Dominic LaRochelle | : Les religions ne constituent pas des monolithes immuables et inchangés dans le temps. Elles évoluent au fil de l’histoire humaine, changent au gré des transformations culturelles et sociales des communautés dans lesquelles elles s’implantent, négocient avec les instances séculières et religieuses leur pertinence et leur droit d’exister ; bref, elles innovent constamment pour s’assurer une place dans un monde lui aussi en constant changement. Cet article propose deux outils pour analyser les innovations au sein (...) des traditions religieuses : les théories de la réception, inspirées des travaux de Hans Robert Jauss, et l’invention des traditions, inspirée du célèbre ouvrage d’Eric J. Hobsbawm et Terence O. Ranger. L’intérêt de l’utilisation de ces outils en histoire est qu’ils permettent, entre autres choses, de dépasser les oppositions classiques tradition/modernité et authenticité/innovation en analysant les religions du point de vue des ruptures et des transformations à l’intérieur de celles-ci. Ces outils seront appliqués à un cas particulier, celui de la réception et de la réinvention du taoïsme dans les sociétés occidentales au XXe siècle. Cette tradition religieuse chinoise vieille de plusieurs siècles a en effet été réinventée en Occident et transformée en une tradition spirituelle universelle répondant aux attentes des Occidentaux en matière de spiritualité contemporaine. | : Religions are not immutable monoliths that remain unchanged over time. They evolve over the course of human history ; changing according to the cultural and social transformations of the communities in which they are established and negotiating with secular and religious authorities for their relevance and right to exist. In short, they continually innovate to secure a place in a constantly changing world. This article proposes two tools to analyze innovations within religious traditions : reception theories, inspired by the works of Hans Robert Jauss, and the invention of tradition, inspired by the celebrated work of Eric J. Hobsbawm and Terence O. Ranger. The interest of using these tools in a historical approach is that they allow us, among other things, to overcome the traditional oppositions of tradition vs. modernity and authenticity vs. innovation by analyzing religions from a rupture and transformation point of view. These tools will be applied to a particular case, namely the reception and reinvention of Taoism in Western societies in the twentieth Century. This centuries-old Chinese religious tradition has been reinvented in the West and transformed into a universal spiritual tradition that meets the expectations of Westerners for contemporary spirituality. (shrink)

Between 1648 and 1652, Cyrano de Bergerac wrote a small satirical work entitled The Other World, a fictional account of his imaginary epic voyage to the Moon.* The story not only describes “The States and Empires of the Moon,” (its subtitle in the original edition), it provides a critical view of his own civilization as well. The narrator's position in his depiction of the radically different, “other” entity allows him to maintain opinions which, however whimsical, still include elements of social (...) and philosophical examination. In the early stages of world migration, Europe was beginning to see the Other as a place for the expression, if not the transposition, of its ancient dreams; Cyrano, however, takes a different approach. He looks at ways the Other might be used to gain perspective on the Self. Looking down at Earth from above, he proclaims: “People, I declare that this moon is not a moon, but a world, and that world over there is not a world, but a moon.”. (shrink)

There is not one but many ways to picture the world--Australian "x-ray" pictures, cubish collages, Amerindian split-style figures, and pictures in two-point perspective each draw attention to different features of what they represent. Understanding Pictures argues that this diversity is the central fact with which a theory of figurative pictures must reckon. Lopes advances the theory that identifying pictures' subjects is akin to recognizing objects whose appearances have changed over time. He develops a schema for categorizing the different ways pictures (...) represent--the different kinds of meaning they have--and argues that that depiction's epistemic value lies in its representational diversity. He also offers a novel account of the phenomenology of pictorial experience, comparing pictures to visual prostheses like mirrors and binoculars. (shrink)

Les deux premiers chapitres expliquent la position épistémologique contemporaine. Dans le troisième, les auteurs présentent "une analyse des discours de 25 adolescents et adolescentes recueillis lors d'entrevues semi-structurées qui exploraient leur point de vue sur la connaissance scientifique.".

Limiting dangerous climate change is now widely believed to require negative emissions, a prospect some believe to be unjust and unacceptably risky. While NETs are not risk-free, I argue tha...

Empirical research on aesthetic response poses two challenges to philosophy. The more familiar challenge is that scientific explanations of aesthetic responses debunk what we take to be our reasons for those responses. One reaction to this challenge is an accommodation strategy that seeks to reconcile the scientific findings with an improved understanding of our normative reasons. This paper presents a more fundamental challenge: a well-established body of research in social psychology indicates that we routinely confabulate the reasons we give for (...) our aesthetic response. This challenges the accommodation strategy and suggests that philosophy should adopt a more radical naturalism about aesthetic response. (shrink)

This international and interdisciplinary collection presents and discusses the many issues and educational practices that are touched on by constructivism. Drawing on perspectives from a range of different fields, this book invites us to reposition ourselves in relation to the major currents that have influenced education in this century, namely pragmatism, genetic epistemology, and social interactionism. The essays call for new reflection on the questions that are central to the project of education and that, in particular, involve the validity of (...) knowledge and types of knowledge, the compartmentalization of school subjects, the mediating role of teachers, and, above all, the ends of education. In so doing, this book relaunches the discussion on constructivism's potential for the social empowerment of groups and individuals. (shrink)

Proponents of deliberative democracy believe deliberation provides the best chance of finding effective and legitimate climate policies. However, in many societies there is substantial evidence of biased cognition and polarisation about climate change. Further, many appear unable to distinguish reliable scientific information from false claims or misinformation. While deliberation significantly reduces polarisation about climate change, and can even increase the provision of reliable beliefs, these benefits are difficult to scale up, and are slow to affect whole societies. In response, I (...) propose a combined strategy of ‘thinking and nudging’. While deliberative theorists tend to view nudging askance, combining deliberation with nudges promises to be a timelier and more effective response to climate change than deliberation alone. I outline several proposals to improve societal deliberative capacity while reducing climate risks, including media reform, strategic communication and framing of debates, incentivising pro-climate behaviour change, and better education about science. (shrink)

We often ascribe possibility to the scenes that are displayed by mental or nonmental sensory images. The paper presents a novel argument for thinking that we are prima facie justified in ascribing metaphysical possibility to what is displayed by suitable visual images, and it argues that many of our imagery‐based ascriptions of metaphysical possibility are therefore prima facie justified. Some potential objections to the arguments are discussed, and some potential extensions of them, to cover nonvisual forms of imagery and nonmetaphysical (...) forms of possibility, are endorsed. (shrink)

The urgency of climate change has never been greater, nor the moral case for responding to it more compelling. This review essay critically compares Darrel Moellendorf's Mobilizing Hope and Catriona McKinnon's Climate Change and Political Theory. Moellendorf's book defends the moral importance of poverty alleviation through sustainable economic growth and argues for a mass climate movement based on the promise of a more prosperous future. By contrast, McKinnon provides a political vocabulary to articulate the many faces of climate injustice, and (...) to critically examine proposed policy solutions—notably including the indefinite pursuit of economic growth. While both find reasons to be hopeful, their wide-ranging accounts reflect different visions of what a just and sustainable future might look like. They reflect different understandings of sustainable development and the significance of environmental values; the scope of permissible climate activism; and the ethics of geoengineering. Building upon them, I argue in favor of a more pluralistic vision of a just climate future, one that is capable of speaking to the range of moral interests bearing upon the climate and biodiversity crises, and that supports sustainable development that is inclusive of diverse human-nature relationships. (shrink)

Yves Larochelle | : Charles De Koninck, qui chercha à réconcilier la lecture thomiste d’Aristote avec la science contemporaine, et Michel Henry, qui voulut rénover la phénoménologie husserlienne et heideggérienne en restituant la place de l’affectivité dans le champ philosophique, ont connu des trajectoires intellectuelles très différentes. Pourtant, leurs parcours respectifs aboutissent ultimement aux deux mêmes conclusions déterminantes : le réductionnisme scientifique ambiant menace l’intégrité spirituelle de l’humanité et seul le constat d’une finalité d’ordre divin à la vie humaine (...) peut restituer un sain équilibre. | : Charles De Koninck, who tried to reconcile the thomistic reading of Aristotle with contemporary science, and Michel Henry, who wanted to renovate Husserlian and Heideggerrian phenomenology by placing affectivity at the center of philosophy, had very different intellectual trajectories. Nonetheless, they both come to two similar conclusions : contemporary scientific reductionism is menacing the spiritual integrity of mankind, and only the recognition of a divine finality to human life can restore a healthy balance. (shrink)

This chapter begins with a historical overview of aesthetics and the philosophy of art before turning to a discussion of how the philosophy of art bears upon human culture. It then considers the methods used in attacking problems in aesthetics and the philosophy of art by highlighting the distinctions between pure and applied philosophy, between internal and external perspectives on aesthetic and artistic phenomena, and between first-order and second-order methods. It also examines how aesthetics and the philosophy of art are (...) affected as the arts evolve and as empirical studies of aesthetic and artistic phenomena become well established in the social and behavioural sciences as well as the humanities. (shrink)

Visualizings, the simplest imaginings which employ visual imagery, have certain characteristic features; they are perspectival, for instance. Also, it seems that some but not all of our visualizings are imaginings of seeings. But it has been forcefully argued, for example by M.G.F. Martin and Christopher Peacocke, that all visualizings are imaginings of visual sensations. I block these arguments by providing an account of visualizings which allows for their perspectival nature and other features they typically have, but which also explains how (...) we can visualize things without thereby imagining visual sensations. (shrink)

Why do we tend to ascribe possibility to what we can imagine? One strategy for answering that question involves the thought that, just as sensory episodes often involve its seeming to us as though the world is certain ways, so imaginings involve its seeming to us that what we have imagined is possible. This chapter argues that while some imaginings do feature appearances of possibility, very many others do not; and it explores the broader relevance of its conclusions for modal (...) epistemology. (shrink)

Context: To speak of constructivism -- and in particular of radical constructivism -- in education is to place oneself on a field which, like any other academic field, is the scene of tensions, debates, and indeed battles. While such controversies are, predictably enough, fought out between the partisans of constructivism and those defending other theses, they are also fought out between the constructivists themselves, as a number of group works have brought out (e.g., Steffe & Gale 1995; SRED 2001). In (...) other words, constructivists do not express their views in unison whenever there is a question on the development of knowledge (an individual or collective matter?), the underpinnings of knowledge (be they of a psychological, sociological or other type) or, as humorously noted by Quale (2007), that "sin" which is said to consist in the relativist mode of questioning or critique authorized by constructivism. Purpose: In this paper, we would like to contribute to this discussion and to this plurality of ways of embedding oneself in constructivism, in particular by bringing out (as was so acutely shown by Ernst von Glasersfeld 1987a, 1995, 2007) that while constructivism offers a basis on which to revisit the question of knowledge, its contributions nevertheless extend well beyond this single preoccupation. By reincorporating "the properties of the observer" into his or her discourse as well as the conditions, stakes and issues surrounding the utterance in question, in short, by reincorporating the question of power into the utterance-making, constructivism also provides a basis for revisiting the "Great Divides" -- that is, the (unequal) relationships between the various forms of knowledge as well as the (unequal) modes of evidence and authority that accompany these relations. Method: Through an examination of three topics, that is the "racism" of intelligence, the Semmelweis affair, and the question of endogenous knowledge, we will attempt to explicate various insights afforded by constructivism. Conclusion: So doing, we will show that radical constructivism, in its recognition of the plurality of possible modes of description and explanation, contributes to a form of epistemological democracy. (shrink)

Purpose: According to the constructivist perspective tirelessly promoted by Ernst von Glasersfeld for more than 40 years now, the world we see is of a piece with our way of understanding and locating ourselves within it; ultimately, whenever we claim to describe the world-in-itself, we in fact are describing the product of the mapping process that has enabled us to make our way in this world and to actualize our projects within it. Obviously, this kind of perspective has consequences for (...) the way both educational action and research on this theme are conceived of and accomplished. That, at least, is what we shall attempt to show in this article. Implications: In keeping with the claim that knowledges are constituted not in reference to reality "itself" but to practices and activities, constructivism advocates examining cognition in action -- that is, in terms of how the latter is enacted in the field. Accordingly, constructivism also seeks to prompt teachers to: (1) scrutinize the processes and distinctions by which students chart out the world; (2) and to personally devise, on the basis of this experience, a model -- or models, rather -- of their students' future relationship to the universes of knowledge intended for learning. Likewise, constructivism also aims to prompt researchers to perform some very careful detective work into the ways in which this charting process is played out and thus to opt for a comprehensive rather than an experimentalist approach. Conclusion: To adopt the constructivist perspective also means to "de-siloize" knowledge production and to recognize that this production occurs in all spheres of society. From this point of view, constructivism can thus be viewed as a way of challenging the claims of a certain scientific establishment to alone possess the requisite standing for interpreting the world. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Ethics: A Radical-constructivist Approach” by Andreas Quale. Upshot: This comment deals primarily with Quale’s attempt to distinguish between cognitive knowledge and non-cognitive knowledge. Considering that he uses this distinction as a basis for discussing ethical issues, I thought it important to assess the validity of this position and its potential usefulness for radical constructivism. In the following section, I sketch out my understanding of von Glasersfeld’s conception of cognition; so doing, I set the stage (...) for throwing into question, in the second section, a suspension that Quale proposes regarding both cognition and communication. (shrink)

Applying ethical values in scientific research is conditional to the determination of a metaphysical position on human beings as such. The contemporary context of science and technoscience is essentially based on technological fallouts and a modern dogma of efficiency, relegating ethics to a second place at best. This carries possibly dangerous consequences for humanity. The objective of natural sciences worthy or their name is a return to a form of investigation closer to its origin, but also more conscious of the (...) implications of modern technology. Hence, ethics must be at the heart of scientific education and research, not in its margins. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Pages de début Remerciements L'échéance d'une fin I. Subjectivité II. Modernité III. Historicité IV. Heuristicité V. ScepticismeAntifondamentalisme et utopie Bibliographie Pages de fin.

La déconstruction des représentations modernes se réclame aujourd’hui de plus en plus de la suspension des critères du jugement non pas à l’instar des règles de la morale chrétienne (“qui es-tu pour juger?”), mais plutôt par une destitution des finalités de tout arrière-monde. Dans cette optique de reconfiguration des catégories, parler du préjugé revient, d’entrée de jeu, à s’exposer dans le cadre d’une métaphysique de la modernité et à évoquer un report possible à l’objectivité. Or, les basculements contemporains dans l’ère (...) du soupçon appellent malgré tout une interrogation: Où est donc passé le préjugé? De quelle histoire restet-il la trace? Cet exposé montre que, loin d’être nié ou confiné à un champ de représentations archaïques, il est plutôt en voie d’être réhabilité, pourvu d’une nouvelle dignité sans le nom, d’ailleurs péjoratif, voire transformé en catégorie épistémique au nom du relativisme et de l’incommensurabilité des univers de sens. Il semble passer de nos jours par un accueil acritique de la contingence ou par l’abandon à une compréhension préréflexive du monde comme possibilité maximale de toute entreprise cognitive. Le propos tente de dégager les difficultés théoriques que pose le projet de la suspension du jugement dans l’épistémologie poststructuraliste. (shrink)

La déconstruction des représentations modernes se réclame aujourd’hui de plus en plus de la suspension des critères du jugement non pas à l’instar des règles de la morale chrétienne (“qui es-tu pour juger?”), mais plutôt par une destitution des finalités de tout arrière-monde. Dans cette optique de reconfiguration des catégories, parler du préjugé revient, d’entrée de jeu, à s’exposer dans le cadre d’une métaphysique de la modernité et à évoquer un report possible à l’objectivité. Or, les basculements contemporains dans l’ère (...) du soupçon appellent malgré tout une interrogation: Où est donc passé le préjugé? De quelle histoire restet-il la trace? Cet exposé montre que, loin d’être nié ou confiné à un champ de représentations archaïques, il est plutôt en voie d’être réhabilité, pourvu d’une nouvelle dignité sans le nom, d’ailleurs péjoratif, voire transformé en catégorie épistémique au nom du relativisme et de l’incommensurabilité des univers de sens. Il semble passer de nos jours par un accueil acritique de la contingence ou par l’abandon à une compréhension préréflexive du monde comme possibilité maximale de toute entreprise cognitive. Le propos tente de dégager les difficultés théoriques que pose le projet de la suspension du jugement dans l’épistémologie poststructuraliste. (shrink)

Context: Ernst von Glasersfeld’s constructivist epistemology has been a source of intellectual inspiration for several Quebec researchers, particularly in the field of science and mathematics education. Problem: However, what is less well known is the influence that his work had on the direction taken by educational reform in Quebec in the early 2000s as well as the criticisms that his work has given rise to – some of which present a family resemblance to the science wars that swept over the (...) US and France during the 1990s. Results: We begin by outlining the constructivist orientation of Quebec’s educational reform. We then draw a parallel between the above-mentioned science wars and the critics who denounced the constructivist foundations of the reform. In both cases, the bone of contention concerns the usual interpretation of relativism, with the criticisms that we refer to tending to oppose relativism with realism or rationalism. Now, by definition, relativism stands in opposition to absolutism and not to realism, unless the latter manifests itself in an absolutist form (which is the case of some of the critiques). Implications: The fear generated by relativism is by no means new. However, it seems that more than an epistemological controversy is at stake in the current depreciation of positions that, like that of radical constructivism, question the possibility of a “view from nowhere” – that is, aperspectival objectivity – and the resultant knowledge. In the sphere of education, at least in Quebec, there may well be an ideological issue of control over education that is involved. (shrink)