Listen to an intriguing lecture by Jean-Luc Marion on French Culture and Philosophy: Beyond Post-modernism. The philosophes of the Enlightenment and positivist thinkers of the 19th-century were confident in the power of reason and science to discover truth and establish a just human society. The tragic history of the 20th-century and the critique of modernity by philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzche and Jean-Paul Sartre led to a French intellectual culture that abandoned modernity’s confidence in human reason.

Professeur Marion considers France’s “post-modern” culture and discuss how writers and philosophers have either given up on the idea of truth or taken up the challenge of seeking truth where human reason alone has failed.

Jean-Luc Marion teaches at l’Université Paris-Sorbonne and the University of Chicago.