Although there exist advantages to group-living in comparison to a solitary lifestyle, costs and gains of group-living may be unequally distributed among group members. Predation risk, vigilance levels and food intake may be unevenly distributed across group spatial geometry and certain within-group spatial positions may be more or less advantageous depending on the spatial distribution of these factors. In species characterized with dominance hierarchy, high-ranking individuals are commonly observed in advantageous spatial position. However, in complex social systems, individuals can develop (...) affiliative relationships that may balance the effect of dominance relationships in individual's spatial distribution. The objective of the present study is to investigate how the group spatial distribution of a semi-free ranging colony of Mandrills relates to its social organization. Using spatial observations in an area surrounding the feeding zone, we tested the three following hypothesis: (1) does dominance hierarchy explain being observed in proximity or far from a food patch? (2) Do affiliative associations also explain being observed in proximity or far from a food patch? (3) Do the differences in rank in the group hierarchy explain being co-observed in proximity of a food patch? Our results showed that high-ranking individuals were more observed in proximity of the feeding zone while low-ranking individuals were more observed at the boundaries of the observation area. Furthermore, we observed that affiliative relationships were also associated with individual spatial distributions and explain more of the total variance of the spatial distribution in comparison with dominance hierarchy. Finally, we found that individuals observed at a same moment in proximity of the feeding zone were more likely to be distant in the hierarchy while controlling for maternal kinship, age and sex similarity. This study brings some elements about how affiliative networks and dominance hierarchy are related to spatial positions in primates. (shrink)

I explore some of the ways that assumptions about the nature of substance shape metaphysical debates about the structure of Reality. Assumptions about the priority of substance play a role in an argument for monism, are embedded in certain pluralist metaphysical treatments of laws of nature, and are central to discussions of substantivalism and relationalism. I will then argue that we should reject such assumptions and collapse the categorical distinction between substance and property.

Arguing that religion is both false and harmful, Russell asserts the prerogative of the scientific intelligence over dogma, faith and custom. The editor has written and appended an account of how Russell was excluded from teaching at the City College of New York.--C. L.

Paperback reprint of a classic study first published forty years ago. Allen examines the practical dimensions of Paul's missionary activity and urges the contemporary relevance of these same methods.--L. S. F.

This Festschrift for Professor Baron's sixtieth birthday displays an astonishing variety of interests on the part of his former students, from the sociological study of the American conservative Rabbinate to the correspondence of Tobias ben Moses and the New York cloakmakers' strike of 1910. Essays of philosophic interest are Bokser's "Morality and Religion in the Theology of Maimonides," Hahn's "Wellhausen's Interpretation of Israel's Religious History," Blau's "Tradition and Innovation," and Ben-Horin's "Toward the Dawn of History". The volume includes an extensive (...) bibliography of Baron's writings. --L. S. F. (shrink)

This book presents an exposition and criticism of Husserl's essential ideas, explaining what is defective and what meritorious in them and offering a philosophical program based on the merit. The author's aim is to provide a point of entry for the study of phenomenology. In the opening section he states the key concepts of The Idea, following Husserl's summary. These are: the contrasting notions of natural thinking and philosophical thinking; intentional immanence; the "pure seeing" of reflective cognition; and eidetic abstraction. (...) He proceeds to a developmental reconstruction showing how these concepts grow out of one another. Intentionality, the active relatedness of consciousness to its object, is the foundation concept. By being aware of one's own intentionality and abandoning the natural standpoint, phenomenological reduction can be achieved and the universal experienced in eidetic abstraction. According to Pettit, the merit of Husserl's method is that it recalls philosophy to the self and to the evidence, i.e., to man as a conscious subject and to the obvious, incontestable data of consciousness. Phenomenology's defect is that, since every experience implicitly contains a description, the supposed eidetic experience is absurd. Philosophy should aim at explanation, i.e., at a non-reductive account of conscious experience, which makes the experience intelligible. Pettit concludes with a phenomenological program, listing the dimensions and types of human behavior and showing how the traditional divisions of philosophy fit into the classification. There is a bibliography but no index.--L. G. (shrink)

Arguing that religion and science can not be in essential conflict, Harris sets himself the task of resolving their apparent disagreements by considering such problems as the language of theology, the relation of nature and God, and the nature of evil.--L. S. F.

A thorough theological and exegetical study of the New Testament view of baptism. Patristic, medieval, and Reformation views fall beyond the scope of this work, yet in chapter 16 the author considers and criticizes contemporary defenses of infant baptism. Chapter 15 is a useful summary of White's position. White's treatment is judicious and not overly polemical; his scholarship is extensive and up-to-date, but restricted to works appearing in English.--L. S. F.

This informative and well-written account of gnosticism provides the English reader with his first access to much of this material, which was formerly restricted to specialized publications in French and German. Jonas describes the basic tenets and symbols of gnosticism, and then presents six specific systems for consideration, including Marcian, Valentinius, and Mani. The third section is perhaps the most interesting: in it Jonas demonstrates that gnosticism is more objectionable to the classic Greek than to the Christian.--L. S. F.

A systematic account of explanation and meaning, on an introductory level. The book is designed not only for students who are primarily interested in philosophy, but also for students whose primary interests may lie in the physical or social sciences, literature, or history. There are fifteen relatively brief chapters, the first eight of which are concerned with the concept of explanation while the remaining seven chapters deal with the concept of meaning. The author begins his treatment of explanation by dismissing (...) as fruitless disputes over what a 'real' explanation must be. Instead, he proposes to examine different types of explanation in order to determine their differences and the relative importance of their differences. "Scientific Explanation," "What-explanations," and "Reason-giving Explanation" are then distinguished and discussed in the early chapters, and this is followed with chapters on historical explanation and explanation in literary criticism. In the remaining chapters on meaning, the author maintains the view that meanings are not a sort of thing, mental or physical. He supports this thesis through his criticisms of causal theories of meaning, "Fido"-Fido theories of meaning, and theories which attempt to identify the meaning of a word with a mental event or an essential definition. The author favors identifying the meaning of a work with its use and deals with some of the problems connected with this view. A list of additional references for each chapter is provided at the end of the book. Though the book is primarily a systematic account of explanation and meaning, a variety of issues from different areas of contemporary philosophical concern are touched upon along the way. These issues concern, for example, natural laws, explaining human behavior, the nature of historical explanation, interpretation in literature, definition, synonymy, and metaphor. This is a clearly written introduction to contemporary philosophy.--R. L. M. (shrink)

This text, serving as an introduction to Aristotelian, symbolic, inductive, and practical logic, presents the techniques of these approaches to logic, some of the philosophical problems of logic, and some of the attempts to solve philosophical problems by means of various logical techniques. It discusses the problem of universals and null classes; briefly introduces the theory of types; and presents Lukasiewicz's formalization of Aristotelian syllogistic logic as an example of a formal system. Classical logic and propositional logic are carefully and (...) fully presented. The text, however, is weak in its presentation of quantificational logic. After a correct, but brief and very inadequate introduction to quantificational logic, the readers are referred to Quine, Methods of Logic, or to Copi, Symbolic Logic, for a more adequate development. The chapter on inductive logic discusses the uses and dangers of generalizations and introduces the probability calculus; the chapter on informal logic discusses criteria of rationality and presents the usual informal fallacies. There are problems and exercises after many of the sections, and answers in the back of the book.—R. L. S. (shrink)

The author--a Danish philosopher influenced by Moore, the later Wittgenstein, and C. I. Lewis--lays bare three fundamental rules of "informal logic" implicit in any description of empirical reality. They are: psychological expressions cannot be applied independently of the personal pronouns, personal pronouns cannot be applied independently of names of ordinary things, and names of ordinary things cannot be applied independently of words expressing possibility of action. A number of important consequences are drawn: in particular, that certain traditional philosophical problems--such as (...) the existence of the external world and the future validity of physical laws--cannot be properly formulated; and that the description of nature cannot afford any argument for psychological determinism. A stimulating book. --T. L. M. (shrink)

An attempt to develop some "valuationally neutral" definitions of freedom in the interest of a more rigorous vocabulary in the social sciences. For his analytic purposes, Oppenheim takes as basic "social freedom," a behavioral, relational concept holding between "actors." Within his self-imposed limitations--of analyzing and clarifying, rather than contributing a new theory--Oppenheim has succeeded in dissecting one of political theory's most crucial but emotively colored words. --W. L. M.

A detailed study of Heidegger's views on the dialogue between poet and thinker. Allemann's discussion of Heidegger's neologistic experiments in philology point up the immense problem of translating the German's writing. Fédier's translation is an example of precision and self-effacement, though the resulting text suffers from an understandable heaviness.--W. L. M.

Comment fonctionne l’image sur le vase François ? Parmi les associations thématiques ou formelles que François Lissarague met en évidence sur ce cratère, on relèvera ici celles qui établissent un rapport entre l’épopée et l’histoire, notamment celle que vit Athènes depuis sa refondation par Solon.The Athens of Solon on the François Vase. How does the François Vase function? Among the thematic and formal associations, underlined by François Lissarague, this study emphasises those establishing a connection between the epic and history, notably (...) Athenian history since the Solonian “refoundation”. (shrink)

S'il est un point que les réflexions contemporaines sur le temps ont mis en relief et inscrit profondément dans notre conscience, c'est que l'avenir qu'on espère dépend directement du présent qu'on réalise. Telle est notre attitude en face du présent, telle elle sera inéluctablement en face de l'avenir; et donc l'avenir lui-même, puisque ce dernier n'est rien sinon un présent caché encore, au cœur d'un présent déjà actuel, et explicite. Il est en effet de l'essence même de notre condition humaine (...) d'avoir un présent structuré et comme stratifié. Certes on peut imaginer le présent comme un point sans épaisseur, comme la limite évanescente entre un segment de ligne qui marque le passé à jamais révolu, et l'avenir qui se meut vers nous pour basculer inexorablement vers le non-être en franchissant ce présent. Mais cette image, utile pour bien des tâches, ne correspond d'aucune manière à la réalité vivante de la conscience humaine et des activités qui lui sont propres. Nous sommes dans le présent ce que nous sommes et ce que, en un sens, nous croyons pouvoir dire que nous avons été. Une grande partie de ce que nous appelons le passé, notre passé personnel et sans doute notre passé spécifique, est présent, non seulement à titre de souvenir, pouvant être, ou non, évoqué, mais à titre de schéma dynamique modifiant notre être-au-monde, notre présente réaction au réel le plus réel, à la situation où nous avons à déployer notre activité. (shrink)

1. Falsafat al-rūḥ -- 2. Falsafat al-ʻaqūl -- 3. Raḥīq al-nafs -- 4. al-Qadāʼ wa-al-qadar.

Le philosophe Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) a-t-il vraiment existé? Que reste-t-il de lui? "Une élégance certaine de la pensée", affirme l'un de ses meilleurs interprètes, François L'Yvonnet. Le philosophe de La Société de consommation, des Stratégies fatales et des Cool Memories s'attachait à l'idée du fragment comme mode de pensée : car dans le détail, tout est parfait, c'est dans sa reproduction que tout se complique. François L'Yvonnet explore cinq fragments de la philosophie de Jean Baudrillard et de sa biographie pour (...) mieux saisir l'éclat et la jubilation d'une pensée toujours vivante et contemporaine. (shrink)

RésuméLa notion de «rationalité de l'Univers » a varié au cours du temps, le long dialogue de l'esprit et de la nature ayant toujours abouti à ce que Le Roy appelait « l'évolution de l'évidence et la plasticité de la raison ».L'échec de l'explication mécanique de l'Univers a conduit James Jeans à déclarer que le monde ressemble plutôt « à une grande pensée » qu'à une grande machine », car on ne peut en donner qu'une description mathématique. En réalité, la (...) physique moderne n'est ni plus ni moins mathématique que l'ancienne; elle est seulement plus générale. James Jeans confond les mathématiques pures et les mathématiques appliquées.Eddington prétend déduire les lois générales et les constantes physiques de la nature de considérations épistémologiques a priori. C'est un retour à Kant. Malheureusement les postulate dont il part comme évidents n'ont point paru tels au XVIIe siècle et n'ont été admis que sous la contrainte de l'expérience. Sa théorie ne prévoit ni les neutrons ni les mésons. Elle est vouée à l'échec.La possibilité de trouver un formalisme mathématique applicable à un domaine expérimental ne préjuge en rien la rationalité de l'Univers, car un mathématicien habile sera toujours capable de faire rentrer même un monde « erratique » dans un vêtement mathématique approprié. (shrink)

Le but de ce texte est de mettre en évidence les équi­valences entre la façon dont le concept de conatus résout, dans l'Éthique, le problème de l'unité modale complexe. en rendant consis­tant le concept de chose singulière en tant que celle-ci doit être consi­dérée comme un légitime sujet d'attribution d'états, et la façon dont ce même concept dessine le rapport cognitif de l'esprit avec lui-même, rapport par lequel l'esprit se saisit comme sujet de ses états et qui ca­ractérise la notion (...) moderne de subjectivité. Ainsi, en éclairant cet as­pect du concept spinoziste de chose singulière. on comprendra aussi, de façon indirecte, l'une des conditions par lesquelles les choses peuvent, dans la doctrine spinoziste, devenir des objets ou des signes pour la connaissance humaine. (shrink)

L'article explore la notion wébérienne de «domination rationnelle» comme outil pour analyser les rapports entre les efforts de gestion des populations indigènes par l'État colonial, et le développement d'une forme spécifique de rationalité scientifique, prenant pour objet ces populations: les savoirs anthropologiques. En s'appuyant sur le cas de l'Afrique coloniale française, on s'efforce de montrer comment les dimensions d'instrumentation (avec la production d'instruments d'identification et de compréhension) et de légitimation sont essentielles dans l'émergence de savoirs sur les sociétés et les (...) cultures indigènes, d'abord au sein des appareils administratifs, mais aussi dans les institutions savantes métropolitaines. L'appui au développement de la science de l'homme se fait dans le cadre de projets de « rationalisation » de la colonisation qui rapprochent des savants et des réformateurs liés à l 'École coloniale, voulant redéfinir la profession d'administrateur colonial comme «spécialiste des indigènes». (shrink)

Suppose that the ultimate point of ethics is to make the world a better place. If it is, we must face the question: better in what respect? If the good is prior to the right — that is, if the rationale for all requirements of the right is that they serve to further the good in one way or another — then what is this good? Is there a single fundamental value capable of underlying and unifying all of our moral (...) categories? If so, how might it defeat the claims of rival candidates for this role? If not, is there instead a plurality of basic goods, each irreducible to any of the others? In that case, how do they fit together into a unified picture of the moral life? These are the questions I wish to address, in a necessarily limited way. To many the questions will seem hopelessly old-fashioned or misguided. Some deontologists will wish to reverse my ordering of the good and the right, holding that the right constrains acceptable conceptions of the good. For many contractarians, neither the good nor the right will seem normatively basic, since both are to be derived from a prior conception of rationality. Finally, some theorists will reject the classification of moral theories in terms of their basic normative categories, arguing that the whole foundationalist enterprise in ethics should be abandoned. In the face of these challenges to the priority of the good, and in light of the many current varieties of moral skepticism and relativism, I cannot provide a very convincing justification for raising the questions I intend to discuss. (shrink)