Leading scholars address the ethical and practical dimensions of Heidegger's thought.

In this research, we present the most important characteristics of the so called and so much explored Jesuit Edition of Newton’s Philosophi? Naturalis Principia Mathematica edited by Thomas Le Seur and Fran?ois Jacquier in the 1739-1742. The edition, densely annotated by the commentators (the notes and the comments are longer than Newton’s text itself) is a very treasure concerning Newton’s ideas and his heritage, e.g., Newton’s geometry and mathematical physics. Conspicuous pieces of information as to history of physics, history of (...) mathematics and epistemology can be drawn from it. This paper opens a series of study concerning Jesuit Edition, whose final scope is to put in evidence all the conceptual aspects of such edition and its role inside the spread of scientific ideas and inside the complex relation science, popularization & society. (shrink)

These remarks preface two volumes consisting of the proceedings of the Third International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science. The conference was held under the auspices of the Union, The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science. The meetings took place in Montreal, Canada, 25-29 August 1980, with Concordia University as host institution. The program of the conference (...) was arranged by a Joint Commission of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science consisting of Robert E. Butts (Canada), John Murdoch (U. S. A. ), Vladimir Kirsanov (U. S. S. R. ), and Paul Weingartner (Austria). The Local Arrangements Committee consisted of Stanley G. French, Chair (Concordia), Michel Paradis, treasurer (McGill), Fran~ois Duchesneau (Universite de Montreal), Robert Nadeau (Universite du Quebec it Montreal), and William Shea (McGill University). Both committees are indebted to Dr. G. R. Paterson, then President of the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science, who shared his expertise in many ways. Dr. French and his staff worked diligently and efficiently on behalf of all participants. The city of Montreal was, as always, the subtle mixture of extravagance, charm, warmth and excitement that retains her status as the jewel of Canadian cities. The funding of major international conferences is always a problem. (shrink)

Philosophy, Theory and Criminal Law: A Review of Fran?ois Tanguay-Renaud and James Stribopoulos , Rethinking Criminal Law Theory: New Canadian Perspectives in the Philosophy of Domestic, Transnational and International Criminal Law.

In this article the relevance to the development of John Stuart Mill's political thought of his reading of Fran?ois Guizot's early historical works is examined jointly with some aspects of Tocqueville's imputed influence on the British thinker. Some ideas that are claimed here to have been Mill's intellectual debts to Guizot, have been habitually associated with Tocqueville's influence on Mill. In the first place it is argued that one of Mill’s most cherished ideas, what he called ‘the principle of systematic (...) antagonism’, owes much more to Guizot than to Tocqueville, and that Tocqueville's Democracy in America simply came to corroborate and give concrete focus to this idea. In the second place some of Mill's views concerning modern civilization and its consequences are shown to have been part of his thought before he came to know of Tocqueville's works, and one of the sources of these views is shown to be Guizot's historical work. In the third place Tocqueville's supposed impact on Mill's methodological approach to the study of politics is placed in a broader context, and Guizot's previously ignored relevance in this respect is considered. (shrink)

In this strikingly original contribution to our understanding of Chinese philosophy,Françle;ois Julien, a French sinologist whose work has not yet appeared in English usesthe Chinese concept of shi - meaning disposition or circumstance, power or potential - as atouchstone to explore Chinese culture and to uncover the intricate and coherent structure underlyingChinese modes of thinking.A Hegelian prejudice still haunts studies of ancient Chinese civilization:Chinese thought, never able to evolve beyond a cosmological point of view, with an indifference toany notion of (...) telos, sought to interpret reality solely on the basis of itself. In thisgroundbreaking study, prejudices toward the simplicity and "naiveté" of Chinese thought, Hegelianand otherwise, are dismantled one by one to reveal the intricate and coherent structure underlyingChinese modes of thinking and representing reality.Jullien begins with a single Chinese term, shi,whose very ambivalence and disconcerting polysemy, on the one hand, and simple efficacy, on theother, defy the order of a concept. Yet shi insinuates itself into the ordering and conditioning ofreality in all its manifold and complex representations. Because shi neither gave rise to anycoherent, general analysis nor figured as one of the major concepts among Chinese thinkers, Jullienfollows its appearance from one field to another: from military strategy to politics; from theaesthetics of calligraphy and painting to the theory of literature; and from reflection on historyto "first philosophy."At the point where these various domains intersect, a fundamental intuitionassumed self-evident for centuries emerges, namely, that reality - every kind of reality - may beperceived as a particular deployment or arrangement of things to be relied upon and worked to one'sadvantage. Art or wisdom, as conceived by the Chinese, lies in strategically exploiting thepropensity that emanates from this particular configuration of reality. (shrink)

The posthumous Pourquoi Philosopher? collects Jean-Fran ç ois Lyotard’s previously unpublished four-part introductory course in philosophy, delivered to students of the Sorbonne in 1964. The interest of this text is both historical (appearing at an important juncture in French thought) and meta-philosophical (answering the question "why philosophize?" in such a way that a philosophy of philosophy - or rather several - is offered for consideration). The text will be of interest to readers of various levels of philosophical sophistication.

In this strikingly original contribution to our understanding of Chinese philosophy, Françle;ois Julien, a French sinologist whose work has not yet appeared in English uses the Chinese concept of shi - meaning disposition or circumstance, power or potential - as a touchstone to explore Chinese culture and to uncover the intricate and coherent structure underlying Chinese modes of thinking.A Hegelian prejudice still haunts studies of ancient Chinese civilization: Chinese thought, never able to evolve beyond a cosmological point of view, with (...) an indifference to any notion of telos, sought to interpret reality solely on the basis of itself. In this groundbreaking study, prejudices toward the simplicity and "naiveté" of Chinese thought, Hegelian and otherwise, are dismantled one by one to reveal the intricate and coherent structure underlying Chinese modes of thinking and representing reality.Jullien begins with a single Chinese term, shi, whose very ambivalence and disconcerting polysemy, on the one hand, and simple efficacy, on the other, defy the order of a concept. Yet shi insinuates itself into the ordering and conditioning of reality in all its manifold and complex representations. Because shi neither gave rise to any coherent, general analysis nor figured as one of the major concepts among Chinese thinkers, Jullien follows its appearance from one field to another: from military strategy to politics; from the aesthetics of calligraphy and painting to the theory of literature; and from reflection on history to "first philosophy."At the point where these various domains intersect, a fundamental intuition assumed self-evident for centuries emerges, namely, that reality - every kind of reality - may be perceived as a particular deployment or arrangement of things to be relied upon and worked to one's advantage. Art or wisdom, as conceived by the Chinese, lies in strategically exploiting the propensity that emanates from this particular configuration of reality. (shrink)

In this strikingly original contribution to our understanding of Chinese philosophy, Françle;ois Julien, a French sinologist whose work has not yet appeared in English uses the Chinese concept of shi - meaning disposition or circumstance, power or potential - as a touchstone to explore Chinese culture and to uncover the intricate and coherent structure underlying Chinese modes of thinking.A Hegelian prejudice still haunts studies of ancient Chinese civilization: Chinese thought, never able to evolve beyond a cosmological point of view, with (...) an indifference to any notion of telos, sought to interpret reality solely on the basis of itself. In this groundbreaking study, prejudices toward the simplicity and "naiveté" of Chinese thought, Hegelian and otherwise, are dismantled one by one to reveal the intricate and coherent structure underlying Chinese modes of thinking and representing reality.Jullien begins with a single Chinese term, shi, whose very ambivalence and disconcerting polysemy, on the one hand, and simple efficacy, on the other, defy the order of a concept. Yet shi insinuates itself into the ordering and conditioning of reality in all its manifold and complex representations. Because shi neither gave rise to any coherent, general analysis nor figured as one of the major concepts among Chinese thinkers, Jullien follows its appearance from one field to another: from military strategy to politics; from the aesthetics of calligraphy and painting to the theory of literature; and from reflection on history to "first philosophy."At the point where these various domains intersect, a fundamental intuition assumed self-evident for centuries emerges, namely, that reality - every kind of reality - may be perceived as a particular deployment or arrangement of things to be relied upon and worked to one's advantage. Art or wisdom, as conceived by the Chinese, lies in strategically exploiting the propensity that emanates from this particular configuration of reality. (shrink)

The fourth volume in the series "Jean-Franðcois Lyotard: Writings on Contemporary Art and Artists" contains 48 texts written by Lyotard between the early seventies and 1998, the year of his death. Nine of these texts are previously unpublished papers on general aesthetics and the theory of art. The remaining 39 essays deal with 27 specific artists: Luciano Berio, Richard Lindner, René Guiffrey, Gianfranco Baruchello, Henri Maccheroni, Riwan Tromeur, Albert Ayme, Manuel Casimiro, Ruth Francken, Barnett Newman, Jean-Luc Parant, François Lapouge, Sam (...) Francis, André Dubreuil, Joseph Kosuth, Sarah Flohr, Lino Centi, Gigliola Fazzini, Bracha Lichtenberger Ettinger, Henri Martin, Michel Bouvet, Corinne Filippi, Stig Brogger, François Rouan, Pierre Skira Pastels, and Béatrice Casadesus. Many of these texts are notes or contributions to catalogues; some were published in now inaccessible journals. (shrink)

François Dagognet (1924-2015) nous a laissé une oeuvre immense et foisonnante : près de soixante-dix ouvrages, sur les thèmes les plus divers, de l'épistémologie à l'art contemporain, de la politique au droit, de l'argent à la morale, de la peau au trouble, sans oublier le paysage, ou l'agronomie, les déchets ou les musées, parmi bien d'autres sujets. Sa curiosité universelle et inassouvie égalait, voire dépassait, celle de son maître Bachelard. Montrer comment Dagognet a illustré l'épistémologie "à la française", et l'a (...) radicalement transformée en la faisant sortir de ses cadres traditionnels, tel est l'enjeu de ce recueil, issu d'un colloque en hommage à François Dagognet qui s'est tenu à l'Institut d'histoire et philosophie des sciences et des techniques de Paris 1, qu'il a un temps dirigé. Vingt-quatre auteurs, français et étrangers, de diverses générations et spécialités, font découvrir et discutent les positions de ce philosophe infatigable sur un large éventail de champs scientifiques et techniques : philosophie des sciences, biologie, médecine, neurologie, pharmacie, sciences de la terre, chimie, écologie, théorie des formes, informatique, art, droit et philosophie sociale."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This paper establishes the 'emblematic' use of natural history as a propaedeutic to self-betterment in the Renaissance; in particular, in the natural histories of Gessner and Topsell, but also in the works of Erasmus and Rabelais. Subsequently, it investigates how Francis Bacon's conception of natural history is envisaged in relation to them. The paper contends that, where humanist natural historians understood the use of natural knowledge as a preliminary to individual improvement, Bacon conceived self-betterment foremost as a means to Christian (...) charity, or social-betterment. It thus examines the transformation of the moralizing aspect of Renaissance natural history in Bacon's conception of his Great Instauration. (shrink)

"Il convient plutôt de s'attacher à ce que signifie : être un homme". Ce mot de Kierkegaard peut servir de fil conducteur à ces entretiens attachés à restituer le chemin de pensée de François Chirpaz. Un itinéraire philosophique s'efforçant de comprendre ce vivant que nous sommes, à travers la tradition des philosophes, bien sûr, mais également l'oeuvre littéraire, la psychanalyse ou le texte biblique. Mais toujours en le rapportant à la question de la vie et de son destin.

Philosophe hors du commun, François Châtelet (1925-1985) a profondément marqué le paysage intellectuel français du XXe siècle. Cofondateur, avec Michel Foucault et Gilles Deleuze, du département de philosophie du Centre universitaire expérimental de Vincennes, aujourd'hui Université Paris VIII, il a dirigé ce département jusqu'à sa mort. Les textes réunis ici se composent de quatre articles de François Châtelet devenus introuvables et une série de textes de philosophes qui mettent en valeur, tant ses talents d'historien de la philosophie, de pédagogue que (...) de philosophe engagé. C'est tout un ensemble de souvenirs d'un philosophe médiatique qui est donné à lire, luttant par l'histoire des concepts contre l'orthodoxie marxiste. François Châtelet fut le cofondateur avec Jacques Derrida, Jean-Pierre Faye et Dominique Lecourt du Collège international de philosophie. Il militait pour la pratique d'une philosophie ouverte et populaire et n'a eu de cesse de décloisonner la philosophie et de l'ouvrir pour la mettre en commun. (shrink)

Depuis Droit, mythe et raison (1980) écrit avec Jacques Lenoble jusqu’aux récents À quoi sert le droit? Usages, fonctions et finalités (2016) ou Le droit, objet de passions (2018), François Ost ne cesse de questionner les rapports de nos sociétés au droit et la place de celui-ci dans nos sociétés contemporaines. Avec Le droit malgré tout, il s’agit de rendre hommage à l’œuvre et à la carrière d’une figure centrale de la théorie du droit contemporaine et aussi au fondateur, avec (...) le regretté Michel van de Kerchove, de ce que l’on appelle parfois « l’école de Saint-Louis ». Abordant les deux pôles de la dialectique à laquelle François Ost est si attaché - la critique et la reconstruction -, l’ouvrage propose un regard interdisciplinaire sur le droit, à travers les principaux thèmes qui ont nourri la pensée de l’auteur. Du statut épistémologique de la science du droit à un questionnement sur les fondements et l’avenir du droit et de la justice, des liens qu’entretiennent le droit et la littérature jusqu’à l’environnement saisi par le droit en passant par les « communs », les approches de ses collègues et amis sont toutes réflexives et critiques. En ce qu’elles sont soucieuses de soumettre le droit au regard des sciences sociales et, inversement, les normativités extra-juridiques au regard du droit, elles sont fidèles à la démarche de François Ost. Ce Liber Amicorum propose aussi un retour réflexif sur son œuvre par l’auteur lui-même, dans un entretien avec Manuel Atienza. Contributeurs : Yves CARTUYVELS, Robert JACOB, Mark VAN HOECKE, Jacques COMMAILLE, Isabelle HACHEZ, Laurent VAN EYNDE, Jacques LENOBLE, Benoit FRYDMAN, Alain PAPAUX, Guillaume DE STEXHE, Diane BERNARD, Antoine GARAPON, Jacques CHEVALLIER, Alain SUPIOT, Paul MARTENS, Jérémie VAN MEERBEECK, Sébastien VAN DROOGHENBROECK, Nicolas BERNARD et Françoise TULKENS, Pierre LEGRAND, Annette RUELLE, Isabelle OST, Jeanne GAAKEER, Massimo VOGLIOTTI, Denis SALAS, Pauline BÉGASSE DE DHAEM et Marie-Sophie DE CLIPPELE, Xavier DELGRANGE, Delphine MISONNE, Benoît JADOT, Alain STROWEL, Hugues DUMONT, Jean-Guy BELLEY, Antoine BAILLEU. (shrink)

Jean-Francois Lyotard is often considered to be the father of postmodernism. Here leading experts in the field of cultural and philosophical studies, including Barry Smart, John O' Neill and Victor J. Seidler, tackle many of the questions still being asked about this controversial figure.

Every 4 years, for the past three decades, the world of argumentation research has gathered in Amsterdam at the International Society for the Study of Argumentation conferences to explore advances in understanding argumentation and how argumentation advances our understanding of the human condition. While comprehensive proceedings of selected papers are produced to document what has transpired in the world of argumentation over the preceding 4 years, there remains the important matter of taking the intellectual pulse of the world’s argumentation scholars, (...) to detect the beating heart of the community of scholars and the health and wellness of argumentation scholarship. One of the great services Frans van Eemeren, and his colleagues, have provided this community is a diagnosis that helps identify the assets upon which the health and wellness of the community can further build. This service has come in the form of several edited volumes, the most recent of which, Topical Themes in Argumen .. (shrink)

Empathy is widely touted as a springboard for social change. Within the academy, ‘identification’ is often used to promote the social value of literary and cultural studies. But to what degree have scholars, in seeking to defend the value of literary and cultural studies, conceived the act of reading in problematic ways? ‘An Ethics of Reading’ argues that adopting a Lacanian paradigm of self (reader) and text (other) to discuss the act of textual interpretation reduces a complex event involving multiple (...) actors to a simple dualism, while ineluctably consigning any act of interpretation to simple projection. Turning instead to psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche’s concept of the enigmatic signifier, this article rethinks the relation between reader and cultural text – reconceiving the act of interpretation by situating it within a dynamic of transference, as opposed to projection. When conceived via this Laplanchian framework, reading becomes not only an effective path to cognition and knowledge, but a radical means of subjective transformation. (shrink)

The issues addressed in philosophical papers on quotation generally concern only a particular type of quotation, which I call 'closed quotation'. The other main type, 'open quotation', is ignored, and this neglect leads to bad theorizing. Not only is a general theory of quotation out of reach: the specific phenomenon of closed quotation itself cannot be properly understood if it is not appropriately situated within the kind to which it belongs. Once the distinction between open and closed quotation has been (...) drawn and properly appreciated, it is tempting to consider that only closed quotation is relevant to semantics. Open quotation is more a matter of pragmatics: it is a matter of what people do with words, rather than a matter of content and truth-conditions. In this way one can provide the beginning of a justification for the neglect of open quotation in current semantic theorizing. There is some truth in this view, yet the phenomenon of 'mixed quotation', investigated at length in this paper, is interesting precisely because it shows that things are not so simple. Important issues concerning the interface between semantics and pragmatics will thus be raised. (shrink)

Since the death of Jacques Lacan, Jean Laplanche is now considered to be one of the worlds foremost psychoanalytic thinkers. In spite of the influence of his work over the last thirty years, remarkably little has been available in English. Essays On Otherness presents for the first time in English many of Laplanche's key essays and is the first book to provide an overview of his thinking. It offers an introduction to many of the key themes that characterise (...) his work: seduction, persecution, revelation, masochism, transference and mourning. Such themes have been increasingly both in psychoanalytic thought and in continental philosophy, social and cultural theory, and literature making Essays On Otherness indispensable reading for all those concerned with the implications of psychoanalytic theory today. (shrink)

In this book two of the leading figures in argumentation theory present a view of argumentation as a means of resolving differences of opinion by testing the acceptability of the disputed positions. Their model of a 'critical discussion' serves as a theoretical tool for analysing, evaluating and producing argumentative discourse. They develop a method for the reconstruction of argumentative discourse that takes into account all aspects that are relevant to a critical assessment. They also propose a practical code of behaviour (...) for discussants who want to resolve their differences in a reasonable way. This is a major contribution to the study of argumentation and will be of particular value to professionals and graduate students in speech communication, informal logic, rhetoric, critical thinking, linguistics, and philosophy. (shrink)

In Waartoe Wetenschap? onderzoekt Frans W. Saris de wetenschap in evolutionair perspectief en hij bepleit een radical enlightenment in een dertiental essays en een toneeltekst waarin zulke uiteenlopende wetenschappers verschijnen als ...

ABSTRACT We outline a number of ethical objections to genetic technologies aimed at enhancing human capacities and traits. We then argue that, despite the persuasiveness of some of these objections, they are insufficient to stop the development and use of genetic enhancement technologies. We contend that the inevitability of the technologies results from a particular guiding worldview of humans as masters of the human evolutionary future, and conclude that recognising this worldview points to new directions for ethical thinking about genetic (...) enhancement technologies. (shrink)

François Arago, the first to show in 1810 that the surface of the Sun and stars is made of incandescent gas and not solid or liquid, was a prominent physicist of the 19th century. He used his considerable influence to help Fresnel, Ampere and others develop their ideas and make themselves known. This book covers his personal contributions to physics, astronomy, geodesy and oceanography, which are far from negligible, but insufficiently known. Arago was also an important and influential political man (...) who, for example, abolished slavery in the French colonies. One of the last humanists, he had a very broad culture and range of interests. In parallel to his biography, this title also covers the spectacular progresses of science at the time of Arago, especially in France: the birth of physical optics, electromagnetism and thermodynamics. Francois Arago's life is a fascinating epic tale that reads as a novel. (shrink)

It is often claimed that the exceptional severity of the Spanish flu, one of the most deadly events in recorded human history, is an unsolved mystery. However, even detailed aspects such as its W-shaped mortality curve are well explained by Paul Ewald’s theory of the evolution of virulence. Understanding the causes of the Spanish flu will help to prevent future epidemics.

In the pragma-dialectical approach, fallacies are considered incorrect moves in a discussion for which the goal is successful resolution of a dispute. Ten rules are given for effective conduct at the various stages of such a critical discussion (confrontation, opening, argumentation, concluding). Fallacies are discussed as violations of these rules, taking into account all speech acts which are traditionally recognized as fallacies. Special attention is paid to the role played by implicitness in fallacies in everyday language use. It is stressed (...) that identifying and acknowledging fallacies in ordinary discussions always has a conditional character. Differences between the pragma-dialectical perspective, the Standard Treatment, and the formal logic approach to fallacy analysis are discussed. (shrink)

This theoretical expose explores the complex notion of argumentative style, which has so far been largely neglected in argumentation theory. After an introduction of the problems involved, the theoretical tools for identifying the properties of the discourse in which an argumentative style manifests itself are explained from a pragma-dialectical perspective and a theoretical definition of argumentative style is provided that does full justice to its role in argumentative discourse. The article concludes with a short reflection upon the next steps that (...) need to be taken in argumentation theory in further substantiating the notion of argumentative style. (shrink)