Responding to questions put to him at a Roundtable held at Villanova University in 1994, Jacques Derrida leads the reader through an illuminating discussion of the central themes of deconstruction. Speaking in English and extemporaneously, Derrida takes up with unusual clarity and great eloquence such topics as the task of philosophy, the Greeks, justice, responsibility, the gift, the community, the distinction between the messianic and the concrete messianisms, and his interpretation of James Joyce. Derrida convincingly refutes the charges of (...) relativism and nihilism that are often leveled at deconstruction by its critics and sets forth the profoundly affirmative and ethico-political thrust of his work. The “Roundtable” is marked by the unusual clarity of Derrida’s presentation and by the deep respect for the great works of the philosophical and literary tradition with which he characterizes his philosophical work. The Roundtable is annotated by John D. Caputo, the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, who has supplied cross references to Derrida’s writings where the reader may find further discussion on these topics. Professor Caputo has also supplied a commentary which elaborates the principal issues raised in the Roundtable. In all, this volume represents one of the most lucid, compact and reliable introductions to Derrida and deconstruction available in any language. An ideal volume for students approaching Derrida for the first time, Deconstruction in a Nutshell will prove instructive and illuminating as well for those already familiar with Derrida’s work. (shrink)

Responding to questions put to him at a Roundtable held at Villanova University in 1994, Jacques Derrida leads the reader through an illuminating discussion of the central themes of deconstruction. Speaking in English and extemporaneously, Derrida takes up with unusual clarity and great eloquence such topics as the task of philosophy, the Greeks, justice, responsibility, the gift, the community, the distinction between the messianic and the concrete messianisms, and his interpretation of James Joyce. Derrida convincingly refutes the charges of (...) relativism and nihilism that are often leveled at deconstruction by its critics and sets forth the profoundly affirmative and ethico-political thrust of his work. The "Roundtable" is marked by the unusual clarity of Derrida's presentation and by the deep respect for the great works of the philosophical and literary tradition with which he characterizes his philosophical work. The Roundtable is annotated by John D. Caputo, the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, who has supplied cross references to Derrida's writings where the reader may find further discussion on these topics. Professor Caputo has also supplied a commentary which elaborates the principal issues raised in the Roundtable. In all, this volume represents one of the most lucid, compact and reliable introductions to Derrida and deconstruction available in any language. An ideal volume for students approaching Derrida for the first time, Deconstruction in a Nutshell will prove instructive and illuminating as well for those already familiar with Derrida's work. (shrink)

""My death - is it possible?"" "That is the question asked, explored, and analyzed in Jacques Derrida's new book. "Is my death possible?" How is this question to be understood? How and by whom can it be asked, can it be quoted, can it be an appropriate question, and can it be asked in the appropriate moment, the moment of "my death"? One of the aporetic experiences touched upon in this seminal essay is the impossible, yet unavoidable experience that (...) "my death" can never be subject to an experience that would be properly mine, that I can have and account for, yet that there is, at the same time, nothing closer to me and more properly mine than "my death."" "This book bears a special significance because in it Derrida focuses on an issue that has informed the whole of his work up to the present. For the last thirty years, Derrida has repeatedly, in various contexts and various ways, broached the question of aporia. Making it his central concern here Derrida stakes out a new frontier, at which the debate with his work must take place from now on: the debate about the aporia between singularity and generality, about the national, linguistic, and cultural specificity of experience and the trans-national, trans-cultural law that protects this specificity; the aporia of the necessity to continue working in the tradition of critique and of the idea of critique, yet the corresponding necessity to transcend it without compromising it; the apoetical obligation to host the foreigner and the alien and yet to respect him, her, or it as foreign." "The foreign or the foreigner has always been considered a figure of death, and death a figure of the foreign. How this figure has been treated in the analytic of death in Heidegger's Being and Time is explored by Derrida in an analytical tour de force that will not fail to set new standards for the discussion of Heidegger and for dealing with philosophical texts, with their limits and their aporias. The detailed discussion of the theoretical presuppositions of recent cultural histories of death (Aries, for example) and of psychological theorizations of death (including Freud's) broaden the scope of Derrida's investigation and indicate the impact of the aporia of "my death" for any possible theory."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

Is there, today," asks Jacques Derrida, "another 'question of religion'?" Derrida's writings on religion situate and raise anew questions of tradition, faith, and sacredness and their relation to philosophy and political culture. He has amply testified to his growing up in an Algerian Jewish, French-speaking family, to the complex impact of a certain Christianity on his surroundings and himself, and to his being deeply affected by religious persecution. Religion has made demands on Derrida, and, in turn, the study of (...) religion has benefited greatly from his extensive philosophical contributions to the field. Acts of Religion brings together for the first time Derrida's key writings on religion, along with two new essays translated by Gil Anidjar that appear here for the first time in any language. These texts are organized around the secret holding of links between the personal, the political, and the theological. In these texts, Derrida's reflections on religion span from negative theologyto the limits of reason and to hospitality. Acts of Religion will serve as an excellent introduction to Derrida's remarkable contribution to religious studies. (shrink)

I shall speak of ghost [revenant], of flame and of ashes.And of what, for Heidegger, avoiding means.What is avoiding? Heidegger on several occasions uses the common word Vermeiden: to avoid, to flee, to dodge. What might he have meant when it comes to “spirit” or the “spiritual”? I specify immediately: not spirit or the spiritual but Geist, geistig, geistlich, for this question will be, through and through, that of language. Do these German words allow themselves to be translated? In another (...) sense: are they avoidable?Sein und Zeit : what does Heidegger say at that time? He announces and he prescribes. He warns [avertit]: a certain number of terms will have to be avoided . Among them, spirit . In 1953, more than twenty-five years later—and this was not just any quarter-century—in the great text devoted to Georg Trakl, Heidegger notes that Trakl always took care to avoid the word geistig. And, visibly, Heidegger approves him in this; he thinks the same. But this time, it is not Geist nor even geistlich that is to be avoided, but geistig.How are we to delimit the difference, and what has happened? What of this meantime? How are we to explain that in twenty-five years, between these two warning signals , Heidegger made a frequent, regular, marked use of all this vocabulary, including the adjective geistig? And that he often spoke not only of the word “spirit” but, sometimes yielding to the emphatic mode, in the name of spirit? Jacques Derrida is Directeur d’Études at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and also teaches at the University of California, Irvine. His most recent contribution to Critical Inquiry is “Like the Sound of the Sea Deep within a Shell: Paul de Man’s War” . An English translation of De l’espirit: Heidegger et la question is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press. Geoff Bennington, author of Lyotard: Writing the Event, is a lecturer in French at the University of Sussex. Rachel Bowlby, author of Virginia Woolf: Feminist Destinations, is a lecturer in English at the University of Sussex. (shrink)

This volume reflects Derrida's engagement in the late 1970s with French political debates on the teaching of philosophy and the reform of the French university system. While addressing specific contemporary political issues, the essays deal mainly with much broader concerns. With his typical rigor and spark, Derrida investigates the genealogy of several central concepts which any debate about teaching and the university must confront. Thus there are essays on the 'teaching body', both the faculty corps and the strange interplay in (...) the French tradition between the mind and body of the professor; on the question of age in teaching, analyzed through a famous letter of Hegel; on the class, the classroom, and the socio-economic concept of class in education; on language, especially so-called 'natural languages' like French; and on the legacy of the revolutionary tradition, the Estates General, in the university. (shrink)

Jacques Maritain's An Introduction to Philosophy was first published in 1931. Since then, this book has stood the test of time as a clear guide to what philosophy is and how to philosophize. Inspired by the Thomistic Revival called for by Leo XIII, Maritain relies heavily on Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas to shape a philosophy that, far from sectarian theology in disguise, is driven by reason and engages the modern world. Re-released as part of the Sheed & Ward (...) Classic series, An Introduction to Philosophy is sure to enliven the minds of students and general readers for years to come. From the new introduction by Ralph McInerny: You are about to read a magnificent introduction not only to a kind of philosophy but to philosophizing itself. Jacques Maritain was a relatively young man when he wrote this book, but his effort is one that attracts any philosopher more and more as he grows older. However odd and unusual what he says becomes, the philosopher yearns to show how even the most abstruse claims can be put into relation with what the reader already knows. That, in its essence, is what teaching is. In this book, the reader will find a wise and certain guide into philosophizing as such. And, in the end, he will find that what he reads is really only a refinement and development of what he and everybody else already knew. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Jacques Derrida INTERPRETING SIGNATURES (NIETZSCHE/HEIDEGGER): TWO QUESTIONS T1HE first question concerns die name Nietzsche, die second has to do with the concept of totality. Let us begin widi chapters 2 and 3 of Heidegger's Nietzsche — dealing with "The Eternal Recurrence of the Same" and "The Will to Power as Knowledge," respectively. We will be turning especially to the subsection on chaos ["The Concept of Chaos," I, pp. (...) 562-70] and to "The Alleged Biologism of Nietzsche" ["Nietzsches angeblicher Biologismus"]. In view ofme fact mat the same interpretation is regularly at work throughout, the risks involved in choosing diis strategy are, I hope, quite limited. In each instance, a single system of reading is powerfully concentrated and gadiered together. It is directed at gadiering togedier the unity and the uniqueness of Nietzsche's diinking, which, as a fulfilled unity, is itself in a fair way to being the culmination of occidental metaphysics. Nietzsche would be precisely at the crest, or ridge, atop the peak of diis fulfillment. And thus he would be looking at both sides, down both slopes. What about diis unity — diis doubled unity? What is its connection to the name — or rather, the signature — of Nietzsche? Does Heidegger take any account of this question — which others might call biographical, autobiographical, or autographical — of the singularity of a signature ostensibly the proper name of Nietzsche? To put the matter anodier way, if one can glimpse behind Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche the foundations of a general reading of Western metaphysics, men die question Translated by Diane Michelfelder and Richard E. Palmer. 246 Jacques Derrida247 arises: To what extent does this interpretation of metaphysics in its totality and as a whole contain an interpretive decision about die unity or singularity of thinking? And to what extent does this interpretive decision also presuppose a decision about die "biographical," about the proper name, the autobiographical, and about signature — about the politics of signature? ' Heidegger's position on this subject I will indicate first ofall widi a summarizing and simplifying statement, which one could, I hope, demonstrate is not wrong: there is a unity in Nietzschean thought even if it is not that of a system in the classical sense. This unity is also its uniqueness, its singularity. A thesis explicidy advanced by Heidegger is that every great thinker has only one thought. This uniqueness was neither constituted nor threatened, neither gadiered together nor brought about, through a name or proper name — nor by the life of Nietzsche, either normal or insane. This unique unity is something it draws from the unity of Western metaphysics which is gathered together mere at its crest, which one could also compare to the simple unity of a line created by a fold. The result of all this is that biography, autobiography, the scene or the powers of the proper name, of proper names, signatures, and so on, are again accorded minority status, are again given the inessential place diey have always occupied in the history ofmetaphysics. This points to the necessity and place of a questioning which I can only sketch here. Such would be a simplified version of the question. Now let us read Heidegger a little more closely and seek to confirm the strongest coherence of his interpretation or, beyond its coherence, his deepest thought. As a provisional concession to die classical norms of reading, let us take this book at its beginning, or even before its beginning at the beginning ofthe preface. Naturally, diis preface was, like so many odiers, written later. As we know, the book goes back to a series of lectures given between 1936 and 1940, and to some treatises written between 1940 and 1946. One should take most careful note of these dates if one is to bring this interpretation, as a whole and in detail, into connection with the historicopolitical and institutional field of its presentation. The preface, however, dates from 1961. The intention of the two pages in mis case, as almost always, is to justify the publication of this collection by reference to the essential unity ofits totality: "This publication, rethought (nachgedacht) as a whole (als Ganzes) should provide a glimpse ofthe path ofthought... (shrink)

Reading you, I very quickly realized that you had no serious objections to make to me, as I will try to demonstrate in a moment. So I began to have the following suspicion: what if you had only pretended to find something to reproach me with in order to prolong the experience over several issues of this distinguished journal? That way, the three of us could fill the space of another twenty or so pages. My suspicion arose since you obviously (...) agree with me on this one point, at least: apartheid, the more it’s talked about, the better.But who will do the talking? And how? These are the questions.Because talking about it is not enough. On such a grave subject, one must be serious and not say just anything. Well, you, alas, are not always as serious as the tone of your paper might lead one to think. In your impatient desire to dispense a history lesson, you sometimes say just anything. The effect you produce is quite determined, but in order to arrive at it, you are willing to put forward any kind of countertruth, especially when, in your haste to object, you project into my text whatever will make your job easier. This is a very familiar scenario, as I will try to demonstrate as briefly as possible. Jacques Derrida, Directeur d’Etudes at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, is the author of, among other works, Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference, Margins of Philosophy, and Dissemination. His most recent contribution to Critical Inquiry, “Racism’s Last Word,” appeared in the Autumn 1985 issue. Peggy Kamuf teaches French at Miami University, Ohio. She is the author o Fictions of Feminine Desire. (shrink)

Man's Approach to God was the 5th lecture in the Wimmer Memorial Lecture Series (1947-1970) at Saint Vincent and was given in 1951 by Jacques Maritain. Maritain was one of the most influential figures in the Thomistic revival of the 20th century. Both in his personal life and in his prolific academic corpus, Maritain modeled the Church's commitment to the interrelationship between faith and reason. So seriously did he take his intellectual commitments in his student years that, along with (...) soon-to-be wife, Ra•ssa Oumansoff, he made a suicide pact that he would only break if he could find some meaning to life. This search ultimately led him to Catholicism. Maritain's works reveal an active mind capable of applying his speculative thought to virtually any subject. Every one of his works was an exploration of reason and its limits, and of how faith completes the natural desire to know. His Wimmer lecture is a model specimen of this approach. Maritain's Man's Approach to God is a three-part lecture. In it, he seeks to explain how man comes to know God existentially, as well as how faith responds to and completes this search for meaning. This lecture grew out of his desire to show that every human being, and not just philosophers, can penetrate into the depths of reality, for all bear within themselves the indelible image of God and are equally called to the communion of love for God and love for our brothers [as] a single love of charity. (shrink)

APARTHEID—may that remain the name from now on, the unique appellation for the ultimate racism in the world, the last of many.May it thus remain, but may a day come when it will only be for the memory of man.A memory in advance: that, perhaps, is the time given for this exhibition. At once urgent and untimely, it exposes itself and takes a chance with time, it wagers and affirms beyond the wager. Without counting on any present moment, it offers (...) only a foresight in painting, very close to silence, and the rearview vision of a future for which apartheid will be the name of something finally abolished. Confined and abandoned then to this silence of memory, the name will resonate all by itself. Reduced to the state of a term in disuse. The thing it names today will no longer be.But hasn’t apartheid always been the archival record of the unnameable?The exhibition, therefore, is not a presentation. Nothing is delivered here in the present, nothing that would be presentable—only, in tomorrow’s rearview mirror, the late, ultimate racism, the last of many. Jacques Derrida, professor of philosophy at the Ecole des hauts etudes en sciences socials in Paris, is the author of, among other works, Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference, Margins of Philosophy, and Dissemination. His most recent contribution to Critical Inquiry, “The Linguistic Circle of Geneva,” appeared in the Summer 1982 issue. Peggy Kamuf teaches French at Miami University, Ohio. She is the author of Fiction of Feminine Desire. (shrink)

"Starting with the pre-Socratics, and proceeding through antiquity, the Christian fathers, the Middle Ages, and on to the existentialism and the anxious world of the present, Jacques Choron shows how fear of death, hope of death—or disregard of death—have influenced man's thought. In his unique study, the first of its kind ever published in any language, Dr. Choron succeeds not only in clarifying and synthesizing the great Western philosophers' reflections on death, but also provides a provocative portrait of each (...) man in relation to his ideas. In addition to the philosophical, he explores the psychological and sociological problems that arise from the phenomenon of death, and finds impressive support for Schopenhauer's opinion that death is the "muse of philosophy." A significant contribution to the history of ideas, the book offers fresh, and sometimes startling, perspectives on the experience that has been a source of awe and mystification to man throughout the ages."-Publisher. (shrink)

Among the Arabs, wijdân means a particularly rich and moving relationship between essence and existence (and vice versa). In recent periods of their history it has been interpreted as mass movements, emotional violence, and the impulse to change life. Is this but one aspect, one of several effects, or is it the substance of revolutions? Does the concept “to change life” have a value by itself, or is it only a symptom or corollary of more hidden movements which justify such (...) an abstraction?Etymologically thawra in arabic means “effervescence.” Moreover, it does not just partially include, but surpasses our understanding of revolutions. We have become accustomed to defining them as changes in class relationships. The exercise of a secret logic can be seen which would determine, in the end, the fortunes of production relationships. This is, at any rate, what Marxist doctrine maintained, until recent studies revealed more shades of meaning and completed it. This is not the place to take up in our turn the debate about genesis/structure, structure/superstructure, the predominant factor and its consequences or effects, or “superdetermination,” which is the contingency to use ruses. (shrink)

The time is past when “myth” could be considered serenely, when μvθoς could be translated as “legend,” or when Littré could define it as follows: “A story pertaining to time or facts that history does not clarify and embracing either a real fact transformed into a religious notion or the invention of a fact with the help of an idea.” It was calmly asserted that the myth concerned formal divinities, that it was the means of expressing the relationship between these (...) divinities and men—hence the historical form it most frequently assumed. But, in any case, it was a matter of the past. The gods were indeed dead, and the stories regarding them no longer concerned us. The nineteenth century, the century of reason, was devoid of myths, and only the “poets” (falsifiers!) regretted this. But along came the psychology of the unconscious, then sociology and history, to give a fresh meaning, and thereby vigor, to these dusty tales incorporated in Greco-Latin mythology. No longer were they a childish invention to lend color to a naïve religion. We perceived instead subtle expressions of the profound and complicated tendencies of man, and the divinities involved in these myths were no longer the simple gods of thunder and of time. Complex characteristics enriched their personalities. They assumed unprecedented dimensions. Cronus and Zeus were cloaked in mystery—the mystery of man. And by a strange reversal, what seemed childish then was not the imaginary myth but the rationalist philosophy that had contested it because of its failure to understand. (shrink)

Limit cycles, because they are constituted of a periodic succession of states (discrete or continuous) constitute a good manner to store information. From any points of the state space reached after a perturbation or stimulation of the cognitive system storing this information, one can aim to join through a more or less long return trajectory a precise neighbourhood of the asymptotic trajectory at a specific moment (or a specific place) on the limit cycle, i.e. where the information of interest stands. (...) We propose that the isochronal fibration, initially imagined and described by A. T. Winfree may be an excellent way to connect directly those two locations. Each isochron is indeed the set of points in temporal phase with one single point of the attractor. The characterisation of the isochronal fibration of various dynamical systems is not easy and until now has principally only been done numerically but not analytically. By integrating the homogeneous solutions of the dynamical system we can solve this fibration in the case of the well known anharmonic pendulum. Other isochronal fibration on classical examples such as the van der Pol system and the non-symmetrical PFK limit cycle are obtained numerically and we also provide the first numerical study on 3-dimentional systems like the anharmonic pendulum with a linear relaxation on its third variable and the Lorenz attractor. The empirical approach seems us useful for dealing with the isochronal fibration which could constitute a powerful tool for understanding and controlling the dynamics of biological or biological-inspired systems. (shrink)

To represent is to stand for something else, it is thus to lie about the truth of thing. The work of Esther Shalev-Gerz doubly refutes this presupposition : on the one hand, the thing itself is never there, there is only representation : words borne by bodies, images which present to us, not what words say but what these bodies do ; on the other hand, there is never any representation, one is always confronted with presence : things, the hands (...) that touch them, mouths that speak of them, ears that listen, images in circulation, eyes in which one can see the attention to what is spoken or seen, and projectors which convey these signs of bodies to other eyes and ears. (shrink)

Excerpt from Antimoderne Elements DE philosophie, Fascicule I Introduction generale a la Philosophie, 8 edition. Fascicule II. Petite Logique, 4 edition. (tequi. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such (...) as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

At first glance singularity would seem to be necessarily opposed to the physical sciences, indeed to any kind of science. As the hallowed saying goes: “Science deals only in universals.” According to this view, the aim of any true scientific endeavor must be the discovery of universals or, in other words, the value of such an endeavor is based on its ability to explain phenomena in terms of universals. The status of singularity in science is a direct result of this (...) approach. Singularity is associated with the presence, either in a person or an object, of an unusual or exceptional quality, or of an individual trait. Singularity so conceived must therefore be seen as inherently compromising the aims of any scientific endeavor, since the purpose of that endeavor is universality as defined above. In this sense, the basis of scientific explication is the ability to determine a feature common to a collection of objects, thus allowing them to be explained by deductive reasoning. This common feature can therefore not be individual, if individual is understood as unusual or exceptional. (shrink)

This book makes available for the first time in English—and for the first time in its entirety in any language—an important yet little-known interview on the topic of photography that Jacques Derrida granted in 1992 to the German theorist of photography Hubertus von Amelunxen and the German literary and media theorist Michael Wetzel. Their conversation addresses, among other things, questions of presence and its manufacture, the technicity of presentation, the volatility of the authorial subject, and the concept of memory. (...) Derrida offers a penetrating intervention with regard to the distinctive nature of photography vis-à-vis related technologies such as cinema, television, and video. Questioning the all-too-facile divides between so-called old and new media, original and reproduction, analog and digital modes of recording and presenting, he provides stimulating insights into the ways in which we think and speak about the photographic image today. Along the way, the discussion fruitfully interrogates the question of photography in relation to such key concepts as copy, archive, and signature. Gerhard Richter introduces the volume with a critical meditation on the relationship between deconstruction and photography by way of the concepts of translation and invention. Copy, Archive, Signature will be of compelling interest to readers in the fields of contemporary European critical thought, photography, aesthetic theory, media studies, and French Studies, as well as those following the singular intellectual trajectory of one the most influential thinkers of our time. (shrink)

We know today that classical eugenics, of an essentially negative nature, was not only an aggressive and brutal practice but, like its positive counterpart, inefficient as well. In fact, numerous biological, sociological, and psychological events beyond our control arise to prevent the realisation of any eugenic plan. Thus, like all human beings, individuals whose procreation is encouraged by positive eugenics suffer unexpected mutations that are transmitted to their offspring by their gametes. Gene distribution among the gametes at meiosis is the (...) result of an uncontrollable, natural lottery. As an effect of this lottery, positive eugenics could allow the birth of defective babies whereas negative eugenics precludes the birth of normal babies. (shrink)

Michel Vovelle, a historian whose work has received international acclaim, here addresses the crucial question of his original position within the field of social history, in terms of the perspective of a total history within which the random can give meaning to the historical event. As a historian of mentalités, Michel Vovelle goes on to point out how, along with Robert Mandrou, his work has made a contribution to the reformulation of the cultural history and history of representations which currently (...) define the agenda of French historiography. To conclude, he shows how, both in the topics of research which he chose and in his intellectual engagements, his practice as a historian, without in any sense departing from the search for historical objectivity, was animated by his prior heuristic sympathy for a mode of Marxist explanation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Greek Athletics and the Olympics by Alan Beale, and: Thinking the Olympics: The Classical Tradition and the Modern Games ed. by Barbara Goff, Michael SimpsonJacques A. BrombergAlan Beale. Greek Athletics and the Olympics. Greece & Rome: Texts and Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. iv + 196 pp. Numerous color figs. Paper, $26.Barbara Goff and Michael Simpson, eds. Thinking the Olympics: The Classical Tradition and the Modern Games. (...) London: Bristol Classical Press, 2011. xi + 227 pp. 23 black-and-white figs. Paper, $40.The quadrennial cycle of modern Olympiads has always assured a steady interest in the history of ancient athletics, as participants of all kinds (athletes, officials, and spectators alike) are reminded of the Games’ debts to the ancient Greeks. With the proliferation of undergraduate courses in Classical athletics, sports, and festivals in recent years, however, a growing number of undergraduates are also getting their first glimpses of Greco-Roman antiquity through the stadium door and quickly discovering how different the modern Olympics are from the ancient. The persistent conservatism of the modern Olympics thus presents instructors of undergraduate surveys with the challenge of introducing the festival to an audience that has come to accept the modern as a continuation of the ancient. In two popular histories of the Olympics, for instance, both published in 2004, one may contrast Nigel Spivey’s (The Ancient Olympics [Oxford 2004]: xix) proposed “journey to the strangeness” of Olympia with David Young’s claim (A Brief History of the Olympic Games [Malden, Mass. 2004]: 140) that “our Olympic Games are not so much a revival of the ancient Greek games as a genuine continuation of them.” Although intended for different audiences, the titles under review share the goal of de-familiarizing the Olympics both by emphasizing differences between ancient and modern athletics and by illuminating how an idealized, ancient Greek model has been used to establish and perpetuate the modern Games.There is no shortage of sourcebooks and histories of ancient athletics: Steven G. Miller, Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources (Berkeley, Calif. 2004); Rachel Sargent Robinson, Sources for the History of Greek Athletics (Chicago, Ill. 1955); Waldo E. Sweet, Sport and Recreation in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook with Translations (Oxford 1987); and William Blake Tyrell, The Smell of Sweat: Greek Athletics, Olympics, and Culture (Wauconda, Ill. 2004), who includes on a companion CD a wider assortment of sources than any printed edition. In keeping with the goals of Cambridge’s Greece and Rome: Texts and Contexts series, Alan Beale’s Greek Athletics and the Olympics offers a combination of texts and illustrations. One need only consider the nature of the evidence to understand [End Page 703] why this approach is not simply valuable, but obligatory: the literary sources are often fragmentary, belated, or anecdotal (or all three), and the material evidence requires detailed and careful exegesis. The challenge of the evidence is compounded by the instinct to read into the modern Olympics continuity rather than innovation. Beale sets out to overcome the “superficial similarities” and re-mystify ancient athletics as something “substantially different from anything in the modern world” (1). In his brief introductions to each source or object, Beale provides the cultural framework into which students may situate texts and images, and he offers questions (many contrasting ancient with modern) aimed at stirring curiosity and facilitating discussion.The opening chapters treat athletics in the Bronze Age and the Homeric epics (chap. 1), outline the ritual origins and growth of competitive athletics at Olympia (chap. 2), and trace the development of the sanctuary and the festival site (chap. 3). Beale is cautious with the examples of Minoan and Mycenaean art (9–12) and quotes generously from both the Iliad (13–19) and Odyssey (19–22), allowing room to observe discrepancies with later athletic practice. Like Robinson (34–35), he supplements Pausanias and Strabo on the first competitions at Olympia with a sample from Pindar, Olympian 10.24–77 (25–26), and instructors who wish to discuss this early history will not find better treatments of these passages elsewhere. Chapter 3 presents the site at Olympia and the administration of the festival, and Beale is to be commended for his... (shrink)

Cet article est une lecture critique de l'ouvrage de Catherine Malabou L'avenir de Hegel. Plasticité. Temporalité. Dialectique (Vrin, 1996) selon lequel le concept hégélien de temps excède la signification qu'en a proposée Heidegger. Il y a en fait plusieurs temps dans la pensée spéculative et cette richesse du temps peut être nommée sa plasticité (Plaztizitàt) : formation de l'événement, explosion de l'inattendu, avenir ou « voir venir » . Tout en saluant la pertinence et la nouveauté de cette interprétation, Derrida (...) se demande si l'on peut jamais voir venir ce qui vient. L'avenir véritable n'est-il pas un adieu non dialectisable, partant non plastique, à tout processus de formation, d'anticipation, de deuil? Cet adieu ne demeure-t-il pas l'impensé de la philosophie hégélienne ? This paper is a critical reading of Catherine Malabou's book on the future of Hegel. (Vrin, 1996) according to which the Hegelian notion of time goes much further beyond the meaning that had been suggested by Heidegger. There are in fact several times within the spéculative thought and such a wealth oftime may be termed plasticity (Plaztizitàt) : the surge of an event, the explosion of the unexpected, the future, or the idea of what is bound to corne. Whilst at the same time acknowledging the relevance and the newness of such an interprétation, Derrida questions whether one is ever able to perceive what is bound to corne. Isn't the true future an undialectizable and non plastic farewell to any kind of conception, anticipation and mourning process ? Doesn't such a farewell remain what is left unthought in Hegelian philosophy ? (shrink)

Cet article explore une problématique de l'identité personnelle alternative à celle du contrôle policier pour étudier les traces numériques que créent ou laissent les usagers sur Internet et sur les dispositifs informatiques en général. Cette problématique embrasse toutes les traces, numériques et non numériques. Le constat de départ est celui d'une évolution récente de la présentation de soi dans l'espace public qui expose désormais des données jadis réservées à l'intimité. L'hypothèse conséquente est qu'existe un lien entre l'affichage d'une identité plus (...) détaillée et la conscience de vivre dans une société incertaine. Dans cette perspective, les motivations qui président à cet affichage sont la recherche de l'estime de soi et de la considération par autrui, deux composantes du lien social, ébranlées dans les sociétés incertaines. Une attention particulière est également accordée, dans ce climat d'incertitude, à la géolocalisation qui contribue au travers de divers appareils à situer en temps réel et constamment les individus les uns par rapport aux autres.This paper explores an approach to personal identity issues that offers an alternative to police surveillance for investigating digital traces created or left behind by people who use the Internet and information technology in general. The approach covers all traces, whether digital or not. The paper posits a recent trend in which personal identities are presented in a public sphere that has begun to exhibit information of a type that was formerly divulged only in intimate circles. The ensuing hypothesis is that there is a link between the public display of more detailed personal identities and people s awareness of living in a society of uncertainty. If this is indeed the case, then the reason underlying the display of one s private identity in public is a quest for self-esteem and for the esteem of others - both being integral to the social cohesion now being undermined by uncertainty in society. In this context of uncertainty, particular attention is given to geolocation, which, through various technical systems, enables individuals to locate each other in real time, and at any time. (shrink)

The expression 'platonism in mathematics' or 'mathematical platonism' is familiar in the philosophy of mathematics at least since the use Paul Bernays made of it in his paper of 1934, 'Sur le Platonisme dans les Mathématiques'. But he was not the first to point out the similarities between the conception of the defenders of mathematical realism and the ideas of Plato. Poincaré had already stressed the 'platonistic' orientation of the mathematicians he called'Cantorian', as opposed to those who (like himself) were (...) 'pragmatist' ones. I examine in this paper some very perplexing aspects of the use which is made at that time of a number of concepts, particularly 'idealism' (which generally designates what we would call 'mathematical realism') and 'empiricism' (which can designate almost any form of antirealism, even if, like for example intuitionism, it is not empiricist at all). There are, of course, historical reasons that may explain why it was for a time so easy and natural to use the words and the concepts in a way that may seem now very strange and to treat as if they were equivalent the two oppositions: realism/antirealism and idealism/empiricism. (shrink)

In spite of alleged differences in purpose, descriptive and computational linguistics share many problems, due to the fact that any precise study on language needs some form of knowledge representation. This constraint is mostly apparent when interpretation of sentences takes into account elements of the so-called “context”. The parametrization of context, i.e. the explicit listing of features relevant to some intepretation task, is difficult because it requires flexible formal structures for understanding or simulating inferential behaviour, as well as a large (...) amount of information about conventional structures in the given language. This paper aims at illustrating major difficulties in these two fields, in relation with the necessity of a contextual approach. It offers a (clearly partial) enumeration of open problems inthe reperesentation of commonsense knowledge and languages-dependent structures, with some attempt to delineate future solutions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Phaedra's Labyrinth as the Paradigm of Passion: Racine's Aesthetic Formulation of Mimetic Desire Jacques-Jude Lépine Haverford College The actual model of Racine's Phaedra is no more the one that he claims to follow in his preface than one ofthose which his critics have sought in vain to find in the works of his immediate predecessors.1 Indeed, the comparative reading ofRacine's last profane tragedy against his sources shows that (...) Seneca and Euripides only provided a very general framework, one might say a traditional theme, which Racine completely recasts on the level of the plot, structure, characters, poetic esthetics, and theatrical performance. On the other hand, the myth of Phaedra's involuntary passion for her stepson Hippolytus, the hunter who was supposed to be atavistically insensitive to erotic seduction, could very well have been reorganized on the basis of another mythological episode which precedes it, the killing of the Minotaur by Theseus in the Labyrinth. There are many explicit references to this episode throughout Racine's Phaedra. There are even more than a rich but strictly thematic critic has been able to detect (see Racine), underscoring the fundamental point of my essay that the intensely poetic character of the Labyrinth, and particularly its function as a fantastic spatial frame, is not simply of a decorative nature. In Racine's work, as in any other genuine literary masterpiece, there is a unity ofcontent and form. The many references to the Labyrinth are determinant for the very subject ofPhaedra, which is the representation of passion, the only subject of interest for Racine. In fact, I intend to demonstrate that Racine used the unique topography of the Labyrinth as a paradigm of the logic of the relationships between his ' These works are Garnier's "Hippolyte" (1573) and Quinault's "Bellérophon" (1671). 48Jacques-Jude Lépine characters because of its capacity for fully expressing the mimetic origin of passion, a decisive discovery the gradual stages towards which may be traced in all his previous works. The Monster Hunt as a Metaphor of the Dramatic Action In order to demonstrate this point, I will start from the textual data, even though it will be necessary to go beyond a simple inventory of the themes explicitly connected to the Labyrinth. The first of these themes is obviously the one of monstrosity. At some point in the play, all the main characters accuse themselves, or are accused, of being a monster (Barthes 115). The relationship between this moral monstrosity (expressed in ambiguous statements suggesting a physical sign) and the return of Theseus, whose numerous monster hunts Hippolytus recalls in the opening scene,2 is easy to see. As has been already noted, the theme of the monster hunt is present from beginning to end of the play, where the fight between Hippolytus and the sea monster occurs (see Jasenas). But the monsterpar excellence is the Minotaur, whose death at the hands of Theseus Phaedra recalls in a famous speech which serves to reveal her passion to Hippolytus through a series of substitutions in the original cast of characters: Oh, why were you too young top have embarked Within the ship that brought him [Theseus] to our shores? You would have been the monster's killer then, In spite of all the windings of his maze. To find your way in that uncertain dark, My sister would have armed you with the thread. But no! In this design I would have been Ahead of her, my sister! Me, not her, It would have been whom love at first inspired; And I it would have been, Prince, I, whose aid Had taught you all the Labyrinth's crooked ways. A single thread would not have been enough To satisfy your lover's fears for you. I would myself have wished to lead the way, And share the perils you were bound to face. Phaedra, into the Labyrinth, with you Would have descended, and with you returned, To safety, or with you have perished. (647-62) 2 See verses 73-90. References to Margaret Rawlings's translation of Phaedra will be given parenthetically in the text. The verse numbers refer to the French edition... (shrink)

Many philosophers agree that there is an epistemic norm governing action. However, they disagree on what this norm is. It has been observed that the word ‘know’ is prominent in ordinary epistemic evaluations of actions. Any opponent of the knowledge norm must provide an explanation of this fact. Gerken has recently proposed the most developed explanation. It invokes the hypothesis that, in normal contexts, knowledge-level warrant is frequently necessary and very frequently sufficient (Normal Coincidence), so that knowledge-based assessments would be (...) a good heuristic for practical reasoning and epistemic evaluations of action. In this paper, I raise three problems for this approach. First, I argue that Normal Coincidence is ad hoc: it relies on an unsupported frequency hypothesis that we should expect to be false given the warrant account that Gerken also endorses. Second, I argue that, in any case, Normal Coincidence is insufficient to support the hypothesis that knowledge-based evaluation of action constitutes a good heuristic. Third, I consider three other hypotheses close to Normal Coincidence apparently more likely to support the heuristic hypothesis, but I argue that they seem even more ad hoc than Normal Coincidence. (shrink)

Simondon’s thinking of individuation is not directly concerned with any political application. Yet, through notions such as metastability, associated environment, centrality, or even ethics, the philosopher opens up pathways for a fresh examination of the processes of social transformation and the question of living together. Simondon ’s writings, which complement John Dewey s approach to the public, allow us to understand the political positively, as reflexive experimentation with the transindividuality of shared beings.

The anthropologist Marcel Mauss, in his famous exploration of the gift in "primitive" and archaic societies, showed that the essential aspect of the exchange of presents involved the establishment of a social tie that bound the parties together above and beyond any material value of the objects exchanged. He argued that these intangible mutual "debts" constituted the social fabric. Godbout and Caillé show that, contrary to the modern assumption that societies function on the basis of market exchange and the pursuit (...) of self-interest, the gift still constitutes the foundation of our social fabric. The authors describe the gift not as an object but as a social connection, perhaps the most important social connection because it creates a sense of obligation to respond in kind. They examine the gift in a broad range of cases such as blood and organ donation; volunteer work; the bonds between friends, couples, and family; Santa Claus; the interaction between performers and their audience; and the relation of the artist to society. Written in an engaging manner, The World of the Gift will appeal to anyone who is interested in how the world really operates. (shrink)

Isaiah Berlin, English Liberalism and a Third Concept of Liberty. The concept of Jacobinism, while lacking any strong anchorage in the historiography of the French Revolution, nonetheless represents the central category in the Marxist analysis of the revolutionary phenomenon in general. The aim of the present article is to examine the concept of Jacobinism in its relation to a series of other categories : the individual, the universal, and sovereignty, categories prominent in recent historical debates. Our aim is therefore to (...) propose a typology of the concept, by way of a provisional three-way division of political liberalism : the constituent liberalism of moderate Jacobinism, the egalitariam liberalism of centrist Jacobinism, the civic liberalism of radical Jacobinism. Going beyond the historical existence of the Jacobins as a group, the aim of our analysis is to give the largest possible extensive definition to the concept of Jacobinism, in order to evaluate its organic dimension within the political tradition which has its source in the French revolution. (shrink)

Excerpt from La Notion du Necessaire Chez Aristote Et Chez Ses Predecesseurs, Particulierement Chez Platon: Avec des Notes sur les Relations de Platon Et d'Aristote Et la Chronologie de Leurs OEuvres Il est donc du plus haut interet de voir comment la question a ete posee et traitee par les Grecs. C'est chez Aristote qu'on saisit le mieux les difficultes qu'elle souleve. Dans la solution qu'il entreprend d'en donner, nous verrons constamment sa pensee se mouvoir, comme entre deux poles, entre (...) les deux propositions qui resument toute sa doctrine la necessite et l'uni versalite comme condition d'intelhgibilite, l'indi vidualite comme sujet du reel. Rien de fige chez lui les cadres rigides du systeme eclatent sans cesse sous la poussee des tendances contradictoires. Et cette contradiction meme n'est pas a eliminer elle est signe de richesse; elle fait le vivant interet de la pensee aristotelicienne. Nous mettrons en pleine lumiere ces tendances diverses, en meme temps que nous ferons effort pour voir, d'apres les textes eux-memes, com ment elles se concilient chez Aristote, sans chercher d'ailleurs a donner une solution qui ne pourrait etre logiquement satisfaisante qu'a condition d'etre histo riquement inexacte. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The XIIIth meeting of the Symposium Aristotelicum, which took place in 1993 on the De Interpretatione, had a very strange and very sad history. True enough, it took place in the enchanting decor of the Certosa di Pontignano, near Siena ; and, as usual, it offered contributions and discussions of the highest order. But this time the publication of the papers met with insurmountable obstacles. It had been initially entrusted to Mario Mignucci and Michael Frede, two of the most faithful (...) and devoted participants in the Symposium. Most infortunately, however, they were both wrenched from our admiration and affection, Mario Mignucci in 2004, after a protracted and merciless disease, Michael Frede in 2007, owing to an unpredictable, sudden accident. The inevitable ensuing delay for the publication of the XIIIth Symposium has not been caught up with so far and those members of the Organization Committee whom I have been able to contact told me that, in their opinion, it ran a strong risk of never being caught up at all, alas. By a moving coincidence (at least for me), no more than three weeks before Michael’s death, my colleague and friend, Professor Thomas De Koninck, had asked me if I would agree to publish the present paper in the Laval théologique et philosophique. Thomas and his collaborators Paul Asselin and Martin Achard helped me to finally overcome my scruples ; I am deeply grateful to them. As for this long paper itself, it would be difficult to summarize it : it is, or tries to be, exactly what it looks like, namely a detailed reading of Ammonius’ commentary to the famous Chapter One of the De Interpretatione. If this reading has any dose of originality, it will be due not so much to the lights the ancient commentary may shed (or not shed) on the letter and the interpretation of the Aristotelician text as to what it may teach concerning the methods, selections, and intellectual behaviour of its author himself, as well as with regard to his own philosophical and pedagogical reactions before such a text as Aristotle’s own. (shrink)

Without a proper restriction on mappings, virtually any system could be seen as implementing any computation. That would not allow characterization of systems in terms of implemented computations and is not compatible with a computationalist philosophy of mind. Information-based criteria for independence of substates within structured states are proposed as a solution. Objections to the use of requirements for transitions in counterfactual states are addressed, in part using the partial-brain argument as a general counterargument to neural replacement arguments.

A prominent feature of American political consciousness is a desire to propagate democracy throughout the world. In our enthusiasm to share what we enjoy, Jacques Barzun sees that little attention is paid to exactly what we are trying to distribute. Through a brief historical survey of democracy, he shows that our popular conception of the term does not correspond with any particular definition. U.S. democracy has no central text and is distinctly different, in theory and in practice, from the (...) democracy of other states, both historical and contemporary. Democracy is an abstract ideal that is a function of time. Its present incarnation in the United States emphasizes freedom and equality through the means and language of specific personal rights. Barzun sees an internal tension in this formulation, one that ultimately threatens both freedom and equality if exported to the rest of the world. (shrink)

Wittgenstein is generally supposed to have abandoned in the 1930's a realistic conception of the meaning of mathematical propositions, founded on the idea of tmth-conditions which could in certain cases transcend any possibility of verification, for a realistic one, where the idea of truth-conditions is replaced by that of conditions of justification of assertability. It is argued that for Wittgenstein mathematical propositions, which are, as he says, "grammatical" propositions, have a meaning and a role which differ to a much greater (...) degree from those of ordinary propositions than either platonistic realism or intuitionistic anti-realism would admit, and that is the tendency to assimilate the mathematical proposition to an ordinary descriptive proposition which confers on it an appearance of meaning independent of the possibility of proving it, and not, as Dummett would say, that it is a decision concerning the kind of meaning it has which gives it the status of a proposition describing a determinate objective reality. (shrink)

The concept of nature is central in any reflection about the relationships between humans and their environment. It is frequently under attack, which created a divide in academia that might partly explain the science war of the 1990s and that is still latent. This article is an attempt to make a step ahead in this debate. It responds to the anti-essentialist critique of nature formulated by Bruno Latour in his influential book Politiques de la nature. It shows that nature as (...) an objective nonsocial reality must be conceptualised and studied if the relationships between humans and their environment are to be properly understood and managed. It proposes a definition of the word nature that is compatible with both an essentialist view of nature and the nonseparation of nature and culture. Eventually, it argues that such a return to an essentialist view of nature does not imply the use of nature as a benchmark to measure morality. (shrink)

This text proposes an evaluation of what remains of cinema in the age of the digital, and of an ever increased circulation between movie theatres and museums. Much has changed in the social and aesthetic status of cinema, at least since the appearance of video art; but cinema, in general, has not disappeared, quite to the contrary, and remains a very important social practice. Two important factors, however, have undergone deep changes: 1°, film no longer has the exclusivity of the (...) moving image, which it has to share with television and contemporary art; 2°, the recent hegemony of the digital image has driven film toward a massive return to the “Méliès path” of film art, that of a direct intervention on the film image. The contention here is that, though the art of film is obviously not what it was, it has kept a number of qualities which still make it the positive reference for any thinking of the moving image in general. The article puts forward three kinds of reasons to support this argument: 1°, cinema has invented a specific way to see moving images, resting on what is termed here the production of a gaze; 2°, time is essential to the film form itself; 3°, film is the only art which has developed an aesthetic of the encounter (with the real) – and the co-presence of these three ranges of value remain absolutely specific. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is the intriguing observation that Goodman has defended a phenomenalist point of view in his epistemological works and a physicalist one in aesthetics. In fact, it would certainly be more accurate to say that his focus was anti-physicalist in epistemology and anti phenomenalist in aesthetics. In any case a majority of interpreters would spontaneously have waited for a diametrically opposite choice, more consistent indeed with the positions taken by the representatives in these fields. Yet (...) Goodman’s strategy is not arbitrary, it has deep roots in the general context of the philosophy in the twentieth century and in return contributes to clarify some of its features and motivation. (shrink)

Kant’s 1795 essay on perpetual peace has been lauded as one of his most important and influential political texts as well as one of the most important texts on peace. Kant’s text was largely forgotten until the 1980s and 1990s, with numerous commentaries appearing around the time of its 200 years existence. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s interest in Kant’s text appears to have arisen around the same time, and his analyses of this text continued after the turn of (...) the century. The references to Kant’s essay in Derrida’s texts appear mostly in the context of a discussion of the concept of hospitality. The latter concept is understood by Derrida as including both a demand for absolute hospitality, that is, hospitality without the imposition of any limitations, as well as a demand, in the interests of survival, for such limitations or conditions. A negotiation between these dimensions of hospitality is ultimately required. The aim of this article is to elucidate Derrida’s analysis of Kant’s essay, specifically his recasting of the concept of peace as absolute hospitality, as well as to briefly outline its implications for international and cosmopolitan law. (shrink)

The reform of establishments for young offenders undertaken in 1945 prohibits any use of physical violence. Official texts and articles from the mainstream and professional media all highlight this rejection of the heavy-handed approach and extol the new pedagogy. If we put aside these printed sources and explore archives such as inspection reports, activity reports, records of both employees and the young people, we can see the discrepancy between actual practices and the new standards promoted by the authorities. The author (...) carried out the study at the Chanteloup correctional boarding school, the young offenders’ centre most likely to reject “educational violence”. However, even there it was still in evidence and so we evaluate the force of habit and the slow pace of certain changes in the field of education. (shrink)

As regards cognitive capacities, the point of view of classical Artificial Intelligence has been much challenged by the so-called emergentist point of view. This paper attempts to outline,on the basis of logical considerations dealing with practical feasibility, a general theory of incompressible unfolding that is consonant with an old Leibnizian stance rather with the contemporary theory of complexity. I defend a variant of emergentism according to which any process that leads to endow a system with cognitive capacities is such an (...) incompressible unfolding. (shrink)

When we use secure computer systems, we engage with carefully orchestrated and ordered interactions called “security ceremonies”, all of which exist to assure security. A great deal of attention has been paid to improving the usability of these ceremonies over the last two decades, to make them easier for end-users to engage with. Yet, usability improvements do not seem to have endeared end users to ceremonies. As a consequence, human actors might subvert the ceremony’s processes or avoid engaging with it. (...) Here, we consider whether beautification could be one way of making ceremonies more appealing. To explore beautification in this context, we carried out three studies. Study 1 surveyed 250 participants to derive a wide range of potential dimensions of “beautiful ceremonies”. These statements were sorted into dominant themes and converted into statements, which fed into the second study, with 309 respondents, to reveal the dominant dimensions constituting beauty. Study 3 asked 41 participants to carry out a Q-sort, which revealed the ways that people combine the identified dimensions when characterising security ceremonies as “beautiful”. These studies have allowed us to pin down the perceived dimensions of beauty in the context of security ceremonies, and also to understand how people combine these dimensions in different ways in judging security ceremonies to be beautiful, confirming the old adage of beauty being “in the eye of the beholder”. We conclude by highlighting the constraints imposed by the overarching requirement for security to be maintained in the face of any usability improvements and beautification endeavours. (shrink)

On the basis of the Woodhouse causal axiomatics, we show that conformal proper times and an extra variable in addition to those of space and time, together give a physical justification for the ‘chronometric hypothesis’ of general relativity. Indeed, we show that, with a lack of these latter two ingredients and of this hypothesis, clock paradoxes exist for which the unparadoxical asymmetry cannot be recovered when using the ‘clock and message functions’ only. These proper times originate from a given conformal (...) structure of the spacetime when ascribing different compatible projective structures to each Woodhouse particle, and then, each defines a specific Weylian ‘sheaf structure’. In addition, the proper time parameterizations are defined via path-dependent conformal scale factors, which act like sockets for any kind of physical interaction and also represent the values of the variable associated with the extra dimension. (shrink)

The way people at the receiving end of humanitarian assistance perceive this intervention may provide invaluable bottom-up feedback to improve the quality of the intervention. We analyzed and mapped Haitians’ views regarding international humanitarian aid in cases of natural disaster. Two hundred fifty participants–137 women and 113 men aged 18-67–who had suffered from the consequences of the earthquake in 2010 were presented with a series of vignettes depicting a humanitarian team's action and were asked to what extent these actions corresponded (...) to what ought to be expected from an international aid mission. Four factors were considered in the vignettes whether the team worked in close association with local institutions, whether it was composed of competent people who were prepared for their mission, whether they treated people as a function of immediate needs, and whether they behaved in a respectful way. Through cluster analysis, five qualitatively different positions were found: Complete hostility to any kind of humanitarian aid ; Strong hostility to humanitarian aid in the case of disrespectful attitudes or behaviors ; Technical competence is the only factor that matters ; Both manifestation of respect for the population and technical competence matter and Undetermined. Most Haitians expect humanitarian teams to be technically competent, but even very competent aid is not considered adequate if provided in an arrogant and disrespectful manner. (shrink)

Academic achievement is an important issue for families and Haitian adolescents from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. It represents a necessary step to escape difficult living conditions and achieve some social mobility. Any failure of these adolescents academically risk of them know a lot more difficult than that of their parents. It is therefore important to consider the factors that explain the academic success of some young people playing in a precarious environment. This article aims to analyze, in a clinic psychosocial perspective, (...) the results of a qualitative study of eight (8) Haitian school adolescents in some poor neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. The focus is on the construction of the narcissistic rage of the young as mobilization of psychic energy in the service of a wounded self, resulting in the case of these subjects, certain educational practices of their parents and a plug gradual realization of the precarious socio-economic conditions that characterize their lives and different symbolic insults, humiliation and contempt associated with these precarious conditions. Thus, the analysis shows how this insatiable thirst for revenge and self-repair, related to narcissistic wounds which are the subject of these teenagers, are a key element of their educational investment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:382 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY the spiritual effort of all mankind. Many so-called historic events, he was convinced, will in the end be "as written in water," but the work of the human "spirit," however limited at any given time, is accumulative and helps prepare a better future. It seems fitting to close this review with the concluding words of high commendation addressed to him by the Argentinian Society of (...) Writers on the occasion of the appearance of the Theory of Man: "Se premia a un hombre, a una obra, a una conducta." (We are paying homage to a man, a work, a noble conduct.) COR~ELI~:S KRUS~ Wesleyan University The Knowledge o] Man. Selected Essays. By Martin Buber. Edited with an Introduction by Maurice Friedman. Translated by Maurice Friedman and Ronald Gregor Smith. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, TB 135H. Pp. 186. $1.45.) The present volume contains the English translations, previously published, of six anthropological essays of Martin Buber, which had appeared originally in German. They are: Distance and Relation (1950), Elements of the Interhuman (1954), What is Common to All (1956), The Word that is Spoken (1960), Guilt and Guilt Feelings (1957), Man and his Image-Work (1955). As an Appendix has been added the unpublished text of a discussion between the late Martin Buber and the psychologist Carl R. Rogers, in April 1957. An introductory Essay by Maurice S. Friedman intends to set these essays in the context of Buber's philosophy of dialogue and "to show their interrelations and their significance for other fields of thought" (p. 7). Both the Introductory Essay and the translated texts had been seen by Buber before going to the press. Broadly speaking, these essays concern the distinctive features of man, and the reality of the dazwischen (p. 12), translated as "there in-between," "the between" or "betweenness" (p. 107): between man and reality (art), and between man and man (the interhuman in dialogue, word and language, guilt and psychotherapy). No specific texts on religion and knowledge have been included in this collection, its purpose being to present Buber's "philosophical anthropology" (p. 7). One may speak of a synthesis of Buber's view of man, as it comes out in this volume. Man is constituting "a special category of being" (60), by being capable of entering into living relations; this happens in the sphere of "the between," in particular the interhuman, the unfolding of which is "the dialogicaI" (p. 75). Here the "spokenness" of the word has its place (p. 112), here are found the different forms of encounter from which the human "selves" emerge after "a bold swinging...into the life of the other" (p. 81) and making each other "present" through "imagining" the real in each other (p. 70). There is the permanent "temptation to... take refuge in the pseudo security of the world of It, the world of ordered objectivity and private subjectivity" (Friedman, p. 23). But there is also the "common world" (cosmos) as built by "common speech-with-meaning" (logos) (Friedman, p. 40); this is the world of the We (pp. 107-108). Buber dismisses the annihilation of the human person in the dream and sleep of the East (pp. 91-96), the "situationless" and "uncommunal" chemical holidays of Aldous Huxley (p. 100), the solipsism and panpsychism of C. G. Jung (p. 124-125) : by all of these "the pure duty and responsibility of waking togetherness" (p. 91) has been forsaken. Of particular interest are Friedman's pages concerning Buber's view of the unconscious (pp. 32-38): they replace an essay which Buber had intended to write on the subject. In this connection the essay on existential guilt to oneself and to others is illuminating ; this guilt is "as something of an ontic character" (p. 123), and only a--"for the man of our age" (p. 138)--difficult self-illumination can hereby give insight and open the door into "the identity of the human person as such with himself" (p. 147). Also, the discussion on psychotherapy should be mentioned, where Buber puts his finger on "this dialogue bounded by tragedy" (p. 174) in which "You are not equals and cannot... (shrink)

Este trabajo presenta una propuesta para la investigación y la enseñanza de la parasitología. La Metodología de los Programas de Investigación Científica está basada en la metodología de Imre Lakatos. El “núcleo tenaz” del programa en parasitología es “las características de comportamiento alimenticio de los hospedadores explica y predice la fauna de endoparásitos que ellos albergan “. Las hipótesis auxiliares del cinturón protector son: i) hipótesis de los ciclos biológicos y ii) hipótesis del desarrollo de comunidades de parásitos. Las pre-condiciones (...) iniciales necesarias para el establecimiento de la relación parásitohospedador son: a) existencia del parásito potencial, b) existencia del hospedador potencial y c) existencia del biotopo potencial. Se discute el papel de las anomalías y se sugieren modificaciones al tratamiento hecho por Lakatos. Creemos que las anomalías no deben archivarse y acumularse hasta que la comunidad científica comience a dudar y cuestionar el núcleo tenaz. Es mejor que el científico resuelva cada anomalía a medida que se le van presentando, pudiedo resultar en el futuro en caminos insospechables para el trabajo teórico y empírico, y de esta manera aumentar el poder predictivo y explicativo del programa. En definitiva esto estará aumentando el “contenido experimental” del programa.This paper presents a theoretical methodological proposal for research and teaching in parasitology. The Methodology of Scientific Research Program, , presented here is based on I. Lakatos’ methodology. The “hard core” in parasitology is: the characteristics of the trophic behavior of hosts explain and forecast the parasitic fauna which they harbour. The following hypotheses form the hard core’s safety belt of the auxiliary hypotheses: 1. the hypothesis of the biological cycles; 2. the hypothesis of parasite community development. The necessary initial physical pre-conditions for the establishment of a host-parasite relation are: a.- the existence of a potential parasite; b- the existence of a potential host, and c - the existence of a potential biotope. The role of anomalies in the development of any MSRP is discussed and a modification of Lakatos’ treatment is suggested. We believe that anomalies should not be set aside until they accumulate to the point where the scientific community begins to doubt their basic hard core. It is better for the scientist to resolve each controversial event as soon as it emerges since these events, may, in the future, give rise to unsuspected paths of theoretical and empiricalwork, or even improve and widen the predictive and explicative power of the MSRP itself. This, in brief, would deepen the “experimental content” of the program. (shrink)