New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

Starting again from Descartes' philosophy, our intention in this article is not to leave phenomenology, but to return to it in order to shed new light on how it encounters metaphysics and revives it. It is a question of inscribing French phenomenology in another history of metaphysics, one that is underground and unofficial and which lives, in truth, from that very thing that completes the other or which the other completes. Initially, we will focus on Jean-Luc Marion's reading of Descartes (...) from the paradigm offered by Heidegger. Secondly, we would like to replay the confrontation between Descartes and Pascal. Only in the third stage, then, will we be able to return to how metaphysics, most often assumed as such from its Cartesian configuration, has worked under the surface of the phenomenology its French representatives received from Husserl and Heidegger. Levinas can often serve as an exemplary figure. (shrink)

Etude sur la philosophie de la technique et la pensée de l'individuation chez Gilbert Simondon qui interroge les notions de progrès, d'aliénation et de mémoire et leur devenir lors des grands changements de l'histoire des techniques (tradition, révolution industrielle, cybernétique). Met également en lumière son rapport à la psychologie des profondeurs, au sacré et à la technoesthétique.

Presents results of free‐recall experiments conducted in France, Gabon and Nepal, to test predictions of a cognitive model of religious concepts. The world over, these concepts include violations of conceptual expectations at the level of domain knowledge (e.g., about ‘animal’ or ‘artifact’ or ‘person’) rather than at the basic level. In five studies we used narratives to test the hypothesis that domain‐level violations are recalled better than other conceptual associations. These studies used material constructed in the same way as religious (...) concepts, but not used in religions familiar to the subjects. Experiments 1 and 2 confirmed a distinctiveness effect for such material. Experiment 3 shows that recall also depends on the possibility to generate inferences from violations of domain expectations. Replications in Gabon (Exp. 4) and Nepal (Exp. 5) showed that recall for domain‐level violations is better than for violations of basic‐level expectations. Overall sensitivity to violations is similar in different cultures and produces similar recall effects, despite differences in commitment to religious belief, in the range of local religious concepts or in their mode of transmission. However, differences between Gabon and Nepal results suggest that familiarity with some types of domain‐level violations may paradoxically make other types more salient. These results suggest that recall effects may account for the recurrent features found in religious concepts from different cultures. (shrink)

For a phenomenologist, the question that has to be asked about peace is not primarily whether it can be defined as the tranquillity of order, a law of nature or an infinite task, as it were according to Augustine, Hobbes and Kant. It is rather a question of its phenomenality : how does peace appear to us, how does it get visible? In his attempt to answer this question, Waldenfels privileges the event of a peace agreement and proposes a reconstruction (...) of its genealogy. (shrink)

The field of bioethics is increasingly coming into contact with empirical research findings. In this article, we ask what role empirical research can play in the process of ethical clarification and decision-making. Ethical reflection almost always proceeds in three steps: the description of the moral question,the assessment of the moral question and the evaluation of the decision-making. Empirical research can contribute to each step of this process. In the description of the moral object, first of all, empirical research has a (...) role to play in the description of morally relevant facts. It plays a role in answering the “reality-revealing questions” (what, why,how, who, where and when), in assessing the consequences and in proposing alternative courses of action. Secondly, empirical research plays a role in assessing the moral question. It must be acknowledged that research possesses “the normative power of the factual,” which can also become normative by suppressing other norms. However, inductive normativity should always be balanced out by a deductive form of normativity. Thirdly, empirical research also has a role to play in evaluating the decision-making process. It can rule out certain moral choices by pointing out the occurrence of certain unexpected consequences or effects. It can also be useful, however, as a sociology of bioethics in which the discipline of bioethics itself becomes an object of research. (shrink)

Toward the end of his monograph The Craftsman, the American philosopher Richard Sennett describes two different ways of building a house.1 The designer of the first house is the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the designer of the second house is the architect Adolf Loos. Though both men embrace the same principles of the New Realism—"purity," "simplicity," and "honesty"—the results of these two builders are fundamentally different. Wittgenstein was not satisfied at all with his abode in the end. Though he says (...) it has "good manners," he accuses it of lacking a great deal of "primordial life." Therefore the Jewish philosopher will never build a house again, apart from his hut in Norway and his one house on the .. (shrink)

Après avoir comparé la conception sommative des croyances collectives à la conception du sujet pluriel et de l’engagement conjoint, on transpose ces conceptions aux croyances justifiées, et on soutient qu’aucune de ces conceptions ne permet d’établir l’existence de connaissances collectives en un sens autre que sommatif.

An analysis of the first/third person asymmetry and in the light of Moore's paradox and Shoemaker's views on first person perspective.

There are three strands for reading the famous equation that a theory of meaning is a theory of understanding. One can give precedence to the theory of meaning, holding that what the speaker understands is such a theory. This is Davidson's stance. One can hold that understanding comes first and have a psychology of meaning. This the cognitivist stance. Or one can hold that there is no priority of meaning over understanding and vice versa. This is the Wittgensteinian stance. I (...) argue that the Davidsonian stance should integrate the two others, but that it is very hard to do. (shrink)

Can there be a unified theory of irony? The pretense theory advanced by Gregory Currie is certainly one of the best candidates, although it is not without difficulties, as one can see from various examples from Swift. It is argued that Swift gives not only an excellent illustration of the various dimensions of the pretence theory of irony, but also of an anti-post-modern conception of the values of the ironist.

Time prevents being from forming a totality. Whenever there is time fragmentation and multiplicity occur. Yet, there also ought to be continuity since it is thesame being that was, is and will be. Because of time, being must be both identical and different. This is the key problem that Aristotle attempts to resolve in his discussion of time in Book IV of the Physics. This essay considers three privileged notions: limit, number and ecstasies on which Aristotle relies at crucial moments (...) of his inquiry and shows (1) that limit, number, and ecstasies are actually three ways of approaching the same phenomenon, and (2) how they allow Aristotle to reconcile divisibility and indivisibility. (shrink)

Blanchot's thought has often been understood as a critique and a reversal of Heidegger's. Indeed, many formulas of the former are construed as mere inversions of the latter. Yet, the philosophical problem raised by the encounter between Blanchot and Heidegger cannot be suffciently accounted for in terms of 'inversion' or 'reversal'. Focusing on the question of the secret in its relation to Geheimnis , this essay starts with a discussion of the notion of secrecy in relation to mysticism and argues (...) that this difference should not be construed in terms of a disjunction. Blanchot's relation to Heidegger is not on a par with Levinas' critical account of the latter; that to acknowledge the centrality of the secret does not commit one to mysticism; and that Blanchot's ultimate claims about the neuter commit him to a position that is much closer to Heidegger's than his apparent disavowal of the latter would seem to entail. (shrink)

Ce texte a été présenté à l'Alliance française de Buenos Aires le 25 avril 2019 lors de la Conferencia Internacional sobre el Ritmo en el Arte 2019 organisée par Melisa Galarce, Gabriela D'Odorico, Leticia Miramontes, Silvia Pritz, et Aníbal Zorrilla. Au 19e siècle, on trouve depuis les années 1840 des historiens de l'art qui s'intéressent au rythme. Mais le nombre d'études utilisant ce concept a commencé à enfler à partir des années 1890, jusqu'à ce qu'il devienne une - XIXe siècle (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ce texte est la suite d'une réflexion présentée ici. Diderot manifeste une très forte attention à la question du langage. Il bénéficie sur ce plan de la réflexion de Locke, de Maupertuis et de Condillac, mais aussi, ce qui est probablement aussi important nous allons le voir, de ses propres expériences et réflexions d'écrivain. On sait que Locke a engagé, dans le livre III de son Essai sur l'entendement humain (1690), ce que certains spécialistes ont appelé une « révolution sémiotique (...) ». Pour Locke, (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ce texte est la suite d'une réflexion présentée ici. L'avancée lockéenne n'est pas, toutefois, sans limitations internes. On sait que Locke a commencé son entreprise de démolition de l'innéisme et du rationalisme par une analyse de la genèse sensible des idées et que ce n'est que dans un deuxième temps qu'il lui a ajouté une étude des signes, consignée finalement dans le livre III du Traité sur l'entendement humain. Cet ordre dans la rédaction du Traité explique en grande partie que (...) Locke conserve – au (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Previous chapter During the first two centuries of the current era, the Roman Empire was under the rule of the Principate. The tremendous civil violence that marred the end of the Republic disappeared. The whole Mediterranean was unified and the exchange between the Greek Eastern and the Latin Western worlds flourished. The Roman aristocracy was entirely “domesticated” but benefited from this period of peace, growth and intercultural exchange to develop new behaviors and interests. - Médecine – Nouvel article.

Exposé présenté lors de la journée d'études CRAL-EHESS par Christophe Corbier, Marielle Macé et Esteban Buch, « Histoire du rythme, histoire des rythmes » – Paris – 12 décembre 2014. - Philosophie – Nouvel article.

The last two decades have seen a massive increase in the scholarly interest in technology, and have provoked new lines of thought in philosophy, sociology and cultural studies. Gilbert Simondon (1924 - 1989) was one of Frances's most influential philosophers in this field, and an important influence on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Bernard Stiegler. His work is only now being translated into English. Chabot's introduction to Simondon's work was published in French in 2002 and is now available in (...) English for the first time. It is the most accessible guide to Simondon's important but often opaque work. Chabot provides an excellent introduction to Simondon, positioning him as a philosopher of technology, and he describes his theory of individuation including his crystalline ontology. He goes on to offer a bridge between these two concerns, exploring how they are related. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to determine what a philosophical approach, the one that Jacques Derrida uses on blindness in his Memoirs of the Blind, can bring to Cultural Disability Studies. Using some of the paintings and drawings reproduced in this 1990 work, the present study first intends to show that, for Derrida, it is a particular way of considering the mutism of visual art works that leads to seeing or imagining, in those that show blind people, representations of (...) blindness that have in common to make it a powerlessness. This paper then analyses how, for the philosopher, these same works can be approached by virtue of a second way of considering their mutism, and thus read as giving rise to the idea of a completely different kind of blindness, understood this time as a power that is highly resistant to the narratives that, in history, have made it an powerlessness. Finally, he proposes to complement this way of reading pictorial images of blindness with Stiker’s theorized “Reversal scheme” and the “neo-historicism” applied by Snyder and Mitchell to artistic representations of disability. (shrink)

Research over the past three decades on the gender gap in STEM has consistently found an underrepresentation of females pursuing STEM degrees and careers. This is, at its foundation, an educational ethics issue. Schools at all levels, ranging all the way from middle school to graduate school, have a responsibility to prepare more females for careers in STEM. Experts have proposed a variety of fixes to encourage female students to study STEM, including increased funding, some of which have helped, and (...) yet the gap remains. This paper examines one such effort to address this education and ethics issue - voluntary programs outside of normal school hours that provide young female students’ opportunities for active participation and engagement in STEM. Are these enrichment programs actually increasing subsequent female participation rates? The authors use a correlational study in an attempt to determine whether there is a positive correlation between participation in a voluntary before school STEM program, and their subsequent enrollment in STEM courses in high school, and/or in college and career. The authors surveyed intermediate school students, and the results showed that although voluntary before-school programs may not increase female interest in STEM, they do help to maintain long-term interest by those who have already demonstrated an inclination toward STEM. This is a pilot study with a limited number of subjects from one geographical area. Future research should be conducted that focuses on a larger nationwide sample to determine if school enrichment programs indeed act as career influencers for female students. (shrink)

Dans l’un de ses cahiers, en 1935, Simone Weil note pour elle-même : « Tu ne pourrais pas être née à une meilleure époque que celle-ci où on a tout perdu. » ( OC VI 1, p. 118 1 ). Une telle phrase indique une attitude : s’inscrire exactement dans le monde moderne, et s’en relever. Car il ne s’agit pas de revenir en arrière : celle qui met sa pensée et sa vie au service de ceux qui sont écrasés (...) par la force, en bas de l’échelle sociale, qui diagnostique le présent et fustige « la civilisation moderne » et « ses poisons » n’est ni traditionaliste, ni réactionnaire. Estelle antimoderne? S’inscrit-elle dans une telle filiation? Cette catégorie peut-elle fournir un principe d’intelligibilité pour son œuvre? Cette question fournit l’occasion d’examiner le rapport de S. Weil à la modernité. (shrink)

Zeki and co-workers recently proposed that perception can best be described as locally distributed, asynchronous processes that each create a kind of microconsciousness, which condense into an experienced percept. The present article is aimed at extending this theory to metacognitive feelings. We present evidence that perceptual fluency—the subjective feeling of ease during perceptual processing—is based on speed of processing at different stages of the perceptual process. Specifically, detection of briefly presented stimuli was influenced by figure-ground contrast, but not by symmetry (...) or the font of the stimuli. Conversely, discrimination of these stimuli was influenced by whether they were symmetric and by the font they were presented in , but not by figure-ground contrast. Both tasks however were related with the subjective experience of fluency . We conclude that subjective fluency is the conscious phenomenal correlate of different processing stages in visual perception. (shrink)

Previous chapter The first objective of this book was to examine the most ancient roots of Western rhythmology and clarify the various concepts on which it rests. Our investigation has shown that three different theoretical paradigms surfaced between the 5th and the 4th centuries BC. We then followed, over a period of more than thousand years, their complex relations, their respective fates, and the final global shift that occurred between the 3rd and the 6th centuries BC. The overall - Sur (...) le concept de rythme – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ce texte est un extrait de P. Michon, Rythmes, pouvoir, mondialisation, Paris, PUF, 2005, p. 199-206. De 1921 à 1933, Siegfried Kracauer, un ancien élève de Simmel, était journaliste à la Frankfurter Zeitung, où il s'est rapidement imposé comme l'un des observateurs les plus aigus de son époque. On connaît le contexte : à l'instar de la Russie, l'Allemagne est sortie totalement bouleversée de la guerre perdue ; la monarchie s'y est écroulée et une tentative de révolution communiste y a (...) été engagée ; - 1er XXe siècle – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Extrait de P. Michon, Rythmes, pouvoir, mondialisation, Paris, PUF, 2005, p. 88-94. Le cas chinois décrit par Granet apporte un éclairage supplémentaire sur le rôle que le rythme joue du point de vue politique, car il permet de se faire une idée du passage d'une société polysegmentaire, en grande partie organisée de manière immanente au gré des variations saisonnières, à une société plus stable et dominée par une entité politique qui s'est autonomisée. Il est vrai que la reconstitution granétienne des (...) (...) - Etudes chinoises – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ce texte est la suite d'une réflexion présentée ici. Cette démythification du rapport de Diderot à Leibniz et la revalorisation concomitante de son rapport à Spinoza ont permis d'enrichir l'image que nous pouvons nous faire de sa pensée, mais elles ne sont pas sans liens, à l'évidence, avec les vicissitudes de la réception de chacun de ses prédécesseurs au cours du demi-siècle qui vient de s'écouler. Elles en disent ainsi probablement autant sur les relations entre courants intellectuels contemporains que (...) (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Previous chapter In our elaboration of the phrase radically historical anthropology, we have insisted, so far, on the terms radically historical. Benveniste helped us to suggest the outlines of a rhuthmic conception of human life independent of most modern philosophical theories. We must now approach the notion of historical anthropology itself. Indeed, at the same time as he was describing the relation between language and society, language and the individual, Benveniste sketched out a - Linguistique et théorie du langage – (...) Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ce texte est la suite d'une réflexion présentée ici. Troisième volute Au XVIIIe siècle, l'ontologie et l'épistémologie rythmiques se transforment. Comme tous leurs contemporains, Spinoza et Leibniz réfléchissaient à partir des sciences reines de leur siècle : la physique, l'astronomie, elles-mêmes adossées aux mathématiques, en particulier à l'arithmétique, l'analyse et la géométrie. Diderot, quant à lui, profite des progrès considérables de certaines sciences expérimentales et d'observation : la chimie, (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel article.

Ce texte est la suite d'une réflexion présentée ici. Connaître les rythmes du monde L'analyse de l'ontologie matérialiste développée par Diderot, que ce soit sous la figure de la substance une et vivante ou sous celles de ses différentes figures individuées, montre que son orientation héraclitéenne générale ne lui interdit pas, bien au contraire, de produire des concepts susceptibles de rendre compte des innombrables formes d'organisation des flux de la matière. Nous allons voir qu'une tension analogue (...) - Philosophie – (...) Nouvel article. (shrink)