In the organelles of plants and mammals, recent evidence suggests that genomic instability stems in large part from template switching events taking place during DNA replication. Although more than one mechanism may be responsible for this, some similarities exist between the different proposed models. These can be separated into two main categories, depending on whether they involve a single‐strand‐switching or a reciprocal‐strand‐switching event. Single‐strand‐switching events lead to intermediates containing Y junctions, whereas reciprocal‐strand‐switching creates Holliday junctions. Common features in all the (...) described models include replication stress, fork stalling and the presence of inverted repeats, but no single element appears to be required in all cases. We review the field, and examine the ideas that several mechanisms may take place in any given genome, and that the presence of palindromes or inverted repeats in certain regions may favor specific rearrangements. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to develop the notion of partial probability distributions as being more realistic models of belief systems than the standard accounts. We formulate the theory of partial probability functions independently of any classical semantic notions. We use the partial probability distributions to develop a formal semantics for partial propositional calculi, with extensions to predicate logic and higher order languages. We give a proof theory for the partial logics and obtain soundness and completeness results.

Parallel to the New Left, whose influence on French public opinion is so pronounced today, a new academic movement has grown up in the United States in the last fifteen years. Its ideas are the portents of an intellectual and scientific revolution whose importance for the economic and political future of western society should be almost as great as the Keynesian revolution of the ‘30s.

With his usual lucidity, Etienne Gilson addresses the idea that "art is the making of beauty for beauty's own sake." By distinguishing between aesthetics, which promotes art as a form of knowledge, and philosophy, which focuses on the presence of the artist's own talent or genius, Gilson maintains that art belongs to a different category entirely, the category of "making." Gilson's intellectually stimulating meditation on the relation of beauty and art is indispensable to philosophers and artists alike.

Kant’s discussion of the highest good is subject to continuous disagreement between the proponents of two interpretations of this concept. According to the secular interpretation, Kant conceived of the highest good as a political ideal which can be realized through human agency alone, albeit only from the Critique of the Power of Judgement onwards. By way of contrast, proponents of the theological interpretation find Kant’s treatment of the highest good in his later works to be wholly coherent with the discussions (...) of this concept found in the second Critique. In their view, however, Kant never conceived of the highest good as a political ideal, and some go as far as to argue that it is the work of God alone. In this article, I defend a theologico-political account of the highest good that avoids the pitfalls of both readings. (shrink)

Western European liberal democracies have recently enacted laws that prohibit the diffusion of fake news on social media. Yet, many consider that such laws are incompatible with freedom of expression. In this paper, I argue that democratic governments have strong pro tanto reasons to prohibit fake news, and that doing so is compatible with free speech. First, I show that fake news disrupts a mutually beneficial form of epistemic dependence in which members of the public are engaged with journalists. Second, (...) I contend that laws against fake news enhance rather than thwart personal autonomy. If these suggestions are plausible, then the same considerations about truth and autonomy that underpin the value of free speech give us reasons to prohibit fake news. (shrink)

The important work, exquisitely translated by Mark Wauck, brings the essential elements of philosophy into view as a cohesive, readily understandable, and erudite structure, and does so rigorously in the best tradition of St. Thomas.

If citizens are to make enlightened collective decisions, they need to rely on true factual beliefs, but misinformation impairs their ability to do so. Although some cases of misinformation are deliberate and amount to propaganda, cases of inadvertent misinformation are just as problematic in affecting the beliefs and behavior of democratic citizens. A review of empirical evidence suggests that this is a serious problem that cannot entirely be corrected by means of deliberation.

The paper, which retains a hypothetical character, argues that Spinoza's propositions referring to God (or involving the use of the name ‘God’, essentially in the Ethics), can be read in a fruitful manner apart from any pre-established hypothesis concerning his own ‘theological preferences’, as definite descriptions of three ‘ideas of God’ which have the same logical status: one (akin to Jewish Monotheism) which identifies the idea of God with the idea of the Law, one (akin to a heretic ‘Socinian’ version (...) of Christianity) which identifies it with the idea of Human Love, and one (akin to a form of Cosmotheism, rather than ‘Pantheism’) which identifies it with Nature. Evidence of this analytic tripartition can be found in the letter of the texts themselves. If accepted (at least as a thought experiment), it would carry three interesting consequences: 1) to renew our understanding of the theory of the ‘three kinds of knowledge’, which have obvious affinities with the three possible ways of understanding the idea of God; 2) to emphasize the critical move associated by Spinoza with each of the three ideas of God (passing from an anthropomorphic legislator to an impersonal command, passing from an imaginary community of similarities to a practical community of singularities, and passing from a teleological and harmonious idea of nature to a causal, even conflictual, idea of its infinite power); 3) to locate the essential ethical and political questions associated with religion on the ‘vectors’ which lead from one idea to another, and represent themselves practical conatus: obedience, utility, order. It is also assumed that such a reading enhances the relevance of Spinoza's philosophy with respect to contemporary debates about religion and secularism. (shrink)

First published in French in 2010, _Equaliberty_ brings together essays by Étienne Balibar, one of the preeminent political theorists of our time. The book is organized around _equaliberty_, a term coined by Balibar to connote the tension between the two ideals of modern democracy: equality and liberty. He finds the tension between these different kinds of rights to be ingrained in the constitution of the modern nation-state and the contemporary welfare state. At the same time, he seeks to keep (...) rights discourse open, eschewing natural entitlements in favor of a deterritorialized citizenship that could be expanded and invented anew in the age of globalization. Deeply engaged with other thinkers, including Arendt, Rancière, and Laclau, he posits a theory of the polity based on social relations. In _Equaliberty_ Balibar brings both the continental and analytic philosophical traditions to bear on the conflicted relations between humanity and citizenship. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage d'Etienne Gilson offre au lecteur la reunion des lecons donnees a l'Universite de Louvain en 1952, lesquelles prennent toute leur ampleur par cette serie qu'elles forment, s'attachant a accorder une dimension toute historique et philosophique a la notion de Chretiente. L'auteur ne se propose pas d'elucider les rapports entre temporel et spirituel, mais d'eclairer la notion de peuple chretien. Pour cette raison il ne s'agit pas d'enreferer aux Peres de l'Eglise, mais de preferer une interrogation laique qui nous (...) permette de discriminer entre illusion et realite de l'idee de Chretiente. En d'autres termes, Etienne Gilson s'efforce de criconscrire chacune des fausses notions de Chretiente, chacune des parodies de la cite de Dieu, de sorte a esquisser ce que peut etre une veritable et commune appartenance a la Respublica fidelium. (shrink)

In this contribution, Balibar follows his seminal 1993 work applying the notion of the transindividual to Spinoza’s work, to produce a broader history of thinking the transindividual that brings both Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud into relation with Spinoza, devoting a section to each of these thinkers. Balibar positions the notion of the transindividual, here, as a solution to the opposing ontological errors of philosophical individualism that fails to attend to the social constitution of the individual, and the social organicism (...) that reduces the individual to the effect of larger forces. For Balibar, following Gilbert Simondon, the individual is to be understood as always already extending beyond themselves. (shrink)

"As one of Louis Althusser's most brilliant students in the 1960s, Etienne Balibar contributed to the theoretical collective masterpiece of Reading Capital. Since then he has established himself amongst the most subtle philosophical and political thinkers in France. In Politics and the Other Scene Balibar deepens and extends the work he first developed with Immanuel Wallerstein in Race, Nation, Class. Exploring the theme of universalism and difference, he addresses questions such as "European racism, " the notion of the border, whether (...) a European citizenship is possible or desirable, violence and politics, identity and emancipation"--provided by publisher. (shrink)

Etienne Balibar, one of the foremost living French philosophers, builds on his landmark work 'Spinoza and Politics' with this exploration of Spinoza's ontology. Balibar situates Spinoza in relation to the major figures of Marx and Freud as a precursor to the more recent French thinker Gilbert Simondon's concept of the transindividual. Presenting a crucial development in his thought, Balibar takes the concept of transindividuality beyond Spinoza to show it at work at both the individual and the collective level.

L'ouvrage prend son point de départ dans la controverse Habermas-Heidegger qui a cristallisé les termes principaux du débat de la modernité avec elle-même : revisiter l'héritage des Lumières pour en réactiver les possibilités inemployées ou prendre congé de celui-ci en vue d'un tout autre commencement de la pensée.Éclairée par la magistrale logique de la philosophie d'Eric Weil et son analyse de la société moderne, une relecture attentive de ces deux grandes oeuvres entend faire apparaître la possibilité d'un dialogue fécond si (...) on lit en contrepoint leurs analyses respectives du complexe techno-scientifique. (shrink)

étienne Balibar has been one of Europe's most important philosophical and political thinkers since the 1960s. His work has been vastly influential on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the humanities and the social sciences. In We, the People of Europe?, he expands on themes raised in his previous works to offer a trenchant and eloquently written analysis of "transnational citizenship" from the perspective of contemporary Europe. Balibar moves deftly from state theory, national sovereignty, and debates on multiculturalism and (...) European racism, toward imagining a more democratic and less state-centered European citizenship. Although European unification has progressively divorced the concepts of citizenship and nationhood, this process has met with formidable obstacles. While Balibar seeks a deep understanding of this critical conjuncture, he goes beyond theoretical issues. For example, he examines the emergence, alongside the formal aspects of European citizenship, of a "European apartheid," or the reduplication of external borders in the form of "internal borders" nurtured by dubious notions of national and racial identity. He argues for the democratization of how immigrants and minorities in general are treated by the modern democratic state, and the need to reinvent what it means to be a citizen in an increasingly multicultural, diversified world. A major new work by a renowned theorist, We, the People of Europe? offers a far-reaching alternative to the usual framing of multicultural debates in the United States while also engaging with these debates. (shrink)

With technologies like machine learning and data analytics being deployed as privileged means to improve how contemporary bureaucracies work, many governments around the world have turned to artificial intelligence as a tool of statecraft. In that context, our paper uses Canada as a critical case to investigate the relationship between ideals of good government and good technology. We do so through not one, but two Trudeaus—celebrity Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (2015—…) and his equally famous father, former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott (...) Trudeau (1968–1979, 1980–1984). Both shared a similar interest in new ideas and practices of both intelligent government and artificial intelligence. Influenced by Marshall McLuhan and his media theory, Pierre Elliott Trudeau deployed new communication technologies to restore centralized control in an otherwise decentralized state. Partly successful, he left his son with an informationally inclined political legacy, which decades later animated Justin Trudeau's own turn toward Big Data and artificial intelligence. Compared with one another, these two visions for both government and artificial intelligence illustrate the broader tensions between cybernetic and neoliberal approaches to government, which inform how new technologies are conceived of, and adopted, as political ones. As this article argues, Canada offers a paradigmatic case for how artificial intelligence is as much shaped by theories of government as by investments and innovations in computing research, which together delimit the contours of intelligence by defining which technical systems, people, and organizations come to be recognized as its privileged bearers. (shrink)

Le present ouvrage est un recueil d'articles de J. Etienne, professeur de philosophie et de theologie morales a l'UCL, en l'honneur de son 75eme anniversaire. Le choix des articles et leur agencement dans une structure tripartite temoignent de la dynamique directrice de la vie et de la pensee de J. Etienne, a savoir une recherche ethique alimentee par la raison et motivee par la foi. C'est ainsi que la premiere partie, consacree aux sources philosophiques de la pensee de J. Etienne, (...) rassemble diverses etudes qui vont de Platon a Ricoeur en passant par Bergson et Nabert; la seconde partie s'offre comme une mediation religieuse et theologique: elle reprend diverses contributions de J. Etienne sur le sacre, sur les relations entre la dynamique evangelique et la vie morale. La troisieme partie, quant a elle, fait se croiser ces deux sources de la reflexion morale que sont la raison et la foi sur des axes fondamentaux de la reflexion ethique ainsi que sur des thematiques plus actuelles: y sont abordes, entre autres, les rapports entre nature et culture, entre anthropologie et ethique, mais aussi les droits de l'homme, le droit d'ingerence, le respect aux mourants. Le recueil se termine par une bibliographie de J. Etienne. Comme un fil rouge qui traverse ce recueil, la mise en evidence du primat dialogue et de la raison sur la victoire privee de parole qu'est la violence, rappelle la capacite ethique qui habite tout etre humain et qui confere a sa liberte sa dignite. (shrink)

NGOs have taken a dominant position in setting the agendas of Corporate Responsibility and Socially Responsible Investment matters, thereby skewing the efforts of corporates to limit negative externalities towards their own agendas. As the latter remain to a certain extent unpredictable, corporates must deal with an information asymmetry. This situation can be explained by the historically defensive nature of Corporate Responsibility codes established by companies under pressure of the NGOs. In this paper, I contend that only a new approach to (...) Corporate Responsibility could reverse this asymmetry: one where the social responsibility matters are articulated in a political debate between all stakeholders of a company and where conflicting interests are addressed in a deliberative process. To this end, the corporate world and the NGOs need to understand the need for a larger debate that includes all relevant stakeholders defined as the Public in the sense of Dewey. Latour and the Actor-Network theory provide us with a workable framework to structure such a dialogue, where participants have the authority and legitimacy to speak for the Public. (shrink)

Aristotelian virtue theorists are currently engaged in a discussion with philosophers who use psychological findings to question some of their main assumptions. In this article, I present and argue against one of these psychological challenges—Jesse Prinz’s Normativity Challenge—which rests on the claim that findings in cultural psychology contradict the Aristotelian thesis that the normativity of virtues derives from nature. First, I demonstrate that the Normativity Challenge is based on three problematic assumptions about contemporary Aristotelianism. Second, I argue that it presupposes (...) the truth of a metaethical framework that Aristotelians reject: moral relativism. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce a Hilbert style axiomatic calculus for intutionistic logic with strong negation. This calculus is a preservative extension of intuitionistic logic, but it can express that some falsity are constructive. We show that the introduction of strong negation allows us to define a square of opposition based on quantification on possible worlds.

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.

Le present livre repose sur la conviction profonde et inveteree chez son auteur, que l'art n'est pas une facon de connaissance, mais qu'il releve au contraire d'un ordre distinct de celui du connaitre, qui est l'ordre du faire ou, s'il est permis de s'exprimer ainsi, de la factivite. Il s'agit donc ici uniquement de philosophie, en commencant par le commencement, qui consiste a chercher, au moins brievement, quel genre de question de philosophie doit se poser au sujet de l'art. A (...) partir de la, reflechissant en metaphysicien a la lumiere des premiers principes, on s'est efforce d'eclaircir successivement les notions principales a mesure qu'elles s'offraient a l'esprit. (shrink)

Le present livre repose sur la conviction profonde et inveteree chez son auteur, que l'art n'est pas une facon de connaissance, mais qu'il releve au contraire d'un ordre distinct de celui du connaitre, qui est l'ordre du faire ou, s'il est permis de s'exprimer ainsi, de la factivite. Il s'agit donc ici uniquement de philosophie, en commencant par le commencement, qui consiste a chercher, au moins brievement, quel genre de question de philosophie doit se poser au sujet de l'art. A (...) partir de la, reflechissant en metaphysicien a la lumiere des premiers principes, on s'est efforce d'eclaircir successivement les notions principales a mesure qu'elles s'offraient a l'esprit. (shrink)

L'ouvrage se propose d'introduire à la philosophie de Spinoza - conçue comme une ontologie et une éthique de la communication - à partir du rapport intrinsèque qu'elle entretient avec la politique. Après une mise en situation de Spinoza dans les conflits de son temps et de son pays, qui claire les multiples dimensions de son projet intellectuel, les trois grandes oeuvres (Traité théologico-politique, Traité politique, Ethique) sont successivement discutées. Une attention particulière est apportée aux thèmes de la démocratie, de la (...) religion, de l'institution et du rapport entre la raison et l'imagination, qui font l'actualité du spinozisme. L'ouvrage s'adresse à la fois à un public d'étudiants, d'enseignants et d'intellectuels pluridisciplinaires. (shrink)