Commenting David Hume’s metaphor of the “wall” of benevolence and the “vault” of justice in the third Appendix of his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, the paper compares those two “social virtues”, and thus describes two forms of social links, corresponding respectively to the “natural virtue” of benevolence and to the “artificial virtue” of justice. I also examine Hume’s enhancing of the possible contradictions between those two virtues, when he remarks that some isolated acts of justice, though absolutely necessary (...) to the cohesion of the “vault” of justice, actually constitute a “form of evil”; an observation that other authors such as Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith and John Rawls, have somehow neglected. (shrink)

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate (...) students, and independent scholars. Delve into what it was like to live during the eighteenth century by reading the first-hand accounts of everyday people, including city dwellers and farmers, businessmen and bankers, artisans and merchants, artists and their patrons, politicians and their constituents. Original texts make the American, French, and Industrial revolutions vividly contemporary. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ British Library T100404 With a half-title. Anonymous. By P. P. F. J. H. Le Mercier de la Rivière. Possibly printed in Paris (or the Low Countries). Londres: chez Jean Nourse; & se trouve à Paris, chez Desaint, 1767. [2], vii, [1],511, [1]p.; 4°. (shrink)

Tout est parti d'une demande d'Olivier Kaeppelin, directeur de la Fondation Maeght, chargeant Bernard-Henri Levy de penser la grande exposition de l'été 2013, à la Fondation. Un thème : les rapports de la peinture et de la philosophie. Un principe : traiter à égalité, et faire dialoguer autour de cette thématique, les maîtres de l'art ancien, moderne et contemporain. Un fil directeur : une sorte de "grand récit", découpé en six stations, où l'on voit la philosophie censurer, ou réhabiliter, ou (...) effacer à nouveau, ou au contraire relayer et même remplacer, le travail des peintres. Une aventure : Bernard-Henri Levy a, pour raconter cette histoire, couru les collections privées, les musées de France et d'ailleurs, débusquant ainsi des chefs-d'oeuvre, souvent peu connus et peu vus, qui seront, du 29 juin prochain au 12 novembre, exposés sur les murs de la Fondation Maeght. Le livre enfin, né de cette aventure, est découpé en trois parties. Une longue "Lettre à Olivier Kaeppelin" (80 pages) posant les bases de l'exposition, ses principes théoriques et ceux de l'Esthetique de BHL. Un Journal, tenu de l'été 2011 au printemps 2013, et racontant, jour après jour, le "making of" de cette exposition hors-norme : problèmes esthétiques et techniques, portraits d'artistes ou de collectionneurs, moments d'éblouissement et de déception - tout y est. Et puis, enfin, les images des 120 oeuvres choisies et accompagnées, chaque fois, d'une "notice" à la fois littéraire et scientifique - c'est la troisième partie du livre. Ce livre n'est pas un "catalogue" (même s'il répertorie savamment les oeuvres retenues). Ce n'est pas un "beau livre" (même s'il est richement illustré). C'est un vrai livre, foisonnant, vivant, littéraire de bout en bout, bourré d'anecdotes et de croquis - où l'on retrouve l'encre du BHL philosophe mais aussi romancier et parfois même cinéaste! Bernard-Henri Lévy a, depuis 30 ans, publié plusieurs monographies sur l'art ancien (Piero della Francesca), moderne (Mondrian) ou contemporain (Frank Stella). Ce nouveau livre vient prolonger et, en quelque sorte, couronner cette part moins connue et, jusqu'ici, délibérément discrète de son oeuvre. (shrink)

L'image de Pascal est souvent brouillée par la légende et par les commentaires maladroits ou malveillants. Or, on n'a jamais fini de scruter la personnalité et l'œuvre de Pascal. Il suffit de changer de point de vue pour apercevoir du nouveau, pour préciser des significations, pour repérer des sources inattendues, et parfois pour écarter des idées reçues. Michel Le Guern, après L'Image dans l'œuvre de Pascal, Pascal et Descartes, Les Pensées de Pascal de l'anthropologie à la théologie, les éditions des (...) Pensées et des Provinciales en Folio, l'édition des Œuvres complètes dans la Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, puis Pascal et Arnauld, souhaitait présenter d'autres points de vue, qui ont nécessairement varié en soixante ans de lectures et de relectures, et qui sont complémentaires des travaux d'Henri Gouhier, de Jean Mesnard et de Philippe Sellier. / Our image of Blaise Pascal is frequently blurred by legend and by clumsy or malicious commentary, but his personality and works bear continued scrutiny. A change of perspective is all that is required to glimpse something new, to clarify some finer points, and to brush aside a few common preconceptions. / Michel Le Guern, né en 1937, est professeur honoraire de l'Université Lumière-Lyon 2. Il est ancien président de l'Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Lyon. (shrink)

Every reader of Ricoeur knows that hermeneutics endeavors to answer the aporiae of historical phenomenology. Hence arises the need to return to those aporiae and those answers. On the one hand, phenomenology, born with the maxim of going “directly to things themselves,” is confronted with the incessant evasion of the thing itself and with its dreams of presence being thereby shattered. This reversal should not be blamed on the failings of this or that thinker, but attributed to the very destiny (...) of phenomenology itself. On the other hand, Ricoeurian hermeneutics takes note of a gap, and of a necessary return. Thus, there is nothing for thought itself to grieve over with respect to this enterprise. However, while the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, faced with the same difficulties, orients itself towards political philosophy, the hermeneutics of Ricoeur rather seeks to lead us to a philosophy of religion. This article hypothesizes that, in spite of the formula of a “philosophy without an absolute,” the thought of Ricoeur heads in fair measure towards the Absolute, and that ontology is not the only name of the Promised Land. (shrink)

Dans la période 1671-1678, Leibniz met au point une conception des hypothèses de physique qui les subordonne à un double critère de validité. Il s'agit en premier lieu de validité heuristique. Mais l'hypothèse doit aussi comporter une justification analytique dont la possibilité tiendrait à une transcription géométrique des séquences de phénomènes. Il importe de déterminer comment validité heuristique et validité démonstrative se concilient.In the period 1671-1678, Leibniz works out his conception of hypothesis in Physics with reference to a twofold validity (...) criterion. Heuristic validity applies. But hypotheses must also involve an analytic justification which might be achieved through geometrically transcribing the sequences of phenomena. One has to determine how Leibniz accords heuristic with demonstrative validation. (shrink)

Johannes Daubert est la figure centrale du Cercle de Munich ainsi que le premier véritable lecteur et critique de Husserl. Ses manuscrits contiennent, en plus d'une critique de la phénoménologie husserlienne, une conception originale de la phénoménologie laissant notamment une place importante aux analyses perceptives. Le présent article s'intéresse d'abord aux thèmes du donné et de l'évidence en tant qu'ils sont des motifs centraux à la fois chez Husserl et Daubert, pour ensuite relever, à partir d'une étude des manuscrits pertinents, (...) la particularité des analyses daubertiennes concernant ces thèmes, ainsi que les contraintes ou limites que la phénoménologie doit s'imposer pour notamment se distinguer du rationalisme.Johannes Daubert is the central figure of the Munich Circle as well as the first real critical reader of Husserl. His manuscripts contain, in addition to a critique of the husserlian phenomenology, an original conception of phenomenology leaving a significant place to the perceptive analyses. This article is initially concerned with the topics of the given and of the evidence as they are central themes in Husserl's and Daubert's works, for then raising, starting from a study of the relevant manuscripts, the peculiarity of the daubertian analyses concerning these topics, as well as the constraints or limits that the phenomenology must impose itself to be distinguished from the Rationalism. (shrink)

La tradition sociologique a habituellement considéré la mobilité, qu’elle soit sociale ou spatiale, comme le déplacement entre des positions établies, l’essentiel étant d’analyser le système formé par ces positions. On trouve cependant, dans la sociologie même, les moyens pour élargir cette perspective. Des travaux sur la mobilité sociale, on tire une interrogation sur l’accès aux ressources qui prend en compte diverses formes de mobilité. Simmel développe l’analyse du rôle de la proximité et de la distance dans la construction du social. (...) Des travaux contemporains qui portent sur les déplacements ou sur la télématique s’inscrivent dans la même perspective. Tocqueville introduit la notion d’une mobilité individuelle, notamment spatiale, consommatoire, et qui n’a d’autre objectif qu’elle-même. Ces trois orientations permettent à la sociologie de contribuer à une théorie de la mobilité généralisée, qui croise l’interrogation sur la modernité.Sociological tradition used to consider mobility – whether social or spatial – as a movement from an established position to another, but it put more emphasis on the positions system than on the movement itself. Yet sociology itself provides the means to widen the scope. Studies on social mobility have eventually resulted in the larger problématique of resource acquisition involving various forms of mobility. Simmel developed an in-depth analysis of the influence of presence vs absence in the set up of social relationships, interrelated with current studies dealing with movements and telematics. Earlier Tocqueville had introduced the concept of individual mobility, notably spatial, consumption-focussed, and with a life of its own ; which eventually resulted in the philosophy of self-reference. These three orientations enable sociology to contribute to a theory of generalized mobility intersecting with the questioning on modernity. (shrink)

The essay illustrates the figure of Demetrios Kavàkis Rhaoul, Byzantine official at the service of the last two Paleologue emperors and of the Despots of the Peloponnese, who was also George Gemistos Plethon’s friend and student. Two short works of his are here published for the first time, one on the Sun God and another on the classification of the religions professed by humanity, alongside two small inedited letters by Plethon. In the first of the two writings, Kavàkis clears the (...) reasons for his aversion towards any kind of religion or philosophy that places the divine beyond the visible world and that believes in the existence of an intelligible or, even worse, over-intelligible world. These ideas lead him to clash not only with Christianity, but also with Plato and with the ideas of his beloved teacher Plethon, who, however, seems to agree with him in a dream. In the second writing this peculiar solar religion is reaffirmed, against the religion of poets and the religions of transcendence, warning however that nature wants some respect for the religion of ancestors, whichever this might be, when it is functional to the life of the society and of the State. (shrink)

L’examen du « canon des Ecritures », après la consécration de l’expression par Athanase au IVe siècle, révèle d’abord une époque où une certaine fluidité caractérisait la réflexion sur l’extension des Ecritures et sur leurs limites. A partir du IVe siècle, une mutation décisive se produit, à laquelle il faut adjoindre une autre évolution sémantique préparée de longue date à travers l’emploi de diatèkè, traduit en latin par testamentum. Ainsi apparaissent deux temps forts dans l’histoire des Ecritures aux premiers siècles (...) du christianisme. Le premier est celui de l’extension du concept de livre saint à d’autres textes que les écrits hérités du judaïsme ; le second, dans la seconde moitié du IVe siècle, est celui des efforts de délimitation de l’Ancien et du Nouveau Testament, des décisions prises pour trancher les débats, commencés deux siècles plus tôt. L’examen de quelques-uns des problèmes que pose l’extension du canon et qui s’offrent ici à l’historien confirme qu’ils ne sont pas résolus définitivement par les Eglises.An examination of the ³canon of the Scriptures,² after the consecration of Athanasius¹ expression in the 4th century, first of all reveals a period when a certain fluidity characterized reflection on the extension of the Scriptures and their limits. From the 4th century a decisive change came about, to which must be added another semantic evolution, which was prepared for a long time through the use of diatéké, translated in Latin by testamentum. Thus, two important periods in the history of the Scriptures appear in the first centuries of Christianity. In the first there was an extension of the concept of the sacred book to texts other than the inherited writings of Judaism. The second period, in the second half of the 4th century, concerns efforts to demarcate the Old and New Testaments, and decisions taken to settle the debates begun two centuries earlier. The examination of some of these problems about the extension of the canon is offered here to the historian and confirms that they are not definitively resolved by the Churches. (shrink)

This article focuses on the analysis of the highly problematic relationship between Psychology and Phenomenology in Husserl’s Crisis of European Sciences, in order to show that this last writing allows us to reconsider the criticisms addressed to descriptive psychology since the first breakthrough of phenomenology. Husserl not only tries to bring psychology back into phenomenological field by describing it as a privileged “way to reduction”, but he more fundamentally shows that the closest examination of the crisis-structure of psychology is essential (...) to the understanding of subjectivity. The psychological dimension of subjectivity is neither a mere difficulty of transcendental philosophy, nor an accident in the history of subjectivity, but it discloses the problem upon which lays the transcendental meaning of subjectivity. According to this point of view, Psychology has to deliver its fullness of content and its empirical richness to subjectivity, and so to give phenomenology back its descriptive dimension. (shrink)

This article proposes to examine the relation between art and the experience of alterity through the typology of modes of existence which Deleuze extracts from literature and cinema. Through the figures of slavery, automatism, petrification, and exhaustion which characterize this typology, it suggests that these experiences of alterity define "minor" modes of existence and thought which are opposed to that volitional autonomy which, for Kant, defines our maturity. The hypothesis examined here is that the notion of the minor marks a (...) turning point from which the emancipatory vocation of the Enlightenment is replaced by an idea of resistance – understood here, according to Deleuze and Lyotard, as an ethical category designating an experience of the alterity constitutive of the self. From this common point, the article finally seeks to identify what separates the ethics of Deleuze from that of Lyotard, analyzing how Deleuze's typology fits neither a logic of freedom nor that of the gift, making itself unavailable for morality. (shrink)

Bernard Lonergan não menciona Joseph Maréchal nos seus escritos, apesar de ter sido por ele influenciado no que respeita à estrutura dinâmica do conhecimento. Apesar disso, há que reconhecer que a intenção de Maréchal não era a de Lonergan. Maréchal, formado em biologia e em psicologia, desejava participar no movimento de renovação do tomismo, o qual na sua época era fortemente intelectualista. O seu esforço juntou-se ao do Maurice Blondel afirmando os direitos do acto comprometido nos processos cognitivos. O desejo (...) natural de conhecer Deus não se dá sem um desejo vital que dinamiza também a vontade em que ele se exprime de forma mais pura e genuína. Lonergan, cujo objectivo era a construção de uma epistemologia da teologia, ocupou-se primordialmente dos procedimentos próprios das ciências. Para ele, o desejo de conhecer leva o sujeito cognoscente a ultrapassar todas as ciências particulares, proporcionadas às nossas funções cognitivas, em direcção ao ser, concebido este de forma adequada como a totalidade presente e futura dos conteúdos do saber. Segundo o autor do artigo, Lonergan estaria, assim, mais próximo de Maréchal do que este de Suárez. /// Bernard Lonergan does not mention Joseph Maréchal in his writings, even though he received his influence regarding the dynamic structure of knowledge. However, the intention of Maréchal was not the intention of Lonergan. Maréchal, who had studied biology and psychology, wanted to participate in the movement of renewal of Thomism, which at the time was strongly intellectualist. His effort conjoined with the effort of Maurice Blondel in the recognition of the rights of the act inherent to the cognitive processes. The natural desire to know God does not come to be without a vital desire that also animates the will in which it comes to a better expression of itself. Lonergan, whose aim was the elaboration of an epistemology of theology, occupied himself primordially with the scientific processes. The desire to know leads the knowing subject beyond all the particular sciences, proportioned to our cognitive functions, toward being, which is adequately conceived as the present and future totality of the contents of knowledge. Hence, according to the author or the article, we might think that Lonergan was closer to Marechal than Marechal was to Suárez. (shrink)

Nacido en 1790 y fallecido en 1932 víctima de la pandemia de cólera, Thomas Skidmore es uno de los principales representantes del agrarismo en los Estados Unidos de la primera mitad del siglo XIX. Inspirado por las ideas desarrolladas por Thomas Paine en Agrarian Justice, en 1829 publicó el libro The rights of Man to property en el que desarrolla las consecuencias de la idea según la cual, siendo el mundo una propiedad común de todos los hombres, cada uno tiene (...) un derecho imprescriptible a una parte igual de los recursos naturales. Entre estas consecuencias figura la tesis de que este derecho hace imposible todo derecho a testar, pues tal derecho haría de todo punto imposible que cada nuevo individuo incorporado tuviera acceso a la justa parte de propiedad a la que tendría derecho. Skidmore elabora así una teoría precisa acerca de las razones por las que el testador, tras su muerte, no puede tener derecho alguno sobre los bienes de los que fue propietario en vida. Born in 1790 and victim of the cholera pandemics in 1832, Thomas Skidmore is one of the main representatives of agrarianism in the United states during the first half of the XIXth century. Inspired by the principles Thomas Paine had put forth in Agrarian justice, Skidmore publishes in 1829 a book entitled The rights of man to property in which he states the consequences of the idea that, the world being the common property of all men, every individual has an imprescriptible right to an equal share of natural resources. Among those consequences is the claim that such a principle makes any right of bequest and inheritance absolutely impossible, since such a right would make it impossible that each new individual arriving in the world has an effective right of access to the just share of property he is entitled to. Skidmore builds in consequence a precise explanation of the reasons why the testator, after his death, can no longer have any right over the properties he owned during his lifetime. (shrink)

The concept of “natural attitude” as it was developed by Husserl in the Ideas I plays a key role in the phenomenological methodology. But was it in and for itself enough investigated? Heidegger’s critics and radical transformation of it is well known, unlike its treatment by the first generation of Husserl’s student. Adolf Reinach, for a short time leader of the realist phenomenology faithful to Husserl’s breakthroughs in the Logical Investigations, is one of the latter. Within a veiled debate with (...) Husserl about possibilities and limits of transcendental idealism (e. g. a critical reception of Ideas I) he attempts a kind of rehabilitation of natural attitude by way of an original and thorough description of it. Still in a strictly phenomenological manner, it though privileges for strategic reasons the “variation” process over the “reduction” one. The result is a subtle reflection that helps us thinking lived experience exactly as we lived it and not how philosophy would have it. (shrink)

International problems are not reducible to economic and social conjuncture. Thucydides therefore focuses on events, particular human acts performed freely-chosen, and thus themselves irreducible to junctures of forces. No twentieth-century Thucydides could exist; no intelligible account of the wars of the present century could omit references to actors, but they would not be of central interpretative importance. Modern events are disindividualized, modern collective decisions numerous and complex. Thucydides nevertheless remains significant today to those unwilling to view events divorced from the (...) action of individuals. As an historian Thucydides experienced a feeling of destiny looking back upon free actions, but still held that they alone merit attention. (shrink)

This article deals with the main themes I discussed in a book under the same title. The leading thread of the work is to present the issue that Hume, from A Treatise of Human Nature to Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , continually discusses and examines. Th e point aim is to put metaphysics and its claims to a most ruthless test that would ultimately disqualify it. Such disqualification, which brings metaphysics down to an incoherent daydreaming, is the other side and (...) consequence of a notion of science that Hume wants to create foundations for, i.e. a “science of human nature”. In a sense, this enterprise is a continuation of Descartes, who provided philosophy with a new foundation, that is the self-awareness of the human subject. But, if Descartes’ subject is funded on the cogito act, Hume’s turns out to be not a certain “I”, but a non-personal subject, a kind of il y a, whereas the mind is a kind of theatre, on whose stage various perceptions appear in different configurations. Hume’s analyses demonstrated that human cognition has no foundation in any substantial subjectivity, but in temporal genealogy of appearing impressions and ideas.Descartes wants to define the functioning of the mind, beginning with separating it from sensuality, while Hume sees the mind as a simple interplay of relations between ideas, having their source in the sensuality. Hence the critique of metaphysical claims and of religion. It is precisely the study of sources of religious beliefs that constitutes a substantial part of Hume’s work, because they are a good example of how easily the human mind exceeds the borders of experience – the only foundation of knowledge – and how easily it paves the way for metaphysical illusions.For Hume, the subject, comes down to the functioning of the relations between ideas, which merely are simple refl exes of sensuality. In the mind there is nothing and cannot be anything apart from what has already been introduced there by the senses. Thus Hume takes up and radicalizes Locke’s thesis. (shrink)

The article entitled “Ruyer and the lessons of Instinct” focuses on the problem of the anthropological difference. André Conrad first shows that for any comprehensive ethology (Fabre, von Uexküll, Buytendijk) instinct depends neither on the mechanism of “autonomous sequences” (Lorenz, Tinbergen) nor on “regulated behaviours”: it is an embryology organised and developed accordingly to a “thematic action” (Ruyer). Thus, if human being is separated from animality by the originality of the symbolic function (Cassirer and Langer), the thematic action does not (...) separate social embryology –both cultural and political– from the mystery of Life. That is this precise “Thematism” (Ruyer) that allows us to understand both the difference and community between living beings. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a reconsideration of the question about the relation between pyrrhonism and Academic skepticism in Montaigne’s Essais. I argue that he had taken from the start these two skeptical tendencies as rather similar and even compatible (in spite of important differences he recognizes among them). Montaigne’s evolving interest on Cicero’s Academica, as we can remark along the successive editions of the Essais, brings with it not only a transformation of his own personal skepticism (that he takes (...) to be more and more close to what he finds in Cicero), but also an improvement of his judgment on this question of the relationship between these two philosophies. In conclusion, I discuss briefly on the relations between Montaigne and Cicero in a more general way, from the perspective of these skeptical elements. (shrink)

Kafka and the Work of Domination Is it reasonable to look for an apprehension of the practices of domination in the œuvre of a writer ? To be more specific, in the writings of Kafka whose short stories and novels are characterised by their formal innovations and their break with the codes of realist narration ? The social and historical analysis of his work clearly demonstrates that Kafka constantly strove to elucidate the mechanisms of the domination which he personally had (...) suffered from , and which he had been able to observe in various professional contexts : the family clothes-shop, the bureaucratic world of an insurance company dealing with accidents at work, the companies he visited as an assessor of the professional risks to which workers were liable through their contact with machines, or the family asbestos factory. Through his representation of a range of situations which are oppressive, alienating, and frequently humiliating, to which the dominated parties participate, involuntarily and frequently unconsciously, Kafka was proceeding with his vast enterprise aimed at self-knowledge and the knowledge of inter-human relations. (shrink)

The originality of Leibniz’s ontology rests on the fact that his legal philosophy consists of a great philosophical synthesis of legal humanism. As far as the question of delimiting the legal domain is concerned, “legal science” is actually ubiquitous in Leibniz’s metaphysical edifice: its omnipresence is evident not only when law and justice are referred to, but also in relation to the arguments on normative order. In our view, in Leibniz legal science does not constitute an autonomous field, clearly separated (...) from other branches of the humanities. By its very subject –the order of legal rules as “truths”– legal science is inscribed perfectly in the idea according to which the subject of scholarly demonstration is truth. By virtue of this theory, Leibniz determines the elements of a legal system that exist as positive, and natural law as contingent (or historical) and eternal truths. We believe this theory of legal norms showcases the characteristics of a “hyletic” ontology. Leibniz’s doctrine of natural law is indeed tantamount to a mass of truths deemed “necessary”, but deprived of obligatory force; this is unlike voluntarist ontology, according to which the rules of law are equivalent to the commands of a hierarchically superior sovereign. One of the most interesting challenges in Leibniz legal scholarship lies in displaying the harmony between the rational legal system and the irrational perplexities. (shrink)

Claudine Tiercelin has shared with Hilary Putnam a criticism of various attempts to naturalize intentionality and a criticism of radical forms of anti-representationalism. Nevertheless, this agreement is accompanied by an important divergence concerning the value of the couple “representation/reality” for defining mind and knowledge after one has rejected reductive naturalism and anti-representationalism. In order to analyse this divergence, I resort to Peirce and to Aristotle.

While tolerance is acclaimed almost unanimously as an indispensable value in pluralistic and democratic societies, the meaning of this virtue is in fact far from obvious. There are good reasons to believe that the inflationary expectations addressed to it tend to cover up its specific difficulty. The A. therefore offers a conceptual analysis of the conditions of tolerance, placing particular emphasis on the conflict of reasons internal to the tolerating person, and pointing to the reflective structure of practical reason. In (...) this formal characterization, tolerance appears as a kind of permission grounded in the principle of exclusion of certain reasons for acting. If indeed tolerance presupposes such a complex balance of reasons, its moral value can never be taken for granted since it depends entirely on the quality of the reasons on the balance sheet. (shrink)

Le Jansénisme c’est d’abord un mot, une idée et une réalité. Ce sont aussi des personnages, hommes et femmes, qui au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècles ont joué une incarnation qui n’était pas que religieuse ou théologique, malgré le primat de celle-ci. Le tableau historique que propose M. Le Guern est aussi l’analyse des positions et réactions des principaux acteurs, de Richelieu et Saint-Cyran à Antoine Arnaud, de Nicolas Pavillon et le Formulaire, jusqu’à Quesnel et la reprise des hostilités après (...) une certaine accalmie fin de siècle, avec les effets de la Bulle Unigenitus. Comme on le sait, le terme, sinon vraiment définitif dont il faudrait encore parler, du moins selon d’importants repères historiques, se lit aujourd’hui en divers mouvements qui, après miracles et convulsions, se réduiront, à défaut de se résoudre, dans les conflits, les dispersions et les dérives sectaires. Jansenism is, first of all, a word, an idea, and a reality. It also includes characters, the men and women who incarnated it during the 17th and 18th centuries, not only on a religious or theological level, despite the primacy of the latter. The historical picture that M. Le Guern proposes is also an analysis of the positions and reactions of the principle actors, from Richelieu and Saint-Cyran to Antoine Arnaud, from Nicolas Pavillon and the Formulary, all the way to Quesnel and the renewal of hostilities, after a certain calm at the end of the century, due to the effects of the Bull Unigenitus. As we know, the term “Jansenism”, while still open to discussion, can at least be interpreted today, in terms of important historical landmarks. It comprised various movements which, after miracles and convulsions, were finally degenerated –for want of a resolution – into conflicts, dissipation, and sectarian drifts. (shrink)

Small corpora remain an important resource for addressing questions requiring specialized data not found in large general purpose corpora. But do these small corpora have sufficient data to analyze low-frequency phenomena? This article presents a case study of the try-and-V pseudocoordination construction in English, which has an unusual morphosyntactic restriction: neither verb can be inflected. Diachronic corpora elucidate its origin as reanalysis from ambiguous usage of non-finite verbs in the late 1500s. Dialectal corpora reveal variation in frequency but not grammatical (...) properties. And child language corpora reveal productive usage even by young children. These results are considered successful and the outlook is optimistic for addressing low-frequency phenomena beyond contemporary, standard English, especially as more, and more diverse, corpora become available. (shrink)

Dans Cartésianisme et augustinisme au XVIIe siècle, Gouhier ne range pas Fénelon aux côtés des cartésiens « inconditionnels » et ne le considère pas comme l'auteur d'un système philosophique mais lui accorde un simple éclectisme de concepts et de notions. Ce sont ces deux assertions que nous souhaiterions examiner en montrant que Fénelon est non seulement un interprète pertinent et orthodoxe de la métaphysique des Méditations mais que, dans son entreprise herméneutique, il offre l'exemple d'une philosophie originale et achevée, accomplissant (...) ce que Descartes a laissé inachevé, à savoir un traité des attributs divins. Continuateur du projet cartésien de développer une « science parfaite » des perfections divines (AT IX, 56), Fénelon propose une apologétique cartésienne correspondant à cette « philosophie chrétienne » que Descartes lui-même entendait élaborer et à laquelle il conférait utilité et certitude (Épître aux Méditations, AT IX, 6) In Cartésianisme et augustinisme au XVIIe siècle, Gouhier does not rate Fénelon among « unconditional Cartesians » neither does he judge him as the author of a philosophical sys-tem but he does grant him mère conceptual eclecticism. We would like to challenge those two assertions in showing that Fénelon is not only a relevant and orthodox interpréter ofthe meta-physics of the Méditations but also that, in his undertaking hermeneutics, he offers example of an original and accomplished philosophy, achieving what Descartes had left uncompleted, i.e. a treatise of divine attributes. Successor of Descartes' project of a « perfect science » of divine perfections (AT IX, 56), Fénelon suggests a Cartesian apologia, which squares with this « Christian philosophy », that Descartes himself wanted to found as useful and certain (Épître, AT IX, 6). (shrink)

La théorie de la connaissance des années 60 et 70 a été marquée par l'emploi des arguments transcendantaux de toutes sortes. Ces arguments pourraient servir à défendre l'applicabilité de nos concepts fondamentaux qui font l'objet d'une variété d'attaques sceptiques. Malheureusement, la prise de conscience des difficultés mettant en cause l'efficacité ou même la validité des arguments transcendantaux a progressivement conduit à leur abandon, quoique certains philosophes n'aient jamais cessé de les utiliser. Mon analyse s'inspire du renouveau récent de l'intérêt pour (...) l'argumentation transcendantale dans le domaine de la raison pratique, et en particulier de l'élaboration d'un modèle de ce genre d'argumentation par A. W. Moore. Je procède à l'examen d'un argument de forme transcendantale développé par Christine Korsgaard afin de justifier l'autorité des normes morales. Je tente d'évaluer l'efficacité de cet argument et du modèle général auquel il se conforme, de le comparer à des approches alternatives et d'étudier les rapports de ses prémisses et de sa conclusion avec des prises de position réalistes et anti-réalistes en métaéthique.There is a revival of interest in transcendental arguments, which used to be very popular in recent decades but were progressively abandoned because of doubts concerning their plausibility and even their validity, although of course some philosophers never ceased to use them. My paper deals with a particular model of transcendental arguments which can be employed in the area of practical philosophy, elaborated by A.W. Moore. I examine an application of this model in the construction of a complex argument by Christine Korsgaard which aims at establishing the authority of moral norms. I discuss its structure and the relations of its premises and of its conclusion to certain realist and anti- realist positions in metaethics, I compare it to alternative approaches to the same problem, and I try to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. (shrink)

La philosophie « sert à nuire à la bêtise », écrit Deleuze en 1962. Huit ans plus tard, dans Différence et Répétition, après avoir défini la bêtise de plusieurs manières différentes, il l’évoque pourtant comme « la source du plus haut pouvoir » de la pensée. Le but de cet article est de reconstruire l’unité et la compatibilité de ces diverses formules, notamment à partir du chapitre 3 de Différence et Répétition. On s’intéresse d’abord à l’objet central de ce chapitre, (...) « l’image dogmatique de la pensée ». On s’interroge ensuite sur la variété des définitions de la bêtise, que cette « image dogmatique » prétend ramener à l’erreur. On précise enfin les rapports de la bêtise avec les autres « structures de la pensée » que Deleuze mentionne au titre des « négatifs » de la pensée. La relation entre la pensée philosophique et la bêtise est destinée à rester aussi étroite que tendue : la question est finalement celle du rôle qu’y joue « l’image de la pensée » elle-même. (shrink)

Tout au long des années trente, un groupe de jeunes intellectuels non conformistes réunis dans le mouvement " Ordre Nouveau " ont lancé dans le débat une pensée radicalement nouvelle en rupture avec les idées dominantes du collectivisme conquérant et du capitalisme traditionnel. Ils avaient nom Denis de Rougemont, Robert Aron, Arnaud Dandieu, Daniel-Rops, Emmanuel Mounier. Alexandre Marc, philosophe jeté hors de sa Russie natale par la victoire des bolcheviques, était leur fédérateur et animateur principal.0De ces idées, il fit une (...) doctrine, le fédéralisme personnaliste, à l'approfondissement et à la diffusion de laquelle il consacra toute sa vie. On pourrait la croire aujourd'hui oubliée. Et pourtant, c'est en elle qu'ont germé des réalisations et des propositions, révolutionnaires en ces temps et très présentes dans les débats actuels : fédéralisme européen, crise de civilisation, allocation universelle, subsidiarité et régionalisme, etc.0Il en est jusqu'à la pensée dialectique du " en même temps ", chère au macronisme, qui apparaît comme une transposition hasardeuse de la dialectique inclusive, théorisée par Alexandre Marc. Sa disparition, voilà vingt ans, appelle une évaluation de cette doctrine et une tentative d'appréciation critique de sa pertinence. Ce livre s'efforce d'illustrer cette ambition au travers des réflexions des auteurs sur certains de ses aspects névralgiques comme le personnalisme, la crise, la dialectique ou l'action politique.0Certains ont été des élèves et des proches collaborateurs d'Alexandre Marc ; d'autres ne l'ont connu qu'au travers de ses écrits ou de ses conférences. Tous se reconnaissent dans le personnalisme, fondement de cette doctrine méconnue et pourtant, étonnamment actuelle. (shrink)

De par sa nature essentiellement symbolique, l'expression vise à faire ressortir des éléments partiels ou globaux propres à une expérience originale de la réalité, par la médiation de formes diverses, dont les principales sont le langage, l'art et la science. Quant à cette dernière, l'auteur prend l'exemple de la sociologie, pour conclure que celle-ci constitue comme la limite épistémologique de la structuration des phénomènes sociaux, expression, dans un langage dit scientifique, des constantes de la vie sociale.As being essentially symbolic, the (...) nature of expression consists in bringing out partial or global dimensions related to a peculiar experience of reality, through many forms, mainly langage, science, and the arts. As far as science is concerned, the author takes the example of sociology, and concludes that this discipline may be seen as the epistemological limit of the structure of the social phenomena, an expression, through a so-called scientific language, of the recurrent aspects of the social life itself. (shrink)

L'auteur esquisse une définition du concept d'événement et aborde plusieurs aspects ayant trait à sa médiatisation et son internationalisation. À propos de l'impact des nouvelles technologies dans le champ des médias, il analyse le rôle des nouveaux « capteurs » d'information en temps réel, leur influence dans l'élaboration des contenus médiatiques ainsi que la tendance à l'hypersegmentation de ceux-ci. L'auteur conclut en formulant l'hypothèse d'un renforcement de la sphère de la réception comme lieu de production de sens.The author outlines a (...) definition of the event concept and discusses several aspects related to its media and its internationalization. About the impact of new technologies in the field of media, it analyzes the role of the new 'sensors' information in real time, their influence in the development of media content as well as the trend of those hypersegmentation thereof. The author concludes with the hypothesis of an increase of the sphere of reception as a production sense. (shrink)

Le parti d'appuyer la pensée de la chose politique sur l'histoire est commun à Hume et à Machiavel ; cette parenté attire l'attention sur les jugements portés par le philosophe écossais sur son prédécesseur florentin et, plus encore, sur le rapprochement des deux pensées. Dans la « manière » des réflexions politiques de Hume, la primauté du fait réel, l'adresse à un lectorat prenant part à l'exercice du pouvoir, la méthode d'élaboration de préceptes subtils sont autant d'éléments de ressemblance avec (...) la pratique de Machiavel. Si l'on porte l'attention sur la « matière », on note la grande ressemblance des conceptions du corps politique, de sa formation et de ses destins possibles, le traitement comparable des questions du régime le meilleur et de l'impératif d'une conservation. Néanmoins, cet impératif ne s'impose pas dans les mêmes termes chez Hume qui propose d'adapter la pensée machiavélienne aux nouveautés introduites par la modernité marchande. Committing oneself to rest the thought on the topic of politics on history is common denominator to both Hume and Machiavelli : such a connection focuses on the judgements put up by the Scottish philosopher onto his Florentine predecessor and, more, on the rapprochement between both thoughts. In the « way » Hume disserts on his own philosophical ponderings, the primacy of real fact, the addressing to readers exercising power, the method consisting in sketching subtle precepts are but the first and foremost elements of a resemblance with Machiavelli's practice. If one stresses the « topic » itself, there's a primary resemblance on how political bodies are dealt with, on how it may be erected and its possible fates, the comparable way through which a better regime should be handled together with the imperative of preservation. However, such an imperative is not the same for Hume who suggests Machiavellian thought should be adapted to the novelties introduced through marketable modernity. (shrink)

L'exposé du scepticisme sémantique par Kripke dans son ouvrage intitulé Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language est généralement considéré comme intéressant et philosophiquement stimulant, mais non comme une exégèse plausible des vues de Wittgenstein dans ses Recherches philosophiques. Cet article a pour but de montrer au contraire que l'interprétation de Kripke donne un exposé correct de certaines des vues les plus importantes de Wittgenstein sur le concept de suivre une règle dans les Recherches.Kripke's exposition of semantic scepticism in Wittgenstein on (...) Rules and Private Language is widely regarded as an interesting and stimulating piece of philosophical argumentation, though not as a plausible exegesis of Wittgenstein's own views in the Philosophical Investigations. The aim of this paper is to show on the contrary that Kripke gives a correct reading of at least some of Wittgenstein's most important views on rule-following in the Investigations. (shrink)

L'exposé du scepticisme sémantique par Kripke dans son ouvrage intitulé Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language est généralement considéré comme intéressant et philosophiquement stimulant, mais non comme une exégèse plausible des vues de Wittgenstein dans ses Recherches philosophiques. Cet article a pour but de montrer au contraire que l'interprétation de Kripke donne un exposé correct de certaines des vues les plus importantes de Wittgenstein sur le concept de suivre une règle dans les Recherches.Kripke's exposition of semantic scepticism in Wittgenstein on (...) Rules and Private Language is widely regarded as an interesting and stimulating piece of philosophical argumentation, though not as a plausible exegesis of Wittgenstein's own views in the Philosophical Investigations. The aim of this paper is to show on the contrary that Kripke gives a correct reading of at least some of Wittgenstein's most important views on rule-following in the Investigations. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ Je veux m'attarder à trois aspects importants du Droit des gens de John Rawls. Je veux tout d'abord montrer que cette oeuvre contribue à réfuter l’interprétation erronée selon laquelle Rawls souscrirait à une conception individualiste du libéralisme. Je veux en deuxième lieu souligner l’importance d'intégrer un droit des peuples au sein de la philosophie politique libérale. Le principe de l’égalité entre les peuples peut être interprété comme ayant un corollaire, à savoir, le principe du développement égal des peuples, et (...) ce dernier principe est susceptible de nombreuses applications progressistes au niveau de la justice internationale. En troisième lieu, je veux suggérer que même si des amendements importants étaient apportés à la version initiale du Droit des gens, au point d'inclure, à l’encontre de l’opinion exprimée par Rawls, le principe de différence et d'en reconnaître l’universalité, on ne serait quand même pas en présence d'un libéralisme de type individualiste. ABSTRACT I would like to consider three important aspects of Rawls' Law of Peoples. I want to show, first, that the work serves to refute the mistaken interpretation according to which Rawls would subscribe to an individualistic interpretation of liberalism. Second, I also want to underline the importance of incorporating a law of peoples within a liberal political philosophy. The principle of equality between peoples can be interpreted as having a corollary, the principle of an equal development between peoples, and this last principle paves the way to many progressist applications at the level of international justice. Third, I want to suggest that even if amendments were made to the initial version of The Law of Peoples in such a way that, pace Rawls, it would now contain among its principles the difference principle and would recognize its universal status, the resulting approach would still not be a liberal individualism. (shrink)

Dans cet article je mets en évidence quelques problèmes conceptuels importants posés par le prétendu phénomène de la génération spontanée, en montrant comment ils étaient liés historiquement à la question théorique des origines et de l’ontologie des espèces biologiques. Au XVIe et XVIIe siècle tout particulièrement, la possibilité que des formes organiques soient générées dans la matière inorganique supposait la possibilité que le hasard gouverne non seulement l’apparition d’une anguille ou d’une souris, mais qu’il gouverne l’apparition originelle de leurs espèces (...) mêmes. En outre, dans la conception de la reproduction sexuelle que le mécanisme parvient à répandre, toute génération, des êtres humains aussi bien que des anguilles, menace de ne plus s’expliquer autrement que par ce que Descartes appelle « les causes mineures ». Ainsi, comme je tenterai de le prouver, les problèmes théoriques que la génération spontanée, telle que le début de la modernité la concevait, posaient à la compréhension de l’ontologie des espèces, n’étaient pas essentiellement différents de ceux soulevés par l’explication mécaniste de la reproduction sexuelle, et si nous n’accordons pas à ce fait l’attention nécessaire, nous perdons de vue, je pense, un facteur important dans le rejet ultime de la génération spontanée.In this article I shall draw out some of the important conceptual problems posed by the purported phenomenon of spontaneous generation, showing how these problems were historically connected with the theoretical question of the origins and nature of biological species, and above all with the problem of their boundaries. In the 16th- and 17th- centuries in particular, the possibility of organic forms arising from inorganic matter carried with it the possibility that chance governs not only the emergence of an individual eel or mouse, but indeed governs the original emergence of the mouse- and eel-kinds. Moreover, on the newly ascendant mechanist understanding of sexual reproduction, all generation, whether of eels or of horses and men, now threatened to be exhaustively accounted for in terms of what Descartes called ‘minor causes’. Thus, I argue, the sort of problems that spontaneous generation was perceived to bring about for the early modern understanding of the ontology of species were not in principle any different from the problems posed by the mechanist account of sexual reproduction, and if we fail to note this, I show, we overlook an important factor in the eventual demise of spontaneous-generation theory. (shrink)

Il y a une convergence obligée entre SF et féminisme. D'abord la SF a 'pour ancêtre l'utopie, et imagine donc des modèles de société autres, tout comme le féminisme est obligé de le faire; ensuite, la SF permet d'aborder les problèmes des femmes d'un point de vue créatif et non réactif comme la littérature normative; enfin la distance mythique retrouvée dans la SF permet aux auteures et lectrices d'accéder pleinement au registre héroïque, qui leur est souvent dénié par la littérature (...) normative.There is a necessary convergence between science fiction and feminism. On one hand, SF has utopia for an ancestor and therefore invents other societal models, as feminism itself must do. On the other hand, SF deals creatively with women's problems, not just reactively like mainstream literature does. And finally, due to the mythic perspective that permeates SF, writers and readers can fully participate in the heroic, which is often denied to by mainstream literature. (shrink)

In his artful and well-documented study professor De Koninck of the University of Laval, Quebec, takes the reader on a trip through the often appalling deficits of modern Western culture to point out the road to the light. The title exposes one aspect of the situation: an ignorance, branded by Socrates, which made its comeback under different forms. The sciences, considered by many the panacea for all diseases, cannot answer questions outside their respective fields. They create abstractions which are a (...) threat to real culture. A running indictment of the evils of our time follows: self-destruction by drugs, criminality, and self-inflicted diseases, erroneous theories which kill, annoyance which provokes violence, the crisis of education, the impoverishment of knowledge, the ignorance of our economists and our political leaders. Finally, the worst of all, there is nihilism, the ignorance of the end. (shrink)

Il est incontestable que la politique est l'horizon absolu de la pensée de Machiavel. La question, pourtant, est de savoir si, à l'origine de la politique machiavélienne, n'existerait pas une interrogation fondatrice, quoique implicite le plus souvent, sur l'Être. D'une « géométrie du politique », Machiavel tire les figures schématiques de ce que l'on pourrait appeler un formalisme politique. Or, la distinction matière-forme ne peut se concevoir que fondée dans celle de l'Être et du paraître. Dès lors, vouloir comprendre la (...) place accordée par lui à la morale en politique implique d'admettre que Machiavel opère un profond bouleversement métaphysique : celui de la puissance et de l'acte, à travers une pensée nouvelle de l'apparence comme réalité propre du politique. La politique n'est pas un problème moral, mais ontologique. It is unquestionable that politics is the foundation of Machiaveli's thought. The question is however to see if there is not another more fundamental idea, often implicit, at the heart of Machiaveli's political theory : That of 'Being'. Using a « political geometry », Machiaveli shapes schematic figures into what may be called a political formalism. However, the distinction between substance and form can only be understood iffounded on the one between 'Being' and 'appearing'. Therefore, in order to understand the place given by him to morality in politics, one must admit that Machiaveli performs hère a profound metaphysical upheaval : that of power and action, operating through a new concept of 'appearances' as true reality of politics. Politics is not a moral problem, but an ontological one. (shrink)

Drawing on the records of an “alcoholism counselling service” launched in the 13th arrondissement of Paris in 1954, this article studies how social work became part of the new scope of psychiatric care for alcohol addiction, at a time when new medical cures were becoming available. The content and structure of patient records, which we analyse in comparison with papers from medical and social work journals, provide an insight into the day-to-day tasks of the social workers, who worked as closely (...) as possible with alcoholic patients and their families. The article shows that the action of the social worker, which became central, although subordinated to that of psychiatric medicine, took on a psychotherapeutic dimension and was characterised by the need to gain the patient’s trust and ensure their adherence to treatment, thus marking a clear inflection in the relationship with beneficiaries. However, social work was still characterised by its constitutive ambiguity; its control and surveillance functions created difficulties, misunderstandings and disputes with the patients and their relatives. (shrink)

The article discusses Friedman's classic claim that economics can be based on irrealistic assumptions. It exploits Samuelson's distinction between two "F-twists" (that is, "it is an advantage for an economic theory to use irrealistic assumptions" vs "the more irrealistic the assumptions, the better the economic theory"), as well as Nagel's distinction between three philosophy-of-science construals of the basic claim. On examination, only one of Nagel's construals seems promising enough. It involves the neo-positivistic distinction between theoretical and non-theoretical ("observable") terms; so (...) Friedman would in some sense argue for the major role of theoretical terms in economics. The paper uses a model-theoretic apparatus to refine the selected construal and check whether it can be made to support the claim. This inquiry leads to essentially negative results for both F-twists, and the final conclusion is that they are left unsupported. (shrink)

Résumé — La controverse religieuse qui a suivi l’essor du luthéranisme est ordinairement présentée comme le moteur principal de la reviviscence du pyrrhonisme à l’âge moderne. Au XVIe siècle, la religion aurait fait du pyrrhonisme un outil apologétique puissant, véritable arme que s’opposeraient les diverses confessions. Pourtant, comme le note Bayle dans son Dictionnaire, les rapports entre le scepticisme et la théologie sont extrêmement ambigus : un rapide tableau des appréciations portées par les théologiens chrétiens montrent que, chez les Réformés (...) comme chez les catholiques, l’humiliation des lumières naturelles est pensée comme une entrave à l’instauration de la foi. Seuls les courants pauliniens et mystiques voient dans cette philosophie un moyen bénéfique à la vie spirituelle. Pour devenir un outil intellectuel reconnu dans les milieux catholiques tridentins, le pyrrhonisme a dû subir une métamorphose radicale : Omer Talon, suivi par Gentian Hervet, ont reconfiguré le pyrrhonisme à partir du modèle probabiliste de la Nouvelle Académie, pourtant récusé par Sextus Empiricus. Assoupli, le scepticisme a alors été pensé comme le moyen privilégié d’une refondation de la dialectique rationaliste et de la défense de la foi.— The religious controversy which followed the development of Lutheranism is usually presented as the main engine of the revivescence of the Pyrrhonism in early modern period. In the sixteenth century, religion would have made by Pyrrhonism a powerful apologetic tool, true weapon that adverse confessions would have set against each other. Nevertheless, as Bayle notes it in its Dictionary, the connection between scepticism and theology is extremely ambiguous : a fast outline of the appreciations carried by the Christian theologians shows that, by protestants as well as by Catholics, the humiliation of natural lights is thought as an obstacle of the institution of faith. Only the Paulinian and mystic currents see in such a philosophy a beneficial resource for spiritual life. To become an intellectual tool recognized in the catholic Tridentin circles, Pyrrhonism must have been subjected to a radical transformation : Omer Talon, followed by Gentian Hervet, has restructured Pyrrhonism from the probabilistic model of the New Academy, even though such a model was rejected by Sextus Empiricus. Such mitigated, scepticism has then been considered as one of the privileged means of the refondation of rationalistic dialectic, and of the defence of faith. (shrink)

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Soren Kierkegaard a publié les Miettes philosophiques ou Une miette de philosophie à l’âge de 31 ans. Cette brochure n’est rien de moins qu’une réplique à l’Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques de Hegel. C’est à partir de la mise en contraste de deux paradigmes, paradigme socratique et paradigme christique, ou à partir d’une fiction du christianisme, que se déploie cette réplique dont toute l’ampleur apparaît dans l’Interlude intercalé entre les deux derniers chapitres : placé sous la bannière de Leibniz, ce morceau (...) d’une technicité philosophique redoutable contient une éblouissante généalogie des catégories, conduisant le lecteur de la catégorie d’advenir (Tilblivelse) jusqu’à la catégorie de répétition (Gjentagelse) sans laquelle on ne peut penser correctement le devenir-chrétien. (shrink)

The Cogito and the Mexican Salamander.Philosophy and the Rest of Sciences in the late Merleau-Ponty The article examines Merleau-Ponty’s almost parallel reading – in his last courses at the Collège de France – of the Cartesian cogito and the development of the Axolotl, the salamander studied by American biologist Coghill. My hypothesis is that the metaphysics of the cogito and the biology of the Axolotl represented for Merleau-Ponty two ways of access to the same discovery. Descartes came up against a (...) phenomenon, the cogito, which required the reshaping of metaphysics as a sort of (impossible) psychology of the event or the absolute. Within the field of anatomy, Coghill came up against a phenomenon, the embryogenesis of the Axolotl, which similarly required a sort of conversion of anatomy into embryology. Therefore, bios and psyché, “embryonality” and the cogito, would be nothing but the denomination of the objects that psychology and biology meet along their borders, names for what we could refer to as “event,” “continuum,” “becoming” or, according to an old but still suitable definition, “absolute.” This has countless consequences on the relationship between the so-called human sciences and the so-called natural sciences, their eternally missed dialogue, their false complementarity and the illusion that the famous “two cultures” do actually exist.Il Cogito e la lucertola messicana.La filosofia e il resto delle scienze nell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty L’articolo prende in esame la lettura quasi parallela che Merleau-Ponty svolge, negli ultimi corsi di lezione al Collège de France, del cogito cartesiano e dello sviluppo dell’Axolotl, la lucertola studiata dal biologo americano Coghill. La nostra ipotesi è che la metafisica del cogito, e la biologia dell’Axolotl, rappresentino agli occhi di Merleau-Ponty due modi d’accesso a una stessa scoperta. Dall’interno della metafisica, Descartes si imbatte in un fenomeno, il cogito appunto, che esige che la metafisica si istituisca come una sorta di (impossibile) psicologia dell’eventoo dell’assoluto. Tutta la metafisica sarebbe psicologia, cioè indicazione del luogo assoluto nel quale è inscritto ogni luogo. Dall’interno dell’anatomia, Coghill siimbatte in un fenomeno, lo sviluppo dell’embrione dell’Axolotl, che esige analogamente che tutta l’anatomia si risolva in embriologia. Il vivente sarebbe allora in generale questa condizione di gemmazione e autoorganizzazione, e l’embriologia sarebbe la scienza (impossibile) di questo divenire perfettamenteanoggettuale. Bios e psyché, “embrionalità” e cogito non sarebbero che i nomi di ciò che la psicologia e la biologia incontrano al loro confine, nomi di ciò che infilosofia si chiama evento, continuum, divenire, o, con un vecchio e adattissimo termine, assoluto. Il che comporta innumerevoli conseguenze circa il rapporto trale cosiddette scienze umane e le cosiddette scienze naturali, sul loro dialogo eternamente mancato, sulla loro falsa complementarietà, sull’illusione che si diano davvero le celebri “due culture”. (shrink)

Pour certains interprètes des Recherches philosophiques , Wittgenstein souscrit à l'idée que l'emploi d'un langage est une institution sociale et que suivre une règle est nécessairement une pratique partagée ; d'autres estiment au contraire — à mon avis avec raison — qu'il admet la possibilité d'un langage parlé par un seul individu et des règles non communes. Je défends l'interprétation selon laquelle la question importante dans les Recherches n'est pas tellement de savoir si un idiolecte est possible que de savoir (...) ce qui découle, pour nos concepts de signification, de compréhension linguistique et de « suivre une règle », du fait que la communication verbale soit — comme c'est normalement le cas — une pratique commune.According to some interpreters of the Philosophical Investigations , Wittgenstein thinks that language-use is a social institution and that rule following is a shared practice. Others hold the opposite view and rightly so. They argue that Wittgenstein thinks there could be a language which is spoken by only one individual and unshared rules. In this paper I defend the following interpretation: The important question raised in the Investigations is not whether or not an idiolect is possible , it is rather what follows with respect to our concepts of meaning , understanding and rule-following from the fact that verbal communication is indeeed a shared practice. (shrink)

Le Service de la recherche, partie intégrante mais autonome de l'ORTF, a connu quinze ans d'existence entre le Club d'essai auquel il succède et l'Institut national de l'audiovisuel, dont il prépare lointainement la fondation. Il faut noter qu'en 1960, les modestes studios du 37 rue de l'Université ne s'occupent plus de recherche radiophonique, mais sont voués depuis une dizaine d'années à la musique concrète et expérimentale. La pression de la télévision s'accentuant et devenant le souci majeur de la RTF, il (...) est donc dans la logique institutionnelle de voir mobilisés à d'autres fins des moyens de recherche jusque-là consacrés à la musique. Pierre Schaeffer se lance dans une recherche expérimentale intégrée au dispositif que représente la radiotélévision, nouvelle aventure qui va jouer un rôle essentiel dans les domaines de l'information et de la communication avant même qu'il ne formalise sa théorie.The Research Service, part of the autonomous but ORTF had fifteen years of existence between the Club test to which it succeeds and the National Institute of Audiovisual, which prepares the foundation distantly. It should be noted that in 1960, the modest studios 37 rue de l'Université not occupy more research radio, but are destined for a decade with musique concrète and experimental. The pressure is increasing and television became the major concern of the RTF, it is the institutional logic of seeing mobilized for other purposes means research hitherto devoted to music. Pierre Schaeffer embarked on an experimental device that is integrated broadcasting, new adventure that will play a key role in the fields of information and communication before he formalized his theory. (shrink)

RésuméDans cet article, l'auteur discute les principes qui ont guidé M. Gonseth dans ses recherches sur la géométrie et le problème de l'espace. M. Gonseth défend la thèse selon laquelle avant de tenter de résoudre le problème de la géométrie, on doit disposer des facultés d'intuition, de déduction et d'une connaissance expérimentale de l'espace.M. Tummers a publié trois brochures sur la géométrie: 1. De Opbouw der Meetkunde ; 2. De Meetkunde en de Ervaring ; 3. Wijsgerige Verantwoording van het Paralelenpostulaat (...) . Il défend la thèse selon laquelle une science dont toute expérience serait bannie ne pourrait pas exister. Dans la troisième de ces brochures, il montre que la proposition des parallèles n'est pas une thèse qui peut ětre déduite, mais un véritable postulat. L'auteur suppose dans sa recherche — exactement comme M. Gonseth — l'expérience ainsi que les facultés d'intuition et de déduction.L'auteur conclut que M. Gonseth, lorsqu'il montre que l'expérience et les facultés d'intuition et de déduction sont indispensables pour la construction de la géométrie, a prouvé une thèse d'une importance fondamentale. L'auteur essaye de construire une géométrie abstraite, mais dirigée par l'expérience, alors que Hilbert introduit une géométrie entièrement abstraite, excluant l'expérience comme instrument de contrǒle.In this article the author discusses the principles leading Mr. Gonseth in his search of geometry and the problem of the space. The following books of Mr. Gonseth are consulted:I. La déduction préalable. II. Les trois aspects de la Géométrie. III. L'Edification axiomatique.Mr. Gonseth argues that—before attempting to solve the problem of geometry—we must avail ourselves of the faculties of intuition and deduction, and of an experimental knowledge of the space.The author Mr. Tummers has published three brochures on geometry:1° De Opbouw der Meetkunde 1941. 2° De Meetkunde en de Ervaring 1949. 3° Wijsgerige Verantwoording van het Paralelenpostulaat 1951.The author defends the thesis that a science from which experience is excluded cannot exist.In the third brochure the author demonstrates that the proposition of the parallels is not a thesis which can be deduced, but a true postulate. The author, exactly as Mr. Gonseth, supposes in his research the experience and the faculties of intuition and deduction.The author concludes that Mr. Gonseth, when defending that experience and the faculties of intuition and deduction are indispensable for the construction of geometry, proves a thesis of great and fundamental importance.The author tries to build up an abstract geometry but directed by experience, Hilbert introduces a geometry, entirely abstract, whereas excluding the experience as instrument of supervision. (shrink)

Many nineteenth-century psychologists assume that the measurement of psychic intensity is a prerequisite to the development of a truly scientific psychology. In the first edition of the Psychology from an empirical point of view, Brentano deals with this question. He assumes that all psychic phenomena admit of a certain intensity. Later on, Brentano retreats this doctrine and claims that only sensible phenomena admit of an intensity, whereas intellectual presentations do not. As a consequence, Brentano introduces a radical gap between sensible (...) and noetic consciousness. By contrast, Stumpf maintains a continuity between sensations and presentations. The main difference between them is the degree of their intensity. The essay provides a discussion and a comparison of the above mentioned points of view. (shrink)

Cet article se propose d’étudier la manière dont la traduction reflète le rapport à l’identité culturelle et nationale, et à l’altérité, en prenant pour exemples les systèmes littéraires français et bulgares, à partir de la création de l’alphabet glagolitique par Constantin-Cyrille le Philosophe vers 862 et du Serment de Strasbourg de 842, jusqu’au XIXe siècle, en passant par la Renaissance, d’une part, et le Réveil national bulgare, d’autre part. Les discours des traducteurs français et bulgares servent ici de révélateur des (...) représentations qu’ils ont du statut de leur propre langue ou culture, mais aussi de celles à partir desquelles ils traduisent, ainsi que de leur manière d’appréhender « soi » et « les autres ». Un tel parcours met au jour la nécessité pour l’Europe multiculturelle de se doter d’une histoire de la traduction, afin de mieux comprendre les enjeux de la traduction à l’heure de la mondialisation.This article looks into the effects of translation on consciousness of cultural and national identity and otherness. As examples, we use the French and Bulgarian literary systems from the time of the creation of the Glagolitic alphabet by Constantine-Cyril “the Philosopher” around 862 and the “Oath of Strasbourg” pledged in 842, and up to the 19th century, including the Renaissance on the one hand and the Bulgarian National Awakening on the other. The discourses of French and Bulgarian translators are used as material revealing their representations of the status of their own language and culture, and of those they translated from, and the different ways of apprehending “self” and “others”. What transpires from this study is a need for Europe as a multicultural area to write its own history of translation, as a way of achieving a better understanding of translation as an issue in the context of globalisation. (shrink)