Avant la parution des Lettres philosophiques de Voltaire, chaque grande famille intellectuelle examine la production pascalienne selon une perspective traditionelle. Après la XXV Lettre, où s'affrontent deux morales, deux épistémologies, deux conceptions de Dieu, le regard sur Pascal perd de son unité. Certes, parmi les écrivains des Lumières, l'anthropologie pascalienne est condamnée: la valorisation de l'amour propre, la croyance en l'idée de nature, le souci, le souci de bienfaisance, l'esprit de tolérance, le concept d'utilité, la foi dans le progrès et (...) l'éfficacité de l'action politique s'opposent au tragique pascalien. Mais certains auteurs, tel Vauvenargues, sont sensibles à l'esthétique de Pascal, tandis que d'autres, comme d'Alembert, vantent ses mérites scientifiques. Le paradoxe de la fortune pascalienne est surtout entretenu, dans le parti des Lumières, par l'orientation sceptique donnée aux fragments sur la coutume ou sur le désenchantement du monde. Conséquence du progrès de l'esprit 'philosophique', les apologistes, chez qui le sens du péché s'est atténué, défendent avec tiédeur Pascal, en oubliant progressivement la dimension théologique des Pensées et en orientant ce livre vers une interprétation profane: les preuves historiques tendent à passer au second plan. L'apologie traditionnelle reconnaît un rôle social au christianisme, parallèlement au concept d'utilité et de progrès qui imprègnent les consciences religieuses. Dans ce contexte, peu favorable á une bonne compréhension de la théologie pascalienne, les jésuites atténuent leurs critiques envers l'auteur des Provinciales, tandis que les jansénistes, à l'exemple de Louis Racine, se révèlent des disciples infidèles: les preuves métaphysiques, naturelles ou morales ne s'inscrivent pas dans la filiation pascalienne. Les défenseurs de la religion chrétienne restent étrangers au message pascalien. Condorcet, premier éditeur des Pensées depuis Port-Royal, opère une fracture saisissante entre le moraliste et l'apologiste jusqu'à enrôler Pascal dans le camps des athées. La fin du XVIIIe siècle est marquée par le renouveau d'une sensibilité religieuse, mais celle-ci reste éloignée de la thématique pascalienne. Seule la littérature, avec l'éloge de la mélancolie, la fascination pour la subjectivité, la reconnaissance du fragment, offre l'amorce d'une transformation du regard sur Pascal. En conclusion, il semble que l'auteur du dix-septième siècle ne soit compris ni par les philosophes ni par les apologistes, dont l'horizon intellectuelle est paradoxalement réuni par les critères de raison ou d'utilité. Leur rapport à l'oeuvre pascalienne ne se lit que sous la forme d'une stratégie des 'morceaux choisis'. Ce sujet a aussi souligné l'intérêt d'un débat toujours recommencé: le XX résonne encore de l'affrontement entre le doute et l'optimisme, entre une interrogation sur les valeurs et la foi dans le progrès, entre la dénonciation de la perte des sens et le pari sur l'histoire. Le dialogue entre l'humanisme et l'anti-humanisme est de tous les siècles. (shrink)

For many religious people there is a problem of doubting various credal statements contained in their religions. Often propositional beliefs are looked upon as necessary conditions for salvation. This causes great anxiety in doubters and raises the question of the importance of belief in religion and in life in general. It is a question that has been neglected in philosophy of religion and theology. In this paper I shall explore the question of the importance of belief as a religious attitude (...) and suggest that there is at least one other attitude which may be adequate for religious faith even in the absence of belief. (shrink)

The market for environmental, social and governance (ESG) rating and data is expected to grow immensely in the next decades. This brief zooms in both on the integration of ESG risks into “traditional” operations of Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) as well as on the emergence of a market exclusively dedicated to ESG rating. As will become clear, the market for ESG ratings suffers from serious shortcomings, a lack of transparency and standardisation, significant biases and conflicts of interests, and a dependence (...) on large, oligopolistic, credit rating agencies. (shrink)

Isolé par Bachelard comme une singularité de l’époque pour sa théorie de la Volonté, Schopenhauer serait en fait un pionnier. Et c’est paradoxalement sur une critique du scientisme qu’on voit cette théorie s’affiner. La volonté dans la nature apparaît comme une sauvegarde de l’espace de la philosophie là où se ferme sur lui-même le monde de la science.

The author comments on the article “The neurobiology of addiction: Implications for voluntary control of behavior,‘ by S. E. Hyman. Hyman suggests that addicted individuals have substantial impairments in cognitive control of behavior. The author states that brain and neurochemical systems are involved in addiction. He also suggests that neuroscience can link the diseased brain processes in addiction to the moral struggles of the addicts.

Some metaphysicians believe that existence debates are easily resolved by trivial inferences from Moorean premises. This paper considers how the introduction of negative Moorean facts—negative existentials that command Moorean certainty—complicates this picture. In particular, it shows how such facts, when combined with certain plausible metaontological principles, generate a puzzle that commits the proponents of this method to a contradiction.

How could the right to work for persons with disabilities be upheld? How to ensure that the jobs they are accessing are actually rewarding, do not relegate them to a subaltern position, are neither exploitative nor a form of patronisation, where the activity is only symbolic or even non-existent? Several countries have implemented “anti-discrimination” legislations, which establish the right to “reasonable accommodation” in the workplace. Quotas for recruitment in the mainstream workplace, as...

Drawing on institutional historical records, interviews and student theses, this article charts the intersection of hospital acquired illness, the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), environments of armed conflict, and larger questions of social governance in the specific case of the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) in Lebanon. Taking a methodological cue from approaches in contemporary scientific work that understand non-clinical settings as a fundamental aspect of the history and development of AMR, we treat the hospital as not just (...) nested in a set of social and environmental contexts, but frequently housing within itself elements of social and environmental history. AMR in Lebanon differs in important ways from the settings in which global protocols for infection control or rubrics for risk factor identification for resistant nosocomial outbreaks were originally generated. While such differences are all too often depicted as failures of low and middle-income countries (LMIC) to maintain universal standards, the historical question before us is quite the reverse: how have the putatively universal rubrics of AMR and hospital infection control failed to take account of social and environmental conditions that clearly matter deeply in the evolution and spread of resistance? Focusing on conditions of war as an organized chaos in which social, environmental and clinical factors shift dramatically, on the social and political topography of patient transfer, and on a missing “meso” level of AMR surveillance between the local and global settings, we show how a multisectoral One Health approach to AMR could be enriched by an answering multisectoral methodology in history, particularly one that unsettles a canonical focus on the story of AMR in the Euro-American context. (shrink)

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

The rationale of patents on transgenic organisms leads to the startling notion of the human qua infringement. The moral reasons by which we may tenably reject such notion are not conclusive as to human life forms outside the body. A close look at recombinant DNA experimentation reveals ingenious processes, but not entities that the body lacks. Except for artificial genes, the genes of biotechnology are found on chromosomes, albeit nonconsecutively, and their uninterrupted transcripts appear in messenger RNA. An enhanced form (...) of protection for ingenious processes, the human methods patent, is proposed and defended as a replacement for product patents. The proposed patent would pertain to biotechnology manufacturing and genetic intervention in somatic and germ cells. A counterpart could govern nonhuman life forms. It is argued that compulsory licensing protections should be a condition of such patent. Contrary to the conservative assumption that statutory sobriquets suffice, the reckoning of what qualifies as a patentable ingenious process will continue to require systematic scientific guidance. (shrink)

Justice is a constant and perpetual will to give every man his due. The principles of law are these: to live virtuously, not to harm others, to give his due to everyone. Jurisprudence is the knowledge of divine and human things, the science of the just and the unjust. Law is the art of goodness and justice. By virtue of this [lawyers] may be called priests, for we cherish justice and profess knowledge or goodness and equity, separating right from wrong (...) and legal from the illegal. (shrink)

Addiction of the variety discussed in this chapter, is a condition that by its very nature compromises decision-making capacity across the decisional spectrum. The impairment is present not only at moments of withdrawal and intoxication, but at all stages of the active addictive cycle, as long as the pathological dispositions to overvalue addictive drugs remain entrenched and operative. In light of this entrenched and pervasive reorientation in pathological values, it seems reasonable to question the unilateral presumption of capacity for cases (...) of this sort. The reason is that there is an important, but restricted, sense in which the addicted individuals in question are not ‘responsible’ for their decisions regarding drug use. The high likelihood of relapse means that, as a clinical matter of fact, they are usually not accountable. At the same time, clinical experience also suggests that we should treat addicted individuals as if they are responsible because that empowerment is crucial to their recovery. In the end, there is probably only one safe course of action to take when faced with such a difficult situation. This is to suspend the unilateral global presumption of capacity and instead assess decision-making capacity on a case-by-case basis, with careful monitoring and encouragement. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the conditions under the umbrella “personality disorders” actually constitute two very different kinds of theoretical entities. In particular, several core personality disorders are actually moral, and not medical, conditions. Thus, the categories that are held to represent them are really moral, and not medical, theoretical kinds. The chapter works back from the possibility of treatment to the nature of the kinds that are allegedly treated, revisiting 18th-century ideas of moral treatment along the way. The discussion closes (...) with a reflection on how the ambiguous medical status of personality disorders and their treatment today is reminiscent of the ideological tug of war that pits alienist “mad doctors” like Pinel against their lay counterparts such as Tuke as they battled over who should be in charge of treating the mad. (shrink)

No aspect of Marx’s theory has received more attention in recent decades than the dialectical method. Yet, Western interpreters have mainly restricted the discussion to those early writings in which Marx explicitly confronts Hegel’s philosophy, while socialist commentators often hesitate to subject Marx’s mature writings to fundamental questioning. In the present contribution I propose to raise a number of questions concerning the dialectical method as used in Marx’s later works and as interpreted in those of his principal followers. I realize (...) that there may be a substantial difference between the two, yet since the latter, correctly or incorrectly, explicate a text which frequently demands further justification, they must be consulted. My purpose with this task is hermeneutical rather than critical. I feel that, despite the existing bulk of Marxist literature, we still have not read Marx attentively enough to be ready for a decisive critique of his work. My own critical remarks pretend to do no more than to allow the text to reveal its own meaning within its total context. They are part of that internal criticism without which there can be no true hermeneutic. (shrink)