En dépit des réformes dites libérales des années 1860, l'Empire russe resta tout au long du XIX e siècle un empire dont le souverain s'intitulait officiellement : « Tsar et Autocrate de toutes les Russies ». L'autocratie différait fortement de la monarchie française d'Ancien Régime, qu'embarrassaient et que contenaient mille traditions et reliques du passé : droit coutumier et droit romain, vieilles lois de sources diverses toujours en vigueur, privilèges, prérogatives, immunités, franchises, exceptions et exemptions, Église indépendante, etc. Dans le (...) système russe du « césaropapisme », l'empereur faisait également office de souverain pontife de la religion orthodoxe : il en était le « défenseur et gardien ». - En 1881, le tsar Alexandre II fut tué dans un attentat, alors que l'octroi d'une Constitution semblait imrm'nent. Son règne avait été marqué par une série de réformes, dont la plus célèbre (1861) est celle qui avait émancipé les paysans serfs. Constantin Pétrovitch Pobedonostsev (1827-1907), célèbre juriste et homme d'État russe, qui avait été le précepteur des fils d'Alexandre II, va alors devenir le principal représentant d'une politique de contre-réformes, d'une politique refusant que soit faite la moindre concession aux idées libérales. Nommé par Alexandre III procureur du Saint-Synode, il exercera une influence prépondérante en Russie pendant la première partie du règne de ce tsar (c'està-dire de 1881 à 1887). Certains de ses écrits, pamphlets ou manifestes ont été réunis dans un Recueil de Moscou, paru en 1896. Nous y verrons Pobedonostsev dénoncer une à une toutes les institutions qui pourraient, si jamais elles étaient importées d'Occident, limiter les prérogatives du tsar autocrate : séparation de l'Église et de l'État ; suffrage universel et discours sur la prétendue souveraineté du peuple ; instruction gratuite et obligatoire, impliquant une limitation du travail des enfants ; liberté de la presse et invocation constante de l' « opinion publique » ; institution (à l'anglaise) de jurys populaires dans les tribunaux. - Mais nous aurons la surprise de trouver également, dans ce même Recueil de Moscou, un catalogue très raisonné des principales « pathologies » qui, selon Pobedonostsev, accompagnent nécessairement un régime de démocratie représentative : corruption des représentants ; combinaisons et tractations incessantes entre les partis ; indifférentisme massif et hypertrophie du moi personnel chez les électeurs ; omniprésence d'une presse dépourvue de tout mandat électif et parlant cependant au nom du public ; etc. Un tel catalogue constitue à n'en pas douter ce que l'œuvre de Pobedonostsev, ce réactionnaire « sur toute la ligne », contient de moins inactuel. (shrink)

This article examines the didactic and educational function of the reports of parliamentary sessions published in the Moniteur universel in the general context of the "media revolution" (Popkin 2011) that France experienced from 1789 onwards. During this period, newspapers contributed to the citizenship education of the French people. The hypothesis we formulate here is that the reports of parliamentary debates, published in this newspaper, contribute to the training of the citizen: indeed, in these texts, the representation of political debates cannot (...) be dissociated from a reading guide for novice citizens, discovering through these writings a new political practice. As a kind of "addressed" discourse, the report of parliamentary debates adapts to this new readership, providing an understanding of the representation of political exchanges in the Assembly. The specific aim of the article is to show that, among all the forms of textual guidance, the choice of forms of representation of another discourse, as well as their arrangement, contribute to making sense of the representation of exchanges at the Assembly. (shrink)

Les différents travaux de recherche en analyse du et des discours basés sur des corpus multimodaux ne limitent plus le langage à des formes et des règles, aussi évitent-ils de le réduire à l’utilisation de structures, de mots, ou de signes à deux facettes signifiant et signifié. D’emblée, dans un énoncé ou une énonciation voire dans un discours, chaque mot / acte de langage trouve sa légitimité d’utilisation dans le rapport qu’il entretient avec les unités linguistiques et les unités de (...) sens qui le précèdent et celles qui le suivent, aussi bien à l’écrit qu’à l’oral. En effet, la valeur et le rôle de tout praxème s’appréhendent dans sa place au sein de l’unité minimale qu’est l’énonciation et dans la prise en considération des paramètres linguistiques et extralinguistiques œuvrant à son actualisation dans le discours, donc de la prise en compte de la discursivisation. Il en ressort que, la forme et la règle déterminent, certes, la fonction de l’observable langagier mais ne mettent pas en évidence sa valeur discursive. Pour illustrer ce fait, nous aborderons la question de la fonction énoncive et de la valeur énonciative du syntagme nominal détaché représenté par les formes d’adresse dans le genre de discours Questions au gouvernement. Nous procèderons en relevant les syntagmes nominaux détachés et en les analysant hors et dans leur cotexte de production pour aboutir à la conclusion que le syntagme nominal détaché est très important dans ce genre du discours. Pour ce faire, nous présenterons un extrait d’une séance de QG. (shrink)

Some discourses have a special pragmatic status: they take the place of a former discourse, “removing” it. Such is the case with the official report (compte rendu intégral) of French Parliamentary debates, prescribed by the Constitution. Thanks to it, each citizen is supposed to know exactly what was said during a debate. This paper analyses the foundations of this belief and the ways the report serves as a substitute for previous speeches. The formal description of the official report reveals a (...) particular type of reported speech, without mediation, associated with a kind of certification of the substitute. The aim is to distinguish between linguistic or discourse phenomena, ideological effects and social practices such as collaborative writing. (shrink)

This article analyses the election of the Speakers of both houses of the Belgian parliament, the House of Representatives and the Senate, in the period 1918-1974. According to the Belgian constitution, the election of the Speaker is a competence of each house. As can be expected in a system of parliamentary government, the Speakers belong to the government majority, as they did already before 1914. But with the disappearance of a homogeneous majority and the need for cabinet coalitions after 1918 (...) - result of the proportional representation - someeffects which tended to erode parliamentary autonomy more substantially occurred. At several occasions the election of the Speakers was postponed until the result of cabinet formation was known. In addition, the coalition parties had to make an agreement for the partition of the two Speakers' positions. The coalition practice also affected procedure. Since agreements were less easily implemented in a secret ballot, the provisions of the parliamentary statute were put aside for an election by acclamation to strengthen party discipline. In this context a further shift in the election process occurs: from the parliamentary groups to the party leadership. Eventually, the appointment of the Speakers becamepart of the cabinet formation itself. This practice appears to be firmly established in the 1970' and has been criticized severely. It can be considered one aspect of the decline of parliaments in this period. (shrink)

Desde el retorno de la democracia en Chile, la alianza política que alcanzó el gobierno consolidó sus posiciones de poder e influencia sin conocer por 20 años alternancia o grandes cambios en sus formas de gestión. Aunque el control del gobierno cambió a una coalición diferente en 2010, la agrupación previa continúa existiendo y posee una significativa representación en el parlamento. ¿Qué expresa tal estabilidad? El argumento principal en este artículo es que un origen social similar de los parlamentarios unido (...) a una interacción social frecuente reduce el dramatismo de las diferencias ideológicas haciendo así más probable las transformaciones políticas o el cambio del grupo en el poder. El análisis considera datos sociodemográficos de los parlamentarios, así como datos de redes sociales de una muestra 37 parlamentarios en ejercicio y 20 que lo hicieron entre 1990 y 2004. El origen social de los parlamentarios corresponde en forma creciente a un medio social similar, caracterizado por escolarización en establecimientos privados y universidades, alcanzando un status socioeconómico relativamente alto. El mapa de sus redes sociales muestra que el clivaje ideológico entre dictadura y democracia alcanzó también las relaciones sociales, estableciendo gran distancia social entre los políticos que hoy dominan la escena. El mapa permite apreciar también un nuevo campo político socialmente más diverso, en el cual tienen relevancia políticos más jóvenes, líderes regionales y la universidad como espacio de encuentro entre políticos e intelectuales. (shrink)

Cet article interroge la dimension temporelle de l’activité de représentation politique. En s’intéressant aux projets de limitation de la réélection des parlementaires en France et aux _term limits_ états-uniens, il met en évidence les conflits et intérêts qui s’articulent autour de la codification temporelle des mandats. L’idée de limiter le nombre de mandats parlementaires successifs autorisés n’emporte pas l’unanimité : les débats mêlent à la fois des anticipations des effets de la règle sur les pratiques politiques et des (...) croyances à propos de la démocratie. À travers l’analyse des discours et des acteur∙ices mobilisé∙es dans le débat, l’article montre que la codification temporelle des mandats superpose, autour de la modernisation des institutions, les deux référentiels du renouvellement et de l’efficacité, qui convergent paradoxalement l’un et l’autre vers une forme d’accélération du temps de la représentation. D’un côté, la recodification temporelle des mandats est présentée co... (shrink)

La bioéthique est à la mode. Il faut " être pour "! La prochaine étude par le législateur français des lois " bioéthiques " en témoigne. Avortement, fabrication d'enfants " prêts-à-porter ", recherche biomédicale, clonage, génétique, rien n'échappe à la bioéthique. Et si, cheval de Troie pénétrant le droit, la morale, les déontologies, elle ne constituait qu'une habile machine de subversion des sciences médicales, d'appropriation globale de l'être humain. Des médecins, des philosophes, parlementaires, juristes engagés dans l'examen des doctrines (...) et mécanismes bioéthiques se sont posés la question. Leur réponse n'est vraiment pas celle du " consensus ". Elle impose au public savant et aux gens prétendus ordinaires et à leurs représentants dans la Cité, une réflexion, un retour vers une nouvelle liberté de penser. (shrink)

La dissolution assez inattendue des Chambres, le 24 septembre 1971 impliquait une promesse d'élection directe du gouvernement. Cette promesse s'est cependant vite volatilisée. Des élections calmes et traditionnelles ont pris le relais, le gouvernement ayant choisi uniquement le moment le moins défavorable pour les partis de la majorité.La composition des listes s'effectue dans un plus grand calme que de coutume et se déroule davantage par le biais de petits comités ou d'assemblées peu nombreuses. Cependant un grand changement de personnel se (...) réalise par le retrait plus au mains forcé de 65 parlementaires sortants; ce chiffre est, d'après la tradition établie depuis plusieurs élections, très élevé.En dehors de Bruxelles la campagne est calme. Une personnification se manifeste de plus en plus, aussi bien en Wallonie qu'en Flandre.En ce qui concerne la personnification, Bruxelles a une longueur d'avance. Le penchant pour l'«argumentation» symbolique est une autre caractéristique de la campagne. On ne s'oppose pas sur les points litigieux, on ne les expose même pas.Les résultats électoraux en W allonie et à Bruxelles diffèrent fondamentalement de ceux de la Flandre. En Wallonie et à Bruxelles de grands changements se font jour : le P.L.P. est le grand perdant tandis que le F.D.F./R.W. sort des élections en grand vainqueur. En Flandre, par contre, il y a peu de changements dans les chiffres globaux, mais de région à région de petits gains et de petites pertes sant enregistrés.Ceux-ci cependant vont dans des sens divers et même souvent radicalement opposés. L'explication de ces changements reste encore à fournir. Une fois de plus, le nombre des votes blanc et non valables à augmenté. La composition de la Chambre des Représentants et du Sénat issue de ces élections ne permet qu'une bipartite entre C.V.P. -P.S.C. et P.S.B. Les trois partis traditionnels possèdent encore numériquement plus des 2/3 des sièges. Certaines complications dans la réorganisation de l'Etat établie par la révision constitutionnelle, se font déjà entrevoir. Et cela n'est qu'un des problèmes que ces élections ont portés à l'attention de l'opinion publique. (shrink)

Durante la Revolución Francesa, el trabajo político del "lado izquierdo", del cual Robespierre fue uno de los portavoces, consistió en implementar los principios de la Declaración de los Derechos del Hombre y del Ciudadano. Esto implica que el pueblo soberano puede controlar el ejercicio del poder de sus agentes. Su función es garantizar el derecho natural del hombre a la existencia, que es la condición principal de la libertad y la razón de ser de la república. During the French Revolution, (...) the political work of the "left side", of which Robespierre was one of the spokespersons, consisted in implementing the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. These imply that the sovereign people can control the exercise of the power of their agents. Their function is to guarantee the natural right of man to existence which is the main condition of freedom and the raison d'être of the republic. (shrink)

Rousseau's Lettresécritesdelamontagne have traditionally been cited as evidence of the influence on his thinking of Genevan traditions of democratic republican political argument, on the grounds that the Lettres were written on behalf of those members of the citizens and bourgeois in the city who were critical of the growing powers of the magistracy, the co-called représentants. This essay proposes a different reading. It argues that the Lettres confirmed long-standing Genevan suspicions about Rousseau's politics and theology which were held both (...) by the représentants and the magistrates. The reason was that Rousseau had composed the Lettres as a critique both of représentant plans for democratic reform and of magisterial usurpation of the sovereign rights of the citizens. The Lettres underscored Rousseau's commitment to the distinction between sovereignty and government outlined in the Contratsocial. Rousseau believed that Geneva deserved to be a model for European states because the distinction between sovereignty and government characteristic of its constitution had such clear historical roots. He also recognized that growing uncertainty concerning the relative powers of the General Council, the smaller executive committees of leading magistrates, and the Consistory had created a political impasse. Accordingly the Lettres argued for a new political settlement, that would redefine the constitutional relationship between citizens and magistrates, as well as between church and the state. Rousseau emerges as a dedicated enemy of democratic political innovation in Geneva, and an advocate of renewed Reformation which would make religion the foundation of an anti-commercial morality. Rousseau's singular and heterodox perspective on Geneva and its history is outlined in the essay, which places Rousseau's Lettres in the broader local context of republican and magisterial reform politics. (shrink)

On doit sérieusement s'interroger sur la bonne santé de notre démocratie quand un responsable politique du calibre de Monsieur Jean-Claude Juncker peut déclarer publiquement sans risquer d'être renvoyé à ses chères études qu'« il ne peut y avoir de choix démocratique contre les traités européens », et quand, par ailleurs, 4 citoyens sur 5 déclarent ne pas avoir confiance dans leurs représentants élus, même si cette défiance a des sources contradictoires. Elle pose en effet une question essentielle : celle (...) se - Débats. (shrink)

Some French infiuences have to be found to explain how the two functions of the Standing Committees of the Belgian House of Representatives have evolved. In 1920, when the first Standing Committees system was introduced in the Belgian House of Representatives, a direct French contribution can already be noticed. As a matter of fact, the Speaker of the Committee of Parliamentary Procedures derives his report directly from one made a few months earlier by Joseph Barthélémy for the French House of (...) Representatives.Again in 1935, the first total revision of the entire rules of procedure of the House of Representatives shows the ideal of some French statemen to struggle against the assembly system withthe result of a limitation in the functions of the Standing Committees down to its legislative part. These functions were not altered during the second revision in 1962, but some sort of diffused control over theCabinet was still exerted. In 1979, this control was finally formalised. (shrink)

The hypothesis to explain the often puzzling variability of political language in Parliament is that phenotypical elements of political speech such as emotionality, hostility, and oratorical style can be explained by structuralelements, that is by various aspects of the issues under debate.The data led us to criticize the more common cultural hypothesis, which would explain the variations of political language by linking it to the political culture of the members of parliament. As a result the evolutionof political language would be (...) a global one, appearing in all policy domains. This was by no means the case. The evolution of political language between 1950 and 1970 is on the contrary a strongly differentiated one.The structural hypothesis performs much better both for the short- and for the medium-term variations. The expression of hostility during parliamentary debates can be explained satisfactorily by the stakes of the game. The expression of emotion seems to stem both from these stakes and from the level of aggregation of the issue. Finally, various aspects of oratorical style, such as the invocation of values, the principled motivation of proposals and the deductive logic used to legitimize the position taken, all seem to be derived from the level of aggregation and, most of the time, from the ideological contents of the issue as well. As a result we get a profile of political language which is rather tightly controlled by the opportunities and the necessities of the political agenda and much less by all kinds of extraneous factors. (shrink)

The concept of representation has become almost inextricably bound to the concept of symbol systems. the concepts is nowhere more prevalent than in descriptions of "internal representations." These representations are thought to occur in an internal symbol system that allows the brain to store and use information. In this paper we explore a different approach to understanding psychological processes, one that retains a commitment to representations and computations but that is not based on the idea that information must be stored (...) and manipulated in symbol systems. In particular, we suggest that the notion of a symbol system as currently understood construes psychological processes in terms of a specific type of computational system, in which a control function "reads," "interprets," and manipulates discrete entities called "symbols." We argue that other types of computational systems may provide a more appropriate characterization of psychological processes. One implication of our argument is the need to consider the constraints placed on computational theories in psychology by the nature of the computing device itself, the human brain. Perhaps surprisingly, this implication leads us to the conclusion that a "functionalist" conception of psychological processes (discussed below) does not entail that physiology is irrelevant to psychology, as has been maintained by prominent adherents of the symbol-systems approach. (shrink)

The relation between the constitutionally founded supremacy of the parliament and the authoriy of the Prime Minister based on common law, is of a great importance in the Low Countries. This relation constitutes the difference between parliamentary and presidential regimes. It is the PM's duty to take care of the permanent support ofthe parliamentary majority. This is not an easy exercise. Members of parliament are not always as positive about the PM's parliamentary performances. Characteristics of the parliamentary activity of the (...) Belgian PM's Wilfried Martens, Jean-Luc Dehaene and the Dutch Ruud Lubbers are handled as: the frequency and the extent of the PM's parliamentary performances, the topics handled by the PM's in parliament, the PM's opponents in parliamentary debate and finally more generally the PM's parliamentary role behaviour. Due to the different position of both the parliament and the PM in the Belgian and the Dutch political system, the characteristics of the parliamenty activity of the Belgian and the Dutch PM are not always very similar. Additionally, remarkable differences occur between the parliamentary activity of different PM'swithin the same country. (shrink)

In this paper we defend structural representations, more specifically neural structural representation. We are not alone in this, many are currently engaged in this endeavor. The direction we take, however, diverges from the main road, a road paved by the mathematical theory of measure that, in the 1970s, established homomorphism as the way to map empirical domains of things in the world to the codomain of numbers. By adopting the mind as codomain, this mapping became a boon for all those (...) convinced that a representation system should bear similarities with what was being represented, but struggled to find a precise account of what such similarities mean. The euforia was brief, however, and soon homomorphism revealed itself to be affected by serious weaknesses, the primary one being that it included systems embarrassingly alien to representations. We find that the defense attempts that have followed, adopt strategies that share a common format: valid structural representations come as “homomorphism plus X”, with various “X”, provided in descriptive format only. Our alternative direction stems from the observation of the overlooked departure from homomorphism as used in the theory of measure and its later use in mental representations. In the former case, the codomain or the realm of numbers, is the most suited for developing theorems detailing the existence and uniqueness of homomorphism for a wide range of empirical domains. In the latter case, the codomain is the realm of the mind, possibly more vague and more ill-defined than the empirical domain itself. The time is ripe for articulating the mapping between represented domains and the mind in formal terms, by exploiting what is currently known about coding mechanisms in the brain. We provide a sketch of a possible development in this direction, one that adopts the theory of neural population coding as codomain. We will show that our framework is not only not in disagreement with the “plus X” proposals, but can lead to natural derivation of several of the “X”. (shrink)

Characterizing different kinds of representation is of fundamental importance to cognitive science, and one traditional way of doing so is in terms of the analog–digital distinction. Indeed the distinction is often appealed to in ways both narrow and broad. In this paper I argue that the analog–digital distinction does not apply to representational schemes but only to representational systems, where a representational system is constituted by a representational scheme and its user, and that whether a representational system is analog or (...) non-analog depends on facts about that user. This aspect of the distinction has gone unnoticed, and I argue that the failure to notice it can be an impediment to scientific progress. (shrink)

Scientific representation is a currently booming topic, both in analytical philosophy and in history and philosophy of science. The analytical inquiry attempts to come to terms with the relation between theory and world; while historians and philosophers of science aim to develop an account of the practice of model building in the sciences. This article provides a review of recent work within both traditions, and ultimately argues for a practice-based account of the means employed by scientists to effectively achieve representation (...) in the modelling sciences. (shrink)

In this article, we integrated the data of four inquiries, concerning various activities and features, computing the relations between all these quantitative variables by partialcorrelation and multiple regression techniques.Remarkably, the most determing factor of the amount of preference votes of a candidate seems to be his various activities in parliament.His clientelist activities and his personal electoral campaign influence also, but in a lesser way, the cast of these votes. Parliamentary seniority correlates positively with the number of cumulated offices, which in (...) turncorrelates with the extent of his electoral campaign. The attendance of a representative during the committee meetings and during the plenary voting sessions seems not at all to be influenced by this cumulations of various offices, and only slightly by bis clientelist occupations. This general pattern of parliamentary behavior differs considerably between parties. Finally, the effect of each particular branch ofextraparliamentary offices on the other activities of each member was examined. (shrink)

Alors que dans la majorité des démocraties libérales le mandat d’élu·e au législatif national est rempli à plein temps depuis la fin du XIX e siècle, les membres de l’Assemblée fédérale en Suisse exercent leur fonction comme une charge à temps partiel faiblement indemnisée, dite de « milice ». Notre article illustre comment le principe de milice, véritable norme culturelle dominante de l’engagement public, a influencé les temporalités du travail parlementaire. Pour ce faire, l’analyse se penche, d’une part, sur l’impact (...) que ce principe exerce sur les carrières politiques individuelles, en participant à accroître la sélectivité des trajectoires biographiques des parlementaires helvétiques sur le plan socioprofessionnel. D’autre part, l’article montre dans quelle mesure le principe de milice affecte aussi les temporalités de l’institution parlementaire elle-même. Depuis les années 1960, plusieurs débats émergent autour de la pertinence de cette « règle du jeu politique » dans le cadre... (shrink)

Recent theoretical work has identified a tightly-constrained sense in which genes carry representational content. Representational properties of the genome are founded in the transmission of DNA over phylogenetic time and its role in natural selection. However, genetic representation is not just relevant to questions of selection and evolution. This paper goes beyond existing treatments and argues for the heterodox view that information generated by a process of selection over phylogenetic time can be read in ontogenetic time, in the course of (...) individual development. Recent results in evolutionary biology, drawn both from modelling work, and from experimental and observational data, support a role for genetic representation in explaining individual ontogeny: both genetic representations and environmental information are read by the mechanisms of development, in an individual, so as to lead to adaptive phenotypes. Furthermore, in some cases there appears to have been selection between individuals that rely to different degrees on the two sources of information. Thus, the theory of representation in inheritance systems like the genome is much more than just a coherent reconstruction of information talk in biology. Genetic representation is a property with considerable explanatory utility. (shrink)

The Representational Theory of Measurement is the best known account of the kind of representation measurement requires. However, RTM has been challenged from various angles, with critics claiming e.g. that RTM fails to account for actual measurement practice and that it is ambiguous about the nature of measurable attributes. In this paper I use the critical literature on RTM to formulate Representation Minimalism – a characterization of what measurement-relevant representation requires at the minimum. I argue that Representation Minimalism avoids the (...) main problems with RTM while acknowledging its usefulness as the formal foundation of representation in measurement. (shrink)

Visual representations (photographs, diagrams, etc.) play crucial roles in scientific processes. They help, for example, to communicate research results and hypotheses to scientific peers as well as to the lay audience. In genuine research activities they are used as evidence or as surrogates for research objects which are otherwise cognitively inaccessible. Despite their important functional roles in scientific practices, philosophers of science have more or less neglected visual representations in their analyses of epistemic methods and tools of reasoning in science. (...) This book is meant to fill this gap. It presents a detailed investigation into central conceptual issues and into the epistemology of visual representations in science. (shrink)

The concept of innateness is used to make inferences between various better-understood properties, like developmental canalization, evolutionary adaptation, heritability, species-typicality, and so on (‘innateness-related properties’). This article uses a recently-developed account of the representational content carried by inheritance systems like the genome to explain why innateness-related properties cluster together, especially in non-human organisms. Although inferences between innateness-related properties are deductively invalid, and lead to false conclusions in many actual cases, where some aspect of a phenotypic trait develops in reliance on (...) a genetic representation it will tend, better than chance, to have many of the innateness-related properties. The account also shows why inferences between innateness-related properties sometimes fail and argues that such inferences are especially misleading when applied to human psychology and behaviour because human psychological development is especially reliant on non-genetic inherited representations. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between thought and language by considering the views of Kant and the later Wittgenstein along with many strands of contemporary debate in the area of mental content. Building on an analysis of the nature of concepts and conceptions of objects, Gillett provides an account of psychological explanation and the subject of experience, offers a novel perspective on mental representation and linguistic meaning, looks at the difficult topics of cognitive roles and singular thought, and concludes with (...) an outline of certain considerations relevant to skeptical arguments and the nature of perception. The resulting synthesis demonstrates interesting correlations with current work in cognitive and developmental psychology, and is directly relevant to continuing work in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophical psychology. (shrink)

In modern, Western societies the purpose of schooling is to ensure that school-goers acquire knowledge of pre-existing practices, events, entities and so on. The knowledge that is learned is then tested to see if the learner has acquired a correct or adequate understanding of it. For this reason, it can be argued that schooling is organised around a representational epistemology: one which holds that knowledge is an accurate representation of something that is separate from knowledge itself. Since the object of (...) knowledge is assumed to exist separately from the knowledge itself, this epistemology can also be considered ‘spatial.’ In this paper we show how ideas from complexity have challenged the spatial epistemology’ of representation and we explore possibilities for an alternative ‘temporal’ understanding of knowledge in its relationship to reality. In addition to complexity, our alternative takes its inspiration from Deweyan ‘transactional realism’ and deconstruction. We suggest that ‘knowledge’ and ‘reality’ should not be understood as separate systems which somehow have to be brought into alignment with each other, but that they are part of the same emerging complex system which is never fully ‘present’ in any (discrete) moment in time. This not only introduces the notion of time into our understanding of the relationship between knowledge and reality, but also points to the importance of acknowledging the role of the ‘unrepresentable’ or ‘incalculable’. With this understanding knowledge reaches us not as something we receive but as a response, which brings forth new worlds because it necessarily adds something (which was not present anywhere before it appeared) to what came before. This understanding of knowledge suggests that the acquisition of curricular content should not be considered an end in itself. Rather, curricular content should be used to bring forth that which is incalculable from the perspective of the present. The epistemology of emergence therefore calls for a switch in focus for curricular thinking, away from questions about presentation and representation and towards questions about engagement and response. (shrink)

Trois lois ont, entre 1993 et 2002, codifié le dispositif français dit de « l’accouchement sous X », qui autorise une femme à accoucher gratuitement dans une maternité sans révéler son identité. La première a durci ce dispositif en l’insérant dans le code civil, la seconde a tenté de l’assouplir et la dernière a créé un organisme chargé de faciliter, pour les personnes nées « sous X », l’accès à la connaissance de leurs origines. Dans les débats parlementaires qui (...) ont précédé l’adoption de ces lois, l’histoire a largement été utilisée comme argument, mais on est passé de l’histoire nationale à l’histoire personnelle, et de la « tradition française » justifiant le maintien du secret de l’accouchement, au droit à la vérité de la biographie légitimant la possibilité de la réversibilité du secret. (shrink)

Many debates in philosophy focus on whether folk or scientific psychological notions pick out cognitive natural kinds. Examples include memory, emotions and concepts. A potentially interesting type of kind is: kinds of mental representations (as opposed, for example, to kinds of psychological faculties). In this chapter we outline a proposal for a theory of representational kinds in cognitive science. We argue that the explanatory role of representational kinds in scientific theories, in conjunction with a mainstream approach to explanation in cognitive (...) science, suggest that representational kinds are multi-level. This is to say that representational kinds’ properties cluster at different levels of explanation and allow for intra- and inter-level projections. (shrink)

There is ongoing controversy as to whether the genome is a representing system. Although it is widely recognised that DNA carries information, both correlating with and coding for various outcomes, neither of these implies that the genome has semantic properties like correctness or satisfaction conditions, In the Scope of Logic, Methodology, and the Philosophy of Sciences, Vol. II. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 387–400). Here a modified version of teleosemantics is applied to the genome to show that it does indeed have semantic (...) properties – there is representation in the genome. The account differs in three respects from previous attempts to apply teleosemantics to genes. It emphasises the role of the consumer of representations. It rejects the standard assumption that genetic representation can be used to explain the course of an organism’s development. And it identifies the explanatory role played by representational properties of the genome. A striking consequence of this account is that other inheritance systems could also be representational. Thus, a version of the parity thesis is accepted. However, the criteria for being an inheritance system are demanding, so semantic properties are not ubiquitous. (shrink)

This article proposes a theoretical reflection on the articulation between teachers’ conceptions of particular knowledge objects on the one hand, and their professional action about these objects on the other. We will illustrate our point through two studies carried out in France and in Quebec in the field of the teaching of socially acute questions (SAQs). The first study focuses on the link between the social representations (Abric, 1994) of sustainable development (SD) among future teachers of humanities and natural sciences (...) and their practices with regard to education for sustainable development (ESD).The second study focuses on the relationship between a science teacher’s knowledge about the natural sciences (NS) as an object of knowledge and as an object of instruction. In order to enrich our reflection, we present an original operationalization of the concept of teaching practices, whose different dimensions (finalized, technical, interactive, affective) are put in relation with the concepts of social representations and relationships to knowledges. This perspective and theoretical reflection allows us to identify crossings and tensions between beliefs and teaching practices with regard to the SAQs in reference to the transformative-sociocritical and transmissive-positivist approaches of ESD. (shrink)

Social representations research has tended to focus upon the representations that groups have in relation to some object. The present article elaborates the concept of social representations by pointing to the existence of “alternative representations” as sub-components within social representations. Alternative representations are the ideas and images the group has about how other groups represent the given object. Alternative representations are thus representations of other people's representations. The present article uses data from Moscovici's analysis of the diffusion of psychoanalysis to (...) examine how people engage with alternative representations. It is demonstrated that there can be more or less dialogical relations with alternative representations. The analysis concludes by considering seven “semiotic barriers” which work to neutralise the dialogical potential of alternative representations, thus on the one hand enabling groups to talk about the views of others, while, on the other hand, remaining unchallenged by those views. (shrink)

Advocates of dynamical systems theory (DST) sometimes employ revolutionary rhetoric. In an attempt to clarify how DST models differ from others in cognitive science, I focus on two issues raised by DST: the role for representations in mental models and the conception of explanation invoked. Two features of representations are their role in standing-in for features external to the system and their format. DST advocates sometimes claim to have repudiated the need for stand-ins in DST models, but I argue that (...) they are mistaken. Nonetheless, DST does offer new ideas as to the format of representations employed in cognitive systems. With respect to explanation, I argue that some DST models are better seen as conforming to the covering-law conception of explanation than to the mechanistic conception of explanation implicit in most cognitive science research. But even here, I argue, DST models are a valuable complement to more mechanistic cognitive explanations. (shrink)

Discourse Representation Theory is a specific name for the work of Hans Kamp in the area of dynamic interpretation of natural language. Also, it has gradually become a generic term for proposals for dynamic interpretation of natural language in the same spirit. These proposals have in common that each new sentence is interpreted in terms of the contribution it makes to an existing piece of interpreted discourse. The interpretation conditions for sentences are given as instructions for updating the representation of (...) the discourse. (shrink)

Nick Shea’s Representation in Cognitive Science commits him to representations in perceptual processing that are about probabilities. This commentary concerns how to adjudicate between this view and an alternative that locates the probabilities rather in the representational states’ associated “attitudes”. As background and motivation, evidence for probabilistic representations in perceptual processing is adduced, and it is shown how, on either conception, one can address a specific challenge Ned Block has raised to this evidence.

The prevailing theoretical framework for theorising about representation construes all representation as involving objective representational contents. This classic framework has tended to drive philosophers either to claim that evaluative judgements are representations and therefore objective, or else to claim that evaluative judgements are not really representations, because they are not objective. However, a more general, already well-explored framework is available, which will allow theorists to treat evaluative judgements as full-fledged representations while leaving open whether they are objective. Such a more (...) general conception of representational content is exemplified, e.g. by Lewis's ‘centred contents’ and Gibbard's framework of ‘contents of judgement’, thus it is not new. I shall start in §1 by introducing the more general framework of perspectival contents and then illustrate in §2 how awareness of it can help expose the fallaciousness of certain widely used forms of argumentation in metaethics. (shrink)

This chapter aims to present a theoretical survey of political representation of future generations. The chapter focuses on two main normative justifications of representation of future generations. The first appeals to intergenerational justice and the second to democratic legitimacy. Then, the chapter addresses possible objections to the representation of future generations. These objections are: first, we should prevent the inflation of representation; second, representation of future people is not really political representation; third, representation of future people is unnecessary. The next (...) part discusses theoretical proposals to represent future generations in existing institutions. An appendix provides an overview of past and present real-world experiments, including the Finnish Committee for the Future, the Israeli Knesset Commissioner for Future Generations (2001–2006) and the Hungarian Ombudsman for Future Generations. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, to make intentional actions fully intelligible, we need to posit representations of action the content of which is nonconceptual. I further argue that an analysis of the properties of these nonconceptual representations, and of their relation- ships to action representations at higher levels, sheds light on the limits of intentional control. On the one hand, the capacity to form nonconceptual representations of goal-directed movements underscores the capacity to acquire executable concepts of these movements, thus (...) allowing them to come under intentional control. On the other hand, the degree of autonomy these nonconceptual representations enjoy, and the specific temporal constraints stemming from their role in motor control, set limits on intentional control over action execution. (shrink)

In his 1923 work, Roman Catholicism and Political Form, Carl Schmitt claims that representation is a complexio oppositorum and incarnates a hierarchical form of political authority, which is alternative to liberalism. This article shows that Carl Schmitt’s interpretation of the political theology of representation is based on a misreading. Schmitt selectively overlooks some meanings of the theology of repraesentatio to build his decisionistic political agenda. An investigation of the original conceptual meanings of representation in Tertullian, the first Christian author who (...) theorized representation and established many of its subsequent theological meanings, shows a different picture. At its inception, representation already included mechanisms of plurality and participation, which anticipated, and perhaps motivated, the absorption of the representation vocabulary within democratic discourse and practice. Political theology is a valuable field of inquiry to prove the claim that the... (shrink)