Pascal Chabot wins the Academy’s Grand Prix de l’Essai!
Founded in 1920, the Royal Academy’s mission is to defend and promote the French language and literature in Belgium. Each year, it honours outstanding works that contribute to intellectual and cultural influence. Receiving the Grand Prix de l’Essai is a major accolade in the French-speaking literary world.
Pascal Chabot, two full-time careers
As you may know, Pascal serves as a Lecturer and Coordinator of the Bachelor’s degree courses at our institution. At IHECS, he guides students with rigour and kindness in their intellectual and critical development.
Alongside his involvement within the institution, Pascal is a renowned writer and philosopher. Since 2003, he has published more than a dozen works devoted to philosophy, but which also touch on ethics, aesthetics and literature. Broadly speaking, his work explores the contemporary changes in our societies and the tensions that run through our lives.
A Meaning to Life: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Essential
Published by Presses Universitaires de France, A Meaning to Life explores the contemporary obsession with the quest for meaning. What are we really looking for when we say we are seeking meaning? Why does this question seem more urgent today than ever before?
In this essay, Pascal Chabot analyses the transformations in our relationship with the world in the digital age. In particular, he discusses the emergence of a ‘digital superconscious’, generating what he calls ‘digitoses’ – forms of mental saturation produced by hyperconnectivity. Between information overload and a desire for authenticity, he invites us to distinguish the essential from the incidental, to rediscover points of reference, and to rethink our relationship with the world
Furthermore, his writings have gained international recognition: *Un sens à la vie* has recently been translated into Dutch and Arabic, whilst his work on the philosopher Gilbert Simondon has been translated into Chinese. The entire IHECS community warmly congratulates Pascal Chabot on this magnificent honour, which recognises the significance of his philosophical work.
The entire IHECS community warmly congratulates Pascal Chabot on this magnificent honour, which recognises the significance of his philosophical work.