The Idea of Beginning in Jules Lequier&#039;s Philosophy

Ghislain Deslandes

doi:10.5771/9781666927214

Summary

The Idea of Beginning in Jules Lequier's Philosophy analyzes the work of an author mostly unknown in Anglophone countries, but who greatly influenced the trajectory of French philosophy over the last two centuries. Jules Lequier, in The Search for a First Truth, argues that beginning such a search is the goal towards which philosophy must tend. To achieve this, Lequier established a postulate, that of freedom against necessity, and set out a program as an inaugural gesture: “TO MAKE, not to become, but to make, and, in making, TO MAKE ONESELF.” By the fertility of possible beginnings, the making in Lequier is always first and radical. As Ghislain Deslandes reveals in this exploration of Lequier’s work, that something new is possible in philosophy after all, and that it should even be possible to invent it in other fields, applying the principle that "everything is to be relearned, and started again, but in another truth." Deslandes explores parallels between the “classical” antiphilosophers Pascal and Kierkegaard and Lequier, whose importance to French philosophy is today better documented and more widely recognized.

Keywords

Search publication

Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-66692-720-7
ISBN-Online: 978-1-6669-2721-4
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 130
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. 1. Notes No access
3. 1. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
1. Metaphysician or Religious Poet? No access
2. Facing the Philosophical Tradition No access
3. Kierkegaardian Analogies No access
4. Antiphilosophy and Christianity No access
5. Notes No access
1. Postulatum No access
2. Is Freedom Too Simple? No access
3. A Non-Nothing Stemming from a Non-Cause No access
4. Responsibility and Freedom No access
5. Notes No access
1. First Statement: “Not Being My Principle, I Was the Principle of Nothing” No access
2. Second Statement: “True Philosophy Casts a Bright Light on Revealed Religion” No access
3. Third Statement: “I Turn to God, and Then I See Everything That Follows.” No access
4. Fourth Statement: “Faith Is a Victory” No access
5. Fifth Statement: “You Were Right, O Pascal.” No access
6. Notes No access
1. A Certain “Spirit of Exception” No access
2. Notes No access
Acknowledgments No access Pages 103 - 104
1. Cahier Jules Lequier, no. 8 No access
2. Notes No access
Bibliography No access Pages 117 - 120
Name Index No access Pages 121 - 124
Subject Index No access Pages 125 - 128
About the Author No access Pages 129 - 130