Françoise Dastur describes her efforts to practice history of philosophy in a (paradoxically) non-historical fashion. She discusses her concept of the historical, and argues that the only true way to be of one's time is to be against one's time.

Françoise Dastur describes her efforts to practice history of philosophy in a non-historical fashion. She discusses her concept of the historical, and argues that the only true way to be of one's time is to be against one's time.

Françoise Dastur describes her efforts to practice history of philosophy in a non-historical fashion. She discusses her concept of the historical, and argues that the only true way to be of one's time is to be against one's time.

oise Baylis, 1234 Le Marchant Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3P7. Tel.: (902)-494–2873; Fax: (902)-494-2924; Email: francoise.baylis{at}dal.ca ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> . Abstract Recently, there has been a growing interest in public health and public health ethics. Much of this interest has been tied to efforts to draw up national and international plans to deal with a global pandemic. It is common for these plans to state the importance of drawing upon a well-developed (...) ethics framework and we argue that this framework should reflect the values and insights of feminist relational theory. More specifically, we argue that pandemic planning must be squarely situated in the larger realm of public health and that an ethics framework for public health will be one that recognizes the need to pay particular attention to the vulnerability of subpopulations lacking in social and economic power. We propose an ethics framework for public health that builds on the notions of relational personhood (including relational autonomy and social justice) and relational solidarity. In this way, we aim for a public health ethics that, as appropriate, promotes the public interest and the common good. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

: Françoise Dastur describes her efforts to practice history of philosophy in a (paradoxically) non-historical fashion. She discusses her concept of the historical, and argues that the only true way to be of one's time is to be against one's time.

How, asks Françoise Dastur, can philosophy account for the sudden happening and the factuality of the event? Dastur asks how phenomenology, in particular the work of Heidegger, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty, may be interpreted as offering such an account. She argues that the "paradoxical capacity of expecting surprise is always in question in phenomenology," and for this reason, she concludes, "We should not oppose phenomenology and the thinking of the event. We should connect them; openness to phenomena must be identified with (...) openness to unpredictability." The article offers reflections in these terms on a phenomenology of birth. (shrink)

Suddenly, COVID-19 has changed the world and the way people work. Companies had to accelerate something they knew was imminent in the future, but not immediate and extremely humongous. This situation poses a huge challenge for companies to survive and thrive in this complex business environment and for employees, who must adapt to this new way of working. An effective e-leadership, which promotes companies’ adaptability, is needed. This study investigates the existing knowledge on teleworking and e-leadership; and analyzes the supposed (...) challenges. The literature review shows that companies with effective e-leadership can view teleworking as an opportunity. It is advantageous for not only companies’ productivity but also the environment and people who work remotely. However, a traditional or no leadership can result in some risks. Thriving in remote work environments implies that managers must adjust the companies’ structure, making them less hierarchical, and developing new abilities to establish a strong and trustworthy relationship with their employees to maintain their competitiveness, while retaining a genuine concern for their employees’ well-being. Similarly, successful e-leadership must be able to consolidate and lead effective virtual teams to accomplish organizational goals. This study contributes to the literature and leaders during the pandemic. (shrink)

L'ordre matériel du savoir Comment les savants travaillent | XVIe-XXIe siècles L'article, le graphique, la fiche, le poster, le cahier de laboratoire sont quelques-uns des nombreux outils du travail scientifique étudiés dans cet ouvrage qui offre une histoire matérielle de la culture savante entre le XVIe et le XXIe siècle. Il rend manifeste, de la médecine à l'archéologie, de la géographie à la chirurgie, ce que l'on ne voit pas ou plus dans les résultats : la masse imposante de l'outillage (...) à disposition, sa grande diversité, son accroissement constant. S'y ajoutent les ressources des savants eux-mêmes, celles de leurs sens éduqués ou amplifiés par de multiples instruments. Les configurations fascinantes que ces outils et leur emploi créent entre écrit, image, parole, regard et geste révèlent le caractère composite, multimédia et multisensoriel, de l'ordre raisonné du savoir. Explorer la science dans sa matérialité éclaire d'un jour nouveau des pans entiers de l'histoire intellectuelle. Les outils de travail ne sont pas de simples à-côtés des idées. Ils participent étroitement à la connaissance, entre objectivité scientifique et éléments empruntés à l'expérience des sens. Un essai d'anthropologie des savoirs qui porte un regard original sur l'ordinaire de la science. (shrink)

Verges' manifesto argues that feminists should no longer be accomplices of capitalism, racism, colonialism and imperialism: it is time to fight the system that created the boss, built the prisons and polices women's bodies. The author grapples with the central issues in feminist debates today: from Eurocentrism and whiteness, to power, inclusion and exclusion. Delving into feminist and anti-racist histories, Verges also assesses contemporary activism, movements and struggles, including #MeToo and the Women's Strike. Centering anticolonialism and anti-racism within an intersectional (...) Marxist feminism, the book puts forward an urgent demand to free ourselves from the capitalist, imperialist forces that oppress us. --From publisher description. (shrink)

This work was supported, in part, by a Stem Cell Network grant to Françoise Baylis and Jason Scott Robert and a CIHR grant to Françoise Baylis. We sincerely thank Alan Fine, Rich Campbell, Cynthia Cohen, and Tim Krahn for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks are also owed to Tim Krahn for his research assistance. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Department of Bioethics and the Novel Tech Ethics research team. We thank (...) the participants at each of these meetings for their helpful comments. (shrink)

We outline a number of ethical objections to genetic technologies aimed at enhancing human capacities and traits. We then argue that, despite the persuasiveness of some of these objections, they are insufficient to stop the development and use of genetic enhancement technologies. We contend that the inevitability of the technologies results from a particular guiding worldview of humans as masters of the human evolutionary future, and conclude that recognising this worldview points to new directions for ethical thinking about genetic enhancement (...) technologies. (shrink)

Françoise Thébaud, en posant la question de savoir comment le genre structure les politiques de guerre, présente une intervention qui fait le point sur la « barbarisation » de la guerre dans le cadre de l’histoire du genre, à partir de la mise en évidence du passage du problème de l’émancipation, ou de l’autonomisation (cf. travaux des années 1960-1970), des femmes à celui de la réflexion plus récente sur la violence de guerre (depuis les années 1980) qui conteste la thèse (...) de la guerre « émancipatrice » (si provisoire et superficielle qu’ait été cette émancipation). Dans ce cadre-là, la guerre en ex-Yougoslavie a pu jouer un rôle d’accélérateur de la prise de conscience du caractère très relatif de l’émancipation des femmes par la guerre des hommes. Certains historiens récents de la Première Guerre mondiale en viennent à travailler sur la culture de guerre qui serait le fondement d’une « brutalisation » du conflit au nom d’une « ethnicisation » de l’ennemi. Leurs thèses sont contestées par ceux qui rejettent l’idée d’un simple consentement à la guerre au profit d’un mélange complexe de contraintes, fraternité, patriotisme et refusent que la « culture de guerre » prenne le pas sur les autres cultures pré-existantes. La place des femmes et du genre dans la guerre est d’abord abordée par F. Thébaud à la lumière d’une double mythologie sexualisée (l’équation pureté nationale/pureté sexuelle et la féminisation de l’ennemi comme décadent) et de l’autre mythe de la femme « naturellement » pacifiste en tant que mère potentielle. Or, les féministes ont adhéré massivement à l’effort de guerre et l’internationalisme « féministe » s’est effondré. Par ailleurs, la relative « humanisation » du conflit dont sont porteuses les femmes aux armées se fait toujours au service exclusif de la patrie. Dans un dernier volet de son intervention, F. Thébaud s’attarde sur la réalité des violences faites aux femmes et les réactions qu’elles ont pu susciter. Les viols ont eu lieu pendant l’invasion plus que pendant l’occupation et le débat sur l’« enfant de l’ennemi » s’il a été animé d’un point de vue discursif ne permet pas d’en savoir beaucoup plus sur la réalité. Les déportations de femmes hors des villes occupées suscitèrent, quant à elles, suffisamment de réactions violentes pour que les Allemands mettent fin à cette pratique dès 1916. Certaines interventions féministes visèrent à modifier les lois de la guerre mais on en sait peu sur la place des femmes dans l’humanisation de la guerre. Par ailleurs, une comparaison s’avérerait nécessaire entre les histoires respectives de la guerre dans les pays dits occidentaux et dans les pays de l’Est. (shrink)

Françoise Proust explains that where Foucault established a cartography of power, she is interested in elaborating an "analytic of resistance." This, she elaborates, would be "the transcendental of every resistance, whatever kind it be: resistance to power, to the state of things, to history; resistance to destruction, to death, to war; resistance to stupidity, to peace, to bare life.".

In this article, I argue that there is no compelling therapeutic ‘need’ for human nuclear genome transfer to prevent mitochondrial diseases caused by mtDNA mutations. At most there is a strong interest in this technology on the part of some women and couples at risk of having children with mitochondrial disease, and perhaps also a ‘want’ on the part of some researchers who see the technology as a useful precedent – one that provides them with ‘a quiet way station’ in (...) which to refine the micromanipulations techniques essential for other human germline interventions and human cloning. In advance of this argument, I review basic information about mitochondrial disease and novel genetic strategies to prevent the transmission of mutated mitochondria. Next, I address common features of contemporary debates and discussions about so-called mitochondrial replacement. First, I contest the cliché that science-and-technology is fast outpacing ethics. Second, I dispute the accuracy of the term ‘mitochondrial replacement’. Third, I provide a sustained critique of the purported ‘need’ for genetically-related children. In closing, I call into question the mainly liberal defense of human nuclear genome transfer. I suggest an alternative frame of reference that pays particular attention to issues of social justice. I conclude that our limited resources should be carefully expended in pursuit of the common good, which does not include pandering to acquired desires. (shrink)

Tri‐methylation of lysine 4 on histone H3 (H3K4me3) is a near‐universal chromatin modification at the transcription start site of active genes in eukaryotes from yeast to man and its levels reflect the amount of transcription. Because of this association, H3K4me3 is often described as an ‘activating’ histone modification and assumed to have an instructive role in the transcription of genes, but the field is lacking a conserved mechanism to support this view. The overwhelming finding from genome‐wide studies is that actually (...) very little transcription changes upon removal of most H3K4me3 under steady‐state or dynamically changing conditions, including at mammalian CpG island promoters. Instead, rather than a major role in instructing transcription, time‐resolved experiments provide more evidence supporting the deposition of H3K4me3 into chromatin as a result of transcription, influencing processes such as memory of previous states, transcriptional consistency between cells in a population and transcription termination. -/- . (shrink)

Most philosophers adopt an etiological conception of functions, but not one that uniformly explains the functions attributed to material entities irrespective of whether they are natural or man-made. Here, I investigate the widespread idea that a combination of the two current etiological theories, SEL and INT, can offer a satisfactory account of the proper functions of both organisms and artifacts.. Making explicit what a realist theory of function supposes, I first show that SEL offers a realist theory of biological functions (...) in which these are objective properties of a peculiar sort. I argue next that an artifact function demonstrates the same objective nature as a biological function when it is accounted for by SEL, but not when it is accounted for by INT. I explain why a dual theory of artifact functions admitting both INT and SEL functions is to be dismissed. I establish that neither INT nor SEL alone can account for all artifact functions. Drawing the conclusion that we need a new etiological theory of function, I show how one can overcome the apparent inevitability of INT for some artifact functions. Finally, I outline a new etiological theory of functions that applies equally to biological entities and to artifacts. (shrink)

The existence of dysfunctions precludes the possibility of identifying the function to do F with the capacity to do F. Nevertheless, we continuously infer capacities from functions. For this and other reasons stated in the first part of this article, I propose a new theory of functions (of the etiological sort), applying to organisms as well as to artefacts, in which to have some determinate probability P to do F (i.e. a probabilistic capacity to do F) is a necessary condition (...) for having the function to do F. The main objective of this paper is to justify the legitimacy of this condition when considering artefacts. I begin by distinguishing “perspectival probabilities”, which reflect a pragmatic interest or an arbitrary state of knowledge, from “objective probabilities”, which depend on some objective feature of the envisageditems. I show that objective probabilities are not necessarily based on physical constitution. I then explain why we should distinguish between considering an object as a physical body and considering it as an artefact, and why the probability of dysfunction to be taken into account is one relative to the object as member of an artefact category. After clarifying how an artefact category can be defined if it is not defined in physical terms, I establish the objectivity of the probability of dysfunction under consideration by showing how it is causally determined by objective factors regulating the production of items of a definite artefact type. Ifocus on the case of industrially produced artefacts where the objective factors determining the probability of dysfunction can be best seen. (shrink)

Now that stem cell scientists are clamouring for human eggs for cloning-based stem cell research, there is vigorous debate about the ethics of paying women for their eggs. Generally speaking, some claim that women should be paid a fair wage for their reproductive labour or tissues, while others argue against the further commodification of reproductive labour or tissues and worry about voluntariness among potential egg providers. Siding mainly with those who believe that women should be financially compensated for providing eggs (...) for research, the new stem cell guidelines of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) legitimise both reimbursement of direct expenses and financial compensation for many women who supply eggs for research. In this paper, the authors do not attempt to resolve the thorny issue of whether payment for eggs used in human embryonic stem cell research is ethically legitimate. Rather, they want to show specifically that the ISSCR recommended payment practices are deeply flawed and, more generally, that all payment schemes that aim to avoid undue inducement of women risk the global exploitation of economically disadvantaged women. (shrink)

This article explores the notion of the dislocated self following deep brain stimulation (DBS) and concludes that when personal identity is understood in dynamic, narrative, and relational terms, the claim that DBS is a threat to personal identity is deeply problematic. While DBS may result in profound changes in behaviour, mood and cognition (characteristics closely linked to personality), it is not helpful to characterize DBS as threatening to personal identity insofar as this claim is either false, misdirected or trivially true. (...) The claim is false insofar as it misunderstands the dynamic nature of identity formation. The claim is misdirected at DBS insofar as the real threat to personal identity is the discriminatory attitudes of others towards persons with motor and other disabilities. The claim is trivially true insofar as any dramatic event or experience integrated into one’s identity-constituting narrative could then potentially be described as threatening. From the perspective of relational personal identity, when DBS dramatically disrupts the narrative flow, this disruption is best examined through the lens of agency. For illustrative purposes, the focus is on DBS for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. (shrink)

The primary objective of The Health Care Ethics Con sultant is to focus attention on an immediate practical problem: the role and responsibilities, the education and training, and the certification and accreditation of health care ethics consultants. The principal questions addressed in this book include: Who should be considered health care ethics consultants? Whom should they advise? What should be their responsi bilities and what kind of training should they have? Should there be some kind of accreditation or certification program (...) to ensure that those who call themselves ethics consultants are in fact qualified to advise, consult, research, and write in health care ethics? The distinguished authors ofthese articles are persons with diverse backgrounds, interests, presumptions, and val ues. Not surprisingly, therefore, diverse responses have emerged to the questions posed. Though the book's chapters are individually authored, they are informed by the group discussions that went on during active workshop sessions, and by knowledge of the contributions of others. All of the chapters meaningfully represent their consensus. This is not to say that there were no disagreements regarding specific details, but rather that there were no fundamental objections on the book's basic content among a panel of authors who share basic premises regarding the role, responsibilities, education, and certifica tion of health care ethics consultants. (shrink)

Cet article expose les premiers contacts d’Alexandre Nequam (1157-1217) avec la traduction latine du Liber de causis dans sa proposition 2, et le recours à son ami le théologien Alain de Lille ( c. 1120-1202) qu’il jugea nécessaire. Celui-ci répondit par ses quatre premières Regulae theologicae.

Sur quoi aujourd’hui fonder l’autorité des parents? Que transmettre? Et comment exercer cette autorité au temps de l’enfance? Questions cruciales pour le devenir subjectif des nouveaux venus au monde... Car, sans autorité, pas de transmission de la dette de vie, celle qui ouvre à la Loi et au désir, pas d’humanisation et de socialisation des enfants.

How, asks Françoise Dastur, can philosophy account for the sudden happening and the factuality of the event? Dastur asks how phenomenology, in particular the work of Heidegger, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty, may be interpreted as offering such an account. She argues that the “paradoxical capacity of expecting surprise is always in question in phenomenology,” and for this reason, she concludes, “We should not oppose phenomenology and the thinking of the event. We should connect them; openness to phenomena must be identified with (...) openness to unpredictability.” The article offers reflections in these terms on a phenomenology of birth. (shrink)

In January 2008, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority issued two 1-year licenses for cytoplasmic hybrid embryo research. This article situates the HFEA's decision in its wider scientific and political context in which, until quite recently, the debate about human embryonic stem cell research has focused narrowly on the moral status of the developing human embryo. Next, ethical arguments against crossing species boundaries with humans are canvassed. Finally, a new argument about the risks of harm to women egg providers resulting (...) from research involving the creation of humanesque cytoplasmic hybrid embryos is elaborated. Taken together these ethical concerns about the moral status of the human embryo, about the ethics of crossing species boundaries with humans, and about the potential harms to women, provide good reason to eschew humanesque cytoplasmic hybrid embryo research in favor of less ethically controversial means to the laudable end of successful regenerative medicine. (shrink)

Les premières mythographies de l’Europe néo-latine, depuis la Genealogia deorum de Boccace, considèrent l’histoire des dieux sur le modèle des généalogies humaines, en cherchant à recomposer « la lignée de Saturne ». Les premiers historiens de la Grèce, comme les poètes, inventèrent des généalogies mythiques pour inscrire l’origine des hommes dans l’histoire de leur relation aux dieux. Que fondent les généalogies divines ? Non seulement des structures religieuses, non seulement la raison même des sociétés humaines, mais encore la préhistoire de (...) l’humanité. Mais si les engendrements divins donnent sens aux relations entre les hommes et les dieux, c’est l’histoire des commencements du monde que les mythographes cherchent à comprendre en interrogeant l’articulation des généalogies divines et humaines. Depuis que, dans le Timée, Platon a associé mythologia et genealogia comme deux modes de discours « archéologiques », les mythographes ont ouvertement revendiqué un savoir sur le monde qui se définit comme une synthèse des « sciences de la nature ».Mythologia, Genealogia, Archaiologia:A Paleontological Scope for Mythography. The first European mythographical treatises in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, since Boccaccio’s Genealogia deorum, were determined by a genealogical method, looking at the history of the gods with human patterns and seeking the reconstruction of “Saturn’s lineage”. The early Greek mythographers, like the poets, imagined various genealogies for seeking out the origins of humanity through their relationships with gods. What is founded on divine genealogies? Not only religious structures, nor only the true ratio of human sociability, but a human paleon­tology too. By interpreting filiations as a system of connexions between gods and humans, the mythographers aimed at understanding the protohistory of the universe. Since Plato’s Timaeus associated mythologia and genealogia as two modes of “archaeological” discourse, mythographers have wanted to assert their own “physical science” as a whole synthetic perception of the natural world. (shrink)

Sur quoi aujourd’hui fonder l’autorité des parents? Que transmettre? Et comment exercer cette autorité au temps de l’enfance? Questions cruciales pour le devenir subjectif des nouveaux venus au monde... Car, sans autorité, pas de transmission de la dette de vie, celle qui ouvre à la Loi et au désir, pas d’humanisation et de socialisation des enfants.

In this book, Françoise Mirguet traces the appropriation and reinterpretation of pity by Greek-speaking Jewish communities of Late Antiquity. Pity and compassion, in this corpus, comprised a hybrid of Hebrew, Greek, and Roman constructions; depending on the texts, they were a spontaneous feeling, a practice, a virtue, or a precept of the Mosaic law. The requirement to feel for those who suffer sustained the identity of the Jewish minority, both creating continuity with its traditions and emulating dominant discourses. Mirguet's book (...) will be of interest to scholars of early Judaism and Christianity for its sensitivity to the role of feelings and imagination in the shaping of identity. An important contribution to the history of emotions, it explores the role of the emotional imagination within the context of Roman imperialism. It also contributes to understanding how compassion has come to be so highly valued in Western cultures. (shrink)

Maternités : l’usage du pluriel dans le titre de ce numéro dit d’emblée la diversité des expériences maternelles et la polysémie du terme, qui désigne à la fois l’action de porter et mettre au monde un enfant, le lieu (l’hôpital) où s’effectuent les accouchements, la relation (matérielle et affective) tissée avec des enfants et inscrite dans un réseau de parenté, une oeuvre d’art représentant la mère et l’enfant. Historienne de la maternité, engagée aujourd’hui, par la parole et l’écrit, pour...

During the Algerian struggle, Fanon warned us about the influence on politics of ‘the few European colonialists, powerful, intractable, those who have at all times instigated repressions, broken the French democrats, blocked every endeavor within the colonial framework to introduce a modicum of democracy into Algeria’. Is this remark still pertinent? How does Frantz Fanon help us understand current reactionary politics in France? Is his analysis of the French Left still pertinent? How does colonial discourse weigh on the postcolonial present? (...) In this article, I explore current expressions of French postcolonial reactionary politics focusing on an event in Reunion Island, a French postcolonial territory. I argue that it is important to observe what is happening in French postcolonial territories because they remain laboratories for repressive policies and discourses. What I call the discourse of ‘French Algeria’, a mix of revisionist history, resentment, wounded narcissism and racism, embodies a political trend that seeks to counter the small progress made in rewriting history from the point of view of the colony in France. (shrink)