Alain Finkielkraut

Alain Finkielkraut (* June 30, 1949 in Paris ) is a French philosopher and author.

Life and work

Finkielkraut is the son of a Polish Jewish leather merchant, who survived the Auschwitz concentration camp. He attended the Lycée Henri IV in Paris and studied at the École normale supérieure. Finkielkraut teaches philosophy at the École polytechnique and moderated a program of the French radio station France Culture.

In Germany Finkielkraut was first désordre by Le nouveau amoureux ( 1977, German 1979 udT The new love disorder ) known co-authored with Pascal Bruckner. With the defeat of thought ( 1987), his critique of " the barbarism of the modern world " that unfolds within the thought of Hannah Arendt begins. He vehemently opposes any cultural relativism: To destroy about the criticism of the inequality between men and women in Islamic countries not their community. Who argues against such criticism with the claim of tolerance for different cultures, presupposes a perfect thinking about in terms of cultural identity. Also, cultural or religious minorities are without a cultural relativist stance quite protected, namely, that they consider the condition traditions that mock the fundamental rights of the person to be illegal.

2007 awarded him the University of Tel Aviv honorary doctorate.

Works

• The new love clutter, last Rowohlt, Reinbek 1989, ISBN 3-499-18557-1.
• The Imaginary Jew, Hanser, Munich / Vienna 1982, ISBN 3-446-13562-6.
• The wasted memory. From crimes against humanity, Tiamat, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-923118-02-3.
• Loss of humanity. Test on the 20th century, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart last 2000, ISBN 3-423-30790-0.
• The ingratitude. Thoughts about our time, Ullsteinhaus, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89834-043-0.
• Plain text. A controversy. With Alain Badiou, edited by Peter Engelmann, translated by Richard Steurer - Boulard. Passages, Vienna, 2013, ISBN 978-3-7092-0038-4.