The concept of sovereignty is a recurring and controversial theme in international law, and it has a long history in western philosophy. The traditionally favored concept of sovereignty proves problematic in the context of international law. International law’s own claims to sovereignty, which are premised on traditional concept of sovereignty, undermine individual nations’ claims to sovereignty. These problems are attributable to deep-seated flaws in the traditional concept of sovereignty. A viable alternative concept of sovereignty can be derived from key concepts (...) in Friedrich Nietzsche’s views on human reason and epistemology. The essay begins by considering the problem of sovereignty from the ancient philosophical perspective inherent in the fundamental assumptions and ideas of Plato’s political philosophy and epistemology. It then considers the contemporary problem of sovereignty in the context of international law by examining Louis Henkin’s formulation of and approach to it in his essay That S-Word: Sovereignty, and Globalization, and Human Rights, Etc. Finally, the essay articulates Nietzsche’s views on intellectual conscience, discusses their merits and advantages when used in dealing the problem of sovereignty in the context of international law, and proposes a solution to this problem that draws on the philosophies of Nietzsche, Novalis, Kant and Plato. The essay illustrates the relevance and advantages of this solution by examining the issue of states’ reservations to international treaties and conventions. (shrink)

Reply to John Lewis: Note on "The critique of the personality cult". Remark on the category "Process without a subject or goal(s)"--Elements of self-criticism: On the evolution of the young Marx.--Is it simple to be a Marxist in philosophy? "Something new".

This reference work is a reprint of the 1694 translation of Moreri's classic reference work . The two volumes contain a mixture of histiographical, geographical and poetical information. They chronicle the lives and actions of celebrated people from the time as well as offering invaluable information on various world-wide regions, empires and kingdoms. Containing over 25,000 entries, the English edition is generally considered superior to the French, as an additional section on the English, Scottish and Irish nobility was added.

Il existe plusieurs faisceaux de présomption qui témoigneraient de relation entre les Polynésiens et les Amérindiens d’Amérique du Sud : il est aujourd’hui admis que les Polynésiens ont atteint l’Amérique du Sud. Si la patate douce est un indice d’anciens contacts entre la Polynésie et l’Amérique du Sud, des archéologues ont aussi trouvé sur la façade pacifique de l’Amérique du Chili des ossements de poulets polynésiens. Quelles seraient les étoiles que les Polynésiens pourraient avoir suivies pour se pourvoir en patate (...) douce en Amérique du Sud et plus précisément au Chili, sous les latitudes où les chercheurs ont trouvé des poules polynésiennes? L’ethnoastronomie tentera de répondre à la question de l’itinéraire de la patate douce, en soulevant l’hypothèse du rôle des étoiles comme repère spatial. There are several bundles of presumption that would testify of relationship between Polynesians and Native Americans from South America: it is now accepted that the Polynesians have reached South America. If sweet potato is a sign of ancient contacts between Polynesia and South America, archaeologists have also found on the Pacific Ocean facade in Chile the bones of Polynesian chickens. What would be the stars possibly followed by the Polynesians to get sweet potato in South America and Chile, under the latitudes where researchers have found Polynesian chickens? The ethnoastronomy will attempt to respond to the issue of the route of the sweet potato, by raising the hypothesis of the role of the stars as spatial coordinate system. (shrink)

Althusser delivered these lectures on Rousseau's Discourse on the Origins of Inequality at the École normale supérieure in Paris in 1972. They are fascinating for two reasons. First, they gave rise to a new generation of Rousseau scholars, attentive not just to Rousseau's ideas, but also to those of his concepts that were buried beneath metaphors or fictional situations and characters. Second, we are now discovering that the "late Althusser's" theses about aleatory materialism and the need to break with the (...) strict determinism of theories of history in order to devise a new philosophy "for Marx" were being worked out well before 1985 in this reading of Rousseau dating from twelve years earlier, which introduces into Rousseau's text the ideas of the void, the accident, the take, and the necessity of contingency. (shrink)

Le De Veritate de Herbert de Cherbury (1624) et son idée d’un « consentement universel » ont fait l’objet, au xvii e siècle, d’une importante discussion. Après avoir examiné la critique, d’inspiration sceptique, voyant dans toute tentative de passer outre la diversité de l’« opinion commune » une forme d’intolérance épistémique, sont restituées les grandes décisions qui, dans le De Veritate, justifient le recours au consentement universel. Enfin, on montre que Descartes, ne trouvant pas chez Herbert de critère suffisant pour (...) distinguer une « notion commune » d’une erreur universellement partagée, substitue la « lumière naturelle » au consentement universel et l’idée d’un « sens commun à tous » à la tyrannie d’une opinion particulière se donnant l’allure de l’universel. (shrink)

Bec explores the significance of gestures in Flusser’s work, linking them to Flusser’s writing activity as well as to Flusser himself. Through his gestures, his gesticulating, he moved to move others. The world manifests itself in gestures. New gestures may appear, influencing and changing how we relate to reality. The new gestures of photographing, filming, and videotaping will alter our ways of existence in that they anticipate a new cybernetic form of life.

The method of supervaluations offers an elegant procedure by which semantic theory can come to terms with sentences that, for one reason or another, lack truth-value. I argue, however, that this method rests on a fundamental mistake, and so is unsuitable for semantics. The method of supervaluations, I argue, assigns semantic values to sentences based not on the semantic values of their components, but on the values of other, perhaps homophonic, but nevertheless distinct, expressions. That is because supervaluations are generated (...) from classical valuations which necessarily require reinterpreting the component expressions, but the reinterpretation of an expression is tantamount to the introduction of a new expression, or alternatively, to a shift to an entirely new language. To confuse the expression of the language for which a semantic theory is developed with its reinterpreted counterpart, is to commit a fallacy of equivocation. That is the flaw within the method of supervaluations. We see it manifest in a number of examples. (shrink)