Marcel Gauchet

Marcel Gauchet , born in 1946 with Poilley (Handle), is a Historien and Philosophe French. He is currently director of studies to the École of the high studies in social sciences, with the Research center policies Raymond Aron and editor association of the review the Debate .

Formation

He is resulting from a modest milieu. His/her father is roadmender and unconditional gaullist, his mother is dressmaker and his/her older brother is seminarist. “In a rural world still marked largely agricultural and religious tradition typical of the west of France, the chance that I had was to profit from a school which goes. I am typical produced republican méritocratie at one time when it functioned about”. the Marcel young person receives a catholic education and becomes child of chorus.

In 1961, old 15 years, it enters to the Teacher training school teachers of Saint-Lo followed by a training of professor of the colleges. Whereas the Guerre of Algeria finishes, he discovers the trade-union engagement, but also the taste of philosophy and the social sciences. In 1962, it makes the meeting of Didier Anger, militant active of the émancipée École. The very politicized medium of the Teacher training school teachers is polarized between the Communiste S and this antistalinien small group where Marcel Gauchet counted the essence of his friends. “ As of my fifteen years, I had had Socialisme or Cruelty between the hands, via militants of the émancipée School who had initiated me with the controversies on the nature of the USSR and the working party ”. It makes its first militant demonstration at the time of the business of the died of the subway Charonne.

Course

It takes off then the English Channel for the Lycée Henri-Iv in Paris in order to prepare the entrance examination at the National university of Saint-Cloud. But, badly supporting the confined atmosphere of the Parisian college, it sets out again to teach in a college of countryside close to Caen. After two years of activity in the capacity as professor of the colleges, it takes an availability to undertake academic works.

In 1966, Marcel Gauchet becomes acquainted with Claude Lefort, his professor at the university of Caen of 1966 to 1971. Under its direction, it writes a report of on Freud and Lacan. “ With Lefort, I had the puncture of recall on the political plan”. With Caen, it is not all alone. Jean-Pierre Goff and Alain Caillé are his school-fellows. On the campus, the political offers are radical. Goff chooses the Anarchisme situationnist. Marcel Gauchet militates with him. Claude Lefort counted much for Marcel Gauchet, not only because it allowed him “ to prevent it few fatal errors from which I did not have any particular reason to escape ”, but also more largely in the intellectual plan, since it determined his orientation and its interest for philosophy under his political aspect: “ It is with him that I owe this impulse ”. The primacy of the policy pushes then Marcel Gauchet in a true bulimia of knowing. He launches out in the preparation of three licenses at the same time: in philosophy, in history and sociology. He then seeks to radicalize his rupture with the Marxist vulgate and considered that Claude Lefort remained too much attached to Karl Marx, which still represented the essence of its teaching. Gauchet on the other hand seeks an alternative to oppose to the Marxism, side of the history, by thinking a “theory of the alternative history”.

May 1968 roof of joy Marcel Gauchet, which immediately saw in the movement the expression even of what he thought since one moment: “I lived it in happiness and enthusiasm, naturally. ”. It takes part fully in the movement in its dominant component, spontaneist, and ensures the regular shuttle between Caen and Paris. But after-May is for him more painful. It is the " hangover théorique" ! The report is without call: “On the political field, the shortly after May were straightforwardly overpowering. The Leninism which one had believed struck down returned in force. The PC started to make a tobacco among intellectuals. The bunches trotskists and Maoists recruited with prolifically and conquered the top of the paving stone. ” “If there is well a thing which I could never have been, it is Mao. I detested of their style and their propaganda. However, I belonged to some imbeciles who, by democratic weakness, were used as letter-box when repression fell down on the proletarian Left. ” Consequently, Marcel Gauchet leaves the Marxist sphere definitively. This will of independence keeps Marcel Gauchet away of the university networks. He then saw expédients and odd jobs, in particular of investigations of sociology of ground. “ I had thus become a kind of specialist in the establishment in the Parisian carparks! ”.

In 1970, Marcel Gauchet becomes acquainted with Marc Richir which deals with small review of students of the University of Brussels, Textures . They decide together to start again it on new bases, with Claude Lefort, Cornelius Castoriadis and Pierre Clastres at the editorial board. It appears until in 1975.

Marcel Gauchet publishes its first article in 1971 in a number of the review the Arc devoted to Merleau-Ponty (" Place of the pensée" , the Arc , n° 46, pp. 19-30). The same year, it publishes in Textures an article entitled " On the democracy: the policy and institution of the social". This text was written according to a course given by Claude Lefort to the Université of Caen in 1966-7. It indeed gives an account of the theses of Lefort on the policy.

Then it meets Gladys Swain, which shares its life and which makes him discover the psychiatric private clinic and the movement antipsychiatric. Lastly, there were the decisive readings of the company against the State, searchs for political anthropology Editions of Midnight of Pierre Clastres (appeared in October 1974) and the Histoire of the madness at the traditional age , of Michel Foucault.

In March 1977, it takes part with Claude Lefort, Cornelius Castoriadis, Miguel Abensour, Pierre Clastres and Maurice Lucciani with the launching of the first number of a new review, Libre , subtitled “policy-anthropology-philosophy”. Eight numbers are published until in 1980, thanks to the editions Payot (Small library).
Pierre Rosanvallon, etc Furet will make it enter with the EHESS and presents it to his/her brother-in-law Pierre Nora. In April 1980, it publishes its first book with Gladys Swain, the practice of the human spirit at Gallimard. In May 1980, Nora requires of Marcel Gauchet to become the editor association of his new review the Debate. Pierre Nora, who played a central role in the rise of the Structuralisme realizes that the page is turned. In its leading article entitled “Which can the intellectuals? ”, it seems to attack all the authors of its own collections, the “Library of the social sciences” and the “Library of the stories”, with the Gallimard editions, and in the highest degree, Michel Foucault representing of the specific intellectual and larger success of the “Library of the social sciences”. The choice by Pierre Nora of Marcel Gauchet to direct the drafting of the review could only be interpreted like a catch of distance with Michel Foucault, considering the very critical positions of Marcel Gauchet with respect to work foucaldienne developed in the practice of the human spirit .

In July 1980, Marcel Gauchet publishes “the human rights are not a policy” ( the Debate , n° July 3rd, th and th - August). The year 1989 is another big step of its life. Marcel Gauchet enters to the Research center policies Raymond Aron which is the department of political studies of the EHESS, with the support of Pierre Nora and of the historian François Furet. He finds in this center of the liberal academics of center left or center right, like Pierre Manent, Jacques Julliard, Pierre Rosanvallon, Philippe Raynaud or Monique Canto-Sperber, all being able to claim heritage of Raymond Aron. He is almost incongruous for Gauchet to penetrate in this liberal bastion, which consequently, makes a liberal thinker by no means of it.

He studied the process of secularization to work in Occident in the disenchantment of the world (1985). He explains there that Christianity is “the Religion exit of the religion”, i.e. a religion which potentially contains in her the dynamics of secularization. This secularization (or “disenchantment of the world”) does not mean the end of the personal private beliefs, but that from now on the religion structure plus the company, it is not any more the principle of organization or legitimacy. “Around the years 1970, we were withdrawn without us to give of it an account to the attraction force which continued to hold us in the orbit of divine” the , written Marcel Gauchet in the religion in the democracy (Gallimard, 2000).

Marcel Gauchet is also the father of the expression “Social fracture” , taken again in 1994 by Emmanuel Todd and which becomes the central theme of the presidential campaign of Jacques Chirac.

He is member of the Council of Orientation of association In Real-time .

Comments

The thought of Gauchet, through its genealogy of the " modernité" and puts remotely redefines what one named before him " the moderne" , Lights traditional, very as much as their second readings heideggeriennes and post-modernistic. While thus giving to redefine what one names the " moderne" , its thought is made simultaneously political philosophy. the disenchantment of the world (and its deployments in the Revolution of the capacities , the Revolution of the human rights , the religion in the democracy ), from the point of view tocquevillienne, made the genealogy of the democratic opening in its negative slope, that of the exit of the religion. The continuation, the Advent of the democracy , makes the genealogy of it on the positive slope; that of become-human through the government of the men by themselves in time and space, through the production (praxis) controlled, by the right and the policy, of their characteristic to become, in other words through the government of the history. Political condition and historical condition thus gradually takes the changing of the religious paramount shape of the being-together.

The project of Gauchet can be thus defined as a theory and a reconceptualisation of the democracy, which it gives to include/understand like " mode mixte". It is the shape of the autonomous being-together, " left the religion" , organizing itself by the control of the right, the policy, and the " histoire" , heard like " to become-générateur". It thus crosses the always possible failure of this become-human, of the joint control of these three fundamental dimensions of human-social except religion. The tragedies of the 20th century are analyzed there like answer to the first " crisis of croissance" young liberal democracies. The liberalism - included/understood like " inversion libéral" , irruption of historicity and the " société" - without democracy - without political control of this historicity will open indeed on the return of the policy still carrying the print of the monk.

This theory of the democracy as it makes emerge the nodal points binding the deployment of the being-collective as subject can be included/understood on a second level, like he says it in the political condition , like a anthropo-sociology transcendantale . I.e. that it is revealing of the conditions of possibility of the advent of the subject (as clarified in the practice of the human spirit , unconscious cerebral the , truth Charcot , like through its thought on education) -, of the subject taken at the same time as distinct in the being-collective; i.e., central notion of the thought of Gauchet, the policy. The policy is what gives to a human community the capacity to be controlled. It is driven back in mode of heteronomy and appears like such in mode of autonomy, being affirmed while passing - through advent of the State, then of the modern State, the individual and history of the statute of including symbolic system to that of real infrastructure, thus affirming " moderne" in the metamorphosis which makes him undergo the liberal inversion.

Works

Etienne of Boétie, Speech of the voluntary constraint , 1976 (a very dense presentation Co-signed by Miguel Abensour and Marcel Gauchet)

practice of the human spirit: The institution asilaire and the democratic revolution (in collaboration with Gladys Swain), Gallimard, Paris, 1980

disenchantment of the world: A political history of the religion , Gallimard, Paris, 1985

the Revolution of the human rights , Gallimard, Paris, 1989

report, in the review Yearly. History, Social sciences , by Bronislavw Baczko.

Unconscious cerebral the , Editions of the Threshold, “the Bookstore of the 20th century”, Paris, 1992

Situations of the democracy (in collaboration with Pierre Manent and Pierre Rosanvallon), Threshold, coll “High Studies”, Paris, 1993

Dialog with the foolish one - In the search of another history of the madness (in collaboration with Gladys Swain), Gallimard, Paris, 1994. Intellectual and social assessment criticizes situation of the psychoanalysis and heritage of Lacan since the Seventies

the revolution of the capacities: sovereignty, people and the representation 1789-1799 , Gallimard, Paris, 1995

Discussions with Marcel Gauchet (with K. Von Bulow), Kime, coll “Direction of the history”, Paris, 1997

Charcot Truth: Unforeseen ways of unconscious the (in collaboration with Gladys Swain), Calmann-Levy, Paris, 1997. Before-Freud

the religion in the democracy: Course of secularity , Gallimard, Paris, 1998

the democracy against itself , Gallimard, Paris, 2002

the historical condition , Stock, coll “tests”, Paris, 2003 (discussion with François Azouvi and Sylvain Piron. Recall the intellectual course and policy since 1968 of the French historian and philosopher in the form of talks. Make the synthesis of its work which covers in particular the history of the religion, the political history, the interpretation of totalitarianisms, the future of the liberal democracies and the philosophy of the subject)

For a political philosophy of education (in collaboration with Marie-Claude Blais and Dominique Ottavi), Hatchet literatures, “Plural” coll, Paris, 2003

the democracy of our time (with Pierre Manent and Alain Finkielkraut), Editions of the Tricorn Counterparts - France Culture, Geneva, 2003

the monk after the religion (with Luc Ferry), Grasset, Paris, 2004

Utopia E modernità (with Robert Redeker), Città Aperta edizioni, 2004

a disillusioned World? , Editions of the Workshop, 2004

the political condition , Gallimard, Paris, 2005

the democracy from one crisis to another , Cecile Defaut, Paris, 2007

the Advent of the democracy , T1 the modern Revolution , T2 the crisis of liberalism , Gallimard, Paris, 2007

Articles

“the logic of the policy”, Critical , n°329, October 1974.

“Political and company: the lesson of the savages”, Textures', n°10-11 and n°12-13, 1976.

“the totalitarian experiment and the political thought”, Spirit, n°7- July 8th, th and th - August 1976

“the debt of the direction and roots of the State. Policy of the primitive religion”, Free. Policy - anthropology - philosophy , Payot, n° 2, second half of 1977.

“Of the advent of the individual to discovered company”, Yearly. Economies, companies, civilizations , n° May 3rd, th and th - June 1979.

“Tocqueville, Free America and us”, . Policy - anthropology - philosophy , n° March 7th, th and th 1980, pp. 43-120.

“Of the inexistentialism”, the Debate, n° May 1st, th and th 1980.

“mysteries of the best-seller or fortunes of the virtue”, the Debate, n° June 2nd, th and th 1980.

“the human rights are not a policy”, the Debate, n° July 3rd, th and th - August 1980.

“Benjamin Constant: the lucid illusion of liberalism”, prefaces at Benjamin Constant, political Ecrits , collection “Plural”, Paris, L.G.F., 1980 (texts chosen, presented and annotated by Marcel Gauchet).

“Of the two bodies of the king to the capacity without body. Christianity and policy I”, the Debate , n° July 14th, th and th - August 1981.

“Of the two bodies of the king to the capacity without body. Christianity and policy II”, the Debate , n° 15, seven-Oct. 1981.

“Fine of the religion? ”, the Debate , n° January 28th, th and th 1984.

“Over the religion”, the Debate , n°32, November 1984.

(with Gladys Swain) “Pinel and Esquirol in Salpêtrière. New documents”, psychiatric Prospects , 1984, II, n°96, 92-99.

“the School at the school of itself. Constraints and contradictions of democratic individualism”, 'the Debate , n°37, November 1985.

“How to treat religion? ”, Spirit, n° 4 April 5th, th and th - May 1986, p. 201-212.Discussion with Pierre Manent.

“To serve the State. Discussion with Simon Nora”, the Debate , n°40, May-seven. 1986.

“Letters on the French history of Augustin Thierry”, in P. Nora (Dir.), places of memory , II.1 the Nation , Paris, 1986, p.247-316

“Constant: liberalism enters the right and the history”, in F. Châtelet, O. DUhamel and E. Pisier (to dir.), Dictionnaire of political works , Paris, PUF, 1986.

“Necker, a political reading of the French revolution”, in F. Pipe cleaner etv Mr. Ozouf (to dir.), Dictionnaire criticizes Revolution frabçaise , Flammarion, 1988.

“Change of paradigm in social sciences? ”, the Debate , n°50, May-August 1988.

“democratic Pacification, civic desertion”, the Debate , n° 60, May-August 1990.

“Under the love of nature, the hatred of the men”, the Debate , n° 60, May-August 1990.

“the Bad surprise of one forgotten: the class struggle”, the Debate , n° 60, May-August 1990.

“To cry the peasants? ”, the Debate , n° 60, May-August 1990.

“One does not escape philosophy from the history. Answer to Emmanuel Terray”, Mankind , n°23, spring 1991.

“the right-hand side and the left”, in Pierre Nora (to dir.), L be Places of memory , III, France , 1. Conflicts and divisions , Gallimard, Paris, 1992, rééd. coll “Fourthly”, volume II, 1997, p. 2533-2600.

“the intellectual and the political action”, the Banquet , n°1, 1992. Maintenance.

“democratic evil”, Spirit, n°195, October 1993, p. 67-88.

“the State with the mirror of the reason of State”, in Y.C. Zarka (to dir.), Reason and insanity of State. Theorists and theories of the reason of State with 16th and 17th centuries , Paris PUF, 1994.

“the enlized Republic”, the Banquet , n° January 6th, th and th 1995. Discusses with Philippe Raynaud.

“Elites, people, the opinion. Discussion with Alain Minc”, the Debate , n°85, May-August 1995.

“the Level goes up, the book drops”, the Debate , n°92, November-December 1996.

“forms of social recombining - the State of crisis? , Debate between Marcel Gauchet and Jacques Lenoble”, in C. Derenne and L. Deutsch, social fragmentation: Stakes and perspective , Paris, Economica, pp. 103-121.

“Test of contemporary Psychology. I. a new age of the personality”, the Debate , n° 99, March-April 1998.

“Test of contemporary psychology. II. The unconscious one in redefinition”, the Debate , n°100, May-August 1998.

“the widening of the historical object”, the Debate , n°103, January-February 1999.

“When the human rights become a policy”, the Debate , n° 110, May-August 2000

“secret ways of the liberal company”, the Debate , n°111, September-October 2000.

“Religious belief and political belief”, the Debate , n°115, May-August 2001.

“the Heritage Jacobin and the problem of the representation”, the Debate , n°116, September-October 2001.

“two sources of the process of individualization”, the Debate , n°119, March-April 2002.

“tasks of political philosophy”, Re-examined of Mauss , n°19, second half-year 2002.

“After the battle: left, right-hand side, institutions. An exchange with Rene Rémond”, the Debate , n°121, September-October 2002.

“Which secularity for which modernity? : discussion with Marcel Gauchet”, To read with the college , n°63, autumn 2002.

“the transformation hypercontemporaine of individuality and education”, in Collective PAIDEIA, Y does it have an education after modernity ? , Harmattan, 2002.

“Faces of the other. The trajectory of the utopian conscience”, the Debate , n°125, May-August 2003.

“right-hand side, left, one year after” (discussion with Rene Rémond), the Debate , n°126, September-October 2003.

“what we lost with the religion”, Revue of Mauss , n°22, second half-year 2003.

“the policy and the religion. Twelve proposals in answer to Alain Caillé”, Re-examined of Mauss , n°22, second half-year 2003.

“Of the monk, his permanence and the possibility of leaving there”, the Debate , n°127, November-December 2003. Discussion with Governed Debray.

“the European problem”, the Debate , n° 129, March-April 2004.

“a new power struggle” (discussion with Rene Rémond), the Debate , n°131, September-October 2004.

“socialism in redefinition”, the Debate , n°131, September-October 2004.

“the redefinition of the ages of the life”, the Debate , n°132, November-December 2004.

“the child of the desire”, the Debate , n°132, November-December 2004.

“How Europe divides France. An exchange”, (with Rene Rémond), the Debate , n°136, September-October 2005.

Distinction

Knight of the Legion of Honor, 2007

Useful bonds

“The blog on Marcel Gauchet”

References

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