Charles Fourier no Shinsekai (The New World of Charles Fourier)

As one of the contributors to the volume The New World of Charles Fourier, I (Shiotsuka) do not feel I have the right to speak of it as if it were my own book. I therefore asked the editor, Tomomi Fukushima, to provide an introduction.
 

[Fukushima’s Introduction]
The writer Raymond Queneau once confessed his astonishment upon discovering that there were, in fact, two celebrated figures bearing the name Fourier. One was Joseph Fourier, a statesman who had served as prefect and director of the statistical bureau, but who is best remembered as the founder of the mathematical discipline now known as Fourier analysis. The other, Charles Fourier, was a social theorist who devised a sweeping model of global harmony grounded in his highly original reflections on human passions.
 
Queneau was familiar with the former but knew nothing of the latter. That ignorance may be a rhetorical flourish, but it also points to a disparity in reputation that was present in his time and has only grown sharper today. As Fourier analysis found ever more applications in engineering and computer science, the name of Joseph Fourier has enjoyed an ever-expanding prestige. Charles Fourier, by contrast, has sunk into near oblivion.
 
Paradoxically, this eclipse may offer an opportunity for scholars. No longer constrained by the labels of “early socialist” or “communitarian” that once clung to him, readers today may approach Charles Fourier’s works with fresh eyes and greater freedom. Indeed, one of the tasks of scholarship is precisely to retrieve forgotten or misunderstood ideas, and in so doing to renew intellectual frameworks that have become rigid and unresponsive.

The philosopher Paul Ricœur, reflecting on ideology and utopia, emphasized the vital role played by utopia. Whereas ideology serves to legitimate existing orders, utopia disrupts and unsettles; it invites us to reconsider what seems fixed. Both functions, Ricœur argued, are indispensable for social life. “The death of utopia,” he warned, “is the death of society.” If so, then the study of Fourier is nothing less than the practice of an academic utopia.
 
This book gathers the work of fourteen scholars from a wide range of disciplines. Each contribution is substantial in its own right, and together they reveal the richness and plurality of interpretations that Fourier’s thought continues to inspire. I warmly invite readers to engage with these essays.


My own essay in the volume, “Charles Fourier and the Literary Lunatics: From the Perspective of Raymond Queneau,” explores Fourier’s peculiar style of writing by setting it alongside the eccentric productions of other “deviant” authors. Queneau recognized that Fourier’s cosmology was not simply whimsical fantasy but part of a utopian vision of social reform. Yet Queneau was equally fascinated by the playfulness of Fourier’s reasoning, by the restless movement of his thought, by the very process of argument rather than its ultimate truth-value. In that sense, he valued the unfolding of ideas as much as—if not more than—their conclusions.
 
Here I am reminded of Fukushima’s words: “When we laugh at Fourier, we must ask ourselves what we are sacrificing in the process.” That, I suspect, was very much Queneau’s own question.
 

(Written by SHIOTSUKA Shuichiro (with Tomomi FUKUSHIMA), Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology / 2025)