French student teachers are provided with initial training which sometimes offers them an analysis of the situations they may be confronted with when teaching in their classrooms. This research work focuses on a specific device : Training Groups Analysing Professional Practices. It consists in presenting the analysis group organizers’ opinion (collected from semi-structured interviews) as well as that of the student teachers (collected via self-administered questionnaires) during three school years. It also highlights the idea that the analysis of professional practices (...) sessions contribute to vocational training: these sessions aim at grasping the complexity of the act of teaching and they allow the student teachers to receive coaching in their first year of teaching. (shrink)

In this collection of essays, Bromberger explores the centrality of questions and predicaments they create in scientific research. He discusses the nature of explanation, theory, and the foundations of linguistics.

Genebanking, the process of preserving genetic resources, is a central practice in the modern management of crop genetics, especially for the species used for food and agriculture. Closely interrelated networks of local, national and global actors are responsible for ex situ conservation. They all seek to make plant genetic resources accessible for all and now face new challenges arising from digitisation. Plant sciences are entering the postgenomic era, moving fast from initially providing a single reference genome for each species (genomics), (...) to harnessing the extent of diversity within crop species (pangenomics) and among their relatives (referred to as postgenomics). This paper describes the extent to which ex situ collections have already undergone a digital shift, or are planning to do so, and the potential impact of this postgenomic-induced dematerialisation on the global governance of plant genetic resources. In turn, digitising material (seed) collection changes the relationship between genebanks and genomic databases. Comprehensive genomic characterisation of genebank accessions is ongoing, and I argue here that these efforts may provide a unique opportunity for genebanks to further embrace the moral, ethical and ultimately political principles on which they were built. Repurposing genebanks as decentralised digital biocentres could help relocate capabilities and stewardship over genetic resources. Empowering local farmers by providing access, promoting the use and unlocking benefits from state-of-the-art tools of modern plant breeding may allow bridging the breeding divide. However, to accomplish such a paradigm shift, genebanks require a strong political mandate that must primarily originate from the access and benefit-sharing framework. Only so may the global challenges associated with the loss of biodiversity and food insecurity be addressed. (shrink)

Although Pascal is a thinker of the figure of Christ, he seems to neglect the other Persons of the Trinity, in particular the Holy Spirit. This article examines the place Pascal gives to the third Person of the Trinity. It shows that, for Pascal, the Holy Spirit plays an important role in the conversion of man, insofar as he spreads in his heart the grace of Christ sent by the Father. Finally, this study comes to a difficult fragment of Pascal’s (...) in which he asks whether all Holy Scripture is dictated by the Holy Spirit, in order to propose a new reading. (shrink)

This paper analyzes Paul of Venice’s theory of measurement of natural properties and changes. The main sections of the paper correspond to Paul’s analysis of the three types of accidental changes, for which the Augustinian philosopher sought to provide rules of measurement. It appears that Paul achieved an original synthesis borrowing from both Parisian and Oxfordian sources. It is also argued that, on top of this theoretical synthesis, Paul managed to elaborate a quite original theory of intensive properties that marks (...) him out not only from the nominalist framework of his Parisian sources but also from the usual realist treatments of the problem. Finally, it is shown that, to a certain extent, Paul undertook to apply the mathematical and logical tools inherited from the Calculatores tradition to empirical problems of natural philosophy, leading to reevaluate his role in the evolution of scientific thought in early 15th-century Italy. (shrink)

Cet article analyse les emplois schelérien et heideggérien de l’expression « logique du coeur ». Il revient sur l’origine de cette expression – forgée par Scheler, qui l’attribue à tort à Pascal en soulignant son opposition à la raison cartésienne – avant de reconstruire l’usage qu’en fait Heidegger. Trois phases sont mises au jour : Heidegger fait l’économie de cette expression dans ses jeunes années afin de prendre ses distances avec la doctrine schelérienne et pascalienne des sentiments ; il y (...) recourt dans les années trente et quarante pour signaler que cette doctrine est déterminée par la « logique » métaphysique cartésienne, qu’il oppose à deux logiques du coeur non métaphysiques (celles du λόγος grec héraclitéen et parménidien et du Λόγος johannique) ; dans les années cinquante, Heidegger abandonne pourtant cette expression au motif que toute logique – moderne (cartésienne) comme grecque et biblique – demeure métaphysique. (shrink)

CorpusReader est un dispositif expérimental permettant d'articuler plusieurs instruments pour construire des corpus multi-annotés. L'objectif de ce dispositif est la description de corrélations entre niveaux de description pour caractériser des normes, comme par exemple des discours ou des genres. Dans ce cadre, toute annotation est une interprétation et le contexte est défini comme une pluralité d'interprétations réifiées dans un codage commun. CorpusReader permet à la fois de construire cette annotation contextualisante puis d'en extraire des sous-ensembles et des quantifications pour des (...) analyses quantitatives. (shrink)

La philosophie française actuelle se réduit souvent à de l’historiographie ou à de l’exégèse de textes, s’exposant ainsi au reproche de stérilité. Certes, la philosophie ne doit pas céder à une telle tendance sous peine de se discréditer ou de disparaître. Cependant, à l’inverse, l’histoire de la théorie et l’exégèse sont nécessaires à la théorie non seulement pour produire de nouvelles hypothèses mais aussi pour les justifier, ceci étant vrai pour toutes les disciplines scientifiques.

Agonistic Apples at Delphi : Reflexions about Apollo''s Sacred Quince Tree According to texts and iconography a new award was created during Roman times for Pythian winners : mh''la, «apples ». It seems possible to identify more precisely the variety, thanks to ancient texts about botany, especially one from Athenaeus who speaks about mh''la Delf ikav. These one were maybe obtained by grafting an apple tree on a quince tree. This graft was particularly liked in the Greco-Roman world. For a (...) Greek mind the quince was born in Creta ; it could have come to Delphi in archaic times. Considering mythology and cult music, we may understand that Cretan people were in Delphi at the time. Then an apple tree was grafted and the new apples were so beautiful that they were considered as a wonderful award. We may assume that a Roman emperor made that decision, probably Hadrian, whose action for the sanctuary of Delphi is well known. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to analyze the problem of the intensity of forms in the late Middle Ages and to show how this debate eventually gave rise to a new metaphysical project in the 14th century: the project of quantifying the different types of perfections existing in the universe – that is the project of “measuring being”. Cet ouvrage se propose d’analyser l’histoire du débat relatif à l’intensité des formes au Moyen Âge, et de retracer la manière dont (...) il conduisit au XIVe siècle à l’émergence d’un projet métaphysique nouveau : celui de quantifier les perfections contenues dans l’univers et, ainsi, de “mesurer l’être”. (shrink)

This paper investigates the late medieval controversy over the causal role of substantial forms in the generation of new substances. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, when there were two basic positions in this debate (section II), an original position was defended by Walter Burley and Peter Auriol, according to which accidents alone—by their own power—can generate substantial forms (section III). The paper presents how this view was received by the next generation of philosophers, i.e., around 1350 (section IV), (...) and how, even though some of the initial theoretical motivations for this view were quickly abandoned, the view was still defended by several philosophers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (section V). It is finally shown that this theory, still discussed by Suárez and early modern scholastics, and despite being generally rejected, contributed in its own way to the evolution of hylomorphism in the late Middle Ages and, to a certain extent, its gradual decline (section VI). (shrink)

Sylvain Luquet | : On tente ici de retracer aussi fidèlement que possible les tenants et les aboutissants du célèbre débat autour du bien commun et de la personne suscité par l’attaque du Père Eschmann contre le livre de Charles De Koninck, De la primauté du bien commun contre les personnalistes . On y verra vite à quel point il s’agissait d’un débat d’idées et nullement de conflits personnels. | : We attempt here to retrace as faithfully as possible (...) the whys and wherefores of the famous debate about the common good and the person that resulted from the attack by Father Eschmann against Charles De Koninck’s book, On the Primacy of the Common Good against the Personalists . It will soon be obvious how much the core of this debate were ideas, and not at all personal conflicts. (shrink)

Le traité De radiis, ou Theorica artium magicarum, est quasi unanimement tenu pour une traduction latine faite au xii e siècle d’un traité arabe perdu d’al-Kindi. En se fondant sur le fait qu’il dépend de la tradition grammaticale relevant de Donat et Priscien, on démontre ici qu’en réalité il n’a pas été traduit de l’arabe mais qu’il a été rédigé par un auteur latin, très probablement dans les décennies 1250/1260.

People meeting a robot for the first time do not know what it is capable of and therefore how to interact with it—what actions to produce, and how to produce them. Despite social robotics’ long-standing interest in the effects of robots’ appearance and conduct on users, and efforts to identify factors likely to improve human–robot interaction, little attention has been paid to how participants evaluate their robotic partner in the unfolding of actual interactions. This paper draws from qualitative analyses of (...) video-recorded interactions between a robot and groups of participants, in the framework of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. We analyse the particular ways in which participants shape their embodied actions, how they can reproduce a prior action that failed to obtain a response from the robot; and how they explore the robot’s embodied nature. We find a set of recurrent methods or practices, showing that robot-recipient design displays not only participants’ initial assumptions about the robot’s competences, but also more importantly perhaps their continuous assessment of the robot’s behaviour, and their attempts to adapt to it. Participants locally produce and constantly revise their understanding of the robot as a more or less competent co-participant, drawing from its past, current, and projected conduct and responsiveness. We discuss the implications of these findings for research in robotics and human–robot interactions, and the value of the approach to shed new light on old questions by paying attention to the quality of gesture and the sequential organisation of interaction. (shrink)

This paper studies ‘minority’ initiatives to organize sports games. A meta-analysis of published data in the literature identifies the formal appearance taken by each of these initiatives under the Olympic model. But it also conduces to build a number of indicators to answer a series of questions about their logic and strategies. All the initiatives studied are based on an ambivalent posture that, while based on the denunciation of a discriminating space, claim access to it. By an astonishing paradox, ‘non-normative’ (...) actors are driven to reclaim a model that, under cover of Universal, aims to establish a norm that is situated and dated. In practice, they use two types of strategies: a strategy for participation in the Olympics to transform them into a space which represents a fight against exclusion, or a strategy to create alternative events. Whatever the strategy, these initiatives are implemented according to their objectives. Differentiated in their forms—participatory or autonomy—they are also in their purpose. The comparison of these initiatives shows that ultimately, beyond strategies and logic inherent in different social, historical and organizational contexts, the mobilizations of the actors reveal the same ambivalence about the sports model conveyed by the Olympic institution. (shrink)

According to Scheler, since the 12th century, Europe and the West have gradually lost their way. They abandoned the Pascalian “logic of the heart”, that is, the knowledge of holy values, spiritual values and vital values through intentional feeling (Fühlen) of the heart, in favour of the logic of reason or understanding, that is, the knowledge of domination of the external world by reason. Nevertheless, Scheler notes that since that time, European thinkers have occasionally succeeded in rediscovering this knowledge of (...) the heart, and that there is even a powerful contemporary movement in this direction in Europe. The challenge for Europe, then, is to build on this momentum and rediscover the “logic of the heart” in order to achieve a harmony of knowledge forms, and then a harmony of world civilization. (shrink)

This paper aims at tracking down, by looking at late medieval and early modern discussions over the ontological status of artifacts, the main steps of the process through which nature became theorized on a mechanistic model in the early 17th century. The adopted methodology consists in examining how inventions such as mechanical clocks and automata forced philosophers to modify traditional criteria based on an intrinsic principle of motion and rest for defining natural beings. The paper studies different strategies designed in (...) the transitional period 1300–1600 for making these inventions compatible with classical definitions of nature and artifacts. In the first part of the paper, it is shown that, even if virtually all medieval philosophers acknowledged an ontological distinction between artifacts and natural beings, these different strategies demonstrate a growing concern about the consistency of the art/nature distinction. The next part of the paper studies how mechanical clocks, even before the Scientific Revolution, served as theoretical models for applying mechanistic views to different objects (be they cosmological, physical or biological). The epistemological function of clocks appears to stem from different factors (like the specific manufacturing of late medieval clocks as well as the evolution of 16th-century mechanics) that are listed in this second part of the paper. These factors, combined with the definitional issues raised by automata, explain that clocks became the symbol of a new approach to natural philosophy, characterized by the collapse of the art/nature distinction and the “mechanization of nature”. (shrink)

Intuitive predictions and judgements under uncertainty are often mediated by judgemental heuristics that sometimes lead to biases. Our micro-developmental study suggests that a presumption of rationality is justified for adult subjects, in so far as their systematic judgemental biases appear to be due to a specific executive-inhibition failure in working memory, and not necessarily to a lack of understanding of the fundamental principles of probability. This hypothesis was tested using an experimental procedure in which 60 adult subjects were trained to (...) inhibit the classical conjunction bias on a frequency judgement task derived from Tversky and Kahneman's work. Pre- and post-test performance was assessed via a probability judgement task. The data indicated a training effect, suggesting that subjects traditionally labelled as "irrational" with respect to the classical rules of inductive reasoning are in fact "inefficient inhibitors". These findings are discussed in terms of a polymorphous view of rationality. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of the history of the axiom forma dat esse, which was commonly quoted during the Middle Ages to describe formal causality. The first part of the paper studies the origin of this principle, and recalls how the ambiguity of Boethius’s first formulation of it in the De Trinitate was variously interpreted by the members of the School of Chartres. Then, the paper examines the various declensions of the axiom that existed in the late Middle Ages, (...) and shows how its evolution significantly follows the progressive decline of the Aristotelian model of formal causality. (shrink)

The concept of “natural attitude” as it was developed by Husserl in the Ideas I plays a key role in the phenomenological methodology. But was it in and for itself enough investigated? Heidegger’s critics and radical transformation of it is well known, unlike its treatment by the first generation of Husserl’s student. Adolf Reinach, for a short time leader of the realist phenomenology faithful to Husserl’s breakthroughs in the Logical Investigations, is one of the latter. Within a veiled debate with (...) Husserl about possibilities and limits of transcendental idealism (e. g. a critical reception of Ideas I) he attempts a kind of rehabilitation of natural attitude by way of an original and thorough description of it. Still in a strictly phenomenological manner, it though privileges for strategic reasons the “variation” process over the “reduction” one. The result is a subtle reflection that helps us thinking lived experience exactly as we lived it and not how philosophy would have it. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the way Aristotle makes use of the methods Plato labelled as "dialectic". After suggesting a unified interpretation of Plato’s dialectic, I show that Aristotle makes room for them not inside the context of demonstrative science, but at the level of the investigation concerning the principles of such a science. These principles are, for the most part, definitions; and Plato’s dialectical methods are designed to search for and obtain definitions. Although Aristotle, contrary to Plato, seems to (...) distinguish between dialectic and philosophy, he relates both to the same capacity, and he suggests that their methods are identical up to a certain point. Moreover, the cognitive state corresponding to dialectic is, for Aristotle as for Plato, intelligence (nous). Nevertheless, there remain important differences between Plato and Aristotle on this issue: while the dialogical dimension of dialectic is for Plato constitutive of philosophy and implies that the philosophical thought is a perpetual motion, it is according to Aristotle what distinguishes dialectic from philosophy, which must for its part come to a rest; and while philosophy presupposes a rupture with sensation according to Plato, Aristotle envisages it in continuity with sensible experience. (shrink)

For Merleau-Ponty and Maldiney, the world of the pictorial image is “an almost crazy world” and a world of “confused sensations”. However, it is not only an illusory and chimeric world, cut off from the real world. Indeed, far from distancing us from the real world, this craziness and this confusion bring us back to it. The objective of this essay is therefore to question the relationship between pictorial art and the real (not fictional or imaginary) world. Certainly, the pictorial (...) work of art makes us return “to the things themselves”, because it establishes a conversion of the gaze and a metamorphosis of the visible. But one can ask if this conversionof the gaze does not reverse the movement of phenomenological “reduction” as described by Edmund Husserl, since it plunges us into the very heart of the world and does not imply any abstention or abstraction. For Maldiney as for Merleau-Ponty, painting reveals our original being-in-the-world, so that it will be necessary to elucidate what it means exactly. Moreover, we will investigate the role of style and rhythm as well as the role of color and the line in order to describe more precisely the connection between the world and the work of art, between continuity and discontinuity. Finally, we will propose another meaning of the word “image”in order to highlight the ethical function of the image thus understood. (shrink)

The aim of this present study is to investigate the influence of three learning contexts on the development of motor creativity of young footballers. In team sport, creativity is a fundamental issue because it allows players to adapt in an environment of high social uncertainty. To carry out this work, we suggest a method for assessing motor creativity into ecological situations based on the analysis of praxical communications. Creativity originates from an interaction between divergence and convergence. In our case, the (...) number of communications and the diversity of updated communications are our divergence indicators. Convergence, understood as the ability to make good decisions, is assessed by two expert judges. Sixty boys’ football players coming from three football clubs participated in this research. The study lasted 2 years. Each year, a team of 10 players from each club participated in the research twice a week for 32 weeks, these groups attended different training sessions: the control group followed a classical learning; the decoding group attended training focused on learning the praxemes of football; the traditional sporting games group followed a training session that was jointly focused on praxemes and the practice of traditional sporting games. The motor creativity of players and groups was assessed both at the beginning and at the end of the year during football matches. Compared to the control group, in the post-test, the group with the highest fluidity is the decoding group and the one with the highest fluidity is the traditional sporting games group. The latter group is also the one with the best convergence. The results showed that traditional games can help develop players’ creative abilities. This research invites us to investigate the complementarity between the different offered training. (shrink)

Over the last 40 years or so, there has been an explosion of cultural evolution research in anthropology and archaeology. In each discipline, cultural evolutionists investigate how interactions between individuals translate into group level patterns, with the aim of explaining the diachronic dynamics and diversity of cultural traits. However, while much attention has been given to deterministic processes, we contend that current evolutionary accounts of cultural change are limited because they do not adopt a systematic stochastic approach. First, we show (...) that, in contrast with the intense debates in ecology and population genetics, the importance of stochasticity in evolutionary processes has generated little discussion in the sciences of cultural evolution to date. Second, we speculate on the reasons, both ideological and methodological, why that should be so. Third, we highlight the inadequacy of genetically-inspired stochastic models in the context of cultural evolution modelling, and ask which fundamental stochastic processes might be more relevant to take up. We conclude that the field of cultural evolution would benefit from a stochastic revolution. For that to occur, stochastic models ought to be developed specifically for cultural data and not through a copy-pasting of neutral models from population genetics or ecology. (shrink)

We provide characterizations of the equal division values and their convex mixtures, using a new axiom on a fixed player set based on player nullification which requires that if a player becomes null, then any two other players are equally affected. Two economic applications are also introduced concerning bargaining under risk and common-pool resource appropriation.

Using the matching bias example, the aim of the present studies was to show that adults' reasoning biases are due to faulty executive inhibition programming. In the first study, the subjects were trained on Wason's classical card selection task; half were given training in how to inhibit the perceptual matching bias (experimental group) and half in logic without the inhibition component (control group). On the pre- and post-tests, their performance was assessed on the Evans conditional rule falsification task (with a (...) negation in the antecedent of the rule), a task that also involves matching bias. In addition, subjects were tested for perceptual field dependence/independence using the Embedded Figures Test. The results brought out a specific inhibition training effect, as well as a clear-cut relationship in the experimental group between receptiveness to training and perceptual field independence. In the second study, the training paradigm was the same except that on the pre- and post-tests, the negation was in the consequent of the conditional rule (in this case, the perceptual matching response corresponds to the logical response). The subjects succeeded on the pre-test, and the matching-bias inhibition training had a negative effect on post-test performance. This specific negative priming effect confirms the inhibitory impact of our experimental training and outlines the dissociation of inhibition and logical components. (shrink)

Spécialiste reconnu de la poésie épique, à laquelle il a consacré plusieurs études et traductions commentées (ainsi celle de l’Alexandra de Lycophron aux PUR, précédant de quelques années l’édition d’André Hurst aux Belles Lettres), Gérard Lambin (GL) sort de sa zone de confort pour chasser sur les terres de Kernos, en commettant un essai consacré au « divin » dans le monde grec. En quelques deux cents pages de texte, complétées d’une bibliographie et d’une table des matières, GL développe de...

Neuroconstructivism: How the Brain Constructs Cognition proposes a unifying framework for the study of cognitive development that brings together (1) constructivism (which views development as the progressive elaboration of increasingly complex structures), (2) cognitive neuroscience (which aims to understand the neural mechanisms underlying behavior), and (3) computational modeling (which proposes formal and explicit specifications of information processing). The guiding principle of our approach is context dependence, within and (in contrast to Marr [1982]) between levels of organization. We propose that three (...) mechanisms guide the emergence of representations: competition, cooperation, and chronotopy; which themselves allow for two central processes: proactivity and progressive specialization. We suggest that the main outcome of development is partial representations, distributed across distinct functional circuits. This framework is derived by examining development at the level of single neurons, brain systems, and whole organisms. We use the terms encellment, embrainment, and embodiment to describe the higher-level contextual influences that act at each of these levels of organization. To illustrate these mechanisms in operation we provide case studies in early visual perception, infant habituation, phonological development, and object representations in infancy. Three further case studies are concerned with interactions between levels of explanation: social development, atypical development and within that, developmental dyslexia. We conclude that cognitive development arises from a dynamic, contextual change in embodied neural structures leading to partial representations across multiple brain regions and timescales, in response to proactively specified physical and social environment. (shrink)

This paper presents a version of hylomorphism that intends to solve problems faced by contemporary hylomorphism. After showing that attempts to understand form as sets or relation of essential properties fail at taking into account the dynamic development of substances, the paper suggests another version of hylomorphism able to solve these difficulties. A functionalist version of hylomorphism is then defended: the best way to understand how form can be present throughout all the developmental stages of a substance is to understand (...) it as a certain kind of function. (shrink)

This paper explores a specific problem within an important philosophical genre of the fourteenth century: the debates over the perfection of species. It investigates how the problem of defining limits for continuous magnitudes – a problem typical of Aristotelian physics – was integrated into these debates at the levels of genera, species, and individuals as these entities began to be conceptualized in quantitative terms. After explaining the emergence of this problem within fourteenth-century metaphysics, the paper examines the contributions of three (...) philosophers – Hugolinus of Orvieto, John of Ripa, and Paul of Venice – who offered varying solutions to the challenge of defining limits between species. It demonstrates that two primary solutions arose, inspired by continuous and discrete mathematical objects. It is shown that whereas Hugolinus of Orvieto advocates for a continuist model, John of Ripa proposes a discrete one. The last part of the paper examines Paul of Venice's hybrid approach, which combines elements from both models, facilitating a more comprehensive treatment of species particularly difficult to analyse, namely geometric figures. The conclusions of this comparative study underscore how profoundly the metaphysical reflections of the Middle Ages contributed to the analysis of the structure of the continuum and the extension of the notion of quantity to various objects. (shrink)