Thomas Weber's book comprises a series of biographical reflections about people who influenced Gandhi, and those who were, in turn, influenced by him. Whilst previous literature tended to focus on Gandhi's political legacy, Weber's book explores the spiritual, social and philosophical resonances of these relationships, and it is with these aspects of the Mahatma's life in mind, that the author selects his central protagonists. These include friends such as Henry Polak and Hermann Kallenbach, who are not as well (...) known as those usually cited, but who left a deep impression nevertheless, and motivated some of Gandhi's major life changes. Conversely, the work of luminaries such as E. F. Schumacher and Gene Sharp reveal the Mahatma's influence in arenas which are not traditionally associated with his thinking. Weber's book offers intriguing insights into the life and thought of one of the most significant figures of the twentieth century. (shrink)

There is one question that any potential reader who suspects that Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) might be important for past, contemporary, and future philosophy inevitably raises: how should I read Whitehead? How can I make sense of this incredibly dense tissue of imaginative systematizing, spread over decades of work in disciplines so different and specialized as algebra, geometry, logic, relativistic physics and philosophy of science? Accordingly, this monograph has two main complementary objectives. The first one is to propose a set (...) of efficient hermeneutical tools to get the reader started. These straightforward tools provide answers that are highly coherent and probably the most applicable to Whitehead’s entire corpus. The second objective is to illustrate how the several parts of Process and Reality are interconnected, something that all commentators have either failed to recognise or only incompletely acknowledged. (shrink)

La pensée du philosophe et mathématicien britannique Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) connaît un regain d'intérêt autant chez les philosophes anglo-saxons que chez les philosophes continentaux. Les contributions isolées sur les recherches logiques et mathématiques, sur les recherches épistémologiques et la philosophie de la nature, ou encore sur la métaphysique et le rôle des idées théologiques de cet auteur se multiplient. Il a semblé aux coordinateurs des « Chromatiques whiteheadiennes » — Michel Weber (Université catholique de Louvain) et Pierre Rodrigo (...) (Université de Bourgogne) — que le temps est mûr pour un développement en série de réunions internationales francophones dévolues à l'ensemble de ses positions philosophiques et à leur évolution. Le réseau « Chromatiques whiteheadiennes » a en conséquence pour objectif premier de fédérer les recherches sur les différents aspects, nuances et implications de la pensée de A. N. Whitehead. Si ses activités sont de facto ancrées dans l'horizon culturel francophone, elles n'en demeurent pas moins ouvertes, d’une part, au dialogue international (comme en témoigne la place qui est réservée aux communications en langue anglaise lors de nos réunions scientifiques) ; et d’autre part à des contributions, d’origine philosophique diverse, portant sur le concept de processus. À l'heure actuelle, deux types de réunions internationales sont programmées : des journées d'étude bilingues (Liège 2001, Louvain-la-Neuve 2003, Saint-Jodard 2005, Nantes 2005, Nice 2006, Huy 2007) et des séminaires de recherches en français qui assurent la continuité des contacts scientifiques entre chercheurs plus régulièrement que ne peuvent le faire les colloques. Ces séminaires sont le fruit d’une collaboration avec l'équipe « Philosophies de l'expérience » du Département de philosophie de l'Université de Nantes. Accueillis depuis 2002 par le Centre d'Études sur le Pragmatisme et la Philosophie Analytique (CEPPA), Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne-École Doctorale, ils ont pour but premier de mettre en contact les doctorands whiteheadiens et d'offrir un lieu de dialogue entre ceux-ci et chercheurs expérimentés. La collection « Chromatiques whiteheadiennes » est, à titre principal, l’organe des différentes activités promues par le réseau : elle accueille les Actes des journées d’étude et l’Annuaire (« Chromatikon ») qui publie, entre autre, le compte-rendu des séminaires les plus marquants. À titre secondaire, elle publie les monographies et ouvrages collectifs qui se veulent être le vecteur de la pensée du processus en francophonie, et ce tout spécialement lorsqu’elles promeuvent un dialogue interdisciplinaire. (shrink)

Several years ago, in a brilliant contribution to the Collection Archives Series, Michel de Certeau wove together a large number of seventeenth-century documents pertaining to the famous episode of demonic possession among the Ursuline nuns of Loudun.1 One of the principal ways in which de Certeau organized his disparate complex materials into a compelling narrative was by viewing the extraordinary events as a kind of theater. There are good grounds for doing so. After all, as clerical authorities came to acknowledge (...) the incidents of possession and treat them accordingly, they ceased to be isolated, private events occurring inside the convent walls and were transformed instead into public spectacles performed for a populace deeply divided between Catholics and Huguenots. Once or twice a day the nuns were taken from their needlework or tranquil meditations and led in small groups through the streets of the town to a church or chapel, where spectators had already gathered. At first these spectators were local townspeople, many of whom must have been acquainted with or even related to the nuns, but, as word of the possession spread, crowds of the curious arrived not only from the region but from all over France and from as far away as England and Scotland. The inns of the town were filled with these visitors who traveled to Loudun expecting to witness events there that were at once beyond nature and yet performed on schedule: repeatable, predictable, and—in their bizarre way—decorous.At the appointed times, beneath the expectant gaze of the crowd, the possessed women would ascend a scaffold, be loosely tied to low chairs, and begin to manifest their symptoms. From within each of the tormented bodies, a particular devil would arise and be constrained by the exorcist to identify himself. If a nun were possessed by more than one demon, the exorcist could dismiss one supernatural voice and demand that another come forth and occupy the tongue of the writhing woman. If the demon refused to cooperate in the interrogation, the presiding priest would solemnly remove the Holy Sacrament from the pyx and hold it up to the mouth of the possessed while the priests and spectators would assist by chanting the Salve Regina. This would provoke screams and violent contortions. Submitting to irresistible spiritual pressure, the devil would then be compelled to speak, confirming the Christian mysteries and the power of the Catholic church. “On stage,” writes de Certeau, “there are no longer human beings; in this sense, there is no longer anyone—only roles” . And these “roles” in turn are revealed to be the hidden truths that underlie the masks of ordinary life; more accurately, the ceremony has the power to convert ordinary life into mere masks, precisely so that these masks may be stripped away to reveal the inward drama of spiritual warfare. The demons appear at first to dominate that drama, forcing their wretched and unwilling hosts to manifest the power of darkness, but a spectacular ecclesiastical counterforce transforms the tragedy into a comedy in which the devil confesses that he has been vanquished by Jesus Christ. 1. See Michel de Certeau, La Possession de Loudun, Collection Archives Series, no. 37 ; all further references to this work, abbreviated PL, will be included in the text . On the relationship between exorcism and theater in this period, see also Henri Weber, “L’Exorcisme à la fin du seizième siècle, instrument de la Contre Réforme et spectacle baroque, » Nouvelle revue du seizième siècle 1 : 79-101. Stephen Greenblatt, the Class of 1932 Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, is a founder and editor of Representations. His most recent book, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, received the British Council Prize in the Humanities. He is presently completing a study of Shakespeare and the poetics of culture. “Marlow, Marx, and Anti-Semitism,” his previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, appeared in the Winter 1978 issue. (shrink)

Henri Lefebvre has considerable claims to be the greatest living philosopher. His work spans some sixty years and includes original work on a diverse range of subjects, from dialectical materialism to architecture, urbanism and the experience of everyday life. The Production of Space is his major philosophical work and its translation has been long awaited by scholars in many different fields. The book is a search for a reconciliation between mental space and real space. In the course of his (...) exploration, Henri Lefebvre moves from metaphysical and ideological considerations of the meaning of space to its experience in the everyday life of home and city. He seeks, in other words, to bridge the gap between the realms of theory and practice, between the mental and the social, and between philosophy and reality. In doing so, he ranges through art, literature, architecture and economics, and further provides a powerful antidote to the sterile and obfuscatory methods and theories characteristic of much recent continental philosophy. This is a work of great vision and incisiveness. It is also characterized by its author's wit and by anecdote, as well as by a deftness of style which Donald Nicholson-Smith's sensitive translation precisely captures. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page W1-W1.

The final published book by Nobel Prize-winning author and philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941), La pensée et le mouvant (translated here as The Creative Mind), is a masterly autobiography of his philosophical method. Through essays and lectures written between 1903 and 1923, Bergson retraces how and why he became a philosopher, and crafts a fascinating critique of philosophy itself. Until it leaves its false paths, he demonstrates, philosophy will remain only a wordy dialectic that surmounts false problems. With masterful skill (...) and intensity, Bergson shows that metaphysics and science must be rooted in experience for philosophy to become a genuine search for truth. And in the quest for unanswered questions, the spiritual dimension of human life and the importance of intuition must be emphasized. A source of inspiration for physicists as well as philosophers, Bergson's introduction to metaphysics reveals a philosophy that is always on the move, blending man's spiritual drive with his mastery of the material world. (shrink)

In his book, Democratic Autonomy: Public Reasoning about the Ends of Policy, Henry Richardson suggests a process-based objection to bureaucracy – that is, an objection to bureaucracy that does not refer primarily to results, but rather to an ethical flaw that is inherent to bureaucratic procedures. Richardson’s worry is that, while large and complex societies rely on bureaucratic agencies to implement policies, there is a threat of those within bureaucratic institutions having more power than the average citizen when it comes (...) to making specific decisions about how to enact policy, and that this inequality in decision making power may be unjustified because undemocratic. If such inequality in decision making power is indeed a real threat, it will turn out that bureaucratic organisations, while being largely motivated by considerations of procedural fairness, may in fact constitute quite unfair procedures. Richardson proposes some institutional reforms that he thinks will enable us to avoid being dominated by bureaucracies, while retaining bureaucratic agencies, which he believes are necessary in modern societies. In what follows, I illustrate Richardson’s worry about bureaucratic domination and his proposed solution to the problem with a simplified, concrete example. If we compare Richardson’s proposed institutional reforms with Max Weber’s analysis of the concept of bureaucracy, however, I argue that it becomes apparent that bureaucracy is in fact incompatible with the sort of democracy that Richardson favours. If I am correct, this means that to the extent that we adopt Richardson’s proposed reforms, we will be replacing bureaucracies with something else. (shrink)

This review of Turner’s “Computational Artifacts” focuses on one of the key novelties of the book, namely the proposal to understand the nature of computer programs as a “trinity” of specification, symbolic program, and physical process, replacing the traditional dualist views of programs as functional/structural or as symbolic/physical. This trinitarian view is found to be robust and helpful to solve typical issues of dualist views. Drawing comparisons with Simon’s view of the artifact as an interface, the author suggests that this (...) trinitarian view may characterize not only computational artifacts but also artifacts in general. One ambiguity is however noticed on the denotation of what Turner actually calls the “physical process.”. (shrink)

Given a 4-tuple of Boolean variables (a, b, c, d), logical proportions are modeled by a pair of equivalences relating similarity indicators ( \({a \wedge b}\) and \({\overline{a} \wedge \overline{b}}\) ), or dissimilarity indicators ( \({a \wedge \overline{b}}\) and \({\overline{a} \wedge b}\) ) pertaining to the pair (a, b), to the ones associated with the pair (c, d). There are 120 semantically distinct logical proportions. One of them models the analogical proportion which corresponds to a statement of the form “a (...) is to b as c is to d”. The paper inventories the whole set of logical proportions by dividing it into five subfamilies according to what they express, and then identifies the proportions that satisfy noticeable properties such as full identity (the pair of equivalences defining the proportion hold as true for the 4-tuple (a, a, a, a)), symmetry (if the proportion holds for (a, b, c, d), it also holds for (c, d, a, b)), or code independency (if the proportion holds for (a, b, c, d), it also holds for their negations \({{(\overline{a},\overline{b}, \overline{c}, \overline{d})}}\) ). It appears that only four proportions (including analogical proportion) are homogeneous in the sense that they use only one type of indicator (either similarity or dissimilarity) in their definition. Due to their specific patterns, they have a particular cognitive appeal, and as such are studied in greater details. Finally, the paper provides a discussion of the other existing works on analogical proportions. (shrink)

HENRI BERGSON (1859-1941), philosophe français, professeur au Collège de France de 1900 jusqu´à 1921, récompensé avec le prix Nobel de littérature en 1928. Ses oeuvres majeures, écrites avec un style parfaitement accessible au lecteur non spécialisé, sont : « Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience » (1889), « Matière et mémoire » (1896), « L´évolution créatrice » (1907) et « Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion » (1932). Dans ces études, Bergson élabore une (...) vision philosophique en opposition au matérialisme et positivisme scientifique. Concentrant sa recherche sur les intuitions individuelles, il prône la notion d´élan vital, lequel dirige le procès évolutif vers des états d´organisation de plus en plus complexes, et de là vient l´intérêt de donner prééminence à tout ce qui est spirituel et ouvertement créatif, sur tout ce qui est formel, fixé, fermé. Dans « Le rire : essai sur la signification du comique » (1900), il trouve que le comique est soulevé des que nous percevons dans les actions humaines les automatismes, répétitions ou dysfonctionnements qui contrastent avec l´essentielle spontanéité de la vie réelle. (shrink)

HENRI BERGSON (1859-1941), philosophe français, professeur au Collège de France de 1900 jusqu´à 1921, récompensé avec le prix Nobel de littérature en 1928. Ses oeuvres majeures, écrites avec un style parfaitement accessible au lecteur non spécialisé, sont : « Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience » (1889), « Matière et mémoire » (1896), « L´évolution créatrice » (1907) et « Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion » (1932). Dans ces études, Bergson élabore une (...) vision philosophique en opposition au matérialisme et positivisme scientifique. Concentrant sa recherche sur les intuitions individuelles, il prône la notion d´élan vital, lequel dirige le procès évolutif vers des états d´organisation de plus en plus complexes, et de là vient l´intérêt de donner prééminence à tout ce qui est spirituel et ouvertement créatif, sur tout ce qui est formel, fixé, fermé. Dans « Le rire : essai sur la signification du comique » (1900), il trouve que le comique est soulevé des que nous percevons dans les actions humaines les automatismes, répétitions ou dysfonctionnements qui contrastent avec l´essentielle spontanéité de la vie réelle. (shrink)

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) is one of the truly great philosophers of the Modernist period, and there is currently a major renaissance of interest in his unduly neglected texts and ideas amongst philosophers, literary theorists, and social theorists. Mind-Energy is a collection of essays and lectures from the period 1901-13 and has long been out of print. It features essays on life and consciousness, soul and body, mind and brain, and on dreams, memory and the phenomenon of false recognition; the (...) insights Bergson develops in them remain highly pertinent to contemporary work in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

1. Number and magnitude.--2. Space.--3. Force.--4. Nature.

"La Valeur de la Science" de Henri Poincaré. Mathématicien, physicien et philosophe français (1854-1912).

Scholasticism, with its intense rational method and its fervent intellectual spirit, virtually disappeared from the general consideration of Natural Philosophy at the coming of the Reformation and the subsequent Newtonian Revolution. Only in this century has it seemed to merit any reconsideration.

Les mots philosophie du Christianisme correspondent tres exactement a ce qui apparait dans l'avant-dernier chapitre des Deux Sources de la Morale et de la Religion, publiees en 1932. Comprendre ces pages, ce sera evidemment voir leur rapport a l'oeuvre qui les precede; or, c'est trop peu dire qu'elles la supposent: elles la contiennent et l'expriment. Chercher leur sens, c'est donc se demander comment elles signifient le bergsonisme tout entier. L'impression que laisse l'itineraire de Bergson est celle d'une constante originalite. Originalite (...) dont s'aureole chacun de ses livres, avec cette difference, toutefois, qu'elle semble avoir ete moins immediatement et moins vivement sentie pour le dernier d'entre eux. Faire ressortir la signification profondement bergsonienne des Deux Sources sera, du meme coup, reconnaitre que, jusqu'a la fin, cette nouvelle philosophie n'a cesse d'etre une philosophie nouvelle. (shrink)

The article by Dupras and Bunnik. makes a fundamental contribution in the context of the current boom in personalized medicine. We propose an additional crit...

Penser l'homme et la folie : dans ce recueil d'études où s'est condensée, au fil des dernières années, sa réflexion, Henri Maldiney se propose de penser ensemble l'énigme de l'humanité et l'énigme de la " catastrophe " qui survient à certains d'entre nous. Double décentrement de la pensée, qui la met à la fois hors de l'anthropologie, fût-elle philosophique, et de son envers dans les théories psycho-pathologiques. Double décentrement où s'éprouvent donc au mieux la tradition philosophique - et en (...) particulier celle qui est issue de Heidegger - et la tradition de la Daseinsanalyse et de la Schicksalsanalyse, telle qu'elle est représentée par Binswanger, Straus, Minkiwski, Von Weizsäcker et Szondi. Dans une démarche authentiquement phénoménologique, où il s'agit de retourner à la " chose même " de l'humain et de la folie, de penser en va-et-vient de l'énigme à penser à ce qui en a été dit, Henri Maldiney dégage, par sa conception toute nouvelle de la transpossibilité et de la transpassibilité, une " compréhension " globale du phénomène humain qui le rend moins intraitable que par le passé. Le " séisme " de la folie, montre-t-il, vient d'un énigmatique court-circuit de la transpossibilité et de la transpassibilité, qui est seul propre à les mettre véritablement en relief comme la dimension profonde et cachée de notre expérience : celle de l' "événement " ou de l'émergence du nouveau, de la surprise de l'inattendu. La transpassiblité est une " possibilité " qui nous excède, en ce qu'elle fonde toute possibilité pour nous d'exister, parce qu'elle est en deçà de tout projet, transpossiblité de l'accueil - et de l'accueil transpassible -, y compris de l'accueil par nous-mêmes, de nous-mêmes. " Le réel -répète Henri Maldiney comme un leitmotiv qui traverse tout l'ouvrage -, est toujours ce qu'on n'attendait pas". (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous interrogeons la désuétude du projet initial de l’intelligence artificielle, fondé conjointement avec la science cognitive, et partageant avec elle ce qu’on appela plus tard l’hypothèse computationnelle de l’esprit, c’est-à-dire l’idée que la pensée intelligente peut être décrite sous la forme de programmes informatiques. Si cette désuétude reflète en partie notre éloignement d’une période très particulière du xxe siècle, celle des années 1950 marquées par les angoisses de la guerre froide, nous souhaitons montrer qu’elle est sous-tendue par (...) une désuétude plus profonde encore, celle d’une conception hétérodoxe, voire « alchimique », de la science. Malgré son abandon au cours des années 1980, nous explorons l’idée que cette hypothèse reste tout de même vivace comme tentation congénitale au projet même de la science cognitive, en examinant les thèses récentes de Gualtiero Piccinini qui considère les mécanismes neuronaux comme une forme élargie de calcul. (shrink)

One of the requirements in the Dutch regulation for euthanasia and assisted suicide is that the doctor must be satisfied ‘that the patient's suffering is unbearable, and that there is no prospect of improvement.’ In the notorious Chabot case, a psychiatrist assisted a 50 year old woman in suicide, although she did not suffer from any somatic disease, nor strictly speaking from any psychiatric condition. In Seduced by Death, Herbert Hendin concluded that apparently the Dutch regulation now allows physicians to (...) assist anyone in suicide simply because he or she is unhappy.In this paper, I reject Hendin's conclusion and in particular his description of Mrs Boomsma as someone who was ‘simply unhappy.’ After a detailed narration of her lifestory, I turn to the American philosopher Harry Frankfurt's account of volitional incapacity and love for a more accurate characterization of her suffering. Having been through what she had, she could only go on living as another person than the one she had been when she was a happy mother. That would have violated her integrity, and that she could not bring herself to do. (shrink)

In Materie und Gedächtnis (1896), seinem zweiten Hauptwerk, erörtert der französische Philosoph und Nobelpreisträger Henri Bergson (1859-1941) das Zusammenwirken von Körper und Geist in der freien Handlung. Auf höchstem gedanklichen Niveau, aber in bestechend einfacher Sprache geschrieben, zählt es zu den herausragenden Grundwerken der Gegenwartsphilosophie. Bergson bleibt nicht akademisch, sondern löst das Problem des Leib-Seele-Dualismus anschaulich und verständlich.

L'Ouvrage remarquablement dense et original de M. Paul Ricœur intéresse le psychiatre autant que le philosophe. Il s'agit d'une étude sur la psychanalyse considérée en elle-même et en tant que méthode pour servir à Pédification d'un système philosophique.La psychanalyse, affirme M. Ricceur, n'est réductible ni à la psychologie expérimentale, ni à la linguistique, ni à la phénoménologie; elle est une herméneutique. Plus précisément, elle est une variété d'herméneutique parmi d'autres. Elle constitue à ce titre un des éléments qui serviront un (...) jour à la construction d'un système sémantique universel. En outre, la psychanalyse contribuera, en tant qu'herméneutique, à l'établissement d'une philosophic réflexive qui niera la notion de rimmédiateté de la conscience, car la conscience immédiate est une conscience fausse qu'il s'agit de démystifier. Toutefois, ce projet philosophique se heurte à une difficulté: l'herméneutique démystifiante de la psychanalyse semble s'opposer à l'herméneutique religieuse ; le problème sera done de surmonter cette « guerre des hermeneutiques ». (shrink)