The finding of fractal scaling (FS) in behavioral sequences has raised a debate on whether FS is a pervasive property of the cognitive system or is the result of specific processes. Inferences about the origins of properties in time sequences are causal. That is, as opposed to correlational inferences reflecting instantaneous symmetrical relations, causal inferences concern asymmetric relations lagged in time. Here, I integrate Granger-causality with inferences about FS. Four simulations illustrate that causal analyses can isolate distinct FS sources, (...) whereas correlational techniques cannot. I then analyze three simultaneous sequences of responses from a database of word-naming trials. I find that two, or perhaps three, distinct sources account for the presence of FS in these sequences, but FS is not a general property of the system. This suggests that FS arises due to the properties of a limited number of identifiable psychological and/or neural processes. Finally, I reanalyze a previously published dataset of acoustic frequency spectra using the new tools. The causality/criticality combination introduced here offers a new important perspective in the study of cognition. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage propose la définition d'un concept généralisé du style, considéré non plus seulement comme catégorie esthétique, mais comme applicable à tout travail humain. L'auteur applique ce concept de style à des exemples d'œuvres mathématiques, puis au cas plus familier des œuvres de langage, avant d'esquisser le projet d'une stylistique des sciences de l'homme, complémentaire d'une histoire des connaissances et d'une épistémologie des structures. Gilles-Gaston Granger, spécialiste d'épistémologie, est professeur honoraire au Collège de France. Chapitre I. Contenu, forme et (...) pratique Chapitre II. Le style euclidien et la notion de grandeur Chapitre III. Style cartésien, style arguésien Chapitre IV. Naissance du style « vectoriel » Chapitre V. Le problème des significations Chapitre VI. Syntaxe et sémantique Chapitre VII. L'analyse stylistique fonde une esthétique du langage Chapitre VIII. L'image de l'action dans la construction de l'objet scientifique Chapitre IX. Les nouvelles« mathématiques sociales » Conclusion Index. (shrink)

system reflected in Saussure's linguistic theory, and so influential in the great progress linguistic theory has made in this century. Indeed, Granger sees linguistic theory as expressing a paradigm for scientific theorizing, which research in other social sciences should adopt. But 'structuralism' as a method in science does not, in Granger's view, begin with Saussure and the linguists. It is nothing less than the strategy of all the sciences, both natural and social, since their beginnings. Now, 'structuralism' is (...) a 'trendy' term no less in Anglophone methodology than in Francophone philosophy. But Granger's employment of the term is not to be assimilated to this trend, nor to the fashionable excesses for which this expression has been a watch word (he explicitly separates himself from this movement in the preface to the second edition). The exact nature of what Granger calls 'structuralist' methods is the subject of a large part of this work, and I will not dwell on it much further in this introduction. Suffice it to say that Granger's demand for structuralist description is nothing less than the recognition that the successful pursuit of science requires that its terms and predicates pick out what we may call 'natural kinds'; that is, describe classes of items that bear uniform nomolog ical relations to one another. A science whose descriptive terms do not meet this condition will never produce any laws that reflect such nomological connections. (shrink)

Gilles-Gaston Granger est une figure majeure de l’épistémologie de la seconde moitié du xx e siècle. Son œuvre, où l’ontologie des objets scientifiques joue un rôle important, reste cependant encore trop méconnue, en particulier au niveau international. Plusieurs raisons contribuent à le remettre au centre des débats contemporains : l’importance du structuralisme philosophique et mathématique dans la philosophie des mathématiques récente ; les études menées récemment sur la tradition francophone à laquelle il appartient ; ou encore le développement d’un (...) intérêt général en philosophie des sciences et au-delà pour l’épistémologie historique. Sa leçon inaugurale au Collège de France occupe une place spécifique dans son œuvre. Il s’agit d’un texte important, en lui-même et pour la compréhension du philosophe aixois. Granger s’y positionne dans la tradition française, mais surtout y énonce ses convictions profondes – sur les rapports entre philosophie et histoire, par exemple – et son pro... (shrink)

En 1960 Gilles Gaston Granger nous met déjà en garde contre deux erreurs symétriques possibles des sciences de l'homme : la modélisation spéculative sans pratique et le recours à l'expérience vulgaire sous prétexte que l'objet de ces sciences est l'homme individuel. Il nous permet ainsi de réfléchir, par une étude comparative avec les sciences de la nature, au statut épistémologique d'une connaissance de l'individuel dans les sciences de l'homme. Au-delà de la linguistique de Saussure, de l'anthropologie de Lévi-Strauss ou (...) de la psychanalyse de Freud par exemple, il nous interroge sur la possible transmutation des significations vécues en significations objectives grâce à l'apport équilibré d'une axiomatisation de concepts d'origine empirique et d'un travail clinique par contact avec l'homme concret. Gilles Gaston Granger nourrit l'espoir que, par le mariage difficile de la pensée combinatoire et de la pensée intuitive, naîtra une " poïematique ", réunion de la science, de l'histoire et de la philosophie des oeuvres humaines. (shrink)

This book explores the writings of philosopher and educator John Dewey in order to develop an expansive vision of aesthetic education and everyday poetics of living. Robert Pirsig's best-selling book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, provides concrete examples of this compelling yet unconventional vision.

In Physics 2.8 Aristotle argues for his natural teleology by arguing for the goal-directed character of nature. The argument that he develops with the most care is directed against those natural philosophers, like Empedocles, who maintain that the results of natural processes which benefit organisms, such as teeth, come to be through chance. Aristotle counters by arguing that because the beneficial results of natural processes occur regularly, ‘always or for the most part’, they cannot be the outcome of chance, which (...) would yield beneficial results only irregularly. Thus such results must come to be only for the sake of some end. This argument against chance has received the most attention from scholars, but Physics 2.8 contains another argument for the goal-directed character of nature, which has received relatively little attention because it does not seem to offer much argument for natural teleology. The argument depends upon an analogy between action and nature, and it simply maintains that since human action and nature are analogous, and since action is goal-directed, so too is nature. The argument is of interest, despite its neglect, because it seems to prove nothing to us and yet Aristotle puts it forward confidently as advancing his view about the goal-directed character of nature. The argument from analogy should claim our attention because it provides important evidence for the basic spring behind Aristotle 's natural teleology. The fact that Aristotle takes for granted the strength of the analogy with human action in his argument for the goal-directedness of nature suggests that he holds human-like goal-directedness to be a condition of intelligibility that must be met by any intelligible process of coming to be, whether human or natural. (shrink)

« Je considère ici le sens et le rôle de l'irrationnel dans certaines œuvres humaines, dans certaines créations majeures de l'esprit humain, et tout particulièrement dans les œuvres de la science. Dans cette perspective, je distinguerais trois types significatifs d'irrationnel. Le premier serait l'irrationnel comme obstacle, point de départ d'une reconquête de la rationalité. Le second, l'irrationnel comme recours, moyen de renouveler et de prolonger l'acte créateur. Le troisième, l'irrationnel par renoncement, ou si l'on veut par abandon, est au contraire (...) un véritable rejet du rationnel. C'est cette triple distinction qui servira de fil conducteur à nos réflexions sur l'irrationnel dans les œuvres, dans l'esprit d'un rationalisme ouvert et dynamique, en vue de reconnaître et de délimiter le rôle positif de l'irrationnel. » G. G. G. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Somaesthetics and Racism:Toward an Embodied Pedagogy of DifferenceDavid A. Granger (bio)IntroductionThe philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once remarked that "The human body is the best picture of the human soul."1 There is a basic truth in this assertion that we recognize (I want to say) intuitively: the notion that human beings are parts both mental and physical, that these facets are ultimately interdependent, and that they are in some measure (...) correlated was a commonplace in the intellectual culture of ancient Athens, especially among Socratic thinkers. It can also be found as a central part of the basic ontology and ideals of self-cultivation espoused in much East Asian philosophy. In the West, however, this deep appreciation for the relationship between mind and body appears somewhat sporadically after the Socratics, only to be fervently reasserted as a main plank in the lived philosophy of the early American pragmatists, as when Henry David Thoreau proclaimed that "We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins to refine a mean's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them."2I use the word "sporadically" above because it is likewise a basic truism that canonical Western philosophy has a long and storied history of rejecting, ignoring, or degrading the human body—that most formative part of our being and connection to the world and to others. The position of the later, more metaphysical Plato is iconic in this regard, and it effectively set the tone for much Christian theology and the Cartesian philosophy of consciousness. For Plato and his adherents, the longing to escape our embodiedness, conceived as a necessary means to human (or perhaps superhuman) perfection [End Page 69] by achieving a godlike existence, requires effectively divorcing ourselves from the irrational brutes of terra firma. The body is conceived as a static constraint to human flourishing rather than a dynamic enabler. It is more or less an adversary, something that we must endeavor to be freed from or subdue.3 Its base senses and unruly passions deceive us epistemologically, while its inexorable power to situate us in space and time limits our objectivity. In its inevitable pains and infirmities, the body is also a constant reminder of the aging process and of our ultimate mortality. Deeming the body as at best a mere servant of the mind, philosophers typically have portrayed it as a veritable prison of deception, temptation, and suffering. Moreover, it is well-established that such thinking has been particularly pernicious in light of the historical identification of women and other marginalized groups with their variously enfeebled, depraved, or uncivilized bodies.4Against this disquieting backdrop, it is only relatively recently that the human body, and the significance of our existence as embodied beings, has received sustained positive attention by leading lights in Western philosophy and criticism. These luminaries include, among others, "feminist" thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and, of late, Susan Bordo and Judith Butler (with a nod to Michel Foucault, Pierre Bordeau, and others); pragmatists William James and John Dewey (with a nod to Emerson and Thoreau); phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (with a nod to Jean-Paul Sartre); analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (with a nod to James); and postmodernist Michel Foucault (with a nod to Friedrich Nietzsche, George Bataille, and the ancient Asian ars erotica tradition5). While these thinkers do not universally praise the body and its active, conscious cultivation for human flourishing (about which more later), they nonetheless acknowledge its necessity for all perception, action, and even thought.6 In short, they all seek to recognize and elucidate the significance—cognitive and affective, discursive and nondiscursive—of our full embodied intelligence.Looking specifically at the architectonics of the body espoused by the trio of Dewey, Foucault, and Wittgenstein, this article uses what philosopher Richard Shusterman terms "analytic somaesthetics" to examine some of the primary embodied dimensions of feeling, perception, action, and thought, particularly through the functioning of habit.7 In doing so, it seeks to expose the way various ideologies of domination (for example, racism, sexism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, ageism, etc.) are covertly (and at times overtly) materialized... (shrink)

Due to its considerable length, this article is being published in two parts. This first part briefly discusses the intriguing relationship between John Dewey and Albert Barnes, as well as the circumstances behind the creation of the Barnes Foundation and its innovative art-education programs. This is followed by examination of the prominent roles of aesthetic formalism and organic unity in Barnes's writings about the arts and their less technical, more contextual positioning in Dewey's aesthetics. To end Part 1 of the (...) article, a similar dynamic is revealed in Barnes's and Dewey's ultimately disparate understandings of the relationship between form and content in the arts.In its heyday during the first part of the... (shrink)

Aristotle's Idea of the Soul considers the nature of the soul within Aristotle's psychology and natural philosophy. A survey is provided of the contemporary interpretations of Aristotle's idea of the soul, which are prominent in the Aristotelian scholarship within the analytic tradition. These interpretations are divided into two positions: `attributivism', which considers the soul to be a property; and `substantialism', which considers it to be a thing. Taxonomies are developed for attributivism and substantialism, and the cases for each of them (...) are considered. It is concluded that neither position may be maintained without compromise, since Aristotle ascribes to the soul features that belong exclusively to a thing and exclusively to a property. Aristotle treats the soul as a `property-thing', as a cross between a thing and a property. It is argued that Aristotle comes by this idea of the soul because his hylomorphism casts the soul as a property and his causal doctrine presents it as a causal agent and thereby as a thing. (shrink)

This article discusses what David Berliner (2005) has called the perverse ?spectacle of fear? (208) surrounding issues of teacher quality and accountability in contemporary school reform. Drawing principally on the critical semiotics of Roland Barthes' essay, ?The World of Wrestling? (1957), it examines the way that this spectacle works to undermine public education and explicates the powerful mythology behind it. The article then concludes with some suggestions on how this destructive ?spectacle of fear? might potentially be disrupted using the agencies (...) of Deweyan ?strong democracy? (shrink)

La philosophie est-elle un savoir? Y a-t-il des vérités philosophiques? Peut-on démontrer en philosophie? Deux tentations opposées sont ici dénoncées. L'une porte à présenter la philosophie comme une sorte de science éminente et dogmatique ; l'autre à la confondre avec l'exposé poétique et passionné de quelques états d'âme. L'auteur, au contraire, essaie d'établir que la philosophie, à travers sa diversité, constitue une véritable connaissance, irréductible à celle que fournit la science et n'y suppléant en aucun cas : une connaissance capable (...) de rigueur, quoique non démonstrative, une connaissance paradoxalement sans objets. (shrink)

Tous deux résistants, Cavaillès et Lautmann ont été fusillés par les Allemands.Ils étaient l’un et l’autre « philosophes des mathématiques », mais leur réflexion proprement philosophique porte sur les rapports des mathématiques et de la logique, et, plus généralement, sur la pensée formelle.À la notion lautmanienne de « dialectique » mathématique, s’oppose – ou du moins se juxtapose –, du côté de Cavaillès, l’idée de la nécessité interne d’une histoire des concepts.Both resisting during WWII, Cavaillès et Lautmann were shot by (...) the Germans.Both were « philosophers of maths » but their true philosophical thoughts deal with the relationships between mathematics and logics and, more specifically, with formal thought.To the Lautmanian reflection on mathematical « dialectics », Cavaillès opposes – or rather, juxtaposes – the idea of an internal necessity of a history of concepts. (shrink)

Due to its considerable length, this article has been published in two parts. Part 1, which appeared in the previous issue of the journal, discussed the intriguing relationship between John Dewey and Albert Barnes, as well as the circumstances behind the creation of the Barnes Foundation and its art education programs. Following this, it established both areas of convergence and divergence in Barnes’s and Dewey’s understandings of aesthetic formalism, organic unity, and form and content in the arts. Part 2 now (...) builds on these findings to explore important differences in their respective treatments of the significant sociocultural context of art. After returning briefly to the question of aesthetic formalism in... (shrink)

Peu étudiée, la querelle de la méthode, qui eut lieu entre 1828 et 1840 et mit en discussion trois nations philosophiques (Allemagne, Écosse, France) s’avère déterminante pour comprendre l’élaboration, via la réception de Schelling, d’une philosophie française. À partir de l’étude de cette querelle, ce travail propose d’identifier et d’analyser la fonction de Schelling dans l’élaboration d’une identité philosophique française, en particulier dans les spiritualismes concurrents de Victor Cousin et Félix Ravaisson. En retour, il nous ouvre de nouvelles perspectives sur (...) la philosophie française du xixe siècle, mais aussi sur la philosophie schellingienne. (shrink)

Le Système de l’idéalisme transcendantal a paru en 1800 et fut traduit en français pour la première fois en 1842 par Paul Grimblot. La traduction de Christian Dubois, parue en 1978 et aujourd’hui rééditée chez Allia, est la deuxième, et dernière en date, transposition en français de ce texte. Cette traduction s’inscrivait, en 1978, dans le cadre d’un regain d’intérêt pour les études schellingiennes dans la sphère francophone, représentée par les travaux de Jean-François Courtine et Xavier Til...

Le langage est, pour l'homme, a la fois outil et objet. Philosopher sur le langage, c'est donc s'interroger a la fois sur les formes et les limites de son pouvoir, st sur l'etrange nature de cette realite exterieure a nous et dont nous ne pouvons pourtant dissocier ce que nous appelons notre pensee. L'auteur, par inclination personnelle et non point par principe, choisit d'orienter son enquete selon le point de vue de la connaissance scientifique. Ainsi se propose-t-il d'abord de definir (...) le role que joue le langage dans la constitution de la science. Il est alors conduit a examiner les pseudo-langages que celle-ci se construit, et, en precisant la fonction du symbolisme dans la connaissance objective, il met en lumiere, dans ce domaine, le privilege et l'infirmite des langues naturelles. C'est alors cette notion de langue naturelle qui devient le theme de sa reflexion : le linguiste en veut faire l'objet d'une science. Comment determine-t-il cet objet, par quelles demarches parvient-il a sa connaissance, qu'est-ce enfin qu'une " science du langage "? Sur cette science, encore aujourd'hui peut-etre a l'etat naissant, le philosophe ne peut faire de pronostics. Du moins lui appartient-il, en dehors des querelles d'ecoles, de tenter de reconnaitre jusqu'ou l'on s'est avance dans la voie du savoir. (shrink)

In this paper I shall defend the traditional claim that Aristotle's nonsubstantial particulars discussed in the second chapter of the Categories are unsharable particulars against G. E. L. Owen's claim that they are sharable universals. I shall proceed by presenting first a sketch of the traditional position that makes explicit why it holds that non-substantial particulars are unsharable particulars. Secondly, I shall sketch Owen's position and recount how it differs in certain important respects from the traditional position. Thirdly, I shall (...) present some of my own considerations that I believe support the traditional position at the expense of Owen's position. Finally, I shall offer what I take to be the primary reason Aristotle was committed to the existence of such odd items as non-substantial particulars. (shrink)

RésuméLe problème de l'irrationnel tel qu'il a été abordé au cours du Colloque n'a peut‐ětre pas suffisamment souligné l'idée que la rationalité ne s'applique fondamentalement qu'à une connaissance; si elle s'applique secondairement à une action, c'est en tant que représentée. On tente de déterminer les conditions de rationalité d'une représentation de phénomène ou d'action. On est alors amené à distinguer deux niveaux de rationalité, l'un proprement logique, l'autre topique, réflexif et méta‐critique.Summary There is a feature of rationality that does not (...) seem to have been sufficiently brought out during the Symposium: fundamentally, rationality only applies to knowledge, not to action. It can secondarily refer to actions, but in so far as they are represented actions. The author tries to determine the conditions required for the representation of phenomena or actions to be said rational or irrational. He is led to distinguish two levels of rationality, the one logical, proprio sensu, the other topical, reflexive and meta‐critical.ZusammenfassungDas Problem der Irrationalität, wie es während des Kolloquiums angegangen wurde, berücksichtigt zu wenig den Punkt, dass Rationalität grundlegend nur auf Wissen angewendet wird; wenn der Begriff sich sekundär auf eine Handlung bezieht, so handelt es sich um diese als eine vorgestellte. Man versucht, die Bedingungen der Rationalität für die Vorstellung eines Phänomens oder einer Handlung zu bestimmen. Entsprechend muss man zwei Stufen der Rationalität unterscheiden, nämlich eine eigentlich logische und die topische, reflexive oder metaktritische. (shrink)

The author tries to specify a philosophical attitude which could be considered a form of Positivism, but this does not necessarily mean that it coincides with the doctrine of Auguste Comte or with that of the Vienna Circle.In order to facilitate the exposition the author formulates eight theses whose abrupt character is merely a consequence of the manner of presentation and by no means a manifestation of dogmatism.Eachdatum presents itself as finite experience (1) which is organized with the help ofsymbols, (...) either on the level of perception or on the level of language (2). Inside the perception itself a reduction of experience which is essentially pragmatic first constitutes thephenomena (3). Theobject which is constituted by science on the basis of the phenomena is merely structural and always delimited (4). Its constitution is unceasingly revisable and it never corresponds to an alleged essence of reality.What is here called ‘dialectic’ never consists in a set of rules governing a movement of phenomena, objects, or ideas; it is a general, historical movement of experience itself, taken as a whole, and the specific movement of the symbolic statements which inform it. One should not confuse it with a kind of general logic, nor with a so-called science of totalities (5).Logic explains the rules of the symbolic systems (6), andscience is the mediate determination of objects by means of the symbolism, and is not an immediate determination of reality (7). It constructs coherent and effective models of phenomena.As far asphilosophy is concerned, it wishes to interpret experience as a totality, not-withstanding experience's finitude as datum (8). Thus it is radically distinguished from science in that philosophy does not intend to construct models, but to explain the meanings of the phenomena and, in general, of experience. That is why the category of truth taken in a rigorous sense does not apply to philosophy's statements. (shrink)

While less common than narratives about their male counterparts, accounts of female avengers are scattered throughout Chinese literature and historiography. Nevertheless, despite being included in a variety of genres and modes of writing, the extant corpus of Tang and pre-Tang female avengers appear to share remarkably similar tropes, tensions, and outcomes. In this article, I will explore how three tensions are apparent across Tang and pre-Tang female avenger accounts through the case study of narratives about Xie Xiao’e 謝小娥, a woman (...) who seeks revenge after her father and husband are killed by bandits. Supernatural elements, cross-dressing, and judicial proceedings all seek to reduce the power and autonomy of the heroine, presenting us with a fascinating and rich example of the limits of revenge. It has been previously assumed that this is the sole example of a female avenger account preserved in two modes of writing, but this is not the case. A detailed comparison of the versions relating to Xie Xiao’e will act as a springboard to recategorize the corpus of female avenger accounts and in turn more amply reveal the variety of methods used to curtail, control, and Confucianize these women. (shrink)

MetaphysicsZ.ll has in recent years received considerable attention, because of its importance for the exposition of Aristotle's psychology, which for some time now has been an immensely popular topic among Aristotelian scholars. Z.ll has proved contentious, however, especially over its statement of Aristotle's criticism of Socrates the Younger, who was wont to make a certain ‘comparison’ in the case of animals. Virtually nothing is known about this Socrates the Younger, nor is it known exactly what ‘comparison’ he made with animals. (...) But, as most interpreters suppose from the context of Z. 11, his comparison certainly had much in common with that made by ‘some', who argue that natural objects, like man, are comparable to geometrical figures, like the circle, with respect to their relationship to their matter. Just as the physical matter of circles, such as bronze, stone, and the like, are no part of the essence of the circle, so too the physical matter of man—flesh and bones—is no part of the essence of man. This comparison may hold true, even if, unlike circles, man is in fact found only in a single sort of matter, because the case of man may be like the counterfactual case in which all circles happen to be made of bronze. The bronze would still not belong to the essence of the circle; it would just be difficult psychologically to separate circularity from bronze. (shrink)