SOURCE: Shusterman, Richard. “France's Philosophe Impolitique.” Nation (3 May 1999): 25-8.

In the following essay, Shusterman reviews Bourdieu's theories and writings in the context of other French theorists.

Recent French philosophy has been most passionately loved and hated for its militant radicalism. Figures like Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault defined it through an intoxicating blend of subversive theory and progressive praxis that deployed academic erudition to wage war and wield influence in arenas of social struggle far grander than those of campus politics. As Diderot and Rousseau had done two centuries earlier (inspiring the French Revolution), so Sartre and Foucault made philosophy seem not just daringly chic but socially momentous. Through stirring acts of philosophically inspired protest, widely reported by the media, they gave the lay public a concrete (if distortedly one-sided) idea of how exciting and politically potent the work of progressive philosophy can be. But the more Sartre...