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There are a few pages among the books and articles published by René Girard in which he evokes Jacques Derrida, for instance in Violence and the Sacred (on the Pharmakos and the Pharmakon) or even in Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (in particular on deconstruction); yet, unless I am mistaken, there is nothing in Derrida about Girard.At the 1966 symposium in Baltimore, it must be acknowledged that neither Girard nor Derrida commented on the other's intervention. Basically, they do not engage in any discussion during the event (even if it is believed that Derrida was invited at the explicit suggestion of Girard).

This article explores the seemingly exaggerated emphasis of Lyotard on the importance of hearing the ethical commandment in Levinas, instead of seeing or perceiving it in sensibility. Lyotard wants to read Levinas as a “Jewish thinker,” and his ethics as deeply connected to “Hebraic ethics.” Such a reading contrasts with phenomenological and Christian interpretations of Levinas, like Jean-Luc Marion’s, that focus on incarnation, the face, love, and the concrete relation to the other. Yet Lyotard outbids the rigor of commandment in Levinas, insisting on the radical heterogeneity of hearing and any phenomenological seeing. Ethics is completely outside phenomenology. This article argues that, instead of reading Lyotard as misreading Levinas, his approach can be one of the names for the skeptical phase that suspends or interrupts the Levinasian Said itself, especially when it tends to become excessively Christian.

This paper is not an article in a regular sense. It is a dialogue between François-David Sebbah, one of the two editors of this topical collection, and Jean-Luc Nancy, one of the most eminent representatives of the contemporary French Thought. This dialogue took place in the first half of 2022 in a written form, because of the sanitary restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and because Nancy was heavily sick. Sebbah sent to Nancy a text, corresponding to Section 2.1, and Nancy responded to it with another text, corresponding to Section 2.2. Unfortunately, Nancy died on August 23, 2022, and could not revise his own text nor pursue the dialogue, as it was originally planned. For this reason, an introductory clarification by Sebbah, corresponding to Section 1, has been added. The purpose of such clarification is to introduce the reader to Nancy’s philosophy of technology—although technology never had a central role in Nancy’s reflections. In Section 2.1, Sebbah proposes a distinction between “French Theory,” “French Thought,” and “French Philosophy.” He also proposes a list of twelve possible intersections between the French Thought and the philosophy of technology. In Section 2.2, Nancy criticizes the use of expressions such as “French Thought.” He also insists, in a Heideggerian vein, on the fact that Technology (with a capital “T”) does not depend on human ends but has its own ends.

Through three different versions of phenomenological discourse (Derrida, Henry, and Levinas), this book explores the notions of excess and the excess of excess relative to conceptions of the self.

Lorsqu’il écrit sur le « visage », Lyotard – qui est pourtant l’un des meilleurs lecteurs de Levinas, et qui aura mis au travail la pensée de ce dernier pour son propre compte – n’évoque en rien le visage selon Levinas. Il va penser et décrire le visage intégralement dans un contexte merleau-pontien, comme anonyme visage paysage pris dans la Chair du monde. Pourquoi en est-il ainsi ? Qu’en est-il de cette infidélité majeure ? Je me propose de montrer que cette infidélité – pour ce qu’elle est – relève en fait d’une forme de fidélité. D’une part, parce que dans leurs effets performatifs le visage selon Levinas et le visage selon Lyotard sont fort proches : c’est l’épreuve de l’anonymat qui ipséise et singularise. D’autre part, parce que si Lyotard refuse l’inscription du Commandement dans le sensible comme Visage, refuse donc cette « phase » de la pensée de Levinas, c’est pour, de ce point de vue, être plus fidèle encore au Commandement que ne le serait Levinas. Il s’agit bien là d’une infidélité à la description lévinassienne, d’une manière de ne pas respecter une exigence imprescriptible du point de vue de Levinas ; il n’en reste pas moins que ce souci de préserver le commandement, tant de la pulsion et du désir que du rapt de l’affect sensible, est aussi une forme de fidélité à Levinas. This article pauses and reflects on why Lyotard (who was an avid reader of Levinas) discusses the face in a purely Merleau-Pontyesque context when he explicitly adresses the question of the face. Thus, in the matter of the face, Lyotard was unfaithful to Levinas’s thought. However, I would like to show that the obvious disagreement between Levinas and Lyotard in the issue of the face is, in fact, the result of Lyotard’s deep dedication to Levinas. We attempt to report about Lyotard’s silence on Levinas when he deals with the face ; we also try to explain that point of affinity where both authors tell us of the reorganization of relationships between singularity and anonymity by having the heretofore accepted opposites disintegrate. Keeping in mind this interweaving of the faithfulness and unfaithfulness of Lyotard to Levinas, we should ask ourselves one more question : is it truly necessary to choose between the shock of the ethical demand and the shock of the senses when dealing with the face ?

Cet article tente, dans un premier temps, de restituer le geste philosophique de Pierre Thévenaz tel qu 'il s'exprime dans La condition de la raison philosophique, en étant attentif au rapport qu'il entretient avec la phénoménologie. Les questions de la «méthode», de l'«autisme» caractérisant la raison selon Pierre Thévenaz, et de la foi comme épochè, y sont examinées. On insiste alors sur la valorisation de l'expérience (la foi et la raison apparaissant comme deux régimes d'expérience). Dans un second temps, on tente de mêler ce geste au débat sur le dit tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française afin, d'une part, de prendre la mesure de l'originalité et de l'audace du geste thévenazien en l'inscrivant dans ce contexte qui lui fut postérieur, et, d'autre part, de faire de ce geste un opérateur de lecture capable de renouveler la compréhension de ce débat. This article attempts first to render the philosophical gesture of Pierre Thévenaz as he expresses it in La condition de la raison philosophique, with attention to his relation to phenomenology. Questions of \"method\", of \"autism\" characterizing reason according to Thévenaz and of faith as epoché (bracketing) are also examined, insisting thus on the value of experience (faith and reason being two systems of experience). Secondly, it applies this gesture to the later context of the debate concerning the so-called theological turn in French phenomenology in order, on the one hand, to measure its originality and audaciousness, and, on the other hand, to allow a new reading and understanding of this debate.

This article pauses and reflects on why Lyotard (who was an avid reader of Levinas) discusses the face in a purely Merleau-Pontyesque context when he explicitly addresses the question of the face. Thus, on the matter of the face, Lyotard was unfaithful to Levinas’s thought. However, I would like to show that the obvious disagreement between Levinas and Lyotard on the issue of the face is, in fact, the result of Lyotard’s deep dedication to Levinas. We attempt to report about Lyotard’s silence on Levinas when he deals with the face; we also try to explain that point of affinity where both authors tell us of the reorganization of relationships between singularity and anonymity by allowing the heretofore accepted opposites to disintegrate. Keeping in mind this interweaving of the faithfulness and unfaithfulness of Lyotard to Levinas, we should ask ourselves one more question: is it truly necessary to choose between the shock of the ethical demand and the shock of the senses when dealing with the face?