This essay explores the possible justification that liberal perfectionism may provide to an epistocratic regime. I suggest that epistocratic mechanisms and rules can maintain and improve epistemic autonomy, which itself contributes to the form of personal autonomy to which perfectionists grant a moral priority. Though not decisive, I claim that the Perfectionist Argument for Epistocracy partially justifies epistocracy. Because this argument is developed in the context of liberal social forms, this indicates the conceptual possibility of liberal epistocracy.

This paper pursues a naturalist endeavor in social ontology by arguing that the Beliefs-Rules-Equilibrium account of institutions can help to advance the debate over the nature of social kinds. This account of institutions emerges from a growing number of works in economics that use game theory to study the role and the functioning of institutions in human societies. I intend to show how recent developments in the economic analysis of rules and institutions can help solve issues that are generally considered (...) constitutive of any ontological inquiry. I argue that the Beliefs-Rules-Equilibrium account of institutions can contribute to advancing the debate on an issue of particular importance, regarding the specific form of dependence characterizing the relation between institutions and individuals’ attitudes about them. I tackle this issue by taking Francesco Guala's claims about the nature of institutions made in his book “Understanding Institutions” as a point of departure. In particular, I reject Guala’s functionalism about institutions. On the basis of the Beliefs-Rules-Equilibrium account, I claim that it is futile to search for constitutive features of general institutions (money, property rights, family…) and that the best we can have is a knowledge of what are the rules within a specific institution, which the agents consider to be essential in their institutional practice. (shrink)

S.J. Cyril Barrett; VI—Concepts and Concept Formation, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 63, Issue 1, 1 June 1963, Pages 127–144, https://doi.org/.

The aim of this article is to argue that Marcel’s idea of freedom as participation in being is what constitutes authentic freedom and existence. A “pessimistic” existentialist, Sartre conceives of authentic freedom and existence or life as making free choices and committing oneself to one’s chosen mode of life and taking responsibility for it. However, this stand of absolute freedom of choice, irrespective of the morality and nature of one’ actions with regard to human essence and ontological status as finite (...) and potential being in need of plenitude, could lead to the loss of sense of being and the proliferation of evil in a society. This is because one might freely choose to indulge in an act that negates the essence of humanity and engenders self-destruction as well as the destruction of others, since, for the “pessimistic” existentialist, one only has to be committed to it and accept its accompanying responsibility to qualify as authentic freedom and existence. I will argue that Marcel’s conception of freedom as participation in being leads to an individual’s awareness of their ontological status as a finite being and that their finitude imposes a limitation on their hold on being and generates some self-trepidation that they might lose their sense of being, and consequently propels them to engage in those acts that are consistent and compatible with their essence and are geared towards self-realisation. I will conclude that genuine freedom and authentic life lie in participation in being. (shrink)

:Most game-theoretic accounts of institutions reduce institutions to behavioural patterns the players are incentivized to implement. An alternative account linking institutions to rule-following behaviour in a game-theoretic framework is developed on the basis of David Lewis’s and Ludwig Wittgenstein's respective accounts of conventions and language games. Institutions are formalized as epistemic games where the players share some forms of practical reasoning. An institution is a rule-governed game satisfying three conditions: common understanding, minimal awareness and minimal practical rationality. Common understanding has (...) a strong similarity with Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of lebensform while minimal awareness and minimal practical rationality capture the idea that rule-following is community-based. (shrink)

This article presents a community-based account of salience as an alternative and a complement to the ‘natural salience’ approach which is endorsed by almost all game theorists who use this concept. While in the naturalistic approach, salience is understood as an objective and natural property of some entities, the community-based account claims that salience is a function of community membership. Building on David Lewis’s theory of common knowledge and on some of its recent refined accounts, I suggest that salience acts (...) as a correlating device in a correlated equilibrium. What is constitutive of salience is common understanding, the fact that agents have common knowledge that they share the same modes of reasoning with respect to a well-identified set of events. I argue that the basis for common understanding is community membership. The relevance of this account stems from the fact that it answers the objection that salience is either unnecessary or unable to account for coordination between rational agents. (shrink)

Was ist Intuition? Gibt es intuitive Erkenntnis? Intuition beschäftigt Philosophie, Psychologie und Alltagsdenken. Einschätzungen reichen dabei von "höchste Erkenntnisart" bis "höchst unzuverlässig." Cyrill Mamin zeichnet zentrale Bestimmungen der Intuition in Philosophie und Psychologie nach. Wesentliche Fragen sind dabei: Wie ist es, eine Intuition zu haben? Wie kommt eine Intuition zustande? Auf dieser Grundlage bestimmt Mamin Intuition als massgeblich nicht-propositionale Erkenntnisart, welche unsere intuitiven Überzeugungen rechtfertigen kann. Im Zentrum steht ein neuartiges Modell der intuitiven Rechtfertigung, das psychologische mit erkenntnistheoretischen Elementen verbindet. (...) Dadurch lässt sich Intuition im Verhältnis zu anderen mentalen Akten (u.a. Wahrnehmung, Imagination, Delusion) näher bestimmen sowie ein kritischer Blick auf die philosophische Intuitionsdebatte werfen. (shrink)

La place centrale que la récompense occupe dans le discours pastoral de Jean Chrysostome s’explique aussi bien par sa volonté de prendre en compte les motivations humaines des fidèles que par sa recherche constante de l’« utile » et par sa fidélité à l’Écriture elle-même. Pour rendre compte de la nature du lien entre la récompense et ce qui la motive, Chrysostome n’hésite pas à recourir à des analogies empruntées au langage commercial ou juridique, mais c’est pour faire d’autant mieux (...) ressortir, par contraste, la supériorité radicale de la récompense divine. Ce sont la patience dans la souffrance, et plus encore l’amour pour nos ennemis qui nous valent les récompenses les plus hautes. Dès ici-bas, de premières récompenses nous sont accordées, mais c’est dans l’au-delà que sont obtenus les gains à la fois les plus véritables et les plus indicibles. (shrink)

This article engages in a dialogue between the African philosophy of Ubuntu (humanity bound up in the other) and the Korean philosophy of Samae (love bound up in the other) to advocate for the emergence of a philosophy of agapeic humanism. Some structures (laws, standards, conventions, protocol and institutions), ideologies, ethics and socio-cultural practices of indigenous African communities have particularistic, exclusive, egocentric and discriminatory strains that are in contradiction to communalism and its principles upon which the traditional African world-view is (...) claimed to be founded. For instance, in indigenous Igbo communities in Africa, double standards are applied in their treatment of in-groups and out-groups, and their religious and moral codes cannot be invoked for an offence committed by an in-group member against an outsider (an out-group member), thus making such ethics and practices trans-communally/racially inapplicable and therefore non-universalisable. The article employs analytical, critical and comparative fusion methods to approach particularism in traditional Africa communities. While the analytical method facilitates the theorisation of Ubuntu and Samae, the critical approach critiques prevailing, narrowly defined conceptions of humanism prevalent among the Igbo people of Nigeria. Through the method of comparative fusion, the article integrates elements of Ubuntu and Samae to propose the concept of agapeic humanism. It concludes that the interchange between African and Asian philosophies holds the promise of transcending particularistic limitations within the current humanistic paradigm, thereby fostering new perspectives on shared humanity rooted in practical agape love. (shrink)

L’ouvrage dirigé par Philippe Régnier regroupe une série de 12 études sur le saint-simonisme, auxquelles sont adjoints deux documents inédits, des photographies de Charles Lambert Bey, Louis Jourdan, Maxime DuCamp et Prosper Enfantin et un brouillon de Dominique Tajan-Rogé, portant un regard critique sur son expérience saint-simonienne. Une bibliographie du saint-simonisme de 1984 à 2001 réalisée par Philippe Régnier prolonge celle qu’il avait établie de 1965 à 1984 dans le dernier travail co..

An introduction to the ethnography and human geography of non-European peoples, this book deals with the economic and social life of a number of groups at diverse levels of cultural achievement and in different regions of the world. International in its scope the book covers: Malaysia, Africa, North America, Canada, Siberia, the Amazon, Eastern Solomon Islands, India, Central Asia and the Middle East. Originally published in 1934. This re-issues the seventh edition of 1949.

This paper is concerned with the relationship between paradigms of explication and the practice of conceptual engineering. It defends three interrelated claims: First, the predominant functionalist attitude in the present debate on conceptual engineering is due to its roots in Carnapian explication, which identifies the explicandum with a precursor concept. Second, alternative metaphysical paradigms of explication locate the explicandum in a part of a concept-independent reality (‘field explication‘, as I will call it). Third, field explication may be a better paradigm (...) than Carnapian functionalism for certain instances of socio-political conceptual engineering. In these instances, we adjust our concepts to more adequately capture differences in our concept-independent (felt) reality. To demonstrate this, I will contrast the metaphysical to the functionalist paradigm concerning the example of Heimat. [in German]. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDeliberative and decisional groups play crucial roles in most aspects of social life. But it is not obvious how to organize these groups and various socio-cognitive mechanisms can spoil debates and decisions. In this paper we focus on one such important mechanism: the misrepresentation of views, i.e. when agents express views that are aligned with those already expressed, and which differ from their private opinions. We introduce a model to analyze the extent to which this behavioral pattern can warp deliberations (...) and distort the decisions that are finally taken. We identify types of situations in which misrepresentation can have major effects and investigate how to reduce these effects by adopting appropriate deliberative procedures. We discuss the beneficial effects of holding a sufficient number of rounds of expression of views; choosing an appropriate order of speech, typically a random one; rendering the deliberation dissenter-friendly; having agents express fined-grained views. These applicable procedures help improve deliberations because they dampen conformist behavior, give epistemic minorities more opportunities to be heard, and reduce the number of cases in which an inadequate consensus or majority develops. (shrink)

This paper evaluates how Amartya Sen’s critique of revealed preference theory stands against the latter’s contemporary, ‘neo-Samuelsonian’ version. Neo- Samuelsonians have argued that Sen’s arguments against RPT are innocuous, in particular once it is acknowledged that RPT does not assume away the existence of motivations or other latent psychological or cognitive processes. Sen’s claims that preferences and choices need to be distinguished and that external factors need to be taken into account to analyze the act of choice then appear to (...) be irrelevant. However, while it is true that contemporary revealed preference theory partially evades Sen’s critique, I show that the latter is still relevant outside the restricted areas of consumer choice and market dynamics. In particular, Sen’s views regarding the importance of incomplete preferences and the multiplicity of levels of agency can hardly be integrated into the framework of CRPT. This is a significant limit, given the imperialistic claims of some of the proponents of the latter. (shrink)

"Yin-Yang" est le nom donné en chinois au fonctionnement de tout le vivant. Cette unité changeante, ce mouvement incessant, cette danse de tout l'univers se dit en un seul mot. Or, en français comme dans toutes les langues occidentales, "Yin" et "Yang" sont deux mots. Voilà où commence le quiproquo. Avec le talent narratif et pédagogique qui a fait le succès de ses nombreux livres, Cyrille Javary nous introduit dans l'esprit chinois à travers cette clé essentielle : "Yin" n'est (...) pas plus une entité que "Yang", ils n'ont pas d'existence propre. Car l'hiver n'est pas "l'hiver", mais ce qui deviendra l'été, avant de redevenir hiver... Chacun est le futur et le passé de l'autre, sans qu'on puisse leur attribuer une substance, une quelconque fixité. S'il heurte toutes nos habitudes de pensée, ce genre d'énoncés peut nous conduire à une compréhension plus subtile du monde, et nous aider à mieux aborder les problèmes que nous rencontrons. Ainsi que l'écrit Danielle Elisseeff dans sa postface, " cet ouvrage opère une petite révolution. Tout se passe comme s'il parvenait à déplacer le curseur de nos perceptions et de nos émotions. ".. A travers mille exemples concrets, l'auteur nous entraîne dans un passionnant voyage dans le temps, jusqu'à l'aube du néolithique... (shrink)

Cette étude tente de répondre à la question de la possibilité ou plutôt du caractère intelligible de l'attribution à Dieu de la prescience de nos actes libres. Il s'agir d'un problème bien connu des historiens de la pensée, d'Aristote à Leibniz. La question "Dieu a-t-il la science des futurs actes futurs libres (plus généralement des futurs contingents)" doit être précédée par la question "la notion de Dieu comme d'un être qui a la science des actes futurs libres est-elle intelligible?" L'auteur (...) commence par étudier les raisons et enjeux d'attribuer ou de refuser à Dieu la prescience. Puis il s'attache à la conception de la liberté qui semble incompatible avec la prescience, avant de préciser l'idée d'incompatibilité de la prescience et de la liberté puis d'étudier les diverses tentatives proposées pour éviter une telle incompatibilité. (shrink)

Prevod sledi edini obstoječi kritični izdaji, ki sta jo objavila W.K. Reischl in J. Rupp, Cyrilli Hierosolymorum archiepiscopi opera quae supersunt omnia, 2 zv. (München 1848, 1860). Cirilove kateheze bodo letos izšle pri založbi Logos.

In his paper ‘Pretending’ J. L. Austin says that philosophers have exaggerated the scope and distorted the meaning of pretending, and the clarification of this notion has a place in the ‘long-term project of classifying and clarifying all possible ways and varieties of not exactly doing things , which has to be carried through if we are ever to understand properly what doing things is.’.

Les simulations donnent l’impression de ressembler aux systèmes qu’elles représentent, au point d’en être peut-être des analogues. Dans cet article, je discute d’abord les différentes notions de temps qu’il faut distinguer pour bien analyser les simulations puis je montre sur cette base que, pour être de bonnes représentations scientifiques, les simulations ne doivent pas en général ressembler du point de vue temporel aux objets qu’elles représentent.Simulations often give the impression of being similar to the systems they represent. In this paper, (...) I first show that it is necessary to distinguish between different notions of time in order to analyse simulations correctly. This enables me to argue that, in order to serve correctly their purpose as scientific representations, simulations must not in general be similar from a temporal point of view to the systems they represent. (shrink)

Computers have transformed science and help to extend the boundaries of human knowledge. However, does the validation and diffusion of results of computational inquiries and computer simulations call for a novel epistemological analysis? I discuss how the notion of novelty should be cashed out to investigate this issue meaningfully and argue that a consequentialist framework similar to the one used by Goldman to develop social epistemologySocial epistemology can be helpful at this point. I highlight computational, mathematical, representational, and social stages (...) on which the validity of simulation-based belief-generating processes hinges, and emphasize that their epistemic impact depends on the scientific practices that scientists adopt at these different stages. I further argue that epistemologists cannot ignore these partially novel issues and conclude that the epistemology of computational inquiries needs to go beyond that of models and scientific representations and has cognitive, social, and in the present case computational, dimensions. (shrink)

Introduction.--Plato.--Plato's theory of ideas; St. Thomas Aquinas.--Rationalism: Descartes and Leibniz.--Idealism. I. Berkeley.--Idealism. II. Kant and Hegel.--The philosophy of change.--Modern realism.--Ethical philosophies.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Le texte est consacré aux temporalités sociales des cuisiniers qui s’articulent autour de deux régimes horaires principaux : la « coupure » et la continuité. Il montre que la synchronisation des repas, du déjeuner et du dîner, sur des horaires concentrés sur la pause méridienne et en fin de journée, scinde les activités professionnelles en deux temps. Cependant, la réduction du temps de travail, les pressions économiques et sanitaires et les formes de rationalisation dans la restauration ont incité les professionnels (...) à repenser les organisations. Ce qui a renforcé le régime de la continuité. Le texte étudie aussi les facteurs qui favorisent l’adaptation d’un des modèles temporels et la question des disponibilités des salariés selon le régime horaire. Il étudie les arrangements qui se construisent autour de trois objets de négociation (coupure, repos, horaires atypiques) et dont les résultats dépendent des biographies des cuisiniers, des contextes d’action et des systèmes de valeurs professionnelles. (shrink)