A logic of the moral life: that is one of the projects of Maurice Blondel during his career as a french philosophyer. That theme is coming out of his previous thinking of what he called "a logic of action" (une logique de l'action), as it was discussed in his famous 1893 french thesis, L'action. We provide an analysis of that further development.

Résumé Les Communia gramatice, un compendium grammatical anonyme rédigé autour de 1250 dans le milieu éclectique de la Faculté des arts de Paris et contenu aujourd’hui uniquement dans le manuscrit 16617 du fonds latin de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, traitent entre autres du statut linguistique de l’interjection. La notion de signification, au sens de contenu de connaissances et de rapport référentiel entre un mot et son signifié, y joue un rôle fondamental : la principale difficulté onto-grammaticale présentée par l’interiectio (...) étant précisément de déterminer la nature de sa signification. L’auteur anonyme des Communia gramatice pose clairement la distinction classique entre la signification d’une émotion et la signification d’un concept, mais y apporte des nuances intéressantes de nature cognitive : nous sommes à une époque où la philosophie naturelle aristotélicienne vient tout juste de rencontrer la grammaire spéculative typiquement parisienne.The Communia gramatice, an anonymous grammatical compendium emanating from the eclectic mediaeval Faculty of Arts of Paris and only preserved nowadays in the manuscript 16617 of the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s latin claim, deal, among other things, with the linguistic status of interjections. The notion of meaning, as a content of knowledge and a referential connection between a word and his signified, is fundamental : the main onto-grammatical problem with interjections being precisely that the nature of their meaning is quite uncertain. The anonymous author of the Communia gramatice clearly poses the standard distinction between the meaning of a feeling and the meaning of a concept, but puts into it some interesting thoughts of cognitive subject-matter : these theories belong to a time when the Aristotelian natural philosophy just met the typical Parisian speculative grammar. (shrink)

Cet article propose une exploration critique de l’herméneutique queer de la Bible hébraïque, en particulier par le biais de ses différentes lectures du Cantique des cantiques. Il se divise en deux parties. Dans la première, les auteurs présentent la genèse du mot «queer», ses développements théoriques et ses applications possibles aux études bibliques. Dans la deuxième partie, ils proposent quelques lectures queer du Cantique des cantiques à partir de différentes thématiques: la marginalité de la bien-aimée, la réciprocité du désir amoureux, (...) le brouillage des frontières sexuelles, l’absence d’allusion à la procréation et l’amour malgré l’oppression sociale. Finalement, les auteurs évaluent quelques arguments queer en faveur de l’attribution d’un statut pornographique au Cantique des cantiques. (shrink)

In museum settings, caregivers support children's learning as they explore and interact with exhibits. Museums have developed exhibit design and facilitation strategies for promoting families' exploration and inquiry, but these strategies have rarely been contrasted. The goal of the current study was to investigate how prompts offered through staff facilitation vs. labels printed on exhibit components affected how family groups explored a circuit blocks exhibit, particularly whether children set and worked toward their own goals, and how caregivers were involved in (...) children's play. We compared whether children, their caregivers, or both set goals as they played together, and the actions they each took to connect the circuits. We found little difference in how families set goals between the two conditions, but did find significant differences in caregivers' actions, with caregivers in the facilitation condition making fewer actions to connect circuits while using the exhibit, compared to caregivers in the exhibit labels condition. The findings suggest that facilitated and written prompts shape the quality of caregiver-child interactions in distinct ways. (shrink)

Applied Ethics has developed first in the English-Speaking world, but since the 1970's onward, the field also developed in the french part of Canada, especially Québec. This book presens three major contributions of the field in that context for a French public; in France, applied ethics is a quite recent development (1990's). Theoretical analysis of three authors is followed by interviews with the same persons to go further in the clarifications. The authors are Pierre Fortin, Guy Durand and Georges A. (...) Legault respectively from Rimouski, Montreal and Sherbrooke. (shrink)

Many terms have a technical meaning although it is not evident for everyone, for example, the "environmental governance", term that refers in the present context to citizen participation on this type of question, for example, of the health of a specific ecosystem, such as a forest or an agricultural field, from shared preoccupations and not from a problematic of organizational control. After having made precise what is the expertise and what are the main problems posed by the recourse to the (...) expertise in the contexts of citizen action, I propose that technical expertise can be tantamount to other types of expertise, referring mainly to profane knowledge, to the practice and concrete experience called "of field", which corresponds to an enlargement. Then it is suggested the model of an hybrid forum as a possible theoretical frame of this reformulation of the conception of expertise -/- Muitos termos possuem um sentido técnico sem que ele seja evidente para todos, por exemplo, a "governança ambiental", termo que remete no contexto atual a uma participação cidadã nesse tipo de questão, por exemplo, da saúde de um ecossistema específico, tal como uma floresta ou um vale agrícola, a partir de preocupações partilhadas e não a partir de uma problemática de controle organizacional. Após ter tornado preciso o que é a expertise e quais são os principais problemas postos pelo recurso à expertise nos contextos da ação cidadã, proponho que as expertises técnicas podem ser postas no mesmo patamar que outros tipos de expertise, referindo principalmente aos saberes comuns, à prática e à experiência concreta, dita "de campo", o que corresponde a uma ampliação. Sugere-se, então, o modelo de fórum híbrido como quadro teórico possível dessa reformulação da concepção de expertise. -/- . (shrink)

Alain Létourneau L’actualité et le quotidien ont été progressivement monopolisés par la pandémie qui a fait surface à la fin de l’année 2019, en raison de son urgence et de sa gravité. L’on commencera par se demander comment les sciences nous permettent de la comprendre et pourquoi ce sont certaines sciences en particulier qui ont pris l’avant-plan. En réfléchissant aux questions relevant de la biodiversité et des rapports entre les humains et leurs divers contextes écosystémiques, il devient possible de (...) reposer le problème en termes politiques et économiques, dans une approche qui met la prévention au coeur des attitudes requises. Une gouvernance polycentrique – faisant intervenir plusieurs pôles – peut aider à renouveler notre façon de poser les problèmes de pandémie d’un point de vue éthique. (shrink)

How can we interpret a film, a movie, or any other narrative content presented in visual form? We provide a theoretical frame (mostly gathered from Ricoeur, Gadamer, Habermas and the author's own theorizing) and provide a way to put the cinematic content in relation with the interpret's experience by suggesting questions.

Les systèmes sociaux complexes étudiés par Elinor Ostrom et les chercheurs associés caractérisent souvent des réseaux de petite ou de moyenne échelle, tant pour des ressources matérielles qu’informationnelles. Mais d’un point de vue citoyen, les outils, institutions des collectifs sociopolitiques peuvent-ils être pensés sous l’angle des ressources communes et, à ce titre, donner lieu à l’émergence d’une gouvernance participative, en étant vus comme à préserver par les concernés? Pour favoriser une telle lecture, il nous faut clarifier quelques apports de l’école (...) d’Ostrom, amorcer une analyse sociale des composantes d’une gouvernance des communs fondée sur la participation et identifier certaines questions à creuser ultérieurement, notamment les problèmes posés dans le cadre d’une économie largement financiarisée et abstraite des besoins matériels les plus immédiats. (shrink)

Culinary traditions and food practices are at the center of our daily lives and therefore constitute an important part of culture. Whether they are part of significant rituals or simply routinely enacted, they tell us something about the way we relate to each other and to the non-human world. In other words, food practices have an ethical dimension. Our paper focuses on the possibility to make objective ethical assessments of problematic cultural practices rooted in culinary traditions as a reply to (...) arguments associated with an ethical relativism according to which cultures produce ethical systems that are self-validating and therefore that cannot be criticized objectively. Drawing from examples involving animal cruelty and production methods harmful to the environment, we argue that it is possible to judge ethically questionable food practices from an objectivist standpoint inspired by moral progress, in contrario to a relativist point of view. Following a short discussion of ethical relativism, we present the outline of an acceptability test for questionable food practices and use it to analyse the case of the dog meat industry in South Korea. (shrink)

This article raises serious concerns regarding the widespread use of unproven interventions with juveniles who sexually offend and suggests innovative methods for addressing these concerns. Dominant interventions (i.e., cognitive-behavioral group treatments with an emphasis on relapse prevention) typically fail to address the multiple determinants of juvenile sexual offending and could result in iatrogenic outcomes. Methodologically sophisticated research studies (i.e., randomized clinical trials) are needed to examine the clinical and cost-effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral group interventions, especially those delivered in residential settings. The (...) moral and ethical mandate for such research is evident when considering the alternative, in which clinicians and society are willing to live in ignorance regarding the etiology and treatment of juvenile sexual offending and to consign offending youths to the potential harm of untested interventions. Encouraging signs of a changing ethical climate include recent federal funding of a randomized clinical trial examining treatment effectiveness with sexually offending youths and the introduction of separate (i.e., developmentally informed) clinical and legal interventions for juvenile versus adult sexual offenders. (shrink)

Depuis quelques décennies, des réflexions éthiques sont menées sur les problèmes posés par les nouveaux réseaux de communication et d’information, avec comme élément clé l’ordinateur comme moteur et cadre de la transformation contemporaine à cet égard. Comme nous le rappelons, il est habituel d’aborder ce vaste domaine par sous-chantiers, avec des chapitres spécifiques sur la vie privée, etc. ; mais du même coup, en fonction de la complexité des enjeux, il devient clair que c’est l’ensemble de notre perspective sur ces (...) questions qui doit être modifiée, on ne peut se contenter d’une approche encyclopédique y allant par secteurs successifs. Le but de l’article est de montrer en quoi le cadre développé par Elinor Ostrom (prix Nobel 2009 en économie), appelé Institutional Analysis and Development, est susceptible de nous fournir des outils pertinents pour traiter les questions d’éthique qui se posent à l’heure des réseaux, même si ce modèle a des limites que nous mentionnerons. Ce qui suppose de présenter cette approche en soulignant son secteur initial d’émergence, la gouvernance des ressources naturelles. (shrink)

Is Architecture Today Still an Art?Theoretical Considerations and Ethical Consequences Architecture has been proposing, for many decades now, more and more spectacular buildings. This could lead to believe that architecture has reached the top of its art. But this question requires first to define art in general, and also the authentic art of architecture. For this purpose, we will use a Bergsonian methodology in order to unveil in an unprecedented way the two different natures of art. The first nature, "ephemeral (...) art", will be analyzed as an artistic performance, which is powered by the creative gesture. The second nature, "persistent art", relies on durable productions. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we will create links between the two natures of art and German musicology: "pathogenic" and "logogenic" architectural productions will be presented to validate if architecture respects its own profound nature. We will finally analyze the modern paradigm of occidental "occulocentric" way of creating with its lack of hermeneutic substance and, thus, its important ethical consequences. (shrink)

Est-il encore approprié de s’interroger sur le devenir du Québec à travers le prisme cardinal de la question nationale ? Il se pourrait bien que non, ce qui ne veut pas dire que l’ambition indépendantiste, qui appartient au paysage politique québécois depuis des lustres, soit en voie de régression. Cela dit, le temps serait peut-être venu de changer de paradigme pour saisir la mouvance..

This is a translation, by A. Létourneau, of a book by Fergus Kerr, Theology after Wittgenstein previously published by Oxford U. Press The author provides a reading of Wittgenstein, and explains how theology as a discipline can take into account his main philosophical thoughts about religion and ethics.

Depuis un certain temps déjà, la société québécoise connaît un ensemble de mutations majeures sur les plans social et démographique, ainsi que sur celui des représentations symboliques. Elle ne peut plus être envisagée par le biais des concepts et métaphores habituellement utilisés, en France notamment, pour cerner ses caractéristiques particulières : « nation tricotée serrée »,..

The development of the aquaculture industry in Canada has triggered a conflict of a scope never seen before. As stated in Young and Matthews’ The Aquaculture Controversy, this debate has “mushroomed over the past several decades to become one of the most bitter and stubborn face-offs over industrial development ever witnessed in Canada” (Young and Matthews in The aquaculture controversy in Canada. Activism, policy and contested science. UBC Press, Vancouver, p 3, 2010). It opposes a wide variety of actors: from (...) industrial investors, scientists, politicians and environmentalists to Native associations and communities, citizens groups and local stakeholders. The opposition is fierce between those in favor of a flourishing and modern aquaculture of industrial nature and those who fear the dreadful consequences of such an industry. In particular, the possible implementation of biotechnology innovations, such as a genetically modified salmon, has made this debate coextensive with the GMO debate, thus multiplying the opposition’s spectrum of arguments against the industry. Throughout the debate, Canadian environmental NGOs like the Suzuki Foundation and Greenpeace Canada have assumed leadership over the opposition to aquaculture development with certain success. Their participation in the debate features numerous ethical concerns related to environmental health, a respect for wilderness and local human communities. Such a position can be associated overall with a form of ecocentric ethics or concern. Nevertheless, a careful examination of the technical solutions proposed by these NGOs reveals their embeddedness in biocentrism. Through the example taken from the Canadian debate on aquaculture development, this paper aims to highlight the conceptual difficulty of enacting ecocentric ethical positions beyond formal arguments. Because ecocentrism implies a true paradigm shift, not only in mentality, but also in the way we conceive our technical interventions in nature, biocentrism remains an important practical method to enact ethical positions related to environmental concerns in public debates. (shrink)

The concept of polarity is pervasive in natural language. It relates syntax, semantics and pragmatics narrowly, Semantics: an international handbook of natural language meaning, De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin, 2011; Israel in The grammar of polarity: pragmatics, sensitivity, and the logic of scales, Cambridge studies in linguistics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014), it refers to items of many syntactic categories such as nouns, verbs and adverbs. Neutral polarity items appear in affirmative and negative sentences, negative polarity items cannot appear in affirmative (...) sentences, and positive polarity items cannot appear in negative sentences. A way of reasoning in Natural Language is through Natural Logic. This logic is based on the concept of polarity in order to make the meaning of a sentence weaker o stronger without changing its truth value. There exist many proposals to compute polarity in the Natural Logic context, the most widely known are the ones by: van Benthem, Sánchez-Valencia, Dowty, and van Eijck, 6th international Tbilisi symposium on logic, language, and computation, Batumi, Georgia, Springer, 2007). If Natural Logic is going to be used, as an inferential mechanism between text fragments, in Natural Language Processing applications such as text summarization, question answering, and information extraction, it is a priority to know what the existing relationship among the aforementioned algorithms is; for example, to implement the most general. We show in this paper the equivalence among the analyzed algorithms, filling a gap in Natural Logic research, particularly in computing polarity, and the soundness of their algorithms. (shrink)

Au moyen de dossiers traités par les tribunaux ecclésiastiques de Lima et Quito, cet article cherche à débusquer les ruses employées pour contourner les règles non écrites de la hiérarchisation socio-raciale de la colonie. Il montre aussi les systèmes de défense des personnes citées à comparaître. Au-delà de schémas somme toute assez répandus dans bien des situations coloniales, on voit apparaître dans la pratique une certaine flexibilité quant à ces règles, les plaignants plaidant souvent la tromperie alors qu’ils semblent bien (...) n’avoir été nullement dupes de l’engagement qu’ils avaient pris avec des personnes situées plus bas qu’eux dans la palette ethnique. (shrink)

Marx et Foucault : deux oeuvres, deux pensées sans lesquelles on ne peut saisir le sens de notre présent. Pas de théorie critique qui puisse se passer de leurs concepts et de leurs analyses. Et pas de luttes qui ne renvoient à tel moment ou à tel aspect de leur héritage. Pourtant, de l'un à l'autre le passage ne va pas de soi. Les époques, les intentions, les philosophies même ne sont pas superposables. Hétérogènes donc, ces pensées font, l'une et (...) l'autre, obstacle à tout "foucaldo-marxisme". L'ouvrage vise à montrer des rapports mobiles et complexes, non des identités profondes ou des incompatibilités d'essence. Rapports de Foucault à Marx : il prend appui sur lui pour le déborder, l'envelopper, et parfois l'opposer à lui-même. Rapports de Foucault aux marxismes, sous leurs variantes les plus diverses, humaniste, existentialiste, althussérienne, qui n'ont cessé de composer les actualités changeantes de Foucault. Rapports des marxistes, d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, à Foucault : comment l'ont-ils lu? Que lui ont-ils reproché, que lui ont-ils emprunté? Qu'en font-ils aujourd'hui de neuf? C'est donc l'actualité d'une lecture croisée de Marx et Foucault qui est au centre des contributions de cet ouvrage et qui ouvre sur un espace fécond pour l'avenir de la pensée critique."--P. [4] of cover. (shrink)

Il est cinq heures, le cours est terminé? sont les dernières paroles prêtées à Henri Bergson sur son lit de mort début janvier 1941 à Paris.00Avec Bergson disparaissait ± le dernier grand nom de l'intelligence européenne? (Paul Valéry). Né au milieu du siècle précédent, Bergson avait suivi un itinéraire à nul autre pareil qui le conduisit des salles obscures d'une pension israélite à Paris où ses parents l'avaient abandonné enfant, aux cimes éblouissantes de l'École normale supérieure, de l'agrégation de philosophie, (...) du Collège de France, de l'Académie française et du Prix Nobel de littérature, en laissant derrière lui une oeuvre magistrale nimbée, comme d'une poussière d'étoiles, d'honneurs, de distinctions, de récompenses et de titres.00Ascension vertigineuse, qui porta Bergson à l'apogée de la gloire et même de cette ± rallonge bizarre de la gloire qu'est la légende? (Thibaudet), mais qui s'acheva dans la désolation d'une nuit d'hiver où la France qu'il chérissait tant, s'enfonçait dans la honte de la collaboration et de la persécution des Juifs dont il ne voulut pas se désolidariser en renonçant à une conversion catholique annoncée.00Plus de quatre-vingts ans après sa disparition, la figure de Bergson s'est estompée comme sur ces vieilles photographies qui avec le temps ne laissent voir que des silhouettes fantomatiques.00Il est cinq heures, le cours est terminé veut replacer dans la lumière celui que Raymond Aron sacrait ± le plus français des philosophes?. (shrink)

Sixteen hundred years after her death (d. 415 CE), the legacy of Hypatia of Alexandria's life, teaching, and especially her violent demise, continue to influence modern culture. Through a series of focused articles, this volume takes a fresh look at the most well-known ancient female philosopher under three aspects: first, through the evidence provided by her most famous pupil, Synesius of Cyrene; next, by placing her in her late antique cultural context, and, finally, through analysis of her reception both ancient (...) and modern. Though the sources are meager, Hypatia's influence on her students and wider culture guaranteed that she remained an important figure throughout the centuries, albeit one ranging from chaste Neoplatonist to conniving witch. Along with its eleven new essays, this volume also includes a new translation of all the principal ancient sources touching on Hypatia. (shrink)

Appartenant au genre traditionnel de la typologie des nations, l’image de l’Espagnol mélancolique constitue un topos culturel vivace, qui se manifeste avec une remarquable continuité depuis le Siècle d’Or espagnol. Attribué par les étrangers – notamment par les Français – ce cliché est aussi revendiqué et développé par les auteurs espagnols eux-mêmes. Il devient dès lors nécessaire de s’interroger sur la persistance de ce topos à travers les siècles ainsi que d’examiner comment – et pourquoi – les Espagnols ont adhéré (...) à l’image que l’extérieur et la caractérologie des nations ont donnée d’eux. L’examen des occurrences de ce topos a pour but de cerner son fonctionnement, de déterminer les représentations – parfois antagoniques – qu’il convoque dans le texte et les enjeux qu’il implique. L’image de l’Espagnol mélancolique constitue une représentation profondément subjective qui engage un travail complexe de l’imaginaire: elle met en jeu la représentation de l’altérité et la conscience que chaque nation a de soi, révélant beaucoup du sujet qui la produit. (shrink)

Le renouvellement de la pensée critique requiert l’examen préalable des significations variées et parfois contradictoires qui ont été attribuées aux mots « socialisme » et « communisme ». Il serait en effet trop facile de congédier sans discussion l’un et l’autre de ces termes sous prétexte des faillites historiques du stalinisme et de la social-démocratie. De ces dernières,..

This paper tryes understand the state of mind originated by the tension produced by the contardictions of an old society of contrasts an the obsolescence of the structures created by the conquest in the rural areas of the Andes. We also have tryed to relate the colonial peace in the XVIIth century the great crisis of the XVIIlth century which could be considered as the prologue of the independence.

For the past half a century, Latin American scholars have been pointing toward the emergence of new social actors as agents of social and political democratization. The first wave of actors was characterized by the emergence of novel agents—mainly, new popular movements—of social transformation. At first, the second wave, epitomized by nongovernmental organizations, was celebrated as the upsurge of a new civil society, but later on, it was the target of harsh criticism. The literature often portrays this development in Latin (...) American civil society as a displacement trend of actors of the first wave by the second wave—“NGOization”—and even denounces new civil society as rootless, depoliticized, and functional to retrenchment. Thus, supposedly, NGOization encumbers social change. The authors argue that NGOization diagnosis is a flawed depiction of change within civil society. Rather than NGOization related to the depoliticization and neoliberalization of civil society, in Mexico City and São Paulo, there has been modernization of organizational ecologies, changes in the functional status of civil society, and interestingly, specialization aimed at shaping public agenda. The authors argue that such specialization, instead of encumbering social change, brings about different repertoires of strategies and skills purposively developed for influencing policy and politics. Their argument relies on comparative systematic evidence. Through network analysis, they examine the organizational ecology of civil society in Mexico City and São Paulo. (shrink)

Although the topic has been extensively studied, many issues about understanding of indirect requests in children are still unsolved. Our contribution is to distinguish genuine and ironic hints, focusing on the latter. We examined the understanding of ironic hints and ironic imperatives in 5- to 9-year-old children and in adults, in various situational contexts. The main result of this study was that ironic hints were more difficult to understand than ironic imperatives only when the context was neutral. When the context (...) was ironic, there was no significant difference. Discussion highlights how context enables young children to understand very indirect requests like ironic hints. (shrink)