Jean-Marc Ferry

Jean-Marc Ferry , Philosopher French born in 1946, sign currently political sciences and philosophy with ULB (Brussels). He is the author of the principal translation of the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas in French (Théorie to act it communication) and expressed most strongly his philosophical opinion in the powers of the experiment (Stag, Paris, 1991). One can regard it as a disciple of Jürgen Habermas, a disciple who controls a powerful thought articulated around the idea that the human identity is sometimes narrative, interpretative, argumentative or reconstructive.

This philosophical thought is prolonged on the political plan in a reflection on Europe which he regards as the place of the post-national , that is to say this possibility that the European Union gives to the nations which constitute it to confront the ones with the others in a non-violent way a little as Kant imagined it in Towards perpetual peace. They preserve at it their identity, the principal task of the State which is the transmission of " education légitime" (specific culture to each nation enchased in more universal knowledge).

This political vision of Europe is related to the concept of the reconstructive identity which is in some measurement the idea of reconciliation, working at the same time on the narrative register (turned towards oneself, autocentré), argumentative (eccentric towards the " laws of the nuit" , " Rights of Homme"), which is a manner philosophically of formulating these processes of reconciliation whose relations between France and Germany are to some extent the prototype.

In the reconstructive identity I tell me (narration), but in connection with what I violated in the argumentative register (argumentation), so that this movement towards me is also movement towards the other (reconstructive identity).

The problem of the truth

In Paris, in July 1992, one of the joint authors of this article questioned Jean-Marc Ferry within the framework of an interview (finished) concerning the referendum on the Traité of Maastricht. One of the recorders of help having continued to turn, one could collect this small dialog which, intuitively, can make reach the thought of Jean-Marc Ferry:

A new dialog

Question: the fact of defending a truth while saying that it is not dogmatic, isn't this yet to be dogmatic?

Jean-Marc Ferry: I have the impression that I feel at ease with my claims with the truth. I do not have the feeling which I would be in the situation to be able anything to say with a hand without having to withdraw it other hand. Because, as from the moment when it is agreed that we can be mistaken, and that the question is not even that we can be mistaken, but that as from the moment when one speaks and where one puts forth proposals, they are for the different one which can say yes or not, which can answer it, these proposals are criticizable, pragmatically, in fact, one can criticize them. Owing to the fact that they are criticizable by principle, one must think that they are also revisable and fallible; as from the moment when that is heard, one is not truly any more constrained to declare with balance only one thinks. Which is the presupposition of that which says: " Do attention, I say that but at the same time, I do not say it pas."? One finds that even at largest. What does that presuppose? Somebody who is at the same time fallible and somebody who rectifies the error which would consist in claiming with the truth. That supposes a to some extent denied dogmatism, a completely contradictory position of overhang with the marked principles of finitude. There are people full with scruples which cannot speak without saying: " Yes, I speak, but I know that what I say is extremely critiquable". Then, they open a series of umbrellas and they match their words of a great number of restrictions, and they are able to paralyze themselves and to be able anything more to say. What is it that the presupposition of such a self-checking? What the claim to replace those which later on - or now -, would be likely to say: " Not, I am not accord"? What is it this will to control all the historical process? It is that which is completely contradictory with modesty apparente."

The men meet, speak each other and do not say anything

This sentence is not necessarily a literal quotation of the philosopher but it summarizes in some measurement its thought on the truth. The reflection leaves the quotation of Nietzsche: " Any belief, any conviction which holds something for truth is necessarily false because there is no world which is vrai." (City in powers of the experiment Volume I p.144). One can disallow such a proposal while pointing out that it is neither true nor distorts (sophism of Epiménide the crétois). We are thus constrained to affirm that the truth is possible, without however this possibility of the truth being other thing that a claim . Without the claim with the truth, the social life would be only summarized, affirms Ferry with the sympathy of satisfaction in love or free user-friendliness… (ibidem, p.145). Or in a more nightmarish way to than is the world of the relations, the regist of the speech between the protagonists of the part of Ionesco the professional singer bald person.

Neither skepticism, nor dogmatism

In this direction the thought of Ferry is on a way of peak which avoids dogmatism as well as skepticism and its contemporary form which is the nihilism. Armed with my dogmas, I am in the incapacity to dialog with others, I do to nothing but transmit my thought him. Plunged in skepticism I must manage from there, if I am logical with myself, to refuse any dialog since there is no world which is true . From where the idea that the men meet, speak itself and do not say anything. I approach others with the claim that this I will say to him could, possibly, to be worth everywhere and always, but, in same time, I am ready to accept that, by its arguments - that I can make miens - he persuades me of the inanity of my position.

That can approach the famous proposal of Jean Lacroix: " There is of true dialog only if each interlocutor test at a time given temptation to marry the point of view of the autre." By there one can also include/understand what is the reconstructive identity which, so much on the epistemological level than moral consists in giving up my position to join (would be this only in the form of a " tentation"), that of the other. It is well what occurs in the processes of reconciliation where, instead of me to lock up in the narrative identity (autocentrée), I open entire from the point of view of the other, either victim of my abuses, or philosophical adversary.

Emblematic epic of Brandt. The identity postnationale

The gesture of the German Chancellor Willy Brandt gives an idea of what can be the reconstructive identity between the nations.

September 7th, 1970, at Warsaw, in front of the memorial raised in the honor of the Jewish combatants of the famous ghetto, the chief of Germany, after having flowered the monument puts two knees out of ground, thus recognizing a fault that it did not make (in the name of its people) and be sorry which it does not need for itself (but for its people). er kniet für Deutschland. (He kneels for Germany), gesture which, beyond apparent humility, concerns the political calculation most legitimate, reinstating Germany, especially side of the Eastern European countries as it was necessary at that time, in the family of the nations. Patriotic gesture and even " nationaliste" in an unusual form of nationalism or patriotism, but which is well to characterize EC way, certainly an open and non-violent nationalism, such as Jean-Marc Ferry imagines it through what it calls, by bringing it closer to the reconstuctive identity the " post-national". The thought of Ferry influenced the Walloon Nationalisme intellectually, just as the relationship of Wallonia with Europe, or approaches it these questions by Philippe Van Parijs within the framework of the seminar Philosophe of patriotism in Insttut Supérieur of Philosophy of UCL, Academic year 1993-1994. One can also give like example the conference given to Charleroi Identité postnationale and reconstructive identity within the framework of a conference organized by the review TOUDI on June 18th, 1996, just as a series of talks published in this review and the review République : in 1989,1992, 2000 (n° 36-37). Lastly, Jean-Marc Ferry took part in the conference Enseigner Wallonia and Europe of the Walloon Fondation whose acts were published under this title and by the Foundation, with Leuwen-the-new in 2001, its contribution carried there the title Idée of an education postnationale (pp.47-55 of the same work).

See too

moral Communauté an article which returns to an interview of Ferry where this one discusses the positions of John Rawls, of the communautariens (Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer), of Habermas on the relation between community and liberalism, just as on the world State.

External bonds

Personal page of Jean-Marc Ferry

Page of Jean-Marc Ferry on the site of the Universit3e libre de Bruxelles

Notes and references of the article

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