Pendant tout le XVIII° siècle et surtout à partir de 1741, il y eut diverses tentatives pour atteindre le sommet du Mont-Blanc. Le 3 août 1787 Horace-Bénédict De Saussure parvint à la cime du fameux mont et sut donner le plus grand retentissement à cet exploit tant dans les milieux mondain que scientifique.Afin de commémorer cet évênement, Charles François Exchaquet construisit des maquettes de la Vallée de Chamonix et du Mont-Blanc qui se vendirent dans toute l'Europe. A notre connaissance il (...) n'en subsiste plus que cinq exemplaires. L'un d'entre eux est la propriété du Cabinet de Minéralogie du Musée Teyler de Haarlem, Pays-Bas. Il est en parfait état de conservation et accompagné de documents originaux dont un de la main de C. F. Exchaquet. Cette maquette donne de précieux renseignements sur la technique des plans-reliefs, qui a précédé la représentation cartographique plane.SummaryDuring the whole of the eighteenth century, and especially since 1741, various attempts have been made to climb the Mont Blanc. On 3 August 1787, Horace-Bénédict De Saussure reached the summit of the famous mountain. His achievement had an impact on society at large, as well as in the scientific community. To commemorate the event, C. F. Exchaquet built maquettes of Mont-Blanc and the Valley of Chamonix, which he sold all over Europe.To our knowledge, only five of these models have been preserved. One of them, in a perfect state, is the property of the Mineralogical Cabinet of Teyler's Museum at Haarlem, in The Netherlands. Original documentation has been preserved, including one hand-written manuscript from Exchaquet himself.The study of both documents and maquette reveals interesting information on the technique of plan-relief before the traditional use of two-dimensional cartography. (shrink)

Studies of normal individuals reveal an asymmetry in the folk concept of intentional action: an action is more likely to be thought of as intentional when it is morally bad than when it is morally good. One interpretation of these results comes from the hypothesis that emotion plays a critical mediating role in the relationship between an action’s moral status and its intentional status. According to this hypothesis, the negative emotional response triggered by a morally bad action drives the attribution (...) of intent to the actor, or the judgment that the actor acted intentionally. We test this hypothesis by presenting cases of morally bad and morally good action to seven individuals with deficits in emotional processing resulting from damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC). If normal emotional processing is necessary for the observed asymmetry, then individuals with VMPC lesions should show no asymmetry. Our results provide no support for this hypothesis: like normal individuals, those with VMPC lesions showed the same asymmetry, tending to judge that an action was intentional when it was morally bad but not when it was morally good. Based on this finding, we suggest that normal emotional processing is not responsible for the observed asymmetry of intentional attributions and thus does not mediate the relationship between an action’s moral status and its intentional status. (shrink)

Background:Stress can frequently occur in the driving context. Its cognitive effects can be deleterious and lead to uncomfortable or risky situations. While stress detection in this context is well developed, regulation using dedicated advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) is still emergent.Objectives:This systematic review focuses on stress regulation strategies that can be qualified as “subtle” or “mindless”: the technology employed to perform regulation does not interfere with an ongoing task. The review goal is 2-fold: establishing the state of the art on such (...) technological implementation in the driving context and identifying complementary technologies relying on subtle regulation that could be applied in driving.Methods:A systematic review was conducted using search operators previously identified through a concept analysis. The patents and scientific studies selected provide an overview of actual and potential mindless technology implementations. These are then analyzed from a scientific perspective. A classification of results was performed according to the different stages of emotion regulation proposed by the Gross model.Results:A total of 47 publications were retrieved, including 21 patents and 26 studies. Six of the studies investigated mindless stress regulation in the driving context. Patents implemented strategies mostly linked to attentional deployment, while studies tended to investigate response modulation strategies.Conclusions:This review allowed us to identify several ADAS relying on mindless computing technologies to reduce stress and better understand the underlying mechanisms allowing stress reduction. Further studies are necessary to better grasp the effect of mindless technologies on driving safety. However, we have established the feasibility of their implementation as ADAS and proposed directions for future research in this field. (shrink)

We defend a functionalist approach to emotion that begins by focusing on emotions as central states with causal connections to behavior and to other cognitive states. The approach brackets the conscious experience of emotion, lists plausible features that emotions exhibit, and argues that alternative schemes are unpromising candidates. We conclude with the benefits of our approach: one can study emotions in animals; one can look in the brain for the implementation of specific features; and one ends up with an architecture (...) of the mind in which emotions are fully accommodated through their relations to the rest of cognition. Our article focuses on arguing for this general approach; as such, it is an essay in the philosophy of emotion rather than in the psychology or neuroscience of emotion. (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 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)

The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies1–11. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion-related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. Here we show that six patients with focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region necessary for the normal generation of emotions and, in particular, social emotions12–14, produce an abnor- mally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of (...) judgements on moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours (for example, having to sacrifice one person’s life to save a number of other lives)7,8. In contrast, the VMPC patients’ judgements were normal in other classes of moral dilemmas. These findings indicate that, for a selective set of moral dilemmas, the VMPC is critical for normal judgements of right and wrong. The findings support a necessary role for emotion in the generation of those judgements. (shrink)

C’est sur la scène tragique - dans les oeuvres d’Euripide, particulièrement -, face au public masculin de la cité, que les femmes grecques viennent crier la douleur de la maternité. Caisse de résonance de douleurs et de malheurs. De la douleur la plus féminine, celle d’enfanter, bien sûr, mais aussi du malheur le plus féminin : celui d’être apais. Certes, l’homme sans descendance souffre de cette vacuité, mais cette tare d’être sans enfant, c’est seulement pour la femme qu’elle s’étend à (...) tout ce qui n’est pas le statut de félicité, celui de femme eupais. En effet, la femme apais, c’est aussi bien celle dont l’enfant est mort que celle à laquelle on a vite fait d’attribuer la stérilité du couple. C’est aussi celle que son âge, le délaissement dont elle est l’objet, font classer dans la catégorie des femmes vides. Coeur de la vraie vie des femmes, image fortement corporelle, la maternité constitue le pôle d’excellence, le seul vrai but de l’existence. La vierge s’y prépare à remplacer sa mère qui souffre d’abandonner ce en quoi elle s’est réalisée. (shrink)

The significance of the behavior of biological entities cannot be fully explained in terms of the physical and chemical processes upon which contemporary biological and medical research depends. The characteristic proper of biological entities is that they are systems marked by ‘inwardness’, that is, a capacity to interpret meanings in order to reach goals. The significance of this characteristic is given in examples from the author's morphological research. Keywords: biological research, inwardness, organism CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?

Consciousness and emotion feature prominently in our personal lives, yet remain enigmatic. Recent advances prompt further distinctions that should provide more experimental traction: we argue that emotion consists of an emotion state (functional aspects, including emo- tional response) as well as feelings (the conscious experience of the emotion), and that consciousness consists of level (e.g. coma, vegetative state and wake- fulness) and content (what it is we are conscious of). Not only is consciousness important to aspects of emotion but structures (...) that are important for emotion, such as brainstem nuclei and midline cortices, overlap with structures that regulate the level of consciousness. The intersection of consciousness and emotion is ripe for experimental investigation, and we outline possible examples for future studies. (shrink)

Le Serment d’Hippocrate, sans doute le texte que la postérité a retenu comme le plus fameux des écrits médicaux de l’Antiquité grecque, prend en une phrase position sur l’avortement : « Je ne remettrai pas non plus à une femme de pessaire abortif ». Les commentaires de ce passage du Serment ont été et sont toujours nombreux et donnent lieu à de multiples controverses. Mais une lecture littérale permet d’affirmer qu’il ne s’agit nullement d’une interdiction pure et simple de l’avortement, (...) mais seulement d’une interdiction d’un type de pratique abortive en raison de sa dangerosité. Car les femmes grecques se mutilent et meurent d’avoir des enfants, mais aussi de ne pas pouvoir en avoir et sûrement de ne pas en vouloir. Les médecins le savent. (shrink)

L’histoire étudiée est celle, bien connue, de l’enlèvement de Korê, jeune fille arrachée avec violence à sa mère Déméter par son futur mari Hadès, roi des Enfers. Ce récit a traversé les siècles dans des versions successives, de la Grèce archaïque à la romanité tardive. Dans cet article, l’objectif est d’identifier dans les discours et les images en quoi ils mettent en scène une prise de corps brutale et un arrachement au monde sécurisé de l’enfance. La méthodologie croise une perspective (...) littéraire et une approche d’anthropologie historique qui permet de montrer comment, tout au long de l’Antiquité, le passage vers l’inconnu de la relation sexuelle est à la fois euphémisé ou conté et contourné par la métaphore, légitimant l’ordre du monde, dominé par la puissance masculine sur les femmes et par celle des dieux sur les humains. (shrink)

L’histoire étudiée est celle, bien connue, de l’enlèvement de Korê, jeune fille arrachée avec violence à sa mère Déméter par son futur mari Hadès, roi des Enfers. Ce récit a traversé les siècles dans des versions successives, de la Grèce archaïque à la romanité tardive. Dans cet article, l’objectif est d’identifier dans les discours et les images en quoi ils mettent en scène une prise de corps brutale et un arrachement au monde sécurisé de l’enfance. La méthodologie croise une perspective (...) littéraire et une approche d’anthropologie historique qui permet de montrer comment, tout au long de l’Antiquité, le passage vers l’inconnu de la relation sexuelle est à la fois euphémisé ou conté et contourné par la métaphore, légitimant l’ordre du monde, dominé par la puissance masculine sur les femmes et par celle des dieux sur les humains. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est le premier hors-série de la revue Métis. Le numéro réunit douze contributions issues d’un séminaire de recherche qui s’est tenu à l’automne 2011 à Épineuil. L’introduction de Sandra Boehringer avec la collaboration de Violaine Sebillotte-Cuchet retrace deux décennies (1992-2012) de réflexions menées autour et par la revue Métis sur les rapports sociaux de sexes, la question de la différence des sexes, l’histoire des femmes jusqu’au questionnement actuel sur le genre. Ce regard...

Our approach to emotion emphasized three key ingredients. We do not yet have a mature science of emotion, or even a consensus view—in this respect we are more hesitant than Sander, Grandjean, and Scherer or Luiz Pessoa. Relatedly, a science of emotion needs to be highly interdisciplinary, including ecology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. We recommend a functionalist view that brackets conscious experiences and that essentially treats emotions as latent variables inferred from a number of measures. But our version of functionalism (...) is not definitional or ontological. It is resolutely methodological, in good part because it is too early to attempt definitions. (shrink)