In historical literature, Edouard van Beneden is mostly remembered for his cytological discoveries. Less well known, however, is that he also introduced evolutionary morphology – and indeed evolutionary theory as such – in the Belgian academic world. The introduction of this research programme cannot be understood without taking both the international and the national context into account. It was clearly the German example of the Jena University that inspired van Beneden in his research interests. The actual launch (...) of evolutionary morphology at his University of Liège was, however, also connected with the dynamic of Belgian university reforms and the local rationale of creating a research “school.” Thanks to his networks, his mastering of the rhetoric of the “new” biology, his low ideological profile and his capitalising on the new academic élan in late-19th century Belgium, van Beneden managed to turn his programme into a local success from the 1870s onwards. Two decades later, however, the conceptual underpinnings of evolutionary morphology came under attack and the “Van Beneden School” lost much of its vitality. Despite this, van Beneden’s evolutionary morphology was prototypical for the research that was to come. He was one of the first scientific heavyweights in Belgium to turn the university laboratory into a centre of scientific practice and the hub of a research school. (shrink)

In historical literature, Edouard van Beneden (1846–1910) is mostly remembered for his cytological discoveries. Less well known, however, is that he also introduced evolutionary morphology – and indeed evolutionary theory as such – in the Belgian academic world. The introduction of this research programme cannot be understood without taking both the international and the national context into account. It was clearly the German example of the Jena University that inspired van Beneden in his research interests. The actual (...) launch of evolutionary morphology at his University of Liège was, however, also connected with the dynamic of Belgian university reforms and the local rationale of creating a research “school.” Thanks to his networks, his mastering of the rhetoric of the “new” biology, his low ideological profile and his capitalising on the new academic élan in late-19th century Belgium, van Beneden managed to turn his programme into a local success from the 1870s onwards. Two decades later, however, the conceptual underpinnings of evolutionary morphology came under attack and the “Van Beneden School” lost much of its vitality. Despite this, van Beneden’s evolutionary morphology was prototypical for the research that was to come. He was one of the first scientific heavyweights in Belgium to turn the university laboratory into a centre of scientific practice and the hub of a research school. (shrink)

Responding to recent concerns about the reliability of the published literature in psychology and other disciplines, we formed the X-Phi Replicability Project to estimate the reproducibility of experimental philosophy. Drawing on a representative sample of 40 x-phi studies published between 2003 and 2015, we enlisted 20 research teams across 8 countries to conduct a high-quality replication of each study in order to compare the results to the original published findings. We found that x-phi studies – as represented in our sample (...) – successfully replicated about 70% of the time. We discuss possible reasons for this relatively high replication rate in the field of experimental philosophy and offer suggestions for best research practices going forward. (shrink)

Appendix 1 was incomplete in the initial online publication. The original article has been corrected.

Evolution, Rationality, and Cognition: A Cognitive Science for the Twenty-First Century is a fine collection of essays edited by António Zilhão. Most of the essays are written by prominent philosophers of biology and psychology, while a roboticist, Inman Harvey, and a psychologist, Barbara Tversky, complete the list of contributors. Eight of the nine essays are original, although several of the essays are partly made up of material published elsewhere. Most of these articles belong to a growing field at the intersection (...) of evolutionary biology and cognitive science. However, as is often the case with collections of articles that grow out of conferences, the essays edited by Zilhão are somewhat heterogeneous. The issues examined range from the epistemology of hypothesis testing in evolutionary biology (Sober), to the nature of the cognitive mechanisms underlying emotion recognition (Sripada and Goldman), to the optimal organization of the brain (Cherniak), to the improvement of critical thinking by means of computer-supported argument mapping (van Gelder). (shrink)

Clarice Lispector has been studied thoroughly against the backdrop of Western ontology and feminism, but she has not often been read in relation to postcolonial theory and Black studies. Yet, their critique of coloniality and the radicality with which they conceive of a different world, can provide a fitting frame for understanding what is at stake in Lispector’s thought. When put in dialogue with the work of Édouard Glissant and Denise Ferreira da Silva, Lispector makes a key contribution to the (...) reconfiguration of the relation between the subject and the world that can be understood as an attempt to, echoing Sylvia Wynter, “unsettle the coloniality of being.” Where Glissant effectuates “creolization” and Silva a “hacking” of the subject, Lispector attempts to transgress our colonial relation to the world through a reconfiguration of fertility. In our study of The Passion According to G.H., supported by fragments from the Chronicles, we show: (1) how the passion of G.H., is the passion of a specifically colonial subject; (2) how fertility is an essential link between subjectivity and coloniality, ensuring an atavistic chain of filiation and hence the continuation of a colonially dominated world; and (3) how Lispector reconfigures fertility as a possibility of being deeply affected by the world, so much so that the colonial subject perishes and the chain of filiation is disrupted. As a consequence, we argue that Lispector’s project must not primarily be understood as ontological or in search of pre-discursivity, but as concerned with the revolutionary question of dismantling the colonial subject and its world in order to open up a potential of life otherwise. (shrink)

Dans cet article, il s’agit de reproblématiser la proximité amicale et théorique entre Félix Guattari et Édouard Glissant autour d’une politique d’altérité. Confrontant la transversalité guattarienne à l’opacité glissantienne, le rhizome de Glissant est réinterprété en y affirmant une distance à Deleuze et Guattari. Il est démontré comment Glissant, qui se méfie du caractère illimité du rhizome nomadologique, signe son propre rhizome avec sa notion d’opacité, y instaurant une altérité poétiquement créatrice. Interprétée comme productrice éthico-politique de singularisations, l’opacité rencontre à (...) son tour la politique guattarienne de resingularisation dans le concept d’opacité-machine. (shrink)

This chapter shows that the experimental philosophy has much to offer to philosophy of science by reviewing the existing experimental‐philosophy work in the philosophy of science and by defending it against an important criticism. A natural way of extending experimental philosophy methods to the philosophy of science is to survey scientists’ judgments. The chapter presents two projects in the philosophy of science that can benefit from such surveys: analyzing the scientific concepts found in particular scientific communities and studying scientific cognition. (...) It explains how surveying lay people's judgments can bear on issues in the philosophy of science. The chapter examines the possible contributions of bibliometric, ethnographic and cliometric methods to the philosophy of science. Ethnographic methods are particularly useful to study the social structure of science, the nature and role of social norms in the production of scientific knowledge, and the discovery heuristics at work in everyday scientific practice. (shrink)

Although cognitive scientists have learned a lot about concepts, their findings have yet to be organized in a coherent theoretical framework. In addition, after twenty years of controversy, there is little sign that philosophers and psychologists are converging toward an agreement about the very nature of concepts.Doing without Concepts(Machery 2009) attempts to remedy this state of affairs. In this article, I review the main points and arguments developed at greater length inDoing without Concepts.

<P>Experimental philosophy is one of the most active and exciting areas in philosophy today. In <EM>Current Controversies in Experimental Philosophy</EM>, Elizabeth O’Neill and Edouard Machery have brought together twelve leading philosophers to debate four topics central to recent research in experimental philosophy. The result is an important and enticing contribution to contemporary philosophy which thoroughly reframes traditional philosophical questions in light of experimental philosophers’ use of empirical research methods, and brings to light the lively debates within experimental philosophers’ intellectual (...) community. Two papers are dedicated to the following four topics:</P> <P></P> <UL> <LI>Language (Edouard Machery & Genoveva Martí)</LI> <LI>Consciousness (Brian Fala, Adam Arico, and Shaun Nicols & Justin Sytsma)</LI> <LI>Free Will and Responsibility (Joshua Knobe & Eddy Nahmias and Morgan Thompson)</LI> <LI>Epistemology and the Reliability of Intuitions (Kenneth Boyd and Jennifer Nagel & Joshua Alexander and Jonathan Weinberg).</LI></UL> <P></P> <P>Preliminary descriptions of each chapter, annotated bibliographies for each controversy, and a supplemental guide to further controversies in experimental philosophy (with bibliographies) help provide clearer and richer views of these live controversies for all readers.</P> <P></P> <P> </P>. (shrink)

In Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds, Edouard Machery argues that resolving many traditional and contemporary philosophical issues is beyond our epistemic reach and that philosophy should re-orient itself toward more humble, but ultimately more important intellectual endeavors, such as the analysis of concepts.

Over recent years, the psychology of concepts has been rejuvenated by new work on prototypes, inventive ideas on causal cognition, the development of neo-empiricist theories of concepts, and the inputs of the budding neuropsychology of concepts. But our empirical knowledge about concepts has yet to be organized in a coherent framework. -/- In Doing without Concepts, Edouard Machery argues that the dominant psychological theories of concepts fail to provide such a framework and that drastic conceptual changes are required to (...) make sense of the research on concepts in psychology and neuropsychology. Machery shows that the class of concepts divides into several distinct kinds that have little in common with one another and that for this very reason, it is a mistake to attempt to encompass all known phenomena within a single theory of concepts. In brief, concepts are not a natural kind. Machery concludes that the theoretical notion of concept should be eliminated from the theoretical apparatus of contemporary psychology and should be replaced with theoretical notions that are more appropriate for fulfilling psychologists' goals. The notion of concept has encouraged psychologists to believe that a single theory of concepts could be developed, leading to useless theoretical controversies between the dominant paradigms of concepts. Keeping this notion would slow down, and maybe prevent, the development of a more adequate classification and would overshadow the theoretical and empirical issues that are raised by this more adequate classification. Anyone interested in cognitive science's emerging view of the mind will find Machery's provocative ideas of interest. (shrink)

Metaphysicians speak of laws of nature in terms of necessity and universality; scientists, in terms of symmetry and invariance. In this book van Fraassen argues that no metaphysical account of laws can succeed. He analyzes and rejects the arguments that there are laws of nature, or that we must believe there are, and argues that we should disregard the idea of law as an adequate clue to science. After exploring what this means for general epistemology, the author develops the empiricist (...) view of science as a construction of models to represent the phenomena. (shrink)

v. 1. Le petit Hippias. Le grand Hippias. Ion. Protagoras. L'apologie de Socrate. Criton. Alcibiade. Charmide. Lachès. Lysis. Euthyphron. Gorgias. Ménexéne. Ménon. Euthydème. Cratyle. Le banquet. Phédon. La République.

In cognitive psychology, concepts are those data structures that are stored in long-term memory and are used by default in human beings.

Depuis la Renaissance, ce texte a influence profondement la tradition spirituelle neoplatonicienne et l'esoterisme occidental, ainsi que la symbolique maconnique. Beaucoup y ont trouve la revelation de ce qui est habituellement cache aux hommes. Fondee sur le texte grec le plus sur, collationne sur les manuscrits anciens, notre traduction a ete soigneusement revue pour etre a la fois d'une totale exactitude et accessible au lecteur contemporain.

Apres avoir ecrit Vivre selon Pythagore", Jamblique compose peu apres, vers la fin du Ille siecle de notre ere, un Protreptique, c'est-a-dire une exhortation a la philosophie, dont on trouve ici la premiere traduction integrale en francais. Cette initiation a l'acte de philosopher s'acheve au terme d'une ascension progressive figuree par une echelle, par un expose de la symbolique pythagoricienne. Jamblique avait eu, avec des visees differentes, d'illustres devanciers qu'il cite volontiers, comme Platon et Aristote (dont le Protreptique peut etre (...) reconstitue a l'aide des citations qu'en fait Jamblique ). L'exegese que propose Jamblique des Vers d'Or et des sentences pythagoriciennes a fait de son Protreptique une source de toute premiere importance pour qui desire connaitre et comprendre le pythagorisme. (shrink)

Philosophers of biology, such as David Hull and Michael Ghiselin, have argued that the notion of human nature is incompatible with modern evolutionary biology and they have recommended rejecting this notion. In this article, I rebut this argument: I show that an important notion of human nature is compatible with modern evolutionary biology.

Excerpt from Essay on the Bases of the Mystic Knowledge Must we believe that Mysticism is like "some vast ocean, the empire of illusion" where adventurous thinkers go astray, or is it a state of direct intuition which may be claimed by right, as divinely imparted? The question presents itself to us with this alternative: either Mysticism contains a negation of thought worse than Scepticism, or it is the most perfect activity of the mind. If it be that Mysticism is (...) only obstinate persistence to know the unknowable, we shall have to accept the first conclusion. The pursuit of the impossible perverts our faculties and makes them unfit for their natural use. But, should Mysticism prove to be an experience distinct from what we understand by the word "knowing," it would be worth our while to inquire if something new is introduced into the consciousness, and in what ways. Reason is in possession of too much light to be able to remain quite at ease in the region of clear ideas, but not enough to know first principles of actual knowledge. In this penumbra who can trace the exact limit of perceptions and say where the true disappears in the probable, where the probable vanishes in illusion? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Theories of reference have been central to analytic philosophy, and two views, the descriptivist view of reference and the causal-historical view of reference, have dominated the field. In this research tradition, theories of reference are assessed by consulting one’s intuitions about the reference of terms in hypothetical situations. However, recent work in cultural psychology (e.g., Nisbett et al. 2001) has shown systematic cognitive differences between East Asians and Westerners, and some work indicates that this extends to intuitions about philosophical cases (...) (Weinberg et al. 2001). In light of these findings on cultural differences, two experiments were conducted which explored intuitions about reference in Westerners and East Asians. Both experiments indicate that, for certain central cases, Westerners are more likely than East Asians to report intuitions that are consistent with the causal-historical view. These results constitute prima facie evidence that semantic intuitions vary from culture to culture, and the paper argues that this fact raises questions about the nature of the philosophical enterprise of developing a theory of reference. (shrink)

What is empiricism and what could it be? Bas . van Fraassen, one of the world’s foremost contributors to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a program for renewal of the empiricist tradition. The empiricist tradition is not and could not be defined by common doctrines, but embodies a certain stance in philosophy, van Fraassen says. This stance is displayed first of all in a searing, recurrent critique of metaphysics, (...) and secondly in a focus on experience that requires a voluntarist view of belief and opinion. Van Fraassen focuses on the philosophical problems of scientific and conceptual revolutions and on the not unrelated ruptures between religious and secular ways of seeing or conceiving of ourselves. He explores what it is to be or not be secular and points the way toward a new relationship between secularism and science within philosophy. (shrink)

Psychologists of concepts’ traditional assumption that there are many properties common to all concepts has been subject to devastating critiques in psychology and in the philosophy of psychology. However, it is currently unclear what approach to concepts is best suited to replace this traditional assumption. In this article, we compare two competing approaches, the Heterogeneity Hypothesis and the hybrid theories of concepts, and we present an empirical argument that tentatively supports the former over the latter.

We discuss the implications of the findings reported in the target article for moral theory, and argue that they represent a clear and genuine case of fundamental moral disagreement. As such, the findings support a moderate form of moral anti-realism – the position that, for some moral issues, there is no fact of the matter about what is right and wrong.

In this article, we present evidence that in four different cultural groups that speak quite different languages there are cases of justified true beliefs that are not judged to be cases of knowledge. We hypothesize that this intuitive judgment, which we call “the Gettier intuition,” may be a reflection of an underlying innate and universal core folk epistemology, and we highlight the philosophical significance of its universality.

" Descartes ne qualifie sa cosmologie que sous le modeste diminutif d'une "fable du monde". Ceci peut s'interpréter comme l'aveu d'une impuissance de la raison à atteindre l'authentique fabrique du monde. Mais avant d'être une fiction dénuée de toute vérité, une fable est d'abord un récit, comme celui que l'Ecriture propose au premier livre de la Genèse. Nous enquêtons ici sur le commentaire cartésien de la Genèse, texte perdu, mais suffisamment avancé pour que Descartes envisageât, en 1640, de le soumettre (...) à l'approbation de la Sorbonne. Qu'y aurait-il montré? Qu'en concevant le mouvement comme une séparation réciproque des parties de l'étendue, il se conformait à la lettre au récit mosaïque de la création. Descartes s'appuie sur une lecture précise de la Genèse, mais une lecture si originale et si peu orthodoxe qu'il doit presque aussitôt renoncer à en faire une caution pour sa philosophie naturelle. Nous enquêtons donc moins sur cet In Genesim, que sur les raisons de sa disparition. ". (shrink)