Polemic (magazine)

Format	Magazine
Date de création	1945
Date de dissolution	1947
Pays	Royaume-Uni

Polemic était un « magazine de philosophie, de psychologie et d'esthétique » britannique publié entre 1945 et 1947, qui se voulait un périodique intellectuel généraliste ou non spécialisé^[1].

Édité par l'ex-communiste Humphrey Slater (en)^[2], il était « sympathique à la science, hostile aux manifestations intellectuelles du romantisme et nettement anti-communiste ». Huit numéros ont été publiés^[1]. Le premier, publié sous forme de livre pour contourner l'interdiction de nouvelles revues imposée par le rationnement du papier en temps de guerre, comprenait des contributions de Henry Miller, Bertrand Russell, AJ Ayer, Stephen Spender, Stephen Glover, George Orwell, CEM Joad et Rupert Crawshay- Williams^[1].

Orwell publie cinq essais au cours de la vie du magazine tandis que Russell et Ayer en ont édité quatre chacun. Parmi les autres contributeurs figuraient Philip Toynbee, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Dylan Thomas, Diana Witherby, Stuart Hampshire, Geoffrey Grigson, Ben Nicholson, Adrian Stokes, JD Bernal^[3], CH Waddington^[4] et John Wisdom.

Essais d'Orwell modifier

« Notes sur le nationalisme » (Polémique, n° 1 - octobre 1945 - rédigé en mai 1945)^[4].
« La Prévention de la littérature » (Polémique, n° 2 - janvier 1946)^[5].
« Second Thoughts on James Burnham » (Polémique, n° 3 - mai 1946)^[4].
« Politique contre . Littérature : examen des voyages de Gulliver » (Polémique, n° 5 - septembre-octobre 1946)^[4]
« Lear, Tolstoï et le fou » (Polémique, n° 7)^[4].
Orwell a également contribué un éditorial (non signé) à (Polémique, n° 3 - mai 1946)^[4].

Essais d'Ayer modifier

'Deistic Fallacies', Polémique, non. 1. (1945)^[6]^,^[7].

'Séance secrète' (sur J.-P. Sartre ), Polémique, no. 2, p. 60~3. (1945)^[8].
« Liberté et nécessité », Polémique, no. 5, p. 36~44. (1946) (repr. dans Essais philosophiques, 1954]^[6].
« Les prétentions de la philosophie », in Polémique, no. 7, pp. 18~33 (1947) [repr. dans Réflexions sur notre époque , 1949)^[6].

Références modifier

↑ ^{a b et c} « Absent minds: intellectuals in Britain | WorldCat.org », sur www.worldcat.org (consulté le 4 novembre 2022)
↑ [1] Art-Historical Notes: "Where are the Hirsts of the 1930s now?" The Independent, Nov 13, 1998 by David Buckman
↑ The Guardian
↑ ^{a b c d e et f} Orwell, Sonia et Angus, Ian (eds.). The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 3: As I Please (1943-1945) (Penguin).
↑ Gordon B. Beadle, Sonia Orwell et Ian Angus, « The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Volume I, An Age like This, 1920-1940; Volume II, My Country Right or Left, 1940-1943; Volume III, As I Please, 1943-1945; Volume IV, In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950 », The American Historical Review, vol. 75, n^o 2,‎ décembre 1969, p. 500 (ISSN 0002-8762, DOI 10.2307/1849742, lire en ligne, consulté le 4 novembre 2022)
↑ ^{a b et c} « Perception and identity : essays presented to A.J. Ayer, with his replies to them | WorldCat.org », sur www.worldcat.org (consulté le 4 novembre 2022)
↑ Ben Rogers, A.J. Ayer, Grove Press, 1999, 199 p. (ISBN 978-0-8021-1673-4, lire en ligne) :
« Ayer [...] began writing for Polemic, an elegant new quarterly edited by an ex-communist, Humphrey Slater. The first edition [...] featured an essay on ‘Deistic Fallacies’, and later numbers included an article on free will, ‘Freedom and Necessity’ - one of Ayer’s most frequently cited and reprinted papers - and another on ‘The Claims of Philosophy’, first delivered as a lecture late in 1946 to an inaugural Unesco conference. Diverse as they are in subject, all these articles revolve around the big moral questions - the purposes of philosophy, the nature of freedom, the meaning of life - and in their audience and approach are quite different from anything Ayer had written before the war. Like French existentialism, they represented a response to a thirst among the war’s survivors for an articulation of the most basic principles of the new world order. »
.
↑ O'Donahoe, « Dramatically Different: The Reception of Sartre's Theatre in London and New York », Sartre Studies International, vol. 7, n^o 1,‎ 2001, p. 2 (ISSN 1357-1559, lire en ligne) :
« Meanwhile, back 'overseas', the doyen of logical positivism, A.J. Ayer, had published a not unfriendly critique of the text. He took the play to be an illustration of the theory expounded in L'être et le néant that 'death makes me a prey to others', and felt this was inevitably flawed in dramatic representation, since Garcin is shown as conscious in death, therefore as an object for himself as well as for others, hence as 'not really dead'. Ayer concedes that this paradox is dramatically necessary, but, predictably, is concerned about its illogicality, concluding with a quotation from Wittgenstein: 'Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through.' Sartre, of course, would have agreed, though this is doubtless a truth which he (like many lesser folk) had perceived without first consulting Wittgenstein. So Huis clos initially had a mixed reception... »
.

Liens externes modifier

[:2-1] {a b et c} « Absent minds: intellectuals in Britain | WorldCat.org », sur www.worldcat.org (consulté le 4 novembre 2022)

[2] [1] Art-Historical Notes: "Where are the Hirsts of the 1930s now?" The Independent, Nov 13, 1998 by David Buckman

[3] The Guardian

[As_I_Please-4] {a b c d e et f} Orwell, Sonia et Angus, Ian (eds.). The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 3: As I Please (1943-1945) (Penguin).

[5] Gordon B. Beadle, Sonia Orwell et Ian Angus, « The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Volume I, An Age like This, 1920-1940; Volume II, My Country Right or Left, 1940-1943; Volume III, As I Please, 1943-1945; Volume IV, In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950 », The American Historical Review, vol. 75, n^o 2,‎ décembre 1969, p. 500 (ISSN 0002-8762, DOI 10.2307/1849742, lire en ligne, consulté le 4 novembre 2022)

[:0-6] {a b et c} « Perception and identity : essays presented to A.J. Ayer, with his replies to them | WorldCat.org », sur www.worldcat.org (consulté le 4 novembre 2022)

[:1-7] Ben Rogers, A.J. Ayer, Grove Press, 1999, 199 p. (ISBN 978-0-8021-1673-4, lire en ligne) :
« Ayer [...] began writing for Polemic, an elegant new quarterly edited by an ex-communist, Humphrey Slater. The first edition [...] featured an essay on ‘Deistic Fallacies’, and later numbers included an article on free will, ‘Freedom and Necessity’ - one of Ayer’s most frequently cited and reprinted papers - and another on ‘The Claims of Philosophy’, first delivered as a lecture late in 1946 to an inaugural Unesco conference. Diverse as they are in subject, all these articles revolve around the big moral questions - the purposes of philosophy, the nature of freedom, the meaning of life - and in their audience and approach are quite different from anything Ayer had written before the war. Like French existentialism, they represented a response to a thirst among the war’s survivors for an articulation of the most basic principles of the new world order. »
.

[8] O'Donahoe, « Dramatically Different: The Reception of Sartre's Theatre in London and New York », Sartre Studies International, vol. 7, n^o 1,‎ 2001, p. 2 (ISSN 1357-1559, lire en ligne) :
« Meanwhile, back 'overseas', the doyen of logical positivism, A.J. Ayer, had published a not unfriendly critique of the text. He took the play to be an illustration of the theory expounded in L'être et le néant that 'death makes me a prey to others', and felt this was inevitably flawed in dramatic representation, since Garcin is shown as conscious in death, therefore as an object for himself as well as for others, hence as 'not really dead'. Ayer concedes that this paradox is dramatically necessary, but, predictably, is concerned about its illogicality, concluding with a quotation from Wittgenstein: 'Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through.' Sartre, of course, would have agreed, though this is doubtless a truth which he (like many lesser folk) had perceived without first consulting Wittgenstein. So Huis clos initially had a mixed reception... »
.

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