Leo Strauss's readings of historical figures in the philosophical tradition have been justly well explored; however, his relation to contemporary thinkers has not enjoyed the same coverage. In Leo Strauss and Contemporary Thought, an international group of scholars examines the possible conversations between Strauss and figures such as Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Charles Taylor, and Hans Blumenberg. The contributors examine topics including religious liberty, the political function of comedy, law, and the relation between the Ancients and the (...) Moderns, and bring Strauss into many new and original discussions that will be of use to those interested in the thought of Strauss, the history of philosophy and political theory, and contemporary continental thought"--Back cover. (shrink)

Influential philosopher Michel Serres’s foundational work uses fable to explore how human relations are identical to that of the parasite to the host body. Among Serres’s arguments is that by being pests, minor groups can become major players in public dialogue—creating diversity and complexity vital to human life and thought. Michel Serres is professor in history of science at the Sorbonne, professor of Romance languages at Stanford University, and author of several books, including _Genesis._ Lawrence R. Schehr is (...) professor of French at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Cary Wolfe is Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor of English at Rice University. His books include _Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal _. (shrink)

This chapter presents the perceptual reality monitoring theory of consciousness (PRM). PRM is a higher-order theory of consciousness. It holds that consciousness involves monitoring the reliability of one’s own sensory signals. I explain how a perceptual reality monitoring mechanism computes the higher order representations that are crucial for consciousness. While PRM accounts for the difference between conscious and unconscious states, it does not explain, on its own, why experiences feel the way they do—the phenomenal character of experience. PRM is compatible (...) with multiple theories of phenomenal character. Here, I show how to combine it with ‘Mental Quality Space’ theory. I finish by presenting empirical evidence for PRM, as well as some of its predictions. (shrink)

Ce livre de Michel Freitag interpelle "tous ceux qui s'interrogent sur la place qu'ils tiennent ou le rôle qu'ils jouent dans l'aventure de l'Université contemporaine." (Georges Leroux, Spirale) Une des constantes des écrits contenus dans ce livre "réside dans la comparaison systématique que Michel Freitag établit entre les caractéristiques de la modernité et celles de la postmodernité et les conséquences de celle-ci sur le traitement des enjeux et des problèmes actuels." (Louis Guay, Anthropologie et société) "Dans une société (...) réduite au bavardage, à l'insignifiance, à la poursuite de petits bonheurs mesquins, le tout sous contrôle bureaucratique de plus en plus envahissant, une telle réflexion est devenue essentielle. Voici un livre de bonne foi qui n'attend que ses lecteurs, qu'on souhaite nombreux." (Robert Major, Voix et images). (shrink)

Michel Serres is one of the most influential living theorists in European philosophy. This volume makes available a work which has a foundational place in the development of chaos theory, representing a tour de force application of the principles underlying Serres' distinctive philosophy of science.

Por Laura Fraga de Almeida Sampaio, tradutora do livro A aula inaugural, que Foucault pronunciou ao assumir a cátedra vacante no Collège de France pela morte de Hyppolite, pode ser considerada um texto de ligação entre suas obras, datadas dos anos 60, como História da loucura, As palavras e as coisas, A arqueologia do saber, centradas predominantemente na análise das condições de possibilidade das ciências humanas, e as que se seguiram a maio de 68, como Vigiar e punir, voltados ao (...) exame da microfisica do poder. Foucault desvenda a relação entre as práticas discursivas e os poderes que as permeiam. Ao perceber os diversos procedimentos que cerceiam e controlam os discursos da sociedade, o autor comprova que "o discurso não é simplesmente aquilo que traduz as lutas ou os sistemas de dominação, mas aquilo pelo que se luta, o poder de queremos nos apoderar". Na segunda parte do texto, Foucault anuncia a direção em que prosseguirá suas investigações no decorrer dos cursos no Collège de France, apontando para o que denomina o "conjunto crítico" e o "conjunto genealógico" e lança o projeto de estudo das interdições que atingem o discurso da sexualidade. A este trabalho dedicará muitos anos, após a publicação do primeiro volume da História da sexualidade, em 1976: A vontade de saber (uso dos prazeres, vol.2, O cuidado de si, vol, 3, ambos de 1984). (shrink)

A part of the “return to religion” now evident in European philosophy, this book represents the culmination of the career of a leading phenomenological thinker whose earlier works trace a trajectory from Marx through a genealogy of psychoanalysis that interprets Descartes’s “I think, I am” as “I feel myself thinking, I am.” In this book, Henry does not ask whether Christianity is “true” or “false.” Rather, what is in question here is what Christianity considers as truth, what kind of truth (...) it offers to people, what it endeavors to communicate to them, not as a theoretical and indifferent truth, but as the essential truth that by some mysterious affinity is suitable for them, to the point that it alone is capable of ensuring them salvation. In the process, Henry inevitably argues against the concept of truth that dominates modern thought and determines, in its multiple implications, the world in which we live. Henry argues that Christ undoes “the truth of the world,” that He is an access to the infinity of self-love, to a radical subjectivity that admits no outside, to the immanence of affective life found beyond the despair fatally attached to all objectifying thought. The Kingdom of God accomplishes itself in the here and now through the love of Christ in what Henry calls “the auto-affection of Life.” In this condition, he argues, all problems of lack, ambivalence, and false projection are resolved. (shrink)

Auguste Comte's doctrine of positivism was both a philosophy of science and a political philosophy designed to organize a new, secular, stable society based on positive or scientific, ideas, rather than the theological dogmas and metaphysical speculations associated with the ancien regime. This volume offers the most comprehensive English-language overview of Auguste Comte's philosophy, the relation of his work to the sciences of his day, and the extensive, continuing impact of his thinking on philosophy and especially secular political movements in (...) Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Contributors consider Comte's reasons for establishing a Religion of Humanity as well as his views on domestic life and the arts in his positivist utopia. The volume further details Comte's attempt to apply his "positive method," first to social science and then to politics and morality, thereby defending the continuity of his career while also critically examining the limits of his approach. (shrink)

The works of the French essayist reflect his views of morality, society, and customs in the late sixteenth century.

1.1. The two postulates of special relativity and the tension between them. When Einstein first presented what came to be known as special relativity, he based the theory on two postulates or principles, called the “relativity postulate” or “relativity principle” and the “light postulate.” Both postulates are supported by a wealth of experimental evidence. The combination of the two, however, appears to lead to contradictions. To avoid such contradictions, Einstein argued, we need to change some of our fundamental ideas about (...) space and time. Einstein formulated the relativity postulate as follows: “The same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference for which the equations of mechanics hold good” (Einstein 1905r, 891). Such frames of reference are called inertial frames and an observer at rest in one of them is called an inertial observer. A few examples will suffice to understand both the concept of an inertial frame and the meaning of the relativity postulate. First consider a plane which starts out sitting on the tarmac, proceeds to fly through clear skies, and eventually hits turbulence. All the while a passenger is nursing a cup of coffee. Sipping coffee without spilling is easy during the smooth portion of the flight. This is because the laws governing the behavior of the coffee in the frame of reference of the plane flying at constant velocity are the same as in the frame of reference of the airport.1 In fact, these same laws hold in any frame moving uniformly (i.e., with constant velocity) with respect to the frame of the airport. Drinking coffee without spilling when the plane ride gets bumpy is much harder. The laws for the coffee in noninertial frames, such as the frame of a plane encountering turbulence, are more complicated than in inertial frames. As a second example consider a cruise ship that sets out from its port of origin, sails smoothly on a calm sea, and eventually is caught in a storm. All the while two passengers engage in a drawn-out tennis match on the ship’s upper deck.. (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)

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)

This book’s basic argument is that the Freudian unconscious, far from constituting a radical break with the philosophy of consciousness, is merely the latest exemplar in a heritage of philosophical misunderstanding of the Cartesian cogito that interprets “I think, therefore I am” as “I represent myself, therefore I am” (in the classic interpretation of Heidegger, one of the targets of the book).

"An important contribution to contemporary jurisprudential debate and to legal thought more generally, Just Interpretations is far ahead of currently available work."--Peter Goodrich, author of Oedipus Lex "I was struck repeatedly by the clarity of expression throughout the book. Rosenfeld's description and criticism of the recent work of leading thinkers distinguishes his work within the legal theory genre. Furthermore, his own theory is quite original and provocative."--Aviam Soifer, author of Law and the Company We Keep.

t. 1. De la phénoménologie -- t. 2. De la subjectivité -- t. 3. de l'art et du politique -- t. 4. Sur léthique et la religion.

In 1907, Einstein set out to fully relativize all motion, no matter whether uniform or accelerated. After five failed attempts between 1907 and 1918, he finally threw in the towel around 1920, setting himself a new goal. For the rest of his life he searched for a classical field theory unifying gravity and electromagnetism. As he struggled to relativize motion, Einstein had to readjust both his approach and his objectives at almost every step along the way; he got himself hopelessly (...) confused at times; he fooled himself with fallacious arguments and sloppy calculations; and he committed what he later allegedly called the biggest blunder of his career: he introduced the cosmological constant. There is a very uplifting moral to this somber tale. Although Einstein never reached his original destination, the harvest of his thirteen-year odyssey is quite impressive. First of all, what is left of absolute motion in general relativity is far more palatable than absolute motion in special relativity or Newtonian theory. And general relativity does seem to eliminate absolute space. More importantly, from a modern physics point of view, Einstein produced a spectacular new theory of gravity based on what he called the equivalence principle. This principle says that inertial and gravitational effects are due to one and the same structure, the inertio-gravitational field, which in Einstein’s theory is represented by a metric tensor field. In addition to laying the foundations of this theory, Einstein, among other things, launched relativistic cosmology, suggested the possibility of gravitational waves, gave the first sensible definition of a space-time singularity, and caught on to the intimate connection between general covariance and energy-momentum conservation, an example of the general connection between symmetries and conservation laws of Noether’s theorems. These results more than make up for the—at least by the standards of modern philosophy of science—rather opportunistic way in which they were obtained.. (shrink)

L'interprétation de la Critique de la raison pure, dans son édition de 1781, est ici ordonnée à l'étude des textes publiés par Kant auparavant, ainsi que des nombreux textes non publiés que nous possédons (Nachlass). Ces textes kantiens ne peuvent être interprétés que dans la perspective d'une histoire de la philosophie wolffienne et "post-wolffienne", qui doit elle-même être mise en relation avec la naissance de la science physique aux XVIIème et XVIIIème siècles. La formation et le développement du problème de (...) la causalité (physique et métaphysique) au XVIIIème siècle permettent de suivre la ligne directrice de cette histoire : formation du problème de la causalité, naissance de l'idée de philosophie transcendantale comme solution de ce problème, construction de la critique de la raison pure. (shrink)

In recent decades the expression "molecular biology" has progressively disappeared from journals, and no longer designates new chairs or departments. This begs the question: does it mean that molecular biology is dead, and has been displaced by new emerging disciplines such as systems biology and synthetic biology? Maybe its reductionist approach to living phenomena has been substituted by one that is more holistic. The situation, undoubtedly, is far less simple. To appreciate better what has happened it is necessary to acknowledge (...) the following: the intial project of molecular biologists was not a reductionist one, but an attempt to naturalize the phenomena of life by using the epistemological principles of physics as a model; and, it is necessary to distinguish the early stages of molecular biology, and the later aggregating process which gave it its present characteristics. Only one of these characteristics, the importance of the informational vision, has been seriously challenged in recent years. But it is obvious that the ambition of most early molecular biologists to discover simple rules and principles explaining all of biological facts has vanished. The pendulum has now moved toward the study of the diversity generated by a long evolutionary history. (shrink)

The “lost generation,” or the generation of the cultural revolution, is unique in world history: it is the result of the demiurgical will of one man, Mao Zedong, to create a whole generation “revolutionary successors” entirely devoted to the cause of socialism and to the realization of Maoist ideals. Even though Mao’s endeavor ended in complete failure, the mark it left on the young people who experienced it was deep enough to form a very specific and particularly self-conscious generation. Awareness (...) of being part of a certain generation is not limited this particular group and is more widespread in China than in most countries. Articles and books on generational phenomena are also particularly numerous in China, and the subject is frequently dealt with among observers and scholars outside the People’s Republic. But the criteria used to define different generations are not always clear and well founded. Moreover, the definition of the concept of generation itself is disputed and many social scientists, especially in the United States, reject its use outside the realm of kinship. We feel, therefore, obliged to clarify first what we mean by this concept and why it can be useful. This should help us answer our main questions: How do we define the “generation of the Cultural Revolution”? What is its role today’s Chinese politics and what could it be in the near future? (shrink)

Michel Meyer offers a new beginning for philosophy rooted in a theory of questioning that he calls "problematology." Meyer argues that a new beginning is necessary in order to resituate philosophy, science, and linguistic analysis, and he proposes a global view of rationality by returning to the nature of questioning itself. For Meyer, philosophy does not solve problems or give answers but instead shows how propositions are related to a whole field of questions that give them meaning. Reason is (...) identified not with answers but with the question-answer process. Meyer pursues this new theory of reason and meaning in a critique of Western philosophy from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle through Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Foucault. He provides a detailed analysis of Descartes' notion of radical doubt and demonstrates its implications for the subsequent philosophical tradition that ignored the questioning process while pursuing an unshakable foundation for knowledge. Meyer argues that recent work in rhetoric points toward a theory of radical questioning and claims that the methods of rhetoric and argumentation must be turned back on philosophy itself in order to recover the original significance of metaphysics as the science of ultimate questions. (shrink)

These thirteen lectures on the 'punitive society,' delivered at the Collège de France in the first three months of 1973, examine the way in which the relations between justice and truth that govern modern penal law were forged, and question what links them to the emergence of a new punitive regime that still dominates contemporary society. Praise for Foucault's Lectures at the Collège de France Series “Ideas spark off nearly every page...The words may have been spoken in [the 1970s], but (...) they seem as alive and relevant as if they had been written yesterday.”—Bookforum “Foucault is quite central to our sense of where we are...[He] is carrying out, in the noblest way, the promiscuous aim of true culture.”—The Nation “[Foucault] has an alert and sensitive mind that can ignore the familiar surfaces of established intellectual coded and ask new questions...[He] gives dramatic quality to the movement of culture.”—The New York Review of Books. (shrink)

Le sens de la mécanique quantique doit être interrogé en revenant au plus près de l'expérience incertaine, à partir de laquelle les possibilités futures sont évaluées. L'idée même d'une pluralité de mondes est reconduite aux situations élémentaires de la vie humaine où s'opposent l'actualité collectivement reconnue et les possibilités intellectuellement envisagées.

Une trentaine de communications célèbrent le 250e anniversaire de l'édition de ¤¤L'esprit des lois¤¤ chez l'imprimeur genevois Barrilot et fils. Le texte est replacé dans son contexte éditorial, historique, genevois et européen. La culture politique et juridique qui le nourrit est analysée, ainsi que la philosophie de l'histoire de son auteur afin de mieux comprendre la modernité des Lumières.

An ode to Schopenhauer by one of France's most famous living authors.

Avec Albert Einstein (1879-1955), ce sont les fondements memes de notre univers qui sont bouleverses, avec les grandeurs physiques et leurs significations: l'espace et le temps sont fusionnes dans sa palette, et bientot transmutes avec la matiere elle-meme pour constituer une nouvelle geometrie du monde reel. La lumiere et les atomes se parent d'aspects quantiques qui preparent une nouvelle vision des objets materiels. Les cieux, ouverts il y a quatre siecles, se mettent a bouger, d'abord a son insu, et la (...) cosmologie, devenue science, revele que l'etoffe du monde a une histoire, qui est celle d'un deploiement continu de l'espace-temps. Cette representation mentale, qui donne prise sur le monde, s'est formee dans une tete qui pensait, comme nous, mieux que la plupart d'entre nous, comme un chercheur, un philosophe ou un artiste, un homme dans son temps. On tente ici d'en suivre la genese. (shrink)

This article develops two figures of the social imagination: the stereotype and the emblem. To start with we explore the notion of social imagination, principally from Emile Durkheim, Gaston Bachelard and Maurine Godelier. Secondly, the article deepens the two notions of stereotypes and emblems supported by the works of the historian Bronislaw Baczko and the anthropologist Michael Herzfeld’s. Throughout the paper, the theoretical aims are illustrated with reference to coal-mining memory and heritage in the north of France.  .