I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!!! :-\, But . . .
>ps c'mon though, Edouard, come clean. Descartes is as much a
>part of French thought as Confucius is of Chinese thought, and
>no French intellectual, even today, can discourse on matters
>philosophical without addressing, and most likely acknowledging,
>the intellectual talents of the Father of Modern (and Patron of
>French) Thought. Even Derrida cannot escape Descartes....
Oh well, temptation . . temptation. Sartre explicitly defines
his project in I believe _Being and Nothingness_ as
reintepreting the Existential project of Heidegger while
remaining true to the spirit of Descartes. I don't have time to
look it up, but that is what I recall.
There is also something about the "spirit of Elan" that comes
into play here. Individualism in France takes on a certain
religious sense that transcends the cold mechanistic emptyness
of rationalism. It is best understood I think in times of
crisis: the odd religious sense that Elan took at Verdun and
again for the "resistance" which Sartre was a part of.
It is true that the whole intellectual world must come to terms
with Descartes, but I think, that in true existential character,
one must "be french" in order to experience Descartes in its
fullest cultural meaning.
Come to think about it, I would suppose the same is true for
Confucius and Chinese thought. May we ask for comments from the
audience . . . (yes, Angel that includes you!! :-)
Edouard
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: Edouard Lagache :
: lagache who-is-at violet.berkeley.edu :
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: let him decieve me as much as he may, he will never bring it :
: about that, at the time of thinking that I am something, I am :
: in fact nothing. :
: Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 1632 :
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