Politics and Political Action

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is evident that so-called Western philosophy is undergoing a shift in both its objects of thought and its epistemological role. This shift is visible from within the discipline itself, through what it does or does not legitimize as a philosophical concept, and it reveals the power dynamics embedded in some of these supposedly universal concepts. In this way, debates on race, gender, migration, and environmental justice are unfolding within a broader inquiry into the meaning of philosophy and what it is to practice it in France. Today, one of the blind spots of the philosophical tradition is a knot reflected in the political history of race—that is to say, in the very conditions that shape how we in France think about political issues tied to slavery, colonization, migration, discrimination, and racism, and which postcolonial and anti-colonial studies now call upon us to examine. Through a reading of Étienne Tassin’s latest works, this essay proposes to discuss two issues. The first concerns the role of political action in considering the effectiveness of a truly common world, still embedded in this history. The second is on a decolonization of philosophy, that is, of a politics of philosophy proposing to reclaim every concept that has become abstract, disembodied, and detached from any historical or political grounding.