Dans les quelques paragraphes qu’il consacre à la comparaison entre la théologie révélée et la théologie philosophique, Siger de Brabant procède à de nombreux écarts par rapport au texte de Thomas d’Aquin qui lui sert de modèle. Cet article a pour but de montrer comment dans le même mouvement par lequel Siger reconnaît la supériorité de la théologie révélée sur plusieurs points, il en limite pourtant aussitôt, et assez strictement, le champ aussi bien du point de vue de la méthode (...) que du champ d’application. Ainsi, au-delà de l’accord de surface entre Siger et Thomas, il faut voir dans ce texte autant une défense de l’autonomie de la philosophie qu’une affirmation de sa supériorité pour tout ce qui peut être investigué par la raison humaine, un rejet donc, profond, du projet thomasien d’une théologie toute-puissante à laquelle sont subordonnées toutes les autres sciences.In the few paragraphs he dedicates to comparing revealed theology and philosophical theology, Siger of Brabant distances himself from the text of Thomas Aquinas which he uses as a model. This article aims to show how, in the same movement by which Siger acknowledges on many points the superiority of revealed theology, he nevertheless immediately limits its field, and this rather strictly, both from a methodological as well as a practical perspective. Thus, beyond the apparent agreement between Siger and Thomas, this text must be understood to be as much a defence of philosophy’s autonomy as an affirmation of its superiority with regard to everything which can be investigated by human reason; it is a deep rejection therefore of Thomas’ project of an all-powerful theology to which the other sciences are subordinated. (shrink)

This introduction consists in a historical overview of the debate about practical irrationality, as illustrated by weakness of will. After a brief reminder of the discussions after Davidson, we consider three important moments of the debate: the ancient debate from Socrates to Xenophon, the medieval debate from Augustine to Buridan, and the modern debate after Descartes. We suggest that it is useful to distinguish weakness of will (a failure to act as one wills) from so-called strict akrasia (a failure to (...) will according to one's better judgment) and raise the question of the metaphysical underpinnings of the internalism/externalism debate. (shrink)

Si l'homme est un être doté de raison et se distingue des autres animaux par sa capacité à réfléchir sur ses actes tant avant de les poser qu'après, il lui arrive cependant d'être irrationnel. Tandis que certains s'en désolent, considérant les différentes formes d'irrationalité comme autant d'expressions de notre inaptitude à atteindre la sagesse, d'autres semblent plutôt s'en réjouir, estimant que la possibilité de ne pas se conformer à ce que dicte ou suggère la raison est une preuve de notre (...) radicale liberté. Mais quel que soit le jugement moral, explicite ou implicite, porté sur ces phénomènes, la plupart des philosophes ne se contentent pas de les constater. Ils tentent de les cerner, d'en comprendre les mécanismes, parfois de les justifier. Comment et pourquoi? Telles sont les questions auxquelles voudrait répondre ce numéro portant sur la délibération et l'irrationalité dans l'histoire. (shrink)

Le 7 mars 1277, l'évêque de Paris, Étienne Tempier, promulgue la condamnation de 219 thèses philosophiques et théologiques hétérodoxes, selon lui enseignées et diffusées par des hommes d'études ès arts, c'est-à-dire des philosophes de l'Université de Paris. Si cet événement est considéré par les historiens comme un des faits saillants de l'histoire intellectuelle du XIIIe siècle, voire du Moyen Âge, c'est qu'il est la seule condamnation médiévale qui ait eu une telle ampleur tant par le nombre de thèses condamnées que (...) par le nombre et la «raison sociale» des personnes visées. (shrink)

Dans son histoire, la philosophie a traversé des périodes de grande effervescence. Le milieu du XIIIe siècle en Europe est une de ces périodes: ayant désormais accès à la plupart des textes grecs et arabes en traduction latine, les philosophes de cette époque se sont livrés à un travail d’acculturation intense. Encore empreints de l’enseignement philosophique dispensé sur le modèle des sept arts libéraux, ils ont petit à petit intégré le corpus péripatéticien dans un cadre institutionnel en voie de constitution, (...) le cadre universitaire et, plus particulièrement, au sein de la Faculté des arts. (shrink)

À travers seize articles en français, anglais ou italien, versions rédigées de conférences présentées dans un colloque en juillet 1995, les directeurs de ce volume nous invitent à parcourir l’histoire et le destin d’un texte, la Rhétorique d’Aristote. Mais ici déjà, il faut nous arrêter: s’agit-il d’un texte ou de plusieurs textes? Une des observations majeures qui ressort de cet ouvrage collectif est la diversité: de l’Antiquité au XVIIe siècle, la Rhétorique d’Aristote a été commentée et traduite en diverses langues, (...) elle a traversé non seulement les siècles, mais aussi des lieux géographiques et des traditions culturelles différentes. Elle a été aussi en concurrence avec d’autres traditions rhétoriques plus ou moins philosophiques, citons la rhétorique latine et la rhétorique arabe. Toutes ces diversités font que, selon l’époque ou le lieu, la Rhétorique sera présente, quasi absente, ou sous-jacente et que, selon l’époque ou le lieu, l’accent sera mis sur son aspect logique, sur son aspect politique ou sur l’étude des émotions. (shrink)

Stephen Read - Johannes Buridanus: Summulae de Practica Sophismatum - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.1 157-158 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Stephen Read University of St. Andrews Fabienne Pironet, editor. Johannes Buridanus: Summulae de Practica Sophismatum. Artistarium 10–9. Turnhout: Brepols 2004. Pp. xlix + 193. Paper, €40.00. John Buridan was an unusual figure in fourteenth-century logic and philosophy. Logic was at that time largely the preserve of (...) the young, who would lecture on logic while studying in higher faculties such as theology, before moving on to lecture in their maturity on philosophy and theology. Two notable exceptions are the Englishman Walter Burley and the Frenchman from Picardy, John Buridan. Already active in the Arts Faculty at Paris in the late 1320s, Buridan was still there thirty years later. In the meantime, among other works on metaphysics, ethics, politics, and natural philosophy, he.. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 97 Heft: 1 Seiten: 389-391.

There is consistent and strong empirical evidence for social inequalities in health, as a vast and fast growing literature shows. In recent years, these findings have helped to move health equity high on international research and policy agendas. This paper examines how the empirical identification of social inequalities in health relates to a normative judgment about health inequities and puts forward an approach which embeds the pursuit of health equity within the general pursuit of social justice. It defends an indirect (...) approach to health equity, which views social inequalities in health as unjust in so far as they are the result of an unjust basic structure of society in Rawls’ sense. (shrink)

Collective deliberation is fuelled by disagreements and its epistemic value depends, inter alia, on how the participants respond to each other in disagreements. I use this accountability thesis to argue that deliberation may be valued not just instrumentally but also for its procedural features. The instrumental epistemic value of deliberation depends on whether it leads to more or less accurate beliefs among the participants. The procedural epistemic value of deliberation hinges on the relationships of mutual accountability that characterize appropriately conducted (...) deliberation. I will argue that it only comes into view from the second-person standpoint. I shall explain what the second-person standpoint in the epistemic context entails and how it compares to Stephen Darwall’s interpretation of the second-person standpoint in ethics. (shrink)

A conception of legitimacy is at the core of normative theories of democracy. Many different conceptions of legitimacy have been put forward, either explicitly or implicitly. In this article, I shall first provide a taxonomy of conceptions of legitimacy that can be identified in contemporary democratic theory. The taxonomy covers both aggregative and deliberative democracy. I then argue for a conception of democratic legitimacy that takes the epistemic dimension of public deliberation seriously. In contrast to standard interpretations of epistemic democracy, (...) however, the conception I put forward avoids procedure-independent standards of correctness. Instead, it relies on a procedural social epistemology and defines legitimacy entirely in terms of the fairness of procedures. I call this conception of democratic legitimacy `Pure Epistemic Proceduralism'. I shall argue that it should be preferred over `Rational Epistemic Proceduralism', the conception of legitimacy that underlies the standard interpretation of epistemic democracy. Key Words: legitimacy • deliberative democracy • epistemic democracy • social epistemology. (shrink)

Does political decision-making require experts or can a democracy be trusted to make correct decisions? This question has a long-standing tradition in political philosophy, going back at least to Plato’s Republic. Critics of democracy tend to argue that democracy cannot be trusted in this way while advocates tend to argue that it can. Both camps agree that it is the epistemic quality of the outcomes of political decision-making processes that underpins the legitimacy of political institutions. In recent political philosophy, epistemic (...) democrats have embraced this instrumentalist way of thinking about democracy. In this chapter, I argue that the attempt to defend democracy on epistemic instrumentalist grounds is self-undermining. I also develop an alternative – procedural – epistemic defence of democracy. I show that there is a prima facie epistemic case for democracy when there is no procedure-independent epistemic authority on the issue to be decided. (shrink)

According to an often repeated definition, economics is the science of individual choices and their consequences. The emphasis on choice is often used – implicitly or explicitly – to mark a contrast between markets and the state: While the price mechanism in well-functioning markets preserves freedom of choice and still efficiently coordinates individual actions, the state has to rely to some degree on coercion to coordinate individual actions. Since coercion should not be used arbitrarily, coordination by the state needs to (...) be legitimized by the consent of its citizens. The emphasis in economic theory on freedom of choice in the market sphere suggests that legitimization in the market sphere is “automatic” and that markets can thus avoid the typical legitimization problem of the state. In this paper, I shall question the alleged dichotomy between legitimization in the market and in the state. I shall argue that it is the result of a conflation of choice and consent in economics and show how an independent concept of consent makes the need for legitimization of market transactions visible. Footnotes1 For helpful comments and suggestions I am most grateful to Marc Fleurbaey, Alain Marciano, Herlinde Pauer-Studer, Thomas Pogge, Hans Bernhard Schmid, to seminar or conference participants in Aix-Marseille, Tutzing, Paris, and Amsterdam, and to two anonymous referees. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic treatment of the requirements of democratic legitimacy. It argues that democratic procedures are essential for political legitimacy because of the need to respect value pluralism and because of the learning process that democratic decision-making enables. It proposes a framework for distinguishing among the different ways in which the requirements of democratic legitimacy have been interpreted. Peter then uses this framework to identify and defend what appears as the most plausible conception of democratic legitimacy. According to (...) this conception, democratic legitimacy requires that the decision-making process satisfies certain conditions of political and epistemic fairness. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on the difficulty in judging what is called covert hate speech. We emphasize the need for a multidimensional framework when analysing covert hate speech in situ, and the need to consider the multifaceted dimension of such speech act to assess its performativity. To explain such need, we apply the test of the Rabat Plan of Action and adopt a pragmatic perspective to analyse a specific covert hate speech act, considering such speech act as both an (...) expressive and potentially performative act. We focus on the prosecution of hate speech against a woman holding a poster during an anti-safe pass demonstration. Her poster inferred a link between conspiracy theory, the government strategy addressing the Covid pandemic and many other collectives, primarily the Jewish community. Our analysis of the sign adopts a radically context-dependent methodology combining a pragmatic approach and the Rabat Plan of Action test. We then contrast our analysis with the legal and media perspective on the issue. We conclude by suggesting the benefit of integrating pragmatic analysis with application of normative set of rules such as the Rabat Plan of Action test, even though the fluidity of meaning always poses a challenge to any authority tasked with judging such communicative events. (shrink)

Political legitimacy is a virtue of political institutions and of the decisions—about laws, policies, and candidates for political office—made within them. This entry will survey the main answers that have been given to the following questions. First, how should legitimacy be defined? Is it primarily a descriptive or a normative concept? If legitimacy is understood normatively, what does it entail? Some associate legitimacy with the justification of coercive power and with the creation of political authority. Others associate it with the (...) justification, or at least the sanctioning, of existing political authority. Authority stands for a right to rule—a right to issue commands and, possibly, to enforce these commands using coercive power. An additional question is whether legitimate political authority is understood to entail political obligations or not. Most people probably think it does. But some think that the moral obligation to obey political authority can be separated from an account of legitimate authority, or at least that such obligations arise only if further conditions hold. (shrink)

In recent developments in political and legal philosophy, there is a tendency to endorse minimalist lists of human rights which do not include a right to political participation. Against such tendencies, I shall argue that the right to political participation, understood as distinct from a right to democracy, should have a place even on minimalist lists. In addition, I shall defend the need to extend the right to political participation to include participation not just in national, but also in international (...) and global governance processes. The argument will be based on a cosmopolitan conception of political legitimacy and on a political conception of human rights that is normatively anchored in legitimacy. The central claim of my paper is that a right to political participation is necessary – but not sufficient – for political legitimacy in the global realm. (shrink)

Ce texte est l'introduction d'un recueil d'articles édité par Fabienne Pomel, Cloches et horloges dans les textes médiévaux . Mesurer et maîtriser le temps, Rennes, PUR, 2012. On en trouvera une présentation ici et une recension là. Nous remercions Fabienne Pomel et les Presses universitaires de Rennes de nous avoir donné l'autorisation de le reproduire ici. Introduction L'horloge, particulièrement, en tant qu'objet nouveau et rare, représente une merveille technique, tandis que la cloche peut (...) - Histoire – Nouvel (...) article. (shrink)

Classical ethology encourages a causal approach to animal behaviour, using Tinbergen's four questions concerning evolution, function, mechanism and development of behaviour. It sets aside the study of mental processes, which could otherwise help to unify our picture of the relationships between animal and environment. Here the steps in research focused on the psychological meaning of a peculiar behaviour in the mouse — carrying its tail — and what this implies regarding the mouse's cognitive world are given. Initial empirical observations suggested (...) epistemic choices concerning space and object notions in the mouse; this led us to go beyond the first stage in exploring the significance of this behaviour. Later experiments showed the limitations of an explanation based on a cause-effect relationship. An interpretative model integrating a phenomenological conceptual framework is proposed. (shrink)

In this paper I defend a pure proceduralist conception of legitimacy that applies to epistemic democracy. This conception, which I call pure epistemic proceduralism, does not depend on procedure-independent standards for good outcomes and relies on a proceduralist epistemology. It identifies a democratic decision as legitimate if it is the outcome of a process that satisfies certain conditions of political and epistemic fairness. My argument starts with a rejection of instrumentalism–the view that political equality is only instrumentally valuable. I reject (...) instrumentalism on two grounds: (i) because it fails to respect reasonable value pluralism and to recognize the constitutive role of democratic procedures for legitimacy in pluralist societies, and (ii) because it neglects the constructive function of democratic decision-making. I then consider two alternatives to pure epistemic proceduralism: David Estlund's version of epistemic proceduralism and a Deweyan account of epistemic democracy. I argue that only pure epistemic proceduralism can make good on both shortcomings of instrumentalism, whereas each of the other two approaches only makes good on one and neglects the other. (shrink)

The volume concludes with a specially-written reply by Sen, in which he responds to his critics and provides a rich commentary on the preceding essays.

At the core of political liberalism is the claim that political institutions must be publicly justified or justifiable to be legitimate. What explains the significance of public justification? The main argument that defenders of political liberalism present is an argument from disagreement: the irreducible pluralism that is characteristic of democratic societies requires a mode of justification that lies in between a narrowly political solution based on actual acceptance and a traditional moral solution based on justification from the third-person perspective. But (...) why should we take disagreements seriously? This – epistemic question – has not received the attention it deserves so far. I argue that the significance of public justification can be explained through the possibility of reasonable disagreement. In a reasonable disagreement, the parties hold mutually incompatible beliefs, but each is justified to hold the belief they do. I shall use the notion of a reasonable disagreement to explain the possibility of an irreducible pluralism of moral and religious doctrines and, on that basis, why the justification of political institutions has to be public. (shrink)

Ken Binmore casts his naturalist theory of justice in opposition to theories of justice that claim authority on the grounds of some religious or moral doctrine. He thereby overlooks the possibility of a political conception of justice−a theory of justice based on the premise that there is an irreducible pluralism of metaphysical, epistemological, and moral doctrines. In my brief comment I shall argue that the naturalist theory of justice advocated by Binmore should be conceived of as belonging to one family (...) of such doctrines, but not as overriding a political conception of justice. (shrink)

Publié en janvier 2020, cet ouvrage de Claude Langlois puise son origine dans un « sentiment d’urgence, urgence civique et toute séculière, d’apporter [sa] part de vérité » (p. 7) après la publication, le 20 août 2018, de la Lettre au peuple de Dieu du pape François. Directeur d’étude à l’École pratique des hautes études, Claude Langlois est historien et sociologue, spécialiste du catholicisme contemporain. Il s’empare du sujet de la pédophilie après avoir déjà fait une incursion croisée dans...

Si Numénius, en platonicien de son temps, a utilisé le Timée et la République à la fois pour élaborer et étayer sa pensée métaphysique et cosmologique, il est devenu coutume de penser qu’il a également eu recours au Parménide dans sa description du premier principe, qu’il peut paraître tentant d’identifier chez lui à l’Un. L’examen attentif de son œuvre ne fournit cependant que peu d’indices en ce sens et convainc même qu’elle ne permet pas une telle interprétation. Malgré ces conclusions, (...) l’hypothèse persiste pour des raisons qui tiennent principalement à l’histoire de la philosophie et aux recherches qu’elle suscite. Elle est en effet souvent reprise pour trois raisons, présentées comme corollaires : le statut propre à Numénius de platonicien pythagorisant, prédécesseur de Plotin ; les affinités réelles entre sa pensée et celle du Commentaire anonyme au Parménide ; les parallèles également entrevus entre ses formules et celles de la source supposée commune au Zostrien et au Contre Arius de Marius Victorinus, source présentée comme fort proche du Commentaire anonyme. Sont donc invoquées trois raisons nées moins de l’étude de l’œuvre de Numénius elle-même que de la recherche des sources d’autres textes en mal d’auteur et d’origines bien définies, recherche se fondant en partie sur les liens entre cette œuvre et ses prétendus « pairs » en pythagorisme. Cette troisième partie de l’étude présente la dernière péripétie des recherches sur la relation éventuelle de Numénius au Parménide. La première a montré que l’œuvre parvenue de Numénius ne présente aucune trace de l’utilisation de ce dialogue de Platon dans son élaboration de la doctrine des deux premiers principes ; la deuxième a tenté de prouver que Numénius n’est vraisemblablement pas l’auteur du Commentaire anonyme au Parménide. Est ici abordé ce que Michel Tardieu a nommé l’« exposé commun » au Zostrien et au Contre Arius de Marius Victorinus. Les parallèles apparents de cet exposé avec le Commentaire anonyme au Parménide et avec certaines formulations de Numénius ont suggéré qu’il avait Numénius pour source, ce qui a parfois servi à étayer l’hypothèse que Numénius était malgré tout l’auteur du Commentaire anonyme. Là encore, l’examen détaillé et la confrontation des textes révèlent la fragilité de cette double conclusion. Un retour sur la source de l’« exposé » en réalité partiellement « commun » au Zostrien copte et à Marius Victorinus montre néanmoins que Numénius a sans doute servi à son élaboration et qu’il a par suite pu servir aussi de source aux gnostiques, tout comme il a servi aux néoplatoniciens, et ce parfois même, indirectement ou a contrario, dans l’interprétation du Parménide. (shrink)

Si l’homme est un être doté de raison et se distingue des autres animaux par sa capacité à réfléchir sur ses actes tant avant de les poser qu’après, il lui arrive cependant d’être irrationnel. Tandis que certains s’en désolent, considérant les différentes formes d’irrationalité comme autant d’expressions de notre inaptitude à atteindre la sagesse, d’autres semblent plutôt s’en réjouir, estimant que la possibilité de ne pas se conformer à ce que dicte ou suggère la raison est une preuve de notre (...) radicale liberté. Mais quel que soit le jugement moral, explicite ou implicite, porté sur ces phénomènes, la plupart des philosophes ne se contentent pas de les constater. Ils tentent de les cerner, d’en comprendre les mécanismes, parfois de les justifier. Comment et pour-quoi? Telles sont les questions auxquelles voudrait répondre ce numéro portant sur la délibération et l’irrationalité dans l’histoire. (shrink)

Political decisions have the potential to greatly impact our lives. Think of decisions in relation to abortion or climate change, for example. This makes political legitimacy an important normative concern. But what makes political decisions legitimate? Are they legitimate in virtue of having support from the citizens? Democratic conceptions of political legitimacy answer in the affirmative. Such conceptions righly highlight that legitimate political decision-making must be sensitive to disagreements among the citizens. But what if democratic decisions fail to track what (...) there is most reason to do? What if a democratically elected government fails to take measures necessary to protect its population from threats related to climate change? Peter argues that the legitimacy of political decisions doesn't just depend on respect for the citizens' will; and defends a novel hybrid conception of political legitimacy, called the Epistemic Accountability conception. According to this conception, political legitimacy also depends on how political decision-making responds to evidence for what there is most reason to do. Grounds for Political Legitmacy starts with an overview of the main ways in which philosophers have thought about political legitimacy, and identifies the epistemic accountability conception as an overlooked alternative. It then develops the epistemic accountability conception of political legitimacy and discusses its implications for legitimate political decision-making. Considering the norms that should govern political debate, it examines the role of experts in politics, and probes the responsibilities of democratically elected political leaders and as well as of citizens. (shrink)

The recent literature on the epistemology of disagreement focuses on the rational response question: how are you rationally required to respond to a doxastic disagreement with someone, especially with someone you take to be your epistemic peer? A doxastic disagreement with someone also confronts you with a slightly different question. This question, call it the epistemic trust question, is: how much should you trust our own epistemic faculties relative to the epistemic faculties of others? Answering the epistemic trust question is (...) important for the epistemology of disagreement because it sheds light on the rational response question. My main aim in this paper is to argue—against recent attempts to show otherwise—that epistemic self-trust does not provide a reason for remaining steadfast in doxastic disagreements with others. (shrink)

Journal of Economic Methodology, Volume 19, Issue 2, Page 165-167, June 2012.

In a poetic conversation with Thierry Zarcone, the painter and calligrapher Fabienne Verdier exposes her deep and harmonious connection to nature. She tells of her garden, her house and her osmosis with nature. Painting is to her an art of living and being that recalls the Tao masters as well as some Christan mystics.

The debate over rival conceptions of political legitimacy tends to focus on first-order considerations—for example, on the relative importance of procedural and substantive values. In this essay, I argue that there is an important, but often overlooked, distinction among rival conceptions of political legitimacy that originates at the meta-normative level. This distinction, which cuts across the distinctions drawn at the first-order level, concerns the source of the normativity of political legitimacy, or, as I refer to it here, the grounds of (...) political legitimacy. If we focus on the grounds of political legitimacy, there are three main conceptions of political legitimacy: will-based, belief-based, and fact-based conceptions. I present an objection to each of those main conceptions and defend a hybrid account of the grounds of political legitimacy. (shrink)