The object of this paper is to throw light on the reciprocal exchanges between legal philosophy and the theory of speech acts (as developed by Austin and Searle). The first part concerns the contributions to legal philosophy made by the theory of speech acts with a view to developing new perspectives. The second part deals with the contributions of legal philosophy to speech act theory.

Les modalités déontiques articulées par les règles de conduite en général et les règles juridiques en particulier ont constamment donné lieu à des conceptions aberrantes dans la théorie générale de l’éthique et du droit. Cette étude dénonce les vues confuses répandues en la matière par Kelsen, ainsi que les vues négationnistes tenaces en circulation prétendant purement et simplement bouter les catégories modales hors de la théorie juridique ou morale.The deontic modalities working with the rules of conduct in a general way, (...) and the legal rules in particular, have steadily given rise to aberrant conceptions in the general theory of ethics and law. This paper informs against the confused views spread on this matter by Kelsen, and also against the circulating tenacious negationnistic views purely and simply claiming to drive modal categories out of legal or moral theory. (shrink)

Se parte de la idea de que la teorética jurídica sólo es posible sobre unos claros presupuestos ontológicos bien conscientes de la dimensión normativa del derecho y superadores de deformaciones iusnaturalistas, sociologistas, textualistas y logicistas. El derecho es presentado como una técnica para gobernar y dirigir la conducta humana, una concepción a partir de la que es posible articular dos tipos de especulación: la tecnológica o la antropológica. La especulación tecnológica pretende, de un lado, racionalizar los modos de creación del (...) derecho, valorar los modos existentes, explorar vías y medios para una elaboración más satisfactoria y, de otro lado, sistematizar los instrumentos en vigor para detectar sus usos potenciales y también fallos técnicos o efectos socialmente nocivos (dogmática jurídica). El planteamiento antropológico pretende estudiar el derecho en tanto que objeto cultural o humano y observa, con vocación explicativa, los comportamientos de los actores jurídicos y las experiencias jurídicas. Ambos planteamientos están ausentes en la concepción positivista del derecho, centrada más en el análisis doctrinal o ciencia del derecho. (shrink)

Le problème traditionnel de l'antinomie entre la liberté humaine et le déterminisme que suggère la science est un faux problème. Cette antinomie repose sur une double mystification, qui affecte les deux termes traditionnellement mis en opposition : une mystification du côté du « déterminisme », d'une part, et une mystification du côté de la « liberté », d'autre part.The traditional problem of the antinomy between human freedom and the determinism suggested by science is a false problem that calls not for (...) solution but for dissolution. This antinomy rests on a double mystification, which concerns both of the traditionnally contrasted terms: a mystification with respect to “determinism”, and a mystification with respect to “freedom”. (shrink)

Les règles ne correspondent pas à un certain registre d'énoncés; ce sont des outils mentaux, affectés à rendre des services spécifiques et qui s'inscrivent dans la panoplie des instruments en tous genres utilisés par les hommes: telle est l'idée phare de cet ouvrage. Au-delà de la théorie du droit, les analyses originales et minutieuses exposées concernent également la théorie de l'éthique et la théorie de la science, qui ont aussi affaire à des règles ou « lois » et qui en (...) sont aussi restées à des vues sommaires bien peu satisfaisantes. En particulier, ces analyses mettent en lumière l'usage incongru de l'utilitaire éthique dans le domaine scientifique, les lois théoriques construites par le savant étant insidieusement assimilées à des règles pratiques « gouvernant » le monde, auxquelles la nature aurait à « obéir ». L'ouvrage explore, par ailleurs, les perspectives pragmatiques que la théorie des actes de langage ouvre à la théorie du droit: notamment, « édicter » du droit ne consiste pas à « dire » des règles, mais à prescrire leur observance; bien des faux problèmes découlent de ce que l'idée de prescriptif est confondue avec celle de normatif et aplatie en elle. Après un examen comparatif de l'interprétation des textes juridiques, des textes littéraires et théâtraux et des textes sacrés, l'ouvrage aborde la question cruciale, fort débattue, de la liberté de l'interprète juridique. Il propose une nouvelle approche renvoyant dos à dos les thèses « objectivistes » et les thèses « subjectivistes ». Prix Dupin Aîné 2013 décerné par l'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. (shrink)

L'auteur veut montrer que la création ou créativité (poiêsis) fait partie de l'essence même du sujet : lequel peut se définir tout entier comme un générateur de création, un être créateur (zôon poiêtikon) qui, de par ses attributs ontologiques mêmes, recrée le monde avec lequel il est en contact et le peuple de ses propres productions. Mais, dans le même temps, il manifeste une tendance constante à s'oublier lui-même derrière ses créations et à doter celles-ci d'une réalité objective, hypostasiée : (...) d'où l'évocation métaphorique proposée du myosotis, cette fleur qu'on appelle couramment « ne m'oubliez pas ». The author wants to show that creation or creativeness (poiêsis) is part of the very intrinsic nature of the subject: which can be wholly defined as a generator of creation, a creative being (zôon poiêtikon) who by his very ontological attributes recreates the world he is in contact with, and fills it with his own productions. But, in the same time, he manifests a constant tendency to forget himself behind his creations and endow them with a substantial objective reality: hence the metaphorical evocation suggested by the myosotis, this flower commonly called « forget me not ». (shrink)

The aim of the article is to characterise and analyse Paul Amselek’s research approach to legal hermeneutics. The text provides an outline of Amselek’s assumptions and theses about legal interpretation, considered in the broad context of hermeneutics, and in the narrower context of legal logic and argument. In point of fact, one of the methodological aims of Amselek’s philosophical reflection is to harmonise the two indicated contexts for framing interpretation — the wide context of hermeneutics, and (...) the more narrow context of legal logic and argument. Amselek refers to issues in communication theory, reaching beyond the hermeneutic concept of text interpretation and evocation of the original authorial intention. He analyses the legal text-message in its content and argument layers, he also endeavours to specify the methodological possibilities of interpreting the attitudes and motivations of subjects — participants in communication situation. He also inquires about the ethical attitudes of jurisdiction authorities, performing the interpretation of a body of law — the subjects responsible for lawmaking and the execution of law. Adopting post-Enlightenment anthropological assumptions, Amselek accepts the primacy of rationality in cognition, decision making, and activity of the human individual. However, in his considerations on interpretation he concurrently underscores the role of affective factors, motivating many choices and actions made by legal subjects. (shrink)

Descartes is widely portrayed as the arch proponent of “the epistemological transparency of thought” (or simply, “Transparency”). The most promising version of this view—Transparency-through-Introspection—says that introspecting (i.e., inwardly attending to) a thought guarantees certain knowledge of that thought. But Descartes rejects this view and provides numerous counterexamples to it. I argue that, instead, Descartes’s theory of self-knowledge is just an application of his general theory of knowledge. According to his general theory, certain knowledge is acquired only through clear and distinct (...) intellection. Thus, in his view, certain knowledge of one’s thoughts is acquired only through clear and distinct intellection of one’s thoughts. Introspection is a form of intellection and it can be clear and distinct. Ordinarily, however, introspection isn’t clear and distinct but is instead confused with dubitable perceptions of bodies. To make introspection clear and distinct, we need to “sharply separate” it from all perceptions of bodies by doubting all perceptions of bodies. Without such radical doubt, introspection remains confused and we lack certain knowledge not just of the specific features of our thoughts, but even of the minimal claim that a thought exists. Far from being the high priest of Transparency, Descartes is radically opposed to it. (shrink)

In _Matter and Consciousness_, Paul Churchland presents a concise and contemporary overview of the philosophical issues surrounding the mind and explains the main theories and philosophical positions that have been proposed to solve them. Making the case for the relevance of theoretical and experimental results in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence for the philosophy of mind, Churchland reviews current developments in the cognitive sciences and offers a clear and accessible account of the connections to philosophy of mind. For (...) this third edition, the text has been updated and revised throughout. The changes range from references to the iPhone's "Siri" to expanded discussions of the work of such contemporary philosophers as David Chalmers, John Searle, and Thomas Nagel. Churchland describes new research in evolution, genetics, and visual neuroscience, among other areas, arguing that the philosophical significance of these new findings lies in the support they tend to give to the reductive and eliminative versions of materialism. Matter and Consciousness, written by the most distinguished theorist and commentator in the field, offers an authoritative summary and sourcebook for issues in philosophy of mind. It is suitable for use as an introductory undergraduate text. (shrink)

The options in a decision problem generally have outcomes with common features. Putting aside the common features simplifies deliberations, but the simplification requires a philosophical justification that this book provides.

This book demonstrates how children's imagination makes a continuing contribution to their cognitive and emotional development.

The twentieth century has witnessed an unprecedented 'crisis in the foundations of mathematics', featuring a world-famous paradox (Russell's Paradox), a challenge to 'classical' mathematics from a world-famous mathematician (the 'mathematical intuitionism' of Brouwer), a new foundational school (Hilbert's Formalism), and the profound incompleteness results of Kurt Gödel. In the same period, the cross-fertilization of mathematics and philosophy resulted in a new sort of 'mathematical philosophy', associated most notably (but in different ways) with Bertrand Russell, W. V. Quine, and Gödel himself, (...) and which remains at the focus of Anglo-Saxon philosophical discussion. The present collection brings together in a convenient form the seminal articles in the philosophy of mathematics by these and other major thinkers. It is a substantially revised version of the edition first published in 1964 and includes a revised bibliography. The volume will be welcomed as a major work of reference at this level in the field. (shrink)

Zusammenfassungen der Referate in französischer Sprache.

An agent often does not have precise probabilities or utilities to guide resolution of a decision problem. I advance a principle of rationality for making decisions in such cases. To begin, I represent the doxastic and conative state of an agent with a set of pairs of a probability assignment and a utility assignment. Then I support a decision principle that allows any act that maximizes expected utility according to some pair of assignments in the set. Assuming that computation of (...) an option's expected utility uses comprehensive possible outcomes that include the option's risk, no consideration supports a stricter requirement. (shrink)

Schelling und Hegel benutzen in ihren philosophischen Texten mathematische und naturwissenschaftliche Modelle wie Unendlichkeit oder Gleichgewicht. Die Strukturen dieser Begriffe liefern einen Massstab fur den Vergleich der Positionen Schellings und Hegels, der fur Schellings Identitatsphilosophie und Hegels erste Jenaer Schriften durchgefuhrt wird. Als wichtigstes Resultat kann eine grundlegende Differenz zwischen beiden Positionen bereits um 1801 nachgewiesen und gezeigt werden, dass diese auf einer unterschiedlichen Auffassung der Rolle des Absoluten beruht.

Like Plato, Protagoras held that young children learn virtue from fine examples in poetry. Unlike Plato, Protagoras taught adults by correcting the diction of poets. In this paper I ask what his standard of correctness might be, and what benefit he intended his students to take from exercises in correction. If his standard of correctness is truth, then he may intend his students to learn by questioning the content of poems; that would be suggestive of Plato’s program in Republic III. (...) But his standard is more likely to be the accurate use of language; in that case he would intend his students to learn to express their thoughts clearly enough that their audience would understand what they were saying. That standard would be independent of the truth of what they are saying; and that would be a precursor to modern techniques by which we try to teach speaking and writing. Truth is not so easy to escape, however, and we shall see that Protagoras’ exercise must assume that the poet is trying to tell the truth. (shrink)

Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA präsentieren seit ihrer Gründung durch Paul Wilpert im Jahre 1962 Arbeiten des Thomas-Instituts der Universität zu Köln. Das Kernstück der Publikationsreihe bilden die Akten der im zweijährigen Rhythmus stattfindenden Kölner Mediaevistentagungen, die vor über 50 Jahren von Josef Koch, dem Gründungsdirektor des Instituts, ins Leben gerufen wurden. Der interdisziplinäre Charakter dieser Kongresse prägt auch die Tagungsakten: Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA versammeln Beiträge aus allen mediävistischen Disziplinen - die mittelalterliche Geschichte, die Philosophie, die Theologie sowie die Kunst- und (...) Literaturwissenschaften sind Teile einer Gesamtbetrachtung des Mittelalters. (shrink)

I argue that supervenience is an inadequate device for representing relations between different levels of phenomena. I then provide six criteria that emergent phenomena seem to satisfy. Using examples drawn from macroscopic physics, I suggest that such emergent features may well be quite common in the physical realm.

According to many, to have epistemic justification to believe P is just for it to be epistemically permissible to believe P. Others think it is for believing P to be epistemically good. Yet others think it has to do with being epistemically blameless in believing P. All such views of justification encounter problems. Here, a new view of justification is proposed according to which justification is a kind of composite normative status. The result is a view of justification that offers (...) hope of solving some longstanding epistemological problems. (shrink)

Extends the ideas of social constructivism to the philosophy of mathematics, developing a powerful critique of traditional absolutist conceptions of mathematics, and proposing a reconceptualization of the philosophy of mathematics.

The first book-length study of a leading tenth-century Ismaili theoretician Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani.

The centrality of death rituals has in anthropologically informed studies of Buddhism been little documented. The current volume brings together a range of perspectives on Buddhist death rituals including ethnographic, textual, historical and theoretically informed accounts, and presents the diversity of the Buddhist funeral cultures of mainland Southeast Asia and China. It arises out of the University of Bristol's Centre for Buddhist Studies research project Buddhist Death Rituals in Southeast Asia and China, funded by the United Kingdom's Arts and Humanities (...) Research Council. This project involved extensive new research in Thailand, Laos and China. Other items from that project included several public exhibitions, extensive stills photographs, and several video films. The project-team produced two 30 minutes films on the ghost festival in Laos and China, one on urban funerals in Chiang Mai (Thailand) and several shorter clips dealing with funeral cultures in Laos, Thailand and China. Most of this material (and an extensive bibliography on the topic) is available free of charge from the project website located at the webpage of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies (Centre for Buddhist Studies) at the University of Bristol. (shrink)

This article contends that the evolution toward interdisciplinary collaboration that we are witnessing in the sciences must also occur in the humanities to ensure their very survival. That is, humanists must be open to working with scientists and social scientists interested in similar research questions and vice versa. Digital humanities is a positive first step. Complexity science should be the next step. Even though much of the ground-breaking work in complexity science has been done in the natural sciences and mathematics, (...) it can, if critically adapted, provide the needed metaphor for a broad integration of disciplines, humanistic and otherwise. Given its almost a-disciplinary nature, a complexity approach to the research problems in the humanities necessarily breaks down silos. Moreover, it can restore and reframe the seamless intellectual fabric sought by researchers before the atomization of the various disciplines in the nineteenthcentury academy. (shrink)

I hope to show that supervenience and determination, as I have here intuitively characterized them, are really different expressions of the same core idea which one may make more precise in a great number of different ways, depending on the interpretation one puts on the catchall parameters “cases”, “truth of kind P”and “truth of kind S”.

Bernard Williams identifies Hume as “in some ways an archetypal reconciler” who, nevertheless, displays “a striking resistance to some of the central tenets of what [Williams calls] ‘morality’”. This assessment, it is argued, is generally correct. There are, however, some significant points of difference in their views concerning moral responsibility. This includes Williams’s view that a naturalistic project of the kind that Hume pursues is of limited value when it comes to making sense of “morality’s” illusions about responsibility and blame. (...) It is, Williams maintains, only when we consider moral responsibility in genealogical terms, which gives attention to the importance of culture and history, that we can find a way of exposing the various prejudices and illusions of “the morality system”. Nevertheless, despite these differences, what Hume and Williams share is a fundamental commitment to provide a more “truthful” and “realistic” understanding of moral responsibility and our human ethical predicament. (shrink)

This paper presents the view that tropes can change, and so are not individuated by their determinate qualitative characters. On the view I have in mind, a trope is at any given time fully determinate, but can change qualitatively within the bounds set by a determinable essence. A charge trope, for example, must at any time have some exact intensity, but can survive changes in intensity. My argument, roughly, is this: Objects can change, and tropes are the parts of objects (...) that change (in a special sense of ‘part’), so tropes can change too. After some preliminaries, I present the argument carefully and discuss the operant notions. I then discuss each premise in turn. I respond to the charge that the view isn't realist, and to objections based on identity‐conditions for tropes. I describe both substratum‐ and bundle‐theoretic versions of the view, and finally, show what the view buys us. (shrink)