For graduate students and junior researchers alike, organising a science café may seem a simple and relatively harmless academic activity. However, organising such an event, especially when it aims to share complex and sophisticated thinking with the general public, can raise challenges from conception to completion. In this text, we share our reflections on the challenges and other lessons learned by the members of the organising team of a bioethics café funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, in the (...) hope that our experience can be of use to others in organising similar events. (shrink)

High-fidelity cultural transmission, rather than brute intelligence, is the secret of our species’ success, or so many cultural evolutionists claim. It has been selected because it ensures the spread, stability and longevity of beneficial cultural traditions, and it supports cumulative cultural change. To play these roles, however, fidelity must be a causally-efficient property of cultural transmission. This is where the grain problem comes in and challenges the explanatory potency of fidelity. Assessing the degree of fidelity of any episode or mechanism (...) of cultural transmission always depends upon an investigator’s choice of grain of description at which cultural traditions are being studied. The fidelity of cultural transmission then appears to be relative to the granularity at which one approaches cultural variation, and since there is a multiplicity of grains of description by which the same tradition can be studied, there results a multiplicity of measures of fidelity for a same event or mechanism of cultural transmission. If this is correct, because fidelity is always relative to the grain of description dictated by the local and specific research interests of the investigator, then there seems to be no fact of the matter as to whether cultural transmission is faithful or not, independently from a researcher’s framework of analysis. The aims of this paper are to offer a conceptual clarification of the grain problem in cultural evolution, to assess its causes, to unpack its epistemological implications, and to examine its reach and consequences for a science of cultural evolution. (shrink)

This paper studies ‘minority’ initiatives to organize sports games. A meta-analysis of published data in the literature identifies the formal appearance taken by each of these initiatives under the Olympic model. But it also conduces to build a number of indicators to answer a series of questions about their logic and strategies. All the initiatives studied are based on an ambivalent posture that, while based on the denunciation of a discriminating space, claim access to it. By an astonishing paradox, ‘non-normative’ (...) actors are driven to reclaim a model that, under cover of Universal, aims to establish a norm that is situated and dated. In practice, they use two types of strategies: a strategy for participation in the Olympics to transform them into a space which represents a fight against exclusion, or a strategy to create alternative events. Whatever the strategy, these initiatives are implemented according to their objectives. Differentiated in their forms—participatory or autonomy—they are also in their purpose. The comparison of these initiatives shows that ultimately, beyond strategies and logic inherent in different social, historical and organizational contexts, the mobilizations of the actors reveal the same ambivalence about the sports model conveyed by the Olympic institution. (shrink)

In this collection of essays, Bromberger explores the centrality of questions and predicaments they create in scientific research. He discusses the nature of explanation, theory, and the foundations of linguistics.

This book provides a comprehensive commentary of the Philebus designed to shed light on the nature and function of the good in Plato’s philosophy as a whole. Topics discussed include dialectic, pleasure, epistemology, and the relations between metaphysics and ethics.

"Aujourd'hui, toute doctrine qui se refuse à envisager les conséquences du progrès, soit qu'elle proclame ce genre de problèmes secondaires (idéologie de droite), soit qu'elle le divinise (idéal de gauche), est contre-révolutionnaire". Visionnaires, Charbonneau et Ellul rejetèrent dos à dos les voies libérales, soviétique et fascistes. Dès les années 1930, ils ouvrirent une critique du "Progrès" et du déferlement de la technique et de la puissance au détriment de la liberté. La solution : une révolution contre le nouvel absolutisme (...) du triptyque Science-Etat-Industrie ; une insurrection des consciences ; un projet de civilisation ancré dans un nouveau rapport à la nature. Ce recueil rassemble quatre textes sources de l'écologie politique, inédits pour trois d'entre eux. Contemporains de la Grande Dépression, d'Auschwitz et d'Hiroshima, ces textes incisifs offrent une clé de lecture très actuelle, humaniste et libertaire, de nos sociétés contemporaines, productivistes, consuméristes et techniciennes. (shrink)

For a population to undergo evolution by natural selection, it is assumed that the constituents of the population form parent-offspring lineages, that is, that they must reproduce. I challenge this assumption by dividing the notion of reproduction into two subprocesses, that is, multiplication and inheritance, that produce parent-offspring lineages between the parts of a population, and I show that their population-level roles, generation and memory, respectively, can be effected by processes that do not rely on such local-level lineages. I further (...) argue that these two population-level processes, not local parent-offspring lineages, are necessary conditions for a population to undergo Darwinian evolution. (shrink)

The cumulative open-endedness of human cultures represents a major break with the social traditions of nonhuman species. As traditions are altered and the modifications retained along the cultural lineage, human populations are capable of producing complex traits that no individual could have figured out on its own. For cultures to produce increasingly complex traditions, improvements and modifications must be kept for the next generations to build upon. High-fidelity transmission would thus act as a ratchet, retaining modifications and allowing the historical (...) buildup of complex traditions. Mechanisms acting against slippage are important, of course, but cultures also need to move forward for the ratchet to retain anything important. In this article, I argue that studies of modification-generating processes and the many ways they shape cumulative culture have been overlooked. Key to a better understanding of cultural modification processes is taking seriously that cultural traditions consist of complex, hierarchically structured recipes. Taking such structures seriously and assessing the different ways they can vary in cultural design space, a novel picture for the onset of cumulative cultural evolution emerges. I argue that a possible impediment for cumulative culture in nonhuman animals may in fact reside not so much in the fidelity of their social transmission but rather in the constraints, internal and external, on their capacity to modify complex, hierarchically structured cultural recipes. (shrink)

A leading idea of cultural evolutionary theory is that for human cultures to undergo evolutionary change, cultural transmission must generally serve as a high-fidelity copying process. In analogy to genetic inheritance, the high fidelity of human cultural transmission would act as a safeguard against the transformation and loss of cultural information, thus ensuring both the stability and longevity of cultural traditions. Cultural fidelity would also serve as the key difference-maker between human cumulative cultures and non-human non-cumulative traditions, explaining why only (...) us humans, with our uniquely high-fidelity transmission capabilities, are capable of evolving and sustaining complex traditions. But what does it mean for cultural transmission to be more or less faithful? This article has two objectives. The first is to clarify the meaning and uses of the concept of cultural fidelity and to evaluate their explanatory import. I argue that cultural evolutionists use several fidelity concepts (episodic, propensity, and generalized fidelity), concepts that I will define and clarify. The second objective is to challenge the explanatory significance of a general notion of fidelity (generalized fidelity) as being both explanatorily meaningful and operationalizable. I conclude that if fidelity is to serve as an explanation of the key differences between human cumulative cultures and non-human non-cumulative traditions, then the concept will have to be redesigned and rely on different assumptions. 1Introduction 2Generalized Fidelity 2.1The need for an explanatory concept of fidelity 2.2Three conditions for a general notion of cultural fidelity 3Episodic Fidelity 3.1Measuring episodic fidelity 3.2The relevance problem 3.3Explanatory pluralism 3.4The incommensurability of fidelity metrics 4Propensity Fidelity 5Fidelity as an Explanatory Concept 5.1Explaining cultural stability 5.2Explaining human distinctiveness 6Conclusion. (shrink)

The use of physical models of molecular structures as research tools has been central to the development of biochemistry and molecular biology. Intriguingly, it has received little attention from scholars of science. In this paper, I argue that these physical models are not mere three-dimensional representations but that they are in fact very special research tools: they are cognitive augmentations. Despite the fact that they are external props, these models serve as cognitive tools that augment and extend the modeler’s cognitive (...) capacities and performance in molecular modeling tasks. This cognitive enhancement is obtained because of the way the modeler interacts with these models, the models’ materiality contributing to the solving of the molecule’s structure. Furthermore, I argue that these material models and their component parts were designed, built and used specifically to serve as cognitive facilitators and cognitive augmentations. (shrink)

This research investigates the potential for a “fair” co-branding operation. A major corporate brand is fictitiously allied with a Fair Trade labelling organization brand. The sample for the study is composed of 540 respondents, representative of the French population. By considering commercial brands and Fair Trade labels as dissimilar in terms of customers’ perceived Fair Trade orientations, this article studies how this lack of similarity impacts perceived congruence between both entities and how prior brand attitudes and congruence influence customers’ evaluation (...) of the co-branded product. The results of this research demonstrate that: Consumer prior brand attitudes toward the partner brands influence very little customers’ evaluation. Perceived similarity of the partner brands has a strong influence toward congruence of the co-branding operation. Results also indicate that congruence has a strong influence upon customers’ evaluation. An inverted U-shaped relationship exists between perceived similarity and relevancy of the alliance, and between expectancy and customers’ evaluation. The results obtained through the test of a partial least square model, and inverted U-shaped hypothesis, represent a new insight into co-branding theory. The high discursive power of fair co-branding is a key issue: the corporate brand provides the alliance with its leading position, while the Fair Trade brand provides the ethical attribute. (shrink)

Fruit d'un colloque tenu en 2010 dans la ville de Budapest, cet ouvrage collectif introduit aux grands chapitres de l'oeuvre de l'académicien en même temps qu'elle lui adresse certaines questions permettant d'en mieux saisir les enjeux et d'en indiquer quelques prolongements possibles. Cartésianisme, phénoménologie et théologie : telles sont les trois voies thématiques empruntées afin d'interroger un travail qui a su se rendre indispensable à son époque.

Dai Vaughan _For Documentary_ University of California Press, 1999 ISBN 0-520-21695-4 215 pp.

Qu'ont en commun Cioran, Simone Weil, Curzio Malaparte, Denis de Rougemont et les autres intellectuels et écrivains dont l'oeuvre et la vie sont évoquées dans ces pages? Il apparaît que, pour la plupart, ce sont des témoins d'une époque à bien des égards exceptionnelle, ne serait-ce que par la profondeur et l'intensité des malheurs qui y ont connu les hommes et les femmes. Mais alors pourquoi avoir choisi parmi tous les témoins possibles ceux qui, sans être inconnus dans les cercles (...) savants, ne le sont pas moins aujourd'hui du grand public? Peut-être s'agit-il de faire oeuvre d'éducation en permettant aux lecteurs d'accéder à la connaissance de ces témoins peu connus? Peut-être s'agit-il plutôt, à terme, de simplement rappeler ces existences marquées, au milieu de la tourmente, par la lucidité et le courage? Une telle entreprise peut paraître suspecte à une époque qui se targue d'avoir aboli toutes les idoles. Que vaut, en somme, ce type de célébration posthume dès lors que chaque existence, même la plus noble, porte en elle une part d'obscurité si déterminante? A cela s'ajoute que l'histoire, du moins celle que nourrit la recherche et que l'on enseigne dans les universités et les collèges, n'offre plus de modèles de vie, mais bien des faits, des explications et des interprétations que l'on souhaite les plus objectifs possible. Et pourtant, à cette époque que l'on dit de toutes les fins, de l'Art, de l'Histoire, de l'Homme, il a semblé nécessaire de renouer avec l'esprit de la tradition humaniste. Un jardin en soi, aurait pu écrire Montaigne, qu'on ne peut cultiver pour le mieux, car c'est là un art incertain, qu'en ayant à l'esprit un certain idéal. Or, renouer ainsi le fil rompu de la transmission de l'Idéal, tel était, et tel demeure encore aujourd'hui, notre volonté en publiant ces figures de pensée. (shrink)

Quand le gouvernement de René Lévesque mit fin au financement occulte des partis politiques en 1977, les démocrates de tous les horizons se mirent à croire qu’il était possible d’éliminer la corruption systémique qui gangrène la vie publique partout dans le monde. Pendant un temps, on a cru que le Québec était devenu un havre unique d’intégrité avec son financement populaire des partis, ses limites de contributions, ses règles de transparence, auxquels on avait ajouté des normes sévères dans l’octroi des (...) contrats publics d’achats de biens et services. Ce paradis terrestre de la pureté politique n’a malheureusement pas duré longtemps et nous savons aujourd’hui que les assoiffés de pouvoir et d’argent gravitant dans et autour des formations politiques ont rapidement décelé les failles de la nouvelle Loi et se sont immédiatement organisés pour la contourner. Leurs stratagèmes se sont déployés pendant une trentaine d’années en toute impunité intoxiquant toutefois, il faut le dire, certains plus que d’autres. Heureusement, ces combines ont fini par être mises au jour et devenir objet d’intérêt prioritaire de la population, obligeant ainsi l’Assemblée nationale à refaire ses devoirs. (shrink)

Ouvrage inédit de Bernard Charbonneau, qui pourtant l'affectionnait beaucoup, ce petit livre est l'ultime réflexion qu'il porta sur le concept de liberté, qui chez lui a toujours été central. Il y offre à son lecteur une méditation de tout premier ordre mais accessible et concise sur la liberté, prise en tant que concept et recherche incarnés dans un temps, dans un lieu, dans un individu. Plus importante encore que la réflexion philosophique est la volonté de Charbonneau de tenter (...) de communiquer au lecteur qui lui fait l'amitié de le lire son expérience de la liberté, en se basant sur des figures irréfutables comme Rousseau (à travers le Contrat social), Montaigne (à travers les Essais), Berdiaev (à travers De l'Esclavage et de la liberté de l'homme) et Dostoïevski (à travers la parabole du Grand Inquisiteur), utilisées comme autant de perspectives différentes et de témoins édifiants." -- Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Not very long ago, Plato'sSophistwas often presented as a dialogue devoted to the problem of being and not-being, entangled with limited success in an inquiry into the nature of the sophist. Thanks to the renewal of interest in the dramatic form of Plato's dialogues, recent works have shown that this entanglement is far from ill-conceived or anecdotal. However, the inquiry into the sophist is itself introduced by another question, concerning the nature of the Stranger from Elea himself. I would like (...) to show that this question and the way in which it is raised in the prologue may themselves shed light on the relations between the many threads which run across this very complex dialogue. (shrink)

Cet article analyse les emplois schelérien et heideggérien de l’expression « logique du coeur ». Il revient sur l’origine de cette expression – forgée par Scheler, qui l’attribue à tort à Pascal en soulignant son opposition à la raison cartésienne – avant de reconstruire l’usage qu’en fait Heidegger. Trois phases sont mises au jour : Heidegger fait l’économie de cette expression dans ses jeunes années afin de prendre ses distances avec la doctrine schelérienne et pascalienne des sentiments ; il y (...) recourt dans les années trente et quarante pour signaler que cette doctrine est déterminée par la « logique » métaphysique cartésienne, qu’il oppose à deux logiques du coeur non métaphysiques (celles du λόγος grec héraclitéen et parménidien et du Λόγος johannique) ; dans les années cinquante, Heidegger abandonne pourtant cette expression au motif que toute logique – moderne (cartésienne) comme grecque et biblique – demeure métaphysique. (shrink)

This article focuses on the methodological issues involved in combining data collected by questionnaire and interview to study the barriers to educational and professional participation of young people (aged 15-26) living with cystic fibrosis. In addition to an exploratory survey of thirteen professionals, it is based on the cross-referencing of data produced from a short and adapted version of the Measure of the Quality of the Environment-MQE (n=100) and interviews of the “story of life and practices” type with high school (...) students, students, young people looking for work or in employment (n=29). The results show the discrepancy between the responses to the MQE and the narratives produced in the interviews. On the one hand, the responses to the MQE shed light on the impact of the physical environments and the spatial and temporal organisation of the school and work environments on the experience of disability. On the other hand, they seem to underestimate the weight of human environments in producing or reducing barriers to participation. The testimonies gathered in interviews allow us to reassess the importance of these environments. The use of mixed research methods therefore seems essential to understand the respective roles of the material and human components of environments in the production of educational and occupational disability. (shrink)

Intuitive predictions and judgements under uncertainty are often mediated by judgemental heuristics that sometimes lead to biases. Our micro-developmental study suggests that a presumption of rationality is justified for adult subjects, in so far as their systematic judgemental biases appear to be due to a specific executive-inhibition failure in working memory, and not necessarily to a lack of understanding of the fundamental principles of probability. This hypothesis was tested using an experimental procedure in which 60 adult subjects were trained to (...) inhibit the classical conjunction bias on a frequency judgement task derived from Tversky and Kahneman's work. Pre- and post-test performance was assessed via a probability judgement task. The data indicated a training effect, suggesting that subjects traditionally labelled as "irrational" with respect to the classical rules of inductive reasoning are in fact "inefficient inhibitors". These findings are discussed in terms of a polymorphous view of rationality. (shrink)

Sartre's reading of Harald Höffding's works was instrumental in his critical reception of Spinoza. One may find traces of Höffding's critical monism in Sartre's Being and Nothingness . Höffding had formulated his critical monism in order to remedy what he perceived to be problems in Spinoza's view. Sartre's critique of Spinoza aligns with that of Höffding. Moreover, Höffding's influence on Sartre goes well beyond the reception of Spinoza. Indeed, the young Sartre's interest in Bergson, psychology and questions relative to the (...) totality of Being could have followed from his reading of Höffding. In fact, the way in which Höffding tackles questions about the soul, the world, and God illuminates the timid proposals offered by Sartre in the conclusion of Being and Nothingness. Thus, understanding Höffding French Cet article démontrera que la réception critique de Spinoza par Sartre est influencée par sa lecture des oeuvres de Harald Höffding. Une lecture attentive permet d'identifier des traces du monisme critique de celui-ci dans L'être et le néant . Ce monisme critique avait été formulé afin de pallier aux problèmes perçus par Höffding chez Spinoza. Or, cette même critique se retrouve chez Sartre. De plus, cet article fera aussi la démonstration que l'influence de Höffding sur Sartre va au-delà de la réception de Spinoza. En effet, l'intérêt du jeune Sartre pour Bergson, la psychologie et les questions relatives à la totalité de l'Être pourraient être le résultat de sa lecture de Höffding. En fait, la manière dont Höffding traite des questions de l'âme, du monde et de Dieu éclairent les timides propositions métaphysiques offertes par Sartre en conclusion de L'être et le néant . Par conséquent, bien comprendre Höffding permet de mieux comprendre Sartre. (shrink)

This book provides a short, hands-on introduction to the science of complexity using simple computational models of natural complex systems--with models and exercises drawn from physics, chemistry, geology, and biology. By working through the models and engaging in additional computational explorations suggested at the end of each chapter, readers very quickly develop an understanding of how complex structures and behaviors can emerge in natural phenomena as diverse as avalanches, forest fires, earthquakes, chemical reactions, animal flocks, and epidemic diseases. Natural Complexity (...) provides the necessary topical background, complete source codes in Python, and detailed explanations for all computational models. (shrink)

Social transmission is at the core of cultural evolutionary theory. It occurs when a demonstrator uses mental representations to produce some public displays which in turn allow a learner to acquire similar mental representations. Although cultural evolutionists do not dispute this view of social transmission, they typically abstract away from the multistep nature of the process when they speak of cultural variants at large, thereby referring both to variation and evolutionary change in mental representations as well as in their corresponding (...) public displays. This conflation suggests that differentiating each step of the transmission process is redundant. In this paper, I examine different forms of interplay between the multistep nature of social transmission and the metric spaces used by cultural evolutionists to measure cultural variation and to model cultural change. I offer a conceptual analysis of what assumptions seem to be at work when cultural evolutionists conflate the complex causal sequence of social transmission as a single space of variation in which populations evolve. To this aim, I use the framework of variation spaces, a formal framework commonly used in evolutionary biology, and I develop two theoretical concepts, ‘technique’ and ‘technical space’, for addressing cases where the complexity of social transmission defies the handy assumption of a single variation space for cultural change. (shrink)

J’examine dans cet article le double aspect sous lequel la loi se trouve discutée par l’Étranger dans le Politique : si elle fait tout d’abord l’objet d’une critique sévère au nom d’une science idéale, elle est ensuite réhabilitée à titre de substitut à l’idéal défaillant. Cette réhabilitation est complexe : elle passe par un étrange récit de politique-fiction qui fait écho sans le dire à Thucydide et qui permet à l’Étranger de lier dans un même procès écriture juridique et écriture (...) spéculative ; elle se développe ensuite moyennant une série d’arguments qui insistent sur le nécessaire respect de la loi indépendamment de son contenu et de sa pertinence, mais qui indiquent aussi implicitement la nécessité de lui attribuer une origine mythique dans une connaissance divine devenue inaccessible. Le Politique signe l’acte de naissance de la fiction théologico-politique.I explore in this paper the dual aspect of the Eleatic Visitor’s discussion of law in the Statesman. Although it is at first severely criticized on behalf of an ideal science, it is then rehabilitated as a substitute for the failing ideal. But this rehabilitation is a complex one : it is made via a very peculiar account of political fiction echoing implicitly Thucydides and allowing the Eleatic Visitor to put on the same trial legal and speculative writing. Then it develops by using several arguments, insisting on the necessary respect due to the law, whatever content and relevance it may have, but yet implicitly pointing out the need to confer a mythic origin to law within the context of divine knowledge now impervious to men. Thus Plato’s Statesman pioneers theological political fiction. (shrink)

This paper aims at extending the notion of thing knowledge put forth by Davis Baird. His Thing Knowledge (Baird 2004) proposes that scientific instruments constitute scientific knowledge and that to conceive scientific instruments as such brings about a new and better understanding of scientific development. By insisting on what “truth does for us,” Baird shows that the functional properties of truth are shared by the common scientific instrument. The traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief would only apply to (...) scientific instrumentation if we were to reject the subjective (and intentional) aspect of it, viz. belief. In consequence, Baird insists that scientific instruments can be seen only as a kind of objective knowledge, that is knowledge maintained by the scientific community but not individually by a given scientist. In this paper, I will argue for a conception of subjective thing knowledge according to which some scientific instruments (especially material models) can be understood as justified true beliefs. By combining Davis Baird’s thing knowledge and Clark and Chalmers’ hypothesis of extended cognition, I will show that it is possible to derive an analysis of material models as cognitive augmentation of the scientist's mind, and that such scientific instruments are to be understood as a material form of subjective knowledge, i.e. as external-to-the-brain justified true beliefs. (shrink)

We study mathematical and algorithmic properties of Lambek's pregroups and illustrate them by the French noun phrase. An algorithm of complexity n3 to solve the reduction problem in an arbitrary free pregroup as well as recognition by a pregroup grammar is presented. This algorithm is then specified to run in linear time. A sufficient condition for a language fragment that makes the linear algorithm complete is given.

Neuroconstructivism: How the Brain Constructs Cognition proposes a unifying framework for the study of cognitive development that brings together (1) constructivism (which views development as the progressive elaboration of increasingly complex structures), (2) cognitive neuroscience (which aims to understand the neural mechanisms underlying behavior), and (3) computational modeling (which proposes formal and explicit specifications of information processing). The guiding principle of our approach is context dependence, within and (in contrast to Marr [1982]) between levels of organization. We propose that three (...) mechanisms guide the emergence of representations: competition, cooperation, and chronotopy; which themselves allow for two central processes: proactivity and progressive specialization. We suggest that the main outcome of development is partial representations, distributed across distinct functional circuits. This framework is derived by examining development at the level of single neurons, brain systems, and whole organisms. We use the terms encellment, embrainment, and embodiment to describe the higher-level contextual influences that act at each of these levels of organization. To illustrate these mechanisms in operation we provide case studies in early visual perception, infant habituation, phonological development, and object representations in infancy. Three further case studies are concerned with interactions between levels of explanation: social development, atypical development and within that, developmental dyslexia. We conclude that cognitive development arises from a dynamic, contextual change in embodied neural structures leading to partial representations across multiple brain regions and timescales, in response to proactively specified physical and social environment. (shrink)

Cet article se propose d’étudier les procédés platoniciens de l’exemple, de l’analogie et du paradigme, en insistant à la fois sur leur distinction et sur leur articulation mutuelle. En ce qui concerne l’exemple, il convient d’en distinguer un usage dianoétique, que Platon proscrit, d’un usage proprement dialectique, qu’il encourage et qui peut avoir deux fonctions différentes : faire comprendre une question ou une méthode et faire saisir une structure. L’analogie au sens strict développe cette deuxième fonction, en la complexifiant parfois (...) (notamment dans le Gorgias et la République) par une dimension « constructive ». Reste que le but de l’analogie, comme celui de l’exemple, est avant tout de faire saisir des rapports ; et dans la mesure où ces rapports sont purement intelligibles, l’analogie peut elle aussi être considérée comme un procédé dialectique. Enfin, le paradigme tel qu’il est utilisé dans le Sophiste et le Politique développe les traits précédents au sein d’un dispositif très élaboré, qui a pour but essentiel de faire saisir une méthode susceptible d’être appliquée à ce qui fait l’objet de l’examen. En ce sens, il s’agit d’un prolongement de l’un des usages dialectiques des exemples que l’on trouve dès les premiers Dialogues. La pensée paradigmatique de Platon manifeste ainsi une grande continuité, qui repose sur une conception fondamentale : la dialectique, en tant que science suprême qui étudie les Idées, ne peut être décrite de l’extérieur, mais seulement se pratiquer. Cette pratique se prépare, non pas en commençant par se tourner vers le sensible, comme on l’écrit parfois, mais en se tournant vers des cas tout aussi intelligibles – en tant que rapports ou ensembles de rapports, c’est‑à‑dire structures –, quoique « plus faciles », afin de rendre le dialecticien ultimement capable d’examiner n’importe quel sujet. (shrink)

Natural selection is commonly seen not just as an explanation for adaptive evolution, but as the inevitable consequence of “heritable variation in fitness among individuals”. Although it remains embedded in biological concepts, such a formalisation makes it tempting to explore whether this precondition may be met not only in life as we know it, but also in other physical systems. This would imply that these systems are subject to natural selection and may perhaps be investigated in a biological framework, where (...) properties are typically examined in light of their putative functions. Here we relate the major questions that were debated during a three-day workshop devoted to discussing whether natural selection may take place in non-living physical systems. We start this report with a brief overview of research fields dealing with “life-like” or “proto-biotic” systems, where mimicking evolution by natural selection in test tubes stands as a major objective. We contend the challenge may be as much conceptual as technical. Taking the problem from a physical angle, we then discuss the framework of dissipative structures. Although life is viewed in this context as a particular case within a larger ensemble of physical phenomena, this approach does not provide general principles from which natural selection can be derived. Turning back to evolutionary biology, we ask to what extent the most general formulations of the necessary conditions or signatures of natural selection may be applicable beyond biology. In our view, such a cross-disciplinary jump is impeded by reliance on individuality as a central yet implicit and loosely defined concept. Overall, these discussions thus lead us to conjecture that understanding, in physico-chemical terms, how individuality emerges and how it can be recognised, will be essential in the search for instances of evolution by natural selection outside of living systems. (shrink)