Institute of Philosophy SAS
Topic
The Importance of Anarchism in French Philosophy
PhD. program
Year of admission
2026
Name of the supervisor
doc. Jon Stewart, DrSc., PhD., Dr. habil phil. et
Contact:
Receiving school
Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach
Annotation
While anarchism is often dismissed as a hopelessly unrealistic approach to social-political thinking, today anarchism is undergoing a vibrant renaissance due in part to the attempts to update it through the works of the French structuralist and post-structuralist philosophies. In France of the 20th century, the anarchist tradition of Bakunin and Kropotkin was regarded as a viable political paradigm, and there were different political groupings that followed this line. Anarchism influenced some of the leading Francophone philosophers of the day, such as Alexandre Kojève, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and others. This topic invites proposals for projects aimed at exploring these connections. Why was anarchism important in France, especially from the fin de siècle until World War II? What significance did it have for the development of French philosophy? Are there elements of this anarchist tradition that can still be used as philosophical tools today?