Abstract

This article investigates the mechanisms underlying the transnational circulation of philosophical ideas through a particular case study: the reception of John Rawls and US theories of justice in the French intellectual and political fields. It traces the different sequences of this reception process, from an initial reception within political arenas to the academic recognition of Rawls. The article stresses how the appropriations of Rawls in the French context are embedded within the controversies which have characterized French politics and intellectual life during the last decades. The last part of the article analyses how, for a significant part of Rawls’ French mediators, the interest for his philosophy articulates with their intellectual and religious trajectories.