This is a transcription of Jean d’Ormesson’s speech at UNESCO at the 50th anniversary celebrations of Diogenes in 2003. He describes the journal’s origins, inspirations and editors, and the unique place it occupies in the promotion of international, interdisciplinary scholarship.

After several recent special issues, conceived and prepared successively by R. H. Robbins and E. M. Uhlenbeck (no. 153, ‘The Cultural Heritage: Languages in Peril”), Y. M. Coppens (no. 155, “From the Heavens to the Mind”), M. Matarasso (no. 158, “Shamans and Shamanism: On the Threshold of a New Millennium”), Diogenes turned to Julio Labastida, coordinator of the study of the social sciences at the National University of Mexico and contributing editor to Diogenes (he is in charge of the Spanish (...) edition), and asked him to gather together for the current issue a certain number of articles devoted to themes related to the five-hundredth anniversary of America's “discovery” and its entry into a unified world. (shrink)

For more than forty years, Diogenes has been striving, with the limited resources at its disposal, to mark the progress of the human sciences around the world. The journal emerged from the encounter between an institution and a person. The institution was the Conseil international de la philosophie et des sciences humaines (CIPSH) that was founded under the auspices and on the initiative of UNESCO with the aim of regrouping a variety of different international associations in the field of Geisteswissenschaften; (...) the person was Roger Caillois, then an international civil servant with UNESCO. The CIPSH wanted to equip itself with an organ of international scholarly communication that was capable of serving as a bond and link between its various member associations. (shrink)

Unesco's first Philosophical Encounters were held last year at Paris on the theme of “What Do We Not Know?” and they were a great success. Diogenes published some of the papers by participants in its No. 169. A second meeting was held from March 27-30, 1996, devoted to a question as simple and difficult as that of the first: “Who Are We?” Once again this journal will not be able to publish all contributions, but is fortunate enough to present at (...) least some of them to its readers. (shrink)

Where do we come from? Where are we going? In all ages, people have wondered about their destiny and their origins, and it seemed to them that knowing more about their past would allow them, at the same time, to know more about their future. The poetry of origins was intertwined with blind gropings, then with decisive steps forward in science. With the starry sky above them, the learned and the unlearned allowed themselves to be carried away by the same (...) metaphysical anguish in which space and time took the principal roles. We had to wait a very long time until science finally taught us a little more on the birth of the universe and of thought. Sometimes, on more than one point, science resembled primitive mythologies passed on through the darkness of time. (shrink)

The death of Roger Caillois was vividly felt by writers and intellectuals all over the world. Not only in France, where his work in sociology, surrealism, criticism and literature brought him into the Académie française, but also in Japan, Brazil (whose Academy elected him to the seat previously occupied by André Malraux), in Argentina (where he counted numerous friends whose works and thought he had made known in Europe) his passing profoundly saddened literary and intellectual circles. Struck to the heart (...) by his death also is the review Diogenes, which he founded and which has been formed by his perpetually needle-sharp curiosity, his creative imagination and his uncompromising precision. (shrink)

Over many long years, whenever a modest and not quite disinterested emissary of a member Association of the International Council of Philosophy and the Humanistic Studies came to visit Jean d'Ormesson at his headquarters in the rue Miollis, patiently clearing his path through mountains of dossiers and brochures, he did not, unlike the title of this paper, associate Jean d'Ormesson with the CIPSH - he simply identified the man before him with the CIPSH itself. An equation (...) born of an admiration barely suppressed under a veneer of polite restraint, an identification perhaps suggested to them by the president or secretary of their home association. Nevertheless a quite unfair one for anyone able to perceive with a greater deal of clarity (the office was very dark in overcast weather) what the ‘Secretary-General’ was, as well and much more, outside of the rue Miollis: the writer, the chronicler of his time, soon to become the assiduously active Academician, or even, dare I suggest, the blue-eyed charmer who graced debates on television. But this summary judgement could readily be forgiven, for the host of the premises had the good taste, when welcoming one to CIPSH, to assume only his mantle as Secretary-General. Besides, for the delegates of member Associations - and it was in this capacity that I first met Jean d'Ormesson before becoming his collaborator on the executive Bureau of CIPSH, and then briefly his successor - he appeared as the effective intermediary with that far-off but richly resourced galaxy called UNESCO. He was the man of warmth and charm who could be relied on to safeguard the subsidies that helped support our conferences and fund our voluminous compilations, which were vital tools for our research. (shrink)

This article is a discourse analysis based on a theory of figures of speech advocated by Orecchionni that analyzes implicit not only as a mark of literality but also as trope of illocutionary type not lexical, lexical, metaphorical or semantic. It considers also the explicit information of the novel through four levels of competency: linguistic, encyclopedic, logical and pragmatic rhetorical and analyzes the romantic statement according to the maxims of quantity, quality, relation or relevance and modality. This study shows, through (...) verbal interactions of « Douane de mer » that the story is the heiress of the mnemonic representation than of historical representation. It sheds light on the dual role played by implicit as a mediator in relation to historical reality or an opaque screen over the truth of the world. (shrink)

For many years, M. Jean d'Ormesson has been doing me the honor of asking me to write for Diogenes. More recently, he suggested that I should coordinate an issue of this review that would be devoted to my extended discipline, History, but history in the way in which I understand it. It was certainly not for lack of interest that I did not reply to the first request but, no doubt, because of the sense of a chronic lack (...) of time - almost a pleonasm - from which I, like everyone else, suffer. It was not because I was cured that I accepted the second invitation but probably because I allowed myself, with full knowledge of the facts, to entertain the idea that editing an issue would take up less time than simply contributing. … In fact, as everyone knows, the opposite is true, especially when the occasional editor also volunteers to be one of the contributors. This issue is now completed and I sincerely thank M. Jean d'Ormesson for having wished to entrust me with this task that I have enjoyed very much. (shrink)

Le grand philosophe français Lucien Jerphagnon est décédé le 16 septembre 2011. Spécialiste de la pensé antique, disciple de Vladimir Jankélévitch, il avait su rendre son savoir populaire. Jean d’Ormesson l’a défini ainsi : «Un savant qui sait unir un style rapide et séduisant à l’érudition la plus rigoureuse.» Trois ans après sa mort, sa veuve lui adresse une série de lettres en forme de souvenirs. Emplies d’émotion, elles composent, par cette multiplicité de regards amoureux et nostalgiques, un (...) véritable hommage. Au-delà des réflexions sur la mort, le deuil, la solitude ou l’absence, cette soixantaine de courts chapitres, portés par un style sensible, constituent un portrait simple et touchant de celui qui fut aussi un homme remarquable. (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)

It was to correct common misconceptions about his thought that Jean-Paul Sartre, the most dominent European intellectual of the post-World War II decades, accepted an invitation to speak on October 29, 1945, at the Club Maintenant in Paris. The unstated objective of his lecture was to expound his philosophy as a form of “existentialism,” a term much bandied about at the time. Sartre asserted that existentialism was essentially a doctrine for philosophers, though, ironically, he was about to make it (...) accessible to a general audience. The published text of his lecture quickly became one of the bibles of existentialism and made Sartre an international celebrity. The idea of freedom occupies the center of Sartre’s doctrine. Man, born into an empty, godless universe, is nothing to begin with. He creates his essence—his self, his being—through the choices he freely makes. Were it not for the contingency of his death, he would never end. Choosing to be this or that is to affirm the value of what we choose. In choosing, therefore, we commit not only ourselves but all of mankind. This book presents a new English translation of Sartre’s 1945 lecture and his analysis of Camus’s _The Stranger_, along with a discussion of these works by acclaimed Sartre biographer Annie Cohen-Solal. This edition is a translation of the 1996 French edition, which includes Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre’s introduction and a Q&A with Sartre about his lecture. (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)

It was to correct common misconceptions about his thought that Jean-Paul Sartre, the most dominent European intellectual of the post-World War II decades, accepted an invitation to speak on October 29, 1945, at the Club Maintenant in Paris. The unstated objective of his lecture (“Existentialism Is a Humanism”) was to expound his philosophy as a form of “existentialism,” a term much bandied about at the time. Sartre asserted that existentialism was essentially a doctrine for philosophers, though, ironically, he was (...) about to make it accessible to a general audience. The published text of his lecture quickly became one of the bibles of existentialism and made Sartre an international celebrity. The idea of freedom occupies the center of Sartre’s doctrine. Man, born into an empty, godless universe, is nothing to begin with. He creates his essence—his self, his being—through the choices he freely makes (“existence precedes essence”). Were it not for the contingency of his death, he would never end. Choosing to be this or that is to affirm the value of what we choose. In choosing, therefore, we commit not only ourselves but all of mankind. This book presents a new English translation of Sartre’s 1945 lecture and his analysis of Camus’s _The Stranger_, along with a discussion of these works by acclaimed Sartre biographer Annie Cohen-Solal. This edition is a translation of the 1996 French edition, which includes Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre’s introduction and a Q&A with Sartre about his lecture. (shrink)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideas about society, culture, and government are pivotal in the history of political thought. His works are as controversial as they are relevant today. This volume brings together three of Rousseau's most important political writings -- The Social Contract and The First Discourse (Discourse on the Sciences and Arts) and The Second Discourse (Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality) -- and presents essays by major scholars that shed light on the dimensions and implications of these (...) texts. Susan Dunn's introductory essay underlines the unity of Rousseau's political thought and explains why his ideas influenced Jacobin revolutionaries in France but repelled American revolutionaries across the ocean. Gita May's essay discusses Rousseau as cultural critic. Robert N. Bellah explores Rousseau's attempt to resolve the tension between the individual's desire for freedom and the obligations that society imposes. David Bromwich analyzes Rousseau as a psychologist of the human self. And Conor Cruise O'Brien takes on the "noxious, " "deranged" Rousseau, excoriated by Edmund Burke but admired by Robespierre and Thomas Jefferson. Written from different, even opposing perspectives, these lucid essays convey a sense of the vital and contentious debate surrounding Rousseau and his legacy. (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)

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)

‘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)

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)

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)

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.

§13 of Principia Ethica contains G. E. Moore’s most famous open question arguments. Several of Moore’s contemporaries defended various forms of metaethical nonnaturalism—a doctrine Moore himself endorsed—by appeal to OQAs. Some contemporary cognitivists embrace the force of Moore’s OQAs against metaethical naturalism. And those who posit noncognitivist meaning components of ethical terms have traditionally used OQAs to fuel their own emotivist, prescriptivist, and expressivist metaethical programs. Despite this influence, Moore’s OQAs have been ridiculed in recent decades. Their deployment has been (...) labeled “accident prone,” “simple to dismiss,” and just plain invalid. Critics accuse Moore of begging the question. Others argue that his OQAs founder upon the paradox of analysis. And still others argue that Moore’s open question argumentation is incompatible with the Kripke–Putnam causal theory of reference and thus it “simply fails; it is bankrupt”. I aim to show that there is something of continuing value in Moore’s open question efforts. I present and criticize Nicholas Sturgeon’s influential interpretation of Moore’s OQAs as a means to motivate and explicate my own interpretation of Moore’s thoughts in §13 of Principia Ethica. I then articulate the role that OQAs are intended to play in Moore’s overall argumentative strategies to undermine metaethical naturalism and thereby provide some theoretical support for metaethical nonnaturalism. Finally, I attend to the most prominent objections to Moore’s theorizing and attempt to evaluate the extent to which Moore’s efforts are successful. My hope is to display both the promising portions of Moore’s metaethical argumentation in Principia Ethica as well as its limitations. (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)

‘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)

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)

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)

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)

Jean-Michel Vienne; IX*—Locke on Real Essence and Internal Constitution1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 93, Issue 1, 1 June 1993, Pages 139–15.

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)

Autonomous transposable elements, generally considered as junk and selfish, encode transposition proteins that can bind, copy, break, join or degrade nucleic acids as well as process or interact with other proteins. Such a repertoire of activities might be of interest for the host cell. There is indeed substantial evidence that mobile DNA can serve as a dynamic reservoir for new cellular functions. Transposable element genes encoding transposase, integrase, reverse transcriptase as well as structural and envelope proteins have been repeatedly recruited (...) by their host during evolution in most eukaryotic lineages. Such domesticated sequences protect us against infections, are necessary for our reproduction, allow the replication of our chromosomes and control cell proliferation and death; others are essential for plant development. Many new candidates for domesticated sequences have been revealed by sequencing projects. Their functional analysis will uncover new aspects of evolutionary alchemy, the turning of junk into gold within genomes. BioEssays 28: 913–922, 2006. © 2006 Wiley periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

We seem to be abandoning the codes that told previous generations who they should love. But now that many of us are free to choose whoever we want, nothing is less certain. The proliferation of divorces and separations reveal a dynamic we would rather not see: others sometimes reject us as passionately as we are attracted to them. Our desire makes us sick. The throes of rivalry are at the heart of our attraction to one another. This is the central (...) thesis of Jean-Michel Oughourlian's _The Genesis of Desire_, where the war of the sexes is finally given a scientific explanation. The discovery of mirror neurons corroborates his ideas, clarifying the phenomena of empathy and the mechanisms of violent reciprocity. How can a couple be saved when they have declared war on one another? By helping them realize that desire originates not in the self but in the other. There are strategies that can help, which Dr. Oughourlian has prescribed successfully to his patients. This work, alternating between case studies and more theoretical statements, convincingly defends the possibility that breakups need not be permanent. (shrink)

Alors qu’il était précepteur en Suisse, le jeune Hegel traduisit minutieusement un libelle révolutionnaire dénonçant l’oppression que les autorités bernoises exerçaient sur le Pays de Vaud. Il publia ces Lettres de Jean-Jacques Cart à son retour en Allemagne, en 1798, sous le couvert d’un anonymat qu’il ne leva jamais. Derrière le caractère anecdotique de cette première publication, on peut déceler des enjeux qui conduisirent à l’instauration de l’idéalisme spéculatif. Le motif de la lutte pour la reconnaissance, en particulier, semble (...) y trouver sa première apparition. Plus fondamentalement cette première publication éclaire le travail d’élaboration stylistique conduisant progressivement au système, avec, à l’horizon, la question de la portée pratique de la philosophie. (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.

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)

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)

During the phony war that preceded the invasion of France, between late 1939 and the summer of 1940, the young Jean-Paul Sartre was stationed in his native Alsace as part of a meteorological unit. He used his considerable periods of spare time, between mundane duties like watching weather balloons, to make a series of notes on philosophy, literature, politics, history and autobiography that anticipate the themes of his later masterpieces, and often surpass them in literary verve and directness. These (...) War Diaries form a portrait of Sartre in his most intense and brilliant phase. With them the twentieth century's most remarkable and public philosopher has provided us with a fitting posthumous monument to his honest and creativity. (shrink)

Jean-Marie Schaeffer | : La question de la relation entre vérité et littérature se pose autrement selon qu’on aborde la littérature comme une forme d’art ou comme une forme de discours. Il faut aussi distinguer plusieurs régimes de vérité/fausseté, voire plusieurs types de réussite et d’échec littéraires qui ne peuvent peut-être pas tous être analysés en termes de vérité/non-vérité. À partir de là on peut envisager la relation entre valeur de vérité et fonction cognitive. | : Answers to the (...) problem of the relation of literature and truth differ according to whether one takes literature as a form of art or as a form of discourse. One must also distinguish various regimes of truth and falsity and various kinds of literary success or failures which cannot all be analysed in terms of truth and falsity. Once these points are examined on can deal with the relation between truth value and cognitive function. (shrink)

This article examines the legitimization process of the public health preventive measures implemented in many Western countries following the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Through concepts such as governmentality, disciplinarization and security mechanisms proposed by Foucault, we trace some of the basic principles and implications of the relationship between biopower and medicine, as well as the media dissemination of an official narrative on scientific truth. These reflections are complemented by the contributions of Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard. Lyotard reflects on the relationship (...) between science and a “performative game”, whose own staging is the core of its criteria of truth. Baudrillard shows the relevance of a “hyperreality” in which the signs presented by the media take precedence over the experience of the subjects. We argue that a mediatized version of science, defined through a strong disciplinarization of knowledge and the censorship of dissident voices, played a key role in the establishment of consensus and the legitimization of policies that granted extraordinary power to governments and transnational elites. Although the work of Foucault in this demonstration is essential, the contributions of Lyotard and Baudrillard provide additional elements to understand a fundamental problem: the public acceptance of “truth” as an instrument of governmentality on a global scale. (shrink)