Program
“The Animal.” A philosophical dialogue between Florence Burgat (ENS) and Claudine Tiercelin (Collège de France). Moderator: Géraldine Muhlmann
Accompanied by readings of literary texts on animals by Éric Ruf (member and honorary general administrator of the Comédie-Française).
“The Animal.” A philosophical dialogue between Florence Burgat and Claudine Tiercelin
Moderator: Géraldine Muhlmann
Florence Burgat is a philosopher and INRAE research director who has been assigned to the Husserl Archives (École normale supérieure de Paris) since 2012. Her research focuses on animal existence, subjectivity, and the animal condition. To this end, she draws upon: phenomenological approaches (Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, and Buytendijk, in particular), which also allow for distinguishing animal life from that of plants; Freudian psychoanalysis, the Budapest School, and the thought of psychiatrist Henri Ey, to understand the animal psyche in terms of its unconscious dimension and psychopathology; the institution of meat-eating, analyzed from the perspectives of philosophy and anthropology (structural and religious). She has also contributed to the analysis of animal law (she served as co-editor-in-chief of the *Revue semestrielle de droit animalier* for ten years). She is notably the author of *L’Humanité carnivore* (Seuil, 2017). Florence Burgat is currently working on an in-depth study of psychoanalysts’ use of ethology from the 1920s to the 1940s.
Claudine Tiercelin is an honorary professor at the Collège de France (Chair of Metaphysics and Philosophy of Knowledge , 2010–2025). A graduate of the École normale supérieure with an agrégation in philosophy, she studied at the Universities of Paris-IV, Berkeley, and Paris-I, where she completed, under the supervision of Jacques Bouveresse, a postgraduate dissertation on the philosophy of knowledge and language of C. S. Peirce, followed by a doctoral dissertation devoted to the problem of universals in Peirce’s work. An honorary senior member of the Institut universitaire de France, a member of the Institut Jean Nicod , a member of the Academia Europaea since 2012, an Officer of the Legion of Honor, and an Officer of the National Order of Merit, Claudine Tiercelin was elected to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques on December 4, 2017. Her work centers on three areas that have always been closely interrelated: Charles Sanders Peirce and the pragmatist tradition in philosophy; Metaphysics; and the Philosophy of Knowledge.
Reading of Literary Texts on Animals, by Éric Ruf
Literature offers numerous attempts to give animals a tangible existence by highlighting their inherent dignity and the unique quality of their presence. The opening of the symposium on animals will thus feature a bestiary of nine animals—not necessarily the most beloved ones (in order of appearance: the migratory bird, the peacock, the swan, the octopus, the fly, the grass snake, the insect, the jellyfish, and the frog), celebrated in magnificent language by as many French writers, some of whom taught at the Collège de France (in chronological order: Jules Michelet, Victor Hugo, Jules Renard, Paul Valéry, Colette, Marguerite Yourcenar, Patrice de La Tour du Pin, Marguerite Duras, and Pierre Gascar).
An actor, director, and set designer, Éric Ruf joined the Comédie-Française as an actor in 1993 and served as its general administrator from 2014 to 2025. There, he pursued an artistic policy that brought together both master directors and emerging talents.
As a director of both plays and operas, in December 2024 he staged a new production of Paul Claudel’s Le Soulier de satin at the Comédie-Française’s Salle Richelieu. As the set designer for his own productions, he regularly creates sets for productions directed by Denis Podalydès, Clément Hervieu-Léger, Valérie Lesort, Christian Hecq, Julie Deliquet,
and others. As an actor, he works in theater, television, and film, where he was recently seen in *The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan* and *The Three Musketeers: Milady*, films directed by Martin Bourboulon. In 2020, he launched *La Comédie continue!*, a web series by the Comédie-Française that aired seven days a week during the eight weeks of lockdown. Given the public’s enthusiastic response to the series, he continued to develop the concept by creating *Théâtre à la table*, a new form of audiovisual theater.
Éric Ruf is a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters.
