An adequate interpretation of concept of the propensity to communicate will thus lead us to interpret in this concept a possible formalization of the notion of the specious present, introduced into the field of psychology by William James at the end of the 19th Century. In this chapter, the authors introduce some aspects of the concept of time that their model operates under. While situating the actors in relation to each other in the network space, their propensity to communicate also (...) indexes the future opportunities that are open to them by their past trajectories. The authors conclude with a discussion of a supposed “ancestrality's paradox”, according to which such a primacy would pay no heed to ignoring events located in a temporality prior to the appearance of any life on earth, and well before that of Homo habilis. (shrink)

Il y a un sens premier du récit (celui de l’histoire racontée), voire un sens second (la thèse exemplifiée par ladite histoire) ; mais l’important est souvent ailleurs : dans la forme sensible du texte, qui conduit le lecteur à un plaisir sensuel, affectif, ou même intellectuel. Les très grandes œuvres parviennent sans doute – et c’est l’une des raisons de leur gloire et de leur survie – à jouer non seulement sur le plaisir sensible de la forme et sur (...) sa dimension affective, mais aussi sur la stimulation de l’intellect : les formes prennent alors un poids existentiel, concurrençant le contenu même de ce qui est dit. (shrink)

The limited capacity of immediate memory “rides” on the even more limited capacity of consciousness, which reflects the dynamic activity of the thalamocortical core of the brain. Recent views of the conscious narrow-capacity component of the brain are explored with reference to global workspace theory (Baars 1988; 1993; 1998). The radical limits of immediate memory must be explained in terms of biocognitive brain architecture.

La dialectique de la reconnaissance héritée du Hegel de la Phénoménologie de l'Esprit est actuellement retravaillée de façon critique par de grands éthiciens. Leurs recherches visent à produire de nouveaux cadres théoriques susceptibles d'accompagner positivement la mondialisation présente, dans ses développements politiques, économiques et culturels, sans tomber dans un syncrétisme destructeur des cultures et des identités et pourvoyeur de revanches archaïsantes. En cette conjoncture, la théologie chrétienne se trouve conviée elle aussi à concevoir, sur le terrain social, de nouvelles articulations (...) entre le particulier et l'universel. C'est ce à quoi se consacre cet article, qui évoque successivement la situation du monde occidental et celle de l'Afrique. Nowadays important ethicists are critically working on the dialectics of recognition inherited from Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit. Their research intends to produce new theoretical frameworks which can positively accompany the actual globalization, in its political, economical, and cultural developments, without falling into a destructive syncretism of cultures and identities which could inspire archaistic revanchism. In these circumstances, Christian theology is also invited to create new links between the particular and universal aspects of social life. This article, which is devoted to these questions, deals subsequently with the situations in the western world and in Africa. (shrink)

This paper takes up the question, “What is the responsibility of the philosopher, specifically the Catholic philosopher, in teaching ethics at a Catholic university?” Examination of the constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae reveals that answering this question requires examining in turn the relationship between theology and philosophy. Accordingly, the paper proceeds to an analysis of the late Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Fides et Ratio. Th is analysis shows, however, that the very distinction between theology and philosophy seems to become problematic (...) on the encyclical’s terms. The paper thus goes on to indicate a different means of distinguishing these disciplines, and concludes by considering the significance of this distinction for the question of the responsibility of the Catholic philosopher. (shrink)

absorbed state. (7.7) Empirically, a state like fantasy, selective attention, absent-minded day-dreaming and probably hypnosis, in which conscious experience is unusually resistant to distraction. Theoretically, a case in which access to the Global Workspace (GW) is controlled by a coherent context hierarchy , giving little opportunity for outside information to compete for conscious access (4.32). See als ideomotor theory, access, and options context.

This paper is a reading of Aristotle's book on justice (Book V of the Ethics) as what he says it is, a study of the disposition or inclination towards doing just (or unjust) acts. In that light, the content of Aristotle's famous treatments of distributive and corrective justice are only incidental, for their true role is as clues to a meaningful picture of the Just and the Unjust person. Aristotle's treatment of Being Just as a specific virtue is the most (...) detailed treatment he offers of any moral virtue. Being Just as distributive justice emerges as a commitment to the equal treatment of all citizens, but to an equality tempered by always contentious considerations of merited reward. Being Just as corrective justice is a commitment to protecting and repairing the sphere of each person's dignity and opportunity from damaging and sometimes malicious interactions. But more is required. For Being Just means overcoming the disordered and misdirected desire that both Aristotle and Plato call "pleonexia", wanting - tyrant-like - more-of-and-more-than. If that is overcome by re-directed libido, the virtuous will then have to integrate more subtle elements if they are to achieve an inclination to this tempered, but real equality. These elements are two. One is present only implicitly, the passion Aristotle calls nemesis, a demand that the world - and justice within the world - must never permit an evil person to go unpunished or a good one, to suffer harm. That passion cannot be admitted, but at best can only be temporarily stilled. The second impediment arises from the dynamic of human communities that are made up of diverse and actively striving individuals: such citizens, haunted by suspicion grounded in their own pleonexia, demand that the community be one of laws. That creates a true dilemma, for in Aristotle's estimation, no set of rules can cabin any virtue. The Rule of Law is in tension with the particularity of justice in real life, and that tension is ultimately only bearable through the invention of equity, the trusted deviation from the law to preserve the law. In making this abstract I have had to leave untouched the subject matter of the first and two last chapters, but in my paper I do treat these. More importantly, I also show how all political community and the inclination to seek to be a Just Person rests on a gracious act of reciprocal commitment. (shrink)