An Atheism that Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought

by Stefanos Geroulanos

Overview

French philosophy changed dramatically in the second quarter of the twentieth century. In the wake of World War I and, later, the Nazi and Soviet disasters, major philosophers such as Kojève, Levinas, Heidegger, Koyré, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Hyppolite argued that man could no longer fill the void left by the "death of God" without also calling up the worst in human history and denigrating the dignity of the human subject. In response, they contributed to a new belief that man should no longer be viewed as the basis for existence, thought, and ethics; rather, human nature became dependent on other concepts and structures, including Being, language, thought, and culture. This argument, which was to be paramount for existentialism and structuralism, came to dominate postwar thought. This intellectual history of these developments argues that at their heart lay a new atheism that rejected humanism as insufficient and ultimately violent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804762991
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	03/08/2010
Series:	Cultural Memory in the Present
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Stefanos Geroulanos is Assistant Professor of Modern European Intellectual History at New York University.

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AN ATHEISM THAT IS NOT HUMANIST EMERGES IN FRENCH THOUGHT

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By Stefanos Geroulanos

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2010 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-6299-1

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Chapter One

The Anthropology of Antifoundational Realism: Philosophy of Science, Phenomenology, and "Human Reality" in France, 1928-1934

In 1928, the Japanese philosopher and former Heidegger student Count Shuzo Kuki spent a few months in Paris, gave a number of public lectures, and met the young Jean-Paul Sartre. Kuki was the first to tell Sartre about Husserl and Heidegger, years before Raymond Aron pointed to his martini glass, suggested to the startled Jean-Paul that phenomenology would change his life, and proposed that he read Emmanuel Levinas's Theory of Intuition in Husserl's Phenomenology. Unimpressed by the figureheads of French thought that he and Sartre discussed, Kuki delivered his final public lecture on the "General Characteristics of French Philosophy," offering a biting reduction of its modern development to four traits: (i) inner observation; (ii) an alliance with positivism; (iii) a fundamental metaphysical-essentially Cartesian-dualism; and (iv) a "striving to be social." 3 For Kuki, these traits exemplified contemporary French thought as represented by the established group of philosophers-Henri Bergson, Léon Brunschvicg, Celestin Bouglé, Emile Meyerson, and others-and indicated a distinctly national philosophical labor. Contrasting that labor to the work of German theologian-philosophers he himself was trained by-particularly Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers-Kuki suggested that "French" philosophy was the offspring of scientific and scientistic thought. Thus, it was limited to the concept of science it emerged from, and it was at a loss when dealing with questions concerning the status of man in modernity, questions it answered by imposing an antiquated, optimistic, and teleological conception of Man to avoid existential and theological issues that exceeded its scientism. If there is something rude or coarse about Kuki's caricature of "French philosophy," it nevertheless resonated, somewhat like Ling's letters to A. D., among young philosophers who were simply more polite and more systematic in rejecting the dominant themes than Kuki in contemporary idealism. Alongside the powerful Kantian and rationalist glorification of Man, the issues presented by Kuki as limitations of French philosophy were seen in these years to be raising new demands in philosophical anthropology, that is, in the thematization of Man as a properly philosophical problem rather than merely a self-sufficient and self-evident ideal or ground of thought, knowledge, and existence.

If we can retrospectively see Kuki's intervention as symptomatic of a broader philosophical change, there is a second, similarly suggestive event worth noting here. In 1929, Léon Brunschvicg, Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice de Gandillac, and Jean Cavaillès attended the debate What Is Man? between Martin Heidegger and the Neo-Kantian thinker Ernst Cassirer in Davos, Switzerland. Heidegger's Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, published earlier that year, had challenged the "official" reading of Kant by the two major German Neo-Kantian schools and had extended Heidegger's project of a rethinking of philosophy out of ontological premises. The Davos debate featured a series of lectures by the two thinkers as well as direct debate on the contemporary importance of the Kantian tradition. Crucial to the debate were the limits of anthropocentrism, which both Cassirer and Heidegger rejected: there, Heidegger's originality and harshness. This was a critique not only of Cassirer but, for the French context, of Brunschvicg's neocriticism as well, and it succeeded in setting the stage for later philosophical developments and disagreements. For younger thinkers, among them Emmanuel Levinas (who had worked under Husserl after studying in Strasbourg), Heidegger "so successfully trounced Cassirer ... that the mantle of leading German philosopher was unofficially bestowed upon him there." During and after the conference, Levinas celebrated in Heidegger's triumph "the end of a particular kind of humanism." A year later, attempting to recuperate the "profundity" he acknowledged in Heidegger's argument, Brunschvicg (who openly supported Cassirer) reduced it to a testament to the power and self-transformative potential of Kantianism. In 1934, de Gandillac paralleled Cassirer's compliant comportment toward Heidegger with "the succumbing of the German people to the Führer's magnetism." In other words, the debate highlighted divisions not only in Germany but also in France, divisions that served as ciphers for an alternative to Kantianism's association with the old, conventional, secular humanism. How do we understand the range, breadth, and anthropological focus of these two occasions? What do they suggest about the ensuing transformations in French thought? As Kuki's lectures and French participation in the Davos debate retrospectively indicate, French philosophy was entering a period of transformation, shedding its Kantian past and moving toward a counter to the established anthropocentric idealism of the period.

In the French context, the 1930s constituted a philosophical event that altered both the borders and the strategies of philosophical argumentation, and that also formed a new philosophical background for much better known movements. The attack on man as at once ideal and ground in the thought of the 1920s is clearest in (i) phenomenological and epistemological arguments directed against scientific positivism and neocriticism, and (ii) the dismissal of man's standing as a privileged observer of nature and causality. The corollary of these critiques was an overturning of the classical transcendental juxtaposition of subject to object, which in turn led to what I will call antifoundational realism, a kind of philosophical "realism" that denies man any kind of transcendental separation from the reality he finds himself in, attributes to him a contribution to this reality, and forces him to accept his powerlessness to radically change-or escape from-it. Philosophical anthropology was radically shaken by these developments: as the philosophical 1930s challenged the dominant subjectivism, scientific expectations, and rationalist commitments, they plunged idealist humanism into an anti-anthropocentric turmoil. The question of man lost the foundational answer it had found in neocriticism and became a central target for skepticism.

Institutionally and culturally speaking, this transformation was effected largely by an intellectual milieu centered on the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, the Russian philosopher Alexandre Koyré who taught there, and the journal Recherches philosophiques that he cofounded. Recherches philosophiques was especially important, as it acted as a publishing home for many of the philosophical developments of the 1930s (both this chapter and Chapter 4 rely largely on materials published in Recherches philosophiques). Philosophically speaking, two major moments in the introduction of phenomenology and the new philosophy of science were crucial to the overcoming of Neo-Kantian anthropology: first, there were the transformations in epistemology occasioned by the discovery of uncertainty in quantum physics and the arrival of German phenomenology, which rendered obsolete Kantian idealism and the debate between realism and rationalism that had dominated French epistemology and philosophy of science in recent times. In the hands of Jean Wahl, Gaston Bachelard, and Alexandre Kojève, the critique of scientific determinism in quantum physics combined with the phenomenological critique of idealism, leading to antifoundational realism. Antifoundational realism undermined existing idealism/realism distinctions, and it specifically rejected the conception of Man as an all-powerful observer, transcendental to nature and the world, aiming toward the perfection of his consciousness and control of modern life. Because antifoundational realism expressly posited a dual reality constituted by both subject and world, and because it centered on the failure of the former to come to terms with the latter, the picture of man that it suggested was one of a being struggling with and forcing itself on the world it exists in, a world that does not quite ground Man's knowledge of it and forbids him any transcendental perspective on it. Second, during the 1930s, the thinking of Alexandre Koyré and Martin Heidegger expressed the problem posed by man's grounding in modernity. On top of his institutional involvements, Koyré played a major philosophical role for his generation, particularly through his presentation of modern thought and science as conditioned by their metaphysical and religious premises. Similarly, Heidegger's approach to transcendence in his "On the Essence of Ground" (the second of his essays published in French translation) helped overturn the existing perception of the human being as transcending the world, so as to center on man's "casting" of this world-and rounds out the part played by antifoundational realism and Koyré's study of man in modernity.

Perhaps the most appropriate term for a description of the place of man, following the antifoundational and realist tendencies of the early 1930s is that of human reality. Marking the codependence of the two terms-the impossibility of a reality pure of any human interaction and the lack of transcendental or absolute status for the human-human reality encompasses the push against idealism and the effort to explain the limitations of the human, its decentering and emptying out in reality. In "human reality," the human loses its separation from this reality and becomes enmeshed with it; at the same time, reality is designated as decidedly human, and not real by itself. But "human reality" has a further force in 1930s thought because in tune with Alexandre Kojève's use of the term to translate Heidegger's Dasein in his early, unpublished work, his collaborator and student Henri Corbin used it, apparently with Heidegger's approval, in his translation of early essays that appeared in 1938. Subsequently, Sartre also used this translation in Being and Nothingness, though it quickly declined in the early postwar period. Since then, "human reality" as a term has received a plethora of harsh criticisms-"poor," "anthropologizing," "monstrous," even "execrable." These criticisms are perhaps deserved insofar as it humanized and concretized a term used by Heidegger to denote the "thereness" of the human being and its disclosure of Being, but neither its humanity nor its reality (both of which are, for Heidegger, derivative). Nevertheless, the function of "human reality" in the context of the French 1930s, and as a designator of Dasein, adjusts what "human reality" might otherwise mean: with Corbin's translation, it now means Dasein, that is, it largely names "human reality" the pure thereness, nonideality, and existence that is indicated by Dasein, and thus adjusts both "human" and "reality." It thereby allies the human, in its emptiness, with a reality distinctly dependent on it and pulls away "the human" from the foundationalism and idealism to which it was formerly tied and for which "human reality" would later unhistorically be criticized.

1. Institutions and the Generational Rift

The antihumanism of human reality is closely tied to the impetus for change of philosophical approach that came from figures who were only tentatively linked to the Parisian philosophical establishment and tradition. These young philosophers taught either outside of Paris (Jean Wahl until 1936, Georges Canguilhem), at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Alexandre Koyré, Henri Corbin, Alexandre Kojève, Gaston Bachelard), or simply outside the French university altogether (Gabriel Marcel, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bernhard Groethuysen). Though many had studied in part under "the mandarins," these studies did not form the core of their work, and their expressions of gratitude to the elders are not indicative of philosophical loyalty. Most important are the groups comprising in part of young émigrés, most of whom were from the Soviet Union and had studied in Germany. Among these "visitors" were Emmanuel Levinas, Alexandre Koyré (originally Koyrànsky), Georges Gurvitch, Alexandre Kojève (originally Koschewnikow), and Rachel Bespaloff-not to mention German thinkers like Bernhard Groethuysen and, later, Walter Benjamin. As foreigners and exiles, not only did they enjoy a heightened personal aura, but their foreign education (like Kuki's) clashed with the priorities of French philosophy and provided an alternative to the more traditional French resolutions of philosophical problems. Moreover, their rebellion against neocriticism can be understood somewhat in tandem with that of nonacademic groups seeking a renouvellement of philosophy: early French Freudians (the circle of psychoanalysts around Marie Bonaparte and also the surrealists), literary Nietzschean circles (among them Gide's circle and the Collège de Sociologie), Marxist philosophers (like the Philosophies group that included Paul Nizan), and other émigré groups (for example, around Boris Souvarine and La Critique sociale). Like them, the philosophical outsiders of interest here largely identified the official liberal humanism and failures of the Third Republic with what they perceived as contemporary philosophical stagnation. The effort to reinvigorate philosophy was thus akin to these often heavily politicized movements, though its attention to epistemological and ontological questions (and the relationship of these to the question of Man) formed a more specific base that cannot really be identified with political tendencies, and indeed often fled precisely their "humanism."

(a) Alexandre Koyré

The work of Alexandre Koyré sits at the center of the 1930s philosophical attempt to reconceive the scientific and theological origins of modernity and the relationship of these origins to a present that oppresses their ambiguities, that claims freedom from its history, and that professes direct access to transcendental truths. Koyré is now known in France and the United States primarily for his work on the history and philosophy of science, especially his influential 1956 lectures at Johns Hopkins, published as From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe, and his work on Galileo and Newton. His intellectual-historical formation began with an early interest in mathematics and phenomenology and a turn, during the late 1910s, toward the history of religious thought. No less than Emile Durkheim or Marcel Mauss, and certainly much more than Léon Shestov or the authors linked to the Collège de Sociologie, Koyré provided an intellectual basis for the belief that modernity was based on a metaphysical, religious, and even tragic origin that it oppressed and substituted through a profane humanist claim to transcendence. A prolific writer and teacher already from the early years of his Parisian stay, Koyré is significant here less because of the radicalism of his conceptions and more because of the systematic and erudite fashion in which he presented his positions as achievements of careful modern scholarship. Koyré also played a major institutional role in the reorganization of French thought by operating as an organizational core for varying attempts to move beyond Kantianism. During the early 1930s, Koyré identified these attempts with the introduction of phenomenology in France; besides his position as director of Recherches philosophiques, he published and introduced the first translations of Heidegger in French, and he extensively reviewed phenomenological works in Recherches philosophiques. On the centenary of Hegel's death, he devoted three essays to him and taught a course at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes on Hegel's Jena writings. Koyré's exceptional presence in French thought of the period can be seen in his influential participation in these two milieux.

(b) Recherches philosophiques

From 1931 through 1937, Recherches philosophiques hosted some of the most significant contemporary debates in French philosophy. That the journal is forgotten today is surprising: it comprised six issues and more than three thousand pages and was perhaps the most significant of its time, featuring studies on metaphysics, phenomenology, philosophy of science, early existentialism, and comparative religion in a way unmatched by other scholarly publications or institutions. It combined these in a synthesis that prefigured existentialism. Recherches philosophiques was specifically geared toward alternatives to the dominant philosophical establishment, including, from the very beginning, translations and reviews of phenomenological essays and books, discussions of the history of specific sciences and philosophical movements elsewhere in Europe, and broad bibliographical essays on new publications in France and abroad. Due to their outsider status, many of the younger 1930s philosophers had trouble publishing in the more official reviews, such as the Revue philosophique or the Revue de métaphysique et de morale; Recherches philosophiques filled this gap, offering a voice to young philosophers and contributing to the orientation of their research.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from AN ATHEISM THAT IS NOT HUMANIST EMERGES IN FRENCH THOUGHT by Stefanos Geroulanos Copyright © 2010 by Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations xiii

Man Under Erasure: Introduction 1

Part I The 1930s

Introduction: Bourgeois Humanism and a First Death of Man 37

1 The Anthropology of Antifoundational Realism: Philosophy of Science, Phenomenology, and “Human Reality” in France, 1928-1934 49

2 No Humanism Except Mine! Ideologies of Exclusivist Universalism and the New Men of Interwar France 100

3 Alexandre Kojève's Negative Anthropology, 1931-1939 130

4 Inventions of Antihumanism, 1935: Phenomenology, the Critique of Transcendence, and the Kenosis of Human Subjectivity in Early Existentialism 173

Part II The Postwar Decade

Introduction: The Humanist Mantle, Restored and Retorn 209

5 After the Resistance (I): Engagement, Being, and the Demise of Philosophical Anthtopology 222

6 Atheism and Freedom After the Death of God: Blanchot, Catholicism, Literature, and Life 251

7 After the Resistance (2): Merleau-Ponty, Communism, Terror, and the Demise of Philosophical Anthropology 268

8 Man in Suspension: Jean Hyppolite on History, Being, and Language 287

Conclusion 305

Notes 317

Bibliography 387

Index 415

Editorial Reviews

"An Atheism That is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought examines a complex series of debates in mid-twentieth century French philosophy that culminates in the rise of antihumanism during the 1960s. The book is a rich and sophisticated intellectual history, offering food for thought for the specialist and non-specialist alike. . . Geroulanos argues convincingly that French antihumanism is rooted in the historical onset of this crisis during the pre-war period, in what separates the twentieth century from the nineteenth, and that an archaeology of antihumanism is utterly necessary if we wish to understand the present age."—Ryan Coyne, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion

"Focusing on a narrow period, roughly 1930 to 1954, and proceeding as an investigation into the emergence of antihumanism as a cultural figure in the overlapping spheres of philosophy, literature, theology, and politics, the book augurs a sea change in our historical approach to French intellectual currents . . . Geroulanos has irrevocably upended the conventional genealogy of the field."—Knox Peden, History and Theory

"[T]he approach Geroulanos takes—putting atheism at the center of things—leads to insights . . . Geroulanos pays subtle respect to a range of intellectual positions and demonstrates the extreme complexity of the conversations, and the fierce disappointment that animated them."—American Historical Review

"This book introduces a terrifically learned new intellectual historian who has provided a strikingly novel and philosophically interesting genealogy of the antihumanism that most observers associate with too recent an era of thought. Of interest to anyone concerned with the the rich traditions of Continental philosophy, Stefanos Geroulanos's investigation gives the French scene in the 1930s its due, with neglected figures, new departures, and influential breakthroughs that still challenge the temptation to make the humanity of man the basis of reflection."—Samuel Moyn, Columbia University

"All too frequently anti-humanism serves as a mere slogan or a term of abuse. This broad-ranging and original new study of the anti-humanist movement in twentieth-century French thought helps us to comprehend the deeper complexities of this theme across numerous domains—philosophical, literary, religious, and political. Resisting facile judgment and alive to paradox, Geroulanos's book unsettles, reframes, and provokes at every turn. A work of true consequence by a compelling new voice in European intellectual history."—Peter E. Gordon, Harvard University

"The tradition of humanism, so long an affront to religious faith, has more recently been challenged from non-religious perspectives, perhaps nowhere as fiercely as in 20th-century France. With incisive readings of many of the masters of French thought, Stefanos Geroulanos unearths the tangled roots of post-structuralist anti-humanism, and in so doing, raises fundamental questions about what it means to be human in the 21st century."—Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley

"Beyond recasting the work of the best known thinkers of the mid-century, Geroulanos also highlights the significance of lesser-known figures, from the philosophy of science to theology. In incorporating these voices, he is able to show that atheist antihumanism, far from being opposed to currents of either scientific or religious thinking, was, in fact, deeply indebted to them . . . [This book] asks questions about the writing of history anew. In the process, it posits new horizons for thinking about the interrelationship between secularity and religion at a moment when these are highly charged questions in French history and politics—as well as beyond them."—Judith Surkis, The Immanent Frame

"Rarely do I learn more from a scholarly book than I have from Stefanos Geroulanos's An Atheism that Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought. Geroulanos's central thesis is compelling but simple . . . [W]e have here a 'last man,' heir to those 'negations' of the world named freedom, history, and individuality, whose historical realization reveals that humanness is ultimately based upon a relation to death. To the degree that this antihumanism continues to order thinkers like de Man, Derrida, and Foucault, it has also shaped many Anglophone intellectuals of my generation. Geroulanos tells a story that thus illuminates us too."—Simon During, The Immanent Frame

"One of the things that intellectual historians show us, although often only implicitly, is the fluidity of the terms of debates that we take to be self-evident. In An Atheism that Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought, Stefanos Geroulanos shows us this fluidity by focusing on the French history of objections to (and reformulations of) humanist discourse from 1929 to 1952, a history that suggests that the rigidity of the categories of 'religion' and 'humanism' in Anglophone discourse is exceptional and unnecessary."—Martin Kavka, The Immanent Frame

"Geroulanos's lucid, carefully written text fills in a void in the secondary literature on this incredibly fruitful and influential time in French thought . . . [T]he intellectual history Geroulanos traces demonstrates that the antihumanism developed in 1930s Paris should be seen as proto-poststructuralist thought. The negative anthropology, questioning of positive knowledge, and antifoundationalist epistemology of this period were later appropriated and transformed by figures such as Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze . . . Geroulanos's text provides a pathway for understanding how and why theologians and atheist Continental philosophers have proved to be such strange and intimate bedfellows."—Reviews in Religion and Theology

"An Atheism that Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought achieves a much-needed dialogue between intellectual history and the history of philosophy. Rather than reduce intellectual history to a history of intellectuals—their publications, academic standing, and milieux—Geroulanos preserves the substantive content and stakes of atheist anti-humanism across four decades of debate."—MLN: Modern Language Notes

"Stefanos Geroulanos's valuable, sophisticated, and dense book recounts a crucial chapter in the twentieth-century undermining of the Western humanist tradition. Rewardingly focused on French intellectual life from the mid-1920s to the mid-1950s, this meticulously excavated study argues that, in the face of interwar distress, scientific and philosophical innovations, and a miscellany of competing versions of humanism, some prominent thinkers were drawn to variously phrased forms of antihumanist atheism. In addition to its stand-alone merits, this study offers an invaluable prehistory to a later, better-known, and more influential antihumanist wave among French intellectuals during the 1950s–1970s . . . [I]t is a worthwhile read and sure to be a compulsory reference in the field."—Julian Bourg, Journal of Modern History

"[Geroulanos's] work offers an impressive narrative of the complex history of anti-humanism in twentieth-century French thought . . . . [T]he book is rich in historical detail, suggestive in its historical analysis, and provocative philosophically."—Terence J. Martin, The Journal of Religion

From the Publisher

"[T]he approach Geroulanos takes—putting atheism at the center of things—leads to insights . . . Geroulanos pays subtle respect to a range of intellectual positions and demonstrates the extreme complexity of the conversations, and the fierce disappointment that animated them."

American Historical Review/i>

"Stefanos Geroulanos's valuable, sophisticated, and dense book recounts a crucial chapter in the twentieth-century undermining of the Western humanist tradition. Rewardingly focused on French intellectual life from the mid-1920s to the mid-1950s, this meticulously excavated study argues that, in the face of interwar distress, scientific and philosophical innovations, and a miscellany of competing versions of humanism, some prominent thinkers were drawn to variously phrased forms of antihumanist atheism. In addition to its stand-alone merits, this study offers an invaluable prehistory to a later, better-known, and more influential antihumanist wave among French intellectuals during the 1950s–1970s . . . [I]t is a worthwhile read and sure to be a compulsory reference in the field."

Journal of Modern History - Julian Bourg

"Rarely do I learn more from a scholarly book than I have from Stefanos Geroulanos's An Atheism that Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought. Geroulanos's central thesis is compelling but simple . . . [W]e have here a 'last man,' heir to those 'negations' of the world named freedom, history, and individuality, whose historical realization reveals that humanness is ultimately based upon a relation to death. To the degree that this antihumanism continues to order thinkers like de Man, Derrida, and Foucault, it has also shaped many Anglophone intellectuals of my generation. Geroulanos tells a story that thus illuminates us too."

The Immanent Frame - Simon During

"Focusing on a narrow period, roughly 1930 to 1954, and proceeding as an investigation into the emergence of antihumanism as a cultural figure in the overlapping spheres of philosophy, literature, theology, and politics, the book augurs a sea change in our historical approach to French intellectual currents . . . Geroulanos has irrevocably upended the conventional genealogy of the field."

History and Theory - Knox Peden

"This book introduces a terrifically learned new intellectual historian who has provided a strikingly novel and philosophically interesting genealogy of the antihumanism that most observers associate with too recent an era of thought. Of interest to anyone concerned with the the rich traditions of Continental philosophy, Stefanos Geroulanos's investigation gives the French scene in the 1930s its due, with neglected figures, new departures, and influential breakthroughs that still challenge the temptation to make the humanity of man the basis of reflection."

Columbia University - Samuel Moyn

"An Atheism that Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought achieves a much-needed dialogue between intellectual history and the history of philosophy. Rather than reduce intellectual history to a history of intellectuals—their publications, academic standing, and milieux—Geroulanos preserves the substantive content and stakes of atheist anti-humanism across four decades of debate."

MLN: Modern Language Notes

"[T]he approach Geroulanos takes—putting atheism at the center of things—leads to insights . . . Geroulanos pays subtle respect to a range of intellectual positions and demonstrates the extreme complexity of the conversations, and the fierce disappointment that animated them."

American Historical Review

"[Geroulanos's] work offers an impressive narrative of the complex history of anti-humanism in twentieth-century French thought . . . . [T]he book is rich in historical detail, suggestive in its historical analysis, and provocative philosophically."

The Journal of Religion - Terence J. Martin

"Geroulanos's lucid, carefully written text fills in a void in the secondary literature on this incredibly fruitful and influential time in French thought . . . [T]he intellectual history Geroulanos traces demonstrates that the antihumanism developed in 1930s Paris should be seen as proto-poststructuralist thought. The negative anthropology, questioning of positive knowledge, and antifoundationalist epistemology of this period were later appropriated and transformed by figures such as Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze . . . Geroulanos's text provides a pathway for understanding how and why theologians and atheist Continental philosophers have proved to be such strange and intimate bedfellows."

Reviews in Religion and Theology

"An Atheism That is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought examines a complex series of debates in mid-twentieth century French philosophy that culminates in the rise of antihumanism during the 1960s. The book is a rich and sophisticated intellectual history, offering food for thought for the specialist and non-specialist alike. . . Geroulanos argues convincingly that French antihumanism is rooted in the historical onset of this crisis during the pre-war period, in what separates the twentieth century from the nineteenth, and that an archaeology of antihumanism is utterly necessary if we wish to understand the present age."

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - Ryan Coyne

"All too frequently anti-humanism serves as a mere slogan or a term of abuse. This broad-ranging and original new study of the anti-humanist movement in twentieth-century French thought helps us to comprehend the deeper complexities of this theme across numerous domains—philosophical, literary, religious, and political. Resisting facile judgment and alive to paradox, Geroulanos's book unsettles, reframes, and provokes at every turn. A work of true consequence by a compelling new voice in European intellectual history."

Harvard University - Peter E. Gordon

"The tradition of humanism, so long an affront to religious faith, has more recently been challenged from non-religious perspectives, perhaps nowhere as fiercely as in 20th-century France. With incisive readings of many of the masters of French thought, Stefanos Geroulanos unearths the tangled roots of post-structuralist anti-humanism, and in so doing, raises fundamental questions about what it means to be human in the 21st century."

Berkeley - Martin Jay

"Beyond recasting the work of the best known thinkers of the mid-century, Geroulanos also highlights the significance of lesser-known figures, from the philosophy of science to theology. In incorporating these voices, he is able to show that atheist antihumanism, far from being opposed to currents of either scientific or religious thinking, was, in fact, deeply indebted to them . . . [This book] asks questions about the writing of history anew. In the process, it posits new horizons for thinking about the interrelationship between secularity and religion at a moment when these are highly charged questions in French history and politics—as well as beyond them."

The Immanent Frame - Judith Surkis

"One of the things that intellectual historians show us, although often only implicitly, is the fluidity of the terms of debates that we take to be self-evident. In An Atheism that Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought, Stefanos Geroulanos shows us this fluidity by focusing on the French history of objections to (and reformulations of) humanist discourse from 1929 to 1952, a history that suggests that the rigidity of the categories of 'religion' and 'humanism' in Anglophone discourse is exceptional and unnecessary."

The Immanent Frame - Martin Kavka