In this paper I compare parametric and nonparametric regression models with the help of a simulated data set. Doing so, I have two main objectives. The first one is to differentiate five concepts of simplicity and assess their respective importance. The second one is to show that the scope of the existing philosophical literature on simplicity and model selection is too narrow because it does not take the nonparametric approach into account, S112–S123, 2002; Forster and Sober in The British Journal (...) for the Philosophy of Science 45, 1–35, 1994; Forster, 2001, in Philosophy of Science 74, 588–600, 2007; Hitchcock and Sober in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55, 1–34, 2004; Mikkelson in Philosophy of Science 73, 440–447, 2006; Baker 2013). More precisely, I point out that a measure of simplicity in terms of the number of adjustable parameters is inadequate to characterise nonparametric models and to compare them with parametric models. This allows me to weed out false claims about what makes a model simpler than another. Furthermore, I show that the importance of simplicity in model selection cannot be captured by the notion of parametric simplicity. ‘Simplicity’ is an umbrella term. While parametric simplicity can be ignored, there are other notions of simplicity that need to be taken into consideration when we choose a model. Such notions are not discussed in the previously mentioned literature. The latter therefore portrays an incomplete picture of why simplicity matters when we choose a model. Overall I support a pluralist view according to which we cannot give a general and interesting justification for the importance of simplicity in science. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to show how the problem of inflated effect sizes corrupts the severity measure of evidence. This has never been done. In fact, the Winner’s Curse is barely mentioned in the philosophical literature. Since the severity score is the predominant measure of evidence for frequentist tests in the philosophical literature, it is important to underscore its flaws. It is also crucial to bring the philosophical literature up to speed with the limits of classical testing. The (...) Winner’s Curse is one of them. The problem is that when a significant result is obtained by using an underpowered test, the severity score becomes particularly high for large discrepancies from the null-hypothesis. This means that such discrepancies are very well supported by the evidence according to that measure. However, it is now well documented that significant tests with low power display inflated effect sizes. They systematically show departures from the null hypothesis H0 that are much greater than they really are. From an epistemological point of view this means that a significant result produced by an underpowered test does not provide evidence for large discrepancies from H0. Therefore, the severity score is an inadequate measure of evidence. Given that we are now aware of the phenomenon of inflated effect sizes, it would be irresponsible to rely on the severity score to measure the strength of the evidence against the null. Instead, one must take appropriate measures to try and avoid using underpowered tests by setting a threshold for the sample size or by replicating the results of the experiment. (shrink)

It has been claimed that if statistical power and p-values are both used to measure the strength of our evidence for the null-hypothesis when the results of our tests are not significant, then they can also be used to derive inconsistent epistemic judgements as we compare two different experiments. Those problematic derivations are known as power approach paradoxes. The consensus is that we can avoid them if we abandon the idea that statistical power can measure the strength of our evidence. (...) In this paper however, I put forward a different solution. I argue that every power approach paradox rests on an equivocation on "strong evidence". The main idea is that we need to make a careful distinction between the evidence provided by the quality of the test and the evidence provided by the outcome of the test. Both provide different types of evidence and their respective strength are to be evaluated differently. (shrink)

The p value is the probability under the null hypothesis of obtaining an experimental result that is at least as extreme as the one that we have actually obtained. That probability plays a crucial role in frequentist statistical inferences. But if we take the word ‘extreme’ to mean ‘improbable’, then we can show that this type of inference can be very problematic. In this paper, I argue that it is a mistake to make such an interpretation. Under minimal assumptions about (...) the alternative hypothesis, I explain why ‘extreme’ means ‘outside the most precise predicted range of experimental outcomes for a given upper bound probability of error’. Doing so, I rebut recent formulations of recurrent criticisms against the frequentist approach in statistics and underscore the importance of random variables. (shrink)

In this paper I articulate a fictionalist solution to the closure problem that affects constructive empiricism. Relying on Stephen Yablo’s recent study of closure puzzles, I show how we can partition the content of a theory in terms of its truthmakers and claim that a constructive empiricist can believe that all the observable conditions that are necessary to make a part of her theory true obtain and remain agnostic about whether or not the other truthmakers for the other parts of (...) her theory obtain. This can be done even though she asserts her theory as if it was wholly true. (shrink)

In this paper, I compare theory-laden perceptions with imputed data sets. The similarities between the two allow me to show how the phenomenon of theory-ladenness can manifest itself in statistical analyses. More importantly, elucidating the differences between them will allow me to broaden the focus of the existing literature on theory-ladenness and to introduce some much-needed nuances.

The main point of this paper is to underscore that tests with very low power will be significant only if the observations are deviant under both H0 and H1. Therefore, the results of those significant tests will generate misleadingly high severity scores for differences between H0 and H1 that are excessively overestimated. In other words, that measure of evidence is bound to fail in those cases. It will inevitably fail to adequately measure the strength of the evidence provided by tests (...) with low power. (shrink)

The main point of this paper is to underscore the link between simplicity and truth in an unsupervised machine learning context. More precisely, we argue that parametric and dimensional simplicity are not indicators of truth but the methodological principle that urges us to pay attention to such notions of simplicity is truth conducive. The truth that we are looking for are specific geometrical shapes and we know which algorithm can find which shapes provided that we pay attention to parametric and (...) dimensional simplicity. (shrink)

In 1983, in an open letter to the journal Nature, Karl Popper and David Miller set forth a particularly strong critical argument which sought to demonstrate the impossibility of inductive probability. Since its publication the argument has faced many criticisms and we argue in this article that they do not reach their objectives. We will first reconstruct the demonstration made by Popper and Miller in their initial article and then try to evaluate the main arguments against it. Although it is (...) possible to conceptualize logically the idea of induction, it is shown that it is not possible on traditional Bayesian grounds. (shrink)

In 1983, in an open letter to the journal Nature, Karl Popper and David Miller set forth a particularly strong critical argument which sought to demonstrate the impossibility of inductive probability. Since its publication the argument has faced many criticisms and we argue in this article that they do not reach their objectives. We will first reconstruct the demonstration made by Popper and Miller in their initial article and then try to evaluate the main arguments against it. Although it is (...) possible to conceptualize logically the idea of induction, it is shown that it is not possible on traditional Bayesian grounds. (shrink)

The curse of dimensionality is one of the most prominent challenge that data scientists face when trying to make valuable inferences. It is an epistemic problem that hits particularly hard in "Big Data" research contexts, where the volume of the data set is particularly large. The way in which we tackle with this problem sheds light on the notion of scientific evidence. Yet, it is virtually absent from the current philosophical literature. In this paper, I aim to broaden the focus (...) of that literature by showing that the dimensions in which the data are embedded are an integral part of scientific evidence. This is an aspect of scientific evidence that is often hidden behind the traditional observation/theory dichotomy that we often encounter in philosophy of science. Dimensions are abstract objects. They are not observables like tables and chairs, nor are they entries in a data set. Ultimately, I aim to show that empirical adequacy is not merely a matter of finding the model that best fit the relevant observational data. It is also a matter of finding the model that best fit the relevant observational data inside the relevant dimensions. (shrink)

Machine learning is a scientific discipline that can be divided into two main branches: supervised machine learning and unsupervised machine learning. In this paper, we aim to show just how simplicity matters in unsupervised contexts. This is important because unsupervised machine learning algorithms have barely received any attention in philosophy. Yet, there is a direct link between simplicity and truth in unsupervised contexts that we do not find in their supervised counterparts. This has thus far evaded philosophical discussions on simplicity.

Classical statistical inferences have been criticised for various reasons. To assess the soundness of such criticisms is a very important task because they are widely used in everyday scientific research. This is one of the reasons why the philosophy of statistics is an exciting field of study. In this paper, I focus on two such criticisms. The first one claims that the use of the p-value violates the principle of total evidence. It is a thesis that has been defended by (...) Elliott Sober and Bengt Autzen. The second one says that the result of classical tests does not only depend on the data but on the sampling plan of the experimenter also. The underlying criticism of course is that the sampling plan is not part of the evidence and that classical tests therefore violate PTE. The intentions of the experimenter should not affect the result of an inference. My aim is to show that both criticisms are unsound. Doing so, I hope to clarify the concept of p-value and the nature of the evidence in classical statistical tests. The point of my paper is to show that the identification of the evidence on which those criticisms rest is inadequate. (shrink)

From the 1660s onwards, France tried to establish itself as a leading maritime and colonial power. The first French East India Company allowed a decisive penetration into the Indian Ocean, while the foundation of the Rochefort arsenal was the starting point of a great shipbuilding effort. The archives of the State Secretariat of the French Navy, ports, and learned societies, as well as printed scholarly literature, testify to an increasing mobilisation around the health of the “gens de mer.” Most (...) of the actors involved in this reflection, whether doctors or surgeons, naval officers or engineers, scholars or inventors, agreed in associating seamen's diseases with the poor air quality prevailing within ships. The environment of seafarers was thus definitely regarded as harmful. However, the atmosphere of a ship was also seen through the possibility to reshape it and reduce its dangerousness, with adapted behaviours, careful maintenance, or technical solutions. This was crucial to ensure the circulation of human beings and goods across the French overseas empire, but also to defend it from the threats associated with the major conflicts of the second half of the 18th century. This article highlights how environments regarded as “pathogenic” were conceived and reshaped during the second half of the early modern period in France, using the example of naval hygiene. It examines the strategies designed and implemented to combat the “noxious” air of French ships, in particular through the regulations introduced since the end of the 17th century, and considers how this issue has stimulated the search for technological solutions. (shrink)

Ego et communauté. Au contraire de la position défendue par la plupart des interprètes de Husserl qui, au nom de l'intersubjectivité, lui reprochent de suivre une "voie cartésienne" et d'accorder un privilège à l'ego cogito, il s'agit de montrer que cette critique n'est pas fondée : le primat méthodologique de l'ego est au contraire une condition nécessaire pour constituer la communauté intersubjective, et éviter de subordonner l'individualité vivante à une "transcendance" anonyme. L'enjeu est de comprendre la crise des temps modernes (...) comme celle d'un monde aliéné qui s'est fondé sur l'oubli de la vie, mais aussi sur le déni du pouvoir constituant de l'ego et la répression de toute subjectivité."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

L’attitude réaliste constitue de prime abord la posture du sens commun vis-à-vis de la science. Elle consiste à attribuer à la science l’objectif de décrire littéralement la réalité tout en lui reconnaissant la capacité, en vertu de ses méthodes, d’atteindre ce but. Si le réalisme scientifique apparait comme représentant le sens commun, il a dû, au courant du siècle dernier, s’ériger en véritable posture philosophique argumentée devant l’influence grandissante des différentes formes d’antiréalismes. Dans la mesure où la posture qu’un philosophe (...) adopte concernant la prétention des théories scientifiques à décrire le réel a un impact sur son traitement d’à peu près toutes les questions pertinentes de son champ de recherche, on peut dire que l’examen de la question du réalisme scientifique est recommandable à quiconque souhaite mener une réflexion philosophique à propos de l’entreprise scientifique. Cet article débute sur la présentation des thèses fondamentales du réalisme scientifique pour ensuite le distinguer des autres postures réalistes et antiréalistes qui s’y sont opposées. Une fois les contours de la notion de réalisme scientifique précisés, il sera question des principales considérations qui ont été mises de l’avant en sa faveur et en sa défaveur. Le principal argument positif pour le réalisme scientifique est l’argument dit de l’absence de miracle. Au-delà de cet argument, tous les arguments du réalisme scientifique sont issus de répliques aux différents défis antiréalistes qui lui ont été lancés depuis la seconde moitié du 20e siècle. Il s’agira donc, par la suite, de présenter ces différents défis en identifiant les postures qui s’en réclament ainsi que les principales stratégies employées par les réalistes pour tenter de les relever. À la lumière de ce qui aura été présenté, l’article se conclut en interrogeant la distance qui sépare véritablement le réalisme scientifique de l’antiréalisme dans leurs formes contemporaines. (shrink)

In this dissertation I propose a new reading of the philosophical itinerary of Hilary Putnam on the matter of realism. In essence, my purpose is to argue that there is much more continuity than is normally understood, and even a degree of permanence, in the way in which Putnam has viewed the question of realism throughout his career. To arrive at this interpretation of Putnam I essentially followed two veins in his work. First, in a volume published in the early (...) 2000s entitled Ethics without Ontology (2004), Putnam establishes a parallel between his conception of objectivity in the philosophy of mathematics and in ethics. The second vein comes from a comment he made in the introduction to the first volume of his Philosophical Papers (1975) to the effect that the kind of realism he presupposed in his work of the 1960s and 70s was the same that he upheld in the philosophy of mathematics and wished to argue for at a later date in ethics. Following the first vein makes it possible to better grasp Putnam’s general conception of objectivity, but in order to understand how such a conception of objectivity is not unique to mathematics but is instead a general conception of objectivity one must follow the second vein. There, in the 1960s and 70s, Putnam adopted the same kind of realism in the philosophy of science and in ethics as he had in the philosophy of mathematics. Following this path, one realises that there exists a very strong structural similarity between Putnam’s first realism and his internal realism. After establishing this connection between Putnam’s first and second realism, I draw on Putnam’s remarks and compare the internal realism discourse to his current realism (the natural realism of ordinary people) to demonstrate, contrary to the prevalent interpretation, that there has been a great deal of consistency in his conception of realism from the 1960s to the present day. I conclude the dissertation by demonstrating how my new interpretation of Putnam’s philosophical itinerary makes it possible to shed light on the kind of realism he wishes to champion in ethics./Dans cette thèse, je propose une lecture renouvelée de l’itinéraire philosophique d’Hilary Putnam concernant la problématique du réalisme. Mon propos consiste essentiellement à défendre l’idée selon laquelle il y aurait beaucoup plus de continuité, voir une certaine permanence, dans la manière dont Putnam a envisagé la question du réalisme tout au long de sa carrière. Pour arriver à une telle interprétation de son oeuvre, j’ai essentiellement suivi deux filons. D’abord, dans un ouvrage du début des années 2000, Ethics without Ontology (2004), Putnam établit un parallèle entre sa conception de l’objectivité en philosophie des mathématiques et en éthique. Le deuxième filon vient d’une remarque qu’il fait, dans l’introduction du premier volume de ses Philosophical Papers (1975), affirmant que la forme de réalisme qu’il présupposait dans ses travaux des années 1960-1970 était la même que celle qu’il défendait en philosophie des mathématiques et qu’il souhaitait défendre ultérieurement en éthique. En suivant le premier filon, il est possible de mieux cerner la conception générale que se fait Putnam de l’objectivité, mais pour comprendre en quel sens une telle conception de l’objectivité n’est pas propre aux mathématiques, mais constitue en réalité une conception générale de l’objectivité, il faut suivre le second filon, selon lequel Putnam aurait endossé, durant les années 1960-1970, le même type de réalisme en philosophie des sciences et en éthique qu’en philosophie des mathématiques. Suivant cette voie, on se rend compte qu’il existe une similarité structurelle très forte entre le premier réalisme de Putnam et son réalisme interne. Après avoir établi la parenté entre le premier et le second réalisme de Putnam, je montre, en m’inspirant de commentaires du philosophe ainsi qu’en comparant le discours du réalisme interne au discours de son réalisme actuel (le réalisme naturel du commun des mortels), que, contrairement à l’interprétation répandue, il existe une grande unité au sein de sa conception du réalisme depuis les années 1960 à nos jours. Je termine la thèse en montrant comment mon interprétation renouvelée de l’itinéraire philosophique de Putnam permet de jeter un certain éclairage sur la forme de réalisme que Putnam souhaite défendre en éthique. (shrink)

Docteur en médecine et philosophe, Canguilhem n'élabore pas de système, contrairement à Bergson qui fait de l'intuition le seul moyen de connaissance de la durée et de la vie. Philosophie biologique, durée, temps, devenir sont les thèmes abordés par les deux hommes. Canguilhem, le corps humain. Bergson, l'élan vital.

"Le national-socialisme est un principe barbare", écrit Martin Heidegger dans ses Cahiers noirs, ajoutant : "C'est ce qui lui est essentiel et sa possible grandeur." Révolutionnaire radical, ayant vu et approuvé le caractère destructeur du nazisme, le recteur de Fribourg a réservé d'autres surprises dans ses journaux philosophiques, dans lesquels il évoque par exemple l'"auto-anéantissement du "juif"". Alors que le philosophe est devenu un objet d'incompréhension et d'horreur, nombre de spécialistes en appellent désormais à l'histoire. C'est cette réhistoricisation que l'auteur (...) a entreprise dans ce livre. Refusant la polémique, l'adoration et la détestation, il s'emploie à comprendre l'homme et le penseur, de l'intérieur et en son temps, par le biais de toutes les sources disponibles : cours, lettres, textes de circonstance, de même que ces Cahiers noirs qui suscitent tant d'émoi. Excédant largement le IIIe Reich, le cheminement de Heidegger fut heurté : il commença par un catholicisme intransigeant, qui laissa la place, après la Première Guerre mondiale, à une volonté farouche de révolution philosophique, terreau dans lequel son nazisme vint jeter de profondes racines qui survécurent à l'effondrement du régime d'Adolf Hitler. De cette biographie se dégage un portrait fait d'ombres et de lumières : grand philosophe, maître, ami ou amant de juifs ou d'étrangers, Heidegger fut aussi un nationaliste antisémite, inquiet de l'"enjuivement" de son peuple et soucieux de son rôle historique prééminent. (shrink)

_A portrait of Martin Heidegger as a man and a philosopher_ In this biography of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), now available in English, historian Guillaume Payen synthesizes the connections between the German philosopher’s life and work. Critically, but without polemics, he creates a portrait of Heidegger in his time, using all available sources—lectures, letters, and the notorious “black notebooks.” Payen chronicles Heidegger’s “changing destinies”: after the First World War, an uncompromising Catholicism gave way to a vigorous striving for a philosophical (...) revolution—fertile ground for National Socialism. The book reflects a life of light and shadow. Heidegger was a great philosopher and teacher who cultivated friendships and love affairs with Jews but also was an anti-Semitic nationalist who lamented the “Judaization of German intellectual life.”. (shrink)

Brentano’s philosophy of perception has often been understood as a special chapter of his theory of intentionality. If all and only mental phenomena are constitutively intentional, and if perceptual experience is mental by definition, then all perceptual experiences are intentional experiences. I refer to this conception as the “standard view” of Brentano’s account of perception. Different options are available to support the standard view: a sense-data theory of perception; an adverbialist account; representationalism. I argue that none of them are real (...) options for the standard view. I suggest that Brentano’s conception of optical illusions introduces a presupposition that not only challenges the standard view - the distinction between the subjectively and objectively given - but that also makes his account more palatable for a naive understanding of perception as openness to and awareness of the world. (shrink)

Cet article propose la première publication complète d’un monument consacré par les Thespiens aux Muses dans leur sanctuaire au pied de l’Hélicon, dont les éléments constitutifs sont connus depuis le xixe s., et notamment depuis les fouilles de P. Jamot au Val des Muses. Les statues en bronze de petite taille des neuf Muses se dressaient sur une base en arc de cercle d’une ampleur de ca 10 m, placée dans un écrin architectural largement ouvert sur l’extérieur. Un nouveau lustre (...) est donné à ce groupe statuaire hellénistique exceptionnel à l’époque d’Auguste par la gravure, sous chacune des figures, d’une épigramme descriptive et érudite signée par le poète corinthien Honestos. Est ainsi conservé l’un des rares exemples archéologiques de recueil de poèmes décrivant des œuvres d’art figuré. L’analyse des épigrammes et l’observation détaillée des mortaises de fixation visibles à la face supérieure des blocs de la base permettent d’émettre des hypothèses sur les types utilisés pour la représentation des Muses, mais aussi d’assurer, au‑delà de tout doute, que les statues prenaient place au milieu d’ornements végétaux en bronze qui évoquaient le paysage du Val des Muses. La représentation de la nature comme élément non plus secondaire, mais essentiel d’un groupe sculpté correspond aux recherches nouvelles de la basse époque hellénistique. Faute de fouilles exhaustives du sanctuaire des Muses, l’emplacement du monument ne peut être déterminé avec certitude. Des lettres de remontage nous apprennent en revanche qu’il a été déplacé, peut‑être à l’époque où furent gravés les poèmes d’Honestos. (shrink)

L’article exploite l’occasion rare d’étudier ensemble une statue et la construction où elle était présentée et mise en valeur. Les fragments de la statue comme de son baldaquin ont été trouvés ensemble lors de la fouille de 1931. Le baldaquin consiste en un petit édicule corinthien à deux colonnes, ouvert en façade et sur les côtés, accolé au mur Sud de la curie. La légèreté de sa construction comparée à la massivité de la statue exécutée d’un seul bloc, implique qu’il (...) a été construit autour de la statue, après sa mise en place et son achèvement. La statue assise de Fortuna se présentait de face, tournée vers l’espace qui tenait lieu de basilique civile au forum. L’emplacement où elle se trouve lui donne ainsi tout son sens. L’ensemble a été mis en place au moment des grands travaux de la deuxième phase architecturale du forum, dans le troisième quart du iie s. p.C., et détruit par le séisme qui a gravement affecté les bâtiments du forum vers le début du vie s. (shrink)

Cette étude constitue la première publication complète de tous les éléments associés à l’autel des Césars au cœur de l’agora de Thasos : les vestiges architecturaux, la dédicace à Lucius César et la tête sculptée mises au jour lors de la fouille du monument. L’identification de l’édifice à un autel est désormais assurée et l’appartenance du bloc inscrit à ce dernier confirmée. La présence d’une seconde dédicace, vraisemblablement à Caius César, est rendue très probable par la structure du monument, dont (...) une restitution est proposée pour la première fois. L’association à la construction de l’autel des deux soubassements de bases qui le flanquent à l’Est est démontrée, ce qui conforte l’identification de la tête à l’un des deux princes de la jeunesse, dans lequel il faut reconnaître Caius plutôt que Lucius. Ces nouveaux éléments permettent de dater précisément le monument entre 4 et 6 apr. J.‑C. et de lui donner sa juste place dans l’histoire des relations entre Thasos et la famille impériale. (shrink)

Résumé David Chalmers maintient que la réalité virtuelle est une véritable réalité. Une version de ce « réalisme virtuel » affirme que les entités virtuelles dépendent ontologiquement d'entités numériques réelles. Nous explorons ici cette suggestion, en proposant un nouveau modèle pour décrire la dépendance du virtuel à l’égard du numérique. En nous appuyant sur la théorie de la constitution de Lynne Rudder Baker, nous défendons que les objets virtuels sont constitués par des objets numériques, lorsque ceux-ci se trouvent dans certaines (...) circonstances favorables. Nous explorons les motivations et les implications de cette approche, que nous considérons comme une forme prometteuse de réalisme virtuel. (shrink)

Considers Deleuze's ideas on philosophical practice in relation to his work. This book presents analyses of, and aims to provide some context for, this relation in Deleuze's work, by focusing on Deleuze's conception of the relation between thought and practice, the brain and the hand (or mouth).

Unlike in physics, the category of thought experiment is not very common in biology. At least there are no classic examples that are as important and as well-known as the most famous thought experiments in physics, such as Galileo’s, Maxwell’s or Einstein’s. The reasons for this are far from obvious; maybe it has to do with the fact that modern biology for the most part sees itself as a thoroughly empirical discipline that engages either in real natural history or in (...) experimenting on real organisms rather than fictive ones. While theoretical biology does exist and is recognized as part of biology, its role within biology appears to be more marginal than the role of theoretical physics within physics. It could be that this marginality of theory also affects thought experiments as sources of theoretical knowledge. Of course, none of this provides a sufficient reason for thinking that thought experiments are really unimportant in biology. It is quite possible that the common perception of this matter is wrong and that there are important theoretical considerations in biology, past or present, that deserve the title of thought experiment just as much as the standard examples from physics. Some such considerations may even be widely known and considered to be important, but were not recognized as thought experiments. In fact, as we shall see, there are reasons for thinking that what is arguably the single most important biological work ever, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, contains a number of thought experiments. There are also more recent examples both in evolutionary and non-evolutionary biology, as we will show. Part of the problem in identifying positive examples in the history of biology is the lack of agreement as to what exactly a thought experiment is. Even worse, there may not be more than a family resemblance that unifies this epistemic category. We take it that classical thought experiments show the following characteristics: They serve directly or indirectly in the non-empirical epistemic evaluation of theoretical propositions, explanations or hypotheses. Thought experiments somehow appeal to the imagination. They involve hypothetical scenarios, which may or may not be fictive. In other words, thought experiments suppose that certain states of affairs hold and then try to intuit what would happen in a world where these suppositions are true. We want to examine in the following sections if there are episodes in the history of biology that satisfy these criteria. As we will show, there are a few episodes that might satisfy all three of these criteria, and many more if the imagination criterion is dropped or understood in a lose sense. In any case, this criterion is somewhat vague in the first place, unless a specific account of the imagination is presupposed. There will also be issues as to what exactly “non-empirical” means. In general, for the sake of discussion we propose to understand the term “thought experiment” here in a broad rather than a narrow sense here. We would rather be guilty of having too wide a conception of thought experiment than of missing a whole range of really interesting examples. (shrink)

Excerpt from La Morale: Fondements Psycho-Sociologiques d'une Conduite Rationnelle Parce qu'ils ont eu le sentiment de cette trans formation inéluctable du moraliste, qui de sage ou inspiré devient de plus en plus homme de science, M. Le Dr toulouse et ses collaborateurs en ont suscité une première manifestation et ont fait entrer dans le cadre cl'é tudes psychologiques, psy cho - pathologiques et psycho sociologiques, un ou vrage de morale. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare (...) and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Le spiritualisme ravaissonien ouvre l'horizon d'une refondation complète de la métaphysique au cœur du XIXe siècle français. À partir de la lecture d'Aristote, Ravaisson élabore une critique de ce que l'on peut nommer les 'métaphysiques de la séparation', dont le point de départ se trouve dans les écrits du stagirite. Il s'agira dès lors de déployer une philosophie qui affirme l'identité de l'être et de la pensée, par-delà toute transcendance et tout dualisme. C'est ainsi que le problème de la métaphysique (...) peut être posé peut-on surmonter la disjonction de l'être et de l'étant, de la nature et de l'esprit, ou encore de l'homme et de Dieu? Faut-il au contraire considérer que la séparation définit le geste inaugural de toute métaphysique? Ravaisson, en refusant cette dernière possibilité, élabore une philosophie qui s'inscrit contre l'idéalisme transcendantal de Kant ou le positivisme de Comte, et plus largement contre toute tendance matérialiste de la pensée. Ainsi, l'unité perdue de la métaphysique doit être recherchée en questionnant l'héritage d'Aristote, afin de déterminer s'il s'agit de penser avec, ou contre celui-ci."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)