This article presents a social learning perspective as a means to analyze and facilitate collective decision making and action in managed resource systems such as platforms. First, the social learning perspective is developed in terms of a normative and analytical framework. The normative framework entails three value principles, namely, systems thinking, experimentation, and communicative rationality. The analytical framework is built up around the following questions: who learns, what is learned, why it is learned, and how. Next, this perspective is used (...) to analyze two managed resource systems: Fishery management in Lake Aheme, Benin and water resources management in Gelderland, The Netherlands. To assess platform performance in resource use negotiation, emerging lessons from the case studies are combined with propositions concerning membership of platforms, accessibility of platform meetings, skills and relations of platform members, realization of platforms, and third party facilitation of platform activities. (shrink)

Cognitive niche construction is the process whereby organisms create and maintain cause–effect models of their niche as guides for fitness influencing behavior. Extended mind theory claims that cognitive processes extend beyond the brain to include predictable states of the world. Active inference and predictive processing in cognitive science assume that organisms embody predictive (i.e., generative) models of the world optimized by standard cognitive functions (e.g., perception, action, learning). This paper presents an active inference formulation that views cognitive niche construction as (...) a cognitive function aimed at optimizing organisms' generative models. We call that process of optimization extended active inference. (shrink)

Together, the code and inferential models of communication are often thought to range over all cases of communication. However, their prevailing versions seem unable to fully explain what I call underdeterminacy without ostension. The latter is constituted by communication where stimuli that are not (nor appear to be) produced with communicative or informative intentions nevertheless communicate information underdetermined by the relevant codes. Though the prevailing accounts of communication cannot fully explain how communication works in such cases, I suggest that some (...) version of the inferential model can—if we allow it to extend to non‐ostensive, non‐intentional behaviors. (shrink)

When we see or hear a spontaneous emotional expression, we usually immediately, effortlessly, and often correctly interpret it to mean happiness, sadness, or some other emotion as well as what this emotion is about. How do we do that? In this article, I evaluate how useful the concepts of natural meaning and probabilistic meaning are when it comes to explaining how we and other animals interpret emotional signs displayed without communicative intentions. I argue that Grice’s notion of natural meaning, because (...) it is a factive relation, is too restrictive for this purpose. I then present the notion of probabilistic meaning. The latter seems adequate for analyzing our ability to interpret non-communicative emotional signs, but it faces several difficulties when it comes to analyzing how we and other animals interpret emotional _signals_, i.e. signs that have the function to communicate emotional information. I present three of these difficulties. En passant, I suggest that a teleosemantic notion may be better suited for these challenges. (shrink)

We argue that political propaganda is a negative phenomenon, against a recent strain of philosophical theorizing that argues that political propaganda can sometimes be neutral or even positive. After an exploration of the sense and connotation of the word ‘propaganda’ in ordinary use and in the scholarly literature, we discuss Ross’s (2002) account of propaganda as an epistemically defective form of political communication. We claim that, with some refinements, it is an explanatorily useful analysis. We then assess two prominent attempts (...) that aim at classifying legitimate cases of public communication as cases of propaganda, namely Ross’s (2013) revision of her previous model, and Stanley’s (2015) influential account. We show that some of the cases in contention are problematic and that the arguments the authors offer for classifying other non-problematic cases as propaganda are inconclusive. We also argue that the idea of considering legitimate public communication as propaganda is unmotivated. (shrink)

La polémica Constant-Kant tuvo lugar cuando Inmanuel Kant replico directamente a una observación crítica formulada por Constant en su panfleto Des Réactions Politiques. El tema sobre el que se debatía era la existencia de un deber incondicionado de decir siempre y en cualquier situación la verdad. Frente a las tesis del imperativo universal moral de la verdad del filósofo de Koënisberg, Constant opone los ejemplos concretos de situaciones en las que decir la verdad puede equivaler a hacer (...) el mal. Gabriel Albiac no explica en el Estudio introductorio que precede a la edición de los textos completos de la querella, cuanto anticipan las tesis que aquí se debaten, los problemas que generará el totalitarismo y el terror en el mundo de las ideologías holistas. Pero más allá de las consecuencias que pueden deparar las reflexiones en este libro relativas al derecho a decir y exigir la verdad - que es un de los postulados de la sacralización de la teología operada a partir del Renacimiento y de la Ilustración-, la polémica Constant/ Kant oculta otro segundo debate sobre el valor de los principios, la forma de construirlos y su eficacia para regir y explicar la realidad que se demuestra de excepcional interés en un siglo como el XXI, desbordado por su incapacidad de comprender los hechos que todos los días ofrece un mundo empírico en continua efervescencia, debido a la carencia de un sistema de categorías de principio generalmente aceptados que pueda servir de referente para unificar la multiplicidad de lo singular. En esta polémica que surge entre, un gran filósofo consagrado, que no tuvo reparo en salir al quite de un argumento que consideraba digno de réplica, y un joven aventurero dotado de extraordinaria inteligencia que iba a demostrarse capaz de comprender el mundo en que iniciaba su singladura, están contenidos en ciernes los supuestos básicos de alguno de lo problemas centrales de nuestra difícil postmodernidad. (shrink)

The first English translation of the major political works of Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), one of the most important of the French political figures in the aftermath of the revolution of 1789, and a leading member of the liberal opposition to Napoleon and later to the restored Bourbon monarchy. The texts included in this volume are widely regarded as one of the classic formulations of modern liberal doctrine.

La terre est ronde.--La légalité et le droit.--L'ornière.--La cōte d'amour.--L'éternel bourgeois.--Les nations suisses.--L'étranger toléré.--La ligne de chance.

Bayesian approaches to legal reasoning propose causal models of the relation between evidence, the credibility of evidence, and ultimate hypotheses, or verdicts. They assume that legal reasoning is the process whereby one infers the posterior probability of a verdict based on observed evidence, or facts. In practice, legal reasoning does not operate quite that way. Legal reasoning is also an attempt at inferring applicable rules derived from legal precedents or statutes based on the facts at hand. To make such an (...) inference, legal reasoning follows syllogistic logic and first order transitivity. This paper proposes a Bayesian model of legal syllogistic reasoning that complements existing Bayesian models of legal reasoning using a Bayesian network whose variables correspond to legal precedents, statutes, and facts. We suggest that legal reasoning should be modelled as a process of finding the posterior probability of precedents and statutes based on available facts. (shrink)

Over the last 30 years, representationalist and dynamicist positions in the philosophy of cognitive science have argued over whether neurocognitive processes should be viewed as representational or not. Major scientific and technological developments over the years have furnished both parties with ever more sophisticated conceptual weaponry. In recent years, an enactive generalization of predictive processing – known as active inference – has been proposed as a unifying theory of brain functions. Since then, active inference has fueled both representationalist and dynamicist (...) campaigns. However, we believe that when diving into the formal details of active inference, one should be able to find a solution to the war; if not a peace treaty, surely an armistice of a sort. Based on an analysis of these formal details, this paper shows how both representationalist and dynamicist sensibilities can peacefully coexist within the new territory of active inference. (shrink)

In evolutionary biology, niche construction is sometimes described as a genuine evolutionary process whereby organisms, through their activities and regulatory mechanisms, modify their environment such as to steer their own evolutionary trajectory, and that of other species. There is ongoing debate, however, on the extent to which niche construction ought to be considered a bona fide evolutionary force, on a par with natural selection. Recent formulations of the variational free-energy principle as applied to the life sciences describe the properties of (...) living systems, and their selection in evolution, in terms of variational inference. We argue that niche construction can be described using a variational approach. We propose new arguments to support the niche construction perspective, and to extend the variational approach to niche construction to current perspectives in various scientific fields. (shrink)

A Christian Theologia. This chapter considers Abelard’s Theologia Christiana, his revision and development of the treatise condemned at Soissons. In this work, Abelard deepens his understanding of the Holy Spirit, and starts to consider ethical insights, as communicated by pagan philosophy. Written while Abelard was teaching at the oratory he founded in honor of the Paraclete, the work reflects new ideas in the theory of language, and contains in embryo many of the theological ideas he would develop in the 1130s. (...) The chapter also considers other writings, such as the Sic et Non, that Abelard composed during the 1120s, while teaching both philosophy and theology. (shrink)

Accusations of heresy. This chapter considers accusations of heresy made against Abelard by William of St Thierry and Bernard of Clairvaux in 1140/41. It considers how Abelard sought to respond to accusations that he was imprecise in his arguments by refining the text of the Theologia ‘Scholarium’. He felt that these accusations were based on an inaccurate understanding of his arguments. It examines the opinions of Abelard’s contemporaries and the polarized political circumstances that led up to the confrontation between Bernard (...) and Abelard at the Council of Sens in 1141. (shrink)

Challenging Tradition: the Dialectica. This chapter examines Abelard’s Dialectica, his first major treatise on dialectic. The treatise is structured around an analysis both of the major parts of speech, categories and of different kinds of argument, categorical and hypothetical. It argues that a driving theme is Abelard’s desire to counter the philosophically realist arguments presented by William of Champeaux.

Ethics, Sin, and Redemption. This chapter considers Abelard’s reflection on ethical issues in his Collationes, couched in the form of a debate among a philosopher and a Jew and a Christian about the relationship between pagan ethics and Christian faith. It argues that arguments put by the philosopher reflect many of the concerns put by Heloise, to which Abelard sought to find a Christian response. It then looks at Abelard’s commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and Expositio in (...) Hexameron, written at the request of Heloise, in terms of Abelard’s evolving interest in the work of both creation and redemption. (shrink)

Faith, Sacraments and Charity. This chapter considers Abelard’s lectures or sententie on faith, sacraments and charity in which he formulated a synthetic vision of theology, recorded by students. It also reviews Abelard’s theology through the perspective of one of his foremost critics, Hugh of St. Victor, in the De sacramentis. While Abelard was always known as a logician, he emerged in the 1130s as one of the most original theologians and theorist of ethics of his generation. The chapter considers the (...) evolution of the Theologia ‘Scholarium’ in the context of his teaching in the schools. It concludes by looking at the evolution of his thinking about the distinction between vice and sin in his Ethics or Scito teipsum, arguing that here he is responding to a longstanding concern of Heloise. (shrink)

Heloise and Discussion about Love. This chapter examines the significance of the early love affair of Abelard and Heloise. It argues that this relationship was not simply a matter of fornication portrayed by Abelard in the Historia calamitatum. Drawing on the Epistolae duorum amantium, which I argue is a record of an early exchange between Abelard and Heloise, I explain that Heloise wanted to apply Ciceronian ideals of friendship to love between a man and a woman. At her request, Abelard (...) did endeavor to define friendship in terms based on Cicero, but he never developed her interest in true friendship as not seeking any personal reward. His love letters are more strongly influenced by a passionate ideal of love, inspired by the poetry of Ovid. (shrink)

Heloise and the Paraclete. This chapter considers Abelard’s decision to entrust his foundation of the Paraclete to Heloise and his writing of the Historia calamitatum in 1132–33, as well as Heloise’s reaction to this autobiographical narrative. It examines the impact of Heloise’s arguments about their past relationship and about the religious life for women on Abelard’s writings for the Paraclete. It also considers Abelard’s poetic laments in the light of Heloise’s interest in the human side of the Bible.

Images of Abelard and Heloise. This chapter discusses images of Abelard and Heloise from the 12th to the 20th centuries. It observes how the controversial character of their relationship, as well as accusations of heresy made by St. Bernard have created stereotyped images of Abelard and Heloise as rebels against authority and the religious life that do not do full justice to their intellectual achievement. They were not lovers, but thinkers.

Returning to Logica. This chapter examines the Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, a series of commentaries on Porphyry, Aristotle, and Boethius more profound than any of his earlier glosses. I argue that in these commentaries Abelard adopts a much more profound theory of universals and of other parts of speech than in the Dialectica. Rather than emphasizing differences of opinion with William of Champeaux, they demonstrate how far Abelard had come to distance himself from the arguments of Boethius. Instead of speaking uniquely about (...) dialectic, he is now interested in logica, the arts of language in general. (shrink)

The Early Years: Roscelin of Compiègne and William of Champeaux. This chapter examines Abelard’s intellectual debt to both the vocalist theories of Roscelin of Compiègne and William of Champeaux’s teaching about dialectic in shaping his philosophical nominalism. By looking at the earliest records of Abelard’s teaching of dialectic and glosses on Aristotle, Porphyry and Boethius, it observes how students identified him as an iconoclast teacher, who quickly provoked laughter by the examples that he chose. It traces how Abelard’s early conflict (...) with his teachers laid the foundation for the subsequent difficulties he would experience in his career. (shrink)

The Trinity. This chapter examines Abelard’s first major writing about the divine Trinity, the Theologia ‘Summi boni’, written in 1119–20 and condemned as expounding heresy at the Council of Soissons in 1121. Abelard emphasizes the capacity of pagan philosophers to gain insight into the supreme good as much as prophets of the Old Testament. He applies his theory of language to words used about God to explain how Christians can speak of three divine persons as names given to signify different (...) attributes of God, namely his power, wisdom and goodness. (shrink)

Autism Spectrum Condition presents a challenge to social and relational accounts of the self, precisely because it is broadly seen as a disorder impacting social relationships. Many influential theories argue that social deficits and impairments of the self are the core problems in ASC. Predictive processing approaches address these based on general purpose neurocognitive mechanisms that are expressed atypically. Here we use the High, Inflexible Precision of Prediction Errors in Autism approach in the context of cultural niche construction to explain (...) atypicalities of the relational self, specifically its minimal, extended, and intersubjective aspects. We contend that the social self in ASC should not be seen as impaired, but rather as an outcome of atypical niche construction. We unpack the scientific, ethical, and practical consequences of this view, and discuss implications for how the challenges that autistic persons face should be approached. (shrink)

Autism Spectrum Condition presents a challenge to social and relational accounts of the self, precisely because it is broadly seen as a disorder impacting social relationships. Many influential theories argue that social deficits and impairments of the self are the core problems in ASC. Predictive processing approaches address these based on general purpose neurocognitive mechanisms that are expressed atypically. Here we use the High, Inflexible Precision of Prediction Errors in Autism approach in the context of cultural niche construction to explain (...) atypicalities of the relational self, specifically its minimal, extended, and intersubjective aspects. We contend that the social self in ASC should not be seen as impaired, but rather as an outcome of atypical niche construction. We unpack the scientific, ethical, and practical consequences of this view, and discuss implications for how the challenges that autistic persons face should be approached. (shrink)

Philosophical writings on the free energy principle in the life sciences often give the impression that minimising free energy is sufficient for life. But minimising free energy is not a sufficient condition for life. In fact, one can perfectly well conceive of a system that actively minimises its free energy, and for this very reason moves inexorably towards death. So, where does the assumption of this entailment relation come from? There is indeed an entailment relation, but it goes the other (...) way around: life entails minimising free energy. Put another way, if you exist, now, under the right conditions, it is because you’ve done something like minimising your free energy. However, the question of whether you will exist tomorrow cannot be settled purely by resorting to the fact that you will minimise your free energy to get there. The simple point I make in this paper is that the free energy principle is not concerned with the sufficient conditions of existence, but rather with what must have been the case, given that you exist. It’s not about figuring out what it takes to be alive; it’s about figuring out what took you there. (shrink)

In this chapter, we start by spelling out three important features that distinguish expressives—utterances that express emotions and other affects—from descriptives, including those that describe emotions (Section 1). Drawing on recent insights from the philosophy of emotion and value (2), we show how these three features derive from the nature of affects, concentrating on emotions (3). We then spell out how theories of non-natural meaning and communication in the philosophy of language allow claims that expressives inherit their meaning from specificities (...) of emotions—namely, from being felt, evaluative attitudes toward propositional or non-propositional contents (4). (shrink)

In this paper, I am going to cast doubt on an idea that is shared, explicitly or implicitly, by most contemporary pragmatic theories: that the inferential interpretation procedure described by Grice, neo-Griceans, or post-Griceans applies only to the interpretation of ostensive stimuli. For this special issue, I will concentrate on the relevance theory (RT) version of this idea. I will proceed by putting forward a dilemma for RT and argue that the best way out of it is to accept that (...) the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure ap- plies to certain non-ostensive stimuli, contrary to what is generally claimed within RT. In particular, I will argue that relevance theorists should accept that (ceteris paribus) non- ostensive emotional expressions in interactions guarantee a presumption of relevance such that they are interpreted through the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure. This leads me to propose what I call 'the expressive principle of relevance'. (shrink)

This dissertation may be divided into two parts. The first part is about the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission. This model, introduced here, is meant to better explain how humans communicate and understand each other. It has been developed to apply to cases that were left unexplained by the two main models of communication found in contemporary philosophy and linguistics, i.e. the Gricean (pragmatic) model and the code (semantic) model. In particular, I show that these latter two models cannot (...) apply to cases where one communicate through spontaneous emotional expressions and how the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission does. The second part of the dissertation is about what emotional signs mean, in various senses of the term ‘mean'. I review existing theories of meaning and see how they apply to emotional signs, i.e. signs which give us information about the affective state of the sign producer. (shrink)

The processes underwriting the acquisition of culture remain unclear. How are shared habits, norms, and expectations learned and maintained with precision and reliability across large-scale sociocultural ensembles? Is there a unifying account of the mechanisms involved in the acquisition of culture? Notions such as “shared expectations,” the “selective patterning of attention and behaviour,” “cultural evolution,” “cultural inheritance,” and “implicit learning” are the main candidates to underpin a unifying account of cognition and the acquisition of culture; however, their interactions require greater (...) specification and clarification. In this article, we integrate these candidates using the variational (free-energy) approach to human cognition and culture in theoretical neuroscience. We describe the construction by humans of social niches that afford epistemic resources called cultural affordances. We argue that human agents learn the shared habits, norms, and expectations of their culture through immersive participation in patterned cultural practices that selectively pattern attention and behaviour. We call this process “thinking through other minds” (TTOM) – in effect, the process of inferring other agents’ expectations about the world and how to behave in social context. We argue that for humans, information from and about other people's expectations constitutes the primary domain of statistical regularities that humans leverage to predict and organize behaviour. The integrative model we offer has implications that can advance theories of cognition, enculturation, adaptation, and psychopathology. Crucially, this formal (variational) treatment seeks to resolve key debates in current cognitive science, such as the distinction between internalist and externalist accounts of theory of mind abilities and the more fundamental distinction between dynamical and representational accounts of enactivism. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ. Cet article examine plusieurs façons de comprendre les émotions comme des réactions évaluatives. Il existe un consensus dans les sciences affectives qui veut que les émotions paradigmatiques soient faites de quatre composants : catégorisation du stimulus, tendances à l’action, changements corporels et aspect phénoménal. L’article expose les quatre principales théories dans la philosophie contemporaine des émotions et montre qu’elles ont tendance à se focaliser sur l’un ou l’autre des quatre composants des émotions pour expliquer leur nature évaluative. La conclusion (...) est qu’il est possible de rendre compte des émotions comme réactions évaluatives à ces quatre niveaux et que, pour cette raison, les conceptions présentées sont plus complémentaires qu’on ne le suppose généralement. ABSTRACT. This article examines several ways of understanding emotions as evaluative reactions. There is a consensus in affective sciences that paradigmatic emotions are made up of four components: appraisal process, action tendencies, bodily changes, and phenomenal character. The article outlines the four main theories in contemporary philosophy of emotions and shows that they tend to focus on one of the four components of emotions to explain their evaluative nature. The conclusion is that it is possible to account for emotions as evaluative reactions through the four components and that, for this reason, the theories presented are more complementary than is generally assumed. (shrink)

Dans cette entrée, après une introduction qui servira de cadre à notre discussion (section 1.), nous allons présenter et analyser des définitions du concept « Art ». Nous discuterons brièvement les définitions classiques les plus influentes puis nous nous concentrerons sur les principales définitions contemporaines. -/- Nous verrons pourquoi les définitions classiques sont aujourd’hui considérées comme insatisfaisantes (2.a.), et comment les philosophes, à partir de la seconde moitié du XXème siècle ont tenté de pallier leurs défauts. Dans les grandes lignes, (...) le problème principal soulevé à l’encontre des théories classiques est qu’elles cherchent toutes l’essence de l’art dans un trait caractéristique qui serait reconnaissable dans les œuvres elles-mêmes. Les théories contemporaines répondent à ce problème principalement de quatre façons, comme on le verra dans les sections 2.b à 2.d. Les théories sceptiques (2.b.) défendent qu’il est dès lors impossible de définir l’art – qu’on peut au mieux en donner certains caractères typiques, des airs de famille. Les théories relationnalistes (2.c.) défendent que ce qui fait qu’une chose est de l’art est à trouver en dehors de celle-ci, notamment dans les relations qu’elle entretient avec son contexte de création ou de présentation. Les théories néo-classiques (2.d.) continuent à chercher l’essence de l’art dans un trait caractéristique reconnaissable dans les œuvres elles-mêmes tout en prenant en compte les réactions sceptiques ou relationnalistes. Enfin, la théorie du ‘renvoi de la balle’ (2.e.) défend que l’on ne peut pas définir l’art mais seulement des sous-catégories comme la musique, la sculpture, les installations, les performances, etc. -/- Nous présenterons les avantages et les inconvénients principaux des théories contemporaines. Nous verrons qu’aucune n’est dénuée de problèmes, expliquant pourquoi il n’existe pas de consensus sur une définition de l’art aujourd’hui. Nous verrons également que – à l’exception d’un certain scepticisme qui jette, semble-t-il, trop vite l’éponge – chacune de ces théories amène, par son originalité, à une compréhension nouvelle et plus profonde de cette notion extrêmement complexe qu’est le concept « Art ». (shrink)

Volume X presents a critical edition with commentary of all the texts published by Constant between July 1815 and April 1818. We are dealing here with political journalism, an instrument of public opinion deployed with great virtuosity by Constant to realise his liberal programme, with texts on political theory and the fundamental debates on the state budget, with publications composed in connection with the 1817 parliamentary elections. This volume contains an engagement with one of Chateaubriand’s key works (La (...) Monarchie selon la Charte), articles on the politics of the day and publications on important contemporary personalities such as Madame de Staël or Joseph Fouché. The importance of the texts always reaches beyond their particular concern to encompass fundamental principles of liberalism in Restoration Europe. (shrink)

Usury is a concept often associated more with religiously based financial ethics, whether Christian or Islamic, than with the secular world of contemporary finance. The problem is compounded by a tendency to interpret riba, prohibited within Islam, as both usury and interest, without adequately distinguishing these concepts. This paper argues that in Christian tradition usury has always evoked the notion of money demanded in excess of what is owed on a loan, disrupting a relationship of equality between people, whereas interest (...) was seen as referring to just compensation to the lender. Although it is often claimed that hostility towards ‘usury’ has been in retreat in the West since the protestant Reformation, we would argue that the crucial break came not with Calvin, but with Jeremy Bentham, whose critique of the arguments of Adam Smith, upholding the reasonableness of the laws against usury, led to the abolition of the usury laws in England in 1854. There has to be a role for law, whether Islamic or secular, in regulating financial relationships. We argue that by retrieving the necessary distinction between demanding usury as illegitimate predatory lending and interest as legitimate compensation, we can discover common ground behind the driving principles of financial ethics within both Islamic and Christian tradition that may still be of relevance today. By re-examining past ethical discussions of the distinction between usury and just compensation, we argue that the world’s religious traditions can make significant contributions to contemporary debate. (shrink)

Past research on folk aesthetics has suggested that most people are subjectivists when it comes to aesthetic judgment. However, most people also make a distinction between good and bad aesthetic taste. To understand the extent to which these two observations conflict with one another, we need a better understanding of people's everyday concept of aesthetic taste. In this paper, we present the results of a study in which participants drawn from a representative sample of the US population were asked whether (...) they usually distinguish between good and bad taste, how they define them, and whether aesthetic taste can be improved. Those who answered positively to the first question were asked to provide their definition of good and bad taste, while those who answered positively to the third question were asked to detail by what means taste can be improved. Our results suggest that most people distinguish between good and bad taste, and think taste can be improved. People's definitions of good and bad taste were varied, and were torn between very subjectivist conceptions of taste and others that lent themselves to a more objectivist interpretation. Overall, our results suggest that the tension Hume observed in conceptions of aesthetic taste is still present today. (shrink)

Il volume contiene la traduzione della Prefazione e del Libro I dell'opera di Benjamin Constant (1767-1830) - teorico della democrazia liberale, storico e filosofo nel dominio delle religioni, romanziere, politico che debutta nella Rivoluzione francese, matura sotto il regime napoleonico, invecchia durante la monarchia della Restaurazione - De la Religion, pubblicata in cinque tomi tra il 1824 e il 1831. Corredato di un ampio saggio introduttivo del curatore, il libro colma una lacuna della cultura filosofica italiana, ossia l'assenza di (...) una traduzione dell'opera religiosa di Constant, di cui viene proposta la parte iniziale contenente l'introduzione generale alla vasta storia comparata delle religioni antiche - dal feticismo al politeismo - che compone il lavoro constantiano. "Opera capitale per intendere compiutamente il Constant" - scrive Fulvio Tessitore nella Presentazione - e, ancor più, l'età nevralgica in cui essa apparve e della quale è uno dei vertici letterari e teoretici--OCLC. (shrink)

This is the first full-length English translation of Benjamin Constant's massive study of humanity's religious forms and development, published in five volumes between 1824 and 1831. Constant (1767-1830) regarded On Religion, worked on over the course of many years, as perhaps his most important philosophical work. He called it "the only interest, the only consolation of my life," and "the book that I was destined by nature to write." While the recent revival of interest in Constant's thought (...) has been welcome and fruitful, it has been incomplete, tending to leave out of account his writings on religion. In this connection, On Religion is essential reading and of interest for many reasons. As an analysis of humanity's religious experience, the work is notable for its methodology. Unlike previous writers with dogmatic commitments, whether theological or philosophical, Constant aimed to work with well-established facts and to relate religious forms to their historical contexts and civilizational developments. In this way, he was a precursor of the scientific study of religion. This objectivity, however, was not tantamount to moral-political neutrality. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, he wanted partisans of the new order to recognize that the religious impulse was natural to the human heart: to extirpate religion was therefore a fool's errand and worse. Likewise, he instructed religious reactionaries that history had left them behind: now the natural state of the religious sentiment was an unfettered "spirituality" left free to find new forms of expression. His counsel to contemporaries has proven prescient concerning subsequent religious developments in democratic and totalitarian societies. In his day, Constant was a consistent liberal, a life-long advocate of representative government, as well as of the central liberal arrangement concerning religion: separation of church and state. But On Religion demonstrates that principled liberalism can turn a sympathetic as well as analytic eye toward religion and, in an unbegrudging way, find an important place for it in free society. There are signs that this is a lesson that contemporary liberalism would do well to relearn. Peter Paul Seaton Jr. teaches philosophy at St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore. His scholarly interests focus on the intersection of religion, politics, and philosophy. He has translated a number of works in French thought, especially political philosophy. These include works by Pierre Manent, Democracy without Nations? and Modern Liberty and Its Discontents (with Daniel J. Mahoney), Chantal Delsol, Unjust Justice, and Rémi Brague, On the God of the Christians and The Legitimacy of the Human. (shrink)