In epistemology and philosophy of science, there has been substantial debate about truth’s relation to understanding. “Non-factivists” hold that radical departures from the truth are not always barriers to understanding; “quasi-factivists” demur. The most discussed example concerns scientists’ use of idealizations in certain derivations of the ideal gas law from statistical mechanics. Yet, these discussions have suffered from confusions about the relevant science, as well as conceptual confusions. Addressing this example, we shall argue that the ideal gas law is best (...) interpreted as favoring non-factivism about understanding, but only after delving a bit deeper into the statistical mechanics that has informed these arguments and stating more precisely what non-factivism entails. Along the way, we indicate where earlier discussions have gone astray, and highlight how a naturalistic approach furnishes more nuanced normative theses about the interaction of rationality, understanding, and epistemic value. (shrink)

This research uses a normative approach to examine the relationship between basic income and migration. The decisive variable is the effect of labour automation, which increases economic insecurities globally, leaving some nation states in a position to cope with this and others not. The insecurities will increase migratory pressures on one hand but also justify the introduction of basic income on a nation state level on the other. The normative guideline is the republican conception of freedom as non-domination. This is (...) used to justify a basic income, analyse how labour automation creates dominating structures and how borders dominate migrants seeking to move to countries which introduce a basic income. The result is that nation states that introduce a basic income to counter internal domination through labour automation, also have to look outside of their nation state. The imposition of borders in order to keep a basic income sustainable as well as labour automation itself, establish a form of domination over less developed countries and thus demand international regulation. (shrink)

Born in Bolton on 13 July 1938, the son of a mill-worker, Martin William Doyle was educated at St Joseph's R.C. primary school and then, having obtained an academic scholarship, at Thornleigh Salesian College. He entered the Order of Friars Minor at the age of 16, made his solemn profession the day after his twenty-first birthday and was ordained to the priesthood on 16 July 1961, which required a dispensation in view of his young age. This was followed by (...) studies in Rome at the Athenaeum Antonianum, 1962-64, where Doyle trained as an ecclesiastical historian and where he received his doctorate summa cum laude, obtaining maximum possible marks.Inspired by Vatican Council II Doyle was at the forefront of the renewal... (shrink)

Après Condition de l'homme moderne et La crise de la culture, l'essai De la révolution (1963) est le troisième ouvrage d'une série dans laquelle Hannah Arendt expose le nouveau paradigme du politique qu'elle entend développer ainsi qu'un nouveau paradigme de la révolution. Dans un contexte de Guerre froide, elle propose de tirer les leçons de l'histoire en opposant ce qu'elle nomme le "désastre" de la Révolution française aux leçons d'une révolution supposée réussie, incarnée par la "Déclaration des droits" américaine. Les (...) contributions des historiens et philosophes réunies dans ce volume, analysent la manière dont Arendt instrumentalise l'histoire des Révolutions américaine et française et se détermine par rapport à la Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen. Elles étudient également la place qu'Arendt attribue au peuple au cours de ces processus et dans quel esprit elle se réfère, dans le dernier chapitre de son essai de 1963, aux "conseils" révolutionnaires. La formule arendtienne du "droit à avoir des droits" amorce-t-elle, comme certains le soutiennent aujourd'hui, un tournant politique dans la considération des droits de l'homme? Ne représente-t-elle pas plutôt une machine de guerre contre la notion même de droit naturel, qui se trouve au fondement de ces droits? Dès lors, que reste-t-il de l'idée d'humanité dans la perspective construite par Arendt?"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

L'appartenance religieuse est en Polynésie française un repère identitaire essentiel. Identités religieuse, familiale et insulaire étaient autrefois largement indissociables. Du fait de l'évolution économique et sociale et de la diversité des églises aujourd'hui représentées, cette combinaison est aujourd'hui plus incertaine, plus malléable. Dès lors, l'incorporation du christianisme aux cultures communautaires de Polynésie suppose une redéfinition, par les églises qui s'y engagent, des identités culturelles qu'elles entendent respecter. C'est en particulier le cas des deux églises historiques dominantes. La théologie de l'église (...) évangélique de Polynésie française tend à réinterpréter la culture ma'ohi pré-missionnaire comme une sorte de « christianisme primitif ». Quant à l'église catholique, en requalifiant des pratiques traditionnelles chinoises comme « culturelles », elle permet à la communauté chinoise de concilier christianisme et fidélité à la lignée ancestrale. (shrink)

Dans cet article, je discuterai de l’idée selon laquelle l’École polytechnique au xix e siècle ne permettait pas aux acteurs de réaliser des travaux mathématiques originaux. En fait, plusieurs historien⋅ne⋅s pensent que les programmes d’examens empêchaient les élèves et les enseignants de prendre des initiatives. J’essayerai de nuancer cette idée, en prenant en compte plusieurs exemples liés à l’enseignement des équations numériques au cours du xix e siècle. Plus précisément, je présente dans cet article trois théorèmes attribués à trois enseignants (...) de l’École polytechnique et qui ont circulé parmi les élèves de l’École et parmi des milieux d’enseignement. Ces exemples sont intéressants car ils donnent des informations à propos de l’École polytechnique et à propos de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage qui s’y pratiquaient. Ils permettent aussi de mieux connaître la façon dont la recherche de résultats mathématiques nouveaux pouvait, dans ce contexte,... (shrink)

Dans cet article, je discuterai de l’idée selon laquelle l’École polytechnique au xixe siècle ne permettait pas aux acteurs de réaliser des travaux mathématiques originaux. En fait, plusieurs historien⋅ne⋅s pensent que les programmes d’examens empêchaient les élèves et les enseignants de prendre des initiatives. J’essayerai de nuancer cette idée, en prenant en compte plusieurs exemples liés à l’enseignement des équations numériques au cours du xixe siècle. Plus précisément, je présente dans cet article trois théorèmes attribués à trois enseignants de l’École (...) polytechnique et qui ont circulé parmi les élèves de l’École et parmi des milieux d’enseignement. Ces exemples sont intéressants car ils donnent des informations à propos de l’École polytechnique et à propos de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage qui s’y pratiquaient. Ils permettent aussi de mieux connaître la façon dont la recherche de résultats mathématiques nouveaux pouvait, dans ce contexte, être liée à des activités pédagogiques et je vais expliquer comment ce lien a de nombreuses conséquences sur l’activité d’un enseignant comme Edmond Laguerre par exemple. (shrink)

In 2012, the international PISA survey reinforced the observation that the French educational system is one of the most unequal among OECD countries. The observation of serious inequalities in access to educational success for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds could lead to a pessimistic vision suggesting that any possibility of transformation of the system is doomed to failure. Thus, the fight against inequalities in access to educational success is a form of runaway object which constitutes a challenge for research which treats (...) the social context as evolving and susceptible to significant and novel transformations. Developmental work research aims to support the work of professionals in the re-elaboration of their practices by seeking to go beyond the status quo of an unequal school. Drawing on this framework within an institutional network of schools, we seek to show how the intervention has highlighted power issues inscribed in the structures and how the actors, through their commitment in the research collaborative process, seek to go beyond the power issues inscribed in their work routines and enacted during the research process by different kinds of antagonism. We will argue that the fight against educational inequality involves overcoming systemic power relations crystallized in institution. This systemic power is expressed by a form of episodic power. Our results show restrictive and constructive effect on the expansive learning process and on the construction of a collective in the formative interventions. The restrictive side of epistemic power should be linked to systemic power which is historically inherited. We discuss the results in the light of the emergence of a fourth generation of activity theory. Our research makes it possible to make conceptual and methodological progress in the construction of a fourth generation of activity theory by showing the need for analysis and expansively learn about problematic power relations in heterogeneous collectives. (shrink)

This essay examines the life and work of early socialist thinker Anna Doyle Wheeler, who, with the Owenite theorist William Thompson, was author of The Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretentions of the Other Half, Men... (1825). In analyzing her thought, I employ a typological model for the development of a feminist consciousness proposed by Michèle Riot-Sarcey and Eleni Varikas (1986). These authors posit three types of a feminist "pariah" consciousness: 1) exceptional woman feminism (...) 2) subversive feminism, and 3) collective feminism. Within this framework Anna Wheeler falls between positions one and two; she was an exceptional or token woman who nevertheless advocated subversive feminist doctrines of radical change, including calls for collective female action (in which she nonetheless did not participate). The essay ends with a discussion of Wheeler's relationship to William Thompson as example of woman's traditional access to philosophy, that is, through a male mentor. (shrink)

Generalising what is learned about one stimulus to other but perceptually related stimuli is a basic behavioural phenomenon. We evaluated whether a rule learning mechanism may serve to explain such generalisation. To this end, we assessed whether inference rules communicated through verbal instructions affect generalisation. Expectancy ratings, but not valence ratings, proved sensitive to this manipulation. In addition to revealing a role for inference rules in generalisation, our study has clinical implications as well. More specifically, we argue that targeting inference (...) rules might prove to be an effective strategy to affect the excessive generalisation that is often observed in psychopathology. (shrink)

Due to restrictions against the COVID-19 pandemic, spectators were not allowed to attend soccer matches at the end of the 2019/2020 season. Previous studies suggest that the absence of a home crowd changes the home field advantage in terms of match outcomes, offensive performance, and referee decisions. However, because of the small sample sizes, these changes may be random rather than meaningful. To test this, we created 1,000,000 randomized samples from the previous four seasons with the exact same number of (...) matches played behind closed doors in Europe’s four most elite soccer leagues at the end of the 2019/2020 season. We found that across countries, performance indices and referee decisions indeed changed to the detriment of the home team beyond the level of chance. However, this overall pattern could be ascribed to specific countries. Most importantly, the proportion of points won by the home teams declined significantly only in Germany, which was accompanied by a meaningful increase in the proportion of goals scored by the away teams and the proportion of yellow cards given to the home teams. We conclude that the home field advantage may indeed be lost when spectators are absent. However, in future studies, more detailed behavioral analyses are needed to determine the robustness and the behavioral determinants of this phenomenon across leagues and countries. (shrink)

This essay examines the life and work of early socialist thinker Anna Doyle Wheeler, who, with the Owenite theorist William Thompson, was author of The Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretentions of the Other Half, Men …. In analyzing her thought, I employ a typological model for the development of a feminist consciousness proposed by Michèle Riot-Sarcey and Eleni Varikas. These authors posit three types of a feminist “pariah” consciousness: 1) exceptional woman feminism 2) (...) subversive feminism, and 3) collective feminism. Within this framework Anna Wheeler falls between positions one and two; she was an exceptional or token woman who nevertheless advocated subversive feminist doctrines of radical change, including calls for collective female action. The essay ends with a discussion of Wheeler's relationship to William Thompson as example of woman's traditional access to philosophy, that is, through a male mentor. (shrink)

In 1984, Edward O. Wilson proposed the idea that natural selection has resulted in an adaptive love of life-forms and life—like processes ('biophilia') in humans. To date, the idea of biophilia has been viewed as an ultimate explanation of many conservation attitudes in humans. In this paper, we contend that environmental ethics has little to gain from the biophilia hypothesis. First, the notion is open to various and even conflicting interpretations. Second, the empirical findings that do seem to corroborate a (...) more well—defined version of the biophilia hypothesis can often be accounted for by alternative hypotheses. Third, the evolutionary reasoning behind the biophilia hypothesis tends to be unclear, and sometimes even inaccurate. (shrink)

Well-organized and highly readable Sex and Gender: The Human Experience provides a current, multicultural analysis of gender-related issues, theories, and research. The authors' clear presentation of the perspectives and issues related to sex and gender studies enables students to easily comprehend the material. Further, a highly practical approach prompts students to examine their self-awareness and social tolerance. Sex and Gender: The Human Experience is appropriate as a primary or supplementary text in Psychology, Family Studies, or Women's Studies curricula.

In 1984, Edward O. Wilson proposed the idea that natural selection has resulted in an adaptive love of life-forms and life-like processes in humans. To date, the idea of biophilia has been viewed as an ultimate explanation of many conservation attitudes in humans. In this paper, we contend that environmental ethics has little to gain from the biophilia hypothesis. First, the notion is open to various and even conflicting interpretations. Second, the empirical findings that do seem to corroborate a more (...) well-defined version of the biophilia hypothesis can often be accounted for by alternative hypotheses. Third, the evolutionary reasoning behind the biophilia hypothesis tends to be unclear, and sometimes even inaccurate. (shrink)

Résumé En prologue de cet article, nous rappelons les circonstances qui ont amené Jochen Hoock à contribuer à une nouvelle Histoire de Rouen. Il vise aussi à caractériser la spécificité de son approche par rapport à celle développée par Jean-Pierre Bardet dans la précédente Histoire de Rouen. Puis est envisagé, en deux temps, l’apport principal de l’auteur. Durant la première moitié du XVIIe siècle Rouen apparaît comme une grande ville marchande sous tension du fait notamment des guerres européennes. Les années (...) 1650-1700 sont marquées par des difficultés économiques liées à l’exacerbation des tensions religieuses avant que le commerce colonial et international serve d’appui à l’expansion industrielle des années 1680-1740. En conclusion, la démarche de Jochen Hoock paraît essentielle en ce qui concerne l’articulation entre commerce et industrie et aussi entre différents niveaux d’analyse, du local à l’international et au global. (shrink)

Temporal regularities in speech, such as interdependencies in the timing of speech events, are thought to scaffold early acquisition of the building blocks in speech. By providing on-line clues to the location and duration of upcoming syllables, temporal structure may aid segmentation and clustering of continuous speech into separable units. This hypothesis tacitly assumes that learners exploit predictability in the temporal structure of speech. Existing measures of speech timing tend to focus on first-order regularities among adjacent units, and are overly (...) sensitive to idiosyncrasies in the data they describe. Here, we compare several statistical methods on a sample of 18 languages, testing whether syllable occurrence is predictable over time. Rather than looking for differences between languages, we aim to find across languages (using clearly defined acoustic, rather than orthographic, measures), temporal predictability in the speech signal which could be exploited by a language learner. First, we analyse distributional regularities using two novel techniques: a Bayesian ideal learner analysis, and a simple distributional measure. Second, we model higher-order temporal structure—regularities arising in an ordered series of syllable timings—testing the hypothesis that non-adjacent temporal structures may explain the gap between subjectively-perceived temporal regularities, and the absence of universally-accepted lower-order objective measures. Together, our analyses provide limited evidence for predictability at different time scales, though higher-order predictability is difficult to reliably infer. We conclude that temporal predictability in speech may well arise from a combination of individually weak perceptual cues at multiple structural levels, but is challenging to pinpoint. (shrink)

The present article is published in Proche-Orient Chrétien, N.66, VOL.3-4, JAN. 2017, USJ: Beirut, pp. 425-430. It is a philosophical review of Philippe Capelle-Dumont and Yannick Courtel book “Religion et Liberté” that fetches the records of the First International Symposium of the Francophone Society of Philosophy of Religion about the two concepts Religion and Freedom. On one hand, religion has always been considered as a pole of practices and references contrary to freedom declining a dependence on a "binding doctrine"; (...) on the other hand, religion has undergone several political representations in the many spaces of cultural, social and international life which is urgent to re-examine. The article proposes a synthesis of the conferences of Philippe Capelle-Dumont, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean Greisch, Joseph O’Leary, François Chenet, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Francis Jacques, Pierluigi Valenza, Danielle Cohen-Levinas, Yannick Courtel and Jean Grondin who concludes with the “freedom to philosophize about religion”. (shrink)

Some self-knowledge must be arrived at by the subject herself, rather than being transmitted by another’s testimony. Yet in many cases the subject interacts with an expert in part because she is likely to have the relevant knowledge of their mind. This raises a question: what is the expert’s knowledge like that there are barriers to simply transmitting it by testimony? I argue that the expert’s knowledge is, in some circumstances, proleptic, referring to attitudes the subject would hold were she (...) to reflect in certain ways. The expert’s knowledge cannot be transmitted by testimony because self-knowledge cannot be proleptic. (shrink)

Warum besteht Nietzsche so sehr auf der Hässlichkeit von Sokrates? Ist er nur grundlos gemein, wie es so oft behaupter wurde? Wäre es nicht denkbar, dass die Physiologie der Kunst dieser Hässlichkeit einen tiefen philosophischen Sinn verleiht? Dies ungeheure Unschönheit ist ein Mittel, die stets unfassbare Figur von Sokrates zu erfassen. Aus diesser Hässlichkeit, und nach der Entschlüsselung seines lezten Wortes: "Oh Kriton, ich bin dem Asklepios einen Hahn schuldig", das auch Nietzsche so sinnvoll erschien, werden wir die doppelte Gestalt (...) - griechisch/antigriechisch - der philosophischen Figur von Sokrates untersuchen, um die Rolle, die er in dem Verfall der griechischen Kultur gespielt hat, zu verstchen.Why is it that Nietzche insists so much upon Socrates' ugliness? Is it simply gratuitous hatred, as has often been argued? Are there not good grounds to believe that the physiology of art endows this ugliness with profound philosophical meaning? Heavily emphasized, the latter constitutes a valuable tool with which to gain an understanding of the nature of the ever evasive character that Socrates represents. It is from this ugliness, then, and by deciphering his mysterious last words, "Oh Crito I owe Asclepius a cock", so rich in meaning in Nietzsche's eyes, that we shall analyse the double Greek/anti-Greek status of the philosophical character Socrates - and in doing so - shed some light upon the role that he played in the decline of Greek culture. (shrink)

Alors que le temps présent paraît marqué par une incertitude forte, voire croissante, comment trouver des prises sur ce qui est en devenir et qui pourrait composer le futur? Cette contribution propose de montrer que la science-fiction offre un matériau qui a aussi une pertinence et qui peut être travaillé pour être incorporé dans un processus de production de connaissance. Les textes de science-fiction peuvent en effet être pris à la fois comme un réservoir d’expériences de pensée et comme des (...) formes de problématisations. En s’appuyant sur un corpus de textes francophones et anglophones orientés vers un futur plus ou moins proche et généralement considérés comme porteurs de positions engagées, une première base de démonstration précisera d’abord l’appréhension réflexive qui peut être faite de la science-fiction au-delà de la forme culturelle et de son expression littéraire. Une seconde avancera ensuite une série de propositions méthodologiques pour saisir l’objet et pouvoir traduire cet imaginaire en prises expérimentales sur le futur. (shrink)

Alors que le temps présent paraît marqué par une incertitude forte, voire croissante, comment (re)trouver des prises sur ce qui est en devenir et qui pourrait composer le futur? Cette contribution propose de montrer que la science-fiction offre un matériau qui a aussi une pertinence et qui peut être travaillé pour être incorporé dans un processus de production de connaissance. Les textes de science-fiction peuvent en effet être pris à la fois comme un réservoir d’expériences de pensée et comme des (...) formes de problématisations (au sens de Michel Foucault). En s’appuyant sur un corpus de textes francophones et anglophones orientés vers un futur plus ou moins proche et généralement considérés comme porteurs de positions engagées (fiction spéculative, anticipation sociale, cyberpunk et postcyberpunk, biopunk, etc.), une première base de démonstration précisera d’abord l’appréhension réflexive qui peut être faite de la science-fiction au-delà de la forme culturelle et de son expression littéraire. Une seconde avancera ensuite une série de propositions méthodologiques pour saisir l’objet et pouvoir traduire cet imaginaire en prises expérimentales sur le futur. (shrink)

Optical distortions as a visual disturbance are inherent in many optical devices such as spectacles or virtual reality headsets. In such devices, distortions vary spatially across the visual field. In progressive addition lenses, for example, the left and right regions of the lens skew the peripheral parts of the wearers visual field in opposing directions. The human visual system adapts to homogeneous distortions and the respective aftereffects are transferred to non-retinotopic locations. This study investigates simultaneous adaptation to two opposing distortions (...) at different retinotopic locations. Two oppositely skewed natural image sequences were presented to 10 subjects as adaptation stimuli at two distinct locations in the visual field. To do so, subjects were instructed to keep fixation on a target. Eye tracking was used for gaze control. Change of perceived motion direction was measured in a direction identification task. The point of subjective equality, that is, the angle at which a group of coherently moving dots was perceived as moving horizontal, was determined for both retinal locations. The shift of perceived motion direction was evaluated by comparing PSE before and after adaptation. A significant shift at both retinal locations in the direction of the skew distortion of the corresponding adaptation stimulus is demonstrated. Consequently, parallel adaptation to two opposing distortions in a retinotopic reference frame was confirmed by this study. (shrink)