Seminar “Philosophical Fictions of Modernity”
organization Colas Duflo (CSLF/Litt&phi) and Anne-Lise Rey (Ireph)
Monday morning, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Paris Nanterre University, Ricoeur building, Council room (4th floor)
That philosophy can be elaborated and exposed by means of fictions, that fictions feed on philosophical problems and theses, that is not new, whether we simply think of Plato, Lucian or Plutarch. But this link – perhaps consubstantial – is replayed in the period of the classical age and the Enlightenment. It becomes both more present and more problematic, more indissoluble and more dramatized, more fruitful and more concealed. Playful pretense deploys its epistemic stakes here. The philosophical work to define the conditions of science makes the place of the imagination problematic, at the same time as it leads to the invention of hypothetical devices. But do these fictional worlds necessarily have a relationship to the real world? The interest in possible worlds opens (paradoxically?) spaces for discussion to rethink scientific normativity in modern times as well as metaphysical, political and moral questions. The development of philosophy outside the University forces it to invent new forms of exhibition. The rise of the novel, as well as the attempts at a renewed theatre, are accompanied by a manifest philosophical ambition, in the themes tackled, the characters and the discourses they hold.
What will interest us in this seminar is on the one hand to identify and study cases, either of philosophers who produce fictions (distinct from thought experiments, hypotheses, etc.) or even reflect on our relationship to fiction, either novelists, fabulists, playwrights, etc. who write texts with a philosophical ambition, and on the other hand to reflect on the tools, notions, concepts, which we have to approach these texts and the specific problems which they can pose.
The seminar started in 2022-2023 will continue in the years to come. All proposals are welcome.
January 23: A.-L. Rey and C. Duflo : Introduction
February 13: Julien Techer (in video): “On the thought experiment” and Franck Salaün : “What is a thinking fiction? Definition test and examples. »
20 mars : Claire Etchegaray : “The fiction of the independent existence of bodies in Hume” and Helen Boons : “Press and fiction in the 18th century: a surprising couple? »
27 mars : Daniel Dumouchel : “Rousseau, fictions and autobiography” and Alexis Tadie : “Fiction and thought experiment”.
17 avril : Benoit Petiet : “A climate of drought that leaves no room for tenderness or consolation” (Jean Starobinski about Candide) and Anne Sauvagnargues : “Fictionphiles. On a surreptitious contamination of fiction at work in the theory of life
May 15: Juliet Fabre : “Mystifications diderotiennes” et Francois Thomas : “Voltaire, philosophy and fictions of translation, the example of Zadig”.
