La philosophie de Fichte ne consiste ni en un idealisme abstrait, ni en une reprise systematique du moralisme kantien comme on le croit souvent. Au contraire, soucieux de la realisation de la liberte dans le monde phenomenal, Fichte a tente de redefinir les termes d'une philosophie pratique, suscitant une interrogation radicale sur la nature du sujet et des principes en philosophie. Les etudes rassemblees dans cet ouvrage montrent l'enjeu de cette entreprise pour nos contemporains, dans les domaines les plus concrets (...) de la politique, du droit et de l'histoire. (shrink)

Dans un ouvrage récent, Not for Profit, Martha C. Nussbaum a pris fait et cause pour la philosophie pour enfants . En fait, ce renvoi n’est pas isolé car de nombreux échanges entre Nussbaum et Matthew Lipman ont existé. Dans cet article, je ne m’intéresse pas aux citations de l’un à l’autre mais pars de l’œuvre de Nussbaum pour esquisser ce qu’il en est de l’éducation à la démocratie. Pour commencer, je rappelle la théorie des « capabilités », ou capacités (...) réelles ; je montre en outre l’importance des émotions dans une démocratie. Ensuite, je traite de la culture des émotions en démocratie. L’éducation concerne certes les adultes, mais elle touche bien davantage les enfants. L’exemple du dégoût sert à montrer l’importance d’une prise en charge des émotions dès l’enfance, particulièrement à l’école. Enfin, je regarde la manière dont on peut, dans une pratique de classe, promouvoir l’esprit critique en suivant les préceptes donnés par Nussbaum. Comment, dans une communauté de recherche, prêter davantage attention à autrui ? Comment exploiter en philosophie pour enfants la thèse selon laquelle les émotions sont des jugements de valeur ? Pour conclure, j’essaie d’approfondir le lien entre Nussbaum et Gareth B. Matthews : sans doute l’insistance de la première sur la valeur formatrice des récits aurait-elle dû l’amener à se pencher davantage sur la pratique philosophique avec les enfants du second. In a recent work, Not for Profit, Martha C. Nussbaum stood for the Philosophy for Children movement. In fact, this mention is not isolated, for many exchanges took place between Nussbaum and Matthew Lipman. I don’t focus on quotations from the one by the other but instead, starting from Nussbaum’s work, sketch her conception of training for democracy. First of all, I remember her theory of capabilities and show furthermore the importance of emotions in a democracy. I treat then the culture of emotions in a democracy. Of course, education refers to adults too. Still, it concerns children more heavily. The instance of disgust helps in showing the importance of dealing with emotions since childhood, particularly at schools. Finally, I get a look on how, in a classroom, critical thinking may be improved using Nussbaum’s precepts. How can be paid more attention to the other in a community of inquiry? How is in P4C the thesis that emotions are judgments of value to be exploited? In conclusion, I try to deepen the link between Nussbaum and Gareth B. Matthews: the stress laid by the latter on the formative value of narratives might have driven her to bend herself more on the philosophical practice of the former. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Should we regard Jennifer Lackey’s ‘Creationist Teacher’ as understanding evolution, even though she does not, given her religious convictions, believe its central claims? We think this question raises a range of important and unexplored questions about the relationship between understanding, factivity and belief. Our aim will be to diagnose this case in a principled way, and in doing so, to make some progress toward appreciating what objectual understanding—i.e., understanding a subject matter or body of information—demands of us. Here is the (...) plan. After some ground clearing in §1, §2 outlines and motivates a plausible working model—moderate factivity—for characterising the sense in which objectual understanding should be regarded as factive. §3 shows how the datum that we can understand false theories can, despite initial suggestions to the contrary, be assimilated straightforwardly within the moderate factivity model. §4 highlights how the inverse kind of case to that explored in §3—viz., a variant of Lackey’s creationist teacher case—poses special problems for moderate factivity. With reference to recent work on moral understanding by Hills, §5 proposes a solution to the problem, and §6 attempts to diagnose why it is that we might originally have been led to draw the wrong conclusion. (shrink)

Protagoras, of all the ancient philosophers, has perhaps attracted the most interest in modern times. His saying ‘Man is the measure of all things’ caused Schiller to adopt him as the patron of the Oxford pragmatists, and has generally earned him the title of the first humanist. Yet the exact delineation of his philosophcal position remains a baffling task. Neumann, writing on Die Problematik des ‘Homo-mensura’ Satzes in 1938,2 concludes that no certainty whatever can be reached on the meaning of (...) the dictum, since ‘man’, ‘measure’, and ‘things’ are all ambiguous, nor can we tell which of the three is the predicate. The time is past when it was believed that a man's philosophy could be understood apart from the events of his life and the circumstances of his age: yet in the case of Protagoras the historical method of approach has hardly been attempted, although the impact of environment was perhaps more decisive in the formation of philosophical concepts in the Greek world than anywhere else. The reality about which the Greek philosopher spoke had three aspects: it was either the one universe of physics, or the political unity, or God. For example, the book of Heracleitus Περ φσεως was divided into three chapters or logoi, About the Whole, a political, and a theological. Neither physics nor theology supplies from its own subject-matter the form in which this reality was described. (shrink)

The achievements of the textile industry in Roman Britain are often underestimated as a result of the meagreness of our available evidence. The Edict on maximum prices issued by Diocletian in A.D. 301 shows that British capes commanded high prices on the markets of the Empire, and that in the late third century A.D. British rugs were the best in the world. In view of the competition from the traditional centres of rug manufacture in the East, this is an astonishing (...) achievement. (shrink)

The received translation and interpretation of many of the technical terms current in the textile industry of the Roman Empire are inaccurate, because lexicographers have either fought shy of being precise, or have thought that they recognized in the ancient world technical processes which originated at a much later date. The evidence is often equivocal or insufficient, but may still yield details that have been overlooked. The textile expression scutulatus, to take an example, deserves more attention than Blümner has devoted (...) to it. When it refers to the appearance of a garment, Lewis and Short, s.v. scutulatus, translate ‘diamond or lozenge-shaped, checkered’. It seems worth while to attempt a more precise translation, and, if possible, to estimate the significance in context of the goods so designated. (shrink)

Die Psychologie nimmt im Werk Christian Wolffs (1679-1754) eine zentrale Stellung ein. Sie begründet die Logik und die praktische Philosophie mit Naturrecht, Ethik, Politik und Ökonomik. Der vorliegende Band geht den vielfältigen Problemen nach, die sich mit Wolffs Konzeption einer rationalen und einer empirischen Psychologie einerseits, ihrer Grundlegungsfunktion innerhalb des Wolffschen Systems der Philosophie andererseits ergeben. Darüber hinaus stellt er die Psychologie Wolffs in den philosophie- und wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Kontext von der Scholastik bis zur kritischen Philosophie Immanuel Kants.

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

È mettendo in primo piano l’idea di filosofia pratica universale, già presente nella filosofia dell’Aufklärung, che Fichte è riuscito a dare un nuovo volto alla speculazione trascendentale postkantiana. Il saggio tenta innanzitutto di ricostruire la filosofia pratica abbozzata negli anni 1793-1794. Viene proposto un breve confronto con Wolf. In seguito, lo studio rivolge la sua attenzione ad uno dei contributi della filosofia pratica universale fichtiana: aver trattato il sentimento come nozione pratica fondamentale, presente nella conoscenza e nell’azione. Infine, si tratta (...) di mostrare che Fichte propose, nella prima Dottrina della Scienza, di fare della filosofia pratica universale una philosophia prima che fosse chiamata a prendere il posto della ontologia dogmatica e della dottrina degli elementi critica. Un confronto con Descartes, Wolff, Kant e Reinhold pone in risalto l’innovazione di Fichte. (shrink)

In this article I try to refute the so-called "libertarian" theory of free will, and to examine how our conclusion ought to modify our common attitudes of praise and blame. In attacking the libertarian view, I shall try to show that it cannot be consistently stated. That is, my dscussion will be an "analytic-philosophic" one. I shall neglect what I think is in practice an equally powerful method of attack on the libertarian: a challenge to state his theory in such (...) a way that it will fit in the modern biology and psychology, which are becoming increasingly physicalistic. (shrink)

Ce volume est consacré à la notion d'homme entier, telle qu'elle a été définie et diffusée par quelques-uns des principaux philosophes de l'âge moderne et de l'époque contemporaine. Le but poursuivi par cette publication est double. Sur le plan historiographique, elle enregistre les étapes les plus importantes d'un débat, trace les lignes de fond d'une discussion vive, quoique fragmentée dans le temps, au cours de laquelle les auteurs tantôt se rencontrèrent tacitement, tantôt s'apostrophèrent l'un l'autre explicitement. D'un autre côté, elle (...) propose à l'attention du lecteur différents modèles anthropologiques passés qui, en fournissant une image holistique de l'homme, contribuent à dépasser certaines formes de réduction théorique implicite avancées par des recherches de type naturaliste, scientiste, ou par des modèles d'enquête analytico-linguistiques. (shrink)

Living out of silence, out of a fully functioning, lovingly attentive mind, and not just out of thought, out of a partially functioning mind, is requisite for depth or profundity in living or relating. A fully attentive, truly silent or meditative mind sees that there is real dualism of time and the timeless and that time and the timeless each has its own unique value. The timeless, or real silence, that which alone can make for depth in one's living and (...) relating, can be there only when, in one's awareness, time and all that is related to time, have come to an end. An examination of a wide variety of statements made by writers, both past and present, shows that these understandings are seldom there in contemporary writings, just as they were not there in writings that have come down to us from the past. 'Living beyond the One and the Many' invites readers to consider the possibility that what is presented in it can bring deep meaning to one's way of living in the world"--Publisher's description, back cover. (shrink)

Telling a patient that the outcome of his illness is not good, or even hopeless, requires sensitivity and the ability to communicate with him in the setting of a hospital which is an unnatural environment divorced from family and friends. It is a task which must be taught and learned by doctors and nurses.

Husserlian phenomenology, as the study of conscious experience, has often been accused of solipsism. Husserl’s method, it is argued, does not have the resources to provide an account of consciousness of other minds. This chapter will address this issue by providing a brief overview of the multiple angles from which Husserl approached the theme of intersubjectivity, with specific focus on the details of his account of the concrete interpersonal encounter – “empathy.” Husserl understood empathy as a direct, quasi-perceptual form of (...) intentionality through which the sense of the Other is constituted. Furthermore, his account of empathy is holistically integrated with his overall theory of intersubjectivity, including his discussions of the objectivity of nature, and the social, historical, and communal aspects of subjectivity. Husserl’s theory of empathy continues to cast a long shadow, influencing both the analytic and continental approaches to the problem of other minds, as well as contemporary account of social cognition in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

An Essay on Human Action seeks to provide a comprehensive, detailed, enlightening, and (in its detail) original account of human action. This account presupposes a theory of events as abstract, proposition-like entities, a theory which is given in the first chapter of the book. The core-issues of action-theory are then treated: what acting in general is (a version of the traditional volitional theory is proposed and defended); how actions are to be individuated; how long actions last; what acting intentionally is; (...) what doing one thing by doing another is; what basic action is; and what omitting to do something is. Attention is also given to the concepts of causation, intention, volition, deciding, choosing, and trying. Finally, a libertarian account of free action is tentatively proposed and defended. (shrink)

The existential analysis -- The death of dasein -- The timeliness of dasein -- The derivation of time -- The time of being.

Les notions deforce et de faculté ne doivent pas être confondues. Il s'agit de montrer que l'âme rend raison de ses opérations tant spécialement, sur le plan empirique, que généralement, sur le plan rationnel. Si la force explique surtout comment chaque état de conscience émane d'une âme une, les facultés permettent de comprendre comment a lieu une identité de la conscience dans le temps. Ce modèle n'est cependant pas sans présenter quelques difficultés : la sensibilité par exemple est à la (...) fois pouvoir actif et passif, selon le plan sur lequel on la prend ; l'unicité de la force de l'âme doit tenir compte de deux domaines principaux d'applications, celui de la connaissance par représentation et celui de la liberté. The concepts of strength and faculty should not be mistaken one for the other. The purpose of this paper is to show that the soul gives an account of its operations both on the empirical and rational level. If strength mostly explains how each state of consciousness surges from one single soul, faculties enable one to understand how an identity of consciousness within time may take place. Such a model however seems to lead to a few difficulties : sensitiveness for example is both an active and passive power according to the level wherefrom it may be handled ; the unicity of the strength of the soul should take into account two major fields of implementation, i.e. that of knowledge through representation and that of freedom. (shrink)

Les grandes œuvres de la métaphysique allemande du XVIIIe siècle n'ont pas fait l'objet de beaucoup de traductions récentes. La traduction de ces textes doit d'abord tenir compte de la circulation entre langues qui les caractérise, mais surtout faire apparaître la signification proprement métaphysique des notions en jeu. On sera ainsi conduit à préciser le sens de Deutlichkeit et d'Evidenz, à distinguer Vermögen de Kraft, à situer la notion de Beschaffenheit par rapport à celles de Wesen et de Natur. On (...) pourra encore méditer sur Zusammenhang, sur Erklärung, sur auseinandersetzen, etc. C'est à ce prix que l'on arrachera des auteurs comme Wolff au discrédit injuste dans lequel ils sont tombés. The major works of XVIII century German metaphysics have not been recently translated into French. The translation of those texts must first take into account the circulation between languages which characterizes them but, above all, should let the proper metaphysical meaning of the notions surge. Thus one should be led to specify more precisely the meaning of Deutlichkeit and Evidenz, to distinguish between Vermögen and Kraft, and to tell whether Beschaffenheit means something like Wesen or something like Natur. One will also have to ponder over Zusammenhang, Erklärung, auseinandersetzen, etc. Such is the price to be paid so as to be able to drag away Wolff and others like him from the unfair disrepute they fell. (shrink)

While philosophical questions about health and disease have attracted much attention in recent decades, and while opinions are divided on most issues, influential accounts seem to embrace negativism about health, according to which health is the absence of disease. Some subscribe to unrestricted negativism, which claims that negativism applies not only to the concepts of health and disease as used by healthcare professionals but also to the lay concept that underpins everyday thinking. Whether people conceptualize health in this manner has (...) implications for medical care and public health, and so we set out to examine this claim in two studies. Participants were asked to assess and compare the health states of two people presented in two vignettes. We found that both lay people and medical students conceptualize health as something more than the absence of disease. We argue that our findings highlight a need to rethink unrestricted negativism and indicate a need to rethink the way the debate has traditionally focused on disease. (shrink)