À la mort de Saint-Simon en 1825, ses disciples s’efforcent de développer et de diffuser ses idées. Ils dénoncent un ordre économique et social dans lequel les travailleurs sont exploités par une minorité d’oisifs qui détiennent les instruments du travail. Les saint-simoniens défendent un projet visant à privilégier l’intérêt général plutôt que celui d’un petit nombre de propriétaires dans une économie qui fonctionne à leur profit. La recherche de cet intérêt général passe par une amélioration du sort des travailleurs qui (...) doit se fonder sur une nouvelle approche de l’économie politique conduisant à une nouvelle organisation industrielle. (shrink)

À la mort de Saint-Simon en 1825, ses disciples s’efforcent de développer et de diffuser ses idées. Ils dénoncent un ordre économique et social dans lequel les travailleurs sont exploités par une minorité d’oisifs qui détiennent les instruments du travail. Les saint-simoniens défendent un projet visant à privilégier l’intérêt général plutôt que celui d’un petit nombre de propriétaires dans une économie qui fonctionne à leur profit. La recherche de cet intérêt général passe par une amélioration du sort des travailleurs qui (...) doit se fonder sur une nouvelle approche de l’économie politique conduisant à une nouvelle organisation industrielle. (shrink)

Until recently, cognitive science focused on such mental functions as problem solving, grammar, and pattern-the functions in which the human mind most closely resembles a computer. But humans are more than computers: we invent new meanings, imagine wildly, and even have ideas that have never existed before. Today the cutting edge of cognitive science addresses precisely these mysterious, creative aspects of the mind.The Way We Think is a landmark analysis of the imaginative nature of the mind. Conceptual blending is already (...) widely known in research laboratories throughout the world; this book, written to be accessible to both lay readers and interested scientists, is its definitive statement. Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner show that conceptual blending is the root of the cognitively modern human mind, and that conceptual blends themselves are continually combined and reblended to create the rich mental fabric in which we live.The Way We Think shows how this blending operates; how it is affected by (and gives rise to) language, identity, culture, and invention; and how we imagine what could be and what might have been. The result is a bold and exciting new view of how the mind works. (shrink)

Firms located in communities in which people are, on average, more trusting enjoy some benefits in terms of the power of CEO contracts. We present two pieces of empirical evidence to support this claim: (1) higher average trust in a county is associated with “flatter” executive contracts and (2) when an exogenous shock occurs (such as a scandal involving an important social institution), both trust and contracting move in similar directions. We obtain the first result in a panel specification and (...) the second in a “difference-in-difference” specification that uses the revelation of sex scandals involving the Catholic Church across different U.S. localities. (shrink)

Mental Spaces is the classic introduction to the study of mental spaces and conceptual projection, as revealed through the structure and use of language. It examines in detail the dynamic construction of connected domains as discourse unfolds. The discovery of mental space organization has modified our conception of language and thought: powerful and uniform accounts of superficially disparate phenomena have become available in the areas of reference, presupposition projection, counterfactual and analogical reasoning, metaphor and metonymy, and time and aspect in (...) discourse. The present work lays the foundation for this research. It uncovers simple and general principles that lie behind the awesome complexity of everyday logic. (shrink)

Conceptual integration—“blending”—is a general cognitive operation on a par with analogy, recursion, mental modeling, conceptual categorization, and framing. It serves a variety of cognitive purposes. It is dynamic, supple, and active in the moment of thinking. It yields products that frequently become entrenched in conceptual structure and grammar, and it often performs new work on its previously entrenched products as inputs. Blending is easy to detect in spectacular cases but it is for the most part a routine, workaday process that (...) escapes detection except on technical analysis. It is not reserved for special purposes, and is not costly.In blending, structure from input mental spaces is projected to a separate, “blended” mental space. The projection is selective. Through completion and elaboration, the blend develops structure not provided by the inputs. Inferences, arguments, and ideas developed in the blend can have effect in cognition, leading us to modify the initial inputs and to change our view of the corresponding situations.Blending operates according to a set of uniform structural and dynamic principles. It additionally observes a set of optimality principles. (shrink)

Binding arbitration is generally less available in tort suits than in contract suits because most tort plaintiffs do not have a pre-dispute contract with the defendant, and are unlikely to consent to arbitration after the occurrence of an unforeseen injury. But the Federal Arbitration Act applies to all “contract[s] evincing a transaction involving commerce,” including contracts for healthcare and medical services. Given the broad trend towards arbitration in nearly every other business-to-consumer industry, coupled with some rollbacks in tort reform measures (...) that have traditionally favored medical professionals in the judicial system, it is very possible that we may witness in the near future more medical contracts containing arbitration provisions. As a consequence, all manner of tort claims might be hashed out in the sequestered universe of arbitration. (shrink)

Le corps du coureur de bois, ce personnage nord-américain de la traite des fourrures, dénigré par les élites coloniales, parfois qualifié d’« Indien blanc » par l’historiographie, peut servir de support à l’étude des processus d’acculturation euro-indiens. Au contact des sociétés autochtones, ce corps échappe à certaines des normes de la société coloniale. Épilation de la barbe, séances de tatouage, rituels de guérison chamanique et d’hospitalité sexuelle, intimité avec les femmes autochtones, tout concourt à modifier le rapport au corps des (...) coureurs de bois et à cristalliser un code renouvelé de la virilité. (shrink)

Contemporary experimental research has emphasised the role of centrally generated signals arising from premotor areas in voluntary muscular force perception. It is therefore generally accepted that judgements of force are based on a central sense, known as the sense of effort, rather than on a sense of intra-muscular tension. Interestingly, the concept of effort is also present in the classical philosophy: to the French philosopher Maine de Biran [Maine de Biran . Mémoire sur la décomposition de la pensée , Vrin, (...) Paris ], the sense of effort is the fundamental component of self-experience, the landmark of the exercise of the will. In the present review, after a presentation of the nature and neurophysiological bases of effort sensation, we will examine its possible involvement in the neurocognitive process of agency. We will further focus on delusions of alien control in schizophrenic patients. Experimental data suggest that these patients have an abnormal awareness of effort caused by cerebral anomalies in the frontal and parietal lobes. (shrink)

Conceptual projection from one mental space to another always involves projection to "middle" spaces-abstract "generic" middle spaces or richer "blended" middle spaces. Projection to a middle space is a general cognitive process, operating uniformly at different levels of abstraction and under superficially divergent contextual circumstances. Middle spaces are indispensable sites for central mental and linguistic work. The process of blending is in particular a fundamental and general cognitive process, running over many (conceivably all) cognitive phenomena, including categorization, the making of (...) hypotheses, inference, the origin and combining of grammatical constructions, analogy, metaphor, and narrative. Blending is not secondary to these phenomena but prerequisite, and its operation is not restricted to any one of these phenomena. We give evidence for blending from a wide range of data that includes everyday language, idioms, literary metaphor, non-verbal conceptualization of action, creative thought in mathematics, evolution of socio-cultural models, jokes, and advertising. Blending is in general invisible to consciousness and detectable only on analysis. Blended spaces are routinely necessary for constructing central meanings, inferences, and structures, and for motivating emotions. We show that the blending of highly schematic spaces yields the fusion of grammatical constructions and functional assemblies studied in Cognitive Grammar and Construction Grammar. Finally, recognizing the cognitive import of middle spaces allows us to propose a generalized four-space model of conceptual projection that subsumes a variety of previous models. We explore the consequences of this model for the theory of concept formation. Introduction 3 I. The four space model 4 II. The phenomenon of blended spaces 5 1. Dante's Inferno 5 2. Regatta 7 3. The riddle of the Buddhist monk 8 4. Getting ahead of oneself 9 5. Tuning in, and other actions 11 6. Complex numbers 12 III. Prototypes of blending and mistaken reductions 14 IV. Further evidence for conceptual projection into a blended space 17 1. President Bush on third base 18 2. President Nixon in France 19 3. Personification 21 V. Category extension 22 VI. Generic spaces 24 VII. Parameters and subschemes 25 VIII. Blending and grammar 30 IX. The concept of a concept 33 Notes 35 References 38. (shrink)

L’étude des troubles de la voix et de la parole est sortie du cadre de la recherche clinique. Par l’observation des dysfonctionnements, les chercheurs non cliniciens confrontent les résultats de leur recherche établis sur des corpus de parole « normale » à des situations de dysfonctionnement. Le défi est immense car le cadre « pathologique » induit une variation considérable dans ses manifestations de surface. Toute généralisation à une population clinique particulière nécessite l’observation d’un grand nombre de patients du fait (...) de la très forte variation interindividuelle. Il est donc important de capitaliser et mutualiser les enregistrements existants. Or pour être utilisables, ces enregistrements doivent répondre à de fortes exigences. Le maillon faible reste la normalisation et la structuration des données sur les locuteurs et leurs productions langagières. Concrètement, si les données sonores sont souvent accessibles, elles ne présentent au final aucun intérêt si les liens entre les enregistrements et les caractéristiques cliniques du locuteur sont rompus ou erronés. L’objectif de ce travail est de présenter différentes actions de terrain et de proposer des recommandations pour la structuration des données sonores, physiologiques et cliniques dans le cas de corpus de parole issue de patients atteints de troubles de la voix et de la parole. (shrink)

Product differentiation has emerged as a central dynamic in contemporary agrofood systems. Departure from the mode of standardization emblematic of agrofood modernization raises questions about future technical trajectories and the ways in which learning will be sustained. This article examines two innovation trajectories: the rapid coupling of biotechnologies and information technologies to yield products differentiated by constituent components—a model based on a cognitive logic of decomposition/ recomposition—and the proliferation of product networks that mobilize distinctive, localized resources to create complete identities—a (...) model based on a cognitive logic of identity. The article analyzes the information structures—institutional mechanisms that support information exchange and learning—in each of these opposed development paradigms. We find that knowledge creation under each of the logics occurs through mechanisms not recognized within the respective paradigms. On this basis, we derive institutional hybridity as a fundamental resource in systems of innovation. (shrink)

L’idéalisme de Hegel doit-il être un objet d’investigation? On pourrait objecter que, comme toutes les étiquettes, celle d’idéalisme prête davantage à confusion qu’elle n’est éclairante. Car, en imposant des rapprochements superficiels avec d’autres auteurs pareillement qualifiés d’idéalistes (Platon, Berkeley, Fichte…), elle masquerait l’originalité du questionnement et du mode de penser propres à Hegel. On pourrait également rappeler l’allergie de Hegel aux attributs fixes et aux classific...

In this article, we look at some aspects of polysemy which derive from the power of meaning potential. More specifically, we focus on aspects linked to the operation of conceptual blending, a major cognitive resource for creativity in many of its manifestations.

Understanding the role of simulation in conceptualization has become a priority for cognitive science. Barsalou makes a valuable contribution in that direction. The present commentary points to theoretical issues that need to be refined and elaborated in order to account for key aspects of meaning construction, such as negation, counterfactuals, quantification or analogy. Backstage cognition, with its elaborate bindings, blendings, and mappings, is more complex than Barsalou's discussion might suggest. Language does not directly carry meaning, but rather serves, along with (...) countless other situational elements, as a powerful instrument for prompting its construction. (shrink)

Meaning construction through language requires advanced mental operations also necessary for other higher-order, specifically human behaviors. Biological evolution slowly improved conceptual mapping capacities until human beings reached the level of double-scope blending, perhaps 50 to 80 thousand years ago, at which point language, along with other higher-order human behaviors, became possible. Languages are optimized to be driven by the principles and powers of double-scope blending.

L’objectif de l’article est de proposer une théorie de l’engagement psychologique dans le langage. C’est-à-dire de présenter une vue systématique de l’implication de la psyché des sujets parlants dans leur accomplissement d’actes de langage ou encore de ce à quoi ils sont assujettis sur le plan psychologique quand ils parlent. Cette théorie a la forme d’une série de thèses chacune relative à un trait spécifique de la performance langagière. Prenant appui sur la philosophie du langage de John Searle et Daniel (...) Vanderveken, elle est élaborée à partir d’une notion originale d’engagement à avoir des états mentaux.The aim of this article is to propose a theory of the psychological commitment in the language. In other words, it is to present a systematic view of how the mental states of the speakers are present in their performance of speech acts, of what are the psychological states to the possession of which the speakers are committed when they speak. This theory is based on several thesis, each of which is about a specific aspect of the performance of speech acts. It is proposed in the perspective of the philosophy of language of John Searle and Daniel Vanderveken on the basis of an original concept of commitment to have mental states. (shrink)

The flames of Alexandria continue to rage. After twenty centuries, they still dazzle us, as though the Mouseion were the only massacred library. One would believe that Julius Caesar, Theophilus of Antioch and Omar (the three pyromaniacs, the pagan, the Christian and the Moslem) had had no predecessors or imitators. But the race of incendiaries is as numerous as the waves of the sea. It is monotonous, it is indestructible, it is equal to that of the ants. It was born (...) at the same time as the first Babylonian tablets. In 1988, it continues its work. All over the world and in all times, the incendiaries were there with their torches. They burned parchments, wood or clay tablets, leather manuscripts, papyrus or folios. The same warriors who profaned temples set fire to incunabula. The same ones who slaughtered the Aztecs threw their firebrands into the collection of codices. What is it, this unleashed fury of prince and priest, judge and soldier against these small monuments of clay or paper, against these sepulchres in which the dead say that they have lived and loved, suffered and hoped? (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est issu d’un colloque qui s’est déroulé à Paris (au Sénat) en janvier 2008. Il a été dirigé par les professeurs Gilles Darcy et Mathieu Doat, avec le soutien du Centre de Recherches Administratives de l’université de Brest et le Centre d’étude et de Recherches Administratives et Politiques de l’université de Paris 13 (Paris-Nord). Cet ouvrage cherche à mieux saisir les relations complexes entre le droit et l’imaginaire. En effet, le droit moderne est tout entier placé sous (...) le signe de la raison. L’imaginaire en semble exclu. Il est abandonné à l’art, aux poètes et aux peintres. L’image est suspecte. Elle est fiction ou rêverie. Aujourd’hui, le dépassement sinon la fin de l’ère moderne, par l’inflation des normes, la flexibilité des règles, la complexité des systèmes juridiques ont sous nos yeux des conséquences sur la manière dont on se représente le droit. Cette transformation du droit oblige à tâtonner parfois, à imaginer aussi, voire à rêver de nouvelles formes juridiques. Elle révèle en fait la part toujours présente de l’imaginaire dans le droit. C’est cette place et cette fonction de l’imaginaire en droit que cet ouvrage collectif interroge à travers quatre questions très générales qui constitueront les parties du livre. Quelle est l’importance de la manipulation des images en droit? La pensée juridique classique a pour constante tradition de dévaluer l’image. Pourtant, l’image est partout. Elle sert notre représentation de la justice ; elle permet de rêver un droit meilleur. Se faisant séductrice, elle infiltre la plupart des concepts juridiques, cachant parfois l’idéologie. L’importance de la manipulation n’inquiète pas toujours. Elle est cependant présente. Quelle part l’imagination et la rêverie prennent-elles dans la production du droit et du savoir juridique? L’imagination permet la création, l’invention des normes, des solutions juridiques et des théories. Elle déforme aussi les idées. Elle inspire le juge et transforme les textes. Comment l’imaginaire sert-il à fonder la puissance et la magie du droit? C’est la force et la puissance de l’image et de ses montages qu’il faut essayer ici de saisir. L’imaginaire fonde, bâtit, justifie, motive, légitime le système juridique. Qu’est-ce que connaître le droit quand il n’y a de connaissance que dans l’espace de la fiction? Le droit ne peut se passer de l’imaginaire. C’est une toile d’araignée qui met en rapport des mots. Les effets pervers sont multiples d’autant plus qu’on assiste à une explosion de la production juridique. (shrink)

Au-dela des idees convenues, comment penser les fondements d'une crise sociale inscrite dans le temps long? La guerre civile perpetuelle evalue dans plusieurs domaines les ravages politiques de la philosophie de la modernite. Cette etude examine d'abord sa capacite a detruire a la racine la possibilite du lien social naturel, pour tenter par la suite de le recreer au moyen de divers artifices. Loin de se limiter au simple constat d'echec, l'originalite et la force de cet ouvrage resident dans l'analyse (...) des causes d'un processus logique qui tend a imposer sa violence intrinseque au coeur de la relation sociale. Avec les contributions de: Miguel Ayuso Torres, Guillaume Bernard, Jacques Bonnet, Danilo Castellano, Bernard Dumont, Gilles Dumont, Jose Miguel Gambra, Carlo Gambescia, Isabelle Huten, Aude de Kerros, Teodoro Katte Klitsche de la Grange, Marc de Launay, Pierre de Lauzun, Alain Mescheriakoff, Dalmacio Negro Pavon, Monica Papazu, Claude Polin, Christophe Reveillard, Giovanni Turco. (shrink)

Widespread preservation of fossilized biomolecules in many fossil animals has recently been reported in six studies, based on Raman microspectroscopy. Here, we show that the putative Raman signatures of organic compounds in these fossils are actually instrumental artefacts resulting from intense background luminescence. Raman spectroscopy is based on the detection of photons scattered inelastically by matter upon its interaction with a laser beam. For many natural materials, this interaction also generates a luminescence signal that is often orders of magnitude more (...) intense than the light produced by Raman scattering. Such luminescence, coupled with the transmission properties of the spectrometer, induced quasi‐periodic ripples in the measured spectra that have been incorrectly interpreted as Raman signatures of organic molecules. Although several analytical strategies have been developed to overcome this common issue, Raman microspectroscopy as used in the studies questioned here cannot be used to identify fossil biomolecules. (shrink)

Several authors assume that evaluative conditioning (EC) relies on high-level propositional thinking. In contrast, the dual-process perspective proposes two processing pathways, one associative and the other propositional, contributing to EC. Dual-process theorists argue that attitudinal ambiguity resulting from these two pathways’ conflicting evaluations demonstrate the involvement of both automatic and controlled processes in EC. Previously, we suggested that amplitude variations of error-related negativity and error-positivity, two well-researched event-related potentials of performance monitoring, allow for the detection of attitudinal ambiguity at the (...) neural level. The present study utilises self-reported evaluation, categorisation performance, and neural correlates of performance monitoring to explore associative-propositional ambiguity during social attitude formation. Our results show that compared to associative-propositional harmony, attitudinal ambiguity correlates with more neutral subjective evaluations, longer response times, increased error commission, and diminished error-related negativity amplitudes. While our findings align with dual-process models, we aim to offer a propositional interpretation. We discuss dual-process theories in the context of evolutionary psychology, suggesting that associative processes may only represent a small piece of the EC puzzle. (shrink)

L’histoire économique nous enseigne que si le progrès technique ne profite pas à tous les travailleurs lorsqu’il apparaît, à long terme il est le facteur principal de la hausse extraordinaire des salaires et du niveau de vie que l’économie mondiale a connue depuis la révolution industrielle. Pourtant, les progrès de la robotique pourraient bien remettre en question cet optimisme et donner raison aux Cassandre qui prophétisaient la fin du travail. En effet, le champ de ces technologies ne cesse de progresser, (...) au point où la totalité des tâches effectuées par les humains serait robotisable. Si c’est le cas, l’économie et la société en seraient profondément transformées. On considère six scénarios. Dans trois d’entre eux, une classe humaine quasi-oisive se maintient grâce à des transferts prélevés sur la production effectuée par les robots. Ces transferts peuvent s’effectuer à travers l’État-Providence, le clientélisme d’une oligarchie possédant les robots, ou le maintien néo-fordiste d’emplois tertiaires dont la fonction essentielle serait le versement d’un salaire qui permettrait le maintien du pouvoir d’achat. En l’absence de mécanismes redistributifs, on envisage trois autres scénarios. Selon le scénario des rentiers, une classe de propriétaires de robots émerge, suffisamment nombreuse pour s'opposer politiquement à des transferts redistributifs. Selon le scénario malthusien, le salaire tombe au niveau du salaire de subsistance et la population humaine diminue, ne laissant subsister qu’une classe de rentiers vivant de la possession de robots. Selon le scénario virtuel, le salaire de subsistance lui-même baisse considérablement sous l’effet des nouvelles technologies : la population se maintient en dépit des baisses de salaire. (shrink)

This book looks at why labour market institutions such as those evident in continental Europe - more specifically, employment protection, unemployment benefits, and relative wage rigidities - exist, what role they play in society, why they seem so persistent, where the pressure to reform them comes from, and whether reform can be politically viable or not. It studies the economic conditions under which we expect a given set of institutions to arise and remain stable, and provides theoretical guidelines about the (...) gainers and losers from given institutions. (shrink)

In this supplement to a work co-authored with André Cresson, David Hume, sa vie, son œuvre, left untranslated until now, Deleuze lays the groundwork for what he will later develop as an “ethics without morality.” Contrary to morality, ethics engenders its general rule for action out of the immanence that grants it the power to affect and to be affected, that is, to increase or decrease its capacity to compose new empowering relations between beings, and between beings and the world. (...) The power to act is synonymous with the capacity to imaginatively create relations, in order to exist. In this way, the imagination reveals its ontological significance. Here we discern Deleuze’s Humean impulse encountering a fundamental Nietzscheanism. The translator’s introduction attempts to make explicit his specific philosophical motive, at this point only formative but, eventually, foundational for his later thought. (shrink)