One's gender is merely an important subset of choosing one's form. By “form” I mean that which encloses our beingness – flesh for the life we are accustomed to, plastic for the robots of science fiction, mere data for the avatars taking over our computer screens.

Based on an analysis of 44 cases in Canada, Tunisia, and Cameroon, this research attempts to determine the fundaments of sustainable entrepreneurship (SE) in an international perspective and to shed the light on the potential impact of economic, institutional, and cultural dimensions upon diverse levels of sustainability in smalland medium-size firms (SMEs). Neo-institutional and entrepreneurship theories were combined in an integrative conceptual model to fully embrace the meanings and practices of SE and to question the "culture free" argument of some (...) prescriptions as well as some international programs. The analysis of the rationale behind entrepreneurs committed to sustainability in the three countries compared to less engaged firms shows that entrepreneurs' individual values are crucial in all cases. Socio-cultural specificities and institutional realities can, however, be more or less inductive to the adoption of sustainable practices in SMEs. This study also demonstrates that external stimuli are needed in Tunisia and Cameroon to reach the same environmental involvement as found in Canada. Moreover, support programs to assist SMEs with the adoption of sustainable practices and communication about the issue have to be tailored to the entrepreneur's motives, the firms' levels of openness to sustainability, the socio-cultural practices already embedded, and the countries' priorities. Implications for policy, management, and research are also discussed. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This paper will attempt to establish a framework for the term vedanā. Then it will present the range of the different feeling tones: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. It will point out that ‘neutral’ feeling tone can be defined in different ways as either non-existing, indeterminate, indifference or the beginning of equanimity. Following this, vedanā will be discussed in the context of the five nāma factors: contact, feeling-tone, perception, intention and attention. This paper will suggest that mindfulness can be of benefit (...) because it possibly gives rise to what is referred to in the early Pāli texts as ‘unwordly pleasant’ feeling tones. The paper concludes by making a connection between the practice of mindfulness of feeling-tones and the cultivation of the ethical precepts as an antidote to unskilful reactive patterns that arise in relation to vedana. (shrink)

Human monoclonal antibodies are extremely difficult to obtain by hybridoma technology. As an alternative, ‘human‐like’ antibodies have been produced by recombinant DNA technology. The first such engineered antibodies consisted of chimaeric proteins, in which murine variable regions were linked to human constant regions. More recently ‘human’ antibodies have been ‘reshaped’ by transplanting the binding site of a murine antibody into a human antibody. Further‐more antibodies have been dissected into groups of domains (Fab's, Fc's) and for example, Fab's have been joined (...) to enzymes resulting in antibody‐enzyme chimaeras. In addition to their potential clinical applications, engineered antibodies will prove invaluable in studies of structure/function relationships of variable and constant regions. (shrink)

This article examines Grotius’ lifelong support for Dutch expansion overseas. As noted in other publications of mine, Grotius cooperated closely with the directors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the years 1604–1615. Right up to his arrest for high treason in August 1618, he contributed towards Dutch government discussions about the establishment of a West India Company (WIC). Three years of imprisonment at Loevestein Castle and, following his escape, long years of exile could not weaken his dedication to (...) the cause. His relatives in Holland, in particular his brother Willem de Groot and his brother-in-law Nicolaas van Reigersberch, kept him up-to-date on the fortunes of the VOC and WIC. His expertise on maritime affairs was in high demand. For example, Cardinal Richelieu invited him in November 1626 to become actively involved in the establishment of a French East India Company. As itinerant ideologue of empire, Grotius sought to further his own career and those of his nearest family members, without damaging the interests of the United Provinces. Through Willem de Groot and Nicolaas van Reigersberch, he provided informal advice on Dutch imperial policy to the VOC directors and government officials in The Hague. He was rewarded with the appointment of his brother and his second son, Pieter de Groot, as VOC lawyers (ordinaris advocaten) in 1639 and 1644, respectively. They served as his proxies in diplomatic disputes involving the VOC, the States General and the Portuguese ambassador in autumn 1644, when Pieter and Willem de Groot wrote a defense of VOC claims to the cinnamon-producing areas of Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), liberally citing De Jure Belli ac Pacis. Grotius’ vision of empire hardly changed in the course of 40 years. In his view, the Dutch had gone to the Indies as merchants, not conquerors, and should regulate themselves according to natural law and the law of nations. Thus he contributed to the creation of two political orders, one for Europe and one for the Indies. European diplomatic relations counted for little beyond the Line. VOC and WIC officials could act as judges and executioners in their own cause, without reference to indigenous rulers, other colonial powers, or even the political authorities back home. (shrink)

Les philosophes accordent peu d’importance au genre de la préface, qu’ils peuvent tenir pour extérieur à l’œuvre proprement philosophique. Le fait que Nietzsche ait écrit plus de préfaces que de livres et l’importance qu’il leur accordait conduisent à reconsidérer ce point de vue. Replacées dans ses stratégies éditoriales, les préfaces de Nietzsche, dont la fonction est performative, montrent l’imbrication de la production et de la réception dans une œuvre ouverte au lecteur : elles mettent en scène l’exercice de la philosophie (...) pour inciter le lecteur à faire lui-même cette « expérience vécue ». (shrink)

L'histoire critique des textes bibliques a été conçue par Richard Simon comme un art de juger, selon des règles strictes, des meilleures leçons à conserver. Cette méthode, qui impose dans la traduction de l'Écriture une règle d'uniformité textuelle, aurait fait défaut selon lui dans la version du Nouveau Testament donnée à Port-Royal « selon la Vulgate, avec les différences du grec ». La critique à la manière de Richard Simon n'est cependant pour Antoine Arnauld, qui préfère l'uniformité du sens à (...) celle du texte, qu'un art sans jugement : c'est de l'extension de l'art de penser à une logique pour le contingent, que dépend à ses yeux une définition véritablement générale de la critique. The critical history of biblical texts was conceived by Richard Simon as an ars judicandi, whose rules had to be applied to the discrimination between true and false lessons. Concerning translation, this method required in his view a principle of textual uniformity, so he thought defective the Port-Royal version of The New Testament . Antoine Arnauld, however, gave preference to the semantic uniformity over the literal one, and stated that a real definition of critique in its logical generality ought to be supplied by the extension of the art of thinking to the case of contingent truths. (shrink)

Reconnaissant l'importance des rites dans les sociétés contemporaines, l'article s'efforce de comprendre pourquoi s'est développée une nouvelle séquence rituelle inscrite dans le processus du mariage. L'enterrement de vie de jeune fille, attesté depuis la fin des années 1980, est associé à la transformation de la place de la femme, dans ses rapports avec la famille, la société et la sexualité. Comme autrefois l'enterrement de vie de garçon, celui de la jeune fille marque symboliquement l'abandon du vagabondage sexuel et amoureux. Cette (...) cérémonie est aujourd'hui attachée au renouveau d'un mariage célébré en grande pompe, mais dont le sens a changé complètement depuis les années 1960. Organisé par la « meilleure amie », et célébré entre filles, l'EDVJF marque aussi le passage des liens d'amitié à ceux de la conjugalité. L'ethnographie de la cérémonie invite à développer la réflexion sur la diversité des effectuations qui sont dans ce cas très frappantes, au-delà de leurs caractères communs.Recognizing the importance of ritual in contemporary societies, the article seeks to understand why there has developed a new ritual sequence recorded in the marriage process. The bachelor girl, attested since the late 1980s, is associated with the transformation of the role of women in their relationships with family, society and sexuality. As the old bachelor boy, the girl that symbolically marks the abandonment of sexual promiscuity and love. This ceremony is now attached to the renewal of a marriage celebrated with great pomp, but whose meaning has changed completely since the 1960s. Organized by the "best friend", and celebrated among girls, EDVJF also marks the transition from friendship to those of conjugality. Ethnography ceremony invites us to develop reflection on the diversity of effectuations which in this case are very striking, beyond their common characteristics. (shrink)

Kenelm Digby’s Two Treatises, of the Nature of Bodies and of the Nature of Mans Soule defends quite an idiosyncratic approach to mind-body dualism. In his use of the divisibility argument to prove that the human soul cannot be a material substance, Digby takes an uncompromising stand for merely potential material parts. In his Treatise of Bodies the present article focuses on the mode of construction of the definition of quantity as divisibility and on its links to two distinct fundamental (...) arguments against the actual material parts doctrine. The first, positive, argument consists of a semantic reason drawn from Digby’s general doctrine of meaning, whereas the second, negative, argument, addresses the traditional question of the composition of the continuum. The latter, the author contends, does not build on the medieval controversy itself, but on Digby’s opposition to Galileo’s claim of indivisibilism in his Dialogues Concerning Two Sciences. (shrink)

Without guidance, students typically overestimate their understanding and memory of learning materials, which can have detrimental effects on the learning process. However, most students do not receive guidance or instruction about how to study. Moreover, students are largely unaware of strategies to self-regulate their learning and study effectively. Research has shown that prompting both cognitive and metacognitive strategies is effective to support self-regulated learning. Therefore we developed a mobile application, the Ace your self-study app, to prompt both cognitive and metacognitive (...) strategies to support learning processes. In this article a theoretical background, description of the app’s features and design choices are presented. Also, data from the application in presented to give provide an idea of how the app has been used. (shrink)

In this article I share some of my experiences of practising Korean Zen meditation and how, without ever mentioning the word ‘mindfulness,’ this practice helps us to become mindful. This leads me to suggest that the main ingredients of Buddhist meditation are samatha (which I will translate here as ‘concentration’) and vipassanā (which I will call ‘experiential enquiry’). No matter which Buddhist tradition one follows, the practice of samatha and vipassanā will lead to the cultivation of mindfulness. I also intend (...) to show how the traditional doctrine of the ‘four great efforts’ is very close to therapeutic methods advocated in MBCT. I will also propose that the Buddha's five methods of dealing with difficult thoughts as presented in the Vitakkhasa hāna Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 20) are examples of an early Buddhist cognitive behavioural strategy. (shrink)

Après la révolution d’Octobre 1917, la transformation des rapports sociaux entre les sexes a été placée au cœur du projet bolchevik de construction du socialisme en Russie. De nouvelles formes d’organisation de la vie domestique, du travail et de la société transformeraient les relations entre les hommes et les femmes. Afin que les femmes puissent participer à égalité avec les hommes aux activités de production et de la sphère publique, il était indispensable de libérer les femmes des tâches domestiques en (...) transférant celles-ci dans la sphère des services collectifs. Qu’en fut-il dans la réalité? Les enquêtes sur les emplois du temps des familles, appelées enquêtes de budget temps, qui ont été réalisées en URSS au début des années 1920 puis à la fin des années 1960 et au début des années 1970, permettent de juger de la réalité de l’évolution des rôles sociaux derrière les discours dans la Russie soviétique. (shrink)

Being able to self-regulate one’s learning is essential for academic success but is also very difficult for students. Especially first year students can be overwhelmed with the high study load and autonomy in higher education. To face this challenge, students’ monitoring and self-regulated learning processes are crucial. Yet, often students are not aware of effective SRL strategies or how to use them. In this study, the use of a mobile application with gamification elements to support first-year university students’ SRL processes (...) was investigated. In Study 1a, the Ace your self-study app was implemented in a first-year psychology course, and students’ SRL skills, motivation, self-efficacy, app use and satisfaction, and performance were measured. The results showed a significant increase in autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and metacognitive self-regulation skills across the 5-week course. Moreover, students who used the mobile application with gamified elements showed higher autonomous motivation. Nevertheless, most students used the app only for a limited number of self-study sessions. In Study 1b, students’ self-study experiences were captured using focus group interviews to shed some more light on why students did or did not use the app. The results show that if students feel they do not need support for their SRL processes during self-study, they are less inclined to use the app. Specifically, regarding using study strategies, it was found that only if students’ strategies do not work well in their perception, they feel the need to change their way of studying and choose another strategy. These results are discussed in the context of theory on SRL and how to support it. (shrink)

L’amour conjugal existe au Moyen Âge, la littérature en est un lieu d’expression privilégié. Visible également dans les sources épistolaires ou notariales, il est cependant plus difficile à aborder à travers les archives judiciaires, notamment les procès matrimoniaux ecclésiastiques. L’officialité de Saragosse au xve siècle est par excellence la cour où sont jugés les litiges conjugaux. Les procès consultés offrent un récit récurrent de la relation conflictuelle entre époux et laissent à penser que l’amour n’y a guère sa place. Ce (...) n’est pas totalement vrai. Les affaires d’adultère, les unions clandestines, les demandes de solennisation de mariage ne sont pas toutes déposées ou dénoncées au seul motif de haine et de discorde. Les sentiments sont parfois bien présents, sous-jacents, et attendent seulement d’être lus à travers des actes, des mots précis (amor, affectio, cavalgar, enamorar) ou même des silences. (shrink)

Le XVIe siècle voit l’émergence des vernaculaires comme langues de pensée, et le maintien en parallèle du latin comme langue savante de communication et de réflexion. Ce double mouvement, l’un de conquête et l’autre de résistance, a souvent été étudié du point de vue du vernaculaire, pour en marquer la progression tant pour la structuration des langues que pour le terrain gagné sur le latin dans le domaine des textes de fiction autant que d’argumentation. Le petit dossier présenté ici, issu (...) d... (shrink)

This book provides an elegant account of the nature of the individual, without reducing it to a cluster of universals or claiming that it is a bare particular that must be acknowledged but never articulated.

In the last two decades, Ralph Cudworth has been acknowledged as one of the paramount figures in the history of theories of consciousness. This paper discusses the interpretation defended by Udo Thiel and Vili Lähteenmäki. Both contend that, for Cudworth, the reflexivity defining consciousness does not constitute self-consciousness, which, they say, requires self-determination for practical ends. On the contrary, I argue that for Cudworth any degree of consciousness implies a species of self-perception that must be considered a degree of self-consciousness. (...) To do justice to Cudworth’s full position, I claim, we must take into account a kind of consciousness that I call ‘to-oneself ’ consciousness. Furthermore, I argue, the problem of the ethical self-formation of every human soul as one personality should be seen as going beyond the mere consideration of practical rationality. (shrink)

We appreciate that the theme “ethics of ethics conferences” that we introduced in 2023 (Van der Graaf et al. 2023) was echoed by the previous and current presidents of the International Association...

The book Descartes and the First Cartesians published by Roger Ariew in 2014, like the revised and expanded version of Descartes and the Last Scholastics, published in 2011 under the title Descartes Among the Scholastics, contributes in an exemplary way to eliminating the mythologization of modernity in the history of Cartesianism, and more generally, in the history of early-modern philosophy. From one book to the next, and with the help of numerous articles in the background that develop the same critique (...) of the mythology of the modern philosopher maintained by many commentators, Ariew patiently demonstrates that what one calls "the system of the philosophy of Descartes" constitutes neither the absolute beginning... (shrink)

Cet article examine les conditions d’élaboration et la fortune éditoriale de la traduction latine d’un texte italien, le Commentario de le cose de' Turchi de Paolo Giovio publié à Rome en 1532. Ce texte politique voulant donner des éléments à Charles Quint pour engager la croisade contre les Turcs est traduit en latin en 1537 à Strasbourg par un italien en exil pour motifs religieux, Francesco Negri. Publiée cinq fois à Strasbourg, Wittenberg et Paris entre 1537 et 1539, cette traduction (...) détourne le texte de ses premiers objectifs pour servir à la propagande réformée du parti de la paix : cette lecture politique est construite par l’association des autres textes avec lesquels il est publié, qui en orientent le sens. Une fois sortie de l’actualité, cette traduction est publiée parmi les œuvres latines de Giovio, sans mention du traducteur, et se fige en un texte historiographique à simple valeur documentaire. (shrink)

L’ouvrage d’Anne Verjus, chercheure en histoire politique au CNRS, apparaît comme une histoire de la famille, d’abord sociale avant d’être politique. L’objectif n’étant pas une histoire politique complète des femmes à l’époque révolutionnaire, le sous-titre est un peu large par rapport à ce qui est évoqué d’autant que, particulièrement à l’époque révolutionnaire, la politique ne se limite pas à la question du droit de vote. Mais le travail montre, brillamment, ce que l’histoire de la famille...

A child of the era of decolonization, Claire Denis grew up in various regions of France’s subSaharan colonial lands, and was brought back to the ‘métropole’ as a teenager in the 1960s.She has thus had a double practice of foreignness, abroad, and in her ‘own’ country, whichshe did not know and where, in similar yet fundamentally different ways than in Africa, shefelt like an outsider again. As the daughter of a colonial administrator – a childhoodbeautifully evoked in her first feature, (...) Chocolat – she had stood as a highly visibleembodiment of the Western presence on colonial soil. On her return to France, she wouldlive through the more banal experience of becoming an invisible intruder, an exile at‘home’– a theme explored in her subsequent works. From the start, Denisthus drew on her personal knowledge of feeling rootless to explore issues that haveremained at the heart of her filmmaking: the deeply perplexing questions of identity andalienation, assimilation and rejection, desire and fear inseparable from the post-colonialmalaise that affects France with particular acuteness. (shrink)