Jacques Bouveresse

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Jacques Bouveresse (born August 20, 1940 in Épenoy) is a philosopher who has written on subjects including Ludwig Wittgenstein, Robert Musil, Karl Kraus, philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of mathematics and analytical philosophy. As a result of his attacks on Michel Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida, and others, he has often managed to raise the analytical stakes in French academic circles, where analytical philosophy is not well understood.

He is known for his critical writings on what he considers scientific and intellectual impostures (particularly in French philosophy of the 1970s and the nouveaux philosophes) and the press coverage he has attracted through his own philosophical journalism.

He is currently Professor at the Collège de France, where he occupies the chair of philosophy of language and epistemology.

1 Biography
2 Works
- 2.1 The thought of Robert Musil
- 2.2 Incompleteness and philosophy
3 Bibliography
4 Quotation
5 External links

Biography

Born on 20 August 1940 in Épenoy in the Doubs département of France into a farming family, Jacques Bouveresse completed his secondary education at the seminary of Besançon. He spent two years of preparation for the baccalauréat in philosophy and scholastic theology at Faverney in Haute-Saône. He followed his preparatory literary classes at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, and in 1961 entered the École normale supérieure in Paris.

He presented his doctoral thesis in philosophy on Wittgenstein, entitled "Le mythe de l'intériorité. Expérience, signification et langage privé chez Wittgenstein" .

Beginning with his earliest works, he has consistently constructed his own philosophical and intellectual path, without following the normal routes and modes of academia. In 1976, Wittgenstein was practically unknown in France, as were Musil and the logic and analytical philosophy which he had begun to study in the 1960s. These two last domains notably propelled him towards the lectures of Jules Vuillemin and Gilles Gaston Granger, who at the time were practically alone in occupying themselves with these problems, and with whom he has maintained a lasting friendship.

Academic career :

1966-1969 : Assistant to the Section de Philosophie of the Sorbonne (teaching logic)
1969-1971 : Maître-Assistant to the UER de Philosophie of the Université Paris I
1971-1975 : Attached to the CNRS
1975-1979 : Maître de Conférences at the Université Paris I
1979-1983 : Professor at the University of Geneva
1983-1995 : Professor at the University of Paris
From 1995 : Professor at the Collège de France in the chair of philosophie du langage et de la connaissance.

Works

Bouveresse`s philosophy is a continuation of the intellectual and philosophical tradition of central Europe (Brentano, Boltzmann, Helmholtz, Frege, the Vienna Circle, Kurt Gödel). His philosophical programme is in nearly all respects similar to the one conducted by many present day Analytic Philosophers.

The thought of Robert Musil

Jacques Bouveresse is interested in the thought of the early 20th-century Austrian writer Robert Musil (who wrote a thesis on philosophy) famous for his novel The Man Without Qualities, as well as the aversion/fascination with which Paul Valéry regarded philosophy.

Incompleteness and philosophy

Apart from his work on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Bouveresse is interested in the incompleteness theorems of Kurt Gödel and their philosophical consequences. It is on this account that he has attacked, in a popular work Prodiges et vertiges de l'analogie, the use made of these theorems by Régis Debray. Bouveresse denounces the literary distortion of a scientific concept for the purpose of a thesis. This distortion, according to him, has no other purpose than to overwhelm a readership which lacks the training necessary to comprehend such complex theorems. Bouveresse's reproach to Debray is not that he uses a scientific concept for the purpose of an analogy, but that he uses such a difficult to understand theorem in the attempt to provide an absolute justification in the form of the classic sophism of the argument from authority.

According to Bouveresse, the incompleteness of a formal system which applies to certain mathematical systems in no way implies the incompleteness of sociology, which is not a formal system.

Bibliography

(Unless stated otherwise, published by Éditions de Minuit)

1969 : La philosophie des sciences, du positivisme logique in Histoire de la philosophie, vol. 4. Ed. François Châtelet
1971 : La parole malheureuse. De l'Alchimie linguistique à la grammaire philosophique
1973 : Wittgenstein : la rime et la raison, science, éthique et esthétique
1976 : Le mythe de l'intériorité. Expérience, signification et langage privé chez Wittgenstein
1984 : Le philosophe chez les autophages
1984 : Rationalité et cynisme
1987 : La force de la règle, Wittgenstein et l'invention de la nécessité
1988 : Le pays des possibles, Wittgenstein, les mathématiques et le monde réel
1991 : Philosophie, mythologie et pseudo-science, Wittgenstein lecteur de Freud Editions de l'éclat
1991 : Herméneutique et linguistique, suivi de Wittgenstein et la philosophie du langage Editions de l'éclat
1993 : L'homme probable, Robert Musil, le hasard, la moyenne et l'escargot de l'Histoire, Editions de l'Eclat
1994 : 'Wittgenstein', in Michel Meyer, La philosophie anglo-saxonne, PUF
1995 : Langage, perception et réalité, vol.1, la perception et le jugement, Editions Jacqueline Chambon
1996 : La demande philosophique. Que veut la philosophie et que peut-on vouloir d'elle ?, Editions de l'Eclat
1997 : Dire et ne rien dire, l'illogisme, l'impossibilité et le non-sens, Editions Jacqueline Chambon
1998 : Le Philosophe et le réel. Entretiens avec Jean-Jacques Rosat, Hachette
1999 : Prodiges et vertiges de l'analogie. De l'abus des belles-lettres dans la pensée, Editions Liber-Raisons d'agir
2000 : Essais I - Wittgenstein, la modernité, le progrès et le déclin , Agone
2001 : Essais II - L'Epoque, la mode, la morale, la satire, Agone
2001 : Schmock ou le triomphe du journalisme, La grande bataille de Karl Kraus, Seuil
2003 : Essais III : Wittgentstein ou les sortilèges du langage , Agone
2001 : La voix de l'âme et les chemins de l'esprit , Seuil, coll Liber
2004 : Bourdieu savant & politique, Agone
2004 : Langage, perception et réalité, tome 2, Physique, phénoménologie et grammaire, Ed. Jacqueline Chambon
2004 : Essais IV - Pourquoi pas des philosophes, Agone
2005: Robert Musil. L'homme probable, le hasard, la moyenne et l'escargot de l'histoire, (new edition of 1993 above), Editions de l'éclat
2006 : Essais V - Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Agone

Quotation

"Une bonne partie de la production philosophique contemporaine est la justification plus ou moins inconsciente d’un renoncement et d’une démission." ("A good part of contemporary philosophical production is a more or less unconscious justification of a renunciation and an abandonment.")