La médecine joue un rôle majeur dans les sociétés contemporaines. La volonté de prévenir les maladies, l'espoir de guérir et de prolonger la vie humaine répondent à des aspirations de plus en plus profondes. Un regard médical est porté sur tous les aspects de l'existence, de la naissance, avec la procréation médicalement assistée, à la fin de vie, avec l'euthanasie. Il semble bien que l'on confie sa vie à la médecine comme on la confiait naguère à Dieu. A l'heure du (...) déclin des religions séculières, la médecine apparaît comme une religion de substitution. Mais apporte-t-elle, pourtant, des réponses à nos interrogations existentielles? Il semble, au contraire, qu'elle ne soit qu'un pis-aller incapable de donner un sens à la vie et d'apprendre à mourir. Le revers scientiste de l'obsession de la mort. Une religion chétive, dont l'échec est souvent cruel. La médecine, aussi efficace soit-elle, doit veiller à rester à sa juste place. Elle ne peut soigner en confisquant le risque de vivre, elle qui ne soigne qu'en prenant le risque d'échouer. (shrink)

La philosophie de Suárez dans sa confrontation implicite à l’héritage de Thomas More (1478−1535) et de Madrigal (1410?−1455), permet de dégager une double orientation au cœur de la constitution de la théorie politique : celle de la recherche du meilleur régime, du gouvernement idéal, de la meilleure des républiques qui l’emporterait dans l’ordre du bien vivre et que rien ne surpasserait en son genre, espace privilégié où s’exercerait sans contraintes l’imagination sociale ; et celle qui viserait à établir, non (...) la meilleure forme de gouvernement mais qui, en accord avec ce que les hommes sont, créerait les conditions de leur perfectionnement. Il ne s’agirait pas tant de théoriser le meilleur système de gouvernement que de se donner les moyens de poser les fondements du gouvernement le plus adéquat eu égard à la nature humaine. C’est à partir de cette alternative que Suárez se propose de penser la question des limites propres à tout exercice du politique. (shrink)

Le pouvoir est au coeur du questionnement politique. L'émergence de l'Etot, au sens moderne, s'appuie sur différentes conceptions du pouvoir, qui évoluent au cours des siècles. L'intérêt de cet ouvrage collectif réside dans la diversité des auteurs étudiés, de Thomas d'Aquin à Hobbes, en passant par Vitorio, jusqu'aux très contemporaines analyses de Claude Lefort.

volume 1. L'héritage et le débat contemporain: I, L'héritage: Formes platoniciennes et universel suarézien -- Cicéron et Suárez : les métamorphoses du droit naturel : enjeux éthiques et politiques -- Sénèque et Suárez : le bien, principe et fin de l'existence? -- Statut ontologique et politique de l'individu chez Suárez : la persistance de la trace de l'héritage d'Occam dans la modernité -- Paix et pouvoir chez Marsile de Padoue et Suárez : les enjeux d'un débat furtif et pourtant décisif (...) sur le théologico-politique -- Alphonse de Madrigal, Thomas More et Suárez : la question des limites du possible en politique -- Machiavel/Suárez ou une rencontre inattendue-attendue -- II, Le débat contemporain: Loi naturelle et humanité chez Domingo de Soto et Suárez -- Cervantès et Suárez : incarnation de l'âme et spiritualisation du corps : l'humain en débat -- Suárez, El Greco (1541-1614), Zurbarán (1598-1664) et Velázquez (1599-1660) : l'art et la perfection du sensible : un prolongement inattendu de la métaphysique par d'autres moyens -- Suárez et Diego Mas (1533-1608) : la métaphysique restituée à elle-même par le renouvellement de la compréhension de l'étant -- Suárez et Diego de Zúñiga : l'étant, objet de la métaphysique, à quel titre. (shrink)

An international group of distinguished scholars brings a variety of resources to bear on the major issues in the study and teaching of mathematics, and on the problem of understanding mathematics as a cultural and social phenomenon. All are guided by the notion that our understanding of mathematical knowledge must be grounded in and reflect the realities of mathematical practice. Chapters on the philosophy of mathematics illustrate the growing influence of a pragmatic view in a field traditionally dominated by platonic (...) perspectives. In a section on mathematics, politics, and pedagogy, the emphasis is on politics and values in mathematics education. Issues addressed include gender and mathematics, applied mathematics and social concerns, and the reflective and dialogical nature of mathematical knowledge. The concluding section deals with the history and sociology of mathematics, and with mathematics and social change. Contributors include Philip J. Davis, Helga Jungwirth, Nel Noddings, Yehuda Rav, Michael D. Resnik, Ole Skovsmose, and Thomas Tymoczko. (shrink)

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) daily practice reveals that couples are willing to take greater risks than doctors if there is a higher chance of pregnancy. Arising from this is a frequently addressed issue regarding the embryo transfer strategy: single or double embryo transfer? The dilemma is faced by patients, as well as physicians, who are caught between the possibility of no pregnancies at all and facing the prospect of iatrogenic twin gestation. How could the couple's preferences concerning how many children (...) they would like be taken into account in determining the number of embryos transferred? How should the physician exercise his medical responsibility towards his patients and the unborn child? An effective approach could be to enhance a couple’s autonomy by advocating a medical beneficence that incorporates patients’ values. This can be achieved through a case-by-case approach in a deliberative process of decision-making which includes real patient-centred communication. (shrink)

The development of the philosophy of science in the twentieth century has created a framework where issues concerning funding dynamics can be easily accommodated. It combines the historical-philosophical approach of Thomas Kuhn. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, [1962] ) with the sociological approach of Robert K. Merton The sociology of science. Theoretical and empirical investigations. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 267–278, [1942] ), linking the ‘exact’ sciences to economy and politics. Out of this came a new (...) domain, namely the study of scientific practices : Science as practice and culture. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1992). Given this broad theoretical framework, we will specify by looking at the case of STEM education and its variant Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics with Art education as an example par excellence. Without going into the technical details of the financial support of the projects, we prefer to open a philosophical debate on the way how policies on academic subjects influence a whole society and the personal life of both researchers and people/pupils involved in education. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), nephew of the Alsatian theologian, Albert Schweitzer, was born in Paris, passed his agrégation at the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1929, and was a lycée teacher between 1931 and 1945. He was called up to the French Army in 1939, captured by the Germans in 1940 and released after the armistice. In 1938 he published a novel, La Nausée, translated by Robert Baldick as Nausea (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965), and in 1940, L'Imaginaire: Psychologie phénoménologique de l'imagination, (...) translated by Bernard Frechtman as The Psychology of Imagination (London: Methuen, 1972). His major philosophical work, L'Etre et le Neant, was published in 1943, and translated by Hazel E. Barnes as Being and Nothingness (London: Methuen, 1957). As a novelist he is best known for a trilogy, Chemins de la Liberté (Roads to Freedom), comprising L'Age de raison (1945) translated by E. Sutton as The Age of Reason (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961), Le Sursis (1945), translated by E. Sutton as The Reprieve (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963) and La Mort dans l'āme (1949), translated by G. Hopkins as Iron in the Soul (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965). His main work of literary criticism is Qu'est-ce que la littérature? (1947), translated by B. Frechtman as What is Literature? (London: Methuen, 1950). Plays includeLes Mouches (1943) and Huis Clos (1944), both translated by S. Gilbert and published in one volume, as The Flies and In Camera (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965). (shrink)

Sartre's moral thinking progressed from an abstract, idealistic ethics of authenticity to a more concrete, realistic, and materialistic morality. Much of Sartre's important unpublished work on ethics - relevant to both his 'first' and his 'second' ethics - has become available to scholars only in the years since his death. Only now has it become possible to give a complete presentation of both the first and the second ethics and to accurately identify their relationship. Sartre's Two Ethics also presents Professor (...) Anderson's original criticisms of Sartre's two ethics, and concludes that the second is a significant advance over the first. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. Regarded as the father of existentialist philosophy, he was also a political critic, moralist, playwright, novelist, and author of biographies and short stories. Thomas R. Flynn provides the first book-length account of Sartre as a philosopher of the imaginary, mapping the intellectual development of his ideas throughout his life, and building a narrative that is not only philosophical but also attentive to the political and (...) literary dimensions of his work. Exploring Sartre's existentialism, politics, ethics, and ontology, this book illuminates the defining ideas of Sartre's oeuvre: the literary and the philosophical, the imaginary and the conceptual, his descriptive phenomenology and his phenomenological concept of intentionality, and his conjunction of ethics and politics with an 'egoless' consciousness. It will appeal to all who are interested in Sartre's philosophy and its relation to his life. (shrink)

Le Père Ignace Carbonnelle, l'un des principaux fondateurs de la Société scientifique de Bruxelles en 1875 et son secrétaire général depuis cette époque, décède inopinément en 1889 après une quin­zaine d'années durant lesquelles il fut «l'homme fort» de ladite Société. Aussitôt, la Revue des questions scienti­fiques annonce la triste nouvelle, promettant, pour un prochain numéro, une étude détaillée de sa vie et de son œuvre. Elle ne paraîtra jamais, de sorte que sa mort ne fut pas saluée avec l'ampleur qu'on (...) était en droit d'attendre. Et pour cause ! Au ter­me d'une enquête digne d'un roman policier, cette étude révèle que Rome, agacée par l'atomisme de Carbonnelle, profita de sa mort pour rappeler à l'ordre la Société en l'invitant à marcher dans les pas de l'Aquinate. En réponse à cette pressante invi­tation et par un excès de zèle non requis, la Société élut comme président le célèbre thomiste français Edmond Domet de Vor­ges, cependant que le mathématicien Paul Mansion s'attacha d'établir, à partir des publications de Pierre Duhem prônant un retour à une physique des qualités, que la Société se conformait bien, mais à sa manière, aux injonctions romaines. ––– Fr. Ignace Carbonnelle, who founded the Brussels Scientific Society in 1875 and was from this date onwards her Secretary General, passed away suddenly in 1889, after fifteen years during which he was the leading figure of the aforementioned Society. “La Revue des Question scientifique” announced the sad news but promised that their next publication would include a detailed article on the great man and his works. Sadly this article never appeared, meaning that the passing of Fr. Carbonnelle was not marked with the importance which we might have otherwise expected. For what reason, you may well ask? After a detailed investigation, worthy of Agatha Christie herself, it would appear that Rome had been rather alarmed by the “atomism” present in Fr. Carbonnelle's reflections, and had taken the opportunity of his death to invite the Scientific Society to opinions more in line with those of St Thomas. In response to this firmly worded invitation, and with overzealous spontaneity, the Society elected the celebrated French Thomiste Edmond Domet de Vorges as their new President. At the same time the mathematician Paul Mansion relied on the publications of Pierre Duhem, which advocated a stronger adhesion to a physics of an object's qualities, to establish that the Society was, in fact, well aligned with the desires of Rome. (shrink)

The hegemony of logical positivism was already on the wane in the 1960s as a result of penetrating criticisms by thinkers both inside and outside the movement. But its legacy continued to exert a formative influence on the less doctrinaire and more diverse varieties of “analytic philosophy” that succeeded it. For one thing, occasional disclaimers to the contrary notwithstanding, the physical and formal sciences have continued to exercise a stranglehold on philosophical imagination. This has not excluded the development of more (...) or less intimate relations with linguistics, especially formal linguistics, or a current love affair with cognitive science and artificial intelligence. But it has choked off any deep influence from the arts and humanities, as it has from history and the social sciences. And just because these latter domains have continued to be of central importance for Continental philosophy, we are left with the spectacle of “two philosophies”—analytic and Continental—mirroring the infamous split between the “two cultures.” As part of the same syndrome, analytic philosophy has become increasingly professional and technical and, consequently, largely invisible to the wider culture; whereas Continental philosophy, largely invisible to the wider culture; whereas Continental philosophy, while far from popular, has nevertheless maintained its ties to culture and society at large. The public roles of Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault in France, or of Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas in Germany, have had no equivalent in American philosophy since the death of Dewey. Philosophers here think of themselves as scientists rather than as public intellectuals. Thomas McCarthy is professor of philosophy at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas . This essay is part of a work-in-progress on philosophy and critical theory. (shrink)

"Displaying a masterful grasp of the texts, the author shows how otherness forces itself upon the existentialist Sartre, gradually constraining him to modify his understanding of consciousness as omnipotent. The issue is Sartre’s discovery of the social and its conceptual assimilation into his individualistic, consciousness-oriented philosophy." —Thomas R. Flynn "This very successful and accessible scholarly book... is simultaneously a succinct and clear overview of Sartre’s philosophical works.... and a fresh consideration of Sartre’s body of work." —Choice "Busch’s admirably clear (...) and compact discussion is essential reading for Sartre scholars, since it powerfully addresses many issues dividing them... " —Ethics "... a useful overview of the evolution of Sartre’s thought... " —Review of Politics "... a thought provoking reassessment of Sartre's philosophical career." —Man and World "... succinct, richly documented survey... " —International Studies in Philosophy. (shrink)

In this 2004 interview — translated into English and published in its entirety for the first time — Jacques Derrida reflects upon his practices of writing and teaching, about the community of his readers, and explores questions related to corporeity and textuality, sexual difference, desire, politics, Marxism, violence, truth, interpretation, and translation. In the course of the interview, Derrida discusses the work of Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Maurice Blanchot, Hélène Cixous, Jean Genet, Paul Celan, and many others.

Mathematics has had its share of historical shocks, beginning with the discovery by Hippasus the Pythagorean that the integers could not possibly be the elements of all things. Likewise with Kurt Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems, which presented a serious (even fatal) obstacle to David Hilbert’s formalism, and Bertrand Russell’s own discovery of the paradox inherent in his intuitively simple set theory. More recently, Paul Benacerraf presented a problem for the foundations of arithmetic in “What Numbers Could Not Be” and “Mathematical (...) Truth.” Drawing out difficulties he found in mathematical realism, Benacerraf ended up proposing his own structuralist view of mathematics, according to which numbers could not be considered objects at all, but mere placeholders, wholly defined in terms of the structures within which they were found. While we do not intend to work through the intricacies of structuralism or other types of mathematical nonrealism, or even of any of the many other competing theories in contemporary philosophy of mathematics, our question concerns problems one finds in an earlier, and perhaps more naïve, view of mathematics which, though a realism of its own, begins with seemingly more problematic assumptions than these. Classically expressed, the question is: do numbers exist in the world, whether as substances or as attributes of things? These are among the things Benacerraf holds numbers could not be; still, we hope to dispel some of the confusion which might bring one prematurely to reject this account. Most precisely, we wish to address the problem whether there can be a science of arithmetic, as that term is understood by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

Pre-Socratic -- Socrates (469-399 B.C.) -- Plato (429-347 B.C.) -- Existentialism -- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) -- The ship of Theseus -- Francis Bacon (1561-1626) -- The cow in the field -- David Hume (1711-1776) -- Hedonism -- Prisoner's dilemma -- St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) -- Hard determinism -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) -- The trolley problem -- Realism -- Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) -- Dualism -- Utilitarianism -- John Locke (1632-1704) -- Empiricism versus Rationalism -- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) (...) -- René Descartes (1596-1650) -- A-Theory -- The liar paradox -- Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) -- Philosophy of language -- Metaphysics -- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) -- Free will -- Philosophy of humor -- The Enlightenment -- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) -- The Sorites paradox -- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) -- Aesthetics -- Philosoph of culture -- Epistemology -- Twin Earth -- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) -- Karl Marx (1818-1883) -- Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) -- Voltaire (1694-1778) -- Relativism -- Eastern philosophy -- Avicenna (980-1037) -- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) -- Phenomenology -- Nominalism -- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) -- Ethics -- Philosophy of science -- Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) -- Philosopy of religion. (shrink)

Sartre explains the theory of existential psychoanalysis in this treatise on human reality.

La question du mal est abondamment discutée dans la philosophie contemporaine, signe de Vinquiétude qui habite notre culture. L'histoire du XXème siècle a certainement aidé à prendre conscience des possibilités qui appartiennent à la raison humaine, mais elle a ègalement révélé que cette même raison ne constituepas un instrument qui, de soi, pro-duit le bien de l'humanité. La première section de l'article présente des textes de Thomas d'Aquin et de Salvatore Natoli, qui cherchent l'un et à l'autre comment bien (...) faire avec le mal. Dans la seconde section, qui lit des pages de Jean Nabert, d'Emmanuel Lévinas et de Paul Ricoeur, le mal se montre injustifiable et donc inutilisable; la conscience y fait l'expé-rience d'une transcendance éthique irréductible. La troisième section commente enfin l'ex-pression biblique "Mysterium" iniquitatis en assumant ce que la contemplation de la Croix du Sauveur enseigne du mal. /// A questão do mal encontra-se amplamente discutida no âmbito da filosofia contemporânea, sinal evidente da profunda inquietude que perpassa a nossa cultura. A história do século XX contribuiu enormemente para nos ajudar a tomar consciência das possibilidades inerentes à razão humana, ainda que ao mesmo tempo tenha também demonstrado não ser a razão um instrumento que, de si, conduza necessariamente ao bem da humanidade. Num primeiro momento, o autor discute sobretudo textos de S. Tomás de Aquino e de Salvatore Natoli, pensadores eminentemente possuídos pela preocupação de lidar bem com o mal Debruça-se depois sobre os contributos de pensadores como Jean Nabert, Emmanuel Levinas e Paul Ricoeur, os quais consideram o mal algo profundamente injustificável e, por isso, também inutilizáva. É neste contexto, aliás, que a consciência experimenta uma transcendência ética irredutível. Por fim, o artigo comenta a expressão bíblica "Mysterium iniquitatis" numa tentativa de assumir aquilo que a contemplação da Cruz de Cristo ensina acerca do mal. (shrink)

We are celebrating the centennial year of the birth of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). His death and the huge funeral cortege that spontaneously gathered on that occasion marked the passing of the last of the philosophical "personalities" of our era. Contrast, for example, his departure, which I did not witness, with that of Michel Foucault, which I did. The latter was acknowledged in a modest ceremony at the door of the Salpêtrière Hospital; his private funeral in the province was (...) even more stark. The two passings exhibit the distinction graphically. Foucault, the most likely candidate to become Sartre's successor as reigning intellectual on the Left Bank, exited the institution that had figured in several of his books attended by a small crowd of a couple hundred, admittedly assembled without public notification, on a damp morning to hear Gilles Deleuze read a brief passage from the preface to The Uses of Pleasure. Describing philosophy as "the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself," the message had an ironically haunting Sartrean ring. (shrink)

We are celebrating the centennial year of the birth of Jean-Paul Sartre. His death and the huge funeral cortege that spontaneously gathered on that occasion marked the passing of the last of the philosophical "personalities" of our era. Contrast, for example, his departure, which I did not witness, with that of Michel Foucault, which I did. The latter was acknowledged in a modest ceremony at the door of the Salpêtrière Hospital; his private funeral in the province was even (...) more stark. The two passings exhibit the distinction graphically. Foucault, the most likely candidate to become Sartre's successor as reigning intellectual on the Left Bank, exited the institution that had figured in several of his books attended by a small crowd of a couple hundred, admittedly assembled without public notification, on a damp morning to hear Gilles Deleuze read a brief passage from the preface to The Uses of Pleasure. Describing philosophy as "the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself," the message had an ironically haunting Sartrean ring. (shrink)

The political notoriety and literary fame of Jean‐Paul Sartre (1905–80) (he was awarded but refused the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962) have tended to eclipse his philosophical accomplishments, at least in the eyes of the public at large. This is unfortunate, since Sartre's philosophical writings are original and insightful, especially in those areas where the philosophy of being (ontology), philosophical psychology, and ethics overlap – the very space in which the literary imagination operates. In fact, there is (...) probably no philosopher of the twentieth century who so personified the creative tension between philosophy and literature as did Jean‐Paul Sartre. His enthusiasm for phenomenology as a method for philosophizing about concrete experience was doubtless born of that tension. After discussing Sartre's work as a phenomenologist, I shall analyze his thought in the areas of ontology, psychology, and ethics, as well as related fields of philosophical inquiry, concluding with several observations about the contemporary relevance of his philosophy. (shrink)

Oppression and the Human Condition is both a valuable teaching tool and an insightful addition to scholarship on the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. Students and teachers will find it an excellent and accessible introduction to Sartre's existentialism, ideal for courses in existentialist and 20th century philosophy. Equally, Sartre scholars will find that the book, especially the sections on oppression and "bad faith," gives them much to think about. Author Thomas Martin applies Sartre's philosophy to contemporary issues and (...) concerns, and draws on two case studies to make his point. The cases examine modern-day oppressors--in one case an anti-semite, in the other a sexist who objectifies women--in the context of Sartre's "bad faith." The case studies also reinforce Martin's argument that Sartre's early philosophy, especially his concept of "bad faith," provides a framework for discussions of oppressions such as racism and sexism. (shrink)