León Rozitchner (1924-2011) was a major philosopher and militant intellectual in Argentina. After studying at the Sorbonne in Paris with Maurice Merleau-Ponty he returned home only to confront the terror of military coups and dictatorships, which for several years forced him into exile in Venezuela. After the so-called transition to democracy in 1983, he taught for many years at the University of Buenos Aires.

Bruno Bosteels is Professor of Latin American Cultures and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and the author of several books on Latin American politics and culture as well as on European philosophy and political theory. He is one of the main translators of Alain Badiou's works in English.

Translator’s Introduction

Introduction

Part One: The Internal Distance

Chapter 1 The Articulation and the Breach

Part Two: The External Distance

Chapter 2 Civilisation and Its Discontents

I. The Historical Categories, Foundation of the Psychic Apparatus

II. Techniques to Elude the Reality of the External World

III. Analysis of the Real Obstacle

IV. The Historical Foundation of the Lack of Discernment

V. The Negation of Aggressiveness

VI. Out of Hunger Not Being Capable of Love

VII. The Halting of Aggressiveness Due to Guilt

VIII. Ideology, the Concealment of Guilt's True Content

IX. Transformation of the Fundamental Bourgeois Categories

Chapter 3 Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego

I. Introduction

II. Critique of the Bourgeois Conceptions of the Group (continuation)

III. The Amplification of the Body Beyond Dependency

IV. The Official Institutions are Groups Congruent with the System

V. The Discernment Repressed

VI. The Human Form as Index of the Coherence of the Social System

VII. Being in Love and Hypnosis: From Individual Dependency to Social Dependency

VIII. The Return to the Historical Origin

IX. Dialectic of Collective Forms: From the Primal Horde to the Fraternal Alliance

X. The Mass, Stage or Battlefield

Index