La question de la religion - de son essence, de sa fonction, de son origine - a été centrale dans la sociologie et l'anthropologie classiques. Pour la tirer des impasses et de la stagnation où elle est reléguée de nos jours, Camille Tarot propose ici un bilan critique des œuvres des meilleurs comparatistes, à travers leurs théories si contradictoires de la religion. Huit auteurs principaux sont soumis à examen : Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Mircéa Eliade, Georges Dumézil, Claude (...) Lévi-Strauss, René Girard, Pierre Bourdieu et Marcel Gauchet. L'important en la matière est d'abord d'esquiver les faux irénismes comme les querelles stériles ou haineuses, pour confronter les doctrines en profondeur et systématiquement. Ensuite, de déceler l'impensé et les refoulements que produit chaque cadre théorique, pour proposer le modèle ou l'idéal-type de la religion qui paraît le mieux fondé. Au fil de cet examen, il apparaît que l'essence du fait religieux est à rechercher à l'intersection du symbolique et du sacré, à comprendre à partir des fondations d'Emile Durkheim et de Marcel Mauss, complétées par les apports de René Girard. La possible fécondité du modèle qui se dégage ainsi s'atteste par sa capacité à relire les sources et à renouveler en profondeur les vieux problèmes des fonctions de la religion, qui n'avaient guère avancé depuis Emile Durkheim. (shrink)

Le mouvement laïque du Moyen Age nous est apparu, en gros, comme un phénomène chrétien, parce qu'inhérent à la structure même du christianisme médiéval. Georges de Lagarde le définit comme la revendication par les princes chrétiens d'attributions exercées par les autorités ecclésiastiques, tant dans l'ordre spirituel que dans l'ordre temporel. Il reflète un état social caractéristique du Moyen Age chrétien. D'une part, en effet, les nations chrétiennes appartiennent à une même et unique chrétienté où la distinction entre le citoyen (...) et le chrétien n'a de conséquences pratiques que pour d'infimes minorités juives ou hérétiques vivant en marge de la communauté. D'autre part, l'autorité civile se présente plus volontiers comme une participation à la plénitude de puissance du pape, au temporel comme spirituel, que comme une institution de droit naturel. (shrink)

Cette étude a un double objectif: 10 dégager les grandes lignes de l'ouvrage de Georges de Lagarde, La Naissance de l'Esprit laïque au Moyen Age, tout spécialement du volume V, Guillaume d'Ockham, Critique des structures ecclésiales; 20 retracer les origines de la doctrine actuelle de la laïcité de l'État et ses incidences dans la Constitution dogmatique de l'Église. En un temps où l'Église catholique prend pleinement conscience d'elle-même et approfondit le message qu'elle doit transmettre au monde, l'histoire des manifestations (...) de l'esprit laïque, à une époque qui passe pour avoir réalisé mieux qu'aucune autre l'idéal de la chrétienté, mérite de retenir l'attention. Car cette histoire se prolonge jusqu'à nous. (shrink)

This article is an analysis of a collection of articles published by Gilles Deleuze in 1953 under the direction of Georges Canguilhem. This collection, which has been little read and commented upon, sheds light on the intellectual trajectory of its author by underlining the theoretical hesitations that were his. I show that Deleuze then outlined an ambitious “psycho-sociological” project that he never fully realized. To do this, I reconstitute the psychological and ethological subtext of the book by following his (...) sources; I thus bring to light real theoretical positions often unnoticed in his work (in particular with respect to Henri Bergson, Jakob von Uexküll, and gestaltpsychology). I then argue that the difficulties linked to the theory of perception lead Deleuze to turn away from this project in order to devote himself to more specifically ontological problems. However, I suggest that these difficulties persist throughout Deleuze's works, where notions such as “sign” and “semiotics” both cover and avoid specifically perceptual problems. (shrink)

De la vie sociale à la vie politique, de la psychiatrie à l'agriculture, la normalisation décide de la forme de la pomme, de la psyché et du monde à travers l'imposition de ses modèles et de ses normes. Ce faisant, elle dessine les contours de la marge et de l'anormalité, monde sublunaire et dégradé. Car si les normes, explicites ou tacites, forment et conforment les êtres, les choses et les mots, c'est toujours accompagnée de son contraire que la norme constitue (...) ses objets. La plupart du temps en effet, les normes s'ordonnent à la logique des oppositions binaires qui déclinent leurs valeurs antagonistes, à commencer par celles du normal et de l'anormal. Nous sommes ainsi constitués par des normes qui, infiltrant tout, commandent notre être au monde, c'est-à-dire comment vivre, travailler, penser ou aimer pour participer à la normalisation générale, être normé, normatif et normal. Vagabondant à la marge, l'anomalie a ainsi très mauvaise réputation. Or, si l'anomalie n'est synonyme d'anormalité, voire de monstruosité que du fait d'une erreur étymologique, ce détournement du sens est le symptôme d'une provenance métaphysique plus profonde, selon laquelle hors des normes, théologiques, ontologiques ou logiques, il n'y a rien qui vaille. Il n'empêche que pour Georges Canguilhem, les anomalies biologiques peuvent correspondre à des mutations réussies, lesquelles instaurent alors une nouvelle normativité, tandis que pour Thomas S. Kuhn, les anomalies scientifiques (apparentées aux changements d'aspects étudiés par Ludwig Wittgenstein) sont à l'origine de réformes ou de révolutions. Avec Michel Foucault enfin, ce sont les anomalies littéraires, actes transgressifs, solitaires et précurseurs, qui anticipent le passage d'une épistèmê à une autre. Pluridisciplinaire, indisciplinée, à l'écart des normes mais aussi entre le normal et l'anormal, la puissance de transformation qui caractérise l'anomalie est donc telle qu'il devenait nécessaire et urgent de forger le concept d'anomalie créatrice. S'il est évident qu'il existe des anomalies esthétiques créatrices, cet ouvrage a ici pris un autre point de départ, cherchant à mettre au jour mais aussi à libérer et activer un concept dont on puisse, tôt ou tard, faire également un usage éthique et politique. (shrink)

SUMMARYHistorians of historiography have recently adopted the language of ‘epistemic virtues’ to refer to character traits believed to be conducive to good historical scholarship. While ‘epistemic virtues’ is a modern philosophical concept, virtues such as ‘objectivity’, ‘meticulousness’ and ‘carefulness’ historically also served as actors' categories. Especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, historians frequently used virtue language to describe what it took to be a ‘good’, ‘reliable’ or ‘professional’ scholar. Based on three European case studies—the German historian Georg (...) Waitz, his French pupil Gabriel Monod and the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne —this article argues that such virtues cannot neatly be classified as ‘epistemic’ ones. For what is characteristic about virtue language in historical scholarship around 1900 is an overlap or entanglement of epistemic, moral and political connotations. The virtues embodied by, or attributed to, Waitz, Monod and Pirenne were almost invariably aimed at epistemic, moral and political goods at once, though not always to the same degrees. Consequently, if ‘epistemic virtues’ is going to be a helpful category, it must not be interpreted in a strong sense, but in a weak one. (shrink)

Cet article est consacré aux arguments naturalistes mobilisés par Henry Sidgwick et par George Edward Moore dans l'analyse de l'utilité des règles morales ordinaires. Les hypothèses évolutionnistes d'arrière-plan et l'observation des conditions naturelles des interactions humaines typiques jouent un rôle décisif dans ce contexte, de même que l'attention spécifique aux limitations cognitives dans l'espèce humaine. Sur certains points, des analyses décisionnelles et économiques plus récentes viennent préciser des intuitions remarquables de ces auteurs et donnent un aperçu des rapports qui se (...) nouent entre des arguments philosophiques classiques et les approches économiques de l'information et de la décision. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dieu comme soi-même: connaissance de soi et connaissance de Dieu selon Thomas d’Aquin: l’herméneutique d’Ambroise Gardeil by Camille de BelloyThomas M. Osborne Jr.Dieu comme soi-même: connaissance de soi et connaissance de Dieu selon Thomas d’Aquin: l’herméneutique d’Ambroise Gardeil. By Camille de Belloy, O.P. Paris: Vrin, 2014. Pp. 297. €32.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-2-7116-2605-2.This book is a discussion of La Structure de l’âme et l’expérience mystique (1927) by (...) Ambroise Gardeil (1859–1931). In this two-volume work of mystical theology, Gardeil explains the material cause of the experiential knowledge that comes from the gift of wisdom, which is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. La Structure is the third book in a trilogy that focuses on the supernatural knowledge of God, beginning with apologetics in La Crédibilité et l’apologétique (1st ed. 1908), and continuing with the nature of revelation in Le Donné révélé et la théologie (1st ed. 1910). In La Structure, Gardeil develops the thesis that there is an analogy between experiential self-knowledge and the mystical experiential knowledge of God. In the course of his inquiry, Gardeil touches upon philosophical and theological problems concerning self-knowledge, intentionality, the structure of the mind (mens), God’s indwelling in the souls of the just, and the relationship between faith and the gift of wisdom. De Belloy’s new volume is on Gardeil’s presentation of this analogy and its reception by his contemporaries.De Belloy considers largely the issues that surround self-knowledge, the structure of the soul, and mystical experience. He draws together material from Gardeil’s own sources, Gardeil’s contemporaries, and subsequent Thomistic scholarship. He sheds light on the issues themselves, the historical context, and different hermeneutical strategies in Thomism. According to De Belloy, this twentieth-century Thomistic and largely Dominican discussion is important for contemporary philosophers and theologians. To shed light on the context, De Belloy considers a lengthy three-part “Examen de conscience” in Revue Thomiste (1928–29), in which Gardeil responded to published and unpublished comments by his fellow Dominicans Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange (a former student), Marie-Dominique Roland-Gosselin (Le Saulchoir), and Albino González Menéndez-Reigada, as well as a young student, Jean Daujat. De Belloy remarks that Maritain’s discussion of Gardeil in The Degrees of Knowledge to some extent attempts to harmonize the substance of Gardeil’s work with Garrigou-Lagrange’s critical comments. De Belloy emphasizes the interaction between Gardeil and Roland-Gosselin, and at the end of his volume, includes their previously unpublished correspondence.Although De Belloy often notes the difficulty of reading Gardeil’s neo-Scholastic prose, it seems to me that the non-native French reader will find Gardeil more accessible than De Belloy, especially when the latter draws on writers such as Henri Bergson and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Moreover, De Belloy’s discussion is easier to follow if one has already read and is familiar with the four parts of Gardeil’s La Structure. In part 1, Gardeil addresses the structure of mind or spirit (mens), and in particular considers Augustine’s [End Page 472] three main, threefold divisions of the soul in De Trinitate (mens, notitia, amor; memoria [sui], intelligentia, voluntas; memoria [Dei], intelligentia, amor) and Aquinas’s own interpretation and appropriation of these divisions. In part 2, Gardeil describes the way in which sanctifying grace, a created quality that is distinct from the infused virtues, causes the soul’s conformity to God’s essence. In part 3, he discusses God’s presence within the souls of the just and agrees with previous Thomists that God is especially present to the just as an object of faith and love. In part 4, he applies the previous discussion to the structure of mystical knowledge. This last part is the culmination of the entire work, as it addresses the analogy between self-knowledge and the knowledge of God that was defended by earlier Dominican Thomists such as John of St. Thomas (1589–1644) and Thomas de Vallgornera (c. 1595–1665).Part... (shrink)

As the work of thinkers such as Michel Foucault, François Jacob, Louis Althusser, and Pierre Bourdieu demonstrates, Georges Canguilhem has exerted tremendous influence on the philosophy of science and French philosophy more generally. In Knowledge of Life, a book that spans twenty years of his essays and lectures, Canguilhem offers a series of epistemological histories that seek to establish and clarify the stakes, ambiguities, and emergence of philosophical and biological concepts that defined the rise of modern biology. How do (...) transformations in biology and modern medicine shape conceptions of life? How do philosophical concepts feed into biological ideas and experimental practices, and how are they themselves transformed? How does knowledge "undo the experience of life so as to help man remake what life has made without him, in him or outside of him?" Knowledge of Life is Canguilhem's effort to explain how the movements of knowledge and life come to rest upon each other. Published at the dawn of the genetic revolution and still pertinent today, the book tackles the history of cell theory, the conceptual moves toward and away from mechanical understandings of the organism, the persistence of vitalism, and the nature of normality in science and its objects. (shrink)

His is a journey marked by the questioning of experience itself, until what is reached is sovereign laughter, non-knowledge, and a Presence in no way distinct from Absence, where "The mind moves in a strange world where anguish and ecstasy ...

Elsewhere I have argued that standard theories of linguistic competence are committed to taking seriously talk of “representations of” standard linguistic entities (“SLEs”), such as NPs, VPs, morphemes, phonemes, syntactic and phonetic features. However, it is very doubtful there are tokens of these “things” in space and time. Moreover, even if were, their existence would be completely inessential to the needs of either communication or serious linguistic theory. Their existence is an illusion: an extremely stable perceptual state we regularly enter (...) as a result of being stimulated by the wave forms we regularly produce when we execute our intentions to utter such tokens (a view I call “Folieism”). In his Ignorance of Language, Michael Devitt objects to this view, arguing that, “On Rey’s view, communication seems to rest on miraculous guesses.” I argue here that my view is not prey to his objections, and actually affords a scientifically more plausible view than his “empiricist” alternative. Specifically, I reply to his objections that my view couldn’t explain the conventionality of language and success of communication (§2.1), that I am faced with intractable difficulties surrounding the identity of intentional inexistents (§2.2), and that, contrary to my view, SLEs can be relationally defined (§2.3). Not only can Folieism survive Devitt’s objections, but (§3) it also provides a more satisfactory account of the role of linguistic intuitions than the “empirical” account on which he insists. (shrink)

Georges Rey presents a much-needed philosophical defense of Noam Chomsky's famous view of human language, as an internal, innate computational system. But he also offers a critical examination of problematic developments of this view, to do with innateness, ontology, intentionality, and other issues of interdisciplinary interest.

I live — if I choose to see things this way- — among a curious race that sees earth, its chance events and the vast interconnectedness of animals, mammals, ...

This paper offers a new concept of the firm that aims at balancing the corporate economic, social, and environmental responsibilities and goes beyond the stakeholder approach. It intends to provide a conceptual and operationalizable basis to fairly assess corporate conduct from both inside and outside the companies. To a large extent these different responsibilities may overlap and reinforce each other. However, if they conflict, they should be clearly evaluated for their own sake and in terms of wealth creation. Only then (...) can a balanced approach be realized. Section 1 briefly discusses some general aspects of the relationship between concepts and measurement. In Section 2, a concept of the firm is developed that is based on the notion of responsibility and balances economic, social and environmental responsibilities. According to these concepts, different ways of measuring corporate planning and performance are examined in Section 3, followed up by a summary and conclusions. (shrink)

The author of this major study compares the significantly different approaches to business ethics on both sides of the Atlantic and considers what they have to learn from each other. He has considerable experience of business ethics in both Europe and North America, having taught and researched the subject at the University of St Gallen in his native Switzerland before his appointment as Professor of International Business Ethics in the College of Business Administration, University of Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA. (...) Professor Enderle was also the founding Honorary Treasurer of the European Business Ethics Network and is an Associate Editor of this Review. (shrink)

" Clearly introduced and comprehensively annotated by the editors, this book provides the best single-volume coverage of Bataille's work available.

The organizational justice literature and the family business literature have developed independently, which limits our understanding of fairness and justice in the family business workplace. So far, the concepts of justice and fairness have been used interchangeably in the family business literature, as if objective measures that aim to increase justice in the workplace will automatically translate into fairness perceptions among family business employees. By integrating the organizational justice literature and the family business literature, we first differentiate between the two (...) concepts of justice and fairness and argue that a utilitarian conceptualization of justice may come into direct conflict with fairness perceptions in the family business workplace. Second, we shed light on the importance of incorporating socioemotional goals, particularly those that reveal a bright side of socioemotional wealth, into rules and regulations designed to increase justice in the workplace, which, we argue, contributes to increasing fairness perceptions among employees and to building and maintaining an ethical family business workplace. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed at the end of the paper. (shrink)

Background: Caring for terminally ill patients is a meaningful task, however the patient’s suffering can be a considerable burden and cause of frustration.Objectives: The aim of this study is to describe the experiences of general practitioners in The Netherlands in dealing with a request for euthanasia from a terminally ill patient.Methods: The data, collected through in-depth interviews, were analysed according to the constant comparative method.Results: Having to face a request for euthanasia when attempting to relieve a patient’s suffering was described (...) as a very demanding experience that GPs generally would like to avoid. Nearly half of the GPs strive to avoid euthanasia or physician assisted suicide because it was against their own personal values or because it was emotional burdening to be confronted with this issue. They explained that by being directed on promoting a peaceful dying process, or the quality of end-of-life of a patient by caring and supporting the patient and the relatives it was mainly possible to shorten patient’s suffering without “intentionally hastening a patient’s death on his request”. The other GPs explained that as sometimes the suffering of a patient could not be lessened they were open to consider a patient’s request for euthanasia or physician assisted suicide. They underlined the importance of a careful decision-making process, based on finding a balance between the necessity to shorten the patient’s suffering through euthanasia and their personal values.Conclusion: Dealing with requests for euthanasia is very challenging for GPs, although they feel committed to alleviate a patient’s suffering and to promote a peaceful death. (shrink)

In the last 30 years, China has experienced an astounding economic development that calls for a differentiated understanding of this complex process of wealth creation. In the first section of this article, I present a new concept of wealth creation that goes beyond making money, maximizing profit and adding value and serves as a framework to address the article's main topic.In the second section, I investigate in what ways and to what extent this new concept might apply to China's economic (...) reform and development, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. In the third section, I attempt to draw a couple of lessons for development ethics in general. (shrink)

If managerial leadership means deciding responsibly in a complex situation, the ethical dimension of leadership — besides its analytical and instrumental aspects — has to be clarified. I present and discuss several essential aspects of managerial ethical leadership: (a) some major presuppositions (the concepts of leadership and responsibility), (b) three normative-ethical tasks of the activity of leadership (perceiving, interpreting and creating reality — being responsible for the effect of one's decisions on the human beings concerned — being responsible for the (...) implementation of corporate goals) and (c) some claims on the leader as a subject responsible for his or her own activities. I shall conclude by adding some reflections on the limits of managerial ethical leadership. (shrink)

“Intentional content,” as I understand it, is whatever serves as the object of “propositional” attitude verbs, such as “think,” “judge,” “represent,” “prefer” (whether or not these objects are “propositions”). These verbs are standardly used to pick out the intentional states invoked to explain the states and behavior of people and many animals. I shall take the “normativity of the intentional,” or “Normativism,” to be the claim that any adequate theory of intentional states involves considerations of value not essentially involved in (...) the natural sciences. Thus, according to Normativism, whether or not someone thinks that fish sleep, or even can represent fish at all, depends upon making a judgment about the person’s goodness or rationality, of a sort that would not be involved in merely determining whether or not fish in fact sleep. (shrink)

Fodor and LePore's attack on conceptual role semantics relies on Quine's attack on the traditional analytic/synthetic and a priori/a posteriori distinctions, which in turn consists of four arguments: an attack on truth by convention; an appeal to revisability; a claim of confirmation holism; and a charge of explanatory vacuity. Once the different merits of these arguments are sorted out, their proper target can be seen to be not the Traditional Distinctions, but an implicit assumption about their superficial availability that we (...) have abundant reason to reject. Once we reject it, we can see how issues of the absorbtion of conventions, the revisability of belief, and confirmation holism are compatible with the Traditional Distinctions, and that Quine's discussion only serves to camouflage the question of whether some confirmation relations are constitutive of meaning and knowable a priori. (shrink)

In her recent (2009) book, The Origins of Concepts, Susan Carey argues that what she calls ‘Quinean Bootstrapping’ and processes of analogy in children show that the expressive power of a mind can be increased in ways that refute Jerry Fodor's (1975, 2008) ‘Mad Dog’ view that all concepts are innate. I argue that it is doubtful any evidence about the manifestation of concepts in children will bear upon the logico-semantic issues of expressive power. Analogy and bootstrapping may be ways (...) to bring about the former, but only by presupposing the very expressive powers Carey is claiming they explain. Analogies must be understood, and bootstrapping involves confirmation of hypotheses already expressible; otherwise they can't select among an infinitude of hypotheses compatible with the finite data the child has encountered, a fact rendered vivid by Goodman's ‘grue’ paradox and Chomsky's poverty of stimulus argument. The problems have special application to minds, since there is no reason to expect a child's concepts to be ‘projectible’ or to correspond to mind-independent natural kinds. I conclude with an ecumenical view that concepts are reasonably regarded as both innate and often learned, and that what is learned can in fact increase what really concerns Carey, the functioning psychological expressive power of the child, even if it leaves untouched what concerns Fodor, the semantic expressive power. Less ecumenically: maybe Fodor (2008) miscast the debate, and the real issue that bothers people concerns not nativism, but an issue on which Carey and Fodor surprisingly agree, his conceptual Atomism, or the view that all mono-morphemic concepts are primitive and unanalyzable. The issue deserves further discussion independently of Mad-doggery. (shrink)

Ce livre s'adresse à tous les " hommes et femmes de bonne volonté " à la recherche de la vérité. La première partie relate les réflexions que portent sur leur discipline les scientifiques tout au long du XXe siècle avec leur particularité voire leur opposition. C'est ainsi que Jacques Monod base sa réflexion sur le hasard conçu comme " une liberté absolue niais aveugle ", François Jacob sur le " jeu des possibles ", Alfred Kastler sur " une finalité objective (...) " et Trinh Xuan Thuan sur " les Lois de l'Univers avec des possibilités d'évolution ". Quant à Georges Charpack dans : " Soyez savants, soyez prophètes " il affirme ; " Ce qui reste la clef du problème que la science pose à la philosophie se trouve dans les lois de l'univers et dans l'interprétation de leur caractère. Nous n'avons rien trouvé qui réponde vraiment à nos désirs. Mais la question reste posée, non pas comme un défi aux philosophes, mais comme une requête instante posée à leur réflexion ". C'est à ce défi que cet ouvrage essaie de répondre, remettant en question certains concepts philosophiques pour accéder à une néo-métaphysique réclamée par les scientifiques. Par une étude synthétique du passage du polythéisme au monothéisme jusqu'au seuil de la Révélation Chrétienne, l'auteur développe le concept original néo-métaphysique de " l'Etre et de l'étant " appliqué à l'Univers. Ce concept permet une avancée décisive dans la recherche de la Vérité sur Dieu, faisant apparaître une corrélation inédite avec le prologue de l'Evangile de Saint Jean. (shrink)

This essay critiques the standard characterization of mindfulness as present-centred non-judgmental awareness, arguing that this account misses some of the central features of mindfulness as described by classical Buddhist accounts, which present mindfulness as being relevant to the past as well as to the present. I show that for these sources the central feature of mindfulness is not its present focus but its capacity to hold its object and thus allow for sustained attention, regardless of whether the object is present (...) or not. I further show that for these sources mindfulness can be explicitly evaluative, thus demonstrating the degree to which classical Buddhist accounts differ from the modern description of mindfulness as non-judgmental. I conclude that although this modern description may be useful as an operational definition intended for practical instruction, it does not provide an adequate basis for a theoretical analysis of mindfulness, for it fails to emphasize its retentive nature to privilege its alleged nonconceptuality. (shrink)

An important issue for visual argumentation is its relationship to propositions, since it has been argued that, in order to be arguments, images should be propositional. The first part of the paper will approach this debate from a theoretical perspective. After quickly surveying the field on the issue, I will address the relationship between images and propositions. Three specific questions will be examined: can propositions accurately account for the way images express arguments?; are verbal propositions necessary to reconstruct arguments that (...) images alone cannot convey, due to their lacking linguistic tools?; are images essentially non-propositional because they don’t have truth-value? The second part of the paper will include a detailed analysis of two posters. From these analyses, I will ultimately conclude that some images can display a visual argument without necessarily being propositional. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION This book is a systematic study of the problem of perception and knowledge. I intend to analyze the problem, to expound and criticize the most ...

This volume of collected papers, with the accompanying essays by the editors, is the definitive source book for the work of this important experimental psychologist. Originally published in 1991, it offered previously inaccessible essays by Albert Michotte on phenomenal causality, phenomenal permanence, phenomenal reality, and perception and cognition. Within these four sections are the most significant and representative of the Belgian psychologist's research in the area of experimental phenomenology. Extremely insightful introductions by the editors are included that place the essays (...) in context. Michotte's ideas have played an important role in much research on the development of perception, and his work on social perception continues to be influential in social psychology. The book also includes some lesser-known aspects of his work that are equally important; for example, a remarkable set of articles on pictorial analysis. (shrink)