La parenthèse Vichy marque un tournant dans la carrière de Jean Thibaud (1901-1960). Il occupe des postes rendus vacants par la mise à l’écart de Jean Perrin et de Paul Langevin, deux figures tutélaires de la physique française aux engagements politiques incompatibles avec le nouveau régime. Ces initiatives provoquent des réactions de rejet chez les universitaires qui œuvrent pour la résistance et pointent dès lors Thibaud comme un collaborateur. Nous proposons de suivre au plus près l’itinéraire de Thibaud sous l’angle (...) d’une stratégie personnelle d’accommodement, concept que l’historien Philippe Burrin a proposé pour décrire diverses formes d’adaptation aux circonstances nées de l’Occupation et que nous entendons revisiter dans le cadre de la présente étude. (shrink)

La « parenthèse Vichy » marque un tournant dans la carrière de Jean Thibaud (1901-1960). Il occupe des postes rendus vacants par la mise à l’écart de Jean Perrin et de Paul Langevin, deux figures tutélaires de la physique française aux engagements politiques incompatibles avec le nouveau régime. Ces initiatives provoquent des réactions de rejet chez les universitaires qui œuvrent pour la résistance et pointent dès lors Thibaud comme un « collaborateur ». Nous proposons de suivre au plus près l’itinéraire (...) de Thibaud sous l’angle d’une stratégie personnelle d’« accommodement », concept que l’historien Philippe Burrin a proposé pour décrire diverses formes d’adaptation aux circonstances nées de l’Occupation et que nous entendons revisiter dans le cadre de la présente étude. (shrink)

The last two decades have seen a massive increase in the scholarly interest in technology, and have provoked new lines of thought in philosophy, sociology and cultural studies. Gilbert Simondon (1924 - 1989) was one of Frances's most influential philosophers in this field, and an important influence on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Bernard Stiegler. His work is only now being translated into English. Chabot's introduction to Simondon's work was published in French in 2002 and is now available (...) in English for the first time. It is the most accessible guide to Simondon's important but often opaque work. Chabot provides an excellent introduction to Simondon, positioning him as a philosopher of technology, and he describes his theory of individuation including his crystalline ontology. He goes on to offer a bridge between these two concerns, exploring how they are related. (shrink)

Etude sur la philosophie de la technique et la pensée de l'individuation chez Gilbert Simondon qui interroge les notions de progrès, d'aliénation et de mémoire et leur devenir lors des grands changements de l'histoire des techniques (tradition, révolution industrielle, cybernétique). Met également en lumière son rapport à la psychologie des profondeurs, au sacré et à la technoesthétique.

The aim of this paper is to show how the concept of “possible world”, that Husserl inherits from his study of logics, is capital for the understanding of his phenomenology. This concept is a fine tool that provides him a possibility to articulate the question of the physical and the cultural dimensions of some objects. A cultural object as a book or a painting has in fact two dimensions: a “material” one and a “spiritual” one. The author examines which are (...) the relationships between those two dimensions. This question leads him to an interrogation on the genesis of the ideality of the cultural world. Is there not a contradiction between the ideality of the meaning and his historical genesis? In order to provide an answer to this question, the author suggests that one may use the notion of a “linked ideality”, i.e. ideal but linked up to the earth. (shrink)

Les etudes reunies ont ete presentees au Colloque International de Bruxelles organise sous les auspices de la FISP (Federation Internationale des Societes de Philosophie) en 2002 dont le theme a ete conserve comme titre du recueil. L'intention etait d'illustrer la maniere dont divers philosophes ont traite ou esquive la question de la technique. L'ampleur du champ, historique et contemporain, interdisait toute exhaustivite. Le dessein etait plus anthologique qu'encyclopedique. Les analyses critiques qui composent le volume manifestent l'interet de cette approche appliquee (...) a Aristote, Lulle, Salutati, Kant, Kapp, Bergson, Ortega, Schmitt, Jonas, Brun, Arendt, Foucault, Simondon, Heidegger, Haraway, Fukuyama. Et il serait fecond de l'etendre tant il vrai qu'en notre epoque tres technologique, poser aux philosophes qui nous sont les plus familiers, la question du sort qu'ils reservent a la technique s'avere riche en enseignements sur eux et pour nous. (shrink)

" Exister dans le système, c'est souvent être assis derrière des vitres, face à un écran. " Des forces nouvelles, mixtes de technique, d'économique et de numérique, ont fait irruption au sein du technocapitalisme mondial. Nous assistons aux premiers effets de ce qu'il faut bien appeler des " ultraforces " qui, en créant un nouveau monde, déstabilisent les systèmes et fragilisent les existences. Dans ce contexte, nous devenons multiples, éclatés, parfois écartelés. En nous coexistent trois visages : un moi cherchant (...) sa place dans un système constitué de vitres protectrices et d'écrans ; un sujet clivé par les ultraforces d'une mondialisation qui crée autant qu'elle détruit ; et enfin un soi précieux marqué par la saveur d'exister, la recherche d'équilibre et le goût des autres. Comment inventer une convergence entre ces trois facettes de nous-même? Comment sortir du dualisme appauvrissant qui résulte de la surenchère entre systèmes fragilisés et ultraforces décomplexées? Cela ressemble à la fin d'une ère. Peut-être le moment est-il venu de préparer la transition vers un monde où la culture de soi et le sens des autres deviendraient centraux. (shrink)

La 4e de couv. indique : "La qualité est l'enjeu du siècle : qualité de l'air, de l'alimentation, des soins, des relations, du travail, de l'industrie ou du pouvoir... Le terme s'est immiscé dans tous les domaines où un jugement de valeur est nécessaire, au point de détrôner les figures traditionnelles du bien et du bon. Précisons que son contraire, le "merdique", est lui aussi en passe de devenir un invariant culturel. Pour savoir ce que cache ce mot du contemporain, (...) il faut se tourner vers les qualités humaines et leur impressionnante diversité, comprendre comment notre espace-temps est devenu un monde de qualités artificielles, assister aux chocs de la qualité et de la quantité, et voir comment les standards de contrôle font l'objet d'une lutte économique et politique omniprésente. Dans ce cadre fortement contraint par notre âge technique, une philosophie ouverte aura à cœur de se recentrer sur les libres qualités, celles que l'on cultive pour la saveur de vivre. Car le défi de notre époque est bien d'articuler la valeur qualité aux exigences de liberté et aux besoins de justice. L'enjeu est de taille, pour peu que l'on veuille construire un monde commun, où les existences soient à même de prospérer.". (shrink)

(2005). The Philosophical August 4th. Angelaki: Vol. 10, continental philosophy and the sciences the french tradition issue editor: andrew aitken, pp. 103-108.

"I know of no religious writer more pertinent to our time."—T. S. Eliot, Introduction to Pensees Intended to prove that religion is not contrary to reason, Pascal's Pensees rank among the liveliest and most eloquent defenses of Christianity. Motivated by the seventeenth-century view of the supremacy of human reason, Pascal (1623–1662) had intended to write an ambitious apologia for Christianity in which he argued the inability of reason to address metaphysical problems. His untimely death prevented the work's completion, (...) but the fragments published posthumously in 1670 as Pensees remain a vital part of religious and philosophical literature. W. F. Trotter translation. Introduction by T. S. Eliot. (shrink)

For much of his life Pascal (1623-62) worked on a magnum opus which was never published in its intended form. Instead, he left a mass of fragments, some of them meant as notes for the Apologie. These were to become known as the Pensées, and they occupy a crucial place in Western philosophy and religious writing. Pascal's general intention was to confound scepticism about metaphysical questions. Some of the Pensées are fully developed literary reflections on the human condition,, (...) some contradict others, and some remain jottings whose meaning will never be clear. The most important are among the most powerful aphorisms about human experience and behaviour ever written in any language. This translation is the only one based on the Pensées as Pascal left them. It includes the principal dossiers classified by Pascal, as well as the essential portion of the important Writings on Grace. A detailed thematic index gives access to Pascal's areas of concern, while the selection of texts and the introduction help to show why Pascal changed the plan of his projected work before abandoning the book he might have written. (shrink)

In the twentieth century there were two great political and social paradigms, the liberal-democratic and the libertarian. The central idea of the first approach is isonomy: the exclusion of any discrimination on the basis that legal rights are afforded equally to all people. The central idea of the second approach is rather to acknowledge and address a broader spectrum of known inequalities. Such an approach, Bellanca argues, allows the pursuit of pluralism as well as a more realistic and complex (...) view of what equality is. Here he analyzes the main economic and political institutions of an isocratic society, and in so doing, effectively outlines how a utopian society can be structurally and anthropologically realized. This book is ideal reading for an audience interested in the critique of contemporary capitalism through a renewed perspective of democratic socialism and leftist libertarianism. Nicolò Bellanca is Associate Professor of Development Economics at the University of Florence, Italy. He is the author of a broad array of scholarly articles, books and textbooks about both the history of economic thought and development economics. His current research focuses on the theory of institutional change. (shrink)

Since its origin, bioethics has attracted the collaboration of few social scientists, and social scientific methods of gathering empirical data have remained unfamiliar to ethicists. Recently, however, the clouded relations between the empirical and normative perspectives on bioethics appear to be changing. Three reasons explain why there was no easy and consistent input of empirical evidence into bioethics. Firstly, interdisciplinary dialogue runs the risk of communication problems and divergent objectives. Secondly, the social sciences were absent partners since the beginning of (...) bioethics. Thirdly, the meta‐ethical distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ created a ‘natural’ border between the disciplines. Now, bioethics tends to accommodate more empirical research. Three hypotheses explain this emergence. Firstly, dissatisfaction with a foundationalist interpretation of applied ethics created a stimulus to incorporate empirical research in bioethics. Secondly, clinical ethicists became engaged in empirical research due to their strong integration in the medical setting. Thirdly, the rise of the evidence‐based paradigm had an influence on the practice of bioethics. However, a problematic relationship cannot simply and easily evolve into a perfect interaction. A new and positive climate for empirical approaches has arisen, but the original difficulties have not disappeared. (shrink)

La logique occupe dans la pensée contemporaine une place privilégiée : elle est, pour certains, une méthode universelle et, pour d'autres, l'accomplissement d'une rationalité arrogante.Pascal Engel montre combien les questions philosophiques que soulève la logique sont, au-delà de leur apparente technicité, des plus classiques. La logique, en effet, circonscrit le domaine du vrai : quelle est la nature des vérités logiques? En quoi se distinguent-elles des autres vérités et sont-elles «nécessaires» ou «a priori»? Décrivent-elles les lois d'un univers immuable (...) ou sont-elles des règles et des conventions linguistiques que nous pourrions changer à notre guise? Les inférences dont traite la logique et que l'on dit souvent triviales peuvent-elles être fécondes, comme le soutenait Leibniz, par la seule «force de la forme»? Et qu'est-ce qu'une forme logique?Faire une philosophie de la logique, ce n'est pas seulement inventorier des formes, c'est surtout analyser leurs conditions d'application au langage, à la pensée et à la réalité. Ainsi la logique retrouve-t-elle sa place : celle d'une théorie des conditions normatives de la rationalité, d'une norme du vrai. (shrink)

Ritualized behavior, intuitively recognizable by its stereotypy, rigidity, repetition, and apparent lack of rational motivation, is found in a variety of life conditions, customs, and everyday practices: in cultural rituals, whether religious or non-religious; in many children's complicated routines; in the pathology of obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD); in normal adults around certain stages of the life-cycle, birthing in particular. Combining evidence from evolutionary anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroimaging, we propose an explanation of ritualized behavior in terms of an evolved Precaution System geared (...) to the detection of and reaction to inferred threats to fitness. This system, distinct from fear-systems geared to respond to manifest danger, includes a repertoire of clues for potential danger as well as a repertoire of species-typical precautions. In OCD pathology, this system does not supply a negative feedback to the appraisal of potential threats, resulting in doubts about the proper performance of precautions, and repetition of action. Also, anxiety levels focus the attention on low-level gestural units of behavior rather than on the goal-related higher-level units normally used in parsing the action-flow. Normally automatized actions are submitted to cognitive control. This “swamps” working memory, an effect of which is a temporary relief from intrusions but also their long-term strengthening. Normal activation of this Precaution System explains intrusions and ritual behaviors in normal adults. Gradual calibration of the system occurs through childhood rituals. Cultural mimicry of this system's normal input makes cultural rituals attention-grabbing and compelling. A number of empirical predictions follow from this synthetic model. (Published Online February 8 2007) Key Words: childhood ritual; compulsion; event boundaries; evolutionary psychology; obsessive-compulsive disorder; ritual; thought intrusion. (shrink)

The field of bioethics is increasingly coming into contact with empirical research findings. In this article, we ask what role empirical research can play in the process of ethical clarification and decision-making. Ethical reflection almost always proceeds in three steps: the description of the moral question,the assessment of the moral question and the evaluation of the decision-making. Empirical research can contribute to each step of this process. In the description of the moral object, first of all, empirical research has a (...) role to play in the description of morally relevant facts. It plays a role in answering the “reality-revealing questions” (what, why,how, who, where and when), in assessing the consequences and in proposing alternative courses of action. Secondly, empirical research plays a role in assessing the moral question. It must be acknowledged that research possesses “the normative power of the factual,” which can also become normative by suppressing other norms. However, inductive normativity should always be balanced out by a deductive form of normativity. Thirdly, empirical research also has a role to play in evaluating the decision-making process. It can rule out certain moral choices by pointing out the occurrence of certain unexpected consequences or effects. It can also be useful, however, as a sociology of bioethics in which the discipline of bioethics itself becomes an object of research. (shrink)

Traduçáo do texto: Colóquio com o Senhor de Saci Sobre Epicteto e Montaigne, de Blaise Pascal, por Traduçáo: Jaimir Conte.

First published in 1947, as part of the Cambridge Plain Texts series, this volume contains the full text of Pascal's Entretien avec M. de Saci sur Épictète et Montaigne in the original French. A short editorial introduction in English is also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Pascal and his thought.

A growing literature is taking an institutionalist and governance perspective on how algorithms shape society based on unprecedented capacities for managing social complexity. Algorithmic governance altogether emerges as a novel and distinctive kind of societal steering. It appears to transcend established categories and modes of governance—and thus seems to call for new ways of thinking about how social relations can be regulated and ordered. However, as this paper argues, despite its novel way of realizing outcomes of collective steering and coordination, (...) it can nevertheless be grasped with an old and fundamental figure in political philosophy: that of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. Comparing algorithmic governance with this figure serves to highlight their similarities as socio-political arrangements, and specifically to clarify how algorithmic governance parallels the apolitical traits of the Leviathan—it eliminates the political as it requires compliance and forgoing contestation to best fulfill its role and to produce satisfying outcomes. (shrink)

Secrète convergence ou énigmatique connivence par-delà l'ombre ou le reproche d'antisémitisme? Loin des polémiques et des controverses récurrentes à chaque découverte de quelque nouveau "flagrant délit" ou tenu pour tel, il reste à interroger la relation ambiguë parce que profonde entre la pensée de Heidegger et l'esprit du judaïsme, d'un Heidegger irréductible à ses circonstances biographiques et d'un judaïsme irréductible à l'ancien Testament du christianisme. C'est à la lumière de la distinction essentielle entre le nom et le nombre que (...) class='Hi'>Pascal David mène cette investigation cruciale, en mettant en évidence l'occultation croissante du nom par le nombre dans le cours de la pensée occidentale et à laquelle ne peut dès lors qu'échapper l'incalculable. Il s'agit donc d'interroger et de mettre en question la constitution de la rationalité occidentale comme computatio ou calcul visant à tout faire entrer en ligne de compte - autrement dit les ressorts de notre époque et de notre monde. Cet essai inattendu, dérangeant, fort de bout en bout, fait droit au pouvoir d'interpellation de la pensée de Heidegger lorsqu'elle se demande et nous demande en quoi le vacarme des machines et la soufflerie des ordinateurs couvrent aujourd'hui la voix de Dieu. (shrink)

D'ou vient le savoir que nous possedons sur nos propres sentiments? C'est la question que pose ce livre. Et il repond: ce savoir se trouve, pour une bonne part, dans les proverbes, les maximes, les adages, ainsi que dans les romans, les pieces de theatre, les films, etc. Pascal Nouvel explore ce savoir. Le resultat de cette exploration est presente sous une forme qui rappelle les formules proverbiales: sous forme d'axiomes. Un axiome est une breve proposition sur la nature (...) et sur les mecanismes du sentiment. Par exemple: ce qui est perdu devient desirable. C'est l'un des 128 axiomes que contient l'Axiomatique des sentiments. On y montre que le desir s'amplifie lorsqu'il est associe au sentiment de la perte. La methode axiomatique ouvre ainsi le champ infini de l'analytique des relations humaines. (shrink)

Philibert Secretan compose ici une manière de portrait de Pascal par le choix de quelques "Pensées" où se dessine sa vision de la condition humaine ; il en commente certains thèmes et donne la voix à des pages riches de résonances poétiques : plus qu'il ne le lit, il écoute Pascal. Enfin, associant sa lecture à celle de trois autres grands lecteurs du philosophe Ludwig Wittgenstein, Edgar Morin et Pierre Bourdieu, il s'arrête sur deux aspects particuliers du philosophe (...) : Pascal, critique, précurseur de Kant ; Pascal, architecte d'une pensée qui s'organise autour de la hiérarchie des ordres. A rebours d'une tradition de lecture par aphorismes, Philibert Secretan privilégie une systématique pascalienne qui en fait ressortir les fulgurances et les abîmes. (shrink)

La obra póstuma de Pascal, Pensamientos, conforma una apología del cristianismo. Nos encontramos ante un texto literariamente magnífico, con sentencias, a menudo breves, que dan que pensar.

Intended to convert religiously indifferent readers to Christianity, Pascal’s Pensees were published posthumously, to wide and ongoing acclaim. This selection of highlights focuses on their secular aspects and the author’s sensitive examination of human psychology as well as his popular epigrams. Written between 1656 and 1657 in support of the Jansenist movement, Provincial Letters captivated a large audience—including many of the cause’s opponents—with their satirical wit, righteous indignation, and effervescent style. This is the only dual-language edition available of these (...) frequently studied works. Introduction, notes. (shrink)

_How does a man who once adored music beyond measure come to revile it as a form of tyranny?_ Throughout Pascal Quignard’s distinguished literary career, music has been a recurring obsession. As a musician he organized the International Festival of Baroque Opera and Theatre at Versailles in the early 1990s, and thus was instrumental in the rediscovery of much forgotten classical music. Yet in 1994 he abruptly renounced all musical activities. _The Hatred of Music_ is Quignard’s masterful exploration of (...) the power of music and what history reveals about the dangers it poses. From prehistoric chants to challenging contemporary compositions, Quignard reflects on music of all kinds and eras. He draws on vast cultural knowledge—the Bible, Greek mythology, early modern history, modern philosophy, the Holocaust, and more—to develop ten accessible treatises on music. In each of these small masterpieces the author exposes music’s potential to manipulate, to mesmerize, to domesticate. Especially disturbing is his scrutiny of the role music played in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Quignard’s provocative book takes on particular relevance today, as we find ourselves surrounded by music as never before in history. (shrink)

D’où vient le jargon scientifique ? Quel lien l’éditeur et l’auteur entretiennent-ils dans l’écriture ? Pascal Rouleau, s’appuyant sur son expérience, montre qu’il faut distinguer trois domaines d’écriture, la création, le jargon et les langages techniques, et que l’éditeur ne doit pas chercher à vulgariser à tout prix.Where does scientific jargon come from? How do publishers and authors relate to each other in the writing process? Pascal Rouleau, drawing on his own experience, shows that a distinction has to (...) be made between three kinds of writing – creative writing, jargon and technical language – and that publishers should not attempt to « popularise » at any cost. (shrink)

Cognitive developmental evidence is sometimes conscripted to support ''naturalized epistemology'' arguments to the effect that a general epistemic stance leads children to build theory-like accounts of underlying properties of kinds. A review of the evidence suggests that what prompts conceptual acquisition is not a general epistemic stance but a series of category-specific intuitive principles that constitute an evolved ''natural metaphysics''. This consists in a system of categories and category-specific inferential processes founded on definite biases in prototype formation. Evidence for this (...) system provides a better understanding of the limited ''plasticity'' of ontological commitments as well as a computationally plausible account of their initial state, avoiding ambiguities about innateness. This may provide a starting point for a ''naturalized epistemology'' that takes into account evolved properties of human conceptual structures. (shrink)

Do you believe it to be impossible that God is infinite, without parts?-Yes. I wish therefore to show you an infinite and indivisible thing. It is a point moving everywhere with an infinite velocity; for it is one in all places, and is all totality in every place. Let this effect of nature, which previously seemed to you impossible, make you know that there may be others of which you are still ignorant. Do not draw this conclusion from your experiment, (...) that there remains nothing for you to know; but rather that there remains an infinity for you to know. (shrink)

Decisions in security contexts, including armed conflict, law enforcement, and disaster relief, often need to be taken under circumstances of limited information, stress, and time pressure. Since AI systems are capable of providing a certain amount of relief in such contexts, such systems will become increasingly important, be it as decision-support or decision-making systems. However, given that human life may be at stake in such situations, moral responsibility for such decisions should remain with humans. Hence the idea of “meaningful human (...) control” of intelligent systems. In this opinion paper, we outline generic configurations of control of AI and we present an alternative to human control of AI, namely the inverse idea of having AI control humans, and we discuss the normative consequences of this alternative. (shrink)

Zeki and co-workers recently proposed that perception can best be described as locally distributed, asynchronous processes that each create a kind of microconsciousness, which condense into an experienced percept. The present article is aimed at extending this theory to metacognitive feelings. We present evidence that perceptual fluency—the subjective feeling of ease during perceptual processing—is based on speed of processing at different stages of the perceptual process. Specifically, detection of briefly presented stimuli was influenced by figure-ground contrast, but not by symmetry (...) or the font of the stimuli. Conversely, discrimination of these stimuli was influenced by whether they were symmetric and by the font they were presented in , but not by figure-ground contrast. Both tasks however were related with the subjective experience of fluency . We conclude that subjective fluency is the conscious phenomenal correlate of different processing stages in visual perception. (shrink)

Le maintien des relations parent-enfant en prison représente un véritable défi au regard des différentes formes d’empêchement – véritable mise en suspens de la parentalité – auxquels se trouvent confrontés les parents détenus et les enfants ainsi que leurs accompagnants. Membre d’une recherche inter-disciplinaire (droit et psychologie), menée en France dans trois établissements pénitentiaires en appui sur des questionnaires et la conduite de focus-groups, l’auteur met en évidence, au travers d’une approche clinique psychodynamique, la tension qui s’exerce entre les attentes (...) exprimées par les parents détenus à l’égard de leurs enfants et la disqualification dont leur lien est l’objet, en raison du vécu des conditions de détention et d’accueil des enfants ainsi que de l’accès à la prison des personnes qui, de l’extérieur, sont en mesure de soutenir les relations parent-enfant (conjoint ou ex-conjoint, famille...). (shrink)