INTRODUCTION Beyond Dissociations Reassembling the mind-brain after all? Yves Rossetti Antti Revonsuo "Comme des banes de poissons de meme espece, ...

This article reviews experimental evidence for a specific sensorimotor function which can be dissociated from higher level representations of space. It attempts to delineate this function on the basis of results obtained by psychophysical experiments performed with brain damaged and healthy subjects. Eye and hand movement control exhibit automatic features, such that they are incompatible with conscious control. In addition, they rely on a reference frame different from the one used by conscious perception. Neuropsychological cases provide a strong support for (...) this specific motor representation of space, which can be spared in patients with lesions of primary sensory systems who have lost conscious perception of visual, tactile or proprioceptive stimuli. Observation of these patients also showed that their motor behavior can be ''attracted'' by a goal only under specific conditions, that is, when the response is immediate and when no cognitive representation of this goal is elaborated at the same time. Beyond the issue of the dissociation between an implicit motor representation and more cognitive processing of spatial information, the issue of the interaction between these two systems is thus a matter of interest. It is suggested that the conscious, cognitive representation of a stimulus can contaminate or override the short-lived motor representation, but no reciprocal influence seem to occur. The interaction observed in patients can also be investigated in normals. The literature provides examples of interaction between sensorimotor and cognitive framing of space, which confirm that immediate action is not mediated by the same system as delayed action, and that elaborating a categorial representation of the action goal prevents the expression of the short-lived sensorimotor representation. It is concluded that action can be controlled by a sensory system which is specialized for on-line processing of relevant goal characteristics. The temporal constraints of this system are such that it can affect the action before a full sensory analysis of this goal has been completed. The performance obtained on the basis of this spatial sensory processing suggests that short-lived motor representations may rather be considered as real ''presentation'' of the action world, which share its metric properties. (shrink)

The present paper makes the following points. The summary given in Sextus Emp. Math. VII is of much greater value than usually acknowledged, since it preserves several key elements of Gorgias’ communicational strategy. A sketchy trilemma is available in the opening sentence of Philolaos as well as in a passage of Plato’s Parmenides. This is evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the very first known trilemma was devised by Gorgias and not by Sextus himself or Aenesidemus. Not unlike Zeno, (...) Gorgias enjoyed to be neither serious nor joking, but remained somewhat halfway. This point is seldom acknowledged, though it is crucial in order to understand that he pretends to claim, but his claims do not amount to any points of doctrine. That he remains halfway should not prevent us from appreciating some of his ideas, but, at the same time, we should not expect full intellectual adhesion to what he tells us. Besides, something similar occurs in most of Plato’s dialogues.. Gorgias owes a lot to Melissus. (shrink)

Walter Kohan has recently observed that Socrates does not seem partic­ularly interested in the opinions of his interlocutors. Consequently, the philosopher is not really involved in a peer to peer relation with them, but rather embarks upon the task of annihilating their ideas. With the situation being as it is, the image of Socrates as a champion of dialogue begins to wobble. While the present paper aims to discuss these claims, a number of issues needs to be accounted for. First (...) of all, the Socratic dialogue does begin in a characteristically symmetrical way, but it becomes more and more asymmetric as the elenchos begins to appear. This is due to the fact the elenchos makes the interlocutors defensive, whereas Socrates can attack freely. Given that, Kohan’s claims seem justified and enlightening, but they should not be regarded as conclusive, since one must neither forget nor undervalue how innovative it was to replace monologue speeches with one-to-one dialogues which offered the opportunity of being involved in unforeseeable conversations. (shrink)

Philosophy is often taken to be something that is always possible, so that everyone is fully entitled sketching a ‘philosophy’ of his/her own. Nevertheless, it is widely assumed that philosophy began in Miletus with Thales. But it is equally well known that the Presocratics remained unaware of being philosophers, and therefore could not even have wanted to be identified that way. These three points are not mutually compatible. So, what lies behind them? What is escaping our attention when we state (...) them? Probably an event in Plato’s life that has too often gone unnoticed: the key role he played in giving form and substance to philosophy, and in getting it to take root once and for all. Failure to acknowledge how, when, and on whose initiative philosophy came to occupy a very important place in Western culture and education for two and a half millennia; not including a note on this process in biographies of Plato; and overlooking another key event that probably occurred about 350-45 BC - these are just some of the unwelcome effects linked to the usual silence about the period in which philosophy took form. (shrink)

There was probably a large number of logoi sokratikoi at the beginning of the IVth century B. C. The discovery of this phenomenon raises the problem of which factors rendered possible the birth, development and success of this literature. In this paper, these factors are sought in certain practices that were developed within the Socratic circle when Socrates himself was still alive.

Thales the Measurer offers a comprehensive and iconoclastic account of Thales of Miletus, considering the full extent of our evidence to build a new picture of his intellectual interests and activity. Thales is most commonly associated with the claim that 'everything is water', but closer examination of the evidence that we have suggests that he could not have said anything of the sort. His real interests, and his real innovations, lay in challenges of quantitative measurement, especially measurements related to the (...) movement of the sun. In this he had no predecessors - and, for centuries to follow, no real successors either. This book is of interest for scholars in the history of philosophy, science, and life sciences. It is aimed especially at researchers in the field, but is also accessible to students and a more general readership. (shrink)

The originality of Glenberg's theoretical account lies in the claim that memory works in the service of physical interaction with the three-dimensional world. Little consideration is given, however, to the role of memory in action. We present and discuss data on spatial memory for action. These empirical data constitute the first step of reasoning about the link between memory and action, and allow several aspects of Glenberg's theory to be tested.

This innovative aid to the study of Italian was published in 1867 by Maria Francesca Rossetti, the older sister of Dante Gabriel, William Michael and Christina. A scholar and teacher of Italian, she was later to publish A Shadow of Dante, a guide to the Divine Comedy, also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection. Her purpose here, as she explains in her preface, is to demonstrate idiomatic Italian usage by providing short passages translated very literally into English, so that (...) the 'unnatural' English phraseology demonstrates the correct Italian construction. The passages are to be translated back into Italian, with the help of some supplied vocabulary and an opening chapter which elucidates some of the more difficult aspects of Italian grammar, often by comparing Italian with French usage. The technique had long been used for Latin and Greek prose composition, but was innovatory for modern languages. (shrink)

La structure qui sous-tend la composition du poème de Parménide est très élaborée, il est aisé de s’en rendre compte. La déesse y parle des ensei­gnements qu’elle s’apprête à délivrer et, dans les fragments 10 et 11, elle offre un panorama détaillé de tout un ensemble de questions qu’elle va traiter aussitôt après. Un certain nombre d’éléments métatextuels se trouvent de cette façon insérés dans le texte écrit au premier degré et en interrompent le cours. D’autres passages de texte à (...) métatexte (et vice versa) se rencontrent d’ailleurs dans les fragments, mettant ainsi en évidence de frappantes discontinuités et des change­ments significatifs dans le type de saturation provoqué dans l’auditoire. Tout cela fait comprendre que les enseignements délivrés dans le poème sont immer­gés dans une infrastructure beaucoup plus « construite » et « étudiée », beaucoup plus consciente que celle qui apparaît dans tant d’autres textes de la même épo­que ou antérieurs. D’où l’importance d’une recherche spécifiquement consacrée à la composition du poème dans son ensemble. La formule rassurante de B10.1, « tu apprendras » (εἴσῃ), prend dans cette recherche une importance particulière, parce qu’elle démontre que Parménide lui-même a donné une valeur explicitement positive à ce qui, jusque peu aupara­vant, faisait l’objet de jugements fortement négatifs. Cette incohérence n’est donc pas une conjecture de notre part, mais quelque chose dont Parménide ne peut pas ne pas s’être rendu compte, ce qui signifie vraisemblablement que la seconde partie du poème expose des connaissances auxquelles il était parvenu dans une « phase précritique » de sa recherche. Sinon, à quelle autre explication pourrait-on penser? (shrink)

Le présent défi pour l’Église, c’est à la fois celui de la mondialisation et d’un pluralisme religieux croissant, qu’il s’agisse des grandes religions ou des nouvelles religiosités. Mais elle doit affronter aussi un indifférentisme religieux qui peut être l’envers d’un combat passionné pour l’homme. Face à ces défis, il faut tenir compte d’un nouveau paradigme théologique, celui d’un pluralisme religieux de principe qui s’interroge sur la signification de la pluralité des religions à l’intérieur du dessein de Dieu. Ce nouveau paradigme (...) nous invite à instaurer un nouveau rapport à la vérité en théologie. Et c’est en allant jusqu’au bout du paradoxe christologique que l’on peut désigner le christianisme comme une religion essentiellement dialogale. Comme l’œcuménisme, le dialogue interreligieux doit être une dimension de toute la théologie. La théologie des religions tend alors à devenir une théologie interreligieuse qui manifeste la fécondation mutuelle des religions dans notre discours sur Dieu et sur le salut de l’homme. (shrink)

La publication du Journal du Concile de l’ambassadeur P. Poswick est l’occasion de rappeler quelques questions majeures de Vatican II dans le traitement desquelles trois évêques belges se sont particulièrement illustrés. Ce rapide parcours permet de dépasser les oppositions émises récemment à propos du Concile entre « l’événement et le texte » de même qu’entre « la discontinuité et la continuité ». On constate en effet que le témoignage des acteurs est indispensable pour la compréhension des textes et que les (...) avancées du Concile permettent une meilleure compréhension de la tradition. (shrink)

Socrate, on le sait, est une épine dans le pied de l’exégète, qui court toujours le risque de le banaliser ou – pire encore – de le remodeler à sa guise, jusqu’à en faire un Socrate « de complaisance ». Il est devenu difficile de produire un dis­cours sérieux sur le compte d’un personnage aussi insaisissable. En effet, bien que les recherches se poursuivent à son sujet, nous nous trouvons depuis des décennies dans une situation persistante (et par là même (...) fastidieuse) de stase vis-à-vis de no... (shrink)

It is possible to prove a real link between Machiavelli's pessimisitic vision of man and Christian Tradition on sin only through the analysis of two literary Texts, the Capitolo dell'Ambizione and the Esortazione alla penitenza. The Essay offers an historical inquiry on the philosophical-theological background of the Florentine thinker, focusing his Christian inheritance and meanwhile his peculiar secularizing interpretation.