La conception américaine de la convergence technologique, promue par le programme NBIC (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno), est orientée vers la recherche d’une intégration de tous les domaines du réel (la nature, la vie, l’esprit, la société) dans la représentation unitaire d’un monde constitué de systèmes hiérarchiques complexes et couplés entre eux. Il s’agit par conséquent d’une vision totalisante, témoignant d’un idéal de contrôle et de maîtrise que rien ne paraît devoir limiter. Les Grecs avaient un...

1. La philosophie politique contemporaine : en français et en anglais François Boucher (FB) : Votre travail semble habité par une volonté d'établir des ponts entre la pensée politique française et anglo-américaine. Cette volonté est déjà visible dans votre ouvrage de 2000, Pluralist Thought and the State in Britain and France (1900-1925), qui compare les penseurs pluralistes du début XXe en France et en Angleterre. Elle est également au cœur de Critical Republicanism, The Hijab Controversy an...

Liberal societies conventionally treat religion as unique under the law, requiring both special protection and special containment. But recently this idea that religion requires a legal exception has come under fire from those who argue that religion is no different from any other conception of the good, and the state should treat all such conceptions according to principles of neutrality and equal liberty. Cécile Laborde agrees with much of this liberal egalitarian critique, but she argues that a simple analogy (...) between the good and religion misrepresents the complex relationships among religion, law, and the state. Religion serves as more than a statement of belief about what is true, or a code of moral and ethical conduct. It also refers to comprehensive ways of life, political theories of justice, modes of voluntary association, and vulnerable collective identities. Disaggregating religion into its various dimensions, as Laborde does, has two clear advantages. First, it shows greater respect for ethical and social pluralism by ensuring that whatever treatment religion receives from the law, it receives because of features that it shares with nonreligious beliefs, conceptions, and identities. Second, it dispenses with the Western, Christian-inflected conception of religion that liberal political theory relies on, especially in dealing with the issue of separation between religion and state. As a result, Liberalism's Religion offers a novel answer to the question: Can Western theories of secularism and religion be applied more universally in non-Western societies?--. (shrink)

In his recent Rescuing Justice and Equality, G. A. Cohen mounts a sustained critique of coerced labour, against the background of a radical egalitarian conception of distributive justice. In this article, I argue that Cohenian egalitarians are committed to holding the talented under a moral duty to choose socially useful work for the sake of the less fortunate. As I also show, Cohen's arguments against coerced labour fail, particularly in the light of his commitment to coercive taxation. In the course (...) of defending those claims, I claim that Cohen's remarks on freedom of occupational choice and taxation exhibit partiality towards the interests of the better-off to the detriment of the less fortunate – a partiality which is in tension with his commitment to equality. (shrink)

Do we have the right to deny others access to our body? What if this would harm those who need personal services or body parts from us? Ccile Fabre examines the impact that arguments for distributive justice have on the rights we have over ourselves, and on such contentious issues as organ sales, prostitution, and surrogate motherhood.

In this paper, I provide a compositional semantics for sentences with enough and too followed by a to-infinitive clause and for resultative constructions with so... that within the framework of possible world semantics. It is proposed that the sentential complement of these constructions denotes an incomplete conditional and is explicitly or implicitly modalized, as if it were the consequent of a complete conditional. Enough, too, and so are quantifiers that relate an extent predicate and the incomplete conditional (expressed by the (...) sentential complement) and are interpreted as comparisons between two extents. The first extent is the maximal extent that satisfies the extent predicate. The second extent is the minimal or maximal extent of a set of extents that satisfy the (hidden) conditional, where the sentential complement supplies the consequent and the main clause the antecedent. This approach permits to predict (a) the context-dependent interpretation of these constructions and (b) the duality relations between the degree words. (shrink)

À partir de deux recherches en psychopathologie clinique, les auteures proposent une dialectisation des enjeux de la construction du lien mère-enfant dans le temps entourant une naissance très prématurée et plusieurs années après en illustrant leur propos par deux vignettes cliniques issues de leur corpus. La première recherche a été réalisée à partir d’une analyse discursive et thématique d’entretiens menés auprès de quinze femmes primipares. La deuxième recherche s’appuie sur une méthodologie qualitative à partir d’études de cas dans le cadre (...) de suivis en camsp. Ces deux recherches mettent en exergue l’impact du traumatisme dans la construction du lien, notamment dans la difficulté à construire un « regard auréolé » qui a une fonction de contenant. Elles permettent de préciser la spécificité des fonctions des différentes enveloppes psychiques constituées par les professionnels de soin au regard de la temporalité dans laquelle elles prennent place et des enjeux intersubjectifs repérés. (shrink)

La séparation des sexes caractérise le système scolaire français, et tout particulièrement l’enseignement secondaire, jusqu’aux années 1960. Dans la première moitié du XXe siècle, la mixité, telle que nous l’envisageons aujourd’hui, n’est pas concevable. Pourtant, à sa création, en octobre 1938, le lycée de garçons Marcelin Berthelot, à Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, accueille également des filles. Expliquer cette présence féminine, absolument singulière, oblige à faire la part des facteurs circonstanciels, de l’évolution des identités de sexe et de celle de la demande parentale. Si (...) le lycée continue, en dépit des critiques, à accueillir des élèves des deux sexes jusqu’à l’instauration officielle de la mixité, il ne faut cependant pas voir dans cette expérience une simple anticipation des évolutions postérieures. (shrink)

L'entrée au Panthéon, le 27 mai 2015, de quatre personnalités de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, à parité entre les hommes et les femmes, devait signifier, aux yeux du Président de la République François Hollande, un changement notable dans la mise en scène de ce rituel républicain. À bien y regarder, cette forme d'innovation semble se heurter aux réalités de parcours bien plus complexes... Difficilement réductibles, en tout cas, à la trilogie traditionnelle, à laquelle il conviendrait d'ajouter...

The starting point of this paper is the need to promote a people-centred corporate social responsibility framework in a context where many human needs and rights remain unsatisfied and where businesses may have both a positive and a negative impact on the quality of life of human beings today and tomorrow and may even lead to irreversible damage. Our normative definition of CSR is consistent with the criteria established by the EU Commission in 2011. We conceive CSR as a responsibility (...) towards human development in two complementary ways: a holistic responsibility shared by companies together with other actors to safeguard humanity and a direct liability of each company for its impact on stakeholders' capabilities. We apply Nussbaum's list of central capabilities and concept of thresholds to specify the nature and extent of corporate responsibilities towards employees, subcontractors, investors, customers, and humanity as a whole. In addition, we leverage fieldwork in developing and developed countries to analyse the effect of business activities on human capabilities. We demonstrate that by quantifying the impact of businesses' activities on various dimensions of stakeholders' lives, and especially on the most vulnerable ones, these businesses can be held accountable for the negative externalities they produce. (shrink)

The first comprehensive analysis of the philosophical issues raised by the hijab controversy in France, this book also conducts a dialogue between contemporary Anglo-American and French political theory and defends a progressive republican solution to so-called multicultural conflicts in contemporary societies. It critically assesses the official republican philosophy of laïcité which purported to justify the 2004 ban on religious signs in schools. Laïcité is shown to encompass a comprehensive theory of republican citizenship, centered on three ideals: equality (secular neutrality of (...) the public sphere), liberty (individual autonomy and emancipation) and fraternity (civic loyalty to the community of citizens). Challenging official interpretations of laïcité, the book then puts forward a critical republicanism which does not support the hijab ban, yet upholds a revised interpretation of three central republican commitments: secularism, non-domination and civic solidarity. Thus, it articulates a version of secularism which squarely addresses the problem of status quo bias - the fact that Western societies are historically not neutral towards all religions. It also defends a vision of female emancipation which rejects the coercive paternalism inherent in the regulation of religious dress, yet does not leave individuals unaided in the face of religious and secular, patriarchal and ethnocentric domination. Finally, the book outlines a theory of immigrant integration which places the burden of civic integration on basic socio-political institutions, rather than on citizens themselves. Critical republicanism proposes an entirely new approach to the management of religious and cultural pluralism, centred on the pursuit of the progressive ideal of non-domination in existing, non-ideal societies. (shrink)

Cécile Fabre draws back the curtain on the ethics of espionage and counterintelligence. In a book rich with historical examples she argues that spying is only justified to protect against ongoing violations of fundamental rights. Blackmail, bribery, mass surveillance, cyberespionage, treason, and other nefarious activities are considered.

Western philosophy has long excluded the work of women thinkers from their canon. Presenting Women Philosophers addresses this exclusion by examining the breadth of women's contributions to Western thought over some 900 years. Editors Cecile T. Tougas and Sara Ebenreck have gathered essays and other writings that reflect women's deep engagement with the meaning of individual experience as well as the continuity of their philosophical concerns and practices. Arranged thematically, the collection ranges across eras and literary genres as it emphasizes (...) the intellectual significance of written work by key figures—for example, Hildegard of Bingen's visionary writings, Iris Murdoch's fiction, Hannah Arendt's historical narratives, and the oral storytelling in black women's literary tradition. The collection also brings to light the philosophical importance of little-known work by such writers as Mme de Sablé and Mme de Condorcet. This wide-ranging collection offers non-philosophers an introduction to women's thought but also promises to engage advanced students of philosophy with new research on unrecognized contributions. Author note: Cecile T. Tougas, formerly an Assistant Professor of Philosophy, is a teacher of Latin and Algebra at Ben Franklin Academy in Atlanta.Sara Ebenreck is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at St. Mary's College of Maryland. (shrink)

L’un des principaux arguments évoqués contre l’art contemporain au début des années 1990 en France (lors du débat autour de ce qui fut appelé la « crise de l’art contemporain ») consista en l’affirmation que puisqu’aujourd’hui n’importe quoi peut être de l’art, alors l’art d’aujourd’hui c’est n’importe quoi. Ce texte entend montrer que ce raisonnement en deux parties relève d’une confusion qui, une fois clarifiée, permettra de cerner la spécificité de l’art contemporain et des jugements qui peuvent être émis à (...) son égard. (shrink)

Comme donneuses d'ouvrage indépendantes, apprenties ou salariées, les Montpelliéraines participent volontiers à l'activité économique de leur ville entre le XIIIe et le XVe siècle, en particulier dans les secteurs alimentaires et textiles. Mais ces travailleuses sont souvent ignorées par les textes corporatifs et, bien qu'elles soient soumises aux mêmes obligations que leurs compagnons masculins, leur place au sein de la hiérarchie demeure subalterne et leur activité, mal protégée, est à long terme menacée. Premières victimes de la crise qui touche la (...) ville après 1348 et des transformations politiques, économiques, sociales et juridiques qu'elle entraîne, les femmes sont peu à peu exclues des charités, réduites à des tâches secondaires ou domestiques. (shrink)

Introduction -- Cosmopolitanism -- Collective self-defense -- Subsistence wars -- Humanitarian intervention -- Commodified wars -- Asymmetrical wars -- Conclusion.

Many believe that agent-centred considerations, unlike agent-neutral reasons, cannot show that victims have the right to kill their attackers in self-defence, let alone establish that rescuers have the right to come to their help. In this paper, I argue that the right to kill in self- or other-defence is best supported by a hybrid set of reasons. In particular, agent-centred considerations account for the plausible intuition that victims have a special stake, which other parties lack, in being to thwart the (...) attackers. That special stake plays an important part justifying victims' right to obtain help, and rescuers' right to give it. (shrink)

Practical Knowledge, Science and Disasters. The History of Social Science Disaster Research, 1949–1979. During the second half of the twentieth century several US-American social science “disaster research groups” conducted field studies after earthquakes, factory explosions and “racial riots”. Their aim was to provide practical knowledge that could be applied in the planning and managing of future disasters of both peace- and wartime nature. In this paper, I will elaborate on how this research goal conflicted with some scientists’ aspirations to develop (...) more theoretical knowledge and their own ideals of “scientificity”. I will also show how the generated research results came to be ‘impractical knowledge’, which was difficult or impossible to apply. Furthermore this paper analyzes the scientific practices that were involved at different stages of the knowledge production process and contributed to disaster research's ‘precarious’ character. (shrink)

Republicanism and Political Theory is the first book to offer a comprehensive and critical survey of republican political theory. Critically assesses its historical credentials, conceptual coherence, and normative proposals Brings together original contributions from leading international scholars in an interactive way Provides the reader with valuable insight into new debates taking place in republican political theory.

International law and conventional morality grant that states may stand ready to defend their borders with lethal force. But what grounds the permission to kill for the sake of political sovereignty and territorial integrity? In this book leading theorists address this vexed issue, and set the terms of future debate over national defence.

The republican tradition seems to have a blind spot about global justice. It has had little to say about pressing international issues such as world poverty or global inequalities. According to the old, if apocryphal, adage: extra rempublicam nulla justitia. Some may doubt that distributive justice (as opposed to freedom or citizenship) is the primary virtue of republican institutions; and at any rate most would agree that republican values have traditionally been realized in the polis not in the (oxymoronic) cosmopolis. (...) The article sketches a republican account of global non-domination which suggests that duties of distributive justice are not bounded to the institutions of a single society. In particular, it argues that republicans have good reasons to seek to curb those global inequalities which underpin what I call capability-denying domination. (shrink)

New experimental evidence throws doubt on postulating no relationship between saccade control and visual object recognition. The control of saccades during reading depends on the perceptual system mediating object recognition.

Evidence is presented for the notion that selection-for-perception and selection-for-action progress in parallel to become tightly coupled at the saccade target before the execution of the movement. Such a conception might be incorporated in the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control in reading.

Ouvrage collectif proposé par le comité de direction de l’Institut Émilie du Châtelet pour répondre aux attaques contre « la théorie du genre », Qu’est-ce que le genre? propose à un large public de définir le sens du mot genre, d’en faire l’histoire et d’expliquer comment ce concept peut, dans de multiples domaines des sciences humaines et sociales, s’imposer comme un outil pertinent de compréhension des rapports de sexes et de lutte contre les inégalités. L’ouvrage se compose d’un avant-pro...

In his review of my book Whose Body is It Anyway, Wilkinson criticises the view (which I defend) that confiscating live body parts for the sake of the needy is (under some circumstances) a requirement of justice. Wilkinson makes the following three points: (a) the confiscation thesis is problematic on its own terms; (b) there is a way to justify coercive resource transfers without being committed to it; (c) the thesis rests on a highly questionable approach to the status of (...) the body. Wilkinson’s paper is challenging, and some of his points are well taken. On the whole, however, it does not constitute an insurmountable challenge for my thesis. (shrink)

Review text: "This volume, as well as the other LabPhon volumes and the JALP, are a must-read for anyone actively engaged in speech research, especially aspiring speech researchers, and a worthwhile endeavor for any "strict" phonologist or phonetician attempting to broaden their horizons."J. Kevin Varden in: Linguist List 23.2088.

Résumé Dans ce texte, l’autrice explore différents enjeux proprement féministes qui émergent de l’industrie de la mode, notamment dans les secteurs de la production, de la vente et de la commercialisation des vêtements. Elle s’intéresse également à la manière dont les images produites par l’industrie de la mode participent à renforcer l’objectivation des corps féminins. S’en suit un retour sur les travaux de Beauvoir, Garcia, Dolezal et Bordo sur l’être-au-monde féminin, qui signifie d’exister-pour-autrui et de se faire objet de désir. (...) Ces réflexions sont mises en parallèle avec les travaux de Young et de Froidevaux-Metterie, selon qui le plaisir de se vêtir participe à l’appropriation et à l’augmentation de la subjectivité. L’autrice propose alors de concilier valeurs féministes non oppressives avec le besoin existentiel d’être et de se reconnaître que le vêtir permet en grande partie de combler, en adoptant des pratiques de mode lente. (shrink)

This paper is a study in restraint on freedom of speculation. In view of the subtlety of the subject it has seemed advisable to begin the report with a list of the presuppositions initiating and determining the study. These are as follows:1). That freedom of speculation is a prerequisite to sound mental health, in individuals as well as in large-scale social units.2). That, consequently, individual and institutional faculties are alike deficient if and insofar as they prevent or abridge such freedom.3). (...) That the same factors operating in one aspect to restrain the influence of promulgated theories operate in another aspect to inhibit the free conception and hamper the expression of speculation not so promulgated.4). That as it is the purpose of individual philosophizing to surround with coherent speculation or theory subjects of primarily individual interest, it is the purpose of institutional philosophizing similarly to invest with theory subjects of common social interest.5). That speculation in general, whether individual or institutional, is free when the prevalent tendency is for subjects of comparable interest to be accorded comparable quantities of speculation; and that when and insofar as this tendency does not prevail speculation is to that extent not free but restrained. (shrink)

The filamentous and branched thallus of Antithamnion plumula is constitued of two different kinds of branches with apical growth: the cladomial axes with a continuous or indefinite growth, and the pleuridia with a limited growth. The size of the pleuridia depends on their position with respect to the lateral cladomial axes.The growth kinetics of 35 pleuridia were analysed using Nelder's generalized logistics. Each sigmoidal curve, which was divided into four growth stages from the instantaneous acceleration variations, was thus characterized by (...) ten kinetic parameters: lengths at the time of the changes in growth stage, durations of the growth stages and maximum growth rate. (shrink)

In one of its numerous meanings “mind” has long represented, and popularly still to some extent does represent, a special non-spatial type of entity transcending and ideally complementing the world of matter. More particularly it has stood for an innate “rational faculty” characterizing men as men; an immaterial substance radically differentiating human beings from animals and by the same token serving to bind them to one another, as brothers are bound by the tie of common blood. Thus conceived, mind traditionally (...) has justified, and so strengthened, the ingenuous a priori regard and appreciation which unlearned persons extend to their fellows for the sole reason that they are human. Upon this conception of mind numerous popular doctrines of “personal dignity,” “human equality”, “individual liberty”, “freedom of conscience”, “inalienable rights”, and so forth, have been rationally grounded. And without it as an inspiration—to name but one dependent consequence—“the American dream”, which Adams describes in The Epic of America, would doubtless never have been dreamt. (shrink)