Through the voice of the narrator of Remebrance of Things Past, Proust observes of the painter Elstir that the paintings are bolder than the artist; Elstir the painter is bolder than Elstir the theorist. This book applies the same distinction to Proust; the Proustian novel is bolder than Proust the theorist. By this the author means that the novel is philosophically bolder, that it pursues further the task Proust identifies as the writer's work: to explain life; to elucidate what has been lived in obscurity and confusion. In this, the novelist and the philosopher share a common goal: to clarify the obscure in order to arrive at the truth. It follows that Proust's real philosophy of the novel is to be found not in the speculative passages of Remembrance, which merely echo the philosophical commonplaces of his time, but in the truly novelistic or narrative portions of his text. In Against Sainte-Beuve, Proust sets forth his ideas about literature in the form of a critique of the method of Sainte-Beuve. Scholars who have studied Proust's notebooks describe the way in which this essay was taken over by bits of narrative originally intended as illustrations supporting its theses. The philosophical portions of Remembrance were not added to the narrative as an afterthought, designed to bring out its meaning. What happened was the reverse: the novel was born of a desire to illustrate the propositions of the essay. Why then should we not find the novel more philosophically advanced than the essay? Reversing the usual order followed by literary critics, the author interprets the novel as an elucidation, and not as a simple transposition, of the essay. The book is not only a general interpretationof Proust's novel and its construction; it includes detailed discussions of such topics as literature and philosophy, the nature of literary genres, the poetics of the novel, the definition of art, modernity and postmodernity, and the sociology of literature.

Vincent Descombes brings together an astonishingly large body of philosophical and anthropological thought to present a thoroughgoing critique of contemporary cognitivism and to develop a powerful new philosophy of the mind.

Beginning with a critical examination of American cognitivism and French structuralism, Descombes launches a more general critique of all philosophies that view the mind in strictly causal terms and suppose that the brain--and not the person--thinks. Providing a broad historical perspective, Descombes draws surprising links between cognitivism and earlier anthropological projects, such as Levi-Strauss's work on the symbolic status of myths. He identifies as incoherent both the belief that mental states are detached from the world and the idea that states of mind are brain states; these assumptions beg the question of the relation between mind and brain.

In place of cognitivism, Descombes offers an anthropologically based theory of mind that emphasizes the mind's collective nature. Drawing on Wittgenstein, he maintains that mental acts are properly attributed to the person, not the brain, and that states of mind, far from being detached from the world, require a historical and cultural context for their very intelligibility.

Available in English for the first time, this is the most outstanding work of one of France's finest contemporary philosophers. It provides a much-needed link between the continental and Anglo-American traditions, and its impact will extend beyond philosophy to anthropology, psychology, critical theory, and French studies."

Did Freud present a scientific hypothesis about the unconscious, as he always maintained and as many of his disciples keep repeating? This question has long prompted debates concerning the legitimacy and usefulness of psychoanalysis, and it is of utmost importance to Lacanian analysts, whose main project has been to stress Freud's scientific grounding. Here Jacques Bouveresse, a noted authority on Ludwig Wittgenstein, contributes to the debate by turning to this Austrian-born philosopher and contemporary of Freud for a candid assessment of the early issues surrounding psychoanalysis. Wittgenstein, who himself had delivered a devastating critique of traditional philosophy, sympathetically pondered Freud's claim to have produced a scientific theory in proposing a new model of the human psyche. What Wittgenstein recognized--and what Bouveresse so eloquently stresses for today's reader--is that psychoanalysis does not aim to produce a change limited to the intellect but rather seeks to provoke an authentic change of human attitudes. The beauty behind the theory of the unconscious for Wittgenstein is that it breaks away from scientific, causal explanations to offer new forms of thinking and speaking, or rather, a new mythology.

Offering a critical view of all the texts in which Wittgenstein mentions Freud, Bouveresse immerses us in the intellectual climate of Vienna in the early part of the twentieth century. Although we come to see why Wittgenstein did not view psychoanalysis as a science proper, we are nonetheless made to feel the philosopher's sense of wonder and respect for the cultural task Freud took on as he found new ways meaningfully to discuss human concerns. Intertwined in this story of Wittgenstein's grappling with the theory of the unconscious is the story of how he came to question the authority of science and of philosophy itself. While aiming primarily at the clarification of Wittgenstein's opinion of Freud, Bouveresse's book can be read as a challenge to the French psychoanalytic school of Lacan and as a provocative commentary on cultural authority.

Holism grows out of the philosophical position that an object or phenomenon is more than the sum of its parts. And yet analysis--a mental process crucial to human comprehension--involves breaking something down into its components, dismantling the whole in order to grasp it piecemeal and relationally. Wading through such quandaries with grace and precision, "The Institutions of Meaning "guides readers to a deepened appreciation of the entity that ultimately enables human understanding: the mind itself.

This major work from one of France's most innovative philosophers goes against the grain of analytic philosophy in arguing for the view known as anthropological holism. Meaning is not fundamentally a property of mental representations, Vincent Descombes says. Rather, it arises out of thought that is holistic, embedded in social existence, and bound up with the common practices that shape the way we act and talk.

To understand what an individual "believes" or "wants"--to apply psychological words to a person--we must take into account the full historical and institutional context of a person's life. But how can two people share the same thought if they do not share the same system of belief? Descombes solves this problem by developing a logic of relations that explains the ability of humans to analyze structures based on their parts. Integrating insights from anthropology, linguistics, and social theory, "The Institutions of Meaning "pushes philosophy forward in bold new directions.

As a logical concept, identity refers to one and the same thing. So why, Vincent Descombes asks, do we routinely use "identity" to describe the feelings associated with membership in a number of different communities, as when we speak of our ethnic identity and religious identity? And how can we ascribe the same "identity" to more than one individual in a group? In Puzzling Identities, one of the leading figures in French philosophy seeks to bridge the abyss between the logical meaning of identity and the psychological sense of "being oneself." Bringing together an analytic conception of identity derived from Gottlob Frege with a psychosocial understanding stemming from Erik Erikson, Descombes contrasts a rigorously philosophical notion of identity with ideas of collective identity that have become crucial in contemporary cultural and political discourse. He returns to an argument of ancient Greek philosophy about the impossibility of change for a material individual. Distinguishing between reflexive and expressive views of "being oneself," he shows the connections between subjective identity and one's life and achievements. We form profound attachments to the particular communities by which we define ourselves. At the same time, becoming oneself as a modern individual requires a process of disembedding oneself from one's social milieu. This is how undergoing a crisis of identity while coming of age has become for us a normal stage in human life. Puzzling Identities demonstrates why a person has more than one answer to the essential question "Who am I?"

An introduction to modern French philosophy (1933 to the present) which expresses the main movements and figures in their political and cultural contexts.