Katrin Becker

I was saddened to learn of the passing of Pierre Legendre (June 15, 1930 - March 3, 2023).
"The political principle and the edifice of norms fulfil a general anthropological function in every society: to give birth to the speaking animal, to bring it to life and to make it live and accompany it until its death." (Dieu au Miroir)
Until very recently (L'Avant-dernier des Jours), Legendre pursued his research and let his own writing, his own work accompany him until his death.

In his rich and often enigmatic oeuvre “Dogmatic Anthropology”, Pierre Legendre has dedicated the last 50 years to uncovering the foundations of the institutional system of the managerial West and its historical origins; to reflecting on the function of speech, power and death, on our societal and individual dependence on the myths and dogmas on which our cultures are based, and which form the 'irrational core' buried behind the piles of 'rational' legal and normative texts.

Last Thursday, we lost a significant thinker of law, the State and the contemporary world, whose thinking will hopefully be given the place in philosophical and sociological thought that it deserves.

I’m pleased to share the publication of a new book edited by Pierre Musso and myself: the first introductory work to the oeuvre of Pierre Legendre, with international and interdisciplinary perspectives on his "dogmatic anthropology" (by Livio Boni, Peter Goodrich&Serene Richards, Paolo Heritier, Georg Mein, Pierre Musso, Osamu Nishitani, Paolo Heritier, Andreas Rahmatian and myself). Available in book stores on February 17th!

Next Thursday we will discuss Julia Schneider’s (http://docjsnyder.net) new comic "The Big Third and the Blockchain", which is inspired by my research on blockchain technology (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10978-021-09317-8), with Julia herself, Eric Eitel and Wolfgang Kerler. Come and join us on 1E9 (https://1e9.community/)!