French Philosophy Since 1945: Problems, Concepts, Inventions: Postwar French Thought, Volume IV

After World War II, philosophy in France entered a particularly rich period whose influence is still strong in many areas today. New styles were invented, new problems were formulated, and new critical functions were engaged, reaching into many domains around the world.

In French Philosophy Since 1945, the fourth and final volume of The New Press Postwar French Thought series, Etienne Balibar and John Rajchman provide a fresh map and analysis for understanding this singular period in the history of ideas. Organized around a series of interconnected questions, featuring many different and sometimes opposed voices, this anthology collects the writings of celebrated philosophers along with work by thinkers highly regarded in France but not as well known to a U.S. audience for the first time. With new translations by Arthur Goldhammer, French Philosophy Since 1945 contextualizes this material within a larger intellectual and political history and chronology, identifying antecedents and distinguishing four main phases or moments. Indispensable for understanding the development of postwar French philosophy as a whole, this anthology also includes a comprehensive chronology outlining developments in the field since 1945.

Etienne Balibar, Professor Emeritus, Université de Paris I, and Distinguished Professor at University of California, Irvine, is one of Europe's leading political philosophers. He is the author of Masses, Classes, and Ideas, We the People of Europe?, and Spinoza and Politics and is a co-author of Reading Capital. He is based in Paris.

John Rajchman is an associate professor at Columbia University and a visiting professor at Princeton University. The author of Truth and Eros, Constructions, and The Deleuze Connections, he has also written widely about contemporary art and architecture and contributed a foreword to The Chomsky-Foucault Debate (The New Press). He lives in New York.