In trying to control various aspects concerning utterance production in multi-party human–computer dialogue, argumentative considerations play an important part, particularly in choosing appropriate lexical units so that we fine-tune the degree of persuasion that each utterance has. A preliminary step in this endeavor is the ability to place an ordering relation between semantic forms (that are due to be realized as utterances, by the machine), concerning their persuasion strength, with respect to certain (explicit or implicit) conclusions. Thus, in this article, (...) we propose a mechanism for assessing utterances, in terms of their argumentative force. The framework designed conflates insights from Asher and Lascarides’ SDRT (“Segmented Discourse Representation Theory”), and from Anscombre and Ducrot’s AT (“Argumentation Theory”). These mechanisms are included in a language generation component of a multi-party dialogue system for book reservation applications (i.e., a “virtual librarian”), and thus evaluated via typical human–machine conversations. (shrink)

According to a well-known view in the philosophy of mind, intentional attitudes by their very nature satisfy requirements of rationality (e.g. Davidson 1980; Dennett 1987; Millar 2004). This view (which I shall call Constitutivism) features prominently as the ‘principle of minimal rationality’ in de Sousa’s monograph The Rationality of Emotion (1987). By explicating this principle in terms of the notion of the formal object of an attitude, de Sousa articulates an interesting and original version of Constitutivism, which differs in important (...) respects from other extant versions. In this paper, I explore this version of Constitutivism against the background of recent developments in the theory of rationality and make explicit its ramifications for the long-standing dispute over whether the mind is essentially normative. My focus will be on how to conceive of the form of the rationality requirements that attitudes as such must satisfy according to this principle. I argue that, although de Sousa seems officially to endorse a structuralist conception of rationality, according to which these requirements are requirements of coherence, his considerations on formal objects suggest that they are more aptly conceived in terms of a reasons-responsive conception of rationality. I further argue that which of these two readings we choose makes a significant difference to the prospect of vindicating the essential normativity of mind by invoking the principle of minimal rationality. (shrink)

In this article, we provide a philosophical and ethical reflection about quiet quitting as a tool of political resistance for nurses. Quiet quitting is a trend that gained traction on TikTok in July 2022 and emerged as a method of resistance among employees facing increasing demands from their workplaces at the detriment of their personal lives. It is characterised by employees refraining from exceeding the basic requirements outlined in their job descriptions. To understand why quiet quitting can be a tool (...) of resistance useful for nurses, we first draw on Frédéric Gros' concept of ‘surplus obedience’ and Michael Lipsky's notion of ‘routines and simplification strategies’ to highlight the ethical implications associated with nurses engaging in and sustaining harmful systems, such as the neoliberal healthcare system. Leaning again on Gros, we then propose that ‘obedience a minima’, a concept akin to quiet quitting, can serve as a method of ethical nursing resistance. After describing what the concept entails, we provide a discussion emphasising the potential of obedience a minima as a one method, among many, that can be leveraged by nurses to challenge and resist a system that prioritises financial considerations over patient wellbeing. The article concludes by reflecting on the ethical nature of resistance in the context of nursing, that is the act of obeying oneself and refraining from participating in systems that are detrimental to the lives of Others. (shrink)

It is time to challenge the issue of pleasure associated with the core of medical practice. Its importance is made clear through its opposite: unhappiness—something which affects doctors in a rather worrying way. The paper aims to provide a discussion on pleasure on reliable grounds. Plato’s conception of techne is a convenient model that offers insights into the unique practice of medicine, which embraces in a single purposive action several heterogeneous dimensions. In Aristotle’s Ethics, pleasure appears to play a central (...) role for action’s assessment and intensification. Pleasure is also tightly associated with the Kantian faculty of reflective judgment, which operates at the heart of clinical reasoning. Indeed, practicing medicine means to deal with the particular and the manifold, requiring clinical judgment, but also relying on embodied habitus . With Bourdieu’s notion of habitus , pleasure is the mark of a happy practice, which presupposes a deep involvement in one’s field. Throughout our inquiry, the question of pleasure comes to offer a critical reappraisal of real medical practice and leads to consider ethics more as a component of techne than as a separate realm of concern. (shrink)

From the seventh to the fourteenth century, the Muslim world’s key actors were free peasants working limited and scattered cultivated areas, whose communities paid heavy taxes. A distinct nomadic mode of production dominated the arid lands and their warlike pastoral tribes. Wealthy merchants and artisans controlled urban ideological production, living next to actual ruling classes, who drew exceptional material privileges from their proximity to the state. Since the latter’s status contradicted the contractual community’s values, political power was socially alienated and (...) needed support from paid soldiers and often co-opted religious notables. The author describes Islamic social formations as real flesh-and-blood beings who developed original features on the same tributary mode of production’s skeleton. He shows that comparable dialectical oppositions enlivened them, stemming from uneven and combined development processes. Thus, their states and villages, barren lands and city markets, contractual ideology and monarchical powers were permanently in conflictual interaction. (shrink)

Whistleblowing in the NHS engages the fundamental right to free speech and as the paper makes clear is a means of ensuring individual patient safety. The discourse around the whistleblower is not simply about individuals being safeguarded if they blow the whistle on poor standards of patient care but that they may indeed be obliged as healthcare professionals to positively make the decision to blow the whistle to raise concerns. As noted in the paper, the NHS is an organisation in (...) which many—though not all—individuals who work there are bound by their own professional codes of practice in addition to broader employment requirements in relation to ethical and safety issues. But having an obligation to raise concerns and actually doing so are very different things. Individuals who blow the whistle have often found that following their conscience comes with consequences. They may ultimately be vindicated, as, for example in the 1990s, Stephen Bolsin the anaesthetist who blew the whistle in relation to Bristol Royal Infirmary in the 1990s.1 But getting such vindication can in many instances be over a long and very painful period of time and be exceedingly costly in both financial and emotional terms. Does …. (shrink)

La présente contribution analyse les deux risques auxquels sont confrontés l’administration pénitentiaire et son personnel, les surveillants notamment, dans leur lutte contre la radicalisation : le risque de la protection insuffisante de la société face à des conversions non repérées et susceptibles d’aboutir à des actes violents de type terroriste, d’une part, et, d’autre part, le risque du signalement systématique pouvant conduire au renforcement du sentiment de discrimination chez certains détenus et, paradoxalement, constituer un terrain favorable au développement de la (...) radicalisation violente. Pour dépasser ces deux risques, il est proposé, à partir de données de terrain, une application équilibrée du principe de précaution qui devrait reposer sur une meilleure formation des personnels par la pratique, entre autres, de l’interprétation croisée. (shrink)

The End of the Avant-Gardes : May 68 and the Situationists What emerges first and foremost from Debord’s writings in 1968 is that the situationists’ initial reaction to the May “events” was to interpret them as the first example of a spontaneous general strike in the context of what he called “overdeveloped capitalism”. Debord’s position on this question is linked to his questioning of the status of the avant-gardes. At the time, Debord and those close to him sought both to (...) conceptualise and to enact the end of the avant-gardes. And this included the Internationale Situationniste in its status as political, philosophical and artistic avant-garde. e article subsequently sets out to show that if the situationists did have any leverage on the events of May, it was insofar as they practised a maverick Marxism centred on the concept of alienation. is enabled them to conceptualise both the exploitation of the wage-earner and the condition of the consumer. Because they represent a comprehensive critique of capitalism and because, furthermore, they refuse to compromise on the revolutionary and worker dimension of the May-June 1968 moment, Debord’s writings of the period enable us to grasp what, in the strict sense, remains beyond any opportunistic recuperation in these events. (shrink)

This volume explores African philosophies’ expression of transitional acts where thought interacts with history and proposes solutions to problems. Influential thinkers from both sides of the Atlantic engage with the realm of criticism and imagination, public spaces in Africa, and the relationship between historical politics and poetics.

Deleuze, même s’il n’en fait presque jamais mention, connaît très bien la pensée de Nicolas de Cues, qu’il a abordée sans doute par la médiation de Maurice de Gandillac, son directeur de thèse. Le thème où l’influence du Cusain se marque le plus clairement est celui de l’Idiot. L’idiot pour Deleuze est l’homme qui philosophe avec les seules ressources de la raison naturelle, sans révélation ni recours à des traditions livresques. Or, dans la conception que Deleuze se fait de la (...) pensée, l’événement vient sortir l’esprit humain de sa torpeur native et l’invite à faire face à de l’inédit, vis-à-vis duquel la pensée est, au départ, démunie. En ce sens, penser véritablement, « c’est faire l’idiot ». L’article examine aussi quelques thématiques connexes : la philosophie comme production de concepts, la nature du concept constitué de notes caractéristiques, le statut du monde et celui des images dans ses études sur le cinéma. Dans ces différents champs, l’influence de Nicolas de Cues sur Deleuze est indéniable. (shrink)

Axel Honneth’s philosophical reflections always had significant historical dimensions, but it is only recently, in Recognition. A Chapter in the History of European Ideas, that he has attended to the history of recognition as a concept. This essay examines the cogency and the implications of this turn to intellectual history in the theory of recognition. The first section summarises the main historical claims put forward by Honneth. Section two raises critical doubts regarding three aspects of his narrative: the cultural contexts (...) that are said to have influenced particular conceptions of recognition; the conceptions of recognition that are supposed to be tied to national cultures; and the method of linking particular meanings of recognition to national cultures. The third section broadens the scope and attempts to show why this turn to intellectual history, despite some shortcomings, raises tantalising questions for recognition theory, and beyond it, for critical theory. (shrink)

Cet article revient sur le rapport complexe qu’ont entretenu Marx puis les marxistes à la nation et à l’internationalisme. Après un bref examen des positions de Marx, celles de plusieurs théoriciens et responsables politiques, notamment Otto Bauer, Rosa Luxemburg, Staline, et Gramsci, sont exposées. C’est enfin aux évolutions les plus récentes, notamment à travers la question de l’Union européenne et les débats qu’elle suscite, que s’attache principalement la dernière partie de l’article. La thèse centrale est de montrer que la nation (...) n’a jamais été clairement définie ni fait l’objet d’un consensus dans les traditions marxistes et socialistes. Il remarque notamment l’évolution des trente dernières années : après une période de relativisation du fait national, plusieurs courants politiques ont cherché à se réapproprier la nation, sans proposer pour autant une voie qui fasse consensus. (shrink)

Parménide n'est-il que le penseur de l'Etre? La présence des multiples déesses n'est-elle que figure poétique de style? Le récit sur le cosmos ne fait-il que décrire la voie de l'illusion, à éviter absolument? En cherchant réponse à ces questions, cet ouvrage met en lumière le rôle incontournable que jouent plusieurs déesses dans la révélation et la compréhension du Vrai. Et, chemin faisant, sont éclairés les liens étroits qui relient ces divinités, l'Etre et le monde du devenir. Ainsi, c'est à (...) partir de l'ontologie fondatrice et d'une théologie inédite que le penseur de l'Etre esquisse une conception non moins originale du cosmos. (shrink)

Dans cet article, on se propose d’étudier la reprise du thème cusain de la docte ignorance par Montaigne et par Pascal à la lumière du savoir mathématique et cosmologique de leur époque. Face à la multiplicité des découvertes de son temps, Montaigne se moque de la prétention à la certitude des mathématiques et aboutit à la pratique de la docte ignorance comme un usage de la critique sceptique. à la différence de Nicolas de Cues, Pascal distingue deux infinis, le grand (...) et le petit, qui plongent l’homme dans le désarroi ; l’infiniment petit s’ouvre comme un gouffre et suscite une horreur que ne ressentait pas le Cusain. Les mathématiques qui, pour lui, illustraient la puissance de la coïncidence des opposés, font découvrir chez Pascal qu’une notion comme le zéro s’insère entre les deux infinis et semble ménager une nouvelle place pour l’homme, celle de l’entre-deux. La docte ignorance devient alors une arme dirigée contre « ceux de l’entre deux » qui n’ont pas emprunté le chemin vers Dieu. Elle est une sagesse du bon usage de la science.Montaigne et Pascal représentent deux étapes sur le chemin de la modernité ; ils sont en route vers l’autonomie du sujet de la connaissance, alors que Nicolas de Cues est encore pris dans la perspective théocentrique du savoir, à la recherche de la perfection de soi. L’homme moderne sera à la recherche de la réforme de soi. (shrink)