In his writings on the conception and the birth of the Son of God, Jacob of Sarug perceives Mary’s perpetual virginity as a mystery intimately linked to that of the Son of God. In fact, the Son of God has taken flesh from the Virgin for us men and for our salvation. Jacob presents two ways to describe the Incarnation : the conception of the Word of God through the ear, and his entrance in the world through the common door (...) of all men. This paper intends to identify the Mariological and Christological challenges of Mary’s virginal motherhood, according to Jacob of Sarug. For this purpose, it proposes to review both ways in the light of the two images of Mary : the sealed letter in which the Divine Word was inscribed, and the closed door of Ezekiel’s vision. (shrink)

Sur l’acropole de Thasos se sont succédé deux temples d’Athéna : un premier, d’époque archaïque, fut détruit aux environs de 500 av. J.‑C., un second, dont les ruines sont aujourd’hui visibles, n’a pas été daté précisément par les fouilles. Cet édifice aurait dû être le plus grand temple de Thasos mais sa construction a été interrompue alors que la crépis était seulement ébauchée. Le temple ne fut jamais terminé : des blocs destinés à sa construction furent même utilisés lors de (...) travaux sur le rempart vers la fin du ve siècle. On présente ici l’ensemble des données architecturales qui montrent que l’édifice projeté avait un plan et des caractéristiques techniques complètement inhabituels à Thasos. On s’interroge sur les raisons d’être de ces bizarreries et sur celles de l’abandon du projet. On propose de chercher dans les rapports complexes qu’entretiennent Athènes et Thasos tout au long du ve siècle des éléments pour expliquer l’architecture même de l’édifice ainsi que son étrange destin. (shrink)

"One of the major works in the development of contemporary criticism and philosophy." -- J. Hillis Miller, Yale University Jacques Derrida's revolutionary theories about deconstruction, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, first voiced in the 1960s, forever changed the face of European and American criticism. The ideas in De la grammatologie sparked lively debates in intellectual circles that included students of literature, philosophy, and the humanities, inspiring these students to ask questions of their disciplines that had previously been considered improper. Thirty years (...) later, the immense influence of Derrida's work is still igniting controversy, thanks in part to Gayatri Spivak's translation, which captures the richness and complexity of the original. This corrected edition adds a new index of the critics and philosophers cited in the text and makes one of contemporary criticism's most indispensable works even more accessible and usable. (shrink)

This article presents the perspective of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on the concept of the State. It is divided into three parts, the first addressing the emergence of the State as a result of the expropriation of the means of production suffered by direct producers, giving rise to private property with the State; the first section also addresses the State in slave and feudal society. The second section explains the functions of the bourgeois state, that is, the attributions of (...) the State which, situated in the capitalist mode of production, represents the wishes of the ruling class; as well as, it points to the illusory form of democracy in the bourgeois State, that limits itself to reforming and does not envisage overcoming it. Finally, the third section treat with the State under the control of the working class, that is, in the period of transition to classless society, and the consequent dissolution of the State after the firmament of this society free from exploiters and exploited. (shrink)

The discussion about the concept of enlightenment runs through the conception of Immanuel Kant, who thematized it as an exit from the individual from his condition of intellectual minority and guardianship of those who prevent the exercise of thinking for himself, impelling the achievement of autonomy that requires freedom and to make public use of reason. Such problematization about the difficulties interposed to the process of enlightenment can be related to the problem of estrangement in Marx, making the necessary considerations (...) in relation to the historical and social context of both philosophers. In this way, through philosophical investigation, it is possible to establish correlations of complementarities, differences and counterpoints between the different conceptions of Kant and Marx. Thus, we realize that the search for enlightenment depends on overcoming the material determinations of the set of alienations produced by the capitalist mode of production, aiming at the achievement of human emancipation understood as effective autonomous freedom. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida: Law as Absolute Hospitalityãeepresents a comprehensive account and understanding of Derridaâe(tm)s approach to law and justice. Through a detailed reading of Derridaâe(tm)s texts, Jacques de Ville contends that it is only by way of Derrida's deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence, and specifically in relation to the texts of Husserl, Levinas, Freud and Heidegger - that the reasoning behind his elusive works on law and justice can be grasped. Through detailed readings of texts such as To speculate âe" (...) on Freud, Adieu, Declarations of Independence, Before the Law, Cogito and the history of madness, Given Time, Force of Law and Specters of Marx, De Ville contends that there is a continuity in Derridaâe(tm)s thinking, and rejects the idea of an âe~ethical turnâe(tm). Derrida is shown to be neither a postmodernist nor a political liberal, but a radical revolutionary. De Ville also controversially contends that justice in Derridaâe(tm)s thinking must be radically distinguished from Levinasâe(tm)s reflections on âe~the otherâe(tm). It is the notion of absolute hospitality - which Derrida derives from Levinas, but radically transforms - that provides the basis of this argument. Justice must on De Villeâe(tm)s reading be understood in terms of a demand of absolute hospitality which is imposed on both the individual and the collective subject. A much needed account of Derrida's influential approach to law,ãeeJacques Derrida: Law as Absolute Hospitalityãeewill be an invaluable resource for those with an interest in legal theory, and for those with an interest in the ethics and politics of deconstruction. (shrink)

Comment évolue depuis quelques années la démocratie en Occident? C’est au fond à cette question essentielle que sont consacrés les textes proposés ici par la section « Vie politique ». Même si la mort de Ben Laden, en mai dernier, a pu laisser penser que l’Amérique d’Obama avait retrouvé une certaine confiance en elle, le berceau de la démocratie n’en est pas...

Le succès européen de l’enquête de Roberto Saviano, Gomorra, sur les ramifications internationales de la Camorra napolitaine, a rappelé combien le phénomène mafieux dépasse largement le Mezzogiorno italien1. Quelque peu négligée depuis la fin des grandes tueries de Palerme au début des années 1990, la mafia ou toute forme de criminalité organisée...

Spinoza, le spinozisme et les fondements de la sécularisation est un ouvrage dédié à la mémoire d’Emmanuel Levinas, dont l’auteur a été l’élève durant plusieurs années. Il vise, à travers une analyse d’ordre philosophique, historique, épistémologique et théologique, à mettre au jour les conditions d’émergence interrelatées du spinozisme et de la sécularisation. Pour ce faire, il souligne, entre autres, l’importance des polémiques anti-maimonidiennes, des débats sur les attributs divins, la substance, l’infini, du marranisme et de la Kabbale sur la formation (...) du spinozisme, ainsi que son rapport à la pensée contemporaine. Il mène une recherche interdisciplinaire devant permettre d’éclairer l’origine des difficultés théoriques que ce système philosophique présente. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEpisodic counterfactual thoughts and autobiographical memories involve the reactivation and recombination of episodic memory components into mental simulations. Upon reactivation, memories become labile and prone to modification. Thus, reactivating AM in the context of mentally generating CFT may provide an opportunity for editing processes to modify the content of the original memory. To examine this idea, this paper reports the results of two studies that investigated the effect of reactivating negative and positive AM in the context of either imagining a (...) better or a worse alternative to an experienced event, as opposed to attentively retrieving the memory without mental modification or no reactivation. Our results suggest that attentive remembering was the best strategy to both reduce the negative affect associated with negative AM, and to prevent the decay of positive affect associated with positive AM. In addition, reactivati... (shrink)

In this text, Jacques Rancière critically discusses the work of Georges Didi-Huberman on images. He disagrees with various claims seemingly made by Didi-Huberman about images, such as that they can “take position” or that they are “active.” Rancière argues that Didi-Huberman adds another form of dialectics to the simpler form of dialectics adopted by Bertolt Brecht and Harun Farocki in their works, namely one that also involves a layering of different temporalities. However, both in Brecht’s War Primer and in Didi-Huberman’s (...) analysis of it, all the potencies credited to images as such are actually potencies of the words that accompany the images. Rancière comes to the conclusion that to “put images in motion,” as Didi-Huberman wants to do, or to regard them as being “active,” he has to put words, his own poetic and extensive writings, in motion. (shrink)

Kant’s 1795 essay on perpetual peace has been lauded as one of his most important and influential political texts as well as one of the most important texts on peace. Kant’s text was largely forgotten until the 1980s and 1990s, with numerous commentaries appearing around the time of its 200 years existence. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s interest in Kant’s text appears to have arisen around the same time, and his analyses of this text continued after the turn of the (...) century. The references to Kant’s essay in Derrida’s texts appear mostly in the context of a discussion of the concept of hospitality. The latter concept is understood by Derrida as including both a demand for absolute hospitality, that is, hospitality without the imposition of any limitations, as well as a demand, in the interests of survival, for such limitations or conditions. A negotiation between these dimensions of hospitality is ultimately required. The aim of this article is to elucidate Derrida’s analysis of Kant’s essay, specifically his recasting of the concept of peace as absolute hospitality, as well as to briefly outline its implications for international and cosmopolitan law. (shrink)

La question des rapports du spinozisme à l’axiologie a fait l’objet de nombreux débats. Certains commentateurs considèrent Spinoza comme étant profondément immoraliste, alors que pour d’autres, il maintient l'ensemble des valeurs humaines. Spinoza a cherché à dépasser l’utilitarisme propre au conatus de chacun, afin de fonder un altruisme rationnel. Il souligne que le bien auquel l’homme aspire lorsqu’il suit la vertu, il le désirera aussi pour tous les autres hommes. Cependant, les moyens mis en œuvre pour démontrer cette thèse semblent (...) problématiques. Cet article analyse la logique de la coopération interhumaine élaborée par Spinoza, ainsi que son idéal de l’homme libre, montrant, qu'en fait, il n'a pas réussi à surmonter la nature profondément égoïste du conatus. -/- The question of the relationship between Spinozism and axiology has been the subject of much debate. Some commentators consider Spinoza to be profoundly immoralist, while for others he upholds the set of human values. Spinoza sought to go beyond the utilitarianism proper to the conatus of each person, in order to establish a rational altruism. He emphasizes that the good to which man aspires when he follows virtue, he will also desire for all other men. However, the means used to demonstrate this thesis seem problematic. This article analyzes Spinoza's logic of interhuman cooperation, as well as his ideal of the free man, showing that, in fact, he failed to overcome the profoundly egoistic nature of conatus. -/- . (shrink)

"Dans ses conférences annuelles à l'Université du Québec à Montréal, le philosophe flamand Jacques De Visscher dessine des figures de l'hospitalité à partir de lectures phénoménologiques d'oeuvres littéraires (Samuel Beckett, Albert Cohen, Franz Kafka, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, Paul van Ostaijen, Georges Perec, Marcel Proust) dans lesquelles il porte une attention particulière à la mise en scène architecturale, à la corporéité et à l'enracinement des choses dans notre monde ambiant. Il tente ainsi de nous prémunir d'une aliénation et d'un déracinement (...) qui appauvrissent nos relations avec autrui et notre être-au-monde."--From publisher's website. (shrink)

Des recherches récentes dans la chôra thasienne ont apporté une éclatante confirmation du texte d'Hérodote (VI, 46-47) évoquant les ressources minières de Thasos. Sur la côte orientale, entre Potamia et Kinyra, ont été repérées de nombreuses mines réparties en trois secteurs sur le versant de la montagne. L'or est le seul métal contenu en quantité suffisante pour être exploitable dans les prélèvements de minerai. Les autres mines évoquées allusivement par Hérodote sont des mines d'or (Limenas), ou de plomb argentifère, de (...) cuivre et de fer (côté occidental de l'île). (shrink)

This essay shows how Derrida, in a variety of texts, engages directly or indirectly with the Kantian moral law, which rests on the assumption of man's autonomy vis-à-vis his natural inclinations. In the background of this analysis is Derrida's engagement with Freud, the latter having argued that the Kantian moral law is located in, and can be equated with, the superego. Derrida challenges Freud's assignation of the moral law (solely) to the superego, and suggests that what appears to Kant as (...) the moral law and to Freud as the demands of the superego, already involve a limitation of a much more radical demand on the self: that of absolute sacrifice, and which one can understand with reference to Freud's death drive. This demand can be referred to as the law of law, that is, the law which makes of the moral law a law. Within this broader framework, the essay explores in detail Derrida's reading of Kant's notion of respect that is owed to the moral law, the notion of duty, and the formulation of the categorical imperative by Kant in terms of an ‘as if’. (shrink)