Les Lumières en mouvement: la circulation des idées au XVIIIe siècle ed. by Isabelle Moreau (review)

(99). Yet when van Zilfhout finally gets to his discussion of “La différance” after many a detour, it is only to tell us that, although “an extensive reading of the lecture by Derrida is interesting [...], for the moment it is sufficient to point to the consequence embodied in this lecture” (111). So much for reading it. One pays a price, however, for such a non-reading. When van Zilfhout claims that “poetry is, read with eyes and ears influenced by Derrida, the one place where memory and nothingness can be reconciled” (112—my emphasis), he is far removed from anything Derrida ever wrote, and when he concludes his essay by saying that [i]n our culture we should reserve space for these traces that are ‘places of nobody’ or ‘places of nothing.’ Perhaps these spaces do not need to be a real space, meaning a space that demands action and public and political remembrance . Perhaps the best space is within the space of our imagination, as in the poetry of Paul Celan, in the works of Samuel Beckett, in the paintings of Francis Bacon (116), he is well on his way to precisely the kind of aestheticization of “nothingness” that Derrida spent his life critiquing. While van Zilfhout’s is not the only contribution to regress to a pre-Derridean position, it would be remiss of me not to mention certain that do merit further consideration. Tom Cohen’s essay on “Climate Change” deserves special mention , if only because it points us to a Derrida many seem eager to forget. Rey Chow’s essay on Derrida’s relation to the French language is also noteworthy, though its assumption that Derrida’s account of this relation in Monolingualism of the Other is “utterly candid” (199) is rather problematic. Therapeutic in this regard is Michel Lisse’s “Iconographies de Jacques Derrida,” which draws attention to Derrida-the-actor and thus reminds us that, in Derrida’s case at least, the possibility of telling the dancer from the dance is not entirely to be taken for granted. While the volume as a whole is far from satisfying, in part because it is often poorly written, these essays, along with a few others, prevent it from being a complete disappointment. In any case, the diagnosis of the introduction is largely confirmed: “la résistance” does indeed “persévère.” Boston College (MA) Ethan Wells MOREAU, ISABELLE, éd. Les Lumières en mouvement: la circulation des idées au XVIIIe siècle . Lyon: ENS, 2009. ISBN 978-2-84788-200-1. Pp. 318. 25 a. Fruit de réflexions menées lors d’un colloque à l’ENS de Lyon en 2008, cet ouvrage collectif offre une série d’études ayant pour objectif de rendre compte de la dynamique interne des Lumières. L’approche méthodologique, clairement expos ée dans l’introduction, vise à interroger selon deux axes les modalités de la propagation de l’esprit philosophique, soit la transmission et la transformation de ses idées maîtresses. La réflexion a pour dessein de retracer la genèse d’un certain nombre de notions cardinales de la pensée éclairée afin de mettre en relief , à travers la mise en dialogue de corpus spécifiques, la tradition dans laquelle s’inscrit la manière de penser des philosophes. Car c’est bien de philosophie dont il Reviews 361 est question dans cet ouvrage. Si l’on y croise parfois un “auteur” au sens strict (Prévost), l’importance est accordée à la prose d’idées et plus particulièrement à l’héritage légué par les principaux “pères” des Lumières. C’est donc en amont de la pensée des philosophes (Voltaire, Diderot, d’Alembert) que se dirige le regard des intervenants en interrogeant les textes de Bacon, Descartes, Montaigne, La Mothe Le Vayer, Bayle et Malebranche. La première partie, “Transmettre et diffuser”, examine les conditions matérielles de la dissémination des savoirs. Après avoir souligné l’héritage du libertinage érudit qui gouverne l’entreprise de vulgarisation de Fontenelle (Séguin), c’est la circulation spatiale de la connaissance qui est abordée par...