« Le bruit, considéré comme une forme radicale d’empirisme sonore, peut être opposé à une certaine conception de la philosophie vue comme recherche de l’unité articulée et totalisante du sens. Il a été fréquemment présenté comme un négatif du sens, un excès, le non-identique, le non-pensé dans la pensée. Sous cette forme, le bruit a été un espace réservé pour le défi à l’autosuffisance du sens, dont la philosophie est la gardienne par excellence. Mais c’est penser le bruit d’une manière (...) purement négative. Si le bruit est le négatif du sens, qu’en est-il des différentes morphologies que l’on peut appréhender dans différents projets et types de pratiques de création de bruit? Qu’est-ce qui est alors responsable des différentes architectures sonores que présentent ces œuvres? En d’autres termes, quels gestes constructifs sont constitutifs de tels projets? L’objectif de cet article est d’examiner l’intégration de l’entropie par la musique de bruit en tant que matériau sonore, afin d’atteindre une compréhension plus intime du bruit et de la noise music dans son imbrication avec la structure. Peut-être obtiendra-t-on alors une image différente de la relation entre structure et bruit qui pourra fournir un éclairage sur la philosophie en tant qu’architecture spécifique de concepts. ». (shrink)

Erst kommt das Leben, dann der Tod, denken viele. Doch schon das Verweilen vor einem Grab eröffnet einen Dialog, der das Band zwischen dem Vergangenen und Gegenwärtigen spürbar werden lässt: Das Band der Kommunikation zwischen den Toten und den Lebenden scheint unzerreißbar. Der Tod? der eigene und der der anderen - ist eine Kategorie des Lebens, die jeden von uns zur Auseinandersetzung zwingt.0Das Buch von Jean-Pierre Wils ist seit langer Zeit der erste, großangelegte Versuch einer Lehre vom Tod, (...) einer Thanatologie, die ein umfassendes Panorama entfaltet: Todesarten, Todesangst, Todeszeitpunkt werden zum Thema ebenso wie die Frage nach der Unsterblichkeit, dem angemessenen Trösten und den Riten der Bestattung. Angesichts des Todes kommt die Philosophie an ihre Grenze? darum holt der Autor der Philosophie eine?Weggefährtin auf der Erkundungsfahrt zum Tod? an die Seite, nämlich die Literatur. So wird das Buch zu einem einmaligen Grenzgang zwischen Philosophie und Literatur, zwischen Reflexion und Narration und beglaubigt den Satz von Saint-Exupéry:?Es wird aussehen, als wäre ich tot, und das wird nicht wahr sein.? (shrink)

It is commonly assumed across the language sciences that some semantic participant information is lexically encoded in the representation of verbs and some is not. In this paper, we propose that semantic obligatoriness and verb class specificity are criteria which influence whether semantic information is lexically encoded. We present a comprehensive survey of the English verbal lexicon, a sentence continuation study, and an on-line sentence processing study which confirm that both factors play a role in the lexical encoding of participant (...) information. (shrink)

Here Jean-Pierre Changeux elucidates our current knowledge of the human brain, taking an interdisciplinary approach and explaining in layman's terms the complex theories and scientific breakthroughs that have significantly improved our ...

Les grands paradigmes des sciences humaines ont été constitués, au fil de l’histoire, par l’éviction progressive de la dimension affective des objets et méthodes scientifiques. Après un long désintérêt, pour partie dû à la préoccupation de l’objectivation des phénomènes retenus par l’analyse sociologique, mais aussi à l’hypostase du social, qui a trouvé notamment chez Durkheim un accomplissement encore plus accentué que dans la plupart des conceptions holistes, la question des émotions est l’...

Nella sezione introduttiva l'A. valuta lo stile e la finalità del Prologo al De trinitate, tenendo presenti anche altri prologhi tommasiani. Lo studio propone un esame dettagliato delle dottrine trasmesse in quest'opera. La prima parte è centrata sul tema della conoscenza di Dio e sulla necessità della rivelazione. L'A. sottolinea fra l'altro la ripresa delle cinque ragioni enunciate da Mosè Maimonide in difesa della fede. Successivamente l'A. esamina il rapporto tra filosofia e teologia, il problema della loro rispettiva autonomia, l'utilizzazione (...) degli argomenti di ragione e di autorità in ambito teologico. La parte terza è centrata sulla questione della contemplazione e della felicità nelle loro accezioni filosofiche e cristiane. Infine l'A. propone alcune «conclusioni provvisorie» relativamente alla lettura del testo tommasiano analizzato. In chiusura, è presentato il testo del Prologo con traduzione francese a fianco. (shrink)

L’observation de la littérature théologique de notre époque permet de constater une floraison assez dense de titres sur saint Thomas. La chose est d’autant plus étonnante qu’aux lendemains immédiats de Vatican II, Karl Rahner s’inquiétait de « l’étrange silence » des théologiens au sujet du Maître d’Aquin. Comme il se doit dans un article de bilan, J.-P. Torrell commence par dresser un tableau des éditions, biographies et traductions dont S. Thomas a bénéficié depuis 1974, année de célébration du septième centenaire (...) de sa mort. Après quoi, dans une seconde partie, il donne les « Orientations » dans lesquelles s’engagent aujourd’hui les études thomistes, insistant davantage sur la production théologique plutôt que sur la production philosophique, étant donné l’abondance et la complexité de cette dernière, tenant compte pour cela des productions américaines et allemandes autant que des productions francophones.A look at present day theological literature shows a fairly dense flowering of works on Saint Thomas. This is all the more astonishing as, just after Vatican II, Karl Rahner was uneasy about “the strange silence” of theologians concerning Master Aquinas. As expected in an overview, J.-P. Torrell begins by giving a list of publications, biographies, and translations on St. Thomas since 1974, the year of the celebration of the seventh centenary of his death. In the second part, he presents the “Orientations” of Thomistic studies today, insisting more on the theological production rather than the philosophical. Given the abundance and complexity of the latter, he takes into account American and German works, as well as French. (shrink)

This paper argues for a largely unnoted distinction between relational and modal components in the lexical semantics of verbs. Wehypothesize that many verbs encode two kinds of semantic information:a relationship among participants in a situation and a subset ofcircumstances or time indices at which this relationship isevaluated. The latter we term sublexical modality.We show that linking regularities between semantic arguments andsyntactic functions provide corroborating evidence in favor of thissemantic distinction, noting cases in which the semantic groundingof linking through participant-role properties (...) apparently fails. Thissemantic grounding can be preserved, however, once we abstractaway from sublexical modality in lexical semantic representations.Semantically-based linking constraints are insensitive to the sublexicalmodality component of lexical entries and depend only on informationin a predicator's situational core. (shrink)

Jean-Pierre Vernant delineates a compelling new vision of ancient Greece that takesus far from the calm and familiar images of Polykleitos and the Parthenon, and reveals a culture ofslavery, of blood sacrifice, of perpetual and ritualized warfare, of ceremonial hunting andecstasies.In his provocative discussions of various institutions and practices including war,marriage, and the city state, Vernant unveils a complex and previously unexplored intersection ofthe religious, social, and political structures of ancient Greece. He concludes with a genealogy ofthe study (...) of myth from antiquity to the present, and offers a critique of structuralism.Jean-PierreVernant is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Study of Ancient Religions at the College de France inParis. (shrink)

In a remarkable exchange between neuroscientist Jean-Pierre Changeux and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, this book explores the vexed territory between these...

Jean-Pierre Dupuy, prophet of what he calls "enlightened doomsaying," has long warned that modern society is on a path to self-destruction. In this book, he pleads for a subversion of this crisis from within, arguing that it is our lopsided view of religion and reason that has set us on this course. In denial of our sacred origins and hubristically convinced of the powers of human reason, we cease to know our own limits: our disenchanted world leaves us (...) defenseless against a headlong rush into the abyss of global warming, nuclear holocaust, and the other catastrophes that loom on our horizon. Reviving the religious anthropology of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Marcel Mauss and in dialogue with the work of René Girard, Dupuy shows that we must remember the world's sacredness in order to keep human violence in check. A metaphysical and theological detective, he tracks the sacred in the very fields where human reason considers itself most free from everything it judges irrational: science, technology, economics, political and strategic thought. In making such claims, The Mark of the Sacred takes on religion bashers, secularists, and fundamentalists at once. Written by one of the deepest and most versatile thinkers of our time, it militates for a world where reason is no longer an enemy of faith. (shrink)

The development of a scientific theory of mind was thus significantly delayed."--BOOK JACKET.

In this work, published here as a single volume, the authors present a disturbing and decidedly non-classical reading of Greek tragedy that insists on its radical discontinuity with our own outlook and with our social, aesthetic, and psychological categories.

This paper aims to connect philosophy of chemistry, green chemistry, and moral philosophy. We first characterize chemistry by underlining how chemists: co-define chemical bodies, operations, and transformations; always refer to active and context-sensitive bodies to explain the reactions under study; and develop strategies that require and intertwine with a molecular whole, its parts, and the surroundings at the same time within an explanation. We will then point out how green chemists are transforming their current activities in order to act upon (...) the world without jeopardizing life. This part will allow us to highlight that green chemistry follows the three aforementioned characteristics while including the world as a partner, as well as biodegradability and sustainability concerns, into chemical practices. In the third part of this paper, we will show how moral philosophy can help green chemists: identify the consequentialist assumptions that ground their reasoning; and widen the scope of their ethical considerations by integrating the notion of care and that of vulnerability into their arguments. In the fourth part of the paper, we will emphasize how, in return, this investigation could help philosophers querying consequentialism as soon as the consequences of chemical activities over the world are taken into account. Furthermore, we will point out how the philosophy of chemistry provides philosophers with new arguments concerning the key debate about the ‘intrinsic value’ of life, ecosystems and the Earth, in environmental ethics. To conclude, we will highlight how mesology, that is to say the study of ‘milieux’, and the concept of ‘ecumeme’ proposed by the philosopher and geographer Augustin Berque, could become important both for green chemists and moral philosophers in order to investigate our relationships with the Earth. (shrink)

1 Hesiod's Myth of the Races: An Essay in Structural Analysis Hesiod's poem ' Works and Days' begins with the telling of two myths. ...

This paper first queries what type of concept of emergence, if any, could be connected with the different chemical activities subsumed under the label ‘quantum chemistry’. In line with Roald Hoffmann, we propose a ‘rotation to research laboratory’ in order to point out how practitioners hold a molecular whole, its parts, and the surroundings together within their various methods when exploring chemical transformation. We then identify some requisite contents that a concept of emergence must incorporate in order to be coherent (...) from the standpoint of the scientific practices involved. In this respect, we finally propose a relational form of emergence which pays attention to the constitutive role of the modes of intervention and to the co-definition of the levels of organization. No metaphysical distinction between the higher and basic levels of organization is supposed, but only a plurality of modes of access. Moreover, these modes of access are not construed as mere ways of revealing intrinsic patterns of organization but, on the contrary, are considered to be active elements on which the constitution of those patterns depends. What is at stake in this paper is therefore not an ontological form of emergence but an agnostic one which fits what chemists do in their daily work. (shrink)

An examination of the fundamental role cybernetics played in the birth of cognitive science and the light this sheds on current controversies. The conceptual history of cognitive science remains for the most part unwritten. In this groundbreaking book, Jean-Pierre Dupuy—one of the principal architects of cognitive science in France—provides an important chapter: the legacy of cybernetics. Contrary to popular belief, Dupuy argues, cybernetics represented not the anthropomorphization of the machine but the mechanization of the human. The founding fathers (...) of cybernetics—some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, including John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, and Walter Pitts—intended to construct a materialist and mechanistic science of mental behavior that would make it possible at last to resolve the ancient philosophical problem of mind and matter. The importance of cybernetics to cognitive science, Dupuy argues, lies not in its daring conception of the human mind in terms of the functioning of a machine but in the way the strengths and weaknesses of the cybernetics approach can illuminate controversies that rage today—between cognitivists and connectionists, eliminative materialists and Wittgensteinians, functionalists and anti-reductionists. Dupuy brings to life the intellectual excitement that attended the birth of cognitive science sixty years ago. He separates the promise of cybernetic ideas from the disappointment that followed as cybernetics was rejected and consigned to intellectual oblivion. The mechanization of the mind has reemerged today as an all-encompassing paradigm in the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science. The tensions, contradictions, paradoxes, and confusions Dupuy discerns in cybernetics offer a cautionary tale for future developments in cognitive science. (shrink)

1 INSERM-CEA Unit 562, Cognitive Neuroimaging, Service Hospitalier Fre´de´ric Joliot, Orsay, France, 2 CNRS URA2182 Re´cepteurs and Cognition, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.

If such a thing as nanoethics is possible, it can only develop by confronting the great questions of moral philosophy, thus avoiding the pitfalls so common to regional ethics. We identify and analyze some of these pitfalls: the restriction of ethics to prudence understood as rational risk management; the reduction of ethics to cost/benefit analysis; the confusion of technique with technology and of human nature with the human condition. Once these points have been clarified, it is possible to take up (...) some weighty philosophical and metaphysical questions which are not new, but which need to be raised anew with respect to nanotechnologies: the artificialization of nature; the question of limits; the role of religion; the finiteness of the human condition as something with a beginning and an end; the relationship between knowledge and know-how; the foundations of ethics. (shrink)

Sociology was obviously created for studying images, symbols or values related to social action, which is its main purpose. However, the imaginary field was very lately called up in sociology studies. Across the emergence of a sociology of the imaginary from Émile Durkheim to Gilbert Durand and Pierre Bourdieu. Jean-Pierre Sironneau draws and distinguishes several fields of this sociology: religion, beliefs, tradition, mythology and cultural expressions (literature, art and media). Social imaginary has become a fundamental issue as (...) far as contemporary sociology is concerned. (shrink)

Definition of the problem: Stem cell transplantations from umbilical cord blood, especially if from autologous origin, are often treated with distrust. Not only are the therapeutic effects controversial, but the question of ownership is also hard to answer from an ethical point of view. Furthermore, the extraction of umbilical cord blood is already related to information about the factual and potential health condition of the child and its parents. Arguments and conclusion: The three problems will be discussed separately. Despite certain (...) uncertainties, there are no weighty ethical arguments against the extraction of umbilical cord blood for autologous purposes. The owner of the umbilical cord blood should be the mother. The question of information is not at all typical for this problem area and does not carry more weight here than in other relevant medical situations. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung. Stammzellen-Transplantationen aus Nabelschnurblut, vor allem solchen aus autologer Quelle, wird oft mit Misstrauen begegnet. Die therapeutischen Effekte sind umstritten, aber auch die Eigentumsfrage lässt sich aus ethischer Sicht nicht leicht beantworten. Darüber hinaus ist bereits die Gewinnung von Nabelschnurblut mit Informationen über den faktischen und potentiellen Gesundheitszustand des Kindes und seiner Eltern verbunden. Die drei Problemgebiete werden einzeln gewichtet. Trotz bestehender Unsicherheiten stehen der Gewinnung von Nabelschnurblut zu autologen Zwecken keine gravierenden ethischen Argumente entgegen. Eigentümer des Nabelschnurblutes sollte die (...) Mutter sein. Die Informationsfrage ist keineswegs typisch für diesen Problembereich und wiegt hier nicht schwerer als in anderen relevanten medizinischen Situationen. (shrink)