A l'occasion du cinquantenaire de la mort de Gaston Berger (1896-1960), la Chaire Humanisme, Citoyenneté, Civilisations de l'université catholique de Lyon a pris l'initiative d'organiser deux journées d'études pour commémorer l'oeuvre de ce philosophe audacieux et atypique, fondateur d'institutions et de revues, chef d'entreprise et homme d'action. Ces journées ont permis d'étudier les modalités sous lesquelles Gaston Berger a envisagé les liens entre philosophie et sciences humaines, qu'il n'a eu de cesse de faire dialoguer. Sa trajectoire intellectuelle originale a été (...) interrogée, depuis la tradition blondélienne de la philosophie de l'action et la phénoménologie, jusqu'au "tournant pragmatique" qu'il opère avec l'idée de la prospective. Associant des chercheurs issus de différentes institutions, mais héritières à divers titres de l'oeuvre de Gaston Berger, elles ont montré comment le cheminement intellectuel de Berger a influencé ses orientations et ses décisions d'homme d'action, et comment en retour son expérience d'homme de terrain a nourri et alimenté sa réflexion philosophique, psychologique et sociologique. (shrink)

The notion of the ‘division of physiological labour’ is today an outdated relic in the history of science. This contrasts with the fate of another notion, which was so frequently paired with the division of physiological labour, which is the concept of ‘morphological differentiation.’ This is one of the elementary modal concepts of ontogenesis. In this paper, we intend to target the problems and causes that gradually led biologists to combine these two notions during the 19th century, and to progressively (...) dissociate them, retaining only the concept of differentiation by the early 20th century. We shall adhere to the following: 1. The primitive economic concept of the division of labour is not a descriptive notion denoting a type of organisation of labour, but an etiological one: the idea of a causal relationship between this type of organization and the improvement of the whole. 2. This concept rapidly interested naturalists such as Henri Milne-Edwards, who were keen to find a rational ground for hierarchizing living forms based on anatomical complexity. 3. The validation of this notion in the realms of biology was subject to at least two conditions which were far from being fully satisfied. This did not prevent, however, the initial success of the concept of the division of physiological labour during the second half of the 19th century. 4. Finally, the gradual disqualification, within the Darwinian theoretical context, of the conception of an intrinsic hierarchical rank of organisms, led to a lack of interest in the concept of the physiological division of labour, at least in its non-Darwinian and non-ecological variant. (shrink)

L’entreprenariat social nous engage dans deux formes de responsabilité, l’une obligataire, qui ressortit au registre juridique et moral, l’autre mondaine ou cosmologique, qui ressortit au registre de l’action et de la création. La pratique entrepreneuriale en tant que telle honore prioritairement la responsabilité cosmologique, tandis que la dimension sociale de cette pratique réfère, quant à elle, au caractère obligataire. Dans cet article, nous proposons de revenir sur la généalogie de ces deux acceptions fondamentales de la responsabilité, qui ont trouvé dans (...) le kantisme à la fois leur lieu de formulation philosophique et leur point de bifurcation, mais aussi de dégager la portée et les limites de leur dialectisation dans l’activité sociale-entrepreneuriale aujourd’hui. Nous montrons que la première convoque en son sein plusieurs traditions de philosophie morale impliquant différentes extensions du concept, ce qui oblige à nous interroger sur sa propre opérabilité. La seconde, que nous aurons à cœur d’illustrer en rapportant certains discours d’entrepreneurs, a été davantage honorée à l’époque contemporaine par les approches phénoménologiques et de philosophie de l’action de tendance analytique. Nous terminons en envisageant la possibilité pour l’entrepreneur social de s’extraire de cet atermoiement entre deux formes de responsabilité dans le contexte actuel, naguère anticipé par Hans Jonas et dont témoignent aujourd’hui le succès des thèmes de l’écologie politique et du développement durable, opérant ainsi un renversement du rapport de l’action humaine à la peur de l’avenir – peur à laquelle s’est substituée au fil du temps la projection raisonnée d’un futur malheureux, toutes choses égales ailleurs. Classification JEL : M13, M14. (shrink)

La division du travail physiologique est un concept tombé en désuétude en biologie. Quand l’expression est employée, c’est sans égard pour sa fonction nomologique importante dans la biologie du second xixe. Nous analyserons l’importation de la division du travail de l’économie à la biologie, malgré les difficultés de validation que posait son transfert d’une science à l’autre. La notion a ainsi continué sa carrière dans une biologie gagnée à la théorie cellulaire, cependant que ses déterminations économiques perdaient leur pertinence. Nous (...) terminerons en interrogeant sa disparition au début du xxe. La division du travail physiologique, une fois purifiée de son économicité primitive, ne pouvait sans doute que retourner à un stade métaphorique. (shrink)

The doctrines of therapeutic nihilism and administrative nihilism are both based on the belief that the norms of activity are intrinsically linked to the structure of the body. Just as there is a vis medicatrix naturae in the individual organism, which renders any intervention of the therapist vain, there would be a vis medicatrix rei publicae in the social body, which makes the intervention of the legislator in economic life pointless and even dangerous. However, such a symmetry is not quite (...) as clear as it appears at first. It has also been upheld that the real parallel is not between therapeutic and administrative nihilism, but between therapeutic nihilism and statism. In this view, government is less comparable to a therapist than to the nervous system, and just as a well regulated organism is a one with an extensive nervous system, a well regulated society is one with a strong State.We intend to retrace the historical origin of these two schemas of correspondence, which has his roots in the celebrated controversy in the 1870’s between Herbert Spencer and Thomas Henry Huxley. We examine the causes of this apparent paradox, which sometimes views the doctrine of administrative nihilism, and sometimes the opposing doctrine of statism, as being the equivalent in politics of therapeutic nihilism in medicine. In our opinion, an important part of the explanation must be sought in the variations of the field of extension, which is implicitly given to the concept of vis medicatrix, or –as we now usually call this notion– that of Self-regulation. (shrink)

L’entreprenariat social nous engage dans deux formes de responsabilité, l’une obligataire, qui ressortit au registre juridique et moral, l’autre mondaine ou cosmologique, qui ressortit au registre de l’action et de la création. La pratique entrepreneuriale en tant que telle honore prioritairement la responsabilité cosmologique, tandis que la dimension sociale de cette pratique réfère, quant à elle, au caractère obligataire. Dans cet article, nous proposons de revenir sur la généalogie de ces deux acceptions fondamentales de la responsabilité, qui ont trouvé dans (...) le kantisme à la fois leur lieu de formulation philosophique et leur point de bifurcation, mais aussi de dégager la portée et les limites de leur dialectisation dans l’activité sociale-entrepreneuriale aujourd’hui. Nous montrons que la première convoque en son sein plusieurs traditions de philosophie morale impliquant différentes extensions du concept, ce qui oblige à nous interroger sur sa propre opérabilité. La seconde, que nous aurons à cœur d’illustrer en rapportant certains discours d’entrepreneurs, a été davantage honorée à l’époque contemporaine par les approches phénoménologiques et de philosophie de l’action de tendance analytique. Nous terminons en envisageant la possibilité pour l’entrepreneur social de s’extraire de cet atermoiement entre deux formes de responsabilité dans le contexte actuel, naguère anticipé par Hans Jonas et dont témoignent aujourd’hui le succès des thèmes de l’écologie politique et du développement durable, opérant ainsi un renversement du rapport de l’action humaine à la peur de l’avenir – peur à laquelle s’est substituée au fil du temps la projection raisonnée d’un futur malheureux, toutes choses égales ailleurs. Classification JEL : M13, M14. (shrink)

The notion of the ‘division of physiological labour’ is today an outdated relic in the history of science. This contrasts with the fate of another notion, which was so frequently paired with the division of physiological labour, which is the concept of ‘morphological differentiation.’ This is one of the elementary modal concepts of ontogenesis. In this paper, we intend to target the problems and causes that gradually led biologists to combine these two notions during the 19th century, and to progressively (...) dissociate them, retaining only the concept of differentiation by the early 20th century. We shall adhere to the following: 1. The primitive economic concept of the division of labour is not a descriptive notion denoting a type of organisation of labour, but an etiological one: the idea of a causal relationship between this type of organization and the improvement of the whole. 2. This concept rapidly interested naturalists such as Henri Milne-Edwards, who were keen to find a rational ground for hierarchizing living forms based on anatomical complexity. 3. The validation of this notion in the realms of biology was subject to at least two conditions which were far from being fully satisfied. This did not prevent, however, the initial success of the concept of the division of physiological labour during the second half of the 19th century. 4. Finally, the gradual disqualification, within the Darwinian theoretical context, of the conception of an intrinsic hierarchical rank of organisms, led to a lack of interest in the concept of the physiological division of labour, at least in its non-Darwinian and non-ecological variant (the link between the division of labour within an organism and organic perfection). (shrink)

La division du travail physiologique est un concept tombé en désuétude en biologie. Quand l’expression est employée, c’est sans égard pour sa fonction nomologique importante dans la biologie du second xixe. Nous analyserons l’importation de la division du travail de l’économie à la biologie, malgré les difficultés de validation que posait son transfert d’une science à l’autre. La notion a ainsi continué sa carrière dans une biologie gagnée à la théorie cellulaire, cependant que ses déterminations économiques perdaient leur pertinence. Nous (...) terminerons en interrogeant sa disparition au début du xxe. La division du travail physiologique, une fois purifiée de son économicité primitive, ne pouvait sans doute que retourner à un stade métaphorique. (shrink)

In 1877, the young Alfred Espinas defended a philosophical study, ‘doctorat ès lettres’, at the Sorbonne University, entitled Des Sociétés animales. This was to become one of the principal sources of French organicist sociology. The paradox, however, is that this work seems to be fundamentally a study of natural science. Espinas tried to justify his position theoretically through two types of reciprocally exclusive and uncomplementary arguments. The first one consists in showing that only certain kinds of animal groupings belong legitimately, (...) if not academically, to sociology. The second one has a greater audacious and uncontrollable dimension. It consists in asserting that all pluricellular organisms are true societies. In this article we first focus on the role played by cellular theory in such a ‘sociologization’ of biology, concerning the extension of sociology. Second, we examine the importance of such confusion within the fields of extension, in aiming to explain the conceptual transfers between social sciences and life sciences, in the second half of the 19th century. (shrink)

The aim of the research is to show the need to defend the prosaic reconfiguration of humanity that we set up every day by using temporary resources. This implies to discuss the overvalued achievements of the philosophies that advocate a direct encounter with our raw reality, or that defend an absolutist project of construction of the being of man that ends by suffocating him instead of offering any kind of salvation. The hypothesis states that the possibility of existence of man, (...) understood as the existence of a sense of the human — and, consequently, of a world with a meaning for man — depends on that prosaic configuration of our home that we have to reenact every morning. The development of meaningful worlds — that exist only as long as man exists, and vice versa — is achieved through symbolic resources, such as the metaphor or the concept. This allows us to replace one thing with another, merrily deferring the direct encounter with our constitutive ontological problematicity. To think man's reality is philosophically bearable only through metaphors and concepts, that is, by spreading a mundane prose that does not, that cannot and that should not come to an end. This in spite of the vocation for epic heroism that characterizes philosophy, and in spite of its temerarious impulse to dive into the depths in order to face what we directly cannot speak of, not without becoming speechless. (shrink)

The Novum Organum, (or Novum Organum Scientiarum - "New Instrument of Science"), is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, originally published in 1620. The title is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now known as the Baconian method.

En este artículo defiendo que la novela Un pobre hombre rico o el sentido cómico de la vida expresa, bajo una forma irónica, la noción de fe religiosa de Miguel de Unamuno.

El siguiente artículo trata de la cuestión del hombre como animal político (ζῷον πολιτικόν), como se desprende tanto de las obras ético-políticas de Aristóteles (la Política) como de sus textos más puramente biológicos (la Investigación sobre los animales). Frente a algunos problemas de las principales interpretaciones de esta cuestión, en este artículo se vincula el problema de la politicidad humana con el de la comunidad (κοινωνία), a la que también pertenece el hombre: de hecho, el hombre es (...) uno ζῷον πολιτικόν porque es uno ζῷον κοινωνικόν. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza los desarrollos que Foucault realiza en torno a la analítica de la finitud en su libro Las palabras y las cosas con el fin de dilucidar las diferencias conceptuales con que Freud y Lacan abordan el sujeto del psicoanálisis. Se pretende reconocer la potencia de la crítica foucaulteana al cuadrilátero antropológico y revisar si las teorías de Freud y Lacan se encuentran o no dentro del mismo, buscando pensar la fecundidad de las direcciones contemporáneas del psicoanálisis. Resultados: (...) Foucault dejó en claro que es necesario prescindir del hombre para poder pensar de nuevo la realidad humana. Freud abrió las puertas de tal desaparición, aunque sus cimientos epistemológicos lo dejaron fijado a una antropología biologicista. Lacan retornó lingüísticamente a Freud para rescatar la potencia de su descubrimiento y formalizar un psicoanálisis cuyo sujeto no es el hombre. Orientaciones actuales del psicoanálisis parecen olvidar este último esfuerzo. (shrink)

Ésta es una contribución al debate originado por Guillermo Hurtado y proseguido por Manuel García-Carpintero y Horacio Luján Martínez, con relación al sentido y a los objetivos de la filosofía analítica, especialmente en Iberoamérica. En ella se defiende que las tesis de Hurtado también se pueden aplicar al cultivo de filosofías no analíticas, pues en realidad conciernen a la filosofía profesional que se practica dentro y fuera de Iberoamérica. Se sostiene, además, que si bien la profesionalización y la masificación de (...) la filosofía son fenómenos en sí mismos positivos, tienen consecuencias colaterales negativas respecto de la calidad de la filosofía que se produce. También se aduce que el que una propuesta filosófica no tenga una inmediata relevancia existencial o política no la hace menos importante, siempre que en algún sentido amplíe las fronteras del conocimiento. This is a commentary on a debate originated by Guillermo Hurtado and followed up by Manuel García-Carpintero and Horacio Luján Martínez, in regards to the meaning and objectives of analytic philosophy, especially in Latin America. This paper holds that Hurtado's theses are also true about non analytic philosophy, since they are about professional philosophy, as practiced both inside and outside Latin America. Professionalization and popularization of philosophy, while positive phenomena in themselves, have negative collateral consequences on the quality of philosophy produced in the present moment. it is also held that the fact that a given philosophical proposal has no immediate existential or political relevance doesn't make it less important, as long as in some sense it widens the frontiers of knowledge. (shrink)

El hombre mediocre está integrado por las lecciones sobre psicología del carácter que dio José Ingenieros en la cátedra de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de Buenos Aires, durante el año 1910. En ellas se proponía comprender cómo funcionan las sociedades humanas. Para ello establecía y describía tres tipos o caracteres que según él era posible reconocer en cualquier comunidad de seres humanos: el idealista, el hombre mediocre y el inferior. Ingenieros no ocultaba su admiración hacia el (...) primer tipo pero, más allá de los juicios morales. Hizo el esfuerzo de entender en clave psicológica las particularidades de cada tipo y su función específica en nuestras sociedades. Así, dedicaba una parte importante de El hombre mediocre al segundo tipo, porque él constituye el grueso de las sociedades: «¿La continuidad de la vida social sería posible sin esa compacta masa de hombres puramente imitativos, capaces de conservar los hábitos rutinarios que la sociedad les transfunde mediante la educación? El mediocre no inventa nada, no crea, no empuja, no rompe, no engendra; pero, en cambio, custodia celosamente la armazón de automatismos y prejuicios y dogmas acumulados durante siglos, defendiendo ese capital común contra la asechanza de los inadaptables. Su rencor a los creadores compénsase por su resistencia a los destructores.». (shrink)

La masificación del ser humano, la conversión del hombre en masa ha sido el acontecimiento más pavoroso de la Edad Contemporánea. Sin embargo, seguimos sin prestar a ese acontecimiento toda la atención que merece. Este libro intenta responder a una serie de preguntas. Preguntas que son de vital importancia porque nos va en ellas la vida como personas y como sociedad civilizada. ¿Qué es un hombre masa? ¿Cómo y cuándo surgió este tipo de hombre? ¿Por qué el (...) hombre masa ha alcanzado tanto poder en el mundo? ¿Qué futuro aguarda a una humanidad masificada? Pedro Jaén nacido en Fernán Núñez (Córdoba) en 1954 ha tenido una formación autodidacta. Ha trabajado como maestro de enseñanza primaria y actualmente está jubilado. Como escritor, alterna el ensayo con la poesía. (shrink)

This thesis is presented from a historical life history, the conscious world of an academic whose thoughts were not dogmatic nor censured, neither within or without the university. It was a dialogue with others who never hesitated to judge him as critical and heuristic. The only way to be authenti..

Hombres y, engranajes discute con pasion las ilusiones del Progreso, el fetichismo de la ciencia y, de la maquina, la sobrevaloracion de lo puramente mental y el desprecio de las emociones, los sentimientos, mitos y suenos que vienen del inconsciente. A esta cosificacion y alienacion del mundo Sabato le opone las esperanzas y frustraciones del hombre concreto, la legitimidad del arte, la literatura y el pensamiento poetico como camino de recuperacion humanista. Y para ello Sabato apela a los grandes (...) pensadores existencialistas, desde San Agustin y, Pascal, Dostoievski, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, hasta Berdiaiev, Buber y Jaspers.Atacado en el momento de su aparicion por positivistas y cientificistas, y por los partidarios de autoritarismos de derecha e izquierda, Hombres Y engranajes puede ser leido hoy, con la distancia y la decantacion que permiten los treinta anos transcurridos desde su publicacion inicial en 1951, como una pieza de verdadera y apasionante reflexion literaria. (shrink)

The Thomistic comprehension of the immortality of the soul, in its extraordinary greatness and originality, is built upon the Angelic’s most sublime discovery: the act of being. However, we can already find in the Egyptians some contributions —although indirect— to this comprehension. Regarding the nature of the soul, there are some intuitions of great relevance around the Osiris Trial, the structure of the soul and its relation with the body and the post mortem evolution phases. These intuitions will be assimilated (...) into the Greek metaphysics, assumed and raised by Thomas Aquinas and, based on his genius, continued by the transcendental anthropology. (shrink)

La siguiente es una reseña del estudio realizado por el profesor Francisco Rodríguez Valls de la Universidad de Sevilla respecto a la incertidumbre que supone la naturaleza y la condiciónn de la realidad humana. El análisis se avoca a una visión paranorámica del trabajo del profesor Valls, y de manera introductoria apunta los aspecto claves de su texto a fin de que el lector pueda hacerse una idea clara y concisa de la propia postura del autor.

La meditación sobre la técnica parece haber sido la pregunta fundamental del siglo xx. En este artículo se comparan dos visiones de la técnica: la de O. Spengler y la de J. Ortega y Gasset. Estas meditaciones vienen a esbozar una antropología. La reflexión de Spengler es más determinista y está ligada al concepto de decadencia. La reflexión de Ortega está más abierta a las oportunidades y más ligada al concepto de circunstancia.

After reviewing the historical fortune of Nietzsche as a political thinker, it is discussed what aspects of his philosophy can be most useful for the deployment of a pluralist democracy, in the sense of political agonism claimed today by some of his interpreters. But the reasons why an articulation of democracy and aristocratic culture is coagulated in his philosophy are also pointed out. For this, the question of the agon in Nietzsche is approached and its discrepancy with the Schmittian idea (...) of the friend-enemy pair, as distinctive of the essence of the political, is pointed out, thus placing the Nietzschean critique of modernity in perspective. (shrink)

This article tackles the construction of an exemplary image of the modern man in the 15th century. The corpus is centered on a fundamental work in the history of Western thought: Oration on the Dignity of Man, by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, which represents the “spirit of a period” and projects an exemplary image of the human being through the rewriting of the origin myth. The manner in which Adam was created and how that defines the new way in which (...) he is fashioned will be the basis for a new way of being, free from the doctrine of original sin and without seeing his capacities as a human being diminished. Through the analysis of this mythological reconstruction and also through modifications of the biblical account, several characteristics of the man about to come will be uncovered. Special attention will be given to the displacement suffered by man in relation to the world, as Pico establishes man as a contemplator of the universe, the consequences of the liberation from the scala naturae, and the prominence of desire in Pico’s conception of man. (shrink)

As Heraclitus, Cioran conceives man as a being that possesses lógos and is ruled in his life by it in its multiple aspects. Man not only makes use of word; this word also shapes him and traverses him entirely. Word is the necessary and intrinsic expression of every human being, and, as a result, he cannot elude it. In many of his works, Cioran warns us about the dangers that lógos has for man: not to find his genuine expression in (...) the midst of so many words, and to fall into totalizing fictions that lead us to deception and indoctrination. For this reason, in the midst of this misfortune, Cioran even considers silence as the only possible way out. However, if man denies the mark of language by avoiding all forms of expression, the anguish that his own existence entails will end up destroying him. Paradoxically, Cioran finds that the expression of lógos is the only possible salvation for man from the clutches of death, and that is, why by expressing oneself through lógos, one's own unhappiness becomes a necessary condition of life. (shrink)