Leftover translations from Vie et mort de Jean Cavailles

Camille Akmut

English

Humanities Commons

“May the philosophers of existence do better nexttime”! Canguilhem, Life and death’s end.Camille Akmut (trans., int.)November 19, 2019AbstractLeftover translations from Vie et mort de Jean Cavailles.1Introduction : the many cyphers of CavaillesLife and death (Vie et mort de Jean Cavailles) is the collection of threetalks by Georges Canguilhem.The first took place in 1967 at the University of Strasbourg (whereCavailles had been professor, an auditorium was named in his honor),the second in 1969 on Radio (France Culture), the third in 1974 ”at theSorbonne”, we can add here more accurately Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne1.One gets the strong impression that between the first two of these textsand the other, Canguilhem had gained new information and was able toprovide more, new details.Among others, he gives here the many nicknames used by Cavailles inthe Resistance (beyond merely ”Carriere”).Cavailles had lived many lives contrary to some – greater than humanyears.No Sartre. No bathrobe-and-slippers intellectual.In one of them, we find him ”working” at the Crillon hotel, Hitler’s fa-vorite in Paris. Canguilhems’ rendition and interpretation of these eventsleave one dumbfounded. – Even if half-correct they are the true materialof movies.But, one thing is almost certain : Cavailles had lived all of his liveswith much courage, intellectual and personal alike.No : they are inseparable, argues Canguilhem;To understand one, we must understand the other.May the philosophers of existence do better next time – old and new.—”I sing of War, and a man at war...”, so begins an Epic poem in thehands of a competent translator. The collective tragedy, and the innerturmoil, fight inside...1Where the Cavailles Room is located, and where classes and conferences continue to takeplace.2[... If that’s not a hero, what is?!]Speaking about Jean Cavailles is not easy. There’s some shame in-volved : we came back, he didn’t; then surely this means we did less thanhim.But, if we do not talk about him, who will be able to tell the difference?The difference between his selfless actions, of no afterthoughts, and theResistance of these resisting intellectuals, whose resistance was so discreteonly they are able to tell of it? (Their propensity for egocentric talk.)Certain philosophers showed indignation because certain others haddared to create a philosophy without personal subject. (...)This philosophy from which Jean Cavailles is radically absent : It wasthe same that led him to a place of no return... Intricate arguments oflogic, first, the rest followed.Jean Cavailles incarnates the logic of resistance right down to thedeath.May the philosophers of existence do better next time! – if they can.COMMEMORATION AT THE SORBONNE(Cavailles room, January 19th 1974)Why 30 years later? Why not every year, or every day?(...) testimony in a place of teaching, learning.(...)One ought to pay more attention to the deaths of academics — whenthey do not die of old age or disease, that is... In particular the deaths ofphilosophers whose scientific duty, the Stoics tell us, is precisely to learnto die.(...)Those who are still alive can count those who died fighting... (...)During the terrible Nazi years in Europe, there were those who foughtinside organized and underground networks – they wore no uniforms, hadno papers, and none of the legal protections / recognition either.Among them : Cavailles, Gosset, Pierre Kaan, Cuzin, Lautman, Feld-man, Politzer. And others I forget, no doubt.Like all collective human enterprises, the Resistance had its share ofselfless and adroit people [habiles], those who talked a lot and those whodid, heroes and ambitious ones – to say nothing of the downright criminalones, crooks and traitors.History remembers a few exemplary figures, but the living among themhave in common to know, and to tell, all that the Resistance owed to themany men and women who never thought more than their actions wereduties, and never that they deserved a place in history.3Their fights were efficient; based on courageous, patient and modest[silencieuse] cooperation.(...)Cavailles : a French philosopher trained between the two wars in atradition of rationalism, reactivated at the beginning of the 20th centuryby the many paradoxes and controversies of mathematical [thought and]philosophy.Another philosopher-mathematician, Louis Couturat, death in 1914,thirty years before Cavailles’, had extended his research on logic in themanner of Leibniz to form the project of a universal language, an instru-ment of peace within international scientific cooperation.2It was the same Irenicism that had pushed Couturat to correct Ferdi-nand Brunetiere, the parrot of the ”death of science”, as part of a strangelyrationalist interpretation of Kant’s Perpetual peace.However, it’s one thing to keep a cool head in the midst of an ideo-logical folly [delire], it’s an entirely other to risk one’s own head as partof a fight – initially uncertain, as it was – against a military victoriouspolitical regime.(...)In this ”Cavailles Room” [in which we are], I could not not mentionthe many names of Jean Cavailles :CarpentierMartyChennevieresCarriereHerveCrillon— and that’s only some of them...All these names are the false names of the real Cavailles.Behind these names, there are various hidden identities : the memberof the steering commitee of Liberation, the intelligence agent, communi-cation agent with London, the carrier of explosives, the mechanic in blueworkers’ wear who infiltrated the Kriegsmarine buildings in Lorient.Among the many figures of Cavailles, there was one – a possible thoughin no way imaginary one – of maitre d’hotel [butler] at the hotel Crillonin Paris, false certificates and all. The Crillon : Hitler’s favorite when onvisit in Paris. It shouldn’t be too hard to guess why.This was Cavailles in all of his lives. Of his many faces, his friendsremember the one of his twenties and thirties the most; grave but radiant...His sense of humor, sometimes scathing, would strike it like lightning.(...)In the newspaper that Cavailles held tight under his left arm were thepages, tracts, pamphlets of which he was the author.“There is no case.”Cavailles was a philosopher and terrorist, a chief-executioner, professorat the Sorbonne and Resistance member rue Docteur-Roux, prisoner of theFrench State and [clandestine] author of The Logic and Theory of Science.2Trans. note : Ido (constructed language).4[To his various interrogators, he told a many things, and nothing, of theones that mattered : ]Arrested by the Gestapo, Cavailles readily admitted all the facts asthey pertained to him.His actions were justified by the death of Rene Parodi3, and by familytradition – his father had been a military officer. He told them of Kant...And, had tried to tell them of Spinoza, though that turned out to beharder.(...)“There is no case anymore” [These are no times for casuistry]. But,one shouldn’t mistake false for true either. I think, this was the lesson ofthe one that they, the Germans shot at Arras in 1944.3Trans. note : Magistrate, Resistance fighter (b. 1904, d. 1942 Fresnes Prison).5

“May the philosophers of existence do better next time”! Canguilhem, Life and death’s end.

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“May the philosophers of existence do better next time”! Canguilhem, Life and death’s end.

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