- Is the existence of God a matter of faith or knowledge? - Does God sometimes act miraculously or are there physical causes for everything? - Is morality absolute or relative? - Are humans truly free or does God's sovereignty determine everything? - When bad things happen, is God the cause or are they the fault of humans? Too frequently Christians answer these questions with a Yes to one side and a No to the other side. Thomas Aquinas and Karl (...) Barth answer Yes to both. Following their model, Machuga defends a "third way" which transcends the Enlightenment dichotomies of fideism vs. rationalism, supernaturalism vs. naturalism, relativism vs. absolutism, free will vs. predestination, and God's justice vs. his mercy. Machuga begins by showing how these false dichotomies grew out of the Enlightenment assumptions of mechanism, universal quantification, and mono-causation. He then corrects these demonstrably dubious assumptions by articulating a theory of dual-causation. The result is a thoroughly biblical understanding of God, miracles, and free will that can withstand the contemporary criticisms of both science and philosophy. (shrink)

Le présent ouvrage, issu de conférences faites à Vienne et à Fribourg, considérablement enrichies pour la publication en français, paraît simultanément en anglais, en allemand et en polonais. " Cet essai a été suscité par un sentiment de perplexité concernant le statut du terme "reconnaissance" au plan du discours philosophique. C'est un fait qu'il n'existe pas de théorie de la reconnaissance digne de ce nom. Or cette lacune étonnante fait contraste avec la relative cohérente qui permet au mot lui-même de (...) figurer dans un dictionnaire comme une unité lexicale unique en dépit de la multiplicité de ses acceptions. D'où le pari de ce livre : conférer à la suite quelque peu hétérogène des occurrences philosophiques connues du terme "reconnaissance" la cohérence d'une polysémie réglée, digne de donner la réplique à celle du plan lexical. Pour le dire d'un mot, la dynamique qui entraîne l'investigation consiste en un renversement au plan même de la grammaire du verbe "reconnaître", de son usage à la voix active à son usage à la voix passive: je reconnais activement quelque chose, des personnes, moi-même, mais je demande à être reconnu par les autres. Et si, par bonheur, il m'arrive de l'être, la reconnaissance devient gratitude. ". (shrink)

The Law, original French title La Loi, is an 1850 book by Frédéric Bastiat. It was written at Mugron two years after the third French Revolution and a few months before his death of tuberculosis at age 49.

Propose une hypothèse originale sur les sources de la pensée de Bergson et sa portée profonde, sur le mouvement de son oeuvre et la méthode qui s'impose pour la lire, sur la place de sa philosophie dans l'histoire.

Paul Ricoeur is widely regarded as one of the most distinguished philosophers of our time. In The Rule of Metaphor he seeks 'to show how language can extend itself to its very limits, forever discovering new resonances within itself'. Recognizing the fundamental power of language in constructing the world we perceive, it is a fruitful and insightful study of how language affects how we understand the world, and is also an indispensable work for all those seeking to retrieve some kind (...) of meaning in uncertain times. (shrink)

The thought of Paul Ricoeur continues its profound effect on theology, religious studies and biblical interpretation. The 28 papers contained in this volume constitute the most comprehensive overview of Ricoeur's writings in religion since 1970. Ricoeur's hermeneutical orientation and his sensitivity to the mystery of religious language offer fresh insight to the transformative potential of sacred literature, including the Bible.

Tolerance cannot not be concerned with the law, once it takes up in its concept the relationship between truth and justice. And there are several reasons for this. To begin with, the word right enters into many definitions of tolerance: the right to difference, to liberty, to those fundamental public freedoms that constitute human rights. Moreover, law, as opposed to morality, is the public instance where obligation is coupled with legitimate coercion. Finally, juridical institutions offer an excellent vantage point from (...) which to observe the transformations of the idea of tolerance and scan the history of the struggles carried out in its name. (shrink)

Le conflit des interprétationsCes « essais d'herméneutique » réunissent des textes qui portent la marque du bouillonnement intellectuel des années 1960. Les sciences humaines font éclater les cadres reçus de l'interprétation, et créent même un « conflit des interprétations ». Le premier mérite de Ricœur, infatigable lecteur, est alors de reprendre longuement ce que disent les sciences de l'homme - linguistique, sémiologie, ethnologie, psychanalyse... - pour mesurer comment et pourquoi naît ce conflit.On est loin ici de toute « voie courte (...) », d'une philosophie se contentant de rappeler à hauts cris le « sens » face à la « mort du sujet ». S'il s'agit « d'explorer les voies ouvertes à la philosophie contemporaine » par cette nouvelle donne, il faut passer par le détour de l'analyse longue. Un détour, plutôt rare dans l'aire de la philosophie française, est ainsi très présent : il passe par l'exégèse biblique et des disciplines religieuses, qui furent à l'origine du problème herméneutique. Au terme de cette analyse seulement, il sera possible à nouveau de « donner un sens acceptable à la notion d'existence ».Paul Ricœur (1913-2005)Philosophe, monument de la philosophie française du XXe°siècle, il n'a cessé de nouer un dialogue avec les sciences humaines dans leur diversité et renouvelé les recherches exégétiques et bibliques.Préface de Jean Greisch Préface Note de l'éditeur Existence et herméneutique Structure et herméneutique Le problème du double-sens La structure, le mot, l'événement Le conscient et l'inconscient La psychanalyse et le mouvement de la culture contemporaine Une interprétation philosophique de Freud Technique et non-technique dans l'interprétation L'art et la systématique freudienne L'acte et le signe selon Jean Nabert Heidegger et la question du sujet La question du sujet : le défi de la sémiologie Le « péché originel » : étude de signification Herméneutique des symboles et réflexion philosophique (I) Herméneutique des symboles et réflexion philosophique (II) Démythiser l'accusation Interprétation du mythe de la peine Préface à Bultmann La liberté selon l'espérance Culpabilité, éthique et religion Religion,athéisme, foi La paternité : du fantasme au symbole Sources Ouvrages cités. (shrink)

In chapter 3 of Genesis, the serpent speaks to Eve and foretells: if Adam and Eve taste the fruit, their eyes will open and they will be like gods, “knowing good and evil” (iii, 5). As soon as the...

" L'ouvrage comporte trois parties nettement délimitées par leur thème et leur méthode. La première, consacrée à la mémoire et aux phénomènes mnémoniques, est placée sous l'égide de la phénoménologie au sens husserlien du terme. La deuxième, dédiée à l'histoire, relève d'une épistémologie des sciences historiques. La troisième, culminant dans une méditation sur l'oubli, s'encadre dans une herméneutique de la condition historique des humains que nous sommes. Mais ces trois parties ne font pas trois livres. Bien que les trois mâts (...) portent des voilures enchevêtrées mais distinctes, ils appartiennent à la même embarcation destinée à une seule et unique navigation. Une problématique commune court en effet à travers la phénoménologie de la mémoire, l'épistémologie de l'histoire, l'herméneutique de la condition historique : celle de la représentation du passé. Je reste troublé par l'inquiétant spectacle que donne le trop de mémoire ici, le trop d'oubli ailleurs, pour ne rien dire de l'influence des commémorations et des abus de mémoire - et d'oubli. L'idée d'une politique de la juste mémoire est à cet égard un de mes thèmes civiques avoués. " Paul Ricœur. (shrink)

Our intuitive assumption that only organisms are the real individuals in the natural world is at odds with developments in cell biology, ecology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and other fields. Although organisms have served for centuries as nature’s paradigmatic individuals, science suggests that organisms are only one of the many ways in which the natural world could be organized. When living beings work together—as in ant colonies, beehives, and bacteria-metazoan symbiosis—new collective individuals can emerge. In this book, leading scholars consider the (...) biological and philosophical implications of the emergence of these new collective individuals from associations of living beings. The topics they consider range from metaphysical issues to biological research on natural selection, sociobiology, and symbiosis. -/- The contributors investigate individuality and its relationship to evolution and the specific concept of organism; the tension between group evolution and individual adaptation; and the structure of collective individuals and the extent to which they can be defined by the same concept of individuality. These new perspectives on evolved individuality should trigger important revisions to both philosophical and biological conceptions of the individual. -/- Contributors: Frédéric Bouchard, Ellen Clarke, Jennifer Fewell, Andrew Gardner, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Charles J. Goodnight, Matt Haber, Andrew Hamilton, Philippe Huneman, Samir Okasha, Thomas Pradeu, Scott Turner, Minus van Baalen. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the nature of social relations when individual identity is conceived as both autonomous and socially constructed. Viewing identity as autonomous and socially constructed makes it necessary both to conceive individuals as socially related to others in the present and past, and to incorporate individuals into multiple systems of social relations. I argue that George Herbert Mead’s theory of social systems provides a basis for performing these tasks. By adding a concept of “contemporaneous consciousness” to Mead’s notion of (...) temporal systems, it is possible to view individuals as autonomous within a multiplicity of temporal systems. (shrink)

Originally published in Italian in 1976, this book describes the methods scientists use to investigate the physical world. It is ideal for students and teachers of science and the philosophy of science. It is both a high-level popularization and a critical appraisal of these methods, describing important advances in physics and analyzing the historical development, value, reliability and philosophical implications of the way physicists approach the problems confronting them. The introductory chapter on the meaning of physical theories and the mathematical (...) tools used to develop them is followed by a general discussion on the foundations of physics under four major headings: the physics of the reversible, the physics of the irreversible, microphysics, and cosmology. Throughout, the subject matter of physical theories is linked to discussion of the attendant philosophical and epistemological implications, such as the validity of the theories, inductive inference, causal explanation, probability, the role of observation and the reality of physical objects. (shrink)

Cet article s'interroge sur le statut à la fois épistémologique et ontologique d'un passé qui « a été » et dont les individus comme les sociétés retiennent le souvenir, mais qui, comme le langage ordinaire l'exprime, « n'est plus » . Toute une tradition de réflexion sur la conservation du passé par la mémoire depuis Platon et Aristote a voulu ramener la mémoire à la métaphore de l'empreinte. En revanche, cet article tente de montrer que la mémoire à plusieurs dont (...) dépend la connaissance historique n'est pas simplement assimilable à ce topos traditionnel. Ce qui caractérise la mémoire plurielle et publique qui alimente le travail de l'historien, c'est le statut privilégié du témoignage, la possibilité de confronter différents témoignages les uns aux autres, dont dépend la crédibilité du récit historique. C'est ainsi moins la problématique d'une ressemblance entre récit et événements racontés — problématique de la trace, héritée d'une tendance traditionnelle à identifier la mémoire avec l'empreinte — que la confrontation de témoignages dans leurs différents degrés de fiabilité qui nous fait assister à l'événement raconté. Cette réflexion sur le décalage entre mémoire et histoire ouvre, dans la deuxième partie de cet article, à une analyse approfondie de la temporalité propre au passé qui fait l'objet du souvenir et conduit à une confrontation avec privilège accordé, dans la synthèse des trois modes du temps, chez saint Augustin au présent et, chez Heidegger, au futur. De cette manière, l'article tente de rééquilibrer la synthèse des temps en lui restituant un autre rapport au passé, que l'on ne saurait atteindre à partir d'Augustin ou de Heidegger. Libérer l'histoire du paradigme de la trace, de la métaphore de la mémoire comme empreinte, revient précisément à la restitution de ce mode de temporalisation du passé jusqu'ici esquivé : cet autre rapport au passé vise, conjointement à la mise en évidence du témoignage propre au travail de l'historien, à souligner la dette envers le passé et de la possible délivrance de la dette. C'est, en effet, en délivrant « par le moyen de l'histoire, les promesses non tenues, voir empêchées et refoulées par le cours ultérieur de l'histoire, qu'un peuple, une nation, une entité culturelle, peuvent accéder à une conception ouverte et vivante de leurs traditions ». This article examines both the epistemological and the ontological status of the past which at once « has been » and is remembered by individuals and societies, but which, and ordinary language tells us, is « no more ». An important tradition of reflection that has focused, since Plato and Aristotle, on the conservation of the past by memory, has attempted to account f or memory in terms of the metaphor of the impression. This article, on the contrary, argues that the plural memory retained by a number of individuals, upon which historical knowledge depends, cannot simply be derived from this traditional presup-position concerning memory. Memory which is at once plural and public that is the source of the historian's research most directly concerns the testimony of witnesses, the possibility of confronting different testimonies, each with the others, which constitutes the basis of the credibility of the historian's argument. Hence, it is less a problem of the resemblance of the historical narrative to narrated events — inherited from the traditional tendency to identify memory with the impression — than the confrontation of witnesses in their différent degrees of trustworthiness, which makes it possible to understand the significance of the narrated event. This reflection concerning the disparity between memory and history is followed, in the second part of this article, to an analysis of the temporality that characterizes the past which is remembered. It leads to a questioning of the privilege accorded, in the synthesis of the three modes of time, to be present in the philosophy of saint Augustine and to the future in that of Heidegger., To liberate history from the paradigm of the trace, from the metaphor of memory as impression, is tantamount to the retrieval of mode of temporalization of the past which has previously been neglected: this other relation to the past intends, while underlining the status of the witness that characterize the historian's endeavor, to place in evidence the idea of the debt toward the past. It is consciousness of the debt toward the past, and of need of deliverance from the debt which, by means of history, aims at emancipation from « the unkept promises that have been blocked or repressed by the later course of history, through which a people, a nation, a culture, may attain a living and open conception of its own traditions ». (shrink)

On May 11th a round table discussion was held on the subject "The Interactions of Science and Art under the Conditions of the Revolution in Science and Technology ," organized by the editorial boards of the journals Voprosy filosofii and Voprosy literatury.

An inquiry into the rhetorical aspects of history may seem paradoxical, given that historical discourse is not typically included among those types which, since Aristotle, have been understood to be governed by rhetoric; these types being the deliberative council, the tribunal and the commemorative assembly. It was to these specific audiences that the three kinds of discourse—the deliberative, judiciary, and panegyric—were addressed. However, are the boundaries of the historian's audience sufficiently delineated in order to allow us to identify it as (...) a specific addressee? This first objection, which regards the very legitimacy of the subject of these remarks, can be met by noting a common trait that links history to the above-mentioned three types of discourse; that is, competition between opposed discourses requiring a choice. In each case the aim is to structure a debate that calls for a clear-cut decision. Yet a major problem of the discipline of history is that it allows both for widely varying descriptions of the same series of events, and sanctions the use of a variety of equally acceptable rules or preferences for interpreting a given slice of the past. (shrink)

Tolerance has its arguments, both in morality and in law. It also has its sources, not only in the sense of the origins from which it springs, but also in the sense of that which actuates it and gives it life, that which encourages it and sanctions it - profoundly. Religions take part of these sources, but also take part of this reflexive aspect of ethics that puts into play the final legitimation, the ultimate justification of the norms of our (...) public and private actions. It is with respect to this recourse to the ultimate that religion and ethics intersect without becoming one. Yet it is also in this recourse to the ultimate that one and the other greatly face the danger of temptation. This is particularly the case with religion. It is indeed not enough to simply say that it is the political use of religion that is to blame, and not religion as such, in the long and unfinished history of religious intolerance. We must trace the source of the temptation of intolerance to the very heart of the certainty of religious faith. Any belief, as soon as it defines itself in relation - a relation of any kind, whether of distance or proximity, of alterity or fusion - to an absolute, must be on guard against its own penchant for intolerance. It is not enough, in an opposite sense of the preceding warning, to rely on the critical resources borrowed from sources outside of religion: it is at that same heart of certainty of all religious faith that we must seek the reason for the conviction that it is unjust to look to impose on adherents of other religions, on agnostics and atheists, the truth as it is admitted in good faith by the community of believers of one or another religious confession. (shrink)

Tolerance has its arguments, both in morality and in law. It also has its sources, not only in the sense of the origins from which it springs, but also in the sense of that which actuates it and gives it life, that which encourages it and sanctions it - profoundly. Religions take part of these sources, but also take part of this reflexive aspect of ethics that puts into play the final legitimation, the ultimate justification of the norms of our (...) public and private actions. It is with respect to this recourse to the ultimate that religion and ethics intersect without becoming one. Yet it is also in this recourse to the ultimate that one and the other greatly face the danger of temptation. This is particularly the case with religion. It is indeed not enough to simply say that it is the political use of religion that is to blame, and not religion as such, in the long and unfinished history of religious intolerance. We must trace the source of the temptation of intolerance to the very heart of the certainty of religious faith. Any belief, as soon as it defines itself in relation - a relation of any kind, whether of distance or proximity, of alterity or fusion - to an absolute, must be on guard against its own penchant for intolerance. It is not enough, in an opposite sense of the preceding warning, to rely on the critical resources borrowed from sources outside of religion: it is at that same heart of certainty of all religious faith that we must seek the reason for the conviction that it is unjust to look to impose on adherents of other religions, on agnostics and atheists, the truth as it is admitted in good faith by the community of believers of one or another religious confession. (shrink)

Tolerance has its arguments, both in morality and in law. It also has its sources, not only in the sense of the origins from which it springs, but also in the sense of that which actuates it and gives it life, that which encourages it and sanctions it - profoundly. Religions take part of these sources, but also take part of this reflexive aspect of ethics that puts into play the final legitimation, the ultimate justification of the norms of our (...) public and private actions. It is with respect to this recourse to the ultimate that religion and ethics intersect without becoming one. Yet it is also in this recourse to the ultimate that one and the other greatly face the danger of temptation. This is particularly the case with religion. It is indeed not enough to simply say that it is the political use of religion that is to blame, and not religion as such, in the long and unfinished history of religious intolerance. We must trace the source of the temptation of intolerance to the very heart of the certainty of religious faith. Any belief, as soon as it defines itself in relation - a relation of any kind, whether of distance or proximity, of alterity or fusion - to an absolute, must be on guard against its own penchant for intolerance. It is not enough, in an opposite sense of the preceding warning, to rely on the critical resources borrowed from sources outside of religion: it is at that same heart of certainty of all religious faith that we must seek the reason for the conviction that it is unjust to look to impose on adherents of other religions, on agnostics and atheists, the truth as it is admitted in good faith by the community of believers of one or another religious confession. (shrink)

The main proposal of this paper is that boundary objects and the trading zones in which they occur are the analogue of pheromone trails in the foraging of a termite colony. The colony can be construed as a _stigmergic_ system where the traces of the actions of individual termites coordinate their further actions without the existence of any central control or planning structures. The coordinated systems approach proposed by this paper lends support to the idea that such a system is (...) minimally cognitive in the sense that it is responsible for goal-directed behaviour. Boundary objects and trading zones in scientific practice play a similar functional role to pheromone traces because they are responsible for the same kind of coordination. This approach therefore provides a cognitive account of the social notions of boundary object and trading zone without making representationalist or computationalist assumptions. Moreover, it is scale-invariant—the same analytical technique can be applied at multiple scales simultaneously. It therefore provides a framework for an understanding of the complementarity of cognitive and social approaches to scientific investigation and points to areas for further ethnographic research. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur was one of the foremost interpreters and translators of Edmund Husserl's philosophy. These nine essays present Ricoeur's interpretation of the most important of Husserl's writings, with emphasis on his philosophy of consciousness rather than his work in logic. In Ricoeur's philosophy, phenomenology and existentialism came of age and these essays provide an introduction to the Husserlian elements which most heavily influenced his own philosophical position.

Le lecteur trouvera ici rassembles quelques textes qui appartiennent aux annees d'apprentissage de leur auteur. La plupart sont consacres exclusivement a celui qui fut un de ses peu nombreux educateurs a la pensee: Edmund Husserl. Ils justifient pleinement le titre donne a la collection d'articles: A l'ecole de la phenomenologie, etant entendu que le titre de phenomenologie s'identifie ici au nom de son second fondateur, apres Hegel. Si l'introduction aux Idees directrices, tome I, ainsi que le commentaire accompagnant la traduction (...) de 1950, ne figurent pas dans ce recueil, les Idees directrices, tome II, et surtout les Meditations Cartesiennes, sans oublier la Krisis, sont largement commentees. On a joint deux ou trois essais dans lesquels l'auteur se livre a quelques exercices de caractere plus personnel. Mais ils ont tous ete composes a l'ecole de la phenomenologie husserlienne. (shrink)

Essays cover Marx, Karl Mannheim, Max Weber, Clifford Geertz, Louis Althusser, Jurgen Habermas, Henri de Saint-Simon, and Charles Fourier.

Un verbe exprime en français l'un des secrets de notre être et l'une des clés de notre époque maniaco-dépressive : ce verbe, c'est revivre. Il a deux sens que tout paraît opposer. Revivre, c'est en effet renaître, retrouver le sentiment d'être vivant et relié à autrui. Mais c'est aussi se laisser rattraper par "un passé qui ne passe pas » et se replier sur soi-même. Chacun de nous fait cette double expérience, souvent sans le savoir. Il faut pourtant la penser, (...) l'affronter, résister à ce qui nous enferme, accéder à ce qui nous délivre. Inventaire de nos blessures et de nos ressources, diagnostic du moment présent, parcours dans les idées et les oeuvres, ces propos renouent avec les actes les plus intenses de notre vie. Un art de vivre, c'est-à-dire de revivre, qui pourrait bien être le seul possible aujourd'hui. (4e de couv.). (shrink)

In this anti-colonial treatise, Ricœur reflects on the responsibility of every French citizen and of the French state with respect to colonialism. He establishes five principles that should guide his readers in their reflection on this issue and expresses his support for the independence of the colonies.

Le lecteur trouvera ici rassemblés quelques textes qui appartiennent aux années d'apprentissage de leur auteur. La plupart sont consacrés exclusivement à celui qui fut un de ses peu nombreux éducateurs à la pensée : Edmund Husserl. Ils justifient pleinement le titre donné à la collection d'articles : A l'école de la phénoménologie, étant entendu que le titre de phénoménologie s'identifie ici au nom de son second fondateur, après Hegel. Si l'introduction aux Idées directrices, tome I, ainsi que le commentaire accompagnant (...) la traduction de 1950, ne figurent pas dans ce recueil, les Idées directrices, tome II, et surtout les Méditations Cartésiennes, sans oublier la Krisis, sont largement commentées. On a joint deux ou trois essais dans lesquels l'auteur se livre à quelques exercices de caractère plus personnel. Mais ils ont tous été composés à l'école de la phénoménologie husserlienne. (shrink)