Understanding the emergence of a tangible 4-dimensional space-time from a quantum theory of gravity promises to be a tremendously difficult task. This article makes the case that this task may not have to be carried. Space-time as we know it may be fundamental to begin with. I recall the common arguments against this possibility and review a class of recently discovered models bypassing the most serious objection. The generic solution of the measurement problem that is tied to semiclassical gravity as (...) well as the difficulty of the alternative make it a reasonable default option in the absence of decisive experimental evidence. (shrink)

The epistemology of models has to face a conundrum: models are often described as highly idealised, and yet they are considered to be vehicles for scientific explanations. Truth-oriented—veritist—conceptions of explanation seem thereby undermined by this contradiction. In this article, I will show how this apparent paradox can be avoided by appealing to the notion of fiction. If fictionalism is often thought to lead to various flavours of instrumentalism, thereby weakening the veritist hopes, the fiction view of models offers a framework (...) much richer than it seems at first sight. To do so, I will call upon the concepts of modality, counterfactual structure and credible worlds. In the end, veritism of explanation and fiction can indeed go hand in hand, but the scope of explanations we can hope to draw from models must be more precisely delineated. (shrink)

Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole were philosophers and theologians associated with Port-Royal Abbey, a centre of the Catholic Jansenist movement in seventeenth-century France. Their enormously influential Logic or the Art of Thinking, which went through five editions in their lifetimes, treats topics in logic, language, theory of knowledge and metaphysics, and also articulates the response of 'heretical' Jansenist Catholicism to orthodox Catholic and Protestant views on grace, free will and the sacraments. In attempting to combine the categorical theory of (...) the proposition with a Cartesian account of knowledge, their Logic represents the classical view of judgment which inspired the modern transformation in logic and semantic theory by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein and recent philosophers. This edition presents a new translation of the text, together with a historical introduction and suggestions for further reading. (shrink)

For Van Rensselaer Potter (1911–2001), Global Bio-Ethics is about building on the legacy of Aldo Leopold (1887–1948), one of the most notable forest managers of the twentieth century who brought to light the importance of pragmatism in the sciences and showed us a new way to proceed with environmental ethics. Following Richard Huxtable and Jonathan Ives's methodological 'Framework for Empirical Bioethics Research Projects' called 'Mapping, framing, shaping,' published in BMC Medicine Ethics (2019)), we propose operationalizing a framework for Global Bio-Ethics (...) by hybridizing approaches in empirical bioethics and ecosystem management. We explain this framework using the metaphor of forest management. This mixed approach is articulated through three phases: (1) mapping the “landscape” to build a working theory, (2) framing the “scene” to prepare the fieldwork, and (3) shaping bioethics “tools” to stimulate cooperation. Applying this methodology, an adaptive management cycle is outlined to help ensure that political processes are sustainable and socially acceptable, still based on strategic and ethical thinking, but also capable of reshaping failing policies. (shrink)

Dans un monde dominé par les conflits, il arrive qu’il faille se défendre. L’invention des armes a évolué en parallèle avec le savoir technique, puis scientifique, et il est même arrivé que la recherche d’applications militaires ait joué un rôle moteur dans la découverte scientifique. Lorsque les armes ne servent pas à attaquer d’autres nations, leur fabrication et leur commerce se justifient morale- ment. Il faut cependant qu’elles ne puissent échapper à ceux qui les construisent et doivent en contrôler la (...) diffusion. Facilement mise en œuvre, la guerre utilisant des organismes vivants ou ce qu’ils pro- duisent comme armes est très ancienne. Or l’originalité des êtres vivants est qu’ils se multiplient, qu’un seul individu suffit à recouvrir la Terre de ses descendants. La biologie ne se prête jamais à un usage militaire moralement défendable parce que le confinement au champ de bataille est impossible. De ce fait, les applications de la biologie ont été vite écartées du domaine de la Défense permise par les traités internationaux. La Convention de 1972 sur l’Interdiction des Armes Biologiques et à Toxines (CIABT), entrée en vigueur en 1975, est aujourd’hui signée par 183 pays (ratifiée par 175) sur un total de 193, sans compter Taïwan qui l’a ratifiée mais n’est pas reconnu par l’ONU. Elle interdit la mise au point, la fabrication, l’acquisition, le transfert, la conservation, le stockage et l’utilisation des armes bio- logiques et à toxines. Elle constitue un élément essentiel de la lutte contre la prolifération des armes de destruction massive. (shrink)

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

This volume explores the relationship between physics and metaphysics in Descartes' philosophy. According to the standard account, Descartes modified the objects of metaphysics and physics and inverted the order in which these two disciplines were traditionally studied. This book challenges the standard account in which Descartes prioritizes metaphysics over physics. It does so by taking into consideration the historical reception of Descartes and the ways in which Descartes himself reacted to these receptions in his own lifetime. The book stresses the (...) diversity of these receptions by taking into account not only Cartesianisms but also anti-Cartesianisms, and by showing how they retroactively highlighted different aspects of Descartes' works and theoretical choices. The historical aspect of the volume is unique in that it not only analyzes different constructions of Descartes that emerged in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, but also reflects on how his work was first read by philosophers across Europe. Taken together, the essays in this volume offer a fresh and up-to-date contribution to this important debate in early modern philosophy. (shrink)

It is common to argue that something x is distinct from something y by pointing out that x and y do not share all their essential properties. I show that arguments of this type are unsound. This unsoundness is rooted in the fact that sentences of the form ‘x is essentially F’ are ambiguous. Under one reading, the sentence says of x that it has a property of a unique and special kind. Interpreted in that way, the sentence is false, (...) for there are no such properties. Under another reading, the sentence says of x that it has a property and adds that this property is essential to x. Interpreted in that way, the sentence may be true but it does not allow to reach the desired conclusion that x is distinct from y. Thus, if someone argues that x is distinct from y by pointing out that x and y differ in essential properties, they face the following dilemma: either one of the argument’s premises implies the existence of the special property and it is false, or none of the premises implies the existence of the special property and the argument is invalid. (shrink)

Background:Even in countries with an opt-out or presumed consent system, relatives have a considerable influence on the post-mortem organ harvesting decision. However, their reflection capacity may be compromised by grief, and they are, therefore, often prone to choose refusal as default option. Quite often, it results in late remorse and dissatisfaction. So, a high-quality reflection support seems critical to enable them to gain a stable position and a long-term peace of mind, and also avoid undue loss of potential grafts. In (...) practice, recent studies have shown that the ethical aspects of reflection are rarely and often poorly discussed with relatives and that no or incomplete guidance is offered. No review of the literature is available to date, although it could be of value to improve the quality of the daily practice.Objectives:The objective was to review and synthesize the main concepts and approaches, theories and practices of ethical reflection support of the relatives or surrogates of potential post-mortem organ donors.Research design:A narrative review was performed in the medical, psychological and ethical fields using PubMed, PsycArticles and Web of Science databases (1980–2020).Results:Out of 150 papers, 25 were finally retained. Four themes were drawn: the moral status of the potential post-mortem organ donor, the principlistic approach with its limits and critics, the narrative approach and the transcendental approach.Discussion:This review suggests an extension of psychological support towards ethical reflection support. The process of helping relatives in their ethical exploration of post-mortem organ donation is psychologically and morally characterized. The need for specialized professionals educated and experienced both in clinical psychology and in health ethics to carry out this task is discussed.Practical impact:This review could contribute to optimize the quality of the ethical reflection support by initiating an evolution from an empirical, partial and individual-dependent support to a more systematized, professionalized and exhaustive support. (shrink)

A epistemologia histórico-racionalista de Canguilhem, seu gosto pelo concreto, as áreas a que se refere - a medicina, o estudo da patologia, a fisiologia, a biologia - parecem longe dos grandes estudos metafísicos do "primeiro" Deleuze e de seu interesse pela sistematização conceitual abstrata. Mas nos situaremos aqui num outro nível: o dos problemas e projetos filosóficos. Sobre esse plano, apresentamos o entrecruzamento das leituras do Essai e de Nietzsche et la philosophie, para ver como é esclarecedor: enquanto um Canguilhem (...) menos exclusivamente racionalista aí aparece, vemos na pesquisa filosofia efetivada por Deleuze algo distinto de um gesto que eleva a reflexão a um grau suplementar de abstração. Mais profundamente, tal aproximação coloca sob novas perspectivas a tripla significação da refundação do criticismo kantiano como uma filosofia de valores, de sua relação com uma "filosofia de vida" e de seu ponto culminante na problematização da imagem do pensamento. (shrink)

The paper presents a research programme for the neuroscience of consciousness called 'neurophenomenology' and illustrates it with a recent pilot study . At a theoretical level, neurophenomenology pursues an embodied and large-scale dynamical approach to the neurophysiology of consciousness . At a methodological level, the neurophenomenological strategy is to make rigorous and extensive use of first-person data about subjective experience as a heuristic to describe and quantify the large-scale neurodynamics of consciousness . The paper focuses on neurophenomenology in relation to (...) three challenging methodological issues about incorporating first-person data into cognitive neuroscience: first-person reports can be biased or inaccurate; the process of generating first-person reports about an experience can modify that experience; and there is an 'explanatory gap' in our understanding of how to relate first-person, phenomenological data to third-person, biobehavioural data. (shrink)

Synthetic biology (SynBio) covers two main areas: application engineering, exemplified by metabolic engi- neering, and the design of life from artificial building blocks. As the general public is often reluctant to embrace synthetic approaches, preferring nature to artifice, its immediate future will depend very much on the public’s reaction to the unmet needs created by the pervasive demands of sustainability. On the other hand, this reluctance should not have a negative impact on research that will now take into account the (...) existence of the multiple transitions that cells face over time. The ages of life—birth, development, maturation, senescence and death—reflect specific key transitions and have, until now, rarely been taken into account in SynBio designs. This results in a mismatch between novelty and the very long evolutionary time that led to the existing chassis [remember that this is the common term used to describe the cellular framework as seen by synthetic biologists (de Lorenzo & Danchin, 2008)]. It also implies that, in general, transitions between growth stages will be taken into account with the appro- priate embodiment of highly specific processes. This is particularly important when adapting new models to their host, whether natural or artificial. Adaptation fol- lows two stages, short-term accommodation of new entities and long-term assimilation into the cell as a whole. This requires discrimination between classes of entities. We suggest that proteins playing the essential role of Maxwell’ demons, here named Maxwell’s dis- criminators (MxDs) to refer to their original function, will permit the assimilation and accommodation of artificial constructs. As a consequence, we can foresee that class discrimination, beyond mere recognition, will be implemented in SynBio 2.0, leading to an authentic par- adigm shift (Kuhn, 1996), based on conceptions that embody information as a genuine currency of reality. (shrink)

La faiblesse de la pensée politique, qui caractérise notre époque, tend à isoler toujours plus la propriété intellectuelle de l'environnement et à la séparer du public et de l'intérêt général. Pourtant, c'est bien l'intérêt général, le public et l'espace public qui fondent la propriété intellectuelle en général et la propriété littéraire et artistique en particulier. Le monopole d'exploitation conféré à un auteur ne peut se justifier que par l'intérêt général que lui porte son public et qui le récompense ainsi de (...) son travail. Impraticable pour la vie de l'esprit, le champ de la nature s'est opposé au champ de la culture et nos sociétés démocratiques reposent sur ce postulat que l'état de nature précède l'état politique. Réconcilions environnement et culture, étendons le champ de la légitimité démocratique à l'espace naturel, concevons la « propriété » intellectuelle, non plus tant comme autant de collections de propriétés privées, mais comme la structure d'un espace public. Ainsi pourrions-nous étendre cette « propriété » intellectuelle refondée, en conférant des droits intellectuels au bénéfice de personnes privées ou publiques qui réaliseraient un travail particulier au bénéfice de l'espace naturel, à savoir l'espace du vivant, dans l'intérêt général. Il ne s'agit plus d'avoir ou de posséder, mais bien d'être en conscience dans un espace commun partagé par tous et respectant notre environnement. (shrink)

Social Work with The Black African Diaspora locates a complex and layered analysis of social work practice within the Western, precisely, the Republic of Ireland context. This work tells us that so...

This article draws on recent transnational protests against police brutality to advance an understanding of anti-racist solidarity that aims to improve over Mara Marin’s ‘structural solidarity’ view. On Marin’s view, anti-racist solidarity is grounded in the racial structure. But Marin forgets that racial domination exerts a segregative influence on different groups, so that whites and middle-class blacks tend not to frequent the social milieux that would help them develop a sense of solidarity with working-class blacks. To address this problem, the (...) article hypothesises that the conditions for anti-racist solidarity are not inherent in the racial structure but created by social movements, as exemplified by Black Lives Matter: to the extent that white and middle-class black participants in the George Floyd protests experienced the racist police brutality they were denouncing on behalf of the black working class, these protests functioned as non-segregated milieux that could ground the solidarity of the former with the latter at the national and transnational levels. (shrink)

Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Imagerie Ce´re´brale (LENA), Hoˆpital de La Salpeˆtrie`re, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

Blaise Pascal is a marquee name, yet little read outside France. Antoine Compagnon provides an ideal introduction to one of the great intellects, contextualizing Pascal in his own time and offering insightful readings of the Pensées and the Provincial Letters. Compagnon proves a welcoming guide to Pascal's challenging and rewarding thought.

René Descartes (1596-1650) is often presented as the founder of the "dualistic" thesis radically separating the soul from the body, in early modern philosophy. As such, he is likely to have initiated two kinds of revolutions: a revolution in the study of nature and living being(understood as inanimate), on the one hand; and a revolution in the study of the human mind(understood as the foundation of all knowledge), on the other. This entry focuses on his scientific work and overall reception, (...) as a way of understanding the interaction of these two fields. (shrink)

_sciousness called ‘neurophenomenology’ (Varela 1996) and illustrates it with a_ _recent pilot study (Lutz et al., 2002). At a theoretical level, neurophenomenology_ _pursues an embodied and large-scale dynamical approach to the_ _neurophysiology of consciousness (Varela 1995; Thompson and Varela 2001;_ _Varela and Thompson 2003). At a methodological level, the neurophenomeno-_ _logical strategy is to make rigorous and extensive use of first-person data about_ _subjective experience as a heuristic to describe and quantify the large-scale_ _neurodynamics of consciousness (Lutz 2002). The paper (...) foocuses on_ _neurophenomenology in relation to three challenging methodological issues_ _about incorporating first-person data into cognitive neuroscience: (i) first-person_ _reports can be biased or inaccurate; (ii) the process of generating first-person_ _reports about an experience can modify that experience; and (iii) there is an ‘ex-_ _planatory gap’ in our understanding of how to relate first-person, phenomeno-_ _logical data to third-person, biobehavioural data._. (shrink)

Recent brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have implicated insula and anterior cingulate cortices in the empathic response to another’s pain. However, virtually nothing is known about the impact of the voluntary generation of compassion on this network. To investigate these questions we assessed brain activity using fMRI while novice and expert meditation practitioners generated a loving-kindness-compassion meditation state. To probe affective reactivity, we presented emotional and neutral sounds during the meditation and comparison periods. Our main hypothesis (...) was that the concern for others cultivated during this form of meditation enhances affective processing, in particular in response to sounds of distress, and that this response to emotional sounds is modulated by the degree of meditation training. The presentation of the emotional sounds was associated with increased pupil diameter and activation of limbic regions (insula and cingulate cortices) during meditation (versus rest). During meditation, activation in insula was greater during presentation of negative sounds than positive or neutral sounds in expert than it was in novice meditators. The strength of activation in insula was also associated with self-reported intensity of the meditation for both groups. These results support the role of the limbic circuitry in emotion sharing. The comparison between meditation vs. rest states between experts and novices also showed increased activation in amygdala, right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), and right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) in response to all sounds, suggesting, greater detection of the emotional sounds, and enhanced mentation in response to emotional human vocalizations for experts than novices during meditation. Together these data indicate that the mental expertise to cultivate positive emotion alters the activation of circuitries previously linked to empathy and theory of mind in response to emotional stimuli.. (shrink)

Este ensayo propone un esbozo de análisis temporal de un momento político relevante en la historia mundial del siglo XX, la Unidad Popular chilena (1970-973). Para ello, se hace una revisión de una parte de la literatura secundaria sobre esta experiencia, a partir de dos conceptos forjados que hemos propuesto para indagar la politicidad del tiempo: batallas cronopolíticas y momentum. Este último es entendido como la dinámica de un tempo social donde se puede actuar, ya sea en su capacidad de (...) mantenerse en la duración u orientar cambios a través de un impulso. Se concluye que el proyecto de la Unidad Popular buscó acelerar el momentum expansivo de esta fase de la historia chilena, lo que provocó discronías y desinscronías que obligaron a la contraofensiva reaccionaria a romper con este momentum. (shrink)

Anticiper les épidémies est le souhait le plus vif de toutes les institutions qui veillent sur la santé publique. Un raisonnement naïf permet de penser qu’il suffit de faire évoluer en laboratoire un organisme potentiellement pathogène pour savoir comment sa descendance pourra devenir plus virulente pour l’homme. Il est alors facile de faire croître cet organisme sur des cellules humaines, qu’il infecte mal pour commencer, puis de retenir ses descendants au fur et à mesure qu’ils deviennent plus infectieux. La vision (...) optimiste affirme alors que les caractériser permettra de construire des défenses appropriées. Bien des variations sur ce thème sont possibles, y compris avec l’aide de la synthèse artificielle de variants dont on saurait imaginer la pathogénicité pour l’homme. Depuis plus de deux décennies, des chercheurs développent des expériences de ce type, dite de « gain de fonction » (GdF). Leur interprétation repose sur l’illusion que nous savons prévoir l’évolution des êtres vivants. En réalité, ceux que nous observons aujourd’hui ont été sélectionnés au cours du temps précisément parce qu’ils conduisent toujours à des comportements imprévisibles. Une règle clé de l’évolution est que la vie, pour durer dans des circonstances qui ne peuvent être prévues, doit sans cesse faire émerger des formes innovantes. À ce caractère propre à la vie s’ajoute un imprévisible lié à l’impéritie humaine, cause de l’omniprésence des accidents de laboratoire. Or, en virologie spécialement, l’accident est la règle et non l’exception. Il faut ajouter que le caractère public de ces expériences les rend utilisables par toutes les structures malveillantes qui sont hélas répandues dans le monde. Il n’est pas difficile alors d’imaginer les conséquences catastrophiques des expériences de GdF. Nous proposons donc qu’elles soient purement et simplement interdites et que toute transgression soit sévèrement punie, en frappant d’abord au porte-monnaie, ce qui semble être la meilleure façon de faire dans nos sociétés devenues universellement vénales. (shrink)

Science is founded on a method based on critical thinking. A prerequisite for this is not only a sufficient command of language but also the comprehension of the basic concepts underlying our understanding of reality. This constraint implies an awareness of the fact that the truth of the World is not directly accessible to us, but can only be glimpsed through the construction of mod- els designed to anticipate its behaviour. Because the relationship between models and reality rests on the (...) interpretation of founding postulates and in- stantiations of their predictions (and is therefore deeply rooted in language and culture), there can be no demarcation between science and non-science. However, critical thinking is essential to ensure that the link between models and reality is gradually made more adequate to reality, based on what has already been established, thus guaranteeing that science progresses on this basis and excluding any form of relativism. (shrink)

in Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness edited by Zelazo P., Moscovitch M. and Thompson E. (2007).

Bien qu’il ait été défini comme un ordre des successions, le temps leibnizien s’y réduit-il? Le recours à Deleuze permet d’en douter. D’une part, les mondes de verre de la fin de la Théodicée sont interprétés comme des cristaux, qui révèlent le temps dans son ensemble. Nous verrons pour Leibniz même, indépendamment de Deleuze, ce qui autorise une telle forme du temps. D’autre part, dès Logique du sens, Deleuze compte sur la topologie d’une courbe pour synthétiser les événements d’un monde. (...) La convergence de leurs points entraîne enfin que les mondes divergent en une bifurcation, dont nous demanderons si la Confessio philosophi ne l’autorisait pas déjà, dans sa conception de l’acte libre. (shrink)

The capacity to stabilize the content of attention over time varies among individuals, and its impairment is a hallmark of several mental illnesses. Impairments in sustained attention in patients with attention disorders have been associated with increased trial-to-trial variability in reaction time and event-related potential deficits during attention tasks. At present, it is unclear whether the ability to sustain attention and its underlying brain circuitry are transformable through training. Here, we show, with dichotic listening task performance and electroencephalography, that training (...) attention, as cultivated by meditation, can improve the ability to sustain atten- tion. Three months of intensive meditation training reduced variability in attentional processing of target tones, as indicated by both enhanced theta-band phase consistency of oscillatory neural responses over anterior brain areas and reduced reaction time variability. Furthermore, those individuals who showed the greatest increase in neural response consistency showed the largest decrease in behav- ioral response variability. Notably, we also observed reduced variability in neural processing, in particular in low-frequency bands, regardless of whether the deviant tone was attended or unattended. Focused attention meditation may thus affect both distracter and target processing, perhaps by enhancing entrainment of neuronal oscillations to sensory input rhythms, a mechanism important for controlling the content of attention. These novel findings highlight the mechanisms underlying focused attention meditation and support the notion that mental training can significantly affect attention and brain function. (shrink)

We develop a mathematical formalism that allows to study decoherence with a great level generality, so as to make it appear as a geometrical phenomenon between reservoirs of dimensions. It enables us to give quantitative estimates of the level of decoherence induced by a purely random environment on a system according to their respectives sizes, and to exhibit some links with entanglement entropy.

L’auteur présente le statut juridique de l’animal, les normes juridiques visant la protection de l’animal domestique, l’animal de compagnie et plus particulièrement les décisions de justice concernant le chien « dangereux ».

John Stuart Mill’s System of Logic (1843) is often considered to be a work that defends an inductivist epistemology. In this article, I propose to question this status by examining the definition of induction set out in Mill’s book, and the consequences that can be deduced from it. I show that Mill’s inductivism implies a methodology of scientific research in which deductive reasoning is just as important, if not more important, than inductive methods, so that the classical opposition between induction (...) and deduction is transformed into a complementarity. I then show how the concepts of natural law and causality emerge from these discussions, and examine how well the methods proposed by Mill are able to account for subsequent scientific discoveries. (shrink)

The history of the idea of tolerance is marked by a rift between its original meaning and its modern one. At first tolerance was understood as the effort made to put up with certain reprehensible acts or lapses with regard to society's values, since rules can never be respected at all times without life becoming unbearable. Conceived originally as a discretion on the part of authority, it progressively acquired the meaning of a “right to differ.” “The idea that a free (...) space must obligatorily be assured to each member of the community,” writes Ghislain Waterlot, “is a relatively new idea that is fundamentally very modern.”. (shrink)

Des magasins Disney aux boutiques de musées, les produits dérivés sont désormais incontournables. En réutilisant une grande variété de formes et de volumes, ces phénomènes marketing semblent se faire l’écho d’une situation culturelle particulière pour laquelle un personnage de bande dessinée et un tableau de maître peuvent être imprimés sur un mug ou un carnet sans aucune distinction. Malgré ces goûts éclectiques, les produits dérivés semblent dessiner un savoir-faire spécifique, motivé à première vue par des raisons commerciales. Quelle est l’histoire (...) des produits dérivés et comment pouvons-nous les définir? En regardant les pratiques des concepteurs de produits dérivés et en les replaçant dans leurs contextes de vente, nous comprenons que la reproduction n’est pas la seule raison de leur succès. Une motivation décorative fait également partie intégrante de leur nature. Cet aspect des produits dérivés, qui appartient plus au champ esthétique qu’économique, nous offre des informations sur la place des arts appliqués dans notre société et sur leur traduction par le capitalisme contemporain. (shrink)

Le rule of law et l’ordre public sont deux composantes essentielles du vivre ensemble dans la société britannique. La présente étude a pour objet de revenir sur la conception de ces deux notions qui sont de plus en plus en tension dans un contexte où les impératifs d’ordre public semblent supplanter les présupposés libéraux qui fondent le rule of law.

Cet article prend au sérieux le motif kantien d’un commencement de la connaissance avec (c’est-à-dire comme) l’expérience. Il rappelle que si l’expérience commence, il en va de même de ses conditions a priori : elles sont acquises originairement?; l’ a priori logique est produit de façon épigénétique. Le sens structurel et fonctionnel de ces conditions implique qu’elles ne précèdent pas leur performance : elles ne sont rien avant d’advenir et ne sont qu’à l’œuvre (événementialité). On interroge alors le sens temporel (...) de cet a priori voué à commencer : ni plastique, ni éternel, ni daté, le transcendantal advient comme le contemporain de toute expérience possible, et donc de tous ses objets. Certaines objections réalistes récemment adressées au transcendantalisme sont ainsi discutées. (shrink)

En 1743-1744, Jean-Jacques Rousseau servit comme secrétaire de l’ambassadeur de France à Venise. Le récit qu’il donne de ce séjour dans les Confessions mentionne les « célèbres amusements de cette ville », mais ces descriptions ne doivent pas cacher l’essentiel : « on était en guerre ». De son bureau de la Sérénissime République, Rousseau perçoit les échos des batailles et des négociations de la Guerre de Succession d’Autriche. Touchant aux questions des formes de gouvernement et des relations internationales, les (...) Dépêches de Venise peuvent se lire comme une initiation à l’art politique. (shrink)

»Attachments« do not belong to the vocabulary of action. Incommensurable and situational, they are at once constraining and indeterminate, deployed in bonds that all do something, but among which none is independent for itself. Instead of distinguishing clearly between dependent and determining things, the paper passes to a less trenchant but infinitely more productive approach to distributed action, conceived as a (make [someone] do [something]) disseminated in networks. The essential, then, is not to liberate oneself from the attachments, but to (...) sort the good ones from the bad, by leaning not on grand overarching principles but on the immanent justice in things. But how can we judge the quality of an »attachment«? Drawing on cases of sportsmen, drug addicts, and music lovers, this contribution aims to clarify what an »attached« morality could look like, a morality which would be made of the fabric of uncircumventable ties. (shrink)