This book is an English-language translation of a bestselling book in France that explores the relationship between humans and new technologies.

As I am not at all a specialist on Gottlob Frege’s work, my comments intended initially to be focused on an aspect that emerges in the last part of Peter Clark’s paper “Frege, neo-logicism and applied mathematics” 1, where he treats the question of “applied mathematics” — an aspect that appealed to me and that was triggered by Frege’s relationship between numbers and concepts, and reasoning. Starting with this concern, I have been led by my subject to propose some considerations (...) about foundations and rationality which will go — briefly — in two directions. The first direction is that of a distinction between logical and rational foundations, whilst the second direction is that of taking into account as a fact the historical development of mathematics among the sciences, which modifies the terms of any foundational program. In delineating these considerations, I found that what I had in mind could apply to mathematics itself as well as to “applied mathematics”, thus deviating somewhat from my first explicit intention. In conclusion I shall consider the possibility of a rational foundation programme for mathematical and physico-mathematical sciences which would take into account the changes in the scientific contents and the widenings of the forms of rationality that, in my view, make these changes possible. Such foundations for knowledge would not be any more static, but dynamical and would be possibly considered only retrospectively: they would be “forward foundations”, in a sense that will be discussed in detail elsewhere. (shrink)

This article tries to demonstrate that the promise made to Nathanael through Gen 38:12-19 in Jn 1:51, foretells the glorification of the Son of Man at the end of his terrestrial journey, described as a descent and an ascent. But this glorification will be carried out by means of the crucifixion ; hence the recourse to two other texts of the O.T. to prove, first in Jn 3:14-15, that the crucifixion of Jesus would be a salvific elevation prefigurated by the (...) serpent raised by Moses on a stake (Nm 21:4-9). But the crucifixion of Jesus is also the ultimate step of the descent of the Son of Man, its salvific value is then proven by the gift of manna, bread descended from heaven (Ex 16:4.15.35 ; Ps 78:24). Jesus, as the true bread of life, transmits the life he continuously receives from his Father to those who remain faithful to him unto the foot of the cross (6:48-58). (shrink)

This chapter introduces a novel account of fake news and explains how it differs from other definitions on the market. The account locates the fakeness of an alleged news report in two main aspects related to its production, namely that its creators do not think to have sufficient evidence in favor of what they divulge and they fail to display the appropriate attitude towards the truth of the information they share. A key feature of our analysis is that it does (...) not require that fake news must be circulated with the intention to deceive one’s audience. In this way, our account overcomes a potential limitation of the current philosophical discussion about fake news, which appears to individuate the main problem with this phenomenon in the fact that fake news consumers are misled and misinformed. In contrast, the proposed analysis shows that an additional (and perhaps equally fundamental) problem uncovered by the spread of fake news is a widespread pathological relationship with information, one on which we consume information not to satisfy our interest in the truth but to strengthen our social identities and quench our hunger for social recognition. (shrink)

Toute science, admet-on, commence par détacher un objet en le rendant indépendant des sujets et des situations. Mais cette conception étroite de la connaissance scientifique laisse subsister des zones d'ombre. La conscience n'est pas un objet. Elle est ce sans quoi rien ne pourrait être pris pour objet. La conscience n'est pas détachable des sujets, car elle s'identifie à ce qui est vécu par un sujet. De façon analogue, en physique quantique, un phénomène n'est pas dissociable de son contexte expérimental, (...) car il s'identifie à ce qui se manifeste à grande échelle au laboratoire. Que faire pour ne pas laisser ces cas extrêmes de côté? Généraliser la méthode scientifique. Ne plus la borner à définir et à caractériser des objets, mais l'étendre à la coordination directe des expériences. Telle est la révolution de pensée qu'il faut accomplir pour résoudre, ou plutôt dissoudre, deux questions-limites de la science : le problème de l'origine de la conscience et le paradoxe du "chat de Schrödinger" en physique quantique. (shrink)

The debate about the nature of the representational format of concepts seems to have reached an impasse. The debate faces two fundamental problems. Firstly, amodalists (i.e., those who argue that concepts are represented by amodal symbols) and modalists (i.e., those who see concepts as involving crucially representations including sensorimotor information) claim that the same empirical evidence is compatible with their views. Secondly, there is no shared understanding of what a modal or amodal format amounts to. Both camps recognize that the (...) two formats play essential roles in higher cognition, leading to an increasing number of hybrid proposals. In this paper, I argue that the existence of those fundamental problems should make us suspicious about a modal/amodal dichotomy. Also, I suggest that hybrid approaches, as they currently stand, do not provide suitable solutions to the impasse. Instead, we should overcome the dichotomy and treat the modal/amodal distinction as a graded phenomenon. I illustrate this hypothesis with an example of a cognitive-computational model of concepts based on the Predictive Processing framework. (shrink)

The focus of this article is a question that has been neglected in debates about digitalization: Could machines replace human scientists? To provide an intelligible answer to it, we need to answer a further question: What is it that makes (or constitutes) a scientist? I offer an answer to this question by proposing a new demarcation criterion for science which I call “the discoverability criterion”. I proceed as follows: (1) I explain why the target question of this article is important, (...) and (2) show that it leads to a variant of the demarcation problem of science. (3) By arguing that it is probably an essential feature of science that we can make scientific discoveries, I suggest a novel way of dealing with this problem by proposing a new demarcation criterion. Before introducing it, (4) I analyze an exemplary case of a real scientific discovery, and (5) argue that scientific discovery processes have a general underlying structure. (6) I introduce my discoverability criterion for science and present my master argument that helps us understand which criteria have to be fulfilled in order to decide whether machines can replace human scientists or not. (7) I conclude by answering the article’s target question and bringing forward a take-home message. (shrink)

A concept of the ‘actual now’ is introduced. The ‘actual now’ is negatively characterized by the fact that it is absent from the time-series. This does not mean that the ‘actual now’ is outside the time-series. For saying so would wrongly suggest the existence of an ‘outside’ where the ‘actual now’ could be located. Instead, one considers that the ‘actual now’ is just the name of ‘that with respect to which’ any event can be said to be past or future, (...) yet being no event by itself. It holds the same role with respect to time as Husserl’s transcendental ego with respect to the empirical self. McTaggart’s celebrated refutation of the reality of time is reinterpreted accordingly. To express this argument, one no longer needs to use the notions of ‘change’ or ‘time flow’, but only to point out the in-principle impossibility to refer to the ‘actual now’. (shrink)

Having established why and how, he, a sociologist of “social work in action” has sometimes become a historian, or more exactly a social historian, the author presents to us the ins and outs of two research programmes conducted in contrasting and methodological conditions. These involve, on the one hand, studies on the emergence of the maladjusted children sector and the profession of special needs teacher, both quite traditional in their approach, and, on the other hand, an investigation conducted over a (...) long period of time, and even published with the actors concerned, which sought to explore the history of certain family associations founded on the Social Catholicism model. He concludes by emphasising why it is necessary to update his problematisation on a regular basis and by reiterating the need for favourable institutional and professional conditions, to ensure that research does not slide towards a mere exchange of points of view. (shrink)

According to the traditional view, meaning presents itself under the form of some kind of identity.

In Kant, remarkably, and for the first time perhaps in the history of philosophy, the problem of the Ego receives an ontological signification. The critique of the paralogisms of rational psychology concerns, explicitly, this fundamental problem of the being of the ego. Kant’s examination of this problem constitutes an essential moment of the history of modern philosophy. This examination results finally in the complete failure to determine such a being, a failure that Kant attempts to pass off ultimately as a (...) metaphysical impossibility. This is affirmed constantly through the labyrinthine analysis of the Transcendental Dialectic: what emerges from its difficulties, and obscurities, is that the being of the Ego can be neither determined, nor posited, metaphysically. The conclusion is unquestionably the following: the ego cogito does not contain in itself any sum, at least if, by the latter, one intends, as does rational psychology, the metaphysical and, in some way, absolute being of the ‘I’. (shrink)

Political participation in Belgium is analysed according to two types of political participation : conventional participation and protestation, measured by a Guttman scale. The study describes the two types of political participation in the different regions in Belgium: Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. A comparaison with some western countries is made. Political participation in Belgium is weak. It depends on the regional division and the sociological characteristics. Moreover, political participation is linked to the Belgian traditionnal clivages.

Here I investigate the possibility of a phenomenological approach to Christianity, with the understanding that this would not be a matter of proposing an interpretation, but that such an “approach” would be able to lead directly to the heart of Christianity. I will say immediately that a phenomenology that would be able to undertake such a task is not the historical phenomenology that was born with Husserl. Only an ideal phenomenology that would become what is required would be able to (...) respond to our investigation. This ideal phenomenology is a phenomenology of life. (shrink)

An issue of Revue d’Histoire des sciences devoted to Leibniz will be published in December 1993. The three main articles are “Concepts juridiques et probabilistes chez Leibniz,” by Marc Parmentier, “La caractéristique géométrique leibnizienne: travail du discernement et relations fondamentales,” by Jean-Pascal Alcantera, and “Leibniz lecteur de Mariotte”, by Michel Fichant.

La mondialisation libère les uns et oppresse les autres. Et dans cette partition du monde, chacun est renvoyé à une identité prétendument essentielle et "vraie". D'où un véritable "piège identitaire", négation de l'autre et de sa subjectivité, parfois justifié par l'anthropologie - à l'opposé de sa vocation humaniste et critique. Face à ce défi, le regard contemporain sur le monde doit être repensé, en dépassant le relativisme culturel et ses "ontologies" identitaires. Dans ce livre, Michel Agier prend une position (...) résolument "décentrée", invitant le lecteur à reconsidérer les sens de la frontière : lieu de passage, instable et sans cesse négociée, elle nous fait humains en instituant la place et l'existence sociale de chacun tout en reconnaissant celles des autres. Le mur est son contraire : il incarne le piège identitaire contre l'altérité. Cette enquête sur l'état du monde et sa violence, sur les frontières et les murs, sur le sens des mots ("identité", "civilisation", "race", "culture") propose ainsi une réflexion originale sur la condition cosmopolite, figure à double face : d'un côté, l'étranger absolu, global et anonyme, que dessinent les politiques identitaires sous des traits effrayants ; de l'autre, le sujet-autre, celui qui, venant de l'extérieur de "mon identité", m'oblige à penser tout à la fois au monde, à moi et aux autres. En plaidant pour la validité de l'approche anthropologique, Michel Agier montre ici que pour dépasser le piège identitaire, d'autres manières de penser sont possibles. Réapprendre à passer les frontières où se trouve l'autre, à les reconnaître, est devenu l'un des enjeux majeurs de notre temps. (shrink)

Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, professeur à l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, où elle fonda le Centre d’études cartésiennes en 1981, est décédée le 25 août 2004. Éminente spécialiste de la philosophie moderne, mais aussi de la philosophie antique et d’esthétique, elle laisse une œuvre remarquable par son ampleur comme par la qualité de son érudition. L’influence de ses travaux..

La question des fins de la philosophie dans la pensée baconienne a été souvent discutée et on a pu faire du Chancelier le héraut de la science technologique. Une telle interprétation se heurte à une lecture plus exacte des textes qui montre que, si le bonheur de l’humanité par une action sur la nature est la fin dernière de la philosophie, sa fin première est la connaissance métaphysique des formes ou des causes. La deductio ad praxin ne peut être comprise (...) qu’à la lumière de la démarche inductive.The topic of the stakes of philosophy was often discussed with reference to Bacon’s thought. And it was often questioned as whether the Chancelor may have been the herald of technological science. Such an interpretation runs the risk of a more acute reading of the latter’s text showing that if humanity’s happiness through its action on nature is the final aim of philosophy, its primary one is the metaphysical knowledge of either forms or causes. The deductio ad praxin can only be understood with reference to the inductive approach. (shrink)