Self-Interest before Adam Smith inquires into the foundations of economic theory. It is generally assumed that the birth of modern economic science, marked by the publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776, was the triumph of the 'selfish hypothesis'. Yet, as a neo-Epicurean idea, this hypothesis had been a matter of controversy for over a century and Smith opposed it from a neo-Stoic point of view. But how can the Epicurean principles of orthodox economic theory be reconciled with the (...) Stoic principles of Adam Smith's philosophy? Pierre Force shows how Smith's theory refutes the 'selfish hypothesis' and integrates it at the same time. He also explains how Smith appropriated Rousseau's 'republican' critique of modern commercial society, and makes the case that the autonomy of economic science is an unintended consequence of Smith's 'republican' principles. (shrink)

The French philosopher and intellectual historian Pierre Hadot (1922-2010) is known primarily for his conception of philosophy as spiritual exercise, which was an essential reference for the later Foucault. An aspect of his work that has received less attention is a set of methodological reflections on intellectual history and on the relationship between philosophy and history. Hadot was trained initially as a philosopher and was interested in existentialism as well as in the convergence between philosophy and poetry. Yet he (...) chose to become a historian of philosophy and produced extensive philological work on neo-Platonism and ancient philosophy in general. He found a philosophical rationale for this shift in his encounter with Wittgenstein's philosophy in the mid-1950s (Hadot was one of Wittgenstein's earliest French readers and interpreters). For Hadot, ancient philosophy must be understood as a series of language games, and each language game must be situated within the concrete conditions in which it happened. The reference to Wittgenstein therefore supports a strongly contextualist and historicist stance. It also supports its exact opposite: presentist appropriations of ancient texts are entirely legitimate, and they are the only way ancient philosophy can be existentially meaningful to us. Hadot addresses the contradiction by embracing it fully and claiming that his own practice aims at a coincidence of opposites (a concept borrowed from the Heraclitean tradition). For Hadot the fullest and truest way of doing philosophy is to be a philosopher and a historian at the same time. (shrink)

This article revisits what has often been called the of Voltaire's historical work. It looks at the methodological and philosophical reasons for Voltaire's deliberate focus on modern history as opposed to ancient history, his refusal to in judging the past, and his extreme selectiveness in determining the relevance of past events to world history. Voltaire's historical practice is put in the context of the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns, and considered in a tradition of universal history going back (...) to Bossuet and leading up to nineteenth-century German historicism. Paradoxically, Voltaire is a major figure in the history of historiography not in spite of his presentism (as Ernst Cassirer and Peter Gay have argued), but because of it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Montaigne and the Coherence of EclecticismPierre ForceSince the publication of Pierre Hadot's essays on ancient philosophy by Arnold Davidson in 1995,2 Michel Foucault's late work on "the care of the self"3 has appeared in a new light. We now know that Hadot's work was familiar to Foucault as early as the 1950s.4 It is also clear that Foucault's notion of "techniques of the self" is very close to (...) what Hadot calls "spiritual exercises." At the same time, there are important differences between the views of these two philosophers, and Hadot has often expressed his regret that Foucault's untimely death prevented them from exploring these differences.5 One important point of disagreement was the status of eclecticism. In Foucault's interpretation of ancient philosophy, the "constitution of the self" implied a personal choice among disparate philosophical references: "Writing as a personal exercise done by the self and for the self, is an art of disparate truth."6 In a 1989 article Hadot argued from a historical point of view that, so far as Stoicism and Epicureanism were concerned, [End Page 523] eclecticism had no place in a mature practice of philosophy. Foucault's favorite example, Seneca's Letters to Lucilius, in which Stoic arguments were invoked along with Epicurean arguments, was a work for beginners. In a mature practice of Stoicism, one would stick to the arguments of the Stoic school, choose them for their coherence, and instead of trying to forge a spiritual identity for oneself through writing, one would "liberate oneself from one's individuality in order to raise oneself up to universality."7 Hadot added that "it is only in the New Academy—in the person of Cicero, for instance—that a personal choice is made according to what reason considers as most likely at a given moment."8 This discussion of Foucault may give the impression that Hadot was somewhat dismissive of eclecticism. Yet in a 2001 interview Hadot claimed that he had always admired Cicero's intellectual independence, and he proposed a reappraisal "of an attitude that has always had a bad reputation: eclecticism."9Something very similar is a stake in the work of Alexander Nehamas, as Lanier Anderson and Joshua Landy showed in their study of his Art of Living. In the conception of philosophy as a "way of life" (Hadot) or "care of the self" (Foucault) or "self-fashioning" (Nehamas), a central issue is the relationship between theoretical coherence and the coherence of the person who theorizes. Elaborating on Nehamas's chapter on Montaigne, Anderson and Landy argue that there is a move in Montaigne away from doctrinal coherence and towards a coherence of the self. As they put it, "the harmonious whole Montaigne commends [... ] is not a coherent body of fact or theory; it is the unified self of the theorizer."10 Anderson and Landy show that this brings up all kinds of difficulties: can this unified self be other than a fiction? If that is the case, how can philosophy be a way of life? Nehamas's answer is very much in the spirit of the late Foucault: there is a coherence of the self in Montaigne, and this coherence is the product of writing as a philosophical activity. The self is fashioned through writing.Because Montaigne writes in the ancient tradition of philosophy as a way of life, one may recall Hadot's suggestion that Foucault's notion of [End Page 524] "writing the self" is an intriguing but historically inaccurate description of ancient philosophical practice. But perhaps Hadot agrees with Foucault after all, since in his most recent interviews, he speaks favorably of eclecticism, a notion that is central to Foucault's analysis of self-fashioning through writing. The case of Montaigne is particularly interesting for these purposes, not only because the Essays seem to be the prototypical example of "writing the self," but also because eclecticism is both discussed and practiced throughout the Essays. I propose to take a fresh look at this issue by investigating the status of eclecticism in Montaigne's Essays. This must start with an examination of the philosophical tradition most closely associated with... (shrink)

III. INTERPRÉTATION ET CONTRARIÉTÉS 1. Contrariétés et apologétique Le Père Garasse justifie l'existence de contradictions dans la Bible en comparant les Ecritures au corpus des textes législatifs, que les juristes ont souvent du mal à ...

Taking Pascal's appropriation of Montaigne as its main example, this article asks what it means to "say something new" in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It argues that literary and philosophical innovation is best understood in reference to the rhetorical tradition, and it analyzes what "saying something new" means in terms of inventio, dispositio, elocutio, decorum, and ethos. Close attention is also paid to the relationship between economy and equity (in the rhetorical sense of these terms). For Pascal and Montaigne, (...) the "new" is desirable not for its own sake, but rather as an exercise for the soul. (shrink)

Over the last four decades, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu produced one of the most imaginative and subtle bodies of social theory of the postwar era. When he died two years ago, he was considered to be a thinker on a par with Foucault, Barthes, and Lacan--a public intellectual as influential to his generation as Sartre was to his. Science of Science and Reflexivity will be welcomed as a companion volume to Bourdieu's now seminal An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (...) . In this posthumous work, Bourdieu declares that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research--that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit. Science thus endangered can become detrimental to mankind. The line between pure and applied science, therefore, must be subjected to intense theoretical scrutiny. Bourdieu's goals in Science of Science and Reflexivity are to identify the social conditions in which science develops in order to reclaim its objectivity and to rescue it from relativism and the forces that might exploit it. In the grand tradition of scientific reflections on science, Bourdieu provides a sociological analysis of the discipline as something capable of producing transhistorical truths he presents an incisive critique of the main currents in the study of science throughout the past half century and he offers a spirited defense of science against encroaching political and economic forces. A masterful summation of the principles underlying Bourdieu's oeuvre and a memoir of his own scientific journey, Science of Science and Reflexivity is a capstone to one of the most important and prodigious careers in the field of sociology. (shrink)

During the last two decades, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has become a dominant force in cultural activity ranging from taste in music and art to choices in food and lifestyles. _The Field of Cultural Production_ brings together Bourdieu's major essays on art and literature and provides the first introduction to Bourdieu's writings and theory of a cultural field that situates artistic works within the social conditions of their production, circulation, and consumption. Bourdieu develops a highly original approach to the (...) study of literary and artistic works, addressing many of the key issues that have preoccupied literary art and cultural criticism in the last twentieth century: aesthetic value and canonicity, intertextuality, the institutional frameworks of cultural practice, the social role of intellectuals and artists, and structures of literary and artistic authority. Bourdieu elaborates a theory of the cultural field which situates artistic works within the social conditions of their production, circulation, and consumption. He examines the individuals and institutions involved in making cultural products what they are: not only the writers and artists, but also the publishers, critics, dealers, galleries, and academies. He analyzes the structure of the cultural field itself as well as its position within the broader social structures of power. The essays in his volume examine such diverse topics as Flaubert's point of view, Manet's aesthetic revolution, the historical creation of the pure gaze, and the relationship between art and power. The Field of Cultural Porduction will be of interest to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines: sociology and social theory, literature, art, and cultural studies. (shrink)

(From Liberty Fund:) The topics of church and state, religious toleration, the legal enforcement of religious practices, and religiously motivated violence on the part of individuals have once again become burning issues. Pierre Bayle’s Philosophical Commentary was a major attempt to deal with very similar problems three centuries ago. His argument is that if the orthodox have the right and duty to persecute, then every sect will persecute, since every sect considers itself orthodox. The result will be mutual slaughter, (...) something God cannot have intended. -/- The Philosophical Commentary takes its starting point from the words attributed to Jesus Christ in Luke 14:23, “And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be full.” Bayle contends that the word compel cannot mean “force.” From this perspective, he constructs his doctrine of toleration based on the singular importance of conscience. His point is not that coercion usually is ineffective in matters of faith but that, even when effective, it is wrong because it ignores the indispensability of the free conscience. (shrink)

" Faire d'Aristote un Aufklârer serait méconnaître ce qu'il y a en lui de religiosité authentique, cette intuition de la transcendance et du chorismos, qui sont la raison profonde de sa prudence spéculative. Faire d'Aristote un tragique serait méconnaître cette confiance en l'homme, en sa recherche et en son action, qui tranche sur les lamentations du chœur de la tragédie et sur une certaine résignation socratique et, avant la lettre, stoïcienne. Mais Aristote exalte l'homme sans le diviniser ; il en (...) fait le centre de son éthique, mais il sait que l'éthique n'est pas ce qu'il y a de plus haut, que Dieu est au-delà des catégories éthiques, ou plutôt que l'éthique se constitue dans la distance qui sépare l'homme de Dieu. Livré à ses seules forces par un Dieu trop lointain, qui est suffisamment visible pour être désiré, mais se tient trop à distance pour être possédé, l'homme est en butte, dans la région du monde qu'il habite, à un hasard qu'il ne peut entièrement dominer. Ou plutôt la vie de l'homme se meut entre deux hasards : le Hasard fondamental de la naissance, qui fait que la bonne nature n'est pas également partagée ; le hasard résiduel de l'action, qui fait que les résultats ne sont jamais tout à fait prévisibles. Mais le hasard de la naissance est le hasard résiduel de l'action divine, et la grandeur de l'homme consiste, en prolongeant par la prudence l'action d'une Providence défaillante, à reculer le plus possible les limites de l'imprévisible et de l'inhumain. " Pierre Aubenque. (shrink)

Depuis la revolution scientifique du XVIIe siecle, la science est tourmentee par le sens a donner a sa propre entreprise. Plusieurs tentatives pour fonder l'intelligibilite de la nature sur les structures pretendument immuables de la raison ont echoue. Mais l'echec philosophique est a la mesure du succes aveuglant des connaissances scientifiques, qui n'ont plus que faire du scrupule de principe. Kant n'est-il pas un des avocats les plus eminents de ce scrupule tombe en desuetude? Face au divorce consomme entre physique (...) et metaphysique, il restait a se demander, avec Kant, ce que la raison a a gagner si chacune se force malgre tout a parler le langage de l'autre. Effort douloureux mais riche d'enseignement: si la physique est poussee dans cet horizon de la metaphysique qui lui est etranger, elle retrouve le moyen de s'aventurer dans une reflexion sur son propre point de depart. Reflexion qui hante encore la science aujourd'hui, meme si c'est a son insu. Dans ce premier geste il doit y avoir quelque chose de definitif: seule la philosophie kantienne de la nature nous met vraiment aux prises avec lui. Pierre Kerszberg est professeur de philosophie a l'universite d'Etat de Pennsylvannie. (shrink)

Dans ce livre savant et moqueur, Pierre-André Taguieff passe au scalpel l'idéal moderne par excellence, celui d'émancipation, qui exalte, mobilise et aveugle depuis longtemps les Modernes. Le temps est venu de soumettre à un examen critique sans complaisance cette notion qui fait partie du prêt-à-penser dont se sont emparés les utopistes et les démagogues de toutes obédiences. Comment expliquer que cette notion banale ait pu devenir un thème philosophique et politique majeur depuis la fin du XVIIIe siècle, sous la (...) forme du projet universaliste de l'émancipation du genre humain comme sous celle de l'autonomie croissante de l'individu? Taguieff analyse la formation philosophique de l'idée d'émancipation, explore ses usages politiques et dissèque ce qu'il appelle "l'émancipationnisme ", produit de la corruption idéologique de cette idée-force. Car l'émancipation comme projet global appelle une critique fondamentale : ce qui est rejeté subrepticement, voire diabolisé, ce sont les attachements, les fidélités, les enracinements, les mémoires particulières, donc la transmission. Il s'agit d'un programme de refonte anthropologique, visant à créer l'" homme nouveau ", chimère d'une société mondiale d'individus également émancipés. La généalogie d'une idée floue, pour penser librement le monde de demain. (shrink)

Drawing on a documentary analysis of two socioeconomic policy programs, one Flemish (“Vlaanderen in Actie”), the other Walloon (“Marshall Plans”), and a discourse analysis of how these programs are received in one Flemish and one Francophone quality newspaper, this article illustrates how Flanders and Wallonia both seek to become top-performing knowledge-based economies (KBEs). The article discerns a number of discursive repertoires, such as “Catching up,” which policy actors draw on to legitimize or question the transformation of Flanders and Wallonia into (...) KBEs. The “Catching up” repertoire places Flanders resolutely ahead of Wallonia in the global race toward knowledge, excellence, and growth, but suggests that Wallonia may, in due course, overtake Flanders as a top competitive region. Given the expectations and fears that “Catching up” evokes among Flemish and Walloon policy actors, the repertoire serves these actors as a flexible discursive resource to make sense of, and shape, their collective futures and their regional identities. The article’s findings underline the simultaneity of, and the interplay between, globalizing forces and particularizing tendencies, as Flanders and Wallonia develop with a global KBE in region-specific ways. (shrink)

An important Christian philosopher contends that if human energy is channeled in the right direction, "upward and outward," spiritual energy as a motor force in the universe will outdistance technological advance. Index. Translated by Rene Hague. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book.

Since the 1980s, society's wealthiest members have claimed an ever-expanding share of income and property. It has been a true counterrevolution, says Pierre Rosanvallon--the end of the age of growing equality launched by the American and French revolutions. And just as significant as the social and economic factors driving this contemporary inequality has been a loss of faith in the ideal of equality itself. An ambitious transatlantic history of the struggles that, for two centuries, put political and economic equality (...) at their heart, The Society of Equals calls for a new philosophy of social relations to reenergize egalitarian politics. For eighteenth-century revolutionaries, equality meant understanding human beings as fundamentally alike and then creating universal political and economic rights. Rosanvallon sees the roots of today's crisis in the period 1830-1900, when industrialized capitalism threatened to quash these aspirations. By the early twentieth century, progressive forces had begun to rectify some imbalances of the Gilded Age, and the modern welfare state gradually emerged from Depression-era reforms. But new economic shocks in the 1970s began a slide toward inequality that has only gained momentum in the decades since. There is no returning to the days of the redistributive welfare state, Rosanvallon says. Rather than resort to outdated notions of social solidarity, we must instead revitalize the idea of equality according to principles of singularity, reciprocity, and communality that more accurately reflect today's realities. (shrink)

Y a-t‑il chez Marx quelque chose comme un « monde du droit »? En admettant l’impureté essentielle du droit et l’impossibilité de l’abstraire du monde social et économique dans lequel il se déploie (et les rapports de force qu’il fige), y a-t‑il néanmoins une histoire propre à ces phénomènes impurs de et du droit – une « histoire du monde du droit »? Si le droit n’est que reflet ou simple instrument, n’est-il pas néanmoins possible d’isoler conceptuellement la juridicité (...) et de retracer l’histoire impure des manifestations concrètes de cette juridicité? La discussion est théorique mais elle est aussi pratique : il s’agit de savoir si le droit est une ressource mobilisable dans des luttes émancipatrices ou s’il transporte avec lui inéluctablement les intérêts des classes dominantes. (shrink)

La question juridique des preuves testimoniales (preuves issues d’un témoignage) s’inscrit dans la problématique générale de l’établissement de la vérité en droit – je discute ici exclusivement les preuves testimoniales du droit civil et du droit pénal et j’étudie leur force probante pour l’intime conviction du juge. Il s’agit d’apporter une contribution de philosophie du droit appliquée au champ de l’épistémologie sociale en examinant comment une vérité factuelle, objet d’un témoignage par un tiers au procès, peut constituer une justification (...) suffisamment satisfaisante pour que chaque membre du jury puisse croire en cette vérité factuelle. (shrink)

I borrow the notion of echo from Proust. Proust describes the last phase in the experience of a love that has died down in the following terms: “While the great tide of love has ebbed forever, yet, strolling through ourselves, we can still gather strange and charming sea shells and, lifting them to the ear, can hear, with a melancholy pleasure and without suffering, the mighty roar of the past.” Someone whom we have loved utterly but love no more is (...) in the first place “worse than dead to us.” We revile or despise that person to such a degree that we become incapable of all judgment, as if the sea’s retreat could only leave behind a beach overcome by evil. But then there is this sea shell, this reminder of past evil that diminishes its initially insuperable force, ultimately making it bearable. And once all power of judgment has yielded to the pure remembrance of a past that no longer has any influence on us, we are ready to receive what Proust calls “the omnipotent virtue of justice”; we are ready to bring the one we loved before the law, to face the “final judgment.” It is a judgment that “we render calmly and with eyes full of tears.” The paradox is that this echo of evil derives its sweetness from the fact that it is dissociated from its source, since the shell is transportable, whereas the original evil was unbearable because it is associated with the person for whom there is nothing we have not suffered. We can truly measure up to the evil, and thereby recover our powers of judgment, at least one last time, only by hearkening to its echo. (shrink)

"Tant de choses nous échappent, non par accident, mais ontologiquement, à savoir compte tenu de leur nature et de la nôtre. II y a des choses dont nous ne pouvons pas être conscients. Nous avons beau vouloir ouvrir notre esprit, il y a des limites à cette ouverture. C'est l'un des traits de notre finitude. La philosophie entretient une prétention à l'universalité. Elle tente de s'ouvrir le plus largement possible à la réalité telle qu'elle est. Ce faisant, elle doit être (...) consciente de ses limites. Si elle s'ouvre, c'est aussi en se fermant. Si elle voit certaines choses, elle est aveugle à d'autres. Ces limites se font sentir avec force quand il s'agit de mettre en parole la vision. Celle-ci doit entrer dans la forme de celle-là, avec un sujet ou un substantif, un verbe ou une action, un prédicat ou un attribut. Une telle mise en forme élimine forcément un chaos, une indétermination ou un flou constitutifs de la réalité. Le défi est alors d'exprimer par la parole ce qui pourtant lui résiste, de manière à ce que continue de poindre et d'insister ce qui résiste". (shrink)

We present a version for κ-distributive ideals over a regular infinite cardinal κ of some of the combinatorial results of Mathias on happy families. We also study an associated notion of forcing, which is a generalization of Mathias forcing and of Prikry forcing.

This paper draws from critical data studies and related fields to investigate police officer-involved homicide data for Los Angeles County. We frame police officer-involved homicide data as a rhetorical tool that can reify certain assumptions about the world and extend regimes of power. We highlight the possibility that this type of sensitive civic data can be investigated and employed within local communities through creative practice. Community involvement with data can create a countervailing force to powerful dominant narratives and supplement (...) activist projects that hold local officials accountable for their actions. Our analysis examines four Los Angeles County police officer-involved homicide data sets. First, we provide accounts of the semantics, granularity, scale and transparency of this local data. Then, we describe a “counter data action,” an event that invited members of the community to identify the limits and challenges present in police officer-involved homicide data and to propose new methods for deriving meaning from these indicators and statistics. (shrink)

Le chaos définit notre siècle. Rien d'apocalyptique dans cette affirmation, qui ne condamne pas nécessairement le monde à l'état de cendre et de poussière. Le chaos définit simplement l'imprévisibilité, l'imprédictibilité et l'incertitude de nos sociétés complexes et instables dont l'homme maîtrise de moins en moins l'évolution. Jusqu'à aujourd'hui notre morale reposait essentiellement sur la maîtrise. Il nous faut maintenant apprendre à vivre autrement, c'est-à-dire en fonction de l'immaîtrisable. Ce qui ne signifie pas qu'il faut consentir au chaos comme s'il nous (...) était destiné. Le chaos n'est ni bon ni mauvais, il n'est ni pour l'homme ni contre l'homme: il lui est étranger. Et c'est pourquoi il requiert au fond de nous une force qui, sans prétendre accéder à la maîtrise du monde, nous permette d'assumer et d'affronter son étrangeté. Cette force, je l'appelle "l'Empire de soi". L'Empire de soi se distingue de la maîtrise de soi. Il s'agit non pas pour l'homme de dompter les énergies et les pulsions qui le traversent, mais, au contraire, de faire l'expérience initiale de son impuissance face au chaos du monde, afin de construire, à l'épreuve de sa faiblesse et de ses fragilités originaires, sa force la plus propre. Morale et chaos décrit ainsi les étapes de la constitution de cette force que le sentiment même de notre impuissance permet de constituer, sans fondement, mais par notre seule capacité à endurer le temps et à s'y maintenir pour mieux y passer et le faire passer à travers lui-même. (shrink)

Si la psychanalyse n'est pas une religion, pourquoi en emprunte-t-elle si souvent le chemin? Comment une pratique laïque et athée, héritière du débat des Lumières, peut-elle espérer trouver des réponses à ses propres questions dans les expériences subjectives qui ont guidé, pour le meilleur et pour le pire, les générations antérieures? À quels risques s'exposent ceux qui croient se garder de la métaphysique en méconnaissance de cause, sans s'apercevoir que l'émancipation de la psychanalyse de tout fondement religieux laisse le champ (...) ouvert à sa " contamination subreptice par des implications métaphysiques qui sont dans la nature même de l'esprit "? En quoi, dans ce contexte, l'enseignement de Lacan, qui ne pouvait manquer de se trouver confronté au fait religieux, peut-il réellement constituer une innovation? Telles sont les lignes de force de cet ouvrage qui tente, à partir d'une présentation des Écrits, d'une relecture de la thèse de 1932 et des premiers articles sur la paranoïa, de cerner, de façon accessible au profane les principaux concepts inventés ou repris par Lacan. En retrouvant leurs sources, en restituant le contexte dont ils portent la marque et qu'ils ont à leur tour influencé, il replace le débat sur son véritable terrain : celui d'une expérience commune de la souffrance placée sous le signe d'un désir en quête de l'objet de sa réalisation. (shrink)

Cet article a pour objectif de montrer l’importance de la réception de la théologie politique de J.B. Metz auprès de certains théologiens soucieux de la dimension politique de la foi chrétienne. L’étude présente les réactions immédiates au projet théologique de Metz pour ensuite se focaliser sur des théologiens contemporains. Premièrement, on trouve J. Milbank, qui apprécie la pensée de Metz en la confrontant à son programme de Radical Orthodoxy. Deuxièmement, on rencontre H.-J. Gagey et J.-L. Souletie, qui évaluent la (...) class='Hi'>force politique de la théologie de Metz. Enfin, on découvre la façon dont L. Boeve reprend de façon personnelle certains aspects de la pensée du théologien allemand. Pour terminer, l’article propose une réflexion synthétique et critique sur cette réception, avec le souci de montrer la pertinence de la théologie politique de Metz et sa capacité à stimuler la réflexion sur le rapport foi et société. (shrink)

La 4e de couverture indique :"Nous n'avons rien à apprendre des idiots, c'est évident! D'ailleurs, ne sommes-nous pas de plus en plus intelligents, malins, calculateurs, performants? En tout état de cause une chose est certaine : malheur à ceux qui ne le sont pas. Dans ce paysage, la figure de l'idiot n'est même plus interrogée, elle est purement et simplement effacée, confondue avec celle de l'imbécile, de l'abruti, du demeuré... Pourtant, lorsque Pierre J. Truchot s'arrête, et... nous arrête, sur (...) le personnage remarquable de l'Idiot, nous reconnaissons des visages rares, mais familiers. Des figures croisées au cours de notre existence. Des sourires d'une audacieuse franchise, des paroles étranges à force de sincérité, des accoutrements vestimentaires qui affirment l'incontournable singularité du goßt, des oeuvres poétiques, picturales, musicales, généreuses et désarmantes. Oui, assurément, à une époque où certains, frustrés par les limites de l'être humain nous promettent déjà des prothèses, implants et autres nanoaugmentateurs d'humanité, l'idiot continue à s'émerveiller d'une fleur ou du bruissement d'un ruisseau, trouve encore le temps de parler aux enfants, devine la tristesse ou partage les joies de ses interlocuteurs, rit sans méchanceté (pour lui c'est possible) de nos illusions rationnelles. Oui, assurément, l'Idiot n'a rien à nous apprendre.". (shrink)

In the intersection between eugenics past and present, disability has never been far beneath the surface. Perceived and ascribed disabilities of body and mind were one of the core sets of eugenics traits that provided the basis for institutionalized and sterilization on eugenic grounds for the first 75 years of the 20th-century. Since that time, the eugenic preoccupation with the character of future generations has seeped into what have become everyday practices in the realm of reproductive choice. As Marsha Saxton (...) (2000) and Adrienne Asch (2000, 2003) have forcefully argued, the use of prenatal screening technologies to facilitate the selective abortion of fetuses with features that signify disabling traits—the paradigm here being trisomy 21 in a fetus indicating Down Syndrome in the child—express a negative view of such disabilities sufficient to warrant terminating an otherwise wanted pregnancy. The eliminative structure of what Rosemary Garland Thompson (2012) has called eugenic logic persists in contemporary practices governing reproductive choice, social inclusion, and democratic participation and their relationship to disability. The tie between eugenics and contemporary disability studies suggests that eugenics and reflection on its history can also play a more positive role in disability politics. After focusing on eugenics in the first half of the paper, we will shift in the second half of the paper to eugenic resonances in contemporary thought and practice, concluding with some thoughts about ongoing practices of silencing and the very idea of eradicating disability. (shrink)

L'oubli est précédé par sa mauvaise réputation. Pensé comme un manque de la mémoire, le symptôme d'une dégénérescence annoncée, on le redoute. On cherche à l'oublier bien que l'on sache qu'il sera toujours là. Pourtant, s'il ne faisait pas quotidiennement son œuvre, on ne pourrait plus vivre, agir ou créer. Oublier est une faculté universelle et vitale dont les modalités d'expression diffèrent de celles de la mémoire : une puissance enfouie en notre être, une force créatrice capable de nous (...) régénérer. À contre-courant des modes et humeurs de notre société, des philosophes, des anthropologues et surtout des artistes n'ont pas oublié d'oublier tous les fardeaux qui se présentent comme des obstacles à leur désir de création. Développer sa capacité à effacer les évènements pesants et traumatisants qui nous conduisent au désastre est moins un risque qu'un pari, dont l'enjeu est de rendre à chaque personne ce qu'elle désire peut-être le plus au monde : affirmer sa réelle singularité, notamment par et dans l'acte créatif."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

L'erreur du populisme politique est de croire que la souveraineté du peuple est le fondement de la démocratie. On le sait, c'est plutôt le respect des Droits de l'Homme qui est déterminant : il en résulte le principe de la laïcité, qui a fait obstacle à la volonté de puissance de la chrétienté traditionnelle. Or, voici qu'aujourd'hui le fanatisme religieux renaît de ses cendres, ici ou là, et s'acoquine avec le populisme pour se légitimer. Comment se distancer, par la réflexion (...) critique, de ce genre de phénomène? L'intention de dominer autrui, quand on le rencontre, peut céder la place au sens de la réciprocité. Guidée par l'esprit de géométrie, la réflexion formelle le montre. Et l'alternative entre la violence et la bienveillance se répète au niveau des structures mentales : il n'est pas nécessaire de penser que tout, dans le monde humain, se réduit à des rapports de force ; il n'est pas nécessaire de s'en tenir à de telles simplifications idéologiques. On peut aussi se montrer un peu plus fin, et, pour s'y habituer, relire les origines de la philosophie démocratique moderne, de Hobbes (1588-1679) à Locke (1632-1704). (shrink)

The members of the phylum Cnidaria (corals, sea anemones, medusae) are all equipped with stinging cells (cnidocytes, nematocytes), which serve mainly in prey capture and defense. The secretory product of these cells is a most complicated extrusome consisting of a cyst containing a tubule and a liquid matrix. Mechanical stimulation of the cell's cnidocil apparatus by a prey or an offender leads via bioelectrical signal transduction to the explosive discharge of the cnidocyst. In stenoteles of Hydra this process, during which (...) the tubule is everted out of the cyst, takes less than 3 msec. The forces involved are partly due to spring‐like tensions stored in the collagenous structural compartment, and partly to an osmotically generated intracapsular pressure, which can amount to 150 bar (1.5 × 107 Pa). The osmotic machinery depends on the presence in the cyst's matrix of inorganic cations (either K+, Mg2+ or Ca2+) and rare polyanions (poly‐γ‐L‐glutamates), which, so far, have not been reported from recently evolved eukaryotes. The discharging cyst acts like a self‐reloading syringe, injecting poison and other components into the target. Since the cnidocytes are incapable of regenerating their exocytosed cysts, they have to be replaced by new cells derived by differentiation from pluripotent stem cells (interstitial cells). (shrink)

The contributions presented in this special issue bring to light the complexity of fiscal decentralization and consequently the need for a better understanding of the dynamics of fiscal federalism. This is precisely what that paper attempts to do by first reviewing briefly the standard arguments in favour of decentralization as well as the arguments against it. What is most missing, however, in these standards arguments is a reflection on the dynamics of fiscal federalism and, more generally, on the dynamics of (...) fiscal systems. A large part of the paper is therefore devoted to the identification of the main forces governing such dynamics. A parallel with the market processes helps us to single out features which are shared by both process: the use of local knowledge, the possibility of comparing different products, and more generally, the incentive to discover new paths. Surely, it is more costly to citizens to change the fiscal regime than it is to change goods or services; but precisely, decentralization should reduce these costs hence accelerate the discovery process. Hence, because of the dynamics to which it gives birth, fiscal decentralization appears desirable even if its benefits might arise only after some learning process takes place and even if some fiscal incoherency might prevail during that process.Les contributions présentées dans ce numéro spécial mettent en lumière la complexité de la décent- ralisation du système fiscal et donc la nécessité pour une meilleure compréhension de la dynamique du fédéralisme fiscal. C’est précisément ce que cet article essaie de faire dans un premier temps en passant en revue brièvement les arguments standards en faveur de la décentralisation aussi bien que les arguments opposés. Ce qui manque le plus, cependant, dans ces arguments standards, c’est une réflexion sur la dynamique du fédéralisme fiscal et plus généralement sur la dynamique des systèmes fiscaux. Une grande partie de l’article est ainsi consacrée à l’identification des principales forces qui gouvernent une telle dynamique. Un parallèle avec le processus de marché nous aide à établir des modèles partagés par ces processus : l’utilisation de la connaissance locale, la possibilité de comparer différents produits et plus généralement, le stimulant de la découverte de nouveaux sentiers. Evidemment, il est plus coûteux pour les citoyens de changer de régime fiscal que de changer de bien ou de service ; mais précisément, la décentralisation devrait réduire ces coûts en accélérant le processus de découverte. Désormais, grâce à la dynamique à laquelle elle donne naissance, la décentralisation fiscale apparaît désirable même si les bénéfices peuvent ne venir qu’à la suite de processus d’apprentissage et même si quelques incohérences fiscales subsistent durant ce processus. (shrink)

Les débats qui se développent autour de la question du libre accès sont bien souvent menés comme des combats idéologiques, mobilisant des registres d’expression militants autour des notions de biens publics. La très grande visibilité de ces débats occulte deux éléments qui pourraient en relativiser la portée. L’analyse du développement des initiatives de libre accès montre que la dimension politique de la question est loin d’être prédominante dans toutes les disciplines et varie considérablement selon les communautés. Par ailleurs, les modifications (...) profondes que le développement des réseaux numériques entraîne dans les pratiques de communication scientifique pourraient rendre moins pertinente l’approche volontariste et militante du libre accès. La multiplication du nombre de documents disponibles, l’effacement relatif des frontières entre les différents modes de publication, l’abaissement des barrières d’accès à la publication contribuent à relativiser la portée des dispositifs de fabrication de rareté artificielle et à soumettre progressivement le système de communication scientifique à un régime d’économie de l’attention. Il est dès lors possible que le secteur de l’édition scientifique connaisse une évolution comparable à celle des secteurs de la presse et de l’édition musicale.Much of the current debate on the open access issue has been akin to ideological warfare, using militant language registers around the concept of public common goods. The high level of visibility of the debate masks two important points that could change perceptions on its real impact. Our analysis of the development of open access initiatives shows that the political dimension of the issue is by no means predominant in all disciplines and varies considerably among different communities. Furthermore, the profound changes in scientific communication practices brought about by the expansion of digital networks could lessen the relevance of the militant approach to open access. The proliferation of documents, the relative blurring of boundaries between different forms of publishing and the fact that barriers to access to publications are being lowered are lessening the perceived influence of systems that artificially manufacture rarity, and the scientific communication system is gradually being forced to conform to the attention economics. This makes it possible to anticipate changes in scientific publishing comparable to those in the press and music publishing sectors. (shrink)

La phénoménologie est sans doute le courant philosophique le plus dynamique, le plus original et le plus fécond du XXe siècle. Ce livre suit les grandes étapes du développement de la voie de la conscience à travers les figures de Husserl, le fondateur de la méthode phénoménologique, de Sartre, dont la pensée a dominé la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, de Merleau-Ponty, qui a relié la conscience au corps, et de Ricoeur, auteur d'une oeuvre puissante d'herméneutique phénoménologique. Les critiques qu'ils (...) s'adressent les uns aux autres montrent que ce courant n'est pas une "école de pensée", ou un système philosophique de plus. Il ne constitue pas une doctrine, mais apporte des façons nouvelles d'aborder les questions récurrentes de la philosophie : la nature de la conscience, la liberté, la relation de l'âme et du corps, la relation entre le soi et l'autre. La philosophie retrouve ainsi la force de la pensée qui caractérise les grands moments de son histoire. (shrink)

Les aspirations libertaires-communautaires des mouvements étudiants de la fin des années 1960 ont rencontré un terrain politique institutionnel plus incitatif à leur application en RFA qu’en France, notamment sous forme d’entreprises dites alternatives. Celles.ci, beaucoup plus nombreuses en RFA, vont concourir à l’émergence d’un milieu contre-culturel ancré au quotidien des villes ouest-allemandes ; lequel milieu va à son tour contribuer à l’apparition et l’extension bien au-delà des seules villes d’un mouvement social contestataire : celui des « Initiatives de Citoyens ». (...) Ce mouvement, inédit en France, fournira dans la décennie 1970 une force d’appoint primordiale au mouvement écologiste ouest-allemand, et catalysera la mutation ou la création d’organisations qui joueront un rôle important dans la production et la diffusion d’idées écologistes ; de telle sorte que le mouvement écologiste tel qu’il s’est déployé en RFA y a rencontré un meilleur écho que celui qui s’est formé en France.The libertarian-communitarian aspirations of the students’ movements by the end of the 1960s met with a more open political context to their application in West Germany than in France : many more alternative enterprises were created at that time. This will contribute to the emergence of counterculture circles in West German cities. These circles will in turn bring about a social movement unknown in France : « the Initiatives of Citizens ». In the 1970s, this movement will considerably strengthen the West German ecology movement and will catalyse the mutation or birth of organizations which will play a great part in the emergence and spreading of environment ideas. So that the ecology movement, such as it spread in West Germany, was better received there than in France. (shrink)

Appartient-il au philosophe de fixer strictement la compréhension de notre concept d'art, ou doit-il limiter sa tâche à celle d'une clarification de ses usages? À cette question, les textes de Jean-Pierre Cometti réunis dans ce volume répondent en choisissant la voie d'une esthétique « minimale », qui renonce aux vertiges de l'ontologie et aux ambitions définitionnelle de la philosophie analytique de l'art, tout en prenant acte du caractère caduc des grands récits spéculatifs hérités de l'esthétique idéaliste ou des mirages (...) de la déconstruction. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Haiti Can't BreatheNéhémy Pierre-Dahomey (bio)Translated by David F. BellI'm not particularly familiar with recent politics in Haiti. Nor, as it were, with the contemporary history of the country. In some sense, the difference between recent politics and contemporary history is rather delicate. History would be the most profound social, political, and economic points of contention behind the daily lives of a population under siege. Not simply those talked (...) about while people travel in public transportation (Haitians talk a lot while in public transportation), but also the interpretive matrices mobilized to speak about these problems. As for current events, they are the province of newspaper headlines, those front pages and editorial pages most often read and shared, the public opinion machine.Of course, a few snippets of news come to me: the rise of kidnapping, political instability, the opposition declaring that the presidential mandate has ended, a government sponsored referendum to change the constitution, upcoming elections. As I write this piece (summer 2021), armed banditry is rife in many working-class neighborhoods. There are victims by the dozens nearly every day.As I was asking myself how best to express the bicentennial dyspnea of the Haitian people, I learned about the assassination of the president of the Republic in his private residence.Haiti could not breathe. Now it is suffocating.I recently published a novel entitled Combats (March 2021) in which the characters live in a nineteenth-century rural setting. They experience the full force of the first consequences provoked by the infamous independence debt, well understood by Haitians and analyzed by international specialists such as David Graeber and Thomas Piketty.After its independence in 1804, Haiti was not accepted into the concert of nations. The country, founded by hordes of previously enslaved Blacks and by freed Mulattos, was a bad example, a model not to be emulated so geographically near a slave society, the United States, and the Antilles belonging to France. No economic power, that is, no white country defining itself as such, recognized the independence of the new Black, abolitionist, and egalitarian population. The isolation of Haiti thus began at the very moment of its foundation. [End Page 165]In a vain attempt to escape the embargo and to construct a collective destiny at the international level, Haiti accepted a colossal debt imposed on it by France. Charles X, king of France and Navarre, forced Jean-Pierre Boyer, supreme leader of the Haitian nation, to assume the responsibility for a ransom of 120 million francs. The economist Thomas Piketty calculates that this was equivalent to 28 billion euros in today's currency. David Graeber, in his Debt: The First 500 Years, considers it to be the most egregious debt in history. In truth, for Haitians, this strange transaction consisted in buying lands they had already conquered in their independence struggle, having taken them from the previous colonial settlers representing the French state.Since the previously emancipated ancestors were considered the colonial settlers' property, Haitians, under threat from the French army, assumed the weight of this debt, which really consisted in purchasing—from their previous torturers—their very persons and those of their grandparents. In other words, after the war of independence, begun by Black Maroons as soon as they arrived on the island of Haiti, pursued by Toussaint Louverture against slavery, brought successfully to a conclusion by Jean Jacques Dessalines through victorious military battles (November 1803 at Vertières, for example), after this long road toward emancipation, France, supported by all the foreign powers of the period, extracted from Haiti recognition of the debt in 1826, that is, during the first half of the nineteenth century, at the very moment when the independent countries of the world were beginning to undergo a massive industrialization.Haiti clearly missed out on this entrance into the industrial age of the steam engine. It remained an "essentially agricultural" country because every year it had to pay debt service—including interest—every year until the second half of the 20th century!Like many others I saw the images of the white man, Derek Chauvin, resting his knee on George Floyd's neck for eight... (shrink)

Philosophe, moraliste, inventeur de machines et de formes, mathématicien, physicien, théologien, polémiste... Blaise Pascal semble avoir eu mille visages. Mais de lui, finalement, que sait-on vraiment? En suivant l'écrivain pas à pas, de sa naissance à Clermont à sa mort à Paris, Pierre Lyraud nous dévoile les lignes de force d'une vie prématurément écourtée, mais passionnée par la recherche constante d'une vérité blessée par les troubles de son temps. C'est alors un nouveau visage de Pascal qui nous apparaît, (...) celui d'un penseur de la joie et de la grandeur de l'âme humaine; d'un honnête homme soucieux de vulgarisation; d'un ardent chrétien inquiet de l'avenir des autres; d'un plein vivant se rendant peu à peu compte que la vie véritable n'est pas celle du monde. Un parcours inédit dans l'œuvre de l'un des plus grands auteurs français"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

What is the best way to govern ourselves? The history of the West has been shaped by the struggle to answer this question, according to Pierre Manent. A major achievement by one of Europe's most influential political philosophers, Metamorphoses of the City is a sweeping interpretation of Europe's ambition since ancient times to generate ever better forms of collective self-government, and a reflection on what it means to be modern. Manent's genealogy of the nation-state begins with the Greek city-state, (...) the polis. With its creation, humans ceased to organize themselves solely by family and kinship systems and instead began to live politically. Eventually, as the polis exhausted its possibilities in warfare and civil strife, cities evolved into empires, epitomized by Rome, and empires in turn gave way to the universal Catholic Church and finally the nation-state. Through readings of Aristotle, Augustine, Montaigne, and others, Manent charts an intellectual history of these political forms, allowing us to see that the dynamic of competition among them is a central force in the evolution of Western civilization. Scarred by the legacy of world wars, submerged in an increasingly technical transnational bureaucracy, indecisive in the face of proliferating crises of representative democracy, the European nation-state, Manent says, is nearing the end of its line. What new metamorphosis of the city will supplant it remains to be seen. (shrink)

Jules Dupuit, dont on commémore le bicentenaire en 2004, est la figure centrale de ces deux ouvrages : comme personnage étudié en tant que tel sous de multiples facettes, dans le second ; aux côtés de nombre de ses collègues de l’École des ponts et chaussées, dans le premier. Dans l’un et l’autre cas, les auteurs se penchent sur les interactions entre les activités concrètes de l’ingénieur et la construction de ses théories économiques, leurs formalisations au XIXe siècle. Les liens (...) entre méc.. (shrink)

Jules Dupuit, dont on commémore le bicentenaire en 2004, est la figure centrale de ces deux ouvrages : comme personnage étudié en tant que tel sous de multiples facettes, dans le second ; aux côtés de nombre de ses collègues de l’École des ponts et chaussées, dans le premier. Dans l’un et l’autre cas, les auteurs se penchent sur les interactions entre les activités concrètes de l’ingénieur et la construction de ses théories économiques, leurs formalisations au XIXe siècle. Les liens (...) entre méc... (shrink)

Heart rate variability (HRV) is an indicator of the regulation of the heart, see Task Force (Circulation 93(5):1043–1065, 1996). This study compares the regulation of the heart in two cases of healthy subjects within real life situations: Marathon runners and shift workers. After an update on the state of the art on HRV processing, we specify our probabilistic model: We choose modeling heartbeat series by locally stationary Gaussian process (Dahlhaus in Ann Stat 25, 1997). HRV is then processed by (...) the combination of two statistical methods: (1) Continuous wavelet transform for calculating the spectral density energy in the high frequency (HF) and low frequency (LF) bands and (2) Change point analysis to detect changes of heart regulation. Next, we plot the variations of the HF and LF energy in extreme conditions for both populations. This puts in light, that physical activities (rest, moderate sport, marathon race) can be ordered in a logical continuum. This allows to define a new index based on HF and LF energy that is log HF + log LF which appears relevant to measure HR regulation. The results obtained are pertinent but have to be completed by further studies. (shrink)

Sex is determined by non‐Mendelian genetic elements overriding the sex factors carried by the heterochromosomes in some species of terrestrial isopods. A bacterium Wolbachia and a non‐bacterial feminizing factor (f) can both force chromosomal males of Armadillidium vulgare to become phenotypic functional females. The f factor is believed to be a genetic element derived from the Wolbachia genome that becomes inserted into the host nuclear genome. The feminizing factors can be considered to be selfish genetic elements because they bias (...) their host's sex ratio to increase their own transmission. New sex‐determining genes are selected (genes resisting the feminizing effects, or the transmission of feminizing elements) as a consequence of the conflict between these elements and the rest of the host's genome. These events drive the sex‐determining mechanisms to evolve, and may explain the polymorphism of sex factors and the poor differentiation of the heterochromosomes in isopods. (shrink)

Rik Peels has once again forcefully argued that ignorance is not equivalent to the lack or absence of knowledge. In doing so, he endeavors to refute the Standard View of Ignorance according to which they are equivalent, and to advance what he calls the “New View” according to which ignorance is equivalent (merely) to the lack or absence of true belief. I defend the Standard View against his new attempted refutation.