PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS OF VINCENT DESCOMBES (Filosofski tradytsii Vensana Dekomba)

The main ideas of Vincent Decombes' position are explained with a bit of chronology in the setting of analytic and continental philosophical traditions. The article discuses in some length the influence of Lucien Tensiere's structuralism, essentially its realistic and non-mentalist understanding of linguistic structure, on Descombes' conception. It is argued that these two features are present, on the one hand, in Descombes' ontology of 'totalities' or real systems, and on the other hand, in his non-mentalist conception of human action. The author observes that Aristotelian realism which, according to a remark of Pascal Engel is 'so long absent in French philosophical tradition', revives in the philosophy of Vincent Descombes.