Axiological Idealisms: Desire, Wish, Will and the World

The project "Idea and Value: History, Narratives, and Theories" aims to shed light on a form of idealism that has often been overlooked in interpretations of post-Kantian philosophy, as well as in Neo-Kantian and phenomenological traditions: axiological idealism, i.e. idealism not with respect to being, but to values. A secondary objective is to explore how this form of idealism develops in close dialogue with Ancient Philosophy, most notably with Plato.  We will also constantly examine the extra-theoretical resources and, in a peculiar manner, literature.

Needless to say that idealism can hardly be expressed in the singular given the diversity of its frameworks – non-transcendantal, phenomenological and non-phenomenological. Yet idealisms recurrently reflect upon, renew and clarify a set of fundamental objects that give rise to its principal forms : knowledge (epistemic idealism), the a priori structure of posible worlds (ontological idealism) or the a priori structure of the factual world, i.e. the very world we inhabit (metaphysical idealism). In this sense, Berkeley’s famous formula “esse est percipi’' not only encapsulates his position but also suggests a general intuition that underlies modern and post-modern Kantian idealisms. However, not all the developments are confined to epistmology or ontology. In many contemporary forms of idealism – phenomenological and non-phenomenological alike – value plays a constitutive role. In this context, one may say in a deliberately Berkelian reformulation "bonum est volitum" (the good is that which is willed, chosen or desired) and similarly, "pulchrum est amatum" (the beautiful is that which is loved, valued or appreciated). Such formulas do not express a psychological reduction of the domain of values but rather an intentional-transcendantal claim about the mode of giveness of value itself, adressing the transcendantal essences of goodness, beauty and value, in general. Through Kant’s Critique of Pratical Reason to the works of Wilhelm Windelband (1900) and Emil Lask (1911-12) and again from Plato through Johann Gottlieb Fichte to Edmund Husserl (1917), the long term history of idealims consistently includes axiological and pratical dimensions until the most significant contributions by Husserl to ethics. This form of idealism is primarily concerned with values and norms and it opens a way to rethink the structure of reality itself. Indeed, beyond the conditions of love, evaluation and action, axiology allows for a more complexed and nuanced articulation of ontological idealisms and metaphysical idealisms. 

In collaboration with the Groupe de Recherches en Phénoménologies (UMR 8163 STL) and co-financed by the Institut Eric Weil, this first workshop, which will be held on October 16, 2026 at the Université de Lille, aims to introduce this work by focusing our attention on the elaboration of axiology and ethics in Husserl, so in the context of phenomenological transcendental idealism. As early as his time in Göttingen and his work on constitutive phenomenology, Husserl lamented the absence of certain ontologies, namely, those related to the dimension of value, and subsequently devoted himself to developing them before clarifiying them from a phenomenological perspective. A first task will be to reconstruct this process of explicit thematization par Husserl in order to identify the meaning and scope of the theoretical frameworks, concepts, terminology, and specific tools of axiological idealism within the context of phenomenological transcendental idealism.

The workshop will be held both in English French. Please find the link to access to the workshop below:
https://univ-lille-fr.zoom.us/j/8944325956?pwd=b1FSa1U3VStmZ3Y5Smt4ejVLdjdSUT09

For more information, please see: https://www.idealiter-lai.com/home-page