Agathe Vidal

Grenoble

Here we discover the career of Agathe Vidal, consultant in ethics and philosophy, founder of the Institut Cogito and Philo and co...

Studies, reading, projects... Here's what she has to say!

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Can you introduce yourself? What are you currently doing?

Today I am training more specifically in didactics of philosophy in Belgium, in order to study the different ways in which philosophy is taught, its relationship to other disciplines and its impact in all sectors where philosophy is present.

This choice was made in order to answer the question of the place of philosophy and its means of transmission.

When I taught my students, they found that three hours a week was not enough, and they were indignant about the demands of the tests in the face of the lack of means to familiarise themselves with the discipline. They saw the links with other disciplines but deplored the fact that they were learning it in their final year and had no framework for doing so.

That's how I started to create philosophy workshops.

Until then, my experience of philosophy workshops had been limited to those at L'AGSASS and those carried out with GENEPI.

So the Philo and co site was mainly used to create philosophy workshops for my students, then other people came regularly, so the site was an opportunity to organise events for associations.

It was in this context that the request for an initiatory novel "Se manquer" arose, which was the occasion for rich encounters and exchanges that only confirmed the need for everyone to have a space to practise philosophy and familiarise themselves with authors, philosophical themes but also to question the role and practices of philosophy within the City.

It was with this in mind that, in 2017, I founded the Institut Cogito so that there would be a structure enabling anyone who wanted to (companies and individuals) to train and be supported in their philosophical quest.

The principle is to provide tailor-made training courses as well as events and support so as to give everyone the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the discipline.

What do you remember about your studies? Of your teachers?

At the time when I was doing the Licence, I was regularly asked about the usefulness of philosophy in a capitalist world, my answer was "that studying philosophy would probably not give me the money to live on but would offer me the luxury of fulfilment".

Studying in my time therefore seems to me above all to be an opportunity, at a time of current reforms but also of the construction of new types of teaching (online) and budgetary restrictions on laboratories.

I was lucky enough to have teachers who were for the most part as brilliant as they were passionate, and if at the time it was an opportunity in terms of access, it was especially so in terms of the means (social and intellectual) to take full advantage of our masters' knowledge and understand their intentions.

Which philosophy book have you been particularly passionate about? The author you fell in love with at first sight?

I guess you could say that Levinas particularly fascinated me, especially his Ethics of the Face, where he describes access to the face as from the outset ethical:

It is when you see a nose, eyes, forehead, chin, and can describe them, that you turn to another as to an object. The best way to meet another person is not even to notice the colour of their eyes!

Can we talk about facial attention? Certainly not, it is certainly a question of being attentive but to something that goes beyond us while connecting us. Without getting into the mystical aspect of this text, wouldn't it be, through this "access" that all our interactions with others should begin?

And on the form of our interactions, the third part of the third chapter of Being and Nothingness:

To look at the gaze of Another is to pose oneself in one's own freedom and to attempt, from the depths of that freedom, to confront the freedom of the other.

Talking about relationship as a subject-object relationship appeals to me just as much today as it did the day I read these pages, and perhaps that is why they are authors who never leave me with Kant, Merleau-Ponty.

Beyond this deep attachment is the meeting with Égard Morin, only confirmed my intuition, through his approach in particular in Volume VI, of "method, Ethics", and complex thinking.

Have you ever tried your hand at writing? Could you tell us about your creations?

I started my writing experience at 13, at that age, or I wrote my first "social" novel.

Since that day I have developed a strong appetite for the humanities and social sciences, and devoured psychology books especially in maths lessons before immersing myself in philosophical resources (and never letting go).

Later, as a teenager I used to do exercises based on concepts to pass the time in my native province, then when I moved to Paris I continued to write (novels, reflections, poems and aphorisms...) and wrote another novel in the form of reflections alongside my philosophy studies.

Philosophical narrative has taken on an important role as a response to demand from a public wishing to familiarise themselves with philosophy while experiencing reflection, and it was with this in mind that I published "Se manquer" and hope to publish other initiatory novels.

Thank you Agathe, for this testimonial!

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