Books & ideas

In All Their Singularity

Alain Policar — 2025-07-10T08:00:00Z

We need to rebuild universalism, not as an overarching model to be applied to all regions of the world, but on the basis of their own singularity—laterally, not from above.

The Universal and the Particular

Maud S. Mandel — 2017-10-30T08:00:00Z

Intellectual historian Maurice Samuels offers a timely corrective to simplistic renderings of French universalism showing that, over the years, it has been far more nuanced and far less anti-particularistic than usually argued. However, studying Jews as the paradigmatic minority, he tends to forget the growing focus on Muslims in contemporary conversations.

In Praise of Social Sciences

Philippe Descola — 2013-10-21T07:30:00Z

Should we expect the social sciences in general, and anthropology in particular, to enlighten us about society's problems and how they might be solved? According to Philippe Descola, it is rather by requiring us to consider the multiplicity of ways of being that the social sciences can help change the world.

Democratic Universalism as a Historical Problem

Pierre Rosanvallon — 2008-04-08T08:07:00Z

Westerners think they own a universal democratic model. However, their confidence vanishes whenever they try to export it. Worse, this claim hampers their examination of both their own eventful history and the questions raised by non-Western democratic experiences.