Métaphysique — Marcel Conche
Marcel Conche stands as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary French metaphysics. In Métaphysique, his philosophical vision finds its fullest and most systematic expression, presented here to Japanese readers for the first time.
At the heart of Conche’s thought lies a radical philosophical naturalism. Leaving behind the Cartesian subject as the ultimate foundation of philosophy, he turns instead to Nature (physis)—boundless, all-encompassing, and irreducible to any reality beyond itself. Nothing exists outside Nature; yet Nature cannot simply be identified with matter. Conche thus opens a path beyond the familiar opposition between materialism and idealism, toward a metaphysics grounded in the inexhaustible reality of Nature itself.
His intellectual lineage reaches back to Anaximander and the early Greek thinkers and extends through thinkers of infinity such as Spinoza. Yet Conche’s metaphysics is not merely a theoretical system. Philosophy, for him, demands a return to oneself: a willingness to distance oneself from social prestige, received opinion, and religious authority, and to think freely, quietly, and rigorously.
Such thinking carries us beyond the necessarily partial knowledge offered by the individual sciences. Metaphysics asks a more radical question: What can be said of reality as a whole, and what does our place within it mean for human existence? Conche’s response does not culminate in dogma or demonstrative certainty, but in what he calls a “lived conviction”—a conviction in which thought and existence can no longer be separated.
This is also why metaphysics matters for life. To confront Nature is to confront infinity, time, change, death, and the unknowability of the future. Yet Conche’s philosophy does not end in resignation. It seeks a wisdom capable of diminishing the fear of death while illuminating what he regards as a fundamental human task: to create.
Standing before the abyss of the future, each of us must create a life that has never existed before. And beyond knowledge, beyond doctrine, there remains the possibility of an unconditional love that asks nothing in return. Conche’s Métaphysique is therefore more than an inquiry into what ultimately exists. It is an invitation to rethink our place within Nature—and, through that understanding, to discover how we might live.
The Japanese version was published in 2019 by Misuzu Shobo, Tokyo.
Publisher's note
It has been said that the 21st century will be the "Century of Biology" but is definitely the ”Century of Microbiology" (Foreword to this book). You will find this to be true throughout the book...The book also provides a glimpse into the future of mankind that could be created by advances in microbiology.
◉ Philippe Kourilsky. Le Jeu du hasard et de la complexité. Le nouvelle science de l'immunologie (Odile Jacob, 2014)
The Japanese version was published in 2018 by Misuzu Shobo, Tokyo.
Publisher's note