New Philosophers
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The New Philosophers (French nouveaux philosophes) is a term referring to French philosophers who broke with Marxism and the left in general in the early 1970s. They include André Glucksmann, Alain Finkielkraut and Bernard-Henri Lévy. They criticized post-structuralists and the intellectual figure of Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger.
The term was forged by Bernard-Henri Lévy in 1976, who titled an issue of the Nouvelles littéraires review the "Nouveaux philosophes." These intellectuals who broke with the left were patronized by older figures, such as Maurice Clavel, in whose house Glucksmann accomplished his political shift to the right. They were also characterized by their use of TV and media in general, cutting with the "ivory tower" stereotype. For this they were criticized for being too superficial and ideological, in particular by intellectuals such as Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Jean-François Lyotard or Cornelius Castoriadis.
Recently their criticism found a new target in multiculturalism. Fiery polemic on the subject by proponents like Pascal Bruckner and Paul Cliteur has kindled international debate.
The mark of the new philosophers was to cast a general doubt on the tendency to argue from 'the left', by attributing too much inherent power-worship in the whole tradition, or at least what it borrowed from Hegel and Marx. They thus challenged the (French) stereotype that an intellectual was necessarily a left-wing intellectual, such as illustrated by Sartre or, in a completely different stance, Michel Foucault.
Their sobriquet possibly is a reference to the philosophers of the future that Nietzsche anticipated in his work Beyond Good and Evil. The movement was harshly criticized by Gilles Deleuze, who spoke of a return to the "big concepts" using dualist oppositions, something which his generation had struggled against.
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Beginnings
The term was created by Bernard-Henri Lévy in 1976. Most of the philosophers he included in that description had a previous history of Marxism with which they had recently broken. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's writings on The Gulag Archipelago had a profound effect upon many of these former Leftists.
Basic characteristics
The New Philosophers rejected what they saw as the power-worship of the Left, a tradition which they traced back to at least Hegel and Karl Marx in the 1700s and 1800s. They argued that these and other various "master thinkers" who sought to create comprehensive systems of thought had actually created the foundations for systems of oppression. More recently Pascal Bruckner has targeted multiculturalism.
Heterogeneity
Because they are defined by a negative quality (i.e., the rejection of systems of authoritarian power) the New Philosophers are very disparate. In 1978, Michael Ryan argued that they exist in name only; their "homogeneity derives from their espousal of heterogeneity." They have been described as "a brand name" for an "extremely heterogeneous group of about ten intellectuals who are held together more from without than from within... they do not serve as representatives of any clearly defined political movement or force."
Criticism
They were attacked as superficial and ideological by critics such as Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Pierre Bourdieu, Alain Badiou, Jean-François Lyotard, and Cornelius Castoriadis.
