Cet article s'appuie sur la pensée de Wittgenstein pour comprendre comment des règles économiques agissent. L'étude (1993-2000) d'un Atelier de réparation de la RATP dans lequel une nouvelle règle de rendement a été introduite en 1993 met en évidence trois conclusions. Tout d'abord, dans la sélection des tâches, les opérateurs n'appliquent pas les règles de façon mécanique ; ils n'interprètent pas non plus les règles en faisant table rase des usages. Nos observations montrent que « suivre la règle est une (...) pratique ». En second lieu, les équipes développent des stratégies différentes pour obtenir la prime, ce qui illustre une autre thèse de Wittgenstein : « La signification de la règle se constitue dans l'usage. » Enfin, les opérateurs s'appuient sur les règles de l'usage pour trouver un certain usage de la règle. (shrink)

Abstract In recent debates, both physicalist and anti-physicalist philosophers of mind have come to agree that understanding the nature of phenomenal concepts is key to understanding the nature of phenomenal consciousness itself. Recently, however, Derek Ball (2009) and Michael Tye (2009) have argued that there are no such concepts. Their case is especially troubling because they make use of a type of argument that proponents of phenomenal concepts have typically found persuasive in other contexts; namely, arguments much like those that (...) Tyler Burge used to motivate a certain form of externalism about mental content. The goal of this paper is to defend phenomenal concepts against this line of attack. Burge-style arguments, I contend, cannot be successfully used to make the case that there are no phenomenal concepts. As such, phenomenal concepts must remain central to understanding the nature of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

Facultés, concepts, théories et modules innés... Le débat philosophique contemporain sur la structure naturelle de l'esprit multiplie les références aux idées innées. Noam Chomsky lui-même, défenseur d'une faculté innée de langage, s'inscrit dans la lignée de la philosophie moderne. Mais les idées innées contemporaines ont-elles le même sens que celles posées par Descartes et Leibniz? Les progrès des sciences biologiques et cognitives permettent-ils d'attester ou d'infirmer l'existence des idées innées? L'étude analyse les théories modernes et contemporaines des idées innées puis (...) propose une définition de l'innéisme qui démontre l'actualité du débat amorcé à l'âge classique entre innéisme et empirisme."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The decades following the Second Vatican Council witnessed Catholic theology's break from classicism. Deductive, classical theology was replaced by an empirical, historically minded theology. The result was moral confusion and intellectual controversy whose effects are still felt by the Church. Benedict Ashely agreed that some revision in moral theology was necessary after Vatican II to formulate and integrate the mysteries of the Catholic faith. The question was how such teachings could be reformulated while preserving their substantive content. Ashley presents a (...) method of theological reflection that challenges the subjectivity, relationality, and language of historical mindedness with a tradition focusing on Scripture, the Magisterium, sound natural science, and a considered relationship between subjectivity and objectivity. This volume also contains commentary by four distinguished scholars: Matthew McWhorter provides an intellectual biography of Ashley, examining the development of this thought before and after Vatican II. Rev. Cajetan Cuddy, OP, reviews Ashley's philosophical theology in its principles, especially as grounded in natural law philosophy. Matthew Minerd assesses Ashley's approach to the authority of the Catholic Magisterium, the papacy, and the formation of conscience. Rev. Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, OP, evaluates Ashley's application of his moral theology to beginning- and end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

Diese Arbeit behandelt die stoischen Lehren der materialistischen Psychologie und des Determinismus, insbesondere von Chrysipp. Die stoische Antwort auf diese Fragen lässt sich aus philologischen Vergleichen ihrer überlieferten Textfragmente rekonstruieren. Eine wichtige Quelle ist dabei die Kritik an der Stoa durch Alexander von Aphrodisias.

The rise of ill-being is spreading to schools and worrying politicians. It questions our educational models beyond learning about well-being and happiness at school, particularly pedagogical approaches and teacher training; which « happy » teacher to « make a student happy »? Based on research on the components of student well-being and resilience first and case studies of pedagogical approaches « re-enchanting school », this article underlines the emotional capital and “enabling leadership” teaching style, and an essential well-being approach focused (...) on potentials and vitality; approach that we analyze from a positive and eudaimonic well-being perspective, through the “bienvivance” paradigm. (shrink)

La textométrie propose une approche et des outils pour analyser les corpus numériques, que les chercheurs en sémantique interprétative mettent à profit depuis une quinzaine d’années. Pour éclairer ces réussites, on entreprend ici de repérer des adéquations essentielles entre la théorie linguistique de la sémantique interprétative, et les principes fondateurs de l’approche textométrique. Les connivences sont nombreuses : la place centrale des textes à toutes les étapes de l’analyse, le souci de rester au plus proche du texte et d’éviter toute (...) préconception réductrice, le rôle déterminant du contexte global construit par le corpus de référence, le fonctionnement différentiel des calculs contrastifs comme des tris… Dans le contexte de renouveau actuel des logiciels textométriques, la sémantique interprétative est appelée à nourrir la réflexion théorique sous-jacente. (shrink)

By explicitly addressing moral knowledge from a particularists perspective, this book can engage with an established and vibrant area of moral philosophy whilst making a distinctive and productive contribution to a relatively neglected dimension of it.

This study examines to what extent perceived corporate social responsibility reduces employee cynicism, and whether trust plays a mediating role in the relationship between CSR and employee cynicism. Three distinct contributions beyond the existing literature are offered. First, the relationship between perceived CSR and employee cynicism is explored in greater detail than has previously been the case. Second, trust in the company leaders is positioned as a mediator of the relationship between CSR and employee cynicism. Third, we disaggregate the measure (...) of CSR and explore the links between this and with employee cynicism. Our findings illustrate that the four distinct dimensions of CSR of Carroll are indirectly linked to employee cynicism via organizational trust. In general terms, our findings will help company leaders to understand employees’ counterproductive reactions to an organization, the importance of CSR for internal stakeholders, and the need to engage in trust recovery. (shrink)

Reverse mathematics is a program in mathematical logic that seeks to give precise answers to the question of which axioms are necessary in order to prove theorems of "ordinary mathematics": roughly speaking, those concerning structures that are either themselves countable, or which can be represented by countable "codes". This includes many fundamental theorems of real, complex, and functional analysis, countable algebra, countable infinitary combinatorics, descriptive set theory, and mathematical logic. This entry aims to give the reader a broad introduction to (...) the history, methodology, and results of the reverse mathematics program, with a particular focus on its connections to foundational programs such as finitism, constructivism, and predicativism. (shrink)

This study focuses on the differences in the perception of business ethics across two groups of management students from France and Romania (n = 220). Data was collected via the ATBEQ to measure preferences for three business philosophies: Machiavellianism, Social Darwinism, and Moral Objectivism. The results show that Romanian students present more favorable attitudes toward Machiavellianism than French students; whereas, French students valued Social Darwinism and Moral Objectivism more highly. For Machiavellianism and Moral Objectivism the results are consistent with the (...) literature and our hypotheses. However, contrary to our expectations, we find that Social Darwinism is more important in France than Romania. The results indicate that religious practice does not influence preferences for the three business philosophies. In terms of gender differences, women have less favorable attitudes toward Machiavellianism and more favorable attitudes toward Moral Objectivism than men. (shrink)

MacIntyre shares with others, such as John McDowell, a broad commitment in moral epistemology to the centrality of tradition and both regard forms of enculturation as conditions of moral knowledge. Although MacIntyre is critical of the thought that moral reasons are available only to those whose experience of the world is conceptually articulated, he is sympathetic to the idea that the development of subjectivity involves the capacity to appreciate external moral demands. This paper critically examines some aspects of MacIntyre’s account (...) of how knowledge is related to tradition, and suggests ways in which the formation of moral subjectivity involves the ability to experience the world. (shrink)

Short overview of the From Small Beginnings Project and its relevance for resisting eugenics in contemporary society.

Cumulative technological culture can be defined as the progressive diversification, complexification, and enhancement of technological traits through generations. An outstanding issue is to specify the cognitive bases of this phenomenon. Based on the literature, we identified four potential cognitive factors: namely, theory-of-mind, technical-reasoning, creativity, and fluid-cognitive skills. The goal of the present study was to test which of these factors—or a combination thereof—best predicted the cumulative performance in two experimental, micro-society conditions differing in the nature of the interaction allowed between (...) participants. The task was to build the highest possible tower. Participants were also assessed on the four aforementioned cognitive factors in order to predict cumulative performance and attractiveness. Our findings indicate that technical-reasoning skills are the best predictor of cumulative performance, even if their role may be restricted to the specific technological domain. Theory-of-mind skills may have a facilitator role, particularly in the Communication condition. Creativity can also help in the generation of novel ideas, but it is not sufficient to support innovation. Finally, fluid cognition is not involved in cumulative technological culture. Taken together, these findings suggest that domain-specific knowledge remains critical for explaining cumulative technological culture. (shrink)

This article asks about the conditions of a sociological operationalization of the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Raising the question of freedom and social opportunities, the capability approach has so far mainly been discussed by economists and philosophers. In order to adopt this approach for a sociological and pragmatist perspective, it engages with methodological and theoretical issues. Whereas capabilities have until now mainly been studied within quantitative frameworks, the author opts for a qualitative method of inquiry (...) that draws on a pragmatist and configurational approach. Such a shift towards qualitative inquiry is a key condition for a better sociological understanding of notions like freedom and opportunities that stand at the core of the capability approach. (shrink)

Hume's account of belief is understood to be inspired by allegedly incompatible motivations, one descriptive and expressing Hume's naturalism, the other normative and expressing Hume's epistemological aims. This understanding assumes a particular way in which these elements are distinct: an assumption that I dispute. I suggest that the explanatory-naturalistic aspects of Hume's account of belief are not incompatible with the normative-epistemological aspects. Rather, at least for some central cases of belief formation that Hume discusses at length, S's coming to believe (...) thatpcan be explained in a way that vindicates S's belief thatp. (shrink)

This book provides much new thinking on the phenomenon of whole person education, a phenomenon which features strongly in East Asian universities, and which aims to develop students intellectually, spiritually, and ethically, to master critical thinking skills, to explore ethical challenges in the surrounding community and to acquire a broad based foundation of knowledge in humanities, society and nature. The book considers different approaches to whole person education, including Confucian, Buddhist, and Chinese perspectives, Western philosophy and religion and interdisciplinary approaches. (...) Overall, the book provides a comprehensive overview of whole person education, why it matters and how to implement it. Moreover, although the examples in the book are from East Asia, the discussion and the values involved are universal, important for the whole world. (shrink)

Knowledge of what it’s like to have perceptual experiences, e.g. of what it’s like to see red or taste Turkish coffee, is phenomenal knowledge; and it is knowledge the substantial or significant nature of which is widely assumed to pose a challenge for physicalism. Call this the New Challenge to physicalism. The goal of this paper is to take a closer look at the New Challenge. I show, first, that it is surprisingly difficult to spell out clearly and neutrally what (...) the New Challenge is in fact urging the physicalist to explain. What initially look like plausible or promising ways of making sense of it turn out to be either question begging or insufficient to generate a challenge to physicalism at all. I go on to suggest that what the New Challenge may be asking the physicalist to explain may be the fact that we come to token certain higher-order judgments about the significance of phenomenal knowledge. I end with a discussion of the implications of this interpretation of the New Challenge—which turns out to be as much a challenge for the anti-physicalist as it is for the physicalist. (shrink)

It is a striking fact from reverse mathematics that almost all theorems of countable and countably representable mathematics are equivalent to just five subsystems of second order arithmetic. The standard view is that the significance of these equivalences lies in the set existence principles that are necessary and sufficient to prove those theorems. In this article I analyse the role of set existence principles in reverse mathematics, and argue that they are best understood as closure conditions on the powerset of (...) the natural numbers. (shrink)

Among the characteristic features of depression is a diminishment in or lack of action and motivation. In this paper, I consider a dominant philosophical account which purports to explain this lack of action or motivation. This approach comes in different versions but a common theme is, I argue, an over reliance on psychologistic assumptions about action–explanation and the nature of motivation. As a corrective I consider an alternative view that gives a prominent place to the body in motivation. Central to (...) the experience of depression are changes to how a person is motivated to act and, also as central, are changes to bodily feelings and capacities. I argue that broadly characterizing motivation in terms of bodily capacities can, in particular, provide a more compelling account of depressive motivational pathology. (shrink)

We compare two different elicitation methods for measuring risk attitudes on a sample of French farmers. We consider the lottery tasks initially proposed by Holt and Laury (Econ Rev 92:1644–1655, 2002) and by Eckel and Grossman (Evol Hum Behav 23:281–295, 2002; J Econ Behav Org 68:1–7, 2008). The main empirical result from this within-subject study is that risk preference measures are affected by the type of mechanism used. We first show that this risk preference instability can be related to non-expected (...) utility preferences of farmers. Using a risk-taking psychometric questionnaire, we then demonstrate that risk preferences of farmers are context-dependent. This may be another explanation of the observed risk preference instability. (shrink)

This article concerns the nature and limits of individuals’ rights to privacy over information that they have made public. For some, even suggesting that an individual can have a right to privacy over such information may seem paradoxical. First, one has no right to privacy over information that was never private to begin with. Second, insofar as one makes once-private information public – whether intentionally or unintentionally – one waives one’s right to privacy to that information. In this article, however, (...) we suggest the moral situation is more complicated than this. Rather, we argue that there is a class of public information – namely, once-private information that individuals have made public unintentionally – which remains within the scope of an individuals’ right to privacy, even when it has passed into the public domain. Significantly, this class includes any information rights-holders were unaware could be inferred from information they have made public and which they would not otherwise have wanted to be in the public domain. As we show, as well as clarifying several everyday dilemmas with regards to individuals’ privacy rights, this finding has elucidates a number of problems in the ethics of Big Data. (shrink)

Health systems that provide for universal patient access through a scheme of prepayments—whether through taxes, social insurance, or a combination of the two—need to make decisions on the scope of coverage that they secure. Such decisions are inherently controversial, implying, as they do, that some patients will receive less than comprehensive health care, or less than complete protection from the financial consequences of ill-heath, even when there is a clinically effective therapy to which they might have access.Controversial decisions of this (...) sort call for a public justification for covering or not covering a given treatment. Priority-setting agencies play a key role in providing such a justification. A recent... (shrink)

The increasing pressure from different facets of society exerted on multinational companies to become more philanthropic and claim ownership of their impacts is now becoming a standard practice. Although research in corporate social responsibility has arguably been recent, the application of activities taking a voluntary form from MNCs seem to vary reflecting a plethora of factors, particularly one obvious being the backwater local communities of developing countries where most of the natural extraction projects are located. This chapter examines views of (...) two Papua New Guinea local communities hosting large-scale mining operations and explains the demands arising from situational relativities, which are becoming too conspicuous for mine developers not to ignore. The research undertaken with several assertions highlights the perceived imperativeness allowing companies to integrate the CSR into the essential management pursuits of running mines in PNG. (shrink)

Cumulative technological culture (CTC) refers to the increase in the efficiency and complexity of tools and techniques in human populations over generations. A fascinating question is to understand the cognitive origins of this phenomenon. Because CTC is definitely a social phenomenon, most accounts have suggested a series of cognitive mechanisms oriented toward the social dimension (e.g., teaching, imitation, theory of mind, and metacognition), thereby minimizing the technical dimension and the potential influence of non-social, cognitive skills. What if we have failed (...) to see the elephant in the room? What if social cognitive mechanisms were only catalyzing factors and not thesufficient and necessaryconditions for the emergence of CTC? In this article, we offer an alternative, unified cognitive approach to this phenomenon by assuming that CTC originates in non-social cognitive skills, namely technical-reasoning skills which enable humans to develop the technical potential necessary to constantly acquire and improve technical information. This leads us to discuss how theory of mind and metacognition, in concert with technical reasoning, can help boost CTC. The cognitive approach developed here opens up promising new avenues for reinterpreting classical issues (e.g., innovation, emulation vs. imitation, social vs. asocial learning, cooperation, teaching, and overimitation) in a field that has so far been largely dominated by other disciplines, such as evolutionary biology, mathematics, anthropology, archeology, economics, and philosophy. (shrink)

The relativistic conception of space and time is challenged by the quantum nature of physical observables. It has been known for a long time that Poincare symmetry of field theory can be extended to the larger conformal symmetry. We use these symmetries to define quantum observables associated with positions in space-time, in the spirit of Einstein theory of relativity. This conception of localization may be applied to massive as well as massless fields. Localization observables are defined as to obey Lorentz (...) covariant commutation relations and in particular include a time observable conjugated to energy. While position components do not commute in the presence of a nonvanishing spin, they still satisfy quantum relations which generalize the differential laws of classical relativity. We also give of these observables a representation in terms of canonical spatial positions, canonical spin components, and a proper time operator conjugated to mass. These results plead for a new representation not only of space-time localization but also of motion. (shrink)

The study tests the hypothesis that conditional probability judgments can be influenced by causal links between the target event and the evidence even when the statistical relations among variables are held constant. Three experiments varied the causal structure relating three variables and found that (a) the target event was perceived as more probable when it was linked to evidence by a causal chain than when both variables shared a common cause; (b) predictive chains in which evidence is a cause of (...) the hypothesis gave rise to higher judgments than diagnostic chains in which evidence is an effect of the hypothesis; and (c) direct chains gave rise to higher judgments than indirect chains. A Bayesian learning model was applied to our data but failed to explain them. An explanation-based hypothesis stating that statistical information will affect judgments only to the extent that it changes beliefs about causal structure is consistent with the results. (shrink)

En 1933-1934, Simone Weil était professeur à Roanne. Dans un petit pavillon isolé au fond d'un parc, sur l'herbe ou sous la neige, elle enseigna alors la philosophie à quelques élèves. On découvrira ici, à travers les notes recueillies par une de ces jeunes filles, ce que furent ces leçons, véritables entretiens socratiques. Le lecteur y reconnaîtra l'unité profonde de Simone Weil dont la vie brève fut intensément consacrée à la recherche de la vérité.

Wood, Kressel, Joshi, and Louie report that published, but not unpublished, studies of masculinity, dominance, symmetry, and health preferences show significant overall effects of cycle phase. They interpret this as evidence that reports of cyclic shifts in mate preferences are artifacts of publication bias. I will first discuss why these conclusions do not necessarily follow straightforwardly from their results. I will then discuss their findings for health preferences specifically, concluding that their dismissal of a significant overall effect of cycle phase (...) is unreasonable. (shrink)

For all their various disagreements, one point upon which rights theorists often agree is that it is simply part of the nature of rights that they tend to override, outweigh or exclude competing considerations in moral reasoning, that they have ‘peremptory force’, making ‘powerful demands’ that can only be overridden in ‘exceptional circumstances’, Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016, p. 240). In this article I challenge this thought. My aim here is not to prove that the (...) traditional view of rights’ stringency is necessarily false, nor even that we have no good reason to believe it is true. Rather, my aim is only to show that we have good reason to think that the foundation of the traditional position is less stable than we might have otherwise supposed and that an alternative conception of rights—one which takes the stringency of any given right as particular to the kind of right it is—is both viable and attractive. In short, to begin to move us towards a more ‘particularist’ conception of rights’ standing in moral reasoning and judgement. (shrink)

Offers an analysis of three strongly contrasting primitive civilizations, showing how behavior is influenced by custom and tradition.