An historical review of the concepts of self-consciousness is presented, highlighting the important role of the body (particularly, body perception but also body action) and the social other in the construction of self-consciousness. More precisely, body perception, especially intermodal sensory perception including kinesthetic perception, is involved in the construction of a sense of self allowing self-nonself differentiation. Furthermore, the social other, through very early social and emotional interactions, provides meaning to the infant’s perception and contributes to the development of his/her (...) symbolization capacities. This is a necessary condition for body image representation and awareness of a permanent self in a time-space continuum (invariant over time and space). Self-image recognition impairments in the mirror are also discussed regarding a comprehensive developmental theory of self-consciousness. Then, a neuropsychological and neurophysiological approach to self-consciousness reviews the role of complex brain activation/integration pathways and the mirror neuron system in self-consciousness. Finally, this article offers new perspectives on self-consciousness evaluation using the mirror as an experimental paradigm to study self- and other- image and body recognition. (shrink)

Complex diseases involve both a genetic component and a response to environmental factors or lifestyle changes. Recently, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have succeeded in identifying hundreds of polymorphisms that are statistically associated with complex diseases. However, the association is usually weak and none of the associated allelic forms is either necessary or sufficient for the disease occurrence. We argue that this promotes a network view, centred on functional redundancy. We adapted reliability theory to the concerned sub-network, modelled as a parallel (...) array of functional modules. In our model, as long as one module remains active, the function correlated with the respective disease is ensured and disease does not occur. Genetic factors reduce the initial number of available modules while environment, contingent surroundings, personal history, epigenetics, and some intrinsic stochasticity influence their persistence time. This model reproduces age-specific incidence curves and explains the influence of environmental changes. It offers a new paradigm, according to which disease occurs due to a lack of functional elements, depending on many idiosyncratic factors. Genetic risk assessed from GWAS is only a statistical notion with no direct interpretation at the individual level. However, genomic profiling could be useful at population level in devising models to guide decisions in health care policy. (shrink)

2021 jährte sich zum zwanzigsten Mal die Einführung des Lebenspartnerschaftsgesetzes und damit der Eingetragenen Lebenspartnerschaft als das erste Rechtsinstitut für gleichgeschlechtliche Paare. 2017 löste die Ehe die Lebenspartnerschaft ab, allerdings nicht mit allen Rechten einer Ehe wie zwischen heterosexuellen Personen. Der Aushandlungsprozess zur sogenannten Ehe für alle ist insbesondere für religionswissenschaftliche Fragestellungen erkenntnisreich. Am Beispiel des Diskurses um die Einführung der gleichgeschlechtliche Ehe in Deutschland 2015 und dem Referendum in Irland als diskursivem Ereignis zeigt die Autorin, wie politische Akteur*innen in (...) einem zeitgenössischen Deutungskampf um die Bedeutung von Ehe wetteifern und dabei mit der Diskursprämisse einer angenommenen Moderne die Dichotomie von religiös vs. säkular sowie weitere Narrative von und über Religion(en) zur Selbst- und Fremdpositionierungen sowie für ihre Koalitions- und Oppositionsbildungen einsetzen. Die Analyse verwendet einen zeit-, akteurs- und arenaspezifischen Ansatz und verknüpft methodologisch die Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse (WDA) mit einem religionswissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisinteresse. (shrink)

In the literature, Fair Trade (FT) goods are usually associated with other products differentiated by process attributes such as organic food, genetically modified (GM) food or child labour-free clothing. All of these products are regarded as credence goods. This classification refers to the simplified definition of credence goods, which describes product attributes which consumers cannot evaluate, even after having consumed the good. Focusing on the characteristics of FT goods, this article proposes a reassessment of the link between FT goods and (...) credence properties as defined by Darby and Kami. We first demonstrate that (1) the usual classification masks important particularities of FT goods compared to other goods with process attributes and (2) the full definition of credence goods may even provide a better description of the quality of FT goods. However - and this is our second theoretical contribution - the lack of consensus among experts concerning FT standards and their level of efficiency encourage us to consider FT goods as indeterminate goods as defined by Lupton. This result leads us to suggest a new typology of product attributes summarized in an innovative diagram. It sheds light on how competition between the different FT approaches works and why the FT market is still confined to a niche, if not threatened with collapse. We mainly illustrate our theoretical analysis with observations relating to the French FT market and institutions. (shrink)

The image of nature as causality has been a major theme of science and poetry. It has been a symbol of hope and fear, of progress and futility. Yet its meaning has seldom been clear. Prior to any statement about the relation of causality to physical nature, life, and mind, its meaning should be established. I shall therefore first define causality, and I shall then discuss its applicability to nature.

Les travaux des exégètes français sur la tradition du droit naturel ont été largement ignorés par les scientifiques anglo-saxons jusqu’à une date très récente. Cependant, depuis une vingtaine d’années, la tendance accrue à la juridicisation des droits de la personne a conduit les juristes anglophones à s’interroger sur leur statut, leur réalité et leur signification, questions jusqu’alors assez peu pertinentes dans la tradition de la common law. Il n’est donc pas surprenant d’avoir vu émerger outre-mer des recherches approfondies sur certains (...) concepts-clé des grands interprètes français des idées juridiques, concernant en particulier la théorie thomasienne du droit classique et la thèse selon laquelle le nominalisme occamien est à l’origine de la notion de droit subjectif. Le présent article entend montrer comment la marque française s’est imprimée dans ces nouveaux travaux, à la fois en ouvrant des perspectives qui n’auraient jamais été explorées sans elle, et en nourrissant de ce fait une critique informée et stimulante de ses thèses majeures. (shrink)

First, we define the concepts of well-being and happiness at school. Then, we explore well-being at school from the perspective of the teacher-student relationship, both from the point of view of the students and of the teachers. To do this, the main results of two studies carried out in 2019 and 2020, mainly in Quebec, are presented. Finally, the two perspectives, that of the pupils and that of the teachers, are confronted. The results of our analysis highlight the importance of (...) the teacher-student relationship both in the student's school experience and in the teacher's professional practice. The affective nature of the relationship seems to occupy a major place. Suggestions and recommendations for optimizing the quality of the teacher-student relationship, for the happiness of learning or teaching, are proposed. (shrink)

We develop a conceptual framework that connects biological heredity and organization. We refer to heredity as the cross-generation conservation of functional elements, defined as constraints subject to organizational closure. While hereditary objects are functional constituents of biological systems, any other entity that is stable across generations—and possibly involved in the recurrence of phenotypes—belongs to their environment. The central outcome of the organizational perspective consists in extending the scope of heredity beyond the genetic domain without merging it with the broad category (...) of cross-generation stability. After discussing some implications, we conclude with a reflection on the relationship between stability and variation. 1Introduction2From Extended Heredity to Cross-generation Stability 2.1Extending the scope of heredity: A brief state of the art2.2Rethinking heredity: Conceptual challenges3Biological Heredity in Light of Organization 3.1Biological organization within organisms and beyond3.2Extending organization in time3.3What is biological heredity?4Implications and Objections 4.1Heredity as a specific kind of cross-generation stability4.2Heredity at various levels of description4.3Non-functional and dysfunctional objects5Conclusions: From Conservation to Variation. (shrink)

Gaëlle Demelemestre | Résumé : On attribue à la Réforme la paternité de notre intelligence libérale du pouvoir et de la société civile. La tradition théologique classique, maintenant la possibilité d’une médiation entre l’homme et Dieu, ne serait pas parvenue à dégager la sphère des activités proprement humaines à partir de laquelle la modernité a pris son essor. Nous nous proposons ici d’évaluer cette thèse en comparant la pensée de Luther à celle d’un de ses contemporains prenant explicitement le (...) contre-pied de ses positions, Vitoria, sur trois points précis : leur intelligence de la relation homme-Dieu, la nature de l’action humaine et de la loi naturelle qui s’en déduit, et leur théorisation subséquente du pouvoir politique. |: The Reformation is considered as the promoter of our liberal understanding of the political and civil society. The classical theological tradition, implying the possibility of a mediation between men and God, wouldn’t have been able to achieve the proper sphere of human activity from which modernity has taken off. Hereafter, we try to challenge this thesis by a comparison between Luther’s thought and the intellectual positions of one of his contemporaries, explicitly against Luther’s positions, Vitoria, on three precise points : their understanding of the God-men relation, the nature of human action and natural law which proceed from it, and their consequent theorization of the political power. (shrink)

Dans le cadre d’une éthique préventive, nous serons amenés à valider toute la pertinence que requiert la compréhension des logiques de la non-perception d’un risque de contamination du sida par voie sexuelle dans la population guadeloupéenne. En passant par l’analyse des limites sous-jacentes à la séparation de deux populations, celle infectée et celle non infectée, nous pourrons avancer que la non-perception de ce risque relève d’une construction culturelle et sociale où toute confusion, qu’elle soit sexuelle, corporelle, spatiale, participe à la (...) fois d’un sentiment d’invulnérabilité et d’un sentiment de peur. C’est en tenant compte de cette réalité que les différentes instances décisionnelles devraient agir afin d’enrayer une épidémie déjà bien implantée en Guadeloupe. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the increasing data about non-genetic inheritance requires the construction of a new conceptual framework that should complement the inclusive approaches already discussed in the literature. More precisely, I hold that this framework should be epistemologically relevant for evolutionary biologists in capturing the limits of extended inheritance and in reassessing the boundaries of biological systems that transmit traits to their offspring. I outline the first elements of an organizational account of extended inheritance. In this account, (...) the category of inherited factors is neither restricted to genes nor extended to stable resources related to trans-generational similarities. Instead, it includes persisting constitutive elements appearing as difference makers for heterogeneous organizational constraints, namely for heterogeneous constitutive parts whose specific role is to harness flows of matter and energy across generations of clearly delimited extended organized systems. This both inclusive and restrictive framework opens an additional way to apprehend how extended inheritance may affect evolutionary trajectories. (shrink)

La notion de petit corpus nécessite une réflexion épistémologique pour se situer dans le paysage des sciences du langage. La taille du corpus ne pouvant suffire pour départager les petits corpus des grands corpus, la ligne de partage se situe au niveau de la représentativité et des objectifs de recherche. Le petit corpus est constitué en vue d’un objectif de recherche mené sur un domaine précis de la langue et du discours pour tenir compte des influences du type de discours (...) et du genre sur les phénomènes linguistiques étudiés. Le petit corpus doit donc rendre compte de ce champ d’investigation particulier. La spécialisation du corpus lui confère donc sa représentativité. Pour aboutir à cette spécialisation, il est nécessaire d’établir un corpus homogène concernant les paramètres textuels, (discours, type de texte, genre, etc.). Par ailleurs, le petit corpus rend possible un retour au contexte linguistique et situationnel : une connaissance approfondie des textes favorise l’interprétation des données. Afin d’illustrer ces propos sur les petits corpus, un corpus construit dans le cadre d’une recherche menée sur la synonymie selon une approche onomasiologique et syntagmatique est présenté. Au-delà de sa petite taille, ce corpus tire sa spécialisation de son homogénéité : les paramètres textuels ont été neutralisés, puisque les textes du corpus appartiennent tous au même discours, au même type de texte et au même genre. La recherche onomasiologique suppose d’ajouter un paramètre thématique lors de la constitution du corpus : les textes choisis doivent manifester de façon saillante la même thématique. Si les paramètres textuels semblent les plus évidents pour spécialiser un corpus, d’autres paramètres inhérents à l’objectif de recherche interviennent. (shrink)

The Genotype-Phenotype (G-P) distinction was proposed in the context of Mendelian genetics, in the wake of late 19th century studies about heredity. In this paper, we provide a conceptual analysis that highlights that the G-P distinction was grounded on three pillars: observability, transmissibility, and causality. Originally, the genotype is the non-observable and transmissible cause of the phenotype, which is its observable and non-transmissible effect. We argue that the current developments of biology have called the validity of such pillars into question. (...) First, molecular biology has unveiled the putative material substrate of the genotype (qua DNA), making it an observable object. Second, numerous findings on nongenetic heredity suggest that some phenotypic traits can be directly transmitted. Third, recent organicist approaches to biological phenomena have emphasized the reciprocal causality between parts of a biological system, which notably applies to the relations between genotypes and phenotypes. As a consequence, we submit that the G-P distinction has lost its general validity, although it can still apply to specific situations. This calls for forging new frameworks and concepts to better describe heredity and development. (shrink)

Gaëlle Demelemestre | Résumé : Les controverses opposant les dominicains et les jésuites après le concile de Trente renvoient l’image d’une scission qui se serait produite à ce moment au sein de la seconde scolastique, à partir de laquelle deux traditions doctrinales se seraient constituées. Existe-t-il cependant une réelle césure interprétative entre les deux ordres? Peut-on réellement trouver une différence de traitement des données ou de raisonnement permettant de distinguer deux traditions de pensée? Ce sont les questions auxquelles cet (...) article entend apporter des éléments de réponse en comparant la doctrine de deux illustres représentants de ces ordres, Domingo de Soto et Luis de Molina, sur les questions cruciales de la nature et de la fonction du droit et du pouvoir politique. Soto est le premier à proposer un exposé systématique du droit et de la loi, et Molina prolonge ses analyses en reprenant le même projet. Si leurs contemporains ne semblent pas distinguer leurs théorisations du droit, certaines différences définitionnelles préfigurent pourtant des divergences qui se creuseront chez leurs successeurs. |: The controversies between the Dominicans and the Jesuits after the Council of Trent reflect the image of a split that would have occurred at that time within the second scholasticism, from which two doctrinal traditions would have been formed. However, is there a real interpretative break between the two orders? Can we really find a difference in the data process or in the reasoning allowing to distinguish two traditions of thought? These are the questions to which this article intends to give an answer by comparing the doctrine of two illustrious representatives of these orders, Domingo de Soto and Luis de Molina, on the crucial questions of the nature and function of law and political power. Soto is the first to propose a systematic exposition of the right and the law, and Molina extends his analyzes by taking up the same project. If their contemporaries do not seem to distinguish their theorisations from the law, some defining differences prefigure, nevertheless, divergencies which will be widened among their successors. (shrink)

Insight problem solving was investigated with the matchstick algebra problems developed by Knoblich, Ohlsson, Haider, and Rhenius (1999). These problems are false equations expressed with Roman numerals that can be made true bymoving one matchstick. In a first group participants examined a static two-dimensional representation of the false algebraic expression and told the experimenter which matchstick should be moved. In a second group, participants interacted with a three-dimensional representation of the false equation. Success rates in the static group for different (...) problem types replicated the pattern of data reported in Knoblich et al. (1999). However, participants in the interactive group were significantly more likely to achieve insight. Problem-solving success in the static group was best predicted by performance on a test of numeracy, whereas in the interactive group it was best predicted by performance on a test of visuo-spatial reasoning. Implications for process models of problem solving are discussed. (shrink)

This study provides evidence that personality traits associated with responsiveness to conscious reward cues also influence responsiveness to unconscious reward cues. Participants with low and high levels of Novelty Seeking performed updating tasks in which they could either gain 1 euro or 5 cents. Gains were presented either supraliminally or subliminally at the beginning of each trial. Results showed that low NS participants performed better in the high-reward than in the low-reward condition, whereas high NS participants’ performance did not differ (...) between reward conditions. Interestingly, we found that low NS participants performed significantly better when rewards were presented unconsciously, whereas high NS participants’ performance did not differ whether reward cues were presented subliminally or supraliminally. Our findings highlight the necessity of taking personality into account in unconscious cognition research. They also suggest that individual differences might determine whether implicit and explicit motives have similar or complementary influences. (shrink)

Gaëlle Demelemestre | : On présente généralement Francisco de Vitoria, Domingo de Soto et Domingo Bañez comme des auteurs de la Seconde Scolastique, et plus précisément de sa première vague. Il est de ce fait supposé que leurs positions intellectuelles sont suffisamment similaires pour que l’on puisse les traiter ensemble, et qu’elles soient exposées et complétées les unes par les autres. Des personnalités d’une telle envergure peuvent-elles cependant réellement avoir fondu leurs objet et visée propres en une thèse commune (...) qu’elles auraient perpétuée? C’est la question que nous nous poserons en comparant précisément la façon dont ils comprennent les notions de dominium et de ius. | : Francisco de Vitoria, Domingo de Soto and Domingo Bañez are generally presented as authors of the Second Scholastic, and more precisely of his first wave. It is thereby assumed that their intellectual positions are sufficiently similar to be treated together, and exposed and completed the one by the others. However, such personalities could they really have flow together their own object and aim in one same position that they have perpetuated? That’s the question we will ask in comparing precisely their meaning of the notions of dominium and ius. (shrink)

The paper outlines the contours of an organizational perspective on extended inheritance. Based on theoretical studies about biological organization and extended physiology, this perspective allows for the conception of extended biological legacies while keeping a theoretically indispensable distinction between biological systems and their environment. In this context, the line of demarcation between these systems and their surroundings is modelled on an organizational criterion and on the related conceptual distinction between organizational constraints, whose specific role is to harness flows of matter (...) and energy across generations of composite biological systems, and resources exploited by those systems. Biological legacies are restricted to persisting constitutive elements responsible for the reoccurrence of organizational constraints in a given environment. The case of symbiotic transmission is presented as a paradigmatic system illustrating the main proposed conceptual clarifications. (shrink)

During the last few years, various authors have called for the elaboration of a theoretical framework that would better take into account the role of organisms in evolutionary dynamics. In this paper, I argue that an organism-centered evolutionary theory, which implies the rehabilitation of an organizational thinking in evolutionary biology and should be associated with what I will call a heuristic of collaboration, may be completed by an organizational perspective of biological inheritance. I sketch this organizational perspective – which allows (...) going beyond gene-centrism –, show how it grounds a systemic concept of heritable variation suited to the new evolutionary framework, and highlight some of its explanatory value and theoretical implications for evolutionary thinking. (shrink)

The concept of biological inheritance has recently been extended so as to integrate, among other elements, parts of organisms’ environments. The literature refers to the trans-generational reconstruction of these parts in terms of environmental or ecological inheritance. This article’s main objective is to clarify the different meanings of "environmental inheritance," to underline so far unnoticed theoretical difficulties associated to this polysemous notion and to consequently argue that inheritance, even when extended, should be theoretically distinguished from trans-generational environmental stability. After disentangling (...) the different meanings of environmental inheritance, I underline that studies dealing with this concept place themselves in the wake of earlier contributions about biological environment and elaborate on the role of organisms in the determination of their relevant developmental and selective surroundings. This leads me to question the legitimacy of the category shift operated by niche inheritance proponents—from environment to inheritance—and to explain why the very concept of inherited environment shows important and so far unnoticed theoretical limitations. In this context, I assert the necessity to distinguish two related but different research programs: the construction of a finer-grained theory of environment and the elaboration of an extended theory of inheritance. (shrink)

As the world population is rapidly aging, stakeholders must address the care of the elderly with great concern. Also, loss of dignity is often associated with aging due to dementia, mobility problems and diminished functional autonomy. However, dignity is a polysemic term that is deemed useless by some ethicists. To counter this claim, we propose four concepts to define it better and make use accurately of this notion. These are human dignity, dignity of identity, dignities of excellence and attributed dignities. (...) Finally, we explain the importance of solicitude and human dignity in the care of the elderly. This will ensure the respect, friendship and dignity of the elderly in providing geriatric ethical care. (shrink)