Maurice Blondel’s philosophy has had a decisive influence on the theology of Henri de Lubac, but more than an influence, it goes of an encounter and a dialogue between two great Catholic thinkers. This article proposes, over the course of successive encounters and collaborations between Blondel and Lubac, a presentation of Lubac’s reflection in that it extends Blondel’s critique of extrinsicity to the field of theology. This friendship between Lubac and Blondel testifies to the inherent character of the mystical question (...) to both philosophy and theology. This anchoring signifies the Mystery of Christ at work in the gesture of reason and in the understanding of faith. At the same time, Lubac promotes, in philosophy itself, an intelligence through faith. Friendship has not been an empty word with Lubac who openly defended Maurice Blondel on several occasions, and even after Blondel’s death, when Lubac continued to make the philosopher’s thought known by publishing and annotating a large part of his correspondence. (shrink)

L'évolution récente des réflexions sur la portée démocratique des différents modes de participation à la vie politique est marquée par la diffusion d'un modèle de « démocratie délibérative », dérivé de la philosophie de J. Habermas. Nous souhaitons interroger la validité d'un tel modèle quand il sert de référence normative à l'évaluation d'un ensemble hétérogène de situations de débat. L'hypothèse formulée ici pose que les différentes situations de confrontation ne sont conceptuellement pas assimilables. Ainsi, le parti pris consistant à transposer (...) les normes délibératives à tout type d'échange doit être d'autant plus questionné que les théories délibératives se restreignent elles-mêmes à des espaces spécifiques.The recent reflections on the scope of democratic modes of participation in political life is marked by the diffusion model of "deliberative democracy", derived from the philosophy of J. Habermas. We wish to question the validity of such a model when it is used as a normative reference to the evaluation of a heterogeneous set of situations of debate. The assumption here posits that the different situations of confrontation are not conceptually equivalent. Thus, the bias of transposing deliberative standards for all types of exchange must be questioned even more is that deliberative theories restrict themselves to specific areas. (shrink)

Based on fieldwork, this article highlights the unexpected effects of controversies about nanotechnology in France. These controversies stem in particular from a strong challenge to the field by civil society protests and criticism concerning environmental and health risks. One reason for this challenge is the specific difficulties in assessing the toxicity and ecotoxicity of nanomaterials. Civil society organizations have pushed for strictly controlling or stopping academic, industrial, or even basic research. They were not successful in this regard but their activities (...) prompted researchers to think about “safe by design” solutions and this led to new interdisciplinary cooperation. Furthermore, the uncertainty about the risks assessment resulted in a reconfiguration of the relationship between academic research and industrial companies. Researchers have become essential to the shaping of safe products. The risks of nanomaterials have thus been a driving force for new research and innovation practices. (shrink)

La guerre qui fait actuellement rage en Ukraine a initié un changement d’échelle dans le recours aux investigations numériques. Elle est le premier conflit de haute intensité qui se déroule dans une zone aussi largement couverte par Internet, et où l’utilisation des réseaux sociaux par les individus est une pratique habituelle. Manœuvres, assauts et exactions sont ainsi documentés en temps quasi réel et fournissent aux journalistes et observateurs des données sur le déroulement du conflit. Cependant, ces mêmes données sont analysées, (...) recoupées, interprétées et utilisées par les belligérants pour optimiser leurs stratégies de contrôle territorial en temps de guerre. (shrink)

Nanomaterials have attracted much interest in the medical field and related applications as their distinct properties in the nanorange enable new and improved diagnosis and therapies. Owing to these properties and their potential interactions with the human body and the environment, the impact of nanomaterials on humans and their potential toxicity have been regarded a very significant issue. Consequently, nanomaterials are the subject of a wide range of cutting-edge research efforts in the medical and related fields to thoroughly probe their (...) potential beneficial utilizations and their more negative effects. We posit that the lack of standardization in the field is a serious shortcoming as it has led to the establishment of methods and results that do not ensure sufficient consistency and thus in our view can possibly result in research outputs that are not as robust as they should be. The main aim of this article is to present how NanoDiaRA, a large FP7 European multidisciplinary project that seeks to investigate and develop nanotechnology-based diagnostic systems, has developed and implemented robust, standardized methods to support research practices involving the engineering and manipulation of nanomaterials. First, to contextualize this research, an overview of the measures defined by different regulatory bodies concerning nanosafety is presented. Although these authorities have been very active in the past several years, many questions remain unanswered in our view. Second, a number of national and international projects that attempted to ensure more reliable exchanges of methods and results are discussed. However, the frequent lack of publication of procedures and protocols in research can often be a hindrance for sharing those good practices. Subsequently, the efforts made through NanoDiaRA to introduce standardized methods and techniques to support the development and utilization of nanomaterials are discussed in depth. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with the partners of this project, and the interviews were analyzed thematically to highlight the determined efforts of the researchers to standardize their methods. Finally, some recommendations are made toward the setting up of well-defined methods to support the high-quality work of collaborative nanoparticle-based research and development projects and to enhance standardization processes. (shrink)

The discussion of ethics, corporate responsibility and its educational dimensions focuses primarily on CSR, corporate citizenship and philanthropic theory and practise. The partnership between Microsoft Corporation and UNHCR was launched to help the victims of the Kosovo crisis, at the same time as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gained momentum, and in particular, at the same time as Microsoft experienced a decrease in stock value. This case study sheds light on a decade of Microsoft Corp. efforts to align business (...) objectives with refugee aid, by use of corporate expertise and company revenues. As a leader in technology and corporate citizenship, can Microsoft bridge the digital divide for the disadvantaged and arouse the unlimited potential of tomorrow’s leaders, as the company claims in its communications? Is the partnership beneficial to UNHCR, in line with corporate objectives of “doing big things” and “doing good”? (shrink)

Humans can recollect past events in details and/or know that an object, person, or place has been encountered before. During the last two decades, there has been intense debate about how recollection and familiarity are organized in the brain. Here, we propose an integrative memory model which describes the distributed and interactive neurocognitive architecture of representations and operations underlying recollection and familiarity. In this architecture, the subjective experience of recollection and familiarity arises from the interaction between core systems and an (...) attribution system. By integrating principles from current theoretical views about memory functioning, we provide a testable framework to refine the prediction of deficient versus preserved mechanisms in memory-impaired populations. The case of Alzheimer's disease is considered as an example because it entails progressive lesions starting with limited damage to core systems before invading step-by-step most parts of the model-related network. We suggest a chronological scheme of cognitive impairments along the course of AD, where the inaugurating deficit would relate early neurodegeneration of the perirhinal/anterolateral entorhinal cortex to impaired familiarity for items that need to be discriminated as viewpoint-invariant conjunctive entities. The integrative memory model can guide future neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies aiming to understand how such a network allows humans to remember past events, to project into the future, and possibly also to share experiences. (shrink)

The discussion of ethics, corporate responsibility and its educational dimensions focuses primarily on CSR, corporate citizenship and philanthropic theory and practise. The partnership between Microsoft Corporation and UNHCR was launched to help the victims of the Kosovo crisis, at the same time as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gained momentum, and in particular, at the same time as Microsoft experienced a decrease in stock value. This case study sheds light on a decade of Microsoft Corp. efforts to align business (...) objectives with refugee aid, by use of corporate expertise and company revenues. As a leader in technology and corporate citizenship, can Microsoft bridge the digital divide for the disadvantaged and arouse the unlimited potential of tomorrow’s leaders, as the company claims in its communications? Is the partnership beneficial to UNHCR, in line with corporate objectives of “doing big things” and “doing good”? (shrink)

The integrative memory model formalizes a new conceptualization of memory in which interactions between representations and cognitive operations within large-scale cerebral networks generate subjective memory feelings. Such interactions allow to explain the complexity of memory expressions, such as the existence of multiples sources for familiarity and recollection feelings and the fact that expectations determine how one recognizes previously encountered information.

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

In their article “Implementing Expanded Prenatal Genetic Testing: Should Parents Have Access to Any and All Fetal Genetic Information?” Bayefsky and Berkman briefly mention that: “[s]ome are...

I make three claims about the interactions between concept mastery and the knowledge argument. First, I argue that, contra Ball, the concept mastery response to the knowledge argument does not suffer from the heterogeneity of concept mastery. Second, I argue that, when doing metaphysics by relating propositions on the basis of whether a hypothetical agent who knew a base collection could infer a target proposition, it is legitimate to rely on propositions that are not contained in the base, as long (...) as those propositions are required for mastery of relevant concepts. One upshot is that, when checking whether the physical truths a priori entail the consciousness truths, it is fair game to rely on substantive truths about consciousness. Third, I argue that the only version of the knowledge argument that has any hope of succeeding against physicalism completely lacks the argument's driving intuition: that Mary learns something new when she emerges from the black and white room. (shrink)

According to Frank Jackson’s famous knowledge argument, Mary, a brilliant neuroscientist raised in a black and white room and bestowed with complete physical knowledge, cannot know certain truths about phenomenal experience. This claim about knowledge, in turn, implies that physicalism is false. I argue that the knowledge argument founders on a dilemma. Either (i) Mary cannot know the relevant experiential truths because of trivial obstacles that have no bearing on the truth of physicalism or (ii) once the obstacles have been (...) removed, Mary can know the relevant truths. If we give Mary the epistemological capabilities necessary to draw metaphysical conclusions about physicalism, she will, while trapped in the black and white room, be able to know every truth about phenomenal experience. (shrink)

This ar ti cle ex tends, from a philo soph i cal and an thro po log i cal point of view, the re cent dis - cus sions as to what is met a phoric. Lan guage phi - los o phers have con trib uted to the un der stand ing of the na ture and func tion of met a phors, but their com ments have been tra ..

Réunissant les contributions de spécialistes reconnus du Japon, des États-Unis, d’Italie, d’Angleterre et enfin, de France, ce livre fera assurément progresser la connaissance et la reconnaissance de Diderot politique. Éclipsée par celles de Montesquieu ou de Rousseau, relativis...

Réunissant les contributions de spécialistes reconnus du Japon, des États-Unis, d’Italie, d’Angleterre et enfin, de France, ce livre fera assurément progresser la connaissance et la reconnaissance de Diderot politique. Éclipsée par celles de Montesquieu ou de Rousseau, relativisée par l’écho de ses propres écrits esthétiques, littéraires, épistémologiques ou encore bien sûr par ses contributions à l’entreprise de l’_Encyclopédie_, la pensée politique de Diderot possède pourtant une originalité dont les études réunies dans ce collectif s’emploient à montrer certains traits saillants. Le (...) problème colonial a récemment suscité des études thématiques sur l’œuvre de Diderot et sur l’_Histoire des deux Indes_, et trois contributeurs du volume, Gianluigi Goggi, Kenta Ohji et Sunil... (shrink)

This dissertation contains four independent essays addressing a cluster of related topics in the philosophy of mind. Chapter 1: “Fundamentality Physicalism” argues that physicalism can usefully be conceived of as a thesis about fundamentality. The chapter explores a variety of other potential formulations of physicalism (particularly modal formulations), contrasts fundamentality physicalism with these theses, and offers reasons to prefer fundamentality physicalism over these rivals. Chapter 2:“Modal Rationalism and the Demonstrative Reply to the Master Argument Against Physicalism” introduces the Master Argument (...) Against Physicalism and investigates its crucial premise: the inference from an a priori gap between the physical and consciousness to a lack of necessitation between the two. I argue against the strong form of modal rationalism that underwrites the master argument and offer a more moderate rationalist view. I offer a novel demonstrative reply to the master argument, according to which a connection between conscious experience and demonstratives, not dualism, is the source of the epistemic gap between consciousness and the physical. Chapter 3: “Conceptual Mastery and the Knowledge Argument” argues that Frank Jackson’s famous anti-physicalist knowledge argument featuring Mary, a brilliant neuroscientist raised in a black and white room, founders on a dilemma. Either (i) Mary cannot know the relevant experiential truths because of trivial obstacles that have no bearing on the truth of physicalism or (ii) once the obstacles have been removed, Mary can know the relevant truths. Chapter 4: “Toward a Theory of Conceptual Mastery” investigates the question “Under what conditions does a thinker fully understand, or have mastery of, a concept?” I argue against three views of conceptual mastery, according to which conceptual mastery is a matter of holding certain beliefs, being disposed to make certain inferences, or having certain intuitions. I propose and respond to objections to my own “meaning postulate view” of the conditions under which a thinker has mastery of a concept. (shrink)

Neste artigo, apresentamos parte de um estudo realizado em um grupo aberto do Facebook de negacionistas das vacinas. Com referenciais teóricos pautados na Teoria AtorRede (ANT) e nos estudos de Bruno Latour, Anne-Marie Mol e John Law, tivemos o objetivo de mapear os processos de atuação e de construção de realidades de um grupo de negacionistas da vacina. Além da ANT, nossas orientações metodológicas estiveram pautadas também na Análise de Rede Social (ARS). Assim, investigamos posts e o conteúdo dos (...) comentários produzidos por membros da comunidade entre os meses de março e abril de 2021. Nossos resultados indicam que os participantes dessa comunidade antivacina produzem realidades em que se observam movimentos de ataque e de defesa contra a ciência. Diante disso, sugerimos que também nos posicionemos diante desta guerra em prol da defesa da ciência, dos cientistas, do conhecimento científico, assim como da democracia e da composição de um bom mundo comum. (shrink)

Les mots de Mona Ozouf Elles sont dix, dix élues de coeur et de raison par Mona Ozouf pour illustrer la dimension diachronique de la condition féminine entre le XVIIIe et le XXe siècle, dix dont la destinée - emblématique ou pas - est campée avec virtuosité en 25 ou 30 pages : Marie du Deffand, Isabelle de Charrière, Manon Roland pour le XVIIIe, Germaine de Staël et Claire de Rémusat au tournant du XIXe, George Sand et Hubertine Auclert, (...) Colette qui ouvre le XXe siècle, Simone Weil et Simone... (shrink)

Les mots de Mona Ozouf Elles sont dix, dix élues de coeur et de raison par Mona Ozouf pour illustrer la dimension diachronique de la condition féminine entre le XVIIIe et le XXe siècle, dix dont la destinée - emblématique ou pas - est campée avec virtuosité en 25 ou 30 pages : Marie du Deffand, Isabelle de Charrière, Manon Roland pour le XVIIIe, Germaine de Staël et Claire de Rémusat au tournant du XIXe, George Sand et Hubertine Auclert, (...) Colette qui ouvre le XXe siècle, Simone Weil et Simone... (shrink)

Les mots de Mona Ozouf Elles sont dix, dix élues de coeur et de raison par Mona Ozouf pour illustrer la dimension diachronique de la condition féminine entre le XVIIIe et le XXe siècle, dix dont la destinée - emblématique ou pas - est campée avec virtuosité en 25 ou 30 pages : Marie du Deffand, Isabelle de Charrière, Manon Roland pour le XVIIIe, Germaine de Staël et Claire de Rémusat au tournant du XIXe, George Sand et Hubertine Auclert, (...) Colette qui ouvre le XXe siècle, Simone Weil et Simone... (shrink)

Gabrielle Suchon’s Treatise on Ethics and Politics offers surprising descriptions of sexual difference for an ostensibly feminist work. Stereotypically feminine traits—such as excessive emotions, chattiness, and deception—are compared to earthquakes, storms, wildfire, and apparitions. Although these descriptions may seem off-putting to modern readers, I argue that in offering these unflattering descriptions of women, Suchon is making a novel intervention in debates about the nature of sexual difference. In the Renaissance and Early Modern period, the salient question about feminine difference (...) was whether it was a preternatural deformity, and specifically a monstrosity. While most pro-woman authors argued that women were not preternatural, Suchon argues the affirmative, claiming that “persons of the sex are true wonders.” In doing so, Suchon presses on a tension at the heart of scholastic conceptions of women while also provoking an emotional response that might encourage men to reconsider whether patriarchal practices are truly to their advantage. (shrink)

La vida entera de muchos ensayistas transcurre sin dar jamás con un tema. Este ensayo no sólo se topa con un tema, sino que incluso se da el lujo de aprovecharlo. El tema es la felicidad. Sin embargo, La herida de Spinoza es un libro de ?losofía, no de autoayuda. Parte de algunas conclusiones recientes de la neurología, en particular de las investigaciones de Antonio Damasio acerca de la impertinencia de la secular división entre mente y cuerpo. El propio Damasio (...) vincula sus investigaciones con las ideas que Spinoza expuso en su Ética. Para Damasio, la tranquila aceptación de la muerte, una de las señas de identidad de la ética de Spinoza –de hecho, la «herida» de Spinoza–, resulta «irritante». Ese comentario de Damasio parece inocuo, pero para Vicente Serrano no lo es, sino que apunta a una especie de «desajuste», a una extraña incomprensión de la diferencia última de la ética spinozista. A partir de ahí el autor no se propone criticar solamente esa y otras lecturas de Spinoza, sino que plantea además una amplia crítica a la modernidad, y también a la posmodernidad. La herida de Spinoza se convierte entonces en una revisión de la historia entera de la ?losofía en esa zona en que ética y metafísica (u ontología) se superponen. Aunque el proyecto parece apabullante, el autor se asegura de estar bien equipado. Por una parte suprime el aparato académico, lo que le permite ser más breve y directo, y por otra echa mano de una erudición notable y, sobre todo, de una capacidad absolutamente inusual de explicación. Si hubiera que buscar parangones a esa capacidad, no quedaría más remedio que acudir a Rüdiger Safranski. El autor, sin embargo, no hace biografías, ni siquiera historia de la ?losofía como tal, sino que intenta ?losofar de la mano de los más grandes pensadores de la historia. El ensayo se completa con la inclusión de una pieza maestra: los afectos. Los afectos serían la respuesta posible de la ?losofía al problema de la biopolítica. La progresión de la modernidad no sólo implica la desaparición de la naturaleza, sino la sustitución absoluta de los afectos por la voluntad (de voluntad). Si la vuelta a la naturaleza es imposible, e incluso indeseable –dado que la naturaleza no fue nunca más que una metáfora–, Serrano se inspira en Foucault para proponer una «vuelta» a los afectos como la pieza fundamental que cierra la reflexión sobre el poder. «Un ensayo en el sentido más ágil del término, obra a mitad de camino entre lo reflexivo y lo literario… Bien pensado y bien escrito, muchísimo más de lo que se ha vuelto habitual en nosotros» (Gabriel Albiac, Leer). «La cuestión de fondo teórica –a qué responde la religión y qué problemas de comprensión existencial atiende o atendía– es algo mucho más complejo y creo que más apasionante. Un buen tratamiento filosófico de la cuestión es el que ofrece Vicente Serrano en La herida de Spinoza, reciente ganador del Premio Anagrama de Ensayo… Serrano explora las consecuencias posmodernas del abandono de las religiones: un tema más sugestivo que la refutación de las iglesias...» (Fernando Savater, El País). «Iniciado como un arroyo para abrirse en un delta que abarca toda la modernidad filosófica, la obra de Serrano analiza, sin pedantería ni falsas oscuridades, las inflexiones que han tenido los conceptos de religión, deseo, naturaleza, esperanza, progreso, poder y felicidad» (Juan Malpartida, ABC). «Entre quienes lo lean sumará cientos de fascinados. Ojalá miles» (Félix Soria, La Voz de Galicia). «La vida entera de muchos ensayistas transcurre sin dar jamás con un tema. Este ensayo no sólo se topa con un tema, sino que incluso se da el lujo de aprovecharlo. El tema es la felicidad… Plantea una amplia crítica a la modernidad, y también a la posmodernidad. La herida de Spinoza se convierte entonces en una revisión de la historia entera de la filosofía en esa zona en que ética y metafísica (u ontología) se superponen» (Diario de León). (shrink)

The pseudo-genetic analysis of given names shows that, in the Scilly Isles, coefficients of relationship of first names are similar on St Mary's, the Outer Isles, and in the total sample of 5666 individuals married there in two and a half centuries. Comparable coefficients of relationship of a sample of 1658 given names in marriages in England and Wales in 1975 are considerably smaller, but similar within and between districts. The coefficients of relationship of given names on the Scilly Isles (...) decreased during the 19th and especially the 20th centuries in parallel with decreases in random relationship from surnames. The genetic versus cultural–linguistic factors cannot be distinguished in the temporal variation in names, but the geographic differentiation virtually always reported in surnames is not present in these examples of given names and the geographic pattern in the surnames thus seems to result from the hereditary aspect of surnames. This result supports the validity of use of surnames in models of human genetic geography. (shrink)

¿Qué cabida tienen, o pueden tener, las éticas y las políticas de la alteridad en el horizonte filosófico actual? En el contexto de la filosofía española reciente, la obra de Gabriel Bello Reguera (Dehesas, León, 1943) ha afrontado el reto ético-político que plantea el tomarse en serio la alteridad. Ha desarrollado su carrera académica en la Universidad de La Laguna como catedrático de Filosofía Moral y en su trayectoria cabría señalar tres giros fundamentales, si bien relacionados entre sí. El primero (...) podemos derivarlo del impacto de la lectura de la obra del neopragmatista Richard Rorty, que incidió en su crítica al fundamentalismo autoritario de la tradición filosófica despertó su interés por la narratividad, ligada a la conversación, como herramienta edificante de la ética. El segundo es debido a la influencia del pensamiento de Emmanuel Lévinas, a partir del cual problematiza las relaciones entre las categorías éticas de identidad, diferencia y alteridad. El tercero, y más reciente, le llevará al terreno del análisis de las migraciones internacionales en su contexto postcolonial como acuciante asunto necesitado, precisamente, de un nuevo marco filosófico, ético y político. En este libro colectivo, a través de la obra de Gabriel Bello, afrontamos con rigor la contextualización de las éticas y las políticas de la alteridad, proseguimos la discusión en torno a estas a la vez que elaboramos, conjuntamente, un balance crítico de una línea de investigación, de sus posibilidades y límites. Con todo ello, además, seguimos la tradición de prestar reconocimiento y gratitud a nuestros maestros y a nuestras maestras. En este caso, reconocemos la trayectoria docente e investigadora del Profesor Gabriel Bello Reguera y su dedicación rigurosa y concienzuda a la vida universitaria. Su obra, que, recorre cuatro décadas, es testimonio de cómo la filosofía en el contexto del Estado español, tras abandonar el erial instigado por el franquismo, participa de los debates transnacionales actuales en los que las éticas y las políticas de la alteridad, especialmente, plantean desafíos insoslayables. Hemos, pues, recreado el ritual académico del Homenaje, algo tan central en la filosofía alemana como la Festschrift, con el deseo de dotarlo del sentido más relevante que, a nuestro juicio, puede tener: el del debate intelectual crítico. (shrink)

In Part 1, we explored how Berkeley drew from Homeric literature and used literary techniques such as satire to challenge his “freethinking” philosophical opponents in “The Pineal Gland” story published in The Guardian in 1713. Echoing the grand tours Berkeley undertook in subsequent years, Part 1 and 2 both present a “gland tour” of some motivations, influences and legacies of Berkeley's text. In particular, Part 2, explores a line of literary influence beginning with Margaret Cavendish and extending through Gabriel Daniel, (...) Berkeley and Alexander Pope. In doing so, we present anticipations of features of Berkeley's story in the writings of Margaret Cavendish amid a discussion of Berkeley's complex attitudes towards women. The paper also argues that Berkeley's story represents an underappreciated yet significant milestone in the history of speculative fiction. (shrink)