Introduction

Abstract

The topic of this book can be formulated in one question: What is French philosophy (with its different approaches) and what kind of insight does it contain for business ethics and philosophy of management? This question addresses the more fundamental problem of what constitutes French philosophy: Is there a particularly French metaphysics, theory of science, or social philosophy, or does French philosophy and social theory only refer to some philosophers and social scientists that use the French language? In this introduction we discuss how to define French philosophy and how this can be applied to business ethics and philosophy of management. Moreover, we present the challenges of applying general philosophy to the field of philosophy of management. Indeed, the introduction also presents the structure of the book in the following sections: (1) early modern French philosophy, (2) personalism and existentialism, (3) phenomenology (4) Marxism, (5) structuralism, (6) poststructuralism, (7) hermeneutics, (8) liberal political philosophy, (9) poststructuralist sociology, (10) postmodernism and hypermodernism, and (11) conclusion and perspectives. Each section presents important concepts and relates them to contemporary issues in business ethics and philosophy of management.