The thirties constituted in many respects a rich and revealing moment of the history of political commitment of the French intellectuals. Within this conjuncture, the Spanish civil war, by its religious and ideological components, assumed for them a very special importance. The public engagements of Georges Bernanos, François Mauriac and Emmanuel Mounier rather clearly illustrate the cristallization of a new vocation of commitment to which the Spanish events conferred an irresistible character.Although they participated, at different levels, to the (...) big passionate movement which the event generated in France in July 1936, all three agreed, from 1937 on, to recognize that totalitarisms and fascisms then constituted the most dangerous agents in an ill Europe. Finally, one can say that by refusing the temptation which leads men to renunciation, fanatism or personal unexistance, their politica! commitment has certainly illustrated their will to regive a meaning to the human. (shrink)

Après le succès du Courage de la nuance, Jean Birnbaum poursuit son enquête sur l''héroïsme du doute' avec une réflexion personnelle et politique sur l'enfance. Dans ce nouveau livre, il montre comment la naissance d'un enfant fait vaciller toute certitude. Ce qui l'intéresse, c'est une expérience banale mais qui a peu attiré l'attention des penseurs: devenir le parent d'un enfant, c'est constater ses effets sur notre rapport aux autres et sur notre vision politique des choses. Si, depuis Socrate, le philosophe (...) est celui qui dynamite nos préjugés, alors le bébé s'impose comme le plus subversif des philosophes. Cette fois encore, Jean Birnbaum mêle réflexions et émotions. Il se tourne vers des auteurs aimés (Hannah Arendt, Georges Bernanos, Roland Barthes, Rosa Luxemburg...) et puise dans sa propre expérience. À l'heure où le mouvement 'No kids' dénonce la procréation comme une catastrophe intime et écologique, ce livre proclame la solidarité essentielle entre espoir d'une société meilleure et promesse de la vie donnée, transmise, sauvée ; il n'y a pas d'émancipation sans générations, pas d'avenir sans enfants, pas de fraternité sans bébés."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Les nouveaux désobéissants sont-ils de dangereux " hors-la-loi " qu'il convient de traiter et de sanctionner en tant que tels ou, au contraire, sont-ils des " citoyens " exemplaires dont la bravoure permet d'approfondir la démocratisation de nos institutions? La citoyenneté est-elle compatible avec la désobéissance et, si oui, à quelles conditions, jusqu'où et dans quel but? Au cours des trente dernières années, le centre de gravité de la contestation sociale s'est progressivement déplacé du répertoire d'actions légal (vote protestataire, syndicalisme, (...) grève, manifestation, pétition) vers des modes de contestation qui outrepassent de plus en plus fréquemment les frontières de la légalité (pirates informatiques, zadistes, manifestations interdites, désobéissants civils). Ce débat mobilise de nombreuses énergies politiques, médiatiques et judiciaires. Les sciences sociales et la philosophie politique sont en revanche restées discrètes sur la question. Le présent ouvrage entend combler ce manque. Loin de menacer la démocratie, la désobéissance civile lui confère un nouveau souffle. A l'heure où, face à la montée du chômage, du racisme et des intégrismes, d'aucuns entendent sauver la République par un retour à l'ordre moral et juridique, l'auteur plaide au contraire pour une société ouverte au conflit et à la remise en question. " Il faut beaucoup d'indisciplinés pour faire un peuple libre ", écrivait déjà George Bernanos à l'orée de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Considérer les nouveaux désobéissants comme des " citoyens " plutôt que de leur attribuer les étiquettes diffamantes de " délinquants " et de " fossoyeurs de l'ordre public " permet de penser de nouvelles armes politiques pour renforcer la démocratie. (shrink)

André Malraux, le conquérant aveugle.--Albert Camus; ou, L'appel des humiliés.--Perspectives existentialistes et perspectives chrétiennes.--Un surnaturalisme historique: Georges Bernanos.

The author of this major study compares the significantly different approaches to business ethics on both sides of the Atlantic and considers what they have to learn from each other. He has considerable experience of business ethics in both Europe and North America, having taught and researched the subject at the University of St Gallen in his native Switzerland before his appointment as Professor of International Business Ethics in the College of Business Administration, University of Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA. (...) Professor Enderle was also the founding Honorary Treasurer of the European Business Ethics Network and is an Associate Editor of this Review. (shrink)

As the work of thinkers such as Michel Foucault, François Jacob, Louis Althusser, and Pierre Bourdieu demonstrates, Georges Canguilhem has exerted tremendous influence on the philosophy of science and French philosophy more generally. In Knowledge of Life, a book that spans twenty years of his essays and lectures, Canguilhem offers a series of epistemological histories that seek to establish and clarify the stakes, ambiguities, and emergence of philosophical and biological concepts that defined the rise of modern biology. How do (...) transformations in biology and modern medicine shape conceptions of life? How do philosophical concepts feed into biological ideas and experimental practices, and how are they themselves transformed? How does knowledge "undo the experience of life so as to help man remake what life has made without him, in him or outside of him?" Knowledge of Life is Canguilhem's effort to explain how the movements of knowledge and life come to rest upon each other. Published at the dawn of the genetic revolution and still pertinent today, the book tackles the history of cell theory, the conceptual moves toward and away from mechanical understandings of the organism, the persistence of vitalism, and the nature of normality in science and its objects. (shrink)

In recent years, corporate environmental policies have become urgently needed, demanded by influential environmentalist groups and launched by an increasing number of companies. Those demands and efforts, however, often lack an ethical underpinning. This paper deals with some basic ethical issues and outlines three perspectives for further investigation: (1) How can we take into account ethical pluralism that characterizes most contemporary societies?; (2) What is the content of environmental ethics viewed from a Christian perspective, taken as an example of various (...) existent doctrines in the pluralistic world?; and (3) What relevance may this "Christian environmental stewardship" have for the understanding of corporate environmental responsibility? (shrink)

The doctrine of the two truths - a conventional truth and an ultimate truth - is central to Buddhist metaphysics and epistemology. The two truths (or two realities), the distinction between them, and the relation between them is understood variously in different Buddhist schools; it is of special importance to the Madhyamaka school. One theory is articulated with particular force by Nagarjuna (2nd ct CE) who famously claims that the two truths are identical to one another and yet distinct. One (...) of the most influential interpretations of Nagarjuna's difficult doctrine derives from the commentary of Candrakirti (6th ct CE). In view of its special soteriological role, much attention has been devoted to explaining the nature of the ultimate truth; less, however, has been paid to understanding the nature of conventional truth, which is often described as "deceptive," "illusion," or "truth for fools." But because of the close relation between the two truths in Madhyamaka, conventional truth also demands analysis. Moonshadows, the product of years of collaboration by ten cowherds engaged in Philosophy and Buddhist Studies, provides this analysis. The book asks, "what is true about conventional truth?" and "what are the implications of an understanding of conventional truth for our lives?" Moonshadows begins with a philosophical exploration of classical Indian and Tibetan texts articulating Candrakati's view, and uses this textual exploration as a basis for a more systematic philosophical consideration of the issues raised by his account. (shrink)

In recent years, corporate environmental policies have become urgently needed, demanded by influential environmentalist groups and launched by an increasing number of companies. Those demands and efforts, however, often lack an ethical underpinning. This paper deals with some basic ethical issues and outlines three perspectives for further investigation: (1) How can we take into account ethical pluralism that characterizes most contemporary societies?; (2) What is the content of environmental ethics viewed from a Christian perspective, taken as an example of various (...) existent doctrines in the pluralistic world?; and (3) What relevance may this "Christian environmental stewardship" have for the understanding of corporate environmental responsibility? (shrink)

For all the inadequacies of empiricism that BonJour admirably sets out in his first three chapters, one wonders whether rationalism is any better off. I’m afraid I don’t find BonJour’s account reassuring. It seems to be precisely the one that has led so many to be wary of the a priori in the first place. I want here to reiterate the reasons for that wariness, and sketch what seems to me a more promising approach.

’Catastrophes are not accidents.’All complex organizations can take steps to prevent catastrophe by enlisting the new scientific study of danger. The author is a member of the Scientific Committee of 1′Institut Européen de Cindyniques and Directeur général adjoint of L'Union des Assurances de Paris. This article is part of a presentation made to the 1992 Paris Conference of the European Business Ethics Network, of which the author is a Council member. The subject of the Conference was the role of business (...) in the shaping of cities, but the author's reflections on learning from risks are of considerably wider application. (shrink)

Commentary on Galen Strawson's 'Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism'.

Title on added t.p.: Saint-Simon & son uvre.

Georges J. D. Moyal - Deux notes sur l' «imparfaite science» du geometre athee - Journal of the History of Philosophy 43:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.3 277-300 Deux notes sur l'« imparfaite science » du géomètre athée Georges J. D. Moyal Deux questions. La Ve Méditation de Descartes vise à démontrer que l'existence d'un Dieu vérace est la condition nécessaire de toute science. En effet, Descartes y écrit ceci : « . . . je remarque (...) que la certitude de toutes les autres choses en dépend si absolument [sc. de l'existence de Dieu], que sans cette connaissance il est impossible de pouvoir jamais rien savoir parfaitement. » Ce qui le mène, bien entendu, d'abord à reconnaître que « . . . si j'ignorais qu'il y eût un Dieu [ . . . ] je n'aurais jamais une vraie et certaine science d'aucune chose que ce soit, mais seulement de vagues et inconstantes opinions » et par là même, à refuser ensuite cette parfaite science au géomètre athée : « Or, qu'un athée puisse connaître clairement que les trois angles d'un triangle sont égaux à deux droits, je ne le nie pas ; mais je maintiens seulement qu'il ne le connaît pas par une vraie et certaine science, parce que toute connaissance qui peut être rendue douteuse ne doit pas être appelée science . . . » Il faut reconnaître qu'il y a à nos yeux, aujourd'hui, quelque chose de surprenant à ce que le géomètre athée se voie ainsi refuser cette parfaite science.. (shrink)

In this book Georges Ibongu shows that Ernst Cassirer adopts a sort of structural realism in his writings on physics. Cassirer does not deny the existence of physical entities. For him, however, a physical entity loses its absolute fixity and is involved in the process of physical knowledge. The electron is a definite object but cannot, as an individual, be designated by being here and now. The individuality of simple particles means, for Cassirer, that they are only describable as (...) points of intersection of definite relations or structures. (shrink)