Supra-Bayesianism is the Bayesian response to learning the opinions of others. Probability pooling constitutes an alternative response. One natural question is whether there are cases where probability pooling gives the supra-Bayesian result. This has been called the problem of Bayes-compatibility for pooling functions. It is known that in a common prior setting, under standard assumptions, linear pooling cannot be nontrivially Bayes-compatible. We show by contrast that geometric pooling can be nontrivially Bayes-compatible. Indeed, we show that, under certain assumptions, geometric and (...) Bayes-compatible pooling are equivalent. Granting supra-Bayesianism its usual normative status, one upshot of our study is thus that, in a certain class of epistemic contexts, geometric pooling enjoys a normative advantage over linear pooling as a social learning mechanism. We discuss the philosophical ramifications of this advantage, which we show to be robust to variations in our statement of the Bayes-compatibility problem. (shrink)

La comprensión del conocimiento como sistema en el Tratado de la naturaleza humana de David Hume reconoce tres aspectos: primero, el conocimiento implica su distancia de la idea de sustancia y de ideas generales abstractas. Segundo, el conocimiento comprende la conexión entre impresiones e ideas. El enlace de nuestras impresiones e ideas surge del principio de asociación el cual ordena y reconfigura el conocimiento en virtud de la atracción, conexión articulada por las facultades de la memoria y la imaginación. Tercero, (...) el conocimiento constituye un sistema constituido por la reiteración de hábitos y costumbres configurados por el principio de asociación desde la relación integrada de impresiones e ideas. (shrink)

Begriffsschrift, a formula language, modeled upon that of arithmetic, for pure thought (1879), by G. Frege.--Some metamathematical results on completeness and consistency; On formally undecidable propositions of Principia mathematica and related systems I; and On completeness and consistency (1930b, 1931, and 1931a), by K. Gödel.--Bibliography (p. [111]-116).

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...

When the meta-philosophies of Nominalism and Realism are compared, it is often said that Nominalism is motivated by a methodology of ontological economy, while Realism would be motivated by an appeal to Common Sense. In this paper, I argue that this association is misguided. After briefly comparing the meta-philosophy of Common Sense and the meta-philosophy of economy, I show that the core motivation in favour of Realism relies in fact in a principle of economy which violates the methodology of Common (...) Sense. I conclude that Common Sense philosophers should endorse Nominalism. (shrink)

G.E. Moore’s open question arguments have been targeted by unsympathetic philosophers for close to a century. Perhaps the most serious criticism directed towards Moore’s OQAs is that they be...

First recorded in the 14th century, the analogy of spit-roast meat argues that expecting the Sun to rotate around a strictly immobile Earth would be just as ludicrous as trying to move the fire around the roasting meat. On the contrary, it should be the Earth that spins upon itself in order to glean, from all possible angles, all the benefits of the Sun, just as it is the meat’s responsibility to turn on the spit before the motionless fire for (...) it to be perfectly cooked on all sides. Aimed at demonstrating, in geocentricism, the plausibility of the rotation of the Earth and, in heliocentrism, at supporting the physical reality of this terrestrial rotation, nowadays this analogy barely elicits more than an amused, or even condescending, smile. However, its continued long-term existence and its frequency of use — from the 14th to the 19th century, we found it mentioned by no less than 45 different authors — incited us to finally pay attention to it. We then noticed that beyond its explicitly cosmological scope, it raises, in its own way, the question of the purpose of the natural world: had the latter been conceived based upon humankind, then it is normal, despite what this analogy advocates, that the Sun is at the service of something more important than itself by rotating, to the profit of humankind, around the Earth; conversely, since such an infringement of the rule of common sense, as illustrated by this analogy, can neither be justified nor tolerated, it is up to the Earth to move around the Sun. Tracing the vicissitudes of this analogy, over 6 centuries, is thus not only about reconstructing the largely forgotten history of a presently obsolete analogy, but also about discovering the deeper meaning, henceforth incomprehensible, behind it. In describing how this meaning became progressively lost, one can finally pro­vide an understanding of why, in the present day, we are no longer capable of more than an amused smile when happening upon it! (shrink)

Le réalisme scientifique occupe une place centrale dans le système philosophique de Mario Bunge. Au cœur de cette thèse, on trouve l’affirmation selon laquelle nous pouvons connaître le monde partiellement. Il s’ensuit que les théories scientifiques ne sont pas totalement vraies ou totalement fausses, mais plutôt partiellement vraies et partiellement fausses. Ces énoncés sur la connaissance scientifique, à première vue plausible pour quiconque est familier avec la pratique scientifique, demandent néanmoins à être clarifiés, précisés et, ultimement, à être inclus dans (...) un cadre théorique plus large et rigoureux. Depuis ses toutes premières publications sur ces questions et jusqu’à récemment, Mario Bunge n’a cessé d’interpeller les philosophes afin qu’ils développent une théorie, au sens propre du terme, de la vérité partielle afin de clarifier les enjeux épistémologiques liés au réalisme scientifique. Bunge a lui-même proposé plusieurs parties de cette théorie au fil des années, mais aucune de ces propositions ne l’a satisfait pleinement et la construction de cette théorie demeure un problème entier. Dans ce texte, nous passerons rapidement en revue certaines des approches proposées par Bunge dans ses publications et nous esquisserons certaines pistes qui devraient servir à tout le moins de desiderata pour la construction d’une théorie de la vérité partielle. (shrink)

The practice of justifying scientific explanations generates argumentative patterns in which several types of arguments may play a role. This paper is aimed at identifying these patterns on the basis of an exploration of the institutional conventions regarding the nature, the shape and the quality of scientific explanations as reflected in the writings of influential philosophers of science. First, a basic pattern for justifying scientific explanations is described. Then, two types of extensions of this pattern are presented. These extensions are (...) derived from philosophical accounts of requirements for the quality of explanations and the choice of the best explanation from a number of candidate explanations respectively. The description of the second extension will make clear how pragmatic argumentation plays a role in argumentative patterns within the scientific domain. (shrink)

René Girard’s breakthrough consists in uncovering the mechanism of violence, namely the mimesis and rivalry it permits. Yet, mimetic violence still leaves the very origin of evil and murder unquestioned. Here Lévinas plays a decisive role: the call to murder only becomes possible as one of the versions of the call of the face, the call of the other. This is what Girard should have taken up in order to clarify his final allusions to a “good mimesis”—this other, properly Christic, (...) possibility of the call of the face. (shrink)

A travers une analyse des concepts d’affirmation originaire, d’attestation et de reconnaissance, cet article tente de reconstituer le sens et les motivations du cheminement réflexif qui conduit Ricœur de L’Homme faillible à Soi-même comme un autre et à Parcours de la reconnaissance . Pour ce faire, il s’efforce d’abord de montrer ce qui fait la continuité profonde, de problématique et de méthode, du projet anthropologique ricœurien; afin de dégager ensuite les difficultés centrales liées à l’idée d’une constitution poétique du soi, (...) qui conduisent Ricœur à réélaborer les concepts directeurs de son herméneutique du soi. A la lumière du dialogue constant de Ricœur avec la philosophie de Nabert, il tente enfin de montrer comment les concepts d’attestation et de reconnaissance trouvent, pour l’essentiel, leur genèse dans un approfondissement de la notion d’affirmation originaire, lui-même prolongé par une réflexion sur le témoignage.  . (shrink)

This book offers a solution for the problem of structure and agency in sociological theory by developing a new pair of fundamental concepts: metric and nonmetric. Nonmetric forms, arising in a crowd made out of innumerable individuals, correspond to social groups that divide the many individuals in the crowd into insiders and outsiders. Metric forms correspond to congested zones like traffic jams on a highway: individuals are constantly entering and leaving these zones so that they continue to exist, even though (...) the individuals passing through them change. Building from these concepts, we can understand “agency” as a requirement for group identity and group membership, thus associating it with nonmetric forms, and “structure” as a building-up effect following the accumulation of metric forms. This reveals the contradiction between structure and agency to be a case of forced perspective, leaving us victim to an optical illusion. (shrink)

The chapter begins by establishing the absence of organizations in the organization of philosophy as a specialist academic discipline. The second section highlights the reasons why this gap is detrimental to philosophical inquiries. The third section seeks to clarify how philosophy, as a type of theoretical inquiry, can contribute to the study of organizations. Three basic features are proposed as underpinning the philosophical method. Hegel’s social theory is then put forward as an exemplary model of what a philosophical account of (...) organizations might achieve. The fourth and final section shifts the perspective to focus on the life of individuals in organizations. Following a recent book combining post-Hegelian critical theory and Christophe Dejours’ psychodynamic approach, the paper highlights important aspects of individual and collective work that lead to a cooperative conception of management. (shrink)

This paper explores the origins of the term "causa sine qua non" used by Durand de Saint-Pourçain to describe the role of material things in knowledge. I show that its technical meaning comes from the Stoics and was transmitted to the Middle Ages by Boethius' commentary on Cicero's Topics. The expression "sine qua non" here does not have the ordinary and restricted meaning of "indispensable", "necessary condition", which can also apply to direct, per se causes of an effect. In the (...) present context, sine qua non causes do not act on the effect in question, either as concomitant, secondary, or instrumental causes, or as remote causes. They act only on that which hinders the actualization of a potentiality, in order to remove that obstacle. For example, the removal of a support that prevented something from falling does not act on that thing, nor does it add anything to its tendency to fall; it simply enables that thing to exercise its own actualization. Similarly, in cognitive processes, external things do not impose anything on the soul, but simply give it the opportunity to actualize its faculties of its own accord. I situate Durand's use of this form of causality in the context of late 13th/early 14th century theories of cognition, among several other attempts to find an alternative theory to the standard Aristotelian model and to maintain the pure activity of the soul with respect to the body. (shrink)

"... if Améry’s pessimism disparages life, his humanism reaffirms it. By trying to make sense of our existence, Améry reminds us of why human life is precious." —Alan Wolfe, The New Republic "The pessimistic tone of this book is provocative and should interest students and faculty involved with issues of aging." —Choice "The writing challenges and searches, trying to cut beneath conventional language and expectations, seeking to delineate qualities of lived experience in their most essential dimensions." —Contemporary Gerontology Five profoundly (...) moving and courageously honest essays about the process of aging by the famous Belgian author of At the Mind’s Limits. Each essay covers a set of issues about growing old, from the way aging makes the old progressively see time as the essence of their existence to the argument that everyone compromises with death in old age. (shrink)

RESUME L’hypothèse que tente d’esquisser cet article est que l’idée ricœurienne d’une médiatisation dynamique des contradictions de l’imaginaire social présuppose une corrélation originaire de l’idéologie et de l’utopie qui ne peut elle-même être comprise qu’à partir de l’événement de l’institution d’un imaginaire social constituant. Dans un premier temps, l’article s’efforce de cerner ce qui fait la spécificité de la théorie ricœurienne de l’idéologie et de l’utopie comme « pratiques imaginatives », en soulignant à ce titre l’influence déterminante des thèses de (...) Jacques Ellul sur l’idéologie. Puis, dans un second temps, il s’engage dans une analyse régressive qui conduit de la réappropriation ricœurienne de la conception dialectique de l’idéologie et de l’utopie exposée par Mannheim à l’idée d’un fondement événementiel de ces deux formes opposées de l’imaginaire social. Mots-Clés : Evénement, idéologie, utopie, Ellul, Mannheim. ABSTRACT This paper attempts to sketch out the hypothesis that the Ricœurian conception of a dynamic mediatization of the contradictions of the social imaginary presupposes an original correlation between ideology and utopia, which can itself be understood only from the event that institutes a constitutive social imaginary. The first part of the paper marks out the specificity of the Ricœurian theory of ideology and utopia in terms of “imaginative practices”, underlining the determining influence of Jacques Ellul’s theses on ideology. The second part tries to develop a regressive argument, starting from the Ricœurian re-appropriation of Mannheim’s dialectical conception of ideology and utopia, and leading back to the idea of an event foundation for these two opposed forms of the social imaginary. Keywords : Event, Ideology, Utopia, Ellul, Mannheim. (shrink)

Supposons un auteur qui ait vécu au temps de Kant, qui ait influencé celui-ci, mais qui en même temps ait développé sa voie propre… Supposons que cet auteur ait critiqué certains moments de la pensée kantienne, en développant une voie originale sur des questions aussi importantes que celles de l’objectivité, voire du transcendantal… Un tel auteur devrait être considéré comme un protagoniste important dans l’histoire de la philosophie, nous offrant des possibilités de pensée originales. Il devrait jouir d’une grande notoriété (...) et être étudié par de nombreux commentateurs. Un tel auteur existe : il s’agit de Johann Nikolaus Tetens, qui n’est pourtant connu que de quelques spécialistes. (shrink)

La distinction que Descartes opère entre infini et indéfini est bien connue et a été abondamment commentée. On se trompe souvent, pourtant, sur la véritable nature de cet indéfini. La plupart des interprètes, du XVIIe siècle à nos jours, le réduisent à un infini en son genre, dont le genre serait l’étendue, qualifié notamment d’infini « en extension », « spatial », « négatif », « potentiel », ou « quantitatif ». Allant à l’encontre d’une telle interprétation, cet article montre (...) que l’indéfini cartésien n’est à proprement parler ni infini, pas même en son genre, ni fini, et que sa véritable nature est l’indétermination. (shrink)

Starting from a genesis of the concept of narrative identity, this article attemps to interpret the constitution process of our narrative identities through a systematic and synthetic review of the main contributions of the Ricœurian theory of imagination, from Freedom and Nature to Oneself as Another. In its complex imaginative constitution, narrative identity can then be characterized as a poetico-practical mix that mediates and puts in a dialectical relation two distinct functions of the imagination: a poetic and a practical one, (...) which are themselves enlivened by a dialectic and an internal duplication. (shrink)

Ludwig Feuerbach is famous for his critical hermeneutics of religion. At the heart of it lie arguments of philosophical anthropology that directly anticipate contemporary developments in the theory of recognition. He counts amongst the great philosophers who, immediately following Kant, emphasised the constitutive importance for human beings of interpersonal and social relations. Indeed, his theory of intersubjectivity contains features that are highly original, notably the link between individual and community, and between recognition and recollection.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty was an important twentieth century contributor to the theory of recognition, even though he made literal reference to the concept only sparingly. He emphasized the importance of recognition, not only at the level of inter-personal relations and in the individual’s inclusion in the social, but also in terms of the capacity of human beings to communicate across cultures and across historical distances. The shift towards ontology in his later work provided a renewed grounding for his interest in intersubjectivity (...) and cross-cultural communication. Such continuity might be traced to lasting Hegelian and Marxian legacies in his thinking, which inflected his political interpretation of recognition. (shrink)

Worldwide populations are aging with economic development as a result of public health initiatives and advances in therapeutic discoveries. Since 1850, life expectancy has advanced by 1 year for every four. Accompanying this change is the rapid development of anti‐aging science. There are three schools of thought in the field of aging science. One perspective is the life course approach, which considers that aging is a good and natural process to be embraced as a necessary and positive aspect of life, (...) where the aim is to improve the quality of existing lifespan and “compress” morbidity. Another view is that aging is undesirable, and that rejuvenation and indeed immortality are possible since the biological basis of aging is understood, and therefore, strategies are possible for engineering negligible senescence. Finally, a hybrid approach is that life span can be extended by anti‐aging medicines but with uncertain effects on health. While these advances offer much promise, the ethical perspectives are seldom discussed in cross‐disciplinary settings. This article discusses some of the key ethical issues arising from recent advances in biogerontology. (shrink)

It is doubtless appropriate to read The Interpretation of Dreams according to the image of the journey which Sigmund Freud describes in a letter to Wilhelm Fliess:The whole thing is planned on the model of an imaginary walk. First comes the dark wood of the authorities , where there is no clear view and it is easy to go astray. Then there is a cavernous defile through which I lead my readers—my specimen dream with its peculiarities, its details, its indiscretions (...) and its bad jokes—and then, all at once, the high ground and the open prospect and the question: “Which way do you want to go?”1This walk has nothing of the nonchalant about it. Rather, it is strewn with tests and trials, as is usually the case in the “myth of the hero” or of the “conquistador,” which we know played a major role in Freud’s thought and in that of his disciples. The progress, in epic poetry, moves toward a discovery, the founding of a city, by means of difficult stages and combats. Every “discourse” capable of attaining a goal distant from its prolegomena finds its appropriate metaphor in the hero’s progress, or in the voyage of initiation. Discursivity then becomes the intellectual equivalent of the epic’s trajectory. At the time of its publication, Freud found his book insufficiently probing, and imperfect in its discursivity. He criticized himself for having failed to link properly his arguments . Doubt was momentarily cast on the achievement of the main goal…. But such severity was not to persist.But one can also read the work by discerning its framing devices. Several authors mentioned in the first chapter reappear at the work’s conclusion. Such a return is far from fortuitous; it is the result of an extremely well-calculated strategy. Another framing system which has been noticed by many readers is the one, shortly before the end of the book, which returns to a line from Virgil that Freud had placed as an epigraph on the title page: Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. This line, because of its repetition at two crucial points in the book, traces its message in the form of an emblem. When it breaks in, it makes explicit that the dream mechanism is the return of the repressed:In waking life the suppressed material in the mind is prevented from finding expression and is cut off from internal perception owing to the fact that the contradictions present in it are eliminated—one side being disposed of in favor of the other; but during the night, under the sway of an impetus towards the construction of compromises, this suppressed material finds methods and means of forcing its way into consciousness.Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.2 1. Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 6 Aug. 1899, Freud, The Origins of Psychoanalysis: Letters to Wilhelm Fliess, Drafts and Notes, 1887-1902, ed. Marie Bonaparte, Anna Freud, and Ernst Kris, trans. James Strachey , p. 290.2. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, ed. and trans. Strachey , p. 647; my emphasis. The Latin is translated in n. 1 on that page of Freud’s text: “If I cannot bend the High Powers, I will move the Infernal Regions.” All further references to this work, abbreviated I, will be included in the text. Another framing device is created by the theme of the prophetic dream, discussed at the outset of the first chapters and taken up again, with the ambivalence of denial and concession, in the final paragraph of the book. Jean Starobinski, professor emeritus at the University of Geneva, has devoted studies to Montaigne, Diderot, Rousseau, Saussure, and modern French poets. As an M.D., he is familiar with psychoanalysis and participates in the editorial board of La Nouvelle Revue de Psychanalyse . Some of his recent research deals with the history of melancholia; his most recent books are Montaigne in Motion and Rousseau . He was awarded the Balzan Prize in 1984. (shrink)

Réchauffement climatique, nucléaire, génétique, OGM, vaccins...: ces enjeux majeurs suscitent de vifs débats et déchaînent les passions. Industriels comme écologistes, fondamentalistes religieux comme matérialistes radicaux s'affrontent à grand renfort de chiffres et de faits " scientifiquement prouvés " pour imposer leur point de vue au plus grand nombre. Ce ne sont souvent que mensonges et manipulations à prétention scientifique. Ces nouvelles formes d'obscurantisme ne font que monopoliser le débat et alimenter la désinformation générale. Au terme d'une enquête minutieuse, Jean (...) Staune démontre que ces forces a priori antagonistes développent en réalité des stratégies similaires. Les grands débats scientifiques sur le climat, l'énergie, la santé ou l'évolution de la vie se retrouvent ainsi pris en otage et les véritables enjeux masqués. Au-delà des controverses idéologiques, c'est bien de notre vie quotidienne et de notre santé qu'il s'agit. Un ouvrage essentiel pour que les citoyens puissent enfin effectuer en connaissance de cause des choix de société vitaux pour l'avenir. Des révélations qui changeront radicalement ce que nous croyons savoir de ces sujets. (shrink)

La troisième Pythique de Pindare comporte un nombre extraordinaire de termes relatifs à des états de conscience (νόος, φρήν, γνώμα, ψυχά, θυμός et καρδία). En particulier, la narration mythique de l’ode détaille la façon dont Apollon s’est rendu compte, tout seul et à distance, que la mère d’Asclépios lui était infidèle : le νόος y joue à l’évidence un rôle capital mais le texte requiert un examen minutieux (v. 24-32). Plus loin, Pindare invite son dédicataire à cultiver lui aussi son (...) intériorité (v. 80-82) et esquisse ainsi les contours d’un savoir humain qui n’est ni absolu, ni aveugle, ni corrompu. Un rapprochement avec Pyth. 9, 33 sqq. permet d’éclairer avec humour les troubles de l’omniscience divine. (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)