LE LANGAGE CHEZ BENTHAM
LANGUAGE IN BENTHAM’S WORK

Summary/Abstract: Bentham is best known in France for his idea of the panopticon that Foucault made famous. However, his work revolving around the theme and the objective of "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" is much richer than it seems, particularly with regard to the question of power and also that of language. Indeed, for Bentham, language plays a crucial role as it is the vehicle for ideas, as for orders, to circulate and inform people – information being nothing more than an order that one is required to follow and to believe. Bentham knew and we shall see how he was able to consider language both as a means of control (well-written laws with the creation of a science he called "nomography", the circulation of orders through the freedom of the press so that public opinion could express itself, the "economic" management of words so that they could be effective) and as a means of forming minds (the school curriculum project and the chrestomathia, neologisms, defense against dangerous words or sophisms).This "war of words", this logomachy, which seems so current, will have been at the same time one of Bentham's tools and one of his hobbyhorses in order to serve again and again what could turn out to be a simple expression, in this case "the greatest happiness for the greatest number".

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