This article explains why intercultural communication always should be studied in context and how even though misunderstanding is normally at stake in intercultural communication, one can argue that the promotion of mutual understanding actually is of mutual interest for all of humanity. Studying in context means paying attention to circumstances around the uses of signs as well as to the roles and moods of the users of signs. Promoting mutual understanding means avoiding a state of mind that implies the depreciation (...) of the other. To be intercultural, a communication must not be infected by prejudices. Any real attempt at intercultural communication is a paradoxical procedure. It supposes that human beings who engage in it at one and the same time recognize the stranger as similar and as different. Also, it can lead to acceptance of the other and a better understanding of what communication is about as well as to rejection and obscurantism. In this paper, I argue that even though people always relate in various ways to common and different cultural backgrounds, they still have to relate to common issues that govern their ways, and that focusing on those common issues and studying the various communicative contexts and contents help promoting mutual understanding, as these activities highlight the implicit role of the value of respect in all interpersonal communication. Human beings cannot avoid evaluating situations, contexts, relations, peoples and cultures. How can we establish that mutual respect and open-mindedness are better than disdain and dogmatism? Well, precisely by affirming that human relations commonly build on the inevitability of communicating and contrasting values and norms. Meaning in interaction permanently transforms cultural elements and patterns into something new. Intercultural communication becomes more respectable when it acknowledges the variety of ways humans interact meaningfully and the plurality of their logic of action. It is good and reasonable to value understanding because this variety and this pluralism always have kept the social alive and more than ever in our modern globalized world contribute to the creativity and interactivity of modern life. The interest of pragmatics in user attitudes, its focus on practical rather than on alethic modalities, can contribute to a more nuanced approach to intercultural communication, where the different elements of meaning in interaction can be studied in various bundles rather than in a single strand. (shrink)

The most fundamental communication paradox is that of the society communicating with itself. Culture's paradox is that in establishing itself as a culture, society has to create an impossible distance to itself in order to be able to remain within itself. Thus, society finds its bearings by putting itself into perspective, by giving itself a project which naturally takes its starting point in the culture but which always considers what is outside society itself. It is not necessary to be aware (...) of the paradox in order to be able to work with it. Still it is paradoxical that the very society which declares itself ready to work with itself is not capable of doing so. (shrink)

Grounded in newer French socio-political philosophy, this text deals with the paradoxical situation in which the interpretation of society as well as the relation between the individual and the social remains ambiguous even though autonomy and interrogation of the social emerges: Autonomy remains trapped between transcendence and immanence. Modernity is when society claims to know that it has to produce its own myths. Traditional societies did not relate to their myths as if they were their own products. Nevertheless, as soon (...) as the traditional religious points of reference are disclosed and disappear, the community gives itself new points of reference in order to put the social at a distance. Thus the social creates a distance to itself and a mirror for itself in order to perceive itself and work upon itself. The article explores the questions of why this is so and the difference between heteronomous and autonomous autotranscendence. (shrink)

Den 27. november 1985 døde den franske historiker, Fernand Braudel, som af mange verden over regnes for en af de betydeligste historikere nogen sinde. Han var Annales-skolens førende skikkelse.

This chapter provides an overview of the issues involved in recent debates about the epistemological relevance of emotions. We first survey some key issues in epistemology and the theory of emotions that inform various assessments of emotions’ potential significance in epistemology. We then distinguish five epistemic functions that have been claimed for emotions: motivational force, salience and relevance, access to facts and beliefs, non-propositional contributions to knowledge and understanding, and epistemic efficiency. We identify two core issues in the discussions about (...) such epistemic functions of emotions: First, even though it is plausible that emotions are involved in epistemic processes, it may be doubted whether they really matter for the normative question of what counts as knowledge or justified belief. Second, some of the epistemic functions claimed for emotions in general may only be attributed to some specifically epistemic emotions, which have been present all along in traditional epistemology, albeit under different labels such as ‘intuitions’. (shrink)

In the past forty years, Bruno Latour’s claim that Science Is Politics By Other Means (SIPBOM) has been the underlying creed of Science and Technology Studies (STS), most of us simply taking it for granted. In contrast, this special issue is predicated on the observation of an enduring lack of exegesis of this catchphrase so remarkable that is has caused an outcry among natural scientists, echoed in some social science quarters. If SIPBOM has been a resource for decades, by turning (...) it into a topic this special issue revisits one of the most exciting and challenging insights of contemporary thought. (shrink)

Zbiór tekstów pochodzących z różnych czasopism z lat 1952-1979.

Résumé Après l’enthousiasme soulevé par le début des années 1990, les peuples autochtones de Sibérie ont dû relever de nombreux défis. Dans le nord-ouest sibérien, au-delà des associations qui militent pour la reconnaissance et les droits autochtones, des expériences individuelles ont vu le jour, qui chacune à leur façon, puisent dans la culture traditionnelle pour s’adapter au cadre complexe de la Fédération de Russie.

ABSTRACTThis essay reads Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice as a machine: a machine made of connectors, disruptors, reversible engines and agentive parts. Starting from a minor detail in the play...

When voters’ preferences on candidates are mutually coherent, in the sense that they are at all close to being perfectly single-peaked, perfectly single-troughed, or perfectly polarized, there is a large probability that a Condorcet Winner exists in elections with a small number of candidates. Given this fact, the study develops representations for Condorcet Efficiency of plurality rule as a function of the proximity of voters’ preferences on candidates to being perfectly single-peaked, perfectly single-troughed or perfectly polarized. We find that the (...) widely used plurality rule has Condorcet Efficiency values that behave in very different ways under each of these three models of mutual coherence. (shrink)

The model and framework presented in the target article by Thelen et al. is an interesting effort that is able to account for the contextual variability in the A-not-B performance of 7–12-month-old infants. In the process of developing their framework, the authors discounted the concept of object as a useful notion in discussions of A-not-B performance. For Piaget and other developmentalists, the main evidence for the acquisition of the concept of object was the disappearance of A-not-B errors after age 12 (...) months. However, the Thelen et al. model makes predictions of A-not-B outcomes over a much shorter, trial-to-trial time scale. Given the mismatch in the time scales over which analyses in the two approaches have been based, we wonder if the challenge to the concept of object has been misplaced. (shrink)

This discussion brings together five economists who address the major questions raised by the recent developments in the crisis of neoliberalism. The participants confront their respective definitions of neoliberalism, their understanding of the role played by financial mechanisms in the crisis and their interpretation of the crisis of sovereign debts. They discuss the implications of the crisis for the forces of the left, examining the consequences of the current weakening of the prior American hegemony : does it point to a (...) bipolar or a multipolar world, a period during which regional evolutions will have a degree of relative autonomy, some of which might define the outlines of the alternatives to neoliberalism? (shrink)

Les fondations du trésor de Sicyone à Delphes contiennent deux monuments archaïques exceptionnels : une tholos et un monoptère. De 1921 à 1924, G. Daux et J. Replat avaient procédé à un démontage partiel dont les résultats sont présentés et commentés ici. Environ sept cents blocs sont remployés de façon rationnelle et fondent non seulement les murs mais encore l'intérieur du trésor. Toute hypothèse sur l'identité du ou des donateurs de ces deux monuments doit tenir compte du caractère unique de (...) ce remploi. Les vestiges en place autorisent une restitution dans ses grandes lignes du trésor de la fin du vr siècle et un examen du contexte topographique de ce dernier. (shrink)

: Three unpublished ayyubid letters are presented here. They are addressed to ascetics, fuqarāʾ and ṣūfī, residing in the great mosque of Damascus, and devoted to reading the Qurʾān and praying at the tomb of prophet Zakariyyāʾ. This veneered shrine or ziyāra had been ignored until now, although it was known and it is common knowledge nowadays, that some rituals took place around the location where the head of John the Baptist, known in the lands of Islamic world as Yaḥyā (...) b. Zakariyyāʾ, was kept. Our research seeks to present aspects of the rituals held in the tomb of Zakariyāʾ, arguing that it was initially established with an impetus from Saladin, then thrived under his ayyubid successors, to start dwindling until it was abandoned by the end of the mamluk era. (shrink)

Was man Fruhe Neuzeit nennt, ist durch ausserordentliche Ereignisse gepragt, die die uberlieferten Welterklarungen in Frage stellen. Nicht nur die Erfahrungswelt andert sich, auch die Welt der Wissenschaft. Wunderbar ist etwas, das bestehende Diskurse nicht bestatigt, sondern herausfordert. Es widerspricht dem Gewohnten und ist erklarungsbedurftig. Die Kernfrage ist nun, bis wohin es im Kontext der Fruhen Neuzeit gelang, das Wunderbare zu erfassen und zu erklaren, und von welchem Punkt an die traditionellen Diskurse vom Wunderbaren widerlegt und falsifiziert wurden, so dass (...) neue Ordnungen gesucht werden mussten. Wie weit konnen traditionelle Ordnungen im Interesse von Erklarungen erweitert und verandert werden? Gelingt es den neuen Ordnungen, das Wunderbare aufzulosen und als 'Explanandum' logisch aus anderen Tatsachen und ubergeordneten Naturgesetzen abzuleiten? Wie wird die Konkurrenz zwischen den Diskursen in den zeitgenossischen Texten erortert? Der vorliegende Band umfasst Beitrage renommierter Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler aus dem In- und Ausland, die sich dem Wunderbaren im Zugriff der Vernunft in der fruhen Neuzeit aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln widmen. (shrink)

The Oyapock River has been the border between France and Brazil since the Treaty of Bern came to resolve a centuries-old dispute between the two states. Only populated by indigenous communities and a few adventurers, the two banks of the river are untouched by any lasting colonial and national settlement before the second half of the 19th century. Penal colonization is the formula adopted by the two states to fill the "void" of a border to be formalized. The criminal models (...) circulate and are reinterpreted by participating with great intensity in the making of the territory. (shrink)

This study shows how three Chilean media construct in their discourse the social actor ‘secondary students’, in a multimodal way. It focuses on the representation of Televisión Nacional de Chile (also known as TVN), El Dínamo and El Ciudadano of this social group which is often suppressed suppressed from the media sphere. It is a qualitative study with a social semiotic approach, following the guidelines of Visual Grammar and the typology of representation of social actors by van Leeuwen (2003). The (...) corpus comprised 15 multimodal texts of 2018 compiled from internet sites, which constitute a semiotic chain of a news event about education. The results suggest that TVN creates the meaning of an ‘aggressor student’, El Dínamo as a ‘student to be reformed’; whereas El Ciudadano, represents him as a social actor who is an ‘active participant’. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage étudie la langue du vrai dans la première modernité. La vérité dépend-elle d'une belle énonciation? Y a-t-il des règles institutionnelles spécifiques d'énonciation de la vérité? Pourquoi la doctrina constitue-t-elle l'horizon de tout savoir et de tout enseignement prétendant à la vérité?

On June 13, 323 BCE, Alexander the Great, king of the Greeks, died at Babylon at the age of thirty-three. He had conquered a large part of the known world—the oikoumenē of the Greeks—and he had pushed back the eastern limits of the universe by advancing into India as far as the basin of the Ganges. He had also done everything in his power to give birth to a myth around his person, a myth that endures to this day. Alexander (...) came to power in 336 BCE, at the age of twenty, after his father, Philip II, king of Macedon, had been assassinated. He was the cherished pupil of Aristotle, who followed him in his ventures and dedicated a treatise to him entitled Rhetoric to Alexander. He went to war in Asia against the .. (shrink)

L’Action catholique spécialisée a donné naissance pendant le deuxième tiers du XXe siècle au Mouvement populaire des familles (MPF) et à ses dérivés. Ces Mouvements se donnaient pour but la formation et la promotion du monde ouvrier par lui-même, notamment par le biais de la famille. Les mères de famille au foyer prenaient en charge les intérêts de leur quartier et de toutes les familles ouvrières, assumant ainsi une maternité sociale. Elles organisaient des délégations auprès des mairies, créaient et géraient (...) des services (Femmes de prisonniers pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, services de machines à laver, travailleuses familiales pendant les trente glorieuses…). Le modèle d’action du MPF entre en déclin avec la modernisation du pays puis, dans les années 1970 avec l’accès généralisé des femmes au travail. (shrink)

The central issue in this paper is the overtaking of neoliberalism by a possible new “social order”, a new phase in the history of capitalism. In contemporary capitalism, the “upper classes”—capitalist classes, the classes of managers and officials—jointly ensure the control of the means of production. Their common hegemony in neoliberalism is supported by the alliance at the top of the social hierarchies, under the leadership of capitalist classes. This hegemony could be continued beyond neoliberalism, though under new forms. A (...) first such potential social order is similar to neoliberalism, which it prolongs, a “third financial hegemony”. (Neoliberalism represented the “second financial hegemony”; the first prevailed before the Great Depression of the 1930s). The other social order can be described as a “neomanagerialism”. While the same alliance would prevail at the top, the leadership would here be that of the managerial class, and would involve much stronger state intervention. (Another opportunity, albeit one which we unfortunately deem unlikely, would be the alliance between popular classes and managers, a “social-managerialism”). A comparison between the United states and China highlights the relevance of neomanagerialism. The strong neomanagerial features of China show the potential efficiency of this social configuration. A turn to neomanagerialism would probably be the only way of preserving what can be saved of U.S. international hegemony. (shrink)

The central issue in this paper is the overtaking of neoliberalism by a possible new “social order”, a new phase in the history of capitalism. In contemporary capitalism, the “upper classes”—capitalist classes, the classes of managers and officials—jointly ensure the control of the means of production. Their common hegemony in neoliberalism is supported by the alliance at the top of the social hierarchies, under the leadership of capitalist classes. This hegemony could be continued beyond neoliberalism, though under new forms. A (...) first such potential social order is similar to neoliberalism, which it prolongs, a “third financial hegemony”. (Neoliberalism represented the “second financial hegemony”; the first prevailed before the Great Depression of the 1930s). The other social order can be described as a “neomanagerialism”. While the same alliance would prevail at the top, the leadership would here be that of the managerial class, and would involve much stronger state intervention. (Another opportunity, albeit one which we unfortunately deem unlikely, would be the alliance between popular classes and managers, a “social-managerialism”). A comparison between the United states and China highlights the relevance of neomanagerialism. The strong neomanagerial features of China show the potential efficiency of this social configuration. A turn to neomanagerialism would probably be the only way of preserving what can be saved of U.S. international hegemony. (shrink)

Paul Claudel a eu à plusieurs reprises l’occasion de méditer sur le mystère de la sainte Trinité, même s’il ne lui a consacré aucune œuvre particulière. Sa perspective est toujours poétique : il s’agit de savoir comment exprimer par les mots l’inexprimable. Après avoir examiné ses sources théologiques, nous nous arrêtons sur le rapprochement des deux termes machina et Trinitas, caractéristique de l’usage claudélien de l’oxymore, ainsi que sur d’autres métaphores du registre mécanique, pour dégager finalement une poétique plus générale (...) de l’acte créateur. (shrink)