This paper aims to study the perception of color (representations, synesthesia, denominations, uses and classification) in specific writings such as recipe treatises written from 1520 to 1689. These treatises deal with the manufacture and stages of color in various objects (remedies, blushes and mainly gems). They reveals that color is not only an apparent surface but also a sensitive substance, in particular white and red colors. Although color is a principle of unity for diverse materials, it sometimes becomes contradictory when (...) it is associated with variable signified and signifiers, so that color also offers a play on naming: meaning is sometimes clear, sometimes obscure, and in any case mobile (azure, vermilion). The contemporary reader does not perceive color in the same way as the Renaissance craftsman. Finally, as a principle of classification, it shows an imbalance and hierarchy of colors which, while providing structure to recipes: it gives mainly a place of choice to red and its shades. (shrink)

Parmi les petits objets qui nous sont parvenus de l’Antiquité, ceux que les archéologues classent ordinairement parmi les jouets, au sens moderne, forment une catégorie particulièrement énigmatique. La notion même de « jouet » est problématique car aucun terme grec (athurma, paignion) ni latin (ludicrum) ne correspond exactement à ce que recouvre aujourd’hui ce mot. Les études philologiques et linguistiques montrent que le champ de ce vocabulaire est polysémique et comprend tout ce qui fascin...

Human adults are thought to possess two dissociable systems to represent numbers: an approximate quantity system akin to a mental number line, and a verbal system capable of representing numbers exactly. Here, we study the interface between these two systems using an estimation task. Observers were asked to estimate the approximate numerosity of dot arrays. We show that, in the absence of calibration, estimates are largely inaccurate: responses increase monotonically with numerosity, but underestimate the actual numerosity. However, insertion of a (...) few inducer trials, in which participants are explicitly (and sometimes misleadingly) told that a given display contains 30 dots, is sufficient to calibrate their estimates on the whole range of stimuli. Based on these empirical results, we develop a model of the mapping between the numerical symbols and the representations of numerosity on the number line. (shrink)

L’article étudie comment l’humain peut être défini dans les rapports créés dans l’imaginaire entre le corps et l’alimentation. En s’appuyant sur des traités de médecine et de cuisine du Moyen Âge au xviie siècle, des essais d’humanistes et les travaux d’anthropologues, d’historiens et de sociologues contemporains, on découvre comment l’acte même de manger permet de définir et construire les frontières du corps humain et un imaginaire de l’alimentation : la nomination de l’aliment et la charge sémantique des métaphores empruntés à (...) l’alimentation définissent une éthique de l’humain et sa vision du corps humain et animal. Une approche médicale complète cette étude linguistique et montre que le fonctionnement des limites extérieures et internes du corps humain se modèle sur la représentation de l’aliment et de ses effets paradoxaux, bénéfiques et pathologiques. Enfin, le corps social du mangeur est délimité par la distance qui le sépare de l’aliment et le lieu assigné à l’animal destiné à être mangé. (shrink)

Dans une approche psycho-développementale et systémique, cet article examine l’expérience grand-parentale en contexte de troubles du spectre autistique ( tsa ) de l’enfant en considérant la pluralité des relations familiales (conjugale, co-grand-parentale, parents/enfant(s), grand(s)-parent(s)/petit(s)-enfant(s), etc.) dans lesquelles les grands-parents sont inscrits. L’analyse des entretiens menés auprès de six grands-parents (quatre familles) montre notamment l’important engagement et le soutien instrumental et émotionnel des grands-parents auprès des parents et de leur petit-enfant porteur de tsa. Ces résultats sont discutés en lien avec l’accompagnement (...) des enfants présentant un tsa et leurs familles, dans une perspective systémique. (shrink)

L’exploration archéologique du site de l’Arkipiskopi dans la vieille ville de Nicosie, conduite par Fryni Hadjichristofi et son équipe (Département des Antiquités de Chypre) de 2009 à 2011 puis en 2016, a mis au jour les vestiges d’un puits à roue élévatrice appelé à Chypre αλακάτιν/alakatin et plus habituellement connu dans le monde méditerranéen sous le nom de sakieh. S’il en existe des exemplaires plus anciens dans l’île, c’est la première machine hydraulique à traction animale permettant de puiser l’eau dans (...) un puits profond fouillée à Nicosie pour les époques latine, ottomane et anglaise. Cette étude entend d’abord examiner et interpréter les vestiges de ces structures au regard des informations livrées par des documents d’archives et des récits de voyageurs, des dessins de la fin du xvie et du début du xviiie siècle, un plan de 1882 et le cadastre de 1948, afin d’en mieux saisir les contextes de fonctionnement sur une longue durée. Elle présente aussi les godets de terre fixés sur la roue pour le puisage de l’eau et qui, à de rares exceptions, ont complètement échappé aux études céramologiques conduites dans l’île. (shrink)

Geometry defines entities that can be physically realized in space, and our knowledge of abstract geometry may therefore stem from our representations of the physical world. Here, we focus on Euclidean geometry, the geometry historically regarded as “natural”. We examine whether humans possess representations describing visual forms in the same way as Euclidean geometry – i.e., in terms of their shape and size. One hundred and twelve participants from the U.S. (age 3–34 years), and 25 participants from the Amazon (age (...) 5–67 years) were asked to locate geometric deviants in panels of 6 forms of variable orientation. Participants of all ages and from both cultures detected deviant forms defined in terms of shape or size, while only U.S. adults drew distinctions between mirror images (i.e. forms differing in “sense”). Moreover, irrelevant variations of sense did not disrupt the detection of a shape or size deviant, while irrelevant variations of shape or size did. At all ages and in both cultures, participants thus retained the same properties as Euclidean geometry in their analysis of visual forms, even in the absence of formal instruction in geometry. These findings show that representations of planar visual forms provide core intuitions on which humans’ knowledge in Euclidean geometry could possibly be grounded. (shrink)

The French philosopher Renaud Barbaras remarked that late in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s career, “The phenomenology of perception fulfills itself as a philosophy of expression.” In _Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty: Aesthetics, Philosophy of Biology, and Ontology, _Véronique M. Fóti_ _addresses the guiding yet neglected theme of expression in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. She traces Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about how individuals express creative or artistic impulses through his three essays on aesthetics, his engagement with animality and the “new biology” in the second of his lecture courses (...) on nature of 1957–58, and in his late ontology, articulated in 1964 in the fragmentary text of _Le visible et l’invisible _. With the exception of a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s 1945 essay “Cezanne’s Doubt,” Fóti engages with Merleau-Ponty’s late and final thought, with close attention to both his scientific and philosophical interlocutors, especially the continental rationalists. Expression shows itself, in Merleau-Ponty’s thought, to be primordial, and this innate and fundamental nature of expression has implications for his understanding of artistic creation, science, and philosophy. (shrink)

En septembre 2021 s’est tenu à Fribourg, en Suisse, le XVIe colloque du CIERGA, plusieurs fois reporté en raison de la pandémie. Comme toujours, c’est l’équipe locale prenant en charge l’organisation qui a donné l’impulsion de la thématique choisie. Or, depuis plusieurs années désormais, l’université de Fribourg accueille le projet européen Locus Ludi. The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity, sous la direction de Véronique Dasen. Ce projet ambitieux envisage toutes les di...

After the ‘empirical turn’ in bioethics, few specific approaches have been developed for doing clinical ethics research in close connection with clinical decision-making on a daily basis. In this paper we describe the ‘committed researcher’ approach to research in clinical ethics that we have developed over the years. After comparing it to two similar research methodological approaches, the ‘embedded researcher’ and ‘deliberative engagement’, we highlight its main features: it is patient-oriented, it is implemented by collegial and multidisciplinary teams, it uses (...) an ethical grid to build the interview guide, and it is geared towards bringing the results to bear on the public debate surrounding the issue at stake. Finally, we position our methodological approach with respect to the ‘is vs. ought’ distinction. We argue that our ‘commitment researcher’ approach to clinical ethics research takes concerned people’s life-building values as the main data, and compares them to the larger normative framework underlying the medical practice at stake. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In recent years, the medical establishment has been speaking in favor of women's autonomy in childbirth by advocating cesarean delivery on maternal request (CDMR). This paper offers to look at the ethical dimension of CDMR through a feminist critique of the medicalization of childbirth and its influence on present‐day medical ethics. I claim that the medicalization of childbirth reflects a sexist bias with regard to conceptions of the body and needs to be used with caution when applied to women's (...) reproductive health. I then use this perspective to critically analyze the position of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) on the ethics of decision‐making in patient‐choice surgery. I claim that informed consent cannot be meaningfully exercised unless women are made aware of the sexist underpinnings of the medical model of childbirth and its influence on the ethical reasoning of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. I also express concern about the effects of normalizing patient‐choice cesarean sections on the choices available to pregnant women using as examples the institutional rules on mandatory cesarean sections for women with a previous cesarean delivery or breech presentation. I conclude with a call for more research into the real cost of convenience in CDMR, particularly as our increasingly strained publicly funded healthcare system would greatly benefit from the de‐medicalization of normal body functions rather than an increased dependence on costly surgical technology. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

Depuis la parution de son premier fascicule en 1877, le Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique joue son rôle de passeur du savoir en faisant connaître à une vaste communauté de chercheurs les résultats des explorations archéologiques qui, dans le monde grec, dans les Balkans, à Chypre, renouvellent les connaissances par l’apport de documents inédits ou réinterprétés. Enraciné dans l’institution qui le publie, l’École française d’Athènes, il n’a cessé d’évoluer avec elle pour être toujours mieu...

Meu intuito é tecer algumas considerações sobre a descoberta e relação de Voltaire com o newtonianismo, e a partir daí refletir de maneira mais geral sobre as possibilidades da aproximação entre filosofia e ciência.

Der Begriff ‚Kompromiss‘ hat seine Wurzeln im lateinischen Kompositum compromissum, compromittere („sich gegenseitig versprechen, eine Entscheidung dem Schiedsrichter zu überlassen“). Spätestens Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts ist der Kompromiss nicht mehr an den Schiedsspruch eines Dritten gebunden. An dessen Stelle tritt eine pragmatische Vereinbarung zwischen streitenden Parteien. Was die Merkmale des Kompromisses sind und welches sein Verhältnis zu ähnlichen Begriffen wie Schmutzige Hände oder Modus Vivendi ist, wird im Artikel geklärt.

Humans possess two nonverbal systems capable of representing numbers, both limited in their representational power: the first one represents numbers in an approximate fashion, and the second one conveys information about small numbers only. Conception of exact large numbers has therefore been thought to arise from the manipulation of exact numerical symbols. Here, we focus on two fundamental properties of the exact numbers as prerequisites to the concept of EXACT NUMBERS : the fact that all numbers can be generated by (...) a successor function and the fact that equality between numbers can be defined in an exact fashion. We discuss some recent findings assessing how speakers of Munduruc (an Amazonian language), and young Western children (3-4 years old) understand these fundamental properties of numbers. (shrink)

This paper explores anthropomorphism in human-animal interactions from the theoretical perspectives of pragmatism and anthropology of communication. Its aim is to challenge the conception of anthropomorphism as the attribution/inference of human properties to a nonhuman animal, i.e. as a special case of the theory of mind, and to articulate and make plausible an alternative conception of anthropomorphism as a situated direct perception of human properties by someone who is engaged in a given situation, and let themselves be affected by the (...) animal. The paper offers an original perspective for in depth ethnographic and empirical studies of anthropomorphism-in-situation. Such studies could bring new insights in the study of how ordinary people make sense of animal’s behaviors in real-life situations. (shrink)

Lors de la publication de sa thèse sur les collections complètes des Discours de Grégoire de Nazianze, en 1997, l'A. signalait que l'inventaire des colletions fourni était incomplet. Il publie donc, pour les autres témoins, une description correspondant à la classification utilisée dans sa thèse. Seuls les manuscrits conservés en Russie n'ont pu être accessibles.

Veronique Foti delves into the full range of Heideggerian texts to elaborate the problematics of historicity, language, and the structure of disclosure or "manifestation" in connection with the Herman poets whom Heidegger invoked along his path of thinking. Foti's reading of these ports is a probing inquiry into the aesthetic, ethical, and political implications of Heidegger's thought. She knows how technicity and poetizing are opposed yet brought together in Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology, how they are both politicized and linked with ethical (...) praxis, and how technicity, poetizing, and praxis cannot be dissevered from Heidegger's essential thinking. (shrink)

Veronique Foti delves into the full range of Heideggerian texts to elaborate the problematics of historicity, language, and the structure of disclosure or "manifestation" in connection with the Herman poets whom Heidegger invoked along his path of thinking. Foti’s reading of these ports (Morike, Trakl, Rilke, Holderlin, and Celan) is a probing inquiry into the aesthetic, ethical, and political implications of Heidegger’s thought. She knows how technicity (techne) and poetizing (poiesis) are opposed yet brought together in Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, how (...) they are both politicized and linked with ethical praxis, and how technicity, poetizing, and praxis cannot be dissevered from Heidegger’s essential thinking. (shrink)

« L'année internationale de la famille », célébrée en 1994, fut l'occasion de toute une série de manifestations, colloques et publications. La revue Politis a consacré un numéro spécial à la famille en décembre 1994 - janvier 1995, tout comme Sciences Humaines et Chronique féministe. Bon nombre d'articles s'apparentent à des bilans de la politique familiale française à l'heure où le deuxième septennat de François Mitterrand s'achève. La gauche a-t-elle transformé les orientations princ...

This piece is a response to Jean-Pierre Reed’s review of Bringing Back the Social into the Sociology of Religion published in Critical Research on Religion. Aside from his appreciation for the contributions of this volume, Jean-Pierre Reed’s critique concentrates on three fundamental issues in relation to the agenda for a critical sociology of religion we advance: scientificism, interdisciplinarity, and politics. This response focuses on scientificism and politics in particular, since they are intimately related and at the core of this book’s (...) evaluation of the subfield. (shrink)

En varios escritos de ciencias políticas, filosofía política, historia y antropología política, la cuestión de la visibilidad ha adquirido un lugar central dentro de los debates relativos a la ciudadanía multicultural. En estas páginas, trataré de esclarecer los procesos de construcción cultural que están en juego en el Caribe colombiano de hoy, a través del caso de Santa Marta, tomando prestado el modelo evolutivo de la ciudadanía propuesto por T.H. Marshall. En este modelo, la fase cultural resulta ser la última (...) de una cadena de reivindicaciones hacia un reconocimiento por parte del Estado-nación. Sin embargo, este marco sigue reproduciendo y obscureciendo una primacía fenomenológica inherente a la concepción derivada de la modernidad política, en donde el sentido de la vista – y el término resultante de “visibilidad”– se ha vuelto el único modo de categorización. En este artículo, se pretende demostrar cómo el caso de la producción de una forma de ciudadanía cultural por medio de “lo afro” en la ciudad de Santa Marta, interrumpe actualmente esta cadena fenomenológico-política, y nos faculta para imaginar otras modalidades sensoriales que lleguen a ser parte integrante de una práctica ciudadana “multicultural”. (shrink)

When describing motion along both the horizontal and vertical axes, languages from different families express the elements encoding verticality before those coding for horizontality (e.g., going up right instead of right up). In light of the motor grounding of language, the present study investigated whether the prevalence of verticality in Path expression also governs the trajectory of arm biological movements. Using a 3D virtual-reality setting, we tracked the kinematics of hand pointing movements in five spatial directions, two of which implied (...) the vertical and horizontal vectors equally (i.e., up right +45° and bottom right −45°). Movement onset could be prompted by visual or auditory verbal cues, the latter being canonical in French (“en haut à droite”/up right) or not (“à droite en haut”/right up). In two experiments, analyses of the index finger kinematics revealed a significant effect of gravity, with earlier acceleration, velocity, and deceleration peaks for upward (+45°) than downward (−45°) movements, irrespective of the instructions. Remarkably, confirming the linguistic observations, we found that vertical kinematic parameters occurred earlier than horizontal ones for upward movements, both for visual and congruent verbal cues. Non-canonical verbal instructions significantly affected this temporal dynamic: for upward movements, the horizontal and vertical components temporally aligned, while they reversed for downward movements where the kinematics of the vertical axis was delayed with respect to that of the horizontal one. This temporal dynamic is so deeply anchored that non-canonical verbal instructions allowed for horizontality to precede verticality only for movements that do not fight against gravity. Altogether, our findings provide new insights into the embodiment of language by revealing that linguistic path may reflect the organization of biological movements, giving priority to the vertical axis. (shrink)

Depuis la parution de son premier fascicule en 1877, le Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique joue son rôle de passeur du savoir en faisant connaître à une vaste communauté de chercheurs les résultats des explorations archéologiques qui, dans le monde grec, dans les Balkans, à Chypre, renouvellent les connaissances par l’apport de documents inédits ou réinterprétés. Enraciné dans l’institution qui le publie, l’École française d’Athènes, il n’a cessé d’évoluer avec elle pour être toujours mieu...

Geometry, etymologically the “science of measuring the Earth”, is a mathematical formalization of space. Just as formal concepts of number may be rooted in an evolutionary ancient system for perceiving numerical quantity, the fathers of geometry may have been inspired by their perception of space. Is the spatial content of formal Euclidean geometry universally present in the way humans perceive space, or is Euclidean geometry a mental construction, specific to those who have received appropriate instruction? The spatial content of the (...) formal theories of geometry may depart from spatial perception for two reasons: first, because in geometry, only some of the features of spatial figures are theoretically relevant; and second, because some geometric concepts go beyond any possible perceptual experience. Focusing in turn on these two aspects of geometry, we will present several lines of research on US adults and children from the age of three years, and participants from an Amazonian culture, the Mundurucu. Almost all the aspects of geometry tested proved to be shared between these two cultures. Nevertheless, some aspects involve a process of mental construction where explicit instruction seem to play a role in the US, but that can still take place in the absence of instruction in geometry. (shrink)

Compromises are arrived at when, in spite of the efforts of those participating to mediate and defend their position in a rationally acceptable manner, each remains with his judgment while, at the same time, a decision must be made without further delay. What this means is that the parties agree to an option about which they are not, in their heart of hearts, entirely convinced. This article examines the notion of moral compromise, concentrating thereby on the case of political praxis. (...) It asks whether, in view of the complexity and multiplicity of morally relevant decisions encountered in a pluralist society, it is at all realistic to expect much else from political institutions than what Rawls dismissively refers to as a modus vivendi and whether a conception of justice that is true or reasonable only given the reasonable pluralism of comprehensive doctrines is still a conception of justice, and not simply a compromise between the contending doctrines. (shrink)

An error that medicine has long shared is to attribute to a desire or an effect of the mother’s imagination during gestation, the deformities, growths or spots that a child bears at birth. The imagination would be capable of imprinting external modifications on a matter and would have an impact on the perceptions and sensory development of the fetus. Returning briefly to the genealogy and posterity of the topos, this article focuses on the successes and refutations of the Malebranchist paradigm (...) in the 18th century, through a corpus of medical popularization texts where the debates oppose the supporters of the imagination for whom emotion alters the organs of the fetus and the detractors of this thesis who only see it as prejudice. Mechanistic systems had in common that they avoided the soul to explain life. Although each era has its hermeneutic system of representations, and that medicine—closely dependent on the philosophical and moral conceptions of its time—is also a cultural production, it is nevertheless not uninteresting to question on the fortune of a motive and the scientific topicality of the question. What does the baby perceive in utero? Does he feel his mother’s pain? If so, what is the biological impact? To what extent can the maternal imagination and experience mark the child’s body? Informed by functional imaging technologies, recent research returns to the symbiotic link of mother-fetus interactions. Convergences appear between this 18th century and our 21st century. In no case did we want to contrast today’s scientists who are firmly in touch with reality and their predecessors who are prey to imagination. Science, whatever the era, always feeds on imagination. (shrink)

Ouvrages Cathiard Marie-Agnès & Rebière Catherine, Lecture labiale pour l’adulte devenu sourd, 1re éd., Paris, De Boeck Supérieur, 2020, 192 p. Cathiard Marie-Agnès, Vivre avec des prothèses auditives ou des implants cochléaires, éditeur Books On Demand, 2022, 192 p. Directions d’ouvrages collectifs – Ouvrages en collaboration Cathiard Marie-Agnès & Pajon Patrick, Les imaginaires du cerveau, Fernelmont, Intercommunications & Éditions Modulaires Européennes, coll. « Transversales philosophique...