New Philosophers
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The New Philosophers (French nouveaux philosophes) is a term referring to French philosophers who broke with Marxism and the left in general in the early 1970s. They include André Glucksmann, Alain Finkielkraut, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Jean-Marie Benoist, Christian Jambet, Guy Lardreau or Jean-Paul Dollé [1]. They criticized post-structuralists and the intellectual figure of Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger.
The term was forged by Bernard-Henri Lévy in 1976, who titled an issue of the Nouvelles littéraires review the "Nouveaux philosophes."[1] These intellectuals who broke with the left were patronized by older figures, such as Maurice Clavel, in whose house Glucksmann accomplished his political shift to the right.[1]. They were also characterized by their use of TV and media in general, cutting with the "ivory tower" stereotype.[1] For this they were criticized for being too superficial and ideological, in particular by intellectuals such as Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Jean-François Lyotard or Cornelius Castoriadis.[1]
Recently their criticism found a new target in multiculturalism. Fiery polemic on the subject by proponents like Pascal Bruckner and Paul Cliteur has kindled international debate.
The mark of the new philosophers was to cast a general doubt on the tendency to argue from 'the left', by attributing too much inherent power-worship in the whole tradition, or at least what it borrowed from Hegel and Marx. They thus challenged the (French) stereotype that an intellectual was necessarily a left-wing intellectual, such as illustrated by Sartre or, in a completely different stance, Michel Foucault.
Their sobriquet possibly is a reference to the philosophers of the future that Nietzsche anticipated in his work Beyond Good and Evil.[2] The movement was harshly criticized by Gilles Deleuze, who spoke of a return to the "big concepts" using dualist oppositions, something which his generation had struggled against.
