Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche: or the Realm of Shadows

Description

Henri Lefebvre saw Marx as an 'unavoidable, necessary, but insufficient starting point', and always insisted on the importance of Hegel to understanding Marx. Metaphilosophy also suggested the significance he ascribed to Nietzsche, in the 'realm of shadows' through which philosophy seeks to think the world. Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche: or the Realm of the Shadows proposes that the modern world is, at the same time, Hegelian in terms of the state, Marxist in terms of the social and society and Nietzschean in terms of civilisation and its values. As early as 1939, Lefebvre had pioneered a French reading of Nietzsche that rejected the philosopher's appropriation by fascists, bringing out the tragic implications of Nietzsche's proclamation that 'God is dead' long before this approach was followed by such later writers as Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze. Forty years later, in the last of his philosophical writings, Lefebvre juxtaposed the contributions of the three great thinkers, in a text that's themes remain surprisingly relevant today.

Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991), former resistance fighter and Professor of Sociology at Strasbourg and Nanterre, was a member of the French Communist Party from 1928 until his expulsion in 1957. He was the author of sixty books on philosophy, sociology, politics, architecture and urbanism.

One of the great French intellectual activists of the twentieth century. -- David Harvey The last great classical philosopher. -- Fredric Jameson It is not excessive to claim that he is the ecophilosopher of the twenty-first century. -- Stanley Aronowitz The most prolific of French Marxist intellectuals * Radical Philosophy * Highly commendable and should be read alongside Lefebvre's theoretical works to afford the reader a richer understanding of the origin and theoretical background of his philosophy. -- Kaiyue He * Marx & Philosophy *