Professor Vincent Descombes: Criteria for Collective Identities

The French Embassy has generously sponsored a cycle of lectures and workshops which bring to Cambridge leading scholars from France to interact and foster research collaborations with experts in Cambridge from across the Schools of Arts and Humanities and Humanities and Social Sciences. In this second year of collaboration, the cycle of talks and workshops will explore the complex theme of identity in 21st-century France and beyond.

The lectures, which will be given in English, are open to any member of the University.

In this fourth lecture, co-organised by the Department of French, Professor Vincent Descombes (L'École des Hautes Études on Sciences Sociales) will give a talk on Criteria for Collective Identities.

The lecture will address the question whether there is any connection between two concepts of identity: the logical concept on the one hand, i.e. 'identity' as we understand it when we make an assertion of identity ('the Morning Star = the Evening star'), and the psychological concept on the other hand, i.e. the kind of identity we have in mind when we are speaking of an 'identity crisis' or putting forward a programme of 'identity politics'.

Firstly, Professor Descombes will consider whether there are identity criteria for collective entities such as cities, schools, churches, countries, etc. This is basically a question about the ontological status of instituted groups. Secondly, he will ask who is in a position to define the criteria to be applied to a group in order to make judgments as to its identity over time. This is a question about the idea of a collective consciousness and a moral psychology of people in groups. Can a group entertain a self-definition like an individual person? Having such a power is what it takes to have an identity in the psychological sense. He will attempt to make sense of such an ascription of a psychological identity to groups by spelling out the semantics of the pronoun 'we'.

About Vincent Descombes

Born in 1943, Vincent Descombes is a French philosopher, based at the Centre de Recherches Politiques Raymond Aron, which is part of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago. His Le Même et l’Autre (1979) (translated asModern French Philosophy) provided an important critical account of French philosophy from 1933 to 1978. His subsequent work has engaged with the analytic tradition. Although he has a wide range of interests, he is particularly interested in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of action. Among his many works may be cited: Grammaire d'objets en tous genres, Éditions de Minuit, 1983 (Objects of All Sorts: A Philosophical Grammar, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988); Proust: philosophie du roman, Éditions de Minuit, 1987 (Proust: Philosophy of the Novel, Stanford University Press, 1992); Philosophie par gros temps, Éditions de Minuit, 1989 (The Barometer of Modern Reason: On the Philosophies of Current Events, Oxford University Press, 1993); La Denrée mentale, Éditions de Minuit, 1995 (The Mind's Provisions: A Critique of Cognitivism, Princeton University Press, 2001); Les Institutions du sens, Éditions de Minuit, 1996; Le Complément de sujet, Gallimard, 2004; Philosophie du jugement politique, Paris, Points Essais, Seuil, 2008. His lecture will address the theme of identity, which he has explored in Les embarras de l'identité, Gallimard, 2013.