The Cartesian view that animals are automata sparked a major controversy in early modern European philosophy. This paper studies an early contribution to this controversy. I provide an interpretation of an influential objection to Cartesian animal automatism raised by Ignace-Gaston Pardies (1636–1673). Pardies objects that the Cartesian arguments show only that animals lack ‘intellectual perception’ but do not show that animals lack ‘sensible perception.’ According to Pardies, the difference between these two types of perception is (...) that the former is reflexive such that we both perceive an object and the perception itself, whereas sensible perception lacks this reflexivity. This notion of sensible perception was criticized by the Cartesian Antoine Dilly for violating the doctrine that all thought is conscious. However, I argue that sensible perceptions are not unconscious for Pardies. Rather, they are conscious perceptions that are unaccompanied by a kind of reflexive perception that is constitutive of attention. Moreover, I argue that when understood in this way Pardies raises a compelling objection to Cartesian animal automatists. (shrink)

This article examines how the theory of proportions was explained during the second half of the seventeenth century in the works of Andreas Tacquet, Antoine Arnauld, Ignace Gaston Pardies, Bernard Lamy, and Jacques Rohault. These five authors had very different conceptions of this subject, and on one hand, they show that this question was not forgotten, even after the Geometry of Descartes, and on the other hand, their work displays the progressive transformation of mathematical objects. While Tacquet (...) deepened Euclidean thought, the others stopped taking the Euclidean model as paradigmatic and tried to change the order of the Elements and to establish book V of Euclid in new ways. We shall see that this multiplicity of the approaches highlights both the vitality of the reflections and the difficulty in developing a new ontology of mathematics. Some of them nevertheless opened new perspectives that were to bloom only much later. We shall also see the increasingly important place of the algebra as time went by. (shrink)

In 1672, inspired by the wave theory of Ignace Gaston Pardies, Christiaan Huygens made his first attempt to explain the sine law of refraction, but in 1673 he abandoned his plans owing to difficulties concerning double refraction. Huygens was able to explain double refraction on 6 August 1677 after his discoveries of the axis of symmetry of the crystal and of ‘Huygens's principle’. On 6 August 1679, he wrote: ‘I have found the confirmation of my theory of (...) light and of refraction’, and then described an ‘experimentum crucis’ to decide between his theory and a rival hypothesis. A study of caustics may have led Huygens to the discovery of ‘Huygens's principle’. (shrink)

When in October 2016 I started working on my book Jorge Mario Bergoglio. An intellectual biography I did not have the slightest idea of ​​the importance played by the figure and work of Gaston Fessard in the formation of Bergoglio’s thought. There was nothing to suggest that Gaston Fessard could be a relevant author for the intellectual formation of the future Pope. I was struck by the polar and dialectical model of thought that animated him, the possibility of (...) harmonizing opposites, of inviting concepts to a common table that apparently could not be approached, because it places them in a higher plane in which they find their synthesis. This paradigm, of the Church and of the Society of Jesus as complexio oppositorum, finds its verification, according to Bergoglio, in the way in which the Jesuits have achieved the inculturation of the faith in the indigenous peoples of Latin America. Bergoglio rereads Ignatius in the light of a dialectical model. As he will say in one of the interviews he gave me on the occasion of the writing of my book: “In Ignatian spirituality there is always this bipolar tension”. It is certainly an original, uncommon reading of Ignatius’s thought. It is the ideal factor that allows us to explain why Bergoglio, when in 1986 he went to Frankfurt to write his doctoral thesis, chose the Guardinian essay dedicated to the polar opposition. When I concluded my volume on the intellectual biography of the future Pontiff in February 2017, one element, however, remained obscure. Where, from which author had Bergoglio drawn his polar model? Where did your antinomic reading of Ignatian spirituality come from? Not by Guardini discovered philosophically in 1986. Francis indicated the starting point of his intellectual formation. The reading of Fessard’s La dialectique des Exercices spirituels de saint Ignace de Loyola, published in 1956, is the work that “ had a great influence “ on him. It is the work that clarifies Bergoglio’s antinomian thought, his subsequent ideal encounter with Guardini’s philosophy. (shrink)

Si l'on veut bien définir le rationalisme comme une pensée d'organisation, on devra lui accorder une matière à organiser, des éléments à assembler, des expériences à ajuster. On devra le juger au terme même de cette organisation, après son effort synthétique, après son travail de mise en ordre. Il y a peu de justice à le taxer d'incapacité à propos d'une analyse de ce qu'il prend comme éléments de sa construction. Autant dire que le rationalisme est une philosophie fonctionnelle, une (...) philosophie d'opérations - ou plutôt, comme nous le montrerons plus explicitement dans notre livre sur la Mécanique ondulatoire, une philosophie d'opérateurs. Ce n'est pas une philosophie existentielle. Le rationalisme ne prétend pas pénétrer dans l'individualité d'une existence. Il ne commence à penser qu'en établissant des relations. (shrink)

En 32 romans, publiés entre 1934 et 1982, cet auteur d'origine australienne a élaboré autour de son protagoniste principal, l'inspecteur Roderick Allen de Scotland Yard, un ensemble de romans policiers d'enquête dans la meilleure tradition britannique.

This work, the most comprehensive treatment of alienation ever published, deals with the philosophical, sociological, psychological, religious, political, and literary aspects of the problem. Among the topics discussed are the lost self, the fragmented self, alienated leisure, measurements of social alienation, counterculture, anti-intellectualism, and cures for alienation.

Cet article propose un modèle additionnel pour l’interprétation des changements qui, dans les sciences, ne résultent pas d’une rupture irréversible avec le passé, mais du recyclage opportuniste de vieilles théories, destiné soit à en enrichir les théories émergentes, soit à provoquer le retour contre-révolutionnaire des théories défaites. Il soutient que, quand la science crée ainsi du neuf à partir du vieux, elle procède suivant un modèle proche du « bricolage évolutif », par lequel François Jacob explique l’évolution par le jeu (...) des réaménagements opportunistes qui surviennent dans la structure du noyau cellulaire. (shrink)

Pour Gaston Bachelard, le « non » signifie dépasser et compléter le savoir antérieur, la philosophie de la connaissance scientifique doit englober les contradictions. Il établit le profil épistémologique de l’évolution, du réalisme naïf au surrationalisme en passant par le rationalisme classique et élargit le domaine de l’intuition à ce qu’il appelle une « intuition travaillée»s’exerçant dans un espace non analytique.

Our paper contributes to Science, Technology and Society scholarship on the practices and technologies of containment. We build on existing work in STS that has analyzed containment as a performative sociotechnical system that generates and sustains new realities, new systems, and new relationships. Our contribution draws from the problem of containment in salmon aquaculture. The stakes for containing salmon are very high. Farmed salmon escapes are environmentally damaging to ecosystems and wild salmon populations, and they put additional pressure on an (...) industry that has a very poor environmental record. We consider in detail Newfoundland and Labrador’s “Code of Containment” that works to keep farmed salmon in cages and prevent them from escaping into the wild. Through our analysis of the Code, we argue that containment is not only about holding inside. It is also about holding together, an obsolete meaning of the term “to contain.” We add to STS scholarship by arguing that containment and its associated Code in Newfoundland holds together a large scale, industrial aquaculture sector that tolerates persistent farmed salmon escapes into the wild from ocean-based cages. We conclude by examining the broader implications of our analysis for STS scholarship on the practices and technologies of containment. (shrink)

This publication articulated in three parts, and twelve chapters endeavours to engage with the complex negative emotions and consequent phenomenon of self-deceit, radicalisation and extremism. First part: Emotions as Lines of Demarcation or Guidelines to Our Self. The Psychodynamic Surrounding of our Intentional Self; second part: Case Studies of Some Concrete Societal Encapsulations of the Negative Passions; and third part: Resisting the Colonisation of Tyrannical Affections. Possible Paths of Mitigating Radicalisation and Extremism. What kind of educational responses can be given (...) to extremist claims of territory, identity, resources, power, and interpretations? How can a dialogue on unifying ethical principles and values aid in developing common grounds for preventing radical and extremist excesses? With authors from three continents, this publication endeavours to not only ask the uncomfortable questions with regard to the exteriorisation of human emotive predispositions and inclinations to ostracize, stigmatise and discriminate. The exit door from the extreme is also clearly presented, through four contributions, notably the interplay of Charvaka philosophy, Sikh wisdom on balanced forms of engagement with strong emotions. (shrink)

Dans ce premier ecrit qu'est sa these principale (1927), Bachelard etudie le processus d'affinement de la connaissance scientifique. Le role de la connaissance approchee est defini dans les sciences experimentales, ou le degre de precision, confronte au contingent et a l'indivisible, atteint necessairement une limite; ainsi que dans les sciences mathematiques qui, soumises a ce meme fractionnement epistemologique et ontologique, se pretent neanmoins a une approximation illimitee, puisque l'infini mathematique permet de creer toujours de nouveaux etres irrationnels assurant la continuite (...) de l'indefini des nombres rationnels. Par consequent, on atteint jamais qu'un fait rectifie et provisoire. La connaissance de la realite se verifie progressivement a chacune de ses acquisitions, et cette rectification constitue la veritable realite epistemologique, car elle exprime la pensee dans son dynamisme profond: l'approximation, c'est l'objectivation inachevee, mais c'est l'objectivation prudente, feconde, vraiment rationnelle puisqu'elle est a la fois consciente de son insuffisance et de son progres. En marge des debats du pragmatisme, les concepts de realite et de verite sont investis d'un sens nouveau par une philosophie de l'inexact. (shrink)

In the commentaries on Wittgenstein's Tractatus, due attention has always been paid to the philosophy of logic contained in this work. In particular the statement that a picture and reality must have their form in common has attracted the attention of the commentators. This statement has been explained now in an extreme realistic way, now in the sense of a linguistic kantianism. Both of the interpretations have this in common that they tend to give a kind of metaphysical status to (...) this 'logical form', considered either as THE form of reality on its own or as THE objective form of language as such. In our article, we try to show that there is no place for this kind of 'hypostases' or reifications in the philosophy of the Tractatus. We point out some important arguments available in the text, to show that Wittgenstein didn't found logic on what can be termed as the objective and given structural form either of language or of reality. The point of his philosophy of logic, we argue, was not a metaphysical, but rather a pragmatical and operational one. Our argumentation is built upon what we consider to be the two basic texts of Wittgenstein's philosophy of logic, namely that we can „postulate” the truths of logic in so far as we can postulate an „adequate notation”(6.1233), and that the so called „logical constants” are not representatives : that there can be no „representatives” (in German : „vertreten”) of the logic of facts (4.0312). We first try to show that logic is not really distinct from the grammar (syntax, form) of a language which is capable to express reality in a complete and determinate way (4.123; 3.14; 3.251; 4.023; 4A66 ; 6.124; 4.002a). And to the extent that there is no meaningfull language without a signified reality related with it, there is no logic either which is not apriori and at the same time a logic applied to reality, i.e. the logic of the world. Consequently, we try to develop an interpretation of 2.16-2.18 of the Tractatus which can account for its a-metaphysical, operational conception of logic. Finally, we attempt a clarification of 5.552, a text which we consider as basic for Wittgenstein's philosophy of the „mystical”. (shrink)

After the 'death of God', it would be a mistake to continue to think of eros in terms of a longing for possession ofthat which one is lacking, especially in matters of religion. Alongside Plato's Diotima, Kierkegaard, Levinas and even Heidegger, an alternative view of eros is proposed in which eros is gradually letting go of its possessive cravings in order to open itself for the other. In this way, eros is bent in the directionof the unselfish service of the (...) other. The question is then asked which kind of understanding of being is implied by this redirection of eros. The answer is taken from a thinking of the meaning of being in terms of self-givenness and self-outpooring in beings, for beings to be 'there'. Our being at the service of the other can therefore be seen as a following of the call of being in us to become adequate to the meaning of being itself. (shrink)

The issue of philosophy’s contribution to theology is an old and much disputed one. This article posits philosophy as the 'conscience' of theology. It takes 'conscience' in the heideggerian sense of existential 'being-aware-of' and applies this to our finitude and the ultimate meaning of being. A living theology has therefore to be based on a successful encounter between our understanding of the issue of our existence and the Word of 'revelation' — as Western tradition calls it —, spoken to us (...) 'from elsewhere'. This position is considered with reference to the theological thinking of Thomas Aquinas, and more specifically to his doctrine of human happiness and bliss, and the natural desire to see God. Attention is drawn to the fact that Thomas’ view on the supernatural is based on both a philosophical and a theological component. To further illustrate the point, three statements are developed. The first concerns a possible abuse of Heidegger’s deconstruction of metaphysics in order to support a 'pluralistic' approach of religious truth. Here the objection is raised that this conception disowns the proper nature of religious and theological truth as distinguished from metaphysical truth. The second statement is about any possible coalescence of philosophyand theology: whereas metaphysical truths show a 'representative' character, the properof religious and biblical truth appears to be 'a way of liberation'. Between both a 'mediation' needs to be found. The author claims that such may surface in man's inner belonging to 'another dimension', i.e., in an 'immanent transcendence'. The third statementproposes to update the synthesis of philosophy and theology as presented by Aquinas. A dialectical elucidation of man's craving for infinity still points to a possible way byrevealing an essential aspect of human 'conscienceawareness'. (shrink)

Today, we can notice a renewed interest in spirituality, often as an alternative for established religions. Does this also mean that after centuries of growing apart and mutual diffidence, our time would offer a new opportunity for a meeting between spirituality and philosophy? At first glance this seems rather improbable. The origin of the term 'spirituality' is not philosophical, but Christian. There, it means a life under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Today, the content of a spirituality can be (...) religious as well as atheist, as some contemporary examples show. Thus it mostly expresses a craving for inner unity and universal reconciliation for human beings and for the universe. Such a spirituality testifies to a transcendency in the human and promotes a practical wisdom based on a corresponding metaphysical worldview. But it is not immediately clear what such a worldview could afford to the self-understanding of rational philosophy. Yet, the idea of human transcendency is not unknown to contemporary philosophy. In Heidegger's Being and Time, it bears the name of 'existence'. Moreover, Heidegger agrees that his philosophy of authentic existence as finite being-until-death is inspired by a 'factical ideal'. He presents his philosophy as being that lifeview in its reflexively understood meaning. Building on such a hermeneutic idea of philosophy, this article defends the view that spiritualities in general can be seen as carriers of valuable elements for an ontological understanding of the meaning of being. The article develops an understanding of being in which being is seen as a commonly shared perfection in the context of a general ontology of finite participation in being in which the world appears as the place of a lacking. This perfection comes toward us as an appeal to our freedom. That ontological awareness gives way to a reflexive assumption of spiritual attitudes such like generosity and fidelity in the context of an ontological philosophy of the meaning of human existence. (shrink)

Ni religion ni philosophie, l'animisme est une compréhension neuve de la nature et sans doute aussi un art de vivre qui, face à un monde agité, nous apprend à mieux habiter le monde. Et si l'animisme s'avérait la seule possibilité de sauver l'homme? Par une nouvelle façon d'être au monde, cette pensée, souvent méconnue, se donne à vivre comme une contre-philosophie. Cette initiation est un éveil de l'être tout entier, une nouvelle cosmogonie qui se donne à lire. Il s'agit de (...) réapprivoiser son corps en réapprenant, par exemple, à respirer, à contempler, à se dessaisir du sens des choses, à apprendre à oublier le temps. Face à un monde agité et au seuil du chaos, l'animisme invite à retrouver l'aspect essentiel des choses. Instaurant un dialogue entre la philosophie occidentale et cette philosophie africaine, Gaston-Paul Effa décentre la perspective, et change de focale : et si une nouvelle révolution était en marche? Et si, contrairement à l'idée reçue, c'était la Nature qui humanisait l'Homme? (shrink)

Deleuze reworks Marxist concepts in order to identify those that represent discontinuity and produce a theory of revolution. Marx is important because, along with Spinoza and Nietzsche, he is a part of a project to leave behind concepts such as transcendence and univocity which underlie the totalitarianism of traditional philosophy. Deleuze is looking for concepts that might form a different theory, within which the structures of production are not organised vertically by the domination of universal concepts, such as ‘being’ or (...) ‘essence’, but flow horizontally through a multiplicity of relations of conceptual singularity. The production of a different series of concepts is a strategic and tactical operation that, in confronting prior notions of transcendental philosophy, turns philosophy itself into a battlefield. Marx provides the general methodology for this tactical approach through two fundamental categories: production and conflict. Deleuze practises Marx's theoretical method and by using Marx's own central concepts challenges traditional Marxism, to arrive at a totally different and revolutionary philosophical structure based on concepts such as those of force, variation, difference, singularity, production and the war machine. (shrink)

In philosophical literature, the complex emotional state of ressentiment gained popularity through the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. According to Nietzsche, ressentiment was a bad feeling that reflected the suppressed anger, the pain of impotence, and the general misery of the weak when they compared themselves to the strong and talented members of society. Max Scheler took up Nietzsche’s thesis and described ressentiment as a complex condition characterised by a thirst for revenge. Moreover, ressentiment has the annoying property of presenting itself (...) as having some merit: the modern social and political context offers more than enough examples. First, the aim of this article is to take a closer look at Nietzsche’s ‘man of ressentiment,’ an odious personality characterised by weakness, deep frustrations, and hypocrisy. It will turn out that ressentiment has many different shades that paint a somewhat different picture and raise philosophical questions about positive valuation, vulnerability, and the sense of injustice. Second, we shall be working on the link between the psychology of ressentiment and the temptation to lack integrity in writing, art, or science. The well-described and well-known fact that academic fraudsters evolve in disguise, that they first reactively endorse values very different from their own values, and that these plagiarist authors, second, embark on long-term projects repeating their misdeeds and errors, as if it were normal, are two facts worthy of our attention. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)