Philosophy

The philosophical sciences are a field of research that is particularly full of life at the CNRS, especially the epistemology and philosophy of science. It is a rare and historically important discipline for the CNRS that also extends to the history of ideas - the history of ancient, medieval and modern philosophy. Some CNRS Humanities & Social Sciences units possess considerable archives and libraries that are of interest to a very broad community of philosophers and manage the major journals in their field. CNRS Humanities & Social Sciences’s philosophers maintain an extremely demanding tradition of philological studies, text publishing and translation that extends into fields with a low level of representation in French higher education like Arabic philosophy.

The philosophy of science and technology (the philosophy of biology and that of mathematics, the epistemology of the physical sciences, etc.) can draw on a very active ecosystem supported by numerous historians of science and bolstered by direct interdisciplinary exchanges with other CNRS institutes. Ethical issues are also a strong point of philosophical research at the CNRS particularly as regards issues at the interface with health and technology. Work with and on the cognitive sciences also actively animates and drives research in general.

Research centers and networks