« La vie politique des nations occidentales […] apparaît généralement, depuis l’effondrement du nazisme » – et, devrions-nous ajouter, du communisme soviétique – « comme peu passionnée ». Effondrement des grands clivages idéologiques, « désenchantement » produit par la société industrielle ou post-industrielle, fonctionnement social et non communautaire de la vie en collectivité, tout ceci expliquerait la relative absence d’affectivité dans les relations sociales et politiques. Au rebours néa...

Although the concept of corporate social responsibility is fundamentally multidimensional, most studies use composite scores to assess corporate social performance. How relevant are such composite scores? How the CSR dimensions are weighted? Should the weighting scheme be the same across sectors? This article proposes an original weighting scheme of CSR strengths and concerns, at the sector level, which is proportional to media and nongovernmental organizations scrutiny. The authors show that previous CSP assessments underweight environmental and corporate governance concerns. Moreover, findings (...) suggest that firms that are exposed to the closest scrutiny are usually criticized on one single dimension: for instance, banks for bad corporate governance, and basic-resource firms for environmental damage. Composite scores based on equal weights hence misrepresent CSP and the difference in CSR between sectors. (shrink)

Though the rise of social media has provided countless advantages and possibilities, both within and without the domain of sports, recent years have also seen some more detrimental aspects of these technologies come to light. In particular, the widespread social media culture surrounding fitness – ‘fitspiration’ – warrants attention for the way it encourages self-sexualization and -objectification, thereby epitomizing a wider issue with photo-based social media in general. Though the negative impact of fitspiration has been well documented, what is less (...) understood are the ways it potentially impacts and molds moral psychology, and how these same aspects may come to influence digital sports subcultures more broadly. In this theoretical paper, I rely on the insights of Friedrich Nietzsche to analyze the moral significance of a culture like fitspiration becoming normalized and influential in structuring and informing self-understanding, notions of value, and how to flourish in life. Using two doctrines central to Nietzsche’s philosophy—The Last Man and his conception of the ’higher self’ – I argue that fitspiration involves a form of hedonism that is potentially harmful to the pursuit and achievement of human flourishing. Through fitspiration, desire is elevated to a central moral principle, underlying the way users both consume and produce its content, catering simultaneously to their desires for external validation and instant gratification. It thereby creates conditions which foster a culture in adherence to the ethos of The Last Man. In doing so, I argue it impedes the cultivation of the virtues and higher values which define the higher individual, regarded by Nietzsche as essential for human flourishing. However, drawing on the ethical framework of the higher individual provides the philosophical and psychological resources with which resisting and overcoming the more harmful temptations of these trends may be possible. (shrink)

While psychologists and political scientists have long investigated issues of interest to philosophers, the development of political experimental philosophy has remained limited. This slow progress is surprising, given that political philosophers commonly acknowledge the relevance of empirical data for normative theorizing. In this chapter, we illustrate the importance of empirical data by outlining recent developments in three domains related to theories of justice, where empirical results reinforce or endanger popular philosophical theories. Our first showcase concerns the boundaries of the concept (...) of fairness. While both libertarian thinkers and social egalitarians have united in rejecting the concept of natural injustice, we show that people do consider that unpreventable natural inequalities can be described as unfair. Second, we take the example of impartiality devices, such as the veil of ignorance or the idea of an impartial spectator, to show that such devices are efficient at shifting people’s intuitions in a more impartial manner. Third, we review empirical data on fairness intuitions to show that people conform to a pluralist theory of justice, valuing desert, needs-satisfaction, and equality at the same time. However, distribution according to desert enjoys a privileged position: people mostly care for the satisfaction of basic needs of deserving recipients, and people are willing to tolerate large inequalities in meritocratic contexts. The centrality of desert leads to dilemmas for mainstream egalitarian theorists, as theories that do not recognize the value of desert could fail to find support or legitimacy within the population. (shrink)

This contribution aims at describing the experiences of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) as discussed on Internet forums. Since the 2000s, increasing attention has been paid to health practices associated with the use of the Internet, whether by medical professionals, public authorities or researchers in the social sciences. We know that Internet is used by patients with Parkinson’s disease, in order to discuss about their lived experiences. This contribution will present how these Internet users address the specific theme of DBS. We (...) will examine how their use and the information sharing associated to it participate in the “shaping” of the lived experience of deep cerebral stimulation. This contribution will be introduced by an analysis of the state-of-the-art in sociological and anthropological international research on the topic of “Internet health”. On the basis of this analysis, it will propose a framework to describe and understand the various uses of the web that are made to give an account of the experience of stimulation. The existence of collective mobilizations in Parkinson’s disease, an old Internet experience and media oppositions concerning certain antiparkinsonian drugs, are conditions which push us to question these themes concerning DBS. This paper is a description, for the first time, of roles played by the users of these Internet forums and the different online activities produced about DBS subject. In an ethnographic perspective, we had to imagine that we were an Internet user seeking patient experiences with this surgical procedure to understand these interactions about DBS. The main goal of this contribution is to describe the attention paid by users for medical information about DBS in the identity and self-help process. The interest of such an approach is to open an anthropological reflection on the place and the role of the medical representations in the testimonies of experience of the disease or the treatments. (shrink)

This study conducts a moral analysis of leverage buyouts (LBOs) and relies on the holistic framework of the Triple Font Theory. It shows that the claims made by standard agency theory have not been successful both for the purchased firms and for the investors. In addition, the reductionism of the theories justifying LBOs may have favored some of the excesses observed in practice and contributed toward lessening the moral responsibility of market participants. The study suggests some possible reforms and explains (...) what improvements virtue ethics and Catholic Social Teaching can bring. It formulates a set of recommendations that can be implemented by the regulators or market participants. (shrink)

While corporate social responsibility is recognized as taking on various national meanings and practices, research has not sufficiently investigated how multinational companies simultaneously achieve global CSR integration and local CSR adaptation. Building on a qualitative case study carried out at ASICS, an MNC headquartered in Japan, we show how this organizational dilemma may be solved through hybridization work, a form of institutional work performed by CSR managers in subsidiaries to combine and adapt different institutional approaches to CSR. By developing the (...) notion of hybridization work, we contribute by revealing a set of practices that contribute to institutional change within organizations and enriching the study of CSR organizational change and international business by showing how hybridization Work leads to a greater organizational integration between core and periphery, and by identifying the triggering factors for subsidiary initiative in CSR. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss the preferred basis problem in relational quantum mechanics (RQM). The issue is at the heart of quantum mechanics and we first show that the mathematical formalism of RQM is immune to recent critics concerning consistency. Moreover, we also analyse the notion of interaction in RQM and provide a for all practical purposes reading of RQM comparing it with Bohmian mechanics.

Confronted with the reality that our environment is dying, we must navigate feelings of grief and mourning. In this article, I set out to understand the emotion of climate grief, using the LBT model of emotions. I define climate grief as an emotion whose object is the loss of the local and global ecosystems as we rely on, value and relate to them. The rating of climate grief is strongly negative, such that we bleakly perceive our existence and our survival (...) as an ecosystem. In addition, I explore how self-defeating practical syllogisms can transform the healthy emotional grieving process into a destructive process. In particular, I investigate the LBT fallacies of "awfulizing", "damnation" and "can'tstipation". Finally, I propose a set of "climate-friendly virtues" and look at what all of us can do to mobilize our emotions of climate grief toward healthy, positive and sustainable action. (shrink)

This paper is meant to provide a theoretical contribution to the Business and Society field, in line with Pasquero proposition (1996) to develop a constructivist research agenda on Business and Society issues, i.e. an agenda accounting for the dynamics and the socio-cognitive construction of CSR and stakeholder concepts. Among the different theoretical perspectives that may be good candidates to overcome several difficulties related to that lack in the B&S field, wepropose that some of Michel Callon’s sociological works are of particular (...) value. By bringing together those two traditionally separated areas of research, we will try to show how Callon’s concepts may shed new light on B&S traditional research issues, by answering, reformulating research questions or opening new research directions. (shrink)

Penseur majeur de la gauche antitotalitaire, eclipsé partiellement par les grandes figures de Derrida, Barthes ou Lacan, Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997) est un penseur que l'on commence à peine à (re)découvrir, alors que ses écrits deviennent accessibles au public francophone. Tout à la fois philosophe, militant politique, économiste, psychanalyste, sociologue, anthropologue et connaisseur éclairé des arts et des mathématiques, il fournit des outils intellectuels pour appréhender certaines des questions brûlantes de notre époque (rôle de la religion dans la société, critique des (...) inégalités, place du biologique dans le comportement humain, etc.), tout en les restituant dans le fonctionnement social-historique des sociétés humaines en général. Son œuvre, partie du marxisme puis s'en détachant, tente de faire le lien entre la psyché individuelle et les significations imaginaires qui tiennent ensemble les groupes humains mais autorisent aussi, de ce fait, les ruptures et créations - rares certes, mais toujours possibles. (shrink)

When contemporary philosophers look at the medieval debate on intentionality, they usually have in mind what we call “Brentano’s thesis”. Indeed, Brentano ascribes to some medieval philosophers the thesis according to which objects of thought have a special kind of being that explains how can our thoughts be about this or that kind of things. Here, we decided to focus on the debates among the so-called “Latin Averroists”, because they clearly show that the medieval question on intentionality cannot be reduced (...) to the well-known theory of intentional beings. More precisely, we endeavored to understand an apparently strange question that appeared in the faculties of arts in France and in Italy in the 14th century: to which category do intentions in the mind belong to? In Aristotelian terms: are they substances or accidents? The problem is the following: if they are accidents, how can they represent something else that an accident? If they are substances, what does it mean to affirm that we have substances in the mind, even intentional substances? After a detailed analysis of the responses one can find in Siger of Brabant, Angelo of Arezzo, Matthew of Gubbio, John of Göttingen, Anthony of Parma, Bartholomew of Bruges and John of Jandun, we try to show that only a very few philosophers adopted the formal identity thesis , according to which the object in the mind is formally identical with the object known outside the mind. This shows that a lot of medieval philosophers didn’t limit intentionality to intentional being or formal identity, but also considered other explanations of how the human mind can think about objects for which no representation can be found in the mind. (shrink)

Selon les histoires classiques de la philosophie, il aurait fallu attendre le XVe siècle pour voir le retour de Platon et de Pythagore sur la scène de la pensée. Pourtant, au XIVe siècle, bien avant la Renaissance, un noble vénitien, Marco Trevisano, écrit pour son fils un livre intitulé Du macrocosme. Il s'y définit lui-même comme un disciple des deux géants antiques et décrit l'origine du monde et sa constitution en termes mathématiques. Ce texte, encore inédit à ce jour, n'a (...) jamais été étudié pour lui-même et dans son contexte. Aurélien Robert fait revivre la pensée de ce lettré et savant laïc, qui ne fréquentait ni université, ni couvent. Le cas de Marco Trevisano montre à quel point la philosophie du Moyen Âge ne peut être résumée aux grands noms des manuels scolaires. Et surtout, il interroge les frontières entre ce que nous appelons d'ordinaire la scolastique médiévale et l'humanisme de la Renaissance. Une étude remarquable d'une figure méconnue mais capitale."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In 2014, the European Court of Justice recognized, for the first time, that severe obesity could be considered as a disability at work. This recognition, not yet applied in France, emerges in a context where obesity as a disease to treat seems to be consensus. The development of obesity surgery and its medical results are reinforcing this perspective. The lack of public debate in France on this potential handicap recognition of obesity, and simultaneously the frequent use of the term disability (...) or “de-disability” by people operated to discuss the effects of this surgery are two findings at the origin of the article. In an ethnographic approach, it is proposed to give an account of the way in which people, experimenting this corporal transformation, participate in redefining obesity, bariatric surgery and disability, before the debates and political decisions that could trigger this recognition of disability. Starting from the emic neologism “de-disability,” the thread of the article, it is questioned the idea of exit from disability and entry into normality, showing that these situations confront the people operated with new social injunctions and examine the relationship between disability and normality in an original way. (shrink)

Why do policymakers and economists within a policymaking institution choose to throw away a model and to develop an alternative one? Why do they choose to stick to an existing model? This article contributes to the literature on the history and philosophy of modelling by answering these questions. It delves into the dynamics of persistence, change, and building practices of macroeconomic modelling, using the case of forecasting models at the Bank of England (1974–2014). Based on archives and interviews, we document (...) the multiple factors at play in model building and model change. We identify three sets of factors: the agency of modellers, institutional factors, and the material factor. Our investigation shows the diversity of explanations behind the decision to change a model: each time, model replacement resulted from a different combination of the three types of factors. (shrink)

We discuss a recent work by J. Lawrence et al. [arxiv.org/abs/2208.11793] criticizing relational quantum mechanics (RQM) and based on a famous nonlocality theorem Going back to Greenberger Horne and Zeilinger (GHZ). Here, we show that the claims presented in this recent work are unjustified and we debunk the analysis.

Cet article ambitionne d’explorer les enjeux philosophiques traversant la pensée théologique de Paul Tillich, en se concentrant sur un recueil de sermons, adressés à un public universitaire, intitulé Le Nouvel Être, ouvrage paru en 1955, objet d’une nouvelle traduction, proposée par le théologien André Gounelle aux éditions Labor et Fides (2022). L’article repère alors, au sein de la méditation tillichienne sur la Nouvelle Réalité apportée par le Christ, quatre lieux de résonances philosophiques. D’un côté, le traitement tillichien des thématiques de (...) la vérité et de la sagesse témoigne d’un rapport explicite à la philosophie, tandis que, de l’autre, l’articulation conçue par Tillich entre amour et justice et sa conception de la certitude contiennent des implications philosophiques sous-jacentes.Dès lors, ces quatre points d’ancrage contribuent à dessiner les contours d’un dialogue entre philosophie et théologie, en étant attentif aussi bien au regard propre porté par Tillich sur la philosophie, consistant dans une reconnaissance critique, qu’à la manière dont sa réflexion théologique sur le message évangélique du Nouvel Être, qui a surgi avec le Christ, déploie une conceptualité qui intéresse l’histoire de la philosophie. (shrink)

This paper explores the conditions favouring or inhibiting the implementation of strategic corporate social responsibility policies in the context of global value chains. Using transaction cost theory, we specify the economic and behavioural issues raised by strategic CSR policies. We show that the existence of market rewards for such policies does not constitute a solution per se, but tends to increase the difficulties that value chain members face. Bringing TCT into the analysis of the diffusion of strategic CSR policies in (...) GVCs helps us to make different contributions. We first theoretically identify some limiting conditions of strategic CSR policies in GVCs. We also contribute to developing a more robust theoretical perspective for CSR in GVC research, which remains underdeveloped and mostly driven by empirical case studies. Finally, we shed light on new research questions and topics that could guide major theoretical and empirical investigations in the capacity of GVCs members to bypass the numerous difficulties involved in the implementation of strategic CSR policies. (shrink)

Aurélien Djian | : L’ambition de cet article est double. Il s’agit d’abord de fixer le contexte philosophique qui sous-tend le débat entre Derrida et Marion en 1999, à l’Université de Villanova, et de réviser la perspective qui y est formulée selon laquelle le destin de la phénoménologie est intimement lié à une décision à prendre à l’égard du concept d’horizon : « il n’y a pas de phénoménologie sans horizon », affirme Derrida à Marion, il faut donc la dépasser (...) ; « la dernière étape en vue d’une véritable phénoménologie serait d’abandonner le concept d’horizon », rétorque Marion à Derrida. Cette révision de perspective nous conduira alors, dans un second temps, à restituer, en se servant de l’histoire du concept d’horizon comme fil directeur heuristique, le sens de ce que nous appellerons l’histoire française de l’herméneutique phénoménologique, dont l’unité, par-delà la multiplicité des étiquettes, réside dans le partage d’une même définition de l’activité philosophique, comme tentative de laisser se montrer soi-même à partir de soi-même le phénomène par excellence, et, avec et contre le second Heidegger, d’une même exigence de dépassement de l’horizon, solidaire de la métaphysique moderne de la subjectivité. Le principe d’une telle reconstruction permettra enfin d’envisager la possibilité d’une histoire différenciée des concepts alternatifs de phénoménologie et d’horizon, qui reste à écrire. | : The task of this article is twofold. First, it is meant to sketch out the philosophical context within which the Derrida/Marion debate that happened in 1999 at the university of Villanova took place, and to overhaul the perspective that it puts forward, that the destiny of phenomenology itself is linked at the abandon of the concept of horizon : “Without horizon there is no phenomenology”, argues Derrida against Marion ; “the last step for a real phenomenology would be to give up the concept of horizon”, answers Marion to Derrida. This overhaul will then leads us to use the history of the concept of horizon as a heuristical guiding thread to flesh out what makes the unity of what we can call the French history of hermeneutical phenomenology, that is to say, firstly, the sharing of the same definition of philosophy, as the attempt to let the distinctive phenomenon be seen as it shows itself by itself. And, secondly, with and against the second Heidegger, of the same requirement of overcoming the horizon, as it is committed to the modern metaphysics of subjectivity. The principle on which such a reconstruction is based will finally allow us to consider the idea of a differentiated history of the alternative concepts of phenomenology and horizon. History which is yet to come. (shrink)

Female empowerment has long been a prominent social concern in Western culture. With the rise of social media, the quest for female empowerment has become embodied in self-presentational practices, occurring conspicuously throughout the Instagram fitness subculture: ‘fitspiration’. Here, female empowerment is merged with the body-centrality inherent to fitness, and the self-sexualization that has become characteristic of both photo-based social media in general, and fitspiration in particular. Meanwhile, an extensive body of research highlights numerous detrimental effects of self-sexualization on women. Evidently, (...) something seems awry with the implied proposition ‘sexualization as empowerment’. Drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy of power and its relationship to human flourishing, this article aims to critically examine the conception of female empowerment expressed in fitspiration and to conceptualize a philosophically compelling reformulation of universal human empowerment. I argue that what is commonly conceived of as female empowerment in trends like fitspiration—delineated in its explicit relationship to sexualization—may be seriously flawed. Rejecting this understanding in favor of a Nietzschean universal alternative may prove beneficial to individuals both within and without the contemporary fitness culture. (shrink)

Depuis plusieurs décennies maintenant, les discours biologiques et sociologiques monopolisent, au sein du champ scientifique, la réflexion sur le féminin et le masculin. Qu’elles entretiennent ou non un rap- port de rivalité, ces deux types d’approches scientifiques saturent à tel point le paysage intellectuel déployé autour de la question de la différence sexuelle, qu’il peut sembler difficile de dégager une voie qui ne s’en tiendrait pas aux notions dominantes de “sexe” et de “genre”. Néanm...

Baumard suggests that the advent, through phenotypic plasticity mechanisms, of future-oriented preferences and creative mindsets in eighteenth-century Great Britain explains the wave of innovations that drove the British Industrial Revolution. We argue that, although this approach is promising, Baumard's model would benefit from being supplemented by demographic, economic, and sociological explanations independent of Life History Theory.

Le concept de civilisation possède deux significations distinctes. Il désigne un ensemble de groupes culturels ayant entre eux un air de famille. C'est l'un des sens que Lucien Febvre reconnaît à la notion : Civilisation signifie simplement pour nous l’ensemble des caractères que présente aux regards d’un observateur la vie collective d’un groupement humain : vie ma­té­rielle ; vie intellectuelle, vie morale, vie politique et - par quoi remplacer cette ex­pression vicieuse? – vie sociale. C...

Le débat scientifique sur la réalité du changement climatique a ses imposteurs. Mais, en matière d'environnement, les plus grandes impostures se situent dans le champ politique.Lorsque l'écologie émerge dans le débat public au début des années 1970, les grandes puissances économiques comprennent qu'un danger se profile. Alors que la mondialisation du capitalisme se met en place grâce à la stratégie du libre échange, l'écologie politique pourrait remettre en cause le productivisme, l'intensification du commerce international et les délocalisations de l'industrie vers (...) les pays à bas coût de main-d'ouvre. Avant même que la communauté internationale ne se réunisse pour débattre des crises environnementales, les tenants de la mondialisation rédigent les conclusions : aucune mesure de protection de l'environnement ne devra entraver le commerce.Depuis plus de quatre décennies, depuis que la question environnementale a émergé dans les débats nationaux et dans les préoccupations internationales, un pacte tacite s'est instauré, qui n'a pas manqué de duper : au sein des gouvernements, des institutions internationales, lors des grands sommets, ne seraient prises que des mesures cosmétiques, ne portant pas atteinte au libre échange et à la mondialisation. Il est grand temps de faire tomber les masques et de raconter en détail l'histoire politique, totalement méconnue, qui révèle la supercherie d'une prétendue conversion à l'écologie des grands de notre monde. (shrink)

La querelle sugli universali si presenta come un dibattito prevalentemente ontologico che rimette in gioco l'idea stessa di sostanza ed è un realismo ontologico che non mette per forza in discussione ogni cosa, ma contempla tutta la realtà delle specie e dei generi naturali della sostanza. Gli uomini sono legati tra di loro per convenientia e questo come una semplice similitudine essenziale tra di loro e le loro essenze individuali, secondo la linea espressa da Giovanni di Pietro Olivi , Riccardo (...) di Mediavilla , Vitale di Four , o come parte di una realtà comune, come espresso dall'altra linea rappresentata da Matteo d'Acquasparta . Anche se la loro posizione può essere definita concettualista, la loro teoria della conoscenza è ontologicamente neutra, dal momento che la ragione non consente di stabilire precisamente la natura dell'universale. (shrink)

It is well known that during the Middle Ages the Eucharist was not only a theological question but also a philosophical one. Recent studies have shown the semantical and ontological problems concerning the status of substances and accidents after the transsubstantiation. Here the paper focuses on the gnoseological problem of the Eucharist. How do we know that the substance has changed after the consecration of the host? Moreover, how do we manage to know substances in general if sometimes it changes (...) without apparent modifications in the accidental features apprehended by our sense faculties? The aim of this paper is to show that a new dilemma appeared at the end of the 13th century between the sceptical consequences of the dogma of transsubstantiation and the necessity to abandon or at least to interpret differently the sacrament. Wyclif chose the second option while most of the theologians and philosophers tried to adapt their theory of knowledge, especially the Franciscans, to which a large part of this paper is devoted. This paper tries to assess the different solutions to this problem of the knowability of substances. (shrink)

In 1927 Louis de Broglie proposed an alternative approach to standard quantum mechanics known as the double solution program (DSP) where particles are represented as bunched fields or solitons guided by a base (weaker) wave. DSP evolved as the famous de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave interpretation (PWI) also known as Bohmian mechanics but the general idea to use solitons guided by a base wave to reproduce the dynamics of the PWI was abandoned. Here we propose a nonlinear scalar field theory able (...) to reproduce the PWI for the Schrödinger and Klein–Gordon guiding waves. Our model relies on a relativistic ‘phase harmony’ condition locking the phases of the solitonic particle and the guiding wave. We also discuss an extension of the theory for the N particles cases in presence of entanglement and external (classical) electromagnectic fields. (shrink)

We review several no-go theorems attributed to Gisin and Hardy, Conway and Kochen purporting the impossibility of Lorentz-invariant deterministic hidden-variable model for explaining quantum nonlocality. Those theorems claim that the only known solution to escape the conclusions is either to accept a preferred reference frame or to abandon the hidden-variable program altogether. Here we present a different alternative based on a foliation dependent framework adapted to deterministic hidden variables. We analyse the impact of such an approach on Bohmian mechanics and (...) show that retrocausation necessarily comes out without time-loop paradox. (shrink)

In a context of growing environmental challenges, circular economy (CE) business models appear necessary for business to contribute positively to the ecological transition. While platform business models have been identified as a new and promising model in CE, we still lack a fine-grained understanding of the critical capabilities involved in developing and scaling them. To fill this gap, we build on a single case study of Phenix, a French-based fast-growing start-up in the food industry, tackling the issue of food waste. (...) We identify three core managerial capabilities involved in the successful scaling of Phenix's business model. In addition to ecosystem orchestration capabilities, we identify two types of ambidextrous capabilities – forms of ambidexterity operating both at the organizational and at the institutional level. Our analysis highlights the importance of considering these capabilities in a bundle as they collectively contribute to the performance and scaling potential of the business model. We also call for an increased consideration of the role of institutional factors in shaping opportunities to design and scale profitable business models. (shrink)

abstract The moral value of distributive equality constitutes one of the most contentious debates in political philosophy. Following Frankfurt, many philosophers have claimed that the intuitive appeal of equality is illusory and that egalitarian intuitions are fundamentally intuitions about the importance of satisfying basic needs. According to this argument, our intuitions tell us that inequality ceases to matter once a certain threshold has been reached. Despite the widespread appeal to intuitions regarding this issue, few empirical studies have tried to assess (...) whether Frankfurt and his followers are right in claiming the lack of intuitiveness of equality per se. In a series of three experiments, we show that experimental evidence does not allow us to settle the intuitiveness of each theory: laypeople are divided in the consideration of the respective importance of needs and equality. While our results do show that laypeople attach special importance to needs‐fulfilment, it also seems that they are divided when it comes to the importance they grant to equality once needs are fulfilled. No theory is unanimously backed by participants, and it seems that, fundamentally, divisions among philosophers reflect deep divisions among people. (shrink)

Epitomized in the bodily exhibitions of ‘fitspiration’, photo-based social media is biased toward self-beautification and glorification of reality. Meanwhile, evidence is growing of psychological side effects connected to this ‘pictorial turn’ in our communication. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche poses the question how ugliness and discord can produce aesthetic pleasure. This paper proceeds from an inverse relationship and examines why glorification of appearances and conspicuous beauty fails to do the same, and even compounds suffering. Drawing on the Apollo-Dionysus dualism (...) undergirding Nietzsche’s aesthetic philosophy, I posit a deeper relation between the saturation of visual self-exhibitionism typified in fitspiration and its empirical effects. Concentrating on the medium and self-representational photograph, I argue that Instagram is primarily an instrument of Apolline artifice and that the pictorial turn which defines the present centers Apolline mediation to the detrimental exclusion of meaningful communion with its Dionysiac antithesis. For users immersed in this Apolline sphere of visual self-representation, a fractured existence beholden to conditions of the image ensues—comprising surface-level appearances, deification of the moment, and loss of existential sustenance through myth. By positioning fitspiration not as an aberration but as the logical conclusion of the medium’s intrinsic Apolline property, it becomes a litmus test of the entire visual landscape and illustrative of the implications that uncritical participation in it may bring. (shrink)

Dans les grandes histoires de l’épicurisme, seul Nicolas d’Autrécourt est parfois mentionné pour le Moyen Âge en raison de son atomisme. Bien qu’il ne se dise jamais épicurien et qu’il refuserait probablement cette étiquette, il défend une thèse longtemps associée à Épicure : tout ce qui apparaît est vrai. Bien qu’il ait pu savoir qu’il s’agissait d’une thèse épicurienne, nous faisons l’hypothèse qu’il arrive à ce résultat parce que leur ambition était la même : sauver Démocrite sans tomber dans le (...) scepticisme qui lui est attribué par Aristote. Cet article compare de manière systématique Épicure et Nicolas d’Autrécourt dans le but d’éclairer leurs théories de la connaissance. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo presentar un manuscrito conservado en la biblioteca de la Universidad de Bengasi (Libia) que contiene el Kitāb al-Ǧawhara fī nasab al-nabī ṣallā Allāh ʽalayhi wa-sallam wa-aṣḥābihi al-ʽašara por Abū ʽAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr b. ʽAbd Allāh b. Mūsà al-Anṣārī al-Barrī al-Tilimsānī (596/1200-681/1282). Aunque ha sido mencionado en algunas publicaciones, no llamó la atención de los especialistas de la historia cultural de al-Andalus. Debido a la situación actual de la institución de conservación, no ha (...) sido posible ver ni ofrecer reproducciones. Aun así, como se cedió una fotografía para un catálogo, el último folio resultó muy útil. Se hace constar claramente el origen de la obra, que fue copiada en Menorca por su propio autor en el año 645/1248. Además, se puede observar que fue ofrecido como regalo a Saʽīd b. Ḥakam al-Qurašī, el gobernador de la isla, que fundó una biblioteca cuya riqueza fue celebrada por los autores medievales. En el estado actual del conocimiento, se trata precisamente del quinto manuscrito identificado, encontrándose hoy los otros cuatro en la Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial. La historia del manuscrito permanece oscura, aunque se puede dar por establecido que reapareció en Libia a mediados del siglo XIX, siendo entonces propiedad de Muḥammad b. ʽAlī al-Sanūsī, fundador de la poderosa ṭarīqa al-Sanūsiyya. (shrink)

Contrary to what is generally said about the reception of Epicurus in the Middle Ages, many medieval authors agreed on his great wisdom, even if he made some philosophical and theological errors. From the 12th century to the 14th century on can find several "Lives of Epicurus" in which the best sayings of Epicurus are gathered from ancient sources (Seneca, Cicero, Lactantius, etc.). In this paper, we follow these quite unknown sources about Epicureanism in the Middle Ages. We try to (...) show that if Epicurus was considered as a wise man in the MIddle Ages, Epicureans are condemned because after the Revelation of God's word, Christians can only accept Epicurus's ascetic ethics, not his errors about the eternity of the world, the mortality of the soul et the subordination of happiness to pleasure. (shrink)

The paradigmatic examples of what we call nowadays ‘mere Cambridge changes’ are relational properties. If someone is on the left of a table at t − 1 and on the right of this table at t, the table does not undergo a physical change, but it has nonetheless new relational properties. What kind of relation lies behind this kind of change? Should we abandon the definition of identity as a set of permanent properties through time? This concern with identity and (...) change was already present in Aristotle's Physics 5 and 7 and medieval commentators tackled the problem with some important refinements due to their metaphysical discussions about the nature of relations. John of Jandun's discussion of this topic, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, is particularly interesting. First, he defines self-identity as a relation of reason, which means for him that it is not a real relation. Second, he distinguishes two kinds of relational changes: those involving real relations and the acquisition a qualitative propert... (shrink)

Le concept de civilisation possède deux significations distinctes. Il désigne un ensemble de groupes culturels ayant entre eux un air de famille. C'est l'un des sens que Lucien Febvre reconnaît à la notion : Civilisation signifie simplement pour nous l’ensemble des caractères que présente aux regards d’un observateur la vie collective d’un groupement humain : vie ma­té­rielle ; vie intellectuelle, vie morale, vie politique et - par quoi remplacer cette ex­pression vicieuse? – vie sociale. C...