En septembre 2021 s’est tenu à Fribourg, en Suisse, le XVIe colloque du CIERGA, plusieurs fois reporté en raison de la pandémie. Comme toujours, c’est l’équipe locale prenant en charge l’organisation qui a donné l’impulsion de la thématique choisie. Or, depuis plusieurs années désormais, l’université de Fribourg accueille le projet européen Locus Ludi. The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity, sous la direction de Véronique Dasen. Ce projet ambitieux envisage toutes les di...

Si la recherche contemporaine s’est davantage intéressée aux sémiologies du corps humain développées par la médecine et la physiognomonie antiques, un grand nombre de sources gréco-romaines témoignent de l’engouement qu’a connu l’interprétation divinatoire des signes et mouvements du corps dans l’Antiquité. Après une présentation générale de la palmomantique, notamment des traités du Pseudo-Mélampous, cet article analyse plus en détail les sources antiques relatives à l’interprétation divinatoire de l’éternuement, l’un des principaux mouvements involontaires du corps, traditionnellement considéré comme un signe envoyé (...) par les dieux et qu’il convenait de savoir reconnaître et déchiffrer.Contemporary research has focused on the semiology of the human body in ancient medicine and physiognomics. However, a large number of Greco-Roman sources evidence the popularity of body divination, especially through observing bodily signs and movements, in Antiquity. This paper presents the system of palmonancy especially as developed in the treatises of Pseudo-Melampous, and analyses in depth ancient sources relating to the divinatory interpretation of sneezing, one of the commonest involuntary body movements, traditionally regarded as a sign sent by gods, and hence useful to identify and interpret. (shrink)

L’emmaillotement du nouveau-né et du nourrisson est souvent présenté par les auteurs modernes comme une coutume inscrite dans la longue durée, sans modification notable dans l’espace et le temps. D’une société et d’une époque à l’autre, elle se décline cependant avec des variantes qui peuvent être associées à des pratiques votives en Grèce ancienne. Les offrandes de vêtements dans les sanctuaires grecs sont bien documentées par les sources littéraires et épigraphiques. Dans les inventaires conservés, le nourrisson ne semble être présent (...) qu’au travers des offrandes de vêtements maternels en remerciement pour un heureux accouchement. Différents indices permettent de suggérer que des langes furent aussi offerts à Artémis en sa qualité de kourotrophe lors d’un moment de transition associé à un changement de vêtement, peut-être en relation avec la pousse des dents. (shrink)

Parmi les petits objets qui nous sont parvenus de l’Antiquité, ceux que les archéologues classent ordinairement parmi les jouets, au sens moderne, forment une catégorie particulièrement énigmatique. La notion même de « jouet » est problématique car aucun terme grec (athurma, paignion) ni latin (ludicrum) ne correspond exactement à ce que recouvre aujourd’hui ce mot. Les études philologiques et linguistiques montrent que le champ de ce vocabulaire est polysémique et comprend tout ce qui fascin...

Véronique Dasen, professeure d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie classique à l’Université de Fribourg, poursuit son travail sur l’histoire de la médecine et de la magie, des femmes et de l’enfance, en proposant un recueil très cohérent d’études antérieures (mais en partie inédites) développées et approfondies, portant sur la maternité et la petite enfance dans les mondes grec et romain. La première partie de ce grand livre, « Le secret d’Omphale », s’intéresse aux métaphores visuelles du ven...

Le volume Chemin faisant réunit vingt-et-un articles rassemblés en hommage à l’historien de la Grèce classique Pierre Brulé et aux activités qu’il a développées au sein du CRESCAM-LAHM (UMR 6566). Il peut ainsi servir de pendant à La Grèce d’à côté, un recueil d’articles de P. Brulé publié en 2007 : les compagnonnages de l’historien, illustrés par la participation de P. Briant, de M.-M. Mactoux, de L. Bruit-Zaidman, de R. Parker, de S. Georgoudi, de M. Jost, de V. Dasen (...) ou d’A. Powell, pour n... (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

The French philosopher Renaud Barbaras remarked that late in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s career, “The phenomenology of perception fulfills itself as a philosophy of expression.” In _Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty: Aesthetics, Philosophy of Biology, and Ontology, _Véronique M. Fóti_ _addresses the guiding yet neglected theme of expression in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. She traces Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about how individuals express creative or artistic impulses through his three essays on aesthetics, his engagement with animality and the “new biology” in the second of his lecture courses (...) on nature of 1957–58, and in his late ontology, articulated in 1964 in the fragmentary text of _Le visible et l’invisible _. With the exception of a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s 1945 essay “Cezanne’s Doubt,” Fóti engages with Merleau-Ponty’s late and final thought, with close attention to both his scientific and philosophical interlocutors, especially the continental rationalists. Expression shows itself, in Merleau-Ponty’s thought, to be primordial, and this innate and fundamental nature of expression has implications for his understanding of artistic creation, science, and philosophy. (shrink)

Geometry defines entities that can be physically realized in space, and our knowledge of abstract geometry may therefore stem from our representations of the physical world. Here, we focus on Euclidean geometry, the geometry historically regarded as “natural”. We examine whether humans possess representations describing visual forms in the same way as Euclidean geometry – i.e., in terms of their shape and size. One hundred and twelve participants from the U.S. (age 3–34 years), and 25 participants from the Amazon (age (...) 5–67 years) were asked to locate geometric deviants in panels of 6 forms of variable orientation. Participants of all ages and from both cultures detected deviant forms defined in terms of shape or size, while only U.S. adults drew distinctions between mirror images (i.e. forms differing in “sense”). Moreover, irrelevant variations of sense did not disrupt the detection of a shape or size deviant, while irrelevant variations of shape or size did. At all ages and in both cultures, participants thus retained the same properties as Euclidean geometry in their analysis of visual forms, even in the absence of formal instruction in geometry. These findings show that representations of planar visual forms provide core intuitions on which humans’ knowledge in Euclidean geometry could possibly be grounded. (shrink)

Human adults are thought to possess two dissociable systems to represent numbers: an approximate quantity system akin to a mental number line, and a verbal system capable of representing numbers exactly. Here, we study the interface between these two systems using an estimation task. Observers were asked to estimate the approximate numerosity of dot arrays. We show that, in the absence of calibration, estimates are largely inaccurate: responses increase monotonically with numerosity, but underestimate the actual numerosity. However, insertion of a (...) few inducer trials, in which participants are explicitly (and sometimes misleadingly) told that a given display contains 30 dots, is sufficient to calibrate their estimates on the whole range of stimuli. Based on these empirical results, we develop a model of the mapping between the numerical symbols and the representations of numerosity on the number line. (shrink)

In recent years, I have developed an endurance running art-practice as part of a larger inquiry into the performative nature of human physical activity. In the Absence of Running is series of artworks made using images from medical arthroscopic interventions following the diagnosis of medial meniscus tears to the cartilage and osteoarthritis in both my knees. Faced with not being able to run or to make artworks using running in the long-term, I turned to the tools of medical intervention. If (...) a camera was going inside my knee for the purpose of surgery, I would use it for the purpose of art. The resulting videos and photographs led to a contemplation on the image and viewing practices not previously anticipated, not least on the now endemic uses of advanced imaging technologies as integral parts of surgical operations. Their reassembly as a stop-frame animation and artist’s book in physical and electronic form enabled a process of slowing down and re-engagement with the image and physicality of the book itself and processes and with practices of viewing. This was important in reasserting the sense of human agency in our relationship to images in a world where this appears to be increasingly absent. (shrink)

« Amours anfractueuses, revenez,Déchirez le corps clairvoyant.La lumière affectionne les lèvres éclatées. »Jacques Dupin(Le Corps clairvoyant, 1999, p. 86) Quand on parle du corps, on recourt au blasonnement : des morceaux de corps épars donnent à voir un corps fragmenté, en archipel. Une image unitaire/relationnelle du corps semble contrebalancée par sa dimension osirienne/« archipélagique ». Un imaginaire du démembrement hante la tradition poétique qui depuis le xvie siècle s’attarde, conte...

Veronique Foti delves into the full range of Heideggerian texts to elaborate the problematics of historicity, language, and the structure of disclosure or "manifestation" in connection with the Herman poets whom Heidegger invoked along his path of thinking. Foti’s reading of these ports (Morike, Trakl, Rilke, Holderlin, and Celan) is a probing inquiry into the aesthetic, ethical, and political implications of Heidegger’s thought. She knows how technicity (techne) and poetizing (poiesis) are opposed yet brought together in Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, (...) how they are both politicized and linked with ethical praxis, and how technicity, poetizing, and praxis cannot be dissevered from Heidegger’s essential thinking. (shrink)

Humans possess two nonverbal systems capable of representing numbers, both limited in their representational power: the first one represents numbers in an approximate fashion, and the second one conveys information about small numbers only. Conception of exact large numbers has therefore been thought to arise from the manipulation of exact numerical symbols. Here, we focus on two fundamental properties of the exact numbers as prerequisites to the concept of EXACT NUMBERS : the fact that all numbers can be generated by (...) a successor function and the fact that equality between numbers can be defined in an exact fashion. We discuss some recent findings assessing how speakers of Munduruc (an Amazonian language), and young Western children (3-4 years old) understand these fundamental properties of numbers. (shrink)

This paper aims to study the perception of color (representations, synesthesia, denominations, uses and classification) in specific writings such as recipe treatises written from 1520 to 1689. These treatises deal with the manufacture and stages of color in various objects (remedies, blushes and mainly gems). They reveals that color is not only an apparent surface but also a sensitive substance, in particular white and red colors. Although color is a principle of unity for diverse materials, it sometimes becomes contradictory when (...) it is associated with variable signified and signifiers, so that color also offers a play on naming: meaning is sometimes clear, sometimes obscure, and in any case mobile (azure, vermilion). The contemporary reader does not perceive color in the same way as the Renaissance craftsman. Finally, as a principle of classification, it shows an imbalance and hierarchy of colors which, while providing structure to recipes: it gives mainly a place of choice to red and its shades. (shrink)

Véronique Adam : Les neurosciences ne s’intéressent que depuis très récemment à l’olfaction. Pourriez‑vous expliquer pourquoi ce sens est devenu un objet d’étude plus prégnant? Jean-Louis Millot : En fait, l’olfaction demeure encore peu étudiée comparée à d’autres modalités sensorielles. De manière générale, les neurosciences cognitives actuelles, comme d’autres investigations scientifiques chez l’homme par le passé, se focalisent davantage sur les compétences cognitives complexes, telles qu...

Lors de la publication de sa thèse sur les collections complètes des Discours de Grégoire de Nazianze, en 1997, l'A. signalait que l'inventaire des colletions fourni était incomplet. Il publie donc, pour les autres témoins, une description correspondant à la classification utilisée dans sa thèse. Seuls les manuscrits conservés en Russie n'ont pu être accessibles.

In 1994, the European Parliament published a resolution on the right of humanitarian intervention. Interestingly, the declaration maintains that such intervention is not in contradiction with international law, although it formulates the concept of right in a way that is translatable into the vocabulary of individual rights. I analyze some implications of the resolution for the mutual duties of states. I thereby focus my attention on two possible applications: by way of Rawls's duty of assistance and by way of the (...) cosmopolitan theory of global distributive justice. I conclude that the latter theory promises better results for protecting individuals' basic rights, but I also show that it is at the cost of a strongly interventionist structure requiring a powerful supranational institution. Finally, I envision the conditions under which such an increase of interventionism in favor of human rights can be acceptable. (shrink)

Cet article a déjà paru dans la revue brésilienne Psicanàlise & Barroco em revista en juillet 2020. Nous remercions Véronique Verdier de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. Résumé : Cet article esquisse l'itinéraire de reconquête des rythmes de l'existence. Partant d'un constat, l'existence est en fait rythmée mais ces rythmes sont le plus souvent passivement subis et ne sont pas ceux choisis par le sujet, nous nous demandons comment retrouver une maîtrise de ces rythmes car cette maîtrise est (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Veronique Foti delves into the full range of Heideggerian texts to elaborate the problematics of historicity, language, and the structure of disclosure or "manifestation" in connection with the Herman poets whom Heidegger invoked along his path of thinking. Foti's reading of these ports is a probing inquiry into the aesthetic, ethical, and political implications of Heidegger's thought. She knows how technicity and poetizing are opposed yet brought together in Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology, how they are both politicized and linked with (...) ethical praxis, and how technicity, poetizing, and praxis cannot be dissevered from Heidegger's essential thinking. (shrink)

« Météorite tombé de l’autre côté du Rhin, Dietrich ne semble d’aucun temps philosophique assignable, rebelle à tous les « ismes », splendide, mais isolé – d’un mot : “Teutonique” ». C’est la connaissance de ce grand penseur, Theodoricus Teutonicus von Vriberg, Thierry ou Dietrich de Freiberg en français, que vient enrichir la thèse de doctorat d’Andrea Colli, publiée en 2010 aux éditions Marietti. Cette recherche prolonge la redécouverte de cet « épineux outsider » dont le coup de lancement ..

Gallagher hardly refers to the central issue of the phenomenological reduction, and he perpetuates the historical blunder of Chisholm, misinterpreting Husserlian intentionality as linguistic intensionality. This misunderstanding opens the way to a “naturalization” of phenomenology, which misses the very method of the phenomenological reduction as well as the essential dimension of subjective lived experience.

Meu intuito é tecer algumas considerações sobre a descoberta e relação de Voltaire com o newtonianismo, e a partir daí refletir de maneira mais geral sobre as possibilidades da aproximação entre filosofia e ciência.

This is an informative dossier on research work published since 2001 and connected with the field of rumors and urban legends. It includes reviews of eight French publications, seven publications in English, including two encyclopedias, two works from Mexico and one each from Italy and Sweden. The reviews are provided by a range of international scholars.