By employing the theoretical template provided by agency theory, this article contributes a detailed clinical analysis of a large multinational Canada-headquartered telecommunications company, Nortel. Our analysis reveals a twenty-first century norm of usual suspects: a CEO whose compensation is well above those of his peers, a dysfunctional board of directors, acts of income smoothing to preserve the confidence of volatile investors, and revelations of financial irregularities followed by a downfall. In many ways, the spectacular rise and – sudden – fall (...) of Nortel illustrates excesses of actors within, and contradictions of the system of corporate governance implied by the agency model. Furthermore, this case illustrates limitations of the agency framework in complex situations with short-term oriented investors. (shrink)

I would like to suggest another way to go further toward a new economy of power relations, a way which is more empirical, more directly related to our present situation, and which implies more relations between theory and practice. It consists of taking the forms of resistance against different forms of power as a starting point. To use another metaphor, t consists of using this resistance as a chemical catalyst so as to bring to light power relations, locate their position, (...) and find out their point of application and the methods used. Rather than analyzing power from the point of view of its internal rationality, it consists of analyzing power relations through the antagonism of strategies.[…]Let us come back to the definition of the exercise of power as a way in which certain actions may structure the field of other possible actions. What, therefore, would be proper to a relationship of power is that it be a mode of action upon actions. That is to say, power relations are rooted deep in the social nexus, not reconstituted "above" society as a supplementary structure whose radical effacement one could perhaps dream of. In any case, to live in a society is to live in such a way that action upon other actions is possible-- and in fact ongoing. A society without power relations can only be an abstraction. Which, be it said in passing, makes all the more politically necessary the analysis of power relations in a given society, their historical formation, the source of their strength or fragility, the conditions which are necessary to transform some or to abolish others. For to say that there cannot be a society without power relations is not to say either that those which are established are necessary or, in any case, that power constitutes a fatality at the heart of societies, such that it cannot be undermined. Instead, I would say that the analysis, elaboration, and bringing into question of power relations and the "agonism" between power relations and the instransitivity of freedom is a permanent political task inherent in all social existence.[…]In effect, between a relationship of power and a strategy of struggle there is a reciprocal appeal, a perpetual linking and a perpetual reversal. At every moment the relationship of power may become a confrontation between two adversaries. Equally, the relationship between adversaries in society may, at every moment, give place to the putting into operation of mechanisms of power. The consequence of this instability is the ability to decipher the same events and the same transformations either from inside the history of struggle or from the standpoint of the power relationships. The interpretations which result will not consist of the same elements of meaning or the same links or the same types of intelligibility, although they refer to the same historical fabric, and each of the two analyses must have reference to the other. In fact, it is precisely the disparities between the two readings which make visible those fundamental phenomena of "domination" which are present in a large number of human societies.Michel Foucault has been teaching at the Collège de France since 1970. His works include Madness and Civilization , The Birth of the Clinic , Discipline and Punish , and History of Sexuality , the first volume of a projected five-volume study. (shrink)

This paper describes and critically reflects on a participatory policy process which resulted in a government decision not to introduce genetically modified cotton in farmers’ fields in Mali. In January 2006, 45 Malian farmers gathered in Sikasso to deliberate on GM cotton and the future of farming in Mali. As an invited policy space convened by the government of Sikasso region, this first-time farmers' jury was unique in West Africa. It was known as l’ECID—Espace Citoyen d’Interpellation Démocratique —and it had (...) an unprecedented impact on the region. In this Deliberative and Inclusive Process, the ECID combined the citizens’ jury method with indigenous methods for debate and dialogue, including the traditional African palaver. The ECID brought together male and female producers representing every district in the Sikasso region of southern Mali, specialist witnesses from various continents and a panel of independent observers, as well as resource persons and members of the national and international press and media. As an experiment in deliberative democracy, the ECID of Sikasso aimed to give men and women farmers the opportunity to share knowledge on the benefits and risks of GM cotton, and make policy recommendations on the future of GM technology in Malian agriculture. Designed as a bottom-up and participatory process, the ECID’s outcomes significantly changed national policy on the release of GM technology and have had an enduring influence in Mali. In this paper, we describe our positionality as action researchers and co-organisers of the ECID. We explain the methodology used for the ECID of Sikasso and critically reflect on the safeguards that were put in place to ensure a balanced and trustworthy deliberative process. The ECID and its key outcomes are discussed in the context of the political economy of GM cotton in West Africa. Last, we briefly highlight the relevance of the ECID for current international debates on racism in the theory and practice deliberative democracy; the production of post-normal transdisciplinary knowledge for technology risk-assessments; and the politics of knowledge in participatory policy-making for food and agriculture. (shrink)

In his book, Physical Relativity, Harvey Brown challenges the orthodox view that special relativity is preferable to those parts of Lorentz's classical ether theory it replaced because it revealed various phenomena that were given a dynamical explanation in Lorentz's theory to be purely kinematical. I want to defend this orthodoxy. The phenomena most commonly discussed in this context in the philosophical literature are length contraction and time dilation. I consider three other phenomena of this kind that played a role in (...) the early reception of special relativity in the physics literature: the Fresnel drag effect in the Fizeau experiment, the velocity dependence of electron mass in beta-ray deflection experiments by Kaufmann and others, and the delicately balanced torques on a moving charged capacitor in the Trouton-Noble experiment. I offer historical sketches of how Lorentz's dynamical explanations of these phenomena came to be replaced by their now standard kinematical explanations. I then take up the philosophical challenge posed by the work of Harvey Brown and Oliver Pooley and clarify how those kinematical explanations work. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy, Culture contains a rich selection of interviews and other writings by the late Michel Foucault. Drawing upon his revolutionary concept of power as well as his critique of the institutions that organize social life, Foucault discusses literature, music, and the power of art while also examining concrete issues such as the Left in contemporary France, the social security system, the penal system, homosexuality, madness, and the Iranian Revolution.

This book is an English-language translation of a bestselling book in France that explores the relationship between humans and new technologies.

La question du phénomène précède de beaucoup la phénoménologie, elle s'ouvre avec la philosophie et l'accompagne tout au long de son histoire. Mais ce préalable incontournable - car être veut dire apparaître - est surdéterminé par une présupposition irréfléchie. De la Grèce à Heidegger, dans les problématiques classiques de la conscience et de la représentation, dans leurs critiques, dans la phénoménologie de l'intentionnalité et dans ses prolongements, "phénomène" désigne ce qui se montre à l'intérieur d'un horizon de visihilisation, l'Ek-stase d'un (...) Dehors. La mise en cause de ce monisme ontologique établit que l'Ekstase ne subsiste que sur le Fond de son anti-essence : immanence si radicale qu'elle ne se tient jamais à distance, incapable de se voix, âme sans Idée, vie dépourvue d'archétype mais liée à soi invinciblement, s'éprouvant dans le subir, le souffrir et le jouir de son propre pathos. Parce que, avant que ne se lève le monde, une Affectivité transcendantale accomplit en nous son Archi-Révélation en même temps qu'elle engendre notre ipséité, ce sont d'autres catégories, d'autres penseurs, une nouvelle phénoménologie qui sont requis si nous voulons parvenir, enfin, à l'intelligence de ce que nous sommes. (shrink)

Translator's preface -- Introduction: The question of phenomenology -- Hyletic phenomenology and material phenomenology -- The phenomenological method -- Pathos-with reflections on Husserl's Fifth cartesian meditation -- For a phenomenology of community.

INTRODUCTION THE PROBLEM OF THE BEING OF THE EGO AND THE FUNDAMENTAL PRESUPPOSITIONS OF ONTOLOGY "Mit dem cogito sum beansprucht Descartes, der Philosophic ...

In his book, Physical Relativity, Harvey Brown challenges the orthodox view that special relativity is preferable to those parts of Lorentz's classical ether theory it replaced because it revealed various phenomena that were given a dynamical explanation in Lorentz's theory to be purely kinematical. I want to defend this orthodoxy. The phenomena most commonly discussed in this context in the philosophical literature are length contraction and time dilation. I consider three other phenomena of this kind that played a role in (...) the early reception of special relativity in the physics literature: the Fresnel drag effect in the Fizeau experiment, the velocity dependence of electron mass in beta-ray deflection experiments by Kaufmann and others, and the delicately balanced torques on a moving charged capacitor in the Trouton-Noble experiment. I offer historical sketches of how Lorentz's dynamical explanations of these phenomena came to be replaced by their now standard kinematical explanations. I then take up the philosophical challenge posed by the work of Harvey Brown and Oliver Pooley and clarify how those kinematical explanations work. (shrink)

This paper takes as its point of departure two striking incongruities between scientiªc practice and trends in modern history and philosophy of science. (1) Many modern historians of science are so preoccupied with local scientiªc practices that they fail to recognize important non-local elements. (2) Many modern philosophers of science make a sharp distinction between explanation and evidence, whereas in scientiªc practice explanatory power is routinely used as evidence for scientiªc claims. I draw attention to one speciªc way in..

A part of the “return to religion” now evident in European philosophy, this book represents the culmination of the career of a leading phenomenological thinker whose earlier works trace a trajectory from Marx through a genealogy of psychoanalysis that interprets Descartes’s “I think, I am” as “I feel myself thinking, I am.” In this book, Henry does not ask whether Christianity is “true” or “false.” Rather, what is in question here is what Christianity considers as truth, what kind of truth (...) it offers to people, what it endeavors to communicate to them, not as a theoretical and indifferent truth, but as the essential truth that by some mysterious affinity is suitable for them, to the point that it alone is capable of ensuring them salvation. In the process, Henry inevitably argues against the concept of truth that dominates modern thought and determines, in its multiple implications, the world in which we live. Henry argues that Christ undoes “the truth of the world,” that He is an access to the infinity of self-love, to a radical subjectivity that admits no outside, to the immanence of affective life found beyond the despair fatally attached to all objectifying thought. The Kingdom of God accomplishes itself in the here and now through the love of Christ in what Henry calls “the auto-affection of Life.” In this condition, he argues, all problems of lack, ambivalence, and false projection are resolved. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

Mallarmes madness * You think I'm mad? Someday I'll explain to you that my madness lies elsewhere. Mallarme to H. Cazalis, Mallarme inaugurates: the first ...

Marie Curie, une intellectuelle engagée? Comment Marie Curie qui est connue pour avoir été une personnalité publique marquante de son temps avant de passer au rang de mythe, considéra-t-elle les questions de la responsabilité sociale des intellectuels? D’un côté, elle renonce - après examen - à toutes les formes d’engagement collectif et partisan y compris pour des causes qui lui sont chères - le progrès social, la paix, les droits des femmes, l’abolition de la peine de mort -, de l’autre (...) elle se révèle une militante déterminée en faveur des recherches scientifiques et de la coopération intellectuelle internationale. Alors qu’elle refuse de descendre dans l’arène, de s’exprimer dans la presse, ses « positions » politiques ou éthiques sont suffisamment connues pour qu’on finisse par l’identifier, au moins en partie, avec ces combats pour lesquels elle ne se mobilise pas, au point que sa vie elle-même devient l’enjeu de batailles qui la dépassent. Il s’agit bien, en fait, d’une vie politique, largement construite et maîtrisée par son actrice, recomposant et modelant pour longtemps la figure du savant contemporain aussi bien que celle de la femme moderne. Faut-il alors encore parler de mythe? (shrink)

The basic methods of constructing the sets of mutually unbiased bases in the Hilbert space of an arbitrary finite dimension are reviewed and an emerging link between them is outlined. It is shown that these methods employ a wide range of important mathematical concepts like, e.g., Fourier transforms, Galois fields and rings, finite, and related projective geometries, and entanglement, to mention a few. Some applications of the theory to quantum information tasks are also mentioned.

INTRODUCTION THE SEEMING CONTINGENCY OF THE QUESTION CONCERNING THE BODY AND THE NECESSITY FOR AN ONTOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BODY When we disclose and..

Le christianisme bouleverse notre conception de l'homme parce qu'il refuse la manière dont celui-ci se comprend depuis toujours à partir du monde, de sa vérité et de ses lois. Selon le christianisme, l'homme ne procède pas du monde mais de Dieu: il est son " Fils ". Or Dieu est Vie, Vie qui ne se montre en aucun monde, qui s'éprouve elle-même dans son intériorité invisible. L'autorévélation de la Vie est l'essence de Dieu. Cette épreuve de soi de la Vie (...) fonde tout Soi et tout Moi, toute individualité et tout individu - tout " homme " concevable. L'opposition de la Vérité de la Vie et de la vérité du monde permet, d'autre part, de savoir que Jésus est le Christ. Dans le monde, Jésus a l'apparence d'un homme. C'est seulement en se plaçant à l'intérieur du mouvement de la Vie qu'on peut saisir comment celle-ci génère en elle un Premier Vivant et, en lui, tout vivant possible. Ce livre ne demande donc pas si le christianisme est vrai ou faux. Il met à nu le genre de Vérité que le christianisme professe et propose aux hommes. A partir d'une phénoménologie radicale du concept de " Vie ", il donne une idée extrêmement neuve, originale et forte de la Vérité du christianisme. (shrink)

In this accessible and fascinating book, Michel Morange draws on recent advances in molecular genetics, evolutionary biology, astrobiology, and other disciplines to find today’s answers to the question of life.

The relationship between Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity and Hendrik A. Lorentz’s ether theory is best understood in terms of competing interpretations of Lorentz invariance. In the 1890s, Lorentz proved and exploited the Lorentz invariance of Maxwell’s equations, the laws governing electromagnetic fields in the ether, with what he called the theorem of corresponding states. To account for the negative results of attempts to detect the earth’s motion through the ether, Lorentz, in effect, had to assume that the laws (...) governing the matter interacting with the fields are Lorentz invariant as well. This additional assumption can be seen as a generalization of the well-known contraction hypothesis. In Lorentz’s theory, it remained an unexplained coincidence that both the laws governing fields and the laws governing matter should be Lorentz invariant. In special relativity, by contrast, the Lorentz invariance of all physical laws directly reflects the Minkowski space-time structure posited by the theory. One can use this observation to produce a common-cause argument to show that the relativistic interpretation of Lorentz invariance is preferable to Lorentz’s interpretation. (shrink)

Readers of this volume will notice that it contains only a few papers on general relativity. This is because most papers documenting the genesis and early development of general relativity were not published in Annalen der Physik . After Einstein took up his new prestigious position at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in the spring of 1914, the Sitzungsberichte of the Berlin academy almost by default became the main outlet for his scientific production. Two of the more important papers on (...) general relativity, however, did find their way into the pages of the Annalen [35,41]. Although I shall discuss both papers in this essay, the main focus will be on [35], the first systematic exposition of general relativity, submitted in March 1916 and published in May of that year. (shrink)

Annoncé à grand fracas, le décryptage do génome humain devait nous révéler le secret ultime de la vie et ouvrir la voie à de nouvelles thérapies miracles. Espoirs déçus : à l'ère de la post-génomique, les secrets du vivant sont maintenant recherchés dans les théories de la complexité, dans la convergence des efforts des biologistes, des physiciens et des mathématiciens. Comment comprendre la signification de cette succession rapide d'objectifs apparemment différents, de cette alternance d'espoirs et de désillusions? Dans ce livre (...) novateur, Michel Morange propose une clé pour rendre compte de ces difficultés, et de beaucoup d'autres analogues touchant toutes les branches de la biologie. Les annonces sensationnelles reflètent l'espoir toujours déçu qu'une explication unique pourrait suffire. Or les faits biologiques - comme ceux relevant de bien d'autres disciplines scientifiques -ne peuvent être expliqués par un principe d'intelligibilité unique. Exemples à l'appui et de façon très pédagogique, Michel Morange montre pourquoi des explications différentes doivent être articulées pour décrire le fonctionnement des macromolécules aussi bien que l'évolution humaine ou le développement des cancers. Admettre une idée aussi simple n'est pas évident, car tout scientifique a été formé à privilégier un principe d'intelligibilité particulier. L'articulation entre explications différentes est pourtant indispensable pour le progrès des connaissances ; elle est aussi une exigence éthique ; elle est requise pour que la science conserve sa place dans nos sociétés. (shrink)