Concept and Form: The Cahiers pour l'analyse and contemporary French thought
Lead Research Organisation:
Middlesex University
Department Name: School of Media and Performing Arts
Abstract
Research context
Produced in Paris between 1966 and 1969 by a group of brilliant young philosophers interested in psychoanalysis, politics and the history of science, the Cahiers pour I'analyse was one of the most influential journals of its time. It published landmark articles by major figures such as Lacan, Demda, Irigaray and Foucault, and important early works by younger thinkers (Miller, Badiou, Milner, Bouveresse...) who still play a central role in the field today.
The years during which the Cahiers were published were some of the most productive in the history of French philosophy. Many of the arguments first published in the Cahiers have had a major impact on research in almost every field of the humanities. To understand these arguments, however, it is necessary to restore them to both their historical and philosophical contexts. This has very rarely been done; the Cahiers have been virtually ignored in intellectual histories of the period, and the general reception of recent French theory has served to exclude many of the central concerns of the Cahiers.
The Centre for Research in Modem European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Middlesex University is the most appropriate place in the UK in which to conduct a more nuanced reassessment of recent French theory and of the philosophical legacy of the Cahiers in particular. Along with Prof Peter Hallward and Dr. Ray Brassier, both specialists in recent French philosophy, three other full-time members of the CRMEP (Dr. Eric Alliez, Dr. Stella Sandford and Dr. Christian Kerslake) have research interests that centre on or include strands of contemporary French thought.
Aims & objectives
The aim of the project is to present the arguments and ideas developed by the contributors to the Cahiers, and to assess both their contemporary and their current significance, originality and influence.
To rescue the Cahiers and its legacy from the marginality to which it has been condemned in the recent reception of French thought.
To assess the current relevance of the Cahiers to work in philosophy and critical theory in France and beyond.
To correct the distorted interpretation of recent French thought associated with the marginalisation of the Cahiers, in particular by distinguishing the rigorously analytical approach and formalist priorities of the Cahiers from both the phenomenological and vitalist
priorities that characterise the prevailing picture of French philosophy.
To make a detailed reassessment of the Cahiers available through the publication of a book providing a thorough introduction to and evaluation of its principal ideas, combined with translations of thirteen of the most significant articles published in the journal.
To make the complete French text of the Cahiers freely available in a critical, carefully annotated online edition, to be accessed via a website managed by the CRMEP.
Potential applications and benefits
1. The project will help make available a number of valuable analytical and theoretical tools with important applications in a wide range of disciplines.
2. The project will make a decisive contribution to a number of the most hotly contested debates in current critical theory, including the long-standing debate between a rationalist and analytical approach to philosophy, on the one hand (exemplified in the Cahiers by Canguilhem, Lacan and Althusser) and a post-phenomenological approach (exemplified in different ways by Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida), on the other.
3 The project will correct one of the most regrettable distortions in the recent reception of French thought — its wholesale
assimilation to an anti-rationalist 'Continental' philosophical tradition dominated by figures such as Nietzsche and Heidegger. Inspired as much by Cantor and Godel as by Lacan and Althusser, the Cahiers demonstrates that this assimilation is misleading at best.
4. The project will help fill a major gap in the intellectual history of post-war France.
Produced in Paris between 1966 and 1969 by a group of brilliant young philosophers interested in psychoanalysis, politics and the history of science, the Cahiers pour I'analyse was one of the most influential journals of its time. It published landmark articles by major figures such as Lacan, Demda, Irigaray and Foucault, and important early works by younger thinkers (Miller, Badiou, Milner, Bouveresse...) who still play a central role in the field today.
The years during which the Cahiers were published were some of the most productive in the history of French philosophy. Many of the arguments first published in the Cahiers have had a major impact on research in almost every field of the humanities. To understand these arguments, however, it is necessary to restore them to both their historical and philosophical contexts. This has very rarely been done; the Cahiers have been virtually ignored in intellectual histories of the period, and the general reception of recent French theory has served to exclude many of the central concerns of the Cahiers.
The Centre for Research in Modem European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Middlesex University is the most appropriate place in the UK in which to conduct a more nuanced reassessment of recent French theory and of the philosophical legacy of the Cahiers in particular. Along with Prof Peter Hallward and Dr. Ray Brassier, both specialists in recent French philosophy, three other full-time members of the CRMEP (Dr. Eric Alliez, Dr. Stella Sandford and Dr. Christian Kerslake) have research interests that centre on or include strands of contemporary French thought.
Aims & objectives
The aim of the project is to present the arguments and ideas developed by the contributors to the Cahiers, and to assess both their contemporary and their current significance, originality and influence.
To rescue the Cahiers and its legacy from the marginality to which it has been condemned in the recent reception of French thought.
To assess the current relevance of the Cahiers to work in philosophy and critical theory in France and beyond.
To correct the distorted interpretation of recent French thought associated with the marginalisation of the Cahiers, in particular by distinguishing the rigorously analytical approach and formalist priorities of the Cahiers from both the phenomenological and vitalist
priorities that characterise the prevailing picture of French philosophy.
To make a detailed reassessment of the Cahiers available through the publication of a book providing a thorough introduction to and evaluation of its principal ideas, combined with translations of thirteen of the most significant articles published in the journal.
To make the complete French text of the Cahiers freely available in a critical, carefully annotated online edition, to be accessed via a website managed by the CRMEP.
Potential applications and benefits
1. The project will help make available a number of valuable analytical and theoretical tools with important applications in a wide range of disciplines.
2. The project will make a decisive contribution to a number of the most hotly contested debates in current critical theory, including the long-standing debate between a rationalist and analytical approach to philosophy, on the one hand (exemplified in the Cahiers by Canguilhem, Lacan and Althusser) and a post-phenomenological approach (exemplified in different ways by Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida), on the other.
3 The project will correct one of the most regrettable distortions in the recent reception of French thought — its wholesale
assimilation to an anti-rationalist 'Continental' philosophical tradition dominated by figures such as Nietzsche and Heidegger. Inspired as much by Cantor and Godel as by Lacan and Althusser, the Cahiers demonstrates that this assimilation is misleading at best.
4. The project will help fill a major gap in the intellectual history of post-war France.