Applied Geography, A World Perspective reviews progress in applied geography in different regions of the world. It does this through the eyes of an international panel of highly regarded academic practitioners. The book offers new prospects on the use of established approaches and explores exciting new territories. Together, the contributors provide a comprehensive picture of applied geography today. This book is of relevance to faculty and graduate students in the fields of geography, planning, public policy, regional science and other related (...) social and behavioural sciences. (shrink)

There is a tendency to take mounted dinosaur skeletons at face value, as the raw data on which the science of paleontology is founded. But the truth is that mounted dinosaur skeletons are substantially intention-dependent—they are artifacts. More importantly, I argue, they are also substantially imagination-dependent: their production is substantially causally reliant on preparators’ creative imaginations, and their proper reception is predicated on audiences’ recreative imaginations. My main goal here is to show that dinosaur skeletal mounts are plausible candidates for (...) art-status. But, what is more, I think they are artworks—specifically, sculptures. (shrink)

Rather than a return to Bergson, the ‘Kyoto manifesto’ argues for a renewed, expanded Bergsonism: a philosophical inquiry that lives up to the methodological standards set by Bergson, even if this implies prolonging some of his intuitions in different directions—possibly against himself. Several aspects of this endeavour are examined in turn: the meaning of ‘intuition’ and the prospects of speculative empiricism, the ontological scope of scientific theories, emergentism and the virtual, the relevance of space-time for duration, the place of metaphysical (...) imagination and its capacity to probe the utopian potential of a truly open science. (shrink)

Surveillance programs supporting the management of One Health issues such as antibiotic resistance are complex systems in themselves. Designing ethical surveillance systems is thus a complex task (retroactive and iterative), yet one that is also complicated to implement and evaluate (e.g., sharing, collaboration, and governance). The governance of health surveillance requires attention to ethical concerns about data and knowledge (e.g., performance, trust, accountability, and transparency) and empowerment ethics, also referred to as a form of responsible self-governance. Ethics in reflexive governance (...) operates as a systematic critical-thinking procedure that aims to define its value: What are the “right” criteria to justify how to govern “good” actions for a “better” future? The objective is to lay the foundations for a methodological framework in empirical bioethics, the rudiments of which have been applied to a case study to building reflexive governance in One Health. This ongoing critical thinking process involves “mapping, framing, and shaping” the dynamics of interests and perspectives that could jeopardize a “better” future. This paper proposes to hybridize methods to combine insights from collective deliberation and expert evaluation through a reflexive governance functioning as a community-based action-ethics methodology. The intention is to empower individuals and associations in a dialogue with society, which operation is carried out using a case study approach on data sharing systems. We based our reasoning on a feasibility study conducted in Québec, Canada (2018–2021), envisioning an antibiotic use surveillance program in animal health for 2023. Using the adaptive cycle and governance techniques and perspectives, we synthesize an alternative governance model rooted in the value of empowerment. The framework, depicted as a new “research and design (R&D)” practice, is linking operation and innovation by bridging the gap between Reflexive, Evaluative, and Deliberative reasonings and by intellectualizing the management of democratizing critical thinking locally (collective ethics) by recognizing its context (social ethics). Drawing on the literature in One Health and sustainable development studies, this article describes how a communitarian and pragmatic approach can broaden the vision of feasibility studies to ease collaboration through public-private-academic partnerships. The result is a process that “reassembles” the One Health paradigm under the perspective of global bioethics to create bridges between the person and the ecosystem through pragmatic ethics. (shrink)

Van Rensselaer Potter (1911-2001), le biologiste à l’origine du terme « bioéthique » dans les écrits nord-américains, considère que « real bioethics falls in the context of the ideals of […] Aldo Leopold », un forestier, philosophe et poète ayant marqué le XXe siècle. Associer Leopold à Potter a pour effet de placer la bioéthique dans la famille des éthiques de l’environnement, ce qui la différencie du sens conventionnel retenu en médecine et en recherche depuis le Rapport Belmont (1979), une (...) déclaration ayant propulsé l’institutionnalisation de la bioéthique en Amérique du Nord. Cependant, diviser la bioéthique entre le médical et l’environnemental est réducteur. Potter propose au contraire une bioéthique globale s’intéressant aux enjeux situés à leur interface, dont ceux concernant la terre, la vie sauvage, la surpopulation, la consommation, etc. Cet article vise à amorcer un nouveau chantier d’analyse de la pensée de Potter en s’appuyant sur l’héritage de Leopold en biologie. Une synthèse de cette vision potterienne est proposée de manière à considérer son œuvre comme un tout cohérent s’intégrant aux grands débats qui transcendent les XXe et XXIe siècles. Sa vision apparaît comme une sagesse collective et prospective sous la forme d’une science de la survie et d’un code de bioéthique. Dépassant l’éthique de l’environnement, son association avec Leopold offre un modèle de la complexité s’imposant comme cas indissociable du contexte qui l’englobe, en améliorant nos façons d’intervenir en pratique dans un monde en constante transformation, à titre de gouvernance adaptative et de sagesse de la responsabilité. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers often use the language of determination in order to describe the nature of developmental phenomena. Accounts in terms of determination have often been reductionist. One common idea is that DNA is supposed to play a special explanatory role in developmental explanations, namely, that DNA is a developmental determinant. In this article we try to make sense of determination claims in developmental biology. Adopting a manipulationist approach, we shall first argue that the notion of developmental determinant is causal. (...) We suggest that two different theses concerning developmental determination can be articulated: determination of occurrence and structural determination. We shall argue that, while the first thesis is problematic, the second, opportunely qualified, is feasible. Finally, we shall argue that an analysis of biological causation in terms of determination cannot account for entangled dynamics. Characterising causal entanglement as a particular kind of interactive causation whereby difference-making causes ascribable to different levels of biological organisation influence a particular ontogenetic outcome, we shall, via two illustrative examples, diagnose some potential limits of a reductionist, molecular and intra-level understanding of biological causation. (shrink)

Nelson’s stochastic quantum mechanics provides an ideal arena to test how the Born rule is established from an initial probability distribution that is not identical to the square modulus of the wavefunction. Here, we investigate numerically this problem for three relevant cases: a double-slit interference setup, a harmonic oscillator, and a quantum particle in a uniform gravitational field. For all cases, Nelson’s stochastic trajectories are initially localized at a definite position, thereby violating the Born rule. For the double slit and (...) harmonic oscillator, typical quantum phenomena, such as interferences, always occur well after the establishment of the Born rule. In contrast, for the case of quantum particles free-falling in the gravity field of the Earth, an interference pattern is observed before the completion of the quantum relaxation. This finding may pave the way to experiments able to discriminate standard quantum mechanics, where the Born rule is always satisfied, from Nelson’s theory, for which an early subquantum dynamics may be present before full quantum relaxation has occurred. Although the mechanism through which a quantum particle might violate the Born rule remains unknown to date, we speculate that this may occur during fundamental processes, such as beta decay or particle-antiparticle pair production. (shrink)

It is not uncommon for art historians and philosophers of art to deride the kinds of aesthetic experiences tourists seek out by characterizing them as bowing to the will of the herd, succumbing to peer pressure, or simply seeking out what is popular. Two charges, in particular, tend to be levelled against tourists. The first, which I call the motivation problem, contends that tourists are motivated to seek out aesthetic experiences for the wrong kinds of reasons. The second, which I (...) call the appreciation problem, maintains that tourist tastes are aesthetically uninformed and are thus the inauthentic product of aesthetic luck. But there is a better way of thinking about aesthetic tourism, one that can capture both the tourist’s motivations and the role of aesthetic luck. I argue that aesthetic tourists, like many experts, subscribe to the acquaintance principle, and that doing so generates aesthetic obligations to their practical identity. The tourist, in the end, is no more – and no less – a product of aesthetic luck than the expert connoisseur. (shrink)

Although the character of the “lady detective”is a staple of the cozy mystery genre, we contend that there are no great lady detectives to rival Holmes or Poirot. This is not because there are no clever or interesting lady detective characters, but ratherbecause the concept of greatness is sociallyconstructed and, like coolness, depends on public acclaim and perception. We explore the mechanics of genre formation, arguing that the very structure of cozy mysteries precludes female greatness. To create a “great”character,theauthor cannot (...) just endowher with certain attributes; she must actively work to overcome her audience’s tendency to import structures of oppression into the story, and she must wrestle against the conventions of the genre. In doing so, however, authors risk setting their stories in a wholly different genre. (shrink)

The emphasis of systems and synthetic biology on quantitative understanding of biological objects and their eventual re-design has raised the question of whether description and construction standards that are commonplace in electric and mechanical engineering are applicable to live systems. The tuning of genetic devices to deliver a given activity is generally context-dependent, thereby undermining the re-usability of parts, and predictability of function, necessary for manufacturing new biological objects. Tolerance and allowance are key aspects of standardization that need to be (...) brought to biological design. These should endow functional building blocks with a pre-specified level of confidence for bespoke biosystems engineering. However, in the absence of more fundamental knowledge, fine-tuning necessarily relies on evolutionary/combinatorial gravitation toward a fixed objective. (shrink)

Dans Les Nuées, Aristophane adresse des critiques à Socrate auxquelles Platon répond philosophiquement dans l’Apologie. Or le Socrate des Nuées porte des traits de Protagoras, et certains reproches attribués à l’un valent pour l’autre. Comme pour Socrate, Platon a composé pour Protagoras une apologie, dans le Théétète. Si nous comparons les accusations de la pièce à ce que Platon prête à Protagoras, nous constatons qu’il se fait son défenseur. Mais pour quelle raison et à quel point de vue? Par une (...) analyse des concepts de geloion et de mimèsis comique, on montre comment Platon déploie une stratégie de réappropriation de la pensée de Protagoras – pour lui donner un tour philosophique qui constitue en même temps une réflexion critique sur le statut de l’objet comique.In the Apology, Plato gives a philosophical answer to critics contained in Aristophanes’ Clouds. However, through Socrates, The Clouds target Protagoras too. As a matter of fact, Plato composed an apology for him, as well in the Theaetetus, that answers the charges in the comedy against Protagoras, becoming in a certain way his « lawyer ». But why and what for? Analysing the concepts of geloion and comic mimesis, we show how Plato undertakes to give a philosophical reading of Protagoras’ thought, which, in the same time, constitutes a critical thinking about the object of comedy. (shrink)

In Kant’s ethics, disinterest is derived from the concept of the categorical imperative and is taken to be the condition of the possibility of all moral actions. Schopenhauer, by contrast, treats disinterest as a necessary but insufficient condition for morality, and severs it from its ties to the categorical imperative. Disinterest, for Schopenhauer, leads to the concept of compassion, which he praises as the sole ground of all morality. But compassion seems fundamentally opposed to disinterest, since it involves taking an (...) active interest in someone else’s plight: a consideration not really treated in Kant. In this paper, I tackle the problem of reconciling compassion, in Schopenhauer, with the criterion of disinterest that he inherits from Kant. I also take up the challenge of explaining compassion’s altruistic tendency to act for another’s well-being if we take Schopenhauer’s determinism at face value, and acknowledge that human actions are fundamentally egoistic. (shrink)

This paper investigates the impact of the historical factor on language choice in Protestant Churches in Cameroon. It is based on the postulate that religious languages are more stable than their secular counterparts, not only in their forms, but also in their variety. Therefore, it was hypothesized that the first language group to come in contact with the mother mission society of a religious variety is likely to remain the major group in the church, and its language, the liturgical language. (...) To verify this hypothesis, the researcher analysed language use in three Protestant parishes located in the Yaoundé metropolis: the Oyom-Abang parishes of the Eglise Evangélique du Cameroun and Eglise Presbytérienne Camerounaise, and the Yaoundé-Melen-Philadelphie parish of the Eglise Protestante Africaine. The data were collected via participant observation and informal interviews. Their analysis revealed that the use of indigenous languages for key parts of a church service in the three parishes selected was usually associated with the place where the Church was founded, which is the area where its mother mission society first settled in the country. In that vein, the following languages were reported: Bamileke at EEC Oyom-Abang, Basaa at EPC Oyom-Abang, and Ngumba at EPA Yaoundé-Melen-Philadelphie. (shrink)

L'auteur confronte les doctrines de différents philosophes et en particulier E. Lévinas et P. Teilhard de Chardin sur le concept d'altérité. Il montre que leurs deux conceptions loin d'être en opposion, offrent des raisons de s'unir.

Cet article se donne pour tâche de souligner la place, incontestablement impensée, de l’altérité et de l’ecriture chez Gadamer. Son dialogue incessant avec Hegel lui a en effet permis d’insister considérablement sur la prédominance de l’autre au delà de toute saisie logique et dialectique. Oe c’est à partir d’un travail subtil de proximité et de distanciation vis-à-vis de la phénoménologie hégélienneque Gadamer pense véritablement la question de l’altérité comme première dans l’acte d’interprétation. C’est depuis cette problématisation que devient également possible (...) une confrontation indirecte avec Derrida dont la portée dépasse amplement la simple opposition dialogue-écriture dans laquelle on tente trop souvent d’enfermer le débat autour de l’identité du sens et de sa différance. Car l’ecriture fait bel et bien l’objet d’une attention particulière dans l’expérience herméneutique gadamerienne.This article attempts to clarify the position, incontestably neglected, of alterity and writing in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. His incessant dialogue with Hegel offered him the possibility of insisting on the predominance of the other over any logical and dialectical apprehension. Hence it is based on a subtle work of proximity and distance in regard to Hegel’s phenomenology that Gadamer can really interrogate the question of alterity as fundamental in the action of interpretation. This problematisation makes possible a real and indirect confrontation with Derrida, whose consequences transgress the simple opposition dialogue-writing to which the debate about the identity of sense and its différance is often confined. In fact, writing is actually the subject of particular attention in gadamerian hermeneutical experience. (shrink)

Cet article se donne pour tâche de souligner la place, incontestablement impensée, de l’altérité et de l’ecriture chez Gadamer. Son dialogue incessant avec Hegel lui a en effet permis d’insister considérablement sur la prédominance de l’autre au delà de toute saisie logique et dialectique. Oe c’est à partir d’un travail subtil de proximité et de distanciation vis-à-vis de la phénoménologie hégélienneque Gadamer pense véritablement la question de l’altérité comme première dans l’acte d’interprétation. C’est depuis cette problématisation que devient également possible (...) une confrontation indirecte avec Derrida dont la portée dépasse amplement la simple opposition dialogue-écriture dans laquelle on tente trop souvent d’enfermer le débat autour de l’identité du sens et de sa différance. Car l’ecriture fait bel et bien l’objet d’une attention particulière dans l’expérience herméneutique gadamerienne.This article attempts to clarify the position, incontestably neglected, of alterity and writing in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. His incessant dialogue with Hegel offered him the possibility of insisting on the predominance of the other over any logical and dialectical apprehension. Hence it is based on a subtle work of proximity and distance in regard to Hegel’s phenomenology that Gadamer can really interrogate the question of alterity as fundamental in the action of interpretation. This problematisation makes possible a real and indirect confrontation with Derrida, whose consequences transgress the simple opposition dialogue-writing to which the debate about the identity of sense and its différance is often confined. In fact, writing is actually the subject of particular attention in gadamerian hermeneutical experience. (shrink)

L’enjeu de cet article est, tout d’abord, de proposer une réflexion sur l’identité telle qu’elle se voit amplement redéfinie à l’ère numérique, en l’abordant sous l’angle des questions qu’elle nous pose et qui concernent la part du secret qui vient nourrir les processus de subjectivation. Ceci dans une époque hypermoderne où les possibilités d’intervenir dans la gestion de nos données personnelles sont limitées : la multiplication des informations récoltées rend irréaliste l’exercice systématique du consentement et le contrôle par l’utilisateur, ne (...) serait-ce qu’en raison de la surcharge cognitive que cet exercice effectif exige. D’autre part, le changement de nature des moyens techniques de collecte, illustré par l’avènement des objets connectés, conduit à la démultiplication des capteurs qui collectent les données sans même que l’utilisateur puisse s’en rendre compte, comme le montre l’exemple de la vidéo-surveillance couplée à la reconnaissance faciale. Dans ces agencements machiniques, le visible se réduit à ce qui peut être saisi en données, à ce qui relève de la mise à disposition immédiate des êtres, comme si on pouvait percer leurs secrets les plus intimes. Mais au-delà des contraintes générées par les architectures numériques, les possibilités d’entrevoir de nouveaux champs de réinvention permanente de soi demeurent pleinement ouvertes et permettent de créer les conditions d’émergence d’un rapport dynamique et plus inventif au secret. (shrink)

Dans la présente contribution, nous nous efforçons de voir comment une certaine proximité entre Félix Guattari et le philosophe japonais Tomonobu Imamichi intervient dans l’élaboration d’une pensée critique qui nous incite à interroger les fondements ontologiques de nos sociétés industrielles. Les crises écologiques que ces dernières connaissent sont d’une ampleur telle qu’elles nous imposent non seulement de réformer notre manière de produire et de consommer, mais elles nous somment également de nous pencher sur nos équilibres subjectifs. Nous devons prendre soin (...) de nos expériences sensibles, en tentant de redéfinir notre manière d’être dans le monde et d’interagir avec nos environnements technologiques. L’enjeu est de taille à l’heure où la mise en scène par les médias des problèmes environnementaux contribue le plus souvent à désorienter l’opinion publique, en générant une angoisse qui s’avère le plus souvent préjudiciable à tout exercice d’évaluation des problèmes. De plus, on s’aperçoit que la facilité avec laquelle il nous est possible d’accéder par le biais des réseaux numériques à des connaissances censées favoriser une perception plus ample des problématiques écologiques ne suffit pas à générer des comportements plus responsables. Une économie des affects est ici directement en cause, elle nous incite à redéfinir les conditions de notre expérience environnementale et d’assumer sa dimension polysémique. (shrink)

This paper examines the debate as to whether something can have final value in virtue of its relational (i.e., non-intrinsic) properties, or, more briefly put, whether final value must be intrinsic. The paper adopts the perspective of the fitting-attitude analysis (FA analysis) of value, and argues that from this perspective, there is no ground for the requirement that things may have final value only in virtue of their intrinsic properties, but that there might be some grounds for the alternate requirement (...) that final value be grounded only in the essential properties of their bearers. First, the paper introduces the key elements of the FA analysis, and sets aside an obvious but unimportant way in which this analysis makes all final values relational. Second, it discusses some classical counterexamples to the view that final value must be intrinsic. Third, it discusses the relation between final, contributive, and signatory value. Fourth, it examines Zimmerman’s defense of the requirement that final value must be intrinsic on the grounds that final value cannot be derivative. And finally, it explores the alternative requirement that something may have final value in virtue of its essential properties. (shrink)

Introduction au numéro spécial "L'articulation de la phénoménologie et de l'herméneutique chez Paul Ricœur".

Does Ricœur’s approach of language enter in contradiction with Husserl’s phenomenological legacy? In response to Claude Romano’s criticisms of the hermeneutical approach of language sustained by Ricœur, this paper intends to shed light on the complex connections between Husserl and Ricœur on the relations between language and experience. It aims to show, against what Romano suggests, that Ricœur’s thinking never leads to a linguistic idealism,but follows effectively a phenomenological exigency through his hermeneutical project.

Introduction au numéro spécial "L'articulation de la phénoménologie et de l'herméneutique chez Paul Ricœur".

Among the educative games of Plato’s Cretan city, choral performances have a prominent role. This paper examines the function of play (παιδιά) in the choral education in virtue in Plato’s Laws. I reconstruct the notion of play as it is elaborated throughout this dialogue, and then show how it contributes to solving the problem of virtue acquisition in the Athenian’s account of moral education through songs and dances. I argue that play in the Laws is best understood as an imitative (...) activity that is intrinsically pleasurable, ordered by rules and patterns of repetition, and undertaken for its own sake by a player whose psychic condition is childish. Thus interpreted, we are in a better position to see why choruses must be engaged in playfully. Because the self-likening process (ὁμοίωσις) choral performances aim at requires pleasure and because pleasure normally obtains when there is a concordance between one’s character and the imitations, virtue acquisition is best secured if the imitations of virtue in choruses are performed or spectated playfully. (shrink)

This essay focuses on two philosophical assumptions.According to the first one, biological normativity is not an irreducible property of the living, but rather the living is the historical result of its normative activity. There is therefore a logic of life at work in every living organism that makes it a subject and an agent. It is not the fact that it is already a subject that explains the presence of this logic. It is therefore not impossible to naturalise biological normativity, (...) even if this concept proposed by Georges Canguilhem makes us bifurcate from a world of facts to a world of values.According to the second, we need to extend Varela’s concept of operational closure in order to naturalise biological normativity. We propose a new way of writing it that takes into account the fact that architectural constraints (ϕ1ϕ2) are always at stake in a biological system. By such constraints, we can predict the presence of specific propulsive and repulsive devices in every organism, by which its organisation can be constantly rebuilt, and through which biological disruption can also be amplified. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe financial crisis of 2008 was unforeseen partly because the academic theories that underpin policy making do not sufficiently account for uncertainty and complexity or learned and evolved human capabilities for managing them. Mainstream theories of decision making tend to be strongly normative and based on wishfully unrealistic “idealized” modeling. In order to develop theories of actual decision making under uncertainty, we need new methodologies that account for how human actors often manage uncertain situations “well enough.” Some possibly helpful methodologies, (...) drawing on digital science, focus on the role of emotions in determining people's choices; others examine how people construct narratives that enable them to act; still others combine qualitative with quantitative data. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ Le principal objectif de ce texte est d'apporter certaines clarifications par rapport à des problèmes et difficultés entourant l'usage actuel des notions de culture, d'appartenance et de dialogue. L'auteur montre que l'idée selon laquelle on pourrait être prisonnier de sa propre culture découle d'une transformation récente de la signification du concept de culture. Cette idée est critiquée comme étant un mythe, le mythe de la monade culturelle, reposant sur une mécompréhension des rapports entre culture, appartenance et dialogue. L'auteur s'efforce (...) de proposer une meilleure compréhension de ces trois concepts, de façon à éviter toute forme de relativisme radical. ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to shed light on some difficulties and problems related to the current use of the concepts of culture, belonging and dialogue. The author shows that the idea that we could be prisoners of our own culture stems from a recent transformation of the meaning of the concept of culture. This idea is criticized as a myth, the myth of the cultural monad, based on a misunderstanding of the relationship among culture, belonging and dialogue. The author tries to offer a better understanding of these three concepts, in order to avoid any form of radical relativism. (shrink)

This paper proposes a presentation and an analysis of the first philosophical writing of Paul Ricœur, on the problem of God in the reflexive philosophies of Lachelier and Lagneau. His principal aim is to situate this first writing in the context of Ricœur’s philosophical work, by underlining his belonging to the french reflexive tradition and his refusing of the absolute idealism of Lachelier and Lagneau. The author insists more precisely on the realistic and personalist thesis of the young Ricœur and (...) on the appearance of the problem of evil in his work.  . (shrink)

Cet article vise à dégager les implications ontologiques du projet Ricoeurien d’une herméneutique du soi tel que formulé dans Soi-même comme un autre. L’auteur retrace d’abord la double approche de Ricoeur proposant de penser l’attestation du soi suivant la notion aristotélicienne de l’être-vrai et l’homme capable selon les catégories de l’acte et de la puissance. Soulignant le caractère fragmentaire et insuffisant des analyses de Ricoeur, il explore ensuite une troisième façon de nommer l’être du soi selon la catégorie de la (...) relation, développant ainsi l’idée d’une “ontologie de la relation” sous-jacente à cette herméneutique du soi. This article aims to make explicit the ontological implications of the Ricœurian project of a hermeneutics of self as formulated in Oneself as Another . The author first redraws Ricœur’s double approach proposing to think the attestation of the self following the Aristotelian notion of being-true and the capable man following the categories of actuality and potentiality. Underlining the fragmentary nature and the incompleteness of Ricœur’s analysis, he then explores a third way to speak about the being of the self following the category of relation, thus developing the idea of an underlying “ontology of the relation” implied by this hermeneutics of the self.  . (shrink)