Jean-Marc Ferry par Claude Truong-Ngoc avril 2014

Jean-Marc Ferry (born 5 May 1946) is a French philosopher who is best known for his book ''Les puissances de l'expérience'' (1991), described by

Paul Ricoeur Paul may refer to: * Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity * Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Ch ...

as "one of the most important works recently published in the field of social and

political philosophy Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, ...

". He has also translated the work of

Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere. Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wo ...

, by whom he was influenced, into French.

Work

Narration, Interpretation, Argumentation, Reconstruction

According to Ferry, the forms of discourse through which identity is constructed are narration, interpretation, argumentation, and reconstruction. P. Smith summarizes Ferry as follows,

Historical and discursive progress from narration toward reconstruction is associated with increasing reflexivity about identity and the grounds upon which it is established. Narration, in Ferry’s view, consists of ossified traditional myths which define identities in a more or less prescriptive, taken-forgranted way. Interpretation, on the other hand, involves the assimilation of identity to universal categories like law and justice and is exemplified in early Christian and ancient Greek thought. Argumentation opens up claims of identity to rational dialogue as embodied, for example, in the Enlightenment. Reconstruction, the final step toward reflexivity, involves hermeneutic attempts to understand the historical grounds behind the "good reasons" offered by others in argumentation. This is in part a logical and ethical consequence of the shift from it to you (acknowledging subjectivity) which emerges with argumentation itself.Philip Smith (
University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...
) ''Les puissances de l'expérience'' in, Contemporary Sociology, American Sociological Assoc., May 1994, vol. 23, number 3

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Postnational Identity and Europe

Ferry also discusses what he considers to be the building of ''postnational identity'' in Europe, a way to think of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

as a medium to separate national identity and political identity. The former and the latter are unified in the classical

Nation-State A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group. A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may in ...

, but separated by the process of the building of a new Europe, whose ultimate political identity is not the Nation-State but a ''Political Community'' which, according to Ferry, is not a

Federal State A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-gover ...

nor a State in general but an absolutely other form of political construction. This new construction derives from the experience of World Wars I & II, which, Ferry believes, forced the European people to organize their inter-relationship beyond classical models of

sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...

and warfare.

The Spinelli Group

On 15 September 2010, Ferry supported the new initiative Spinelli Group in the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of the European Union, institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and in ...

, which was founded to reinvigorate the strive for federalisation of the European Union (EU). Other prominent supporters of the initiative are

Jacques Delors Jacques Lucien Jean Delors (born 20 July 1925) is a French politician who served as the 8th President of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995. He served as Minister of Finance of France from 1981 to 1984. He was a Member of the European P ...

, Daniel Cohn-Bendit,

Guy Verhofstadt Guy Maurice Marie Louise Verhofstadt (; ; born 11 April 1953) is a Belgian politician who was the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe from 2009 to 2019, and has been a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Belgium ...

Andrew Duff Andrew Nicholas Duff, OBE (born 25 December 1950) is a British politician who presided over the Union of European Federalists (UEF) from 2008 to 2013. A member of the Liberal Democrats, he served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for ...

, and

Elmar Brok Elmar Peter Brok (born 14 May 1946) is a German politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1980 until 2019, who is best known for his role as chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs. He is a mem ...

Bibliography

* ''Les Puissances de l'expérience'', Tome I, Le sujet et le verbe, Cerf, Paris, 1991, * ''La Raison et la foi'', Pocket, Paris, 2016, *Meyer S. Jürgen Habermas interviewed by Jean-Marc Ferry: The limits of neo-historicism. ''Philosophy & Social Criticism''. 1996;22(3):1-8.

References

External links

Page d’accueil Jean-Marc Ferry

A kantian Approach for Europe
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferry, Jean-Marc 21st-century French philosophers 1946 births Living people Postnationalism French male writers