Papers from a seminar held in Paris, Sept. 1995, organized by the International Union of Physiological Sciences and UNESCO.

Cet article aborde l'innovation sociale en insistant sur son processus délibératif, participatif et persuasif de mise en oeuvre. Plus spécifiquement, il tente de montrer le processus de formation et le rôle des réseaux d'acteurs lorsque vient le temps de diffuser un modèle innovateur et de le transférer vers d'autres milieux utilisateurs. Ce phénomène est illustré à travers des exemples d'innovations sociales québécoises qui permettent de mieux comprendre l'importance des liens pour créer de nouveaux arrangements sociaux efficaces.This article discusses social innovation (...) by emphasizing its deliberative process, persuasive and participatory implementation. More specifically, it attempts to show the process of formation and the role of networks of actors when it comes to disseminating an innovative model and transfer to other user communities. This is illustrated through examples of social innovations Quebec to better understand the importance of relationships to create new social arrangements effective. (shrink)

In the present study, we combined first-, second-, and third-person levels of analysis to explore the feeling of being and acting together in the context of collaborative artistic performance. Following participation in an international competition held in Czech Republic in 2018, a team of ten artistic swimmers took part in the study. First, a self-assessment instrument was administered to rate the different aspects of togetherness emerging from their collective activity; second, interviews based on video recordings of their performance were conducted (...) individually with all team members; and third, the performance was evaluated by external artistic swimming experts. By combining these levels of analysis in different ways, we explore how changes in togetherness and lived experience in individual behavior may shape, disrupt, and stabilize joint performance. Our findings suggest that the experience of being and acting together is transient and changing, often alternating phases of decrease and increase in felt togetherness that can be consistently recognized by swimmers and external raters. (shrink)

Using an enactive approach to trail runners’ activity, this study sought to identify and characterize runners’ phenomenological gestalts, which are forms of experience that synthesize the heterogeneous sensorimotor, cognitive and emotional information that emerges in race situations. By an in-depth examination of their meaningful experiences, we were able to highlight the different typologies of interactions between bodily processes (e.g., sensations, pains), behaviors (e.g., actions, strategies) and environment (e.g., meteorological conditions, route profile). Ten non-professional runners who ran an ultra-trail running race (...) (330 kilometers, 24,000 meters of elevation gain) volunteered to participate in the study. Data were collected in two steps: (1) collection of past activity traces (i.e., race maps, field notes and self-assessment scales) and (2) enactive interviews using the past activity traces in which the runners were invited to relive their experience and describe their activity. The enactive interviews were coded using the course-of-experience methodology to identify the phenomenological gestalts that emerged from activity and scaffolded the runners’ courses of experience. The results revealed that runners typically enact three phenomenological gestalts: controlling global ease, enduring general fatigue and experiencing difficult situations, and feeling freedom in the running pace. These phenomenological gestalts were made up of specific behaviors, involvements and meaningful situated elements that portrayed various ways of achieving an ultra-endurance performance in the race situation. They also highlighted how runners enact a meaningful world by acting in relation to the fluctuations in physical sensations and environmental conditions during an ultra-trail race. Practical applications for preparation, race management and sports psychology interventions are proposed to enrich the existing recommendations. In conclusion, this approach provides new research perspectives by offering a more holistic grasp of activity in trail running through an in-depth analysis of athletes’ experience. In doing so, we may expect that runners can connect these typical gestalts to their own personal experiences and stories as trail runners in order to sustain a viable approach to their sport. (shrink)

Embodied approaches to cognition conceive of mental life as emerging from the ongoing relationship between neural and extra-neural resources. The latter include, first and foremost, our entire body, but also the activity patterns enacted within a contingent milieu, cultural norms, social factors, and the features of the environment that can be used to enhance our cognitive capacities (e.g., tools, devices, etc.). Recent work in music education and sport psychology has applied general principles of embodiment to a number of social contexts (...) relevant to their respective fields. In particular, both disciplines have contributed fascinating perspectives to our understanding of how skills are acquired and developed in groups; how musicians, athletes, teachers, and coaches experience their interactions; and how empathy and social action participate in shaping effective performance. In this paper, we aim to provide additional grounding for this research by comparing and further developing original themes emerging from this cross-disciplinary literature and empirical works on how performative skills are acquired and optimized. In doing so, our discussion will focus on: (1) the feeling of being together, as meaningfully enacted in collective musical and sport events; (2) the capacity to skillfully adapt to the contextual demands arising from the social environment; and (3) the development of distributed forms of bodily memory. These categories will be discussed from the perspective of embodied cognitive science and with regard to their relevance for music education and sport psychology. It is argued that because they play a key role in the acquisition and development of relevant skills, they can offer important tools to help teachers and coaches develop novel strategies to enhance learning and foster new conceptual and practical research in the domains of music and sport. (shrink)

This study investigates how lack of perceived organizational integrity by managers negatively affects bottom-up improvement-oriented behaviors at lower hierarchical levels. It is expected that expressions of tyrannical leadership by the manager, a self-serving type of leadership, will mediate the relation between POI and job improvement behaviors. Further, this study investigates the role of mimicry of manager behaviors and of other supervisor’s responses to understand how manager tyrannical leadership effect is carried through to the lowest level. Our initial postulate is that (...) non-mimicry provides complex social cues for employees. Following social information processing theory, we expect that incoherent cues increase the salience and negative effects of managers’ tyrannical leadership on job improvement. A three-level study was conducted following a questionnaire survey in a large public safety organization. Participants included 34 managers, 129 supervisors, and 620 employees. Results of multilevel analyses revealed that lack of perceived integrity and tyrannical leadership at the managerial level have far-reaching effects on job improvement at the lowest level. Further, it indicates that the supervisors’ responses at the intermediate level are important mechanisms to understand how the negative effects from the managerial level are transmitted to the employee level. (shrink)

This article, corresponding to a part of the restitution of a financed international research project between France, Brazil, Canada, Italy and Belgium, aims to offer a modelisation and qualitative evaluation of mediation care settings based on an original methodological tool that involves identifying the typical games at the foundations of creativity, following a multidisciplinary perspective. Therapeutic mediations are settings or devices organised around a “pliable medium”, often artistic, like painting, modeling, writing, ​and theatre, which are very widespread in institutional practices, (...) both in France and abroad. The scientific objectives of this research consist in a multi-disciplinary exploration (anthropology, criminology, neuroscience, clinical psychology) of the process of creative symbolisation understood as a process of transformation involving play. According to this orientation, play can be defined as a psychic process whereby a subjective experience can be explored with pleasure, and consequently symbolised and appropriated. Our fundamental and original hypothesis is that play is at the source of the creative process, conceived as a work of metabolisation by the psyche of playful experiences during the different stages of life. The review of the understanding of play in psychoanalysis, anthropology, criminology and neuroscience emphasises the richness of this model and the importance of reflecting on the typical games in the field of psychic care. A clinical example of treatment in a pictorial therapeutic mediation setting of a child with psychotic disorders makes it possible to identify a number of typical games as well as the modalities of interpretation of the therapists through play. These multidisciplinary studies lead to the presentation of a general table of typical games, and these first results highlight the richness of identifying typical games in clinical settings. Ultimately, the multidisciplinary approach shows the interest of the model of play in the evaluation of therapeutic mediation settings, with a convergence of the different disciplines emphasising the pertinence of this model. The scientific impact of this research overlaps with its societal impact, through the development of innovative tools for evaluating therapeutic mediations, in order to take account of the evolution of the different forms of social expression of psychic suffering. (shrink)

Terrorist attacks throughout the world and particularly within the United States have given rise to a new chapter in the ongoing debate over liberty versus security. The most recent manifestation of this dispute focuses on whether Muslim refugees can be denied entry as a class into the United States, based on their religion alone, for fear they might be harboring potential terrorists. This Essay shows that such a policy cannot be justified under the First Amendment Establishment Clause, as well the (...) United States’ expressed international commitments to preserving international human rights. What can be done is to engage a broader set of investigative approaches that are more likely to provide greater security than any policy focused on religion alone. (shrink)

This article attempts a re-configuration of silence, suicidal identity deconstruction and the politics of anti-racism. I will explore the potential of dismantling whiteness by way of a silence that involves the refusal to claim whiteness, a whiteness that, in effect, denies humanity to ‘others’. Such silences are insubordinate, as they challenge the hegemony of a racialized polity, attempting to resist its privileges, as well as its destructive and restrictive consequences.

L'article analyse la compréhension biranienne de la volonté chez Descartes. Pour Biran, Descartes aurait confondu le désir et la volonté, c'est-à-dire la passivité et l'activité. L'article examine au préalable la lecture biranienne des conceptions condilla-cienne et malebranchienne de la volonté. L'occasionnalisme est critiqué par Biran au motif qu'il en viendrait à méconnaître l'évidence de sentiment qui est celle de notre pouvoir sur le corps. Quant au doute cartésien, Biran soutient qu'il ne peut être véritablement soutenu compte tenu de notre incarnation. (...) Il souligne par ailleurs que la conception cartésienne du choix nous éloigne d'une véritable saisie de la volonté, en raison de la passité de l'intellect cartésien. Pour Biran, l'infinité de la volonté n'est en réalité que celle d'une aspiration sans limite déterminée. The item analyses Biran's understanding of the cartesian concept of will. According to him, Descartes would have mistaken desire forwill, passivity with activity. Condillac is first criticized by Biran, but Malebranche too, because through occasionalism the evidence of effort and power is denied. Concerning Descartes, Biran puts forward that cartesian doubt cannot be assumed because of embodiment. He also underlines that choice has no link with real will, because of the passivity of cartesian intellect. According to Biran, the infinity of will is, in fact, a mere boundless and vague aspiration. (shrink)

La foi pour Edith Stein est d'abord un fait; aussi loin de la neutraliser dans une sphère étrangère à la raison, elle s'est attachée à penser la relation qui les unit. L'analyse phénoménologique de l'angoisse et du don l'a conduite tout d'abord à retrouver la distinction de Denys l'Aréopagite entre la théologie positive, rattachée à la révélation, et la théologie négative, qui souligne l'incommensurabilité entre Dieu et la création. La philosophie et la foi traversent toutes deux cette distinction, la première (...) permettant une connaissance de Dieu certaine mais limitée alors que la seconde transcende ces limites mais doit être confortée dans son élan. La foi se révèle alors source d'une connaissance d'un genre particulier, qui vient compléter la raison naturelle et la guider sur son propre chemin, une connaissance spécifique qui sera dite 'obscure' car certaine mais non-évidente, au sens où nous ne pouvons connaître Dieu qu'à notre mesure. Il faut donc comprendre la foi comme une croyance, au sens d'un libre consentement de la raison, distingué de la simple opinion, liberté qui implique la possibilité de l'athéisme. (shrink)

In June 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court of the United States determined that there is a fundamental right to marriage that extends to same-sex couples. This Article analyzes the Obergefell decision in light of the Court’s 2014 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby regarding religious protections that might by analogy be afforded under state Religious Freedom Restoration Acts. In particular, the article considers whether a government official may claim the right to religious freedom to deny issuing marriage (...) licenses to same-sex couples. Additionally, the article suggests that a new standard for the separation of church and state may be required. Although the 2015 decision prevents the government from denying marriage to same-sex couples, the decision does not directly affect private businesses that choose not to provide services for same-sex weddings. It may, however, have an important indirect effect if laws are already present that prohibit sexual orientation discrimination. Therefore, the article explores possible avenues for protection from private. (shrink)

The starting point of this article is the undeniable experience of conscious willing despite its rejection by scientific research. The article starts a phenomenology of willing at the level of the phenomenon of willing itself, without assuming its embeddedness in a faculty of the soul, consciousness and so forth. After the introduction, a brief history of the philosophy of willing is provided, from which the paradoxical conclusion is drawn that, according to phenomenologists like Heidegger and his followers, the dominance of (...) the will is the main characteristic of the current age, whereas scientists deny the existence of a conscious will at all. Then, four structural moments of the phenomenon of willing are explored in contrast to traditional characterizations in order to rehabilitate and appreciate the phenomenon of willing in contemporary philosophy: the interconnectedness of the one who wills and that which is willed, the transcendence and demand character of that which is willed, the self-involvement of the one who wills and the ampliative nature of the act of willing. To this end, not only sources from the phenomenological tradition but also the affordance theory of the ecological psychologist James Gibson are critically discussed. (shrink)

Comment penser la métaphysique en protestant? Le parent pauvre de la Réforme et de la modernité méritait qu'on s'y attarde. Pour la première fois, et de manière originale et profonde, Denis Müller, expert reconnu de l'éthique, vient lui donner ses lettres de noblesse. Cette pensée exhumée par le biographe intellectuel de Calvin et de Barth se découvre alors terrestre, proche de la création et de la vie pratique ; elle anime d'un feu nouveau les notions d'existence, de raison et (...) de transcendance. Ce sont elles qui, dans cette nouvelle approche, s'en trouvent explorées, questionnées et revisitées. Avec pour paradoxale pierre angulaire, la tristesse. Quel trésor cache en effet la mélancolie? Convoquant tour à tour les figures de Vincent Van Gogh, d'Arthur Rimbaud, de James Joyce, puisant dans les productions artistiques le ressort de cette métaphysique subversive, cet ouvrage est une invitation à l'introspection pour penser l'expérience universelle de l'existence. Et s'ouvrir à son secret. Un immense traité de vie."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This article attempts a re-configuration of silence, suicidal identity deconstruction and the politics of anti-racism. I will explore the potential of dismantling whiteness by way of a silence that involves the refusal to claim whiteness, a whiteness that, in effect, denies humanity to ‘others’. Such silences are insubordinate, as they challenge the hegemony of a racialized polity, attempting to resist its privileges, as well as its destructive and restrictive consequences.

It is often assumed that chemistry was a typical positivistic science as long as chemists used atomic and molecular models as mere fictions and denied any concern with their real existence. Even when they use notions such as molecular orbitals chemists do not reify them and often claim that they are mere models or instrumental artefacts. However a glimpse on the history of chemistry in the longue durée suggests that such denials of the ontological status of chemical entities do not (...) testify for any specific allegiance of chemists to positivism. Rather it suggests that the dilemma positivism vs realism is inappropriate for characterizing the ontology of chemistry. This alternative shaped at the turn of the twentieth century in the context of controversies about atomic physics does not take into account the major concern of chemists, i.e. making up things. Only by considering what matters for chemists, their matters of concern rather than their matter theories, can we expect to get an insight on their ontological assumptions. The argumentation based on historical data is twofold. It is wellknown that generating new substances out of initial ingredients which is the raison d'être of chemistry raised a vexing puzzle which has been alternatively solved with the Aristotelian notion of mixt and the Lavoisieran notion of compound. I argue that an essential tension remains intrinsic in chemistry between the two conceptual frameworks. The second section tries to make sense of the long tradition in chemistry of ontological noncommitment. I argue that what is usually considered as a denial of the existence of the basic units of matter would be better characterized as a focus on more important actors on the chemical stage. (shrink)

In this paper, the establishment of "modern" features, as subjectivity, representation and rational, and thus a concise statement of the post-modern critique of modernity, questioned and denied, in order to outline the negative characteristics of post-modern micro. However, more importantly, this will be more committed to master the modern mark out exactly what is very different from the new vision of modernity, made ​​any new way of life and ethical principles. This claim, post-modern addition to the challenge of modernity, critical (...) and negative, but also made ​​a positive value and vision. In other words, the "postmodern" will not just be a negative concept, puts a positive concept, can provide a positive value and ethical life. Which were open to him, to him who care for him who, for his generous and selfless person, and in which the pottery into the self, will be a future source of ethical principles and values ​​of life. Moreover, the rise of art from the post-modern sense of the sublime, it will be innovative and more importantly, aesthetic value, or is linked religious, ethical and artistic value of the key. Finally, out for the post-modern dualistic thinking, while offering more serious plight of relativism, we are trying to address the use of comparative philosophy, the problem of dualism, and advocated the micro-world and multi-cultural world, the ongoing language extrapolated to take and mutual learning, as a solution to relativism, to promote mutual understanding and a wealth of positive way. (shrink)

This chapter explores the theoretical and practical aspects of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism’s ethics of generosity from a philosophical point of view. Buddhism is a religion par excellence of strangification and generosity. After an introduction, I discuss some essential sources both from Indian and Chinese Buddhism. Then I develop the idea of strangification and ethic of generosity in Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, before I arrive at some words of conclusion.On the theoretical side, I explore the ontological foundation of the ethics of generosity (...) in The Awakening of Faith. This is one of the founding texts in the history of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism that offers an ontological foundation to Buddhist generosity. It does this by the affirmation of One Mind or the Mind of All Sentient Beings as the Ultimate Reality. However, it also sets certain limits to generosity by denying difference/otherness, and sees difference/otherness as merely a delusion. On the practical side, I discuss three types of gift, namely the gift of material goods, the gift of no fear and the gift of teaching Dharma, and more interestingly, the practice of huixiang 迴向 as discussed by Huiyuan in the entry “huixiang” of his Dasheng Yizhang.Some conclusive reflections are done to consider the Chinese Buddhist ethics of generosity in relation to the post-modern ethics of generosity to many others. (shrink)

It is often assumed that chemistry was a typical positivistic science as long as chemists used atomic and molecular models as mere fictions and denied any concern with their real existence. Even when they use notions such as molecular orbitals chemists do not reify them and often claim that they are mere models or instrumental artefacts. However a glimpse on the history of chemistry in the longue durée suggests that such denials of the ontological status of chemical entities do not (...) testify for any specific allegiance of chemists to positivism. Rather it suggests that the dilemma positivism vs realism is inappropriate for characterizing the ontology of chemistry. This alternative shaped at the turn of the twentieth century in the context of controversies about atomic physics does not take into account the major concern of chemists, i.e. making up things. Only by considering what matters for chemists, their matters of concern rather than their matter theories, can we expect to get an insight on their ontological assumptions. The argumentation based on historical data is twofold. Generating new substances out of initial ingredients which is the raison d’être of chemistry raised a vexing puzzle which has been alternatively solved with the Aristotelian notion of mixt and the Lavoisieran notion of compound. I will argue that an essential tension remains intrinsic in chemistry between the two conceptual frameworks. But how are we to make sense of the long tradition of ontological non-commitment in chemistry? I argue that what is usually considered as a denial of the existence of the basic units of matter is better characterized as a focus on more important actors on the chemical stage. (shrink)

Luck egalitarians think that considerations of responsibility can excuse departures from strict equality. However critics argue that allowing responsibility to play this role has objectionably harsh consequences. Luck egalitarians usually respond either by explaining why that harshness is not excessive, or by identifying allegedly legitimate exclusions from the default responsibility-tracking rule to tone down that harshness. And in response, critics respectively deny that this harshness is not excessive, or they argue that those exclusions would be ineffective or lacking in justification. (...) Rather than taking sides, after criticizing both positions I also argue that this way of carrying on the debate – i.e. as a debate about whether the harsh demands of responsibility outweigh other considerations, and about whether exclusions to responsibility-tracking would be effective and/or justified – is deeply problematic. On my account, the demands of responsibility do not – in fact, they can not – conflict with the demands of other normative considerations, because responsibility only provides a formal structure within which those other considerations determine how people may be treated, but it does not generate its own practical demands. (shrink)

In the field of ?neurolaw?, reformists claim that recent scientific discoveries from the mind sciences have serious ramifications for how legal responsibility should be adjudicated, but conservatives deny that this is so. In contrast, I criticise both of these polar opposite positions by arguing that although scientific findings can have often-weighty normative significance, they lack the normative authority with which reformists often imbue them. After explaining why conservatives and reformists are both wrong, I then offer my own moderate suggestions about (...) what views we have reason to endorse. My moderate position reflects the familiar capacitarian idea which underlies much lay, legal, and philosophical thinking about responsibility ? namely, that responsibility tracks mental capacity. (shrink)

The present volume provides an annotated English translation of the last section of Dharmakīrti's Pramāṇavārttikasvavṛtti (PVSV 164,24-176,16, ad stanzas 1.312-340), which includes his final assault on the Mīmāṃsā doctrine of the authorlessness (apauruṣeyatva) of the Veda. Dharmakīrti draws out the apparently fatal consequences of this doctrine: If the Vedic scriptures are without an author, hence without an underlying intention, they can only be meaningless. Even if they have a meaning, it must be supersensible. But then, claiming that the leading Mīmāṃsaka (...) authorities - Jaimini, Śabara - possessed privileged cognitive access to its supersensible meaning is not an option, since the Mīmāṃsaka denies that humans have any supernatural form of knowledge. In short, Dharmakīrti forces his opponent to admit that the Veda is nothing but a mutus liber, a "mute book." Besides questioning the very possibility of Vedic hermeneutics under Mīmāṃsaka presuppositions, the passage translated contains interesting allusions to Dharmakīrti's linguistic theory, his views on scriptural authority, his critique of the Veda's reliability, and his understanding of the transmission of the Veda and Vedic śākhās ("schools", "recensions"). The section includes Dharmakīrti's polemics against a mysterious vṛddhamīmāṃsaka ("ancient Mīmāṃsaka"). An introduction (p. 7-21: "The Place of PVSV 164,24-176,16 in the work of Dharmakīrti," by V. Eltschinger), a synopsis of contents (p. 23-30) and two independent essays round off the volume. H. Krasser's "Logic in a Religious Context: Dharmakīrti in Defence of āgama" (p. 83-118) sheds new light on Dharmakīrti's conception of scriptural authority and its indebtedness to Dignāga. J. Taber's "Dharmakīrti and the Mīmāṃsakas in Conflict" (p. 119-149) explores the guiding principles of the Mīmāṃsā system of exegesis and assesses the relevance of Dharmakīrti's arguments against it. A general bibliography and various indices complete the volume."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

I develop a theodicy (Non-Identity Theodicy) that begins with the recognition that we owe our existence to great and varied evils. I develop two versions of this theodicy, with the result that some version is available to the theist regardless of her assumptions about the existence and nature of free will. My defense of Non-Identity Theodicy is aided by an analogy between divine creation and human procreation. I argue that if one af rms the morality of vol- untary human procreation, (...) one should af rm the morality of divine creation; conversely, deny- ing the morality of divine creation commits one to denying the morality of human procreation. (shrink)

This paper presents the main topics, arguments, and positions in the philosophy of AI at present (excluding ethics). Apart from the basic concepts of intelligence and computation, the main topics of ar-tificial cognition are perception, action, meaning, rational choice, free will, consciousness, and normativity. Through a better understanding of these topics, the philosophy of AI contributes to our understand-ing of the nature, prospects, and value of AI. Furthermore, these topics can be understood more deeply through the discussion of AI; so (...) we suggest that “AI Philosophy” provides a new method for philosophy. (shrink)

Theories of quantum gravity generically presuppose or predict that the reality underlying relativistic spacetimes they are describing is significantly non-spatiotemporal. On pain of empirical incoherence, approaches to quantum gravity must establish how relativistic spacetime emerges from their non-spatiotemporal structures. We argue that in order to secure this emergence, it is sufficient to establish that only those features of relativistic spacetimes functionally relevant in producing empirical evidence must be recovered. In order to complete this task, an account must be given of (...) how the more fundamental structures instantiate these functional roles. We illustrate the general idea in the context of causal set theory and loop quantum gravity, two prominent approaches to quantum gravity. (shrink)

Holism maintains that a phenomenon is more than the sum of its parts. Yet analysis--a mental process crucial to comprehension--involves dismantling the whole to grasp it piecemeal and relationally. Wading through such quandaries, Vincent Descombes guides readers to a deepened appreciation of the entity that enables understanding: the human mind.

" Façonner le monde atome par atome " : tel est l'objectif incroyablement ambitieux affiché par les promoteurs américains de la " National Nanoinitiative ", lancée en 1999. Un projet global de " convergence des sciences ", visant à " initier une nouvelle Renaissance, incorporant une conception holiste de la technologie fondée sur [..] une analyse causale du monde physique, unifiée depuis l'échelle nano jusqu'à l'échelle planétaire. " Ce projet démiurgique est aujourd'hui au coeur de ce qu'on appelle la " (...) technoscience ", étendard pour certains, repoussoir pour d'autres. En précisant dans ce livre la signification de ce concept, pour sortir enfin du sempiternel conflit entre technophiles et technophobes, son auteur propose d'abord une sorte d'archéologie du terme " technoscience ". Loin d'être un simple renversement de hiérarchie entre science et technique, il s'agit d'un changement de régime de la connaissance scientifique, ayant désormais intégré la logique entrepreneuriale du monde des affaires et mobilisant des moyens considérables. Surtout, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent montre que le brouillage de la frontière entre science et technique n'est que la manifestation d'un tremblement plus général, marqué par l'effacement progressif des distinctions traditionnelles : nature/artifice, inerte/vivant, matière/esprit, homme/machine, etc. Alors que nos sociétés sont silencieusement reconfigurées par les nanotechnologies, Internet, le génie génétique ou les OGM, ce livre montre l'importance de faire enfin pleinement entrer les questions de choix technologiques et scientifiques dans la sphère du politique et dans l'arène publique. Car la technoscience est un processus historique qui engage la nature en la refaçonnant et qui implique la société dans son ensemble. (shrink)

While it is often said that robotics should aspire to reproducible and measurable results that allow benchmarking, I argue that a focus on benchmarking can be a hindrance for progress in robotics. The reason is what I call the ‘measure-target confusion’, the confusion between a measure of progress and the target of progress. Progress on a benchmark (the measure) is not identical to scientific or technological progress (the target). In the past, several academic disciplines have been led into pursuing only (...) reproducible and measurable ‘scientific’ results – robotics should be careful to follow that line because results that can be benchmarked must be specific and context-dependent, but robotics targets whole complex systems for a broad variety of contexts. While it is extremely valuable to improve benchmarks to reduce the distance be- tween measure and target, the general problem to measure progress towards more intelligent machines (the target) will not be solved by benchmarks alone; we need a balanced approach with sophisticated benchmarks, plus real-life testing, plus qualitative judgment. (shrink)

There is, in some quarters, concern about high–level machine intelligence and superintelligent AI coming up in a few decades, bringing with it significant risks for humanity. In other quarters, these issues are ignored or considered science fiction. We wanted to clarify what the distribution of opinions actually is, what probability the best experts currently assign to high–level machine intelligence coming up within a particular time–frame, which risks they see with that development, and how fast they see these developing. We thus (...) designed a brief questionnaire and distributed it to four groups of experts in 2012/2013. The median estimate of respondents was for a one in two chance that high-level machine intelligence will be developed around 2040-2050, rising to a nine in ten chance by 2075. Experts expect that systems will move on to superintelligence in less than 30 years thereafter. They estimate the chance is about one in three that this development turns out to be ‘bad’ or ‘extremely bad’ for humanity. (shrink)

Criminal law as public law -- Criminal law as public law -- Criminal law as public law -- Mass incarceration and the theory of punishment -- Reasons to criminalize -- Formalism and pragmatism in criminal procedure -- Responsibility without resentment.

This open access monograph offers a detailed study and a systematic defense of a key intuition we typically have, as human beings, with respect to the nature of time: the intuition that the future is open, whereas the past is fixed. For example, whereas it seems unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first world war. -/- The book contributes, in particular, three major and original insights. First, it provides a coherent, (...) non-metaphorical, and metaphysically illuminating elucidation of the intuition. Second, it determines which model of the temporal structure of the world is most appropriate to accommodate the intuition, and settles on a specific version of the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT). Third, it puts forward a naturalistic foundation for GBT, by exploiting recent results of our best physics (viz. General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Gravity). Three main challenges are addressed: the dismissal of temporal asymmetries as non-fundamental phenomena only (e.g., thermodynamic or causal phenomena), the epistemic objection against GBT, and the apparent tension between GBT and relativistic physics. It is argued that the asymmetry between the open future and the fixed past must be grounded in the temporal structure of the world, and that this is neither precluded by our epistemic device, nor by the latest approaches to Quantum Gravity (​e.g., the Causal Set Theory). -/- Aiming at reconciling time as we find it in ordinary experience and time as physics describes it, this ​innovative book ​will raise the interest of both academic researchers and ​graduate students working on the philosophy of time. More generally, it ​presents contents of interest for all metaphysicians and non-dogmatic philosophers of physics. (shrink)

In this paper, I first introduce one of the most prominent objections against the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT), the so-called ‘epistemic objection’, according to which GBT provides no way of knowing that our time is the objective present and, therefore, leads at best to absolute skepticism about our temporal location, at worst to the quasi-certainty that we are located in the objective past. Secondly, I express my dissatisfaction regarding the various traditional attempts to address this objection, especially Merricks (...) (2006), Forrest (2004) and Correia and Rosenkranz (2018). Thirdly, I show that the passage of time leads to an anti-essentialist picture of natural kinds. Finally, I develop my own solution to the epistemic objection, based on the continued existence of bare particulars. (shrink)

The philosophy of AI has seen some changes, in particular: 1) AI moves away from cognitive science, and 2) the long term risks of AI now appear to be a worthy concern. In this context, the classical central concerns – such as the relation of cognition and computation, embodiment, intelligence & rationality, and information – will regain urgency.

L'identité, dans les acceptions que ce terme revêt aujourd'hui, est une véritable énigme lexicale : elle désigne tout autant l'objet de contrôles sécuritaires policiers, un retour à la religion de ses parents, que, dans un guide touristique, la spécificité en voie de disparition d'un quartier. Reprenons. «Qui suis-je?», «Qui sommes-nous?», ce sont là ce qu'on appelle précisément des «questions d'identité». Nous comprenons spontanément de quoi il retourne parce que nous disposons d'un modèle : connaître l'identité de quelqu'un, c'est savoir comment (...) il s'appelle. Toutefois, lorsque la question de l'identité est posée à la première personne, mon intention n'est pas d'apprendre quels sont mes nom, prénoms et qualité, comme si je devais passer un «contrôle d'identité». Que signifie le mot dès lors qu'il est utilisé avec le possessif («mon identité», «notre identité») et qu'il ne désigne pas l'énoncé d'un état civil? Jadis le mot voulait dire exclusivement qu'il n'y a qu'une seule et même chose là où on aurait pu penser qu'il y en avait deux. Or, depuis quelques dizaines d'années, le mot a revêtu une signification autre, à savoir qu'il y a une chose ou un être qui possèdent la vertu d'être singulièrement eux-mêmes. Ainsi, que des guerres puissent éclater pour des questions qui ne relèvent pas strictement des intérêts matériels bien compris des antagonistes, nul ne saurait s'en étonner, sinon ceux qui nourrissent une conception utilitariste étriquée de l'être humain. En revanche, pourquoi est-ce le mot «identité» qui se trouve désormais chargé de signifier l'enjeu et l'objet de tels conflits? Tel est donc le point précis soulevé par Vincent Descombes : dans tout cela, que vient faire le mot «identit黠? Et que reste-t-il du concept d'identité? (shrink)

In this article, we discuss the modularity of the emotions. In a general methodological section, we discuss the empirical basis for the postulation of modularity. Then we discuss how certain modules -- the emotions in particular -- decompose into distinct anatomical and functional parts.