Il y a une pente universitaire à s'enfermer dans les textes en perdant de vue la réalité. C'est l'aboutissement d'un vice constitutif. En effet, depuis Aristote au moins, toutes les doctrines se sont développées sur la base d'un dédoublement ontologique entre un domaine des 'idées' et un domaine de la réalité elle-même. Ce dédoublement repose sur une imagination étrangère à l'expérience. Pour y voir plus clair, il faut s'appuyer constamment sur ce qui est donné tel qu'il est donné. Pour cela, (...) il faut déplacer l'attention depuis les contenus vers la manière dont nous les saisissons consciemment en confrontant l'expérience commune et la figure scientifique corrélative"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In the first English translation of his work, Laruelle explores the major European thinkers from Nietzsche to Derrida to define his own 'non-philosophical' ...

L'auteur consacre sa réflexion à l'amplification et à l'achèvement de la non-philosophie, en combinant science et philosophie qui sont considérées comme des variables définissant un espace ondulatoire et particulaire de l'opération de penser.

This paper is about the Descriptivism/Singularism debate, which has loomed large in 20-century philosophy of language and mind. My aim is to defend Singularism by showing, first, that it is a better and more promising view than even the most sophisticated versions of Descriptivism, and second, that the recent objections to Singularism (based on a dismissal of the acquaintance constraint on singular thought) miss their target.

François Recanati; IV*—Contextual Dependence and Definite Descriptions, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 87, Issue 1, 1 June 1987, Pages 57–74, h.

_A mood for Philosophy_ __ _ _ _In this dialogue with Francois Laruelle Anne-Françoise Schmidt suggests that Laruelle's non-philosophy, which begins with an indecision, could be conceived as something that in the history of painting has been called figura serpentinata, "serpentine line". This line, which produces a kind of music by the use of concepts, is visible according her trough his whole work: from his first book on Ravaisson, _Phenomenon and Difference,_ through to his last one, _The Last Humanity: A (...) New Ecological Science_, published in French in 2015 and expected to appear in English in 2018._. (shrink)

A defence of the 'pragmatic' theory of anaphora (which stresses the analogy between anaphora and deixis) against an argument put forward by Gareth Evans.

I distinguish, and discuss the relations between, five types of context-shift involving indexicals. For 'intentional' indexicals - indexicals whose value depends upon the speaker's intention - we can shift the context more or less 'at will', by manifesting one's intention to do so. For other indexicals we can shift the context through pretense. Following a number of authors, I distinguish two types of context-shifting pretense, corresponding to two sets of linguistic phenomena. The fourth type of case is that of expressions (...) which are not really indexical, but perspectival, and for which we do not need to appeal to the notion of context-shift in order to account for their shifty behaviour. The fifth category I introduce and discuss is that of 'shiftable indexicals'. Do we need it, given that we already have the other four categories? My answer is a qualified 'yes'. (shrink)

A historical overview, with an attempt to rebut Grice's argument against Contextualism.

La philosophie bergsonnienne a rendu le monde de ses contemporains moins opaque, les aidant à lui trouver un sens. Si la France cartésienne coïncide avec les partisans de la démocratie parlementaire ancrée à gauche, celle de Bergson recrute ses plus gros bataillons dans la droite nationale, conservatrice, mais également dans une gauche antiparlementaire, révolutionnaire.

The central notion in this article is ‘pluriform accommodation,’ a term that we have coined to defend two lines of thought. The first is a plea for inclusive and consequential neutrality; the second is a closely linked plea for reasonable accommodation. With ‘pluriform accommodation’ we emphasize that the multicultural recognition scope should be expanded. The need for inclusive and accommodative rules, laws, and practices is a matter of principle and as such cannot be reduced to the inclusion of people with (...) an immigration background who bring with them all kinds of ethnocultural and religious practices, convictions, and traditions. Furthermore, the enshrined freedom of religion does not provide the needed protection for the multiplicity of conscientious identifications, convictions, and strong allegiances that might be central to one’s sense of self. We argue that we should not engage in (top down) debates about the rights of individuals and groups of different types and think in terms of identity hierarchies, but instead should consider the various claims being made (bottom up), aiming for common standards and criteria to assess the validity of these claims and the reasonableness of the associated accommodations. (shrink)

Are the things of this world given to thought? Are things really meant to be known, to be taken as the objective manifestations of a transcendental conditioning power? The Western philosophical tradition, according to François Laruelle, presupposes just this transcendental constitution of the real--a presupposition that exalts philosophy itself as the designated recipient of the transcendental gift. Philosophy knows what things really are because things--all things--are given to philosophy to be known. Laruelle's trenchant essays show how this presupposition controls even (...) the ostensibly radical critiques of the philosophical tradition that have proliferated in the postmodern aftermath of Nietzsche and Heidegger. For these critiques persist in assuming that the disruptive other is in some way given to their own discourse--which shows itself thereby to be still philosophical. An effective critique of philosophy must be non-philosophical. It must, according to Laruelle, suspend the presupposition that otherness is given to be known, that thought has a fundamentally differential structure. Non-philosophy begins not with difference, not with subject and object, but with the positing of the One. From this axiomatic starting point, non-philosophy takes as its material philosophy, rethought according to the One. The non-philosophy project does not, like so much postmodern philosophy, herald the end of philosophy. It takes philosophy as an occasion to raise the question of another kind of thought--one that, instead of differentially relating to the world that it presupposes, asserts that it is ultimately, in the flesh, at One with what it can never know. Publisher's note. (shrink)

Nanotechnology is an important platform technology which will add new features like improved biocompatibility, smaller size, and more sophisticated electronics to neuro-implants improving their therapeutic potential. Especially in view of possible advantages for patients, research and development of nanotechnologically improved neuro implants is a moral obligation. However, the development of brain implants by itself touches many ethical, social and legal issues, which also apply in a specific way to devices enabled or improved by nanotechnology. For researchers developing nanotechnology such issues (...) are rather distant from their daily work in the lab, but as soon as they use their materials or devices in medical applications such as therapy of brain diseases they have to be aware of and deal with them. This paper is intended to raise sensitivity for the ethical, legal and social aspects (ELSA) involved in applying nanotechnology in brain implants or other devices by highlighting the short term problems of testing and clinical trials within the existing regulatory frameworks (A), the short and medium-term questions of risks in the application of the devices (B) and the long-term perspectives related to problems of enhancement (C). To identify and address such issues properly nanotechnologists should involve ethical, legal and social experts and regulatory bodies in their research as early as possible. This will help to remove pressure from regulatory bodies, to settle public concern and to prevent non-acceptable developments for the benefit of the patients. (shrink)

Response to Carston's paper, 'How Many Pragmatic Systems Are There'?

Current philosophical accounts of causation suggest that the same causal assertion can have different meanings. Yet, in actual social-scientific practice, the possible meanings of some causal generalisations intended to support policy prescriptions are not always spelled out. In line with a standard referentialist approach to semantics, we propose and elaborate on four questions to systematically elucidate the meaning of causal generalisations. The analysis can be useful to a host of agents, including social scientists, policy-makers, and philosophers aiming at being socially (...) relevant. To illustrate our proposal, we analyse the complexities related to the meaning of causal generalisations in the context of a concrete case of economic research which is explicitly intended to guide public policy, namely, the OECD research on the causes of unemployment. (shrink)

Derrida often insists that ethics must be the experience and encounter of a certain impossible. A proposition all the more troubling, as it is proposed by Derrida in the context of a return precisely to the conditions of possibility of ethics. It will appear that returning to the possibilities of ethics implies a return to its limits, to its aporias, which are both constitutive and incapacitating, possibilizing and impossibilizing. The purpose of this paper is to begin exploring this aporetic structure (...) of ethics and to identify how it is tied to the impossible. I will pursue this inquiry by reconstituting how Derrida appropriates Heidegger's expression of "possibility of the impossible," and by reconstituting the aporias of the law, of moral decision, of responsibility, and of an ethics of hospitality as welcome of the event of otherness. (shrink)

Biological objects are often constructive dynamic systems whose structures evolve as a consequence of their internal dynamics, which in turn is affected by the overall structure. As very few tools are presently adapted to tackle constructive dynamic systems, they constitute fascinating challenges for modeling/simulation. In cell biology, the secretory process in eukaryotic cells corresponds to this type of system, as it appears to autonomously generate new structures as a result of its molecular dynamics. Here I briefly review the only documented (...) case of a membrane-bounded intracellular compartment whose very existence strictly depends on its continued functioning. Indeed, the Golgi apparatus of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae appears at steady-state as a continuously renewed set of transitory membrane-bounded structures that self-mature, rather than as a permanent entity. On the basis of this case and of recent advances in related molecular studies, a detailed model is proposed, that encompasses the birth of a yeast Golgi element and bridges its molecular and morphogenetic aspects. This model is extended to briefly outline three evolutionary inventions, from S. cerevisiae to another yeast, Pichia pastoris, on to plant, and on to animal cells: stacking, stabilizing and aggregating the primary Golgi elements. (shrink)

L’invention au xii e siècle de la fin’amor va occuper, pour la première fois en Occident, le cœur du chant poétique, avec lequel il va entièrement s’identifier. Cette forme aristocratique, raffinée et intrinsèquement peccamineuse du sentiment amoureux exerce encore sur nos mœurs une profonde influence alors même que nous avons tendance à confondre mariage, amour et sexualité. Ne faut-il pas pourtant toujours, à l’amour, une « racine d’impossible » pour utiliser un terme commun à J. Lacan et à G. Bataille?

The Presentation of Sacher-Masoch is Deleuze’s boldest establishment of the three-way relation Art-Desire-Law, rich with consequences in the attempt to find new foundations for critique. Rather than trying to rethink Kant with Sade, Deleuze chose to rethink Kant with Masoch, treating the latter as a therapist as well as an artist.

Teaching evaluations are in this case a means of judging the effectiveness of teaching and learning state measures. Analysis of 38 French teachers’ school reports in agricultural High Schools highlights certain aspects of teaching practices while thirteen reports graded unsatisfactory as teachers failed teaching standards help unveil teacher assessment practices. The analyses lead to the building of a teacher practice model while showing that teacher evaluation focus more on teaching practices and teaching resources than on student learning or the teaching-learning (...) process. Les inspections pédagogiques sont ici un moyen d’approcher « l’efficacité institutionnelle » des dispositifs d’enseignement-apprentissage. L’analyse de 38 rapports d’inspection d’enseignants en lycées agricoles français met en évidence les dimensions des pratiques enseignantes qui y sont convoquées. L’analyse de treize rapports d’inspection défavorables au maintien de l’enseignant dans le métier contribue à expliciter le référent des pratiques lors d’évaluation. Ces analyses aboutissent à une modélisation des pratiques d’enseignement. Elles montrent que les évaluations portent d’avantage sur les pratiques d’enseignement que sur l’apprentissage des élèves, d’avantage sur les moyens mis en œuvre pour enseigner que sur le processus d’enseignement-apprentissage. (shrink)

A number of distinct (though related) issues are raised in the debate over Contextualism in the philosophy of language. My aim in this chapter for the Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics is to disentangle them, so as to get a clearer view of the positions available (where a 'position' consists of a particular take on each of the relevant issues simultaneously).

When Heidegger takes the decision at the end of the 1920’s to « risk again the step into an authentic metaphysics », a very strong solidarity is already established between his philosophical project and that of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. This solidarity is testified in the recuperation Heidegger does of the idea – proper to Kant and Baumgarten – of a metaphysica naturalis. The « Metaphysics of Dasein » constitutes the last attempt – after the hermeneutics of facticity and (...) the fundamental ontology – to define philosophy starting from « human nature ». After this « step into metaphysics », Heidegger’s thought will dedicate its efforts to the well-known « Overtaking of metaphysics ». (shrink)

ArgumentThis paper challenges the use of the notion of “culture” to describe a particular organization of mathematical knowledge, shared by a few mathematicians over a short period of time in the second half of the nineteenth century. This knowledge relates to “geometrical equations,” objects that proved crucial for the mechanisms of encounters between equation theory, substitution theory, and geometry at that time, although they were not well-defined mathematical objects. The description of the mathematical collective activities linked to “geometrical equations,” and (...) especially the technical aspects of these activities, is made on the basis of a sociological definition of “culture.” More precisely, after an examination of the social organization of the group of mathematicians, I argue that these activities form an intricate system of patterns, symbols, and values, for which I suggest a characterization as a “cultural system.”. (shrink)

La communauté francophone de l'Océanie insulaire se limite à quatre membres, la Nouvelle-Calédonie, la Polynésie française, le Vanuatu et Wallis-et-Futuna, dispersés entre la Mélanésie et la Polynésie. La langue française ne joue pas un rôle de lingua franca puisque ce sont plusieurs dizaines de langues autochtones mélanésiennes et polynésiennes, auxquelles on peut ajouter les langues des minorités asiatiques ainsi que l'anglais et le bichlamar , qui assurent la communication orale entre les différents groupes, clans et royaumes. Les solidarités et les (...) dynamiques endogènes de ce groupe francophone sont finalement très limitées. Le Vanuatu, avec son développement humain moyen, est là pour le rappeler. Si la francophonie océanienne doit plus son existence au hasard de l'histoire et de la géographie, révèle-t-elle pour autant une véritable aspiration de ses habitants à partager un héritage colonial commun?The French-Speaking community of insular Oceania is made up of only four members, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Vanuatu and Wallis-and-Futuna which are scattered between Melanesia and Polynesia. The French language does not play the role of a lingua franca, since the different groups, clans and kingdoms communicate orally in several dozens of indigenous Melanesian and Polynesian languages along with the languages of the Asian minorities, English and Bichlamar . The endogenous dynamics and solidarities of this French-Speaking unit are very limited. Vanuatu, with its rather mediocre human development, is a good example. If the existence of an Oceanian French-Speaking Community is due more to a coincidence of history and geography, does it nonetheless reveal a true aspiration of its inhabitants to share a common colonial heritage? (shrink)

The research Nevin & Grace report is impressive in its integrative power, but it also shows the current limits of operant theory: There is tremendous concentration on understanding how existing behavioral relations are modulated in rate or time allocation, but little on dealing with the origin of the behavioral relations themselves. Specifying what should count as a behavioral unit will require source principles sensitive to the composition of the units being related.

L'entreprise fondationnelle traditionnelle en éthique a abouti à un échec, c'est-à-dire à la victoire du relativisme moral. De son côté, la métaéthique a contribué largement à renforcer ce relativisme en voulant caractériser l'éthique négativement en prenant pour point de référence le discours scientifique . Mais n'y aurait-il pas une autre façon de fonder l'éthique et la bioéthique ? Le présent texte voudrait apporter réponse à cette question en adoptant une perspective épistémologique.In our view, the field of ethics is in jeopardy (...) : the traditional approaches wanting to give an ontological foundation to ethics has lead on the contrary to the victory of moral relativism ; on the other hand, further support has been provided for relativism with the intervention of metaethics which defines ethics negatively in contrast to science . Could there be another way to secure the foundation of ethics ? In this paper, we try to see whether the perspective of the philosophy of science could not help us to choose rationally between moral rules and in this way to provide an indirect foundation for ethics and bioethics but nevertheless a foundation. (shrink)