The purpose of this paper is to defend and justify the hypothesis that Perelman’s New Rhetoric can enable the French school of Discourse Analysis to readjust its theoretical positions concerning the ethics of discourse. While it is no longer necessary, in the wake of linguists such as Benveniste and Kerbrat-Orecchioni, to point out the founding role of the inscription of subjectivity in language, it is, paradoxically, still necessary to justify the legitimacy of choosing the axiological dimension of discourse and its (...) ethical issues as a scientific object. Indeed, very few linguists view Perelman’s New Rhetoric as a logic and a “pragmatics” of values; most of them prefer to view it as a technical reservoir of types of arguments (Cf. concerning the critical enumeration and classification of references to the NR, raised in approximately forty linguistic works, Koren 2002: 197–228). So far, the notions of “guarantee” and “commitment” are integrated in pragmatic linguistic theories; but these notions have mostly to do with a “commitment” vis-à-vis a referential truth. Truth is still considered as the ultimate value, as the normative reference to every questioning on discursive rectitude. We are thus left with an epistemological lacuna, namely the integration of the responsibility for value judgments in linguistic theories, that could be partially answered for by the New Rhetoric. An editorial from Le Monde will be analyzed to illustrate this point of view. (shrink)

Les valeurs faisant sens pour le locuteur jouent un rôle central dans la justification des décisions. Le jugement de valeur est cependant suspect d'être prescriptif et inique. Sa réhabilitation est l'objet de cet ouvrage. On y démontre que rhétorique et rationalité axiologique sont indissociables.

Faut-il chercher un principe de la morale, quelque chose qui serait là, en nous, pour qu'elle puisse exister? La morale ne nous vient-elle pas aussi de l'extérieur, d'une contrainte sociale? Les protagonistes de la troisième partie de l'Alciphron s'engagent dans un vif débat sur cette question. Toutefois l'attention est détournée du « bien » vers le beau, objet du sens moral. L'exposé de cette thèse, les objections qui lui sont faites, sont le levier qui permet d'envisager la place de l'intérêt, (...) de nos sentiments de crainte et d'espoir, et de l'obéissance à la loi divine. L'enjeu, c'est la possibilité d'une morale autonome. Should one try and find some principle of ethics, i.e. something that would be herein, within us, so that it may be liable to exist? Do not ethics also come from outside, i.e. from a social constraint? The protagonists of Alciphron's third part start an acute debate on the topic. However attention is turned from the « good » towards the beautiful which is the object of the moral sense. This thesis and objections made to it are the lever enabling to grasp the part played by interest, by our feelings both of fear and of hope and by obedience to the divine law. What is at stake is the liability of autonomous ethics. (shrink)

While often presented as promising assistive technologies for motor-impaired users, electroencephalography (EEG)-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) remain barely used outside laboratories due to low reliability in real-life conditions. There is thus a need to design long-term reliable BCIs that can be used outside-of-the-lab by end-users, e.g., severely motor-impaired ones. Therefore, we propose and evaluate the design of a multi-class Mental Task (MT)-based BCI for longitudinal training (20 sessions over 3 months) of a tetraplegic user for the CYBATHLON BCI series 2019. In (...) this BCI championship, tetraplegic pilots are mentally driving a virtual car in a racing video game. We aimed at combining a progressive user MT-BCI training with a newly designed machine learning pipeline based on adaptive Riemannian classifiers shown to be promising for real-life applications. We followed a two step training process: the first 11 sessions served to train the user to control a 2-class MT-BCI by performing either two cognitive tasks (REST and MENTAL SUBTRACTION) or two motor-imagery tasks (LEFT-HAND and RIGHT-HAND). The second training step (9 remaining sessions) applied an adaptive, session-independent Riemannian classifier that combined all 4 MT classes used before. Moreover, as our Riemannian classifier was incrementally updated in an unsupervised way it would capture both within and between-session non-stationarity. Experimental evidences confirm the effectiveness of this approach. Namely, the classification accuracy improved by about 30% at the end of the training compared to initial sessions. We also studied the neural correlates of this performance improvement. Using a newly proposed BCI user learning metric, we could show our user learned to improve his BCI control by producing EEG signals matching increasingly more the BCI classifier training data distribution, rather than by improving his EEG class discrimination. However, the resulting improvement was effective only on synchronous (cue-based) BCI and it did not translate into improved CYBATHLON BCI game performances. For the sake of overcoming this in the future, we unveil possible reasons for these limited gaming performances and identify a number of promising future research directions. Importantly, we also report on the evolution of the user's neurophysiological patterns and user experience throughout the BCI training and competition. (shrink)

Diderot’s reading of Le Camus’ Médecine de l’Esprit may occupy a prominent position in his research for the Eléments de physiologie, but his thoughts on the matter are not restricted to a criticism of this work, which appeared in 1753. In his edition of the Eléments de physiologie, Jean Mayer showed that Diderot had instigated an ongoing debate with other physicians who were also concerned with the issue of a ‘medicine of the mind’: Bonnet, Marat, Le Cat, not to mention (...) Bordeu and Haller. In view of the poignancy of Le Camus’ questions, however, his Médecine de l’Esprit may be taken as the hidden clue to a series of questions ranging from the perfectibility of the human mind to the curing of insanity, and thus spanning the limits of the human spectrum—from idiot to genius. The open possibility of creating a medicine of the mind is in fact a restatement of the problem of the respective weight of ‘organization’ and education, understood here in the broadest sense. This problem forms an essential part of the Réfutation d’Helvétius. Furthermore, this possibility leads one to inquire into the physician’s ability to intervene in the organization itself. Thus the question of the ‘innate’ and the ‘acquired’ shifts in some sense, so that it is now located within the problem of organization, which now means more than just the material organ of thought. Ultimately, it is this expression, ‘organization’, which I wish to elucidate further. (shrink)

Le champ de l’histoire naturelle, longtemps descriptif et classificatoire, connaît tout au long du xmf siècle, un ensemble de transformations dues au développement croissant d’un point de vue physiologique sur les êtres vivants. Si, dans un premier temps, les disciplines traditionnelles (botanique, zoologie) voient des aspects particuliers se développer en leur sein (physique végétale, anatomie et physiologie comparées), la question se pose peu à peu de l’émergence d’une sdence du vivant, dépassant le clivage traditionnel des trois règnes, consciente de l’unité (...) que représente le monde vivant par opposition au monde inorganique. L’apparition presque simultanée en Europe du terme biologie (Roze, Treviranus, Lamarck) ou de son substitut zoonomie (E. Darwin) ne constitue cependant qu’une naissance avortée, qui perturbe les classifications antérieures, sans aboutir immédiatement à la reconnaissance de la biologie comme discipline. L’objet de cet article est d’analyser les conditions conceptuelles qui permettent cette naissance, d’examiner les processus de redistribution des savoirs qu’elle entraîne et d’étudier les redéfinitions et les redécoupages qui s’opèrent dans les catégories utilisées dans les institutions académiques, les périodiques ou les dictionnaires. (shrink)

Les critiques que Berkeley adresse à la géométrie, à la dioptrique, comme à l'analyse des modernes sont radicales et ont de quoi surprendre. Elles ne peuvent prendre sens qu'en référence au Principe, « exister, c'est percevoir ou être perçu »; ce qui implique que la mathématique soit et demeure sensible et pratique. Ces deux attributs renvoient démontrablement à l'absolue priorité de l'attouchement pour l'être pensant et mathématicien. L'expression la plus achevée de l' identité des êtres mathématiques implique le développement d'une (...) classification des signes fondateurs des langues fondamentales. The critics that Berkeley adresses to Geometry, Dioptries and the Modems' Analysis are most radical and surprising. We cannot understand them regardless the Principle, « to exist is, either to be perceived, either to perceive »; it implies that mathematics have to be sensible and practical. We demonstrate that both attributes command the absolute priority of the sense of touch in the mathematician's mind. To express perfectly what is the identity of mathematical beings, we need a theory about the different sorts of signs and languages. (shrink)

Le XXe siècle se caractérise par un afflux de données concernant le fonctionnement cérébral, du niveau moléculaire à la cognition. Mais le rapport du fonctionnement et de la fonction pose de sérieuses difficultés d'ordre méthodologique et philosophique. The 20 century is characterized by a multifold surge of data about the cerebral functioning from the molecular level to cognition. But the relationship between functioning and function raises quite a few serious difficulties on both the methodological and philosophical level.

This work defines various stakeholder roles to overcome the barriers to implementing Education 4.0, which were recently identified in the domain literature. The stakeholder roles are evaluated against these barriers, and such evaluation is structured as a multicriteria sorting problem. To this end, an integrated entropy-based CRITIC-CODAS-SORT under a Fermatean fuzzy environment addresses epistemic uncertainties inherent in decision-making. The FF CRITIC assigns the priority weights of the barriers, while the FF CODAS-SORT determines the high-priority stakeholder roles. A case of an (...) HEI evaluating 57 possible roles of 5 stakeholders is demonstrated here. Findings suggest the lack of collaboration, apprehensive stakeholders, cybersecurity threats, health issues, and cost as crucial barriers to the HEI. The sorting process yields 13 high-priority roles, encompassing those within the influence of the government, university management, human resource function, and educators. Various managerial insights are offered as inputs to the design of initiatives in EDUC4 implementation. (shrink)

This study examines the conditions under which apologies help to elicit forgiveness and restore trust following trust violations between leaders and followers. The intentionality and severity of violations are examined in a critical incident study and a laboratory study. The results support a model in which forgiveness mediates the relation of apology quality and trust. More importantly, the moderation–mediation model shows that apology quality influenced forgiveness and subsequent trust following violations that were moderate in severity–intentionality combination. The effect of apologizing (...) affects trust directly without forgiveness when the severity–intentionality combination held minor or extreme intensity. The results suggest a range in which apologies are effective and enrich understanding of the conditions under which trust can be recovered through an apology–forgiveness process in leader–follower relationships. The contribution of the study lies in elucidating that the combination of severity and intentionality of leaders’ trust violations has greater importance than either one separately. (shrink)

In a world that peers over the brink of disaster more often than not it is difficult to find specific assignments for the scholarly community. One speaks of peace and brotherhood only to realize that for many the only real hope of making a contribution may seem to be in a field of scientific specialization seemingly irrelevant to social causes and problems. Yet the history of man since the beginnings of science in the days of the Greeks does not support (...) this gloomy thesis. Time and again we have seen science precipitate social trends or changes in the humanistic beliefs that have a significant effect on the scientific community. Not infrequently the theoretical scientist, triggered by society's changing goals and understandings, finds ultimate satisfaction in the work of his colleagues in engineering and the other applied fields. Thus the major debate in mid-nineteenth century in which the evidence of natural history and geology at variance with the Biblical feats provided not only courage to a timid Darwin but the kind of audience that was needed to fit his theories into the broad public dialogue on these topics. The impact of "Darwinism" was felt far beyond the scientific community. It affected social thought, upset religious certainties and greatly affected the teaching of science. (shrink)

Globalisation has triggered a proliferation of translation practises, many of which are mediated by machines. This development raises fundamental philosophical questions about language, writing, meaning, reference, and representation. This chapter builds a bridge between the ethics of machine translation and philosophy of technology. It starts by considering the activity of translation as such and argues that this is an inherently ethical activity because it involves sacrifice, establishes commonality between foreign elements, and invokes certain professional virtues. Consequently, the chapter asks what (...) machines ‘do’ to translation practises, arguing that they fundamentally transform the activity of translation into the transcription of notations. This raises the philosophical questions of logocentrism, the extent to which machines translate the ‘presence’ of lived experience, and phonocentrism, the extent to which machines transcribe the spoken word. Based on this analysis, the chapter turns to three ethical questions that pertain to machine translation. The first is about responsibility: while machines rely on retrospective responsibility, can they deal with prospective responsibility in translation? The second is about hospitality: can machines adapt to foreign worlds without having the lived experience attached to these worlds? And the third is about virtue: can the exchangeability inherent to machine translation cohere with the incommensurability of the work of translation? (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of data collected on the continued prevalence of outdated, marginalizing terms in contemporary cataloguing practices, stemming from the Library of Congress Subject Heading term “Indians” and all its related terms. Using Manitoba Archival Information Network’s (MAIN) list of current LCSH and recommended alternatives as a foundation, we built a dataset from titles published in the last five years. We show a wide distribution of LCSH used to catalogue fiction and non-fiction, with outdated but recognized terms (...) like “Indians of North America-History” appearing the most frequently and ambiguous and offensive terms like “Indian gays” appearing throughout the dataset. We discuss two primary problems with the continued use of current LCSH terms: their ambiguity limits the effectiveness of an institution’s catalog, and they do not reflect the way Indigenous Peoples, Nations, and communities in North America prefer to represent themselves as individuals and collectives. These findings support those of parallel scholarship on knowl­edge organization practices for works on Indigenous topics and provide a foundation for further work. (shrink)

Este artigo irá examinar a concepção de Agostinho de Hipona sobre o coração humano, visto que, ocupando o lugar de um cardiologista, Agostinho prescreve um tratamento terapêutico intensivo. Serão considerados três movimentos essenciais do cor agostiniano. Primeiramente, Agostinho propõe uma busca pelo coração, a câmara secreta, o centro vital interior que necessita ser reencontrado. Uma vez localizado o coração, somos levados a um segundo movimento: o retorno ao coração. Depois de diagnosticar sua própria doença cardíaca, um coração vazio, Agostinho propõe (...) uma terapia, a volta ao coração no encontro com um terapeuta divino, o Cristo; e um remédio potente, o esmagamento do coração. Terceiro, ascende-se com seu coração: o coração se eleva ao alto, sursum cor. Um coração saudável é um coração ascendente, com o amor como seu marca-passo. Retornar ao coração significa, portanto, voltar ao núcleo de uma autêntica existência, no chamado para não se fechar em si mesmo, para ascender em uma abertura de amor a uma alteridade, Deus e ao próximo. Como epílogo, iremos explorar de forma concisa dois contextos relacionados, nos quais Agostinho utiliza a imagem do coração: vida comunitária e espiritualidade. (shrink)

Richard Glauser mène dans cet ouvrage une enquête serrée sur le contexte philosophique dans lequel est née la philosophie de George Berkeley, cherchant contre quels sceptiques lutte précisément le jeune philosophe irlandais, en particulier dans les Principes de la connaissance humaine et les Trois Dialogues entre Hylas et Philonous qui leur font suite. La question se pose à la curiosité de l'historien des idées d'autant plus vivement que Berkeley est un philosophe avant tout argumentatif, qui préfère toujours exposer et démontrer (...) logiquement ses thèses, envisager les objections et les réfuter, ou encore en proposer une analyse serrée sous forme de dialogue. S'agissant des personnes, Berkeley se contente le plus souvent, de formules allusives ; il dit peu envers qui a il des dettes, et qui il attaque. (shrink)

This special issue introduces the study of financial technologies and finance to the field of philosophy of technology, bringing together two different fields that have not traditionally been in dialogue. The included articles are: Digital Art as ‘Monetised Graphics’: Enforcing Intellectual Property on the Blockchain, by Martin Zeilinger; Fundamentals of Algorithmic Markets: Liquidity, Contingency, and the Incomputability of Exchange, by Laura Lotti; ‘Crises of Modernity’ Discourses and the Rise of Financial Technologies in a Contested Mechanized World, by Marinus Ossewaarde; Two (...) Technical Images: Blockchain and High-Frequency Trading, by Diego Viana; and The Blockchain as a Narrative Technology: Investigating the Social Ontology and Normative Configurations of Cryptocurrencies, by Wessel Reijers and Mark Coeckelbergh. (shrink)