Alain Supiot
La force d'une idée, followed by L'idée de justice sociale by Alfred Fouillée
Drawing on the lessons of the First and Second World Wars, the ILO Constitution (1919), supplemented by the Declaration of Philadelphia, affirmed that " injustice, misery and deprivation [engender] such discontent that universal peace and harmony are endangered " so that " lasting peace can only be established on the basis of social justice ". A " idea of social justice " was thus legally enshrined, having found its first theoretical formulation in a seminal text by Alfred Fouillée, published in 1899 in the Revue des Deux Mondes. This book offers a rereading of this seminal text 120 years after its first publication.
Fouillée (1832-1912) is a philosopher whose importance has been lost sight of, even though, like Durkheim and Léon Bourgeois, he was one of those who helped renew political thought at the end of the 19th century and lay the theoretical foundations of what our constitution calls the " Social Republic ". Among jurists, he is best known for his formula " Qui dit contractuel dit juste ", a formula carefully extracted from its context to make it say the opposite of what it meant for its author.
At the root of his work is a reflection on the relationship between human freedom and scientific determinism, a relationship he proposed to think in terms of " idée force ", i.e. taking into account the capacity of certain ideas to exert a transformative action on reality. According to him, " Any idea conceived by us has an action on us, and tends to be realized by the very fact that it is conceived ". To think something is to begin it. In this universe of ideas, some - like freedom, law or democracy - express ideals to be realized in the organization of human society. These guiding or driving ideas are themselves the intellectual engines of individual and collective action. " Law," he writes, "is precisely an idea turned towards the future : it is, so to speak, respect for the future in the present itself, not to mention that it is also, perhaps, respect for what is superior to considerations of time ".
Supiot A., La force d'une idée, suivi de L'idée de justice sociale d'Alfred Fouillée, Paris, Les Liens qui libèrent, 2019, 112 p.
New edition of Alfred Fouillée's article " L'idée de justice sociale d'après les écoles contemporaines ", Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. LIX, 1899, T. 152, p. 47-75.
ISBN : 979-10-209-0771-4
Publication : 6 novembre 2019
