Why Philosophize? is not a new publication from Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) but rather a series of general philosophy lectures aimed at undergraduate students which Lyotard gave midway through his intellectual career. As such, Why Philosophize? serves as a decent primer for reflecting on the practice of philosophy and the reasons that philosophers give for starting on that path.
Ably translated by Andrew Brown and published by Polity Press (the French version, Pourquoi Philosopher?, was released by Presses Universitaires de France in 2012), the book consists of “four lectures given to first-year students at the Sorbonne” (15) from October to November of 1964. Editor Corinne Enaudeau offers an introduction to the text and notes that “strictly speaking, these lectures were given to students in ‘Propédeutique,’ an intermediate year of study at the beginning of a degree in an arts or sciences subject” (15). Thus, the book is general in nature with each of the four lectures—“Why desire?” (17), “Philosophy and origin” (44), “On philosophical speech” (70), and “On philosophy and action” (100)—covering a single idea. Lyotard, once one of the key figures of so-called ‘postmodern’ and ‘poststructuralist’ philosophy, was forty years old at the time that he delivered these lectures and had not yet published the major works of philosophy for which he would become well-known (most notably, 1979's La Condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le savoir, translated by Geoffrey Bennington and Brian Massumi as The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge and published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1984).
Why Philosophize? is in many ways a snapshot of Lyotard’s philosophical thought between his break with radical politics and his mature work as a philosopher. In the same year that these lectures were given, Lyotard left the libertarian socialist group Socialisme ou Barbarie (he contributed to their journal and served as its editor) after a disagreement with co-founder Cornelius Castoriadis and, along with fellow dissenters, joined the socialist group Pouvoir Ouvrier (Lyotard would leave that group only two years later, abandoning orthodox Marxism entirely). It is during this period that he gained positions at the Sorbonne, University of Paris X (Nanterre), and, eventually in 1966, University of Paris VIII (Vincennes), where he would remain for the next two decades. Apart from his brief time with Pouvoir Ouvrier, 1964 saw Lyotard begin his transformation from political militant to one of France’s greatest philosophers. From this perspective, Why Philosophize? is of significant value. Many of Lyotard’s later ideas can be found in this early collection of lecture material.
The material in the book remains interesting in its own right. The first lecture—“Why desire?” (17)—finds Lyotard comparing the questions ‘why philosophy?’ and ‘why desire?’ through their analogical similarity as structures of absence and presence; philosophy is always something that is slipping away, something we are always in search of even while we practice it. He writes that “the secret of philosophy’s existence lies precisely in this contradictory, contrasting situation” (19). Philosophy is described in terms of the “same seeking the other” (43), and here Lyotard includes reflections on Socrates, Plato, and The Symposium. The second lecture—“Philosophy and origin” (44)—asks whether philosophy ever had a unity or origin. Lyotard convincingly argues that “there is a need to philosophize because unity has been lost” (44) and that “the origin of philosophy is the loss of one, the death of meaning” (44). Contra Hegel, Lyotard goes so far as to say that the loss of unity is the motive of philosophy (66) and that it cannot be located in a historical epoch. The third lecture—“On philosophical speech” (70)—is the most interesting and references Saussure’s Course on General Linguistics (87). Lyotard reminds us that “all philosophical activity consists in speech” (70). He criticizes the idea of speech as transmission and instead offers that “to think is already to speak” (73). The fourth and final lecture—“On philosophy and action” (100)—examines Marx and his Theses on Feuerbach. Here, Lyotard’s ideas begin to resemble those that would come much later in his work, including thoughts on the end of grand historical narratives (though he does not put it quite that way here). He writes “we cannot argue that there is a meaning to history of which we are the holders, the owners, and thus decode the apparent disorder and display the real order” (116-117). The lecture is interesting for a final reference to Norbert Wiener and his book The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (117), where Lyotard quotes Wiener on Augustine; Lyotard writes that Wiener’s book “has always had and still has a great impact on ways of thinking and acting in our period” (117). He ends by writing that in philosophy, rather than grappling with metaphysical ideas or infallible politics, “the enemy is within thought itself” (119). So ends this slim, accessible volume.
Why Philosophize? is most suitable for curious undergraduate philosophy students who are interested in the profession or serious scholars of twentieth century French continental philosophy (the historical value of the book should not be overlooked in light of its introductory nature). At the very least, Why Philosophize? dares to ask the philosophical question that most practicing philosophers prefer to ignore.
