This article describes the rules and scripts that operate in a sub-Saharan African system, the Tijaniyya Islamic Sufi order in Kano, Nigeria. It analyzes the patriarchal bargains between women and men in the order and reveals how the actions of Muslim women with positions of spiritual authority were both independent and shaped by the order's patriarchy. The author argues that larger shifts across several decades in the Islamic world, the international Tijaniyya leadership, and the Nigerian state allowed Kano Tijaniyya women (...) to act differently and increase their spiritual authority and personal autonomy without breaking the rules of their bargain. The author concludes by suggesting that analyses of other Muslim societies may lead to a better understanding of which strategies lead to women's marginalization and which strategies result in successful bargaining. (shrink)

The foreskin in small boys causes much anxiety in our society. It develops during the second half of gestation, and in premature infants may appear relatively deficient. By term, however, it has grown and protruded to well beyond the glans penis. The inner layer of the foreskin is densely adherent to the surface of the glans and cannot be retracted until it is fully separated, which occurs during the first few years of life. Prior to that time the distal opening (...) of the foreskin is narrow, but because of its adherence there is no significant pocket under the skin to allow accumulation of urine or debris. Later in childhood, after the foreskin is fully separated, urine and dirt can accumulate between the foreskin and the glans, leading to infection and inflammation . With recurrent balanitis, and/or tearing of the delicate foreskin, phimosis or scarring may constrict the distal foreskin.Circumcision has a long history in ancient societies of the Middle East, and is likely to have arisen as an early public health measure for preventing recurrent balanitis, caused by sand accumulating under the foreskin. Circumcision is a major part of the ritual for such religions as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and it is probably no accident that all of these arose in the Middle East. By contrast, in religions arising outside the arid Middle East , there is no ritual circumcision. In aboriginal society in Australia, circumcision is practised also.The importance of preventing recurrent balanitis and secondary phimosis in arid, sandy regions was confirmed by the Australian army medical corps in two world wars. During both wars, Australian soldiers were stationed in North Africa and the Middle East, and the incidence of recurrent balanitis caused by sand under the foreskin reached “epidemic” proportions, leading to large numbers …. (shrink)

Plato's _Republic_ is one of the best-known and most widely-discussed texts in the history of philosophy. But how might we get to the heart of this work today, 2,500 years after its original composition? Alain Badiou breathes life into Plato's landmark text and revives its universality. Rather than producing yet another critical commentary, he has instead worked closely on the original Greek and, through spectacular changes, adapted it to our times. In this innovative reimagining of Plato's work, Badiou has removed (...) all references specific to ancient Greek society--from lengthy exchanges about moral courage in archaic poetry to political considerations mainly of interest to the aristocratic elite--and has expanded the range of cultural references. Here, philosophy is firing on all cylinders: Socrates and his companions are joined by Beckett, Pessoa, Freud, and Hegel, among others. Together these thinkers demonstrate that true philosophy endures, ready to absorb new horizons without changing its essence. Moreover, Badiou--who is also a dramatist--has transformed the Socratic dialogue into a genuine oratorial contest. In his version of the _Republic_, the interlocutors do much more than simply agree with Socrates. They argue, stand up to him, put him on the spot, and show thought in motion. In this work of dramatic scholarship and philosophy, we encounter a modern version of Plato's text that is alive, stimulating, and directly relevant to our own world. (shrink)

Philosophy of Communication Ethics is a unique and timely volume that creatively examines communication ethics, philosophy of communication, and "the other.".

Published in 1973, "L'Etourdit" was one of the French philosopher Jacques Lacan's most important works. The book posed questions that traversed the entire body of Lacan's psychoanalytical explorations, including his famous idea that "there is no such thing as a sexual relationship," which seeks to undermine our certainties about intimacy and reality. In There's No Such Thing as a Sexual Relationship, Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin take possession of Lacan's short text, thinking "with" Lacan about his propositions and what kinds (...) of questions they raise in relation to knowledge. Cassin considers the relationship of the real to language through a Sophist lens, while the Platonist Badiou unpacks philosophical claims about truth. Each of their contributions echoes back to one another, offering new ways of thinking about Lacan, his seminal ideas, and his role in advancing philosophical thought. (shrink)

Discusses Locke's life and views and their impact on American philosophy, as well as his role in the Harlem Renaissance.

We consider Borel equivalence relations E induced by actions of the infinite symmetric group, or equivalently the isomorphism relation on classes of countable models of bounded Scott rank. We relate the descriptive complexity of the equivalence relation to the nature of its complete invariants. A typical theorem is that E is potentially Π03 iff the invariants are countable sets of reals, it is potentially Π04 iff the invariants are countable sets of countable sets of reals, and so on. The proofs (...) use various techniques, including Vaught transforms, changing topologies, and the Scott analysis of countable models. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Naïve Somatism is a re-interpretation of Aristotle’s cognitive psychology in light of certain presuppositions he holds about the living animal body. The living animal body is presumed to be sensitive, and Aristotle grounds his account of cognition in a rudimentary proprioceptive awareness one has of her body. With that presupposed metaphysics under our belts, we are in a position to see that Aristotle in de Anima (cognition chapters at least) has a di erent explanatory aim in view than that (...) which the literature generally imputes to him. He is not explicating what we would call the “mental”—the private, inner realm which some take to be of a di erent kind than the physical—as most take him to be. His explanandum is content acquisition; the explanans is showing how the body becomes like various aspects of objects. Although he famously describes the mind (nous) as unmixed with the body, he is guided by functional constrains—nous cannot be limited or qualified if it is to potentially think all things. Thus, his inquiry into cognition is philosophically limited from a contemporary perspective. Aristotle is not doing philosophy of mind, for he doesn’t seem to find the “mental” philosophically perplexing. (shrink)

Alain Policar soumet l'exigence universaliste aux arguments de ceux qui la rejettent : un universalisme digne de ce nom doit se construire non sur le rejet polémique de l'argumentation adverse mais dans la patiente analyse des fondements de celle-ci. Il s'agit, dans un premier temps, de montrer que l'universalisme peut s'égarer dans une attitude de surplomb. Ce dévoiement est décrit et vigoureusement rejeté. Dans un deuxième temps, l'auteur analyse sa contestation contemporaine, telle qu'elle s'exprime dans le décolonialisme, courant théorique profondément (...) divers et, le plus souvent, renvoyé à ses excès sans avoir pris le temps d'en comprendre la logique. Enfin, informé à la fois des vertus et des limites de la critique décoloniale, l'auteur défend un universalisme renouvelé, c'est-à-dire, en se fondant sur l'unité de l'espèce humaine, un universalisme cosmopolitique, défini indissociablement comme une exigence morale et un horizon politique."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Plato's _Republic_ is one of the best-known and most widely-discussed texts in the history of philosophy. But how might we get to the heart of this work today, 2,500 years after its original composition? Alain Badiou breathes life into Plato's landmark text and revives its universality. Rather than producing yet another critical commentary, he has instead worked closely on the original Greek and, through spectacular changes, adapted it to our times. In this innovative reimagining of Plato's work, Badiou has removed (...) all references specific to ancient Greek society--from lengthy exchanges about moral courage in archaic poetry to political considerations mainly of interest to the aristocratic elite--and has expanded the range of cultural references. Here, philosophy is firing on all cylinders: Socrates and his companions are joined by Beckett, Pessoa, Freud, and Hegel, among others. Together these thinkers demonstrate that true philosophy endures, ready to absorb new horizons without changing its essence. Moreover, Badiou--who is also a dramatist--has transformed the Socratic dialogue into a genuine oratorial contest. In his version of the _Republic_, the interlocutors do much more than simply agree with Socrates. They argue, stand up to him, put him on the spot, and show thought in motion. In this work of dramatic scholarship and philosophy, we encounter a modern version of Plato's text that is alive, stimulating, and directly relevant to our own world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Medical Tourism:Crossing Borders to Access Health CareHarriet Hutson Gray (bio) and Susan Cartier Poland (bio)Traveling abroad for one's health has a long history for the upper social classes who sought spas, mineral baths, innovative therapies, and the fair climate of the Mediterranean as destinations to improve their health. The newest trend in the first decade of the twenty-first century has the middle class traveling from developed countries to (...) those with emerging economies to avoid treatment delays, prohibitive costs for life-saving procedures, or simply high costs for elective surgery. Others leave to have access to assisted suicide in countries that have legalized it: Belgium, The Netherlands, and Switzerland. This new era of globalization in health care has arrived without the benefit of international standards, government oversight, or ethical and legal review.Howard Staab, a self-employed carpenter from North Carolina, flew to India for his medically necessary heart surgery, scheduled a side trip to the Taj Mahal, and returned home to work in North Carolina. He spent a total of less than $10,000, instead of the $200,000 required from the local hospital (I, Milstein and Smith 2006).At first blush, the outsourcing of medical care to India seems to be a particular solution for a particular problem. However, the particularity of Mr. Staab is not unique. His experience is emblematic of those patients in the United States with a medical need for major and elective procedures, but who also must bear the total cost of these procedures. These middle-class, under-insured Americans go abroad.In tandem with increasingly aggressive marketing campaigns, American hospitals and companies have begun to leverage their connections in Asia to grow the medical tourism business into a major economic force. What are the consequences of this?Several authors point to the effect on the host country's population, particularly the poor, to be pushed farther down the queue to receive adequate, affordable care. Resources are applied to the foreign trade instead of building the local [End Page 193] medical infrastructure. Another potential problem is the obligation of the home-country physician to provide follow-up care. What are the legal ramifications when the procedure was illegal to begin with? Are there opportunities for redress for medical errors?These factors may be converging into a "perfect storm" for health care in the U.S., in which the potential participation of the major insurance companies in promoting offshore care will be the tipping point in the precarious structure that represents the economic currents in health care. Third-party administrators and self-funded employers may be on the cutting edge in 2009 by providing incentives to employees to travel overseas for care.I. Economic ConsiderationsConnell, John. Medical Tourism: Sea, Sun, Sand and... Surgery. Tourism Management 27: 1093–1100, 2006.As evidence of the interest of traditional tour operators in this newer twist on the industry, the author explores medical tourism as an element of the growth of world tourism. In promoting medical tourism, he urges consideration of such issues as the privatization of health care, the foundational role of technology, and uneven access to health resources.Dunn, Philip. Medical Tourism Takes Flight. H and HN: Hospitals and Health Networks: 40–44, November 2007.Writing for U.S. health care executives, Dunn emphasizes that the reality of medical tourism competes with the local medical center for patients and their insurance dollars in a significant way. He examines the possibility that U.S. insurance plans soon may offer to pay for what is currently a cash only business and that the economic impact to the local medical center could be significant or even devastating.Frontiers of Health Services Management [Selected Articles] 24 (2), Winter 2007.In "Managing Healthcare Services in the Global Marketplace" (pp. 3–18), Bruce J. Fried and Dean M. Harris consider legal, ethical, and financial implications of the international workforce. In "Globalization of Health Care" (pp. 19–30), Lynn Schroth and Ruthy Khawahja point out that the transfer of comprehensive management expertise and intellectual property from U.S. medical centers to international sites is driving the success of collaboration between U.S. and foreign health care centers. In "Is... (shrink)

Alain Badiou is arguably the most significant philosopher in Europe today. Badiou’s seminars, given annually on major conceptual and historical topics, constitute an enormously important part of his work. They served as laboratories for his thought and public illuminations of his complex ideas yet remain little known. This book, the transcript of Badiou’s year-long seminar on the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, is the first volume of his seminars to be published in English, opening up a new and vital aspect (...) of his thinking. In a highly original and compelling account of Lacan’s theory and therapeutic practice, Badiou considers the challenge that Lacan poses to fundamental philosophical topics such as being, the subject, and truth. Badiou argues that Lacan is a singular figure of the “anti-philosopher,” a series of thinkers stretching back to Saint Paul and including Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, with Lacan as the last great anti-philosopher of modernity. The book offers a forceful reading of an enigmatic yet foundational thinker and sheds light on the crucial role that Lacan plays in Badiou’s own thought. This seminar, more accessible than some of Badiou’s more difficult works, will be profoundly valuable for the many readers across academic disciplines, art and literature, and political activism who find his thought essential. (shrink)

Some viewpoints on the foundations of mathematics and its philosophy are more connected to scientific practice and its heuristics, mainly with the construction of physical theories and the search for the best explanations of physical phenomena by means of abduction or the solution of problems by the analytical method. Some researchers have introduced the importance of human cultural activities into the cognitive aspects of the mental processes of scientists, proposing an embodied approach in the bridge between mathematics and reality. Fluid (...) mechanics is an interesting area in this sense due to its position if the network of mathematics. By means of an historical example on vortex motion by Helmholtz, we show that the intuitive idea of eddy contains cognitive properties of a mental schema and that it gives many heuristic options for an embodied mathematical explanation about vortex dynamics. (shrink)

The following text is the transcription of Alain Badiou's remarks on Simon Critchley's book, Infinitely Demanding.2 The occasion was the invitation from the Slought Foundation in Philadelphia for a debate between Badiou and Critchley that took place on November 15th, 2007. Badiou organized his remarks around six passages from Critchley's text and then raised a series of critical questions. The event began with Critchley explaining the ethical and political argument of Infinitely Demanding. A DVD version of the entire event was (...) released as "Democracy and Disappointment: On the Politics of Resistance".3 Thanks are due to Jean-Michel Rabaté and especially Aaron Levy, Senior Curator at the Slought Foundation. (shrink)

A leading continental philosopher from France and author of Theory of the Subject interrogates the "anti-philosophy" of Ludwig Wittgenstein in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, arguing that his beliefs compromise truth and logic while rendering philosophy a practice of esoteric aphorisms.

L'improbable est souvent considéré comme un vain exercice d'hypothèses oiseuses ou comme un supplément d'incertitude dans la culture occidentale, qui préfère le prévisible à l'incertain. Et pourtant... Que ce soit dans la recherche scientifique fondamentale ou dans l'invention artistique, dans la discussion philosophique ou dans l'évolution du vivant, l'improbable est cette source de liberté d'où peuvent jaillir idées, solutions ou événements nouveaux et imprévus. Autour d'Alain Berthoz et de Carlo Ossola, une dizaine de chercheurs d'envergure internationale abordent dans une approche (...) multidisciplinaire les mystères et les ressorts de l'improbable, puissant facteur de créativité aux frontières du possible et de l'impossible. L'improbable au coeur de la création dans les sciences, les arts et dans la vie sociale! (shrink)

Le philosophe Alain Badiou, en dialogue avec Giovanbattista Tusa, propose ici d’abandonner la thèse heideggérienne d’une unité destinale de la philosophie, sous le nom de métaphysique. Plutôt que d’affirmer qu’il n’y a pas de vérité, il s’agirait alors de reconstruire une relation entre les vérités et un absolu non transcendant. En menant une critique radicale de la doctrine de la finitude, qui nous rappelle que l’être humain est mortel et qui affirme le relativisme culturel et le caractère inachevé de tout (...) accès au vrai, le philosophe entend ainsi montrer comment le concept d’infini serait la condition des vérités universelles. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the connections and links that existed between Buchanan and Italian economists. We show that, even though Buchanan had read them, it was only after having spent one year in Italy—1955–1956—that Buchanan paid attention to these economists. Here, Francesco Forte played a particularly important role. It did not only transform Buchanan’s conception of the public debt but also lead him to pay more attention to law, institutions and political phenomena.

D’un point de vue patrimonial, le célèbre texte des Éléments de géométrie de Clairaut, publié la première fois en 1741, est traditionnellement considéré comme le début d’une riche histoire plutôt que son aboutissement, en raison notamment du succès considérable qu’il a eu dès sa parution et de la manière dont Clairaut en a défendu le projet, en rupture apparente avec le modèle euclidien. Nous proposons ici une image un peu différente qui s’appuie sur la nature très particulière de la production (...) géométrique foisonnante dans laquelle le traité de Clairaut s’insère et doit être compris. Nous présentons tout d’abord le côté paradoxal de l’ouvrage, qui revendique non seulement une grande originalité mais aussi une non moins grande conformité au genre des « éléments » de géométrie spéculative. Nous indiquons ensuite cinq raisons majeures qui montrent que le texte était en effet largement conforme aux attendus de l’époque, y compris dans sa revendication d’accessibilité et de rupture vis-à-vis du modèle euclidien. Nous dégageons deux originalités de l’ouvrage : le fait de confondre les caractéristiques des géométries spéculatives et pratiques dans un seul et même ouvrage ; et le fait d’écrire un ouvrage de géométrie suivant un « ordre analytique », mais sans algèbre. (shrink)

The French school of theoretical biology has been mainly initiated in Poitiers during the sixties by scientists like J. Besson, G. Bouligand, P. Gavaudan, M. P. Schützenberger and R. Thom, launching many new research domains on the fractal dimension, the combinatorial properties of the genetic code and related amino-acids as well as on the genetic regulation of the biological processes. Presently, the biological science knows that RNA molecules are often involved in the regulation of complex genetic networks as effectors, e.g., (...) activators, inhibitors or hybrids. Examples of such networks will be given showing that there exist RNA “relics” that have played an important role during evolution and have survived in many genomes, whose probability distribution of their sub-sequences is quantified by the Shannon entropy, and the robustness of the dynamics of the networks they regulate can be characterized by the Kolmogorov–Sinaï dynamic entropy and attractor entropy. (shrink)

With the publication of French Philosophy of the Sixties, Alain Renaut and Luc Ferry in 1985 launched their famous critique against canonical figures such as Foucault, Derrida, and Lacan, bringing under rigorous scrutiny the entire post-structuralist project that had dominated Western intellectual life for over two decades. Their goal was to defend the accomplishments of liberal democracy, particularly in terms of basic human rights, and to trace the reigning philosophers' distrust of liberalism to an "antihumanism" inherited mainly from Heidegger. In (...) The Era of the Individual, widely hailed as Renaut's magnum opus, the author explores the most salient feature of post-structuralism: the elimination of the human subject. At the root of this thinking lies the belief that humans cannot know or control their basic natures, a premise that led to Heidegger's distrust of an individualistic, capitalist modern society and that allied him briefly with Hitler's National Socialist Party. While acknowledging some of Heidegger's misgivings toward modernity as legitimate, Renaut argues that it is nevertheless wrong to equate modernity with the triumph of individualism. Here he distinguishes between individualism and subjectivity and, by offering a history of the two, powerfully redirects the course of current thinking away from potentially dangerous, reductionist views of humanity. Renaut argues that modern philosophy contains within itself two opposed ways of conceiving the human person. The first, which has its roots in Descartes and Kant, views human beings as subjects capable of arriving at universal moral judgments. The second, stemming from Leibniz, Hegel, and Nietzsche, presents human beings as independent individuals sharing nothing with others. In a careful recounting of this philosophical tradition, Renaut shows the resonances of these traditions in more recent philosophers such as Heidegger and in the social anthropology of Louis Dumont. Renaut's distinction between individualism and subjectivity has become an important issue for young thinkers dissatisfied with the intellectual tradition originating in Nietzsche and Heidegger. Moreover, his proclivity toward the Kantian tradition, combined with his insights into the shortcomings of modernity, will interest anyone concerned about today's shifting cultural attitudes toward liberalism. Originally published in 1997. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Connaissons-nous l'enfant? Au sortir du " siècle de l'enfant ", la différence de l'enfance ne cesse de nous interroger. Si l'exigence de penser l'enfance à nouveau est aujourd'hui partagée, les voies de cette entreprise, et plus précisément les problématiques au sein desquelles elle s'impose, sont diverses et mouvantes, à l'image du monde dont héritent ceux que Hannah Arendt appelait " les nouveaux-venus ". Emergent toutefois du foisonnement des pensées de l'enfance quelques paradigmes que l'ouvrage se propose de rendre visibles. Le (...) paradigme démocratique inscrit la question de l'enfance dans la dynamique égalitaire des sociétés démocratiques, et dans l'inéluctable effacement de la différence enfant/adulte auquel les conduit leur " passion de l'égalité ". Le développement de la " philosophie pour enfants " relève-t-il de cette passion de l'égalité? La figure de " l'enfant philosophe " participe-t-elle de cet effacement? Assurément son émergence au cours des vingt dernières années constitue l'un des faits marquants d'une histoire commune à l'enfance et à la philosophie. Que dire alors de la figure de l'enfant artiste, de l'enfance saisie dans sa proximité avec l'artiste? Elle participe d'une tentative de penser l'enfance autrement, d'une pensée esthétique de l'enfance alliant l'héritage schillérien des Lettres sur l'éducation esthétique de l'humanité aux tentations d'une pensée poétique de l'enfance. Que devient alors, dans cette pensée de l'enfance bousculée, cette autre figure qui ne cesse d'accompagner l'enfance, du moins depuis qu'on la pense comme éducable, la figure du pédagogue? Voilà peut-être l'un des points de résistance aux bouleversements postmodernes : l'impossibilité d'une connaissance de l'enfance qui n'en passe pas par l'éducation de l'enfance. Le point de vue paradigmatique n'épuise toutefois pas la question. Par-delà les paradigmes qui tentent de la saisir, quelque chose de l'enfance ne cesse de se dérober. (shrink)

Les expériences de «classe inversée» apparaissent aujourd'hui prometteuses. Alors que, dans les «classes traditionnelles», on «fait cours» à l'Ecole avant d'envoyer les élèves «travailler» chez eux, dans les «classes inversées», le professeur propose aux élèves de prendre connaissance d'un exposé enregistré ou d'une séquence illustrée puis les accueille en classe pour répondre à leurs questions et les accompagner dans la réalisation d'exercices ou de projets... On comprend que ce modèle pédagogique soit particulièrement attractif : à l'ère du numérique, au moment (...) où tant de ressources documentaires sont disponibles, le professeur voit ainsi son rôle renouvelé et peut se consacrer pleinement à l'appropriation des connaissances. Mais il ne faut pas, pour autant, basculer dans la naïveté spontanéiste. Prendre connaissance d'une information ou regarder une vidéo pour en tirer quelques enseignements ne vont pas de soi et le risque existe que beaucoup d'élèves n'en profitent guère. De même, interroger le professeur pour mieux comprendre un phénomène, faire un exercice de manière autonome ou travailler en petits groupes pour résoudre un problème ne sont pas des comportements faciles à mettre en oeuvre. Etre intellectuellement actif, s'engager dans un travail et le mener à bien ne se décrète pas, cela se forme. Et, précisément, l'ouvrage d'Alain Taurisson et de Claire Herviou nous montre comment faire. Prenant appui sur des travaux scientifiques éprouvés et des expérimentations solides, présentant les références théoriques nécessaires et donnant de très nombreux exemples d'outils utilisables, les auteurs fondent une véritable «pédagogie de l'activité», garantissant pleinement l'engagement de chaque élève tant dans la prise d'information que dans l'assimilation et le réinvestissement des connaissances. Ils font ainsi de la «classe inversée» une véritable «pédagogie alternative». Au service de la réussite de toutes et tous. Et pour retrouver le bonheur d'enseigner... (shrink)

The works of Gilles Deleuze -- on cinema, literature, painting, and philosophy -- have made him one of the most widely read thinkers of his generation. This compact critical volume is not only a powerful reappraisal of Deleuze's thought, but also the first major work by Alain Badiou available in English. Badiou compellingly redefines "Deleuzian, " throwing down the gauntlet in the battle over the very meaning of Deleuze's legacy. For those who view Deleuze as the apostle of desire, flu, (...) and multiplicity, Badiou's book is a deliberate provocation. Through a deep philosophical engagement with his writings, Badiou contends that Deleuze is not the Dionysian thinker of becoming he took himself to be; on the contrary, he is an ascetic philosopher of Being and Oneness. Deleuze's self-declared anti-Platonism fails -- and that, in Badiou's view, may ultimately be to his credit. "Perhaps it is not Platonism that has to be overturned, " Badiou writes, "but the anti-Platonism taken as evident throughout this entire century." This volume draws on a five-year correspondence undertaken by Badiou and Deleuze near the end of Deleuze's life, when the two put aside long-standing political and philosophical differences to exchange ideas about similar problems in their work. Badiou's incomparably attentive readings of key Deleuzian concepts radically revise reigning interpretations, offering new insights to even the veteran Deleuze reader and serving as an entree to the controversial notion of a "restoration" of Plato advocated by Badiou -- in his own right one of the most original figures in postwar French philosophy. The result is a critical tour de force that repositions Deleuze, one of the mostimportant thinkers of our time, and introduces Badiou to English-speaking readers. (shrink)

Alain Badiou embarks on a close reading of Hegel’s Aesthetics to consider how his own recently-developed concept of the “index”—designating the crucial point of mediation between finite works and the absolute (or the means by which “works of art obtain their seal of absoluteness”)—might figure therein, as well as to explore what Hegel would have made of cinema, had he lived to experience it. After first examining the various ways that this “index of absoluteness” functions in the Hegelian conception of (...) art—both according to its canonical forms (sculpture, architecture, painting, music, and poetry including theatre) and its historical classifications (classical, symbolic and romantic)—Badiou proceeds to investigate whether Hegel’s aesthetic system could and should have foreseen the eventual birth of cinema, together with its general characteristics; and whether this new development would ultimately refute or confirm his famous thesis on the end of art. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger was an ordinary Nazi and a loyal member of the provincial petty bourgeoisie. He was also a seminal thinker of the Continental tradition and one of the twentieth century's most important philosophers. How are we to make sense of this dual life? Should we factor Heidegger's domestic and political associations into our understanding of his thought, or should we treat his intellectual work independently of his abhorrent politics? How does any thinker reconcile the mundane with the ideal or (...) the pursuit of philosophical inquiry with the demands of civic engagement? In Heidegger, Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin immerse themselves in the philosopher's correspondence with his wife Elfride to answer these questions as they relate to Heidegger and all thinkers vulnerable to the politics of their times. They focus on Heidegger's tormented relationship with his wife, with Hannah Arendt, and with numerous other women, bringing an unusual level of intimacy to his personal and intellectual worlds. (shrink)

In her 2006 book ‘‘My Stroke of Insight” Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor relates her experience of suffering from a left hemispheric stroke caused by a congenital arteriovenous malformation which led to a loss of inner speech. Her phenomenological account strongly suggests that this impairment produced a global self-awareness deficit as well as more specific dysfunctions related to corporeal awareness, sense of individuality, retrieval of autobiographical memories, and self-conscious emotions. These are examined in details and corroborated by numerous excerpts from Taylor’s (...) book. Ó 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Loin des caricatures que s'est permises Voltaire, Alain Niderst voit en Leibniz le plus grand esprit des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, dont on ne peut qu'admirer l'universelle curiosité et l'intrépide audace qu'il a montrées dans tous les domaines. Ce n'est pas une statue solennelle de Leibniz que le lecteur trouvera dans cet ouvrage. Il verra au contraire comment Laineur de la Théodicée a été amené à un combat mille fois répété pour édifier et pour défendre son système. Ainsi, Bayle, Locke, (...) Fontanelle, Clarke et bien d'autres furent les correspondants du philosophe de Hanovre et ses lecteurs, souvent admiratifs, parfois critiques. Si le système de Leibniz s'est forgé dans cette lutte si longue et si audacieuse, ce n'est, peut-on dire, que dans ses dernières années qu'il parviendra à des certitudes, et donc à une forme de sérénité. Le livre d'Alain Niderst n'est pas seulement l'histoire d'un homme et de son siècle : on y trouve l'histoire toujours renouvelée de la pensée à la recherche de vérités sûres qui la justifient et la consolident. (shrink)

A double ambiguity has been charged against Rawls’s difference principle (DP). Is it Maximin, Leximin, or something else? Usually, following A. Sen, scholars identify DP with the so-called Leximin. One argues here that one has to distinguish 1° the Leximin, 2° the Maximin (as rule of justice formally analogous to the maximin rule of decision), represented by the figure in L of the perfectly substitutable goods, and 3° the genuine DP. When the augmentation of inequality benefits the worse off, only (...) Pareto-strong improvements are permitted. Leximin would also permit Pareto-weak improvements too (after the first maximum D), where only the richest improves: from (2, 3) to (2, 5), say. This is forbidden by DP. With two classes, unlike Maximin, DP has no curve of indifference and is always decisive, as Leximin is. For undecisive Rules of Justice, which admit indifferent curves, I propose to add a lexically secondary rule, to break ties. That move is able to clarify the links and the differences between on the one hand Maximin alone, with its typical indifference curves in L, and on the other hand, the DP properly understood and the Leximin, which both have no indifferent curves. With two classes of persons (best off/worse off), DP appears more egalitarian than Leximin, because it's secondary rule is MinIn (Minimization of Inequality). But the intuition behind the distinction is that it cannot possible “fair” that only the best off improves in a productive social cooperation. (shrink)

A review of The Face in the Mirror: The Search for the Origins of Consciousness by Julian Paul Keenan with Gordon C. Gallup Jr. and Dean Falk. Ecco, New York, 2003. ISBN 006001279X.

This essay compares Sartre's existential psychoanalysis with Freud's psychoanalysis and Binswanger's Daseinsanalysis . On the one hand, Sartre's psychoanalysis, despite the pure phenomenological interpretation of the factical self (in the first part of Being and Nothingness ), is ultimately metaphysically founded on the concept of 'human reality' (in the fourth part of the book), so that this psychoanalysis cannot be identified with the way of interpreting existence in the Daseinsanalyse . On the other hand, Sartre's phenomenological interpretation of the factical (...) self implies that Freud's analysis of psychical phenomena is false, because the self 'is strictly to the degree that it signifies' ( Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions ) and is 'coextensive with consciousness' ( Being and Nothingness ). (shrink)

Alain Badiou offers a tour de force encounter with a lesser-known seventeenth-century philosopher and theologian, Nicolas Malebranche, a contemporary and peer of Spinoza and Leibniz. The seminar is at once a record of Badiou's thought at a key moment and a lively interrogation of Malebranche's key text, the Treatise on Nature and Grace.

I reconsider Aristotle’s account of perception by way of an ‘organic’ reading of the sensitive mean. I argue that the mean serves as a homeostatic mechanism that allows for the replication of forms in the organs in the process of perceptual alteration. The mean, as a product of properly constituted organs, is that by which Aristotle separates animals from plants.

When Johann and Daniel Bernoulli founded fluid dynamics they encountered several problems. To go beyond the vision of Newtonian particles, a new set of images was needed in order to deal with the spatial extensibility and lack of form of fluids. I point to evidence that analogy was an essential abductive strategy in the creation of this imagery. But its heuristic behavior is complex: analogy can provide an initial model or proto-model that establishes the starting point of a theoretical process, (...) but it can play other roles as well. The historical genesis analyzed here shows that the participation of analogy in physicists’ creativity is not so restricted and that its richness opens up the field for very different roles and strategies in model-based discovery processes. Analogies can crop up intermittently in the evolution of a theory; and they can cooperate with images, extreme case reasoning and thought experiments, and even activate these processes at origin. Although it may seem that the contributions of analogy are generative in the sense of helping to discover new aspects of reality, we must stress the evaluative function that sometimes is performed by analogical reasoning in order to gain confidence. The study of the Bernoulli’s genesis of the foundations of fluid dynamics generates interesting hypotheses about the multiple roles that analogy can play in scientific model-based reasoning. (shrink)

In the uprisings of the Arab world, Alain Badiou discerns echoes of the European revolutions of 1848. In both cases, the object was to overthrow despotic regimes maintained by the great powers—regimes designed to impose the will of financial oligarchies. Both events occurred after what was commonly thought to be the end of a revolutionary epoch: in 1815, the final defeat of Napoleon; and in 1989, the fall of the Soviet Union. But the revolutions of 1848 proclaimed for a century (...) and a half the return of revolutionary thought and action. Likewise, the uprisings underway today herald a worldwide resurgence in the liberating force of the masses—despite the attempts of the ‘international community’ to neutralize its power. Badiou’s book salutes this reawakening of history, weaving examples from the Arab Spring and elsewhere into a global analysis of the return of emancipatory universalism. (shrink)

Le propos fondamental du livre d'Alain Badiou est d'établir que le noyau de toute philosophie compatible avec le marxisme est une théorie du sujet. Mais laquelle? Ni le sujet comme conscience (thèse de Sartre), ni l'hypothèse du sujet " naturel ", désirant ou substantiel, ne peuvent convenir. C'est du côté du sujet clivé tel que Lacan - notre Hegel - en fait théorie, qu'il faut chercher une issue. Alain Badiou trouve là de quoi refondre, non pas le thème, forclos, d'un (...) sujet de l'Histoire, mais celui des sujets politiques. L'opération ne se peut faire sans étendre le concept lacanien du sujet, lié dès l'abord à deux types d'effets: l'occupation d'une place vide d'un côté, l'excès sur cette place vide de l'autre. Instrument de cette distinction : le couple algèbre/topologie. Il en résulte que le réel, pensable - comme le fait Lacan - sous le concept algébrique de l'objet cause, doit également être reçu sous celui, topologique, de consistance: ontologie en partie double. Le cœur de la question est atteint quand entre en dialectique avec la notion lacanienne du manque, la catégorie nouvelle de destruction. Qu'on ne s'attende pas à ne trouver ici qu'une discussion de théories. Mallarmé y voisine abondamment avec Mao Tsé-toung, Hilderlin avec Hegel, et le théorème de Gödel avec la situation des ouvriers immigrés. (shrink)

Kant’s essay on the question of literary piracy has so far been read as a foundational text in the history of literary property. When Kant refers to the book as a “mute instrument,” scholars of intellectual property already know how to interpret that formulation because they presume the distinction that the contemporary jurisprudence of intellectual property makes between matter and form and its concomitant assumption that print is just an inert, nonagentive medium. In fact, Kant begins his analysis of unauthorized (...) publication not with the question What is an author? but with the question What is publication?. His insight was that unauthorized publication revealed a structural feature of publication in general. The effect of the interposition of print, or the fact that speech begins in and with print, is that the author is structurally alienated from his or her speech. Kant was not an Enlightenment media theorist, but he recognized that speech had to be mediated and therefore delivered to the reader and that it was the medium itself that determined the conditions under which authors and readers could exist and be present to one another and under which speech could become an authorship. In order to create a language channel for public reason, Kant had to take a detour through the legal fiction of agency. Speech might have been an action that could have its existence “only in a person,” but this supposedly innate bond was made by a legal fiction of representation, according to which one person could truly speak “as if” they were another. Kant’s answer to the question What is a book? developed a law that was not so much a law of literary property as a law that sought to suspend the alienating effects of print so as to restore the Enlightenment ideal of communication. (shrink)

Twenty years ago, Alain Badiou's first Manifesto for Philosophy rose up against the all-pervasive proclamation of the "end" of philosophy. In lieu of this problematic of the end, he put forward the watchword: "one more step". The situation has considerably changed since then. Philosophy was threatened with obliteration at the time, whereas today it finds itself under threat for the diametrically opposed reason: it is endowed with an excessive, artificial existence. "Philosophy" is everywhere. It serves as a trademark for various (...) media pundits. It livens up cafés and health clubs. It has its magazines and its gurus. It is universally called upon, by everything from banks to major state commissions, to pronounce on ethics, law and duty. In essence, "philosophy" has now come to stand for nothing other than its most ancient enemy: conservative ethics. Badiou's second manifesto therefore seeks to demoralize philosophy and to separate it from all those "philosophies" that are as servile as they are ubiquitous. It demonstrates the power of certain eternal truths to illuminate action and, as such, to transport philosophy far beyond the figure of "the human" and its "rights". There, well beyond all moralism, in the clear expanse of the idea, life becomes something radically other than survival. (shrink)

Bergson Professeur rassemble les actes d'un colloque international qui s'est tenu a Paris, a l'Ecole Normale Superieure, en novembre 2010. On y trouve les contributions des meilleurs bergsoniens contemporains sur un theme habituellement peu traite : le role exact des cours de Bergson et des notes de cours relativement a ses ouvrages publies. Ce volume vient ainsi combler un manque dans les publications academiques sur Bergson, puisqu'il permet de restituer, dans le sillage des travaux engages il y a deux decennies (...) par Henri Hude, ce qui est trop souvent considere comme la part la moins importante de sa philosophie. En tentant de faire entendre de nouveau la voix vivante du professeur Bergson, ce travail ne rend donc pas seulement un hommage au maitre admire par tous ses auditeurs, il nous fait entrer, comme par effraction, dans l'atelier ou, a n'en pas douter, furent mises au point plusieurs des grandes trouvailles d'un genie philosophique. (shrink)