Andrew Gibson

The article lays down the broad strokes of an interpretive approach to social criticism. In developing this approach, the author stresses the importance of both a pluralistic notion of social justice and a rich ideal of personal growth. While objecting to one-dimensional conceptions of social justice centering on legal equality, the author develops the idea of there being multiple "spheres of justice", including the spheres of "care" and "merit". Each of these spheres, he argues, is subject to historical interpretation. He furthers this view by arguing that the social basis for these different spheres is best understood against the canvas of an ideal of self-fulfillment and individuality. Based on the elaboration of these two sets of premises—a pluralistic conception of social justice and a collective ideal of personal self-fulfillment—the article outlines the basis for and challenges inherent to the practice of interpretive social criticism

Françoise Proust’s essential points of reference are Kant and Walter Benjamin. Alain Badiou ignores the extraordinary and sometimes beautiful dark power of Proust’s work on Benjamin. As is clear, however, from both Daniel Bensaïd’s interview with Proust and the title of Élizabeth Lemirre and Catherine Perret’s memorial volume (Une philosophie de la résistance: Françoise Proust), the concept of Proust that is most likely to become the dominant one is not Badiou’s, but rather the concept of her as above all a philosopher of `resistance’

Explores the concept of historical intermittency in 5 recent French philosophers. Andrew Gibson engages with five recent and contemporary French philosophers, Badiou, Jambet, Lardreau, Francoise Proust and Ranciere, who each produce a post-Hegelian philosophy of history founded on an assertion of the intermittency of historical value. Gibson explores this `anti-schematics of historical reason' and its implication for politics, ethics and aesthetics in a wide range of modern intellectual contexts, finding its necessary complement and most powerful expression in a wealth of modern art, chiefly modern literature. The result is a sustained reflection on the possible character of a contemporary philosophy of history and an important contribution to our knowledge of contemporary French philosophy.