Homepage – « Philosophy, Politics, Economics » Major

Welcome to the website of the Philosophie, Politique, Économie (PPE)/Philosophy, Politics, Economics Major at Sciences Po Lille.

Course objective

The Philosophie, Politique, Économie (PPE)/Philosophy, Politics, Economics Major is part of a tradition inaugurated in the Anglo-Saxon world at Oxford and is now present in most major universities worldwide.

It involves multidisciplinary studies at the intersection of three major disciplines: philosophy, political thinking, and economic thinking.

These studies provide an analytical framework to explore significant themes that structure debates around modernity:

• The relationship between economics and politics (economic structure and power structure, economic individualism and governance, individual rationality and collective choices, etc.)

• The autonomy of deliberative reason in open economies and societies (conceptions of social justice, legitimacy of public choices, conflicts between norms and values, the debate on the primacy of the good or the just, the role of religious beliefs in a secular age, etc.)

• The effects of globalization on our societies, economies, and governance mechanisms (its impact on inequalities, solidarity mechanisms, sovereignty exercise, etc.), to name a few.

The unifying issue of these debates is centered around questioning the legitimacy of modernity.

The PPE major is a two-year research-based program. It revolves around research seminars, collective research initiation work, and a research dissertation in the fifth year.

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Main career opportunities

The PPE major prepares students for careers in:

• Teaching and research (philosophy, history, economics, social and political sciences)

• Expertise and advisory roles in public, semi-public, private, or associative organizations: administrations, businesses, political parties and unions, international organizations (ECB, World Bank, WTO, etc.), NGOs, think tanks

• Journalism, influence, and scientific popularization and research

• Public affairs, consulting, especially in Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Responsibility

• Writing professions: screenwriting, public relations, biographer, author, etc.

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Head of the PPE major

Editorial by the Head of the major

In an increasingly complex, interdependent, and unequal world threatened by ecological catastrophe, the need for new ideas to transform this world is more urgent than ever. Recognizing that new ideas cannot emerge without understanding those that have contributed to shaping history until today, the new « philosophy, politics, and economics » master’s program offers insight into contemporary challenges by intersecting the analysis of normative discourses (philosophy), power configurations (politics), and efficient resource allocation procedures (economics). Behind the logic of conflicting private interests that ravage our world lies the need to stimulate the presence, preservation, and promotion of the common.

The intellectual project of PPE is to contemplate the constitution of a « metanomics, » a common philosophical vault or a conceptual matrix to contemplate the major issues of the contemporary world and unite the problematic issues of different social sciences. What matters today, and what we need to face current challenges, are connections, stitching together different disciplines that still largely ignore each other. It’s about linking and reinterpreting the major texts of philosophy and social sciences from this perspective of connection to enter an age of synthesis. It’s also about making room for « thinking from elsewhere, » such as Chinese, Indian, African, and others, to decompartmentalize Eurocentric universalism.

The pedagogical project of PPE focuses on intellectual autonomy and the development of students. It is a research-based education that places students in situations involving individual and collective projects: writing a dissertation, organizing seminars and study days, hosting a journal, participating in a « student citizens » day, etc. The ambition shaping the PPE Master’s program is to enable each student to find meaning in their studies and to combine their quest for understanding with their need to take action.

Patrick Mardellat