![]() ⏤ We could invoke here the Nietzschean distinction between the Apollonian – which involves traditional beauty, structured, symmetrical and smooth of surface – and the Dionysian – chaos, the formless, a kind of dancing abyss. What do you think of that? It doesn’t leave a lot of room for permanence… There’s a Turkish proverb: ‘To reconstruct yourself, you have to be deconstructed’. You know that moment where you think you are absolutely right and you have grasped the meaning of things… well I don’t think we ever grasp the meaning of things, simply because they don’t have a meaning, or they have several, and that’s precisely why they’re interesting. Generalisation and set phrases are indispensable for the purposes of communication, and I use them willingly, but there is, as always, a little childlike voice inside me murmuring: ‘It’s more complicated than that!’ It extends quite far: I have a reticence vis-a-vis discourses which present themselves as possessors of a universal, general truth. ⏤ It’s a struggle which I’m also involved with beyond the radio show. Why is it so important for you to deconstruct received ideas, prejudices, what we think of as the wisdom of the ages? We open, we unfold and see what there is inside. I like the idea of deconstructing an idea in the sense of unfolding it, as if there were a knot being untied, to provide greater clarity. I try to find the right words to express what is being said in other, more opaque terms: it’s almost a work of translation. But on the other hand, you are right that that is how I define my work: I want every text, every thought of every author to be accessible to everyone. ⏤ I wouldn’t evoke deconstruction if I were talking about that gesture of trying to make clear and accessible a text which is, at first glance, technically complicated. Is deconstruction also undoing, dismantling and dissecting the thought of others to better assimilate it? In order to be able to find the simplicity of an idea behind the complexity of a phrase, you have said that it is essential to have a long familiarity with philosophical discourse and to have come to know the vocabulary of each author. ![]() I mean, I started by telling you that I don’t like to put labels on things. On the other hand, the idea of deconstruction itself applies to my relationship with things and the world. In philosophy, the term ‘deconstruction’ immediately makes us think of Derrida, and he is not a writer with whom I am hugely familiar. ![]() ⏤ To tell you the truth, I was happy that you contacted me to talk about this subject, but I don’t know what gave you the idea! In any case, I think it was a good one. But the term philosopher does not cover everything I am.ĭoes the word ‘deconstruction’, to which we have dedicated this issue, inspire you? If we accept that as a philosophical approach, then that’s what I am. Practising philosophy means embracing the anxiety which constitutes us, and attempting to give it a form, if we cannot find in it a meaning. I have noticed that there are as many definitions of philosophy as there are philosophers! As far as I am concerned, philosophy means a taste for calling into question what seems obvious, and resigning oneself to the absence of answers to the questions we formulate. Everyone puts on to it what is relevant to them, or from what they want to distinguish themselves. And indeed, as a label, philosopher can be rather weighty. ⏤ It is very difficult to define philosophy, that’s a whole subject in its own right. In your show, some philosophers seem uncomfortable with the term, as if they had moved beyond it… Each time I designate myself as something, I say that it’s not quite right or that it’s too reductive: from woman to philosopher, via mother, lover, someone who enjoys sport… I’d say the same about calling myself a philosopher: why not? But not uniquely. I’m generally not keen on putting labels on things and especially not on my own identity. I think, moreover, that it is because I ask myself that question, that I ask it of other people. ⏤ You know, I ask myself that same question all the time. Adèle, do you define yourself as a philosopher? When you have a philosopher on your show, you begin by asking them whether they define themselves as a philosopher.
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