In 1965, the discovery of a new type of uniform radiation, located between radiowaves and infrared light, was accidental. Known today as Cosmic Microwave background, this diffuse radiation is commonly interpreted as a fossil light released in an early hot and dense universe and constitutes today the main ’pilar’ of the big bang cosmology. Considerable efforts have been devoted to derive fundamental cosmological parameters from the characteristics of this radiation that led to a surprising universe that is shaped by at (...) least three major unknown components: inflation, dark matter and dark energy. This is an important weakness of the present consensus cosmological model that justifies raising several questions on the CMB interpretation. Can we consider its cosmological nature as undisputable? Do other possible interpretations exist in the context of other cosmological theories or simply as a result of other physical mechanisms that could account for it? In an effort to questioning the validity of scientific hypotheses and the under-determination of theories compared to observations, we examine here the difficulties that still exist on the interpretation of this diffuse radiation and explore other proposed tracks to explain its origin. We discuss previous historical concepts of diffuse radiation before and after the CMB discovery and underline the limit of our present understanding. (shrink)

Le kantisme français du XIXe siècle est à la fois un corpus savant, un carrefour d'idées et une doctrine politique attrape-tout. Cette plasticité lui a permis de prendre place au coeur de l'imaginaire collectif : Renouvier ne lisait-il pas Les Misérables comme une Critique de la raison pratique mise en roman? Le kantisme est un aspect central de la naturalisation de la pensée allemande en France. Il a contribué à l'hybridation de la culture française. Les Français ont appris de Kant (...) à désarmer leurs guerres civiles et, en acclimatant le criticisme, ils ont dessiné les figures d'une civilité « cosmopolitique » et d'une laïcité morale transmises par l'école. Le kantisme est le résultat de décantations complexes qui ont enrichi le plancton de la modernité française. L'auteur analyse le public kantien dans sa diversité, ainsi que l'entrée en scène d'une intelligentsia qui, au-delà des professeurs de philosophie, a peu à peu inclus les classes moyennes instruites. (shrink)

Autism spectrum disorder is characterized by atypical perception, including processing that is biased toward local details rather than global configurations. This bias may impact on memory. The present study examined the effect of this perception on both implicit and explicit memory in conditions that promote either local or global processing. The first experiment consisted of an object identification priming task using two distinct encoding conditions: one favoring local processing and the other favoring global processing of drawings. The second experiment focused (...) on episodic memory with two different cartoon recognition tasks that favored either local or a global processing. In addition, all the participants underwent a general clinical cognitive assessment aimed at documenting their cognitive profile and enabling correlational analyses with experimental memory tasks. Seventeen participants with ASD and 17 typically developing controls aged from 10 to 16 years participated to the first experiment and 13 ASD matched with 13 TD participants were included for the second experiment. Experiment 1 confirmed the preservation of priming effects in ASD but, unlike the Comparison group, the ASD group did not increase his performance as controls after a globally oriented processing. Experiment 2 revealed that local processing led to difficulties in discriminating lures from targets in a recognition task when both lures and targets shared common details. The correlation analysis revealed that these difficulties were associated with processing speed and inhibition. These preliminary results suggest that natural perceptual processes oriented toward local information in ASD may impact upon their implicit memory by preventing globally oriented processing in time-limited conditions and induce confusion between explicit memories that share common details. (shrink)

Comme l’indique le sous-titre, ce livre n’est pas une biographie, mais une enquête sur la disparition dans la mémoire collective d’une grande résistante, une des six femmes Compagnons de la Libération, Laure Diebold-Mutschler. Engagée dès 1940 dans la Résistance, à l’âge de vingt-cinq ans, elle est notamment agent de liaison du réseau Mithridate avant d’entrer à Lyon dans les Forces Françaises libres et de devenir la secrétaire de Jean Moulin. Elle sera arrêtée le 24 septembre 1943 à Paris, a...

Die Wissenschaftsphilosophie des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts ist reichhaltiger und differenzierter in ihren Standpunkten als lange vermutet. Die Autoren zeigen das anhand der nur teilweise erforschten Interaktion zwischen den Wissenschaftsphilosophen des deutschen und französischen Sprachraums. Das Buch liefert neue Erkenntnisse zur Rolle der Philosophiekongresse in Prag 1934 und Paris 1937 sowie zur Bedeutung einzelner Akteure wie Marcel Boll, der die Rezeption des Logischen Empirismus in Frankreich beförderte. Die Spuren, die Ernst Mach, aber auch der weniger bekannte deutsche Physiologe und Hirnforscher Ewald (...) Hering in der französischen Wissenschaftsphilosophie hinterliessen, verfolgen die Autoren bis hin zu den Ideen Jean Piagets. Im Mittelpunkt des Buchs stehen Philosophen aus Frankreich, Deutschland und Österreich und ihre Leistung, die Wissenschaften nicht nur erkenntnistheoretisch und logisch durchleuchtet, sondern auch erkannt zu haben, dass ihre theoretische Struktur nur dann vollständig erfasst werden kann, wenn ihre praktische Dimension mit einbezogen wird. Dafür steht Henri Poincaré, der die tragende Rolle der Konventionen für die Theoriebildung in der Mathematik herausstellte. Sichtbar wird der Bezug zur Praxis auch in Moritz Schlicks Überlegungen zu einer auf Empirie basierenden Ethik oder in der Arbeit Otto Neuraths, der eine aus den modernen Wissenschaften gewonnene Konzeption menschlichen Erkennens für das Projekt der gesellschaftlichen Aufklärung fruchtbar machen wollte. (shrink)

« Quelques semaines après la parution du Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes, Charles Bonnet, savant genevois, publie dans le Mercure de France sous le pseudonyme de Philopolis, un article qui remet en cause l’usage que Rousseau fait du mot perfectibilité. Il comprend ce mot de telle sorte qu’il est conduit à dénoncer une inconséquence, voire une contradiction, dans la démarche de son concitoyen. Rousseau ne voit pas, selon Bonnet, que si l’homme est (...) perfectible, alors il est fait naturellement pour vivre en société et se perfectionner parmi et à l’aide de ses semblables. Toute la thèse du second Discours s’écroule! Piqué au vif, Rousseau profite de cette circonstance pour préciser le sens de ce mot et pour mettre en relief le rôle du temps dans la vie des hommes, de toutes choses en réalité. Mais une nouvelle difficulté surgit, le rapport d’opposition entre l’histoire et la nature devient problématique. C’est de ce noeud dans la pensée rousseauiste que nous avons voulu traiter, ou du moins approcher : le lien entre l’être et le temps. Nous avons pris la Lettre à M. Philopolis comme un jalon dans l’évolution d’une pensée dont la richesse continue à nous instruire. ». (shrink)

Early life stress precedes alterations to neuro-immune activation, which may mediate an increased risk for stress-related psychiatric disorders, potentially through alterations of central kynurenine pathway metabolites, the latter being relatively unexplored. We hypothesized that ELS in a non-human primate model would lead to a reduction of neuroprotective and increases of neurotoxic KP metabolites. Twelve adult female bonnet macaques reared under conditions of maternal variable foraging demand were compared to 27 age- and weight-matched non-VFD-exposed female controls. Baseline behavioral observations of (...) social affiliation were taken over a 12-week period followed by the first cerebrospinal fluid sample. Subjects were then either exposed to a 12-week repeated separation paradigm or assigned to a “no-RSP” condition followed by a second CSF. We used high-performance liquid chromatography for kynurenine, tryptophan, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, kynurenic acid, and anthranilic acid as a proxy for quinolinic acid determination. At baseline, social affiliation scores were reduced in VFD-reared versus control subjects. CSF log KYNA and log KYNA/KYN ratio were lower in VFD-reared versus control subjects. CSF log KYNA/KYN was positively correlated with CSF log ANTH in VFD only. Controlling for log KYNA/KYN, log ANTH was elevated in VFD-reared subjects versus controls. CSF log KYNA/KYN obtained post-RSP was positively correlated with mean social affiliation scores during RSP, specifically in VFD. ELS is associated with a reduced neuroprotective and increased neurotoxic pathway products. That the two contrasting processes are paradoxically correlated following ELS suggests a cross-talk between two opposing KP enzymatic systems. (shrink)

Le présent ouvrage Kant, une passion française vient éclairer utilement les réceptions des kantismes français de 1795 à 1940. Travail méticuleux et d’ampleur considérable, il embrasse la quasi-totalité des lectures françaises de Kant durant près de 150 ans. L. Fedi rassemble ici une somme impressionnante de matériaux, d’ordinaire objet d’études éparses, souvent peu étudiés en France et seulement assez récemment, par exemple par Jean Bonnet, dans Dékantations. Fonctions idéologiques du kantism...

L’université Jean-Jaurès de Toulouse accueille depuis 2017 un projet de grande envergure sur les dénominations divines dans le monde sémitique et le monde grec intitulé Mapping Ancient Polytheisms (MAP). Financé par le European Research Council et dirigé par Corinne Bonnet, il a fait l’objet d’un article de présentation dans le 32e volume de Kernos en 2019, ce qui permettra d’entrer directement dans le vif de cette recension. En effet, l’ouvrage dont il s’agit de rendre compte est tout droit...

Cécile Conduché, Les exemples grecs des Institutions grammaticales de Priscien, héritages et doctrines Thèse soutenue le 13 octobre 2012 à l’Université Lille 3 Composition du jury Jean-Christophe Jolivet, Professeur à l’Université de Lille 3 Guillaume Bonnet, Professeur à l’Université de Bourgogne Jean Schneider, Professeur à l’Université de Lyon 2 Marc Baratin, Professeur à l’Université de Lille 3, Directeur de thèse Gweltaz Guyomarc’h, Aux origines de la métaphysique : l’interprétation par ..

In this chapter, the possibility of experiments in mathematics is examined. A general scheme is proposed as a tool to handle the different forms of experiments that are being used in mathematical practices: computations, “experimental mathematics” as a new research domain in mathematics and computer science, real-world experiments, and thought experiments. In a final section, extensions of the scheme are proposed that further support the conclusion that mathematical experiments are indeed facts and the future.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE BODY AND THE BLOOD: SACRIFICIAL EXPULSION IN A UREVOIR LES ENFANTS Diana Culbertson Kent State University In Scene 6 ofthe screenplay ofAu Revoir Les Enfants the students are at morning Mass and Father Jean is reading the Gospel: "Truly, truly, I say unto you, unless you eat the flesh ofthe Son ofMan and drink his blood, you will have no life in you." A student with the (...) curiously ironic name of Boulanger ("baker") faints. François comments to his younger brother Julien, "There's nothing to eat... we can't have breakfast before communion." In the back of chapel sit three new students—Bonnet and two other Jewish boys disguised as Christians, protected from the Gestapo by the monks, but prohibited because of their religious identity from Eucharistie communion. Food as scarcity, as plenitude, and as life functions as the signifier ofvalue and of every victim in Louis Malle's unforgettable portrayal of the loss of innocence in the occupied France ofhis childhood. Access to food was access to life in community—both religious and political—and the exchange offood, for what could not be consumed, plunges the small school society into its death. The cause ofthe dissolution of the school society is a failed sacrifice. The farewell to childhood which the title ofthe film suggests is Julien's entry into the world ofviolence and victims, ofmimetic rivalry, ofsacrificial expulsion, and societal destruction. The angle ofperception (Julien Quentin is Malle's quasi-autobiographical alter-ego) lures viewers out their own innocence and shocks theater audiences once again with the implications of all Final Solutions. Three concentric levels identify the communities in dissolution represented in Malle's portrayal: France under the occupying military force, the school administrators and staff, and the pupils in their charge. At each level the Diana Culbertson47 mimetic conflict is at a different state ofsocietal crisis. At the highest level, the German occupation troops and their collaborators represent a moment of Violence Triumphant, a Monstrous divinity who can impose control over the group by terrorizing everyone. This persecutory violence, which has co-opted the judicial system, drives the community of French people into (at least outward) submission and passivity. When the Monster requires victims, the community must consent to offer them. The persecutor's need for victims in this film has its own demonic rationale: "... to rid France of strangers, of Jews," says Müller, the Gestapo officer in one of the final scenes. When persecutory violence is resisted, however, when someone refuses to offer the designatedvictim for expulsion, the unity ofthe submissive society dissolves. Those who will not conform may suffer the violence of those who find their private well being in an alliance with public persecution. Father Jean, director ofthe school where Malle's scenario takes place, is one ofthe instruments ofresistance. Only the other instructors and staff are aware ofhis activities in the French underground. The audience is admitted to his dangerous secret, even as it observes the contrasting immaturity of the students, especially Julien, who cannot bear to leave his mother and is still wetting his bed. When he asks his older brother, "What is a Jew?" he is given the alimentary explanation: "Someone who doesn't eat pork." In this cultural situation, the Jew is more frequently someone who doesn't eat. Quentin's half truth is only one side ofa more ominous reality. Father Jean, aware of that reality, first appears in the film to introduce Bonnet, the "new classmate" and to show the boy his dormitory bed. As the director leaves, the schoolboys display their own societal dynamics, resuming their customary internecine, frenzied battles and rivalries. They throw pillows; they mock the outsider, focusing their ridicule on his name. Later in a classroom scene, they will hiss, "Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet...."—an apt thematic detail with its allusion to wine and its liturgical translation into blood. In the morning Boulanger leads the attack against the stranger, slipping an icicle behind Bonnet's shirt collar. At recess games disintegrate into private quarrels. Their small brutal society is a microcosm of the larger world of which the schoolboys are apparently innocent but which they are grooming themselves to live in without remorse... (shrink)

CONTENTS: -/- SEZIONE I IL TUTTO E' UNO? IL RISVEGLIO DI UN PROBLEMA TRA SCOLASTICA E RINASCIMENTO Il principio omne causatum est compositum fra Tommaso e Cajetano Igor Agostini, p. 25 Parti e tutto in Montaigne. La natura e l'individuo tra frammentazione e integrazione Raffaele Carbone 45 Le minuzzarie e il tutto. Giordano bruno e la conoscenza universale Maurizio Cambi 75 -/- SEZIONE II A PARTIRE DA CARTESIO. COME PUO' ESSERE UN TUTTO L'UOMO? -/- Mente/Corpo in Cartesio. Spunti per un'interpretazione (...) mereologica Stefano Di Bella 93 Nos sumus ex Deo et pertinemus ad Deum. Appartenenza, dipendenza e relazione nel pensiero e nel lessico di Arnold Guelincx Cristina Santinelli 115 L'integrità di corpo e mente nell'"invenire" terapeutico di E. W. von Tschirnhaus Manuela Sanna 133 L'indivisibilità della natura umana e della società in Francesco Longano. Un episodio della ricezione di Locke in Italia Roberto Evangelista 147 -/- SEZIONE III L'IRROMPERE DELL'ORGANICO. LA BIOLOGIA FILOSOFICA TRA SEI E SETTECENTO -/- Convenienza e discrepanza. Parti e tutto nella Lettera 32 di Baruch Spinoza Francesco Toto 169 Mereologia della sostanza e mereologia del vivente in Leibniz Enrico Pasini 197 Teleologia e mereologia dell’organismo da Leibniz a Bonnet Francesco Piro 209 Il nesso delle parti: mereologia e scienza secondo Christian Wolff Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero 239 Il problema del tutto e delle parti. il caso del vitalismo di Montpellier Charles T. Wolfe 257 -/- SEZIONE 4 TOTALITA' CRITICHE: DALLA CRISI DEL NATURALISMO ILLUMINISTICO ALLA FILOSOFIA DELLE CULTURE -/- La logica del tutto (e delle parti di tutto, vale a dire niente) in Dom Deschamps Jean-Claude Bourdin 273 l’(in)afferabile forma. Totalità e contingenza nel pensiero di Kant tra Critica della ragion pura e Critica del giudizio Luigi Imperato 303 la relazione Parte-Tutto nel primo Schelling Giuseppe D’Anna 327 Hegel o della totalizzazione dello spazio di interiorità Vittorio Morfino 343 A partire da Kant: Begriffsbiìldung teleologica e relazione Parti-Tutto nelle indagini di Rickert sulla logica delle scienze storiche della cultura Edoardo Massimilla 359 . (shrink)

Diderot’s reading of Le Camus’ Médecine de l’Esprit may occupy a prominent position in his research for the Eléments de physiologie, but his thoughts on the matter are not restricted to a criticism of this work, which appeared in 1753. In his edition of the Eléments de physiologie, Jean Mayer showed that Diderot had instigated an ongoing debate with other physicians who were also concerned with the issue of a ‘medicine of the mind’: Bonnet, Marat, Le Cat, not (...) to mention Bordeu and Haller. In view of the poignancy of Le Camus’ questions, however, his Médecine de l’Esprit may be taken as the hidden clue to a series of questions ranging from the perfectibility of the human mind to the curing of insanity, and thus spanning the limits of the human spectrum—from idiot to genius. The open possibility of creating a medicine of the mind is in fact a restatement of the problem of the respective weight of ‘organization’ and education, understood here in the broadest sense. This problem forms an essential part of the Réfutation d’Helvétius. Furthermore, this possibility leads one to inquire into the physician’s ability to intervene in the organization itself. Thus the question of the ‘innate’ and the ‘acquired’ shifts in some sense, so that it is now located within the problem of organization, which now means more than just the material organ of thought. Ultimately, it is this expression, ‘organization’, which I wish to elucidate further. (shrink)

The Transcendence of the Ego may be regarded as a turning-point in the philosophical development of Jean-Paul Sartre. Prior to the writing of this essay, published in France in 1937, Sartre had been intimately acquainted with the phenomenological movement which originated in Germany with Edmund Husserl. It is a fundamental tenet of Husserl, the notion of a transcendent ego, which is here attacked by Sartre. This disagreement with Husserl has great importance for Sartre and facilitated the transition from phenomenology (...) to the doctrine of Being and Nothingness. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most important philosophical and political thinkers of the twentieth century. His writings had a potency that was irresistible to the intellectual scene that swept post-war Europe, and have left a vital inheritance to contemporary thought. The central tenet of the Existentialist movement which he helped to found, whereby God is replaced by an ethical self, proved hugely attractive to a generation that had seen the horrors of Nazism, and provoked a revolution in post-war (...) thought and literature. In What is Literature? Sartre the novelist and Sartre the philosopher combine to address the phenomenon of literature, exploring why we read, and why we write. (shrink)

A major event in the history of twentieth-century thought, Notebooks for a Ethics is Jean-Paul Sartre's attempt to develop an ethics consistent with the profound individualism of his existential philosophy. In the famous conclusion to Being and Nothingness , Sartre announced that he would devote his next philosophical work to moral problems. Although he worked on this project in the late 1940s, Sartre never completed it to his satisfaction, and it remained unpublished until after his death in 1980. Presented (...) here for the first time in English, the Notebooks reveal Sartre at his most productive, crafting a masterpiece of philosophical reflection that can easily stand alongside his other great works. Sartre grapples anew here with such central issues as "authenticity" and the relation of alienation and freedom to moral values. Exploring fundamental modes of relating to the Other--among them violence, entreaty, demand, appeal, refusal, and revolt--he articulates the necessary transition from individualism to historical consciousness. This work thus forms an important bridge between the early existentialist Sartre and the later Marxist social thinker of the Critique of Dialectical Reason . The Notebooks themselves are complemented here by two additional essays, one on "the good and subjectivity," the other on the oppression of blacks in the United States. With publication of David Pellauer's lucid translation, English-speaking readers will be able to appreciate this important contribution to moral philosophy and the history of ethics. Jean-Paul Sartre (1906-1980) was offered, but declined, the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964. His many works of fiction, drama, and philosophy include the monumental study of Flaubert, The Family Idiot , and The Freud Scenario , both published in translation by the University of Chicago Press. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most important philosophical and political thinkers of the twentieth century. His writings had a potency that was irresistible to the intellectual scene that swept post-war Europe, and have left a vital inheritance to contemporary thought. The central tenet of the Existentialist movement which he helped to found, whereby God is replaced by an ethical self, proved hugely attractive to a generation that had seen the horrors of Nazism, and provoked a revolution in post-war (...) thought and literature. In _What is Literature?_ Sartre the novelist and Sartre the philosopher combine to address the phenomenon of literature, exploring why we read, and why we write. (shrink)

A detection task was performed using different pictographic representations of objects in order to test the hypothesis that high-level information (familiarity) may influence detection thresholds. The stimuli were five versions of forms: outline drawings of objects, silhouettes, and three fragmented versions of forms derived from the outlines. The stimuli varied on two parameters: their nameability (easily nameable, hardly nameable, and not nameable) as assessed by a naming task, and their energy content as assessed by a two-dimensional fast-Fourier transform. The greatest (...) amount of energy was observed for silhouettes, and the amount of energy contained in the vertical and horizontal spatial frequency components was equivalent for outlines and the three versions of fragmented forms. Luminance thresholds for the detection of the forms were measured by means of an adaptive method. The results show that thresholds were determined only by the energy content of the stimuli. High-level semantic or name information had no influence on the detectability of the visual signal. The results are discussed in terms of the visibility of spatial frequency components at detection threshold. (shrink)

First published in France in 1936 as a journal article, The Transcendence of the Ego was one of Jean-Paul Sartre's earliest philosophical publications. When it appeared, Sartre was still largely unknown, working as a school teacher in provincial France and struggling to find a publisher for his most famous fictional work, Nausea . The Transcendence of the Ego is the outcome of Sartre's intense engagement with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. Here, as in many subsequent (...) writings, Sartre embraces Husserl's vision of phenomenology as the proper method for philosophy. But he argues that Husserl's conception of the self as an inner entity, 'behind' conscious experience is mistaken and phenomenologically unfounded. The Transcendence of the Ego offers a brilliant diagnosis of where Husserl went wrong, and a radical alternative account of the self as a product of consciousness, situated in the world. This essay introduces many of the themes central to Sartre's major work, Being and Nothingness : the nature of consciousness, the problem of self-knowledge, other minds, anguish. It demonstrates their presence and importance in Sartre's thinking from the very outset of his career. This fresh translation makes this classic work available again to students of Sartre, phenomenology, existentialism, and twentieth century philosophy. It includes a thorough and illuminating introduction by Sarah Richmond, placing Sartre's essay in its philosophical and historical context. (shrink)

Pour qui s’intéresse aux aspects socio-économiques de la construction ou aux activités comptables des sanctuaires du ive siècle, c’est peu dire que la deuxième livraison des Bauurkunden und Bauprogramm von Epidauros était attendue. Dans le premier volume, paru en 2014, Sebastian Prignitz (S.P.) s’était concentré sur la première moitié du ive siècle avec quatre inscriptions relatives à la construction du Temple d’Asklépios et de sa statue chryséléphantine, de la Thymélé (appelée Tholos par S.P...

Philosopher, novelist, dramatist and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the greatest writers of all time. He was fascinated by the role played by the emotions in human life and placed them at the heart of his philosophy. This brilliant short work - which contains some of the principal ideas later to appear in his masterpiece Being and Nothingness - is Sartre at his best: insightful, engaging and controversial. Far from constraining one's freedom, as we often think, Sartre argues (...) that emotions are fundamental to it and that an emotion is nothing less than 'a transformation of the world'. With a new foreword by Sebastian Gardner. (shrink)

‘I should like to show here that the Ego is neither formally or materially in consciousness: it is outside, in the world.’ _Jean-Paul Sartre _ _The Transcendence of the Ego_ is one of Jean-Paul Sartre's earliest philosophical publications and essential for understanding the trajectory of his work as a whole. When it first appeared in France in 1937 Sartre was still largely unknown, working as a school teacher in a provincial French town. Attacking prevailing philosophical theories head on, Sartre (...) offers a brilliant and radical account of the self as a product of consciousness, situated in the world. He introduces many of the themes central to his major work, Being and Nothingness: the nature of consciousness, the problem of self-knowledge, other minds, and anguish. This translation includes a thorough and illuminating introduction by Sarah Richmond, placing Sartre's essay in its philosophical and historical context. _Jean-Paul Sartre_. The foremost French thinker and writer of the early post-war years. His books, which include _Being and Nothingness, Nausea, The Age of Reason _and _No Exit_ have exerted enormous influence in philosophy, literature, politics and drama. __. (shrink)

First published in France in 1936 as a journal article, The Transcendence of the Egowas one of Jean-Paul Sartre's earliest philosophical publications. When it appeared, Sartre was still largely unknown, working as a school teacher in provincial France and struggling to find a publisher for his most famous fictional work, Nausea. The Transcendence of the Egois the outcome of Sartre's intense engagement with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. Here, as in many subsequent writings, Sartre embraces (...) Husserl's vision of phenomenology as the proper method for philosophy. But he argues that Husserl's conception of the self as an inner entity, 'behind' conscious experience is mistaken and phenomenologically unfounded. The Transcendence of the Egooffers a brilliant diagnosis of where Husserl went wrong, and a radical alternative account of the self as a product of consciousness, situated in the world. This essay introduces many of the themes central to Sartre's major work, Being and Nothingness: the nature of consciousness, the problem of self-knowledge, other minds, anguish. It demonstrates their presence and importance in Sartre's thinking from the very outset of his career. This fresh translation makes this classic work available again to students of Sartre, phenomenology, existentialism, and twentieth century philosophy. It includes a thorough and illuminating introduction by Sarah Richmond, placing Sartre's essay in its philosophical and historical context.t of consciousness, situated in the world. This essay introduces many of the themes central to Sartre's major work, Being and Nothingness: the nature of consciousness, the problem of self-knowledge, other minds, anguish. It demonstrates their presence and importance in Sartre's thinking from the very outset of his career. This fresh translation makes this classic work available again to students of Sartre, phenomenology, existentialism, and twentieth century philosophy. It includes a thorough and illuminating introduction by Sarah Richmond, placing Sartre's essay in its philosophical and historical context. (shrink)

The medieval notion of instrumental cause is not limited to what we call today “instruments” or “tools.” It extends way beyond the realm of technology and includes natural entities, for instance, the accidents by which a substance acts on another substance, sensible species in the air acting on a visual faculty, sacraments, bodily organs, and sometimes creatures with respect to God’s action. In all these cases, instrumental causes, like secondary causes in general, are subordinated to a principal cause and contribute (...) to its action and effects. However, the manner in which they do so makes them different from regular secondary causes, and the specifics are not easy to pinpoint. At the occasion of discussions about creation ex nihilo and sacraments, John Duns Scotus challenges Thomas Aquinas’s theory of instrumental causality. Whereas Aquinas does not strongly distinguish between artifacts and natural agents, and postulates a complex superposition of layers of causation, Scotus offers a novel view that clearly separates artificial instrumentality and natural instrumentality, and in both cases explains causation with great economy. Scotus’s in-depth discussion has far-reaching implications. It completely transforms the understanding of instrumental causality in general. (shrink)

‘No matter how long I may look at an image, I shall never find anything in it but what I put there. It is in this fact that we find the distinction between an image and a perception.' - Jean-Paul Sartre L’Imagination was published in 1936 when Jean-Paul Sartre was thirty years old. Long out of print, this is the first English translation in many years. The Imagination is Sartre’s first full philosophical work, presenting some of the basic (...) arguments concerning phenomenology, consciousness and intentionality that were to later appear in his master works and be so influential in the course of twentieth-century philosophy. Sartre begins by criticising philosophical theories of the imagination, particularly those of Descartes, Leibniz and Hume, before establishing his central thesis. Imagination does not involve the perception of ‘mental images’ in any literal sense, Sartre argues, yet reveals some of the fundamental capacities of consciousness. He then reviews psychological theories of the imagination, including a fascinating discussion of the work of Henri Bergson. Sartre argues that the ‘classical conception’ is fundamentally flawed because it begins by conceiving of the imagination as being like perception and then seeks, in vain, to re-establish the difference between the two. Sartre concludes with an important chapter on Husserl’s theory of the imagination which, despite sharing the flaws of earlier approaches, signals a new phenomenological way forward in understanding the imagination. The Imagination is essential reading for anyone interested in the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, phenomenology, and the history of twentieth-century philosophy. This new translation includes a helpful historical and philosophical introduction by Kenneth Williford and David Rudrauf. Also included is Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s important review of L’Imagination upon its publication in French in 1936. Translated by Kenneth Williford and David Rudrauf. (shrink)

Although written fairly early in his career, in 1939, _Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions_ is considered to be one of Jean-Paul Sartre's most important pieces of writing. It not only anticipates but argues many of the ideas to be found in his famous _Being and Nothingness._ By subjecting the emotion theories of his day to critical analysis, Sartre opened up the world of psychology to new and creative ways of interpreting feelings. Emotions are intentional and strategic ways (...) of coping with difficult situations. We choose to utilize them, _we_ control _them_, and not the other way around, as has been posited elsewhere. Emotions are not fixed; they have no essence and indeed are subject to rapid fluctuations and about-turns. For its witty approach alone, Sartre's _Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions_ can be enjoyed at length. It is a dazzling journey to one of the more intriguing theories of our time. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Marion advances a controversial argument for a God free of all categories of Being. Taking a characteristically postmodern stance, Marion challenges a fundamental premise of both metaphysics and neo-Thomist theology: that God, before all else, must be. Rather, he locates a "God without Being" in the realm of agape, of Christian charity or love. This volume, the first translation into English of the work of this leading Catholic philosopher, offers a contemporary perspective on the nature of God. "An (...) immensely thoughtful book. . . . It promises a rich harvest. Marion's highly original treatment of the idol and the icon, the Eucharist, boredom and vanity, conversion and prayer takes theological and philosophical discussions to a new level."--Norman Wirzba, Christian Century. (shrink)

Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism is a classic critique of France's policies in Algeria in the 1950s and 1960s and inspired much subsequent writing on colonialism, post-colonialism, politics, and literature. It includes Sartre's celebrated preface to Fanon's classic Wretched of the Earth. Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism had a profound impact on French intellectual life, inspiring many other influential French thinkers and critics of colonialism such as Jean-Francois Lyotard, Frantz Fanon, Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Derrida.

Michèle Stanton-Jean | : Le bien commun est un concept fréquemment utilisé pour aborder la question du vivre ensemble. Rarement défini, on l’utilise pour le critiquer comme le fruit d’une vision occidentale et chrétienne non applicable sur le plan universel ou encore pour en proposer une vision moderne affranchie de sa rigidité traditionnelle. Le texte qui suit se base sur une thèse qui a examiné les principes et les valeurs qui pourraient fonder une vision renouvelée du bien commun, susceptible (...) d’être utilisée dans tous les contextes culturels et historiques, en prenant comme exemple l’élaboration de la Déclaration universelle sur la bioéthique et les droits de l’homme adoptée à la conférence générale de l’UNESCO en 2005. | : Common good is frequently mentioned to discuss how we can live together. Rarely defined, it is often described as a concept based on a Western and Christian vision that cannot be applied universally, or as a concept that could be revisited to develop a modern and non-rigid vision of it. The following text is based on a PhD thesis that studied what principles and values could contribute to the development of a renewed vision of common good that could be used in every cultural and historical context, taking as an example the elaboration of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights adopted at the General Conference of UNESCO in 2005. (shrink)

That all subjunctive conditionals with true antecedents and trueconsequents are themselves also true is implied by every plausibleand popularly endorsed account. But I am wary of endorsing thisimplication. I argue that all presently endorsed accounts fail tocapture the nature of certain subjunctive conditionals in contextsof consequentialist reasoning. I attempt to show that we must allowfor the possibility that some subjunctive conditionals with trueantecedents and true consequents are false, if we are to believethat certain types of straightforward consequentialist reasoningare coherent. I (...) begin by evaluating a pair of morally releventcounterfactuals in a case via David Lewis's account. I then turnto a slight modification of the case, arguing that Lewis'ssemantics fails to generate the correct truth values of thesubjunctive conditionals in the modified case. Finally, I presenta modified version of Lewis's semantics that generates the correctresults in all of the cases. (shrink)