Micha Knuth on Marcel Gauchet: Translation and critique

Marcel Gauchet is a leading sociologist and public intellectual in France, but his work has not been internationally received. His thought manifests a variation of “post-’68” French theory which in many ways is opposed to versions more popular in the Anglosphere (e.g., Foucault and Bourdieu). A social theorist of sweeping scope, Gauchet has attempted across his life's work no less than a “transcendental anthroposociology”: a series of philosophical engagements with history and ethnography, in which he identifies certain pivotal events and forces which explain the current state of European societies (in particular, the rise of the state, the Axial Age, Christianity, and the neoliberal era). Emerging theorist Micha Knuth has written the first comprehensive study of Gauchet's scholarly corpus outside its French-language reception. As Knuth's work “The Silent Revolution” appears in German, the present essay reconstructs it in summary form, and offers a critical reception of Gauchet.