We characterize Doris's anti-reflectivist, collaborativist, valuational theory along two dimensions. The first dimension is socialentanglement, according to which cognition, agency, and selves are socially embedded. The second dimension isdisentanglement, the valuational element of the theory that licenses the anchoring of agency and responsibility in distinct actors. We then present an issue for the account: theproblem of bad company.

Michel Foucault est un philosophe qui, loin de plancher sur d'autres philosophes, avance avec et contre eux - et contre pas moins qu'avec, au vu du caractere distinctement agonistique de sa pensee. Dans ce volume, il dialogue successivement avec douze philosophes et ecrivains de tous les temps - des auteurs dont les oeuvres soutiennent et traversent la sienne, dans une perpetuelle tension. Chacune de ces encontres est mise en scene par un specialiste de Foucault. Tout se joue autour du et: (...) de Foucault et Platon a Foucault et Althusser ou Genet en passant par Machiavel, Hegel, Said et bien d'autres. Le et, ici, rapproche et eloigne a la fois. Selon cette approche, l'oeuvre perd son caractere de forteresse pour devenir un noeud, dans un reseau: celui de la philosophie vivante qui se construit et se poursuit dans d'infinies circulations et interactions. Une toile d'araignee dont le centre provisoire serait ici une pensee nommee Michel Foucault. (shrink)

Sometimes it is possible in quantum theory for a system to interact with another system in such a way that the information contained in the wave function becomes very scrambled and apparently incoherent. We produce an example which is exactly calculable, in which a macroscopic change is induced in the environment, and all phase information for the system is apparently lost, so that a measurement has seemingly been made. But actually, although the wave function has been badly scrambled, all the (...) original information is still present. We call this situation one of “latent order.”Subsequently, the system interacts again with the environment, wiping out the macroscopic change, and the wave function once again becomes manifestly coherent. Thus the apparent measurement has been undone, and leaves no aftereffect. Thus, our “measurement” has disappeared without a trace. We call such a measurement a “haunted measurement,” and we believe that until the measurement process is rigorously understood, the concept of measurement is ambiguous. It is just not good enough to say that an amplification stage occurs “somewhere” in the process.We also point out the connection between the haunted measurement and delayed-choice experiments and discuss a haunted version of the “Schrödinger's Cat” experiment and of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment. (shrink)

"Is it meaningful to call oneself a democrat? And if so, how do you interpret the word?" -/- In responding to this question, eight iconoclastic thinkers prove the rich potential of democracy, along with its critical weaknesses, and reconceive the practice to accommodate new political and cultural realities. Giorgio Agamben traces the tense history of constitutions and their coexistence with various governments. Alain Badiou contrasts current democratic practice with democratic communism. Daniel Bensaid ponders the institutionalization of democracy, while (...) Wendy Brown discusses the democratization of society under neoliberalism. Jean-Luc Nancy measures the difference between democracy as a form of rule and as a human end, and Jacques Rancière highlights its egalitarian nature. Kristin Ross identifies hierarchical relationships within democratic practice, and Slavoj Zizek complicates the distinction between those who desire to own the state and those who wish to do without it. -/- Concentrating on the classical roots of democracy and its changing meaning over time and within different contexts, these essays uniquely defend what is left of the left-wing tradition after the fall of Soviet communism. They confront disincentives to active democratic participation that have caused voter turnout to decline in western countries, and they address electoral indifference by invoking and reviving the tradition of citizen involvement. Passionately written and theoretically rich, this collection speaks to all facets of modern political and democratic debate. (shrink)

"Is it meaningful to call oneself a democrat? And if so, how do you interpret the word?" In responding to this question, eight iconoclastic thinkers prove the rich potential of democracy, along with its critical weaknesses, and reconceive the practice to accommodate new political and cultural realities. Giorgio Agamben traces the tense history of constitutions and their coexistence with various governments. Alain Badiou contrasts current democratic practice with democratic communism. Daniel Bensaid ponders the institutionalization of democracy, while Wendy (...) Brown discusses the democratization of society under neoliberalism. Jean-Luc Nancy measures the difference between democracy as a form of rule and as a human end, and Jacques Rancière highlights its egalitarian nature. Kristin Ross identifies hierarchical relationships within democratic practice, and Slavoj Zizek complicates the distinction between those who desire to own the state and those who wish to do without it. Concentrating on the classical roots of democracy and its changing meaning over time and within different contexts, these essays uniquely defend what is left of the left-wing tradition after the fall of Soviet communism. They confront disincentives to active democratic participation that have caused voter turnout to decline in western countries, and they address electoral indifference by invoking and reviving the tradition of citizen involvement. Passionately written and theoretically rich, this collection speaks to all facets of modern political and democratic debate. (shrink)

Les expériences de «classe inversée» apparaissent aujourd'hui prometteuses. Alors que, dans les «classes traditionnelles», on «fait cours» à l'Ecole avant d'envoyer les élèves «travailler» chez eux, dans les «classes inversées», le professeur propose aux élèves de prendre connaissance d'un exposé enregistré ou d'une séquence illustrée puis les accueille en classe pour répondre à leurs questions et les accompagner dans la réalisation d'exercices ou de projets... On comprend que ce modèle pédagogique soit particulièrement attractif : à l'ère du numérique, au moment (...) où tant de ressources documentaires sont disponibles, le professeur voit ainsi son rôle renouvelé et peut se consacrer pleinement à l'appropriation des connaissances. Mais il ne faut pas, pour autant, basculer dans la naïveté spontanéiste. Prendre connaissance d'une information ou regarder une vidéo pour en tirer quelques enseignements ne vont pas de soi et le risque existe que beaucoup d'élèves n'en profitent guère. De même, interroger le professeur pour mieux comprendre un phénomène, faire un exercice de manière autonome ou travailler en petits groupes pour résoudre un problème ne sont pas des comportements faciles à mettre en oeuvre. Etre intellectuellement actif, s'engager dans un travail et le mener à bien ne se décrète pas, cela se forme. Et, précisément, l'ouvrage d'Alain Taurisson et de Claire Herviou nous montre comment faire. Prenant appui sur des travaux scientifiques éprouvés et des expérimentations solides, présentant les références théoriques nécessaires et donnant de très nombreux exemples d'outils utilisables, les auteurs fondent une véritable «pédagogie de l'activité», garantissant pleinement l'engagement de chaque élève tant dans la prise d'information que dans l'assimilation et le réinvestissement des connaissances. Ils font ainsi de la «classe inversée» une véritable «pédagogie alternative». Au service de la réussite de toutes et tous. Et pour retrouver le bonheur d'enseigner... (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

A collection of essays in French or English on the reception of Cartesian philosphy.

Les références à la pensée de Karl Popper, dans les ouvrages contemporains de didactique ou de pédagogie, sont rares et se bornent généralement au rappel convenu des thèses les plus connues de l'épistémologie faillibiliste. L'oeuvre poppérienne comporte pourtant de nombreux autres aspects, ordinairement négligés, par lesquels elle se rapporte de façon beaucoup plus directe et essentielle aux questions éducatives. L'intérêt de Popper pour ces dernières est manifeste dans les écrits de jeunesse, rédigés durant sa période de formation à l'Institut pédagogique (...) de Vienne dans les années 1920. Il se montre encore, quoique de façon plus souterraine, dans l'oeuvre de la maturité, à travers les nombreux développements que le philosophe consacre à l'analyse de la subjectivité et à la question de l'apprentissage. De là, le projet de ce livre. En prenant pour guide la double métaphore du "seau" (Bucket) et du "projecteur" (Searchlight), au moyen de laquelle Popper oppose la théorie erronée de "l'esprit-réceptacle" à sa propre conception de l'activité mentale, celui-ci se propose d'interroger l'oeuvre poppérienne dans son ensemble, les écrits de jeunesse comme les textes de la maturité, sous l'angle d'une théorie du sujet humain et de sa formation. Il s'agit par là, d'une part, de jeter un éclairage sur le lien trop souvent méconnu qui unit de l'intérieur la pensée de Popper aux préoccupations d'ordre psychologique et pédagogique ; d'autre part, de montrer en quoi la prise en compte des thèses poppériennes peut contribuer à renouveler en profondeur la réflexion contemporaine sur l'apprentissage et l'éducation. (shrink)

When Johann and Daniel Bernoulli founded fluid dynamics they encountered several problems. To go beyond the vision of Newtonian particles, a new set of images was needed in order to deal with the spatial extensibility and lack of form of fluids. I point to evidence that analogy was an essential abductive strategy in the creation of this imagery. But its heuristic behavior is complex: analogy can provide an initial model or proto-model that establishes the starting point of a theoretical (...) process, but it can play other roles as well. The historical genesis analyzed here shows that the participation of analogy in physicists’ creativity is not so restricted and that its richness opens up the field for very different roles and strategies in model-based discovery processes. Analogies can crop up intermittently in the evolution of a theory; and they can cooperate with images, extreme case reasoning and thought experiments, and even activate these processes at origin. Although it may seem that the contributions of analogy are generative in the sense of helping to discover new aspects of reality, we must stress the evaluative function that sometimes is performed by analogical reasoning in order to gain confidence. The study of the Bernoulli’s genesis of the foundations of fluid dynamics generates interesting hypotheses about the multiple roles that analogy can play in scientific model-based reasoning. (shrink)

Paru une première fois en février 1968 à l'enseigne de la galerie Claude Givaudan, L'Abolition de l'art est l'un des textes les plus emblématiques parmi ceux préfigurant Mai 68, mais aussi dans la réflexion d'Alain Jouffroy sur l'art. Accompagné ici, et pour la première fois, du film éponyme réalisé dans la foulée, et de deux textes qui en redistribuent les enjeux (« Que faire de l'art? », écrit en août 1968, et « Le futur abolira-t-il l'art? », écrit en (...) 1970); les propositions de L'Abolition de l'art se présentent désormais comme un ensemble autonome dont Alain Jouffroy donnait la portée inaugurale en ces termes : « C'est au moment où, devant une oeuvre nous oublions qu'elle relève de l'art, au moment où la méthode d'exécution suscite dans le spectateur, une méthode de méditation - une série d'actes organisés par la pensée – que nous sommes confrontés vraiment avec nous-même, avec le feu. C'est ce basculement que j'appelle l'Abolition de l'art (...). » Cette édition, accompagnée des plans des « Urgences » de Daniel Pommereulle et du DVD du film, est préfacée par Pablo Durán. Alain Jouffroy est né en 1928. (shrink)

The pandemic reminds us that, with the catastrophes to which biodiversity is subjected, with the disruption of ecosystems, much more dangerous and fatal viruses can appear. Also, disturbed in its quietude and reminded of its own mortality, the human being knows the same anguishes which were those of all the victims of the epidemics which formerly devastated the populations and of which the literature was able to account in multiple occasions. Daniel Defoe’s Diary of the Plague, which is very (...) rich in lessons, bears witness to the similarities in attitude between the centuries: disruption of the economy, unemployment, famine, rumors, the search for false remedies, confinement, transgressions. Conjuring up confinement through writing is a remedy that tempts some. With the sound diary of the writer Wajdi Mouawad it is from the inside that the experience of confinement is given to understand. (shrink)

Daniele Hervieu-Léger and Marcel Gauchet explain that today the hold that the religious dimension has always exerted over human societies is, of very recent date but definitely, slackening; that it is becoming ‘hollow’ and ceases to inspire collective action, leaving henceforth wide open the question of knowing in which name we should attempt to take our destiny in our hands and base the norms of collective being. This question at once summons up another, implicitly contained in the latter: is every (...) ethical norm (or moral norm, for we are not making a distinction between the two concepts here) ultimately religious in origin, as is most often supposed, or can one in fact conceive of sketching the outlines of a moral code that is immanent within the social relationship, a moral code that is sufficiently coherent and self-consistent to do without, at least in theory, a religious-type transcendence? Here, I should like to make a case for the second response by emphasizing that religion - whatever meaning one bestows on this notion, still undefined today - does not constitute the primary, irreducible social and historical fact that is most often supposed, but that it should itself be interpreted as the formulation of a more original and more universal formulation: the threefold obligation of giving, receiving, and repaying distinguished by Marcel Mauss in his famous Essay on the Gift. Of course, I shall not claim here to do more than sketch a few possible lines of argument. But even before formulating them, I must call to mind two prejudicial objections that my argument has encountered. (shrink)

Les auteurs présentés attestent que le travail de la pensée a joué un rôle décisif dans l'histoire, entraînant des mutations bien différentes des révolutions bruyantes, des grandes explosions restées sans lendemain. De Heidegger à A. Koestler, de Goethe à G. Sorel, de Nietzsche à Montherlant, de Leo Strauss à Jean Baudrillard, diverses façons de voir et comprendre le monde et d'agir sur lui.

Daniele Hervieu-Léger and Marcel Gauchet explain that today the hold that the religious dimension has always exerted over human societies is, of very recent date but definitely, slackening; that it is becoming ‘hollow’ and ceases to inspire collective action, leaving henceforth wide open the question of knowing in which name we should attempt to take our destiny in our hands and base the norms of collective being. This question at once summons up another, implicitly contained in the latter: is every (...) ethical norm (or moral norm, for we are not making a distinction between the two concepts here) ultimately religious in origin, as is most often supposed, or can one in fact conceive of sketching the outlines of a moral code that is immanent within the social relationship, a moral code that is sufficiently coherent and self-consistent to do without, at least in theory, a religious-type transcendence? Here, I should like to make a case for the second response by emphasizing that religion - whatever meaning one bestows on this notion, still undefined today - does not constitute the primary, irreducible social and historical fact that is most often supposed, but that it should itself be interpreted as the formulation of a more original and more universal formulation: the threefold obligation of giving, receiving, and repaying distinguished by Marcel Mauss in his famous Essay on the Gift. Of course, I shall not claim here to do more than sketch a few possible lines of argument. But even before formulating them, I must call to mind two prejudicial objections that my argument has encountered. (shrink)

As scholars have recently suggested, rhetoric has long been remiss when it comes to nondiscursive concerns beyond its traditional purview. While many have sought to broaden rhetoric's scope, no one has yet undertaken a nondiscursive rhetorical investigation of social change in an effort to reconcile the tension between a critique of agency and the perception of human responsibility. This article undertakes such a critique through Alain Badiou's concept of the event, a concept that, I contend, offers the discipline a (...) means of rethinking the opposition between relativism and flat ontology. Analyzing the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi through the frame of the event, I regard Bouazizi's act as an ontic occurrence exerting influence over protestors across the Arab world while demanding collective recognition to emerge as an event. (shrink)

Simone Weil (1909-1943) occupe une place tout à fait singulière dans l'histoire de la philosophie française contemporaine. Sans doute son acharnement à vivre en conformité absolue avec ses principes y est-il pour beaucoup et l'image de cette femme atteinte de tuberculose se laissant mourir, à Londres, en 1943, des privations qu'elle s'est imposées parce qu'elle n'est plus en état de combattre, illustre mieux qu'aucun autre de ses actes la nature de son engagement (physique autant que moral et intellectuel) du côté (...) des pauvres, des démunis, des humiliés, des vaincus. Vérité et justice, tel est l'idéal qu'elle poursuit en véritable croisé. Elle le nourrira d'un travail intellectuel acharné et d'un engagement résolu dans tous les grands combats politiques de son temps : disciple d'Alain, agrégée de philosophie (1931), pénétrée des traditions chrétienne, grecque et hindoue, mais lectrice tout aussi éclairée des découvertes de la science moderne, elle s'établit comme ouvrière chez Alsthom puis Renault (1934-1935), s'engage aux côtés des combattants antifranquistes pendant la guerre d'Espagne (1936), se fait ouvrière agricole en 1941, avant de rejoindre la France libre en 1942-1943. Le destin exceptionnel de cette femme en quête d'absolu est ici raconté avec minutie et souci d'exactitude par quelqu'un qui l'a aimée et ne s'en cache guère. Son travail fait aujourd'hui référence. (shrink)

Este artigo visa refletir sobre a moral contemporânea a partir da ética de Nietzsche, tendo como foco principal a sua _Genealogia da Moral_ e, como contraponto a ser problematizado, o livro _The weariness of the self_ do sociólogo francês Alain Ehrenberg. De início, para analisar alguns tipos morais relevantes na primeira obra, revisamos o itinerário genealógico entre a “vontade de verdade” cristã e o niilismo budista (ou “ceticismo em matéria de moral”), destacando ainda alguns comentários de Nietzsche em torno (...) de Kant e o utilitarismo inglês. A autocrítica kantiana do conhecimento, afinal, manteve intacta a valoração negativa (cristã) da vida ao não questionar o valor em si da verdade. Por sua vez, ao arrogar o bem definitivo à felicidade, o utilitarismo inglês tornou a compaixão cristã compatível com o “ceticismo em matéria de moral”. A partir disso, argumentamos que a nova figura moralmente exemplar — não sendo mais a do cristão, alvo principal da genealogia nietzschiana — é a do budista, uma vez que este adere integralmente o niilismo. Em um segundo momento deste estudo, problematizamos a tese de Ehrenberg segundo a qual a figura do “indivíduo soberano” teria hoje se tornado hegemônica sob a égide da categoria da depressão. Não sendo concebível, sob o prisma nietzschiano, tal “indivíduo soberano” deprimido descrito por Ehrenberg, observamos, por fim, que é o niilismo que efetivamente se prolifera hoje: a partir da ilusão de superação total da moralidade, a moral contemporânea cultiva a fraqueza e o cansaço fisiológico através de um programa de combate irrestrito ao sofrimento. (shrink)

Des origines à la fin du cinquième siècle. Les Présocratiques -- La période classique. Socrate ; Platon ; Aristote et l'école péripatéticienne -- Les philosophies hellénistiques. La critique de la religion populaire à l'âge hellénistique et la philosophie épicurienne de la religion ; La religion des Stoïciens.

Partons de ce que Daniel Charles appelle le timbre. Le timbre est la matière de la musique, l’événement du son. La façon dont le son sonne, emplit l’espace, devient volumineux, vibre et ondule. Charles dit d’ailleurs avènement et non événement. Le timbre est délié, atomique (c’est le côté lucrétien de la rencontre avec la musiqu...

Simone Weil (1909-1943) sort aujourd'hui du cercle des philosophes et des intellectuels pour toucher de nombreux lecteurs de différents milieux. Même, des artistes et des personnalités du monde politique avouent avoir été influencés par ses écrits. De santé fragile, elle s'adapte d'abord difficilement à la vie scolaire mais montre dès ses premières années une maturité intellectuelle surprenante, des idées très affirmées et une volonté indomptable. Inséparable de son frère qu'elle admire d'autant plus qu'elle se croit très inférieure à lui ; (...) il sera mathématicien, titulaire de la médaille Field (l'équivalent du Prix Nobel), estimé à l'égal d'Albert Einstein, elle se montre déterminée à rechercher la pureté et la vérité. Elle est animée très tôt par une curiosité insatiable et par un désir d'aller vers les personnes les plus vulnérables et les plus maltraitées par la vie. Sa rencontre avec le philosophe Alain est déterminante pour son avenir. Après le baccalauréat à 16 ans et des études à l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, elle enseigne quelque temps la philosophie. Comme Antigone et Jeanne d'Arc, ses modèles, obéissant aux lois non-écrites, elle a toujours mis sa vie en totale conformité avec ses paroles ou ses écrits. (shrink)

This article explores the philosophy of Alain Badiou from the vantage point of the concepts of the localization, delocalization, and relocalization of the void as thematized through literary arts, religion, emancipatory politics, and the subject of psychoanalysis. In short, these moments around the void characterize the processes through which truth is processed and seen through their full realization by a philosophical engagement across the various conditions in which these truths occur. The localization of a void is the naming of (...) an indiscernible element that is incommensurable to the rubric of constructible knowledge, sense and meaning which could saturate the space of truth. Thus, the naming that localizes the void acts as a subtraction of the invariant in the variance of situation such that across various points in space and time, we are still able to subtract the universal as the invariant not just as the fidelity to the localized truth but also as the resurrection of truth upon its relocalization at a different place and a different time. At its core, this article is concerned with truth, why truth is persistent, and why we have to struggle to articulate the truth that we are trying to be faithful to again and again with each instance that truth risks being covered-over and obscured. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 1, February 2019, Page 54-70.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.2 (2001) 305-306 [Access article in PDF] Fichte, J. G. Foundations of Natural Right according to the Principles of the Wissenschaftslehre. Edited by Frederick Neuhouser. Translated by Michael Baur. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xxxv + 338. Cloth, $64.95; Paper, $22.95. Though best known for his immensely influential effort to "systematize" Kant's Critical philosophy (...) and to ground the same upon a transcendental analysis of the structure of self-consciousness, Fichte also made seminal contributions to social and political philosophy. Of these contributions, the most original is surely his effort to demonstrate that mutual recognition of free subjects is a condition for the possibility of individual self-consciousness. This transcendental deduction of the essentially social or intersubjective character of human beings provides the theoretical underpinnings for a pure theory of Naturrecht ("natural law" or "natural right"), in which the principles of political philosophy are established without any reference to the purely practical principles of morality. Unlike moral laws, the principles of right are only hypothetically or conditionally valid, inasmuch as they are dependent upon one's free decision to live in a community of free beings and to limit one's own freedom accordingly.Justice and law are thereby grounded upon a new, distinctly political conception of [End Page 305] human freedom, which is itself grounded in a new account of the intersubjective dimension of self-consciousness. Following his deduction of the pure concept of right, Fichte proceeds to deduce the conditions for applyingthe same, among the most significant of which is embodiment. Here again, Fichte was a pioneer in arguing for the necessary connection between self-consciousness and the human body. The next step is to demonstrate in detail how social relations between embodied free agents must be organized if such agents are to co-exist in a community. This hypothetical application of the pure concept of right establishes both the "right of coercion" and the basic outlines of the "right of the state," and hence the general form of any legitimate state constitution.Though it appears that Fichte is working with the social contract tradition, his deductive strategy requires a fundamental revision of the same and allows him to construct a theory of the just state that is both recognizably "liberal" and extraordinarily open to considerations of economic justice and social welfare. It is for this reason that some European philosophers (notably, Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut) have in recent decades employed Fichte's political thought as a major resource in their effort to defend a rights-based political theory against attacks from both the right and the left.The primary source of Fichte's political philosophy is his 1796/97 Grundlage des Naturrecht, a work that exercised a decisive influence upon Hegel (whose Phenomenology of Spirit is often and incorrectly described as the first effort, within the context of post-Kantian Idealism, to demonstrate that intersubjectivity is a condition for the possibility of self-consciousness). Directly and indirectly (that is, through Hegel) Fichte's social and political philosophy exercised a strong influence upon Marx and other nineteenth- and twentieth-century socialists.For all of the above reasons, the appearance of a new and reliable English translation of Fichte's Grundlage des Naturrechts is a cause for celebration. Let it be said at once that Michael Baur's translation is simply marvelous. It is accurate and readable, as well as faithful to the style of this, one of Fichte's best-written works. Frederick Neuhouser's Introduction to this translation is equally fine. In it, Neuhouser not only outlines Fichte's main arguments and conclusions, but also offers a brief but trenchant critical appraisal of the historical significance of Fichte's achievement and of the potential relevance of his ideas to contemporary debates and discussions. The Introduction also includes a provocative and well-balanced discussion of some of the unresolved problems implicit in Fichte's arguments. Readers will also appreciate the useful "Guide to Further Reading," and index... (shrink)

Cet ouvrage donne la parole à cinq philosophes marxistes français de renommée internationale - Main Badiou, Étienne Balibar, Jacques Bidet, Michael Löwy, Lucien Sève - qui présentent l'évolution de leur rapport à Marx, à la philosophie et à la politique, depuis les années 1950 jusqu'à aujourd'hui. Dans ces entretiens, chacun à son tour, les auteurs ont répondu aux questions posées par deux philosophes de générations différentes, Alexis Cukier et Isabelle Garo : comment avez-vous rencontré la pensée de Marx, et comment (...) avez-vous commencé à en faire usage? Dans quel contexte théorique et politique, pour répondre à quelle urgence et à quel problème, en rapport avec quels engagements militants? Quelle a été l'évolution de votre conception du communisme et que devraient être une action ou une organisation politique communiste aujourd'hui? Que retenez-vous d'essentiel de la pensée de Marx pour penser la période politique présente? Au fil des réponses à ces questions, les auteurs analysent les rapports entre philosophie et politique, reviennent sur la trajectoire du marxisme en France et abordent la signification du communisme aujourd'hui. L'introduction, complétée d'une bibliographie étendue, présente les coordonnées théoriques et politiques complexes de ces trajectoires singulières, leurs convergences et leurs divergences, qui éclairent le renouvellement en cours de la philosophie marxiste ainsi que de l'engagement communiste."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

What Is a People? seeks to reclaim "people" as an effective political concept by revisiting its uses and abuses over time. Alain Badiou surveys the idea of a people as a productive force of solidarity and emancipation and as a negative tool of categorization and suppression. Pierre Bourdieu follows with a sociolinguistic analysis of "popular" and its transformation of democracy, beliefs, songs, and even soups into phenomena with outsized importance. Judith Butler calls out those who use freedom of assembly (...) to create an exclusionary "we," while Georges Didi-Huberman addresses the problem of summing up a people with totalizing narratives. Sadri Khiari applies an activist's perspective to the racial hierarchies inherent in ethnic and national categories, and Jacques Rancière comments on the futility of isolating theories of populism when, as these thinkers have shown, the idea of a "people" is too diffuse to support them. By engaging this topic linguistically, ethnically, culturally, and ontologically, the voices in this volume help separate "people" from its fraught associations to pursue more vital formulations. Together with Democracy in What State?, in which Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Daniel Bensaid, Wendy Brown, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Rancière, Kristin Ross, and Slavoj i ek discuss the nature and purpose of democracy today, What Is a People? expands an essential exploration of political action and being in our time. (shrink)

Portugal ranks fourth among countries with the highest rate of overweight population, considering that 67.6% of the Portuguese population over the age of 15 is overweight or obese. To our knowledge, limited studies have investigated students’ attitudes toward physical education in Portugal. Such research is necessary because it can provide valuable insights for policy and application in the curriculum development for physical education, which may eventually increase participation in physical and sports activities. This study analyzed students’ attitudes toward physical education (...) (PE) according to sociodemographic variables, including grade level, socioeconomic status, and gender, and their participation in extracurricular sports activities and respective PE grades. The sample comprised 476 high school students (from the 7th, 8th, and 9th-grade levels) from five public schools located in Portugal. The Students’ Attitudes toward Physical Education Questionnaire was adapted and validated for use with Portuguese students as a two-factor model. Findings show that students generally have a moderately positive attitude toward PE. However, students’ positive attitudes tend to decrease throughout high school, which is particularly significant in the 9th grade. Furthermore, students’ attitudes are influenced by gender, extracurricular sports practice, and grades. These findings may help stakeholders reflect on how to frame PE in a more meaningful way to create a solid foundation for maintaining an active lifestyle throughout life. Implications for further research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

This essay, by the editor of Common Knowledge, introduces the sixth and final installment of “Fuzzy Studies,” the journal's “Symposium on the Consequence of Blur.” Suggesting that “Fuzzy Studies” should be understood in the context of a desultory campaign against zeal conducted in the journal for almost twenty years, he explains that the editors' assumption has been that any authentic case for the less adamant modes of thinking, or the less focused ways of seeing, needs to be unenthusiastic and carefully (...) ramified. To establish the distinction between overenthused and unemphatic approaches to blur, he contrasts the ecstatically amorphous “Blur building” with examples of classical Chinese landscape painting. Elizabeth Diller and Richard Scofidio, in their book blur: the making of nothing, chronicle the development of their plans for the Blur building and, in the process, inadvertently show that, to overbear various negative associations of blur and fog, the authors/architects grew self-contradictorily emphatic about the need to produce de-emphasis in architecture and in modern life. Perl shows how this self-contradiction appears also in phenomenology-inflected writings on blur by T. J. Clark, Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind Kraus, J.-P. Sartre, and Georges Bataille, but not in the work of the phenomenologist François Jullien, whose book The Great Image Has No Form analyzes the role of blur in classical Chinese art theory and practice. Where traditional Western painting, Jullien argues, calls for voyeuristically intense focus, traditional Chinese painting stimulates “dé-tente, relaxation or ‘untensing’.” Intense focus on a blur is still, Perl observes, an intense focus. In describing a painting by the Yuan Dynasty master Ni Zan, Perl concludes that the only way to be un-self-contradictorily positive about fuzziness, whether in logic or aesthetics, is to de-reify and de-differentiate with the aim of achieving blandness. (shrink)

The Politics of Belonging represents an innovative collaboration between political theorists and political scientists for the purposes of investigating the liberal and pluralistic traditions of nationalism. Alain Dieckhoff introduces an indispensable collection of work for anyone dealing with questions of identity, ethnicity, and nationalism.

For successful goal-directed behavior, a performance monitoring system is essential. It detects behavioral errors and initiates behavioral adaptations to improve performance. Two electrophysiological potentials are known to follow errors in reaction time tasks: the error-related negativity, which is linked to error processing, and the error positivity, which is associated with subjective error awareness. Furthermore, the correct-related negativity is linked to uncertainty about the response outcome. Here we attempted to identify the involvement of the nucleus accumbens in the aforementioned performance monitoring (...) processes. To this end, we simultaneously recorded cortical activity and local field potentials during a flanker task performed by four patients with severe opioid abuse disorder who underwent electrode implantation in the NAc for deep brain stimulation. We observed significant accuracy-related modulations in the LFPs at the time of the ERN/CRN in two patients and at the time of Pe in three patients. These modulations correlated with the ERN in 2/8, with CRN in 5/8 and with Pe in 6/8, recorded channels, respectively. Our results demonstrate the functional interrelation of striatal and cortical processes in performance monitoring specifically related to error processing and subjective error awareness. (shrink)