According to Thagard and Stewart :1–33, 2011), creativity results from the combination of neural representations, and combination results from convolution, an operation on vectors defined in the holographic reduced representation framework. They use these ideas to understand creativity as it occurs in many domains, and in particular in science. We argue that, because of its algebraic properties, convolution alone is ill-suited to the role proposed by Thagard and Stewart. The semantic pointer concept allows us to see how we can apply (...) the full range of HRR operations while keeping the modal representations so central to Thagard and Stewart’s theory. By adding another combination operation and using semantic pointers as the combinatorial basis, this modified version overcomes the limitations of the original theory and perhaps helps us explain aspects of creativity not covered by the original theory. While a priori reasons cast doubts on the use of HRR operations with modal representations :5039–5054, 1987) such as semantic pointers, recent models point in the other direction, allowing us to be optimistic about the success of the revised version. (shrink)

Diversity is an undeniable fact of nature, and there is now evidence that nature did not stop generating diversity just before “designing” the human brain :15,468–15,473. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1509654112, 2015). If neurodiversity is a fact of nature, what about neurodivergence? Although the terms “neurodiversity” and “neurodivergence” are sometimes used interchangeably, this is, we believe, a mistake: “neurodiversity” is a term of inclusion whereas “neurodivergence” is a term of exclusion. To make the difference clear, note that everyone can be said to be neurodiverse, (...) but that it is almost impossible for everyone to be neurodivergent. Neurodivergence is, we claim here, a fact of society. Neurodivergent individuals are those whose cognitive profile diverges from an established cognitive norm, a norm that is not an objective statistical fact of human neurological functioning but a standard established and maintained by socio-political processes. In this paper, we describe the socio-political mechanisms that build neurodivergence out of neurodiversity which, inspired by Mihai :395–416. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-017-0186-z, 2018), we call “epistemic and cognitive marginalization”. First, we extend the traditional concept of neurodiversity, which we believe too closely tied to a neuroreductionist conception of cognition, to that of “extended neurodiversity,” thereby viewing neurodiversity through the lens of 4E cognition. Considering that human cognition depends on epistemic resources, both for their construction and their online dynamic expression, we hypothesize that the differential access to epistemic resources in society, a form of epistemic injustice, is an overlooked mechanism that turns neurodiversity into neurodivergence. In doing so, we shed light on a type of epistemic injustice that might be missing from the epistemic injustice literature: cognitive injustices. (shrink)

In a recently published paper, we argued that theories of cultural evolution can gain explanatory power by being more pluralistic. In his reply to it, Dennett agreed that more pluralism is needed. Our paper’s main point was to urge cultural evolutionists to get their hands dirty by describing the fine details of cultural products and by striving to offer detailed and, when explanatory, varied algorithms or mechanisms to account for them. While Dennett’s latest work on cultural evolution does marvelously well (...) on the first point, it has only whet our appetite on the second. Accordingly, the present paper aims to show what an evolutionary explanation of culture that takes the variety of cultural evolution mechanisms seriously would look like. We will focus on the cultural evolution of social epistemic mechanisms and we will propose that Darwinian algorithms should be complemented with a cultural analogue of the error reduction mechanism proposed to account for human cognition, with a particular emphasis on the necessity to build independencies between different sub-systems in charge of tracking states of the world. To illustrate our point, we will present how the evolution of the legal system as epistemic systems can be understood as a process of building increasingly better independencies and how various criticisms of the actual legal system calls for building even more of them. (shrink)

Dans ce texte, nous proposons un cadre, qui vise à intégrer les contributions des approches constructionnistes et biologiques dans un domaine précis, celui des maladies mentales. Pour ce faire, nous utiliserons quelques propositions récentes faites par des philosophes de la biologie — plus spécifiquement les idées avancées par les tenants de la « théorie des systèmes développementaux » ainsi que la notion d’« enracinement génératif » .In this paper, we are proposing a framework to integrate the core insights of the (...) constructivist and biological approaches of mental illness. In order to do so, we will use some recent propositions by philosophers of biology, specifically ideas put forth by «developmental system theory» and the notion of «generative entrenchment». (shrink)

According to a popular version of the current evolutionary attitude in cognitive science, the mind is a massive aggregate of autonomous innate computational devices, each addressing specific adaptive problems. Our aim in this paper is to show that although this version of the attitude, which we call GOFEP , does not suffer from fatal flaws that would make it incoherent or otherwise conceptually inadequate, it will nevertheless prove unacceptable to most cognitive scientists today. To show this, we raise a common (...) objection to the concept of innateness, not to mount an attack on GOFEP but to study how its proponents have attempted to meet that challenge. The aim of this move is to show that GOFEP cannot face the challenge without, as it were, losing its soul. There is, or so we will argue, something deep at the heart of GOFEP that prevents its proponents from meeting the challenge. (shrink)

Leiris est-il un allégoricien?Leiris est-il un néoclassique malgré son usage de la digression?Leiris écrit-il dans une langue morte ou dans une langue vivante?

Le temps ne peut être disjoint de l’éternité. « Image mobile de l’éternité immobile » selon Platon, dans le Timée, il permet à la réalité sensible d’être stable et de durer, en lui apportant le pouvoir d’imiter l’éternité par son mouvement cyclique. Avec le christianisme, malgré l’abandon de la figure cyclique, ordonné à une signification historique, le temps conserve ce pouvoir organisateur, dans un monde à l’image de Dieu. Mais c’est la déficience du temps, mise en scène dans les mythes (...) de la religion gnostique, dans le contexte anxiogène d’une création ratée, œuvre d’un dieu incompétent, qui met en évidence, quoique sur un mode négatif, l’articulation essentielle du temps et de l’éternité. (shrink)

According to Thagard and Stewart :1–33, 2011), creativity results from the combination of neural representations, and combination results from convolution, an operation on vectors defined in the holographic reduced representation framework. They use these ideas to understand creativity as it occurs in many domains, and in particular in science. We argue that, because of its algebraic properties, convolution alone is ill-suited to the role proposed by Thagard and Stewart. The semantic pointer concept allows us to see how we can apply (...) the full range of HRR operations while keeping the modal representations so central to Thagard and Stewart’s theory. By adding another combination operation and using semantic pointers as the combinatorial basis, this modified version overcomes the limitations of the original theory and perhaps helps us explain aspects of creativity not covered by the original theory. While a priori reasons cast doubts on the use of HRR operations with modal representations :5039–5054, 1987) such as semantic pointers, recent models point in the other direction, allowing us to be optimistic about the success of the revised version. (shrink)

Plutôt que comme une erreur de la nature, le monstre est défini par Aristote comme un manquement à la finalité. Un tel manquement ne définit toutefois un monstre que dans le champ des produits de la nature. Celle-ci ne faisant rien en vain, ce genre de manquement à la finalité fait problème. Cela peut néanmoins se produire par diverses causes, parmi lesquelles on examinera, en particulier, dans le cas de la génération des femelles comment le manquement à la finalité, qui (...) engendre un être non conforme au type spécifique, obéit cependant à une finalité supérieure qui relève de la perpétuation de l’espèce. On se demandera également dans quelle mesure, alors, l’existence des monstres pourrait témoigner d’une défaillance de la nature elle-même. (shrink)

Nous proposons de voir dans le Chant III de l’ Enfer une explication éminemment philosophique de l’Enfer, en montrant que ce que Dante y met en place n’est rien moins qu’une théodicée. Dante proclame ainsi ouvertement que non seulement l’Enfer est l’œuvre de Dieu, mais peut-être même ce qu’il y a de plus réussi dans la création. Se dessinent dans ces vers une théorie grandiose de la justice et du libre arbitre, mais aussi une théorie de l’histoire, puisque c’est au (...) titre de l’usage de son libre arbitre que l’individu peut exister et entrer dans l’histoire pour s’inscrire, ensuite, dans le récit dantesque. D’où l’exclusion des « pusillanimes » qui refusent de choisir entre le bien et le mal et n’usent point de leur libre arbitre – lâcheté qui leur vaut de ne pas même être admis en Enfer. Il y a peut-être là comme la racine de l’extraordinaire violence dont est capable Dante et qui fait la puissance de La Divine Comédie. (shrink)

Au Chant Premier du Paradis, Dante fait de la poésie un art de la subversion sinon de la transgression, en lui assignant la tâche de travailler la parole pour en contourner les limites : Outrepasser l’humain, c’est aller au-delà des limites du langage, prétendre aux formes angéliques de la communication. Les anges font une expérience heureuse de l’indicible et se comprennent en silence. C’est dans cet intervalle que la poésie doit se frayer son chemin et faire accéder l’impensable à l’expression, (...) dire l’indicible. Elle doit signifier par des mots (« significar per verba ») ce qui excède toute signification humaine. Nous retrouvons ici la théologie négative et son inventeur Denys l’Aréopagite : quand la théologie, confrontée à l’ineffable, aboutit au silence et à l’apophatisme, la poésie répond à l’appel pour assurer le passage de l’invisible à la figuration. Figuration également négative, qui fait exploser des images « bigarrées », faites de mots pour ainsi dire illisibles. En quoi la poésie a vocation à devenir non figurative. (shrink)

Jean-Frédéric de Pasquale ,Pierre Poirier.

The genetically manipulated organism crisis demonstrated that technological development based solely on the law of the marketplace and State protection against serious risks to health and safety is no longer a warrant of ethical acceptability. In the first part of our paper, we critique the implicitly individualist social-acceptance model for State regulation of technology and recommend an interdisciplinary approach for comprehensive analysis of the impacts and ethical acceptability of technologies. In the second part, we present a framework for the analysis (...) of impacts and acceptability, devised—with the goal of supporting the development of specific nanotechnological applications—by a team of researchers from various disciplines. At the conceptual level, this analytic framework is intended to make explicit those various operations required in preparing a judgement about the acceptability of technologies that have been implicit in the classical analysis of toxicological risk. On a practical level, we present a reflective tool that makes it possible to take into account all the dimensions involved and understand the reasons invoked in determining impacts, assessing them, and arriving at a judgement about acceptability. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2019, 8252 participants (...) (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

Assimilé à la French Theory, Jean Baudrillard a été aussi célèbre, ou presque, sur les campus américains que Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari ou Lacan. Mais il est loin d'avoir aujourd'hui leur diffusion mondiale. Il a même presque totalement disparu des écrans radars. Officiellement sociologue, aucun sociologue ne le cite, aucun étudiant de sociologie ne le lit. Il faut dire qu'il a tout fait pour brouiller les pistes, en se refusant à tout simulacre de réalisme pour mieux tenter de prendre (...) la réalité de vitesse, jusqu'à annoncer son évanescence dans l'hyper-réalité du virtuel. Sa pensée, fulgurante, attirait étrangement, mais on pouvait croire que cette séduction fatale tenait à un goût tout pataphysicien des paradoxes. Or, force est de se demander s'il n'avait pas au bout du compte vu plus juste et mieux anticipé que tous ses contemporains ce qu'est désormais devenu notre monde. Ce volume, qui réunit sociologues, philosophes, économistes, théoriciens de l'esthétique et des médias, permet de prendre la mesure de son œuvre inclassable. Avec des contributions de : Gérard Briche, Alain Caillé, Jean-Paul Curnier Françoise Gaillard de Serge Latouche, Chin Min, Katharina Niemeye, Nicolas Poirier, Anne de Rugy, Clara Schmelck, François Séguret, Jean-Louis Violeau. (shrink)

On parle beaucoup du cinéma québécois depuis quelque temps. Des productions récentes telles que Séraphin, de Charles Binamé, La grande séduction, de Jean-François Pouliot, Gaz bar blues, de Louis Bélanger, ou Les invasions barbares, de Denys..