In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Pragmatist in Paris: Frédéric Rauh’s “Task of Dissolution”Richard HornerIntroductionRichard Rorty has suggested that we think of “pragmatism in the professorial sense” as “just a repudiation of the quest for certainty and foundations.” 1 In other words think of a pragmatist as someone who links the quest for privileged method with the quest for foundational knowledge and gives up both. As Rorty explained several years ago,If one believes, (...) as I do, that the traditional ideas of “an absolute (‘objective’) conception of reality” and of “scientific method” are neither clear nor useful, then one will see the interlocked questions “What should be the method of the social sciences?” and “What are the criteria of an objective moral theory?” as badly posed. 2Pragmatists not only give up the quest for grounding, foundations, or essences, then, but they also understand that the dissolution of essences leads in turn to “the dissolution of inquiry into a self-reweaving web of beliefs.” If this “seems wacky to you,” Rorty notes, “consider that such a dissolution is a natural and [End Page 289] easy consequence of a generalized antiessentialism.” 3 Whether he speaks in terms of foundations or essences, Rorty’s message remains the same: pragmatists not only let go of the quest for foundations, they also let go of the quest for privileged method.Perhaps the principle difficulty with this way of defining pragmatism is that not very many people seem to qualify as pragmatists. What Rorty has been able to do with remarkable consistency, others have been less willing and less able to do. There are, of course, still numerous foundationalists among us who are explicit about their commitment to the quest for foundations and to the quest for method that accompanies it. While anti-foundationalism may be all the rage, “it would be too much to say that the foundationalist argument lies in ruins. It is in fact remarkably resilient and resourceful in the face of attacks against it.” 4 Furthermore, even where the “death of foundationalism” is a given, 5 the quest for method continues to hold interest. To cite only one notable example among many, Jürgen Habermas may have successfully resisted the seductive attraction of the quest for Letzbegründung or ultimate foundations, but he clearly remains committed to “a metahermeneutical analysis” of communication, the purpose of which is “to identify universals and thus to produce a type of theoretical knowledge.” 6 This kind of “anti-foundationalist theory hope,” 7 can be found among Deweyan pragmatists as well. While many of them let go of the quest for foundations with relative ease, they find it difficult to abandon the quest for method 8 or to allow the epistemological enterprise to succumb to Rorty’s “vulgar pragmatism.” 9 Furthermore, in doing so they believe that Dewey would have sided with them rather than with Rorty.Given the difficulty in identifying pragmatists who have consistently abandoned both quests, it is especially striking to discover Frédéric Rauh practicing “pragmatism in the professorial sense” in the philosophy section of the Faculté [End Page 290] des lettres of the Sorbonne and Ecole normale supérieure during the first decade of the twentieth century. While this period of French history certainly produced intellectuals who were sympathetic to the American pragmatists, these intellectuals were, as Durkheim noted, “far from subscribing to all their theses.” 10 Renouvier, for instance, remained, in James’s own words, “too classic in the general rationalism of his procedure.” 11 Similarly, James’s good friend Boutroux, though “simpatico” toward American pragmatism, also “betrayed... a philosophical inheritance quite foreign to that of James.” 12 Ralph Barton Perry, comes to a similar conclusion with regard to Bergson, writing that Bergson and James “exchanged salutations and gifts, and then proceeded on their way. In no sense did they coincide either as systems or in their particular theorems.” 13 Apparent alliances, then, emerge finally as “misalliances,” showing that “what has passed as pragmatism in European philosophical thought has not been distinctive of the essential and most important features of American pragmatism.” 14 Whatever their affinities with pragmatism may have been and whatever their contributions to dissolving the... (shrink)

This article examines the ethics of ambiguity formulated by existentialist authors in the 1940s, linking it to turn-of-the-century debates on ethics between philosophy and the social sciences. The underlying thesis is that, rather than representing a radical conceptual novelty, the ethical thought of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, strained between freedom and situation, constitutes a revisiting and updating of philosophical positions from the landscape of the Third Republic. To demonstrate this, the thought of Frédéric Rauh is examined. Indeed, (...) anticipating what de Beauvoir would later call “ambiguity”, Rauh sought to develop an ethics of action that would constitute a third way between sociological objectivism and the empty abstractions of idealism and rationalism. By reconstructing the transitions from one generation and historical context to the next, the article shows how, and through which mediators, the existentialists were well aware of this debate and, in their own way, developed a philosophy of action, of ethical experience, similar to Rauh’s. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung In dieser landeskundlich-historisch ausgerichteten Abhandlung wird die Geschichte des ‚Rauhen Kilikien‘ unter den Römern untersucht. Das Rauhe Kilikien in seiner Gesamtheit stand bislang nur selten im Zentrum einer genaueren Analyse. Die geschichtlichen Daten sind möglichst quellennah unter Berücksichtigung der Sekundärliteratur erarbeitet; insbesondere wurde dabei der epigraphische Befund berücksichtigt. Einer einleitenden geographischen Abgrenzung folgt eine kurze Einführung in die Region. Das Rauhe Kilikien wurde länger als alle anderen kleinasiatischen Regionen von Klientelkönigen verwaltet, bis es unter Vespasian Teil der römischen Provinzordnung (...) wurde. Anschließend erlebte das Rauhe Kilikien eine lange Phase der steten Entwicklung und Urbanisierung. Unter Diokletian wurde das Rauhe Kilikien Kernstück der neuen Provinz ‚Isauria‘. Ein besonderer Schwerpunkt der Untersuchung liegt auf der Frage nach den ‚kilikischen Piraten‘ und, später, den ‚isaurischen Banditen‘. (shrink)

The point on the Hippodrome. A compilation of the known facts about the hippodrome contests and the Hippodrome. — 70. A new gymnaslic establishment in the south of Delos. Description of the large gamma-shaped terrace laid out in the southern part of Delos and its interpretation as a gymnastic establishment. — 71. "Was the Agora of the Italians an Établissement du Sport?". Comment on Ν. Κ. Rauh's hypothesis. There is nothing to suggest that it was a specifîcally Italian palaestra (...) or a gladiatorial arena. What is known of the name of the building and its lay-out does not accord with thèse functiona, nor do the indications of a cuit of Hermes and Heracles, which is more readily explained by the Italian nationality of those who used it. — 72. The Colossus and the Palm-tree. A. Hermary's theory, which would make the Colossus an archaizing copy, dedicated in the 4th c, of the one that had broken the fall of the palm-tree, remains weak; but it does hâve the advantage of dating this accident, which at the time would hâve counted among the omens considered inauspicious for the Sicilian expédition, like the one that befell the palm-tree of Eurymedon. — 73. On the Aphrodite and Pan group from the Institution of the Poseidoniasts of Berytos. Eros personifies the amorous relationship of the two rivals rather than rebuffing Pan. Comparison with a pelike of the Euphronios period on which an ithyphallic boy is rebuffed by a young man brandishing a sandal. (shrink)

La philosophie française, à partir de 1880, est traversée par un grand conflit théorique sur l’obligation, son fondement, et la forme que lui attribue le système kantien. Presque toutes les prises de position de Fouillée, Boutroux, Bergson, Durkheim, Belot, Brochard, Rauh, sur la morale, s’inscrivent dans ce débat, soit pour justifier l’impératif de Kant, soit pour trouver à la morale du devoir un autre fondement, soit encore pour contester la morale du devoir en tant que telle, au profit d’une (...) conception aristotélicienne de la recherche du bien qui a fourni matière à des théories prolixes sur l’expérience morale et l’objectivité des valeurs. Notre hypothèse est que ces auteurs, pourtant classiques, se laissent plus aisément interpréter quand on reconstitue cet espace de confrontations. (shrink)