An entertaining series of logic problems and puzzles of increasing difficulty, and all relating important mathematical and logical concepts, includes mind-benders, paradoxes, metapuzzles, number exercises, and a mathematical novel.

Written by a creative master of mathematical logic, this introductory text combines stories of great philosophers, quotations, and riddles with the fundamentals of mathematical logic. Author Raymond Smullyan offers clear, incremental presentations of difficult logic concepts. He highlights each subject with inventive explanations and unique problems. Smullyan's accessible narrative provides memorable examples of concepts related to proofs, propositional logic and first-order logic, incompleteness theorems, and incompleteness proofs. Additional topics include undecidability, combinatoric logic, and recursion theory. Suitable for undergraduate (...) and graduate courses, this book will also amuse and enlighten mathematically minded readers. (shrink)

Mise en rapport de trois écrivains français qu'apparemment tout sépare mais dont les questions récurrentes - Dieu, le néant, le livre, l'histoire- se retrouvent en chacun d'eux.

Excerpt from Schelling Cette ardente propagande en faveur de Fichte, tout au tant que l'appréciation de Fichte lui - mème, ont amené à désigner sous le nom de période fichtéenne l'époque de Tü bingen et de Leipzig Où Schelling écrit ses premiers trai tés de philosophie générale un accord complet avec Fichte aurait donc précédé la période suivante qui est celle de la philosophie de lanature. Pourtant de ces traités les uns, écrits a Tübingen, sont antérieurs aux études physiques de (...) Leipzig, tandis que les autres, écrits à Leipzig, sont de la mème époque que les deux premiers grands traités de philosophie de la Nature. Or Metzger a démontré récem ment par une analyse très serrée des traités de l'époque de Tübingen que l'influence de Fichte fut, dès le début, beau coup moins considérable qu'on ne le croit en général. La doctrine de Fichte reposait sur le criticisme kantien, qui est une doctrine de la connaissance etschelling, peu au courant des idées de Kant, ne se place pas au point de vue de la théorie de la connaissance pour la comprendre et la juger. 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)

Si la philosophie du droit a une très longue histoire, le bouleversement des conditions techniques, économiques, sociales et politiques nous impose aujourd'hui de renouveler en profondeur le traitement des questions qu'elle pose traditionnellement ainsi que les réponses qui y sont données. La définition de la justice, le partage des biens et des charges de la vie en société, les rôles respectifs de l'État, du marché et de la société civile, la mission des juges et l'application des lois, ou encore le (...) contenu et l'importance des droits de l'homme, doivent être réexaminés dans une perspective instruite par l'éclairage historique, mais résolument tournée vers les problèmes du présent et les choix qui engagent l'avenir. C'est dans une telle optique qu'a été conçu cet ouvrage. (shrink)

More on propositional and first-order logic -- More on propositional logic -- More on first-order logic -- Recursion theory and metamathematics -- Some special topics -- Elementary formal systems and recursive enumerability -- Some recursion theory -- Doubling up -- Metamathematical applications -- Elements of combinatory logic -- Beginning combinatory logic -- Combinatorics galore -- Sages, oracles, and doublets -- Complete and partial systems -- Combinators, recursion, and the undecidable -- Where to go from here.

The vital status of patients who are a part of controlled donation after circulatory death (cDCD) is widely debated in bioethical literature. Opponents to currently applied cDCD protocols argue that they violate the dead donor rule, while proponents of the protocols advocate compatibility. In this article, we argue that both parties often misinterpret the moral implications of the dead donor rule. The rule as such does not require an assessment of a donor’s vital status, we contend, but rather an assessment (...) of whether procurement of organs in cDCD cause the death of the donor or not. We then argue that commonly practiced cDCD protocols do not violate the dead donor rule, since the donation does not trigger or cause the death of the donors. (shrink)

La présente étude rassemble les passages de l’Ab Vrbe condita de Tite-Live où un terme lié au rire est associé à un discours ou à une parole rapportée, afin de les confronter aux vues exprimées par Cicéron et Quintilien sur le rire en contexte rhétorique. Si tous les passages étudiés s’insèrent très bien dans la conception rhétorique du rire, l’historien latin s’appuie sur celle-ci pour offrir une répartition originale entre usages acceptables et formes abusives du rire qui participe à la (...) construction des portraits personnages et de l’œuvre. (shrink)

This completely self-contained study, widely considered the best book in the field, is intended to serve both as an introduction to quantification theory and as ...

Benoit Delbecq reflects upon the conditions under which his creative activity, as a pianist, a composer and an improviser, has to take place within the French context. Status of the copyrights, contribution of public funding, new modes of distribution, ambiguous irruptions of the show business mega-machine, fictions of freedom generated within the creative moment, polymorphous collective structures: this concrete work of knitting a new autonomous artistic network sheds light, beyond the microcosm of jazz, on the production of sociality in (...) today’s France. (shrink)

It has been argued that Hume's denial of infinite divisibility entails the falsity of most of the familiar theorems of Euclidean geometry, including the Pythagorean theorem and the bisection theorem. I argue that Hume's thesis that there are indivisibles is not incompatible with the Pythagorean theorem and other central theorems of Euclidean geometry, but only with those theorems that deal with matters of minuteness. The key to understanding Hume's view of geometry is the distinction he draws between a precise and (...) an imprecise standard of equality in extension. Hume's project is different from the attempt made by Berkeley in some of his later writings to save Euclidean geometry. Unlike Berkeley, who interprets the theorems of Euclidean geometry as false albeit useful approximations of geometrical facts, Hume is able to save most of the central theorems as true. (shrink)

This article analyzes Thomas Piketty's latest book, Capital and Ideology (2020). We begin by placing the work in the context of the thesis developed by the author in his previous works, before pointing out a number of limitations. We first question Piketty's way of thinking about capitalism, before discussing his theory of ideology. Finally, we will try to define the scope and limits of Piketty's vision of overcoming capitalism, that is, his vision of a just society, a "participatory socialism", as (...) it is presented in the last chapter of the book. (shrink)

This article argues for the need to recover the concept of political myth in order to understand the crucial phenomena of our epoch. By drawing on Blumenberg’s philosophical reflections on myth, it proposes to understand political myth as the continual process of work on a common narrative by which the members of a social group can provide significance to their political conditions and experience. In order to show how this understanding of political myth can throw light on important aspects of (...) contemporary politics, the article analyses the work on one of the most conspicuous political myths of our time: the clash of civilizations. By reconstructing the mechanisms through which this myth works, the article shows how a paradigm that has been strongly criticized as too simplistic and scientifically inadequate could have turned into a successful political myth, i.e. into a self-fulfilling prophecy. (shrink)

David Lewis argued that Newcomb’s Problem and the Prisoner’s Dilemma are “one and the same problem” or, to be more precise, that the Prisoner’s Dilemma is nothing else than “two Newcomb problems side by side” (Lewis Philosophy and Public Affairs 8:235–240, 1979 : 235). It has been objected that his argument fails to take into account certain epistemic asymmetries which undermine the one-problem thesis. Sobel ( 1985 ) acknowledges that many tokens satisfy the structural requirements of both problems, while questioning (...) the generality of the thesis. Bermúdez (Analysis 73:423–429, 2013 ), on the other hand, argues that there is a deeper structural conflict between the two problems in the sense that the epistemic requirements that give Newcomb’s Problem its force are precisely those that prevent it from being a Prisoner’s Dilemma. I argue that the epistemic asymmetry objections raised by Sobel and Bermúdez fail to undermine the one-problem thesis. A different type of objection raised by Bermúdez, one which relies on the contrast between parametric and strategic choices, fares no better. Although NP is a problem that has been primarily studied for its implications to decision theory, it contains enough game theoretic elements to justify the claim that a juxtaposition of two such problems can be thought of as a strategic game. (shrink)

Considérée comme le seul pays « émergent » de son continent, l' Afrique du Sud est le produit d'une histoire tourmentée, sortie du système de l'apartheid pour devenir un État démocratique et multiracial au début des années 1990. Si la constitution prône une diversité culturelle et linguistique, reflet de sa population, l'Afrique du Sud s'intéresse plus à l'institution de la Francophonie, pour les avantages que son commerce et sa diplomatie en Afrique francophone peuvent en tirer, que pour l'usage de la (...) langue française surtout pratiquée par une communauté africaine francophone récemment implantée.South Africa is considered as the sole emerging country on its continent and has undergone a very difficult history. Following the end of the apartheid system, South Africa was transformed into a multiracial and democratic state in the nineties. The South African constitution now endorses linguistic and cultural diversity which mirrors its population. Francophony as an institution is of major interest for South Africa more to support its proactive trade and diplomacy in the Francophone area than to help develop the French language which is mainly spoken by a recently settled Francophone African community. (shrink)

For this special issue dedicated to Jonathan Glover, Peter Singer was asked to reflect on the influence that the book Causing Death and Saving Lives had on him, as well as the Glover seminar in Oxford that Peter Singer attended in the late 1960s. One of Peter Singer's recurring arguments is the criticism of the traditional distinction between acts and omissions. But Glover is no stranger to this questioning, even if the two thinkers do not seem to want to draw (...) exactly the same conclusions. What is at stake is this: what are we really responsible for and how demanding should our morality be? (shrink)

La médiation familiale existe en France depuis un peu moins de vingt ans et elle a obtenu, en 2002, une reconnaissance officielle sous la forme de la création d’un diplôme décerné par l’État. Cet article analyse le succès de la médiation et la place qu’elle occupe aujourd’hui dans la régulation des affaires privées. Pour ce faire, il considère différents niveaux de changement: l’évolution de la famille, celle de l’intervention sociale, ainsi que les stratégies développées par les médiateurs. En ce qui (...) concerne la famille et les ruptures d’union, la médiation familiale s’inscrit dans le droit fil des conceptions qui dominent actuellement. Elle se fait le promoteur de séparations négociées, permettant le maintien des relations entre l’enfant et le parent avec lequel il ne vit pas. S’agissant des transformations de l’action sociale, la médiation apparaît également comme l’expression d’un mouvement plus large : la diffusion d’une forme « douce » d’encadrement des comportements privés. En médiation, les parties sont conduites à écouter l’autre et à faire des concessions. Le dispositif lui-même est porteur d’une normativité forte. Le succès de la médiation ne s’explique cependant que si l’on prend en considération le troisième niveau, l’action des médiateurs : renforcement de la formation, obtention de soutiens sans faille dans la société civile et l’État, et détermination dans la volonté de créer une profession. L’auteur s’interroge sur les raisons qui sont à la base de cette détermination et évoque les questions qui se posent aujourd’hui aux médiateurs. (shrink)

La réception de la théologie politique de Johann Baptist Metz est un fait d’interprétation. Cette contribution présente tout d’abord la périodisation, apparue dans les années 1980, de l’oeuvre de Metz en trois phases: la période de la théologie transcendantale; la première phase de la théologie politique ainsi que sa deuxième phase. Décrire deux phases de la théologie politique délimitées par la formulation de la thèse centrale de l’oeuvre de Metz, selon laquelle la foi est mémoire de la souffrance de l’humanité, (...) permet de mettre en lumière la signification et les enjeux de la théologie politique. La deuxième partie de l’article s’intéresse à un aspect encore sujet à discussions de la réception de l’oeuvre de Metz: en réponse au refus postmoderne des grands récits, Metz et ses disciples présentent la théologie politique comme une théologie négative. Cependant, une telle réponse peut-elle être séparée d’autres affirmations déterminantes pour la théologie politique, en particulier celle selon laquelle le temps a une fin? (shrink)

It has been argued that there is a genuine conflict between the views of geometry defended by Hume in the Treatise and in the Enquiry: while the former work attributes to geometry a different status from that of arithmetic and algebra, the latter attempts to restore its status as an exact and certain science. A closer reading of Hume shows that, in fact, there is no conflict between the two works with respect to geometry. The key to understanding Hume's view (...) of geometry is the distinction he draws between two standards of equality in extension. (shrink)

The current SARS-CoV-2 crisis raises questions about the challenges faced by nation states and international organisations in offering a coordinated international response to the pandemic, and reveals the great vulnerability of European countries, which are implementing lockdown measures and imposing restrictions on international travel, for the most part on a unilateral basis. Such measures run counter to the prevailing approach of the previous two centuries that developed an international public health space. This article examines the measures adopted by European states (...) in order to contain 19th-century cholera pandemics, which took shape through the development of an international maritime quarantine system, based primarily on the implementation of national regulations and local decision-making. This regime was quickly viewed as ineffective and out of step with liberal ideas that urged a “laissez-faire” approach to public health matters. In its stead, a long-term trend developed towards easing quarantine measures. Nation states supported the internationalisation of the fight against pandemics, which chiefly consisted of externalising quarantine measures to the East in order to eliminate them in Europe. This process was based on a subtle dialectical relationship between the construction of an international public health space and the affirmation of state sovereignty, and continued into the 20th century with the progressive creation of international institutions responsible for advancing global health. (shrink)

The current SARS-CoV-2 crisis raises questions about the challenges faced by nation states and international organisations in offering a coordinated international response to the pandemic, and reveals the great vulnerability of European countries, which are implementing lockdown measures and imposing restrictions on international travel, for the most part on a unilateral basis. Such measures run counter to the prevailing approach of the previous two centuries that developed an international public health space. This article examines the measures adopted by European states (...) in order to contain 19th-century cholera pandemics, which took shape through the development of an international maritime quarantine system, based primarily on the implementation of national regulations and local decision-making. This regime was quickly viewed as ineffective and out of step with liberal ideas that urged a “laissez-faire” approach to public health matters. In its stead, a long-term trend developed towards easing quarantine measures. Nation states supported the internationalisation of the fight against pandemics, which chiefly consisted of externalising quarantine measures to the East in order to eliminate them in Europe. This process was based on a subtle dialectical relationship between the construction of an international public health space and the affirmation of state sovereignty, and continued into the 20th century with the progressive creation of international institutions responsible for advancing global health. (shrink)

The reception of René Girard’s work in France deserves book-length treatment to fully describe the heated debates, conflicting expectations, and controversy that it inspired before its lasting importance was eventually recognized. We must keep in mind that, although he lived in the US and became a citizen in 1956, he always kept his sights on his native land. He watched the transformations of French thought from the other side of the ocean; he forged his own writing strategies in response to (...) French thought; and it was within the context of French debates that he chose to formulate, through the conjoined hypotheses concerning mimetic desire, the scapegoat, and Judeo-Christian writing, the founding event of his... (shrink)

Il n'y a plus d'évidence aujourd'hui dans le fait de vivre sur Terre. Effondrement général de la biodiversité, accélération du réchauffement climatique, catastrophes sanitaires et sociales, les faits sont innombrables et bien d'autres cataclysmes sont à venir. Il ne suffit - pas d'en avoir conscience. Il faut aussi savoir comment vivre si chacun de nos gestes compte et si nous n'avons presque plus de temps. L'Anthropocène réclame un souci infini de la terre et des vivants, qui risque à chaque instant (...) de se retourner en ressentiment contre la vie. L'écologie menace de nous rendre fous ou malades. C'est pourquoi, du fond de notre détresse, nous avons besoin qu'elle puisse devenir un "gai savoir". Peut-on concevoir ainsi une pensée écologique qui soit aussi une philosophie de la puissance, ne se résumant ni à sa célébration prométhéenne, ni à son déni ascétique? Si la vie est volonté de puissance, alors il s'agit de chercher à dégager les conditions auxquelles l'accroissement de la puissance peut aussi prendre la forme d'un retour vers la terre. En quête d'une telle philosophie, ce livre chemine en compagnie de Nietzsche. Car il est peut-être encore temps de répondre à ce mystérieux appel de Zarathoustra : "Que le surhumain soit le sens de la terre!""--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

La théologie de Karl Rahner mérite-t-elle le label de «classique»? Pour instruire le débat, l’article présente quatre dissertations doctorales récentes , ainsi qu’un ouvrage collectif, consacrés à l’oeuvre de Rahner. Nature et grâce, christologie et triadologie, théologie et anthropologie, athéisme et sciences naturelles, expérience et subjectivité, épistémologie et apologétique: les thèmes abordés par ces études témoignent de la diversité des questions traitées par le corpus rahnérien. De cet examen, trois lignes de force caractéristiques du style de cette théologie peuvent être (...) dégagées: modestie du langage théologique, rigueur des critères de validation, audace spéculative et systématique. En contrepoint critique, trois questions peuvent légitimement être avancées concernant l’universalité du langage employé et de l’expérience décrite, la fidélité au mystère et les points aveugles du système. Il y a fort à parier que l’avenir confirme le diagnostic qui s’impose à l’issue de cette étude, à savoir qu’il convient de considérer Rahner comme un classique de la discipline théologique pour avoir proposé, en un moment critique de son histoire, une voie de renouvellement tout à la fois grandiose et contestable. (shrink)

In this book, Benoît Dubreuil explores the creation and destruction of hierarchies in human evolution. Combining the methods of archaeology, anthropology, cognitive neuroscience and primatology, he offers a natural history of hierarchies from the point of view of both cultural and biological evolution. This volume explains why dominance hierarchies typical of primate societies disappeared in the human lineage and why the emergence of large-scale societies during the Neolithic period implied increased social differentiation, the creation of status hierarchies, and, eventually, political (...) centralisation. (shrink)

The progressive dominance of historical-critical methods in the reading of ancient Chinese classics has led scholars to privilege micro levels of textual analysis. Consequently, the question as to whether laws of composition could be identified in this corpus has often been ignored, or considered irrelevant. Working on Chinese number symbolism as well as on rules governing “ring composition” in other cultural contexts, this article aims at fashioning anew the question of the possibility of an ancient Chinese “structural rhetoric” and at (...) envisioning the patterns that might have governed it. It specifically applies the approach it propounds to Huainanzi 淮南子, showing how numerology frames its structure and argument, the text being built after the image of the “roundness” of the Way and of the Ruler. It then endeavors to apply these results to the unearthing of “inter-structural” patterns that would help us to locate Huainanzi, Lüshi Chunqiu 呂氏春秋, the versions at hand of Zhuangzi 莊子, Lunyu 論語, or yet Laozi 老子 into a textual universe that shares correlated rhetorical features. (shrink)

One of the first frameworks developed for understanding the relation of science and technology to the economy has been the linear model of innovation. The model postulated that innovation starts with basic research, is followed by applied research and development, and ends with production and diffusion. The precise source of the model remains nebulous, having never been documented. Several authors who have used, improved, or criticized the model in the past fifty years rarely acknowledged or cited any original source. The (...) model usually was taken for granted. According to others, however, it comes directly from V. Bush’s Science: The Endless Frontier. This article traces the history of the linear model, suggesting that it developed in three steps corresponding to three scientific communities looking at science analytically. The article argues that statistics is a main reason the model is still alive despite criticisms, alternatives, and having been proclaimed dead. (shrink)

The infinite pigeonhole principle for 2-partitions asserts the existence, for every set A, of an infinite subset of A or of its complement. In this paper, we study the infinite pigeonhole pr...

This paper analyses the threat of Jihadism to modern democracies through the lens of René Girard’s mimetic theory. The study’s main contention is that terrorism is caused not only by resentment and nihilism but is also symptomatic of the contemporary malfunction of Religion when deprived of its sacrificial safeguards. Eventually, this paper aims to deduce the requisites for safeguarding democracy and the foundation of a new interfaith dialogue.

Dans une note de son ouvrage consacré à Henry, P. Audi affirme qu’« il n’y a pas de philosophie de l’histoire à proprement parler chez Henry ». Nous ambitionnons de rappeler ici que Henry a néanmoins donné un contenu au concept d’histoire et posé les conditions épistémologiques pour construire une phénoménologie radicale de l’histoire. Cette thématique, il est vrai, est généralement ignorée de la littérature secondaire. À son corps défendant, on est obligé de reconnaître que la question de l’...

resumo Minha intenção é a de mostrar como uma leitura cética dos diálogos socráticos de Platão permite explicar alguns impasses nos quais resulta a interpretação dogmática desses diálogo s. Enu mero aqui, de ma neira programática, os eleme ntos que permitirão sustentar que, nos diálogos de juvent ude, Platão desenvolveu uma lógica que conduz a uma posição forte sobre os limites do conhecimento e do intelectualismo. Essa int e r p retação se inspira em traços dominantes do ceticismo de Arcesilau. (...) Mostrarei como os diálogos de Platão podem ser lidos como a ins p i ração por trás da posição de Arcesilau quando este afirma que seria preciso suspender o julgamento e, na falta de certeza, seguir o que é razoável. De uma parte, o estudo do estatuto para doxal da ig no r â nc ia socrática e do papel do oráculo na Apologia permite discernir o func io na me nto de uma lógica pro p í c ia a gerar aporia s. De outra parte, a análise do problema da virtude- ciênc ia no Protágoras e no Laques permite exibir os mecanismos de uma arg u mentação cuja conc l u s ã o é a impossibilidade de defender hic e nunc uma ética estritamente intelectualista. palavras-chave Ceticismo; Sócrates; Platão; Virtude. (shrink)