The main contention of this article is that current approaches to ontological emergence are not comprehensive, in that they share a common bias that make them blind to some conceptual space available to emergence. In this article, I devise an alternative perspective on ontological emergence called ‘flat emergence’, which is free of such a bias. The motivation is twofold: not only does flat emergence constitute another viable way to fulfill the initial emergentist promise, but it also allows for making sense (...) of some emergence ascriptions that traditional accounts are unable to accommodate. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that it is not a conceptual truth about laws of nature that they are immutable (though we are happy to leave it as an open empirical question whether they do actually change once in a while). In order to do so, we survey three popular accounts of lawhood—(Armstrong-style) necessitarianism, (Bird-style) dispositionalism and (Lewis-style) ‘best system analysis’—and expose the extent, as well as the philosophical cost, of the amendments that should be enforced in order to leave (...) room for the possibility of changing laws. (shrink)

Emergentism is often misleadingly described as a monolithic “third way” between radical monism and pluralism. In the particular case of biology, for example, emergentism is perceived as a middle course between mechanicism and vitalism. In the present paper I propose to show that the conceptual landscape between monism and pluralism is more complex than this classical picture suggests. On the basis of two successive analyses—distinguishing three forms of tension between monism and pluralism and a distinction between derivational and functional reduction—I (...) define three different versions of emergentism that can be considered as consistent middle courses between monism and pluralism . I then emphasise the advantage of this taxonomy of the concepts of emergence by applying the results of my analysis to the historical controversy that pertains to the relationship between life and matter. (shrink)

We study shared intentions in what we call “loose groups”. These are groups that lack a codified organizational structure, and where the communication channels between group members are either unreliable or not completely open. We start by formulating two desiderata for shared intentions in such groups. We then argue that no existing account meets these two desiderata, because they assume either too strong or too weak an epistemic condition, that is, a condition on what the group members know and believe (...) about what the others intend, know, and believe. We propose an alternative, pooled knowledge, and argue that it allows formulating conditions on shared intentions that meet the two desiderata. (shrink)

The amount of information conveyed by linguistic conventions depends on their precision, yet the codes that humans and other animals use to communicate are quite ambiguous: they may map several vague meanings to the same symbol. How does semantic precision evolve, and what are the constraints that limit it? We address this question using a multiplayer gaming app, where individuals communicate with one another in a scaled-up referential game. Here, the goal is for a sender to use black and white (...) symbols to communicate colors. We expected that the players’ mappings between symbols and colors would grow more specific over time, through a selection process whereby precise mappings are preferentially copied. We found that players become increasingly more precise in their use of symbols over the course of their interactions. This trend did not, however, result from selective copying of precise mappings. We explore the implications of this result for the study of lexical ambiguity, Zipf's Law of Meaning, and disagreements over semantic conventions. (shrink)

Cultural forms are constrained by cognitive biases, and writing is thought to have evolved to fit basic visual preferences, but little is known about the history and mechanisms of that evolution. Cognitive constraints have been documented for the topology of script features, but not for their orientation. Orientation anisotropy in human vision, as revealed by the oblique effect, suggests that cardinal orientations, being easier to process, should be overrepresented in letters. As this study of 116 scripts shows, the orientation of (...) strokes inside written characters massively favors cardinal directions, and it is organized in such a way as to make letter recognition easier: Cardinal and oblique strokes tend not to mix, and mirror symmetry is anisotropic, favoring vertical over horizontal symmetry. Phylogenetic analyses and recently invented scripts show that cultural evolution over the last three millennia cannot be the sole cause of these effects. (shrink)

Among the very architects of the recent re-emergence of emergentism in the physical sciences, Robert B. Laughlin certainly occupies a prominent place. Through a series of works beginning as early as his Nobel lecture in 1998, a lecture given after having been awarded, together with Störmer and Tsui, the Nobel prize in physics for its contribution in the elucidation of the fractional quantum Hall effect, Laughlin openly and relentlessly advocated a strongly anti-reductionistic view of physics – and, more particularly, of (...) the interface between condensed matter and particles physics – which culminated in what can be considered his emergentist manifesto: A Different Universe. Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (2005). In spite of this prominent role in the vindication of emergentism, rare are the philosophers, among whom even those sympathetic to the idea of emergence, who have paid serious attention to Laughlin’s insights. The subtleties of his view – it is true, often concealed in many technicalities – have accordingly, and somewhat unfortunately, mainly passed unnoticed. (shrink)

This paper defends hedonic intentionalism, the view that all pleasures, including bodily pleasures, are directed towards objects distinct from themselves. Brentano is the leading proponent of this view. My goal here is to disentangle his significant proposals from the more disputable ones so as to arrive at a hopefully promising version of hedonic intentionalism. I mainly focus on bodily pleasures, which constitute the main troublemakers for hedonic intentionalism. Section 1 introduces the problem raised by bodily pleasures for hedonic intentionalism and (...) some of the main reactions to it. Sections 2 and 3 rebut two main approaches equating bodily pleasures with non- intentional episodes. More precisely, section 2 argues that bodily pleasures cannot be purely non-intentional self-conscious feelings, by relying on Brentano’s objection to Hamilton’s theory of pleasure. Section 3 argues that bodily pleasures cannot be non-intentional sensory qualities by relying on Brentano’s objections to Stumpf’s theory of pleasure. Section 4 develops a brentanian view of the intentionality of bodily pleasures by claiming bodily pleasures are directed at a sui generis class of sensory qualities. Section 5 presents an objection to Brentano’s later theory of pleasure according to which all sensory pleasures are directed at sensing acts. (shrink)

This paper takes a hierarchical approach to the question whether species are individuals or natural kinds. The thesis defended here is that species are spatiotemporally located complex wholes (individuals), that are composed of (i.e., include) causally interdependent parts, which collectively also instantiate a homeostatic property cluster (HPC) natural kind. Species may form open or closed genetic systems that are dynamic in nature, that have fuzzy boundaries due to the processual nature of speciation, that may have leaky boundaries as is manifest (...) in lateral gene transfer and introgression, that may be of multiple origins through hybridization, and that may split and merge and split again over time. The identity conditions of species qua individuals will have to be anchored in their history, rather than in their unique evolutionary origin. Species qua historically conditioned HPC natural kinds requires the kind to be mereologically structured, subject to the part-whole relation rather than the membership relation. This implies that there can be more than one kind of natural kinds. (shrink)

Le concept d’émergence est récemment réapparu avec force sur le devant de la scène philosophique. La notion est séduisante, notamment en cela qu’elle permettrait de promouvoir une vision « non réductionniste » du monde naturel. À cet égard, elle se retrouve souvent mobilisée à tort et à travers à tous les niveaux du discours scientifique, de la physique aux sciences cognitives, en passant par la biologie. Mais qu’est-ce que l’émergence exactement ? Est-ce seulement un concept cohérent ? N’y gagnerait-on pas (...) à identifier, derrière l’idée traditionnelle du « tout est plus que la somme des parties », une pluralité de lectures possibles, chacune associée à des limites et des enjeux différents ? (shrink)

I defend the view that the experience of resistance gives us a direct phenomenal access to the mind-independence of perceptual objects. In the first part, I address a humean objection against the very possibility of experiencing existential mind-independence. The possibility of an experience of mind-independence being secured, I argue in the second part that the experience of resistance is the only kind of experience by which we directly access existential mind-independence.

Le transhumanisme contemporain est souvent rapproché de précédents dans l'entre-deux-guerres. En effet, dans l'espace européen, entre les deux conflits mondiaux, nombre de penseurs ont porté le voeu d'élever l'homme au-delà de sa condition 'naturelle' par différentes techniques, que celles-ci modifient les comportements, les corps, ou les aspirations humaines. Des intellectuels, des scientifiques, des industriels et politiques ont concouru à l'élaboration de discours qui configurent différemment les rapports entre politique et technologie. Ces discours ne se réduisent pas aisément aux catégories bien (...) identifiées de l''homme nouveau,' de l'eugénisme ou de projets d'ordre technocratique. L''Ultra-humain' de Teilhard de Chardin, le 'post-humain' de Julian Huxley, le 'super-homme' de Voronoff, le 'surhumain' de Jean Rostand, l'homme 'minotaure' d'Ortega y Gasset : autant de tentatives pour nommer une humanité qui a perdu de son évidence en face de la machine et qui, par le même et paradoxal mouvement, découvre sa part d'artificialité. En ces temps troublés, l'idée d'un homme augmenté est une idée commune en Europe.--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This thesis vindicates the common-sense intuition that touch is more objective than the other senses. The reason why it is so, it is argued, is that touch is the only sense essential of the experience of physical effort, and that this experience constitutes our only acquaintance with the mind-independence of the physical world. The thesis is divided in tree parts. Part I argues that sensory modalities are individuated by they proper objects, realistically construed. Part II argues that the proper objects (...) of touch are pressures and tensions, defined as pairs of real and antagonist forces. Part III argues that experiences of pressures are an essential part of the experience of physical effort and that the experience of physical effort (which amounts to the experience of resistance to our will), constitutes our only immediate access to the mind-independence of the physical world. (shrink)

A recently published study on the development of the turtle shell(1) highlights the important role that development plays in the origin of evolutionary novelties(1). The evolution of the highly derived adult anatomy of turtles is a prime example of a macroevolutionary event triggered by changes in early embryonic development. Early ontogenetic deviation may cause patterns of morphological change that are not compatible with scenarios of gradualistic, stepwise transformation.

The biennial DEON conferences are designed to promote interdisciplinary cooperation amongst scholars interested in linking the formal-logical study of normative concepts and normative systems with computer science, artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, organization theory and law. In addition to these general themes, DEON 2016 encouraged a special focus on the topic "Reasons, Argumentation and Justification.".

This paper argues (i) that the possibility of experiencing at once pleasures and unpleasures does not threaten the contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure. (ii) That the hedonic balance calculated by adding all pleasures and displeasures of a subject at a time yields an abstract result that does not correspond to any new psychological reality. There are no resultant feelings. (iii) That there are nevertheless, in some cases, sentimental fusions: when the co-occurent pleasures and unpleasures do not have any bodily location, (...) and that their intentional object vanishes, they truly fuse with each other, giving rise to sentimental mixtures in which the initial pleasures and unpleasures are no longer discernible. (shrink)

Formalisms based on one or other flavor of Description Logic (DL) are sometimes put forward as helping to ensure that terminologies and controlled vocabularies comply with sound ontological principles. The objective of this paper is to study the degree to which one DL-based biomedical terminology (SNOMED CT) does indeed comply with such principles. We defined seven ontological principles (for example: each class must have at least one parent, each class must differ from its parent) and examined the properties of SNOMED (...) CT classes with respect to these principles. Our major results are: 31% of these classes have a single child; 27% have multiple parents; 51% do not exhibit any differentiae between the description of the parent and that of the child. The applications of this study to quality assurance for ontologies are discussed and suggestions are made for dealing with the phenomenon of multiple inheritance. The advantages and limitations of our approach are also discussed. (shrink)

Le potentiel de développement porté par les TIC reste quelque chose de purement théorique pour des millions de personnes compte tenu de l'existence de la fracture numérique qui sépare les « inforiches » des « infopauvres ». Dans la perspective de la construction d'une société de l'information inclusive, la question de l'accès universel aux TIC est donc centrale, notamment pour les pays africains. Cette problématique ne doit cependant pas être réduite à la question de la disponibilité des infrastructures de télécommunications; (...) elle doit prendre en compte l'accès réel, c'est-à-dire les usages. Afin de résoudre les problèmes de diverses natures interdisant l'appropriation des TIC par le plus grand nombre, il faut aller au-delà de la régulation par le marché et mettre en oeuvre de vigoureuses politiques publiques visant à faire de l'accès universel une réalité concrète pour tous ceux dont les chances de bénéficier pleinement des opportunités offertes par la société de l'information sont aujourd'hui hypothéquées.The potential of ICT-led development remains something purely theoretical for millions of people due to the existence of the digital divide between the "haves" from "have-nots". In view of the construction of the information society inclusive, the issue of universal access to ICTs is central, especially for African countries. This issue should not be reduced to the question of the availability of telecommunications infrastructure, but must take into account the actual access, that is to say, uses. To solve problems of various kinds prohibiting the appropriation of ICTs by the largest number, you must go beyond regulation by the market and implement vigorous public policies to make universal access a reality concrete for all those whose opportunities to benefit fully from the opportunities offered by the information society are now mortgaged. (shrink)

1 Analyse sociale de la connaissance et études de cas L’épistémologie sociale est un domaine de recherche en construction. L’usage généralisé de cette expression trouve son origine dans la philosophie analytique contemporaine, bien que des auteurs en sociologie des sciences puissent également l’utiliser. L’épistémologie sociale répond à une exigence d’utilité publique, à un souci d’application de la philosophie de la connaissance à des problèmes de société. Mais son développement répond égale...

La partie supérieure d'une grande amphore Bichrome découverte en 1987 dans le sanctuaire d'Aphrodite à Amathonte est décorée sur une face de deux taureaux respirant une fleur qui encadrent une inscription syllabique, sur l'autre d'un taureau marchant vers un «arbre de vie» et un arbre. Ce décor exceptionnel s'inspire étroitement des ivoires du type de Nimroud et des coupes en argent chypro-phéniciennes, ce qui situe probablement le vase dans.

In the last two decades, some authors in the philosophy for children movement have theorized that the community of philosophical inquiry can be a form of spiritual practice, of the care of the self, or a wisdom practice (De Marzio, 2009; Gregory, 2009, 2013, 2014;Gregory & Laverty, 2009). Yet, it is unclear if philosophy for children is, by itself, a form of spiritual education, or if it requires some sorts of modification to be one. And, if it is or can (...) be a form of spiritual education, we can interrogate in what ways and to what extent is it one. It is these questions that this text aims to explore. To do so, we will first clarify the meaning of spiritual education through the presentation of two authors who have explicitly written on that topic. The first is Parker J. Palmer, who has developed a perspective on what it means to reclaim the spiritual roots of education, derived from his study and practice of Quaker spirituality. The second is Pierre Hadot, who has explored how the practice of philosophy in Western antiquity was a form of spiritual exercise. From our presentation of these two authors will emerge a particular perspective of what spiritual education means. In the last section of the text we will use this presentation to examine in what ways philosophy for children can be a form of spiritual education and if requires adaptations to be one. (shrink)

This book analyzes emergency legislations formed in response to terrorism. In recognition that different countries, with different legal traditions, have different solutions, it adopts a comparative point of view. The countries profiled include America, France, Israel, Poland, Germany and United Kingdom. The goal is not to offer judgment on one response or the other. Rather, the contributors offer a comprehensive and thoughtful examination of the entire concept. In the process, they draw attention to the inadaptability of traditional legal and philosophical (...) categories in a new and changing political world. The contributors first criticize the idea of these legislations. They then go on to develop different models to respond to these crises. They build a general analytical framework by answering such questions as: What is an emergency legislation? What kinds of emergencies justify laws of this nature? Why is contemporary terrorism such a specific emergency justifying new laws? Using legal and philosophical reflections, this study looks at how we are changing society. Coverage also provides historical experiences of emergency legislations to further illustrate this point. In the end, readers will gain insight into the long-term consequences of these legislations and how they modify the very work of the rule of law. (shrink)

Les Cahiers La Boétie accueillent des travaux interdisciplinaires explorant tous les aspects et les enjeux de l'oeuvre de La Boétie.

Frohlich and Oppenheimer's works aim to study empirically Rawls' philosophy. They replicate the original position, using a veil of ignorance covering the subjects' deliberations. This should provide empirical data usable by philosophers, a claim discussed here: Rawls' foundationalism precludes a genuine opening of his philosophy to empirical data. On the other hand, Rawls' distinction between natural and moral justice attitudes sheds light on the deterministic metaphysics indirectly required by the Rawlsian sense of justice. This leads to the question of the (...) empirical feasibility of the theory: is doing without preinstitutional meritocratic attitudes humanly possible? Studies investigating the influence of socialization on causal attribution suggest that the feeling of free will is not a fundamental need of the human mind. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This thesis introduces and defends the Axiological Theory of Pleasure (ATP), according to which all pleasures are mental episodes which exemplify an hedonic value. According to the version of the ATP defended, hedonic goodness is not a primitive kind of value, but amounts to the final and personal value of mental episodes. Beside, it is argued that all mental episodes –and then all pleasures– are intentional. The definition of pleasures I arrived at is the following : -/- x is a (...) pleasure of a person P =df x is an intentional episode of P which is finally good for P. (shrink)

De nature homilétique, la prédication de Calvin suit le principe de la lectio continua, proche du commentaire des lectiones. Le réformateur mentionne souvent les philosophes, de manière positive pour les savoirs qu’ils représentent, mais aussi pour les critiquer. La philosophie et les philosophes sont des réalités ambivalentes, comme dans l’ Institution de la religion chrestienne, et désignent les savoirs humains sur le monde et sur l’homme en tant qu’on peut ou qu’on ose envisager ces réalités comme indépendantes de Dieu. Les (...) plus grands éloges de la philosophie donnent lieu aux condamnations les plus vives. Calvin utilise aussi la désignation de philosophes pour critiquer des adversaires contemporains : d’une part la théologie scolastique et tridentine, d’autre part les « moyenneurs » érasmiens. Le réformateur oppose les deux « styles », celui de la philosophie et celui de la révélation scripturaire, à la fois comme deux méthodes discursives, deux styles au sens littéraire, et deux stratégies : seules les Écritures saintes sont capables de conduire efficacement à la vraie sagesse (chrétienne). (shrink)

Efficiency principles are increasingly called upon to study features of human language and communication. Zipf's law of abbreviation is widely seen as a classic instance of a linguistic pattern brought about by language users’ search for efficient communication. The “law”—a recurrent correlation between the frequency of words and their brevity—is a near-universal principle of communication, having been found in all of the hundreds of human languages where it has been tested, and a few nonhuman communication systems as well. The standard (...) explanation for the law of abbreviation derives from pressures for efficiency: speakers minimize their cumulative effort by using shorter words for frequent occurrences. This explanation, we argue here, fails to explain why long words exist at all. It also fails to explain why the law of abbreviation, despite being robust, is systematically weakened by many short and rare words. We propose an alternative account of the law of abbreviation, based on a simple cultural evolutionary model. Our model does not require any pressure for efficiency. Instead, it derives the law of abbreviation from a general pressure for brevity applying to all words regardless of their frequency. This model makes two accurate predictions that the standard model misses: the correlation between frequency and brevity is consistently weak, and it is characterized by heteroskedasticity, with many short and rare words. We argue on this basis that efficiency considerations are neither necessary nor sufficient to explain the law. (shrink)

Our thesis is that proprioception is not a sixth sense distinct from the sense of touch, but a part of that tactile (or haptic) sense. The tactile sense is defined as the sense whose direct intentional objects are macroscopic mechanical properties. We first argue (against D. Armstrong, 1962; B. O'Shaughnessy 1989, 1995, 1998 and M. Martin, 1992, 1993,1995) that the two following claims are incompatible : (i) proprioception is a sense distinct from touch; (ii) touch is a bipolar modality, that (...) intrinsically has both a subjective-bodily pole and objective pole. We then argue that the bipolarity of touch should be preferred over the introduction of a sui generis sense of the body. We try to revive Aristotle suggestion according to which the body is the tactile medium (like the air for sight). Since this medium is constantly changing its shape, we need some specific channel of information about its state : proprioception, functionally defined, is that part of touch which informs us about the state of this changing tactile medium. Though muscular and articular receptors are usually dedicated to inform us about the mechanical properties of the tactile media, and the skin receptors about the mechanical properties of the tactile objects, this is not essentially so. In weighting or wielding experiments we access the weight of external objects even when skin sensitivity is absent; in prosthetic touch, the skin receptors play the role usually assigned to muscle and articular receptors, namely to inform us about the mechanical state of the tactile medium. So proprioception, anatomically defined, can play both the role of informing us about the tactile medium, or about the tactile objects. That other sensory modalities also rely on proprioceptive information should be understood in terms of cross-modal dependencies: of sight, hearing, smell, taste...on touch. (shrink)

Comment aborder de manière pédagogique la question de l'identité de l'homme dans l'enseignement et l'apprentissage des sciences humaines? Dans cet essai de philosophie pédagogique, voilà l'unique préoccupation à laquelle s'efforce de répondre Olivier Nkulu Kabamba en sa double qualité d'enseignant universitaire en sciences humaines et de philosophe formé en sciences humaines.

The thesis defended is that ordinary perception does not present us with the existential independence of its objects from itself. The phenomenology of ordinary perception is mute with respect to the subject-object distinction. I call this view "phenomenal neutral monism" : though neutral monists are wrong about the metaphysics of perception (in every perceptual episode, there is a distinction between the perceptual act and its perceptual objet), they are right about its phenomenology. I first argue that this view is not (...) as counter-intuitive as it might initially seem, by stressing (i) that the lack of presentation of the mind-independence of perceptual objects does not entail their being presented as mind-dependent. (ii) That phenomenal neutral monism is true of ordinary perception in the thin sense, but not in the thick sense (that includes expectations, guesses, feelings etc. grounded on thin perception). (iii) That the concept of a perceptual perspective or point of view should not be confused with the concept of the subject or intentional act of perception. Second, I propose three positive arguments in favor of phenomenal neutral monism. (i) It does justice to the recurring idea that only resistance to our will presents us with the world qua independent from us. (ii) It does justice to the recurring idea that the most natural attitude towards the perceptual world is that of being absorbed in it. (iii) It is entailed by the view that intentional acts are phenomenally transparent (a view held by Russell and Moore, and most contemporary representationalists) together with the view that in order to be presented with a relation (here the act-object distinction) one has to be presented with its relata. (shrink)