When I was a teenager growing up in Los Angeles in the early 1940s, my dream was to become a mathematical physicist: I was fascinated by the ideas of relativity theory and quantum mechanics, and I read popular expositions which, in those days, besides Einstein’s The Meaning of Relativity, was limited to books by the likes of Arthur S. Eddington and James Jeans. I breezed through the high-school mathematics courses (calculus was not then on offer, and my teachers barely understood (...) it), but did less well in physics, which I should have taken as a reality check. On the philosophical side I read a mixed bag of Bertrand Russell, John Dewey and Alfred Korzybski (the missionary for “General Semantics” in Science and Sanity, a mish-mash of the theory of types, non-. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Editorial – A Word of ThanksDavid B. Couturier, OFM. Cap.When Prof. Jean-François Godet-Calogeras took the helm of Franciscan Studies as General Editor eighteen years ago, he brought together a new team of editors and worked out the goals they would try to meet as they ushered in a new era in this prestigious journal's history. In their first issue, they wrote the following:In the past, Franciscan Studies has (...) served a specific platform of scholars interested in the history and development of the order in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with special attention to matters pertaining to Franciscan scholastic thought and spirituality. While this rich tradition will always stay with us, it appears that the moment is ripe to enhance the impact of Franciscan Studies on other aspects of Franciscan scholarship and on the wider fields of medieval ecclesiastical, cultural and intellectual history. Ideally speaking, we would like Franciscan Studies to become a thermometer for signaling interesting new trends, to such an extent that scholars from very different backgrounds will come to regard Franciscan Studies as an important instrument to keep abreast of new developments.1Thus began the prodigious expansion of Franciscan Studies at the beginning of the new century. For the past two decades our dear colleague and friend Jean-François has not only met these lofty goals, he has exceeded them. He has done so with a superb combination of editorial acuity, diplomacy and sensitivity to our distinguished authors and audiences around the world.The fact is that Jean-François knew how to read the signs of the times. With his distinctive Franciscan tenderness, he calmed the "prophets of gloom" who forecasted demise when he "opened the windows" and let in the fresh breezes of thought and insight from other generations, styles, and cultural forms of the Franciscan intellectual tradition. The skeptics are silent now, for the quality and range of the articles he has supervised over these years remain a testament to his prophetic insight that it was time for a major change of emphasis. [End Page 5]Furthermore, as General Editor he encouraged the voices of new and emerging scholars to be heard, especially those of under-represented women and minorities. The roster of today's authors testifies that the Franciscan intellectual tradition is safely, securely and wonderfully in the hands of a new generation of lay scholars. Jean-François has been a proud advocate for that transition. We thank him for steering in that direction.For all of this, it is our good fortune to thank Prof. Jean-François Godet-Calogeras for his many years of service as the General Editor of this academic journal. To Jean-François, on behalf of all the authors you have encouraged, all the editors you have guided, all the scholars and students you have taught, and all the directors and staff with whom you have worked over these many years, I offer you our gratitude, love and best wishes as you enter this next phase of your life. Thank you for your kindness, expertise and generosity. You have blessed us and we are grateful. [End Page 6]David B. Couturier, OFM. Cap.General Editor, Franciscan StudiesFootnotes1. The Editors, Franciscan Studies 62 (2004), 1.Copyright © 2022 The Franciscan Institute, St. Bonaventure University... (shrink)

Over the past three centuries in the West, there has been a sort of oscillation between two antagonistic visions of the world. One sees the world as being fundamentally inert, in such a manner that all hopes, dreams and technological delights are permitted. The other thinks of the world as inhabited by a spirit who consecrates all its parts by recording them in a great whole. We can think of the pantheism that sets itself in opposition to Newton's materialism or, (...) more exactly, to the materialist interpretation given to Newton in the 18th century. In the 17th century the opposite had occurred. The magic universe of the Renaissance had given place to the triumphs of the Cartesian mechanism. As for protestantism, which is said to have been one of the most powerful factors of disenchantment after the 17th century, how was one not to see it prolonged, by reaction, into a philosophy for which nature is the tangible presence of God? When Calvin wrote that nothing happens in nature that is not a direct effect of the divine will, we already see appear in the background the mystic ecstasies that Rousseau experienced in nature. For if no single leaf flutters and no breeze blows without divine intervention, then receiving the slightest sensation would mean, according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, entering into direct contact with God. (shrink)

The proposed text first appeared under the title Prélude. Quand la vérité nous donne rendez-vous as an introduction to Jean Greisch's volume, Rendez-vous avec la vérité. However, the vortex of metaphors that 'tell' the 'truth' remains hardly reducible to a single 'theory' of 'Truth'. Over the centuries, what-is-‘true' has been said in many different ways, starting with the unsolvable opposition between the truth-fidelity of the Jewish tradition and the truth-disclosure/manifestation of classical Greek thought; passing through the truth-regulating, namely the (...) truth-institution of Roman Latin culture, which 'contractualises' what is true; reaching up to the truths of the medieval Anglo-Saxon world (truth-correspondence, truth-coherence, truth-semantics, truth-consent, truth-interpretation). However, that the truth is not objectified does not mean that it is not an existential issue. On the contrary, this seems to be the lesson one can draw from the encounter between Pilate and Jesus: "I am the Truth." Nevertheless, it is possible to observe that some of the best pages from the history of philosophy are not those wondering about what the truth is, but rather those pages allowing their own authors and readers to be questioned by the - sometimes sudden - encounter with the disproportion of Truth. Therefore, not theorising but encountering the truth will be a fundamental question of philosophical research. (shrink)

The Sokal Affair created a huge debate in France in past years, about the social sciences, scientificity, and postmodernism. It was initiated with a “hoax article,” a false postmodern article published by Allan Sokal in the U.S. review Social Text, and a book copublished with Jean Bricmont, where the authors denounce the abusive borrowings of words and concepts from physics or biology by famous intellectuals such as Derrida, Kristeva, Virilio, Debray, and Latour. The debate presented a wide span of (...) positions, from methodological disagreement to approval. Finally, it poses important questions about the structure and the behavior of the scientific field. (shrink)

Depuis le XIXe siècle, on lit Montesquieu comme le théoricien du libéralisme politique, l'héritier de Locke et des penseurs du droit naturel, le chantre de la modernité post-révolutionnaire. Jean Goldzink montre ici avec brio combien cette lecture est discutable: l'essentiel de la gloire de notre plus fameux théoricien politique serait dû à un « blanchiment d'idées » involontaire, opéré dans les camps idéologiques les plus opposés. En proposant une relecture de De l'esprit des lois et des oeuvres des lecteurs (...) français les plus marquants de cet ouvrage fondateur - de Voltaire à Rousseau, en passant par de Maistre, Constant, Comte et d'autres -, Jean Goldzink rappelle que Montesquieu refuse avec la dernière énergie de penser avec Locke, et que tout son projet consiste au contraire à fonder une science politique sans droits naturels attachés à la personne humaine, autrement dit sans la visée universelle qu'implique le jusnaturalisme moderne. Sa méthode et ses objectifs lui interdisent de concevoir une déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen ou une quelconque républicanisation de la liberté par l'élection d'un parlement. De cette remise en cause d'un dogme quasi unanime depuis deux siècles, il ressort aussi qu'il faut questionner la pertinence de l'emploi inconsidéré du terme « libéralisme » en histoire des idées, compte tenu de sa propension vorace à tout avaler, au mépris des moments, des projets et des rudes saveurs d'origine. Jean Goldzink a enseigné la littérature française à l'ENS de Saint-Cloud/Fontenay/Lyon de 1967 à 2002, et l'histoire des idées politiques à Sciences Po Paris de 2003 à 2009. Il a publié une douzaine d'ouvrages sur les Lumières, dont deux sur Montesquieu. (shrink)

Jean-Marc Leveratto – Avant d’entrer dans le vif du débat, je voudrais dire quelques mots sur le thème qui nous a été proposé par les organisateurs. Ce thème – Classiques/Modernes – est sans doute un peu périlleux. Mais, il est une bonne manière d’introduire à un débat qui portera, au-delà des films qui ont été projetés, sur l’ensemble de l’œuvre de Jean-Marie Straub et de Danièle Huillet, et prendra en compte des films qui sont devenus des références cinématographiques. (...) Trois pistes de disc.. (shrink)

We have never come face to face with ‘Philosophy’, that goddess who was courted, scorned, hated, and betrayed throughout history by those who claimed to represent her - we only come into contact with her officers: philosophers, that is, human beings who exist in an economic context, have religious ideas, support political opinions, find a way through their emotional history, are paid by institutions, fanstasize about a vision of hope, have appetites, can fight, are mad keen to be noticed and (...) recognized and above all frequently make certain types of statements that have claims to validity. So philosophers are not only creatures in history but also historical creatures who interrogate the meaning of the world and particularly their own work. However, one of the tricks of instrumental rationality - if we follow Marx's analysis - is to focus first on the product rather than the producer. This is the basic reason for the fact that a passion for the exegesis of philosophical texts often conceals philosophers’ practices. And this is why - where African philosophers are concerned, and they are not the only ones - people focus first, with benign curiosity, on their books, the theories that they expound and that may provide matter for heated discussion, but questions are hardly ever asked about the stance of African philosophers, in other words, the actual conditions in which their position is created, the particular abilities of African philosophers to achieve their emergence as ‘philosophers’, and their recognition in the international arena. The rhetoric about the acceptance of multi-culturalism argued on the basis of the complexity of present-day societies often hides practices and processes of legitimation that are revealed by their relationship to those two phenomena, economics and the state. The love of little abstractions that philosophy resists in the name of its historical position, the haste with which African philosophers, among others, clamour for recognition from their peers in other cultures are partly intended secretly to conceal their true relationship to money. Not that ‘disinterested’ philosophers ‘in love’ with knowledge do not exist, but we need to recognize that they often fail to say, as Adorno does in Dialectique négative, that ‘philosophy's freedom is simply the ability to allow its non-freedom to be expressed’. The purpose of this article is less to question philosophers’ capacity for knowledge than to urge them to have the courage to proclaim and challenge their non-freedom. (shrink)

This paper explores the scholastic context of the discussion about the unity of the composite or corporeal substance and the nature of the vinculum substantiale or substantial bond in Leibniz’s correspondence with Des Bosses. Three prominent scholastic views are examined: Duns Scotus’s antireductionist account of the composite substance as an entity irreducible to its essential parts ; Ockham’s parts-whole identity thesis, which entails a reductionist view of the composite substance; and Suárez’s explanation of the unity of composite substance through the (...) presence of a substantial mode of union. It is then shown that Leibniz initially combines a reductionist account of the composite substance, with the vinculum playing the role of bond among the component monads. In his last letters, he moves away from this to an antireductionist account of the composite substance, with which he now identifies the vinculum. (shrink)

O artigo discute uma tese que o autor julga ser falsa, a saber, a tese que consiste em sustentar que, para Espinosa, a salvação de um indivíduo passa necessariamente pela mediação da relação política e que, no fim das contas, a liberdade ética dependeria da liberação política. A explicitação da inadequação desta tese toma como fio condutor o comentário detalhado do capítulo VII do Apêndice da quarta parte da Ética, com ênfase na análise da função central que a expressão vix (...) aí desempenha. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Relationship Between Philosophy and Literature Intersecting Themes.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Heft: Ahead of print.

La série Corpus Christianorum continuatio medievalis éditée chez Brepols s’est donné comme objectif la production d’éditions de référence de textes médiévaux, appuyées sur des analyses codicologiques précises et des comparaisons textuelles. Il s’agit de fournir aux spécialistes une série d’éditions savantes et d’analyses indispensables à la recherche. Réaliser un ouvrage de ce type exige un travail minutieux et mobilise une grande érudition. Je dis tout de suite qu’avec son édition commentée...

Axel Honneth a élaboré une critique de la société moderne au prisme du concept de reconnaissance. Jacques Rancière a construit une théorie de la politique moderne à partir du concept de mésentente. Ils s'attachent tous deux à analyser les logiques d’exclusion et de domination qui structurent les sociétés contemporaines. Dans un précieux dialogue, les deux philosophes explorent les affinités et les tensions entre leurs approches respectives. Ils contribuent ainsi à renouveler le cadre d’une théorie critique et à repenser les conditions (...) du changement social et politique. La discussion est enrichie par des textes des deux penseurs, et elle est précédée d’une présentation substantielle qui remet en perspective ce dialogue critique. (shrink)

Le titre même donne à la transcription de cet exposé son résumé le plus exact et le plus laconique. Huit phrases extraites du corpus aristotélicien tracent un ensemble de dépendances où sont pris les mots que nous traduisons habituellement par nature et mouvement. L'exposé met en évidence le travail des concepts et son examen contrôlé par une lecture stricte du texte ancien et sa critique étymologique. La nature apparaît dès lors comme fondamentalement en écart par rapport à ellemême, et c'est (...) cela que nous avons encore à penser aujourd'hui. (shrink)

The present work is a contribution to the understanding of the sempiternal problem of the “burden of factor two” implied by sexual reproduction versus asexual one, as males are energy consumers not contributing to the production of offspring. We construct a deterministic mathematical model in population dynamics where a species enjoys both sexual and parthenogenetic capabilities of reproduction and lives on a limited resource. We then show how polygamy implies instability of a parthenogenetic population with a small number of sexually (...) born males. This instability implies evolution of the system towards an attractor involving both populations. We also exhibit the analogy with a parasite/host system. (shrink)

This paper takes place inside the theoretical frame restored after that the false secular Bortkiewicz-debate around the transformation problem has been solved in the years 1990 and whose flaw had not been identified for ages by most of Marxist economists, accepting its double accountancy of prices’ in money prices and workhours “prices”. Beyond the re-identification of finite values and prices, this paper aims at showing that, going back to a concept of value as an infinite working process which unifies money, (...) time and work, machinery not only devoids every particular work of any peculiarity, but also its time, reduced to the mechanical clock movement. Once such spatialization of time occurs, succession dominates duration instead of the other way round. Time is not the time of any living movement any longer, but merely corresponds to locomotion. Hence, money as a mathematical real, is not neither quantity of anything, but pure number. Money and clock time made identical as empty numbers identify into value with devoiced work, reduced to mere, or pure, unqualified effort.work becomes real abstraction by making the real still more adequate to itself, i.e., work still simpler abstract work induces simple work. (shrink)

Ce recueil vise à interroger un versant moins connu, mais essentiel, de la pensée de Gadamer, sa méditation des philosophes grecs, des Présocratiques à Plotin, qui occupe un tiers de ses œuvres complètes.

This paper deals with the essence of the dialectic. Dialectic is not identified with any of the dialogue forms, nor implies dialogue, although the diverse ways of conversation make use of her. The important rol of the dialectic in demonstrative science is also indicated.

Dans son article fameux de 1974, « What is it like to be a bat? », Thomas Nagel défend la thèse d’une irréductibilité « des états mentaux conscients » d’un organisme vivant à toute connaissance « objective ». Pour autant que « cela fait un certain effet d’être cet organisme », cet effet n’est autre selon Nagel qu’une expérience radicalement subjective inaccessible à tout « point de vue » qui, comme tel, ne se confondrait pas avec celui de l’individu en (...) question – ou plus techniquement, qu’un... (shrink)

Durant ces dernières années, le comportement sexuel des jeunes femmes dans les pays en voie de développement occupe une place de plus en plus importante dans les programmes de santé reproductive. En effet, à Haïti, par exemple, près de 35 % d’entre elles ont deux partenaires sexuels ou plus, ce qui a des conséquences fâcheuses tant sur la jeune fille que sur son environnement. L’objectif de cet article est d’identifier les différents facteurs socio-économiques qui influencent le multipartenariat sexuel chez les (...) jeunes femmes à Haïti. Les données utilisées dans le cadre de ce présent article proviennent de la dernière Enquête démographique et de santé (2017) et ont fait l’objet d’une analyse univariée et d’une analyse multivariée à travers un modèle logit. De ces analyses, il ressort que les variables « milieu de résidence », « niveau d’éducation », « religion », « niveau de vie », « accès à Internet » et « statut matrimonial » sont les facteurs clés dans l’explication du multipartenariat sexuel observé chez les jeunes filles à Haïti. (shrink)

La présence dans le prologue des catégories centrales de la pensée johannique affirme son lien au corps de l’évangile, tandis que l’absence dans ce dernier de plusieurs thèmes majeurs du prologue crée une distance entre l’un et l’autre. Pour rendre compte de cet ensemble de continuités et de discontinuités, beaucoup d’exégètes recourent aux analyses diachroniques, les uns voyant dans l’évangile le commentaire postérieur du prologue, d’autres, inversement, faisant de celui-ci le résumé d’un évangile antérieur. L’analyse littéraire du genre « prédiscours (...) » paraît plus féconde. Sa fonction est d’inciter au désir de lire, de mettre le lecteur en position d’écoute, de solliciter sa mémoire, de guider sa lecture, de décoder le récit évangélique. Par le langage mythologique de la remontée au commencement, le prologue invite le lecteur du récit à appréhender Jésus dans son égalité et son intimité avec Dieu. Par la dynamique de la descente du Logos divin vers le monde, il articule l’histoire de Jésus à son origine en Dieu. Ni résumé ni commentaire, mais acte de relecture, il fixe le cadre herméneutique dans lequel doit être lu le récit johannique.The presence in the Prologue of the central categories of Johannine thought affirms its connection to the body of the Gospel, while the absence in the latter of a number of major themes of the Prologue creates a distance between the one and the other. In order to take into consideration this ensemble of continuities and discontinuities, many exegetes have recourse to diachronic analyses. Some see in the Gospel a posterior commentary on the Prologue, others, on the contrary, make of the latter a resumé of an anterior Gospel. The literary analysis of a “prediscourse” genre seems more fruitful. Its function is to incite a desire to read, to put the reader in a position of listening, to provoke his memory, to guide his reading, and to decode the Gospel story. Through mythological language of a going back to the beginning, the Prologue invites the reader of the narrative to find Jesus in his equality and intimacy with God. Buy the dynamism of the descent of the divine Logos towards the world, it articulates the history of Jesus from his origin in God. Neither resumé nor commentary, but an act of rereading, it sets the hermeneutical framework in which the Johannine narrative ought to be read. (shrink)

Il s'agit de la première édition de cette oeuvre majeure de Bodin. Jusqu'ici seul le texte latin était disponible (éd. L. Noak, 1857), ou la traduction anglaise de 1975, par Mrs. Kuntz. Le texte donné ici est celui d'une traduction française anonyme écrite très tôt après la mort de l'auteur (1596), dans une langue proche de celle de la République. Bodin fait ici converser sept sages, un juif, un musulman, un catholique romain, un luthérien, un calviniste, un adepte de la (...) religion naturelle et un "ethnique" (indien d'Amérique) à propos des mérites de leurs religions respectives. Loin de donner l'avantage au christianisme, il semble montrer une certaine inclinaison au judaïsme qui fera les délices des libertins du XVIIe siècle... (shrink)

Wage-earners voluntarily accept to work under the control, and for the account of, firms run by entrepreneurs1; they do not decide what, how and how much, they must produce; wage-earners are not responsible for the consequences of their activities when they comply with entrepreneurs' orders12; inside the firm, wage-earners are subordinates. Outside the firm, wage-earners freely choose the way they spend their wages in the markets for commodities and services. Such is the 'stylised fact' which characterises the wage relationship in (...) our economies. Any theory of the wage relationship should account for this 'stylised fact' by deriving it from a consistent set of assumptions and propositions. Three main propositions are advocated in this paper: Mainstream economists conceive the 'wage' as being the price of a commodity ('labour power' or 'human labour') determined by a market – as for any other commodity and service. As a consequence, the wage relationship is thought of as an exchange relation ruled by equivalence; this view cannot be derived from the usual basic assumptions without violating the very logic of mainstream theory. Following this logic: either the wage relationship should be thought of as a relation between human beings having such different conditions that it cannot be interpreted as an exchange ruled by equivalence or 'human labour' is not to be found within the commodity space. In any case, the 'stylised fact' mentioned above is not accounted for by mainstream theory. 'Wage' is the name of the payment entrepreneurs give to other people with the view to making them participate in production under their control and for their account; wage payment is neither a purchase nor a sale – it just allows wage-earners to enter the market and spend in order to acquire the commodities they desire Wage-earners are, economically speaking, a means used by entrepreneurs for their own ends; exploitation (Fleurbaey's M-exploitation) is inherent in the wage relationship. Propositions 2 and 3 do not fit general equilibrium theory (inspired by Walras and rationalised by Arrow- Debreu); they do not fit modern mainstream theory either. They have no room in the theory of prices of production (inspired by Ricardo and rationalised by Sraffa). Moreover, they are not compatible with Marx's theory of labour power. An alternative approach is needed to satisfy them. Paving the way for that alternative theory requires us to show that 'human labour' cannot belong to the commodity space from the very point of view of mainstream theory; a sharp incompatibility between assumptions and conclusions would follow, and justify resorting to an alternative approach. This is our first step. A second step is to effectively resort to a monetary analysis – the alternative approach to real analysis, according to Schumpeter in his History of economic analysis. In a nutshell, we have to discard the commodity space postulate, and to think of economic relations as money mediation. Instead of a commodity space, we presuppose money to be a unit of account ($) combined with a means of payment. Instead of a permutation of goods and services exchanged amongst people, economic relations are payments. Individuals are no longer endowments and preferences, but accounts into which payments write down quantities of $. Conditions of people may differ according to the form of money circulation – this view allows us to deal with different types of economic relations; for what matters here, the wage relationship involves a specific form of circulation not reducible to that of exchange. The final step is to suggest that exploitation is inherent in the wage relationship; such exploitation has nothing to do with justice, since there is no norm whatsoever for the level of wage; it is also quite different from the exploitation Marx thought he had unveiled. This exploitation is simply due to the special situation of wage-earners vis-a-vis the market, which a specific form of circulation makes clear. 1 'Entrepreneur' here means, following Coase, 'the person or persons who, in a competitive system, take the place of the price mechanism in the direction of resources' (Coase, 1937, p. 388). 2 David Ellerman distinguishes between factual/de facto and legal or de jure responsibility. What I mean here is economic responsibility only. Another way at looking at it may use David Ellerman's propositions. The 'Invisible Judge' market gives the entrepreneur the property of raw material and labour – and also of the finished product sold in the market. The market gives nothing to the wage-earner inside the firm; outside the firm it gives her the property of consumption of goods she acquires out of her wage. Inside the firm, the wage-earner is not economically responsible. Arguing that if she kills someone, the wage- earner is responsible has nothing to do with the 'Invisible Judge'! (shrink)