Dumas de Demain: The French Literary Magazine Vol. 7

by the knightly culture, and vice versa. They were both male cultures
based on a firm conviction that men were born to dominate, and
women to submit. Between the Middle Ages and today, philosophy
and other fields of knowledge have considerably evolved, and I
would not consider contemporary philosophy as a discipline more or
less aggressive than any other. Literary scholars at times can be quite
ferocious toward one another (in words of course, rather than in
deeds). It could be relevant to look at the effect of the presence of
more women in positions of power in fields traditionally (and this
until very recently) reserved to men. The presence of non-white
scholars also may shift the dynamic of relations inside professional
groups. I am not suggesting that only white males imbue
disagreement with competitiveness and violence, but that the game
may be changed, and new standards of relation may occur as the
demographics change. To return specifically to philosophy today and
its impact outside the discipline itself, I believe that, today,
philosophers and other scholars trained in argumentation,
experimentation, and criticism can provide models and examples for
evaluating which argument is consistent and reasonable, which
statement is fact or evidence based, which data are construed
critically and used appropriately. It is true that academic discourse
does not intersect easily with larger, public discourse (such as
politics) but everything is changing fast these days. These past five
years have been dizzying for all of us, academic or not, and we all
need guidance (rather than quarrel) from one another.
8. Dumas has said that “friendship consists in forgetting what one
gives and remembering what one receives.” How do you believe this
view contributes to the dialectic description of friendship you
provide in your work?
If only nation states could behave in the way Dumas defines
friendship! So much adverse consequences have come from unequal
alliances, with insistence on the payment of "debts" rather than on the
recognition of what has been received. In my book, I looked at
friendship from a narrower perspective: the discourse on friendship in
Western philosophy from Plato to Derrida. I focused on one
characteristic of this discourse: the exclusion of women from ideal
philosophical Friendship. Women can be friends (generally between
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