Is a policy of economic growth compatible with the neutrality of the State? Some liberals (Rawls, Dworkin, Ackerman, Larmore, Kymlicka) think so. I do not. I begin by explaining and discussing the different meanings of the neutrality thesis, then I show that, whatever meaning we give to the idea of neutrality, it is very difficult to argue convincingly that a policy of economic growth does not favour some conceptions of the good.

Nothing has yet been done, and, here, in the middle of the twentieth century, it is fast becoming too late to draw up a suitable catalogue of the works of human wisdom. We are forced to project for the future the complete realization of our desires. This future will no doubt discover a conscious and effective organization of thought and action—a constant good fortune in the pursuit of legitimate satisfactions through a total mastery of natural forces—in a word, a perfect (...) and reciprocal adaptation between man and that part of the universe in which he lives. All this, or most of it, still remains to be done; but much has already been said in the five thousand years that men have been writing. An intelligent observer arriving from Sirius would doubtless be especially struck by the extraordinary gap separating here on earth what is so well said from what is so badly carried out. Or rather he would wonder how it is that beings as highly gifted as men, judging from the knowledge and wisdom they have accumulated, still make such ineffective and even harmful use of the means at their disposal. The most indulgent hypothesis would be to see in this the result of a temporary misunderstanding owing to the great speed with which human thought evolves. Our observer would resume his journey then, resolved to return after a hundred years or two, sure that he would then find that man had bridged the gap and become as great in what he does as in what he knows. (shrink)

The academic path of Jean Gayon (1949–2018) follows in the wake of the “French style” in epistemologyEpistemology, but he is also one of the first representatives of philosophy of biology in France. In the light of this double philosophical heritage, this chapter re-examines the relations between the works of Gayon, the tradition in which he first studied, and the one he later adopted, but not without reservations. Tracing his intellectual journey, this article explores why he naturally appears as a Canguilhemian, (...) a view against which he defends himself. Attending to the connexions that he established with the philosophers of biology will bring to light the growing tension that inhabits him, from the middle of the 1980s onwards, and which led him to identify some of the limits inherent to theHistorical epistemology matrix of historical epistemologyGayon, JeanOn historical epistemology, without disowning his first philosophical tradition. Finally, in an attempt to reconcile two approaches, I will underline the emergence in the thought of Jean Gayon of a third way seeking to overcome the opposition between a “unitarian” style that seeks to make a clear break with the history of scienceHistory of science and its philosophical past, and the “dualist” style which tends to stay above scientific debates, and which accepts a clear distinction between the work of science and the work of philosophy. Reuniting the history and the philosophy of the sciences, privileging the long durée and depths of history, where the problems of biology unfold, while also recognizing the value of analysing the conceptual puzzles which structure the contemporary life sciences, the oeuvre of Jean Gayon illustrates the complementary character of these disciplines. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

We have no means of telling whether the ancient Greeks connected the onset of malaria with mosquito bites. Other peoples had done so, even before Manson's discoveries. But all we know of popular Greek ideas and beliefs comes down to us filtered through 'scientific' texts. In these texts (where imagination is tempered by rationality) fever is explained as a result of the body's mismanagement of the humours. The conceptual framework of Greek medical thought thus excludes a priori any relationship between (...) fever and the mosquito. (shrink)

This paper argues that English quantifier phrases of the form ‘every F’ admit of a literal referential interpretation, contrary to the standard semantic account of this expression, according to which it denotes a set and a second-order relation. Various arguments are offered in favor of the referential interpretation, and two likely objections to it are forestalled.

1637, le Discours de la méthode paraît en français aux Pays-Bas. L'Europe est divisée, lacunaire, disparate. Aucun de ces Etats ne réunit l'ensemble des conditions requises à la raison, ce jugement calme. La Hollande va donc fournir sa fraîcheur et l'anonymat de ses villes, la France un rêveur vagabond, l'Allemagne et l'Italie l'occasion pour lui de s'éprouver dans l'espace périlleux du réel.

La 4e de couverture indique : "L'économie politique s'est construite sur le mythe d'un état de nature comme esquisse d'une économie de marché : un monde irénique fondé sur l'échange, la confiance, où la recherche par chacun de son intérêt particulier bénéficie à tous. Le lien social s'y noue naturellement dans une harmonieuse combinaison des intérêts. La nature, autant dire le marché, ressemble à une société d'Arcadie où bergers et bergères échangent, sinon soupirs et baisers, du moins des moutons contre (...) des petits cochons pour le plus grand bonheur de tous. Le monde de Hobbes, à l'inverse, est celui de la peur de l'autre, de la défiance, des pactes trahis, de l'affrontement des pouvoirs. D'où, par les logiques de la raison et le jeu des passions, l'enfer de la guerre de tous contre tous. Et cet enfer, cette peur conduisent les hommes à se soumettre à l'autorité absolue d'un Etat qu'ils construisent afin que l'effroi qu'il inspire se substitue à la crainte de l'autre. Une économie de la peur impose une politique de la terreur. Malgré les horreurs du XXe siècle, les crises, les guerres civiles et étrangères, les terreurs d'État, les pays occidentaux ont réussi à préserver la démocratie et une certaine prospérité, mais ces victoires sont étroitement localisées et elles restent fragiles dans un XXIe siècle hésitant. Cela nous impose de regarder en face une pensée comme celle de Hobbes pour éviter que demain ne ressemble à ses craintes". (shrink)

“All that we require, and which can only be given us by the present advance of the single sciences, is a chemistry of the moral, religious, aesthetic ideas and sentiments, as well as of those impulses which we experience in ourselves both in the great and in the small phases of cultural and societal intercourse, and even in solitude.” In this passage from the opening paragraph of Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche prepares the ground for the transvaluation of modern culture (...) by means of a call for a renewed and enlarged understanding of chemical science. The need is a response to the dulling of modern culture: whereas the classical world-view attempted in vain to overcome such opposites as truth and error, or life and death, by seeing them from the perspective of an immutable standpoint, the more recent historical method has merely tended to dilute them in some supposedly fundamental element. Why does chemistry provide the model for the forthcoming transvaluation? (shrink)

La philosophie est comme un casse-noix : certaines personnes ne réussissent qu'à se pincer les doigts avec, les professionnels le retournent dans tous les sens, et puis - quand même - il se trouve des gens qui s'en servent pour ouvrir ces merveilleuses noix qu'on appelle les pensées. Philosopher, c'est bien ; philosopher soi-même, c'est mieux. Philosopher soi-même chaque jour sur le quotidien, sur du banal, c'est le mieux, quand on ne compte plus sur la religion ou l'idéologie politique. Le (...) maître à penser, c'est toi. A quoi ressemble un petit-déjeuner? As-tu assez de courage pour te reconnaître dans le miroir et te reconnaître sur le " trône "? Que se passe-t-il quand tu es tenté au bureau? Une fois réveillé, vas-tu interpréter et utiliser tes rêves? Finalement, rien de tel qu'un simplissime " Où, quand, comment, pourquoi? " devant un gros problème. Chaque jour est un beau jour pour philosopher... (shrink)

This article introduces South African churches to the reasons why elements of the late 19th and early 20th century Social Gospel movement encourages local churches to participate in their respective communities through social contribution. The article argues that the Social Gospellers understood Christian responsibility as an imperative of ‘participatio Jesu’ through social integration of living an ethos of oikoumenē. The history of the Social Gospel should be a relevant influence on mainline churches to understand the tension in the decision to (...) participate or withdraw from social contribution today. (shrink)

This chapter distinguishes Just Peace from its closest ‘moral’ neighbours — a stable peace and positive peace. Drawing on both consequentialist and deontological considerations, Allan develops an international ethical scale to evaluate different acts from a moral standpoint, with different levels of conflict as the baseline of ethical behavior. The more extreme the discord, the worse it is considered on the scale; the more harmonious, the better. Arguing that absolute unhappiness and absolute happiness are not of this world, Allan presents (...) eight intermediary moral situations, each being superseded by the next one in ethical terms: genocide, war, non-war, Just War, stable peace, Just Peace, positive peace, and Global Care. He develops an ethic of ‘global care’ based on feminist theories of care, religious and secular declarations on a global ethic, evolutionary theory arguments, and a critique of a liberal human rights approach. (shrink)

En 1534, le grand chancelier d'Angleterre, sir Thomas More, refuse de prêter serment à l'Acte de Suprématie par lequel Henri VIII d'Angleterre, s'opposant à l'Eglise de Rome, se proclame chef de l'Eglise anglicane. Condamné par le tribunal royal à la décapitation publique, Thomas More demeure pourtant fidèle : fidèle au roi, fidèle à la foi, et fidèle à sa conscience au prix de sa vie. En effet, s'il ne reconnaît pas le roi comme chef de l'Eglise nationale, il n'a jamais (...) remis en cause son autorité temporelle. Sir Thomas More, humaniste, juriste, théologien, diplomate, homme d'Etat et finalement martyr, est devenu un modèle pour ceux qui se dévouent au bien commun. L'Europe troublée du XVIe siècle n'est pas sans rappeler notre époque soumise à la difficile gestion des affaires publiques, aux scandales financiers et à l'avidité de quelques puissants. Ce livre, qui présente la vie de Thomas More et les valeurs fondatrices de son action, peut nous aider à trouver de nouveaux repères pour devenir ferment dans la pâte du monde. Le lecteur saisira alors toute la vérité des paroles adressées par l'humaniste anglais Roger Ascham à la petite- fille de More : "Par cet homme seul, c'est toute l'Angleterre qui s'est trouvée anoblie.". (shrink)

Comments on two recently published tripod bases. — Modifications to the slope of the Acropolis above the Theatre of Dionysos: stair-heads cut into the rock, choregic columns dating from the 4th or 3rd c. BC (and not the Roman period), Thrasyllos Monument and Chapel of the Virgin. — Lysicrates Monument: the tripod rested on the roof of the monument (and not on the finial which crowned it). — As an appendix: The Lysicrates Monument and France, the role of the Capuchin (...) fri- ars in the welcome to travellers and the protection of the monument, the interchange of correspon- dence between the French and Greek governments and the religious authorities according to the archive documents. (shrink)