Emmanuel Renault

The meanings and functions of the notion of social philosophy in John Dewey’s writings have not really been subjected to serious philological investigation. Until recently, Dewey scholarship has simply equated social philosophy either to political philosophy in general, or to philosophy of education,1 and in recent years we have tended to read this social philosophy from a retrospective point of view, with reference to contemporary debates about social philosophy as an alternative to contemporary political philosophy.2 One reason for this lack of philological attention has been that the only way to study Dewey’s project of social philosophy was to refer to the English translation of the Chinese translation...

This article argues that Axel Honneth’s ethics of recognition offers a robust model for a renewed critical theory of society, provided that it does not shy away from its political dimensions. First, the ethics of recognition needs to clarify its political moment at the conceptual level to remain conceptually sustainable. This requires a clarification of the notion of identity in relation to the three spheres of recognition, and a clarification of its exact place in a politics of recognition. We suggest that a return to Hegel’s mature theory of subjectivity helps specify the relationship between the normative demand for autonomous identity and its realization in and through politics.

La période d’Iéna est décisive pour la formation de la pensée hégélienne de la maturité ; elle est marquée par une prise de distance progressive avec Schelling et par les premières tentatives d’élaboration d’un nouveau système philosophique. Pourtant, les textes hégéliens d’Iéna n’ont fait l’objet en fançais que d’études ponctuelles. L’ouvrage, qui tente de prendre en compte l’ensemble de la pensée hégélienne de cette période, s’intéresse aux transformations qui affectent celle-ci, tant dans le champ de la logique que dans ceux de la philosophie de la nature ou de la philosophie de l’esprit. Il s’efforce également de dégager l’intérêt actuel des analyses hégéliennes relatives à des questions de philosophie sociale telles que le travail, la valeur, ou la reconnaissance.

From John Maynard Keynes’s prediction of a fifteen-hour workweek to present-day speculation about automation, we have not stopped forecasting the end of work. Critical theory and political philosophy have turned their attention away from the workplace to focus on other realms of domination and emancipation. But far from coming to an end, work continues to occupy a central place in our lives. This is not only because of the amount of time people spend on the job. Many of our deepest hopes and fears are bound up in our labor—what jobs we perform, how we relate to others, how we might flourish. The Return of Work in Critical Theory presents a bold new account of the human significance of work and the human costs of contemporary forms of work organization. A collaboration among experts in philosophy, social theory, and clinical psychology, it brings together empirical research with incisive analysis of the political stakes of contemporary work. The Return of Work in Critical Theory begins by looking in detail at the ways in which work today fails to meet our expectations. It then sketches a phenomenological description of work and examines the normative premises that underlie the experience of work. Finally, it puts forward a novel conception of work that can renew critical theory’s engagement with work and point toward possibilities for transformation. Inspired by Max Horkheimer’s vision of critical theory as empirically informed reflection on the sources of social suffering with emancipatory intent, The Return of Work in Critical Theory is a lucid diagnosis of the malaise and pathologies of contemporary work that proposes powerful remedies.

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

In contemporary political philosophy, the disqualification of the problematic of alienation has to a large extent rested on the conviction that the norms of democracy, justice, and the good life provide a sufficient framework within which to outline a social critique that is politically pertinent. The paradox is that, at the very moment when such a conviction was becoming widespread, its validity was being refuted by the historical reality. It would appear that the casting-off of the Fordist system has seen the emergence of a different set of social pathologies which, if they are to be adequately thematised and criticised, require the activation of the notion of alienation.

Au cours de cet entretien, Emmanuel Renault nous offre un aperçu de la manière dont la thématique de la reconnaissance est traitée en France aujourd’hui, notamment à travers le renouveau des études sur Hegel et Marx. Il explique la façon dont la reconnaissance a pu s’ériger en paradigme (en dépit de ses usages multiples et variés en France comme ailleurs), au cours de la dernière décennie et le rôle joué par Axel Honneth dans ce procès. Finalement, il explicite sa manière d’envisager la pratique de la philosophie politique et son projet d’une critique du capitalisme. Emmanuel Renault nous livre également un commentaire critique mais constructif sur la manière dont Paul Ricœur envisage la reconnaissance et suggère quelques pistes concernant les possibles développements futurs des usages de la reconnaissance