Following and extending Searle’s speech act theory, both Pragma-Dialectics and the Linguistic Normative Model of Argumentation characterize argumentation as an illocutionary act. In these models, the successful performance of an illocutionary act of arguing depends on the securing of uptake, an illocutionary effect that, according to the Searlean account, characterizes the successful performance of any illocutionary act. However, in my view, there is another kind of illocutionary effect involved in the successful performance of an illocutionary act of arguing, which affects (...) both the speaker’s and the hearer’s set of rights, obligations, and entitlements. In order to give an account of this second type of effect, I will argue that it is necessary to distinguish two levels in the analysis of the illocutionary act of arguing. The first one is related to the illocutionary effect of securing of uptake and thus to the speech act performed by the speaker, while the second one allows us to account for the changes produced by the performance of the illocutionary act of arguing in the deontic modal competence of both the speaker and the hearer. (shrink)

The problem of free will as it is know in Western philosophical traditions is hardly known in China. Considering how central the problem is in the West, this is a remarkable fact. We try to explain this, and we offer insights into discussions within Chinese traditions that we think are related, not historically but regarding the issues discussed. Thus we introduce four central Chinese concepts, namely: (1) xīn 心 (heart, heart-mind), (2) xìng 性 (human nature, characteristic tendencies, inborn capacity), (3) (...) mìng 命 (lifespan, fate, command, allotment, endowment), and (4) zìrán 自然 (self-so, so of itself, nature, spontaneity), and we indicate how these concepts and their discussions can be related to discussions on free will. (shrink)

La formule de Hobbes est bien connue, selon laquelle l'Etat est un Dieu mortel.

L'histoire des sciences suffit à réfuter la thèse de la mathématisation impossible, selon laquelle la mathématisation procéderait d'un formalisme abstrait manquant les choses mêmes ou la spécificité d'un domaine d'objets. Cette histoire montre en effet qu'on n'a pas cessé de mathématiser des choses dont il avait été longtemps dit qu'elles devaient, étant donné leur nature, éternellement résister à la mathématisation. À la thèse de la mathématisation impossible, il est dès lors tentant d'opposer la thèse de la mathématisation inéluctable, selon laquelle (...) une science bien formulée est une science mathématiquement constituée. Cette dernière thèse est cependant souvent associée à l'idée que l'introduction des mathématiques dans une discipline constituerait un processus qui ne présenterait aucune difficulté et qui ne serait suivie d'aucune perte. Contre cette idée, les articles rassemblés dans ce volume ont voulu, comme le titre de ce dernier l'indique, restituer à la mathématisation son caractère problématique. La méthode adoptée dans ce volume est résolument empirique : il s'appuie non pas sur des réflexions a priori sur ce que seraient les objets mathématiques, mais sur des études de cas empruntées à différentes périodes de l'histoire et à différentes sciences. Le pari a été fait que ces différentes rubriques pourraient être articulées les uns aux autres dans trois parties qui ont respectivement pour titres "Les exigences de la mesure : la quantification", "La formalisation : la puissance des formes symboliques", et "La modélisation, une nouvelle forme de mathématisation?" Assurément, une tendance historiographique générale de ces trente dernières années a consisté à privilégier les études de cas locales et singulières, ce qui nous a permis de prendre congé du style épique, qui néglige les détails de l'histoire. Cependant, l'espèce de nominalisme qui en résulte tourne rapidement court, si l'on en reste à ces études de cas singulières. Ce volume repose donc sur un pari : essayer d'articuler différentes études de cas de manière à dégager certaines formes de la mathématisation. Que ce pari ait été gagné ou perdu, ce sera au lecteur d'en juger. (shrink)

Penser sans obéir aux ressorts constitutifs de la pensée française contemporaine : voilà l'exigence qu'indique Maurice Blanchot. Deux enjeux déterminent en conséquence cet ouvrage. Il s'agit d'abord de montrer combien l'oeuvre théorique et narrative de Blanchot, en faisant valoir des thèmes aussi singuliers que ceux du calme ou de l'enfance, se soustrait à l'épreuve contemporaine de l'événement. Point d'autant plus étonnant que Blanchot ne cesse - aussi - de requérir cette épreuve et de s'entretenir avec ceux-là même qui, tels Levinas, (...) Deleuze, Derrida ou Foucault, ont déployé la logique contemporaine. Il s'agit ensuite de forger les catégories positives de la recherche ainsi indiquée. L'analyse minutieuse ici proposée de la dimension élémentale (nuit, mer, ciel) propre au neutre blanchotien et de l'écriture fragmentaire déployée à la fin de l'oeuvre, conduit ainsi à dégager une question qui, dépourvue de la force d'appeler encore réponse, se pose dans le milieu calme du silence. Loin de reconduire la pensée au nihilisme ou à un silence impensable-indicible typiquement contemporain, cette problématisation, avec Blanchot, de la pensée française contemporaine introduit à une recherche qui, ni déconstructrice ni non-philosophique, engage l'enfance de la philosophie. (shrink)

An art of the everyday? Parting from Georges Perec and Vilhelm Hammershøi Contemporary continental philosophy seems to be deeply connected to art, whether it is poetry and literature, painting or music. This connection is built upon the primacy of a trial of the invisible, which is very often a trial of the event. The aim of this article is to establish an art of the everyday freed from this contemporary "eventism". We thus examine how the researches of Georges Perec in (...) literature and of Vilhelm Hammershøi in painting meditate on the strangeness of the everyday – its flatness, its silence – which are irreducible to this aesthetic trial as it can be conceptualized by the philosophy of the life of Deleuze-Guattari and by the humanism of Levinas. This research thus beckons towards an art of the common contesting the contemporary primacy of the vital and the human. (shrink)

A constructive dialogue between Henry’s phenomenology and Rorty’s pragmatism does not seem very likely: each would probably consider that the other has not been faithful to his claim of breaking with philosophical tradition and thus ultimately reproduces its limits. Nevertheless, one can also note that Henry and Rorty are not at the same level of analysis: while Henry focuses on giving coherent grounds for any philosophical critique of representation, Rorty is occupied with the consequences of such critique on philosophy itself. (...) If one considers this difference, there emerge new results: Henry’s phenomenology is fundamental for the recognition of what Rorty calls the “human being’s sense of self-identity”, while it falls to Rorty’s pragmatism to ensure that, as hoped by Henry, there is “a mode of philosophy that does not harm essence”.  . (shrink)

In my essay, I critically discuss the work of the French philosopher and sinologist François Jullien. First, I reconstruct the social and political context from which Jullien’s thinking emerged in the late 1970 s and 1980 s. Second, I analyze a number of philosophical and sinological premises underlying his interpretation of Chinese and European thought. By comparing his interpretation of traditional Chinese thought with other approaches, it is possible to get a better understanding of Jullien’s creative appropriation of the other. (...) I conclude by pointing out perspectives for future research. (shrink)

Cet article se demande si un dialogue entre la civilisation chinoise et Leo Strauss est possible et à quelles conditions. Il décrit le contexte d’introduction de Strauss en Chine, en se concentrant sur Liu Xiaofeng, l’un des straussiens les plus influents de la Chine contemporaine. L’analyse de son interprétation de la critique straussienne de la modernité occidentale fait ressortir deux distorsions fondamentales : là où Strauss considérait l’« enseignement tyrannique » comme quelque chose de théorique, Liu en fait un plan (...) d’action politique ; au lieu de reconnaître la modernité des bases idéologiques de l’État fondé par Mao Zedong, il les interprète au crible de la tradition. Cette double déformation contredit l’intention de Strauss en tant que philosophe zététique et socratique. (shrink)

The more traditional approaches to the history and philosophy of science and technology continue as well, and probably will continue as long as there are skillful practitioners such as Carl Hempel, Ernest Nagel, and th~ir students. Finally, there are still other approaches that address some of the technical problems arising when we try to provide an account of belief and of rational choice. - These include efforts to provide logical frameworks within which we can make sense of these notions. This (...) series will attempt to bring together work from all of these approaches to the history and philosophy of science and technology in the belief that each has something to add to our understanding. The volumes of this series have emerged either from lectures given by authors while they served as honorary visiting professors at the City College of New York or from conferences sponsored by that institution. The City College Program in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology oversees and directs these lectures and conferences with the financial aid of the Association for Philosophy of Science, Psychotheraphy, and Ethics. MARTIN TAMNY RAPHAEL STERN PREFACE The papers in this collection stem largely from the conference 'Foun dations: Logic, Language, and Mathematics' held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York on 14-15 November 1980. (shrink)

It is well known that the Neo-Confucian thinker Zhu Xi particularly emphasizes the role of emotions in human life. This paper shows that the four ‘moral emotions’ are central to Zhu's thinking, insofar as only their genuine actualization enables the individual to achieve spiritual freedom. Moreover, I discuss the crucial notions of ‘awareness’/‘perception’ and ‘knowledge’/‘wisdom’, in order to reveal the complex dynamic that moral emotions are said to create in the moral agent. I also analyse two important passages from the (...) Mencius and examine how Zhu Xi, in his exegetical glosses, defines the conditions of virtuous agency as based on the moral emotions. Finally, I explain the reasons why Neo-Confucians like Zhu Xi have sometimes been described as Kantian thinkers avant la lettre. (shrink)

If philosophy has anything to do with wisdom there's certainly not a grain of that in Mind, & quite often a grain of that in the detective stories.This special issue of Philosophy East and West is dedicated to the topic of wisdom. It might appear to be a paradoxical endeavor to think about wisdom on the pages of an academic journal. As Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out a long time ago in his somewhat peculiar, quixotic style, philosophers in the setting of (...) modern academia are not necessarily in the best position to make meaningful contributions to the question of what it means to be wise. We do not really know what was going on in Plato's academy, or whether the conversations there had much, if anything, to do with... (shrink)

In the opinion of the art critic Julius Meier-Graefe (1867-1935), pictures have a specific logic which is impossible to translate into spoken language. Given this premise, Meier-Graefe develops a specific theory of how art history constructs itself as an interpictorial, self-regulated reference system. Furthermore, in order to convey works of art, he operates with pictures and images in a remarkable way: on the one hand, he makes specific use of reproductions, on the other hand, he communicates via body language that (...) parallels the iconic deixis: By describing and presenting himself in his texts in the physical act of perception and/or reception, he turns himself into a tableau and makes the effect as well as the potential of the artwork visible. The basis of these ideas and methods seems to be the modern experience of museum presentation and reception. Meier-Graefe develops a kind of “practical aesthetic” which can enrich the current debates on interpictoriality. (shrink)