Notre seuil de tolérance à la violence imposée par la domination sociale contribue à définir l’univers de contraintes dans lequel sont immergés les « SDF ». Il leur offre aussi des issues à la domination. Encore faut-il quelques dispositions sociales pour pouvoir les emprunter, pour saisir les maigres chances représentées par ce qui peut alors devenir un atout : la définition sociale d’eux-mêmes dont les plus dominés font l’objet.We apprehend homelessness according to our own tolerance level toward physical violence imposed (...) by deprived situations. A given data contributing to define homelessness, it may represent, too, means for short time survival tactics. Harsh personal and social conditions are necessary however to adapt oneself to such a definition of themselves imposed to the most dominated citizens. (shrink)

Normative accounts of the correctness of belief have often been misconstrued. The norm of truth for belief is a constitutive norm which regulates our beliefs through ideals of reason. I try to show that this kind of account can meet some of the main objections which have been raised against normativism about belief: that epistemic reasons enjoy no exclusivity, that the norm of truth does not guide, and that normativism cannot account for suspension of judgement.

Engel argues that, although the minimalist conception of truth is basically right, it does not follow that truth can be eliminated from our philosophical thinking, as is claimed by some radical deflationists. In particular, he shows that some deflationist views have a definitively relativist and "postmodernist" ring and should be rejected. Even if a metaphysically substantive theory of truth has little chance to succeed, he argues, truth plays a central role as a norm or guiding value of our rational inquiries (...) and practices in the philosophy of knowledge and in ethics. (shrink)

Belief is not a unified phenomenon. In this paper I argue, as a number of other riters argue, that one should distinguish a variety of belief-like attitudes: believing proper - a dispositional state which can have degrees - holding true - which can occur without understanding what one believes - and accepting - a practical and contextual attitude that has a role in deliberation and in practical reasoning. Acceptance itself is not a unified attitude. I explore the various relationships and (...) differences between these doxastic attitudes, and claim that although acceptance is distinct from belief, it rests upon it, and is therefore a species of belief. (shrink)

The thesis that mental content is normative is ambiguous and has many forms. This article deals only with the thesis that normativity is connected to our mental attitudes rather than with the content of the attitudes, and more specifically with the view that it is connected to belief. A number of writers have proposed various versions of a ‘norm of truth’ attached to belief. I examine various versions of this claim, and defend it against recent criticisms according to which this (...) norm lacks normative force, that it violates the principle that ‘ought implies can,’ and that it is viciously circular. I defend the view that we should distinguish the statement of the objective norm and the way it is regulated, and that this distinction can answer most of the criticisms of the norm of truth for belief. (shrink)

Normative accounts of the correctness of belief have often been misconstrued. The norm of truth for belief is a constitutive norm which regulates our beliefs through ideals of reason. I try to show that this kind of account can meet some of the main objections which have been raised against normativism about belief: that epistemic reasons enjoy no exclusivity, that the norm of truth does not guide, and that normativism cannot account for suspension of judgement.

The knowledge account of assertion (KAA) is the view that assertion is governed by the norm that the speaker should know what s/he asserts. It is not the purpose of this article to examine all the criticisms nor to try to give a full defence of KAA, but only to defend it against the charge of being normatively incorrect. It has been objected that assertion is governed by other norms than knowledge, or by no norm at all. It seems to (...) me, however, that a number of these criticisms are based on a number of misunderstandings of the notion of a norm and of the way it can regulated a given practice. Once we spell out in what sense knowledge can play a normative role in this context, the KAA appears much more plausible. (shrink)

This article discusses the arguments against associating epistemic responsibility with the ordinary notion of agency. I examine the various 'Kantian' views which lead to a distinctive conception of epistemic agency and epistemic responsibility. I try to explain why we can be held responsible for our beliefs in the sense of obeying norms which regulate them without being epistemic agents.

Belief is not a unified phenomenon. In this paper I argue, as a number of other riters argue, that one should distinguish a variety of belief-like attitudes: believing proper - a dispositional state which can have degrees - holding true - which can occur without understanding what one believes - and accepting - a practical and contextual attitude that has a role in deliberation and in practical reasoning. Acceptance itself is not a unified attitude. I explore the various relationships and (...) differences between these doxastic attitudes, and claim that although acceptance is distinct from belief, it rests upon it, and is therefore a species of belief. (shrink)

This paper tries to say in what sense truth is a norm, a thesis that Donald Davidson, whose view are examined, denies. After skteching his conception of rationality, it is argued that truth is a norm in only the sense that we ought to believe what we believe is true, not that we all to believe everything which is true. This minimal norm of truth is isolated and defended.

The identity theory of truth, according to which true thoughts are identical with facts, is very hard to formulate. It oscillates between substantive versions, which are implausible, and a merely truistic version, which is difficult to distinguish from deflationism about truth. This tension is present in the form of identity theory that one can attribute to McDowell from his views on perception, and in the conception defended by Hornsby under that name.

Sosa takes epistemic normativity to be kind of performance normativity: a belief is correct because a believer sets a positive value to truth as an aim and performs aptly and adroitly. I object to this teleological picture that beliefs are not performances, and that epistemic reasons or beliefs cannot be balanced against practical reasons. Although the picture fits the nature of inquiry, it does not fit the normative nature of believing, which has to be conceived along distinct lines.

This article examines Keith Lehrer's distinction between belief and acceptance and how it differs from other accounts of belief and of the family of doxastic attitudes. I sketch a different taxonomy of doxastic attitudes. Lehrer's notion of acceptance is mostly epistemic and at the service of his account of the "loop of reason", whereas for other writers acceptance is mostly a pragmatic attitude. I argue, however, that his account of acceptance underdetermines the role that the attitude of trust plays in (...) his analysis of reason. (shrink)

I discuss Ruth Marcus' conception of beliefs as dispositional states related to possible states of affaires. While I agree with Marcus that this conception accounts for the necessary distinction between belief and linguistic assent, I argue that the relationship between dispositional beliefs and our assent attitudes is more complex, and should include other mental states, such as acceptances, which, although they contain voluntary elements, are further layers of dispositional doxastic attitudes.

Le sceptique nous demande " Comment sais-tu que tu as deux mains? Peut-être rêves-tu, ou es-tu trompé par quelque Malin Génie? Peut-on même définir ce que c'est que la connaissance? Va savoir! " Lui rétorquer, comme le faisaient G.E. Moore et la tradition de la philosophie du sens commun : " Mais je sais bien que j'ai deux mains! " semble à la fois une pétition de principe et une bien mauvaise réponse. Le mieux, depuis que nous avons perdu le (...) souci de fonder nos croyance sur des raisons ultimes, serait, tout simplement, de ne pas se soucier des questions du sceptique. Ce que l'on sait dépend, nous dit-on, des circonstances, et toutes nos connaissances sont faillibles. N'y a-t-il pas plutôt des savoirs, dont l'histoire nous montre combien leurs modes de validations sont variés? Ce livre entend refuser ce type de réponse contextualiste et relativiste. Il propose de revenir à la réponse de sens commun de Moore, à partir des reformulations contemporaines des raisonnements sceptiques issues de la philosophie analytique de la connaissance. Personne ne peut nous envoyer savoir quelque chose que nous ne pourrions pas savoir. De fait, nous savons, mais notre savoir n'est pas transparent : nous n'avons pas besoin de savoir que nous savons. Pour parvenir à cette réponse, il faut replacer la notion de connaissance, plutôt que celle de croyance justifiée ou rationnelle, au centre de l'épistémologie, et reformuler des questions traditionnelles comme celles de la nature de la perception, du témoignage, et de la connaissance a priori. On peut aussi reprendre le vieux projet d'une enquête sur la nature de la connaissance en général. (shrink)

The doxastic zoo contains many animals: belief, acceptance, belief in, belief that, certainty, conjecture, guess, conviction, denial, disbelief in, disbelief that, judgment, commitment, etc. It also contains belief’s “strange bedfellows”: credences, partial beliefs, tacit beliefs, subdoxastic states, creedal feelings, feelings of knowing, in-between believings, pathological beliefs, phobias, aliefs, delusions, biases, besires. How to order the zoo? I propose to distinguish doxastic attitudes from non-doxastic epistemic attitudes. The criterion is the existence of correctness conditions. Most bedfellows do not have such normative (...) conditions. So they should not be allowed in the Doxastic Club. (shrink)

This paper attempts to clarify some issues about what is usually called “doxastic voluntarism”. This phrase often hides a confusion between two separate (although connected) issues: whether beliefis or can be, as a matter of psychological fact, under the control of the will, on the one hand, and whether we can have practical reasons to believe something, or whether our beliefs are subject to any sort of “ought”, on the other hand. The first issue -- which I prefer to call (...) the issue of volitionism about belief -- is psychological, and I take the answer to be negative, along the lines of the conceptual arguments against believing at will adduced by writers such as Bernard Williams. The second issue -- which I call voluntarism proper -- is normative, and the answer that I give is a qualified yes. Belief is not a matter of the will, although there are certain things that we ought to believe. (shrink)

There are mental actions, and a number of epistemic attitudes involve activity. But can there be epistemic agency? I argue that there is a limit to any claim that we can be epistemic agents, which is that the structure of reasons for epistemic attitudes differs fundamentally from the structure of reasons for actions. The main differences are that we cannot act for the wrong reasons although we can believe for the wrong reasons, and that reasons for beliefs are exclusive in (...) a sense in which our reasons for actions are not. Epistemic agency is possible in the weak sense that we can be active, but not in the strong one in which we could have some elbow room for our epistemic reasons in reasoning leading to beliefs and other epistemic states. (shrink)

I argue that the normative dimension in mental content does not figure in the content as a direct feature of this content. But I do not take is as an extrinsic feature due to the properties of our ascriptions either. I suggest that the normativity has to do with the possibility of self attribution of mental states. The views of Robert Brandom are examined in this respect.

In the spirit of the pragmatic account of quotation and reporting offered by Macagno and Walton (2017), we outline a systematic pragmatic account of rephrasing. For this purpose, we combine two interrelated methods of inquiry into the variety of uses of rephrase as a persuasive device: (i) the annotation of rephrase types to identify locutionary and illocutionary aspects of rephrase, (ii) the crowd–sourced examination of rephrase types to investigate their perlocutionary effects. As it draws on Waltonian insights and on empirical (...) and experimental research on the (mis)use of rephrase, our approach allows us to ground a novel theoretically–informed and data–driven pragmatic account of rephrase. (shrink)

I raise a dilemma for an epistemology based on the idea that there are hinge propositions or primitive certainties: either such propositions are norms or rules in the 'grammatical' sense, but they cannot regulate our inquiries since they are not genuine propositions obeying truth or evidential standards, or they are epistemic norms, but compete with the classical norms of belief and knowledge. Either there are hinges, but they have nothing to do with epistemology, or hinges are part of our knowledge, (...) and their epistemology is part of ordinary epistemology. (shrink)

This chapter analyzes stupidity as a problem for epistemology. Its proper home belongs to virtue epistemology, as a specific epistemic vice, which has to be studied along the lines of both reliabilist virtue epistemology and of responsibilist virtue epistemology. The author distinguishes between two kinds of stupidity: stupidity proper and foolishness. The former is a defect in the competence of an agent, as well as in the performance of judgment, and it is generally studied as a failure of rationality along (...) intellectualist lines. The second is a failure to evaluate properly the nature of the epistemic goal, and is a form of epistemic indifference, which involves an insensitivity to epistemic values and norms. This chapter analyzes their varieties, and suggest that the boundaries between stupidity and foolishness are often less clear than it is suggested by the author’s taxonomy. (shrink)

Prior research on sustainability suggests that ambitious sustainability strategies are often turned into “business-as-usual” practices. Although ecological embeddedness—that is, actors’ physical and cognitive anchoring in their ecological environment—can help maintain sustainability ambitions, its collective dynamics and pluralistic moral foundations remain understudied. We rely on the economies of worth framework and the revelatory case of a biodynamic farm business experiencing sustained commercial growth to explore these blind spots by analyzing how ecological embeddedness was maintained despite this growth. We found that moral (...) threats moved the organization away from its initial sustainability commitment and demonstrated how the farm maintained its ecological embeddedness through three mechanisms that involved multiple moral foundations: nurturing ecological inspiration, networking green projects, and unifying a green ethos. By inducing such mechanisms of moral recombination, our analysis advances sustainability studies by clarifying and bridging individual and collective dynamics of ecological embeddedness while revealing their multiple moral foundations; we also extend economies of worth research by demonstrating the role of ecological materiality in the alignment of organizations with the green world. (shrink)

This paper argues that the normative dimension in mental and semantic content is not a categorical feature of content, but an hypothetical one, relative to the features of the interpretation of thoughts and meaning. The views of Robert Brandom are discussed. The thesis defended in this paper is not interpretationist about thought. It implies that the normative dimension of content arises from the real capacity of thinkers and speakers to self ascribe thoughts to themselves and to reach self knowledge of (...) their own thoughts. (shrink)

Simon Blackburn has shown that there is an analogy between the problem of moral motivation in ethics (how can moral reasons move us?) and the problem of what we might call the power of logical reasons (how can logical reasons move us, what is the force of the 'logical must?'). In this paper, I explore further the parallel between the internalism problem in ethics and the problem of the power of logical reasons, and defend a version of psychologism about reasons, (...) although not one of the Humean form. I discuss two forms of cognitivism: (i) a pure cognitivism and 'hard' realism modelled after Dancy's parallel conception in ethics: when we grasp logical reasons we grasp facts, which are directly known to us; (ii) a Kantian form of cognitivism, based on the idea that compulsion by reason goes with the capacity of reflection. I argue that (i) is implausible, and that (ii) fails to meet the internalist requirement. One would then seem to be left with what Dancy calls, about practical reasoning, psychologism about reasons. I sketch what might be such a psychologism. But it fails to account for the objectivity of logical reasons. I argue that the relevant state here is a form of dispositional knowledge of logical reasons. (shrink)

Presumption is often discussed in law, less often in epistemology. Is it an attitude? If so where can we locate it within the taxonomy of epistemic attitudes? Is it a kind of belief, a judgment, an assumption or a supposition? Or is it a species of inference? There are two basic models of presumption: judgmental, as a kind of judgment, and legal, taken from the use of presumptions in law. The legal model suggests that presumption is a practical inference, whereas (...) the judgmental model suggests that presumption is an epistemic attitude. I argue that presumption is neither a practical inference nor a merely epistemic attitude: it involves both, within the category of what we may call the inquiring attitudes. (shrink)

Dans cet article, je défends la position évidentialiste à propos des croyances religieuses, à la suite de la fameuse maxime de Clifford et contre l'interprétation pragmatiste de l'éthique des croyances. Je défends, en suivant Shah que le test de transparence est mieux expliqué par l'existence d'une norme de correction de la croyance. Les croyances religieuses, si elles sont des croyances, doivent obéir à cette norme. Si elles n'y obéissent pas, ce ne sont pas des croyances. Et la non croyance est (...) une attitude parfaitement légitime. (shrink)

(2005). The unimportance of being modest: a footnote to McDowell’s note. International Journal of Philosophical Studies: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 89-93. doi: 10.1080/0967255042000324362.

What is the relationship between logic and reasoning? How do logical norms guide inferential performance? This paper agrees with Gilbert Harman and most of the psychologists that logic is not directly relevant to reasoning. It argues, however, that the mental model theory of logical reasoning allows us to harmonise the basic principles of deductive reasoning and inferential perfomances, and that there is a strong connexion between our inferential norms and actual reasoning, along the lines of Peacocke’s conception of inferential role.

The author recalls some of the reasons why analytical philosophy has been foreign to contemporary fre philosophical tradition. Presenting some recent work by contemporary fre philosophers influenced by analytic philosophy, He shows that most of them share the view that philosophy is a kind of transcendental inquiry on the nature and limits of language, And that recent trends in analytical philosophy, Such as scientific realism and "naturalised epistemology" are not well represented in france.

Paul Ricœur made a lot to introduce analytic philosophy in France during the 70s and 80s, and he engaged in a dialogue with a number of authors from this tradition, such as Austin, Strawson, Davidson or Parfit. This dialogue, though, was one-sided, since there was no discussion of his views by analytic philosophers. Moreover, Ricœur often misunderstood or misprepresented the analytic views that he was discussing. So in many ways the Ricœur’s encounter with analytic philosophy was unsuccessful, which does not (...) mean that Ricœur’s discussions where unfruitful for his own work. Résumé Paul Ricœur a fait beaucoup pour introduire la philosophie analytique en France pendant les années 1970 et 1980, et il a entrepris un dialogue avec les auteurs de cette tradition, comme Austin, Strawson, Davidson ou Parfit. Mais ce dialogue est cependant resté unilatéral, car il n’y a pas eu de discussion des thèses de Ricœur au sein de la tradition analytique. De plus Ricœur a souvent mécompris les vues analytiques qu’il discutait. En ce sens il n’y a pas eu de rencontre entre Ricœur et les philosophes analytiques, ce qui ne veut pas dire que les discussions par Ricœur des philosophes anaytiques n’aient pas été fructueuses pour son œuvre propre. (shrink)

Exposé présenté lors de la journée d'études CRAL-EHESS par Christophe Corbier, Marielle Macé et Esteban Buch, « Histoire du rythme, histoire des rythmes » – Paris – 12 décembre 2014. - Philosophie – Nouvel article.

In this paper I want to show that, although it is a common thread of many pragmatist or pragmatist-inspired doctrines, the belief-as-disposition-to-act theme is played on very different tunes by the various philosophical performers. A whole book could be devoted to the topic. I shall limit myself here to the views of Peirce, James, Ramsey, contemporary functionalists, and Isaac Levi. Depending on how they interpret this theme, the pragmatist philosophers can emphasise more or less the role of theory and practice (...) in their respective account of thought, truth and inquiry. When they stress the former pragmatists are what I shall call theoria-pragmatists, when they put the stress on the latter, I'll call them the praxis pragmatists. I suggest that the first variety is much more appealing than the other, and I side with the theoreticist pragmatists. (edited). (shrink)

What is the difference between analytic and Continental philosophy? That the former has not withdrawn norms of justification and truth, whereas the latter has bred suspicion about them.

L’une des raisons pour lesquelles la vérité et la démocratie ne semblent pas faire bon ménage est qu’on a tendance à confondre, d’une part, la liberté d’opinion et de parole avec l’égale vérité des opinions, ce qui revient à adopter une forme de relativisme, et, d’autre part, la règle de majorité avec une règle de vérité, ce qui revient à adopter une forme de théorie de la vérité comme consensus. Parce que la démocratie libérale repose sur le principe de la (...) pluralité des valeurs et sur la neutralité axiologique, on a tendance à penser qu’elle exige de traiter toutes les opinions comme également respectables et, moyennant une confusion de plus, comme également vraies. Parce que la démocratie suppose la règle selon laquelle, en matière de décisions, la majorité doit l’emporter, on suppose que les opinions majoritaires ont le plus de chances d’être vraies, et qu’elles sont vraies parce qu’elles sont celles de la majorité. (shrink)

A commonplace in contemporary philosophy is that mental content has normative properties. A number of writers associate this view to the idea that the normativity of content is essentially connected to its social character. I agree with the first thesis, but disagree with the second. The paper examines three kinds of views according to which the norms of thought and content are social: Wittgenstein’s rule following considerations, Davidson’s triangulation argument, and Brandom’s inferential pragmatics, and criticises each. It is argued that (...) there are objective conceptual norms constitutive of mental content, but that these are not essentially social. (shrink)

This paper analyses Davidson's conception of the norms of rationality which govern, according to him, the interpretation of mind and action. While I accept Davidson's thesis that there are norms of the mental, I disagree with him on their scope. It is argued that there are much more specific norms for concepts, and that belief in partiuclar is governed by a norm of truth.

La philosophie de l'esprit et des phénomènes mentaux a connu, depuis une trentaine d'années, un renouveau important, notamment en raison de l'intérêt suscité chez les philosophes par les progrès des neurosciences et des sciences cognitives. Au sein de la tradition analytique anglo-américaine en particulier, un véritable tournant mentaliste et naturaliste tend désormais à supplanter l'approche " linguistique " jusque-là dominante. Ce livre propose une introduction aux thèmes riches et complexes que développent des auteurs comme Davidson, Fodor, Dennett et Dretske : (...) les relations de l'esprit et du corps, le problème de la causalité mentale, celui de l'explication en sciences cognitives, les débats sur le statut de la " psychologie populaire ", la nature des croyances chez les adultes, les enfants et les animaux, des images mentales, de l'identité personnelle et de la conscience. Et il présente de façon synthétique et rigoureuse les principales théories de l'esprit actuelles : l'identité esprit-cerveau, le fonctionnalisme, l'éliminativisme, et les divers programmes de " naturalisation " de l'intentionnalité. L'auteur montre que la philosophie de l'esprit contemporaine est un domaine très ouvert, étroitement lié aux problématiques philosophiques traditionnelles comme à celles des sciences cognitives. Il s'efforce de défendre une forme de matérialisme non réductionniste, sensible à la fois au caractère naturel et causal des phénomènes mentaux et à leur dimension spécifique et autonome. (shrink)

Among recent theories of the nature of self-knowledge, the rationalistic view, according to which self-knowledge is not a cognitive achievement—perceptual or inferential—has been prominent. Upon this kind of view, however, self-knowledge becomes a bit of a mystery. Although the rationalistic conception is defended in this article, it is argued that it has to be supplemented by an account of the transparency of belief: the question whether to believe that P is settled when one asks oneself whether P.

«Neither with you nor without you»Francois Truffaut, La femme d’à coté No one can deny that there is a problem between Wittgenstein and analytic philosophers. To put it mildly, there are tensions between Wittgenstein’s and Wittgensteinian styled reflections and the views and practice of a lot of contemporary analytic philosophers, such that they often seem to be strange bedfellows, when they are bedfellows at all. Of course we know that Wittgenstein did not get along very well with Russell, t...