Online research in philosophy

LAWS are not, as Montesquieu has asserted, " necessary relations originating in the nature of things." A law is not a relation, nor is a relation a law ...

BOOK I. OF LAWS IN GENERAL. Positive laws oughtto be consequenft of the laws of nature: this is the spirit of laws. MONTESQ_UIEU'S SPIRIT OF LAWS. ...

. POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND PERSPECTIVES ON TRACY AND THE IDEOLOGUES Tracy and the ideologues have been forgotten and "rediscovered" several ...

Research in modern biology has largely been developed according to two main ways of inquiry, as they were outlined by Charles Darwin and Claude Bernard. Each stands for a specific approach to the living corresponding to two different methodological rules: the principle of natural selection and the principle of causation.

In medias res: the life of Claude de Seyssel -- The scholar diplomat -- The translator of histories -- Seyssel in Italy : a scholar looks at war -- The scholar and the state -- Seyssel, the church, and the ideal prelate.

Cette étude a pour objectif de présenter les articulations et les implications du modèle tout-partie dans l'ontologie lavellienne. Pour Lavelle, l'être ne doit pas être conçu comme une donnée, mais plutôt comme un tout dynamique qui confère à chaque partie une égale densité ontologique et à l'intérieur duquel s'articulent toutes les relations entre les parties. Ce modèle entraîne d'importantes conséquences : au plan logique, la notion d'être est universelle et univoque ; au plan ontologique, l'être n'est pas susceptible de degrés (...) et le néant ne peut être que relatif ; enfin, au plan épistémologique, la connaissance est homogène à l'être et la méthode analytique est la seule qui puisse rendre justice à la complétude de l'être-tout. This study aims at presenting the articulations and the implications of the whole-part model in the Lavellian ontology. According to Lavelle, the being should not be conceived as a datum, but rather as a dynamic whole which confers to each part the very same ontological density and within which all the relations between parts are articulated. This model entails important consequences : at the logical level, the notion of being is universal and univocal ; at the ontological level, being is not susceptible of degrees and nothingness can be only relative ; finally, at the epistemological level, knowledge is homogeneous with being and the analytical method alone can do justice to the completeness of the being-whole. (shrink)

This study is devoted to the problem of the place and significance of the scientific quest and worldview, and to their articulation with metaphysics as they serve to bring the mind to the consideration of the problem and mystery of the existence of God in the thought of the contemporary French philosopher and theologian Claude Tresmontant (1925-97).

Montesquieu was one of the great political philosophers of the Enlightenment. Insatiably curious and mordantly funny, he constructed a naturalistic account of the various forms of government, and of the causes that made them what they were and that advanced or constrained their development. He used this account to explain how governments might be preserved from corruption. He saw despotism, in particular, as a standing danger for any government not already despotic, and argued that it could best be prevented by (...) a system in which different bodies exercised legislative, executive, and judicial power, and in which all those bodies were bound by the rule of law. This theory of the separation of powers had an enormous impact on liberal political theory, and on the framers of the constitution of the United States of America. (shrink)