S’il est une « révolution » sociale contemporaine dont les effets directs ou indirects constituent un enjeu majeur de ce début de XXIe siècle, ce n’est pas – comme on aurait pu l’attendre – celle des classes qui a occupé la conscience politique internationale et nationale pendant plusieurs décennies, mais celle des sexes. Chaque jour, certains des thèmes propres au..

Philosophe, l'auteur tente de resituer le mouvement de la pensée d'Hannah Arendt, ses grandes articulations et ce qui fait d'elle un auteur majeur et précurseur.

Notre proximité fut toujours celle de deux existences singulières, même au sein du collectif de rédaction des Cahiers du Grif que j’avais fondés mais qui ne tenaient que par la force et la générosité de celles qui, comme Marcelle, avaient accepté d’en partager activement l’aventure. Il y fallait certes du commun. Mais c’était le commun d’une mise en commun qui ne faisait jamais un. Une volonté de faire un monde – et d’abord de faire une revue – avec des femmes (...) qui n’étaient pas nécessairement... (shrink)

If we think of artistic creation as a basic dimension of humanity we need to question the absence of female artists in history. We should also look at their gradual emergence in the late 20th century, an emergence that coincides with the feminist movement and a change in the conception of art itself, revealed chiefly by Duchamp. But does art by women have some specificity? Without giving a definite answer as far as subject matter is concerned, we note that the (...) conditions suited to both history and the history of art may affect their creation but without specifying it ontologically. If, moreover, some women artists define their work as feminist, it is through an act that combines artistic and political transgression. The exhibition currently arranged by the Georges Pompidou Centre, elles@ beaubourg, provides new resources for these complex questions. (shrink)

D'après les textes anciens, la région dite Cynosarges, sur le territoire du dème des Dioméia ou Diomeis de la tribu Aigèis (II), peut commencer au Sud du rempart d'époque classique et doit comprendre une partie de la chaîne de collines qui s'étend du Sud-Est au Sud/ Sud-Ouest de l'Olympiéion, sur la rive gauche de l'Ilissos; le gymnase de Cynosarges était proche du rempart. Les Dioméia jouxtent au Nord le dème urbain de Collytos auquel ils sont liés par le culte d'Héraclès, (...) au Nord-Est le lieu-dit Agra(i), au Sud le dème d'Alopékè. Sauf une scholie à Démosthène, Contre Timocratès 114, rien ne dit que le gymnase et l'Héracléion étaient voisins, voire imbriqués ; au contraire, l'éventualité de deux entités distinctes et distantes l'un de l'autre est soutenue par plusieurs textes. Elle conduit à une relecture critique des hypothèses, des fouilles et de leurs interprétations successives. Dès lors, il n'y a pas d'obstacle à ce que l'Héracléion se soit trouvé dans le secteur où D. M. Robinson a trouvé l'inscription IG II2 1665 sur l'installation de trépieds à Cynosarges et le relief votif à Héraclès, Mus. Ép. inv. 3942. Les vestiges archaïques et classiques découverts en 1895-1896 près de l'église Hag. Pantéléimôn ne présentent aucune garantie d'être ceux du gymnase de Cynosarges détruit par Philippe V en 200 av. J.-C, même s'il est vraisemblable que l'édifice impérial mis au jour un peu plus loin est le gymnase d'Hadrien. Il ne serait pas contraire aux textes de chercher celui de Cynosarges dans le secteur délimité par le rempart au Nord, la rive droite de l'Ilissos au Sud, la région du Pythion à l'Est et le Mur ou la route de Phalère à l'Ouest. Selon toute vraisemblance, les portes XI, XII et XIII étaient respectivement la Porte Diomèis, les Portes Itôniai et les Halade Pulai, et le sanctuaire d'Egée se trouvait sur le dème de Collytos, le plus important de la trittyie urbaine de la tribu Aigèis (II). Trouvés ensemble par Ch. Karouzos dans le quartier Dourgouti, les quatre documents relatifs aux affaires d'Alopékè et au culte d'Antiochos n'indiquent pas la proximité de l'Héracléion de Cynosarges, mais localisent, à l'endroit même où ils ont été trouvés, le sanctuaire héroïque et tribal de la tribu Antiochis (X), sur le territoire d'Alopékè, seul dème urbain de la tribu. L'affluent le plus méridional de l'Ilissos (maintenant la rue Frantzi) devait séparer les Dioméia d'Alopékè. Enfin, la loi sacrée IG I3 257 pourrait provenir non pas de l'Héracléion de Cynosarges, mais du sanctuaire d'Héraclès Panera tes. (shrink)

Dans la production industrielle qui entoure actuellement l'œuvre de Hannah Arendt en France, certains ouvrages se distinguent tant par leur qualité que par leur originalité. C'est le cas de celui de Françoise Collin qui aborde la pensée de Hannah Arendt à travers le prisme de la natalité. Ce qui intéresse F. Collin dans l'œuvre arendtienne, qui irrigue ses propres travaux depuis une quinzaine d'années, c'est la capacité de préserver l'agir en commun dans un monde durablement marqué par...

Cette anthologie critique, rééditée en 2011 aux éditions Dalloz, entend démontrer ce qui devrait relever de l’évidence : la philosophie parle des femmes, écrit sur et pense à partir de la question des sexes. Cette considérable collection d’auteurs et de textes découvre ainsi ce qui, des philosophes et de la philosophie, reste encore constamment invisibilisé : leurs considérations sur la question des sexes en général, donc sur tout ce qui semble également s’y rapporter de manière directe et mo...

Françoise Collin occupe une position singulière dans le paysage intellectuel féministe depuis 1973 où elle fonda les Cahiers du GRIF. Aucun sujet touchant le « différend des sexes » (selon son expression) n’a échappé, dès lors, à la curiosité de cette philosophe, écrivaine et essayiste. Après une première étape de recherches portant notamment sur Maurice Blanchot, Françoise Collin s’est consacrée prioritairement à la pensée féministe sans céder à la tentation de clore le débat par un quelconq...

Ces deux ouvrages rendent hommage et restituent la pensée plurielle de Françoise Collin (1928-2012), philosophe, écrivaine et féministe belge, ayant vécu en France et essaimé en Europe. Publiés dans un contexte similaire, ils visent néanmoins des objectifs différents. Le premier, Françoise Collin. L’insurrection permanente d’une pensée discontinue (abr. IP), caractérisé par son ampleur, entend reconstruire, selon les termes de l’auteure, la pensée complexe et « discontinue » de la philosophe...

In January 2008, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority issued two 1-year licenses for cytoplasmic hybrid embryo research. This article situates the HFEA's decision in its wider scientific and political context in which, until quite recently, the debate about human embryonic stem cell research has focused narrowly on the moral status of the developing human embryo. Next, ethical arguments against crossing species boundaries with humans are canvassed. Finally, a new argument about the risks of harm to women egg providers resulting (...) from research involving the creation of humanesque cytoplasmic hybrid embryos is elaborated. Taken together these ethical concerns about the moral status of the human embryo, about the ethics of crossing species boundaries with humans, and about the potential harms to women, provide good reason to eschew humanesque cytoplasmic hybrid embryo research in favor of less ethically controversial means to the laudable end of successful regenerative medicine. (shrink)

In “A Tension in the Strong Program: The Relation between the Rational and the Social”, Shahram Shahryari (2021) advances the following thesis: In his Strong Program in the sociology of science, David Bloor blames traditional philosophy of science for adopting a dualist strategy in explaining scientific developments, as it employs rational explanation for successful science and social explanation for flawed science. Instead, according to Bloor, all scientific developments should be explained monistically, i.e. in terms of social causes. This is also (...) referred to as the Symmetry Principle, and it is a key tenet in the Strong Program. The author detects a tension here, as Bloor apparently asserts that traditional philosophy of science deploys two kinds of explanation, and simultaneously insists that there is only one kind, i.e. social explanation. (shrink)

Is corporate giving a matter of sporadic and altruistic generosity? Or should it be seen more as “a product to be marketed to the public”? The author is Lecturer in International Business in the Department of Commerce of the University of Birmingham, Ashley Building, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT.

A prominent approach to scientific explanation and modeling claims that for a model to provide an explanation it must accurately represent at least some of the actual causes in the event's causal history. In this paper, I argue that many optimality explanations present a serious challenge to this causal approach. I contend that many optimality models provide highly idealized equilibrium explanations that do not accurately represent the causes of their target system. Furthermore, in many contexts, it is in virtue of (...) their independence of causes that optimality models are able to provide a better explanation than competing causal models. Consequently, our account of explanation and modeling must expand beyond the causal approach. (shrink)

Most philosophers adopt an etiological conception of functions, but not one that uniformly explains the functions attributed to material entities irrespective of whether they are natural or man-made. Here, I investigate the widespread idea that a combination of the two current etiological theories, SEL and INT, can offer a satisfactory account of the proper functions of both organisms and artifacts.. Making explicit what a realist theory of function supposes, I first show that SEL offers a realist theory of biological functions (...) in which these are objective properties of a peculiar sort. I argue next that an artifact function demonstrates the same objective nature as a biological function when it is accounted for by SEL, but not when it is accounted for by INT. I explain why a dual theory of artifact functions admitting both INT and SEL functions is to be dismissed. I establish that neither INT nor SEL alone can account for all artifact functions. Drawing the conclusion that we need a new etiological theory of function, I show how one can overcome the apparent inevitability of INT for some artifact functions. Finally, I outline a new etiological theory of functions that applies equally to biological entities and to artifacts. (shrink)

In this paper, I first argue against various attempts to justify idealizations in scientific models that explain by showing that they are harmless and isolable distortions of irrelevant features. In response, I propose a view in which idealized models are characterized as providing holistically distorted representations of their target system. I then suggest an alternative way that idealized modeling can be justified by appealing to universality.

Some patients who have been diagnosed as “dead by neurologic criteria” continue to exhibit certain brain functions, most commonly, neuroendocrine functions. This preservation of neurologic function after the diagnosis of “brain death” or “brainstem death” is an ongoing source of controversy and concern in the medical, bioethics, and legal literatures. Most obviously, if some brain function persists, then it is not the case that all functions of the entire brain have ceased and hence, declaring such a patient to be “dead” (...) would be a false positive, in any nation with so-called “whole brain death” laws. Furthermore, and perhaps more concerning, the preservation of any brain function necessarily entails the preservation of some amount of brain perfusion, thereby raising the concern as to whether additional areas of neural tissue may remain viable, including areas in the brainstem. These and other considerations cast significant doubt on the reliability of diagnosing either “brain death” or “brainstem death.”. (shrink)

Brain dead organ donors are the principal source of transplantable organs. However, it is controversial whether brain death is the same as biological death. Therefore, it is unclear whether organ removal in brain death is consistent with the ‘dead donor rule’, which states that organ removal must not cause death. Our aim was to evaluate the public9s opinion about organ removal if explicitly described as causing the death of a donor in irreversible apneic coma. We conducted a cross-sectional internet survey (...) of the American public (n=1096). Questionnaire domains included opinions about a hypothetical scenario of organ removal described as causing the death of a patient in irreversible coma, and items measuring willingness to donate organs after death. Some 71% of the sample agreed that it should be legal for patients to donate organs in the scenario described and 67% agreed that they would want to donate organs in a similar situation. Of the 85% of the sample who agreed that they were willing to donate organs after death, 76% agreed that they would donate in the scenario of irreversible coma with organ removal causing death. There appears to be public support for organ donation in a scenario explicitly described as violating the dead donor rule. Further, most but not all people who would agree to donate when organ removal is described as occurring after death would also agree to donate when organ removal is described as causing death in irreversible coma. (shrink)

An original argument about how scientific models often times distort reality rather than accurately reflect it. And it's this distortion that often gives scientific models their epistemic power.

Many accounts of scientific modelling assume that models can be decomposed into the contributions made by their accurate and inaccurate parts. These accounts then argue that the inaccurate parts of the model can be justified by distorting only what is irrelevant. In this paper, I argue that this decompositional strategy requires three assumptions that are not typically met by our best scientific models. In response, I propose an alternative view in which idealized models are characterized as holistically distorted representations that (...) are justified by allowing for the application of various modelling techniques. (shrink)

The established view regarding ‘brain death’ in medicine and medical ethics is that patients determined to be dead by neurological criteria are dead in terms of a biological conception of death, not a philosophical conception of personhood, a social construction or a legal fiction. Although such individuals show apparent signs of being alive, in reality they are dead, though this reality is masked by the intervention of medical technology. In this article, we argue that an appeal to the distinction between (...) appearance and reality fails in defending the view that the ‘brain dead’ are dead. Specifically, this view relies on an inaccurate and overly simplistic account of the role of medical technology in the physiology of a ‘brain dead’ patient. We conclude by offering an explanation of why the conventional view on ‘brain death’, though mistaken, continues to be endorsed in light of its connection to organ transplantation and the dead donor rule. (shrink)

A “universalist” policy on brain death holds that brain death is death, and neurologic criteria for death determination are rightly applied to all, without exemptions or opt outs. This essay argues that advocates of a universalist brain death policy defend the same sort of coercive control of end-of-life decision-making as “pro-life” advocates seek to achieve for reproductive decision-making, and both are grounded in an illiberal political philosophy. Those who recognize the serious flaws of this kind of public policy with respect (...) to abortion must apply the same logic to brain death. (shrink)

The controversy over brain death and the dead donor rule continues unabated, with some of the same key points and positions starting to see repetition in the literature. One might wonder whether some of the participants are talking past each other, not all debating the same issue, even though they are using the same words (e.g., “death”). One reason for this is the complexity of the debate: It’s not merely about the nature of human life and death. Interwoven into this (...) debate are deep philosophical issues on realism, the normative/descriptive distinction, the relation of thought and language to the world, the mind–body problem, personhood, moral status, and the ethics of killing. There are also social and legal .. (shrink)

John P. Lizza has long been a major figure in the scholarly literature on criteria for death. His searching and penetrating critiques of the dominant biological paradigm, and his defense of a theory of death of the person as a psychophysical entity, have both significantly advanced the literature. In this special issue, Lizza reinforces his critiques of a strictly biological approach. In my commentary, I take up Lizza’s challenge regarding a biological concept of death. He is certainly right to point (...) out that science is not value-free; however, this does not imply that there cannot be a characterization of biological death that can be shown to be superior to other concepts. After characterizing and justifying such a theory of biological death, I show that patients who meet the diagnostic criteria for brain death are unequivocally biologically alive. However, with respect to concepts of personhood and related ideas, I urge the acceptance of a pluralism of such concepts for matters of public policy. (shrink)

Recently philosophers of science have begun to pay more attention to the use of highly idealized mathematical models in scientific theorizing. An important example of this kind of highly idealized modeling is the widespread use of optimality models within evolutionary biology. One way to understand the explanations provided by these models is as a censored causal explanation: an explanation that omits certain causal factors in order to focus on a modular subset of the causal processes that led to the explanandum. (...) In this paper, I first argue that the censored causal model approach fails to establish a permanent explanatory role for optimality models in biology and mischaracterizes the explanatory virtues of biological optimality modeling. In addition, I argue that many biological optimality explanations cannot be characterized as censored causal explanations. In response, I propose an alternative approach that analyzes optimality models’ reliance on synchronically representing a system’s constraints and tradeoffs as well as their employment of various kinds of idealization in order to provide equilibrium explanations. (shrink)

oise Baylis, 1234 Le Marchant Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3P7. Tel.: (902)-494–2873; Fax: (902)-494-2924; Email: francoise.baylis{at}dal.ca ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> . Abstract Recently, there has been a growing interest in public health and public health ethics. Much of this interest has been tied to efforts to draw up national and international plans to deal with a global pandemic. It is common for these plans to state the importance of drawing upon a well-developed (...) ethics framework and we argue that this framework should reflect the values and insights of feminist relational theory. More specifically, we argue that pandemic planning must be squarely situated in the larger realm of public health and that an ethics framework for public health will be one that recognizes the need to pay particular attention to the vulnerability of subpopulations lacking in social and economic power. We propose an ethics framework for public health that builds on the notions of relational personhood (including relational autonomy and social justice) and relational solidarity. In this way, we aim for a public health ethics that, as appropriate, promotes the public interest and the common good. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Biologists and economists use models to study complex systems. This similarity between these disciplines has led to an interesting development: the borrowing of various components of model-based theorizing between the two domains. A major recent example of this strategy is economists’ utilization of the resources of evolutionary biology in order to construct models of economic systems. This general strategy has come to be called evolutionary economics and has been a source of much debate among economists. Although philosophers have developed literatures (...) on the nature of models and modeling, the unique issues surrounding this kind of interdisciplinary model building have yet to be independently investigated. In this paper, we utilize evolutionary economics as a case study in the investigation of more general issues concerning interdisciplinary modeling. We begin by critiquing the distinctions currently used within the evolutionary economics literature and propose an alternative carving of the conceptual terrain. We then argue that the three types of evolutionary economics we distinguish capture distinctions that will be important whenever resources of model-based theorizing are borrowed across distinct scientific domains. Our analysis of these model-building strategies identifies several of the unique methodological and philosophical issues that confront interdisciplinary modeling. (shrink)

Legally defining “death” in terms of brain death unacceptably obscures a value judgment that not all reasonable people would accept. This is disingenuous, and it results in serious moral flaws in the medical practices surrounding organ donation. Public policy that relies on the whole-brain concept of death is therefore morally flawed and in need of revision.