Résumé Biographies et biographes de Savonarole constituent l’un des indices de la réception de celui-ci dans la France d’Ancien Régime. Ces biographes dominicains appartiennent au mouvement de la réforme toulousaine de l’Ordre au xvii e siècle, mouvement qui s’inspire de la réforme du couvent de Saint-Marc par Savonarole. Aussi le couvent parisien de l’Annonciation devient-il le centre de l’érudition comme de la dévotion vouées à Savonarole, et les apologistes s’attachent-ils à défendre la mémoire de Savonarole contre ceux qui le tiennent (...) pour un dangereux simulateur. (shrink)

AT LEAST from the time of Descartes, there has been a growing tendency to understand freedom in terms of autonomy. Autonomy is taken to be, if not the exhaustive characteristic and measure of freedom, at least its principal one. In this context, autonomy is held to consist in being ruled exclusively by norms formulated and prescribed by oneself.

Paul Ricoeur's account of the human capacity for taking action stands in opposition in important respects to two other prominent views. One of these alternatives is exemplified in the position that John Rawls holds. A second alternative appears in some interpretations of the results of neuroscientific research. My aim in this paper is first to highlight a number of the salient feature of Ricoeur's account. Then I will briefly point to some of the challenges it presents to these two alternatives.

In this paper, I argue that moral and institutional evils, even though they are all contingent, are so pervasive and persistent that there is no practical way of responding to them that would lead eventually to the eradication of all of them. Instead, our practical task is to respond to these evils in ways that respect both the basic capabilities and their associated vulnerabilities that are constitutive of each human being. To do this most effectively, one should offer unconditional forgiveness (...) to the perpetrators of evil. The attitude that can best underpin this forgiveness is one of a properly understood indefeasible hope, a hope that always insists that each person is of greater worth than whatever he or she does. (shrink)

Paul Ricœur, with Rawls, Walzer, and Habermas as some of his main interlocuters, has developed a substantial and distinctive body of political thought. On the one hand, it articulates a rich conception of the paradoxical character of the domain of politics. On the other, it provides a fresh approach to such major topics as the relationship among politics, economics, and ethics and between concern for universal human rights and respect for cultural plurality. His work, rooted as it is in Aristotle, (...) Kant, and Hegel, also provides resources for a fruitful rethinking of the issues at stake in the liberal-communitarian debate. (shrink)

This letter to the editor responds to commentaries in the September‐October 2021issue of the Hastings Center Report by Douglas B. White and Bernard Lo, by Govind Persad, and by Virginia A. Brown, which were themselves responding, in part, to the article “Life‐Years and Rationing in the Covid‐19 Pandemic: A Critical Analysis,” by MaryKatherine Gaurke, Bernard Prusak, Kyeong Yun Jeong, Emily Scire, and Daniel P. Sulmasy.

Reiner schurmann, Building on heidegger's thought, Has proposed a political philosophy which explicitly dispenses with questions concerning political organization. In this discussion, I point to the apparent practical necessity for restricted political coercion. This apparent necessity, I argue, Must either be shown to be illusory or must be taken to require questions concerning political organization. Since schurman has not as yet done either of these, Then his argument remains incomplete.

It is common today to find in philosophical and scientific works the idea of agent causation dismissed as unintelligible. This article is meant to challenge that view. It argues that the conception of agent causation that Paul Ricoeur has defended is by no means unintelligible. Indeed there are compelling, even if not definitive, reasons for acknowledging the existence of such causation. The point of departure for this argument is Ricoeur’s reflection on the discursive character of human existence. To make my (...) case, I focus on the discursive practice of offering and receiving recommendations. This sort of practice is integral to important areas of human activity, including scientific activity. Though it is often overlooked, agent causation is a necessary precondition for the intelligibility of this practice. I acknowledge that just how agent causation comes to be in the course of the biological evolution of human beings is ontologically enigmatic. Nonetheless, the evidence in its favor is not only intelligible but is too robust to be dismissed merely on the grounds that it is ontologically ‘inconvenient’. (shrink)

This paper provides evidence, Against an important husserlian thesis, Showing that the constitution of meaningful expression intrinsically involves both a plurality of temporal moments and other egos. Likewise against derrida, This evidence points away from the claim that all meaningful expression is constituted only in full empirical intersubjective dialogue. This evidence is developed by examining molly bloom's soliloquy. The tentative conclusions reached are: 1) all sayable meanings belong to a range of expressions whose scope is bound up with the distinctness (...) of the I with which they are associated; 2) this range is bound up with the degree of elaboration of a temporal scheme. (shrink)

New class of therapies, including bipolar therapies (BPT) and paradoxical unipolar therapies (PUT) were firstly proposed in relation to a clinical insight and to some results of biological investigations, then they gave rise to mathematical modeling which brought a justification of these therapies, at least from a theoretical point of view. After recalling the mathematical model for the regulation of agonistic antagonistic couples, and reporting the fundamental types of control simulation by means of it, we point out the validity of (...) therapeutical applications inferred from this model. These therapy modalities, including BPT and PUT, now concern the following diseases: astrocytomas, epilepsia and trials on multiple sclerosis. Even if such attempts are in their early stage, noticeably for the last case where biological changes have mainly been studied, it seems that a large span of treatments is open to BPT and PUT. Improvement of these techniques in the future depends, in our opinion, on a parallel working on the dynamics of the mathematical model and the dynamics, perceived by clinical insight and confirmed by biological investigations, of the body reactions to such strategies. Justification of BPT and PUT was given, by resorting to the notion of pathological homeostasis which, too often, intervenes in order to nullify the effects of unilateral (not paradoxical) therapies. This research has elicited some therapies which use two agents with antagonistic effects or only an agent with effects similar to the agent already in excess in the body - in both cases at nearly physiological doses. (shrink)

A review of Molly Harkirat Mann, Ricoeur, Rawls, and Capability Justice (London and New York: Continuum Books, 2012), pp. 232.

This series provides individual textbooks on early Greek poetry, on Greek drama, on philosophy, history and oratory, and on the literature of the Hellenistic period and of the Empire. A chapter on books and readers in the Greek world concludes Part 4. Each part has its own appendix of authors and works, a list of works cited, and an index.