The Social as an Element for Rethinking Poverty: Why Is There No Cooperation in Favor of the Poor?

• Grant number: 25/00737-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: June 20, 2025
• End date: December 19, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Ethics
• Principal Investigator: Hélio Alexandre da Silva
• Grantee: Matheus de Vilhena Moraes
• Supervisor: Franck Fischbach
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências (FFC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Marília. Marília , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France
• Associated to the scholarship: 24/04839-0 - Social cooperation as a critique of duty: exploring the boundaries of a cosmopolitan approach to fight against poverty, BP.MS

Abstract

This project aims to develop a theoretical proposal based on Franck Fischbach's work regarding the need to rethink the concept of "social" to address the problem of poverty. Drawing from perspectives presented in Manifeste pour une philosophie sociale and Le sens du social: les puissances de la coopération, the research seeks to explore the social as the dynamic field where intersubjective relationships and normative imaginations emerge. Unlike an approach that reduces the social to institutional matters, this project proposes to analyze it as a historical reality imbued with normativity and cooperation, capable of grounding emancipatory practices. Guided by Fischbach's framework and discussions promoted at the Centre d'Histoire des Philosophies Modernes de la Sorbonne, this work investigates the tensions between the existing and the desirable social, highlighting how cooperation can transform oppressive structures and reframe social dynamics. To this end, a methodology combining structural and critical analysis will be employed, exploring not only current conditions of poverty but also the limitations of traditional institutional approaches. The project argues that overcoming poverty requires going beyond normative and redistributive reforms by rooting solutions in concrete social practices that broaden the political and ethical horizons of cooperation. Thus, this research aims to contribute to a more radical and integrated political approach capable of addressing the contradictions between formal equality and structural inequality, connecting social theory, cooperative practice, and political transformation. The research question guiding the project is: How can the concept of the social, understood as a space for normative imagination and cooperation, contribute to an emancipatory political approach that addresses the problem of poverty beyond institutional reforms?