Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has repeatedly been described as an “essentially contested concept,” which means that its signification is subject to continuous struggle. We argue that the “CSR institution” (CSRI; i.e., the set of standards and rules regulating corporate conduct under the banner of CSR) is legitimized by narratives which “decontest” the underlying concept of CSR in a manner that safeguards the CSRI from calls for alternative institutional arrangements. Examining several such narratives from a structuralist perspective, we find them to (...) be permeated with six recurrent ambiguities that we show to be reflective of three deep-set taboos: the taboo of the noncongruency between corporate profit objectives and societal needs, the taboo of multinational firms’ continued contribution to the emergence of global socioenvironmental issues, and the taboo of the CSRI’s moderate results in solving these problems. We contend that the perpetuation of these taboos contributes to inhibiting substantial change in the way of doing business, and we sketch out possibilities for initiating a “recontestation” of CSR’s meaning. (shrink)

Activism undertaken by CEOs has been on the rise in recent years. Research on this practice has been primarily concerned with determining the conditions under which a CEO’s public statements on sociopolitical issues are beneficial or detrimental to her firm’s business performance. We complement this instrumental perspective on CEO activism with an ethical investigation of the implications of CEO activism for the democratic process. Drawing on political philosophy, we show that the answer to the question of whether CEO activism is (...) conducive to the democratic process depends on the view of democracy that is adopted. From the perspective of liberalism, the sole requirement that an instance of CEO activism must fulfill is that it is lawful, provided that the applicable law sufficiently protects people’s essential rights. However, from the viewpoint of republicanism, this is not a sufficient condition. Besides being law-abiding, CEOs should be “civic-minded” when intervening in public debates, i.e., concerned with the quality and fairness with which those debates are conducted. Based on the literature on republicanism, we suggest four possible criteria that civic-minded CEOs can apply to gauge the democratic conduciveness of a possible public intervention: added insight, timeliness, constructiveness, and transparency. Our article complements the predominantly instrumentally oriented literature on CEO activism and contributes, more broadly, to the literature that explores the normative dimensions of corporate political involvement, as well as to a growing strand of research that draws on philosophical theory to inform business leaders’ ethical decision-making. (shrink)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

« 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...

Le rule of law et l’ordre public sont deux composantes essentielles du vivre ensemble dans la société britannique. La présente étude a pour objet de revenir sur la conception de ces deux notions qui sont de plus en plus en tension dans un contexte où les impératifs d’ordre public semblent supplanter les présupposés libéraux qui fondent le rule of law.

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)

Presenting Descartes as a thinker who sought to reconcile his philosophical principles and Christianity, this work grasps this harmonization in terms of Eucharistic explanations, so as to identify the terms of articulation between his philosophy and the field of theology.

We examine here the evolution of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of history from Humanism and Terror to the 1955 course on “Institution in Personal and Public History” in order to explain what makes it “ambiguous.” This evolution is explained by the desire to understand history according to intersubjective praxis and the dialectical scheme of historical institution. The articulation of these two levels allows Merleau-Ponty to develop a philosophy of historical productivity, that is, a conception of history as a practical process that is (...) open, unfinished, and continually “instituting” by virtue of the always revived and entangled taking up of human actions. Therefore, the more general challenge is to define the specificity of a thought of history that unfolds from the permanent and central concern for the achievement of human coexistence. (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)

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)

Le français est, par définition, le vecteur d’une des plus grandes aires culturelles du monde contemporain, celui de la francophonie, mais il est inséparable de sa coexistence avec les 2 000 langues de l’espace francophone. C’est dire à quel point une vision purement hexagonale de la francophonie est en totale contradiction avec les données du monde d’aujourd’hui. On pourrait en dire autant des autres espaces linguistiques : le cloisonnement des langues et des cultures est incompatible avec les développements actuels de (...) la mondialisation. Autrefois essentiellement instruments de pouvoir et de domination, les aires culturelles et linguistiques se transforment en instruments de cohabitation et de diversité, ce qui place la question du plurilinguisme et de la traduction aux centre des enjeux majeurs du monde contemporain.The French language, by definition, is the vehicle for the Francophone world, one of the largest cultural areas in the world of today. But French cannot be considered in isolation from the 2 000 languages with which it coexists in the Francophone sphere. This underlines how completely the Francophone concept, when seen from the perspective of France alone, contradicts the realities of today’s world. The same could also be said of other linguistic areas : dividing up the world in terms of languages and cultures is fundamentally incompatible with current trends in globalisation. While cultural and linguistic spheres were, in the past, essentially instruments of power and domination, they are now becoming instruments of cohabitation and diversity, and this brings the issues of multilingualism and translation to the very heart of the major global issues of today. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to stress the constancy of the Husserlian conception of sensible contents. I argue that Husserl, despite some significant changes in his philosophical views between 1901 and 1913, always maintained that sensations have a founding role to play in perceptual experience. The proposed interpretation is build against the idea of a scission in Husserl’s work as regards the status of sensations—an idea which became widespread due to the so-called Fregean readings of phenomenology. Even if the (...) notion of sense gains in importance in the Ideas, I argue that this does not discredit the sensuous stuff when it comes to the constitution of perceptual objects. (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)

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.

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)

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)

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 tries to understand how three medieval philosophers (Roger Bacon, Albert the Great and John Buridan) developed the idea of a special logic for ethics, taking into account Aristotle's thesis according to which ethics does not need theoretical syllogisms and uses a special kind of scientific reasoning. If rhetoric is a good candidate, we find three different readings of this approach and then three different theories of ethical reasoning.

Le 40e anniversaire de la publication de l’encyclique du pape Paul VI « Sur le développement des peuples » (26 mars 1967) invite à revenir sur ce thème. Comment est-on passé d’une conception du développement économique à celle de développement durable ? De quelle façon l’encyclique s’inscrit-elle dans ce passage ? La prise en compte de la dimension sociale du développement, à partir des réunions du Forum social mondial, depuis 2001, permet de mettre en perspective les problématiques liées aujourd’hui au (...) développement, avec l’articulation entre identité particulière et conscience universelle. (shrink)

Comment une connaissance objective est-elle possible pour une subjectivité? Telle pourrait être la question à l’origine de la tentative husserlienne visant à fournir une fondation objective de la connaissance. Telle semble être également la question qui anime, de façon sous-jacente, toute philosophie de la connaissance. La phénoménologie de Husserl a pris tout d’abord la forme d’une Erkenntnistheorie. Autour du sens et de la portée de ce geste, primitif et fondateur, le livre de Laurent Joum...

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...

Dino del Garbo, médecin actif dans les premières décennies du xiv e siècle, est surtout connu pour son commentaire au poème de Guido Cavalcanti Donna me prega. La présente étude propose l’édition d’une question quodlibétique sur la capacité de l’imagination à altérer le corps, disputée à Bologne ou Sienne dans les années 1320. Nous examinons le contexte médical et philosophique dans lequel s’inscrit cette question, en montrant notamment comment le débat s’est progressivement cristallisé autour de l’opposition entre un modèle avicennien (...) et un modèle aristotélicien des rapports entre l’âme et le corps. L’analyse de ce débat permet d’éclairer d’un jour nouveau la glose de Dino del Garbo à Donna me prega et aussi, de manière incidente, le poème lui-même. (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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

In this work we develop a time-symmetric soliton theory for quantum particles inspired from works by de Broglie and Bohm. We consider explicitly a non-linear Klein–Gordon theory leading to monopolar oscillating solitons. We show that the theory is able to reproduce the main results of the pilot-wave interpretation for non interacting particles in a external electromagnetic field. In this regime, using the time symmetry of the theory, we are also able to explain quantum entanglement between several solitons and we reproduce (...) the famous pilot-wave nonlocality associated with the de Broglie-Bohm theory. (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)