Loudness is the magnitude of the auditory sensation that a listener experiences when exposed to a sound. Several sound attributes are reported to affect loudness, such as the sound pressure level at the listener's ears and the spectral content. In addition to these physical attributes of the stimulus, some subjective attributes also appear to affect loudness. When presented with a sound, a listener interacts with an auditory object and can focus on several aspects of the latter. Loudness appears to differ (...) depending on how listeners apprehend this object, notably whether they focus on the sound that reaches their ears or that is produced by the source. The way listeners focus on the auditory object may depend on the stimulus itself. For instance, they might be more likely to focus on the sound emitted by the source if the latter is visible. The instructions given by the experimenters can also explicitly direct the listener's focus on the sound reaching the ears or emitted by the source. The present review aims at understanding how listeners focus on the auditory object depending on the stimuli and instructions they are provided with, and to describe how loudness depends on this focus. (shrink)

Le devenir du Nombre c'est le nôtre. Dans ce qui s'énonce ici sous la forme du traité, le Nombre est la puissance d'abstraction, de quantification, d'uniformisation déployée par les nombres quand le genre humain les anime. La Technosmose, le Fonctionnement, la logosynthèse, le Bios, sont quelques-unes des notions inédites qui coordonnent cet avènement. Remonter le cours de l'évolution du Nombre permet de comprendre l'établissement et la nature de son hégémonie. Le Nombre est désormais actif bien au-delà du phénomène de la (...) numérisation technologique: le monde le métabolise, et ce processus innerve la mutation planétaire en cours. Le crépuscule s'envisage alors sous les latitudes où il est une aurore. (shrink)

Bringing Pierre Bourdieu to Science and Technology Studies Content Type Journal Article Pages 263-273 DOI 10.1007/s11024-011-9174-2 Authors Mathieu Albert, Wilson Centre and Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, 200 Elizabeth Street , Eaton-South 1-581, Toronto, ON M5G 2C4, Canada Daniel Lee Kleinman, Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 348 Agricultural Hall 1450 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA Journal Minerva Online ISSN 1573-1871 Print ISSN 0026-4695 Journal Volume Volume 49 Journal Issue Volume 49, (...) Number 3. (shrink)

Le transhumanisme a inspiré beaucoup de livres. Pour et contre. Il fallait Mathieu Terence pour en dévoiler l'imposture. Pour en dénoncer l'aberration. Pour démonter ce mythe ultime de la religion du progrès. Avec humour et gravité. Avec style et prophétisme. Sources, théories, moyens financiers, relais médiatiques, réseaux d'influence : voici, tel qu'en lui-même, le mirage high-tech et mortifère de l'idéologie libérale mondialisée. Car, sous cette fausse promesse de puissance et d'immortalité, se cache la disparition du corps, du visage, de (...) la parole et de tout ce qui confère sa véritable infinité à la finitude humaine. Cet intégrisme, jusque-là, ne disait pas son nom. C'est chose faite. Mieux qu'un pamphlet, un bréviaire de résistance."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

La thèse que présuppose ce livre est la suivante : la modernité, que l'on dit "désenchantée", est triste, parce que désenchantée. Les textes qui y sont rassemblés veulent mettre en présence, mais aussi en question, les deux sens du mot "désenchantement" : l'idée que l'avancement de la "raison instrumentale" (C Taylor)s'est accompagné du recul du domaine du magique, du merveilleux, du mythe, et celle selon laquelle la modernité est morose. Mais il s'agit ici de penser moins la morosité que la (...) joie liée à ce que pourrait être une philosophie du réenchantement du monde. Non pas tant, donc, replonger dans les thèses sur le désenchantement qu'imaginer ce que pourrait être un certain réenchantement. A cet égard, on a voulu porter un regard privilégié sur l'enfance, "terre de l'humain" (T De Koninck), comme sur une manière d'idéal qui pointerait vers la question du sens d'une existence qui vaille d'être vécue. Le pari de ce projet est en définitive qu'une philosophie du réenchantement du monde témoignera que la vie peut être une aventure exaltante, passionnante, un parcours sensé et par conséquent rempli d'espoir, comme dans ces contes pour enfants qui jadis faisaient notre joie. (shrink)

Feminist critics of the stigmatization of prostitution such as Martha Nussbaum and Sybil Schwarzenbach argue that the features of the practice do not, or at least need not, differ essentially from those of other more respected sorts of labor. I argue that even the least degraded forms of the current practice of prostitution remain objectionable on feminist grounds because patrons demand a semblance of sexual self-expression that engages discriminatory beliefs about women's sexuality.

According to Clifford Geertz, the purpose of anthropology is not to explain culture but to explicate it. That should cause us to rethink our relationship with machine learning. It is, we contend, perfectly possible that machine learning algorithms, which are unable to explain, and could even be unexplainable themselves, can still be of critical use in a process of explication. Thus, we report on an experiment with anthropological AI. From a dataset of 175K Facebook comments, we trained a neural network (...) to predict the emoji reaction associated with a comment and asked a group of human players to compete against the machine. We show that a) the machine can reach the same accuracy as the players, b) it fails in roughly the same ways as the players, and c) easily predictable emoji reactions tend to reflect unambiguous situations where interpretation is easy. We therefore repurpose the failures of the neural network to point us to deeper and more ambiguous situations where interpretation is hard and explication becomes both necessary and interesting. We use this experiment as a point of departure for discussing how experiences from anthropology, and in particular the tension between formalist ethnoscience and interpretive thick description, might contribute to debates about explainable AI. (shrink)

A Polish space is not always homeomorphic to a computably presented Polish space. In this article, we examine degrees of non-computability of presenting homeomorphic copies of compact Polish spaces. We show that there exists a $\mathbf {0}'$ -computable low $_3$ compact Polish space which is not homeomorphic to a computable one, and that, for any natural number $n\geq 2$, there exists a Polish space $X_n$ such that exactly the high $_{n}$ -degrees are required to present the homeomorphism type of $X_n$. (...) Along the way we investigate the computable aspects of Čech homology groups. We also show that no compact Polish space has a least presentation with respect to Turing reducibility. (shrink)

High-fidelity cultural transmission, rather than brute intelligence, is the secret of our species’ success, or so many cultural evolutionists claim. It has been selected because it ensures the spread, stability and longevity of beneficial cultural traditions, and it supports cumulative cultural change. To play these roles, however, fidelity must be a causally-efficient property of cultural transmission. This is where the grain problem comes in and challenges the explanatory potency of fidelity. Assessing the degree of fidelity of any episode or mechanism (...) of cultural transmission always depends upon an investigator’s choice of grain of description at which cultural traditions are being studied. The fidelity of cultural transmission then appears to be relative to the granularity at which one approaches cultural variation, and since there is a multiplicity of grains of description by which the same tradition can be studied, there results a multiplicity of measures of fidelity for a same event or mechanism of cultural transmission. If this is correct, because fidelity is always relative to the grain of description dictated by the local and specific research interests of the investigator, then there seems to be no fact of the matter as to whether cultural transmission is faithful or not, independently from a researcher’s framework of analysis. The aims of this paper are to offer a conceptual clarification of the grain problem in cultural evolution, to assess its causes, to unpack its epistemological implications, and to examine its reach and consequences for a science of cultural evolution. (shrink)

Plagiarism is a crime against academy. It deceives readers, hurts plagiarized authors, and gets the plagiarist undeserved benefits. However, even though these arguments do show that copying other people’s intellectual contribution is wrong, they do not apply to the copying of words. Copying a few sentences that contain no original idea (e.g. in the introduction) is of marginal importance compared to stealing the ideas of others. The two must be clearly distinguished, and the ‘plagiarism’ label should not be used for (...) deeds which are very different in nature and importance. (shrink)

La philosophie de l’histoire d’Auguste Comte, méconnue aujourd’hui, mérite un nouvel examen. L’idée de progrès social qui lui sert de fil conducteur s’éclaire lorsqu’on la compare à la hiérarchie animale telle qu’elle est conçue notamment par Lamarck et Blainville. De ce point de vue, on s’aperçoit que les critiques déjà formulées par Cuvier envers une telle hiérarchie préfigurent celles qu’on peut adresser à la conception comtienne de l’histoire, qui semble postuler une corrélation trop rigide entre les différents aspects sociaux. Mais (...) ne peut-on pas alors interpréter les idées de progrès social et de hiérarchie animale comme des principes régulateurs et non des faits observables? (shrink)

This paper presents the first possible world semantics for concessive conditionals (i.e., even if A, C conditionals) constructed in a compositional way. First, the meaning of if is formalized through a semantics that builds on the proposal given by Stalnaker (1968). A major difference from Stalnaker’s approach is that irrelevant conditionals (i.e., conditionals where the antecedent and the consequent have no connection) are false in this new setting. Second, the meaning of even is analyzed through a formal semantics based on (...) the notion of scale. This analysis overcomes the problems arising in standard approaches, in which even is analyzed with the help of pragmatic presuppositions. Finally, the two particles are combined in order to provide a formal analysis of even if. This theory predicts the major phenomena concerning the behavior of concessive conditionals and without any call to pragmatic explanations. More generally, this approach creates the possibility of a compositional analysis of other conditionals such as if then or only if forms. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Artificial Virtues and the Sensible Knave1 David Gauthier Hume's account in the Treatise ofthe artificial virtues, their obligation and motivation, resists easy interpretation. Two passages, taken from his discussion of promises, will introduce, the problems I propose to examine. First: No action can be requir'd of us as our duty, unless there be implanted in human nature some actuating passion or motive, capable of producing the action. This (...) motive cannot be the sense of duty. A sense of duty supposes an antecedent obligation: And where an action is not requir'd by any natural passion, it cannot be requir'd by any natural obligation; since it may be omitted without proving any defect or imperfection in the mind and temper, and consequently without any vice. Now 'tis evident we have no motive leading us to the performance of promises, distinct from a sense of duty. If we thought, that promises had no moral obligation, we never shou'd feel any inclination to observe them.... But as there is naturally no inclination to observe promises, distinct from a sense of their obligation; it follows, that fidelity is no natural virtue, and that promises have no force, antecedent to human conventions.2 Ignore for the present the last sentence quoted. Hume seems clearly to be claiming that (1) an action can be a duty only if there is some motive to perform it other than a sense of duty, and (2) there is no motive to perform an act of promise-keeping other than a sense of duty. From (1) and (2) we may infer that (3) an act of promise-keeping can not be a duty. But since the sense of duty motivates an action only ifit is apprehended to be a duty, then from (2) and (3) we may conclude that (4) there is no motive to perform an act of promise-keeping that does not involve the mistaken apprehension that it is a duty. And the second passage: Afterwards a sentiment of morals concurs with interest, and becomes a new obligation upon mankind.... The difficulties, Volume XVIII Number 2 401 DAVID GAUTHIER that occur to us, in supposing a moral obligation to attend promises, we either surmount or elude. For instance; the expression of a resolution is not commonly suppos'd to be obligatory; and we cannot readily conceive how the making use of a certain form of words shou'd be able to cause any material difference. Here, therefore, we feign a new act ofthe mind, which we call the willing an obligation; and on this we suppose the morality to depend. But we have prov'd already, that there is no such act of the mind, and consequently that promises impose no natural obligation. (T 523) This time, ignore for the present the first sentence. The remainder would seem to confirm my reading ofthe first passage. Hume claims that (5) there is no natural obligation to perform an act of promise-keeping, but (6) we feign the willing of such an obligation. If, as Hume has claimed in the previous passage, (2) there is no motivation to perform an act ofpromise-keeping other than a sense ofduty, and if obligation and duty may be taken as equivalent, then we may conclude as before that (4) there is no motive to perform an act of promise-keeping that does not involve the mistaken apprehension that it is a duty. In his theory of the artificial virtues and vices, Hume considers "the three fundamental laws ofnature, thatofthestabilityofpossession, of its transference by consent, and of the performance of promises" (T 526). It would seem, from the passages cited, that Hume must suppose that there is no real obligation to keep promises, but only a feigned obligation. And since the reasoning that Hume employs in the first ofthe passages that I have cited is explicitly identified with "that reasoning, which prov'd justice in general to be an artificial virtue" (T 518), it seems clear that he must also suppose that there is no real obligation to uphold stability of possession and its transference by consent—no real obligation to observe the other laws of justice or equity.3... (shrink)

Whistle-blowing is generally considered from the viewpoint of professional morality. Morality rejects the idea of choice and the interests of the professional as immoral. Yet the dreadful retaliations against the messengers of the truth make it necessary for morality to leave a way out of whistle-blowing. This is why it forges rights (sometimes called duties) to trump the duty to the public prescribed by professional codes. This serves to hide the obvious fact that whether to blow the whistle is indeed (...) a choice, not a matter of objective duty. One should also notice that if it fails to achieve anything then blowing the whistle was the wrong decision (or maybe the right decision that nobody would want to make). There is nevertheless a tendency to judge it based on the motivation of the whistle blower. In a way, whistle blowers should strive to act like saints. Yet, it is logically impossible to hold both whistle-blowing as mandatory and whistle-blowers as heroes or saints. Moreover, this tends to value the great deeds of a few over the lives of the many, which is incompatible with the basic assumptions of morality. But consistency is not a main feature of professional morality. (shrink)

Prior work on weakness of will has assumed that it is a thoroughly psychological phenomenon. At least, it has assumed that ordinary attributions of weakness of will are purely psychological attributions, keyed to the violation of practical commitments by the weak-willed agent. Debate has recently focused on which sort of practical commitment, intention or normative judgment, is more central to the ordinary concept of weakness of will. We report five experiments that significantly advance our understanding of weakness of will attributions (...) by showing that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is less thoroughly psychological than the philosophical debate has assumed. We begin by showing that a sizable minority of people attribute weakness of will even in the absence of a violated commitment (Experiment 1). We then show that weakness of will attributions are sensitive to two important non-psychological factors. First, for actions stereotypically associated with weakness of will, the absence of certain commitments often triggers weakness of will attributions (Experiments 2–4). Second, the quality of an action’s outcome affects the extent to which an agent is viewed as weak-willed: actions with bad consequences are more likely to be viewed as weak-willed (Experiment 5). Our most important finding is that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is sensitive to two non-psychological factors and is thus much broader than philosophers have thus far imagined. We conclude by suggesting a two-tier model that unites our findings with traditional philosophical theorizing about weakness of will. (shrink)

The starting point of this conversation with philosopher Mathieu Triclot is the issue of the causal contribution of video game playing in school shootings. Triclot explains the limitations of current psychological approaches regarding video game violence. He further develops on the peculiar features of the video game medium and how they relate to the problem of violence. Triclot eventually shows that, although players may relate to virtual violence in very different ways, violence in video games is not merely a (...) subjective phenomenon. He highlights that some “regimes of experience,” which got stable in the video game culture, cultivate a toxic relation to violence. (shrink)

A leading idea of cultural evolutionary theory is that for human cultures to undergo evolutionary change, cultural transmission must generally serve as a high-fidelity copying process. In analogy to genetic inheritance, the high fidelity of human cultural transmission would act as a safeguard against the transformation and loss of cultural information, thus ensuring both the stability and longevity of cultural traditions. Cultural fidelity would also serve as the key difference-maker between human cumulative cultures and non-human non-cumulative traditions, explaining why only (...) us humans, with our uniquely high-fidelity transmission capabilities, are capable of evolving and sustaining complex traditions. But what does it mean for cultural transmission to be more or less faithful? This article has two objectives. The first is to clarify the meaning and uses of the concept of cultural fidelity and to evaluate their explanatory import. I argue that cultural evolutionists use several fidelity concepts (episodic, propensity, and generalized fidelity), concepts that I will define and clarify. The second objective is to challenge the explanatory significance of a general notion of fidelity (generalized fidelity) as being both explanatorily meaningful and operationalizable. I conclude that if fidelity is to serve as an explanation of the key differences between human cumulative cultures and non-human non-cumulative traditions, then the concept will have to be redesigned and rely on different assumptions. 1Introduction 2Generalized Fidelity 2.1The need for an explanatory concept of fidelity 2.2Three conditions for a general notion of cultural fidelity 3Episodic Fidelity 3.1Measuring episodic fidelity 3.2The relevance problem 3.3Explanatory pluralism 3.4The incommensurability of fidelity metrics 4Propensity Fidelity 5Fidelity as an Explanatory Concept 5.1Explaining cultural stability 5.2Explaining human distinctiveness 6Conclusion. (shrink)

Comment expliquer la persistance d’objets techniques ou scientifiques qui semblent en tout point dépassés? Cet article étudie ce problème, à travers un cas portant sur les modèles d’évaluation du passage de la radioactivité dans l’environnement. Ces modèles apparaissent dans les années 1950 et se fondent alors sur un coefficient unique. De nombreux problèmes conceptuels et pratiques concernant ce paramètre apparaissent et sont alors menés de nombreux travaux de développement d’alternatives à ces modèles qui semblent dépassés. Malgré cela, ceux-ci sont encore (...) aujourd’hui largement majoritaires. Nous expliquons cette situation a priori paradoxale par des raisons « pratiques » et avec des arguments fondés sur les fonctions des modèles et sur leurs usages. (shrink)

Comment expliquer la persistance d’objets techniques ou scientifiques qui semblent en tout point dépassés? Cet article étudie ce problème, à travers un cas portant sur les modèles d’évaluation du passage de la radioactivité dans l’environnement. Ces modèles apparaissent dans les années 1950 et se fondent alors sur un coefficient unique. De nombreux problèmes conceptuels et pratiques concernant ce paramètre apparaissent et sont alors menés de nombreux travaux de développement d’alternatives à ces modèles qui semblent dépassés. Malgré cela, ceux-ci sont encore (...) aujourd’hui largement majoritaires. Nous expliquons cette situation a priori paradoxale par des raisons « pratiques » (coûts techniques, structure sociale de l’expertise) et avec des arguments fondés sur les fonctions des modèles et sur leurs usages. (shrink)

Since cheating is obviously wrong, arguments against it need only be mentioned in passing. But the argument of unfair advantage absurdly takes education to be essentially a race of all against all; moreover, it ignores that many cases of unfair advantages are widely accepted. On the other hand, the fact that cheating can hamper learning does not mean that punishing cheating will necessarily favour learning, so that this argument does not obviously justify sanctioning cheaters.

There is now an awakening to and recognition of the emotionally complex lives of some non-human animals. While their forms of consciousness may vary, some are indeed conscious and deserve political consideration. What that political consideration ought to be is the central topic of this article. First, I argue that interspecies justice must be understood in terms of the relationships that foster individual flourishing of all concerned. The obstacles to such flourishing are the five faces of oppression famously identified by (...) Iris Marion Young: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. By extending Young’s concept of the social group to intra- and interspecies groups, we become more attuned to differences between and among species. Theorizing the existence of interspecies groups brings forward new avenues to explore oppression and simultaneously theorize its opposite – interspecies justice. Second, I argue that a positive theory of interspecies flourishing can be developed on the basis of Marx’s materialist philosophy and reclamation of species-being. Though Marx uses humanist language throughout the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, attention to his methodological commitments reveals that some non-human animals can no longer be excluded from the capability of flourishing and species-being. Some non-human animals are conscious, act purposefully, and labor creatively and must be included in our circle of moral and political concern. (shrink)

For a little over a decade we have been witnessing a profusion of discourses on autochthony — that is, an original belonging to a group or territory — in many parts of the world. A global approach to this question first requires a look at the principle of autochthony and its genealogy. Starting from African examples, places of prolific expression of the phenomenon, this article shows how autochthony plays the role of capital that can be invested, valued and profited from. (...) The structure of this capital carries within itself the seeds of conflict. The article analyses how the stabilization of its value requires the execution of specific strategies. Among these strategies, I will focus in greater depth on voting. The relationship between capital, autochthony and elections will thus bring us back to debates that animate political science: in new municipalities, autochthony as capital is at the heart of candidate selection, suffrage, political participation and citizenship. (shrink)

We present the inconsistency-adaptive deontic logic DP r , a nonmonotonic logic for dealing with conflicts between normative statements. On the one hand, this logic does not lead to explosion in view of normative conflicts such as O A ∧ O ∼A, O A ∧ P ∼A or even O A ∧ ∼O A. On the other hand, DP r still verifies all intuitively reliable inferences valid in Standard Deontic Logic (SDL). DP r interprets a given premise set ‘as normally (...) as possible’ with respect to SDL. Whereas some SDL-rules are verified unconditionally by DP r , others are verified conditionally. The latter are applicable unless they rely on formulas that turn out to behave inconsistently in view of the premises. This dynamic process is mirrored by the proof theory of DP r. (shrink)

In fungi, cell fusion between genetically unlike individuals triggers a cell death reaction known as the incompatibility reaction. In Podospora anserina, the genes controlling this process belong to a gene family encoding STAND proteins with an N‐terminal cell death effector domain, a central NACHT domain and a C‐terminal WD‐repeat domain. These incompatibility genes are extremely polymorphic, subject to positive Darwinian selection and display a remarkable genetic plasticity allowing for constant diversification of the WD‐repeat domain responsible for recognition of non‐self. Remarkably, (...) the architecture of these proteins is related to pathogen‐recognition receptors ensuring innate immunity in plants and animals. Here, we hypothesize that these P. anserina incompatibility genes could be components of a yet‐unidentified innate immune system of fungi. As already proposed in the case of plant hybrid necrosis or graft rejection in mammals, incompatibility could be a by‐product of pathogen‐driven divergence in host defense genes. (shrink)

This article maps a controversy in network science over the last 15 years, dividing the field about the epistemic status of a central notion, scale-freeness. The article accounts for the two main disputes, in 2005 and in 2018, as they unfolded in academic publications and on social media. This article analyzes the conflict, and the reasons why it reignited in 2018, to the surprise of many. It is argued that the concept of complex networks is shared by the distinct subcultures (...) of theorists and experimentalists; and that these subcultures have incompatible approaches to knowledge: nomothetic and idiographic. Following Galison, this article contends that network science is a trading zone where theorists and experimentalists can trade knowledge across the epistemic divide. (shrink)

This article focuses on defective conditionals ? namely indicative conditionals whose antecedents are false and whose truth-values therefore cannot be determined. The problem is to decide which formal connective can adequately represent this usage. Classical logic renders defective conditionals true whereas traditional mathematics dismisses them as irrelevant. This difference in treatment entails that, at the propositional level, classical logic validates some sentences that are intuitively false in plane geometry. With two proofs, I show that the same flaw is shared by (...) a family of trivalent logics. I go on to examine the strict conditional and its derivatives. This family is the only one to avoid the faulty inference but it does so without addressing the status of the truth-value assigned to defective conditionals. (shrink)

For a population to undergo evolution by natural selection, it is assumed that the constituents of the population form parent-offspring lineages, that is, that they must reproduce. I challenge this assumption by dividing the notion of reproduction into two subprocesses, that is, multiplication and inheritance, that produce parent-offspring lineages between the parts of a population, and I show that their population-level roles, generation and memory, respectively, can be effected by processes that do not rely on such local-level lineages. I further (...) argue that these two population-level processes, not local parent-offspring lineages, are necessary conditions for a population to undergo Darwinian evolution. (shrink)

The complexity of the physiological phenotype currently prevents us from identifying an integrative measure to assess how the internal state and environmental conditions modify life‐history strategies. In this article, it is proposed that shorter telomeres should lead to a faster pace‐of‐life where investment in self‐maintenance is decreased as a means of saving energy for reproduction, but at the cost of somatic durability. Inversely, longer telomeres would favor an increased investment in soma maintenance and thus a longer reproductive lifespan (i.e., slower (...) pace‐of‐life). Under this hypothesis, telomere dynamics could be such an integrative mediator, which will assemble the information about oxidative stress levels, inflammation status and stress reactivity, and relate this information to the potential lifespan of the organism and its pace‐of‐life strategy. The signaling function of telomere dynamics can also reach over generations, a phenomenon in which the telomere lengths of gametes would provide a channel through which offspring would receive information about their environment early in their development, hence increasing the possibilities for developmental plasticity. -/- . (shrink)

Résumé À partir d’une relecture de la « certitude sensible », le présent article essaie de montrer que, contrairement à la lecture qui prévaut, notamment en herméneutique, Hegel a accordé au langage une importance décisive dans le cadre de sa philosophie. Loin d’être le non-dit radical de sa philosophie, le langage occupe aux yeux de Hegel le statut d’élément pré-phénoménologique ou de condition de possibilité ultime de tout advenir à soi de l’Esprit : c’est parce que l’Esprit existe comme langage (...) que la conscience, du moment qu’elle prend la parole, peut advenir à elle-même en sa vérité.A careful reading of the opening chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit on “sense-certainty” shows that, contrary to the received view, notably in hermeneutics, Hegel did give decisive importance to language within his philosophy. Far from being the radical unspoken element of his philosophy, language has for Hegel the status of a pre-phenomenological element, of an ultimate condition of possibility for any self-manifestation of Spirit : it is because Spirit exists qua language that consciousness, so soon as it speaks, may become manifest to itself in its truth. (shrink)

Dans la foulée de la querelle du panthéisme, nombreux furent les philosophes qui réhabilitèrent le spinozisme et sur lesquels ce dernier exerça une influence déterminante. C’est notamment le cas de Hegel, pour qui la confrontation avec le spinozisme était capitale. Or l’enjeu de cette confrontation résidait pour Hegel dans le passage d’un absolu-substance, qui exclut la négativité, à un absolu-sujet se réalisant en tant qu’Esprit, lequel intègre la négativité en l’absolu. C’est dans les années d’Iéna que Hegel prend acte de (...) la nécessité de ce passage. À partir de l’été 1803, Hegel rejette la définition de l’absolu comme totalité substantielle, qui caractérise la première phase d’Iéna , au profit d’une définition de l’absolu comme sujet ou comme Esprit. C’est pendant la seconde phase d’Iéna que s’élabore ce passage que la Phénoménologie de l’Esprit révèle en 1807. C’est cette confrontation avec le spinozisme, laquelle apparaît comme un moment déterminant du développement philosophique de Hegel à Iéna, que cet article entend mettre en lumière. (shrink)

In this short paper we analyse some paradoxical aspects of France’s Foucauldian heritage: while several French scholars claim the COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect example of what Foucault called biopolitics, popular reaction instead suggests a biopolitical failure on the part of the government; One of these failures concerns the government’s inability to produce reliable biostatistical data, especially regarding health inequalities in relation to COVID-19. We interrogate whether Foucaldianism contributed, in the past as well today, towards a certain myopia in France (...) regarding biostatistics and its relation to social inequalities in health. One might ask whether this very data could provide an appropriate response to the Foucauldian question: What kind of governance of life is the pandemic revealing to us? (shrink)

We propose a logic of abduction that (i) provides an appropriate formalization of the explanatory conditional, and that (ii) captures the defeasible nature of abductive inference. For (i), we argue that explanatory conditionals are non-classical, and rely on Brian Chellas’s work on conditional logics for providing an alternative formalization of the explanatory conditional. For (ii), we make use of the adaptive logics framework for modeling defeasible reasoning. We show how our proposal allows for a more natural reading of explanatory relations, (...) and how it overcomes problems faced by other systems in the literature. (shrink)