ARPL 2026 - Conférence d'ouverture : Le corps à l'épreuve du sport - Entre chair et dépassement

By Charles Rozoy (Paralympic swimmer) and Jean-Luc Marion (philosopher).

Suitable for all ages › Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes › Booking essential

What does the body experience when pushed to its limits? How does the mind enable us to surpass ourselves? What are the philosophical underpinnings of this ability to surpass oneself? It is around this fundamental question that Charles Rozoy, Paralympic swimming champion and a symbol of resilience, and the philosopher Jean-Luc Marion – whose phenomenology explores the lived experience of
the body and the act of self-giving – will come together. Through their unique journeys — the body transformed by accident, the body elevated through effort, the body contemplated through philosophy — they invite us to rethink what it means to ‘inhabit one’s body’ in sport.

Jean-Luc Marion is a French philosopher, a member of the Académie française, professor emeritus at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and a professor at the University of Chicago. He is a specialist in Descartes, Husserl and Heidegger. His works include *Le Phénomène érotique* (2003), *Sur la pensée passive de Descartes* (2013) and *La Raison du sport* (2026).

A former elite able-bodied swimmer, Charles Rozoy became a Paralympic champion in London in 2012, following a motorbike accident in July 2008 which left his left arm paralysed. Now a business consultant and politically active, he speaks on various topics such as disability and pushing one’s limits. He has also published *How I Managed to Swim the Butterfly with Just One Arm Without Going Round in Circles* (L’Équipe éditions, 2014).