The Metaphysician of Syndicalism

The Metaphysician of Syndicalism brings together for the first time exciting new research on the radical French philosopher and political theorist Georges Sorel (1847-1922). The most theoretically sophisticated interpreter of Marxism in the French fin de siècle, Georges Sorel participated in the European discussion on the birth of social science and became a paradigmatic figure of the transition between 19th and 20th century intellectual life. The vast majority of his writings however remain unknown and unread, particularly to Anglophone scholars, but are of critical importance today given the resurgence of political radicalism on both the left and right. Bringing together works by established experts on Sorel in France with a range of exciting new perspectives by emerging scholars, The Metaphysician of Syndicalism aims to provide new directions to the field of Sorel studies in English for this generation. Sorel still has much to teach us about the political transformations of his times, and his critique of Marxism and of liberal democracy remain by turns compelling and threatening.

Tommaso Giordani is an intellectual historian at Ca'Foscari University of Venice. Previously, he was a FIAS fellow at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and a post-doc at Tallinn University. He specializes in French and Italian intellectual life in the beginning of the 20th century. He has published articles relating to Sorel's pragmatism, transnational exchanges between French and Italian Marxists in the late 19th century, and on Bergson and Sorel. Eric Brandom is a Visiting Assistant Professor and James Carey Research Fellow in the History Department at Kansas State University. He is co-author with Tommaso Giordani of the translation and critical edition Georges Sorel's "Study on Vico" (2020). In addition to several articles on Sorel, he has published on fin de siècle French liberalism and also on the poetry and political thought of Aimé Césaire.

Introduction Section One: History 1. Sorel and the "Syndical Moment" of Legal Thought 2. Socialism in the Fields: Sorel's Syndical Thought in a Rural Perspective 3. The 'Marxism of Marx' According to Sorel 4. "Pascal has vanquished Descartes": Sorel and the Religious Section Two: Receptions 5. The Other of Liberalism: Three Generations of Readers of Sorel in 20th Century Europe 6. Between Bakunin and Lenin: Georges Sorel and the Spanish Communist-Syndicalists, 1921-24 7. Georges Sorel in Australia Section Three: Myth 8. Myth Against Utopia 9. Sorel and Mythomania in Interwar France