Books & Ideas is the English-language mirror website of La Vie des Idées, a free online journal which has gained a large readership and established itself in France as a major place for intellectual debate since 2007.
Since the 1980s, patient accompaniment has been considered a form of care in its own right. Yet, the “ethic of care,” now a key notion in philosophy, is also part of the solidarity pact that governs the welfare state in France.
“Fixers”, or dragomans, are vital intermediaries and interpreters for both journalists and soldiers in hostile terrain, and play a central role in a network of relationships and transfers. In the Middle Ages they embodied the need for otherness, and continue to do so today.
Do you really know what intersectionality is? What about the epistemology of positioning? A new collection of introductory essays on feminist philosophy questions the way feminist thought has been relatively overlooked by French philosophy, and brings to light the promise of emancipation that fuels it.
About: Benjamin Lemoine, La démocratie disciplinée par la dette, La Découverte
About: Stéphane Dufoix, Décolonial, Anamosa
About: Arnaud Philippe, La fabrique des jugements. Comment sont déterminées les sanctions pénales, La Découverte
Jane Mansbridge has made a major contribution to political theory. She has spent her life combining empirical research with a theoretical approach, and has played a vital role in developing the critique of rational choice and the study of democracy as a permanent process continually in flux.
Rorty made conversation a philosophical genre in its own right, which led him to reject any distinctions he considered futile: between analytic and continental philosophy, between the Enlightenment and postmodernity, between philosophy and literature.
In 1947, Princess Elizabeth promised to serve ‘the great imperial family’, as part of the attempt to remake post-war Britain as a global power. The British Empire collapsed; but this language of service and Commonwealth allowed the Queen to take up the postcolonial concerns of the 21st century.
Over the past few months, Books and Ideas has been running a series of interviews with leading contemporary scholars, who took the time to discuss their particular topics of research with us. For the Christmas season, we have put together a selection of seven discussions with intellectuals across the humanities and sciences: sociology, history, comparative literature, neuro-biology, anthropology and political science.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will resume its publication schedule on August 26. In the meantime, we present to you a weekly selection of articles published over the last year.
Books & Ideas is going on holiday for the summer, and will resume its publication schedule in September. In the meantime, we present you with a weekly roundup of our most recent essays and reviews. Economic inequalities have been at the forefront of intellectual debate this year with the publication of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Our third selection of articles brings an international perspective on the issue, with a sociological and historical outlook.
A highly respected figure in African studies, Jack Goody has become a distinctive voice in the torrent of academic critiques of western ethnocentrism. His work, spanning more than sixty years, has been based on a single ambition: comparison, for the sake of more accurately locating European history within Eurasian and world history.
Miguel Abensour profoundly renewed thinking about democracy. His political philosophy paid close attention to the desire for emancipation and was based on an original conception of utopia breaking with the mythology of the ‘ideal city’ or of a ‘good society’.
André Gorz’s multiform thought is entirely centred on liberation: from work, which prevents individuals from thriving; from consumption, which grows ever higher; and from the social system, which reduces individuals to mere pawns in a “megamachine”.
La crise politique vénézuélienne connaît un nouvel épisode avec une élection présidentielle frauduleuse par laquelle Nicolás Maduro tente de se maintenir au pouvoir au prix d’un nouveau saut en avant autoritaire. La répression étatique atteint des sommets sans précédent.
Souveraineté populaire et État de droit ne sont pas séparables : l’idée qu’il pourrait exister des « démocraties illibérales » ne repose sur aucun fondement et fait le jeu du populisme.
Selon B. Lahire, la sociologie contemporaine a besoin de dégager les lois générales qui gouvernent la vie humaine. Il s’y emploie notamment en comparant l’humain aux autres espèces vivantes, par-delà les clivages habituels entre sciences sociales et sciences naturelles.
À propos de : Régine Le Jan, Amis ou ennemis ? Émotions, relations, identités au Moyen Âge, Seuil
À propos de : Dominique Barthélémy, Miracles de l’an mil, Armand Colin
À propos de : Karl Schlögel, L’avenir se joue à Kyiv. Leçons ukrainiennes, Gallimard