The Antihumanism of the Young Deleuze: Sartre, Catholicism, and the Perspective of the Inhuman, 1945–48

The arrticle explores the early intellectual formation of Gilles Deleuze, specifically his divergence from humanist frameworks through his engagement with existentialism and the notion of the "inhuman." Bianco examines Deleuze's interactions with Jean-Paul Sartre’s atheistic existentialism, which Deleuze critiqued for its perceived contradictions, especially after Sartre's 1945 lecture “Existentialism Is a Humanism.” Through archival sources and lesser-known writings, I show how Deleuze, along with peers such as Michel Tournier, gravitated toward “inhumanism” as a response to Sartre’s attempt to reconcile existentialism with humanist ideals. Deleuze’s early work, influenced by French Catholic intellectual circles and figures like Maurice de Gandillac, contends with the radical implications of anti-humanist philosophy, a stance that distinguished him from other intellectuals of his generation. This exploration of Deleuze’s formative years illuminates the roots of his mature ideas on immanence, univocity, and the transcendence of the ego, foreshadowing his later philosophical contributions.