Normative accounts of the correctness of belief have often been misconstrued. The norm of truth for belief is a constitutive norm which regulates our beliefs through ideals of reason. I try to show that this kind of account can meet some of the main objections which have been raised against normativism about belief: that epistemic reasons enjoy no exclusivity, that the norm of truth does not guide, and that normativism cannot account for suspension of judgement.

The phenomenon of transnational families is a topical issue on the European Union's family policy agenda, especially in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Europe 2020 Strategy. Romania, not only as a member state of the European Union, but also as a country directly affected by the scale of this phenomenon, must include in the public family policy the issue of transnational families and provide solutions for these families. Starting from the identification of the risk factors faced (...) by children whose parents are working abroad, the article proposes a critical analysis of existing programs and measures in national legislation aimed at preventing and combating the social exclusion of Romanian children from transnational families. The results of the SWOT analysis carried out indicate a number of shortcomings in covering the risk situations of these vulnerable children, the access to education and a good start in the life of these children being quite affected. The obtained results have implications at the level of decision-makers, helping to improve the efficiency of measures and programs for the left behind children and transnational Romanian families. (shrink)

The thesis that mental content is normative is ambiguous and has many forms. This article deals only with the thesis that normativity is connected to our mental attitudes rather than with the content of the attitudes, and more specifically with the view that it is connected to belief. A number of writers have proposed various versions of a ‘norm of truth’ attached to belief. I examine various versions of this claim, and defend it against recent criticisms according to which this (...) norm lacks normative force, that it violates the principle that ‘ought implies can,’ and that it is viciously circular. I defend the view that we should distinguish the statement of the objective norm and the way it is regulated, and that this distinction can answer most of the criticisms of the norm of truth for belief. (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.

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)

We propose a philosophical theory of scientific models. Our main claim is that they should be understood as fictions. We illustrate the relevance of the claim by illustrations drawn from the history of science, and we propose a typology.

There are mental actions, and a number of epistemic attitudes involve activity. But can there be epistemic agency? I argue that there is a limit to any claim that we can be epistemic agents, which is that the structure of reasons for epistemic attitudes differs fundamentally from the structure of reasons for actions. The main differences are that we cannot act for the wrong reasons although we can believe for the wrong reasons, and that reasons for beliefs are exclusive in (...) a sense in which our reasons for actions are not. Epistemic agency is possible in the weak sense that we can be active, but not in the strong one in which we could have some elbow room for our epistemic reasons in reasoning leading to beliefs and other epistemic states. (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.

Paul Ricœur made a lot to introduce analytic philosophy in France during the 70s and 80s, and he engaged in a dialogue with a number of authors from this tradition, such as Austin, Strawson, Davidson or Parfit. This dialogue, though, was one-sided, since there was no discussion of his views by analytic philosophers. Moreover, Ricœur often misunderstood or misprepresented the analytic views that he was discussing. So in many ways the Ricœur’s encounter with analytic philosophy was unsuccessful, which does not (...) mean that Ricœur’s discussions where unfruitful for his own work. Résumé Paul Ricœur a fait beaucoup pour introduire la philosophie analytique en France pendant les années 1970 et 1980, et il a entrepris un dialogue avec les auteurs de cette tradition, comme Austin, Strawson, Davidson ou Parfit. Mais ce dialogue est cependant resté unilatéral, car il n’y a pas eu de discussion des thèses de Ricœur au sein de la tradition analytique. De plus Ricœur a souvent mécompris les vues analytiques qu’il discutait. En ce sens il n’y a pas eu de rencontre entre Ricœur et les philosophes analytiques, ce qui ne veut pas dire que les discussions par Ricœur des philosophes anaytiques n’aient pas été fructueuses pour son œuvre propre. (shrink)

Psycholinguistic investigations of the way readers and speakers perceive gender have shown several biases associated with how gender is linguistically realized in language. Although such variations across languages offer interesting grounds for legitimate cross linguistic comparisons, pertinent characteristics of grammatical systems – especially in terms of their gender asymmetries – have to be clearly identified. In this paper, we present a language index for researchers interested in the effect of grammatical gender on the mental representations of women and men. Our (...) index is based on five main language groups (i.e., grammatical gender languages, languages with a combination of grammatical gender and natural gender, natural gender languages, genderless languages with few traces of grammatical gender and genderless languages) and three sets of specific features (morphology, masculine-male generics and asymmetries). Our index goes beyond existing ones in that it provides specific dimensions relevant to those interested in psychological and sociological impacts of language on the way we perceive women and men. We also offer a critical discussion of any endeavor to classify languages according to grammatical gender. (shrink)

L’une des raisons pour lesquelles la vérité et la démocratie ne semblent pas faire bon ménage est qu’on a tendance à confondre, d’une part, la liberté d’opinion et de parole avec l’égale vérité des opinions, ce qui revient à adopter une forme de relativisme, et, d’autre part, la règle de majorité avec une règle de vérité, ce qui revient à adopter une forme de théorie de la vérité comme consensus. Parce que la démocratie libérale repose sur le principe de la (...) pluralité des valeurs et sur la neutralité axiologique, on a tendance à penser qu’elle exige de traiter toutes les opinions comme également respectables et, moyennant une confusion de plus, comme également vraies. Parce que la démocratie suppose la règle selon laquelle, en matière de décisions, la majorité doit l’emporter, on suppose que les opinions majoritaires ont le plus de chances d’être vraies, et qu’elles sont vraies parce qu’elles sont celles de la majorité. (shrink)

the article suggests understanding(including) better the professionalization of the formative activities and the professional activities by an approach which articulates three levels of analysis: macro (historic construction and social construction of the knowledges of the activity), méso (institutional devices (plans) of training (formation) and work) and microphone(microcomputing) (lived on the subjects, the individual dynamics). This reflection leans on the presentation (display) of various processes of professionalization stemming from empirical searches (researches) realized by the author. l’article propose de mieux comprendre la (...) professionnalisation des activités formatives et des activités professionnelles par une approche qui articule trois niveaux d’analyse: macro (construction historique et construction sociale des savoirs de l’activité), méso (dispositifs institutionnels de formation et de travail) et micro (vécu des sujets, dynamiques individuelles). Cette réflexion s’appuie sur la présentation de différents processus de professionnalisation issus de recherches empiriques réalisées par l’auteur. (shrink)

This paper analyses Davidson's conception of the norms of rationality which govern, according to him, the interpretation of mind and action. While I accept Davidson's thesis that there are norms of the mental, I disagree with him on their scope. It is argued that there are much more specific norms for concepts, and that belief in partiuclar is governed by a norm of truth.

«Neither with you nor without you»Francois Truffaut, La femme d’à coté No one can deny that there is a problem between Wittgenstein and analytic philosophers. To put it mildly, there are tensions between Wittgenstein’s and Wittgensteinian styled reflections and the views and practice of a lot of contemporary analytic philosophers, such that they often seem to be strange bedfellows, when they are bedfellows at all. Of course we know that Wittgenstein did not get along very well with Russell, t...

Il arrive souvent, quand on discute de questions portant sur la théorie de la connaissance, que l’on utilise des concepts qui ont une consonance éthique. On se demande ce qui distingue une bonne hypothèse d’une mauvaise, ou si nous devrions croire ceci ou cela sur la base des données..

Background At the point of cancer diagnosis, practitioners may wrestle with ethical dilemmas associated with medico-legal implications of diagnosis, treatment options and disclosure to family members. The patient's perspective can take a different route, focusing on ethical and existential questions about the value and purpose of life, culminating in the question: how do I lead my life after diagnosis? Objective To explore the ethical and existential challenges associated with a cancer diagnosis from the perspective of cancer survivors. Design Qualitative design (...) using specifically phenomenological methods to enable focus on subjective experience. Two in-depth interviews were conducted over a 6-month period. Setting Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. Participants 15 participants (n=11 women and n=4 men) volunteered to be interviewed. Age ranged from 32 to 85 years of age; length of survival 0.5–25 years; with a range of cancer diagnoses. Results Findings demonstrated that participants experienced existential and ethical challenges associated with a cancer diagnosis and subsequent survivorhood. These challenges were present regardless of cancer stage or diagnostic type and pervaded throughout length of survival. The existential challenges included the experience of anxiety and uncertainty about recurrence and metastatic disease. In particular, participants reported iatrogenic uncertainty induced by tests and treatment with follow-up regimes underscoring the fragility of survivor status. Uncertainty served as a ‘wake-up call’ and precipitated ethical challenges. Such challenges involved making meaning of survivorhood and questioning of morals, values and relationships. At times these questions were painful and difficult, creating unease about leading a ‘good’ and purposeful life. Entering ethically rocky terrain was also considered identity enhancing, with reports that a cancer diagnosis could have benefits as well as challenges. Conclusion This study identified a number of challenges associated with a cancer diagnosis; these have implications for the preparation of medical, nursing and social work practitioners and should be considered during the design of follow-up support for cancer patients and those in recovery. (shrink)

Evidence on AI acceptance comes from a diverse field comprising public opinion research and largely experimental studies from various disciplines. Differing theoretical approaches in this research, however, imply heterogeneous ways of studying AI acceptance. The present paper provides a framework for systematizing different uses. It identifies three families of theoretical perspectives informing research on AI acceptance—user acceptance, delegation acceptance, and societal adoption acceptance. These models differ in scope, each has elements specific to them, and the connotation of technology acceptance thus (...) changes when shifting perspective. The discussion points to a need for combining the three perspectives as they have all become relevant for AI. A combined approach serves to systematically relate findings from different studies. And as AI systems affect people in different constellations and no single perspective can accommodate them all, building blocks from several perspectives are needed to comprehensively study how AI is perceived in society. (shrink)

A large amount of research in cognitive psychology is focused on memory distortions, understood as deviations from various (largely implicit) standards. Many alleged distortions actually suggest a highly functional system that balances the cost of acquiring new information with the benefit of relevant, contextually appropriate decision-making. In this sense many memories may be examples of functionally adaptive misbelief.

En sciences sociales, les scientifiques utilisent les rapports des sujets sur leurs propres états mentaux dans leurs démarches expérimentales. Ainsi, l’introspection, ou la capacité des sujets à former des croyances sur leurs propres états mentaux, y joue un rôle important. Selon les tenants de l’introspectionnisme, l’introspection est une méthode, certes privée, mais qui permet de justifier directement des hypothèses scientifiques. Ainsi, contrairement aux méthodes utilisées dans les sciences de la nature qui se fondent uniquement sur des données publiques, les sciences (...) sociales utiliseraient des données subjectives pour justifier leurs hypothèses. Contre l’introspectionnisme, nous défendons que l’introspection n’est pas utilisée pour justifier directement les hypothèses, mais que sa place est plutôt similaire à celle d’un instrument de mesure des états et processus mentaux des sujets, susceptible d’être calibré, à la façon dont les instruments de mesure utilisés dans les sciences... (shrink)

There are three possible ways of access to phenomena of suffered violence: the first is the experience of those who have suffered violence themselves; the second is the experience of eyewitnesses; the third, which is the most frequent one, is an indirect access through the testimony of people belonging to the first two categories. Each way of access has advantages but also serious difficulties, both in terms of the objectivity of the experience and of the possibility to express it in (...) language. No one is free from an affective and a normative dimension; this implies that there is a certain tension with regard to the phenomenological reduction. The paper offers an analysis of these ways of access. (shrink)

Selon la théorie de la connaissance phénoménale comme accointance, notre connaissance des propriétés phénoménales de nos états conscients repose sur une relation épistémologiquement directe et métaphysiquement simple. Dans cet article, je soutiens que le meilleur argument en faveur de cette approche est une inférence à la meilleure explication. Je décris l’ explanandum et l’ explanans de cette inférence, ce qui me conduit à distinguer un sens faible et un sens fort de l’accointance. Je montre ensuite que l’inférence est fragile pour (...) deux raisons. En premier lieu, il n’est pas clair que l’ explanandum puisse être établi indépendamment de la thèse même qu’il motive, ce qui fait apparaître un risque de circularité explicative au sens de Hempel. En second lieu, les défenseurs de l’accointance devraient montrer comment une relation métaphysiquement simple, donc irréductible à des mécanismes, peut expliquer l’acquisition des croyances phénoménales. Je conclus que nous n’avons pas actuellement de raisons d’accepter la thèse forte de l’accointance, mais que le concept d’accointance faible pourrait certainement jouer un rôle important dans une théorie de la connaissance phénoménale. (shrink)

A la vérité, la pensée de Kant, et c'est là son originalité, propose une sagesse authentique qui se fonde dans le concept de devoir au sens de la loi morale. Contrairement à ce que certains auteurs (V. Brochard, P. Aubenque, M. Foucault) ont pu soutenir, il n'y a pas lieu d'opposer les sagesses de la philosophie grecque et la philosophie pratique de Kant, qui ne serait pas une sagesse, mais une morale du devoir. Le présent ouvrage montre que cette sagesse (...) doit se comprendre comme l'individuation de l'exigence de la vertu, soit comme une tension entre l'impératif moral et l'accomplissement d'une ascétique éthique soucieuse de réaliser l'humanité dans sa destination complète. (shrink)

Milgram’s experiments have had a considerable influence on the historical study of genocidal behavior, which originated with Christopher Browning’s groundbreaking book Ordinary Men. The purpose of my article is to examine and critically assess the following theory which is often taken somewhat for granted: “Relevance thesis: findings in social psychology, most notably Milgram’s findings about obedience behavior, are causally relevant to explaining perpetrators’ behaviors.” The relevance theory presupposes that certain paradigmatic studies in social psychology have both internal and external validity. (...) In the context of the replication crisis which has affected many recent findings in social psychology, it seems crucial to discuss this presupposition. I shall argue that the evidence is mixed. (shrink)

Découvert en 1981 près de l'angle Nord-Est du palais de Malia, un triton en chlorite porte une décoration et une représentation sculptées en relief. On y voit deux génies léonins à carapace dressés face à face sur un piédestal : l'un tient une cruche à double bec et semble en présenter le contenu à l'autre qui porte ses antérieurs à sa gueule. L'analyse de l'objet, des éléments du décor et de la représentation conduisent à reconnaître dans ce triton une réalisation (...) égéenne datant du MR I A. Il paraît plus vraisemblable de l'interpréter comme rhyton que comme une trompette. Une annexe présente les autres coquillages en pierre, en terre cuite et en faïence trouvés dans le monde égéen. (shrink)

La contribution de Schelling à l’esthétique aura d’abord consisté à en récuser l’appellation et le projet, expressément rattachés à la science du beau fondée par Baumgarten, parce que l’art n’est pas essentiellement axé, à ses yeux, sur le sensible, mais sur une beauté élevée au-dessus de toute sensibilité. La philosophie de l’art a pour tâche de présenter la philosophie universelle sous la puissance de l’art, de construire l’univers sous la forme de l’art. La généalogie de l’art à partir de l’Absolu, (...) en laquelle consiste une telle construction, en est aussi la reconstitution, dans l’horizon marqué d’historicité d’une théogonie (ou histoire des dieux) où l’apparition des dieux signale l’avènement de la forme. Dans quelle mesure la philosophie de l’art de Schelling demeure-t-elle comme une écharde dans la chair de l’esthétique? Est-on fondé à parler d’une réception à son propos? On posera ici quelques jalons. (shrink)

The historiography on the concept of race in the post-war sciences has focused predominantly on the UNESCO campaign against scientific racism and on the Anglo-American research community. By way of contrast, this article highlights the history of the concept of race from a thus far unexplored angle: from Swiss research centres and their global interconnections with racial researchers around the world. The article investigates how the acceptance, resonance, and prestige of racial research changed during the post-war years. It analyses what (...) resources could be mobilised that enabled researchers to carry out and continue scientific studies in the field of racial research or even to expand them and link them to new contexts. From this perspective, the article looks at the dynamics, openness, and contingency of the European post-war period, which was less stable, anti-racist, and spiritually renewed than retrospective success stories often suggest. The pronounced internationality of Swiss racial science and its close entanglement with the booming field of human genetics in the early 1950s point to the ambiguities of the period’s political and scientific development. I argue that the impact of post-war anti-racism on science was more limited than is frequently assumed: it did not drain the market for racial knowledge on a continent that clung to imperialism and was still shaped by racist violence. Only from the mid 1950s onwards did a series of unforeseen events and contingent shifts curtail the importance of the race concept in various sectors of the human sciences. (shrink)

These replies to commentators on my work focus on the nature of epistemic norms, on the nature of truth and on the nature and value of knowledge. A normative account of belief and knowledge is committed to substantial and objective epistemic norms. But not everyone agrees on their form. I try here to reply to some doubts raised by my critics.

In this article, I develop a critique of Chantal Mouffe’s leftist populism and its construction of ‘the people’ against an opposed ‘them’, from a perspective informed by the thought of Didier Eribon. I draw on both his public interventions and his theoretical work, employing his concepts of return, society as verdict, and his two principles of critical thinking to question the desirability of crafting ‘the people’ in the first place. I contend that Eribon’s critique renders Mouffe’s proposal problematic on three (...) accounts. First, her approach is too politically volatile; its instability leaves it devoid of a critical analysis of the differences between concrete social positions, struggles, and subjectivities within ‘the people’. Consequently, the political becomes merely a function of the social. Yet, the social and its determining power remain mostly unaddressed by her framework. Second, its simplistic opposition of an overly generalised ‘the people’ against ‘the oligarchy’ is susceptible to right-wing populist appropriations. Third, for a shot at hegemony and a general appeal, it eclipses plurality and dissensus within ‘the people’. In contrast, Eribon encourages a connection between the social and the political by suggesting that a self-critical analysis be mutually intertwined with social analysis. Instead of merely mobilising affects, they must be critically interrogated. Instead of summoning ‘the people’, a return to their respective genesis must be attempted. Unless both principles of critical thinking, the insights of return, and societal verdicts are deployed to come to terms with the social determinisms at hand, the ‘people’s’ mobilisation against an opposed ‘them’ risks sacrificing pluralism and equality alike and neglecting the criteria of the desirability of specific changes in favour of a “whatever it costs” attempt at hegemony. (shrink)

Recent developments in the continental tradition have taken a realist turn that reveals an oscillation between, on the one hand, an ontology of virtuality that thinks of reality as process and continuum (albeit a continuum of differences or events) and, on the other hand, the resurgence of an ontology of objects and essences guided by the desire to retain the individuality of beings. The dilemma goes something like this: if we embrace a processual ontology, we risk losing the manifestedness of (...) objects, the way they insist in being in their unique presence. Objects become mere epiphenomena of deeper, subterranean forces. If, however, we embrace an ontology of objects, we assume a universe composed of separate substances; objects are all there is (even if they are withdrawn). This article argues that freeing ontology from correlationism does not entail construing ontology in terms of objects. Individuals are products rather than primitive ontological terms. (shrink)

Previous chapter Janina Wellmann's analyses are extremely valuable because they provide us with new historical evidence that can only improve our understanding of a very obscure past. But the general interpretations she proposes are quite questionable. The idea that after 1800 a “Rhythm Episteme” has dominated the field of knowledge erases the very acute conflict that broke out in the early years of the 19th century between poetic and artistic rhythmologies, inspired by a common - Sur le concept de rythme (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)

L’intervention que reprend cet article porte sur un cadre-dispositif singulier de thérapie familiale basé sur l’épistémologie psychanalytique groupale. Ce cadre est singulier dans la mesure où il a été tenté d’articuler un travail entre groupe de thérapeutes et néo-groupe. La réflexion développée ici s’origine dans la clinique des auteurs : lorsqu’ils parlent en groupe d’une famille, la règle d’association libre les amène fréquemment à évoquer une autre famille rencontrée précédemment en séance. Quelle est la nature et la fonction de cette (...) résonance? L’article pose l’hypothèse d’un nouveau contre-transfert : le contre-transfert transfamilial. Une vignette clinique permet d’illustrer le cheminement qui a conduit les auteurs à y aboutir. (shrink)