Emmanuel Renault

This paper begins by defending the twofold relevance, political and theoretical, of the notion of social suffering. Social suffering is a notion politics cannot do without today, as it seems indispensable to describe all the aspects of contemporary injustice. As such, it has been taken up in a number of significant research programmes in different social sciences (sociology, anthropology, social psychology). The notion however poses significant conceptual problems as it challenges disciplinary boundaries traditionally set up to demarcate individual and social phenomena. I argue that philosophy has a role to play in the attempt to integrate the diverging perspectives stemming from the social sciences. I attempt to show that, as it engages with the social sciences to account for the conceptual and normative issues thrown open by the question of social suffering, philosophy in fact retrieves the very idea of critical theory, as a conjugated critique of social reality and of its knowledge. I conclude by showing how the question of social suffering then becomes a useful criterion to distinguish between the different existing approaches in critical theory

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

The evidence today is practically uncontested: about thirty years ago we left Fordism behind and entered a new phase of capitalism. That the structures of the post-Fordist social order call for new modes of social critique is also a prevalent idea. The category of alienation continues, however, to be discredited. Nevertheless it is not clear that the categories of democracy (as apparatuses of non-domination), justice and the good life are capable of bringing about the political effects that may be expected today from the concept of alienation. For these reasons, not only the historical diagnostic that appears to have authorized jettisoning the problematic of alienation but also the model of critique used to replace it demand critical scrutiny.

If it seems fully legitimate to introduce Marx in the contemporary discussion about recognition, it is more disputable to attribute to Marx an unified conception of recognition. There is no doubt that Marx hasn’t provided any systematic account of recognition, but he has tackled the issue of recognition from various points of view. Could these various points of view be unified in a general conception of recognition? This article claims that this is not the case since three accounts of recognition should be distinguished that are hardly compatible one with the other: one Feuerbachian account of recognition of the species being in the other, one account of recognition related to the dynamics of disrespect as social experience, and one account of recognition through social roles

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

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

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.

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 Critical Naturalism Manifesto is a common platform put forward as a basis for broad discussions around the problems faced by critical theory today. We are living in a time, e.g. a pandemic time, when present-day challenges exert immense pressure on social critique. This means that models of social critique should not be discussed from the point of view of their normative justification or political effects alone, but also with reference to their ability to tackle contemporary problematic issues (like the dismantlement of the welfare state, the environmental catastrophe, and the sanitary crisis). With this manifesto, we invite varying practices of philosophical, artistic and scientific social critique to take seriously the enormous challenges our societies face with regard to inner and outer nature. We first identity eleven theses of critical naturalism which contemporary critical theory should take into consideration. We then identify the historical crises and catastrophes that critical naturalism seeks to respond to, dispelling the prejudices against naturalism in contemporary critical thought, and considering alternative answers to these questions such as social constructivism, accelerationism, xenofeminism, flat ontologism, and monist world ecology. By sketching the notions of nature and naturalism, we anchor critical naturalism in the history of materialism and critical theory, understood initially as that of the Frankfurt School, but expanded and enriched by other approaches to social critique. Finally, we sketch models and projects of critical naturalism, which are exemplary fragments of varying ways to practice naturalist social critique.

It is simply a fact that it is not in the same intention that Dewey relates to Hegel in a programmatic article such as “The Present position of Logical Theory,” in his Lectures on Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit, in his Lectures on the Logic of Hegel, and in the articles collected in The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy. Dewey’s references to Hegel differ in status and functions, and these differences have to be made explicit if one wants to elaborate a consistent account of Dewey’s relation to Hegel. The article proceeds in four steps. It distinguishes between what relates to Dewey’s reading of Hegel, to Dewey’s use of Hegel, and to Dewey’s reconstruction of Hegel. In a last and concluding step, it deals with the methodological originality of Dewey’s project of actualizing Hegel.

ABSTRACT While the first generation of the so-called Frankfurt School has promoted a strong interconnection between social critique and knowledge of the social world, contemporary critical theory seems to consider that epistemological issues don’t deserve anymore consideration. Is it really possible to elaborate a convincing theory of social critique without taking seriously the various links between social critique and knowledge? This article argues that the answer is no. In a first step, it recalls the ways in which the philosophical debate about social critique is currently articulated and how it disconnects social critique and knowledge. One of the reasons for such a disconnection relates to a vision of politics as consisting mainly in a conflict between normative principles, notably between conceptions of social justice. This vision of politics is criticized in the second step of this paper. A second reason, examined in the third part of the paper, relates to the risk of epistemic violence. The shared but questionable assumption is that any sociological or philosophical attempt to produce knowledge would necessarily lead to epistemic violence rather than to epistemic empowerment.

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.

The concepts of globalisation and of neoliberalism are symptomatic of the transformations which have taken place in the way the question of social critique has been addressed. The contemporary period has witnessed the emergence of a protocol of social analysis in which political inquiry is linked to historical diagnosis, drawing on the categories of historical periodisation and of economic analysis. The debate is thus, to a certain degree, shifted to the terrain of Marxism. As for the latter, it is confronted with a new set of theoretical and political challenges.

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

ABSTRACT Dewey's critical conception of work deserves consideration because it combines two types of models of social critique that are usually considered separately in contemporary Dewey scholarship. In the syllabus Social Institutions and the Study of Morals, Dewey contends that the valuation of social settings should be grounded on criteria immanent to social experience, and he applies his model of immanent critique to work-related issues. In his philosophy of education, he highlights that institutional settings should be valued from the point of view of their formative effects, and in Democracy and Education, the formative effects of work are put to the fore. The case of work illustrates the fact that specific institutional settings require that immanent critique be complemented by critique of the formative effects. The psychological and social centrality of work implies that the problems met in the social experience of work produce effects that concern not only the social experience of work but also life outside of work. Therefore, these effects cannot be accurately tackled by an immanent critique of work.

Current debates on neo-liberal governmentality and the medicalization-psychologization of the social constantly refer to Foucault’s theory of biopolitics. I critically examine Foucault’s notions of biopolitics and liberalism as conveyed in his articles on the emergence of social medicine in the 19th century. My thesis is that the movement of sanitary reform is irreducible to the mere development of liberal governmentality and that the idea of social medicine was associated in the period with a critique of the normative principles of liberalism which remains relevant today

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.

The interpretation of Marx’s references to work and to domination is a vexed question. Can we say that Marx criticizes capitalism in terms of its effects on work? Or does he criticize 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.

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...