Abstract

Recently I had the opportunity to read once again, thoroughly and carefully, the book entitled La défaite de la pensée 1 written by the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut. This book provides a historical critique of the development of thought in the West since the Enlightenment through the interweaving of the two threads of "national spirit" (minzu jingshen, in German, Volksgeist) and "cosmopolitanism" (shijie zhuyi), and the mutual interaction between them.