Investigating Girard's new propositionnal calculus which aims at a large scale study of computation, we stumble quickly on that question: What is a multiplicative connective? We give here a detailed answer together with our motivations and expectations.

Based on a careful study of his unpublished manuscripts as well as his published work, this book explores Peirce's general theory of signs and the way in which Peirce himself used this theory to understand subjectivity.

Treating subjects as diverse as Roman carnivals and Balinese cockfights, circumcision, dreaming, and spirit possession in Morocco, transference in ...

On a souvent considéré qu'une philosophie de l'esprit devait choisir parmi les traits distinctifs du mental celui qu'elle retiendrait pour le mettre en relief. Il ne serait pas possible de faire place dans une même philosophie aux trois faits majeurs : l'intentionnalité du mental (on discerne les pensées de quelqu'un en disant à quoi il pense), le holisme du mental (impossible de concevoir un état d'esprit isolé du tout d'une vie mentale), la part impersonnelle du mental (les acteurs ne manifestent (...) pas seulement des capacités mentales attachées à leurs personnes respectives, mais aussi des manières de penser communes, des institutions de sens formant ce qu'on appelle un esprit objectif). Ainsi, les théories intentionalistes de l'esprit ont généralement exalté le sujet aux dépens des totalités symboliques, tandis que les théories des structures de l'esprit ont paru faire de l'acteur un simple figurant sur la scène du signifiant. De tels partis pris signalent l'échec de bien des philosophes à concevoir clairement les conditions d'une analyse holiste des phénomènes de l'esprit. Ce livre utilise les ressources analytiques de la logique des relations de C.S. Peirce pour développer une conception holiste de l'intentionnalité de l'esprit (tant subjectif qu'objectif). Ce faisant, il introduit, par l'analyse d'exemples plutôt que par un simple survol historique des doctrines, aux problèmes discutés dans les grandes philosophies de l'esprit de ce temps : phénoménologie, individualisme, structuralisme, pragmatisme. (shrink)

This article offers a unified theory of the licensing of Negative and Positive Polarity Items, focusing on the acceptability conditions of PPIs of the some-type, and NPIs of the any-type. It argues that licensing has both a syntactic and a semantic component. On the syntactic side, the acceptability of PIs is checked in constituents; in fact, for any given PI, only some constituents, referred to as `domains', are eligible for the evaluation of that PI. The semantic dimension of licensing consists (...) in the sensitivity of PIs to the monotonicity properties of the syntactic environments they find themselves in. Two pieces of evidence support the semantic dimension of what I call the ‘environment-based’ approach defended here: PIs are subject to flip-flop and certain inferences affect their acceptability by modifying the monotonicity of their environment. A third property, called ‘entanglement’ and so far unnoticed, is described: the acceptability of PIs depends on the acceptability of other PIs in the same syntactic environment. The latter property is exploited to determine what semantic property some is sensitive to: it turns out that, contrary to the consensus among researchers, some is acceptable in the complement of the set of environments in which any is acceptable, and vice versa. (shrink)

This book will be a rewarding reading for everybody who is interested in logical aspects of scientific knowledge acquisition. The presentation of the issues discussed in the book is exemplary. The author was able to present in parallel way three different perspectives under which the issues discussed in the book might be approached.

A-theorists and B-theorists debate whether the "Now" is metaphysically distinguished from other time slices. Analogously, one may ask whether the "I" is metaphysically distinguished from other perspectives. Few philosophers would answer the second question in the affirmative. An exception is Caspar Hare, who has devoted two papers and a book to arguing for such a positive answer. In this paper, I argue that those who answer the first question in the affirmative---A-theorists---should also answer the second question in the affirmative. This (...) is because key arguments in favor of the A-theory are more effective asarguments in favor of the resulting combined position, and key arguments against the A-theory are ineffective against the combined position. (shrink)

At first glance twentieth-century philosophy of science seems virtually to ignore chemistry. However this paper argues that a focus on chemistry helped shape the French philosophical reflections about the aims and foundations of scientific methods. Despite patent philosophical disagreements between Duhem, Meyerson, Metzger and Bachelard it is possible to identify the continuity of a tradition that is rooted in their common interest for chemistry. Two distinctive features of the French tradition originated in the attention to what was going on in (...) chemistry.French philosophers of science, in stark contrast with analytic philosophers, considered history of science as the necessary basis for understanding how the human intellect or the scientific spirit tries to grasp the world. This constant reference to historical data was prompted by a fierce controversy about the chemical revolution, which brought the issue of the nature of scientific changes centre stage.A second striking—albeit largely unnoticed—feature of the French tradition is that matter theories are a favourite subject with which to characterize the ways of science. Duhem, Meyerson, Metzger and Bachelard developed most of their views about the methods and aims of science through a discussion of matter theories. Just as the concern with history was prompted by a controversy between chemists, the focus on matter was triggered by a scientific controversy about atomism in the late nineteenth-century.Keywords: France; Epistemology; Chemistry; Revolution; Atomism; Realism. (shrink)

Individual differences have been neglected in decision-making research on heuristics and cognitive biases. Addressing that issue requires having reliable measures. The author first reviewed the research on the measurement of individual differences in cognitive biases. While reliable measures of a dozen biases are currently available, our review revealed that some measures require improvement and measures of other key biases are still lacking (e.g., confirmation bias). We then conducted empirical work showing that adjustments produced a significant improvement of some measures and (...) that confirmation bias can be reliably measured. Overall, our review and findings highlight that the measurement of individual differences in cognitive biases is still in its infancy. In particular, we suggest that contextualized (in addition to generic) measures need to be improved or developed. (shrink)

Although many active scientists deplore the publicity about Drexler's futuristic scenario, I will argue that the controversies it has generated are very useful, at least in one respect. They help clarify the metaphysical assumptions underlying nanotechnologies, which may prove very helpful for understanding their public and cultural impact. Both Drexler and his opponents take inspiration from living systems, which they both describe as machines. However there is a striking contrast in their respective views of molecular machineries. This paper based on (...) semipopular publications is an attempt to characterize the rival models of nanomachines and to disentangle the worldviews underpinning the uses of biological reference on both sides. Finally, in an effort to point out the historical roots of the contrast in the concepts of nanomachines, I raise the question of a divide between two cultures of nanotechnology. (shrink)

In the context of the Sleeping Beauty problem, it has been argued that so-called “halfers” can avoid Dutch book arguments by adopting evidential decision theory. I introduce a Dutch book for a variant of the Sleeping Beauty problem and argue that evidential decision theorists fall prey to it, whether they are halfers or thirders. The argument crucially requires that an action can provide evidence for what the agent would do not only at other decision points where she has exactly the (...) same information, but also at decision points where she has different but “symmetric” information. (shrink)

This paper is a critical assessment of the epistemological impact of the systematic quantification of nature with the accumulation of big datasets on the practice and orientation of ecological science. We examine the contents of big databases and argue that it is not just accumulated information; records are translated into digital data in a process that changes their meanings. In order to better understand what is at stake in the ‘datafication’ process, we explore the context for the emergence and quantification (...) of biodiversity in the 1980s, along with the concept of the global environment. In tracing the origin and development of the global biodiversity information facility we describe big data biodiversity projects as a techno-political construction dedicated to monitoring a new object: the global diversity. We argue that, biodiversity big data became a powerful driver behind the invention of the concept of the global environment, and a way to embed ecological science in the political agenda. (shrink)

[W]e might despair of despair itself, rather than of life, and cast that off, and begin, and so reverse our direction.This is a finely conceived, elegantly written, and exquisitely executed work. At its center, there is Naoko Saito ’s creative appropriation of one of Cavell’s most fecund suggestions—philosophy is first and foremost an activity and, as such, it is either akin to or, more strongly, identifiable with practices of translation.1 Everything I have to say concerns translation, if only implicitly. Moreover, (...) I offer everything as a friendly amendment. That is, I take my reflections on her book to be in accord with both the spirit and, in most instances, even the letter of her texts. Whether or not she... (shrink)

While the work of such expositors as Max H. Fisch, James J. Liszka, Lucia Santaella, Anne Friedman, and Mats Bergman has helped bring into sharp focus why Peirce took the third branch of semiotic (speculative rhetoric) to be "the highest and most living branch of logic," more needs to be done to show the extent to which the least developed branch of his theory of signs is, at once, its potentially most fruitful and important. The author of this paper thus (...) begins to trace out even more fully than these scholars have done the unfinished trajectory of Peirce's eventual realization of the importance of speculative rhetoric. In doing so, he is arguing for a shift from the formalist and taxonomic emphasis of so many commentators to a more thoroughly pragmaticist and "rhetorical" approach to interpreting Peirce's theory of signs. (shrink)

In metaphysics, there are a number of distinct but related questions about the existence of “further facts”—facts that are contingent relative to the physical structure of the universe. These include further facts about qualia, personal identity, and time. In this article I provide a sequence of examples involving computer simulations, ranging from one in which the protagonist can clearly conclude such further facts exist to one that describes our own condition. This raises the question of where along the sequence the (...) protagonist stops being able to soundly conclude that further facts exist. (shrink)

Scientific textbooks are often said to deliver a stereotyped kind of knowledge, which conceals rather than reveals the real making of science. They may, however, alternatively be regarded as of peculiar interest for historians of science. An over-mechanical application of the Kuhnian concepts of ‘scientific revolution’ and ‘normal science’ can lead to the neglect of the internal dynamics of ‘normal science’. Scientific textbooks may provide a better understanding of the process of normalization in science.

Scientists and engineers who extensively use the term “nanomachine” are not always aware of the philosophical implications of this term. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the concept of nanomachine through a distinction between three major paradigms of machine. After a brief presentation of two well-known paradigms - Cartesian mechanistic machines and Von Neumann's complex and uncontrolled machines – we will argue that Drexler's model was mainly Cartesian. But what about the model of his critics? We propose a (...) third model - Gilbert Simondon's notion of concrete machines – which seems more appropriate to understand nanomachines than the notion of “soft machines”. Finally we review a few strategies currently used to design nanomachines, in an effort to determine which paradigm they belong to. (shrink)

La chimie est délaissée des philosophes et historiens des sciences. Cette discipline ne serait-elle pas bonne à penser? Qu’est-ce que ce silence, ce mépris ou cette méconnaissance nous enseignent sur le régime du savoir en chimie? Inversement, la chimie méprisée, méconnue ou simplement ignorée ne signalerait-elle pas les travers des philosophes et les limites de leur pouvoir de conceptualiser et de penser? Cet ouvrage donne un aperçu de la complexité de ces questions en adoptant un point de vue symétrique où (...) se croisent les regards des chimistes et des philosophes. En abordant les problématiques posées par les théories de la matière et en étudiant la question du corps du chimiste et de son statut social, ce volume s’interroge aussi sur l’image de la chimie et sur le rejet du « chimique » au profit du « naturel » très en vogue aujourd’hui. (shrink)

En plus d'un excellent ouvrage analytique sur Proust, cette thèse dépasse son objet en distinguant bien la pensée du romancier de celle du théoricien. Ainsi la notion de philosophie du roman est profondément explorée et la proposition d'une réforme de la théorie du récit (narratologie) est esquissée. Suppose lecture de la ##Recherche##.

Engineering science is a scientific discipline that from the point of view of epistemology and the philosophy of science has been somewhat neglected. When engineering science was under philosophical scrutiny it often just involved the question of whether engineering is a spin-off of pure and applied science and their methods. We, however, hold that engineering is a science governed by its own epistemology, methodology and ontology. This point is systematically argued by comparing the different sciences with respect to a particular (...) set of characterization criteria. (shrink)

Chemistry deserves more philosophical attention not so much to do justice to a long-neglected science or to enhance its cultural prestige, but to undermine a number of taken-for-granted assumptions about scientific rationality and more importantly to diversify our metaphysical views of nature and reality. In brief, this paper does not make the case for a philosophy of chemistry. It rather urges philosophers of science to listen to chemists and discuss what they learn from them. Because over the course of many (...) centuries chemists have developed a special access to nature and a special way of investigating and dealing with material substances, they have confronted a number of epistemological and ontological issues that are worth discussing. Following critical remarks about the disciplinary partition of philosophy, a historical section presents the contributions to philosophy of a few French twentieth-century chemists-turned philosophers to emphasize how they have challenged the dominant philosophical categories. The final section develops one of the lessons that philosophers can learn from chemists: to pay attention to things, to their materiality and activity in order to develop new ontological perspectives. (shrink)

The so-called daxue zhi dao 大學之道, though a Confucian way of self-cultivation, can inspire contemporary universities through a process of creative interpretation. Having examined the ethos of modern university in its four historical stages, I come up with its last stage of reaching out in the era of globalization and dialogue among civilizations, in which we have to rethink the idea of university from the fuller development of human reason. This can be achieved only through increasingly reaching out toward many (...) others by means of mutual waitui 外推 and self-reflection, which presuppose and announce an ethics of generosity in priority over and implementable by reciprocity. Universities today should learn from classical Confucianism, and we should keep in mind their initial generous spirit as exemplified by Confucius himself. Strangification and self-reflection, being moved by original generosity and implemented by reciprocity, will eventually bring us the hope of reason. (shrink)

Le placement familial pose d’emblée la question d’un conflit culturel, entre représentations de ce qui définit, pour chacun des acteurs en présence, une famille. Certaines apparaissent compatibles, d’autres ne le sont pas. L’enfant se construira à partir de ce constat et des mises en tension qu’il génère. L’auteur, psychologue, explique l’importance du lien et du dialogue entre culture de la famille d’origine et culture de la famille d’accueil. C’est à travers l’étude du rapport au corps de l’enfant, des modalités relationnelles (...) rencontrées au fil de l’accueil et de la question des valeurs familiales et culturelles transmises à l’enfant que s’établit cette recherche sur les conséquences d’un choc entre cultures familiales dans le cadre d’un placement familial. L’institution se doit de prendre la mesure d’une telle dynamique afin, d’une part, de soulager l’enfant d’une telle responsabilité et, d’autre part, de promouvoir une sorte de métissage culturel familial, garant du processus de subjectivation en situation de placement. (shrink)

Les liens intimes ont été soumis, particulièrement en France et au Québec, à de profondes transformations depuis l’entrée en scène de la modernité. Pour certains commentateurs, ces modifications témoignent d’une crise de la société, voire d’un effritement du lien social, qui aurait maintenant atteint ces lieux, jadis garants de la solidarité et de la morale. Pour ces mêmes observateurs, la sortie de crise se lit également dans l’urgence d’une reconstruction normative et transcendante de la société. Les auteurs désirent offrir ici (...) une lecture alternative à ces approches qui leur apparaissent décrire la société moderne dans les termes de la tradition. Ils proposent d’analyser les transformations des liens intimes à l’aune du passage de la société traditionnelle à la société moderne, c’est-à-dire du changement dans le processus de différenciation de la société. Les auteurs font l’hypothèse que la description des liens intimes en termes de crise est la conséquence d’une société moderne différenciée fonctionnellement, autrement dit une société sans centre, polycontextuelle et complexe. Dans ce contexte, les individus se voient dégagés des traditions qui les confinaient à des rôles fixes, de sorte qu’émergent une diversification et une individualisation des trajectoires de vie intime. (shrink)

Philosophers are often asked for their views on the "meaning of the times." But how should philosophy deal with world events? And what makes a philosopher more qualified than anyone else to editorialize in the daily paper? In this book, Descombes's intention is not to offer his own reading of the signs of the times, but to interrogate modern philosophers about how they come up with the barometers they use to tell us about modern reason and the spirit of the (...) times. For Descombes, a "philosophical discourse of modernity" should be rejected, for the true subject of modernity belongs not to philosophers, but to writers, moralists, and sociologists of individualism. (shrink)

The temporal logic KtT4 is the modal logic obtained from the minimal temporal logic Kt by requiring the accessibility relation to be reflexive and transitive. This article aims, firstly, at providing both a model-theoretic and a proof-theoretic characterisation of a four-valued extension of the temporal logic KtT4 and, secondly, at identifying some of the most useful properties of this extension in the context of partial and paraconsistent logics.

Both Dewey and Bourdieu emphasize the extent to which human practices are inherited practices, and the extent to which inheritance is a function of imitation. Affinities between Dewey's concept of habit and Bourdieu's notion of habitus are explored. This essay focuses on four variations on the theme of doing the done thing: philosophers doing philosophy in a recognizable form , nations perpetuating war as the unwitting enactment of a repetition compulsion, cultures fostering such democratic practices as communal deliberation, and simply (...) the done thing as an integral part of human practices. (shrink)

The Conversation that Descartes had with Burman on April 16, 1648 sheds light on the meaning of the phrase ens reale, which was common in modern scholastic treatises but unusual under his pen, and thus on the Cartesian concept of realitas. Ens verum et reale, such is the object of mathematics: no less real than that of physics, even if it does not exist out of the mind and requires imagination. As for the object of metaphysics, if it is no (...) less real than that of physics and mathematics, it is both existent and unimaginable. The answers given by Descartes that are examined here are significant samples which in addition show the need to re-edit the Conversation in the light of Clauberg's Opera. (shrink)

In this paper, the establishment of "modern" features, as subjectivity, representation and rational, and thus a concise statement of the post-modern critique of modernity, questioned and denied, in order to outline the negative characteristics of post-modern micro. However, more importantly, this will be more committed to master the modern mark out exactly what is very different from the new vision of modernity, made ​​any new way of life and ethical principles. This claim, post-modern addition to the challenge of modernity, critical (...) and negative, but also made ​​a positive value and vision. In other words, the "postmodern" will not just be a negative concept, puts a positive concept, can provide a positive value and ethical life. Which were open to him, to him who care for him who, for his generous and selfless person, and in which the pottery into the self, will be a future source of ethical principles and values ​​of life. Moreover, the rise of art from the post-modern sense of the sublime, it will be innovative and more importantly, aesthetic value, or is linked religious, ethical and artistic value of the key. Finally, out for the post-modern dualistic thinking, while offering more serious plight of relativism, we are trying to address the use of comparative philosophy, the problem of dualism, and advocated the micro-world and multi-cultural world, the ongoing language extrapolated to take and mutual learning, as a solution to relativism, to promote mutual understanding and a wealth of positive way. (shrink)

In the end of the century atmosphere in which the whole world is entering the valley of nihilism. It seems from a human dilemma, Buddhist and Christian spiritual resources should be jointly developed through conversation, contribute their ideas, values ​​and practices, to promote recovery of people's lives meaning. This article deals Christianity and Buddhism way of talking, is to use my "comparative philosophy." This is a basic way of thinking and practice, must be differences in the surface or the opposite (...) situation were found complementary to each other, on the one hand respect for differences, on the one hand to find complementary. The so-called "contrast" is the difference and complementarity, continuity and rupture, to take distance and common membership of the question of the dialectical game, constitutes the object of study of the structure and dynamics of development. I put as Christianity and Buddhism are different but can still be complementary, but still there is a gap between the two religions together. This article focuses on Buddhism, the so-called "consciousness" and the so-called Christian "salvation" two important doctrines, and the creative interpretation of the two considered to be conducive to human through the modern / postmodern nihilism Glen. I will focus on the following four questions: First, the two major religions of common concern for human suffering and the root causes of human suffering. Second, the Christian religion, the so-called "salvation" and Buddhism, the so-called "consciousness," the contrast between the mainly concentrated in the so-called "transcendental principles" and "The internal principles." Third, to teach the theory of Christianity, "there are successful" and Buddhism so-called "empty" or "origins of the air." Fourth, the moral ethics of Christianity and Buddhism are all for a total of method, can be seen as way to overcome nihilism, the practice of road domination and alienation. (shrink)