For a Quiet Atheism: François Châtelet's Rationalism in Périclès et Verdi by Gilles Deleuze

Abstract

In 1988, Gilles Deleuze dedicates \textit{Periclès et Verdi} to his friend François Châtelet. When Deleuze had been summoned by the Philosophie Collective International to attend the last roundtables devoted to his friend's death, he saw in the refusal of god and all Chateletian transcendence an atheistic serenity after Nietzsche. At the time of his studies of philosophy at the Sorbonne, Châtelet first comes into contact with Deleuze, and from there his projection will be constituted as a philosopher of history and as a political philosopher. In this sense, here is his interest in Châtelet's philosophy: it gradually retraces his friend's philosophical trajectory and at the same time conjures his death and posthumously honors him through the resonance of Châtelet's thought in his own philosophy.