Limiting Reason's Empire: The Early Reception of Hegel in France

Abstract

Limiting Reason's Empire: The Early Reception of Hegel in France BRUCE BAUGH 1. THE PROBLEM OF PAN-LOGICISM THE STORY OF HEGEL'S RECEPTION in France is more complicated and more tangled than the standard accounts would have us believe.' From the standpoint of the generation of philosophers that came to prominence after the Second World War, it appeared that a genuine knowledge of Hegel did not exist in France prior to the publication ofJean Hyppolite's Gen~seet structure de la Ph~omknologie de Hegel (1946) ' and Kojeve's Introduction ~ la lecture de Hegel (x947),s both hailed at the time of publication as the first major French interpretations of Hegel.4 In large part, this version of events still predominates, in ' See in particular Vincent Descombes, Le M~me et l'autre: quarante-cinq am de la philosophic fran~aise (Paris: Minuit, 1979);in English, Modern French Philosophy(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 198o); Mark Poster, Existential Marxism in Postwar France: From Satire to Althusser (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1975); Michael S. Roth, Knowingand History."Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth-Century France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988); Judith Buffer, Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988);Jacques d'Hondt, Hegel eth~g~lianisme(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1982). Further references to Descombes are to the English translation. 'Jean Hyppolite, Genkseet structure de la Ph~aomtnologie de Hegel (Paris: Aubier, 1946); English translationby Samuel Cherniak and John Heckman, Genesisand Structure ofHegel's "Phenomeno/ogy of Spirit" (Evanston, IL: Northwestern UniversityPress, 1974). sAlexandre Kojtve, Introduction gzla lecture de Hegel, texts edited and assembled by Raymond Queneau (Paris: Gallimard, a947); parts of this work have been translated into English byJames Nichols as Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UniversityPress, 1969). 4See Mikel Dufrenne, "L'Actualit6 de Hegel," Esprit 16 (1948): 396-4o8, and "La tht~sede Jean Hyppolite," Fontmnc i a (1947): 461-7o; Gaston Fessard, "Deux Interprttes de la Phtmom& nologie de Hegel: Jean Hyppolite et Alexandre Kojt~ve,"Etudes z55h 1 0947): 368-73; Henri Niel, "L'Interpr&ation de Hegel," Cr/t/que3h8 (1947): 426-37; Georges Canguilhem, "Hegel en France," Revue d'histoireet dephilosophie religieuses~8-29 0948-49): 282-97. [259] 260 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 31:2 APRIL 199 3 English-language accounts as well as French ones.s Even those more knowledgeable commentators who recognize the importance of the pre-war works of Jean Wahle and Henri Lefebvre~ give the impression that Hegel became known in France through his adversaries: Marxism (Lefebvre) and Kierkegaardian existentialism (Wahl).s Otherwise, it is said, Hegel was virtually unknown in France, not taught at the Universities and in all respects outside the mainstream of French intellectual life.9 These interpretations contain a grain of truth: a certain Hegel, the Hegel of the Phenomenology of Spirit, did not become known in France prior to the Marxist and existentialist commentaries that began appearing in the I9UOS. It was not until after 1945 that this "dramatic" Hegelianism, which centered on the theme of historical becoming through conflict, came to be seen as compatible with existentialism and Marxism, *~and even as encompassing and surpassing both these more recent tendencies." Since it was this interpretation of sIn particular, this is true of Poster and of Descombes, whose accounts are often cited as authoritative. 6See Jean Wahl, Le Malheur de la consciencedam la philosophicde Hegel (Paris: Rieder, t9~9); Vers le coneret(Paris: Vrin, 193~); Etudes kierkegaardiennes(Paris: Aubier, 1938). 7See Henri Lefebvre and Norbert Guterman, "Pr6face" to Morceaux choisisde Marx (Paris: Gallimard, t934); La Consciencemystifi~e(Paris: Gallimard, 1936); "Introduction" to V. I. Lenin, Cahiers sur la dialectique de Hegel (Paris: Gallimard, 1938); Morceaux choisisde Hegel (Paris: Gallimard , 1939); and Henri Lefebvre, Le ma~/a//sme d/a/ect/que(Paris: Alcan, 1939). SSee Hyppolite, "La P/dvum~vJo/og/ede Hegel et la pens6e frangaise," "Hegel, Kierkegaard et la pens~e franfaise contemporaine" and "Hegal/i rouest," all in Figures de la pens~ephilosophique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1971); Roger Garaudy, Perspectivesde l'homme: existentiali .,me, marxisme, penste catholique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959), 114-17, 230, 399; and...