Après l’histoire de la folie et celle de la prison, Foucault a abordé l’histoire de la sexualité. Nous retracerons d’abord les trois moments de cette histoire: l’antiquité gréco-romaine, le christianisme et la société bourgeoise. Nous insisterons ensuite sur ce qui caractérise, en Occident, notre époque, à savoir l’extension de « l’aveu » dans tous les domaines investis par les sciences humaines. Ce qui nous amènera à mettre l’accent sur l’enjeu philosophique d’une telle histoire, à savoir la question de la vérité.

Ne lire par commodité que Le Prince nous procure une vision partielle, voire tronquée, de la philosophie politique de Machiavel. Il est donc nécessaire de la compléter par la lecture des Discours sur la première décade de Tite-Live pour en apprécier l’unité : il n’y a pas d’un côté le conseiller du prince et de l’autre le républicain. On y verra alors une conception du monde dont la modernité s’enracine paradoxalement dans des catégories anciennes comme l’astrologie et la médecine antiques, (...) et où les « choses humaines », aussi déterminées soient-elles par les « choses du monde », se caractérisent par une certaine liberté, ce qui permet aux hommes d’avoir une histoire. (shrink)

La crise de la démocratie représentative nous amène à la questionner : est-elle vraiment démocratique ou s’agit-il d’un régime mixte? Les représentants sont censés représenter le peuple, mais qu’est-ce que le peuple? Comment sortir de l’âge de la défiance des citoyens envers l’élite au pouvoir? Partant des analyses du citoyen de Genève pour qui l’exécutif a toujours tendance à subjuguer le législatif souverain, nous aborderons les enjeux actuels de cette crise qui se manifeste aussi par le « populisme » et (...) la « démocratie sauvage » (les « gilets jaunes »). Ensuite, nous nous demanderons si la solution réside dans la « démocratie participative ». Peut-on en définitive espérer vivre dans une société harmonieuse, une « démocratie apaisée » ou bien faut-il admettre que le conflit est au cœur du social? (shrink)

La crise de la représentation politique est un thème récurrent depuis de nombreuses années. Et nous voulons montrer que, philosophiquement parlant, c’est Jean-Jacques Rousseau qui, dans le Contrat social, l’a pensée comme le mal politique de notre modernité. En effet, en suivant la grille de lecture proposée par Jacques Derrida dans De la grammatologie, la démocratie r eprésentative en tant que « supplément » de la démocratie directe impossible, ne peut que dénaturer cette dernière, c’est-à-dire tendre à dessaisir le peuple (...) de sa souveraineté. Et si ce mal est inhérent à la démocratie représentative des « peuples modernes », cela montre que Rousseau ne peut pas être nostalgique de la démocratie directe antique comme on le dit d’habitude mais le penseur lucide de notre temps. (shrink)

Le chapitre de L’Être et le néant sur « les conduites de mauvaise foi » est connu pour ses exemples comme « une femme qui s’est rendue à un premier rendez-vous » ou « le garçon de café », mais aussi pour sa critique de la psychanalyse. Or, il s’agit pour Sartre de montrer que ce qui est en jeu dans la mauvaise foi, comme dans la sincérité d’ailleurs, c’est qu’alors que les choses sont ce qu’elles sont, l’homme fuit ce (...) qu’il est, à savoir « un être qui est ce qu’il n’est pas et qui n’est pas ce qu’il est ». Dès lors, l’enjeu de ce chapitre est : qu’en est-il au juste de l’authenticité? (shrink)

Medical technology, specialization, and the corporatization of health delivery systems in the late twentieth century have all helped give birth to an unwelcome but unavoidable responsibility for individuals with family or friends—serving as a health care proxy. The responsibility comes without monetary compensation, is often involuntary, and lacks any real guidelines beyond the duty to make life-and-death decisions in circumstances over which the proxy has little control.The parameters of the proxy's job have evolved somewhat awkwardly in statutes and case law, (...) as lawmakers and judges have tried to apply conventional concepts to novel circumstances. This article examines the legal and functional status of the proxy, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of current public policy as reflected by state advance directive and surrogate decision-making laws. The first section of the article provides a historical perspective of our current notions of agency law as relevant to health care proxies. (shrink)

Medical technology, specialization, and the corporatization of health delivery systems in the late twentieth century have all helped give birth to an unwelcome but unavoidable responsibility for individuals with family or friends—serving as a health care proxy. The responsibility comes without monetary compensation, is often involuntary, and lacks any real guidelines beyond the duty to make life-and-death decisions in circumstances over which the proxy has little control.The parameters of the proxy's job have evolved somewhat awkwardly in statutes and case law, (...) as lawmakers and judges have tried to apply conventional concepts to novel circumstances. This article examines the legal and functional status of the proxy, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of current public policy as reflected by state advance directive and surrogate decision-making laws. The first section of the article provides a historical perspective of our current notions of agency law as relevant to health care proxies. (shrink)

To what extent do people attribute meanings to “nonsense” words? How general is such attribution of meaning? We used a set of words lacking conventional meanings to elicit drawings of made‐up creatures. Separate groups of participants rated the nonsense words and the drawings on several semantic dimensions and selected what name best corresponded to each creature. Despite lacking conventional meanings, “nonsense” words elicited a high level of consistency in the produced drawings. Meaning attributions made to nonsense words corresponded with meaning (...) attributions made by separate people to drawings that were inspired by the name. Naïve participants were able to recover the name that inspired the drawing with greater‐than‐chance accuracy. These results suggest that people make liberal and consistent use of non‐arbitrary relationships between forms and meanings.Open Research Badges This article has been awarded Open Materials and Open Data badges. All materials and data are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/8juyc/. Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science: https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki. (shrink)

State law requirements for health care advance directive documents were reviewed in every state and the District of Columbia to determine whether they are consistent and/or flexible enough to permit the utilization by the public of “universal” advance directive forms, specifically a health care power of attorney, that would be valid under every state's advance directive statutes. Such documents would have to overcome the wide variability of state legal formalities for validity. If this could be accomplished, the public would benefit (...) from having a variety of multi-state or truly universal forms available that could be used with confidence in their validity.The review found that a basic, multi-state health care power of attorney appears to be feasible in 41 States and the District of Columbia, compared to 36 states and the District in 2005. Only nine states prevent recognition of a truly universal form. Some barriers were surmountable, including differing agent and witness requirements, execution requirements, and effectiveness triggers. Other barriers were insurmountable, including mandatory forms, mandatory disclosures, and decision-specific language requirements. The strategies identified for overcoming some barriers can be used by lawyers in drafting true multi-state directives. More importantly, states should simplify state advance directive laws to facilitate a more meaningful communication model of advance care planning. (shrink)

This article details the results of a national survey conducted in 1999 of statewide laws and protocols providing for the creation and recognition of donot- resuscitate orders effective in nonhospital settings. Applicable primarily to emergency medical services personnel, most of these laws and protocols have been in existence for less than ten years, and there is little current comparative information on them. Such policies are commonly called out-of-hospital or prehospital DNR orders, although one state-Virginia-recently amended its DNR law to establish (...) a durable DNR order applicable to all health care providers and all settings. I will refer to the laws and policies examined here interchangeably as out-of hospital DNR protocols or EMS-DNR protocols. The survey produced a descriptive snapshot of such laws and protocols in effect on a statewide basis as of March 1999. (shrink)

This article details the results of a national survey conducted in 1999 of statewide laws and protocols providing for the creation and recognition of donot- resuscitate orders effective in nonhospital settings. Applicable primarily to emergency medical services personnel, most of these laws and protocols have been in existence for less than ten years, and there is little current comparative information on them. Such policies are commonly called out-of-hospital or prehospital DNR orders, although one state-Virginia-recently amended its DNR law to establish (...) a durable DNR order applicable to all health care providers and all settings. I will refer to the laws and policies examined here interchangeably as out-of hospital DNR protocols or EMS-DNR protocols. The survey produced a descriptive snapshot of such laws and protocols in effect on a statewide basis as of March 1999. (shrink)

Kant's revolution in methodology limited metaphysics to the conditions of possible experience. Since, following Hume, analysis—the “method of discovery” in early modern physics—could no longer ground itself in sense or in God's constituting reason a new arché, “origin” and “principle,” was required, which Kant found in the synthesis of the productive imagination, the common root of sensibility and understanding. Charles Bigger argues that this imaginative “between” recapitulates the ancient Gaia myth which, as used by Plato in the Timaeus, offers (...) a way into this originary arché. Since it depends on myth and the “likely story” rather than on a self-certain apprehension of Being, this facilitates an imaginative approach to the natural sciences which, through its synthetic a priori formations, can claim to be Kantian. Bigger explores Kant's ethics as an alternative to metaphysics that holds open the prospect of a Good beyond Being—and phenomenology—whose traces nevertheless appear in original synthesis. Though wary of its reductive implications, Bigger uses Derrida's difference, a medial, feminine arché, as a way into this creative and procreative metaxu. As Emmanuel Levinas suggests, this is Plato's gap [chaos] between being and becoming, whose possibility, beyond both, lies in chora and the Good. This Open also presents the possibility for a new, yet still Kantian, understanding of the formal and material conditions for the natural sciences. (shrink)