This paper is not an article in a regular sense. It is a dialogue between François-David Sebbah, one of the two editors of this topical collection, and Jean-Luc Nancy, one of the most eminent representatives of the contemporary French Thought. This dialogue took place in the first half of 2022 in a written form, because of the sanitary restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and because Nancy was heavily sick. Sebbah sent to Nancy a text, corresponding to Section 2.1, (...) and Nancy responded to it with another text, corresponding to Section 2.2. Unfortunately, Nancy died on August 23, 2022, and could not revise his own text nor pursue the dialogue, as it was originally planned. For this reason, an introductory clarification by Sebbah, corresponding to Section 1, has been added. The purpose of such clarification is to introduce the reader to Nancy’s philosophy of technology—although technology never had a central role in Nancy’s reflections. In Section 2.1, Sebbah proposes a distinction between “French Theory,” “French Thought,” and “French Philosophy.” He also proposes a list of twelve possible intersections between the French Thought and the philosophy of technology. In Section 2.2, Nancy criticizes the use of expressions such as “French Thought.” He also insists, in a Heideggerian vein, on the fact that Technology (with a capital “T”) does not depend on human ends but has its own ends. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Plotinus as Head of a School Plotinus' Treatises in the Enneads A Platonic Commentator in a Stoic World Some Doctrinal Elements The Organization of the Universe The Goals of the Human Soul Bibliography.

Platon, comme tout philosophe, a tenté de résoudre des problèmes en forgeant des concepts. Plutôt qu'à des termes, dont bon nombre n'ont pas de stricts et uniques équivalents en français, ce sont à ces concepts (la connaissance, les formes intelligibles, l'âme) que nous avons consacré les notices qui suivent, en privilégiant ceux dont l'élaboration puis l'usage occupent l'ensemble ou la majeure partie de l'œuvre. Les commentateurs anciens qui enseignaient Platon comme on ravive un ensemble de vérités incontestables s'intéressaient plus que (...) tout à la manière dont celui qu'ils tenaient pour le Philosophe avait exposé ces vérités. Ils cherchaient dans les dialogues une méthodologie du vrai. Notre platonisme, bien qu'invétéré, a pris une forme plus moderne : nous avons tenté de montrer comment Platon travaillait un discours de manière à satisfaire ce désir de savoir dont il voulait faire le sujet de la vie bonne. (shrink)

Theories concerning the origin, the growth and the efficacy of political elites mainly originated after the first world-war. They arose in circles and with people who resented the increasing democratisation of political life. They were above all meant as a legitimation of conservative ideas with regard to the exertion of politica! power. The years between 1830 and 1914 however can be considered as the incubation-period for these elite-theories. Some examples taken from the Belgian political literature shall illustrate this evolution.The liberal (...) middle class got divided on the interpretation of the political events between 1789 and 1848. The doctrinarians wished to maintain the acquired results whereas the radicals chose for a further sharing ofpower with the lower social classes. The conservatives held the past as an example and in principle they wished a return to the situation that existed before 1789. The contrast between clericals and anticlericals and above all the relationship between church and state interfered with these theoretical conceptions. But neither conservatives nor liberals however had their doubts about the elite-principle.In the second half of the nineteenth century the social consequences of the industrial revolution were felt in such a radical way that the masses too claimed political power in order to improve their destiny.On the political scene the discussion especially crystallized on the demand for universal suffrage and the way of representation. Not only political publicists hut towards the end of the century particularly scientists too supplied a theoretical foundation for the relationship between the elite and the masses. (shrink)

Contrary to mammalian DNA, which is thought to contain only 5-methylcytosine (m5C), bacterial DNA contains two additional methylated bases, namely N6-methyladenine (m6A), and N4-methylcytosine (m4C). However, if the main function of m5C and m4C in bacteria is protection against restriction enzymes, the roles of m6A are multiple and include, for example, the regulation of virulence and the control of many bacterial DNA functions such as the replication, repair, expression and transposition of DNA. Interestingly, even if adenine methylation is usually considered (...) a bacterial DNA feature, the presence of m6A has been found in protist and plant DNAs. Furthermore, indirect evidence suggests the presence of m6A in mammal DNA, raising the possibility that this base has remained undetected due to the low sensitivity of the analytical methods used. This highlights the importance of considering m6A as the sixth element of DNA. BioEssays 28: 309–315, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

IntroductionAlthough the motor signs of Parkinson’s disease are well defined, nonmotor symptoms, including higher-level language deficits, have also been shown to be frequent in patients with PD. In the present study, we used a lexical decision task to find out whether access to the mental lexicon is impaired in patients with PD, and whether task performance is affected by bradykinesia.Materials and MethodsParticipants were 34 nondemented patients with PD, either without medication or under optimum medication. A total of 19 age-matched control (...) volunteers were also recruited. We recorded reaction times to the LDT and a simple RT task. In each task, stimuli were either visual or auditory. Statistical analyses consisted of repeated-measures analyses of variance and Tukey’s HSD post hoc tests.ResultsIn the LDT, participants with PD both off and on medication exhibited intact access to the mental lexicon in both modalities. In the visual modality, patients off medication were just as fast as controls when identifying real words, but slower when identifying pseudowords. In the visual modality of the control task, RTs for pseudowords were significantly longer for PD patients off medication than for controls, revealing an unexpected but significant lexicality effect in patients that was not observed in the auditory modality. Performances of patients on medication did not differ from those of age-matched controls.DiscussionMotor execution was not slowed in patients with PD either off or on medication, in comparison with controls. Regarding lexical access, patients off medication seemed to have difficulty inhibiting a cognitive-linguistic process when it was not required, and exhibit a specific pseudoword processing deficit in the LDT, which may have been related to impaired lateral word inhibition within the mental lexicon. These deficits seemed to be compensated by medication. (shrink)

We introduce nudges in order to incite investors to choose Socially Responsible Investment funds instead of traditional funds. We have set up two online experiments with a total of 713 US retail investors, using three types of nudges to elicit their effects on investors’ SRI investments level: making SRI the default investment, introducing a SRI explanation message, and priming ethical values by displaying shocking images. Making SRI the default option is the most efficient nudge to influence investors towards SRI. Its (...) effect is twofold. First, around 50% of investors do not opt-out of the default allocation. Second, even investors who opt-out of the default allocation invest more in SRI than those in the control group, an effect that appears driven by anchoring. Although investors subjected to both priming and message content marginally increase their SRI investment, priming or message content in isolation appears to have a non-significant influence. For choice architects who want to steer retail investors towards SRI funds, making them the default option appears to be the most powerful nudge. (shrink)

Ce livre, issu d’une thèse de doctorat sur Berkeley et les sciences, constitue la première étude systématique des rapports entre Berkeley et la chimie. C’est aussi une tentative originale pour examiner la cohérence et la pertinence d’un des derniers textes de Berkeley, la Siris, souvent considérée comme un ouvrage mineur, voire comme une erreur de vieillesse. Ces deux projets novateurs se croisent, puisque c’est par la philosophie de la chimie que Luc Peterschmitt cherche à montrer l’intérêt...

François Nault | Résumé : Dans cet article, je vais aborder la question de l’identité du théologien : qui est théologien dans l’Église ? Je vais aborder les positions du dernier Concile, de Jean-Luc Marion, d’Yves Congar, de Karl Barth et enfin de René-Michel Roberge. |: In this paper, I will address the question of the identity of the theologian : who may pretend to be theologian in the Church ? I will present the positions of Vatican II, Jean-Luc (...) Marion, Yves Congar, Karl Barth and René-Michel Roberge. (shrink)

This article explores the seemingly exaggerated emphasis of Lyotard on the importance of hearing the ethical commandment in Levinas, instead of seeing or perceiving it in sensibility. Lyotard wants to read Levinas as a “Jewish thinker,” and his ethics as deeply connected to “Hebraic ethics.” Such a reading contrasts with phenomenological and Christian interpretations of Levinas, like Jean-Luc Marion’s, that focus on incarnation, the face, love, and the concrete relation to the other. Yet Lyotard outbids the rigor of commandment in (...) Levinas, insisting on the radical heterogeneity of hearing and any phenomenological seeing. Ethics is completely outside phenomenology. This article argues that, instead of reading Lyotard as misreading Levinas, his approach can be one of the names for the skeptical phase that suspends or interrupts the Levinasian Said itself, especially when it tends to become excessively Christian. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Emmanuel Levinas Michel Henry Jacques Derrida Jean‐Luc Marion Jacques Derrida The Saturated Phenomenon According to Jean‐Luc Marion The Face According to Levinas The Auto‐Revelation of the Figure of Christ in Michel Henry.

La traduction, commise par Luc Foisneau et Florence Perronin, dont je rends compte ici n'est pas à proprement parler celle d'un ouvrage de Thomas Hobbes, mais bien plutôt celle de la seconde partie des minutes d'une longue controverse qu'il eut avec John Bramhall, évêque de Derry, et contradicteur systématique de Hobbes. La première partie de cette dispute avait déjà été traduite par Frank Lessay, puis publiée en 1993 dans la même maison d'édition que celle-ci sous le titre de: De la (...) liberté et de la nécessité. Réponse à la capture de Léviathan. Par souci de cohérence éditoriale la présente traduction a été révisée par le même Frank Lessay. Avec succès. (shrink)

This collection of writings by Jean-Luc Nancy, the renowned French critic and poet, delves into the history of philosophy to locate a fundamentally poetic modus operandi there. The book represents a daring mixture of Nancy’s philosophical essays, writings about artworks, and artwork of his own. With theoretical rigor, Nancy elaborates on the intrinsic multiplicity of art as a concept of “making,” and outlines the tensions inherent in the faire, the “making” that characterizes the very process of production and thereby the (...) structure of poetry in all its forms. Nancy shows that this multiplication that belongs to the notion of art makes every single work communicate with every other, all material in the artwork appeal to some other material, and art the singular plural of a praxis of the finite imparting of an infinity which is actually there in every utterance. In the collection, Nancy engages with the work of, among others, François Martin, Maurice Blanchot, and On Kawara. (shrink)

Jen-Luc Nancy’s thinking of the event stems from his understanding of being as based on no principle, ground or essence. Nothing preexists the event of being, no principle, arche or prior substance. With such a statement, a thinking of the event emerges: not preceded by any principle or ground, being is nothing but the event of itself. In turn, the event is no longer anchored in a principle that itself would not be happening. Thus, preceded by nothing and grounded in (...) no essence, the event of being can only come as a surprise. The event is always the bringing forth of the unprecedented: the event always comes as a surprise. I first show how Nancy thinks the event from the very motif of the surprise, indeed claiming that an event is surprising or it is not an event. In a second part, I explore Nancy’s thinking of the event of the world, understood as creation ex nihilo. Ultimately, I show that Nancy understands the eventfulness of the event in terms of the essencelessness of existence. (shrink)

Originally published in French as François Laruelle, "L’Appel et le Phénomène," Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 1996 (1): 27–41. English translation by Kris Pender.

L'aventure de Jacques et Raîssa Maritain constitue un parcours unique par son ampleur et son rayonnement. Centre de gravité de la vie spirituelle et littéraire pendant l'entre-deux-guerres, point de ralliement des générations perdues et refuge des poètes maudits, le couple tissa autour de lui le réseau d'influence le plus riche et foisonnant de l'histoire de ce siècle. Disciples de Bergson et de Léon Bloy, confidents de François Mauriac, de julien Green et de Jean Cocteau, amis de Péguy, de Mounier (...) et de Paul VI, et jetant entre les milieux littéraires, artistiques et catholiques d'invisibles passerelles, Jacques et Raïssa Maritain menèrent dans le même temps une expérience de vie spirituelle fascinante. Convertis à vingt ans, ils se firent tous deux messagers de Dieu sur les routes du monde, mendiants du Ciel au nom d'un nouvel humanisme, et ils s'engagèrent ensemble dans les combats essentiels de leur temps pour faire prévaloir en tous lieux la primauté du spirituel. On connaît l'œuvre philosophique considérable laissée par Jacques Maritain, qui garde une audience internationale. Mais cette première biographie, qui s'appuie entre autre sur une importante correspondance inédite, révèle la trame même d'une réflexion qui touche aux multiples domaine de la connaissance : une destinée d'errance et d'exil, de grandes amitiés et de combats souvent âpres contre l'injustice et les dérives du monde moderne, notamment celles de l'Eglise. C'est aussi la face invisible et secrète de la vie d'un couple qui nous est ici dévoilée. Unis par un amour fou et liés par un vœu de chasteté, les Maritainlivrèrent leur existence à Dieu sans partage, au prix pour Raïssa de "la plus dure mort à soi-même" et, pour tous les deux, d'une bouleversante solitude. (shrink)

Ce livre, issu d’une thèse de doctorat sur Berkeley et les sciences, constitue la première étude systématique des rapports entre Berkeley et la chimie. C’est aussi une tentative originale pour examiner la cohérence et la pertinence d’un des derniers textes de Berkeley, la Siris, souvent considérée comme un ouvrage mineur, voire comme une erreur de vieillesse. Ces deux projets novateurs se croisent, puisque c’est par la philosophie de la chimie que Luc Peterschmitt cherche à montrer l’intérêt ..

Dominique Janicaud claimed that every French intellectual movement—from existentialism to psychoanalysis—was influenced by Martin Heidegger. This translation of Janicaud’s landmark work, Heidegger en France, details Heidegger’s reception in philosophy and other humanistic and social science disciplines. Interviews with key French thinkers such as Françoise Dastur, Jacques Derrida, Éliane Escoubas, Jean Greisch, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Marion, and Jean-Luc Nancy are included and provide further reflection on Heidegger’s relationship to French philosophy. An intellectual undertaking of authoritative scope, this work furnishes a thorough (...) history of the French reception of Heidegger’s thought. (shrink)

Actes du colloque organisé dans la troisième décade de juillet 1980, au Centre culturel international de Cerisy-la-Salle. L’enjeu étant que « le travail de Jacques Derrida n’en soit pas l’objet mais le prétexte ou l’occasion ». Dirigé par Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe et Jean-Luc Nancy, le fil conducteur en est « l’implication que peut avoir une question des « “fins de l’homme” » dans le travail de Derrida ou pour son travail. Son ambition aura été de traverser et de déplacer en tous (...) sens les régimes philosophique, littéraire, critique, poétique, signifiant, symbolique, etc. Avec des contributions, entre autres, de Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, Sarah Kofman, Sylviane Agacinski, Jean-François Lyotard, Louis Marin, Luce Irigaray, Denir Hollier, et Jacques Derrida. (shrink)

Recueil de contributions sur la connaissance du monde par Dieu et sur le statut des vérités objectives de la science montrant la diversité des approches proposées par des philosophes tels que Thomas d'Aquin, Duns Scot, Guillaume d'Ockham, François de Meyronnes, Nicolas Malebranche, Pierre Bayle...

Recueil de contributions sur la connaissance du monde par Dieu et sur le statut des vérités objectives de la science montrant la diversité des approches proposées par des philosophes tels que Thomas d'Aquin, Duns Scot, Guillaume d'Ockham, François de Meyronnes, Nicolas Malebranche, Pierre Bayle...

Luc Brisson e Jean-François Pradeau. Plotin Traités 45-50. Paris: Éditions Flammarion, 2009, pp. 515.

Issu d’un séminaire sur « Identités de genre et guerres au XXe siècle » tenu à l’Institut d’histoire du temps présent pendant trois ans et rédigé par quatre spécialistes de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, Hommes et femmes dans la France en guerre est une synthèse stimulante de nombreux travaux anciens et récents. C’est aussi un ouvrage important à deux titres au moins. D’une part, il met en oeuvre une double comparaison qui permet d’aiguiser le regard sur les rapports entre guerre (...) et changement... (shrink)