture at
the Sorbonne. In 1945 this was absolutely unacceptable. Guilt about their
lack of political activity in the 1930s, followed by defeat, led to a heightened
sensitivity among French intellectuals regarding their role in World War II.
Furthermore, attacks on German intellectuals such as Heidegger diverted
attention away from the activities of the French during the war. To this end,
the case of Heidegger was strategically perfect because it allowed for an
attack on a rival French philosophy/political system through an attack on a
German (read National Socialist) philosopher. The German was guilty; the
other French philosophers were simply wrong.
29. Henri Lefebvre's critique of Sartre was placed within his chapter on Heidegger in
L'existentialisme (Paris: Le Saggitaire, 1946). Henri Lefebvre, was ultimately expelled from
the French Communist Party. Other attacks came from communists such as jean Kanapa
in his L'exirtentialisme 11 'est fJas 1.m huma11i.wne (Paris: Editions sociales, 1947) and Armand
Cuvillier in Lrs i11fiftralu.ms germaniqw.1 dans Ia pmsie fraru;ai.\1' (Paris: Editions Universe lies,
1945).
30. Emmanuel Levinas, "Comme un consentment a I'horrible," I.e nouvrl ob.wnmleur,
January 22-28, 1988.
169
THE SECOND READING
Sartre found himself under attack and began to craft a defense, but in
doing so he actually precipitated the Heidegger AffairY In his defense
of existentialism, "Existentialisme: Mise au point," for the review Action,
Sartre attempted to distinguish between Heidegger the man and Hei-
degger the philosopher:
Heidegger was a philosopher well before becoming a Nazi. His adher-
ence to Hitlerism, caused by fear, perhaps opportunism, and surely con-
formism, is not pretty, I must agree. But is this sufficient to confinn the
reasoning that "since Heidegger is a member of the National Socialist
Party then his philosophy must be a Nazi philosophy?" This is not the
case. Heidegger has no character and that is the simple truth. Would one
dare say that his philosophy is an apology for cowardice? Don't you know
what happens to men who cannot live up to the level of their work?:~ 2
In this article, written before Sartre had any contact with Heidegger the
man, Sartre attempted to distance himself from Heidegger while at the
same time keeping what is important in Heidegger's philosophy as Sartre
understands it. 33 Sartre's strategy elicited responses that sought to defend
Heidegger as "naive," as well as further attacks from the communists and
the center right. In a certain sense, the Heidegger Affair had already begun,
although only in the margins of a larger attack on existentialism. Thus part
of the complexity of the Heidegger Affair is that it began as a component of
a larger debate about existentialism but with much greater stakes.
These attacks also led Sartre to assign Towarnicki and another French
philosopher, Maurice de Gandillac, to write articles on Heidegger for Les
temps modernes. These articles would "present the facts" as each author
saw them and let the "reader decide for himself." Over the course of the
next two years this first Heidegger Mfair ran its course. The first articles
by Towarnicki and Gandillac appeared on January 1, 1946. These were
followed by an article in November 1946 that Karl Lowith, a Germanjew
and former student of Heidegger, had written while in exile in 1939 but
had updated to respond to the articles by Towarnicki and Gandillac. Two
more articles appeared in july 1947, both in response to Lowith's article,
one by Eric Weil and the other by Alphonse de Waehlens. The debate
concluded with an exchange of letters between Lowith and Waehlens in
which each reiterated their points but neither yielded any ground.
31. For an account of the backlash against Sartre, see John Gerassi, Jean-Paul Sartre: Jlat.Pd
Conscience of /lis Century: Pmte.sl.arll or Protester? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
32. Sartre, "A propos de l'existentialisme: Mise au point," Action, December 29, 1944.
33. This foreshadows what will be developed as the "contingency theory" in the Heidegger
debates, where either Heidegger's affiliation with National Socialism is dismissed
as an aberration or, as in the case of this article, his political activities are dismissed as
inconsequential to his philosophy.
170
Jean Beaufret
But to understand the nature of this first debate and its subsequent
permutations, one must remember it took place before the publication of
the "Letter on Humanism" and thus must be seen entirely in the light
of the first reading of Heidegger in France. At stake is Heidegger's cred-
ibility as an existentialist thinker whose primary focus is ontology, but
ontology as the investigation into human being with all the humanistic
trappings that accompany this reading. The result is that the defense of
Heidegger's philosophy in this first Heidegger Mfair is based on the sub-
jectivist understanding of his philosophy that characterizes the first read-
ing of Heidegger in France. The irony is that these defense strategies
remain virtually unchanged to this day.
The first Heidegger Affair can be divided into two components. The
first is a ''presentation of the facts" based entirely on the allegations
against Heidegger in the Allied dossier and Heidegger's own version of
the facts as told to Towarnicki and Gandillac. The second component
focuses on the extent to which Heidegger's philosophy is National Social-
ist. In this first debate, the two components are related but this relation is
not necessary, since it is possible (though not necessarily satisfactory) to
reach a conclusion about one component without recourse to the other.
The first articles by Gandillac and Towarnicki deal entirely with the first
component, but their "presentation of the facts" as related to them by
Heidegger lead to a conclusion on the second.
A more complex strategy is demonstrated in a preface to the two articles
by Towamicki and Gandillac that was written by the editor of Les temps mod-
emes, either Merleau-Ponty or, more likely, Sartre. In this preface, the edi-
tor introduces the two pieces on Heidegger as two distinct accounts: one
written by a Heidegger enthusiast (Towarnicki) and the other by a "visitor
with some reservations" (Gandillac). With implied objectivity as the media-
tor between these two positions, both substantially similar, the editor makes
a plea for the careful study of Heidegger's philosophy in relation to his
political actions. Mirroring the position Sartre took in his article for Action,
the editor presents a comparison between Hegel and Heidegger in order
to illustrate his point. The analogy between Hegel and Heidegger suggests
that, as in the case of Hegel (and here the author claims that Hegel's later
philosophy was related to his support of the Prussian state), Heidegger "the
philosopher showed his infidelity to his best philosophy when it came to
his political decisions. "34 Furthermore, the editor concludes that on care-
ful consideration of the "essentials of Hegelianism," the dialectic, one dis-
covers that despite Hegel's later tum, the essentials of his philosophy are
34. Preface to "Deux documents sur Heidegger," Les temps rrwdemrs, no. 4 (January 1,
1946): 713.
171
THE SECOND READING
"above suspicion." The reader is to draw the conclusion that the same holds
true for the work of Heidegger.
The preface defuses the issue as to the actual relation of Heidegger to
National Socialism by removing it from the equation. The point is con-
ceded, and thus the extent of Heidegger's involvement is removed from
investigation. This concession allows the editor to avoid the issue of Hei-
degger the man and to concentrate on Heidegger's philosophy. But here
too a concession is made in the allusion to Hegel. The argument claims
that a philosopher's betrayal of his own thought does not prove that that
thought is discredited. Thus Heidegger's turn to National Socialism does
not mean that the essence of his thought is invalid. In Les temps modernes,
the editor presents an argument that allows him to distance himself from
the Heidegger of National Socialism while retaining the essential com-
ponent of Heidegger's philosophy, the pre-Nazi Being and Time. 35
The articles by Gandillac and Towarnicki are far less concerned with
the implications of National Socialism on Heidegger's philosophy than
they are with establishing the "facts" about his activities in the 1930s and
1940s. In an attempt to clarify the situation, these articles ask Heidegger
to respond to the general accusations against him. These accusations
are based on Heidegger's position as rector at Freiburg, reports from
the dossier collected by military intelligence, the rumors and innuendo
presented in the French press in the attacks on existentialism, and the
testimony of emigres and survivors. 36 At the time these articles were
written, very little had been concretely established, there was no paper
trail, and the French army was still soliciting testimony from Heidegger's
colleagues. The official position of the French army in its evaluation of
Heidegger's wartime activities would not be established until December
1947. Thus the first Heidegger Affair is a case of sweeping accusations
35. It is interesting to note that this argument is the opposite of that presented in the 1960s
and 1980s using the "Letter on Humanism." In these later strategies, Heidegger's defenders
distance themselves from the Heidegger of National Socialism on the grounds that the
problem lies with everything written bifore Heidegger's turn away from metaphysics in the
"Letter on Humanism." They thus conserve what they consider to be the essential component
in Heidegger's thought. In Of Spirit: 1/eideggl'T attd tiiP QuRslion (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1989), itself a critical reading of Heidegger's work and his relation to the
metaphysical tradition, Jacques Derrida manages to take this strategy one step further.
Using his inquiry into the term "spirit" {(;eisl], he brackets a phase in Heidegger's work
that corresponds to his association with National Socialism and thus opens the possibility
of salvaging Heidegger's early and later work. One mu~t note that Derrida puts Heidegger's
entire project into question as well. For a discussion of these strategies in relation to the
"Letter on Humanism," see Rockmore, 1/ridR{fgl'T and Frrodt Philosoph_v, 157-58.
36. The issue is clouded by the fact that Heidegger was able to deny certain rumors
that were untrue and thus falsely appeared to be denying his association with National
Socialism generally.
172
Jean Beaufret
and strategic denials, which in the end required a certain amount of

"good faith" granted the testimony of one side or the other. For both
Towarnicki and Gandillac, that "good faith" seems to have been placed
in Heidegger.
Maurice de Gandillac was the first French philosopher to establish
contact with Heidegger after the war. He had attended the 1928 con-
ference in Davos for the Cassirer-Heidegger debate and had learned
about Heidegger from Emmanuel Levin as. 37 His article is certainly less
supportive of Heidegger and significantly less enthusiastic than Towar-
nicki's, but it still paints a flattering picture of Heidegger. This picture
is based largely on Gandillac's recollections of Heidegger at Davos, who
"at that time did not hesitate to shake the hand of Cassirer, who was Jew-
ish, after their long discussions on Kant." 38 Thus we come to Gandillac's
narrative with a certain amount of sympathy for Heidegger. Gandillac
presents two reasons for Heidegger's affiliation with National Socialism.
The first is Heidegger's own conclusion and the second is deduced from
Heidegger's testimony.
Heidegger claimed that "Hitlerism was, in a sense, the historical explo-
sion of a structural malady that afflicts all mankind." 39 This is a succinct
formulation of the argument Heidegger had been developing as early
as 1936 in his lectures on Nietzsche and which is also a prevalent theme
in his Introduction to Metaphysics (1935). This argument sees National
Socialism in its historic manifestation as the logical conclusion of tech-
nology run amok. In this sense, National Socialism is the monstrous frui-
tion of the Western metaphysical tradition. Gandillac points out that in
making this argument, Heidegger in no way implicates himself or the
German people in National Socialism. Gandillac then deduces the sec-
ond argument for Heidegger's involvement with National Socialism
from Heidegger's testimony. Gandillac's conclusion is that Heidegger
was "seduced like a child by the most external aspects of the enthusi-
asm for Hitler. "40 Gandillac does not consider the problematic nature of
one of Europe's foremost philosophers being "seduced like a child" by
the "most external trappings" of National Socialism. The language shows
Gandillac's desire to keep Heidegger's philosophy separate from his pol-
itics. Gandillac presents Heidegger as beguiled by the most peripheral
37. See chap. 1.

38. "Deux documents sur Heidegger," 714. Both Toni Cassirer and Hendrik Pos contest
this report and claim that Heidegger in fact snubbed Cassirer by refusing to shake his
hand. See Toni Cassirer Ml'in Leben rn.i.l Emsl Caslirrr (Hildesheim: Gersten berg, 1981); and
Hendrik Pos, "Recollections of Ernst Cassirer," in The Philo.wfJity oj E.rnsl Carsirer, ed. Paul
Arthur Schilpp (New York: Tudor, 1949).
39. Ibid., 715.
40. Ibid., 716.
173
THE SECOND READING
aspects of National Socialism, implying that he had never considered the

phenomenon seriously. On the one hand, this frees Gandillac to main-
tain that Heidegger's philosophy is separate from National Socialism,
but, on the other, it avoids the most essential question: What in National
Socialism was so attractive to Heidegger and how does this manifest itself
in his philosophy? I would argue that Gandillac could not approach this
question because his understanding of Heidegger's philosophy-as fun-
damentally concerned with the human subject, freedom, and responsibil-
ity-led him to the conclusion that Heidegger's work was incompatible
with the program of National Socialism. As an example of the first read-
ing of Heidegger in France, Gandillac's assessment of Heidegger was
necessarily limited.
Towarnicki's article is a more strident defense ofHeidegger and repre-
sents the model that defenders of Heidegger would continue to employ
through the subsequent Heidegger Mfairs. This strategy is based on
the faithful reproduction of Heidegger's own testimony regarding the
series of events that befell him and how he reacted to them. Towarnicki's
article is quite similar to Heidegger's interview in Der Spiegel (published
posthumously in 1976) and also to the short piece "Facts and Thoughts."
Towarnicki's article relies entirely on the "good faith" he has in the integ-
rity of Heidegger's testimony and his uncritical acceptance of it. 41
Towarnicki's article is presented more or less as an interview based
on the numerous visits he made to Heidegger between September and
December 1945, which allows Heidegger to tell his side of the story. In
Heidegger's account, he took the rectorship in Freiburg only at the spe-
cific request of the former rector, von Mollendorf, who hoped that "my
personality as a professor would help to preserve the faculty from political
slavery."42 Even so, Heidegger claims that he only took the rectorship after
much deliberation. Soon after he took the post, Heidegger continues, "A
41. In fact it is the "bad faith" that Heidegger showed in his equivocations, denials, and
misrepresentations of events that led to the escalation in the intensity of the accusations
and denials in the debates of the 1960s and 1980s. As more and more evidence relating
to the extent of Heidegger's involvement became available, his testimony was shown to
be faulty at best, and many of the intellectuals who had believed Heidegger in the 1940s
found that they had been duped. The embarrassing nature of this position caused some
to reevaluate but others to dig deeper and search for alternative strategies to defend the
position in which they had invested their time and energy. In a domino effect, this led
others to heighten their attacks, drawing on the increasing amount of evidence against
Heidegger, and so on.
42. These are Heidegger's actual words to Towarnicki, published in "Deux documents
sur Heidegger," 717. Based on the investigation into Heidegger's affiliation with National
Socialism, presented in the work of Hugo Ott and others, Heidegger's assertion cannot be
considered truthful.
114
Jean Beaufret
party official arrived at my office at the university; he insisted in the name

of the minister that I enlist in the Nazi Party.... Mter a long deliberation
I decided that I was ready to accept that formality in the interest of the
university, but only on the condition that I would not, during my time as
rector nor after, have to have personal relations with the National Socialist
Party."43
Heidegger attempted to separate his position from that of National
Socialism by stating his opposition to biologism, especially the theories of
Alfred Baumler and Alfred Rosenberg. How opposed to Nazi racial the-
ory Heidegger actually was is open to debate. For us the essential point is
that in Towarnicki's article Heidegger's claim is used to decode his recto-
rial address as well as his activities in the party, and to judge them fun-
damentally opposed to National Socialism. Heidegger presented himself
as a reluctant Nazi who joined the party only to work against it in the
interest of the university and through his opposition to racial ideologues
such as Baumler and Rosenberg. 44 Furthermore, he implied that this
opposition to biologism was also an opposition to the Nazi Party's anti-
Semitic policies. 45 Even if this were true, it would only be insofar as those
policies were framed in biological terms. Finally, Heidegger claimed that
he broke with National Socialism after the Rohm putsch of 1934, when
he "realized what the Nazis were," but that he was unable to resign from
the party because it could not be done without dire repercussions. Hei-
degger then cites a litany of attacks leveled against him by various Nazi
officials as proof of his own anti-Nazi conduct.
Heidegger mixes equivocations with outright lies. He presents us with
statements (some true) that lead to faulty conclusions, such as that his
antibiologism constituted anti-Nazism, or that attacks by other Nazis
absolved him of being a Nazi himself. The effect of Towarnicki's article,
at a time when very few facts were known and when Heidegger's thought
was associated with such thinkers a~ Sartre, Aron, and Merleau-Ponty, was
to render Heidegger's claims plausible. If in fact Heidegger had been
asked to take the position as rector by his colleagues and was forced to
join the party as a result, then it would make sense that his philosophy
would not reflect any of the values of National Socialism. His purported
opposition to biological racism and the attacks on his character and phi-
losophy by other members of the Nazi Party seemed to corroborate his
account. If one believed Heidegger's story as told to Towarnicki, then
one believed that Heidegger was never really a Nazi but joined only
because of the circumstances; therefore his philosophy is absolved of any
43. Ibid., 718.

44. See Rabin bach, "Heidegger's 'Letter of Humanism' as Text and Event," 105~.
45. "Deux documents sur Heidegger," 719.
175
THE SECOND READING
contamination. This argument, of course, hinges on readers taking Hei-

deg;ger at his word, as Towarnicki does.
Heidegger's story was called into question in a response to Gandillac's
and Towarnicki's articles written by Karl Lowith and published in the
November 1946 issue of Les temps modernes. Lowith had been a pupil of
Heidegger's but had been forced to leave Germany because he was a Jew.
He fled to Rome and then spent four years in Japan before taking up
residence in the United States. The piece LOwith submitted to Les temps
modemes was written in 1939 in Japan and then reworked to address the
articles by Gandillac and Towarnicki. Lowith 's article did not focus on
Heidegger's activities in association with the Nazi Party (this it assumes),
but on Heidegger's philosophy itself and the extent to which it is inher-
ently National Socialist. Thus Lowith's article represents the second com-
ponent of the Heidegger Affair.
Lowith was convinced that Heidegger's turn to National Socialism was
"the immediate political implication of the Heideggerian notion of Exis-
tence."46 Lowith's argument is based on a comment Heidegger made to
him during their meeting in Rome in 1936. Lowith was living in Rome
at the time, having fled Germany with his wife after losing his post in
Marburg in 1933. Heidegger had come to Rome with his wife and two
children to deliver a lecture on Holderlin. Since Lowith and Heidegger
had been close in Freiburg, Lowith and his wife planned an excursion to
Frascati and Tusculum for Heidegger and his family. The day started off
on a disturbing note, as Lowith recalls, because "even on this occasion,
Heidegger did not remove the party insignia from his lapel. He wore it
during his entire stay in Rome, and it had obviously not occurred to him
that the swastika was out of place while he was spending the day with
me." 47 This not so subtle reminder of Heidegger's political allegiance
prompted Lowith to ask Heidegger several questions about the situation
in Germany. In the course of their conversation, Lowith told Heidegger
that he believed that "his [Heidegger's] partisanship for National Social-
ism lay in the essence of his philosophy." Heidegger's response to this
question forms the basis of Lowith's article and of his understanding of
the links between Heidegger's philosophy and his political allegiance to
National Socialism. "Heidegger agreed with me without reservation, and
46. Karl Lowith, "Les implications politiques de Ia philosophie de )'existence chez

Heirlegger," LPs ternps rnodrrrtes, no. 14 (November 1946): 343. Lowith's thesis corresponds
to what Tom Rockmore has labeled the "neccesitarian" argument, which concludes that
Heidegger's political action is a direct result of his philosophy. In opposition to this stands
the "contingent" reading, where Heidegger's National Socialist episode is seen as an
aberration and thus is not directly related to his philosophy.
47. Karl Lowith, M)' Last MPeling with IIPideggPr in Hm'lll', I 936, in The JlridPggpr Controversy,
ed. Richard Wolin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 141.
176
Jean Beaufr1
added that his concept of "historicality' [ Geschichtlichkeit] was the basis of

his political 'engagement."' 48 The piece on Lowith's last meeting with
Heidegger and the article that appeared in Les temps modernes were writ-
ten at the same time and can be seen as reflections on the same ques-
tions. LOwith's article showed that, contrary to the article presented bv
Gandillac (which separated Heidegger's philosophy from his politic~!
actions), Heidegger's philosophy, specifically the project of Being and
Time-is "a theory of historical existence" and that the
practical application of this project to an actual historical situation is
only possible insofar as Being and Time already contains a relation to
contemporary reality. It is this practical-political application in terms
of an actual commitment to a determinate decision that in truth justi-
fies or condemns the philosophical theory that serves as the basis of
this commitment. What is true or false in theory is also so in practice,
above all when the theory itself originates in conscious fashion from
a supreme fact, historical existence, and when its path leads it back
to this. 49
LOwith's strategy was to use an analysis of Heidegger's political texts
to show that his philosophy led directly to his affiliation with National
Socialism.
To make this correlation, Lowith quotes paragraph 74 of Being and
Time: ''Only a being which is essentially ... futural so that it is free for its
death and can let itself be thrown back upon its factical 'there' by shat-
tering itself against death, is able to take over its own thrownness and be
in the moment of vision 'for its time."' 50
Lowith contends that Heidegger's language in Being and Time and
the language of National Socialism are very close, and that it did not
take much prodding for Heidegger to shift the focus of his project from
the investigation of individual being to a more collective understanding
of being that wants to "take over its own thrownness" by subscribing to
National Socialism, which was "the moment of vision for its time."
Whoever, on the basis of these remarks, reflects on Heidegger's later
support in favor of Hitler, will find in this first formulation of the idea
of historical "existence" the constituents that are the basis of his later
political decision. One need only abandon the still quasi-religious iso-
lation of authentic existence, "always particular to each individual"
and apply the "duty" [Milsen] that follows therefrom to "specifically
48. Ibid., 142.

49. Karl Lowith, "Les implications politiques de Ia philosophie de l'existence chez
Heidegger," Les temfJ5 modernes, no. 14 (November 1946): 344.
50. Ibid., 344-45. I have translated the passage as Lowith presents it and not as it appears
in Being a11d Time.
177
THE SECOND READING
German existence" and its historical destiny in order thereby to intro-

duce into the general movement of German existence the wave of
energetic but ultimately vain categories of existence ("to decide for
oneself'; "to found oneself in the face of nothing"; "to want one's
ownmost destiny"; "to take responsibility for oneself') and to proceed
from here to destruction on the terrain of politics. 5 1
According to Lowith, the pieces were all in place for Heidegger's
political decision; all that was needed was the shift in emphasis from
the individual to the collective. The nature of this shift is perhaps not
sufficiently explored by Lowith, but it allows him to draw a causal link
between Heidegger's philosophy and his politics.
But the shift in emphasis in Heidegger's philosophy that Lowith
alluded to was unknown in France, and the understanding ofHeidegger's
work was profoundly different in the two countries. The philosophy of
Heidegger understood by Gandillac and Towarnicki read Heidegger's
paragraph 74 in terms of Raymond Aron's Introduction to the Philosophy
of History, not in terms of radical conservatism. There is a passage in
Lowith's article that is especially interesting when read in the light of
the different understandings of Heidegger in Germany and France: "It
is probable that none of Heidegger's students would have imagined in
1927, at the time of the appearance of Being and Time, that the concept
of death ('always authentic and particular,' radically individual) which is
a central category in the analysis of Dasein, would be travestied six years
later to celebrate the glory of a National Socialist 'Hero. "' 52
Lowith's reference is to Heidegger's speech on Albert Leo Schlag-
eter,53 where Heidegger uses the language from his analysis of death in
Being and Time to praise the resolute action of Schlageter when confront-
ing his own death. Lowith employs this quotation to demonstrate the
shift in Heidegger's work from the emphasis on the "particular and indi-
vidual" to a general (read German) Dasein. But references to Schlageter
and to Heidegger's political texts were lost on the French audience. 54
In this light, Lowith's comment that none of Heidegger's pupils would
have imagined, based on his work in 1927, what was to come in 1933
51. Ibid., 348.

52. Ibid., 354.
53. Schlageter was a veteran of World War I and a member of a radical nationalist volunteer
corps, which was attacking French and Belgian Occupation troops in the Rhineland. He
was caught attempting to sabotage train tracks, tried, and sentenced to death in 1923.
In 1933, Schlageter was declared the first National Socialist German soldier and became
a symbol of National Socialism. See Victor Farias, Ileidl'gger and Nazism (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1989), 87-95.
54. The first French work that examined Heidegger's political writings was Palmier's l~mts
politiques dP 1/eidegger ( 1968).
178
Jean Beaufret
is especially instructive. The French reading of Heidegger was based

entirely on Being and Time and the texts that Henry Corbin had trans-
lated, and this reading was coded by what we have called the first reading
of Heidegger in France. When we consider the lack of concrete evidence
about Heidegger's activities in the 1930s and 1940s, not to mention an
ignorance of Heidegger's current work, the parameters of the first Hci-
degger Affair begin to become clear. Lowith was arguing about the phi-
losophy and politics of the Heidegger of 1936. The French were arguing
about the philosophy of Heidegger in 1927, as understood in France
through the lens of existentialism, and the politics of Heidegger based
on Heidegger's testimony in 1947. Lowith's position as an outsider to
French philosophical concerns was exacerbated by the particular French
understanding of Heidegger's philosophy, which saw it as antithetical to
National Socialism.
In July 1947, two articles appeared in Les temps modernes in response
to Lowith's piece. Both attempted to defend Heidegger's philosophy
against Lowith's claim that it was inherently National Socialist; both dem-
onstrated variations on the contingency argument. But what is specific to
these two articles, as opposed to later variations of the contingency argu-
ment, is that in both cases the defense of Heidegger is more a defense of
existentialism. For Waehlens and for Weil, as for Towarnicki and Gandil-
lac, the defense of Heidegger is based on their particular understanding
of his philosophy, but in these two articles the terms of the debate have
shifted in response to Lowith's claim that Heidegger's philosophy was
the basis for his political decisions.
Alphonse de Waehlens, the author of the first response, was Belgian,
but as a scholar of phenomenology and the author of a book on Merleau-
Ponty he was much closer to the French reading of phenomenology than
to the phenomenology of Husser!. His understanding of Heidegger is
also heavily indebted to the work of Merleau-Ponty. Waehlens's argument
has two parts. The first argument will be repeated throughout all the Hei-
degger debates. Waehlens contends that Heidegger as an individual actor
is of no importance and that the only factor that should count is whether
Heidegger's philosophy is tainted by National Socialism: "It is only impor-
tant for us to know if Heidegger's philosophy is intrinsically National
Socialist or if it was simply led to National Socialism by the abstract facts
of the personal reactions (good or bad; just or unjust; coherent or inco-
herent; heroic, cowardly, or criminal) of a private person."55
This opening statement relieves the author of the burden of deter-
mining Heidegger's guilt or innocence in relation to his political
55. Alphonse de Waehlens, "La philosophie de Heidegger et le Nazisme," Les temps

modernes, no. 22 Quly 1947): 115.
179
THE SECOND READING
choices. For Waehlens, the entire burden of proof lies in demonstrat-

ing that Heidegger's philosophy is not National Socialist; only it matters.
Over the next forty years, this strategy would take on greater significance
as more and more information about the extent of Heidegger's involve-
ment with National Socialism was revealed. But more pertinent is the
means by which Waehlens sought to prove that Heidegger's philosophy
was not National Socialist. Through his argument, Waehlens articulates
the French understanding of Heidegger's philosophy in France as mani-
fested in the first reading.
Waehlens's basic claim is that Heidegger's "existential phenomenol-
ogy"-a term Heidegger never used to describe his own work-is fun-
damentally opposed to fascism and antithetical to National Socialism.
Therefore, Waehlens concludes the fault does not lie with Heidegger the
philosopher but with Heidegger the man, who betrayed his philosophy. 56
Waehlens's argument privileges a reading of Heidegger as an existen-
tialist in the French sense of the term and presents Heidegger as a fel-
low combatant against what the "French existentialists call the 'serious
spirit' (pessimism)" as well as an opponent of "heroism and the will to
power." In this light, "the lucidity of Heidegger condemns the 'serious-
ness' of the fascist masses and is equally severe in its condemnation of
the will to power and 'activist' nihilism of their leaders."57 Waehlens's
reading focuses on drawing the themes of individuality, responsibility,
and freedom out of Being and Time, and specifically out of the section on
historicality (paragraph 74). These themes were all central to the works
of Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, and Aron, and Waehlens uses them to present
an existentialist interpretation of Being and Time that is fundamentally
incompatible with fascism and by extension National Socialism.
Waehlens's defense of Heidegger never departs from the French
parameters in which it was set. He demonstrates the incompatibility of
Heidegger's philosophy with fascism by means of Raymond Aron 's defi-
nition of fascism and a discussion of Heidegger's historicality that relies
heavily on Aron 's Introduction to the Philosophy of History.
The article ends with a blanket refutation of Lowith 's piece based on
a dismissal ofLowith's reading of Being and Time. This tactic is ultimately
counterproductive. But to dismiss Waehlens's reading of Being and Time
would also be counterproductive. Neither reading is wrong, but both
are skewed. Lowith expands a specific connection, which is in need of
56. Ibid., 119. Attached to this claim is a more petty argument that any conclusion that
leads to the connection between Ileidegger's philosophy and National Socialism must be
based on a misreading of Heidegger's work. Again this argument would be taken up by
defenders of Heidegger in later debates, but it is particularly ironic in this case, given the
misinformed nature of the first reading of Heidegger in France.
57. Ibid., 122.
180
Jean Beaufre
detailed exploration, into a wholesale dismissal read backward into Being

and Time. Waehlens's understanding of Heidegger relies on the first
reading of Heidegger as an existentialist whose emphasis is the human
subject, individualism, freedom, and responsibility. All these themes are
present in Being and Time but none are the specific focus of the book.
The unfortunate consequence of these two positions is that each inter-
pretation structurally cut off the possibility of dialogue with the other.
The final article in the first Heidegger Affair was written by Eric Weil.
Weil, who was Jewish and originally from Germany, had been a student
of Ernst Cassirer's but emigrated to Paris where he became an active
participant in Kojeve's seminar. Weil's understanding of Heidegger was
based on his work in France and not on his work in Germany. Weil's
argument added a new twist to the contingency argument by condemn-
ing and defending Heidegger at the same time. The tone ofWeil's article
is betrayal: Heidegger had somehow betrayed his own thought and thus
betrayed those who had followed his thought. A more plausible scenario
is that Heidegger's political activities betrayed Weil's (and the French)
conception of Heidegger's thought.
It is clear from the beginning ofWeil's article, "The Heidegger Case,"
that Weil has already passed sentence on Heidegger the man. He dis-
missed Heidegger's claim that he opposed the Nazis because he opposed
biologism on the grounds that this does not make Heidegger anti-
Nazism but simply antibiologism. Weil attacked Towarnicki's defense
of Heidegger (a case of one variant of the Heidegger defense attacking
another), contending that Towamicki let Heidegger off the hook and
did not force him to take responsibility for his actions.
It would have been an excellent defense if he had stated that he (Hei-
degger), the philosopher of decision, had decided in complete respon-
sibility on that which he took to be destiny. And if after, he had come to
understand that that destiny was nothing but a bloody farce, a betrayal of
all authenticity, a contemptible subterfuge of the will to primitive power,
and by the same token a negation of all "being-itself' [etre soi-mbne].58
This critique is written in Heideggerian language but is imbued with
Sartrean meaning. There is a normative sense to all the terms Weil uses
that is very distant from the way Heidegger employs them but very close
to Sartre's project in its ethical dimension.
Despite Weil's Sartrean criticisms of Heidegger's lack of responsibil-
ity, Weil does not agree with Lowith that one can "deduce the German
'tnuh' from Being and Time." Instead, Weil asserts that "the existential-
ism of Heidegger (we will avoid the question as to the measure in which
58. Eric Weil, "Le cas Heidegger," Les tnnps modnTu.s, no. 22 (July 1947): 131-32.
181
THE SECOND READING
this applies to all existentialism) is a philosophy of reflection which like

all philosophies of reflection deals with the individual as it relates to
Being."59
Weil argued that as a philosopher of reflection whose concern was the
relation of the individual to being, Heidegger was necessarily concerned
with the individual and thus could not be a philosopher of the collec-
tive. This argument assumes that Heidegger is a philosopher of reflec-
tion like Husser] and Sartre. Again we see that in the French reading,
Heidegger is assumed to be following Husserl's model of intentionality
with its intellectual emphasis on reflection and thought. This was not the
case. Heidegger is not a philosopher of reflection. Weil's argument is
based on the alliance he establishes between Heidegger "the existential-
ist" and other existentialists such as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Further-
more, Weil reads Heidegger's project as fundamentally compatible with
these other "antifascist" existentialisms, which in France were associated
with left-wing politics, thus concluding that Heidegger's philosophy was
also antifascist. This conclusion is reached by examining Heidegger's
philosophy understood through Sartrean definitions.
Weil found Heidegger's fault not in his philosophy per se but in the
fact that Heidegger does not go far enough in establishing a specific
decision based on his philosophy. Here Sartre's philosophy is the model
for worldly decision making based on philosophy. While Heidegger's
investigation posed the question of being "with a vigor that philosophy
has only at crucial times in history," his question did not lead him to
any specific answer. For Weil, this fault would not have mattered if "the
author had been an individual of political conviction. But this is inadmis-
sible as he has shown us only the most revolting and grotesque attitudes
which would prevent anyone from taking his philosophy seriously." 60
In other words, if Heidegger had been a man of "political conviction" in
Weil's sense of the term, he would have reached a political decision worthy
of his philosophy. But because his philosophy lacks the crucial component
that would provide a specific political or historical decision and not just a
decision about one's own being, his weak character led him into the fold of
National Socialism. "The fault in Heidegger's existentialism is that if one
asks his philosophy to lead one to a specific historical or political decision,
it cannot, precisely because it is only concerned with the decision. "61
For Weil it is inconceivable that Heidegger was a man of "political
conviction" and that the decision he made could be the logical outcome
of his philosophical work, as Lowith contended. Weil simply could not
59. Ibid., 133-34.

60. Ibid., 137.
61. Ibid., 135.
182
Jean Beaufret
reconcile his understanding of Heidegger's philosophy with Heidegger's

political acts. Indeed, ifWeilwas looking for an existential philosophy of
decision, the work of Sartre would have suited him much better, but, as
we have seen, Weil, like many of his contemporaries, saw Sartre and Hei-
degger as fundamentally compatible.
The final phase of the first Heidegger Affair was an exchange of let-
ters between Lowith and Waehlens in August 1948, which centered on
the second aspect of the affair, whether Heidegger's philosophy was
inherently National Socialist. The positions were reiterated, but Lowith
and Waehlens continued to argue past each other based on their differ-
ent interpretations of the philosophy of Heidegger. The two sides made
no ground in understanding Heidegger's relation to National Social-
ism, but that is because the debate centered on the question of whether
Heidegger's philosophy is or is not National Socialist. With such narrow
parameters there are only two sides to be taken: one is either for Hei-
degger or against him.
This issue was further exacerbated by the impressionistic nature of
the first aspect of the affair, which dealt exclusively with Heidegger the
individual and his affiliation with National Socialism. At the time, there
was no established truth about Heidegger's activities. As a result, the
articles by Towarnicki, Gandillac, and Lowith all relied heavily on their
own impressions of their meetings with Heidegger and their faith in his
testimony, given their own understanding of what had occurred. 62 The
deciding factor was whom you chose to believe, and this would lead one
to a decision on the second component.
For our purposes, the essential issue in this first debate is the empha-
sis that the French (I include Weiland Waehlens) placed on their under-
standing ofHeidegger as an existential thinker, in the same way that Sartre,
Merleau-Ponty, and Gabriel Marcel were considered existential thinkers.
This implied a certain allegiance to humanism, individuality, freedom, and
responsibility that owed more to the legacy of the Enlightenment project
than to the work of Heidegger. In the "Letter on Humanism," Heidegger
refuted the claim that he was an existentialist, which clouded the issue even
further and created a divide between Heidegger and the strategy used to
defend him in this first affair. What is surprising, given the way that the
understanding of Heidegger would change in France over the next decade,
is that the strategies adopted in the first Heidegger Affair, both for and
against Heidegger, remained virtually the same in the following two affairs.
62. Traditionally, the articles from Les temps modernes have been viewed in the light of the
historical evidence we now have of Heidegger's National Socialism, which often leads
to anachronistic conclusions. What is lacking in the voluminous publications on the
Heidegger Affair is a historiographical investigation that focuses on the release of that
information and the im111ediate effects it had on both sides of the issue.
183
THE SECOND READING
The "Letter on Humanism"
Heidegger wrote the "Letter on Humanism" to Jean Beaufret in fall 1946

but it was not published in France until 1947.63 By the time it was pub-
lished, the battle lines for the first Heidegger Affair had been drawn;
but the "Letter on Humanism" led to a further development because it
created a schism between the first reading of Heidegger in France popu-
larized by the generation of 1933 and the second reading, based on the
direct influence ofHeidegger through jean Beaufret, which was adopted
by the younger postwar generation of intellectuals. The domesticated
version of Heidegger's work had caught the interest of these younger
intellectuals and led them to Heidegger himself and to a reading that
was antithetical to the humanist existentialism with which Heidegger had
been previously associated.
In his letter to Beaufret, Heidegger destroys the entire interpretation
of his work as it had come to be read in France. The cherished values
of humanism, progress, and freedom (even the concept of values them-
selves), which had been assumed to be the basis of Heidegger's project
in a fundamentally Cartesian sense, were now placed under scrutiny by
Heidegger, who called for a more "essential" understanding of philoso-
phy, which he said had been the basis of his project all along. In the "Let-
ter on Humanism," it became clear that Heidegger was not what he had
been assumed to be in France. Everything that is unsettling and unheim-
lich about Heidegger's work, and everything that led the generation of
1933 to Heidegger in the first place, returned to topple the domesti-
cated reading of Heidegger in France. For younger French students, a
Heidegger arrived that appeared more radical than even Sartre because
he completely detached the ego cogito from philosophical investigation
and thus se\ered philosophy from the Cartesian tradition. The gener-
ation of 1933 was forced to rethink its understanding of Heidegger in
relation to this revelation. This second reading of Heidegger, in opposi-
tion to the first reading and immediately following the Heidegger Affair,
raised the stakes of the game in the subsequent affairs. In the 1960s, the
issue was not only Heidegger's relation to National Socialism but also his
"betrayal" of existentialism and the prominent place of his work in the
newest incarnations of French philosophy.
Heidegger's visits with Towarnicki had given him a fairly good under-
standing of the state of philosophy in France. He became acquainted
with the works of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Beaufret and had intuited
that they had not yet moved beyond the shadow of Descartes, despite
63. This partial translation was published in Fontaine, no. 63 (1947). A translation of a
revised version was published in Cnhiers du sud, nos. 319-20 (1957).
184
Jean Beaufret
his influence and the influence of phenomenology. It was apparent in

their work that they were trying to address the issues of the primacy of
the subject and the relationship to being, but in his view they had not
departed from the metaphysical tradition sufficiently to address the most
fundamental issues. Heidegger's interest in phenomenology in France
occurred at a time when he was increasingly isolated in Germany. He
found himself in a desperate situation; one can feel the sense of urgency
in his attempts to get in touch with Sartre and his interviews with Towar-
nicki. Seen in this light there is something rather calculated about the
"Letter on Humanism." Given that he was on the brink of banishment
from the university and had lost credibility in Germany, the letter is espe-
cially suspicious, since it was written to Beaufret only after Heidegger's
attempts to contact Sartre had fallen through. 64 But it is also true that in
Beaufret Heidegger found a pupil who was enthralled to hear what Hei-
degger had to say and whose questions allowed him to address what he
believed to be the most important philosophical issues and to again take
center stage in the world of philosophy.
At stake in the "Letter on Humanism" is in fact the entire reading of
Heidegger in France, both in relation to the initial French interpreta-
tion and in relation to National Socialism. In terms of the fom1er, we
need only look at a comment made by Beaufret to Merleau-Ponty at a
conference in November 1946. Mter discussing Merleau-Ponty's work
with Heidegger, Beaufret reproached Merleau-Ponty (the very person
who had led him to Heidegger) for not being radical enough-despite
the fact that, at this same conference, Emile Brehier had said he was too
radical "The phenomenological descriptions you propose right now use,
in effect, the vocabulary of idealism. They are thus in the same category
as a Husserlian description. But the problem is precisely to know if phe-
nomenology pushed to its very base would not lead us to leave subjectiv-
ity and the vocabulary of subjective idealism and thus to depart from
Husser} as in the work of Heidegger." 65
Here we see the fundamental difference between the first and second
reading of Heidegger in France. Sartre, Wahl, Merleau-Ponty, Aron, and
Marcel had started the work, but they had not gone far enough. Thus, the
second reading of Heidegger was once again an attempt to push past the
boundaries of contemporary French philosophy, but these boundaries had
64. Anson Rabinbach says that "the 'Letter' exemplifies Heidegger's characteristic ability
to assume a position of the highest philosophical rigor while positioning himself in the
most opportune political light." Rabinbach, "Heidegger's 'Letter of Humanism' as Text
and Event," 97.
65. Jean Beaufret's response to Mcrleau-Ponty in Maurice Merleau-Ponty, l.P Jtrirnat dP Ia
peraption (Paris: Verdier, 1996), 103.
185
THE SECOND READING
been expanded by the work of the generation of 1933 to include phenom-

enological existentialism.
The letter itself was written to exploit precisely this issue, though one
could not say it was written to cause a rift or schism between varying
readings of Heidegger's work. Instead, Heidegger wrote the "Letter on
Humanism" as a clarification of his work. He sought to set the record
straight and to present his philosophy as he intended it to be read to
those who were using it in France.
Despite the boldness of Beaufret's comments to Merleau-Ponty, he too
was still indebted to both Merleau-Ponty and Sartre for his understand-
ing of Heidegger, and the nature of the questions he posed to Heidegger
show the extent of this debt. Beaufret wanted to know how Heidegger's
philosophy related to humanism and whether it was compatible with an
ethics. And how could one come to "restore meaning to the word human-
ism"? These questions all imply the first reading of Heidegger, especially
in the work of Sartre. Heidegger's response severed the ties to that read-
ing and removed the debt. In fact, in the case of such thinkers as Wahl,
Merleau-Ponty, and Lacan, it inverted the relationship, since they turned
to Beaufret as the porte-parole through which they would come to their
later understanding of Heidegger.
Heidegger's chief goal in the "Letter on Humanism" was to distance
himself from the crude variant of existentialism that Sartre produced in
his published lecture Existentialism Is a Humanism. It also reflected the
extent to which his own work had shifted emphasis since the publication
of Being and Time. This shift is generally discussed as Heidegger's "turn,"
and more specifically as his "turn toward language." 66 This is a shift in
emphasis from the fundamental ontology of Being and Time to a medita-
tion on the history of being; this shift coincides with Heidegger's attempt
to break with the metaphysical tradition. Heidegger's work in Being and
Time is cross-cultural and ahistorical (it is not apolitical, but it does not
have a specific political allegiance). The basis of the suppositions he
66. On Heidegger's "tum," see Beda Allemann, Ilolderlin und Ilridf!{!gPT (Zurich: Atlantis
Verlag, 1954); Jean Grondin, I.e loumant d(J:ns ln pmsie de Martin lleubggrr (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1987);Jean-Fra.nc;:ois Mattei, "Le chiasme heideggerien ou Ia mise
a l'ecart de Ia philosophie," in La mitapltysi.que a Ia limiiR, ed. DominiqueJanicaud andjean-
Franc;:ois Mattei (Paris: Presse Universitaires de France, 1983); Alberto Rosales, "Zum Problem
der Kehre in Denken Heideggers," Zeitschrifl Jilr philasophischt> Fursrhu11g, 38 (1984). See also
Fred R. Dallmayr, "Ontology of Freedom: Heidegger and Political Philosophy," J>ofiliwl171ory,
12, no. 2 (May 1984): 204-34. Jacques Derrida and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe both place
Heidegger's turn at the center of their investigations into his politics and philosophy: Derrida,
OJ Spirit: Heit!Rggn- and the QuPsti.orl,' Philippe Lacoue-Labanhe, llPidPggpr, Art, and Pofitirs: 17~e
Fiction of t!IP Poluiml (New York: Blackwell, 1990). For a critique of these works, see Wolin,
"French Heidegger Wars," in 111P llrideg;,IT'r Controvm-y; and Rockmore, "Heidegger's Politics
and French Philosophy." in 1-leidtggt>r and Fwndt Phi!o.foplty.
186
Jean Beaufret
presents, specifically about human beings in relation to being, is that

understanding is not in people's minds but in their everyday lives. The
categories Heidegger sets up in Being and Time are applicable to this rela-
tion regardless of time or place. In the later Heidegger, after the "turn,"
he becomes concerned with "historical Being." His suppositions become
more temporal and more concerned with the phenomenon of the his-
tory of being. Incorporated into this more specific type of investigation is
an inquiry into the relation of language to being.
The two most important themes in the "Letter on Humanism" as
it pertains to the reception of Heidegger in France are Heidegger's
emphasis on language and his dismissal of the traditional understanding
of humanism as derived from the ego cog;ito. Both these themes are drawn
from his attempt to break with traditional metaphysics. The two themes
were also intended as instructions as to where not to follow the work of
Heidegger-toward Sartre-and where to follow Heidegger-t.he inves-
tigation into language. Heidegger begins his letter by emphasizing the
relation of being to language, not in the sense that language serves a
particular being but in that "thinking accomplishes the relation of Being
to the essence of man. It does not make or cause the relation. Thinking
brings this relation to Being solely as something handed over to it from
Being. Such offering consists in the fact that in thinking Being comes to
language. Language is the house of Being" (LH, 217).
Thus the relation between man and being is based on thinking as it
comes to language. But this is not to say that the relationship between
thinking, language, and being is important because it is quantifiable or
produces a specific response or desired effect. "Thinking is not merely
l'engagement dans l'action for and by beings in the sense of the actuality
of the present situation" (LH, 218). The search for a specific response
from language, from thinking, or from being is the domain of science,
and Heidegger contends that philosophy's greatest error was in follow-
ing the model of science and that "~uch an effort is the abandonment
of the essence of thinking" (LH, 218-19). As we have seen in our inves-
tigation into Heidegger's Was ist Metaphysik? the desire to find a specific
answer leads one to concentrate only on what one already knows. To ask
a question that expects a specific answer is to ask the wrong question,
because such a question does not allow being to present itself as what it
is. Philosophy is perverted by this scientific model. In opposition to sci-
ence, "thinking lets itself be claimed by Being so that it can say the tntth
of Being" (LH, 218). Thus thinking is in its very essence opposed to sci-
ence. Science interrogates with the expectation it will derive an answer;
thinking lets being be.
Having established this preliminary distinction between the realm of
science (which is the realm of metaphysics) and the realm of thinking
187
THE SECOND READING
(which should be the realm of philosophy), Heidegger approaches the

questions put to him by Beaufret. The first and primary question Beau-
fret asks is, "How can we restore meaning to the word 'humanism'?" The
nature of this question allows Heidegger to begin his critique of human-
ism, which is not an antihumanism, as is so often supposed, but a rethink-
ing of humanism and the centrality of the human in our philosophical
tradition. Here, Heidegger's postsubjectivist tendencies come to the fore
and one can clearly see the difference between his earlier emphasis on
the individual Dasein in Being and Time, that led to the first reading, and
his later emphasis on being detached from the individual human that
informs the second reading.
Heidegger returns to his notion of thinking against the metaphysical
tradition of philosophy, which is the basis for the term humanism. He does
not believe that the metaphysical methodology is capable of investigating
being because it necessarily disturbs whatever it observes or interrogates.
Instead we must respect being because "Being is the enabling-favoring, the
'may-be' [ das Mog-licheJ. As the element, Being is the 'quiet power' of the
favoring-enabling, that is, of the possible" (LH, 220). The problem with
metaphysics, and thus with humanism, at least as understood by Sartre,
is that it wants to be practical and applicable and thus does not let things
be in a way that allows them to reveal the~selves; instead it forces answers
from things. As a result of this misplaced emphasis, "philosophy becomes a
technique for explaining from highest causes. One no longer thinks; one
occupies himselfwith 'philosophy"' (LH, 221). So thinking is replaced by
a proliferation of "-isms," which are based on subjectivity and which Hei-
degger attributes to the "peculiar dictatorship of the public realm." This
is the realm of universal laws and rational principles that want to define
being in the same rational manner that one defines a scientific equation.
But Heidegger also attacks the flip side of this public realm, which is the
emphasis on "private existence." The philosophy of private existence is
especially deceptive because it pretends to offer an escape from the public
realm but is actually dependent on it. Thus the philosophy of
"private existence" is not really essential, that is to say free, human being.
It remains an off-shoot that depends upon the public and nourishes
itself by a mere withdrawal from it Hence it testifies~ against its own will~
to its subservience to the public realm. But because it stems from the
predominance of subjectivity the public realm is the metaphysically con-
ditioned establishment and authorization of the openness of individual
beings in their unconditional objectification. (LH, 221)
This critique brings the work of Sartre (especially in Existentialism Is a
Humanism) immediately to mind~ not only because Sartre presents phi-
losophy as prescriptive and immediately applicable but also because of
188
Jean Beaufret
his inversion of Descartes's formula. This inversion of Descartes, the ulti-

mate subjective philosopher. still relies on him.
According to Heidegger, language loses its meaning in the service of
the philosophy of the public realm or of private existence. When con-
fined by the metaphysical tradition, language "falls into the senice of
expediting communication along routes where objectification-the
uniform accessibility of everything to everyone-branches out and dis-
regards all limits" (LH, 221). 67 In the service of metaphysics, the tn1th of
being is lost to language. As a result, being is no longer accessible to man
through language and instead is "concealed beneath the dominance of
subjectivity that presents itself as the public realm" (LH, 222). Once lan-
guage has been co-opted by metaphysics, it takes on the properties of
science and becomes a technology for classification and representation.
As a tool in the service of metaphysics, language is no longer the "house
of the truth of Being." For philosophy to return to the realm of thinking
from the world of science, we must rethink language outside the limits of
comprehensibility in the subject-object meaning of the word:
If man is to find his way once again to the nearness of Being he must
first learn to exist in the nameless. In the same way he must recognize
the seductions of the public realm as well as the impotence of the pri-
vate. Before he speaks man must first let himself be claimed again by
Being, taking the risk that under this claim he will seldom have much
to say. Only thus will the preciousness of its essence be once more
bestowed upon the word, and upon man a home for dwelling in the
truth of Being. (LH, 223)
For Heidegger, it is imperative that we rethink our relationship to
language. The metaphysical tradition has rendered language virtually
meaningless and flat by virtue of representational categories that only
serve to objectify for a subject and do not let things express themselves.
It is in silence, or in the possibility of silence, that these things can reveal
themselves and that language can then regain its power in its relation-
ship to being. But here Heidegger returns to the question of the relation
of the human being to being through language and the place of human-
ism in this relation.
According to Heidegger, this "letting be" should be the real con-
cern of humanism: "For this is humanism: meditating and caring, that
man must be human and not inhumane, 'inhuman,' that is, outside his
essence" (LH, 224). Heidegger calls for a rethinking of humanism out-
side the realm of metaphysics. To make his point, he presents a num-
ber of "humanisms," from the humanism of Marx to the humanism of
67. There is definitely an antidemocratic sentiment to Heidegger's thought here, which
can be traced to Kierkegaard's essay "The Present Age."
189
THE SECOND READING
Christianity to Sartre's variant in Existentialism Is a Humanism. Heidegger

concludes that
however different these forms of humanism may be in purpose and
in principle, in the mode and means of their respective realizations,
and in the fonn of their teaching, they nonetheless all agree in this,
that the humanitas of homo humanus is determined with regard to an
already established interpretation of nature, history, world, and the
ground of the world, that is, of beings as a whole.
Every humanism is either grounded in a metaphysics or is itself made

to ground one. Every detennination of the essence of man that
already supposes an interpretation of being \\<ithout asking the truth
of Being, whether knowingly or not, is metaphysical. (LH, 225-26)
According to Heidegger, all humanism as it is commonly defined is

inherently metaphysical and as such concentrates only on the human-
ity of man the subject and not on the relation of humanity to being. In
"defining the humanity of man humanism not only does not ask about
the relation of being to the essence of man" but "because of its meta-
physical origin humanism even impedes the question by neither recog-
nizing nor understanding it" (LH, 226). According to Heidegger, the
metaphysical tradition in general and humanism in particular divert all
thinking from the vital question of being by focusing only on the subject
as dictated by the scientific method, which has become the model for
philosophy.
Heidegger concedes that this attempt to rethink humanism must
commence on the grounds of metaphysics and claims that this was in
fact the project of Being and Time. In that book, Heidcgger sought to
place traditional metaphysics in question by approaching the question
of being, the question metaphysics avoids, from within the traditional
grounds and methodologies of metaphysics. In this investigation, there
is an internal critique where "the essential provenance of metaphysics,
and not just its limits, became questionable in Being and Time' (LH, 226).
Seen in this light, Being and Time is an ambiguous work because its go<Jl is
an investigation of being but it proceeds from the metaphysical grounds
where being is most obscured. Heidegger claims he was able to make this
move because, despite the fact that metaphysics avoids the question of
being, it is unable to avoid the issue of oeing. This is to say that "meta-
physics does indeed represent beings in their Being, and so it thinks the
Being of beings. But it does not think the difference of both" (LH, 226).
Thus metaphysics approaches this most vital subject only to obscure it.
Being and Time sought to reveal this fault through an internal critique of
metaphysics that could disclose this most important question through an
190
Jean Beaufret
investigation into the being of beings. This is the fundamental tension in

the work that we explored in the introduction. According to Heidegger,
the French understanding of his philosophy was based on a metaphysical
understanding of Being and Time that seized on the desire to "represent
beings in their Being" and posited being within the representable place
of a human being. The first reading of Heidegger in France drafted an
existentialism based on the Kierkegaardian subjectivist elements in Being
and Time and compatible with their own Cartesian education. By con-
trast, the second reading followed Heidegger's current interrogation
into the relation of being to beings ( etre to etant). This second reading is
more compatible with the ontological antisubjectivist tendencies of Being
and Time, but is based on Heidegger's presentation of these issues in his
"Letter on Humanism."
Heidegger goes on to present his understanding of what it is in meta-
physics that keeps us from investigating the only question that he finds
important. "Metaphysics closes itself to the simple essential fact that man
essentially occurs only in his essence, where he is claimed by Being. Only
from that claim 'has' he found that wherein his essence dwells. Only from
this dwelling 'has' he 'language' as the home that preserves the ecstatic
for his essence. Such standing in the clearing of Being I call the ek-sis-
tence of man. This way of Being is proper only to man" (LH, 227-28) .68
This concept of ek-sistence is precisely what metaphysics closes itself off
to and it is on the basis of this concept that Heidegger is able to expand
his critique of metaphysics and distinguish himself from the "existential"
definition that has been assigned to his work.
What man is-or as it is called in the traditional language of meta-
physics, the "essence" of man-lies in his ek-sistence. But ek-sistence
thought in this way is not identical with the traditional concept of
existentia, which means actuality in contrast to the meaning of essentia
as possibility. In Being and Time (p. 42) this sentence is italicized: "The
'essence' of Dasein lies in its existence." However, here the opposition
between existentia and essentia is not under consideration, because
neither of these metaphysical determinations of Being, let alone their
relationship, is yet in question. (LH, 229)
68. The translator's note states: "In Bring and Tjmp 'ecstatic' (from the Greek ekstasi5)
means the way Dasein 'stands out' in the va1ious moments of the temporality of care,
being 'thrown' out of a past and 'projecting' itself toward a future by way of the present.
The word is closely related to another Heidegger introduces now to capture the unique
sense of man's Being-ek-sistence. This too means the way man 'stands out' into the truth
of Being and so is exceptional among beings that are on hand only as things of nature or
human production."
191
THE SECOND READING
Heidegger claims that his philosophy is not existentialist, and to make

this point clear he takes the time to redefine Dasein so as to distinguish
what he wants to say from the common French understanding based on
the translation of Dasein as realite-humaine. Heidegger concludes that the
translation is based on a metaphysical reading of Being and Time, which
misses the real goal of the work, the internal critique of metaphysics
through the investigation into being. The rift between the first and sec-
ond reading of Heidegger in France turns entirely on whether Being and
Time is seen as metaphysical or as a critique of metaphysics: "If we under-
stand what Being and Time calls 'projection' as a representational posit-
ing, we take it to be an achievement of subjectivity and do not think it
in the only way the 'understanding of Being' in the context of the 'exis-
tential analysis' of 'Being-in-the-world' can be thought-namely as the
ecstatic relation to the clearing of Being" (LH, 231).
While the existentialists of the first reading assumed Being and Time to
be an "achievement of subjectivity," Heidegger claims that his philosophy
cannot be understood as existentialist precisely because he is not inter-
ested in the relation of existence to essence (two metaphysical categories)
but in the question of being. Heidegger further contends that the French
interpretation occurred because Being and Time is an ontological investi-
gation and as such still uses the vocabulary and categories of traditional
metaphysics, and that it is necessarily limited by that language and those
categories. The proponents of French existentialism were still metaphysi-
cal. It is in realizing the limits of metaphysics that Heidegger turns away
from metaphysics and toward an investigation into the history of being.
Heidegger's project, even at its most metaphysical, was always an
attempt to move beyond metaphysics:
By way of contrast, Sartre expresses the basic tenet of existentialism
in this way: Existence precedes essence. In this statement he is taking
existentia and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning, which
from Plato's time on has said that essentia precedes existentia. Sartre
reverses this statement. But the reversal of a metaphysical statement
is still a metaphysical statement. With it he stays with metaphysics in
oblivion of the tmth of Being. (LH, 232)
According to Heidegger, Sartre missed the cmcial issue in Being and
Time and thus his understanding of Heidegger's work is fundamentally
flawed because it remains entirely within the metaphysical tradition. The
"basic tenet of 'existentialism' has nothing at all in common with Being
and Time" (LH, 232).
Heidegger locates part of Sartre's problem in his emphasis on the rela-
tion of the subject to the object, which is a fundamentally metaphysical
192
Jean Beaufre1
issue that always privileges the subject and places the emphasis of phi-
losophy on the issue of representation. The consequence of such an
approach is that being is passed over altogether: "Metaphysics recog-
nizes the clearing of Being either solely as the view of what is present in
'outward appearance' (idea) or critically as what is seen as a result of cat-
egorical representation on the part of subjectivity" (LH, 235). The truth
of being as that which "lights up" our world is concealed from meta-
physics, which looks over or past it. The metaphysical tradition wants
to understand being spatially so that it can be classified as something
that "is present" or as something that can be "represented categorically."
In both cases, the metaphysical investigation fails to recognize being
because being cannot be understood within traditional categories of
space and time: "But nearer than the nearest and at the same time for
ordinary thinking farther than the farthest is nearness itself: the truth of
Being" (LH, 235).
According to Heidegger, traditional metaphysics (Sartre's existential-
ism and humanism included) attaches itself to what is perceived spatially
as nearest and overlooks being, which is closest to us, because being
eschews categorical representation and thus seems spatially farthest. The
nearness of being occurs in language, which is itself always closest to us.
The problem with metaphysics, and humanism in particular, is that it
looks first to man as the measure by which to detennine its own human-
ity and thus looks over what is most important to humanity: the relation-
ship between being and man that occurs in language. The question for
Heidegger is whether the understanding of man in this rethought inves-
tigation into humanity still falls under the rubric of "humanism." The
answer is both yes and no.
According to him, the answer is no insofar as "humanism thinks meta-
physically," and "certainly not if humanism is existentialism and is rep-
resented by what Sartre expresses: We are precisely in a situation where
there are only human beings." But the answer is yes if we rethink human-
ism as principally concerned with understanding humanity in its rela-
tion to being. The issue for Heidegger is that we need to escape from an
outlook that concludes there are "only human beings" and shift to one
where we understand humanity as "in a situation where principally there
is Being" (LH, 237). This allows Heidegger to elaborate on his claim that
being should not be thought of as a possession or as something that spe-
cifically "is" because ''Being 'is' precisely not 'a being.'" Here again Hei-
degger exposes the trap of representational thinking that seeks to give
being spatial and quantifiable attributes so that it can be placed under
subjective observation. According to him, this representational approach
avoids the issue of being by pretending to engage it.
193
THE SECOND READING
For Heidegger, humanism can only be a productive category if it is

thought in terms of man's relationship to being, which is not spatial or
representable. This, he claims, was the point of Being and Time:
But does not Being and Time say on p. 212, where the "there is/it
gives" comes to language, "Only so long as Dasein is, is there [gibt es]
Being"? To be sure. It means that only so long as the clearing of Being
propiates does Being convey itself to man .... But the sentence does
not mean that the Dasein of man in the traditional sense of existentia,
and thought in modem philosophy as the actuality of the ego cogito, is
that being through which Being is first fashioned. The sentence does
not say that Being is the product of man. (LH, 240)
Being and Time set out to present being in relation to man, but in the
French interpretation this became an investigation into being as the
product of man. The first reading of Heidegger in France is a metaphysi-
cal reading of his work, which removes the problem of being by char-
acterizing it as a product of man. According to Heidegger, this reading
reveals the domineering nature of metaphysics and humanism, which
attempt to define everything in relation to man as the primary subject,
the measure of all things, even being.
For Heidegger, the result of this domineering metaphysical tradition
is that humanity has lost what is most essential to it, its relationship with
being. Heidegger describes this condition in tenns of a "homelessness"
(Heimatliisigkeit) that he claims is the destiny of the modern world. 69 This
homelessness can be seen in the light of Heidegger's understanding of lan-
guage as the house where being dwells. Cut off from his relationship with
language by the metaphysical tradition, man finds himself homeless. Hei-
degger claims that these categories should not be thought "patriotically or
nationalistically but in terms of the history of Being" (LH, 241). 70 This is
a particularly troubling claim given Heidegger's past but is not difficult to
unpack in relation to the statement I Ieidegger made to Gandillac about
National Socialism being the explosion of a stntctural malady in all men.
For Heidegger, the result of the metaphysical tradition is precisely the kind
of blind nationalism and patriotism that avoids the real issue of the home-
lessness of being by assigning a spatial and categorical realm to it. Thus his
letter also serves a strategic purpose in establishing the foundation for his
69. This is also the move by which Heidegger shifts responsibility for National Socialism
fmm Germany (and himself) in particular to the West in general. See Rabinbach.
"Heidegger's 'Letter of Humanism' as Text and Event"; Rockmore, "Heidegger's Politics
and French Philosophy"; Wolin, "French Heidegger Wars."
70. For an in-depth investigation into the idea of JIPimat. see Celia Applewhite, A Nation of
f'rrmincial1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
194
Jean Beaufret
critique of National Socialism as well as presenting him as a critic of crude

nationalisms to his French audience. 71
Homelessness, as understood by Heidegger, consists in the abandon-
ment of being by beings. This is the product of metaphysics, but, as
Heidegger establishes in Being and Time, being does not disappear but
lies hidden. Even "the oblivion of Being makes itself known indirectly
through the fact that man always observes and handles only beings" (LH,
242). Hidden within the metaphysical tradition, being still makes itself
known, but indirectly. For Heidegger, homelessness is the destiny of the
world precisely because man is so concerned with beings, which are to
be observed and handled (represented categorically), that the question
of being is concealed and remains unthought. But even as unthought,
it remains a concern. Homelessness is itself a concern with being, but
thought in such a way that it "is evoked from the destiny of being in
the form of metaphysics and through metaphysics is simultaneously
entrenched and covered up as such" (UI, 243). Heidegger sees this as
the basis for Marx's understanding of the estrangement (Entfremdung)
of modem man, which Marx derived from Hegel. Heidegger believes
that Marx's understanding of history in terms of estrangement intuits
the problem of homelessness and the concealment of being, and in this
sense is far more productive than the work of phenomenology or existen-
tialism. Heidegger contends that Marx is still limited by his metaphysical
reading of estrangement a~d history but suggests that this is the issue
Sartre should consider if a "productive dialogue" between existentialism
and Marxism is to become possible. This comment would have impor-
tant ramifications later in France, as it led to a variant of Heideggerian
Marxism as embodied in the work of Kostas Axelos.
Heidegger is apparently interested in a "productive dialogue" with
Marxism, but only insofar as it leads to a departure from traditional
metaphysics. 72 This returns Heidegger to the issue at hand, how one is
to depart from the metaphysical tradition and return to the question of
being in the face of man's essential homelessness. According to him, this
can only occur when man realizes that, contrary to the dominant claims of
humanism as presented in the metaphysical tradition, "the essence of man
71. While the self-serving nature of this philosophical statement is obvious, it has been
fruitfully employed in several legitimate critiques of modernity and thus cannot be
completely discounted.
72. Heidegger's use of Marx smacks of opportunism because of the Soviet victory under
Stalin, but also because Heidegger's sons were in Soviet prisoner-of-war camps and
he feared that Georg Lukacs's criticisms of his work could affect them. (Rabinbach,
~Heidegger's 'Letter of Humanism' as Text and Event," 112-13). Heidegger's use of Marx
also had the unintended consequence of allying him with certain members of the French
Communist Resistance (such as jean Beaufret).
195
fHE SECOND READING
consists in his being more than merely human, if this is represented as

'being a rational creature."' Man can discover his true human nature only
in the departure from his obsession with a rationality that desires to subju-
gate everything to a logical and productive order. Man must relinquish his
position as "the measure of all things" and accept that, far from it, "man is
not the lord of beings. Man is the shepherd of Being" (LH, 245). For Hei-
degger, man loses nothing in d1is equation despite appearing to give up
his mastery, because in this move he regains the truth of being.
Heidegger returns to Beaufret's question about humanism and
responds that his refutation of humanism in the metaphysical sense is
in fact an affirmation of humanism in the extreme sense: "It is a human-
ism that thinks the humanity of man from nearness to Being" (LH, 245).
Heidegger's brand of humanism calls for an investigation into being that
disengages the ego cogito in a way far more radical than Sartre's inversion
because it removes the ego cogito from the philosophical equation. Hei-
degger is calling for the removal of the subject as the primary means of
philosophical investigation, and this is precisely what was so attractive to
a later generation of French scholars looking at Heidegger through the
lens of a stmcturalist program that also tried to decenter the self, but
from the scientific perspective.
The question for Heidegger, as presented by Beaufret, now becomes:
"How do we give meaning back to humanism?" Heidegger points out
that this question implies that humanism has in fact "lost" its meaning.
But the subsequent question for Heidegger is whether we want to give
humanism back its meaning. This is to ask whether it is valuable to retain
d1e tenn "humanism." Here Heidegger presents a defense of his current
philosophical program in response to several questions he asks of him-
self and that evoke the specter of his political activities, which remain
central to his questions if not at the forefront of his thought:
Because we are speaking against "humanism," people fear a defense
of the inhuman and a glorification of barbaric brutality. For what is
more "logical" than that for somebody who negates humanism noth-
ing remains but the affirmation of inhumanity?
Because we are speaking against "logic," people believe we are

demanding that the rigor of thinking be renounced and in its place
the arbitrariness of drives and feelings be installed and thus that "irra-
tionalism" be proclaimed uue. For what is more "logical" than that
whoever speaks against the logical is defending the alogical?
Because we are speaking against "values," people are horrified at a

philosophy that ostensibly dares to despise humanity's best qualities.
196
Jean Beaufre'
For what is more "logical" than that a thinking that denies values
must necessarily pronounce everything valueless? (LH, 249) 73
In the context of 1947, Heidegger was strategically distancing himself
from these sorts of criticisms. His point is that the inability to critique
such notions as "values," "logic," or even "humanism" is indicative of the
manipulative and domineering nature of the metaphysical tradition.
When "people hear talk about 'humanism,' 'logic,' 'values,' 'world,' and
'God,'" they "accept these things as positive" and anything that "disturbs
the habitual somnolence of prevailing opinion is automatically regis-
tered as a despicable contradiction." Concealed in this procedure is "the
refusal to subject to reflection this presupposed 'positive' in which one
believes oneself saved. By continually appealing to the logical one
conjures up the illusion that one is entering straightforwardly into think-
ing when in fact one has disavowed it"(LH, 250). "Humanism," "values,"
"God," "logic"-all these terms are indebted to the metaphysical tradi-
tion for their meaning, thus do not address the fundamental question of
being. Furthermore, because these terms have been rendered unques-
tionable, one cannot reclaim the truth of being on the basis of any of
them. Heidegger is not calling for the refutation of any of these terms
but rather the critical reappraisal of all of them to return them to the
realm of thinking.
The final issue Heidegger seeks to address is that of the relation of eth-
ics to ontology. Once again he is answering a question posed by Beaufret,
but the answer is closely related to Sartre's statement about Heidegger
at the end of Being and Nothingness, that an authentic understanding of
human being would be inextricably linked to an ethics. Heidegger sees
this "need" for an ethics as indicative of the problem of metaphysics
and not the solution to it: "The desire for an ethics presses ever more
ardently for fulfillment as the obvious no less than the hidden perplexity
of man soars to immeasurable heights" (LH, 255). The creation of an
ethics based on the tenets of metaphysics does not provide a solution to
man's perplexity but only adds to it. Furthermore, Heidegger sees it as a
fundamental error to believe that one can construct an ethics based on
a work such as Being and Time, because the investigation itself is within
the metaphysical tradition. Heidegger concedes that Being and Time itself
was "bound to lead immediately and inevitably into error. For the terms
and the conceptual language corresponding to them were not rethought
by readers from the matter particularly to be thought; rather, the matter
was conceived according to the established terminology in its customary
meaning" (LH, 259).
73. These qut"stions must be taken seriously given Heidegger's past and especially since it
is Heidegger who presents them.
197
THE SECOND READING
In France, Being and Time was understood in terms of the unques-

tioned categories and vocabulary of traditional metaphysics; as a result,
Heidegger's work was seen as original, but compatible with the meta-
physical tradition.
Heidegger points out that this is precisely how his philosophy was read
by French philosophers such as Sartre and asserts that this kind of pre-
scriptive philosophy has no place in the investigation of being. Instead,
he says that to come to understand our relation to being is to understand
thought as it is, in its capacity to let things be and thus let them reveal
themselves as what they are. This is not the strategy of humanism as con-
structed in the metaphysical tradition, which seeks to produce, collect,
and control. Insofar as he is against this sort of domineering subjectivity,
Heidegger is against humanism. What Heidegger proposes is an alterna-
tive humanism whose primary concern is not the subject man but man as
he relates to being. For him, the means for accessing this new concern is
language: "Thus language is at once the house of Being and the home of
human beings" (LH, 262).
Heidegger concludes his letter by stating: "What is strange about the
thinking of Being is its simplicity. Precisely this keeps us from it." Accord-
ing to him, our problem is that we are beings that like to represent
things; thus we form complex models that allow us to present and repre-
sent the world around us. But in this process of ordering and naming, we
haYe lost track of that which is the most simple in nature: being. For us,
what is simplest also seems the most complex because it is not represent-
able or quantifiable. Thus the issue of being is unheimlich because it tests
the limits of what we consider to be true.
For Heidegger, only a return to what is simply before us, and not some
complex philosophical construction, will lead us to being. "For this reason
essential thinkers always say the Same. But this does not mean identical."
Evoking Nietzsche's eternal return, Heidegger attempts to reclaim the
philosophy of the early Greeks and to approach the question of being,
which is the only question (even in the concealed formula of metaphys-
ics). This attempt stands in stark contrast to the mere repetition of formu-
las or laws based on the memorization of identical principles. "To flee into
the identical is not dangerous. To risk discord in order to say the Same
is the danger" (LH, 264). Heidegger's understanding and refutation of
traditional humanism is based on this precept. For humanism to be a
productive category, it would have to be understood in terms of man's
relation to being (this is the same question raised by all philosophy). In
pursuing the Same, Heidegger sows discord by refuting the definition of
humanism as understood in the metaphysical sense (which is the iden-
tical). Thus if humanism and philosophy are only understood in meta-
physical terms, then Heidegger's current project and "the thinking that
198
Jean Beaufret
is to come is no longer philosophy, because it thinks more originally than

metaphysics-a name identical to philosophy" (LH, 265). For Heidegger,
if thinking identically on the basis of universal laws is philosophy, then his
work is not philosophical.
The "Letter on Humanism" is a complex text that combines Hei-
degger's philosophical project of 1946 with a refutation of Sartrean
existentialism and a strategic self-rehabilitation. 74 The immediate ramifi-
cations of the "Letter on Humanism" was to move Heidegger away from
Sartre and his brand of existentialism and toward the questions of lan-
guage and the relation of being to beings. A subsequent consequence
was that, because it had been written to Jean Beaufret, a member of the
Resistance with impeccable credentials, it was seen as a sort of vote of
confidence for Heidegger. Beaufret would repeatedly take advantage of
his Resistance past to defend Heidegger.
The Second Reading

While the first reading of Heidegger in France developed slowly over the
course of two decades, culminating in Sartre's existentialism, the second
reading came like a bolt from the blue, in the form of the "Letter on
Humanism." 75 But the first reading is precisely what created the opening
for the second. There is something peculiar about popularity that leads
to a backlash. Such was the case withJean-Paul Sartre's existentialism. In
.reaction to its popularity, there were a number of attacks that led Sartre
to defend his position in Existentialism Is a Humanism, and this led to Hei-
degger's response in the "Letter on Humanism." This letter then opened
the door to a new understanding of Heidegger in France that was opposed
to Sartre's brand of existentialism. In the person of Jean Beaufret, many
young French scholars found a direct line to Heidegger and an alternative
to what they now saw as the trendy moralizing of existentialism.
Beaufret's position was strengthened by his reputation as a member
of the Resistance and his position as an instructor at the preparatory
school Henri IV from 1946 to 1955, at the ENS after 1951, and at the
preparatory school Condorcet from 1955 until his retirement in 1972.
As an instructor at the ENS, but also at two of the most important feeder
74. There are those, such as Jean Henri Cousineau, who claim the text is intentionally
ambiguous. See Cousineau, Hu.rnan~rn and Ethics: An Introd7lction to /leideggPT:5 Letter on
Humanism with a Critir.al Biblingm.phy (Louvain: Editions Nauwelaens, 1972), 65-66.
75. This has led to statements such as the one cited in Paul Ricoeur's C.'rifiqtlll and Cormi<tion that
"Heidegger was introduced in France almost entirely through Beaufret, to whom Heidegger
addressed the famous 'Letter on Humanism.'M Paul Ricoeur, Critique arul Conlliclion, trans.
Kathleen Blarney (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 188n. 16.
199
THE SECOND READING
schools for the ENS. Beaufret was able to bring Heidegger's philosophy
into the mainstream of French higher education. The generation of
1933 had to look outside the established grounds of French academics to
find a philosophy as striking and different as Heidegger's, but from 1946
on it was possible to work on Heidegger at a major khiig;ne in Paris or
even at the ENS. Furthermore, Beaufret was in constant communication
with Heidegger, who continued to produce original pieces of work that
entranced and seduced the young students drawn to Heidegger through
Beaufret's courses. 76
For six years at the Khagne Henri IV and then for seventeen years at
Condorcet, not to mention my time at the ENS. I was charged with
instmcting my students in preparation for the agregation. The classes
I taught led quite a number of them to a real interest in the work
of Heidegger. This was so especially at Condorcet where after 1955 I
dealt specifically with that subject. 77
Mter the "Letter on Humanism," Beaufret found himself at the center
of the Parisian intellectual world. Figures who had influenced him in the
1930s, such as Jean Wahl, Gabriel Marcel, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean
Hyppolite, and Alexandre Koyre now came to him to discuss Heidegger's
current work. Beaufret was riding a wave that continued to grow. Hei-
degger's popularity increased after 1947, and between 1947 and 1955
there was a proliferation of works on or about Heidegger, including the
republication of Gurvitch's Les tendences actuelles de la philosophie allemande
(1953); a collection of Levinas's articles from the 1930s and 1940s titled
En decouvrant l'existence avec Husser[ et Heidegger (1949); and an entire
issue of the Revue de metaphysique et de morale devoted to Heidegger's work
(1953). In 1946 Jean Wahl gave a course at the Sorbonne on the phi-
losophy ofHeidegger. 78 More than this, by the 1950s students at the ENS
were handing in theses on Heidegger, and there was even talk of Hei-
degger fanatics. 79 These young intellectuals were led to Heidegger by the
popularity of Sartre, but moved from Sartre to Jean Beaufret in their
desire to "get Heidegger right." In the wake of World War II and with
the prospect of a rapidly industrializing world, Heidegger's critique of
technology and traditional metaphysics spoke to the young intellectuals
76. This is not to say that Beaufret's allegiance to Heidegger did not have its drawbacks;
Beaufret's work on Heidegger kept him from obtaining a university post. See Havet, ':Jean
Beaufret," 89.
77.Jean Beaufret, Dial.ogue avn: Ileidegger: 1..~> chemin d~ Heideggn- (Paris: Editions de Minuit,
1985), 81.
78. This course was later published as jean Wahl, lntrotluction ala pPmeP dP fleidegger (Paris:
Librairie generate franc;aise, 1998).
79.Jean-Paul Aron, /,e.~ ModRrrtPs (Paris: Gallimard, 1984), 104-5.
200
Jean Beaufre
who were seeking an alternative to existentialism with its allegiance to

Cartesianism and traditional metaphysics. The same concerns that led
this younger generation to Heidegger also led them to structuralism and
the work of Saussure, Barthes, and Levi-Strauss.
In 1955, Heidegger made his first journey to France, which was facili-
tated by Jean Beaufret. Beaufret, along with Maurice de Gandillac and
Kostas Axelos, had arranged to present a conference on and for Hei-
degger at the Cultural Center at Cerisy in August of that year. The partic-
ipants in the conference included Kostas Axe los, Father Gaston Fessard,
Gabriel Marcel, Maurice de Gandillac, Alphonse de Waehlens, Leon-
Pierre Quint, Lucien Goldmann, Jean Starobinski, Alexis Philonenko,
Paul Ricoeur, Gilles Deleuze, and of course Jean Beaufret and Heidegger
himself. The conference was also important because the translation of
Heidegger's texts into French would enlist such young philosophers as
Andre Preau, Fran(,;ois Fedier, Dominiquejanicaud, and Michel Haar.
In 1955, at a time when Heidegger was still forbidden to teach in Ger-
many, he had found a home for his work in France and had in fact become
the most important living philosopher in that country. 'The effect of the
"Letter on Humanism" had been to provide an alternative to Sartre and
progressive humanism, which seemed outmoded by newer forms of investi-
gation. But Heidegger and the conference in Cerisy were not without crit-
ics. Most notably, Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul
Sartre, and Jean Wahl refused to attend. Furthermore, an article Lucien
Goldmann later published eventually led to the second Heidegger Affair
in the 1960s. Thus the circumstances of the conference and of Heidegger's
first trip to France also bear the imprint of the Heidegger Affair and the
split between the proponents of the first and second readings.
Heidegger's visit to France and the conference in Cerisy seem to
have been planned to minimize public awareness of his presence. The
announcement for the conference was written in the vaguest terms, giv-
ing only the title, "Qu'est-ce que Ia philosophic?" with no mention of
the directors or the participants. The reflections of Walter Biemel sug-
gest that there was reason to fear protests from "students on the left,"80
while Jean Beaufret indicates a more general "academic hostility" toward
Heidcgger and his work. 81 Still, the scripted nature of Heidegger's visit
also suggests that Beaufret wanted to control all access to the German
philosopher during his stay in France. Thus the August date was not acci-
dental and proved to be "the best guarantee for a successful operation,"
80. "Uean] Hyppolite wanted to invite Heidegger to the Ji;co/e norma I.e but feared a negative
reaction from students on the left." Interview with Walter Biemel in Dominique Janicaud,
lleideggern1 Ft-anre II, entretums (Paris: Albin Michel, 2001). 42-43.
81. Beaufn:t, Dialogue avec lleidegger; 86n. 9.
201
THE SECOND READING
because when Heidegger arrived in Paris the "capital was deserted."82

Beaufret and Axelos met Heidegger and his wife, Elfride, at the Gare
de l'Est and secreted them away to Beaufret's apartment on the passage
Stendahl in Menilmontant. 83 The rest of the Heideggers' stay in Paris
also had a "cloak-and-dagger" feel; a clandestine visit to the Louvre,
another to Versailles, and a trip to the Cafe de Flore "incognito" so that
Beaufret could show Heidegger the "existentialist's lair." 84 While in Paris,
Beaufret arranged a dinner on the terrace of his apartment where Hei-
degger could meet Rene Char. 85 Kostas Axelos also attended the dinner
prepared by Elfride Heidegger. Here we see a protocol Beaufret would
follow throughout Heidegger's stay in France. He would coordinate
meetings between Heidegger and select French intellectuals but would
surround him with the cordon sanitaire of Axelos and himself. Since Hei-
degger would not speak French and Char did not speak German, all con-
versation was mediated by Beaufret and Axelos, who served as translator.
The Heideggers' visit with Georges Braque at his atelier in Varengeville
was coordinated in a similar fashion. 86
On the way to Cerisy, Beaufret, Axelos, and the Heideggers stopped at
the summer house ofJacques Lacan. Beaufret was in analysis with Lacan
at the time and Lacan had asked him to invite Heidegger to stay for a few
days before the conference. Lacan had hoped to commence a dialogue
with Heidegger based on what he perceived to be their mutual interests,
but soon found that the two had little to discuss. Axelos, who served as
translator, describes the five-day stay as "agreeable" but also notes the
empty nature of the visit. "Heidegger did not know any of Lacan's works
and had no interest in psychoanalysis. Lacan had an incomplete (lacun-
airement) knowledge of Heidegger. Thus there was no dialogue. There
was no discussion at all. They spoke of banalities and everyday things.
Lacan understood German but could not speak it and Heidegger refused
to speak a single word in French. "87
The issue of language is essential here but one can also point to a
divergence in philosophical interests between Heidegger and one of his
French interlocutors that would come to dominate the second phase of
82. Dominique Janicaud, f!Pideg.f!;er nt France I (Paris: Albin Michel, 2001 ), 147.
83. See ibid., as well as the interview with Kostas Axelos in Janicaud, Ileidegger en Franu II,
entrl'lieJ!s (Paris: Albin Michel, 2001), 12.
84. Beau fret, /Jialogue avt'c I IPidegger, 86.
85. A brief discussion of this dinner can be found in Jean Beaufret, "En France" in
F.rirmm.tng an Martin I leideggpr (Pfullingen: Neske, 1977); a philosophical reflection based
on this dinner is in Jean Beaufret, "L'entretien sous le marronnier," L'Arr no. 22 (Summer
1963).
86. Beaufret, ~En France," 10.
87. Interview with Kostas Axelos injanicaud, /II'idRggl'rrn Frmu:p II, rntretims, 12.
202
Jean Beaufret
the reception of Heidegger in France between 1961 and the present.

The force of this disconnect and the frustration and disappointment of
Lacan can be seen in an incident that occurred during the Heideggers'
stay. While Axelos and Beaufret were translating Heidegger's "What Is
Philosophy?" from German to French, Lacan and his wife, Sylvia Bataille-
Lacan, took Heidegger and Elfride on a day trip to the cathedral in
Chartres. Lacan was driving, Heidegger sat in the front seat, and the two
women sat in the back. In the words of Elisabeth Roudinesco, "Lacan
drove his car as fast as he ran his sessions" and the Heidcggers grew
increasingly uncomfortable. Heidegger did not flinch but Elfride voiced
her discomfort, in response to which Lacan increased his speed. The
ride home from Chartres was spent in silence except for the continued
protests of Elfride, which provoked Lacan to press even harder on the
gas pedal. 88
Having survived their visit chez Lacan, the Heideggers were taken by
Beaufret and Axelos to the conference at Cerisy. There, under Beaufret's
watchful eye, they were given the finest suite in the chateau and treated
like guests of honor. Axelos referred to the conference as a "festival of
Heidegger"89 but we must also keep in mind that despite the celebratory
feel and the significance of Heidegger's philosophical presentations, the
immediate impact of the conference itself was minimal. There had been
no advance publicity, no press coverage, and only those who had been
informed by Beaufret or Axe los knew of the event. Jean-Paul Aron placed
the number of actual participants at fifty-six. 90 Thus Dominique Janicaud
is correct in suggesting that the importance of this conference lay more in
its symbolic nature than in its status as an actual event. Janicaud further
suggests that this symbolic value lies in the memories of the participants
and perhaps more important in the wave of translations of and essays on
Heidegger that followed the conference in Cerisy.91 Certainly, these obser-
vations are valuable and true, but I would suggest that the most important
symbolic value lies in the way the actual events of this conference reveal
the essence of the second reading ofHeidegger in France.
The nine-day conference (August 27 to September 4, 1955) 'vas not a
dialogue but a lecture. Kostas Axelos recalls that during the conference
he and Beaufret were accused of restricting access to Heidegger. "In fact,
we were the intermediaries between Heidegger and the other partici-
pants. Because everyone had something they wanted to say to Heidegger,
88. Elisabeth Roudinesco, lli.\toire tiP la psychano/-y~e en France (Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1986}, 309-10. See also Roudinesco,Jacques Lacan (Paris: Fayard, 1993), 301-302.
89. Interview with Kostas Axe los in Janicaud, 1/eidegger en Hance ll, entrr.tiens, 13.
90. Aron, /.es lvlodernes, 122.
9I.Janicaud, Hddeggn-en Fraru:e I, 151.
203
ancl because Ileidegger was not one for rambling conversations it all went
through jean Beaufret and me."92 At the end of the first day, Gabriel Marcel
and Lucien Goldmann suggested that they be allowed to move away from
the prescribed topics of discussion (Kant and Hegel) and toward a more
general discussion of Heidegger's philosophy as a whole. In the ensuing
discussion, Beaufret conceded that the agenda was a guideline for discus-
sion that did not need to be strictly followed. Nonetheless, Marcel, Gold-
mann, and Walter Biemel came away from the conference with the feeling
that their questions had not been answered. 93 Paul Ricoeur went so far as
to say that he "took away a bad memory" of his meeting with Heidegger at
Cerisy because Heidegger "was literally guarded by Axelos and Beaufret,
and he behaved like a school-master. "94 Indeed, Axelos 's greatest regret
about the conference was that Heidegger had not been "more forward
in the discussion. "95 But as in the visits with Char and Lacan, there was no
real dialogue. There was no discussion. Heidegger presented his lectures,
Axelos translated, and Beaufret controlled the questions and answers.
There is a discrepancy between Heidegger's repeated statement at Cerisy
that there is no "Heideggerian philosophy" and Beaufret's attempts to
determine the interpretation and discussion of Heidegger's work. 96 But
this discrepancy captures precisely the nature of the second reading of
Heidegger in France, marked by both the presence of Heidegger's new
work and the Heideggerian orthodoxy of jean Beaufret.
Heidegger's philosophy had returned to France in all its alterity and

strangeness, only to find they were now accepted. The second reading of
Heidegger's philosophy stunned the generation of 1933, who had read
his work as "new" and "original" but also as fundamentally compatible
with the notions of individualism, freedom, and progress that lay at the
heart of their education. For the next generation, which came to Hei-
degger after World War II, the second reading was as "new" and "origi-
nal" as the first. These younger students, who came to his philosophy
through the works of Sartre, Aron, and Merleau-Ponty, were shocked and
electrified to move beyond the first reading to a philosophy they saw as
even more radical. But while Heidegger's philosophy had found a home
92. Interview with Kostas Axe los in Janicaud, Heirkgger 1111 Franre II, entretiRns, 13.
93.Janicaud, lleidPggrrroFrana I, 150-62. This section also provides a substantive account
of the topics of discussion for each day of the conference. Janicaud relies on a transcript of
Alex Philonenko's tape recording of the conference.
94. Ricoeur, Critiqur and Co-rwiclion, 20.
95. Interview with Kostas Axe los in Janicaud, 1-lridegger 1111 Franre II, rotretiPns, 19.
96. Heidegger's statement that there is no "philosophy of Heidegger" seems to be the
single most consistent memory of those attending the conference at Cerisy. I have found
this in my own research and throughout the interviews conducted by janicaud.
204
in France, one could not say that it was at home in the world of French
philosophy. Heidegger's work would not be canonized despite the efforts
of a devoted following led by Jean Beaufret. In fact, Heidegger's work
would have its most important influence on philosophers who saw it as a
call to continue to rethin'k the established boundaries of philosophy and
thought even as they pertained to Heidegger himself. 97
Afterword
I must include a a few words here regarding Jean Beaufret's pathological
defense of Heidegger and his letters in support of the "negationist" his-
torian Robert Faurisson. (I follow Henry Rousso in using the term "nega-
tionist" instead of"revisionist." I feel this term is better suited to define the
nature of Faurisson's work, which does not seek to seriously "revise" the
historical evidence of the Holocaust but in fact to deny it.) The issue to
be addressed is whether Beaufret had a "hidden agenda" in his defense of
Heidegger, which is later revealed in his "covert support" of Robert Fauns-
son, as Richard Wolin claims in his article "French HeideggerWars" (291):
"As it turns out, Beaufret seems to have had a hidden agenda: he was a
covert supporter of Robert Faurisson, the French historian who denies the
existence of the gas chambers specifically and the Holocaust in general."
Let me be clear that what is at stake is not whether Beaufret supported
Faurisson or not. Beaufret did support Faurisson in two letters, dated
November 22, 1978, and January 18, 1979, which were later published in
Faurisson'sjournal Annates d'histoirerevisioniste. What is at stake, however, is
whether this implies that Beaufret's interest in and defense of Heidegger
is part of the same agenda to deny the Holocaust and whether Beaufret's
support of Faurisson necessarily impeaches his support of Heidegger.
I would argue that Beaufret's support of Heidegger is not indicative of
his later support of Faurisson but precisely the reverse. Beaufret's deci-
sion to support Faurisson is a direct result of his desire to protect and
rehabilitate Heidegger. Beaufret had invested everything in Heidegger
and his work. His place in the French academic world was a direct result
of his proximity to Heidegger. As Beaufret's relationship with Hei-
degger developed over the years, his defensive strategies became more
and more extreme. In 1945, in his article for Confluences, Beaufret dis-
missed Heidegger's association with National Socialism as a result of his
97. I disagree with Tom Rockmore's characterization of Jacques Derrida as "often

indistinguishably similar to the orthodox form ofHeideggerianism established by Beaufret"
(Rockmore, Heideggrr and French Philosophy, 120) because I see the work of Derrida, and of
many of the other late Heideggerians he discusses, as indebted to the third reading of
Heidegger in France. See chaps. 6 and 7.
205
"naive-bourgeois character." Later, he became a proponent of the con-
tingency theory, relying entirely on Heidegger's own testimony. As the
facts came out and Heidegger's story was shown to be deficient, if not
deceitful, Beaufret continued to take Heidegger's side, totally denying
any commitment on Heidegger's part to National Socialism, or adopting
Heidegger's own strategy, defined in the "Letter on Humanism," which
showed him to be the proponent of an "internal critique" of National
Socialism all along. Lacan commented on the pathological nature of
Beaufret's defense of Heidegger soon after Beaufret had left analysis
with him (Roudinesco,Jacques Lacan, 297-98).
As more information became accessible and the extent of Heidegger's
involvement became less refutable, Beaufret's position became increas-
ingly untenable. It is at this point that Beaufret turned to the possibil-
ity of a "negationist" argument as presented by Faurisson. By denying
the existence of the Nazi death camps, "the link between Heidegger and
National Socialism becomes unproblematic because, in a word, Nazism
was not Nazism" (Rockmore, "Heidegger's French Connection," 379). In
the face of overwhelming evidence, Beaufret could no longer extricate
Heidegger from Nazism, so instead he had to exorcise what was most
problematic about Nazism. I do not believe Beaufret's denial of the Holo-
caust is the "hidden agenda" in Beaufret's defense of Heidegger. Rather,
Beaufret's agenda, which is quite "open" and obvious, is to protect and
defend Heidegger by all means, no matter how extreme. This calls into
question Beaufret's reading and presentation of Heidegger's thought. It
attests not only to the bond between Heidegger and Beaufret but to the
seductive nature of Heidegger's thought in general.
206
The Third Reading
CHAPTER 6
Maurice Blanchot: The Writing of Disaster
To this point we have dealt almost exclusively with intellectuals who

tried to rethink the project of philosophy with or against the currents of
the traditional French academics by using the philosophy of Heidegger
as the basis for their projects. All these thinkers saw the malaise of the
1930s and the events ofWorld War II as central to their reworking of phi-
losophy. This is especially true for members of the generation of 1933,
such as Aron, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, whose perception of their lack
of political engagement in the 1930s led to extensive political activities
in the postwar period. But this turn toward politics resulted in a specific
engagement with the issues of World War II, focused largely on issues of
culpability and responsibility in the existentialist sense of the terms. Not
addressed in the attempt to rethink philosophy immediately after World
War II was the Shoah and its ramifications on the world of thought. The
issue is peripheral in the work of Aron, Bataille, Beaufret, Lacan, Mer-
leau-Ponty, and Sartre, 1 and virtually absent in the work of Heidegger. 2
Only in the work of Levinas and Maurice Blanchot does a confrontation
with the Shoah become the central focus of the project of rethinking
philosophy that was fostered by Heidegger's influence in France.
Blanchot is especially interesting, given his political allegiances and
actions in the 1930s and1 their proximity to Heidegger's own political
engagement. 3 Like Heidegger, Blanchot was absorbed with the problems
1. Even in Jean-Paul Sartre's Rijlections sur In question juivP (Paris: Morihien, 1946), the
issue is dealt with in terms of his existential political program and not as an attempt to
address the issue of the Shoah.
2. See Beret Lang, Hl'idRgger:~ SilerJ.e (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996) ;Jean-Fram,;ois
Lyotard, Heideggp and "the jews, " trans. Andreas Michel and Mark Roberts (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1990).
3. On Blanchot, see Christophe Bident, Mauria Blanc/tot: Partenaire invirible (Paris:
Champ Vall on, 1996); Philippe Mesnard, Maurice Blanrltot, lR sujet de l'engagt'f1U"ffl (Paris:
L'Harmauan, 1996); Thomas Wall, Radical Passivity: Le1.1inas, Blanclwt, and Agmnben (New
209
of the decline and danger of the modern world. Both thinkers were suspi-
cious and frightened by the effects of rapid industrialization, which they
saw as linked to the twin dangers of Soviet communism and American
capitalism and as a harbinger of the final decline of the West. Blanchot,
like Heidegger, turned to a conservative nationalism as the solution to
this decline. But for Blanchot, this nationalism did not take the form of a
search for an "essential" understanding of the Dasein of the Volk as exem-
plified in a national construct. Instead, Blanchot looked to the nation as
the positing of the supreme subject that would be the measure by which
all was defined. Blanchot's nationalism took the form of an extreme
Cartesianism in which the nation became the cogito. He defined this
national "I'' in opposition to the concept of the other, which sought to
displace its supremacy and put it in question. In this sense, Blanchot's
understanding of nationalism was philosophically very far removed from
Heidegger's, though politically it remained incredibly close. 4
Blanchot began his writing career as a journalist, and his relation to
the right wing seems to be entirely linked to his career as ajournalist. 5 In
the early 1930s he began writing for several Catholic nationalist journals
such as Reaction and La revue du siecle. He also did a column of literary
criticism for the Journal des debats. In 1933 Blanchot began writing for
Paul Levy's Le rempart, and this seems to be the start of his most extreme
nationalist period, which culminated in his work for Combat beginning
in 1936 and for L'insurgebeginning in 1937. Blanchot's political position
was based on what he saw as the decline of France and the disaster to
come. Hitler's rise to power in Germany and the events of the Spanish
Civil War exposed the weakness of the Third Republic, and the rise of
Leon Blum's Popular Front seemed to confinn Blanchot's suspicions. As
a result, Blanchot saw France's greatest threat as coming from within.
These sentiments took their ugliest tum in his writing for Combat and
L'insurge between 1936 and 1938.
York: State University of New York Press, 1999); Gerald L. Bruns. Maurice Blaru:hot: The
Refusal of Philosophy (Baltimore: johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
4. An investigation into the nation as the supreme subject in the work ofHeidegger might
prove interesting. It might expose some of the most traditional aspects of Heidegger's
thought. It is indeed a possibility that, like Blanchot, Heidegger's tum toward the nation
was in fact a flight from what was most unfamiliar in his work and toward what is in a sense
most familiar (the "same" as the nation presents it). This would also support Philippe
Lacoue-Labarthe's contention in lleideggn; Art, and Politirs (New York: Blackwell, 1990)
that during Heidegger's National Socialist period his work was the closest it would ever be
to traditional metaphysical philosophy.
5. For a discussion of Blanchot's politics in relation to his philosophy, see Leslie Hill,
Blanchot: Extrem.e (~mtempr;rary (New York: Routledge, 1997); Deborah M. Hess, Politir..s and
hleralu,re: The Case of Maurice Bl.nnr:Jwt (New York: Peter Lang, 1999).
210
Blanchot's political pos1uon was firmly anti-Hitlerian but the anti-
Blum sentiment in his articles also highlighted the domestic danger. Fol-
lowing a larger trend in right-wing nationalism, Blanchot saw the "true"
threat to France as coming from the stranger within who appears to be
like the rest but is totally other and thus destroys what is pure and true by
tainting it with otherness. In the France of the 1930s, this rhetoric, with
its emphasis on the stranger, always led directly to the Jewish question.
In Blanchot's criticisms of Blum in an article for L'insurge on January 27,
1937, he wrote that "[Blum] represents exactly what is contemptible to
the nation he seeks to address. His is a backward ideology, an antiquated
mentality, a foreign race." That single statement stands alone as an egre-
gious example of anti-Semitism; but because the article appeared with
other more virulent strains of anti-Semitism in the same journals, by asso-
ciation Blanchot's work takes on a more extreme character.
The issue is clouded by Blanchot's friendship with Levinas as well as
his relation to Paul Levy. Levy's right-wing nationalism was absolved from
the taint of collaboration with the most vinilent anti-Semitic groups pre-
cisely because he was aJ~w. Furthermore, Blanchot's work with and con-
tinuous support of Paul Levy demonstrates that his particular brand of
nationalism was not fundamentally antagonistic toward d1e Jews. Blan-
chot never succumbed to the crudest forms of anti-Semitism nor did he
overtly support fascism, the Vichy regime, or National Socialism. Indeed,
after the defeat and the German Occupation, Blanchot suspended all his
political activities. He did participate in the Vichy-financed ]eune France
as director of literature from 1940 till 1941 and continued his work for
Debats. 6 Mter Debats was placed under Vichy control, Blanchot gave up
his position on the editorial board and contented himself with a small
column of literary criticism that he submitted from Occupied France.
He was also refused a position at the Nouvelle revue Jran~aise, largely
because of his antagonistic relationship with Robert Brasillach. 7 Despite
6. Mesnard, Maurice Blanch,ot, lR sujet fk l'engagpnent, 46. See also Jeffrey Mehlman, I .egruies of
Anti~itism in Fraru-.1' (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), chap. 1: "Bianchot
at Combat" ; Stephen Ungar, Scandal and Afo'reffect: Blanclwt at1d Frana since I 930 (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1995); Biden t, MauriCP B/anchot: Partenaire irmisih!R.
7. In a letter to Diane Rubinstein of August 20, 1983, Blanchot writes: "I remember
little about Combat. I do recall however that, as I was utterly opposed to Brasillach,
who was completely committed to Fascism and anti-Semitism, I made it a condition of
my participation on the journal that there was no possibility that he would also be a
contributor. Moreover, things were reciprocal. Brasillach detested Cornbot because I had
been involved with it. Opposition to Brasillach and what he represented was a constant
for me at that time" (Diane Rubinstein, t.v.'tats LPfl? [Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1990], 187n. 72). Brasillach's sentiments toward Combat are made quite explicit in
Notre avant-g'lutrre: "On Cornhat there were one or two liberal intellectuals whose presence
spoilt things in my view, and soon we were obliged to cease our involvement with an organ
211
THE THIRD READING
Blanchot's nationalist sympathies, his work with Levy and his opposition
to anti-Semitic policy revealed his incapacity to grasp fully the essential
"ethnic" issue, a necessity under the Vichy regime.
In the 1930s, Blanchot sought a response to what he perceived as a
crisis within France, which had been revealed by the mounting pressure
without, by positing the nation as the supreme subject. Blanchot saw
the national subject as inherently threatened from within. This threat
was leading to a destabilization of the nation as subject that would pro-
duce the downfall of France. France as the ultimate "I" was threatened
by the other, which had made itself at home within France and thus had
placed the primacy of the national "I" in question. In response to pres-
sure from without, in response to Hitler's Germany, to Soviet commu-
nism, to American capitalism and liberal democracy, France therefore
had to strengthen itself to preserve its own identity. For Blanchot, this
meant that France had to eliminate the danger within so as to protect the
national "1." As a result, the jew was inextricably linked to all the dangers
from without. As Blanchot wrote for L'insurge on April 4, 1936: "We have
nothing to do with the perfidious propaganda of national honor made
by suspicious foreigners who reside in the offices of the quai d'Orsay
and precipitate young Frenchmen into conflict in the name of Moscow
or in the name of Israel." In another article he would define the French
government as a conglomerate of Soviet, jewish, and capitalist interests. 8
All this was tied to Blanchot's premonition that disaster lay around the
corner; but the disaster that would alter Blanchot's understanding of
the "I" and the other was not the collapse of France, as he imagined in
the 1930s, but something beyond his or anyone else's imagination. The
disaster that was to come was the Shoah, and Blanchot would continue to
work through the ramifications of this disaster for the rest of his career.
Blanchot's nationalism was a reaction to his work (and friendship) with
Emmanuel Levinas, influenced by Heidegger's work. At its foundation was
the issue of calling the primacy of the subject into question. In the face of
the other, as friend but also as philosophical concept, Blanchot was tread-
ing on unstable ground. The instability of this philosophical ground was
exacerbated by the crisis of modernity. Thus, in the 1930s, like the other
members of the generation of 1933, Blanchot made political choices dic-
tated by primarily philosophical concerns. Mistaking cause for effect, he
fled from the other, which he perceived (correctly) as a threat to the self,
and turned instead toward the ultimate controlling subject, the nation.
that openly condemned some of the positions that we had defended elsewhere" (Robert
Brasillach, Notre lWOTII-guP-rre [Paris: Livre de Poche, 1973]. 240).
8. Maurice Blanchot, L'fnsurge,]uly 7, 1936. See also Mesnard, Mauri.ct' Rlanchot, le sujet de
l'engagnnnrt, 36.
212
Maurice Blancho1
But both Blanchot and Heidegger came to see that what they thought
was the solution to the crisis of modernity was in fact its fruition. Rather
than revealing what was essential, nationalism led to a dominance of the
same, to the leveling of difference, and to the covering over of the essen~
tial. In response to this realization, they both sought to break with the
metaphysical tradition that led them to their false conclusions. For Hei-
degger, this was the movement away from ontology (which itself was still
indebted to the metaphysical tradition) and toward the history of being.
For Blanchot it was the movement away from the Cartesian subject and
toward the investigation into the possibility of the other. But here the
parallel between Heidegger and Blanchot breaks down, because while
Blanchot saw himself as somehow complicitous in the decline of the
West, even while he sought to avoid that complicity, Heidegger never saw
his position as errant. It was not Heidegger's understanding of National
Socialism that was the false path but rather the "historical manifestation"
of National Socialism, which "had nothing whatever to do with the inner
truth and greatness of this movement (namely the encounter between
global technology and modern man)."9 Heidegger could never confront
the issues of forgiveness fhat Blanchot attempted to address, precisely
,because he never saw his actions as culpable. He never admitted any
error in his own thinking, only in his allegiance to a certain National
Socialism that had nothing to do with his understanding of the move~
ment. Heidegger could only account for his relation to National Social-
ism as a "big mistake," a "grosse Dummheit, " and nothing more.
For Blanchot, any attempt to rethink philosophy hinges precisely on
this issue of culpability and responsibility and is necessarily centered on
the confrontation with and attempt to think the Shoah and its place in
relation to philosophy, literature, history, and understanding. 10
9. Martin Heidegger, An lntrodu<ti.on to Metapltysir.s (New Haven: Yale University Press,

1959), 199. This book is Heidegger's fully reworked text of his lecture, originally presented
at the University ofFreiburg in 1935.
10. There are those who question the moral appropriateness of Blanchot's attempts to
think through the Shoah precisely because of Heidegger's influence on his work. This
position is potentially censorious when Blanchot is simply taned with the same brush as
Heidegger. The point of Blanchot's work was not to rehabilitate Heidegger but to confront
him on the issue of ethical responsibility. One can certainly question the efficacy and value
of Blanchot's work but it would be counterproductive to this historical investigation to
ignore or simply dismiss it. Ultimately, I am less concerned with the merits of Blanchot's
arguments than with the nature of his arguments and interpretations, which become the
basis for later French thought. I also find it important to visit these issues in order to
problematize our understanding and presentation of events such as the Shoah that test
the "limits of representation~ (see the essays in Saul Fr1edHinder, ed., Probing the Limits of
Rep,.e.1mtati.on: Nazism o.nd the Final Solution [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992]).
213
THE THIRD READING
Thinking Disaster
Blanchot came to the work of Heidegger through his friendship with

Levinas, and Blanchot's own work reflects a constant influence and ten-
sion in relation to Levinas's philosophical transitions. This is especially
true in their use of Heidegger to rethink the issues of being, the position
of the subject in relation to being, and the related issue of representabil-
ity, marked by the ambiguous position of language. Levinas and Blanchot
used Heidegger's critique of the Cartesian subject and the philosophical
tradition as the basis for their own investigation into the understanding
of being and of particular being in relation to the other. For Blanchot,
the key concern is the relation of the absolutely singular (the unrepre-
sentable) to the common (the representable). Language is the means by
which the singular is made common and as such is the opening to the
other. But any attempt to represent the unrepresentable is dangerous
because, in the move from the singular to the common, what is singular
is destroyed in its singularity. Just as the realization of the other threat-
ens to displace the individual, the understanding of language also places
what it names in question through this act of negation. In the 1930s, the
attempt to investigate the other side of being, the moment of unrepre-
sentability that displaces the subject, which is representation incarnate,
led Blanchot to intuit a "crisis" of the modern world. The moment of
negation that Heidegger posited in Was ist Metaphysik? and that Levinas
seized on in De /'existence a l'existant led Blanchot to a kind of schizo-
phrenia that manifested itself in the conflicting tendencies of his politi-
cal journalism and literary investigations. While hoping to conserve the
supreme subject through his nationalist rhetoric, he was also at the same
time denying the subject its primary position in his fiction such as Thomas
l'obscur, which he began writing in 1932. One can view this schizophrenia
as a denial or questioning of the primacy of the subject in that this split-
ting already implied a break or fragmentation of the subject, the "I" dis-
tanced from itself. Blanchot's fiction was obsessed with the relation of the
self to the other that displaced/ destroyed the self, and the paradoxical
nature of the impossibility of communication that led to the seemingly
endless encounter with annihilation. The flight from annihilation mani-
fested itself in the political realm, where Blanchot's journalism sought to
reinforce the subject by conserving the supreme "I'' of the nation. In his
work he was obsessed with a fear of the fall of France, and he thought the
end of the nation was the disaster to come. It is important to note that
Blanchot's split is between the realm of the real (the political) and the
imaginary (fiction). While the answers he found were radically different
in each realm, both cases responded to the same perception of annihila-
tion and impending disaster that guided Blanchot's work. Furthermore,
214
Maurice Blanchot
like other members of the generation of 1933 in the 1930s, Blanchot's

political actions were guided by his philosophical concerns.
Blanchot had been exploring this theme for six years by the time
France actually fell in 1940. But as it turned out, the disaster he had been
trying to escape in his politics and to work through in Thomas l'obscurand
Le demier mot could not compare to the reality of the disaster that was
to come. The disaster he anticipated was not the disaster he imagined
precisely because the disaster was beyond the human capacity to imagine
it. The Shoah was the disaster beyond disaster, beyond representation,
beyond language, and beyond the realm of the "1." It was in the face of
the disaster that Blanchot came to realize that what he thought was the
solution in the realm of the real was in fact complicitous with the disaster
itself. In this light, the supreme "I" of nationalism, which guards the "I"
(the same) against the danger of the other and that must protect itself
against the other at all costs, was the fruition of the crisis of modernity
that culminated in the Shoah.
For Blanchot, this was the very end but also the beginning. The irony,
or the horror, is that it was only after the end that Blanchot found his
voice. He was able to address the issue and find the opening to the other,
but only after it was too late. Like the character Henri Sorge in his novel
Le Tres haut, who finds the power to speak only after he dies, Blanchot
finds his power to speak only after the disaster has occurred. In Le Tres
haut, published in 1948, it is only on the last line of the last page of the
book that Sorge finds the power of his voice: "Now, it is now that I speak."
But the novel is over and it is too late.
Similarly, in his novel Aminadab, named after Levinas's youngest
brother, who was a victim of the Final Solution, Aminadab is the first and
last word of the novel. It is the title, but then does not appear again until
it is too late, until it is all over. The word is both the beginning and the
end, or perhaps the end is what allows us to understand the beginning.
In Blanchot's work the position of history is put in question precisely
because of the privileged position he gives to the Shoah as the moment
by which all moments must now be defined. Here we see the paradoxical
nature of a project that both acknowledges the historical manifestation
of the Shoah as a result of the project of modernity and privileges the
Shoah as fundamentally singular, ahistorical, and unrepresentable. Here
the Shoah mimics the model of death that Blanchot came to understand
in his work on Heidegger. For Blanchot, following Heidegger, death is
the limit of representability because it is the possibility of the impossi-
ble. But, as the limit, it also allows for the possibility of meaning as the
limit against which all is defined. Death is ultimately ambiguous, as the
moment that gives all meaning and at the same time takes all meaning
away. Death is the finite moment that is fixed in time but is also infinite,
215
THE THIRD READING
the moment that is always yet to come and always ahead. In this sense,
death is the infinity that provides the finite because it is the basis of
understanding what has come, but on the basis of a not yet that eschews
any sort of narrative or teleology (BT, 2.48.285-90).
For Blanchot, the Shoah, which is the disaster beyond human scale
and thus beyond representation, mimics that moment of death, which
gives meaning while at the same time taking it away. This is a profoundly
dangerous moment, because when the disaster speaks, or gives meaning,
it destroys its prior meaning, which is beyond representation, the singular
phenomenon that cannot be expressed and yet defines expression. For
Blanchot, language is the sphere of representation and speaks only in
relation to death. It destroys that to which it gives meaning. The danger
of this move is that language always risks reducing that which is named
to the level of banality, a merely categorized object to be possessed and
controlled (which is precisely the crisis of modernization and the West-
ern metaphysical tradition). Thus the Shoah as the limit beyond all lim-
its must be communicated precisely because it is the sole possibility of
giving meaning to the modern world. But when it is expressed through
representation, it is always in peril of losing its singularity as the limit
beyond limits and being reduced to a banality. The Shoah, like death,
exists in language as infinitely ambiguous and permanently in peril.
The Shoah must be placed within history to be communicated as the
moment that gives meaning to all other moments; yet it is profoundly
ahistorical as the source of meaning by which any history can be pre-
sented. The Shoah stands outside history in its singularity but must be
placed historically in order to be communicated. Thus it is always in
peril of being reduced to a mere historical moment. The nature of such
a claim places in question all history and representation as the site of
understanding, which is replaced by "a passivity without measure: disas-
ter understood, under-understood not as an event in the past but as the
immemorial past [ le Tres Haut] that returns dispersed by the return of
the present where it can be lived as relived" (ED, 34). Here a notion of
repetition is also invoked. It has its source in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
but arrives in the work of Blanchot through the section of Being and Time
on historicality.
Language and the Work of Literature

The moment of disaster, which has occurred and yet exists as always to
come, also opens the possibility of communication; indeed it is the pos-
sibility of communication that always risks being covered up as that possi-
bility. Like death, the disaster is the ultimate n1pture with the traditional
understartding of representation/historyI narrative/language, and this
216
Maurice Blanchot
rupture creates the opening for another type of understanding. "It is the
darkness of disaster that brings the light" (ED, 17). And this understand-
ing is not accessible through the traditional models of representation
but only by that which places representation in question and thus does
not lose access to the singular even as it attempts to make it common.
For Blanchot, this is the opening for literature, fiction, and poetry: "We
must tum to a language that has never been written but is always to be
prescribed so that the incomprehensible word can be understood in the
heaviness of disaster and invites us to turn towards the disaster without
understanding or supporting it" (ED, 47). Blanchot sees this impossible
task as that ofliterature, which exists both as the comprehensible and the
incomprehensible, both real and unreal, an ultimately ambiguous form
that presents the possibility of the unrepresentable precisely because it
allows access to what is not real (fiction) via what is real but rendered
ultimately ambiguous (language). Literature conserves the moment of
singularity, or unrepresentability, within a form that is pure representa-
tion and as such is the liaison between comprehension and the incom-
prehensible that allows us to turn toward disaster without "understanding
or supporting it."
Blanchot's understanding of the role of literarure relies heavily on his
notion of language, which is based largely on Levinas's philosophical work
from the late 1930s and 1940s.U Blanchot, like Levinas, sees language as a
double-edged sword that opens the possibility of encountering the other
but is always in danger of reducing the other to the position of an object
through the banal categorization entailed in mere representation. language
exposes the ambiguous, precarious, and unsettling relationship between the
self and the other and, in so doing, it calls both into question. In its most
banal form, all meaning is lost in language, which becomes mere classifica-
tion without any reference to that which it is classifYing. In this sense, that
which is named is deprived of its very being and reduced to an o~ect in a
larger system of objective knowledge. For Blanchot as for Levinas, this is the
inherent poverty of idealism in its neo-Kantian but also spiritualist incarna-
tions, where the understanding of being is sacrificed for a system of categori-
cal objectification and representation via the scientific model or in the form
of a pure consciousness that traps and identifies everything within its sphere.
Blanchot wanted to get to the moment prior to the positing of the self, the
11. Blanchot's understanding of the role of language is equally indebted to the work of
Mallarme, and in this respect is part of a larger French dialogue on the subject that goes
well beyond the influence of Heidegger. For the purposes of this project I will focus on
what is immediately pertinent to the reception of Heidegger's philosophy in France. See
Ulrich Hass and William Large: Maurit-e Blanclwt (New York: Routledge, 2001), chap. 2,
"Language and Literature."
217
THE THIR!l READING
basis for both subjective and objective analysis, by looking toward language
for the moment prior to that positing. The unsettling nature of language
as a deposition (in the sense that a king is deposed) as well as a position
is a focal point of his literary work throughout the 1930s and especially in
Thomas l'obscur. But this moment prior gives no comfon or security, unlike
the Canesian positing, which allows one to come to grips with oneself in the
most banal sense. Instead, the investigation into language reveals its destruc-
tive nature, and the investigation into death exposes the other side of being,
which is revealed through annihilation. This is what Levinas described as the
il y a, which is not the nothingness that Sartre saw as the opposite of being
but the realization that even in annihilation being remains. The moment
of destruction is not the destruction of being but rather the realization that
being is always already there, "impersonal and anonymous." As Levinas states
in De I'existence a l'existant, "lbe il y a is the anonymous and impersonal cur-
rent of Being that precedes all being, the Being that is at the heart of the
disappearance is already present, that is the basis of all annihilation returns
again to Being, Being that is like the fatality of Being, the nothingness as
existence: when there is nothing there is [ il y a] Being." 12
This is the realization that there is a something beyond finitude,
namely, the anonymity of infinite being. This philosophical move sup-
poses that the self, the "1," is in no way prior to the other and that the
other is necessarily an equal: both the self and the other stand on this side
of being, which is always prior and in fact gives meaning to both. It is not
the "I" as ego cogito that gives meaning to the world, as Husserl supposed
and Sartre sought to elaborate and modifY; nor does the self define itself
in conflict with the other as in Kojeve's uaderstanding of Hegel. Instead,
meaning is derived from the moment before and beyond. Far from a
breakthrough revelation, the construction of this understanding was a
slow realization for Blanchot. Furthermore, that realization was unset-
tling to Blanchot because it involved the impossibility of escaping the
impersonal being that is both the source and annihilation of the self. It
was precisely this unsettled feeling that led Blanchot to construct the self
as nation in an attempt to escape from his philosophical revelation. Mter
World War II, Blanchot turned away from philosophy, and specifically
the politics of the self, because he realized that his attempt to avoid the
moment beyond the self could never escape the il y a. 13 Furthermore,
12. This formulation is actually a paraphrase of Levinas by Maurice Blanchot in "La

Littfrature et le droit a Ia mort," in I ..a Part du feu (Paris: Gallimard, 1949), 320n. 1. I will
explore Levin as's use of this term in the next chapter.
13. It is of interest to note that twenty years Iate1; in 1958, Blanchot returned to politics, but
in support of the far left. Here one might speculate on the relationship between a radical
notion of collectivity and Blanchot's politics. See Michel Surya, "Un bonheur politique,"
Mngaz.ine litteraire no. 424 (October 2003): 38-40.
218
Maurice Blanchot
after the Shoah, Blanchot came to see the politics of the self as even
more horrific (in its resolve to remove the other to protect the same)
than the it y a, which, despite its strangeness and unfamiliarity, conserves
a place for the other in the moment of creation.
Thomas l'obscurembodies the conflict Blanchot experienced while try-
ing to work through these philosophical issues in the 1930s. In Thomas
there is a constant tension in the character of Thomas himself, who can-
not come to grips with his self because he realizes he is also radically
other. Thomas is the moment of strangeness but also of horror when
one realizes oneself as other or, rather, realizes that there is nothing pri-
mary in one's self and that there is something prior to it. Thomas is con-
stantly assaulted by the contradiction between identity and strangeness.
Thomas's desire to name, to catalog, to control, is repeatedly thwarted
by the unheimlich nature of existence, which is beyond his control. Thom-
as's very existence is not his own and defies his own understanding. In
chapter 5 Thomas finds that he has turned into a cat, and in this state
everything seems unfamiliar, strange, outside him. He is not the subject,
or rather his subjectivity is in question. He cannot control his self, his
being, or his perception, and he is removed from himself as the site of
these perceptions:
This head, my head doesn't see me because I am annihilated. It is me
that looks at me but cannot distinguish that it is me. Oh superior cat
that I have become this instant to discover my decease (demise), I
will disappear now for the good of all. At first I ceased to be a man. I
became a little cat, cold and uninhabitable, sprawled out on the floor.
I rally one more time. I throw a last look at the valley that shuts me in
and I see a man who is also a superior cat. I hear him scratch on the
ground, probably with his claws. That which is called the beyond is
finished for me. (TO, 37-38)
The very issue of positionality is entirely ambiguous both for Thomas
and for the reader. What is striking in this passage is that while Thomas
is struggling with the displacement of his self and the realization of a
moment prior to his being that is both the creation and destruction
of representable presence, this move is not isolated. There is another
ambiguous subject. Perhaps it is another man who has become a supe-
rior cat or Thomas himself who has become the other man.
The language is vague, and this leads to another confrontation in the
narrative. This is the realization that the moment prior to the self and
the other is accessible through language and that the relation of the self
to the other occurs in language. Everyday language rarely reflects on this
relation, but in literature it is exposed. There, the limits of representation
come to the fore, because in everyday language things are made opaque
219
THE THIRD READING
while in literature they remain ambiguous. Thomas l'obscur thus exists on

two levels, as both the fiction ofBlanchot and the real world ofThomas. In
chapter 4, Thomas realizes that he does not control the words that are the
basis of representation and definition, but that they control him. 14 Words
arc the means by which Thomas defines himself and others, the way he
establishes the limit of where he stops and others begin. But as such they
are prior to his self. Language already exists, and thus it too places his self
in question. Thomas is confronted with the possibility that he is not the
center of meaning as he had supposed, but that in fact meaning is outside
him, beyond him. This can be seen as an extreme reading of Hcidegger's
ek-stasis, but Blanchot wants to go further than Heidegger. While reading,
Thomas is overwhelmed by the sentiment that it is not he who reads the
words but the words that read him.
He perceived all the strangeness of having been observed by a word
as though it were a living being. And this was not just one word but
all words. . . He did not push away this well defended text but used
all his force to grasp it, he refused to look away and believed that he
could come to an even more profound reading when he realized that
the words had already taken possession of him and begun to read
him. (TO, 28)
The words are not his to use but instead use him. Language is definition,
which presupposes Thomas, presupposes the self that arises from a noth-
ingness that is prior to the self.
Thomas's impulse is to run. "He returned to his room. He barricaded
the door. He waited with his back against the wall. But neither the min-
utes nor the hours exhausted his wait. He felt close to an absence so mon-
strous that the encounter demanded an infinity of time" (TO, 31). The
absence is the lack of existence, the anonymous and impersonal being
of the il y a. This is the nothingness from which language emerges but
which implies something beyond and before the nothing. Thomas exists
in relation to nonexistence, he is presence in relation to absence. His
being is not centered in the self as body, present as the locus of represen-
tation, but outside it. Thus it is only as represented that the self and body
are incorporated in an "I," but this "I" i.s already displaced by the very
words that define it as "1." In the confrontation with these words, which
imply the nothingness, Thomas experiences "a sort of Thomas that has
left his body and that moves towards the menace that has unveiled him"
(TO, 31 ). This revelation of the position of the self exterior to the body
is not alleviated by his attempt to escape the absence, and Thomas finds
14. Phillipe Mesnard, "Maurice Blanchot, le sujet et !'engagement," L'l11jini 48 (Winter

1994): 103-28.
220
Maurice Blanchot
instead that he is in fact drawn toward the absence he feels "close to."
The menace that puts Thomas's self in question is also the basis for the
constitution of the self. For Thomas, the movement toward the nothing,
the absence, that is the origin of language serves to expose the impos-
sibility of escaping being. This is not an understanding of being as self
but of being as infinite anonymity in the il y a. Here, even the absence of
being implies being.
Furthermore, in the confrontation with language, which implies the
nothingness by carrying the absence with it, Thomas comes up against
the limits of representation. The moment of the absence, the il y a,
implies a moment prior to language. This is the moment of naming,
which creates and destroys in the same act, but also implies a namer. The
issue of the namer, the ultimate other who gives the name, will become
of great importance to both Blanchot and Levinas. It is the possibility
of God. During the writing of Thomas, however, Blanchot was obsessed
with the absence on the other side of being, which he took for annihi-
lation but which he came to realize was something even more strange
and frightening. Writing Thomas l'ohscur, Blanchot "encountered in the
search for annihilation (absence) the impossibility of escaping Being
(presence)-whic~ was not even a contradiction in fact, but the demand
of an unhappy perpetuity in dying itself."15 In Thomas, Blanchot intuits
the possibility of the opening to the other but only in terms of the dis-
placement of the self in the face of language and in relation to decline,
destntction, and negation.
literature presents Blanchot with the possibility of confronting language
and creating a space for the other, but always at the supreme risk of losing
oneself, as in Thomas, or of sacrificing the other, as in the case ofBlanchot's
political writings. In the 1930s, Blanchot's focus was on the annihilation of
the self and the attempt to protect the endangered self through the cre-
ation of a national subject. Mter the disaster, he came to recognize this
negation, this deposition of the self, as the opening to the other.
Mter the Shoah, Blanchot sought to move beyond any system of
thought that privileged the same at the expense of the other. Thus he
turned to literature, which, by means of its ambiguous nature, refuses
categorical representation and the domination of the same. In this move,
Blanchot turned away from his allegiance to the "I," which was the source
of his nationalism, and toward the understanding of the other that he
sought to explore in the confrontation of language with/in literature.
Blanchol saw the ambiguity of literature as the means by which to reveal
the paradoxical nature of language, as that which reveals the meaning of
15. Blanc hot, "Mter the Fact." in Vicious Circles: Tum Fic#ons and "After the Far./." (Barrytown,
NY: Station Hill, 1985), 64. This is the focus of Blanchot's novel Arr;l de mort (1948).
221
THE THIRD READING
the singular to the common but also conceals the true meaning of the
singular by replacing it with the common. Furthermore, Blanchot saw
literature as the sole means of representing the unrepresentable without
reducing it to the merely categorical.
Here again we see the complex nature of Blanchot's project, which is
defined by a historical event that is itself the basis for all understanding
and thus stands outside history. For Blanchot, all our understanding is
coded by the disaster, which is itself impossible to understand. Thus the
access we can achieve is necessarily and infinitely ambiguous. The other
offers itself as ambiguity.
Repetition and Circularity

The centrality of the Shoah for Blanchot and the influence of Heidegger
on him reveal the strange circularity of the reception of Heidegger in
France. Both Blanc-hot and Levinas were profoundly influenced by Hei-
degger's work from the late 1920s and early 1930s, and this led them
to their understanding of philosophy as ontological investigation into
being, which is the basis for their understanding of temporality, the
nature of truth, the nature of representation, a rethinking of history, the
displacement of the Cartesian cogito, and most important for Blanchot,
the structure of death. But both Blanchot and Levinas were dissatisfied
with Heidegger's conclusions in his understanding of Dasein in relation
to the Mitsein. This led them to an investigation of language and silence
based on early Heidegger in an attempt to think their way past Heidegger.
Thus Levinas and Blanchot began to explore language and silence well
before the publication of the "Letter on Humanism," hence well before
these became issues in the French understanding of Heidegger, which at
the time was still dominated by ontology understood as existentialism. 16
After the Shoah, the need to elaborate the concept of the Mitsein so
as to establish a place for the other based on a rethinking of Heidegger's
work in relation to language became an imperative for Blanchot and Levi-
nas. For them, Heidegger's ontology, which they saw as the basis for a
rethinking of crucial issues such as the primacy of the self and the nature
of representation, was still too focused on the self and thus part of a sys-
tem that had no place for the other. 17 Even Heidegger's understanding
16. Here too Mallarme's influence on Blanchot cannot be underestimated.

17. For Levinas, Heidegger's investigation into DnsPin in BPi11g and Time was stiii based on
the investigation of the individual Dasl'in as the access to an understanding of being and
was thus essentially limited by the position of the self. It is the emphasis on the individual
in Heidegger's concept of being-towards-death, coupled with the poverty of Heidegger's
development of the concept of the Mitseiu, that leads Levinas to the conclusion that there
is no space fm the other in Heidegger's ontological investigation. Jean-Luc Nancy also
222
Maurice Blanchot
of death as presented in Being and Time, which is the basis for Blanchot's
understanding of language and literature, since they mimic death in their
structure, required rethinking. Blanchot considered Heidegger's under-
standing of death still too focused on the individual. He saw Jemeinigkeit,
the mine-ownness of death, as an exclusionary and insufficient notion.
In the face of disaster (the Shoah), Blanchot wanted to rethink death in
relation to language and literature so as to include room for the possi-
bility of the other while at the same time conserving what is essentially
"one's ownmost" in death. While this notion can never be clear, it is more
understandable when one remembers that for Heidegger death is one's
ownmost possibility, it is the possibility of the impossible. "In Dasein there
is undeniably a constant ' lack of totality' which finds an end with death.
This 'not-yet' 'belongs' to Dasein as long as it is" (BT, 286). Dasein does
not complete itself until the moment of death but that is also the moment
when all possibilities disappear for Dasein. Mter death Dasein has no more
possibilities. "Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein"
(BT, 294). Blanchot sought to elaborate on and deviate from I-Ieidegger
precisely regarding the issue of singularity, which is what Heidegger's con-
ception of death rests on: "When it [Dasein] stands before itself in this
way [as the possibility of the impossibility of Dasein], all its relations to
any other Dasein have been undone [gelost]. This ownmost non-relational
[ unbeziigliche] possibility is at the same time the uttermost one" (BT, 294).
What is quite delicate in Blanchot's reading of Heidegger in the wake of
the Shoah is that it does not deny the singularity of death but demands an
investigation into the moment beyond/before. For Blanchot, this is the
moment of Levinas's il y a but also the moment before the singular, when
one can access the other in all its impossibility.
Blanchot takes Heidegger to task for the overly subjectivist tendencies
of Being and Time, the very issue Heidegger ascribed to the French read-
ing of his philosophy in the "Letter on Humanism." As we have seen, Hei-
degger too was moving away from the methodology of Being and Time and
the ontological investigation of being, which necessarily focused on Dasein
as the existential manifestation of being. Heidegger's decision to break
entirely with the metaphysical tradition of philosophy and tum to an inves-
tigation into the history of being was also a turn away from the primacy
of the subject and toward language. His shift became explicit in France in
1947 with the publication of the "Letter on Humanism," his lectures from
makes this point in an investigation into /Jasri11 in relation to the Hegelian category of self.
His conclusion is that Heidegger's philosophy does not differentiate itself sufficiently from
the Hegelian model and thus also becomes a philosophy of the self (~'Ol). See Jean-Luc
Nancy, l.n rornmurwute dhoeuvrPP (Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1990), 203. Nancy also posits
the Mitsein as the possible opening to a philosophy m-<ommu.n instead of m-soi.
223
THE THIRD READING
Cerisy, his lectures on Thor, and his Holderlin lectures, which were trans-
lated byJoseph Rovan. The turn to poetry were strikingly similar trajectories
for Heidegger and Blanchot. The interests of Blanchot and to an extent of
Levinas were parallel to those of Heidegger in 1947: language and the pov-
erty of traditional philosophy, given its tendency to cover up in the very act
of revealing and thus deprive humankind of meaning in its desire to define
everything. The "Letter on Humanism" introduced French philosophy to
Hejdegger's concern with the relation of language to being and shifted it.,
focus away from existential humanism and toward an investigation into lan-
guage and the decentered subject. In this way, the "Letter on Humanism"
and the second reading of Heidegger in France opened the possibility for a
serious interest in the work ofBlanchot and Levinas.
Although Heidegger's shift in focus led French intellectuals to an inter-
est in Levinas and Blanchot, their understanding of Heidegger deviated
from, and even stood in opposition to, the second reading of Heidegger,
despite parallel interests and methodologies. Blanchot and Levinas would
play a seminal role in leading young French thinkers to (and away from)
Heidegger by constantly challenging him in a way that Jean Beaufret's
orthodoxy never could and that Jean-Paul Sartre never attempted. Blan-
chot and Levinas deviated from Heidegger because they both sought to
confront the Shoah, which led them to rethink not only the relation oflan-
guage to being but also the place of the other in that relation. This is why,
for them, "Language is not the house of being but the site of skepticism"
(ED, 170). Being is not something lost that can be recovered through the
patient investigation into the ancient, which will bring us understanding
through contemplation. Instead, language is the site of meaning, but a
dangerous site where meaning is derived from the act of negation and
destruction. Language is the point of access to the moment beyond mean-
ing, but it is also in danger of falling into the banality of categorization
that deprives it of all meaning in the very act of defining. For Blanchot,
the issue of being is inextricably linked to the relation with the other, and
this can only be thought after, but in relation to, the rupture of the Shoah,
as that which was and that which is al'\<\'ays to come.
Heidegger's apologies for his own actions and for the actions of
Germany during World War II confront the issue as the fruition of a
certain history that can be traced through the metaphysical tradition
of the West. In this sense, Heidegger saw nothing singular or exem-
plary in the event, nor did he confront the specificity of the Shoah. 18
18. Heidegger's claim that National Socialism was the result of a "structural malady"
of the West, that one could substitute "East Germans" for Jews, and his equation of the
extermination camps with the industrial production of food products, all attest to this
trend in his thought. See n. 34 below.
224
Maurice Blancho1
By contrast, Blanchot saw the Shoah as a singular and fundamentally

ahistorical event, but also as the moment by which all history and
meaning will now be understood. To understand history, Blanchot
also applies the philosophy of Heidegger in a way Heidegger himself
did not. As such, he develops a critique of history that is based on
Being and Time but that also calls Heidegger's own historical account
of the events of World War II into question. In Being and Time, Hei-
degger wants to expose the present-at-hand structure of history that
distances it from any real temporal understanding of history under-
stood through Dasein and the structure of care (Sorge). 19
Given the sophistication of Heidegger's analysis of historicality in Being
and Time, his impoverished understanding of recent historical events as a
basis for his apologetics is highly suspect. Blanchot's understanding of his-
tory is similar to his understanding of death in that it stems and deviates
from Heidegger's work in Being and Time. Blanchot's confrontation with his-
tory grows out of his work with Levin as, his reading of death, his understand-
ing ofKojeve, and the notion of disaster as the event that is always to come.
The Writing of Disaster

The writing of disaster emerges in the shadow of the Shoah but is also based
directly on Blanchot's involvement with all the key elements in the recep-
tion of Heidegger in France. In Blanchot's "La litterature et le droit a la
mort" from La part du feu ( 1949), one can see a synthesis of all the strains of
this reception that we have encountered to this point, read through the lens
of Blanchot's particular engagement with the concept of disaster. Blanchot
presents an interpretation ofHeidegger that is heavily indebted to Levinas's
understanding of Being and Time but also relies on an understanding of his-
tory and an interpretation of language that can be traced to Alexandre
Kojeve's Hegel seminar. This influence is the result ofBlanchot's work and
friendship with Georges Bataille. Blanchot also presents an understanding
of literature as fiction, as the unreal, .which is derived from the influence
of Sartre's L'imaginaire and an understanding of language as the site of the
sacred based on Heidegger's work on Holderlin. Finally, Blanchot's work is
a movement away from Heidegger's ontology that follows Levinas's critique
of the insufficiency of ontology in De ['existence al'existant. 20
Blanchot opens his investigation into the nature of literature in "La
litterature et le droit a la mort" with a question, or rather with the pos-
sibility of avoiding a question, which still manifests itself as the question
"Why does one write?"
19. See chap. 4.

20. See chap. 7.
225
THE THIRD READING
One can surely write without asking why one writes. But a writer who
watches his pen print the letters still has the right to pause and say:
Stop! Do you know what you are doing? Do you know where you are
going? Can't you see that your ink leaves no trace? That you move
freely but in an emptiness? That if you haven't encountered any
obstacles it is because you have never left your point of departure?
And still you write: you write without stop, I discover what I have dic-
tated to you and it reveals to me what I know; in reading you, others
enrich what they have taken from you and give you that which you
learn from them. Now you have made that which you did not make;
you have written what you did not write: you are condemned to the
ineffaceable. (LDM, 293)
The question implies that writing is more than it seems but also is that
which necessarily avoids an answer. Each response Blanchot gives to the
question is itself contradictory. How does the ink leave no trace? How
does one write what one has not written? And how is a project that moves
in an emptiness and never leaves the place it has begun, that does not say
what it set out to say, and that does not leave a mark, condemned to the
ineffaceable? For Blanchot the answer is the question: "Literature begins
at the moment when literature becomes a question" (LDM, 293).
This question is also addressed to language through literature, which
puts into question the very language the writer uses. In this sense, litera-
ture exists as a question but as the question that puts itself in question.
This structure seems to mirror Heidegger's understanding of Dasein as
that being for whom being is an issue and that thus questions its being.
But the structure of the question also implies a negation, and here Blan-
chot is very close to Sartre's work in L'imaginaire. In Sartre, the question
always implies a negative as well as a positive, and literature, which is not
real but the unreal domain of negation, is exposed as a creation from
nothingness. Literature "opens itself from the nothingness where it real-
izes its proper irreality" (LDM, 293). But while Sartre understands the
imaginary as the site of free will where human beings create something
from the nothing, which is the proof of freedom itself, Blanchot uses the
relation of the real to the unreal to demonstrate the profound ambigu-
ity of literature. 21 Thus for Blanchot, literature is the ambiguous liaison
between the real and the unreal, between being and nothingness, and
as such is more important than philosophy, religion, history, or any dis-
cipline that privileges the answer above the question. Here Blanchot is
21. In another article in J.a part du fru, "Les romans de Sartre," Blanchot makes this
point explicit and claims that the importance of Sanre's wmk does not lie in the claim to
freedom or the call to engagement but in the profound ambiguity that is the basis of his
work.
226
Maurice Blanchot
very close to the Heidegger of the "Letter on Humanism" in his desire to

let the question ask questions and not to force a particular answer that in
fact conceals the question.
It is from literature's position as art that literature derives its access to
the question, and Blanchot uses Hegel to formulate his own conception
of art as the highest idea that formulates itself. 22 The formulation of the
idea is of particular interest to Blanc hot: "To paraphrase Hegel, from his
first step the individual who wants to write is arrested by a contradiction:
to write he must have the talent to write.... His talent can only be seen
after he has written, but he must have talent in order to write" (LDM,
295). Thus the writer's talent can be discovered only in the production
of the work, the book. The writer must produce and make present that
which exists in nothingness as his idea. But this production requires on
the author's part an integrity, a commitment to the idea he wishes to write
but which does not yet exist. The difficulty is that the work of literature as
manifest can never be the pure idea of the writer, even though it is the fru-
ition of that idea. Here we can already intuit the relation to Heidegger's
concept of death, because for literature, as for Dasein, that which com-
pletes it also puts an end to it. But in literature, completion is not the end
or rather it is the end that never ends. It is a perpetual dying.
Blanchot returns to Hegel to trace the relation between writer and
nothingness in the act of creation. This supposes a particular difficulty
because the writer must take an idea, a pure concept, and transform it
to make it accessible as a universal concept. For Blanchot, this act repre-
sents a certain danger: "The danger of writing for others is that the oth-
ers will not understand your voice but the voice of another, a ' real' voice,
profound and disturbing like truth." 23 The writer must take that which is
most singular and make it communal. For Blanchot this is an impossible
task; like death, it is the representation of the unrepresentable. In the
act of representation something is destroyed, negated, and the mean-
ing is changed. At this point it becomes clear that Blanchot's reading of
Hegel is in fact Kojeve's reading of Hegel as presented by Bataille and as
published by Raymond Queneau as Alexandre Kojeve's Introduction ala
lecture de Hegel (1947). Blanchot claims that the act of negation in litera-
ture resembles the Hegelian notion of work as the motor of history, and
he uses Kojeve's reading of Hegel to make this claim (LDM, 300).
Literature does have a similar structure to work in Blanchot's read-
ing because, as produced by work, literature is the transformation of raw
22. On Blanchot's use of Hegel, see Vincent Descombes, Modern f)"N~rh Pllil.osophy, trans. L.
Scott Fox andj. M. Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 112-13.
23. Blanc hot, "La litterature et le droit aIa mort," 299. Blanchot's concern with the author's
inability to control the "public" understanding of one's work is of particular interest in
relation to his political writing of the 1930s.
227
THE THIRD READING
material into something of use for man. Thus the production of a book
is the historical manifestation of an object. But Blanchot deviates from
Hegel because literature does not have the same properties as other
objects produced by work and thus resists incorporation into history.
"The essence of literature as thing (object) is still silence, the nothing-
ness" (LDM, 300). Thus while it is a product of history in the Hegelian
sense-it is the result of work-literature remains at some level outside
history as that which is no-thing, not real, and that thus confounds his-
tory. The ambiguity of literature distinguishes it from the Hegelian
notion of work defined by Kojeve, where the creative act of negation
transforms nature into an object under man's control. In Blanchot's pre-
sentation, literature is the act of creation via negation that creates some-
thing completely out of man's control. "What is most striking is that in
literature, trickery and mystification are not only inevitable but form the
honesty of the writer. It is the place of hope and truth that he has within
himself." This "malady" inherent in words "is also the sanctity of words"
(LDM, 302). It is precisely the possibility of misunderstanding that opens
the possibility of understanding.
But this also must be understood in relation to Kojeve's reading of
Hegel and Kojeve's definition of language a" an act of negation, where
the presence of a word corresponds to the absence of that which is
named. As opposed to the act of negation in naming, which provides a
definition (a universal) that is substituted for the particular (singular)
and thus destroys the singular in the creation of the common, literature
leaves the relation ambiguous, because that which is named is not real.
Thus in Blanchot's example of a writer writing about a cat, the writer is
not able to clarifY a universal notion of catness that he can convey to the
reader precisely because, in presenting the cat in his work, it is not clear
but mystifying. The "cat is not a cat." We are reminded of Thomas in
Thomrul'obscur, who himself becomes a cat but is never a cat. The reader
is never clear on the identity of the cat or of Thomas; unlike the act of
representation in nonliterary language, which is also the act of objecti-
fication (and in this sense the act of work), in literature this act of rep-
resentation is always a slippage between the real and the unreal. It is
a movement between the singular and the common and between the
representable and the limits of representation. "The slippage makes the
writer perpetually absent and irresponsible, that is to say without con-
sciousness, but the slippage also extends the writer's presence in his risks
and his responsibility" (LDM, 303).
Literature exists as ambiguity and paradox. It is a tension and an open
question that destabilizes meaning and thus does not allow for the sort
of classification and objectification that is the domain of nonliterary lan-
guage and the sciences of man. Literature cannot focus on finding an
228
Maurice Blancho
answer because it is fundamentally a question that opens only onto other

questions. Blanchot presents this paradox in the form of a dialogue:
ONE SAYS TO THE OTHER: You will not write, you will remain nothing, you
will keep the silence, you will ignore words.
THE OTHER: I don't know anything but words.
-Write to say nothing.
-Write to say something.
-Not a book but your own experience, the knowledge of that which you
did not know.
-A book! A real work, recognized by and important to others.
-Efface the reader.
-Efface yourself before the reader.
-Write to be true.
-Write for the truth.
Which law to follow? Which voice to listen to? But we must follow both!
(LDM, 303)
For Blanchot, the paradoxical conflict between the singular and the com-
munal is the basis for the ambiguity that constitutes the essential charac-
ter of writing literature. 24
Thus literature exists as work in the Kojevian sense of the term but also
outside work. 25 "One must destroy language as it is in order to realize it in
another form"; thus, like work, literature destroys to create. Writing also
stands outside history, because, unlike work, it does not create in relation
to the real but in relation to the unreal. For Blanchot as for Sartre, the
unreal always supposes nothingness. Blanchot pushes his understanding
of this negation even farther than Sartre by following Heidegger's attempt
to rethink the nature of representation in Being and Time and by arriving
at the same conclusion Levinas draws in De !'existence al'existant:
It [literature] does not negate only the walled-in situation of man but
passes over time, which is the wall, and forces an opening. It negates the
negation of time and negates the negation of limits. This is why in the
end it does not negate anything and the work where literature is real-
ized is not the real action of destruction, of destruction and transfomla-
tion, but the realization of the impossibility to negate. Literature is the
refusal to intervene in the real world and transform d1e freedom that it
must incarnate in things by means-of time into an ideal which is above
time but as such is empty and inaccessible. (LDM, 306)
24. A reading of Blanchot's concept of ambiguity in relation to Merleau-Ponty's

understanding of the term would also be helpful for grasping the divergent and pluralistic
nature of the reception of Heidegger in France.
25. Blanchot cites Kojeve as the basis for his understanding of the concept of work in both
Hegel and Marx in a footnote to "La litterature et le dmit a Ia mort" (305).
229
THE THIRD READING
Literature refuses to enter the real world and thus is not like work in
the Hegelian sense. It is not under control, nor does it serve humans, but
instead serves to expose the moment prior to negation. This is essential
for Blanchot, because, if Kojeve's Hegelian model is kept intact, then the
moment of confrontation between the self and the other can only exist
within the sphere of negation that manifests itself as the Master-Slave dia-
lectic. If, however, there is a moment prior to negation, then the encoun-
ter between the self and the other is not necessarily based on the model of
negation. What Blanchot exposes in his understanding of literature is the
impossibility of negating. This is because the anonymous being of the il y
a is always prior to negation. This is the place prior to the self and prior
to the "I" as posited in language and is thus the opening to the other.
Furthermore, by exposing the infinity of anonymous being, which is the
other side of dying, this move displaces the privileged position of death as
that which is my ownmost. In its impersonal anonymity the il y a is like an
endless dying that is never completed in the moment of death. Literature
is also like this endless dying. The language of literature cannot be the
language of negation but is somehow the negation of negation.
Unlike nonliterary language, literature can never be an imperative but
is always a question. "The language of the writer, even the revolutionary
writer, is not the language of a commandment. The writer does not com-
mand but presents, and in presenting he does not render present what
he shows but shows that which is behind what he presents, as the mean-
ing and absence of it all" (LDM, 308). Here too we see a parallel between
Heidegger's project in the "Letter on Humanism" and Blanchot's
understanding of language in literature. Both want to avoid traditional
prescriptive philosophy as Sartre practices it. Instead they want to let lan-
guage be, let it present itself in its absence and in its silence. To this end
both writers turn to poetry and specifically to the works of Holderlin as
the site where language reveals and conceals all its meaning. 26
But Blanchot is also interested in the relation of this realization to the
writer's position in and outside history and thus continues his exploration
of the place of literature in association with Kojeve's interpretation of Hegel.
In his model, Blanchot sees the writer as always already situated at the end
of history. This moment becomes explicit in the Hegelian schema at t11e
moment when the concept of death is universalized through the enactment
of the Terror during the French Revolution, which removes the singularity
of death by making it universal and in doing so overcomes the fear of death
26. Blanchot makes his agreement and disagreement with Heidegger explicit in "La
Parole 'sacree' de Holderlin," in La part du feu. On Heidegger and Holderlin, see Beda
Allemann, llolderlirt und IJPirleggpr (Zftrich: Atlantis Verlag, 1954); John Sallis, Jusearch
in Pltf!'71om.enology, 1989, Special Topi.r: 1/eidt>gger and l/ol.fkrlin (Atlantic Highlands, NJ:
Humanities Press, 1990).
230
Maurice Blancbot
as manifested in theism. But as a result of the Terror, "no one has the right
to a private life. All is made public and anyone who has a secret, who keeps
to himself a thought or an intimate act, is the most guilty of all suspects.
In the end, no one has the right to their own life, to an existence that is
separate and physically distinct. This is the meaning of the Terror. Every
citizen has the right to die: death is not a condemnation but the essence
of their rights. It does not suppress those who are guilty but needs death
to affirm who is a citizen. Thus it is in the disappearance of death that free-
dom is born." 27 Mter the Terror, death became universalized, leveled, and
banalized to such a point that chopping off a human head had no more
significance than chopping up a head oflettuce. This sense of death follows
Blanchot's understanding of language because, in its universalized form, it
loses its significance as singular and unrepresentable.
As the significance of meaning is disappearing into the universal at
the end of history, literature exists as a denial of the negation that leads
to universalization. Blanchot sees this manifest in the works of the Mar-
quis de Sade: "From a sentiment that is the most singular, the most hid-
den, the most private and the furthest removed from common meaning,
he [Sade] makes an affirmation of the Universal. He presents the reality
of public speech delivered from history so that it becomes an explana-
tion of the human condition in its collective. In the end it is negation
itself" (LDM, 311).
From his position as the singular in relation to the common, Sade
restores meaning to death not as a banality but as "the greatest passion."
In Sade, death does not resolve itself but manifests itself as the greatest
contradiction. Far from allowing death to be subordinated by language
and universality, Sade presents death as the universal, which is also the
singular. For Blanchot, the Terror is the "historical moment when life
carries death and holds itself within this same death in order to obtain
the possibility of the truth of speech. This is the question that literature
seeks to accomplish and is itll very being" (LDM, 311). Literature exposes
the moment of contradiction that lies hidden by the seemingly factual
and common definition of the universal. But even when what is most pri-
vate is made public, literature calls the relation of the two into question,
thus dislodging the primacy of the universal and calling history itself into
question.
For Blanchot, "Literature is linked to language. Language is both reas-
suring and troubling at the same time. When we speak, we make ourselves
masters of things in a way that satisfies us." But when we speak we also
destroy that which we name. "When I say 'that woman' I dispose of her.
I remove our relation, take away the possibility of any surprising action
27. Blanchot, "La litterature et le droit a Ia mort," 309. See chap. 2.
231
THE THIRD READING
and transform her so that she becomes exactly what I want her to be.
Speech makes life easy and secure. We would not know what to do with an
object that has no name" (LDM, 311-12). Blanchot presents a melange
of Heidegger's concept of the unheimlich and Kojeve's understanding of
language as fundamentally destructive. Language becomes unheimlich, is
always in proximity to death, because it is both what is closest and what is
farthest away. It is familiar and yet strange, reassuring and troubling. But
this understanding is placed within Kojeve's model of language as what
manifests the negative in its capacity to create through destruction. The
two themes are actually quite compatible, given that Kojeve's understand-
ing of work, which underlies his understanding of language, is based on
Heidegger's concept of death. 28 Blanchot follows Kojeve's model of lan-
guage as structurally equivalent to murder and thus in constant proximity
to death. "The word gives me Being but also deprives me of Being." Blan-
chot quotes Hegel as he is presented in Kojeve's Introduction ala kcture de
Hegel to explain the nature of the act of naming:
In a text anterior to the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel wrote (and here
he is the friend and neighbor of Holderlin): "The first act by which
Adam made himself master of the animals was to impose on them a
name. This is to say that he annihilated their existence (as individual
existents)." Hegel wants to say that from that instant forward the cat
stopped being a cat as uniquely real and became an idea." (LDM, 312)
In language the cat is annihilated as the singular cat to become a
universal concept that is called "cat" and defines catness. But again we
are reminded of Thomas l'obscurand the fact that in literature this act of
negation is blurred and the meaning of the cat as singular and common
is put into question.
.
Blanchot elaborates on the Kojevian notion of language as murder:
Without doubt language has never killed anyone. However, when
I say "that woman," real death is announced and is always present
in my language. My language wants to say that that person who is
there right now can be detached from herself, subtracted from her
existence and from her presence, and plunged into a nothingness of
existence and presence. My language essentially signifies the possibil-
ity of that destruction and is at every moment an allusion resolved to
that specific event. (LDM, 313)
28. Blanchot cites Kojeve's lnlmdu.ction a /,a I.P.ctureck 1/rgel as the source for his interpretation
of hmguage as destruction. See 372-75, where Kojeve states that as an act of negation, the
conc.ept as manifested in language is equivalent to murder. This concept was expanded in
the work of both Jacques Lacan and Georges Bataille.
232
Maurice Blanchot
While language is not really death, it always evokes and mimics the
structure of death as the presentation of the unpresentable. Language is
the destruction of the singular in the attempt to make it common. Thus,
for Blanchot, it is "precisely exact to say that when I speak, death speaks
in me," but death as the limit of representation is also the basis for rep-
resentation. To define being, one needs non being, even if it destroys the
meaning of being in the act. "Without death everything would collapse
into absurdity and nothingness" (LDM, 313). Language begins from
nothing or rather from negation and thus does not present what really is
but instead makes an allusion that destroys that which it names. Hence
the allusion is always to death. But this allusion also gives us meaning and
allows us to communicate. The paradox of language is that it "can only
start from emptiness, and therefore no abundance or certainty speaks.
Something essential is always missing in that which is expressed."
The danger of language lies in its negation of the essential in the sin-
gular as it attempts to make the singular accessible to the universal. In
language everything is labeled, categorized, and brought under human
control. This tranquillity of language lulls man into thinking he is mas-
ter of the world. Thus nonliterary language seeks to present the world
as a "perfectly determined and objective reality"; literature, conversely,
constantly disturbs this tranquillity, denies language the easy answers and
confronts it with impossible questions. For Blanchot, "The language of
literature is made of contradictions and disturbances. Its position is not
stable or solid" (LDM, 315). Literature places determined objectivity
in question. It interrogates the domain of science and philosophy and
questions the status of truth because it exposes the essentially ambigu-
ous nature of meaning. Here again we see the influence of Heidegger's
unheimlich on the work of Blanchot. For Blanc hot, language provides us
with meaning but the meaning of language lacks what is essential in what
it has named. Blanchot describes the "lack" that occurs in naming using
the example of Lazarus returning from the dead. Mter his return, Laza-
rus is spirit and not mortal; he is still Lazarus but has lost something
vital. This loss is also seen in Blanchot's depiction of God the namer. It
is God who is the origin of language, who is the giver of names, but the
same God who has delivered language is also lost in language. Once the
namer has finished naming, that which has been named no longer has
any need for the namer, who is left to perish, but who, as the source of
all meaning, can never die. Once all is named and presentable, language
takes on a life of its own, destroying the original meaning on which it is
based. In this sense the nature of objective reasoning and logic necessar-
ily excludes the possibility of God, who is absolutely unrepresentable and
unquantifiable:
233
THE THIRD READING
Who saw God die? In speech, death gives life to speech; speech is
the life of that death and is "the life that carries death in it and holds
death within itself." An admirable power. But something was there
that isn't any longer. Something has disappeared. How can I retrieve
it? How can I return to what was before if all of my power consists in
making what comes after? The language of literature is the search for
this moment that precedes. (LDM, 316)
Literature seeks to find the Lazarus of the tomb who still smells of death
and decay, not the Lazarus of the spirit who has returned.
In his novel Le Tres haul, Blanchot attempts to come to terms with the
displacement of the namer in his search for the moment prior. Mter the
Terror and the establishment of the universal state as the supreme entity,
after rationality, language, and bureaucracy have taken over as the basis of
doctrine, after the end of history, the namer, the Tres haul, finds that he is
a minor functionary in the state apparatus. He is lost and powerless. Henri
Sorge, whose very name reveals the influence of Heidegger on Blanchot,
is the moment before. Sorge is the Ungrundwhere speech, in naming, cre-
ates the world, but creates it from nothing. He embodies the Heideggerian
structure of care, but as existence deprived of being. He is God deprived of
his name. In the rational structure of the modern world, the place for God
is replaced by the nothing. This nothing is still the opening for the possibil-
ity of God but for a God who has nothing left to say. Furthermore, because
Sorge is existence without being, he has no possibility of not-being and thus
cannot die. In his state of chronic illness he suffers decline but is deprived
of the moment of death. Sorge is deprived of the possibility of the impossi-
ble. In Le Tres haul, Blanchot shows the degradation of even the most noble
name in existence through language, which is inherently destructive but
is also the site where the name comes into existence. 29 It is only after the
death of God, after Henri Sorge is killed by his nurse, who has recognized
him as le Tres haul, that he regains his meaning. It is only after it is too late
that he finds his voice.
Blanchot expands on the relation between language and God in "La
parole 'sacree' de Holderlin" "The language of gods is becoming and
changing, but the language of mortals is persistence. It is the affirmation
of a duration of time that passes, the unity of a time that is torn. In this the
Immortals need mortals because they need finitude. It is in finitude that
the gods can establish the world and give it Being in the consciousness of
Being. "30 Being only takes on significance through individual beings who
are conscious of being. Outside the finitude of conscious beings there
29. See Pierre Klossowski, "Sur Maurice Blanchot," Les temjJ~ modemeJ, no. 40 (February
1949): 298-314.
30. Blanchot, ''La Parole 'sacree" de Holderlin," 126.
234
Maurice Blanchot
is only the rumbling of anonymous being. Le Tres haut can communi-

cate only within finitude because otherwise he is unrepresentable as the
infinite. But in the finite he loses his significance as infinite. Sorge finds
his ability to speak at the moment of death, but death is the moment
of silence and the impossibility of speaking. Thus Blanchot forces the
reader to confront Sorge's use of language in relation to his death and
the moment beyond death, which is prior to speech and language. The
ambiguous nature of literature allows Blanchot the author to create and
destroy while at the same time confronting the reader with the impos-
sible. A conclusion cannot be reached in reading his fiction. Is Henri
Sorge le Tres haut any more than Thomas is a superior cat? Does Blan-
chot represent what he claims to represent or is it a trick? In Blanchot's
fiction, the reader is constantly challenged to confront the meaning of
language as destabilized, ambiguous, and always to come. The structure
is not linear and speaks only after it has come to an end, with a series of
repetitions and circularities that are ambiguous and strange.
Literature exists as a thing, an object that is present, but also as fic-
tion. It is imaginary and thus invokes the nothingness that is opposed
to its object like incarnation. Like death, literature is the appearance of
a disappearance. It finds its voice only when it is too late; therefore, it is
always to come. In this way literature exceeds death; It never completes
itself by dying. It is not the singularity of death but the realization that
even at the limit of death there is something prior that is also after: the
impersonal anonymity of the il y a, the infinity of being.
literature triumphs over tl1e meaning of words but that which it finds
in those words taken away from their meaning is that the meaning
has become a thing. It is meaning that is detached from its condi-
tions and separated from its moment. It is errant like an empty power
where one can do nothing, power without power. The simple impos-
sibility of ceasing to be iliat appears as the proper determination of
an indeterminate existence deprived of its meaning. (LDM, 319-20)
Literature's triumph over words is constintted in its ability to expose
the relation of language to being, a relation that places language in
question; but this discovery is not comforting or encouraging. Instead.
it is the troubling realization of a powerlessness in the face of being. For
Blanc hot,
Literature is the experience by which consciousness discovers its
Being in its inability to lose consciousness. In this movement, where
the disappearing consciousness pulls itself away from the punctuality
of the Self and reconstitutes itself by way of the unconscious in an
impersonal spontaneity that is the relentlessness of a haggard knowl~
edge that doesn't know anything, that no one knows, this ignorance
235
THE THIRD READING
finds itself always behind itself like one's shadow that changes when
one looks at it. (LDM, 320)
Literature opens the possibility of the moment prior to being, which
is still and always being, though not being as attached to a Cartesian sub-
ject. Blanchot follows the work of Levinas on Heidegger by presenting
the desire to cling to a subject (an "I") as the desire to fix being in a rep-
resentable and localized site. For Levinas and Blanchot, this desire to fix
being in a specific site is the flight away from the horror of the moment
of anonymous being. Levin as and Blanchot do not agree with Heidegger
that anxiety occurs in the face of death (of the possibility of not being);
instead, they contend that it occurs in the face of the il y a (the possibility
of always being). Furthermore, the confrontation with anonymous being,
which is the horror of existence deprived of the world (the realization
that that which "ceases to be" continues to be) is also the realization of
the impossibility of dying, or rather the deprivation of that moment that
gives meaning to all other moments. The impossibility of being lies in its
infinite and unrepresentable character as that which still and always is.
This is rendered comprehensible to us only in relation to the finitude
of death, which is our limit. But the fact that limitlessness exists beyond
death, beyond my ownmost possibility, also shows that there is something
prior to that which is my own, and this, as frightening as it seems, is the
opening to the other.
Literature is open to the moment prior, but it is also always that which
holds death within it. In its relation to death and being, literature stands
outside history, or rather at the end of history in the Kojevian sense, as
that which gives meaning to history and to narrative (as the side of being
that can be defined and yet is always in question). "If one wants to bring
literature back in a way that grasps all of its ambiguities then this is it:
literature as common language begins with the end, which alone permits
us to understand" (LDM, 324). Blanchot's statement can be understood
on a number of levels. The moment of naming by God allows for com-
mon communication only after God has named all and thus ceases to be
the namer. Henri Sorge in Le Tres hautgains his voice only after the novel
ends. In this way Blanchot also claims that we come to understand being
only in relation to nonbeing, only after it ceases to be. And perhaps most
important for Blanchot's work is the realization that it is only in the
face of disaster, the greatest disaster, the Shoah, that any understanding
becomes possible and that all understanding is rendered impossible. 31
31. Dominick LaCapra suggests, in Wrilit1g Ilistury, Writing Tmuma (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2001). that one "might want to inquire how Blanchot's Death
Sert/.t'1U'P relates to the Holocaust, its antecedents, its larger context, and its aftermath-
even though one might never arrive at definitive or even convincing answers. One might
236
Maurice Blanchot
The rupture of the disaster is the opening to the possibility that lies
within the impossible. Departing from Sartre's equation, Blanchot claims:
"It is in this sense that one can say that there is Being because there is
nothingness. Death is the possibility of man, it is his chance. It is by virtue
of death that there remains a future in a world already achieved. Death
is man's greatest hope because it is his only hope to be human" (LDM,
324). The limit of death and the constraints of finitude are tantamount
to the possibility inherent in mortality. It is death that allows us to exist as
Dasein in Heidegger's sense of the word and to be a totality that is never
total except in the completion of itself, which is also the end of itself.
Death defines the limits of the finite world but even in a world where
all is achieved death is always that which is to come. It is the ambiguous
and paradoxical nature of death that opens onto the moment before
and after death, which is the infinity of the il y a. This is why for Blan-
chot, anxiety in the face of the "horror of Being" is more original than
Heidegger's anxiety in the face of death. "Existence is our sole veritable
anxiety, as has been demonstrated by Emmanuel Levinas. Our fear of
existence is not caused by death which gives it its limit. Instead, our fear
of existence is caused by the fact that existence excludes death, it is the
underside of death where presence remains as the base of absence. It is
the unrelenting day in which all other days begin and end" (LDM, 324).
For Blanchot, anxiety is not caused by the limit of death but by the
limitlessness of anonymous being. Death defines the self, being deposes
it. Something like a subject is only possible in the face of death, which is
also the end of the subject. In the infinite anonymity of being, the exclu-
sion of death takes away this possibility and in so doing takes away all
possibilities. This is counterintuitive for a traditional understanding of
a Cartesian subject as the locus of being, but it does not seek to remove
the Cartesian subject as Heidegger's philosophy does. Instead, Levinas
and Blanchot want to dislodge the primacy of the Cartesian subject to
create a space for the other, and this is the key to understanding the
third reading of Heidegger in France.
For Levinas and Blanchot, the moment of death presents a further
paradox beyond that examined by Heidegger in Being and Time, which
lies in the fact that death is not only the possibility of an impossibility
but that after the moment of death existence remains but is deprived of
the possibility of dying. This double paradox reveals Blanchot's use and
even contend that inviting such questions is part of the way these texts are unsettling,
question-worthy, and perhaps at times questionable" (188-89). See Dominick LaCapra,
Represeflting the llolor:au.sl (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996) and llistory and Mnnory
after Auscllwilz. (Ithaca: Co.-nell University Press, 1998); see also Anson Rabinbach, In the
Shadow of Catastn;phe: G1'1'mart lnlelledu.ab betrvem Apom~-vpse and Enlightemnent (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2000), esp. 205-7 and "Part 11.1946-47."
237
THE THIRD READING
incorporation of Kojeve's Hegel into his equation. "Death works with us

in the world. It is the power that humanizes nature and that elevates exis-
tence to being. Death is in us as the part which is the most human. There
is no death except in the world. Man would not know it except because
he is man and he is only man because he is the death that is to come."
This formulation is very close to Heidegger's. Blanchot continues:
But to die is to break with the world. It is the loss of man and the
destruction of being. But it is also the loss of death, the loss of that in
death and in me which made it possible to die. As long as I live I am
a mortal man, but when I die I cease to be a man and I cease to be a
mortal. I am no longer capable of dying and death, which announces
itself, horrifies me because I see what it really is. It is no longer death
but the impossibility of dying. (LDM, 324-25)
Blanchot conserves Heidegger's understanding of death but places it
in relation to a more original moment that is articulated in the infinity
of being as the impossibility of dying. Thus man's anxiety leads to a flight
into the subject as the locus of representation, where he is removed from
the paradox, which is not only the impossibility of death as that which
negates being but also the realization of the impossibility of dying, which
is the negation of that negation.
Death is only presentable from this side of finitude, but the finiteness
of death completes itself only at the moment of its end. For Blanchot,
representation exists in the finite and only as negation. Any objective
representation or narrative presentation already begins at the end and,
lulled into the tranquillity of simply presenting, does not question the
origin of the meaning it is presenting. For Blanchot, this is the danger
inherent in language. Only literature can approach the paradox, because
for Blanchot, literature is
already the union of two contradictory movements. It is negation

because it pushes the inhuman and undetermined side of things into
the nothingness. Literature defines those things to make them fin-
ished and in this sense it really is the work of death in the world. But
at the same time that it denies things in their existence it conserves
them in their Being. Literature makes things have a sense, thus the
negation that is death at work is also the arrival of the meaning to
come. It is the act of comprehension. (LDM, 326)
Literature stands before the paradox. It is not solely the presenta-
tion of facts or the description of things (though it can be that too) but
also the meaning yet to come. Literature is already but it is also not yet.
The act of comprehension begins at the end but exists as the arrival of a
meaning yet to come.
238
Maurice Blanchot
By its structure literature follows language in the attempt to make the

singular common, but unlike language
it is not realized in an objective manner, because that which is real in
it is not all of it but the particular language of a particular work which
is itself immersed in history. Furthermore, the whole is given not as
real but as fiction. Thus the perspective of the world is taken from
an imaginary point of view where the world can be seen in its totality.
This creates a view of the world that is realized as irreal but which is
based on the reality oflanguage. (LDM, 326)
Here Blanchot's debt to Sartre must be acknowledged; for Blanchot
the essential aspect of the imaginary is that it allows literature to conserve
its ambiguous nature even when confronted with the tranquillity of lan-
guage; in turn, literature constantly disturbs the tranquillity of language.
This is also why literature stands outside history, even Hegel's history,
precisely because it is not real. Unlike Kojeve's presentation of work as
negation, literature does not negate to create a product under human
control but creates a product that is out of control. In this sense litera-
ture is the negation of the Hegelian negation because it is only possible
by virtue of the impossible. Literature is that which resists conflict and
synthesis and instead recedes into perpetual ambiguity, but it is also the
locus of meaning precisely because it resists totality. Blanchot's schema
forces us to rethink Kojeve's presentation of Hegel's philosophy of his-
tory as well as Sartre's understanding of "engaged" literature. For Blan-
chot, "literature is not explication nor pure comprehension, because the
inexplicable is always present in literature. Literature is expression with-
out expression, it is an offer of language that murmurs in the absence
of speech" (LDM, 327). Thus literature is neither work in the Hegelian
sense nor a prescription for engagement in the Sartrean sense. For Blan-
chot, both these models confine literature to the realm of objective rep-
resentation, which leads to tranquillity.
For Blanchot,
literature appears as linked to the strangeness of existence that Being
rejects and that escapes all categories. The writer feels like the prey of
an impersonal power that will not let him live or die. The irresponsi-
bility that he cannot surmount becomes the translation of this death
without death that waits at the edge of nothingness. Literary immor-
tality is the movement by which the nausea of a survival that does not
survive because it is a death that never comes to an end is insinuated
within the world mined by the bmtality of existence. (LDM, 327)
Literature exists, as always, in relation to death, and this is where it
draws its meaning. But it is also linked to that which is beyond death, the
239
THE THIRD READING
il y a. It is the link between the finite and the infinite, which is the realm
of the off-the-edge. If it falls into infinity then it is rendered meaningless
and incommunicable, but if it falls into the finite it loses its singularity
and becomes objective classification.
For Blanchot, literature's power lies in its ability to resist the seren-
ity that results from thematization and representation while using these
tools to present precisely what is unrepresentable, inherently unstable,
ambiguous, and enigmatic. It is created within history and yet exists out-
side the historical. Blanchot points out that this may be an enigma, but
"the mystery comes from literature's right to indifferently affect every
one of its moments so that every one of these results in a negative sign
or a positive sign." Blanchot points out the unsatisfying nature of this
"strange right that is bound to the question of ambiguity in general,"
but it is precisely this dissatisfaction that resists the seductive calm. It is
only through literature in its ambiguity that one can present the singu-
lar to the common in a way that resists objective classification. Litera-
ture resists tranquillity because "ambiguity is its proper response" (LDM,
328). Ambiguity is the space for the singular in relation to the common
and for the unpresentable to present itself. It is the moment by which all
moments are defined because it is the confrontation of the infinite with
the finite that limits it. It is the moment of death but also the moment
beyond death, as anonymous being, which horrifies us because it robs us
of what is most familiar and most secure. But in doing so it also opens
up the space where the other has as much right to be as the "I" does. It
is also the moment of the Shoah, the rupture of the present in the form
of the disaster. For Blanchot, the Shoah is that which is most singular but
must be understood in common. It is infinitely inconceivable and yet
was conceived. It is beyond telling and yet must be told. It stands on the
edge of death as the limit of representation and thus is the basis for any
understanding of life in our postcatastrophic world. This is to say that
for Blanchot, the lessons that humankind needs to learn to live ethically
must be learned from the disaster of the Shoah, even though they will
have been learned too late.
According to Blanchot, literature is the only site of investigation that is
not doomed to end in the banalization of representation. It exists as that
which comes into being from the horror of disaster and opens onto the
possibility of the other. It is infinitely dangerous and infinitely meaning-
ful. "In its initial double meaning, which is at the base of all speech like a
<..ondemnation still ignored and a happiness still invisible, literature finds
it' form. Thus it is the form that chooses to find itself behind the value
and meaning of words and the question it poses is the question that poses
literature" (LDM, 331). Heidegger has had a profound influence on the
240
Maurice Blanchot
way Blanchot privileges the question that allows one access to being. Even
though Blanchot's understanding is based on the work of Levinas and
indebted to Sartre and Kqjeve, his model is principally Heideggerian in
its use of death and the central position of the question. This is perhaps
not surprising, given that all of Blanchot's philosophical influences were
directly influenced by Heidegger. But it is sadly ironic, given the centrality
for Blanchot of a confrontation with the Shoah, that Heidegger was silent
on the issue.
Confronting Disaster
For Blanchot, the impossible task of presenting the unrepresentable
falls on literature as that which is always yet to come. It is through litera-
ture that the unpresentable is made present in language in a way that
destroys the original meaning in the act of representation but conserves
the trace of the unpresentable as enigmatic and fundamentally ambigu-
ous. Thus what is singular is made accessible to the community in a way
that destroys its true nature but leaves the trace of the destniCtion and
the relation to nothingness that is inherent in fiction. But literature is
infinitely dangerous because it is a creation by destruction that takes the
singular and makes it common in such a way that it revokes the author's
responsibility for the work and leaves it "open" to interpretation. Litera-
ture as common language always risks falling into mere objective catego-
rization, which leads to somnolent tranquillity.
But according to Blanchot, this ambiguity, which is the danger of lit-
erature, is also its saving grace. Literature is not what it seems to be; it
is not quantifiable or categorical. It is both the moment of death and
a moment always yet to come. Literature announces the il y a, which
deposes the sovereign position of the "I" by positing a moment prior
to the self. This moment before the self-which stands on the other
side of death as the il y a-is the opening to the other. But in order
for this moment to manifest itself, the somnolence of language must be
disturbed. The metaphysical tradition that commences all investigation
with the "I" as the locus of representation must be broken. For Blanchot,
the opening to the other can manifest itself only after it is too late-in
the wake of a rupture so great that it tears a hole in representation. This
rupture is the disaster of the Shoah. Literature as the writing of the disas-
ter is beyond history because it begins where history (narrative represen-
tation) ends; but it is also the condition by which history understands
itself. For Blanchot, the Shoah is the historical moment outside history
through which all history is understood. Thus Blanchot's project opens
the space for the other but only in confrontation with the most horrible.
241
THE THIRD READING
His project is thinking literature, thinking death, thinking the unrepre-

sentable, thinking disaster, thinking the Shoah.
Blanchot's project confronts the Shoah by using the work ofHeidegger
and Levinas, as well as that of Kojeve and Sartre, to rethink philosophy
in the wake of the disaster. Blanchot challenges the Hegelian notion of
history and narrative as well as that of the dominant subject in Sartre.
But most important is his attempt to think past Heidegger by using Hei-
degger to establish the parameters (always ambiguous) of a thought that
is always to come, thus confronting Heidegger's understanding of death
in Blanchot's search for the moment before/after. In this sense, Blan-
chot represents the culmination of the initial reception of Heidegger
in France. His work addresses the Heidegger of the first and second
reading and in his critical engagement with Heidegger he foreshadows
the central issues of the second phase of the reception of Heidegger in
France. 32 But most important is that this culmination occurs within the
framework of Blanchot's confrontation with the disaster, his attempt to
think the Shoah, a topic Heidegger addressed only in silence. In a letter
to Catherine David dated November 10, 1988, in the wake of the contro-
versy created by Victor Farias's Heidegger and Nazism, Blanchot wrote:
It is in Heidegger's silence on the issue of the Extermination that his
irreparable error lies, his silence or refusal to ask Paul Celan forgive-
ness for that which is unforgivable. This refusal threw Celan into a
despair that made him sick, because Celan knew that the Shoah was
the revelation of the essence of the West and that he had to preserve
the memory in common, even at the expense of losing any hope for
peace, to safeguard the possibility of a rapport with the Other. 33
For Blanchot, the Shoah is the revelation of the essence of the West
but it is also the moment of rupture that opens the possibility of a rap-
port with the other. 34 This is a painful and disturbing moment that
32. Blanchot's (and Levinas's) critical use of Heidegger led such thinkers as Jean
Baudrillard, Helene Cixous, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Luce
Irigary, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe,Jean-Fran(ois Lyotard, andjean-Luc Nancy to confront
the themes of alterity, difference, plurality, mystery, and the secret.
33. This letter was published as "Penser !'Apocalypse" in /,e nout1el obseroateur,January 22-
28, 1988, 79.
34. The thesis that "modernity" and the West were responsible for World War II and the
Final Solution was employed by Heidegger to shift the blame from Germany in particular
to the West in general. Others, such as Theodor Adorno and Max Horkeimer in n~e
Dialectic oj Enlighlenment (trans. john Cumming [New York: Herder and Herder: 1972] and
Zygmunt Bauman in Modernity and Till' /lol.ormLIt (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989),
have attempted to investigate the complicity of the West and the project of modernity
in a manner that does not excuse or diminish the role that Germany, and particularly
Germans, played in the rise of National Socialism and the enactment of the Final Solution.
242
Maurice Blanchot
forces one to confront the most horrible, the impossible. But this con-
frontation can exist only when one voices it: when one says what one
cannot say. Heidegger's fault lies in the fact that he never asked for that
which he could never have: forgiveness. By refusing to ask forgiveness
Heidegger refused the Shoah in all of its significance. He engaged in
the kind of forgetting and covering up that his philosophy claimed to
remedy. Heidegger refused to speak the unspeakable, instead turning to
equivocations and generalizations. He sought refuge in the tranquillity
of language, which allowed him to ignore the horror of the disaster. To
speak the unspeakable is to preserve the memory of the disaster even at
the cost of losing its singularity. But this risk is coded by the rupture of
the Shoah, which disturbs any possibility of future serenity, even in the
face of silence. Mter the Shoah, the moment in history that defines all
history and thus is outside history, Heidegger's silence speaks his culpa-
bility precisely in his refusal to speak.
Blanchot and Levinas both broke with Heidegger after World War II pre-
cisely on the issue of the Shoah. They turned away from ontology, which
they felt was still limited by the dominance of the self, and toward a new
investigation based on ethics as the site of the rapport with the other. Blan-
chot saw the disaster of the Shoah as a rupture so great that it exposed the
deficiencies of the W'esiem-~physical tradition and opened the possibil-
ity for a new understanding of phuosophy based on the relation with the
other. This third reading of Heidegger's philosophy in France moved away
from Heidegger and into the realm of the Mitsein (Being-with-others), which
is underdeveloped in Being and Time and never fully elaborated in his later
work. 35 It is in this concept of being-with-others that Blanchot sees the power
<?f language, not as the revelation of being, which Heidegger explores in his
"Letter on Humanism," but as that which always implies an ot11er.
Blanchot's particular focus on language and his confrontation with

the Shoah dealt with issues that the existentialists, Marxists, and Hei-
deggerians around jean Beaufret had yet to confront. In a sense, Blan-
chot's meditations in the 1940s and 1950s were untimely because they
were before their time. If we look at the model of reception presented
in Henry Rousso's The Vichy Syndrome, the centrality of the issue of the
Heidegger's goal in employing this strategy seems to have been to avoid the issue of
German responsibility, but I do not believe that this was Blanchot's intention in presenting
his critique of the West.
35. See Frederick Olafson and Robert Pippin, eds., Heidegger and the Grmlnd of Ethics: A
Study l?f Mitsein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Michael Theunissen, lHr
~ndere: Sttulien zur Soziabmwlogie der (;egenwart (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1965); Samuel Moyn,
Origins of the Other: Emmanuel Levinas mul lnlen~l(lr Phil.osophy (forthcoming); Nancy, La
communnttli disoeutnie.
243
THE THIRD READING
Shoah would not manifest itself in France until the 1970s, after a period
when Vichy had been interpreted in several different ways, primarily in
terms of collaboration and/ or resistance and in the wake of the Algerian
conflict and of the student rebellions of May 1968. 36 But ifBlanchot's cri-
tique of history is to be taken seriously, his work is always to come but is
always already. The confrontation with the Shoah and the desire to find
a place for the other would later become a central issues in French phi-
losophy, especially in the late 1960sY Blanchot's work would be instm-
mental in leading younger thinkers, who saw the issue of the other in
the new light of the Algerian conflict, to also confront the issue of the
Shoah. This led these intellectuals toward and away from the philosophy
of Heidegger.
Blanchot's project may have been untimely, but its time was yet
to come, and when it did it was embraced by a younger generation of
intellectuals who came to see ontology, produced in the metaphysical
tradition and exemplified in existentialism, as ultimately solipsistic. Blan-
chot's rejection of existentialism was aided by Heidegger's critique of
metaphysics, but it also moved past Heidegger. Blanchot saw Heidegger
as constrained by his emphasis on the question of being, an emphasis
that failed to address the place of the other, which Blanchot saw as the
central issue in the wake of the Shoah. Blanchot's work marked a shift of
emphasis from ontology to ethics and the relationship of self to other.
This is also the basis of Emmanuel Levinas's project in Totality and Infin-
ity, which in effect breaks with the first reading of Heidegger in France
as manifested in the work of Kojeve, Wahl, and Sartre, but also with the
second reading of Heidegger in France (as manifested in the work of
Jean Beaufret and his students), and with Heidegger himself, even as it
announced a new engagement with Heidegger. This skeptical, critical,
and engaged use of Heidegger in an effort to "overcome" him character-
izes the third reading of Heidegger in France.
36. Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991); see
chap. 4, "Obsession (after 1974):Jewish Memorv."
37. I will attempt to demonstrate the relation between these concerns, the reception of
Heidegger in France and the origins of"postmodern" philosophy, in the conclusion.
244
CHAPTER 7
Emmanuel Levinas: ... aI' autre
We have examined three major shifts in the emphasis of French phi-

losophy as it pertains to the reception of Heidegger in France. The first
was toward history and used Kojeve's reading of Hegel (which was heav-
ily coded by the work of Heidegger) to rehabilitate a notion of progress
through struggle and battle in the wake of World War I. The second shift
was toward ontology in the existentialist philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre.
This emphasis on beifigand~_istence came after the project of history and
teleology seemed to have lost i-ts\'<ili.dity. 1 But Sartre's project too was put
into question by the tum toward language as enunciated in Heidegger's
"Letter on Humanism," addressed to Jean Beaufret. The philosophy of
Heidegger, as conveyed to Beaufret, was in turn interrogated by the work
of Maurice Blanchot and Emmanuel Levinas in the wake of the Shoah
and revelations of Heidegger's own involvement with National Socialism.
Through this third reading of Heidegger in France, Blanchot and Levinas
sought to put the first two readings in question. In contrast to the phi-
losophy of Sartre and in opposition to Heidegger, Blanchot and Levinas
turned to language not as an atte111pt to return to an originary under-
standing of being but instead as a tum toward the other. Thus Blanchot
and Levinas used and confronted Heidegger in an attempt to reestab-
lish the possibility of an ethical system of thought in the aftermath of the
Shoah. Indeed, for Levinas the issue was greater than the question of the
validity of Heidegger's philosophy in relation to his politics. For him, the
events of World War II were so tragic that any attempt to reestablish "eth-
ics" could only be achieved by putting all previous philosophical thought
1. This was soon regained with the move toward Marxism. See Michael Kelly, Modtrn
Frenrh Marxism (Baltimore: johns Hopkins University Press, 1982); Mark Poster, Existential
Marxism in Postwar France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975). See also Martin
Jay, Marxism and Totality: 11u> Advmtures of a Co11r.ept from l.ukacs to lfabermas (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1984).
245
THE THIRD READING
in question. Both Heidegger and his critique of the Western metaphysical

tradition were central to Lcvinas's project.
World War II, 1939-1945

In 1939 Levinas was mobilized to serve in the Tenth Army; by June 16,
1940, his company had been captured by the German army and the
soldiers sent to prisoner-of-war camps. It was thanks to his capture as a
soldier in the French army that I..evinas was not deported to the concen-
tration camps as a Jew. The official policy of the German army was that
Jewish prisoners ofwar from the Western Allies were not to be subject to
execution or deportation to the camps. The Jewish soldiers were to be
separated from the other enlisted men and assigned to special work par-
ties but otherwise were to be treated like prisoners ofwar. Furthermore,
the Jewish prisoners of war were not to be marked as "Jews." Raul Hil-
berg cites the German generals' fear of reprisals against German prison-
ers of \'\'ar as the basis for this policy. 2 In any event, this agreement most
probably saved Emmanuel Levinas's life.
Levinas was transported to a POW camp in Fallingpostel, not far from
the camp at Bergen-Belsen. He was placed with the other Jewish soldiers
in a special section of the camp and, despite the official policy of the Ger-
man army, was made to wear the yellow star on his uniform. The majority
of his time in the camp was spent doing manual labor. Because of his
status as a soldier in the French army, he was allowed to correspond and
to receive packages. As a result, Levinas spent his free time reading:
I was in a Jewish camp but it was not a period of torture for me. One
would work in the forest, spend the day in the forest. We received
material sustenance in the form of packages and moral sustenance
in letters, like all the other French POW's. Books would arrive,
from where no one knew.... I read Hegel, of course, but also philo-
sophical texts from all over, many books I had never had the time
to read before. I read more Proust than ever, and the authors of the
eighteenth century: Diderot, Rousseau, and many other authors who
didn't fit into any specific category. And then I'd ask myself, "Why do
I bother?'' But in that life of daily physical labor in the forest-under
surveillance by guards who were not violent-the time was not wasted
from a cultural point ofview. 3
2. Raul Hilberg, 17le Destmction of the European jews (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1961), 401.
This policy did not apply to Jewish members of the Red Army or to former Jewish members
of the Reich who were serving in any army. These prisoners of war were either shot or sent
locamps.
3. F. Poirie, Emnln.rmell.etfinas: Qui ilrs-riQus? (Lyon: La Manufacture, 1987), 85-86.
246
Emmanuel Levinas: ... al'autre
Despite the segregation, the derogatory remarks from the inhabitants

of the local village, and the constant reminder of his subhuman status
inscribed on his uniform, the war passed for Levinas without incident
and without the slightest news of the atrocities committed at the camp in
Bergen-Belsen.
In Paris, events were taking a different turn. The fate of Levinas's
wife, Raissa, their child, Simone, and his mother-in-law was very much
in doubt. Mter the implementation of the Franco-German armistice and
the transfer of power to the Vichy government inJune 1940, the French
had little room to bargain with the Germans. By October 3, 1940, the
French government at Vichy had enacted the Statut des juifs (Statute on
the Jews), which assigned an inferior status to Jewish citizens, noncitizens,
and foreigners living on French soil. 4 As German pressure intensified in
1942, the Vichy government agreed to surrender foreign Jews and Jew-
ish immigrants in an attempt to protect France's "native" Jews. 5 Mter the
implementation of the Vichy 'jewish Laws," it was clear that the Levinas
family would have to either leave France or go into hiding. To his credit,
Maurice Blanchot offered assistance when the Levinases needed it most.
He arranged to hide the Levinas family in the convent of the Sisters of
St. Vincent de Paul, just outside Orleans. Blanchot also arranged for cor-
respondence between Emmanuel and his family and kept him apprised
as best he could about their situation in France. Levinas would never
forget this act of kindness and friendship. "[Blanchot] always took the
"
path that was the most un"eKpected, the most noble, but also the most
difficult. He followed a totally fiiteriorevolution and never made the
smallest concession, not even in regard to himself. His moral elevation,
the aristocratic property of his thought, is what counts the most and what
elevates it above the rest." 6
Levinas too followed an evolution that was a direct result of the events
of World War II. In the POW camp, he began to reformulate his posi-
tion in relation to ontology in the form of an anicle titled "11 y a." On
his return to Paris after the war, this article would become the basis for
De ['existence a l'existant, and with this wor-k Levinas would break with the
ontological project.
Levinas describes the il y a, the "there is," as
4. Michael R. Marrus and Robert 0. Paxton, Vichy France and tltejnos (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1981), 3-4. See also Renee Poznanski, ]m'-~ in Fran.c.e during World War
1/, trans. Nathan Bracher (Hanover: University of New England Press, 2001); Richard
Weisberg, Vichy Law and thf' Holocaust (New York: New York University Press, 1996).
5. Hilberg, The Destruction uf the European jews, 389.
6. Fran~ois Poirie, Entrt'li.en avec Emmamvl LeTJinas (Paris: Babel, 1996), 72-73.
247
THE THIRD READING
something resembling what one hears when one puts an empty shell
close to the ear, as if the emptiness were full, as if the silence were
a noise. It is something one can also feel when one thinks that even
if there were nothing, the fact that "there is" is undeniable. Not that
there is this or that; but the very scene of Being is open: there is. In the
absolute nothing that one can imagine before creation-there is. 7
In the impersonal, anonymous being of the "there is," Levinas attempts
to explore the space prior to the positing of a subject. The foray into the
il y a was an extension of the unease and disquiet Levin as sought to inves-
tigate in De l'evasion, but a solution to this metaphysical problem would
not be found until after the war. 8
Return to Paris, 1945

When Levinas returned to Paris in 1945, his first concern was for his fam-
ily in France. Then slowly he began to take stock of the events that had
happened in Europe. Over the next few months, stories of the death
camps became more and more real and more and more unbelievable.
Before long, Levinas found out the fate of his own family in Kovno. In
June 1941 the Germans took control of Lithuania; on June 24, Kovno
fell into German hands and the Jews were immediately rounded up.
Pogroms were incited by the Germans, and after several days of intensive
violence five thousand Jews were dead. By July 13 the Jews had been seg-
regated and Lithuanian groups working with German Einsatzkommandos
shot Jews around the clock, five hundred a day. For the following months
the Jews were systematically shot in groups of a thousand. On November
1, the detention center was converted into a "proper camp," and the sur-
vivors were held until being deported to camps in Germany. 9
7. Emmanuel Levinas, Ethirs and Infinity, trans. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press, 1985), 48.
8. Samuel Moyn's work demonstrates that Levinas was already interested in the theme
of transcendence in the early 1930s and this suggests that he may have moved beyond the
question of being prior to World War II. While I agree that Levinas was interested in the
issue of transcendence in the 1930s, I believe this manifested itself in the same sort of unease
and discomfort that confronted Blanchot at the same time. In the following sections I will
demonstrate that while the possibility of confronting something beyond being (the il y n)
was present in Levinas's prewar work, it was seen as a terrifYing prospect. This sense of terror
and unease grew during his internment. The solution to this confrontation, which allowed
Levinas to move beyond the question of being, was not realized until after the Shoah and war.
See Samuel MO)TI, "Selthood and Transcendence: Emmanuel Levinas and the Origins of
Intersubjective Moral Theory, 1928-1961," Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2000;
and also idem, "Judaism against Paganism: Emmanuel Levinas's Response to Heidegger and
Nazism in d1e 1930s," 1/islory and Mnnmy 10, 1 (Spring/Summer 1998): 25-58.
9. Hilberg, The D11strurtion of thf' Europf'an.few.\~ 196-208.
248
Emmanuel Levinas: ... a l'autre
After the Shoah, the question of being no longer sufficed. Heidegger's

investigation of being had removed the emphasis from the subject but
had also removed the possibility of placing the emphasis on the other. For
Heidegger the question was first and foremost being. Levinas believed
that for philosophy to make sense in the wake of the Shoah, it would
have to move beyond Heidegger's emphasis on being, but it could not
return to the investigation of the individual being and that being's own
personal horizon. Instead, philosophy had to work through the question
of being to arrive at the relation of an individual being to an other.
Through the notion of the il y a Levinas was able to "exit from the
self and move to the 'Other,' to the other's suffering and the other's
death before I concern myself with my own death." 10 But the il y a can be
understood only in relation to Heidegger's project of ontological investi-
gation and Levinas's desire to move beyond that project. In De ['existence
a l'existant Levinas attempts to do just this. He begins his investigation
into the relationship between "existence" and "existants" by stating that
the fundamental error of traditional philosophy is its recurring desire to
think being (existence) in terms of a specific being (existant):
The difficulty in separating Being ( etre) from being ( etant) and the
tendency to consider one inside of the other is certainly not acci-
dental. They are derived from the habit of situating the instant, an
atom of time, outside of any', vent. The relation between "being"
and "Being" does not rely on tw independent terms. The "being"
is already in contact with Being, it c not be isolated. It is. It already
exercises the same domination over ing that the subject exercises
over attributes. (EE, 16)
According to Levinas, being is not an attribute of an existant, and
thus traditional philosophy avoids the issue of interrogating the relation
between being and beings. Levinas's critique of traditional philosophy is
very similar to Heidegger's, but Levinas includes Heidegger in his criti-
cism and seeks to ask a question that was beyond the scope of Heidegger's
Being and Time. "Detached from 'the being' that dominates it, what is
the event of Being, of Being in general?" According to Levinas, while
Heidegger addressed the issue of the relation of being to beings, he did
not proceed to the exploration of being detached from beings. This is
because Heidegger relied on the phenomenological method that looked
to derive an understanding of being in general from its manifestation in
a specific being, Dasein. Here again we encounter the fundamental ten-
sion between the existential subjectivist and ontological antisubjectivist
tendencies that run through Being and Time. In De ['existence a l'existant,
10. Poirie, E.L: Qui ;,,e.~-tJous?92.
249
THE THIRD READING
Levinas wants to explore the presence of being prior to any specific

existant and thus prior to representation or localization:
Being refuses itself to all specifications and specifies nothing. It does
not have the qualities that an object supports, nor the support of qual-
ities. It is not the act of a subject but nevertheless can be expressed
in the formula "this is." Being becomes an attribute because we are
immediately obligated to declare that the attribute does not add any-
thing to the subject. (EE, 17)
According to Levinas, in traditional philosophy we assume that being
is an attribute of the subject because being has no objectlike qualities
(no qualities at all), but this is despite the fact that being is an attribute
that adds nothing to the subject. In traditional philosophy we attribute
physical, spatial, and temporal dimensions to being so that we can place
it within a schema of representation and understanding. This is how we
come to believe that we are the masters of being. This critique of tradi-
tional philosophy is based on Heidegger's work in Being and Time, wherein
Heidegger broke with traditional metaphysics by displacing the primacy
of the subject as the locus of being (as in the Cartesian model) and thus
placed being beyond the limits of representation. But it is also a critique
of the subjectivist aspects of Being and Time that led to the first reading of
Heidegger's philosophy in France. Levinas wanted to move beyond the
project of Being and Time and to "explore the idea of Being in general,
in all of its impersonality, in order to analyze the notion of the present
and the position whereby the effect of a hypostasis, a being, a subject, an
existant surges forth from within impersonal Being" (EE, 18). Levinas
wanted to move past the exploration of the relation of beings to being
(which was Heidegger's project in Being and Time), to an investigation into
the moment when the subject occurs and is posited in the midst of anony-
mous being.
Thus Levinas's philosophical investigation is profoundly indebted
to Heidegger's in its critique of traditional metaphysics and emphasis
on the relation between beings and being, but Levinas wants to move
beyond Heidegger's work in Being and Time in order to investigate the
nature of being prior to the positing of the particular subject or Dasein.
Levinas makes this point clear when he states:
If at the beginning our reflections are inspired in a large measure-by

the notion of ontology and the relation that man has with Being-by
the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, it is because they are based on a
profound desire to move beyond the climate of this philosophy and by
the conviction that one would not know how to move past this philoso-
phy by returning to a philosophy that is pre-Heideggerian. (EE, 19)
250
Emmanuel Levinas: ... a Iautre
Thus for Levinas it is only tltrough a critique that addresses the struc-
ture, results, and faults of Heidegger's work that Levinas sees the possi-
bility of moving beyond the philosophy of Heidegger.
Levinas focuses his critique on Heidegger's concept of Being-towards-
death. Levinas agrees with Heidegger's presentation of Dasein as a tem-
poral construct but does not agree with Heidegger's understanding of
the finitude of being localized in the singular Dasein as defined in Being-
towards-death. For Heidegger, death is one's ownmost possibility, but it
is also the possibility of the impossible as the confrontation with one's
own finitude. "In Dasein there is undeniably a constant 'lack of total-
ity' which finds an end with death. This 'not-yet' 'belongs' to Dasein as
long as it is" (BT, 286). Dasein does not complete itself until the moment
of death, when all possibilities disappear for Dasein. Mter death Dasein
has no more possibilities; it is completed, which is to say it has finished.
"Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein" (BT, 294).
While Levinas agrees that death is the completion of Dasein and defines
its finite character, he does not agree that it is the completion of being.
This is because for Levinas, while the individual being may be finite,
being itself, as manifested in the anonymous and impersonal being of
the il y a, is infinite and beyond life and death. Therefore Heidegger's
description of anxiety in the face of cleat~' is a misconception. Individual
beings encounter anxiety, but after death t ey are returned to the realm
of anonymous being, which does not. 11 The fore, the cause of anxiety,
according to Levinas, is not the finitude of d~ath, which is the limit of
our self, but instead the infinity of anonymous )\eing that continues long
after we have shed our mortal coil. Unlike deatl\, being never stops but
is always there in its menacing anonymity. The question for Levinas is:
"Anxiety before Being-the horror of Being-is this not more original
than anxiety before death?" (EE, 20).
For Levinas, what is truly horrible and terrifYing is not death, which
actually fixes the subject as an individual being in relation to its own fini-
tude, but the realization that being exists anonymously prior to and after
the positing of a self. What is unsettling is the realization that the self is
not a primary category but simply a manifestation within being that has
no claim in the face of the il y a, which is anonymous impersonal being.
For Levinas, what is frightening in death is not one's finitude but the
realization that being continues infinitely after one dies-the realization
that being has no need for any individual existant.
Levinas's primary concern in De !'existence a l'existant, written in the
context of prison camps and the aftermath of World War II, was to break
11. See Simon Critchley, "II y a-A Dying Stronger than Death (Bianchot with Levinas) ,"
Oxford Literary Review, 15,1-2 (1993): 81-131.
251
THE THIRD READING
with the ontological project by placing a moment prior to the posing

of an individual being; but he also realized that one cannot escape the
"non-sense,'' the incomprehensibility of that moment of the il y a. "In
De l'existence a l'existant, I analyzed other modalities of Being, taken in its
verbal sense: fatigue, indolence, effort. In these phenomena I showed a
dread before Being, an impotent recoil, an evasion and, consequently,
there too, the shadow of the il y a." 12
The rupture Levinas had determined in the ontological system was
not a space of liberation, as was the case with the Bergsonian rupture
with positivism. The space prior to identity was undetermined, unretr
resentable, neither an "I" nor nothingness, and thus entirely unsettling.
According to Levinas, it is precisely the fear of the anonymity of infinite
being that leads to philosophical constructions such as the Cartesian or
Husserlian cogito. In the face of the il y a, which is pure anonymity and
prior to any meaning, we attempt to construct systems that conserve the
importance of the subject, the "I," so as to assign meaning to the world
around us in reference to that over which we have control. In doing so
we avoid the it y a. Traditional philosophy avoids the confrontation with
the il y a by basing everything on self, the "I." Levinas concedes that he
too was seduced by this reassuring strategy:
My first idea was that perhaps a "being," a "something" one could
point at with a finger, corresponds to a mastery over the ''there is"
which dreads in Being. I spoke thus of the determinate being or
existant as a dawn of clarity in the horror of the "there is," a moment
where the sun rises, where things appear for themselves, where they
are not borne by the "there is" but dominate it. . . Then one refas-
tens Being to the existant, and already the ego there dominates the
cxistants it possesses. 13
In this first model, which is based on traditional metaphysics, the indi-
vidual being falls into a sort of solipsism, where it assumes that by asserting
its mastery over "things" it can also master unease and anxiety. 14 But in this
model, where the self is posed in opposition to all it masters, the ego that
poses itself is "already encumbered by the existants it dominates." Accord-
ing to Levinas, Heidegger succumbed to this tendency in his description of
being-towards-death wherein Dasein encounters its own singularity: "When
it (Dasein) stands before itself in this way (ao; the possibility of the impos-
12. Levin as, Ethics and lrifinifJ, 51.

13. Ibid., 51-52.
14. It would be of interest to compare the experience of the "il y a" to that of Sartre's
"nausea." See Mkhael Brogan, "Nausea and the Experience of the II y a: Sartre and Levin as
on Brute Existence," Phi!.osojJhy Today 45, 2 {200 1): 144-53.
252
Emmanuel Levinas: ... aI'autre
sibility of Dasein), all its relations to any other Dasein have been undone
(gelost). This ownmost, non-relational (unbezilgliche) possibility is at the
same time the uttermost one" (BT, 294). For Levinas, Heidegger's under-
standing of death is still too focused on the individual. Levinas felt Hei-
degger's presentation of the Jemeinigkeit, the mine-ownness, of death led to
the same conclusion as traditional metaphysics. In the end Heidegger suf-
fers from the same desire to pose a subject, even if it is a complex subject,
which is not the locus of being but in relation to being.
For Levinas, the structure of Heidegger's being-towards-death misses
the essential point of the it y a because Heidegger's structure places the
emphasis on finitude. What is horrifying about the il y a is not anything
like finitude but the fact that it never ends and goes on without us. The
il y a is precisely that which deprives us of our ownmost possibility as
manifested in being-towards-death. In the il y a: "It is subjectivity, the
power of private existence, that is stripped from the subject in the hor-
ror. The subject is de-personalized." What is horrifying is not the pos-
sibility of death as finitude but the impossibility of death in infinity. If
being-towards-death is the possibility of no longer being possible, the il
y a is the negation, the impossibility, of that possibility. "It is, if we can
say this, the impossibility of death, the universality of existence even in
its own annihilation" (EE, 100). The horror of death does t1ot lie in the
finitude but in the realization that anonymous being goesfn infinitely.
In this sense, the il y a is the negation of negation. Even ter death it
is. The il y a is pure being. It is without world and without 'me. It is the
realization that even where there is nothing, there is. ~
The il y a is the recognition of being in all its strangenes and a1terity,
as that which is beyond representation or localization and thus is com-
pletely beyond our control. We do not observe the il y a, but rather it
observes us. This is why "our relation with the il y a is horror. We have
already noted its insinuation in the night like an indeterminate menace
that comes from a space that is disengaged from space's function as the
receptacle of objects and the access of beings" (EE, 98). Theil y a is not
representable because it does not have the properties of an object; it is
outside time because it is infinite. It is that which is completely beyond
us and yet it is always there in front of us.
Our attempt to escape the il y a always relies on a return to the self,
to consciousness: "To be consciousness is to be pulled out of the il y a
because the existence of a consciousness constitutes subjectivity. This
consciousness is the subject of existence and this is to say the master of
Being which has been named in the anonymity of night" (EE, 98).
For Levinas, consciousness is the locus of representation, and naming
is the act of representation par excellence. When consciousness names
being, it gives it a time and a place. It is locatable and categorical. Thus
253
THE THIRD READING
in the act of naming, subjective consciousness creates the illusion of mas-

tery over all it names, even over being.
But as Levinas shows, it is impossible to escape the il y a: it murmurs
in the silence, it appears in that which is not representable, it waits infi-
nitely on the other side of death. Levinas contends that anxiety in the
face of death is not what Heidegger supposes but is instead anxiety in the
face of the realization that when the subject concludes, the il y a remains.
"The horror is the event of Being which returns at the heart of this nega-
tion (death) as though nothing had happened. To quote Macbeth, 'this is
more strange than the crime itself.'" Being, in its alterity and strangeness,
is more horrifYing than death. The corpse is not disturbing because it is
dead but because "it carries within it its own phantom. It announces its
return" (EE, 100). Not as an individual being but as/in anonymous being.
The phantom is unheimlich for Heidegger and for Freud, not because it is
dead but because it is not dead. It continues to be, but it defies the catego-
ries of time and space. It is frightening in its complete alterity and other-
ness as that which forces us to confront the other side of finite being. In
its form it appears as that which is familiar, but it is completely unfamiliar.
For Levinas, it is the horrifYing presence of infinite being.
For Levinas, there is no escape from the il y a, and this must be read
in the historical context of Levinas's own experience in the POW camp,
the persecution of his family in France, and the tragic fate of his family in
Lithuania and of the Jewish people in Europe. Levinas transfers his own
sense of unease, insecurity, and persecution to the philosophical fear that
there is no escape from anonymous being, which continues with or with-
out individual beings. Furthermore, the event of the Shoah led Levinas to
see the poverty of any attempt to escape from the il y a by seeking refuge
in the construct of the "I," which leads to the objectification of everything
around it. The construct of the "I'' is an illusion that leads the "I," the sub-
ject, to assume its mastery over being on the same model as its mastery over
objects. This desire to master what is not the self is thus a flawed constmct
that potentially leads to the domination and even extermination of the
other in the name of the same. 15 Levinas points out that it is the work of
Heidegger in Being and Time that exposes the faulty nature of this stmcture,
but he contends that Heidegger himself is still enclosed within that same
structure through his understanding of being-towards-death.
Furthermore, this emphasis on the subject that exists finitely always
ends in solipsism: "Traditional philosophy-Bergson and Heidegger
included-resides in the conception of time that is either entirely exterior
15. One must certainly acknowledge that the jews were targeted precisely because they
were not anonymous and their German persecutors were not anonymous either. But in
Levinas's model, the persecution of that which is not the "same," of that which can be
defined as "other," is an attempt to escape from the horror of the if Y a.
254
to the subject (time as an object) or entirely contained in the subject. In

either case it is always a question of a solitary subject" (EE, 160).
Levinas presents the traditional Aristotelian model of time in the first
case, and Bergson's and Heidegger's two different conceptions in the
second. Levinas's criticism of Heidegger is apt because the section on
time in Being and Time comes dangerously close to pure subjectivity, as
in the following passage: "In the everyday way in which we are with one
another, the leveled off sequence of 'nows' remains completely unrecog-
nizable as regards its origin in the temporality of the individual Dasein"
{BT, 477). The essential point for Levinas, however, is that time in its fini-
tude is the realm of the subject and as such serves as a refuge from the il
y a. But this refuge is based solely on the model of the self and as such is
entirely solipsistic.
Theil y a is unsettling and horrible precisely because it displaces the
self. It forces the subject to realize that it is not the locus of representa-
tion. But while this deposition is frightening and unsettling because it is
a relinquishing of control, it is also the means by which we can escape
the solipsism that leads to the objectification of everything that is not
the subject. The il y a is prior to the self and thus removes the primacy of
the self. In this sense, the other has as much right to existence as the "I."
Both exist in and from the il y a. One can never escape from anonymous
being, but from one's position in the il )1 a one can 1
make an act of deposition, in the sense one speaks of deposed ~ings.

This deposition of sovereignty by the ego is the social relaticlnship
with the Other, the dis-inter-ested relation. I write it in three/words
to underline the escape from Being it signifies. I distrust the mpro-
mised word "love," but the responsibility for the Other, Bein~-for-the
other, seemed to me, as early as that time, to stop the anonymous and
senseless rumbling of Being. J6
Here Levinas makes the move from ontology to ethics. At the level of
the il y a, being is beyond meaning; and at the level of the subject, the
study of being leads to solipsism. Thus while ontology, especially in the
work of Heidegger, leads one to understand the relation of beings to
being, this is all it can do. For Levinas, the essential question of philoso-
phy does not lie in addressing how we relate to being but in addressing
how we relate to each other. Through his investigation into the il y a
and the moment prior to the subject, Levinas thought he had found the
opening by which one can address the other in all its alterity without
reducing the other to the realm of mere object. Thus Levinas broke with
ontology as the investigation of being and ventured into the realm of
16. Levinas. Etllir.s nnd Infinity, 51-52, italics in original.
255
THE THIRD READING
ethics, which for him was the investigation into the rapport between the
self and the other.
Levinas's turn away from ontology was made clear immediately after
World War II with the publication of De /'existence al'existant and his lecture
"Time and the Othe1~" both in 1947. But his response to what he consid-
ered the crisis ofWestern philosophy-manifested in the events ofWorld
War II, Stalinism, and principally the Shoah--came in the form of his these
de doctorat, published in 1961 as Totalite et infini. 17 This text is decisive for
our study of the reception of Heidegger in France because it closes a cer-
tain reading of Heidegger in France and opens another. In his quest to
interrogate and rethink the Western philosophical tradition, which he saw
as a tradition of totality, Levinas sought to break with the current under-
standing of Hegel, Husser!, Heidegger, and Sartre by shifting the empha-
sis of his project away from a concern with the subject and toward the
understanding of the other. In doing so, Levinas works from Heidegger's
critique of Western metaphysics by removing the emphasis on the ego
cogito from the center of the inquiry, but he does not follow Heidegger
in shifting the emphasis of his investigation toward being. Instead, Levi-
nas discovers an unexpected ally in his implementation of a Heideggerian
critique of metaphysics. Levinas turns to Descartes, understood through
Heidegger's critique of intellectualism, in order to shift the focus of his
argument from an emphasis on the prima<--y of the "I" to an emphasis on
the relation to the other. 18 This is not the Descartes employed by Husserl
or Sartre but the Descartes of the "Third Meditation."
In Descartes's reflections on the relation of the finite to the infinite,
Levinas saw the key to escaping the concept of totality that had domi-
nated Western philosophy from Plato to Heidegger: "It is true that I have
the idea of substance in me in virtue of the fact that I am a substance; but
this would not account for my having the idea of an infinite substance,
when I am finite, unless this idea proceeded from some substance which
really was infinite." 19
This use of Descartes implies a return to intellectualism, as in the work
of Husserl, since it relies on the "idea of infinity" as produced by an "I
think"; but what is significant for Levinas is precisely the limited nature
17. Translated into English by Alphonso Lingis as Totality and h1.ftnity (Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press, 1980).
18. On Levinas's use of Descartes, see Dennis Keenan, "Reading Levinas Reading
Desca1tes' 'Meditations,"' Joumnl of the British Soriety for PhP.rwmPnology 29, 1 (1998): 63-74;
Jean-Franc;:ois Lavigne, "L'idee de l'infini: Descartes dans Ia pensee d'Emmanuel Levinas,"
1?1>-uue de milnjJhysiquR et de rrwrale 92, 1 (January-March 1987).
19. Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Pltilojophy, trans. John Cottingham (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994), 31.
256
Emmanuel Levinas: ... a l'autre
of intellectualism shown in Heidegger's critique of representation. For

Levinas, the idea of infinity exceeds the limits of representations and
thus puts the primacy of the ego cogito, the source of thought and repre-
sentation, permanently in question. Levinas works with and against Hei-
degger in his use of Descartes to remove the primacy of the "I" (which
was also Heidegger's project) but without removing the "I" as the source
of cognition and prime locus of philosophy (which is antithetical to Hei-
degger's project). This conservation of the radical singularity of the "I" is
more than a movement away from the ontology of being, as Heidegger
conceives it, because it also serves to break with the program of total-
ity that seeks to incorporate the "I" into a larger model or system, be it
positivism, neo-Kantian rationalism, or the Hegelian concept of absolute
knowledge. Levinas's understanding of infinity stands in opposition to
the traditional understanding of totality, which is structurally linked to
all totalizing projects based on thematization and representation, such
as law, state, politics, and economy. These structures, while necessary for
society to exist, are potentially devastating and disastrous if the rule of
totality banishes infinity, which Levinas characterizes as the source of all
ethics. Thus there is much at stake for Levinas, who explains, in an aston-
ishing understatement, that his critique of totality "came, in effect, after
a political experience that we have not forgotten. "20 The primary refer-
ence is to National Socialism, but Levinas's critique of totality should
also be seen in the light of the revelations of the Stalinist purges and
the Soviet gulags, which Levin as saw as "the end of a certain Europe, the
definitive end of the hope to implement a political regime based on a
notion of charity; the end of the hope of Socialism. "21
Levinas's philosophical construct, which relies on a reading of D s-
cartes through Heidegger (as opposed to Sartre's reading of Heide er
through Descartes), breaks with both Heidegger and Descarte as
defined within the parameters of French philosophy. In this sense vi-
nas remained outside the heimisch field of traditional French phil sophy,
despite his position as a professor at the University of Poitiers n 1961.
But, unlike in 1927, Levinas could now implement his critique of tra-
ditional philosophy from within the French academic system and to an
audience that was open to the concepts of alterity and difference in a
discourse that sought to investigate the unheimlich rather than domes-
ticate it. Levinas turned away from traditional philosophy and the work
of Heidegger to engage what he felt was the most pressing issue of phi-
losophy in the wake of the Shoah, namely an understanding of the ethi-
cal relation with the other. Rather than turning away from metaphysics,
20. Emmanuel Levinas, Ethiqueet bifini (Paris: Fayard, 1982), 73.

21. Poirie, Ent-retien avec Emmanw.l Ler.1inas, 165.
257
THE THIRD READING
Levinas sought to redefine metaphysics as first and foremost ethics and,

in so doing, he brought an end to the first phase of the reception ofHei-
degger in France.
Totality and Infinity

Totality and Infinity is an especially difficult book because it serves as both a
critique and a rehabilitation of Western philosophy.22 Thus the book does
not serve as a clean break with the Western metaphysical tradition, as in
Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism," but is rather an attempt to reread West-
ern philosophy in a new light, shifting the emphasis through an internal
critique of the tradition. While relying heavily on the work of Heidegger as
the source of his critique of traditional intellectualist and theoretical philos-
ophy, Levinas mobilizes this revised understanding against Heidegger. Levi-
nas wants to reread it in light of its limitations as presented in Heidegger's
critique of representation. Levinas's goal is not to remove the subject from
philosophical investigation but to put it in question permanently. For these
reasons Totality and Infinity is also an extremely difficult book to explicate
because it folds in on itself. The concept of totality, which Levinas sets up in
opposition to infinity as the all-encompassing unity that seeks to remove all
singularity and to establish a universal whole, and from which the singular
being must separate itself, turns out to be based on the model of separated
being. Thus one cannot consider this model progressive or teleological but
only an ambiguous relation between the two categories. To explain what is
essential in the relation between Levinas's work and Heidegger's, and in
Levinas's break with the understanding of Heidegger in France, we will first
try to establish the two categories of totality and infinity as understood by
Le\'inas and then read Levinas's understanding of separated being in terms
of these two categories. In that way, we can see how Levinas attempts to
redefine metaphysics as ethics in a way that uses Heidegger's philosophy to
think otherwise than Heidegger.
Totality
For Levinas, the notion of totality constitutes the essence of the Western
philosophical tradition. As the basis for politics, war, and most institutions
22. On Levinas's Totality m1d htjirtit_'V see Adriaan Peperzak, To till' Other: An lntrodurt.ion
to the Philosophy of Emmnnu.el Lf'uinas (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1993),
chap. 5, "'A Key to Totality a7Ui htjir1it.y"; see also Edith Wyschogrod, Rm,marw.el Ln.1imLr:
11w Problnn of Et.himl MdajJ!tysir.r (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000); Moyn,
"Selfhood and Transcendence," chap. 6, "Autonomy and Responsibility: A reading of
Totality anrl Infinity, 1961" (Moyn has revised his reading of 1olmily and Infinity in the
epilogue to Ori[Jirtf of the Otlwr: Emmanuel Ln.Jinas (J1td lntPnoar Philosophy, forthcoming.)
258
Emmanuel Levinas: ... a I' autre
in society, totality is the system of universal reason that attempts to codifY

everything within a unifYing theory or practice. As such, Levinas portrays
totality as the tyranny of the same, whereas infinity is characterized as the
opening to alterity.
In the critique ofTotalitywhich comports the association between the
two words [Totality and Infinity] there is a reference to the history
of philosophy. This history can be interpreted as a tendency toward
Universal synthesis. It is a reduction of all experience and all that is
sensible to a Totality that engulfs the world and does not let anything
outside in, so that consciousness becomes absolute thought.
This tendency toward totality can be traced to the model of the
individual subject from which it is extrapolated. Particular experience
becomes universal synthesis on the basis of thematization and represen-
tation; "the consciousness of the self is at the same time consciousness of
everything .... There are very few protestations against this totalization
in the history of philosophy." 23 For Levinas, all systems of thought that
aspire to pure reason or absolute knowledge are examples of this total-
izing tendency, which seeks to make that which is other conform to the
rules of the same. "The 'I' is identical in its very alterations. It represents
them to itself and thinks them. The universal identity in which the het-
erogeneous can be embraced has the ossature [framework] of a subject,
of the first person. Universal thought is an 'I think'" (TI, 36).
Universal thought does not open to the other but represents what is
other as recognizable to the same. In the Hegelian system, where the "I"
confronts the other, that encounter is not based on a desire to under-
stand difference but instead on the desire to define and possess the other
in relation to the "1." The desire for recognition, as in Kojeve's presen-
tation, is a desire that the other recognize you at the value you feel you
have. It is not a desire to discover the worth of the other. The fact that
the encounter leads either to mastery or slavery shows that this model
is based on "the possibility of possessing, that is, of suspending the very
alterity of what is only at first Other, and Other relative to me" which is
"the way of the Same. "24
The totalizing tendency goes beyond philosophies of conflict (such as
Hegel's dialectic); even utopian, positivist, or idealist philosophies that
deal only with universal principles are sites of totality. What makes total-
ity so dangerous is that it resides in such formulas as the "universal rights
of man," and thus appears to be the basis ofmorality, when in fact it sup-
presses any possibility of morals.
23. Levinas, Ethique ef lnfini, 69.

24. Ibid., 38.
259
THE THIRD READING
Absolute Knowledge as it has been researched, promised, or pre-

sented by philosophy is a thinking of Equals. In "truth" Being is
engulfed. Even if "truth" is considered as never definite it still prom-
ises a truth that is more complete and more absolute. There is no
doubt that because we are finite beings we could never achieve this
task, but on the basis by which this task is attempted it consists in
making the Other become the Same. 25
For Levinas, the project of totality is the project of equivocation, of cre-
ating categories of definition based on perception, specifically vision. 26
It is a process of objectification and classification that removes all that is
particular and different in order to create a universal system of represen-
tation. Even systems that admit to the impossibility of achieving universal
reason are still part of this project because of their emphasis on equivo-
cation and representation. The philosophy of Husserl and the project of
phenomenology must be regarded suspiciously as part and parcel of the
project of totality. Husserl's emphasis on representation in the form of
phenomenological description is based on individual consciousness of,
which itself is the basis for the phenomenological reduction. According to
Levinas, Husserl's work is a prime example of theory-oriented intellectual-
ism that attempts to classify the other in reference to the "1," the same.
Even in the critique of totality it is still possible to embrace it. This is the
nature of Levinas's claim against Heidegger, whom Levinas credits for sup-
plying the critique of representation and of the intellectualist tradition of
theory centered in the "1." VVhile Levinas agrees with Heidegger's critique
of the limitations of intellectualism, he does not believe Heidegger escaped
the influence of totality. Levinas sees Heidegger's removal of the subject,
Cartesian cogito, as playing into the hands of the totalizing tendency. For
Levinas, that removal would have been significant if it had opened the
clearing to the other. Instead, Heidegger shifted his focus to the question
of anonymous being, in effect denying the possibility of primacy to either
the "I" or the other. For Heidegger, being is primary. 27 According to Levi-
nas, Heidegger's ontology is a structure of totality because it subsumes all
beings under the rubric of an anonymous and total being that is complete
unto itself. "The relation with Being that is enacted as ontology consists in
25. Ibid., 85.

26. for an in-depth exploration of the relationship of vision to Levinas's project, see Martin
Jay, Downcast Eyes: Tlte Denigration of Vuion in Twenlieth-rentury Frmch 11wugltt (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993), chap. 10. See also Jay's Marxism and Totality for
further discussion of totality.
27. See Lucien Goldmann's similar critique of Heidegger regarding the relation of totality
LO being in Lucien Goldmann, l.ukacs and I lrideggf'T: Towa,rds a New Philosophy, trans. William
Boelhower (Boston: Routledge, 1977).
260
neutralizing the existent in order to comprehend or grasp it. It is hence

not a relation with the Other as such but the reduction of the Other to the
Same" (TI, 45-46).
Levinas sees Heidegger's critique of the Western metaphysical tradi-
tion as valid, but sees Heidegger's philosophical project as removing
any possibility for an ethics, precisely by focusing on being and thereby
removing the subject from the equation. For Levinas, this emphasis on
anonymous being can only lead to the domination of particular beings
by the general category of being. By removing the subject, Heidegger
removes the locus of any encounter with the other, obviating ethics. In
his emphasis on being, Heidegger seeks to avoid egocentric subjectivity,
while for Levinas "alterity is only possible starting from me" (TI, 40). This
is to say that it is only from the position of the subject, the me, in relation
to the other that an engagement with the other as other becomes possi-
ble. What makes this structure difficult to grasp is that while the encoun-
ter with the other can occur only in relation to the particular subject, the
particular subject (the "I") is the basis for the philosophy of totality that
seeks to subsume the other as part of the same through universal thema-
tization and objectification.
Levinas claims that the tendency toward totality is based on a misread-
ing because "the common element that allows me to speak of an objec-
tive society by which man comes to resemble an object is not the first." 28
This is to say there is a moment prior to the construction of "objective
society" that is the basis on which we have society. This leads Levinas to
question whether "the social, with its institutions, universal forms, and
laws, comes to limit the consequences of war between man, or whether
it limits the infinite that opens the ethical relation between man and
man?" 29 For Levinas, the answer is clearly the latter. But society cannot
simply be dismissed: universal reason based on representation and the-
matization is necessary for human beings to exist collectively. A society
could not exist without recourse to general rules or codes that define
the parameters of that society. Levinas is not suggesting we dismiss the
concept of totality but rather that we rethink that concept in relation
to infinity. Without infinity, the outwardly directed but self-absorbed
project of totality, whose prime goal is to organize men and things into
structures of power and thus give them control over nature and e~siJ____ _..--
other, goes completely unrestrained and ventures completely outside the
realm of the ethical. 30 While organization and objectification are neces-
sary at some level, this project can have horrendous repercussions if left
28. Levin as, Itthique elln.fini, 72.

29. Ibid., 75.
30. Poirie, Entretien avec Em,nanUR[/.n.Jinas, 12.
261
THE THIRD READING
unchecked. In response to the unbridled rule of totality, Levinas offers

the possibility of infinity.
Infinity
According to Levinas, infinity is beyond representation and thematiza-
tion and thus completely beyond what is comfortable or controllable for
a finite being. We have recourse to infinity but not to the understanding
of infinity. It presents itself in forms such as the il y a, which is the rum-
bling of infinite and anonymous being-and as such is beyond any par-
ticular subject. Levinas also offers the model of the elements (earth, sky,
wind, sea), which imply the infinite to us in our finite understanding of
the world; we cannot grasp the elements as we grasp an object. They are
not representable. We name them but, according to Levinas, we cannot
thematize them. They always exceed our attempts to contain them.
The navigator who makes use of the sea and the wind dominates
these elements but does not thereby transform them into things.
They retain the indetermination of elements despite the precision
of the laws that govern them, which can be known and taught. The
element has no form containing; it is content without form. The
depth of the element prolongs it till it is lost in the earth and the
heavens. "Nothing ends, nothing begins." (TI, 131)
The elements and the il y a, which are closely related, imply infinity
but they do not announce it. This is to say that the presence of infinity is
felt in our everyday life, but as anxiety, unease, and discomfort, because
it is a feeling of lack of control. We flee from this anxiety that is pro-
duced by the il y a and the elements, seeking refuge in the totalizing
structures that give us the illusion that we are in control of the world.
Thus, in confronting the elements or the il y a, we do not recognize the
infinite but only the menace of the unknown. "It is wind, earth, sea, sky,
air. Indetermination here is not equivalent to the infinite surpassing lim-
its; it precedes the distinction between the finite and the infinite" (TI,
132). As implied in the elements and in the il y a, infinity is unarticulated
and unarticulable.
Here again Levinas presents us with a seemingly paradoxical structure;
the exteriority of infinity is unrepresentable, entirely beyond the grasp of
finite being, but at the same time it is the only means by which the "I" can
engage the other in its alterity without reducing it to the same. But if the
infinite does not present itself for thematization because it is unrepresent-
able, how can we have recourse to the infinite and thus to ethics? Levinas's
answer is that the infinite is the original moment prior to finite being,
prior to representation, and prior to totality. Infinity is always already
262
Emmanuel Levinas: ... ill'autre
there for us, implied in the elements. The question thus becomes how
we recognize the infinite: how do we recognize that which is beyond our
capacities for recognition? Here Levinas turns to Descartes and doubles
back on his own critique of totality to reread the philosophical tradition
and articulate how we come to engage the moment prior to totality, which
is the realm of infinity. "It is true that I have the idea of substance in me in
virtue of the fact that I am a substance; but this would not account for my
having the idea of an infinite substance, when I am finite, unless this idea
proceeded from some substance which really was infinite."31
For Levinas, the realization of infinity can occur only through the intel-
lectual act of reflection, which requires a cogito, as Husserl pointed out,
but for Levinas a cogito limited in its capacity. For him, infinity lies out-
side the realm of equivocation and thematization, which is the realm of the
same, and thus stands as entirely other. The cogito can think the idea of
infinity but our idea of infinity is necessarily inadequate, as Descartes shows.
For Levinas, all other ideas can be made to fit into a Husserlian model of
intentionality, but the idea of infinity exposes the limited nature of repre-
sentation: "The idea of Infinity is exceptional in that its ideatum surpasses its
idea, whereas for the things the total coincidence of their 'objective' and
'formal' realities is not precluded; we could conceivably have accounted for
all the ideas, other than that of Infinity, by ourselves" (Tl, 49).
The idea of infinity does not come from the interior but somehow from
the outside. The idea of infinity punctures the self as that which is always
the same and opens it to that which comes from outside, to that which
is totally other. "Infinity is characteristic of a transcendent being as tran-
scendent; the infinite is the absolutely Other" (TI, 49). By returning to
the intellectualist tradition through his critique of totality, Levinas pres-
ents the relationship with infinity that comes to us in our relationship with
the other as the relationship between a specific ego cogito and that which
exceeds it and thus places its primacy in question. For Levinas, this rap-
port between the same and the other can occur only to a thinking being
capable of reflection. This relationship with infinity is not produced by the
thinking being-the "I" does not escape totality by itself. Instead, it is pro-
duced by the other, which pierces the "I" and breaks totality. "It is not 'I'
who resists the system, as Kierkegaard thought; it is the Other" (TI, 40). 32
Thus, as Levinas presents it, the idea of infinity can be produced only
in an isolated subject, a separated being that is not the source of the idea
of infinity. It is the presence of the other that produces the idea of infinity
in the isolated subject (the same). This is because the other is beyond me,
31. Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 31.

32. For a detailed account of the influence ofKierkegaard on Levin as, see Moyn, "Selfhood
and Transcendence."
263
THE THIRD READING
completely exterior to me, and resists thematization and objectification.

Whereas totality attempts to incorporate the other as the same, infinity
opens the possibility of accepting the other in all its alterity and as such
calls into question the primacy of the "I" (the same). For Levinas, this
moment when the "I" must relinquish its dominant position as "the mea-
sure of all things" in favor of the other is the origin of ethics. "The idea
of Totality and the idea of Infinity differ precisely in that the first is purely
theoretical, while the second is moral" (TI, 83). But the ideas of total-
ity and infinity are thus linked because the separated being requires the
realm of the theoretical to produce the idea of the infinite, which comes
from the other and places the idea of totality in question.
I.....evinas presents his book as "a defense of subjectivity ... not at the level
of purely egoist protestation against Totality, nor in its anguish against
death, but as founded in the idea of Infinity" (TI, 26). He is not inter-
ested in defending the isolated subject against the encroachment of total-
ity nor in understanding the su~ect's fear in the face of death, which he
sees as equally indebted to the totalizing notion of finitude that necessar-
ily excludes infinity. Instead, Levinas's defense of subjectivity in the face of
totality is based on the relation of the subject to infinity. His project seeks to
"distinguish between the idea of Totality and the idea oflnfinity, and affirm
the philosophical primacy of the idea of Infinity. To recount how Infinity is
produced in the relationship of the Same with the Other, and how the par-
ticular and the personal, which are unsurpassable, as it were magnetize the
very field in which the production of Infinity is enacted" (TI, 26).
Thus to rethink the Western philosophical tradition is to rethink total-
ity in the light of the "production" of infinity in the relation of the same
to the other. But to do this we must first understand the "production" of
infinity. "Infinity does not first exist, and then reveal itself. Its infinition is
produced as revelation, as a positing in me. It is produced in the improb-
able feat whereby a separated being fixed in its identity, the Same, the
'1,' nonetheless contains in itself what it can neither contain nor receive
solely by virtue of its own identity" (TI, 26-27).
To understand the production of infinity in the relation of the same to
the other, we must first come to understand the nature of separated being.
Separated Being
As we have seen, Levinas understands totality as extrapolated from the
model of separated being. 33 For Levinas, Western philosophy has been
33. On separated being in Totality and hifinity, see Travis Anderson, "The Anarchy of the
Spectacle: Emmanuel Levin as on Separated Subjectivity and the Myth of Gyges," GraduafR
Faculty Philosopltyjmtnull20/21 (1998): 321-34.
264
Emmanuel Levinas: ... a 1autre
duped by the structural similarities between totality and separated being;

it is a great mistake to believe that separated being is derived from totality.
Rather than investigate the singularity of interiority, Western philosophy
has concentrated on the rational character of separated being and drawn
a correlation between the multiplicity of particular beings and universal
principles or rational ideals. This leads to the erroneous conclusion that
separated being has somehow fallen from the realm of totality, to which
it must naturally return. Levinas's project opposes this claim:
The positions we have outlined oppose the ancient privilege of unity
which is affirmed from Parmenides to Spinoza and Hegel. Separa-
tion and interiority were held to be incomprehensible and irrational.
The metaphysical knowledge which puts the Same in touch with the
Other then would reflect this fallenness .... As a stage the separated
being traverses on the way of its return to its metaphysical source, a
moment of a history that will be concluded by union, metaphysics
would be an Odyssey, and its disquietude nostalgia. (TI, 102)
This is to say that if the mod~l of totality were correct, then the sepa-
rated being's disquietude would be a nostalgia to return to the whole
from which it was separated, and the odyssey of its return home would
constitute something like history in the Hegelian sense of the word. But
according to Levinas, what is lost in the return to the absolute is the
particular being itself. The fall itself exhibits a rupture that needs to be
repaired, but Levinas points out that "the philosophy of unity has never
been able to say whence came this accidental illusion and fall, inconceiv-
able in the Infinite, the Absolute, the Perfect" (TI, 102). The fall comes
from the exterior and thus implies something beyond totality. Further-
more, the model of the fall is based on a notion of lack that needs to be
filled. Totality by definition lacks nothing, and from this Levinas deduces
that the structure of totality is based on separated being, not vice versa as
supposed by Western philosophy. The concept of totality is based on the
separated being's need to encounter the world through the primacy of
the "I" (the same). Rules oflogic, of representation and universal reason,
emanate from the model of the separated being that seeks to classifY the
world in terms that make it manageable, accessible, and recognizable.
But for Levinas, this is not the original position of the separated being in
relation to the other. It is simply the most comfortable because it allows
the subject to catalog everything that it encounters based on the model
of the same and thus avoid the disquieting issue ofalterity (the other).
For Levinas, the entire project of totality is based on the exclusion and
subordination of the other. By contrast, an investigation into the nature
of separated being that relies not on the universal but on the particu-
lar exposes the original rapport of the separated being with the other.
265
THE THIRD READING
For Levinas, the relation to the other cannot come from rules of logic
but must instead come from beyond what is rational. It cannot follow
the model of a "need" that must be filled, the logical model of total-
ity. Instead the relation with the other must be posited in the separated
being by something exterior to it in a way that does not correspond to
the reasonable, the rational, or the representable. Here Levinas pres-
ents us with two questions. The first is how separated being establishes
itself as an entirely self-sufficient whole, distinct from the larger model of
totality. The second is how such an isolated and satisfied being has access
to infinity, which is necessarily exterior. Both answers rely on the work of
Heidegger.
Levinas uses Heidegger's model of being-towards-death both to cri-
tique representation and equivocation and to present the separated
being as its own totality, sufficient unto itself and distinct from a larger
whole. As we have seen, Heidegger presents death as the phenomenon
that both completes and concludes Dasein so that Dasein exists toward its
own totality as the moment when it ceases to be. The moment of one's
death constitutes Dasein in its singularity and uniqueness and also denies
the incorporation of Dasein into a totality based on the laws of adequa-
tion and representation; that moment of death is beyond the limits of
representation and adequation. Death is in each case entirely particu-
lar and singular and as such puts the very notion of representation into
question. Death is a possibility and can be presented as such. It can be
named and it can be discussed: "However, this possibility of representing
breaks down completely if the issue is one of representing that possibil-
ity-of-being which makes up Dasein's coming to an end, and which, as
such, gives to it its wholeness" (BT, 284).
Death stands as distinct from any other possibility because it is the pos-
sibility of having no more possibilities. The singularity of this event forms
the totality of Dasein as distinct from any other Dasein. Levinas appro-
priates Heidegger's model of death to present separated being as dis-
tinct from totality and situated in time. But he maintains his critique of
Heidegger's being-towards-death as presented in De !'existence a l'existant
by placing the finitude of separated being in relation to the infinity of
anonymous being. In this way Levinas employs Heidegger's structure of
death both to situate separated being as its own totality and to place it in
relation to infinity. For Levinas it is essential that "in separated being the
door to the exterior must be opened and closed at the same time" (Tif,
159).
Levinas also deviates from Heidegger by emphasizing the subjectivity
of the separated being. For Heidegger the emphasis on a particular sub-
ject was detrimental to his project because it led to intellectualism and
suqjectivity, as in the philosophy of Husserl or Descartes. For Levinas,
266
the return to subjectivity and intellectualism through a nuanced read-

ing of both allows him to understand the relation of subject to other.
Levinas feels that Heidegger followed the wrong path in this aspect of
his philosophical project. For him, Heidegger's attempt to break with
the metaphysical tradition by removing the subject as the locus of inves-
tigation actually returns Heidegger to the folds of the totalizing project
in the most dangerous way. Levinas feels that Heidegger, by removing
the subject, has removed the possibility of understanding the relation
between one specific existant and another and thus has removed the
possibility for an ethical understanding of philosophy. "In Ileidegger
the fundamental relation for being is not in relation to the Other but to
death. Thus he denounces everything in the relation with the Other as
inauthentic based on the fact that one dies alone." 34 In essence, Levinas
thinks that Heidegger got the structure of death right but got the signifi-
cance wrong:
My death is not deduced from the death of the others by analogy; it is
inscribed in the fear I can have for my being. The "knowledge" of the
threatening precedes every experience reasoned in the terms of the
death of the Other; in naturalist language this is termed an instinc-
tive knowledge of death. It is not the knowledge of death that defines
menace; it is in the immanence of death, in its irreducible oncoming
movement, that menace originally consists. (TI, 233)
In this passage Levinas is in close proximity to Heidegger in specifY-
ing that the singularity of death is beyond that which can be reasoned or
understood by allusion to the death of the other; but Levinas disagrees
with Heidegger, asserting that our fear of death is not a fear of the finite,
the end, but instead the fear of the infinite, the endless. For Levinas,
death does not lie on the horizon but is somehow always beyond:
The anguish of death is precisely in the impossibility of stopping, the
ambiguity of a time that has run out and a mysterious time that still
remains. Consequently death is not reducible to the end of a being.
What "still remains" is totally different from the future that one wel-
comes, that one projects, and in a certain measure draws from one-
self. (Tlf, 49)
Death is the conclusion of one's possibilities, the end of one's projects
and of one's future, but for Levinas it is not the end. In this sense, death
closes separated being in on itself while at the same time opening it to
infinity.
34. Levinas, Etltiq1u t>t h~fin~ 51.
267
THE THIRD READING
In the model we have defined so far, the opening to infinity is mani-

fested in the stntcture of death and thus lies on the edge of the finite.
Levinas tries to clarify the nature of the production of infinity in the rela-
tion of the same to the other. As we have seen in our discussion of infin-
ity, the idea of infinity is not produced in separated being but is posited
in separated being from the exterior, from the other. Thus the idea of
infinity does not follow the rules of logic or representation, as in the pro-
duction of most ideas; it is in fact an idea that exceeds itself. For Levinas,
the idea of infinity can be understood only outside the rules of logic and
reason. If the relationship with the other were based on logic, it would
appear as something the separated being lacks and thus needs in order
to make itself whole, following the model of totality. The idea of infin-
ity is beyond our comprehension because we do not need it. It is pro-
duced in a separated being that is completely content and satisfied and
thus cannot be seen as a lack or a want. Levinas presents the relation of
separated being to the idea of infinity as based on his concept of desire,
which he opposes to basic need.
For Levinas, desire is metaphysical, and thus ethical, and distinct from
need in that need follows the rules of logic and thus can be satisfied. 35
Through needs, such as hunger or thirst, separated being does have a
relation with the external world but only so as to satisfy its own needs.
This egocentric "I'' lives in total contentment and is closed to totality
by its obsession with that contentment. But in its total contentment the
separated being realizes a lack that is not a need but instead what Levi-
nas calls desire. It is a call from the exterior presence of the other. This
desire does not conform to the model of needs, where an internal lack
is satisfied by the production or consumption of something external that
is internalized by the separated being. Instead this desire is produced
within a separated being in complete satisfaction and contentment and
thus relates to something exterior to the economy of separated being.
Levinas's understanding of desire in relation to need seems to mirror
Kojeve's distinction between animal and human desires. 36 But Levinas
differs from Kojeve, for whom desire is the satisfaction the individual
seeks either through immediate consumption, work (deferred satisfac-
tion), or the recognition of self-worth by the other. Kojeve's model of ani-
mal desire can be read as corollary to Levinas's understanding of need,
but Kojeve's understanding of human desire is in direct opposition to
Levinas's understanding of metaphysical desire. In Kojeve, human desire
is precisely a lack, a void or a hollow that needs to be filled and can be
35. See the essays in Hugh J. Silverman, ed., Phil.osoph:y and Desire (New York: Routledge,
1999).
36. See chap. 2.
268
satisfied only by the other who recognizes my worth. This is the origin of
the struggle for recognition. In Levinas's model, desire does not follow
a logic of need: "Desire does not coincide with an unsatisfied need; it is
situated beyond satisfaction and non-satisfaction. The relationship with
the Other, or the idea of Infinity, accomplishes it" (TI, 179). Contrary to
Kojeve, who sees need as the incorporation of the other into the same,
Levinas presents desire as the desire for the one thing that cannot be
contained within a finite self, namely, the infinite. Levinas sees Kojeve's
reading of Hegel, with its emphasis on bloody struggle and a teleology
toward absolute knowledge, as based on a misreading of the concept of
desire based on the logic of totality. 37 In opposition to Kojeve's "fight to
the death," Levinas sees the original encounter between human beings
in terms of the gift of discourse. But this opening to the other can be
seen only in its originary peaceful conception, produced in the idea of
infinity and understood through a return to intellectualism.
According to Levinas, the "I" has the ability to contain a concept, but
the idea of infinity overflows the finite container of the "1." The idea of
infinity is necessarily unrepresentable, the site of alterity and difference
that exceeds the grasp of the "I'' and places its primacy in question. Thus,
in intellectualism, the "I" opens to infinity, to the other, not to obtain the
validation of the "I" but instead to problematize the "I" in relation to the
other.
Infinity occurs only after reflection in the model of Husserl's "con-
sciousness of," but reflection is not sufficient to contain infinity. The
importance of Heidegger's critique of intellectualism is that it allows
Levinas to conserve a space for infinity in the realm that is beyond repre-
sentation. Like Heidegger, Levinas does not jettison intellectualism but
returns to it through a nuanced reading based on Heidegger's critique.
The idea of Infinity does not proceed from the I, nor from a need in
the I gauging exactly its own voids; here the movement proceeds from
what is thought and not from the thinker. It is the unique knowledge
that presents this inversion-a knowledge without a prior. The idea
of Infinity is revealed, in the strong sense of the term .... Infinity is not
the "object" of a cognition (which would be to reduce it to the mea-
sure of the gaze that contemplates), but is the desirable, that which
arouses Desire, that is, that which is approachable by a thought that
at each instant thinks more than it thinks. (TI, 61-62)
This construction is not Husserlian because the contemplative act is
inverted so that the cogito does not produce the idea of infinity as it
37. Compare this to Lac an's reading of desire; see Carolyn Dean, '11v 5Mf and lt.v Pleasures
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), part 1: "Psychoanalysis and the Self."
269
THE THIRD READING
does in the concept of intentionality. But it is certainly not Heideggerian

either because the emphasis is still on a cogito and the intellectual pro-
cess entailed in the model ofintentionality. 38 Instead, this model is based
on the breach of the separated being, the same, which occurs in the idea
of infinity that is produced in the relation with the other. This arouses
metaphysical desire, which is the moment of discourse. Here it is essen-
tial that metaphysical desire be aroused in the satiated, content, sepa-
rated being, so that "in Desire the being of the 'I' appears still higher,
since it can sacrifice to its Desire its very happiness" (TI, 63). In this
move, the separated self moves beyond itself and beyond the realm of the
logic of need by placing the other first. Metaphysical desire is the appeal
of ethics. "The separated being is satisfied, autonomous, and nonethe-
less searches after the Other with a search that is not incited by the lack
proper to need nor by the memory of a lost good. Such a situation is
language" (TI, 62). Language is the moment of ethics, prior to ontology.
It is the gift of discourse and the welcoming of the other that occur in
the saying that comes before any thematization and comprehension of
what is said. For Levinas, discourse is the opening to the other precisely
because one never knows what will be said; the saying always lies beyond
our grasp of what is said.
For Levinas, it is through language that our rapport with the other is
manifested: "Truth arises where a being separated from the Other is not
engulfed in him, but speaks to him. Language, which does not touch the
Other, even tangentially, reaches the Other by calling upon him or by com-
manding him or by obeying him, with all the straightforwardness ( droiture)
of these relations" (TI, 62). According to Levinas, man's principal and
originary relationship is not with finitude, as Heidegger had supposed, but
instead with language. But language is also dangerous because it neces-
sarily leads to thematization, which is the realm of the same. Language is
always in danger of degrading and becoming a mechanism of the same
that removes the alterity of the other. 39 For Levinas, what is essential in lan-
guage is that it is given. Its use already implies the other in all its alterity.
Language ruptures interiority and opens separated being to the infinite
through the act of speech, which implies the other. "A calling into ques-
tion of the Same-which cannot occur within the egoist spontaneity of the
Same-is brought about by the Other. We name this calling into question
of my spontaneity by the presence of the Other 'ethics'" (TI, 43).
The presence of the other is announced in discourse, which presup-
poses all the other social structures that exist under the rubric of totality.
38. See also Adriaan Peperzak,"Phenomenology-Ontology-Metaphysics: Levinas's

Perspective on Husserl and Heidegger," Man and World 16 (1983): 113-27.
39. See chap. 6.
270
Emmanuel Levinas: ... a I'autre
For Levinas, the calling into question of the self by the presence of the
other as manifested in language is the primary moment of philosophy
and society and affirms the primacy of ethics.
Levinas admits that this is often suppressed by the tendency to make
things the same. One views a phenomenon such as language as pure
equivocation or "a gesture of behavior. But this omits the essential of
language: the coinciding of the revealer and the revealed in the face,
which is accomplished in being situated in height with respect to us-in
teaching." Language announces the other in its alterity and thus it places
the self in question, and by placing the self in question it opens the possi-
bility of an ethical society based on alterity instead of homogeneity. "The
relation of the face to face both announces a society and permits the
maintaining of a separated 'I"' (TI, 67-68). Thus for Levinas, commu-
nity is not originally established on the model of totality but on the basis
of the face to face, which is the model of alterity. He wants to rethink
society in light of this revelation, to see society based on the structure of
separated being, which presupposes the relation with the other, infinity.
Levinas does not want to break with metaphysics but to reread it
through his conception of ethics. Our understanding of concepts such as
desire, freedom, responsibility, and language can then take into account
the primacy of infinity and the necessity of thinking alterity, and only
then can philosophy break the grip of totality and present the possibil-
ity of an ethical society. But Levinas does not present this rethinking in
the form of a prescription or programmatic imperative. This would be
a return to the model of the same. Instead he attempts to construct a
system based on that which cannot be thematized or objectivized. It is
not a program of political engagement but of philosophical instruction,
a teaching that offers the possibility of more than it says. How such a pro-
gram might be enacted is difficult to discern. What is clear in this model
is an antitotalitarian motif that runs throughout the work and Levinas's
own abhorrence of political action as subjugation or imposition.
In light of his philosophical construct, Levinas purports to be able to
reevaluate such structures as work, economy, the state, and even philoso-
phy based on the idea of infinity (the other) and not on the idea of total-
ity (the same). In this sense, Levinas's work is the systematic development
of an understanding that had never been thought through before (TI,
19). He presents a system based entirely on difference, not homogene-
ity. Thus he challenges all the previous Western philosophical traditions
to rethink their projects in light of the possibility of infinity, the possi-
bility of alterity. But while Levinas seeks to question the entire Western
philosophical tradition, we will focus on three specific critiques that nm
throughout Totality and Infinity: critiques of the Hegelian dialectic, of
271
THE THIRD READING
the Sartrian notions of freedom and responsibility, and of Heideggerian

ontology.
Kojeve's Hegel
For Levinas, the Hegelian system is the system of totality par excellence. 40
But it is also on the basis of his rereading of several terms from Hegel pre-
sented by Kojeve, such as desire, that Levinas is able to move past the work
of Heidegger. Levinas believes that Hegel's model is based on a system of
negation and synthesis that leads to homogeneous unification in absolute
knowledge, but he also believes that this entire construct is based on a
faulty premise. In Hegel's system presented by Kojeve, the initial confron-
tation between human beings is a necessarily violent and potentially lethal
stmggle for recognition. 41 Levinas claims that this is a misreading of the
initial confrontation coded by the model of totality, which understands
the relationship between human beings only in the context of making the
other resemble the same. For Levinas, even the fight to the death sup-
poses a prior moment manifested in the encounter of the "face to face"
wherein the other presents himself to me as entirely other. The stn1ggle
for recognition already conforms to representable logic, since it is a need
that one logically tries to fill, but the appearance of the other is prior to
the mles of logic and equivocation: "The Other's designs do not present
themselves to me as do the laws of things. His schemes show themselves
to be inconvertible into data of a problem, which the will might calcu-
late. The will that refuses the foreign will is obliged to recognize this for-
eign will as absolutely exterior, as untranslatable into thoughts that would
be immanent in itself." Even the conflict with the other presupposes the
uncontainable nature of the other. The fact that the struggle for recogni-
tion culminates in an act of possession shows that the possessor concedes
the ability to contain the other as other but only to contain him as object,
without recourse to him in his alterity. In Kojeve's model, only possession
and subjugation, and never recognition itself, are produced in the stmg-
gle for recognition. Levinas sees this as proof of the limitation of Kojeve's
reading of Hegel, which does not achieve a rapport between individual
beings (the same and the other) except at the level of homogenization;
the same becomes the model for every particular in absolute knowledge.
40. On Levinas and Hegel, see Robert Bernasconi, "Hegel and Levinas: The Possibility of
Reconciliation and Forgiveness," Archirri.o di Filas(~fia 54 ( 1986): 325-46; and "Levinas Face
to Face-with Hegel," jonrnal of the /Jritish Society for Pherw71U'Tlol<Jgy 13, 3 (October 1982);
267-76; Adolph Lichtigfeld, "On Infinity and Totality in Hegel and Levinas," Soullt AJrifan
Journal of Philn.mphy 2 (1983); 31-33; Brian Schroeder, "The (Non) Logic of Desire and
War: Hegel and Levin as," in Silverman, Philosophy a11d Desire.
41. See chap. 2.
272
.
Emmanuel Levinas: ... alautre
Whatever be the extension of my thoughts, limited by nothing, the

Other cannot be contained by me: he is unthinkable-he is infinite
and recognized as such. This recognition is not produced again as a
thought, but is produced as morality. The total refusal of the Other,
the will preferring death to servitude, annihilating its own existence in
order to cut short every relation with the exterior, cannot prevent this
work, which does not express him, from which he absents himself (for
it is not a word), from being entered in this alien reckoning, which it
defies, but recognizes precisely in its supreme courage. (TI, 230-31)
Hegel's system reveals the moment of morality, which is prior to the
moment of struggle, so that even "in its efforts to escape the Other in
dying, it recognizes the Other" (TI, 231). Recognition cannot occur in
the model of totality, because it is not open to alterity and excludes the
possibility that recognition is already and originally produced through
the idea of infinity as the opening to the other.
This misreading occurs because the separated being opens to the
other through the idea of infinity but perceives this confrontation with
alterity in terms of the model of the confrontation with the elements
we try to master. The character of the world, which separated being
comes to know through enjoyment, is misconstrued as hostility because
our relationship with the other stands outside our relationship with the
world we enjoy.
The primordial relation of man with the material world is not negativ-
ity, but enjoyment and agreeableness (agrement) of life. It is uniquely
with reference to this agreeableness-unsurpassable within interior-
ity, for it constitutes it-that the world can appear to be hostile, to be
negated, to be conquered. . . But this insecurity brings into the inte-
riority of enjoyment a frontier that comes neither from the revelation
of the Other nor from any heterogeneous content, but somehow from
nothingness. It is due to the way the element, in which the separated
being contents itself and suffices to itself, comes to this being. (TI,
149-50)
Even insecurity and fear imply something exterior that one is afraid
of and thus open to the possibility of infinity. In Levinas's understanding
of Hegel, it is anxiety in the face of the elements that leads to work and
economy, not the Master-Slave dialectic as presented by Kojeve.
Levinas wants to maintain the Hegelian categories of work and econ-
omy, but he wants to substitute the initial moment of morality and eth-
ics (which is the possibility of recognizing the other in its alterity) for
Kojeve's initial moment of conflict and battle as presented in the struggle
for recognition. For Levinas, "Labor already requires discourse and con-
sequently the height of the Other irreducible to the Same, the presence
273
THE THIRD READING
of the Other" (TI, 117). Phenomena such as labor, economy, law, and the
state all exist in the realm of the social, which already acknowledges the
other. This original moment of recognition opens the possibility of being
more than the realm of need, more than the universal, of exceeding total-
ity by acknowledging infinity and thus establishing the possibility of an
ethics that is already promised in the initial encounter with the other.
Sartre
Levinas and Sartre followed similar trajectories from the work of Husserl
to the work of Heidegger, but Levinas believed that Sartre never over-
came the intellectualist tendencies of Husserl, even after his turn to Hei-
degger.42 For Levinas, it was essential to view intellectualism through its
limitations, lest one continue to see the other in the same way that one
regards an object or thing. He saw this as the main fault in the existential
ontology of Jean-Paul Sartre. Levinas opposed Sartre's presentation of
the pour-soi and en-soi because he believed Sartre's definitions were based
on the primacy of vision and thematization. 43 Sartre focuses primarily on
the symmetry of the relationship between self and other; the fact that he
views the other as an object means that the other must view him in the
same way. 44 Thus Sartre could understand the other only as a limitation
of the self. Levinas felt that Sartre's philosophy was ultimately solipsis-
tic, despite the fact that Sartre provides a space for the other, because
the other's position in Sartre 's philosophy is always as an obstacle to the
primacy of the "I." Here too Levinas locates the originary moment of
ethics-the other does contest the primacy of the "I." According to him,
Sartre's interpretation is accurate insofar as the other always places the
self in question, but Sartre is concerned only with the freedom of the
self and not the freedom of the other. Sartre's philosophy falls within the
project of totality in its emphasis on the freedom of the "I" (the same),
which relegates the other to the position of an obstacle, an object, and
ignores the other as other.
42. On Levinas and Sartre, see Christina Howells, "Sartre and Levinas," in Tile
Provoration of Levinas: Rethinking the Other, ed. Robert Bernasconi and David Wood
(L.Jndon: Routledge, 1988); Steven Hendley, "Autonomy and Alterity: Moral
Obligation in Sartre and Levinas," journal of the British Soriety for Phenomenology 27, 3
(1 996): 246-66; Marek Jedraszewski, "On the Paths of Cartesian Freedom: Sartre and
Levinas," Analerta 1/uswrliana 27 (1989): 671-83; David Jopling, "Levinas, Sartre, and
Understanding the Other," Journal of the Bn:tislt Society for Pltmomenology 24, 3 (1993):
214-31; Arnejohan Vetlesen, "Relations with Others in Sartre and Levinas: Assessing
Some Implications for an Ethics of Proximity," Constellations 1, 3 (1995): 358-82.
43. See chap. 4.
44. See jay, Downcast Eyes, chap. 5.
274
1b Levinas, Sartre's understanding of freedom is indicative of "a tra-

dition that subordinates unworthiness to failure, moral generosity to
the necessities of objective thought," which is "perceivable in European
thought." In Sartre, "the spontaneity of freedom is not called into ques-
tion; its limitation alone is held to be tragic and to constitute a scandal.
Freedom is called into question only inasmuch as it somehow finds itself:
if I could have freely chosen my own existence, everything would be justi-
fied" (TI, 83).
In contrast, Levinas sees the limitations of personal freedom as the
possibility for something more meaningful than freedom: "Morality
begins when freedom, instead of being justified by itself, feels itself to
be arbitrary and violent" (TI, 84). Sartre mistakes the uncovering of the
arbitrary and violent nature of personal freedom for its limitations. In
his existential philosophy, one's freedom is always impeded by the other;
hence the conclusion that "Hell is other people." Sartre sees freedom
as a sentence, but Levinas considers this conclusion a misreading of the
limitations of freedom in the face of the other. "Existence is not in real-
ity condemned to freedom, but is invested as freedom. Freedom is not
bare. 1b philosophize is to trace freedom back to what lies before it, to
disclose the investiture that liberates freedom from the arbitrary.... To
welcome the Other is to put my freedom in question" (TI, 84-85).
According to Levinas, Sartre's error was to afford primacy to freedom
over the moment prior to it, which is the welcoming of the other. In
Levinas's schema, freedom is the essential basis for responsibility, which
is itself a deference of one's own freedom in favor of the other. Levi-
nas makes it clear that his notion of responsibility is not based on the
notion of an arbitrary choice that the individual must make in a given
situation. Instead, for him, responsibility is the deposing of the self in
favor of the other, a free and conscious limitation of one's own freedom
in favor of the other's freedom. "The infinity of responsibility denotes not its
actual immensity, but a responsibility increasing in the measure that it is assumed;
duties become greater in the measure that they are accomplished" (TI,
244). Responsibility grows and expands on itself. It is not arbitrary but
the limitation of the arbitrary. For Levinas, true freedom is the exercise
of this responsibility precisely because responsibility exceeds itself in giv-
ing to the other the gift of its own freedom.
According to Levinas, freedom without responsibility is arbitrary,
because "freedom is not justified by freedom." It is only by choosing
responsibility that one places one's freedom under judgment. "The Hei-
deggerian Geworfenheit [thrownness] marks a finite freedom and thus the
irrational. The encounter with the Other in Sartre threatens my freedom,
and is equivalent to the fall of my freedom under the gaze of another
275
THE THIRD READING
freedom. Here perhaps is manifested most forcefully being's incompat-

ibility with what remains veritably exterior" (TI, 303).
In both these cases, separated being is concerned only with itself and
thus is incompatible with what is exterior. For Levinas, freedom does
not appear in and of itself but only in relation to the other, as a usur-
pation. The quest for freedom in the face of the other, who puts one's
freedom in question, is the desire to negate the other and enforce the
domination of the same. But even the domination of the other admits
to the moment prior, where the other puts one's freedom in question.
According to Levinas, Sartre exposed the limitations of freedom but mis-
interpreted the cause. By inserting the prior moment of ethics into the
concepts of freedom and responsibility, Levinas rehabilitates these con-
cepts so that they no longer result in an impasse or a sentence but in a
rapport with the other that produces infinity.
Beyond Heidegger
Levinas's critique of the Western philosophical tradition relies heavily on
Heidegger, and Levinas does not challenge the validity of Heidegger's
analysis of being-in-the-world or his critique of intellectualism. 45 But Levi-
nas wants to view these analyses in light of the prior moment of ethics.
He believed that his own work could not be accomplished without the
influence ofHeidegger, but also believed that the strength of Heidegger's
philosophy lay in the nature of his critique, not in his philosophical inves-
tigation into being. As we have seen, Levinas breaks with Heidegger pre-
cisely on the issue of subjectivity. Heidegger struggled with the issue of
subjectivism in Being and Time and his attempt to remove the subject from
45. On Levinas and Heidegger, see Silvia Benso, "Of Things Face-to-Face with Levinas
Face-to-Face with Heidegger," Phil.osophy Today 40, 1 (Spring 1996): 132-41; Luk Bouckaert,
"Ontology and Ethics: Reflections on Levinas's Critique of Heidegger," lnternafiorwl
Phil.o~opltical Quart.erly 10 (1970): 402-19; Tina Chanter, "Levinas and Impossible Possibility:
Thinking Ethics with Rosenzweig and Heidegger in the Wake of the Shoah," RPsearrh
i11 Plunu"n.erwlogy 28 (1998): 91-109; Richard Cohen, "Levinas, Rosenzweig, and the
Phenomenologies ofHusserl and Heidegger," Philosophy Todny 32,2 (Summer 1988): 165-
78; Theo De Boer, "Judaism and Hellenism in the Philosophy of Levin as and Heidegger,"
ArchitJio di 1'7losojia 53 (1985): 197-215; Darin Crawford Gates, "Ontological Disclosure and
Ethical Exposure: Heidegger and Levin as on Meaning, Subjectivity, and Non-Indifference,"
Philosophy Today 4 (2001); C. D. Keyes, "An Evaluation of Levinas's Critique of Heidegger,"
Research in Phenorneuol.ogy 2 (1972): 121-42; Robert John Sheffler Manning, lntnpreting
Othnwise than 1/PidRgger: ErnmanuRli.R'I.Jinns~\ Ethic.~ as Fint Philosophy (Pittsburgh: DuquRsnf'
llnivn-sily Prrss, 1993); Pefmzflk, "Phnwrnnwlogy-Ontolor;y--MelnfJitysirs" 113-27; and irlnn,
'J(J the OIIU'T: An lntrodurtion to tltr Philosophy of Emrnaruul Levinns (West Lafayette: Purdue
University Press, 1993).
276
Emmanuel Levinas: ... a rautre
t11e philosophical equation Was often undercut by his investigation into

particular being. Levinas saw Heidegger's attempt to remove the subject
from his philosophical project as a crucial error, because for Levinas the
subject is the singular separated being, the site of the encounter with the
other. For Levinas, Heidegger's analysis of such categories as tools and
objects cannot be complete because it fails to take into account the nature
of d1e relationship of the subject that uses those objects and instead
addresses only the act of use. "The enjoyment of a thing, be it a tool,
does not consist simply in bringing this thing to the usage for which it is
fabricated-the pen to the writing, the hammer to the nail to be driven
in-but also in suffering or rejoicing over this operation" (TI, 133). By
removing the subject, Heidegger excludes the possibility of investigating
the phenomena of need, contentment, and enjoyment. "It is interesting
to observe that Heidegger does not take the relation of enjoyment into
consideration. The implement has entirely masked the usage and the issu-
ance at the term-satisfaction. Dasein in Heidegger is never hungry. Food
can be interpreted as an implement only in a world of exploitation'' (TI,
134). But Levinas sees this as indicative of the fundamental problem of
Heidegger's analogy: by removing the subject, and thus denying the inves-
tigation into need, contentment, and metaphysical desire, he also denies
the possibility of an investigation into the other. "The relation with Being
that is enacted as ontology consists in neutralizing the existent in order to
comprehend or grasp it. It is hence not a relation with the Other as such
but the reduction of the Other to the Same" (TI, 45-46). For Levinas,
ontology as presented by Heidegger, despite his breakthroughs, is still cast
in the model of totality.
Levinas does take into account Heidegger's turn away from ontologi-
cal investigation and toward an investigation into the history of being,
but sees this as a retreat further into the model of totality. According to
him, Heidegger's focus on being and on "man as the shepherd of Being"
continues to exclude the subject and perhaps has rendered the subject
even more powerless than before. Levinas considers Heidegger's turn to
language as a relegation of existents to eternal and impotent servitude
under the totality of being. Levinas states the difference in their under-
a
standing of language: "For Heidegger, language carries wisdom that
needs to be explained.... In effect, for me, what is said does not matter
as much as the saying itself. Language is less important to me in terms
of its content of information than it is in the terms that it addresses an
interlocutor. "46
46. Levinas, t.'thiqw et lnfini, 32-33.
277
THE THIRD READING
Because Heidegger's emphasis is on the relation of language to being,

Levinas sees it as impersonal and deficient in the realm of ethics, which
Levinas has defined as first philosophy. Furthermore, Levinas does not
see Heidegger's turn to language as a turn away from ontology, but rather
as a move deeper into ontology, since Heidegger's concern is with being
and nothing else. Levinas extends this critique to Heidegger's analysis
of technology. He does not see Heidegger's critique of technology as an
attempt to liberate man from the rule of technology but instead as the
continuation of the rule of ontology in Heidegger's work.
A philosophy of power, ontology is, as first philosophy which does not
call into question the Same, a philosophy of injustice. Even though it
opposes the technological passion issued forth from the forgetting of
Being hidden by existents, Heideggerian ontology, which subordinates
the relationship with the Other to the relation with Being in general,
remains under obedience to the anonymous, and leads inevitably to
another power, to imperialist domination, to tyranny. (TI, 47)
Levinas believed he owed a great debt to Heidegger's philosophy. It was
only based on the rereading of intellectualism in light of Heidegger's cri-
tique that he could construct a philosophy that opens to the other. But
Levinas also judged Heidegger harshly. For Levinas, Heidegger's philos-
ophy was ethically bankrupt, and the moral imperative to move beyond
the philosophy of Heidegger became painfully clear to him in the after-
math of Heidegger's political choices and the horror of the Shoah.
Levinas is able to move past Heidegger, Kojeve, and Sartre by insert-
ing a prior moment that conserves the singularity and particularity of
the "1," the subject, in relation to a uniform plurality of society, but that
does not reduce the other to the same in that society. Levinas does this
by redefining the dynamic using the idea of infinity. In this way, he is
able to posit a rational subject that is not merely a lost part of a greater
totality but a separated being that exceeds totality (and itself) through
the production of the idea of infinity. "The 'I' is a privilege and an elec-
tion. The sole possibility of going beyond the straight line of the law, that
is, of finding a place lying beyond the Universal, is to be 'I.' The moral-
ity called inward and subjective exercises a function which universal and
objective law cannot exercise, but which it calls for" (TI, 245).
For Levinas, the model of infinity is the possibility of a moral society
precisely because it allows the individual to exceed the universal. It com-
mands the individual to do more than is asked. It is the possibility of a
society that does not ask the other to be the same but instead asks the
same to defer to the other. Levinas explores the possibility of accepting
the world based on a model of alterity and not homogeneity.
278
Emmanuel Levinas: ... a I' autre
Levinas's attempt to move beyond the Western metaphysical tradition

by rehabilitating the very meaning of metaphysics is especially interest-
ing in that he uses Descartes, filtered through Heidegger, to displace the
primacy of the ego cogito in favor of the other. But what is essential for
our project is that Levinas's work opened the possibility of rereading all
these prior philosophies in the light of an ethics of alterity, plurality, and
difference. In this sense Levinas's Totality and Infinity engaged all the vari-
ous readings of the first phase of the reception of Heidegger in France
in a way that exhausted them. Mter the work of Blanchot and Levinas,
any "reading" of Heidegger or his French interpreters was necessarily
a "rereading" that engaged both Heidegger the philosopher and Hei-
degger the man and as such implied the issues of politics, ethics, and
responsibility. But this third reading was still primarily concerned with
the Heidegger of Being and Time and as such remains within the param-
eters of the first phase of reception.
The second phase of the reception ofHeidegger in France, from 1961
to the present, would take this critique and extend it to all of Heidegger's
work but also to areas of investigation beyond Heidegger, Sartre, Kojeve,
or any of the figures of the first phase. Thus the third reading, and spe-
cifically Totality and Infinity, marks the end of a certain use and under-
standing of Heidegger's philosophy and the opening to another. This
new engagement with Heidegger began in the 1960s and continues to
the present through the work of Levinas and Blanchot, but also serves
as the basis for the projects of Jean Baudrillard, Helene Cixous, Gilles
Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Luce Irigaray, Philippe
Lacoue-Labarthe,.Jean-Fran<:ois Lyotard, and Jean-Luc Nancy. This new
reading of Heidegger was especially attractive to a younger generation of
intellectuals who had come to the realization that the ontological proj-
ects of Heidegger and existentialism did not sufficiently address the issue
of morality; who were confronted with the failure of socialism through
the revelations about Stalin's regime and were thus uncertain about the
future of Marxism; who had witnessed the terrible capacity of technol-
ogy in the atom bomb; who were confronting the legacy of colonization,
which presented a concrete example of the subjugation of the other
under the rule of the same. Behind all these historical realities loomed
the specter of the Shoah, which whispered the urgency of the need to
construct an ethics, the need to approach the other, the need to rethink
the project of the West.
279
Conclusion
"What draws young people together and ignites the sparks that join them
is a sense of common grievance. " 1 For the young French intellectuals
of the generation of 1933, it was the collective feeling that the previous
generation of philosophers and thinkers were out of touch with reality,
unable to address the complex problems of a rapidly changing world.
Traditional French philosophy had been unable to explain the senseless
killings and mass destruction that marked the French "victory" in World
War I, or the precarious position of an industrializing France. The gen-
eration of 1933 was receptive to Heidegger's thought because it seemed
to confront these complex questions in a way that returned philosophy
to the concrete issues of everyday existence.
But while Heidegger's philosophy was introduced to France through
the work of Emmanuel Levinas in the late 1920s, the generation of 1933
was not yet ready to scrap the teleological project on which their educa-
tion had been founded. It was not until Alexandre Kojeve's seminar on
Hegel at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes from 1933 to 1939 that
this generation began to incorporate Heidegger's philosophy into their
own work. In Kojeve's seminar, Heidegger's Being and Time served as the
light by which Hegel could be read to rehabilitate the concept of his-
tory through an understanding of progress in relation to struggle. But
the generation of 1933 also read Heidegger in the light of their own
philosophical heritage and training. The new and foreign philosophy of
Heidegger was modified to fit an old and familiar schema.
Heidegger's philosophy was understood by the generation of 1933
in "existential" terms, as fundamentally anthropocentric and primarily
1. Robert Wohl, Tltf' Gnwralion of 1914 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979),
215.
280
Conclusion
concerned with the "human actor's" place in history, as in the work of

Raymond Aron. In this way, the first understanding of Heidegger's phi-
losophy in France conserved the tenets of progress and free will that were
the legacy of this generation's own French philosophical heritage. This
process of incorporation was taken a step further by Jean-Paul Sartre in
the late 1930s and early 1940s. In Sartre's presentation of Heidegger's
"existential" thought, Descartes's "I think therefore I am" became
Heidegger's "I am therefore I think." This interpretive transfiguration
situated Heidegger's philosophy in the French Cartesian tradition and
retained Descartes's ego cogito as the locus of philosophical investigation.
But the popularity of Sartre and existentialism slowly emptied Hei-
degger's categories of being, anxiety, facticity, responsibility, and engage-
ment of their original force. As existentialism expanded its hold on
popular culture, these terms became commonplace and lost their anti-
establishment status. Sartre's existentialism was soon viewed by many
younger scholars as old and tired, and this opinion was reinforced by
Sartre's turn toward Marxism and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's retreat to
phenomenology.
But in 1946 Heidegger returned to confront the first reading ofhis phi-
losophy through his "Letter on Humanism," addressed to Jean Beaufret.
In this letter and in his subsequent publications, Heidegger's philosophy
returned in all its alterity and opened a new way of reading his work that
broke with the understanding of the first reading. The second reading
of Heidegger brought to France a "new" Heidegger who appeared more
radical than the "old." Not only did Heidegger offer a "corrective" to the
French existentialist reading of Being and Time; in the interim between
the publication of Being and Time and the "Letter on Humanism," his phi-
losophy had shifted further away from traditional metaphysics. He had
moved away from the ontological emphasis of Being and Time, closely asso-
ciated with existentialism, toward an investigation into the history of being
that looked to language (and not the human actor) as the opening to a
more original understanding of being. Heidegger's philosophy was rein-
troduced to France and the process of reception was repeated through a
second reading of Heidegger's philosophy, which produced a new array of
interpretations. Furthermore, the new possibilities of the second reading
(which stood in opposition to those of the first) coincided with the rise in
popularity of structuralism, which also sought to displace the centrality of
the human actor but from the perspective of the traditional sciences.
This second reading resulted in the formation of a devout following of
Heidegger led byJean Beaufret, who attempted to canonize an understand-
ing of Heidegger based on the philosopher's own words. This approach
drew directly from Heidegger but did not attempt to move beyond what
he himself was doing. This orthodox approach was necessarily limited by
281
THE THIRD READING
the nature of Heidegger's philosophy but also by the revelation of his affili-
ation with National Socialism. Mter that realization and in the wake of the
Shoah, Levinas and Blanchot were compelled to place Heidegger's thought
in permanent question. Given his political decisions, his philosophy could
not be left unchallenged. Using Heidegger's critique of anthropocentrism
and intellectualism, Levinas and Blanchot looked to construct a new phil-
osophical program that could rethink the primacy of the su~ect in rela-
tion to the other and by doing so move beyond Heidegger's concern with
being toward an emphasis on ethics. This third reading, which sought to
challenge Heidegger's thought, represents another cycle of repetition that
broke with the orthodox understanding of the second reading and led to a
whole new realm of possibilities.
Emmanuel Levinas's Totality and Infinity is itself a fitting conclusion to
the first phase of the reception of Heidegger in France that began with
his work in the late 1920s. With that book, he closed the door on the
first reading and opened the door to a dialogue with the second reading
that shifted the focus of the discussion to include the other in relation
to ethics, testimony, desire, responsibility, and the secret. These themes
would become central areas of investigation for thinkers such as Georges
Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, and Jacques Lacan, but also for younger
thinkers such as Jean Baudrillard, Helene Cixous, Jacques Derrida,
Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Fran-
c;ois Lyotard, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Paul Ricoeur. This opens the second
phase of the reception of Heidegger in France.
The second phase is also marked by the rise of structuralism and this
separates and distinguishes it from the first phase. A history of that phase
would begin with an overview of the rise of structuralism in the 1950s and
its opposition to the existential phenomenological project as embodied
in the work of Sartre. 2 This would then lead to an investigation of the
philosophical production of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jacques Lacan
in the 1950s. These two veterans of Kojeve 's seminar on Hegel formed a
bridge between the use of Heidegger and structuralism that shaped the
second phase of the reception of Heidegger in France.
Merleau-Ponty attempted to appropriate the works of Mauss, Levi-
Strauss, and Saussure in the service of his phenomenological project and
in the process he introduced a generation of young philosophers to mod-
ern linguistics and anthropology. 3 I would argue that Merleau-Ponty's turn
2. Specifically, one would look to Claude Levi-Strauss's critique of Sartre and the primacy
of the phenomenological subject in /,a fJi'nSPe smwage (Paris: Pion, 1962). See Fran~ois
Dosse, 1/istrrry of Stru.rturali~rn. vols. 1 and 2, trans. Deborah Glassman (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Ptess, 1997); Gary Gutting, French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
3. Dosse, llistory ofStnutumlisrn, 38-39.
282
Conclusion
toward structuralism was based largely on the influence of the second

reading of Heidegger that displaces the primacy of the human subject in
favor of an investigation into the larger field of being. Thus it is ironic but
not surprising that Merleau-Ponty's work in the 1950s, and the publica-
tion of Signs in 1960, led to the decline of existential phenomenology and
the rise of structuralism.
Equally important was the way the influence of Saussure (via Levi-
Strauss) increasingly intersected that of Heidegger in the work of Lacan.
This is perhaps most explicit in Lacan's "Rome Report" of 1953, which
is an attempt to reread Freud through Hegel, Heidegger, Levi-Strauss,
and Saussure. 4 It is true that Lacan's use of Hegel is heavily indebted to
Kojeve and his use of Saussure is based almost entirely on Levi-Strauss,
but what is essential for our purposes is the way he used Heideggerian
themes to frame his argument.
One could then trace this filiation from Heidegger through Blanchot
and Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and Lacan, straight to the work of Michel
Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and the generation of thinkers who rose to
prominence in the 1960s. The estrangement of Heidegger's thought
from Sartre's existential phenomenology and its insertion into the "struc-
tural" field of analysis changed the way Heidegger was read and used in
France in the 1960s. This shift toward structuralism conserved the impor-
tance of reading Heidegger in France, but now as an "antihumanist."5
But the second phase is equally indebted to the works of Blanchot and
Levinas and points to the centrality of the Shoah in understanding or
using Heidegger's philosophy. The recurring Heidegger Affairs confirm
this, as intellectuals concerned with the work of Heidegger were contin-
ually forced to take a stand on his political decisions in relation to his
philosophy. Mter the first Heidegger Affair in 1946, one could no longer
use Heidegger's philosophy without confronting the issue of his National
Socialism. Mter the work of Levinas and Blanchot, one could not use Hei-
degger without confronting the issue of the Shoah. This coincides with
the model of reception that Henry Rousso presents in The Vichy Syndrome.
According to him, the centrality of the issue of the Shoah did not mani-
fest itself in France until the 1970s, and only after a period during which
4. Jacques Lacan, report to the Rome Congress held at the Instituto di Psicologia della
Universiti di Roma, September 26-27, 1953. Published as "Fonction et champ de Ia parole
et du langage en psych analyse" in Errits I (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966).
5. A corollary condition that distinguishes the second phase from the first is that
Heidegger's philosophy was increasingly presented in relation to that of Nietzsche.
Whereas in the first phase this relationship was occasionally explored, in the second it
became essential. This too is related to the concerns of the young "structuralists" and their
own interest in Nietzsche and language. Michael Roth explores this in Knowing and 1/istury
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), afterword.
283
THE THIRD READING
the significance ofVichy had shifted several times, based primarily on the
issues of collaboration and/or resistance. 6 Given Heidegger's affiliation
with the fonner Resistant Jean Beaufret, it makes sense that the debate
would originally be focused in terms of whether or not Heidegger was a
Nazi. Mter the work of Levinas and Blanchot, the issue of Heidegger's
silence on the Shoah loomed larger and larger, as the centrality of the
Shoah became a growing source of concern for France as a whole.
In the second phase of the reception of Heidegger in France, any use
of Heidegger's philosophy constantly confronts the issue of the Shoah,
even when one decides to ignore its relevance. But here we return to
the issue of the repeated Heidegger Mfairs in France. Since the first
Heidegger Affair in 1946, there were two other large-scale affairs at
twenty-year intervals, in 1968 and 1988, with countless minor skirmishes
in between. Each subsequent Heidegger Mfair has been more virulent
and heated than its predecessor. The reason for this escalation lies in
the nature of the appropriation of Heidegger's philosophy, first by the
existentialists, then by Jean Beaufret and his students, and finally by pro-
ponents of a certain understanding of postmodernism. Each successive
cycle of Heidegger's reception in France has been based on the ground
cleared by the movement before it and the phenomenon of his philoso-
phy has established its own French tradition over the past fifty years. In
this light, Tom Rockmore's claim, in his assessment of the escalation of
each Heidegger Affair, that "French scholars sometimes acted as if they
were as much engaged in defending French thought as in defending
Heidegger's position" is absolutely correct. 7 Heidegger's thought has
been sufficiently incorporated into the French philosophical tradition
through the publication of works by French intellectuals indebted to his
thought that a "French Heideggerian" tradition ha<i become a source
of national pride. But as Heidegger's philosophy has been presented
as more and more "French" over the years, its questioning of progress,
rational knowledge, and humanism has placed it in constant conflict
with the fundamentally rational humanist republicanism of the larger
French canon. Thus one can read attacks on French Heideggerianism by
other French intellectuals as internal conflicts attempting to refocus the
future of French philosophy on purely French philosophical grounds.
But there is another factor that precludes the possibility of any defini-
tive settling of the Heidegger Affair. This is the fact that the parameters
of the debate over Heidegger and National Socialism were established
6. Henry Rousso, The Vi-rhy Syndm71!P (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), chap.
4: "Obsession:Jewish Memory."
7. Tom Rockmore, "Heidegger's French Connection," in '/111' llndl!f!Jrf:r Caw, ed. Tom
Rockmore andjoseph Margolis (Philadelphia: Temple Unive1sity Press, 1992), 378.
284
Conclusion
during the first Heidegger Affair and based on the first reading of Hei-
degger in France. Both the necessitarian thesis, which sees Heidegger's
philosophy as inherently National Socialist, and the contingency thesis,
which sees his politics and his philosophy as unrelated, were established
through the debates of the first Heidegger Affair. The survival of these
strategies throughout the numerous readings and interpretations of Hei-
degger's work has more to do with their efficacy in defending or prosecut-
ing Heidegger than with their ability to explain Heidegger's relationship
to National Socialism. The contingency thesis, presented by de Waehlens
during the first Heidegger Affair, included a defense strategy that claimed
anyone who thought that Heidegger's philosophy was compatible with
National Socialism did not understand that philosophy. This claim holds a
certain ironic validity if one understands Heidegger's philosophy through
the first reading of Heidegger in France, but it has served equally well for
Beaufret, despite its increasingly absurd nature in light of the avalanche of
historical information linking Heidegger to National Socialism.8
There is a definite link between Heidegger's philosophy and his deci-
sion to turn to National Socialism in the 1930s. But the extremist nature
of the necessitarian and contingency theses have precluded any serious
investigation into this link by forcing one to focus on whether Heidegger
was or was not ~ National Socialist and whether his philosophy was orwas
not National Socialist. This belies the complexity of the question by privi-
leging an immediate polemical response. This need for a response that
allows one to take a stand on the Heidegger issue has become an inher-
ent characteristic of the second phase of the reception of Heidegger in
France. But the ability to align oneself "with'' or "against" Heidegger has
in no way resolved the issue of Heidegger's political choice or of the rela-
tion of his politics to his philosophy. As jacques Derrida pointed out, this
is part of the fascination with the Heidegger Mfair
precisely because no one has ever been able to reduce the whole work
of Heidegger's thought to that of some Nazi ideologue. This "record"
would be of little interest otherwise. For more than a half-century, no
rigorous philosopher has been able to avoid an "explanation" with
[explication avec (auseinandersetz.ung)] Heidegger. How can one deny
that? Why deny that so many "revolutionary," audacious, and trou-
bling works of the twentieth-century have ventured into or even com-
mitted themselves to regions that, according to a philosophy which is
8. See Victor Farias, Ilei.de-ggpr and Nazism, trans. Gabriel R. Ricci (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1989); Hugo Ott, Martin HeidJ>gger: Untmiii'J.TS zu .\'einer Biographie (Frankfurt
an Main: Campus, 1988); Richard Wolin, The Politics of Being: The Political Thought of Martin
J/eidegger (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Tom Rockmore, On 1/eideggers
Nazism and Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).
285
THE THIRD READING
confident of its liberal and leftist-democratic humanism, are haunted

by the diabolical? Instead of erasing or trying to forget it, must one
not try to account for this experience, which is to say, for our age?
And without believing that all of this is already clear for us? 9
Derrida's statement, made in 1987, points to a fundamental tension
between the philosophy of Heidegger and the liberal humanist tradition
of France that has become its home. But it also refers back to the work of
Blanchot and Levinas. It refers to the rethinking of Heidegger's project,
which is tantamount to an investigation into National Socialism that does
not succumb to the most immediate and comfortable schemas of repre-
sentation and understanding. The second phase retains the tension of
the first in the conflict between Heidegger's uncanny philosophy and
the traditional philosophical emphasis on representation, definition,
and categorization, but the stakes have been raised by the political ram-
ifications of Heidegger's philosophical critique. In the first Heidegger
Affair, Heidegger's French defenders understood him as an "existential''
thinker in the same way that Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Gabriel Marcel
were considered "existential" thinkers. This implied a certain allegiance
to humanism, individuality, freedom, and responsibility that owed more
to the legacy of the Enlightenment project than to the work of Hei-
degger. Despite the way the understanding of Heidegger's philosophy
has changed in France over the last fifty years, the strategies adopted
in the first Heidegger Mfair have remained virtually unchanged. Thus
a rethinking of these terms and of the nature of the questions asked is
necessary to move past the categories of "pro" and "con" that mark the
parameters of the first Heidegger Mfair and to address the substantive
issues of the nature of Heidegger's attraction to National Socialism, his
silence on the Shoah, and his philosophical trajectory.
But the constant resurfacing of the Heidegger Affair also points to
a certain allergic reaction to Heidegger's philosophy in France. It is of
interest to note that the majority of French accounts chronicling the
reception of Heidegger in France credit Raymond Aron with the initial
introduction of his philosophy. Until recently, both Levinas and Kojeve
have been relegated to the background of the French Heideggerian tra-
dition, while such ''French" thinkers as Aron, Sartre, Beaufret, Merleau-
Ponty, and Jacques Lacan have been given center stage. The peculiar
nature of the reception of Heidegger in France lies precisely in the fact
9. Jacques Derrida, "L'Enfer des philosophes," Le nouvel observateur, November 6-12,

1987, trans. Peggy Kamuf in Points (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 182.
The insertion of ausrinandn-srlwng is my own, based on Derrida's explanation of the
translation in "The Work of Intellectuals and the Press," in Points. . , 441-42.
286
Conclusion
that the site that has become the "home" of his appropriation in philoso-
phy is entirely uncomfortable with the un(heim)lich nature of that phi-
losophy and the means by which it entered-through a continental drift
of Eastern European and German emigres who found positions within
the French universities and publishing industries but were outside the
mainstream of French academic thought.
In his 1988 essay Heidegger and "the jews," Jean-Fran(,;ois Lyotard
attempts to present an explanation for the reception of Heidegger's phi-
losophy in France. He places Heidegger's work within a French literary
tradition that holds that the real objective of literature is to represent in
words what every representation misses, what is forgotten. This, Lyotard
contends, is what philosophers in France have understood to be at work
in Heidegger's texts. But in establishing his explanation, Lyotard pres-
ents a question he claims he will not, or perhaps cannot, answer. "I will
not try to 'explain' here why it was France that found itself in charge of a
thinking of the immemorial. To assume that an 'explanation' is permis-
sible and possible means to presume that it bears some relationship to a
'political' history (which is more than a story) marked by the beheading
of a king." 10
This passage is illuminating on a number of levels-first and foremost
because it once again attempts to explain the phenomenon of the popu-
larity of Heidegger's philosophy in France by placing his work within a
preexisting French tradition, but also because it reveals the problematic
nature of this sort of incorporation. Lyotard links Heidegger's thought
to the origins of the French Republic, "marked by the beheading of a
king." This can be interpreted literally, as the beheading of Louis XVI, or
allegorically, as the beheading of the Cartesian tradition, as in Levinas's
description of the "deposition of the sovereign ego . in the sense one
speaks of deposed kings."ll In either case it represents the establishment
of a new tradition that breaks abruptly and violently with the old. But this
new tradition, despite its antipathy toward the old, is inextricably linked
and beholden to the previous tradition by the nature of this break. In this
sense, Lyotard places Heidegger's philosophy within the French repub-
lican tradition, but as a response to the darkest moments of excess and
terror. In Lyotard's model, the use of Heidegger's philosophy in France
is haunted by an internal critique of the tradition that inherited it. 12
10.Jean-Frant;ois Lyotard, /JeidRggerand t/u> "jf"ws, "trans. Andreas Michel and Mark Roberts
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990), 5.
11. Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, trans. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press, 1985), 51.
12. The work ofLevinas became popular in the 1960s for a myriad of reasons, not the least
of which was his use of Descartes in Totality and Infinity to rethink, and thus rehabilitate,
Heidegger's philosophy by moving past it.
287
THE THIRD READING
In Being and Nothingness, Sartre described nothingness as a "worm

coiled in the heart of Being," alien and yet essential to Sartre's philosoph-
ical system (EN, 57). Perhaps this metaphor also applies to the place of
Heidegger's philosophy in France. Like Sartre's worm, Heidegger's phi-
losophy now sits deeply imbedded in the heart of modern French phi-
losophy. It lies at the center of the flow of French intellectual thought,
and yet it gnaws at the very tradition it has become a part of, foreign,
inextricable, and somehow essential.
228
Index
Action (journal), 150, 170, 171 Bergsonism, 5, 8, 35, 36, 55, 69, 114, 115,
Agregation, 42, 50, 52, 55, 113, 115, 159, 200 252
Alliance Israelite Universelle, 42 Biemel, Walter, 201,204
Anti-Semitic/ism, 9, 20, 22, 147, 175,211, Bifur (journal), 117, 119
212 Blanchot, Maurice, 4, 18, 29-31, 162,
Aristotle, 5, 24, 2fi, 142, 144, 145, 255 209-244; "disaster," 212, 214-217, 221,
Aron,Jean-Paul, 203 222.225,237,240,242,243,245,247,
Aron, Raymond, 3, 5, 9, 18, 27, 36, 42, 279, 282-284, 286; L'icriture du desastre,
45,55,56,57,66,84,87-95, 100,106, 217, 224; "La litterature et le droit a Ia
109,111-113,115,116,119,120,130, mort," 225-241; Thomas l'obscur, 214, 215,
131, 133, 158, 159, 175, 178, 180, 218-221, 228, 232, 235; Le Tres llau.t, 215,
185, 204, 209, 281, 286; "historicality" 216, 234-236; use of il y a, 21~221, 223,
( Geschictlidtkeit), 93, 94; Introduction aIa 230,235-237,240,241
philosophie de l'histoire, 90-93, 106, 112, Bloch, Marc, 23
178, 180; Kojeve's influence, 88-94 Blonde!, Charles, 24, 26, 39, 42
Axelos, Kostas, 195, 201-204 Blum, Leon, 54, 210, 211
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 49, 50, 78
Barrc~s, Mamice, 43 Bougie, Celestin, 88, 90
Barthes, Roland, 201 Boutmy, Emile, 53
Bataille, Georges, 45, 56, 65, 66, 95, 150, Brasillach, Robert, 211
209,225,227 Brehier, Emile, 56, 58, 86, 90, 163, 164, 169,
Bataille-Lacan, Sylvia, 203 185
Baudelaire, Charles, 29 Breton, Andre, 66, 95
Baudrillard,Jean, 279 Brunschvicg, Leon, 5, 6, 9 n. 11, 23, 36,
Baumler, Alfred, 175 39-43,55,56,58,59,86,9o, 100,101,
Beaufret,Jean, 4, 5, 9, 10, 12, 18, 70, 83, 112, 114, 159, 160
154,157-164,166,167,184-186,188, Butler,Judith, 72
196,197,199-206,209,222,243-245,
281,284,286 Carteron, Henri, 24, 26
Beauvoir, Simone de, 56, 115, 116, 119, 166, Cartesian, 32, 40, 44, 68-70, 85, 87, 98, 109,
167 113, 114, 121. 132, 135, 140, 149, 151,
Bergson, Henri, 6, 7, 23-26,28,29,35, 51, 153, 154, 165, 167, 184, 191,201,210,
59,67,69,88,89,100-102,104,113,114, 213,214,218,222,236,237,250,252,
120,144,254,255 260,281,287
289
INDEX
Cassirer, Ernst, 24, 40, 41, 173, 181 Febvre, Lucien, 23

Cassirer, Toni, 40 n. 62, 173 n. 38 Fedie,-, Franc;ois, 201
Cavailles,Jean, 40, 41 Ferry, Luc, 9 n. II
Gelan, Paul, 242 Fessard, Gaston, 67, 90, 201
Celine, 56 Fichte,Johann Gottlieb, 159
Chaim of Volon (Chaim ben Isaac of Final Solution, 18, 215
Volozhin), 19 Fink, Eugen, 40
Char, Rene, 202, 204 Fleurquin, "Captain," 162, 163, 164, 168
Cixous, Helene, 279 Foucault, Michel, 3, 279, 283
Cohen,Hennann,40 Freiburg, University of, 31-39, 163, 169
College de France, 50-52, 54 French Communist Party, 148-150, 168
Committee of Public Instruction, 49 Freud, Sigmund, 12, 26, 95, 96, 154, 283
Compte, August, 6
Confltumres (journal), 161, 163, 166, 205 Gandilac, Maurice de, 40, 41, 170-174,
Corbin, Henry, 56, 58, 66, 69-71, 112, 176-178, 183, 194,201
ll6, ll9, 124, 130, 131, 133, 146, 157, Gaon ofVilna (Rabbi Eliyahu ofVilna,
160, 161, 163, 169, 179; translation of Elijah ben Solomon), 19, 21
Heidegger into French, 69-71, 117, 118, Gestalt Psychology, 100-103
124, 131, 131 n. 33, 133; Dasein/1ialiti!- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 21
humaine, 70, 71; Gezoorfenheit/sa direlir.tion, Gogol, Nikolai, 21, 61
71, 133; Vorhamle11heit/realili-des-dwses, 70, Goldmann, Lucien, 201, 204
71; lultandertluit/Tealiti-usleruiks, 70, 71 Gordin,Jacob, 86
Cultural Center at Cerisy-la-Salle, 201-204 Gottingen circle, 27, 58, 59; Theodor
Conrad, 27; Hedwig Conrad-Martius, 27;
Dali, Salvador, 95 Johannes Daubert, 27; Moritz Geiger, 27;
David, Cathe1ine, 242 Roman Ingarden, 27; Hans Lipps, 27;
Davos Conference, 39-42, 173 Adolf Reinach, 27; Edith Stein, 27
Deleuze, Gilles, 201, 279 Groethuysen, Bernard, 8, 56, 59
Delp, Alfred, 79 GUivitch, Gemges, 8, 28, 56, 59, 89, 101,
Derrida,Jacques,3, 10,279,283,285,286 102,200
Descartes, Rene, 4, 5, 9 n. 11, 12, 24, 68, 110, Gurvitsch, Aron, 66, 69, 101
114, 122, 146, 151, 159, 160, 163, 164,
184,188,256,257,263,266,279,281 Haar, Michel, 201
Descombes, Vincent, 57, 68 Halbwachs, Maurice, 28,90
Diderot, Denis, 154, 246 Hegel, G.W.F.: "desire" (Begierde), dialectic,
Dilthey, Wilhelm, 12, 13, 15, 17 69; Phenomenology of Spirit, 90, 97, 115,
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 21, 24, 61, 64 160, 171, 172, 195, 204; "struggle for life
Dreyfus Affair, 25, 53 and death" (Kampf auf Leben und Toll), 82
Dreyfus, Hubert, 81, 101 n. 41 HeideggerAffair/s, 9, 10, 17, 18,112,
Durkheim, Emile, 5, 24, 88, 91 154,157,158,162,165,168-184,201,
283-286
Ecole Normale Israelite Orientale, 43 Heidegger, Elfride, 202, 203
Ecole Normale Superiure, 9, 22, 42, 49-57, Heidegger, Martin: "authenticity"
84, 88, 91, 100, 113, 116, 120, 158, 159, (Eiwm.tlichkl'it), 17, 139, 144, 148; Bl'iug
161, 199,200;reformof1903,54 and TimP., 11,33-35,37,39, 40, 64, 79,
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, 17, 44, 80,83,85,86,93, 105,112,132,133,
49-51,56,59,60,64,65,69, 70,131,280 135, 138, 141-143, 154, 160, 161, 165,
Einstein, Albert, 39, 67 168, 172, 177-181, 186-188, 190-192,
Enlightenment (project), 4, 6, 19, 78 194, 195, 197, 198,216,222 n. 17,
223,225,229,237,243,249,250,276,
Farias, Victor, 242 279, 254, 255, 280, 281; "being-in-the-
Fauc;onnet, Paul, 90, 91,94 world," 15, 38, 38, 80, 105, 124, 125,
Faurisson, Robert, 205, 206 137, 140, 192; "being-towards-death,"
290
Index
82, 138,223,251-254,266,267;"call Ivanov, Nina, 67 n. 41

of conscience" ( Ruf des Gnoi.mm.s),
140; "care" (Sorge), 94, 143, 144, 225, Jahrlnult fin Phi/Qsaphie und Phiinommowgie
234;Dasdn, 12-17,43,80-83,101, Forsch?.mg, 28, 58
124-126, 128, 133, 135, 138, 141-144, Janicaud, Dominique, 10 n. 16, 201, 203
146, 165, 166, 178, 188, 191, 192, 194, Jankelevitch, Vladimir, 149
210,222,223,225-227,237,249-253, Jaspers, Karl, 56, 63, 64
266, 277; Dasdn andrealitt-humaine, 192; Jaures,Jean, 54
"datability" (Datierbarkeit), 142; Das Junger, Ernst, 133
Man, 13, 15-17, 127, 143, 144; ek-stasis,
141, 220; "estrangement" (Entfrtrmdung), Kaiser Wilhelm University. See Strasbourg,
195; "fall" (llt>rfallen), 138, 143, 144, 146; University of
"homelessness" ( 1/dmatliisigkeit), 194, Kandinsky, Wassily, 61, 63
195; inauthenticity ( Uneigentlichkdt), Kant, Immanuel, 5, 6, 23, 24, 40, 56, 57, 88,
127, 138, 144; "Letter on Humanism," 114, 160, 173,204
18, 83, 96, 98, 112, 154, 157, 158, 162, Kantian, 40
167,171,183-201,222-224,227,230, Kierkegaard, S0ren, 12-14, 16, 17, 44, 71,
243, 245, 258; Mitsein (being-with), 14, 84, 85, 90, 130, 131, 137, 138, 163, 191,
39, 222, 243, 281; "present-at-hand" 216,263
(VOJI,andenheit), 70, 71, 125, 126, 137, Kojeve, Alexandre: and Aron, 88-94;
142; "project" (enllllerfen), 143, 144; "desire" (BegiP.rde), 72-75, 268; "desire
"ready-to-hand" (Zuhandenhdt), 70, 71, for recognition," 75, 80, 272, 273; "end
105, 125, 126, 137, 142; "resoluteness" of history," 77-79, 83; on Hegel, 71-83;
(Entschlossenluil), 82; "significance" Hegel seminar, 65-83, 109, 131, 132; and
(Bedeutsamkeit), 142; "thrownness" Lacan, 94-99; "master-slave dialectic,"
(CJI!loorfenheit), 122, 124, 140, 143, 275; 75-78, 80, 81, 230, 273; and Merleau-
time, 141-144, 255; "the turn," 186, Ponty, 99-1 09; Self-Consciousness, 72-77;
187; "uncanny" (unheimlich), 8 n. 11, "struggle for life and death" (Kampf a11{
198, 219, 232, 233, 254; "understand" Leben und Tod), 75, 82, 269; teleology,
(verstehen), 81; "What is Metaphysics?" 68; using Heidegger to read Hegel, 68,
(Was isl Metaphysik?), 117-120, 122, 123, 79-83; "work" (Arbeit), 76, 229; Angst!
128, 129, 131, 136, 187, 214 Kampf auf 1-Pben 1md Tod, 80, 82, 83;
Heinemann, Fritz, 60 Bejindlirhkeit/Begierde, 80, 81; Verstelum/
Hering,Jean, 27, 28, 33, 102 Arbdt, 80, 81
Herr, Lucien, 53, 57 Kojevnikov, Alexandra, 61
Herriot, Edouard, 54 Kojevnikov, Vladimir, 60, 61
Hilberg, Raul, 246 Kovno (Lithuania), 19-22
Hitler, Adolf, 41, 42, 91, 170, 173, 177, Koyre,Aiexandre,8,9,27-29,44,45,51,56,
210-212 58-60,64-66,69,79,86,89, 169,200;
Holderlin, Friederich, 225, 230, 232, 234 Hegel seminar, 60, 65
Husser!, Edmund, 12, 27-29, 31-40,56--60, Kuki, Baron Shuzo, 116
63,67, 71, 79,83,88,90,93,99-105,
107-109, 112. 115-117, 119-126. 128- Lacan,Jacques. 18,56,66,67,84,94-98,
133, 135, 136 n. 40, 140, 142, 145, 146, 111,150,169,186,202-204,206,209,
148, 159, 160, 163, 165, 167, 179, 182, 282, 283, 286; "desire," 96-98; Kojeve's
185,218,252,256,260,263,266,269, influence, 94-99; language as negation,
274; Cartesian Meditations, 28, 43, 59, 101; 98; "master-slave dialectic," 96; "mirror
eidetic science, 32 n. 46; intentionality, stage," 96-98; "struggle for recognition,"
37, 38;Wesensrhau, 31 96,97
Hyppolite,Jean, 9, 9 n. 56, 100, 200 l.aCapra, Dominick, 236 n. 31
Lacoue-Labarthe, Phillipe, 210 n. 4, 279
Institut fram;ais de Berlin, 116, 159 Lakanai,Joseph, 49
Irigaray, Luce, 279 Lavisse, Ernest, 50
291
INDEX
Lefebvre, Henri, 9 n. 11 Minotaure, /,e (journal), 96

Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 114 Monod, Gabriel, 53
Lemkul, 61-63 Moscow, University of, 62
Lenin, Vladmir Ilich, 62 Mounier, Emmanuel, 100
Lenmism, 21 Moyn, Samuel, 248 n. 8
Lennontov, Mikhail, 21, 24, 61
Levinas, Emmanuel: critique ofHeidegger, Nancy,Jean-Luc, 222 n. 17, 279
276-278; critique ofK.ojeve's Hegel, Napoleon. See Bonaparte
272-274; critique ofSartre, 274--276; "De National Socialism, 3, 4, 17, 18, 153, 157,
!'existence a l'existant," 214, 218, 225, 161, 163-165, 167, 169-181, 183-185,
229,247, 249-25ti, 266; "desire," 2~270; 194, 195,205, 206,211, 213,224 n. 18,
"face to face," 271, 272; "ily a," 218-221, 245, 257, 282-286; Third Reich, 89
223,230,235-237,240,241,247-255,262; Neo-Kantian/ism, 4-8, 12, 13, 23, 24, 29,
"infinity," 256, 257, 261-271, 273-275, 278; 35,36,40,41,55-57,59,69,86,88,89,
"Martin Heidegger et !'ontologie," 43; 100, 101, 104, 110, 114. 115, 159, 160,
"separated being," 263-273, 276; "Surles 217,257
ideen de M. Husser!," 34--37; TIIR ThR.ory Nietzsche, Friedrich, 14, 44, 55, 84, 198, 216,
C!f blluition in Ilusserl :~ PI!R1t01Til"rwfogy, 283 n. 5
34-38, 42, 44, 103, 105; "totality," 257-262, Nizan, Paul, 100
264--266,268,271-274,277,278; 1otaury Nouvelle Revue Fram;:aise, 160, 211
and lnji.nit:y, 244, 256, 258-279, 282
Levinas, Raissa, 247 Occupation (German}, 149, 153, 211
Levinas, Simone, 247 Ott, Hugo, 33
Levi-Strauss, Claude, 51, 201
Levy,Paul,210-212 Palmier,Jean-Michel, 166
Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, 39, 53 Papin sisters, 96
Liberation, 151 Paris, University of, 54
Lichtenberger, Henri, 39 Pasteur, Louis, 53
I..Owith, Karl, 170, 176-183 Patri, Aime, 71
Lycie Condorcet, 88, 199, 200 Peguy, Charles, 56
Lycee Henri N, 161, 199 Peiffer, Gabrielle, 27, 28
Lycee Louis le Grand, 84, 100 Pe1icles (Resistance group), 161
Lyotard,Jean-Fran~;ois, 3, 279, 287 Philolenko, Alexis, 201
Piaget,Jean, 39
Mallarme, Stephane, 29, 217 n. 11, 222 n. 16 Plato, 5, 24
Mannheim, Karl, 89 Pos, Hendrik, 173 n. 38
Marceau, Marcel, 162 positivism, 6, 7, 26
Marcel, Gabriel, 44, 45, 86, 100, 102, 183, Pradines, Maurice, 24, 25, 43
185,200,201,204,286 Preau, Andre, 201
Ma~iolin, Robert, 66 Proust, Marcel, 29, 120
Man:, Karl, 62, 67, 71, 72, 90, 103, 115, 148, Pushkin, Aleksandr, 21, 24, 61
150, 153, 166, 168, 189, 195
Marxism/t, 9, 49, 99, 100, 103, 131, 150, 153, Queneau, Raymond, 45, 56, 60, 66, 150, 162,
195.243,279,281 164,227
Maurras, Charles, 43 Quint, Leon-Pierre, 201
Mauss, Marcel, 39, 51, 282
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice: "being-in-the- Rabinbach, Anson, 162 n. 9, 165 n. 19, 185
world" ( etrp..au-monde), 102, 104-108; n. 64, 195 n. 72
dialectic, 106-108; interiority/exteriority, ll.Pdunrhes J>hilosophiqrus (journal), 56, 58, 60,
104; Kojeve's influence, 99-109; "mastel"- 65,69, 79,86,90, 120,130,132
slave dialectic," 105; Phenmrumok.Jgy of Renan, Ernest, 52
Perception, 100, 104, 109, 164; Stnu:tunt of Renault, Alain, 9 n. 11
!Mtauim; 103-105; "work" (Arbrit), 107 Resnais, Alan, 162, 163, 166
292
Index
Resistance (French), 150, 161, 199, 284 Shoutak, Cecile, 64

Rnm.e dew Franre et de t'etranger (journal), 56 Simmel, Georg, 89
Reoue de m.etaphysique et de morak (journal), Sirinelli,Jean-Franc;ois, 4 n. 1
90,102,200 Socialisme l't Liberti (Resistance group), 150
Ricouer, Paul, 199 n. 75, 201, 204 Solovyov, Sergey, 64, 65, 81
Rim baud, Arthur, 29 Sorbonne,23,28,43,53,54,56,59,65,69,
Rockmore, Tom, 10 n. 16,67 n. 39, 165 n. 84-86,90,91,101,102,169,200
19, 176 n. 46, 205 n. 97, 206, 284 Sorel, Georges, 56
Rosenberg, Alfred, 175 Spiegelberg, Herbert, 27, 103
Roudinesco, Elisabeth, 203, 206 Starobinski,Jean, 201
Rousseau,Jean:Jacques, 154, 246 Steiner, George, 112
Rousso, Henry, 205, 243 Strasbourg, University of, 22, 23, 39
Rovan,Joseph,160, 161,224 structuralism, 196,200,281-283
Rubinstein, Diane, 211 n. 7 surrealists, 95
Russian Revolution, 20, 21
Taine, Hyppolite, 52, 53
Sade, Marquis de, 231 Talmud, 21
Salomon, Gottfried, 39 Tl'mp.s, k, 53
Sartre,Jean-Paul: "Anxiety/anguish" 1'm!ps motlerne.~. les (journal), 58, 150, 158,
(angoisse/Angst), 124, 127, 128, 130, 165,168,170-172,176,177,179,183
137, 138; "bad faith," 138, 139; Bei11g n.62
and Nothir1gne.ss, 17, 112, 124, 127, Terres de.1llomm.es (journal), 166
130, 133-149, 150, 152, 153, 164, 165, Third Reich. See National Socialism
197, 288; Cahiers po'unm.e morak, 150: Third Republic, 5-7, 22. 52, 53-55, 89, 91, 210
"contingency," 126-129, 140, 141, Thomas Aquinas, 26
153; Dastrin as realiti-humaine, 118, 119, Tolstoy, Leo, 21, 24, 61
124, 128, 131, 133-135, 136 n. 40, Towarnicki, Frederic de, 157, 161-168,
137-140, 146-148, 151; Existentialism is 170-176, 181, 183-185
a Jlumam'sm, 150-153, 165, 186, 188, Turgenev, Ivan, 21, 61
190, 199; "for-itself" (pour-sot), 134-142,
144-146,148, 153, 275; "freedom," Valery, Paul, 9 n. 11, 29
138, 139, 145-148, 152; Geworfenheit as Vich~211, 212,244,247,284
"contingency," 122, 124, 128, 133, 140, Virgil, 50
145; "good faith," 152; "in-itself (en- Voltaire, 154
sm), 129,134-142,144-146, 153,274;
L7maginaire, 118, 129, 137, 160, 225, 226; Waehlens, Alphonse de, 170, 179-181, 183,
L111lllgl'nation, 114, 118; Nausea, 118, 120, 201,285
124-129, 134, 149; No Exit, 148, 149; Wahl,Jean, 44, 45, 56, 60, 71, 84, 85,
"nothingness," 117-119, 122-124, 129, 86, 124. 130, 131, 132, 134, 158, 163,
134-141, 145, 146, 148; La tran~cendence 168, 185, 186, 200, 201, 2tl4; Etudes
de l'ego, 118, 120-123, 125, 128, 129, 133; kU>rkegaanliennes, 130; "Heidegger et
War Diaries (Garnets d.e la drok de gurrre), Kierkegaard," 86, 87, 130; on Hegel, 84;
112, 117, 129, 130 on Heidegger and Kierkegaard, 84-85,
Saussure, Ferdinand de, 51, 201, 282, 283 87; I.e maUu>Ur de ro11.~cience, 84; "Vers le
Scheler, Max, 24, 27, 28, 101 concret," 86, 130, 132
Schlageter, Albert Leo, 178 Webe~Max,88,89,92
Schmitt, Carl, 133 Weil, Eric, 44, 45, 56, 66, 86, 170, 179,
Schwabe, Moses, 21, 22, 23 181-183
Second Empire, 50 Witt, George, 62-64
Shoah, 102,209,209,212,213,215,216, Wohl, Robert, 4 n. 1
219,221,222,224,225,236,240-245, Wolin, Richard, 205
249,254,256,257,278,279,282-284, World War One, 4, 7-9, 28, 49, 54-56,67,
286 69,89,91, 109,159,245,280,280
293
INDEX
World War Two, 18, 30, 42, 57, 69, 79, 91. 209,218,224,225,243,245-247,251,
103, 104, 109, 112, 130, 132, 133, 149, 256
151,152,154,159,162,169,200,204. Zola, Emile, 25, 43
294

E. Kleinberg-Generation Existential Heidegger&#39;s Philosophy in France, 1927-1961

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

E. Kleinberg-Generation Existential Heidegger&#39;s Philosophy in France, 1927-1961

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Copyright 2005 by Cornell University

FIRST PUBLISHED 2005 BY CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congrt'ss Cat.alogingi11-Publication Data

Kleinberg, Ethan, 1967-

Carnell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers

On the Way to France .

1. Emmanuel Levinas: de l'etre. 19

2. Ale_xandre Kojeve and the He~el Seminar at the

3. The Dissemination ofKojeve's Heideggerian

5. Jean Beaufret, the First Heidegger Affair, and the

The Third Reading

6. Maurice Blanchot: The V\~riting of Disaster 209

This book investigates the initial reception of Heidegger's philosophy

Janet Bergstrom, David Carroll, Valerie Kaussen, Patricia Morton, Ken-

1. The term "generation of 1933" is taken from Jean-Fran~ois Sirinelli's Ghleration

The answer lies in the generation of 1933's perception of a grave cri-

Brunschvicg's critical idealism was based in part on Kant and thus

limited by the parameters of science. 8 Bergson used the argumentative

necessarily stands in the shadow of Heidegger's political decisions in the

19. Dreyfus, Bfing-in-II~R-World, 22.

I which 'takes place' in that event." 20 He_idegger relies on the German

20. Kisiel, 7711' Genesis of I leid.egger:~ Being and Time, 25.

individualistic tendency indebted to Kierkegaard (and Nietzsche), which

Theoretically concocted "explanations" of the Being-present-at-hand

that "Das Man is an existentiale; and as a primordial phenomenon, it belongs

dissemination ofKojeve's interpretation ofHeidegger through the works

as a modern language. 3 Speaking Russian at home, reading Russian liter-

tion. 9 Levinas found himself in a precarious position. He was too young

9. Friedlander, Vilna on the Seine, 81.

Torah, which he believed was crucial to answering these questions, until

14. Lescourret, Ernrrtar1uel Levina.s, 50.

16. Fran~ois-Georges Dreyfus, "Strasbourg et son universite de 1919 a 1929," in Charles-

Pushkin, Lermontov and Dostoevsky, above all Dostoevsky. The Rus-

18. Poirie, E.L: Qui eii'H101tS?69.

20. Lescourret, Emmanuel Le'(!ina..~. 61-62.

broke the grip of positivism and rationalism by emphasizing the concept

25. Levin as, Ethics and Infinity, 28.

30. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 29.

Furthermore, the members of the circle viewed Husserl's phenomeno-

relation to God, but conserved Koyre's understanding of the philosophi-

36. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 29.

political and religious convictions, but he would not come to articulate

40. Maurice Blanchot, cited in Phillipe Mesnard, "Maurice Blanchot, le sujet de

thoughts, of these intentions; full consciousness, return to the misun-

45. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 30.

Levinas had already been introduced to the work of Heidegger on a

51. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 38-39.

the subject-object split by expanding the field of investigation to include

Husserl's phenomenology contained aspects that resembled both

philosophy by accentuating some aporias, raising some problems, mak-

to deepen the phenomenological investigation by removing the primacy

There is another reason why the phenomenological reduction, as

Brunschvicg, Maurice de Gandillac,Jean Cavailles, and Engen Fink. But

68. Ibid., 78.

Levinas was trying to present. Despite a clear presentation of the relation

77. Lescourret, Emmanuel Levinas, 107-8.

a vast state educational corporation under which the national university

professors). In comparison to other academic institutions, the salaries at

relation to educational advancements abroad. The members were primarily

10. Clark, Patrons and Prophets, 26--28.

istcr of education decreed that the Ecole Normale Superieure would

Toward the Outside

13. Smith, TlteENS aud tltP Third lvpublir, 72-75.

E. Kleinberg-Generation Existential Heidegger's Philosophy in France, 1927-1961

E. Kleinberg-Generation Existential Heidegger's Philosophy in France, 1927-1961