Articles
“Elements of a Structural Analysis of the Event of the 11th of September 2001”, 2024
“Machines and Us: The Comparison of Machines and Humans at the Test of the Problematic of Solipsism”, 2024
“Description, Language, Other Minds, Reduction, and Phenomenology“, Philosophy Study, 134, Vol. 13, No. 9, 395-408, December 2023.
How to think a unique and determinative turn in analytic philosophy of mind? To answer this question this article first presents an attempt to render clear that analytic phenomenology, by contrast with conceptions of phenomenology of the XXth century, beneficially dispenses with several methodological and conceptual assumptions that were assumed to be compulsory, as phenomenological reduction, a notion of synthesis, and a philosophical notion of the a priori. It then presents some eventual difficulties to the achievement of a phenomenological turn within analytic philosophy, which are, the neglect of historicity, abstractionism, the acknowledgement of the place of language in our lives, and solipsism. It finally presents several demands that concern the felicity of contemporary analytic phenomenologies, namely, anti-abstractionism, fallibilism, attention to polyadic relations, and the integration of ecological and decolonial concerns of our cultures.
“The Notion of Negative Fact in the Early Works of Russell and Wittgenstein”, 44th International Wittgenstein Symposium: 100 Years Tractatus, Österreichische Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft, Edited by Alois Pichler, Esther Heinrich-Ramharter, and Friedrich Stadler, no. XXIX, 589-597, 2023.
This paper consists in a comparative study of the notions of negative fact in the early works of Russell and Wittgenstein. How to account for our ability to think both that it is false that what is not the case is the case and incorrect to think that it is true that what is not the case is the case? Are the truth and the correctness of such thoughts and of their expressions meant to be insured by the existence of negative facts? Or do we need to think of negative facts differently? In his early works, Russell argues not only that negative facts exist, but also that the philosophical problem they suffice to solve is real. While in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein dissolves the philosophical problem by letting the superfluity and misleadingness of the affirmation of the existence of negative facts be seen as such.
“Autonomy, Constitutivity, Exemplars, Paradigms”, Conversations: the Journal of Cavellian Studies, 10, 2023.
This paper proposes an exploration of relationships and exchanges between the philosophies of Cavell and Kuhn by the study of aspects of the philosophy of Wittgenstein. Although the notions of language games and family resemblances used by Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions have been elaborated by Wittgenstein, Cavell’s reading of Wittgenstein inspired that of Kuhn. I will attempt to show that against this background, Cavell’s conception of the relations of arts, works of arts, and artists, can be relevantly compared to Kuhn’s conception of the relations of sciences, scientific successes, and scientific practitioners. Three ways of elucidating the mutual exchanges between Cavell and Kuhn may be distinguished: One consists in clarifying the ways in which Cavell and Kuhn explicitly mutually inspired each other. Another one consists in clarifying that Cavell’s Wittgenstein inspired Kuhn. And a third one consists in clarifying that Wittgenstein inspired both Kuhn and Cavell and the ways in which he inspired them. This third way is not exclusive of the first two and even contributes to these by rendering explicit their stakes. For at stake is not only the restitution of the truth of an exegetical mediation: that Kuhn’s Wittgenstein cannot be truly understood without accounting for Cavell’s Wittgenstein. Rather the transitive character of the mediation implied by interpretation does not substitute for the intransitive character of a thoroughly philosophical inheritance. It is not the case that because Kuhn was inspired by Cavell who was inspired by Wittgenstein, that Kuhn could be inspired only by Cavell’s Wittgenstein, and not by Wittgenstein. Further, the question is not only philological but philosophical if we take into account the methods and the philosophy of Wittgenstein. To use an image: that a path was indicated by someone to someone else could not have implied that what was indicated by a person to another was oneself; this much was already known to us with the old fable of the moon, the finger and the sage. With this paper I will thus first seek to establish the relevance of the comparison of Cavell’s conception of the relations of arts, works of arts, and artists with Kuhn’s conception of the relations of sciences, scientific successes, and scientific practitioners. Then I will attempt to render explicit the unrestrictive limits of this comparison both to account for the mutual exchanges between Cavell and Kuhn and consider or bring out some symmetries and asymmetries concerning the place of paradigms in sciences and arts.
“Le Solipsisme dans L’être et le néant“ in L’être et le néant. Nouvelles lectures, Les Belles Lettres, 2015.
“Renoncer à l’esprit de sérieux: Valeur et Responsabilité dans L’être et le néant” in Situations de Sartre, Hermann, 2013.
Reviews
Review of Wittgenstein’s Metaphilosophy by Paul Horwich (Oxford University Press, 2012) with Rupert Read, Philosophy, xv+225pp., ISBN-10: 019966112X; ISBN-13: 978-0199661121, Oxford University Press, 2012.
Review of Qu’est-ce que l’intentionalité ? (Vrin, 2012) by Valérie Aucouturier (Université Saint-Louis, Bruxelles), Implications Philosophiques (Philosophical Commitments), January 2013.
Editorial
“‘Post-Truth’?”, with Rupert Read, Nordic Wittgenstein Review, July 2019.
Translations
(Unpublished) “Le Test de Turing”, “Turing’s test”, excerpt from “Brains in a vat”, Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 8-12, 2018.
“How is it possible to make one see images in a dream ?” Letters 8 and 9 from the correspondence between Augustine and Nebridius” by Emmanuel Bermon, Augustiniana 67 (1-2), 73-99, 2017.
With H. Wagner (Bordeaux Montaigne University – SPH), “The Sense of Justice. A Realistic Utopia ?” by Céline Spector (Bordeaux Montaigne – SPH, IUF).
Edition
“Post-Truth”, with Rupert Read, a special issue of the Nordic Wittgenstein Review, 2019.
Wittgenstein and Phenomenology, with Oskari Kuusela and Mihai Ometiță, Routledge, 2018.
Editorial Assistance for Stoïcisme et lien social by Valéry Laurand (Bordeaux Montaigne University), éditions Classiques Garnier, 2014.
Unpublished (Pre-Prints Available on Demand)
“Colonialism, Legitimation, and Violence”
“Ecocide and Extractivism”
“La critique du solipsisme dans le Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus de Wittgenstein” – “The Criticism of Solipsism in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus of Wittgenstein”
“Lewis and Friedman on the A Priori”
Doctoral and Master Thesis
Ph.D Dissertation: “The Issue of Solipsism in the Early Works of Sartre and Wittgenstein”, 2016.
Master Dissertation: “Indicible et Expérience: La Question des Limites du Langage chez Nietzsche et Wittgenstein”, 2008.