Si la philosophie du droit a une très longue histoire, le bouleversement des conditions techniques, économiques, sociales et politiques nous impose aujourd'hui de renouveler en profondeur le traitement des questions qu'elle pose traditionnellement ainsi que les réponses qui y sont données. La définition de la justice, le partage des biens et des charges de la vie en société, les rôles respectifs de l'État, du marché et de la société civile, la mission des juges et l'application des lois, ou encore le (...) contenu et l'importance des droits de l'homme, doivent être réexaminés dans une perspective instruite par l'éclairage historique, mais résolument tournée vers les problèmes du présent et les choix qui engagent l'avenir. C'est dans une telle optique qu'a été conçu cet ouvrage. (shrink)

Le droit comme expression de la souveraineté est mis à mal par les transformations de l’économie mondiale. Exemples à l’appui, l’article montre la nécessité de repenser le droit dans un contexte global, en identifiant des modes de régulation alternatifs ou complémentaires à une réglementation territoriale par les Etats. A travers l’étude de points d’appui ou leviers de l’action du droit global, l’article montre combien leur identification peut permettre de corriger certains aspects délétères du fonctionnement de l’économie de marché.

Si le concept d’auteur est une notion centrale de la littérature et de la théorie littéraire, il s’agit d’abord d’une notion juridique qui a été mobilisée par les philosophes modernes, en particulier Hobbes et Spinoza, dans le but politique et scientifique de lutter contre le régime traditionnel des autorités et de défendre la liberté de pensée contre les interprétations normatives des docteurs de la loi et de la religion. L’article remonte aux origines politiques et juridiques de l’auteur-législateur moderne et retrace (...) sa marche vers la Souveraineté. (shrink)

Depuis Droit, mythe et raison (1980) écrit avec Jacques Lenoble jusqu’aux récents À quoi sert le droit? Usages, fonctions et finalités (2016) ou Le droit, objet de passions (2018), François Ost ne cesse de questionner les rapports de nos sociétés au droit et la place de celui-ci dans nos sociétés contemporaines. Avec Le droit malgré tout, il s’agit de rendre hommage à l’œuvre et à la carrière d’une figure centrale de la théorie du droit contemporaine et aussi au fondateur, avec (...) le regretté Michel van de Kerchove, de ce que l’on appelle parfois « l’école de Saint-Louis ». Abordant les deux pôles de la dialectique à laquelle François Ost est si attaché - la critique et la reconstruction -, l’ouvrage propose un regard interdisciplinaire sur le droit, à travers les principaux thèmes qui ont nourri la pensée de l’auteur. Du statut épistémologique de la science du droit à un questionnement sur les fondements et l’avenir du droit et de la justice, des liens qu’entretiennent le droit et la littérature jusqu’à l’environnement saisi par le droit en passant par les « communs », les approches de ses collègues et amis sont toutes réflexives et critiques. En ce qu’elles sont soucieuses de soumettre le droit au regard des sciences sociales et, inversement, les normativités extra-juridiques au regard du droit, elles sont fidèles à la démarche de François Ost. Ce Liber Amicorum propose aussi un retour réflexif sur son œuvre par l’auteur lui-même, dans un entretien avec Manuel Atienza. Contributeurs : Yves CARTUYVELS, Robert JACOB, Mark VAN HOECKE, Jacques COMMAILLE, Isabelle HACHEZ, Laurent VAN EYNDE, Jacques LENOBLE, Benoit FRYDMAN, Alain PAPAUX, Guillaume DE STEXHE, Diane BERNARD, Antoine GARAPON, Jacques CHEVALLIER, Alain SUPIOT, Paul MARTENS, Jérémie VAN MEERBEECK, Sébastien VAN DROOGHENBROECK, Nicolas BERNARD et Françoise TULKENS, Pierre LEGRAND, Annette RUELLE, Isabelle OST, Jeanne GAAKEER, Massimo VOGLIOTTI, Denis SALAS, Pauline BÉGASSE DE DHAEM et Marie-Sophie DE CLIPPELE, Xavier DELGRANGE, Delphine MISONNE, Benoît JADOT, Alain STROWEL, Hugues DUMONT, Jean-Guy BELLEY, Antoine BAILLEU. (shrink)

It is my hope that the book will be widely read and debated."--Axel Leijonhufvud, UCLA and the University of Trento "This is a major and controversial contribution to macroeconomics that cannot fail to make an impact in several areas.

The progressive dominance of historical-critical methods in the reading of ancient Chinese classics has led scholars to privilege micro levels of textual analysis. Consequently, the question as to whether laws of composition could be identified in this corpus has often been ignored, or considered irrelevant. Working on Chinese number symbolism as well as on rules governing “ring composition” in other cultural contexts, this article aims at fashioning anew the question of the possibility of an ancient Chinese “structural rhetoric” and at (...) envisioning the patterns that might have governed it. It specifically applies the approach it propounds to Huainanzi 淮南子, showing how numerology frames its structure and argument, the text being built after the image of the “roundness” of the Way and of the Ruler. It then endeavors to apply these results to the unearthing of “inter-structural” patterns that would help us to locate Huainanzi, Lüshi Chunqiu 呂氏春秋, the versions at hand of Zhuangzi 莊子, Lunyu 論語, or yet Laozi 老子 into a textual universe that shares correlated rhetorical features. (shrink)

Benoit Mathot À partir du cadre théorique de la décoïncidence proposé par le philosophe François Jullien, cet article explore les enjeux d’humanisation des soins médicaux, ainsi que l’introduction de la dimension spirituelle dans la prise en charge des patients. Il revient enfin sur le dialogue possible entre ces réflexions contemporaines et les considérations du théologien luthérien Paul Tillich sur la santé.

One of the first frameworks developed for understanding the relation of science and technology to the economy has been the linear model of innovation. The model postulated that innovation starts with basic research, is followed by applied research and development, and ends with production and diffusion. The precise source of the model remains nebulous, having never been documented. Several authors who have used, improved, or criticized the model in the past fifty years rarely acknowledged or cited any original source. The (...) model usually was taken for granted. According to others, however, it comes directly from V. Bush’s Science: The Endless Frontier. This article traces the history of the linear model, suggesting that it developed in three steps corresponding to three scientific communities looking at science analytically. The article argues that statistics is a main reason the model is still alive despite criticisms, alternatives, and having been proclaimed dead. (shrink)

This note focuses on George Soros's challenge to macroeconomics and finance theory that any valid methodology of social science must explicitly recognize fallibility in a Knightian sense. We use a simple algebraic example to sketch how extant models formalize fallibility. We argue that contemporary theory's epistemological and empirical difficulties can be traced to assuming away fallibility in a Knightian sense. We also discuss how imperfect knowledge economics provides a way to open mathematical models to such fallibility, while preserving economics as (...) an empirical science. (shrink)

Perelman a remis à l'honneur la rhétorique en 1958 et l'a appliquée à la philosophie morale, politique et juridique aussitôt, montrant ainsi la fécondité de son approche. Reprenant l'œuvre d'Aristote et la poursuivant, il a fait de la rhétorique et de l'argumentation la nouvelle matrice des sciences humaines après la mort du structuralisme. A l'occasion du centenaire de sa naissance, les auteurs réunis ici lui rendent hommage, mais aussi poursuivent, par leurs propres recherches, l'idée que la rhétorique comme l'argumentation sont (...) centrales. (shrink)

Growing out of a conference on Expectations Formation and Economic Disequilibrium held in New York City in 1981, the papers in this volume provide a complex view of market processes in which individual rationality is no guarantee of convergence to the 'correct' model and the equilibrium coordination of agents' plans. They reject the 'optimality' argument for the rational expectations hypothesis, opening the door to other hypotheses of optimal expectations of agents in the decentralized market economy.

This paper studies how in his Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smith answered to Mandeville on the role of pride and vanity in the economic and social dynamics of commercial societies. We show why vanity supersedes pride in his analysis and how he offers a more positive view of these two passions. We study in particular the economic and social consequences of pride and vanity and describe the psychological foundations of excessive self-esteem that these passions entail.

My main aim in this paper is to contribute to the elucidation of the nature of non-religious faith. I start by summarising several well-known arguments that belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for faith. I then try to identify the nature of the positive cognitive attitude towards p that is involved in having faith that p. After dismissing some candidates for the role, I explore the idea that faith and hope are similar attitudes. On this basis, I then advance a (...) new characterisation of faith. Finally, I turn to the question of the rationality of faith. I argue that faith is intrinsically irrational because it is an intrinsically incoherent propositional attitude, but that there is nonetheless a sense in which faith is neither intrinsically epistemically irrational nor intrinsically practically irrational. (shrink)

This article shows how, starting from Schelling and Henry, one can build a radical critique of objectification and subjectification within humanities. This critique opens the way for the construction of a point of view of immanence, which is characterized by the experimentation of a constitution of affects in a process from which proceeds the subjectivity. This point of view of immanence questions the accepted attitudes in the production of social relationships and the norms that govern them, so as to increase (...) the attention to the vulnerability of these processes and their power to transform the affects. (shrink)

Since the November 1991 elections, it has become a common statement to argue that Belgium has entered a -possibly unprecedented- period ofchange and instability. This article focuses on the evolution of the electoral system and electoral behaviour, in order to test this widely agreed-upon judgement. All things considered, one observes that the electoral system has not been radically modified since World War II. In spite of the transformation of the country into a federal state and several severe conflicts, political decision-makers (...) have opted for the 'fine-tuning" of the electoral system instead of radical reforms.As far as electoral behaviour is concerned, the picture is less clear. On one hand, relying on various indicators, one does observe that the early 1990s were characterised by change and transformation. On the other hand, one cannot conclude that the amplitude of change or instability in the early 1990s has been "exceptional" or "unprecedented" as compared with earlier periods.Building upon this ambiguous diagnosis, the author speculates on the probability of a major breakdown of the Belgian political system at the turn of the century. (shrink)

Les recompositions familiales touchent l’ensemble des liens familiaux et des liens intergénérationnels. Or, si l’on observe, tant sur le plan juridique que dans les pratiques des familles conjugales, une acception plus complexe et plus riche de la parentalité, les grands-parents restent souvent méconnus. Comment construisent-ils leurs rapports à leurs « beaux-petits-enfants »? Nous avons examiné la littérature et interrogé des « belles-grands-mères » pour tenter d’y voir plus clair. Quelles représentations le champ social offre-t-il des beaux-grands-parents? Et quelles sont concrètement (...) les conditions et les étapes qui rendent possible une identité « beau-grand-parentale »? (shrink)

The last sentence of Chapter 10 of the Analects describes a brief encounter between Confucius and a hen-pheasant, and it does so in puzzling terms, ridden with lexical difficulties. At the same time, intertextual references insert this fragment into the context of Confucius’ life mission as well as of Chinese mythological narratives. This contribution assesses the fragment’s meaning and significance: Confucius’ reaction to the hen-pheasant unveils his evolving understanding of the Heavenly Mandate bestowed upon him. The fragment thus forcefully concludes (...) the chapter in which it is inserted. Additionally, I put forward a hypothesis: the focus of this narrative, coupled with its positioning at the end of Chapter 10, induce us to postulate that it may have been purposefully located at the very center of the Analects, a proposition that reverberates on the way we look at the composition of the book. (shrink)

In this book, Benoît Dubreuil explores the creation and destruction of hierarchies in human evolution. Combining the methods of archaeology, anthropology, cognitive neuroscience and primatology, he offers a natural history of hierarchies from the point of view of both cultural and biological evolution. This volume explains why dominance hierarchies typical of primate societies disappeared in the human lineage and why the emergence of large-scale societies during the Neolithic period implied increased social differentiation, the creation of status hierarchies, and, eventually, political (...) centralisation. (shrink)

Considérée comme le seul pays « émergent » de son continent, l' Afrique du Sud est le produit d'une histoire tourmentée, sortie du système de l'apartheid pour devenir un État démocratique et multiracial au début des années 1990. Si la constitution prône une diversité culturelle et linguistique, reflet de sa population, l'Afrique du Sud s'intéresse plus à l'institution de la Francophonie, pour les avantages que son commerce et sa diplomatie en Afrique francophone peuvent en tirer, que pour l'usage de la (...) langue française surtout pratiquée par une communauté africaine francophone récemment implantée.South Africa is considered as the sole emerging country on its continent and has undergone a very difficult history. Following the end of the apartheid system, South Africa was transformed into a multiracial and democratic state in the nineties. The South African constitution now endorses linguistic and cultural diversity which mirrors its population. Francophony as an institution is of major interest for South Africa more to support its proactive trade and diplomacy in the Francophone area than to help develop the French language which is mainly spoken by a recently settled Francophone African community. (shrink)

In the early eighties, answering a question of A. Macintyre, J. H. Schmerl ([13]) proved that every countable recursively saturated structure, equipped with a function β encoding the finite functions, is the β-closure of an infinite indiscernible sequence. This result implies that every countably saturated structure, in a countable but not necessarily recursive language, is an Ehrenfeucht-Mostowski model, by which we mean that the structure expands, in a countable language, to the Skolem hull of an infinite indiscernible sequence (in the (...) new language). More recently, D. Lascar ([5]) showed that the saturated model of cardinality ℵ 1 of an ω-stable theory is also an Ehrenfeucht-Mostowski model. These results naturally raise the following problem: which (countable) complete theories have an uncountably saturated Ehrenfeucht-Mostowski model. We study a generalization of this question. Namely, we call ACI-model a structure which can be expanded, in a countable language L', to the algebraic closure (in L') of an infinite indiscernible sequence (in L'). And we try to characterize the λ-saturated structures which are ACI-models. The main results are the following. First it is enough to restrict ourselves to ℵ 1 -saturated structures: if T has an ℵ 1 -saturated ACI-model then, for every infinite λ, T has a λ-saturated ACI-model. We obtain a complete answer in the case of stable theories: if T is stable then the three following properties are equivalent: (a) T is ω-stable, (b) T has a ℵ 1 saturated ACI-model, (c) every saturated model of T is an Ehrenfeucht-Mostowski model. The unstable case is more complicated, however we show that if T has an ℵ 1 -saturated ACI-model then T doesn't have the independence property. (shrink)

A mass problem is a set of functions $\omega \to \omega $. For mass problems ${\mathcal {C}}, {\mathcal {D}}$, one says that ${\mathcal {C}}$ is Muchnik reducible to ${\mathcal {D}}$ if each function in ${\mathcal {C}}$ is computed by a function in ${\mathcal {D}}$. In this paper we study some highness properties of Turing oracles, which we view as mass problems. We compare them with respect to Muchnik reducibility and its uniform strengthening, Medvedev reducibility.For $p \in [0,1]$ let ${\mathcal {D}}$ (...) be the mass problem of infinite bit sequences y such that for each computable bit sequence x, the bit sequence $ x {\,\leftrightarrow\,} y$ has asymptotic lower density at most p = y$ ). We show that all members of this family of mass problems parameterized by a real p with $0 p$ for each computable set x. We prove that the Medvedev complexity of the mass problems ${\mathcal {B}}$ is the same for all $p \in $, by showing that they are Medvedev equivalent to the mass problem of functions bounded by ${2^{2}}^{n}$ that are almost everywhere different from each computable function.Next, together with Joseph Miller, we obtain a proper hierarchy of the mass problems of type $\text {IOE}$ : we show that for any order function g there exists a faster growing order function $h $ such that $\text {IOE}$ is strictly above $\text {IOE}$ in the sense of Muchnik reducibility.We study cardinal characteristics in the sense of set theory that are analogous to the highness properties above. For instance, ${\mathfrak {d}} $ is the least size of a set G of bit sequences such that for each bit sequence x there is a bit sequence y in G so that $\underline \rho >p$. We prove within ZFC all the coincidences of cardinal characteristics that are the analogs of the results above. (shrink)