Hannah Arendt réfléchit, dans toute son œuvre, aux conditions d’une action libre. Elle commence sa réflexion, à la suite de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, par interroger les bouleversements induits par les régimes totalitaires et montre en quoi ils ont détruit l’espace public qui sépare et relie les membres d’une société au profit de la domination de l’idéologie, qui récuse toute action. Mais il y a un héritage des totalitarismes, au-delà de leur défaite, c’est la disparition de l’autorité et de ses (...) figures historiques, parce que l’autorité ne se réduit pas à la contrainte et permet l’existence d’un cadre commun pour les libertés publiques, sans lequel ces dernières peuvent difficilement se rencontrer, se frotter, se féconder, coopérer. L’action décline alors au profit de la consommation, la liberté au profit de la seule indépendance privée. (shrink)

L'écologie est avant tout la prise de conscience que nomme est partie intégrante de son milieu, ce qui génère sa condition depuis ses origines. De tous temps et dans toutes les sociétés, elle est ce qui nous fait, ce qui nous rattache à une humanité commune. Notre civilisation s'est enfermée dans des impasses : prépondérance du court terme, épuisement des ressources naturelles, concurrence élevée au rang de modèle... Elle exerce sur nous des contraintes, souvent chargées de promesses alléchantes, et nous (...) prive du pouvoir d'être, individuellement comme collectivement, maîtres de nos vies, en vivant en harmonie avec nous-mêmes. Elle substitue à la réalité un récit imaginaire qui produit en nous insatisfaction et frustration. La logique de la technique moderne est de ne considérer dans la nature que ce qui sert directement à la croissance de la production, ignorant et détruisant tout le reste. Pourtant, l'humanité ne pourra aller jusqu'au bout de sa puissance, parce que cette fin correspondrait à son anéantissement. Il est grand temps de comprendre que notre condition n'est pas sans condition. Ce qui nous fait propose en toute simplicité une philosophie de l'homme à l'époque de la crise écologique afin d'ouvrir des pistes pour réconcilier l'humanité avec elle-même. (shrink)

Depuis 1994, la revue Arenal est, en Espagne, la publication de référence sur l’histoire des femmes et le genre. Le dossier proposé dans ce numéro – daté de 2005 alors que les articles ont été rédigés en 2006 –, intitulé « Femmes sous le régime franquiste », est coordonné par Mónica Moreno Seco, de l’Université d’Alicante, spécialiste du genre et des questions religieuses aux xixe et xxe siècles. Le principe du dossier consiste à réunir sur un même thème des spécialistes (...) de disciplines complé... (shrink)

En janvier 1938, dans un magazine de reportages au titre simple (Fotos), paraît un article non signé consacré aux femmes républicaines ; la revue paraît depuis le 25 février 1937 et se trouve localisée à Saint Sébastien depuis le mois de septembre ; placée à la fin de la guerre d'Espagne sous la direction du phalangiste Manuel Fernández Cuesta, elle survivra jusqu'en 1963. Rares dans la collection des années de guerre, les reportages sur les femmes portent essentiellement sur la Phalan...

Ce livre co-rédigé par deux historiennes des universités espagnoles de Valence et Málaga, correspond à la fois à une exigence pédagogique et à une ambition scientifique : l’approche, pour un public universitaire (la collection est placée sous la direction de Elena Hernández Sandoica) d’une période a priori très documentée : la fin de la Monarchie des Bourbons - règne d’Alphonse XIII et dictature de Primo de Rivera - la Seconde République et la guerre d’Espagne. Mais la lecture proposée ici es...

Reasoning by analogy in chemical history: fallacies and guidelines. In chemistry (and natural science in general) reasoning in terms of analogy may be of great practical values as well as of theoretical significance. At the same time, however, the use of analogy is risky and the results are uncertain. In alchemy and iatrochemistry analogies between the living and the non-living nature have been carried too far. At the end of the 19th century an analogy was drawn between chemical phenomena and (...) the Darwinian theory of evolution. Another example of an overexaggerated analogy can be found in Lavoisier’s theory of acids, where oxygen was considered to be the general principle of acidity. Reasoning by analogy is mostly based on an inner conviction. It leads to provisional predictions in such cases where the required facts are not or incompletely at our disposal. (shrink)

Psychologische, rechtstheoretische en sociobiologische benadering van altruïstisch gedrag als grondslag van de menselijke samenleving.

Artikelen over het grensgebied tussen psychologie, recht en moraal vanuit een rechtspsychologisch en behavioristisch uitgangspunt, waarbij de auteur zich onder meer baseert op het gedachtegoed van de Amerikaanse psycholoog Skinner.

Une recherche pluridisciplinaire originale et extrêmement précise, consacrée aux « Femmes dans les municipalités ; maires et conseillères municipales en Espagne contemporaine » vient de paraître sous la direction de Gloria Nielfa, professeure et historienne du contemporain et du genre de l’Université Complutense de Madrid, dont les recherches font autorité. L’ambition est claire : recueillir toute la documentation existante, quelle qu’en soit la forme, privée ou publique (témoignages des actr...

Commentaries on Aristotle's writings have been produced since the 2nd century AD. This edition contains Greek commentaries on his work from the 3rd to the 8th centuries AD by, among others, Alexander of Aphrodiensias, Themistios, Joh. Philoponus, Simplicius in Greek.

This article draws attention to two newly identified manuscipts transmitting Henricus Totting de Oyta’s Expositio in Meteorologica: ms. Praha, Národní Knihovna Ceské Republiky VIII.E.6 and ms. Krak...

In this article I discuss a particular aspect of the Dutch reception of the ideas of René Descartes, namely the use of his Traité de l’homme by Henricus Regius. I analyze the use that Regius made of the theory of the movement of muscles, passions, hunger, and more generally of the neurophysiology expounded by Descartes in his book (not printed until 1662–1664). In my analysis, I reconstruct the internal evolution of Regius’s neurophysiology, I illustrate its sources beyond Descartes (i.e., (...) Jean Fernel and Santorio Santorio), and I show that he was certainly acquainted with some of its contents as early as 1641 (when he used it with the mediation of Descartes), before relying on it—as variously discussed in secondary literature—in his Fundamenta physices (1646), when he appropriated from it without Descartes’s authorization. (shrink)

This research note is the eighth instalment in our series of preliminary findings on the census and study of the reception of De iure belli ac pacis. The note presents a bibliographical description of Laurentius’ 1647 re-issue of the 1631 edition by Blaeu, considers Laurentius’ motivation and methods of production, lists and maps the currently known twenty-three surviving copies, and briefly describes two notable exemplars.

Reshaping the neo-Aristotelian doctrines about the human soul was Descartes’s most spectacular enterprise, which gave birth to some of the sharpest debates in the Republic of Letters. Neverthe- less, it was certainly Descartes’s intention, as already expressed in the Discours de la méthode, to show that his new metaphysics could be supplemented with experimental research in the field of medicine and the conservation of life. It is no surprise then that several natural philosophers and doctors, such as Henricus Regius (...) from Utrecht, who had studied in Padua with William Harvey, rallied in support, in order to gain a more substantial theoretical basis for their research. Taking as his ground some general metaphysical assumptions, such as the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and perhaps the separability of the pure understanding, Regius intended to secure a new philosophy of man, which was able to reflect his medical interests and complement his account of human nature. This is the story that is now gaining currency, and it is surely accurate, at least in part. Desmond Clarke has recently defended the same view1, based on the remarkable studies of the Utrecht scholars Theo Verbeek and Erik-Jan Bos. Here I would like to challenge some aspects of this view and ask how Regius, who was perceived as the philosopher most closely associated with Descartes, became a betrayer of his mentor. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 69 in pre-Socratic scholarship. But he does not do justice to the religious mood which pervades the whole poem (a mood which is set by the prologue which casts the whole work into the form of some kind of religious revelation). The prologue is considerably more than a mere literary device, and the poem is more than logic. Generally, Jaeger9 and Guthrie are surely correct in (...) their judgment that any adequate interpretation of Parmenides' work (as well as that of the other early Greek thinkers) must be willing to take into account its essentially theological character and religious inspirationl~ not always grasped through strict analysis and exegesis. g Theolooy of the Early C-reekPhilosophers, trans. Edward S. Robinson (Oxford, 1947), p. lff, 90ft. agCf. Guthrie's excellent statement: "...Parmenides was at one with Heraclitus in claiming a prophetic or apocalyptic authority for his teaching." And again, the Greeks believed in "an inspiration whereby-the poet is granted deeper insight into the truth than other men" (p. 6). ED. L. MILLER University of Colorado AN UNKNOWN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH TRANSLATION OF SEXTUS EMPIRICUS* I. Introduction Included in a collection of manuscripts and early printed books recently acquired by the Library of the University of California, Los Angeles, from the Paris bookdealer Paul Jammes ~ are three manuscripts attributed to a certain Nicolas de la Toison, Baron de Bussy. Two of the three volumes contain extensive Latin commentaries on the major writings of Aristotle.2 The third is a miscellaneous volume written in three different hands, which contains, among other things, a complete French translation of the extant writings of Sextus Empiricus (c. A.D. 160-210).3 I * I would like to express my thanks to Mr. Richard O'Brien, Western European Bibliographer of the UCLA Library, for his help in numerous ways, who made it possible for me to consult this material during my sojourn in Los Angeles, even before it had been officially catalogued by the Library. I would also like to thank Professors Donald Kalish and Robert Yost of the UCLA Department of Philosophy for their support in making it possible for the collection to be purchased. 1For a brief description of the collection as a whole see Charles B. Schmitt, "Acquisition of Early French Books and Manuscripts", UCLA Librarian, XIX (1966)~25. 2These two manuscripts are bound m red leather with gold tooling. Thear present shelf mark is Collection 968, Box 2. On the spines is written: (1) PHILOSOPHIA.TO.I, and (2) METAPHYSIC ET PHYSICA TO.2. They measure approximately 10 X 14 cm. and each contains about 600fois. At the beginning of Vol. I, in a later hand (19th century?), we read: "Nicolas de la Thoison, baron de Bussy, qui 6crivit ces m6moires, 6tait conseiller laic au Parlement de Bourgogne. Il fur pourru par la r6signation de Pierre Catherine le IV Ddcembre M.DC.XLV et regu le XXIX janvier M.DC.XLVI. I1portait: de queueles dune bands d'or charges en coeur d'une quints feuiUe d'azur--ainsi qu'on le volt dans le Parlement de Bourgogne [Dijon, 1649]de Pierre PaiUot, p. 326." There is also a drawing of the coat-of-arms which has been described. That the de la Toison coat-of-arms is a quintefeuille is verified by Theodore de Renesse, Dictionnaire des figures h$raldiques (Brussels, 1894-1903) III, 461. The passage cited above from the manuscript is directly quoted from Pierre Paillot, Le Parlement de Bouroongne [I], son origins, son $tablissemerit, et son progr~s (Dijon, 1649), p. 326. s A description of this manuscript will be found in the Appendix. 70 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY shall here only give a preliminary survey of this third manuscript, pointing out some of the more interesting features and mentioning some problems connected with it which should be investigated further in more detail. As is now well-known the writings of Sextus Empiricus, which form the major extant compendium of ancient skeptical philosophy, had quite a significant impact on sixteenth and seventeenth-eentury thought, after their reintroduction in the sixteenth century. ~ Sextus' works were available in printed Latin editions after 15695 and the Greek text was printed in... (shrink)

The present study defines the function of the foundation of science in early modern Dutch philosophy, from the first introduction of Cartesian philosophy in Utrecht University by Henricus Regius to the acceptance of Newtonian physics by Willem Jacob ‘s Gravesande. My main claim is that a foundation of science was required because the conceptual premises of new ways in thinking had to be justified not only as alternatives to the established philosophical paradigms or as an answer to the “sceptical (...) crisis” signalled by Richard Popkin, but also in order to be introduced in the academia. This being my general thesis, different kinds of foundation of scientific knowledge are analysed in the light of the specific problems philosophers had to face. To this end, foundational theories are analysed in the light of 1) the overall aim of their philosophy, 2) the relations of disciplines they thought out, 3) what they regarded as scientific knowledge. Through this analysis, I assess that the foundation of science was carried out by metaphysical, logical and theological arguments, which fitted the needs of answering the didactical and introductory requirements of new paradigms, assessed the reliability of new methodology in leading us to grasp the truth, and provided philosophy with its conceptual apparatus. Finally, I demonstrate that a philosophy of science as a reflection on the principles, methods, concepts and application of modern science emerged in the Dutch Republic. (shrink)

The article provides a survey of the content of Balliol College 63, with special attention to the questions of Gerard of Siena. It establishes that many of the texts in the first half of the manuscript are pre-edited versions written at Paris in the 1317-1321 period. To illustrate that point, Gerard of Siena's question on whether the articles of faith are the principles of theology is edited in the appendices in its pre-edited and final form as edited by Gerard in (...) the 1320s. (shrink)