Research conducted here is rooted in contemporary philosophy, a well-known area of expertise of our laboratory: analytic philosophy of knowledge and of ordinary language, social philosophy, moral philosophy, political philosophy (rooted in classical philosophy).

Within this topic, we explore normativity in its different locations (linguistic, moral, political, legal, cognitive and epistemological) and we connect it to the social theories that marked XXth century philosophy, from ordinarist perspectives such as Wittgenstein’s and Austin’s to Husserlian phenomenology, from the legacy of social contract theories (chiefly republicanism)

and political liberalism, to their contemporary criticism, in care ethics or in the new critical theory, for example. The critical and constructive dimensions of philosophy is emphasized but its analytical dimension is also kept in mind. Thus, ethics is devoted an important place, with a contextualist approach.

The following perspectives will be specifically developed:

  • Analytical philosophy of language and knowledge: philosophy of speech acts and epistemology of pragmatics, theories of presupposition and truth (epistemological and historical aspects); philosophies of perception and phenomenal conscience. This research topic leads to a deeper cooperation with the centre for contemporary philosophy (“Philosophie contemporaine”) at ISJPS (CNRS/ Paris 1 University), the HTL team (CNRS/ Paris 7 University) and the foreign teams engaged in the “PloCo” GDRI project (Tufts University, Porto University, Maison française d’Oxford, etc.) since 2013.
  • Social philosophy: critical theory (Frankfurt school); social epistemology; social phenomenology and ontology, particularly through close cooperation with Nice university and with the “Copistémo” axis of the MESHS (European Center for Human and Social Science) in Lille.
  • Studies on the historical background of civil law and deliberative democracy.
  • Philosophy of literature: political and moral issues in literature, role of imagination in the expression and creation of values. This topic enables a deeper cooperation with the literature research conducted at the CERCLL (Center for Research on Linguistic and on Literary Relations and Contacts) at UPJV, and on the relations between literature and philosophy conducted at the STL (Knowledge, Texts and Language) laboratory at Lille 3 University. It is also conducted through cooperation with the philosophy Department of La Sapienza in Rome.
  • Gender, philosophy of the family, care ethics; epistemology of gender studies (see also the cross-cutting theme of “Gender”).