Depuis Droit, mythe et raison (1980) écrit avec Jacques Lenoble jusqu’aux récents À quoi sert le droit? Usages, fonctions et finalités (2016) ou Le droit, objet de passions (2018), François Ost ne cesse de questionner les rapports de nos sociétés au droit et la place de celui-ci dans nos sociétés contemporaines. Avec Le droit malgré tout, il s’agit de rendre hommage à l’œuvre et à la carrière d’une figure centrale de la théorie du droit contemporaine et aussi au fondateur, avec (...) le regretté Michel van de Kerchove, de ce que l’on appelle parfois « l’école de Saint-Louis ». Abordant les deux pôles de la dialectique à laquelle François Ost est si attaché - la critique et la reconstruction -, l’ouvrage propose un regard interdisciplinaire sur le droit, à travers les principaux thèmes qui ont nourri la pensée de l’auteur. Du statut épistémologique de la science du droit à un questionnement sur les fondements et l’avenir du droit et de la justice, des liens qu’entretiennent le droit et la littérature jusqu’à l’environnement saisi par le droit en passant par les « communs », les approches de ses collègues et amis sont toutes réflexives et critiques. En ce qu’elles sont soucieuses de soumettre le droit au regard des sciences sociales et, inversement, les normativités extra-juridiques au regard du droit, elles sont fidèles à la démarche de François Ost. Ce Liber Amicorum propose aussi un retour réflexif sur son œuvre par l’auteur lui-même, dans un entretien avec Manuel Atienza. Contributeurs : Yves CARTUYVELS, Robert JACOB, Mark VAN HOECKE, Jacques COMMAILLE, Isabelle HACHEZ, Laurent VAN EYNDE, Jacques LENOBLE, Benoit FRYDMAN, Alain PAPAUX, Guillaume DE STEXHE, Diane BERNARD, Antoine GARAPON, Jacques CHEVALLIER, Alain SUPIOT, Paul MARTENS, Jérémie VAN MEERBEECK, Sébastien VAN DROOGHENBROECK, Nicolas BERNARD et Françoise TULKENS, Pierre LEGRAND, Annette RUELLE, Isabelle OST, Jeanne GAAKEER, Massimo VOGLIOTTI, Denis SALAS, Pauline BÉGASSE DE DHAEM et Marie-Sophie DE CLIPPELE, Xavier DELGRANGE, Delphine MISONNE, Benoît JADOT, Alain STROWEL, Hugues DUMONT, Jean-Guy BELLEY, Antoine BAILLEU. (shrink)

‘Epistemic’ arguments for conservatism typically claim that given the limits of human reason, we are better off accepting some particular social practice or institution rather than trying to consciously improve it. I critically examine and defend here one such argument, claiming that there are some domains of social life in which, given the limits of our knowledge and the complexity of the social world, we ought to defer to those institutions that have robustly endured in a wide variety of circumstances (...) in the past while not being correlated with intolerable outcomes. These are domains of social life in which our ignorance of optimal institutions is radical, and there is uncertainty about the costs of error. This is an argument for the preservation of particular institutions, not particular policies or outcomes, and it specifically identifies these with the institutions that John Rawls called ‘the basic structure of society.’ The argument further implies that to the extent that there is any reason to change these institutions, changes should be calculated as far as possible to increase their ‘epistemic power.’. (shrink)

A collection of essays on the approaches and applications of Deleuze's philosophy to the bodyUsing a variety of contemporary cultural, scientific and philosophical lines of enquiry, the contributors produce a truly multidisciplinary view of the Deleuzian body, inviting us to look afresh at art, movement and literature.The Deleuzian body is not necessarily a human body, but the lines of enquiry here all illuminate the idea of the human body and thinking about formation, origins and becoming in relation to power, creativity (...) and affect. (shrink)

Uncertainty is recognized as a key issue in water resources research, amongst other sciences. Discussions of uncertainty typically focus on tools and techniques applied within an analysis, e.g. uncertainty quantification and model validation. But uncertainty is also addressed outside the analysis, in writing scientific publications. The language that authors use conveys their perspective of the role of uncertainty when interpreting a claim —what we call here “framing” the uncertainty. This article promotes awareness of uncertainty framing in four ways. 1) It (...) proposes a typology of eighteen uncertainty frames, addressing five questions about uncertainty. 2) It describes the context in which uncertainty framing occurs. This is an interdisciplinary topic, involving philosophy of science, science studies, linguistics, rhetoric, and argumentation. 3) We analyze the use of uncertainty frames in a sample of 177 abstracts from the Water Resources Research journal in 2015. This helped develop and tentatively verify the typology, and provides a snapshot of current practice. 4) Provocative recommendations promote adjustments for a more influential, dynamic science. Current practice in uncertainty framing might be described as carefully-considered incremental science. In addition to uncertainty quantification and degree of belief (present in ~5% of abstracts), uncertainty is addressed by a combination of limiting scope, deferring to further work (~25%) and indicating evidence is sufficient (~40%) – or uncertainty is completely ignored (~8%). There is a need for public debate within our discipline to decide in what context different uncertainty frames are appropriate. Uncertainty framing cannot remain a hidden practice evaluated only by lone reviewers. (shrink)

Essai sur le christianisme.--Essai de philosophie cartésienne et kantienne.--La foi de l'Occident.

Theories are processes modelled by thought. When they evolve in time, they are transformed and become new theories. They may cross from one academic discipline to another, then open up to new areas of human knowledge, mixing together the humanities, art, science and even spirituality. The way they are modelled reveals their plasticity and their elasticity is tested in their potential for transfer from one domain to another, while the different contacts they make and mergers they undergo generate a certain (...) hybridity. Plasticity, elasticity and hybridity are the triad which make the transfer of theories possible. (shrink)

La lecture de Fourier que nous voudrions privilégier trouve sa légitimité dans un questionnement contemporain sur l'économie, sa nature et sa place. Nous voudrions montrer que Fourier a l'audace de remettre en question les présupposés de l'économie de son siècle. Il pressent, dès les linéaments du développement du capitalisme industriel et marchand, les aberrations et excès de celui-ci : embryon d'une économie en démesure, menacée par des dérèglements et crises récurrentes. Nous avons pris l'...

La lecture de Fourier que nous voudrions privilégier trouve sa légitimité dans un questionnement contemporain sur l'économie, sa nature et sa place. Nous voudrions montrer que Fourier a l'audace de remettre en question les présupposés de l'économie de son siècle. Il pressent, dès les linéaments du développement du capitalisme industriel et marchand, les aberrations et excès de celui-ci : embryon d'une économie en démesure, menacée par des dérèglements et crises récurrentes. Nous avons pris l'...

This essay discusses an important early French response to the American Revolution, chapters 38-52 in Book 18 of Raynal and Diderot's Histoire des deux Indes (1780), and explores how this reponse was shaped by the influence of Montesquieu. In Raynal and Diderot's conception of political freedom, as in Montesquieu's, universalism is tempered by empiricism. Public opinion must never be ignored, local factors matter: the two philosophes praise the American revolutionaries for their wisdom in this respect. Clearly Montesquieuan in inspiration, the (...) American chapters of the Histoire des deux Indes constitute one of the most significant pre-revolutionary examples of moderate liberalism in France. (shrink)

From Newton da Costa’s works, many people in France know only the revival of paraconsistency. We give some reasons in defence of investigations in this part of logic. But above all we recall one of the major contributions of Newton da Costa: his proof, in 1991, in collaboration with Doria, of the gödelian undecidability of motion in mathematical physics, a result which was somewhat foreseen on other grounds by Duhem in 1906.

O objetivo de nosso artigo é compreender as noções de fé perceptiva , filosofia e ciência em Le visible et l’invisible (1964). Essas noções nos devem levar a um dos pontos fundamentais do pensamento merleau-pontyano, em que a interrogaçáo ontológica parte essencialmente da fé perceptiva para chegar a uma ontologia da carne.

Trata-se de uma resenha das obras Sobrinho de Rameau de Denis Diderot, Sobre a Verdade e Mentira no sentido Extra-Moral de Friedrich Nietzsche e A construção das ciências: introdução à filosofia e á ética das ciências de Gerárd Fourez. Os textos foram lidos com base nas seguintes questões: Quais são as bases de sustentação do conhecimento?; O que é a verdade e se é possível alcançá-la de forma objetiva; O que é a ciência e o que ela representa na busca (...) pela verdade e o conhecimento? e Quais as possibilidades da linguagem na busca pelo conhecimento? Concluiu-se que o que Diderot caracteriza como idiotismo aparenta-se com os valores morais seguidos pelo instinto de rebanho nos indivíduos de Nietzsche. Para Fourez observar é sempre representar e na representação nunca se obtém do objeto sua verdadeira essência. Desconstruir conceitos, apreender o aspecto fluido e mutável das coisas e dos valores, seria essa a linha mestra dos textos tratados neste trabalho. (shrink)

Dynamic Epistemic Logic (DEL) deals with the representation and the study in a multi-agent setting of knowledge and belief change. It can express in a uniform way epistemic statements about: 1. what is true about an initial situation 2. what is true about an event occurring in this situation 3. what is true about the resulting situation after the event has occurred. We axiomatize within the DEL framework what we can infer about (iii) given (i) and (ii). Given three formulas (...) φ,φ' and φ" describing respectively (i), (ii) and (iii), we also show how to build a formula φ ? φ' which captures all the information which can be inferred about (iii) from φ and φ'. We show how our results extend to other modal logics than K. In our proofs and definitions, we resort to a large extent to the normal form formulas for modal logic originally introduced by Kit Fine. In a companion paper (Aucher, 2012), we axiomatize what we can infer about (ii) given (i) and (iii), and what we can infer about (i) given (ii) and (iii), and show how to build two formulas φ ? φ" and φ' ? φ" which capture respectively all the information which can be inferred about (ii) from φ and φ", and all the information which can be inferred about (i) from φ' and φ". (shrink)

En enero de 1974 Zubiri dio un breve curso en la Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones de Madrid sobre el tema Tres dimensiones del ser humano: individual, social e histórica. Meses después publicó la última de esas lecciones bajo el título de La dimensión histórica del ser humano. El presente volumen recoge el texto de las tres conferencias, más la versión escrita de la última de ellas. La tesis que Zubiri desarrolla en estas lecciones es que el ser humano es (...) a la vez y necesariamente individual, social e histórico, y que estas dimensiones vienen exigidas por su propia realidad específica, que es pluralizante, continuante y prospectiva. (shrink)

A hipótese que propomos aqui defende que o dispositivo do "médico da civilização" montado em 1962 pela leitura que Deleuze faz de Nietzsche, longe de poder ser generalizado como tal (como se a sequência da obra deleuziana não fosse senão a sua aplicação diferenciada ou mesmo a sua continuação por outros meios), somente age nessa sequencia por força de um deslocamento da enunciação deleuziana em relação à instância da filosofia clínica que ele define. E que, por essa razão, a figura (...) do filósofo como médico da civilização permite melhor problematizar algumas dificuldades que a tarefa de uma sintomatologia dos modos coletivos de existência encontra. Ao tomar esta tarefa a sério, eu diria, finalmente, que o deslocamento do dispositivo nietzschiano em relação ao encontro com Guattari e ao Anti-Édipo encontra um ponto de resolução, ou pelo menos coerência e equilíbrio, na determinação de uma prática analítica sui generis, a mesma que Guattari designa "esquizo-análise" e, mais especificamente, no conceito de agenciamento que, de Anti-Édipo a Mil Platôs, vai suportar cada vez mais claramente suas coordenadas próprias. (shrink)

It is shown that axiomatic extensions of intuitionistic propositional calculus defining univocally new connectives, including those proposed by Gabbay, are strongly complete with respect to valuations in Heyting algebras with additional operations. In all cases, the double negation of such a connective is equivalent to a formula of intuitionistic calculus. Thus, under the excluded third law it collapses to a classical formula, showing that this condition in Gabbay's definition is redundant. Moreover, such connectives can not be interpreted in all Heyting (...) algebras, unless they are already equivalent to a formula of intuitionistic calculus. These facts relativize to connectives over intermediate logics. In particular, the intermediate logic with values in the chain of length n may be "completed" conservatively by adding a single unary connective, so that the expanded system does not allow further axiomatic extensions by new connectives. (shrink)

It is shown that axiomatic extensions of intuitionistic propositional calculus defining univocally new connectives, including those proposed by Gabbay, are strongly complete with respect to valuations in Heyting algebras with additional operations. In all cases, the double negation of such a connective is equivalent to a formula of intuitionistic calculus. Thus, under the excluded third law it collapses to a classical formula, showing that this condition in Gabbay's definition is redundant. Moreover, such connectives can not be interpreted in all Heyting (...) algebras, unless they are already equivalent to a formula of intuitionistic calculus. These facts relativize to connectives over intermediate logics. In particular, the intermediate logic with values in the chain of length n may be "completed" conservatively by adding a single unary connective, so that the expanded system does not allow further axiomatic extensions by new connectives. (shrink)

An extensions by new axioms and rules of an algebraizable logic in the sense of Blok and Pigozzi is not necessarily algebraizable if it involves new connective symbols, or it may be algebraizable in an essentially different way than the original logic. However, extension whose axioms and rules define implicitly the new connectives are algebraizable, via the same equivalence formulas and defining equations of the original logic, by enriched algebras of its equivalente quasivariety semantics. For certain strongly algebraizable logics, all (...) connectives defined implicitly by axiomatic extensions of the logic are explicitly definable. (shrink)

An extensions by new axioms and rules of an algebraizable logic in the sense of Blok and Pigozzi is not necessarily algebraizable if it involves new connective symbols, or it may be algebraizable in an essentially different way than the original logic. However, extension whose axioms and rules define implicitly the new connectives are algebraizable, via the same equivalence formulas and defining equations of the original logic, by enriched algebras of its equivalente quasivariety semantics. For certain strongly algebraizable logics, all (...) connectives defined implicitly by axiomatic extensions of the logic are explicitly definable. (shrink)

In this paper, we use an experimental design to compare the performance of elicitation rules for subjective beliefs. Contrary to previous works in which elicited beliefs are compared to an objective benchmark, we consider a purely subjective belief framework. The performance of different elicitation rules is assessed according to the accuracy of stated beliefs in predicting success. We measure this accuracy using two main factors: calibration and discrimination. For each of them, we propose two statistical indexes and we compare the (...) rules’ performances for each measurement. The matching probability method provides more accurate beliefs in terms of discrimination, while the quadratic scoring rule reduces overconfidence and the free rule, a simple rule with no incentives, which succeeds in eliciting accurate beliefs. Nevertheless, the matching probability appears to be the best mechanism for eliciting beliefs due to its performances in terms of calibration and discrimination, but also its ability to elicit consistent beliefs across measures and across tasks, as well as its empirical and theoretical properties. (shrink)

The Statesman is a difficult and puzzling Platonic dialogue. In A Stranger's Knowledge Marquez argues that Plato abandons here the classic idea, prominent in the Republic, that the philosopher, qua philosopher, is qualified to rule. Instead, the dialogue presents the statesman as different from the philosopher, the possessor of a specialist expertise that cannot be reduced to philosophy. The expertise is of how to make a city resilient against internal and external conflict in light of the imperfect sociality of human (...) beings and the poverty of their reason. This expertise, however, cannot be produced on demand: one cannot train statesmen like one might train carpenters. Worse, it cannot be made acceptable to the citizens, or operate in ways that are not deeply destructive to the city's stability. Even as the political community requires his knowledge for its preservation, the genuine statesman must remain a stranger to the city. Marquez shows how this impasse is the key to understanding the ambiguous reevaluation of the rule of law that is the most striking feature of the political philosophy of the Statesman. The law appears here as a mere approximation of the expertise of the inevitably absent statesman, dim images and static snapshots of the clear and dynamic expertise required to steer the ship of state across the storms of the political world. Yet such laws, even when they are not created by genuine statesmen, can often provide the city with a limited form of cognitive capital that enables it to preserve itself in the long run, so long as citizens, and especially leaders, retain a “philosophical” attitude towards them. It is only when rulers know that they do not know better than the laws what is just or good (and yet want to know what is just and good) that the city can be preserved. The dialogue is thus, in a sense, the vindication of the philosopher-king in the absence of genuine political knowledge. (shrink)