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)

« 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)

We propose a modular ontology of the dynamic features of reality. This amounts, on the one hand, to a purely spatial ontology supporting snapshot views of the world at successive instants of time and, on the other hand, to a purely spatiotemporal ontology of change and process. We argue that dynamic spatial ontology must combine these two distinct types of inventory of the entities and relationships in reality, and we provide characterizations of spatiotemporal reasoning in the light of the interconnections (...) between them. (shrink)

We propose that the isomorphism generally observed between the representations composing our momentary phenomenal experience and the structure of the world is the end-product of a progressive organization that emerges thanks to elementary associative processes that take our conscious representations themselves as the stuff on which they operate, a thesis that we summarize in the concept of Self-Organizing Consciousness (SOC). Key Words: Associative learning; automatism; consciousness; development; implicit learning; incubation; language; mental representation; perception; phenomenal experience.

Are conspiracy theory beliefs pathological? That depends on what is meant by "pathological." This paper begins by unpacking that ill-defined and value-laden term before making the case that widespread conspiracy theory belief should not be conceptualized through the “othering’ perspective of individual psychopathology. In doing so, it adopts a phenomenological perspective to argue that conspiracy theory beliefs can be reliably distinguished from paranoid delusions based on falsity, belief conviction, idiosyncrasy, and self-referentiality. A socio-epistemic model is then presented that characterizes the (...) broader phenomenon of conspiracy theory belief as a product of a sick society plagued by epistemic mistrust and vulnerability to misinformation that is ubiquitous in today’s post-truth world. Finally, it is proposed that for individuals, the harmfulness of conspiracy theory belief is less related to belief content as it is to belief conviction and degree of self-relevant consequentiality. Staging conspiracy theory belief in terms of ideological commitment offers a conceptual framework to estimate behavioral risks and test hypotheses about the effectiveness of interventions along a continuum of belief conviction and associated socio-epistemic dynamics. Interventions should target not only individuals, but the dysfunctional social conditions that give rise to the pervasive and enduring phenomenon of conspiracy theory belief. (shrink)

In this article, we develop tame topology over dp-minimal structures equipped with definable uniformities satisfying certain assumptions. Our assumptions are enough to ensure that definable sets are tame: there is a good notion of dimension on definable sets, definable functions are almost everywhere continuous, and definable sets are finite unions of graphs of definable continuous “multivalued functions.” This generalizes known statements about weakly o-minimal, C-minimal, and P-minimal theories.

In mass democracies, voting—in elections or referendums—is the main way in which most citizens can publicly express their political preferences. And yet this means of expression is sometimes perceived by them as highly frustrating, partly because it does not allow for much expression. Dominant voting methods lead to a reduction of options, pressure citizens to vote tactically at the cost of expressing their genuine preferences, and fail to convey what they really think about different candidates, parties, or options. Yet citizens (...) do not merely have a right to vote; they have a more fundamental right to political expression from which one can derive a right to a voting method that offers the most opportunities for expression among those satisfying other important requirements. The aim of this article is therefore to add this consideration about the importance of political expression to debates about voting methods that have mainly been conducted from the perspective of social choice theory. To illustrate what is at stake, it introduces evaluative voting methods (allowing voters to grade all of the candidates, parties, or options) as a promising way of honoring the right to political expression without jeopardizing other important properties of voting methods. (shrink)

We prove in particular that, in a large class of dp-minimal theories including the p-adics, definable types are dense amongst nonforking types.

Résumé La localisation des implantations des grands éléments d’infrastructure collective pose des problèmes de légitimation juridique spécifique. Ils délimitent en effet plusieurs territoires distincts en fonction de la nature des impacts qu’ils provoquent, lesquels, chacun, sont soumis à leurs propres législations et rentrent dans les compétences d’autorités différentes, y compris celle dont dépend la décision sur l’infrastructure envisagée. De telles situations normatives complexes empêchent la sémantisation légitimante que le droit est censé assurer dans les décisions de l’appareil étatique: elle sera (...) toujours partielle, voire lacunaire. Les compensations ne peuvent être que procédurales, et celles-ci sont insuffisantes à atteindre l’idéal postulé par le principe de légalité des activités publiques. Mais il ne peut en aller autrement pour ces infrastructures. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Hippocrates With and Against Philosophy Alexandrian Medicine and the Hellenistic Philosophical Schools The Theoretical Audacity of the Medical Schools Medicine and Skepticism Ethics and Medicine Bibliography.

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)

I propose a systematic survey of the various attitudes proponents of enaction (or enactivism) entertained or are entertaining towards representationalism and towards the use of the concept “mental representation” in cognitive science. For the sake of clarity, a set of distinctions between different varieties of representationalism and anti-representationalism are presented. I also recapitulate and discuss some anti-representationalist trends and strategies one can find the enactive literature, before focusing on some possible limitations of eliminativist versions of enactive anti-representationalism. These limitations are (...) here taken as opportunities for reflecting on the fate of enactivism in its relations with representationalism and anti-representationalism. (shrink)

Bayes’ inference cannot reliably account for uncertainty in mental processes. The reason is that Bayes’ inference is based on the assumption that the order in which the relevant features are evaluated is indifferent, which is not the case in most of mental processes. Instead of Bayes’ rule, a more general, probabilistic rule of inference capable of accounting for these order effects is established. This new rule of inference can be used to improve the current Bayesian models of cognition. Moreover, it (...) should play an essential role in the search for artificial emotional intelligence. (shrink)

"What is at stake in this book is nothing less than a dramatically new way of approaching literature, one which in its unostentatious, low key way scandalously smashes a whole range of liberal humanist icons." --Terry Eagleton Who is more important: the reader, or the writer? Originally published in French in 1966, Pierre Macherey's first and most famous work, A Theory of Literary Production dared to challenge perceived wisdom, and quickly established him as a pivotal figure in literary theory. (...) In this provocative work, Macherey puts the focus as much on the reader as the writer, stating that the very act of reading is a form of production in its own right, generating interpretation and meanings which are beyond the control of the author. Part of the birth of a whole new branch of post-structuralist theory, Macherey's work also influenced a new generation of critics among them Jacques Derrida, his contemporary, and Terry Eagleton. His ideas have also led some observers to claim that he announced the death of the author fully two years before Roland Barthes' famous essay. The reissue of this work as a Routledge Classic brings some radical ideas to a new audience, and argues persuasively for a totally new way of reading. As such, it is an essential work for anyone interested in the development of literary theory. (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 lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Haiti Can't BreatheNéhémy Pierre-Dahomey (bio)Translated by David F. BellI'm not particularly familiar with recent politics in Haiti. Nor, as it were, with the contemporary history of the country. In some sense, the difference between recent politics and contemporary history is rather delicate. History would be the most profound social, political, and economic points of contention behind the daily lives of a population under siege. Not simply those talked (...) about while people travel in public transportation (Haitians talk a lot while in public transportation), but also the interpretive matrices mobilized to speak about these problems. As for current events, they are the province of newspaper headlines, those front pages and editorial pages most often read and shared, the public opinion machine.Of course, a few snippets of news come to me: the rise of kidnapping, political instability, the opposition declaring that the presidential mandate has ended, a government sponsored referendum to change the constitution, upcoming elections. As I write this piece (summer 2021), armed banditry is rife in many working-class neighborhoods. There are victims by the dozens nearly every day.As I was asking myself how best to express the bicentennial dyspnea of the Haitian people, I learned about the assassination of the president of the Republic in his private residence.Haiti could not breathe. Now it is suffocating.I recently published a novel entitled Combats (March 2021) in which the characters live in a nineteenth-century rural setting. They experience the full force of the first consequences provoked by the infamous independence debt, well understood by Haitians and analyzed by international specialists such as David Graeber and Thomas Piketty.After its independence in 1804, Haiti was not accepted into the concert of nations. The country, founded by hordes of previously enslaved Blacks and by freed Mulattos, was a bad example, a model not to be emulated so geographically near a slave society, the United States, and the Antilles belonging to France. No economic power, that is, no white country defining itself as such, recognized the independence of the new Black, abolitionist, and egalitarian population. The isolation of Haiti thus began at the very moment of its foundation. [End Page 165]In a vain attempt to escape the embargo and to construct a collective destiny at the international level, Haiti accepted a colossal debt imposed on it by France. Charles X, king of France and Navarre, forced Jean-Pierre Boyer, supreme leader of the Haitian nation, to assume the responsibility for a ransom of 120 million francs. The economist Thomas Piketty calculates that this was equivalent to 28 billion euros in today's currency. David Graeber, in his Debt: The First 500 Years, considers it to be the most egregious debt in history. In truth, for Haitians, this strange transaction consisted in buying lands they had already conquered in their independence struggle, having taken them from the previous colonial settlers representing the French state.Since the previously emancipated ancestors were considered the colonial settlers' property, Haitians, under threat from the French army, assumed the weight of this debt, which really consisted in purchasing—from their previous torturers—their very persons and those of their grandparents. In other words, after the war of independence, begun by Black Maroons as soon as they arrived on the island of Haiti, pursued by Toussaint Louverture against slavery, brought successfully to a conclusion by Jean Jacques Dessalines through victorious military battles (November 1803 at Vertières, for example), after this long road toward emancipation, France, supported by all the foreign powers of the period, extracted from Haiti recognition of the debt in 1826, that is, during the first half of the nineteenth century, at the very moment when the independent countries of the world were beginning to undergo a massive industrialization.Haiti clearly missed out on this entrance into the industrial age of the steam engine. It remained an "essentially agricultural" country because every year it had to pay debt service—including interest—every year until the second half of the 20th century!Like many others I saw the images of the white man, Derek Chauvin, resting his knee on George Floyd's neck for eight... (shrink)

La formule célèbre d’Aristote « la nature ne fait rien en vain », telle qu’elle est utilisée dans le traité sur la Locomotion des animaux, invite à reformuler le problème général du finalisme en zoologie et de la conformité à la nature. Bien que cette formule, en première approche, semble aller dans le sens d’une téléologie cosmique ou globale, elle conduit en fait à privilégier une téléologie relative, c’est-à-dire locale, qui opère à l’échelle des êtres vivants. Elle s’applique en effet, (...) non pas de manière absolue, mais relativement aux possibilités définies par la nature de l’espèce (propriétés spécifiques et génériques). Toutefois, elle n’exprime pas seulement le rapport à la finalité organique stricto sensu, mais aussi les conditions nécessaires externes du mouvement animal, conditions qui définissent, pour les espèces et les genres, un régime commun d’organisation. (shrink)

I present and defend here a thesis named vehicleless externalism for conceptual mental episodes. According to it, the constitutive relations there are between the production of conceptual mental episodes by an individual and the inclusion of this individual in social discursive practices make it non-necessary to equate, even partially, conceptual mental episodes with the occurrence of physical events inside of that individual. Conceptual mental episodes do not have subpersonal vehicles; they have owners: persons in interpretational practices. That thesis is grounded (...) on inferentialism and on the endorsement of the idea that "meaning is normative". After having recapitulated this heritage and after having presented that thesis, the paper especially attempts to articulate how, in that framework, we may then positively conceive the relations there are between conceptual mental episodes, intracranial events and inferential behaviour. (shrink)

Qui fut Sören Kierkegaard, né le 5 mai 1813 à Copenhague, petit dernier de six frères et sœurs? Très marqué par l’influence de son père qui recherchait la vérité religieuse dans les voies les plus diverses, il eut d’abord une vie dissolue, et fut marqué par Mozart et Hegel. Ses fiançailles, à seulement 27 ans, eurent sur sa vie et sur son œuvre une influence considérable. Pierre Mesnard nous présente ce philosophe qui occupe dans l’histoire de la pensée occidentale (...) une position exceptionnelle. (shrink)

Que partageons nous en commun? Beaucoup de choses, à l'évidence, tant la cohabitation des hommes n'a jamais semblé aussi étroite: l'eau, l'espace, la ville, certes, mais plus profondément le désir de voir notre société s'épanouir, au bénéfice de tous, comme la promesse d'un plaisir, d'une chance... Pourtant notre idéal se révolte : dégradation des civilités, lieux publics maltraités, équilibres sociaux ou politiques saccagés... Le vivre-ensemble semble menacé par l'ignorance, la bêtise ou la cupidité; le trouble que fait naître le spectacle (...) d'une société en prise à l'injustice et au désarroi nous émeut. Le sentiment d'un monde déboussolé pose une question prégnante: que nous est-il donc arrivé? Pour tenter d'apporter des éléments de réponse, pour affronter la complexité d'un monde qui effraie et rebute, il y a peu d'outils : la philosophie en est un, qui permet de mettre en perspective les concepts épars qui tissent notre compréhension de ce vaste sujet. Dans cette perspective, Pierre-Olivier Monteil a choisi la formule de l'abécédaire, qui sous des apparences fragmentaires, relie par une discrète architecture les tenants essentiels du bien commun. À travers 42 concepts fondamentaux qui peuvent constituer les contours de cet espace informel (d'Amitié à Violence, en passant par Planète, Tolérance ou Liberté...), ce petit traité de philosophie entreprend une visite rafraîchissante des lieux-dits essentiels de notre vie partagée. (shrink)

Un citron, La Joconde et le Père Noël. Aucun de ces trois objets ne se trouve dans notre esprit, pourtant, nous parvenons à les concevoir. Comment ? Mobilisant les ressources du pragmatisme et de la philosophie des techniques, Pierre Steiner développe l’idée que nos pensées ne visent pas le monde mais y sont inscrites. -/- Les principales traditions philosophiques ont en commun le présupposé que l’esprit serait comme un archer qui aurait le pouvoir, par la pensée, de « viser (...) le monde », ce que l’on nomme « intentionnalité », et l’idée que les techniques ne sont que des applications de celle-ci. Contre ces présupposés, l’auteur propose une relecture critique de l’histoire de la philosophie ainsi qu’une reconsidération de la nature technique de notre intelligence. -/- Une pensée est un acte qui nous engage dans une situation et les concepts ne sont pas des représentations mais des techniques d’usage de signes. En dialoguant rigoureusement avec la phénoménologie et la philosophie analytique du langage et de l’esprit, mais aussi avec les sciences cognitives, Pierre Steiner combine dans cet ouvrage archéologie historique et discussion critique. Il aboutit à un positionnement radicalement nouveau. (shrink)

: John Stewart passed away earlier this year. In this tribute, I present some elements of his biography and of his main intellectual engagements. Keywords: Autopoiesis, cognitive science, ….

1 Analyse sociale de la connaissance et études de cas L’épistémologie sociale est un domaine de recherche en construction. L’usage généralisé de cette expression trouve son origine dans la philosophie analytique contemporaine, bien que des auteurs en sociologie des sciences puissent également l’utiliser. L’épistémologie sociale répond à une exigence d’utilité publique, à un souci d’application de la philosophie de la connaissance à des problèmes de société. Mais son développement répond égale...

This paper shows that the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt test of locality of correlations which was originally designed to be used with binary observables can actually be used for any couples of quantum-like bounded continuous observables, and then for any experimental situation describable within the mathematical framework of quantum theory.