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l\'11� philosophy T /-\ Henri Lefebvre Edited with an introduction by Stuart Elden METAPHILOSOPHY HENRI LEFEBVRE TRANSLATED BY DAVID FERNBACH EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY STUART ELDEN Y VERSO London • New York Cet ouvrage publie dans le cadre du programme d'aide a la publication beneficiedu soutien du Ministrere des Affaires Etrangereset du Service Culturel de l'Ambassade de France represente aux Etats-Unis. This work received support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States through their publishing assistance programme. This English-language edition published by Verso 2016 Originally published in French as Metaphilosophie © Editions Syllepse 2000 Translation© David Fernbach 2016 Introduction© Stuart Elden 2016 All rights reserved The moral rights of the authors have been asserted 1 3 57 9 10 8 6 4 2 Verso UK: 6 Meard Street, London W 1F oEG US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201 versobooks.com Verso is the imprint of New Left Books ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-274-0 (PBK) ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-273-3 (HBK) ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-276-4 (UK EBK) ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-275-7 (US EBK) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record fo r this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record fo r this book is available from the Library of Congress Typset in Minion by Hewer Text UK, Ltd, Edinburgh Printed in the US by Maple Press Contents Introduction: A Study of Productive Tensions by Stuart Elden vii 1. Prolegomena: Notice to Readers 1 2. The Superseding of Philosophy 13 3- Philosophy in Crisis 43 4. Opening of the Testament: Inventory of the Legacy 101 s. The Search for Heirs ll5 6. Mimesis and Praxis 161 ]. Philosophy as Message 245 8. Metamorphosis of Philosophy: Poiesis and Metaphilosophy 291 Postface: Marxism and Poetry by Georges Labica 325 Introduction: A Study of Productive Tensions Stuart Elden BEFORE 1965: THE PATH TO METAPHILOSOPHY While he is best known today fo r his writing on cities, everyday life and the production of space, Henri Lefebvre's work covered a vast range of topics. Metaphilosophy, a book he wrote in his sixties but which counts as a mid-career landmark, is an essential part of that story. 1 The book pre-dates all of his major texts on urban questions, including The Right to the City, The Urban Revolution and Marxist Thought and the City. 2 It comes several years before The Production of Space, and almost twenty-six years ahead of his final book Elements of Rhythmanalysis. 3 It appeared shortly after the second volume of 1 Henri Lefebvre, Metaphilosophie, second edition, Paris: Syllepse, 2001 [1965]. For Lefebvre's career, Remi Hess, Henri Lefebvre et l'aventure du siecle, Paris: A. M. Metailie, 1988, is invaluable. English studies of Lefebvre include my own Understanding Henri Lefebvre: Theory and the Possible, London: Continuum, 2004; Rob Shields, Lefebvre, Love & Struggle: Spatial Dialectics, London: Routledge, 1999; Andy Merrifield, Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction, London: Routledge, 2006; and Lukasz Stanek, Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. 2 La droit ala ville, Paris: Anthropos, 1968, translated and edited by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas as 'TheRight to the City', in Writings on Cities, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, pp. 63-181; La revolution urbaine, Paris: Gallimard, translated by Robert Bonanno as The Urban Revolution, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003; Marxist Thought and the City, translated by Robert Bonnano, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016. 3 La production de l'espace, Paris: Anthropos, 1974, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith as The Production of Space, Oxford: Blackwell, 1991; Elements de rythmanalyse: Introduction a la connaissance de rythmes, Paris: Syllepse, 1992, translated by Stuart Elden and Gerald Moore as 'Elements of Rhythmanalysis: Introduction to the Understanding of Rhythms', in Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life, London: Continuum, 2004, pp. 1-69. viii METAPHILOSOPHY Critique of Everyday Life, and in the same year as his La proclamation de la Commune and his study of the Pyrenees.4 Lefebvre regularly stated that there were, for him, three key thinkers: Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche. Metaphilosophy clearly demonstrates this threefold debt, but it also brings a number of other figures into the conversation. In his earliest writings, dating back to the 1920s, Lefebvre was already under the spell of Hegel. He was part of a small group that fo unded the journal Philosophies, along with Georges Polizer, Norbert Guterman, Georges Friedmann and Pierre Morhange. Theirwork was partly orientated as a challenge to Henri Bergson, and under the influ­ ence of Leon Brunschvicg, whom Lefebvre references a couple of times in this study. Theywrote a manifesto of which excerpts were published in the Philosophies journal and then in its successor, Eesprit.5 Politzer translated Friedrich Schelling's On the Essence of Human Freedom and Lefebvre contributed a long introduction. 6 Lefebvre read Edmund Husserl around this time, and while he would continue to have an interest in phenomenology throughout his career, later reproached himself for his 'juvenile presumptions' towards what would become known as existentialism/ It is important to underline that little of Husserl was published at this time, and it pre-dates the publication of Martin Heidegger's Sein und Zeit in 1927. Lefebvre and his colleagues worked fo r a while with the surrealists, and then discovered Marx. Together with Guterman, Lefebvre founded the journal La Revue marxiste. Marx's important 1844 manuscripts had been published in 4 Critique de la vie quotidienne II: Fondements d'une sociologie de la quotidiennete, Paris: LArche, 1961, translated by John Moore as Critique of Everyday Life Volume II: Foundations for a Sociology of the Everyday, London: Verso, 2002; La proclamation de la Commune, Paris: Gallimard, 1965; Pyrenees, second edition, Pau: Cairn, 2000 [1965]. 5 On this period of his career, see Bud Burkhard, French Marxism between the Wars: Henri Lefebvre and the 'Philosophies', Atlantic Highlands: Humanity Books, 2ooo; and the work of Michel Trebitsch, including his introductions to the Verso translations of the Critique of Everyday Life. 6 'Introduction: Le meme et l'autre: in Friedrich Schelling, Recherches philosophiques sur !'essencede la liberte humaine et sur les problemes qui sy rattachent, translated by Georges Politzer, Paris: F.Rieder, pp. 7-64. For an English translation of Schelling's book, see Of Human Freedom, translated by James Gutmann, Chicago: Open Court, 1936. 7 See Lexistentialisme, second edition, Paris: Anthropos, 2001 [1946]. INTRODUCTION: A STUDY OF PRODUCTIVE TENSIONS ix German only in 1927, and it was a considerable coup for the journal to publish the firsttranslations of these, made by Guterman, in the first and second issues, in 1929.8 Lefebvre joined the French Communist Party, the PCF, that same year. In 1934 Lefebvre and Guterman followed this work with a collection of Marx's writings, spanning his entire career, and in 1938 produced a collection of Hegel's work and a translation of Lenin's notebooks on Hegel.9 But not simply serving as editors, Lefebvre and Guterman wrote an important introduction for each book and also collaborated on La conscience mystifiee, published in 1936.10 Shortly before the war broke out, Guterman, Jewish and with suspect papers, leftFrance for safety in New Yo rk. Further collab­ orations were therefore limited, though he and Lefebvre kept up a long correspondence over multiple decades. 11 This early period had a profound impact on Lefebvre's work, especially on analyses of the rela­ tion between Marx and Hegel, a major theme of his career. Opposing the prevailing political atmosphere in Europe, Lefebvre also wrote two stinging critiques of right-wing politics: La national­ isme contre les nations in 1937 and Hitler au pouvoir: les enseignements de cinq annees de fa scisme in 1938.12 While the first has gone through three editions and is widely available, the second is hard to find today, though it was recently translated into Italian.13 But, in terms of 8 Karl Marx, 'Travail et propriete privee', La Revue marxiste, no. 1, February 1929, pp. 7-28; 'Notes sur les besoins, la production et la division du travail: La revue marxiste, no. 2, June 1929, pp. 513-38. The Revue also published important texts by Engels. A few years later Lefebvre and Guterman published Marx's 'Critique de la dialectique hegelienne' in their new journal Avant-Paste in two parts: no. 1, June 1933, pp. 33-9, and no. 2, August 1933, pp. 110-16. 9 Marceaux choisis de Karl Marx, Paris: Gallimard, 1934; G. W. F. Hegel, Marceaux choisis, Paris: Gallimard, 1938; Cahiers de Lenine sur la dialectique de Hegel, Paris: Gallimard, 1938. 10 Henri Lefebvre and Norbert Guterman, La conscience mystifiee, third edition, Paris: Syllepse, 1999 [1936]. 11 Guterman's papers are archived in the rare books and manuscripts room of the Butler Library of Columbia University, and contain letters and manuscripts from Lefebvre, among other materials. 12 Le nationalisme contre les nations, second edition, Paris: Meridiens Klincksieck, 1988 [1937]; Hitler au pouvoir: les enseignements de cinq annees de fascisme, Paris: Bureau deditions, 1938. 13 Hitler al potere: Cinque anni di nazismo in Germania, translated by Cristiano Casalini, Milano: Medusa, 2012. X METAPHILOSOPHY Lefebvre's longer-term work and the direct antecedents to the present book, two books published in 1939 are perhaps most important: Dialectical Materialism and Nietzsche. 14 The former, one of his first books to be translated into English, develops a clear and nuanced appropriation of Hegelian-Marxist thought, using the same title but opposing Stalin's work on the topic.
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