PhD student (Re-contract Research Programme)

Offer Description

The Re-contract research program focuses on the idea of the social contract and its rethinking for our time. It aims, over a three-year period, to develop original, innovative, integrative, and open research, in dialogue with non-academic stakeholders. Re-Contract seeks to embed its reflection in a contemporary context that appears to contradict its very project. Indeed, characterized as an era of loss of common values and the foundations of living together—an anxious, conflict-ridden time marked by the proliferation of risks, particularly systemic ones—this context seems ill-suited for projecting toward the future, whether individually or collectively. Instead, it embodies an era of “polycrisis.”

What levers for action can we identify and implement to recreate a shared narrative? How can we regain the individual and collective capacity to project ourselves into the future, a capacity essential for fueling present action with the perspective of a shared destiny? These are questions many are asking, yet there are no obvious answers.

Re-Contract hypotheses that the concept of the social contract provides a framework for addressing these questions. If not to produce answers—which belong to collective decision-making—it can at least help identify the stakes, the lines of bifurcation and choice, the sticking points, and the obstacles.

In particular, Re-Contract will focus on what tests the bond of trust, which is fundamental to the social contract: trust among citizens, in institutions (in the broadest sense), and in public and private governance actors. Indeed, all the systemic risks identified to date relate to factors that weaken collective life. However, not all equally undermine individual and collective commitment to a common political project. Furthermore, this commitment also relies, in a context of intertwined crises of various natures, on a shared vision of what needs to be protected, preserved, and upheld—a common culture in terms of risk and danger perception. This is all the more true if the principle of prevention comes to structure risk management. The Re-Contract project will therefore focus in particular on the challenge of developing a shared understanding of invisible risks.

This Ph.D. in philosophy proposed here forms part of the first research strand of the project, which focuses on analysing what strengthens or, conversely, undermines the bond of trust in interpersonal relationships, the relationship between the individual and the collective, and, finally, the relationship between citizens and institutions. The aim here is to foster reflection on what underpins and sustains trust amongst members of a political community and between them and democratic institutions. The rise of illiberalism, a growing challenge to the rule of law and doubts about the ability of institutions to sustain democratic processes appear today to be undermining the social contract. In light of these phenomena, social science research is now conducting detailed analyses of the relationships of trust or mistrust in the state and its institutions.

More specifically, this Ph.D. will aim to shed light on how our relationship with information, knowledge and the scientific method plays a role in these dynamics today. It will focus on disinformation, which has emerged over the last decade as one of the major public challenges facing contemporary democracies. It has also gradually come to be regarded as a risk — that is to say, as a threat that is deemed measurable, foreseeable and manageable, and subject to measures for prevention, mitigation and resilience. The themes of the ‘infodemic’, ‘epistemic security’ and ‘systemic risks’—which the Digital Services Act (1) now requires major platforms to assess and mitigate—bear witness to this shift: from a moral and epistemic framework — lies, errors, credulity — to a strictly governmental framework, where informational disruptions, whether strategic or not, become a risk to be managed. This call for applications focuses on this shift, whether in terms of measuring it or questioning its reality.

This call invites reflection at the intersection of the rapidly expanding field of disinformation studies and philosophical and sociological thinking on risk governance. The aim will be to analyse how disinformation is constructed as an object of risk — which rationalities (probabilistic, preventive, ‘precautionary’, security-based) and which technologies (detection, inoculation, moderation, reliability indices) this framing of disinformation as a risk mobilises. The aim also lies in examining the tensions involved: the conversion of political questions into management problems, and the dynamics of ‘securitisation’. How can one govern a risk made up of words?

Within the Re-Contract project, this line of inquiry may contribute to an analysis of risk and its implications for social contract theory.

It will also contribute to the dialogue between Re-Contract and two national research programmes: the PEPR RISQUES (https://www.pepr-risques.fr/fr) and a programme dedicated to combating the manipulation of information, which is currently being set up.

1. See: https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/digital-services-act-keeping-us-safe-online-2025-09-22_en

Supervisor: Marie Gaille,

A research environment will be provided for the postdoctoral researcher recruited

3-year fixed-term contract – Gross salary : 2300€/month.

The application consists of : your CV + a motivation letter

Where to apply

E-mail: marie.gaille@cnrs.fr

Requirements

Research Field: Philosophy

Education Level: Master Degree or equivalent

Skills/Qualifications

• A strong background in political philosophy and/or social epistemology
• Familiarity with risk theory is desirable, as well as an openness to both empirical research and the regulatory frameworks that now recognise disinformation as a risk in its own right
• An interest in developing doctoral research based on the international state of the art, as well as an ability to work within a multidisciplinary project, would be an advantage.

Specific Requirements

• Conceptual development
• Critical argumentative analysis
• Analysis of handwritten sources, archives and/or research datasets
• Ability to integrate into a project-related work team
• Ability to interact with academic stakeholders in France and internationally
• Autonomy and initiative
• Ability in work organization and long-term follow-up of research through to publication and dissemination
• Applicants must hold a Master’s 2 degree in philosophy, having completed their thesis less than three years ago.
• Applicants must hold a Master’s 2 degree in philosophy,
• Supervision : Mathias Girel, maître de conférences HDR en philosophie
• A research environment will be provided for the recruited doctoral researcher
• Fluency in English is also required.

Languages: FRENCH Level: Excellent

Languages: ENGLISH Level: Excellent

Research Field: Philosophy

Work Location(s)

Number of offers available: 1

Company/Institute: Ecole Normale Superieure

Country: France

City: Paris

Postal Code: 75005

Street: 45 rue d'Ulm

Contact

City: Paris V

Website: https://www.ens.psl.eu/

Street: 45 rue d'Ulm

Postal Code: 75005