Gary Gutting tells the story of the remarkable flourishing of philosophy in France in the last four decades of the 20th century. He examines what it was to 'do philosophy', what this achieved, and how it differs from the Anglophone tradition. His key theme is that French philosophy in this period was mostly concerned with thinking the impossible.

• Introduction


• Part I


• 1: Philosophical Educations


• 2: The Hegelian Challenge


• 3: Footnotes to Heidegger? The "Master Thinker" in Recent French Philosophy


• 4: Whatever Happened to Existentialism?


• 5: How They All Are Nietzscheans


• Part II


• 6: The Turn to Ethics: Levinas and Deleuze


• 7: The Turn to Ethics: Derrida, Levinas, and Foucault


• 8: Phenomenology, Religion, and Incomprehensibility: Derrida and Marion


• 9: Alain Badiou: Ontology, Ethics, and Incomprehensibility


• 10: Conclusion: Thinking the Impossible

Gary Gutting is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.