books received

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Métaphysiques Cannibales

Etienne Souriau, Les différents modes d’existence

These are the first two entries in the PUF MétaphysiqueS series, with its stellar editorial cast of During/Maniglier/ Meillassoux/Rabouin. My own L’objet quadruple is supposed to appear in June, though a delay of several months wouldn’t be a great shock. (Translation is difficult work.)

As for the Souriau book, this will be its first time in print in over 60 years. When Latour first became interested in Souriau, he had to track down an old copy of this book (also published by PUF originally, if memory serves). He had to pay a used book dealer in Paris a fee so ungodly for the tattered volume that he didn’t even want to tell me how much it was. Latour then tracked down Souriau’s elderly daughter in Versailles in order to interview her about her father.

However, it is Isabelle Stengers who counts as the real living expert on Souriau; she’s read every last scrap by the man. He has always had a certain status in film theory, but otherwise has largely disappeared despite intermittent attempts at a revival by isolated articles. (There was a “time to rediscover Souriau” article in Philosophy Today in the late 1970’s, for example; no one followed the call that time.)

Souriau was one of those old pre-WWII French metaphysicians who were washed away from sight by the phenomenology/existentialism wave. I’ve read Les différents modes d’existence before… In 2001, Latour had his secretary send me a photocopy of the work, given the apparent hopelessness of my trying to find another used copy.

First impression: I liked it, but wasn’t as blown away by it as Latour himself was. Now I’ll give it a reread in this new PUF edition and see if I’m more amazed than before.

If you’re a fan of Latour, you may already know that Souriau is the presiding hero for the ongoing emergence of the “later Latour.” The title of Latour’s coming systematic work will probably be very similar to that of Souriau’s book.