Sentimental Empiricism: Politics, Philosophy, and Criticism in Postwar France

Sentimental Empiricism reconsiders the legacy of eighteenth and nineteenth century empiricism and moral sentimentalism for the intellectual formation of the generation of postwar French thinkers whose work came to dominate Anglophone conversations across the humanities under the guise of "French theory." Panagia's book first shows what was missed in the reception of this literature in the Anglophone academy by attending to how France's pedagogical milieu plays out church and state relations in the form of educational debates around reading practices, the aesthetics of mimesis, French imperialism, and republican universalism. Panagia then shows how such thinkers as Jean Wahl, Simone de Beauvoir, Gilbert Simondon, Gilles Deleuze, and Michel Foucault develop a sentimental empiricist critical philosophy that distances itself from dialectical critique and challenges the metaphysical premise of inherent relations, especially as it had been articulated in the tradition of Aristotelian scholasticism. Panagia develops the long disputed political legacy of French theory through an exploration of how these thinkers came to understand an aesthetic of mimesis as a credentialing standard for selection to political participation. Since, in France, the ability to imitate well is a state qualification necessary to access offices of elite power, the political, aesthetic, and philosophical critique of mimesis became one of the defining features of sentimental empiricist thought. By exploring the historical, intellectual, cultural, and philosophical complexities of this political aesthetic, Panagia shows how and why postwar French thinkers turned to a tradition of sentimental empiricism in order to develop a new form of criticism attentive to the dispositional powers of domination. This book is available from the publisher on an open access basis.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 PART I – MISSED UNDERSTANDINGS 1 Reading Political Theory in Postwar America and Postwar France 33 2 Mimesis, the explication de texte, and State Thinking 77 PART II – DISPOSITIONALITIES 3 Jean Wahl, Empirico-Criticism, and the Concrete 99 4 Simone de Beauvoir and the Elementary Structures of Patriarchy 116 5 More than a Unity: Gilbert Simondon's Sentimental Empiricism 149 6 Gilles Deleuze: Displacing Reflection 167 7 Michel Foucault and the Political Ontology of the Dispositif 184 Epilogue 211 Acknowledgments 219 Notes 223 Bibliography 267 Index 285

About the Author :
Davide Panagia is Professor and Chair of Political Science at UCLA. His books include The Poetics of Political Thinking (Duke University Press, 2006), Ten Theses for an Aesthetics of Politics (University of Minnesota Press, 2016), and Intermedialities: Political Theory and Cinematic Experience (Northwestern University Press, 2024).

Review :
Strongly recommended for scholars and students in French studies, French philosophy, philosophy of technology, and sociological or political theory. Highly recommended.-- "Choice Reviews" This stunning book reveals the tradition of 'sentimental empiricism' in postwar French theory, which makes reading practices and perceptual experiences central to politics. Davide Panagia expertly examines work by Beauvoir, Deleuze, Foucault, and others to show how they challenge mimetic processes of state-sanctioned knowledge with dynamic analyses of difference, domination, and colonial power. Sentimental Empiricism offers nothing less than a new history and interpretation of French political thought.---Elisabeth R. Anker, author of Ugly Freedoms