L'intelligibilité de la pratique. Entre Foucault et Sartre

By questioning the logic of practice as the main topic of intellectual life in France in the 1960's, we shall understake a confrontation between the ideas of Foucault and Sartre. Without playing down their differences of opinion, which have often been emphasized by the humanistic dispute, we shall endeavor to bring forward a topic thse twi authors share : the proposal of an attempt at the intelligibility of practice, based o a duly defined historic material. Such a confrontation will enable us to examine thoroughly the notions of praxis, genealogy, and the polictics of truth. This will entail radically new theories about a "situated thought" shared by both the universal intellectual, about a "historic and philosophical" practice which will not hold its object - the "practical ensembles" - too close and will not derealize or overhang it, in a complex relation between past and present. The theoretical space which is open in this manner between Foucault and Sartre on the question of intelligibility of practice also permits a confrontation with Marx and marxisms (Althusser mainly), as well as with social sciences (Bourdieu mostly).