Peu de textes de Pascal semblent relever de l'expérience ou du discours mystique. Outre le Mémorial, qui garde mémoire d'une expérience de Dieu sur une feuille de papier, outre la Prière pour demander à Dieu le bon usage des maladies, certaines lettres à Mlle de Roannez contiennent des conseils pour se rapprocher de Dieu, et d'autres lettres spirituelles, comme celle écrite après la mort de son père, traitent de l'attitude du chrétien face à la mort. L'Ecrit sur la conversion (...) du pécheur nous livre les difficultés de l'homme à la recherche de Dieu. Cependant, malgré la pauvreté quantitative des textes traitant assez clairement de la mystique, il nous est apparu qu'elle constitue la clé de voûte de l'édifice pascalien, sans laquelle l'oeuvre de Pascal ne fait pas sens. A partir de ce point ultime et transcendant, expliqué en partie par le contexte familial et social de Pascal, on peut relire et comprendre sa démarche scientifique, et la relation entretenue avec la Bible. Ainsi nous proposons une relecture de l'intégralité de l'oeuvre pascalienne, en la replaçant dans l'histoire de la mystique judéo-chrétienne, et en mettant notamment en relief la façon dont Pascal s'est approprié l'esprit et la mystique bibliques, dans une tradition où l'influence du dualisme platonicien n'est pas étrangère. La mystique pascalienne se définit ainsi comme le désir d'une union à Dieu, médiatisée par la figure du Christ, et il en résulte une relation de chaque instant, où l'homme se sent transformé, déifié, dans un sentiment de joie. (shrink)

I argue that the normative dimension in mental content does not figure in the content as a direct feature of this content. But I do not take is as an extrinsic feature due to the properties of our ascriptions either. I suggest that the normativity has to do with the possibility of self attribution of mental states. The views of Robert Brandom are examined in this respect.

I discuss Ruth Marcus' conception of beliefs as dispositional states related to possible states of affaires. While I agree with Marcus that this conception accounts for the necessary distinction between belief and linguistic assent, I argue that the relationship between dispositional beliefs and our assent attitudes is more complex, and should include other mental states, such as acceptances, which, although they contain voluntary elements, are further layers of dispositional doxastic attitudes.

This article examines Keith Lehrer's distinction between belief and acceptance and how it differs from other accounts of belief and of the family of doxastic attitudes. I sketch a different taxonomy of doxastic attitudes. Lehrer's notion of acceptance is mostly epistemic and at the service of his account of the "loop of reason", whereas for other writers acceptance is mostly a pragmatic attitude. I argue, however, that his account of acceptance underdetermines the role that the attitude of trust plays in (...) his analysis of reason. (shrink)

There are three strands for reading the famous equation that a theory of meaning is a theory of understanding. One can give precedence to the theory of meaning, holding that what the speaker understands is such a theory. This is Davidson's stance. One can hold that understanding comes first and have a psychology of meaning. This the cognitivist stance. Or one can hold that there is no priority of meaning over understanding and vice versa. This is the Wittgensteinian stance. I (...) argue that the Davidsonian stance should integrate the two others, but that it is very hard to do. (shrink)

Time prevents being from forming a totality. Whenever there is time fragmentation and multiplicity occur. Yet, there also ought to be continuity since it is thesame being that was, is and will be. Because of time, being must be both identical and different. This is the key problem that Aristotle attempts to resolve in his discussion of time in Book IV of the Physics. This essay considers three privileged notions: limit, number and ecstasies on which Aristotle relies at crucial moments (...) of his inquiry and shows (1) that limit, number, and ecstasies are actually three ways of approaching the same phenomenon, and (2) how they allow Aristotle to reconcile divisibility and indivisibility. (shrink)

Blanchot's thought has often been understood as a critique and a reversal of Heidegger's. Indeed, many formulas of the former are construed as mere inversions of the latter. Yet, the philosophical problem raised by the encounter between Blanchot and Heidegger cannot be suffciently accounted for in terms of 'inversion' or 'reversal'. Focusing on the question of the secret in its relation to Geheimnis , this essay starts with a discussion of the notion of secrecy in relation to mysticism and argues (...) that this difference should not be construed in terms of a disjunction. Blanchot's relation to Heidegger is not on a par with Levinas' critical account of the latter; that to acknowledge the centrality of the secret does not commit one to mysticism; and that Blanchot's ultimate claims about the neuter commit him to a position that is much closer to Heidegger's than his apparent disavowal of the latter would seem to entail. (shrink)

Ce texte a été présenté à l'Alliance française de Buenos Aires le 25 avril 2019 lors de la Conferencia Internacional sobre el Ritmo en el Arte 2019 organisée par Melisa Galarce, Gabriela D'Odorico, Leticia Miramontes, Silvia Pritz, et Aníbal Zorrilla. Au 19e siècle, on trouve depuis les années 1840 des historiens de l'art qui s'intéressent au rythme. Mais le nombre d'études utilisant ce concept a commencé à enfler à partir des années 1890, jusqu'à ce qu'il devienne une - XIXe siècle (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Philosophers of biology have been absorbed by the problem of defining evolutionary fitness since Darwin made it central to biological explanation. The apparent problem is obvious. Define fitness as some biologists implicitly do, in terms of actual survival and reproduction, and the principle of natural selection turns into an empty tautology: those organisms which survive and reproduce in larger numbers, survive and reproduce in larger numbers. Accordingly, many writers have sought to provide a definition for ‘fitness’ which avoid this outcome. (...) In particular the definition of fitness as a probabilistic propensity has been widely favored.1 Others, recognizing that no definition both correct and complete can actually be provided, have accepted the consequence that the leading principle of the theory is a definitional truth and attempted to mitigate the impact of this outcome for the empirical character of the theory.2 Still others have argued that ‘fitness’ is properly viewed as a term undefined in the theory of natural selection (on the model of mass—a term undefined in Newtonian mechanics).3 But few have contemplated the solution to this problem proposed by Mohan Matthen and André Ariew (hereafter, MA), in.. (shrink)

An analysis of the first/third person asymmetry and in the light of Moore's paradox and Shoemaker's views on first person perspective.

Toward the end of his monograph The Craftsman, the American philosopher Richard Sennett describes two different ways of building a house.1 The designer of the first house is the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the designer of the second house is the architect Adolf Loos. Though both men embrace the same principles of the New Realism—"purity," "simplicity," and "honesty"—the results of these two builders are fundamentally different. Wittgenstein was not satisfied at all with his abode in the end. Though he says (...) it has "good manners," he accuses it of lacking a great deal of "primordial life." Therefore the Jewish philosopher will never build a house again, apart from his hut in Norway and his one house on the .. (shrink)

This chapter evaluates Davidson's influence on contemporary philosophy. Although a number of his views on meaning, truth, interpretation, action, and mind have often been rejected within contemporary philosophy, most of most his central themes and basic concepts are still with us and have had a lasting influence. The heritage of Davidson's philosophy lies in the capacity of contemporary philosophers to modify his views and to expand them in new directions.

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.

This eloquent and philosophically astute translation is the first complete English translation based on the Sellier edition of Pascal's manuscript, widely accepted as the manuscript that is closest to the version Pascal left behind on his death in 1662. A brief history of the text, a select bibliography of primary and secondary sources, a chronology of Pascal’s life and works, concordances between the Sellier and Lafuma editions of the original, and an index are provided.

Previous chapter The first objective of this book was to examine the most ancient roots of Western rhythmology and clarify the various concepts on which it rests. Our investigation has shown that three different theoretical paradigms surfaced between the 5th and the 4th centuries BC. We then followed, over a period of more than thousand years, their complex relations, their respective fates, and the final global shift that occurred between the 3rd and the 6th centuries BC. The overall - Sur (...) le concept de rythme – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Previous chapter In our elaboration of the phrase radically historical anthropology, we have insisted, so far, on the terms radically historical. Benveniste helped us to suggest the outlines of a rhuthmic conception of human life independent of most modern philosophical theories. We must now approach the notion of historical anthropology itself. Indeed, at the same time as he was describing the relation between language and society, language and the individual, Benveniste sketched out a - Linguistique et théorie du langage – (...) Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ce texte est la suite d'une réflexion présentée ici. Connaître les rythmes du monde L'analyse de l'ontologie matérialiste développée par Diderot, que ce soit sous la figure de la substance une et vivante ou sous celles de ses différentes figures individuées, montre que son orientation héraclitéenne générale ne lui interdit pas, bien au contraire, de produire des concepts susceptibles de rendre compte des innombrables formes d'organisation des flux de la matière. Nous allons voir qu'une tension analogue (...) - Philosophie – (...) Nouvel article. (shrink)

Religions “in the wild” are the varied set of religious activities that occurred before the emergence of organized religions with doctrines, or that persist at the margins of those organized traditions. These religious activities mostly focus on misfortune; on how to remedy specific cases of illness, accidents, failures; and on how to prevent them. I present a general model to account for the cross-cultural recurrence of these particular themes. The model is based on features of human psychology—namely, epistemic vigilance, the (...) set of systems whereby we evaluate the quality of information and of sources of information, and threat-detection psychology, the set of evolved systems geared at detecting potential danger in the environment. Given these two sets of systems, the dynamics of communication will favor particular types of messages about misfortune. This makes it possible to predict recurrent features of religious systems, such as the focus on nonphysical agents, the focus on particular cases rather than general aspects of misfortune, and the emergence of specialists. The model could illuminate not just why such representations are culturally successful, but also why people are motivated to formulate them in the first place. (shrink)

Previous chapter In the second half of the 19th century, the last important artist who contributes to the theory of rhythm is Stéphane Mallarmé. Through a deep reflection on poetry and language, based on a very innovative writing practice, Mallarmé provides new insights on the relation between rhythm, language and subjectivity. In a very famous letter written in 1886, Mallarmé presents rhythm as nothing less than the “essential” part of “human language,” through which poetry expresses “the - Sur le concept (...) de rythme – Nouvel article. (shrink)

When he reached his late fifties, Henri Lefebvre's life took a remarkable turn: in 1958, he was expelled from the French Communist Party, after thirty years being a committed member. He then became close to the Situationists, and finally was chosen as a mentor by the French students who launched the rebellion movement in 1968 at the University of Nanterre, where he had been appointed in 1965. Naturally, his thought followed a similar pattern. His kind of Marxism became more and (...) - Sociologie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ce texte est la suite d'une réflexion engagée ici. Vers une théorie rythmique du langage ? Les critiques qui viennent d'être présentées débouchent sur un ensemble de thèses que je voudrais maintenant analyser en détail avant d'en faire la critique. Première thèse : Spinoza présupposerait, sans jamais toutefois l'exposer directement, une théorie du langage proche de celle qui émergera par la suite chez Humboldt puis se développera chez Saussure, Benveniste et lui-même. Cette théorie apparaîtrait, en (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel (...) article. (shrink)

Ce texte est la suite d'une réflexion présentée ici. Du point de vue épistémologique, son « empirisme spéculatif » donne à Condillac la possibilité de se départir de la méfiance traditionnelle à l'égard du langage encore éprouvée par Locke. Bien sûr, il conserve l'attitude critique héritée de Bacon à l'égard des imprécisions de terme ou de la réification des noms, mais il place désormais le langage sous un jour beaucoup plus lumineux. Alors que Locke voyait le langage comme un outil (...) très imparfait de la pensée, (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Previous chapter * No need to say that Nietzsche's contribution to rhythmology is one of the most developed in the 19th century but also one of the most obscure and ill-known. I guess that there is still much more to discover in his posthumous writings, fragments and letters, even in his published texts, nevertheless, our survey has clearly shown a certain number of significant points. 1. Contrary to Hegel or other previous Idealist philosophers of the 19th century, but also to (...) - Sur le concept de rythme – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Previous chapter Pulse Rhythm as Part of a Mind-Body Identity Theory? – Galen Let us now turn towards the philosophical correlates of this change in the theory of rhythm. To get a clearer picture we need to come back first to the use of its musical counterpart—the concept of harmony—in philosophy. The comparison of the soul with musical harmony, which most probably originates in Heraclitus and Pythagoras, is exposed by Simmias - Médecine – Nouvel article.

We argue that there is a tension between two monistic claims that are the core of recent work in epistemic consequentialism. The first is a form of monism about epistemic value, commonly known as veritism: accuracy is the sole final objective to be promoted in the epistemic domain. The other is a form of monism about a class of epistemic scoring rules: that is, strictly proper scoring rules are the only legitimate measures of inaccuracy. These two monisms, we argue, are (...) in tension with each other. If only accuracy has final epistemic value, then there are legitimate alternatives to strictly proper scoring rules. Our argument relies on the way scoring rules are used in contexts where accuracy is rewarded, such as education. (shrink)

This paper tries to say in what sense truth is a norm, a thesis that Donald Davidson, whose view are examined, denies. After skteching his conception of rationality, it is argued that truth is a norm in only the sense that we ought to believe what we believe is true, not that we all to believe everything which is true. This minimal norm of truth is isolated and defended.