Philosophical conference: The invocation of economic arguments in public and political debate

March 19, 2025, 5:00 p.m. - March 19, 2025, 7:00 p.m.

philosophical lectures llseti

Organized by the Languages, Literatures, Societies, Transborder and International Studies (LLSETI) at USMB and the Association of Philosophy Teachers in Public Education, the series of philosophical lectures “Toward an Ethics of Discussion: Democratic Challenges” continues this Wednesday, March 19, at 5:00 p.m. with the theme “ The Invocation of Economic Arguments in Public and Political Discussion.”This lecture will take place in Room 3 at the University of Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB) administration building in Chambéry. It is open to all and requires no registration. 

About the conference 

[More information coming soon] 

This lecture will be led by Hervé Hutin, Associate Professor of Economics and Social Sciences and researcher at LLSETI, and instructor for the Master’s program in Crisis Analysis and Humanitarian Action at the University of Savoie Mont Blanc.

About the series "Towards an Ethics of Discussion: Democratic Issues"  

We seem to have become powerless in the face of the widespread disruption of discussion, which we too readily attribute to effectively deregulated media outlets. We must never forget that our societies are still plagued by emotions that incite violence, the very ones Freud warned us about in Civilization and Its Discontents. At the same time, this disruption of discussion into irreconcilable battles, into "agonistics," clearly undermines democratic debate. And the remedies for this cannot be based on the invocation of reason, or even of truth, which remain powerless in political debate. Even if it is necessary to defend facts and use reason against conspiracy theories and negativism, democratic discussion is not based on the authority of truths but on the pluralism of opinions, without which it could not exist and which must be defended. There is no doubt that we must promote a culture of democratic conflict and its normal functioning. We will seek to develop this hypothesis by considering it through a number of fields that embody its expression.  

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