Dans ce monumental ouvrage devenu un classique du commentaire, Victor Goldschmidt, fidele a sa methode structurale et combattant l'idee selon laquelle la pensee de Rousseau ne serait pas organisee, demontre qu'il est possible d'expliciter les principes du systeme de Rousseau. Denoncant l'opposition recue entre la genese et la structure, l'auteur procede a un examen minutieux de la constitution de ces principes, en s'appuyant sur les deux Discours et l'Emile - Rousseau lui-meme disait que son systeme y etait formule -, (...) mais surtout sur le Discours sur l'inegalite, dont le present travail etudie le contenu et les prolongements. Prenant le temps de considerer ce texte comme une oeuvre proprement philosophique et d'etablir la these des interlocuteurs du philosophe pour mieux determiner sa pensee, Victor Goldschmidt montre comment s'elabore et progresse cette pensee et en restitue ainsi le sens, la coherence, en un mot l'unite substantielle. (shrink)

The European Legacy, Volume 16, Issue 6, Page 799-802, October 2011.

The European Legacy, Volume 16, Issue 5, Page 663-666, August 2011.

From recent work on Ingarden it is apparent that values are central to his philosophy, even in the context of his realist ontology. In this evaluation of Ingarden’s work we consider his principal philosophical notions (i.e. his realist ontology, his aesthetics, his reflections on language, and his consideration of values) in the light of what Nietzsche referred to in his own philosophy as the “reevaluation” or the “inversion” of all values. It is argued that two of Ingarden’s most fundamental values (...) are the notion of communication and the aesthetic dimension of thought. (shrink)

Comment penser une philosophie du droit chez Epicure, sans le trahir? Comment degager des principes politiques dans l'oeuvre de celui dont la maxime etait de vivre cache, loin des affaires administratives concernant la Cite? Le defi peut paraitre ambitieux, c'est pourtant celui que releve Victor Goldschmidt dans cet ouvrage. Et il puise a la source meme, au coeur des dernieres sentences des Maximes Capitales, grace auxquelles il thematie et structure une pensee politique s'inscrivant parfaitement au sein de la logique (...) de la doctrine epicurienne. En effet, pour vivre bien, il est necessaire de penser le vivre ensemble avec des lois pour toile de fonds. La pensee epicurienne se deploie autour des concepts directeurs que sont l'interet, la reciprocite, la securite, le juste se definissant en reference a l'utile. Le droit epicurien veut s'imposer comme une realite et depasser le simple statut de doctrine du droit. C'est dire toute la portee de cette etude, et la place qu'on doit accorder a la pensee epicurienne dans la philosophie politique. (shrink)

Verdejo, Víctor_A Puzzle about Disagreement.

This article explores the extent to which the magnitude of harm that a person is liable to suffer to avert a threat depends on the magnitude of her causal contribution to the threat. Several different versions of this view are considered. The conclusions are mostly skeptical—facts that may determine how large of a causal contribution a person makes to a threat are not morally significant, or not sufficiently significant to make an important difference to liability. However, understanding ways in which (...) causation may be scalar helps to deepen our understanding of other morally significant facts, such as responsibility. (shrink)

Ces etudes debordent le probleme du temps chez les Stoiciens et se proposent d'etablir que cette question, en apparence modeste, permet d'eclairer, et en meme temps commande l'ensemble du systeme. Au premier abord en effet, la theorie du temps se presente comme une simple section d'un chapitre de la Physique, celui qui traite des Incorporels. Mais deja la simple interpretation des textes transmis fait voir que cette theorie tient etroitement a d'autres theories, comme celle des incorporels en general, des categories, (...) de la substance. Abordant ensuite les theses majeures de la logique et de l'ethique, on s'apercoit qu'a leur tour elles sont solidaires de la conception du temps qui, dans bien des cas, fait evanouir leur apparence de paradoxe. A cela meme, il n'y a rien d'etrange, si l'on se souvient que le stoicisme, plus que tout autre philosophie antique, constitue un systeme coherent. Mais plus particulierement, le probleme du temps a du former comme le noeud de la reflexion stoicienne qui vise, contre les lourdes autorites de Platon et d'Aristote, a retablir dans sa realite et dans sa dignite, le concret, le sensible, disqualifie comme sujet a la generation et a la corruption, c'est-a-dire, en un mot, comme l'etre dans le temps. (shrink)

Cruelty is the deliberate infliction of physical or psychological pain on other living creatures, sometimes indifferently, but often with delight. Though cruelty is an overwhelming presence in the world, there is no neurobiological or psychological explanation for its ubiquity and reward value. This target article attempts to provide such explanations by describing three stages in the development of cruelty. Stage 1 is the development of the predatory adaptation from the Palaeozoic to the ethology of predation in canids, felids, and primates. (...) Stage 2, through palaeontological and anthropological evidence, traces the emergence of the hunting adaptation in the Pliocene, its development in early hominids, and its emotional loading in surviving forager societies. This adaptation provides an explanation for the powerful emotions – high arousal and strong affect – evoked by the pain-blood-death complex. Stage 3 is the emergence of cruelty about 1.5 million years ago as a hominid behavioural repertoire that promoted fitness through the maintenance of personal and social power. The resulting cultural elaborations of cruelty in war, in sacrificial rites, and as entertainment are examined to show the historical and cross-cultural stability of the uses of cruelty for punishment, amusement, and social control. Effective violence prevention must begin with perpetrators, not victims. If the upstream approaches to violence prevention advocated by the public-health model are to be effective, psychologists must be able to provide violence prevention workers with a fine-grained understanding of perpetrator gratifications. This is a distasteful task that will compel researchers to interact with torturers and abusers, and to acknowledge that their gratifications are rooted in a common human past. It is nonetheless an essential step in developing effective strategies for the primary prevention of violence. Key Words: compassion; cruelty; entertainment industry; evolutionary psychology; intraspecific killing; pain; predation; punishment; torture; violence prevention. Correspondence:c1 Correspondence to: West Hill House, 6 Swains Lane, Highgate, London N6 6QS, United Kingdom. (shrink)

This article attempts to re-establish the importance of Foucault's work for an understanding of the way in which modern law operates. This argument has two stages. Firstly, there is a critique of the interpretation of Foucault's work by legal and sociological thinkers. It is argued that by reading the term ‘juridical’ as synonymous with the term ‘law’ in Foucault, people miss the substance of Foucault's argument. The term juridical describes an arrangement and a representation of power rather than the law. (...) This is made clear through a critique of J. S. Mill's On Liberty which is shown to make a juridical distinction between power and a free space of action which is unsustainable. Secondly, Foucault's genealogy of power relations is recast from the perspective of a legal theoretician. Foucault's history of power relations is constructed from historical differences in the mode of operation of power and discourse. By analysing these differences and their relationship to the mode of operation of law, an account of the place of modern law in Foucault's genealogy is established. Modern law operates between Foucault's concepts of government and discipline. It provides a key way in which government decisions can adjust the relationships between disciplinary institutions. This introduces the idea that law begins to operate in the perspective of the complete lives of individuals rather than just to prevent certain actions. Law, then, operates in accordance with what Foucault calls ‘bio-power’. (shrink)

A reprint of the article "La théorie du plaisir d'après Épicure" (The Theory of Pleasure According to Epicurus), by Victor Brochard, and translated and edited by Eve Grace, which appeared in the 1904 issue of the "Journal des Savants" is presented. The article focuses on philosopher Epicurus' theory of pleasure. It notes that most historians believe that pleasure, in the view of Epicurus, is reducible to the absence of pain. The philosopher states that the pleasure of the belly is (...) the only one pleasure. (shrink)

Adherents as well as detractors of the normativity of mental content agree that its assessment crucially depends on the assessment of a principle for believing what is true. In this paper, I present an alternative principle, which is based on possession conditions for pure thinking or mere entertaining. I argue that the alternative approach has not been sufficiently emphasised in the literature and has two important merits. First, it yields a direct analysis of the normativity of mental content, which is, (...) furthermore, independent of arguably non-normative notions such as truth. Second, the approach suggests new and challenging lines of response to central non-normativist objections. (shrink)

“¿Principio de caridad o hybris?” La intuición de Wittgenstein, de que el significado lingüístico se constituye dentro de la trama de vida pareciera hacer posible un acercamiento entre la tradición hermenéutica continental y la filosofía analítica del lenguaje. En el presente artículo se sostiene que esta intuición debe ir acompañada de una revisión de la concepción del sujeto implícita en el “principio de caridad” de Donald Davidson. Sin esa reconcepción, el principio de caridad se convierte en una forma encubierta de (...) imperialismo conceptual incompatible con el espíritu de la hermenéutica continental. Se concluye el artículo con algunas observaciones sobre el relativismo a la luz de las consideraciones anteriores. (shrink)

Para/Inquiry represents the next generation of postmodern studies. Focusing on cultural studies religion, and literature, Victor E. Taylor provides us with a fresh look at the history and main themes of postmodernism, both in style and content. Central to the book is the status of the sacred in postmodern times. Taylor explores the sacred images in art, culture and literature. We see that the concept of the sacred is uniquely singular and resistant to an easy assimilation into artistic, cultural (...) or narrative forms. Anyone wishing to gain a new and exciting understanding of postmodernism, will read this book with great pleasure. (shrink)

The anthropic coincidences are widely claimed to provide evidence for intelligent creation in the universe. However, neither data northeory support this conclusion. No basis exists for assuming that a random universe would not have some kind of life. Calculations of the properties of universes having different physical constants than ours indicate that long-lived stars are not unusual, and thus most universes should have time for complex systems of some type to evolve. A multi-universe scenario is not ruled out, since no (...) known principle requires that only one universe exist. (shrink)

Resumen: Varios comentaristas han sostenido que la ontología de la concepción hegeliana de “alma bella” se funda en la determinación conocida como “mal infinito”, desarrollada en la Doctrina del Ser. En correlación con lo antedicho, comentaristas como Paha, Hinchman, Solomon y Harris sostienen que Hegel pensaba en el sistema filosófico fichteano al momento de desarrollar su concepción de “alma bella”. Sin embargo, esta hipótesis de lectura adolece de algunas falencias que serán desarrolladas a continuación. En primer lugar, es necesario realizar (...) una breve exposición de la figura del Espíritu conocida como “alma bella”; en segundo lugar, se describirá la determinación denominada “mal infinito”; en tercer lugar, se desarrollarán los problemas que conlleva la mencionada exégesis; en cuarto lugar, se expondrán las objeciones a la inclusión de la filosofía de Fichte como ejemplo de la concepción hegeliana de “alma bella”. Finalmente, se expondrán las conclusiones.: Many scholars have stated that the ontology of the Hegelian notion of “beautiful soul” is grounded in the category known as “bad infinite”, developed in the Doctrine of Being. Regarding this, scholars like Paha, Hinchman, Solomon and Harris state that Hegel was thinking of the Fichtean philosophical system as He developed his own notion of “beautiful soul”. However, this interpretation has some issues, which will be developed below. First, we give a short explanation about the shape of the Spirit known as “beautiful soul”. Second, we describe the category called “bad infinite”. Third, we show the issues related to the interpretation. Fourth, we present the objections to the inclusion of the Fichtean philosophy as an example of the Hegelian notion of “beautiful soul”. Finally, we present the conclusions. (shrink)

Prior research on facial beauty has suggested that the average female face in a population is perceived to be the most attractive face. This finding, however, is based on an image processing methodology that appears to be flawed. An alternative method for generating attractive faces is described and the findings using this procedure are compared with the reports of other experimenters. The results suggest that beautiful female faces are not average, but vary from the average in a systematic manner, and (...) female beauty can best be explained by a sexual selection viewpoint, whereby selection favors cues that are reliable indicators of fertility. (shrink)

Regulation theories focus primarily on the behavior of regulatory agencies. In this article, the authors elevate the level of analysis to study the disputes these agencies address. This change of analytic level has two advantages. First, it highlights the importance of other forms of dispute resolution. Second, it provides for specific dispute resolution strategies. The article uses systems and behavioral theories as the underpinnings of a broad model of societal regulation that offers strategies for avoiding and managing societal disputes.