Des premiers rites baptismaux à la confession moderne, les références au christianisme sont constantes dans l'œuvre de Michel Foucault. Cette constance s'inscrit dans un questionnement philosophique plus large sur notre actualité : comprendre le rapport que nous avons aujourd'hui à nous-mêmes demande de s'interroger sur les actes de vérité que l'Occident a instaurés depuis les premiers siècles chrétiens. Que faut-il dire et manifester de soi pour être transformé dans son être, pardonné, sauvé, jugé ou guéri)? Ce livre propose une étude (...) critique de l'ensemble des lectures chrétiennes de Foucault, avec une attention particulière portée au cours Du gouvernement des vivants. Ni chronologique ni thématique, le parcours suivi espère retrouver la logique d'un travail à la fois philosophique et historique : quand et comment le christianisme a-t-il été constitué par Foucault en objet de recherche, avec quelles pratiques de lecture et quelles conséquences sur l'interprétation)? (shrink)

Il est encore paradoxal de reconnaître aux livres des Chroniques le statut d'œuvre littéraire. Longtemps considéré comme de « piètre fiabilité » par rapport au récit parallèle des livres de Samuel et des Rois, ces livres apparaissent aussi sans originalité littéraire par rapport notamment à l'art consommé des récits des livres de Samuel. Dans le sillage de l'Art du récit biblique, de Robert Alter, Ph. Abadie tente de faire ressortir la richesse et la variété des procédés d'écriture qui font du (...) livre des Chroniques une œuvre littéraire véritable. Celle-ci tient fondamentalement à un projet global que révèlent et confirment des « unités kérygmatiques » structurantes et l'ordonnancement de grands ensembles selon divers procédés : technique de répétition et système de périodisation chronologique notamment.It is still paradoxical to recognize the statute of literary work for the books of Chronicles. Long time considered as of “poor reliability” in comparison with the parallel history of the books of Samuel and Kings, these books also seem to be without literary originality in comparison with, notably, the consummate art of the narratives in the books of Samuel. In the wake of “The Art of Biblical Narrative” by Robert Alter, Ph. Abadie tries to bring out the richness and the variety of the writing procedures that make the book of Chronicles a truly literary work. It fundamentally holds to a global project that reveals and confirms some “kerygmatic unities,” structuring and ordering great ensembles according to diverse procedures: especially a technique of repetition and system of chronological periodisation. (shrink)

La relation entre la philosophie et la mystique forme une question " à la limite ", que la fatalité a le plus souvent déclinée en une suite d'oppositions frontales : entre le rationnel et l'émotionnel, le logique et le pathologique, le discours et l'indicible... Depuis quelques années cependant, plusieurs motifs portent à reconsidérer cette relation singulière. Une somme d'informations sans précédent sur les diverses traditions mystiques, sur leurs variabilités historiques et géographiques est désormais accessible. En outre, la mystique est devenue (...) un objet œcuménique et interreligieux de premier plan qui invite à reposer la question de l'essence du religieux dans la traversée herméneutique des différences confessionnelles. Enfin, on enregistre une forte demande de redressement spéculatif face à l'essor actuel des sectes et au développement des syncrétismes religieux. Mais le philosophe est-il qualifié pour comprendre la mystique? A quelles conditions? De son côté, le mystique n'a-t-il point tendance à cacher sa dette à l'égard de l'expérience de la pensée, voire des concepts philosophiques? Plus profondément encore, faut-il lier la mystique au seul " religieux "? La philosophie n'est-elle pas un exercice spirituel, une expérience? C'est justement par cette entrée " expérientielle " dans la question que le présent ouvrage trouve son originalité. Grâce aux contributions de spécialistes qu'il réunit, il répond à trois tâches précises : redéfinir le concept d'expérience dès lors qu'il est assigné à la philosophie et au religieux ; évoquer dans une perspective critique les grands figures historiques, témoins et acteurs de l'intersection des deux champs, philosophique et mystique ; mettre à l'épreuve, selon une perspective systématique et au voisinage des œuvres majeures de Simone Weil, Franz Rosenzweig, Emmanuel Lévinas, Éric Weil et Maurice Blondel, les différentes théorisations d'une relation finalement plus présente qu'on ne le dit, dans la structuration du pensable contemporain. (shrink)

The current meta-analysis reviews 24 studies on self-reported emotional reactions to facial expressions in socially anxious versus nonanxious individuals. We hypothesized that socially anxious individuals would perceive all face types as less approachable, more negative, and more arousing. After correcting for biases, results showed that socially anxious individuals, compared to controls, reported lower approachability to all types of expressions and higher arousal in response to neutral expressions. Variances among effects usually could not be explained by the proposed moderators. This suggests (...) that current conceptualizations of social anxiety should take into account the willingness to approach social stimuli rather than global measures of emotion or arousal. (shrink)

We investigate the conflict between the ex ante and ex post criteria of social welfare in a new framework of individual and social decisions, which distinguishes between two sources of uncertainty, here interpreted as an objective and a subjective source respectively. This framework makes it possible to endow the individuals and society not only with ex ante and ex post preferences, as is usually done, but also with interim preferences of two kinds, and correspondingly, to introduce interim forms of the (...) Pareto principle. After characterizing the ex ante and ex post criteria, we present a first solution to their conflict that extends the former as much possible in the direction of the latter. Then, we present a second solution, which goes in the opposite direction, and is also maximally assertive. Both solutions translate the assumed Pareto conditions into weighted additive utility representations, and both attribute to the individuals common probability values on the objective source of uncertainty, and different probability values on the subjective source. We discuss these solutions in terms of two conceptual arguments, i.e., the by now classic spurious unanimity argument and a novel informational argument labelled complementary ignorance. The paper complies with the standard economic methodology of basing probability and utility representations on preference axioms, but for the sake of completeness, also considers a construal of objective uncertainty based on the assumption of an exogeneously given probability measure. JEL classification: D70; D81. (shrink)

Judgment aggregation theory, or rather, as we conceive of it here, logical aggregation theory generalizes social choice theory by having the aggregation rule bear on judgments of all kinds instead of merely preference judgments. It derives from Kornhauser and Sager’s doctrinal paradox and List and Pettit’s discursive dilemma, two problems that we distinguish emphatically here. The current theory has developed from the discursive dilemma, rather than the doctrinal paradox, and the final objective of the paper is to give the latter (...) its own theoretical development along the line of recent work by Dietrich and Mongin. However, the paper also aims at reviewing logical aggregation theory as such, and it covers impossibility theorems by Dietrich, Dietrich and List, Dokow and Holzman, List and Pettit, Mongin, Nehring and Puppe, Pauly and van Hees, providing a uniform logical framework in which they can be compared with each other. The review goes through three historical stages: the initial paradox and dilemma, the scattered early results on the independence axiom, and the so-called canonical theorem, a collective achievement that provided the theory with its specific method of analysis. The paper goes some way towards philosophical logic, first by briefly connecting the aggregative framework of judgment with the modern philosophy of judgment, and second by thoroughly discussing and axiomatizing the ‘general logic’ built in this framework. (shrink)

Following a long-standing philosophical tradition, impartiality is a distinctive and determining feature of moral judgments, especially in matters of distributive justice. This broad ethical tradition was revived in welfare economics by Vickrey, and above all, Harsanyi, under the form of the so-called Impartial Observer Theorem. The paper offers an analytical reconstruction of this argument and a step-wise philosophical critique of its premisses. It eventually provides a new formal version of the theorem based on subjective probability.

The paper analyses economic evaluations by distinguishing evaluative statements from actual value judgments. From this basis, it compares four solutions to the value neutrality problem in economics. After rebutting the strong theses about neutrality (normative economics is illegitimate) and non-neutrality (the social sciences are value-impregnated), the paper settles the case between the weak neutrality thesis (common in welfare economics) and a novel, weak non-neutrality thesis that extends the realm of normative economics more widely than the other weak thesis does.

William Alston’s argument against the deontological conception of epistemic justification is a classic—and much debated—piece of contemporary epistemology. At the heart of Alston’s argument, however, lies a very simple mistake which, surprisingly, appears to have gone unnoticed in the vast literature now devoted to the argument. After having shown why some of the standard responses to Alston’s argument don’t work, we elucidate the mistake and offer a hypothesis as to why it has escaped attention.

The paper develops an objection to the extensional model of time consciousness—the view that temporally extended events or processes, and their temporal properties, can be directly perceived as such. Importantly, following James, advocates of the extensional model typically insist that whole experiences of temporal relations between non-simultaneous events are distinct from mere successions of their temporal parts. This means, presumably, that there ought to be some feature(s) differentiating the former from the latter. I try to show why the extensional models (...) offers no credible ground for positing such a difference. (shrink)

As stochastic independence is essential to the mathematical development of probability theory, it seems that any foundational work on probability should be able to account for this property. Bayesian decision theory appears to be wanting in this respect. Savage’s postulates on preferences under uncertainty entail a subjective expected utility representation, and this asserts only the existence and uniqueness of a subjective probability measure, regardless of its properties. What is missing is a preference condition corresponding to stochastic independence. To fill this (...) significant gap, the article axiomatizes Bayesian decision theory afresh and proves several representation theorems in this novel framework. (shrink)

On échange des cadeaux en fin d'année par convention. Ecrire de gauche à droite, rouler à droite ou encore s'arrêter lorsque le feu est rouge sont des conventions. Les conventions sont également mobilisées pour coordonner les individus d'un même groupe de travail, de façon à déterminer le moment et la durée de la pause, mais aussi leur niveau d'effort, comme " ne faire que x pièces à l'heure ", voire la façon dont ils sont rémunérés. Les conventions jouent ainsi un (...) rôle important dans la coordination économique. La notion de convention est un thème d'étude nouveau pour l'économie. Elle fait aujourd'hui l'objet de très nombreuses recherches. Cet ouvrage ambitionne de clarifier tous les usages du terme " convention " en économie, depuis les travaux qui s'appuient sur la philosophie du langage jusqu'aux thèses développées par " l'Economie des conventions ", en passant par la théorie des jeux. Cet ouvrage est le fruit d'un travail collectif qui a associé et mobilisé une équipe de chercheurs an sein de FORUM. (shrink)

Several disputes about the nature of experience operate under the assumption that experiences have parts, including temporal parts. There's the widely held view, when it comes to temporal experiences, that we should follow James' exhortation that such experiences aren't mere successions of their temporal parts, but something more. And there's the question of whether it is the parts of experiences which determine whole experiences and the properties they have, or whether the determination goes instead from the whole to the parts, (...) as holists have it. But what are parts, or temporal parts, of experiences exactly—what does it mean to say that an experience is “part” of another? Are the participants in those disputes talking about the same thing—is there a univocal notion of “experiential part” available? Are there different kinds of experiential parts? And if there are, is there a systematic way of carving them out? More importantly, how should we conceive of the temporal parts of experiences, and how can we establish that experiences really do have temporal parts, against those who reject the notion? (shrink)

The paper has a twofold aim. On the one hand, it provides what appears to be the first game-theoretic modeling of Napoleon’s last campaign, which ended dramatically on 18 June 1815 at Waterloo. It is specifically concerned with the decision Napoleon made on 17 June 1815 to detach part of his army against the Prussians he had defeated, though not destroyed, on 16 June at Ligny. Military historians agree that this decision was crucial but disagree about whether it was rational. (...) Hypothesizing a zero-sum game between Napoleon and Blücher, and computing its solution, we show that it could have been a cautious strategy on the former's part to divide his army, a conclusion which runs counter to the charges of misjudgement commonly heard since Clausewitz. On the other hand, the paper addresses methodological issues. We defend its case study against the objections of irrelevance that have been raised elsewhere against “analytic narratives”, and conclude that military campaigns provide an opportunity for successful application of the formal theories of rational choice. Generalizing the argument, we finally investigate the conflict between narrative accounts – the historians' standard mode of expression – and mathematical modeling. (shrink)

We propose two alternatives to Xu’s axiomatization of Chellas’s STIT. The first one simplifies its presentation, and also provides an alternative axiomatization of the deliberative STIT. The second one starts from the idea that the historic necessity operator can be defined as an abbreviation of operators of agency, and can thus be eliminated from the logic of Chellas’s STIT. The second axiomatization also allows us to establish that the problem of deciding the satisfiability of a STIT formula without temporal operators (...) is NP-complete in the single-agent case, and is NEXPTIME-complete in the multiagent case, both for the deliberative and Chellas’s STIT. (shrink)

Nucléaire, clonage, OGM, sang contaminé : sans cesse invoqué en matiére d'environnement, de santé, d'alimentation, le principe de précaution est l'objet de multiples controverses. De quoi s'agit-il? Trop de précaution ne risque-t-il pas de bloquer des avancées scientifiques ou techniques cruciales pour l'avenir? Une clarification était nécessaire. Car l'important aujourd'hui est de donner à ce principe un contenu positif, c'est-à -dire une définition assortie d'un mode d'emploi qui puisse être compris de tous et servir à tous. Philippe Kourilsky est directeur (...) général de l'Institut Pasteur, professeur au Collége de France et membre de l'Académie des sciences. Il est notamment l'auteur des Artisans de l'hérédité et de La Science en partage. (shrink)

Plato on eros What is love for Plato, and why, after his analysis of eros in Symposium, did Plato take up the subject again, some ten years later, in Phaedrus? This article describes a transtition in Plato’s thinking about eros. In the Symposium, eros is a desire for immortality and a creative power, and it is is elicited by a beautiful person. In the homoerotic case, the lover’s soul is pregnant, and his eros produces the good in the form of (...) poems, laws, philosophical ideas, and virtue. But the philosopher has to gradually outgrow his love for a beautiful body, and turn towards the realm of abstract ideas. In the Phaedrus, by contrast, the beauty of a boy can straightforwardly connect the philosopher to the divine, i.e., perfect and timeless reality. Here, the philosopher does not leave his love for the person behind. On the contrary, the friendship is forever, and it is the conversation between the friends that generates knowledge. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the psychology of moral judgment and its implications for normative ethics and metaethics. Recent empirical findings in moral psychology, such as the impact of emotions, intuitions, and situational factors on moral judgments, have sparked a debate about whether ordinary moral judgments are systematically error-prone. Some philosophers, such as Peter Singer and Joshua Greene, argue that these findings challenge the reliability of moral intuitions and support more "reasoned", consequentialist approaches over deontological ones. The first part of the dissertation (...) reviews these provocative findings and the philosophical reactions to them, which often invoke the notion of 'moral relevance' - the idea that some factors shaping moral judgments are morally irrelevant. The second part develops a psychological account of moral relevance, drawing on theories of the moral domain, the role of emotions, and models of moral cognition. This account reveals the complex interplay of intuitive and reasoned processes in generating impressions of moral relevance. The final part reevaluates the philosophical discussions in light of this psychological understanding. It contends that the evolutionary background of moral intuitions does not necessarily render them inadequate, and that both deontological and consequentialist judgments likely depend on evolved intuitions to a significant degree. Furthermore, the tendency to dismiss certain influences on moral judgment as irrelevant can itself be explained psychologically. Considering the psychological account presented, mind-independent accounts of morality become less plausible. The dissertation concludes that while empirical moral psychology reveals important constraints on normative theorizing, it does not decisively favor consequentialism over deontology. To assess the significance of empirical-scientific findings for ethics, a nuanced understanding of the origins of moral judgments is nevertheless indispensable. (shrink)

While a vast body of research has been dedicated to understanding social problems and psychological disorders, we know remarkably little about the positive aspects of life, the things that make life worth living. This volume brings together the latest findings on the causes and consequences of human happiness and well-being. The book covers a wide variety of disciplines, encompassing evolutionary biology, positive psychology, economics and social science, neuroscience and peace studies. Contributors to the volume include some of the most distinguished (...) scholars in the field: social scientist Robert Putnam, evolutionary psychiatrist Randolph Nesse, psychologist Howard Gardner, economist Robert Frank, the founder of the Positive Psychology movement Martin Seligman, and the economic psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman. (shrink)

Developing tools is a crucial aspect of experimental practice, yet most discussions of scientific change traditionally emphasize theoretical over technological change. To elaborate on the role of tools in scientific change, I offer an account that shows how scientists use tools in exploratory experiments to form novel concepts. I apply this account to two cases in neuroscience and show how tool development and concept formation are often intertwined in episodes of tool-driven change. I support this view by proposing common normative (...) principles that specify when exploratory concept formation and tool development succeed to initiate scientific change. (shrink)

Farabi (ob 950), philosophe persan originaire des confins des mondes persan et turc (Transoxiane), vient s'établir à Bagdad vers la fin du IXe siècle. Il s'y convertit à la philosophie comme on entre en religion. Il quitte Bagdad en 942 pour s'établir la même année à Damas où il meurt huit ans plus tard. C'est là qu'il met le point final au Régime politique qui est son testament philosophique. Ce traité condense toute sa compréhension de Platon, d'Aristote et de la (...) tradition philosophique tardo-antique. Il y livre en outre la clé d'interprétation de son oeuvre la plus fameuse, La Cité vertueuse, dont le Régime politique approfondit les thèmes centraux. On y découvre deux aspects complémentaires de la politique telle qu'il la concevait. Tout d'abord, la politique, pour être philosophique, se doit de faire de la métaphysique son infrastructure. Il faut partir d'une conception définie du monde et de ses principes pour savoir que la destination de l'homme passe nécessairement par la cité. De plus, la politique comme science a une finalité pratique : critiquer jusque dans leurs fondements les régimes et les religions corrompus de son époque. Le traité est à cet égard un document unique dans l'histoire de la falsafa : un philosophe arabophone adresse à la postérité son jugement sur la civilisation arabo-islamique des IXe Xe siècles. (shrink)

The 1992 incorporation of an article by referendum in the SwissConstitution mandating that the federal government issue regulations onthe use of genetic material that take into account the dignity ofnonhuman organism raises philosophical questions about how we shouldunderstand what is meant by ``the dignity of nonhuman animals,'' andabout what sort of moral demands arise from recognizing this dignitywith respect to their genetic engineering. The first step in determiningwhat is meant is to clarify the difference between dignity when appliedto humans and (...) when applied to nonhumans. Several conceptions of humandignity should be rejected in favor of a fourth conception: the rightnot to be degraded. This right implies that those who have it have thecognitive capacities that are prerequisite for self-respect. In the caseof nonhuman organisms that lack this capacity, respecting their dignityrequires the recognition that their inherent value, which is tied totheir abilities to pursue their own good, be respected. This value isnot absolute, as it is in the case of humans, so it does not prohibitbreeding manipulations that make organisms more useful to humans. But itdoes restrict morally how sentient animals can be used. In regard togenetic engineering, this conception requires that animals be allowedthe uninhibited development of species specific functions, a positionshared by Holland and Attfield, as opposed to the Original Purposeconception proposed by Fox and the Integrity of the Genetic Make-upposition proposed by Rolston. The inherent value conception of dignity,as here defended, is what is meant in the Swiss Constitution article. (shrink)

To be self-compassionate is to show compassion not (only) for others but for yourself. Research in psychology suggests that self-compassion leads to improved well-being and functioning. With the psychological research in the background, we give a philosophical account of self-compassion and its ethical significance. We build a definition of self-compassion, suggesting that self-compassion is different from but closely analogous to compassion for others. Our definition departs from the most prominent definition in the psychological literature but is well-equipped to guide ongoing (...) empirical research. We then argue that self-compassion is a virtue. Self-compassion makes ordinary people happier and more likely to act well, and the self-compassionate person understands and values herself correctly; she sees herself accurately as a needy, vulnerable, limited human whose interests matter. If we are right, then the ethical relationship with self is more complicated than philosophical treatments have so far acknowledged. The virtuous person does not only meet moral duties to herself or exercise permissions to favor her own interests. She also has an emotional relationship with herself, which incorporates enlightened self-understanding and self-care. (shrink)

Barnett and Block (Journal of Business Ethics, 2009 ) attack the heart of modern banking by claiming that the practice of borrowing short and lending long is illicit. While their claim of illegitimacy concerning fractional reserve banking can be defended, their justification lacks substance. Their claim is herein strengthened by a legal analysis of deposits and loans based on Huerta de Soto (Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles, 2006 ). A combined legal and economic analysis shows that while lending deposits (...) can be regarded as illicit, the maturity mismatching of loans is legitimate contrary to Barnett and Block’s claim. No over-issuance of property rights is involved with this practice once the distinction between present and future goods is taken into account. However, while the practice is not illicit per se , it is greatly assisted and developed through the presence of a fractional reserve banking system, and can sometimes breed detrimental effects. (shrink)

How ethical have recent banking practices been? We answer this question via an economic analysis. We assess the two dominant practices of the modern banking system – fractional reserves and maturity transformation – by gauging the respective rights of the relevant parties. By distinguishing the legal and economic differences between deposit and loan contracts, we determine that the practice of maturity transformation (in its various guises) is not only ethical but also serves a positive social function. The foundation of the (...) modern banking system – the holding of fractional reserves against deposits – is, however, problematic from economic, legal and ethical perspectives. Starting from a microanalysis of money's function, a reassessment of the current laws concerning the practice is encouraged, with the aim not only to rectify economic irregularities but also to realign depositors' rights with the obligations of the banking sector. (shrink)

How ethical have recent banking practices been? We answer this question via an economic analysis. We assess the two dominant practices of the modern banking system – fractional reserves and maturity transformation – by gauging the respective rights of the relevant parties. By distinguishing the legal and economic differences between deposit and loan contracts, we determine that the practice of maturity transformation (in its various guises) is not only ethical but also serves a positive social function. The foundation of the (...) modern banking system – the holding of fractional reserves against deposits – is, however, problematic from economic, legal and ethical perspectives. Starting from a microanalysis of money's function, a reassessment of the current laws concerning the practice is encouraged, with the aim not only to rectify economic irregularities but also to realign depositors' rights with the obligations of the banking sector. (shrink)

This book offers a phenomenological conception of experiential justification that seeks to clarify why certain experiences are a source of immediate justification and what role experiences play in gaining (scientific) knowledge. Based on the author's account of experiential justification, this book exemplifies how a phenomenological experience-first epistemology can epistemically ground the individual sciences. More precisely, it delivers a comprehensive picture of how we get from epistemology to the foundations of mathematics and physics. The book is unique as it utilizes methods (...) and insights from the phenomenological tradition in order to make progress in current analytic epistemology. It serves as a starting point for re-evaluating the relevance of Husserlian phenomenology to current analytic epistemology and making an important step towards paving the way for future mutually beneficial discussions. This is achieved by exemplifying how current debates can benefit from ideas, insights, and methods we find in the phenomenological tradition. (shrink)

Boyer & Lienard's (B&L's) model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) rituals does not completely conform to our clinical experience with patients, and the clinical implications of their model is not described by the authors. We discuss potential differences of opinion regarding both the nature of OCD and the mechanisms involved in the maintenance of symptoms, and how emotional processing theories can account for treatment effects. (Published Online February 8 2007).

ABSTRACTRecent models of social anxiety disorder emphasise the role of emotion dysregulation; however, the nature of the proposed impairment needs clarification. In a replication and extension framework, four studies examined whether individuals with social anxiety are impaired in using cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Self-reports and lab-based tasks of suppression and reappraisal were utilised among individuals with high and low levels of social anxiety. A meta-analysis of these studies indicated that, compared to controls, HSAs reported less frequent and effective use (...) of reappraisal and more frequent and effective use of suppression. Counter to most models and our hypotheses, HSAs were more successful than controls in lab-based reappraisal of shame-arousing pictures as measured by subjective ratings, but not by event-related potentials. HSAs were less successful than controls in lab-based suppression of shame-arousing pictures as measured by subjective ratings, but not... (shrink)

Epistemic logics are essential to the design of logical systems that capture elements of reasoning about knowledge. In this paper, we study the computability of unifiability and the unification types in several epistemic logics.

This is a study that investigated the extent of use of the three principles of ethics – utility, morality, and justice – in managerial ethical decision making, in addition to the personal attitude towards them. It involved undergraduate and graduate business students (total N=163) from the Olayan School of Business in the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Two kinds of measurements were done: self assessment, and testing with the Saschkin’ s Managerial Value Profile (1997). It showed that morality was the (...) overriding ethical principle used, especially in the graduate group (professionals). Business students still believed in the justice system despite the weakness of the country’s law. Utility was the least used, although males were found to be more utilitarian than females. Finally there was no relation between personal attitudes toward the three ethical principles, and the intentional behavior when faced with ethical dilemmas. The findings were discussed and recommendations were given. (shrink)

in a nervous system of a given species. This chapter provides a critical perspective on the role of connectomes in neuroscientific practice and asks how the connectomic approach fits into a larger context in which network thinking permeates technology, infrastructure, social life, and the economy. In the first part of this chapter, we argue that, seen from the perspective of ongoing research, the notion of connectomes as “complete descriptions” is misguided. Our argument combines Rachel Ankeny’s analysis of neuroanatomical wiring diagrams (...) as “descriptive models” with Hans-Joerg Rheinberger’s notion of “epistemic objects,” i.e., targets of research that are still partially unknown. Combining these aspects we conclude that connectomes are constitutively epistemic objects: there just is no way to turn them into permanent and complete technical standards because the possibilities to map connection properties under different modeling assumptions are potentially inexhaustible. In the second part of the chapter, we use this understanding of connectomes as constitutively epistemic objects in order to critically assess the historical and political dimensions of current neuroscientific research. We argue that connectomics shows how the notion of the “brain as a network” has become the dominant metaphor of contemporary brain research. We further point out that this metaphor shares (potentially problematic) affinities to the form of contemporary “network societies.” We close by pointing out how the relation between connectomes and networks in society could be used in a more fruitful manner. (shrink)

Conceptualist accounts of the representational content of perceptual experiences have it that a subject _S_ can experience no object, property, relation, etc., unless _S_ "i# possesses and "ii# exercises concepts for such object, property, or relation. Perceptual experiences, on such a view, represent the world in a way that is conceptual.

La philosophie politique de Hobbes acquiert sa pleine validité grâce à la catégorie de la représentation qui apparaît dans le Léviathan. L'ouvrage montre pourquoi il faut saisir le projet de Hobbes dans sa pure radicalité : reconfigurer les conditions ontologiques de toute communauté humaine en substituant le schème de la représentation à celui de l'incarnation. Par là, Hobbes clôt l'époque du corps politique pour ouvrir celle de la personne de l'État.

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) à travers son itinéraire semé d'embûches, a dû affronter l'arrivée au pouvoir des nazis. Amené à sillonner l'Europe il développe une activité de critique littéraire et une philosophie de l'histoire, notamment dans ses ultimes « thèses » de 1940. Ce testament philosophique est influencé par le messianisme juif et le marxisme. Décrit comme sentinelle messianique, l'œuvre de Walter Benjamin se déploie aux confins de la sociologie, de l'esthétique et de la théologie. Sa philosophie de l'histoire contraste avec (...) celle de Nietzsche, mais le rapproche de Simone Weil. Analyste privilégié des tourments de l'Europe, il participera indirectement à l'Ecole de Francfort. (shrink)

Petites absences, décrochages, distractions : notre relation au monde visible est ponctuée de ces éclipses infimes. Face à ce qui réclame sans cesse notre attention - écrans d'ordinateur ou de télévision, signaux, spectacles -, nous vivons dans l'intermittence du regard et de l'écoute. Confrontés aux histoires les plus intenses, aux images les plus fortes, nous ne cessons de perdre le fil de ce qui semble essentiel. Que manifestent ces brèves pannes du sens? Une pesanteur et une aliénation? Ou une insaisissable (...) liberté Ce sont ces alternances de présence et d'absence, de plein et de vide, de net et de flou, que tente de recueillir ce livre, comme un voyage à la fois drôle et grave dans les minuscules fuites de la perception. (shrink)

Ce livre ne présente pas la philosophie de Gilles Deleuze, ni encore moins il ne la résume. Il s'en sert en l'appliquant à des problèmes spécifiques politiques et esthétiques, pour en montrer concrètement, sur des exemples précis, des cas, la pertinence et la fécondité. Ainsi à travers le masochisme de la Vénus à la fourrure, la peinture du Lorrain, l'espace public démocratique du contrat social, et l'étrange athéisme de Sade, on peut voir la force de révélation que détiennent les concepts (...) deleuziens d'espace lisse et de lignes de fuite. Mais en même temps qu'on verra jouer concrètement ces concepts, leur parenté très grande avec ceux de Lacan apparaîtra clairement. Le travail d'analyse, la clinique, quand il est concret et précis, dissout les gros concepts et, au-delà des oppositions d'opinion massives, ouvre et trace des lignes de sens et des perspectives de lecture radicalement nouvelles, où les vieux antagonismes deviennent désuets. D'où la richesse atypique de la philosophie deleuzienne."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

"Die vorliegende Studie versucht aus problemgeschichtlicher Perspektive einige Aspekte Wang Biíschen Denkens vorzustellen, insofern sie in Kontinuität zur song-typischen Abstraktionsleistung des sogenannten Neokonfuzianismus gesehen werden können. Wang Bi (226-249) gilt als einer der prominentesten Vertreter der xuanxue, einer wei-jin-zeitlichen intellektuellen Strömung ausgeprägt spekulativen Charakters. Bereits zu Lebzeiten wurde er als einer der brillantesten Köpfe und als maßgeblicher Kommentator des Yijing (Buch der Wandlungen) und des Daodejing gefeiert. Diese Kommentare wie auch die von ihm verfaßten Auslegungen jener Werke gelangten zu beträchtlicher (...) Fernwirkung innerhalb ideengeschichtlicher Entwicklungen Chinas. Von dem unverkennbar innovativen Argumentationstyp, der die Texte des Wang Bi auszeichnet, sollten entscheidende Impulse für den kulturtraditionellen Diskurs folgender Jahrhunderte ausgehen. Mit Blick auf die songkonfuzianische Konsequenz, die Neubegründungen des Paradigmas einer normativen Kulturtradition, ist die Initialfunktion wei-jin-zeitlichen Denkens kaum zu überschätzen."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Aborde la question de l'image chrétienne face à la révolution de la modernité, en montrant comment la nature spécifique de l'image conduit à l'exigence d'un discernement en engageant le spectateur à dépasser ses propres limites. Démontre également que le modernisme de la représentation iconographique n'a rien perdu de son actualité.

This research investigates 3- and 5-year-olds' relative fairness in distributing small collections of even or odd numbers of more or less desirable candies, either with an adult experimenter or between two dolls. The authors compare more than 200 children from around the world, growing up in seven highly contrasted cultural and economic contexts, from rich and poor urban areas, to small-scale traditional and rural communities. Across cultures, young children tend to optimize their own gain, not showing many signs of self-sacrifice (...) or generosity. Already by 3 years of age, self-optimizing in distributive justice is based on perspective taking and rudiments of mind reading. By 5 years, overall, children tend to show more fairness in sharing. What varies across cultures is the magnitude of young children's self-interest. More fairness (less self-interest) in distributive justice is evident by children growing up in small-scale urban and traditional societies thought to promote more collective values. (shrink)