En varios escritos de ciencias políticas, filosofía política, historia y antropología política, la cuestión de la visibilidad ha adquirido un lugar central dentro de los debates relativos a la ciudadanía multicultural. En estas páginas, trataré de esclarecer los procesos de construcción cultural que están en juego en el Caribe colombiano de hoy, a través del caso de Santa Marta, tomando prestado el modelo evolutivo de la ciudadanía propuesto por T.H. Marshall. En este modelo, la fase cultural resulta ser la última (...) de una cadena de reivindicaciones hacia un reconocimiento por parte del Estado-nación. Sin embargo, este marco sigue reproduciendo y obscureciendo una primacía fenomenológica inherente a la concepción derivada de la modernidad política, en donde el sentido de la vista – y el término resultante de “visibilidad”– se ha vuelto el único modo de categorización. En este artículo, se pretende demostrar cómo el caso de la producción de una forma de ciudadanía cultural por medio de “lo afro” en la ciudad de Santa Marta, interrumpe actualmente esta cadena fenomenológico-política, y nos faculta para imaginar otras modalidades sensoriales que lleguen a ser parte integrante de una práctica ciudadana “multicultural”. (shrink)

Human adults are thought to possess two dissociable systems to represent numbers: an approximate quantity system akin to a mental number line, and a verbal system capable of representing numbers exactly. Here, we study the interface between these two systems using an estimation task. Observers were asked to estimate the approximate numerosity of dot arrays. We show that, in the absence of calibration, estimates are largely inaccurate: responses increase monotonically with numerosity, but underestimate the actual numerosity. However, insertion of a (...) few inducer trials, in which participants are explicitly (and sometimes misleadingly) told that a given display contains 30 dots, is sufficient to calibrate their estimates on the whole range of stimuli. Based on these empirical results, we develop a model of the mapping between the numerical symbols and the representations of numerosity on the number line. (shrink)

Humans possess two nonverbal systems capable of representing numbers, both limited in their representational power: the first one represents numbers in an approximate fashion, and the second one conveys information about small numbers only. Conception of exact large numbers has therefore been thought to arise from the manipulation of exact numerical symbols. Here, we focus on two fundamental properties of the exact numbers as prerequisites to the concept of EXACT NUMBERS : the fact that all numbers can be generated by (...) a successor function and the fact that equality between numbers can be defined in an exact fashion. We discuss some recent findings assessing how speakers of Munduruc (an Amazonian language), and young Western children (3-4 years old) understand these fundamental properties of numbers. (shrink)

The French philosopher Renaud Barbaras remarked that late in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s career, “The phenomenology of perception fulfills itself as a philosophy of expression.” In _Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty: Aesthetics, Philosophy of Biology, and Ontology, _Véronique M. Fóti_ _addresses the guiding yet neglected theme of expression in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. She traces Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about how individuals express creative or artistic impulses through his three essays on aesthetics, his engagement with animality and the “new biology” in the second of his lecture courses (...) on nature of 1957–58, and in his late ontology, articulated in 1964 in the fragmentary text of _Le visible et l’invisible _. With the exception of a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s 1945 essay “Cezanne’s Doubt,” Fóti engages with Merleau-Ponty’s late and final thought, with close attention to both his scientific and philosophical interlocutors, especially the continental rationalists. Expression shows itself, in Merleau-Ponty’s thought, to be primordial, and this innate and fundamental nature of expression has implications for his understanding of artistic creation, science, and philosophy. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

Geometry defines entities that can be physically realized in space, and our knowledge of abstract geometry may therefore stem from our representations of the physical world. Here, we focus on Euclidean geometry, the geometry historically regarded as “natural”. We examine whether humans possess representations describing visual forms in the same way as Euclidean geometry – i.e., in terms of their shape and size. One hundred and twelve participants from the U.S. (age 3–34 years), and 25 participants from the Amazon (age (...) 5–67 years) were asked to locate geometric deviants in panels of 6 forms of variable orientation. Participants of all ages and from both cultures detected deviant forms defined in terms of shape or size, while only U.S. adults drew distinctions between mirror images (i.e. forms differing in “sense”). Moreover, irrelevant variations of sense did not disrupt the detection of a shape or size deviant, while irrelevant variations of shape or size did. At all ages and in both cultures, participants thus retained the same properties as Euclidean geometry in their analysis of visual forms, even in the absence of formal instruction in geometry. These findings show that representations of planar visual forms provide core intuitions on which humans’ knowledge in Euclidean geometry could possibly be grounded. (shrink)

This paper explores anthropomorphism in human-animal interactions from the theoretical perspectives of pragmatism and anthropology of communication. Its aim is to challenge the conception of anthropomorphism as the attribution/inference of human properties to a nonhuman animal, i.e. as a special case of the theory of mind, and to articulate and make plausible an alternative conception of anthropomorphism as a situated direct perception of human properties by someone who is engaged in a given situation, and let themselves be affected by the (...) animal. The paper offers an original perspective for in depth ethnographic and empirical studies of anthropomorphism-in-situation. Such studies could bring new insights in the study of how ordinary people make sense of animal’s behaviors in real-life situations. (shrink)

This article focuses on the training/operation course offered at the Nurse and Pediatric Nurse school of Montpellier University Hospital aiming to develop a training program based on a construction of learning through professional situations. Thinking differently the training system based on alternation between course and internship and questioning the meaning of professionalization is an opportunity to be seized in the context of health formations reengineering. In that respect, offering a dialectical-learning alternation in and through a situated and problematized activity is (...) a judicious perspective for Nurses and Pediatric Nurses training in order to give meaning to work-study by giving a real ambition for professional learning. (shrink)

Meu intuito é tecer algumas considerações sobre a descoberta e relação de Voltaire com o newtonianismo, e a partir daí refletir de maneira mais geral sobre as possibilidades da aproximação entre filosofia e ciência.

Geometry, etymologically the “science of measuring the Earth”, is a mathematical formalization of space. Just as formal concepts of number may be rooted in an evolutionary ancient system for perceiving numerical quantity, the fathers of geometry may have been inspired by their perception of space. Is the spatial content of formal Euclidean geometry universally present in the way humans perceive space, or is Euclidean geometry a mental construction, specific to those who have received appropriate instruction? The spatial content of the (...) formal theories of geometry may depart from spatial perception for two reasons: first, because in geometry, only some of the features of spatial figures are theoretically relevant; and second, because some geometric concepts go beyond any possible perceptual experience. Focusing in turn on these two aspects of geometry, we will present several lines of research on US adults and children from the age of three years, and participants from an Amazonian culture, the Mundurucu. Almost all the aspects of geometry tested proved to be shared between these two cultures. Nevertheless, some aspects involve a process of mental construction where explicit instruction seem to play a role in the US, but that can still take place in the absence of instruction in geometry. (shrink)

Lors de la publication de sa thèse sur les collections complètes des Discours de Grégoire de Nazianze, en 1997, l'A. signalait que l'inventaire des colletions fourni était incomplet. Il publie donc, pour les autres témoins, une description correspondant à la classification utilisée dans sa thèse. Seuls les manuscrits conservés en Russie n'ont pu être accessibles.

Veronique Foti delves into the full range of Heideggerian texts to elaborate the problematics of historicity, language, and the structure of disclosure or "manifestation" in connection with the Herman poets whom Heidegger invoked along his path of thinking. Foti's reading of these ports is a probing inquiry into the aesthetic, ethical, and political implications of Heidegger's thought. She knows how technicity and poetizing are opposed yet brought together in Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology, how they are both politicized and linked with ethical (...) praxis, and how technicity, poetizing, and praxis cannot be dissevered from Heidegger's essential thinking. (shrink)

Veronique Foti delves into the full range of Heideggerian texts to elaborate the problematics of historicity, language, and the structure of disclosure or "manifestation" in connection with the Herman poets whom Heidegger invoked along his path of thinking. Foti’s reading of these ports (Morike, Trakl, Rilke, Holderlin, and Celan) is a probing inquiry into the aesthetic, ethical, and political implications of Heidegger’s thought. She knows how technicity (techne) and poetizing (poiesis) are opposed yet brought together in Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, how (...) they are both politicized and linked with ethical praxis, and how technicity, poetizing, and praxis cannot be dissevered from Heidegger’s essential thinking. (shrink)

Gallagher hardly refers to the central issue of the phenomenological reduction, and he perpetuates the historical blunder of Chisholm, misinterpreting Husserlian intentionality as linguistic intensionality. This misunderstanding opens the way to a “naturalization” of phenomenology, which misses the very method of the phenomenological reduction as well as the essential dimension of subjective lived experience.

This study is focused on an original conception of freedom essentially derived from the Stoics and St Paul: freedom as a use of the world. How Fénelon, when he quotes Paul’s phrase « those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them », associate it with the doctrine of pure love? His desire to interpret the Pauline idea in a mystical perspective threatens the possibility of answering it.

S'intéresser au concept de 'catégorie' dans la philosophie d'Aristote c'est se pencher sur l'un des objets qui a le plus suscité de commentaires depuis l'Antiquité jusqu'à la modernité récente -- de Porphyre à Derrida en passant par les stoïciens, Alexandre et les philosophes arabes. Loin d'être limitée au traité qui a porté ce titre ("Des catégories"), traité dont l'objet et le sens même font difficulté, la kategoria se situe à la croisée des divers champs de questionnements philosophiques aristotéliciens et des (...) enjeux de la physique, de la logique, de la dialectique et de la science 'première'. L'objet de ce volume est d'éclairer, à partir de quelques-unes des lectures actuelles et des grandes approches interprétatives, les difficultés majeures d'interprétation que le concept de 'catégorie' (kategoria) a posé à la tradition, ainsi que d'en renouveler la compréhension à même les textes." -- Back cover. (shrink)

DNA replication is both highly conserved and controlled. Problematic DNA replication can lead to genomic instability and therefore carcinogenesis. Numerous mechanisms work together to achieve this tight control and increasing evidence suggests that post‐translational modifications (phosphorylation, ubiquitination, SUMOylation) of DNA replication proteins play a pivotal role in this process. Here we discuss such modifications in the light of a recent article that describes a novel role for the deubiquitinase (DUB) USP7/HAUSP in the control of DNA replication. USP7 achieves this function (...) by an unusual and novel mechanism, namely deubiquitination of SUMOylated proteins at the replication fork, making USP7 also a SUMO DUB (SDUB). This work extends previous observations of increased levels of SUMO and low levels of ubiquitin at the on‐going replication fork. Here, we discuss this novel study, its contribution to the DNA replication and genomic stability field and what questions arise from this work. (shrink)

This paper aims to study the perception of color (representations, synesthesia, denominations, uses and classification) in specific writings such as recipe treatises written from 1520 to 1689. These treatises deal with the manufacture and stages of color in various objects (remedies, blushes and mainly gems). They reveals that color is not only an apparent surface but also a sensitive substance, in particular white and red colors. Although color is a principle of unity for diverse materials, it sometimes becomes contradictory when (...) it is associated with variable signified and signifiers, so that color also offers a play on naming: meaning is sometimes clear, sometimes obscure, and in any case mobile (azure, vermilion). The contemporary reader does not perceive color in the same way as the Renaissance craftsman. Finally, as a principle of classification, it shows an imbalance and hierarchy of colors which, while providing structure to recipes: it gives mainly a place of choice to red and its shades. (shrink)

Cet article a déjà paru dans la revue brésilienne Psicanàlise & Barroco em revista en juillet 2020. Nous remercions Véronique Verdier de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. Résumé : Cet article esquisse l'itinéraire de reconquête des rythmes de l'existence. Partant d'un constat, l'existence est en fait rythmée mais ces rythmes sont le plus souvent passivement subis et ne sont pas ceux choisis par le sujet, nous nous demandons comment retrouver une maîtrise de ces rythmes car cette maîtrise (...) est - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

[ Samuel Scheffler] Some egalitarian liberals have proposed a division of moral labour between social institutions and individual agents, but the division-of-labour metaphor has been understood in different ways. This paper aims to disentangle some of these different understandings, with an eye to clarifying the appeal of the egalitarian-liberal project and the challenges that it faces. The idea of a division of moral labour is best understood as the expression of a strategy for accommodating diverse values. It is not an (...) apology for economic self-interest or a device for justifying personal acquisitiveness. /// [Véronique Munoz-Dardé] Are there distinctively political values? Certain egalitarians seem to think that equality is one such value. Scheffler's contribution to the symposium seeks to articulate a division of moral labour between norms of personal morality and the principles of justice that regulate social institutions, and using this suggests that the egalitarian critique of Rawls can be deflected. In this paper, instead, I question the status of equality as an intrinsic value. I argue that an egalitarianism which focuses on the status of equality as valuable in itself embraces a theory of value with the worst elements of utilitarianism while leaving behind any of the intuitive appeal that utilitarianism has. In its place I press that we need a political conception of egalitarianism which stresses the role we engage beyond those found in the norms of personal morality. (shrink)

Des branches entières des mathématiques sont fondées sur des liens posés entre les nombres et l’espace : mesure de longueurs, définition de repères et de coordonnées, projection des nombres complexes sur le plan… Si les nombres complexes, comme l’utilisation de repères, sont apparus relativement récemment (vers le XVIIe siècle), la mesure des longueurs est en revanche un procédé très ancien, qui remonte au moins au 3e ou 4e millénaire av. J-C. Loin d’être fortuits, ces liens entre les nombres et l’espace (...) reflèteraient une intuition fondamentale, universelle, façonnée au cours des millénaires par la sélection naturelle, et qui aurait servi de guide et d’inspiration aux mathématiciens au fil des siècles. (shrink)

Compromises are arrived at when, in spite of the efforts of those participating to mediate and defend their position in a rationally acceptable manner, each remains with his judgment while, at the same time, a decision must be made without further delay. What this means is that the parties agree to an option about which they are not, in their heart of hearts, entirely convinced. This article examines the notion of moral compromise, concentrating thereby on the case of political praxis. (...) It asks whether, in view of the complexity and multiplicity of morally relevant decisions encountered in a pluralist society, it is at all realistic to expect much else from political institutions than what Rawls dismissively refers to as a modus vivendi and whether a conception of justice that is true or reasonable only given the reasonable pluralism of comprehensive doctrines is still a conception of justice, and not simply a compromise between the contending doctrines. (shrink)

We agree with Nuñez that the Mundurucu do not master the formal propreties of number lines and logarithms, but as the term "intuition" implies, they spontaneously experience a logarithmic mapping of number to space as natural and "feeling right.".

After the ‘empirical turn’ in bioethics, few specific approaches have been developed for doing clinical ethics research in close connection with clinical decision-making on a daily basis. In this paper we describe the ‘committed researcher’ approach to research in clinical ethics that we have developed over the years. After comparing it to two similar research methodological approaches, the ‘embedded researcher’ and ‘deliberative engagement’, we highlight its main features: it is patient-oriented, it is implemented by collegial and multidisciplinary teams, it uses (...) an ethical grid to build the interview guide, and it is geared towards bringing the results to bear on the public debate surrounding the issue at stake. Finally, we position our methodological approach with respect to the ‘is vs. ought’ distinction. We argue that our ‘commitment researcher’ approach to clinical ethics research takes concerned people’s life-building values as the main data, and compares them to the larger normative framework underlying the medical practice at stake. (shrink)

Clinical ethics has developed significantly in Europe over the past 15 years and remains an evolving process. While sharing our experiences in different European settings, we were surprised to discover marked differences in our practice, especially regarding the position and role of patients. In this paper, we describe these differences, such as patient access to and participation or representation in ethics consults. We propose reasons to explain these differences, hypothesizing that they relate to the historic and sociocultural context of implementation (...) of clinical ethics consultation services (Cecs), as well as the initial aims for which each structure was established. Then, we analyse those differences with common ethical arguments arising in patient involvement. We conclude that there is no unique model of best practice for patient involvement in clinical ethics, as far as Cecs reflect on how to deal with the challenging ethical issues raised by patient role and position. (shrink)

A pilot center for clinical ethics in France opened with the establishment of the “Centre d'éthique clinique” at Cochin Hospital in Paris, September 2002. Unlike the longer history in the United States of providing ethics consultation for ethical issues deriving from physician–patient interactions, this center marks a new development in bringing clinical ethics to Europe.

An error that medicine has long shared is to attribute to a desire or an effect of the mother’s imagination during gestation, the deformities, growths or spots that a child bears at birth. The imagination would be capable of imprinting external modifications on a matter and would have an impact on the perceptions and sensory development of the fetus. Returning briefly to the genealogy and posterity of the topos, this article focuses on the successes and refutations of the Malebranchist paradigm (...) in the 18th century, through a corpus of medical popularization texts where the debates oppose the supporters of the imagination for whom emotion alters the organs of the fetus and the detractors of this thesis who only see it as prejudice. Mechanistic systems had in common that they avoided the soul to explain life. Although each era has its hermeneutic system of representations, and that medicine—closely dependent on the philosophical and moral conceptions of its time—is also a cultural production, it is nevertheless not uninteresting to question on the fortune of a motive and the scientific topicality of the question. What does the baby perceive in utero? Does he feel his mother’s pain? If so, what is the biological impact? To what extent can the maternal imagination and experience mark the child’s body? Informed by functional imaging technologies, recent research returns to the symbiotic link of mother-fetus interactions. Convergences appear between this 18th century and our 21st century. In no case did we want to contrast today’s scientists who are firmly in touch with reality and their predecessors who are prey to imagination. Science, whatever the era, always feeds on imagination. (shrink)

En septembre 2021 s’est tenu à Fribourg, en Suisse, le XVIe colloque du CIERGA, plusieurs fois reporté en raison de la pandémie. Comme toujours, c’est l’équipe locale prenant en charge l’organisation qui a donné l’impulsion de la thématique choisie. Or, depuis plusieurs années désormais, l’université de Fribourg accueille le projet européen Locus Ludi. The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity, sous la direction de Véronique Dasen. Ce projet ambitieux envisage toutes les di...