PIERRE THÉVENIN ON LAW AND PHILOSOPHY

Dear all,
next week (first lesson on Wednesday, the 23rd of March, at 2:00 pm) Pierre Thévenin (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris) will explore some possible connections between Law and Philosophy, bringing together different authors, points of view, historical periods. You can find below some information about our guest and about his lectures.
Enjoy the readings and see you on Wednesday!

Brief Outline:

Law and Philosophy

(On the philosophical relevance of judicial practices)

A traditional way of clearing up the relationship between Law and Philosophy is to ask how, if at all, philosophical conceptions have impacted on jurisprudence. But is it possible to phrase the question the other way round? This lecture will try and show that the philosophical notion of „truth“ is indebted to the history of judicial practices. Aimed at exploring how legal cultures might have diffused right out of common legal business, it will proceed in two steps. First, we will consider how English philosophers of the XVIIth century, in order to lay down the foundation for modern natural science, have relied on a massive reference to the medieval (and Italian) inquisitio trial. Second, we will follow French thinker Michel Foucault in wondering if and how this dependency still affects our way of relating, as subjects, to both truth and power.

Suggested Readings:

1) Michel Foucault, Truth and Juridical Forms, in Power: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, vol. 3, pp. 1-16, 32-52. This text reproduces the first (pp. 1-16) and third (pp. 32-52) parts of a series of four lectures Michel Foucault gave in Rio de Janeiro in 1973.

2) Barbara Shapiro, The Concept "Fact": Legal Origins and Cultural Diffusion, in "Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies", 26.1 (1994), pp. 1-25.

Pierre Thévenin's CV:

Pierre Thévenin (b. 1979) is a PhD student at the Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He graduated in Philosophy at the Sorbonne in 2005, with a major in German Idealism and Ancient Greek Philosophy. Passed to the EHESS, he turned to legal studies as a student of great romanist Yan Thomas (d. 2008). French philosopher Bruno Karsenti (EHESS) and Legal historian Emanuele Conte (Roma III) are currently tutoring his dissertation on « The Legal Notion of Fact. Medieval Casuistries and the Dogmatics of Possession ». A former Marie Curie Fellow, he stayed at the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane in Florence, the London School of Economics and the Max-Planck Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte.