Open peer commentary on the article ““Black Box” Theatre: Second-Order Cybernetics and Naturalism in Rehearsal and Performance” by Tom Scholte. Upshot: Scholte’s approach to theater as a black box to be probed indicates that the vocabulary of second-order cybernetics provides an analytical repertoire adequate to the complexity of theatrical phenomena, from the construction of the play in rehearsal to the delivery of the play in performance. While it was hard to discern the precise details in some of Scholte’s experimental protocols, (...) we found his larger discussion to be provocative and effective in mapping the recursivities of theatrical processes. (shrink)

Within the criminal justice system, one of the most prominent justifications for legal punishment is retributivism. The retributive justification of legal punishment maintains that wrongdoers are morally responsible for their actions and deserve to be punished in proportion to their wrongdoing. This book argues against retributivism and develops a viable alternative that is both ethically defensible and practical. Introducing six distinct reasons for rejecting retributivism, Gregg D. Caruso contends that it is unclear that agents possess the kind of free will (...) and moral responsibility needed to justify this view of punishment. While a number of alternatives to retributivism exist - including consequentialist deterrence, educational, and communicative theories - they have ethical problems of their own. Moving beyond existing theories, Caruso presents a new non-retributive approach called the public health-quarantine model. In stark contrast to retributivism, the public health-quarantine model provides a more human, holistic, and effective approach to dealing with criminal behavior. (shrink)

Some thinkers argue that our best scientific theories about the world prove that free will is an illusion. Others disagree. The concept of free will is profoundly important to our self-understanding, our interpersonal relationships, and our moral and legal practices. If it turns out that no one is ever free and morally responsible, what would that mean for society, morality, meaning, and the law? Just Deserts brings together two philosophers – Daniel C. Dennett and Gregg D. Caruso – to debate (...) their respective views on free will, moral responsibility, and legal punishment. In three extended conversations, Dennett and Caruso present their arguments for and against the existence of free will and debate their implications. Dennett argues that the kind of free will required for moral responsibility is compatible with determinism – for him, self-control is key; we are not responsible for becoming responsible, but are responsible for staying responsible, for keeping would-be puppeteers at bay. Caruso takes the opposite view, arguing that who we are and what we do is ultimately the result of factors beyond our control, and because of this we are never morally responsible for our actions in the sense that would make us truly deserving of blame and praise, punishment and reward. These two leading thinkers introduce the concepts central to the debate about free will and moral responsibility by way of an entertaining, rigorous and sometimes heated philosophical dialogue. What emerges is a clear account of the latest thinking on free will, and what is at stake for our moral and legal practices. (shrink)

We thank the commentators for their thoughtful responses to our article.1 Due to space constraints, we will confine our discussion to just three key issues. The first issue relates to the central ethical conundrum for clinicians working with young people like Phoenix: namely, how to respect, value and defer to a person’s own account of their identity and what is needed for their well-being, while staying open to the possibility that such an account may reflect a work in progress. This (...) conundrum thus relates both to what will be beneficial for that person and what constitutes respecting their autonomy, and clinicians must dwell on these questions when deciding what forms of medical intervention to offer. D’Angelo,2 Lemma3 and Wren4 highlight the importance of considering Phoenix as a ‘whole person in context’ 2 prior to initiating treatment or care. In this way, they advocate for a process of ‘therapeutic exploration’,4 which includes taking sufficient time to explore Phoenix’s personhood with them so as to support them in achieving an ‘authentic self-discovery’.2 We agree with these authors that identity development is a complex, life-long process that is influenced by biological, psychosocial and relational aspects, all of which may contribute to an individual’s desire to pursue gender-affirming interventions. To explore the various factors—both conscious and unconscious—that might be motivating Phoenix’s decision to pursue ongoing puberty suppression, D’Angelo,2 Lemma3 and Wren4 describe a comprehensive psychological approach to working with transgender and gender diverse individuals and propose questions to guide such discussions. Consistent with this approach, we stipulated that Phoenix had undergone regular psychological counselling and that the psychologist had judged that ‘Phoenix’s distress is significant and enduring…not a symptom …. (shrink)

What model of knowledge does Plato's Socrates use? In this book, Nicholas D. Smith argues that it is akin to knowledge of a craft which is acquired by degrees, rather than straightforward knowledge of facts. He contends that a failure to recognize and identify this model, and attempts to ground ethical success in contemporary accounts of propositional or informational knowledge, have led to distortions of Socrates' philosophical mission to improve himself and others in the domain of practical ethics. He shows (...) that the model of craft-knowledge makes sense of a number of issues scholars have struggled to understand, and makes a case for attributing to Socrates a very sophisticated and plausible view of the improvability of the human condition. (shrink)

Metaphysicians of various stripes claim that a single object can have more than one exact location in space or time – e.g. endurantists claim that an object persists by being ‘all there’ at different moments in time. Antony Eagle has developed a formal theory of location which is prima facie consistent with multi-location, but Damiano Costa and Claudio Calosi argue that the theory is unattractive to multi-location theorists on other grounds. I examine their charge that Eagle’s theory won’t allow an (...) endurantist to account for certain cases of mereological change. I argue that the charge sticks, but not for the reasons Costa and Calosi think. Along the way, I explore an issue which is underexplored in their paper, namely, how an endurantist might modify Eagle’s theory to incorporate a parthood relation which obtains, not absolutely, but only relative to times. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Using Canada as a case study, this article argues that regulating biotechnology and nanotechnology is made unnecessarily complex and inherently unstable because of a failure to consult the public early and of-ten enough. Furthermore, it is argued that future regulators (and promoters) of nanotechnology may learn valuable lessons from the mistakes made in regulating biotechnology.

Seventeenth-century “chance combinatorics” was a self-contained theory. It had an objective notion of chance derived from physical devices with chance properties, such as casts of dice, combinatorics to count chances and, to interpret their significance, a rule for converting these counts into fair wagers. It lacked a notion of chance as a measure of belief, a precise way to connect chance counts with frequencies and a way to compare chances across different games. These omissions were not needed for the theory’s (...) interpretation of chance counts: determining which are fair wagers. The theory provided a model for how indefinitenesses could be treated with mathematical precision in a special case and stimulated efforts to seek a broader theory. (shrink)

In this global introduction to philosophy of religion you begin not with a single tradition, but with religious philosophies from East Asia, South Asia, West Africa, and Native North America, alongside the classical Abrahamic and modern European traditions. Matching this diversity of traditions, chapters are organized around questions that acknowledge there is no single understanding of any god or ultimate reality. Instead you approach six different traditions of philosophizing about religion by asking questions about the journeys of both the self (...) and the cosmos such as "What is my path?" and "Where did the cosmos come from?" Accompanied by introductory materials and an extensive glossary, each chapter includes learning objectives, questions for discussion, and suggested primary and secondary sources. The categories of religion and philosophy are interrogated throughout. Equipped with study tools and universal questions about the self and the cosmos, Philosophies of Religion: A Global and Critical Introduction shows you how to philosophize about religions around the world. (shrink)

Boundary extension is a memory phenomenon in which an individual reports seeing more of a scene than they actually did. We provide the first examination of boundary extension in individuals diagnosed with depression, hypothesising that an overemphasis on pre-existing schema may enhance boundary extension effects on emotional photographs. The relationship between boundary extension and overgeneralisation in autobiographical memory was also explored. Individuals with (n = 42) and without (n = 41) Major Depressive Disorder completed a camera paradigm task utilising positive, (...) negative, and neutral stimuli. Across all participants, positive (d = 0.37) and negative (d = 0.66) stimuli were extended more than neutral stimuli. This effect did not differ between depressed and never-depressed participants. Across all participants, images containing objects were extended more than images containing faces. An association was also evident between extension effects in memory for perceptual space and extensions of autobiographical memory across time. (shrink)

Classifying different meditation techniques is essential for the progress of meditation research, as this will enable discerning which effects are associated with which techniques, in addition to supporting the development of increasingly effective and efficient meditation-based training programs and clinical interventions. However, both the task of defining meditation itself, as well as defining specific techniques, faces many fundamental challenges. Here we describe problems involved in this endeavor and suggest an integrated model for defining meditation. For classifying different meditation techniques, we (...) draw on classical, contemporary, and holistic systems of classification. We analyze different techniques and propose that all meditation techniques are based on a specific set of activities, that is: focusing, releasing, imagining, and moving in relation to an object of meditation, including fields of experience. Meditative activities can be combined and unified in the activities of observing, producing, and being aware. All meditative activities are unified in awareness of awareness. Defining specific meditation techniques may be done by specifying which activities and objects are involved. The advantage of our approach is that it can potentially account for the inner workings of all current systems of classification and hence it lays the foundation for formulating an overarching system of meditation that can guide future research and practice. (shrink)

Both Jago, in his 2020 article ‘A short argument for truthmaker maximalism’ and his 2021 article ‘Which Fitch?’, and Loss in his 2021 article ‘There are no fundamental facts’, employ arguments similar to that familiar from the Church–Fitch Paradox to infer some substantial metaphysical claims from their mere logical possibility. Trueman in his 2022 article ‘Truthmaking, grounding and Fitch’s paradox’ and Nyseth in his 2022 article ‘Fitch’s paradox and truthmaking’ respond by using exactly the same kind of argument to prove (...) contrary theses. Intended as bad company objections, these counterarguments cast doubt on the original arguments, but do not actually identify their flaw. This paper aims to fill this gap. (shrink)

It is well known that the unpredictable speech production brought on by stress from the task at hand has a significant negative impact on the performance of speech processing algorithms. Speech therapy benefits from being able to detect stress in speech. Speech processing performance suffers noticeably when perceptually produced stress causes variations in speech production. Using the acoustic speech signal to objectively characterize speaker stress is one method for assessing production variances brought on by stress. Real-world complexity and ambiguity make (...) it difficult for decision-makers to express their conclusions with clarity in their speech. In particular, the Neutrosophic speech algorithm is used to encode the language variables because they cannot be computed directly. Neutrosophic sets are used to manage indeterminacy in a practical situation. Existing algorithms are used except for stress on Neutrosophic speech recognition. The creation of algorithms that calculate, categorize, or differentiate between different stress circumstances. Understanding stress and developing strategies to combat its effects on speech recognition and human-computer interaction system are the goals of this recognition. (shrink)

Moses Mendelssohn was the leading Jewish thinker of the German Enlightenment and the founder of modern Jewish philosophy. His writings, especially his attempt during the Pantheism Controversy to defend the philosophical legacies of Spinoza and Leibniz against F. H. Jacobi’s philosophy of faith, captured the attention of a young Leo Strauss and played a critical role in the development of his thought on one of the fundamental themes of his life’s work: the conflicting demands of reason and revelation. _ Leo (...) Strauss on Moses Mendelssohn_ is a superbly annotated translation of ten introductions written by Strauss to a multi-volume critical edition of Mendelssohn’s work. Commissioned in Weimar Germany in the 1920s, the project was suppressed and nearly destroyed during Nazi rule and was not revived until the 1960s. In addition to Strauss’s introductions, Martin D. Yaffe has translated Strauss’s editorial remarks on each of the passages he annotates in Mendelssohn’s texts and brings those together with the introductions themselves. Yaffe has also contributed an extensive interpretive essay that both analyzes the introductions on their own terms and discusses what Strauss writes elsewhere about the broader themes broached in his Mendelssohn studies. Strauss’s critique of Mendelssohn represents one of the largest bodies of work by the young Strauss on a single thinker to be made available in English. It illuminates not only a formerly obscure phase in the emergence of his thought but also a critical moment in the history of the German Enlightenment. (shrink)

The genetically-modified-organism (GMO) experience has been prominent in motivating science, industry, and regulatory communities to address the social and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. However, there are some significant problems with the GMO-nanotech analogy. First, it overstates the likelihood of a GMO-like backlash against nanotechnology. Second, it invites misconceptions about the reasons for public engagement and social and ethical issues research as well as their appropriate roles in nanotech research, development, application, commercialization, and regulatory processes. After an explication of the standard (...) GMO-Nanotech analogy, these two problems are discussed in turn. (shrink)

Dominic Wilkinson suggests that one of Schubert’s songs has relevance for neonatologists today. In the song, Schubert suggests that death sometimes comes as a friend. Wilkinson ponders whether the song has a message for doctors and parents, who sometimes struggle to figure out whether death is an enemy or a friend to a dying baby. Wilkinson reflects on the case of baby ‘Hal’, who was born with serious cardiomyopathy. Hal’s parents and doctors disagree about whether to withdraw life-support. Through his (...) recreations of their discussions, Wilkinson shows how hard it is to confront—and maybe even welcome—death for a child. While adults often frame their own decision to forego life-sustaining treatment with thoughts that they have lived a good life, death in childhood can seem unfair because it robs the child of their opportunity to live a good or completed life. Much as we try, we cannot really imagine what a critically ill neonate experiences or desires. We have very little insight into Hal’s interests or subjective experience. Without direct access to the child’s experience, it is impossible to know whether, like an adult, a child would choose to allow death to occur. We cannot verify the claim that the child’s death was good in the sense that it was good for them. Wilkinson proposes that a prolonged dying process …. (shrink)

Socially responsible publishers, such as the BMJ Publishing Group, have demonstrated a commitment to health equity and working towards rectifying the structural racism that exists both in healthcare and in medical publishing.1 The commitment of academic publishers to collecting information relevant to promoting equity and diversity is important and commendable where it leads to that result.2 However, collecting sensitive demographic data is not a morally neutral activity. Rather, it carries with it both known and potential risks. Among these are issues (...) around privacy or data misuse, as well as more basic concerns about how, when or why people should be categorised in certain ways and/or prompted to conceive of themselves or their identities in certain terms.3 If such data are to be collected, therefore, their effectiveness in achieving the stated ends must have a sufficiently compelling evidence base so as to justify the various risks involved. And where possible, these risks must also be identified and minimised. As Varcoe et al 4 argue, > While most leaders and healthcare workers and some patients [in their study] envisioned potential benefits associated with having ethnicity data, these benefits were seen as largely contingent upon action being taken to [actually] ameliorate inequities. Overwhelmingly, however, leaders from ethno-cultural communities and patients of diverse identities anticipated potential harm arising both from having ethnicity data and the process of collection. The analysis illustrates that in today’s sociopolitical context, collecting ethnicity data in clinical contexts may engender considerable harm, particularly for racialized, vulnerable patients. (p1569) Varcoe et al refer to ‘ethnicity’ data, which as they note is an ambiguous concept, potentially encompassing such diverse notions as ancestry, language, religion or culture. It is also a term that is in some contexts—for example, the USA—often used interchangeably with a different, more highly charged term: ‘race’. Data …. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes on Psychodramatic Treatment of a Person with SchizophreniaJonathan D. Moreno, PhD (bio)I have enjoyed reflecting on Mr. Chapy’s account of work in psychodrama with a patient with schizophrenia.Although at one time many years ago I was interested in phenomenological psychiatry, and especially the writings of Ludwig Binswanger and Medard Boss, I am not an authority on dasein-analysis, so I have nothing to add to the discussion. I should (...) say, however, that my father had little interest in this approach, which was far too abstract for his taste. He proceeded from the standpoint of the theater, of action and enactment. He believed that the drama itself provided the insight.For the purposes of this response, I take it as a given that the patient in question has been accurately diagnosed, although in the description of the scene with his father he does not exhibit the usual symptoms, such as auditory hallucinations. People with schizophrenia often find it difficult to manage the voices they are hearing without substantial preparation for a psychodrama. According to psychodramatic method, one way to prepare them is to externalize the voices, allowing a different therapist to take the role of each one as the protagonist instructs them how to play that role. Chair may be set up so that each “voice,” personified by an auxiliary ego, can sit in each chair in an array. This preparation may require a number of sessions. If the scene is to be enacted with a significant other, like the father in this instance, the patient may not be able to warm up to a direct encounter, especially with all the different voices competing for his internal attention. So he may be directed to observe each voice in the encounter with his father, preferably played by a therapist of his choosing and trained for the role, usually by giving the father-player certain lines so that they can learn something about the father and the way he addresses his son.Or consider the patient whose illness manifests itself as delusions, often of a megalomaniac character. They may be a messiah, for example, or the rightful heir of a royal line whose identity is being suppressed by governmental forces. The patient might be invited to choose key therapists to play the roles of key members of their circle, [End Page 225] enacting critical scenes like the sermon on the mount or speeches to their oppressed followers. In this way the patient’s “act hunger” may be to some degree satiated and have a calming effect on their anxiety and irritation with the frustrating world around them that refuses to accept their “authentic” identity and belief system.In these ways, psychodrama therapy can take advantage of one of the remarkable advantages of this method for such patients, who are generally recalcitrant to talk therapy alone and for whom medication is at best modestly effective. Still, these disorders are among the most challenging for psychotherapists. Although the process of treating them may open up insights into the nature of the human mind, as Chapy has pursued in this paper, we await the neuroscience that can affect the kind of long-term remission they and their families so desperately wish. [End Page 226]Jonathan D. MorenoUniversity of Pennsylvania [email protected] D. Moreno Jonathan D. Moreno is a philosopher and historian who specializes in the intersection of bioethics, culture, science, and national security, and has published seminal works on the history, sociology and politics of biology and medicine. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.submitted on January 27, 2023Accepted on January 30, 2023Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Public reason liberalism demands that political decisions be publicly justified to the citizens who are subjected to them. Much recent literature emphasises the differences between the two main interpretations of this requirement, justificatory and political liberalism. In this paper, I show that both views share structural democratic deficits. They fail to guarantee political autonomy, the expressive quality of law, and the justification to citizens, because they allow collective decisions made by incompletely theorised agreements. I argue that the result can only (...) be avoided by changing public reason’s role in collective decision-making. Instead of incompletely theorised agreements, we should demand agreement both on the public reasons themselves and on the other premises that justify political decisions. In this way, it is always possible to point to a procedure-independent reason that justifies democratic decisions, and the reasoning of the state is public and contestable. Finally, I explain how this, in turn, implies that only political liberalism can be rescued—by accepting what I will call strong political liberalism. Modifying justificatory liberalism in the necessary way will inevitably open the door to an objectionable form of perfectionism. (shrink)

Levinas's account of responsibility challenges dominant notions of time, autonomy, and subjectivity according to Cynthia D. Coe. Employing the concept of trauma in Levinas's late writings, Coe draws together his understanding of time and his claim that responsibility is an obligation to the other that cannot be anticipated or warded off. Tracing the broad significance of these ideas, Coe shows how Levinas revises our notions of moral agency, knowledge, and embodiment. Her focus on time brings a new interpretive lens to (...) Levinas's work and reflects on a wider discussion of the fragmentation of human experience as an ethical subject. Coe's understanding of trauma and time offers a new appreciation of how Levinas can inform debates about gender, race, mortality, and animality. (shrink)

What makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is, I argue, commonly misrepresented in teaching within much of the philosophical academy. Yet those immersed in the field of natural law and ethics rarely give definitions/brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical. I suggest theoretical reasons for the lack. I argue that bringing natural law into ethics is best understood as leading to theoretically unitary accounts, not simply collections of positions detachable from each other: an overlooked and significant point (...) when defending natural law ethical accounts. My arguments throughout rely on the metaethical/normative ethical distinction, which is relatively little used in the natural law literature. I argue that the distinction helps clarify what is distinctive of natural law ethical accounts in general, especially to the secular contemporary philosophical academy, where appreciation of natural law ethical accounts is commonly appreciably lower than in philosophical contexts with a religious ethos. (shrink)

This volume is the first full-length attempt from within the fields of theological and biblical studies to grapple with "the turn to the animal" currently underway in the humanities, a turn catalyzed in part by the animality theory that has issued from such thinkers as Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway.

Ethical Practice in the Human Services by Richard D. Parsons and Karen L. Dickinson moves beyond addressing ethical issues and principles to helping readers actually practice ethical behavior through awareness of their personal morals, values, and choices. With coverage of ethical standards from six different associations, the text addresses ethical issues and principles in social work, counseling, psychology, and marriage and family therapy. Robust pedagogy includes case illustrations and guided exercises to give readers a deeper understanding of the underlying moral (...) principles and values that serve as a foundation for the various ethical codes. (shrink)

Char and colleagues provide a useful conceptual framework for the proactive identification of ethical issues arising throughout the lifecycle of machine learning applications in healthcare. Th...

This paper gives a formulation of quantum logic in the abstract algebraic setting laid out by Dunn and Hardegree (2001). On this basis, it provides a comparative analysis of viable quantum logical bivalent semantics and their classical counterparts, thereby showing that the truth-functional status of classical and quantum connectives is not as different as usually thought. Then it points out that bivalent semantics for quantum logic - compatible with realism about quantum mechanics - can be maintained, albeit at the price (...) of truth-functionality. Finally, the paper improves on Hellman (1980)'s argument that this lack of truth-functionality entails a change of meaning between classical and quantum logical connectives. (shrink)

A significant share of the U.S. federal R&D budget is devoted to large-scale, complex technological systems commonly referred to as "big science. " Over the last two decades, these systems have continued to grow in size, complexity, development time, and cost. At the same time, political changes in the United States, particularly the concern over government spending and the federal budget deficit, have made it more difficult for proponents to secure and preserve support for these programs over their lifetimes. Using (...) the U.S. space shuttle and space station programs as examples, the article shows that the political requirements for obtaining approval and funding for large and expensive research and development projects create conditions that reduce the likelihood that they will succeed technologically. The problems of technology-based projects like those of the U.S. space program are in fact deeply rooted in the American political process itself. (shrink)

Formwerdung, als Vorgang des Ausdrückens, ist eine der Natur inhärente technische Dimension - so eine These über den Zusammenhang von Technik- und Naturphilosophie. Demnach überzeugen die techniktheoretischen Überlegungen von Kapp, Deleuze/Guattari und Simondon insbesondere, weil dort Technik als ein Problem des Ausdrucks behandelt wird. Um diesen Gedanken auszuführen, spannt Katharina D. Martin einen Bogen von Lamarck über Schelling und Uexküll bis zu Deleuze. Dabei gelingt es ihr nicht nur, die vielfältigen Diskurse transdisziplinär zu vermitteln, sie führt uns auch zu einem (...) ökologischen und topologischen Denken, das in der Lage ist, die problematische Dimension der Technologisierung unserer Umwelt zu erfassen. (shrink)

First published in 1975, The Correspondence Theory of Truth examines the simplest statements of empirical fact and establishes what we can mean when we say that such statements are true. In particular, the author has considered whether any or all of beliefs, sentences, statements, or propositions are properly said to be true or false. He proceeds to examine what we mean by the term 'fact' and what possible relation between facts and beliefs could be meant by the term 'correspondence'. The (...) second part of the book is a critical survey of important contemporary accounts of truth. The author examines Tarski's semantic theory to see if it offers a satisfactory reconstruction of the essence of the traditional notion of correspondence, then J.L. Austin's recent and famous version of the correspondence theory and some criticisms of it by Professor P. E. Strawson. A final chapter summarizes the viable content of the correspondence theory and suggests what problems about truth still remain for discussion if the theory is accepted. This book will be an essential read for students and scholars of Philosophy. (shrink)

In this essay, I revisit and extend my arguments for a view of science that is pluralistic, perspectival and pragmatist. I attempt to resolve mismatches between metaphysical assumptions, epistemological desiderata, and scientific practice. I consider long-held views about unity of science and reductionism, emergent properties and physicalism, exceptionless necessity in explanatory laws, and in the justification for realism. My solutions appeal to the partiality of representation, the perspectivism of theories and data, and the interactive co-construction of warranted claims for realism.

This paper raises three critical arguments against Deveaux’s work in Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements. Firstly, the paper argues that a clear-cut definition as to what constitutes a legitimate poor-led social movement particularly its political goals and the means it is allowed to employ to achieve its objective is necessary. Secondly, the paper argues that the theory of recognition and its potential relevance for poor-led activism could have been presented in its strongest terms instead of giving it a reduced (...) treatment. And thirdly, contrary to Deveaux’s apparent over optimism about the poor as agents of global justice, there may be good reasons to be more ‘realistic’ about this position. (shrink)

A l'occasion du cinquantenaire de la mort de Gaston Berger (1896-1960), la Chaire Humanisme, Citoyenneté, Civilisations de l'université catholique de Lyon a pris l'initiative d'organiser deux journées d'études pour commémorer l'oeuvre de ce philosophe audacieux et atypique, fondateur d'institutions et de revues, chef d'entreprise et homme d'action. Ces journées ont permis d'étudier les modalités sous lesquelles Gaston Berger a envisagé les liens entre philosophie et sciences humaines, qu'il n'a eu de cesse de faire dialoguer. Sa trajectoire intellectuelle originale a été (...) interrogée, depuis la tradition blondélienne de la philosophie de l'action et la phénoménologie, jusqu'au "tournant pragmatique" qu'il opère avec l'idée de la prospective. Associant des chercheurs issus de différentes institutions, mais héritières à divers titres de l'oeuvre de Gaston Berger, elles ont montré comment le cheminement intellectuel de Berger a influencé ses orientations et ses décisions d'homme d'action, et comment en retour son expérience d'homme de terrain a nourri et alimenté sa réflexion philosophique, psychologique et sociologique. (shrink)

Dans l’aube qui succéda à l’éruption du 26 octobre 2010, Bu Pujo succomba à ses brûlures. À cette nouvelle, le volcan disparut. Il ne restait plus, au nord, qu’un écran de nuages figés dans l’épouvante. Cela faisait un grand vide, un immense courant d’air froid dans lequel la montagne de feu avait été emportée. Au petit matin, le Merapi avait disparu parce que celle qui le portait était morte. Oui, Bu Pujo portait le volcan comme ces lourds paniers d’offrandes qu’elle (...) chargeait sur son dos le jour de la procession. Elle en portait la responsabilité, comme son propre enfant, avec ses prodiges et ses tares. Voilà pourquoi Bu Pujo avait l’air d’une géante. (shrink)

Jules Janssens a construit une œuvre importante, qui, pour de nombreux chercheurs, a ouvert des perspectives de recherches nouvelles et fécondes. Ses travaux ont fait date. Ils portent principalement sur la philosophie d'Avicenne, ses sources, ses rapports avec la pensée musulmane, son influence sur la théologie ash'arite (al-Ghazālī, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī) et sa réception dans le monde latin. Pour lui rendre hommage, quatorze collègues et amis de renommée internationale se sont réunis pour poursuivre ses réflexions sur ces thèmes. L'ouvrage qui (...) en est issu offre un état des lieux de la recherche contemporaine sur Avicenne et sa postérité arabo-latine. (shrink)