MICHEL ONFRY: BITÁCORA DE CAYETANO ACUÑA V.

 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michel Onfray

Onfray in 2012

Born 1 January 1959 (age 65)

Argentan, France

Alma mater University of Caen Lower Normandy

Era Contemporary Philosophy

Region Western Philosophy

School Materialism

Hedonism

Epicureanism

Atheism

Consequentialism

Main interests Atheism, religion, ethics, Cyrenaic school, hedonism, Epicureanism, pleasure, history of philosophy, materialism, aesthetics, bioethics

Notable ideas The principle of Gulliver (le Principe de Gulliver)

Michel Onfray (French: [miʃɛl ɔ̃fʁɛ]; born 1 January 1959) is a French writer and philosopher with a hedonistic, epicurean and atheist worldview. A highly prolific author of philosophy, he has written over 100 books.[2][3] His philosophy is mainly influenced by such thinkers as Nietzsche, Epicurus, the Cynic and Cyrenaic schools, as well as French materialism. 

He has gained notoriety for writing such works as Traité d'athéologie: Physique de la métaphysique (translated into English as Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), Politique du rebelle: traité de résistance et d'insoumission, Physiologie de Georges Palante, portrait d'un nietzchéen de gauche, La puissance d'exister and La sculpture de soi for which he won the annual Prix Médicis in 1993.

Onfray is often regarded as being left-wing;[4][5] However, some observers have stated that he harbors right-wing tendencies.[6][7][8][9] He has become appreciated by some far-right circles, notably with his sovereignist magazine Front Populaire.[10][11]

Philosophy

Onfray writes that there is no philosophy without self-psychoanalysis. He describes himself as an atheist[18] and considers theistic religion indefensible.

View on the history of Western philosophy and philosophical project

Onfray has published nine books under a project on the history of philosophy called Counter-history of Philosophy. In each of these books Onfray deals with a particular historical period in Western philosophy. The series of books is composed by the titles 

I. Les Sagesses Antiques (2006) (on western antiquity), 

II. Le Christianisme hédoniste (2006) (on Christian hedonism from the Renaissance period), 

III. Les libertins baroques (2007) (on libertine thought from the Baroque era), 

IV. Les Ultras des Lumières (2007) (on radical enlightenment thought), 

V. L'Eudémonisme social (2008) (on radical utilitarian and eudaimonistic thought), VI. Les Radicalités existentielles (2009) (on 19th and 20th century radical existentialist thinkers) and 

VII. La construction du surhomme: Jean-Marie Guyau, Friedrich Nietzsche (on Guyau's and Nietzsche's philosophy about the concept of the Übermensch).

 VIII. Les Freudiens hérétiques (2013). IX. Les Consciences réfractaires (2013).

In an interview, Onfray established his view on the history of philosophy:

There is in fact a multitude of ways to practice philosophy. Still, 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 worldview. 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". The 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.[19]

"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."[20]

Link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Onfray