Jonathan Durand Folco | : Cet article présente une analyse critique de l’institutionnalisation de la participation citoyenne, à différentes échelles, à Montréal. Nous prendrons l’exemple de la consultation publique de la Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal et du budget interactif du Plateau-Mont-Royal pour illustrer les modèles de la gouvernance métropolitaine et de la gestion de proximité, pour ensuite montrer en quoi ces deux types de dispositifs participatifs soulèvent le problème de la trivialité. Nous soutiendrons enfin qu’une application systématique (...) d’une conception forte de la participation citoyenne, basée sur l’idéal de la démocratie participative, permettrait de surmonter le problème de la trivialité et d’opérer une véritable démocratisation des institutions municipales. | : This paper presents a critical analysis of the institutionalization of participation in Montreal at different levels. I will use the examples of the Montreal Metropolitan Com-munity’s public consultation and the Plateau Mont-Royal’s interactive budget to illustrate the models of metropolitan governance and local management, and demonstrate that these two forms of participatory mechanisms face the problem of triviality. I maintain that a systematic application of a strong conception of citizen participation, based on the ideal of participatory democracy, can overcome the challenge of triviality and effect a real democratization of municipal institutions. (shrink)

À la suite du printemps arabe, nombre de citoyens des démocraties occidentales se sont regroupés sur les places publiques pour afficher ouvertement leur indignation par rapport aux dérives du système démocratique affaibli par un pouvoir financier grandissant. Ce texte retrace le chemin qui a amené les auteurs à investir l’espace public. Pensée comme un espace inclusif où le citoyen peut se réapproprier son pouvoir par la discussion, l’écoute et l’autoéducation au vivre ensemble, l’occupation se définit d’abord par sa pratique. Ce (...) sont en effet des moyens alternatifs, et novateurs qui sont mobilisés pour faire face à la crise environnementale, politique, économique et sociale que le système économique capitaliste néolibéral exacerbe. De nombreux outils : réseau social international, réunions, bulletin heb­domadaire, actions, émissions de radios, créés durant l’occupation permettent aujour­d’hui au mouvement de se renouveler dans le but de redonner légitimité et force au réel pouvoir politique démocratique. (shrink)

The devotion of a full article in the Paris Agreement to loss and damage was a major breakthrough for the world’s most vulnerable nations seeing to gain support for climate impacts beyond what can be adapted to. But how will loss and damage be paid for, and who will pay it? Will ethics be part of this decision? Here we ask what are the possible means of raising predictable and adequate levels of funding to address loss and damage? Utilizing a (...) framework developed by Marco Grasso, we argue that making the ethical connections between addressing climate impacts and finance mechanisms could significantly enhance their likelihood of being adopted. We briefly review insurance mechanisms and catastrophe bonds, and then move on to six “innovative finance” approaches to funding loss and damage. We utilize six criteria in assessing them: adequacy, predictability, technical feasibility, fairness, and indirect effects, and whether each has a clear link to loss and damage. Several mechanisms for gathering funds emerged as most promising. Three of the six financial mechanisms we reviewed to raise funding involved airline transport: clearly, there is a huge opportunity to tax this sector in one form or another, in recognition of airline emissions’ role in creating losses and damages in vulnerable nations from sea level rise, droughts, floods or hurricanes. Funding loss and damage response is a contentious issue that will get only more unwieldy if Parties’ conceptions of loss and damage are at odds: a common definition of loss and damage needs to be agreed upon under the UNFCCC. Most immediately, to meet any equity criteria, wealthy countries should do more to support the premiums of those who cannot afford insurance. (shrink)

Theories of discourse bring to realism new ideas about how knowledge develops and how representations of reality are influenced. We gain an understanding of the conceptual aspect of social life and the processes by which meaning is produced. This collection reflects the growing interest realist critics have shown towards forms of discourse theory and deconstruction. The diverse range of contributions address such issues as the work of Derrida and deconstruction, discourse theory, Eurocentrism and poststructuralism. What unites all of the contributions (...) is a sense that it is essential to provide a realist alternative to the hitherto dominance of social constructionism, hermeneutics and postmodernism, over many of the issues discussed. By developing a realist perspective the different authors attempt to embed discourse within the structured nature of the reality of the world. Realism can situate language, discourse and ideology within context specific, or 'causally efficacious' circumstances. Realism can help to uncover issues of power, representation, and subjectivity and how discursive and other social practices produce real effects. This can help us understand the manner in which social structures are reproduced through various forms of ideology and discourse. And by knowing this, we can start to address questions concerning human emancipation and how the world is to be transformed. (shrink)

Cet article vise à comprendre la théorie stoïcienne de la deixis afin d’expliquer l’importance accordée par les stoïciens aux pronoms démonstratifs et aux énoncés qu’ils composent, c’est-à-dire les propositions dites définitives. Nous montrons que ces propositions sont privilégiées pour des raisons à la fois ontologiques et épistémologiques en raison des propriétés sémantiques de leur sujet. Elles sont privilégiées d’un point de vue ontologique parce que la deixis grâce à laquelle leur sujet fait référence au réel crée une relation privilégiée à (...) la matière, la catégorie ontologique stoïcienne fondamentale. De plus, ces sujets requièrent que leur référent existe et soit présent et saisissable. Ces énoncés sont d’autre part privilégiés d’un point de vue épistémologique parce qu’ils sont fondamentaux dans l’acquisition de la connaissance. Nous suggérons enfin que tous les énoncés apparemment définis ne le sont pas en effet, et considérons quand et sous quelles conditions une référence déictique est réussie. (shrink)

Depuis les années 1960, Gilbert Durand a fondé et développé une méthodologie et une épistémologie novatrices de l'étude des imaginaires individuels et culturels qui ont inspiré une Ecole de Grenoble, qui n'a cessé d'essaimer à travers un grand nombre de centres de recherches en France et dans le monde. Sa pensée, connue à travers la mythocritique et la mythanalyse, enrichie par une vaste culture historique et pluriculturelle, a été appliquée dans les domaines les plus divers des sciences humaines et (...) sociales. Loin d'être un système clos, son oeuvre a inspiré une épistémologie ouverte qui a permis, sur la base des acquis fondamentaux, de se préciser, de s'adapter à des champs nouveaux, de recevoir les apports d'autres écoles, courants ou traditions culturelles. Les contributions ici rassemblées permettront de mieux situer l'émergence de la problématique de l'imaginaire dans différentes disciplines ou champs d'études, de présenter les innovations théoriques apportées par l'anthropologie de l'imaginaire de G Durand, d'illustrer les innovations qu'elles auront permises, d'amorcer des éléments de prospective pour les chantiers actuellement en cours d'exploration. (shrink)

In the wake of the Scientific Revolution, the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the complete demolition of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophes, including Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. The Radical Enlightenment played a part in this revolutionary process, which effectively overthrew all justification for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as well as man's dominance over woman, theological dominance of education, and slavery. Despite the present day interest in the revolutions of (...) the eighteenth century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have received limited scholarly attention. The greatest obstacle to the movement finding its proper place in modern historical writing is its international scope: the Racial Enlightenment was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish or Dutch, but all of these at the same time. In this wide-ranging volume, Jonathan Israel offers a novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettie and Diderot, two of its key exponents. Particular emphasis is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Chapter Introduction Henry Sidgwick is one of the most influential and least remembered philosophers of the and 20th centuries....

Liberalism without Perfection offers an introduction to the debate between liberal perfectionism and political liberalism. This book is a new account and defence of Rawlsian political liberalism, one of the most discussed, but widely misunderstood and criticized theories in contemporary political theory.

This book provides a clear, concise description of medical law; but it does more than that. It also provides an introduction to the ethical principles that can be used to challenge or support the law. It also provides a range of perspectives from which to analyse the law: feminist, religious and sociological perspectives are all used.

In this major new book, the internationally renowned thinker Jonathan Bennett offers a deeper understanding of what is going on in our own moral thoughts about human behavior. The Act Itself presents a conceptual analysis of descriptions of behavior on which we base our moral judgements, and shows that this analysis can be used as a means toward getting more control of our thoughts and thus of our lives.

This title presents a comprehensive guide to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) which is an increasingly popular approach to qualitative inquiry taught to undergraduate and postgraduate students today.

The fall of the Berlin Wall had enormous symbolic resonance, marking the collapse of Marxist politics and economics. Indeed, Marxist regimes have failed miserably, and with them, it seems, all reason to take the writings of Karl Marx seriously. Jonathan Wolff argues that if we detach Marx the critic of current society from Marx the prophet of some never-to-be-realized worker's paradise, he remains the most impressive critic we have of liberal, capitalist, bourgeois society. The author shows how Marx's main (...) ideas still shed light on wider concerns about culture and society and he guides the reader through Marx's notoriously difficult writings. Wolff also argues that the value of a great thinker does not depend on his or her views being true, but on other features such as originality, insight, and systematic vision. From this perspective, Marx still richly deserves to be read. Why Read Marx Today? reinstates Marx as an important critic of current society, and not just a figure of historical interest. (shrink)

" Here Jonathan Lear argues that irony is one of the tools we use to live seriously, to get the hang of becoming human.

We study the minimal complexity of tilings of a plane with a given tile set. We note that every tile set admits either no tiling or some tiling with.

Timely and provocative essays on bioethical questions brought to the forefront by the bioterrorist threat.

How is reality really manufactured? The idea of social construction has become a commonplace part of much social research, yet precisely what is constructed, how it is constructed, and what constructionism means are often left unclear or taken for granted. In this major work, Jonathan Potter explores the central themes raised by these questions. Representing Reality explores the different traditions in constructivist thought--including sociology of scientific knowledge; conversation analysis and ethnomethodology; and semiotics, poststructuralism, and postmodernism--to provide a lucid introduction (...) to several key strands of work that have overturned the way we think about facts and descriptions. Potter illustrates his points throughout with varied and engaging examples taken from newspaper stories, relationship counseling sessions, accounts of paranormal events, social workers' assessments of violent parents, informal talk between program organizers, political arguments, and everyday conversations. Representing Reality offers the student and scholar in social psychology, rhetoric and discourse, and related fields a critical introduction to constructivism. (shrink)

Résumé L’équilibre des forces (le pape, l’empereur, le corps épiscopal) fut plus apparent que réel à Chalcédoine. Sa définition n’en a pas moins sa validité permanente : empêcher d’occulter la réalité humaine du Christ, tout en tenant qu’il est « un seul et le même » avec le Verbe. Deux christologies savantes, celle d’Antioche et celle d’Occident résumée par Léon, se sont ici heurtées et combinées avec la vision de la personne du Christ se constituant à Alexandrie, formulée non sans (...) imprécision par Cyrille. Refus par certains orientaux des « deux natures après l’union » pour « une seule nature incarnée du Verbe ». « Jacobites » et « melkites ». Éclaircissement de Constantinople II (553) relativement à la notion d’hypostase. Situation actuelle de la christologie chalcédonienne. (shrink)

In this book Jonathan Adler offers a strengthened version of evidentialism, arguing that the ethics of belief should be rooted in the concept of belief--that...

Conciliationism is the family of views that rationality requires agents to reduce confidence or suspend belief in p when acknowledged epistemic peers (i.e. agents who are (approximately) equally well-informed and intellectually capable) disagree about p. While Conciliationism is prima facie plausible, some have argued that Conciliationism is not an adequate theory of peer disagreement because it is self-undermining. Responses to this challenge can be put into two mutually exclusive and exhaustive groups: the Solution Responses which deny Conciliationism is self-undermining and (...) attempt to provide arguments which demonstrate this; and the Skeptical Responses which accept that Conciliationism is self-undermining but attempt to mitigate this result by arguing this is either impermanent and/or not very worrisome. I argue that, by Conciliationism’s own lights, both kinds of responses (almost certainly) fail to save Conciliationism from being self-undermining. Thus, Conciliationism is (almost certainly) permanently self-undermining. This result is significant because it demonstrates that Conciliationism is likely hopeless: there is likely nothing that can save Conciliationism from this challenge. I further argue that Conciliationism, like any view, should be abandoned if it is (almost certainly) hopeless. (shrink)

Background: Informed consent in clinical research is mandated throughout the world. Both patient subjects and investigators are required to understand and accept the distinction between research and treatment.Aim: To document the extent and to identify factors associated with therapeutic misconception in a population of patient subjects or parent proxies recruited from a variety of multicentre trials .Patients and methods: The study comprised two phases: the development of a questionnaire to assess the quality of informed consent and a survey of patient (...) subjects based on this questionnaire.Results: A total of 303 patient subjects or parent proxies were contacted and 279 questionnaires were analysed. The median age was 49.5 years, sex ratio was 1 and 61% of respondents were professionally active. Overall memorisation of the oral or written communication of informed consent was good , and satisfaction with the process was around 70%. Therapeutic misconception was present in 70% of respondents, who expected to receive better care and ignored the consequence of randomisation and treatment comparisons. This was positively associated with the acuteness and severity of the disease.Conclusion: The authors suggest that the risk of therapeutic misconception be specifically addressed in consent forms as an educational tool for both patients and investigators. (shrink)

The Oxford Translation of Aristotle was originally published in 12 volumes between 1912 and 1954. It is universally recognized as the standard English version of Aristotle. This revised edition contains the substance of the original Translation, slightly emended in light of recent scholarship three of the original versions have been replaced by new translations and a new and enlarged selection of Fragments has been added. The aim of the translation remains the same: to make the surviving works of Aristotle readily (...) accessible to English speaking readers. (shrink)

In the newly-discovered “On Principles and Matter”—we can definitely ascertain by Porphyry—the author concludes that there must be two principles responsible for all beings, or at least all sensible beings: God (the active cause) and matter (the passive cause). In large part this agrees with Atticus’ position, which the text also quotes, and which we also know Porphyry engaged with vigorously, from Proclus’ Timaeus Commentary. However there is a something odd about this text’s Porphyry: we seem to have a positive (...) argument for much of Antiochus’ framework of two principles, while in Proclus’ testimony we have a negative argument for the very same position. In this paper I analyze in detail the positive argument for the two principles given in “On Principles”, and I consider the degree to which Porphyry may be supplying a dialectical argument at this point in the text, before eventually criticizing the same view elsewhere (as in Proclus’ testimony). I also consider other points of contact for the text’s two-principles framework with Porphyry’s other extant works and show some consequences for Porphyry’s overall position. (shrink)

Epistemology has for a long time focused on the concept of knowledge and tried to answer questions such as whether knowledge is possible and how much of it there is. Often missing from this inquiry, however, is a discussion on the value of knowledge. In The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding Jonathan Kvanvig argues that epistemology properly conceived cannot ignore the question of the value of knowledge. He also questions one of the most fundamental assumptions in (...) epistemology, namely that knowledge is always more valuable than the value of its subparts. Taking Platos' Meno as a starting point of his discussion, Kvanvig tackles the different arguments about the value of knowledge and comes to the conclusion that knowledge is less valuable than generally assumed. Clearly written and well argued, this 2003 book will appeal to students and professionals in epistemology. (shrink)

This article gives an overview of some recent debates about the relationship between reasons and rational requirements of coherence - e.g. the requirements to be consistent in our beliefs and intentions, and to intend what we take to be the necessary means to our ends.

Evidentialism is the thesis that all reasons to believe p are evidence for p. Pragmatists hold that pragmatic considerations – incentives for believing – can also be reasons to believe. Nishi Shah, Thomas Kelly and others have argued for evidentialism on the grounds that incentives for belief fail a ‘reasoning constraint’ on reasons: roughly, reasons must be considerations we can reason from, but we cannot reason from incentives to belief. In the first half of the paper, I show that this (...) argument fails: the claim that we cannot reason from incentives is either false or does not combine with the reasoning constraint to support evidentialism. However, the failure of this argument suggests an alternative route to evidentialism. Roughly, reasons must be premises of good reasoning, but it is not good reasoning to reason from incentives to belief. The second half of the paper develops and defends this argument for evidentialism. (shrink)

Aristotle is one of the very greatest thinkers in the Western tradition, but also one of the most difficult. The contributors to this volume do not attempt to disguise the nature of that difficulty, but at the same time they offer a clear exposition of the central philosophical concerns in his work. Approaches and methods vary and the volume editor has not imposed any single interpretation, but has rather allowed legitimate differences of interpretation to stand. An introductory chapter provides an (...) account of Aristotle's life, and then guides the reader through the complex subject of what Aristotle actually wrote as a basis for characterising his philosophical development. Subsequent chapters cover Aristotle's writings on logic, metaphysics, science, psychology, ethics, politics, rhetoric, and poetics. It is a basic assumption of the Companion that its readers will not know Greek. (shrink)

This anthology looks at the early sages of Western philosophy and science who paved the way for Plato and Aristotle and their successors. Democritus's atomic theory of matter, Zeno's dazzling "proofs" that motion is impossible, Pythagorean insights into mathematics, Heraclitus's haunting and enigmatic epigrams-all form part of a revolution in human thought that relied on reasoning, forged the first scientific vocabulary, and laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Jonathan Barnes has painstakingly brought together the surviving Presocratic fragments in their (...) original contexts, utilizing the latest research and a major new papyrus of Empedocles. Translated and edited by Jonathan Barnes. (shrink)

Causal claims are context sensitive. According to the old orthodoxy (Mackie 1974, Lewis 1986, inter alia), the context sensitivity of causal claims is all due to conversational pragmatics. According to the new contextualists (Hitchcock 1996, Woodward 2003, Maslen 2004, Menzies 2004, Schaffer 2005, and Hall ms), at least some of the context sensitivity of causal claims is semantic in nature. I want to discuss the prospects for causal contextualism, by asking why causal claims are context sensitive, what they are sensitive (...) to, and where they are sensitive to it. (shrink)

Sentience is the capacity to have feelings, such as feelings of pain, pleasure, hunger, thirst, warmth, joy, comfort and excitement. It is not simply the capacity to feel pain, but feelings of pain, distress or harm, broadly understood, have a special significance for animal welfare law. Drawing on over 300 scientific studies, we evaluate the evidence of sentience in two groups of invertebrate animals: the cephalopod molluscs or, for short, cephalopods (including octopods, squid and cuttlefish) and the decapod crustaceans or, (...) for short, decapods (including crabs, lobsters and crayfish). We also evaluate the potential welfare implications of current commercial practices involving these animals. (shrink)

From mitochondria to meerkats, the natural world is full of spectacular examples of social behaviour. In the early 1960s W. D. Hamilton changed the way we think about how such behaviour evolves. He introduced three key innovations - now known as Hamilton's rule, kin selection, and inclusive fitness - and his pioneering work kick-started a research program now known as social evolution theory. This is a book about the philosophical foundations and future prospects of that program. [Note: only the Introduction (...) is available to download.]. (shrink)

But if, with Jonathan Lear, we scrutinize these thinkers' attempts to explain human behavior in terms of a higher principle--whether happiness or death--the ...

In debates about animal sentience, the precautionary principle is often invoked. The idea is that when the evidence of sentience is inconclusive, we should “give the animal the benefit of the doubt” or “err on the side of caution” in formulating animal protection legislation. Yet there remains confusion as to whether it is appropriate to apply the precautionary principle in this context, and, if so, what “applying the precautionary principle” means in practice regarding the burden of proof for animal sentience. (...) Here I construct a version of the precautionary principle tailored to the question of animal sentience together with a practical framework for implementing it. I explain and defend the key features of this framework, argue that it is well-aligned with current practice in animal welfare science, and consider and reject a number of influential counterarguments to the use of precautionary reasoning in this area. (shrink)

To be able to make “change” happen in the lives of patients entrusted to his care, Watzlawick says he tried to produce a theory about it. He was forced to acknowledge that the mechanisms of change resist systematization and, therefore, all wishes to elicit them as well.Well-being is to therapy what discovery is to thought and the event is to History: the position – unforeseen, unforeseeable – in reality of what did not hitherto exist. And heuristics would be, if not (...) a science, since there could be no science of change, then at least the name given to reflection on its mystery. (shrink)

Résumé Rivalité des sièges, rapports de force entre le pouvoir civil, le corps épiscopal et la papauté dans l’histoire des conciles. Le mot homoousios : son origine, son insertion au symbole de Nicée, l’importance que lui donne Athanase. Amertume de Grégoire de Nazianze après Constantinople I, due à des offenses personnelles et au défaut d’exigences dogmatiques à l’égard des courants pneumatomaque et apollinariste. Utilisation de Theotokos à Éphèse par Cyrille, progrès de l’influence de celui-ci jusqu’en 444. L’expression « en deux (...) natures » de Chalcédoine a peut-être permis d’exclure Dioscore. (shrink)