3.0

credits

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The EU is living a “theoretical moment,” in other words, a moment in which conceptual innovation is essential if we want to escape the deadlock in which we find ourselves, which is, first and foremost, a conceptual deficit. We are not facing a problem that can be resolved through leadership and procedures as much as a crisis that should be well diagnosed, in such a way that the basic concepts of democracy should be reconsidered in the context of the new complex reality that is the European Union. We are probably most in need of a theory of Europe that consists neither of institutional mechanics nor of cosmopolitan haze. And that is precisely the point at which philosophy still has a lot to say. The polarization between theory and practice, between normative and empirical points of view, between disciplines that focus mainly on values and those that happily inhabit functional realities has given way to very diverse controversies in the heart of the social and human sciences. This dissociation is as much a problem as a symptom, and we will not succeed at making European reality intelligible if we work without a determined horizon of valuation or if we maintain a level of exhortative discourse that cares very little for the real game of interests, the weight of our historical past or the multiple determinants that limit political action in a space of dense interdependence. From this perspective, the proposed course will examine questions such as democracy, legitimacy, justice, demos and representation in order to offer an innovative comprehension about what is new in the European Union and what its main contribution to reconciling democracy and complexity, that is to say to global governance, could be.