Thinking Through French Philosophy: The Being of the Question

"... no other book undertakes to relate all these French philosophers to each other the way that [Lawlor] does, brilliantly." --François Raffoul

For many, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze represent one of the greatest movements in French philosophy. But these philosophers and their works did not materialize without a philosophical heritage. In Thinking through French Philosophy, Leonard Lawlor shows how the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty formed an important current in sustaining the development of structuralism and post-structuralism. Seeking the "point of diffraction," or the specific ideas and concepts that link Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze, Lawlor discovers differences and convergences in these thinkers who worked the same terrain. Major themes include metaphysics, archaeology, language and documentation, expression and interrogation, and the very experience of thinking. Lawlor's focus on the experience of the question brings out critical differences in immanence and transcendence. This illuminating and provocative book brings new vitality to debates on contemporary French philosophy.

"" -- Indiana University Press

Preliminary Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Introduction: The Being of the Question

1. "If Theory is Gray, Green is the Golden Tree of Life": Philosophy and Non-Philosophy since Hyppolite

2. The Chiasm and the Fold: An Introduction to the Philosophical Concept of Archeology

3. Eliminating Some Confusion: Merleau-Ponty and Derrida on Being and Writing

4. The Legacy of Husserl's "The Origin of Geometry": The Limits of Phenomenology in Merleau-Ponty and Derrida

5. The End of Phenomenology: Expressionism in Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze

6. The End of Ontology: Interrogation in Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze

7. The Beginnings of Post-Modernism: Phenomenology and Bergsonism, Derrida and Deleuze

8. The Beginnings of Thought: The Fundamental Experience in Derrida and Deleuze

Conclusion:The Point of Diffraction

Appendix Interview for Journal Phänomenologie

Notes

Index