Sandra Laugier (; born 1961) is a French philosopher, who works on moral philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of language, gender studies, and popular culture.
Education Laugier received her Habilitation to (direct research) (HDR) from the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in 1997 and her thesis from Paris-Sorbonne University in 1990. She was a visiting graduate student at Harvard University (1983-1985) and an undergraduate student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, where she obtained an Agrégation in philosophy in 1983.
Academic career She is a full professor of philosophy (classe exceptionnelle, university professor) at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a Senior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France. She currently serves as the deputy director of the at Paris 1. Her work focuses on ethics of care, democracy, and feminism.
Laugier has held several positions at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), including deputy director of the Division for Humanities and Social Sciences (INSHS) from 2010 to 2017 and a Special Adviser “Science in Society” to the president of CNRS from 2016 to 2017.
One of the founders of the Institut du Genre at the CNRS, Laugier served as its president from 2012 to 2018 and as the president of the Scientific Council from 2018 to 2022. She has also served as an expert for the European Commission and as a panelist for the European Research Council (ERC).
Visiting professorships Laugier has taught at various universities around the world, including as a visiting professor at Toronto University (2022), Boston University (2019) and at Sapienza University of Rome (2019), a visiting research fellow at the Max Planck Institute (Berlin), distinguished visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, visiting professor at Pontifical University (Lima), and visiting professor “Chaire invitée” at the Facultés Saint-Louis (Bruxelles).
Awards and distinctions In 2014, she received the title of the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. In 2022, she was awarded the Grand Prix Moron by the Académie française. In 2024, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Published works Laugier is the author of numerous publications on ordinary language philosophy (Ludwig Wittgenstein, John L. Austin), moral philosophy (moral perfectionism, ethics of care), American philosophy (Stanley Cavell, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson), gender studies, popular culture (TV series), and, more recently, on democracy and civil disobedience. She is the French translator of most of Stanley Cavell’s work and is one of his estate's executors.
Since 2019, she has been the principal investigator of the ERC programme Demoseries devoted to the philosophy of TV series.
Editorial work Laugier is the editor of two-book series: TV-Philosophy, published by Exeter Press (with Robert Sinnerbrink and Martin Shuster) and Philoséries, published by Vrin (with Sylvie Allouche.)
She coedits, with Franck Fischbach the collection "Problèmes & Controverses" at the Librairie philosophique J. Vrin.
With Raphaël Zagury-Orly and Isabelle Alfandary, she co-directed a lecture series organized through Les Rencontres Philosophiques de Monaco: ("What is philosophy?"). The text was published by Librairie philosophique J. Vrin.
She is a member of editorial / scientific board of: Archives de Philosophie British Journal for the History of Philosophy European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy Iride Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale
Additionally, she is a member of the scientific committee behind Vocabulaire européen des philosophies, dictionnaire des intraduisibles, edited by Barbara Cassin (Le Seuill/Le Robert, 2004).
She is also a member of the scientific council of "Citéphilo" (Lille), "PHILOSOPHIA" (St Emilion) and La fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme (FMSH) (Paris). Additionally, she serves as a member of the jury of the prizes given by Les Rencontres Philosophiques de Monaco.
Laugier is a columnist at the French journal Libération and is the author of about ten translations of the author Stanley Cavell.
Edited books Physique et réalité (coedited with Michel Bitbol), Paris, éditions Diderot, Paris, 1997 Les mots de l’esprit: Wittgenstein et la philosophie de la psychologie (coedited with Christiane Chauviré and Jean-Jacques Rosat), Paris, Vrin, 2001 Carnap et la construction logique du monde, Paris, Vrin, 2001 Stanley Cavell, cinéma et philosophie (coedited with Marc Cerisuelo), Paris, Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2001 Wittgenstein: Métaphysique et jeu de langage, Paris, PUF, 2001 Wittgenstein, dernières pensées (coedited with Jacques Bouveresse and Jean-Jacques Rosat), Marseille, Agone, 2002 Husserl et Wittgenstein: De la description de l’expérience à la phénoménologie linguistique (coedited with Jocelyn Benoist), Hildesheim, Olms, 2004 Textes-clés de philosophie des sciences (coedited with Pierre Wagner), 2 volumes, Paris, Vrin, 2004 Langage ordinaire et métaphysique – Strawson (coedited with Jocelyn Benoist), Paris, Vrin, 2005 Dictionnaire de la pornographie (coedited with Philippe Di Folco), Paris, PUF, 2005 Le souci des autres – éthique et politique du care (coedited with Patricia Paperman), Paris, Éditions de l’EHESS, 2006 L’ordinaire et le politique (coedited with Claude Gautier), Paris, PUF, 2006 Ethique, littérature, vie humaine, Paris, PUF, 2006 Lire les Recherches Philosophiques de Wittgenstein (coedited with Christiane Chauviré), Paris, Vrin, 2006 Comment penser l'autonomie? Entre compétences et dépendances (coedited with Marlène Jouan), Paris, PUF, 2008 Normativités du sens commun (coedited with Claude Gautier), Paris, PUF, 2009 Textes-clés de philosophie du langage (coedited with Bruno Ambroise), 2 volumes, Paris, Vrin, 2009, 2010 Qu’est-ce que le care ? (coedited with P. Paperman and P. Molinier), Payot, Paris, 2009. La voix et la vertu: Variétés du perfectionnisme moral, Paris, PUF, 2010 J. L. Austin et la philosophie du langage ordinaire (coedited with Christophe Al-Saleh), Hildesheim, Olms, 2011 Tous vulnérables? Ethique du care, les animaux et l'environnement, Paris, Payot, 2012 La philosophie analytique (coedited with Sabine Plaud), Paris, Ellipses, 2012 Philoséries: Buffy – Tueuse de vampires (coedited with Sylvie Allouche), Paris, Bragelonne, 2014 Formes de vie (coedited with Estelle Ferrarese), CNRS éditions, 2018 Le pouvoir des liens faibles (coedited with Alexandre Gefen), CNRS éditions, 2020 Concepts de l’ordinaire (coedited with Pierre Fasula), éditions de la Sorbonne, 2021 Perlocutoire (coedited with Daniele Lorenzini), éditions Mare et Martin, 2021 Des enjeux publics de la pandémie (coedited with Christine Noiville and Xavier Philippe), éditions Mare et Martin, 2021 Cavell’s Must We Mean What We Say? at Fifty (coedited with Juliet Floyd et Greg Chase), Cambridge University Press, 2022 Les usages de l’usage (coedited with Béatrice Godart-Wendling), ISTE, Londres, 2022 24h chrono. Aux origines du genre sécuritaire (coedited with Sylvie Allouche), Vrin, open access, 2022 Séries TV, laboratoire d’éveil politique, CNRS Editions, Paris 2023 Television With Stanley Cavell in Mind (coedited with David LaRocca), Exeter Press, 2023
Edited special journal issues "Retour du moralisme ?" (coedited with Laurent Jaffro), Cités, 2001 "Moritz Schlick et le tournant de la philosophie", Etudes Philosophiques, 2001 "Wittgenstein 1889-1951", Archives de philosophie, 2001 "Ralph Waldo Emerson: L’autorité du scepticisme", Revue Française d’Etudes Américaines, 2002 "Naturalisme(s): Héritages contemporains de Hume", Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 2003 "Politiques de la pornographie" (coedited with Michela Marzano), Cités, 2003 "Après la structure: Kuhn et les révolutions scientifiques", Archives de philosophie, 2003 "Usages d’Austin" (coedited with Isabelle Thomas-Fogiel), Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 2004 "Morale et métaphysique chez G.E. Moore" (coedited with Emmanuel Picavet), Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 2006 "La contrainte", Actes de savoirs. Revue de l'IUF, 2007 "Quine et l'analyticité", Archives de philosophie, 2009 "Wittgenstein politique" (coedited with Marie-Anne Lescourret), Cités, 2009 "Politiques du care" (coedited with Pascale Molinier), Multitudes, 2009 "Perfectionism, Transcendentalism, Pragmatism" (coedited with Piergiorgio Donatelli), European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2011 "Grammaires de la vulnérabilité" (coedited with Marie Gaille), Raison Publique, 2011 "Stanley Cavell", Revue internationale de philosophie, 2011 "Le retour à la vie ordinaire", Raison Publique, 2013 "Care and Human Security", Iride, 2013 "Care, catastrophe, capabilités", Raison Publique, 2014 "Nouveaux vivants" et "Le care des robots", Multitudes, 2015 "Genre et environnement", Cahiers du Genre, 2015 "Politique des formes de vie", with E. Ferrarese, Raisons politiques, 2015 "New Robotics, New Living Beings", Iride, 2016 "Scepticisme, pragmatisme et philosophie du langage ordinaire", with D. Zapero, Raison Publique, 2016. "L'invention des formes de vie", Multitudes, no 71, 2018 "Symposia - Democrazia e scienze partecipative", Iride, no 3, 2019 "The perlocutionary and the illocutionary", dir. with D. Lorenzini,Inquiry, 2019 "Le patriarcat bouge encore", Multitudes, no 78, 2020 "L’autre société des séries (with A. Kyrou)", Multitudes, no 84, 2021 "Ethics and Politics of TV Series", Open Philosophy, 2021 "100 ans de Tractatus logico-philosophicus", Revue internationale de philosophie, 2022 "Les séries télévisées pensent-elles ?", Revue internationale de philosophie, 2022
Bibliography Books L'Anthropologie logique de Quine, Paris, Vrin, 1992 Recommencer la philosophie: La philosophie américaine aujourd'hui, Paris, PUF, 1999 (new enlarged edition, Vrin, 2014) Du réel à l'ordinaire: Quelle philosophie du langage aujourd'hui ?, Paris, Vrin, 1999 (translated in English, The University of Chicago Press, 2013) Faut-il encore écouter les intellectuels?, Paris, Bayard, 2003 Une autre pensée politique américaine: La démocratie radicale, de R. W. Emerson à S. Cavell, Paris, Michel Houdiard, 2004 Qu'est-ce que le care? (with Patricia Paperman and Pascale Molinier), Paris, Payot, 2009 Wittgenstein: Les sens de l'usage, Paris, Vrin, 2009 Wittgenstein: Le mythe de l’inexpressivité, Paris, Vrin, 2010 Pourquoi désobéir en démocratie? (with Albert Ogien), Paris, La Découverte, 2010 Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2013Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy, press.uchicago.edu Face aux désastres: Une conversation à quatre voix sur la folie, le care et les grandes détresses collectives (with Anne M. Lovell, Stefania Pandolfo, Veena Das), Paris, Ithaque, 2013 Le Principe démocratie (with Albert Ogien), Paris, La Découverte, 2014 Recommencer la philosophie: Stanley Cavell et la philosophie en Amérique, Paris, Vrin, 2014 Etica e politica dell'ordinario, Milano, LED Edizioni, 2015 Antidémocratie, (with Albert Ogien), Paris, La Découverte, 2017 with Estelle Ferrarese. Formes de vie. Canada, CNRS Éditions, 2018. Nos vies en series, Paris, Climats, 2019 La société des vulnérables. Leçons féministes d’une crise (with Najat Vallaud-Belkacem), Paris, Éditions Gallimard, 2020 Politics of the Ordinary. Care, Ethics, and Forms of Life, Leuven, Peeters, 2020www.peeters-leuven.be Eloge de l’ordinaire, entretiens avec Philippe Petit, Le Cerf, 2021 En confinement/La seconde vague des séries féministes, AOC livres, 2021 Reinventer l’espace public (with Yves Cohen, Nilüfer Göle, and Richard Rechtman), CNRS Éditions, 2022 TV-Philosophy: How TV Series Change Our Thinking, Exeter Press, 2023 TV-Philosophy in Action: The Ethics and Politics of TV Series, Exeter Press, 2023
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