French Literature Reviews - 2026

V. Descombes, Les Embarras de l'identité
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

Bibliographic reference: V. Descombes, Les Embarras de l'identité, Gallimard, collection "NRf Essais", 2013. EAN13: 9782070139842.

Vincent Descombes, Les Embarras de l'identité

Paris: Gallimard, coll. "NRf essais", 2013.

EAN 9782070139842.

Price 21EUR

280 p.

Publisher's overview:

Identity, in the various senses the term takes on today, is a genuine lexical enigma: it refers just as easily to police security checks or a return to one's parents' religion as it does, in a tourist guide, to the vanishing distinctiveness of a neighborhood. Let us reconsider. "Who am I?", "Who are we?": these are precisely what we call "questions of identity".
We spontaneously understand what is at stake because we have a model to guide us: knowing someone's identity means knowing their name. However, when the question of identity is posed in the first person, my intention is not to learn my first name, last name, and status, as if I were undergoing an "identity check". What does the word mean when it is used with a possessive ("my identity", "our identity") and does not refer to civil status statements? Formerly, the word meant exclusively that there is one and the same thing where one might have thought there were two.
Yet, for several decades now, the word has taken on another meaning, namely that there is a thing or a being that possesses the virtue of being singularly themselves. Thus, that wars can break out over issues that do not strictly stem from the well-understood material interests of the antagonists should surprise no one, except those who harbor a narrow, utilitarian conception of the human being.
On the other hand, why is it the word "identity" that now finds itself charged with signifying the stakes and object of such conflicts? This is precisely the point raised by Vincent Descombes: in all of this, what does the word "identity" have to do with it? And what remains of the concept of identity?

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An article on this work can also be read on the laviedesidees.fr website:

"S'individuer dans la société", by S. Haber, followed by a response from V. Descombes.

What do we mean when we wish for our identity to be recognized? To what extent does this identity depend on the choices we can make? And how are collective identities constructed? While acknowledging the multiplicity of affiliations, Vincent Descombes nevertheless appears to privilege the national framework.

This inquiry situates itself within broader debates in contemporary philosophy and social thought concerning the self, community, and political conflict. Readers interested in contemporary French intellectual history, philosophy of mind, and the conceptual analysis of social categories may find this work relevant to their understanding of modern discourse.