Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Le droit court derrière la "révolution numérique". Les algorithmes nous espionnent et restreignent les libertés publiques, ils calculent les indemnités au service des compagnies d'assurance. La diminution lente et continue des services chargés de veiller à l'application du droit affaiblit et parfois anéantit l'efficacité de ces lois. L'échec de la loi Hadopi est significatif à cet égard. Le mal est en fait bien plus profond et ne date pas d'hier. Nous vivons une époque de démolition des codes établis. Si le (...) droit est partout, en définitive il n'est nulle part... (shrink)

Valorising the biocultural heritage of common goods could enable peasant farmers to achieve socially and economically inclusive sustainability. Increasingly appreciated by consumers, peasant heritage products offer small farmers promising opportunities for economic, social and territorial development. Identifying the obstacles and levers of this complex, multi-scale and multi-stakeholder objective requires an integrative framework. We applied the panarchy conceptual framework to two cases of participatory research with small quinoa producers: a local fair in Chile and quinoa export production in Bolivia. In both (...) cases, the “commoning” process was crucial both to bring stakeholders together inside their communities and to gain outside recognition for their production and thus achieve social and economic inclusion. Despite the differences in scale, the local fair and the export market shared a similar marketing strategy based on short value chains promoting quality products with high identity value. In these dynamics of biocultural heritage valorisation, the panarchical approach revealed the central place as well as the vulnerability of the community territory. As a place of both anchoring and opening, the community territory is the privileged space where autonomous and consensual control over the governance of common biocultural resources can be exercised. (shrink)

Why is ordinary language vague? We argue that in contexts in which a cooperative speaker is not perfectly informed about the world, the use of vague expressions can offer an optimal tradeoff between truthfulness (Gricean Quality) and informativeness (Gricean Quantity). Focusing on expressions of approximation such as “around”, which are semantically vague, we show that they allow the speaker to convey indirect probabilistic information, in a way that can give the listener a more accurate representation of the information available to (...) the speaker than any more precise expression would (intervals of the form “between”). That is, vague sentences can be _more informative_ than their precise counterparts. We give a probabilistic treatment of the interpretation of “around”, and offer a model for the interpretation and use of “around”-statements within the Rational Speech Act (RSA) framework. In our account the shape of the speaker’s distribution matters in ways not predicted by the Lexical Uncertainty model standardly used in the RSA framework for vague predicates. We use our approach to draw further lessons concerning the semantic flexibility of vague expressions and their irreducibility to more precise meanings. (shrink)

Etudier le probleme de la personne, c'est s'interesser a un probleme qui traverse a peu pres tous les domaines de la philosophie, depuis la psychologie jusqu'a la theologie en passant par l'ethique et par le droit, mais dont le denominateur commun est la definition du soi-meme. Etudier ce probleme chez Maimonide, c'est voir comment un philosophe juif du Moyen-Age pouvait elaborer une representation coherente de l'homme en s'appuyant a la fois sur la pensee greco-arabe et sur la tradition hebraique. Ce (...) livre espere contribuer a une meilleure comprehension d'un philosophe dont on a trop souvent fragmente la pensee, apparemment dechiree entre des sources contradictoires. En fait, Maimonide a su developper un dialogue critique entre deux heritages qui demeurent aux fondements de la civilisation occidentale. C'est ce qui donne a sa pensee son caractere eminemment actuel. (shrink)

L’Introduction à l’analyse des lignes courbes algébriques de Gabriel Cramer, paru en 1750, a tout de suite bénéficié du soutien de D’Alembert qui l’a inclus dans les références bibliographiques de ses articles de mathématiques de l’Encyclopédie portant sur les courbes. Ainsi choisi et légitimé par l’entreprise encyclopédique et ses reprises, l’ouvrage de Cramer devient objet patrimonial au tournant du xixe siècle pour les mathématiciens, amateurs, professionnels ou enseignants qui travaillent sur les courbes algébriques. Le suivi sur le temps long des (...) mentions de l’Introduction dans les encyclopédies, dictionnaires ou histoires des mathématiques en langue française, ainsi que dans quelques textes d’enseignement, nous permettra de comprendre que ce processus de patrimonialisation n’induit pas sa conservation, sa protection, sa valorisation à de seules fins mémorielles, en figeant l’ouvrage dans un passé immuable. Au contraire, il permet une historicisation critique de la part des acteurs qui les met en position d’interroger et de réactualiser les connaissances et les pratiques que l’œuvre contient, au gré des mouvements d’émergence, de réorganisation et des spécialisations des savoirs mathématiques, quitte à en oublier certains aspects pour en mettre de nouveaux en valeur. (shrink)

Formal topology aims at developing general topology in intuitionistic and predicative mathematics. Many classical results of general topology have been already brought into the realm of constructive mathematics by using formal topology and also new light on basic topological notions was gained with this approach which allows distinction which are not expressible in classical topology. Here we give a systematic exposition of one of the main tools in formal topology: inductive generation. In fact, many formal topologies can be presented in (...) a predicative way by an inductive generation and thus their properties can be proved inductively. We show however that some natural complete Heyting algebra cannot be inductively defined. (shrink)

The paper is meant to be a contribution to the study of Indian and comparative ethics. It treats the Vajjālaggam, an anthology of Prākrit stanzas (subhāsita literature) dealing with a variety of topics. Focusing on the ‘ethical’ sections of the VL, it tries to describe and analyse its underlying ethical system. In Part I the different ethical themes of the VL (Valour and Destiny, Virtues and Vices, Masters and Servants, Friendship and Affection, Poverty and Charity) are described in detail. In (...) Part II it is shown that the VL. offers a clear example of a virtue ethic with a strong emphasis on self‐regarding virtues (gunas), based on a pluralistic and instrumental theory of the good. The paper also treats the crucial ethical problem of the relationship between personal well‐being and virtuousness as described in the VL. (shrink)

"Based on the reading of the only twelfth-century manuscript of the Enigma extant, Charleville MS. 114, and an examination of the fifteenth-century manuscript Uppsala C. 79." Revision of the editor's thesis, Catholic University of America, 1971, presented under title: The enigma fidei of William of Saint Thierry, a translation and commentary. Bibliography: p. 119-120.

The aim of this essay is to understand the relationship between knowledge and society and to reflect on the links between science and political decision making. The text evolved from a number of reflections the author made while president of the European Astronomical Society, president of the Swiss Academy of Sciences and vice-president of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC). The book starts by using astronomy as a showcase for what science brings to society in terms of intellectual enrichment, (...) of practical tools and of societal inputs. It then turns to looking generally at science as a human endeavour for which pleasure is a prime motivation and it describes the efforts made by researchers to rationalise their findings, thus making them universally acceptable. The author also describes the role of science in shaping our environment and discusses resulting responsibility of the scientists with respect to the evolution of the world. As part of an analysis of the relationship between science and policy the author describes the way in which scientists can (and must) bring knowledge in the political decision making process. The argument is closed with considerations on global governance, while the conclusion puts evidence based decision making processes in relation with the more emotional aspects of our behaviour. The readership of the book is intended to be all scientists involved in "science for policy" activities, as well as those who should become more active in this domain. This includes, but is not limited to, all members of science academies. Astronomers will find specific elements to help them think about their science. The intended readers of the book also include civil servants and policy makers who develop legislation and societal action in domains in which a solid knowledge base is important. The book should furthermore be of interest to citizens following public life and all those worried by the "post evidence" trends in policy. (shrink)

Objective: Body dissatisfaction is a major risk factor underlying vulnerability to eating disorders. Laboratory settings suggest that body dissatisfaction could be improved by using evaluative conditioning (EC). The present study evaluates the feasibility of using an EC app in everyday life and the effects of its use on body dissatisfaction. Method: We designed a game-like app inspired by the Therapeutic Evaluative Conditioning app. 60 participants were randomly assigned to two conditions. Participants in the EC condition had to pair photographs of (...) their own body with positive photographs, while participants in the neutral condition had to pair photographs of their own body with neutral photographs. We tested the effect of use of the app on body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, self-esteem, mood and eating behaviors. Results: Analysis revealed that participants in all conditions presented a significant decrease in body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. However, contrary to our hypothesis, these reductions were not greater in the EC condition than in the neutral condition. Conclusions: This is the first study to evaluate the effects of an app-based EC intervention targeting body image. Results appear to be promising and the app could easily be implemented in an ecological setting as it is a low effort, attractive and accessible intervention. However, these findings do not support the idea that evaluative conditioning is responsible for the effects. Results are discussed. (shrink)

Plusieurs de ceux qui présentent des problèmes de santé mentale se retrouvent dans le système judiciaire. Leur profil clinique se caractérise par une problématique complexe où se juxtaposent divers troubles ou déficits. Il n’est pas toujours facile de dépister ces personnes et d’intervenir auprès d’elles dans le cadre du processus judiciaire et pénal, qui n’est pas conçu pour répondre à leurs besoins cliniques. De son côté, le réseau de la santé et des services sociaux semble lui aussi peu adapté pour (...) intervenir auprès de cette clientèle marginale, souvent réfractaire à l’aide et parfois intimidante. Ces deux réseaux fonctionnent en parallèle, très peu familiers l’un de l’autre. Ils ont tendance à se renvoyer cette clientèle problématique. L’État doit s’assurer de soutenir et de coordonner des services qui peuvent rejoindre et aider ces personnes. (shrink)

This article compares four ways of thinking corporate responsibility. When corporate responsibility is defined by its function, firm’s moral obligations are limited to obligations imposed on it by its function, whatever its capacity (strict functionalism), or as far as it is compatible with its effective capacity (compatibilist functionalism). When corporate responsibility is defined by its capacity, firms’ moral obligations are limited to obligations which its power imposes on it, whatever its function (strict capacitarism), or insofar as it is compatible with (...) the respect of its specific function (compatibilist capacitarism). Due to the impossibility of perfectly aligning moral tasks with social tasks and of reducing all general obligations to specific obligations, capacitarism seems more convincing than functionalism. Because of the indispensability of a division of (moral) labor, compatibilist capacitarism seems more robust than strict capacitarism. (shrink)

This paper assesses the problem of the possible tension between development and environmental protection, especially for developing countries. Some leaders of these countries like Jacob Zuma claim for example that poor countries should only join the fight against climate change if it does not compromise their economic development, thus suggesting that environmental protection is more often than not an obstacle to economic development. I argue that this argument is if not misleading, at least incomplete because it does not take the (...) diversity of environmental protection seriously and reduces development to economic development. In fact, some aspects of environmental protection may clearly clash with some kinds of economic development. In that line, when countries are still very poor, their economic development should take priority over some ecological-friendly policies. But this is only one side of the truth. The other side of the truth is that some ecologically-friendly policies can also make poor countries richer, more democratic and fairer. (shrink)

Taking advantage of the fact that they need not replicate their DNA, terminally differentiated neurons only repair their expressed genes and largely dispense with the burden of removing damage from most of their genome. However, they may pay a heavy price for this laxity if unforeseen circumstances, such as a pathological condition like Alzheimer's disease, cause them to re‐enter the cell cycle. The lifetime accumulation of unrepaired lesions in the silent genes of neurons is likely to be significant and may (...) result in aborting the mitotic process and triggering cell death if the cells attempt to express these dormant genes and resume DNA replication. BioEssays 25:168–173, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Continuous sedation until death is an increasingly common practice in end-of-life care. However, it raises numerous medical, ethical, emotional and legal concerns, such as the reducing or removing of consciousness, the withholding of artificial nutrition and hydration, the proportionality of the sedation to the symptoms, its adequacy in actually relieving symptoms rather than simply giving onlookers the impression that the patient is undergoing a painless 'natural' death, and the perception that it may be functionally equivalent to euthanasia. This book brings (...) together contributions from clinicians, ethicists, lawyers and social scientists, and discusses guidelines as well as clinical, emotional and legal aspects of the practice. The chapters shine a critical spotlight on areas of concern and on the validity of the justifications given for the practice, including in particular the doctrine of double effect. (shrink)

The primary method by which science endeavors to order the world is the analytic approach, consistent with Cartesian principles of dividing the problem in as many sections as required for an optimal solution, and progressing from the simplest to the most complex reasoning. When the interactions among the various elements of the system being studied are minimal, such a procedure indeed makes it possible to formulate laws that describe chains of causality. However, when the variables are interdependent and linked by (...) non-linear equations, the atomistic method cannot account for the phenomenon in its entirety. Spurred by this inadequacy, scientists sought to discover synthetic methods which, early in the twentieth century, led to the conceptualization of holistic theories in a number of disciplines. The most highly developed fields are the psychology of form, structural anthropology (1), and the various systems theories (2). More recently, the development of epigenetic concepts in biology has corresponded to the appearance of different theories of pattern in physics and mathematics (3, 4) and to the progressive emergence of the concept of self-organization (5, 6, 7). The objective is to explain the production of complex structures on the basis of interacting elements, none of which contains a guiding scheme that dictates these structures. In biology, the challenge is to locate the constraints that are expressed in a space of possibilities (8) in order to develop a theory of organization that is capable of predicting the finite number of forms that living creatures can assume (9). This school of thought can be described as structuralist, emergentist, self-organizational, or epigeneticist, depending on the theoretical version that is emphasized. (shrink)

The romance customarily termed “classical” occupies a special place within Cambodian literature as a whole. The term betrays a certain Eurocentrism and is justified only because the written language of this type of text is neither the old Khmer of epigraphic inscriptions, nor modern Khmer, but the form of the language known as “middle Khmer,” which in theory designates the period from the fourteenth century through the end of the nineteenth century, and of which we have written records from the (...) eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in the romances as we know them. While these romances share one significant feature with Khmer literature as a whole, they are distinguished by other characteristics that are peculiar to them. (shrink)

Devenir borgne! Difficile de ne pas vivre ce handicap comme un drame. Sans la vision binoculaire et stéréoscopique, le réel semble n'avoir plus d'épaisseur. L'auteur rapporte ce qu'il a éprouvé au cours de sa prise en charge ophtalmologique et interroge en même temps les peintres malvoyants et les philosophes : qu'est-ce que voir? Le handicap visuel permettrait-il de dépasser l'ordinaire de la vision? Pour répondre à ces questions, Monet, Degas, Victor Brauner sont interpellés dans leurs oeuvres ou encore Bruegel et (...) Rembrandt, en même temps que sont convoqués Platon, Descartes, Alain, Merleau-Ponty ou encore James Joyce et William Blake, sans oublier les Évangiles. Les bien-voyants ne se rendent pas compte qu'ils sont condamnés à vivre la tyrannie du réel. Et si les yeux empêchaient de voir en vrai? Le genre humain n'a peut-être pas vocation à voir mais à entrevoir. Dans ces conditions, ne devrait-on pas considérer la malvoyance comme un atout? Ne serait-il pas temps de voir autrement qu'avec les yeux? Peut-être, alors, sentira-t-on la présence de l'Être émerger de la pénombre"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Thierry Meynard examines how the Jesuits in China came to understand the Confucian tradition, and how they offered the first complete translation of the Lunyu in the West, in the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus.

Cet ouvrage a pour enjeu de débattre du schéma théorique forgé par Alfred Schütz, promoteur de l'idée de sociologie phénoménologique (puisant son cadre analytique dans une lecture de la sociologie compréhensive weberienne, de la philosophie de la durée bergsonienne, et de la phénoménologie husserlienne). Les catégories princeps de la recherche sont dès lors celles de conscience, de temporalité et de signification. La structure phénoménologique de l'expérience sociale, l'essence de la compréhension intersubjective, les perspectives offertes par les tenants d'une sociologie formiste (...) en matière d'entendement de l'interaction, sont les thèmes majeurs de ce débat. Dans le cadre de cette lecture, Thierry Blin tente d'établir les principes d'une sociologie phénoménologique formiste ou structurale, permettant ainsi de fonder à nouveaux frais une sociologie de l'action. (shrink)

Depuis le début des années 1980, Georges Didi-Huberman, philosophe et historien de l'art, enseignant à l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris), s'attache à penser le devenir des images, et plus généralement le travail des formes, avec des outils théoriques empruntés à des champs de recherche multiples (philosophie, anthropologie, histoire de l'art, psychanalyse...) et pour des périodes historiques très diverses (Renaissance, XIXe siècle, art moderne, art contemporain...). La fécondité de cette pensée, la richesse des propositions théoriques qu'elle a su (...) inventer, en font aujourd'hui une référence majeure dans le champ de l'histoire et de la théorie de l'art. Ce volume propose un ensemble de lectures de cet être-devant-les-images, en explorant sa tonalité essentiellement heuristique. Il montre combien, ici, l'art et l'histoire trouvent des outils capables de les faire travailler ensemble. (shrink)

Presenting a series of historical portraits of Bantu, Thierry Secretan recounts his investigation into the compounds that housed the black labor of the gold mines of the Rand, around Johannesburg. The use of a « pass » to control the black miners prefigured the apartheid system. From 1904 to 1939,Alfred Martin Duggan-Cronin, an Irish guard at one of the compounds, began to photograph the different kind of people doing the hard labor in the mines. The results were some 7200 (...) exposures and working prints, on 13 /18 cm negatives. Hundreds of enlargements were exhibited from 1925 onward in a gallery in his own home in Kimberley. These photographs were rediscovered in 1998 by Thierry Secretan, who is still attempting to save them front slow destruction: they constitute an extraordinary catalogue of the Bantu cultures. (shrink)

The essential junkiness of our culture and biology.