Michel Onfray

Michel Onfray (born January 1, 1959 in Argentan, Orne) is a contemporary French philosopher who adheres to hedonism, atheism^[1] and anarchism^[2]. He is a highly prolific author on philosophy with more than 30 written books^[3].

He has gained notoriety for writing such works as Physiologie de Georges Palante, portrait d'un nietzchéen de gauche, Politique du rebelle : traité de résistance et d'insoumission, Traité d'athéologie : Physique de la métaphysique, and La puissance d'exister.

His philosophy is mainly influenced by such thinkers as Nietzsche, Epicurus, the cynic and cyrenaic schools, Julien Offray de La Mettrie, and individualist anarchism.

Life

Born to a family of Norman farmers, he graduated with a Ph.D. in philosophy. He taught this subject to senior students at a technical high school in Caen between 1983 and 2002, before establishing what he and his supporters call the Université populaire de Caen, proclaiming its foundation on a free-of-charge basis, and the manifesto written by Onfray in 2004 (La communauté philosophique).

Onfray's book, Traité d'Athéologie "became the number one best-selling nonfiction book in France for months when it was published in the Spring of 2005 (the word "atheologie" Onfray borrowed from Georges Bataille). This book has just repeated its popular French success in Italy, where it was published in September 2005 and quickly soared to number one on Italy's bestseller lists."^[4]

He endorsed the French Revolutionary Communist League and its candidate for the French presidency, Olivier Besancenot in the 2002 election, although this is somewhat at odds with the libertarian socialism he advocates in his writings.^{[citation needed]} In 2007, he endorsed José Bové - but eventually voted for Olivier Besancenot - , and conducted an interview with the future French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who he declared was an 'ideological enemy' for Philosophie Magazine. ^[5]

Onfray himself attributes the birth of philosophic communities such as the université populaire to the results of the French presidential election, 2002.

Philosophy

Onfray writes obscurely that there is no philosophy without self-psychoanalysis. He proclaims himself an adamant atheist (something more novel in France than elsewhere - indeed his book, 'Atheist Manifesto', was briefly in the 'bestsellers' list in France) and he considers religion to be indefensible. He instead regards himself as being part of the tradition of individualist anarchism, a tradition that he claims is at work throughout the entire history of philosophy and that he is seeking to revive amidst modern schools of philosophy that he feels are cynical and epicurean.

View on the history of western philosophy and philosophical project

In an interview he establishes his view on the history of philosophy. For him "There is in fact a multitude of ways to practice philosophy, but out of this multitude, the dominant historiography picks one tradition among others and makes it the truth of philosophy: that is to say the idealist, spiritualist lineage compatible with the Judeo-Christian world view. From that point on, anything that crosses this partial – in both senses of the word – view of things finds itself dismissed. This applies to nearly all non-Western philosophies, Oriental wisdom in particular, but also sensualist, empirical, materialist, nominalist, hedonistic currents and everything that can be put under the heading of “anti-Platonic philosophy”. Philosophy that comes down from the heavens is the kind that - from Plato to Levinas by way of Kant and Christianity - needs a world behind the scenes to understand, explain and justify this world. The other line of force rises from the earth because it is satisfied with the given world, which is already so much."^[6]

"His mission is to rehabilitate materialist and sensualist thinking and use it to re-examine our relationship to the world. Approaching philosophy as a reflection of each individual’s personal experience, Onfray inquires into the capabilities of the body and its senses and calls on us to celebrate them through music, painting, and fine cuisine."^[7]

Hedonism

He defines hedonism "as an introspective attitude to life based on taking pleasure yourself and pleasuring others, without harming yourself or anyone else."^[8] "Onfray's philosophical project is to define an ethical hedonism, a joyous utilitarianism, and a generalized aesthetic of sensual materialism that explores how to use the brain's and the body's capacities to their fullest extent -- while restoring philosophy to a useful role in art, politics, and everyday life and decisions."^[9]

Onfray's works "have explored the philosophical resonances and components of (and challenges to) science, painting, gastronomy, sex and sensuality, bioethics, wine, and writing. His most ambitious project is his projected six-volume Counter-history of Philosophy,"^[10] of which three have been published.

For him "In opposition to the ascetic ideal advocated by the dominant school of thought, hedonism suggests identifying the highest good with your own pleasure and that of others; the one must never be indulged at the expense of sacrificing the other. Obtaining this balance – my pleasure at the same time as the pleasure of others – presumes that we approach the subject from different angles – political, ethical, aesthetic, erotic, bioethical, pedagogical, historiographical…." For this he has "written books on each of these facets of the same world view."^[11]

His philosophy aims "for "micro-revolutions, " or revolutions of the individual and small groups of like-minded people who live by his hedonistic, libertarian values."^[12]

Anarchism

Recently Michel Onfray has embraced the term postanarchism to describe his approach to politics and ethics^[13]. He advocates for an anarchism in line with such intelectuals as "Orwell, la philosophe Simone Weil, Jean Grenier, la French Theory avec Foucault, Deleuze, Bourdieu, Guattari, Lyotard, le Derrida de Politiques de l'amitié et du Droit à la philosophie, mais aussi Mai 68" which for him was "a nietzschetian revolt in order to put an end to the "One" truth, revealed, an to put in evidence the diversity of truths, in order to make disappear ascetic christian ideas and to help arise new possibilities of existence" ^[14]

Relation to hedonism

In La puissance d'exister: Manifeste hédoniste, Onfray claims that the political dimension of hedonism runs from Epicurus to John Stuart Mill through Jeremy Bentham and Claude Adrien Helvétius. What political hedonism aims for is to create the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.

Atheology

The "Atheist Manifesto is a religious and historical time capsule containing"^[15] what he sees as "the true deceptions of theological philosophy. It is divided into four parts: aethology, monotheisms, Christianity and theocracy. Each section details the historical chronology of the three major religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and atheism. Michel Onfray pulls back the veil on the Holy of Holies, delves into the workings of Islam, and excavates for the true identity of Jesus Christ while uncovering the groundwork laid during the Age of Enlightenment."^[16]

"As Onfray details the myth and bloody history of monotheistic religions, he concludes that monotheism in general, and the religious beliefs of the major players on the Middle Eastern and Western stages in particular, have two ideologies in common: extinguishing the light of reason and total investment in death"^[17].

Recently he has been involved in promoting the work of Jean Meslier^[18][19]. Meslier was a French Catholic priest who was discovered, upon his death, to have written a book-length philosophical essay promoting atheism^[20].

The Atheist Manifesto has been criticized for its historical inaccuracies regarding the life of Jesus. Amongst the ‘incalculable number of contradictions and improbabilities in the body of the text of the synoptic Gospels’^[21], two claims are made: crucification victims were not laid to rest in tombs, and in any case, Jews were not crucified in this period. John Dickson, of Macquarie University, has pointed out that Philo, writing about the time of Jesus, tells us that sometimes the Romans handed the bodies of crucifixion victims over to family members for proper burial. Josephus even remarks: ‘the Jews are so careful about funeral rites that even malefactors who have been sentenced to crucifixion are taken down and buried before sunset’^[22]. Regarding the second claim, Dickson calls this a 'clear historical blunder'^[23]:

The Université Populaire

"Onfray was a professor of philosophy for two decades, until he resigned from the national education system in 2002 to establish a tuition-free Université Populaire (People's University) at Caen, at which Onfray and a handful of dedicated colleagues teach philosophy and other weighty subjects" to working-class youth^[24].

"The Université Populaire, which is open to all who cannot access the state university system, and on principle does not accept any money from the State -- Onfray uses the profits from his books to help finance it -- has had enormous success. Based on Onfray's book La Communauté Philosophique: Manifeste pour l'Université Populaire (2004), the original UP now has imitators in Picardie, Arras, Lyon, Narbonne, and at Mans in Belgium, with five more in preparation."^[25] "The national public radio network France Culture annually broadcasts his course of lectures to the Universite Populaire on philosophical themes."^[26]

Works

Atheology ;
Jacob fighting the angel, by Delacroix inspired the bookcover of traité d'athéologie

• Le ventre des philosophes, critique de la raison diététique (1989)
• Physiologie de Georges Palante, portrait d'un nietzchéen de gauche (1989)
• Cynismes, portrait du philosophe en chien (1990)
• L'art de jouir : pour un matérialisme hédoniste (1991)
• La sculpture de soi : la morale esthétique (1991)
• L'œil nomade : la peinture de Jacques Pasquier (1992)
• La raison gourmande, philosophie du goût (1995)
• Ars moriendi : cent petits tableaux sur les avantages et les inconvénients de la mort (1995)
• Métaphysique des ruines : la peinture de Monsu Désidério (1995)
• Les formes du temps : théorie du Sauternes (1996)
• Politique du rebelle : traité de résistance et d'insoumission (1997)
• À côté du désir d'éternité : fragments d'Égypte (1998)
• Théorie du corps amoureux : pour une érotique solaire (2000)
• Prêter un livre n'est pas voler son auteur (2000)
• Antimanuel de philosophie : leçons socratiques et alternatives (2001)
• Célébration du génie colérique : tombeau de Pierre Bourdieu (2002)
• L'invention du plaisir : fragments cyréaniques (2002)
• Esthétique du Pôle nord : stèles hyperborréennes (2002)
• Splendeur de la catastrophe : la peinture de Vladimir Vélikovic (2002)
• Les icônes païennes : variations sur Ernest Pignon-Ernest (2003)
• Archéologie du présent, manifeste pour l'art contemporain (2003)
• Féeries anatomiques (2003)
• La philosophie féroce La philosophie féroce : exercices anarchistes. (2004)
• La communauté philosophique (2004)
• Traité d'athéologie : Physique de la métaphysique, Paris, Grasset, (2005); English translation by Jeremy Leggatt as Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2007)
• Théorie du voyage : poétique de la géographie, Paris, Galilée, 2005
• Journal hédoniste :
  • I. Le désir d'être un volcan (1996)
  • II. Les vertus de la foudre (1998)
  • III. L'archipel des comètes (2001)
  • IV. La lueur des orages désirés (2007)
• La contre histoire de la philosophie (4 more volumes to be published):
  • I. Les Sagesses Antiques (2006)
  • II. Le Christianisme hédoniste (2006)
    (5 volumes to be published)
  • III. Les libertins baroques (2007)
• La puissance d'exister, Paris, Grasset, (2006) ISBN 2-246-71691-8

References

External links

• (French) Official home page
• "Introductory Note to Onfray" by Doug Ireland
• Michel Onfray, "Jean Meslier and 'The Gentle Inclination of Nature" (translated into English by Marvin Mandel), New Politics, Winter 2006
• Profile of Michel Onfray in New Humanist magazine, July/August 2007