Christopher Boorse’s bio-statistical theory of health and disease argues that the central discipline on which theoretical medicine relies is physiology. His theory has been much discussed but little has been said about its focus on physiology or, conversely, about the role that other biomedical disciplines may play in establishing a theoretical concept of health. Since at least the 1950s, epidemiology has gained in strength and legitimacy as an independent medical science that contributes to our knowledge of health and disease. Indeed, (...) it not only provides important information about disease distribution and aetiology, but the risk-factor approach it employs seems to challenge BST’s binary conception of health and disease. The objective of the article is to show, firstly, how important information deriving from descriptive and analytical epidemiology forms part of our contemporary medical concepts of health and disease, and secondly, that these elements are not taken into account by BST in a satisfactory way. The article’s central contention, therefore, is that if the project of defining the theoretical concept of health is to be maintained, more importance should be accorded to the contribution made by epidemiology—alongside physiology—in defining health. (shrink)

Canguilhem criticized the concept of “public health”: health and disease are concepts that only apply to individuals, taken as organic totalities. Their extension to a different level of organization is purely metaphorical. The importance assumed by epidemiology in the construction of our knowledge of the normal and the pathological does, however, call for reflection on the role and the status of the population level of organization in our approach to health phenomena. The entanglement of the biological and the social in (...) human life and in contemporary societies justifies this level of analysis for better understanding the complexity and the interaction of health determinants both at the level of individuals and their interactions and at that of the population. But is this population level just a useful level of analysis that makes it possible to bring to light the social determinants of health at the individual level, or does it rest instead on characteristics of the population that are irreducible to individual characteristics, but which are nevertheless important for understanding and taking action with respect to both population and individual health? Defending this second alternative, I show how the epidemiological point of view, and in particular that of social epidemiology, leads us to rethink the possibility of a concept of “population health” that is not reducible to the sum of individual instances of health. (shrink)

Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) and Personalized Medicine (PM) share a common goal: reducing the gap between the results of biomedical research and their clinical application. PM is, however, often presented as a “new paradigm” for medicine, just as EBM was in the 1990s. It covers a wide variety of projects but the core idea that generally unites them is the ambition of better taking account of individual specificities than did EBM with its statistical and population-centred approach. In this article, I concentrate (...) on PM in cancerology, the essence of which is to target treatments based on the molecular profile of the patient. This targeting is made possible by gaining better knowledge about the molecular mechanisms of cancers. The classification of patients as a function of their molecular profile entails the creation of patient sub-groups. This creates a problem for the traditional evaluation of therapeutic treatment promoted by EBM, in particular the use of randomized trials using sizeable cohorts. But a better understanding of the mechanisms and the greater precision of treatments could reduce the need for these trials. Does PM thus represent the revenge of a physio-pathological and mechanistic culture in clinical research against the statistical and empirical one of EBM? My objective is to show how current practices of PM leads to epistemological changes in our estimation of what count as relevant types of information and proof in medicine, in particular in the field of therapeutic evaluation. I defend the idea that PM, far from obviating the need for statistical approaches and the search for correlations, ultimately poses new challenges for EBM. PM drives EBM to strengthen the articulation and the integration of statistical and mechanistic data with a view to providing a better service for each patient. (shrink)

La possibilité d’une définition naturaliste de la santé et d’une distinction entre le normal et le pathologique qui ne repose pas sur des normes culturelles, sociales ou subjectives est au cœur des débats en philosophie de la médecine. Or le concept statistique de la normalité, fondamental pour une définition objective de la santé, soulève d’importantes difficultés. Christopher Boorse défend une « théorie bio-statistique » qui, en articulant ce concept à une notion non normative de fonction biologique, résoudrait ces difficultés. L’identification (...) de la santé et de la normalité au sens statistique demeure toutefois centrale dans sa définition. Après avoir précisé le rôle que joue la normalité statistique dans la BST, nous dégageons, à partir de l’épidémiologie contemporaine, un certain nombre de problèmes et questions que cette définition naturaliste soulève.The liability for a naturalist definition of health and for a value-free distinction between the normal and the pathological is at the core of discussions on health and disease in philosophy of medicine. But the statistical concept of normality, a central one for any objective definition of health, raises numerous problems. Christopher Boorse argues for a « biostatistical theory » which aims at solving these difficulties by articulating a statistical concept of normality and a non-normative concept of biological function. However the BST is still based on identifying normality and health with the most frequent. After analyzing in details the true role of statistical normality in BST, I will show how results and data from modern epidemiology can be mobilized to reveal several limits and difficulties with respect to this naturalist definition of health and disease. (shrink)

Adoptant une perspective populationnelle inspirée des « sciences de la santé de la population », cet article développe une critique de la manière dont la médecine personnalisée envisage l’individu et la population et défend l’idée qu’une approche conjointe de la santé de l’individu et de la santé de la population est une condition pour une médecine humaniste.

This article presents a comparative analysis between Georges Canguilhem’sEssay on Some Problems Concerning the Normal and the Pathological, published in 1943 and the English language debate that started in the 1970s between the naturalists and the normativists. Seemingly, this comparison illustrates the opposition between the French historical epistemology and the Anglo-American philosophy of sciences. However, I put into perspective what is generally considered an opposition between the two traditions by analyzing certain conceptual similarities.

English summary: Based on the famous essay by Georges Canguilhem on what is normal and pathological (originally published in 1943), extensive philosophical literature (mainly Anglo-Saxon) has attempted to define these concepts and analyze their status. The main discussion focuses on the following question: can you describe health and illness as natural phenomena or are they states that are determined by values? French text. French description: Depuis le celebre essai de Georges Canguilhem sur le normal et le pathologique publie initialement en (...) 1943 et dont l'un des objectifs etait la clarification des concepts de sante et de maladie, une litterature philosophique abondante, principalement anglo-saxonne, s'est attachee a definir ces concepts et a analyser leur statut. Le principal debat de ce domaine emergent de la philosophie de la medecine porte sur la question: peut-on decrire la sante et la maladie comme des phenomenes naturels ou s'agit-il d'etats qui sont determines par des valeurs? Tous les textes presentes dans ce volume ont participe de cette controverse. Ceux de la premiere section accordent une part importante a la composante biologique. Ceux de la seconde donnent le primat a la notion d'action. Ceux de la derniere section mettent en question l'utilite ou la possibilite meme de definir les deux concepts. (shrink)

L’exposome réfère à un domaine émergent de recherche qui a pour visée de développer une science intégrée de l’ensemble des expositions auxquelles est soumis un individu tout au long de sa vie et qui influencent sa santé. Deux principales orientations se font jour. L’une se concentre sur l’étude de l’exposome interne qui permettrait d’identifier l’essentiel des expositions impactant la santé en mesurant avec précision les effets au niveau de l’environnement biochimique du corps. L’autre entend intégrer les expositions sociales, écologiques et (...) les expositions biologiques et internes, ou autrement dit, faire davantage de place à l’étude de l’exposome externe et ainsi développer un modèle holiste de la santé environnementale. À partir de l’examen de la littérature scientifique, de l’analyse de la première génération d’études exposomiques (2010-2020) et d’entretiens menés auprès d’épidémiologistes engagés dans ces recherches, cet article propose un état des lieux des promesses et réalisations de ce domaine émergent quant à l’intégration des expositions, tout en ayant l’ambition d’apporter un regard critique sur ces dernières. Après avoir présenté l’exposome et ses diverses interprétations, nous examinerons quel type d’intégration est en jeu dans chacune de ces deux orientations et nous en questionnerons l’intérêt et la pertinence. Notre analyse se concentre plus particulièrement sur la seconde orientation : quels gages cette tendance la plus holiste donne-t-elle en vue d’un renouvellement de nos manières d’intégrer les facteurs environnementaux et génétiques, sociaux et biologiques, dans notre approche des expositions et de l’explication des maladies? (shrink)

Plusieurs aspects du modèle biopsychosocial promeuvent une approche humaniste en médecine. Cependant, Engel a explicitement rejeté un humanisme médical qui s’opposerait à la science. En adoptant une approche fondée sur la science des systèmes pour étudier les êtres humains, la santé et la maladie, Engel défend une approche scientifique pour améliorer la qualité des soins cliniques, ou autrement dit, une approche qui se prête à un examen scientifique de cette question.

Since the completion of the Human Genome Project (HGP), biomedical sciences have moved away from a gene-centred view and towards a multi-factorial one in which environment, broadly speaking, plays a central role in the determination of human health and disease. Environmental exposures have been shown to be highly prevalent in disease causation. They are considered as complementary to genetic factors in the etiology of diseases, hence the introduction of the concept of the “exposome” as encompassing the totality of human environmental (...) exposures, from conception onwards (Wild in Cancer Epidemiol Biomark Prev 14:1847–1850, 2005), and the launch of the Human Exposome Project (HEP) which aims to complement the HGP. At first sight, and seen as complementary to the genome, the exposome could thus appear as contributing to the rise of novel postgenomic deterministic narratives which place the environment at their core. Is this really the case? If so, what sort of determinism is at work in exposomics research? Is it a case of environmental determinism, and if so, in what sense? Or is it a new sort of deterministic view? In this paper, we first show that causal narratives in exposomics are still very similar to gene-centred deterministic narratives. They correspond to a form of Laplacian determinism and, above all, to what Claude Bernard called the “determinism of a phenomenon”. Second, we introduce the notion of “reversed heuristic determinism” to characterize the specific deterministic narratives present in exposomics. Indeed, the accepted sorts of external environmental exposures conceived as being at the origins of diseases are determined, methodologically speaking, by their identifiable internal and biological markers. We conclude by highlighting the most relevant implications of the presence of this heuristic determinism in exposomics research. (shrink)

Cancers rely on multiple, heterogeneous processes at different scales, pertaining to many biomedical fields. Therefore, understanding cancer is necessarily an interdisciplinary task that requires placing specialised experimental and clinical research into a broader conceptual, theoretical, and methodological framework. Without such a framework, oncology will collect piecemeal results, with scant dialogue between the different scientific communities studying cancer. We argue that one important way forward in service of a more successful dialogue is through greater integration of applied sciences (experimental and clinical) (...) with conceptual and theoretical approaches, informed by philosophical methods. By way of illustration, we explore six central themes: (i) the role of mutations in cancer; (ii) the clonal evolution of cancer cells; (iii) the relationship between cancer and multicellularity; (iv) the tumour microenvironment; (v) the immune system; and (vi) stem cells. In each case, we examine open questions in the scientific literature through a philosophical methodology and show the benefit of such a synergy for the scientific and medical understanding of cancer. (shrink)

Staging and stratification are two diagnostic approaches that have introduced a more dynamic outlook on the development of diseases, thus participating in blurring the line between the normal and the pathological. First, diagnostic staging, aiming to capture how diseases evolve in time and/or space through identifiable and gradually more severe stages, may be said to lean on an underlying assumption of “temporal determinism”. Stratification, on the other hand, allows for the identification of various prognostic or predictive subgroups based on specific (...) markers, relying on a more “mechanistic” or “statistical” form of determinism. There are two medical fields in which these developments have played a significant role and have given rise to sometimes profound nosological transformations: oncology and psychiatry. Drawing on examples from these two fields, this paper aims to provide much needed conceptual clarifications on both staging and stratification in order to outline how several epistemological and ethical issues may, in turn, arise. We argue that diagnostic staging ought to be detached from the assumption of temporal determinism, though it should still play an essential role in adapting interventions to stage. In doing so, it would help counterbalance stratification’s own epistemological and ethical shortcomings. In this sense, the reflections and propositions developed in psychiatry can offer invaluable insights regarding how adopting a more transdiagnostic and cross-cutting perspective on temporality and disease dynamics may help combine both staging and stratification in clinical practice. (shrink)

Mindfulness—the awareness of the present moment and experiences in daily life—contributes to genuine intrinsic and social-oriented values and curbs materialistic and hedonistic values. In the context of materialism, money is power. Avaricious individuals take risks and are likely to engage in dishonesty. Very little research has investigated the effects of mindfulness in reducing the avaricious monetary attitudes and enhancing ethical consumer beliefs. In this study, we theorize that mindfulness improves consumer ethics directly and indirectly by lowering avaricious monetary attitudes. To (...) test our theory, we collected data from 523 individuals with the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction training and 307 individuals without MBSR. The results of our whole sample support our theory. Three multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses reveal intriguing discoveries. First, with MBSR training, mindfulness excites consumer ethical beliefs directly and indirectly. Without training, trait mindfulness fails to reduce monetary attitudes—mindfulness training matters. Second, the power of MBSR training holds for participants completing the training within 1 year, but wears off after 1 year—the duration after training matters. Finally, after 1 year, the training retains its strength for those who practice mindfulness, but weakens its power for those who do not—practice matters. We shed light on mindfulness, monetary wisdom, and consumer ethics, in particular, and business ethics, in general. (shrink)

A philosophical investigation of the concept of interiority, presenting readers with its unmined aspects and senses.

Youth materialism excites adolescents’ unethical consumer beliefs (UCB-dishonesty). We develop a second-stage moderated mediation model, investigate the relationships between materialism and Generation Z teenagers’ consumer ethics (UCB-dishonesty), and treat two self-concept mechanisms (power and self-esteem) as dual mediators and culture as a moderator (China vs. France). We theorize that materialism enhances power (public self) and reduces self-esteem (private self). French adolescents’ sense of power increases UCB more than their Chinese counterparts. Chinese teenagers’ self-esteem reduces UCB more than their French counterparts. (...) We challenge the assumption that the interaction effects between consumers’ self-concepts and UCB are the same across cultures. We offer the following discoveries based on 1,005 (409 Chinese and 596 French) adolescents. First, the measurement model of consumer ethics with four subconstructs is superior to the model with one overall construct. Second, a sense of power and self-esteem mediate the relationships between youth materialism and consumer ethics, creating two positive and negative paths for power and self-esteem, respectively. Third, French adolescents display a higher magnitude and positive intensity between adolescents’ power (public self) and UCB-dishonesty than their Chinese counterparts across all four subconstructs. Chinese teenagers illustrate a lower magnitude but a higher negative intensity between self-esteem and UCB than their French counterparts across three subconstructs, with one exception: Adolescents’ self-esteem has no impact on “no harm, no foul” across cultures. Neither buyers nor sellers experience substantial financial gains or losses. Finally, cultures moderate the second-stage mediation effects. Scholars must enhance adolescents’ self-esteem and curb their power to promote honesty. We offer implications for materialism, consumer ethics, self-concepts, and culture for consumers and retailers. (shrink)

This paper explores Biesta’s recent revisiting of his iconic and at times contested notion of education as subjectification. First, I look at how Biesta presents his notion by attending to his answers to the criticisms it has faced concerning elusiveness, oversimplification, and self-centredness. Then, going beyond the declarative level, I explore a concrete example of education as subjectification from Biesta’s 2022 book, World-Centred Education. Analysing the example of Homer Lane and Jason, I examine the ambivalence between Biesta’s explicit statements on (...) subjectification as a form of spontaneous and non-coercive teaching aimed at cultivating freedom and the more complex picture that emerges from a close reading of the original story. From this analysis, I find important conceptual limitations to education as subjectification: it could conceal part of the institutional context of education and the teacher’s active role, and also reduce freedom to an individualistic concept. I thus conclude by suggesting that the language of subjectification should always be engaged with critically—but never in isolation—and with a stereoscopic optic in mind. (shrink)

Based more specifically on Le commun de la liberté (2022), this article examines the notion of the common as it appears in Catherine Colliot-Thélène’s thought, and aims to test the conception of politics that it outlines. The first part of the article examines the reasons, issues and contours of Colliot-Thélène’s “politics of rights”, before highlighting its merits, focusing in particular on the conception of social rights and migrants’ rights that it implies. After this first part, which seeks to reconstruct the (...) argument of Le commun de la liberté by following its argumentation, the second part seeks to identify what is both problematic and fruitful about this “politics of rights”: while thinking about the political common without self-legislation seems perilous, the risks of heteronomy that Colliot-Thélène’s approach seeks to avert call for us to question what democratic domination – government – can be. (shrink)

In Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence, Merleau-Ponty draws on Malraux’s theory, developed in Le Musée Imaginaire and Les Voix du Silence, according to which modern art is the achievement of subjectivity’s creative powers in its ability to achieve the metamorphosis of the world through her works. This essay aims to show that the idea of “coherent deformation” illustrates Merleau-Ponty’s attempt to rethink subjectivity’s individuation as a creative yet ontological pattern that recasts the dynamics of operative intentionality and its (...) expressions. I show that in response to Malraux, Merleau-Ponty works out a diacritical sense of individuation as style that conveys existential possibilities. This conception proposes a “phenomenology from within” that relies on literary, psychoanalytic and artistic works to exhibit the metamorphosis of the subject in and through her world. (shrink)

Cette étude se focalise sur différentes méthodes utilisées pour l’analyse phonologique de la parole aphasique. Nous comparons des tâches expérimentales de répétition et de dénomination d’image, des tâches d’élicitation semi-structurées et de la parole naturelle. Nous montrons que le type de mots rencontrés, le type de consonnes ou encore le nombre de productions diffèrent selon la tâche. Si les protocoles expérimentaux permettent d’obtenir toutes les cibles voulues, les tâches d’élicitation semi-structurée permettent d’avoir un plus grand nombre d’occurrences de sons et (...) de mots et des productions subissant des transformations différentes. (shrink)

Marketing research on adolescents’ ethical predispositions and risky behaviors has focused primarily on individual difference variables. The present study, in contrast, examines the social network positions that an adolescent occupies within a group. A survey of 984 adolescents demonstrates that EP and RB stem from a balance between assimilation and individuation. In particular, we show that adolescents with close first-degree relationships within a specific peer group and/or high need for uniqueness have lower EP and engage in more RB, while adolescents (...) that are more central to the entire network have higher EP. The theoretic and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

What causes adolescents to develop consumer’ ethical beliefs? Prior research has largely focused on the negative influence of peers and negative patterns of parent–child interactions to explain risky and unethical consumer behaviors. We take a different perspective by focusing on the positive support of parents and peers in adolescent social development. An integrative model is developed that links parental and peer support with adolescents’ self-worth motives, their materialistic tendencies, and their consumer ethical beliefs. In a study of 984 adolescents, we (...) demonstrate support for a sequential mediation model in which peer and parental support is positively related to adolescents’ self-esteem and feelings of power, which are each associated with decreased materialism as a means of compensating for low self-worth. This reduced materialism is, in turn, associated with more ethical consumer beliefs. (shrink)

A well-known common wisdom asserts that strong social bonds undermine delinquency. However, there is little empirical evidence to substantiate this assertion regarding adolescence academic cheating across cultures. In this study, we adopt social bonding theory and develop a theoretical model involving four social bonds and adolescence self-reported academic cheating behavior and cheating perception. Based on 913 adolescents in France and China, we show that parental attachment, academic commitment, and moral values curb academic cheating; counterintuitively, peer involvement contributes to cheating. We (...) test our theoretical model across culture and gender, separately, using multi-group analyses. For French teens, peer involvement encourages and moral values undermine cheating; for Chinese adolescents, all four social bonds contribute to cheating, similar to the whole sample. For girls, parental attachment deters, but peer involvement enhances cheating. For boys, parental attachment is the only social bond that does not affect cheating. We treat social integration as a mediator of the relationship between peer involvement and social bonds that construct, in turn, is related to cheating and ask: Considering popularity, who are likely to cheat? Our answers provide an interesting paradox: Popularity matters, yet popular French girls and unpopular Chinese boys are likely to cheat. Social sharing is a positive pro-social behavior in consumer behavior. However, academic cheating and rule breaking, reflecting self-serving altruism and the red sneakers effect, at a very young age may have the potential to grow into the Enron Effect later in their lives as executives in organizations. We shed new lights on both the bright and dark sides of social bonds on cheating, demonstrate bad company corrupts good morals, differently, across culture and gender, and provide practical implications to social bonding, business ethics, and cheating. (shrink)

Adolescents have increasing discretionary income, expenditures, and purchasing power. Inventory shrinkage costs $123.4 billion globally to retail outlets. Adolescents are disproportionately responsible for theft and shoplifting. Both parents and peers significantly influence adolescents’ monetary values, materialism, and dishonesty as consumers. In this study, we develop a theoretical model involving teenagers’ social attachment and their consumer ethics, treat adolescents’ money attitude in the context of youth materialism as a mediator, and simultaneously examine the direct and indirect paths. Results of 1018 adolescents (...) illustrate that social attachment discourages unethical beliefs directly, but encourages it indirectly through monetary values. Our multi-group analyses demonstrate a novel paradox: The correlation between parental and peer attachments is smaller in France than in China, but similar across gender. Parents contribute more than peers to social attachment in France, but both carry equal weight in China. There is a negative direct path for the Chinese sample and for girls. Indirectly, parental attachment prevents French teenagers’ unethical beliefs, whereas peer attachment promotes boys’ unethical intention, supporting the notion—bad company corrupts good morals. Across both culture and gender, monetary attitude excites dishonesty consistently for all adolescents. A negative direct path exists for Chinese boys only. Overall, social attachment reduces unethical beliefs. Parental and peer supports shape teenagers’ monetary intelligence and ethical or unethical decision making, differently, across culture and gender. We provide theoretical, empirical, and practical implications to ethical parenting, peer attachment, monetary values, and business ethics. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the ontological and existential dimensions of vulnerability as a relational and structuring character of the human self while assessing the situations and policies that may perform its negative effects through situations of insecurity, inequality, and injustice. It argues that vulnerability appears as an experience and a social fact that is deeply ambivalent and which requires a paradigm shift in order to tackle its lived-through experience and its political and social implications. Indeed, exploring vulnerability entails considering the critical (...) aspect of this concept to deconstruct the modern paradigm of invulnerability and to consider this fundamental lived experience as an inspirational resource: to provide a philosophical description of personal and collective individuation processes; to critically assess the social, political and existential conditions that reinforce struggles and asymmetry; to help design policies that thwart its negative effects and enforce fundamental human rights; and to design interdisciplinary research methodologies accordingly. (shrink)

How can one overcome self-centeredness in order to care for and do justice to significant others as well as foreigners? “Establish the right distance,” is the imperative that Ricœur formulates in order to address the paradox of autonomy and vulnerability, and to reintroduce an ethical conception of justice at the heart of political power. This article shows how understanding justice in light of vulnerability leads us to take into account both the violence coextensive with social relations and political conflicts and (...) the restoration of agency required by such circumstances. Whether it is conceived in light of difference, dissimilarity or interval, the “right distance” that Ricœur calls for is based on a symbolic topography of the common good, which establishes a relationship of interdependence between the subject and others. (shrink)

The vulnerability of the human world is an edited book that collects papers reflecting on the problem of well-being, health, and vulnerability in our current society. The ‘human world’ to which we refer points to the anthropological, environmental, and ecological issues in relation to health and well-being that we propose to discuss. It addresses the need for a critical anthropological concept that overcomes the biases of modern anthropocentrism while addressing the specific responsibility of humans in contemporary world crisis. We do (...) not try to give a final definition for what vulnerability is, but we problematize the notion of well-being as a standard of non-vulnerability that is often imposed on human beings; often well-being becomes a measure within which human beings should fit to not be vulnerable. Consequently, well-being has been implicitly defined as the opposite of vulnerability – especially when vulnerability is conceived as a risk or a threat to oneself or the community, rather than a potential source of growth and transformation. For this reason, we believe that well-being is more the title of a problem rather than its solution. This paradigm initiates, indeed, a “positive” conception of health that aims to push the boundaries of human finitude such as suffering, illness and the recognition of mortality. Usually, we assume that well-being is the final goal of our choices and the gist of a decent life, but we spend more time striving for well-being than asking ourselves what being well means for us, as individuals and societies. This paradox may generate emotional frustration which often worsens our condition rather than helps it reach its optimum. Moreover, it may generate and increase inequalities between people and countries who may suffer from the discrepancies in their access to healthcare or vaccination. Therefore, it also raises questions about collective justice and interdependence. Indeed, the concept of well-being seems to block a critical and epistemological appraisal of the concept of “health,” conflating thereby the impression of being “well,” which is normed by sociological, cultural and moral standards with the lived reality of what it means to be healthy – which itself needs to be questioned in light of the scientific paradigms that built human biology and environmental approaches over the past decades. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Deleuze, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty: The Logics and Pragmatics of Creation, Affective Life, and Perception by Dorothea E. OlkowskiElodie BoublilOLKOWSKI, Dorothea E. Deleuze, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty: The Logics and Pragmatics of Creation, Affective Life, and Perception. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2021. 180 pp. Cloth, $63.00; paper, $28.00[End Page 152]Dorothea E. Olkowski's latest book carefully examines "the relationship between the creation of ideas and their actualization in relation to semiology, logic and (...) the cosmos in the philosophies of Deleuze, Bergson, and Merleau-Ponty." However, this work is neither an extensive or historical account of Deleuze's, Bergson's, and Merleau-Ponty's philosophies, nor an attempt to homogenize their views on space, time, or perception. Instead, it subtly compares their differences and similarities to move beyond metaphysical dualism, and fruitfully rethinks the relations between formal logic and ontology. Indeed, the author aims to draw a "theory of form," based on the logic of sensation, ultimately designed "to take the place of a theory of the real, of material physical forces."Chapter 1 retraces the history of postmodernist claims and their philosophical legacy. Olkowski explains that postmodernism is not first and foremost a political worldview or a debunking of objectivity in natural sciences. Instead, "it begins as a formal system or series of formal systems." Olkowski explores how Deleuze draws on the knowledge of modern science and logic (Bolzano, Cavaillès) and on Bergson's critical analysis of it to elaborate his logic of sensation. Bergson's conception of affectivity impacted Deleuze's and Merleau-Ponty's theories of corporeality and sensation, and their understanding of perception. Bergson's concept of "body image" specifically influenced Deleuze's elaboration of the concept of "movement-image," through which he tried to overcome the dichotomy set up by mind–body dualism.Chapter 2 focuses on Deleuze and Guattari's critique of logic as an attempt to find a third way between idealism and materialism and to overcome the disconnection between formal logic and lived experience. It reviews their critique of Euclidean geometry, their objections to formal logic as set out by Frege and Russell, and their assessment of phenomenology in order to eventually show Deleuze's affinity with Peirce's pragmatist approach. Then, the author aims to determine if Deleuze's attempt could be compatible with the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and Bergson's understanding of quality and multiplicity.Chapter 3 focuses on Bergson. Recalling the controversy with Russell, Einstein, and Langevin, Olkowski refers to Merleau-Ponty's defense of Bergson's concept of intuition to prove the accuracy of his reflection on creative forces and pure duration. As she explains, "[T]he intent here is to clarify the relations between these different aspects of Bergson's thought and draw out how Deleuze makes use of these structures derived from Bergson's philosophy." This leads her to explore, more specifically, how Deleuze reworks the concept of "multiplicity" along the lines of Bergson's analysis of the élan vital.In chapter 4 the author focuses on Deleuze's work on cinema to deepen the philosophical correlation between Bergson's concepts, Deleuze's analysis, and the influences of Merleau-Ponty and Pierce. It aims to rethink the relation between movement and time, notably through the notions of time-image and movement-image. Olkowski notably showcases Deleuze's concept of destiny, "which is the pure power of time that [End Page 153] overflows all possible reaction. It defeats, immobilizes, and petrifies figures in their own affectivity; it sends them to their fate, destroying conventions along the way. For Merleau-Ponty, as for Bergson, acts are still possible in a network of temporal relations so that motion and time are destiny but differently than for Deleuze."Chapter 5 addresses the Phenomenology of Perception and how Merleau-Ponty provides an opportunity to rethink perception. In this book and his Courses on Nature, Merleau-Ponty "does not dismiss either position—that of objective science or that of the natural attitude—but argues that although each contains an element of truth, it is perception and only perception that allows us to bridge the gap between physical reality and behavior/comportment." Deleuze will depart from... (shrink)

Bien que, cela étant, un abîme incommensurable soit installé entre le domaine du concept de la nature – le sensible – et le domaine du concept de la liberté – le suprasensible – au point que, du premier au second (donc par l’intermédiaire de l’usage théorique de la raison), nul passage n’est possible, tout à fait comme s’il s’agissait de mondes différents, dont le premier ne peut avoir sur le second aucune influence, celui-ci doit pourtant avoir une influence sur celui-là, (...) autrement dit, le c... (shrink)

Quel sens donner à l'intrusion quand celle-ci est inséparable d'une mise en danger potentiellement mortelle de ce qui se pense ' un ', mais qu'elle est en même temps nécessaire pour que quelque chose advienne? Quelles perspectives ontologiques, esthétiques et politiques la venue de l'autre ouvre-t-elle alors qu'il peut nous mettre ' hors de nous '? Comment, de fait, l'intrus ne vient-il pas toujours d'ailleurs? La lecture de L'Intrus de Jean-Luc Nancy et des liens qui se tissent entre le philosophe, (...) la réalisatrice Claire Denis et les réalisateurs Nicolas Klotz et Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, permet d'envisager comment la notion d'ex-criture donne lieu à des gestes cinématographiques: greffe, adoption, adaptation ou encore intégration. (shrink)

Le concept de « civilisation écologique » a initialement été développé par des intellectuels chinois, à la fin des années 1980, comme une critique de la modernité industrielle et du système capitaliste face à la catastrophe écologique planétaire en cours. À partir du milieu des années 2000, et suite à l’accentuation des contestations environnementales dans les grandes villes du pays, le Parti Communiste Chinois (PCC) a décidé de faire de cette notion un de ses slogans politiques phares, mais au prix (...) de vider ce concept de sa dimension critique pour l’instrumentaliser au service de la propagande d’État, de la croissance verte et du contrôle numérique des écosystèmes. La Chine serait-elle en train d’inventer de nouvelles normes de gouvernance? (shrink)

Dans cet ouvrage-hommage à Michèle Riot-Sarcey, les travaux et la pensée de l’historienne sont mis en perspective au travers de dix-huit articles organisés autour des thèmes « Genre », « Utopies et discontinuités », « Révolution, république et démocratie », et « Se situer dans son propre présent ». L’ensemble de l’ouvrage constitue une invitation à lire ou relire les œuvres de l’auteure et à prendre avec elle le parti de se confronter en toute conscience aux enjeux de l’écriture de (...) l’histoire... (shrink)

Timothy Verhoeven, de l’université de Monash en Australie, est spécialiste de l’histoire contemporaine de la France et des États-Unis. Son ouvrage Sexual Crime, Religion and Masculinity in Fin-de-Siècle France: the Flamidien affair se situe à la croisée de deux thématiques qu’il avait déjà étudiées auparavant, l’anticléricalisme et les relations entre Église et États d’un côté, et l’histoire des masculinités à partir des sexualités cléricales de l’autre. À partir d’un fait divers propice à me...

Engaging in unethical consumption behaviors is an acute societal problem that can have severe consequences for adolescents, and businesses in particular have been accused of making such consumption particularly appealing and accessible. However, the causes of unethical behaviors are not well understood and research on the causes has been mixed. In this research, we investigate the effects of coping strategies for loneliness on adolescents’ adoption of unethical behaviors, a topic that business ethics research has not explored. In a large-scale study (...) of adolescents, we show that whether loneliness leads to the adoption of unethical behaviors depends on the strategies adolescents use to cope with their loneliness: active coping strategies are associated with fewer unethical behaviors, whereas passive coping strategies are associated with more unethical behaviors. In addition, we show that active and passive coping strategies can be executed through consumption practices. We show that the relation between active coping and fewer unethical behaviors is mediated by sharing of possessions, whereas the relation between passive coping strategies and more unethical behaviors is mediated by product acquisition. Finally, we also show that these mediated relations differ as a function of age cohort. The indirect effect of active coping on fewer unethical behaviors via sharing holds only for middle school adolescents, whereas the indirect effect of passive coping on more unethical behaviors via product acquisition holds only for high school adolescents. We shed new light on both the bright and dark sides of materialism and unethical behaviors and provide practical implications for research on loneliness, business ethics, and unethical behaviors. (shrink)

Sympathy (empathic concern) is mainly understood as a feeling for another and is often contrasted with empathy—a feeling with another. However, it is not clear what feeling for another means and what emotions sympathy involves. Since empirical data suggests that sympathy plays an important role in our social lives and is more closely connected to helping behavior than empathy, we need a more detailed account. In this paper, I argue that sympathy is not a particular emotion but a type of (...) emotional experience: those that have another person as focus. I explain what this means and show that this sheds light on why sympathy, rather than empathy, directly motivates altruistic actions. (shrink)

What are the challenges that Nietzsche's philosophy poses for contemporary phenomenology? Elodie Boublil, Christine Daigle, and an international group of scholars take Nietzsche in new directions and shed light on the sources of phenomenological method in Nietzsche, echoes and influences of Nietzsche within modern phenomenology, and connections between Nietzsche, phenomenology, and ethics. Nietzsche and Phenomenology offers a historical and systematic reconsideration of the scope of Nietzsche’s thought.

Physician empathy is considered essential for good clinical care. Empirical evidence shows that it correlates with better patient satisfaction, compliance, and clinical outcomes. These data have nevertheless been criticized because of a lack of consistency and reliability. In this paper, we claim that these issues partly stem from the widespread idealization of empathy: we mistakenly assume that physician empathy always contributes to good care. This has prevented us from agreeing on a definition of empathy, from understanding the effects of its (...) different components and from exploring its limits. This is problematic because physicians’ ignorance of the risks of empathy and of strategies to manage them can impact their work and wellbeing negatively. To address this problem, we explore the effects of the potential components of empathy and argue that it should be conceived as a purely descriptive and wide term. We end by discussing implications for medical education. (shrink)

"Dans cette thèse, je démontre que la tradition phénoménologique développe une redéfinition ontologique de l'individuation du sujet fondée sur la notion d'intentionnalité opérante. J'explique comment cette redéfinition offre une nouvelle approche de la vision du monde et des relations intersubjectives qui ne serait ni réflexive ni représentative. Néanmoins, cette configuration montre le développement parallèle de l'individuation du sujet et de ses expressions, grâce à une ontologie relationnelle, aux implications épistémologiques et éthiques. Analysant la phénoménologie de Husserl, je mets au jour (...) le rapport entre individuation et intentionnalité en montrant que cette relation permet de repenser les problèmes de l'ipséité et de la différence (1). A la lumière de l'analyse heideggérienne du Dasein et de la description merleau-pontienne du corps propre, je montre alors que l'individuation doit être conçue comme un processus permanent de différenciation qui ne repose plus sur le schéma hylémorphique ou sur la représentation cartésienne du sujet (2). Je décris le type de mouvement ontologique qui caractérise l'individuation, en m'appuyant sur Patočka et Simondon, afin de montrer la corrélation de la manifestation du monde et de l'individuation du sujet (3). Celle-ci suppose la nécessité paradoxale de la contingence afin de pouvoir penser l'individuation comme ouverture radicale, modelée par une certaine forme d'altérité. En m'appuyant sur l'ontologie tardive de Merleau-Ponty, la psychanalyse et l'herméneutique, je cherche ensuite à dévoiler la structure analogique - mais non représentationaliste - du sensible et à repenser la corrélation à la lumière du processus d'individuation éprouvé par le sujet (4). Rendant compte de la généralité et de la générativité du mouvement charnel, je démontre pour finir que cette structure analogique permet d'élaborer des conceptions de l'individuation et de la réflexivité requérant moins la mort du sujet, comme dans l'optique poststructuraliste, que sa métamorphose et son advenue. Cette thèse conclut en ouvrant des perspectives utiles à la compréhension de la vie, dans les recherches épistémologiques contemporaines (5), et à l'examen éthique de nos visions du monde et de la responsabilité qui incombe au sujet, dans l'épreuve contingente de ses désirs (6). " --. (shrink)