Thomas Bénatouïl

Bio: Thomas Bénatouïl is an academic researcher from Lille University of Science and Technology. The author has contributed to research in topics: Stoicism & Sociological imagination. The author has an hindex of 4, co-authored 28 publications receiving 266 citations. Previous affiliations of Thomas Bénatouïl include Churchill College & Institut Universitaire de France.

A Tale of Two Sociologies: The Critical and the Pragmatic Stance in Contemporary French Sociology

Abstract: This paper draws a parallel between two contemporary French conceptions of sociology. Each is first considered in terms of the principles and strategies of its sociological method. Through an analogy with Marx's philosophy of social science, critical sociology is shown to make an heuristic use for the analysis of cultures and social structures of the resistance to sociology that the sociologist encounters in the social objects, whereas pragmatic sociology adopts a pluralistic and descriptive strategy towards actions, actors and things. The paper then tries to show how common interests or trading zones could allow both critical and pragmatic sociology to profit from their competitive relation by taking each other as objects of sociological analysis.

Critique et pragmatique en sociologie. Quelques principes de lecture

Abstract: Reading sociology: critical and pragmatic paradigms. T. Benatouil. ; ; This paper draws a systematic comparison between two rival approaches to sociology in France today. The first, "critical sociology ", has been practiced and theorized by Pierre Bourdieu since the sixties; the second, "pragmatic sociology", has emerged for the last ten years as a coherent approach through the work of Bruno Latour, Michel Gallon (in the sociology of science), Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thevenot (in the sociology of action and justification). Each is considered in terms of its conception of the aims of sociology and its relationship to philosophy, as well as in terms of the principles and strategies of its sociological method and its political implications and uses. The paper then proposes several epistemological ways of interpreting the differences between these two conceptions of sociology. These interpretations help us to assess the potential benefits of an intellectual collaboration between the two approaches.

Theoria, Praxis, and the Contemplative Life After Plato and Aristotle

Abstract: Studies of the notion of theoria and of the contemplative life have been mostly restricted to Plato and Aristotle. This volume intends to show that contemplation and the intellectual life survived after them and were the objects of heated debates, powerful arguments and original applications all along hellenistic, imperial and late Antiquity. The in-depth introduction, reconstructing all the problems pertaining to the contemplative life in Antiquity, and the twelve papers by distinguished scholars offer a thorough study of the appropriations, criticism and transformation of Plato's and Aristotle's positions about the contemplative life, including their epistemological and metaphysical foundations, from Theophrastus to the end of Antiquity (including Jewish and Christian authors), with a focus on Platonism (from Cicero to Damascius).

Faire usage: la pratique du stoïcisme

Abstract: Le stoicisme est une philosophie nee de la pratique et faite pour etre appliquee. Toutes les doctrines antiques, si elles s'articulent a une maniere de vivre, ne le font pas de maniere aussi immediate et rigoureuse. Cette etude s'emploie a le montrer en exhumant la theorie de la pratique implicite du stoicisme, c'est-a-dire son analyse des conditions, des parametres, des normes et des possibilites de transformation de nos activites. Pour ce faire, on suit le fil directeur d'un petit mot banal, « l'usage » (khresis, usus) dans les textes et fragments stoiciens. Grâce a lui, on examine les divergences pratiques entre les stoiciens et Socrate, Platon, Aristote ou Epicure, et on parcourt l'ensemble du systeme stoicien, de la theologie a la morale appliquee (l'usage du vin et de l'ivresse par le sage), en passant par la cosmologie, la zoologie, la psychologie, la logique, la pedagogie et tous les aspects de l'ethique. Nos organes et nos facultes, les bienfaits de la Nature, la raison et l'argumentation, les vertus, ainsi que les circonstances, moyens et buts de nos conduites s'averent en effet tous et toujours susceptibles d'un ou plusieurs usages, que la philosophie cherche a repertorier et a organiser. Synthese pratique de notre passivite par rapport a la providence et de notre activite par rapport au monde, l'usage est ainsi pour les stoiciens le site instable ou se joue l'ajustement de l'homme a sa nature et a la Nature.

Plato, Aristotle, or Both?: Dialogues Between Platonism and Aristotelianism in Antiquity

Abstract: This volume gathers an international team of renowned scholars in the field of ancient greek philosophy, in order to explore the continuous but changing dialogue between Platonism and Aristotelianism from the early imperial age to the end of Antiquity. While most chapters concern Platonists (Philo, Plutarch, Plotinus, Syrianus, Proclus, Damascius, Philoponus), and their uses or criticism of Aristotle's doctrines, several chapters are also devoted to Peripatetic authors (Boethus and mostly Alexander of Aphrodisias) and their attitudes towards Plato's positions. Each of the eleven chapters draws the attention to specific polemical contexts and philosophical problems which made Platonists and Aristotelians unite against common adversaries like the Stoics, or split up, not only in the fields of metaphysics and cosmology, but also in epistemology, psychology and ethics. Most papers in this volume were presented and discussed during the fourth Diatribai di Gargnano, a series of conferences about ancient philosophy, especially Platonism, from the hellenistic period to late Antiquity, organized jointly by the Universita degli Studi di Milano, the Universite Paris-Sorbonne and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present

Abstract: In the face of the world's disorders, moral concerns have provided a powerful ground for developing international as well as local policies. Didier Fassin draws on case materials from France, South Africa, Venezuela, and Palestine to explore the meaning of humanitarianism in the contexts of immigration and asylum, disease and poverty, disaster and war. He traces and analyzes recent shifts in moral and political discourse and practices - what he terms "humanitarian reason" - and shows in vivid examples how humanitarianism is confronted by inequality and violence. Deftly illuminating the tensions and contradictions in humanitarian government, he reveals the ambiguities confronting states and organizations as they struggle to deal with the intolerable. His critique of humanitarian reason, respectful of the participants involved but lucid about the stakes they disregard, offers theoretical and empirical foundations for a political and moral anthropology.

The reality of moral expectations: A sociology of situated judgement

Abstract: The paper offers a modelling of the sense of justice as it is displayed in ordinary situated disputes. While this model accounts for a plurality of legitimate forms of evaluation which are used in the process of critique and justification, it escapes a relativism of values by demonstrating that all these forms satisfy a set of common requirements. The reasonable character of the everyday sense of justice is also anchored in a reality test involving the engagement of objects which qualify for a certain form of evaluation. The paper discusses this model in relation to competing theories of justice, and models of social action and interaction.

The Logic of Institutional Logics: Insights From French Pragmatist Sociology

Abstract: Research on institutional logics has exploded in the last decade. Much of this work has taken its inspiration from Friedland and Alford’s call to “bring society back in” to organizational analysis. Interestingly, when Friedland and Alford published their seminal piece, another body of work with similar focus emerged in France under the banner of French Pragmatist Sociology. In this article, we discuss how French Pragmatist Sociology complements institutional logics by helping it address its main limitations or blind spots. These include (a) microfoundations and recursiveness (how institutions are formed, maintained, or changed at a micro level), (b) legitimacy struggles (how struggles are resolved on a day-to-day basis), (c) morality (as an important element underscoring institutional logics), and (d) materiality (as physical and tangible instantiations of logics). We conclude by suggesting that a rapprochement between both approaches provides an elegant means of bridging the lingering divide between “old...

The Play of International Practice

Abstract: The core claims of the practice turn in International Relations (IR) remain ambiguous. What promises does international practice theory hold for the field? How does the kind of theorizing it produces differ from existing perspectives? What kind of research agenda does it produce? This article addresses these questions. Drawing on the work of Andreas Reckwitz, we show that practice approaches entail a distinctive view on the drivers of social relations. Practice theories argue against individualistic-interest and norm-based actor models. They situate knowledge in practice rather than “mental frames” or “discourse.” Practice approaches focus on how groups perform their practical activities in world politics to renew and reproduce social order. They therefore overcome familiar dualisms—agents and structures, subjects and objects, and ideational and material—that plague IR theory. Practice theories are a heterogeneous family, but, as we argue, share a range of core commitments. Realizing the promise of the practice turn requires considering the full spectrum of its approaches. However, the field primarily draws on trajectories in international practice theory that emphasize reproduction and hierarchies. It should pay greater attention to practice approaches rooted in pragmatism and that emphasize contingency and change. We conclude with an outline of core challenges that the future agenda of international practice theory must tackle.

Pragmatic sociology and competing orders of worth in organizations

Abstract: Different notions of multiple rationalities have recently been applied to describe the phenomena of co-existence of competing rationalities in organizations. These include institutional pluralism, institutional logics, competing rationalities and pluralistic contexts. The French pragmatic sociologists Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thevenot have contributed to this line of research with a sophisticated theoretical framework of orders of worth, which has been applied in an increasing number of empirical studies. This article explores how the order of worth framework has been applied to empirical studies of organizations. First, I summarize the basic ideas of the framework, stressing the aspects of special relevance for studies of organizations. Second, I review the empirical studies focusing on the coexistence of competing orders of worth in organizations showing that the order of worth framework primarily has been related to three main themes in organizational research: non-profit and co-operative organization...