John Cowdrey was Anglican chaplain and medieval scholar at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy. His work Pope Gregory VII, 1073–1085 was hailed as a masterpiece. Obituary by Jean Dunbabin.

The abolition of slavery after the Revolution of 1789 has always been hailed by the French secular State as proof of the progressivist nature of the Republic. Nevertheless, there has never been any attempt to seriously confront the French involvement in the trade of slaves, which lasted for two centuries. France, a colonial power until the 1960s, which still retains several overseas possessions with an Afro-Caribbean population, has a large resident black population in the mainland which feels it has been (...) deprived of its memory and history and seeks official recognition of the role of the State in the trade of slaves. This article tries to show how a black collective identity and consciousness emerged around the fight for the recognition of slavery as a crime against humanity and the claim for financial compensation. This black collective identity competes with the Jewish community, which was granted financial compensation for the Shoah and which successfully lobbied the State to recognize that it was partly responsible for the genocide in World War II. While some radical black activists seek an alliance with part of the Islamic movement, they are also competing over the recognition of their collective identity by the State with the growing Muslim community whose memory is that of colonization and second-class citizenship. (shrink)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was hailed by Claude Lévi-Strauss as the founder of the sciences of man. This collection of fourteen classic papers devoted to his work addresses the points of intersection between the moral and the political, the personal and the social. The volume is divided into five parts: The Critique of Progress and the Speculative Anthropology, The Naturalizing of Natural Law, The General Will and Totalitarianism, Anticipations of Game Theory and Strategies of Redemption. The articles are accompanied by an (...) extensive, detailed introduction by the editor along with a selective bibliography. (shrink)

The perfect books for the true book lover, Penguin’s Great Ideas series features twelve more groundbreaking works by some of history’s most prodigious thinkers. Each volume is beautifully packaged with a unique type-driven design that highlights the bookmaker’s art. Offering great literature in great packages at great prices, this series is ideal for those readers who want to explore and savor the Great Ideas that have shaped our world.

Configural face processing precedes featural face processing under the face-attended condition, but their temporal sequence in the absence of attention is unclear. The present study investigated this issue by recording visual mismatch negativity, which indicates the automatic processing of visual information under unattended conditions. Participants performed a central cross size change detection task, in which random sequences of faces were presented peripherally, in an oddball paradigm. In Experiment 1, configural and featural faces were presented infrequently among original faces. In Experiment (...) 2, configural faces were presented infrequently among featural faces, or vice versa. The occipital-temporal vMMN emerged in the 200–360 ms latency range for configural, but not featural, face information. More specifically, configural face information elicited a substantial vMMN component in the 200–360 ms range in Experiment 1. This result was replicated in the 320–360 ms range in Experiment 2, especially in the right hemisphere. These results suggest that configural, but not featural, face information is associated with automatic processing and provides new electrophysiological evidence for the different mechanisms underlying configural and featural face processing under unattended conditions. (shrink)

Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) was one of the most important French philosophers of the Twentieth Century. His impact has been felt across many disciplines: sociology; cultural studies; art theory and politics. This volume presents a diverse selection of interviews, conversations and debates which relate to the five decades of his working life, both as a political militant, experimental philosopher and teacher. Including hard-to-find interviews and previously untranslated material, this is the first time that interviews with Lyotard have been presented as (...) a collection. Key concepts from Lyotard's thought – the differend, the postmodern, the immaterial – are debated and discussed across different time periods, prompted by specific contexts and provocations. In addition there are debates with other thinkers, including Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, which may be less familiar to an Anglophone audience. These debates and interviews help to contextualise Lyotard, highlighting the importance of Marx, Freud, Kant and Wittgenstein, in addition to the Jewish thought which accompanies the questions of silence, justice and presence that pervades Lyotard's thinking. (shrink)

Contents include a note on the translation, introduction by Peter Gay, and a bibliography.

The last and most poignant of these essays is The Intruder, Nancys philosophical meditation on his heart transplant.

ABSTRACT The publication of Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me has been met with mixed and widespread reviews and reactions. Responses have ranged from a critique of his “pessimism” to a grand celebratory remark announcing him as the next great intellectual and social critic in the mold of James Baldwin. Yet there are few reviews that have acknowledged Coates's project as a materialist cosmology of the body, meaning that while Coates embraces terrestriality over transcendence, he nevertheless sees great possibilities (...) in the body, the greatest of which is the creation and destruction of “galaxies of reality.” More than just examining race and race relations in the midst of one of the highest incidences of black death, Coates's book examines the meaning of this lived reality at the level of the body and its capacities to both open up and close down material possibilities of life and death. This article will investigate the meaning of the body in Coates's book, its relationship to “race,” and will argue that while Coates does not offer us a solution to the problem of racial embodiment, he does offer the idea that one can and must make peace within the chaos of existence. (shrink)

Presents a series of the Wellek Library lectures given in May of 1986 entitled: Clouds, Touches, and Gaps.

The possible and revelation -- The saturated phenomenon -- Metaphysics and phenomenology: a relief for theology -- "Christian philosophy": hermeneutic or heuristic? -- Sketch of a phenomenological concept of the gift -- What cannot be said: Apophasis and the discourse of love -- The banality of saturation -- Faith and reason.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s Foundations of Natural Right represents a turning point in the philosophy of law and the state. In 14 original essays, this volume compiles a collaborative commentary that offers a differentiated interpretation of this controversial classic in legal philosophy. Ideally suited for seminar courses.

Discourse on the sciences and the arts -- Discourse on the origin and foundations of inequality among men -- Discourse on political economy -- On the social contract -- The state of war.

Social movements have driven large shifts in public attitudes and values, from anti-slavery to marriage equality. A central component of these movements is moral persuasion. We conduct a randomized-controlled trial of pro-vegan animal-welfare pamphlets at a college campus. We observe the effect on meat consumption using an individual-level panel data set of approximately 200,000 meals. Our baseline regression results, spanning two academic years, indicate that the pamphlet had no statistically significant long-term aggregate effects. However, as we disaggregate by gender and (...) time, we find small statistically significant effects within the semester of the intervention: a 2.4 percentage-point reduction in poultry and fish for men and a 1.6 percentage-point reduction in beef for women. The effects disappear after 2 months. We merge food purchase data with survey responses to examine mechanisms. Those participants who self-identified as vegetarian, reported thinking more about the treatment of animals or expressed a willingness to make big lifestyle changes reduced meat consumption during the semester of the intervention. Though we find significant effects on some subsamples in the short term, we can reject all but small treatment effects in the aggregate. (shrink)

This book is affords us the opportunity to rediscover Richard Wright and reexamine his work and its continuing significance in light of our contemporary situation. Moreover, the collection allows us to analyze Wright’s relationship and contribution to the discipline of philosophy, both challenging and enriching its traditional ideas and concepts.

One of the important measures of quality of education is the performance of students in academic settings. Nowadays, abundant data is stored in educational institutions about students which can help to discover insight on how students are learning and to improve their performance ahead of time using data mining techniques. In this paper, we developed a student performance prediction model that predicts the performance of high school students for the next semester for five courses. We modeled our prediction system as (...) a multi-label classification task and used support vector machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), K-nearest Neighbors (KNN), and Multi-layer perceptron (MLP) as base-classifiers to train our model. We further improved the performance of the prediction model using a state-of-the-art partitioning scheme to divide the label space into smaller spaces and used Label Powerset (LP) transformation method to transform each labelset into a multi-class classification task. The proposed model achieved better performance in terms of different evaluation metrics when compared to other multi-label learning tasks such as binary relevance and classifier chains. (shrink)

Much of Africana philosophy concerns itself with the social and political; that is, those issues that relate to “racism” or “racialization” as suffered by Africana persons. Within this understanding, Africana persons become defined by and studied through theories which presume a shared anthropology with their white counterparts. This essay argues that Africana philosophy would benefit in thinking beyond “race” and “racialization” towards a theorization of the cultural aspects of Africana persons as the basis of our study and understanding of Africana (...) persons. Specifically, this essay theorizes the relationship between mytho-logos and the culturalogic as offering a new lens through which to analyze the range problems confronting Africana philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Christian Ethics: A Very Short Introduction, and: Christian Ethics: A Brief History, and: Behaving in Public: How to Do Christian EthicsBeth K. HaileChristian Ethics: A Very Short Introduction D. Stephen Long Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 144 pp. $11.95Christian Ethics: A Brief History Michael Banner West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. 160 pp. $24.95Behaving in Public: How to Do Christian Ethics Nigel Biggar Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2011. 142 (...) pp. $16.00In calling ethics “Christian,” the question of distinctiveness, or the normative force of theological claims, inevitably arises. Three new books explore what Christian ethics looks like if it is to take seriously its theological basis for engaging the world.Stephen D. Long, professor of systematic theology at Marquette University, attends to the difficulties in predicating “Christian” of “ethics,” yet he is concerned more with explaining how Christianity can be ethical rather than vice versa. His Christian Ethics: A Very Short Introduction opens with a quote from Christopher Hitchens and later dedicates almost an entire chapter to analyzing the failures of Christian ethics. From the Crusades to colonialism, the Galileo affair to slavery, Long provocatively asks whether modern ethics emerges as a result of the failure of Christian moral claims. While not sidestepping the difficulties in Christian history, Long is careful to note how this history is often distorted to serve the goals of contemporary secular politics, goals which he points out have resulted in the bloody failures of the twentieth century. Perhaps a renewed interest in Christian ethics, Long notes, is a result of the failures of secularism.Long manages to cover a surprising breadth of material in his brief book, from a sweeping historical overview of Christian theology to a final chapter on [End Page 195] the practical matters of sex, money, and political power. Long also summarizes some important theological differences among Christians that lead to practical disagreements about the nature of Christian ethics. His overview of the Catholic-Lutheran convergence on matters of faith and works is particularly helpful in establishing the theological basis for an ecumenical Christian ethics. This historical survey serves to illustrate that ethics is both an integral part of and a contradiction to Christianity. Still, argues Long, while Christianity may claim to be more than ethical, it may never claim to be less.While commendable in breadth, the genre of the “very short introduction” precludes depth and must necessarily omit important information. In his summary of Catholic ethics, for example, Long addresses nominalism and probabilism but omits the Catholic social tradition, a particularly glaring omission given his topic. In the end, the target audience is the educated and curious layperson, more suitable for a church group than a classroom, though this is reflective of the nature of “the very short introduction” series and does not indicate any limitation in Long’s skill as a scholar.In the spirit of brevity, Michael Banner, Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge, offers Christian Ethics: A Brief History, which, like any brief history, paints with broad and admittedly selective strokes. The aim of this work is not to evaluate the normative value of Christian claims but rather to establish the ethical implications of Christian belief. Unlike Long, who directly addresses the ethical failures of the church, Banner is more apologetic. In clarifying the difficulties of writing a text such as this one, he observes that Christian history has not been guided by texts as much as by action. In this vein, Banner begins not chronologically but with the Rule of St. Benedict and its call to live in a relationship with God and neighbor characterized by love.Banner grounds the theoretical dimension of Christian ethics in this emphasis on practice. Given the way of life Christians are called to, what are its limitations and possibilities? Banner turns to Augustine’s notion of the weakness of the will and the human creature’s need for grace, which he then places in creative tension with Aquinas’s emphasis on the harmony between faith and reason. In somewhat breathtaking conciseness, Banner describes how the Scholastic emphasis on natural law, casuistry, and the categorizing of sins led to what he calls... (shrink)

ABSTRACT In characterizing his second studio album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, as a “short film” Kendrick Lamar offers something of a public declaration: We, the listening audience, are not hearing another hip-hop album, just another “autobiography” or slice of one person's life, but, rather, something else; we are hearing a mixture of social, cultural, and personal narrative truth in what will be termed “autoethnography.” In doing so, Lamar offers us a new way of thinking about hip-hop as a whole, not (...) simply as a capitalistic enterprise or as a “black news” channel but as a distinct method for collecting data and understanding the experiences and existence of black people. While autoethnography is not a new method for research, it has been underutilized in philosophy as an approach to reading “texts” of all sorts, in particular Africana texts. This article analyzes Kendrick Lamar's second album to demonstrate why autoethnography is important as both a way of understanding reality and an expression of reality and also why it is centrally important for “doing” Africana philosophy. (shrink)

In Made for Happiness, Jean Vanier examines the basis for modern moral philosophy and its role in our lives today. Having discovered through his work with the intellectually disabled the degree to which our society is divided, and our values misplaced, Vanier invites us to read with fresh eyes theories of happiness written 2,400 years ago.

The book will be an indispensable resource for anyone interested in contemporary philosophy and the social sciences.

According to a well-known view in the philosophy of mind, intentional attitudes by their very nature satisfy requirements of rationality (e.g. Davidson 1980; Dennett 1987; Millar 2004). This view (which I shall call Constitutivism) features prominently as the ‘principle of minimal rationality’ in de Sousa’s monograph The Rationality of Emotion (1987). By explicating this principle in terms of the notion of the formal object of an attitude, de Sousa articulates an interesting and original version of Constitutivism, which differs in important (...) respects from other extant versions. In this paper, I explore this version of Constitutivism against the background of recent developments in the theory of rationality and make explicit its ramifications for the long-standing dispute over whether the mind is essentially normative. My focus will be on how to conceive of the form of the rationality requirements that attitudes as such must satisfy according to this principle. I argue that, although de Sousa seems officially to endorse a structuralist conception of rationality, according to which these requirements are requirements of coherence, his considerations on formal objects suggest that they are more aptly conceived in terms of a reasons-responsive conception of rationality. I further argue that which of these two readings we choose makes a significant difference to the prospect of vindicating the essential normativity of mind by invoking the principle of minimal rationality. (shrink)

It is sometimes alleged that the study of emotion and the study of value are currently pursued as relatively autonomous disciplines. As Kevin Mulligan notes, “the philosophy and psychology of emotions pays little attention to the philosophy of value and the latter pays only a little more attention to the former.” (2010b, 475). Arguably, the last decade has seen more of a rapprochement between these two domains than used to be the norm (cf. e.g. Roeser & Todd 2014). But there (...) still seems to be considerable potential for exchange and dialogue if the situation is compared with their intimate relationship in central strands of early realist phenomenology. The philosopher perhaps most representative of this ecumenical approach is Husserl’s early student Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977). From the very early stages of his philosophical career, Hildebrand has developed one of the most original, comprehensive and nuanced accounts of emotions at whose core is a detailed examination of their connection to value. While his central concern with the ethical significance of our affective life is in many ways continuous with Scheler’s work and draws crucially on Reinach’s philosophy of mind, Hildebrand’s own reflections considerably expand on and substantially modify the picture of the ontology and normative role of emotions defended by these authors. In this article, I reconstruct Hildebrand’s view of emotions with a particular focus on those aspects which represent his most distinctive contribution to this subject. (shrink)

Presque vingt ans après sa parution, Etant donné (Puf, 1997) a, au-delà des premiers débats, imposé la question du donné et de la donation. Etant donné. Reprise reprend et prolonge ces nouvelles interrogations. D'abord la question de la réduction : définit-elle vraiment le principe dernier de la phénoménologie? Si tel était le cas, la formule " autant de réduction, autant de donation " peut-elle se justifier (en discussion avec la critique de Michel Henry)? Ensuite, la reconnaissance du donné comme instance (...) première et dernière de la phénoménalité peut-elle encore faire droit à l'herméneutique (en discussion avec Hans-Georg Gadamer)? Dans ce cas, comment se déplie le pli de la donation avec la manifestation? Et encore, le monde peut-il se manifester comme l'un des phénomènes donnés, et même comme la totalité du donné? Ou ne faut-il pas lui reconnaître une donation par exception, celle de la possibilité de toute donation (sur la ligne de Jan Patocka)? Enfin, la reprise du phénomène à partir de la donation n'impose-t-elle pas de substituer décidément au modèle de l'objet, constitué à l'identique et pour lui, celui de l'événement, qui surgit à partir de soi seul, sans cause ni a priori (en faisant droit à Claude Romano)? (shrink)

The perfect crime -- The spectre of the will -- The radical illusion -- Trompe-l'œl genesis -- The automatic writing of the world -- The horizon of disappearance -- The countdown -- The material illusion -- The secret vestiges of perfection -- The height of reality -- The irony of technology -- Machinic snobbery -- Objects in this mirror -- The Babel syndrome -- Radical thought -- The other side of the crime -- The world without women -- The surgical (...) removal of otherness -- The "laying-off" of desire -- The new victim order -- Indifference and hatred -- The revenge of the mirror people. (shrink)

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) was one of the greatest philosophers of his era. He was also at the center of some of the century's darkest, most complex historical events. In this magisterial book, Grondin appraises Gadamer's life and achievement. 30 illustrations.

Lyotard is considered one of the most brilliant and influential of French post-structuralist thinkers. Published in 1974 by Minuit, Économie libidinale is, of all his work to date, the most creative in its mode of writing and in its theorizing: a stunning, dense, brilliant piece in which Lyotard, ranging from Marxist and Freudian theory to contemporary arts, argues that political economy is charged with passions and, reciprocally, that passions are infused with the political.

Jean-Paul Sartre: Mind and Body, Word and Deed celebrates Sartre's polyvalence with an examination of Sartrean philosophy, literature, and politics. In four distinct yet related sections, twelve scholars from three continents examine Sartre's thought, writing and action over his long career. "Sartre and the Body" reappraises Sartre's work in dialogue with other philosophers past and present, including Maine de Biran, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Didier Anzieu. "Sartre and Time" offers a first-hand account by Michel Contat of Sartre and Beauvoir working (...) together, and a "philosophy in practice" analysis by François Noudelmann. "Ideology and Politics" uses Sartrean notions of commitment and engagement to address modern and contemporary politics, including insights into Castro, De Gaulle, Sarkozy and Obama. Finally, an important but neglected episode of Sartre's life the visit that he and Beauvoir made to Japan in 1966 is narrated with verve and humour by Professor Suzuki Michihiko, who first met Sartre during that visit and remained in touch subsequently. Taken together, these twelve chapters make a strong case for the continued relevance of Sartre today. (shrink)

The phenomenological origins of the concept of givenness -- Remarks on the origins of Gegebenheit in Heidegger's thought -- Substitution and solicitude: how Levinas re-reads Heidegger -- Sketch of a phenomenological concept of sacrifice.

This new collection gathers 23 highly insightful yet previously difficult-to-find interviews with Baudrillard, ranging over topics as diverse as art, war, technology, globalisation, terrorism and the fate of humanity. From familiar themes to the less well understood aspects of his thought, these interviews give you an overview of Baudrillard's ideas - without the jargon typical of written texts. Read as Baudrillard himself discusses, explains and elaborates on his ideas, making this collection essential for understanding many of his other works.

Tous les textes publiés dans l'ouvrage parlent directement de l'œuvre de Jean-Michel Berthelot. La première partie, " Sociologie de Jean-Michel Berthelot ", rassemble les contributions restituant des traits de son œuvre à l'aide d'études de cas précis ou de panoramas plus larges, et balise des domaines de recherche dans lesquels il s'est illustré : sociologie de l'éducation, du corps, des sciences, épistémologie des sciences sociales. La deuxième partie rend compte des perspectives ouvertes par ses travaux et de la (...) manière dont des chercheurs ont mis en œuvre ses réflexions pour leurs propres recherches. Il s'agit donc de restituer la façon dont on peut faire de la sociologie " avec " Jean-Michel Berthelot - à l'aide de ses travaux et des jalons qu'ils posent. La troisième partie est biographique en restituant l'itinéraire académique, intellectuel et humain de Berthelot, que ce soit son parcours universitaire et social, notamment à l'ENS durant mai 68, ou encore sa période " toulousaine " où sa carrière universitaire a débuté et qui en constitue une partie essentielle. Dirigé par Jean-Christophe Marcel et Olivier Martin, cet ouvrage rassemble les contributions de collaborateurs, d'anciens étudiants ou de proches collègues de Jean-Michel Berthelot. (shrink)

Un temps, Michel Foucault a été lu comme un archéologue du savoir et un homme d'archives, abandonnant par instants sa réserve pour répondre à l'urgence des luttes. La lecture des cours au Collège de France suggère pourtant que sa politique ne peut être réduite au désordre des circonstances. Elle appartient de plein droit à l'histoire de la vérité quand elle rencontre celle du gouvernement de soi-même et des autres. Comment sommes-nous gouvernés? Quel est en nous le ressort caché de la (...) servitude? Pouvons-nous être gouvernés et nous gouverner autrement? Rechercher et dire la vérité peut-il nous altérer et, avec nous, le monde auquel nous appartenons? Pour répondre à ces questions, Foucault se déplace de l'époque moderne à l'Antiquité et privilégie tour à tour les rapports de pouvoir disséminés dans toute la société, les stratégies politiques qui les organisent et le travail éthique qui permet l'" inservitude " volontaire. Au terme de ce voyage que la mort a interrompu, la volonté de vérité devient le courage de se transformer et de transformer le monde, le principe d'une expérience spirituelle dont la politique est la pierre de touche. Ces déplacements dessinent un nouveau paysage politique dont ce livre établit la cartographie, pour que d'autres, après Foucault, puissent reprendre le voyage. (shrink)

This is the first English translation published of Jean-Luc Nancy's acclaimed consideration of the law's most pervasive principles in the context of actual systems and contemporary institutions, power, norms, laws.

Contrary to what many interpretations claim, according to Bayle faith does not completely eliminate reason. It intervenes to reveal factual truths that can only be known through revelation (for example, that God allowed Adam and Eve to sin). To these factual truths can be applied a rational principle (an axiomatic and evident one, according to Bayle, which he calls a "common notion"), namely, that "what God does is well done." God allowed sin, so we must think it was justified, even (...) if we don't understand why. This approach is what I call, cum grano salis, Pierre Bayle's theodicy. (shrink)

Jean-Marc Ferry est titulaire de la Chaire de Philosophie de l'Europe de l'Université de Nantes, professeur honoraire en Science politique et Philosophie morale à l'Université libre de Bruxelles, auteur notamment des Puissances de l'expérience (1991), l'une des oeuvres les plus importantes récemment publiées dans le champ de la philosophie sociale et politique, de la philosophie tout court (Paul Ricoeur), La Question de l'État européen (2001), Les Grammaires de l'intelligence (2004), La Raison et la Foi (2016).

The purposes of writing -- The itinerary of a thought -- Vietnam : imperialism and genocide -- Czechoslovakia : the socialism that came in from the cold -- France : masses, spontaneity, party -- Kierkegaard : the singular universal -- Mallarmé : the poetry of suicide -- Tintoretto : St. George and the dragon -- The man with the tape-recorder -- Psychoanalytic dialogue -- Reply to Sartre--Pontalis -- Reply to Sartre--Pingaud -- A plea for intellectuals -- A friend of the (...) people. (shrink)

Dans ce grand article paru en 1984, Jean-Claude Chamboredon livre la meilleure synthèse des débats qui se sont fait jour sur les liens entre la vie et l'oeuvre d'Emile Durkheim. Il permet de comprendre comment la sociologie française fut la science républicaine par excellence – c’est-à-dire aussi ce que doit la France à une tradition intellectuelle juive sécularisée.

In Vodou Cosmology and the Haitian Revolution in the Enlightenment Ideals of Kant and Hegel, Vivaldi Jean-Marie begins with an interpretation of the rise of Vodou practices in Saint-Domingue which is sensitive to the social, spiritual and cultural challenges of the slaves communities in Saint-Domingue, later Haiti. He shows effectively that Vodou cosmology emerged as a spiritual, social and cultural technology for the enslaved to overcome the dissonance and brutality of slavery in Saint-Domingue. Vodou Cosmology thus assumes the tripartite (...) role of spiritual, social and cultural compass for slaves who, concurrently with the development of Vodou, managed to establish a common ethos. Furthermore, to situate the rise of Vodou cosmology within the larger discourse of the Enlightenment and argue that it heralded a radical Enlightenment in the African diaspora, Jean-Marie compares and contrasts some aspects of the philosophies of Kant and Hegel with the social, spiritual and cultural experience of the enslaved communities of Saint-Domingue. This comparison shows that Kant and Hegel's depiction of African Negroes' mores and their religious practices in the colonies fails to capture that Vodou cosmology was both a mechanism of resistance and the medium to restore their social, spiritual, and cultural identity against the backdrop of the Atlantic slave trade. Also, he elaborates the Enlightenment's conception of African Negroes as commercial currency and specifically Hegel's view of slavery in the colonies as the manifestation of divine providence. He concludes that the significance of the Haitian Revolution lies in the fact that it ascribed freedom to people of African descent in the diaspora and is thus implicit in later themes of black freedom. The Haitian Revolution ties blackness with freedom and mapped out a radical enlightenment in the European colonies. (shrink)

Dans son ouvrage Décadence, Michel Onfray s'en prend avec virulence au christianisme antique et à son héritage. Selon le philosophe, la personne de Jésus n'est qu'un mythe sans consistance historique et la religion chrétienne se trouve à l'origine des violences et de l'intolérance qui obscurcissent, jusqu'à nos jours, le devenir de l'Occident, à travers son lien étroit au pouvoir politique. Il revient ici à Jean-Marie Salamito de répondre point par point à ces affirmations aussi définitives que contestables : non, (...) le christianisme n'est pas un obscurantisme bon à jeter aux poubelles de l'histoire. L'existence et le message de Jésus sont bel et bien attestés. Saint Paul n'est pas l'inventeur d'une religion obscurantiste qui manie le glaive. Et l'on ne peut réduire la relation Eglise/politique au seul épisode de Constantin. Et si le christianisme décrit par Michel Onfray n'était, au fond, qu'un mythe, une vision réinventée et caricaturée, sans plus de réalité que les personnages fantasques de Lewis Carroll? (shrink)

Depuis la pensée des Lumières, on pouvait croire que la raison triomphante avait définitivement dévalorisé la pensée mythique, renvoyée du côté "des fables et des superstitions" : il importait donc de la considérer comme un âge révolu de la pensée humaine. Or, depuis l'époque romantique et surtout depuis les acquis des sciences humaines du 20e siècle, nous avons assisté à une redécouverte de l'importance et de la pérennité de cette pensée mythique à l'oeuvre depuis les âges les plus reculés de (...) l'humanité. C'est à cette redécouverte que Jean-Pierre Sironneau a voulu contribuer en évoquant quelques auteurs qui en avaient été les principaux artisans et en proposant, à l'occasion, ses propres interprétations. Si on peut parler à ce propos d'herméneutique, c'est que les mythes ont toujours donné lieu à de multiples interprétations, que ce soit en art, en littérature, en histoire, en philosophie ou en anthropologie."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)