Cette étude préliminaire avait pour objectif de documenter les besoins d’information des familles ayant un enfant avec une déficience du point de vue des parents et des professionnels de la santé impliqués auprès d’eux. Trois groupes de discussion ont été réalisés: deux auprès de parents d’enfant ayant une trisomie 21 ou une déficience motrice cérébrale et un autre auprès de professionnels de la santé impliqués auprès d’eux. Les résultats montrent que l’information recherchée par les parents concerne le problème de santé, (...) les soins et les ressources disponibles. Les parents consultent entre autres sources les professionnels de la santé, d’autres parents, les médias et l’Internet. L’information obtenue par les parents a un impact sur leur adaptation à la situation de santé et sur leur relation avec les professionnels. Enfin, des recommandations sont proposées par les parents et les professionnels en regard des interventions. (shrink)

The ratio bias––according to which individuals prefer to bet on probabilities expressed as a ratio of large numbers to normatively equivalent or superior probabilities expressed as a ratio of small numbers––has recently gained momentum, with researchers especially in health economics emphasizing the policy importance of the phenomenon. Although the bias has been replicated several times, some doubts remain about its economic significance. Our two experiments show that the bias disappears once order effects are excluded, and once salient and dominant incentives (...) are provided. This holds true for both choice and valuation tasks. Also, adding context to the decision problem does not change this outcome. No ratio bias could be found in between-subject tests either, which leads us to the conclusion that the policy relevance of the phenomenon is doubtful at best. (shrink)

Cet inédit issu du fonds d’archives Henri Lefebvre est la retranscription d’une conférence prononcée en 1959 qui porte sur l’évaluation des enjeux des luttes paysannes, mal saisis selon l’auteur. Il est augmenté d’une présentation qui insiste sur l’inscription de ce thème dans un programme précoce qui, attaché à la question de la rente foncière dans la perspective des textes de jeunesse de Marx, alimentera la réflexion lefebvrienne sur les formes sociales comme fondements de la sociologie historique de Marx. Selon (...) Lefebvre, les travaux incessants de Marx sur la dissolution de la propriété collective au cours de l’histoire et hors du contexte européen sont à la fois inaboutis et insuffisamment compris, alors qu’ils faisaient une place plus importante au socialisme paysan. (shrink)

The ratio bias—according to which individuals prefer to bet on probabilities expressed as a ratio of large numbers to normatively equivalent or superior probabilities expressed as a ratio of small numbers—has recently gained momentum, with researchers especially in health economics emphasizing the policy importance of the phenomenon. Although the bias has been replicated several times, some doubts remain about its economic significance. Our two experiments show that the bias disappears once order effects are excluded, and once salient and dominant incentives (...) are provided. This holds true for both choice and valuation tasks. Also, adding context to the decision problem does not alter this finding. No ratio bias could be found in between-subject tests either, which leads us to the conclusion that the policy relevance of the phenomenon is doubtful at best. (shrink)

Henri Lefebvre a développé une œuvre riche sur l'urbain et la ville. Dans les années 1980, il travaille à une rythmanalyse qui, par bien des aspects, complète cette réflexion. La rythmanalyse peut être définie comme une science devenue pratique, qui consiste en la saisie des modalités des temps et des espaces sociaux concrets par les rythmes. Cette saisie s'effectue par le corps dans sa sensibilité et vise à sa thérapie, à son rétablissement face à son mépris dans la modernité (...) et l'urbain. Le corps est le - Urbanisme – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Les treize articles publiés dans ce volume sont pour la plupart issus d’un colloque international sur la Génération des Animaux (GA) organisé à la Sorbonne en 2014 par A. Gotthelf (dont le décès est survenu en 2013) et D. Lefebvre. Dans le contexte du « biological turn » initié il y a quarante ans dans les études aristotéliciennes, ce traité est l’objet, depuis quelques années, d’une attention accrue, comme en témoignent les nouvelles traductions - en français par D. (...) class='Hi'>Lefebvre en 2014 ; en ang... (shrink)

Henri Bergson is primarily known for his work on time, memory, and creativity. His equally innovative interventions into politics and religion have, however, been neglected or dismissed until now. In the first book in English dedicated to Bergson as a political thinker, leading Bergson scholars illuminate his positions on core concerns within political philosophy: the significance of emotion in moral judgment, the relationship between biology and society, and the entanglement of politics and religion. Ranging across Bergson's writings but drawing mainly (...) on his last book, _The Two Sources of Morality and Religion_, the contributors consider Bergson's relevance to contemporary discussions of human rights, democratic pluralism, and environmental ethics. _Contributors._ Keith Ansell-Pearson, G. William Barnard, Claire Colebrook, Hisashi Fujita, Suzanne Guerlac, Vladimir Jankélévitch, Frédéric Keck, Leonard Lawlor, Alexandre Lefebvre, Paola Marrati, John Mullarkey, Paulina Ochoa Espejo, Carl Power, Philippe Soulez, Jim Urpeth, Melanie White, Frédéric Worms. (shrink)

This paper has already been published on Rhuthmos.eu in February 2014. C'est une interprétation particulière du marxisme, se revendiquant du « romantisme révolutionnaire », qui a permis à Henri Lefebvre de développer une œuvre originale. Marqué par une jeunesse passée auprès des surréalistes durant laquelle il découvre l'idéalisme allemand et le marxisme, il cherche dans les années 1930 à comprendre le matérialisme dialectique à partir de la notion de praxis ou de pratique sociale. En partant de - Sociologie – (...) Nouvel article. (shrink)

This paper has already been published on Rhuthmos.eu in April 2012.: This article is based on the “experience” of a reading of Henri Lefebvre's Rhythmanalysis. The third chapter of this book deals with the observations Lefebvre made of the rhythms of the street in which he lived in Paris, Rue Rambuteau. The article first comments on the role and the meaning of rhythmanalytical observation, in order to compare it with the experience of the same street today. This attempt (...) to - Sociologie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

La nouvelle édition des Éléments de rythmanalyse et autres essais sur les temporalités, parue grâce à Claire Revol en 2019 chez Eterotopia, vient d'être traduite en portugais par Flávia Martins, professeur de géographie à l'UFF, et Michel Moreaux, docteur en géographie de l'UERJ. L'ouvrage est publié par l'éditeur Consequência. Cette préface est une invitation à la lecture des Éléments de rythmanalyse : introduction à la connaissance des rythmes, d'Henri Lefebvre. Nous souhaitons que cette œuvre aux multiples - Sociologie (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Automated Influence is the use of Artificial Intelligence to collect, integrate, and analyse people’s data in order to deliver targeted interventions that shape their behaviour. We consider three central objections against Automated Influence, focusing on privacy, exploitation, and manipulation, showing in each case how a structural version of that objection has more purchase than its interactional counterpart. By rejecting the interactional focus of “AI Ethics” in favour of a more structural, political philosophy of AI, we show that the real problem (...) with Automated Influence is the crisis of legitimacy that it precipitates. (shrink)

This paper describes a method for analyzing a corpus of descriptions collected through micro-phenomenological interviews. This analysis aims at identifying the structure of the singular experiences which have been described, and in particular their diachronic structure, while unfolding generic experiential structures through an iterative approach. After summarizing the principles of the micro-phenomenological interview, and then describing the process of preparation of the verbatim, the article presents on the one hand, the principles and conceptual devices of the analysis method and on (...) the other hand several dimensions of the analysis process: the modes of structural unfolding of generic structures, the mutual guidance of the processes of structural and experiential unfolding, the tracking of analysis processes, and finally the assessment of analysis results. (shrink)

A familiar part of debates about supererogatory actions concerns the role that cost should play. Two camps have emerged: one claiming that extreme cost is a necessary condition for when an action is supererogatory, while the other denies that it should be part of our definition of supererogation. In this paper, I propose an alternative position. I argue that it is comparative cost that is central to the supererogatory and that it is needed to explain a feature that all accounts (...) agree is central to the very notion of supererogation: optionality. Perhaps because of this agreement on its importance, few attempts have been made to clarify and explain the notion of optionality. I argue that giving an account of the optionality of supererogatory requires drawing a line between doing the bare minimum permissible and going beyond the bare minimum and that this line ought to be drawn based on comparative cost of alternative permissible acts. Having outlined my account and motivated it, I discuss and reject two concerns that might be raised: firstly, that it is extreme cost, not comparative cost, that matters and, secondly, that in fact no cost is needed for an act to be supererogatory. (shrink)

The critical realist and Bourdieusian conceptions of action fundamentally disagree on a number of fronts: the synthetic versus dualistic relationship between structure and agency; the social nature of the self/body; the link between morphogenesis and reflexivity. Despite these differences, this article argues that re-reading Bourdieu’s theories with attention to some of the core tenets of critical realism (emergence, the stratification of reality, and conjunctural causality) can provide insights into how the habitus is capable of reflexivity and social change. In particular, (...) this article reworks Bourdieu’s theory of habitus by suggesting that social selves are always situated at the intersection of multiple and competing social locations (or field positions) and that the habitus itself is always layered. Reflexivity arises from horizontal disjunctures (between field positions) and vertical disjunctures (across temporal sedimentation). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Writing of Space:On French Critical Theory in 1973 and its AftermathTom Conley (bio)Je rempliz d'un beau nom ce grand espace vide(I fill with a handsome name this great empty space)—Joachim Du Bellay, Les regrets[...] l'unique mot ESPACE, indéfiniment répété, isolé, d'une ligne à l'autre; clos sur lui-même par la recurrence du e (espace), brisé pourtant par l'adjonction interne du s (espace), qui se réfléchit en trompe l'oeil phonétique (...) (espace); avec un centre immuable—espace—, où peut se lire l'amorce de la paix ou du tombeau—mais susceptible de faire cap de tout côté, comme on fait eau. L'espace est « découvert », « brisé » ou « vécu »—à droite, où poussent les épithètes ; l'espace est objet de « découverte », de « promenade » ou d' « odyssée », à gauche où s'alignent les substantifs qui commandent les clichés dont l'espace serait le complément obligé. Génitif d'un côté, ou pour le moin complétif, générateur de l'autre, ou en tout cas substance à qualités variables. Dans l'arbre à syntagmes ainsi érigé, l'espace est inventé par l'écriture qui fait alterner, sans jamais les combiner sur une même ligne, un espace donné comme objet stable d'exploration. [...]([...] the unique word ESPACE can be placed, indefinitely repeated, isolated, from one line to another ; closed upon itself by the recurrence of the e (espace), yet broken by the inner adjunction of the s (espace) reflected in a phonetic trompe-l'œil (espace) ; with an immutable center—espace—, in which can be read the first letters of peace or of tomb—but liable to go everywhere, like water in the sea. Space is « discovered, » « broken, » or « lived »—on the right where epithets come forward; space is the object of « discovery », of a « walk » or an « odyssey », on the left where are aligned the substantives that order the clichés for [End Page 189] which space would be the required object. Genitive on one side, or at least objective, generative of the other, or in every event a substance with variable traits. In the tree of syntagms erected above space is invented by writing that causes to alternate—without ever combining them on the same line—a given space as a stable object of exploration. [...]—Marie-Claire Ropars-Wuilleumier, Écrire l'espaceIn 1974 Henri Lefebvre published La production de l'espace (The Production of Space), a study said to have changed the course of critical reflection on the world around us. In his copious work Lefebvre locates the gaps and rifts between spatial practices or representational spaces and representations of space in order to mark the brute nature of social contradiction. Over history, he shows, those individuals who practice and represent space generally own control over those who do not or cannot. The very history of the reception of Lefebvre's work has been so rich that it cannot be disentangled from debates concerning the nature of the postmodern condition. It has brought forward an element, something akin to Lacan's "real," that cannot be contained or discerned by language, the arena of life itself. The impact of La production de l'espace cannot be underestimated.1 Yet, at the same time, the work remains a legacy or a point of reference for a concurrent labor born at the same moment and of a different texture than Lefebvre's: an activity that I would like to call a writing of space, a labor by which authors of different formation engage and invent alternative or other spaces within the texture of their own reflections on space. Like Lefebvre, they respond to a anxiety about the condition of space in which they live, but unlike him, they embody, in the gist of their own writing, spaces alternative to those in which they live. What follows is thus aimed at discerning why and how space emerged in the field of critical theory when it did and, in turn, at showing how the reflections remain crucial for critical practice here and now.The first of the two epigraphs above is... (shrink)

Le 11 mai 1793, Sir Gilbert Elliot écrit une lettre à sa femme dans laquelle il s’étonne d’une nouvelle mode qu’il a observée au bal offert par une amie. Lady Abercorn organise une soirée dansante « où se trouve une douzaine de femmes vêtues en statues, c’est-à-dire, avec la gaine placée juste en dessous des seins et une draperie de tissu qui tombe ». Sir Elliot précise que ces femmes « n’étaient pas tout à fait dénudées, mais l’effet était néanmoins (...) celui de la nudité ». Il témoigne que son... (shrink)

Enth.: De quoi faut-il s'étonner / par René Thom. Du point de vue du tiers... / par Claire Lejeune. Géométriser la signification / par Jean-Pierre Duport.

This article revisits Arendt’s and Foucault’s converging accounts of modern (bio)politics and the entry of biological life into politics. Agamben’s influential account of these ideas is rejected as a misrepresentation both because it de-historicizes biological/organic life and because it occludes the positivity of that life and thus the discursive appeal and performative force of biopolitics. Through attention to the genealogy of Arendt’s and Foucault’s own ideas we will see that the major point of convergence in their thinking is their insistence (...) upon understanding biological thinking from the inside, in terms of its positivity. Agamben’s assessment of modern politics is closer to Arendt’s than it is to Foucault’s and this marks a fascinating point of disagreement between Arendt and Foucault. Whereas Arendt sees the normalizing force of modern society as being in total opposition to individuality, Foucault posits totalization and individuation as processes of normation, which casts a light upon the relative import they place upon politics and ethics. (shrink)

Cet article a déjà paru dans les Cahiers philosophiques, 2/2012, n° 129, p. 43-56. Nous remercions Claire Marin et les Cahiers philosophiques de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. On le trouvera également en ligne sur CAIRN. Résumé : Dans la mosaïque des textes ravaissoniens, il semble que la notion de rythme permette une lecture transversale. En effet, de l'analyse des rythmes naturels, du corps ou de la vie à celle des rythmes créés par l'homme pour domestiquer ce (...) corps par l'habitude ou (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Both Buddhist meditation and micro-phenomenology start from the observation that our experience escapes us, we don’t see it as it is. Both offer devices that allow us to become aware of it. But, surprisingly, the two approaches offer few precise descriptions of the processes which veil experience, and of those which make it possible to dissipate these veils. This article is an attempt to put in parentheses declarative writings on the veiling and unveiling processes and their epistemological background and to (...) collect procedural descriptions of this veiling and unveiling processes. From written and oral meditation teachings on the one hand, micro-phenomenological interviews applied to meditative experience and to themselves on the other hand, we identified four types of veiling processes which contribute to screen what is there, and ultimately to generate the naïve belief in the existence of an external reality independent of the mind: attentional, emotional, intentional and cognitive veils. The first part of the article describes these veiling processes and the processes through which they dissipate. It leads to the identification of several “gestures” conducive to this unveiling. The second part describes the devices used by meditation and by micro-phenomenology to elicit these gestures. (shrink)

It is well-documented that the alteration of portrait photographs can have a negative impact on a viewer’s self-esteem. One might think that providing written disclaimers warning of alteration might help to mitigate this effect, yet empirical studies have shown that viewers continue to feel like what they are seeing is real, and thus attainable, despite knowing it is not. I propose that this cognitive dissonance occurs because disclaimers fail to show viewers how to look at the contents of a photographic (...) image differently. Consequently, viewers have the same perceptual experience, where the picture appears to faithfully resemble a direct visual experience of the subject, which conflicts with their changing sense of warrant. However, I argue that the degree of perceived similarity, and so contact, may be subject to change depending on what a viewer is attentive to during their viewing of an image, including subtle but unrealistic signs of alteration. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Moments of Beating Addiction and Inscription in Virginia Woolf’s “A Sketch of the Past”Barbara Claire Freeman (bio)My title, which alludes to the collection of autobiographical essays authored by Virginia Woolf and entitled Moments of Being, implies that being and beating are co-constitutive and that exploring their interdependence may shed light upon the logic that binds the one to the other. In particular, I want to examine the ways (...) in which Woolf’s “A Sketch of the Past”—it is the longest essay in the collection and presumably incomplete, since Woolf wrote the last entry shortly before killing herself in 1941—sets up a complex relationship between beating, writing, and compulsion. For the text in which the phrase “moment of being” first occurs also reveals that the activity of writing, to which Woolf was addicted, has the symbolic valence of beating and functions at the level of language in the same ways that beating functions on the body. I will begin to unpack this perhaps obscure equation by focusing upon the relationship between being and beating in the experiences that define Woolf’s “moments of being.” 1In the opening pages of “A Sketch,” Woolf describes the routine, eminently forgettable aspects of daily life as “a kind of nondescript cotton wool”; the phrase is her “private shorthand” for the general and diffuse “moments of non-being” that predominate in daily life and in which, by contrast, “moments of being” are “embedded” [70]. “Every day,” Woolf notes, “includes much more non-being than being”; and although “the real novelist can somehow convey both sorts of being” [70], Woolf believes that “behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern” [72] and that her vocation as a writer is to discover and communicate it.Though occasionally “moments of being” produce the experience of rapture or ecstasy, an aspect of beating I will presently explore, most frequently they name moments that entail negation and self-shattering. “Moments of being” are moments of extreme violence that “remain interesting” [78] not because they lead to self-transcendence or discovery, but because they provoke a sense of utter helplessness and paralysis. With one exception, Woolf’s “moments” involve memories of being beaten up by life: “a sudden violent shock” occurs “when something happened so violently that I have remembered it all my life” [71]. Woolf’s submission to her brother Thoby’s beating remains in her memory as inaugural:The first: I was fighting with Thoby on the lawn. We were pommelling each other with our fists. Just as I raised my fist to hit him, I felt: why hurt another person? I dropped my hand instantly, and stood there, and let him beat me. I remember the feeling. It was a feeling of hopeless sadness. It was as if I became aware of [End Page 65] something terrible; and of my own powerlessness. I slunk off alone, feeling horribly depressed.[71]The shock of a beating occasions Woolf’s knowledge that rupture may function as a form of revelation; its reception initiates a drive to repeat in words the impact and imprint of the blows she has received. Being beaten not only provides her with a paradigm of being, but institutes a reciprocal and necessary relationship between beating and writing in which the one elicits and engenders the other. 2Another “moment” recounts the experience of being “dragged down, hopelessly, into some pit of absolute despair from which I could not escape” upon hearing about the suicide of a family friend, a certain Mr. Valpy:I overheard my father or mother say that Mr. Valpy had killed himself. The next thing I remember is being in the garden at night and walking on the path by the apple tree. It seemed to me that the apple tree was connected with the horror of Mr. Valpy’s suicide. I could not pass it. I stood there looking at the grey-green creases of the bark—it was a moonlit night—in a trance of horror.... My body seemed paralysed.[71]As Woolf’s body received her brother’s blows, her consciousness receives the shock of overhearing news of a suicide. The memory of Mr... (shrink)

Cet article se propose d’étudier la question de la corruption démocratique à partir d’un cas précis, celui de la crise du traitement des déchets à Naples, communément nommée « crise des ordures ». En analysant trois formes ou niveaux de corruption démocratique lors de cette crise, l’article souhaite souligner que le terme de corruption démocratique, loin de désigner un mécanisme précis, qualifie, au contraire, des actes, des pratiques et des phénomènes très divers.La crise napolitaine est marquée, d’une part, par l’implication (...) du réseau mafieux local – la Camorra – et, d’autre part, par de graves problèmes environnementaux. L’article analyse donc, dans un premier temps, le phénomène de corruption démocratique lié à la présence d’un réseau mafieux et s’attache ensuite à montrer que ce phénomène n’est pas uniquement lié à la présence de la Camorra. En montrant que la mise en place des commissariats extraordinaires est une réponse gouvernementale technocratique à la crise napolitaine, l’article met ensuite en exergue le lien peu évident existant entre corruption démocratique et environnement. Il démontre la difficulté pour nos démocraties libérales et représentatives de répondre démocratiquement à l’enjeu environnemental contemporain et soutient que cette difficulté relève d’une forme de corruption démocratique. (shrink)

Disabled people frequently find themselves in situations where their quality of life and wellbeing is being measured or judged by others, whether in decisions about health care provision or assessments for social supports. Recent debates about wellbeing and how it might be assessed (through subjective and/or objective measures) have prompted a renewed focus on disabled people’s wellbeing because of its seemingly ‘anomalous’ nature; that is, whilst to external (objective) observers the wellbeing of disabled people appears poor, based on subjective assessments, (...) people with disabilities report a good quality of life. In this paper, I examine an article by the philosopher Dan Moller in which he seeks to explain this ‘disability paradox’. Despite agreeing with his analysis that there is more to what people value than happiness, his explanation reflects some of the difficulties presented in philosophical accounts which seek to understand the lives of disabled people: this includes an analysis which fails to problematise definitions of wellbeing and who has the ‘voice’ to do the defining; which negates the multiple identities and subject positions that disabled people occupy; and which lacks recognition of the social contexts which mediate disabled people’s lives. I suggest that there is a need to incorporate disabled people’s voices into research which deepens our empirical knowledge about the relationship between impairment and wellbeing, including the social circumstances that shape disabled people’s agency. (shrink)

Have we reached what Alexander Galloway dismissively refers to as ‘peak Deleuze’? In this essay, I argue that the arrival at end times – with the sense of mass extinction and philosophy's exhaustion – is indeed a moment of ‘peak Deleuze’, but that this gesture of exhaustion is already implicit in A Thousand Plateaus. Recognising the limits and seduction of a text is never as easy as it seems; every attempt to break up with Deleuze and Guattari, though necessary, is (...) fraught with a whole series of difficulties that were already visible in A Thousand Plateaus's own relation to its outside. (shrink)

Generation of Animals is one of Aristotle's most mature, sophisticated, and carefully crafted scientific writings. His overall goal is to provide a comprehensive and systematic account of how animals reproduce, including a study of their reproductive organs, what we would call fertilization, embryogenesis, and organogenesis. In this book, international experts present thirteen original essays providing a philosophically and historically informed introduction to this important work. They shed light on the unity and structure of the Generation of Animals, the main theses (...) that Aristotle defends in the work, and the method of inquiry he adopts. They also open up new avenues of exploration of this difficult and still largely unexplored work. The volume will be essential for scholars and students of ancient philosophy as well as of the history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

"L'usage substantivé du mot 'soi' est intriguant. Le pronom tonique 'soi' ne pose pas de problème particulier dans les expressions comme 'prendre soin de soi', 'compter sur soi' ou 'être hors de soi'. Mais parler d'un 'soi', c'est aller au-delà de la réalité grammaticale et supposer une identité personnelle à travers la diversité des expériences. Or, l'idée de soi et la croyance en l'identité personnelle ont été mises en question par David Hume, dont les arguments résonnent toujours dans la philosophie (...) contemporaine. Le but de ce livre est double : montrer, en historiens de la philosophie, de quelle façon le philosophe britannique a répondu à ces problèmes, et évaluer la fécondité de ces résultats pour les sciences de l'esprit."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Clinical research is a necessity if effective and safe treatments are to be developed. However, this may well include the need for research that is best described as ‘invasive’ in that it may be associated with some discomfort or inconvenience. Limitations in the undertaking of invasive research involving people with intellectual disabilities (ID) are perhaps related to anxieties within the academic community and among ethics committees; however, the consequence of this neglect is that innovative treatments specific to people with ID (...) may not be developed. Such concerns are likely to continue while there is limited published knowledge regarding the actual experiences of people with ID who have participated in invasive clinical research. As part of a pilot study trialling the novel use of a surgically inserted device to curb overeating in people with Prader–Willi syndrome (PWS) we have investigated the experience of research through semistructured qualitative interviews involving three participants and their carers. Thematic analysis revealed that the adults with PWS and their family carers rated their participation positively, seeing it as a rewarding and enriching experience. This brief report discusses findings from our interview data in order to highlight strategies which may ensure that research is acceptable to participants, meets the necessary ethical standards and is able to achieve the aims set out by the researchers. To our knowledge, this is the first study to record experiences directly from people with PWS and their carers regarding their involvement in invasive clinical research. (shrink)

Digital Cognitive Technologies is an interdisciplinary book which assesses the socio-technical stakes of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), which are at the core of the Knowledge Society. This book addresses eight major issues, analyzed by authors writing from a Human and Social Science and a Science and Technology perspective. The contributions seek to explore whether and how ICTs are changing our perception of time, space, social structures and networks, document writing and dissemination, sense-making and interpretation, cooperation, politics, and the dynamics (...) of collective activity (socio-informatics). (shrink)

In several places, Levinas identifies the problem that concerns him as a “ crisis of humanism.” This problem finds its seeds in modernity but comes to fruition in the inhumanities of the 20 th century. Like his philosophical predecessors, Levinas offers an educational model as a solution to a problem he has identified. But this model--Jewish education—is uniquely different from those offered by those who came before him. This essay examines Levinas‘s interest in Jewish education as a solution to this (...) crisis in humanism and considers what the implications of this solution are for his project as a whole. (shrink)

The objective of the study was to explore parental experiences of being offered participation in a previous neonatal research study involving venepuncture. The method employed was a questionnaire-based exploration of parents' attitudes in those approached to participate in a study of term and preterm immunization responses (Preterm Immunisation Study [PREMIS]). We explored experience of the initial approach, knowledge of study, venepuncture and views on research ‘in general’. In all, 59% of families responded. Highest response rates were for those participating in (...) PREMIS (87% term/69% preterm) and lowest in decliners (34% and 35%). Responding parents participating in PREMIS were well informed, positive about research and did not find the venepuncture problematic. Sixty percent of responding parents who declined PREMIS attributed their declining to the need for venepuncture. In conclusion, parents participating or declining a neonatal study involving venepuncture are different, but participating parents were well informed and seemed able to judge that participation was right for them such that in consenting families venepuncture itself is not problematic. (shrink)

Dans le domaine du placement d’enfants, la loi de 1996 préconisant le maintien de la communauté de vie des frères et sœurs est souvent comprise comme une injonction sine qua non. Cet article se fait l’écho des observations d’une équipe pluridisciplinaire (éducateurs, psychologue, psychanalyste) engagée depuis de longues années dans l’accueil familial qui dévoilent, à travers une analyse à la fois quantitative et clinique, une réalité qui vient nuancer cet impératif. Les auteurs montrent que, dans un certain nombre de cas, (...) le maintien de la communauté de vie de la fratrie contribue à l’entretien de la pathologie des liens familiaux et à l’aliénation du sujet. Pourtant, il est possible d’imaginer des dispositifs où séparation de la fratrie n’est pas synonyme de rupture des liens fraternels. (shrink)

Le sujet de l’étude est la relation entre le bonheur et la chance selon Aristote. Ce problème est abordé à partir de la question de savoir si la sagesse et la vertu suffisent au bonheur. Si tel était le cas, une personne pauvre et malade serait heureuse. Pour Aristote, au contraire, le bonheur nécessite des biens non moraux pour être complet. Le bonheur n’est pas seulement ce qui rend les autres choses bonnes, il est aussi ce qui est complet et (...) désirable. Dans ce cas, la question du rapport du bonheur à la chance se pose : le bonheur dépend-il de la chance? Ce problème est lui-même examiné dans le cas particulier d’un bien non moral : la fin de la vie. Aristote est-il d’accord avec le mot de Solon : « Ne pas dire “heureux” ceux qui sont encore vivants, mais seulement une fois la fin atteinte. » Peut-on dire qu’une vie est heureuse même si sa fin est inconnue? Peut-on dire qu’elle est heureuse maintenant, quand on sait qu’elle se terminera misérablement? L’auteur fait une lecture détaillée des deux traitements qu’Aristote donne à cette question en EE II 1 et EN I 10-11. Elle montre que, selon l’ Éthique à Nicomaque, il est possible de dire que quelqu’un est heureux même si l’on ne connaît pas la fin de sa vie. Le bonheur ne dépend pas du hasard dans la mesure où le bonheur dépend entièrement de l’activité vertueuse qui, à son tour, ne dépend que de l’agent. L’article se termine par une analyse plus brève de ce qu’on appelle la « chance constitutive » en EN III 7 et X 10. (shrink)

The conscientious refusal to dispense emergency contraception is legally protected in fourteen states. While the ethical dimensions of these objections have been explored within moral and feminist philosophy, conscientious refusal to the over-the-counter sale of EC has not been significantly studied through an egalitarian lens, especially with attention to the existing reproductive healthcare landscape in which these refusals occur. This article argues, through Amartya Sen’s capability approach, that conscientious refusal to EC creates a burdensome inequality for people wishing to prevent (...) pregnancy that manifests within a background of historical injustices, elevating its importance in our weighing of capabilities. (shrink)

The context for the study is the current curriculum reform in Scotland which demands that teachers enable children to become ‘Responsible Citizens’. The aim of the study was to evaluate the use of Community of Philosophical Inquiry as a pedagogical tool to enhance citizenship attributes in Scottish children in a range of educational settings. Before and after an extended series of CoPI sessions, the 133 participating children were presented with dilemmas designed to elicit responses which indicate their ability to make (...) informed choices and decisions and to articulate informed, ethical views of complex issues. The sessions were facilitated by class teachers who were trained in CoPI. The results indicate that children’s reason giving was enhanced by participation in CoPI. The implications both for education for citizenship and the potential of Philosophy with Children to contribute to an enhanced school curriculum will be discussed. (shrink)

Young women’s identities are an issue of public and academic interest across a number of western nations at the present time. This book explores how young women attending an elite school for girls understand and construct ‘empowerment’. It investigates the extent to which, and the ways in which, their constructions of empowerment and identity work to overturn, or resist, key regulations and normative expectations for girls in post-feminist, hyper-sexualised cultural contexts. The book provides a succinct overview of feminist theorisations of (...) normative femininities in young women’s lives in western cultural contexts. It includes familiar sexist discourses such as sexual double standards, as well as more recent commentary about the regulation of young women’s subjectivities in neoliberal, post-feminist, hyper-sexualised cultures. Drawing on ethnographic research in the context of an elite girls’ secondary school, the author explores how empowerment for young women is constructed and understood across a range of textual practices. From visual representations of young women in school promotional material, to students’ constructions of popular celebrities, the question of how girls’ resistance to normative femininities begins to develop is examined. This rich empirical work makes a unique contribution to the study of elite schooling within the sociology of education, drawing on important insights from the field of critical girlhood studies, and posing a challenge to popular feminist notions about media literacy, young women and empowerment. It will be of interest to scholars and postgraduates in the areas of gender studies, sociology, education, youth studies and cultural studies. (shrink)