Jewels in the Sea! If Minos’ jewel brings about the probationary dive of young Theseus , the green-stoned signet-ring of Polycrates is the subject of quite a paradoxical ordeal. Syloson’s coat and Gyges’ ring can be seen through it, although without any reference to the sea.Si le bijou de Minos provoque le plongeon probatoire du jeune Thésée , la bague-cachet à pierre verte de Polycrate est l’objet, pour sa part, d’une bien paradoxale ordalie. Apparaissent en filigrane, bien que (...) sans référence thalassale, le manteau de Syloson et la bague de Gygès. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce que la 'déconstruction'? Quelles sont les origines philosophiques de ce mot magique, brandi par tous ceux dont le but, déclaré ou non, est de criminaliser l'Occident en le réduisant à une expression du racisme, de l'esclavagisme, de l' 'hétéro-patriarcat' et de l'impérialisme colonial? Cette civilisation redoutable dont les proies seraient les peuples dominés, racisés, opprimés, et les minorités essentialisées en tant que victimes systémiques? Ainsi la civilisation occidentale se trouve-t-elle convoquée devant un nouveau grand Tribunal de l'Histoire pour répondre (...) de ses crimes, imaginaires ou réels, et, surtout, elle est la seule civilisation à être mise au banc des accusés. Au croisement de la recherche universitaire et du militantisme politique, le décolonialisme, l'intersectionnalité, la 'théorie critique de la race', la 'théorie queer', la 'théorie du genre', mais aussi le 'wokisme', né d'une corruption idéologique de l'antiracisme et du féminisme importée des campus étatsuniens, se sont peu à peu diffusés dans les médias et dans la société tout entière grâce à une propagande violente et culpabilisante puisant dans un imaginaire victimaire. Dans ce livre incisif et documenté, qui part d'une réflexion sur la pensée de Nietzsche et sur ses mésusages par les disciples français de Heidegger, Pierre-André Taguieff analyse ces théories aussi foisonnantes qu'inconsistantes et dénonce l'émergence de ce nouvel esprit totalitaire qu'il faut se garder de réduire à ses effets les plus médiatisés, comme ces 'déboulonnages' spectaculaires illustrant la violence purificatrice de la 'cancel culture'. De fait, ce néo-puritanisme obscurantiste, inquisitorial et punitif représente, dans les démocraties occidentales, un défi majeur pour les défenseurs de la liberté d'expression, de pensée et de création."--Back cover. (shrink)

Comment devient-on philosophe? Par quel sursaut un Aristoclès se fait-il Platon, jusqu'à s'imposer dans la liste des " auteurs philo " Il faut enquêter, non pas sur la vie privée, mais sur la vie intime : rumination intellectuelle, ton sur lequel on parle, motivations amoureuses... Ce qui fait un philosophe, c'est un immense travail sur soi, et la rencontre d'autres philosophes, vivants, de leurs problématiques. Mémoire sémantique + obsession métaphysique, voilà le code génétique du philosophe. Il débute par un attentat (...) religieux, puisqu'il commence sa carrière en niant tel ou tel sacré. Bien sûr, il vaut mieux être mâle, communiquer par les livres adopter la langue dominante, écrire quand on est célibataire. Comment gagner sa vie? Pas forcément en étant enseignant, comme c'est le cas aujourd'hui. Le profil du philosophe nous le révèle orphelin, vivant à l'étranger, souvent laid, jamais fou, et serial thinker, prêt à changer de philosophie pourvu qu'il reste, lui, à menacer le monde donnera ou donnera pas du sens à notre vie? Le philosophe est l'être inquiet qui pense inquiéter l'Être par deux trois mots bien aiguisés. (shrink)

Genomic screening at population scale generates many ethical considerations. One is the normative role that people’s preferences should play in determining access to genomic information in screening contexts, particularly information that falls beyond the scope of screening. We expect both that people will express a preference to receive such results and that there will be interest from the professional community in providing them. In this paper, we consider this issue in relation to the just and equitable design of population screening (...) programs like reproductive genetic carrier screening (RGCS). Drawing on a pluralistic public health ethics perspective, we claim that generating and reporting information about genetic variants beyond the scope of the screening program usually lacks clinical, and perhaps personal, utility. There are both pragmatic and ethical reasons to restrict information provision to that which fits the stated purpose of the program. (shrink)

The concept of autonomy plays a central role in bioethics,1 but there is no consensus as to how we should understand it beyond a general notion of self-determination. The conception of autonomy deployed in applied ethics2 can have crucial ramifications when it is applied in real-world scenarios, so it is important to be clear. However, this clarity is often lacking when autonomy is discussed in the bioethics literature. In this paper we outline three different conceptions of autonomy, and argue that (...) a substantive, perfectionist approach meets the theoretical requirements for an account of autonomy and also provides practical guidance. As Rebecca Walker argues, bioethics requires a more conceptually adequate account... (shrink)

Reproductive genetic carrier screening (RCS), when offered to anyone regardless of their family history or ancestry, has been subject to the critique that it is a form of eugenics. Eugenics describes a range of practices that seek to use the science of heredity to improve the genetic composition of a population group. The term is associated with a range of unethical programmes that were taken up in various countries during the 20th century. Contemporary practice in medical genetics has, understandably, distanced (...) itself from such programmes. However, as RCS becomes more widespread, gains public funding and uses expanded gene panels, there are concerns that such programmes could be perceived as eugenic either in intent or outcome. The typical response to the eugenics critique of RCS is to emphasise the voluntary nature of both participating in screening and making subsequent reproductive choices. While safeguarding individuals’ freedom to choose in relation to screening is essential, we consider this response inadequate. By examining the specific ethical wrongs committed by eugenics in the past, we argue that to avoid the perception of RCS being a form of eugenics it is essential to attend to the broader normative context in which reproductive decisions occur. Furthermore, ethical RCS programmes must recognise and respond to their potential to shift societal norms that shape individual reproductive choices. (shrink)

While this paper does not explicitly define the concept of autonomy, the way Ubel et al describe clinicians’ failures to enhance their patients’ autonomy reflects a broader understanding of autonomy than the default account as free and informed choice. In this OPC I would demonstrate that the communication strategies the authors recommend reflects a more sophisticated conception of autonomy than the understanding that typically prevails in bioethics. I will also distinguish between weak and strong forms of paternalism, and argue that (...) a weak paternalistic approach is not only defensible but also aligns with the strategies the authors propose. Thus, by clarifying the concept of autonomy we can show how it can be enhanced in practice. (shrink)

Reproductive genetic carrier screening is increasingly being offered more widely, including to people with no family history or otherwise elevated chance of having a baby with a genetic condition. There are valid reasons to reject a prevention-focused public health ethics approach to such screening programs. Rejecting the prevention paradigm in this context has led to an emphasis on more individually-focused values of freedom of choice and fostering reproductive autonomy in RCS. We argue, however, that population-wide RCS has sufficient features in (...) common with other public health screening programs that it becomes important also to attend to its public health implications. Not doing so constitutes a failure to address the social conditions that significantly affect people’s capacity to exercise their reproductive autonomy. We discuss how a public health ethics approach to RCS is broader in focus than prevention. We also show that additional values inherent to ethical public health—such as equity and solidarity—are essential to underpin and inform the aims and implementation of reproductive carrier screening programs. (shrink)

In healthcare broadly, and especially in genetic medicine, there is an ongoing debate about whether patients have a right not to know information about their own health. The extensive literature on this topic is characterised by a range of different understandings of what it means to have a RNTK,1–9 and how this purported right relates to patient autonomy. Ben Davies considers whether obligations not to place avoidable burdens on a publicly funded healthcare system might form the basis for an obligation (...) to acquire relevant health information, and hence refute the RNTK. He also makes the interesting argument that an obligation to know does not necessarily limit the RNTK. Davies summarises the more prominent arguments against the RNTK, including harm-to-others arguments that focus on potential harms to individuals related to the patient. However he then considers the RNTK in the context of the obligations that people have to each other within a publicly funded healthcare system. So rather than focusing on harms to specific individuals, Davies’ argument is instead based on the wrong of needlessly consuming public healthcare resources. If a person avoids health-related information and thereby exacerbates their health problems, this makes them more complex and expensive to treat. Davies argues that this constitutes …. (shrink)

The “right not to know” has generated significant discussion, especially regarding genetic information. In this paper, I argue that this purported right is better understood as a preference and that treating it as a substantive right has led to confusion. To support this claim, I present three critiques of the way the right not to know has been characterized. First, I demonstrate that the many conceptualizations of this right have hampered debate. Second, I show that the way autonomy is conceptualized (...) in this literature is also problematic. Third, I examine the notion of a right in more detail, to support my third critique: that the right to know and the right not to know genetic information are often erroneously treated as having equivalent status. On my understanding, the claim being made is better thought of as a preference, not a right, and a preference not to know certain information becomes only one of several considerations relevant to medical decision making. (shrink)

Biobanks are increasingly being linked together into global networks in order to maximise their capacity to identify causes of and treatments for disease. While there is great optimism about the potential of these biobank networks to contribute to personalised and data-driven medicine, there are also ethical concerns about, among other things, risks to personal privacy and exploitation of vulnerable populations. Concepts drawn from theories of globalisation can assist with the characterisation of the ethical implications of biobank networking across borders, which (...) can, in turn, inform more ethically sophisticated responses. Using the China Kadoorie Biobank as a case study, we show how distinguishing between the subnational, transnational, supranational and extranational spheres of operation and influence can help researchers, institutions and regulators to understand and manage the ethical issues raised by the globalisation of biobanking. (shrink)

Reproductive genetic carrier screening provides information about people's chance of having children with certain genetic conditions. Severity of genetic conditions is an important criterion for their inclusion in carrier screening programmes. However, the concept of severity is conceptually complex and underspecified. We analyse why severity is an important concept in carrier screening and for reproductive decision-making and show that assessments of severity can also have normative societal implications. While some genetic conditions are unambiguously associated with a high degree of suffering, (...) there are many factors that contribute to how severe a condition is perceived to be, and perspectives will vary. Attempts to classify genetic conditions according to their severity tend to prioritise biomedical information at the expense of incorporating qualitative aspects of the impact of genetic conditions on people's lives. Further complexity arises because some genotypes can present with variable phenotypes and because some conditions are not always experienced in the same way by all people who have them. To acknowledge this complexity, we argue that an understanding of severity needs to distinguish between the severity of a genetic condition—requiring a generalised approach for purposes of policy development and programme design—and the severity of an instance of a genetic condition in a particular person. Families making reproductive decisions also require access to diverse experiences of the qualitative aspects of living with genetic conditions. As a result, reproductive carrier screening programmes must recognise and respond to the complexity inherent in determining the severity of genetic conditions. (shrink)

Synthesizing forty years' work by France's leading sociologist, this book exemplifies Bourdieu's unique ability to link sociological theory, historical information, and philosophical thought. It makes explicit the presuppositions of a state of 'scholasticism', a certain leisure liberated from the urgencies of the world. Philosophers have brought these presuppositions into the order of discourse, more to legitimate than analyze them, and this is the primary systematic, epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic error that Bourdieu subjects to methodological critique. Pascalian because he, too, was (...) concerned with symbolic power, he refused the temptation of foundationalist thinking, attended to 'ordinary people', and was determined to seek the reason for seemingly illogical behavior rather than simply condemning it. Bourdieu charts a negative philosophy, whose intellectual debt to such other 'heretical' philosophers as Wittgenstein, Austin, Dewey, and Peirce, renews traditional questioning of concepts of violence, power, time, history, the universal, and the purpose and direction of existence. (shrink)

This work by Pierre Bourdieu develops the anthropological theory which has formed the basis of his scientific research. It discusses the problems posed by "structuralist" philosophers in order to solve or dissolve them.

The authors develop an analysis of education. They show how education carries an essentially arbitrary cultural scheme which is actually based on power. More widely, the reproduction of culture through education is shown to play a key part in the reproduction of the whole social system.

Les émotions ont un rôle important dans nos interactions sociales. Sans émotions, nous avons du mal à faire des choix. Quand notre environnement déçoit nos attentes de manière répétée, nos émotions nous signalent qu'il serait rationnel de changer nos attentes, c'est-à-dire de procéder à des révisions. Le partage des émotions, qui est la clé de notre sentiment d'appartenance à une communauté, nous amène à révéler nos valeurs, parce qu'il permet de résister face à un monde décevant. Si même une fois (...) révisées nos croyances, nos émotions se maintiennent, elles manifestent alors des attentes bien enracinées, qui sont nos valeurs réelles. Pour étudier les valeurs collectives, il faut donc étudier les émotions, la manière dont elles incitent à des révisions, et comment leur partage collectif renforce nos résistances. La rationalité morale s'appuie sur les émotions. Celles-ci sont sensibles aux détails des situations, et cette rationalité dépend des contextes, si bien qu'elle propose des arguments qui restent révisables quand le contexte change. Ne résistent à toute révision que nos sentiments d'injustice. L'originalité de ce livre est donc d'étudier les émotions et les valeurs, individuelles et collectives, dans la dynamique de leurs changements, de leurs révisions et de leurs résistances, et d'utiliser ce lien entre émotions et révisions pour mieux définir la spécificité d'une rationalité morale. (shrink)

Replete with madwomen, murderers, musicians, and mystics, "Lonely Woman" dramatically interweaves the lives of five women. It remains Takako Takahashi's most sustained and multifaceted fictional realization of her concept of "loneliness.".

Over the last four decades, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu produced one of the most imaginative and subtle bodies of social theory of the postwar era. When he died two years ago, he was considered to be a thinker on a par with Foucault, Barthes, and Lacan--a public intellectual as influential to his generation as Sartre was to his. Science of Science and Reflexivity will be welcomed as a companion volume to Bourdieu's now seminal An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (...) . In this posthumous work, Bourdieu declares that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research--that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit. Science thus endangered can become detrimental to mankind. The line between pure and applied science, therefore, must be subjected to intense theoretical scrutiny. Bourdieu's goals in Science of Science and Reflexivity are to identify the social conditions in which science develops in order to reclaim its objectivity and to rescue it from relativism and the forces that might exploit it. In the grand tradition of scientific reflections on science, Bourdieu provides a sociological analysis of the discipline as something capable of producing transhistorical truths he presents an incisive critique of the main currents in the study of science throughout the past half century and he offers a spirited defense of science against encroaching political and economic forces. A masterful summation of the principles underlying Bourdieu's oeuvre and a memoir of his own scientific journey, Science of Science and Reflexivity is a capstone to one of the most important and prodigious careers in the field of sociology. (shrink)

A lot of attention has been devoted to the study of discoveries in high energy physics, but less on measurements aiming at improving an existing theory like the standard model of particle physics, getting more precise values for the parameters of the theory or establishing relationships between them. This paper provides a detailed and critical study of how measurements are performed in recent HEP experiments, taking examples from differential cross section measurements with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. This study (...) will be used to provide an elucidation of the concept of event used in HEP, in order to determine what constitutes an observation and what does not. It will highlight the essential place taken by theory-ladenness in order to produce observational facts, and will show how uncertainty and sensitivity estimates constitute an operational approach to robustness, inside the practice of science, avoiding potential circularity problem traditionally implied by theory-ladenness. This is in contrast to robustness analyses typically considered in the literature. A careful analysis of systematic uncertainty estimates and of statistical tests used to set empirical conclusions from the observations will however demonstrate that quantitative statements obtained from these statistical tests cannot be more than simple guiding arguments for the production of knowledge, but do not determine it. This indicates that the frontier between theory and observation is blurry and that the dichotomy theory-experiment should be revised. (shrink)

Written with verve and intensity (and a good bit of wordplay), this is the long-awaited study of Flaubert and the modern literary field that constitutes the ...

Analysis of art, literature and aesthetics.

An English translation of Pierre Bayle's posthumous last book, Entretiens de Maxime et de Themiste (1707), in which Bayle defends his skeptical position on the problem of the evil. This book is often cited and attacked by G.W. Leibniz in his Theodicy (1710). Over one hundred pages of original philosophical and historical material introduce the translation, providing it with context and establishing the work's importance.

Johnson-Laird's mental models theory claims that reasoning is a semantic process of construction and manipulation of models in working memory of limited capacity. Accordingly, both a deduction and a given interpretation of a premise would be all the harder the higher the number of models they require. The purpose of the present experiment was twofold. First, it aimed to demonstrate that the interpretation of if...then conditional sentences in children (third, sixth, and ninth graders) evolves as a function of the number (...) of models the children can produce. We proposed a theory of conditional reasoning development that hypothesises a developmental trend of three successive levels of interpretations underlain by one, two, and then three models, i.e. conjunctive, biconditional, and conditional respectively. Second, we aimed to show that these different levels correlate with working memory capacities: the higher the working memory span, the higher the number of models underlying the conditional interpretation. These two hypotheses were verified, supporting the mental models theory. The results are compared with the rival theory of mental logic. (shrink)

Written by a contemporary of Marx and one of the most influential subversive critics of modern European society, this work (1840) has become a classic of political thought through its critique of private property as the essential institution of Western culture as well as the root of its problems.

Examining in detail the work of consecration carried out by elite education systems, Bourdieu analyzes the distinctive forms of power—political, intellectual, bureaucratic, and economic—by means of which contemporary societies are governed.

Recognized as a masterpiece of Nietzsche scholarship, NIETZSCHE AND THE VICIOUS CIRCLE is available here for the first time in English. Author Pierre Klossowski suggests that Nietzsche's ideas and beliefs did not stem from his personal pathology, but rather were applied in a pathological manner. Thereby Nietzsche's beliefs resonated dynamically and intellectually with his alternating lucidity and delirium.

Les études réunies ici témoignent de la découverte de la philosophie analytique par les philosophes français de l’après-guerre : dans les années 1950, Pierre Hadot fut en effet l’un des premiers à s’intéresser aux rapports entre logique et langage dans la pensée de Wittgenstein. Ces études pionnières sont suivies d’une lettre d’Elisabeth Anscombe à Pierre Hadot, et de la traduction d’un texte de Gottfried Gabriel sur la signification de la forme littéraire chez Wittgenstein.

In the 1920s, Carnap and Schlick both made an important use of definitions in their main publications: Schlick, in his Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (1918, 2nd ed. 1925) and Carnap in Der logische Aufbau der Welt (1928, mostly written by 1925). In this paper, we first provide an analysis of the kinds of definitions that are distinguished in these books and a few other papers, and we then propose a systematic comparison of Schlick’s and Carnap’s diverging conceptions of definitions in the 1920s, (...) relating them, in both cases, to their respective philosophical projects in the Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre and in Der logische Aufbau der Welt. (shrink)

Pierre André,Michel Bourban | : Dans un contexte d’urgence, les philosophes ne peuvent plus se contenter d’élaborer des théories idéales de la justice climatique fondées sur des motivations purement morales. Il est désormais nécessaire d’envisager des approches non idéales. Nous proposons ici de prendre au sérieux le problème de la motivation à l’action et nous mettons en avant certains motifs prudentiels pour lutter contre le changement climatique, en vue non pas de remplacer, mais de renforcer les motivations morales existantes, (...) mais insuffisantes. Nous commençons par présenter trois grandes approches idéales qui ont prévalu jusqu’ici dans la recherche sur la justice climatique et sont fondées respectivement sur l’éthique déontologique, sur l’éthique des vertus et sur l’utilitarisme. Nous mettons en évidence leurs limites pratiques, en ciblant le problème de la motivation à l’action. Nous proposons ensuite quelques pistes pour résoudre ce problème en esquissant une approche non idéale de la justice climatique. Cette approche est centrée sur les motivations amorales ressortant de l’examen attentif des perturbations systémiques globales et des contextes nationaux et locaux spécifiques. Elle est à notre sens incontournable pour motiver les États-nations, les entreprises et les individus. Il s’agit cependant moins de la substituer totalement aux théories idéales de la justice climatique que de compléter celles-ci pour établir une vision plus compréhensive qui distingue le problème de la justification morale de celui de la motivation. | : In a situation of urgency, philosophers can no longer rely exclusively on ideal theories of climate justice grounded on purely moral motives. It has become necessary to build nonideal approaches. We propose to give serious consideration to the problem of motivation to act by putting forward some prudential reasons for tackling climate change—with the aim not of replacing existing but inadequate moral motivations, but of strengthening them. First, we identify three major ideal approaches that have so far prevailed in climate justice research, grounded respectively on deontological ethics, on virtue ethics, and on utilitarianism. We highlight their practical limitations, particularly with regards to the problem of motivation to act. Second, we open the way for an alternative nonideal approach to climate justice based on amoral motivations issuing from a careful examination of global systemic disruptions as well as of specific national and local situations. This approach cannot be ignored if one wishes to motivate nation-states, corporations, and individuals to act. However, our goal is not to replace ideal theory with nonideal theory, but rather to complete the former with the latter for a more comprehensive account of climate justice that distinguishes the problem of moral justification from the problem of motivation. (shrink)

Résumé De la fondation de l’INRA en 1946 à la loi sur l’élevage de 1966, la génétique animale française vit une période d’une exceptionnelle intensité, qui la fait passer de la marge de la recherche nationale à une position de carrefour entre science, société et politiques agricoles. Les archives et la mémoire des acteurs de la recherche et de l’appui technique mettent en lumière cette histoire : la fabrique d’une véritable économie politique du cheptel, marquée au sceau de la rationalisation (...) des bioressources, dans une dynamique hybride de biosciences appliquées, de « politique des grands nombres » et d’imaginaire du « progrès ». Une analyse diachronique en termes d’économie de la connaissance offre un récit intégrateur de la modernisation agricole dans ses dimensions biologique, sociale, technique et politique, en en restituant la conflictualité interne, mais également le rôle insoupçonné dans l’émergence d’une réflexivité critique au sein même du dispositif génétique. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to study complex ecological models exhibiting simple dynamics. We consider large scale systems which can be decomposed into weakly coupled subsystems. Perturbation Theory is used in order to get a reduced set of differential equations governing slow time varying global variables. As examples, we study the influence of the individual behaviour of animals in competition and predator-prey models. The animals are assumed to do many activities all day long such as searching for food of (...) different types. The degree of competition as well as the predation pressure are dependent upon these activities. Preys are more vulnerable when doing some activities during which they are very exposed to predators attacks rather than for others during which they are hidden. We study the effect of a change in the average individual behaviour of the animals on interspecific relationships. Computer simulations of the whole sets of equations are compared to simulations of the reduced sets of equations. (shrink)

In this chapter, I pursue two aims. Firstly, I propose an original survey and analysis of the way proponents of 4E cognition have until now defined the relations between normativity and cognitive science. A first distinction is made between making normativity an explanandum of 4E cognitive science, and turning normativity into a property or part of the explanantia of 4E cognitive science. Inside of the latter option, one must distinguish between methodological, ontological and semantic claims on the value of normativity (...) for studying and defining cognitive phenomena. The second aim of the paper consists in developing the further claim that normativity is an essential property of daily intentional concepts and of scientific concepts. I show how 4E cognition might further develop this latter claim in the context of recent debates about cognitive ontologies in neuroscience. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger's overt alliance with the Nazis and the specific relation between this alliance and his philosophical thought - the degree to which his concepts are linked to a thoroughly disreputable set of political beliefs - have been the topic of a storm of recent debate. Written ten years before this debate, this study by France's leading sociologist and cultural theorist is both a precursor of that debate and an analysis of the institutional mechanisms involved in the production of philosophical (...) discourse. Though Heidegger is aware of and acknowledges the legitimacy of purely philosophical issues (in his references to canonic authors, traditional problems, and respect for academic taboos), Bourdieu points out that the complexity and abstraction of Heidegger's philosophical discourse stems from its situation in the cultural field, where two social and intellentual dimensions - political thought and academic thought - intersect. Bourdieu concludes by suggesting that Heidegger should not be considered as a Nazi ideologist, that there is no place in Heidegger's philosophical ideas for a racist conception of the human being. Rather, he sees Heidegger's thought as a structural equivalent in the field of philosophy of the 'conservative revolution', of which nazism is but one manifestation. (shrink)

Ce livre présente la théorie anthropologique que Pierre Bourdieu a dû construire pour fonder sa recherche scientifique. Qu'il prenne à revers, pour mieux les résoudre ou les dissoudre, les problèmes que les philosophes " structuralistes " se sont posés, comme celui du " sujet " de l'action, ou qu'il mette à l'épreuve les analyses de Strawson, Austin, Wittgenstein, Kripke - ou des philosophes, classiques, délibérément convoqués à contre-emploi -, le sociologue, bien qu'il se défende de " faire le philosophe (...) ", traite de manière tout à fait nouvelle un certain nombre de questions philosophiques essentielles. (shrink)

We study one way in which stable phenomena can exist in an NIP theory. We start by defining a notion of ‘pure instability’ that we call ‘distality’ in which no such phenomenon occurs. O-minimal theories and the p-adics for example are distal. Next, we try to understand what happens when distality fails. Given a type p over a sufficiently saturated model, we extract, in some sense, the stable part of p and define a notion of stable independence which is implied (...) by non-forking and has bounded weight. (shrink)

Richard Popkin’s meticulous translation--the most complete since the eighteenth century--contains selections from thirty-nine articles, as well as from Bayle’s four Clarifications. The bulk of the major articles of philosophical and theological interest--those that influenced Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Voltaire and formed the basis for so many eighteenth-century discussions--are present, including David, Manicheans, Paulicians, Pyrrho, Rorarius, Simonides, Spinoza, and Zeno of Elea.

« La métaphysique d’Aristote n’est, au sens aristotélicien, dialectique et par là incapable de tout achèvement déductif, que parce qu’elle est une métaphysique du mouvement, c’est-à-dire de la scission. » Le propos de l’auteur est simple : sans vouloir rajouter et apporter du nouveau sur Aristote, il tente au contraire de désapprendre tout ce que la tradition a ajouté à l’aristotélisme primitif. Car l’aristotélisme que nous connaissons est surtout celui des commentateurs grecs. L’image ainsi révélée est celle d’un Aristote aporétique, (...) mais « cette voix qui parle est celle plus fraternelle qui continue de chercher en nous ce qu’est l’être et de se taire parfois ». (shrink)

" Faire d'Aristote un Aufklârer serait méconnaître ce qu'il y a en lui de religiosité authentique, cette intuition de la transcendance et du chorismos, qui sont la raison profonde de sa prudence spéculative. Faire d'Aristote un tragique serait méconnaître cette confiance en l'homme, en sa recherche et en son action, qui tranche sur les lamentations du chœur de la tragédie et sur une certaine résignation socratique et, avant la lettre, stoïcienne. Mais Aristote exalte l'homme sans le diviniser ; il en (...) fait le centre de son éthique, mais il sait que l'éthique n'est pas ce qu'il y a de plus haut, que Dieu est au-delà des catégories éthiques, ou plutôt que l'éthique se constitue dans la distance qui sépare l'homme de Dieu. Livré à ses seules forces par un Dieu trop lointain, qui est suffisamment visible pour être désiré, mais se tient trop à distance pour être possédé, l'homme est en butte, dans la région du monde qu'il habite, à un hasard qu'il ne peut entièrement dominer. Ou plutôt la vie de l'homme se meut entre deux hasards : le Hasard fondamental de la naissance, qui fait que la bonne nature n'est pas également partagée ; le hasard résiduel de l'action, qui fait que les résultats ne sont jamais tout à fait prévisibles. Mais le hasard de la naissance est le hasard résiduel de l'action divine, et la grandeur de l'homme consiste, en prolongeant par la prudence l'action d'une Providence défaillante, à reculer le plus possible les limites de l'imprévisible et de l'inhumain. " Pierre Aubenque. (shrink)