Esquisses, plans, documents et photographies présentent l'exposition en cours de construction. Un texte explicatif donne les principales clés de lecture du poème de Rimbaud "Après le déluge", extrait des "Illuminations", et de la scénographie adoptée pour le mettre en scène.

Research on the influence of industry on chemical regulation has mostly been conducted within the framework of the production of ignorance. This special issue extends this research by looking at how industry asserts its interests––not just in the scientific sphere but also at other stages of policy-making and regulatory process––with a specific focus on the types of tools or instruments industry has used. Bringing together sociologists and historians specialized in Science and Technology Studies, the articles of the special issue study (...) the arenas in which instruments and practical guidelines for public policy are negotiated or used. The aim is to observe the devices in the making or in action, from the selection of actors to the production of thresholds, criteria, and other technical regulations. The introduction highlights how industry influence on expertise and regulation is undoubtedly far more pervasive and multifarious than has been conceptualized to date by social scientists. Putting this issue back at the heart of both the STS and social sciences research agendas is increasingly urgent and could lead to new inquiries able to highlight these logics even more widely, using fresh empirical examples. (shrink)

Même si toute l'expression humaine ne saurait se réduire à l'esthétique littéraire et cinématographique, celle-ci n'en occupe pas moins une place importante dans ce qui révèle le sentiment de l'homme dans son adhésion à l'existence, aussi élaboré soit le cri qu'explicite et déploie cette expression. Liées à des moments de l'histoire, ces formes d'expression les expriment en même temps qu'elles s'en distancient, disant, de façon originale en chaque oeuvre ou en chaque courant, cette résistance de l'humanité à ce qui normalement (...) devrait l'anéantir. De la Shoah aux images de violence dans la cinématographie contemporaine, le témoignage de l'expression et de la résistance interroge le théologien.Even if all expression cannot be reduced to a literary and cinematographic esthetic, the latter does not occupy a place of lesser importance in that which reveals the sentiment of man in his adhesion to existence, however elaborated the cry may be that makes explicit and spreads about this expression. Tied to moments of history, these forms of expression manifest them at the same time that they take a distance from them, depicting,in an original way in each work or in each current, this resistance of humanity to that which normally should destroy it. From the Shoah to the images of violence in contemporaneous film, the witness of the expression and of the resistance questions the theologian. (shrink)

From its ornamental and often bookish exterior to its use as an exegetical tool for understanding the Book of Nature, the 18th-century microscope was socialized as an instrument of letters as well as of science. This essay proposes a reading of the microscope as a literary artifact by examining its bindings, its texts and its illustrations. While the instrument promised to extend human sense perception and to give its user access to invisible worlds, it simultaneously threatened to alter received views (...) concerning both aesthetics and social hierarchy. Nevertheless, the destabilizing effects of the microscopic message entered polite society cloaked in a veil of familiarity in the binding of a good book. The nostalgia-encrusted instrument absorbed the shock of the new. (shrink)

While COVID-19 spreads aggressively and rapidly across the globe, many societies have also witnessed the spread of other viral phenomena like misinformation, conspiracy theories, and general mass suspicions about what is really going on. This study investigates how exposure to and trust in information sources, and anxiety and depression, are associated with conspiracy and misinformation beliefs in eight countries/regions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in an online survey fielded from May 29, 2020 to June 12, 2020, resulting in (...) a multinational representative sample of 8,806 adult respondents. Results indicate that greater exposure to traditional media is associated with lower conspiracy and misinformation beliefs, while exposure to politicians and digital media and personal contacts are associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. Exposure to health experts is associated with lower conspiracy beliefs only. Higher feelings of depression are also associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. We also found relevant group- and country differences. We discuss the implications of these results. (shrink)

The Arts and the Revolution. Some Theoretical and Practical Elements of the Overall Problematic In the strict sense, there is no “Marxist aesthetics”. The writings of Marx and Engels on the question, whatever their riches, are too disparate and fragmentary to amount to a system. What does however exist is a history of the links and articulations between art, creation, and the perspectives of emancipation, and in this history the writings of Marx and Engels can legitimately claim a place. This (...) history is neither linear nor homogenous. The purpose of the introduction is thus to address four major debates which resonated through the 20th century: about the avant-gardes, about realism, about militant art, about the utopian dimension of art. These debates, whose importance and influence is variable, mobilised artists and thinkers in the 20th century. They could either crystallise in a particular time and place or, on the contrary, they could span several decades. Unresolved, these debates still remain, today, laden with productive contradictions. (shrink)

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

The 2005 Avignon Theatre Festival sparked a vast controversy about the insistent presence of bodies (whether wounded, broken, or humiliated) on stage. Without subscribing to the reactionary critical response to the Festival, it is legitimate to return to the debate in order to question the ubiquity of the “victim body” in contemporary theatre. Such representations, far from being heterodox, are in fact part of the massive ideology of “the ethical”, as diagnosed by Alain Badiou. The oppressed body thus tends to (...) be assimilated to the body of the victim. The result is the obliteration of the resistance of subjects to their oppression, or of their active response to it, theatre being reduced to the maxims of a democratic materialism: “there are only bodies and languages”. (shrink)

Several philosophers have recently tried to define natural kinds in epistemic terms only. Given the persistent problems with finding a successful metaphysical theory, these philosophers argue that we would do better to describe natural kinds solely in terms of their epistemic usefulness, such as their role in supporting inductive inferences. In this paper, I argue against these epistemology-only theories of natural kinds and in favor of, at least partly, metaphysical theories. I do so in three steps. In the first section (...) of the paper, I propose two desiderata for a theory of natural kinds. In the second section, I discuss one example of a ‘general’ epistemology-only theory, proposed by Marc Ereshefsky and Thomas Reydon, and argue that theories like theirs fail to provide adequate criteria of natural kinds. In the third section, I focus on one example of a ‘specific’ epistemology-only theory, proposed by P. D. Magnus, and use it to show why such theories cannot justify the claim that the proposed epistemic criteria account for the naturalness of kinds. (shrink)

Les detracteurs du materialisme le donnent pour poussiereux, triste, deplace, ennuyeux. C'est aussi la reputation de la philosophie. Que dire de leur histoire! L'auteur, qui, en trente annees de philosophie, n'a pas trouve matiere a s'ennuyer, propose au lecteur quelques elements pour en juger: du materialisme de l'Antiquite a celui du dix-septieme siecle, de celui des Lumieres aux materialismes historiques, il l'invite a decouvrir des lieux inapercus ou de nouvelles perspectives dans l'histoire de la philosophie. Ceux qui veulent rester philosophes (...) pourront savoir gre aux materialistes de ce que la philosophie leur doit. En compagnie d'Epicure et de Hobbes, de Marc-Aurele et de Cyrano, de Gassendi et de Marx, et d'autres plus clandestins, il y a encore matiere a s'instruire, a se divertir, a s'etonner. (shrink)

Droit et morale Sous la direction de Dominique Bureau, France Drummond et Dominique Fenouillet Véritable « pont aux ânes de la pédagogie juridique », la question des relations qu'entretiennent Droit et Morale appelle une réponse doctrinale presque invariable: la séparation de principe n'exclurait pas l'influence réciproque. Le droit contemporain semble pourtant traversé par deux courants a priori antinomiques: ici, la référence morale est invoquée comme une sorte de « tabou » qui justifierait le retrait du droit, alors que, là, elle (...) est appelée en renfort pour justifier telle solution ou fonder telle réforme. C'est de cette étrange coexistence du « retour offensif » et du « tabou » qu'est née l'idée d'organiser un colloque sur le thème « Droit et Morale. Aspects contemporains » en privilégiant une approche interdisciplinaire. Le 4 juin 2010, dans le cadre des journées d'étude qu'il consacre au pluralisme, le Laboratoire de sociologie juridique de l'Université Paris II accueillait donc les réflexions croisées d'Olivier Descamps, Dominique Fenouillet, Michel Germain, Valérie Malabat, Horatia Muir Watt, Cécile Pérès, Marc Pichard, Jean-Emmanuel Ray et Jean-Louis Sourioux. L'ouvrage ici présenté s'est enrichi des contributions supplémentaires d'Éric Martin-Hocquenghem et de Mustapha Mekki. Puisse cette publication contribuer à éclairer les relations singulières qu'entretiennent le Droit et la Morale. Contributeurs Olivier Descamps Dominique Fenouillet Michel Germain Valérie Malabat Éric Martin-Hocquenghem Mustapha Mekki Horatia Muir Watt Cécile Pérès Marc Pichard Jean-Emmanuel Ray Jean-Louis Sourioux. (shrink)

Le livre de Cyril Olivier est issu de sa thèse soutenue à l’université de Poitiers en 2002. Certes, les ouvrages sur la période de Vichy sont nombreux. Plusieurs ont, ces dernières années, abordé la question de la politique familiale, du contrôle des corps par Vichy (Francine Muel-Dreyfus, Michèle Bordeaux et Marc Boninchi en France, Miranda Pollard aux États Unis, Insa Meinen en Allemagne). Mais le travail de Cyril Olivier est incontestablement novateur. Il s’inscrit, comme il le souligne (...) en... (shrink)

In _Leviathan_, Thomas Hobbes's landmark work on political philosophy, James Martel argues that although Hobbes pays lip service to the superior interpretive authority of the sovereign, he consistently subverts this authority throughout the book by returning it to the reader. Martel demonstrates that Hobbes's radical method of reading not only undermines his own authority in the text, but, by extension, the authority of the sovereign as well. To make his point, Martel looks closely at Hobbes's understanding of (...) religious and rhetorical representation. In _Leviathan_, idolatry is not just a matter of worshipping images but also a consequence of bad reading. Hobbes speaks of the "error of separated essences," in which a sign takes precedence over the idea or object it represents, and warns that when the sign is given such agency, it becomes a disembodied fantasy leading to a "kingdom of darkness." To combat such idolatry, Hobbes offers a method of reading in which one resists the rhetorical manipulation of figures and tropes and recognizes the codes and structures of language for what they are-the only way to convey a fundamental inability to ever know "the thing itself." Making the leap to politics, Martel suggests that following Hobbes's argument, the sovereign can also be seen as idolatrous—a separated essence—a figure who supplants the people it purportedly represents, and that learning to be better readers enables us to challenge, if not defeat, the authority of the sovereign. (shrink)

The proper sensible criterion of sensory individuation holds that senses are individuated by the special kind of sensibles on which they exclusively bear about (colors for sight, sounds for hearing, etc.). H. P. Grice objected to the proper sensibles criterion that it cannot account for the phenomenal difference between feeling and seeing shapes or other common sensibles. That paper advances a novel answer to Grice's objection. Admittedly, the upholder of the proper sensible criterion must bind the proper sensibles –i.e. colors– (...) to the common sensibles –i.e. shapes– so as to account for the visual phenomenal character of shapes. But, as Grice rightly objected, neither association, nor ontological dependence will do –I spend some time isolating why dependence is a bad answer here, basically because the dependence of shape on colors is generic, and that genericity is arguably not part of the phenomenal content of perception. -/- Grice is wrong, however, to think that once association and dependence have been rebutted, there is no other way to attach color to extension. The right way to connect proper and common sensibles is rather trivial, although it seems to have been widely neglected: proper sensibles FILL common ones. To see a shape, by contrast to feeling it, is to perceived as filled by some color. To feel a shape, is to perceive it as, say, filled by pressure. Filling in is the phenomenal connection between proper and common sensibles. -/- One important corollary of that proposal is that proper sensibles –color, pressure, noise, taste...– have to belong to the category of stuffs, in the sense of uncountable entities. Against the widespread view that colors are properties, which have countable instances, the last part of the paper argues that colors are phenomenal stuffs, which fill some visual area. One commits a category mistake in asking: "How many tropes/instances of this determinate redness is there on that ladybird". One should rather ask "How much of this determinate redness is there on that ladybird". (shrink)

Understanding the neuromechanical responses to perturbations in humans may help to explain the reported improvements in stability performance and muscle strength after perturbation-based training. In this study, we investigated the effects of perturbations, induced by unstable surfaces, on the mechanical loading and the modular organization of motor control in the lower limb muscles during lunging forward and backward. Fifteen healthy adults performed 50 forward and 50 backward lunges on stable and unstable ground. Ground reaction forces, joint kinematics, and the electromyogram (...) of 13 lower limb muscles were recorded. We calculated the resultant joint moments and extracted muscle synergies from the stepping limb. We found sparse alterations in the resultant joint moments and EMG activity, indicating a little if any effect of perturbations on muscle mechanical loading. The time-dependent structure of the muscle synergy responsible for the stabilization of the body was modified in the perturbed lunges by a shift in the center of activity and a widening. Moreover, in the perturbed backward lunge, the synergy related to the body weight acceptance was not present. The found modulation of the modular organization of motor control in the unstable condition and related minor alteration in joint kinetics indicates increased control robustness that allowed the participants to maintain functionality in postural challenging settings. Triggering specific modulations in motor control to regulate robustness in the presence of perturbations may be associated with the reported benefits of perturbation-based training. (shrink)

Formalisms such as description logics (DL) are sometimes expected to help terminologies ensure compliance with sound ontological principles. The objective of this paper is to study the degree to which one DL-based biomedical terminology (SNOMED CT) complies with such principles. We defined seven ontological principles (for example: each class must have at least one parent, each class must differ from its parent) and examined the properties of SNOMED CT classes with respect to these principles. Our major results are: 31% of (...) the classes have a single child; 27% have multiple parents; 51% do not exhibit any differentiae between the description of the parent and that of the child. The applications of this study to quality assurance for ontologies are discussed and suggestions are made for dealing with multiple inheritance. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

En 1994, Sue Rodriguez se suicide avec l’aide d’un médecin après une intense bataille judiciaire en Cour suprême du Canada dont l’objet était la décriminalisation du suicide assisté. À la suite de ce suicide, aucune accusation criminelle ne fut portée contre la ou les personnes ayant présumément aidé Sue Rodrigues à mettre fin à ses jours, et ce malgré le fait que le suicide assisté est un acte criminel au Canada. Cette non-intervention du droit pénal est examinée en fonction du (...) rôle que l’affaire Rodriguez a pu jouer dans la transformation des moralités au Canada. Dans ce livre, le suicide assisté de Sue Rodriguez est envisagé comme un « crime » utile (au sens durkheimien du terme), car il met en évidence une inconsistance entre les moralités dominantes inscrites dans le droit pénal et les conditions sociales qui ont rendu ce « crime » possible. Apparenté au crime de Socrate, le « crime » de Sue Rodriguez est analysé comme un héraut annonciateur de nouvelles moralités, comme un prélude préparant directement la voie à des changements dans le poids accordé aux moralités dominantes. Dans ce contexte, le rôle du droit pénal comme mode privilégié de régulation morale est remis en question. (shrink)

Some generic generalizations have both a descriptive and a normative reading. The generic sentence “Philosophers care about the truth”, for instance, can be read as describing what philosophers in fact care about, but can also be read as prescribing philosophers to care about the truth. On Leslie’s account, this generic sentence has two readings due to the polysemy of the kind term “philosopher”. In this paper, I first argue against this polysemy account of descriptive/normative generics. In response, a contextualist semantic (...) theory for generic sentences is introduced. Based on this theory, I argue that descriptive/normative generics are contextually underspecified. (shrink)

Ingvar Johansson has argued that there are not only determinate universals, but also determinable ones. I here argue that this view is misguided by reviving a line of argument to the following effect: what makes determinates falling under a same determinable similar cannot be distinct from what makes them different. If true, some similarities — imperfect similarities between simple determinate properties — are not grounded in any kind of property-sharing. I suggest that determinables are better understood as maximal disjunctions of (...) brutely and imperfectly similar determinates. Such brute similarities have been thought to clash with realism about universals. I argue that this worry stems from the mistaken assumption that perfect and imperfect similarities are relations of a same kind. If exact and inexact resemblances are distinct and heterogeneous explananda, the realist about universals might explain the first thanks to property-sharing, while happily leaving imperfect similarities between properties unexplained. (shrink)

This paper defends hedonic intentionalism, the view that all pleasures, including bodily pleasures, are directed towards objects distinct from themselves. Brentano is the leading proponent of this view. My goal here is to disentangle his significant proposals from the more disputable ones so as to arrive at a hopefully promising version of hedonic intentionalism. I mainly focus on bodily pleasures, which constitute the main troublemakers for hedonic intentionalism. Section 1 introduces the problem raised by bodily pleasures for hedonic intentionalism and (...) some of the main reactions to it. Sections 2 and 3 rebut two main approaches equating bodily pleasures with non- intentional episodes. More precisely, section 2 argues that bodily pleasures cannot be purely non-intentional self-conscious feelings, by relying on Brentano’s objection to Hamilton’s theory of pleasure. Section 3 argues that bodily pleasures cannot be non-intentional sensory qualities by relying on Brentano’s objections to Stumpf’s theory of pleasure. Section 4 develops a brentanian view of the intentionality of bodily pleasures by claiming bodily pleasures are directed at a sui generis class of sensory qualities. Section 5 presents an objection to Brentano’s later theory of pleasure according to which all sensory pleasures are directed at sensing acts. (shrink)

Introduction : a slight adjustment -- The one and only law -- The law of the break with law : Badiou and legal ethics -- Raving with reason : Kant and the moral law -- A "useful illusion" : H. L. A. Hart and legal positivism -- The Haitian revolution : one law in action -- Conclusion : how lawful is one law?.

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 192-208, January 2022.

Sam Harris (2010) argues that, given our neurology, we can experience well-being, and that seeking to maximize this state lets us distinguish the good from the bad. He takes our ability to compare degrees of well-being as his starting point, but I think that the analysis can be pushed further, since there is a (non-religious) reason why well-being is desirable, namely the finite life of an individual organism. It is because death is a constant possibility that things can be assessed (...) as “for” or “against” one (Champagne 2011a; Smith 2000). Such an account lets us objectively adjudicate moral questions, as Harris desires. However, by anchoring itself in the mortal body as a whole and not just the brain, such an account dampens the claim that neuroscience would have all the answers. Moreover, it pivots on an affirmation of one’s life that can seem mysterious by regular scientific standards. This chapter thus explains why the trade-off is worthwhile. (shrink)

We study shared intentions in what we call “loose groups”. These are groups that lack a codified organizational structure, and where the communication channels between group members are either unreliable or not completely open. We start by formulating two desiderata for shared intentions in such groups. We then argue that no existing account meets these two desiderata, because they assume either too strong or too weak an epistemic condition, that is, a condition on what the group members know and believe (...) about what the others intend, know, and believe. We propose an alternative, pooled knowledge, and argue that it allows formulating conditions on shared intentions that meet the two desiderata. (shrink)

Nous partageons le problème de savoir comment faire face à autant d'humains si semblables et si différents. A autant d'êtres qui ne peuvent interpréter le fait d'exister sans se comparer les uns aux autres, sans se distinguer les uns des autres, et qui doivent néanmoins cohabiter. Et de savoir comment ces humains peuvent d'autant plus se distinguer qu'ils prennent la place successivement les uns les autres, qu'ils reprennent les mêmes traces et doivent les réinterpréter. La première formulation du problème est (...) plutôt celle de la problématologie, dans la mesure où elle place au centre de la condition humaine le langage ordinaire, l'incessante différence de la question et de la réponse. C'est par elle que les humains mesurent ce qui les éloigne ou les rapproche et qu'ils règlent leurs désaccords. La seconde formulation du problème est plutôt celle de l'herméneutique, dans la mesure où elle place au centre de la condition humaine la condition interprétative, où chaque génération doit réinterpréter le monde où elle se découvre, pour reprendre la conversation rompue par la mort. En exposant ces deux " gestes " élémentaires du questionnement, en construisant l'écart entre deux traditions philosophiques de styles aussi hétérogènes, sans chercher à les subordonner l'un à l'autre, il s'est agi de penser une éthique de l'interrogativité. Ce sens de l'interrogation peut seul orienter nos " éthiques de responsabilité " et nous remettre ensemble dans un monde où nous comparaissons d'autant plus heureux de nous distinguer que nous nous effaçons devant l'autre. Ces deux attitudes font notre civilité. (shrink)

The rise of blockchain as a techno-solution in the development sector underscores the critical imbalances of data power under ‘computational capitalism’. This article will consider the political economy of techno-solutionist and blockchain discourses in the developing world, using as its object of study blockchain projects in Pacific Island nations. Backed by US State Department soft power initiatives such as Tech Camp, these projects inculcate tech-driven notions of economic and political development, or ICT4D, while opening up new terrains for data accumulation (...) and platform control. Blockchain developers in search of proof of concept have found the development sector a fecund space for tech experimentation as they leverage a desire for tech-development and exploit regulatory weakness. The material implications of blockchain projects and discourse have been to create governance solutions which bypass the developing world state as a largely corrupting intermediary. In the Pacific, this has meant blockchain supply-chain management systems, proprietary financial innovation in humanitarian relief and an Asian Development Bank project to manage indigenous Fijian lands exclusively on the blockchain. In all these instances, discourses of solutionism, innovation and data empowerment have been deployed in aid of blockchain cartographies of control. (shrink)

What is structural rationality? Specifically, what is the distinctive feature of structural requirements of rationality? Some philosophers have argued, roughly, that the distinctive feature of structural requirements is coherence. But what does coherence mean, exactly? Or, at least, what do structuralists about rationality have in mind when they claim that structural rationality is coherence? This issue matters for making progress in various active debates concerning rationality. In this paper, I analyze three strategies for figuring out what coherence means in the (...) debates on structural rationality. I argue that these strategies face problems. (shrink)

What is the place of coherence, or structural rationality, in good first-personal deliberation? According to Kolodny (2005), considerations of coherence are irrelevant to good first-personal deliberation. When we deliberate, we should merely care about the reasons or evidence we have for our attitudes. So, considerations of coherence should not show up in deliberation. In response to this argument, Worsnip (2021) argues that considerations of coherence matter for how we structure deliberation. For him, we should treat incoherent combinations of attitudes as (...) off-limits in deliberation. Some important questions are left unanswered by both camps. What do we mean by considerations of coherence “showing up” in first-personal deliberation? How do we interpret the divide between reasons-responsiveness and coherence? How should we interpret cases in which considerations of coherence interact with other norms or requirements? In this paper, I show how Haack’s (1993) crossword puzzle analogy sheds light on these questions. Also, the crossword puzzle analogy allows us to evaluate Kolodny’s objection and identify promising avenues for future research. (shrink)

Sur un sujet peu étudié, et si contemporain, à savoir la haine et les différentes passions qu'elle engendre et qui l'engendrent (indignation, colère, mépris, envie), une étude originale et pluridisciplinaire mobilisant approches philosophiques, politiques et historiques sur des événements passés et contemporains. Une analyse des haines du passé, de leurs effets individuels et collectifs pour mieux comprendre les haines actuelles, tel est l'enjeu de cet ouvrage. SOMMAIRE Préface -- Introduction Chap I -- De la haine 1 -- Définition 2 -- (...) Tempérance affective et connaissance adéquate 3 -- La haine ne peut jamais être bonne Chap II -- Exacerbation et généralisation de la haine 1 -- Imagination et vie affective 2 -- Illusion du libre arbitre et vie affective 3 -- Quelques mécanismes d'extension des affects Chap III -- De quelques passions réputées mineures 1 -- Brève histoire philosophique et politique de la colère : de l'"Ethique" à l'"Iliade" et retour 2 -- Critique de la raillerie, éloge du rire, éthique, religion et politique 3 -- Le mépris Chap IV -- " L'indignation est une haine..." 1 -- Mauvaise ou bonne indignation? 2 -- Indignation, tyrannie et terreur Chap V -- "L'envie est la haine..." 1 -- Des envies à l'Envie 2 -- De l'Envie 3 -- "Le sentiment démocratique de l'envie" A. de Tocqueville Index. (shrink)

Crise de l'art ou consensus culturel? Aujourd'hui, l'important n'est plus, semble-t-il, que la critique esthetique ait encore a dire sur Josef Beuys mais que le Centre Pompidou puisse faire croire qu'il dit tout de lui. Le culturel, dans son mecanisme institutionnel et mediatique bien huile, apparait comme l'ultime parade que l'ordre social ait su trouver pour conjurer sa peur - ou sa haine - de l'art. Cependant la critique n'a pas a se laisser abuser ni intimider par l'artifice du consensus (...) culturel qui regne actuellement. Il lui revient de continuer a evaluer les oeuvres, pour autant que le jugement sur l'art engage aussi la societe et l'epoque dans lesquelles cet art se deploie. La reflexion esthetique ne se reduit pas au jugement de gout, elle commence avec lui et se poursuit apres lui. (shrink)

Scientists have long counseled against interpreting animal behavior in terms of human emotions, warning that such anthropomorphizing limits our ability to understand animals as they really are. Yet what are we to make of a female gorilla in a German zoo who spent days mourning the death of her baby? Or a wild female elephant who cared for a younger one after she was injured by a rambunctious teenage male? Or a rat who refused to push a lever for food (...) when he saw that doing so caused another rat to be shocked? Aren’t these clear signs that animals have recognizable emotions and moral intelligence? With _Wild Justice_ Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce unequivocally answer yes. Marrying years of behavioral and cognitive research with compelling and moving anecdotes, Bekoff and Pierce reveal that animals exhibit a broad repertoire of moral behaviors, including fairness, empathy, trust, and reciprocity. Underlying these behaviors is a complex and nuanced range of emotions, backed by a high degree of intelligence and surprising behavioral flexibility. Animals, in short, are incredibly adept social beings, relying on rules of conduct to navigate intricate social networks that are essential to their survival. Ultimately, Bekoff and Pierce draw the astonishing conclusion that there is no moral gap between humans and other species: morality is an evolved trait that we unquestionably share with other social mammals. Sure to be controversial, _Wild Justice_ offers not just cutting-edge science, but a provocative call to rethink our relationship with—and our responsibilities toward—our fellow animals. (shrink)