The Wager of Lucien Goldmann – Tragedy, Dialectics, & a Hidden God: Tragedy, Dialectics, and a Hidden God (Princeton Legacy Library, 1896) - Hardcover

Cohen, Mitchell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691034206 ISBN 13: 9780691034201

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1994

Synopsis

In The Wager of Lucien Goldmann, Mitchell Cohen provides the first full-length study of this major figure of postwar French intellectual life and champion of socialist humanism. While many Parisian leftists staunchly upheld Marxism's "scientificity" in the 1950s and 1960s, Lucien Goldmann insisted that Marxism was by then in severe crisis and had to reinvent itself radically if it were to survive. He rejected the traditional Marxist view of the proletariat and contested the structuralist and antihumanist theorizing that infected French left-wing circles in the tumultuous 1960s.

Highly regarded by thinkers as diverse as Jean Piaget and Alasdair MacIntyre, Goldmann is shown here as a socialist who, unlike many others of his time, refused to portray his aspirations for humanity's future as an inexorable unfolding of history's laws. He saw these aspirations instead as a wager akin to Pascal's in the existence of God. "Risk," Goldmann wrote in his classic study of Pascal and Racine, The Hidden God, "possibility of failure, hope of success, and the synthesis of the three in a faith which is a wager are the essential constituent elements of the human condition." In The Wager of Lucien Goldmann, Cohen retrieves Goldmann's achievement--his "genetic structuralist" method, his sociology of literature, his libertarian socialist politics.

About this title

Review:

"Without question one of the most stimulating works in intellectual history and theory to appear in the last two decades.... In examining the origins of Goldmann's ideas, the theorist's preoccupations ... and the enduring significance of his work, Cohen demonstrates a rare, broad-ranging mastery of theory and an ability, like that of Goldmann himself, to uncover the essential historical and social message located within the works of an individual author."--Choice

Synopsis:

This is a full-length study of a major figure of postwar French intellectual life, who was a champion of socialist humanism. While many Parisian leftists staunchly upheld Marxism in the 1950s and 1960s, Lucien Goldmann insisted that Marxism was by then in severe crisis and had to reinvent itself radically in order to survive. He rejected the traditional Marxist view of the proletariat and contested the structuralist and antihumanist theorizing that infected French left-wing circles in the 1960s. Highly regarded by thinkers as diverse as Jean Piaget and Alasdair MacIntyre, Goldmann is shown here as a socialist who, unlike many others of his time, refused to portray his aspirations for humanity's future as an inexorable unfolding of history's laws. This work summarizes Goldmann's achievements - his "genetic structuralist" method, his sociology of literature, and his libertarian socialist politics.

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0691034206
• ISBN 13: 9780691034201
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368