Bernard Mandeville est souvent présenté comme l’un des penseurs les plus importants des théories de l’ordre social spontané. Selon Friedrich August Hayek, B. Mandeville, dans son ouvrage La fable des abeilles (1714), rend possible une conception radicalement renouvelée de l’ordre social. L’ordre social est-il le produit d’un dessein humain ou, au contraire, faut-il voir en lui le résultat d’une formation spontanée? Loin d’être le produit d’une quelconque intention humaine, l’ordre observé dans la société est le résultat d’un processus autorégulé et (...) autoperpétuant. L’approche de Mandeville a pour but d’invalider toute forme de constructivisme social. La société est alors perçue comme un « édifice sans architecte » (Gilles Dostaler, Le libéralisme de Hayek). À l’instar des penseurs des Lumières écossaises, Mandeville soutient que l’ordre social est le produit de l’action des hommes mais non celui de leur intention.Cependant, ni Mandeville ni Hayek ne parviennent à éliminer radicalement la notion de dessein de leur approche de l’ordre social. Cet article a pour objectif de démontrer la permanence d’un dessein y compris dans les théories de l’ordre social spontané. (shrink)

Ce texte répond aux critiques formulées par J.G. Hülsmann à propos de mon article “Ludwig von Mises, Théoricien de la Banque Libre”. J.G. Hülsmann me reproche une méthode scientifique douteuse sans voir que ses reproches ne s’adressent qu’à luimême. Pour lui répondre, il me suffit de le paraphraser. Le commentaire de Hülsmann a néanmoins un léger mérite, celui de mettre en exergue deux courts passages de l’oeuvre de Mises que j’omets involontairement dans mon article. Aussi il me revient de combler (...) cette lacune, d’interpréter ces deux passages, d’affiner et finalement d’appuyer le propos et la conclusion de mon article.This article is a reply to J.G. Hülsmann’s critics concerning my article “Ludwig von Mises, Théoricien de la Banque Libre”. J.G. Hülsmann blames me for an uncertain scientific method when these reproaches are aimed at himself. To respond, we just have to paraphrase. Nevertheless, for the credit of Hülsmann’s commentary, we have to say that it makes appear two short citations of Mises’ work that we unintentionally ignore in our article. So, to fill the gap, I have to interpret these citations, improve and finally rest the purpose and the conclusion of my article. (shrink)

Ce texte répond aux critiques formulées par J.G. Hülsmann à propos de mon article “Ludwig von Mises, Théoricien de la Banque Libre”. J.G. Hülsmann me reproche une méthode scientifique douteuse sans voir que ses reproches ne s’adressent qu’à luimême. Pour lui répondre, il me suffit de le paraphraser. Le commentaire de Hülsmann a néanmoins un léger mérite, celui de mettre en exergue deux courts passages de l’oeuvre de Mises que j’omets involontairement dans mon article. Aussi il me revient de combler (...) cette lacune, d’interpréter ces deux passages, d’affiner et finalement d’appuyer le propos et la conclusion de mon article.This article is a reply to J.G. Hülsmann’s critics concerning my article “Ludwig von Mises, Théoricien de la Banque Libre”. J.G. Hülsmann blames me for an uncertain scientific method when these reproaches are aimed at himself. To respond, we just have to paraphrase. Nevertheless, for the credit of Hülsmann’s commentary, we have to say that it makes appear two short citations of Mises’ work that we unintentionally ignore in our article. So, to fill the gap, I have to interpret these citations, improve and finally rest the purpose and the conclusion of my article. (shrink)

Hyperbase est un logiciel d’Analyse de Données Textuelles (ADT) qui offre une suite d’outils statistiques dédiés à l’étude de corpus. Initialement développé sur ordinateur de bureau, il se décline depuis 2015 en plateforme web offrant une interface à l’ergonomie travaillée pour un usage tourné vers les sciences humaines et sociales. Après un rappel méthodologique de l’ADT, cette contribution présente Hyperbase Web version 2024, à partir d’exemples concrets d’usages, de notes techniques ainsi que des entrées par le menu (manuel d’utilisateur). Cette (...) présentation sert de référence pour la prise en main du logiciel ou l’utilisation avancée des méthodes d’ADT. (shrink)

Malgré l’important renouveau que connaît la théologie naturelle depuis environ un demi-siècle dans le champ de la philosophie de la religion, Charles Taylor soutient que celle-ci appartient à une époque désormais révolue. Cette étude propose de restituer de manière aussi fidèle et précise que possible les raisons de ce verdict. Une telle analyse vise à combler une lacune importante dans la littérature secondaire. Cette lacune tient, d’une part, au fait que Taylor lui-même ne développe jamais ces raisons de façon systématique (...) ; d’autre part, elle tient également au fait que plusieurs commentateurs semblent présupposer qu’un tel argument n’existe pas : Taylor récuserait la théologie naturelle simplement parce qu’elle ne correspond pas à la manière dont il est enclin à justifier ses propres convictions religieuses. (shrink)

It is only approximately one year before Sein und Zeit was published that Heidegger read Kant for the first time with attention and interest. Has this late reading had an influence on the treatise that Heidegger was writing? The thesis that we stand for is that Kant’s main influence shall be found in no passage of the treatise in particular, but mostly in the decision of adopting the form of a treatise.

Résumé Où va la peinture est un livre de Laurent Marissal qui se présente à la fois comme un traité sur la peinture et comme une œuvre peinte. Les actions qu’il relate sont elles-mêmes revendiquées comme des actions picturales. L’article s’interroge sur ces usages hétérodoxes de la notion de « picturalité », tout d’abord au niveau de la mise en forme narrative du livre, puis à celui des actions que cette forme a pour dessein de relater. Une dernière partie (...) étudie la relation du travail de Laurent Marissal avec le courant du narrative art. (shrink)

This is the first volume of a two-volume project whose aim is to publish all the known Middle English manuscript translations of the French Somme le mi, a thirteenth-century manual of religious instruction offering teaching on the Decalogue, the seven deadly sins and their remedies, compiled by the Dominican friar Laurent of Orleans. The project extends and deepens our knowledge of the influence of this popular French text, known today only from the versions entitled The Ayen bite of Inwit (...) and The Book of Vices and Virtues, published in 1866 and 1942, respectively. This volume presents the versions extant in BL MSS Royal 18. A. x and Add. 37677; the second will cover the versions in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 494, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1286, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS e Musaeo 23. The texts of both volumes have been prepared with the help of the recently-published edition of the French text, a circumstance from which the earlier English editions were unable to benefit. It is likely that the versions edited here for the first time will make a considerable contribution to our understanding of the processes of textual transmission and to that of translation itself in English literary circles of the fifteenth century. (shrink)

This article argues that many situations in social life can be analyzed by their requirement for the justification of action. It is in particular in situations of dispute that a need arises to explicate the grounds on which responsibility for errors is distributed and on which new agreement can be reached. Since a plurality of mutually incompatible modes of justification exists, disputes can be understood as disagreements either about whether the accepted rule of justification has not been violated or about (...) which mode of justification to apply at all. The article develops a grammar of such modes of justification, called orders of worth (grandeur), and argues that the human capacity for criticism becomes visible in the daily occurrence of disputes over criteria for justification. At the same time, it is underlined that not all social situations can be interpreted with the help of such a sense of justice, which resides on a notion of equivalence. Regimes of love, of violence or of familiarity are systematically distinct from regimes of justification. (shrink)

On a souvent résumé la présence importante des avocats dans la vie politique française sous la III e République à travers l’expression de « République des avocats. » De manière plus complexe, il s’agit de montrer comment les avocats sont au cœur, dans les premières décennies de la République, de la construction d’un champ politique marquée par la codification des règles électorales et une certaine démocratisation du personnel politique. Dans les décennies qui suivent, on note une diversification des formes d’investissement (...) du barreau en politique, moins marqué par l’investissement dans le champ politique proprement dit que par l’engagement à travers la défense judiciaire de causes. (shrink)

The Swiss philosopher Anton Marty (Schwyz, 1847 - Prague, 1914) belongs, with Carl Stumpf, to the first circle of Brentano’s pupils. Within Brentano’s school (and, to some extent, in the secondary literature), Marty has often been considered (in particular by Meinong) a kind of would-be epigone of his master (Fisette & Fréchette 2007: 61-2). There is no doubt that Brentano’s doctrine often provides Marty with his philosophical starting points. But Marty often arrives at original conclusions which are diametrically opposed to (...) Brentano’s views. This is true of his views about space and time and about judgment, emotions and intentionality. In the latter case, for example, Marty develops Brentano’s view and its implications in great detail (Mulligan 1989; Rollinger 2004), but uses them to formulate a very unBrentanian account of intentionality as a relation of ideal assimilation (Chrudzimski 1999; Cesalli & Taieb 2013). Marty’s philosophy of language, on the other hand, is one of the first philosophies worthy of the name. In what follows, we contrast briefly their accounts of (i) judgment and states of affairs and of (ii) emotings and value (two topics of foremost significance, for Brentano and Marty’s theoretical and practical philosophies respectively) (§1), and their philosophies of language (§2). Brentano’s view of language is based on his philosophy of mind. Marty takes over the latter and turns a couple of claims by Brentano about language into a sophisticated philosophy of language of a kind made familiar much later by Grice. Marty’s philosophy of states of affairs and value and of the mind’s relations to these also takes off from views sketched by the early Brentano, views forcefully rejected by the later Brentano. (shrink)

We tested whether the E-Z Reader model can be generalised to the French language. The simulation showed that the model can account for the frequency effect. The predictability effect is moreover accurate for word skipping, but not for fixation times. We think that this model is psychologically plausible for certain aspects of reading and we have used it to evaluate the performance of dyslexic readers.

Nous montrons dans cet article comment les approches dynamiques en logique contemporaine ont retrouvé, quoique sous d ’ autres attendus, une configuration théorique qu ’ on peut attribuer à Aristote au moment de la rédaction des Topiques. Dans cette configuration, la logique et la rhétorique – ou au moins la dialectique – se complètent dans le cadre conceptuel homogène offert par la dialectique, entendue comme une certaine forme relativement codifiée de débat critique. L ’ idée principale est qu ’ aujourd (...) ’ hui, de même qu ’ alors, la dialectique est le cadre dans lequel il est possible de penser le rapport entre la logique et les formes générales de l ’ argumentation d ’ une part, et entre la logique et la théorie de la connaissance scientifique d ’ autre part. (shrink)

Le programme de recherche que l'on trouvera ci-dessous nous semble particulièrement original et utile d'un point de vue rythmanalytique – et cela à double titre. Alors que la vitesse, l'accélération et l'urgence sont, depuis quelques années, les objets d'une littérature pléthorique et désormais assez répétitive, Laurent Vidal et les chercheurs regroupés dans l'ANR TERRIAT s'intéressent, quant à eux, à la « lenteur » et à l'« attente ». Second point fort, ils orientent leur attention vers la question des « (...) (...) - 4. Rythmes du social – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Technologies of democracy are instruments based on material apparatus, social practices and expert knowledge that organize the participation of various publics in the definition and treatment of public problems. Using three examples related to the engagement of publics in nanotechnology in France (a citizen conference, a series of public meetings, and an industrial design process), the paper argues that Science and Technology Studies provide useful tools and methods for the analysis of technologies of democracy. Operations of experiments and public demonstrations (...) can be described, as well as controversies about technologies of democracy giving rise to counter-experiments and counter-demonstrations. The political value of the analysis of public engagement lies in the description of processes of stabilization of democratic orders and in the display of potential alternative political arrangements. (shrink)

This book presents a state-of-the-art multidisciplinary perspective on psychological, physiological and computational approaches to understanding the ...

Cognitive forms vary considerably as a human being detaches herself from what is closest and most personal and moves to communicate — in the broad sense of taking part in a common matter — across increasing relational distances. The article proposes to deal with the variety of cognitive formats which cannot `commonize' cognition to an equal degree, relating them to a set of regimes of engagement with the world that are identified in terms of the dependency between the human agent (...) and her environment. The good that engagement aims to guarantee orients how reality is grasped and specifies the format of what constitutes relevant information. This analysis offers new insight into the composition of communities as well as persons who have to cope with the plurality of cognitive formats and engagements from the very familiar to the most public. (shrink)

This essay attempts to describe the neo-Lamarckian atmosphere that was dominant in French biology for more than a century. Firstly, we demonstrate that there were not one but at least two French neo-Lamarckian traditions. This implies, therefore, that it is possible to propose a clear definition of a (neo)Lamarckian conception, and by using it, to distinguish these two traditions. We will see that these two conceptions were not dominant at the same time. The first French neo-Lamarckism (1879–1931) was structured by (...) a very mechanic view of natural processes. The main representatives of this first period were scientists such as Alfred Giard (1846–1908), Gaston Bonnier (1853–1922) and Félix Le Dantec (1869–1917). The second Lamarckism – much more vitalist in its inspiration – started to develop under the supervision of people such as Albert Vandel (1894–1980) and Pierre-Paul Grassé (1895–1985). Secondly, this essay suggests that the philosophical inclinations of these neo-Lamarckisms reactivated a very ancient and strong dichotomy of French thought. One part of this dichotomy is a material, physicalist tradition, which started with René Descartes but developed extensively during the 18th and 19th centuries. The other is a spiritual and vitalist reaction to the first one, which also had a very long history, though it is most closely associated with the work of Henri Bergson. Through Claude Bernard, the first neo-Lamarckians tried to construct a mechanical and determinist form of evolutionary theory which was, in effect, a Cartesian theory. The second wave of neo-Lamarckians wanted to reconsider the autonomy and reactivity of life forms, in contrast to purely physical systems. (shrink)

This article introduces a framework which aims at capturing the complexity of economic organizations. The analysis of most legitimate conventions of coordination results in a new approach to the firm as a compromising device between several modes of coordination which engage different repertoires of evaluation. This contribution to the Économie des conventions offers an analytical tool to operate comparative research on firms, intermediate regulatory committees or public policies.

This article is the result of collaboration between a linguist and an anthropologist. In La Troisième planète. Structures familiales et systèmes idéologiques (The Third Planet: Family Structures and Ideologies) (Todd, 1983), anthropologist Emmanuel Todd provided a world map of family types, which he used to explain the distribution of major political philosophies around the world. However, this did not explain the distribution of the family types themselves. Indeed, a concluding chapter entitled “Le Hazard” (The Effects of Chance) stated that the (...) distribution of family types did not seem to be the result of any particular economic or ecological factor and was therefore a prime example of the uncertainty principle at work. However, Laurent Sagart, a linguist specializing in Chinese dialects, noticed that this map of family types exhibited a structure well known to experts in historical linguistics and dialectology, contrasting a large, continuous zone in the center with a number of small, independent zones located around the periphery of the central zone or in isolated enclaves within it. When such maps appear in linguistic atlases, dialectologists usually conclude that the central zone was the innovative area while the peripheral and isolated zones conserved the original features. The same analysis, if applied to the map of family types, would lead to the conclusion that the communal family system in the center of the map represented a more recent innovation than the systems around the periphery. (shrink)

Past research dedicated to the impact of hierarchy on the autonomic nervous system has focused mainly on dominance. The current study extends this investigation by assessing the effect of social prestige, operationalized through occupational status, and examines whether people react differently when interacting with individuals of high or low occupational status. Participants’ heart rate and electrodermal activity were recorded while they interacted with a confederate who was introduced either as a neurosurgeon or as a nurse aide. The results show that, (...) contrary to the participants’ skin conductance level, their heart rate was modulated by the confederate’s status. In the high-status condition, participants’ heart rate increased when the “neurosurgeon” approached them, reaching a higher level than when interacting with the person in the low-status condition. We discuss our results in terms of the threats or opportunities that prestige may elicit. (shrink)

This article shows how Lamarckism was essential in the birth of the French school of molecular biology. We argue that the concept of inheritance of acquired characters positively shaped debates surrounding bacteriophagy and lysogeny in the Pasteurian tradition during the interwar period. During this period the typical Lamarckian account of heredity treated it as the continuation of protoplasmic physiology in daughter cells. Félix d’Hérelle applied this conception to argue that there was only one species of bacteriophage and Jules Bordet applied (...) it to develop an account of bacteriophagy as a transmissible form of autolysis and to analyze the new phenomenon of lysogeny. In a long-standing controversy with Bordet, Eugène Wollman deployed a more morphological understanding of the inheritance of acquired characters, yielding a particulate, but still Lamarckian, account of lysogeny. We then turn to André Lwoff who, with several colleagues, completed Wollman’s research program from 1949 to 1953. We examine how he gradually set aside the Lamarckian background, finally removing inheritance of acquired characters from the resulting account of bacteriophagy and lysogeny. In the conclusion, we emphasize the complex dual role of Lamarckism as it moved from an assumed explanatory framework to a challenge that the nascent molecular biology had to overcome. (shrink)

The unconscious-thought effect occurs when distraction improves complex decision making. Recent studies suggest that this effect is more likely to occur with low- than high-demanding distraction tasks. We discuss implications of these findings for Newell & Shanks' (N&S's) claim that evidence is lacking for the intervention of unconscious processes in complex decision making.

EveryK-trivial set is computable from an incomplete Martin-Löf random set, i.e., a Martin-Löf random set that does not compute the halting problem.

This article is about the conception of truth and signification in Augustine's early philosophical writings. In the first, semantic-linguistic part, the gradual shift of Augustine's position towards the Academics is treated closely. It reveals that Augustine develops a notion of sign which, by integrating elements of Stoic epistemology, is suited to function as a transmitter of true knowledge through linguistic expressions. In the second part, both the ontological structure of signified (sensible) things and Augustine's solution to the apparent tautologies of (...) mathematical truths are examined. Again his notion of sign turns out to be the keystone; this time, however, the natural in contrast to the conventional sign of linguistic expressions. In their complementarity, both parts show how Augustine intensely struggles with and (partially) overcomes the skepticism of the sensible world through his conception of sign and signification. (shrink)

Since the 1990s, the terms “Lamarckism” and “Lamarckian” have seen a significant resurgence in biological publications. The discovery of new molecular mechanisms have been interpreted as evidence supporting the reality and efficiency of the inheritance of acquired characters, and thus the revival of Lamarckism. The present paper aims at giving a critical evaluation of such interpretations. I argue that two types of arguments allow to draw a clear distinction between the genuine Lamarckian concept of inheritance of acquired characters and transgenerational (...) epigenetic inheritance. The first concerns the explanandum of the processes under consideration: molecular mechanisms of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance are understood as evolved products of natural selection. This means that the kind of inheritance of acquired characters they might be responsible for is an obligatory emergent feature of evolution, whereas traditional Lamarckisms conceived the inheritance of acquired characters as a property inherent in living matter itself. The second argument concerns the explanans of the inheritance of acquired characters: in light of current knowledge, epigenetic mechanisms are not able to drive adaptive evolution by themselves. Emergent Lamarckian phenomena would be possible if and only if individual epigenetic variation allowed the inheritance of acquired characters to be a factor of unlimited change. This implies specific requirements for epigenetic variation, which I explicitly define and expand upon. I then show that given current knowledge, these requirements are not empirically grounded. (shrink)

ArgumentThe Germans occupying Paris arrested Emile Borel and three other members of the Académie des Sciences in October 1941 and released them about five weeks later. Drawing on German and French archives and other sources, we argue that these events illustrate the complexity of the motivations and tactics of the occupiers and the occupied. While Borel and his colleagues were genuine members of the Resistance, and those who arrested them were full participants in a brutal occupation, both sides respected a (...) bargain, of no small importance to the Vichy regime, that allowed the university to pursue its work if its members avoided overt acts of opposition. (shrink)