Cet ouvrage dédié à trois pionnières américaines de l’histoire de la médecine et de l’histoire des femmes, Caroline Walker Bynum, Joan Cadden et Nancy G. Siraisi, est la traduction française du dernier ouvrage, paru à New York en 2006, de Katharine Park, professeur d’histoire des sciences et de women’s studies à Harvard. K. Park est célèbre entre autres pour son ouvrage sur les médecins et la médecine à Florence au début de la Renaissance. Tout en continuant de privilégier l’étude de (...) la prati... (shrink)

Les trente et un articles composant ce volume dédié à Paulette L’Hermite-Leclercq sont regroupés sous cinq rubriques, et il faut saluer d’emblée le travail de P. Henriet et A.‑M. Legras, qui ont proposé ici un découpage aussi fidèle au parcours intellectuel de celle qu’ils voulaient ainsi honorer, qu’exempt de tout parfum d’artifice. La première partie réunit des études analysant différents « Regards masculins sur la femme », observés d’après des lieux attendus comme l’exégèse ou la pensée sc...

Un petit nombre de femmes-auteurs du Moyen Age se sont montrées particulièrement intéressées par l'Histoire, notamment locale, et, dans l'aire germanique, trois d'entre elles se distinguent par l'originalité de leur apport en ce domaine : Hrotsvita de Gandersheim au Xe siècle, et Hildegarde de Bingen et Herrade de Hohenbourg au XIIe. Toutes trois religieuses, elles ont livré à la postérité le récit de la fondation de leur monastère, l'une par le biais de la poésie métrique, la seconde via l'hagiographie et (...) la dernière au moyen de l'image. (shrink)

Un petit nombre de femmes-auteurs du Moyen Age se sont montrées particulièrement intéressées par l'Histoire, notamment locale, et, dans l'aire germanique, trois d'entre elles se distinguent par l'originalité de leur apport en ce domaine : Hrotsvita de Gandersheim au Xe siècle, et Hildegarde de Bingen et Herrade de Hohenbourg au XIIe. Toutes trois religieuses, elles ont livré à la postérité le récit de la fondation de leur monastère, l'une par le biais de la poésie métrique, la seconde via l'hagiographie et (...) la dernière au moyen de l'image. (shrink)

Fondée en 1982 par un groupe d'étudiants de littérature française autour de Bernard Cerquiglini et publiée par les Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, Médiévales est aujourd'hui la seule revue généraliste d'histoire du Moyen Âge en France. Mais si elle a connu maints changements depuis sa création, elle est restée fidèle au choix de numéros thématiques : chaque numéro de cette revue semestrielle est consacré à un thème, qui n'exclut pas d'autres articles, longtemps qualifiés de « Hors-thème...

CHAPTER ONE Moral Character and Moral Theories Social interaction is the thread from which the fabric of moral character is woven.1 For it is social ...

This essay discusss (1) the differences and commonalities between romantic love and friendship and (2) the differences and commonalities between parental love of friendship.

This essay is a commentary upon "Race and Kant" by Thomas Hill, Jr and Bernard Boxill. They argue that although Kant in his anthropological writings took blacks to be inferior, his moral theory requires that they be shown the proper moral respect since blacks are persons nonetheless. I argue that this argument is sound, because the conception of inferiority that Kant attributed to blacks does not permit showing them the proper moral respect. Imagine a defective Mercedes Benz and a Ford (...) Pinto. These two cars are not inferior in the same sort of way. For Kant, I argue, the inferiority of blacks is more akin to that of a Ford Pinto; for he undoubtedly took blacks to be perpetual children. Chilren are persons, too; however, no one has ever supposed that moral theory applies to children in the full way that it applies to adults. (shrink)

Two kinds of sources are available to the historian to reconstruct the first centuries of the history of Mithradates' antidote: biographical information on Mithradates' interests in medicine, and a series of recipes. In this paper I argue that we cannot reconstruct the original recipe of Mithridatium from our existing sources. Instead, I examine how the Romans remodelled the history of the King's death and used the royal name to create a "Roman" drug. This drug enjoyed a huge popularity in the (...) first centuries of the Roman Empire. An Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, consumed it as well as members of the upper class; and many highly literate physicians recommended it notwithstanding the medical sect they were belonging to. With all its expensive ingredients, and its claim to work as a panacea, Mithridatium responded to a real demand in a Roman Empire at its commercial and political apogee. (shrink)

Summary The article discusses the decline of Aristotelian physics at the University of Paris in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. A course of physics remained essentially Aristotelian until the final decade of the seventeenth century, when it came under the influence of Descartes. But the history of physics teaching over this period cannot be properly appreciated if it is simply seen in terms of the replacement of one physical philosophy by another. Long before the 1690s, the traditional Aristotelianism of (...) the Schools had been forced to come to terms with the New Science to some degree, while the Cartesianism of the early eighteenth century was always alive to the challenges to Descartes's particular physical theories. Except in the early seventeenth century the physics course at Paris was always in a state of change. The replacement of Aristotelian by Cartesian physics too involved the development of a novel epistemology. Although both Aristotelian and Cartesian professors believed that natural philosophy was a science of causes based upon a priori principles, the latter had a far more probabilist conception of physics. (shrink)

The article traces the changes that occurred in the teaching of theoretical medicine at the University of Paris in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, as the Faculty came under the influence of new medical ideas and discoveries. As a result it is essentially a study in the history of the transmission of ideas; the article illustrates how quickly and in what form these new ideas and discoveries became part of the common medical inheritance of one region of Europe. At (...) Paris, it is shown, the Faculty of Medicine was completely under the influence of the theories of Galen and Hippocrates at the beginning of the period, and rival ideas were greeted with hostility for much of the seventeenth century. By the early eighteenth century, however, the Faculty was completely abreast of contemporary developments and no longer wedded to a particular ‘school’. This change, it is emphasised, was associated with and closely influenced by, the growth of a more humble and discerning attitude among the Faculty's doctors with regards to the limits and the objectivity of their medical knowledge. The article is largely based on a hitherto unused source: the collection of abstracts of theses sustained in the period, to be found in the present-day Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine at Paris. (shrink)

This essay discusses the character of many atrocities that have occurred throughout human history.

UTONOMY IS VERY HIGHLY PRAISED as something that it is always good to have, and always good to have more of rather than less of.1 The idea seems to be that persons should be autonomous whatever else they might be, and that should act autonomously whatever else it is that they might do. Kantians are fond of saying that a person is autonomous if she or he chooses to live in accordance with the dictates of reason. This, in turn, directly (...) links autonomy to morality, which for Kantians is an ineliminable aspect of reason. I shall discuss this view in Section II. Of course, it is also the case that autonomy is widely heralded as a good by those who do not accept Kant’s philosophical moorings. For instance, to say that women should be more autonomous is not thereby to say that they should be more embracing of this or that moral set of principles. In fact, it is not clear that this assertion pertains to acting morally at all. Autonomy, like liberty, seems to be regarded as a good whatever the philosophical leanings of people might be. In either case, the more the better. (shrink)

This essay is part of a symposium on affirmative action that took place at the University of Cincinnati with the distinguished legal scholar Ronald Dworkin. I argue against affirmative action. And I discuss at length the votes of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the dissent of Justice Clarence Thomas. I develop the idea of idiosyncratic excellence; and I argue that diversity is a weakness insofar as it (a) an excuse for social myopia and (b)an impediment to individuals seeing beyond their (...) differences and affirming the excellences that they witness. The expected publication date, Univ of Cinn Law Review, is March 2004. (shrink)

No man can, for any considerable time, wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which is the true one- Nathaniel HawthorneThe Platonic view that every just person is, in virtue of being such, happier than any unjust person, since all among the latter are unhappy, strikes a most responsive chord in the hearts of a great many persons. But it would seem that this idea has less of a foothold in reality (...) than it does in our hearts. It is far too difficult to deny that there are unjust persons who are happy. Indeed, some even seem to be happier than many a just person.So I shall lower my sights. Rather than attempting to defend as sound the Platonic view, I shall argue that the just person is favored to be happier than a certain kind of unjust person whom I shall simply call a masquerader - this is, an individual who is frequently concerned to masquerade as a deeply caring person. (shrink)

This work has a most resounding virtue: It is an essay in moral philosophy written about the ordinary life. Care’s point of departure is a life that is flawed and troubled—one that is dulled to numerous moral considerations, one that is far from capable of just willing itself back on any track, moral or otherwise. And as the book’s title suggests, the question that he is concerned to answer is, How does that kind of person get on with living a (...) morally respectable life? How is it possible for that person to have what Care calls Hume-Falk peace of mind, since that person’s life will never, in view of the damage caused to others, pass satisfactory review. (shrink)

Moral philosophy is at its best when it takes human psychology seriously. Such are the instincts of Thomas Wren. His engaging book Caring About Morality is an attempt to offer an account of human motivation that is true to human psychology, but which captures the spirit of Kantian morality without Kantian metaphysics. I argue that there are some fundamental psychological considerations which Wren does not take into account, and which are an obstacle to the success of his project. Moral motivation, (...) 1 suggest, is much more tied to the psychological histories of persons than Wren allows. (shrink)

The essay discuss the issue of comparing the American Slavery and the Holocaust, and the extent to which the ideology of the American dream has fueled invidious comparisons between the two peoples. Just as murder and rape are wrongs to be understood in their own right, I argue that a like claim holds for American Slavery and the Holocuast. The essay further points out that we should be weary of supposing that wrongdoing is the sort of the thing for which (...) compensation is at all possible. (shrink)

The terrorists will win because they have nothing to lose if they try and fail, whereas we here in the West have become so concerned with the amenities of life (such as our gas-guzzling SUVs) that, lest we should have to forgo them, we would rather appease evil itself.

While I agree with Punzo's central thesis that virtue ethics is superior to Kantian ethics, the aims of my comments are twofold. On the one hand, I draw attention to some ways in which Punzo overstates the case against Kantian ethics, noting that unattainable ideals as such are no mark against a moral theory. On the other, I build upon Punzo's insights in order to bring into sharper focus the superiority of virtue ethics. Accordingly, I distinguish between inter-species (Kantian ethics) (...) and intra-species (virtue ethics) morality, maintaining that the former, unlike the latter, invariably proves too wide of the mark. (shrink)

Abstract:There is an inconsistency in the Apology between Socrates' claim to ignorance and his numerous knowledge claims. Scholars have attempted to dispel the inconsistency by weakening the claim to ignorance, the knowledge claims, or both. The author suggests a different tack. He argues that the inconsistency is intentional on Plato's part as a creative means of motivating for the conclusion that the life of inquiry—the examined life—is the best human life. Surprisingly, the claim that said life is best is not (...) a knowledge claim in any ordinary sense. Rather, the claim rests, for Plato, on the awareness of the absence of any worthwhile knowledge. In other words, the claim rests on the claim to ignorance. So too for any subsequent claims which, in turn, rest upon it. Why the claim to ignorance is not a claim like any other is the heart of the article. (shrink)