EXCERPT It seemed to us that a few words of explanation were in order to introduce this text by Jean Cavaillès—his final work. Having received his doctorate in philosophy in 1938, Cavaillès was preparing to take the next steps in working toward an expression of his own thought. But the following year, the war gave him other duties to perform. Captured in May following a courageous campaign in winter 1939–40, while in transit to Germany Cavaillès escaped and made his way to Belgium, and in October 1940 resumed his teaching at the University of Strasbourg, at the time relocated to Clermont-Ferrand. But as we know, he was not satisfied simply to resume his academic work, nor did he consider himself demobilised by the armistice: he became one of the four or five founders of the first Resistance movements in France. The extent of Cavaillès’s work in this domain, up until his second and final arrest in August 1943, was staggering.…