I) Introduction : la phénoménologie expérientielle Depuis la plus haute Antiquité, et dans plusieurs continents, les philosophes, les religieux, les sages, les mystiques mais aussi d’autres humains n’ayant que la prétention de moins mal comprendre ce qu’il en est de leur vie mentale, posent un regard réflexif sur le contenu et l’organisation de la vie de l’esprit. En Occident, une étape décisive fut franchie par Husserl, quand il prit le parti d’une analyse systématique et scientifique des vé...

The literature concerning ethical issues associated with nanotechnologies has become prolific. However, it has been claimed that ethical problems are only at stake with rather sophisticated nanotechnologies such as active nanostructures, integrated nanosystems and heterogeneous molecular nanosystems, whereas more basic nanotechnologies such as passive nanostructures mainly pose technical difficulties. In this paper I argue that fundamental ethical issues are already at stake with this more basic kind of nanotechnologies and that ethics impacts every kind of nanotechnologies, already from the simplest (...) kind of engineered nanoproducts. These ethical issues are mainly associated with the social desirability of nanotechnologies, with the difficulties to define nanotechnologies properly, with the important uncertainties surrounding nanotechnologies, with the threat of ‘nano-divide’, and with nanotechnology as ‘dual-use technology’. (shrink)

This study investigates how one important accounting professional authority—CPA Canada—discusses accounting ethics and exhorts its members to think about ethics-related issues. To do this, we rely on empirical evidence of the types of arguments used by CPA Canada to describe what they consider acceptable moral justifications in a variety of practical situations that accountants may encounter. We argue that the articles contained in the profession’s primary publication for all members, CPA Magazine, offer a wealth of such evidence. We analyze 237 (...) articles about accounting ethics that were published in CPA Magazine from January 2000 to December 2017, and find evidence of moral pluralism. Six categories of justifications dominate: private commitments, utility, perfectionist ends, general duties, and specific obligations, plus self-interest. Of these categories, the specific obligations logic is the most widely used. We offer a tentative explanation, and discuss the implications of our findings for a better grasp of the complexities of accountants’ practical conflicts and a rethink of the ongoing tension between professionalism and commercialism. (shrink)

In this article Roberto Balzani, the mayor of Forlì, remembers Roberto Ruffilli, 25 years after his murder. The remembrance reconstructs the steps of his academic career and of his political commitment. Ruffilli graduated at the Catholic University of Milan; his researches in contemporary history placed him in an original position if compared with the Italian studies of the time. The constant attention towards the history of administration and the transformations of the state is the basis on which Ruffilli built (...) his proposals concerning the reform of the insitutional and political system. Balzani concludes the article by affirming that the problems of today aren't any different, that is why Ruffilli's proposals still demonstrate their modernity. (shrink)

Improving working conditions at the bottom of global value chains has become a central issue in our global economy. In this battle, trade unionism has been presented as a way for workers to make their voices heard. Therefore, it is strongly promoted by most social standards. However, establishing a well-functioning trade union is not as obvious as it may seem. Using a comparative case study approach, we examine impediments to farm-level unionism in the cut flower industry in Ethiopia. For this (...) purpose, we propose an integrated framework combining two lenses, namely a vertical one and a horizontal one. We identify 10 impediments that point to three major dimensions contributing to unionisation. These three dimensions include awareness of and interest from workers, legitimacy of trade unions, and capacity of trade unions to act. Furthermore, our results suggest that private social standards may, in certain cases, be counterproductive for the efficient functioning of trade unions. Although we argue that there is no ‘quick fix’ solution to weak workplace unionism at the bottom of global value chains, we stress the importance of considering the dynamics of, and interactions between, the impediments when designing potential support measures that mitigate negative impacts. (shrink)

This study examined the effect of the pique technique preceded by a disrupting process. Passersby in the street were asked for money, either for a common amount of change (control) or 37 cents (pique technique). In half of the cases, the requester added a disrupting sentence at the beginning of the request. Results showed that the pique technique alone and the disrupting technique alone increased compliance with the request. Adding a first disrupting sentence to the pique also increased compliance compared (...) with the other three conditions. These results support the theoretical explanation that the initial disrupting sentence associated with the pique could reduce the influence of the refusal script activated by the money request. (shrink)

The effects of aging on the cognitive and affective dimensions of theory of mind , and on the latter’s links with other cognitive processes, such as information processing speed, executive functions and episodic memory, are still unclear. We therefore investigated these effects in young , middle-aged and older adults , using separate subjective and objective assessment tasks. Furthermore, a novel composite task probed participants’ abilities to infer both cognitive and affective mental states in an interpersonal context. Although age affected the (...) objective ToM tests, results revealed a direct aging effect on the second-order ToM, but an indirect one on the first-order cognitive ToM, mediated mainly by age-related declines in executive functions. This study supports the notion of an age-related distinction between subjective and objective assessments of ToM, and confirms that ToM is a complex mental ability with several characteristics reliant to some extent on executive processes. (shrink)

The ability to reflect on and monitor memory processes is one of the most investigated metamemory functions, and one of the important ways consciousnesses interacts with memory. The feeling-of-knowing is one task used to evaluate individual’s capacity to monitor their memory. We examined this reflective function of metacognition in older adults. We explored the contribution of metacognition to episodic memory impairment, in relation to the idea that older adults show a reduction in memory awareness characteristic of episodic memory. A first (...) experiment showed that age affects the accuracy of FOK when predictions are made on an episodic memory task but not on a semantic memory task, suggesting a particular role for episodic memory awareness in metacognitive evaluations. A second experiment showed that the age-difference in episodic FOK accuracy was removed if one took into account subjective reports of memory awareness, or recollection. We argue that the FOK deficit specific to episodic memory is based on a lack of memory awareness manifest as a recollection deficit. (shrink)

Religious organisations are major investors with sometimes substantial investment volumes. An important question for them is how to make investments in, and to earn returns from, companies and activities that are consistent with their religious beliefs or that even support these beliefs. Religious organisations have pioneered responsible investment. Yet little is known about their investment attitudes. This article addresses this gap by studying faith consistent investing. Based on a survey complemented by interviews, we investigate religious organisations’ attitudes towards responsible investment (...) including opinions, practices and the impediments for implementing faith consistent investing. Although our results cannot be generalised because of the non-random character of our sample, six main characteristics of faith consistent investing are drawn: investing is not perceived as being in contradiction with religious values, religious values are important drivers, there is a strong community around faith consistent investing, religious investors are pioneering impact investing, implementing faith consistent investing is not without difficulties, and practices vary across regions. The survey also reveals that faith consistent investing has many commonalities with secular responsible investors. (shrink)

La traçabilité, définie par la norme Iso 8402 comme « l'aptitude à retrouver l'historique, l'utilisation ou la localisation d'une entité au moyen d'identifications enregistrées » implique une forme de surenchérissement technique dans les modes de production : visant à créer une confiance fondée sur la preuve du respect de certaines normes techniques codifiant les procédures de fabrication, elle nous éloigne par là même encore plus d'un mode de production artisanal, soumis aux aléas et aux défauts inhérents à la reproduction humaine (...) des mêmes gestes. On analysera dans le cas de la filière viande bovine, les discours des acteurs impliqués ainsi que le contenu concret des procédures, afin de comprendre l'apport du dispositif de traçabilité en matière de restauration de confiance. En se référant simultanément à d'autres cas de mise en place de traçabilité, on fera enfin l'hypothèse que ces procédures, assurant une forme de transparence et de responsabilisation des activités techniques, peuvent recréer une confiance dans ces activités en répondant à une exigence d'ordre politique propre à la 'société du risque' . On rappellera rapidement en premier lieu l'évolution de la réglementation en matière de traçabilité et d'étiquetage des viandes bovines, afin de situer le contexte des pratiques des professionnels. On verra ensuite quelles sont les différentes stratégies associées par les acteurs de la filière à la notion de traçabilité : si un certain nombre d'agriculteurs, assimilant traçabilité et proximité, se sont lancés dans la vente directe de leurs produits, l'organisation de la traçabilité dans le circuit industriel, dirigée vers la communication d'un certain nombre de critères codifiés, intensifie au contraire certaines pratiques industrielles. On verra enfin que ce dispositif de traçabilité implique concrètement des modifications profondes dans le travail des acteurs, fortement bureaucratisé, codifié et contrôlé, permettant ainsi de produire un ensemble de traces renvoyant à une responsabilisation collective de la filière. On développera alors une hypothèse suggérant que le concept de traçabilité, médiatisé lors des crises et accidents technologiques récents, peut fonder une confiance du consommateur profane dans les systèmes d'activités techniques , en remplaçant la notion d'autorité ou de compétence spécialistes dont l'émergence des risques technologiques marque la faillibilité, par celle de transparence collective. (shrink)

Unlike many of the major figures in Western philosophy, Kierkegaard explores many issues of interest to feminist theorists today. Moreover, he does so in a style—labyrinthine, many-voiced, multilayered, adverse to authority—that adumbrates _écriture féminine_. A major question probed in the volume is whether Kierkegaard's writings are misogynist, ambivalent, or essentialist in their views of women and the feminine or whether, in some important and vital ways, they are liberatory and empowering for feminists and women trying to free themselves from the (...) maze of patriarchal constructs. The essays also show how the three existence-spheres—aesthetic, ethical, and religious—articulated in Kierkegaard's authorship inscribe different modalities of the sexual relation: seduction for the aesthetic, marriage for the ethical, and absence from commerce with the other sex for the religious. Contributors are Sylviane Agacinski, Wanda Warren Berry, Birgit Bertung, Jane Duran, Leslie A. Howe, Céline Léon, Tamsin Lorraine, Robert L. Perkins, Mark L. Taylor, Sylvia Walsh, and Julia Watkin. (shrink)

This research applies the notion of sustainability (Barney, 1991; Braa, Monteiro, & Sahay, 2004) to the mechanisms used by socially responsible investment(SRI) firms with respect to their stakeholders (investors and target firms). A contrast is developed between US and UK SRI firms. It is noted that screens, while maintaining a strong investor base, are less sustainable from the perspective of the firms targeted by SRI funds, whereas advocacy has stronger elements of sustainability with respect to the relations with corporations.

This article explores the ongoing obsession with the thigh gap ideal in certain pockets of Western societies. A thigh gap is the space some women have between their inner thighs when they stand with their feet together. The thigh gap ideal is flaunted on “thinspo” websites, which compile diet and exercise tips and display pictures of fashion models and “real women” in their efforts to inspire women to become thinner. I aim to identify what is wrong with the thigh gap (...) obsession and to suggest a way to overcome it. I begin by describing the genesis of the obsession. I then argue that the relation women in the grip of this preoccupation have to their bodies is an instance of what I call bodily alienation. Next, I consider responses to the thigh gap phenomenon. I claim that a viable response, besides broadening standards of beauty, lies in pursuing bodily activities for their own sake. I call the view I articulate “sensualism.” I conclude by discussing the merits of an individual response of the type I advocate, in light of the structural character of women’s oppression through standards of beauty. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering takes a distinctively normative and reconstructive approach to our conceptual repertoire. This approach is congenial to the ideas defended by philosophers belonging to the multifaceted tradition of American and Cambridge Pragmatism. This special issue is devoted to the investigation and development of these connections. Our introduction maps some of the historical and theoretical entanglements between the two fields and gives a short overview of the contributions to the special issue.

We adapted the Bubbles procedure [Vis. Res. 41 (2001) 2261] to examine the effective use of information during the first 282 ms of face identification. Ten participants each viewed a total of 5100 faces sub-sampled in space–time. We obtained a clear pattern of effective use of information: the eye on the left side of the image became diagnostic between 47 and 94 ms after the onset of the stimulus; after 94 ms, both eyes were used effectively. This preference for the (...) eyes increased with practice, and was not solely due to the informativeness of the eyes for the task at hand. The bias for the eye on the left side of the image is explained in terms of hemispheric specialization. Although there were individual differences, most participants exhibited this pattern of effective use of information. An intriguing finding is that most participants displayed a clear sinusoidal modulation of effective use of attention through time with a frequency of about 10.6 Hz. (shrink)

This study investigates how diverse European legal systems and financial structures influence corporate social and environmental responsibility. The argument is developed by means of a framework that integrates legal systems and financial structures. Hypotheses relating to environmental responsibility have been tested using Innovest data gathered between 2002 and 2007 from 645 companies in 16 countries; and hypotheses relating to social responsibility have been tested using Innovest data gathered between 2004 and 2007 from 600 companies. The findings demonstrate that legal systems (...) influence corporate responsibility (CR) in both social and environmental spheres. They also support the claim that corporations are more likely to act in environmentally responsible ways when there are strong and well-enforced state regulations in place to ensure such behavior. Company size is shown to have a greater impact on CR than either excess cash or performance. Large companies tend to be more visible than small ones do, and society expects them to behave in a more socially and environmentally responsible manner regardless of their financial performance or available cash. Finally, these findings support the hypothesis that capital structure significantly influences CR: companies with a high number of publicly held shares and a low percentage of debt are more likely than others to commit themselves to social and environmental activities. (shrink)

In this article, I draw an important distinction between two kinds of inquiry. “Framed inquiries” take for granted and use a conceptual framework in order to ask and answer questions, while “framing inquiries” require the creation, revision, or expansion of the conceptual framework itself in order to address the problem at hand. This distinction has been largely ignored in epistemology, and collapsed by two radically opposed philosophical camps: representationalism and antirepresentationalism. While the former takes all inquiries to be in the (...) business of discovering mind-independent facts, the latter takes all inquiries to be primarily governed by pragmatic considerations. Against the objections raised by both camps, I defend a pragmatist and substantive distinction between framed and framing inquiry, inspired by Rudolf Carnap’s distinction between internal and external questions and reformulated in terms of John Dewey’s theory of inquiry. (shrink)

This paper analyses the nature of the relationship between risk and responsibility. Since neither the concept of risk nor the concept of responsibility has an unequivocal definition, it is obvious that there is no single interpretation of their relationship. After introducing the different meanings of responsibility used in this paper, we analyse four conceptions of risk. This allows us to make their link with responsibility explicit and to determine if a shift in the connection between risk and responsibility can be (...) outlined. (1) In the engineer’s paradigm, the quantitative conception of risk does not include any concept of responsibility. Their relationship is indirect, the locus of responsibility being risk management. (2) In Mary Douglas’ cultural theory, risks are constructed through the responsibilities they engage. (3) Rayner and (4) Wolff go further by integrating forms of responsibility in the definition of risk itself. Analysis of these four frameworks shows that the concepts of risk and responsibility are increasingly intertwined. This tendency is reinforced by increasing public awareness and a call for the integration of a moral dimension in risk management. Therefore, we suggest that a form of virtue-responsibility should also be integrated in the concept of risk. (shrink)

This paper answers Adorno's question, once asked in a lecture, about whether we, by forbidding the thought of the non-identical, fall in radically completed enlightenment back into the darkest form of mythology. In arguing for this in the question implied observation of enlightenment's fallback, the paper analyses Adorno's and Horkheimer's critique of enlightenment and its relapse due to excluding the non-identical, suggesting that emotions and memory represent this non-identical. As the darkest form of mythology Adorno is referring to is not (...) to be understood as a myth itself but actually happened with the Holocaust, the paper then demonstrates how enlightenment, chiefly its exclusion of the non-identical, led to central conditions of the Holocaust that Adorno named ‘Auschwitz’. As enlightenment, according to Adorno, remains in its relapse, the paper finally discusses how his philosophy after Auschwitz advocates for the reintegration of the non-identical, mainly through the recollection of the past and the remembrance of nature within the subject. (shrink)

In their book Spare Parts, published in 1992, Fox and Swazey criticized various aspects of organ transplantation, including the routinization of the procedure, ignorance regarding its inherent uncertainties, and the ethos of transplant professionals. Using this work as a frame of reference, we analyzed articles on organ transplantation published in internal medicine and transplantation journals between 1995 and 2008 to see whether Fox and Swazey’s critiques of organ transplantation were still relevant.

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article se propose de montrer comment la critique de la théorie contractualiste opérée par David Hume est la conséquence politique de son analyse de la causalité. Hume rejette le contractualisme avant tout pour des raisons méthodologiques : une explication par les causes finales n’est jamais une explication satisfaisante. Or, le contractualisme applique au domaine politique l’argument du desseinprésenté dans les Dialogues sur la religion naturelle. La genèse du politique déployée dans le Traité de la nature humaine doit alors (...) être envisagée comme l’application particulière du seul mode d’explication pertinent des phénomènes, l’histoire naturelle, où la sympathie configure et reconfigure, de manière immanente, la société. À la causalité finale, il faut substituer la causalité efficiente. La théorie politique de Hume dans ses deux versants, négatif et positif, est indissociable de son épistémologie.ABSTRACT: This article proposes to show how David Hume’s critique of contractualism is the political consequence of his analysis of causality. Hume rejects contractualism mainly for methodological reasons: explanations based on final causes are never satisfying. Therefore, contractualism applies to the political sphere the argument from design presented in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. The genesis of politics unfolded in A Treatise of Human Nature must be seen as a particular application of the only pertinent way of explaining phenomena, i. e., natural history, in which sympathy immanently configures and reconfigures society. The final cause must be replaced by the efficient cause. Hume’s political theory-either positive or negative-and epistemology cannot be dissociated. (shrink)

Cet article entend montrer que Nietzsche conçoit l’histoire comme n’étant pas simplement une pure discipline théorique, mais comme une dimension spécifique de l’existence humaine, impliquant une manière singulière de se rapporter au réel. Pour cette raison, elle doit être repensée en tant que « sens historique », plutôt que seulement comme science historique. À condition d’être convenablement pensé et maîtrisé, le sens historique est aux yeux de Nietzsche tout à la fois une condition du possible retour à la santé de (...) l’homme moderne, et une vertu nécessaire du philosophe authentique, vertu qui apparaît pour finir comme un élément constitutif de la notion de « généalogie » que Nietzsche met en place en 1887. (shrink)

Let texted de Nietzsche se caractérise par l'usage de métaphors ed d'images multiples. Nietzshce affirme que nous n'avons accès à rien de plus qu'a des images. Il repense à la fois, de façcon polémique et contre tout dualisme, le statut de l'image, et la «connaissance» dont nous sommes susceptibles. L'image n'est alors que l'autre nom de l'«interprétation», nom qui permet de préciser en quel sens celle-ci doit être entendue. En conséquence, la tâche d'une philosophie neuve ne doid consister qu'a produier (...) de meilleures images, qui permettent de faire advenir un plus haut degré de culture - l'image apparaissant alors comme l'un des pivots essentiels du double versant, généalogique et créateur, de la pensée de Nietzsche.Nietzsche's text is characterized by the constant use of metaphors and images of various sorts; and he contends that we can know nothing more than images. He rethinks both the very concept of "image" in a controversial way and so the "knowledge" we are capable of. "Image" then is nothing but the other demonmination of "interpretation", a denomination which must be read as an enlightenment on how "interpretation" should be understood. Consequently, the task of a new philosophy should consist only in discovering better images, in order to create new values and a higher degree of culture - so that the image can indeed finally be understood as an essential axis of the two sides of Nietzsche's thought.Nietzches Text zeichnet sich durch den Gebrauch von vielfaltigen Bildern und Metaphoren aus, und er behauptet, dass wir nur zu Bildern Zugang haben. Er überdenkt - in oft polemischer und eindimensionaler Weise - den Stellenwert des Bildes und damit auch die "Erkenntnis", zu der wir imstande sind. Das Bild ist somit ein anderer Begriff für "Interpretation"; mit ihm interpertiert Nietzsche, wie "Interpretation" zu verstchen ist. Die Aufgabe einer neuen Philosophie kann so nur darin bestehen, bessere Bilder zu schaffen. Um ein höhere Kulturstufe zu erreichen, erscheint das Bild damit als ein esssentieller Dreh- und Angel-unkt von Nietzches zwischen Genealogie und Genialität angesiedeltem Denken. (shrink)

1. Introduction Ce numéro spécial dédié aux corpus d’ancien et moyen français, à leur constitution et à leur exploitation, vient après bien d’autres numéros de revues présentantl’usage des corpus en linguistique depuis une dizaine d’années. Mais celui-ci est spécifiquement consacré aux corpus concernant les périodes les plus anciennes de la langue, c’est-à-dire aux formes et pratiques linguistiques qui sont les plus différentes de ce que connaît et pratique le locuteur moderne, et pour lesque...

Dans les années 1980 et 1990, le concept de communauté était au cœur des débats entre les communautariens et les libéraux anglo-saxons. En France, il a joué (et joue encore) un rôle important dans les débats sur la république et le « communautarisme ». Le contexte dans lequel il est remis en scène aujourd’hui est celui de la résurgence du nationalisme et des revendications identitaires. La crise de l’idéal cosmopolitique et de l’idée du multicul...

My essay discusses the politics of anger from a phenomenological perspective. Philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum have examined the importance of emotions for achieving social justice. In Anger and Forgiveness, Nussbaum criticizes most forms of anger for including the desire to retaliate, but identifies a species of anger, “Transition-Anger,” which can motivate us to respond to wrongdoing. In a similar vein, I claim that anger can help the oppressed respond to their oppression. To defend this claim, I consider cases in (...) which anger motivates a response to racial prejudice. These cases depict situations in which a black man is confronted with the gaze of a white person. By contrasting the phenomenology of skillful and unskillful activity, I explain why the white gaze can provoke a sense of disorientation and physical incapacitation—what I call “bodily alienation”—in the black man. I argue that anger can wrest a black person from this alienation. This is because anger encourages action and provides blacks with insight into their oppression. My argument implies that anger is instrumentally valuable for resisting racism. As such, it can play a positive role in redressing its harms. Yet the cases of anger I describe are tainted with desires for retaliation, and do not map onto the ideal form of Transition-Anger Nussbaum prizes. Still, anger should not be dismissed altogether: if it can transform the experiences of the oppressed for the better, then there is a place for this emotion in combating injustices. (shrink)

The nuclear community frequently refers to the concept of “future generations” when discussing the management of high-level radioactive waste. However, this notion is generally not defined. In this context, we have to assume a wide definition of the concept of future generations, conceived as people who will live after the contemporary people are dead. This definition embraces thus each generation following ours, without any restriction in time. The aim of this paper is to show that, in the debate about nuclear (...) waste, this broad notion should be further specified and to clarify the related implications for nuclear waste management policies. Therefore, we provide an ethical analysis of different management strategies for high-level waste in the light of two principles, protection of future generations—based on safety and security—and respect for their choice. This analysis shows that high-level waste management options have different ethical impacts across future generations, depending on whether the memory of the waste and its location is lost, or not. We suggest taking this distinction into account by introducing the notions of “close future generations” and “remote future generations”, which has important implications on nuclear waste management policies insofar as it stresses that a retrievable disposal has fewer benefits than usually assumed. (shrink)

Après le scientisme triomphant du 19ème siècle, le 20ème siècle est marqué par la prise de conscience progressive de l'absence de coïncidence entre progrès scientifique et progrès humain. Depuis le début des années 90, dans la continuité du développement des préoccupations environnementales, se précise une nouvelle configuration des implications des savoirs scientifiques dans la société, en liaison avec la notion de risque : suite à une série de catastrophes technologiques -dont Tchernobyl, l'affaire du sang contaminé ou la crise de la (...) vache folle n'ont été que les plus médiatisées-, les sciences et techniques sont mises en cause en tant que sources d'innovations ; cependant, elles apparaissent plus que jamais indispensables pour faire face à ces risques. L'expertise scientifique à destination politique , consistant à solliciter, dans un processus de décision publique, les capacités de la science à diagnostiquer et à réguler les risques, apparaît donc comme un point clef de cette nouvelle configuration. Notre objectif sera d'une part, sans prétendre aucunement à l'exhaustivité, de reconstituer, depuis les années 60, quelques éléments importants de la filiation de la problématique de l'expertise, conçue au sens large comme l'intégration de savoirs scientifiques dans un processus de décision politique ; d'autre part, de préciser les principaux angles d'approche et enjeux de cet objet qui donne actuellement lieu à une multiplication de réflexions et de travaux, dans un champ pluridisciplinaire. (shrink)

"What are you?" This question, whether explicitly raised by another or implied in his gaze, is one with which many persons perceived to be racially ambiguous struggle. This article centers on encounters with this question. Its aim is twofold: first, to describe the phenomenology of a particular type of racializing encounter, one in which one of the parties is perceived to be racially ambiguous; second, to investigate how these often alienating encounters can be better negotiated. In the course of this (...) investigation, this article examines the addressee's point of view and consider possible responses to the other's question. In addition, it discusses the addresser's perspective, both to probe the curiosity underlying the "What are you?" question and to explore alternatives to it. By describing the phenomenology of these encounters, this article hopes to show that racial ambiguity, as distinct from mixed-race, is a category of lived experience that calls for deeper philosophical scrutiny. (shrink)

This article aims to draw a portrait of the influence of cybernetics on soft science. To this end, structuralism, post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy will be successively analyzed in a perspective based on importing concepts stemming from the cybernetic paradigm (information, feedback, entropy, complexity, etc.). By focusing more specifically on the American postwar context, we intend to remind the audience that many soft science specialists were involved in the elaboration of this ‘new science’. We will then retrace the influence of the (...) cybernetic paradigm on structuralism. Starting with the historic meeting between Roman Jakobson and Claude Lévi-Strauss, we will illustrate that structural phonology is directly inspired by discoveries stemming from the informational model. In the same perspective, the conceptual borrowings of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan from cybernetics will be identified and analyzed. Then, we will address the matter of the relationship between postmodern theories and the cybernetic paradigm. The philosophical movement towards deconstruction, as well as Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy, will be analyzed based on how they relate to this paradigm. We will also insist on the fact that the philosophy of Jean- François Lyotard’s La Condition postmoderne is fully in line with the epistemological revolution launched by cybernetics. (shrink)

This essay aims to show that implicit biases should not be conceived of as “inside the head” of individuals, but rather as embodied and social. My argument unfolds in three stages. First, I make the case for conceiving of implicit biases as perceptual habits. Second, I argue that we should think of perceptual habits and, by extension, implicit biases, as located in the body. Third, I claim that individual habits are shaped by the social world in which we find ourselves (...) and that the social world is itself shaped by our habitual ways of interacting with and perceiving others. This suggests that implicit biases are part of the fabric of the social world. Thus, I conclude that implicit biases should be understood as embodied and social. (shrink)

Globally, robots can be described as some sets of moving parts that are dedicated to a task while using their own energy. Yet, humans commonly qualify those machines as being intelligent, autonomous or being able to learn, know, feel, make decisions, etc. Is it merely a way of talking or does it mean that robots could eventually be more than a complex set of moving parts? On the one hand, the language of robotics allows multiple interpretations (leading sometimes to misreading (...) or confusion in various contexts). On the other hand, the status of robots is challenged more and more by technical achievements and humans’ own empirical beliefs. In this paper, we follow a linguistic approach in order to explore the relevance of these words when talking about robots. Since we note that the words impose themselves (even if opposed), we discuss the efficiency of a rhetorical strategy in order to work with such a lexicon in robotics. More precisely, we explore the argumentative technique of the dissociation of notions through the study of a practical case: the case of robot lawn mowers versus hedgehogs. (shrink)

Le Bureau international des poids et mesures fait partie en 1940 des quelques organisations intergouvernementales dont le siège est en zone occupée. Pendant toute la durée de la guerre, il est soumis à la pression du _Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich_ (MbF), le commandement militaire allemand, et entretient des relations continues avec le gouvernement de Vichy et de nombreuses institutions françaises. Cette contribution a pour ambition d’apporter une vue d’ensemble sur l’histoire de cette organisation sous l’Occupation en analysant son fonctionnement et ses (...) points d’appui dans ce contexte particulier. Elle examinera la trajectoire de son directeur, Albert Pérard (1880-1960), et de son réseau, les stratégies déployées pour s’adapter aux contraintes de la période et plus généralement pour maintenir une coopération scientifique à l’échelle internationale dans un monde fracturé par la guerre et une Europe sous domination nazie. Quelles conséquences de la « parenthèse Vichy » peuvent-elle... (shrink)

Race/classe/genre. Parcours dans l’historiographie américaine des femmes du Sud, autour de la guerre de Sécession : comment articuler des inégalités de genre avec d’autres types d’inégalités sociales? Au lieu de proposer une (improbable) théorie de l’articulation, j’interroge ici un champ historiographique particulier où a été mis en œuvre pratiquement ce type de questionnements. Ce texte peut être lu comme un review article qui fait le point sur les débats intellectuels dans un champ de l’histoire des femmes, peu connu en France (...) : l’histoire des femmes du Sud est un domaine récent de l’histoire américaine, confronté dès sa naissance à l’articulation de rapports de pouvoirs fondés sur la race, le genre et la classe et qui présente une très forte “ cumulativité ” dans ce domaine. Ce parcours dans une historiographie américaine ne propose pas de solution théorique définitive aux questions d’articulation de différents types d’inégalités, mais il souhaite fournir, quelques jalons et pistes de travail utiles pour les sociologues et historiens, qui se posent ces questions. (shrink)

Depuis les années soixante-dix et le corpus de Montréal (Sankoff et al., 1976), les corpus oraux et multimodaux ont été au cœur des transformations technologiques, méthodologiques et théoriques de la linguistique sur corpus numériques, reconfigurant les attentes en matière de conservation des documents sonores. Les outils et instruments de transcription, d’annotation, de traitement du signal, de textométrie, de visualisation, et plus généralement tous les outils du TAL et du traitement de don...

Companies face a dilemma between what society as a whole demands and the necessity of being economically efficient and creating value for all stakeholders. Why some companies take it upon themselves to be socially responsible while others not? I argue that companies act in a socially responsible way when social necessity is combined with a global low reputation. This paper provides a theoretical insight into reflection on the roles of companies within a society.