Biological individuals are usually defined by evolutionists through a reference to natural selection. This article looks for a concept of individuality that would hold at the same time for organisms and for communities or ecosystems, the latter being unaffected by natural selection. In the wake of Simon’s notion of “quasi-independence,” I elaborate a concept of “weak individuality” defined by probabilistic connections between sub-entities, read off our knowledge of their interactions. This formal scheme of connections allows one to infer what are (...) the individuals in the domain addressed by the theory of the interactions. The article argues that if ecosystems do not have strong individuality, they still possess a weak individuality, ecological theories providing the values of the variables in the formula for individuality. (shrink)

We argue that a formal semantics for music can be developed, although it will be based on very different principles from linguistic semantics and will yield less precise inferences. Our framework has the following tenets: Music cognition is continuous with normal auditory cognition. In both cases, the semantic content derived from an auditory percept can be identified with the set of inferences it licenses on its causal sources, analyzed in appropriately abstract ways. What is special about music semantics is that (...) it aggregates inferences based on normal auditory cognition with further inferences drawn on the basis of the behavior of voices in tonal pitch space. This makes it possible to define an inferential semantics but also a truth-conditional semantics for music. In particular, a voice undergoing a musical movement m is true of an object undergoing a series of events e just in case there is a certain structure-preserving map between m and e. Aspects of musical syntax might be derivable on semantic grounds from an event mereology, which also explains some cases in which tree structures are inadequate for music. Intentions and emotions may be attributed at several levels, and we speculate on possible explanations of the special relation between music and emotions. (shrink)

In the tradition of quantified modal logic, it was assumed that significantly different linguistic systems underlie reference to individuals, to times and to ‘possible worlds’. Various results from recent research in formal semantics suggest that this is not so, and that there is in fact apervasive symmetrybetween the linguistic means with which we refer to these three domains. Reference to individuals, times and worlds is uniformly effected through generalized quantifiers, definite descriptions, and pronouns, and in each domain grammatical features situate (...) the reference of terms as near, far or ‘further’ from the actual or from a reported speech act. We outline various directions in which a program ofontological symmetrycould be developed, and we offer in theAppendixa symmetric fragment developed in a logic that can be seen as a compromise between an extensional and an intensional system. (shrink)

We provide a systematic recipe for eliminating self-reference from a simple language in which semantic paradoxes (whether purely logical or empirical) can be expressed. We start from a non-quantificational language L which contains a truth predicate and sentence names, and we associate to each sentence F of L an infinite series of translations h 0(F), h 1(F), ..., stated in a quantificational language L *. Under certain conditions, we show that none of the translations is self-referential, but that any one (...) of them perfectly mirrors the semantic behavior of the original. The result, which can be seen as a generalization of recent work by Yablo (1993, Analysis, 53, 251–252; 2004, Self-reference, CSLI) and Cook (2004, Journal of Symbolic Logic, 69(3), 767–774), shows that under certain conditions self-reference is not essential to any of the semantic phenomena that can be obtained in a simple language. (shrink)

Critical theory with emancipatory aims today to find a source of regeneration in ordinary cultures, and in particular, in TV series. Certain series can play a role in reinventing critical theories, drawing on the tradition of the Frankfurt School but shifting some of that School’s formulations through contact with current forms of interpretive sociology and pragmatic sociology. This requires a cross-border dialogue between the “language game” of TV series and the “knowledge game” of political theory, to use concepts inspired by (...) Ludwig Wittgenstein. In this article, I will focus on four series: seasons 1 of American Crime and The Sinner ; Sharp Objects ; and Unorthodox. The resources provided by these cultural works can help us formulate a critical decoding of important aspects of the current ideological context, in particular, the intersecting identitarian and ultra-conservative tendencies we find in France, Europe, the United States, and Brazil. These critical resources bear affinities to a political philosophy of the opening of being inspired by the ethical reflections of Emmanuel Levinas. (shrink)

La théorie politique élaborée par Hobbes dans le Léviathan substitue le schème de la représentation à celui de l’Incarnation, hérité de saint Paul et saint Jean, qui avait permis jusqu’alors de penser l’unité d’une communauté. Ainsi, c’est moins l’extension politique du christianisme qui est affectée par cette substitution que sa nature même. L’objet de cet article est de le montrer à travers le cas privilégié de la Trinité, figure protypique de la « communauté » . En redéfinissant la notion de (...) personne à partir de la représentation, Hobbes défait la figure traditionnelle de la périchorèse et rend impossible de conceptualiser le dogme trinitaire. L’obstacle théorique qu’il place au cœur de la Trinité est ici examiné dans son impact sur la controverse socinienne des années 1690, chez William Sherlock, Robert South et John Wallis. Elle révèle alors de manière lumineuse l’état du christianisme après le tournant hobbesien.The political theory developed by Hobbes in the Leviathan substitutes representation for Incarnation as a pattern of civil unity. As a consequence, this substitution alters not so much Christian policy than christianism itself, in its very nature. And it is best illustrated by the doctrine of the Trinity, which used to be a prototype of « community » . Hobbes redefines the concept of a person as an intelligent being that represents itself or another, and thus undoes the traditional conception of perichoresis and makes it impossible to rationalize the Trinity. The theoretical obstacle that Hobbes places in the core of the doctrine of the Trinity is analysed here in its impact on the Socinian controversy of the 1690s, in William Sherlock, Robert South and John Wallis, and it sheds a light on the condition of Christianism after the Hobbesian moment. (shrink)

Stalnaker ( 1978 ) made two seminal claims about presuppositions. The most influential one was that presupposition projection is computed by a pragmatic mechanism based on a notion of ‘local context’ . Due to conceptual and technical difficulties, however, the latter notion was reinterpreted in purely semantic terms within ‘dynamic semantics’ (Heim 1983 ). The second claim was that some instances of presupposition generation should also be explained in pragmatic terms . But despite various attempts, the definition of a precise (...) ‘triggering algorithm’ has remained somewhat elusive. We discuss possible extensions of both claims. First, we offer a reconstruction of ‘local contexts’ which circumvents some of the difficulties faced by Stalnaker’s original analysis. We preserve the idea that local contexts are computed by a pragmatic mechanism that aggregates the information that follows from an incomplete sentence given the global context; but we crucially rely on a modified notion of entailment (‘R-entailment’), whose plausibility should be assessed on independent grounds. Second, we speculate that local contexts might prove necessary (though by no means sufficient) to understand how some presuppositions are triggered. In a nutshell, we suggest that a presupposition is triggered when the semantic contribution of an expression to its local context is in some sense ‘heterogeneous’. Without giving an analysis of the latter notion, we note that this architecture implies that presuppositions should be triggered on the basis of the meaning that an expression has relative to its local context (what we call its ‘local meaning’); we sketch some possible consequences of this analysis. (shrink)

Based on the analysis of narrations in Free Indirect Discourse and the Historical Present, we argue that the grammatical notion of context of speech should be ramified into a Context of Thought and a Context of Utterance. Tense and person depend on the Context of Utterance, while all other indexicals are evaluated with respect to the Context of Thought. Free Indirect Discourse and the Historical Present are analyzed as special combinatorial possibilities that arise when the two contexts are distinct, and (...) exactly one of them is presented as identical to the physical point at which the sentence is articulated. (shrink)

As part of a recent attempt to extend the methods of formal semantics beyond language, it has been claimed that music has an abstract truth-conditional semantics, albeit one that has more in common with iconic semantics than with standard compositional semantics. After summarizing this approach and addressing a common objection, we argue that music semantics should be enriched in three directions by incorporating insights of other areas of Super Semantics. First, it has been claimed by Abusch 2013 that visual narratives (...) make use of discourse referents akin to those we find in language. We argue that a similar conclusion extends to music, and we highlight it by investigating ways in which orchestration and dance may make cross-referential dependencies more explicit. Second, we show that by bringing music semantics closer to the semantics of visual narratives, we can give an account of the semantics of mixed visual and musical sequences. Third, it has been claimed that co-speech gestures trigger characteristic conditionalized presuppositions, called ‘cosuppositions’, and that their semantic status derives from their parasitic character relative to words. We argue that the same conclusion extends to some instances of film and cartoon music: it may trigger cosuppositions that can be revealed by embedding film excerpts or gifs in sentences so as to test presupposition projection. We further argue that under special discourse conditions, pro-speech gestures and pro-speech music alike can trigger cosuppositions as well. These results suggest that new insights can be gained not just by extending the methods of semantics to new objects, but also by drawing new connections among them. (shrink)

La 4e de couv. indique : "La guerre peut-elle être juste? Peut-elle s'affubler d'un qualificatif juste sans injustice? Les récits cosmogoniques sont la merveilleuse monstration que les hommes se sont toujours fait la guerre. L'attitude belliqueuse de certains souverains et les atrocités des champs de bataille ont amené des analystes à définir des critères stricts pour limiter la souffrance humaine. Désormais, tout Etat qui n'observerait pas scrupuleusement les linéaments de cet édit risque d'être déclaré Hostis humani generis. Dans sa conception (...) traditionnelle in stricto sensu, la théorie de la guerre dite juste comporte, d'une part, le jus ad bellum (droit à la guerre) ou droit de faire la guerre et, d'autre part, le jus in bello qui règlemente la conduite de la guerre. Qu'en est-il de l'après-guerre et du jus post bellum? Cet ouvrage, importante contribution au débat sur la théorie de la guerre juste, répond justement à ce questionnement.". (shrink)

In dynamic theories of presupposition, a trigger pp′ with presupposition p and at-issue component p′ comes with a requirement that p should be entailed by the local context of pp′. We argue that some co-speech gestures should be analyzed within a presuppositional framework, but with a twist: an expression p co-occurring with a co-speech gesture G with content g comes with the requirement that the local context of p should guarantee that p entails g; we call such assertion-dependent presuppositions ‘cosuppositions’. (...) We show that this analysis can be combined with earlier theories of local contexts to account for complex patterns of gesture projection in quantified and in attitudinal contexts, and we compare our account to two potential alternatives: one based on supervaluations, and one, due to Cornelia Ebert, that treats co-speech gestures as supplements. We argue that the latter is correct, but for ‘post-speech’ gestures, rather than for co-speech gestures. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to propose a precise characterization of the collective practice behind at least an important part of the phenomena named “decision by consensus”. First, I provide descriptions of the use of this rule, and give a definition of the non-opposition rule, both as a specific sequence of acts and as a stopping rule. Second, I challenge the usual way of understanding the non-opposition rule by contrast with voting, stating that the contrast between logic of approval (...) and logic of consent also has to be taken into account. Third, I examine the conditions of its use. The non-opposition rule satisfies groups whose concern is to decide without dividing. Finally, from the analytic benefit of opening up decision by consensus as the use of the non-opposition rule, I will examine, in a fourth part, whether consensus in decision-making is as democratic a procedure as is sometimes thought. (shrink)

Kant’s analysis of the concept of natural purpose in the Critique of judgment captured several features of organisms that he argued warranted making them the objects of a special field of study, in need of a special regulative teleological principle. By showing that organisms have to be conceived as self-organizing wholes, epigenetically built according to the idea of a whole that we must presuppose, Kant accounted for three features of organisms conflated in the biological sciences of the period: adaptation, functionality (...) and conservation of forms..Kant’s unitary concept of natural purpose was subsequently split in two directions: first by Cuvier’s comparative anatomy, that would draw on the idea of adaptative functions as a regulative principle for understanding in reconstituting and classifying organisms; and then by Goethe’s and Geoffroy’s morphology, a science of the general transformations of living forms. However, such general transformations in nature, objects of an alleged ‘archaeology of nature’, were thought impossible by Kant in the §80 of the Critique of judgment. Goethe made this ‘adventure of reason’ possible by changing the sense of ‘explanation’: scientific explanation was shifted from the investigation of the mechanical processes of generation of individual organisms to the unveiling of some ideal transformations of types instantiated by those organisms. (shrink)

We propose two alternatives to Xu’s axiomatization of Chellas’s STIT. The first one simplifies its presentation, and also provides an alternative axiomatization of the deliberative STIT. The second one starts from the idea that the historic necessity operator can be defined as an abbreviation of operators of agency, and can thus be eliminated from the logic of Chellas’s STIT. The second axiomatization also allows us to establish that the problem of deciding the satisfiability of a STIT formula without temporal operators (...) is NP-complete in the single-agent case, and is NEXPTIME-complete in the multiagent case, both for the deliberative and Chellas’s STIT. (shrink)

An introduction to semantics for the general reader. How things mean, from animal communication to music.

Elite sport is both worshipped disparaged. It is adored because athletes embody an ethical act of courage, self-sacrifice and fair play; it is criticized for too many scandals that plague and discredit it. Too often, athletes seem trapped in and crushed by a system much bigger than they are, a system that also compels them to do wrong, in a way that seems to instrumentalize them. But what is the real status of elite athletes? Does the system treat them with (...) dignity in a manner that allows them to accept freely and voluntarily the end purpose of the record to be beaten that demands enormous sacrifices? This article considers how an analysis of the concept of human dignity can help us better understand the place of the athlete in this complex reality of elite sport. (shrink)

This paper is based on the archives of Michel Foucault collected (since 2013) at the Manuscripts Department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Our investigation focuses in particular on a complete manuscript, until now totally unknown and entitled ‘ Phénoménologie et psychologie’ (‘Phenomenology and Psychology’). This manuscript could be the first project for a thesis devoted to ‘The Notion of the “World” in Phenomenology’, written around 1953–4, at the same time as a manuscript on Binswanger and existential psychiatry (...) and as a manuscript on philosophical anthropology. We aim to show the importance that phenomenology seems to have held for Foucault at the beginning of the 1950s and in particular the role that it could have played in Foucault’s distancing himself from a naturalist psychology and a philosophy of consciousness to which he opposes a philosophy of the world, of being and of language. Foucault thus discovers a truth of the phenomenology which rests on the radicality of the transcendental gesture and on the access to an ontology gathering the being, the meaning and the language. (shrink)

La présente contribution explore les biais de perception sélective qui ont siégé dans la gestion de la crise pandémique du Sars-CoV-2 lors de sa première phase de croissance, puis de décroissance (oct. 2019-sept. 2020). En mobilisant les cadres théoriques de l’apprentissage stratégique (proposés par des auteurs tels que Cyert, March, Simon, Starbuck), nous examinons les erreurs stratégiques de gestion de la crise, en particulier la confiance excessive donnée à des modèles épidémiologiques dont les conditions de production scientifique sont ici discutées. (...) L’article se conclut sur une réflexion sur la capacité humaine à générer des vides stratégiques pour ensuite s’y fondre, échouant à apprendre des expériences passées aussi bien que de la très présente réalité. (shrink)

À la mémoire de Michel Haar (1937-2003) Et de Dominique Janicaud (1937-2002) Alors que pendant des siècles, on s’est interrogé sur le mystère de la croix, de la résurrection et du jugement dernier, force est de reconnaître que ces questions, de nos jours, n’occupent plus guère les esprits. On en viendrait presque à se demander comment des chrétiens ont bien pu par le passé s’entretuer. Le Sacré-Cœur, La Sainte-Chapelle, Notre-Dame de Paris sont désormais des monuments historiques – « les cave...

Introduction (version française) du numéro ERRS 2020 11 1, “Paul Ricœur: Penser au risque du langage / Paul Ricœur: The Challenges of The Language”.

This article discusses the temporalization of space central to the mainstream discourse of European modernity: a discourse which hierarchized all cultural spaces into a temporal narrative enabling Europe’s self-portrayal as the emancipatory future of humanity. This discourse created a gap between the perceived particularism of non-European cultures (seen as traditional) and the universalism of a modernity associated with the contemporary cultures of Europe and North America, while portraying modernization as a passage from the former to the latter. Chinese intellectuals who (...) adopted this metanarrative therefore faced the following challenge: how can Chinese particularism be adapted to a culture of modernity regarded as universal? While May Fourth iconoclasts answered this question by simply rejecting the idea that an accommodation between Chinese particularism and modern universalism was possible, other intellectuals attempted to argue that at least some aspects of Chinese culture could still be of value within the context of modern universalism. This article discusses an interesting instance of such an attempt at negotiating the perceived tension between the modern discourse of universalism and the particularism of Chinese culture, as provided by Liang Shuming in Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies. This work attempted to show that Chinese culture could still be of value within the context of modernity by providing a new metanarrative which peripherized the role of Western culture in the process of modernization. This article suggests, however, that by adopting a portrayal of modernization as a passage from particularism to universalism, Chinese culture could be reauthorized, within Liang’s metanarrative, only at the cost of being de-complexified, homogenized, and de-historicized; only at the cost of being no longer Chinese. (shrink)

This article attempts to assess, in a quantitative way, how security/defense issues have been perceived in Belgium since the early 1970s among the mass public. This period has been characterized by breathtaking changes in the political and military world environment. How have Belgians reacted to these changes? The empirical evidence is based on a secondary analysis of public opinion data from the Eurobarometer series.The picture that emerges from the trend analysis is mixed. On the one hand, orientations towards the peace (...) movement and arms limitations are more positive than before. On the other hand, many other indicators point to an increase in pro-defense orientations. Belgians are also overwhelmingly favorable to the creation of a collective organization for defense. (shrink)

Ce texte présente une analyse de la construction intellectuelle, politique et nationaliste de la notion de « langues » comme unités fondamentales, closes et distinctes les unes des autres, qui constituent le monde sociolinguistique. Il propose une théorie du « triple enfermement » logico-mathématique, sociopolitique et ethno-nationaliste des pratiques linguistiques en Occident, qui a exclu toute prise en considération des continuités pensées comme des « mélanges » et autres « intermédiaires » entre de supposées « vraies » langues. Il examine (...) ensuite l’émergence d’une autre conception de l’espace linguistique où l’« entre-les-langues » est non seulement remis en valeur, mais aussi et surtout pensé comme constituant le composant primordial du monde sociolinguistique. Il montre comment une analyse interculturelle du passage « entre-les-langues » et comment l’analyse de l’inventivité « hors-des-langues » des locuteurs ont permis de revisiter la conception des pratiques linguistiques sur une base fondamentalement renouvelée. This text presents an analysis of the intellectual, political and nationalist construction of the notion of “languages” as fundamental closed and distinct units constituting the sociolinguistic world. It suggests a “triple enlocking” theory of linguistic practices in the Western world. These logico-mathematical, sociopolitical and ethno-nationalist enlockings have excluded any consideration for continua, presented as “mixings” and other “intermediates” between supposed “true” languages. Then comes the examination of another conception of the linguistic space where the “between-the-languages” is not only restored in value but also considered as the primary component of the sociolinguistic world. It shows how an intercultural analysis of both the passing “between-the-languages” and the speakers inventivity “out-of-the-languages” has allowed revisiting the conception of linguistic practices on a fundamentally new basis. (shrink)

The thirties constituted in many respects a rich and revealing moment of the history of political commitment of the French intellectuals. Within this conjuncture, the Spanish civil war, by its religious and ideological components, assumed for them a very special importance. The public engagements of Georges Bernanos, François Mauriac and Emmanuel Mounier rather clearly illustrate the cristallization of a new vocation of commitment to which the Spanish events conferred an irresistible character.Although they participated, at different levels, to the big passionate (...) movement which the event generated in France in July 1936, all three agreed, from 1937 on, to recognize that totalitarisms and fascisms then constituted the most dangerous agents in an ill Europe. Finally, one can say that by refusing the temptation which leads men to renunciation, fanatism or personal unexistance, their politica! commitment has certainly illustrated their will to regive a meaning to the human. (shrink)