Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 2, Page 263-265, June 2022.

Reproduit quatre conférences faites en 1946 et 1947 sous ce titre au Collège de philosophie, et interroge la notion de temps comme limitation même de l'être fini ou comme relation de l'être fini à Dieu (Electre).

Presupposition, vagueness, and oddness can lead to some sentences failing to have a clear truth value. The homogeneity property of plural predication with definite descriptions may also create truth-value gaps: The books are written in Dutch is true if all relevant books are in Dutch, false if none of them are, and neither true nor false if, say, half of the books are written in Dutch. We study the projection property of homogeneity by deploying methods of general interest to identify (...) truth-value gaps. Method A consists in collecting both truth judgments and, independently, falsity judgments. The second method, employed in experiment series B and C, is based on one-shot ternary judgments: completely true vs. completely false vs. neither. After a calibration of these methods, we use them to demonstrate that homogeneity projects out of negation, the scope of universal sentences and the scope of non-monotonic quantifiers such as exactly two, to some extent. We assess our results in light of different theoretical approaches to homogeneity—approaches based on presuppositions, scalar implicatures, and something like supervaluations, respectively. We identify free parameters in these theories and assess various variants of them based on our results. Our experimental paradigms may be of broader significance insofar as they can be applied to other phenomena which result in the failure of a sentence to have a definite truth value. (shrink)

Qu’est-ce qui peut venir à l’idée qui n’y soit pas déjà, en quelque façon, contenu, ou qui ne soit pas déjà à la mesure de l’idée? Ne faudrait-il pas, pour rendre pensable l’absolu – pour trouver un sens à Dieu – contester que la pensée soit coextensive à la conscience en guise d’un savoir toujours corrélatif de l’être et, dès lors, que la philosophie coïncide avec l’ontologie?Ce livre essaie de suggérer que le sens signifie non pas exclusivement sous la figure (...) de signifiants – choses, signes, mots – renvoyant à des signifiés; qu’il signifie, plus anciennement, à partir du visage humain, comme quand on dit signifier un ordre ou ordonner. Signifiance originelle du visage perçant sans cesse ses formes plastiques et représentées qui sans cesse se referme sur la voix silencieuse ou inouïe du commandement signifié! Eveil et dévotion suscités en guise d’un moi libéré de soi, libéré pour le prochain, même si l’on s’obstine à n’y trouver que représentation et conscience de soi. (shrink)

Wiredu’s call for democracy by consensus is illustrated by his description of traditional African consensual rationality. This description contains the attribution of immanence to African consensual rationality. This paper objects to this doctrine of immanence. More importantly, the doctrine of immanence has led to the attribution of pure rationality to traditional African consensual practices. With reference to Aristotle’s three components of persuasion, I object to deliberation as purely rational and impervious to extraneous factors. I further argue that it is because (...) deliberation is not always perfectly rational that the process of consensus can suffer three forms of social conformity: conformity to dominant players, to numerical opinion majority, and to group-centrism. These forms of conformity mean that a consensus task order could lead to decisions of more inclusive value, but not necessarily decisions of more epistemic value. The concept of agonistic inquiry is employed to tackle what I see as the dangers of conformity and complacency in the project of inclusivity, and this is to strike a crucial balance between too-consensual and purely adversarial forms of deliberation. (shrink)

Postcolonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader sets out a timely and powerful agenda for contemporary African, Afro-Caribbean, and African American philosophy.

The paradoxical logic of transparency and mediation Transparency is the metaphor of our time. Whether in government or corporate governance, finance, technology, health or the media – it is ubiquitous today, and there is hardly a current debate that does not call for more transparency. But what does this word actually stand for and what are the consequences for the life of individuals? Can knowledge from the arts, and its play of visibility and invisibility, tell us something about the paradoxical (...) logics of transparency and mediation? This Obscure Thing Called Transparency gathers contributions by international experts who critically assess the promises and perils of transparency today. (shrink)

Bringing together canonical philosophical texts from African, African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and Black European thinkers, this major new anthology is designed to serve both as a textbook and as the authoritative reference volume in Africana philosophical and cultural studies.

According to Wiredu, the Akan profess secular esteem rather than religious worship to supra-natural beings, who they perceive in an empirical sense. He backs this up by re-reading what he sees as the Akan general ontology in a way that denies them of the concepts of the supernatural, the transcendental, the mental, the spiritual, and an ontologically distinct mind. At the end of denying the three criteria of worship as well as all of these other concepts which might otherwise be (...) available to the Akan, one might struggle to find any evidence that the Akan even had a religion. I dispute this secular reading, and I more generally demonstrate that the characterizations of the Akan attitude to divinity as non-worshipping, non-supernatural, non-transcendent, and non-spiritual, are either conceptually flawed, factually incorrect, or both. (shrink)

L’argument de base de cet article est que le débat consensuel n’a pas été une notion très significative jusqu’à présent parce que le consensus n’a pas été étudié de manière approfondie en tant que concept et que la délibération n’a pas été étudiée précisément en termes de sa propension à parvenir à un accord commun. En particulier, la délibération et les problèmes qui en découlent n’ont pas été classées en plusieurs niveaux afin d’exposer les différents défis qui se posent lorsque (...) l’on tente de parvenir à un accord et les types d’approches délibératives impliquées dans chaque catégorie. La présente recherche propose une telle catégorisation dans le but de clarifier davantage le débat. (shrink)

In his plea for consensual democracy in Africa, Kwasi Wiredu recommends unanimity about what is to be done, not what ought to be done, or unanimity on action rather than unanimity of values, beliefs and opinion. I caution the use of this procedural instrument by showing that some issues are so value-laden that a group decision cannot be value-neutral. It may sometimes be more productive to entertain value differences to keep them from going underground and becoming dangerous. However, the ability (...) to locate some common interest or ground seems to be crucial for such value confrontation. (shrink)

Thomas Sheehan’s attack on my book Heidegger, l’introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie, addressed neither the book’s topic nor its arguments. He instead highlighted a few isolated details in a sophistic and biased fashion. Moreover, his exposition was interspersed with ad personam insults not typically found in philosophical or scientific discussions. Although I had hitherto resolved not to respond to personal attacks, I owe it to the memory of Johannes Fritsche, who was also attacked by Sheehan, to take my turn (...) to speak and to thereby pay intellectual tribute to Professor Fritsche. The article returns to the interpretation of Being and Time and analyzes the meaning and connotations of Heidegger’s use of the German term Bodenlosigkeit. The key methodological issue concerns the need to study the semantic, historical, and political context of concepts instead of hiding these issues by reducing everything to a battle between dogmatic positions. (shrink)

Thomas Sheehan’s attack on my book Heidegger, l’introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie, addressed neither the book’s topic nor its arguments. He instead highlighted a few isolated details in a sophistic and biased fashion. Moreover, his exposition was interspersed with ad personam insults not typically found in philosophical or scientific discussions. Although I had hitherto resolved not to respond to personal attacks, I owe it to the memory of Johannes Fritsche, who was also attacked by Sheehan, to take my turn (...) to speak and to thereby pay intellectual tribute to Professor Fritsche. The article returns to the interpretation of Being and Time and analyzes the meaning and connotations of Heidegger’s use of the German term Bodenlosigkeit. The key methodological issue concerns the need to study the semantic, historical, and political context of concepts instead of hiding these issues by reducing everything to a battle between dogmatic positions. (shrink)

The demand for more transparency is hardly ever questioned. When it is, it is generally questioned in the name of a protection of privacy. In a traditional liberal understanding, there is a non-alienable “right to privacy” (Warren/Brandeis, 1890). Many political struggles, however, involved ignoring such boundaries, and making public things that were meant to remain private (domestic violence, gender oppression, child abuse etc.). While holding that the distinction between private and public is necessary, it must remain mobile and subject to (...) renegotiation. Civil inattention highlights the importance of disregarding: disregarding what others we share the same public space with do, as long as it is not of public relevance; and disregarding such rules of privacy if a violation of basic human rights is taking place, in order to make such behaviour public. In some cases, disregard and ignorance can thus be a moral virtue. (shrink)

" Pourquoi demandons-nous avec tant d'empressement au cerveau d'expliquer ce qui nous arrive et ce que nous devons faire? On se dit, n'est-ce pas dans ses replis que nous devons désormais chercher notre sort? La philosophie peut-elle rester indifférente à un tel sujet? [...] Mais avons-nous éclairci notre monde et résolu nos questions de vie en les enracinant dans nos cerveaux? A-t-on rendu la conscience moins mystérieuse? Et penser? L'organe de la pensée va-t-il enfin nous en dispenser? " L'auteur s'interroge (...) avec une douce ironie sur les espoirs et les fragilités qui s'expriment dans cette nouvelle quête de fondement que nous avons entreprise. Qu'on ne s'attende pas à trouver ici une théorie du fonctionnement cérébral, mais mille interrogations, mille formulations des questions qui surgissent dès lors qu'on interpose l'idée de cerveau entre nous et le monde. L'ensemble compose une suite de méditations, ramassées en brefs chapitres, pour trouver une place au cerveau et varier notre distance à son égard. (shrink)

Everything is phenomenon, everything is gift, or everything is given. This presupposition of phenomenology, which makes giveness the starting point for phenomenality, is not altogether self-evident. It is not sufficient to look merely at the reverse of the gift, but it is a matter of questioning the impossibility of even giving. Questioning the strategies of the contemporary reappropriations of Kant—radicalization, disproportion, and inversion —this text works under a fourth possibility, seldom examined and yet still envisaged by Kant: the “Extra-Phenomenal”, or (...) in other words, the “Chaos”, the “pell-mell”, the “Cinnabar”, or the “melee of sensations”. (shrink)

We examine a special case of inquiry games and give an account of the informational import of asking questions. We focus on yes-or-no questions, which always carry information about the questioner's strategy, but never about the state of Nature, and show how strategic information reduces uncertainty through inferences about other players' goals and strategies. This uncertainty cannot always be captured by information structures of classical game theory. We conclude by discussing the connection with Gricean pragmatics and contextual constraints on interpretation.Send (...) article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.HOW CAN QUESTIONS BE INFORMATIVE BEFORE THEY ARE ANSWERED? STRATEGIC INFORMATION IN INTERROGATIVE GAMESVolume 9, Issue 2Emmanuel J. Genot and Justine JacotDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.8Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. HOW CAN QUESTIONS BE INFORMATIVE BEFORE THEY ARE ANSWERED? STRATEGIC INFORMATION IN INTERROGATIVE GAMESVolume 9, Issue 2Emmanuel J. Genot and Justine JacotDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.8Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. HOW CAN QUESTIONS BE INFORMATIVE BEFORE THEY ARE ANSWERED? STRATEGIC INFORMATION IN INTERROGATIVE GAMESVolume 9, Issue 2Emmanuel J. Genot and Justine JacotDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.8Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

There have been two parallel views regarding the role of voting in deliberation. The first is that deliberation before the fabrication of balloting was completely devoid of voting. The second is that voting is, not just part of deliberation, but is standard to deliberation. I argue in this article that neither of these views is correct. Implicit voting has always existed across time and space but only as a last resort in the event of a failure of natural unanimity. What (...) is relatively modern is the establishment of what I call explicit voting, namely, balloting, outside deliberation and often without deliberation. I also distinguish between natural and artificial unanimities, and clarify that artificial unanimities are products of implicit voting. I demonstrate these clarifications with some examples of deliberation. I deploy these clarifications to rid a certain debate of confusion regarding the precise role of voting in consensual deliberation. (shrink)

La personne comme question est un sujet qui n'a cessé d'alimenter la réflexion de l'auteur, ceci en s'appuyant sur Husserl. De la préhistoire du concept de personne à son épanouissement médiéval puis jusqu'à sa réactivation phénoménologique, la personne est un combat pour le soi. La perspective généalogique adoptée dans ce livre vise à montrer que c'est la genèse du concept biblique de personne qui montre le véritable sens d'être de la personne, alors que le concept juridique en est dérivé. Citant (...) les auteurs clé de ce concept de personne, ce livre en retrace l'histoire. (shrink)

_Achieving Our Humanity_ explores a postracial future through a philosophical analysis of the social, cultural, economic and political experiences of race in the past and what this might mean for our present and, most importantly, our future.

Recent debates about aesthetics are characterized by a partly intentional, but also partly involuntary, vagueness. Whether it be aestheticisation or anesthetisation, articisation or desartification: what is upheld or deplored under one and the same label in fact designates rather different things. The paper makes a suggestion as to how the field could be reorganized. Taking heed of what political theory discusses as the “political difference” between “politics” and “the political”, the aim is to examine what would be gained by working (...) with an “aesthetic difference” that does not straightforwardly equate “the aesthetic” with “art”, and “the aesthetic” with the totality of sensuous-aisthetic processes. An aesthetic thinking would then amount to a thinking that does justice to these inner polarities and remains faithful to the ambiguity of its objects. (shrink)

Résumé Le principe de précaution engage les rapports entre la connaissance, les risques et l’action ; appréhendé d’un point de vue simultanément éthique et politique, il pose également un défi aux institutions et au public pour ce qui est de sa mobilisation dans le débat et de sa mise en œuvre dans l’action, en tant que principe possédant une portée générale. L’article propose une description des problèmes spécifiques que comporte, à cet égard, le choix des interprétations. Cette description conduit à (...) une appréciation positive du nouveau rôle dévolu aux démarches participatives dans la discussion des enjeux éthiques et des risques acceptables. (shrink)

Achieving Our Humanity explores a postracial future through a philosophical analysis of the social, cultural, economic and political experiences of race in the past and what this might mean for our present and, most importantly, our future.

ABSTRACTThis essay tracks Heidegger’s thought from 1919 forwards to the decisive years of his political engagement, on behalf of the Nazi movement. Part 1 tracks how the question concerning Being devolves into the implicitly identitarian question of who “we” are. Part 2 addresses the “existential” of Befindlichkeit which Heidegger in Sein und Zeit positions as prior to understanding, and examines his esoteric mode of writing as the means to cultivate a prerational Stimmung. Part 3 examines Heidegger’s response to his 1929–1930 (...) questions of “What mood must we awaken?... Who are we, then?” in the decisive years of the Gleichchaltung, showing how Heidegger’s thinking elevates to ontological primacy a discriminatory and identitarian decision concerning who “we” are as the German volk. Part 4 examines in this light the Heideggerian “end of philosophy” in what the Black Notebooks talks of in terms of a “metapolitics ‘of’ the historical people”. (shrink)

The attempt to employ quantum principles for modeling cognition has enabled the introduction of several new concepts in psychology, such as the uncertainty principle, incompatibility, entanglement, and superposition. For many commentators, this is an exciting opportunity to question existing formal frameworks (notably classical probability theory) and explore what is to be gained by employing these novel conceptual tools. This is not to say that major empirical challenges are not there. For example, can we definitely prove the necessity for quantum, as (...) opposed to classical, models? Can the distinction between compatibility and incompatibility inform our understanding of differences between human and nonhuman cognition? Are quantum models less constrained than classical ones? Does incompatibility arise as a limitation, to avoid the requirements from the principle of unicity, or is it an inherent (or essential?) characteristic of intelligent thought? For everyday judgments, do quantum principles allow more accurate prediction than classical ones? Some questions can be confidently addressed within existing quantum models. A definitive resolution of others will have to anticipate further work. What is clear is that the consideration of quantum cognitive models has enabled a new focus on a range of debates about fundamental aspects of cognition. (shrink)

I begin by proposing a notion of mathematical understanding; then I take a brief look at four approaches to the task of teaching infinity to mathematical novices—four approaches, that is, to “popular” philosophy and mathematics—and assess whether they provide such an understanding. But I don’t mean this to be a recommendation for or against any author. Rather, I want to submit the idea that mathematical understanding is an important dimension of popularizing efforts, all of which can be valuable, to be (...) sure, along other dimensions. (shrink)

In contemporary political philosophy, the disqualification of the problematic of alienation has to a large extent rested on the conviction that the norms of democracy, justice, and the good life provide a sufficient framework within which to outline a social critique that is politically pertinent. The paradox is that, at the very moment when such a conviction was becoming widespread, its validity was being refuted by the historical reality. It would appear that the casting-off of the Fordist system has seen (...) the emergence of a different set of social pathologies which, if they are to be adequately thematised and criticised, require the activation of the notion of alienation. (shrink)

Kwasi Wiredu, arguably the most influential African philosopher, has proposed a democracy by consensus as an alternative to the majoritarian democracy African countries inherited from their colonial masters. His proposal has generated a lot of debates, and these debates have spanned several aspects of his proposal. In this paper, I focus on the debate regarding his attribution of immanence to the practice of consensus in traditional African social relations. Bernard Matolino has recently written an article defending Wiredu's employment of the (...) word immanence in describing the traditional African attitude to social relations. In this article, I find Matolino's defense to be unsustainable. (shrink)

The article explores the striking coincidences in Heidegger's and Blanchot's account of the image as death mask. The analysis of the respective theories of the image brings forth two radically divergent conceptions of thinking as "laying patent" (Heidegger) and of thinking as "laying bare" (Blanchot).