Monique Canto-Sperber

Monique Canto-Sperber, Director of the École normale supérieure, in 2005

Monique Canto-Sperber is a French philosopher. She was born on May, 14th, 1954^[1] Her works, translated in several languages, are focused on ethics and contemporary political issues. Since 2005, she is Director of the École normale supérieure, a French institution of research and higher education..

Biography

Monique Canto-Sperber was born in Alger and has been living in France since 1964. An alumnus of the Ecole normale supérieure de jeunes filles, she is Agrégée and holds a PhD in philosophy.

After teaching at the universities of Rouen and Amiens, she became Research Director at the CNRS in 1993. Between 2001 and 2004, she was a member of the Comité consultatif national d'éthique and served as its President from 2004 to 2007.

She produces the radio programme "Questions d'éthique" on France Culture, broadcast every Monday evening.

She is officier de la Légion d'honneur^[2] · ,^[3] officier de l'ordre du Mérite et chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.

Her work in ancient philosophy is centred on ethical theory and epistemology; she has published several commented translations of Plato (Gorgias, Ion, Euthydème, Ménon) and various books. She has also taken an active part in the renewal of moral philosophy in France, with the creation in 1993 of a book collection by the Presses Universitaires de France.

Direction of the ENS

Monique Canto-Sperber has been the head of the Ecole normale supérieure since 2005 (renewed in 2010^[4]). She has introduced the practice of scientific advisory committees in humanities and social sciences departments, created a International Council for Strategic Orientation, developed a specific ENS Diploma and started a rehabilitation of research spaces.

She has also encouraged the projection of the Ecole normale supérieure as an institution of research and higher education comparable to leading international research universities, rather than as a specific French creation. She has promoted the creation of a group of institutions called Paris Sciences et Lettres - Quartier latin, in which the Collège de France, the Observatoire de Paris, the ENSCP and the ESPCI are present alongside the Ecole normale supérieure. This group of institutions is currently being enlarged in order to enable the creation of a new research university.

Philosophy

Ethics

A specialist of ancient philosophy, Monique Canto-Sperber has worked on and translated dialogues of Plato. In her book, Greek Ethics, Monique Canto-Sperber argues notably that the contemporary conception of Greek moral philosophy as essentially forms of eudemonism is an artefact and that contemporary debates only present a very partial view on the topic.

She has also played an important role in the introduction in France of contemporary debates in Anglo-American philosophy.

She has edited at the Presses Universitaires de France a Dictionnaire d'éthique et de philosophie morale, with numerous French and international specialists, on major issues of moral philosophy.

Political philosophy

During the last 15 years, Monique Canto-Sperber has also written important works of political philosophy. In books such as Rules of Freedom or Does liberalism need to be saved?, she offers an analysis of liberalism that attempt to give the notion a new legitimacy in progressive political thinking.

Recent books such as L'Idée de guerre juste and La Morale du monde offer her vision of international relations.

Bibliography

• Les paradoxes de la connaissance. Essais sur le Ménon de Platon, 1991
• La philosophie morale britannique, 1994
• Direction du Dictionnaire d'éthique et de philosophie morale, 2004
• (dir.) Philosophie grecque, en collaboration avec J. Barnes, L. Brisson, J. Brunschwig, et G. Vlastos, 1997.
• Éthiques grecques, 2001
• L'Inquiétude morale et la Vie humaine, 2002
• Le Socialisme libéral. Une anthologie (Europe - États-Unis), 2003
• Les Règles de la liberté, 2003
• Le Bien, la Guerre et la Terreur. Pour une morale internationale, 2005
• Faut-il sauver le libéralisme ?, avec Nicolas Tenzer, 2006
• Le Libéralisme et la gauche, 2008
• "L'idée de guerre juste", 2010
• "La Morale du monde", 2010

Notes and references

1. ^ Monique Canto-Sperber par elle-même, sur le site des PUF.
2. ^ « Légion d'honneur : Bolloré, Varda, la mode et l'édition pour la promotion de Pâques », AFP, 11 avril 2009.
3. ^ Décret de promotion
4. ^ « Décret du 23 novembre 2010 portant nomination de la directrice de l'École normale supérieure (enseignements supérieurs) - Mme Canto-Sperber (Monique) », Journal officiel de la République française, No. 0273, 25 novembre 2010, p. 21030, texte No. 32.

Links

• Le site de Monique Canto-Sperber
• Questions d'éthique sur le site de France Culture

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Name	Canto-Sperber, Monique
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Date of birth	1954
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