On a l’habitude de lire dans Antigone l’histoire d’un conflit entre d’un côté l’expression des liens affectifs et de la piété, et de l’autre les prérogatives de l’État dont le but premier serait le maintien des institutions. D’un côté Antigone fidèle à son frère, de l’autre Créon attaché à sa Cité. D’un côté la morale de l’affectivité ou de la conviction (Gesinnungsethik), de l’autre la morale de la responsabilité (Verantwortungsethik), pour parler comme Max Weber. Cette lecture classique de la tragédie (...) demeure sans doute pertinente à bien des égards, mais traduit-elle l’essentiel? Et si l’intention du poète n’avait pas été d’en rester à cette confrontation mais de suggérer, par-delà l’affrontement ruineux, une troisième voie possible? Il n’y aurait plus alors deux termes seulement, le privé et le public que tout sépare, mais deux manières pour l’ordre public lui-même de se rapporter au privé, l’une conflictuelle et tyrannique, celle de Créon, l’autre conciliatrice et délibérative – démocratique en ce sens –, celle défendue par Hémon, par Tirésias, et finalement peut-être par Sophocle lui-même qui, par l’emploi d’un vocabulaire tiré de l’expérience politique athénienne, dénoue d’une main l’intrigue qu’il noue de l’autre. Éclairée entre autres par Aristote, une interprétation nouvelle de la pièce en découle, celle d’un poète qui surjoue les conflits pour mieux insinuer les moyens politiques de les résoudre ou de les atténuer. (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)

In Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality, Douglas Portmore introduces a novel position regarding the actualist securitism – a position he argues is theoretically superior to the standard views in both the actualist and possibilist camps. After distinguishing the two camps through an examination of the original Procrastinate case, I present Portmore's securitism and its implications regarding his modified Procrastinate case. I level two serious objections against securitism: that it implausibly implies that morality is radically more demanding for the virtuous (...) than it is for the vicious and that it fails to recognize moral vice in a wide range of cases. I close by arguing that a possibilist variant of Portmore's securitist view is impervious to such objections and thus appears theoretically superior to the actualist version Portmore promotes. (shrink)

Many decades after the publication of Genesis and development of a scientific fact, Fleck’s collective Denkstil remains a very important notion for analyzing the history of the biological and medical sciences. Following Fleck’s perspective this paper argues that the history of the sex hormones was critically shaped by our representation of the sexes, and our perceptions of the division of reproductive labor. Emerging at the boundary between physiological laboratories and consultation room, a molecular/endocrine style of thought stabilized during the early (...) decades of the twentieth century around the manipulation of sex hormones. This not only proved important in normalizing the sexual body, but also in defining sterility, menstrual disorders or menopause as pathological events to be treated ‘causally’.Analyzing the role played by industrial companies like the German firm Schering which produced these drugs, the paper suggests that the idea of a work style may be a convenient way to complement Fleck’s style of thought. First, the idea of work style is a reminder that science involves material action, which has strong links with industrial production. Second, it draws our attention to a deeply entrenched goal of the modern biosciences, the search for means to control the variability of the living, and standardize its uses. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Translation of Les philosophies de l'existence.

The implementation of a diplomacy that could put more emphasis on democracy and human rights was not an easy process in Belgium. Treatment of these matters have taken a different perspective in Zaïre, Rwanda and Burundi, Belgium 's three most important African partners. Reasons for that are twofold. Fore one thing, the Belgian foreign affairs service has always been overloaded by mercantile preoccupations. Secondly, knowledge on Africa has been limited to short circle diplomatic contacts while no instruments were ever implemented (...) that could have ensured some following up of the African civil society at large.In the future, the continuation for a slow process of disengagement might be foreseable. New "partners" might come to the forefront such as South Africa while the U.S. and international financial organisations will definitely try to impose "good governance" together with a reasonable dose of human rights. (shrink)

Warum muss Strafe sein? Die Beiträge betreffen zunächst aktuelle Strafbegründungstheorien, insbesondere solche, die in der Strafe einen Tadel sehen. Eine klare Unterscheidbarkeit zwischen absoluten und relativen Straftheorien wird heute nicht selten bezweifelt.

Les conceptions de l’imaginaire propres à la tradition française sont souvent assimilées aux théories de la représentation, conformes au paradigme sémiotique. Il s’agit de montrer que l’imaginaire s’en distingue par une approche d’anthropologie générale qui inscrit le plan de la représentation dans un schématisme corporel, le confronte à une transcendance du sens et l’implique dans une logique figurative autopoïétique, qui ne se laisse pas réduire aux formalismes des structuralismes dominants dans la linguistique et la sémiotique. Conceptions about the Imaginary specific (...) to the French tradition are often assimilated to the theories of representation, accorded to the semiotic paradigm. This paper aims to demonstrate that the Imaginary involves an approach of general anthropology which supposes a body schematic representation plan, confronts him to a transcendence of meaning and implies him in a logic figurative autopoetics, which cannot be reduced to the formalism of the dominant structuralisms in linguistics and semiotics. (shrink)

Filant la métaphore du « bestiaire », cet article retrace les différents gestes du processus créateur de l’historien. Bien sûr, il ne s’agit pas ici d’emprunter des concepts aux travaux sur le symbolisme animal dont j’avoue très volontiers que je ne les ai pas consultés . Les figures animales convoquées dans ce court article correspondent à l’image que j’en ai, de façon spontanée et non savante. Quatre animaux peuvent être cités : le lion, la fourmi, le renard et le castor. (...) À eux quatre, ils symbolisent les diverses attitudes que j’ai pu prendre au cours de la préparation et de la rédaction de ma biographie d’Offenbach. (shrink)

What does it mean to give a "gift"? In this timely collection, distinguished anthropologists--Maurice Godelier, George Marcus, Stephen Tyler--and philosophers--Mark C. Taylor, John D. Caputo, Jean-Joseph Goux and Adriaan Peperzak, explore an enigma that has disturbed contemporary philosophers from Marcel Mauss to Jacques Derrida.The essays included in the volume: Some Things You Give, Some Things You Sell, But Some Things You Must Keep for Yourselves: What Mauss Did Not Say about Sacred Objects by Maurice Godelie.The Gift and Globalization: A (...) Prolegomenon to the Anthropological Study of Contemporary Finance Capital and Its Mentalities by George MarcusCapitalizing (on) Gifting by Mark C. Taylor"Even Steven" or "No Strings Attached" by Stephen TylerMothering, Co-muni-cation and the Gifts of Language by Genevieve VaughanThe Time of Giving, the Time of Forgiving by John D. CaputoSeneca against Derrida: Gift and Alterity by Jean-Joseph Goux Giving by Adriaan Peperzak. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Nancy has worked substantially from, or maybe with, Bataillian thought. This interview touches specifically on his rapport with Bataille and the links that exist between the later thinker’s œuvre and Nancy’s own.

In 1905 two different etiologic agents for syphilis were proposed in Berlin, one, the Cytorrhyctes luis, by John Siegel, the other, Spirochaete pallida, by Fritz Schaudinn. Both scientists were pupils of Franz Eilhard Schulze, and were outsiders to the Berlin medical establishment. Both belonged to the same thought collective, used the same thought style, and started from the same supposition that the etiologic agent of syphilis must be a protist. Both used the same morphological approach, the same microscopes and the (...) same stains. Both presented their findings in the same societies, used the same rhetoric, published in the same journals, used the same arguments to criticise each other's shortcomings. Both were backed by powerful institutions and enlisted the support of prestigious patrons. Within half a year, the scientific community at large had in its overwhelming majority accepted Schaudinn's results and rejected those of Siegel. Social forces thus cannot be shown to have played any role in deciding the issue. Ludwik Fleck's suggestion that 'appropriate influence' and a 'proper measure of publicity throughout the thought collective' would have been sufficient for Siegel's ideas to win the day is untenable. (shrink)

An essential feature of the quantum mechanical formalism, entanglement is widely thought to imply nonlocality or nonseparability as a puzzling trait of our ‘quantum world’. The notion of entanglement is reviewed and the question is addressed of whether invoking nonlocal influences, or perhaps time-reversed causation, is warranted in such ‘applications’ as quantum teleportation and entanglement swapping.