List Three: 20 th Century French Philosophy

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "List Three: 20 th Century French Philosophy"

Elisabeth Lang
6 years ago
Views:

1 See our listings on Abebooks.com or Biblio.com Like us on Facebook List Three: 20 th Century French Philosophy 1. ALTHUSSER, Louis. Reponse a John Lewis (Reply to John Lewis); Francois Maspero, Paris, Half-title + TP [102] = Imprime, Small Octavo. First Edition. $40 A short work representative of the period of revisions, this book contains Althusser s defense of Marxist ideology. CONDITION: Original printed wrappers with light edge wear and some spotting to covers. About 10 pages with some scattered underlining. A very good copy. 2. BARTHES, Roland. Sur Racine (On Racine). Editions du Seuil, Paris, Half-title + TP + 1 leaf leafs = Table + 1 leaf = Imprime, Octavo. SIGNED First Edition. $200 On Racine is a brilliant, personal view of theatre in which Barthes discusses all the major tragedies of Racine as well as the range of critical views of his work. CONDITION: Original printed wrappers. Usual review copy perforations 'SP' to last few leaves and rear wrapper. Signed and inscribed on half-title page. Original printer s band loosely laid-in. Very good. 3. BARTHES, Roland. Sade, Fourier, Loyola. Editions du Seuil, Paris, Half-title + TP leaf s= Table, Octavo. SIGNED First Edition. $200 In Sade/Fourier/Loyola, eminent literary theorist Roland Barthes offers a fascinating treatise on the nature of philosophical creation. Barthes examines the parallel impulses of Loyola, the Jesuit saint, Sade, the renowned and sometimes pornographic libertine philosopher, and Fourier, the utopian theorist. All three, he makes clear, have been founders of languages--loyola, the language of divine address; Sade, the language of erotic freedom; and Fourier, the language of social perfection and happiness. CONDITION: Original printed wrappers. Usual review copy perforations 'SP' to last few leaves and rear wrapper. Signed and inscribed on half-title page. Very good.

2 4. BARTHES, Roland. Essais Critiques (Critical Essays). Editions du Seuil, Paris, Halftitle + TP + 1 leaf [276] + 1 leaf = Table, Octavo. SIGNED First Edition. $200 Essais critiques represents Barthes decisive conversion to structuralism and his abandonment of any responsibility towards meaning; literature and social life are now merely languages, which should be studied as pure formal systems, not for their content, but for their structure. CONDITION: Original printed wrappers. Usual review copy perforations 'SP' to last few leaves and rear wrapper. Signed and inscribed on half-title page. Very good. 5. BAUDRILLARD, Jean. Pour une critique de l'economie politique du signe. (For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign) Gallimard, Paris, Half-title + TP + [7] [269] [270] = Table + [271] [274] = Advertisements + 1 leaf = Imprime, Octavo. First Edition. $50 For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign was Baudrillard s third book. It echoed many of the ideas of The System of Objects, furthering his social analysis of consumerism, continuing his neo-marxist analysis, though differing on one point. For Marx, production represented the main force in modern society; for Baudrillard, consumption. Needs are socially constructed, rather than essentially located within a human nature. The fetishization of commodities reveals more about the user of those objects within a system of signs than the object itself. Objects are consumed for their sign-value more than their use-value. CONDITION: Original printed blue wrappers. Bright, clean pages throughout. Near fine. 6. DERRIDA, Jacques [and others]. Violence et Metaphysique: Essai sur la pensee dee. Levinas (Violence & Metaphysics: Essay on the Thinking of E. Levinas) in Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale, no 3 (Juillet Septembre) & no 4 (Octobre Decembre). Librairie Armand Colin, Paris, volumes: (Volume 1) leaf; (volume 2) [1], Octavo. First Edition. $80 This first appearance in two volumes of Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale, no. 3 & no. 4 (1964) of Derrida s famous essay on Levinas (later published in Writing and Difference [1967]) remains unsurpassed in its analytic acuity. Derrida writes, It is true that Ethics in Levinas's sense is an Ethics without law and without concept, which maintains its non-violent purity only before being determined as concepts and laws. This is not an objection: let us not forget that Levinas does not seek to propose moral rules, does not seek to determine a morality, but rather the essence of the ethical relation in general in question, then, is an Ethics of Ethics [which] can occasion neither a determined ethics nor determined laws without negating and forgetting itself. In 1974, Levinas addresses Derrida's observation in Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence. CONDITION: Very good in original printed wrappers. Pages clean and bright with light wear to covers. Very good.

3 7. DERRIDA, Jacques. Memoires for Paul de Man. Columbia University Press, New York, Half-title + TP + 1 leaf = Editorial Note + 1 leaf = Previously published Wellek Library Lectures + 1 leaf = Contents + [xi] xv = Preface + Half-title + [1] 153, Octavo. First Edition. $40 Memoires is the first book to appear on the work of the late Paul de Man. It represents a tribute to one of the fathers of deconstruction as well as an extended essay on memory, death, and friendship. It is also the only book of Jacques Derrida to be published first in English. CONDITION: A near fine copy in full gray cloth with printed dust jacket. 8. DERRIDA, Jacques. La Dissemination. Collection Tel Quel Aux Editions de Seuil, Paris, Half-title + TP + Half-title + 9 [407] + 4 leafs, Octavo. First Edition. $100 Dissemination includes a collection of essays on Plato, Mallarme, and Sollers. It represents one of Derrida s most complex analyses of the trace as writing while serving as a critique of absolute knowledge in written texts. Derrida's central contention is that language is haunted by dispersal, absence, loss, the risk of unmeaning, a risk which is starkly embodied in all writing. The distinction between philosophy and literature therefore becomes of secondary importance. Philosophy vainly attempts to control the irrecoverable dissemination of its own meaning, it strives against the grain of language to offer a sober revelation of truth. Literature on the other hand flaunts its own meretriciousness, abandons itself to the Dionysiac play of language. In Dissemination more than any previous work Derrida joins in the revelry, weaving a complex pattern of puns, verbal echoes and allusions, intended to 'deconstruct' both the pretension of criticism to tell the truth about literature, and the pretension of philosophy to the literature of truth." Peter Dews, New Statesman CONDITION: A very good copy of one of Derrida s most popular works. In printed wrappers, with some browning to spine. Usual review copy perforations 'SP' to last few leaves and rear wrapper. 9. HUSSERL [Levinas], Edmond, Peiffer, Gabrielle & LEVINAS, Emmanuel [Tr.], Méditations Cartésiennes: Introduction a la Phénoménologie. Librairie Armand Colin, Paris, VII Octavo, FIRST EDITION. Blank leaf + TP + [v] vii + [1] blank leaf, Octavo. First Edition. $500 Scarce first printing of Husserl`s lectures at the Sorbonne, in the Amphithéatre Descartes on February 23 and 25, In these lectures Husserl states: "France's greatest thinker, René Descartes, gave transcendental phenomenology new Impulses through his Meditations; their study acted quite directly on the transformation of an already developing phenomenology into a new kind of transcendental philosophy. Accordingly one might almost call transcendental phenomenology a neo-cartesianism, even though it is obliged and precisely by its radical development of Cartesian motifs to reject nearly all the well-known doctrinal content of the Cartesian philosophy" (Dorion Cairns, translator 1982). CONDITION: Decorated rebound patterned boards with beige cloth spine. Sticker with title to upper board. Spine edges slightly bumped. Renewed stiff endpapers. Previous owner`s stamp and pen inscription on title page upper edge. Title page bottom corner worn. Pages age-toned. Very good.

4 10. KRISTEVA, Julia. Polylogue. Collection Tel Quel Aux Editions de Seuil, Paris, Halftitle + TP + 7 [538] + [539] [541] = Table + [543] - [544] = Advertisements, Octavo. First Edition. $80 Kristeva analyzes various signifying practices such as language, discourse, literature and painting, and examines the approaches taken to them by the various fields such as linguistics, semiotics, epistemology, and psychoanalysis. Her aim is to reveal the dynamic activity involved in every signifying process. CONDITION: Some mild edge-wear to wraps and some sunning to spine. Endpapers spotted. A very good copy 11. KRISTEVA, Julia. La Revolution du Langage Poetique. (The Revolution in Poetic Language) Collection Tel Quel Aux Editions de Seuil, Paris, Half-title + TP + 1 leaf + Half-title + 11 [646] + [647] [648] = Advertisements, Octavo. First Edition. $80 Kriateva s earliest major work in which she establishes her theory of the role of language in constructing identity. She distances herself from both Lacan and Freud in placing the origins of language before the Oedipal phase. Kristeva describes the preoedipal stage as a play of bodily rhythms and pre-linguistic exchanges between infant and mother. CONDITION: Some mild edge-wear and spotting to wraps. Review copy with "SP" perforated on last few leaves. A very good copy. 12. KRISTEVA, Julia. L engendrement de la Formule.. Seuil, Paris. 2 volumes in Tel Quel 37 & 38, Printemps et Été (1) 1 leaf = Table + [3] [104]; (2) 1 leaf = Table + [3] [104], Octavo. First Appearance. $100 An early essay by Kristeva in which she explores the phonetic differential and the relation between phenotext and genotext. The meaning of a text is only understood when one understands its complex origins. CONDITION: Some mild edge-wear to wraps. Very good. 13. KRISTEVA, Julia. Pour une semiologie des Paragrammes. (For a program of semiology). Seuil, Paris. In Tel Quel 29, Printemps leaf = Table + [3] [96], Octavo. First Appearance. $60 An early essay by Kristeva in which she explores the word gram (gramme), from the Greek gramma, that which is written. Kristeva s concern, here, is for the nonrational and nonsymbolic aspect of poetic language. A text is never closed, but, rather, an open network of possibilities. CONDITION: Some mild edge-wear and spotting to wraps. Very good. 14. LACAN, Jacques. Ecrits Editions du Seuil, Paris, Half-title + TP + 1 leaf + 9 [912], Octavo. First Printing. $450 The scarce first printing of Lacan s classic work. Genius and charismatic leader of a psychoanalytic movement that in the 1950s and 1960s provided a focal point for the French intelligentsia, Jacques Lacan attracted a cult following. Ecrits is his most important work, bringing together myriad articles and lectures originally published between 1936 and Following its first publication in 1966, the book gained Lacan

5 international attention and exercised a powerful influence on contemporary intellectual life. To this day, Lacan's radical, brilliant and complex ideas continue to be highly influential in everything from film theory to art history and literary criticism. Ecrits is the essential source for anyone who seeks to understand this seminal thinker and his influence on contemporary thought and culture. CONDITION: Original printed wrappers in protective cover. Some creasing and sunning to spine. Clean pages throughout. Exceedingly scarce in the first printing. Very good. 15. LEVINAS, Emmanuel. Autrement qu etre ou au-dela de L Essence (Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence); Martinus Nijhoff, La Haye, Half-title + TP + [v] viii = table matieres + [ix] x = Note Preliminaire + 1 leaf + [3]-233, Octavo. First Edition. $250 Otherwise than being or beyond essence is a sequel to Levinas's Totality and Infinity. An immensely challenging and sophisticated work, it is generally considered Levinas's most important contribution to the contemporary debate surrounding the closure of metaphysical discourse, much commented upon by Jacques Derrida. The work contains a fundamentally original theory of the ethical relationship and describes the face-toface relationship, sensibility, responsibility and speech. The process of the revelation of Being as laid out by modern phenomenological ontology is severely criticized, as the author claims that the ultimate account of these phenomena is not in ontology, the exposition of the meaning of Being, but in a paradoxical discourse, in a skeptical mode, of what is beyond Being. CONDITION: In publisher's original blue cloth with light blue, printed dustjacket, lightly chipped. There is a trace of a small library marking to the bottom of the dustjacket spine. Bright blue cloth boards. Small stamp of previous owner to front free endpeper. A very good copy of a scarce book. 16. LEVINAS, Emmanuel. Le Temps et L Autre (Time and the Other); Fata Morgana, Montpellier, Half-title + TP [92] + 1 leaf = Du Meme Auteur + 1 leaf, Octavo. First Edition. $100 Time and The Other was first presented as a series of lectures in at the College Philosophique and is probably the clearest statement of Levinas' thought. Here, in book form, is the first collection of these lectures. CONDITION: Original printed wrappers. Minor edge wear, else near fine. A bright, clean copy 17. LEVINAS, Emmanuel. Totalite et Infini (Totality and Infinity). Martinus Nijhoff, La Haye, Half-Title + TP + [v] vii = table des matieres + [ix] xviii = preface + 1 leaf + [3] loosely inserted "errata"; Octavo. First Edition. $500 Levinas magnum opus and arguably one of the most important books in 20th century philosophy and ethics. Levinas re-frames the ethical moment in terms of the radical encounter with Other (alterity). Ethics lies in the responsibility one has for the other. As we encounter Other (alterity) in the face of the other, we can only respond with care for that other. It is the fundamentally existential moment. CONDITION: In publisher s original blue cloth with light blue, printed dustjacket. A clean, bright and tight copy. Scarce. Very good to near fine.

6 18. LEVINAS, Emmanuel. Noms Propres (Proper Names); Fata Morgana, Montpellier, Half-title + TP + 1 leaf [192] [194] = Table + 1 leaf = Du Meme Auteur + 1 leaf = Imprimer, Octavo. First Edition. $100 Combining elements from Heidegger s philosophy of being-in-the-world and the tradition of Jewish theology, Levinas has evolved a new type of ethics based on a concept of the Other in two different but complementary aspects. He describes his encounters with those philosophers and literary authors (most of them his contemporaries) whose writings have most significantly contributed to the construction of his own philosophy of Otherness : Agnon, Buber, Celan, Delhomme, Derrida, Jabès, Kierkegaard, Lacroix, Laporte, Picard, Proust, Van Breda, Wahl, and, most notably, Blanchot. CONDITION: Original printed wrappers. Minor edge wear, else near fine. A bright, clean, partly unopened copy. 19. LEVINAS, Emmanuel. Sur Maurice Blanchot (For Maurice Blanchot); Fata Morgana, Montpellier, Half-title + TP + 1 leaf leaf = Table + 1 leaf = Du Meme Auteur + 1 leaf = Imprimer, Octavo. First Edition. $80 Maurice Blanchot and Emmanuel Levinas were lifelong friends and intellectual companions who shared an admiration for each other. Levinas dedicated many of his studies to Blanchot, and in this book, Levinas collects four such studies. CONDITION: Original printed wrappers. Minor edge wear, else near fine. A bright, clean, unopened copy. 20. LYOTARD, Jean-Francois. Derive a Partir de Marx et Freud (Adrift from Marx and Freud) Union generale d'editions 10/18, Paris, TP + [5] - 316, Small Octavo. First Edition. $40 Derive a Partir de Marx et Freud signaled Lyotard s break with Marxism as well as his distrust of any unifying system of truth or analysis, which he defined as totalitarian because in its exclusionary practice it obliterates any other perspective. Lyotard continued to pursue this deconstruction of what he termed master narratives in his writing and teaching and, along with a number of rebel French academic intellectuals like Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, promoted a philosophy called Postmodernism, a term for which Lyotard gained international recognition with his book La Condition postmoderne in CONDITION: Original illustrated wrappers. Light creasing to spine. Edgewear. A very good copy. 21. LYOTARD, Jean-Francois. Des Dispositifs Pulsionnels (The Drives and their Apparatuses) Union generale d'editions 10/18, Paris, TP [319], Small Octavo. First Edition. $40 A collection of essays on matters libidinal, political, postmodern, and aesthetic. This work is characteristic of his early attempts at a synthesis of Freud and Marx. CONDITION: Original illustrated wrappers. Light creasing to spine. Edgewear. A very good copy.

7 22. SARTRE, Jean Paul. Critique de la raison dialectique, (Critique of Dialectical Reason). Librairie Gallimard, Paris Half-title + TP + Dedication page + [9] [727] = Table des Matieres + 1 leaf, Octavo. First Edition. $300 Along with Being and Nothingness (1943) and Existentialism is a Humanism (1946), this is the third of Sartre s three major philosophical works by the Nobel laureate and dominant intellectual force in the cultural life of mid-century France. A rare, unopened first printing (#55 of 85 printed on special vellum) in beautiful condition. The Critique of Dialectical Reason continued the Existential Marxism Sartre had begun, after much influence from Merleau-Ponty, in a 1957 essay, Search for Method. Scholars dispute whether Critique is a continuation of or a departure from the existentialism Sartre offers in Being and Nothingness. Regardless, both of these major works by Sartre are necessary for a full understanding of his philosophy. CONDITION: Original paper covers. Unopened. One of 85 (#55) on special vellum paper. A near fine copy of a delicate and fragile work. 23. SARTRE, Jean Paul. L'etre et le neant (Being and Nothingness). Librairie Gallimard, Paris Half-title + TP + Dedication page + half-title + [11] [723]-[724] = Table des Matieres + 2 leaves, Octavo. First Edition $900 Along with the Critique de la raison dialectique, this is one of the two major philosophical works by the Nobel laureate and dominant intellectual force in the cultural life of mid-century France. The very rare first edition, first impression from "Bibliothèque des idées", printed on 25th of June 1943 ("Le vingt-cinq juin mil neuf cent quarante-trois" (colophon) ), with the printed dedication "au CASTOR" (i.e. for Simone de Beauvoir"). While there is considerable controversy regarding Sartre's technical and systematic contributions and to their ultimate place in the history of philosophy, it remains true that "the extraordinary fecundity and energy of Sartre's mind must be recognized. Again and again, when he seems most deeply involved in some hopelessly sterile logomachy, he will offer an insight that make the tortuous complications of his terminology a small price to pay in turn. In this respect he is like Hegel, whom, among the great philosophers, he may most resemble" (Frederick A. Olafson). CONDITION: Original paper covers. Clean pages throughout. Light browning to spine. Review copy with SP SERVICE DE PRESSE printed to title page and rear wrapper. Housed in a cloth clam shell box. Overall, a very good or possibly near fine copy of a delicate and fragile work. 24. SARTRE, Jean Paul. Existentialisme est un Humanisme, (Existentialism is a Humanism). Les editions Nagel, Paris, Half-title + TP + Dedication page + [9] leaf, small Octavo. First Edition. $500 Following Being and Nothingness (1943) and long with the later Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960), this is the second of Sartre s three major philosophical works. A rare, first printing (#97 of 500 printed on "vélin supérieur des papeteries Navarre, numérotes de 1 a 500."). Existentialism is a Humanism has become one of Sartre's most widely read and most criticized works, and it caused great controversies at the time of its appearance. CONDITION: Original paper covers. Unopened. One of 500 (#97) on "vélin supérieur des papeteries Navarre, numérotes de 1 a 500." A very good+ copy of most important and widely read works of philosophy.

8 25. VARIOUS. Change 22: L imprononcable. L ecriture nomade. Collectif Change, Paris, Fevrier1975. TP = Table leaf, Octavo. First Edition. $40 A collection of philosophical essays by leading French intellectuals of the 20th century. Authors include Levinas and Blanchot, among others. CONDITION: Original wrappers, bright and clean, with slight edgewear. A very good+ copy. 26. VARIOUS. Critique 369: La Philosophie Malgre Tout. Editions de Minuit, Paris, Fevrier1978. TP + 1 leaf + [97] [251] [252] = Advertisements, Octavo. First Edition. $40 A collection of philosophical essays by leading French intellectuals of the 20th century. Authors include Levinas, Deleuze, Lyotard, among others. CONDITION: Original wrappers, bright and clean, with slight edgewear. A near fine copy. 27. VARIOUS. Nietzsche Aujourd hui? 1. Intensites; 2. Passion. Union Generale d Editions 10/18, Paris, volumes: (1) Half-title + 1 leaf + TP + [7] [441] = imprime + [443] + [448] = Advertisements; (2) Half-title + 1 leaf + TP + [7] [441] 443 = Table + [445] = imprime, Octavo. First Edition. $90 A collection of essays on Nietzsche by leading French intellectuals of the 20th century. CONDITION: Some mild edge-wear to wraps, small tear to rear wrap of volume 1. Pages browned as usual. A very good copy. jeff@eternalreturnbookshop.com See our listings on Abebooks.com or Biblio.com Like us on Facebook

Round Table. Department of French and Spanish. Memorial University of Newfoundland

Round Table. Department of French and Spanish. Memorial University of Newfoundland Round Table Department of French and Spanish Memorial University of Newfoundland PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE : Convergence and/or divergence? January 25 th, 2012 1 Jean-Marc Lemelin CONSTRUCTION, DECONSTRUCTION,