What kind of relationship do we have with artificial beings (avatars, puppets, robots, etc.)? What does it mean to mirror ourselves in them, to perform them or to play trial identity games with them? Actor & Avatar addresses these questions from artistic and scholarly angles. Contributions on the making of »technical others« and philosophical reflections on artificial alterity are flanked by neuroscientific studies on different ways of perceiving living persons and artificial counterparts. The contributors have achieved a successful artistic-scientific (...) collaboration with extensive visual material. (shrink)

Critics have argued that human-controlled avatar interactions fail to facilitate the kinds of expressivity and social understanding afforded by our physical bodies. We identify three claims meant to justify the supposed expressive limits of avatar interactions compared to our physical interactions. First, “The Limited Expressivity Claim”: avatars have a more limited expressive range than our physical bodies. Second, “The Inputted Expressivity Claim”: any expressive avatarial behaviour must be deliberately inputted by the user. Third, “The Decoding Claim”: users must (...) infer or figure out the expressive meaning of human-controlled avatars’ behaviour through cognitively onerous processes. With the aim of critically assessing all three claims, we analyze data collected through observations of and interviews with expert players of the avatar-based video game League of Legends. Focusing on Daniel Stern’s (2010) notion of vitality, we analyze the participants’ descriptions of seeing and interacting with other avatars during performance. Our analysis shows that the informants experience human-based avatarial interactions as qualitatively different than interactions with bots, that the informants see the movements of other players’ avatars as having different expressive styles, and that the informants actively use and manipulate this avatarial expressivity during performance. The results of our analysis, we argue, provide reasons for loosening or resisting the three claims concerning the limits of avatarial expressivity. (shrink)

Multi-user online environments involve millions of participants world-wide. In these online communities participants can use their online personas – avatars – to chat, fight, make friends, have sex, kill monsters and even get married. Unfortunately participants can also use their avatars to stalk, kill, sexually assault, steal from and torture each other. Despite attempts to minimise the likelihood of interpersonal virtual harm, programmers cannot remove all possibility of online deviant behaviour. Participants are often greatly distressed when their avatars are harmed (...) by other participants’ malicious actions, yet there is a tendency in the literature on this topic to dismiss such distress as evidence of too great an involvement in and identification with the online character. In this paper I argue that this dismissal of virtual harm is based on a set of false assumptions about the nature of avatar attachment and its relation to genuine moral harm. I argue that we cannot dismiss avatar attachment as morally insignificant without being forced to also dismiss other, more acceptable, forms of attachment such as attachment to possessions, people and cultural objects and communities. Arguments against according moral significance to virtual harm fail because they do not reflect participants’ and programmers’ experiences and expectations of virtual communities and they have the unintended consequence of failing to grant significance to attachments that we take for granted, morally speaking. Avatar attachment is expressive of identity and self-conception and should therefore be accorded the moral significance we give to real-life attachments that play a similar role. (shrink)

"Avatar" and "Princess Mononoke" as representative of radically different positions in environmental ethics.

What is an avatar -- More than just another pretty face : the avatar effect -- Interview with the virtual cannibal -- Virtual presence -- X-reality, a conclusion.

Patient-derived xenografts are currently promoted as new translational models in precision oncology. PDXs are immunodeficient mice with human tumors that are used as surrogate models to represent specific types of cancer. By accounting for the genetic heterogeneity of cancer tumors, PDXs are hoped to provide more clinically relevant results in preclinical research. Further, in the function of so-called “mouse avatars”, PDXs are hoped to allow for patient-specific drug testing in real-time. This paper examines the circulation of knowledge and bodily material (...) across the species boundary of human and personalized mouse model, historically as well as in contemporary practices. PDXs raise interesting questions about the relation between animal model and human patient, and about the capacity of hybrid or interspecies models to close existing translational gaps. We highlight that the translational potential of PDXs not only depends on representational matching of model and target, but also on temporal alignment between model development and practical uses. Aside from the importance of ensuring temporal stability of human tumors in a murine body, the mouse avatar concept rests on the possibility of aligning the temporal horizons of the clinic and the lab. We examine strategies to address temporal challenges, including cryopreservation and biobanking, as well as attempts to speed up translation through modification and use of faster developing organisms. We discuss how featured model virtues change with precision oncology, and contend that temporality is a model feature that deserves more philosophical attention. (shrink)

Des premiers jeux vidéo aux jeux actuels, les interfaces numériques tout autant que les genres de jeux vidéo se sont diversifiés, multipliant les modalités d’identification du joueur et de manipulation des personnages . Intermédiaire entre le monde du joueur et le monde du jeu, l’avatar est devenu un dispositif complexe et hybride : les limites entre le joueur et le personnage tendent à s’atténuer. Afin de mettre en évidence les lignes directrices de cette évolution des avatars dans les jeux (...) vidéo, cette contribution, s’appuie sur un état de la recherche des travaux portant sur l’avatar et l’identification du joueur, et propose une typologie des avatars sous l’angle des moda- lités d’identification du joueur à son personnage : l’avatar-marionnette, l’avatar-masque et l’avatar-mouvement.Since the first video games, digital interfaces as well as video game genres have become greatly diversified, with many different methods for identifying with and manipulating game characters . The avatar, the intermediary between the world of the gamer and the world of the game itself, has become a complex, hybrid figure where the boundaries between player and character are increasingly blurred. To highlight the main trends in the changing figure of the avatar in video games, this paper draws on cur- rent research on avatars and player identification to put for- ward a typology based on different means used by players to identify with their characters: puppet avatars, mask avatars and motion-based avatars. (shrink)

Avatars will represent us online, in virtual worlds, and in technologically supported hybrid environments. We and our avatars will stand not in an identity relation but in a proxy relation, an arrangement that is significant not least because our proxies’ actions can be counted as our own. However, this proxy relation between humans and avatars is not well understood and its consequences under-explored. In this paper I explore the relation and its potential ethical consequences.

This chapter examines colonialism, how it functions, and what philosophers mean when they argue that a form of colonialism persists to this day. Franz Fanon discusses the most familiar and visible element of colonialism: direct military control of lands, resources, and peoples. For Fanon, the colonial world is split into two, one half being occupied by the colonized, the other by the colonizers. Avatar portrays this aspect of colonialism well, as Selfridge never engages with the Na'vi himself, preferring instead (...) to send Quaritch and his SecOp forces. Avatar's narrative shows the Na'vi as incapable of saving themselves: it takes Jake's knowledge, ingenuity, and bravery to convince them to form an effective plan of attack against the colonizing forces on Pandora. Despite the many negative characteristics of colonialism that Avatar helps us to identify and critique, by the end of the movie the specter of colonialism unfortunately still remains. (shrink)

A table of contents, in lieu of abstract -/- Foreword by Aaron Ehasz -/- Introduction: “We are all one people, but we live as if divided” Helen De Cruz and Johan De Smedt -/- Part I The Universe of Avatar: The Last Airbender -/- 1 Native Philosophies and Relationality in ATLA: It’s (Lion) Turtles All the Way Down Miranda Belarde-Lewis and Clementine Bordeaux 2 Getting Elemental: How Many Elements Are There in Avatar: The Last Airbender? Sofia Ortiz-Hinojosa 3 (...) The Personalities of Martial Arts in Avatar: The Last Airbender Zachary Isrow 4 The End of the World: Nationhood and Abolition in Avatar: The Last Airbender Nicholas Whittaker 5 The Bending World, a Bent World: Supernatural Power and Its Political Implications Yao Lin -/- Part II Water 6 Avatar: The Last Airbender and Anishinaabe Philosophy Brad Cloud 7 “Lemur!” – “Dinner!”: Human–Animal Relations in Avatar: The Last Airbender Daniel Wawrzyniak 8 On the Moral Neutrality of Bloodbending Johnathan Flowers 9 On the Ethics of Bloodbending: Why Is It So Wrong and Can It Ever Be Good? Mike Gregory 10 Mystical Rationality Isaac Wilhelm 11 “I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me”: Repairing the World Through Care Nicole Fice 12 Spirits, Visions, and Dreams: Native American Epistemology and the Aang Gang Justin Skirry and Samuel Skirry -/- Part III Earth 13 Time Is an Illusion: Time and Space in the Swamp Natalia Strok 14 There Is No Truth in Ba Sing Se: Bald-faced Lies and the Nature of Lying Nathan Kellen 15 The Rocky Terrain of Disability Gain in ATLA: Is Toph a Supercrip Stereotype or a Disability Pride Icon? Joseph A. Stramondo 16 The Earth King, Ignorance, and Responsibility Saba Fatima 17 The Middle Way and the Many Faces of Earth Thomas Arnold -/- Part IV Fire 18 The Battle Within: Confucianism and Legalism in the Nation, the Family, and the Soul Kody W. Cooper 19 Not Giving Up on Zuko: Relational Identity and the Stories We Tell Barrett Emerick and Audrey Yap 20 Uncle Iroh, from Fool to Sage – or Sage All Along? Eric Schwitzgebel and David Schwitzgebel 21 Being Bad at Being Good: Zuko’s Transformation and Residual Practical Identities Justin F. White 22 Compassion and Moral Responsibility in Avatar: The Last Airbender: “I was never angry; I was afraid that you had lost your way” Robert H. Wallace -/- Part V Air 23 The Fire Nation and the United States: Genocide as the Foundation for Empire Building Kerri J. Malloy 24 Anarchist Airbenders: On Anarchist Philosophy in ATLA Savriël Dillingh 25 A Buddhist Perspective on Energy Bending, Strength, and the Power of Aang's Spirit Nicholaos Jones and Holly Jones 26 Ahimsa and Aang’s Dilemma: “Everyone … [has] to be treated like they're worth giving a chance” James William Lincoln 27 The Avatar Meets the Karmapa: Interconnections, Friendship, and Moral Training Brett Patterson . (shrink)

Gilles Routhier | Résumé : En 1996, dressant un panorama de l’évolution des formes du discours chrétien, Christoph Theobald observait qu’avec Vatican II, l’Église catholique passait à une nouvelle étape, l’encyclique Humani generis (1950) marquant « la fin d’une époque de dogmatisation fondamentale ». Cinquante ans après Vatican II, on peut se demander si cette lecture, qui est tributaire d’une compréhension de la réception de Vatican II, tient toujours. En effet, on peut aujourd’hui observer des résurgences de formes anciennes du (...) discours chrétien montrant que les apprentissages proposés à l’Église catholique ne sont pas tous accomplis. Cet article, s’appuyant sur les analyses de Christoph Theobald, après avoir exposé les déplacements importants réalisés au moment de Vatican II et indiqué le « changement d’ordre » qu’il implique, montre que les évolutions proposées par le Concile n’ont pas toutes été reçues et que le modernisme connaît des avatars, au moins au jugement des dissidents intégristes, et que la crise moderniste continue en partie à définir la situation présente. Cela conduit l’auteur à conclure que la théologie doit reprendre ses travaux sur la tradition. |: In 1996, in a panorama of the evolution of forms of Christian discourse, Christoph Theobald observed that Vatican II opened a new era for the Catholic discourse, the encyclical Humani Generis (1950) marking “the end of a fundamental dogmatization time.” Fifty years after Vatican II, one may wonder if this interpretation, which is dependent on an understanding of the reception of Vatican II, still stands. Indeed, we can now see the resurgence of ancient forms of Christian discourse showing that what was proposed by the Council to the Catholic Church is far from being realised. The present article, based on the works of Christoph Theobald, describes the major shifts made at Vatican II and shows that the “change of order” introduced by the Council have not all been received and the modernist crisis continues partly to define the present situation. This leads to conclude that theology must resume his work on the tradition. (shrink)

Scholars have not reached an agreement on a theoretical foundation that underlies the psychological effects of avatar use on users. One group of scholars focuses on the perceptual nature of avatar use, proposing that perceiving the self-being represented by a virtual representation leads to the effects. Another group suggests that social traits in avatars prime users causing them to behave in accordance with the social traits. We combine these two theoretical explanations and present an alternative approach, hinging on (...) a concept of meta-cognitive experience. The psychological mechanism of the avatar-user bond is explicated in terms of cognitive fluency, a type of meta-cognitive experience reflecting an awareness of how readily or easily information is processed. Under this explication, two concepts related to avatar-user bond, identification and embodiment, are understood as the meta-cognitive experience of cognitive fluency at the level of one’s identity and physical body, respectively. Existing empirical evidence on avatar effects is revisited to explore how this new theoretical framework can be applied. (shrink)

Contemporary cultural and media studies have been increasingly interested in redefining the relations between religion and culture (and particularly popular culture). The present study approaches a series of theories on the manner in which religious aspects emerge and are integrated in contemporary cultural manifestations, focusing on the persistence/resurrection of religious patterns into secularized cultural contents. Thus, the analysis departs from the concept of implicit religion, coined and developed by Bailey and the theories following it, as well as other associated concepts, (...) influential for the evolution of debates in the recent period, such as invisible religion , as approached by Luckmann, civil religion , by Bellah, folk religion, residual religion , by Davies or ‘wild’ religion, by Borg. In order to discuss the relations between religion and popular culture in contemporary U.S. and particularly the presence of certain religious patterns in popular culture messages, symbolism and rituals, the study uses an interdisciplinary approach, based on approaches currently used in media studies, film studies, cultural studies, visual culture perspectives, religious studies, and sociology. The article discusses, through different theories (and in its second part, a case study on James Cameron’s cliché masterpiece Avatar) the manner in which contemporary popular culture (and cinema in particular) recycles, integrates and reinterprets religious patterns, symbols and behaviours. (shrink)

In this chapter, the author provides an alternative, Ojibwe‐centered lens through which to view the Avatar: The Last Airbender ( ATLA ) show, as well as explores the importance of non‐Western narratives for youth who come from non‐Western traditions by comparing the unique worldview and history presented in ATLA with an Anishinaabe worldview. Mary Makoons Geniusz defines Anishinaabe as “the self‐designation of several American Indian Peoples, including Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi”. A recurring theme in ATLA is the sense of (...) balance, spirituality, and interconnectedness in the world. Basil Johnston, an Ojibwe author, writes that, in an Ojibwe worldview, natural places like valleys, mountains, and woods each have a particular mood that reflects that location's “soul‐spirit”, the community of souls that reside there. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a heated debate about how to interpret findings that seem to show that humans rapidly and automatically calculate the visual perspectives of others. In the current study, we investigated the question of whether automatic interference effects found in the dot-perspective task (Samson, Apperly, Braithwaite, Andrews, & Bodley Scott, 2010) are the product of domain-specific perspective-taking processes or of domain-general “submentalizing” processes (Heyes, 2014). Previous attempts to address this question have done so by implementing inanimate (...) controls, such as arrows, as stimuli. The rationale for this is that submentalizing processes that respond to directionality should be engaged by such stimuli, whereas domain-specific perspective-taking mechanisms, if they exist, should not. These previous attempts have been limited, however, by the implied intentionality of the stimuli they have used (e.g. arrows), which may have invited participants to imbue them with perspectival agency. Drawing inspiration from “novel entity” paradigms from infant gaze-following research, we designed a version of the dot-perspective task that allowed us to precisely control whether a central stimulus was viewed as animate or inanimate. Across four experiments, we found no evidence that automatic “perspective-taking” effects in the dot-perspective task are modulated by beliefs about the animacy of the central stimulus. Our results also suggest that these effects may be due to the task-switching elements of the dot-perspective paradigm, rather than automatic directional orienting. Together, these results indicate that neither the perspective-taking nor the standard submentalizing interpretations of the dot-perspective task are fully correct. (shrink)

This study investigates how players make ethical decisions in Fable III, a video game, with consideration to avatar gender. Thirty males, 18 to 34 years old, were recruited; 20 were assigned to play Fable III, with half assigned to play as a male avatar (Condition 1), and half assigned as a female avatar (Condition 2). Any ethical thinking skills and thought processes used were identified using a researcher-developed coding scheme. Analysis suggests that all game players, regardless of (...) avatar gender, practiced ethical thinking—35 skills and 19 thought processes were identified and categorized. There were few differences found between conditions; however, when gender was a salient factor in a decision, this affected ethical decisions more frequently. Those in Condition 1 more frequently reported a personal connection to their avatar, and Condition 2 participants reported that gender factored into decisions more at the beginning of the game rather than at the end. (shrink)

James Cameron’s critically acclaimed movie Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards and received countless accolades for its breath-taking visuals and use of 3D technology. But beyond its cinematic splendour, can Avatar also offer us insights into business ethics, empathy, disability, and the relationship between mind and body? Can getting to know the Na’vi, an alien species, enlarge our vision and help us to “see” both our world and ourselves in new ways? Avatar and Philosophy is a (...) revealing journey through the world of Pandora and the huge range of philosophical themes raised by James Cameron’s groundbreaking film Explores philosophical issues such as religion, morality, aesthetics, empathy, identity, the relationship of mind and body, environmental and business ethics, technology, and just war theory Examines a wide range of topics from the blockbuster movie, including attitudes toward nature, our responsibilities to nonhuman species, colonialism, disability, and communitarian ethics Written by an esteemed group of philosophers who are avid fans of Avatar themselves Explains philosophical concepts in an enjoyable and accessible manner that will appeal to all levels of readers With a new trilogy of sequels now announced, this is the ideal entry point for understanding the world of Pandora for fans and newcomers alike. (shrink)

Are you prepared, either as an atheist or a religious believer, to have your ideas of God, the self, other people, the body, the soul, spirituality, and faith challenged in an unexpected and original way? Here is a book that moves out from under and away from the received notions of those ponderous topics, whether or not you believe in the divine. The author is a confessed atheist but one who rejects the approach of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Michel Onfray (...) and the rest when they depart from their justifiable criticisms of the historical record of the established creeds and endeavour to rubbish what faith could actually be. The book takes its origin from an exploration of the idea of an avatar; the writing of it was stimulated by seeing the Cameron film, though it subjects that film itself to an assessment of its hidden assumptions. The book finally arrives at specific recommendations for our time, ones to which the argument of the book has been directed throughout. (shrink)

In the last few years, avatars have been increasingly used in treating persistent persecutory auditory verbal hallucinations. The digital representation (an avatar) of persecutory hallucinations is voiced by the therapist and engages the patient in a dialogue, progressively conceding its power and, hence, reducing the stress experienced by the patient. Such attempts at integrating digital representations and cognitive behavior therapy raise a range of philosophical questions, which this chapter tackles along two trajectories. From an epistemological standpoint, we inquire what (...) notion of mental disorder can underlie the use of avatar therapy, and how our understanding of psychiatric diseases can be affected by the implementation of such a therapy. Relatedly, from an ethical standpoint, we reflect on some of the controversial issues posed by such therapeutic strategies. Discussing selected epistemological and ethical aspects stemming from the latest relevant literature both in philosophy and in psychiatry, the chapter aims to provide a tentative evaluation of trade-offs between the promises of and the limits to this therapeutic option. (shrink)

The Avatar: The Last Airbender ( ATLA ) series as a whole portrays Aang's journey from being a scared boy, who ran from his training, to becoming Avatar Aang, who is able to face Fire Lord Ozai. ATLA similarly emphasizes such connections in its portrait of Aang's quest, for his journey toward maturity draws on the work and play he shares with many others before the series comes to its conclusion. Ogyen Trinley Dorje expresses a similar awareness of (...) the weight of an exalted title in his experience as the Karmapa. Aang grows in the community, illustrating the Karmapa's words about the importance of relying on others. Dorje highlights the Buddhist teaching that competition creates the illusion that life is a zero‐sum game and that it undermines our happiness. As the Karmapa emphasizes, interconnectedness does not negate individuality. (shrink)

Este artículo explora dos vías filosóficas de acercamiento a las imágenes iniciadas el siglo pasado. La primera, que denominamos metafísica, fue abierta por Bergson y desarrollada por Deleuze. La segunda, que clasificamos como fenomenológica, es iniciada por Sartre y completada por Merleau-Ponty. La posición central que ocupa la imagen en estas teorías permite el desarrollo de una nueva ontología que resuelve los problemas del dualismo y en la que el cine desempeña un papel principal.

Modern computer-based applications often require the user to interact with avatars. Depending on the task at hand, spatial dissociation between the orientations of the user and the avatars might arise. As a consequence, the user has to adopt the avatar's perspective and identify herself/himself with the avatar, possibly changing the user's self-representation in the process. The present study aims to identify the conditions that benefit this change of perspective with objective performance measures and subjective self-estimations by integrating the (...) idea of avatar-ownership into the cognitive phenomenon of spatial compatibility. Two different instructions were used to manipulate a user's perceived ownership of an avatar used in otherwise identical situations. Users with the high-ownership instruction reported higher levels of perceived ownership of the avatar and showed larger spatial compatibility effects from the avatar's point of view in comparison to the low ownership instruction. This supports the hypothesis that perceived ownership benefits perspective taking. (shrink)

Ever since Facebook appeared circa 2004, social network sites have gained more and more presence and importance in our daily lives. At the very core of SNS lies the necessity to create a profile; this profile becomes our digital persona or our digital avatar. Since what we do online matters and ever increasingly affects the offline world, our online identity becomes in turn increasingly important. But how does our personal identity—how do we—relate to our digital avatars? This paper explores (...) the possible form and extent of the connection in between both identities. For this purpose, I propose to think about personal identity in terms of a narrative theory of the self, as well as in a relational manner through the concept of recognition. Employing this framework I intend to pinpoint the elements of our digital avatars, and the SNS dynamics as a whole, that can be related to the process of becoming who we are. (shrink)

El artículo pretende aportar algunos trazos teóricos, metodológicos y prácticos para la lectura de la cuestión del Estado y el poder, desde la perspectiva de la gubernamentalidad sugerida por Foucault y sus herencias latinoamericanas. Se parte del supuesto de que en la actualidad argentina y salteña, la multiplicidad de lógicas y prácticas de gobierno que codifican al Estado y sus avatares encuentran una clara expresión en el gobierno de la pobreza y en los diagramas vinculares entre gobernados y gobernantes, tejidos (...) en los móviles del poder y la resistencia. En esta dirección, se delinean dos ejes expositivos. Por un lado, una analítica de los conceptos y cuestiones sugeridas desde la propuesta de la gubernamentalidad; por otro lado, una aproximación al gobierno de la pobreza y con ello a dos casos que dan cuenta del entramado relacional entre gobernados-gobernantes y prácticas de gobierno, resistencia y autogobierno entre las cuales se configura y re-configura el rol del Estado. Apostando a una “una ontología del presente”, se analizan formas de poder y resistencia que aún hoy en día se constituyen, reconfigurándose. Asimismo se sugiere un cruce metodológico entre genealogía y etnografía, en la apuesta a un ejercicio crítico de pensamiento a fines de contribuir a desnaturalizar y des-sustancializar las prácticas de gobierno, sus lógicas y nuestras conductas presentes. (shrink)

La philosophie contemporaine et la phénoménologie du corps, en visant à rendre le corps plus multiple, plus habité par l'altérité y compris technique (J. Derrida, J.-L. Nancy), ont fait évoluer profondément le problème du lien entre "l'âme" et le corps ; et cela au-delà des contours de la problématique marquée par les recherches cognitives du XXe siècle, qui ont pourtant donné une accélération remarquable à l'étude des rapports entre le cerveau et la machine corporelle. Ces perspectives ont introduit dans le (...) cadre de l'ancien débat, d'origine cartésienne, des variantes liées surtout à l'art, l'écriture et la pensée environnementale. L'Orient et l'Occident se retrouvent ainsi confrontés à un corps aux multiples "décors", qui le spécifient, l'entourent, l'enrichissent, etc. Le Mind Body Problem d'ordre simplement épistémologique, suivant la tradition jusqu'à la seconde moitié du siècle dernier, s'est changé en problème culturel, cognitif, écologique qui récupère de façon critique la notion générale de "vie", de "contexte phénoménologique de vie", d'existence également. Ce volume, issu d'un Colloque organisé par le Collège International de Philosophie, a voulu reconsidérer les tenants et aboutissants de ce changement, pour le développement d'une perspective de philosophie du corps impliquant une multitude d'intersections trans-et multidisciplinaires et trans- et multiculturelles : entre esthétique, arts du spectacle, phénoménologie, écologie, histoire de l'art et de la pensée de l'art, pensée orientale, nouvelles sciences cognitives, Cultural Studies. (shrink)

Marxism has been for a long time the reference of the European Worker's Movement. It took the form of a millenarist faith and was embodied in large organizations. Orthodox marxism had no more reason for existence when the working class was integrated in the modern society.Communism gave a new inspiration but at the expense of an intellectual degeneration. When it became a state religion, marxism stopped to be creative and became a Gnosis. The varied forms of leftisms which emerged in (...) the sixties are the last avatar of marxism in the developped countries. But they have only a remote relationship with Marx's doctrine. The same process took place in the Third World where the marxist-leninist vulgate was absorbed by nationalism. (shrink)

L’article entreprend l’examen du traitement littéraire de la matière biblique dans trois romans de Loys Masson, écrivain mauricien ayant passé les deux tiers de sa vie en France : Les Tortues (1956), Le Notaire des noirs (1961), Les Noces de la vanille (1962). Une définition du mythe littéraire, distingué du mythe biblique, est d’abord établie, puis appliquée aux narrations symboliques de ce poète et romancier communiste (de 1942 à 1948) et catholique, que son ami Claude Roy présentait comme un « (...) Adam cherchant à rejeter sur Dieu la responsabilité de sa faute ». (shrink)

L'égalité générale, c'est-à-dire l'égalité de tous envers tous, même si elle est préjugée favorablement, est difficilement réalisable à cause de notre pensée qui organise les différences en dichotomies et en oppositions hiérarchisées. Quand on examine des discours écrits par des femmes cherchant à définir la différence de la femme, on aperçoit de manière patente cette difficulté à nommer la différence. En comparant un texte de E. Harding, psychanalyste jungienne et un texte de M. Montrelay, psychanalyste lacanienne, on constate que malgré (...) des provenances théoriques et historiques éloignées, le féminin n'est dit qu'en référence au masculin. Avec notre mode de pensée , le désir d'égalité générale s'avère vélléitaire. Seul un discours éclaté qui donne lieu aux différences permettrait une mentalité égalitaire.Equality, when it is understood as equality for all, even though it is judged favorably in general, is hardly realisable because of the structure of our thinking that organizes the differences in dichotomies and in hierarchical oppositions. When we examine the discourses written by women that tend to define a difference of the woman, we realize the difficulty to name this difference. When we compare a text written by E. Harding, a jungian psychanalyst and another written by M. Montrelay, a lacanian psychanalyst, we observe that despite their distant theorical and historical sources, the feminine is said in reference to the masculine. By our way of thinking , the desire for a generalized equality becomes erratic. Only a fragmented discourse, that gives place to the differences could permit an equality in the mentalities. (shrink)

L'histoire de la réception littéraire de l'Utopie de Thomas More au Portugal a été une histoire d'omissions, de censures et de traductions différées qui met en évidence un défaut dans le système culturel portugais. En effet, il est quelque peu ironique qu'une œuvre aussi représentative de la littérature et de la pensée occidentale, historiquement associée à l'ouverture des horizons géographiques du monde, et qui attribue au personnage d'un marin lusitanien, Raphaël Hythlodée, la découverte d'un lieu idéal, n'a été traduite en (...) portugais que dans la seconde moitié du vingtième siècle. Cependant, la première décennie du vingt-et-unième siècle semble annoncer une fortune littéraire plus favorable à l'Utopie de More dans la langue portugaise: non seulement une édition du chef d'œuvre de More a finalement été traduite du latin, mais aussi deux romans ont été publiés en 2004, A lenda de Martim Regos, de Pedro Canais, et Rafael, de Manuel Alegre. Dans le cadre de leurs propres déroulements narratifs, les deux œuvres réaccentuent les traits complexes du personnage du marin portugais et découvreur de l'île idéale. La même réinvention du personnage de Raphaël avait déjà été tentée, en 1998, par José V. de Pina Martins dans son long récit dialogique Utopia III. Dans cet essai, je me concentrerai à la fois sur les sources documentaires liées à la culture portugaise qui sont à la base de l'Utopie de More et sur certains aspects pertinents de la réception du personnage de Raphaël Hythlodée dans les romans susmentionnés. (shrink)

In avatar, Jake Sully struggles with his sense of self at a variety of levels, including the metaphysical. In Plato's and Aristotle's book Philosophy in the Flesh, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson call this shared conjecture the “folk theory of essences.” In Avatar, the presuppositions about personal identity that ground the linkage process between human beings and avatar bodies seems to follow Locke's insights quite faithfully. This way of talking about the essential self challenges the bodyswapping scenarios (...) of John Locke and Avatar, urging us to attend not to far‐fetched thought experiments but instead to our first‐person experience of how mind and body actually interact, our ordinary sense of “what it's like” to be embodied. This approach, known as “existential phenomenology,” offers an alternative to perspectives like Locke's – perspectives. In many ways, the existential phenomenology coincides with Na'vi wisdom. (shrink)