Second volet de ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler la derniere philosophie de Maine de Biran, ce volume consacre a l'anthropologie de 1823-1824 donne l'etat final d'un projet elabore dans ses grandes lignes une vingtaine d'annees auparavant, mais repense largement a partir de 1815-1818. A la vie animale et a la vie humaine, s'ajoute desormais une vie de l'esprit qui contraint le philosophe a reevaluer l'organisation de l'ensemble. Derniers efforts du philosophe pour fermer son cercle, la Note sir l'idee d'existence et (...) les Nouveaux essais d'anthropologie, edites ici sur de nouvelles bases, permettent de mesurer le champ parcouru par lui depuis l'epoque ou il se croyait disciple des Ideologues. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Pages de début Avant-propos Introduction Chapitre 1 Chapitre 2 Chapitre 3 Chapitre 4 Chapitre 5 Chapitre 6 Chapitre 7 Conclusion Bibliographie Pages defin.

Marqués par Descartes et Locke, les philosophes de ce siècle se sont notamment intéressés à l'épistémologie devenue alors discipline philosophique fondamentale.

Deviens meilleur! est un imperatif pour l'etre humain. Nous avons besoin de nous perfectionner sans cesse, de nous depasser parfois, pour atteindre les buts que nous nous fixons ou que d'autres nous fixent. Cette aspiration a d'ailleurs ete conceptualisee comme un devoir moral par certains philosophes tels Kant ou Aristote. Pourtant, ce projet d'amelioration, remis au centre de l'actualite sous le nom de human enhancement par des auteurs anglo-saxons, est actuellement recu avec fraicheur, voire parfois avec une franche hostilite. Depasser (...) ses limites serait-il devenu moralement discutable? C'est ce qu'on entend souvent, surtout lorsque, par-dela l'augmentation de l'etre humain, on voit poindre un etre posthumain ou transhumain. Un tel etre suscite des emotions negatives allant parfois jusqu'a la panique, puisque son avenement signifierait craint-on la fin de l'humanisme. Mais est-ce vraiment le cas? Quand on examine calmement ce courant, on se rend compte que si, effectivement, il justifie certaines inquietudes morales, il reste toutefois en accord avec un projet immemorial, celui de rendre le monde que nous habitons plus humain. (shrink)

Les textes que nous reproduisons dans ce volume ont ete rediges entre 1792 et 1798. Ce sont les premiers ecrits philosophiques de Maine de Biran, jalonnant une pensee qui se forme peu a peu, avant d'aboutir a un premier resultat, le memoire intitule Influence de l'habitude sur la faculte de penser, dont la redaction commence vers la fin 1799, le sujet ayant ete mis au concours le 6 octobre par l'Institut. Tous les textes regroupes dans ce volume appartiennent a cette (...) periode de formation, qui doit beaucoup aux evenements de la Revolution. Sont ici presentes quatre periodes: 1792, 1793-1795, 1797 et 1798, entre lesquelles, d'ailleurs, on ne peut discerner aucune difference doctrinale marquante, aucune evolution significative dans la pensee, sinon, parfois, un deplacement des centres d'interets. (shrink)

Tous ceux qui s’intéressent à la vie et à l’œuvre de Descartes connaissent l’épisode rapporté par Adrien Baillet dans sa Vie de monsieur Descartes et évoqué par Descartes lui-même dans une lettre à son ami Villebressieu en 1631 : vers la fin des années 1620, le jeune Descartes participa à Paris chez le nonce apostolique, le cardinal Guidi di Bagno, à une « assemblée de personnes savantes et curieuses », parmi lesquelles le cardinal de Berulle et Mersenne. L’orateur était..

ABSTRACT Moral status is a vexing topic. Linked for so long to the unending debates about ensoulment and the morality of abortion, it has recently resurfaced in the embryonic stem cell controversy. In this new context, it should benefit from new insights originating in recent scientific advances. We believe that the recently observed capability of somatic cells to return to a pluripotential state (a capability we propose to name ‘reversed potency’) in a controlled manner requires us to modify the traditional (...) concept of moral status and to consider it as referring not only to intrinsic properties (like ‘to possess reason’ or ‘to be a person’), but also to extrinsic or relational ones. (shrink)

Résumé Le mode d’organisation par problèmes qui caractérise les Éléments de Géométrie d’Alexis Clairaut (1741) trouve plausiblement son origine dans l’introduction d’une catégorie éditoriale nouvelle dans une des éditions françaises des huit livres d’Euclide par le père Jésuite Claude-François Milliet-Dechales (1677) : celle des « Usages » adjoints à certaines propositions. La transformation de cette nouveauté éditoriale dans les commentaires de Jacques Ozanam au texte de Dechales en 1690, puis sa réélaboration dans son Cours mathématiques de 1693, conduit à un (...) dispositif d’introduction à la géométrie très proche de ce que proposera ensuite Clairaut, moyennant plusieurs simplifications drastiques. Cette reconstruction est étayée par la lecture que proposera plus tard La Chapelle, dans ses Institutions de Géométrie (1746) aussi bien des « Usages » de Dechales et d’Ozanam que de la méthode d’exposition de Clairaut. Nous montrons au passage que La Chapelle s’inspire largement de cette dernière. (shrink)

Alors que Bernard Teyssèdre avait publié en 2007 une nouvelle édition de son Roman de l’Origine revue et augmentée (et que Thierry Savatier était sur le point de publier une nouvelle édition de L’Origine du monde, Histoire d’un tableau de Gustave Courbet ), Jean Da Silva lui apprit qu’une photographie du tableau exposé au musée d’Orsay avait circulé en France pendant une vingtaine d’années avant d’être publiée en 1953 dans des revues oubliées ; ce qui bouleversait l’idée que l’on (...) avait encore en 2009 de la connaissance de ce tableau. S’ensuivit ensuite un jeu de piste à deux, sur le blog, par courriels et au téléphone. (shrink)

Le XVIIIe siècle, siècle des Lumières, évoque immanquablement dans nos esprits les noms de Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire, D'Alembert. Né à Uzès (Gard) en 1679, mort en 1767, Firmin Abauzit, réfugié à Genève après la révocation de l'édit de Nantes en 1685, marqua cependant de son empreinte cette époque si riche, et ce, malgré l'ignorance que notre siècle paraît en avoir ; adulé, recherché par ses contemporains pour sa science infinie et sa tolérance inflexible, il fut le père spirituel de Jean-Jacques (...) Rousseau, et le maître à penser des plus éminents scientifiques (Newton, Leibniz), philosophes (Voltaire, Rousseau), et souverains de son temps (Guillaume III d'Angleterre), illuminant de sa clarté cet aréopage. Même l'intransigeant Sainte-Beuve condescendit à faire son éloge au XIXe siècle. Malheureusement oublié par son excès de modestie, son refus de publier, il mérite par la modernité de ses idées et la profondeur de son esprit, de ressurgir aujourd'hui du passé et de retrouver sa place au sommet, comme Rousseau l'a si bien clamé dans la Nouvelle Héloïse : " Non ce siècle de la philosophie ne passera point sans avoir connu un vrai philosophe et un seul! Sage et savant Abauzit... " Que notre siècle lui rende cet honneur. (shrink)

Résumé L'association pour l'étude du fait religieux a tenu en juin 1975, à l'université de Genève, son premier colloque. Thème général: société, religion et spiritualité. Objectif: d'une part, essayer de distinguer les aspects social et spirituel de la religion et, de l'autre, promouvoir une discussion interdisciplinaire entre spécialistes d'approches différentes. Ce numéro 76/4 de DIALECTICA contient le texte des exposés qui ont introduit le colloque.Summary The Association for the study of the religious fact held its first symposium in June 1975 (...) at the University of Geneva. The general theme was society, religion and spirituality. The aims were on the one hand, to distinguish between the social and spiritual aspects of religion and, on the other, to encourage an interdisciplinary discussion between specialists with different points of view. The present number 76/4 of DIALECTICA contains the text of the expositions which were presented at the beginning of the symposium.Zusammenfassung Die Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des Religiösen führte im Juni 1975 an der Universität Genf ihr erstes Kolloquium durch. Das allgemeine Thema lautete: Gesellschaft, Religion und Spiritualität. Die Zielsetzung bestand darin, einerseits den gesellschaftlichen und geistlichen Aspekt der Religion zu unterscheiden suchen und andererseits eine interdisziplinare Diskussion zwischen Spezialisten verschiedener Fachgebiete zu fördern. Die vorliegende Ausgabe 76/4 von DIALECTICA enthält den Wortlaut der Einfiihrüngsreferate dieses Kolloquiums. (shrink)

Moral status is a vexing topic. Linked for so long to the unending debates about ensoulment and the morality of abortion, it has recently resurfaced in the embryonic stem cell controversy. In this new context, it should benefit from new insights originating in recent scientific advances. We believe that the recently observed capability of somatic cells to return to a pluripotential state (a capability we propose to name 'reversed potency') in a controlled manner requires us to modify the traditional concept (...) of moral status and to consider it as referring not only to intrinsic properties (like 'to possess reason' or 'to be a person'), but also to extrinsic or relational ones. (shrink)

For some decades, the concept of human dignity has been widely discussed in bioethical literature. Some authors think that this concept is central to questions of respect for human beings, whereas others are very critical of it. It should be noted that, in these debates, dignity is one component of a long-lasting and widespread conceptual construct used to support a stance on the ethical question of the moral status of an action or being. This construct has been used from Modernity (...) onward to condemn slavery and torture as violations of human dignity. In spelling it out, we can come to a better understanding of what “dignity” means and become aware that there exists a quite useful place for this notion in our ethical thought, albeit a modest one. (shrink)

Recently at the J. Craig Venter Institute, a microorganism has been created through synthetic biology. In the future, more complex living beings will very probably be produced. In our natural environment, we live amongst a whole variety of beings. Some of them have moral status — they have a moral importance and we cannot treat them in just any way we please —; some do not. When it becomes possible to create artificially living beings who naturally possess moral status, will (...) this artificiality modify their status? Many people contend that it will, but I am not of the same mind and will develop three arguments against it. (shrink)

This article analyses neuronal determinism and mentions that at first sight it appears to be a type of qualified determinism. Neurodeterminism is better conceived as determinism tout court when it is applied to human beings. It differs importantly from genetic determinism, together the two views that are often regarded as similar in form if not in content. Moreover, the article examines the question of genetic determinism, because it is a paradigm of qualified determinism. It then explains the meaning of determinism (...) tout court, its relation with the notions of “free will” and “responsibility,” and the debate about their alleged incompatibility. It provides an understanding of what neurodeterminism consists of, shows that it should be conceived as determinism tout court when it is applied to human beings, imparting an empirical turn to a very old metaphysical conundrum. (shrink)

Intuitively, we judge that our responsibility has more to do with what we do than what we omit to do, and that it extends more to intended effects than to side-effects of our deeds. These intuitions have been expressed in our tradition through two principles: the doctrine of acts and omissions and the doctrine of double effect. Jonathan Glover acknowledges that these two principles are important, but believes that it is eventually better to discard them and, instead, to stick to (...) the consequentialist view that our responsibility extends equally to all the consequences of our behavior. I first examine Glover’s objections against the two principles and then present Joshua Greene’s research on the neuropsychology of moral judgment. These rest heavily on our reactions to certain moral dilemmas, in particular the trolley problem, and have recourse to neuroimaging. Greene’s conclusions go in the same direction as Glover’s more conceptual arguments. However, both authors share a common philosophical view, i.e., consequentialism. Thus, in a last section I consider some difficulties that this moral view encounters, and with the aid of other neuropsychological studies, I conclude that it is not judicious to put aside the intentions of an agent. (shrink)

Lorsqu'il est question de distribuer les soins de santé de manière juste, le critère qui est le plus souvent spontanément proposé est le besoin. Il faut soigner chacun selon ses besoins. Dans cette étude, nous examinons la signification de ce critère et ses limites. Il apparaît en effet, dès qu'on entre dans les détails, qu'on rencontre de graves difficultés lorsqu'on veut l'appliquer. Ces difficultés sont conceptuelles (le besoin a plusieurs significations) et substantielles (le besoin est insuffisant comme critère). Nous concluons (...) que la justice demande qu'on abandonne au moins partiellement l'approche de haut en bas (l'application d'un critère aux cas particuliers) au profit d'une approche de bas en haut, laissant plus de place au patient comme autorité de décision. When we consider just distribution of health care, the criterion we usually encounter is need. We must treat patients proportionally to their needs. In this paper, we examine the meaning and limits of this criterion. As soon as we go into the details, we encounter serious difficulties in its application. Those difficulties are conceptual (need has various meanings) and substantial (need is not enough as a criterion).We conclude that justice requires a partial renunciation to a top-down approach (application of a criterion to particular cases) on behalf of a bottom-up one, giving more weight to the patient, as an authority of choice. (shrink)

To read into the mind of another person has for a long time been a fantasy—and sometimes a vague possibility. In science fiction, there are stories of aliens who are able to decipher the thoughts of other beings using some type of device. When I was a boy, I remember reading a cartoon of Bibi Fricotin, in which Bibi, a young boy like me, found some glasses that allowed him to read other people’s thoughts. For a time, I was afraid (...) when I came across adults wearing glasses. With such devices, privacy and childish innocence would be in jeopardy, but fortunately, this was only a remote possibility. The idea would be worrying for lay people, ethicists and lawyers, but it is only a fantasy. Recently, with the development... (shrink)

Progress in our knowledge of the brain’s functioning has led to two related trends. The first consists in a medicalisation of some behaviours that, till now, were considered as pertaining to ethics. The second, in an opposite manner, consists in attributing several conditions, generally considered as pathological or immoral, to human normal diversity, whence the introduction of a new concept: neurodiversity. Thus, for some authors, autism and hyperactivity would not be diseases, psychopathy and paedophilia would not be vices or crimes, (...) but manifestations of human neurodiversity. The topic of neurodiversity is exemplified in the debate about cochlear implants. Some deaf persons refuse implants for their children because they want their children to remain deaf in order to be better integrated in the deaf culture and community. The language of cultural diversity here replaces the language of disability. Some degree of human neurodiversity cannot be denied, but it necessarily encounters limits, and it is important to determine where they are. It also has an impact on our conception of the human condition. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 19 Heft: 1 Seiten: 189-202.

Les attaques que Feyerabend a dirigées depuis un certain temps contre les conceptions dominantes de la rationalité scientifique, celles des inductivistes et de Popper principalement, sont intimement liées à sa manière d'envisager l'opposition entre le réalisme scientifique et l'instrumentalisme, c'est-à-dire entre deux thèses concernant les rapports de la rèalité et de la connaissance scientifique. C'est ce dernier point que nous aimerions aborder ici, dans le projet d'y apporter un certain nom-bre de clarifications, qui permettront aussi de montrer que les difficultés (...) que Feyerabend a cru trouver recemment dans la position realiste, et qui ont provoqué une modification de ses conceptions, viennent de ce qu'il n'a pas vu toute l'importance de certaines distinctions. (shrink)

Biotechnologies – synthetic biology in particular – are sometimes blamed for playing God or manifesting hubris, that is, for evincing the vicious attitude of transcending the limits of human agency. In trying to create living organisms, we would adopt an attitude that is immoral for human beings. In this article, I want to show that this blame is unwarranted. I distinguish two aspects of the argument, which claims that it is impossible for human beings to create life and immoral to (...) attempt it. I argue that if we adopt a conception of what life consists of in agreement with the scientific world view, there is no place for hubris. Finally, I maintain that even if we accept a non-scientific conception of life (a vitalist or a supernatural one), we are not in a position to formulate the blame against synthetic biologists because what they do cannot contravene this vitalist or supernaturalist view. (shrink)

On a reproché au modèle perceptuel de la connaissance morale d'être inadéquat en ce qu'il serait incapable d'expliquer le signe distinctif et fondamental de l'éthique, à savoir son caractère normatif. Je tente de montrer que la critique n'est pas pertinente, car le normatif n'a en réalité qu'une place dérivée en morale : l'éthique est d'abord une question de valeurs, entités dont il est tout à fait plausible de dire que nous les percevons. Pour justifier la place dérivée du normatif, je (...) m'appuie sur les études de Max Scheler et sur l'examen de certains traits de la psychologie morale, qui tendent à montrer que le normatif n'est qu'un cas particulier de l'axiologique, mettant en évidence les caractères de force des valeurs, de risques de transgression et de contrainte.The perceptual model of moral knowledge has been the target of criticisms: it could be unable to explain the basic character of ethics, namely its normative character. I try to show that this criticism is misguided: in fact normativity is not central but lateral to ethics. What matters in ethics first and foremost are values, and it is quite appropriate to say we perceive values. To justify the lateral character of normativity, I rely on some analysis of Max Scheler and turn to some traits of moral psychology. It suggests that the normativity is a province of the axiological, characterized by strength of values, risks of transgression and constraint. (shrink)

Leibniz is one of the philosophers who is most present in the philosophy of Maine de Biran, particularly from 1813 onwards. His influence is decisive in the reform of metaphysics (or First Philosophy) that he carries out from that moment on, reviving the notion of substance. Leibniz allows him to reconcile it with the idea of force, and thus to link it to the primitive fact of consciousness. This move has often been emphasized by commentators, but what has been less (...) studied is the way in which this reform takes place in Biran’s intellectual trajectory from the time when he claimed to be an Ideologist inspired by Condillac’s philosophy, to the last texts written in 1824, when he eventually adopted a spiritualist monism that owed much to Leibniz, abandoning the Cartesian-inspired metaphysical dualism to which he had been committed until then. (shrink)

In their paper “Deflating the neuroenhancement bubble”, more precisely in their section entitled “How New is Neuroenhancement?”, Lucke and colleagues argue that neuroenhancement is nothing new to our epoch by demonstrating that the use of psychoactive stimulants in the 19th and 20th centuries was already common. The purpose of our comment is to show that the current bubble surrounding neuroenhancement in particular, and enhancement in general, is a recasting of an even older speculative engagement that can be traced back from (...) the 16th to the 18th centuries. As a consequence, there is a high risk that bioethicists might not have captured or found new conceptual challenges related to current enhancement debate. As well, by ignoring issues related to ancient debate, we argue that modern bioethicists risk spending effort on speculative ethics. (shrink)

Modern physics was born in the 17th century and modern biology one century later. Immediately, scientifics and philosophers ask themselves what is the relationship between those two sciences and between properties of non-living and living matter. Among those scientifics and philosophers, some think that mental phenomena are of biological nature — they are materialists —, so they encounter a second problem: what is the relationship between properties of non-thinking and thinking living matter? This paper examines the doctrine of three French (...) philosophers of the (post-) Enlightenment on those subjects: Diderot, Cabanis and Lamarck, and, as their answer is in terms of causality and supervenience, I compare succinctly their doctrine with those of Searle and Kim. (shrink)

Intuitively, we judge that our responsibility has more to do with what we do than what we omit to do, and that it extends more to intended effects than to side-effects of our deeds. These intuitions have been expressed in our tradition through two principles: the doctrine of acts and omissions and the doctrine of double effect. Jonathan Glover acknowledges that these two principles are important, but believes that it is eventually better to discard them and, instead, to stick to (...) the consequentialist view that our responsibility extends equally to all the consequences of our behavior. I first examine Glover’s objections against the two principles and then present Joshua Greene’s research on the neuropsychology of moral judgment. These rest heavily on our reactions to certain moral dilemmas, in particular the trolley problem, and have recourse to neuroimaging. Greene’s conclusions go in the same direction as Glover’s more conceptual arguments. However, both authors share a common philosophical view, i.e., consequentialism. Thus, in a last section I consider some difficulties that this moral view encounters, and with the aid of other neuropsychological studies, I conclude that it is not judicious to put aside the intentions of an agent. (shrink)

In the contemporary ethical discourse, we constantly take recourse to human rights and dignity, and frequently rights are said to be founded on dignity. However, when we examine this concept, we begin to doubt that this recourse is adequate, because dignity manifests two features that are difficult to reconcile with liberal values on which our societies are established. First, and the appearances notwithstanding, dignity is not a universalist concept; and second, it possesses a perfectionist side. A rapid historical survey will (...) help to understand the point, showing that the concept of dignity refers to a nature that is at the same time a task to perform. (shrink)

Distributive justice, like every other value, is not suspended in mid-air: its implementation depends on certain conditions, the well-known ‹circumstances of justice›. In this paper, I attempt to spell them out, first for justice proper , then for international justice. Those circumstances relate to the conceptual parts of justice and are four in number: scarcity, needs and merit, social cooperation, and authority of distribution. As far as international justice is concerned, there is a problem with the last circumstance: as yet (...) no international authority of distribution exists. This does not, however, mean that international justice is impossible or undesirable; only that we have the task to create such an authority. (shrink)