Achieving an ambitious goal frequently requires succeeding in a sequence of intermediate tasks, some being critical for the final outcome, and others not. However, individuals are not always able to provide a level of effort sufficient to guarantee success in all such intermediate tasks. The ability to manage effort throughout the sequence of tasks is, therefore, critical when resources are limited. In this paper, we propose a criterion of importance that is person- and context-specific, as it is based on how (...) an individual should optimally allocate a limited stock of exhaustible efforts over tasks. We test this importance criterion in a laboratory experiment that reproduces the main features of a tennis match. We show that our importance criterion is able to predict the individuals’ performance and it outperforms the Morris-importance criterion that defines the importance of a point in terms of its impact on the probability of achieving the final outcome. (shrink)

Deeper still than that of the _differend_, we find in Lyotard the concept of _discrepancy_, which underlines the welcome alterity in the encounter with others. We propose an understanding of Ricœurian anthropology based on this idea, when it is associated with another concept, that of _ergodicity_, which makes it possible to think the same in the discrepancy. We illustrate it with the trial and the act of judging. We then show that the Ricœurian process of putting rival thoughts into dialogue (...) stems from this anthropology, and that Ricœur presents full coherence. For this, another concept is introduced which describes the mechanism of understanding always restarted, in the sense that each new thought must be able to be encompassed in the gaze cast on the world. _Encompassing_ is a concept in modelling disciplines, which is difficult to translate into French. To illustrate this, we take as an example Ricœur’s “debate” with Jakobson in _The Rule of Metaphor_. (shrink)

Selon Paul Ricœur, « l’anthropologie est devenue une tâche urgente de la pensée contemporaine ». Celle qu’il élabore dans l’ensemble de son œuvre repose sur sa phénoménologie herméneutique (dont l’originalité tient notamment à l’héritage qui lui vient de la philosophie réflexive), au point que cette dernière suffit selon nous à en dessiner les grandes lignes. Elle permet de doter le monde de régularités qui le rendent habitable et de doter chaque homme d’un soi. Elle prend aussi à bras le corps (...) les difficultés de l’intersubjectivité qu’Edmund Husserl ou Martin Heidegger avaient laissé non résolues et fait de cette intersubjectivité une clef de sa philosophie. L’homme est alors plus qu’un habitant du monde : il habite une cité qu’il contribue à édifier. Le thème du « nouveau » permet de consolider l’une des leçons que l’on peut tirer de l’œuvre de Ricœur : pour vivre ensemble, il faut vivre. L’anthropologie ricœurienne ne réclame alors aucune éthique ajoutée pour que cet élan vitaliste apparaisse via sa phénoménologie herméneutique. (shrink)