The book introduces Ramsey's main doctrines and assesses their contemporary significance. In particular, Jérôme Dokic and Pascal Engel are interested in Ramsey's thoughts on truth and belief, and his pragmatic thesis that the truth of one's beliefs guarantees the success of one's actions. From this, it is a short step to what may be called "Ramsey's principle": the content of a belief is constituted by the success of one's actions. This principle finds its current expression in the work of (...) philosophers who offer evolutionary conceptions of mental states, according to which the success conditions of a belief are constituted by its biological functions. (publisher, edited). (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.

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)

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.

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)

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)

How to reconcile monadic simplicity with the successive plurality of the monadic states ? The doctrine of continued creation seems to entail the existence of independent temporal parts and thus lead to the thesis that the world contains only transitory things. I try to show how Leibniz has the resources to get out of this quandary. The analysis of the concept of extension shows that a plurality of states does not constitute a divisible aggregate. Then I examine the Leibnizian interpretation (...) of continued creation, by com- paring it to the scholastic and Cartesian Background. From thence I conclude that Leibniz’s final thesis is that monads are wholly present at each moment of their duration. (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)

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)

(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.

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.

P. Michon, Marcel Mauss retrouvé. Origines de l'anthropologie du rythme, Paris, Rhuthmos, coll. « Rythmologies », 2015, 130 p. Si vous désirez le livre SOUS SA FORME IMPRIMÉE, envoyez-nous un mail à [email protected]. Vous pouvez également le commander sur Amazon.fr ou sur tout autre site plus accessible pour vous. Marcel Mauss est l'un de ceux qui ont le plus fait pour la théorie du rythme au XXe siècle. Pourtant, parmi ses héritiers directs, seul Gurvitch a prolongé sa - Anthropologie – (...) Nouvel article. (shrink)

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.

Découvert en 1981 près de l'angle Nord-Est du palais de Malia, un triton en chlorite porte une décoration et une représentation sculptées en relief. On y voit deux génies léonins à carapace dressés face à face sur un piédestal : l'un tient une cruche à double bec et semble en présenter le contenu à l'autre qui porte ses antérieurs à sa gueule. L'analyse de l'objet, des éléments du décor et de la représentation conduisent à reconnaître dans ce triton une réalisation (...) égéenne datant du MR I A. Il paraît plus vraisemblable de l'interpréter comme rhyton que comme une trompette. Une annexe présente les autres coquillages en pierre, en terre cuite et en faïence trouvés dans le monde égéen. (shrink)

La contribution de Schelling à l’esthétique aura d’abord consisté à en récuser l’appellation et le projet, expressément rattachés à la science du beau fondée par Baumgarten, parce que l’art n’est pas essentiellement axé, à ses yeux, sur le sensible, mais sur une beauté élevée au-dessus de toute sensibilité. La philosophie de l’art a pour tâche de présenter la philosophie universelle sous la puissance de l’art, de construire l’univers sous la forme de l’art. La généalogie de l’art à partir de l’Absolu, (...) en laquelle consiste une telle construction, en est aussi la reconstitution, dans l’horizon marqué d’historicité d’une théogonie (ou histoire des dieux) où l’apparition des dieux signale l’avènement de la forme. Dans quelle mesure la philosophie de l’art de Schelling demeure-t-elle comme une écharde dans la chair de l’esthétique? Est-on fondé à parler d’une réception à son propos? On posera ici quelques jalons. (shrink)

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)

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.

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...

Plutôt que de rouvrir l'éternel débat entre tenants d'une histoire analytique de la philosophie et tenants d'une approche « authentiquement historique », il vaut mieux se demander si les premiers sont réellement condamnés à la trahison historique, et les seconds à la myopie historique. La démarche consistant à aborder le passé de la philosophie d'aval en amont est compatible avec une fidélité historique dès lors qu'on est prêt à reconnaître que ce ne sont pas seulement des textes qui se transmettent (...) à l'intérieur d'une tradition, mais des arguments, et que ceux-ci peuvent passer d'une tradition à l'autre. Instead of reopening the eternal debate between the partisans of an « analytical » approach to the history of philosophy and the partisans of an « genuinely historical » approach, let us rather ask ourselves whether the former are necessarily condemned to betray history and the latter condemned to historical myopia. Approaching the past of philosophy from downstream to upstream is compatible with a fidelity to history once we acknowledge the fact that not only texts, but also arguments are passed on within a tradition and outside it. (shrink)

Il arrive souvent, quand on discute de questions portant sur la théorie de la connaissance, que l’on utilise des concepts qui ont une consonance éthique. On se demande ce qui distingue une bonne hypothèse d’une mauvaise, ou si nous devrions croire ceci ou cela sur la base des données..

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 33, Issue 2, Page 157-169, April 2024.

À partir d’une typologie des formes de connaissance, je soutiens qu’il y a trois formes principales de connaissance littéraire : cognitive propositionnelle, affective et pratique. La conception propositionnelle est erronée : la littérature ne fournit pas directement une forme de savoir que. La conception affective ou expressiviste peut au mieux dire qu’il y a des effets cognitifs des oeuvres littéraires. La conception pratique a le plus de chances d’être correcte, mais seulement si l’on accepte l’idée que le savoir pratique est (...) en partie basé sur le savoir propositionnel. Starting from a typology of kinds of knowledge, I argue that there are three basic conceptions of literary knowledge : cognitive propositional, affective, and practical. The cognitive conception is misguided : literary knowledge cannot be directly a form of knowledge that. The affective or expressivist conception is too weak : it can at best amount to the idea that there are cognitive effects of literary works. The practical conception is the most promising, but only if one accepts that knowing how is partly based on knowing that and propositional knowledge. (shrink)

“Pragmatic Encroachment and Epistemic Value”. Some philosopherswho defend “pragmatic encroachment” and “sensitive invariantism” argue thatchanges in the importance of being right and signiicant increases of the costsof error in given contexts can alter the standards of knowledge. If this view werecorrect, it could explain to some extent the practical value of knowledge. Thispaper argues that the pragmatic encroachment thesis is wrong. It discusses threepossible sources of encroachment on epistemic notions: on belief, on justiication,and on knowledge, and rejects the idea that (...) the epistemic standards change withpractical stakes. Pragmatic factors can be relevant to the formation of belief andto the context of inquiry, although they are not relevant to epistemic evaluation.Epistemic value cannot depend upon such factors. (shrink)

En 1995, sur le site de Dikili Tash, on a découvert un « bucrane » dans un amas de décombres appartenant à la phase Dikili Tash I (début du Néolithique Récent). L'objet lui-même, constitué d'un crâne de bœuf domestique découpé et surmodelé en terre crue, n'a que peu de parallèles réels. On trouve ces derniers à Vinca, Kormadin et Parta, c'est-à-dire dans l'aire des « cultures » de Vinca (Serbie), de la Tisza (Hongrie) et du Banat (Roumanie). Il importe de (...) distinguer ces « bucranes » surmodelés des crânes ou cornes véritables, ainsi que des « bucranes » entièrement en terre crue qui se rencontrent sur un assez grand nombre de sites néolithiques. Le « bucrane » de Dikili Tash paraît avoir occupé, à l'origine, une position verticale, la face postérieure plane étant appliquée à une paroi perpendiculaire au sol. Tous les « bucranes » et tous les objets ressemblant à des « bucranes » ont été considérés comme cultuels, sans qu'aucune preuve de cette interprétation ne soit apportée. De fait, l'on ignore totalement la fonction de ces objets. Les images de bœuf, fréquentes dans plusieurs groupes humains, ne renvoient pas nécessairement à une symbolique commune. (shrink)