Thinking involves many elements of sound that philosophical tradition has repressed. Breathing, rhythms and collateral noises participate in the making of idealities, even the most abstract. In order to hear them, the voice needs to be considered as one sound among others and as multiple, even when it comes from the same speaker, following different protocols of enunciation. Listening to the recordings of seminars and studying the role played by modern sound technologies make it possible to hear subterranean meanings and (...) tensions at the heart of mental elaboration. Thinkers and writers could be defined by the way they handle the acoustic environments favourable to the way they speak and write, whether by selection, mixing or silence. An ‘acousmatic’ reading aims to listen to this sonic investment in texts and to hear the complex vibrations of their thought. (shrink)

Sartre's thought and practice cannot be separated from the experience of the Second World War. Emerging from the war, Sartre formed the idea that the human comes forth out of the subhuman. This paper analyses aspects of Sartre's humanism from the point of view of his political commitment, and presents Sartre's work as an antidote to contemporary economic and scientific determinism. Sartre credit was always given to the growth of freedom in action out of the most unexpected subjectivization. He firmly (...) supported the founding idea of democracy – the power of everyman – and projected the intellectual's mission into each of us once we try to rethink critically our actions in the light of human purposes. (shrink)

La disparition spectaculaire des tours jumelles qui ponctuaient le sud de Manhattan a suscité les sentiments divers de la fascination : l’épouvante devant des milliers de vies soudain englouties, l’effroi face à la puissance de la terreur, mais parfois la satisfaction de la haine, ou le sublime de l’horreur. La diffusion compulsive de cet effondrement nous a maintenus dans une stupeur..

He also brings to the work of Barthes, Sartre, and Nietzsche a sense of lived, embodied experience, raising the question of the relationship between philosophy and the senses, a philosopher’s life and thought.