At the beginning of Western philosophy, Aristotle contrasted made objects, which did not have the source of their own production within themselves, with beings formed by nature. This distinction persisted until Marx, who conceived of the possibility of an evolution of the technical object. This philosophy developed while industrialisation was in the process of overthrowing the contemporary order of social organisation, which highlighted technology's new place in philosophical enquiry. Bernard Stiegler goes back to the beginning of Western philosophy and (...) revises the Aristotelian assessment, developing a complex argument whereby the technical object can be seen as having an essential, distinctive temporality and dynamic of its own. The author engages the ideas of Rousseau, Husserl, and Heidegger, the paleo-ontologist Leroi-Gourhan, the anthropologists Vernant and Detienne, the sociologists Weber and Habermas, and the systems analysts Maturana and Varela. (shrink)

By means of a critical examination of a number of theses as to the nature of game-playing, the following definition is advanced: To play a game is to engage in activity directed toward bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by specific rules, where the means permitted by the rules are more limited in scope than they would be in the absence of the rules, and where the sole reason for accepting such limitation is to make (...) possible such activity. (shrink)

Bernard Berofsky addresses that metaphysical picture directly.Nature's Challenge to Free Willoffers an original defense of Humean Compatibilism.

This text is an excerpt from the introduction to Uncontrollable Societies of Disaffected Individuals: Disbelief and Discredit (Vol. 2) by Bernard Stiegler, translated into English by Daniel Ross © Polity Press, Cambridge 2012.

Originally written in 1990, this reviews largely late 20th century debates on the study of law as Logic, Discourse, or Experience; the Unity of the Legal System and the Problem of Reference; Semiotic Presuppositions of Traditional Jurisprudence (Austin, Hart, Kelsen, Dworkin, Legal Realisms); then turns to legal philosophies explicitly Employing Forms of Semiotics (Kalinowski, the Italian Analytical School, Rhetorical and Pragmatic Approaches, Sociological and Socio-Linguistic Approaches, Peircian Legal Semiotics, Greimasian Legal Semiotics and Aesthetic/Symbolic Approaches). A major section then offers (from (...) a largely Greimasian point of view) some hypotheses for legal semiotics on the Problem of Reference, Semantic and Pragmatic Levels, Semiotic Groups and “The Legal Culture”, Normativity and Justification, and finally considers the implications for particular legal phenomena: the “Legal System”, Legal Institutions, Legal Codes, Legal Rules, Rights, Courtroom Behaviour: Witness and Counsel, The Judge: Justification of Decisions on Law, and the Criminal Justice Process. A conclusion addresses the status of legal semiotics. (shrink)

The book describes a new form of communitarian politics on the African continent, that is able to take seriously both individual entitlements and communitarian obligations. This is achieved by proposing a thin version of communitarianism that realizes the organic relationship between individuals and the community.

Tractatus, 5.62 famously says: ‘… what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language mean the limits of my world.’ The later part of this repeats what was said in summary at 5.6: ‘the limits of my language mean the limits of my world’. And the key to the problem ‘how much truth there is in solipsism’ has (...) been provided by the reflections of TLP, 5.61. (shrink)

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)

This chapter presents a new version of the theory of deliberative democracy, focusing on its specificity as a future genre, and based on arguments used to defend plausibility. Moral philosophy of ethical theories is applied in this context as a form of casuistics, involving probabilities, and not limited to case studies within the framework of applied ethics. The chapter then considers relationships between the sciences, scientific practices and ethics; the interweaving of facts and values; the quarrels that exist between coexisting (...) disciplines; the competing approaches of epistemic pluralism, in both inter‐ and intra‐disciplinary forms; and argumentative coexistence in interdisciplinary contexts. It outlines the possible solution pathways, notably that of dialogical co‐argumentation. The chapter explores the question of pluralism of ethical theories with a focus on relevant elements that may modify an evaluation. In France, the precautionary principle has been enshrined in the Constitution since 2005, within the framework of the Environment Charter. (shrink)

Part I. Phenomenology -- Phenomenology and the return to beginnings -- Delimitations: phenomenology and the end of metaphysics -- Part II. Sallis's Plato interpretation -- Being and logos: reading the Platonic dialogues -- Chorology: on beginning in Plato's Timaeus -- Platonic legacies -- Part III. Art/Sallis -- Stone -- Shades-of painting at the limit -- Topographies -- Part IV. Sallis and other thinkers -- The gathering of reason -- Spacings-of reason and imagination in texts of Kant, Fichte, Hegel -- Echoes: (...) after Heidegger -- Crossings: Nietzsche and the space of tragedy -- Part V. Sallis speaks directly -- Double truth -- Force of imagination: the sense of the elemental -- On translation -- The Sallis/Derrida dialogue -- Derrida's "Tense" and Sallis's The verge of philosophy. (shrink)

In his recent address to the Aristotelian Society, Aurel Kolnai suggests that games exhibit what he calls a “genuine paradoxy.” I do not believe that he has shown this to be the case, even on the most permissive interpretation of what it means to be a paradox. Kolnai has, however, called attention to an aspect of games which invites further investigation, and I should like to advance the following considerations not so much as a criticism of Kolnai as an attempt (...) to take the investigation along a path which Kolnai has indicated, but which he has not himself, in my opinion, followed. It is not that Kolnai does not say many interesting, indeed penetrating, things about games, for he does. That Kolnai's inquiry is an important contribution to the philosophy of games is not in question. What is questionable is whether paradox has very much to do with that contribution. (shrink)

The debate on the communitarian notion of personhood as initiated by Gyekye, in response to Menkiti, is both exhaustive and exhausted. Its exhaustiveness and exhaustion lies in the fact that, in all probability whatever can be said around it has been said, with truly nothing new likely ever being added. What is possibly left, is the potential for further additions to be more strident in their picking of sides or repeating that Gyekye and Menkiti are not sufficiently different or insisting (...) on the authenticity of either approach to African thought. What is needed is to transcend the constraints of this debate by opening up new vistas of interpreting communitarian thought in personhood. Whatever merit there is in showing whether radical or moderate communitarianism is real, or in showing which of these two is better than the other, this discussion can be furthered by looking at implications of communitarianism to other facets of philosophy. The most plausible avenue that could be implicated in communitarian considerations is the sphere of politics. Theorising about the communitarian notion of persons, I suggest, is partly to theorise about the political. If the commitments on which the doctrine of communitarianism is founded, are used to capture the sort of relations that exist between individuals, and between individuals and the community, then this relationship has an effect on how we conceive of the political theory we think appropriate. It is suggested here that contemplating on the communitarian polity will show the shortcomings of communitarianism as conceived by Gyekye and Menkiti. Keywords: Menkiti, Gyekye, Communitarianism, Limited Communitarianism, Personhood, Classical Communitarianism. (shrink)

L’étude des pratiques de nomination offre de précieux renseignements sur les rapports de pouvoir entre les sexes et le processus de leur différenciation symbolique. Hommes et femmes ont un pouvoir de nommer qui diffère selon les sociétés. Il vient renforcer ou contrebalancer l’effet de structuration exercé par le système de filiation sur les rapports intrafamiliaux et véhicule une image plus ou moins prestigieuse de l’homme et de la femme. On peut aussi étudier l’inégalité entre les sexes en observant les différences (...) qui existent parfois dans la construction, le contenu symbolique et l’usage des prénoms masculins et féminins. Mais le nom peut aussi être une arme redoutable, y compris aux mains des femmes de sociétés patrilinéaires, dans la lutte des sexes ou la rivalité entre personnes de même sexe. Le cas limite de sociétés où l’on peut prendre un nom du sexe opposé offre l’occasion de tester la théorie performative du nom pour qui le nom fait le genre et d’apercevoir certains des facteurs selon lesquels varient les effets de genre d’un nom. (shrink)

This biography, the first of Richard Spencer Childs, begins in the Progressive Era when Childs initiated and pursued two fertile ideas: the short ballot doctrine and the council-manager plan. Childs understood that the simplification of the task of the voter was a question pressing for solution and that the council-manager plan would transform municipal government. This comprehensive work discusses other aspects of Childs' broad reform agenda. His proposals included: county government reform; reform in state government administration; unicameral state legislatures; reapportionment (...) of state legislatures; selection of judges by appointment; replacement of elective county coroners with appointed professional medical examiners; democratization of state political parties; and reform of the Presidential nominating system. Based on Childs' papers and personal interviews with Childs, this biography advances scholarship on the Progressive Era and contributes to the historiographical debate on the nature of reform. (shrink)

This book is about the state of moral theology today.