Lucien Sève (; 9 December 1926 – 23 March 2020) was a French philosopher, communist and political activist. He was an active member of the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Un ...

from 1950 to 2010. His 1969 work ''Marxisme et théorie de la personnalité'' (''Marxism and theory of personality'') has been translated into 25 different languages. Sève died on 23 March 2020 of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Family, career and death

Sève was born in 1926 in

Chambéry Chambéry (, , ; Arpitan: ''Chambèri'') is the prefecture of the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of eastern France. The population of the commune of Chambéry was 58,917 as of 2019, while the population of the Chamb ...

. His parents ran a publishing house for children's books. He studied at the Lycée de Chambéry, and the

Lycée du Parc The Lycée du Parc is a public secondary school located in the sixth ''arrondissement'' of Lyon, France. Its name comes from the Parc de la Tête d'Or, one of Europe's largest urban parks, which is situated nearby. It provides a ''lycée''-level ...

. Sève entered the

École normale supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, S ...

in 1945, where he earned '' agrégation'' of philosophy in 1949. He became a philosophy teacher at a '' lycée'' in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, although he was later removed from the post due to his Marxist beliefs. Sève performed military service in Algeria, from 1952 to 1953. After his military service, he worked at the in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

. In 1952, Sève married Françoise Guille in

Gap, Hautes-Alpes Gap (, ) is the prefecture of the Hautes-Alpes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France. In 2019, the commune had a population of 40,631, making it the most populated city in Hautes-Alpes. At a height of 750 ...

, and they had two children. Guille died in 2011. Sève died on 23 March 2020 of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

at the age of 93.

Political life

Sève was an avid Politzerian. He supported the views of fellow French Marxist philosophers Louis Althusser and

Roger Garaudy Roger Garaudy (; 17 July 1913 – 13 June 2012) was a French philosopher, French resistance fighter and a communist author. He converted to Islam in 1982. In 1998, he was convicted and fined for Holocaust denial under French law for claiming that ...

, arguing that the PCF should follow some

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

aspects of the Marxist philosophy. However, Sève also focused on a scientific, rather than a purely humanist or non-humanist, basis for Marxism, something that was different from most Western European Marxist ideas of the time. Most Western Communist parties, including the

, were moving towards

social democracy Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote s ...

. He also focused upon the relationship between Marxism and

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

. He supported a Communist regime where the Communist Party was the dominant force, and as such his views have been compared to

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

's USSR. Nevertheless, after the death of Stalin, Sève supported the De-Stalinization of the USSR. In the 1980s, Sève supported the creation of the medical ethics committee Comité consultatif national d'éthique (CCNE). He was a member of the CCNE committee from 1983 to 2000. He was a supporter of embryo testing, but only from excess

IVF In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating an individual's ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) f ...

embryos. He saw embryos as "the potential of a human being", so considered using them solely for testing as unethical. Sève also had very strong opinions on how a Marxist biography should be written. His works included very specific, albeit almost unachievable, criteria that he believed should be adhered to for all Marxist biographies. He was a founding member of the project, which aimed to translate and republish all of Marx's and

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Berlin Wall, Sève gave an interview in which he said that Communism is relevant today, and that

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

was centuries ahead of his time. In 1950, Sève joined the French Communist Party (PCF). He was elected as a member of the Central Committee in 1961, and remained a member of it until 1994. From 1970 to 1982, he ran the PCF publishing house. He was appointed to this role because members of the PCF considered him one of the best intellectuals in the party. In 1970, he attended a panel discussion organised by

Catherine Clément Catherine Clément (; born 10 February 1939) is a French philosopher, novelist, feminist, and literary critic, born in Boulogne-Billancourt. She received a degree in philosophy from the École Normale Supérieure, and studied under its faculty ...

, which also included

Serge Leclaire Serge Leclaire (born Serge Liebschutz; 6 July 1924 – 8 August 1994) was a French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Initially analyzed by Jacques Lacan, he 'became the first French " Lacanian"'. Subsequently, he developed into 'one of the most resp ...

and André Green. During the 1980s, Sève began to distance himself from the PCF after disagreements with the political leaders. In 1984, he proposed a refounding of the PCF, arguing that the party had lost its way. Sève resigned from the party in 2010, citing a lack of public support for the party at the 2007 French presidential election and 2010 French regional elections, as well as a distaste for the youth wing of the party.

Works

In 1969, he authored the work ''Marxisme et théorie de la personnalité'' (''Marxism and theory of personality''). The work has been translated into 25 different languages. His 1978 work ''Man in Marxist theory and the psychology of personality'' focused on how personality was a "product of social relations". This strongly opposed Hans Eysenck's view that personality was a mixture of genetics and learned behaviours. In 1990, he authored ''Communisme : quel second souffle?'' (''Communism: what a second wind?''), and from 2004 to 2019, he worked on four volumes of ''Penser avec Marx aujourd’hui'' (''Thinking with Marx today''.) The works aimed to highlight Sève's perceived problems with various interpretations of Marxism, including Stalinism, ideological mistreatment by

Luc Ferry Luc Ferry (; born 3 January 1951) is a French philosopher and politician, and a proponent of secular humanism. He is a former member of the Saint-Simon Foundation think-tank. Biography He received an Agrégation de philosophie (1975), a D ...

, and theories from Louis Althusser and Gilles Deleuze that Sève believed incompatible with Marxism. The first of the four volumes was entitled ''Marx et nous'' (''Marx and us''), and the second volume, published in 2008, was entitled ''L'homme?'' (''The Person''). In 2008, he was awarded a prize by the Union rationaliste.

List

* Sève, L. (1954), ''La Science'' (''The science''), Les Éditions scolaires * Sève, L. (1969), ''Marxisme et théorie de la personalité'' (''Marxism and theory of personality''), Éditions sociales. * Sève, L. (1974), ''Textes sur la méthode de la science économique'' (''Texts on the method of economics''), Éditions sociales * Sève, L. (1975), ''Marxism and the theory of human personality'',

Lawrence & Wishart Lawrence & Wishart is a British publishing company formerly associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain. It was formed in 1936, through the merger of Martin Lawrence, the Communist Party's press, and Wishart Ltd, a family-owned Left-wing ...

* Sève, L., & Clément, C. (1977). ''Pour une critique marxiste de la théorie psychanalytique'' (''For a Marxist critique of psychoanalytic theory''), Éditions sociales * Sève, L. (1978), ''Man in Marxist theory and the psychology of personality'', Hassocks: Harvester Press * Sève, L. (1980), ''Une introduction à la philosophie marxiste: Suivie d’un vocabulaire philosophique'' (''An introduction to Marxist philosophy: Followed by a philosophical vocabulary''), Éditions sociales * Sève, L. (1984), ''Structuralisme et dialectique'' (''Structuralism and dialectics''), Messidor/Editions sociales * Sève, L. (1994), ''Pour une critique de la raison bioéthique'' (''For a critique of bioethical reason''),

Odile Jacob Odile Jacob is a French publisher who founded ''Les Éditions Odile Jacob'' in the middle of the 1980s. She is also a trained scientist, studying the workings of the brain, the mind and thought. She is a member of Le Siècle.Frédéric Saliba, 'L ...

* Sève, L. (1998), ''Sciences et dialectiques de la nature'' (''Natural sciences and dialectics''), La Dispute * Sève, L. (1999), ''Commencer par les fins: La nouvelle question communiste'' (''Start with the Ends: The New Communist Question''), La Dispute * Sève, L. (2001), ''Sciences de l’homme et de la société: La responsabilité des scientifiques'' (''Human and social sciences: The responsibility of scientists''), L’Harmattan * Sève, L. (2004), ''Marx et nous'' (''Marx and us''), La Dispute * Sève, L. (2005), ''Émergence, complexité et dialectique: Sur les systèmes dynamiques non linéaires'' (''Emergence, complexity and dialectics: On nonlinear dynamical systems''), Odile Jacob * Sève, L. (2006), ''Qu’est-ce que la personne humaine?'' (''What is the human person?''), La Dispute * Sève, L. (2008), ''L’homme?'' (''The Person''), La Dispute * Sève, L. (2008), Dialectics of emergence. In: Ollman, B. & Smith, T. (Eds.) (2008), ''Dialectics for the new century'',

Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230583818_6 Source:

References

External links

BNF
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Seve, Lucien 1926 births 2020 deaths Writers from Chambéry 20th-century French philosophers 21st-century French philosophers Marxist theorists French Communist Party members École Normale Supérieure alumni Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in France French military personnel of the Algerian War