Sade, Pasolini, Bataille, Claude Louis-Combet, David Nebreda et bien d’autres, sans doute sont-ils nombreux à avoir cherché Dieu au fond de la fécalité. Sur le concept du visage du fils de Dieu, pièce de théâtre mise en scène par Roméo Castellucci, semble ouvrir une autre relation entre ces deux pôles, faisant peut-être de l’excrément le signe éminent de l’impossibilité de Dieu. Sur le concept du visage du fils de dieu, parce que la défécation est donnée à voir sur la (...) scène, pose d’emblée la... (shrink)

Now in a third edition, Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings is a highly acclaimed, topically organized collection that covers five major areas of philosophy--theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, freedom and determinism, and moral philosophy. Editor Louis P. Pojman enhances the text's topical organization by arranging the selections into a pro/con format to help students better understand opposing arguments. He also includes accessible introductions to each chapter, subsection, and individual reading, a unique feature for (...) an anthology of this depth. While the book focuses on a compelling sampling of classical material--including selections from Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant--it also incorporates some of philosophy's best twentieth-century and contemporary work, featuring articles by Bertrand Russell, Richard Taylor, John Searle, Thomas Nagel, and others. This third edition contains an expanded glossary, more extensive section introductions, and twelve new selections: Karl Popper: "Epistemology without a Knowing Subject" Richard Rorty: "Dismantling Truth: Solidarity Versus Objectivity" Daniel Dennett: "Postmodernism and Truth" Bruce Russell: "The Problem of Evil: Too Much Suffering" David Chalmers: "Against Materialism: Can Consciousness Be Reductively Explained?" Baron Paul Henri d'Holbach: "A Defense of Determinism" Michael Levin: "A Compatibilist Defense of Moral Responsibility" Plato: Socratic Morality: "Crito" Herodotus: "Custom Is King" J. L. Mackie: "The Subjectivity of Values" Louis P. Pojman: "A Critique of Mackie's Theory of Moral Subjectivism" Thomas Nagel: "Moral Luck". (shrink)

A motivation and a presentation of the semantics of a formal system which proceeds from von neumann's "eine axiomatisierung der mengenlehre" by taking as fundamental notions the notion of partial functions, his principles of reification on the grounds of a "method of simulation" of meaningless terms and formulas by "ideal" terms and "virtual" formulas. theory of sets appears as the end of axiomatic extensions of the theory of objects (the intermediary extensions being the theories of classes, of universes, of aggregates).

No figure among the western Marxist theoreticians has loomed larger in the postwar period than Louis Althusser. A rebel against the Catholic tradition in which he was raised, Althusser studied philosophy and later joined both the faculty of the Ecole normal superieure and the French Communist Party in 1948. Viewed as a "structuralist Marxist," Althusser was as much admired for his independence of intellect as he was for his rigorous defense of Marx. The latter was best illustrated in For (...) Marx (1965), and Reading Capital (1968). These works, along with Lenin and Philosophy (1971) had an enormous influence on the New Left of the 1960s and continues to influence modern Marxist scholarship. This classic work, which to date has sold more than 30,000 copies, covers the range of Louis Althusser's interests and contributions in philosophy, economics, psychology, aesthetics, and political science. Marx, in Althusser's view, was subject in his earlier writings to the ruling ideology of his day. Thus for Althusser, the interpretation of Marx involves a repudiation of all efforts to draw from Marx's early writings a view of Marx as a "humanist" and "historicist." Lenin and Philosophy also contains Althusser's essay on Lenin's study of Hegel; a major essay on the state, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," "Freud and Lacan: A letter on Art in Reply to Andre Daspre," and "Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract." The book opens with a 1968 interview in which Althusser discusses his personal, political, and intellectual history. (shrink)

A milestone in the development of post-war Marxist thought.

Nous vivons dans une société mondialisée apparemment unie par une vision commune de l’humanité. Mais derrière l’illusion première d’un ‘’Nous’’ déjà là, se cache la réalité de l’hétérogénéité des croyances, des modes de vies et des cultures. Modèles différents entre pays et dans les pays eux-mêmes, sur le plan mondial comme ‘’national’’, nous cherchons encore ce qui constitue ce Nous tant rêvé. Quel est donc le fondement de notre vie commune? Qu’est-ce qui nous permet de dire que nous faison...

La obra incluye legislación de quince países, así como diversos documentos de la ONU, la UNESCO, el Consejo de Europa, la Unión Europea, Comités Nacionales de Ética, dictámenes y resoluciones de Instituciones Internacionales, jurisprudencia española y una selección bibliográfica con unas 1.300 referencias, clasificada por materias. Algunas leyes nacionales y los documentos del Consejo de Europa se publican traducidos al español y en su idioma original, cuando éste se ha considerado fácilmente asequible, con el fin de facilitar el acceso a (...) la fuente directa. (shrink)

Investigating school performance and competencies, especially on leadership, received a considerable attention in the past. In fact, there have been multitudes of evidence that leadership can impact school performance, student achievement, or outcome. Also, there was no single measurement of school performance. This study examined the influence of leadership and core behavioral competencies on the school performance of school heads. This was to build a new model of school performance. Using an explanatory research design, it administered a survey questionnaire to (...) 192 randomly chosen school heads from the 37 districts of Department of Education Division of Surigao del Sur. Also, it used data mining for the performance ratings of school heads from the division office. Regression analysis tested three hypothesized models of school performance where leadership and core behavior competencies serve as independent variables. Results showed that leading people was a significant predictor of school performance. Thus, leading people can best explain the school improvement as a proposed model. The results have implications for future research, leadership practice, and theoretical development of school performance model among school heads. (shrink)

In the Schrödinger equation, time plays a special role as an external parameter. We show that in an enlarged system where the time variable denotes an additional degree of freedom, solutions of the Schrödinger equation give rise to weights on the enlarged algebra of observables. States in the associated GNS representation correspond to states on the original algebra composed with a completely positive unit preserving map. Application of this map to the functions of the time operator on the large system (...) delivers the positive operator valued maps which were previously proposed by two of us as time observables. As an example we discuss the application of this formalism to the Wheeler-DeWitt theory of a scalar field on a Robertson-Walker spacetime. (shrink)

"Ce livre propose une enquête philosophique explorant le rapport à la mort dans nos sociétés. C’est une invitation à penser les liens humains à la fin de la vie. On évoque les liens intimes, mais également les liens sociaux encadrés par la loi. Dans un tel contexte, comment discerner les raisons anciennes et nouvelles convenant au bien de la cité? L’ouvrage s’adresse aux accompagnants en soins palliatifs. Il concerne également toute personne soucieuse pour elle-même et ses proches de réfléchir à (...) son voyage au bout de la vie. Nous sommes mortels, nous le savons et le fil de nos existences provoque des occasions de nous le rappeler. Dans la solitude de mourir s’inscrit l’appel à la compassion. Ainsi, pour les Grecs de l’Antiquité, l’image de la cigogne symbolisait la prise en charge des vieux par les jeunes, un signe de l’amitié politique. L’émergence de la culture palliative est intimement liée aux changements qui ont affecté l’évolution récente de la vie démocratique. Cette culture est née et s’est développée dans des circonstances politiques particulières. À l’observer, on peut déchiffrer certains codes de notre vie civique, ses aspirations, mais aussi ses ambiguïtés. Louis-André Richard propose d’examiner les questions actuelles en compagnie de Platon, d’Aristote, d’Augustin ou de Tocqueville. Grâce à eux, la philosophie, symbolisée par la sagesse de Minerve, est mise à contribution pour explorer la genèse et les métamorphoses de concepts comme la dignité et l’autonomie. Comment se déploie la dynamique de la raison et de la liberté à l’heure de notre mort? Tel est l’enjeu pour les roseaux pensants que nous sommes. Si notre frêle espèce appelle à la sollicitude de la cigogne, elle ne saurait négliger de convoquer aussi la sagesse de Minerve."--Résumé de l'éditeur. (shrink)

Covering the major issues of the field succinctly and lucidly, this text takes an analytically rigorous approach and makes it accessible in presentation. Pojman writes from an impartial perspective, presenting various options and points of view while guiding students in their own search for truth over these often emotion-laden, crucial issues.

Visual feedback regulation during movement is not fully captured in Plamondon's kinematic theory. However, numerous studies indicate that visual response-produced feedback is a powerful determinant of performance and kinematic characteristics of target-directed movement.

Poussin, à Rome, dit du Caravage qu'il était venu au monde pour détruire la peinture et cependant il est dit aussi qu'il possédait l'art de peindre tout entier. Ce livre cherche non point à résoudre une contradiction mais plutôt à développer une inconsistance du système représentatif dans le procès de peindre de Poussin au Caravage et vice versa. Il y sera donc question de mimésis et de fantaisie, d'histoire et d'action, de perspective et de ténèbres, de mort et de décapitation...

Les périodes de confinement sont des moments éprouvants. On a la sensation de perdre nos repères. Nous nous sentons déboussolés. On peut cependant saisir l’occasion de faire le point. Sous le regard de la réflexion philosophique, ce petit livre est une tentative pour éviter de perdre le nord. L’auteur propose de courtes réflexions puisées à même la littérature philosophique. Sans prétention, il s’agit de fournir des pistes rendant intelligibles nos conditions d’êtres confinés.

This volume will thus appeal to advanced students and scholars not just in the history of early modern philosophy but in epistemology and other core areas of ...

Ce recueil d'articles, publié pour la première fois en 1965 aux Editions François Maspero, a connu un succès exceptionnel pour un ouvrage théorique : quinze tirages (soit 45 000 exemplaires) et de très nombreuses traductions. Comme le notait Elisabeth Badinter dans Combat du 25 avril 1974 : "Les étudiants et les intellectuels marxistes découvrirent Althusser et à travers lui, sinon un nouveau Marx, du moins une nouvelle façon de le lire. Depuis la Critique de la raison dialectique de Sartre, Althusser (...) est le seul philosophe à proposer une interprétation vraiment originale des œuvres de Marx. " Depuis les années 1960, les études marxistes n'ont pu ignorer cette approche qui établissait une "coupure épistémologique" dans l'œuvre marxienne, séparant les textes idéologiques du jeune Marx de ceux plus scientifiques du Marx de la maturité. Elle offrait aussi une autre évaluation de l'apport de Hegel à Marx et n'hésitait pas à s'inspirer des réflexions philosophiques de Mao Zedong pour nourrir sa propre philosophie. Rares sont les livres ayant suscité autant de passions théoriques et provoqué autant de débats. "Comment expliquer une telle influence? D'abord, évidemment, par la nouveauté qui caractérise, dans les années 1960-1965, sa lecture de Marx. Lecture "symptomale ", au sens freudien du terme, c'est-à-dire attentive au non-dit tout autant qu'au discours explicite... Il s'agit d'en finir avec la version humaniste, bavarde et idéologique du marxisme vulgaire et de donner le jour à une véritable pratique révolutionnaire, fondée sur un savoir rigoureux. " Le Monde. (shrink)

Summary of, and response to criticism of, the authors' book, Fairness versus welfare (Harvard University Press, 2002).

Philippe Pinel is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern evidence-based psychiatry. Yet, until recently, his most important contributions to psychiatric theory and practice were effectively lost in myth, or lost in translation. It is instructive to review the history of these developments in order to correct any errors or omissions that may stand in the way of an accurate recognition of Pinel’s contributions to psychiatry, while at the same time highlighting some of his achievements that have been (...) hidden by his celebrated mythical status as a pioneering humanitarian reformer. The aim of this article is to motivate further historical study of Pinel’s work, especially his 1809 Medico-Philosophical Treatise on Mental Alienation, which has only recently become available in English translation. (shrink)

Philippe Pinel is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern evidence-based psychiatry. Yet, until recently, his most important contributions to psychiatric theory and practice were effectively lost in myth, or lost in translation. It is instructive to review the history of these developments in order to correct any errors or omissions that may stand in the way of an accurate recognition of Pinel’s contributions to psychiatry, while at the same time highlighting some of his achievements that have been (...) hidden by his celebrated mythical status as a pioneering humanitarian reformer. The aim of this article is to motivate further historical study of Pinel’s work, especially his 1809 Medico-Philosophical Treatise on Mental Alienation, which has only recently become available in English translation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviews PASSION AND PARADOX L G Religious Studies / McMaster U. Hamilton, , Canada   @. Joan Cocks. Passion and Paradox: Intellectuals Confront the National Question. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton U. P., . Pp. . .; pb .. ccording to an ancient legend, four Rabbis ventured into the garden of Aphilosophy. One, it is said, went insane, another became a heretic, a third died and only the (...) fourth emerged unscathed. A modern variation of this story might go like this. Four or perhaps  philosophers entered the jungle of nationalism and for the most part went insane. There were those who embraced nationalism and consequently abandoned the universality of philosophy for the promotion of xenophobia, racism and even Nazism. Others remained internationalist and hence became futile—philosophical Canutes—commanding the raging beasts of nationality to be still. No one struggled harder with nationalism than Bertrand Russell. In , writing as an internationalist, he announced the demise of the principle of nationality only to see nationalisms explode in every region of the world (see his “National Independence and Internationalism”, Papers ). He opposed it relentlessly and without compromise until near the end of his life when he found himself endorsing wars of national liberation. Nationalism is often depicted as a howling beast. It would be better to think of it as an anaconda that wraps itself around everyone who ventures into its domain. Joan Cocks’ Passion and Paradox is an important book on nationalism and the intelligentsia. She traces the intellectual encounter with nationalism of a number of figures—Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Isaiah Berlin and the Scottish nationalist Tom Nairn, among others. All are exiles, most are Jews, and all try to hack their way through a jungle of conundrums of nationalist thought. Her accounts of these thinkers sometimes read like complex legal briefs, but are always illuminating. Though an internationalist, she sees the power of nationalist imperatives. Her approach to the contradictory strains of nationalism and hostility to nationalism echoes that of Hegel. She presents critical but sympathetic accounts of each side of the nationalist problematic and shows how their difficulties might be resolved in a higher synthesis. Alas! her resolution suffers from the unworldliness that she finds in other versions of internationalism. Her argument begins with a personal experience. In the early ’s she joined a group of Arabs and Jews against the Gulf War. In the course of their associ- Reviews  ation she learned that the Jews were all internationalists, while the Arabs were outspoken nationalists. This experience presumably demonstrated that a happy collusion of nationalism and internationalism was possible. But, of course, there was another side: those prosecuting the war she opposed were also nationalists. Her central thesis addresses the tragedy of opposition. It states that nationalism is “dilemmatic”, that is, that “all paths of thought obscured equally telling contrary thoughts; all courses of action were strewn with causes for regret and remorse” (p. ). The horns of the dilemma are the valid claims of the internationalist who sees the underlying self-destructive deep structures of nationalism on one side, and the claims of the national particularistic who is engaged in the compelling theatre of national liberation and the protection of local customs and roots on the other. Her book is an account of how her thinkers are framed by this dilemma, locked in by the imperatives of either side. In the period between the Gulf War and the composition of this book in  Cocks was able to observe what she identifies as the destructive logic of nationalism. The ’s were a period of postmodernist celebration of the local, a sensibility that helped to legitimate nationalism. The explosion of nationalism that followed the breakup of the Communist imperium was a time of liberation of the imprisoned nations—a springtime when it was good to be alive. But as the decade wore on the concealed pit bulls came out—in Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and elsewhere. In Cocks’ view nationalism showed an inner logic, of a sort that Russell called attention to in the early ’s—a logic that led from euphoria to self-destruction (see his Prospects). Her aim is to revive the half-remembered internationalist tradition as formulated by Marx and Luxemburg—but also to show... (shrink)

A Bioética, que podemos qualificar, sem a menor dúvida, como uma ciência jovem - embora cheia de vigor, dinamismo e em plena expansão - se ocupa, desde as multifacetadas óticas das grandes perguntas que se formula a cada dia, o homem moderno, em torno da vida. Neste livro, os autores tratam de alguns aspectos conceituais que, às vezes, são obliterados no discurso bioético. Por exemplo, quais as relações que se interpõem entre Bioética e Direito, começando por delimitar cada uma destas (...) disciplinas. (shrink)

Fornece um panorama sobre os avanços biotecnológicos, dando ênfase aos aspectos jurídicos e éticos do impacto destes na área genética sobre o homem e o meio ambiente.

Consider the kinds of macroscopic concrete objects that common sense and the sciences allege to exist: tables, raindrops, tectonic plates, galaxies, and the rest. Are there any such things? Opinions differ. Ontological liberals say they do; ontological radicals say they don't. Liberalism seems favored by its plausible acquiescence to the dictates of common sense abetted by science; radicalism by its ontological parsimony. Priority theorists claim we can have the virtues of both views. They hold that tables, raindrops, etc., exist, but (...) they aren't fundamental. The ontological liberal's ontology provides the correct inventory of existent individuals. The ontological radical's more restricted ontology provides the correct inventory of fundamental individuals. The priority theorist claims that the derivative individuals are "no addition in being" to the fundamental ones, so we can have our cake and eat it too. It would be nice if priority theorists were right. In this paper I argue, with regret, that they are not. One upshot is that the sort of explanations which underwrite the priority theorist's distinction between fundamental and derivative individuals do not mitigate our ontological commitments. Another is that we still have to choose between the charms of liberalism and radicalism. (shrink)

The first publication of seminal early writing by Louis Althusser. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Louis Althusser enjoyed virtually unrivalled status as the foremost living Marxist philosopher. Today, he is remembered as the scourge and severest critic of "humanist" or Hegelian Marxism, as the proponent of rigorously scientific socialism, and as the theorist who posited a sharp rupture—an epistemological break—between the early and the late Marx. This collection of texts from the period 1945-1953 turns these interpretations of Althusser (...) on their head: we discover that there was a "young Althusser" as well as the "mature Althusser" we are already familiar with. In his fascinating Master's thesis, "On Content in the Thought of G.W.F. Hegel" (1947), Althusser developed a position which he was later to attack ferociously: namely, that the revolutionary potential of the Hegelian dialectic could be defended against Hegel's own political conservatism. We see Althusser still wrestling with the spectres of Hegel and of Catholicism in another long text, his letter to Jean Lacroix, and, finally, we see his own "epistemological break" in the piece "On Marxism" from 1953. Other texts included are his critique of Alexander KojÅve (whose interpretation Francis Fukoyama has recently revived) and his attack on the French Church's teachings on women, sex and the family. Widely recognized as an intellectual giant of the late twentieth century, Althusser has left a towering legacy. This collection not only gives a unique insight into the formation of such a personality, but will also restore the "unknown Althusser" to the centre of the history of Marxism and of philosophy since the Second World War. (shrink)

Theory, theoretical practice, and theoretical formation -- On theoretical work -- Philosophy and the spontaneous philosophy of the scientists (1967) -- Lenin and philosophy -- Is it simple to be a Marxist in philosophy? -- The transformation of philosophy -- Marxism today.

Medicalization in contemporary psychopharmacology is increasingly dominated by commercial interests that threaten the scientific and ethical integrity of psychiatry. At the same time, the proliferation of new social media has altered the manner in which the social groups and institutions that have stakes in medicalization interact. Consumers are at once more powerful than ever before, but also more vulnerable. The upshot of all these developments is that medicalization is no longer simply the professed enemy of anti-psychiatry and its supporters. It (...) is now also an enemy of psychiatry. Once a welcome ally of psychiatry, medicalization appears to have turned into a fearsome enemy. (shrink)

Is it permissible to use a human embryo in stem cell research, or in general as a means for benefit of others? Acknowledging each embryo as an object of moral concern, Louis M.Guenin argues that it is morally permissible to decline intrauterine transfer of an embryo formed outside the body, and that from this permission and the duty of beneficence, there follows a consensus justification for using donated embryos in service of humanitarian ends. He then proceeds to show how (...) this justification commands assent even within moral and religious views commonly thought to oppose embryo use. Beneath his moral reasoning lies a carefully constructed metaphysical foundation incorporating accounts of the ontology of development, embryos, and species. He also incisively discusses nonreprocloning, reprocloning, ectogenesis, and related scientific frontiers. This compelling philosophical study will interest all concerned to understand virtue and obligation in the relief of suffering. (shrink)

John Searle has proposed one of the most influential contemporary accounts of social ontology. According to Searle, institutional facts are created by the collective assignment of a specific kind of function —status-function— to pre-existing objects. Thus, a piece of paper counts as money in a certain context because people collectively recognize it as money, and impose a status upon it, which in turn enables that piece of paper to deliver certain functions (means of payment, etc.). The first part of this (...) essay presents Searle’s theory of social ontology and summarizes his views on money. The second part centers on criticisms of his views and compares his theory with its main competitors, including the theories of Tuomela, Guala and Hindriks, and Smit, Buekens and Duplessis. The conclusion attempts to see what may remain of Searle’s theory after careful examination. (shrink)

With several never-before published writings, this volume gathers Althusser's major essays on psychoanalytic thought----documenting his intense and ambivalent relationship with Lacan, and dramatizing his intellectual journey and troubled personal life.

This paper establishes a sound and complete semantics for the impure logic of ground. Fine (Review of Symbolic Logic, 5(1), 1–25, 2012a) sets out a system for the pure logic of ground, one in which the formulas between which ground-theoretic claims hold have no internal logical complexity; and it provides a sound and complete semantics for the system. Fine (2012b) [§§6-8] sets out a system for an impure logic of ground, one that extends the rules of the original pure system (...) with rules for the truth-functional connectives, the first-order quantifiers, and λ-abstraction. However, no semantics has yet been provided for this system. The present paper partly fills this lacuna by providing a sound and complete semantics for a system GG containing the truth-functional operators that is closely related to the truth-functional part of the system of Fine (2012b). (shrink)

Recent downward trends in corporate giving have renewed interest in the factors that shape corporate philanthropy. This paper examines the relationships between charitable contributions, firm size and industry. Improvements over previous studies include an IRS data base that covers a much broader range of firm sizes and industries as compared to previous studies and estimation using an instrumental variable technique that explicitly addresses potential simultaneity between charitable contributions and profitability. Important findings provide evidence of a cubic relationship between charitable giving (...) and firm size and evidence of strong industry effects. The plus-minus-plus regression coefficient sign pattern for the cubic firm size model suggests that small and large firms give more relative to total receipts with lower giving ratios among medium size firms. One interpretation for this finding is that small firms are close to the communities they serve while high visibility creates a need for large firm philanthropy. Strong industry effects provide evidence of inter-industry differences in giving culture and/or different public relations requirements across industries. (shrink)

Social entrepreneurship, individual activities with a social objective, is used in this study as a conceptual tool for empirically examining farmers’ participation in alternative food networks. This study verifies whether their participation is driven by the social entrepreneurship dimension to satisfy social and environmental needs. We develop a more inclusive view of how social entrepreneurship is present among farmers participating in AFNs by using a behavioural approach based on three main psychological constructs: attitude, objective, and behaviour. The empirical results show (...) that two types of farmers participate in AFNs. One type is closer to commercial entrepreneurs; the main attitudes and objectives affecting their behaviour are oriented toward profit maximization and farm progress. The second type is closer to social entrepreneurial activity; the main objectives affecting their behaviour are oriented towards satisfying social and environmental needs. The study’s results offer implications and suggest recommendations concerning social entrepreneurial practices and the motivations of the farmers who participate in AFNs. (shrink)

Two essays, one by Althusser, the other by Balibar which were presented as papers at a seminar on Marx's "Capital" at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in 1965, and included al.

In How to Be a Marxist in Philosophy one of the most famous Marxist philosophers of the 20th century shares his concept of what it means to function fruitfully as a political thinker within the discipline and environs of philosophy. This is the first English translation to Althusser's provocative and, often, controversial guide to being a true Marxist philosopher. Althusser argues that philosophy needs Marxism. It can't exist fully without it. Similarly, Marxism requires the rigour and structures of philosophy to (...) give it form and focus. He calls all thinking people to, 'Remember: a philosopher is a man who fights in theory, and when he understands the reasons for this fight, he joined the ranks of the struggle of workers and popular classes.' In short, this book comprises Althusser's elucidation of what praxis means and why it continues to matter. With a superb introduction from translator and Althusser archivist G.M. Goshgarian, this is a book that will re-inspire contemporary Marxist thought and reinvigorate our notions of what political activism can be. (shrink)