Engagement, a fidelity without oath

Argument

Few words carry a charge as heavy as “engagement.” Philosophy has made it one of its proofs: proof that thought touches the world, takes a side, stakes a person. From the “committed writer” to the militant intellectual, from existentialism to critique, to engage attests that thinking does not remain without consequence — that there would be a responsibility of the concept, a debt of thought toward the world it describes.

Non-philosophy does not begin by asking “what should one engage for?”: it interrogates the very form of the decision that makes engagement necessary. What if engagement were the alibi by which philosophy, having first split the thinker and the World, then demands that they be resewn at its expense? The injunction to “take a position” presupposes a World-as-arena, camps, a transcendence to join. Yet the Real — foreclosed, indifferent, already-given — lets itself neither be joined nor served. It does not await our engagement.

What remains is to think an engagement that would no longer be the suture of the World: an engagement determined in-the-last-instance by the Real; an engagement of Man-in-person rather than of the subject-of-the-World; no longer the oath that binds to a transcendent cause, but the pledge one holds without counterpart or return — a fidelity without oath. Unilateral engagement, which does not wait to be validated by what it vows itself to, and thereby ceases to be a posture in order to become a use.

This issue finally invites us to fiction engagement. Engagement has its genres — the manifesto, the vow, the contract, the profession of faith — and its postures. Can one fiction a fidelity? What writing for an engagement that does not pay itself in the currency of the World? Philo-fiction takes engagement here not as a theme to illustrate, but as material to transform.

Dimensional dualyses

While remaining within the orbit of non-philosophy — and now of non-standard philosophy — proposed texts will seek to fit one of the following types, their variations, extensions or crossings not being excluded.

• Telos and pistis: that toward which one engages, forms of an intentionality of engagement, faith and the object of engagement…;
• Hypokheimenos, ontos, logos and bios: which subject engages? for what writing? what speech? what testimony? what manifestation?;
• Praxis, krisis, ethos: structures of the engaged act, choice, fidelity and consistency of engagements, play…;
• Polis, kratos: more specifically political engagement, conflicts and cooperations, appropriation of others and of oneself, games of power and resistance…;
• Ergon, energeia, entropia: struggle, risk, control and mastery, limits of action, resistance again…;
• Philosophia and sophia: the nature of philosophical and non-philosophical engagement, engagement in thought, in the refusal of thought, up to disengagement, Gelassenheit or letting-go…

Practical dualyses

Beyond the themes evoked, the most diverse forms remain acceptable provided they bear witness to an engagement worked in and through unilaterality, from radical immanence:

• Labels, manifestos and acts of faith;
• Rules of conduct, handbooks;
• Biographies, “auto-philofictions,” journals;
• Poems, scenarios;
• Paintings and drawings, performance recordings, music, dialogues.

Lines of inquiry (non-exhaustive)

• Engagement and philosophical Decision: taking a position as suture of the World; engagement as proof.
• From the militant to Man-in-person: engaged subject versus lived-without-world; figures of the intellectual.
• Pledge, oath, contract: economies of the promise; unilateral engagement and determination-in-the-last-instance.
• Philo-fiction of engagement: manifesto, performance, posture; fictioning a fidelity.
• Aesthetics of the engaged work: committed literature revisited; art and the indifference of the Real.
• Theologies of the vow: engagement, messianicity, grace without counter-gift.
• Ecologies of engagement: the living, the Real, the indifferent; beyond the cause.

How to contribute

• Language: French (other languages to be discussed with the editors).
• Proposal: a 2,000–3,000 character abstract with a short bio-bibliographical note.
• Article: between 25,000 and 45,000 characters, spaces and notes included.
• Format: .docx file, according to the stylesheet provided by the editors.
• Submission: philofictions@onphi.org, asso@onphi.org

Timeline

• Proposal deadline: before 15 August 2026.