The aim of this paper is to examine the considerations on stochastic arts in Antiquity and to show how Galen’s analysis concerning the “art of conjecturing” constitutes a preferable alternative to the traditional ways used by philosophers to explain the inherent fallibility in the medical art. By distinguishing the scientific diagnosis from the conjectural one, Galen encompasses all cases relevant to the medical art. The former, because of its general nature, can be theorized. As for the latter, it concerns only (...) the individual and is therefore not likely to enter the theory, except by the method that makes it possible. This paper attempts to outline the modus operandi underlying the technical conjecture in order to illustrate Galen’s deftly developed position on a subject almost exclusively investigated by philosophers until then. (shrink)

Research addressing the challenges emerging from the development and diffusion of digital technologies has grown rapidly in recent years. However, much of this literature tends to overlook the immersion of these technologies into our everyday lives. This everyday digitalization cannot be reduced to specific technological innovations and is obviously a crucial aspect of the social changes introduced by digital technologies. This themed issue sets out to explore the everyday dimension of digitalization, in the specific context of agri-food systems. We propose (...) a collection of papers that contribute to opening new approaches to digitalization in food and agriculture, by concentrating the attention on the mundane and ordinary aspects of digitalization and exploring their potential contributions to profound transformations in agri-food systems. The various forms of everyday digitalization that are presented in this symposium offer two particular ways of critically engaging with the digitalization of agriculture and food. Firstly, our everyday digitalization looks beyond examining the impacts of digitalization and positioning digital technologies in opposition to farmers, consumers, government, or other actors. Secondly, we shed light on the politics of uncertainty, which enables us to make anticipatory actions and see things beyond success and failure. What we observe is how these imaginaries participate in the co-production of digital realities through their encounter with the complexity of everyday life. Therefore, it remains essential to engage critically with both the imaginary and the everyday dimensions of digitalization in their multiplicity. (shrink)

This article frames the poetry of William Wordsworth and the philosophical writings of Spinoza as mutually illuminating works exploring the ethical and ontological questions raised by bodies in states of passivity and immobility. Both writers, it argues, revise our idea of what a “powerful” body might be by developing the concept of “dynamic passivity”—a passivity that does not stand in simple opposition to states of activity, and that ought to be cultivated rather than overcome in the process of empowering the (...) body. The article examines and contrasts the different ways in which Wordsworth and Spinoza conceive of this dynamic passivity, with particular attention paid to how the former embeds a cultivation of “wise passiveness” for the reader in the very form of his poems, through a variety of elements like syntax, metre, and acoustic effects. (shrink)

A minister's wife and mother of two children suggests answers for difficult questions asked by children about death and suffering, God, heaven and hell, and sex.

The dominant meta-theories in contemporary sociolinguistics include interactionism, social constructivism, poststructuralism and similarly relativist, anti-realist approaches (hereby grouped within the broader category of interpretivism). This paper argues that anti-scientific, anti-realist tendencies in contemporary sociolinguistics are ill-justified, confuse science with positivism, and weaken sociolinguists' necessary commitment to objectivity (hereby understood as commitment by scientists to explain the ontological order, or what exists regardless of whether it is known by people). The anti-realism in interpretivist sociolinguistics also considerably diminishes the ability of sociolinguists (...) to, for example, make ontological claims about language and its users, study phenomena including linguistic hierarchies and linguistic/social oppression as systems, and develop robust and effective strategies for critical engagement and social emancipation. By reaffirming sociolinguistics as part of the scientific project, and by reframing sociolinguistics within critical realism (CR), this paper offers conceptual alternatives to the dominant interpretivist tendencies in contemporary sociolinguistics. (shrink)

Este artículo explora una pregunta muy precisa: ¿qué significa la propuesta, expuesta por Maquiavelo en el penúltimo capítulo de El Príncipe, según la cual es preferible ser impetuoso que respetuoso? A partir de un análisis riguroso de este capítulo, el autor cuestiona la validez de la interpretación dominante según la cual mediante una acción impetuosa, un individuo virtuoso puede someter a la fortuna. La propuesta de Maquiavelo se debe interpretar más bien como una apuesta hacia las virtualidades creativas de la (...) acción ante una situación de corrupción en la que el fatalismo y el deseo de ser dominado tienden a prevalecer. En este sentido, la primacía dada a la impetuosidad constituye la piedra angular de una moral de carácter provisional requerida en “tiempos adversos”. (shrink)

La survenue d’une maladie grave chez l’enfant vient percuter et modifier de manière considérable les liens intrafamiliaux. C’est à partir du moment inaugural de l’annonce diagnostique, dans un échange de regards avec ses parents, que l’enfant prendra conscience de la gravité de sa maladie. C’est aussi en fonction de la réaction à venir de ses parents, au fil de l’évolution de la maladie et au gré des traitements, que l’enfant va lui-même, en tant que sujet porteur de sa propre histoire, (...) éprouver les effets psychiques de cette maladie et lui conférer un sens particulier. D’un point de vue de psychologue exerçant en oncologie pédiatrique, il s’agit ici d’éclairer les enjeux psychiques liés à l’irruption d’un cancer chez l’enfant en portant une attention particulière sur la manière dont cet événement éprouvant est vécu par ses parents et dont on peut en retrouver les effets dans le discours de l’enfant. La possibilité pour l’enfant de dire ce qu’il perçoit dans le regard meurtri de ses parents porté sur lui nous semble contribuer à l’appropriation de l’épreuve de la maladie, voire au dépassement de celle-ci. (shrink)

Scientific research in the formal sciences comes in multiple degrees of formality: fully formal work; rigorous proofs that practitioners know to be formalizable in principle; and informal work like rough proof sketches and considerations about the advantages and disadvantages of various formal systems. This informal work includes informal and semi-formal debates between formal scientists, e.g. about the acceptability of foundational principles and proposed axiomatizations. In this paper, we propose to use the methodology of structured argumentation theory to produce a formal (...) model of such informal and semi-formal debates in the formal sciences. For this purpose, we propose ASPIC-END, an adaptation of the structured argumentation framework ASPIC+ which can incorporate natural deduction style arguments and explanations. We illustrate the applicability of the framework to debates in the formal sciences by presenting a simple model of some arguments about proposed solutions to the Liar paradox, and by discussing a more extensive—but still preliminary—model of parts of the debate that mathematicians had about the Axiom of Choice in the early twentieth century. (shrink)

Peu connue à cause de l’absence d’ouvrage de référence qui la présenterait dans toute son étendue, la pensée politique de Leibniz présente cependant un intérêt non négligeable pour l’histoire de la philosophie politique. En concevant l’homme comme sociable par nature, Leibniz ne fait pas pour autant de l’État l’aboutissement des sociétés naturelles, mais plutôt un moment passager dans la réalisation du monde moral au sein du monde naturel. Dès lors, le meilleur régime pour un tel État, ne résultant pas d’un (...) contrat social bien que sujets et souverain y soient dans un rapport mutuel d’obligation, serait celui qui permettrait d’allier le mieux puissance et sagesse. Refusant tout pouvoir arbitraire, et insistant sur la nécessité de distinguer les pouvoirs, Leibniz considère la monarchie comme le meilleur régime en ce qu’elle serait plus facilement amendable : assisté d’un parlement, le puissant monarque ne pourrait qu’être sage.Little-known because of the lack of a work of reference that would present it in all its extent, Leibniz’s political thought is however of significant interest for the history of political philosophy. By conceiving humans has sociable by nature, Leibniz doesn’t depict the State as the outcome of natural societies, but rather as a passing moment in the realization of the moral world within the natural world. Therefore, the best regime for such a State, not resulting from a social contract although subjects and sovereign are there in a mutual relationship of obligation, would be the one uniting best power and wisdom. Refusing every arbitrary power and emphasizing on the necessity of distinguishing powers, Leibniz considers monarchy as the best regime for it would be more easily improvable: assisted by a parliament, a potent monarch could only be wise[1]. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: En excluant le monopole juridictionnel de la souveraineté afin de préserver une autorité supérieure aux souverains, Leibniz réduit celle-ci au seul monopole de la coercition. Cependant, cette redéfinition de la souveraineté place la guerre au cœur des relations internationales. Elle est, en tant que faculté, la condition de participation pour les souverains au «droit des gens», droit qui lui-même doit éviter de tellesguerres. La paix n’est donc pour Leibniz qu’au prix de l’établissement d’un équilibre entre forces contraires qui, en (...) s’opposant et si elles sont de même intensité, annulent réciproquement leurs effets. C’est cette conception dynamique de l’ordre politique que cet article se propose de traiter.ABSTRACT: This article deals with Leibniz’s dynamic conception of political order. Leibniz reduces the sovereignty of States to the monopoly of coercion by setting apart jurisdictional monopoly and sovereignty. With this new definition of sovereignty however, war becomes the core of international relations. The sovereigns’ ability to make war is the condition to take part in law of nations, whose precise aim is to prevent wars. Peace can only exist if there is a balance between opposite forces of similar magnitude that cancel each other. (shrink)

Children’s reasoning on food properties and health relationships can contribute to healthier food choices. Food properties can either be positive (“gives strength”) or negative (“gives nausea”). One of the main challenges in public health is to foster children’s dietary variety, which contributes to a normal and healthy development. To face this challenge, it is essential to investigate how children generalize these positive and negative properties to other foods, including familiar and unfamiliar ones. In the present experiment, we hypothesized that children (...) might rely on cues of food processing (e.g., signs of human intervention such as slicing) to convey information about item edibility. Furthermore, capitalizing on previous results showing that food rejections (i.e., food neophobia and picky eating) are a significant source of inter-individual variability to children’s inferences in the food domain, we followed an individual approach. We expected that children would generalize the positive properties to familiar foods and, in contrast, that they would generalize more often the negative properties to unfamiliar foods. However, we expected that children would generalize more positive and less negative properties to unfamiliar sliced foods than to whole unfamiliar foods. Finally, we expected that children displaying higher levels of food rejections would generalize more negative properties than children displaying lower levels of food rejections. One-hundred and twenty-six children, aged 3–6 years, performed an induction task in which they had to generalize positive or negative health-related properties to familiar or unfamiliar foods, whole or sliced. We measured children’s probability of generalization for positive and negative properties. The children’s food rejection score was assessed on a standardized scale. Results indicated that children evaluated positively familiar foods (regardless of processing), whereas they tend to view unfamiliar food negatively. In contrast, children were at chance for processed unfamiliar foods. Furthermore, children displaying higher levels of food rejections were more likely to generalize the negative properties to all kinds of foods than children displaying lower levels of food rejections. These findings entitle us to hypothesize that knowledge-based food education programs should take into account the valence of the properties taught to children, as well as the state of processing of the food presented. Furthermore, one should take children’s interindividual differences into account because they influence how the knowledge gained through these programs may be generalized. (shrink)

Dramatisation d'un dialogue souhaite par Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz mais refuse par John Locke, les Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain mettent en scene Theophile et Philalethe: et Leibniz pouvait ainsi donner la replique a l'Essay concerning Human Understanding de Locke. Longtemps consideres comme la simple synthese de la philosophie leibnizienne, les Nouveaux Essais ne nous presentent-ils pas plutot le philosophe de Hanovre empruntant des pistes originales d'analyse et offrant des orientations epistemologiques plus marquees que dans toute autre de ses oeuvres? S'interessant (...) a l'Essay, Leibniz avait declare:...] j'ai fort medite moi-meme sur ce qui regarde les fondements de nos connaissances....] De toutes les recherches il n'y a point de plus importante, puisque c'est la clef de toutes les autres. Ce sont les tenants et les aboutissants de ce jugement de Leibniz, qui fixait ainsi - par anticipation - le propos des Nouveaux Essais, auxquels les auteurs ont ici consacre leurs analyses. (shrink)

We study the relationship between common knowledge and the sequence of iterated mutual knowledge from a topological point of view. It is shown that common knowledge is not equivalent to the limit of the sequence of iterated mutual knowledge. On that account the new epistemic operator limit knowledge is introduced and analyzed in the context of games. Indeed, an example is constructed where the behavioral implications of limit knowledge of rationality strictly refine those of common knowledge of rationality. More generally, (...) it is then shown that limit knowledge of rationality is capable of characterizing any solution concept for some appropriate epistemic-topological conditions. Finally, some perspectives of a topologically enriched epistemic framework for games are discussed. (shrink)

Les guerres de Religion en France (1562-1598) mettent curieusement en cause la mémoire. En effet, chaque édit de pacification est l’occasion pour la couronne française d’imposer un « oubli » des guerres récentes entre catholiques et protestants. Cette « politique de l’oubliance », censée permettre une stabilité de chaque nouvelle paix, a cependant rencontré des obstacles : quelles sont les réticences qu’elle a suscitées? Comment mesurer l’efficacité de ces mesures? Comment les commissaires du roi chargés de vérifier l’application des édits (...) s’y sont-ils pris pour imposer cet oubli? (shrink)

Establishing healthy dietary habits in childhood is crucial in preventing long-term repercussions, as a lack of dietary variety in childhood leads to enduring impacts on both physical and cognitive health. Poor conceptual knowledge about food has recently been shown to be a driving factor of food rejection. The majority of studies that have investigated the development of food knowledge along with food rejection have mainly focused on one subtype of conceptual knowledge about food, namely taxonomic categories. However, taxonomic categorization is (...) not the only way to understand the food domain. We also heavily rely on other conceptual structures, namely thematic associations, in which objects are grouped because they share spatial-temporal properties or exhibit a complementary relationship. We rely on such thematic associations between food items, which may not fall into the same taxon, to determine the acceptability of food combinations. However, the development of children's ability to master these relations has not been systematically investigated, nor alongside the phenomenon of food rejection. The present research aims to fill this gap by investigating the development of conceptual food knowledge and the putative relationship between children's food rejection and both thematic and taxonomic food knowledge. A proportional analogy task, with a choice between taxonomic and thematic food associates, was conducted on children between 3 and 7-years-old. The children were systematically presented with either a thematic or taxonomic food base pair and then asked to extend the example type of relation to select the respective thematic or taxonomic match to the target. Our results revealed, for the first time, that increased levels of food rejection were significantly predictive of poorer food identification and decreased thematic understanding. These findings entitle us to hypothesize that knowledge-based food education programs to foster dietary variety in young children, should not only aim to improve taxonomic understanding of food, but also thematic relations. (shrink)

BackgroundAlthough the number of reporting guidelines has grown rapidly, few have gone through an updating process. The STARD statement (Standards for Reporting Diagnostic Accuracy), published in 2003 to help improve the transparency and completeness of reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies, was recently updated in a systematic way. Here, we describe the steps taken and a justification for the changes made.ResultsA 4-member Project Team coordinated the updating process; a 14-member Steering Committee was regularly solicited by the Project Team when making critical (...) decisions. First, a review of the literature was performed to identify topics and items potentially relevant to the STARD updating process. After this, the 85 members of the STARD Group were invited to participate in two online surveys to identify items that needed to be modified, removed from, or added to the STARD checklist. Based on the results of the literature review process, 33 items were presented to the STARD Group in the online survey: 25 original items and 8 new items; 73 STARD Group members (86 %) completed the first survey, and 79 STARD Group members (93 %) completed the second survey.Then, an in-person consensus meeting was organized among the members of the Project Team and Steering Committee to develop a consensual draft version of STARD 2015. This version was piloted in three rounds among a total of 32 expert and non-expert users. Piloting mostly led to rewording of items. After this, the update was finalized. The updated STARD 2015 list now consists of 30 items. Compared to the previous version of STARD, three original items were each converted into two new items, four original items were incorporated into other items, and seven new items were added.ConclusionsAfter a systematic updating process, STARD 2015 provides an updated list of 30 essential items for reporting diagnostic accuracy studies. (shrink)

Cet article propose un tour d’horizon de différents types de biais que l’on peut rencontrer dans les études basées sur l’annotation de corpus vidéo de langue des signes. En tâchant de situer objectivement les choix effectués et les biais potentiels à chaque étape, nous décrivons les méthodologies que nous avons mises en place dans trois études, portant respectivement sur la synchronisation des composantes corporelles, le mouvement des sourcils et les clignements des yeux, puis la coarticulation.

Recent research suggests that preschool (three- to six-years-old) children’s food cognition involves much more than the nutritional information usually conveyed by traditional food education programs. This review aims at collecting the empirical evidence documenting the richness of preschoolers’ conceptual knowledge about food. After introducing the relevance of the topic in the context of the research in early food rejection dispositions (Sect. 1), we draw from empirical contributions to propose the first classification of food knowledge in the field, which includes taxonomic (...) (2.1.), relational (2.2.), and value-laden food knowledge (2.3.). Finally, in Sect. 3, we highlight some theoretical shortcomings of extant literature, suggesting that the account of food knowledge we propose could be employed to develop more effective educational strategies that mitigate early food rejection behaviors (e.g., food neophobia).Early conceptual knowledge about food. (shrink)

Recent computational models of perception conceptualize auditory oddball responses as signatures of a learning process, in line with the influential view of the mismatch negativity as a prediction error signal. Novel MMN experimental paradigms have put an emphasis on neurophysiological effects of manipulating regularity and predictability in sound sequences. This raises the question of the contextual adaptation of the learning process itself, which on the computational side speaks to the mechanisms of gain-modulated prediction error. In this study using electrocorticographic signals, (...) we manipulated the predictability of oddball sound sequences with two objectives: Uncovering the computational process underlying trial-by-trial variations of the cortical responses. The fluctuations between trials, generally ignored by approaches based on averaged evoked responses, should reflect the learning involved. We used a general linear model and Bayesian Model Reduction to assess the respective contributions of experimental manipulations and learning mechanisms under probabilistic assumptions. To validate and expand on previous findings regarding the effect of changes in predictability using simultaneous EEG-MEG recordings. Our trial-by-trial analysis revealed only a few stimulus-responsive sensors but the measured effects appear to be consistent over subjects in both time and space. In time, they occur at the typical latency of the MMN. In space, we found a dissociation between time-independent effects in more anterior temporal locations and time-dependent effects in more posterior locations. However, we could not observe any clear and reliable effect of our manipulation of predictability modulation onto the above learning process. Overall, these findings clearly demonstrate the potential of trial-to-trial modeling to unravel perceptual learning processes and their neurophysiological counterparts. (shrink)

The contractarian theory elaborated by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice exploits the difference principle in a great many ways. Rawls argues that, when used as part of a set of guiding principles for structuring the basic institutions of society, it simplifies the problem of interpersonal comparisons (91-4)1, helps compensate for the arbitrariness of natural endowments (101-3), promotes a harmony of interests between citizens (104-5), reintroduces the principle of fraternity to democratic society (105-6), and, what is critical to his (...) contractarian theory, it is an essential part of the principles of justice which would be chosen by free, equal, and rational persons in the original position. (shrink)

Midway through How to Do Things With Words, J.L. Austin’s announces a “fresh start” in his efforts to characterize the ways in which speech is action, and introduces a new conceptual framework from the one he has been using up to that point. Against a common reading that portrays this move as simply abandoning the framework so far developed, Marina Sbisà contends that the text takes the argumentative form of a proof by contradiction, such that the initial framework plays an (...) instrumental role as part of a proof in favour of the subsequent one. Despite agreeing with Sbisà’s broad instrumentalist approach, we argue that her regimentation of Austin’s narrative into a proof by contradiction ultimately fails - both as a proof and as an interpretation of Austin. Instead, we suggest that a better way of interpreting the peculiar structure of How to Do Things With Words is as a pedagogical exercise whose point is to bring a concealed alternative into view in a manner that also explains its initial concealment, and that this approach provides richer resources for supporting Sbisà’s own conventionalist understanding of illocution than that afforded by reading the text as a proof by contradiction. (shrink)