Le lecteur ne trouvera pas ici de melanges; classees en quatre chapitres, les articles et les traductions rassembles illustrent l'unite et la diversite du propos qui les a inspires: histoire des traditions scientifiques et textuelles (d'Euclide au Timee latin), logique et philosophie du langage (d'Abelard a Guillaume d'Ockham), psychologie et noetique (autour d'Aristote, d'Avicenne et d'Averroes), exegese et theologie (de Boece a Buridan).

Le lecteur ne trouvera pas ici de melanges; classees en quatre chapitres, les articles et les traductions rassembles illustrent l'unite et la diversite du propos qui les a inspires: histoire des traditions scientifiques et textuelles (d'Euclide au Timee latin), logique et philosophie du langage (d'Abelard a Guillaume d'Ockham), psychologie et noetique (autour d'Aristote, d'Avicenne et d'Averroes), exegese et theologie (de Boece a Buridan).

Al-Šahrastānī, who confronts Avicenna in several of his works, devoted an entire work to criticizing him, the title of which was The Struggle against the Philosophers. Although unfinished, it nevertheless includes five “questions” out of the seven which its author had foreseen. These concern themes fundamental for philosophy and theology: being, God, the world and its creation. The method according to which al-Šahrastānī deals with them is both radical - he is well aware of the central and sensitive points of (...) Avicenna's philosophy, in particular the status of the first emanated Intelligence - and analytical, as it submits Avicenna's technical terms to a rigorous semantic examination, and takes apart those which have the form of syntagmas. The foundation of this merciless refutation is adherence to prophecy, as opposed to the attitude of the philosophers. (shrink)

Al-Kindī's views concerning time are dispersed in different places in his works, but they are to be found principally in his On First Philosophy and De quinque essentiis. Yes, he does follow Aristotle, but he insists on the homogeneity of the instant and of time; he also distances himself from the Philosopher by denying the eternity of the world a parte ante as well as a parte post. On the other hand, in his accounts of the realization of possible things (...) and of the organization of the cosmos, he presents certain views that sometimes tend toward the principle of plenitude, and sometimes toward the doctrine of the best possible world, and here one can discern a principle that is distinctly theological. (shrink)

Starting from the Greek definition of philosophy as the love of wisdom, and from the semantic richness of the Arabic word ikma, several fourth- and fifth-century writers tried to establish the position of philosophy in the Islamic cultural system by identifying it with wisdom. For them this wisdom is tantamount to the recorded in the ancient books and taught by the prophets. Philosophers are described as the prophets' disciples or witnesses. However, depicting philosophy as eternal wisdom only gives the discipline (...) an illusory advantage. Ultimately it reduces it to pure repetition and therefore precludes any change. (shrink)

Le Moyen Age a vu la presence simultanee autour du bassin mediterraneen elargi vers l'Orient et le Nord de deux religions universalistes: le christianisme et l'islam, et de trois traditions culturelles: la grecque, la latine, l'arabe. L'auteur ayant quelque peu frequente ces divers lieux spirituels s'est attache dans ce livre a en decrire plusieurs figures. Dans un premier ensemble de textes, il considere quelques-unes des relations qu'elles ont nouees deux a deux quand l'une ou l'autre s'est tournee vers celle de (...) qui lui venait un savoir ou une sagesse: l'arabe ou la latine vers la grecque, la latine vers l'arabe; et d'abord les facons dont ces deux-ci sont advenues, chacune en son temps et dans son monde. On voit passer ici Socrate et Aristote, des Arabes qu'on a fait parler latin, des moines qui regardent la raison briller dans le monde de l'islam. Puis, dans un second ensemble, il s'est occupe de quelques figures individuelles prises chacune sous un biais particulier: chez les trois grands falasifa il a examine une theologie, une noetique, une ontologie; il a ecoute Abelard de Bath parler de la nature et du monde, Bernard Silvestre decrire le chemin du savoir et une cosmologie au feminin, Alain de Lille traiter de la theologie et les cathares elaborer une hermeneutique dualiste.Dans ce Moyen Age latin, il n'a guere quitte un siecle, le douzieme: c'est pour lui celui de toutes les seductions. (shrink)

In 2001, France became one of the few countries to require corporate social responsibility reporting through its Nouvelles Régulations Économiques #2001-420. However, initial compliance with the statute was low, a factor implying the law lacked normativity. In this exploratory study, we attempt to determine whether there is movement toward normativity by examining the change in CSR disclosure from 2004 in comparison to 2010 for a sample of 81 publicly traded French firms. We measure both the space and the quality of (...) CSR disclosures, including in the latter a measure based on informational quality attributes as discussed by the International Accounting Standards Board, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, and the Global Reporting Initiative. We find significant increases in the space allocated to CSR disclosure, as well as some evidence of increased quality; although the informational quality of the disclosures remains quite low and fewer firms are including negative performance information in their reports. Finally, we document that differences in disclosure space and quality in 2004 appeared to be associated with legitimacy-based variables and that those relations remain largely unchanged in 2010. As such, it appears that the NRE’s goals of increased transparency remain unmet. (shrink)

In polite contexts, people find it difficult to perceive whether they can derive scalar inferences from what others say . Because this uncertainty can lead to costly misunderstandings, it is important to identify the cues people can rely on to solve their interpretative problem. In this article, we consider two such cues: Making a long Pause before the statement, and prefacing the statement with Well. Data from eight experiments show that Pauses are more effective than Wells as cues to scalar (...) inferences in polite contexts—because they appear to give a specific signal to switch expectations in the direction of bad news, whereas Well appears to give a generic signal to make extra processing effort. We consider the applied value of these findings for human–human and human–machine interaction, as well as their implications for the study of reasoning and discourse. (shrink)

In this contribution, I will develop a comprehensive tool for the reconstruction and evaluation of argumentation from expert opinion. This is done by analyzing and then combining two dialectical accounts of this type of argumentation. Walton’s account of the ‘appeal to expert opinion’ provides a number of useful, but fairly unsystematic suggestions for critical questions pertaining to argumentation from expert opinion. The pragma-dialectical account of ‘argumentation from authority’ offers a clear and systematic, but fairly general framework for the reconstruction and (...) evaluation of this type of argumentation. The tool is developed by incorporating Walton’s critical questions into a pragma-dialectical framework. (shrink)

The practice of justifying scientific explanations generates argumentative patterns in which several types of arguments may play a role. This paper is aimed at identifying these patterns on the basis of an exploration of the institutional conventions regarding the nature, the shape and the quality of scientific explanations as reflected in the writings of influential philosophers of science. First, a basic pattern for justifying scientific explanations is described. Then, two types of extensions of this pattern are presented. These extensions are (...) derived from philosophical accounts of requirements for the quality of explanations and the choice of the best explanation from a number of candidate explanations respectively. The description of the second extension will make clear how pragmatic argumentation plays a role in argumentative patterns within the scientific domain. (shrink)

Paired masks described as beautiful and grotesque express complementary values in several southern Nigerian art traditions. Beautiful masks represent humans, often women, and serve as metaphors for things associated with civilization and culture. Grotesque masks represent animals or men, and tend to be linked with notions of masculinity and nature. Analysis of masks falling into these categories provides us with a set of formal criteria for this imagery. Mask types that fall into this continuum are used by the Okpella, a (...) northern Edo people living north of Benin City in southern Nigeria: a female character commemorating specific women of status and described as beautiful, a more ambiguous character that serves as the festival herald and messenger of the Dead Fathers described as grotesque, and a third masquerade that combines elements of both the beautiful and grotesque is described as fascinating. Why and how these forms communicate to their Okpella audience is the focus of this paper. It is based on qualitative research on the history and meaning of these masks carried out among the Okpella, survey research on aesthetic preference in which 400 individuals were interviewed, and with a panel study in which 100 participants from the original sample were re-interviewed. Key words: beautiful, grotesque, Africa, okpella, masquerade, aesthetics. Resumen Las máscaras emparejadas descritas como ‘bellas’ y ‘grotescas’ expresan valores complementarios en varias tradiciones artísticas del sur de Nigeria. Las máscaras bellas representan a los humanos, frecuentemente mujeres, y se emplean como metáforas de aspectos asociados con la civilización y la cultura. Las máscaras grotescas representan animales u hombres, y suelen vincularse con nociones de masculinidad y de naturaleza. El análisis de las máscaras que entran en estas dos categorías proporciona un conjunto de criterios formales para comprender este imaginario. El grupo étnico Edo del norte que vive al norte de Ciudad de Benín en el sur de Nigeria, los okpella, usan máscaras de este tipo. Existe un personaje femenino descrito como bello, un personaje más ambiguo descrito como grotesco y un tercero que combina elementos del bello y del grotesco y que se describe como fascinante. En este artículo nos interesamos en qué y cómo comunican estas formas con los okpella. Nuestro trabajo se apoya sobre una investigación cualitativa realizada entre los okpella, una encuesta sobre preferencia estética en la cual se entrevistó a 400 personas y un estudio en el cual se volvió a entrevistar a 100 personas de la muestra anterior. Palabras clave: belleza, grotesco, África, okpella, mascarada, estética. (shrink)

We study how messages on Twitter by large non-governmental organizations (NGOs), targeting companies from the S&P500, affect these companies’ stock prices. With a sample of 1,611 tweets between 2009 and 2017 by 18 large NGOs, we observe significant changes in the stock prices of the targeted firms. More specifically, NGO tweets stating a positive message about the environmental, social, or governance (ESG). Actions of the firm have a positive effect on stock prices, while negative tweets have a negative effect. Nevertheless, (...) we find that the presence of institutional owners hampers this effect: firms with high institutional ownership value positive tweets more negatively, and negative tweets more positively. These results support the idea that shareholders react significantly to NGO tweets but they react differently depending on their time horizon: for shareholders who have a more short-term horizon, typically institutional owners, the reaction diverges societal expectations about how firms should contribute to society. (shrink)

The effect of state anxiety on analogical reasoning was investigated by examining qualitative differences in mapping performance between anxious and non-anxious individuals reasoning about pictorial analogies. The working-memory restriction theory of anxiety, coupled with theories of analogy that link complexity of mapping with working-memory capacity, predicts that high anxiety will impair the ability to find correspondences based on relations between multiple objects relative to correspondences based on overlap of attributes between individual objects. Anxiety was induced in one condition by a (...) stressful speeded subtraction task administered prior to the analogy task. Anxious participants produced fewer relational responses and more attribute responses than did non-anxious participants, both in the absence of explicit instructions to find relational mappings (Experiment 1) and after receiving such instructions (Experiment 2). The findings support the postulated links among anxiety, working memory, and the ability to perform complex analogical mapping. (shrink)

This paper analyses the activities of five organizations shaping the debate over the global governance of genome editing in order to assess current approaches to public engagement (PE). We compare the recommendations of each group with its own practices. All recommend broad engagement with the general public, but their practices vary from expert-driven models dominated by scientists, experts, and civil society groups to citizen deliberation-driven models that feature bidirectional consultation with local citizens, as well as hybrid models that combine elements (...) of both approaches. Only one group practices PE that seeks community perspectives to advance equity. In most cases, PE does little more than record already well-known views held by the most vocal groups, and thus is unlikely to produce more just or equitable processes or policy outcomes. Our exploration of the strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities of current forms of PE suggests a need to rethink both “public” and “engagement.”. (shrink)