Reagan's March 23, 1983 speech concerning the need to give the U.S. “the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete” marked the beginning of a new era in American nuclear strategy and, consequently, in world nuclear strategy. This statement announced a new desire to leave behind the era of nuclear deterrence, based on the nuclear balance of terror, by developing new anti-missile technologies that will make defensive forces more effective than offensive ones. In fact, since the beginning of (...) the nuclear age, nuclear strategies have all been based on the fact that offensive forces were superior: even today, anti-missile defenses cannot compensate for the advantage of the attack. (shrink)
This interview ranges across a number of topics relevant to Dominique Lestel's thought: the history and philosophy of ethology; animal culture; realist-Cartesian and bi-constructivist ethology; biosemiotics; philo- sophical anthropology; animal studies; the other-than-human; veganism; and technology. It touches on thinkers including Bruno Latour, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Paul Shepard, and Donna Haraway.
ome Remarks on the Crisis of Capitalism What are the causes and consequences of the crisis of capitalism ? What are the plausible scenarios forthe outcome of the crisis ? To what extent is the current crisis comparable to that of 1929, and to whatextent does it differ from the crisis of the 1970s ? To what extent can one speak of a crisis of neoliberalism ? These are some of the questions which the authors of The Crisis of Neoliberalism (...) address here. (shrink)
This interview ranges across a number of topics relevant to Dominique Lestel's thought: the history and philosophy of ethology; animal culture; realist-Cartesian and bi-constructivist ethology; biosemiotics; philo- sophical anthropology; animal studies; the other-than-human; veganism; and technology. It touches on thinkers including Bruno Latour, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Paul Shepard, and Donna Haraway.
We focus on the task of finding a 3D conductivity structure for the DO-18 and DO-27 kimberlites, historically known as the Tli Kwi Cho kimberlite complex in the Northwest Territories, Canada. Two airborne electromagnetic surveys are analyzed: a frequency-domain DIGHEM and a time-domain VTEM survey. Airborne time-domain data at TKC are particularly challenging because of the negative values that exist even at the earliest time channels. Heretofore, such data have not been inverted in three dimensions. In our analysis, we start (...) by inverting frequency-domain data and positive VTEM data with a laterally constrained 1D inversion. This is important for assessing the noise levels associated with the data and for estimating the general conductivity structure. The analysis is then extended to a 3D inversion with our most recent optimized and parallelized inversion codes. We first address the issue about whether the conductivity anomaly is due to a shallow flat-lying conductor or a vertical conductive pipe; we conclude that it is the latter. Both data sets are then cooperatively inverted to obtain a consistent 3D conductivity model for TKC that can be used for geologic interpretation. The conductivity model is then jointly interpreted with the density and magnetic susceptibility models from a previous paper. The addition of conductivity enriches the interpretation made with the potential fields in characterizing several distinct petrophysical kimberlite units. The final conductivity model also helps better define the lateral extent and upper boundary of the kimberlite pipes. This conductivity model is a crucial component of the follow-up paper in which our colleagues invert the airborne EM data to recover the time-dependent chargeability that further advances our geologic interpretation. (shrink)
. We start from the geometrical-logical extension of Aristotle’s square in [6,15] and [14], and study them from both syntactic and semantic points of view. Recall that Aristotle’s square under its modal form has the following four vertices: A is □α, E is , I is and O is , where α is a logical formula and □ is a modality which can be defined axiomatically within a particular logic known as S5 (classical or intuitionistic, depending on whether is involutive (...) or not) modal logic. [3] has proposed extensions which can be interpreted respectively within paraconsistent and paracomplete logical frameworks. [15] has shown that these extensions are subfigures of a tetraicosahedron whose vertices are actually obtained by closure of by the logical operations , under the assumption of classical S5 modal logic. We pursue these researches on the geometrical-logical extensions of Aristotle’s square: first we list all modal squares of opposition. We show that if the vertices of that geometrical figure are logical formulae and if the sub-alternation edges are interpreted as logical implication relations, then the underlying logic is none other than classical logic. Then we consider a higher-order extension introduced by [14], and we show that the same tetraicosahedron plays a key role when additional modal operators are introduced. Finally we discuss the relation between the logic underlying these extensions and the resulting geometrical-logical figures. (shrink)
Public surveys conducted in many countries report widespread willingness of individuals to donate a kidney while alive to a family member or close friend, yet thousands suffer and many die each year while waiting for a kidney transplant. Advocates of financial incentive programs or “regulated markets” in kidneys present the problem of the kidney shortage as one of insufficient public motivation to donate, arguing that incentives will increase the number of donors. Others believe the solutions lie—at least in part—in facilitating (...) so-called “altruistic donation;” harnessing the willingness of relatives and friends to donate by addressing the many barriers which serve as disincentives to living donation. Strategies designed to minimize financial barriers to donation and the use of paired kidney exchange programs are increasingly enabling donation, and now, an innovative program designed to address what has been termed “chronologically incompatible donation” is being piloted at the University of California, Los Angeles, and elsewhere in the United States. In this program, a person whose kidney is not currently required for transplantation in a specific recipient may instead donate to the paired exchange program; in return, a commitment is made to the specified recipient that priority access for a living-donor transplant in a paired exchange program will be offered when or if the need arises in the future. We address here potential ethical concerns related to this form of organ “banking” from living donors, and argue that it offers significant benefits without undermining the well-established ethical principles and values currently underpinning living donation programs. (shrink)
The `co-productions' of science and society have undergone dramatic changes in recent decades. However, contrasts between `Mode 1' and `Mode 2' are not compelling inhistorical terms. This essay will argue that, in fact, they offer too naturalistic and a-political a picture.
Qu’un interet renouvelé se manifeste aujourd’hui pour la versant épistémologique de l’œuvre de Gaston Bachelard peut se comprendre au regard de l’histoire contemporaine de la philosophie des sciences.Cette histoire a été dominée durant la plus grande partie du XXe siècle par une doctrine – celle de l’empirisme logique – promue à Vienne à la fin des années 1920 par une institution originale, le Cercle de Vienne qui publie son manifeste en 1929, et s’organise comme un mouvement à visée universelle et (...) progressiste – celui de la “conception scientifique du monde”.La tradition française de la philosophie des sciences a pris d’entrée de jeu un tout autre chemin. Si elle ne les a pas ignorées, elle a refusé de souscrire aux thèses majeures du positivisme logique lorsqu’il s’est présenté à elle. Elle a toujours lié étroitement philosophie et histoire des sciences.Dans le titre de ce petit livre écrit durant l’année universitaire 1967-1968 sous la direction de Georges Canquilhem, Dominique Lecourt a avancé l’expression d’“épistémologie historique” pour signaler, à propos de Gaston Bachelard, cette particularité. (shrink)
In view of the progress made in recent decades in the fields of stemmatology and the analysis of geometric diagrams, the present article explores the possibility of establishing the stemma codicum of a handwritten tradition from geometric diagrams alone. This exploratory method is tested on Ibn al-Haytham’s Epistle on the Shape of the Eclipse, because this work has not yet been issued in a critical edition. Separate stemmata were constructed on the basis of the diagrams and the text, and a (...) comparison showed no major differences. The greater reliability of a stemma codicum constructed on the basis of the diagrams rather than the text of a mathematical work is discussed and preliminary conclusions are drawn. (shrink)
did roger bacon and peter john olivi ever meet? We suggest a positive answer to this question. After he became a Franciscan in 1257, Roger Bacon spent ten years at the Franciscan Paris convent. In those years he wrote the De multiplicatione specierum —his most thought-out piece—the Opus majus, Opus minus, and Opus tertium, which he completed by early 1268. It is not clear whether Bacon returned to England after 1268, or remained in Paris until 1280.1 Peter John Olivi wrote (...) the Summa questions in several phases.2 According to Sylvain Piron's chronology, Olivi's questions on Physics should be dated before 1270, and his theory of... (shrink)
Plutôt que de se plaindre de la mesure d'audience marchande, performante dans son domaine, il serait temps de mettre en place un dispositif instituant un lien durable avec le téléspectateur citoyen et comportant mesure technique, critères, instance de contrôle et de sanction. Plusieurs pistes sont examinées, comme les associations, les revues, les formes démocratiques classiques. Il est plutôt proposé, sur la base de théories de la justice, de combiner à la fois un «indice agrégé de qualité civique», un label et (...) une extension des formes de représentations au sein du CSA.Instead of complaining about the success and hegemony of commercial audience ratings, one should rather contribute to the design of a different relationship with the "citizen as TV viewer" founded upon measurement devices, specific criteria and regulatory bodies. Different solutions are assessed, such as viewers' associations, TV journals and traditional democratic representation. Theories of justice lead to a proposal combining a "civic quality aggregated ratio", a "civic label", and an extension of the representation system for the regulation body, the "Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel". (shrink)
Si le dogme du progrès est ici remis en cause, il n'est pas pour autant diabolisé. La recherche de progrès est nécessaire, en termes de mieux social même si le risque est au coeur du progrès. L'auteur nous invite à une gestion citoyenne de ce risque, des manipulations génétiques aux conséquences des nouvelles technologies. Pour une épistémologie politique.
Mamberti, Dominique I thank Archbishop Denis Hart for the kind invitation he issued to me on behalf of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference to visit Australia for the centenary of the Apostolic Delegation and to address you on the occasion of your plenary meeting. It is a great joy to meet you all here in Sydney, having had the opportunity on other occasions to meet many of you either as a group or individually in the Vatican. I also bring (...) you warm greetings from the Holy Father. (shrink)
“Every angel is terrifying.” Dominique Janicaud evokes this sentence of Rilke in order to illustrate the essentially contextual character of meaning. I shall begin my brief reflections on his book, Powers of the Rational: Science, Technology and the Future of Thought, by situating Janicaud’s thought within the space between two angels, each in its own way terrifying. The first angel is that of angelic rationalism. Angelic rationalism is a strategy for the defense of classical rationalism which vacillates between reason (...) as an actual operation and the essence of reason as an idealization. Reason defends itself, and rightfully so, against the onslaught of the irrational; it evokes the success of the sciences, the accomplishment of modern technology, the fact of modern enlightened politics. When confronted with what one might call the “downside of rational modernity”—the ecological crisis; the possibility of nuclear annihilation; the “iron cage” of modern bureaucracy; the “deficit of meaning” in modern life, and so forth—it switches its focus from reason as an effective force realized in history and intertwined with power, to reason as an ideal, an idealization functioning as an infinite telos of humanity. And for the problems engendered by modern rationality, it prescribes more rationality. (shrink)
