Paper's abstract

Jean-Pierre Dubois, Pluralism, Secular Humanism, Public Spheres and Private Sphere
The transformations of the issue of secular humanism in France during the last century reflect a deep renewal of cultural pluralism features. The fre-quent assertion of a watertight barrier between « public sphere » and « private sphere » is in this respect doubly erroneous.
One has first to think of a « political civility » excluding the thesis of a gap between the citizen and the « real human being ’: to strictly separate public sphere from private sphere, political society from civil society, means to deprive citizenship from any effectiveness. One has then to distinguish at least two public spheres in a democracy (in which the plurality of expressions and opinions is totally legitimate on the ?????, whereas in the ???????? sphere the separatist model of « laïcité » established in France requires neutrality), indeed three public spheres in the French « Republican model » (in which the sphere of public services comes down neither to the political sphere nor to the sphere of ordinary public places, as perfectly shows the red-hot topic of school system). The relevant model includes therefore four spheres (three public and one private) in constant and dynamic interdependence.


Key Words : private, public, citizenship, secular
t. 49 : 2005, p. 171-184

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