Sarah Kofman, a Philosophy of the Book

Abstract

The approach to Nietzsche, untimely philosopher, who did not find good readers in his time, allows Kofman to approach reading through different innovatives and creatives forms of reappropriation of the text and the trauma that its loss implies. The book as an object gets lost for its author when it is published, abandoned in the hands of others, and at the same time removed from the blind and possessive love that prevented the author from other forms of elucidation. Following Nietzsche’s trail in his chapter “Why I write such good books” Kofman addresses the question of masculine motherhood and its philosophical vicissitudes, outlining a theory of the irreparable from writing and reading as different modalities of an aporetical relation with the book. These arguments lead us to an understanding of Sarah Kofman’s work as a philosophy of the book.