Materialist Philosophy of Michel Onfray

Abstract

The article examines the atheological concept of “the most popular French philosopher” Michel Onfray, as well as his criticism of religion. Onfray borrows the term “atheology” from G. Bataille, which he understands as a current of thought that deconstructs theological truths. The philosopher identifies three original tasks of atheology: the deconstruction of monotheism, the demythologization of Judeo-Christianity and Islam, and the deconstruction of theocracy. He implements all these three tasks in one way or another. The article demonstrates that Onfray’s concept of atheology does not represent something radically new or significantly different from the existing tradition of religion critique. Onfray limits himself to the three monotheisms that have the greatest political influence and resolutely condemns almost all aspects of the three religions. We note that in doing so, Onfray simplifies the image of religion, presenting it exclusively in a negative light. Such negativism brings Onfray closer not only to contemporary new atheists, especially C. Hitchens, who believes that “religion poisons everything”, but also to such representatives of French materialism as Holbach and La Mettrie. Onfray’s approach seems abstract because it does not provide a thorough socio-historical explanation of monotheistic religions. It is shown that his criticism of religion is based on a significant philosophical tradition that goes from Democritus, Lucretius, Epicurus, to Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche, and includes French materialists such as Holbach, La Mettrie, Helvetius. His hedonism is more likely to be drawn from the Cyrenaics than from Epicurus. The originality of Onfray’s approach lies in the fact that he incorporates materialism and hedonism into his concept of “philosophy of nature”. Onfray’s positive agenda, although resonant with a number of contemporary issues, is formulated in extremely general terms and is poorly worked out.