Face-to-face , second term, 30 hours of theory.

Second term
Monday from 15:15 to 17:15 at 119 Marais 3300

French

Starting from certain modern and contemporary authors, question different possible conceptions of the relationship between social and political life, with, as leading hypothesis, the idea that each of these relations implicitly or explicitly engages a certain philosophy of the body.

For the Bachelor in Law :

For the Bachelor in Philosophy :

For the Bachelor in Political Sciences: General :

The course content is modified in part each year. For example, here is the table of contents of the course:

Introduction
Chapter 1: Body, Freedom and sociality. Reflections from Hannah Arendt
1. Work, labour, action
1.1. Work
1.1.1. The primary needs of the body and the cyclical temporality of work
1.1.2. Scarcity and hardness
1.1.3. Reproduction of the workforce and consumption of the object
           
1.2. Labour
1.2.1. The artefact and the transcendence of the world
1.2.2. Labour as a finalised activity
1.2.3. Plurality of the production activities and interchangeability of individuals 1.2.4. From consumption to use

1.3. Action
1.3.1. Action, freedom, plurality
1.3.2. The absolute value of the action
1.3.3. Social demand and political advocacy
1.3.4. Singularity, unpredictability, vulnerability and conflictuality of the action
 
2. The mortality of the acting individual
2.1. Work as struggle against death
2.2. Death and tool
2.3. Singularity, vulnerability and immortality of the action
          
3. Language and freedom
3.1. Language and emotion
3.2. Language and practice
3.3. The narrative identity of yourself
 
3.3.1. The visilbility of the action: to present and show yourself
3.3.2. Promise and forgiveness
 
Chapter 2: Body, Freedom, normativity. Reflection Fichte and Hegel
 
1. Kant and the radical invisibility of freedom
1.1. The natural determinations of the body and the invisibility of freedom
1.2. Freedom and universality
1.3. Respect and sympathy
 
2. Corporeality, freedom, recognition (Fichte)
2.1. Criticism of the Kantian formalism
2.2. Freedom and activity
2.3. Freedom and corporeality
2.4. The idea of a community of self-limitation of spheres of activity
2.5. Recognition of recognition

3. Body, negativity and institution (Hegel)
3.1. From Fichte to Hegel
3.2. Liberty and contradiction
3.3. Liberty as a spirit
3.4. Dialectic of the master and the slave
 
3.4.1. To feel, to perceive, to know
3.4.2. Desire and negativity
3.4.3. Specularity or the original duplication of consciousness
3.4.4. The deadly struggle of consciences and the possibility of work
3.4.5. Be my body!
3.4.6. The objective mind
           
3.5. Subjectivity and institution
3.5.1. Civil society and State
3.5.2. Strong institutionnalism and weak institutionnalism
 
 
Chapter 3 : Dialectic and non-dialectic since Hegel
 
1. Marx
1.1. Criticismm of Hegel's political philosophy (1843)
1.1.1. The " mystical pantheism" of Hegel: the inversion of the subject and predicate
1.1.2. The apparent effectiveness of the state and unrealisation of individuals
1.1.3. Real extremes do not accept mediation
1.2. Manuscripts of 1844
1.2.1. Loss of activity, loss of the object, loss of the relation to another man
1.2.2. Money and the limitlessness of the desire to possess
1.2.3. Alienation as a loss of objectivity
1.3. The "Theses on Feuerbach" and "The German Ideology" (1845)
1.3.1. Religion as projection and inversion
1.3.2. Sensitive intuition and emancipation
1.3.3. Towards a philosophy of praxis
1.3.4. expansive logic of the capitalist system and logic of the practical activity

1.4. The first book of the Capital (1867)
1.4.1.  The fetish and the commodity
1.4.2.  The commercial exploitation of the workforce
1.4.3.   A contradiction at the core of the validation process
1.4.4.   The unrealisation of the living work

2. Sartre: Critique of Dialectical Reason
 
2.1. The dialectical structure of the praxis
2.2. The need and the organism
2.3. Scarcity and inhumanity of the other man
2.4. The genesis of the groups
2.5. The serie
2.6. From serie to group
2.7. History and liberty

Lecture. A series of optional texts are made available on the eSaintLouis course webpage.

Oral examination

Texts related to the material of the course will be regularly put online.

A syllabus will be provided.