Axis 1 of the CRHI deploys an inquiry into social, political, and legal philosophy concerning the social state. In line with the laboratory's identity, the reflections of contemporary normative political philosophy conducted therein, on the foundations of the social state as well as on the principles of social justice, draw on the history of social and political ideas. However, this history of ideas is notably renewed by digital humanities methods and feminist approaches. The current transformations of the social state and social protection systems raise a philosophical problem. The contemporary crisis of the social state affects not only its economic or administrative organization but also – and more radically – the foundations of social solidarity and social justice that it organizes in the form of social rights. Axis 1 of the CRHI, which brings together works of political philosophy on the political form that is the state and works of social philosophy on justice, aims to inquire into what a just state can and should be, guaranteeing political, but also social, rights.

The vitality of current French research in phenomenology places France at the center of attention of the international academic community dedicated to phenomenological research – and abroad, there is now talk of "French phenomenology" as there has been, since the 1970s, of French post-structuralist philosophy (Deleuze, Baudrillard, Foucault, Lyotard, etc.), known as "French Theory". But in fact, this movement, which an outsider's view readily grasps as "unitary," struggles to define itself conceptually and, institutionally, to federate on a national level – fragmenting into the activities of various research centers scattered throughout French territory.

Yet the federative hypothesis that the research conducted in this axis intends to develop is precisely that the originality, vitality, creativity, and ultimately the identity of contemporary French philosophy are decided and played out precisely at the intersection or confluence of these two paradigms – and in the way that French phenomenology and French theory, which historically and conceptually seemed to be separated, flow back onto each other to enrich each other and to bring forth, in the face of the problems confronting the contemporary world, new ways of posing and answering them.

The questions of ethics and politics of new technologies are in full development, after having been neglected for decades in favor of approaches unilaterally focused on their social acceptability.

To these three axes is added a TRANSVERSAL AXIS "Epistemology of knowledge / History of sciences and techniques", within which the epistemological questions specific to the history of sciences and techniques or to the new methodologies employed will be specifically addressed. It will also aim to extend this requirement for transversality beyond the research fields specific to the laboratory.