Au cours de la période moderne, les fonds provençaux du « for privé » (livres de raison, journaux, mémoires), sont marqués par une faiblesse quantitative des écrits féminins. Pour l’essentiel, ceux-ci relaient l’écriture d’un mari, parfois d’un père ou d’un frère absents ou disparus, dans la tenue des comptes et dans l’enregistrement de la mémoire familiale. Néanmoins, chez la trentaine de femmes retrouvées ici au fil des archives, l’écriture quotidienne, quand bien même elle répond à l’application d’une norme et à (...) l’assignation d’un rôle social, n’en fournit pas moins la possibilité d’une construction de soi, depuis la conquête de sa matérialité graphique la plus élémentaire jusqu’à l’émergence d’une réflexivité individuelle née de la familiarité croissante du commerce avec soi et de l’essor d’une expression personnelle. On devra néanmoins se demander si cette posture suffit, au creux de registres familiaux dont la vocation est d’abord collective, à construire un individu féminin. (shrink)

Le propos de l’article est l’analyse de la cérémonie de la prise d’habit au sein de l’Ordre Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel aux xviie et xviiie siècles. À partir des sources normatives, picturales et hagiographiques, cette cérémonie est détaillée, notamment la scénographie de l’avant/après, gommant toute marque féminine (présence de cheveux, soins pour un teint pâle, vêtement ajusté, usage de soieries, de bijoux, etc.). Certaines pratiques témoignent de la mise en impatience de ce passage de la soie au drap, qui se traduit (...) par des prises d’habit clandestines, prématurées ou des portraits de mondaines usurpatrices en habit de carmélites. Il est vrai que le modèle absolu de La Madeleine, compte tenu des origines le plus souvent princières des postulantes, n’est pas étranger au prestige de la métamorphose. Réalité et construction représentative permettent de montrer comment le Carmel s’est approprié une cérémonie, qui, dans le contexte compétitif entre les ordres de la liturgie tridentine, valorise la femme, par le biais de la moniale, affranchie des attributs de son sexe. Mais surtout, la vêture a su rendre spectaculaire et désirable ce qui a priori ne l’est pas, la pauvreté et la pénitence du corps et de ses attributs, dans le but avoué du recrutement de nouvelles postulantes. De la rivalité entre drap et soie, le vainqueur n’est pas forcément celui que l’on croit. (shrink)

Les écrits du XVIIIe siècle sur l’habitude de manger de la viande affrontent certains problèmes qui ne sont abordés aujourd’hui que dans une optique de défense de la cause animale, comme la sensibilité des animaux tués pour la viande ou le devenir de l’être humain lorsqu’il consomme de la chair. Ce discours au XVIIIe siècle n’est cependant pas le fait de défenseurs des animaux, et se trouve même paradoxalement exempt de conséquences pratiques : les auteurs qui déplorent la consommation de (...) chair n’appellent pas pour autant à abandonner celle-ci. Comment les penseurs occidentaux du XVIIIe siècle résolvent-ils le paradoxe qui consiste à souligner l’empathie avec les animaux tout en les tuant pour s’en nourrir? À travers des textes de philosophes et de médecins du XVIIIe siècle sur les effets de la consommation de viande, il s’agit ici d’interroger la représentation de l’être humain sous-jacente à un discours qui appartient aujourd’hui à l’inconscient de l’alimentation carnée. (shrink)

When Anquetil-Duperron landed at Pondicherry in 1755, in search of the sacred books of the “Indous et des Parses” (“Hindus and Parsees”), he surely had no idea that he was inaugurating a new discipline, Indianism. He returned to France in 1761, laden with a whole library of Indian texts which he was to spend the rest of his life deciphering. That year was a turning point in Indian history: the Marathes, on the verge of becoming the dominant power of the (...) entire Indian continent, were crushed in Panipat, north of Delhi, by the armies of an Afhgan invasion, and this catastrophe halted their advance for a while. During the same year, in the south of India, Lally-Tollendal was beaten and taken prisoner by the English, thereby destroying the French dream, shared by Dupleix and Bussy, of creating an Indian empire for themselves. (shrink)

In France the XVIIIth century was characterized by the Enlightenment as a philosophical phenomenon and Physiocracy as an expression of new economic thinking. But the Physiocrats were not merely a school of economic thought; they were also a school of political action. Kings, princes and high public servants were among their pupils. The great French Revolution itself was influenced by their writings. And the force of their work is still not wholly sprent. In order to appreciate the theory and (...) significance of the Physiocracy it is necessary to take into account the circumstances of its time. Physiocracy is a doctrine which esteems that agriculture is of more importance than industry and commerce. In this article following subjects of the physiocratic doctrine are dealt with : the natural order, property and liberty ; the relations between the government and the individual citizen ; the theory of the produit net and the Tableau Economique of François Quesnay. The evaluation also includes the question about the expansion of Physiocracy. Indeed, it had many followers in several countries of Europe and was also the first real School of economic thinking. By its systematic approach, Physiocracy established the economy as a science. All the aspects of Physiocracy which have been mentioned above are intimately bound together and are in several aspects the economic precursor of the French Revolution. (shrink)

¿Ha inventado la libertad el siglo XVIII? El análisis, que podría hacerse desde la triple experiencia de la libertad artística, "libertina" y política, se limita aquí al examen de esta última tanto desde la perspectiva de la Revolución Gloriosa teorizada por Locke en Two Essays of Government, como desde la experiencia de la Revolución Francesa, anticipada teóricamente en Du contrat social, así como desde la perspectiva de la "meta soñada" prevista por Kant.Is freedom an XVIIIth Century invention? Such a (...) question could be analysed involving the artistic, the "libertin" and the political aspects of the experience of freedom. Here, the political one is considered only, not only from the perspective of Lockets "Glorious Revolution" dealt with in Two Essays of Government, but in the light of the Du contrat social theorically anticipated French Revolution as well, and also from the prospective of Kant’s "dreamt goal". (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ Les Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, Mémoires de la Chine abordent de nombreux sujets de la vie sociale parmi lesquels l'infanticide, toléré en Chine encore au XVIIIe siècle, jugé comme un crime par les Occidentaux. Par-delà les jugements moralisateurs, les missionnaires jésuites expliquent cette tradition par la situation économique. La « sociologie » de Montesquieu découvre, en deçà de cette raison, une série de rapports causaux entre les moeurs et la géographie. L'exposition des enfants par leurs parents s'inscrit dans cette (...) relation dans laquelle l'économie peut être envisagée comme une cause seconde. ABSTRACT The Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, Mémoires de la Chine deal with a number of features of social life among which infanticide which was still tolerated in China in the XVIIIth century, while it was considered as a crime in the West. Beyond moral judgements, Jesuit missionaries ascribe this tradition to the economic situation. Montesquieu's " sociology" discovers, beneath this reason, a series of causal links between mores and geography. The exposure of children by their parents comes within the scope of this relation in which economy can be seen as a second cause. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview on the concept of cardinal utility in its relations with the literature since the beginning of the XVIIIth century (Part I); an estimate of the cardinal utility function for its negative values, thus completing the estimate of this function for its positive values given in my 1984 Venice paper (Part II); and finally different applications to the theory of choices in the presence of risk and to the wealth transfer and tax questions (Part III).

Economics as a science emerged during the Enlightenment, but the impact of the specific general scientific environment of that era on the transformation of pre-scientific economic knowledge into scientific knowledge has not been adequately covered in the historiography of economic thought. The formation of economic science took place in the period of the scientific revolution of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. These were two interrelated but different processes. First of all, the transformation of economic knowledge followed fundamental changes in (...) the economy itself – the formation of a market-type economy. At the same time, the emergence of a new discipline in the structure of scientific knowledge could not help but be guided by established standards of scholarship. However, at the time of the scientific revolution, science was in a state of turbulence: the old medieval norms of scholarship were losing their legitimacy, and the new ideals of scholarship had not yet attained the status of an accepted standard. The scientific programs associated with the names of Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz and Newton, as well as the new socio-philosophical doctrines, played different roles in different countries and at different stages of the scientific revolution. The article analyzes the peculiarities of the intellectual environment, in which scientific economic knowledge was shaped, and shows that it was much more diverse than the standard versions of the history of economic thought and earlier attempts (M. Foucault, F. Mirowski) to identify the influence of scientific ideals on its first schools of science suggest. Thus, the prerequisites for the formation of an alternative picture of the emergence of economic science as a result of the rivalry between its various concepts are created. (shrink)

Shaftesbury développe, au début du XVIII e siècle, une philosophie de « l'humeur » qui s'inscrit dans l'élaboration très britannique de la notion d'humour. Entre satire et humour, il propose une théorie de la « bonne humeur », opposée à l'humeur noire, atrabilaire ou mélancolique, inspirée à la fois du théâtre élisabéthain et de la mise en discussion des origines littéraires et philosophiques de la satire. At the beginning of the XVIIIth Century, Shaftesbury develops a philosophy of « humour (...) » which is in keeping with the very British inquiry on the notion of humour . Between satire and humour, he propounds a theory of « good humour » opposed to ill, atrabilious or melancholic humour, both coming from the Elizabethan Drama and the discussion of the philosophical and literary origins of satire. (shrink)

The efforts to prove God's existence in the history of thought have been one of the fundamental problems of philosophy and theology, and even the most important one. The evidences put furword to prove the existence of God constitute the center of philosophy of religion’s problems not only philosophy of religion, but also the disciplines such as theology-kalam and Islamic philosophy are also seriously concerned. When we look at the history of philosophy, it is clear that almost all philosophers are (...) interested in the evidence in favour of and against the existence of God. Especially in recent times, religious experience has often been regarded as evidence of the existence of God. Studies in the field of religious and mystical experience have put forward many arguments concerning the use of religious experience as evidence. However, this study has been limited to experience of sense and pure consciousness claims rather than examining all of these arguments. In this study firstly, the analogy between experience of sense and religious experience will be deal with, and then claims that conciousness can be emptied by a number of methods which are defended by mystics. In addition, it will be tried to defend the opinion that the mystical experiences which are the common point of the two approaches are valid. The main emphasis of the article will be that these arguments can be used as evidence for the existence of God.Summary: Religious experience - which has not been considered as one of the classical evidences regarding the existence of God before being popular by recent studies – is started to be called one of the arguments. The most important reason for not arguing religious experience among the evidences of God’s existence is that it is a personal experience and therefore contains subjective perspectives. However, many researchers, who refuse to accept the criticism raised against religious experience with restricting to subjectivity, emphasized the importance of religious experience by highlighting the objective aspects of such experiences. This emphasis was not only on its significance, but also on the fact that it had a cognitive feature and thus it could provide evidence for the existence of God. The argument of religious experience is generally defined as an effort for demonstrating to existence of God with reference to several feelings such as spiritual experiences of human in face of creator and sacred Being, encounter with God, uniting, and annihilating selfness in Him. The emergence of such efforts, especially after the XVIIIth century, indicates that the history of the evidence does not go back much earlier. However, even if notas evidence, it is possible to extend the traces of religious and mystical experience to the history of religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Considering a great amount of the previous literature focused on religious experience in the West, It is easily seen that such research is still new. The main purpose in addressing such a controversial issue is to make the argument on the religious experience more current and to show whether the religious experience would be able to use as evidence for the existence of God.First title of this study comprises many different claims such as Walter T. Stace’s The Argument from Unanimity Richard Swinburne’s The Principle of Credulity, William P. Alston’s Perceiving God, John Hick’s Experience-as. However, instead of briefly giving out very different claims, the study chooses to focus on two arguments which are less discussed and can be given in more detail. The first is the argument based on the analogy between the religious experience and the sense experience. The fundamental point of this argument is sense experience. With reference to the similarities between the sense experience and the religious experience, it can be argued that religious experience is also cognitive and may function as an evidence for the existence of God. In other words, being perceptual and noetic, namely cognitive, of sense experience is addressed as a similar side of religious experience. Whether it is imaginary or real, eventually, it is necessary for an experience to have an object and being experience of something. Therefore, the religious experience includes the perception of a Transcendent Being that is beyond and in excess of the individual who experiences. Perception of the sense experience will definitely be different from the perception of religious experience. Researchers who think that the five sense organs do not run the perception of Sacred Beings, identified broader and various meanings for the perception. Thereby, in this approach, where the semantic field of perception is expanded, it was contended that human beings were able to perceive the transcendent, eternal, and unlimited God, and this can be explained in the epistemological sense. In order to use religious experiences as an evidence for the existence of God, it is necessary to determine whether such experiences are caused by God rather than something else. This raises the issue of the validity of religious experience. The researchers in this area have propounded various criteria to identify whether religious experience is existed or not. Experiences, which do not meet the criteria, are not considered existed even if they claim to be religious experience.The second is the argument that discusses whether it is possible to suggest an evidence for the existence of God by utilizing pure consciousness events. In general, this argument claims that the consciousness gets clear, and thus, mystic or Sufi experiences the Divine One with pure consciousness by discharging consciousness from all sensual contents and removing it from secular desire and wishes. The argument, which claims the experience of Divine One is direct, therefore uninterpretable, and experienced by pure consciousness, believes clearing the consciousness of mystics from sensual qualities such as seeing, hearing, and tasting. It is stated that it is possible for mystics to empty their sensory images and get rid of them, and thus, their desires and wishes could be lost. Especially, the thinkers who are connected with the philosophy of perennialism and defend this approach, thought that people, who have distinct religion, culture, and beliefs in different parts of the world and in various time periods, had the same experience and considered such experiences were universal by suggesting that this similarity could be called as common essence.Even though the claim which offers that the events of pure consciousness are the same everywhere have been criticized in many respects, the advocates of this approach have argued that the experience has the common essence, but the interpretation is different. This relationship, which was tried to be established between experience and commentary, caused a lot of work for both the thinkers who put forward the claims of pure consciousness and the researchers who opposed it. However, examining the relationship between experience and interpretation requires serious studies in socio-psychological, cultural and religious fields. Therefore, in order not to exceed the limits of the article, the relationship between experience and interpretation is briefly mentioned.While discussing two arguments, the main claims of the arguments were addressed, and the criticisms directed to this argument were not discussed as much as possible. However, some fundamental criticisms have been mentioned shortly for a better understanding of the discussion. Since such western-oriented claims mostly were deployed in a western context, the study excluded the comparison of the claims across different cultures. (shrink)

This article pursues the aim of pointing out the occidental Personalism (that developed in Europe between the XVIIIth and the XXth century) as probably the most appropriate basis for justify the concept of “hospitality” together with the possible relative doctrine and praxis. We discuss the thought of many personalist thinkers and the thought of those thinkers that are near to the Personalism (but always taking as basis the thought of Edith Stein and Nikolaj Berdjaev). With this aim we attempt (...) to propose a new concept of person along the global personalist thinking, toward the ethical demanded by the concept of “hospitality”. Thus the concept of person seems to us the best way to approach “hospitality”. In fact this new concept of person and the rise of “hospitality” enables a view free of ideological extremisms. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ Enraciné dans la philosophie politique au XVIIIe siècle français, le concept d’association occupe une place essentielle dans la philosophie de Saint-Simon. Chez cet auteur, l’association a pour objet la production, elle présuppose une organisation intégrée et constitue l’unité de la société. La société organique de Saint-Simon évolue selon un principe de complexification vers un grand but industriel commun. Fourier place aussi l’association comme condition de la coopération, mais elle en est le moteur. L’organisation de l’investissement psychologique dans l’association créerait (...) continuellement la société fouriériste. De Saint-Simon, Marx semble retenir l’idée d’association créant l’organisme productif; il emprunte à Fourier la production d’une société nouvelle collectivisant toutes les dimensions personnelles. Mais l’association devient chez Marx le fruit de la dialectique de l’histoire, dont le moment négatif rend l’organisme collectif à lui-même et lui confère une individualité nouvelle. L’association chez Marx s’impose comme une unité. Chacun participe nécessairement à cette réalité qui doit l’affranchir des limites de sa propre individualité. ABSTRACT Rooted in the french philosophy of the XVIIIth french century, the concept of association holds an essential place in the philosophy of Saint-Simon. In this author, association concerns production, it is generated by an integrated organization and forms unity in the society. In Saint-Simon, the organized society evolves according to a principle of complexification towards a great industrial aim. Fourier equally sets association before cooperation, considering it as a real driving force. According to Fourier, psychological commitment in association should make dynamic any cooperation. Marx possibly deducted from Saint-Simon the idea that association should create the collective organism. He borrowed from Fourier the production of a new society, getting collective the whole human person. But, association in Marx's thought becomes the result of the dialectic of history. A negative phase in this dialectic gives the collective organisme to itself back and confers on it a new individuality. In Marx, association is essential as a unity. Each one necessary takes part in this reality which will make him free from the limits of his own individuality. (shrink)

This work is not a specific assessment of Utility of Religion by John Stuart Mill, but a defence of what I think is a utilitarian, but not millian, view on the problem that work states, the question of the utility of religion in contemporary societies. I construct that view from neohumeanism more than from millian positions, notwithstanding, I postulate that view as a genuine utilitarian one. -/- Every cultural tradition makes a different approach to ethical and political theories. Spanish and (...) Ibero-American utilitarians make precisely it with Classical Utilitarianism. -/- From that point of view, Ibero-American people identifies utilitarianism with radical and enlightened tradition linked with the reform that through XVIIIth and XIXth centuries tried to undermine the foundations of conservative society in our nations. -/- This aim was not achieved, at least not completely; because of that, the pursuit of Utilitarianism remains opened between us. In the end, I will argue that Spanish and Ibero-American utilitarians connect utilitarianism with philosophical and political radicalism, and inside that Hispanic utilitarianism, plays an important role the criticism of social and political functions of Religion. -/- Maybe, part of the future of Utilitarianism in our cultural context depends on a return of the Theory to its radical roots, also in religious subjects. (shrink)

Se intenta una contribución al conocimiento de la enseñanza de la filosofía en el Colegio de San Carlos de Buenos Aires hacia fines del siglo XVIII. Para ello se examinan las propuestas de Juan Baltasar Maziel (1727-1788) para dicho Colegio en materia de Filosofía, Teología y Derecho. Esta información se complementa con la exposición de otras ideas jurídico-políticas de Maziel, en el contexto de su actividad eclesiástica. The subject is the contribution of Juan Baltasar Maziel (1727-1778) to the teaching of (...) Philosophy, Theology and Law in the Colegio de San Carlos of Buenos Aires, in the last third of the XVIIIth Century. In addition, other political ideas of Maziel are considered. (shrink)

RESUMENEste trabajo se interesa por una acepción de cultura que ha cobrado una indudable importancia en los últimos timepos y que tiene que ver con la definición de identidades y delimitación de fronteras entr grupos. NUestro propósito es no tomar dicha acepción como algo obvio y para ello intentamos recuperar su historicidad refiriéndonos a la oposición entre cultura y civilización que se traza a finales del s. XVIII en Alemania. Lejos de ser un término neutro, el sesgo y las implicaciones (...) filosóficas de cultura nos remiten a lo que Berlin ha denominado la contra-ilustración. PALABRAS CLAVECULTURA-CIVILIZACION-CONTRA-INLUSTRACION-PLURALISMOABSTRACTTHis paper focuses on one respect of cultura that has drawn an unquestionable attention lately. This has to do with the definition of identities and with the drawing of boundaries among groups. Our aim is not to consider it as self-evident. To that end, we try to retrieve its historicity by reerring to the oposition of culture and civiltiation advanced in Germany by the end of the XVIIIth century. Far from being a neutral term, the feature and the philosophic implications of culture lead us to what Berlin has called the counter-Enlightement.KEYWORDSCULTURE-CIVILITATION-COUNTER-ENLIGHTEMENT-PLURALISM. (shrink)

The article`s goal is to enlighten modern philosophy projects polivariance on example of social contract concept and its critique in England in the first half of XVIIIth. c. Due to marxist philosophical methodology in Ukrainian literature this theme was not properly enlightened. The author considers, firstly, George Barkley as an author of rational-theological argument. This argument provides support from nature`s laws and God`s will. Secondly, David Hume that offered arguments: 1) ontological, 2) anthropological, and 3) politic-juridical. Hence, the author (...) enlightens positions that were not previously properly analyzed nor classified due to nature of historico-philosophical methodology. (shrink)

During the so-called Ancien Régime, the «Process of Civilization» consisted in an education of the body and the language resulting in what we still call politeness. Being polite was to be politum, that is to say clean of any element not corresponding to an average condition. Such process tended to make equal all polite men, those who shared the same ideal of honnêtété. But, if all honnête-hommes had to be equal, or better identical, then identity resulted in the condition of (...) being like all the others. In order to face this paradox, XVIIth and XVIIIth Century European culture developed a keen reflexion on the mask and the arrangement to society and the social eye. The first western theories of the mimetical identity think of identity as the result of a social transaction. (shrink)

No momento em que a presence de Portugal em Macau parece pertencer já aos anais da História, vale a pena trazer á memória os frutuoso contactos que no campo da cosmologia foram estabelecidos no passado. sobretudo no periodo que vai do seculo XVI ao século XVIII, entre os letrados chineses e os jesuítas europeus. /// Now that the presence of Portugal in Macao seems to belong already to History, it is worthy to bring to memory the fruitful contacts that took (...) place in the domain of cosmology, particularly between the XVIth and the XVIIIth centuries, between the Chinese intelectuals and the european Jesuits. (shrink)

Since fully covering such a topic in the short space imparted to this paper is an impossible task, I have chosen to focus on three philosophers: Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre. Of the three, only the latter was undoubtedly an existentialist ⎯ Heidegger explicitly rejected the categorisation (in the Letter on Humanism), and there is disagreement among commentators about Nietzsche’s status1. However, they have two major common points which justify my focusing on them: firstly, they uphold the primacy of existence over (...) essence. Against the rationalist trend prevalent until the end of the XVIIIth Century, which saw human nature as determined a priori (as rational), all three authors consider human beings as living, self-interpreting entities, whose understanding of themselves is dependent on specific cultural and historical conditions. Given that this self-understanding is taken as constitutive of what it means to be human, it becomes impossible to define the essence of man independently of (let alone prior to) his existence. Secondly (and consequently), they reject the idea that philosophy can start from the study of man as a detached, disembodied consciousness primarily bent on knowing the world ⎯ or even that such a consciousness exists, except as a fiction propagated by rationalism2. Man is viewed as an embodied being, whose reason and cognitive powers are only the visible part of a much deeper and wider engagement with the world. In turn, this rejection of the primacy of rationality and of consciousness explains the central part played by affectivity in our three authors’ works. In all its forms3, affectivity is strongly tied to the body (although existentialist thinkers hold that it is neither identical to nor determined by physical reactions4): once the importance of embodiment has been recognised, an analysis of affectivity becomes necessary to understand the ways in which human beings relate both to themselves and to the world. Whereas the rationalist tradition mostly rejected affectivity5, either on moral grounds (as emotions interfere with self-mastery) or for epistemological reasons (because they cloud the clarity of mind supposedly required by knowledge), Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre insist on rehabilitating it, mostly for two reasons: firstly, as it is constitutive of what it means to be human, affectivity just cannot be set aside ⎯ so the rationalist ideal to do away with emotions is unmasked as an illusion, the roots of which need to be investigated.. (shrink)

The claim of the freedom of the will (understood as an individual who is transcendent to Nature) in the name of XXth century scientific knowledge, against the perspective of XVIIIth-XIXth century scientific materialism, is analysed and refuted in the present paper. The hypothesis of reductionism finds no obstacle within contemporary natural sciences. Determinism in classical physics is irrefutable, unless classical physics is itself refuted. From quantum mechanics, some authors argue that free will is possible because there is an ontological (...) indeterminism in the natural laws, and that the mind is responsible for the wave function collapse of matter, which leads to a choice among the different possibilities for the body. However, here I defend the opposite thesis because indeterminism does not imply free will, and because the considerations about an autonomous mind sending orders to the body is against neuroscience or evolutionary theories about human beings. The quantum theory of measurement can be interpreted without the intervention of human minds, but other fields of science cannot contemplate the mentalist scenario. A fatalistic or materialist view, which denies the possibility of a free will, makes much more sense in scientific terms. (shrink)

Le développement conjoint, au cours du XVIIIe siècle, de la méthode historico-critique et du perspectivisme est à l'origine d'une tension nouvelle dans le traitement de l'histoire de la philosophie. L'article analyse brièvement quelques réactions, plus ou moins radicales, à cette configuration féconde. Zeller, Dilthey, Yorck, Nietzsche, Weber, Heidegger, Rorty, sont les principaux témoins. Il est aussi suggéré que la « doxographie », en dépit de la réputation détestable dont elle jouit, aussi bien chez les historiens que chez les philosophes, demeure (...) une composante importante de toute réflexion sur la relation de la philosophie à son passé. The joint development, in the course of the XVIIIth century, of the historico-critical method on the one hand and of a self-conscious perspectivism on the other hand, created a new tension in the handling of the history of philosophy. In the following, I sketch some characteristic ways, hard or more compromising, of dealing with this lasting and, I suggest, productive tension. Zeller, Dilthey, Yorck, Nietzsche, Weber, Heidegger, Rorty are my main witnesses. In the wake of an analysis made by M. Frede, I also suggest, in the light of this tension, that « doxography », despite the detestable reputation the genre has among philosophers and historians of philosophy alike, remains an important component of any reflexion about the relationship between philosophy and its past. (shrink)

Four propositions relative to the laws of nature in the classical period must be noted. 1. Certain regularities in phenomena had been discovered. 2. A concept of law had emerged. 3. Classical science is characterized by the introduction of the notion of the legality of nature. 4. New uses of the word «law» had appeared in scientific texts. This article is devoted to the analysis of only this last proposition, that is to say to a terminological problem. First we will (...) describe the semantic uses of the word «law» that may have contributed to the constitution of its classical meaning: its specific usage, disciplinary usage, usage in physics, in mathematics, in metaphysics. Second we will analyze the various moments of the diffusion of the word in the sciences in the xviith century. The general thesis defended in the end is that if the term «law» had indeed been used in science with no reference to a law-giving God prior to the xviith century, only this reference, that is, the coming together of its physical and its metaphysical usage, allowed its generalization in the period between the xviith and xviiith centuries. (shrink)

A partir da questão da existência de filosofias adjectiva ou substantivamente nacionais, pretende traçãr-se o panorama do pensamento filosófico brasileiro contemporâneo. Oriunda do tronco comum portugues. a filosofia brasileira adquiriu, desde o início de oitocentos. com Silvestre Pinheiro Ferreira e Diogo António Feijó, individualidade própria. Hoje distribui-se por quatro grandes tradiçóes: a tradição metafisica. tomista e neotomista, a positivista e naturalista, a hermenêutica, incluindo várias tendéncias. da fenomenologia e existencialismo ao culturalismo, e uma quarta vinculada ao dominio da práxis. Na (...) tendência hermenêutica se inscreve designadamente a Escola de São Paulo, polarizada nos dois grandes focos do pensamento brasileiro contemporâneo: Vicente Ferreira da Silva e Miguel Reale. /// Starting from the question of the existence of national philosophies, be it in an adjetive or in a substantive sense, we intend to trace the contemporary situation of the brasilian philosophical thought. Growing out of a common, Portuguese heritage, the brasilian philosophy acquired from the XVIIIth century onwards its own characteristics, especially through the work of both Silvestre Pinheiro Ferreira and Diogo António Feijó. Nowadays, it is composed by four great traditions: the metaphysical one, tomist and neo-tomist; the positivist and naturalist; the hermeneutical, which includes various tendencies, such as phenomenology, existencialism and culturalism; and a fourth tradition related to the domain of praxis. St. Paul School belongs to the hermeneutical tradition, where the two main authors of contemporary brasilian thought are to be considered: Vicente ferreira da Silva and Miguel Reale. (shrink)

En janvier 1783, deux musiciennes, Bianca Sacchetti et Andrianna Ferrarese, s’enfuirent de l’ospedale des Mendicanti, à Venise, pour tenter leur chance sur les scènes de théâtre. Formées dans l’une des quatre institutions vénitiennes destinées à recueillir les orphelins de Venise, elles étaient devenues des musiciennes hors pair, chantaient chaque jour dans la chapelle de l’ospedale et jouaient de plusieurs instruments. Le dossier consacré à leur fugue, qui se trouve toujours à l’Archivio di Stato de Venise, nous donne les circonstances et (...) les raisons de leur fugue, mais fournit également des informations précieuses et uniques sur les aspirations des « filles du choeur » à une vie meilleure. Des documents inédits illustrent les relations d’amitié qui pouvaient exister entre deux jeunes femmes recueillies par charité et suffisamment talentueuses pour avoir réussi à devenir deux des meilleures musiciennes de Venise. Retrouvées par les autorités, elles poursuivirent d’ailleurs une brillante carrière, l’une à l’opéra, l’autre au sein de l’ospedale, la Ferrarese créant même l’un des rôles du Così fan tutte de Mozart. (shrink)

Dans son immense Tableau de Paris (1781-1788), Mercier accorde une place inhabituelle au travail des femmes, surtout des femmes du peuple. Or ce ne sont pas les conditions de travail en soi ou la production des travailleuses mais leur corps sexué, leur moralité et leur identité sociale qu’il situe au premier plan. Ses esquisses et descriptions sont fortement érotisées: le travail est envisagé comme mise à l’épreuve physique et morale du (beau) sexe. C’est au travail que peuvent se tisser des (...) liens inquiétants et un peu trop visibles entre l’érotisme et l’argent ; c’est le travail, en particulier le travail sexuel ou prostitution, qui révèle le plus puissamment, peut-être, les inégalités sociales entre les femmes ; c’est encore à partir du travail que se renouvelle l’anxiété sur le rôle des femmes dans la famille et la vie privée. La tension demeure intacte tout au long du texte entre un discours normatif sur la féminité (séduction et dépendance) et une réalité sociale qui le contient mais surtout le déborde de toutes parts. (shrink)

Foreign knowledge being tested: European physicians fighting the Moscow plague of 1771. – The transfer of Western medicine to Russia increased significantly in the Eighteenth century. Foreign doctors were employed, their writings translated, their education standards copied. But who regarded that knowledge as superior and why? Taking the Moscow Plague of 1771 as a case study, this article examines the crucial role foreign and Russian medical practitioners played during the epidemic. It argues that especially those ideas and practices that were (...) useful for social control filtered into politics and public discourse, but failed to convince the majority of the population. (shrink)

Ces vingt dernières années ont vu le développement de l’histoire du corps et de la sexualité. Cherchant à historiciser les différences entre les sexes, les historiens ont pour la plupart intégré l’étude du corps et de la sexualité à l’histoire des femmes et du genre. L’objet de cet article est la place du corps et de la sexualité dans l’histoire des femmes et du genre. De récents travaux avancent l’idée que le xviiie siècle – envisagé dans des bornes chronologiques larges (...) –, a été le siècle du changement dans les conceptions du corps, de la sexualité et de l’activité sexuelle. Cependant, l’incorporation de sujets d’études aussi nouveaux revigore aussi des scénarios plus anciens ayant trait aux transformations économiques et politiques. L’article passe en revue ces travaux récents, en soutenant la thèse que certains éléments clés de l’historiographie doivent être réexaminés. Les modèles d’explication du changement historique doivent incorporer des questions telles que les changements observables dans les cycles de vie et la notion de permanence historique. Des études sur les échanges culturels doivent se développer, approches qui prendraient en compte la diversité culturelle et la complexité de la transmission culturelle. Enfin, des analyses du contexte concret dans lesquels sont insérés le corps et la sexualité – tant sur le plan corporel que textuel – doivent être entreprises. (shrink)