Editor’s Note: The following was originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on November 8, 2023. It was translated from French into English by the Observatory and later edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is republished here with permission. For translation assistance, I used ChatGPT.
Secularism? A difficult term to understand. So, we asked Catherine Kintzler to enlighten us on the notion of secularism.
Catherine Kintzler is a French philosopher specializing in aesthetics and secularism. She holds an agrégation in philosophy and a state doctorate in letters. She is a professor emerita at the University of Lille III. In 1990, she co-founded the Comité Laïcité République, and since 2018, she has been a member of the French Ministry of National Education’s Council of Elders on Secularism.
Kintzler is the author of numerous works, particularly on secularism. Her book Jean-Philippe Rameau: Splendor and Ruin of the Aesthetic of Pleasure in the Classical Age was first published in 1983 by Minerve and reprinted in 1990 and 2011. In Condorcet, Public Education, and the Birth of the Citizen (1987), she examines the philosopher’s vision for a secular and universal education system. Her Poetics of French Opera—From Corneille to Rousseau, originally published in 1991 and reprinted in 2006, explores the evolution of operatic aesthetics in early modern France. The Republic in Question (1996) and The Republic and the Terror (1998) analyze the philosophical and political foundations of republicanism. She has also written Tolerance and Secularism (1998), Theater and Opera in the Classical Age: A Familiar Strangeness (2004), What Is Secularism? (2007), and Thinking About Secularism (2014), all of which contribute to contemporary debates on the role of secularism in French society.
Find out more on the LAIC association website.
Image of The Thinker by CrisNYCa on Wikipedia
