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1546Pragmatism and the Social Sciences: A Century of Influences and InteractionsEuropean Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 3 (2): 1-6. 2011.Richard Bernstein is among the pragmatist philosophers that have most significantly contributed to the advancement of a philosophical conversation between the American and the European traditions. His work has greatly helped the task of dismantling the boundaries that in the last decades had been erected between philosophical traditions. It is therefore with the greatest pleasure that The European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy inaugurates his series of monographs with Bernstei...
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775What Pragmatism means by Public ReasonEtica and Politica / Ethics & Politics 12 (1): 28-51. 2010.In this article I examine the main conceptions of public reason in contemporary political philosophy in order to set the frame for appreciating the novelty of the pragmatist understanding of public reason as based upon the notion of consequences and upon a theory of rationality as inquiry. The approach is inspired by Dewey but is free from any concern with history of philosophy. The aim is to propose a different understanding of the nature of public reason aimed at overcoming the limitations of …Read more
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543Review of C. Koopman, Pragmatism as Transition. Historicity and Hope in James, Dewey, and Rorty (review)European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 1 (1). 2009.Koopman’s book revolves around the notion of transition, which he proposes is one of the central ideas of the pragmatist tradition but one which had not previously been fully articulated yet nevertheless shapes the pragmatist attitude in philosophy. Transition, according to Koopman, denotes “those temporal structures and historical shapes in virtue of which we get from here to there”. One of the consequences of transitionalism is the understanding of critique and inquiry as historical pro...
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530Evolutionary Prolegomena to a Pragmatist Epistemology of BeliefIn Pragmatist Epistemologies, Lexington. 2011.
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494Pragmatism, Trascendentalism, and PerfectionismEuropean Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 2 (2). 2010.Introduction to the symposia on Pragmatism and Perfectionism appered on the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, vol. 2 issue 2, 2010
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223Workplace democracy—The recent debatePhilosophy Compass 14 (4). 2019.The article reviews the recent debate about workplace democracy. It first presents and critically discusses arguments in favor of democratizing the firm that are based on the analogy with states, meaningful work, the avoidance of unjustified hierarchies, and beneficial effects on political democracy. The second part presents and critically discusses arguments against workplace democracy that are based on considerations of efficiency, the difficulties of a transition towards democratic firms, and…Read more
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204From Judgment to Rationality: Dewey's Epistemology of PracticeTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 46 (4): 591-610. 2010.The question of rationality and of its role in human agency has been at the core of pragmatist concerns since the beginning of this movement. While Peirce framed the horizon of a new understanding of human reason through the idea of inquiry as aiming at belief-fixation and James stressed the individualistic drives that move individuals to action, it is in Dewey’s writing that we find the deepest understanding of the naturalistic and normative traits of rationality considered as the qualifying at…Read more
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112Between Pragmatism and Critical Theory: Social Philosophy Today (review)Human Studies 37 (1): 57-82. 2014.This paper aims at renovating the prospects for social philosophy through a confrontation between pragmatism and critical theory. In particular, it contends that the resources of pragmatism for advancing a project of emancipatory social philosophy have so far been neglected. After contrasting the two major traditions in social philosophy—the analytical and the critical—I proceed to outline the main traits of a pragmatist social philosophy. By inscribing pragmatism within the tradition of social …Read more
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80Rehabilitating Warranted Assertibility: Moral Inquiry and the Pragmatic Basis of ObjectivitySouthern Journal of Philosophy 51 (1): 1-23. 2013.This article defends a pragmatic conception of objectivity for the moral domain. I begin by contextualizing pragmatic approaches to objectivity and discuss at some length one of the most interesting proposals in this area, Cheryl Misak's conception of pragmatic objectivity. My general argument is that in order to defend a pragmatic approach to objectivity, the pragmatic stance should be interpreted in more radical terms than most contemporary proposals do. I suggest in particular that we should …Read more
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79The Practice-based Approach to Normativity of Frederick L. WillTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 48 (4): 483-511. 2012.There is... something both intellectually and socially unresponsive in the appeal to self-evidence upon controverted issues. Over the last two decades philosophers have focused increasingly on the role of society and practices in shaping practical normativity.3 Contemporary moral and political philosophy remains fundamentally committed to individualistic and causal approaches to normativity, but a contrary trend has taken root—at least since Wittgenstein’s insights regarding the role of context,…Read more
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70Expressive Inquiry and Practical ReasoningJournal of Speculative Philosophy 23 (4): 307-327. 2009.
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54Comprendre la nature de la pensée, redéfinir notre compréhension de la connaissance et de sa place dans la vie des individus et des sociétés, tel est le projet de John Dewey.
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51Introduction -- Inquiry as the logic of practical reasoning -- From reasoning to judgment -- Expressive inquiry -- The public sphere -- Pragmatism, pluralism, and the fact of relativism -- A pragmatic theory of objectivity -- Why justification matters? -- Pragmatism as an epistemology of practice.
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50Democratic Patterns of Interaction as a Norm for the WorkplaceJournal of Social Philosophy 51 (1): 27-53. 2019.Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.
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47From Normative Spheres to Normative Practices: New Prospects for Normative Theory after HabermasInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 21 (5): 680-712. 2013.In this paper I argue against Jürgen Habermas’s theoretical dualism between ethics and morality. I do this by showing how his account of normativity is vitiated by an unnecessary superposition of a social-evolutionary and a theoretical-linguistic account of normativity, and that this brings about theoretical problems that in the end cannot be overcome. I also show that Rainer Forst’s attempt at salvaging Habermas’s distinction is equally doomed to failure, but that his attempt nevertheless invit…Read more
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47Equal Accessibility to All: Habermas, Pragmatism, and the Place of Religious Beliefs in a Post‐Secular SocietyConstellations 19 (2): 267-287. 2012.This paper explores the epistemological impact of the idea of post-secularism on the concept of public reason. It does so by examining a strand of the Rawls-Habermas debate on the role of religious beliefs within public reason. The paper identifies a difficulty in the liberal solution that depends upon the unwillingness to challenge the proviso-like conception of public reason and contends that this difficulty is overcome neither by Habermas’ “institutional” version of proviso nor by Cristina La…Read more
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45The Social Ontology of DemocracyJournal of Social Ontology 4 (2): 157-185. 2018.This paper offers an account of the social foundations of a theory of democracy. It purports to show that a social ontology of democracy is the necessary counterpart of a political theory of democracy. It notably contends that decisions concerning basic social ontological assumptions are relevant not only for empirical research, but bear a significant impact also on normative theorizing. The paper then explains why interactionist rather than substantialist social ontologies provide the most prom…Read more
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45A Pragmatist Critique of Liberal Epistemology: Towards a Practice-Based Account of Public ReasonCritical Horizons 12 (3). 2011.This paper tackles with the issue of the place of comprehensive beliefs within the public space. It tries to strike a middle path between the liberal ban on comprehensive beliefs and the anti-liberal claim that comprehensive beliefs should be given full pride of place in public deliberations. The article relies on arguments that are inspired by the pragmatist tradition. It starts locating the main cause of failures at articulating comprehensive beliefs and public reason in a central feature of l…Read more
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43Richard Bernstein and the Challenge of a Broadened PragmatismEuropean Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 3 (2): 218-221. 2011.Richard Bernstein is among the pragmatist philosophers that have most significantly contributed to the advancement of a philosophical conversation between the American and the European traditions. His work has greatly helped the task of dismantling the boundaries that in the last decades had been erected between philosophical traditions. It is therefore with the greatest pleasure that The European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy inaugurates his series of monographs with Bernstei...
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36Solidarity as Social InvolvementMoral Philosophy and Politics 8 (2): 179-208. 2021.This paper reclaims the concept of solidarity for democratic theory. It does this by proposing a theory of solidarity as social involvement that is construed through the integration of three better known conceptions of solidarity that have played an influential role in the political thought of the last two centuries. The paper begins by explaining why solidarity should receive more sustained attention from political theorists with an interest in democracy, and proceeds by presenting two indispen…Read more
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35Employee Involvement and Workplace DemocracyBusiness Ethics Quarterly 31 (3): 360-385. 2021.The article aims to bridge divides between political theory and management and organization studies in theorizing workplace democracy. To achieve this aim, the article begins by introducing a new definition of democracy which, it is contended, is better suited than mainstream accounts to highlight the democratizing potential of employee involvement. It then defines employee involvement as an offshoot of early twentieth-century humanistic psychologies, from which it inherits an emancipatory ambit…Read more
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33The normativity of democracyEuropean Journal of Political Theory 18 (3): 371-392. 2017.The aim of this paper is to advance our understanding of the normative grammar of the concept of democracy by distinguishing two levels at which a political concept may play a normative function, a...
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33Le perfectionnisme à l’épreuve du pragmatismeDialogue 50 (1): 1-22. 2011.ABSTRACT: In this paper, I first lay out a definition of perfectionism drawing mainly upon the works of Cora Diamond and Stanley Cavell. Secondly, I introduce the notion of “expressive rationality” and show how it contributes to expanding the scope of pragmatism beyond its original boundaries. I then proceed to examine pragmatism and perfectionism as competing alternative accounts of moral experience, through a discussion of Coetzee’s novel The Lives of Animals. In so doing, I intend to show tha…Read more
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33Thomas Kuhn et l’oubli de la pratiqueDialogue 52 (3): 421-448. 2013.I examine Thomas Kuhn’s work regarding the role played by the concept of practice in the development of his theory of scientific rationality. I outline the epistemological implications of his theory of incommensurability. I then show how the original intuition of a practice-based and social conception of incommensurability is replaced by a more conventional linguistic interpretation. I then examine Kuhn’s solution to the problem of incommensurability and explain its inadequacy. I then show that,…Read more
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32Democracy and the limits of political realismCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 23 (4): 468-494. 2020.
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31Firms as coalitions of democratic cultures: towards an organizational theory of workplace democracyCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 27 (3): 405-428. 2024.The theory of the firm initially developed by Ronald Coase has made explicit the political nature of firms by putting hierarchy at the heart of the economic process. Theories of workplace democracy articulate this intuition in the normative terms of the conditions under which this political power can be legitimate. This paper presents an organizational theory of workplace democracy, and contends that the democratization of firms requires that we take their organizational dimension explicitly int…Read more
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30The Normative Creature: Toward a Practice-Based Account of NormativitySocial Theory and Practice 40 (1): 1-27. 2014.In this paper I offer a first account of a practice-based conception of normativity for the political domain. This standpoint is used to relocate the most sophisticated normative practices of justification and critique within an experience-based framework, that of the human being as a “normative creature.” I begin by discussing the two major paradigms in political theory, showing that their neglect of this broad framework of normativity is a serious drawback. I then proceed to articulate the cen…Read more
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29Symposia on R. Bernstein, The Pragmatic Turn, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2010 (review)European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 3 (2): 218-247. 2011.Richard Bernstein is among the pragmatist philosophers that have most significantly contributed to the advancement of a philosophical conversation between the American and the European traditions. His work has greatly helped the task of dismantling the boundaries that in the last decades had been erected between philosophical traditions. It is therefore with the greatest pleasure that The European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy inaugurates his series of monographs with Bernstei...
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25New Voices for Expressive Pragmatism: Bridging the Divide between Pragmatism and PerfectionismMetaphilosophy 45 (3): 399-421. 2014.This article explores the theme of moral rationality by examining two distinct philosophical approaches, those of perfectionism and pragmatism broadly construed. It does this by comparing Cora Diamond's reading of J. M. Coetzee's novel The Lives of Animals with an imaginary reading of the same novel tuned to a moral sensibility closer to Deweyan pragmatism. By comparing a real account with an imaginary one, the article intends to press Diamond's perfectionist understanding of problematic moral e…Read more
University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Department for Teaching and Research in Philosophy (UFR10)
PhD, 2004
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
20th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Social and Political Philosophy |