This paper presents the state of research on Hobbes in France these last 7-8 years. First of all, it explains how the generation of forerunners in the 1970s and 1980s has been replaced by the birth of a vigorous French school of Hobbes scholars in the 1990s and then by a new generation of academics during the recent years. The first part of this paper deals with the institutions and the institutional life concerned with Hobbes in France. The second part (...) is devoted to eight recent monographs on the English philosopher. The third one is focused on various collections of papers as well as special issues. The fourth part reckons five recent translations into French of some of Hobbes's works. The whole gives a complete account of the intense activity of scholars on Hobbes in France today, including works that are about to be published. (shrink)

La reconstruction baconienne est à la fois philosophique et politique : par la critique de nos conditions historiques, saisir le système des institutions épistémiques et politiques, et commencer une nouvelle histoire centrée sur l'invention. Tel est le sens qu'il a imprimé à la modernité.

Arnaud Milanese | : La philosophie pratique de Hobbes est problématique parce que son déterminisme ne semble pas permettre une théorie de l’action : comment penser l’imputation des actes, si l’on soutient que le libre-arbitre n’existe pas ? 1) Son analyse se construit à travers la critique de la théorie scolastique du libre arbitre (dans la controverse avec Bramhall), et, à cette fin, Hobbes semble puiser dans l’analyse d’Aristote pour y reprendre sa distinction entre actions volontaires et involontaires. 2) Mais (...) il ne peut penser cependant la spécificité des actions humaines, comme d’Aristote, par la contingence. 3) Il ne lui reste alors, pour penser l’imputation dans une ontologie déterministe, qu’à constituer une conception de l’individualité de l’agent qui repense le motif aristotélicien de la détermination intérieure à agir, mais sans libre-arbitre ni contingence. 4) Si les difficultés théologiques subsistent, c’est parce que, pour Hobbes, aucune philosophie ne peut résoudre les mystères de la foi. | : The hobbesian philosophy of action is problematical because his determinism seems unable to frame a theory of action : how could it be possible to conceive imputation of actions, if free will does not exist ? 1) This analysis is built on a criticism of scholastic theory of free will (in controversy with Bramhall), and, to this end, Hobbes seems to draw in the aristotelian analysis and makes use of his distinction between voluntary and involuntary actions. 2) But however, he cannot conceive the specificity of human actions the same way Aristotle did, that is, by the concept of contingency. 3) So, the only remaining way of thinking imputation in his determinist ontology seems to suppose a certain conception of the individuality of agents, and to rethink this way the aristotelian concept of inner determination to act, but without free will nor contingency. 4) Theological difficulties remains, of course, but only because, according to Hobbes, philosophy cannot solve the mysteries of faith. (shrink)

Pour Hobbes, notre vie mentale découle d'une expérience originaire dans laquelle ce qui apparaît est indistinctement donation de la réalité et expérience de soi. La philosophie doit se fonder sur cet apparaître. Ce fondement est fragile pourtant car l'apparaître n'est rien d'autre que l'imagination, si ceux-ci sont ramenés à leur source. Hobbes en tire la possibilité d'une ontologie et d'une connaissance réelle, liées à une saisie de l'intériorité. Ce lien fait aussi de cette expérience la ressource de l'anthropologie.

Hobbes obviously thought politics with metaphors relating politics to bestiality and monstrosity: in De Cive, a man is a wolf to a man, and two of his major political books are entitled with the name of a biblical monster, Leviathan and Behemoth. Did Hobbes mean that political problems emerge from a natural violence of men and that the political solution to these problems must be found in sovereign violence? This contribution tries to demonstrate that these references do not outline any (...) natural human ugliness but a double bind of culture and society (which is organized and developed for natural reason but thanks to artificial means). For human reasons, the historical development of human life separates this life from humanity in two ways—politics and history turn humanity into monstrosity and divinity (a man is also a god to a man and Leviathan is also a mortal god), and Behemoth means that historical violence is a cultural product. (shrink)

Hobbes obviously thought politics with metaphors relating politics to bestiality and monstrosity: in De Cive, a man is a wolf to a man, and two of his major political books are entitled with the name of a biblical monster, Leviathan and Behemoth. Did Hobbes mean that political problems emerge from a natural violence of men and that the political solution to these problems must be found in sovereign violence? This contribution tries to demonstrate that these references do not outline any (...) natural human ugliness but a double bind of culture and society. For human reasons, the historical development of human life separates this life from humanity in two ways—politics and history turn humanity into monstrosity and divinity, and Behemoth means that historical violence is a cultural product. (shrink)