Rémi Tison Dans cet article, je traite de la nature des processus cognitifs sous-tendant nos attributions d’états mentaux aux animaux non humains. Selon la conception traditionnelle, nous n’avons qu’un accès indirect aux états mentaux d’autrui, qui doivent être inférés sur la base du comportement. Cette conception traditionnelle influence autant les débats conceptuels concernant l’esprit des animaux que les recherches empiriques sur la cognition animale. Or de récents travaux sur la cognition sociale humaine avancent plutôt une conception « interactionniste », (...) selon laquelle les états mentaux peuvent parfois être directement perçus dans le comportement. J’applique dans cet article la conception interactionniste à l’attribution d’états mentaux aux animaux. Je conclus que celle-ci rend mieux compte des attitudes du sens commun à l’égard des états mentaux des animaux et est plus féconde pour la recherche empirique sur la cognition animale que la conception traditionnelle. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop an account of linguistic content based on the active inference framework. While ecological and enactive theorists have rightly rejected the notion of content as a basis for cognitive processes, they must recognize the important role that it plays in the social regulation of linguistic interaction. According to an influential theory in philosophy of language, normative inferentialism, an utterance has the content that it has in virtue of its normative status, that is, in virtue of the (...) set of commitments and entitlements that the speaker undertakes by producing this utterance. This normative status is determined by the normative attitudes shared by members of the utterer’s linguistic community. I propose here an account of such normative attitudes based on the ecological interpretation of the active inference framework. I explain how social normativity can be understood in that framework as the way in which members of a group shape their social niche to make it more predictable. Finally, I apply this account of social normativity to basic communicative practices, thereby explaining how social normative expectations can emerge to regulate these communicative practices, eventually leading to the institution of the sort of normative statuses constitutive of linguistic content. (shrink)

In Richard Bradley’s book, Decision Theory with a Human Face, we have selected two themes for discussion. The first is the Bolker-Jeffrey theory of decision, which the book uses throughout as a tool to reorganize the whole field of decision theory, and in particular to evaluate the extent to which expected utility theories may be normatively too demanding. The second theme is the redefinition strategy that can be used to defend EU theories against the Allais and Ellsberg paradoxes, a strategy (...) that the book by and large endorses, and even develops in an original way concerning the Ellsberg paradox. We argue that the BJ theory is too specific to fulfil Bradley’s foundational project and that the redefinition strategy fails in both the Allais and Ellsberg cases. Although we share Bradley’s conclusion that EU theories do not state universal rationality requirements, we reach it not by a comparison with BJ theory, but by a comparison with the non-EU theories that the paradoxes have heuristically suggested. (shrink)

This is the outline: Introduction — La question de la cybernétique et de l'information — Une « pensée du milieu » — Cybernétique et homologie — Une théorie de l'apprentissage — L'information vue de l'autre côté — Champ et domaine unitaire — La thèse des « autres-je » — Le passage par l'axiologie — La rétroaction vraie — L'ontologie de Ruyer — Le bruissement de l'être même.

This article brings to bear findings from the debate on the boundary problem in democratic theory on discussions of workplace democracy to argue that workplace democrats’ focus on workers is unjustified and that more constituencies will have to be included in any prospective scheme of workplace democracy. It thereby provides a valuable and underdiscussed perspective on workplace democracy that goes beyond the debate’s usual focus on the clarification and justification of workplace democrats’ core claim. It also goes beyond approaches like (...) stakeholder theory in law and economics that determine decision-making rights without taking into account genuinely democratic considerations. My discussion proceeds by considering three principles for inclusion from democratic theory for the specific case of the corporation. I submit that two of them, the all-coerced and the all-subjected principle, are not appropriate for this specific case, because they cannot capture the distinguishing features of the corporation. The all-affected principle however is appropriate but has a very wide range. I further argue that this is not as big of a problem as it first might seem and that this principle is still the most appropriate for defining the demos of the democratic corporation. The article closes by pointing out the consequences of this result for the workplace democracy debate and for the legitimacy of the market as a coordination mechanism. (shrink)

Des premiers rites baptismaux à la confession moderne, les références au christianisme sont constantes dans l'œuvre de Michel Foucault. Cette constance s'inscrit dans un questionnement philosophique plus large sur notre actualité : comprendre le rapport que nous avons aujourd'hui à nous-mêmes demande de s'interroger sur les actes de vérité que l'Occident a instaurés depuis les premiers siècles chrétiens. Que faut-il dire et manifester de soi pour être transformé dans son être, pardonné, sauvé, jugé ou guéri)? Ce livre propose une étude (...) critique de l'ensemble des lectures chrétiennes de Foucault, avec une attention particulière portée au cours Du gouvernement des vivants. Ni chronologique ni thématique, le parcours suivi espère retrouver la logique d'un travail à la fois philosophique et historique : quand et comment le christianisme a-t-il été constitué par Foucault en objet de recherche, avec quelles pratiques de lecture et quelles conséquences sur l'interprétation)? (shrink)

We present and contrast two accounts of cooperative communication, both based on Active Inference, a framework that unifies biological and cognitive processes. The mental alignment account, defended in Vasil et al., takes the function of cooperative communication to be the alignment of the interlocutor's mental states, and cooperative communicative behavior to be driven by an evolutionarily selected adaptive prior belief favoring the selection of action policies that promote such an alignment. We argue that the mental alignment account should be rejected (...) because it neglects the action-oriented nature of cooperative communication, which skews its view of the dynamics of communicative interaction. We introduce our own conception of cooperative communication, inspired by a more radical ecological interpretation of the active inference framework. Cooperative communication, on our ecological conception, serves to guide and constrain the dynamics of the cooperative interaction via the construction and restructuring of shared fields of affordances, in order to reach the local goals of the joint actions in which episodes of cooperative communication are embedded. We argue that our ecological conception provides a better theoretical standpoint to account for the action-oriented nature of cooperative communication in the active inference framework. (shrink)

Il est encore paradoxal de reconnaître aux livres des Chroniques le statut d'œuvre littéraire. Longtemps considéré comme de « piètre fiabilité » par rapport au récit parallèle des livres de Samuel et des Rois, ces livres apparaissent aussi sans originalité littéraire par rapport notamment à l'art consommé des récits des livres de Samuel. Dans le sillage de l'Art du récit biblique, de Robert Alter, Ph. Abadie tente de faire ressortir la richesse et la variété des procédés d'écriture qui font du (...) livre des Chroniques une œuvre littéraire véritable. Celle-ci tient fondamentalement à un projet global que révèlent et confirment des « unités kérygmatiques » structurantes et l'ordonnancement de grands ensembles selon divers procédés : technique de répétition et système de périodisation chronologique notamment.It is still paradoxical to recognize the statute of literary work for the books of Chronicles. Long time considered as of “poor reliability” in comparison with the parallel history of the books of Samuel and Kings, these books also seem to be without literary originality in comparison with, notably, the consummate art of the narratives in the books of Samuel. In the wake of “The Art of Biblical Narrative” by Robert Alter, Ph. Abadie tries to bring out the richness and the variety of the writing procedures that make the book of Chronicles a truly literary work. It fundamentally holds to a global project that reveals and confirms some “kerygmatic unities,” structuring and ordering great ensembles according to diverse procedures: especially a technique of repetition and system of chronological periodisation. (shrink)

La relation entre la philosophie et la mystique forme une question " à la limite ", que la fatalité a le plus souvent déclinée en une suite d'oppositions frontales : entre le rationnel et l'émotionnel, le logique et le pathologique, le discours et l'indicible... Depuis quelques années cependant, plusieurs motifs portent à reconsidérer cette relation singulière. Une somme d'informations sans précédent sur les diverses traditions mystiques, sur leurs variabilités historiques et géographiques est désormais accessible. En outre, la mystique est devenue (...) un objet œcuménique et interreligieux de premier plan qui invite à reposer la question de l'essence du religieux dans la traversée herméneutique des différences confessionnelles. Enfin, on enregistre une forte demande de redressement spéculatif face à l'essor actuel des sectes et au développement des syncrétismes religieux. Mais le philosophe est-il qualifié pour comprendre la mystique? A quelles conditions? De son côté, le mystique n'a-t-il point tendance à cacher sa dette à l'égard de l'expérience de la pensée, voire des concepts philosophiques? Plus profondément encore, faut-il lier la mystique au seul " religieux "? La philosophie n'est-elle pas un exercice spirituel, une expérience? C'est justement par cette entrée " expérientielle " dans la question que le présent ouvrage trouve son originalité. Grâce aux contributions de spécialistes qu'il réunit, il répond à trois tâches précises : redéfinir le concept d'expérience dès lors qu'il est assigné à la philosophie et au religieux ; évoquer dans une perspective critique les grands figures historiques, témoins et acteurs de l'intersection des deux champs, philosophique et mystique ; mettre à l'épreuve, selon une perspective systématique et au voisinage des œuvres majeures de Simone Weil, Franz Rosenzweig, Emmanuel Lévinas, Éric Weil et Maurice Blondel, les différentes théorisations d'une relation finalement plus présente qu'on ne le dit, dans la structuration du pensable contemporain. (shrink)

We investigate the conflict between the ex ante and ex post criteria of social welfare in a new framework of individual and social decisions, which distinguishes between two sources of uncertainty, here interpreted as an objective and a subjective source respectively. This framework makes it possible to endow the individuals and society not only with ex ante and ex post preferences, as is usually done, but also with interim preferences of two kinds, and correspondingly, to introduce interim forms of the (...) Pareto principle. After characterizing the ex ante and ex post criteria, we present a first solution to their conflict that extends the former as much possible in the direction of the latter. Then, we present a second solution, which goes in the opposite direction, and is also maximally assertive. Both solutions translate the assumed Pareto conditions into weighted additive utility representations, and both attribute to the individuals common probability values on the objective source of uncertainty, and different probability values on the subjective source. We discuss these solutions in terms of two conceptual arguments, i.e., the by now classic spurious unanimity argument and a novel informational argument labelled complementary ignorance. The paper complies with the standard economic methodology of basing probability and utility representations on preference axioms, but for the sake of completeness, also considers a construal of objective uncertainty based on the assumption of an exogeneously given probability measure. JEL classification: D70; D81. (shrink)

Judgment aggregation theory, or rather, as we conceive of it here, logical aggregation theory generalizes social choice theory by having the aggregation rule bear on judgments of all kinds instead of merely preference judgments. It derives from Kornhauser and Sager’s doctrinal paradox and List and Pettit’s discursive dilemma, two problems that we distinguish emphatically here. The current theory has developed from the discursive dilemma, rather than the doctrinal paradox, and the final objective of the paper is to give the latter (...) its own theoretical development along the line of recent work by Dietrich and Mongin. However, the paper also aims at reviewing logical aggregation theory as such, and it covers impossibility theorems by Dietrich, Dietrich and List, Dokow and Holzman, List and Pettit, Mongin, Nehring and Puppe, Pauly and van Hees, providing a uniform logical framework in which they can be compared with each other. The review goes through three historical stages: the initial paradox and dilemma, the scattered early results on the independence axiom, and the so-called canonical theorem, a collective achievement that provided the theory with its specific method of analysis. The paper goes some way towards philosophical logic, first by briefly connecting the aggregative framework of judgment with the modern philosophy of judgment, and second by thoroughly discussing and axiomatizing the ‘general logic’ built in this framework. (shrink)

Following a long-standing philosophical tradition, impartiality is a distinctive and determining feature of moral judgments, especially in matters of distributive justice. This broad ethical tradition was revived in welfare economics by Vickrey, and above all, Harsanyi, under the form of the so-called Impartial Observer Theorem. The paper offers an analytical reconstruction of this argument and a step-wise philosophical critique of its premisses. It eventually provides a new formal version of the theorem based on subjective probability.

The paper analyses economic evaluations by distinguishing evaluative statements from actual value judgments. From this basis, it compares four solutions to the value neutrality problem in economics. After rebutting the strong theses about neutrality (normative economics is illegitimate) and non-neutrality (the social sciences are value-impregnated), the paper settles the case between the weak neutrality thesis (common in welfare economics) and a novel, weak non-neutrality thesis that extends the realm of normative economics more widely than the other weak thesis does.

As stochastic independence is essential to the mathematical development of probability theory, it seems that any foundational work on probability should be able to account for this property. Bayesian decision theory appears to be wanting in this respect. Savage’s postulates on preferences under uncertainty entail a subjective expected utility representation, and this asserts only the existence and uniqueness of a subjective probability measure, regardless of its properties. What is missing is a preference condition corresponding to stochastic independence. To fill this (...) significant gap, the article axiomatizes Bayesian decision theory afresh and proves several representation theorems in this novel framework. (shrink)

William Alston’s argument against the deontological conception of epistemic justification is a classic—and much debated—piece of contemporary epistemology. At the heart of Alston’s argument, however, lies a very simple mistake which, surprisingly, appears to have gone unnoticed in the vast literature now devoted to the argument. After having shown why some of the standard responses to Alston’s argument don’t work, we elucidate the mistake and offer a hypothesis as to why it has escaped attention.

The paper develops an objection to the extensional model of time consciousness—the view that temporally extended events or processes, and their temporal properties, can be directly perceived as such. Importantly, following James, advocates of the extensional model typically insist that whole experiences of temporal relations between non-simultaneous events are distinct from mere successions of their temporal parts. This means, presumably, that there ought to be some feature(s) differentiating the former from the latter. I try to show why the extensional models (...) offers no credible ground for positing such a difference. (shrink)

Developing tools is a crucial aspect of experimental practice, yet most discussions of scientific change traditionally emphasize theoretical over technological change. To elaborate on the role of tools in scientific change, I offer an account that shows how scientists use tools in exploratory experiments to form novel concepts. I apply this account to two cases in neuroscience and show how tool development and concept formation are often intertwined in episodes of tool-driven change. I support this view by proposing common normative (...) principles that specify when exploratory concept formation and tool development succeed to initiate scientific change. (shrink)

The paper has a twofold aim. On the one hand, it provides what appears to be the first game-theoretic modeling of Napoleon’s last campaign, which ended dramatically on 18 June 1815 at Waterloo. It is specifically concerned with the decision Napoleon made on 17 June 1815 to detach part of his army against the Prussians he had defeated, though not destroyed, on 16 June at Ligny. Military historians agree that this decision was crucial but disagree about whether it was rational. (...) Hypothesizing a zero-sum game between Napoleon and Blücher, and computing its solution, we show that it could have been a cautious strategy on the former's part to divide his army, a conclusion which runs counter to the charges of misjudgement commonly heard since Clausewitz. On the other hand, the paper addresses methodological issues. We defend its case study against the objections of irrelevance that have been raised elsewhere against “analytic narratives”, and conclude that military campaigns provide an opportunity for successful application of the formal theories of rational choice. Generalizing the argument, we finally investigate the conflict between narrative accounts – the historians' standard mode of expression – and mathematical modeling. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce an ecological account of communication according to which acts of communication are active inferences achieved by affecting the behavior of a target organism via the modification of its field of affordances. Constraining a target organism’s behavior constitutes a mechanism of socially extended active inference, allowing organisms to proactively regulate their inner states through the behavior of other organisms. In this general conception of communication, the type of cooperative communication characteristic of human communicative interaction is a (...) way of constraining interaction dynamics toward the goals of a given joint action by constructing and altering shared fields of affordances. This account embraces a pragmatist view according to which communication is a form of action aiming to influence the behavior of a target, and stands against the traditional transmission view according to which communication fundamentally serves to convey information. Understanding acts of communication as active inference under an ecological interpretation allows us to link communicative and ultimately linguistic behavior to the biological imperative of minimizing free energy and to emphasize the action-oriented nature of communicative interaction. (shrink)

On échange des cadeaux en fin d'année par convention. Ecrire de gauche à droite, rouler à droite ou encore s'arrêter lorsque le feu est rouge sont des conventions. Les conventions sont également mobilisées pour coordonner les individus d'un même groupe de travail, de façon à déterminer le moment et la durée de la pause, mais aussi leur niveau d'effort, comme " ne faire que x pièces à l'heure ", voire la façon dont ils sont rémunérés. Les conventions jouent ainsi un (...) rôle important dans la coordination économique. La notion de convention est un thème d'étude nouveau pour l'économie. Elle fait aujourd'hui l'objet de très nombreuses recherches. Cet ouvrage ambitionne de clarifier tous les usages du terme " convention " en économie, depuis les travaux qui s'appuient sur la philosophie du langage jusqu'aux thèses développées par " l'Economie des conventions ", en passant par la théorie des jeux. Cet ouvrage est le fruit d'un travail collectif qui a associé et mobilisé une équipe de chercheurs an sein de FORUM. (shrink)

Several disputes about the nature of experience operate under the assumption that experiences have parts, including temporal parts. There's the widely held view, when it comes to temporal experiences, that we should follow James' exhortation that such experiences aren't mere successions of their temporal parts, but something more. And there's the question of whether it is the parts of experiences which determine whole experiences and the properties they have, or whether the determination goes instead from the whole to the parts, (...) as holists have it. But what are parts, or temporal parts, of experiences exactly—what does it mean to say that an experience is “part” of another? Are the participants in those disputes talking about the same thing—is there a univocal notion of “experiential part” available? Are there different kinds of experiential parts? And if there are, is there a systematic way of carving them out? More importantly, how should we conceive of the temporal parts of experiences, and how can we establish that experiences really do have temporal parts, against those who reject the notion? (shrink)

We propose two alternatives to Xu’s axiomatization of Chellas’s STIT. The first one simplifies its presentation, and also provides an alternative axiomatization of the deliberative STIT. The second one starts from the idea that the historic necessity operator can be defined as an abbreviation of operators of agency, and can thus be eliminated from the logic of Chellas’s STIT. The second axiomatization also allows us to establish that the problem of deciding the satisfiability of a STIT formula without temporal operators (...) is NP-complete in the single-agent case, and is NEXPTIME-complete in the multiagent case, both for the deliberative and Chellas’s STIT. (shrink)

Nucléaire, clonage, OGM, sang contaminé : sans cesse invoqué en matiére d'environnement, de santé, d'alimentation, le principe de précaution est l'objet de multiples controverses. De quoi s'agit-il? Trop de précaution ne risque-t-il pas de bloquer des avancées scientifiques ou techniques cruciales pour l'avenir? Une clarification était nécessaire. Car l'important aujourd'hui est de donner à ce principe un contenu positif, c'est-à -dire une définition assortie d'un mode d'emploi qui puisse être compris de tous et servir à tous. Philippe Kourilsky est (...) directeur général de l'Institut Pasteur, professeur au Collége de France et membre de l'Académie des sciences. Il est notamment l'auteur des Artisans de l'hérédité et de La Science en partage. (shrink)

This research investigates 3- and 5-year-olds' relative fairness in distributing small collections of even or odd numbers of more or less desirable candies, either with an adult experimenter or between two dolls. The authors compare more than 200 children from around the world, growing up in seven highly contrasted cultural and economic contexts, from rich and poor urban areas, to small-scale traditional and rural communities. Across cultures, young children tend to optimize their own gain, not showing many signs of self-sacrifice (...) or generosity. Already by 3 years of age, self-optimizing in distributive justice is based on perspective taking and rudiments of mind reading. By 5 years, overall, children tend to show more fairness in sharing. What varies across cultures is the magnitude of young children's self-interest. More fairness (less self-interest) in distributive justice is evident by children growing up in small-scale urban and traditional societies thought to promote more collective values. (shrink)

Farabi (ob 950), philosophe persan originaire des confins des mondes persan et turc (Transoxiane), vient s'établir à Bagdad vers la fin du IXe siècle. Il s'y convertit à la philosophie comme on entre en religion. Il quitte Bagdad en 942 pour s'établir la même année à Damas où il meurt huit ans plus tard. C'est là qu'il met le point final au Régime politique qui est son testament philosophique. Ce traité condense toute sa compréhension de Platon, d'Aristote et de la (...) tradition philosophique tardo-antique. Il y livre en outre la clé d'interprétation de son oeuvre la plus fameuse, La Cité vertueuse, dont le Régime politique approfondit les thèmes centraux. On y découvre deux aspects complémentaires de la politique telle qu'il la concevait. Tout d'abord, la politique, pour être philosophique, se doit de faire de la métaphysique son infrastructure. Il faut partir d'une conception définie du monde et de ses principes pour savoir que la destination de l'homme passe nécessairement par la cité. De plus, la politique comme science a une finalité pratique : critiquer jusque dans leurs fondements les régimes et les religions corrompus de son époque. Le traité est à cet égard un document unique dans l'histoire de la falsafa : un philosophe arabophone adresse à la postérité son jugement sur la civilisation arabo-islamique des IXe Xe siècles. (shrink)

The 1992 incorporation of an article by referendum in the SwissConstitution mandating that the federal government issue regulations onthe use of genetic material that take into account the dignity ofnonhuman organism raises philosophical questions about how we shouldunderstand what is meant by ``the dignity of nonhuman animals,'' andabout what sort of moral demands arise from recognizing this dignitywith respect to their genetic engineering. The first step in determiningwhat is meant is to clarify the difference between dignity when appliedto humans and (...) when applied to nonhumans. Several conceptions of humandignity should be rejected in favor of a fourth conception: the rightnot to be degraded. This right implies that those who have it have thecognitive capacities that are prerequisite for self-respect. In the caseof nonhuman organisms that lack this capacity, respecting their dignityrequires the recognition that their inherent value, which is tied totheir abilities to pursue their own good, be respected. This value isnot absolute, as it is in the case of humans, so it does not prohibitbreeding manipulations that make organisms more useful to humans. But itdoes restrict morally how sentient animals can be used. In regard togenetic engineering, this conception requires that animals be allowedthe uninhibited development of species specific functions, a positionshared by Holland and Attfield, as opposed to the Original Purposeconception proposed by Fox and the Integrity of the Genetic Make-upposition proposed by Rolston. The inherent value conception of dignity,as here defended, is what is meant in the Swiss Constitution article. (shrink)

Barnett and Block (Journal of Business Ethics, 2009 ) attack the heart of modern banking by claiming that the practice of borrowing short and lending long is illicit. While their claim of illegitimacy concerning fractional reserve banking can be defended, their justification lacks substance. Their claim is herein strengthened by a legal analysis of deposits and loans based on Huerta de Soto (Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles, 2006 ). A combined legal and economic analysis shows that while lending deposits (...) can be regarded as illicit, the maturity mismatching of loans is legitimate contrary to Barnett and Block’s claim. No over-issuance of property rights is involved with this practice once the distinction between present and future goods is taken into account. However, while the practice is not illicit per se , it is greatly assisted and developed through the presence of a fractional reserve banking system, and can sometimes breed detrimental effects. (shrink)

in a nervous system of a given species. This chapter provides a critical perspective on the role of connectomes in neuroscientific practice and asks how the connectomic approach fits into a larger context in which network thinking permeates technology, infrastructure, social life, and the economy. In the first part of this chapter, we argue that, seen from the perspective of ongoing research, the notion of connectomes as “complete descriptions” is misguided. Our argument combines Rachel Ankeny’s analysis of neuroanatomical wiring diagrams (...) as “descriptive models” with Hans-Joerg Rheinberger’s notion of “epistemic objects,” i.e., targets of research that are still partially unknown. Combining these aspects we conclude that connectomes are constitutively epistemic objects: there just is no way to turn them into permanent and complete technical standards because the possibilities to map connection properties under different modeling assumptions are potentially inexhaustible. In the second part of the chapter, we use this understanding of connectomes as constitutively epistemic objects in order to critically assess the historical and political dimensions of current neuroscientific research. We argue that connectomics shows how the notion of the “brain as a network” has become the dominant metaphor of contemporary brain research. We further point out that this metaphor shares (potentially problematic) affinities to the form of contemporary “network societies.” We close by pointing out how the relation between connectomes and networks in society could be used in a more fruitful manner. (shrink)

How ethical have recent banking practices been? We answer this question via an economic analysis. We assess the two dominant practices of the modern banking system – fractional reserves and maturity transformation – by gauging the respective rights of the relevant parties. By distinguishing the legal and economic differences between deposit and loan contracts, we determine that the practice of maturity transformation (in its various guises) is not only ethical but also serves a positive social function. The foundation of the (...) modern banking system – the holding of fractional reserves against deposits – is, however, problematic from economic, legal and ethical perspectives. Starting from a microanalysis of money's function, a reassessment of the current laws concerning the practice is encouraged, with the aim not only to rectify economic irregularities but also to realign depositors' rights with the obligations of the banking sector. (shrink)

How ethical have recent banking practices been? We answer this question via an economic analysis. We assess the two dominant practices of the modern banking system – fractional reserves and maturity transformation – by gauging the respective rights of the relevant parties. By distinguishing the legal and economic differences between deposit and loan contracts, we determine that the practice of maturity transformation (in its various guises) is not only ethical but also serves a positive social function. The foundation of the (...) modern banking system – the holding of fractional reserves against deposits – is, however, problematic from economic, legal and ethical perspectives. Starting from a microanalysis of money's function, a reassessment of the current laws concerning the practice is encouraged, with the aim not only to rectify economic irregularities but also to realign depositors' rights with the obligations of the banking sector. (shrink)

To what extent do early intuitions about ownership depend on cultural and socio-economic circumstances? We investigated the question by testing reasoning about third party ownership conflicts in various groups of three- and five-year-old children (N = 176), growing up in seven highly contrasted social, economic, and cultural circumstances (urban rich, poor, very poor, rural poor, and traditional) spanning three continents. Each child was presented with a series of scripts involving two identical dolls fighting over an object of possession. The child (...) had to decide who of the two dolls should own the object. Each script enacted various potential reasons for attributing ownership: creation, familiarity, first contact, equity, plus a control/neutral condition with no suggested reasons. Results show that across cultures, children are significantly more consistent and decisive in attributing ownership when one of the protagonists created the object. Development between three and five years is more or less pronounced depending on culture. The propensity to split the object in equal halves whenever possible was generally higher at certain locations (i.e., China) and quasi-inexistent in others (i.e., Vanuatu and street children of Recife). Overall, creation reasons appear to be more primordial and stable across cultures than familiarity, relative wealth or first contact. This trend does not correlate with the passing of false belief theory of mind. (shrink)

This book offers a phenomenological conception of experiential justification that seeks to clarify why certain experiences are a source of immediate justification and what role experiences play in gaining (scientific) knowledge. Based on the author's account of experiential justification, this book exemplifies how a phenomenological experience-first epistemology can epistemically ground the individual sciences. More precisely, it delivers a comprehensive picture of how we get from epistemology to the foundations of mathematics and physics. The book is unique as it utilizes methods (...) and insights from the phenomenological tradition in order to make progress in current analytic epistemology. It serves as a starting point for re-evaluating the relevance of Husserlian phenomenology to current analytic epistemology and making an important step towards paving the way for future mutually beneficial discussions. This is achieved by exemplifying how current debates can benefit from ideas, insights, and methods we find in the phenomenological tradition. (shrink)

Epistemic logics are essential to the design of logical systems that capture elements of reasoning about knowledge. In this paper, we study the computability of unifiability and the unification types in several epistemic logics.

The paper discusses the sense in which the changes undergone by normative economics in the twentieth century can be said to be progressive. A simple criterion is proposed to decide whether a sequence of normative theories is progressive. This criterion is put to use on the historical transition from the new welfare economics to social choice theory. The paper reconstructs this classic case, and eventually concludes that the latter theory was progressive compared with the former. It also briefly comments on (...) the recent developments in normative economics and their connection with the previous two stages. (Published Online April 18 2006) Footnotes1 This paper suspersedes an earlier one entitled “Is There Progress in Normative Economics?” (Mongin 2002). I thank the organizers of the Fourth ESHET Conference (Graz 2000) for the opportunity they gave me to lecture on this topic. Thanks are also due to J. Alexander, K. Arrow, A. Bird, R. Bradley, M. Dascal, W. Gaertner, N. Gravel, D. Hausman, B. Hill, C. Howson, N. McClennen, A. Trannoy, J. Weymark, J. Worrall, two annonymous referees of this journal, and especially the editor M. Fleurbaey, for helpful comments. The editor's suggestions contributed to determine the final orientation of the paper. The author is grateful to the LSE and the Lachmann Foundation for their support at the time when he was writing the initial version. (shrink)