Adopting a communication as constitutive of organization (CCO) perspective on ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) invites us to create the conditions of a dialogue, discussion, or debate between various stakeholders, who can then try to confront their respective positions on a given issue, and possibly come to a decision regarding how a situation should be evaluated and/or responded to. As shown in this article, getting human stakeholders to voice their concerns about a specific situation is a way not only (...) to rationally confront multiple viewpoints on what should be done about it (à la Habermas) but also to allow elements of this situation to reveal themselves in a discussion. This is why any ethical decision has to experience a form of undecidability and surprisability. When beliefs and opinions can be called into question, it means that participants are ready to become attentive to what a situation might surprisingly call for. Communication is therefore a matter of ventriloquism, as human participants should also be considered the means by which elements of a situation manage to express themselves in a discussion, dictating specific courses of action over others. This concretely means that multiple voices can be heard in such a scene: not only the voices of the human stakeholders who speak to each other but also the voices of facts, principles, future generations, ecosystems, populations that are made to say things through these various turns of talk. (shrink)

Analyses of embodied interaction still appear to explicitly or implicitly defend a human-centered approach to language and body in the material world. In this article, we propose to decenter our analytical position by acknowledging what artifacts, tools and architectural elements contribute to human activities and practices. Starting from a ‘ventriloqual’ perspective on communication, we demonstrate that the accountable character of people’s activities presupposes a form of material agency that tends to be neglected in our analyses. Far from neglecting human beings’ (...) contributions to their own activities, we show that this approach allows us to acknowledge their capacity to skillfully react and respond to what things indicate, say, or tell them to do. It is, we contend, in this back-and-forth process of actions and reactions that a certain dialogicity of things can be recognized. Decentering the analytical position by focusing on how things traceably contribute to shaping human interactions has, we contend, dramatic theoretical and methodological consequences. In the discussion we argue that resistance in taking a ventriloqual perspective to analyze the social life of things partially depends on its impact on the sensitive notion of responsibility. (shrink)

Dans cet article, je présente le principe d’irréductibilité de Bruno Latour et je démontre dans quelle mesure cette thèse de l’irréduction amène à la défense d’une ontologie relationnelle, autrement dit, une ontologie basée sur la réalité des relations qui composent notre monde, de même que sur une conception relative et graduelle des modes d’existence. Par ailleurs, je propose de tirer les conséquences de ce positionnement ontologique pour l’étude des interactions et, plus généralement, des phénomènes communicationnels.In this paper, I present Bruno (...) Latour’s principle of Irreducibility, and I explain the extent to which his thesis leads to the defense of a relational ontology, that is, an ontology based on the reality of the relations that compose our world, as well as on a gradual and relative view of modes of existence. I then draw the consequences of this ontological positioning for the study of interaction and, more generally, communicative phenomena. (shrink)

This paper proposes to explore the mechanisms by which speaking, writing and, more generally, interacting pragmatically contribute to the mode of being and acting of social forms, whether these forms be identities, relations or collectives. Such an approach to pragmatics, which we propose to call constitutive, amounts to showing, both theoretically and empirically, that human interactants are not the only ones who should be deemed as “doing things with words”, but that otherfigures— which can take the form of policies, statuses, (...) tools, groups, collectives, etc. — can also be identified as beingactivein a given situation, especially through the way they are mobilized and staged in interaction. According to this approach, interactions can therefore be considered dislocated loci where specific con-figurations are produced and embodied. As we will see, such a constitutive view also allows us to deal with issues of power, authority and responsibility, three questions that tend to be relatively marginalized in pragmatic studies, especially when a performative and interactive viewpoint is adopted. (shrink)

While artists often present their works as communicating to and through them, this idea has rarely been taken seriously, nor empirically studied from a communicational perspective. Building upon the pragmatist tradition, we show how this particular form of communication takes place. Using Peirce’s concept of abduction, we argue that a creative process essentially happens when a resonance between two materials leads to the unification of these materials into a new whole. Drawing upon a case study, we show how we can (...) retrace such resonances by paying close attention to the interactions between participants collectively involved in a creative project. This paper makes an important contribution to communication studies by revealing the communicational mechanism of our creative impulsions. It also opens new avenues for the study of artistic endeavors as well as other creative activities such as science, politics, or design. (shrink)

Résumé Lors d’un procès, les questions introductives en début d’interrogatoire peuvent aider non seulement à mettre le témoin à l’aise, mais également à le personnaliser, c’est-à-dire de le présenter sous un jour particulier, ce qui peut jouer sur sa crédibilité et l’empathie du décideur à son endroit. Cet article vise à mettre en évidence les mécanismes discursifs sous-jacents à ce processus et à illustrer empiriquement comment les réponses aux questions introductives y participent. À l’aide de l’approche ventriloque de la communication, (...) un extrait du témoignage d’un ex-maire de la ville de Montréal à la Commission Charbonneau est analysé en profondeur. L’analyse que nous proposons contribue à mieux comprendre ce qui se joue lors d’un témoignage, celui-ci devenant, selon notre perspective, ce lieu constamment disloqué dans lequel plusieurs figures se mettent à littéralement faire des choses et dire des choses afin qu’un témoin gagne ou perde la faveur du décideur. (shrink)

In proposing a next step in loosening the restriction of action to humans, this paper explores what we call the agency of attitudes and especially the ethical and practical questions that such recognition should entail. In line with Actor-Network Theory, we suggest that attitudes, passions and emotions can be seen to have agency in a similar vein as tangible agents (e.g., technological devices, texts, machines). We illustrate this suggestion using an example of socialization towards pain experienced during sports. Finally, we (...) propose that the awareness of attitude’s agency extends rather than reduces the ownership of choice of people, as it facilitates making “true decisions.”. (shrink)

Following Alvesson and Kärreman's influential essay on the modes and interpretation of organizational discourse, this article reports on a longitudinal study of naturally occurring interactions that took place before, during, and after a meeting between representatives of Médecins sans Frontières, a well-known humanitarian organization, and representatives of local health centers in a region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This episode is used to exemplify the fruitfulness of adopting a view that incorporates two dimensions of discourse, that is, what Alvesson (...) and Kärreman identify as its transient and muscular nature. The longitudinal aspect of our study allows us to show what interactants accomplish in particular settings, while illustrating a crucial aspect of the trans-local dimension of their talk. As shown in this article, a given Discourse must be embodied, materialized or even incarnated in discourses, that is, tokens of text or talk, in order for it to be reproduced, sustained and transported from one point to another, that is, to become what Latour calls an immutable mobile. A given Discourse can thus maintain its shape across time and space only if a lot of interactive work is done to assure the stability of its associations in the ordinary day-to-day activity of the people who embody it. (shrink)

Common sense has it that animals matter considerably less than humans; the welfare and suffering of a cow, a chicken or a fish are important but not as much as the welfare and suffering of a human being. Most animal ethicists reject this “speciesist” view as mere prejudice. In their opinion, there is no difference between humans and other animals that could justify such unequal consideration. In the opposite camp, advocates of speciesism have long tried to identify a difference that (...) would fit the bill, but they have consistently seemed to fail. In light of this, some naturally began to appeal to Moorean arguments: the case against speciesism must be flawed somehow, these philosophers maintain, because speciesism is supported by a strong and widespread intuition. This chapter draws on recent findings in social psychology to criticize this defence of speciesism. It argues that the strong and widespread intuition that humans count more than animals is epistemically defective because it is causally shaped by a pair of irrelevant influences: cognitive dissonance and tribalism. Accordingly, it is no suitable basis for a Moorean argument. (shrink)

Our societies are marked by anthropocentrism: most people treat animals in ways in which they would by no means treat fellow humans. One might nonetheless expect this prejudice to be much less prevalent in animal shelters since these places are created for the very sake of non-humans and generally managed by people who truly care about animal welfare. This chapter questions this expectation. It discusses three practices that are widespread in animal shelters and yet could be suspected of anthropocentrism: killing (...) animals for lack of resources, partnering with the livestock industry, and feeding animals meat. Drawing on the distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory, the chapter argues that management euthanasia and cooperation with animal agriculture are acceptable in non-ideal theory even though they would be condemned by ideal theory. Then it argues that meat-based pet food should be rejected even in the non-ideal circumstances faced by animal shelters. (shrink)

We propose a new approach to the study of introspection. Instead of asking what form introspection actually takes in humans or other animals, we ask what forms it could take, in natural or artificial minds. What are the dimensions along which forms of introspection could vary? This is a relatively unexplored question, but it is one that has the potential to open new avenues of study and reveal new connections between existing ones. It may, for example, focus attention on possible (...) forms of introspection radically different from the human one and help to integrate competing theories of human introspection in a non-adversarial manner. We introduce and motivate the project, provide a preliminary mapping of the space of possible forms of introspection, and sketch a programme for interdisciplinary research on the topic. (shrink)

The philosophical tradition in the West has always subjected life to conceptualdivisions and questions about meaning. In Vital Nourishment, François Jullien contends that althoughthis process has given rise to a rich history of inquiry, it proceeds too fast. In their anxietyabout meaning, Western thinkers since Plato have forgotten simply to experience life. In thisinstallment of his continuing project of plumbing the philosophical divide between Eastern andWestern thought, Jullien slows down, and, using the third and fourth century B.C.E. Chinese thinkerZhuanghi (...) as a foil, begins to think about life from a point outside of Western inquiry.The questionof how to "feed life," or nourish it, is the point of departure for the Chinese traditionthat Jullien locates in Zhuanghi. Life passes through each of us, and we have a duty to becomeamenable to its ebbs and flows. We must cultivate a sense of being adequate to it so that we canhouse it. Exploring notions of breath, energy, and immanence, Jullien reopens a vibrant space ofintellectual exchange between East and West. In doing so, he refuses to commit to a rigid frameworkof meaning, and his text unfolds as an elegant process that mirrors the very type of thought heexplores. Pointing out that it seems intellectually and politically imperative today to reinvigorateWestern thought with ideas from the East, Jullien seeks to create a space of mutual inquiry thatmaintains the integrity of both Eastern and Western thinking. Vital Nourishment is both a richintellectual historical journey and a text very much attuned to the philosophical politics of thepresent.François Jullien is Professor at the Université Paris VII-Denis Diderot and director at theInstitut de la Pensée Contemporaine. He is the author of Detour and Access: Stratgies of Meaning inChna and Greece, The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China, and In Praise ofBlandness: Proceeding from Chinsese Thought and Aesthetics, all published by Zone Books. (shrink)

In this highly insightful analysis of Western and Chinese concepts of efficacy, François Jullien subtly delves into the metaphysical preconceptions of the two civilizations to account for diverging patterns of action in warfare, politics, and diplomacy. He shows how Western and Chinese strategies work in several domains (the battlefield, for example) and analyzes two resulting acts of war. The Chinese strategist manipulates his own troops and the enemy to win a battle without waging war and to bring about victory (...) effortlessly. Efficacity in China is thus conceived of in terms of transformation (as opposed to action) and manipulation, making it closer to what is understood as efficacy in the West. Jullien’s brilliant interpretations of an array of recondite texts are key to understanding our own conceptions of action, time, and reality in this foray into the world of Chinese thought. In its clear and penetrating characterization of two contrasting views of reality from a heretofore unexplored perspective, A Treatise on Efficacy will be of central importance in the intellectual debate between East and West. (shrink)

Several authors have noted the proximity of Marty’s and Grice’s ideas. Both Marty and Grice distinguish natural meaning and the sort of meaning involved in human communication; and they both attempt to provide a characterization of human communication that does not essentially appeal to the conventional nature of its linguistic devices. In this contribution, I single out what I take to be a main difference between Marty and Grice. Marty views linguistic communication as continuous with natural meaning while Grice insists (...) on their irreducible difference. I argue that Marty is better positioned than Grice to account for intermediate cases like Grice’s Salome example, and that this can be done without losing the benefits of Grice’s reflexive analysis of communicative intentions. (shrink)

The term “biology” was introduced in 1802 by a German, Treviranus, and by a Frenchman whose name would remain well known to posterity, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.

The advent of science brought about a radical division between the means of expression it made possible and the one it disavowed: in the centuries preceding its establishment such a break was not possible, even though it was often desired.Medical treatises of the Renaissance that analyze the plague and melancholy used categories that were not different from those used by theologians (and sometimes doctors) as far as their reference to the Devil was concerned. Since it is no less a question (...) of the imagination in one case than in the other, we can try to associate these three “objects”-three figures of misfortune-and treat them as though they belonged to the same level of expression. Such a decision is not at all arbitrary; it proceeds, completely a posteriori, from the observation of a noticeable proximity between them, aside from their diversity: it is as though they offered variations on a certain number of themes, variations requested by a logic of the imaginary that we shall try to elucidate here by showing the several categories that serve as a point of departure for the functioning of that logic. (shrink)

Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) was one of the most important French philosophers of the Twentieth Century. His impact has been felt across many disciplines: sociology; cultural studies; art theory and politics. This volume presents a diverse selection of interviews, conversations and debates which relate to the five decades of his working life, both as a political militant, experimental philosopher and teacher. Including hard-to-find interviews and previously untranslated material, this is the first time that interviews with Lyotard have been presented as (...) a collection. Key concepts from Lyotard's thought – the differend, the postmodern, the immaterial – are debated and discussed across different time periods, prompted by specific contexts and provocations. In addition there are debates with other thinkers, including Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, which may be less familiar to an Anglophone audience. These debates and interviews help to contextualise Lyotard, highlighting the importance of Marx, Freud, Kant and Wittgenstein, in addition to the Jewish thought which accompanies the questions of silence, justice and presence that pervades Lyotard's thinking. (shrink)

La question de l'esthétique a été abordée à maintes reprises dans l'ensemble de mes écrits. Quand on s'engage dans l'écriture d'un ouvrage philosophique, il est impossible d'ignorer ce terme. Mais que recouvre-t-il exactement? Si on considère les origines grecques de ce mot, l'esthétique (aisthêsis) est la faculté de ressentir quelque chose ; l'esthète (aisthêtès) est ainsi celui qui sent. C'est-à-dire chacun d'entre nous. L'être humain possède cette faculté de réception du sens des choses. L'Homme est capable d'en comprendre l'idée, d'en (...) retenir l'information. Je pars de cette affirmation pour établir mon esthétique. Ainsi le sens, l'idée, l'information, ce qu'on appelle communément la vérité lorsqu'ils sont accompagnés de la puissance, sont à la fois la source, le processus et le résultat de toute création de formes artistiques ou non."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The second international Chromatiques whiteheadiennes conference was devoted exclusively to the exegesis and contextualization of Whitehead's Science and the Modern World (1925). In order to elucidate the meaning and significance of this epoch-making work, the Proceedings are designed to form "companion" volume. With one paper devoted to each of its thirteen chapters, the Proceedings aim, on the one hand, to identify the specific contribution of each chapter to Whitehead's own research program - that is to say, to put its categories (...) into perspective by means of an internal analysis- and, on the other hand, to identify its global impact in the history of ideas. (shrink)

Ce livre voudrait offrir un itinéraire en philosophie, a priori éloigné de l'actualité donc; mais il part malgré tout de nos inquiétudes d'aujourd'hui. Alors que la violence semble s'imposer de nouveau, dans les confrontations géopolitiques, mais aussi dans notre société et même dans les mots de la vie publique, faut-il nous y résigner? Est-ce se bercer d'illusion que de croire qu'un bien peut advenir? La politique et la vie éthique peuvent-ils se fixer pour cap une vie meilleure, une vie heureuse?"--Page (...) 4 of cover. (shrink)

Quel message la nature nous livre-t-elle? La force s'impose-t-elle automatiquement? La théorie de l'évolution, trahie par le darwinisme social, répond-elle suffisamment aux problèmes éthiques de notre temps? Finalement, la raison du plus fort est-elle toujours la meilleure? Le préjugé est tenace : les plus forts feraient la loi. La nature le dément pourtant : les plus faibles, à l'exemple de l'enfant à naître, sont l'objet d'une protection remarquable dès leur conception et bénéficient génétiquement de pouvoirs de survie considérables. Dans cet (...) ouvrage, François Guery rétablit une vérité : la loi du plus faible. Il entreprend de réécrire l'histoire de la vie évoluée, en nuançant les apports du darwinisme à l'éthique. Il expose en profondeur l'erreur de ces idéologies qui tournent le dos à la notion de transmission intergénérationnelle. Un grand livre d'éthique qui renouvelle les débats de notre époque sur l'identité, la transmission et le droit du vivant à vivre et à s'imposer par une force qui lui est propre."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

La lección de metafísica que imparte Heidegger durante el invierno de 1929/30 caracteriza el pensamiento metafísico como un pensamiento comprensivo, es decir, un pensamiento que “entiende” y que “incluye”. En este contexto, Heidegger busca definir con mayor precisión el vínculo que une su propia metafísica con la tradición moderna criticada unos años antes por “incluir”, precisamente, al sujeto humano en su propia elaboración. Es la ocasión para Heidegger de presentar un retrato mucho más matizado de su vinculación con la filosofía (...) moderna, retrato que pone de manifiesto lo que el Dasein ha heredado del sujeto moderno. (shrink)

Dans son choix grec, la philosophie a pensé la vie, mais non pas vivre ; et le religieux, qui prenait en charge la question du vivre, est aujourd'hui en retrait. De là que vivre soit laissé en friche, abandonné au prêche ou bien au truisme ; et que prospèrent le Développement Personnel et le marché du Bonheur vendant vivre comme du ± tout positif?.00Or vivre est paradoxal, s'étendant du vital au vivant. Il est à la fois la condition de toutes (...) les conditions : être en vie ; et l'aspiration de toutes nos aspirations : vivre enfin! Nous sommes en vie, mais nous n'accédons pas pour autant à vivre. Car la vie d'elle-même rabat la vie. De là que nous puissions être nostalgiques de la vie au sein même de la vie - ou que ± la vraie vie est absente?.00Or, c'est à travers cette inanité même de ± la vie? que nous pourrons voir transparaître à l'envers l'inouï de vivre débordant le déjà vécu et l'ouvrant à de l'± in-vécu?, quitte à s'y heurter à de l'invivable ; et, puisque vivre n'est, au fond, qu'ouvrir des possibles, nous pourrons alors rouvrir des possibles dans nos vies, au lieu de les laisser s'étioler.00Car répéter qu'il faut ± cueillir le jour?, ± profiter de la vie?, n'a pas prise sur la vie. Traçons donc plutôt, pour nous y repérer, une carte de ces possibles intensifs entre lesquels décider vivre.00Vivre y reparaît alors dans sa ressource, dans son essor, dans son ± matin?, dégagé de ce qui l'enlisait, au fil des jours, et l'emmurait.00Telle est la ± transparence du matin?, en amont de tous les enseignements de la morale.0F. J. (shrink)

What characterizes indexical thinking is the fact that the modes of presentation through which one thinks of objects are context-bound and perspectival. Such modes of presentation, I claim, are mental files presupposing that we stand in certain relations to the reference : the role of the file is to store information one can gain in virtue of standing in that relation to the object. This raises the communication problem, first raised by Frege : if indexical thoughts are context-bound and relation-based, (...) how is it possible to communicate them to those who are not in the same context and do not stand in the right relations to the object? Following Frege, I argue that the solution comes from an important distinction between linguistic and psychological modes of presentation. Psychological modes of presentation are mental files. They are perspectival and context-bound. But linguistic modes of presentation are fixed by the conventions of the language and they are shared by the language users. They are public and serve to coordinate mental files in communication by constraining them to contain the piece of information they encode. In this way communication takes place even though the indexical thoughts entertained by the speaker are, in some sense, private and cannot be shared by the audience. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

t. 1. Classes, propositions et prédicats.--t. 2. Logiques non classiques, relations et structures.