Abstract

«Disquiet» is the hallmark of modernity: such was the conviction expressed in the 1920s by Jankélévitch, then at the start of the itinerary that would later make him a major figure in 20th-century French philosophy. In Georg Simmel’s essays on the «metropolis» and the «tragedy of culture», he saw modernity at work in the form of a paradox: life is limited from within, secreting death, its own negation. Following in Simmel’s footsteps, he described this paradox of life carrying within its death «which kills it». He adopted Simmel’s «metaphysics» of death as a «necessity» that colors every moment of existence. Despite his admiration for Simmel, Jankélévitch, once he had become a philosopher in his own right, opposed him with a vision of modernity nourished by the experience of the Holocaust, which «cut his life in two». The «disquiet» that is the hallmark of modern man stems from the paradox of death, at once a «natural phenomenon» and the most banal fact, and a «scandal», a «tragedy», since it is the annihilation of an «ipseity», of an absolutely unique person