Réalité et irréalité dans L’Homme sans qualités de Robert Musil
Reality and Unreality in Robert Musil’s Novel: The Man Without Qualities

Summary/Abstract: The reality – unreality relation is one of the main issues in Robert Musil’s novel The Man Without Qualities. To support this idea, our article is questioning the philosophical grounds on which Musil relies when approaching these contradictory, but complementary concepts. In our opinion, the relation between reality and unreality in The Man Without Qualities goes through are working of some of the most important philosophical principles. This is how the principle of sufficient reason is turned into a principle of insufficient reason. This is how the mathematical understanding of the world – an a priori understanding, whose relevance is tested in the definition of essences – gives way to a statistical and empirical understanding of masses. This is also how the medieval question of the universals is redrawn, since iti s through the notion of form – understood as Gestalt – that the problems of metaphysical realism are reopened.

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