In this paper, we challenge the usual argument which says that competition is a fair mechanism because it ranks individuals according to their relative preferences between effort and leisure. This argument, we claim, is very insufficient as a justification of fairness in competition, and we show that it does not stand up to scrutiny once various dynamic aspects of competition are taken into account. Once the sequential unfolding of competition is taken into account, competition turns out to be unfair even (...) if the usual fairness argument is upheld. We distinguish between two notions of fairness, which we call U-fairness, where ‘U’ stands for the ‘usual’ fairness notion, and S-fairness, where ‘S’ stands for the ‘sequential’ aspect of competition. The sequential unfairness of competition, we argue, comprises two usually neglected aspects connected with losses of freedom: first of all, there is an ‘eclipse’ of preferences in the sense that even perfectly calculating competitors do not carry out a trade-off between effort and ranking; and second, competitive dynamics leads to single-mindedness because the constraints on the competitors’ choices always operate in the sense of increased competitiveness and, therefore, in the direction of an increased effort requirements. We argue (1) that competition is S-unfair even if it is U-fair, (2) that as S-unfairness increases, the ethical relevance of U-fairness itself vanishes, so that (3) by focusing as they usually do on U-fairness alone, economists neglect a deeper aspect of unfairness. (shrink)

BackgroundAt the start of 2021, oncologists lacked the necessary scientific knowledge to adapt their clinical practices optimally when faced with cancer patients refusing or reluctant to be vaccinated against COVID-19, despite the marked vulnerability of these patients to severe, and even fatal forms of this new viral infectious disease. Oncologists at Foch Hospital were confronted with this phenomenon, which was observed worldwide, in both the general population and the population of cancer patients.MethodsBetween April and November 2021, the Ethics and Oncology (...) Departments of Foch Hospital decided to investigate this subject, through an empirical and interdisciplinary study in bioethics. Our scientific objective was to try to identify and resolve the principal bio-ethical issues, with a view to improving clinical practices in oncology during future major pandemics of this kind, from a highly specific bio-ethical standpoint. We used a mainly qualitative methodological approach based on questionnaires and interviews.ResultsIn April 2021, 29 cancer patients refused or were reluctant to be vaccinated. Seventeen of these patients said that making vaccination mandatory would have helped them to accept vaccination. In October 2021, only 10 cancer patients continued to maintain their refusal. One of the main reasons for the decrease in refusals was probably the introduction of the “pass sanitaire” in July 2021, which rendered vaccination indispensable for many activities. However, even this was not sufficient to convince these 10 cancer patients.ConclusionWe identified a key bio-ethical issue, which we then tried to resolve: vaccination policy. We characterized a major tension between “the recommendation of anti-COVID-19 vaccination” and “free will”, and the duty to “protect each other”. Mandatory vaccination, at least in France, could resolve this tension, with positive effects on quality of life, or survival, in cancer patients initially refusing or reluctant to be vaccinated, but only if collective and individual scales are clearly distinguished. (shrink)

This article introduces some soft computing methods generally used for data analysis and flow pattern detection in fluid dynamics. These techniques decompose the original flow field as an expansion of modes, which can be either orthogonal in time, or in space or in time and space, or they can simply be selected using some sophisticated statistical techniques. The performance of these methods is tested in the turbulent wake of a wall-mounted square cylinder. This highly complex flow is suitable to show (...) the ability of the aforementioned methods to reduce the degrees of freedom of the original data by only retaining the large scales in the flow. The main result is a reduced-order model of the original flow case, based on a low number of modes. A deep discussion is carried out about how to choose the most computationally efficient method to obtain suitable reduced-order models of the flow. The techniques introduced in this article are data-driven methods that could be applied to model any type of non-linear dynamical system, including numerical and experimental databases. (shrink)

Do all clinical research publications show strong application of ethics principles and respect for biomedical law? We examined, for the year 2009, the ethics requirements displayed on the website of 30 leading medical journals with an impact factor (IF) >10, and 30 others with an IF <10. We carried out a short study looking at the relationship between the IF of a journal and the ethics requirements in its instructions to authors. We show that the IF of a biomedical journal (...) bears a direct relationship to its ethics requirements. Such results should improve the ethics requirements of all biomedical journals, especially those with low IF, so that they are internationally standardised to the higher standard required by journals with higher IF. (shrink)

Emotion expressions of outgroup members inform judgements and prompt affective responses in observers, shaping intergroup relations. However, in the context of political group conflicts, emotions are not always directly observed in face-to-face interactions. Instead, they are frequently linguistically ascribed to particular actors or groups. Examples of such emotion ascriptions are found, among others, in media reports and political campaign messaging. For instance, anger and fear are frequently evoked in connection with and ascribed to right-wing populist groups. Yet not much is (...) known about the specific effects that ascriptions of discrete emotions to outgroups can have on intergroup relations. With this pre-registered study, we contribute to bridging this gap by analysing the effects of ascriptions of anger and fear to a right-wing populist outgroup. In an online survey experiment, administered to a sample of the German general population (N = 3500), we manipulated the emotions ascribed to these outgroups using brief vignettes. Our findings suggest that ascriptions of anger to right-wing populist outgroups increase reactive anger in observers, whereas ascriptions of fear reduce anger as well as contempt towards populists. Effects of ascribed emotions on stereotype content and action tendencies could not be identified. (shrink)

The "decapitated of Fourni". A medical-legal and palaeopathological reexamination The two decapitated human skeletons discovered in 1960 in a bothros connected to the clearing of the latrines of the Maison de Fourni at Delos were published in 1973 (Études déliennes [BCH Suppl. I], p. 173-181) and have since led to divergent interpretations. They are here subjected to a new anthropolical study and, for the first time, to a palaeopathological examination, which leads to unexpected conclusions. Firstly, both victimes would have been (...) feminine. Secondly, the date of their beheading as provided by C-14 analysis is much higher than that proposed based on the historical context. The execution was preceded by a period of shackling and restraint. Finally, the bodies were thrown into a cesspool still in use. This episode cannot be connected to a precise event or social context. Nevertheless, this killing recalls more the ritual killing of a sect than a capital execution. (shrink)

GoalThis paper presents an immersive Virtual Reality system to analyze and train Executive Functions of soccer players. EFs are important cognitive functions for athletes. They are a relevant quality that distinguishes amateurs from professionals.MethodThe system is based on immersive technology, hence, the user interacts naturally and experiences a training session in a virtual world. The proposed system has a modular design supporting the extension of various so-called game modes. Game modes combine selected game mechanics with specific simulation content to target (...) particular training aspects. The system architecture decouples selection/parameterization and analysis of training sessions via a coaching app from an Unity3D-based VR simulation core. Monitoring of user performance and progress is recorded by a database that sends the necessary feedback to the coaching app for analysis.ResultsThe system is tested for VR-critical performance criteria to reveal the usefulness of a new interaction paradigm in the cognitive training and analysis of EFs. Subjective ratings for overall usability show that the design as VR application enhances the user experience compared to a traditional desktop app; whereas the new, unfamiliar interaction paradigm does not negatively impact the effort for using the application.ConclusionThe system can provide immersive training of EF in a fully virtual environment, eliminating potential distraction. It further provides an easy-to-use analyzes tool to compare user but also an automatic, adaptive training mode. (shrink)

In this paper, we challenge the usual argument which says that competition is a fair mechanism because it ranks individuals according to their relative preferences between effort and leisure. This argument, we claim, is very insufficient as a justification of fairness in competition, and we show that it does not stand up to scrutiny once various dynamic aspects of competition are taken into account. Once the sequential unfolding of competition is taken into account, competition turns out to be unfair even (...) if the usual fairness argument is upheld. We distinguish between two notions of fairness, which we call U-fairness, where 'U' stands for the 'usual' fairness notion, and S-fairness, where 'S' stands for the 'sequential' aspect of competition. The sequential unfairness of competition, we argue, comprises two usually neglected aspects connected with losses of freedom: first of all, there is an 'eclipse' of preferences in the sense that even perfectly calculating competitors do not carry out a trade-off between effort and ranking; and second, competitive dynamics leads to single-mindedness because the constraints on the competitors' choices always operate in the sense of increased competitiveness and, therefore, in the direction of an increased effort requirements. We argue (1) that competition is S-unfair even if it is U-fair, (2) that as S-unfairness increases, the ethical relevance of U-fairness itself vanishes, so that (3) by focusing as they usually do on U-fairness alone, economists neglect a deeper aspect of unfairness. (shrink)

We present here a new method for bioethics: systemic modelling. In this method, the complex phenomenon being studied (e.g. personalized medicine, genetic testing, gene therapy, genetically modified organisms) is modelled as a whole, to shed light on its organization and functioning, and major (bio)ethical issues and solutions for their resolution are then identified. This systemic modelling method is ideal for use in the identification of solutions, rather than their validation, with other methods then used to test the solutions found. We (...) provide a description and reproducible instructions for the application of systemic modelling in bioethics, together with a brief example of the application of this method to the study of the impact of personalized medicine on French society. (shrink)

In cognitive neuroscience, dissociating the brain networks that ing—has thus become one of the best empirical situations subtend conscious and nonconscious memories constitutes a through which to study the mechanisms of implicit learning, very complex issue, both conceptually and methodologically.

En 1997 et en 2001, Michel Henry vint débattre à l'Institut catholique de Paris des thèses exposées dans ses ouvrages sur la philosophie du christianisme. Outre la reprise de ses deux interventions, l'ouvrage réunit en dialogue des contributions sur les rapports entre phénoménologie et vérité, phénoménologie et incarnation, phénoménologie et paroles du Christ.

This thought-provoking book discusses the concept of progress in economics and investigates whether any advance has been made in its different spheres of research. The authors look back at the history, successes and failures of their respective fields and thoroughly examine the notion of progress from an epistemological and methodological perspective. The idea of progress is particularly significant as the authors regard it as an essentially contested concept which can be defined in many ways – theoretically or empirically; locally or (...) globally; or as encouraging or impeding the existence of other research traditions. The authors discuss the idea that for progress to make any sense there must be an accumulation of knowledge built up over time rather than the replacement of ideas by each successive generation. Accordingly, they are not concerned with estimating the price of progress, reminiscing in the past, or assessing what has been lost. Instead they apply the complex mechanisms and machinery of the discipline to sub-fields such as normative economics, monetary economics, trade and location theory, Austrian economics and classical economics to critically assess whether progress has been made in these areas of research. -/- Bringing together authoritative and wide-ranging contributions by leading scholars, this book will challenge and engage those interested in philosophy, economic methodology and the history of economic thought. It will also appeal to economists in general who are interested in the advancement of their profession. (shrink)

Foundationalism and coherentism are two fundamentally opposed basic epistemological views about the structure of justification. Interestingly enough, there is no consensus on how to interpret Husserl. While interpreting Husserl as a foundationalist was the standard view in early Husserl scholarship, things have changed considerably as prominent commentators like Christian Beyer, John Drummond, Dagfinn Føllesdal, and Dan Zahavi have challenged this foundationalist interpretation. These anti-foundationalist interpretations have again been challenged, for instance, by Walter Hopp and Christian Erhard. One might (...) suspect that inconsistencies in Husserl’s writings are the simple reason for this disagreement. I shall argue, however, that the real question is not so much how to read Husserl, but how to define foundationalism and that there is overwhelming textual evidence that Husserl championed the most tenable version of foundationalism: a moderate foundationalism that allows for incorporating coherentist elements. (shrink)

Ce livre contient les actes d'un seminaire de recherche qui fut organise au sein de l'Institut superieur de philosophie a Louvain-la-Neuve en 1996. Centre sur des problemes de methodologie souleves par l'edition, la traduction et l'interpretation des textes anciens et medievaux, ce seminaire poursuivit le but de mettre en relief les presuppositions philosophiques qui sous-tendent toute decision methodologique. Ainsi Philipp W. Rosemann essaie de montrer dans sa contribution que le neo-medievisme actuel ne peut etre compris que dans le contexte du (...) mouvement postmoderne; Jos Decorte et Charles Burnett analysent les fondements theoriques de la pratique medievale de la traduction; Laura Rizzerio parle de la difficulte d'interpreter une philosophie qui, comme celle de Platon, questionne la valeur de l'ecriture; Steve G. Lofts se penche sur les connections entre strategies d'interpretation et philsophie de l'histoire chez Cassirer. D'autres contributions decrivent de nouvelles approches methodologiques a des problemes anciens, tels la difficile question de l'authenticite et chronologie des oeuvres aristoteliciennes (Christian Rutten) ou le probleme de la traduction des textes thomistes (C. Brouwer - M. Peeters). (shrink)

Peter Lombard is best known as the author of a celebrated work entitled Book of Sentences, which for several centuries served as the standard theological textbook in the Christian West. It was the subject of more commentaries than any other work of Christian literature besides the Bible itself. The Book of Sentences is essentially a compilation of older sources, from the Scriptures and Augustine down to several of the Lombard's contemporaries, such as Hugh of Saint Victor and Peter (...) Abelard. Its importance lies in the Lombard's organisation of the theological material, his method of presentation, and the way in which he shaped doctrine in several major areas. Despite his importance, however, there is no accessible introduction to Peter Lombard's life and thought available in any modern language. This volume fills this considerable gap. Philipp W. Rosemann begins by demonstrating how the Book of Sentences grew out of a long tradition of Christian reflection-a tradition, ultimately rooted in Scripture, which by the twelfth century had become ready to transform itself into a theological system. Turning to the Sentences, Rosemann then offers a brief exposition of the Lombard's life and work. He proceeds to a book-by-book examination and interpretation of its main topics, including the nature and attributes of God, the Trinity, creation, angelology, human nature and the Fall, original sin, Christology, ethics, and the sacraments. He concludes by exploring how the Sentences helped shape the further development of the Christian tradition, from the twelfth century through the time of Martin Luther. (shrink)

Des premiers rites baptismaux à la confession moderne, les références au christianisme sont constantes dans l'œuvre de Michel Foucault. Cette constance s'inscrit dans un questionnement philosophique plus large sur notre actualité : comprendre le rapport que nous avons aujourd'hui à nous-mêmes demande de s'interroger sur les actes de vérité que l'Occident a instaurés depuis les premiers siècles chrétiens. Que faut-il dire et manifester de soi pour être transformé dans son être, pardonné, sauvé, jugé ou guéri)? Ce livre propose une étude (...) critique de l'ensemble des lectures chrétiennes de Foucault, avec une attention particulière portée au cours Du gouvernement des vivants. Ni chronologique ni thématique, le parcours suivi espère retrouver la logique d'un travail à la fois philosophique et historique : quand et comment le christianisme a-t-il été constitué par Foucault en objet de recherche, avec quelles pratiques de lecture et quelles conséquences sur l'interprétation)? (shrink)

Who were the mean that created the great systems of Christian philosophy in the Middle Ages? How did their thoughts and methods differ from the philosophers who preceded and followed them in history? The author answers these questions by describing the men and outlining the particular greatness that constitutes medieval Christian philosophy. He shows the influence of the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, of the Jewish and Arabian thikers, and of the religious revelations and doctrines to which the (...) Christian philosophers were dedicated. In all this volume presents a handy, compact outline of the scholastics and their religious philosophy. (shrink)

In this review of Christian Marazzi’s book Et vogue l’argent , the discussion concentrates on three questions which are central to the analysis of post fordist capitalism: 1. Is there really a dissociation between financial investment and productive investment, and should one not rather recognize a new capitalist stratum constituted by the association between the managers of investment funds and the top-level administrators of the great productive firms? 2. Does the notion of the mass worker, as used by Marazzi, (...) not tend to both to underestimate the productivity of the Taylorist worker and to overestimate his political activism ? And finally, 3. Should the focal point of emergent productivity not be grasped as much in terms of the event as in terms of linguistic communication ? (shrink)

Spatial, physical, and semantic magnitude dimensions can influence action decisions in human cognitive processing and interact with each other. For example, in the SNARC effect, semantic numerical magnitude facilitates left-hand or right-hand responding dependent on the small or large magnitude of number symbols. SNARC-like interactions of numerical magnitudes with the radial spatial dimension (depth) were postulated from early on. Usually, the SNARC effect in any direction is investigated using fronto-parallel computer monitors for presentation of stimuli. In such 2D setups, however, (...) the metaphorical and literal interpretation of the radial depth axis with seemingly close / far stimuli or responses are not distinct. Hence, it is difficult to draw clear conclusions with respect to the contribution of different spatial mappings to the SNARC effect. In order to disentangle the different mappings in a natural way, we studied parametrical interactions between semantic numerical magnitude, horizontal directional responses, and perceptual distance by means of stereoscopic depth in an immersive virtual reality (VR). Two VR experiments show horizontal SNARC effects across all spatial displacements in traditional latency measures and kinematic response parameters. No indications of a SNARC effect along the depth axis, as it would be predicted by a direct mapping account, were observed, but the results show a non-linear relationship between horizontal SNARC slopes and physical distance. Steepest SNARC slopes were observed for digits presented close to the hands. We conclude that spatial-numerical processing is susceptible to effector-based processes but relatively resilient to task-irrelevant variations of radial-spatial magnitudes. (shrink)

This book proposes to set out conquering the unknown lands of the spiritual life by revisiting some of the great insights of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). We are lead to consider these problems by taking distance from the pitfalls usually associated with the interpretation of the engaging work of the French paleontologist and priest. In the panoply of Christian spiritualities, that of Teilhard occupies a place of its own. In it, the greatest prayer becomes abandonment in the palms (...) of the "great hands that form and create." Animated by a passion without limits for the world and the extraordinary deployment of all the riches it contains, without falling into some simplistic optimism, Teilhard de Chardin offers us one of the most beautiful expressions of Christian hope ever. (shrink)

Translated from the French: Le Royaume souffre violence.

Philippe Charru | Résumé : Christoph Theobald travaille depuis de longues années en tant que théologien sur l’oeuvre de Jean-Sébastien Bach, en collaboration avec un musicien. On tente de faire entendre ici comment sa « manière de faire de la théologie », soucieuse de respecter l’autonomie des arts, le rend attentif à la réalité sensible des oeuvres musicales et à une conception génétique de leur forme où se profile « l’opération même du style », selon le mot de Merleau-Ponty. On (...) montre comment l’émergence de cette notion du style dans le champ esthétique, l’a conduit à « penser le mystère chrétien comme “style en relation avec d’autres styles” impliquant un rapport absolument spécifique au beau ». |: Christoph Theobald has spent many years studying the oeuvre of Johann Sebastian Bach from the perspective of a theologian, in collaboration with a musician. This article attempts to demonstrate how his “way of doing theology,” remaining ever respectful of the autonomy of the arts, makes him attentive to the sensible reality of musical works and to a genetic conception of their form from which it is possible to discern their “operation of style” as this idea is outlined by Merleau-Ponty. The author shows how the emergence of the notion of style in the field of aesthetics led him to “conceive the Christian mystery as ‘a style in relation with other styles’ that engenders a relation to beauty altogether specific and unique.”. (shrink)

Jusqu'au IXe siècle, en Orient où l'Empire romain perdure comme en Occident où il n'existe plus, « l'Église » se pense et se vit sur le mode synodal, avec les nuances qu'apporte, ici, l'idéologie eusébienne, donnant le primat au « palais royal » sur le « siège apostolique », et, là, l'augustinienne, qui soutient l'inverse. Deux siècles plus tard, alors que l'Empire byzantin a cessé de prétendre à l'universalité romaine, la chrétienté latine occidentale ne rêve que de renovatio romani imperii, (...) à son bénéfice. Entre ces deux moments, il y a l'éphémère aventure de Gerbert d'Aurillac qui, après avoir défendu à Reims la cause des évêques contre le pape, devint, par la grâce d'Otton III, le pape de l'An Mil, Sylvestre II : c'était le nom que portait le pontife du temps de Constantin, auquel le nouvel empereur ne cesse de se référer, en souhaitant un empire moins germanique qu'universel. Ce dut être une grande joie, pour le pape, d'entendre Otton dire en 1001 : « Nous proclamons Rome capitale du monde et nous reconnaissons l'Église romaine comme mère de toutes les Églises. » Désormais, la communion n'est plus réglée par la lex communis ecclesiae catholicae, mais par 1'unius arbitrium et Sylvestre II parlera en « père universel », conscient d'exercer seul le ministère de Pierre. C'est dans ces fortes convictions que l'Église romaine affrontera la crise de la chrétienté des XIIIe-XIVe siècles. Up until the ninth century, when the Roman Empire continued in the East but ceased to exist in the West, « the Church » thought and lived in the synodal mode. The slight difference was that Eusebien ideology prevailed in the East, which gave primacy to the « royal palace » over the « apostolic seat », while Augustinien ideology held the contrary in the West. Two centuries later, when the Byzantine Empire ceased to pretend to Roman universality, western Latin Christianity dreamed only of the renewal of the Roman Empire, to its own advantage. Between these two moments, there was the ephemeral adventure of Gerbert of Aurillac who, after having defended the cause of the bishops against the pope at Reims, became pope Sylvester II in the year 1000, thanks to Otto III. Sylvester was the name of the pontiff at the time of Constantine, to whom the new emperor didn’t cease to compare himself in wishing an empire less Germanic than universal. It must have been a great joy for the pope to hear Otto say in 1001 : « We proclaim Rome the capital of the world and we recognize the Roman Church as mother of all the Churches. » In the future, communion was no longer regulated by the Catholic Church's common law, but by the unius arbitrium, and Sylvester II will speak as « universal father », conscious of exercising alone the ministry of Peter. It is with these strong convictions that the Roman Church would face the crisis of Christianity in the XIII and XIV centuries. (shrink)

The place which Christianity occupies in Michel Foucault’s work is often limited to the question of confession. Renewing the hypotheses formulated in Les anormaux [Abnormal] (1975) and La volonté de savoir [The Will to Knowledge] (1976), the lecture at the Collège de France Du gouvernement des vivants [On the Government of the Living] (1980) by-passes this question to go back to a more fundamental problem that Christianity had to face in the first centuries of our era: that of the relationship (...) between salvation and perfection. The effort of former Christianity to separate salvation of perfection has major consequences on its definition of the self, which can not be considered as a principle of identity. The essential inconstancy of the Christian self, which makes it irreducible to the modern self, questions the too simple historical continuities. (shrink)

Is there truth in history? Historians are commonly expected to produce ‘facts’ and to be ‘objective’. If they teach the history of Christianity, their audience sees in them the depositors of the ‘truth’ on the history of church. Showing the contradictions of the church’s discourse in the past and highlighting the essentially transient nature of church doctrine are perceived as a threat. Yet, our knowledge of the Christian past is provisional and limited. It depends on the quality of the (...) historical sources at our disposal. Consciously or not, it is always the result of a process of knowledge construction. The aim of this article is to explore the triple challenge – pedagogical, pastoral and intellectual – that researchers in history of Christianity face in the exercise of their profession. Historians trained in the tradition of historical criticism consider that an historical narrative can claim a certain degree of approximation of the truth if the documents on which it is based pass the test of authenticity, reliability and validity. Without necessarily denying that truth exists somehow and somewhere, postmodern historians – and this also applies to Christian history – insist that any form of historical knowledge is constructed and that all approaches to truth are situated in terms of period, geographical location, social environment, class, gender, age and race. The study of history of Christianity brings discomfort. But in the end, one gains from confronting the critical challenges of the discipline. Faith will come out stronger if it faces the reality of the human condition. (shrink)

The recently published volume Foucault, les Pères, le sexe brings together sixteen papers delivered at a conference held in 2018 to mark the launch of Les aveux de la chair, the posthumous fourth volume of the History of Sexuality. This review essay focuses on the contribution of the Foucault Archives to research on the philosopher’s thought; on critical reactions by patrologists to Foucault’s venture into study of the Church Fathers; and, finally, on the significance of the ‘Christian turn’ in (...) the late Foucault’s lectures and writings. (shrink)

In this public debate with Philippe Deterre (research director in immunology at the CNRS) – held at l'Enclos Rey in Paris' 15th district during the biennial Conference of the Réseau Blaise Pascal in March 2017 –, I defended the usefulness of natural theology. I first clarify theology's nature and understanding, then I speak about a tradition that upheld the public and exterior knowledge of God, and make an effort to show the presence of a theme reminiscent of natural theology behind (...) attempts at the good life. I then ask whether natural theology would only exist for the Christian. In the reply to my opponent's own reaction, I insist on the incongruity of separating our knowledge of God from our knowledge of science's wonderful discoveries, I ask whether nature could be said to be crafty and "ingenious," and I conclude by building a case for the return of God in public conversation, as part of an effort that our world needs in terms of finding back its compass, and restoring an ideal of living rationally. (shrink)

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Eberhard Karls Universit'at T'ubingen, 2007. Cf. Page 9.

Jean-Luc Nancy discusses his life's work with Pierre-Philippe Jandin. As Nancy looks back on his philosophical texts, he thinks anew about democracy, community, jouissance, love, Christianity, and the arts.

Setting out from the difficulty of translating the Foucauldian notion of aveu, this paper proposes an account of Foucault’s concept of confession in the years 1979-1983 surrounding the writing of Confessions of the Flesh. I focus on Foucault’s relative failure to bring together the complementary dimensions of confession as confession of sins and confession of faith in early Christianity. Foucault’s attempts to tackle this challenge nonetheless reveal a number of crucial aspects of his thought throughout the 1970s, e.g., the critique (...) of the notion of ideology and the role that critique played in the setting of Foucault’s “critical philosophy of veridictions”. A comparison with the lectures given at Louvain and the Collège de France suggests that Foucault took an original and rather solitary path in Confessions of the Flesh, which may explain the surprises awaiting the reader. Finally, I propose an explanation of Foucault’s final shift away from Christian confession towards Greek parrhesia, pointing to the key role of the idea of a “duty of truth”. This idea led Foucault to an original approach to confession and the illocutionary force of statements. (shrink)