La problématisation freudienne de l’expérience ne consiste pas à s’interroger, de manière classique, sur la façon dont le sujet constitue en un savoir objectif des événements particuliers, mais comment le sujet lui-même est constitué en une identité objective, c’est-à-dire dont il peut avoir une connaissance consciente et qui peut être reconnue comme telle par d’autres, à partir d’événements singuliers qui se produisent dans un contexte en-deçà du champ théorique de la conscience, celui du plaisir. S’il part ainsi d’une problématique empiriste (...) de l’expérience (comment, dans le donné, peut-il se constituer un sujet tel qu’il dépasse le donné ?), il estime qu’il faut également chercher à comprendre, à partir de l’expérience elle-même en tant que vécu, la nécessité du rapport entre expérience et subjectivité : si c’est l’expérience qui « produit » le sujet, celui-ci faisant alors figure de dérivé ou d’ « épiphénomène », comment comprendre la « nécessité » de cette production, ainsi que le fait que, une fois constitué, le sujet se définit en retour comme un élément essentiel à l’expérience ? Le sujet de l’expérience ne fait-il que répéter indéfiniment des événements originaires dont le sens lui échappe, ou participe-t-il effectivement à la réalité des expériences qui l’affectent ? (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty finds a philosophical interest in the psychoanalytical clinic, especially in the the clinic of children and hallucinating people, which can support the concepts of flesh and Ineinander. But in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty there is also a clinical interest, residing in the link he establishes between the flesh, conceived as the origin of existence, and the pathologies that Freud described as “narcissistic” and nowadays called “psychotic” or “borderline” states. To support this hypothesis, we will link Merleau-Ponty’s own “clinic of (...) the origins” and Harold Searles’ theory of narcissistic pathologies based on his clinical experience with schizophrenics. This confrontation will reveal how a philosophy of flesh provides us not only with theoretical points of reference relevant to the clinic of schizophrenia, but also fruitful technical indications regarding the direction towards a cure of such a pathology, indications that join those provided by Searles. (shrink)

Plant-based milk alternatives–or mylks–have surged in popularity over the past ten years. We consider the politics and consumer subjectivities fostered by mylks as part of the broader trend towards ‘plant-based’ food. We demonstrate how mylk companies inherit and strategically deploy positive framings of milk as wholesome and convenient, as well as negative framings of dairy as environmentally damaging and cruel, to position plant-based as the ‘better’ alternative. By navigating this affective landscape, brands attempt to make mylk as simultaneously palatable and (...) disruptive to the status quo. We examine the politics of mylks through the concept of palatable disruption, where people are encouraged to care about the environment, health, and animal welfare enough to adopt mylks but to ultimately remain consumers of a commodity food. By encouraging consumers to reach for “plant-based” as a way to cope with environmental catastrophe and a life out of balance, mylks promote a neoliberal ethic: they individualize systemic problems and further entrench market mechanisms as solutions, thereby reinforcing the political economy of industrial agriculture. In conclusion, we reflect on the limits of the current plant-based trend for transitioning to more just and sustainable food production and consumption. (shrink)

The New Alexandrian Library is to be inaugurated at the end of 1998 on the royal site of the great ancient metropolis, that is, on the site of the Museum founded by Ptolemy I to enclose his mythical collection of books. This ambitious project of a “public research library “ was undertaken on the initiative of the Egyptian government and has, since 1986, received the support of UNESCO.

Thema des Sammelbands ist der Zusammenhang von ubung und Wissen in religiosen und philosophischen Kontexten der Vormoderne. AN einzelnen regional und sozial differenzierten Fallbeispielen aus dem euro-asiatischen Raum werden ubungspraktiken, durch die Wissen hergestellt, vermittelt und bestatigt, aber auch hinterfragt und modifiziert wurde, klassifiziert und erortert. UNtersucht werden Materialien, Medien und Darstellungsweisen aus griechisch-romischer Philosophie, Christentum, Judentum und Islam, Hinduismus und Buddhismus, die von der wechselseitigen Verwiesenheit von ubung und Wissen zeugen. uBerlegungen zum Thema im Kontext globaler Austauschbeziehungen, wie sie (...) z.B. Den modernen Yoga pragen, runden den Band ab. (shrink)

Au cours de cet entretien, Emmanuel Renault nous offre un aperçu de la manière dont la thématique de la reconnaissance est traitée en France aujourd’hui, notamment à travers le renouveau des études sur Hegel et Marx. Il explique la façon dont la reconnaissance a pu s’ériger en paradigme (en dépit de ses usages multiples et variés en France comme ailleurs), au cours de la dernière décennie et le rôle joué par Axel Honneth dans ce procès. Finalement, il explicite sa (...) manière d’envisager la pratique de la philosophie politique et son projet d’une critique du capitalisme. Emmanuel Renault nous livre également un commentaire critique mais constructif sur la manière dont Paul Ricœur envisage la reconnaissance et suggère quelques pistes concernant les possibles développements futurs des usages de la reconnaissance. (shrink)

O presente texto parte de um diálogo com um artigo publicado recentemente na revista HOPOS (Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science), de autoria dos pesquisadores Fons Dewulf e Massimiliano Simons, intitulado “Positivism in Action: The case of Louis Rougier” (2020). No artigo, os pesquisadores abordam a trajetória pouco frequentada de Louis Rougier, filósofo francês cuja fortuna crítica associou-se à sua participação na rede de intelectuais liberais do pós-guerra e a sua função central na organização (...) do Colóquio Walter Lippmann, ainda em 1938. Os autores abordam a trajetória de Rougier de maneira disciplinarmente inusual: procuram interpretar suas teorias filosóficas à luz de seus comprometimentos políticos, defendendo uma imbricação entre ambas as facetas do pensamento de Rougier. Quero sugerir que uma abordagem disposta a compreender as relações dinâmicas entre uma trajetória intelectual e seu entorno social se beneficia de uma abordagem como essa, às quais pode ser acrescida uma dimensão propriamente institucional das trajetórias intelectuais. Para observá-la, proponho acionar o debate sobre virtudes epistêmicas tal como tem sido pensado por autores como Herman Paul, Lorraine Daston e J. Dongen, com o objetivo de investigar se o debate sobre as non-textual things da atividade intelectual podem ser um caminho para transitar de forma profícua entre texto e contexto. Palavras-chave: Virtudes epistêmicas. História da Filosofia. Louis Rougier. Liberalismo. (shrink)

This paper begins by defending the twofold relevance, political and theoretical, of the notion of social suffering. Social suffering is a notion politics cannot do without today, as it seems indispensable to describe all the aspects of contemporary injustice. As such, it has been taken up in a number of significant research programmes in different social sciences (sociology, anthropology, social psychology). The notion however poses significant conceptual problems as it challenges disciplinary boundaries traditionally set up to demarcate individual and social (...) phenomena. I argue that philosophy has a role to play in the attempt to integrate the diverging perspectives stemming from the social sciences. I attempt to show that, as it engages with the social sciences to account for the conceptual and normative issues thrown open by the question of social suffering, philosophy in fact retrieves the very idea of critical theory, as a conjugated critique of social reality and of its knowledge. I conclude by showing how the question of social suffering then becomes a useful criterion to distinguish between the different existing approaches in critical theory. (shrink)

Is there anything wrong with publishing philosophical work which one does not believe (publishing without belief, henceforth referred to as ‘PWB’)? I argue that there is not: the practice isn’t intrinsically wrong, nor is there a compelling consequentialist argument against it. Therefore, the philosophical community should neither proscribe nor sanction it. The paper proceeds as follows. First, I’ll clarify and motivate the problem, using both hypothetical examples and a recent real-world case. Next, I’ll look at arguments that there is something (...) wrong with PWB, and show that none is sound. Then, I’ll give some reasons for thinking a norm against PWB is detrimental to the profession. Do I believe these arguments? If I’m right, it shouldn’t matter. (shrink)

Recent empirical studies have established that disgust plays a role in moral judgment. The normative significance of this discovery remains an object of philosophical contention, however; ‘disgust skeptics’ such as Martha Nussbaum have argued that disgust is a distorting influence on moral judgment and has no legitimate role to play in assessments of moral wrongness. I argue, pace Nussbaum, that disgust’s role in the moral domain parallels its role in the physical domain. Just as physical disgust tracks physical contamination and (...) pollution, so moral disgust tracks social contamination. I begin by examining the arguments for skepticism about disgust and show that these arguments threaten to overgeneralize and lead to a widespread skepticism about the justifiability of our moral judgments. I then look at the positive arguments for according disgust a role in moral judgment, and suggest that disgust tracks invisible social contagions in much the same way as it tracks invisible physical contagions, thereby serving as a defense against the threat of socio-moral contamination. (shrink)

La philosophie de la nature de l'Encyclopedie des sciences philosophiques fut, jusqu'a une date recente, presque ignoree par les etudes hegeliennes. Hegel s'y serait rendu coupable d'une pretention a concurrencer les sciences positives sur leur propre terrain et a rivaliser avec elles, en revelant a la fois son incomprehension de la scientificite la mieux etablie et la faible rationalite de son propre projet. Une lecture attentive permet de rectifier ces prejuges, en montrant non seulement que Hegel s'y trouve attentif et (...) respectueux du savoir positif de son temps, mais encore qu'il tente d'y definir les modalites d'une collaboration methodologiquement reglee entre philosophie et sciences. En quoi consiste le projet d'une science speculative? En quoi consiste chez Hegel la deduction speculative de la verite? En quoi consiste la comprehension hegelienne du statut et des formes du discours des sciences de la nature? Quelle attitude la speculation doit-elle adopter face aux controverses scientifiques? C'est a ces questions que s'efforce de repondre cet ouvrage. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Dewey's critical conception of work deserves consideration because it combines two types of models of social critique that are usually considered separately in contemporary Dewey scholarship. In the syllabus Social Institutions and the Study of Morals, Dewey contends that the valuation of social settings should be grounded on criteria immanent to social experience, and he applies his model of immanent critique to work-related issues. In his philosophy of education, he highlights that institutional settings should be valued from the point (...) of view of their formative effects, and in Democracy and Education, the formative effects of work are put to the fore. The case of work illustrates the fact that specific institutional settings require that immanent critique be complemented by critique of the formative effects. The psychological and social centrality of work implies that the problems met in the social experience of work produce effects that concern not only the social experience of work but also life outside of work. Therefore, these effects cannot be accurately tackled by an immanent critique of work. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the Hegelianism of contemporary neo-pragmatism and the Hegelianism of classical pragmatism as it has been reassessed in contemporary Deweyan scholarship. Drawing on Dewey’s interpretation of Hegel, this paper argues that Hegel’s theory of the spirit is in many aspects more akin to Dewey’s pragmatism than Brandom’s. The first part compares Dewey’s pragmatism with Hegel’s conceptions of experience and the theory/practice relation. The second part compares Dewey’s naturalism with Hegel’s theory of the relation between nature and spirit.

Descartes a entrepris de détruire la pratique aristotélicienne de la philosophie : à son savoir seulement probable, les Regulae, puis les Essais opposent une science certaine d'objets clairs et distincts. Mais cette instauration concerne aussi, peut-être même d'abord, l'idéal pratique qu'Aristote ne cesse de viser dans les sciences théorétiques : le sage parvient à la félicité par l'exercice même d'une connaissance si parfaite qu'elle imite celle du dieu, qui pense sa pensée en acte et éternellement. Descartes met décidément en crise (...) la félicité par la contemplation, dont la pensée médiévale avait hérité d'Aristote. Pourtant, une autre figure de la félicité se dégage tout aussi indiscutablement de l'entreprise cartésienne : la méthode, la certitude scientifique qu'elle permet et les principes métaphysiques qui assurent l'une et l'autre restent, à chaque moment, solidaires d'une attitude et d'une ambition proprement morales - la volonté infinie aboutit à la générosité, où la considération du bon usage de notre libre-arbitre permet le - contentement de soi-même -. Ainsi la philosophie atteint-elle, pour Descartes aussi, à une félicité. Mais à une félicité volontaire et non plus contemplative. On tentera donc d'abord de mesurer, dans différents champs de la philosophie cartésienne, l'impact de la certitude jusque sur les questions d'éthique ; ensuite, de souligner la référence constante, quoique souvent implicite, de Descartes à la félicité telle qu'Aristote la visait ; enfin, de suivre leur dialogue au fil conducteur de leurs versions divergentes, mais complices, de l'admiratio et du thaumazein. (shrink)

The evidence today is practically uncontested: about thirty years ago we left Fordism behind and entered a new phase of capitalism. That the structures of the post-Fordist social order call for new modes of social critique is also a prevalent idea. The category of alienation continues, however, to be discredited. Nevertheless it is not clear that the categories of democracy (as apparatuses of non-domination), justice and the good life are capable of bringing about the political effects that may be expected (...) today from the concept of alienation. For these reasons, not only the historical diagnostic that appears to have authorized jettisoning the problematic of alienation but also the model of critique used to replace it demand critical scrutiny. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a systematic classification of emotions which can also characterize their nature. The first challenge we address is the submission of clear criteria for a theory of emotions that determine which mental phenomena are emotions and which are not. We suggest that emotions as a subclass of mental states are determined by their functional roles. The second and main challenge is the presentation of a classification and theory of emotions that can account for (...) all existing varieties. We argue that we must classify emotions according to four developmental stages: 1. pre-emotions as unfocussed expressive emotion states, 2. basic emotions, 3. primary cognitive emotions, and 4. secondary cognitive emotions. We suggest four types of basic emotions (fear, anger, joy and sadness) which are systematically differentiated into a diversity of more complex emotions during emotional development. The classification distinguishes between basic and non-basic emotions and our multi-factorial account considers cognitive, experiential, physiological and behavioral parameters as relevant for constituting an emotion. However, each emotion type is constituted by a typical pattern according to which some features may be more significant than others. Emotions differ strongly where these patterns of features are concerned, while their essential functional roles are the same. We argue that emotions form a unified ontological category that is coherent and can be well defined by their characteristic functional roles. Our account of emotions is supported by data from developmental psychology, neurobiology, evolutionary biology and sociology. (shrink)

Previous research suggested a role of gaze in preference formation, not merely as an expression of preference, but also as a causal influence. According to the gaze cascade hypothesis, the longer subjects look at an item, the more likely they are to develop a preference for it. However, to date the connection between viewing and liking has been investigated predominately with self-paced viewing conditions in which the subjects were required to select certain items from simultaneously presented stimuli on the basis (...) of perceived visual attractiveness. Such conditions might promote a default, but non-mandatory connection between viewing and liking. To explore whether the connection is separable, we examined the evaluative processing of single naturalistic food images in a 2 x 2 design, conducted completely within subjects, in which we varied both the type of exposure (self-paced versus time-controlled) and the type of evaluation (non-exclusive versus exclusive). In the self-paced exclusive evaluation, longer viewing was associated with a higher likelihood of a positive evaluation. However, in the self-paced non-exclusive evaluation, the trend reversed such that longer viewing durations were associated with lesser ratings. Furthermore, in the time-controlled tasks, both with non-exclusive and exclusive evaluation, there was no significant relationship between the viewing duration and the evaluation. The overall pattern of results was consistent for viewing times measured in terms of exposure duration (i.e., the duration of stimulus presentation on the screen) and in terms of actual gaze duration (i.e., the amount of time the subject effectively gazed at the stimulus on the screen). The data indicated that viewing does not intrinsically lead to a higher evaluation when evaluating single food images; instead, the relationship between viewing duration and evaluation depends on the type of task. We suggest that self-determination of exposure duration may be a prerequisite for any influence from viewing time on evaluative processing, regardless of whether the influence is facilitative. Moreover, the purported facilitative link between viewing and liking appears to be limited to exclusive evaluation, when only a restricted number of items can be included in a chosen set. (shrink)

This paper asks whether or not normative political philosophy can face the challenge of the critique of the political. This question is addressed to theories of justice in general, but this paper considers Habermas' position in particular. It advances the thesis that the main theoretical and political problem of theories of justice is that they have not really taken the abolitionist dimension of the concept of justice into account. As a consequence, they run the risk of reproducing in themselves the (...) political abstraction that they should criticise. (shrink)

The article argues that there are different ways of justifying suspension of judgement. We suspend judgement not only privatively, that is, because we lack evidence, but also positively, that is, because there is evidence that provides reasons for suspending judgement: suspension is more than the rational fallback position in cases of insufficient evidence. The article applies the distinction to recent discussions about the role of suspension for inquiry, Turri's puzzle about withholding, and formal representations of suspension.

The meanings and functions of the notion of social philosophy in John Dewey’s writings have not really been subjected to serious philological investigation. Until recently, Dewey scholarship has simply equated social philosophy either to political philosophy in general, or to philosophy of education,1 and in recent years we have tended to read this social philosophy from a retrospective point of view, with reference to contemporary debates about social philosophy as an alternative to contemporary political philosophy.2 One reason for this lack (...) of philological attention has been that the only way to study Dewey’s project of social philosophy was to refer to the English translation of the Chinese translation... (shrink)

The paper develops an inductive extension of AGM-style belief base revision theory with the aim of formally implementing Freitag’s :254–267, 2015, Dialectica 70:185–200, 2016) solution to Goodman’s paradox. It shows that the paradox dissolves once belief revision takes place on inductively closed belief bases, rather than on belief sets.

The question of social medicine provides the opportunity to engage in a critical reading of Foucault's theory of biopower. The analyses dedicated by Foucault to `the birth of social medicine' represent one of the few examples of a thorough application of that theory. They allow Foucault to show the heuristic value of the biopolitical hypothesis at the level of the most concrete historical materiality, and not just at that of the general history of the forms of governmentality. These analyses, however, (...) also allow the historiographical and political limits of the biopolitical hypothesis to come to light. From the perspective of the history of sciences as well as from that of the analysis of the modalities of social critique in the first half of the nineteenth century, Foucault appears to provide an interpretation that is too continuist and tends to homogenise the historical phenomena. The disqualification of social medicine relies in part on simplifications that continue to bear great significance today in view of the current transformations in the social question. (shrink)

Professor Sutton opens his lively monograph on the nature of economic theory with the following question: is it possible to find economic models that work? He uses the question to guide us on a methodological tour with Marshall's characterization of economic theory as the point of departure. I must say I enjoyed the trip. Along the way, the animating issue of what works in economics could hardly have been addressed without dealing with issues in verification, and the author's arguments include (...) an appraisal of what he considers as standard econometric methods. In these comments, I will revisit at some length one of the key sites on John Sutton's tour bringing along a view of modern econometrics which is somewhat different from his and which affords a different perspective on the Marshallian paradigm. (shrink)

The book discusses the central notion of logic: the concept of logical consequence. It shows that the classical definition of consequence as truth preservation in all models must be restricted to all admissible models. The challenge for the philosophy of logic is therefore to supplement the definition with a criterion for admissible models. -/- The problem of logical constants, so prominent in the current debate, constitutes but a special case of this much more general demarcation problem. The book explores the (...) various dimensions of the problem of admissible models and argues that standard responses are unwarranted. As a result, it develops a new vision of logic, suggesting in particular that logic is deeply imbued with metaphysics. (shrink)

In this short essay, I will endeavour to show that Frantz Fanon’s well-known conception of struggles for national liberation is intimately linked to an erotics of liberation . This one takes its roots in a shift, or better a reversal, of theories of racism . As Etienne Balibar argues, “racism,” as a category, appears at mid 19 th century, especially under the aegis of the UNESCO, as a break with the conceptions of “race,” considered to be a pure “myth” or (...) “prejudice.” A better example of such an epistemological rupture is probably Sartre’s Antisemite and Jew and its motto: “the Jew is a man whom other men consider a Jew…it is the anti-Semite who makes the Jew.” In other words, race is nothing but the product of racism. The biological arguments that underlie the theories of race are “false” arguments inasmuch as they depend on ideological and/or psychological premises. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide an account of the wrong that is done to women when everyday people fail to believe allegations of sexual assault made by women. I argue that an everyday person wrongs both the accuser and women causally distant from the accuser when they fail to believe the accuser’s allegation. First, I argue that there are responses that we, as everyday members of society, owe to victims of sexual assault. A condition enabling everyday people to respond in (...) the way owed to victims is that they have an outright belief that the accuser was assaulted. Actively suspending judgement about whether a crime occurred is in tension with the ability to respond to the victim in a way that supports and validates them. When an everyday person fails to have an outright belief in the truth of an allegation, they wrong the accuser because they risk failing to satisfy the conditions enabling them to fulfill their obligation to her. Second, I argue that everyday people wrong women who are causally distant from the accuser because in our social context, women are often treated in particular ways – especially in the sexual domain – because they are women. As a result, when women hear that an everyday person fails to believe a particular allegation, they easily project themselves into the accuser’s position and reasonably worry that if they were to be assaulted, they too would be met with doubt and disbelief by the people in their community. (shrink)

I will discuss the relationship between two different accounts of remedial duty ascriptions. According to one account, the beneficiary account, individuals who benefit innocently from injustices ought to bear remedial responsibilities towards the victims of these injustices. According to another account, the causal account, individuals who caused injustices ought to bear remedial duties towards the victim. In this paper, I examine the relation between the principles central to these accounts: the Beneficiary Pays Principle and the well-established principle of Strict Liability (...) in law. I argue that both principles display a strong yet unexplored similarity as they make certain kinds of causal connection sufficient for incurring liability. Because of this similarity, I suggest that insights into the Beneficiary Pays Principle can be gained from exploring its relation with Strict Liability. In particular, I examine two new positive arguments that could be adapted to support of the Beneficiary Pays Principle: the Minimising Injustice Argument and the Normative Connection Argument. However, I’ll show that only one of those arguments, namely the Normative Connection Argument, can truly support the Beneficiary Pays Principle. I conclude that, if you endorse the Normative Connection Argument for Strict Liability, you have at least a strong prima facie reason to endorse the parallel argument for the Beneficiary Pays Principle. (shrink)

Empathy is an extensively studied construct, but operationalization of effective empathy is routinely debated in popular culture, theory, and empirical research. This article offers a process-focused approach emphasizing the relational functions of empathy in interpersonal contexts. We argue that this perspective offers advantages over more traditional conceptualizations that focus on primarily intrapsychic features. Our aim is to enrich current conceptualizations and empirical approaches to the study of empathy by drawing on psychological, philosophical, medical, linguistic, and anthropological perspectives. In doing so, (...) we highlight the various functions of empathy in social interaction, underscore some underemphasized components in empirical studies of empathy, and make recommendations for future research on this important area in the study of emotion. (shrink)

The philosophical debate over disgust and its role in moral discourse has focused on disgust’s epistemic status: can disgust justify judgments of moral wrongness? Or is it misplaced in the moral domain—irrelevant at best, positively distorting at worst? Correspondingly, empirical research into disgust has focused on its role as a cause or amplifier of moral judgment, seeking to establish how and when disgust either causes us to morally condemn actions, or strengthens our pre-existing tendencies to condemn certain actions. Both of (...) these approaches to disgust are based on a set of assumptions that I call, in what follows, the evidential model of disgust. This paper proposes an alternative model, which I call the response model. Instead of looking at disgust as a cause and justification of judgments of moral wrongness, I will argue that disgust is better understood as a response to wrongness. More precisely, I argue that disgust is a response to norm violations, and that it is a fitting response insofar as norm violations are potentially contagious and therefore pose a threat to the stability and maintenance of norms. (shrink)