Sex, Gender, Ethics, and the Darwinian Evolution of Humanity examines the impact of Darwin's 'Descent of Man' on contemporary biology and the humanities. Its publication in 1871 was a founding event in anthropology. Its content was primarily concerned with the development of sexual life, social life, and intellectual life, not only as outcomes of evolution, but as components that have actively intermixed over time with the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection. The stamp of Darwinism on modern thought is still very (...) important and brings novelties to academic studies. Several fields influenced by Darwinian anthropology developed in recent decades, including evolutionary ethics, the evolution of sociality and sexual communication in animal and plant species. Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology are topics that draw heavily on Darwin's 'Descent of Man'. The understanding of Darwin's thought has also progressed greatly in recent decades, following the systematic study of Darwin's correspondence and notebooks, leading to a reassessment of the development of his thought on humans, social groups, and heredity, and how they come together in his theory of evolution. The book combines a historical perspective on Darwin's achievement and his legacy. It will be of interest to students and scholars in a variety of fields, from experimental biology to the social and historical sciences. (shrink)

Souvent, la science est associée à l'idée de progrès et d'émancipation des peuples. Il en fut ainsi au temps des Lumières, puis sous la Révolution française. Elle est parfois aussi contestée en raison même du progrès et de ses conséquences: destruction de la nature, productivisme à outrance... Les scientifiques sont alors considérés comme indifférents aux valeurs humanistes, acteurs d'une " science sans conscience " au service des pires projets, totalitaires, racistes, brutalement colonisateurs. A quelles conditions la science peut-elle aujourd'hui avancer (...) et faire avancer l'homme? Faut-il généraliser le principe de précaution? Dans un monde où la science est financée, organisée ou stimulée d'une part par la puissance publique et d'autre part par le marché, qui décide in fine? Comment faire vivre le lien entre liberté des scientifiques et progrès social? Quels sont les rapports entre démocratie et science? Et, si la science a encore un avenir, quel est-il? (shrink)

Johnny Hallyday was France's first rock and roll star and was honored as a national hero at his funeral, which was attended by nearly a million people. The funeral of Pierre Boulez, on the other hand received little fanfare. This book attempts to resolve this discrepancy.

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 4, Page 631-641, May 2022. Academic freedom is currently threatened not only in dictatorial or authoritarian regimes but in democracies as well. Thus, this analysis of the contemporary French experience, in which we observe a destructive climate maintained by intellectuals and political actors on both the right and the left. The extremization, intolerance, and radicalization of debates have increased since the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017. At the same time, university institutions often (...) appear overwhelmed or powerless in the face of both internal and external dangers. (shrink)

In his book, Physical Relativity, Harvey Brown challenges the orthodox view that special relativity is preferable to those parts of Lorentz's classical ether theory it replaced because it revealed various phenomena that were given a dynamical explanation in Lorentz's theory to be purely kinematical. I want to defend this orthodoxy. The phenomena most commonly discussed in this context in the philosophical literature are length contraction and time dilation. I consider three other phenomena of this kind that played a role in (...) the early reception of special relativity in the physics literature: the Fresnel drag effect in the Fizeau experiment, the velocity dependence of electron mass in beta-ray deflection experiments by Kaufmann and others, and the delicately balanced torques on a moving charged capacitor in the Trouton-Noble experiment. I offer historical sketches of how Lorentz's dynamical explanations of these phenomena came to be replaced by their now standard kinematical explanations. I then take up the philosophical challenge posed by the work of Harvey Brown and Oliver Pooley and clarify how those kinematical explanations work. (shrink)

Art historians and philosophers often talk about the interpretive significance of titles, but few have bothered with their historical origins. This omission has led to the assumption that an artwork's title is its proper name, since names and titles share the essential function of facilitating reference to their bearers. But a closer look at the development of our titling practices shows a significant point of divergence from standard analyses of proper names: the semantic content of a title is often crucial (...) to the identification, individuation, and interpretation of its associated artwork. This paper represents a first step towards an empirically centred study of our titling practices. I argue that, in order to accept titles as proper names, we must first recognize the social, rather than the referential, function of naming. (shrink)

Frédéric Sanssens et Michel Weber, Philosopher, guérir et sanctifier. Dialogues sur la voie druidique, Louvain-la-Neuve, Éditions Chromatika, 2020. (ISBN 978-2-930517-66-7, pdf 978-2-930517-67-4, 134 pp., 17€) -/- S’il est impossible de nier la triple racine culturelle de l’Europe — romaine, grecque, et judéo-chrétienne —, on ne peut pour autant faire l’économie de son passé celtique et de la proximité que celui-ci atteste avec l’Inde. Philosopher, guérir et sanctifier sont les trois missions traditionnelles que les druides partagent avec les brahmanes ; (...) elles furent aussi celles des philosophes pré-socratiques. Nos Dialogues sur la voie druidique constituent, à la fois, une introduction généraliste pour le profane et un outil analytique pour l’initié. On y évoque tout particulièrement l’enracinement historique et symbolique du druidisme contemporain et la fonction sacerdotale du druide. -/- Frédéric Sanssens est théologien de formation et professeur de philosophie et de citoyenneté. Druide, il officie, entre autre, comme « formateur » des néophytes. Michel Weber est philosophe de formation, de profession, et d’inclination. Il pratique aussi la thérapie psychocorporelle ayurvédique. (shrink)

Jean-Claude Dumoncel et Michel Weber, Whitehead ou Le Cosmos torrentiel. Introductions à Procès et réalité, Louvain-la-Neuve, Les Éditions Chromatika, 2010. (978-2-930517-05-6 ; 193 p. ; 20 € ; ) Les études whiteheadiennes françaises — et tout particulièrement la diffusion et l’interprétation de Process and Reality (1929) — ont beaucoup souffert de l’absence d’introductions globales et systématiques évitant à la fois le jargon et les interprétations de l’auteur à partir d’un point de vue qui lui est étranger. La présente duographie (...) vise à combler ce vide. Les deux études qui la composent, dont l’une devait trouver un écho dans Le Pli (1988) de Deleuze, cherchent à extraire la vision whiteheadienne de l'expérience, intégralement comprise. Jean-Claude Dumoncel enseigne la logique et la philosophie de la nature à Caen. Après sa thèse de doctorat sur Le Système de Whitehead et la philosophie analytique (1987), il a publié, e.g., Le Jeu de Wittgenstein (1991), Les Sept mots de Whitehead (1998), La Philosophie telle quelle (2004) et Deleuze face à face (2009). Michel Weber dirige le Centre de philosophie pratique « Chromatiques whiteheadiennes » à Bruxelles. Après sa thèse de doctorat sur l’Euristique du pancréativisme de l’époque de Harvard (1997), il a publié, e.g., La Dialectique de l’intuition chez A. N. Whitehead (2005), Whitehead’s Pancreativism (2006), L'Épreuve de la philosophie (2008) et Éduquer (à) l’anarchie (2008). (shrink)

Ronny Desmet & Michel Weber (edited by), Whitehead. The Algebra of Metaphysics. Applied Process Metaphysics Summer Institute Memorandum, Louvain-la-Neuve, Les Éditions Chromatika, 2010. (978-2-930517-08-7 ; 378 p. ; 40 € ; ) Drawing upon the major Harvard works —Science and the Modern World (1925), Process and Reality (1929) and Adventures of Ideas (1933)—, the essays gathered here on the occasion of the creation of the Applied Process Metaphysics Summer Institute, seek, first, to introduce into Whitehead’s thought by clarifying what (...) is at stake in his philosophy and by providing a synoptic vision of his key categories in light of their historical development and, second, to foster a creative dialogue among all participants. These essays give the opportunity to travel through most aspects of Whitehead’s legacy: anthropology, ecology, education, epistemology, metaphysics, psychology, political theory and relativity physics. Ronny Desmet holds an M.A. in mathematics (1983), an M.A. and a Ph.D. in philosophy (2005 and 2010). He is currently research assistant at the Centre of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Free University of Brussels. His research and publications have focused on Whitehead’s philosophy of mathematics and relativity. Michel Weber holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in philosophy (1991 and 1997). He is the director of the Centre for Philosophical Practice “Chromatiques whiteheadiennes.” He has published more than 50 books, e.g., Whitehead’s Pancreativism. The Basics (2006) and the Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought (2008). (shrink)

It is often thought that the boundaries and properties of art-kinds are determined by the things we say and think about them. More recently, this tendency has manifested itself as concept-descriptivism, the view that the reference of art-kind terms is fixed by the ontological properties explicitly or implicitly ascribed to art and art-kinds by competent users of those terms. Competent users are therefore immune from radical error in their ascriptions; the result is that the ontology of art must begin and (...) end with conceptual analysis. Against this tendency towards concept-driven ontology, I offer a trio of objections derived from: the cultural and temporal variability of concepts of art, the systematic tendency, on the part of would-be ontological assessors, to err on the side of familiar categories or, conversely, to exaggerate minor differences between familiar and unfamiliar practices, and the influence artworld precedents exert over expert and folk concepts alike. These considerations, I argue, mandate an epistemic humility that is simply unavailable to the concept-descriptivist. (shrink)

"Nos sociétés occidentales ont déjà vécu deux révolutions : le passage de l'oral à l'écrit, puis de l'écrit à l'imprimé. Comme chacune des précédentes, la troisième, tout aussi décisive, s'accompagne de mutations politiques, sociales et cognitives. Ce sont des périodes de crises. De l'essor des nouvelles technologies, un nouvel humain est né : Michel Serres le baptise "Petite Poucette". Petite Poucette va devoir réinventer une manière de vivre ensemble, des institutions, une manière d'être et de connaître..." [Source : extrait (...) de la 4e de couv.]. (shrink)

"Depuis l'embryon lové dans le ventre de sa mère, jusqu'aux métropoles qui couvrent la Terre de leurs lumières permanentes, les humains ont inventé de nombreuses façons d'habiter. Mais les animaux et, plus étonnant, les végétaux avaient déjà exploré de nombreux modes d'habitat. Michel Serres nous dévoile les secrets de ces architectures séduisantes et multiples, nous en montre le sens et les mots, et esquisse ainsi le monde de demain." Présentation de l'éditeur.

Charles de Gaulle once famously complained about the difficulty of governing a nation with 250 different kinds of cheese. His comment is a true description of France’s diversity and its population. We are like a loud, unruly family always arguing among ourselves. However, as much as we disagree, there is one thing on which we French stand united—we love our healthcare system and do not want it changed, even as economic realities make it increasingly difficult to maintain.

This book is an English-language translation of a bestselling book in France that explores the relationship between humans and new technologies.

Les Leçons d'histoire de la philosophie du droit sont un jalon fondamental de la philosophie du droit de Michel Villey. Elles ambitionnent de construire une synthèse des apports nécessaires et successifs de l'histoire de la philosophie : " Il ne suffit plus de s'installer dans le sillage du seul Thomas, celui de Kant ou celui de Comte ; mais toutes ces doctrines ensemble sont les données de notre problème. Seule aura chance d'être acceptée par le corps social, seule pourra (...) devenir efficace, seule sera vraie la philosophie qui aura su réunir et réconcilier, sans en sacrifier aucun, ces aspects encore dispersés de la tradition. " A l'heure en particulier où les juges retrouvent progressivement leur rôle social fondamental, les juristes doivent relire ces développements qui leur confèrent collectivement le lourd privilège de réaliser la Justice, non pas idéale, mais simplement possible et concrète. (shrink)

This book is the final outcome of two projects. My first project was to publish a set of texts written by Schrodinger at the beginning of the 1950's for his seminars and lectures at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. These almost completely forgotten texts contained important insights into the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and they provided several ideas which were missing or elusively expressed in SchrOdinger's published papers and books of the same period. However, they were likely to be (...) misinterpreted out of their context. The problem was that current scholarship could not help very much the reader of these writings to figure out their significance. The few available studies about SchrOdinger's interpretation of quantum mechanics are generally excellent, but almost entirely restricted to the initial period 1925-1927. Very little work has been done on Schrodinger's late views on the theory he contributed to create and develop. The generally accepted view is that he never really recovered from his interpretative failure of 1926-1927, and that his late reflections are little more than an expression of his rising nostalgia for the lost ideal of picturing the world, not to say for some favourite traditional picture. But the content and style of Schrodinger's texts of the 1950's do not agree at all with this melancholic appraisal; they rather set the stage for a thorough renewal of accepted representations. In order to elucidate this paradox, I adopted several strategies. (shrink)

Annoncé à grand fracas, le décryptage do génome humain devait nous révéler le secret ultime de la vie et ouvrir la voie à de nouvelles thérapies miracles. Espoirs déçus : à l'ère de la post-génomique, les secrets du vivant sont maintenant recherchés dans les théories de la complexité, dans la convergence des efforts des biologistes, des physiciens et des mathématiciens. Comment comprendre la signification de cette succession rapide d'objectifs apparemment différents, de cette alternance d'espoirs et de désillusions? Dans ce livre (...) novateur, Michel Morange propose une clé pour rendre compte de ces difficultés, et de beaucoup d'autres analogues touchant toutes les branches de la biologie. Les annonces sensationnelles reflètent l'espoir toujours déçu qu'une explication unique pourrait suffire. Or les faits biologiques - comme ceux relevant de bien d'autres disciplines scientifiques -ne peuvent être expliqués par un principe d'intelligibilité unique. Exemples à l'appui et de façon très pédagogique, Michel Morange montre pourquoi des explications différentes doivent être articulées pour décrire le fonctionnement des macromolécules aussi bien que l'évolution humaine ou le développement des cancers. Admettre une idée aussi simple n'est pas évident, car tout scientifique a été formé à privilégier un principe d'intelligibilité particulier. L'articulation entre explications différentes est pourtant indispensable pour le progrès des connaissances ; elle est aussi une exigence éthique ; elle est requise pour que la science conserve sa place dans nos sociétés. (shrink)

Contient le résumé du cours publié dans l'"Annuaire du Collège de France", 76e année, Histoire des systèmes de pensée, année 1974-1975.

Emergence is interpreted in a non-dualist framework of thought. No metaphysical distinction between the higher and basic levels of organization is supposed, but only a duality of modes of access. Moreover, these modes of access are not construed as mere ways of revealing intrinsic patterns of organization: They are supposed to be constitutive of them, in Kant’s sense. The emergent levels of organization, and the inter-level causations as well, are therefore neither illusory nor ontologically real: They are objective in the (...) sense of transcendental epistemology. This neo-Kantian approach defuses several paradoxes associated with the concept of downward causation, and enables one to make good sense of it independently of any prejudice about the existence (or inexistence) of a hierarchy of levels of being. (shrink)

The two major options on which the current debate on the interpretation of quantum mechanics relies, namely realism and empiricism, are far from being exhaustive. There is at least one more position available, which is metaphysically as agnostic as empiricism, but which shares with realism a committment to considering the structure of theories as highly significant. The latter position has been named transcendentalism after Kant. In this paper, a generalized version of Kant's method is used. This yields a reasoning that (...) one is entitled to call a transcendental deduction of some major formal features of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

... PREFACE Paul Gochet (Liege) "[...] une entite physique ne peut etre envisagee que comme une sorte de concretisation, de consolidation locale dans un ...

With this profound final work, completed in the days leading up to his death, Michel Serres presents a vivid picture of his thinking about religion—a constant preoccupation since childhood—thereby completing Le Grand Récit, the comprehensive explanation of the world and of humanity to which he devoted the last twenty years of his life. Themes from Serres's earlier writings—energy and information, the role of the media in modern society, the anthropological function of sacrifice, the role of scientific knowledge, the problem (...) of evil—are reinterpreted here in the light of the Old Testament accounts of Isaac and Jonah and a variety of Gospel episodes, including the Three Wise Men of the Epiphany, the Transfiguration, Peter's denying Christ, the Crucifixion, Emmaus, and the Pentecost. Monotheistic religion, Serres argues, resembles mathematical abstraction in its dazzling power to bring together the real and the virtual, the natural and the transcendent; but only in its Christian embodiment is it capable of binding together human beings in such a way that partisan attachments are dissolved and a new era of history, free for once of the lethal repetition of collective violence, can be entered into. (shrink)

In this critical notice we argue against William Craig’s recent attempt to reconcile presentism (roughly, the view that only the present is real) with relativity theory. Craig’s defense of his position boils down to endorsing a ‘neo-Lorentzian interpretation’ of special relativity. We contend that his reconstruction of Lorentz’s theory and its historical development is fatally flawed and that his arguments for reviving this theory fail on many counts.

L’opposition de la transcendance à l’immanence exige qu’on localise l’immanence dans le temps. La transcendance devient alors passage du temps à l’intemporel. Mais l’intemporel peut être soit l’éternel, soit l’instant. Il y a donc deux transcendances, l’une vers l’éternel, qui est ascendante et active : la transcendance pratique ; l’autre vers l’instant, qui est descendante et esthétique : la transcendance sensible.

La figure de l’il y a dans Autrement qu’être témoigne d’une fragilité intrinsèque de la responsabilité chez Lévinas. La réponse du sujet convoqué à cette responsabilité ne peut s’autoriser d’aucune certitude, pas même celle d’être au service du Bien ou d’autrui, plutôt que d’être soumise au non-sens de l’il y a. Selon la lecture proposée ici, une incertitude aussi radicale est la condition même de toute action pratique et politique, qui ne condamne pas celle-ci à l’impuissance, mais l’ouvre au contraire (...) sur un renouvellement et une fécondité qui en font toute l’endurante exigence.In Otherwise than Being, Levinas’ notion of the there is points towards an inherent fragility of all human responsibility. The answer of the responsible subjectivity can’t rely on any certainty, not even that of being well inspired by the Good or by the other, instead of being submitted to the nonsense of the there is. Such a radical uncertainty is to me the condition of all practical and political action. This condition doesn’t condemn us to be powerless, but leads on the contrary to a constant renewal and fecundity of the action, which makes its requiring endurance. (shrink)

. This paper takes as its point of departure two striking incongruities between scientific practice and trends in modern history and philosophy of science. Many modern historians of science are so preoccupied with local scientific practices that they fail to recognize important non-local elements. Many modern philosophers of science make a sharp distinction between explanation and evidence, whereas in scientific practice explanatory power is routinely used as evidence for scientific claims. I draw attention to one specific way in.

Christian Bobin, écrivain français, parle de tout dans ses livres. Mais il accorde une attention particulière à l’amour et à l’enfance. Cet article présente quelques extraits portant sur l’enfance. Il nous a fallu faire des choix, tant le sujet est traité amplement dans presque tous ses livres.Christian Bobin, a French writer, talks about everything in his books. But he focuses particularly on the themes of love and childhood. This paper presents some extracts of childhood. The topic is so widely treated (...) in his books that we had to make some choices. (shrink)