At the beginning of Western philosophy, Aristotle contrasted made objects, which did not have the source of their own production within themselves, with beings formed by nature. This distinction persisted until Marx, who conceived of the possibility of an evolution of the technical object. This philosophy developed while industrialisation was in the process of overthrowing the contemporary order of social organisation, which highlighted technology's new place in philosophical enquiry. Bernard Stiegler goes back to the beginning of Western philosophy and (...) revises the Aristotelian assessment, developing a complex argument whereby the technical object can be seen as having an essential, distinctive temporality and dynamic of its own. The author engages the ideas of Rousseau, Husserl, and Heidegger, the paleo-ontologist Leroi-Gourhan, the anthropologists Vernant and Detienne, the sociologists Weber and Habermas, and the systems analysts Maturana and Varela. (shrink)

This article attempts an organological and pharmacological re-interpretation of the later Heidegger’s understanding of modern technology as a provocative mode of revealing of beings, in particular of its central notions of Gestell [enframing] Gefahr [danger], Kehre [turning] and Ereignis [event]. Although these notions in principle allow us to think what is at stake currently in the Anthropocene as the age of total automation, generalized toxicity of the technical milieu and post-truth calling for a radical bifurcation, they need to be reframed (...) and re-imagined in terms of the process of exosomatization issuing from humanity’s original and necessary default of origin and situated within the perspective of entropy and negentropy, both unthought by Heidegger. Only thus will it become possible to really think and take care of what Heidegger called the danger of technology and its turning into the event as the destiny of enframing. This also requires a rethinking of Aristotle’s theory of four causes as it is invoked by Heidegger in his analysis of technology, in particular the efficient and final causes, in terms of what Deleuze called quasi-causality, here understood as the need and the obligation for mortals to make their fault come true, i.e., to make it truly happen or make it advene in truth, out of the experience of the danger as the ordeal of the necessary default. Thus becoming the anti-anthropic cause of anthropic toxicity, humans would restore final causality as quasi-causality and inaugurate, as neganthropos, the bifurcation into the Neganthropocene. (shrink)

It used to be that everyone read the "notorious" Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733). He was a great satirist and come to have a profound impact on economics, ethics and social philosophy. "The Fable of the Bees" begins with a poem and continues with a number of essays and dialogues. It is all tied together by the startling and original idea that "private vices" (self-interest) lead to "publick benefits" (the development and operation of society).

A computable structure $\mathcal {A}$ is $\mathbf {x}$-computably categorical for some Turing degree $\mathbf {x}$ if for every computable structure $\mathcal {B}\cong\mathcal {A}$ there is an isomorphism $f:\mathcal {B}\to\mathcal {A}$ with $f\leq_{T}\mathbf {x}$. A degree $\mathbf {x}$ is a degree of categoricity if there is a computable structure $\mathcal {A}$ such that $\mathcal {A}$ is $\mathbf {x}$-computably categorical, and for all $\mathbf {y}$, if $\mathcal {A}$ is $\mathbf {y}$-computably categorical, then $\mathbf {x}\leq_{T}\mathbf {y}$. We construct a $\Sigma^{0}_{2}$ set whose degree (...) is not a degree of categoricity. We also demonstrate a large class of degrees that are not degrees of categoricity by showing that every degree of a set which is 2-generic relative to some perfect tree is not a degree of categoricity. Finally, we prove that every noncomputable hyperimmune-free degree is not a degree of categoricity. (shrink)

Collingwood’s account of re-enactment is often misunderstood as providing methodological guidance to historians. Williams’s chapter is perceptive in seeing through this erroneous interpretation. Williams is however very critical of Collingwood’s account of the relationship between philosophy and history. He reads Collingwood’s account of absolute presuppositions as embracing a form of ‘radical historicism’ and argues that, like many other philosophers who reject foundationalism, Collingwood tends to use the word ‘we’ in an evasive way, both in an inclusive sense “as implying universalistic (...) preconditions on interpretation and intelligibility” and in a contrastive sense “under which ‘we’ here and now are distinct from others elsewhere and elsewhen, who lived in others and different intelligible human formations”. William’s chapter appropriately introduces this volume since the question concerning the nature of absolute presuppositions, and in what sense they can be said to be constitutive of the forms of inquiry which they make possible, is a central concern of this collection and is discussed by several contributors. (shrink)

A summary is out of place because of the outlinish nature of the presentation. I have presented a taxonomy or general theory of ethics. The view is acceptable or not depending on how well it competes with rival theories. One thing that hinders such a comparison is the absence of sufficiently clearly articulated rivals. Perhaps this paper will stimulate the production of some rival views.

Sociobiologists claim that there are important constraints on human behavior that are the result of genetic factors. Some of them also claim that this has important implications for ethics, and even more generally for determining how persons ought to behave. In this paper I shall defend these two claims, though I shall not be defending the views of any particular sociobiologist, unless one is prepared to count Hobbes as a sociobiologist.

This study is based on the self-reporting by circus artists’ concerning their injuries. We refer to the theoretical framework of emersiology and argue that circus artists may be able to soothe their distress and pain by learning through their body. We will draw further on the comparison between our therapeutic approach and the techniques of self-care introduced by Michel Foucault in his History of Sexuality.

L’A. se propose un nouvel examen de l’unité du Phèdre, problème qui mobilise les commentateurs depuis l’Antiquité et a été récemment relancé dans les études françaises et anglo-américaines. De fait, Platon n’a pas explicité la charnière articulant le diptyque formé par le discours sur l’amour comme éros spiritualisé suivi de la réflexion sur la rhétorique du vrai. Au-delà de l’étrangeté formelle, l’enjeu est philosophique : la dualité même du dialogue signale la tentative platonicienne de maintenir à tout prix le travail (...) de la psychagogie, fondement de la recherche amoureuse de la vérité, sur le terrain de la parole politique, jusqu’à se heurter à l’éclatement mutuel des deux ordres. Reste alors, devant nos yeux, l’unité fracturée du métaphysique et du politique. (shrink)

Le polythéisme polynésien était-il une forme métaphorique de panthéisme ?

L’auteur examine la définition de la personne chez John Locke à laquelle se réfère un nombre croissant de philosophes en bioéthique. L’auteur se concentre sur une lecture précise et critique du célèbre passage lockéen qui opère un transfert de la définition de la personne d’un plan substantiel à celui juridique et moral . Il développe les contradictions logiques internes à la définition de la personne comme conscience de soi et conscience morale chez le philosophe anglais, notamment le besoin de réinsérer (...) la corporéité dans sa définition afin de transcender le subjectivisme, comme du critère de souvenir authentique qui le différencie du pseudo-souvenir, du statut de l’être humain qui serait ivre ou qui n’exercerait plus de manière irréversible la conscience de soi en lien avec la théorie des intérêts. L’auteur conclut par une réflexion critique sur les conséquences éthiques contemporaines de la définition lockéenne de la personne performante. (shrink)

À suivre Gérard Genette, son passage de la critique littéraire à la poétique, puis de celle-ci à l’esthétique résulterait d’un « processus génétique en quelque sorte oblique », d’une « filiation collatérale » qui voit le détail d’un livre devenir le sujet du suivant. Un retour sur son parcours fait apparaître que l’enchaînement métonymique est lissé par le tuilage des moments : ceux-ci, pour être focalisés, n’en sont pas moins cumulatifs. Mieux, même, au fil du temps, dans la dynamique cumulative (...) d’un œuvre complet in progress, le principe de cohérence se sera appliqué non seulement à l’idéalité des textes, mais à la physicalité qui détermine le régime d’immanence de la littérature. On peut voir dans « Du texte à l’œuvre », « exercice d’autodiction préposthume » qui ouvre Figures IV, en 1997, plus que le simple bilan d’un chercheur, fût-il de grande envergure, dressant le bilan de son parcours au soir de sa carrière : sous couleur de rendre compte des liens qui unissent ses livres, il s’agit ni plus ni moins de montrer en quoi les textes qu’il a publiés constituent une œuvre. (shrink)