His work is based on a theoretical use of fiction. Pierre Cassou-Nogues uses fiction as a method for exploring the possible and its limits. In this way, he intends to give to philosophy both a speculative scope and a critical impact: fiction enables the philosopher to consider the real in the light of the possible. In his most recent work, he applies this philosophy-fiction to explore the forms of life and modes of subjectivation induced by contemporary technology. More broadly, his research focusses on four areas. 1. His early research concerns the role of the imaginary in the work of scientists: Kurt Gödel, Norbert Wiener, or brain reading in neuroscience. He relies on the archives of scientists to look for fictions, personal dreams, superstitions sometimes, which interplay with their more serious work/ 2. He has also investigated the relationship between imagination and science as it is questioned in French philosophy, as well as the question of the self at the intersection between reason and imagination. His work here concerns the historical epistemology of Brunschvicg, Cavaillès, Albert Lautman, Bachelard and its inheritance in contemporary philosophy. 3. In a series of works half way between theory and literature, Pierre Cassou-Nogues uses fiction order to describe and conceptualize fields that philosophers tend to ignore, or repress: wasted time, phobias, seashores… Fields that philosophers most often avoid, preferring to talk about work rather than laziness, preferring the noble Angst to this absurd fear that is phobia, or preferring to set foot on firm land, where the tree of science is rooted, rather than exploring uncertain and moving shores. 4. His more recent work explores the contemporary relationship between technology and fiction. In 2019, he published a collection of short stories in which he investigates new forms of life and modes of subjectivation correlated with various technological apparatus. He has co-authored on a web documentary, , which is an adaptation of the novelErewhon published by Samuel Butler in 1871. With Paul Harris, and the journal SubStance, he also has contributed to launching a collection of born digital theoretical works
Works
Hilbert, Paris, Éditions Les Belles Lettres, coll. « Figures du savoir », 2001, 169 p.
De l'expérience mathématique. Essai sur la philosophie des sciences de Jean Cavaillès, Paris, Éditions Vrin, coll. « Problèmes et controverses », 2001, 351 p.
Gödel, Paris, Éditions Les Belles Lettres, coll. « Figures du savoir », 2003, 190 p.
Une histoire de machines, de vampires et de fous, Paris, Éditions Vrin, coll. « Matière étrangère », 2007, 219 p.
Mon zombie et moi. La philosophie comme fiction, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, coll. « L’Ordre philosophique », 2010, 341 p.
Lire le cerveau. Neuro-science-fiction, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, coll. « La Couleur des idées », 2012, 186 p.
La Mélodie du tic-tac : et autres bonnes raisons de perdre son temps, Paris, Éditions Flammarion, Hors Collection: publié sous la direction de Benoit Chantre, 2013, 301 p.
Les Rêves cybernétiques de Norbert Wiener, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, coll. « Science ouverte », 2014, 228 p.
Métaphysique d'un bord de mer, Paris, Editions Cerf, coll "Passages", 224 p., 2016.
Un Laboratoire philosophique. Cavaillès et l’épistémologie en France, Éditions Vrin, 2017, 248 p.
Welcome to Erewhon, a web documentary, co-authored with Stéphane Degoutin and Gwenola Wagon
Technofictions, Paris, Éditions Cerf, 2019, 282 p.
Edited collections
Que prouve la science fiction?, Alliage n°60, P. Cassou-Nogues et E. Barot, juin 2007
Le concept, le sujet et la science. Cavailles, Canguilhem, Foucault, P. Cassou-Nogues et P. Gillot, Editions Vrin. coll. Problèmes & Controverses, 2009
Le sujet digital, C. Larsonneur, A. Regnauld, P. Cassou-Nogues et S. Touiza, Editions Presses du réel. coll. Labex, 2015
Interviews
Logique, fictions et folie, entretien avec A. Wald Lasowski, in Pensées pour le nouveau siècle, Fayard, 2008
