A History of Philosophy in the Twentieth Century

by Delacampagne, Christian; Debevoise, M. B.

• ISBN13: 9780801868146
• ISBN10: 0801868149
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-09-27
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

In A History of Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, Christian Delacampagne reviews the discipline's divergent and dramatic course and shows that its greatest figures, even the most unworldly among them, were deeply affected by events of their time. From Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose famous Tractatus was actually composed in the trenches during World War I, to Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger -- one who found himself barred from public life with Hitler's coming to power, the other a member of the Nazi party who later refused to repudiate German war crimes. From Bertrand Russell, whose lifelong pacifism led him to turn from logic and mathematics to social and moral questions, and Jean-Paul Sartre, who made philosophy an occasion for direct and personal political engagement, to Rudolf Carnap, a committed socialist, and Karl Popper, a resolute opponent of Communism. From the Vienna Circle and the Frankfurt School to the contemporary work of philosophers as variously minded as Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, and Hilary Putnam. The thinking of these philosophers, and scores of others, cannot be understood without being placed in the context of the times in which they lived.

Author Biography

Christian Delacampagne is a graduate of the +ëcole Normale Sup+¬rieure in Paris. He has served as director of the French Institutes in Barcelona, Cairo, Madrid, and Tel-Aviv and, more recently, as the cultural and scientific attach+¬ of the French Embassy in Boston. He presently teaches in the Department of French and Italian at Connecticut College, in New London.

Table of Contents

Preface to the English-Language Edition	ix
Preface to the Original Edition	xv
Introduction: The Birth of Modernity	1	(11)
The Sure Path of Science	12	(49)
Progress in Logic	12	(7)
From Logic to Phenomenology	19	(10)
From Logic to Politics	29	(13)
Wittgenstein's Dissidence	42	(19)
Philosophies of the End	61	(67)
The End of Europe	61	(14)
The End of Oppression	75	(20)
The End of Metaphysics	95	(18)
After the End	113	(15)
Conceiving Auschwitz	128	(51)
Paths of Exile	128	(8)
Heidegger's Choice	136	(21)
Preliminary Inquiries	157	(12)
Investigation of the Case	169	(10)
In the Cold War	179	(46)
Partisans of Liberalism	179	(9)
Defender of Liberty	188	(17)
In Search of a Third Way	205	(6)
Avatars of Marxism	211	(14)
Reason in Question	225	(52)
Structure versus Subject	225	(16)
A History of Truth	241	(13)
From Deconstruction to Neopragmatism	254	(13)
Communication or Investigation?	267	(10)
Epilogue: The Unfinished Cathedral	277	(6)
Notes	283	(20)
Select Bibliography	303	(10)
Index	313