Abstract
Universalism has become ubiquitous in contemporary political debates. For the past twenty years, it has been tirelessly referred to as " universalism of the Enlightenment ", which should be defended or, conversely, discarded. To clarify the situation, we can distinguish two debates. The first, fueled by postcolonial studies, concerns the responsibility of the Enlightenment in European colonialism : it is said to have fueled " the civilizing mission " of Europe in the name of a universalism of Western values. The second is the politics of minority claims in liberal democracies. Particularly acute in France, it pits supporters and opponents of a " republican universalism " against each other. In each case, the Enlightenment is portrayed, for better or worse, as the origin of an abstract, rationalist, Eurocentric universalism, rejecting particular identities in the name of uniform progress and unrestricted citizenship. It is precisely this image of the Enlightenment that this year's lecture would like to discuss.
A second time is devoted to presenting some theoretical reflections on universalism. In particular, we consider the distinction between overhanging and lateral universalism (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Souleymane Bachir Diagne), episodes of revolt and wars of liberation that may be part of a reiterative universalism (Michael Walzer), and the internal antinomies of modern universalism, between an emancipatory ideal and an excluding ideology (Eleni Varikas, Silyane Larcher, Étienne Balibar).
We conclude with an initial evocation of the debates specific to the 18th century, notably by analyzing a passage in the dialogue between Orou and the chaplain, in Denis Diderot's Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville. Through a fictional detour via Tahiti, the philosopher points to the crisis of the classical figures of universalism and reflects, without dogmatism, on the possibility of founding new moral standards, emancipated from both religious morality and social conventions. In a secularized world, marked by the diversity of peoples and cultures, where can we find stable points of reference that will enable us to aim for a certain universality of human behavior ?
