THE GENIUS OF LIES

Is asserting a theory and living the opposite a contradiction, a lie, madness or freedom? Rousseau wrote a treatise on education thanks to the abandonment of his five children, Kierkegaard composed religious texts while living as a libertine, Beauvoir founded the philosophy of feminism while enjoying a servile relationship with her American lover, Foucault exalted the courage of truth and organized the secrecy of his Aids, Deleuze hated travelling and became the philosopher of nomadism... Who are we when we think? Several, no doubt, as shown by the thinkers who invent multiple personalities for themselves through their theories. Instead of denouncing their errors or hypocrisy, François Noudelmann examines the most complex of lies - the lie to oneself - through the anxieties, fugues and metamorphoses of these double-I philosophers.” A magnificent text and a brilliant analysis of the distortions between the ideas proclaimed and the lives led” Les Inrocks

François Noudelmann lives in New York. Professor of philosophy and literature at New York University, he directs La Maison Française. A former president of the Collège international de philosophie, he also produced philosophy programs for France-Culture for eleven years. The author of numerous essays, translated into a dozen languages, his books include Le Toucher des philosophes, Sartre, Nietzsche et Barthes au piano (Gallimard 2008, Grand Prix de Muses), Les Airs de famille, une philosophie des affinités (Gallimard 2012), Le Génie du mensonge (Max Milo 2015), Penser avec les oreilles (Max Milo 2019), Un Tout autre Sartre (Gallimard 2020). He is also the author of literary stories: Hors de moi (Léo Scheer 2006), Tombeaux (Cécile Defaut 2012) and Les Enfants de Cadillac (Gallimard 2021), shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt, Femina, André Malraux and the Bourse Pierre de Monaco.