Intermittency: The Concept of Historical Reason in Recent French Philosophy

Andrew Gibson

Dec 2011 · Edinburgh University Press

About this ebook

Explores the concept of historical intermittency in 5 recent French philosophers. Andrew Gibson engages with five recent and contemporary French philosophers, Badiou, Jambet, Lardreau, Francoise Proust and Ranciere, who each produce a post-Hegelian philosophy of history founded on an assertion of the intermittency of historical value. Gibson explores this `anti-schematics of historical reason' and its implication for politics, ethics and aesthetics in a wide range of modern intellectual contexts, finding its necessary complement and most powerful expression in a wealth of modern art, chiefly modern literature. The result is a sustained reflection on the possible character of a contemporary philosophy of history and an important contribution to our knowledge of contemporary French philosophy.

About the author

Andrew Gibson is Research Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a member of the Conseil scientifique of the Collège international de philosophie in Paris. He is the author of Beckett and Badious: The Pathos of Intermittenccy (Oxford University Press, 2006), James Joyce: A Critical Life (Reaktion, 2006) and Towards a Postmodern Theory of Narrative (EUP, 1996).