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)

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)

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)

Que serait une exposition qui, au lieu de prendre place dans un musée ou dans une galerie, prendrait place au cinéma? (un projet de Mathieu Copeland, avec Chantal Akerman, Peter Downsbrough, Liam Gillick, John Giorno, Philippe Grandrieux, Isidore Isou, Philippe-Alain Michaud, Meredith Monk, Lee Ranaldo, Susan Stenger, Alan Vega, Jacques Villeglé, Lawrence Weiner, Apichatpong Weerasethakul...).

La réception de John Rawls et des théories de la justice Souvent présenté comme un des plus grands théoriciens politiques du XXe siècle, John Rawls est aujourd'hui un philosophe consacré en France, communément perçu comme le porte-parole d'un " libéralisme égalitaire ", alliant défense de la démocratie, du marché et de la justice sociale. La réception de John Rawls et des théories de la justice Souvent présenté comme un des plus grands théoriciens politiques du XXe siècle, John Rawls est aujourd'hui (...) un philosophe consacré en France, communément perçu comme le porte-parole d'un " libéralisme égalitaire ", alliant défense de la démocratie, du marché et de la justice sociale. Rien ne laissait pourtant présager l'entrée dans le canon académique et dans le débat politique d'une oeuvre longtemps ignorée des philosophes et intellectuels français. Cette consécration tardive constitue le terme d'une histoire qui court du début des années 1970 aux années 2000, durant laquelle les lectures les plus diverses de Rawls se sont affrontées. Porté par une écriture dynamique et accessible, l'ouvrage de Mathieu Hauchecorne rend compte de la réception française de ce qu'on a communément appelé les " théories de la justice ". Il retrace les circulations de Rawls mais aussi d'auteurs comme Robert Nozick, Michael Walzer ou Amartya Sen entre les Etats-Unis et la France ; entre économie, philosophie, sociologie, droit et science politique ; et entre champ intellectuel et champ politique. Une histoire inséparable de reconfigurations plus globales, comme la domination accrue de l'anglais sur les échanges intellectuels transnationaux, l'affirmation d'une gauche non-marxiste en France, et les débats relatifs aux politiques de redistribution. Une contribution majeure à une sociologie de la pensée politique contemporaine. (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)

Droit et complexité. Le rapprochement de ces deux mots pourrait passer pour incongru. L'idéal du droit ne tend-il pas, en effet, à la rigueur et à la clarté garantes de certitudes et d'efficacité? Cet ouvrage, tiré des travaux du colloque tenu à Brest en mars 2006 a pris un parti inverse en faisant le choix, d'une certaine façon pascalien, de dialoguer avec l'incertitude dans des échanges très ouverts qui ont confirmé l'ampleur du changement de perspectives sur le droit. Un changement (...) que traduit bien le vocabulaire : régulation, pluralisation des ordres normatifs, dissémination dans des réseaux, internormativité, droit de coordination, procéduralisation, ajustement, négociation, expérimentation, flexibilité d'un droit devenu " droit souple ", voire " droit soluble "... Le système semble s'être converti à la modestie en perdant non de sa massivité comme l'a récemment souligné le Conseil d'Etat, mais en perdant de sa monumentalité pyramidale intimidante au profit d'un plasma de normes de plus en plus imbriquées dans des rapports de complémentarité, de négociation, de synergie déployés dans la dimension horizontale. La frontière entre les différentes catégories de normes persiste certes, mais elle se brouille, vire au " flou ". Si bien que là où prévalaient des distinctions nettes et des normes chimiquement pures, stables, s'imposent désormais des alliages, des rapports d'interdépendance analogues aux fils de trame d'un tissu. Edgar Morin aime à rappeler que le mot complexe signifie " tisser ensemble " et il définit la complexité comme " un tissu [...] de constituants hétérogènes inséparablement associés ". (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)

The second half of the third/ninth and the fourth/tenth centuries are of particular importance for the development of the judiciary in the central lands of the Abbasid caliphate. At the end of the mihna period and the victory of Sunnism under al-Mutawakkil (r. 232-247/847-861), the caliphate agreed not to interfere further within the legal sphere, thus allowing the principal schools of law to complete their development toward their classical structure. In Iraq, thanks to the growing independence of the legal sphere (...) and to the political weakness of the caliphate, the qadis increased their judicial freedom. Meanwhile, the political situation in Egypt was very different. The provincial rulers and two successive dynasties, the Tulunids (254-292/868-905) and the Ikhshidids (323-358/935-969), profited from the weakness of the caliphate, and imposed their autonomy de facto. The role played by the judiciary in this process is still unclear, as is the impact of Egyptian autonomy on the development of the local judiciary. In this paper, I discuss the evolution of the relationship between the Egyptian governors and the judiciary, from the accession of Ahmad b. Tulun in 254/868 until the arrival of the Fatimids in 358/969. Several elements are taken into consideration: (1) The institutional links between political power and the judiciary: Who appointed the qadis? How were they selected? Did the government choose to rely on local scholars or did the qadis come from outside the province? (2) The financial connection between the governors and the qadis, which was not only symbolic of the delegation of power, but could also denote the submission of the judiciary to the government. (3) The daily interactions between the qadis and the governors. (4) The judicial practice of the qadis. (5) Their reputation. I study to what extent the judiciary and its control was a political issue for the Tulunids and the Ikhshidids, and how the efforts of these two dynasties to build an Egyptian autonomy had important consequences on the structure of the legal milieu. (shrink)

This paper presents the first compositional semantics for if then conditionals. The semantics of each element are first examined separately. The meaning of if is modeled according to a possible worlds semantics. The particle then is analyzed as an anaphoric word that places its focused element inside the context settled by a previous element. Their meanings are subsequently combined in order to provide a formal semantics of if A then C conditionals, which differs from the simple if A, C form. (...) This semantics has the particularity of validating contraposition for the first type but invalidating it for the second type. Finally, a detailed examination of the sentences presented in the literature opposing this schema of reasoning shows that these counterexamples do not generally concern if then conditionals but, rather, even if conditionals and that contraposition is therefore a valid means of reasoning with regard to if then conditionals in natural language, as this system predicts. (shrink)

In this paper, elementary but hitherto overlooked connections are established between Wittgenstein's remarks on mathematics, written during his transitional period, and free-variable finitism. After giving a brief description of theTractatus Logico-Philosophicus on quantifiers and generality, I present in the first section Wittgenstein's rejection of quantification theory and his account of general arithmetical propositions, to use modern jargon, as claims (as opposed to statements). As in Skolem's primitive recursive arithmetic and Goodstein's equational calculus, Wittgenstein represented generality by the use of free (...) variables. This has the effect that negation of unbounded universal and existential propositions cannot be expressed. This is claimed in the second section to be the basis for Wittgenstein's criticism of the universal validity of the law of excluded middle. In the last section, there is a brief discussion of Wittgenstein's remarks on real numbers. These show a preference, in line with finitism, for a recursive version of the continuum. (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.

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)

Cet ouvrage est issu d’un colloque qui s’est déroulé à Paris (au Sénat) en janvier 2008. Il a été dirigé par les professeurs Gilles Darcy et Mathieu Doat, avec le soutien du Centre de Recherches Administratives de l’université de Brest et le Centre d’étude et de Recherches Administratives et Politiques de l’université de Paris 13 (Paris-Nord). Cet ouvrage cherche à mieux saisir les relations complexes entre le droit et l’imaginaire. En effet, le droit moderne est tout entier placé sous (...) le signe de la raison. L’imaginaire en semble exclu. Il est abandonné à l’art, aux poètes et aux peintres. L’image est suspecte. Elle est fiction ou rêverie. Aujourd’hui, le dépassement sinon la fin de l’ère moderne, par l’inflation des normes, la flexibilité des règles, la complexité des systèmes juridiques ont sous nos yeux des conséquences sur la manière dont on se représente le droit. Cette transformation du droit oblige à tâtonner parfois, à imaginer aussi, voire à rêver de nouvelles formes juridiques. Elle révèle en fait la part toujours présente de l’imaginaire dans le droit. C’est cette place et cette fonction de l’imaginaire en droit que cet ouvrage collectif interroge à travers quatre questions très générales qui constitueront les parties du livre. Quelle est l’importance de la manipulation des images en droit? La pensée juridique classique a pour constante tradition de dévaluer l’image. Pourtant, l’image est partout. Elle sert notre représentation de la justice ; elle permet de rêver un droit meilleur. Se faisant séductrice, elle infiltre la plupart des concepts juridiques, cachant parfois l’idéologie. L’importance de la manipulation n’inquiète pas toujours. Elle est cependant présente. Quelle part l’imagination et la rêverie prennent-elles dans la production du droit et du savoir juridique? L’imagination permet la création, l’invention des normes, des solutions juridiques et des théories. Elle déforme aussi les idées. Elle inspire le juge et transforme les textes. Comment l’imaginaire sert-il à fonder la puissance et la magie du droit? C’est la force et la puissance de l’image et de ses montages qu’il faut essayer ici de saisir. L’imaginaire fonde, bâtit, justifie, motive, légitime le système juridique. Qu’est-ce que connaître le droit quand il n’y a de connaissance que dans l’espace de la fiction? Le droit ne peut se passer de l’imaginaire. C’est une toile d’araignée qui met en rapport des mots. Les effets pervers sont multiples d’autant plus qu’on assiste à une explosion de la production juridique. (shrink)

This book asks whether sovereignty can guarantee international equality by exploring the discourses of sovereignty and their reliance on the notions of civilisation and savagery in two historical colonial encounters: the French explorations of Canada in the 16th century and the domestic troubles linked to the Wars of Religion. Presenting the concept of 'civilised sovereignty', Mathieu reveals the interplay between the domestic and external claims to sovereignty, and offers a dynamic analysis of the theory and practice of the concept. (...) Based on extensive archival research, this book provides an in-depth intellectual picture of the theory and practice of sovereignty in early modern France by focusing on the discourses deployed by French political theorists. Mathieu applies performativity in order to denaturalise these discourses of statehood and reveals how the domestic and international constructions of sovereignty feed into one another and equally rely on appeals to civilisation and savagery. Overall, the book questions the 'myth of sovereignty as equality' and reflects on the persistence of this association despite the overwhelming empirical evidence that it institutes international hierarchies and inequalities. (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)

We present two defeasible logics of norm-propositions (statements about norms) that (i) consistently allow for the possibility of normative gaps and normative conflicts, and (ii) map each premise set to a sufficiently rich consequence set. In order to meet (i), we define the logic LNP, a conflict- and gap-tolerant logic of norm-propositions capable of formalizing both normative conflicts and normative gaps within the object language. Next, we strengthen LNP within the adaptive logic framework for non-monotonic reasoning in order to meet (...) (ii). This results in the adaptive logics LNPr and LNPm, which interpret a given set of premises in such a way that normative conflicts and normative gaps are avoided ‘whenever possible’. LNPr and LNPm are equipped with a preferential semantics and a dynamic proof theory. (shrink)

The ratio bias––according to which individuals prefer to bet on probabilities expressed as a ratio of large numbers to normatively equivalent or superior probabilities expressed as a ratio of small numbers––has recently gained momentum, with researchers especially in health economics emphasizing the policy importance of the phenomenon. Although the bias has been replicated several times, some doubts remain about its economic significance. Our two experiments show that the bias disappears once order effects are excluded, and once salient and dominant incentives (...) are provided. This holds true for both choice and valuation tasks. Also, adding context to the decision problem does not change this outcome. No ratio bias could be found in between-subject tests either, which leads us to the conclusion that the policy relevance of the phenomenon is doubtful at best. (shrink)

The work of Jürgen Habermas has long been regarded as central to the development of social and political theory and philosophy in the late 20th century. With the publication of his latest book Between Facts and Norms, Habermas has signalled the importance of exploring modern legal theory to our understanding of democratic society. Habermas, Modernity, and Law brings together leading scholars from around the world to provide a clear introduction to this key development in Habermas's work. With chapters ranging from (...) the possibility of valid law to discourse ethics and human rights, the contributors successfully integrate a broad range of Habermas's writings with his most recent thoughts on the place of the law in contemporary theory. Habermas, Modernity, and Law provides a fascinating overview to the work of Habermas and will be particularly valuable to students and professionals in the fields of European philosophy and social, political, and legal theory. (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 thesis according to which the meaning of a mathematical sentence is given by its proof was held by both Wittgenstein and the intuitionists, following Heyting and Dummett. In this paper, we clarify the meaning of this thesis for Wittgenstein, showing how his position differs from that of the intuitionists. We show how the thesis originates in his thoughts, from the middle period, about proofs by induction, and we sketch his answers to a number of objections, including the idea that, (...) given the particular meaning he gives to this thesis, he cannot account for mathematical conjectures. We conclude by showing how his views find a favourable echo today in the paradigm of “proposition-as-type” and extensions of the Curry-Howard isomorphism from which this paradigm originates. (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)

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)

En deux pages, l’auteur se propose de rendre compte de l’ouvrage Au fondement du Management. Théologie de l’Organisation, Volume 1 de Baptiste Rappin. Il y insiste sur la pertinence d’interroger philosophiquement le monde managérial dont nous faisons aujourd’hui l’épreuve.

Nous tenterons ici d’élucider le sens de la référence quelque peu surprenante de H. G. Gadamer à la doctrine médiévale des transcendantaux à la fin de Vérité et méthode. Le concept d’appartenance signifie pour Gadamer l’insertion de la connaissance dans l’être. Nous soutenons que la thèse fondamentale de Gadamer, l’être susceptible d’être compris est langage, ne signifie pas que l’être soit «soumis» au langage, mais suggère plutôt une certaine intelligibilité de l’être auquel l’homme participe par le biais de la connaissance. (...) Ceci nous reconduit à deux doctrines clés issues de la philosophie médiévale en ce qui concerne le problème de la vérité, soit les transcendantaux et la définition classique de la vérité comme adaequatio rei et intellectus. (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)

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 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)