Ilaria Brocchini is a contemporary philosopher writing in French. Her work examines belief as a fundamental structure of human existence, alongside reason. By analyzing traces, appearances, waiting, and evil, she develops a philosophy of believing that reinterprets classical problems and informs contemporary debates on secular faith, cultural identity, and the ethical challenges of mortality in science and medicine.
Brocchini studied philosophy and architecture in Italy, Germany, and France and received her doctorate in 2005 from the Faculty of Philosophy at the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University with a thesis on the philosopher Walter Benjamin.
At the Maison des sciences de l'Homme Paris-Nord, she participated in the research project "Arts, Appareils, Diffusion" with the philosopher .
Brocchini lives and works in Geneva.
Brocchini's research focuses on the relationship between reason and faith.
For Brocchini, in every era, humans are simultaneously both believing and rational beings, and never either one or the other.
Brocchini is interested in how this relationship shapes the material world. Faith transforms material beings into what Brocchini calls "traces". Traces have an aura, in the sense of the philosopher Walter Benjamin.
This process never ends because humans are and remain simultaneously believing and rational beings.
In her most recent works, Brocchini explores the coexistence of reason and belief in contemporary societies.
Even in contemporary societies disenchantmentâÂÂcontrary to Max Weber's hypothesisâÂÂis neither complete nor desirable according to her.
In L'attente en philosophie (âÂÂAwaiting in PhilosophyâÂÂ), she offers a philosophical elucidation of awaiting, which she understands as an act of imagination and consent to the unknowable. Awaiting is a creative approach to the future, closely related to faith.
In Le Mal: Raisons et Croyance (âÂÂEvil: Reasons and BeliefâÂÂ), Brocchini examines the relationship between the moral concept of evil and death. The human belief in the existence of evil is related to death from which humanity continues to suffer.
BrocchiniâÂÂs work positions belief as a central category of philosophical inquiry. Rather than treating belief as a residue of religion or a weakness of knowledge, she presents it as a primary structure of the life of the mind, a condition upon which reason itself operates. This approach marks a departure from the traditional primacy of reason in Western philosophy.
Her thesis produces several conceptual effects:
In this framework, belief functions not as irrationality but as orientation, while reason provides clarification. BrocchiniâÂÂs contribution thus consists in reframing belief as a lived transcendental condition: without belief, reason does not apply to human reality. This co-constitutive model offers a renewed framework for addressing enduring philosophical problemsâÂÂobject, appearance, time, evilâÂÂand for guiding contemporary debates on what to believe, how to believe, and to what extent belief should be sustained.