In a poetic conversation with Thierry Zarcone, the painter and calligrapher Fabienne Verdier exposes her deep and harmonious connection to nature. She tells of her garden, her house and her osmosis with nature. Painting is to her an art of living and being that recalls the Tao masters as well as some Christan mystics.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

This study is focused on an original conception of freedom essentially derived from the Stoics and St Paul: freedom as a use of the world. How Fénelon, when he quotes Paul’s phrase « those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them », associate it with the doctrine of pure love? His desire to interpret the Pauline idea in a mystical perspective threatens the possibility of answering it.

The French philosopher Renaud Barbaras remarked that late in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s career, “The phenomenology of perception fulfills itself as a philosophy of expression.” In _Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty: Aesthetics, Philosophy of Biology, and Ontology, _Véronique M. Fóti_ _addresses the guiding yet neglected theme of expression in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. She traces Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about how individuals express creative or artistic impulses through his three essays on aesthetics, his engagement with animality and the “new biology” in the second of his lecture courses (...) on nature of 1957–58, and in his late ontology, articulated in 1964 in the fragmentary text of _Le visible et l’invisible _. With the exception of a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s 1945 essay “Cezanne’s Doubt,” Fóti engages with Merleau-Ponty’s late and final thought, with close attention to both his scientific and philosophical interlocutors, especially the continental rationalists. Expression shows itself, in Merleau-Ponty’s thought, to be primordial, and this innate and fundamental nature of expression has implications for his understanding of artistic creation, science, and philosophy. (shrink)

L’article étudie comment l’humain peut être défini dans les rapports créés dans l’imaginaire entre le corps et l’alimentation. En s’appuyant sur des traités de médecine et de cuisine du Moyen Âge au xviie siècle, des essais d’humanistes et les travaux d’anthropologues, d’historiens et de sociologues contemporains, on découvre comment l’acte même de manger permet de définir et construire les frontières du corps humain et un imaginaire de l’alimentation : la nomination de l’aliment et la charge sémantique des métaphores empruntés à (...) l’alimentation définissent une éthique de l’humain et sa vision du corps humain et animal. Une approche médicale complète cette étude linguistique et montre que le fonctionnement des limites extérieures et internes du corps humain se modèle sur la représentation de l’aliment et de ses effets paradoxaux, bénéfiques et pathologiques. Enfin, le corps social du mangeur est délimité par la distance qui le sépare de l’aliment et le lieu assigné à l’animal destiné à être mangé. (shrink)

Human adults are thought to possess two dissociable systems to represent numbers: an approximate quantity system akin to a mental number line, and a verbal system capable of representing numbers exactly. Here, we study the interface between these two systems using an estimation task. Observers were asked to estimate the approximate numerosity of dot arrays. We show that, in the absence of calibration, estimates are largely inaccurate: responses increase monotonically with numerosity, but underestimate the actual numerosity. However, insertion of a (...) few inducer trials, in which participants are explicitly (and sometimes misleadingly) told that a given display contains 30 dots, is sufficient to calibrate their estimates on the whole range of stimuli. Based on these empirical results, we develop a model of the mapping between the numerical symbols and the representations of numerosity on the number line. (shrink)

Gallagher hardly refers to the central issue of the phenomenological reduction, and he perpetuates the historical blunder of Chisholm, misinterpreting Husserlian intentionality as linguistic intensionality. This misunderstanding opens the way to a “naturalization” of phenomenology, which misses the very method of the phenomenological reduction as well as the essential dimension of subjective lived experience.

Bras armés de la mondialisation néo-libérale, la communication, l'information et les médias sont aussi un levier puissant des mouvements qui tentent de promouvoir des alternatives aux logiques dominantes. Dans le cadre des Forum sociaux mondiaux, des alternatives aux pratiques hégémoniques des médias traditionnels sont portées par des médias communautaires, alternatifs et activistes, et par les mouvements de l'Internet solidaire et du logiciel libre. Ces mouvements défendent les droits à la communication et entendent faire reconnaître que l'information est un bien commun (...) qui doit être accessible à tous.Armed wing of the neo-liberal globalization, communication, information and media is also a powerful movement trying to promote alternatives to the dominant logics. Within the framework of the World Social Forum, alternatives to the hegemonic practices of traditional media are supported by community media, alternative and activists, and movements of solidarity Internet and free software. These movements to defend human communication and intend to recognize that information is a public good that should be accessible to all. (shrink)

This paper aims to study the perception of color (representations, synesthesia, denominations, uses and classification) in specific writings such as recipe treatises written from 1520 to 1689. These treatises deal with the manufacture and stages of color in various objects (remedies, blushes and mainly gems). They reveals that color is not only an apparent surface but also a sensitive substance, in particular white and red colors. Although color is a principle of unity for diverse materials, it sometimes becomes contradictory when (...) it is associated with variable signified and signifiers, so that color also offers a play on naming: meaning is sometimes clear, sometimes obscure, and in any case mobile (azure, vermilion). The contemporary reader does not perceive color in the same way as the Renaissance craftsman. Finally, as a principle of classification, it shows an imbalance and hierarchy of colors which, while providing structure to recipes: it gives mainly a place of choice to red and its shades. (shrink)

Humans possess two nonverbal systems capable of representing numbers, both limited in their representational power: the first one represents numbers in an approximate fashion, and the second one conveys information about small numbers only. Conception of exact large numbers has therefore been thought to arise from the manipulation of exact numerical symbols. Here, we focus on two fundamental properties of the exact numbers as prerequisites to the concept of EXACT NUMBERS : the fact that all numbers can be generated by (...) a successor function and the fact that equality between numbers can be defined in an exact fashion. We discuss some recent findings assessing how speakers of Munduruc (an Amazonian language), and young Western children (3-4 years old) understand these fundamental properties of numbers. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

Geometry defines entities that can be physically realized in space, and our knowledge of abstract geometry may therefore stem from our representations of the physical world. Here, we focus on Euclidean geometry, the geometry historically regarded as “natural”. We examine whether humans possess representations describing visual forms in the same way as Euclidean geometry – i.e., in terms of their shape and size. One hundred and twelve participants from the U.S. (age 3–34 years), and 25 participants from the Amazon (age (...) 5–67 years) were asked to locate geometric deviants in panels of 6 forms of variable orientation. Participants of all ages and from both cultures detected deviant forms defined in terms of shape or size, while only U.S. adults drew distinctions between mirror images (i.e. forms differing in “sense”). Moreover, irrelevant variations of sense did not disrupt the detection of a shape or size deviant, while irrelevant variations of shape or size did. At all ages and in both cultures, participants thus retained the same properties as Euclidean geometry in their analysis of visual forms, even in the absence of formal instruction in geometry. These findings show that representations of planar visual forms provide core intuitions on which humans’ knowledge in Euclidean geometry could possibly be grounded. (shrink)

Veronique Foti delves into the full range of Heideggerian texts to elaborate the problematics of historicity, language, and the structure of disclosure or "manifestation" in connection with the Herman poets whom Heidegger invoked along his path of thinking. Foti’s reading of these ports (Morike, Trakl, Rilke, Holderlin, and Celan) is a probing inquiry into the aesthetic, ethical, and political implications of Heidegger’s thought. She knows how technicity (techne) and poetizing (poiesis) are opposed yet brought together in Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, how (...) they are both politicized and linked with ethical praxis, and how technicity, poetizing, and praxis cannot be dissevered from Heidegger’s essential thinking. (shrink)

« L'année internationale de la famille », célébrée en 1994, fut l'occasion de toute une série de manifestations, colloques et publications. La revue Politis a consacré un numéro spécial à la famille en décembre 1994 - janvier 1995, tout comme Sciences Humaines et Chronique féministe. Bon nombre d'articles s'apparentent à des bilans de la politique familiale française à l'heure où le deuxième septennat de François Mitterrand s'achève. La gauche a-t-elle transformé les orientations princ...

Veronique Foti delves into the full range of Heideggerian texts to elaborate the problematics of historicity, language, and the structure of disclosure or "manifestation" in connection with the Herman poets whom Heidegger invoked along his path of thinking. Foti's reading of these ports is a probing inquiry into the aesthetic, ethical, and political implications of Heidegger's thought. She knows how technicity and poetizing are opposed yet brought together in Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology, how they are both politicized and linked with ethical (...) praxis, and how technicity, poetizing, and praxis cannot be dissevered from Heidegger's essential thinking. (shrink)

This paper explores anthropomorphism in human-animal interactions from the theoretical perspectives of pragmatism and anthropology of communication. Its aim is to challenge the conception of anthropomorphism as the attribution/inference of human properties to a nonhuman animal, i.e. as a special case of the theory of mind, and to articulate and make plausible an alternative conception of anthropomorphism as a situated direct perception of human properties by someone who is engaged in a given situation, and let themselves be affected by the (...) animal. The paper offers an original perspective for in depth ethnographic and empirical studies of anthropomorphism-in-situation. Such studies could bring new insights in the study of how ordinary people make sense of animal’s behaviors in real-life situations. (shrink)

Geometry, etymologically the “science of measuring the Earth”, is a mathematical formalization of space. Just as formal concepts of number may be rooted in an evolutionary ancient system for perceiving numerical quantity, the fathers of geometry may have been inspired by their perception of space. Is the spatial content of formal Euclidean geometry universally present in the way humans perceive space, or is Euclidean geometry a mental construction, specific to those who have received appropriate instruction? The spatial content of the (...) formal theories of geometry may depart from spatial perception for two reasons: first, because in geometry, only some of the features of spatial figures are theoretically relevant; and second, because some geometric concepts go beyond any possible perceptual experience. Focusing in turn on these two aspects of geometry, we will present several lines of research on US adults and children from the age of three years, and participants from an Amazonian culture, the Mundurucu. Almost all the aspects of geometry tested proved to be shared between these two cultures. Nevertheless, some aspects involve a process of mental construction where explicit instruction seem to play a role in the US, but that can still take place in the absence of instruction in geometry. (shrink)

Yona Waksman, Véronique François Vers une redéfinition typologique et analytique des céramiques byzantines du type Zeuxippus Ware p. 629-724 La vaisselle de table du type Zeuxippus Ware fait a priori partie des catégories de céramiques byzantines les mieux connues. Très largement diffusée sur les territoires de l'Empire byzantin mais aussi dans toute la Méditerranée et en mer Noire, à la fin du XIIe siècle et au début du XIIIe, elle sert couramment de « marqueur » des niveaux archéologiques pour (...) cette époque. Ces dernières années, la multiplication des découvertes et les difficultés d'attribution au groupe initial ont montré les limites de la typologie établie en 1968 par A. H. S. Megaw. Aussi nous a-t-il semblé nécessaire de reconsidérer cet ensemble suivant le point de vue des analyses chimiques de la pâte permettant de rassembler sur des bases plus sûres des vases correspondant à une même production. Cette étude à grande échelle propose une mise au point sur la question en mettant en parallèle les caractéristiques typologiques et stylistiques et les compositions chimiques et minéralogiques des pâtes d'un large échantillonnage de Zeuxippus Ware et assimilées ainsi que des échantillons de productions locales associées sur des sites choisis à travers toute la Méditerranée et la mer Noire. (shrink)

Mary Briody Mahowald, Bioethics and women across the life span, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, reviewed by Véronique Bergeron.

Meu intuito é tecer algumas considerações sobre a descoberta e relação de Voltaire com o newtonianismo, e a partir daí refletir de maneira mais geral sobre as possibilidades da aproximação entre filosofia e ciência.

Véronique Adam : Les neurosciences ne s’intéressent que depuis très récemment à l’olfaction. Pourriez‑vous expliquer pourquoi ce sens est devenu un objet d’étude plus prégnant? Jean-Louis Millot : En fait, l’olfaction demeure encore peu étudiée comparée à d’autres modalités sensorielles. De manière générale, les neurosciences cognitives actuelles, comme d’autres investigations scientifiques chez l’homme par le passé, se focalisent davantage sur les compétences cognitives complexes, telles qu...

There is growing evidence that words that are acquired early in life are processed faster and more accurately than words acquired later, even by adults. As neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies have implicated different brain networks in the processing of action verbs and concrete nouns, the present study was aimed at contrasting reaction times to early and later-acquired action verbs and concrete nouns, in order to determine whether effects of word learning age express differently for the two types of words. Our (...) results show that while word frequency affected both types of words in the same way, distinct learning age effects were observed for action verbs and concrete nouns. A further experiment specified that this difference was observed for verbs describing actions belonging to the human motor repertoire, but not for verbs denoting actions past this repertoire (e.g., to neigh). We interpret these data within a recently emerging framework according to which language processing is associated with sensory motor programs. (shrink)

DNA replication is both highly conserved and controlled. Problematic DNA replication can lead to genomic instability and therefore carcinogenesis. Numerous mechanisms work together to achieve this tight control and increasing evidence suggests that post‐translational modifications (phosphorylation, ubiquitination, SUMOylation) of DNA replication proteins play a pivotal role in this process. Here we discuss such modifications in the light of a recent article that describes a novel role for the deubiquitinase (DUB) USP7/HAUSP in the control of DNA replication. USP7 achieves this function (...) by an unusual and novel mechanism, namely deubiquitination of SUMOylated proteins at the replication fork, making USP7 also a SUMO DUB (SDUB). This work extends previous observations of increased levels of SUMO and low levels of ubiquitin at the on‐going replication fork. Here, we discuss this novel study, its contribution to the DNA replication and genomic stability field and what questions arise from this work. (shrink)

Lors de la publication de sa thèse sur les collections complètes des Discours de Grégoire de Nazianze, en 1997, l'A. signalait que l'inventaire des colletions fourni était incomplet. Il publie donc, pour les autres témoins, une description correspondant à la classification utilisée dans sa thèse. Seuls les manuscrits conservés en Russie n'ont pu être accessibles.