Vincent Descombes (; born 1943) is a French

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

whose major work is in

philosophy of language Philosophy of language refers to the philosophical study of the nature of language. It investigates the relationship between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy), me ...

and

philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of the mind and its relation to the Body (biology), body and the Reality, external world. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a ...

Philosophical work

Descombes is particularly noted for a lengthy critique in two volumes of the project he calls cognitivism, and which is, roughly, the view current in philosophy of mind that mental and psychological facts can ultimately be treated as, or reduced to, physical facts about the

brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...

. Descombes has also written an introduction to modern French philosophy (''Le même et l'autre'') focused on the transition, after 1960, from a focus on the three H's,

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political philosophy and t ...

Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of histori ...

and

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art ...

to the "three masters of suspicion",

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche bec ...

and

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...

. In the same book, he introduced the term "post-Kojèvian discourse" to designate the period of French philosophy after the 1930sVincent Descombes, ''Modern French Philosophy'', Cambridge University Press, 1980, pp. 158–9. (from 1933 to 1939,

Alexandre Kojève Alexandre Kojève (born Aleksandr Vladimirovich Kozhevnikov; 28 April 1902 – 4 June 1968) was a Russian-born French philosopher and international civil service, civil servant whose philosophical seminars had some influence on 20th-century Frenc ...

delivered in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

a series of lectures on Hegel's work ''

The Phenomenology of Spirit ''The Phenomenology of Spirit'' (or ''The Phenomenology of Mind''; ) is the most consequential philosophical work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel described the 1807 work, a ladder to the greater philosophica ...

'' that had an immense influence on 20th-century French philosophy). Descombes teaches at the Centre de recherches politiques Raymond Aron, part of the

École des hautes études en sciences sociales The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (, EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The school awards Master and PhD degrees alone and conj ...

. He holds an appointment in the Committee on Social Thought at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

. Descombes was a member of the French

libertarian socialist Libertarian socialism is an anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist political current that emphasises self-governance and workers' self-management. It is contrasted from other forms of socialism by its rejection of state ownership and from other ...

group

Socialisme ou Barbarie Socialisme ou Barbarie (SouB; "Socialism or Barbarism") was a French-based radical libertarian socialist group of the post-World War II period whose name comes from a phrase which was misattributed to Friedrich Engels by Rosa Luxemburg in the ...

Works

* ''Le platonisme'', 1970 * ''L'inconscient malgré lui'', 1977 * ''Le même et l'autre. Quarante-cinq ans de philosophie française'' (1933–1978), Editions de Minuit, 1979. Trans. ''Modern French Philosophy'', Cambridge University Press, 1980. . * ''Grammaire d'objets en tous genres'', 1983. Trans. ''Objects of All Sorts: A Philosophical Grammar'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. . * ''Proust: Philosophie du roman'', Editions de Minuit, 1987. Trans. ''Proust: Philosophy of the Novel'', Stanford University Press, 1992. * ''Philosophie par gros temps'', 1989 Trans. ''The Barometer of Modern Reason: On the Philosophies of Current Events'', Oxford University Press, 1993. . * ''La denrée mentale'', 1995. Trans. ''The Mind's Provisions: A Critique of Cognitivism'', Princeton University Press, 2001. . * ''Les institutions du sens'', 1996. Trans. ''The Institutions of Meaning: A Defense of Anthropological Holism'', Harvard University Press, 2014. . * ''Le complément de sujet'', 2004 * ''Le raisonnement de l'ours, et d'autres essais de philosophie pratique'', 2007 * ''Les embarras de l'identité'', 2013. Trans. ''Puzzling Identities'', Harvard University Press, 2016. . * ''Exercices d'humanité'', 2013 * ''Le parler de soi'', 2014

References

External links

Centre de recherches politiques Raymond Aron Staff biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Descombes, Vincent 1943 births Living people 20th-century French philosophers French male non-fiction writers University of Paris alumni