Prof. dr. C. (Claude) Lefort
Honorary supervisor Prof. Dr. E.E. Berns - 1992 – Faculteit Wijsbegeerte
French political philosopher Claude Lefort (Paris, 1924–2010) was an advocate of democracy and critic of twentieth-century totalitarianism. Lefort taught at the University of Paris and São Paulo, the University of Paris, and was affiliated with the Centre de recherches politiques Raymond Aron, among others. He has written on early political thinkers such as Machiavelli.
In 2016, the collection "What is Politics" was published, containing essays by Lefort. The preface states that, according to Claude Lefort, the question can be answered as follows. Politics is the public space in which different individuals proclaim different points of view without ever ending the debate. Thus, without reaching a final solution or unity, people continue to exchange different points of view and disagree until the end of time.
Lefort's entire work is aimed at demonstrating the added value of democracy as a political regime. His philosophy makes us see how much democracy is preferable to other political regimes that have emerged in modernity (the period since the French Revolution). According to Lefort, the freedoms we enjoy as citizens in a democratic regime, where indeterminacy and division in society have been embraced and institutionalized, are unique and historical in nature.
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