Ayant depuis son premier livre exploré son hypothèse d'une naissance de notre langage articulé, humain, à partir de l'expérience de la mort d'autrui comme autre soi-même, Gérard Bucher expose dans un dernier ouvrage les raisons des travaux d'une vie entière. La poésie, pour Bucher, c'est ce qui reste (et qui, ainsi, nous est légué, génération après génération), d'une scène (ou archiscène) au cours de laquelle rien de moins que les clés de notre humanité nous sont données. Dans Homo divinans, complété (...) et relu avant sa disparition fin 2018, le philosophe nous propose les raisons pour lesquelles la poésie demeure notre avenir, dans et malgré nos temps difficultueux."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Gesture and elaborate forms of nonverbal behaviour have been posited as necessary antecedents to language and shared conceptual understanding. Here we argue that subtle and largely unintentional nonverbal behaviours play a key role in building consensual beliefs within culture. We propose a model that focuses on the subtle and automatic nonverbal transmission of attitudes, beliefs and cultural ideals. Specifically, people extract attitudes and beliefs from nonverbal behaviour-- such extraction is both ubiquitous and efficient. The extracted attitudes and beliefs become individual (...) beliefs if encountered frequently enough. Consequently, people may come to adopt the same attitudes, beliefs and behaviours in the absence of verbal communication. Finally, one's own nonverbal behaviour reflects the extracted attitudes, beliefs and ideals of those of one's group, serving as a means for transmitting culture. The implication is that subtle nonverbal behaviour is important for the creation and maintenance of culture. (shrink)

One effect of information technology is the increasing need to present information visually. The trend raises intriguing questions. What is the logical status of reasoning that employs visualization? What are the cognitive advantages and pitfalls of this reasoning? What kinds of tools can be developed to aid in the use of visual representation? This newest volume on the Studies in Logic and Computation series addresses the logical aspects of the visualization of information. The authors of these specially commissioned papers explore (...) the properties of diagrams, charts, and maps, and their use in problem solving and teaching basic reasoning skills. As computers make visual representations more commonplace, it is important for professionals, researchers and students in computer science, philosophy, and logic to develop an understanding of these tools; this book can clarify the relationship between visuals and information. (shrink)

Facial expressions have communicative properties that bear some importance to perceivers. Such expressions are informative with respect to the future behavior of the expressing individual and with respect to the conditions of the broader social environment. This article argues that appropriate responses to facial expressions are an important means by which people adapt to their social ecology. The immediate responses to facial expressions depend on contextual factors. It is more important for individuals to adapt to the ingroup than to other (...) groups, for this reason people should exhibit special sensitivity to ingroup facial expressions. It reviews the literature regarding the role of context in the recognition of facial expressions and regarding group membership and emotion recognition, with a special emphasis on the role of culture. It focuses on facial expressions of emotion if only because of available empirical literature. (shrink)

Written by one of the most important founding figures of Western philosophy, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics represents a critical point in the study of ethics which has influenced the direction of modern philosophy. The Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics introduces the major themes in Aristotle’s great book and acts as a companion for reading this key work, examining: The context of Aristotle’s work and the background to his writing Each separate part of the text in relation to its goals, meanings (...) and impact The reception the book received when first seen by the world The relevance of Aristotle’s work to modern philosophy, its legacy and influence. With further reading included throughout, this text is essential reading for all students of philosophy, and all those wishing to get to grips with this classic work. (shrink)

Are OCypersonsOCO physical things, members of the species homo sapiens which exist solely in materialist form, continuous in structure with other living things? Or is the issue a more complex one: are there more dimensions to being a person than mere physical, biological existence? These are matters of interest and discussion in many fields of study in this age of individuality. In this wide-ranging essay, the author addresses various aspects of the issue, including the history of self and identity. The (...) ancient tradition of dualism is rejected in favour of a straightforward holistic and naturalistic account of selfhood; it is argued that the mind arises in an emergent sense from the body and personal identity is best expressed in terms of a self-reflective and meaningful narrative. The approach is principally from an analytic philosophy point of view but also takes onOCoboard psychological and sociological aspects of self and identity. (shrink)

At the start of the 21st century, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) seems to have great potential for innovating business practices with a positive impact on People, Planet and Profit. In this article the differences between the management systems approach of the nineties, and Corporate Social Responsibility are analysed.An analysis is structured around three business principles that are relevant for CSR and management systems: (1) doing things right the first time, (2) doing the right things, and (3) continuous improvement and innovation. (...) Basically CSR is focussing on the second principle, and management systems focus on the first. However, CSR is very likely to build on the management systems as well.From a CSR point of view, the existing generation of management systems with their focus on rational control (= doing things right) can only be of limited use in the development of CSR. However, the preventive rationalities of management systems are important. Values and the principle doing the right things is extremely relevant for CSR. This goes far beyond the present generation of ISO type management systems; opportunities stem from building on TQM approaches like the EFQM Business Excellence model. Continuous improvement and innovation is a permanent challenge underlying the two other business principles, and requires both individual and organisational learning processes. In the present generation of management systems, continuous improvement mainly addresses rational prevention, barely the value aspects of business.For the further development and implementation of CSR, each of the three business management principles are vital. There is a need for a new generation of management systems that addresses the values at stake in strategic decision-making, both at company level and in the behaviour of individuals, while the rationalities of prevention and anticipation are still relevant. In both directions more emphasis for continuous learning and innovation will be needed.CSR is likely to trigger the development of management systems in the directions mentioned. This will support companies to be credible and transparent in improving the performance with respect to people, planet and profit. (shrink)

In recent years, the relationships between systems of symbolic representations and cities have given rise to an often rich and stimulating consideration among various specialists in human sciences, namely, historians, anthropologists, semiologists and sociologists, among others. Urban conglomerates can no longer be conceived as simple assemblages of more or less functional constructions. The city is as much a mental concept as it is a physical reality. It is made up of images that give it a meaning. It does not exist (...) independently of the sum of subjective interpretations that are continually made by its inhabitants. Our Western perception of the city may be influenced by romanesque literature or the memory of a painting, in other words, by imaginary worlds. It varies according to individual memory: each of us is attached to the different urban spaces of his souvenirs, emotions arising from family history or the duration of a lifetime. These personal projections are all the more important because they command a certain number of daily actions and furnish a framework of orientation to every citizen. They contribute to giving a moral quality to urban space and transform physical objects into concepts, into more or less determined signs. (shrink)

The last decade or so has seen a resurgence of interest in Ryle's knowing‐how / knowing‐that (KH/KT) distinction, prompted by Stanley and Williamson's provocative intellectualist reading of the distinction. This chapter argues that even by Ryle's own account the distinction cannot properly be regarded as an epistemological distinction, that is, as demarcating two different kinds of knowledge. It talks about being clear about where our use of the KH/KT distinction does make sense and where it doesn't. More specifically, it leaves (...) us incapable of explaining how we are able to distinguish cases perhaps identical in terms of overt behaviour yet seemingly very different in terms of what is known. Although the KH/KT distinction has some limited viability in the context of knowledge attribution it is simply not viable as an epistemological distinction. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that there has been a ‘paradigm shift’ in the field of assessment over the last two or three decades: a new preoccupation with what learners can do, what they know or what they have achieved. It is suggested in this article that this change has precipitated a need to distinguish two conceptually and logically distinct methodological approaches to assessment that have hitherto gone unacknowledged. The upshot, it is argued, is that there appears to be a fundamental (...) confusion at the heart of current policy, a confusion occasioned by the demand to know what learners know and compounded by a failure to recognise what this properly entails for assessment methodology. (shrink)

We present a Kripke model for Girard's Linear Logic (without exponentials) in a conservative fashion where the logical functors beyond the basic lattice operations may be added one by one without recourse to such things as negation. You can either have some logical functors or not as you choose. Commutatively and associatively are isolated in such a way that the base Kripke model is a model for noncommutative, nonassociative Linear Logic. We also extend the logic by adding a coimplication operator, (...) similar to Curry's subtraction operator, which is resituated with Linear Logic's contensor product. And we can add contraction to get nondistributive Relevance Logic. The model rests heavily on Urquhart's representation of nondistributive lattices and also on Dunn's Gaggle Theory. Indeed, the paper may be viewed as an investigation into nondistributive Gaggle Theory restricted to binary operations. The valuations on the Kripke model are three valued: true, false, and indifferent. The lattice representation theorem of Urquhart has the nice feature of yielding Priestley's representation theorem for distributive lattices if the original lattice happens to be distributive. Hence the representation is consistent with Stone's representation of distributive and Boolean lattices, and our semantics is consistent with the Lemmon-Scott representation of modal algebras and the Routley-Meyer semantics for Relevance Logic. (shrink)

Evocation de la découverte de l'Orient par Teilhard de Chardin et analyse de la vision teilhardienne de ce que devrait apporter l'Orient à l'Occident. L'originalité de sa démarche se caractèrise par l'intégration du phénomène religieux au coeur du phénomène humain et plus précisément par l'idée d'une "convergence des religions".

Comment penser la politique sans repenser l'essence de l'opinion? Mais comment être encore 'philosophe' si l'on accorde que la doxa manifeste quelque chose de la vérité du monde? Statuer sur ce dilemme demande que soit interrogée la tradition de la philosophie dans sa relation à la politique. D'abord en réhabilitant l'idée d'un sens commun à tous, dont le partage passe par la confrontation des opinions énoncées dans des jugements discordants. Existence partagée supportant hors d'elle de l'impartagé, la démocratie vit sous (...) la condition que libre voix soit inconditionnellement accordée à l'expression des opinions. Ensuite, en donnant à cette existence démocratique, irréductible à un régime, son concept, la transaction. La transaction désigne à la fois une action de reliaison entre des pôles opposés inconciliables et les objets transactionnels dans lesquels se cristallise cette action de façon aléatoire et provisoire. La démocratie n'est rien d'autre que le mouvement qui va de l'action à l'objet qui la fixe puis de l'objet à l'action qui le défait."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Dans ses Variations, Gérard Rabinovitch retrouve le cheminement des pensées qui se sont posées sur le rire, depuis l'Antiquité. Il explore la spécificité qui fonde l'humour pour mieux tracer la frontière qui le sépare des autres formes de rires. En suggérant de reprendre la discussion sur la liberté du rire là où l'avait lancée en son temps Pierre Desproges, qui à la question "Peut-on rire de tout?" répondait en homme averti "Oui! Mais pas avec n'importe qui!", Gérard Rabinovitch (...) propose en filigrane une nuance corrective : "Oui! Mais pas n'importe comment". Il accompagne son propos itinérant d'un florilège d'histoires d'auteurs venus d'horizons variés qui scrutent la condition humaine avec humour et lucidité. (shrink)

Lire Hegel: Un bilan -- "Sortir de Hegel": Des jeunes-hégéliens à Nietzsche et Rosenzweig.