Introduction

Dominique Janicaud’s Heidegger en France is a major work of grand proportion, a

unique intellectual undertaking of breathtaking scope reconstituting in two volumes

the history of the French reception of Heidegger, from its earliest stages in the late

twenties to today1. One "certainty" has guided Dominique Janicaud in this

enterprise: "With respect to the certainties, what inspires us straightaway is already

confirmed: the omnipresence in France of an influence, direct or indirect, of the

work and the thought of Heidegger. Aside from the "hard core" exact sciences,

earth and life sciences, there is no domain of knowledge and intellectual activity,

which has not been affected, positively or negatively, by the effects of that thought"

(HF, p. 501).The first volume is the narrative of that history, the second a series of

interviews with various philosophers and authors providing their own accounts of

their relationship with Heidegger. This intellectual history of the French reception

of Heidegger’s work also amounts to a history of 20th century French Philosophy

itself, since, as Janicaud shows throughout, contemporary French philosophy has to

a large extent constituted itself in a dialogue with Heidegger's thought, whether by

embracing it, rejecting it, or misunderstanding it! Jacques Derrida for instance

explains in his interview with Janicaud that Heidegger is a kind of contre-maître for

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him (literally, a counter-master, but which, in French, has the colloquial sense of a

work supervisor, someone in position of authority who watches over someone else,

often disapprovingly2). Derrida plays here as well on the sense of being against, as

in "going against" the master: "When I say "against the order of Heidegger," this

means that he is haunting me... always watching over me and berating me... He

haunts me like a sever father" (HF, vol. 2, p.115). This description of Derrida's

relation to Heidegger might serve as an accurate illustration of Heidegger's place in

French philosophy: A master from whom and against whom one thinks.

The volume reconstitutes both through synthetic analyses and in minute details the

way in which Heidegger has had a major influence –in a striking and unique way --

on 20th century French philosophy, in particular on such thinkers as Sartre,

Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Derrida, Lacan, Foucault, and Althusser, not to mention

Blanchot, and Ricoeur, among others. Such an enterprise fills a gap in the literature,

and is an important contribution in the context of so many discussions and debates

regarding Heidegger’s place in contemporary philosophy. In fact, as Janicaud notes

in the opening pages of the volume: “Despite the great number of translations,

1 Volume I is 594 pages long, with a bibliography, a comparative glossary of the French translations of Heidegger's key notions, and a proper name index. Volume 2 is 291 pages long, including 17 interviews, and an index of proper names. Hereafter cited as HF, followed by the page number. This review was partially written during the summer of 2002, when I heard of the tragic news of the sudden and untimely death of Dominique Janicaud. Let this review article stand as a personal homage to the person and the thinker that Dominique Janicaud was.2 Ironically, in his interview with Janicaud, Walter Biemel indicates that Heidegger did in fact "follow" Derrida's work, and, still according to Biemel, that he looked upon it favorably... (HF, II, p.41).

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interpretations, polemical interventions, there has never been any attempt to write

out in French the whole history of the reception – particularly eventful and

unpredictably rich-- of probably the most original thought of the century” (HF,

p.22). The tone of this narration, consistently balanced and measured, combined

with an impeccable scholarship and documentation, is also very refreshing.

Polemical works have their place and necessity, but they must yield to the serious

work of the historian, a role that Janicaud deliberately assumes in this opus

magnum. The result is a welcomed departure from the intellectual terrorism that so

often affects research, a brilliant synthesis of 70 years of French philosophy, well-

written, in a lucid and jargon-free prose.

The principal qualities of this work, as I alluded, are first and foremost its fairness,

its constant attempt at being equitable, its effort in attaining some level of

objectivity, as much as this is possible3: Janicaud is not trying to “settle accounts,”

his reading is instead one of a “generous” or “benevolent” neutrality. It also comes

as close as possible to an exhaustive account, combining an intimate knowledge of

that history (as attested by the more personal, autobiographical “epilogues” inserted

between the main chapters) with a keen understanding of the various philosophical

positions and interpretations, as well as the “little” history of the conflicts and

3 If as a whole Janicaud is particularly careful to being fair to the various protagonists, it does not prevent him, here or there, from manifesting some preferences or dislikes (for instance he is often severe with Alphonse de Waelhens or Jean Wahl, while always complimentary to Eric Weil)… I will return below to the question of objectivity and impartiality, to mark a few reservations on my part.

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interactions between the protagonists. As Janicaud explains in his introduction, it is

a matter of restituting the threads of both the great and “little” history, knitting

together, as it were, Geschichte and Historie. In its attention to details, its

investigative flavor, and inquisitiveness, the book reads at times like a veritable spy

story. Janicaud displays an impressive mastery of the material in question, facts,

texts and commentaries, as well as of the underlying philosophical assumptions.

The major stages of that history are revisited, from Levinas’s first commentaries on

Heidegger’s early works (Levinas was the one who first introduced Heidegger in

France); to Sartre’s magisterial (mis)appropriation of the key moments and

vocabulary of Being and Time in Being and Nothingness; to the explosion after the

war of existentialism and the famed “Letter on Humanism,” addressed to Jean

Beaufret, a key figure in the French reception of Heidegger; to Heidegger’s visit in

France in the mid-fifties at the Cerisy meeting and his encounter with Lacan, as

well as his lecture at Aix-en-Provence in 1958; to the sixties and the seminars held

in France, in Provence at the Thor, near the house of René Char; to the eventual

debates in the eighties regarding the translation of Being and Time which took 60

years to be completed after many vicissitudes; and, last but not least, to the cyclical

re-appearance in the French intellectual scene, from the thirties (but especially since

1947 through articles in Les Temps Modernes) to Victor Farias’ infamous 1987

pamphlet, of heated debates regarding Heidegger’s relationship with the Nazi

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regime. Janicaud has already written an important book on Heidegger and politics4

and he revisits the issue in this book through an informed discussion of all of its

known aspects. Throughout these episodes, Janicaud discusses at length another

integral and crucial part of the reception of Heidegger in France, namely, the

question of the French translation of Heidegger’s language and vocabulary, which

also had (and still has) its own complicated history. In all of these cases, Janicaud

provides the most informed and complete account to date, one that is destined to set

a new standard and become a reference for future discussions.

Janicaud observes that the French “reception” of Heidegger has been everything but

passive; in fact, it has given rise to all kinds of interpretations, appropriations or

misappropriations, not to mention misunderstandings, even if these were brilliant

and inventive, as in the case of Sartre. Janicaud relates that Heidegger, hearing of

this polymorphous transformation or re-creation of his thought, exclaimed: “My

god, I did not want this!”5.

Much of Janicaud’s book is a reconstruction of the successive stages of the

reception of Heidegger’s work, following a chronological order that began in the 4 The Shadow of That Thought: Heidegger and the Question of Politics (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy) (Evanston, Il: Northwestern University Press, 1996).5 One cannot help but wonder what his reaction would have been to the recent appropriation of his thought by the Islamic regime in Iran. One will read with interest Habermas's account of Heidegger's place in the debates within the different factions in power in Iran during the 90's. Frankfurter Allgemeine, Jun. 19, 2002.

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late twenties and early thirties. Heidegger en France is comprised of 12 chapters

(the twelfth a more reflective and recapitulative chapter), and an extensive

bibliography and proper name index. The chapters unfold the story of Heidegger’s

reception in France in easily digestible parts. The transition through the years is

accessible for the reader because it is organized in terms of the key figures (e.g.

Levinas, Sartre, Beaufret, and Derrida) who dominated each phase --phases

spanning one or more decades and in some cases overlapping. Each of these figures,

in turn, passed the role of interlocutor and interpreter on to the next person in the

next phase. There are seven inserted “epilogues,” or personal accounts added by

Janicaud to the general narrative. These epilogues relate, in a more subjective tone,

Janicaud’s personal involvement in that history, and they shed an interesting light

on the preceding chapters, providing a welcomed and necessary breathing pause in

a long text. One can nevertheless distinguish the following main stages in that

narrative, beginning with the first introduction of Heidegger in France by

Emmanuel Levinas.

Indeed, it was none other than Levinas who introduced Heidegger to France, and

who “played an important role in the diffusion and explication of Heidegger’s

thought” in the 30’s. (HF, p. 31) Levinas held Heidegger in the highest esteem,

ranking him among the great philosophers of the tradition “Plato, Kant, and

Bergson” (HF, p. 32). Levinas, moreover, shared his enthusiasm with Blanchot and

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Blanchot credits Levinas for helping him understand Heidegger. (HF, p. 32) In

these early years (1937), it is interesting to note that Heidegger was not read as an

existential atheist, but rather as a deeply spiritual thinker. Indeed, Heidegger’s first

French translator, Henri Corbin, pursued research in Iranian spirituality.

Levinas -- although certainly other figures of note read Heidegger in the 30’s,

including Gurvitch, Koyre, Wahl, Corbin and Aron (HF, p. 53) -- is followed, in the

next phase, by Sartre. Sartre, in the 40’s, championed Heidegger and appropriated

his thought in a highly "inventive" way, although ultimately misguided. Janicaud

points out how extensively Sartre’s Being and Nothingness draws from Being and

Time, and notes that, “The fact that Heidegger is omnipresent in Being and

Nothingness is a given that would be made more than obvious by a systematic

index” (HF, p. 62). Ultimately, Sartre’s existentialism conceived of as an essentially

anthropological humanism and activism, is to be refuted by Heidegger in what

Janicaud describes as the next phase of Heidegger’s reception in France. Yet,

Janicaud concedes that the “Sartre-effect” was so powerful, in and of itself, that

Being and Nothingness became a “book-fetish in existentialist fashion” (HF, p. 79).

Jean-Paul Sartre is followed by Jean Beaufret who was to be Heidegger’s host in

France, as it were, as well as his main interlocutor, for the next thirty years. Given

Beaufret’s crucial and extended position in the reception of Heidegger in France, it

is all the more striking that, in contrast to Sartre, Beaufret continues to be virtually

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unknown in the United States. Yet Beaufret was the recipient of the seminal “Letter

on Humanism,” in which Heidegger intimates how he has been misread by Sartre.

Beaufret came to Heidegger’s attention when Frédéric de Towarnicki gave

Heidegger one of Beaufret’s articles (HF, p. 85). Heidegger was favorably disposed

to the essay. Beaufret paid his first visit to Heidegger hut in September 1946, and so

began their thirty years of philosophical friendship. The “Beaufret phase” includes

the Colloque at Cerisy in 1955 (Heidegger’s first visit to France), as well as the

Thor Seminars in Provence in 1966, 1968 and 1969.

This thirty year phase in which Beaufret played such a central role overlapped with

Derrida’s reception and dissemination of Heidegger in the 60’s. As Derrida has

acknowledged himself, Heidegger has been a central presence in his work, a kind of

watchman, "a thought which watches over me constantly," "an overseer who always

watches over me, a thought by which I always feel observed.” (HF, II, pp. 114-

115). Moreover, Derrida and his students, Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-

Labarthe, continued to explore in various ways and expand upon Heidegger’s

thought until the end of the century. Many of Jean-Luc Nancy's books in the last

twenty years on community draw explicitly from Heidegger's analyses of being-

with in Being and Time.

Janicaud’s book is particularly noteworthy for its comprehensive and balanced

treatment of the debate in France that swirled around Heidegger’s brief affiliation

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with the Nazi party and his Rectorate at the University of Freiburg in 1933.

Janicaud addresses several strands in this debate in a precise and measured way,

including the work of Jean Pierre Faye and Victor Farias, although the latter's book

from 1987 is judged severely. Most importantly, however, the reader is free to pore

over the details of these debates, debates that in and of themselves constitute a

substantial part of Heidegger’s reception.

Janicaud shows that in the 90’s, Heidegger discourse in France turned to the

question of his “turning,” often referred to as the issue of Heidegger I (early) vs.

Heidegger II (later), following William Richardson’s paradigm in his celebrated

1962 study. This phase could be characterized as a time when, beyond the debate of

the 80’s surrounding Farias, Heidegger's thought is considered as a whole and the

work rather than the man becomes the topic of study.

In a veritable tour de force, Heidegger en France extensively and exhaustively

treats, in a constantly engaging style, nearly everything that has been written and

said about Heidegger in France in the past seven decades. In any given instance, we

receive information that provides a richly varied and layered context for the

historical event or moment. In the case of Heidegger’s visit to France in 1955, we

learn of its organization, the dialogues that took place, the meetings and interactions

with historical figures (Lacan, Braque and Char), as well as of Heidegger’s itinerary

in Paris. It is fascinating, for example, to read of and imagine Heidegger’s visit to

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the Louvre, Versailles, and to the Café de Flore, that haut-lieu of French

existentialism.

The reason for Heidegger’s visit to France at that time was the Colloque at Cerisy,

organized by Jean Beaufret. Heidegger presented a paper on August 28, 1955,

entitled “What is Philosophy?”, and again we are drawn in by the narrative of the

context. We learn of the style and the atmosphere of the seminar, his "exchange"

with Paul Ricoeur, and we read of the key philosophical points under discussion.

We learn, for example, of Heidegger’s announcement, at the seminar, to the

surprise of those in attendance, that there was “no Heideggerian philosophy.” He

characterized instead his thought as being engaged in a “dialogue with the

tradition.”

In the case of Heidegger’s visits to Provence in 1966, 68 and 69, we learn about the

circumstances of his invitation (attributed to René Char), the person who proposed

and organized the seminar (Jean Beaufret), and even the person who did the driving

(François Fédier). True to his statement at Cerisy, Heidegger engaged at Thor in a

dialogue with the Greeks (in particular Heraclitus and Parmenides), as well as with

Kant, Hegel, and Husserl.6

6 The Thor seminars, as well as the 1973 Zähringen seminar, are forthcoming in English as Four Seminars (translated by Andrew Mitchell and François Raffoul) with Indiana University Press.

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This work will become the standard reference for the understanding of Heidegger's

reception in France, and will shed a unique light on contemporary French

philosophy itself. One critical remark in closing: In his recent, and glowing, review

of Heidegger en France for the January 2002 issue of the Times Literary

Supplement (TLS), Georges Steiner is right in affirming that Janicaud's book is an

“intellectual history of the first rank.” The aim of objectivity which guides this

work is commendable and is no doubt necessary for any intellectual history.

Janicaud’s appeal to fairness and impartiality is also important in the face of so

many partial works (he thus explains that his deontology “commands that

everything must be done in order to avoid a partial and partisan work” [p.21]).

However, it is not certain that objectivity is always the best guide in matters of

thought. The horizon of objectivity that Janicaud’s approach invokes is not only

problematic, it actually runs the risk of missing the inner life of thought, which, as

Heidegger often stressed, is a kind of interpretation that essentially goes against,

that always carries a necessary violence and struggles, a wrestling with the various

concealments of the phenomena. A differend is therefore always present in

thinking, including within one’s own thought. It represents what the thought is

about, what it is struggling with, its Sache. It is that struggle which is really at stake

in all the discussions on Heidegger, and ultimately it is that essential polemos that

allows one to understand the accidented and conflictual history of the French

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reception of Heidegger in the last seventy years. In the end, a history of ideas,

however brilliant and complete, cannot account for the stakes of the history narrated

and cannot substitute for the work of thinking. It is nonetheless Dominique

Janicaud’s merit and impressive contribution and achievement to have first

presented that history, and opened it for further thinking.

François Raffoul

LSU

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