Books & Ideas is the English-language mirror website of La Vie des Idées, a free online journal which has gained a large readership and established itself in France as a major place for intellectual debate since 2007.
Right to a healthy environment, rights of nature or of non-human animals: can environmental rights serve the cause of environmentalism? Legal expert Diane Roman analyses the pathways towards the jurisdictional enforcement of these new rights, and highlights the progress they have made, as well as their limitations.
Quotas in India contribute to the emancipation of lower castes while producing perverse effects that are difficult to control. Rohini Somanathan questions the right balance between targeted positive discrimination policies and public policies with a universal vocation.
Is another world possible? Answering this question requires us to first ask ourselves what “possible” might mean. We must return to the classics: from Aristotle to Bourdieu, many authors can help us understand what an alternative might look like.
Are we free, or are our actions determined by natural causes? The problem thus posed is a metaphysical construct: From late antiquity onwards, the authentic meaning of freedom as a principle of action has been obscured by the invention of free will and the excessive importance given to the concept of the will.
About: Pascal Sévérac, Puissance de l’enfance. Vygotski avec Spinoza, Vrin
About: Delphine Dulong, Premier ministre, CNRS Éditions
About: Jean Vioulac, Anarchéologie. Fragments hérétiques sur la catastrophe historique, Puf
Jane Mansbridge has made a major contribution to political theory. She has spent her life combining empirical research with a theoretical approach, and has played a vital role in developing the critique of rational choice and the study of democracy as a permanent process continually in flux.
Rorty made conversation a philosophical genre in its own right, which led him to reject any distinctions he considered futile: between analytic and continental philosophy, between the Enlightenment and postmodernity, between philosophy and literature.
In 1947, Princess Elizabeth promised to serve ‘the great imperial family’, as part of the attempt to remake post-war Britain as a global power. The British Empire collapsed; but this language of service and Commonwealth allowed the Queen to take up the postcolonial concerns of the 21st century.
The current world-wide demand for “real” democracy as embodied in the Indignados (15-M) movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement reiterates long-lasting frustrations as regards representative government and the incompleteness of democratic experiences throughout the world. This dossier gathers interviews and essays by renowned scholars on the conception of democracy as an on-going experience and not as a finished model.
After four years of monetary crisis in Europe, with serious political and social consequences for some countries, as well as a general mistrust of Europe’s political and economic models, new analyses bring light on what happened in 2009 and on how to improve the current situation. Books&Ideas presents them in a selection of essays and reviews on Europe, its money, its construction, and its politics.
A selection of five essays and reviews recently published in Books&Ideas discusses the legacy and renewal of social class studies in France, Great-Britain and India.
What distinguishes a blank canvas from an empty frame? A simple object from a readymade? What is this mysterious gap that art digs as it separates from life? Such are the questions posed by Arthur Danto, a major figure of contemporary art theory.
Now a well-known Chinese lawyer of the democratic dissidence in China, Zhang Sizhi was once a young nationalist, a high-ranking official in the court of Beijing and a victim of anti-rightist repression. In his memoirs, he provides a detailed and fascinating description of the profession and China in the second half of the 20th century.
From the margins to which he was confined, Georges Devereux (1908-1985) formulated some of the most original scientific work of his century. In the wake of Freud, whose legacy he firmly defended, Devereux initiated the transcultural practice of psychiatry. François Laplantine, one of his former disciples, reconsiders the legacy of ethnopsychoanalysis’ founder.
Quelle est la part de la référence religieuse dans le discours de Vox, le parti d’extrême droite espagnol ? Le catholicisme est au cœur de sa revendication identitaire et nationaliste, mais sert aussi de ressource symbolique pour combattre les courants féministes et progressistes.
L’Italie a-t-elle une histoire avant l’unification ? Au cœur de la Méditerranée, pendant des siècles, la péninsule se présente comme une koiné culturelle à première vue uniforme mais montre une complexe pluralité politique, économique et sociale.
Critiquée pour des manquements à répétition, la police française semble désespérément manquer d’une ligne d’action explicite en matière d’encadrement des manifestations. Celle-ci pourrait pourtant s’inspirer de la logique de désescalade promue ailleurs sur le continent européen.
À propos de : Günther Anders, L’humain étranger au monde. Une anthropologie philosophique, Fario
À propos de : Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Histoire de la papesse Jeanne. Une enquête au cœur des textes, Presses Universitaires de Lyon
À propos de : Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, Sans transition. Une nouvelle histoire de l’énergie, Seuil