The Prince Pierre Foundation and Les Rencontres Philosophiques de Monaco join forces for the conference of the laureate of the Principality Prize: Philippe Descola.

Anthropologist Philippe Descola, winner of the Principality Prize in 2022, jointly awarded by Les Rencontres Philosophiques and the Prince Pierre Foundation of Monaco, is invited in this context to give a lecture on the question ‘What is a landscape?’ and will propose to approach it from different angles and according to different cultures.

The conference will take place on Thursday, May 16th at 7 pm at the Maison de la Poésie in Paris.

The definitions of landscape range from a very loose understanding – the anthropized space or space perceived by a subject – to a very narrow one: the pictorial or literary representation of a piece of land embraced by sight. A third approach will be proposed, based on the study of the transfiguration process through which a landscape is constituted. Transfiguration is a deliberate change in appearance, through representation or the arrangement of a place, whereby it becomes an iconic sign of something other than itself and thus reveals what it contained potentially. Traces of this process will be examined in cultures where traditionally there are neither landscape representations nor ornamental gardens.

The Prince Pierre Foundation and Les Rencontres Philosophiques of Monaco: In conceiving, since 2015, Les Rencontres Philosophiques of Monaco, the Founding Members had envisioned awarding a Prize that would not commend a single work, but a philosophical work built over the long term, deserving its author to be known and recognized both nationally and internationally. In this continuity, Les Rencontres Philosophiques and the Prince Pierre Foundation of Monaco have committed to awarding, each year, this recognition to an author for the entirety of their philosophical work. Thus, a lifetime of writing is honored, a singular work that has opened new paths in the field of philosophy and engaged in different approaches to science, politics, theology, history, anthropology, ethics, or psychoanalysis. Awarded to the candidate chosen by the Founding Members, the Principality Prize is jointly awarded during the Ceremony of the Prince Pierre Foundation Prizes, held annually in October in Monaco in the presence of the laureate. Hélène Cixous was awarded in 2020, Julia Kristeva in 2021, Philippe Descola in 2022, and Jacques Rancière in 2023.

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