Georges Cogniot

Cogniot, Georges 

Born Dec. 15, 1901, in Montigny-les-Cherlieu. French Marxist philosopher, writer, and public figure.

After graduating from the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Cogniot taught at lycées in Evreux, Dijon, Saint-Quentin, and Paris from 1925 to 1936, becoming general secretary of the Workers’ University in 1934. He was a member of the Central Committee of the French Communist Party from 1936 to 1964 and served as editor in chief of the newspaper L’Humanité from 1937 to 1949. He was a deputy to the National Assembly from 1946 to 1958 and has been a senator since 1959. In his works, devoted to problems of dialectics, the history of philosophy, religion, and education, Cogniot has critically analyzed various schools of bourgeois philosophy, including phenomenology and Catholic philosophy. He has also written a collection of short stories entitled Flight (Russian translation, 1948).

WORKS

De l’Enthousiasme à la conscience enchainée: La Question scolaire en 1848 et la loi Falloux. Paris, 1948.
Réalité de la nation. Paris, 1950.
Mésaventures de l’antimarxisme: Les Malheurs de M. Merleau-Ponty. Paris, 1956.
La Religion et la science. Paris, 1960.
Qu’est-ce que le Communisme? Paris, 1960.
Le Matérialisme gréco-romain. Paris [1964].
Prométhée s’empare du savoir. Paris [1967].
Cognoit, G., and V. Joannès. M. Thorez l’homme, le militant. Paris, 1970.
In Russian translation:
Narodnyi front vo Frantsii. Moscow, 1937. (With M. Thorez.)
Znakomstvo s Sovetskim Soiuzom. Moscow, 1959.