Philosophie

Il s'agit d'étudier la notion de "réflexibilité" dans l'un des derniers exposés de la Doctrine de la science de Fichte (WL de 1813) en montrant la profonde cohérence du parcours de l'auteur (de 1793 à 1813), relativement à la notion de réflexion,

Today I wish to reconsider Merleau-Ponty's notion of the chiasm from the perspective of its status: Is it a cognitively valueless metaphor because it was analogically and arbitrarily transferred from one domain to another? Or, is it a sound concept that can be subjected to experimentation and improvement? If the latter, what is the nature of chiasm? Is it descriptive? Heuristic? Is it even logical? Is the question even worth asking, given that it is not only the most orthodox positivists who may see in this transfer mere poetic licence? Indeed, many among Merleau-Ponty's commentators are in lock step with the many criticisms of his supposedly “literary” style, and consider the chiasm to be a metaphor.
We will first examine the function and role of the chiasm in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy in order to determine its precise status.  We will then be able to show how this notion sheds light on the main thrust of Merleau-Ponty's thought: that deep structures underlie all the apparently unrelated elements of his philosophy, i.e. that chiasm produces a counter-model of perspective and a new category of relation.

The point of this study is to ponder over pre-Kantian modern philosophy in Germany, that is, the German philosophy of the 17th and early 18th centuries, a pre-Enlightenment philosophy, which nevertheless paved the way for the Enlightenment. Considered for far too long as depending solely on Leibniz and stigmatized as dogmatic (hence its being all too recurrently referred to and summed up as "Leibnizo-Wolffian"), German modern philosophy appears, under close examination, to bear the mark of scepticism—a scepticism embodied precisely by the father of German modern philosophy, i.e. Thomasius, a contemporary opponent of Leibniz. To show how Thomasius and his followers enabled the striking spread of Hume's philosophy in modern Germany, to show how pervaded by scepticism German modern philosophy was—Wolff included—, such is the purpose of this paper, whose main concern is to reconsider the very nature of the philosophical mutation from Leibniz to Kant. Studying the sceptical prolongation given to German rationalism, while probing the sources of modern philosophy to delineate an archaeology of the Aufklärung , and therefore of Kant , is, after all, a way of giving oneself the means to re-evaluate Kant's gesture itself.

The major debate in late twentieth-century analytical philosophy turns on the questions of the purpose, uniqueness and results of transcendental arguments. I pursue this debate in reference to Fichte the first thinker after Kant (and before Cohen, Cassirer, Apel, etc.), to claim the title of “transcendental philosopher”. In this respect, it is to be noted that while only two instances of transcendental argument may be taken seriously in the works of Kant, Fichte's Science of Knowing is in all significant respects the most accomplished and systematic development of what Strawson has called transcendental argumentation. More than that, Fichte's mode of reasoning is what unifies and gives continuity to the successive versions of his science of knowing, thus suggesting a form of transcendental argument that potentially has great significance for the contemporary debate. In this perspective, it is useful to reassess in the light of Fichte's philosophy  a series of major questions raised by analytical philosophy: How is transcendental argument related to skepticism? How original and specific is it? And, last but not least, what does it accomplish?

The syntagm "Jewish philosophy" has traditionally been related to the question of how to adapt a particular (such as Judaism qua a religion revealed at a particular moment to a particular people) to the universal (to philosophy as truth valid everywhere and at all times). Maimon’s philosophy, however, challenges this common reading of the relation between Judaism and philosophy. At least this is the hypothesis that the present paper is designed to substantiate. It demonstrates that Maimon did not just adapt a particular (the conventions of Jewish philosophy) to a given philosophy (the Enlightenment), but that he opened a new era of philosophy and a new category of universality. It was by way of his style and his particular approach to the text that he entered this new era. To justify this twofold thesis that (a) Maimon defined a new paradigm of universal rationality, while writing (b) qua Talmudist (i.e. a particular), the paper first analyses Maimon’s relation to Kant and his attempt to synthesize contradictory systems and looks at the famous expression "coalition of the systems" in the light of early influences. The paper then unwinds the Ariadne’s thread or the systematic principle which invests this coalition with meaning and coherence, i.e. the faculty of judgment. It finally demonstrates that this promotion of the faculty of judgment corresponds to the application of a plural species of rationality which opens a new era of philosophy. In a nutshell, Maimon’s objective was not to adapt the particular (Jewish religion) to philosophical reason, but rather to irrigate, to transform and to pluralise the universal (philosophical reason) by starting out with a given singular, Talmudist practice.

Paradoxically, there are very few skeptical philosophers in the modern epoch (since Descartes) who have laid claim to skepticism “consistently,” that is to say, without denying, diminishing or rejecting it at some or other period of their working life. Surprising as it may at first seem, only two philosophers—before the “skeptical revival” seen in analytic philosophy in the last thirty years—truly assumed skepticism without qualification of any kind: these two philosophers, who were contemporaries, are the post-Kantians Schulze (also known as Aenesidemus) and Maimon. This article defines the skepticism that each of them assumed “consistently”. Once the meaning of their positions is elucidated, the article goes on to compare them with a more contemporary form of skepticism. This putting into perspective ultimately reveals the coherency and consistency of Maimon’s transcendental skepticism compared with the position of those who are today known as the “New Humeans.”

Setting out from an analysis of the notion of the call in the works of Levinas and his adherents, my task will be to show how that which is presented as description of a phenomenon is in fact the deconstruction of the text of tradition. In order to accomplish this, it will be apposite first to carry out an overview of the uses of the notion of the call in order to flesh out its recurring constants; subsequently, it will become possible to demonstrate the ways in which description is entirely dependent on a prerequisite act of deconstruction. That phenomenological description should thus be dependent on deconstruction explains why, in all theses texts, the notion of the call is a description of trauma which cannot account for all the dimensions of the call—such as the artistic dimension of the call exemplified by Alberti and analysed here through the example of Carvaggio's The Calling of Saint Matthew.

This paper suggests that one single thread characterizes the developments of French phenomenology that occurred after 1990 in the wake of Merleau-Ponty's and Levinas's major contributions. Janicaud in 1991 had already identified one global trend in French phenomenology and believed it was possible to unite the thoughts of Levinas, Henry, Marion and Chrétien under the common banner of "theological phenomenology". However, his analysis seems to fail to account for deeper-seated affinities that exist between French phenomenologists such as Marion, Lacoste, Chrétien, Richir, Depraz, Romano—and Benoist for part of his work. This is the reason why, although the present paper does agree with Janicaud's idea that the French authors who define themselves as phenomenologists share some common ground, it defines this common trend quite differently, i.e., as a form of epistemological realism that ultimately manifests itself as a radical empiricism. 
Consequently, the present study will state and defend three hypotheses: 1) contemporary French phenomenology professes a form of realism of experience, which is the true rallying point (space of exchange) of otherwise differing elaborations; 2) this type of epistemological empiricism, by virtue of its radicality, implies a problem that threatens to drive phenomenology towards its own dissolution, because as it precipitates in fine the dilution of philosophical discourse into a multitude of other discourses; 3) this variant of empiricism shows that, within its strictly defined viewpoint, there is scarcely any difference between French phenomenology and a certain part of French analytical philosophy. All three hypotheses lead to the same conclusion: the determination of the defining aspect of contemporary French phenomenology entails, beyond the apparent, misleading, and futile quarrel of paradigms, to bring to light a common space for contemporary French philosophy, which, from both perspectives, can be conveyed by the single term “to show.” It is, in fact, the elevation of “to show” to the detriment of “to demonstrate” that seems to ensnare thinkers within an impasse.

Cette conférence a un double but : 1) dessiner précisément la figure du « réalisme métaphysique », qu’exemplifient, de manière différente, Frege et Russell, et tenter d’en comprendre les raisons. 2) Evaluer ce « réalisme métaphysique », autrement que par la condamnation sans appel (« risible, délirant »), trop souvent en vigueur aujourd’hui chez les nombreux ennemis réalistes (ordinaire, scientifique, contextualiste, etc.) du « réalisme métaphysique » et montrer comment Frege et Russell retrouvent, en fait, toute la structure nucléaire des positions réalistes philosophiques classiques, défendues tout au long de l’histoire de la philosophie.

Présentation du livre : «  Le lieu de l’universel, impasses du réalisme dans la philosophie contemporaine », (Seuil, l’ordre philosophique, 2015) le 12 mai 2015, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Ulm, Paris, dans le cadre d’une présentation d’essais philosophiques sur  le thème : « Que peut encore la philosophie ? »