La structure canonique de l’énoncé d’une langue naturelle procède de la diathèse active. Dès lors, toute autre construction syntaxique arborant une structure différente est considérée comme une construction particulière. Envisagé sous cet angle, le causatif fait partie des faits syntaxiques spécifiques. Ainsi, à la lumière du modèle théorique de l’"Échelle de Compacité" « Scale of Compactness » telle qu’élaborée par R.M.W. Dixon, nous nous sommes attelé à montrer les caractéristiques du causatif en koulango, ses aspects morphologique, syntaxique et sémantique. D’abord, (...) la construction de la causation recourt à un verbe lexical, dérivé ou une périphrase en dɛ̀ « faire ». Ensuite, le causatif se distingue syntaxiquement par l’augmentation ou la présence obligatoire d’un argument supplémentaire. Enfin, le domaine sémantique est marqué par l’engagement direct ou indirect du causeur dans la réalisation de l’événement. La construction de l’engagement direct fait appel au procédé lexical tandis que celle de l’indirect prend appui sur le moyen périphrastique en dɛ̀. Le procédé par dérivation peut être rattaché à la causation directe ou indirecte selon le cas. (shrink)

Je m’intéresse aux nombreuses occurrences de mots dérivés de γελᾶν dans le Banquet de Lucien pour questionner la possibilité qu’ils constituent des marqueurs réflexifs du projet comique de l’auteur. Dans une première partie, j’étudie la surreprésentation de ce lexique dans le texte, afin de montrer que le rire est thématisé, si bien que l’on pourrait émettre l’hypothèse qu’il agit comme un marqueur réflexif du projet comique ; mais les termes du rire sont problématisés et invitent à une analyse plus détaillée. (...) Dans un second temps, je m’intéresse aux occurrences qui montrent que le narrateur se met à distance du rire, qui est reporté sur les autres convives : il préfère observer et critiquer silencieusement la débauche des philosophes, car le rire est inapproprié dans le contexte du banquet. Enfin, dans une dernière partie, je me concentre sur quelques occurrences assumées par le narrateur qui concernent certains discours prononcés pendant la soirée : je mets en regard cette particularité avec le dialogue-cadre pour montrer qu’il invite à rire non pas des événements en eux-mêmes, mais de leur insertion dans une mise en forme littéraire. (shrink)

L’attention qu’Edgar Morin prête au langage du point de vue théorétique est bien connue : nombreuses sont les réflexions sur ce sujet éparpillées dans son œuvre, en particulier dans les six tomes de La Méthode. Prenant pour point de départ cet œuvre et les nœuds essentiels de son discours sur la langue, je me suis concentrée particulièrement sur le lexique inépuisable de Morin, véritable terrain de création, offrant quelques exemples significatifs de son souci d’expressivité et de son « aptitude combinatoire, (...) inventive » : mots composés, mots dérivés, mots juxtaposés, et bien d’autres encore.Attention Edgar Morin ready to language theoretic point of view is well known there are many scattered thoughts on this subject in his work, particularly in the six volumes of the method. Taking as its starting point the work and its key nodes discourse on language, I focused particularly on the lexicon inexhaustible Morin, true field of creation, with some significant examples of his concern expressiveness and his "ability combinatorial inventive "compound words, derived words, words juxtaposed, and many others. (shrink)

Résumé — " De la pensée moderne à la pensée antique le chemin serait court et direct, si l’on voulait le prendre. " Par cette formule extraite de L’enracinement Simone Weil indique combien sa lecture du platonisme procède d’une attention à la lettre même du texte, directement et sans intermédiaire, et d’une conception de la pensée elle-même comme cheminement – cheminement orienté, infini ou indéfini, singulier, toujours en mouvement, en tout cas sans terme assigné. Il en résulte une interprétation du (...) philosophe antique assez proche des études platoniciennes contemporaines, car dépourvue du prisme de l’ " idéalisme platonicien " standard, et fondatrice pour la pensée weilienne. Le dernier Platon, celui de La République, du Timée et des Lois, permet à Simone Weil de définir au mieux ce que penser veut dire.— " From modern thought to antique thought, the path could be short and direct, should one wish to take it. " Through this phrase, taken from L’enracinement Simone Weil reveals how her interpretation of Platonism derives both from her special attention to the very letter of the text in a direct way, and from her understanding of thought itself as a development – an oriented, infinite or indefinite, unique and unremitting progression, anyway one which is without any circumscribed limit. The ensuing interpretation of the antique philosopher is rather close to that of contemporary Platonic studies, since it is devoid of the distorting vision of commonplace " Plato idealism " and is the very foundation of Weilean thought. The late Plato of The Republic, Timaeus and The Laws enables Simone Weil to best define what thinking means. (shrink)

RESUMO O presente estudo propõe-se a responder às seguintes questões: 1ª) Que noções de enunciação podem ser derivadas da reflexão discursiva de Michel Pêcheux nos anos iniciais de sua produção? 2ª) Qual é o estatuto que assume a enunciação no escopo da AD nesse período? Para tanto, procede a um exame de textos do filósofo francês publicados entre 1969 e 1975, a fim de investigar a problematização da enunciação nesses escritos. A análise do corpus teórico permite dele derivar diversas noções (...) de enunciação, as quais revelam em seu conjunto um estatuto epistemológico e um estatuto teórico-metodológico da enunciação no estabelecimento das bases fundantes da AD. ABSTRACT The current study aims to answer the following questions: 1) What notions of enunciation can be derived from Michel Pêcheux’s discursive reflection in the early years of his production? 2) What is the status assumed by enunciation in the scope of DA in this period? For this purpose, an examination into the French philosopher’s texts published from 1969 to 1975 is made in order to investigate the problem of enunciation in these writings. The analysis of the theoretical corpus allows the examination of several notions of enunciation, which as a whole reveal an epistemological status and a theoretical-methodological status of enunciation in the establishment of the Pecheutian DA founding bases. (shrink)

Denommer, c'est appeler les etres et les choses par le nom qui leur a ete institue dans et par la langue. Assurant l'intercomprehension entre les locuteurs, la denomination constitue une propriete fondamentale du lexique et des terminologies. Si epistemologiquement, la denomination fait partie integrante des appareils conceptuel et methodologique de la Linguistique et de la Terminologie, dans l'une et l'autre discipline elle connait une situation paradoxale. D'une part elle souffre d'un deficit important de conceptualisation; de l'autre elle se revele etre (...) un puissant moteur pour la description semantique et referentielle du lexique et des terminologies. L'objet du present ouvrage est de proposer un reexamen systematique et explicite de cette notion et de lui assurer un positionnement valide dans l'appareil theorique de la Linguistique. Refusant une caracterisation monolithique, l'analyse opte pour une conception modulaire, articulee sur les differents parametres combinables et superposables qui definissent cette propriete: ontologiques, sociolinguistiques, juridiques et linguistiques. L'objectif de ce travail est egalement heuristique: envisager la denomination comme un levier en vue du reexamen du concept de polysemie, qui lui est consubstantiellement lie. Appliquee aux modeles categoriels et non categoriels, la denomination permet de distinguer entre emplois relevant effectivement d'une polysemie lexicale de ceux procedant d'effet impartis aux instanciations de vocables. (shrink)

La philosophie cartésienne, en dépit des efforts souvent tentés pour l'exposer suivant une dialectique unilinéaire, n'est point à strictement parler, un système. On la nommerait assez bien, un pluralisme, en ce sens que son contenu ne se laisse ni dériver d'un seul principe ni enfermer dans une seule formule. Pluralisme cohérent, faudrait-il ajouter : non seulement parce que les oppositions qui s'y révèlent ne sont pas (quoi qu'on en ait dit) de formelles contradictions, mais surtout parce que chacun des termes (...) opposés n'y a été admis qu'en vertu d'une même attitude d'esprit, la docilité à l'évidence. Se plier en toutes choses à ce qu'on voit ; l'enregistrer comme on le voit, à quelque ordre qu'il appartienne, sans y rien mêler de sa sensibilité propre : voilà l'attitude cartésienne, telle qu'elle se manifeste dans la théorie de la méthode, comme aussi dans le Cogito et dans les démarches qui en procèdent. C'est l'attitude empirique, au sens premier et authentique du mot : ceux-là seuls répugnent à en convenir que des associations invétérées conduisent toujours à confondre empirique et sensualiste. En sorte que, si nous voulons à toute force caractériser la philosophie de Descartes par un nom, le nom qui lui siérait le mieux serait, tout paradoxe à part, celui d'empirisme - empirisme radical et intégral. (shrink)

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE has been taken to be central to Avicenna’s metaphysics and ontology of being. Due to the influence that this distinction had on Thomism, and to a lesser extent on Maimonides’s work, some Medievalists and Orientalists took Avicenna’s distinction between essence and existence to be characterized by essentialism. A.-M. Goichon’s books Léxique de la Langue Philosophique d’Ibn Sina, Vocabulaires Comparés d’Aristote et d’Ibn Sina, and La Philosophie d’Avicenne et son Influence en Europe all offer a (...) great contribution to the translation and understanding of Avicenna’s works. However the interpretive reception of Goichon’s works has had a strong influence on subsequent Medievalists as well as Orientalist scholars. This impact on scholars, along with the stress on Avicenna’s influence on Thomism, has led in some instances to an exaggerated stress on the centrality of the essence/ existence distinction in Avicenna’s metaphysics. This state of affairs has eventually overshadowed other important aspects of Avicenna’s ontology of being and of his metaphysical and logical analysis of being in terms of the modalities of necessity, contingency, and impossibility. The examination of Avicenna’s metaphysics under the spell of all of these factors leads to an intellectually discomforting position that construes his ontology as essentialism. Consequently this leads to the interpretation of his work as being that of a metaphysician who subordinates existence to essence. Such interpretation has been even adopted by experts on Avicenna’s work within the Western scholarship as well as among some Arabists. For instance, some scholars stress that Averroes and Mulla Sadra are the metaphysicians of existence, while taking Avicenna to be the metaphysician of essence. John Caputo, a leading interpreter of Heidegger’s thought, makes extensive references to the work of the Thomist scholar Étienne Gilson in the context of examining Aquinas’s adoption of the Avicennian distinction between essence and existence. Caputo’s discussion of the essence/existence distinction adopts the standpoint that Gilson reflects in the reading of Avicenna’s metaphysics as being the starting point of a longstanding essentialist tradition that culminates with Hegel’s Science of Logic. This line of argumentation already supplies Caputo with sufficient arguments that enable him readily to stamp Avicenna’s metaphysics with Heidegger’s critique of the metaphysical tradition. Caputo based himself on what the Thomist scholar Gilson offers in this regard, particularly in taking Aquinas’s metaphysics to be the metaphysics of esse. Gilson’s position may itself be questioned on the ground that its interpretation of Avicenna has been pervaded by Thomist inclinations; this is the case, given that Gilson and other scholars construe Avicenna’s metaphysics as being essentially the metaphysics of essence. Based on this, Caputo accepts the claim that Avicenna’s ontology is essentialist. Such readings lead to the conclusion that Avicenna subordinates existence to essence and consequently that his ontology is characterized by what Heidegger takes to be a mark of the oblivion of being. The question that ought to be raised in this regard is whether the position of secondary scholarly sources is accurate. This is the case, given that some of the scholars, who propagate the claim that Avicenna is an essentialist, are after all scholars who have not consulted or studied the primary sources. Rather, they primarily rely on secondary sources that mediate Avicenna’s metaphysics through the Thomist scholarship and Latin translations. This is clearly the case with Gilson’s consideration of Avicenna’s corpus, which is addressed from the standpoint of Latin renderings of Avicenna’s texts rather than consulting the original Arabic or Persian texts. Having said that, the issue becomes more complicated in the light of considering Arabist or Medievalist scholars who do consult the primary Arabic sources, yet still hold that Avicenna is an essentialist. Such scholars remain under the influence of earlier translations and interpretations that were offered by prominent Orientalist scholars, who addressed the essence/ existence distinction in the light of broad philosophical concerns with Medieval Latin and Jewish philosophy, or by tracing the Aristotelian and Peripatetic influences on Islamic and Arabic philosophy. Some scholars like Gilson might even go further in terms of considering the works of Avicenna and Averroes from the standpoint of mapping out the doctrinal quarrels between Scotism and Thomism. The Medievalists who consult primary sources, yet who are still under the spell of earlier Orientalist views, do not attempt to review some of their positions by going back to a closer examination of the texts and to a questioning reception of dominant translations and interpretations. There is a hermeneutic need to return to the primary texts and to reexamine them in the light of new philosophical concerns. This return and reexamination are also needed in the light of questioning and adopting new methodological inclinations in translation and interpretation. This becomes a pressing issue given the seriousness of the philosophical consequences that might arise if we readily take Avicenna’s metaphysics to be characterized by essentialism. The examination of Avicenna’s ontology must account for the renderings of the terms mahiya, dhat, and wujud, be it in Latin, English, or French, or in terms of the Arabic/persian semantic, syntactic, and grammatical structure and derivation. The nuances of translation are determined by how these terms are philosophically used within the text and in the course of the development of Avicenna’s arguments. Such linguistic investigations would elucidate the philosophical interpretation of the essence/existence distinction in the light of addressing contemporary philosophical concerns, as these are attested with the consideration of Heidegger’s critique of classical ontology. (shrink)

Y a-t-il des Idées et peut-on démontrer qu’elles existent ? Parmi les protagonistes anciens de la controverse qui a opposé partisans et adversaires des Idées, Aristote mérite une attention toute particulière. De fait, si – au moment où Aristote intervient dans le débat autour de l’hypothèse des Idées – ce débat a déjà une histoire, c’est avec lui que cette histoire atteint une maturité qui est à la fois d’ordre doctrinal et doxographique. De fait, non seulement Aristote est le premier (...) à avoir défini certaines au moins des propriétés de ce qui est et se dit en commun de plusieurs, mais encore a-t-il pris soin d’inscrire ces définitions dans la continuité de l’héritage socratique dont il s’est explicitement revendiqué tout en dénonçant sa dérive aux mains des successeurs de Socrate. L’objectif principal du cycle de conférences a été d’étudier les objections qu’Aristote a formulées à l’encontre des partisans des Idées en prenant comme fil conducteur la notion de substance que sa discussion des Formes platoniciennes tantôt présuppose, tantôt mobilise explicitement. Pour ce faire, nous avons procédé à une lecture détaillée d’un certain nombre de documents, tirés aussi bien de ses écrits d’école que des vestiges de ses traités perdus, où Aristote rejette la notion d’un universel substantiel (autant dire, en l’occurrence, séparé) et s’efforce de mettre à mal les arguments que ses partisans avançaient pour prouver son existence. (shrink)

L’œuvre philosophique de Lambert a souvent été traitée comme un moment de l’histoire de la formation de la pensée kantienne et des antécédents de la Critique de la raison pure. C’est en méconnaître l’originalité. Les deux ouvrages à cet égard les plus importants, le Nouvel Organon (1764) et l’Architectonique (1771) ont été conçus originellement comme les parties complémentaires d’un même projet qui s’inscrit dans la longue histoire de l’union entre logique et métaphysique. L’architectonique est une doctrine des catégories : le (...) recensement des notions ou concepts simples permettant de penser un objet quelconque réalise, en en déplaçant le champ d’application, la visée d’universalité qui définissait la métaphysique générale ou philosophie première dans les ontologies wolffiennes. Ce n’est plus une doctrine de l’étant comme tel, mais une anatomie de l’entendement inspirée par Locke. Cependant le traitement des concepts simples ainsi obtenus revient à la méthode mathématique suivant l’exemple de Wolff, corrigé par un retour au modèle euclidien : il s’agit, somme toute, de procéder pour chaque concept simple comme Euclide l’a fait pour l’un d’entre eux, celui de l’espace. L’architectonique peut ainsi, par l’établissement des combinaisons et dérivations de ces concepts, livrer le plan systématique du tout de la connaissance. Ainsi, la singularité de Lambert trouve mieux sa place dans la lignée qui va de la Science Générale leibnizienne à la Doctrine de la science (Wissenschaftslehre) de Bolzano ; et on peut y voir aussi, comme Cassirer l’a proposé, une préfiguration de la théorie de l’objet (Gegenstandstheorie) de Meinong. (shrink)

The final term of postmodern philosophy and economics must be found in anthropology generated by the Christian logos of the cross, because only the cross maintains the human face of the victims of economics. The conclusion is demonstrated through merging of Epicurean philosophy with the political economy of Jean Baudrillard via the anthropology of desire developed by René Girard. Fusing together the first two viewpoints by means of the analytic power of the third provides the paradigm of an economic universe (...) constituted simultaneously by atomized humanity and chains of desire stretching from the poor world to the rich, transferring real material wealth to the latter. The simulacrum appears as true object of economics, but íf it is constituted by the swerve of desire, beginning with that extorted from the poor, then we derive a totalized postmodern Epicurean universe which is "sacred violence" entrapping poor and rich alike. /// O presente artigo pretende demonstrar que o termo último dafilosofia e da economia pós-moderna deve ser procurado na antropologia gerada pelo logos cristão da cruz, já que é apenas na cruz que se preserva o rosto humano das vítimas da economia. A conclusão é demonstrada através da confluência da filosofia epicurista com a economia política de Jean Baudrillard, confluência essa mediada pela antropologia do desejo desenvolvida por René Girard. Segundo o autor, fundindo os dois primeiros pontos de vista através do poder analítico do terceiro, encontraremos o paradigma de um universo económico constituido simultaneamente por uma humanidade atomizada e por cadeias desejantes que vão desde o mundo dos pobres até aos ricos, cadeias essas mediante as quais se procede à transferência de riqueza material para estes últimos. O simulacrum aparece como verdadeiro objecto da economia, mas na medida em que ele é constituído pela inflexão do desejo, a começar por aquilo que é extorquido aos pobres, o autor deriva um universo pósmoderno de feição epicurista cuja essência é a "violência sagrada" envolvente tanto dos pobres como dos ricos. (shrink)

Este trabajo ejemplifica brevemente los rasgos del nihilismo mediante la escena del loco descrita por Nietzsche en La Gaya Ciencia. Analiza la crisis de la personalidad histórica de los pueblos derivada del proceso de globalización, apoyándose en los tres niveles de la civilización distinguidos por Ricoeur en Tareas del Educador Político. Pone de manifiesto la interacción de innovación y tradición en la identidad de los individuos, las instituciones y los pueblos a partir de los conceptos ricoeurianos de identidad ídem e (...) ipse, desarrollados en Soi Meme comme en Autre. Procede, finalmente, al análisis de la identidad de la Universidad de Chile, e inspirándose en los conceptos antes expuestos y en procesos hermenéuticos presentes en la obra de filósofos tales como Kant y Habermas, aborda la posibilidad de una hermenéutica de los valores que han definido históricamente esa identidad, como contribución a la celebración del bicentenario de la instauración originaria de nuestra institucionalidad democrática. This work briefly exemplifies the characteristics of nihilism with the scene of the madman described by Nietzsche in The Gay Science. Supported by the three levels within civilization distinguished by Ricoeur in Tareas del Educador Político, analyzes the crisis of the historic personality of nations, derived from the globalization process. Starting from the concepts of idem and ipse identities, developed by Ricoeur in Soi Meme comme un Autre, the work shows the interaction of innovation and tradition in the identity of individuals, institutions and nations. Finally it examines the identity of the University of Chile and inspired by the concepts before mentioned and by the hermeneutic processes present in the work of philosophers such as Kant and Habermas, examines de possibility of a hermeneutic of the values that have historically defined that identity. (shrink)

La théorie marxiste de l'État souffre de l'ambiguïté fondamentale de la doctrine marxiste. C'est sur la question centrale de la « période de transition » et du « dépérissement » de l'État prolétarien que cette théorie révèle les apories d'une conception économiste des superstructures. Par une étude de certains textes classiques sur la question, nous tentons de démontrer que la dérive totalitaire des états socialistes procède tant de l'incapacité de poser le problème de la bureaucratisation de l'État que de la (...) croyance mythique en une extinction spontanée de l'État. Cette théorie reste aveugle aux conséquences d'une concentration étatique des pouvoirs qu'elle préconise néanmoins explicitement. Ainsi le marxisme en vient-il à combler la figure hégélienne d'un État représentant l'universalité.The Marxist theory of the State is afflicted by the fundamental ambiguity of the Marxist doctrine. It is in relation with the central question of the "transition period" and of the "witering away" of the proletarian State that this theory discloses the difficulties of an economic determinism of the superstructure. Through a study of some classical texts on this subject, we will try to demonstrate that the totalitarian drift of the Socialist States proceeds from the incapacity to set forth the problem of the bureaucratisation of the State as well as from a mythical belief in a spontaneous extinction of the State. This theory stays blind to the consequences of a concentration of powers in the State, although it advocates it explicitly. Marxism thus fulfils the Hegelian figure of a State representing universality. (shrink)

O autor analisa a crítica que fez Wittgenstein aos fundamentos de Matemática na dupla fase do seu pensamento lógico e filosófico. Começa por situá-lo em relação às 3 Escolas que discutiam sobre a fundamentação lógica da matemática: o logicismo, o intuicionismo e o formalismo. Na 1.a fase do Tractatus, vê-se que Wittgenstein é logicista. Mas é original porque não deriva a aritmética do cálculo de classes, como fazia Russell, mas do cálculo proposicional, que generaliza. Considera a matemática como um simples (...) "método lógico". Por isso define o Número como "expoente duma função proposicional"! Mas neste caso trata-se implicitamente, duma nova extensão analógica de princípios e conceitos da aritmética à lógica pura. Por exemplo: noções de número, operação, exponenciação, etc. E se Wittgenstein quer criar, por analogia, números lógicos (símbolos puros), então tem de fazer uma interpretação semântica para passar da lógica formal pura para a aritmética! Só admite o infinito potencial na matemática. Infere-se, pois, que na l.a fase do Tractatus, Wittgenstein, é nominalista e finista. Na 2a fase das Notas (PB ou Remarks) que são manuscritos e fotocópias, (entre 1927 e 1944) Wittgenstein foi variando de pensamento. Agora julga que a matemática se funda a si mesma, como autónoma de lógica pura. Descobre que para além dos "Símbolos" há relações para os "significados" e "usos". E a matemática pode ser teórica e aplicada aos cálculos das ciências. Mas pela sua crítica intuicionista rejeita o valor da teoria dos números irracionais de Dedekind, do teorema e processo da diagonal com que Cantor prova a teoria dos números transfinitos... Wittgenstein aborda ainda os célebres teoremas de Fermat e de Gödel, quando analisa as proposições indecidíveis dos Principia mathematica (de Russell-Whitehead). O autor mostra, no artigo, que Wittgenstein não tem razão na sua crítica pouco profunda ao conceito de número e suas generalizações. .. Na 2.a fase ele continua a ser finitista, mas agora é conceptualista. /// L'auteur analyse la critique que fit Wittgenstein aux fondements des Mathématiques dans la double phase de sa pensée logique et philosophique. Il commence par situer cette pensée en relation avec les trois écoles qui discutaient sur la fondation logique des mathématiques : le logicisme, l'intuitionisme et le formalisme. Dans la première phase du Tractatus, on voit que Wittgenstein est lo-giciste. Mais sa position est originale, parece qu'il ne dérive pas les mathématiques du calcul des classes, comme faisait Russell, mais du calcul propo-sitionnel, qu'il généralise. Il considère les mathématiques comme une simple "méthode logique". C'est pourquoi il définit le Nombre comme "exposant d'une fonction propositionnelle". Mais en ce cas il s'agit implicitement d'une nouvelle extension analogique de principes et de concepts de l'arithmétique à la logique pure. Par exemple : les notions de nombre, d'opération, d'opération exponentionelle etc. Et si Wittgenstein veut créer, par analogie, des nombres logiques (symboles pures), il doit alors faire une interprétation sémantique pour passer de la logique formelle pure aux mathématiques! Il n'admet que l'infini potentiel en mathématiques. Il s'ensuit alors que dans la première phase du Tractatus Wittgenstein est nominaliste et finitiste. Dans la seconde phase des Notes Philosophische Bemerkungen ou Remarks1 qui sont des manuscrits et photocopies (entre 1927 et 1944), Wittgenstein diversifia sa pensée. Il pense alors que les mathématiques se fondent elles-mêmes, de façon autonome par rapport à la logique pure. Il découvre que au-delà des "Symboles" il y a des relations pour les "sens" et les "usages". Et les mathématiques peuvent être théoriques et appliquées aux calculs des sciences. Mais par sa critique intutiuniste, il rejette la valeur de la théorie des nombres irrationnels de Dedekind, du théorème et du procédé de la diagonale par lesquels Cantor prouve la théorie des nombres transfinis. Wittgenstein aborde encore les célèbres théorèmes de Fermât et de Gô-del quand il analyse les propositions indécidables des Principia Mathematica (de Russell – Whitehead). L'auteur montre dans l'article que Wittgenstein n'a pas raison dans sa critique peu profonde au concept de nombre et ses généralisations... Dans la seconde phase, il continue à être finitiste, mais à présent il est conceptualiste. /// The author examines Wittgenstein's criticism of the foundations of mathematics in the two phases of his logical and philosophical thought. He begins by situating it in relation to the three schools which discussed the logical foundations of mathematics: logicism, intuicionism, and formalism. In the first phase of the Tractatus, we can see Wittgenstein as a logicist. His originality resides in his not deriving arithmetic from the calculus of classes, as did Russell, but from propositional calculus that he generalizes. Wittgenstein considers mathemathics as a simple "logical method". This is why he defines "number" as a "exponent of a propositional function". But in this case it is implicitly a matter of a new analogical extension of arithmetical principles and concepts to pure logic. For example, the notions of number, operation, and exponentiation, etc And if Wittgensteinwishes to create by analogy logical numbers (pure symbols), then he has to effectuate a semantical interpretation to pass from pure formal logic to arithmetic! He only allows potencial infinity in mathematics. One can infer that in the Tractatus phase, Wittgenstein is nominalist and finitist. In the second phase of Remarks, manuscripts and copies, dating between 1927 and 1944, Wittgenstein changed his thinking. Now he believes that mathematics founds itself independently of pure logic. He discovers beyond "symbols" there are relations for "meanings" and "uses". And mathematics can be theoretical and applicable to the calculus of sciences. But by his intuitional criticism he can reject the value of the theory of irracional numbers of Dedekind, of the theorem and the process of the diagonal, with wich Cantor proves the theory of transfinit numbers... Wittgenstein refers still the famous theorems of Fermat and Godel when he examines the indecidable propositions of the Prinvipia Mathemativa (of Russell-Whitehead). In this article the author shows that Wittgenstein is not correct in his not too profound criticism of the concept of numbers and its generalizations. In the second phase, he continues to be finitist but now also conceptualist. (shrink)

A review of U. Mäki (ed.). Fact and Fiction in Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. pp. xvi 384. ISBN 0521 00957. As people interested mainly in theory, methodologists and philos...

Szabó follows Heim in viewing familiarity, rather than uniqueness, as the essence of the definite article, but attempts to derive both familiarity and uniqueness implications pragmatically, assigning a single semantic interpretation to both the definite and indefinite articles. I argue that if there is no semantic distinction between the articles, then there is no way to derive these differences between them pragmatically.

One controversy about the existence of so called evolutionary forces such as natural selection and random genetic drift concerns the sense in which such “forces” can be said to interact. In this paper I explain how natural selection and random drift can interact. In particular, I show how population-level probabilities can be derived from individual-level probabilities, and explain the sense in which natural selection and drift are embodied in these population-level probabilities. I argue that whatever causal character the individual-level probabilities (...) have is then shared by the population-level probabilities, and that natural selection and random drift then have that same causal character. Moreover, natural selection and drift can then be viewed as two aspects of probability distributions over frequencies in populations of organisms. My characterization of population-level probabilities is largely neutral about what interpretation of probability is required, allowing my approach to support various positions on biological probabilities, including those which give biological probabilities one or another sort of causal character. ‡This paper has benefited from feedback on and discussions of this and earlier work. I want to thank André Ariew, Matt Barker, Lindley Darden, Patrick Forber, Nancy Hall, Mohan Matthen, Samir Okasha, Jeremy Pober, Robert Richardson, Alex Rosenberg, Eric Seidel, Denis Walsh, and Bill Wimsatt. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham, HB 414A, 900 13th Street South, Birmingham, AL 35294-1260; e-mail: mabrams@uab.edu. (shrink)

Bell inequalities play a central role in the study of quantum nonlocality and entanglement, with many applications in quantum information. Despite the huge literature on Bell inequalities, it is not easy to find a clear conceptual answer to what a Bell inequality is, or a clear guiding principle as to how they may be derived. In this paper, we introduce a notion of logical Bell inequality which can be used to systematically derive testable inequalities for a very wide variety of (...) situations. There is a single clear conceptual principle, based on purely logical consistency conditions, which underlies our notion of logical Bell inequalities. We show that in a precise sense, all Bell inequalities can be taken to be of this form. Our approach is very general. It applies directly to any family of sets of commuting observables. Thus it covers not only the n-partite scenarios to which Bell inequalities are standardly applied, but also Kochen-Specker configurations, and many other examples. There is much current work on experimental tests for contextuality. Our approach directly yields, in a systematic fashion, testable inequalities for a very general notion of contextuality. There has been much work on obtaining proofs of Bell's theorem “without inequalities” or “without probabilities.” These proofs are seen as being in a sense more definitive and logically robust than the inequality-based proofs. On the hand, they lack the fault-tolerant aspect of inequalities. Our approach reconciles these aspects, and in fact shows how the logical robustness can be converted into systematic, general derivations of inequalities with provable violations. Moreover, the kind of strong non-locality or contextuality exhibited by the GHZ argument or by Kochen-Specker configurations can be shown to lead to maximal violations of the corresponding logical Bell inequalities. Thus the qualitative and the quantitative aspects are combined harmoniously. (shrink)

Some presuppositions are easier to cancel than others in embedded contexts. This contrast has been used as evidence for distinguishing two fundamentally different kinds of presuppositions, ‘soft’ and ‘hard’. ‘Soft’ presuppositions are usually assumed to arise in a pragmatic way, while ‘hard’ presuppositions are thought to be genuine semantic presuppositions. This paper argues against such a distinction and proposes to derive the difference in cancellation from inherent differences in how presupposition triggers interact with the context: their focus sensitivity, anaphoricity, and (...) question–answer congruence properties. The paper also aims to derive the presuppositions of additive particles such as too, also, again, and of it-clefts. (shrink)

This present study aims at exploring the meaning of the building of Santa Maria de Fatima Catholic Church (abbreviated as: SMFCC) or Toasebio Parish located in District Glodok, Jakarta, Indonesia. The author exposes in advance the meaning of the physical elements of the building SMFCC as understood by history writers and building experts. These meanings are not inseparable from the elements of human activities in the building. Through qualitative methods and literature review, the author describes in the Results section, how (...) those meanings can be further interpreted through the existing studies and expressions of the SMFCC Parish Head. It is found that these meanings are contested − from the direction of religious faith and of culture − but complete our understandings of the church which is well-known as an Indonesian cultural heritage and dominated by Chinese and pastors from Europe. (shrink)

In our recent book (Abraham and Roy 2010) we have repurposed a mathematical model for the quantum vacuum as a model of consciousness. In this model, discrete space and time are derived from a discrete cellular dynamical network. As our model is essentially atomistic, we included in our book a short support chapter on atomism. In this aticle we expand on the few pages of that chapter devoted to the history of atomism, to place the current revival of atomism in (...) a larger context. (shrink)

That brings me to the crux of my disagreement with Hillis Miller. The central contention is not simply that I am sometimes, or always, wrong in my interpretation, but instead that I—like other traditional historians—can never be right in my interpretation. For Miller assents to Nietzsche's challenge of "the concept of 'rightness' in interpretation," and to Nietzsche's assertion that "the same text authorizes innumerable interpretations : there is no 'correct' interpretation."1 Nietzsche's views of interpretation, as Miller says, are relevant to (...) the recent deconstructive theorists, including Jacques Derrida and himself, who have "reinterpreted Nietzsche" or have written "directly or indirectly under his aegis." He goes on to quote a number of statements from Nietzsche's The Will to Power to the effect, as Miller puts it, "that reading is never the objective identifying of a sense but the importation of meaning into a text which had no meaning 'in itself.'" For example: "Ultimately, man finds in things nothing but what he himself has imported into them." "In fact interpretation is itself a means of becoming master of something."2 On the face of it, such sweeping deconstructive claims might suggest those of Lewis Carroll's linguistic philosopher, who asserted that meaning is imported into a text by the interpreter's will to power: "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things.""The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all." But of course I don't believe that such deconstructive claims are, in Humpty Dumpty fashion, simply dogmatic assertions. Instead, they are conclusions which are derived from particular linguistic premises. I want, in the time remaining, to present what I make out to be the elected linguistic premises, first of Jacques Derrida, then of Hillis Miller, in the confidence that if I misinterpret these theories, my errors will soon be challenged and corrected. Let me eliminate suspense by saying at the beginning that I don't think that their radically skeptical conclusions from these premises are wrong. On the contrary, I believe that their conclusions are right—in fact, they are infallibly right, and that's where the trouble lies. · 1. "Tradition and Difference," Diacritics 2 : 8, 12.· 2. Ibid. M. H. Abrams’s contributions to Critical Inquiry include "Rationality and Imagination in Cultural History: A Reply to Wayne Booth" and "Behaviorism and Deconstruction: A Comment on Morse Peckham's 'The Infinitude of Pluralism'". (shrink)

This essay explores the current and historical meaning of forgiveness in Arab and Islamic cultural and religious contexts. It also hopes to encourage further empirical research on this understudied topic in both religious and peacebuilding studies. In addition to the perceived meaning of forgiveness in an Arab Islamic context, this essay examines the links between forgiveness and reconciliation. Relying on religious sources including the Qur'an and Hadith, as well as certain events in Islamic history, the essay identifies various ways to (...) conceptualize and explain the meaning of forgiveness. This theoretical and conceptual segment is followed by a section which explores current perceptions of forgiveness among Arab Muslim teachers in five different communities. The empirical data for this analysis is based on a larger comparative regional study that has been completed through surveys and structured interviews with educators from Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Palestinians from the West Bank and Israel. Our study concluded that the teachers' perceptions of forgiveness were mainly derived from religious sources and identities and that Islamic religious discourse provided a solid foundation for framing the meaning of forgiveness. (shrink)

This paper traces the application of information theory to philosophical problems of mind and meaning from the earliest days of the creation of the mathematical theory of communication. The use of information theory to understand purposive behavior, learning, pattern recognition, and more marked the beginning of the naturalization of mind and meaning. From the inception of information theory, Wiener, Turing, and others began trying to show how to make a mind from informational and computational materials. Over the last 50 years, (...) many philosophers saw different aspects of the naturalization of the mind, though few saw at once all of the pieces of the puzzle that we now know. Starting with Norbert Wiener himself, philosophers and information theorists used concepts from information theory to understand cognition. This paper provides a window on the historical sequence of contributions made to the overall project of naturalizing the mind by philosophers from Shannon, Wiener, and MacKay, to Dennett, Sayre, Dretske, Fodor, and Perry, among others. At some time between 1928 and 1948, American engineers and mathematicians began to talk about `Theory of Information' and `Information Theory,' understanding by these terms approximately and vaguely a theory for which Hartley's `amount of information' is a basic concept. I have been unable to find out when and by whom these names were first used. Hartley himself does not use them nor does he employ the term `Theory of Transmission of Information,' from which the two other shorter terms presumably were derived. It seems that Norbert Wiener and Claude Shannon were using them in the Mid-Forties. (shrink)

The unified framework for addiction (UFA) formulated by Redish et al. is a tour de force. It uniquely predicts that there should be multiple addiction syndromes and pathways – a diversity that would reflect the complexity of the mammalian brain decision system. Here I explore some of the evolutionary and developmental ramifications of UFA and derive several new avenues for research.

The close kinship between humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans is a central theme among participants in the debate about human treatment of the other apes. Empathy is probably the single most important determinant of actual human moral behavior, including the treatment of nonhuman animals. Given the applied nature of questions about the treatment of captive apes, it is entirely appropriate that the close relationship between us should be highlighted. But the role that relatedness should play in ethical theory is less (...) clear. To the extent that legal and regulatory challenges to keeping apes in captivity are likely to be based on principles of theory, it is important to understand what roles evolutionary theory can play in deriving such principles. The development of ethically correct policies for captivity of animals will depend on taking into account both species-specific and individual differences in the ways that individuals perceive and conceptualize the spaces in which they live, and the choices with which they are presented. A fully evolutionary approach to cognition, a cognitive ethology, that is not just limited to the great apes or to primates is the best hope we have for understanding such perceptions and conceptions. (shrink)

Après avoir montré brièvement la place et le rôle de l'énigme en culture littéraire, cet article s'attache à montrer les procédés littéraires à l'oeuvre dans l'analyse augustinienne de deux grandes énigmes : l'homme-individu, l'homme-société. L'énigme qu'Augustin trouve au fond de l'homme, c'est d'abord une controversia , conflit qui le conduit à postuler la présence de ce qu'on appelle aujourd'hui l'inconscient ; mais ici l'herméneutique est menée avec des concepts littéraires et non médico-biologiques. D'autre part, les rapports sociaux de l'homme ne (...) sont pas analysés en termes de production, ni de pouvoir politique, mais plutôt en référence aux mythologies religieuses, c'est-à-dire en fonction de l'interprétation du Livre. Loin d'être économico-politique, le déchiffrage repose sur la manière dont Romains, Juifs, chrétiens, manichéens, donatistes lisent les signes de l'Ecriture. L'article s'achève enfin sur une brève description de l'épistémologie qui organise les lignes de force de cette herméneutique.After briefly showing the place and the role of the enigm in literary culture, this article goes on to show the literary procedures at work in the Augustinian analysis of two great enigmas : man-individual, man-society. The enigma which Augustin finds at the basis of man is first of all a controversia , a conflict which leads him to postulate the presence of what today is called the unconscious. But here hermeneutics is pursued with literary rather than with medico-biological concepts. Moreover, man's social relations are not analysed in terms of production, nor of political power, but with reference to religious mythologies, that is, as a function of the interpretation of the Book. Far from being an economic and political interpretation, the interpretation here is based on the way Romans, Jews, Christians, Manicheans, and Donatists read the signs of scripture. The article concludes with a short description of the epistemology which organizes the lines of force of this hermeneutic. (shrink)

EI tratamiento que hace Descartes deI ‘yo pienso-existo’, lejos de todo proceder inferencial, nos muestra la condición propia de un pensamiento que es “res cogitans”: mi ‘asistir a’ como condición originaria de la fuerza de realidad que soy. Así, el conocimiento que tengo de mí como pensamiento es prejudicativo: no necesita afirmación alguna, sino que expresa prevolitivamente el ser-siendo, o acto, que soy como pensamiento, y que no se extiende a mi cuerpo. The treatment Deseartes does of ‘I think - (...) I exist’ far from any inference, shows the conditioning which is proper of a “res cogitans” thought: my ‘attendance to’ as the originary conditioning of the strength of reality which I am. Thus, the Knowledge I have of myself as thought is prejudicative: it needs no affirmation but it expresses prevolitionally the ‘to be-being’, or act, that I am as thought and which does not extend to my body. (shrink)

Nonsense‐mediated RNA decay (NMD) is an evolutionary conserved system of RNA surveillance that detects and degrades RNA transcripts containing nonsense mutations. Given that these mutations arise at a relatively low frequency, are there any as yet unknown substrates of NMD in a wild‐type cell? With this question in mind, Mendell et al.1 have used a microarray assay to identify those human genes under NMD regulation. Their results show that, in human cells, NMD regulates hundreds of physiologic transcripts and not just (...) those containing nonsense mutations. Among the NMD targets are a number of non‐functional RNAs expressed from vestigial sequences derived from retroviral and transposable elements. These findings support the notion that NMD is a high profile post‐transcriptional mechanism micromanaging the activity of multiple gene batteries and suppressing the expression of genetic remnants. BioEssays 27:463–466, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Officially, for Kant, judgments are analytic iff the predicate is "contained in" the subject. I defend the containment definition against the common charge of obscurity, and argue that arithmetic cannot be analytic, in the resulting sense. My account deploys two traditional logical notions: logical division and concept hierarchies. Division separates a genus concept into exclusive, exhaustive species. Repeated divisions generate a hierarchy, in which lower species are derived from their genus, by adding differentia(e). Hierarchies afford a straightforward sense of containment: (...) genera are contained in the species formed from them. Kant's thesis then amounts to the claim that no concept hierarchy conforming to division rules can express truths like '7+5=12.' Kant is correct. Operation concepts ( ) bear two relations to number concepts: and are inputs, is output. To capture both relations, hierarchies must posit overlaps between concepts that violate the exclusion rule. Thus, such truths are synthetic. (shrink)

As part of the ongoing attempt to fully naturalize the concept of human being--and, more specifically, to re-center it around the notion of agency--this essay discusses an approach to defining the content of representations in terms ultimately derived from their central, evolved function of providing guidance for action. This 'guidance theory' of representation is discussed in the context of, and evaluated with respect to, two other biologically inspired theories of representation: Dan Lloyd's dialectical theory of representation and Ruth Millikan's biosemantics.

Newell proposed that cognitive theories be developed in an effort to satisfy multiple criteria and to avoid theoretical myopia. He provided two overlapping lists of 13 criteria that the human cognitive architecture would have to satisfy in order to be functional. We have distilled these into 12 criteria: flexible behavior, real-time performance, adaptive behavior, vast knowledge base, dynamic behavior, knowledge integration, natural language, learning, development, evolution, and brain realization. There would be greater theoretical progress if we evaluated theories by a (...) broad set of criteria such as these and attended to the weaknesses such evaluations revealed. To illustrate how theories can be evaluated we apply these criteria to both classical connectionism and the ACT-R theory. The strengths of classical connectionism on this test derive from its intense effort in addressing empirical phenomena in such domains as language and cognitive development. Its weaknesses derive from its failure to acknowledge a symbolic level to thought. In contrast, ACT-R includes both symbolic and subsymbolic components. The strengths of the ACT-R theory derive from its tight integration of the symbolic component with the subsymbolic component. Its weaknesses largely derive from its failure, as yet, to adequately engage in intensive analyses of issues related to certain criteria on Newell's list. Key Words: cognitive architecture; connectionism; hybrid systems; language; learning; symbolic systems. (shrink)

In promoting spontaneous orders – orders that evolve in a process of cultural evolution – as “efficient,” “beneficial,” and “advantageous,” Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992) has often been attributed the belief that there is something desirable about them. For this reason, he has been accused of committing the naturalistic fallacy, that is, of trying to derive an “ought” from an “is.” It appears that Hayek was..

With the aid of a non-standard (but still first-order) cardinality quantifier and an extra-logical operator representing numerical abstraction, this paper presents a formalization of first-order arithmetic, in which numbers are abstracta of the equinumerosity relation, their properties derived from those of the cardinality quantifier and the abstraction operator.

I argue for a basically Sartrean approach to the idea that one's self-concept, and any form of knowledge of oneself as an individual subject, presupposes concepts and knowledge about other things. The necessity stems from a pre-conceptual structure which assures that original self-consciousness is identical with one's consciousness of objects themselves. It is not a distinct accomplishment merely dependent on the latter. The analysis extends the matter/form distinction to concepts. It also requires a distinction between two notions of consciousness: one (...) relates to the employment of already formed concepts, the other to the structures of imaginative apprehension that help to constitute (empirical) concepts from the start. We need to see that (1) so far as objects are only conceptualized appearances, the material through which we apprehend them must be reflected in that apprehension itself; (2) the corresponding material consists of a manifold of pre-conceptually active anticipations and retentions concerning the course of one's own experience. The resultant structure imposes an orientation on the world of appearances that does not derive from a concept of oneself as an individual in it, but that nevertheless provides the only possible basis for such a concept. One's self-concept, at least as empirical subject, is simply that ofwhatever subject is indicated, in an appropriate way, by that orientation. (shrink)

The title of this book is derived from a graduate course in which Professor Egon Orowan presented to M.I.T. students a clear and simple picture of the basic concepts in crystal plasticity and the mechanics of fracture of materials. Since the publication of his pioneering papers on dislocations and atomic mechanisms of fracture in the early 1930's,Professor Orowan has been one of the principal contributors to the field of physics of plasticity and strength. During the past 10 to 15 years, (...) the perfection of many direct experimental methods has caused a great increase of activity in the elucidation of the effects of dislocations on mechanical and physical properties. Equally intensive activity is taking place in the field of physics and mechanics of fracture processes. Professor Ali Argon felt that the retirement of Professor Orowan from the M.I.T. faculty was an appropriate occasion to take stock of the developments in the immediate past and to produce a needed synthesis of this technologically important field. For this purpose he invited 37 of the world's leading figures in the field to contribute theoretical papers of original work. The 17 papers on the Physics of Plasticity fall into two categories: Individual Dislocations and Basic Deformation Mechanisms, and Hardening Mechanisms and Dislocation Dynamics. The 10 papers on the Physics of Strength concentrate on Cracks and Fracture, and Geology. (shrink)

Résumé Dans quelle mesure la Logique de Port-Royal peut-elle être considérée comme une logique cartésienne? Et dans quelle mesure l’ Art de penser diffère-t-il des logiques antérieures? Telles sont les deux questions, étroitement liées l’une à l’autre, auxquelles je souhaite répondre dans cette étude en procédant à une série de comparaisons, d’une part avec ce que Descartes appelait sa logique, d’autre part avec ce que les cartésiens de la première génération entendaient par logique cartésienne, et pour finir avec l'évolution de (...) la logique scolastique au cours du XVII e siècle. Je conclus que la logique élaborée par les cartésiens est simplement venue confirmer certains des développements de la logique scolastique au XVII e siècle. La Logique de Port-Royal qui, pour les cartésiens de la fin du XVII e siècle, représente par excellence la logique cartésienne, a également bien des traits en commun avec une logique néo-scolastique. (shrink)

The habit of separating the intuitive from the abstractive functions, as they were called in the Middle Ages, goes far back in our tradition. Descartes, in the sixth Meditation, defined man as "a thing that thinks," to which reasoning came naturally; whereas imagining, the activity of the senses, required a special effort and was in no way necessary to the human nature or essence. The passive ability to receive images of sensory things, said Descartes, would be useless if there did (...) not exist in the mind a further and higher active faculty capable of shaping these images and of correcting the errors that derive from sensory experience. A century later Leibnitz spoke of two levels of clear cognition.1 Reasoning was cognition of the higher degree: it was distinct, that is, it could analyze things into their components. Sensory experience, on the other hand, was cognition of the lower order: it also could be clear but it was confused, in the original Latin sense of the term; that is, all elements fused and mingled together in an indivisible whole. Thus artists, who rely on this inferior faculty, are good judges of works of art but when asked what is wrong with a particular piece that displeases them can only reply that it lacks nescio quid, a certain "I don't know what." · 1. Leibnitz, Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain , bk. 2, chap. 29. Rudolf Arnheim is the author of Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, Toward a Psychology of Art, The Dynamics of Architectural Form, and Visual Thinking. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are "On the Nature of Photography" and "A Stricture on Space and Time". (shrink)

Applied analytical political philosophy has not been a thriving enterprise in the United States in recent years. Certainly it has made little discernible impact on public culture. Political philosophers absorb topics and ideas from the Zeitgeist, but it shows little inclination to return the favor. After the publication of his monumental work A Theory of Justice back in 1971, John Rawls became a deservedly famous intellectual, but who has ever heard political critics or commentators refer to the difference principle or (...) fair equality of opportunity in discussions aimed at a wide audience? Writing philosophically astute and beautifully accessible prose, often in not strictly academic journals of opinion, Ronald Dworkin has been in some ways the very model of a public intellectual, but the only reference to his opinions that I have seen in any newspaper occurred in a New York Times review of a restaurant near London along the Thames (as I recall, Dworkin was quoted as saying it was at the very least the best restaurant in the northern hemisphere). You might chalk up the situation to the fact that political philosophers tend to be liberal and the public political culture in the United States has been growing decidedly conservative, but that mismatch can hardly be the whole story. Right-wing libertarianism is a popular doctrine, but Robert Nozick’s classical and never superseded 1974 exploration of that view in his brilliant Anarchy, State, and Utopia is not cited. Nor is there a significant literature that seeks to derive practical policy recommendations from Nozick’s theory and relevant factual claims. Moreover, the isolation of political philosophy stands in marked contrast to the wide influence of theory in some disciplines. For example, consider the enormous germinating impact of Richard Posner’s ideas on law and economics over the past thirty years on academic and extra-academic American legal culture. (shrink)

In a previous paper a stochastic foundation was proposed for microphysics: the nonrelativistic and relativistic domains were shown to be connected with two different approximations of diffusion theory; the relativistic features (Lorentz contraction for the coordinate standard deviation, covariant diffusion equation) were not derived from the relativistic formalism introduced at the start, but emerged from diffusion theory itself. In the present paper these results are given a new presentation, which aims at elucidating not the foundations of quantum mechanics, but those (...) of relativity. This leads to a discussion of points still controversial in the interpretation of relativity. In particular two problems appear in a new light: the character of time and length alterations, and the privileged role of the velocityc. Besides, the question of a possible limitation of relativity (and more generally of the laws of mechanics) in the domain of particle substructure is raised and supported by exemples drawn from the hydrodynamical model of a spinned particle. Suggestions are presented for the possibility of a deeper conceptual unification of special and general relativity. (shrink)

The repugnant conclusion can be formulated as follows: For any population consisting of people with very high positive welfare, there is a better population in which everyone has a very low positive welfare, other things being equal. As the name indicates, this conclusion appears unacceptable. Yet it has proven to be surprisingly difficult to find a theory that avoids it without implying other very counterintuitive conclusions. Moreover, the conclusion is a problem not just for total utilitarians or those committed to (...) welfarism but for all moral theories according to which welfare matters at least when all other things are equal, which arguably is a minimal adequacy condition for any moral theory. And, not the least, how to deal with it has implications for the present generations’ duties to future generations and intergenerational justice. The question as to how the repugnant conclusion should be dealt with has thus become one of the cardinal challenges of modern ethics, and the inquiry into what it shows about the nature of ethics has opened up many new avenues for research. This chapter covers the different suggestions in the literature on how to do deal with the conclusion, both on the axiological and on the normative levels. Moreover, the conclusion and different ways of deriving it are explained in detail. (shrink)

In this paper I try to sort out a tangle of issues regarding time, inertia, proper time and the so-called “clock hypothesis” raised by Harvey Brown's discussion of them in his recent book, Physical Relativity. I attempt to clarify the connection between time and inertia, as well as the deficiencies in Newton's “derivation” of Corollary 5, by giving a group theoretic treatment original with J.-P. Provost. This shows how both the Galilei and Lorentz transformations may be derived from the relativity (...) principle on the basis of certain elementary assumptions regarding time. I then reflect on the implications of this derivation for understanding proper time and the clock hypothesis. (shrink)

Biobanking of patient-derived materials is routine in health care, research, and public health emergencies. Ethical guidelines for biobanking address concerns including some about genetic materials, informed consent, confidentiality, regulatory environments, and standards of governance. This chapter identifies some limitations of existing guidelines that were apparent to one author during an Ebola outbreak, and specifies five ethical concerns about biobanking that warrant additional attention: misconceptions about biobanking, unknown consequences for donors, socioeconomic inequities that compound vulnerabilities, lasting and proportional benefits in North-South (...) research, and contextual challenges to disclosure and understanding. These affect patients, donors, health systems, research, and policy, and are amplified during public health emergencies. (shrink)

The Enzymatic control reactions model was presented within the scope of fractional calculus. In order to accommodate the usual initial conditions, the fractional derivative used is in Caputo sense. The methodologies of the three analytical methods were used to derive approximate solution of the fractional nonlinear system of differential equations. Two methods use integral operator and the other one uses just an integral. Numerical results obtained exhibit biological behavior of real world problem.

This paper explains Viktor von Weizsäcker’s Gestaltkreis model as a reinterpretation of Jakob von Uexküll’s Funktionskreis. Also derived from the Funktionskreis is Thure von Uexküll’s Situationskreis model. Both Weizsäcker’s Gestaltkreis and Thure von Uexküll’s Situationskreis have evolved in the context of integrated medicine in Germany throughout the twentieth century. Focusing on the role of language in health and medicine, this paper addresses important concepts associated with the project of integrated medicine in Germany, especially the biographical approach practiced by Viktor von (...) Weizsäcker and developed by Thure von Uexküll through the concept of the biographical organ. While their efforts to reform the practice of medicine and the training of physicians were unsuccessful, recent research in the psychology of language and health and recommendations for more patient-centered communication resonate with the principles underlying Viktor von Weizsäcker’s and Thure von Uexküll’s integrated medicine. (shrink)