What is talent ? Elements of the social physics of differences and inequalities

The aim of our lecture is to trace the long history of a concept, talent, whose use has evolved in a manner contrary to its literal meaning. Originally defined as a unit of measurement and weight, the notion was used to designate shared abilities, aptitudes and gifts, the activation of which presupposed the exercise of willpower, or, in a bolder interpretation, called for risk-taking. But in its metaphorical usage, talent is one of those dispositional categories whose definition is as imprecise as its use is convenient. Used in the 18th^century to support a new conception of individual equality and to legitimize the ambition of success freed from the arbitrariness of hereditary privilege, the notion then met the fate reserved for it by the antagonistic positions on "just inequalities" inaugurated during the French Revolution. The invocation of talent lay at the heart of^19th-century political and economic liberalism, as well as of Saint-Simonism, and its apology for the audacity of artists, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs. In contrast, the notion of talent, in its inclusive and non-competitive version, was invoked by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Karl Marx to set aside the value of individual differentiation and hierarchization, in favor of an ideal, accessible to all, of self-realization through productive action, through the radical equalization of opportunities to develop one's full potential. As the foundation of a meritocratic conception of individual success, on the one hand, and an instrument for liberating individuals through disalienated work, on the other, talent has thus been embodied in two opposing figures - exclusive and inclusive - while benefiting from its difficult-to-define nature.