This presentation discusses a notion encountered across disciplines, and in different facets of human activity: autonomous activity. We engage it in an interdisciplinary way. We start by considering the reactions and behaviors of biological entities to biotechnological intervention. An attempt is made to characterize the degree of freedom of embryos & clones, which show openness to different outcomes when the epigenetic developmental landscape is factored in. We then consider the claim made in programming and artificial intelligence that automata could show (...) self-directed behavior as to the determination of their step-wise decisions on courses of action. This question remains largely open and calls for some important qualifications. We try to make sense of the presence of claims of freedom in agency, first in common sense, then by ascribing developmental plasticity in biology and biotechnology, and in the mapping of programmed systems in the presence of environmental cues and self-referenced circuits as well as environmental coupling. This is the occasion to recall attempts at working out a logical and methodological approach to the openness of concepts that are still to be found, and assess whether they can operate the structuring intelligibility of a yet undeveloped or underdeveloped field of study, where a “bisociation" and a unification of knowledge might be possible. (shrink)

Introduction L’accélération de l’industrialisation et du développement économique mondial est illustrée par la croissance exponentielle de tous les indicateurs de l’activité humaine, de la prospérité et des impacts environnementaux depuis un siècle. La population mondiale et sa proportion urbaine, le revenu et le niveau de vie moyen, la consommation en énergie et en matières premières montrent les mêmes tendances. Fig. 1 : Évolution historique de différents in...

If personhood is the quality or condition of being an individual person, brainhood could name the quality or condition of being a brain. This ontological quality would define the `cerebral subject' that has, at least in industrialized and highly medicalized societies, gained numerous social inscriptions since the mid-20th century. This article explores the historical development of brainhood. It suggests that the brain is necessarily the location of the `modern self', and that, consequently, the cerebral subject is the anthropological figure inherent (...) to modernity (at least insofar as modernity gives supreme value to the individual as autonomous agent of choice and initiative). It further argues that the ideology of brainhood impelled neuroscientific investigation much more than it resulted from it, and sketches how an expanding constellation of neurocultural discourses and practices embodies and sustains that ideology. (shrink)

This paper presents the first possible world semantics for concessive conditionals (i.e., even if A, C conditionals) constructed in a compositional way. First, the meaning of if is formalized through a semantics that builds on the proposal given by Stalnaker (1968). A major difference from Stalnaker’s approach is that irrelevant conditionals (i.e., conditionals where the antecedent and the consequent have no connection) are false in this new setting. Second, the meaning of even is analyzed through a formal semantics based on (...) the notion of scale. This analysis overcomes the problems arising in standard approaches, in which even is analyzed with the help of pragmatic presuppositions. Finally, the two particles are combined in order to provide a formal analysis of even if. This theory predicts the major phenomena concerning the behavior of concessive conditionals and without any call to pragmatic explanations. More generally, this approach creates the possibility of a compositional analysis of other conditionals such as if then or only if forms. (shrink)

ArgumentSeeing a prodigious cure happen and then testifying about it certainly differs from attending an air pump experiment in order to bear witness to it. Yet early-modern saint-making and the “new” or “experimental philosophy” shared juridical roots, and thereby an understanding of the role of testimony for the establishment of “matters of fact” and for the production of legitimate knowledge. The reforms carried out after the Council of Trent, especially during Urban VIII's pontificate, of the juridical procedures for saint-making in (...) the Catholic Church implied a new attitude towards the examination of proposed miracles. Most of these miracles were healings. While the appeal to medical expertise had long been common, and skepticism had often manifested itself regarding cures or extraordinary bodily phenomena, both were now given formal status. Miracle inquests henceforth leaned towards refuting miraculousness by means of natural explanations. The procedure was systematized in a treatise published in the 1730s by Prospero Lambertini. The combination of Lambertini's work with the canonization causes in which he acted as the “devil's advocate” in charge of disputing arguments favorable to a sainthood candidate allows for a reconstruction of the interplay between the juridical and scientific economies of saint-making, and of the role of testimony in the production of trust and evidence. (shrink)

O artigo ten como obxectivo facer un percorrido por tres momentos da escritura filosófica no que o fenómeno do límite ou fronteira do pensamento se pon claramente de manifesto no discurso. En primeiro lugar, Kant, como artífice da produtiva noción dunha “fronteira [Grenze]” da razón como condición e límite do pensamento; en segundo lugar, Hegel, como o seu máximo crítico na “asunción [Aufhebung]” da negación da fronteira kantiana; e, finalmente, Kierkegaard, cuxa contribución á discusión dos seus predecesores consiste no “pathos (...) [Lidenskab]” do límite que Kant demarca e Hegel supera, pois no caso do pensador dinamarqués o límite da filosofía é ao mesmo tempo paradoxo, é dicir, algo que non pode ser coñecido senón tan só re-coñecido pola razón e que pon xustamente a razón no seu límite. (shrink)

In positive theories, we have an axiom scheme of comprehension for positive formulas. We study here the “generalized positive” theory GPK∞+. Natural models of this theory are hyperuniverses. The author has shown in [2] that GPK∞+ interprets the Kelley Morse class theory. Here we prove that GPK∞+ + ACWF and the Kelley-Morse class theory with the axiom of global choice and the axiom “On is ramifiable” are mutually interpretable. This shows that GPK∞+ + ACWF is a “strong” theory since “On (...) is ramifiable” implies the existence of a proper class of inaccessible cardinals. (shrink)

An interesting positive theory is the GPK theory. The models of this theory include all hyperuniverses (see [5] for a definition of these ones). Here we add a form of the axiom of infinity and a new scheme to obtain GPK∞+. We show that in these conditions, we can interprete the Kelley‐Morse theory (KM) in GPK∞+ (Theorem 3.7). This needs a preliminary property which give an interpretation of the Zermelo‐Fraenkel set theory (ZF) in GPK∞+. We also see what happens in (...) the original GPK theory. Before doing this, we first need to study the basic properties of the theory. This is done in the first two sections. (shrink)

A Carter subgroup is a self-normalizing locally nilpotent subgroup. For studying these subgroups in groups of finite Morley rank, we introduce the new notion of a locally closed subgroup. We show that every solvable group of finite Morley rank has a unique conjugacy class of Carter subgroups.

I will not dwell overlong on the “meaning” of this story. But let me make two essential points. Plato tells us this story as though it were true: it is “a tale which, though passing strange, is yet wholly true.” Those words were to be translated into every language in the world and used to justify the most realistic fantasies. That is quite understandable, for Plato’s story started something new. With a perversity that was to ensure him great success, Plato (...) had laid the foundations for the historical novel, that is to say, the novel set in a particular place and a particular time. We are now quite accustomed to historical novels, and we also know that in every detective story there comes a moment when the detective declares that real life is not much like what happens in detective stories; it is far more complicated. But that was not the case in the fourth century B.C. Plat’s words were taken seriously, not by everyone, but by many, down through the centuries. And it is not too hard to see that some people continue to take them seriously today.As for the “meaning,” following others and together with others, I have tried elsewhere to show that essentially it is quite clear: the Athens and Atlantis of ancient lore represent the two faces of Plato’s own Athens. The former, the old primordial Athens, is what Plato would have liked the city of which he was a citizen to be; the latter is what Athens was in the age of Pericles and Cleon, an imperialistic power whose very existence constituted a threat to other Greek cities. Pierre Vidal-Naquet is director of the Centre Louis Gernet de Recherches Comparées sure les Sociétés Anciennes at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His most recent publications are the second volume of Les Juifs, la mémoire et le present , La Grèce ancienne 1: Du mythe à la raison, with Jean-Pierre Vernant , and La Démocratie grecque vue d’ailleurs . Among his works to have appeared in English are Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, with Jean-Pierre Vernant , and The Black Hunter: Forms of Thought and Forms of Society in the Greek World . Janet Lloyd is a supervisor for a number of colleges in Cambridge University, where she gives classes in French language and literature. Among her more recent translations are Yves Mény’s Government and Politics in Western Europe: Britain, France, Italy, West Germany and Marie-Claire Bergère’s Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, 1911-1937 . In progress are translations of works on Shakespeare, Pericles’ Athens, and a historical geography of France. (shrink)

Le programme de recherche que l'on trouvera ci-dessous nous semble particulièrement original et utile d'un point de vue rythmanalytique – et cela à double titre. D'une part, alors que la vitesse, l'accélération et l'urgence sont, depuis quelques années, les objets d'une littérature pléthorique et désormais assez répétitive, Laurent Vidal et les chercheurs regroupés dans l'ANR TERRIAT s'intéressent, quant à eux, à la « lenteur » et à l'« attente ». De l'autre, ils orientent leur attention vers la question du (...) « (...) - 4. Rythmes du social – Nouvel article. (shrink)

This article sets out to improve our analytical understanding of the concept of “linking social capital.” Concretely, the article focuses on disaster contexts where the importance of linking social capital intensifies both for the vulnerable communities and for the local authorities concerned. Through an analysis of existing analytical practices, the article concludes that linking social capital is often subordinated to the two related social capital concepts of bonding and bridging, and that linking social capital is often exclusively defined and operationalized (...) based on expressions of organizational trust and participation. The article proposes a recalibration to encompass the political dynamics, and political survival theory is recommended as a way to address the hitherto underexplored governance dimension. Rather than using trust as the analytical pivot, this analytical entry point may facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the potential risks inherent in the relationships between local authorities and communities in disaster settings. (shrink)

Dans les Cours d'Esthétique, qu'il prononce à Berlin entre 1820 et 1829, Hegel propose une théorie de la musique et analyse le rapport de celle-ci avec les autres arts dans l'ensemble du système philosophique. Mais comment le philosophe, qui n'est pas connaisseur, peut-il penser la musique de son temps? Sur quelle base se construit la réflexion? Et comment la reconstituer scientifiquement à partir des différentes sources? Le présent ouvrage apporte une réponse à ces questions en replaçant le discours hégélien dans (...) l'arrière-plan socio-historique de la vie musicale contemporaine, et en reconstituant, pour la première fois, la théorie de Hegel à partir des manuscrits inédits des différents cours. La spéculation apparaît alors dans toute son originalité, comme le prolongement des multiples expériences faites au théâtre et au concert. La conception de la musique comme manifestation de l'esprit absolu se vérifie alors dans l'expérience la plus concrète. (shrink)

This qualitative study indentifies how corporate responsibility (CR) practices are diffused to companies, as well as the factors that influence this diffusion process. Forest companies, industry associations, non-governmental organizations, and academics in Brazil, Canada, and the United States participated in this interview-based study. Data emerging from a grounded theory approach revealed three factors influencing the diffusion of CR practices to companies: (1) external contextual characteristics, (2) connectors, and (3) experts and expert organizations. These three factors influence each other, meaning that (...) the diffusion process of CR practices is somewhat cyclic. These interactions are usually manifested by companies and expert organizations influencing each other’s actions, being influenced by the external environment, and contributing to the CR trends that are observed in the external environment. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the modal logic with both \ and \ arising from Kripke models with a crisp accessibility and whose propositions are valued over the standard Gödel algebra \. We provide an axiomatic system extending the one from Caicedo and Rodriguez :37–55, 2015) for models with a valued accessibility with Dunn axiom from positive modal logics, and show it is strongly complete with respect to the intended semantics. The axiomatizations of the most usual frame restrictions are given (...) too. We also prove that in the studied logic it is not possible to get \ as an abbreviation of \, nor vice-versa, showing that indeed the axiomatic system we present does not coincide with any of the mono-modal fragments previously axiomatized in the literature. (shrink)

I challenge two points in Cohen Kadosh & Walsh's (CK & W) argument: First, the definition of abstraction is too restricted; second, the distinction between representations and operations is too clear-cut. For example, taking Jean Piaget's I propose that another way to avoid orthodoxy in the field of numerical cognition is to consider inhibition as an alternative idea of abstraction.

"La solidarité que je ressentais avec les opprimés, avec ceux qui souffraient, a fait que je me suis spontanément`: tourné vers l'anarchisme - cette théorie qui traite des rapports de domination".

This chapter elaborates the biography of Ernst Bloch and explains his particular thoughts on musical philosophy. He was born on July 8, 1885. In 2000, a multifunctional center of science and culture was established in Bloch's name, aiming to develop a site oriented to his themes and to debate contemporary questions about the shape of the future. The Principle of Hope was his most important work, providing an encyclopedia of human hopes. Art became the essential basis of a philosophy of (...) hope. Bloch's treatment of music in The Spirit of Utopia was embedded in contemporary discourse. Fidelio was the model for Bloch's way of doing philosophy. Monographs that deal with Bloch's views on art often provided summary treatment to the musicological aspect. Essays on individual aspects of Bloch's music philosophy have continued to appear without interruption from the 1960s to the present. (shrink)

Se sostiene en este artículo que Chile, a pesar de haber suscrito acuerdos internacionales en Conferencias de Naciones Unidas que reconocen como sujetos de derechos a las y los jóvenes en el ámbito de la sexualidad, no difunde estos derechos ni desarrolla políticas públicas específicas para que puedan ejercerlos. Esto se debería a la existencia de poderes fácticos como la jerarquía de la Iglesia Católica que impone un discurso conservador. El artículo aborda un enfoque de derechos, según el cual el (...) diseño e implementación de programas de educación sexual debe responder a las necesidades de las y los jóvenes. (shrink)

In 1913, the future psychologist and epistemologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980), then a seventeen-year-old naturalist, gave a talk criticizing 'the notion of the species according to the Mendelian school'. In it, he confounded Mendelism and mutationism, and misunderstood both. He attributed an environmental nature to the 'factors' postulated by Mendel's laws for inherited characteristics, and thought that mutations resulted from the appearance of a new environmental factor. Such misinterpretations are closely related to Piaget's assimilation of the Bergsonian critique of 'mechanistic' science (...) into his work in malacological taxonomy. (shrink)

RESUMENPresento una exposición de los argumentos de M. Dummett contra el proyecto davidsoniano de reducir, al menos en la formulación de una teoría del significado, la fuerza de habla de una emisión al sentido de una oración que funcione como un adscriptor de dicha fuerza. Constitutivas de tales argumentos son las tesis de que no hay fuerza sin convenciones lingüísticas y de que la fuerza de la aserción es un factor esencial en la determinación de la creencia.PALABRAS CLAVEFUERZA DEL HABLA-MODO (...) VERBAL-ASERCIÓN-CREENCIAABSTRACTAs it is known Frege distinguished two factors in meaning, sense and force. Now, the force of an utterance cannot be identified syntactically with the verbal mood of a sentence. On face of it Davidson tries to maintain a very formal conception of language analyzing the force in terms of truth-conditions, that is to say, in terms of sense.He introduces his paratactic analysis. But there is an objection by Dummett that the force is beyond the sense and so the meaning has a factor of use which is not formally reducible.KEYWORDSMEANING-FORCE-SENSE-PRATACTIC ANALYSIS. (shrink)

La introducción en la reforma educativa de las enseñanzas medias de una asignatura común a todos los alumnos sobre cuestiones éticas puede servir para curar a esta materia de su complejo de "religión para ateos", provocada por su modo de presencia en los anteriores diseños curriculares. El autor reflexiona sobre su papel y sobre sus posibles contenidos desde la perspectiva explícita de la ética civil que se trata en el estado de la cuestión y reflexión y crítica.

In this paper, I stress the utility of employing test-driven development (TDD) for conceiving logical systems. TDD, originally invented in the context of Extreme Programming, is a methodology widely used by software engineers to conceive and develop programs. Its main principle is to design the tests of the expected properties of the system before the development phase. I argue that this methodology is especially convenient in conceiving applied logics. Indeed, this technique is efficient with most decidable logics having a software (...) implementation. Having a clear list of the desired inferences right from the beginning makes it possible to refine the properties of the system step by step until its completion. I distinguish and detail seven advantages of the usage of TDD for the conception of a logical theory. Most importantly, this methodology increases the predictability of the inferential power of the theory. A second important benefit is that the time required for the conception of the logic goes down dramatically. This methodology will change both ideas and practices. Logic is no longer considered to be a formal science, but rather to be an empirical one. Research in the field is geared toward specific and concrete goals. Programs are considered tools used to verify the conformity of formal theories. To sum up, I defend the view that, in some situations, this way of designing a formal system brings significant benefits, and that the construction of new logics can be conducted similarly to the development of open source software. (shrink)

Moses Finley's reflections on ancient and modern democracy, explicitly directed against the liberal mainstream of political science, but also - avant la lettre - against the belittling of Greek democracy that has become fashionable among post-Marxist radicals, can be taken as a starting point for further discussion of historical as well as theoretical questions. The points at issue have to do with the belated recognition of democracy as a part of the Greek tradition, but also with the divided and contested (...) modern tradition that grew out of this new perspective on the past. The French Revolution is crucial to both aspects of the problem. Although it can be shown that the well-known attempts of the revolutionaries to appropriate classical models did not - in the short run - radically alter the image of ancient Greece, the very experience of the revolution - both as an exceptionally dramatic historical event and as a key episode in a more long-term process - was bound to change modern perceptions of the classical world. The new understanding of Greek democracy, made possible by the revolution but not inspired by it, was first articulated by the radical wing of 19th-century liberalism; but it could, in due course, serve to develop a critique of liberalism. (shrink)

In this paper we study substantive assumptions in social interaction. By substantive assumptions we mean contingent assumptions about what the players know and believe about each other’s choices and information. We first explain why substantive assumptions are fundamental for the analysis of games and, more generally, social interaction. Then we show that they can be compared formally, and that there exist contexts where no substantive assumptions are being made. Finally we show that the questions raised in this paper are related (...) to a number of issues concerning “large” structures in epistemic game theory. (shrink)

The German tradition of considering species, and higher taxonomic entities, as individuals begins with the temporalization of natural history, thus pre-dating Darwin’s ‘Origin’ of 1859. In the tradition of German Naturphilosophie as developed by Friedrich Schelling, species came to be seen as parts of a complex whole that encompasses all (living) nature. Species were comprehended as dynamic entities that earn individuality by virtue of their irreversible passage through time. Species individuality was conceived in terms of species taxa forming a spatiotemporally (...) located relational system (complex whole), a conception of species that was easily assimilated to an evolutionary world view. However, the dynamics of an evolutionary process driven by variation and natural selection created a tension between continuity in nature as opposed to the discreteness and relative stasis of species. As a consequence, some authors such as Ernst Haeckel and Karl August Möbius denied the reality of species, while others explicitly linked the reality and individuality of species to their temporal duration. The mature conception of species as individuals, as formulated by Ludwig von Bertalanffy and adopted by Willi Hennig, is one of an historically conditioned, spatiotemporally located, causally integrated, dynamic yet transiently homeostatically stabilized relational system. (shrink)

The name of the Genevan critic Jean Starobinski will most likely evoke masterful\nreadings of Rousseau and Montaigne, or insightful reconstructions of the world\nof the Enlightenment. With the possible exception of the history of melancholy,\nmuch more rarely will it be associated with the history of psychology and\npsychiatry. A small number of the critic’s contributions to this field have\nappeared in some of his books. Most of them, however, remain scattered, and\nnothing suggests that they are known as widely as they deserve.\nStarobinski’s work in (...) the history of psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis\nis exemplary in its perspective of the problematic relations between\npsychological concepts and experiences, and between medical thought and the\nlarger culture. (shrink)

Les detracteurs du materialisme le donnent pour poussiereux, triste, deplace, ennuyeux. C'est aussi la reputation de la philosophie. Que dire de leur histoire! L'auteur, qui, en trente annees de philosophie, n'a pas trouve matiere a s'ennuyer, propose au lecteur quelques elements pour en juger: du materialisme de l'Antiquite a celui du dix-septieme siecle, de celui des Lumieres aux materialismes historiques, il l'invite a decouvrir des lieux inapercus ou de nouvelles perspectives dans l'histoire de la philosophie. Ceux qui veulent rester philosophes (...) pourront savoir gre aux materialistes de ce que la philosophie leur doit. En compagnie d'Epicure et de Hobbes, de Marc-Aurele et de Cyrano, de Gassendi et de Marx, et d'autres plus clandestins, il y a encore matiere a s'instruire, a se divertir, a s'etonner. (shrink)

La paradoja de Moore es el tipo de absurdo de, entre otras cosas, la aserción de una oración de la forma �p pero yo no creo que p�. Propongo una explicación de la paradoja en términos del uso del pronombre personal �yo�. Más aún, recurro a un modelo del uso competente al que me referiré como modelo de la autorreferencia autoconsciente. A continuación, muestro que la explicación introducida es independiente de otras explicaciones recientes basadas en la naturaleza consciente de la (...) aserción y de la creencia. Pero, además, concluyo que está justificado pensar que ni la aserción ni la creencia son de naturaleza consciente. (shrink)