"Golf day 2005 @ federal golf club, red hill." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (196), pp. 7.

In this paper, a proposed modified stochastic fractal search algorithm is applied to find the most appropriate site and size of capacitor banks for distribution systems with 33, 69, and 85 buses. Two single-objective functions are considered to be reduction of power loss and reduction of total cost of energy loss and capacitor investment while satisfying limit of capacitors, limit of conductor, and power balance of the systems. MSFS was developed by performing three new mechanisms including new diffusion mechanism and (...) two new update mechanisms on the conventional stochastic fractal search algorithm. As a result, MSFS can reduce 0.002%, 0.003%, and 0.18% of the total power loss from SFS for the three study systems. As compared to other methods, MSFS can reduce power loss from 0.07% to 3.98% for the first system, from 3.7% to 7.3% for the second system, and from 0.92% to 6.98% for the third system. For the reduction of total cost, the improvement level of the proposed method over SFS and two other methods is more significant. It is 0.03%, 1.22%, and 5.76% for the second system and 2.31%, 0.87%, and 3.77% for the third system. It is emphasized that the proposed method can find the global optimal solutions for all study cases while SFS was still implementing search process nearby or far away from the solutions. Furthermore, MSFS can converge to the best solutions much faster than these compared methods. Consequently, it can be concluded that the proposed method is very effective for finding the best location and size of added capacitors in distribution power systems. (shrink)

Eternalism, the view that what we regard locally as being located in the past, the present and the future equally exists, is the best ontological account of temporal existence in line with special and general relativity. However, special and general relativity are not fundamental theories and several research programs aim at finding a more fundamental theory of quantum gravity weaving together all we know from relativistic physics and quantum physics. Interestingly, some of these approaches assert that time is not (...) fundamental. If time is not fundamental, what does it entail for eternalism and the standard debate over existence in time? First, I will argue that the non-fundamentality of time to be found in string theory entails standard eternalism. Second, I will argue that the non-fundamentality of time to be found in loop quantum gravity entails atemporal eternalism, namely a novel position in the spirit of standard eternalism. (shrink)

Volume 21, Issue 1, July 2018, Page 93-95.

Elgin has argued that scientific models that are, strictly speaking, inaccurate representations of the world, are epistemically valuable because the “falsehoods” they contain are “felicitous”. Many, including Elgin herself, have interpreted this claim as offering an alternative to scientific realism and “veritism”. In this paper, I will argue that there is a more felicitous interpretation of Elgin’s work: “felicitous falsehoods” do play a role in the epistemic value of inaccurate models, but that role is of instrumental value. Elgin’s view is (...) not best understood as claiming that falsehoods provide scientific understanding in and of themselves, only that they facilitate epistemic access to the fundamental, even if partial, truths that are contained within models. While falsehoods may be felicitous in that they facilitate exemplification, the epistemic value of inaccurate models ultimately relies on their partial accuracy. (shrink)

We present a cognitive psychology experiment where participants were asked to select pairs of spatial directions that they considered to be the best example of Two different wind directions. Data are shown to violate the CHSH version of Bell’s inequality with the same magnitude as in typical Bell-test experiments with entangled spins. Wind directions thus appear to be conceptual entities connected through meaning, in human cognition, in a similar way as spins appear to be entangled in experiments conducted in (...) physics laboratories. This is the first part of a two-part article. In the second part we present a symmetrized version of the same experiment for which we provide a quantum modeling of the collected data in Hilbert space. (shrink)

While lawyers' independence initially developed as a way of protecting lawyers and their clients from the power of the state, it is now also associated with the protection of the public interest from lawyers who are too close to their clients. In this context independence is seen as a way of ensuring that lawyers act ethically, that is, with regard to their overriding duty to the court and the administration of justice rather than according to sectional, personal or economic interests. (...) It has been noted in various contexts that lawyers who work closely with powerful clients may be less able to withstand client pressure and uphold their obligations to the administration of justice. In-house lawyers are seen as particularly vulnerable due to their position within the client's organisational structure. On the other hand some have argued that the position of in-house lawyers gives them greater potential to exercise independent judgment and influence the ethical behaviour of their organisation. This paper argues that the concept of independence is multi-faceted with the essential aspect being the capacity for independent judgment or independence of mind. This is supported by status, power and structural protections. The paper goes on to critically consider the courts' interpretations of independence of in-house counsel in the context of claims of client legal privilege (also known as legal professional privilege). The paper argues that the judicial tests reveal a number of different approaches with limited connection to core concepts of independence. (shrink)

This anthology focuses on the extraordinary contributions Wittgenstein made to several areas in the philosophy of psychology - contributions that extend to psychology, psychiatry, sociology and anthropology. To bring them a richly-deserved attention from across the language barrier, Danièle Moyal-Sharrock has translated papers by eminent French Wittgensteinians. They here join ranks with more familiar renowned specialists on Wittgenstein's philosophical psychology. While revealing differences in approach and interests, this coming together of some of the best minds on the subject discloses (...) a surprising degree of consensus, and gives us the clearest picture yet of Wittgenstein as a philosopher of psychology. (shrink)

It so happens that classical physical theories can be interpreted as a representation of local interactions between systems with determinate properties. Orthodox quantum mechanics, which is one of our most experimentally well-confirmed theories, is notoriously resistant to being interpreted in terms of the above framework. Bell-type theorems and Bell-type experiments have made such an interpretation impossible. In the early sixties, John Bell demonstrated that any theory that represents its domain in terms of the above framework satisfies a set of inequalities, (...) the so-called Bell inequalities. Experiments on quantum phenomena violate Bell-type inequalities. By a simple modus tollens, the upshot is that no theory that includes all the elements of the above framework can recover all statistical predictions of quantum mechanics. Philosophers have been trying to interpret this result, that is, to understand what the world might be like if it is true that physical interactions between systems are non-local, or that physical systems do not possess determinate properties. This line of thought found its climax in program of Òexperimental metaphysicsÓ that developed after the violation of Bell-type inequalities was observed. Experimental metaphysics consists in deriving metaphysical conclusions from the Bell-type experimental results. The mainstream interpretation within experimental metaphysics is that Bell-type experiments force us to accept the existence of a form of non-locality at the ontological level, but a form that we can consider benign because it is of a non-causal type. In my dissertation, I assess to what extent philosophical investigation can help us decide what the world is like on the basis of our best physical theories, from the point of view of the quantum domain and with an emphasis on Bell-type phenomena. My conclusions point to a more modest view on the possible achievements of philosophy of physics than the experimental metaphysics program would have us believe. In the first part of my dissertation, I investigate what role philosophy of physics can legitimately hope to play in the development and evaluation of various accounts of quantum phenomena. I claim that it is not the role of philosophy of physics to impose criteria of acceptability on physical theories, in addition to coherence and empirical adequacy. By contrast, I take in my dissertation that the legitimate role of philosophy of physics is to clearly determine what is imposed by the phenomena and our best theories from what is a matter of preference on the basis of the structural analysis of the phenomena and theories. In the second part of my dissertation, I turn to the more specific case of the interpretation of Bell-type theorems and Bell-type phenomena. I undertake a systematic examination of the mainstream interpretation. I show that the mainstream interpretation includes three claims, one about locality, another one about causation and a last one about holism. I utilize theories of locality and causation in order to assess these three claims. On the one hand, the upshot of my analysis is that the claim about locality can be supported by a rigorous theory of locality. On the other hand, no theory of probabilistic causation can support the claims of the mainstream interpretation about causation when it is construed as a strong program of experimental metaphysics yielding conclusions about the ontology of the world. That said, weakened versions of the mainstream interpretation, those that do without conclusions about the ontology of the world, can be made compatible with some theories of probabilistic causation. In particular, the mainstream interpretation can be rigorously supported if its claims are restricted to the empirical level. (shrink)

Sensory substitution devices make use of one substituting modality to get access to environmental information normally accessed through another modality . Based on behavioural and neuroimaging data, some authors have claimed that using a vision-substituting device results in visual perception. Reviewing these data, we contend that this claim is untenable. We argue that the kind of information processed by a SSD is metamodal, so that it can be accessed through any sensory modality and that the phenomenology associated with the use (...) of a SSD is best described in terms of spatial phenomenology, only. (shrink)

It is plausible that the models of our scientific theories correspond to possibilities. But exactly which models of which scientific theories stand in this correspondence? The answers to this question hinted at so far in the literature are too restrictive: they don't support the idea that the models of many of our best scientific theories correspond to physical possibilities. The paper thus provides a novel proposal for guiding belief about physical possibilities based on physics. The proposal draws on the (...) notion of an effective theory: a theory that applies very well to a particular, restricted domain. We argue that it is the models of effective theories that we should believe correspond, at least in part, to physical possibilities. It is thus effective theories that should guide modal reasoning in science. (shrink)

Nowadays, the power systems are getting more and more complicated because of the delays introduced by the communication networks. The existence of the delays usually leads to the degradation and/or instability of power system performance. On account of this point, the traditional load frequency control approach for power system sketches a destabilizing impact and an unacceptable system performance. Therefore, this paper proposes a new LFC based on adaptive integral second-order sliding mode control approach for the large-scale power system with communication (...) delays. First, a new linear matrix inequality is derived to ensure the stability of whole power systems using Lyapunov stability theory. Second, an AISOSMC law is designed to ensure the finite time reachability of the system states. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time the AISOSMC is designed for LFC of the LSPSwCD. In addition, the report of testing results presents that the suggested LFC based on AISOSMC can not only decrease effectively the frequency variation but also make successfully less in mount of power oscillation/fluctuation in tie-line exchange. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Love and Christian Ethics: Tradition, Theory, and Society eds. by Frederick V. Simmons and Brian C. SorrelsMichael Le ChevallierLove and Christian Ethics: Tradition, Theory, and Society Edited by Frederick V. Simmons and Brian C. Sorrels WASHINGTON, DC: GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2016. 400 pp. $119.00 / $39.95Fredrick Simmons and Brian Sorrels present an impressive, cohesive volume of essays by twenty-two leading scholars who engage different facets of love and (...) theological ethics. although dedicated to gene outka—thus setting the broad theme and establishing his work as a privileged point of reference throughout the volume—Love and Christian Ethics should not be confused with a Festschrift. it accomplishes far more in intellectual diversity and depth, making a significant contribution to scholarship.The volume is organized into three sections: tradition, theory, and society. across the first section, the authors address love within major sources and figures, treating scripture, greek philosophy, augustine, aquinas, Kant, and Kierkegaard. Far from a textbook presentation, each essay marks out its own argument regarding the place of love in the respective subject. The second section is devoted to major theoretical questions raised within scholarship on love and ethics, addressing topics like the relation of eudaimonism to love (a running thread that emerges in the book), forgiveness, friendship, and evolution. The final section moves into the field of practice, application, and society, including an essay critically engaging implicit presentations of love found in the law, another treating love and international development, and one poignant essay by Mark D. Jordan calling for a moratorium on strong pronouncements in sexual ethics until ethicists can cultivate a loving knowledge of sex. This final section also includes reflections on love in the Jewish and Muslim traditions. Simmons's introduction and William Werpehowksi's afterword provide useful bookends. although no single thesis blandly governs this volume as a whole—incorporating complementary, divergent, and competing positions—in constructing this volume, Simmons and Sorrels argue that love is not eclipsed in Christian ethics but has a rich and variegated tradition. Werpehowski appraises [End Page 210] the volume as a whole, identifying key threads that emerge, like relations of love to eudaimonism and the theme of neighbor love.The volume is admirable in its breadth and depth. It offers a robust encounter with major figures and questions, providing historical recovery as well as critical and constructive engagement. That said, depth can work against breadth, with essays like Oliver O'Donovan's demanding a familiarity with Augustine Confessions that will send the reader back to his or her bookcases. Missing too are other notable figures and topics, such as the Protestant Reformers, Christian mystics, and feminist ethicists. Nevertheless, these gaps do not diminish the volume as a whole. I found myself again and again excited by the insights offered by the contributors, unsettling easy assumptions regarding the relation between eudaimonia and love, illustrating the depths of accounts of friendship for thinking about polity and mediating institutions, and cautioning against overconfidence in sexual ethics as its boundaries destabilize.Love and Christian Ethics would benefit scholars, teachers, and students alike. Its broad engagement with contemporary scholarship on love makes it a useful starting point for any researcher dipping or diving into this field. Introducing professors to key and sometimes obscured questions within figures and topics, it can round out lectures and help introduce students to the growing edge of scholarship on love. It would serve as a useful reference for any upper division or graduate course engaging with this significant, but often ignored, theme in Christian ethics.Rare is it to find a book that embodies the very theme it presents. These essays on love are a scholarly gift of the best sort—one not diminished but enhanced in its sharing.Michael Le ChevallierUniversity of ChicagoCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This paper applies a proposed modified stochastic fractal search algorithm (MSFS) for dealing with all constraints of optimal reactive power dispatch (ORPD) and finding optimal solutions for three different cases including power loss optimization, voltage deviation optimization, and L-index optimization. The proposed MSFS method is newly constructed in the paper by modifying three new solution update mechanisms on standard stochastic fractal search algorithm (SSFS). The first modification is to keep only one formula and abandon one formula in the diffusion process (...) while the second modification and the third modification are used in the first update and the second update. In two updates of SSFS, solutions with low quality are updated with high probability while other solutions with high quality do not get chances to be updated. This manner results in the fact that some promising solutions around the high quality solutions can be missed. In order to tackle this restriction, the second modification of MSFS is to newly update the worst solutions in the first update and the best solutions in the second update. In the third modification, all existing formulas of SSFS in the two updates are abandoned and the same new proposed technique is used for updating such solutions in two updates. Compared to SSFS, the three modifications can bring advantages to MSFS such as using smaller number of produced solutions per iteration, spending shorter execution time, finding better optimal solutions, and owning more stable search ability. Furthermore, the proposed method also sees its effectiveness and robustness over SSFS by testing on IEEE 30-bus system and IEEE 118-bus system with three different single objectives for each system. The proposed method can find less minimum, average, and maximum for all the cases in addition to faster search speed. Besides, the proposed method is also compared to other methods such as PSO-based method group, GA-based method group, DE-based method group, and other recent methods. Result comparisons also indicate that the proposed method can be more efficient than almost all these methods with respect to less minimum and smaller values of control parameters. As a result, evaluation of the performance of the proposed method is that it should be used for seeking solutions of ORPD problem. (shrink)

While humans are the best of creations and God’s caliphs on Earth, such a status is always hard to achieve and necessitates many efforts and too much practice. This world also has a two-way path, one terminating in the lowest of the low and the other culminating in the highest of the high. It means that one way leads to misfortune and misery and the other to happiness and perfection. To attain happiness, accountability can be of utmost importance. Besides, (...) the purpose of human creation is closeness to God by preferring the right path, which is not often possible unless they speak the truth and make the best use of the enlightening teachings of the revelation to spot the bad and good, becoming aware of their own duties and responsibilities and ultimately putting them into effect. This research aimed to investigate the mediating role of values in the relationship between accountability and trust among Muslim managers and employees in Islamic organisations, using a descriptive method through a field study. The statistical population included 2500 senior Muslim managers and employees of Iraqi government organisations, selected via simple random sampling. In this research, structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis was recruited for data analysis in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Analysis of a Moment Structures (AMOS). The study results demonstrated that accountability in Muslim managers and employees has a significant positive effect on trust (p = 0.45) and values (p = 0.81). Moreover, the findings revealed that values have a positive effect on reinforcing trust in Islamic organisations (p = 0.54), and above all bolster the relationship between accountability in managers and employees and organisational trust (p = 0.43).Contribution: The accountability of managers and employees can have a positive effect on individuals’ performance in organisations. In general, psychological pressures in organisations result in organisational transformation and then maintain values through trust-building. Such changes can be subsequently operationalized and have a profound impact on people’s behaviour by affecting work order and keeping them always growing, agile and diligent, in order to reach a new level of performance. (shrink)

Résumé L’objet de cet article est d’analyser les récits de bestialité qui se multiplient dans la littérature des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, dans les écrits juridiques, médicaux, polémiques et surtout dans les relations de voyages. Ces anecdotes qui mettent en scène des accouplements, voire des enfantements, entre hommes et bêtes, amènent à questionner les rapports troubles entre l’épistémè de la Renaissance et les savoirs ethnographiques acquis durant cette première époque coloniale, savoirs qui s’imprègnent parfois des récits mythologiques locaux. Inspirées par (...) une perspective anthropomorphique comme par le modèle de la fable, ces anecdotes zoophiles témoignent de la diversité des réflexions sur un possible interrègne, sur les zones de partage instables entre l’homme et l’animal, mais aussi sur la projection de stéréotypes animaliers sur des populations étrangères. (shrink)

The conference entitled ‘Best Practices in Clinical Ethics Consultation and Decision-Making’, held in London 8–9 July 2010, was the first of its kind dedicated to identifying best practices in clinical ethics consultation and decision-making. Academics, health and social care professionals, clinical ethics committee members, lawyers, service users and carers from the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia and Asia attended lectures, workshops, parallel paper sessions and clinical ethics case discussions across adult, maternity, children's, older persons, mental health and learning (...) disabilities settings. Seventy-eight best-practice points impacting on the quality of clinical ethics consultations and subsequent decisions were identified and grouped into eight themes: who tells the story; how the story is told; how the analysis, discussion and subsequent decisions are made; how values are weighted and balanced against one another; who decides; how the decision is made; how group dynamics and conflict are handled; how decisions are recorded. (shrink)

This book proposes a new model of professional ethics enabling lawyers to advise clients upon both the law and ethics. This will better protect clients, and society, and enhance lawyers' professional obligations. The current model of legal ethics, developed in the 19th century, specified that the role of lawyers was only to interpret the law, not also to give ethical advice. This was acceptable to lawyers, clients, and society at that time. However, this is not the case now and legal (...) ethics no longer reflects the needs of modern legal practice. This book draws on moral philosophy to present a new model of legal of ethics that explains the analytical process to include ethical advice. It analyses the potential harm of the present model to the legal profession who have duties to the law and justice that may compete with demands by clients to serve them. Further, lawyers' duty to clients to act in their best interests is sometimes not adequately fulfilled as legal ethics does not permit lawyers to give ethical advice even if it may be in clients' best interests to do so. The work includes a detailed case study of corporate law practice to show why a new legal ethics is required. Other case examples are provided to demonstrate that lawyers practicing in all areas of law encounter ethical issues and they too will benefit from a new legal ethics. The book will be essential reading for students, academics, lawyers and professional bodies. (shrink)

A few years ago, I found myself sitting next to a renowned Language poet at a poetry reading in a crowded downtown Manhattan venue. A longtime fan, I introduced myself and shared with him that I had just taught some of his infamously challenging poems in a poetry class at Tel Aviv University and that students were very responsive. When I mentioned that it was hard to get hold of some of his books but that we had found the poems (...) online, he told me how glad he was that, thanks to the internet, his work is accessible in Tel Aviv and everywhere else. Unable to resist the temptation to play language games with a Language poet, I responded by saying that his work was actually far from accessible. This pun/paradox seems to me to apply as well to the online archive UbuWeb—a “pirate library consisting of hundreds of thousands of freely downloadable avant-garde artifacts.” Founded in 1996, UbuWeb provides access to cultural artifacts in the form of video, text, and sound, works that are difficult to access not just because they are obscure, forgotten, unknown, rare, out of print, or otherwise hard to find, but because, as avant-garde, part of their operation involves, let us say, problematizing accessibility.UbuWeb's story is the subject of Duchamp Is My Lawyer, an accessible memoir/manifesto, deftly written by its founder and near-sole operator, the luminary conceptual artist Kenneth Goldsmith (“UbuWeb is mostly just me”). Its title, which Goldsmith takes from Virgil Abloh, raises at least two questions: Why does Ubu need a metaphorical lawyer, and why would Duchamp fill the bill? The first question has to do with the precarious legality of the website, which, as Goldsmith tells us in detail, almost never asks for permission from copyright holders, uploading materials first and dealing with consequences later. Much of the book deals with the maneuvering involved with “hiding in plain sight”—interpreting “fair use” broadly, and standing up to scary-sounding cease-and-desist letters that sometimes come from parties who are not even the actual rights holders of the material. Instead of playing the game of compliance, Ubu partakes in an anti-capitalist, free-for-all gift economy, never paying or asking for payment for the priceless treasures it houses. The democratic vision seeps into the selection and organization of the material on the website, which throughout the book Goldsmith describes as boundary-blurring, jumbled, unstable, biased, subjective, incomplete, fluid, idiosyncratic, and nonhierarchical.But again, why Duchamp? Ushering in an entire avant-garde tradition that Ubu celebrates, archives, and manifests in its own rebellious, outlaw spirit of operation, Duchamp, a hero in the book and, presumably, for its author, functions as both precedent and justification. After all, Ubu duplicates what Duchamp did in his most famous artistic intervention: the repurposing of found objects. In that sense, as Goldsmith writes, “UbuWeb can be considered one enormous appropriative artwork, a giant collage, which appropriates not a single object but rather the entire history of the avant-garde.” While the word entire is perhaps a stretch (and inconsistent with Goldsmith's many descriptions of the site's collection as inevitably partial and subjective), UbuWeb is best appreciated, I think, as a giant work of art made of works of art (some of which are themselves, in the tradition of “found art” and collage, made of works of art), a creative noncreation and akin to Goldsmith's own notion of “uncreative writing.” The radical accessibility it offers, from which so many users around the world continue to benefit, has thankfully not curtailed the equally radical inaccessibility of the material within. (shrink)

Whether dealing with contracts, tort actions, or government regulations, lawyers are more likely to be successful if they are conversant in economics. Economics for Lawyers provides the essential tools to understand the economic basis of law. Through rigorous analysis illustrated with simple graphs and a wide range of legal examples, Richard Ippolito focuses on a few key concepts and shows how they play out in numerous applications. There are everyday problems: What is the social cost of legislation enforcing below-market prices, (...) minimum wages, milk regulation, and noncompetitive pricing? Why are matinee movies cheaper than nighttime showings? And then there are broader questions: What is the patent system's role in the market for intellectual property rights? How does one think about externalities like airport noise? Is the free market, a regulated solution, or tort law the best way to deliver the "efficient amount of harm" in the workplace? What is the best approach to the question of economic compensation due to a person falsely imprisoned? Along the way, readers learn what economists mean when they talk about sorting, signaling, reputational assets, lemons markets, moral hazard, and adverse selection. They will learn a new vocabulary and a whole new way of thinking about the world they live in, and will be more productive in their professions. (shrink)

When a health care professional contacts a health care attorney for advice about how to deal with a medical error involving a patient, what is the most ethically appropriate response? Honesty is the best policy; the ethical health lawyer should advise the client to tell the patient the truth. This advice is neither naïve nor impractical, as we will show. More importantly, it is without question the right thing to do for a number of sound reasons. It may (...) not be a natural inclination or an easy task to accomplish; several countervailing factors discourage health professionals from telling patients the truth about medical errors. However, we will argue that resistance to truthful disclosure can and should be overcome by rational arguments that also take into consideration the psychodynamics of the patient-health professional relationship. (shrink)

Leibniz in Paris -- Philosophy on the Left Bank -- Le Grand Arnauld -- Theodicy -- The kingdoms of nature and grace -- Touch the mountains and they smoke -- The eternal truths -- The specter of Spinoza.

“There's a new whistleblower in Washington,” according to CNN News. He is Food and Drug Administration scientist David Graham, who claims that the FDA failed to warn the public about certain drugs' dangerous side effects and pressured him to change his research's conclusion that the arthritis drug Vioxx caused heart attacks. Another Washington whistleblower, Dr. Jonathan Fishbein of the National Institutes of Health, alleged that he was fired because “he had raised concerns about sloppy practices that might endanger patient safety” (...) in a study of the AIDS drug nevirapine.Graham and Fishbein thus joined the ranks of whistleblowers who have gained some prominence in recent years for their reporting of corporate or institutional misconduct. The best-known whistleblowers—the FBI's Coleen Rowley, Enron's Sherron Watkins, and WorldCom's Cynthia Cooper, who together received Time magazine's Whistleblower Person of the Year Award in 20024 - focused public attention on the reform of corporate accounting and legal practices. (shrink)

De nos jours, les avocats et les juristes chinois sont très friands d'Internet. Pourtant, leur utilisation de la Toile n'a pas encore été l'objet de recherches. Cet article veut apporter un regard nouveau sur le lien entre avocats, internautes et société civile chinoise. Les juristes ont trouvé en Internet, en particulier sur les blogs, un lieu d'information et d'échange où ils peuvent se dédier aux sujets qui les intéressent . Les multiples démarches qu'ils ont initiées au sein du Réseau ont (...) abouti à une mobilisation des moyens numériques, permettant de mieux communiquer et informer sur le système légal et judiciaire chinois. Leur utilisation d'Internet a-t-elle catalysé l'initiative personnelle des utilisateurs et mobilisé l'opinion publique ? Cet article s'attache à démontrer comment par le biais d'Internet les avocats ont pu être des acteurs du développement de la société civile et participer ainsi à l'émergence d'une « communauté de critères » relevant du droit.Nowadays, lawyers and jurists Chinese are very fond of the Internet. However, their use of the Internet has not yet been investigated. This article will provide a new perspective on the relationship between lawyers, surfers and Chinese civil society. Lawyers found in the Internet, especially on blogs, a place to exchange information and where they can devote themselves to topics that interest them . Multiple steps they have initiated within the network led to a mobilization digital means to better communicate and inform the Chinese legal and judicial system. Internet use did catalyzed users personal initiative and mobilized public opinion? This article aims to demonstrate how through Internet lawyers have been involved in development of civil society and thus contribute to the emergence of a "community standards" under the law. (shrink)

Cet article rend compte des modes d'utilisation et d'accès aux TIC au Japon, sous l'angle des controverses et des défis qui se présentent aux différentes générations. Pour les parents, il s'agit d'assurer un environnement informatique sans risque tout en aidant leurs enfants à découvrir des informations en ligne et à en tirer le meilleur parti. Quant aux adultes en général, les inégalités existantes déterminent la nature et les modes d'utilisation des TIC. En conclusion, l'article suggère qu'Internet présente non pas un (...) moyen d'expression transparent à une société civile pré-existante, mais soulève au contraire des problématiques classiques dans la société civile japonaise, ayant trait par exemple à l'égalité, à l'intégration et à la participation aux délibérations civiques.This article reports on usage patterns and access to ICTs in Japan, in terms of controversies and challenges that arise between generations. For parents, it is to ensure a safe computing environment while helping their children discover information online and get the best. For adults in general, existing inequalities determine the nature and patterns of use of ICT. In conclusion, the article suggests that the Internet has not a transparent medium of a pre-existing civil society, but instead raises issues in traditional Japanese civil society, for example in relation to equality, integration and civic participation in the deliberations. (shrink)

Leibniz in Paris -- Philosophy on the Left Bank -- Le Grand Arnauld -- Theodicy -- The kingdoms of nature and grace -- "Touch the mountains and they smoke" -- The eternal truths -- The specter of Spinoza.

Les théories post-colonialistes nous ont montré à quel point l'absence d'une reconnaissance de la valeur de certaines formes culturelles produit des effets nuisibles. Ces théories ignorent pourtant la nature asymétrique des relations régissant l'interaction entre des cultures mineures et des cultures majeures, c'est-à-dire entre les grandes et les petites nations. Par conséquent, la nécessité d'une politique de la reconnaissance spécifique aux petites nations privilégiées n'est pas reconnue. Afin d'établir ce point, j'examine quelques aspects de la production cinématographique danoise. J'essaie aussi (...) de montrer que les cinéastes appartenant à des petites nations privilégiées doivent adopter une stratégie précise de la reconnaissance.Influential postcolonial theories have successfully shown that the failure to recognize the value of certain cultural forms inflicts a form of harm. What these theories fail to note is that small, prosperous nations also require a politics of recognition as a result of the asymmetrical nature of relations governing major and minor cultures. To prove this point I consider aspects of contemporary Danish cinematic production. I attempt to identify the strategy for recognition that is best suited to filmmakers belonging to small, but prosperous nations. (shrink)

Les arguments avancés par les partisans du tout-à-l'anglais sont bien connus: il y aurait tout avantage à faire de l'anglais la panacée de la communication « universelle ». Ce serait à la fois la solution la plus simple , la plus économique , la plus accessible et la plus démocratique . Encore soutenable dans les années 1980, ce point de vue est de plus en plus remis en cause: le tout-à-l'anglais n'apparaît comme étant ni inévitable ni la meilleure des solutions. (...) L'évolution actuelle d'Internet, devenu massivement plurilingue, en est l'une des illustrations les plus frappantes.The arguments put forward by proponents of all-to-English are well known there any advantage to make English the panacea of ​​communication "universal". This is both the easiest solution , the most economical , the most accessible and the most democratic . Sustainable even in the 1980s, this view is increasingly challenged: the all-to-English appears as neither inevitable nor the best solution. The current evolution of the Internet, became massively multilingual, is one of the most striking illustrations. (shrink)

Michèle Le Doeuff's research interests include British Renaissance philosophy (especially the works of Francis Bacon and Thomas More) and the writings of Shakespeare. However, she is best known in Anglo‐American philosophy for her writings on the philosophical imaginary and feminism. Le Doeuff is a somewhat idiosyncratic figure in contemporary French philosophy. As Colin Gordon has remarked, her work “shows no systematic affiliation, no signs of a formative debt or repudiation” (translator's Preface, Le Doeuff 1989, p. vi). Le Doeuff does, (...) however, mention the work of Simone de beauvoir (see Article 22), Gaston Bachelard, Michel Foucault (Article 49) and Gilles deleuze (Article 51) as contributing to the development of her own philosophical stance. As we shall see, this issue of discipleship is pertinent to her appraisal of the historical situation of women in philosophy. She states “one is commonly asked whether one is a this man‐ian or a that manian … once one becomes a whoeverian, that is the end of philosophy and of the desire for intellectual independence which should also be a characteristic of feminism” (1991, pp. 59–60). (shrink)

Le texte juridique est des plus marqués culturellement. Le langage du droit reflète la complexité de la société qui l'a produit, dont les institutions et leur vocabulaire recèlent une culture parfois multimillénaire. Le traducteur doit relever le double défi que posent la langue et le droit, et reproduire fidèlement dans le texte d'arrivée le message de départ. Le transfert d'un texte de droit est une opération délicate présentant de nombreux risques. Inhérents à la langue, ils en marquent les limites. Le (...) résultat auquel parviendra le traducteur n'est au mieux qu'un « compromis raisonnable » entre les impératifs du droit et les servitudes de la langue. En s'efforçant d'amener l'auteur au lecteur, il tend vers une forme d'équivalence, dite fonctionnelle.The legal text is the most culturally defined. The language of the law reflects the complexity of the society that produced it, the institutions and culture sometimes contain vocabulary multimillénaire. The translator must address the dual challenges posed by language and law, and faithfully reproduce the text of the original message arrived. The transfer of a legal text is a delicate operation with many risks. Inherent in the language, they mark the boundaries. The result which will succeed the translator is at best a "reasonable compromise" between the demands of the law and rights of the language. Striving to bring the author to the reader, it tends towards a form of equivalence, called functional. (shrink)

In this late modern era within which the basic values of life have been reordered (driven by globalisation, the corporate agenda and mass communication technologies), the individual has effectively been reduced to a mere abstraction. It might be argued that the rational, moral and humanistic concept of freedom has, to a great extent, been compromised by a consequent crisis within the intelligentsia. These groups, in particular the gatekeepers of a classical liberal approach to legal scholarship, are caught between the twin (...) evils of increased unreflective populism and pragmatism evident within many law schools and modern legal institutions. Although a contested term, defenders of the ‘socio-legal’ tradition, who place the humanities at the heart of legal research and education, are obliged to restate with increased determination the utility of the liberal arts and literature to the law profession and wider legal community. In a normative environment, law and narrative are inextricably linked and narrative poetry is not only invaluable to explaining the origins and location of the legal tradition, but also elicits a mode of understanding which transcends the boundaries of narrowlydefined legal hermeneutics—which often only addresses issues of an operational nature. French novelist Flaubert claimed “chaque notaire porte en soi les débris d’un poète” (Flaubert in Madame bovary (trans: Wall, G.), Penguin Classics, London, 1960: 269), paraphrased by American civil rights lawyer, Clarence Darrow, as “inside every lawyer is the wreck of a poet” (Lukas in Big trouble: a murder in a small western town sets off a struggle for the soul of America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997: 323). In an age of disenchantment, this paper explores the poetic form as an important medium within which to understand the nature and function of law in a society of differentiated individuals. (shrink)

Jessy Giroux | : J’aborde dans cet article un problème que je nomme le « spectre épistocratique ». Le problème se présente ainsi : s’il existe des vérités politiques, c’est-à-dire des positions politiques qui soient véritablement bonnes, ne devrait-on pas faire de l’atteinte de ces vérités politiques l’objectif central de notre système politique, ce qui pourrait nous conduire à limiter le pouvoir populaire afin de laisser les individus « éclairés » prendre toutes les décisions politiques ? J’explore différentes stratégies possibles (...) afin de défendre la démocratie contre l’attrait d’une telle épistocratie, et je conclus que la meilleure stratégie consiste à souligner qu’une démocratie délibérative bien organisée démontre un potentiel épistémique supérieur à tout autre système politique. Je termine en montrant comment une telle conclusion parvient à nous informer sur le phénomène de la contestation politique. | : In this paper, I consider a problem that I call the “epistocratic specter”. The problem goes as follows : if there are political truths, by which I mean political positions that are truly good, shouldn’t we make the attainment of such truths the central goal of our political system, which could lead us to restrict popular power and let only truly “enlightened” individuals make every political decision ? I explore various possible strategies in order to defend democracy against the appeal of such an epistrocratic system, and I conclude that the best available strategy is one that emphasizes that a well-organized deliberative democracy possesses an epistemic potential that is superior to that of any other political system. I conclude by showing how this fact can inform our understanding of the phenomenon of political dissent. (shrink)

Pablo Gilabert,Aude Bandini | : Cet article s’intéresse au lien entre deux perspectives qui concernent la nature des droits humains. Selon la perspective « politique » ou « pratique », les droits humains sont des revendications que les individus entretiennent face à un certain nombre de structures institutionnelles, dans certains États modernes, en vertu des intérêts qui sont les leurs selon les contextes qui les mettent en jeu. Selon la perspective « humaniste » ou « naturaliste », plus traditionnelle, les (...) droits humains sont des revendications pré-institutionnelles que les individus entretiennent face à tous les autres individus, en vertu d’intérêts propres à l’humanité qu’ils ont tous en partage. Cet article soutient qu’une fois qu’on identifie ces deux perspectives sous leur meilleur jour, on peut voir qu’elles sont complémentaires et qu’on a en réalité besoin de chacune d’elles pour donner sens, sur le plan normatif, à la pratique contemporaine des droits humains. J’y explique comment des considérations humanistes et politiques peuvent et même doivent travailler main dans la main si on veut rendre compte du concept, du contenu et de la justification des droits humains. | : This essay explores the relation between two perspectives on the nature of human rights. According to the « political » or « practical » perspective, human rights are claims that individuals have against certain institutional structures, in particular modern states, in virtue of interests they have in contexts that include them. According to the more traditional « humanist » or « naturalistic » perspective, human rights are pre-institutional claims that individuals have against all other individuals in virtue of interests characteristic of their com mon humanity. This essay argues that once we identify the two perspectives in their best light, we can see that they are complementary and that in fact we need both to make good normative sense of the contemporary practice of human rights. It explains how humanist and political considerations can and should work in tandem to account for the concept, content, and justification of human rights. (shrink)

The perpetual secretary of the Berlin Academy Johann Heinrich Samuel Formey is best known as a populariser of Christian Wolff’s doctrines. As of Formey’s activity in the Berlin Academy, scholars have mostly emphasized his role in the controversy over monads with Leonhard Euler, while overlooking other interesting contributions Formey presented in the “speculative philosophy” class of the Academy. In this paper, I analyse two articles Formey published in 1747 on the Mémoires de l’Académie de Berlin, namely the Preuves de (...) l’existence de Dieu, ramenées aux notions communes and the Examen de la preuve qu’on tire des fins de la nature, pour établir l’existence de Dieu. In these texts, Formey presents some of Wolff’s methodological and metaphysical ideas, in an implicit dialogue with other members of the Academy – in particular, with the president Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis – who were also interested in metaphysics and the philosophical method. Formey reworks the Wolffian arguments as to make them more accessible, in order to promote an open confrontation over core philosophical questions. Far from adopting a controversial tone, Formey’s attitude is rather conciliatory: any disagreement, as he thinks, can be easily settled once the true method for philosophizing is made available to everybody. (shrink)

Brian Gladman est un ancien directeur des communications électroniques stratégiques du ministère de la Défense britannique et de l'Otan; Ian Brown, est un cryptographe anglais, membre de l'ONG Privacy International. En l'an 2000, ils rendaient public un texte expliquant comment contourner, en toute légalité, les diverses mesures de « cybersurveillance » adoptées par les législateurs. Ces techniques s'avéreraient en effet « techniquement ineptes et inefficaces à l'encontre des criminels » et risqueraient, a contrario, de « saper le droit à la (...) vie privée et à la sécurité des citoyens et du marché ». Leur démarche est d'autant plus salutaire que les gouvernements se contentent généralement, au mieux, d'expliquer que toute action informatique laisse des traces, et que l'on est de toute façon surveillé , au pire, de passer des lois sécuritaires renforçant cette cybersurveillance, contribuant d'autant à créer un climat de peur, loin du climat de confiance nécessaire à toute démocratie.Brian Gladman is a former Director for strategic electronic communications for the British Ministry of Defence and NATO; Ian Brown is a British cryptographer and a member of the NGO Privacy International In 2000, they published a paper detailing various countermeasures that can be used, perfectly legally, to evade the technical systems that governments adopt in order to monitor what users are doing on the Internet. These systems are criticised as not only "technically inept and ineffective against criminals" but also liable to "undermine the privacy, safety and security of law-abiding citizens and businesses". Their work is all the more valuable as governments either, at best, merely explain that any IT activity leaves traces and that people are monitored in any case or, at worst, pass laws on "security" that reinforce cybersurveillance systems, thus helping to create a climate of fear that can only undermine the trust on which a democratic society relies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Le etiche della virtù. La riflessione contemporanea a partire da Hume by Alessio VaccariSarin MarchettiAlessio Vaccari. Le etiche della virtù. La riflessione contemporanea a partire da Hume. Firenze : Le Lettere, 2012. Pp. 320. ISBN 9788860876324, Paper, €29.00.Alessio Vaccari’s volume represents a major achievement in Hume scholarship as well as in contemporary reflection on philosophical ethics. Le etiche della virtù. La riflessione contemporanea a partire da Hume (Virtue (...) Ethics: From Hume Onwards) will be of much value to both historians of moral philosophy and contemporary ethicists who are versed in the ongoing discussions over the nature and point of moral thought. In an intellectual landscape dominated by a legalistic conception of ethics, Vaccari’s investigation is a historiographically committed and theoretically inspired inquiry into (and re-evaluation of) the health of and current regard for the paradigm of the virtues. On the one hand, the author is interested in challenging the influential narrative—voiced by Elizabeth Anscombe (1958) and Alasdair MacIntyre (1981)—according to which modern moral philosophy has been characterized by the most unfortunate eclipse of the language of the virtues; on the other, he aims at reconstructing an effective, viable understanding of virtue ethics along those Humean lines best suited to address the distinctive difficulties facing our contemporary progressive societies. (The challenge of environmental sustainability and future generations is taken as exemplary.) Against Anscombe and MacIntyre, and following the lesson of Jerome B. Schneewind (1990 Jerome B. Schneewind (1998), Vaccari argues that in the post-Enlightenment moral debate, we have not paid enough attention to distinctively modern articulations of the central features of [End Page 123] virtue ethics, including the cultivation of one’s character as a prime moral goal, an enriched understanding of the qualitative dimension and intrinsic value of human happiness, and the acknowledgement of the moral significance of both personal and social relationships for the realization of the good.These historiographical and theoretical concerns represent two sides of the same coin, as Vaccari compellingly argues that the oversight (if not disregard) of the typically modern conception of the virtues finely elaborated by Hume in his works—partly reprised and further refined by John Stuart Mill—deprives us of precious analytical resources to resolve some general impasses that are features of contemporary moral reflection (for example, the demandingness of duty based ethics and the limits of impartial accounts of moral principles) as well as the tensions internal to virtue ethics, especially of neo-Aristotelean and neo-Kantian sorts, (for example, their conflicting pictures of the virtuous agent and the experiential unsoundness of their accounts of the stabilization of moral responses). Humean virtue ethics is depicted, in the first instance, as a radical approach to—and style of—moral philosophy: descriptive and yet normative, explicative without being prescriptive. It is thus Vaccari’s claim that by re-discovering neglected and yet central aspects of Hume’s practical philosophy, illuminated by Mill’s romantic utilitarianism and contrasted to both Kant’s rationalism and (partly) Nietzsche’s perfectionism, we would gain access to a fresh conceptual possibility about how best to reflect on the moral life. This operation also opens up a fertile space for a metaphilosophical investigation of the very character and stakes of moral thought itself, whose lack of reflexivity upon its philosophical credentials is often at the basis of the aforementioned difficulties.The two tasks are brilliantly coordinated, resulting in a volume that is a gold mine of both historical and speculative details that provide a critical store of intellectual resources for thinking through these issues. Besides firmly mastering the primary sources, Vaccari digests an impressive body of secondary literature, which is clearly explained and skillfully assessed. Targeted at scholars of Hume and virtue ethics, Le etiche della virtù is highly recommended for advanced undergraduate courses as well as for graduate seminars both on the history of modern moral philosophy and on contemporary meta-ethics and normative ethics. An English translation of the volume would surely widen its audience and boost its circulation.The volume comprises a preface, five chapters, and an exhaustive bibliography. In the preface, Vaccari sets the stage for his defense of a sentimentalist version of virtue... (shrink)

Il y a des oeuvres d'art poétiques, et en particulier quelques poèmes modernistes, qui nous offrent des représentations du sublime dans un de ses aspects les plus problématiques. Cet aspect comporte la simultanéité des éléments à la fois subjectifs et objectifs. Mais comment peut-on comprendre le sublime sous ce double masque ? Comment se fait-il que le sublime puis- se être à la/ois objectif et subjectif? Dans cet article je propose d'articuler ces deux aspects du sublime en ayant recours aux (...) réflexions tardives de Kant dans son Opus postumum sur le Selbstsetzungs- lehre, sur ce que j'appellerai « une auto-position fictive ».Some poetic works of art, and in particular some modernist poems, present us literary representa- tions of the sublime in one of its most searching, and still problematic, aspects. This aspect of the sublime, unlike many others, involves the simultaneity of both subjective and objective elements. But how are we to understand the sublime in such a double guise ? How can the sublime be simultaneously both objective and subjective ? My suggestion here is that we can best articulate both the objective and subjective aspects by making use of Kant's late reflections in the Opus Postumum on the Selbstsetzungslehre, that is, on what I will call a fictional self-positing. (shrink)

Peu connue à cause de l’absence d’ouvrage de référence qui la présenterait dans toute son étendue, la pensée politique de Leibniz présente cependant un intérêt non négligeable pour l’histoire de la philosophie politique. En concevant l’homme comme sociable par nature, Leibniz ne fait pas pour autant de l’État l’aboutissement des sociétés naturelles, mais plutôt un moment passager dans la réalisation du monde moral au sein du monde naturel. Dès lors, le meilleur régime pour un tel État, ne résultant pas d’un (...) contrat social bien que sujets et souverain y soient dans un rapport mutuel d’obligation, serait celui qui permettrait d’allier le mieux puissance et sagesse. Refusant tout pouvoir arbitraire, et insistant sur la nécessité de distinguer les pouvoirs, Leibniz considère la monarchie comme le meilleur régime en ce qu’elle serait plus facilement amendable : assisté d’un parlement, le puissant monarque ne pourrait qu’être sage.Little-known because of the lack of a work of reference that would present it in all its extent, Leibniz’s political thought is however of significant interest for the history of political philosophy. By conceiving humans has sociable by nature, Leibniz doesn’t depict the State as the outcome of natural societies, but rather as a passing moment in the realization of the moral world within the natural world. Therefore, the best regime for such a State, not resulting from a social contract although subjects and sovereign are there in a mutual relationship of obligation, would be the one uniting best power and wisdom. Refusing every arbitrary power and emphasizing on the necessity of distinguishing powers, Leibniz considers monarchy as the best regime for it would be more easily improvable: assisted by a parliament, a potent monarch could only be wise[1]. (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)

L'auteur résume dans cet article le contenu du commentaire du Phèdre qui doit paraître en mai 1998. Le Phèdre constitue un véritable « manifeste » qui présente un programme dans lequel Platon, alors âgé de soixante à soixante-cinq ans environ, prend position sur la question de l'écriture, à un moment où celle-ci était en train de se substituer à l'oralité pour constituer un instrument de communication privilégié. Dans le Phèdre, Platon veut montrer que, au moment même où il écrit, il (...) est le plus grand écrivain de la Grèce. Il démontre ce point en deux étapes: il entame tout d'abord une « joute oratoire » avec Lysias, alors considéré comme le meilleur écrivain de son temps, où il fait montre de sa supériorité sur les rhéteurs tant sur la forme que sur le contenu; il propose ensuite une théorie de l'art d'écrire dont le caractère adéquat se fonde sur la méthode dialectique. Il énonce de surcroît les trois critères fondamentaux qui doivent gouverner tous les discours, que ceux-ci soient écrits ou oraux: 1 / il faut connaître l'essence de la chose dont on parle; 2 / il faut connaître la nature des âmes auxquelles on s'adresse; 3 / il faut adapter les contenus des messages que l'on veut communiquer aux capacités de réception des âmes auxquelles on s'adresse. Toutefois, les messages du philosophe ne peuvent être transmis par la seule écriture: les choses les plus précieuses, le philosophe les écrit dans les âmes des hommes, autrement dit, il les communique dans le registre de l' « oralité dialectique ». Les discours écrits n'ont aucune autonomie, puisqu'ils ont, de fait, besoin du « secours » de l'auteur. Pour comprendre les discours écrits, fussent-ils les meilleurs, une connaissance préalable des choses dont ils traitent est nécessaire, connaissance qui ne peut être obtenue que par des voies différentes de celles que fournissent les discours écrits. The author summarizes in this article the content of his Phaedrus' commentary which will appear in May of 1998. The Phaedrus constitutes a true « manifesto ». It presents a programme in which Plato (who was then aged sixty or sixty-five), defends a position on the question of writing at a time when writing was being substituted for orality as the primary instrument of communication. In the Phaedrus, Plato wants to show, while he is writing it, that he is the greatest writer in Greece. He demonstrates this point in two stages: first, he initiates an « oratorical contest » with Lysias who was then considered the best writer of this time, where he shows his superiority over the orators both in form and in content; then, he proposes a theory of the art of writing the appropriate character of which is based on the dialectical method. Moreover, Plato states the three primary criteria which must govern any discourse whether oral or written: 1 / knowledge of the essence of what one speaks; 2 / knowledge of the nature of the souls to be addressed; 3 / knowledge of the content of the messages that one addressed. However, the messages of the philosopher cannot be transmitted only by writing. The most precious things are written by the philosopher in the souls of men, in other words, he communicates them in the register of dialectical orality. Written discourses have no autonomy since they need the « help » of the author. To understand written discourse, including the best, a preliminary knowledge of the things with which they deal is necessary, knowledge which can only be obtained through paths different from those which are provided by written discourse. (shrink)

Al-Abharī’s (d.1265) Isagoge (al-Īsāghūjī) is an introductory primer in logic which has received numerous commentaries, each geared towards students of various levels of familiarity with this instrumental science. Al-Fanārī’s (d. 1431) advanced commentary on the Isagoge, called al-Fawāʾid al-Fanāriyya, has confounded students of logic for centuries due to its terse and dense style as well as the presumption that the reader knows well the science of disputation along with the subtle interpretive disagreements discussed in other texts and commentaries. Sājaqlīzādah’s primer (...) on disputation entitled al-Waladiyya, written nearly 300 years after al-Fanārī’s commentary, provides useful examples of the possible claims, objections, and defenses available to one making scholarly claims in the form of definitions, classifications, and propositional assents or syllogistic reasoning. In this article, I explore several instances of al-Fanārī’s use of the terms and methods of disputation in order to defend definitions or classifications found al-Abharī’s Isagoge. I aim to identify the specific disputational moves used by al-Fanārī, drawing from those described by Sājaqlīzādah. In doing so, I demonstrate that this important advanced commentary on a popular logic primer is best understood through the lens of disputation. I also argue that Sājaqlīzādah’s suggested methods of making claims, objections, and defenses can be transposed in whole or in part from one category of claim—definitions, classifications, assents—to another, indicating a greater complexity of disputational possibilities than his introductory handbook provides. (shrink)

La figure diabolisée du chat dans la littérature japonaise évolue sans cesse au cours de l’époque médiévale, et nous prenons ici l’exemple d’un chat-monstre nommé nekomata. L’un des exemples littéraires les plus connus se trouve dans les Heures oisives, ouvrage écrit vers 1330 par Yoshida Kenkô. Il semble cependant que le terme nekomata soit apparu un siècle plus tôt, comme le montre l’entrée du 2 août 1233 dans le Journal de la lune brillante de Fujiwara no Teika, l’un des plus (...) grands poètes de son temps. Nous analyserons donc ce texte de première importance pour comprendre les origines de cette figure littéraire, puis tenterons de comprendre le sens de l’expression nekomata. The demonized figure of the cat in Japanese literature evolved constantly during medieval times, and here we take the example of a monster cat named nekomata. One of the best-known literary examples is found in Tsurezure-gusa, written around 1330 by Yoshida Kenkô. However, it seems that the term nekomata appeared a century earlier, as can be seen from the August 2, 1233 entry in Meigetsu-ki, the diary of Fujiwara no Teika, one of the greatest poets of his time. We will examine this important text for a better understanding of the history of the monster cat and reflect on the meaning of the term nekomata. (shrink)