Having examined previous volumes of the Boston Studies series devoted to different countries, and having discussed the best way to present contemporary research in France, we have arrived at a careful selection of 15 participants, including the organizers. Our aim is to bring together philosophers and practicing scientist from the major institutions of the country, both universities and research centers. The areas of research represented here cover a wide spectrum of sciences, from mathematics and physics to the life sciences, as well as linguistics and economics. This selection is a showcase of French philosophy of science, illustrating the different methods employed: logico-linguistic analysis, rational reconstruction and historical inquiry. These participants have the ability to relate their research both to the French tradition and current discussions on the international scene. Also included is a substantial historical introduction, explaining the development of philosophy of science in France, the various schools of thought and methods as well as the major concepts and their significance.

The first English-language translation of a unique televised interview project undertaken by Alain Badiou between 1965 and 1968.

A clear and comprehensive account of the history of French philosophy in the twentieth century.

Offering an overall insight into the French tradition of philosophy of technology, this volume is meant to make French-speaking contributions more accessible to the international philosophical community. The first section, “Negotiating a Cultural Heritage,” presents a number of leading 20th century philosophical figures (from Bergson and Canguilhem to Simondon, Dagognet or Ellul) and intellectual movements (from Personalism to French Cybernetics and political ecology) that help shape philosophy of technology in the Francophone area, and feed into contemporary debates (ecology of technology, politics of technology, game studies). The second section, “Coining and Reconfiguring Technoscience,” traces the genealogy of this controversial concept and discusses its meanings and relevance. A third section, “Revisiting Anthropological Categories,” focuses on the relationships of technology with the natural and the human worlds from various perspectives that include anthropotechnology, Anthropocene, technological and vital norms and temporalities. The final section, “Innovating in Ethics, Design and Aesthetics,” brings together contributions that draw on various French traditions to afford fresh insights on ethics of technology, philosophy of design, techno-aesthetics and digital studies. The contributions in this volume are vivid and rich in original approaches that can spur exchanges and debates with other philosophical traditions.

For much of the twentieth century, French intellectual life was dominated by theoreticians and historians of mentalité. Traditionally, the study of the mind and of its limits and capabilities was the domain of philosophy, however in the first decades of the twentieth century practitioners of the emergent human and social sciences were increasingly competing with philosophers in this field: ethnologists, sociologists, psychologists and historians of science were all claiming to study 'how people think'. Scholars, including Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, Léon Brunschvicg, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien Febvre, Abel Rey, Alexandre Koyré and Hélène Metzger were all investigating the mind historically and participating in shared research projects. Yet, as they have since been appropriated by the different disciplines, literature on their findings has so far failed to recognise the connections between their research and their importance in intellectual history. In this exemplary book, Cristina Chimisso reconstructs the world of these intellectuals and the key debates in the philosophy of mind, particularly between those who studied specific mentalities by employing prevalently historical and philological methods, and those who thought it possible to write a history of the mind, outlining the evolution of ways of thinking that had produced the modern mentality. Dr Chimisso situates the key French scholars in their historical context and shows how their ideas and agendas were indissolubly linked with their social and institutional positions, such as their political and religious allegiances, their status in academia, and their familial situation. The author employs a vast range of original research, using philosophical and scientific texts as well as archive documents, correspondence and seminar minutes from the period covered, to recreate the milieu in which these relatively neglected scholars made advances in the history of philosophy and science, and produced

Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres's work in the context of 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres's philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers. Simons situates Serres's unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres's work into a promising philosophy of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres's commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres's philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history and sociology of science. Showing how Serres's philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life.

As the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) has become more established, it has increasingly hidden its philosophical roots. While the trend is typical of disciplines striving for maturity, Steve Fuller, a leading figure in the field, argues that STS has much to lose if it abandons philosophy. In his characteristically provocative style, he offers the first sustained treatment of the philosophical foundations of STS and suggests fruitful avenues for further research. With stimulating discussions of the Science Wars, the Intelligent Design Theory controversy, and theorists such as Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies is required reading for students and scholars in STS and the philosophy of science.