Catherine Larrère (nee Delafoss, born 4 August 1944 died January 2025) is a French philosopher and academic. She is a professor of philosophy emeritus (at Paris I - Pantheon Sorbonne). She is a specialist in Montesquieu's philosophy and an advocate for environmental ethics.
Biography
Catherine Delafoss was born in La Rochelle in 1944.
She first became interested in the history of economics, then in the philosopher Montesquieus ideas. In the 1990s, she met and was inspired by John Baird Callicott the American academic concerned with environmental ethics. She became an expert and was an advocate for similar British and American research.[1] She translated works by John Baird Callicott into French.[2]
She has participated in the development of environmental philosophy, particularly in the areas of nature protection, risk prevention and environmental justice. She has written about the role of women in society as proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.[3] She collaborates with her husband, the agronomist and ecologist Raphaël Larrère.
Selected works
L'invention de l'économie au XVIIIe siècle : du droit naturel à la physiocratie, Paris, Puf, coll. « Léviathan », 1992. (Doctoral thesis)
Les philosophies de l'environnement. Presses universitaires de France. ISBN978-2-13-048402-8.
Du bon usage de la nature : pour une philosophie de l'environnement, with Raphaël Larrère, Paris, Aubier, coll. « Alto » 1997.
La crise environnementale(with Raphaël Larrère), Paris, Éditions de l'INRA, 1997.
Actualité de Montesquieu, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 1999.
Lumières et commerce : l'exemple bordelais, with Jean Mondot, New York, P. Lang, 2000.
Nature vive, Paris, Nathan-Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, 2000 ISBN978-2-09-260841-8.