If we are to understand Marx's thought, argues French philosopher Michel Henry, we must cast aside Marxism. In his original and richly detailed study of Marx's philosophy, Henry emphasizes the importance of approaching Marx's writings directly, rather than through the intermediary of subsequent interpretations, which often have been politically motivated. In contrast to the usual depiction of Marxian thought as an economically oriented analysis of social reality, Henry contends that in Marx's theory philosophy is primary. Therefore, Marx's writings must (...) properly be viewed—and judged—within the context of the modern philosophical tradition. Marx's basic concern, Henry demonstrates, is with the nature of the human being, the real conditions of human individuality. Central to Henry's reading of Marx, and elaborated here with unprecedented thoroughness, is the theory of praxis, a conception of the individual not as a thinking being, in the Cartesian tradition, but as a laboring being, a producer and consumer situated in a concrete social world. This novel and provocative contribution to the current debate about the nature and meaning of Marx's thought is essential for students of philosophy, Marxism, and political theory. Kathleen McLaughlin's excellent translation of Henry's abridgement of his two-volume work preserves the power and freshness of the French original. (shrink)

A part of the “return to religion” now evident in European philosophy, this book represents the culmination of the career of a leading phenomenological thinker whose earlier works trace a trajectory from Marx through a genealogy of psychoanalysis that interprets Descartes’s “I think, I am” as “I feel myself thinking, I am.” In this book, Henry does not ask whether Christianity is “true” or “false.” Rather, what is in question here is what Christianity considers as truth, what kind of truth (...) it offers to people, what it endeavors to communicate to them, not as a theoretical and indifferent truth, but as the essential truth that by some mysterious affinity is suitable for them, to the point that it alone is capable of ensuring them salvation. In the process, Henry inevitably argues against the concept of truth that dominates modern thought and determines, in its multiple implications, the world in which we live. Henry argues that Christ undoes “the truth of the world,” that He is an access to the infinity of self-love, to a radical subjectivity that admits no outside, to the immanence of affective life found beyond the despair fatally attached to all objectifying thought. The Kingdom of God accomplishes itself in the here and now through the love of Christ in what Henry calls “the auto-affection of Life.” In this condition, he argues, all problems of lack, ambivalence, and false projection are resolved. (shrink)

The second volume in an unprecedented publishing event: the complete College de France lectures of one of the most influential thinkers of the last century Michel Foucault remains among the towering intellectual figures of postmodern philosophy. His works on sexuality, madness, the prison, and medicine are classics his example continues to challenge and inspire. From 1971 until his death in 1984, Foucault gave public lectures at the world-famous College de France. These lectures were seminal events. Attended by thousands, they (...) created benchmarks for contemporary critical inquiry. The lectures comprising Abnormal begin by examining the role of psychiatry in modern criminal justice, and its method of categorizing individuals who "resemble their crime before they commit it." Building on the themes of societal self-defense in the first volume of this series, Foucault shows how and why defining "abnormality" and "normality" were prerogatives of power in the nineteenth century, shaping the institutions--from the prison system to the family--meant to deal in particular with “monstrosity,” whether sexual, phsyical, or spiritual. The College de France lectures add immeasurably to our appreciation of Foucault's thought, and offer a unique window on his singular worldview. (shrink)

Michelle Kosch examines the conceptions of free will and the foundations of ethics in the work of Kant, Schelling, and Kierkegaard. She seeks to understand the history of German idealism better by looking at it through the lens of these issues, and to understand Kierkegaard better by placing his thought in this context. Kosch argues for a new interpretation of Kierkegaard's theory of agency, that Schelling was a major influence and Kant a major target of criticism, and that both the (...) theory and the criticisms are highly relevant to contemporary debates. (shrink)

In his book, Physical Relativity, Harvey Brown challenges the orthodox view that special relativity is preferable to those parts of Lorentz's classical ether theory it replaced because it revealed various phenomena that were given a dynamical explanation in Lorentz's theory to be purely kinematical. I want to defend this orthodoxy. The phenomena most commonly discussed in this context in the philosophical literature are length contraction and time dilation. I consider three other phenomena of this kind that played a role in (...) the early reception of special relativity in the physics literature: the Fresnel drag effect in the Fizeau experiment, the velocity dependence of electron mass in beta-ray deflection experiments by Kaufmann and others, and the delicately balanced torques on a moving charged capacitor in the Trouton-Noble experiment. I offer historical sketches of how Lorentz's dynamical explanations of these phenomena came to be replaced by their now standard kinematical explanations. I then take up the philosophical challenge posed by the work of Harvey Brown and Oliver Pooley and clarify how those kinematical explanations work. (shrink)

Paintings of music are a significant presence in modern art. They are cross-modal representations, aimed at representing music, say, musical works or forms, using colors, lines, and shapes in the visual modality. This article aims to provide a conceptual framework for understanding paintings of music. Using examples from modern art, the article addresses the question of what a painting of music is. Implications for the aesthetic appreciation of paintings of music are also drawn.

This is the first full-length biography in more than fifty years of Immanuel Kant, one of the giants amongst the pantheon of Western philosophers as well as the one with the most powerful and broad influence on contemporary philosophy. It is well known that Kant spent his entire life in an isolated part of Prussia living the life of a typical university professor. This has given rise to the view that Kant was a pure thinker with no life of his (...) own, or at least none worth considering seriously. In this biography, Manfred Kuehn debunks that myth once and for all. Taking account of the most recent scholarship Professor Kuehn allows the reader to follow the same journey that Kant himself took in emerging as a central figure in modern philosophy. (shrink)

In his book, Physical Relativity, Harvey Brown challenges the orthodox view that special relativity is preferable to those parts of Lorentz's classical ether theory it replaced because it revealed various phenomena that were given a dynamical explanation in Lorentz's theory to be purely kinematical. I want to defend this orthodoxy. The phenomena most commonly discussed in this context in the philosophical literature are length contraction and time dilation. I consider three other phenomena of this kind that played a role in (...) the early reception of special relativity in the physics literature: the Fresnel drag effect in the Fizeau experiment, the velocity dependence of electron mass in beta-ray deflection experiments by Kaufmann and others, and the delicately balanced torques on a moving charged capacitor in the Trouton-Noble experiment. I offer historical sketches of how Lorentz's dynamical explanations of these phenomena came to be replaced by their now standard kinematical explanations. I then take up the philosophical challenge posed by the work of Harvey Brown and Oliver Pooley and clarify how those kinematical explanations work. (shrink)

This paper takes as its point of departure two striking incongruities between scientiªc practice and trends in modern history and philosophy of science. (1) Many modern historians of science are so preoccupied with local scientiªc practices that they fail to recognize important non-local elements. (2) Many modern philosophers of science make a sharp distinction between explanation and evidence, whereas in scientiªc practice explanatory power is routinely used as evidence for scientiªc claims. I draw attention to one speciªc way in..

Depuis des temps immémoriaux, le loisir a existé sous les formes du jeu, de la tête, de la vie contemplative, créative ou récréative et, d'une façon générale, de la consommation de l'abondance lorsque cette dernière a pu être obtenue ou réalisée. Élément majeur d'un mode de vie pour les nantis et les classes privilégiées, épiphénomène plus ou moins occasionnel pour les masses dominées ou laborieuses, il acquerra graduellement un droit de cité plus étendu pour devenir, avec le XXe siècle, un (...) droit humain reconnu et constituer une dimension relativement structurante de nombreux aspects de la vie personnelle, sociale, économique, culturelle et sociopolitique des temps modernes. Ce faisant, le loisir accroît sans cesse la gamme des modes et styles de vie accessibles sur base de droit et d'exercice des libertés reliées à la citoyenneté, malgré et avec les forces sociales intéressées à son orientation et à sa programmation. Il s'inscrit de plus en plus comme un élément incontournable du développement culturel, sans oublier les considérations économiques et politiques dont il est aussi l'objet, de même que les questionnements éthiques que sa présence suscite. Michel Bellefleur nous présente ici une analyse critique de l'évolution contemporaine du loisir comme phénomène particulier d'une civilisation en marche malgré tous ses avatars, mais néanmoins ouverte à une quête constante de liberté, de tolérance, d'hédonisme ou d'eudémonisme, ainsi que d'une qualité de vie à construire. (shrink)

Les développements idéologiques contemporains, qui concrétisent les choix opérés par la raison moderne, montrent l'engagement de celle-ci dans des voies de mort. Le relativisme d'aujourd'hui, ultime résurgence de cette maladie philosophique qu'est le scepticisme, n'en est qu'un signe supplémentaire. Mais l'écoute des aspirations les plus profondes de l'âme ne révèle-t-elle pas combien elle demeure en attente d'une autre voie, pleinement salvatrice? Une voie, unique voie de vie, déjà proposée à la raison philosophique, à Athènes, en 51 de notre ère, et (...) qui fit naître les rires désabusés. Et pourtant... Le salut de la raison, de la philosophie, ne passe-t-il pas unique ment par le consentement aux noces par lesquelles le Verbe incarné s'offre à l'âme humaine? Ce livre ne s'adresse pas à ceux qui savent, encore moins à tous ceux qui pensent savoir. Mais à ceux qui refusent de se perdre avec les courants intellectuels dominants; qui ne désespèrent pas de la raison ; et qui demeurent capables d'entendre les appels du Verbe à l'esprit de petitesse. (shrink)

Much human adaptation depends on the gradual accumulation of culturally transmitted knowledge and technology. Recent models of this process predict that large, well-connected populations will have more diverse and complex tool kits than small, isolated populations. While several examples of the loss of technology in small populations are consistent with this prediction, it found no support in two systematic quantitative tests. Both studies were based on data from continental populations in which contact rates were not available, and therefore these studies (...) do not provide a test of the models. Here, we show that in Oceania, around the time of early European contact, islands with small populations had less complicated marine foraging technology. This finding suggests that explanations of existing cultural variation based on optimality models alone are incomplete because demography plays an important role in generating cumulative cultural adaptation. It also indicates that hominin populations with similar cognitive abilities may leave very different archaeological records, a conclusion that has important implications for our understanding of the origin of anatomically modern humans and their evolved psychology. (shrink)

«La recherche ici entreprise implique donc le projet délibéré d’être à la fois historique et critique, dans la mesure où il s’agit, hors de toute intention prescriptive, de déterminer les conditions de possibilité de l’expérience médicale telle que l’époque moderne l’a connue. Une fois pour toutes, ce livre n’est pas écrit pour une médecine contre une autre, ou contre la médecine pour une absence de médecine. Ici comme ailleurs, il s’agit d’une étude qui essaie de dégager dans l’épaisseur du discours (...) les conditions de son histoire.» (Michel Foucault) Naissance de la clinique constitue aussi, à travers une analyse historique et critique de la constitution du sujet, le malade, tel qu’il peut devenir objet de connaissance, la naissance d’une oeuvre philosophique qui va marquer durablement la pensée contemporaine internationale. (shrink)

The Hermeneutics of the Subject is the third volume in the collection of Michel Foucault's lectures at the College de France, one of the world's most prestigious institutions. Faculty at the college give public lectures, in which they can present works-in-progress on any subject of their choosing. Foucault's were more speculative and free-ranging than the arguments of such groundbreaking works as The History of Sexuality or Madness and Civilization . In the lectures comprising this volume, Foucault focuses upon the (...) ways the "self" and consequently "self-study" have been conceived since the days of antiquity, starting with Socrates. Definitions and conceptions of "self-study" in Greek and Roman literature, Foucault argues, remain in force today, and underlie modern interpretations of the self. Engaging, engrossing, and provocative, The Hermeneutics of the Subject reveals Foucault at the height of his powers. (shrink)

In publications in 1914 and 1918, Einstein claimed that his new theory of gravity in some sense relativizes the rotation of a body with respect to the distant stars and the acceleration of the traveler with respect to the stay-at-home in the twin paradox. What he showed was that phenomena seen as inertial effects in a space-time coordinate system in which the non-accelerating body is at rest can be seen as a combination of inertial and gravitational effects in a space-time (...) coordinate system in which the accelerating body is at rest. Two different relativity principles play a role in these accounts: the relativity of non-uniform motion, in the weak sense that the laws of physics are the same in the two space-time coordinate systems involved; what Einstein in 1920 called the relativity of the gravitational field, the notion that there is a unified inertio-gravitational field that splits differently into inertial and gravitational components in different coordinate systems. I provide a detailed reconstruction of Einstein's rather sketchy accounts of the twins and the bucket and examine the role of these two relativity principles. I argue that we can hold on to but that is either false or trivial. (shrink)

Auguste Comte (1798–1857) is the founder of positivism, a philosophical and political movement which enjoyed a very wide diffusion in the second half of the nineteenth century. It sank into an almost complete oblivion during the twentieth, when it was eclipsed by neopositivism. However, Comte's decision to develop successively a philosophy of mathematics, a philosophy of physics, a philosophy of chemistry and a philosophy of biology, makes him the first philosopher of science in the modern sense, and his constant attention (...) to the social dimension of science resonates in many respects with current points of view. His political philosophy, on the other hand, is even less known, because it differs substantially from the classical political philosophy we have inherited. -/- Comte's most important works are (1) the Course on Positive Philosophy (1830-1842, six volumes, translated and condensed by Harriet Martineau as The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte); (2) the System of Positive Polity, or Treatise on Sociology, Instituting the Religion of Humanity, (1851-1854, four volumes); and (3) the Early Writings (1820-1829), where one can see the influence of Saint-Simon, for whom Comte served as secretary from 1817 to 1824. The Early Writings are still the best introduction to Comte's thought. In the Course, Comte said, science was transformed into philosophy; in the System, philosophy was transformed into religion. The second transformation met with strong opposition; as a result, it has become customary to distinguish, with Mill, between a “good Comte” (the author of the Course) and a “bad Comte” (the author of the System). Today's common conception of positivism corresponds mainly to what can be found in the Course. (shrink)

La physique moderne est réputée absconse, imprévue, irrespectueuse, rebondissante. Il s'agit pourtant d'un domaine passionnant, qui peut être compris par tous quand il est replacé dans une perspective historique. C'est ce que propose ce livre, qui présente une histoire des concepts principaux de la physique contemporaine et leur genèse à partir des grandes ruptures du début du siècle, avec quelques incursions dans le passé plus lointain. On y trouvera une présentation claire des concepts essentiels, remplacés dans le contexte de leur (...) création. En effet, la science ne résulte pas, comme on le dit trop souvent, d'un enchaînement de mécanismes inévitables : elle est faite de créations individuelles, qui s'ajoutent, se contredisent et se répondent. Les principaux physiciens du siècle s'entrecroisent ainsi dans ce livre en de multiples occasions. Une présentation de l'histoire des grandes théories que sont la relativité et la théorie quantique, ainsi que celle de l'univers fascinant que constitue la physique des particules complètent cet ouvrage. L'auteur n'a pas cherché à être exhaustif, car il a voulu privilégier l'accès au plus grand nombre de lecteurs possibles des concepts essentiels. Les chapitres sont découpés en périodes historiques, permettant de mettre en évidence la longue quête des physiciens pour une théorie unificatrice des lois de l'univers. Ce livre s'adresse au grand public désireux de comprendre les idées fondamentales qui agitent encore aujourd'hui le monde scientifique. (shrink)

. This paper takes as its point of departure two striking incongruities between scientific practice and trends in modern history and philosophy of science. Many modern historians of science are so preoccupied with local scientific practices that they fail to recognize important non-local elements. Many modern philosophers of science make a sharp distinction between explanation and evidence, whereas in scientific practice explanatory power is routinely used as evidence for scientific claims. I draw attention to one specific way in.

In publications in 1914 and 1918, Einstein claimed that his new theory of gravity somehow relativizes the rotation of a body with respect to the distant stars and the acceleration of the traveler with respect to the stay-at-home in the twin paradox. What he showed was that phenomena seen as inertial effects in a space-time coordinate system in which the non-accelerating body is at rest can be seen as a combination of inertial and gravitational effects in a space-time coordinate system (...) in which the accelerating body is at rest. Two different relativity principles play a role in these accounts: the relativity of non-uniform motion, in the weak sense that the laws of physics are the same in the two space-time coordinate systems involved; what Einstein in 1920 called the relativity of the gravitational field, the notion that there is a unified inertio-gravitational field that splits differently into inertial and gravitational components in different coordinate systems. I provide a detailed reconstruction of Einstein's rather sketchy accounts of the twins and the bucket and examine the role of these two relativity principles. I argue that we can hold on to but that is either false or trivial. (shrink)

An exciting and highly original examination of the practices of truth-telling and speaking out freely (parr?sia) in ancient Greek tragedy and philosophy. Foucault discusses the difficult and changing practices of truth-telling in ancient democracies and tyrannies and offers a new perspective on the specific relationship of philosophy to politics.

Technology is even more than our world, our form of life, our civilization. Technology interacts with the world to change it. Philosophers need to seriously address the fluidity of a smartphone interface, the efficiency of a Dyson vacuum cleaner, or the familiar noise of an antique vacuum cleaner. Beyond their phenomenological description, the emotional experience acquires moral significance and in some cases even supplies ethical resources for the self. If we leave this dimension of modern experience unaddressed, we may miss (...) something of value in contemporary life. Combining European humanism, Anglophone pragmatism, and Asian traditions, Michel Puech pleads for an "ethical turn" in the way we understand and address technological issues in modern day society. Puech argues that the question of "power" is what needs to be reconsidered today. In doing so, he provides a three-tier distinction of power: power to modify the outer world ; power over other humans ; power over oneself. (shrink)

Three years before his death, Michel Foucault delivered a series of lectures at the Catholic University of Louvain that until recently remained almost unknown. These lectures—which focus on the role of avowal, or confession, in the determination of truth and justice—provide the missing link between Foucault’s early work on madness, delinquency, and sexuality and his later explorations of subjectivity in Greek and Roman antiquity. Ranging broadly from Homer to the twentieth century, Foucault traces the early use of truth-telling in (...) ancient Greece and follows it through to practices of self-examination in monastic times. By the nineteenth century, the avowal of wrongdoing was no longer sufficient to satisfy the call for justice; there remained the question of who the \u201ccriminal\u201d was and what formative factors contributed to his wrong-doing. The call for psychiatric expertise marked the birth of the discipline of psychiatry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as its widespread recognition as the foundation of criminology and modern criminal justice. Published here for the first time, the 1981 lectures have been superbly translated by Stephen W. Sawyer and expertly edited and extensively annotated by Fabienne Brion and Bernard E. Harcourt. They are accompanied by two contemporaneous interviews with Foucault in which he elaborates on a number of the key themes. An essential companion to Discipline and Punish, Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling will take its place as one of the most significant works of Foucault to appear in decades, and will be necessary reading for all those interested in his thought.  . (shrink)

Through an examination of such disciplinary keywords, and their silences, as the West, modernity, globalization, the state, culture, and the field, this book aims to explore the future of anthropology in the 21st century, by examining its past, its origins, and its conditions of possibility alongside the history of the North Atlantic world and the production of the West. In this significant book, Michel-Rolph Trouillot challenges contemporary anthropologists to question dominant narratives of globalization and to radically rethink the (...) utility of the concept of culture, the emphasis upon fieldwork as the central methodology of the discipline, and the relationship between anthropologists and the people whom they study. (shrink)

A complete reappraisal of the philosophical meaning of Everett's interpretation of quantum mechanics is carried out, by analysing carefully the role of the concept of "observer" in physics. It is shown that Everett's interpretation is the limiting case of a series of conceptions of the measurement problem which leave less and less of the observer out of the quantum description of the measuring interaction. This limiting case, however, should not be considered as one wherein nothing is left outside the description. (...) Something is still needed besides this description: pure cognitive capacity, the subject, or, in a very abstract sense: "mind". The set of branches which arise, according to Everett, from a measuring interaction, gain a renewed signification. They do not refer to distinct "worlds", but to the points of view "mind" can identify itself to. This idea is compared and contrasted with Squires' "selection" of a branch by the mind (without quotation marks). Finally, the notion of indeterminism in quantum mechanics gains an unexpected and new light from a strict application of the previous ideas. (shrink)

Quantum Mechanics has imposed strain on traditional (dualist and representationalist) epistemological conceptions. An alternative was offered by Bohr and Heisenberg, according to whom natural science does not describe nature, but rather the interplay between nature and ourselves. But this was only a suggestion. In this paper, a systematic development of the Bohr-Heisenberg conception is outlined, by way of a comparison with the modern self-organizational theories of cognition. It is shown that a perfectly consistent non-representationalist (and/or relational) reading of quantum mechanics (...) can be reached thus. (shrink)

_Screening the City_ Edited by Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice London: Verso, 2003 ISBN 1-85984-476-6 312 pp.

In October 1924, The Physical Review, a relatively minor journal at the time, published a remarkable two-part paper by John H. Van Vleck, working in virtual isolation at the University of Minnesota. Using Bohr’s correspondence principle and Einstein’s quantum theory of radiation along with advanced techniques from classical mechanics, Van Vleck showed that quantum formulae for emission, absorption, and dispersion of radiation merge with their classical counterparts in the limit of high quantum numbers. For modern readers Van Vleck’s paper is (...) much easier to follow than the famous paper by Kramers and Heisenberg on dispersion theory, which covers similar terrain and is widely credited to have led directly to Heisenberg’s Umdeutung paper. This makes Van Vleck’s paper extremely valuable for the reconstruction of the genesis of matrix mechanics. It also makes it tempting to ask why Van Vleck did not take the next step and develop matrix mechanics himself. (shrink)

In a previous work (M. Campisi. Stud. Hist. Phil. M. P. 36 (2005) 275-290) we have addressed the mechanical foundations of equilibrium thermodynamics on the basis of the Generalized Helmholtz Theorem. It was found that the volume entropy provides a good mechanical analogue of thermodynamic entropy because it satisfies the heat theorem and it is an adiabatic invariant. This property explains the ``equal'' sign in Clausius principle ($S_f \geq S_i$) in a purely mechanical way and suggests that the volume entropy (...) might explain the ``larger than'' sign (i.e. the Law of Entropy Increase) if non adiabatic transformations were considered. Based on the principles of microscopic (quantum or classical) mechanics here we prove that, provided the initial equilibrium satisfy the natural condition of decreasing ordering of probabilities, the expectation value of the volume entropy cannot decrease for arbitrary transformations performed by some external sources of work on a insulated system. This can be regarded as a rigorous quantum mechanical proof of the Second Law. We discuss how this result relates to the Minimal Work Principle and improves over previous attempts. The natural evolution of entropy is towards larger values because the natural state of matter is at positive temperature. Actually the Law of Entropy Decrease holds in artificially prepared negative temperature systems. (shrink)

This article discusses ways in which Pierre Bourdieu's literary sociology has inspired scholarship on modern Chinese literature, helping it to move away from overly politicized paradigms of literary historiography. The article also asks the question to what extent the use of a Bourdieusian model has resulted in an overemphasis on the ‘relative autonomy’ of a literary field that, at various times during the twentieth century, has been operating under conditions of strong direct state interference. After giving a general overview of (...) the use of Bourdieu's ideas in the study of modern Chinese literature, the article focuses especially on the question of autonomy and the state, arguing for the study of state censors as specific ‘agents’ within the literary field. The article ends with a brief discussion of the rapid rise of online literary communities in China, their practices and their relation to state institutions. (shrink)

With this profound final work, completed in the days leading up to his death, Michel Serres presents a vivid picture of his thinking about religion—a constant preoccupation since childhood—thereby completing Le Grand Récit, the comprehensive explanation of the world and of humanity to which he devoted the last twenty years of his life. Themes from Serres's earlier writings—energy and information, the role of the media in modern society, the anthropological function of sacrifice, the role of scientific knowledge, the problem (...) of evil—are reinterpreted here in the light of the Old Testament accounts of Isaac and Jonah and a variety of Gospel episodes, including the Three Wise Men of the Epiphany, the Transfiguration, Peter's denying Christ, the Crucifixion, Emmaus, and the Pentecost. Monotheistic religion, Serres argues, resembles mathematical abstraction in its dazzling power to bring together the real and the virtual, the natural and the transcendent; but only in its Christian embodiment is it capable of binding together human beings in such a way that partisan attachments are dissolved and a new era of history, free for once of the lethal repetition of collective violence, can be entered into. (shrink)

L'intelligence de la pensée de Marx suppose la mise hors jeu du marxisme. Le marxisme s'est constitué en doctrine achevée et officielle alors que les écrits philosophiques fondamentaux de Marx demeuraient inconnus, et notamment L'idéologie allemande, publié en 1932. Reposant sur des textes qui ne portent pas leur principe d'intelligibilité en eux-mêmes, il s'est, de plus, voulu en accord avec l'objectivisme moderne. Par une lecture entièrement neuve de l'oeuvre complète de Marx, Michel Henry en dévoile l'intuition fondatrice : la (...) subjectivité corporelle de l'individu vivant, qui définit à la fois son existence et sa condition de travailleur. Une phénoménologie de la vie concrète constitue identiquement chez Marx la mise à nu de tout le système économique et le principe unique de son explication : la philosophie de la réalité porte en elle la philosophie de l'économie. La valeur est produite exclusivement par le travail vivant. Le des-tin du capital est donc celui de la praxis subjective de l'individu. Dès qu'il s'en sépare - et le progrès technologique inaugure l'ère de cette séparation -, la valorisation et le capitalisme ne sont plus possibles. (shrink)

The Courage of the Truth is the last course that Michel Foucault delivered at the College de France before his death in 1984. In this course, he continues the theme of the previous year's lectures in exploring the notion of "truth-telling" in politics to establish a number of ethically irreducible conditionsbased on courage and conviction.

This is the second installment of a two-part paper on developments in quantum dispersion theory leading up to Heisenberg’s Umdeutung paper. In telling this story, we have taken a 1924 paper by John H. Van Vleck in The Physical Review as our main guide. In this second part we present the detailed derivations on which our narrative in the first part rests. The central result that we derive is the Kramers dispersion formula, which played a key role in the thinking (...) that led to Heisenberg’s Umdeutung paper. We derive classical formulae for the dispersion, emission, and absorption of radiation and use Bohr’s correspondence principle to construct their quantum counterparts both for the special case of a charged harmonic oscillator (Sect. 5) and for arbitrary non-degenerate multiply-periodic systems (Sect. 6). We then rederive these results in modern quantum mechanics (Sect. 7). (shrink)

What do modern republics have to fear? Machiavelli's Florentine Republic reconstructs Machiavelli's answer to this question from the perspective of the Florentine Histories, his most probing meditation on the fate of republican politics in the modern age. It argues that his principle goal in narrating the defeat of Florentine republicanism is to debunk the views of leading humanists concerning the overall health of republican politics in modernity and the distinctive challenges that modern republics should expect to face. The Medici (...) family had exposed these vulnerabilities better than anyone else, and Machiavelli reconstructs their political strategy to show how conventional ideas of moral and political virtue are the most potent instruments of princely ambition in a city that wants to be free. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 233-250 [Access article in PDF] Narrative Theory and Function: Why Evolution Matters Michelle Scalise Sugiyama I It may seem a strange proposition that the study of human evolution is integral to the study of literature, yet that is exactly what this paper proposes. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, the practice of storytelling is ancient, pre-dating not only the advent of writing, but (...) of agriculture and permanent settlement as well. Secondly, narrative is ultimately a product of the mind, which in turn is the product of a long history of evolution by natural selection. Thus, an understanding of why and how humans create and consume narrative requires an understanding of (1) features of ancestral environments and (2) features of the mind that made the emergence of this phenomenon possible.There can be little doubt that narrative emerged in human prehistory. Language, an obvious prerequisite for storytelling, is likely to have emerged by at least 50,000 and possibly 250,000 years ago, depending upon whether one places one's trust in archaeological or anatomical evidence. 1 The most reasonable estimate is offered by Geoffrey Miller, who points out that, given its universality, the language faculty must have emerged by the time ancestral Homo sapiens began migrating out of Africa approximately 100,000 years ago. 2 Although the oldest known written narrative (The Epic of Gilgamesh) dates back only 5,000 years, the written literary traditions of many ancient cultures are known to be rooted in longstanding oral traditions. 3 The fact that many modern foraging peoples have rich and complex oral traditions further suggests that the emergence of narrative is not linked to the development of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Moreover, other forms of symbolic expression, such as the cave paintings, Venus figurines, and engraved bone [End Page 233] and antler that have been found at various sites throughout Europe, date back approximately 30,000 years, and rock paintings in Australia may date back even farther. 4 Since humans were physiologically capable of speech long before they began producing these artifacts, storytelling is likely to be at least as ancient as these other representational forms. Indeed, one scholar situates the "dawn of the oral tradition" within this period (Pfeiffer, p. 189). Given, then, that modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) have been in existence for approximately 100,000 years 5 and are the only hominid species or subspecies known for certain to exhibit storytelling behavior, we can safely say that oral narrative is a product of our hunting-and-gathering past, likely to have emerged between 30,000 and 100,000 years ago.The universality of narrative is further testimony to its being an ancient cognitive phenomenon. Literate or not, all known cultures, past and present, practice storytelling. 6 Moreover, all normally developing humans acquire the ability to process and generate stories: studies of Western children indicate that the ability to tell stories emerges spontaneously between the ages of two-and-a-half and three, and children as young as thirty months can distinguish between narrative and non-narrative uses of language. 7 In contrast to reading, writing, and arithmetic, no special education is required for narrative competence to develop, nor is there any evidence that oral literacy is acquired through contact with other cultures; although subject matter is often exchanged between groups, the practice of storytelling itself arises independently among even the most isolated peoples. Nor does any type of culture have a monopoly on narrative sophistication: the stories of hunter-horticulturalist societies are no less observant, insightful, or artful than those of agrarian or industrial societies.As with language, narrative takes the same basic form across cultures, which David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson define as "a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time." Given the preponderance of human agents in narrative, most narrative theorists would probably modify this barebones description to include character (usually understood to have a human psychology), goal-oriented action, and resolution. Frank Kermode, for example, defines the "proprieties" of narrative as "connexity, closure, and character," and John... (shrink)