Michel Meyer's Problematology

‘To be human is to question’: Nick Turnbull’s new book is a welcome and lucid introduction to the theory of problematology – or the philosophy of questioning – created in the last half century by Michel Meyer, professor of Rhetoric in Brussels. It brings a unique and hugely significant contribution of the French-language academy to an English-speaking audience in an accessible and jargon-free account. It opens many questions in its own right and demonstrates the wide application of problematology beyond philosophy per se, to the social and human sciences, to the study of rhetoric and the emotions, and to the arts including theatre and the visual arts. -- Jas' Elsner, Humfrey Payne Senior Research Fellow in Classical Archaeology and Art, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, UK
The author explains the key concepts of problematology, showing his deep acquaintance with Meyer’s thought…The book shows problematology both as a classic philosophy seeking foundational grounds and also as a new and original perspective, a new paradigm for thought. It is undoubted that, like all new paradigms, the radical outlook of problematology makes it very difficult to apprehend. But this book contributes strongly to make readers able to understand the key concepts of Meyer’s thought and to become aware of its originality and fecundity. -- Michel Fabre, Professeur des universités, Sciences de l'éducation, Université de Nantes, France
Problematology is a new paradigm in philosophy, arguably the first fully-fledged philosophical conception since the war. Its revolutionary approach grounds thought in questioning: if philosophy has been defined since Socrates as radical questioning, why has questioning not been explicitly questioned? Why has questioning been repressed from thought, and instead propositions and judgments considered as its elementary units? The question-view of philosophy, known as problematology, is the questioning of questioning. It has given rise to a theory of humanity, of language, of emotions, of ethics and rhetoric, and even of history. Nick Turnbull’s is undoubtedly the best book to read, if you want to understand what problematology is about. His analysis is crisp, thorough, and relates all of its aspects with one another, shedding special insights on the importance of problematology for the humanities and the social sciences. Questioning is essential in a problematic world and, through its interdisciplinary perspective, Turnbull’s book offers droves of perspectives on contemporary thought. The social is defined by the distance between individuals, politics aims to modify it, ethics relates it to good and evil, and rhetoric is how people negotiate the distance between them. Turnbull’s book is the synthesis of all those vantage points. A great book written by one of the major social scientist of today. -- Michel Meyer is a Professor of Philosophy at the Free University of Brussels and the University of Mons.
For Michel Meyer, questioning is fundamental to philosophy, to human creativity and to the organisation of society in general. Nick Turnbull’s elegant and lucid exploration illuminates the critical power of Meyer’s ‘problematology’ both as a paradigm of thought and as a tool of social inquiry. This is an important and insightful book that will stimulate discussion -- and questioning -- across the Social Sciences and Humanities. * James Martin, Professor of Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. *
Long a mainstay for francophone philosophers, Michel Meyer remains unduly unappreciated by English-speaking readers. With his lucid approach and clear prose, Nick Turnbull continues his longstanding efforts to explain the pertinence of Meyer’s powerful corpus of work on problematology for philosophers, and also demonstrates the value and profundity of Meyer’s wide-ranging thought for a range of research areas including metaphysics, politics, ethics, literature, aesthetics, logic and rhetoric. Emphasizing the importance of viewing questioning, rather than Being, as the starting point from which philosophy can and should, begin, Meyer provides tools to review critical discussions with unexpected insights that, as Turnbull aptly demonstrates in this wonderful book, could reinvigorate studies of society that are currently dominated by a small and, from this perspective, rather narrow cadre of thinkers. * Robert F. Barsky, Professor of English, French and Italian, and Jewish Studies, Vanderbilt University, USA. *