The biological and social problems of human adaptation, including nutrition, the co-evolution of diseases, indigenous microbiota, environmental pollution, and population growth.

La postérité, on le sait, ne fait pas toujours dans le détail. Elle distribue les bons et les mauvais points suivant une logique qui apparaît parfois très arbitraire. Jules de Gaultier, philosophe original, lecteur attentif de Schopenhauer et de Nietzsche, surtout connu pour avoir donné ses lettres de noblesse à la notion de Bovarysme, en sait quelque chose. Ayant joui d'une certaine reconnaissance en son temps il est tombé, depuis de longues décennies dans un oubli quasi-total. L'essentiel de la (...) philosophie de Jules de Gaultier réside dans la certitude que " toute réalité qui se connaît elle-même se connaît autre qu'elle n'est. " Tous les élans vers le réel sont vains : l'homme ne peut avoir qu'une vision faussée du monde. Toutes les reconstructions de la réalité phénoménale, même les plus prétendument scientifiques, ne sont que des reconstitutions illusoires et mensongères de ce qui est réellement. Dans ce contexte, l'homme n'a que deux alternatives " croire " ou " contempler " ; soit il se noie dans le réel sans se poser de questions, à la manière du croyant accroché à sa foi, soit il adopte, vis-à-vis du monde qui l'entoure une attitude spectaculaire qui, si elle ne lui permet pas d'en saisir les mécanismes profonds, l'empêche d'être dupe de ses illusions. La pensée sans concessions de Jules de Gaultier nous entraîne, certes, dans les dédales d'un monde inquiétant, tragique même, sans consistance réelle, sans but ; mais elle rend également à l'homme toute sa dignité et lui redonne les rênes de son destin : le réel n'est rien d'autre que ce que je veux qu'il soit, nous dit Jules de Gaultier... Conclusion effrayante pour beaucoup ; ultime consolation pour les plus sages. (shrink)

Reflecting on his scientific career toward the end of his life, the French-educated medical researcher René Dubos presented his flowering as an ecological thinker as a story of linear progression—the inevitable product of the intellectual seeds planted in his youth. But how much store should we set by Dubos’s account of his ecological journey? Resisting retrospective biographical readings, this paper seeks to relate the development of Dubos’s ecological ideas to his experimental practices and his career as (...) a laboratory researcher. In particular, I focus on Dubos’s studies of tuberculosis at the Rockefeller Institute in the period 1944–1956—studies which began with an inquiry into the tubercle bacillus and the physiochemical determinants of virulence, but which soon encompassed a wider investigation of the influence of environmental forces and host–parasite interactions on susceptibility and resistance to infection in animal models. At the same time, through a close reading of Dubos’s scientific papers and correspondence, I show how he both drew on and distinguished his ecological ideas from those of other medical researchers such as Theobald Smith, Frank Macfarlane Burnet, and Frank Fenner. However, whereas Burnet and Fenner tended to view ecological interactions at the level of populations, Dubos focused on the interface of hosts and parasites in the physiological environments of individuals. The result was that although Dubos never fully engaged with the science of ecology, he was able to incorporate ecological ideas into his thought and practices, and relate them to his holistic views on health and the natural harmony of man and his environment. (shrink)

Now characterised by high-throughput sequencing methods that enable the study of microbes without lab culture, the human “microbiome” (the microbial flora of the body) is said to have revolutionary implications for biology and medicine. According to many experts, we must now understand ourselves as “holobionts” like lichen or coral, multispecies superorganisms that consist of animal and symbiotic microbes in combination, because normal physiological function depends on them. Here I explore the 1960s research of biologist René Dubos, a forerunner (...) figure mentioned in some historical accounts of the microbiome, and argue that he arrived at the superorganism concept 40 years before the Human Microbiome Project. This raises the question of why his contribution was not hailed as revolutionary at the time and why Dubos is not remembered for it. (shrink)

Reflecting on his scientific career toward the end of his life, the French-educated medical researcher René Dubos presented his flowering as an ecological thinker as a story of linear progression—the inevitable product of the intellectual seeds planted in his youth. But how much store should we set by Dubos’s account of his ecological journey? Resisting retrospective biographical readings, this paper seeks to relate the development of Dubos’s ecological ideas to his experimental practices and his career as (...) a laboratory researcher. In particular, I focus on Dubos’s studies of tuberculosis at the Rockefeller Institute in the period 1944–1956—studies which began with an inquiry into the tubercle bacillus and the physiochemical determinants of virulence, but which soon encompassed a wider investigation of the influence of environmental forces and host–parasite interactions on susceptibility and resistance to infection in animal models. At the same time, through a close reading of Dubos’s scientific papers and correspondence, I show how he both drew on and distinguished his ecological ideas from those of other medical researchers such as Theobald Smith, Frank Macfarlane Burnet, and Frank Fenner. However, whereas Burnet and Fenner tended to view ecological interactions at the level of populations, Dubos focused on the interface of hosts and parasites in the physiological environments of individuals. The result was that although Dubos never fully engaged with the science of ecology, he was able to incorporate ecological ideas into his thought and practices, and relate them to his holistic views on health and the natural harmony of man and his environment. (shrink)

Si l’on devait en croire les revendications explicites de Jules Vuillemin, sa relation envers Martial Gueroult aurait essentiellement été d’élève à maître. Un examen plus attentif de l’œuvre de Vuillemin révèle pourtant des écarts significatifs quoique non revendiqués. Nous analyserons dans un premier temps l’autoportrait de Vuillemin en disciple – d’une œuvre, d’une autorité et d’un chef d’école. Nous décrirons ensuite à quelles transformations, dans son œuvre concrète, il soumet celle de Gueroult : des procédés de sélection, de traduction (...) et d’élargissement. Nous montrerons enfin que l’élève, tôt et résolument, s’écarte du maître au moment – sinon dans la mesure – même où il s’en réclame. (shrink)

Jules Coleman, one of the world's leading philosophers of law, here presents his most mature work so far on substantive issues in legal theory and the appropriate methodology for legal theorizing. In doing so, he takes on the views of highly respected contemporaries such as Brian Leiter, Stephen Perry, and Ronald Dworkin.

This book by one of America's preeminent legal theorists is concerned with the conflict between the goals of justice and economic efficiency in the allocation of risk, especially risk pertaining to safety. The author approaches his subject from the premise that the market is central to liberal political, moral, and legal theory. In the first part of the book, he rejects traditional "rational choice" liberalism in favor of the view that the market operates as a rational way of fostering stable (...) relationships and institutions within communities of individuals with broadly divergent conceptions of the good. However, markets are needed most where they are most difficult to create and sustain, and one way to understand contract law in liberal legal theory, according to Professor Coleman, is as an institution designed to reduce uncertainty and thereby make markets possible. Another target of this book is the prevalent view that tort law helps rectify market failures when transaction costs are too high to permit contracting. The author argues instead that tort law should be understood as a way of rectifying wrongful losses not inefficient exchanges. (shrink)

I have always considered that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be demonstrated by philosophical rather than ...

Manifeste de la philosophie cartésienne, le Discours de la méthode (1637) est tout à la fois le récit d'un cheminement intellectuel et l'illustration magistrale d'un projet : fonder l'unité des sciences et constituer une science universelle. Foyer d'une oeuvre foisonnante, le Discours revendique les droits de la raison contre toute tradition et toute autorité. C'est pourquoi il assigne à la philosophie une tâche : s'élever à 1a certitude. La présente édition, augmentée d'un dossier, entend mettre en évidence le jeu de (...) résonances qui relie le Discours aux autres textes de Descartes. (shrink)

I argue that the offense generation pattern of slurring terms parallels that of impoliteness behaviors, and is best explained by appeal to similar purely pragmatic mechanisms. In choosing to use a slurring term rather than its neutral counterpart, the speaker signals that she endorses the term. Such an endorsement warrants offense, and consequently slurs generate offense whenever a speaker's use demonstrates a contrastive preference for the slurring term. Since this explanation comes at low theoretical cost and imposes few constraints on (...) an account of the semantics of slurs, this suggests that we should not require semantic accounts to provide an independent explanation of the offense profile. (shrink)

I argue that inferences from highly probabilifying racial generalizations are not solely objectionable because acting on such inferences would be problematic, or they violate a moral norm, but because they violate a distinctively epistemic norm. They involve accepting a proposition when, given the costs of a mistake, one is not adequately justified in doing so. First I sketch an account of the nature of adequate justification—practical adequacy with respect to eliminating the ~p possibilities from one’s epistemic statespace. Second, I argue (...) that inferences based on demographic generalizations tend to disproportionately expose group members to the risks associated with mistakenly assuming stereotypical propositions, and so magnify the wrong involved in relying on such inferences without adequate justification. (shrink)

Several authors have recently suggested that moral factors and norms `encroach' on the epistemic, and because of salient parallels to pragmatic encroachment views in epistemology, these suggestions have been dubbed `moral encroachment views'. This paper distinguishes between variants of the moral encroachment thesis, pointing out how they address different problems, are motivated by different considerations, and are not all subject to the same objections. It also explores how the family of moral encroachment views compare to classical pragmatic encroachment accounts.

A ‘vestigial social practice' is a norm, convention, or social behavior that persists even when few endorse it or its original justifying rationale. Begby (2021) explores social explanations for the persistence of prejudice, arguing that even if we all privately disavow a stereotype, we might nevertheless continue acting as if it is true because we believe that others expect us to. Meanwhile the persistence of the practice provides something like implicit testimonial evidence for the prejudice that would justify it, making (...) it rational for members of the next generation to acquire the corresponding prejudiced beliefs. This paper distinguishes between three different types of vestigial social practice in terms of the underlying explanatory mechanisms, and argues that the persistence of prejudicial social stereotypes is most tightly linked not to others’ beliefs or expectations, but to the ways that material infrastructure constrains options shapes social outcomes. Given that, the persistence of a practice only provides grounds to infer that most people endorse the corresponding prejudiced belief only if we are in a position to dismiss relevant alternative explanations. (shrink)

Do participants in shared activity have mutual obligations to do their bit? This article shows this question has no one-size-fits-all answer and offers a pluralist account of the normativity of shared agency. The first part argues obligations to do one's bit have three degrees of involvement in shared activity. Such obligations might, obviously, bolster co-participants’ resolve to act as planned (degree 1). Less obviously, there also are higher and lower degrees of involvement. Obligations to do one's bit might provide our (...) agency-pooling mechanism. When they do, we act together by virtue of satisfying them (degree 2). Conversely, some shared activities involve no obligation (degree 0). In the second part, I argue shared agency theory is best served by a non-moralistic conception of obligation, one on which co-participants’ obligations need be neither strict-performance obligations, nor directed ones. Overall, my arguments suggest that we can choose how to coordinate normatively our shared activities. (shrink)

This collection of essays by one of America's leading legal theorists is unique in its scope: it shows how traditional problems of philosophy can be understood more clearly when considered in terms of law, economics, and political science.

This chapter contains sections titled: Jurisprudence: Method and Subject Matter Legality and Authority Positivism: Austin vs. Hart The Authority of Law Judicial Discretion Incorporationism and Legality Raz' s Theory of Authority Incorporationism and Authority Conclusion Postscript References.

In addition to protecting agents’ autonomy, consent plays a crucial social role: it enables agents to secure partners in valuable interactions that would be prohibitively morally risk otherwise. To do this, consent must be observable: agents must be able to track the facts about whether they have received a consent-based permission. I argue that this morally justifies a consent-practice on which communicating that one consents is sufficient for consent, but also generates robust constraints on what sorts of behaviors can be (...) taken as consent- communicating. (shrink)

Next SectionIn emphasizing the importance of the separability thesis, legal philosophers have inadequately appreciated other philosophically important ways in which law and morality are or might be connected with one another. In this article, I argue that the separability thesis cannot shoulder the philosophical burdens that it has been asked to bear. I then turn to two issues of greater importance to jurisprudence. These are ‘the moral semantics of law’ and ‘the normativity of theory construction in jurisprudence’. The moral semantics (...) claim is that legal content is best understood as moral directives about what is to be done and who is to decide what is to be done. The problem is that legal positivists typically hold that only social facts contribute to the content of law, and it is hard to see how a positivist can hold both the social-facts claim and the moral-semantics claim. I argue that not only are the two claims consistent with one another, but that legal positivists must hold some version of the moral semantics claim if they are to make sense of the claim that legal reasons purport to be content-independent moral reasons for acting. In Section 3 of the article, I take up the question of whether theory construction in jurisprudence is normative or descriptive. This is hard to do in part because so little attention has been paid to correctly formulating the issue. I suggest a demanding test for descriptivism; namely, that an adequate analysis of law can be provided entirely in terms of its formal features. I then defend this claim against three arguments designed to show because governance by law is necessarily desirable or valuable that, we cannot characterize law without making reference to those values or to other material features of law. This constitutes a limited but powerful defence of descriptive jurisprudence. (shrink)

Research programs in empirical psychology from the past two decades have revealed implicit biases. Although implicit processes are pervasive, unavoidable, and often useful aspects of our cognitions, they may also lead us into error. The most problematic forms of implicit cognition are those which target social groups, encoding stereotypes or reflecting prejudicial evaluative hierarchies. Despite intentions to the contrary, implicit biases can influence our behaviours and judgements, contributing to patterns of discriminatory behaviour. These patterns of discrimination are obviously wrong and (...) unjust. But in remedying such wrongs, one question to be addressed concerns responsibility for implicit bias. Unlike some paradigmatic forms of wrongdoing, such discrimination is often unintentional, unendorsed, and perpetrated without awareness; and the harms are particularly damaging because they are cumulative and collectively perpetrated. So, what are we to make of questions of responsibility? In this article, we outline some of the main lines of recent philosophical thought, which address questions of responsibility for implicit bias. We focus on (a) the kind of responsibility at issue; (b) revisionist versus nonrevisionist conceptions of responsibility as applied to implicit bias; and (c) individual, institutional, and collective responsibility for implicit bias. (shrink)

First published in 1923 as part of the Cambridge Plain Texts series, this volume contains Descartes' Discours de la méthode in the original French. A short editorial introduction in English is also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the works of Descartes and the development of rationalism.

We explore the relationship between jurisprudential theories pertaining to the nature of law and semantic and metasemantic theories pertaining to the meaning of ‘law’ in the wake of Dworkin’s notorious Semantic Sting argument in Law’s Empire (HUP 1986). Along the way we delineate various aspects of the semantic and metasemantic underpinnings of ‘law’ as an artifact term and advance the general methodological point that jurisprudential inquiry is only negligibly constrained by the findings of semantic and metasemantic inquiry.

The problem of moral disagreement has been presented as an objection to contextualist semantics for ‘ought’, since it is not clear that contextualism can accommodate or give a convincing gloss of such disagreement. I argue that independently of our semantics, disagreements over ‘ought’ in non-cooperative contexts are best understood as indirect metalinguistic disputes, which is easily accommodated by contextualism. If this is correct, then rather than posing a problem for contextualism, the data from moral disagreements provides some reason to adopt (...) a semantics that allows contextual variance in the meanings of ‘ought’. (shrink)