APRES COUP From Ecology to Politics: Towards a Philosophy of Action

Après coup offers a critical approach to current news centered around specific events that are revealing of some distinctive aspects of the contemporary period.

Pour the first installment, Bastien Gallet has invited Patrick Degeorges, Charles Ruelle, and Émilie Hache to discuss the following theme: « From Ecology to Politics: Towards a Philosophy of Action. »

– Patrick Degeorges is a philosopher and a project leader on predators at the Ministry of Ecology.

– Émilie Hache is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Université Paris VIII and works on theories of responsibility.

– Charles Ruelle is a member of the editorial board of Labyrinthe and has translated Arne Naess’s Ecology, community and lifestyle.

The Après coup concept

Après coup is a new series of discussions which aims to put in perspective a contemporary issue through current works and research findings (publications, events, exhibitions, commemorations…). Each session has as its goal to cross disciplines and fields around two guests and a common question. The format chosen for these evenings is that of a dialogue, sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory between these guests whose points of view on the topic at hand are necessarily distinct.

Après coup offers a critical approach to current news centered around specific events that are revealing of some distinctive aspects of the contemporary period. Such critique in action, pragmatic in nature, also has as its object the renewal of its tools and concepts.

The term « après coup, » it should be noted, refers to three different phenomena in psychoanalysis, marketing, and common use, respectively, all of which have caught our attention in that they may foster three critical approaches. In psychoanalysis, « après-coup » refers to the formation of a trauma in two steps: a trauma takes place, yet it always manifests itself afterwards, through an apparently insignificant event that makes it resurface. A current symptom does not solely refers to a recent event, but to a complex of things that begs for analysis.

In marketing, a « coup » (a « stunt ») has to do with a way to devise an event and publicize it. The time coming after the event (the « après-coup ») would thus be a time of exposure of what comes out of or emerges from the events themselves, beyond the hype and drum-beating. From a critical standpoint, one could thus talk of « symptomatic events, » with the idea of looking for potential invention and novelty that may have escaped their very protagonists or audiences. Finally, « après coup » commonly points to what happens « once the deed is done. » Thus understood, the practice coming « afterwards » encourages very simply to pass the word on current works or research findings with significant critical impact, but which remain under the radar.