Miguel Abensour: an insurgeant thought

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to present Patrice Vermeren’s book and his studies on the work of French philosopher Miguel Abensour, released in France in October 2019, Penser contre: essais sur la philosophie critique de Miguel Abensour. Based on his publication and also on the preface “De la démocratie insurgeante” by Miguel Abensour, we intend to situ ate the thought of this philosopher as insurgeant, moved by the desire for emancipation from the orthodoxies. In his book about Abensour, Vermeren highlights a unique style of philosophizing against by means of concepts that are played against their own author and thus make them available to those who wish to constitute themselves as emancipated readers. In his free reading of consecrated philosophers, Abensour moves his philosophical imagination in the construction of concepts that guide his own thinking. They are, according to Vermeren’s emphasis: political utopia, institutions, counter-state, and insurgent democracy. His political philosophy adjectivized as critical-utopic accompanies his concept of insurgent democracy: both move against forms of domination.