Classical theories of truth are monistic, since they fundamentally search for the essence of truth. The correspondence theory of truth is the most representative in this regard. There are several difficulties with the essentialist theories of truth, which led to the emergence of several alternatives. The purpose of this article is to critically evaluate three of them: the pragmatic theory of truth, the deflationary theory and the pluralistic approach. I argue for overcoming monism and for accepting pluralism in our understanding (...) of truth. At the same time, I argue – from a wittgensteinian point of view – for abandoning the attempt to build a general philosophical theory of truth. I plead for limiting the philosopher’s role to the clarification of the specific ways in which the concept of truth is used in various forms of life and areas of scientific investigation. Multiple uses of the concept of truth in different thematic areas cannot be synthesized, properly speaking, through a particular philosophical theory. (shrink)

In this paper I pursue two goals. Firstly, I try to evaluate how Susan Haack receives and categorically rejects Rorty's anti-epistemological message from Philosophy and the Mirror of the Nature and some subsequent writings. I reconstruct Haack's counterarguments and Rorty's responses to these counterarguments. Secondly, I propose to deconstruct the theoretical position from which Haack orchestrates her attack on Rorty. On the one hand I show that she assumes a series of classical metaphysical presuppositions that are difficult to accept today, (...) which predisposes her to a lack of hermeneutical flexibility and clarity. On the other hand, at least some of Haack's arguments against Rorty are erroneous. Following Michael Williams, I point out that Rorty's position in Mirror is not against knowledge, since it raises questions about the legitimacy of epistemology. The challenge of my approach is not to defend Rorty, but rather to examine the mechanism of a charge against him in the name of a pretended philosophical correctness. I call this type of charge “hermeneutics of annihilation”. Haack's hermeneutics of annihilation is a pseudo-hermeneutics, since her goal is not to understand the stake of Rorty's philosophy exposed in Mirror. She only understood, from the point of view of an epistemologist ideology, that this work would be a threat to Truth, Knowledge, Epistemology, Science, and Reason. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to determine several points of reference regarding the way in which Karl Popper built up his philosophical discourse. I locate two specific ways in which Popper interpreted and used ideas belonging to other philosophers. Thus I distinguish in Popper between a projective hermeneutics and an ideological hermeneutics . In so doing I also highlight the considerable asymmetry between a representationalist hermeneutics, and a projective and, respectively, an ideological one. Whereas in the first case the (...) interpreter wishes to unveil a truth about the philosophical text, in the other two he is rather expressing a desire to talk about himself, his own beliefs and convic¬tions, or about the beliefs of his community of reference. (shrink)

DIALETICS AT A STANDSTILL: BENJAMIN'S "DENKBILDER":0Benjamin's Thougt-Images in Einbahnstraße - Gustan Asselbergs; 0Sichtlich sich verbergend: Die Autor-Figur des Passagen-Werks - Wolfram Malte Fues; 0LIMINAL FIGURES: CHILD AND FLANEUR:0The Child at the Threshold: Walter Benjamin's Berliner Kindheit um 1900 - Corina Stan; 0The Flâneur and the Socio-Economic Critique - Nassima Sahraoui; 0UNSIGHTLY FIGURES: 0Walter Benjamin's Figures of De-Figuration: The Barbarian, the Destructive Character, and the Monster - Sami R. Khatib; 0ANGELS AND HISTORIANS: 0Closing Time: Benjamin, Temporality, and the Problem of (...) Political Organization - Bennett Carpenter; 0Of Fish and Men: Benjamin's Allegorist and the Meaning of Life - Madeleine Kasten; 0Walter Benjamin on Charlie Chaplin: The Rehabilitation of the Allegorical in Modernity - Daniel Mourenza; 0THE NARRATOR AND THE POLITICS OF SENSES: 0"Drawing o an Unlikely Source": The "Erzähler", the Islamic Revival, and Benjamin's Philosophy of Language - Ton Groeneweg; 0TRANSLATION BETWEEN FOREIGNNESS AND KINSHIP: 0Bleakness in the Age of Google: Walter Benjamin and the Possibility of Redemptive Translation - Orr Scharf; 0Walter Benjamin's Translator/Critic as a Model for Transcultural Thought and Practice - Gisela Brinker-Gabler.; 0THE TASK OF CRITIC: 0Lektüre als Opfer: Der Kritiker in "Wider ein Meisterwerk" und dem Trauerspielbuch - Anna Wotkowicz; 0THE RIGHTEOUS AS MEDIATOR OF LINGUISTIC EXPERIENCE: 0"Im Anfang war das Wort": Von Adam, zwei Bäumen und dem Gerechten - Gerard Visser. (shrink)

This paper examines patterns of metaphor in usage. Four samples of text excerpts of on average 47,000 words each were taken from the British National Corpus and annotated for metaphor. The linguistic metaphor data were collected by five analysts on the basis of a highly explicit identification procedure that is a variant of the approach developed by the Pragglejaz Group (Metaphor and Symbol 22: 1–39, 2007). Part of this paper is a report of the protocol and the reliability of the (...) procedure. Data analysis shows that, on average, one in every seven and a half lexical units in the corpus is related to metaphor defined as a potential cross-domain mapping in conceptual structure. It also appears that the bulk of the expression of metaphor in discourse consists of non-signalled metaphorically used words, not similes. The distribution of metaphor-related words, finally, turns out to be quite variable between the four registers examined in this study: academic texts have 18.5%, news 16.4%, fiction 11.7%, and conversation 7.7%. The systematic comparative investigation of these registers raises new questions about the relation between cognitive linguistic and other approaches to metaphor. (shrink)

This paper describes a novel perspective on the foundations of mathematics: how mathematics may be seen to be largely about “information compression via the matching and unification of patterns”. That is itself a novel approach to IC, couched in terms of nonmathematical primitives, as is necessary in any investigation of the foundations of mathematics. This new perspective on the foundations of mathematics reflects the facts that mathematics is almost exclusively the product of human brains, and has been developed, as an (...) aid to human thinking, mathematics is likely to be consonant with much evidence for the importance of IC in human learning, perception, and cognition. This perspective on the foundations of mathematics has grown out of a long-term programme of research developing the SP Theory of Intelligence and its realization in the SP Computer Model, a system in which a generalised version of ICMUP—the powerful concept of SP-multiple-alignment—plays a central role. This paper shows with an example how mathematics, without any special provision, may achieve compression of information. Then, it describes examples showing how variants of ICMUP may be seen in widely used structures and operations in mathematics. Examples are also given to show how several aspects of the mathematics-related disciplines of logic and computing may be understood as ICMUP. Also discussed is the intimate relation between IC and concepts of probability, with arguments that there are advantages in approaching AI, cognitive science, and concepts of probability via ICMUP. Also discussed is how the close relation between IC and concepts of probability relates to the established view that some parts of mathematics are intrinsically probabilistic, and how that latter view may be reconciled with the all-or-nothing, “exact,” forms of calculation or inference that are familiar in mathematics and logic. There are many potential benefits and applications of the mathematics-as-IC perspective. (shrink)

Pour cet article de réflexion critique, il s’agit de montrer en quoi les sites de rencontre, en proposant un dispositif spécifique de mise en relation de possibles partenaires, contribuent à modifier à différents niveaux la façon de concevoir le couple et de réfléchir à ce qu’il représente. L’intellectualisation que représente la nécessité de présentation de soi avant même l’éventuelle rencontre, tout autant que la définition des attentes envers le possible partenaire, positionnent différemment l’individu par rapport à une rencontre « classique (...) ». Les dimensions plus concrètes, physiques, et aussi inconscientes en jeu dans une rencontre « spontanée » semblent passer au second plan, au moins dans un premier temps. Mais ce processus de rationalisation porte en lui un certain nombre de contradictions, qui peuvent entrer en phase avec les paradoxes de l’hypermodernité : réalisation de soi dans l’autre et exacerbation des attentes envers autrui en parallèle avec l’affirmation individualiste de soi…. (shrink)

Among modern scholars of ancient Greek it is almost universally accepted that the historical present is only used for events and not for states and activities. A survey of the extant complete tragedies shows that this view is untenable: there are passages where static verbs like κεῖμαι ‘lie’ and εὕδω ‘sleep’ are used in the historical present and where the historical present describes a state or activity which is extended in time. On the one hand this shows that punctuality or (...) decisiveness cannot be regarded as the basic function of the historical present; on the other it leads to new interpretations of a number of passages in Greek tragedy. (shrink)

L’évolution du modèle normatif de l’accueil familial, en reconnaissant l’importance de la filiation d’origine de l’enfant placé et professionnalisant la mère d’accueil en assistante maternelle, a placé la famille d’accueil dans une position paradoxale. Est ainsi dénié ce qu’il y a de parental et de familial dans l’accueil : la dimension professionnelle doit prendre le dessus sur la dimension maternelle et père et fratrie d’accueil sont placés dans l’ombre pour préserver les liens parentaux d’origine. Une telle façon de voir découle (...) de notre modèle de la parenté établi sur l’exclusivité biparentale de la filiation, et place la famille d’accueil au cœur d’injonctions contradictoires. La problématique de la parentalité, en mettant en évidence la possibilité d’une pluriparentalité et l’organisation en dispositif évolutif des relations et des liens de type familial, permet de renouveler l’analyse. Elle autorise le dépassement de cette conception antérieure, trop exclusive, et ouvre à une meilleure compréhension de la parentalité d’accueil et de ses modes de suppléance familiale. (shrink)

La nomination des phénomènes sociaux par les spécialistes cherche à les débarrasser des contenus moraux ou idéologiques que véhiculent les termes courants et vise leur objectivation. L’exercice est difficile, car, bien souvent, les nouveaux termes proposés peuvent générer des interprétations qui trahissent les intentions de leurs auteurs. Les glissements sont encore plus importants lorsque ces termes sont repris et légitimés par les institutions. L’auteur prend pour exemple deux termes, celui de familles monoparentales et celui d’hébergement alterné. Il analyse les connotations (...) et les dénégations symboliques dont ces deux termes sont porteurs et montre l’importance du pouvoir des mots. (shrink)

The emphasis on individual differences in evolutionary theories is important and has not received adequate attention. Strategic Pluralism makes a major contribution by addressing these issues, but like other evolutionary models (e.g., game theory) does not articulate the specific mechanisms underlying strategy selection. Specification of such mechanisms is an essential next step in the development of these models.

Thomas F. Yarnall’s 2003 categories of ‘modernist’ and ‘traditionist’, used to classify accounts of the origins of engaged Buddhism, have proven useful as methodological tools but today need considerable reevaluation. This article investigates two more recent accounts dealing with engaged Buddhism — David Loy’s The Great Awakening and Sallie B. King’s Socially Engaged Buddhism — in order to critique and ultimately to go beyond Yarnall’s categories. It touches on questions concerning the legitimacy and obligations of scholars in defining Buddhism for (...) practitioners and for fellow academics, and makes the case that a significant shift is needed in order to avoid problems of Orientalism at work in some academic accounts of engaged Buddhism. (shrink)

_Philosophy and Rhetoric, _one of Penn State Press’s longest-running journals, was conceived at a time of immense philosophical upheaval: rhetoric as a field of study—first dismissed by Descartes—was being reexamined after decades of neglect. Now, nearly forty years later, _Philosophy and Rhetoric _continues to hold pride of place in this reinvigorated discipline. The brainchild of Penn State professors Carroll Arnold and Henry Johnstone, _Philosophy and Rhetoric_ boasts work from dozens of international luminaries from a broad spectrum of specializations. To commemorate (...) the fortieth year of publication, current series editor Gerard Hauser assembled a volume of the journal’s most noteworthy articles, beginning with Henry Johnstone’s gem of an essay underscoring the essential relationship between the art of rhetoric and philosophy. Donald Verene elaborates that initial thesis and suggests that rhetoric and philosophy are not distinct entities in conversation, but instead that rhetoric provides a forum in which philosophy can exist. Jean Goodwin looks at the theory in terms of a teacher/student relationship, and Barbara Biesecker looks at how governments in the war on terror employ rhetoric to manipulate the social consciousness. A concluding article by Carroll Arnold casts rhetoric as a dramatic device essential to establishing personal sovereignty. During its forty years, Hauser writes, the journal “radically altered the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric from irreconcilable antagonists to interlocutors in a shared inquiry into the constitutive powers of discourse.” This series of essays brilliantly traces the arc of that accomplishment. (shrink)

Le socialisme est une vieille idée en Europe.Et le bonheur socialiste a bien besoin de retrouver sa nouveauté et son lustre ancien, si c’est seulement encore possible et si l’on présuppose que le bonheur est à gauche ou que la gauche rend heureux , ce qui n’est guère..

SEXUALITY IN THE ANALYTICAL CURE TALK LOVE TO ME Given the freedom of tone that is the rule, we might well imagine that the analytical session moves on to talk about sexuality. In fact, it is not so much sexuality that is addressed as sex, and sex in the sense of identity, to describe what assigns the subject within a gender or in the other. The article shows that sex, indeed, is not just a partial object, of the phallic type, (...) or a genital organ, but also an object of the ideal type embodying the potentialities specific to each of the two sexes. This explains why, in analysis, the ideal sexuality, based on that idealisation of sex, prevails outright over the two other forms. In “transfer love”, the analyst or the analysis firstly embody the ideals in question and it becomes problematic if the analysand does not manage to detach them from their person or from the situation, so as to invest them in full knowledge – a necessary evolution too in married life. (shrink)

In Epictetus 3. 23. 33 the original reading of the codex unicus Bodleianus Auct. T. 4. 13, ἐκλεκτικός, is certainly corrupt. All the editions accept the reading ἐλεγκτικός, which is a correction by a later corrector of Bodleianus Auct. T. 4. 13. It is shown that this reading is to be rejected because ἐλεγκτικός is equivalent to the immediately preceding προτρεπτικός and because it leads to unsurmountable discrepancies with the closely related passage 3. 21. 19. As an alternative for ἐλεγκτικός, (...) the emendation ἐπιπληκτικός is proposed: with this reading all problems disappear. The new reading has important consequences for the evaluation of Epictetus’ educational system. (shrink)

The article revisits two basic questions of political theory posed by Jon Elster. First, should the political process be defined as private or public, and second, should its purpose be understood instrumentally or intrinsically? Having posed these questions, Elster arrives at three views of politics: social choice , republican and discourse theory . I argue for a fourth view , and explain Elster's omission of this model by referring to his underlying paradigm of politics, that is, as will formation. The (...) main thesis in Elster's article is about whether the process of will formation should be relegated to the market mechanism or dealt with via deliberative forums. I reject this paradigm and argue instead for politics as jurisdiction. This notion of politics is concerned with the question of how both market and forum processes of will formation should be institutionalized. Defining politics as jurisdiction strongly improves the plausibility of the missing fourth model of democratic will formation, as a depiction of democratic will formation as private in its process and intrinsic in its purpose illustrates the importance of distinguishing between two levels of democracy: namely, the civil level of will formation and the political level of jurisdiction. (shrink)

Les auteurs, thérapeutes familiaux, rapportent un travail avec une famille pour laquelle la relation d’emprise est le mode singulier et privilégié d’interaction entre les membres. À travers des éléments cliniques, les auteurs montrent comment la relation d’emprise côtoie l’indifférenciation des membres du groupe familial, celle des générations ainsi que la violence qui en découle. Enfin cet écrit montre comment, en utilisant la vulnérabilité des analystes, elle devient vecteur de l’efficacité thérapeutique à travers le transfert et le contre-transfert.

Résumé — L’analyse de la condition ouvrière dévoile les conditions sociales de la constitution psychologique et morale de soi. Le système tayloriste est aliénant en ce qu’il anéantit la capacité de s’attribuer réalité et valeur, en forçant l’ouvrier à endosser des mobiles qu’il ne peut pourtant s’approprier car ils lui sont étrangers et humiliants, contraires à ses aspirations. Il dépend de l’extériorité – où il peut certes trouver des grandeurs de conventions mensongères, mais aussi ce qui lui est le plus (...) intérieur – pour comprendre les aspirations qui le constituent et rester en accord avec lui-même. Il ne faut donc pas opposer l’intériorité indépendante et l’extériorité, mais deux types de dépendance : à la force extérieure, qui brise le rapport à soi ; ou à la nécessité, intelligible, qui en permet l’instauration : il y a des conditions à l’autonomie morale, entendue comme capacité d’agir d’après l’intellection de la nécessité, seul mobile que le sujet peut s’approprier et qui l’élève. Cela permet de juger les sociétés, acceptables si leur fonctionnement est intelligible, si elles stimulent l’activité de compréhension, et offrent un milieu où sont exprimées les aspirations, la réalité et la valeur propres à l’individu.— The analysis of the working condition reveals the social conditions of the self psychological and moral constitution. The taylorist system is alienating since it annihilates the capacity to claim any reality and value, by forcing the workman to shoulder mobiles that he cannot afford because they are foreign and humiliating to him, opposites with his aspirations. Depending on the exteriority – where he can certainly find greatnesses of untrue conventions, but also what is most inner to him – he can understand the aspirations which constitute him and though remain in agreement with himself. One thus should not oppose independent interiority and the exteriority, but two types of dependence : on the external force, which breaks the relation with the self ; or on the necessity, intelligible, that allows the setting-up of it : there are conditions to moral autonomy, understood as the capacity to act according to the intellection of the necessity, sole mobile that the subject can take over and that emancipates him. That allows to evaluate the societies, acceptable if their way of processing is intelligible, if they stimulate the understanding activity, and offer a medium where the aspirations, reality and value that are peculiar to the individual are expressed. (shrink)

L’article examine les conceptions de Foucault concernant l’histoire de la vérité, ainsi que les rapports entre la volonté de savoir, la volonté de vérité et les formes du pouvoir. Il rappelle comment les notions nietzschéennes de volonté de vérité et de volonté de puissance font place dans son œuvre à la volonté de savoir comme instrument des rapports de domination. On examine ensuite comment la notion d’autorité, entendue à la fois au sens institutionnel et au sens discursif, peut permettre une (...) sociologisation des approches traditionnelles de la vérité, élaborées par les philosophes. Comment la visée de vérité du discours s’est-elle combinée historiquement avec la volonté de savoir des institutions ? Y a-t-il différents régimes de vérité, liés à des modalités de discours différentes, mais aussi à des formes d’autorité institutionnelle ? Est-il possible de construire une généalogie des figures de l’autorité discursive ?The paper examines Foucaultian views about the history of truth, as well as the relationships between the will to truth and the different forms of power. It reminds how Nietzsche’s conceptions about the will to truth and the will to power are replaced in Foucault’s work by the will to truth as a means of power relationships. The paper looks furthermore at the possibility of using the notion of authority, understood both in the institutional and in the discursive sense, as a tool for a sociologization of traditional approaches to truth, constructed by philosophers. How did the pursuit of truth historically combine with the will to knowledge belonging to the institutions ? Are there different regimes of truth, tied to different discursive modalities, as well as to institutional forms of authority ? Is it possible to construct a genealogy of figures of discursiveauthority ? (shrink)

Depuis le XIX e siècle, les psychiatres et psychothérapeutes de langue française ont travaillé les souffrances et les « contagions psychiques » induites par les liens. De la folie à deux de Lassègue et Falret en passant par la folie gémellaire de Benjamin Ball, au travail en reprise du concept de folie à deux par Jacques Lacan dans le « double crime des sœurs Papin, nous arrivons aux complexes familiaux écrits deux ans plus tard, premier écrit sur le groupe fratrie. (...) Zazzo à partir du travail sur le couple de jumeau a inspiré l’auteur de l’article qui reprend trente ans plus tard un travail initié sur le lien gémellaire qui induira son choix de devenir psychanalyste familial. (shrink)

Selon la façon dont on l’envisage et l’origine du regard qui se pose sur elle, l’autorité ne paraît pas représenter la même chose. Pour certains elle est l’expression d’un principe abstrait, atemporel, relatif au jeu des places qu’organisent les rapports sociaux, en l’occurrence les places spécifiques qu’occupent les parents par rapport à l’enfant. Pourtant, pour d’autres approches, notamment les approches psychanalytiques, l’autorité n’est pas un principe neutre, elle a un sexe, de préférence masculin. Que peut-on dire d’une telle affirmation à (...) notre époque de reconfiguration des relations non seulement entre les sexes mais aussi entre les générations, et plus globalement de l’ensemble des relations privées, si ce n’est des rapports entre le public et le privé? Je m’essaie ici à une analyse sociologique, alimentée de références psychologiques et historiques, de la signification de cette question et des réponses qu’il est possible de lui apporter. (shrink)