Roberto Frega

Expressive Inquiry and Practical Reasoning

The aim of this article is to offer a contribution to our understanding of the place and function of reason in human agency, and notably in that specific part of human agency that can be qualified as ‘moral’, and whose main trait is that it presupposes some reference to normativity. In this perspective, through the concept of ‘expressive inquiry’ I would like to propose a theory of how reason enters our moral practices. In line with the pragmatist tradition, I take this theory to be at the same time grounded in effective existing practices and as being a normative description of how agents should resort to reasoning in practical (and notably moral) affairs.

The wide view of democracy

This article compares the theories of democracy of John Dewey and Claude Lefort, identifying some common themes in their otherwise radically different philosophical outlooks. In so doing, it attempts to analyze the philosophical implications of a ‘democracy first’ approach to politics. It then explains in what sense Dewey’s idea of ‘democracy as a way of life’ and Claude Lefort’s conception of ‘democracy as a form of society’ provide the cornerstone of an original and so far insufficiently explored approach to political philosophy. Such an approach offers an alternative both to the classical-liberal and to the critical-radical projects which still dominate contemporary political philosophy. It then indicates some of the potential advantages of such a ‘wide view’ for contemporary debates in democratic theory.

Le commandement : une histoire de pratiques

Résumé L’article propose une lecture critique de l’ouvrage récent d’Yves Cohen, Le siècle des chefs, et l’inscrit dans le courant plus vaste du mouvement de l’histoire pragmatique, dont Y. Cohen est un représentant éminent. Après avoir présenté les jalons majeurs de l’œuvre,l’article examine la thèse centrale de l’ouvrage, à savoir que le commandement constitueraitun phénomène propre au XXe siècle. Il montre ensuite en quoi l’approche par les pratiques permet à l’auteur d’aborder de manière originale son propre sujet, pour aborder dans lasection suivante la question du rapport entre discours et pratiques en tant qu’objets d’enquête historique. La dernière section de l’article discute les enjeux de l’histoire pragmatique à l’aune du plus vaste « tournant pratique » qui a caractérisé les sciences sociales des troisdernières décennies.

From Normative Spheres to Normative Practices: New Prospects for Normative Theory after Habermas

Abstract In this paper I argue against Jürgen Habermas’s theoretical dualism between ethics and morality. I do this by showing how his account of normativity is vitiated by an unnecessary superposition of a social-evolutionary and a theoretical-linguistic account of normativity, and that this brings about theoretical problems that in the end cannot be overcome. I also show that Rainer Forst’s attempt at salvaging Habermas’s distinction is equally doomed to failure, but that his attempt nevertheless invites new and more fruitful avenues for normative theory that are worth exploring. The conclusion of this paper is that traditional notions of ethics and morality can be preserved provided we heavily redefine their meanings and release them from some of the theoretical work they have been expected to accomplish, but that to complete this transition we also need to supersede Forst’s pluralization of normative contexts toward a theory of normative practices that in the end makes the distinction between ethics and morality workable but useless. I begin by first locating the debate about ethics and morality within the context of recent normative theory (§1), and proceed to examine the two main strategies through which Habermas has elaborated his idea of a sharp dualism between ethics and morality (§2). I then introduce a theoretical distinction between what I call a horizontal and a vertical integration of ethics and morality (§3) and contend that whilst only the horizontal is viable, Habermas decidedly prefers the idea of a vertical integration (§4). With this work done, I proceed to complete my critique of Habermas’s argument and show how, by recovering the pragmatist roots of his thought, an alternative solution based on a functionalist understanding of morality could be envisaged (§5). I then conclude by examining Rainer Forst’s attempt at salvaging Habermas’s account, and show that the failure of Forst’s attempts opens the way for new and more fruitful approaches to normative theory which are more likely to recover the pragmatist roots of Habermas’s thought (§6).

Thomas Kuhn et l’oubli de la pratique

I examine Thomas Kuhn’s work regarding the role played by the concept of practice in the development of his theory of scientific rationality. I outline the epistemological implications of his theory of incommensurability. I then show how the original intuition of a practice-based and social conception of incommensurability is replaced by a more conventional linguistic interpretation. I then examine Kuhn’s solution to the problem of incommensurability and explain its inadequacy. I then show that, ultimately, his failure to grasp the epistemological dimension of practice prevents him from providing a fully satisfactory solution to the epistemological problem raised in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions .

Richard Bernstein and the Challenges of a Broadened Pragmatism

Richard Bernstein is among the pragmatist philosophers that have most significantly contributed to the advancement of a philosophical conversation between the American and the European traditions. His work has greatly helped the task of dismantling the boundaries that in the last decades had been erected between philosophical traditions. It is therefore with the greatest pleasure that The European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy inaugurates his series of monographs with Bernstei...