Avant-propos.--Les principes de la morale positiviste et la conscience contemporaine, par G. Belot.--La morale de Renouvier, par A. Darlu.--La morale de Bastiat, par Ch. Gide.--La morale de Proudhon, par M. Bernès.--Karl Marx, par A. Landry.--Les idées morales de Vinet, par J.-E. Roberty.--La morale et la politique de Renan, par R. Allier.--Frédéric Nietzsche, par H. Lichtenberger.--Maurice Mæterlinck, par L. Brunschvicg.

Mes réflexions sur Meyerson et les mathématiques ont pour origine trois questions : 1) Une idée reçue est que, des trois synthèses de Meyerson -- Identité et réalité, De l'explication dans les sciences et Du cheminement de la pensée -- , seule la dernière analyse les mathématiques, en elles-mêmes aussi bien que dans leurs rapports avec la pensée. La première question est donc de déterminer si cette idée reçue est correcte ou bien si l'on peut trouver dans les deux autres (...) ouvrages des indications significatives sur le statut des mathématiques et sur leur fonction dans une théorie de la connaissance. 2) La deuxième question consiste à examiner une autre idée reçue, cautionnée cette fois par Meyerson. À plusieurs reprises, ce dernier a déclaré qu'il avait répété la même chose dans tous ses ouvrages : les outils conceptuels seraient restés identiques, mais appliqués à des objets ou dans des domaines divers, de la physique quantique à la pensée primitive. Il s'agit dans ce cas de savoir si cette déclaration est fondée, ou bien plutôt si l'on doit, par-delà l'identité des termes, souligner l'existence de différences de signification ou d'application telles que l'identité des outils conceptuels en devient problématique. 3) Meyerson s'est trouvé confronté à un ensemble d'épistémologues que, reprenant une expression de Léon Brunschvicg, il qualifie d'idéalistes mathématiques, d'un côté l'école de Marbourg avec Ernst Cassirer, Paul Natorp et Hermann Cohen, de l'autre, Gaston Milhaud, mais surtout Brunschvicg lui-même . S'il s'avère qu'il y a des thèses sur les mathématiques ailleurs que dans Du cheminement de la pensée, et qu'il y a certains infléchissements d'un lieu à l'autre de son œuvre, on peut se demander dans quelle mesure les critiques adressées à l'idéalisme mathématique ont évolué. Dans cet article, j'analyse les trois synthèses de Meyerson avec ces trois questions en arrière-plan : je ne les examine pas explicitement l'une après l'autre, ni a fortiori dans un ordre prédéterminé, mais plutôt de biais et au fur et à mesure qu'elles interviennent. (shrink)

SummaryReferring to my previous publications on the European philosophy of science , this paper presents my views, as a historian of epistemology, concerning the scope of a certain programme of research into the development of the philosophy of science and reception of some of its conceptions, against limitations of Anglo‐Saxon historiographic perception. Calling for a revaluation of various marginalized conceptions I oppose the hitherto dominating interpretations of epistemological novelty of Popper's conception and present my own approaches to Gonseth, Bachelard, Enriques, (...) Brunschvicg and Piaget. I oppose also the predominant and false picture of the 1920s and 1930s in the European philosophy of science based on the exceptional authority and validity of the Vienna Circle climate. 1 apply the views of M. Foucault and J. Der‐rida to demonstrate the significance of studies on the cases from the margin of the history of epistemological evolution. The basic point is that some post‐neopositivistic achievements in epistemology were chronologically prior to the internal evolution of neopositivism under Popperian influence. (shrink)

How a "right to die" may become a "coercive option".

Since Leibniz's time, Cartesian mental causation has been criticized for violating the conservation of energy and momentum. Many dualist responses clearly fail. But conservation laws have important neglected features generally undermining the objection. Conservation is _local_, holding first not for the universe, but for everywhere separately. The energy in any volume changes only due to what flows through the boundaries. Constant total energy holds if the global summing-up of local conservation laws converges; it probably doesn't in reality. Energy conservation holds (...) if there is symmetry, the sameness of the laws over time. Thus, if there are time-places where symmetries fail due to nonphysical influence, conservation laws fail there and then, while holding elsewhere, such as refrigerators and stars. Noether's converse first theorem shows that conservation laws imply symmetries. Thus conservation trivially nearly entails the causal closure of the physical. But expecting conservation to hold in the brain simply assumes the falsehood of Cartesianism. Hence Leibniz's objection begs the question. Empirical neuroscience is another matter. So is Einstein's General Relativity: far from providing a loophole, General Relativity makes mental causation _harder_. (shrink)

The capability approach constitutes a significant contribution to social theory but its potential is diminished by its insufficient treatment of the social construction of meaning. Social meanings enable people to make value judgements about what they will do and be, and also to evaluate how satisfied they are about what they are able to achieve. From this viewpoint, a person’s state of wellbeing must be understood as being socially and psychologically co-constituted in specific social and cultural contexts. In this light, (...) the telos of ‘living well’ which is at the heart of Sen’s version of the capability approach is inadequate and must be modified to a telos of ‘living well together’ which includes consideration of the social structures and institutions which enable people to pursue individual freedoms in relation to others. The policy significance of the capability approach can be further strengthened by paying greater consideration to the political economy of policy decision-making processes and the ways in which conflicts and distributions of power are institutionalized. (shrink)

Autonomous Knowledge: Radical Enhancement, Autonomy, and the Future of Knowing motivates and develops a new research programme in epistemology that is centred around the concept of epistemic autonomy.

ABSTRACTThe seminal work of David Marr, popularized in his classic work Vision, continues to exert a major influence on both cognitive science and philosophy. The interpretation of his work also co...

Hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences (HHEs) accompanying sleep paralysis (SP) are often cited as sources of accounts of supernatural nocturnal assaults and paranormal experiences. Descriptions of such experiences are remarkably consistent across time and cultures and consistent also with known mechanisms of REM states. A three-factor structural model of HHEs based on their relations both to cultural narratives and REM neurophysiology is developed and tested with several large samples. One factor, labeled Intruder, consisting of sensed presence, fear, and auditory and visual (...) hallucinations, is conjectured to originate in a hypervigilant state initiated in the midbrain. Another factor, Incubus, comprising pressure on the chest, breathing difficulties, and pain, is attributed to effects of hyperpolarization of motoneurons on perceptions of respiration. These two factors have in common an implied alien ''other'' consistent with occult narratives identified in numerous contemporary and historical cultures. A third factor, labeled Unusual Bodily Experiences, consisting of floating/flying sensations, out-of-body experiences, and feelings of bliss, is related to physically impossible experiences generated by conflicts of endogenous and exogenous activation related to body position, orientation, and movement. Implications of this last factor for understanding of orientational primacy in self-consciousness are considered. Central features of the model developed here are consistent with recent work on hallucinations associated with hypnosis and schizophrenia. (shrink)

Given the hundreds of articles and books that have been written in epistemology over the span of just the past few decades, relatively little has been written specifically on epistemic responsibility. What has been written rarely considers the nature of epistemic responsibility and its possible role in epistemic justification or knowledge. Instead, such work concerns philosophical analyses and arguments about related concepts such as epistemic virtues or duties, rather than epistemic praiseworthiness and blameworthiness.2 It is epistemic responsibility in the blameworthiness (...) and praiseworthiness senses that is the primary concern of this paper, though the duty sense of epistemic responsibility is explored in terms of its pertinence to epistemic virtue. What is epistemic responsibility? And what, if anything, is its relationship to justification and knowledge? (shrink)

Part intellectual autobiography and part exposition of complex yet contemporary economic ideas, this lively conversation with renowned scholar and public intellectual Kenneth J. Arrow focuses on economics and politics in light of history, current events, and philosophy as well. Reminding readers that economics is about redistribution and thus about how we treat each other, Arrow shows that the intersection of economics and ethics is of concern not just to economists but for the public more broadly. With a foreword by Amartya (...) Sen, this book highlights the belief that government can be a powerful force for good, and is particularly relevant in the current political climate and to the lay reader as well as the economist. (shrink)

Scientific realists contend that theory-conjunction presents a problem for empiricist conceptions of scientific knowledge and practice. Van Fraassen (1980) has offered a competing account of theory-conjunction which I argue fails to capture the mercenary character of epistemic dependence in science. Representative cases of theory-conjunction developed in the present paper show that mercenary reliance implies a "principle of epistemic symmetry" which only a realist can consistently accommodate. Finally, because the practice in question involves the conjunction of theories, a version of realism (...) more robust than the "entity realism" of Cartwright (1983, 1989) and Hacking (1983) is required to explain the success of theory-conjunction. (shrink)

J.L. Chretien is a French public intellectual, philosopher and poet, widely published and revered in his home country and in academic circles worldwide. This translation makes his work available to an English-language audience for the first time and a crucial contribution to our understanding of the phenomenology of religious experience.

In a recent and provocative paper, Matthew Fisher, Mariel Goddu and Frank Keil (2015) have argued, on the basis of experimental evidence, that ‘searching the internet leads people to conflate information that can be found online with knowledge “in the head”’ (2015, 675), specifically, by inclining us to conflate mere access to information for personal knowledge (2015, 674). This chapter has three central aims. First, we briefly detail Fisher et al.’s results and show how, on the basis of recent work (...) in virtue epistemology (e.g., Tiberius and Walker 1998; Roberts and Wood 2007; Tanesini 2016), their interpretation of the data supports the thesis that searching the internet is conducive to the vice of intellectual arrogance. Second, we argue that this arrogance interpretation of the data rests on an implicit commitment to cognitive internalism. Thirdly, we show how the data can be given a very different explanation in light of the hypothesis of extended cognition (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2008) – one which challenges the extent to which Fisher et al. are entitled to insist that subjects are actually conflating access to knowledge for personal knowledge in the first place. We conclude by suggesting how, against the background of extended cognition rather than cognitive internalism, we have some reason to think that searching the internet might actually foster (in certain circumstances) virtuous intellectual humility. (shrink)

The infinitesimal methods commonly used in the 17th and 18th centuries to solve analytical problems had a great deal of elegance and intuitive appeal. But the notion of infinitesimal itself was flawed by contradictions. These arose as a result of attempting to representchange in terms ofstatic conceptions. Now, one may regard infinitesimals as the residual traces of change after the process of change has been terminated. The difficulty was that these residual traces could not logically coexist with the static quantities (...) traditionally employed by mathematics. The solution to this difficulty, as it turns out, is to regard these quantities asalso being subject to (a form of) change, for then they will have the same nature as the infinitesimals representing the residual traces of change, and will become,ipso facto, compatible with these latter.In fact, the category-theoretic models which realize the Principle of Infinitesimal Linearity may themselves be regarded as representations of a general concept of variation (cf. Bell (1986)). While the static set-theoretical models represent change or motion by making a detour through the actual (but static) infinite, the varying category-theoretic models enable such change to be representeddirectly, thus permitting the introduction of geometric infinitesimals and, as we have attempted to demonstrate in this paper, the virtually complete incorporation of the methods of the early calculus.It is surely a remarkable — even an ironic — fact that the contradiction between the flux of the objective world and the stasis of mathematical entities has found its resolution in category theory, a branch of mathematics commonly, and, as one now sees, mistakenly, regarded as the summit of gratuitous abstraction. (shrink)

In focusing on the story of Darwin's religious doubts, scholars too often overlook Darwin's positive contribution to the study of religion. J. David Pleins traces Darwin's journey in five steps. He begins with Darwin's global voyage, where his encounter with religious and cultural diversity transformed his understanding of religion. Surprisingly, Darwin wrestles with serious theological questions even as he uncovers the evolutionary layers of religion from savage roots. Next, we follow Darwin as his doubts about traditional biblical religion take root, (...) affecting his career choice and marriage to Emma Wedgwood. Pleins then examines Darwin's secret notebooks as he searches for a materialist theory of religion. Again, other surprises loom as Darwin's reading of Comte's three stages of religion's development actually predate his reading of Malthus. Pleins explores how Darwin applied his discovery to the realm of ethics by formulating an evolutionary view of the "Golden Rule" in his Descent of Man. Finally, he considers Darwin's later reflections on the religion question, as he wrestled with whether his views led to atheism, agnosticism, or a new kind of theism. The Evolving God concludes by looking at some of the current religious debates surrounding Darwin and suggests the need for a deeper appreciation for Darwin as a religious thinker. Though he grew skeptical of traditional Christian dogma, Darwin made key discoveries concerning the role and function of religion as a natural evolutionary phenomenon. (shrink)

Dans la Notice bibliographique sur Pierre Bersuire I , j'ai signalé 2 que le frère mineur Jean Thenaud avait consacré à cet auteur un passage de sa Margarite de France, mais le temps m'avait manqué pour le retracer. Puis, Thenaud s'étant lui aussi occupé de mythologie, la question se posait tout naturellement de savoir dans quelle mesure il a été tributaire de l'Ovidius moralizatus de Bersuire. Je livre ici le résultat de recherches assez complexes, car la bibliographie de Thenaud s'est (...) révélée des plus embrouillées. (shrink)

I agree with most of Mr. Kemp's paper, “Generalization in the Philosophy of Art” but on his position at one point I should like briefly to comment.

A plural referring expression (‘the Fs’ or ‘Tom, Dick and Harriet’) may be used to refer either distributively, saying something which applies to each of the Fs individually, or collectively, to the Fs taken as a single totality. Predicate Logic has to analyse both uses in terms of singular reference, treating them quite differently in so doing; but we think of such an expression as functioning in basically the same way in both kinds of use. This understanding can be vindicated (...) if we recognise that what a plural referring expression picks out is not either an aggregate simpliciter or a set, but a plurality– an aggregate taken relative to a principle for individuating its constituents; this admits of being seen either as many things or as one. In any given case, it is the nature of what is being said about the plurality which tells us whether the reference to it is to be taken as distributive, collective, or a combination of the two. Talk about pluralities is extensional. Augmenting Predicate Logic to accommodate the distinctive inference‐pattern associated with distributive plural reference is simple – and arguably necessary, to cope with cases in which distributive and collective reference are essentially combined (e.g., attributions of concerted action). (shrink)

Gaston Fessard employs Hegel’s dialectical logic to clarify how St. Ignatius’s _Spiritual Exercises_ envisage and prepare the decisions and choices between contrasting options or major turning points in spiritual life, in moments of what Ignatius would call _Election_.