The interventionist account of causation offers a criterion to distinguish causes from non-causes. It also aims at defining various desirable properties of causal relationships, such as specificity, proportionality and stability. Here we apply an information-theoretic approach to these properties. We show that the interventionist criterion of causation is formally equivalent to non-zero specificity, and that there are natural, information-theoretic ways to explicate the distinction between potential and actual causal influence. We explicate the idea that the description of causes should be (...) proportional to that of their effects. Then we draw a distinction between two ideas in the existing literature, the range of invariance of a causal relationship and its stability. The range of invariance is related to specificity and range of causal values. Stability concerns the effect of additional variables on the relationship between some focal pair of cause and effect variables. We show how to distinguish and measure the direct influence of background variables on the effect variable, and their influence on the relationship between the focal cause and the effect variable. Finally, we discuss the limitations of the information-theoretic approach, and offer prospects for complementary approaches. (shrink)

While the influence of emotion on individuals'' ethical decisions has been identified by numerous researchers, little is known about how emotions influence individuals'' ethical decision process. Thus, it is not clear whether different emotions promote and/or discourage ethical decision-making in the workplace. To address this gap, this paper develops a model that illustrates how emotion affects the components of individuals'' ethical decision-making process. The model is developed by integrating research findings that consider the two dimensions of emotion, arousal and feeling (...) state, into an applied cognitive-developmental perspective on the process of ethical decision-making. The model demonstrates that certain emotional states influence the individual''s propensity to identify ethical dilemmas, facilitate the formation of the individual''s prescriptive judgments at sophisticated levels of moral development, lead to ethical decision choices that are consistent with the individual''s prescriptive judgements, and promote the individual''s compliance with his or her ethical decision choices. In particular, the model suggests that individuals experiencing arousal and positive affect resolve ethical dilemmas in a manner consistent with more sophisticated cognitive moral structures. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

En expliquant comment les forces de l’ordre se dotent d’uniformes spécifiques au cours du xixe siècle, il s’agit de comprendre la signification de cet objet. Au-delà de l’utilité pratique du costume, qui peut faire débat, policiers et gendarmes affichent une prestance militaire qui renforce leur prestige. Mais ils montrent aussi qu’ils travaillent en toute transparence, en assumant leurs actes et en se plaçant au service du public. Ils prouvent enfin leur valeur en engageant des dépenses vestimentaires qui deviennent un gage (...) de respectabilité. S’il constitue un enjeu symbolique fort, l’uniforme évolue dans le sens d’une plus grande simplicité fonctionnelle au cours du xixe siècle, s’adaptant dans une certaine mesure à la mode masculine. (shrink)

To investigate the current status of hospital clinical ethics committees (CEC) and how they have evolved in Canada over the past 20 years, this paper presents an overview of the findings from a 2008 survey and compares these findings with two previous Canadian surveys conducted in 1989 and 1984. All Canadian hospitals over 100 beds, of which at least some were acute care, were surveyed to determine the structure of CEC, how they function, the perceived achievements of these committees and (...) opinions about areas with which CEC should be involved. The percentage of hospitals with CEC in our sample was found to be 85% compared with 58% and 18% in 1989 and 1984, respectively. The wide variation in the size of committees and the composition of their membership has continued. Meetings of CEC have become more regularised and formalised over time. CEC continue to be predominately advisory in their nature, and by 2008 there was a shift in the priority of the activities of CEC to meeting ethics education needs and providing counselling and support with less emphasis on advising about policy and procedures. More research is needed on how best to define what the scope of activities of CEC should be in order to meet the needs of hospitals in Canada and elsewhere. More research also is needed on the actual outcomes to patients, families, health professionals and organisations from the work of these committees in order to support the considerable time committee members devote to this endeavour. (shrink)

In this article, the authors, as researchers, are part of a clinical approach to psychoanalytic orientation in education sciences, questioning their research approach during an investigation on the expulsion from classrooms in secondary school in France. Trying to compare themselves to different types of collaborative research, they analyse the modalities of relationship they tried to implement during this research ‘with’ subjects, including teenagers students they have interviewed.

In recent years, scholars have shown the fruitfulness of linking Peirce’s speculative rhetoric with the rhetorical tradition—which can be broadly construed as the art, time and again rediscovered and refined, of rendering discourses eloquent and persuasive. They have suggested many ways in which the historical development of rhetoric sheds light on the third branch of Peirce’s semiotic and further pointed out many contributions Peirce makes in turn to the field of rhetoric. However, with the notable exception of Colapietro, these authors (...) have focused almost exclusively on questions of method and discovery. They have... (shrink)

Nurses and physicians may experience ethical conflict when there is a difference between their own values, their professional values or the values of their organization. The distribution of limited health care resources can be a major source of ethical conflict. Relatively few studies have examined nurses' and physicians' ethical conflict with organizations. This study examined the research question ‘What are the organizational ethical conflicts that hospital nurses and physicians experience in their practice?’ We interviewed 34 registered nurses, 10 nurse managers, (...) and 31 physicians as part of a larger study, and asked them to describe their ethical conflicts with organizations. Through content analysis, we identified themes of nurses' and physicians' ethical conflict with organizations and compared the themes for nurses with those for physicians. (shrink)

Arnaud Martin Le 29 août 2018, le président du gouvernement espagnol Pedro Sánchez annonça la création d’une commission de la vérité sur les crimes commis durant la guerre civile et la dictature franquiste. Ainsi devait prendre officiellement fin la politique d’impunité et d’amnésie politique imposée au peuple espagnol au lendemain de la mort du général Franco par la loi du 15 octobre 1977, confirmée trente ans plus tard par la loi du 26 décembre 2007, comme contrepartie des mesures d’amnistie (...) prises en faveur des condamnés politiques et comme prix à payer pour assurer la réussite du processus consensuel de transition démocratique. La mémoire historique qui avait été refusée aux Espagnols allait pouvoir devenir réalité. La commission s’inscrit de façon originale dans la logique de la justice transitionnelle. En effet, l’élaboration de la vérité historique annoncée par Pedro Sánchez a pour but, non pas d’assurer la transition démocratique et la pacification d’une société postconflictuelle, mais de prévenir la « déconsolidation » démocratique à laquelle pourraient conduire la non-reconnaissance des torts subis par les victimes du franquisme et l’impossibilité de l’Espagne – notamment de la droite – à tourner la page du franquisme. (shrink)

Much of the literature on clinical ethical conflict has been specific to a specialty area or a particular patient group, as well as to a single profession. This study identifies themes of hospital nurses’ and physicians’ clinical ethical conflicts that cut across the spectrum of clinical specialty areas, and compares the themes identified by nurses with those identified by physicians. We interviewed 34 clinical nurses, 10 nurse managers and 31 physicians working at four different Canadian hospitals as part of a (...) larger study on clinical ethics committees and nurses’ and physicians’ use of these committees. We describe nine themes of clinical ethical conflict that were common to both hospital nurses and physicians, and three themes that were specific to physicians. Following this, we suggest reasons for differences in nurses’ and physicians’ ethical conflicts and discuss implications for practice and research. (shrink)

Yoga et spiritualité est le témoignage émerveillé mais lucide d'un voyageur en quête des valeurs essentielles. Bien avant que ne déferle sur l'Occident désorienté la mode de la route et du périple oriental, Arnaud Desjardins a voulu délaisser les voies touristiques afin d'écouter battre le coeur de l'Inde. C'est cette pulsation qu'il tente ici de nous livrer, la face cachée d'une Inde encore fervente, enracinée dans les millénaires de tradition. L'auteur procède du même coup à une mise au point (...) et aide ses lecteurs à se frayer un chemin à travers le fatras d'idées reçues, de contresens et de présupposés à propos du "Yoga" et des "mystiques orientales". Carnet de bord essentiel pour comprendre le cheminement intérieur d'Arnaud Desjardins, cet ouvrage donne quelques clefs fondamentales et constitue un document limpide sur une société bien mal connue de nous, et aujourd'hui plus que jamais menacée. (shrink)

Anaxagoras brought to Athens the hope that becoming, despite the tradition of the Eleatic school, might still be intelligible, not only because he sees it as the effect of an order crafted by a divine mind, but also because he opposes the Parmenidean claim that there is no point in trying to know the ϕύσις (i.e. essence) of things that need to grow (ϕύεσθαι). Anaxagoras finds in the growth (ϕύεσθαι) of vegetais a principle of identity that makes becoming intelligible. Using (...) parts of animals to which ancient Greek also applies the same verb (we grow flesh, nails and hair), Anaxagoras extends the consistency of vegetal becoming to all beings, all of them now coming from seeds. The essence (ϕύσις) of things, can now be explained through its origins -that from which it grows (ϕύεσθαι). The new philosophical fifth century meaning of ϕύσις, as origin, could have stemmed from such a new impulse to inquire about the seeds of all things. (shrink)

Hospitals in many countries have had clinical ethics committees for over 20 years. Despite this, there has been little research to evaluate these committees and growing evidence that they are underutilized. To address this gap, we investigated the question ‘What are the barriers and facilitators nurses and physicians perceive in consulting their hospital ethics committee?’ Thirty-four nurses, 10 nurse managers and 31 physicians working at four Canadian hospitals were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide as part of a larger investigation. (...) We used content analysis of the interview data related to barriers and facilitators to use of hospital ethics committees to identify nine categories of barriers and nine categories of facilitators. These categories as well as their subcategories are discussed and those specific to nurses or physicians are identified. The need to increase health professionals' use of clinical ethics committees through reducing barriers and maximizing facilitators is discussed. (shrink)

Le présent article est le fruit d’une recherche qualitative auprès de l’ensemble des acteurs concernés par le dispositif « Espace de rencontre » ( er ) en France. Ce dispositif tant judiciaire que répondant aux nouvelles aspirations sociales autour de la famille vient soutenir le lien parent-enfant dans le cadre de séparations conflictuelles ou en cas d’incapacité de l’un des parents d’accueillir son ou ses enfants. Cette recherche, conduite entre 2017 et 2020 au sein de douze structures, visait à mieux (...) appréhender les pratiques en er, à identifier tant l’intérêt que les limites du dispositif et à faire émerger de nouveaux questionnements sur le maintien des liens filiaux dans des situations complexes. Le vécu des parents, enfants et professionnels concernés y a été recueilli par des chercheurs issus des sciences humaines et sociales. Si cette mesure socio-judiciaire est bien admise par une majorité des usagers, la manière dont les enfants, eux, vivent les rencontres reste questionnante. (shrink)

This wide-ranging book examines the new dynamics of corporate social responsibility and the impact they have had on the transformation of business corporations. Written by an international group of distinguished experts in management and organization studies, economics and sociology, the book leads one to theoretically and practically rethink CSR, a movement that has developed into a strong and rich institutional domain since the mid 1990s. Through 14 chapters, the book shows the complexity, diversity and progression of the institutional work performed (...) by a large number of individual and organizational actors in specialized networks to develop this strategic field. Central to this book are: the core issues associated with the field of CSR; recent advances in the development, dissemination and implementation of public and private standards of social responsibility; the pressing challenges of developing sustainable strategies of value creation in the face of global warming and underdevelopment; and finally, examples of how CSR has been implemented and institutionalized within business organizations with special attention to the role played by a variety of social actors in organizational change. Conceived as a movement, corporate social responsibility spearheads a transformation project challenging traditional and outmoded forms of corporate governance that frequently pose troublesome ethical issues. From this standpoint, Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Change will serve as a reference point for academics, researchers, managers and practitioners. (shrink)

Cet article documente la pratique du plan dans les relations entre hommes, à savoir ces rencontres rapides, à but sexuel principalement et en général non répétées. Le matériel mobilisé résulte de trente entretiens semi-directifs. Le plan correspond souvent à une dissociation marquée entre le courant sensuel et le courant tendre, au sens freudien, et présente donc un intérêt pour approfondir la compréhension de cette dualité. L’article observe les prises de contact virtuelles, les lieux des plans et la possibilité de penser, (...) ou de ne pas penser, le plan, d’en refouler le souvenir. Les affects éprouvés dans la rencontre de l’autre comme l’absence d’affect ( désaffectation ) sont alors analysés aux côtés de la question de la sociabilité et des impressions d’inquiétante étrangeté. (shrink)

Cet article explore plusieurs moutures de la philosophie historique de Nietzsche, depuis ses réflexions d’adolescent, où les réflexions génétiques sont encore inscrites dans une méditation d’ordre éthico-théologique, à la généalogie proprement dite, où l’étude de la provenance des valeurs prétend congédier toutes les autres formes d’histoire de la morale, que ce soit la microhistoire psychologique des moralistes français (La Rochefoucauld), l’histoire conjecturale des utilitaristes (Mandeville) ou l’histoire évolutionniste qui déduit la morale de l’adaptation (Spencer). Ainsi, en vertu de l’activité d’autodépassement (...) perpétuel et d’antagonisme incessant qui caractérise la volonté de puissance, Nietzsche s’emploie à faire la critique des autres formes de philosophies de l’histoire pour imposer sa « morphologie de la volonté de puissance », et il s’efforce en outre, tout au long de son propre itinéraire intellectuel, de lutter aussi contre lui-même, dans la mesure où les alliances qu’il avait contractées auparavant le retenaient d’être pleinement original. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Maurice Blanchot and the Literature of TransgressionColette GaudinMaurice Blanchot and the Literature of Transgression, by John Gregg; 241 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, $29.95.In the preface to The Gaze of Orpheus (1981), the first book in English to present a collection of Maurice Blanchot’s critical essays, Geoffrey Hartman recalls his excitement on discovering this philosopher-novelist in the fifties. As for Hélène Cixous, she speaks of “Blanchot’s terrifying (...) but admirable art.” Blanchot indeed holds a paradoxical place in French literature and criticism. His books constitute a fundamental work of our time, yet his reflection developed in total independence of the noisiest intellectual debates of his times. A contemporary of Sartre, a friend of Georges Bataille and of Emmanuel Levinas, Blanchot began his career as a literary chronicler before World War II, even collaborating for a few years in rightist publications. But he generally remained at a forbidding distance from the media and the public, revealing [End Page 160] himself only through his writings: three novels, a number of terse short stories or récits, and an abundant critical corpus evolving toward fragmentary meditations on the conditions of literature’s possibility and on the experience of writing. He was the first, in the midst of the existentialist wave following the war, to pay close attention to the poetics of Mallarmé and Rilke, the art of Flaubert or Kafka, and the ethical provocations of Nietzsche, all of which were to become trademarks of postmodernist thinkers. Yet our present familiarity with these motifs does not make Blanchot less difficult and even less esoteric.With Maurice Blanchot and the Literature of Transgression, John Gregg now gives us the first English book-length study devoted exclusively to Blanchot, organized around solid analyses of several difficult texts—more extensively of the novel Le Très-Haut and the fragmentary narrative L’Attente l’oubli. There is unfortunately very little excitement or terror in the way Gregg presents his work, which bears traces of the doctoral thesis it evidently once was. Whereas the choice of transgression, as the focus of the study is quite appropriate, the title suggests, somewhat misleadingly, that transgression will be treated as a theme common to a group of authors including Blanchot. The “Introduction,” barely more than an extended table of contents, fails to prepare the reader for the provocative notion of transgression illustrated and theorized in Blanchot’s writing, a notion inherited from psychoanalysis and ethnology via Bataille, and which has to do with the law, Eros, and negativity. In his opening pages, moreover, we are confronted with concepts that Gregg takes for granted. A neologism such as “worklessness” (p. 8), for instance, does not make sense without a minimal gloss relating it to Blanchot’s pair of opposites, œuvre/désœuvrement. Similarly, the opposition between “regional economy” and “general economy,” which is Gregg’s constant point of reference, needs to be anchored historically and philosophically in order to accomplish its function.To nuance the preceding criticism, it should be stressed that Blanchot’s thought defies summary, linear exposition, and dialectical closure, just as his fiction illustrates the impossibility of narration. His work draws on multiple influences and at the same time is fiercely original. His reflection proceeds through two apparently contradictory processes, dispersion and repetition, the function of the latter being more to situate what is said in its difference from itself than to convince others. Gregg’s first chapter (poorly titled “Literature and transgression”) rightly indicates the ambivalent Hegelian heritage found in Blanchot as well as in Bataille. For if Hegel is a great inspiration to them, he is also a constant foil, in that he ignores the surplus of negativity that no dialectic can absorb through the historical or artistic process. Gregg’s method, that of tracing a pattern of nondialectical play of opposites in Blanchot’s writing, takes on its full effectiveness in the following chapters, in which he shows the circular relation (or exigence circulaire) that Blanchot establishes repeatedly between death and writing in his definition of the “suicidal artist.” The study of Orpheus as a mythical portrayal of writing and reading equates [End Page... (shrink)

Several authors have argued that causes differ in the degree to which they are ‘specific’ to their effects. Woodward has used this idea to enrich his influential interventionist theory of causal explanation. Here we propose a way to measure causal specificity using tools from information theory. We show that the specificity of a causal variable is not well-defined without a probability distribution over the states of that variable. We demonstrate the tractability and interest of our proposed measure by measuring the (...) specificity of coding DNA and other factors in a simple model of the production of mRNA. (shrink)

This study examined the association of nurses’ ethical conflict with hospitals with organizational commitment, stress, turnover intention, absence and turnover. Participants were 410 nurses working at four different Canadian hospitals. A longitudinal design was used where nurses completed a questionnaire to capture ethical conflict, stress and organizational commitment, and one year later, measures of turnover intention, absence and actual turnover were obtained for the same sample. We found three aspects of nurses’ ethical conflict with hospitals: patient care values, value of (...) nurses, and staffing policy values. Our findings showed that all three aspects of nurses’ ethical conflict are associated with stress and patient care values is associated with actual turnover. We also found that staffing policy values is predictive of turnover intention, and that patient care values is predictive of absenteeism. Thus, our findings show the multidimensionality of nurses’ ethical conflict with hospitals. Further implications of our findings for practice and theory are discussed. (shrink)

Running head: Implicit sequence learning ABSTRACT Can we learn without awareness? Although this issue has been extensively explored through studies of implicit learning, there is currently no agreement about the extent to which knowledge can be acquired and projected onto performance in an unconscious way. The controversy, like that surrounding implicit memory, seems to be at least in part attributable to unquestioned acceptance of the unrealistic assumption that tasks are process-pure, that is, that a given task exclusively involves either implicit (...) or explicit knowledge. (shrink)

Arnaud Milanese | : La philosophie pratique de Hobbes est problématique parce que son déterminisme ne semble pas permettre une théorie de l’action : comment penser l’imputation des actes, si l’on soutient que le libre-arbitre n’existe pas ? 1) Son analyse se construit à travers la critique de la théorie scolastique du libre arbitre (dans la controverse avec Bramhall), et, à cette fin, Hobbes semble puiser dans l’analyse d’Aristote pour y reprendre sa distinction entre actions volontaires et involontaires. 2) (...) Mais il ne peut penser cependant la spécificité des actions humaines, comme d’Aristote, par la contingence. 3) Il ne lui reste alors, pour penser l’imputation dans une ontologie déterministe, qu’à constituer une conception de l’individualité de l’agent qui repense le motif aristotélicien de la détermination intérieure à agir, mais sans libre-arbitre ni contingence. 4) Si les difficultés théologiques subsistent, c’est parce que, pour Hobbes, aucune philosophie ne peut résoudre les mystères de la foi. | : The hobbesian philosophy of action is problematical because his determinism seems unable to frame a theory of action : how could it be possible to conceive imputation of actions, if free will does not exist ? 1) This analysis is built on a criticism of scholastic theory of free will (in controversy with Bramhall), and, to this end, Hobbes seems to draw in the aristotelian analysis and makes use of his distinction between voluntary and involuntary actions. 2) But however, he cannot conceive the specificity of human actions the same way Aristotle did, that is, by the concept of contingency. 3) So, the only remaining way of thinking imputation in his determinist ontology seems to suppose a certain conception of the individuality of agents, and to rethink this way the aristotelian concept of inner determination to act, but without free will nor contingency. 4) Theological difficulties remains, of course, but only because, according to Hobbes, philosophy cannot solve the mysteries of faith. (shrink)

This article argues that Brentano’s classification of mental phenomena is best understood against the background of the theories of natural classification held by Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill. Section 1 offers a reconstruction of Brentano’s two-premise argument for his tripartite classification. Section 2 gives a brief overview of the reception and historical background of the classification project. Section 3 addresses the question as to why a classification of mental phenomena is needed at all and traces the answer back to (...) Mill’s view that psychological laws are class-specific. Section 4 and 5 connect the second premise of Brentano’s argument to Comte’s principle of comparative likeness and Mill’s insistance that class membership is determined by the possession of common characteristics. And section 6 briefly discusses the evidence Brentano provides for the first premise. (shrink)

Fluorescence imaging has become an indispensable tool in cell and molecular biology. GFP‐like fluorescent proteins have revolutionized fluorescence microscopy, giving experimenters exquisite control over the localization and specificity of tagged constructs. However, these systems present certain drawbacks and as such, alternative systems based on a fluorogenic interaction between a chromophore and a protein have been developed. While these systems are initially designed as fluorescent labels, they also present new opportunities for the development of novel labeling and detection strategies. This review (...) focuses on new labeling protocols, actuation methods, and biosensors based on fluorogenic protein systems. (shrink)

À travers des actes comme défiler, prêter serment, communier, et leurs mises en scène ritualisées, orchestrées par les détenteurs du pouvoir politique, l'objectif est de rassembler les assujettis sociaux et de leur administrer une double preuve, celle du bien fondé de leur obéissance au pouvoir et corollairement de leur harmonieuse association. Les cérémonies ritualisées visent à susciter une exaltation collective, à faire monter l'intensité émotionnelle tout en donnant à voir un idéal d'unité harmonieuse de la société, dans les mises en (...) scène jouées. Le but de cet article est de montrer comment les gouvernants ont toujours su, à travers les époques, créer des cérémonies rituelles pour mobiliser les individus, pour les conditionner, de façon à les faire adhérer en actes aux desseins du pouvoir politique, par une participation pleine et entière de l'âme et du corps.Through actions like scrolling, oath, communion, and their ritualized stagings, orchestrated by the holders of political power, the objective is to bring together social and subject to administer a double proof of the soundness of their obedience to authority and a corollary of their harmonious association. Ritualized ceremonies designed to elicit a collective exaltation, to raise the emotional intensity while providing an ideal view of harmonious unity of society, in the staging played. The purpose of this article is to show how governments have always known, through the ages, creating rituals to mobilize individuals to condition, so join them in the action plans of the political power through participation full of soul and body. (shrink)

In 1952, Heinrich Scholz published a question in The Journal of Symbolic Logic asking for a characterization of spectra, i.e., sets of natural numbers that are the cardinalities of finite models of first order sentences. Günter Asser in turn asked whether the complement of a spectrum is always a spectrum. These innocent questions turned out to be seminal for the development of finite model theory and descriptive complexity. In this paper we survey developments over the last 50-odd years pertaining to (...) the spectrum problem. Our presentation follows conceptual developments rather than the chronological order. Originally a number theoretic problem, it has been approached by means of recursion theory, resource bounded complexity theory, classification by complexity of the defining sentences, and finally by means of structural graph theory. Although Scholz' question was answered in various ways, Asser's question remains open. (shrink)

L’idéal démocratique de l’égalité devant la loi ( isonomia ) et devant la prise de parole ( isègoria ) suppose une éducation de tous les citoyens à l’art de la parole (logos), c’est-à-dire à la maîtrise écrite et orale des discours. Malgré les critiques des philosophes qui voient dans la rhétorique ou l’art de bien discourir le risque d’une dérive sophistique et démagogique, Isocrate veut croire à son accord possible avec une philosophie entendue comme « paideia tôn logôn », c’est-à-dire (...) formation de tous à la discursivité, éducation humaniste à la parole rationnelle. (shrink)