Human language, hominin tool production modes, and multimodal communications systems of primates and other animals are currently well-studied for how they display compositionality or combinatoriality. In all cases, the former is defined as a kind of hierarchical nesting and the latter as a lack thereof. In this article, I extend research on combinatoriality and compositionality further to investigations of everyday primate skills. Daily locomotion modes as well as behaviors associated with subsistence practices, hygiene, or body modification rely on the hierarchical (...) nesting of different behavioral and cognitive actions into complex skills. I introduce a scheme which uses hierarchical organization to differentiate combinatorial from compositional skills. Combinatorial skills are defined either as aggregational or linearly hierarchical depending on whether the skill occurs momentarily in space or unfolds sequentially over time. Compositional skills are defined either as nested or interactionally hierarchical depending on whether the skill results in new constructs or in new interactions between existing constructs. The methodology I propose combines epistemological hierarchy theory with data from primatological field research and experimental and comparative psychological research and provides a means to integrate current constructionist and extended views on cognition and action with older research on behavioral logics in psychology and operational chain thinking in anthropology. The approach furthermore synchronizes with ongoing research on teleonomy, intentionality, and creativity. -/- . (shrink)

We examine how insights made in socio-anthropological and evolutionary schools of thought necessitate us to reevaluate the classic philosophical distinction between epistemology and ontology. We adopt an applied evolutionary epistemological stance and demonstrate that both epistemology and ontology evolve. Epistemology is broadened to include all knowledge and information that all life forms evolve, and ontology encompasses all biologically informed realities that life builds. Through processes such as symbiosis and niche construction, organisms acquire and extend information and knowledge into their offspring, (...) onto unrelated organisms, and onto their niches. Life builds biorealities that change over time. Consequently, knowledge and reality are mutable and truth is spatiotemporally bounded. We conclude that the classic distinction between epistemology and ontology has become superfluous and instead, we argue that the evolving knowledge that comes in the form of organisms and their extended niches equals ontological realities. (shrink)

In this special issue, Steins and Edwards introduced the notion of nested platforms for resource use negotiation as a tool to facilitate collective action amongst multiple-users in complex common-pool resource management scenarios. Five discussion statements were put forward to aid the debate on multi-use platforms. This paper is a synthesis of the responses to these statements by the other contributors to this special issue. It aims to further stimulate the debate on the management of complex, multiple-use common-pool management scenarios.

In this chapter Nathalie Sigot argues that Bentham’s interest in international trade lies in the consideration of the redistributive effects of trade and its consequences on happiness for one’s society. Sigot demonstrates that Bentham’s view on international trade changed between 1786 and 1821, when the principle of the limitation of industry by capital disappeared from his writings. Sigot explains how Bentham’s approach is driven by a focus on security and on a calculus of gains and losses in terms of (...) happiness. (shrink)

This paper discusses the establishment of a governance framework to secure the development and deployment of “good AI”, and describes the quest for a morally objective compass to steer it. Asserting that human rights can provide such compass, this paper first examines what a human rights-based approach to AI governance entails, and sets out the promise it propagates. Subsequently, it examines the pitfalls associated with human rights, particularly focusing on the criticism that these rights may be too Western, too individualistic, (...) too narrow in scope and too abstract to form the basis of sound AI governance. After rebutting these reproaches, a plea is made to move beyond the calls for a human rights-based approach, and start taking the necessary steps to attain its realisation. It is argued that, without elucidating the applicability and enforceability of human rights in the context of AI; adopting legal rules that concretise those rights where appropriate; enhancing existing enforcement mechanisms and securing an underlying societal infrastructure that enables human rights in the first place, any human rights-based governance framework for AI risks falling short of its purpose. (shrink)

Nel presente contributo proponiamo un’intervista a Nathalie Simondon, responsabile dell’edizione dell’opera di Gilbert Simondon, al fine di fare luce sui temi di ecologia, enciclopedismo, transdisciplinarità e umanismo nella produzione filosofica di Gilbert Simondon.

It is important to understand the drivers of green consumption, because of growing concern for the health of the planet. In this paper, the assumption that a virtue-green product relationship exists is tested. The objective is to understand how product morality can influence the valuation of green products. Relying on virtue theory and positive spillover as conceptual bases, the research implicitly and explicitly tests and confirms green product virtue. The results demonstrate that perceived green product virtue leads to positive emotions, (...) which explain heightened purchase intentions. In line with the conceptualization, I show that the effect is moderated by the importance consumers place on their own morality. Importantly, explicitly framing green products as virtuous activates positive spillover by consumers; when green products are branded with a virtue cue, they encourage consumers to be more virtuous. Beyond being perceived as better people, when consumers interact with green products they effectively engage in more moral acts, such as making donations. The results confirm the perception of green products as moral agents and provide marketers with insights into the marketing value of virtue cues in green product consumption. (shrink)

The irreversibility effect implies that a decision maker who neglects the prospect of receiving more complete information at later stages of a sequential decision problem will in certain cases too easily take an irreversible decision, as he ignores the existence of a positive option value in favour of reversible decisions. This option value represents the decision maker's flexibility to adapt subsequent decisions to the obtained information. In this paper we show that the economic models dealing with irreversibility as used in (...) environmental and capital investment decision making can be extended to emergency response decisions that produce important irreversible effects. In particular, we concentrate on the decision whether or not to evacuate an industrial area threatened by a possible nuclear accident. We show in a simple two-period evacuation decision model that non-optimal conclusions may be drawn when evacuation is regarded as a `now or never decision'. The robustness of these results is verified by means of a sensitivity analysis of the various model parameters. The importance of `options thinking' in this decision context is illustrated in an example. (shrink)

A Genealogy of Devotion: Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga, and Sufism in North India. By Patton E. Burchett. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019. Pp. viii + 433, 2 plates. $70.

Written for non-experts, this volume introduces the mechanisms that underlie reticulate evolution. Chapters are either accompanied with glossaries that explain new terminology or timelines that position pioneering scholars and their major discoveries in their historical contexts. The contributing authors outline the history and original context of discovery of symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, hybridization or divergence with gene flow, and infectious heredity. By applying key insights from the areas of molecular (phylo)genetics, microbiology, virology, ecology, systematics, immunology, epidemiology and computational science, (...) they demonstrate how reticulate evolution impacts successful survival, fitness and speciation. Reticulate evolution brings forth a challenge to the standard Neo-Darwinian framework, which defines life as the outcome of bifurcation and ramification patterns brought forth by the vertical mechanism of natural selection. Reticulate evolution puts forward a pattern in the tree of life that is characterized by horizontal mergings and lineage crossings induced by symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, hybridization or divergence with gene flow, and infective heredity, making the “tree of life” look more like a “web of life.” On an epistemological level, the various means by which hereditary material can be transferred horizontally challenges our classic notions of units and levels of evolution, fitness, modes of transmission, linearity, communities, and biological individuality. The case studies presented examine topics including the origin of the eukaryotic cell and its organelles through symbiogenesis; the origin of algae through primary and secondary symbiosis and dinoflagellates through tertiary symbiosis; the superorganism and holobiont as units of evolution; how endosymbiosis induces speciation in multicellular life forms; transferrable and non-transferrable plasmids and how they symbiotically interact with their host; the means by which pro- and eukaryotic organisms transfer genes laterally (bacterial transformation, transduction and conjugation as well as transposons and other mobile genetic elements); hybridization and divergence with gene flow in sexually-reproducing individuals; current (human) microbiome and viriome studies that impact our knowledge concerning the evolution of organismal health and acquired immunity; and how symbiosis and symbiogenesis can be modelled in computational evolution. (shrink)

Scholarly opinions vary on what language is, how it evolved, and from where or what it evolved. Long considered uniquely human, today scholars argue for evolutionary continuity between human language and animal communication systems. But while it is generally recognized that language is an evolving communication system, scholars continue to debate from which species language evolved, and what behavioral and cognitive features are the precursors to human language. To understand the nature of protolanguage, some look for homologs in gene functionality, (...) brain areas, or anatomical structures such as the supralaryngeal vocal tract; others point toward primates, their gestural, vocal, multimodal, and in later evolving hominins also their pantomimic communication systems; and still others draw parallels between the musicality that characterizes language and the pitch found in the numerous sounds produced by animals. Accordingly, protolanguage theories today are multiple and diverse, and protolanguages might have also been diverse. This special issue on Evolving (Proto)Language/s for Lingua bundles several of the protolanguage theories that were put forward at the sixth edition of the Ways to Protolanguage conference series, held at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, in 2019. Not aimed at surveying all the different ways there are to conceptualize, study, and model protolanguage/s, this issue provides interested readers with good overviews on the role played in current theorizing on protolanguage/s by (paleo)anthropology, genetics, physiology, developmental, evolutionary, ecological, and pragmatic research lines. (shrink)

Aspects of human symbolic evolution are studied by scholars active in a variety of fields and disciplines in the life and the behavioral sciences as well as the scientific-philosophical, sociological, anthropological, and linguistic sciences. These fields and disciplines all take on an evolutionary approach to the study of human symbolism, but scholars disagree in their theoretical and methodological attitudes. Theoretically, symbolism is defined differentially as knowledge, behavior, cognition, culture, language, or social group living. Methodologically, the diverse symbolic evolution sciences establish (...) their teachings upon diverging evolutionary biological schools and paradigms. This chapter reviews past and current research fields in human symbolic evolution for how they differentially implement tenets of the major evolution schools that were discussed in the previous chapter. Traditional evolutionary epistemology and biosemiotics bring in a mesoevolutionary outlook by drawing on early Darwinism and evolutionary developmental biology movements that emphasize the role of the organism in evolution. Communication studies instead originally take on a microevolutionary perspective by investigating how units of information are transmitted across generations through time. Only later do they integrate studies on meaning-making at the organismal level. Sociobiology complements a microevolutionary with a macroevolutionary outlook by implementing population genetic approaches, typical of the Modern Synthesis, into studies on individual and group behavior. The new symbolic evolutionary sciences build upon these traditions and include disciplines such as evolutionary psychology, evolutionary linguistics, evolutionary anthropology, evolutionary archaeology, evolutionary sociology, and evolutionary economics. Originally centered on implementing Darwinian selection theory, these fields are now including ecological and evolutionary developmental biology as well as reticulate evolutionary paradigms. As diverse in outlook and scope as they are, no discipline holds a privileged position over the other and all have made valuable contributions to our understanding of human symbolic evolution. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the main research schools and paradigms along which the field of evolutionary biology has been developing. Evolutionary thinking was originally founded upon the Neo-Darwinian paradigm that combines the teachings of traditional Darwinism with those of the Modern Synthesis. The Neo-Darwinian paradigm has since further diversified into the Micro-, Meso-, and Macroevolutionary schools, and it has also started to integrate the school of Ecology. Together, these schools establish the paradigm called Ecological Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Eco-Evo-Devo). A final school (...) studies Reticulate Evolution as it occurs by means of symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, infective heredity, and hybridization. This chapter reviews the major tenets and points of differentiation that exist between these distinct evolution schools. The chapter ends by looking into how evolution can be defined and how distinct units, levels, and mechanisms underlie theorizing on evolutionary hierarchies and evolutionary causation. The following chapter examines how the different evolution schools are implemented into the symbolic sciences. (shrink)

To see "democracy as a tragic regime", as Cornelius Castoriadis did, is to recognize the ever-present risk of democracy’s cancellation, but it also means to emphasize the anti-democratic nature of such cancellation, thus its incompatibility with democracy. In the context of this understanding of democracy, the article takes the political to consist of those relations among people and among institutions within the polis, which aim at deciding about the polis’ fate. It takes the social to be those relations among people (...) and among institutions within the polis, to whom such decisions about the polis’ fate apply and whom they create. If democracy is understood as tension between the two, then the relation between those who decide and those who are subject of the decision is never entirely pacified – hence, always contested and in need of specification. Using the examples of the state of exception and totalitarianism (temporary and permanent self-cancellation), the article argues that these situations are outside a linear continuation with the democratic phenomenon and are due to a displacement, which is akin to the hubristic displacement. (shrink)

Research on the influence of industry on chemical regulation has mostly been conducted within the framework of the production of ignorance. This special issue extends this research by looking at how industry asserts its interests––not just in the scientific sphere but also at other stages of policy-making and regulatory process––with a specific focus on the types of tools or instruments industry has used. Bringing together sociologists and historians specialized in Science and Technology Studies, the articles of the special issue study (...) the arenas in which instruments and practical guidelines for public policy are negotiated or used. The aim is to observe the devices in the making or in action, from the selection of actors to the production of thresholds, criteria, and other technical regulations. The introduction highlights how industry influence on expertise and regulation is undoubtedly far more pervasive and multifarious than has been conceptualized to date by social scientists. Putting this issue back at the heart of both the STS and social sciences research agendas is increasingly urgent and could lead to new inquiries able to highlight these logics even more widely, using fresh empirical examples. (shrink)

In the formation of vernacular North Indian literature in “Hindavī,” an important role is played by “Sufi romance” (premākhyān). The earliest love narrative known as Cāndāyan, written in 1379–80, by Maulānā Dāūd has been cited as evidence supporting arguments about the rise of literary vernaculars by scholars foregrounding religious and political factors in that process. The purpose of this article is to rethink the broader arguments by revisiting the historical circumstances at the time and through a close reading for affect. (...) It invites a shift in perception by demonstrating Cāndāyan’s roots in folk narrative performativity. Concurrent with that, it is a revision of the view that the author, Dāūd, was a member of the sultanate elite. Closely reading the text’s aesthetic elements also creates a new perspective regarding who its audience was. Finally, the article explores what constitutes a vernacular emotional regime and the role of emotional communities in the emergence of Hindavī. It goes beyond the specific case study in looking for new ways to conceptualize the connections between regional centers of power and early devotional communities, highlighting their deployment of interlinkages through multiple networks of cultural production. (shrink)

Cornelius Castoriadis is one of the very few social and political philosophers – modern and ancient – for whom a concept of imagination is truly central. In his work, however, the role of imagination is so overarching that it becomes difficult to grasp its workings and consequences in detail, in particular in its relation to democracy as the political form in which autonomy is the core imaginary signification. This article will proceed by first suggesting some clarifications about Castoriadis’s employment of (...) the concept. This preparatory exploration will allow us in a second step to discuss why the idea of democracy is closely linked to tragedy, and why this linkage in turn is dependent on the centrality of imagination for human action. In a third conceptual step, finally, we suggest that any concept of imagination will need to take into account the plurality and diversity of the outcomes of the power of imagination. Thus, the question of the nature of the novelty that imagination creates needs to be addressed as well as the one of the agon in the face of different imagined innovations in a given democratic political setting. As a consequence of this shift in emphasis, to be elaborated further, one will be able to say more about one question of which Castoriadis was well aware, which he never addressed himself in detail, though: the decline and end of polities and political forms, the question of political mortality. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est né d'une réalité et d'un besoin. La petite Maëlle, enfant autiste, est devenue adolescente, alors il fallait la suivre pour mieux l'accompagner dans cette nouvelle étape de sa vie. Comme cela arrive chez les autres enfants qui entrent dans l'adolescence, tout est remis en question : les idéaux, l'identité, l'amitié, l'amour. Entre-temps, il y a eu la publication de la cinquième version du Manuel diagnostique et statistique des troubles mentaux (DSM-5). Il fallait donc étudier cette entrée dans (...) l'adolescence à partir des données diagnostiques les plus récentes. Autisme et adolescence est la suite de L'autisme, un jour à la fois et d'Accompagner un enfant autiste. Encore ici, la mère Catherine Kozminski et la psychologue Nathalie Poirier entrent en dialogue afin de se mettre à l'écoute des besoins de l'adolescente et d'élaborer les meilleures formes d'accompagnement. Il en résulte un ouvrage plein de sensibilité et rempli de solutions pratiques. (shrink)

Résumé Une enquête menée aux États-Unis en 1996 sur les rejets de l’art contemporain a permis une comparaison systématique entre les deux cultures, française et américaine, en matière de valeurs associées à l’art. Nous publions ici, à partir du livre qui en a été tiré ( Guerre culturelle et Art contemporain : une comparaison franco-américaine ), le chapitre consacré spécifiquement aux valeurs éthiques, touchant à l’idéologie, à la sexualité, à la religion et à la cruauté envers les animaux. L’on y (...) constate que même s’il existe de sensibles différences interculturelles (Occident vs Orient, Europe vs États-Unis), les conflits de valeurs suscités par l’art contemporain sont avant tout des phénomènes intraculturels. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre, philosophe, écrivain, dramaturge et grande figure de l'intellectuel politique, aura profondément marqué le XX siècle. Penseur de la liberté et de son envers, l'aliénation, de l'engagement et de la responsabilité, du pour-soi et de l'en-soi, de la conscience et du monde, du sujet et d'autrui, de la morale et de la mauvaise foi, du groupe en fusion et de la série, de la totalité et de l'Histoire, il est une voix originale de la Phénoménologie. Pour Sartre, l'homme est (...) tout entier libre et responsable de ses actes, sans excuse, et tout entier aliéné, parce qu'il est conscience de monde, position de soi dans une certaine situation - qui n'a de sens que pour une conscience libre. On se propose ici de parcourir son œuvre difficile et dense, de la Transcendance de l'Ego à L'idiot de la famille en passant par l'Être et le néant et Morale et Histoire, notamment. D'abord, la vie politique de Sartre pour dégager la cohérence de ses engagements. Ensuite, sa philosophie de la liberté, la découverte des philosophies de Husserl et de Heidegger, puis l'invention proprement sartrienne, la voie transphénoménale, qui permet de repenser le rapport de l'homme au monde avec le concept de cogito préréflexif, au croisement de la problématique de la liberté et de l'aliénation. Puis on restitue sa compréhension de la genèse d'une société, de l'Histoire et de ses conditions de possibilité, la force des conditionnements mais aussi la marge d'action de toute liberté. Vient après l'histoire d'une liberté en particulier, celle de Gustave Flaubert. A la suite, on traite de la morale et du sens qu'elle peut avoir pour une philosophie de la situation. On s'intéresse enfin au Sartre théoricien de la littérature, du théâtre et des arts. (shrink)

A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement. By John Stratton Hawley. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. xiv + 438. $49.95.

C'est par anachronisme que l'on distingue aujourd'hui en Taine l'historien, le psychologue, le critique et l'écrivain. Cet ouvrage entreprend de montrer l'unité de son oeuvre et propose une réflexion sur la nature propre des sciences humaines, dont Taine a contribué à forger l'identité moderne.

Ce texte a été publié dans Carnets, n° 6, janvier 2016 – Exotopies de Barthes, p. 130-142. Résumé : L'idiorrythmie, terme que Barthes emprunte au vocabulaire religieux des monastères et qui répond à son « fantasme d'une solitude collective », d'un compromis entre retrait et engagement, est, selon nous, en germe depuis les premiers travaux et sous-tend toute son écriture. Car, parmi le foisonnement de métaphores littéraires ou philosophiques mobilisées pour mener à bien son combat d'écrivain contre le - Poétique (...) et Études littéraires – GALERIE – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Résumé Les linguistes adoptant des objets transphrastiques travaillent avec des unités qui coïncident rarement avec les catégories traditionnelles. Ces unités ne sont pas une donnée déjà là, elles le deviennent a posteriori par le travail analytique. Il en va ainsi de la définition à laquelle nous nous intéressons en termes de catégorie discursive dans trois contextes discursifs, – le roman épistolaire, le slogan publicitaire et l’article de journal – pour observer comment elle contribue à l’analyse des discours. L’objectif vise à (...) la contextualiser dans différents univers discursifs, qui lui affectent une pertinence singulière, déterminée par les effets de généricité à l’œuvre dans le corpus et par les autres catégories construites par la textualité. Il s’agit de montrer quels sont les indices qui concourent à son identification, en nous attachant au caractère hétérogène de ces unités, et que ces catégories ne deviennent discursives que dans le mouvement de l’interprétation. Ce dernier consiste à les situer par rapport à une finalité inscrite dans la compétence générique des interactants et dans leurs représentations socio-idéologiques. Nous découvrirons que la définition n’a d’existence que dans son interaction avec d’autres unités, mais également que cette interaction nécessaire à l’identification du procédé discursif résultant participe à la construction de nouveaux indices. (shrink)

Translation: How did life originate? What were the first life forms? How did the cells of our body evolve? Is natural selection the only mechanism whereby evolution occurs? What did Darwin mean with the term natural selection and do we still use that definition today? Does evolution occur slow or fast? Are we determined by our genes? We all ask ourselves these questions from time to time. Scientists however often get too technical and philosophers too speculative in their answers. This (...) book aims to form a bridge between the life and human sciences. Questions on the origin and evolution of life are analyzed critically from within different disciplines. The result is a state of the art, accessible for philosophers and scientists as well as non-academics. Many of the answered proposed can thereby be understood as complements, deviations and alternatives to the standard paradigm of biology, the Modern Synthesis. These deviating statements are bundles into 15 theses. The question then becomes in how far the Modern Synthesis should become the subject of revision based upon these theses. Original: Hoe is leven ontstaan? Welke vorm nam het eerste leven aan? Hoe ontstonden de cellen waaruit ons lichaam is opgebouwd? Is natuurlijke selectie het enige mechanisme waarlangs evolutie zich voordoet? Wat bedoelde Darwin met natuurlijke selectie en gebruiken we deze definitie vandaag nog? Voltrekt evolutie zich traag of snel? Worden we gedetermineerd door onze genen? We stellen ons allemaal deze vragen wel eens. Wetenschappers worden echter algauw te technisch en filosofen te speculatief bij het beantwoorden ervan. Dit boek wil een brug slaan tussen de natuurwetenschappen en de menswetenschappen en de vragen omtrent de oorsprong en evolutie van leven, kritisch en nuchter, vanuit verschillende disciplines analyseren. Het resultaat is een huidige stand van zaken, leesbaar, zowel voor filosofen als wetenschappers en ook voor de leek. Vele van de voorgestelde antwoorden kunnen daarbij begrepen worden als aanvullingen, afwijkingen of alternatieven van het standaardparadigma in de biologie: de Moderne Synthese. Deze afwijkende stellingen werden gebundeld in 15 thesen. De vraag is in hoeverre de Moderne Synthese, in relatie met deze thesen, onderwerp voor herziening moet zijn. (shrink)

Mon objectif dans cette contribution est d’explorer la pratique phénoménologique en jeu au sein même des descriptions de Michel Foucault. Un tel travail dépasse la portée d’un examen unique et ponctuel et supposerait de mobiliser les champs expérientiels multiples qu’a observés et traités Foucault de l’intérieur : la prison, la clinique, la sexualité. Il sera ici circonscrit à ce que je crois être le noyau de la pratique en jeu. Ce que Foucault nomme de son côté « le souci de (...) soi », « la pratique de soi » ou encore « la technique de soi », et c’est ce qui permet de mettre au jour la conception foucaldienne du sujet comme soi. Pour ce faire, je vais parcourir le Cours de 1981-1982 en suivant le fil conducteur des occurrences du thème de l’attention. Pourquoi cela? Je suis guidée, dans ce parcours, par l’hypothèse selon laquelle l’attention (plus que la réflexion qui est retour sur soi et clôture, donc en définitive objectivante) est, pour la phénoménologie, le nom concret, expérientiel, pratique de l’ épochè, c’est-à-dire de la relation à soi du sujet comme présence à soi. Foucault ne parlant jamais d’ épochè ou de réduction (ni d’ailleurs de réflexion), mais plutôt d’attention, en lien avec le souci de soi, la pratique de soi, ou encore l’exercice, il semble que les concepts méthodiques husserliens, ou toute philosophie réflexive résiduelle, ne peuvent que faire écran à l’intuition immédiate du sens de l’expérience et doivent être évités au profit de termes plus sobres et d’emblée intelligibles comme l’attention, le souci et le soin. (shrink)

he purpose of this paper is to show that the last part of the Theaetetus can be interpreted in a new way, by a discontinuous and thematic analysis and by referring to the central digression of the dialogue. The refutation of the so-called “Dream Theory” is then no longer a dead end. On the contrary it provides results certainly limited but nevertheless consistent. Indeed, through this examination, Socrates analyzes “the whole.” The words πᾶν and ὅλον, designate the general rule of (...) exhaustiveness. It is their common principle. But the two terms have also been differentiated by Socrates in the last section of the dialogue. These positive arguments are used to disqualify a false conception of the totality. All these points ultimately shed light on the central digression in which Socrates brings into conflict the positive activity of the Scientist and the negative activity of the Rhetorician. Basically the “whole” is the secret object of their desire and therefore the hidden stake of their debate. (shrink)

La 4ème de couv. porte : "Depuis quelques années s'intensifient les rapports entre une société de l'information et une économie de l'attention : plus l'information est abondante, plus l'attention est rare. Alors que le travail se formule comme une lutte contre l'oisiveté et impose une certaine discipline de l'attention, la consommation, quant à elle, impose précisément de capter et perturber l'attention disciplinée. Progressivement, elle se monétise et progressivement, nous nous en sentons dépossédés. Pourquoi tenons-nous au concept d'attention? L'attention ne constitue (...) pas simplement un nouvel objet auquel l'éthique et la philosophie politique devraient s'intéresser. Loin de se limiter à développer une éthique appliquée de l'attention, problématiser l'attention nous amène à re-questionner les champs de l'éthique et de la philosophie politique. Pour répondre à ces questions, ce livre fait le pari de la pluridisciplinarité en rassemblant des travaux de différents horizons.". (shrink)

The title of this essay is not to be taken literally: I will not be making the case that Marseille is actually the last working class city in France. My title is a reference to Chris Marker’s 1993 film The Last Bolshevik (Le Tombeau d’Alexandre), a film about Alexander Medvedkin, one of the pioneers of early Soviet cinema. Medvedkin was the inspiration for the Groupe Medvedkine, a film collective founded by Chris Marker and made up of French militant filmmakers who, (...) in December 1967, decided to document the labor unrest that had erupted in factories near Besançon by making experimental films that involved the active participation of the workers themselves. Marker first met Medvedkin at a film festival in Leipzig .. (shrink)

Les acquis contemporains des sciences cognitives, mais aussi l'expérience spirituelle déposée dans la gnose sont, pour la phénoménologie, source d'un renouvellement inédit — à savoir, son tournant pratique, comme science méthodique pragmatique en première personne et comme praxis réglée d'examen de soi. Mais de là sciences cognitives et gnose métaphysique sortent également renouvelées. Phenomenology finds a new renewal in the contemporary findings of cognitive science and in the spiritual experience of gnosis. That is the practical turning point of phenomenology as (...) a pragmatic methodic science in first person and a ruled praxis of selfexamination. But both cognitive science and metaphysical gnosis become altered by this renewal of phenomenology. (shrink)