Ivre de Dieu, Giordano Bruno nous offre une presentation violemment heterodoxe des dogmes chretiens, moins pour les destituer de leur autorite que pour les faire fonctionner autrement.

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RESUMEN: Si remitimos la dialéctica a su punto de partida socrático, es decir, a un método puramente interrogativo, hemos de comprender la aporia en un sentido radical: lejos de deberse a factores subjetivos o existenciales tales como la ignorancia de la respuesta, la aporia propiamente dicha es una cuestión que objetivamente no se puede decidir, pero que sin embargo, paradójicamente, no puede ser superada sino a través de una decisión. Se pone de manifiesto aquí que la cuestión del sentido de (...) ser, básico en la metafísica desde Aristóteles, presenta este carácter de manera ejemplar. ABSTRACT: If we bring dialectics back to its socratic origin, i.e. to a purely interrogative method, we are at the same time led to take aporia in a radical far from being due to such subjective or existential factors as the ignorance of the answer, aporia is, strictly speaking, a question that objectively cannot be settled in one sens more than in another- to the effect that, paradoxically, it is a question upon which one has necessarily and only to decide. The point here is that the question, basic to metaphysics from Aristotle onwards, «What does mean being?» presents this character in a paradigmatic way. (shrink)

In Kant and the Demands of Self-Consciousness, Pierre Keller examines Kant's theory of self-consciousness and argues that it succeeds in explaining how both subjective and objective experience are possible. Previous interpretations of Kant's theory have held that he treats all self-consciousness as knowledge of objective states of affairs, and also that self-consciousness can be interpreted as knowledge of personal identity. By developing this striking new interpretation Keller is able to argue that transcendental self-consciousness underwrites a general theory of objectivity (...) and subjectivity at the same time. (shrink)

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)

Vulnerability: an ethical category. Vulnerability must not be considered as an equivalent for the weakness or for the precariousness, i.e. the state in which the most resourceless people are living -with regard to power, wealth and health -; the strong are also vulnerable and they are potentially likely to be weakened. We will try to give its chance to an ethical category which, unlike person, personality, dignity, benevolence, non-malevolence, focusses on pleasures and displeasures, no more on the virtues of nursing (...) people. Moreover the category of vulnerability is quantity-sensitive. We will expose two mathematical models that highlight this last point of view. (shrink)

An examination of the fundamental role cybernetics played in the birth of cognitive science and the light this sheds on current controversies. The conceptual history of cognitive science remains for the most part unwritten. In this groundbreaking book, Jean-Pierre Dupuy—one of the principal architects of cognitive science in France—provides an important chapter: the legacy of cybernetics. Contrary to popular belief, Dupuy argues, cybernetics represented not the anthropomorphization of the machine but the mechanization of the human. The founding fathers of (...) cybernetics—some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, including John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, and Walter Pitts—intended to construct a materialist and mechanistic science of mental behavior that would make it possible at last to resolve the ancient philosophical problem of mind and matter. The importance of cybernetics to cognitive science, Dupuy argues, lies not in its daring conception of the human mind in terms of the functioning of a machine but in the way the strengths and weaknesses of the cybernetics approach can illuminate controversies that rage today—between cognitivists and connectionists, eliminative materialists and Wittgensteinians, functionalists and anti-reductionists. Dupuy brings to life the intellectual excitement that attended the birth of cognitive science sixty years ago. He separates the promise of cybernetic ideas from the disappointment that followed as cybernetics was rejected and consigned to intellectual oblivion. The mechanization of the mind has reemerged today as an all-encompassing paradigm in the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science. The tensions, contradictions, paradoxes, and confusions Dupuy discerns in cybernetics offer a cautionary tale for future developments in cognitive science. (shrink)

This collective volume contains studies in the field of ancient grammar, poetics and philosophy of language.

Este estudio propone una hipótesis de lectura de la Scienza nuova fundada en una redefinición de la noción de razón en Vico. Radicalmente opuesta a la razón cartesiana, que se repliega sobre sí misma, la razón de Vico es movimiento, riesgo, apertura. Al salir de sí misma, la razón ha de metamorfosearse y, para ello, ha de adoptar nuevos instrumentos y nuevos criterios . Este nuevo status de la razón confiere un sentido particular a la empresa científica de Vico al (...) ligar exigencias prácticas con dificultades epistemológicas.This paper proposes an hypothesis to reading the Scienza Nuova based upon a re-definition of Vico's notion of reason. Radically opposed to that of Descartes's, which bends on itself, Vico's reason is movement, risk, aperture. When reason comes out from within, it has to metamorphoses and in doing so it has to employ new means and new criteria . This new status of reason provides Vico's scientific enterprise with a particular meaning since it links practical claims with epistemological difficulties. (shrink)

According to the two visual systems model, the visual processing of objects divides into semantic and pragmatic processing. We provide various criteria for this distinction. Further, we argue that both the semantic and pragmatic processing of visual information about objects should be divided into low-level processing and high-level processing. Finally, we re-evaluate the contribution of the human parietal lobe to the concious visual perception of spatial relations among objects.

La dichotomie fait/valeur caractérise le « problème de Weber », qui a abouti, avec le positivisme du Cercle de Vienne, au confinement de l'éthique dans le nonsens, c'est-à-dire de ce côté où l'on devrait absolument rien dire, selon l'interdit wittgensteinien, vraisemblablement dicté par Parménide. La reprise critique de la question consistera ici à la poser en termes de rapports entre logique et éthique, la première regroupant des faits (divers) qui communiquent avec les valeurs, qu'ils peuvent induire, du reste, le but (...) étant de continuer à raturer la fameuse neutralité axiologique, exigée par le positivisme, de Weber à Marx. Larature sera saisie ici sous les traits suivants : La raison est originairement politique ; La rationalisme et la culture de la paix ; L'idée d'une « morale immanente » : le cas de la biologie ; L'avantage critique de l'Occident.. (shrink)