[A dictionary of contemporary philosophical concepts].

L’article s’emploie à comparer la doctrine de l’Incarnation dans les trois grandes œuvres spéculatives de saint Thomas : Scriptum super Sententiis, Summa contra Gentiles, Summa theologiae. Il examine d’abord le plan suivi dans les trois ouvrages pour traiter ce thème ; puis la façon dont saint Thomas remédie à deux lacunes de la christologie du Lombard (convenances de l’Incarnation, mystères de la vie du Christ) ; ensuite, les deux opinions christologiques du Lombard rejetées par les docteurs parisiens et concernant, l’une, (...) l’âme séparée du corps et, l’autre, la question de savoir si, durant le triduum mortis, le Christ était un homme ; enfin, dix-sept des articuli in quibus. Malgré son caractère pointilliste, cette recherche permet d’explorer les aspects essentiels de la christologie de saint Thomas, de souligner les progrès de sa pensée et aussi de relever quelques positions problématiques de son enseignement. (shrink)

Because the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge is a method of thinking, Ch'eng Tzu dealt with it first. In Erh Ch'eng i-shu [Legacy of the Two Ch'engs], section 25, it is said: "The Ta hsueh [Great Learning] states: A thing has its essentials and nonessentials, an affair has a beginning and an end. Knowledge of what is primary and what is secondary approximates the truth." Ch'eng Tzu maintained that the most important thing in study is to know (...) what is essential and what is nonessential - the beginning and the end. The extension of knowledge lies in the investigation of things; it is essential and constitutes the beginning. Governing the world and the state is nonessential and constitutes the end. Chu Tzu [Chu Hsi] said: "Ch'eng Tzu discussed the theory of the investigation of things in detail." But what is the extension of knowledge and the investigation of things? Chu Tzu maintained that "to investigate" [ko] means "to study thoroughly" [ch'iung]; the term "thing" [wu] means "principle" [li]. To investigate the thing is to study its principle thoroughly. A thorough study of principle leads to an extension of knowledge; without a thorough study there can be no extension. Consequently, he thought that the investigation of things is the beginning of truth and that the student who undertakes the investigation of things is already near the truth. Why? Because the student who undertakes the investigation of things can control his mind completely. Although the key to governing the state and pacifying the world lies in the person — as in the saying "governing the world and the state must begin with the person" — one who would govern the state and pacify the world must first cultivate himself. Cultivating the self is the key to governing the state and pacifying the world, and the means of cultivating the self are the investigation of things, the extension of knowledge, sincere thought, and a correct mind. Perhaps the reader will ask, what the relationship is between cultivating the self, on the one hand, and the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge, on the other hand? Cultivating the self belongs to the realm of ethics; investigating things and the extension of knowledge belong to the realm of knowledge. Given the fact that the cultivation of the self belongs to the realm of ethics and the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge belong to the realm of knowledge, how can an intrinsic relationship between these two dissimilar realms develop? We know that Ch'eng Tzu emphasized two kinds of knowledge, moral knowledge and empirical knowledge. He maintained that if there were only empirical knowledge, there would be only the physical person dependent upon external things without knowing truth. Moral knowledge is true knowledge; therefore, it is necessary to transform empirical knowledge into moral knowledge. Only when external, empirical knowledge and internal, moral knowledge are combined is there true knowledge. But how are empirical knowledge and moral knowledge combined? Chu Tzu elaborated on this point. In the collected writings of Chu Tzu there is an explanation of the couplet "Heaven gave birth to the people/There are things and there are laws" from the Shihching [Book of Poetry]: "Ta ya cheng min." Chu Tzu maintained that in the line "There are things and there are laws" from the Shih-ching, the word "thing" [wu] means "form" [hsing] and the word "laws" [tse] means principle [li]. "Form" is a metaphysical concept, and "law" is what is called metaphysics. Man certainly cannot be without this thing, but unless we understand the "principle" of this "thing," we have no way of knowing whether it conforms to the correct form of life or of deciding the appropriateness of the thing. We must, therefore, seek the principle of this thing. But even if we know the thing and seek its principle, we still have not reached "the limits of the thing"; "the principle of the thing" has not been thoroughly studied and our knowledge of it is not complete. Consequently, we must strive "to reach its limits." This is the meaning of the statement:Only by investigating the thing and arriving at the thing itself can the principle of the thing be known completely. When the principle of the thing is known completely, our knowledge of it is extended and focused. Without obscuration, weaknesses and insurmountable barriers, the intention cannot but be sincere and the mind cannot but be up-right. (shrink)

The preceding chapter listed the measures Ch'in Shih-huang took to consolidate the unification. Before all this, the state of Ch'in, through Shang Yang's reforms, had eliminated the hereditary privileges of the aristocracy, dealt a severe blow to the power of the slave-owning aristocracy, instituted the system of landownership by the landlords, established the system of commanderies, unified weights and measures, and carried out the policy of "emphasizing agriculture and restricting commerce," so as to enable the landlord economy to achieve greater (...) expansion in the state of Ch'in. Now Ch'in Shih-huang went a step further to propagate Shang Yang's Legalist policies, liquidated the aristocracy in the six states to the east, abolished the system of installing hereditary nobles to rule their domains throughout the country, and universally implemented the system of commanderies and prefectures. He also abolished the old aristocratic political structures maintained by the six states, established a centralized feudal system of dictatorship, and thus dealt a blow to the landownership system of the remnant slave-owning aristocracy. By means of laws and regulations, he established throughout the country the system of landownership by landlords and continued to adhere to the policy of "emphasizing agriculture and restricting commerce," promoted the development of the landlord economy, abolished the divergent laws and regulations of the six states, and put into effect throughout the country new laws and regulations representing the interests of the newly rising landlord class. He also standardized weights and measures, unified the written language, and fixed the length of axles of all carts. Generally speaking, during the first stage of the establishment of a unified, centralized feudal state, Ch'in Shih-huang, as the general representative of the newly rising landlord class, carried out a series of measures that "emphasized the present while slighting the past" and initiated a series of important political, economic, and cultural reforms. The "present" he "emphasized" was the newly rising landlord class, and the "past" he "slighted" was the declining old aristocracy. As a result, the Ch'in dynasty was able to exert a definite stimulating influence in the process of monumental historical transformation, to put an end to the prolonged period of division and rivalry among the feudal states, to unify our great multinational country, and to set up the largest centralized feudal state up to that time. To be sure, the Ch'in dynasty was after all a political regime of the landlord class. It was a machine of the landlord class to exploit and oppress the peasant masses. This is something we must recognize. (shrink)

Everybody knows that the Revolution of 1911 was an anti-imperialist and antifeudal democratic revolution led by the revolutionary and democratic group of the bourgeoisie in the period of the old democratic revolution in China. The leader of that revolution was Sun Yat-sen, and the guiding ideology was his old Three People's Principles. It is well known that Chairman Mao has made a series of scientific appraisals of these facts, but the newspapers and magazines controlled by the anti-Party clique of Wang (...) Hung-wen, Chang Ch'un-ch'iao, Chiang Ch'ing and Yao Wen-yuan openly oppose Chairman Mao's scientific appraisals, betraying the fundamental principles of Marxism, distorting the Revolution of 1911 as a struggle between Confucians and Legalists, and replacing Sun Yat-sen as the standard-bearer of the revolution with Chang T'ai-yen, who played first an active and then a devastating role in the revolution. All this is part of the clique's attack on the Party in order to usurp the Party, seize power, restore capitalism and fabricate the "history" of the struggle between the Confucians and the Legalists. (shrink)

The discovery that hypocretins are involved in narcolepsy, a disorder associated with excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy and unusually rapid transitions to rapid‐eye‐movement sleep, opens a new field of investigation in the area of sleep control physiology. Hypocretin‐1 and ‐2 (also called orexin‐A and ‐B) are newly discovered neuropeptides processed from a common precursor, preprohypocretin. Hypocretin‐containing cells are located exclusively in the lateral hypothalamus, with widespread projections to the entire neuroaxis. Two known receptors, Hcrtr1 and Hcrtr2, have been reported. The functional (...) significance of the hypocretin system is rapidly emerging in both animals and humans. Hypocretin abnormalities cause narcolepsy in dogs, human and mice. The role of the hypocretin system in normal sleep regulation is more uncertain. We believe hypocretin cells drive cholinergic and monoaminergic activity across the sleep cycle. Input from the suprachiasmatic nucleus to hypocretin‐containing neurons may explain the occurrence of clock‐dependent alertness. Other functions are suggested by pharmacological and neurochemical experiments. These include regulation of food intake, neuroendocrine function, autonomic nervous system activity and energy balance. BioEssays 23:397–408, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Actualmente, la reflexión sobre la imagen se centra mayoritariamente sobre su masiva presencia y su interminable reproducción. En este trabajo nos centraremos, a la inversa, en cómo las imágenes se destruyen masiva y sistemáticamente. Si el examen interdisciplinar es una prerrogativa fundamental en los estudios visuales, el volumen Striking Images, Iconoclasms Past and Present (Ashgate 2013), compilado por excelentes históricos y arqueólogos, ofrece a los filósofos un modelo importante de colaboración a la hora de pensar qué son las imágenes. El (...) propósito de este trabajo es presentar y discutir brevemente algunos aspectos originales de estos ensayos, enfatizando la importancia de los distintos modos y motivos por los que nuestros antepasados no solo han creado, sino también han destruido imágenes. Distinguiendo la iconoclasia del simple vandalismo, podemos descubrir una ambigüedad fundamental según la cual quien intenta preservar las imágenes, acaba con destruirlas y quien aparece como destros antepasados no solo han tructor, logra fertilizar nuevas concepciones y significados para su propia tradición figurativa. Quizás esta ambigüedad no sea algo que las imágenes sufren desde fuera, sino que sea algo connatural a la imagen misma. Y si es así, quien hoy estudia la vida de las imágenes, quizás podría encontrar un acceso privilegiado en esa a través una lógica paradójica que destaca como las imágenes mueren. PALABRAS CLAVESICONOCLASIA, ICONOFÍLIA, FILOSOFÍA Y TEORÍA DE LAS IMÁGENES, ESTUDIOS VISUALES.ABSTRACTContemporary thought on images focuses mostly on their massive presence and their endless reproduction. On the contrary, in this paper, I will focus on how images have been massively and systematically destroyed. If the interdisciplinary exam is a fundamental prerogative in visual studies, the volume Striking Images, Iconoclasms Past and Present (Ashgate 2013), compiled by excellent historians and archaeologists, could offer to philosophers an important frame of teamwork in thinking what the images are. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss briefly some original aspects of these essays, by emphasizing the importance of means and reasons through which our ancestors have not only created, but also destroyed images. Once distinguished iconoclasm and mere vandalism, we could discover a fundamental ambiguity whereby any person who tries to preserve the images, finishes with wrecking them; while on the contrary somebody who appears as a destroyer, succeeds to fertilize new concepts and meanings for his/her own figurative tradition. Perhaps this ambiguity is not something that image suffers extrinsically, but something inherent to the image itself. And if it is so, he/she who wants to study the life of images, could perhaps find a privileged access to it, through a paradoxical logic that explains, instead, how images die.KEYWORDSICONOCLASM, ICONOPHILIA, PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY OF IMAGES, VISUAL STUDIES. (shrink)

The essays on aesthetics in recent publications, beginning with the criticisms of Chu Kuang-ch'ien's point of view in aesthetics and continuing down to his article "How Can Aesthetics be Materialistic and Dialectic?" [Mei-hsüeh tsen-yang ts'ai neng shih wei-wu ti yu shih pien-cheng ti?"], have focused on the problem of the relationship between the subjective and the objective in beauty and in sense of beauty. This is a fundamental problem in aesthetics, and only when we have solved this problem can we (...) answer the questions of what beauty is and wherein beauty lies. Some people have presented their own tentative answers to these questions, and these have been discussed by our comrades. (shrink)

Dans l'immense correspondance de Leibniz son échange épistolaire avec Goldbach occupe une certaine place. 4 lettres de Leibniz à Goldbach ont été publiées à son temps par Ch.G.W. Kortholt dans les deux premiers volumes de Leibnitii Epistolae ad diversos (t. I-IV, Lipsiae, 1734-1742) et rééditées par L. Dutens (Leibniz: Opera omnia, t. 3 et 5, Genevae, 1768). Récemment on a découvert 6 lettres de Goldbach à Leibniz conservées aux Archives Centrales d'Etat des Actes Anciens (= ACAA) à Moscou et encore (...) un extrait de lettre de Leibniz à Goldbach à Hannover. Cela fait, pris ensemble, une jolie collection de 11 lettres dont la traduction russe fut publiée en 1983. Nous en présentons maintenant le texte original latin avec une brève introduction et des notes. Une lettre, comme on va voir, y manque. (shrink)