The Idea of the Instant in Descartes's Philosophy - (Cycles) by Jean Wahl (Hardcover)

About the Book

Suggests that the simultaneity and discontinuity of the instant is the central idea in Descartes's entire philosophy.

Book Synopsis

The Idea of the Instant in Descartes's Philosophy is the first English translation of a major and influential interpretation of Descartes's philosophy by one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century French philosophy. While discussing the role of the instant within Descartes's philosophy, Jean Wahl develops an original account of temporality that is central to Wahl's entire and extensive oeuvre and that has influenced a variety of 20th -century French thinkers, most notably Gilles Deleuze.

In addition to including the original French text, the volume contains an introduction to Jean Wahl by Alan D. Schrift and English translations of three essays, one written exclusively for this book, by Frédéric Worms, Director of the École Normale Supérieure, Wahl's most important French interpreter, and one of the most influential philosophers working in France today.

Review Quotes

Alan Schrift's edition and translation of Jean Wahl's thesis (together with Frédéric Worms's insightful essays) constitutes an essential contribution to English-language scholarship on twentieth-century French philosophy, the fraught history of modern Cartesianism, the philosophy of time, and contemporary attempts to think through the disruptive, the discontinuous, and the fragmentary.--Daniel Selcer, Duquesne University

Long underappreciated, Jean Wahl's influence on existentialism and other movements in twentieth-century France is finally receiving its due thanks to Alan Schrift's keen editorial eye and his brilliant intellectual-historical work. Here, he works in partnership with Frédéric Worms--so eminently conscious of the twentieth century's intellectual legacies, and just as generous, precise, and elegant an original thinker--and the two offer readers a way of thinking Wahl in his time and today. This book offers a remarkable interdisciplinary recovery of the questions that animated two generations of philosophers--and now, hopefully, a third.--Stefanos Geroulanos, New York University

The English publication of Wahl's important essay on Descartes is a major event. Taking the Cartesian Cogito as "an argument grasped in an instant," Wahl opens new dimensions and vistas from out of the foundations of rationalism. The excellent accompanying essays by Frédéric Worms make clear the stakes and accomplishments of Wahl's work.--Russell Ford, Elmhurst University