Emmanuel Renault

How does Marx refer to Work and to Domination ? The interpretation of Marx’s references to work and to domination is a vexed question. Can we say that Marx criticises capitalism in terms of its effects on work ? Or does he criticise capitalism from the standpoint of those subject to domination, and with whom his position is one of solidarity ? Or does he elaborate a description of the unprecedented transformations brought about in the relations of power, which the category of domination is unable to apprehend effectively ? The article argues that these differences in interpretation are actually based on a series of false oppositions. Marx’s aim is in effect to articulate the question of the domination of work and the question of domination at work, insofar as he accords a position of political centrality to the connection between domination and work

In various ways, Marx ascribes a central role to the body in his theoretical and political system. In both his philosophy of praxis and his critique of political economy, the body is presented as a site of forces and needs. This enables Marx to provide a naturalist ground for the dynamics of praxis. It also enables him to define a critical perspective in terms of the effects registered in the body of a structure of domination and exploitation. The aim of the article is to present these themes and to discuss their subsequent treatment by authors such as Merleau-Ponty, Bourdieu and Foucault, while reflecting on the way recent transformations of capitalism have led to their reformulation and to the emergence of two new critical tropes: the body as commodity and as an ideology.

L’articolo ricostruisce la tradizione della teoria critica nella quale il con­cetto di individualità ricopre un ruolo centrale. Questo concetto è cruciale già in Marx, sia per la sua antropologia, sia per la sua teoria sociale e il suo retroterra normativo. La posizione centrale dell’individualità diviene più esplicita in Adorno, che ne intreccia aspetti critici e utopici. Infine, è in­dubbia l’appartenenza di Honneth a questa tradizione, che egli si propone di attualizzare in prospettiva so­cio-psicologica, tenendo nel debito conto le tra­sformazioni del capitalismo contemporaneo.This article reconstructs a tradition of critical theory in which the very no­tion of individuality plays a central role. Already in Marx, the notion of in­di­viduality is crucial in the anthropology, as well as in the social theory and in the normative background. The centrality of individuality becomes mo­re explicit in Adorno, as well as its intertwined critical and utopian as­pects. There is no doubt that Honneth belongs to this tradition and tries to ac­tualise it from a socio-psychological point of view and with due con­si­de­ration to the contemporary transformations of capitalism

The crises of neo-liberalism, modalities of revolt and adaptability The aim of the article is to locate the current crisis within the history of neo-liberalism with its successive crises. The authors point to the fact that the crisis is the latest in a series of financial and economic crises, to which must be added energy and food crises. The article analyses the social effects of neo-liberalism by way of its return to a logic focused on the production of absolute surplus-value, following the revolt of the financial bourgeoisie against the social State. It concludes with an examination of the effects of the various forms of resistance to neo-liberalism upon the modes of legitimation that are in operation. Focusing in particular on the situation in France, the article argues that the reactions to the crisis, between revolt and resignation, are to be explained by way of the structural effects of neo-liberalism and in terms of the crisis of legitimation now affecting it

Comment transformer les définitions communes de la justice sociale afin qu'elles puissent rendre compte des formes aujourd'hui les plus caractéristiques de l'injustice sociale? Comment leur faire rendre compte des souffrances de " ceux qui ont trop à dire pour pouvoir le dire "? Telles sont les questions auxquelles ce livre se propose de répondre. Dans une démarche originale, Emmanuel Renault reprend et élargit la théorie de la reconnaissance élaborée par le philosophe allemand Axel Honneth, afin de proposer une grammaire des luttes sociales mais aussi une grille d'analyse des injustices que ces luttes prennent rarement en charge. C'est par la reconnaissance que les autres et la société lui accordent que chacun peut bénéficier des conditions substantielles d'une vie digne d'être vécue. Inversement, les dénis de reconnaissance sont à l'origine de souffrances sociales et psychiques majeures. Dans cette perspective, l'auteur procède à un examen critique des théories contemporaines qui structurent notre pensée politique et sociale, proposées par J. Rawls, J. Habermas, M. Walzer et C. Taylor, P Bourdieu, T. Negri, etc. S'appuyant sur les travaux de la sociologie et la psychologie sociale qui analysent les mouvements sociaux, les restructurations du travail ou les souffrances engendrées par la précarisation ou par l'exclusion, il tente d'élaborer une théorie globale permettant d'éclairer la multiplicité des phénomènes étudiés. Ce livre soutient que la philosophie doit prendre l'injustice au sérieux, car c'est en elle que se déterminent les enjeux des discours sur la justice. Il propose ainsi une philosophie assumant sa dimension politique, reconnaissant qu'elle se meut à l'intérieur du monde réel et non simplement dans le ciel des idées. Il offre un argumentaire global au service de ceux qui font l'expérience quotidienne de l'injustice et sont en conséquence intéressés à la transformation de l'ordre social existant.

This paper contrasts the Hegelianism of contemporary neo-pragmatism and the Hegelianism of classical pragmatism as it has been reassessed in contemporary Deweyan scholarship. Drawing on Dewey’s interpretation of Hegel, this paper argues that Hegel’s theory of the spirit is in many aspects more akin to Dewey’s pragmatism than Brandom’s. The first part compares Dewey’s pragmatism with Hegel’s conceptions of experience and the theory/practice relation. The second part compares Dewey’s naturalism with Hegel’s theory of the relation between nature and spirit.

The purpose of this article is to bridge the gap between critical theory as understood in the Frankfurt school tradition on the one hand, and social ontology understood as a reflection on the ontological presuppositions of social sciences and social theories on the other. What is at stake is the type of social ontology that critical theory needs if it wants to tackle its main social ontological issue: that of social transformation. This paper’s claim is that what is required is neither a substantial social ontology, nor a relational social ontology, but a processual one. The first part of this article elaborates the distinction between substantial, relational and processual social ontologies. The second part analyzes the various ways in which this distinction can be used in social ontological discussions. Finally, the third part focuses on the various possible social ontological approaches to the issue of social transformation.

This paper asks whether or not normative political philosophy can face the challenge of the critique of the political. This question is addressed to theories of justice in general, but this paper considers Habermas' position in particular. It advances the thesis that the main theoretical and political problem of theories of justice is that they have not really taken the abolitionist dimension of the concept of justice into account. As a consequence, they run the risk of reproducing in themselves the political abstraction that they should criticise

The question of social medicine provides the opportunity to engage in a critical reading of Foucault's theory of biopower. The analyses dedicated by Foucault to `the birth of social medicine' represent one of the few examples of a thorough application of that theory. They allow Foucault to show the heuristic value of the biopolitical hypothesis at the level of the most concrete historical materiality, and not just at that of the general history of the forms of governmentality. These analyses, however, also allow the historiographical and political limits of the biopolitical hypothesis to come to light. From the perspective of the history of sciences as well as from that of the analysis of the modalities of social critique in the first half of the nineteenth century, Foucault appears to provide an interpretation that is too continuist and tends to homogenise the historical phenomena. The disqualification of social medicine relies in part on simplifications that continue to bear great significance today in view of the current transformations in the social question.

Marx and his Deflationist Conception of Philosophy What is the status of philosophy in the Marxian project ? To answer this question, we must examinethe place of philosophy in the Marxian opus and we must qualify the nature of the philosophicalposition which can be attributed to Marx. The thesis put forward in the article is that the specificnature of the Marxian enterprise is less the result of its being a defence of a new philosophical principle , and more a case of its having formulated a new practice ofphilosophy. This practice is one which is characterised by its deflationary thrust. A comparison withpragmatism and with critical theory can help us to spell out the issues which are involved here

Two paradoxes seem to characterise the method of the critique of ideology. The first has to do with the fact that ideologies are “both true and false” (Adorno). The second has to do with the fact that the critique of ideology seems to carry both a normative and a descriptive dimension. The article argues that these two paradoxes disappear when the critique of ideology is addressed by way of a Hegelian mode of immanent critique. Such an approach highlights both the specific normative claim of the critique of ideology and the specific problematic which it exemplifies.

Marx, avec Kant et Bayle, est l'un des rares auteurs dont la pensée est associée dans son ensemble à la notion de critique. Il fit subir des modifications décisives à la fonction critique et il est sans doute l'un de ceux qui eurent le plus d'influence sur les consonances actuelles du thème de la critique en philosophie et en politique. La notion de critique est centrale chez le jeune Marx comme chez le Marx de la maturité, mais elle est prise en de nombreuses acceptions, tributaires de différents modèles philosophiques, et elle remplit de multiples fonctions théoriques. On soutient ici que le thème du rapport de la critique et de la crise fournit le point de vue qui permet de les unifier, tout en reconnaissant que cette unification est instable et que, sur ce point, comme sur tant d'autres, la pensée marxienne comporte une irréductible ambiguïté. Marx' thought is very closely associated with the notion of « critique », and he had deeply influenced the present-day meaning of this notion in philosophy as well as in politics. Nevertheless, he gave different meanings and theoretical functions to this notion, and he used different philosophical models to elaborate his criticism of philosophy, politics, political economy, etc. This paper tries to show that the notion of « critique » finds its central meaning, originality and unity in a relationship between « critique » and crisis