Marcel Gauchet

The French philosopher Marcel Gauchet was born in Poilley (Manche) in 1946. Since 1989, he has been the director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the editor-in-chief of the influential ideas magazine "Le Debat." After attending the Pedagogical Academy, he worked for a time as a high school teacher and then studied philosophy at the University of Caen under Claude Lefort. Claude Lefort was instrumental in sparking Gauchet's interest in political philosophy. For a period, he was politically active with Jean Pierre Le Goff among the anarchist situationists and participated enthusiastically in May '68. Although he supported the proletarian Left, he became disillusioned with the post-May return to a rigid Marxism-Leninism and ultimately left the Marxist sphere. In 1970, along with Cornelius Castoriadis, Claude Lefort, and Pierre Clastres, he re-founded the magazine "Textures," which was published until 1975. From 1977 to 1980, he participated in the publication of the new magazine "Libre," with the subtitle "politics-anthropology-philosophy," alongside Castoriadis, Lefort, Clastres, Abensour, and Lucciani. In 1980, he took on the role of editor-in-chief of "Le Debat," following a proposal from its director, Pierre Nora, and in the same year, he published the book "La pratique de l'esprit humain" (The Practice of the Human Mind) with his wife, Gladys Swain. "The Disenchantment of the World" was published in 1985.