Philo aux Bains 2024

Sunday, February 11 at 10:00 a.m. – View the online discussion

Can a river become a legal person? Do ecosystems have the same rights as an individual or a company? And if so, how do you assert these rights? On what basis? And what impact would such a change have on our relationship with nature?

Thibault Faraüs, author of Les écosystèmes ont-ils des droits (Do ecosystems have rights? ) and winner of Science Po Lyon’s 2021 Dissertation Prize for his work, will help us answer these and other questions.

The café-philo will take place at the Bains des Pâquis on the pier, under the yurt (free admission), and will be broadcast live on Facebook and YouTube.

Saturday, March 16 at 2:00 p.m. – View the online discussion

What if you only worked three hours a day? What would you do with the rest of your time? And to what extent would your relationship with others, with work and with nature potentially be turned upside down? How would the company be transformed? What if laziness became a cardinal virtue, far removed from stress and burnout? What if another world were possible?

As part of the FIFDH, we’ll be discussing these and other issues with Hadrien Klent. Hadrien Klent is a French writer whose fiction reflects on the limits of the current political and social system. He is the author of Paresse pour tous, a utopia in which the right to laziness is declared, working hours are reduced and all societal problems are tackled from a new angle.

“Laziness isn’t laziness, sluggishness or depression. It’s about building your own life, your own rhythm, your own relationship with time – no longer being subjected to it.” (Hadrien Klen)

The café-philo will take place at the Bains des Pâquis, on the pier, under the yurt, and will be broadcast live on Facebook and YouTube. Free admission.

Sunday, March 17 at 10:00 a.m. – View the online discussion

Artificial intelligence is now entering the art world with a vengeance: apps paint images of different artistic styles and currents at the touch of a button, AI composes symphonies and chatbots write poems.
What does this mean for art theory and practice? Do we need to redefine art? Who or what do we consider to be creators of art? How to distinguish the original from the counterfeit? Is art coming to an end, or are we opening a whole new chapter in the history of art?

Catrin Misselhorn teaches philosophy at the Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany. From 2012 to 2019, she held the Chair of Theory of Science and Philosophy of Technology at the University of Stuttgart.

For some years now, Catrin Misselhorn has been interested in the philosophy of artificial intelligence and robot ethics as fields of research, and has presented her first publications in this field, building a bridge between the philosophy of technology and her work on aesthetics. She drew an analogy between our affective reactions to humanoid robots (notably empathy) and those to fictional film characters, and used this approach as the basis for her analysis and explanation of “Uncanny Valley”.

The café-philo will take place at the Bains des Pâquis, on the pier under the yurt, and will be broadcast live on Facebook and recorded on YouTube. Free admission.

Sunday, April 21 at 10:00 a.m. – Review the online discussion

A profession as old as time itself, or almost, prostitution continues to fuel heated debate on an activity often considered illicit and problematic.

At the other end of the moral spectrum, Grisélidis Réal, writer, painter and prostitute, saw prostitution as a revolutionary act to alleviate human misery. Through her many writings, she takes a different look at this unusual job in the heart of the streets.

As part of the Festival Histoire et Cité, we are delighted to welcome Igor Schimek and Jehane Zouyene to Les Bains to discuss social issues linked to prostitution through the prism of Grisélidis’ writings.

Together, we’ll reflect on the many questions raised by Grisélidis in her day, questions that are more topical than ever.

Jehane Zouyene is project manager at the Centre Grisélidis Réal and scientific collaborator at the Swiss Institute for the Study of Art (SIK-ISEA). After studying art history at the University of Geneva, she obtained a doctorate from the University of Aberdeen (Scotland) for her research on the role of photographic narrative in France (2022).

In 2015, she published Grisélidis Réal, peintre, the first catalog raisonné of her plastic work (Humus, Lausanne) and then presented a monographic exhibition of her work at the Centre Culturel du Manoir de Cologny. A member of the Aspasie committee since 2019, she joins the association’s team in 2022 to enhance the militant archives of the Centre Grisélidis Réal. The same year, the association published Travailler, Lutter Diffuser : archives militantes du Centre Grisélidis Réal de documentation internationale sur la prostitution (Les Presses du Réel/Aspasie, Dijon), which it co-edited with Marianne Schweizer and Balthazar Lovay, and for which it wrote the introduction.

Igor Schimek is Grisélidis Réal’s eldest son and a living memory of her work and struggles.

The meeting will take place under the yurt, free entry, and will be broadcast live on Faebook Live.

Sunday, May 5 at 10:00 a.m. – View the online discussion

Now that we have removed all notion of the Earth’s maps Terra IncognitaHaving progressively explored every nook and cranny of our world, while Google has mapped the four corners of a planet that seems increasingly finite and less and less mysterious, can we still find an elsewhere (real or imaginary)? Is it possible to find heterotopias, those counter-spaces that are absolutely other? Are the colonization of space, the fictional creation of fantasy universes or the development of the metaverse the only solutions to this search for elsewhere?

In his book, Pétaouchnok(s), du bout du monde au milieu de nulle part, Ricardo Clavolella takes a look at the many Pétaouchnoks, Timbuktu, Javas or Perpète-Les-Oies around the world: places, sometimes imaginary and sometimes real, that seem to be at the other end of the world and in the middle of nowhere.

As we set out to discover these other places, we end up learning a lot more about the people who imagine them.

Riccardo Ciavolella has been a research fellow in anthropology at CNRS since 2011, and is a member and currently co-director (Directeur d’Unité, DU) of the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Politique at EHESS, where he has taught political anthropology since 2012.

The café-philo will take place on the Bains pier, will be broadcast live on Facebook Live and will be available on YouTube.

Thursday, May 23 at 5:30 p.m.

Whether verbal or written, a promise is a present-day assurance of a future action or inaction. By mobilizing our consciences, our responsibility and our integrity, this act saddles a relationship of trust, or runs the risk of breaking it.

“Our lives are made up of little promises,” writes the author of La promesse qu’est-ce que ça change , which we make to ourselves or to others. We’ve all experienced it, at least once, but why?

To deepen our reflection, Carole Widmaier shows us, with the help of Nietzsche, René Char, the singer Barbara and real-life situations, what promising changes in our human lives. This limpid text, which combines great pedagogy with a beautiful sensitivity, is part of the approach proposed by the Qu’est-ce que ça change? collection, launched on the occasion of the publishing house’s centenary.

Because philosophy dies if it becomes a huis clos of experts, the collection is committed to clear, accessible and concrete thinking that brings about change for those who write and for those who read.

For this edition of Philo aux Bains, we’re delighted to welcome Carole Widmaier, philosopher and author of La Promesse, and Marion Muller-Colard, director of Labor et Fides and author. An opportunity to discuss the book’s theme, but also to question the approach of this collection and its impact on the way we write, analyze and read.

Saturday, June 15 at 4:00 p.m.

Four years after his first visit, Aurélien Barrau is back at the Bains to take stock of the current ecological situation.

It will also be an opportunity to talk about his latest book, L’Hypothèse K, which aims to “shake science out of its bad habits” of technology and engineering, and restore its moral value through poetry.

Aurélien Barrau is an astrophysicist. He teaches at Grenoble-Alpes University. He is director of the Grenoble Centre for Theoretical Physics and author of The Greatest Challenge in the History of Mankind . In recent years, he has been particularly involved in the ecological struggle.

The café-philo will take place on the Bains pier, and will be broadcast live on Facebook and available for replay on YouTube.