(114) « Coming Out as a Philosopher », lecture for the réception of the Siegfried Unseld Preis, Francfort, September 2008, accepted with revision in Social Studies of Science.

["Selbstporträt Als Philosoph" traduction allemande par Gustav Rosler]

For twenty years a systematic philosophical project has been pursued on the side: that is, to compare each of the ways in which truth production are being defined in the European tradition inside which philosophy has developed. Thus, to the analysis of networks that has been the main object of publications so far, another feature has to be added: the “key” in which each type of network is able to spread, this key defining for each “mode of existence” the felicity and infelicity conditions necessary to grasp it. It is this philosophical project that aims at providing a positive philosophical anthropology of the moderns in place of the only negative argument, proposed so far, that “we have never been modern”. The lecture offers an alternative intellectual biography and a sketch of the philosophy to be published later.

(113) « Will Non-Humans be Saved ? An Argument on Ecotheology », Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, JRAI, volume 15, pp. 459-475 (publication of the annual Henry Myers Lecture, Royal Institute of Anthropology, London, September 2008).

Using for the first time explicitly some of the results of the Inquiry into the Modes of Existence, the paper tackles the difficult question of the relations between ecology and theology. It first elicits the contrast between science –reference- and religion –presence- in their common opposition with common sense. Then, following Whitehead, it takes apart the notion of “nature” to show that it is composed of two different modes of existence (building on 99). This makes possible a reinterpretation of the debate between religion and science around the key figure of Darwin freed from the constraints imposed upon him by a false debate about “nature”. It ends by offering another connection between religion and creation –or rather creativity (building on 107 and 109).

(112) « A Cautious Prometheus ? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (With Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk) », Keynote lecture, History of Design Society Falmouth, 3rd September 2008 in Fiona Hackne, Jonathn Glynne and Viv Minto (editors) Proceedings of the 2008 Annual International Conference of the Design History Society – Falmouth, 3-6 September 2009), e-books, Universal Publishers, pp. 2-10.

[Traduction italienne Italian translation « Un Prometeo cauto ? Primi passi verso una filosofia del design », in Il discorso del design Pratiche di progetto e saper-fare semiotico, Serie speciale rivista dell Associazone Italiana di Studi Semiotici Anno III, n° 3⁄4 pp. 255-263]
[Traduction allemande German translation in Marc Jongen, Sjoerd van Tuinen and Koenraad Hemelsoe (editors) « Ein Vorsichtiger Prometheus. Einige Schritte hin zu einer Philosophie des Designs, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Peter Sloterdijk » (Hrsg.) Die Vermessung des Ungeheuren. Philosophie nach Peter Sloterdijk, München 2009 (Wilhelm Fink Verlag pp. 356-373.]
[[Traduction portugaise Portuguese translation in Agit Prop]

The very spread of the word “design” from daily objects to cities and ecosystems, is taken here as a symptom of an interesting switch in the theory of action that has been typical of modernism. The paper review five connotations of the verb “to design” and analyze them as an alternative to the notion of “construction” and “fabrication”. It then presents the work of Peter Sloterdijk has a crucial contribution to the philosophy of design. It shows especially how Sloterdijk’ notion of explicitation allows to reconsider materiality (a materiality to which design has always been sensitive) but freed from naturalization as well as from the balancing act between form and function. Finally, it offers a challenge to the design theorists for inventing the tools that could allow this philosophy of design to “draw together” matters of concern. « What’s organizing ? A Meditation on the Bust of Emilio Bootme », a paper for the reception of a doctorate honoris causa granted by the University of Montreal, Montréal, May 21st.

(111) « Le Fantôme de l’esprit public. Des illusions de la démocratie aux réalités de ses apparitions », Introduction à Le Public Fantôme, traduction française de The Phantom Public, par Walter Lippmann (traduction Laurence Decréau), Editions Demopolis, pp.3-49, 2008.

Although Lippmann has been the journalist of the “American Century” and that he is still well known in communication studies because of his Public Opinion, his book the Phantom Public has not been taken for what it really is: the Prince of the 20th century. To introduce the translation to the French, a long foreword has been written to establish Lippmann’s credentials and to highlight why his devastating critique of the illusions of democracy as it has been thought in the Continental tradition, does not preclude a deep conviction for democracy. On the condition of modifying deeply what is meant by “the public” which bears no resemblance with the Public represented by a government. This long paper is a sequel of the introduction to Making Things Public (96) which was dedicated to Lippmann’s phantom.

Bonnes feuilles de la préface
Bonnes feuilles de la traduction

(110) « What’s organizing ? A Meditation on the Bust of Emilio Bootme », a paper for the reception of a doctorate honoris causa granted by the University of Montreal, Montréal, May 21st.

The theory of organizations analyses many formal and informal types of organizations. It often fails however to follow the specificity of the organizational mode of existence. This essay in organization theory reviews some of the difficulties in tracing the specific path of organizing. Using some of the fresh experience of the author in administration, the paper focus on the specificity of the organizing script and attempts at isolating this specificity from what sociologists and political scientists have made of it. It demonstrates that it is only once the sociological fallacy of a macro-actor has been put aside, that it is possible to detect the flip-flopping that is so peculiar to organizing activities.

((109) « Si tu viens à perdre la Terre, à quoi te sers de sauver ton âme ? », in Jacques-Noël Pérès (sous la direction de) L’avenir de la Terre: un défi pour les Eglises, Desclée de Brouwer pp. 51-72 (2010).

The ecological crisis, by forcing us to reconsider the very notion of “nature “, may allow to revisit questions of politics but also of religion. It is certainly the case with much literature on the spirituality of ecology: the idea of contrasting the Earth with Heaven and to use the tired old cliché of the soul/body distinction, becomes absurd if the Earth itself is missing. The paper reviews this tension by using the classical topos of eschatology and by distinguishing the notion of “nature” which has to be “left behind”, for that of “Creation”. By revisiting the notion of Creation, the paper tries to explore a new set of metaphors in which the crucial distinction between perdition and salvation would pass, from now on, not between Earth and Heaven, but between Care and Negligence. This might allow the “ecological spirituality” to overcome the political limitation of a “defense of nature”.

(108) « The Migration of the Aura – Exploring the Original Through Its Facsimiles », a chapter prepared for Thoma Bartscherer (editor) Switching Codes, University of Chicago Press (with Adam Lowe).

Following the marvelous example provided by the fac simile of Veronese’s Nozze di Cana in San Giorgio in Venice and constrasting this case of a good reproduction with the catastrophic restoration of Holbein’s Ambassadors, the paper explores the reason why common sense has so much difficulty with the notion that a facsimile may actually add new layers of originality to the original –contrary to the thesis so much popularized by Walter Benjamin’s essay on mechanical reproduction. Contrary to this too famous essay, the paper argues that digital technologies have nothing « slavish » nor « mechanical » about them, and that facsimiles allow to peel away the many layers composing the originality of a work of art –to the point when a painting too, algough so obviouvsly material, can be taken as an instance of performative art.