The famous French chemist, Marcelin Berthelot, published his first scientific paper in 1850. However, reference to this paper has been largely ignored in the various accounts of his lasting contributions to chemistry. The probable reason for this is that this paper is concerned with a method of subjecting a liquid to tension, and it is more appropriate to regard it as a paper on physics rather than on chemistry. In the work described in this largely-forgotten paper, written whilst (...) he was still a young research student, Berthelot showed that liquids contained in his ‘Berthelot tube’ could withstand a considerable tension; and he is the first person to have observed cavitation, a phenomenon which has been studied so widely this century. The next mention in the literature of the Berthelot tube method is at the turn of the present century, after which it again seems to have been forgotten until the 1940s; since then there has been considerable progress using the Berthelot tube technique. In this paper the work described in Berthelot's original paper is discussed in some detail, and the subsequent fruitful development of the method is also traced and assessed. (shrink)

The events in the introduction to 2 Maccabees (2 Macc 3:1–39) undoubtedly centre round the Jerusalem Temple. It is depicted as world-renowned, holy and just. Many scholars have therefore highlighted the theme of the Temple in 2 Maccabees, introduced by 2 Maccabees 3. Yet, the reason for the Temple’s centrality is not traditionally seen as more than a mere link to the rest of the narrative. This article, however, asks the question: Why is the author incorporating the Temple in such (...) a specific manner? What is the impact on the implicit reader of this specific depiction of the Temple? In other words, how is the implicit reader’s experience throughout the rest of the narrative influenced by the events in this introduction? To answer these questions, the article identifies six scenes in 2 Maccabees 3 and applies a rhetorical analysis in order to establish the communicative strategy and its possible impact on the implicit reader. (shrink)

BackgroundInternational guidelines recommend ethical and scientific quality standards for managing and reporting adverse events occurring during clinical trials to competent research ethics committees and regulatory authorities. The purpose of this study was to determine whether clinical trial protocols in Cameroon are developed in line with national requirements and international guidelines as far as detecting, reporting and investigating of adverse events is concerned.MethodsIt was a documentary review of all approved clinical trial protocols that were submitted at the Cameroon National Ethics Committee (...) for evaluation from 1997 through 2012. Data were extracted using a preconceived and validated grid. Protocol review process targeted the title, abstract, objectives, methodology, resources, and the chapter on safety.ResultsIn total, 106 clinical trial protocols were identified from 2173 protocols seen in the archive and 104 included for review. Seventy six trials did not include the surveillance of adverse events as part of their objective. A total of 91 protocols did not budget for adverse event surveillance, 76 did not have a data safety management board, 11 included insurance for participants, 47 did not include a case definition for serious adverse events, 33 described procedures to detect adverse events, 33 described procedure for reporting and 22 described procedure for investigating adverse events.DiscussionsMost clinical trial protocols in Cameroon are developed to focus on benefits and pay little attention to harms. The development of national guidelines can improve the surveillance of adverse events in clinical trial research conducted in Cameroon. Adverse events surveillance tools and a budget are critical for an adequate planning for adverse event surveillance when developing trial protocols.ConclusionClinical trial protocols submitted in the Cameroon National Ethics Committee do not adequately plan to assess adverse events in clinical trial protocols. In order to improve on the safety of participants and marketed drug, there is a need to develop national guidelines for clinical trials by the government, and to improve evaluation procedures and monitoring of ongoing trials by the ethics committee. (shrink)

La séparation des sexes caractérise le système scolaire français, et tout particulièrement l’enseignement secondaire, jusqu’aux années 1960. Dans la première moitié du XXe siècle, la mixité, telle que nous l’envisageons aujourd’hui, n’est pas concevable. Pourtant, à sa création, en octobre 1938, le lycée de garçons Marcelin Berthelot, à Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, accueille également des filles. Expliquer cette présence féminine, absolument singulière, oblige à faire la part des facteurs circonstanciels, de l’évolution des identités de sexe et de celle de la demande (...) parentale. Si le lycée continue, en dépit des critiques, à accueillir des élèves des deux sexes jusqu’à l’instauration officielle de la mixité, il ne faut cependant pas voir dans cette expérience une simple anticipation des évolutions postérieures. (shrink)

Ce collectif en hommage au défunt Pierre Laberge est divisé en cinq parties, qui renvoient respectivement à cinq thèmes fondamentaux de la pensée kantienne: l'éthique, l'esthétique, la politique, la philosophie théorique, l'anthropologie et l'axiologie.

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

In the intersection between eugenics past and present, disability has never been far beneath the surface. Perceived and ascribed disabilities of body and mind were one of the core sets of eugenics traits that provided the basis for institutionalized and sterilization on eugenic grounds for the first 75 years of the 20th-century. Since that time, the eugenic preoccupation with the character of future generations has seeped into what have become everyday practices in the realm of reproductive choice. As Marsha Saxton (...) (2000) and Adrienne Asch (2000, 2003) have forcefully argued, the use of prenatal screening technologies to facilitate the selective abortion of fetuses with features that signify disabling traits—the paradigm here being trisomy 21 in a fetus indicating Down Syndrome in the child—express a negative view of such disabilities sufficient to warrant terminating an otherwise wanted pregnancy. The eliminative structure of what Rosemary Garland Thompson (2012) has called eugenic logic persists in contemporary practices governing reproductive choice, social inclusion, and democratic participation and their relationship to disability. The tie between eugenics and contemporary disability studies suggests that eugenics and reflection on its history can also play a more positive role in disability politics. After focusing on eugenics in the first half of the paper, we will shift in the second half of the paper to eugenic resonances in contemporary thought and practice, concluding with some thoughts about ongoing practices of silencing and the very idea of eradicating disability. (shrink)

This article explores recent developments in the sociology of the arts, namely the new theoretical framework set up by the French sociologist Pierre-Michel Menger in order to approach the artistic activity. It aims to show how he has shaped new tools of understanding and modelling for exploring the arts, as a particular world of action. Laying down the foundation of a conception of action related to symbolic interactionism and drawing on the economic analysis of risk and uncertainty, Menger move (...) towards a model where uncertainty, not determinism, is the default category. Uncertainty is thus the principle unifying the analysis and understanding of the particularities of the arts, and the main argument in integrating sociological and economic studies on artistic activities. Correlatively, artistic creation is qualified as an act of work, the creative work being defined as a system of action in uncertain horizon. Within this model, the artists are seen less like “rational fools” and more like Bayesian actors, adopting strategies for managing risk and uncertainty. (shrink)

Ce texte a déjà paru dans L'Homme et la Société, 1988, vol. 90, n° 90, p. 15-24. Il est également accessible ici. Résumé : Les fondateurs du socialisme ont en commun de penser l'avènement d'une coupure historique, d'une révolution marquant le début d'un nouveau monde riche de rythmes temporels sans précédents. Mais leurs constructions des temps sociaux divergent profondément. Saint-Simon, puis Eugène Buret, Constantin Pecqueur, font du passé de l'Europe un temps scandé par la succession de systèmes (...) - (...) XIXe siècle – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Eugénie est un prénom qui signifie étymologiquement la "bien-née". C'est dans une racine commune que le terme eugénisme est apparu. Il désigne les méthodes et techniques permettant d'améliorer l'espèce humaine en intervenant sur son patrimoine génétique. L'auteur étend l'idéologie scientiste sous-jacente à l'eugénisme à toutes les tentatives de mise sous influence massive et irréversible de notre humanité au monde. Dans ce nouvel essai original, P. Giorgini s'attaque ainsi à notre développement scientifique et technologique. Jusqu'où ira-t-on? Et comment? A quel prix (...) pour notre humanité? Il brosse un véritable récit du futur en transition. Pour lui, un tiers chemin est possible, ouvrant la voie à une nouvelle ère, combinant prouesse technique, art, spiritualité, imaginaire et devenir de l'humanité en harmonie coopérative avec le bien commun, naturel et socioculturel. (shrink)

The influential French chemist Marcelin Berthelot spoke against the use of Dalton's atomic theory and Avogadro's hypothesis in the second half of the nineteenth century. This paper argues that Berthelot conceded that atomism might be acceptable as a system of conventions, but he feared the power of such conventions in constructing a realistic picture of atoms which was not warranted empirically. Equally, Berthelot's anti-atomism was a last-ditch effort to assert the place of chemistry within the tradition (...) of natural history and to deny the possible reduction of chemical science to the laws of nineteenth-century physics. (shrink)

The following is an essay review of Paul Needham's translation of Pierre Duhem's Lemixte et la combinaison chimique and a numberof other essays. In this review we describe theintent and general features of Le mixte and try to place it in the larger context of Duhem'sprogram for energetics. The long essay (Essay3) opposing Marcellin Berthelot'sthermochemistry is singled out for detailedcommentary, since it gives Duhem's reasons forendorsing Josiah Willard Gibbs's chemicalstatics. We argue that a chemical mechanics ofa Gibbsian sort, (...) defended in Le mixte and otheressays in this volume, was the inspiration for,and basis of, Duhem's energetics. Needham'swelcome translations help an English-languageaudience to better understand the basiccontours of Duhem's important, if ultimatelymisguided, project. We conclude with somecomments on the difficulties in translatingDuhem and on the quality of the translationsNeedham has provided. (shrink)

Introduction / St.L. JAKI (pp. 9-19). Présentation / J.-Fr. STOFFEL (p. 21). – L'œuvre de Pierre Duhem (pp. 25-113). Publications post­humes (pp. 115-129). – IIe partie : Les travaux de ses doc­torands. Fernand Caubet (pp. 133-135). Henry Chevallier (pp. 137-141). Émile Lenoble (pp. 143-144). Lucien Marchis (pp. 145-154). Eugène Monnet (pp. 155-156). Henri Pélabon (pp. 157-168). Paul Saurel (pp. 169-172). Albert Turpain (pp. 173-197). – IIIe partie : La litté­rature secondaire. Thèses et mé­moires (pp. 201-202). Livres (pp. 203-205). (...) Biographies et étu­des générales (pp. 207-209). Duhem en perspective (pp. 211-212). Le philosophe de la physique (pp. 213-234). L'histo­rien des théories physiques (pp. 235-243). Le physicien (pp. 245-251). Le croyant (pp. 253-256). Notices nécrologiques (pp. 257-258). Notices de dictionnaires et d'encyclopédies (pp. 259-260). – IVe partie : Index. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Discussions METHODOLOGY IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS: THE CASE OF PIERRE CHARRON Affanities, influences, borrowings, innovations, traditions, consistency--these are some of the key concepts of the time-honored and probably still dominant approach to the history of ideas. Scholars who seek to understand and interpret the philosophy and literature of the past in these terms tend to pay little attention to the social and institutional factors which (...) constituted the working conditions under which the ideas were conceived, articulated and disseminated; and it is precisely on those grounds that the traditional school has been increasingly challenged, over the past several decades, by historians (myself among others) who are convinced that, apart from their social context, the ideas themselves are virtually incomprehensible. A recent article on Pierre Charron by Maryanne Cline Horowitz may serve to illustrate some of the questions raised by these differences in method. At the close of her article, Horowitz explains the assumptions upon which she has conducted her investigation. Citing Peter Gay's interpretation of Ernst Cassirer, she affirms that "the critic begins the process of understanding a philosopher's work by searching for a dynamic center of thought. He must regard doctrines not as a series of discrete positions but as facets of a single point of view. The critic's equipment must therefore include the gift of empathy: he must sympathetically enter--indeed, relive---the thinker's world of ideas.''1 Following her own insight into the spirit of De la sagesse, and supporting it, of course, with a display of textual evidence, Horowitz argues that Richard Popkin was wrong to lay exclusive stress upon Charron's rejection of Aristotelian epistemology from the perspective of Pyrrhonian scepticism. "I think," she says, "that Charron's De la sagesse is based primarily on Stoic, rather than Sceptic principles." Although I agree in general with the main thrust of Popkin's thesis, I too have been critical of his failure to give sufficient weight to the neo-Stoic dements of Charron's thought. Hence it is not this conclusion to which I take exception.2 Charron has, from the very beginning, been found to have said a great many things and been subjected to a wide variety of interpretations. Horowitz emphasizes "the seeds of virtue and knowledge [as] the dynamic center of De la sagesse"--a view which may appear perfectly plausible to some readers. But it can never compel widespread conviction, for the simple reason that it is impossible for a twentieth-century critic to enter--unaided--into a world of ideas now part of a remote past. A book written nearly four centuries ago is not immediately perspicuous. Before trying on our neo-idealist wings and taking flight into the empyrean of late Renaissance moral treatises, we would do well to explore as many as possible of the following questions: Just who was our author? For whom did he write? Who x p. Gay, Introduction to E. Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Bloomington, 1963), p. 22, cited by M. C. Horowitz, "Pierre Charron's View of the Source of Wisdom," Journal o! the History of Philosophy, IX, 4 (October, 1971), 457. 2 A. Soman, "Pierre Charron: A Revaluation," BibliothOque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, XXXII (January, 1970), 57 n. 3. [495] 496 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY in fact did read him? and how did his readers react? And what did our author think of their reactions.'?s Horowitz does not, apparently, give high priority to such questions. For rhetorical purposes, she readily agrees with Eugene Rice that "Pierre Charron's De la sagesse is the most important Renaissance treatise on wisdom." (Important to whom? and from what point of view? The criteria are not at all clear.) She assumes that Charron's epistemology was consistent, and that the second edition of 1604 represents a clarification of, or advance over, the first edition of 1601. (There is no historical evidence for making either assumption.) And she does not seem to entertain the possibility that Popkin could still be right about the impact of Charron's Pyrrhonian scepticism on the libertins Jrudits, although Charron may never in fact have been a Pyrrhonian sceptic.4 These are... (shrink)

In 1846 the Belgian scientist François Donny published a very important but still virtually unknown paper. Apparently the first publication on the ability of liquids to withstand tension, it appeared some four years before Marcelin Berthelot's famous paper on this property of liquids. It seems only fair to record the fact that, contrary to accepted belief, Donny, not Berthelot, was really the first pioneer in this field. In his paper Donny describes how he first observed by chance (...) the fact that a column of sulphuric acid in a manometer could sustain a small tension. This led him to investigate the matter further, and he found that a column of this acid could stand a tension of about a quarter of an atmosphere. From later experiments he concluded that a column of water could sustain at least one atmosphere of tension. The work described in Donny's paper is discussed and compared with the related work of Marcelin Berthelot and Osborne Reynolds which was published later in the nineteenth century. The relevance of this to current research work is also discussed briefly. (shrink)

Is there an ideology of chemistry? Given recent developments in history of science, we would almost certainly answer “yes” in some form to this question; and in this detailed institutional study Ulrike Fell uses the example of chemistry in France to define more precisely what the “ideology” of a science would be. Fell outlines the collective system of common beliefs and cultural goals of chemists using three interrelated concepts: “discipline” , “profession” , and “nation” .Fell's multilayered analysis is divided among (...) three major episodes. The first section of the book treats the institutional and educational patterns in French chemistry to 1914, focusing on the formation and professionalization of the Société de Chimique de Paris with a prosopographical study of its membership by subdiscipline and occupation. She also notes that the loss of the Alsace‐Lorraine region in 1871 reinforced among French chemists their sense of inferiority to the Germans , leading to a desire to emulate the chemical educational system found in Germany. In the second part Fell closely analyzes the effect of World War I on the identity of French chemists. Prior to 1914 French chemists, as indicated by the study of the membership of the Société de Chimique and the content and origin of the publications in its Bulletin, were predominantly academic and oriented toward pure research, rather than industrial chemists interested in practical results. The outbreak of war spurred the growth of a native French chemical industry, especially in dyestuff production, along with the apparatus necessary for research in applied chemistry and the production of chemicals on an industrial scale. This increasing importance of industrial chemistry resulted in the formation of the Société de Chimie Industrielle. In the third section Fell shows how chemists in France attempted to show the unity of their discipline amid increasing fragmentation. Both the Centenaire de Marcelin Berthelot in 1927 and the creation of the Maison de la Chimie in 1934 were attempts to show the unity of chemists.Fell has a thorough knowledge of the large secondary literature on French science and has based much of her argument on archival documents. Her book, in which she reworks and rethinks the long‐standing issue of the “decline” of French science and Parisian centralization, is a welcome addition to our understanding of science in the French state and the dynamics of professional identity. (shrink)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin loved the world, but, theologically and spiritually, he often tried to leave it behind. This essay shows that from the 1920s until his death in 1955, Teilhard de Chardin unequivocally supported racist eugenic practices, praised the possibilities of the Nazi experiments, and looked down upon those who he deemed "imperfect" humans. These ideas explicitly lay the groundwork for Teilhard’s famous cosmological theology, a link which has been largely ignored in Teilhardian research until now. This study (...) concludes that such support requires a reconsideration of how Teilhard is used in twenty-first century theology. (shrink)

It is often said that one cannot be held responsible for something one cannot help. Indeed, Ted Honderich, Paul Edwards, and C. A. Campbell have suggested that it is obtuse, barbaric, or a solecism to think otherwise 1. Thus, if (contra Sartre and others) one cannot help feeling one's emotions, one is not responsible for one's emotions. In this paper I will argue otherwise; one is responsible for one's emotions, even if one cannot help feeling them. 2 In particular, I (...) will define a rather special sense of the word 'responsible', one that is closely tied to our ordinary notion of moral worth. We are, in that special sense of the word, 'responsible' for our emotions. I will then argue that my limited sense of 'responsibility' is sufficient to warrant morale valuation of individuals, and can be used as the basis for a theory of punishment. (shrink)

In Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning, Eugene Gendlin examines the edge of awareness, where language emerges from nonlanguage.

Future-bias is the preference, all else being equal, for positive states of affairs to be located in the future not the past, and for negative states of affairs to be located in the past not the future. Three explanations for future-bias have been posited: the temporal metaphysics explanation, the practical irrelevance explanation, and the three mechanisms explanation. Understanding what explains future-bias is important not only for better understanding the phenomenon itself, but also because many philosophers think that which explanation is (...) the correct one has implications for our evaluation of the normative status of future-bias. In this paper we focus on the connection between future-bias and the temporal value asymmetry. The latter refers to the fact that people tend to assign more value to a state of affairs when it is located in the future, as opposed to being equidistant in the past. All three candidate explanations offered for future-bias proceed by explaining the temporal value asymmetry, and then supposing that future-bias is simply a manifestation of that asymmetry. Recently, however, it has been argued that the conditions under which people display the temporal value asymmetry and future-bias are different, and that this is reason to doubt that the latter is a manifestation of the former. In this paper we empirically test one response to this argument against the manifestation thesis—the simulation response—according to which once we control for the degree to which people can simulate the object of their preference, we find that people display future-bias and the temporal value asymmetry in the same conditions. We find no evidence in favour of the simulation response. Moreover, our results support some previous research that suggests that the temporal value asymmetry is less robust than previously thought, and this in itself casts doubt on the idea that future bias is just a manifestation of this asymmetry. (shrink)

What role should it play? And are claims to rationality liberating or oppressive? For the Sake of Argument addresses questions such as these to consider the relationship between thought and character.

I argue that influential recent discussions have whitewashed blame, characterizing it in ways that deemphasize or ignore its morally problematic features. I distinguish “definitional,” “creeping,” and “emphasis” whitewash, and argue that they play a central role in overall endorsements of blame by T.M. Scanlon, George Sher, and Miranda Fricker. In particular, these endorsements treat blame as appropriate by definition (Scanlon), or as little more than a wish (Sher), and infer from blame's having one useful function that it is a good (...) practice overall (Fricker). I use an analogy with revenge to illustrate the mechanisms of whitewashing, including broadening a concept to include available alternatives to it and inference from one feature of a practice to an overall conclusion about that practice. Several features of blame make it particularly prone to whitewashing, including blamers' personal or emotional stake in blaming and widespread disagreement about the nature of blame. I argue that a non‐whitewashing treatment of blame must pay closer attention both to blame's harms, and to comparisons between blame and alternative, non‐blaming reactions. (shrink)

The wide variety of blame presents two difficult puzzles. Why are instances of blame categorized under so many different mental kinds, such as judgment, belief, emotion, action, intention, desire, and combinations of these? Why is “blame” used to describe both interpersonal reactions and mere causal attributions, such as blaming faulty brakes for a car crash? I introduce a new conception of blame, on which blame is attention to something as a source of badness. I argue that this view resolves both (...) puzzles and offers an independently appealing conception of blame. (shrink)

The concept of business ethics has continued to remain a major item on the agenda of corporate America for the last twenty years. Regrettably, this longevity of interest has not been matched by equal attention to the pedagogical methods and techniques used to address these issues. The current mode of teaching business ethics generally involves reliance on “war stories,” case studies, andseminars. Today’s dynamic environment creates pressures for higher levels of ethical behavior by business. Many ethical challenges faced by contemporary (...) managers are not easily resolved by existing guidelines, and require managers to expand their scope of analysis in attempting to arrive at satisfactory resolutions. Literature can be an especially alternative source of insights, as authors are able to highlight behaviors that may not be available from traditional sources. Historically, the use of literature in examining business ethics has been focused primarily on novels such as The Jungle, Babbit, and The Great Gatsby. Plays are more useful than novels in attempting to inculcate moral and ethical values since they more sharply address the interactions of characters, and the reader becomes more involved in their situations. The plays selected for analysis, Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, and David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, have intense plots and characters and allow the reader to observe a wide range motives, emotions, and traits. This untraditional approach to teaching business ethics enhances the ability to relate to the increasingly complex ethical issues facing the individual and the organization. (shrink)

The recent debate on decolonisation calls for all academic disciplines, including missiology modules, at public universities to reflect on its content, curriculum and pedagogies. However, the danger is always that to ‘de-…’ might lead to an exclusivist and essentialist pattern of a person or institution, and an act that does not take all epistemic communities seriously. The author argues in this article that such tendencies would not be conducive in South Africa, a country with a rich heritage of various cultures. (...) Epistemologies at public universities should embrace all cultures in order to be relevant and transformative. The article oscillates between essentialism in social, racial identities and non-essentialism thereof – primarily contending for the inclusion and appreciation of all social and cultural identities in South African curriculum and content for higher education, in particular, the cultural tradition and heritage among the so-called ‘coloured’ communities. The article reassesses the contributions of theologians towards racial and ethnic identity. The author uses one particular ‘racial identity’ as a case study for racial essentialism and to argue for an inclusive approach in mission education. The article conclusively argues for the re-imagination and inclusion of ‘coloured’ as an African identity in the discipline of missiology. (shrink)

Thought experiments are described in which the one-way velocity of light appears as a physical quantity. A rotating shaft is used to define distant synchrony for a system of clocks along the shaft. In this context Einstein's definition of distant simultaneity is seen as based on a physical assumption (and not merely on an overwhelmingly sensible choice in a range of conventional possibilities).

In the following analysis, modelled on a critical realist explanatory critique, I engage with the ‘problem’ of the apparent contradiction between Britain as a state historically espousing liberal d...

The welfare state has come under severe pressure internationally, partly for the well-known reasons of slowing economic growth and declining confidence in the public sector. According to the influential social theorist Pierre Rosanvallon, however, there is also a deeper and less familiar reason for the crisis of the welfare state. He shows here that a fundamental practical and philosophical justification for traditional welfare policies--that all citizens share equal risks--has been undermined by social and intellectual change. If we wish to (...) achieve the goals of social solidarity and civic equality for which the welfare state was founded, Rosanvallon argues, we must radically rethink social programs. Rosanvallon begins by tracing the history of the welfare state and its founding premise that risks, especially the risks of illness and unemployment, are equally distributed and unpredictable. He shows that this idea has become untenable because of economic diversification and advances in statistical and risk analysis. It is truer than ever before--and far more susceptible to analysis--that some individuals will face much greater risks than others because of their jobs and lifestyle choices. Rosanvallon argues that social policies must be more narrowly targeted. And he draws on evidence from around the world, in particular France and the United States, to show that such programs as unemployment insurance and workfare could better reflect individual needs by, for example, making more explicit use of contracts between the providers and receivers of benefits. His arguments have broad implications for welfare programs everywhere and for our understanding of citizenship in modern democracies and economies. "For more than two decades Pierre Rosanvallon has been analyzing the development and the crisis of the 'welfare state,' combining precise, specific knowledge with philosophical and historical depth in a way that is rare among social policy analysts.... [A] subtle and informed book."--From the foreword by Nathan Glazer. (shrink)

Life and the living (on Aristotelian biohorror) -- Supernatural horror as the paradigm for life -- Aristotle's De anima and the problem of life -- The ontology of life -- The entelechy of the weird -- Superlative life -- Life with or without limits -- Life as time in Plotinus -- On the superlative -- Superlative life I: Pseudo-Dionysius -- Negative vs. affirmative theology -- Superlative negation -- Negation and preexistent life -- Excess, evil, and non-being -- Superlative life II: (...) Eriugena -- Negation in the periphyseon -- The quaestio de nihilo: on nothing -- The quaestio de nihilo: superlative nothing -- Dark intelligible abyss -- Apophasis -- The apophatic logic -- Negation in Frege and Ayer -- Negation vs. subtraction in Badiou -- Negation and contradiction in Priest -- The dialetheic vitalism of negative theology -- Ellipses: Suhraward and the luminous void -- Univocal creatures -- On spiritual creatures -- Life as form in Aristotle -- The concept of the creature -- Univocity I: Duns Scotus vs. Aquinas -- Univocity in Aquinas' Summa theologica -- Univocity in Duns Scotus' Opus oxoniense -- The common nature of the creature -- Univocity II: Duns Scotus vs. Henry of Ghent -- Univocity in Henry of Ghent -- Negative vs. privative indetermination -- Absolute indetermination -- Univocity III: Deleuze's scholasticism three variations -- Spinoza et le problème de l'expression -- Différence et répétition -- Cours de Vincennes -- Univocal creatures -- Ellipses: Dgen and uncreated univocity -- Dark pantheism -- Everything and nothing -- Life as spirit in Aquinas -- The concept of the divine nature -- Immanence I: Eriugena's periphyseon -- Natura and the unthought -- Universal life -- Four statements on pantheism -- Immanence II: Duns Scotus' reportatio Ia -- Univocal immanence -- Actual infinity -- The pathology of the triple primacy -- Immanence III: Nicholas of Cusa's De docta ignorantia -- The coincidence of opposites -- The folds of life -- Absolute vs. contracted pantheism -- Speculative pantheism (Deleuze's interlocutors) -- Pantheism and pure immanence -- The insubordination of immanence in Deleuze -- Scholia I: the isomorphism of univocity and immanence -- Scholia II: the vitalist logic of common notions -- Scholia III: the life of substance -- Dark pantheism -- Ellipses: Wang Yangming and idealist naturalism -- Logic and life (on Kantian teratology) -- The wandering line from Aristotle to Kant -- Critique of life -- Spectral life and speculative realism -- Ontotheology in Kant, atheology in Bataille -- The night land. (shrink)

Most Artificial Intelligence theories of language either assume a syntactic component which serves as “front end” for the rest of the system, or else reject all attempts at distinguishing modules within the comprehension system. In this paper we will present an alternative which, while keeping modularity, will account for several puzzles for typical “syntax first” theories. The major addition to this theory is a “marker passing” (or “spreading activation”) component, which operates in parallel to the normal syntactic component.