Humanists, Antihumanists, and Nouveaux Philosophes on What Makes Us Free

Abstract

The question of personal freedom lies at the heart of much of the criticism that Nouveaux philosophes such as André Gluc ksmann and Bernard-Henri L évy directed at postmodern writers such as Gilles Del euze and Félix Gua ttari. Glucksmann, Lévy, and others often turned to early modern humanists such as François Rabelais and Erasmus in order to help make their case against the postmoderns. This chapter focuses on Glucksmann’s reading of Rabelais’ novels in his Master Thinkers (1977) to show that, while for both Nouveaux philosophes and postmodern antihumanists, personal freedom needs to be understood in terms of individual autonomy, for sixteenth-century humanists freedom can only be grounded in love of the other.