A little-known movie by Alfred Hitchcock, Torn Curtain — admittedly not one of his best — tells a story of spying and science. It features a strange scene, where two physicists confront one another on some theoretical question. Their “discussion”, if it may be so called, consists solely in one of them writing some equations on the blackboard, only to have the other angrily grabbing the eraser and wiping out the formulas to write new ones of his own, etc., without (...) ever uttering a single word. This picture of theoretical physics as an aphasic knowledge entirely consisting of mathematical symbols, as common as it may be in popular representations, we know to be wrong, of course, and we have to acknowledge that, far from being mute, we are a very talkative kind; physics is made out of words. What I wish to question here, however, is the very nature of our relationship with language, particularly as concerns quantum theory. My thesis will be that we have been somewhat offhand and rather indifferent with respect to the words we use, or rather without respect for them, and that this attitude has reinforced, and sometimes perhaps even produced some of the persisting epistemological and pedagogical difficulties in our field — not to speak of the new cultural problems that we are facing. (shrink)

Cent ans après sa parution, il est possible de lire le livre de Bergson sur la relativité de façon moins polémique qu’à l’époque. La maturation et la stabilisation de la théorie d’Einstein, devenue une composante banale de l’arsenal des physiciens, permettent une évaluation précise des méprises commises par Bergson dans son exégèse, en même temps qu’elles amènent à reconnaître leur intérêt épistémologique. Nous entendons ici réfléchir sur cette lecture bergsonienne de la Rélativité einsteinienne.

Dans cet entretien de conclusion, Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, physicien et épistémologue, professeur émérite de l'Université de Nice, directeur des collections scientifiques aux éditions du Seuil et de la revue Alliage, montre qu'il est faux de penser que les sciences exactes n'ont besoin qu'accessoirement de la langue en raison du degré de leur formalisation, contrairement aux sciences humaines. La conceptualisation en sciences ne saurait se passer de la langue, ni même des langues . Le recours à l'anglais n'est qu'un moyen, (...) nullement une fin en soi - ce que la mondialisation rend de plus en plus évident, au fur et à mesure que la science se décline de plus en plus en hindi, en chinois, ou dans d'autres langues. En refusant d'être plurilingue comme elle l'a été par le passé, la science risque l'aphasie, non seulement linguistique, mais aussi conceptuelle, ce qui n'est pas sans gravité pour la diffusion des connaissances scientifiques à l'échelle aussi bien locale que mondiale.In this interview, conclusion, Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, physicist and epistemologist, professor emeritus at the University of Nice, director of scientific collections by Seuil and review alloy, shows that it is wrong to think that sciences do not need the language incidentally because of the degree of formalization, unlike the humanities. Conceptualization science can not do without the language or even language . The use of English is a means, not an end in itself - that globalization makes it increasingly obvious, as and as science comes increasingly Hindi, Chinese or in other languages. Refusing to be multilingual as it was in the past, science risk aphasia, not only linguistic, but also conceptual, which is not trivial for the dissemination of scientific knowledge to scale as both local and global. (shrink)

SummaryThe history of quantum physics has been deeply conditioned by the change in scientific practice as a social activity during the past fifty years. As a result the theory has not been allowed full maturing; both its formal and empirical advances have not resulted in a comparable conceptual progress. The recasting of quantum theory thus appears as an epistemological necessity. One of the main aspects of this process is to clear quantum theory from its persisting classical connections in order to (...) endow it with an autonomous and intrinsic status. Problems related to the foundations, description, interpretation and approximations of quantum theory are considered in turn, and various recent works are reviewed which contribute to the proposed endeavour.RésuméL'histoire de la théorie quantique a été fortement conditionnée par les changements intervenus au cours des cinquante dernières années dans la pratique scientifique en tant qu'activité sociale. La théorie en conséquence n'a pu atteindre sa pleine maturité et ses développements à la fois formels et empiriques n'ont pas conduit à des progrès conceptuels comparables. La refonte de la théorie quantique apparaît ainsi comme une nécessitéépistémologique. L'un des principaux aspects de ce processus consiste à débarrasser la théorie quantique de ses persistantes attaches classiques, de façon à lui conférer un statut autonome et intrinsèque. On considère ici tour à tour les problèmes de fondements, de terminologie, d'interprétation et de limites, de la théorie quantique, tout en passant en revue divers travaux récents contribuant à l'entreprise proposée.ZusammenfassungDie Geschichte der Quantenphysik ist in entscheidender Weise durch die Veränderungen, die in den letzten fünfzig Jahren in der wissenschaftlichen Praxis als einer sozialen Tätigkeit eingetreten sind, bestimmt worden. Die Theorie hat deshalb ihre volle Reife nicht erlangen können; ihre zugleich formalen und empirischen Entfaltungen haben nicht zu einem entsprechenden begrifflichen Fortschritt geführt. Eine Umgestaltung der Quantentheorie muss daher als ein erkenntnistheoretisches Desiderat betrachtet werden. Einer der wichtigsten Aspekte eines derartigen Unterfangens wird darin bestehen, die Theorie von ihren hartnäckigen Bindungen an klassische Begriffe zu befreien, um ihr einen eigenständigen und autonomen Status zu verleihen. Es werden die Probleme der Begründung, der Terminologie, der Interpretation und der Grenzen der Quantentheorie diskutiert, indem auch verschiedene kürzlich erschienene Arbeiten, die sich auf das vorgeschlagene Unternehmen beziehen, berücksichtigt werden. (shrink)

En 1587, le jeune Galilée est invité à donner Due lezioni all’Accademia Fiorentina circa la figura, sito e grandezza dell’Inferno di Dante [Galilei 1587] afin d’éclairer une vive controverse sur l’interprétation de la géographie de l’Enfer dantesque. Ce travail d’exégèse littéraire permet à Galilée de faire reconnaître ses talents mathématiques comme ses qualités pédagogiques. Mais la portée de ces leçons va bien au-delà, car on peut y voir apparaître plusieurs thèmes majeurs de l’œuvre ultérieure de Galilée : au plan mathématique, (...) l’importance de la géométrie d’inspiration archimédienne, au plan physique, l’étude des questions de similitude que pose la résistance des matériaux – sans oublier l’intérêt constant du scientifique pour la langue et pour la culture littéraire. (shrink)

En 1587, le jeune Galilée est invité à donner Due lezioni all’Accademia Fiorentina circa la figura, sito e grandezza dell’Inferno di Dante (ci-après Leçons sur l’Enfer) [Galilei 1587] afin d’éclairer une vive controverse sur l’interprétation de la géographie de l’Enfer dantesque. Ce travail d’exégèse littéraire permet à Galilée de faire reconnaître ses talents mathématiques comme ses qualités pédagogiques. Mais la portée de ces leçons va bien au-delà, car on peut y voir apparaître plusieurs thèmes majeurs de l’œuvre ultérieure de Galilée (...) : au plan mathématique, l’importance de la géométrie d’inspiration archimédienne, au plan physique, l’étude des questions de similitude que pose la résistance des matériaux – sans oublier l’intérêt constant du scientifique pour la langue et pour la culture littéraire. (shrink)

Papers from the 1994 meeting represent a broad review of contemporary experimental work on quantum phenomena, emphasizing state-of-the-art experimental science. Useful as an introductory manual for young researchers, the volume addresses topics that include: experiments with single and ultracold ato.

From the very beginning it was realised that quantum physics involves radically new interpretative and epistemological consequences. While hitherto there has been no satisfactory philosophical analysis of these consequences, recent years have witnessed the accomplishment of many experiments to test the foundations of quantum physics, opening up vistas to a completely novel technology: quantum technology. The contributions in the present volume review the interpretative situation, analyze recent fundamental experiments, and discuss the implications of possible future technological applications. Readership: Analytic philosophers (...) (logical empiricists), scientists (especially physicists), historians of logic, mathematics and physics, philosophers of science, and advanced students and researchers in these fields. Can be used for seminars on theoretical and experimental physics and philosophy of science, and as supplementary reading at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels. (shrink)

This challenging and provocative book argues against much contemporary orthodoxy in philosophy and the social sciences by showing why objectivity in the domain of ethics is really no different from the objectivity of scientific knowledge. Many philosophers and social scientists have challenged the idea that we act for objectively authoritative reasons. Jean Hampton takes up the challenge by undermining two central assumptions of this contemporary orthodoxy: that one can understand instrumental reasons without appeal to objective authority, and that the (...) adoption of the scientific world view requires no such appeal. In the course of the book Jean Hampton examines moral realism, the general nature of reason and norms, internalism and externalism, instrumental reasoning, and the expected utility model of practical reasoning. The book is sure to prove to be a seminal work in the theory of rationality that will be read by a broad swathe of philosophers and social scientists. (shrink)

Douglas Walton has been right in calling us to attend to the pragmatics of argument. He has, however, also insisted that arguments should be understood and assessed by considering the functions they perform; and from this, I dissent. Argument has no determinable function in the sense Walton needs, and even if it did, that function would not ground norms for argumentative practice. As an alternative to a functional theory of argumentative pragmatics, I propose a design view, which draws attention to (...) the way participants strategically undertake and impose norms on themselves in order for their arguments to have force. (shrink)

This major study of Hobbes' political philosophy draws on recent developments in game and decision theory to explore whether the thrust of the argument in Leviathan, that it is in the interests of the people to create a ruler with absolute power, can be shown to be cogent. Professor Hampton has written a book of vital importance to political philosophers, political and social scientists, and intellectual historians.

Fefermans argument is indeed convincing in a certain context, it can be dissolved entirely by modifying the context appropriately.

Jean-Pierre Dupuy, prophet of what he calls "enlightened doomsaying," has long warned that modern society is on a path to self-destruction. In this book, he pleads for a subversion of this crisis from within, arguing that it is our lopsided view of religion and reason that has set us on this course. In denial of our sacred origins and hubristically convinced of the powers of human reason, we cease to know our own limits: our disenchanted world leaves us defenseless (...) against a headlong rush into the abyss of global warming, nuclear holocaust, and the other catastrophes that loom on our horizon. Reviving the religious anthropology of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Marcel Mauss and in dialogue with the work of René Girard, Dupuy shows that we must remember the world's sacredness in order to keep human violence in check. A metaphysical and theological detective, he tracks the sacred in the very fields where human reason considers itself most free from everything it judges irrational: science, technology, economics, political and strategic thought. In making such claims, The Mark of the Sacred takes on religion bashers, secularists, and fundamentalists at once. Written by one of the deepest and most versatile thinkers of our time, it militates for a world where reason is no longer an enemy of faith. (shrink)

Jean Piaget was one of the most salient and inspirational figures in psychological and educational research this century. He was prolific, authoring or editing over eighty books and numerous journal papers which have spawned a huge and fertile continuation of his research over the decades. A major component of any course on children's psychological development and a research tradition that is expanding, scholars need access to the original texts rather than relying on secondhand accounts. Jean Piaget: Selected Works (...) is a chance to acquire key original texts, most of which have been previously unavailable for several years. (shrink)

Our encounters with the physical world are filled with miraculous puzzles-wind appears from somewhere, heavy objects float on oceans, yet smaller objects go to the bottom of our water-filled buckets. As adults, instead of confronting a whole world, we are reduced to driving from one parking garage to another. The Child's Conception of Physical Causality, part of the very beginning of the ground-breaking work of the Swiss naturalist Jean Piaget, is filled with creative experimental ideas for probing the most (...) sophisticated ways of thinking in children. The strength of Piaget's research is evident in this collection of empirical data, systematically organized by tasks that illuminate how things work. Piaget's data are remarkably rich. In his new introduction, Jaan Valsiner observes that Piaget had no grand theoretical aims, yet the book's simple power cannot be ignored. Piaget's great contribution to developmental psychology was his "clinical method"-a tactic that integrated relevant aspects of naturalistic experiment, interview, and observation. Through this systematic inquiry, we gain insight into children's thinking. Reading Piaget will encourage the contemporary reader to think about the unity of psychological phenomena and their theoretical underpinnings. His wealth of creative experimental ideas probes into the most sophisticated ways of thinking in children. Technologies change, yet the creative curiosity of children remains basically unhindered by the consumer society. Piaget's data preserve the reality of the original phenomena. As such, this work will provide a wealth of information for developmental psychologists and those involved in the field of experimental science. Jean Piaget is known for investigations of thought processes. He was professor at Geneva University and director of the International Center for Epistemology. He is the author of The Language and Thought of the Child, Judgment and Reasoning in the Child, The Origin of Intelligence in Children, and The Early Growth of Logic in the Child. Jaan Valsiner is professor of psychology at Clark University, and a recognized authority on the life and work of Piaget. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Prior Analytics identifies deductions simpliciter with inferential necessity, so that a deduced conclusion is necessarily inferred from some premises. Modern logical reconstructions claim that inferential necessity in Aristotle corresponds to logical validity. However, this logical reconstruction fails on two accounts. First, logical validity does not highlight Aristotle’s distinction between inferential necessity and predicative necessity, meaning that the inferential necessity of a deduction is not of the same kind as the predicative necessity of a non‑deductive argument. Second, logical validity does (...) not explain the relevance of Aristotle’s distinction between complete and incomplete deductions. Logicians speak of complete deduction by adding the term “obvious” or “transparent” to logical validity, and then criticize Aristotle’s view for being unclear. However, Aristotle’s position is not confronted with this difficulty. There is nothing to add to inferential necessity, which already means complete deducibility, as opposed to incomplete deducibility, deemed to be potentially complete. Accordingly, the Prior Analytics reduces the incomplete deductions to the complete deductions in order to prove the potential, inferential necessity of the incomplete deductions. Logical validity would have been faithful to Aristotle’s text, if it had been possible to coin a notion of potential validity, distinct from both validity and invalidity. (shrink)

Autonomous transposable elements, generally considered as junk and selfish, encode transposition proteins that can bind, copy, break, join or degrade nucleic acids as well as process or interact with other proteins. Such a repertoire of activities might be of interest for the host cell. There is indeed substantial evidence that mobile DNA can serve as a dynamic reservoir for new cellular functions. Transposable element genes encoding transposase, integrase, reverse transcriptase as well as structural and envelope proteins have been repeatedly recruited (...) by their host during evolution in most eukaryotic lineages. Such domesticated sequences protect us against infections, are necessary for our reproduction, allow the replication of our chromosomes and control cell proliferation and death; others are essential for plant development. Many new candidates for domesticated sequences have been revealed by sequencing projects. Their functional analysis will uncover new aspects of evolutionary alchemy, the turning of junk into gold within genomes. BioEssays 28: 913–922, 2006. © 2006 Wiley periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Sovereignty and the sovereign state are often seen as anachronisms; Globalization and Sovereignty challenges this view. Jean L. Cohen analyzes the new sovereignty regime emergent since the 1990s evidenced by the discourses and practice of human rights, humanitarian intervention, transformative occupation, and the UN targeted sanctions regime that blacklists alleged terrorists. Presenting a systematic theory of sovereignty and its transformation in international law and politics, Cohen argues for the continued importance of sovereign equality. She offers a theory of a (...) dualistic world order comprised of an international society of states, and a global political community in which human rights and global governance institutions affect the law, policies, and political culture of sovereign states. She advocates the constitutionalization of these institutions, within the framework of constitutional pluralism. This book will appeal to students of international political theory and law, political scientists, sociologists, legal historians, and theorists of constitutionalism. (shrink)

Philosopher, novelist, dramatist and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the greatest writers of all time. He was fascinated by the role played by the emotions in human life and placed them at the heart of his philosophy. This brilliant short work - which contains some of the principal ideas later to appear in his masterpiece Being and Nothingness - is Sartre at his best: insightful, engaging and controversial. Far from constraining one's freedom, as we often think, Sartre argues (...) that emotions are fundamental to it and that an emotion is nothing less than 'a transformation of the world'. With a new foreword by Sebastian Gardner. (shrink)

Originally published in 1941, this book contains the French text of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 1755 treatise Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes, in which he examines the artificial origins of human social structures designed to keep one group elevated above another. The preface by F. C. Green provides the historical context for Rousseau's essay and explains its influence on the authors of the French Revolution. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest (...) in French history or political philosophy. (shrink)

This first English translation illuminates Hegelianism's most obscure dialectical synthesis: the relation between the phenomenology and the logic. This book is essential for understanding the development of French thought in this century.

Jean-Michel Vienne; IX*—Locke on Real Essence and Internal Constitution1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 93, Issue 1, 1 June 1993, Pages 139–15.

An early work in which Baudrillard became Baudrillard. When Fatal Strategies was first published in French in 1983, it represented a turning point for Jean Baudrillard: an utterly original, and for many readers, utterly bizarre book that offered a theory as proliferative, ecstatic, and hallucinatory as the postmodern world it endeavored to describe. Arguing against the predetermined outcomes of dialectical thought with his renowned, wry, ambivalent passion, with this volume Jean Baudrillard mounted an attack against the “false problems” (...) posed by Western philosophy. If his Marxist days were firmly behind him, Baudrillard here indicated that metaphysics had also gone the way of sociology and politics: the contemporary world demanded nothing less than Pataphysics, Alfred Jarry's absurdist philosphy that described the laws of the universe supplementary to this one. In effect, with Fatal Strategies, Baudrillard became Baudrillard. In his extrapolationist manner, Baudrillard sought to replace Western philosophy's circular arguments with a ritualistic Theater of Cruelty. Using this line of thought developed in Fatal Strategies, Baudrillard went on, throughout the 1980s, to find new and shatteringly accurate ways of discussing American corporatocracy, arms build-up, and hostage taking. Fatal Strategies asserts a profound critique of American politics, and it is an important step towards his examination of evil.Jean Baudrillard was a philosopher, sociologist, cultural critic, and theorist of postmodernity who challenged all existing theories of contemporary society with humor and precision. An outsider in the French intellectual establishment, he was internationally renowned as a twenty-first century visionary, reporter, and provocateur. His Simulations instantly became a cult classic and made him a controversial voice in the world of politics and art. (shrink)

First published in 1972. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

‘I should like to show here that the Ego is neither formally or materially in consciousness: it is outside, in the world.’ _Jean-Paul Sartre _ _The Transcendence of the Ego_ is one of Jean-Paul Sartre's earliest philosophical publications and essential for understanding the trajectory of his work as a whole. When it first appeared in France in 1937 Sartre was still largely unknown, working as a school teacher in a provincial French town. Attacking prevailing philosophical theories head on, Sartre (...) offers a brilliant and radical account of the self as a product of consciousness, situated in the world. He introduces many of the themes central to his major work, Being and Nothingness: the nature of consciousness, the problem of self-knowledge, other minds, and anguish. This translation includes a thorough and illuminating introduction by Sarah Richmond, placing Sartre's essay in its philosophical and historical context. _Jean-Paul Sartre_. The foremost French thinker and writer of the early post-war years. His books, which include _Being and Nothingness, Nausea, The Age of Reason _and _No Exit_ have exerted enormous influence in philosophy, literature, politics and drama. __. (shrink)

Jean-Christophe Anderson Cet article interroge la présence, dans la Critique de la raison pure, d’une « clause anthropologique » redoublant le procès de la raison. À partir de la critique formulée par Husserl, selon laquelle Kant se montrerait coupable, en dépit de ses percées transcendantales, d’une forme de relativisme anthropologique, il s’agit plus précisément de clarifier la fonction limitative de l’incise « pour nous hommes » qui ponctue le texte de la première Critique. En dépit des apparences qui ont (...) pu mener Husserl à soutenir que Kant cherche à expliquer par cette clause la validité universelle des jugements synthétiques a priori, mais se trouve par le fait même à limiter cette validité, il est possible de soutenir que l’humanité de notre pouvoir de connaître n’est jamais présupposée par Kant et constitue en réalité une découverte de la raison à son propre sujet. (shrink)

Basing on one criticism of the narrative statement by has subject - actor, Jean-Christophe Royoux sees the singularity of the aesthetic work of Pierre Huyghe in new modality of the story where there is only one anti-actor who calls to spectators-free-time workers and produces by copy out a multiplicity of possible interpretations. Free time workers in the centres of the conflict of modern subjectivity have to invent one response in the question « How to live in the public space (...) today ? (shrink)