Western media coverage of female genital modifications in Africa has been hyperbolic and one-sided, presenting them uniformly as mutilation and ignoring the cultural complexities that underlie these practices. Even if we ultimately decide that female genital modifications should be abandoned, the debate around them should be grounded in a better account of the facts.

There is a tendency to take mounted dinosaur skeletons at face value, as the raw data on which the science of paleontology is founded. But the truth is that mounted dinosaur skeletons are substantially intention-dependent—they are artifacts. More importantly, I argue, they are also substantially imagination-dependent: their production is substantially causally reliant on preparators’ creative imaginations, and their proper reception is predicated on audiences’ recreative imaginations. My main goal here is to show that dinosaur skeletal mounts are plausible candidates for (...) art-status. But, what is more, I think they are artworks—specifically, sculptures. (shrink)

In this provocative analysis of historical narrative, Michel-Rolph Trouillot demonstrates how power operates, often invisibly, at all stages in the making of history to silence certain voices. From the West's failure to acknowledge the Haitian Revolution, the most successful slave revolt in history, to the continued debate over denials of the Holocaust, and the meaning of Columbus's arrival in the Americas, Trouillot shows us that history is not simply the recording of facts and events, but a process of actively enforced (...) silences, some unconscious, others quite deliberate. (shrink)

Primordial emotions are the subjective element of the instincts which are the genetically programmed behaviour patterns which contrive homeostasis. They include thirst, hunger for air, hunger for food, pain and hunger for specific minerals etc.There are two constituents of a primordial emotion—the specific sensation which when severe may be imperious, and the compelling intention for gratification by a consummatory act. They may dominate the stream of consciousness, and can have plenipotentiary power over behaviour.It is hypothesized that early in animal evolution (...) complex reflex mechanisms in the basal brain subserving homeostatic responses, in concert with elements of the reticular activating system subserving arousal, melded functionally with regions embodied in the progressive rostral development of the telencephalon. This included the emergent limbic and paralimbic areas, and the insula. This phylogenetically ancient organization subserved the origin of consciousness as the primordial emotion, which signalled that the organisms existence was immediately threatened. Neuroimaging confirms major activations in regions of the basal brain during primordial emotions in humans. The behaviour of decorticate humans and animals is discussed in relation to the possible existence of primitive awareness.Neuroimaging of the primordial emotions reveals that rapid gratification of intention by a consummatory act such as ingestion causes precipitate decline of both the initiating sensation and the intention. There is contemporaneous rapid disappearance of particular regions of brain activation which suggests they may be part of the jointly sufficient and severally necessary activations and deactivations which correlate with consciousness [Crick, F. & Koch, C. . A framework for consciousness. NatureNeuroscience,6, 119–126]. (shrink)

Ce recueil se veut un instrument de travail à l'intention de ceux qui s'interrogent sur les idéologies, ce qu'elles sont, d'où elles viennent et à quoi elles servent. Michel Simon y a réuni un certain nombre de textes qui ont marqué l'histoire et la réflexion sur l'idéologie et les idéologies et qui sont proposés comme autant de points de repères : Marx, Engels, Lénine, Lukacs, Mannheim, Korsch, Gramsci, Althusser chez les marxistes, mais aussi Jean Baechler et Pierre Ansart. Un commentaire (...) d'accompagnement situe ces textes dans leur contexte et fournit les explications nécessaires tandis que des tableaux récapitulatifs donnent une vue d'ensemble de chaque auteur. (shrink)

On a pu croire ou espérer, un temps, que les monstruosités de la Seconde Guerre mondiale étaient derrière nous. Définitivement. Or partout, à nouveau, on massacre, on torture, on extermine. Comment comprendre cette facilité des hommes entrer dans le mal? La réponse à cette question devient chaque jour plus urgente. Michel Terestchenko rouvre ici le débat. D'abord, en complétant la démonstration de Hannah Arendt : de même que ce ne sont pas seulement des monstres qui basculent dans l'horreur mais des (...) hommes ordinaires, trop ordinaires, de même, montre-t-il, il n'est pas besoin d'être un saint pour accomplir le juste et secourir des victimes au risque de sa vie. Héros ou salaud? C'est toujours une petite décision initiale, à peine perceptible, qui décide du côté dans lequel, une fois engagé, on se retrouvera in fine. Mais qu'est-ce qui explique cette décision? C'est là où l'enquête de M. Terestchenko prend toute son ampleur. En procédant à une reconstitution critique du débat central de la philosophie morale depuis le XVIIe siècle, aujourd'hui relayé par la majorité des sociologues et des économistes, elle montre combien est stérile l'opposition entre tenants de la thèse de l'égoïsme psychologique et défenseurs de l'hypothèse d'un altruisme sacrificiel. Ce n'est pas par " intérêt " qu'on tue ou qu'on torture. Ni par pur altruisme qu'on se refuse à l'abjection. Les travaux qui analysent les phénomènes de soumission à l'autorité, de conformisme de groupe ou de passivité face à des situations de détresse, invitent à comprendre tout autrement les conduites de destructivité. Tirant les conclusions philosophiques de recherches récentes entreprises en psychologie sociale et s'appuyant sur certains exemples historiques particulièrement éclairants - tel le cas de Franz Stangl, le commandant de Treblinka, ou, à l'opposé, les actions héroïques du pasteur André Trocmé et de sa femme Magda au Chambon-sur-Lignon -, l'auteur propose de penser les conduites humaines face au mal selon un nouveau paradigme celui de l'absence ou de la présence à soi. (shrink)

t. 1. Étoiles.--t. 2. Schémas. Point.

Dès l'âge de neuf ans, après la mort de ses parents Georges et Maï Politzer, Michel Politzer a vu s'effacer la mémoire de son enfance. Qui furent ses parents? Comment György, ce lycéen révolté qui participe à 16 ans le fusil à la main à la révolution des Conseils hongrois de 1919, devient-il Georges, un brillant agrégé de philosophie propulsé au centre de la vie intellectuelle parisienne? Comment cet admirateur de Descartes rencontre-t-il ensuite sa future épouse, Maï, qui vénère Pascal, (...) dans un train du pays basque? Quelle fut la vie de ces deux militants communistes et résistants, dévorée par l'étude, l'action et la rédaction d'une oeuvre philosophique singulière? Une vie qui valut à Georges de tomber sous les balles nazies en 1942, et à Maï de ne jamais revenir du camp d'Auschwitz. Grâce à quelques photos et à de rares témoignages qui lui ont permis de retrouver une partie de sa famille restée dans l'ombre, après un voyage dans la Hongrie natale de Georges, Michel Politzer recompose le portrait de ses parents, héros d'une génération d'intellectuels engagés. Son récit des origines est le fruit d'une bouleversante enquête. (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)

There is one question that any potential reader who suspects that Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) might be important for past, contemporary, and future philosophy inevitably raises: how should I read Whitehead? How can I make sense of this incredibly dense tissue of imaginative systematizing, spread over decades of work in disciplines so different and specialized as algebra, geometry, logic, relativistic physics and philosophy of science? Accordingly, this monograph has two main complementary objectives. The first one is to propose a set (...) of efficient hermeneutical tools to get the reader started. These straightforward tools provide answers that are highly coherent and probably the most applicable to Whitehead's entire corpus. The second objective is to illustrate how the several parts of Process and Reality are interconnected, something that all commentators have either failed to recognise or only incompletely acknowledged. (shrink)

Ce livre raconte la pensée de Michel Serres à travers des entretiens vivants où le penseur revient sur son itinéraire, depuis la traversée de la guerre au bord de la Garonne jusqu'à aujourd'hui. Passeur des savoirs, capable de faire comprendre l'histoire des idées au travers de récits savoureux, Michel Serres reste insuffisamment connu. Sait-on que ce philosophe pour qui "penser, c'est anticiper", a vu venir avant tout le monde toutes les grandes révolutions de notre temps : la fin de l'agriculture, (...) l'avènement des communications, la crise de l'écologie, la révolution numérique, l'éloignement de la mort. Pour saisir ces événements, il a forgé des concepts nouveaux - l'Hominescence, le Contrat Naturel - mais également imaginé des personnages grâce auxquels ces expériences neuves de notre humanité s'incarnent : Hermès, Le Tiers-Instruit, Petite Poucette. Pantopie (du grec "pantopos", "tous les lieux") est l'espace où tous ces personnages prennent sens. Martin Legros, philosophe, et Sven Ortoli, historien des sciences, ont su amener Michel Serres à organiser la présentation de son œuvre autour des grands personnages qui l'habitent et à la replacer dans le paysage intellectuel et philosophique contemporain. (shrink)

Aperto dai saggi di Alfonso Ruiz Miguel e Patrizia Borsellino, questo volume raccoglie contributi di giovani studiosi, intorno a temi caratterizzanti del pensiero filosofico-giuridico e filosofico-politico di Norberto Bobbio, dalla riflessione sul rigore analitico e sulla filosofia quale militanza, all'analisi sulla forma democratica, che in molte parti anticipò ed intuì i suoi successivi sviluppi. La riattualizzazione dei temi centrali e fondanti dei diritti umani e del pacifismo, si accompagna nei saggi alla rilettura di alcuni importanti contributi bobbiani alla teoria della (...) norma e dell'interpretazione, nonché alla vasta e complessa relazione tra diritto e ragione. A testimonianza dell'ampia e feconda figura intellettuale dell'Autore, il volume presenta in chiusura l'intervista al filosofo della scienza Giulio Giorello sul rapporto tra Bobbio e Geymonat, dando conto di una circolarità dei saperi professata e praticata con scrupolo. Patrizia Borsellino, Professore ordinario di Filosofia del Diritto e Bioetica, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca. Federico L.G. Faroldi, Dottorando di ricerca in Logica, Università di Pisa, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Visiting Scholar, Department of Philosophy, NYU, Visiting Scholar, EPHE, Paris.Mauricio Maldonado Muà±oz, Dottorando di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto e Bioetica Giuridica, Università degli Studi di Genova, Tarello Institute for Legal Philosophy. Federica Martiny, Dottoranda di ricerca in Storia e Teoria del Diritto, Università di Macerata.Fabrizio Mastromartino, Assegnista di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Roma Tre. Emil Mazzoleni, Dottorando di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Milano.Marianna Nobile, Dottore di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca.Federico Oliveri, Ricercatore aggregato, Centro Interdisciplinare Scienze per la Pace, Università di Pisa. Alessio Panichi, Dottore di ricerca in Filosofia, Università di Pisa. Alfonso Ruiz Miguel, Professore ordinario di Filosofia del Diritto, Universidad AutÏŒnoma de Madrid. Michele Saporiti, Assegnista di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Chercheur post-doctoral, Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laà¯cités (EPHE-CNRS), Parigi, Professore a contratto di Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Bergamo. Natalina Stamile, Dottore di ricerca in Teoria del Diritto ed Ordine Giuridico Europeo, già Assegnista di ricerca, Università "Magna Graecia" di Catanzaro. Adriano Zambon, Dottorando di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Milano.Michele Zezza, Dottorando di ricerca in Giustizia costituzionale e Diritti fondamentali, Università di Pisa. (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.

À propos des vénérables malentendus philosophiques et de l'inévitable transition culturelle.

Whitehead's Pancreativism: The Basics has provided tools to understand Whitehead secundum Whitehead. We now seek to bring him in dialogue with James. It will be a pragmatic dialogue looking for two types of synergy: to establish the relevance of a Jamesian background to read Whitehead, and to adumbrate how Whitehead can help us understand the stakes of James's works. After one hundred years of scholarship, it appears that James's legacy has mainly been studied from the perspective of his own blend (...) of pragmatism and that this blend has moreover chiefly been put into dialogue with Peirce and analytic philosophy at large. This double interpretational shift has allowed James to keep a fair amount of visibility on the academic scene but, over the years, it has significantly obliterated his vision. It is time to rediscover James from the perspective of his radical empiricism. (shrink)

Michel Sasseville defend la pratique de la philosophie avec les enfants depuis plus de 30 ans, au Canada. Johanna Hawken a suivi ses pas depuis une dizaine d'annees, en France, et tente de trouver de nouveaux moyens de democratiser cette pratique. Pourquoi? Parce que tous les enfants du monde meritent de philosopher, d'explorer le monde des idees et d'apprendre à penser par et pour eux-mêmes! Or, pour rendre la philosophie accessible aux generations futures, il est necessaire de convaincre et d'equiper (...) tous les acteurs educatifs, afin qu'ils s'emparent d'elle. C'est pourquoi, ensemble, Michel et Johanna proposent un entretien amical, sous la forme d'un abecedaire. Vingt-six lettres pour se promener dans la philosophie pour enfants : 26 concepts, 26 idees pour comprendre les enjeux de cette activite revolutionnaire! Une veritable boîte à outils pour les animateurs philosophes en herbe. (shrink)

What are the criteria for counting something as Buddhist? This discipline-defining question has become increasingly perplexing as Buddhism is transmitted across the globe, taking new forms as it adapts to new contexts, especially as non-Buddhists increasingly come to participate in the meditation activities of Buddhist communities in the West. Through an ethnographic analysis of a Shambhala center in the southern United States, this article suggests that the best way to talk about such groups is neither through categorizing membership demographics, nor (...) by ranking the different degrees of Buddhism practiced in Shambhala as more or less authentic, but rather by focusing on how the group ultimately coheres despite inevitable differences in opinion. Thus instead of defining what is ‘authentically’ Buddhist among Shambhalians, this article tracks the manner in which certain Buddhist forms of signification are shared regardless of personal religious identities, forging a community through common interest. (shrink)

Proof nets provide abstract counterparts to sequent proofs modulo rule permutations; the idea being that if two proofs have the same underlying proof-net, they are in essence the same proof. Providing a convincing proof-net counterpart to proofs in the classical sequent calculus is thus an important step in understanding classical sequent calculus proofs. By convincing, we mean that there should be a canonical function from sequent proofs to proof nets, it should be possible to check the correctness of a net (...) in polynomial time, every correct net should be obtainable from a sequent calculus proof, and there should be a cut-elimination procedure which preserves correctness.Previous attempts to give proof-net-like objects for propositional classical logic have failed at least one of the above conditions. In Richard McKinley [22], the author presented a calculus of proof nets satisfying and ; the paper defined a sequent calculus corresponding to expansion nets but gave no explicit demonstration of . That sequent calculus, called LK⁎LK⁎ in this paper, is a novel one-sided sequent calculus with both additively and multiplicatively formulated disjunction rules. In this paper [22]), we give a full proof of for expansion nets with respect to LK⁎LK⁎, and in addition give a cut-elimination procedure internal to expansion nets – this makes expansion nets the first notion of proof-net for classical logic satisfying all four criteria. (shrink)

This chapter examines Chomsky's influence on the modeling of linguistic variation, focusing specifically on the notion of parameter. It begins by examining the different conceptualizations of “parameter” in Chomsky's work, from the Government and Binding era, through early Minimalism to more recent approaches which locate variation in phonological form. The idea that grammatical variation should be modeled by abstract parameters is arguably one of Chomsky's most important contributions to linguistic theory, and one which has had significant influence. Two domains of (...) variation (word order and argument expression) are used as case studies to illustrate how Chomsky's ideas have given rise to different kinds of parametric models. Finally, the chapter discusses some of the potential objections to the concept of parameters before concluding. (shrink)