As a result of evolution, human babies are born with outstanding abilities for human communication and cooperation. The other side of the coin is their great sensitivity to any clear and durable violation in their relationship with caregivers. Infant sustained social withdrawal behavior was first described in infants who had been separated from their caregivers, as in Spitz's description of “hospitalism” and “anaclitic depression.” Later, ISSWB was pointed to as a major clinical psychological feature in failure-to-thrive infants. Fraiberg also described (...) freezing behavior as one of the earliest modes of infant defense in the face of adverse situations threatening the infant's ability to synchronize with caregivers. We hypothesize that ISSWB behaviors are associated with poor vagal brake functioning and that an impaired social engagement system is induced by an impoverished and/or dangerous environment. Recent research using animal models highlight the neurobiology and the genetics of the social Approach/Withdrawal Behavior in infants. The present paper is therefore a plea for social withdrawal behavior to be attributed a more important role as a major psychological defensive mechanism in infancy, and for research into early development and early intervention to make more practical and theoretical use of this concept, thus decreasing the challenge of translation in social neurosciences. This work presents several situations involving developmental hazards in which assessment of ISSWB by means of the Alarm Distress Baby Scale has proven useful, i.e., malnutrition, effects of major maternal depression and or traumatization, assessing social withdrawal in infants with an chronic organic illness or assessing ISSWB in out of home placed infants during parental visitation. Relationships between ISSWB and other biophysiological behavioral systems are discussed, particularly links with attachment processes and Porges's polyvagal theory. (shrink)

Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole were philosophers and theologians associated with Port-Royal Abbey, a centre of the Catholic Jansenist movement in seventeenth-century France. Their enormously influential Logic or the Art of Thinking, which went through five editions in their lifetimes, treats topics in logic, language, theory of knowledge and metaphysics, and also articulates the response of 'heretical' Jansenist Catholicism to orthodox Catholic and Protestant views on grace, free will and the sacraments. In attempting to combine the categorical theory of (...) the proposition with a Cartesian account of knowledge, their Logic represents the classical view of judgment which inspired the modern transformation in logic and semantic theory by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein and recent philosophers. This edition presents a new translation of the text, together with a historical introduction and suggestions for further reading. (shrink)

Results of recent research on hydatidiform moles and teratomas show that during pregnancy the embryo does not receive any message or information from the mother able to control the mechanisms of development or to produce the type of cellular differentiation necessary for building the tissues of the new human adult. Thus, the biological identity of the new human being does not depend on the sojourn in the uterus; the preimplantation embryo is the same individual of the human species as the (...) adult, into whom the embryo can in principle develop. (shrink)

Recent brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have implicated insula and anterior cingulate cortices in the empathic response to another’s pain. However, virtually nothing is known about the impact of the voluntary generation of compassion on this network. To investigate these questions we assessed brain activity using fMRI while novice and expert meditation practitioners generated a loving-kindness-compassion meditation state. To probe affective reactivity, we presented emotional and neutral sounds during the meditation and comparison periods. Our main hypothesis (...) was that the concern for others cultivated during this form of meditation enhances affective processing, in particular in response to sounds of distress, and that this response to emotional sounds is modulated by the degree of meditation training. The presentation of the emotional sounds was associated with increased pupil diameter and activation of limbic regions (insula and cingulate cortices) during meditation (versus rest). During meditation, activation in insula was greater during presentation of negative sounds than positive or neutral sounds in expert than it was in novice meditators. The strength of activation in insula was also associated with self-reported intensity of the meditation for both groups. These results support the role of the limbic circuitry in emotion sharing. The comparison between meditation vs. rest states between experts and novices also showed increased activation in amygdala, right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), and right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) in response to all sounds, suggesting, greater detection of the emotional sounds, and enhanced mentation in response to emotional human vocalizations for experts than novices during meditation. Together these data indicate that the mental expertise to cultivate positive emotion alters the activation of circuitries previously linked to empathy and theory of mind in response to emotional stimuli.. (shrink)

NOTES: Based on the book Socrates on trial written by Andrew Irvine and published by the University of Toronto Press. Performed at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, May 31-June 7, 2008. CONTENTS: Trailer, Who was Socrates?, Selected scenes, The production, Credits. UBC Library Catalogue Permanent URL: http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=3956307.

Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Imagerie Ce´re´brale (LENA), Hoˆpital de La Salpeˆtrie`re, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

In the following article, starting from a progressive understanding of his own subjectivity, a determining factor in developing his capacity to listen to adolescents, the author puts forward the hypothesis that a professional position he describes as "in-between" requires rigor and flexibility, enabling professionals to remain permeable to the unconscious mobilizations of the adolescent-subjects as well as to his own. The author will draw on the results of a longitudinal, partnership-based study that he conducted with ten adolescents, from 2015 to (...) 2020, involving a team of specialized prevention educators. More specifically, the author will retrospectively analyze some excerpts from his encounter with one of the teenagers to reveal possible ways in which a "professional of the social bond" might adopt a rigorous in-between position. (shrink)

Nietzsche once proclaimed himself the 'Buddha of Europe', and throughout his life Buddhism held enormous interest for him. While he followed Buddhist thinking in demolishing what he regarded as the two-headed delusion of Being and Self, he saw himself as advocating a response to the ensuing nihilist crisis that was diametrically opposed to that of his Indian counterpart. In this book Antoine Panaïoti explores the deep and complex relations between Nietzsche's views and Buddhist philosophy. He discusses the psychological models (...) and theories which underlie their supposedly opposing ethics of 'great health' and explodes the apparent dichotomy between Nietzsche's Dionysian life-affirmation and Buddhist life-negation, arguing for a novel, hybrid response to the challenge of formulating a tenable post-nihilist ethics. His book will interest students and scholars of Nietzsche's philosophy, Buddhist thought and the metaphysical, existential and ethical issues that emerge with the demise of theism. (shrink)

The capacity to stabilize the content of attention over time varies among individuals, and its impairment is a hallmark of several mental illnesses. Impairments in sustained attention in patients with attention disorders have been associated with increased trial-to-trial variability in reaction time and event-related potential deficits during attention tasks. At present, it is unclear whether the ability to sustain attention and its underlying brain circuitry are transformable through training. Here, we show, with dichotic listening task performance and electroencephalography, that training (...) attention, as cultivated by meditation, can improve the ability to sustain atten- tion. Three months of intensive meditation training reduced variability in attentional processing of target tones, as indicated by both enhanced theta-band phase consistency of oscillatory neural responses over anterior brain areas and reduced reaction time variability. Furthermore, those individuals who showed the greatest increase in neural response consistency showed the largest decrease in behav- ioral response variability. Notably, we also observed reduced variability in neural processing, in particular in low-frequency bands, regardless of whether the deviant tone was attended or unattended. Focused attention meditation may thus affect both distracter and target processing, perhaps by enhancing entrainment of neuronal oscillations to sensory input rhythms, a mechanism important for controlling the content of attention. These novel findings highlight the mechanisms underlying focused attention meditation and support the notion that mental training can significantly affect attention and brain function. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Ethical concerns are motivating the search for alternative methods to obtain pluripotent stem cells without destroying human embryos. The supporters of these methods stress the importance of ensuring that the biological entities used in these alternative methods are not “disabled or sick human embryos.” In this article the authors argue that biological entities bearing anomalies or alterations that directly inhibit the appearance of neural activity (DIANA anomalies) share the moral status of human organisms fulfilling the clinical criteria for brain death. (...) By contrast, in the absence of DIANA anomalies, the moral status of a person cannot be denied. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 7.2 (Spring 2007): 315–335. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 347 Anoelus Silesius, le POlerin ChOrubinique. By Eugene Susini. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964. 2 vols.) "II a fallu pratiquement attendre le vingti~me si~cle pour que ffit donn~e sa vdritable place Angelus Silesius (de son vrai nom Johannes Scheffier) tomb~ dans l'oubli ou presque pendant plus de deux cents ans," ~crit M. Eugene Susini, Professeur en Sorbonne, dans son introduction au P$lerin Ch~rubinique. Mais si les (...) travaux consacr~s ~ ce podte mystique sont ddj~ nombreux, on n'avait jusqu'~ present ~ditd en France que quelques fragments, ~parpill~s dans des anthologies. Depuis l'ouvrage de M. Henri Plard (1943), il n'y avait pas eu d'ddition qui present ~t ~ nouveau le texte original et une traduction en regard. C'est maintenant chose faite, et M. Susini fair plus que combler cette lacune. En effet, les textes d'Angelus Silesius (16241677 ) sont prdcddds d'une introduction historique, biographique et litt~raire, dtude substantielle sur le milieu off v~cut Angelus Silesius, et sur son itin~raire spirituel. L'originalitd profonde de ce catholique converti se ddgage de cette dtude, dont l'ampleur et la concision forcent l'admiration. Ce n'est pas tout. Ace premier volume un second fait suite, consaer~ ~ d'abondantes notes (178 p.) relatives aux distiques et aux quatrains; ces derni~res s'~elairent les unes les autres, et grace ~ une minutieuse critique interne et externe, ces vers sont replaces dans un contexte plus vaste que le prdsentateur a pris soin d'~clairer par de constantes r~f~rences ~ des passages d'autres oeuvres mystiques, ou des Ecritures elles-mdmes. Enfin, un index alphabdtique complete tr~s utilement ces notes (p. 179 s 257). On ne salt ce qu'il convient d'admirer le plus, le travail de l'~rudit et de l'historien, ou celui du traducteur. La t~iche n'dtait pas aisde; il fallait rendre en alexandrins ce qui avait dt~ compos~ de m~me, afin de laisser aux sentences non seulement leur saveur, mais aussi leur forme d'dpigrammes-proverbes. I1 faut dire que la r~ussite est totale. Le P~lerin Ch~rubinique est en m~me temps un ouvrage ddfinitif, car on ne volt pasce que pourrait apporter une nouvelle traduction, une prgsentation du texte original different, ou un nouveau recueil de notes--ces derni~res ~tant ici d'une grande ampleur. C'est un ouvrage important, non seulement pour le germaniste, mais aussi pour l'historien des litt~ratures, et celui des religions. ANTOINE F~IVRE The Sense oj Decadence in Nineteenth-Century France. By Koenraad W. Swart. (Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Idles, 7; The Hague : M. Nijhoff, 1964. Pp. xi + 272. Gld. 27.50.) "Seek and ye shall find!" Scholars have generally followed this injunction and found in history pretty much what they set out to discover. For a long time, the nineteenth century was seen as an age of progress, its own self-image seeming to bear this out. More recently our own concern with decadence has led us to discover similar views in earlier times. After A. E. Carter, 1 Professor Koenraad Swart has given us The Sense o] Decadence in NineteenthJCentury France (The Hague : 1964), the seventh volume to appear in Martinus Nijhoff's International Archives of the History of Ideas. This is a broader chronicle than Carter's. It presents the antecedents of the idea of decadence from antiquity to the French Revolution, its modern forms rooted in a diversity of romantic reactions, its fin-de-si~cle culmination and its (temporary) waning before the brief affirmative revival that preceded World War I. In terms of present preoccupations, this is a timely book. A solid concluding chapter sketches "the foreign perspective," in which French developments appear as part of a broader context. The study provides a mine of information, a convenient companion and counterindicator to Bury's Idea o] Progress. Why, then, is it a dull and unsatisfactory book? In the first place because, having suggested the existence of another dimension to the histoire de grand-papa, the history of ideas cannot be written as, simply, another version of the serial chronicle of events. It... (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Without shouting it from the rooftops, Latour never hid the fact that he was a Catholic. Taking advantage of their friendly closeness, Antoine Hennion takes the liberty of proposing various readings of the way in which this curious parishioner lived his faith, each more or less compatible with the others, and with no need to decide between them.

This article presents the implications, objectives and initial results of a current ethnographic research project on music lovers. It looks at problems of theory and method posed by such research if it is not conceived only as the explanation of external determinisms, relating taste to the social origins of the amateur or to the aesthetic properties of the works. Our aim is, on the contrary, from long interviews and observations undertaken with music lovers, mostly in the classical field, to concentrate (...) on gestures, objects, mediums, devices and relations engaged in a form of playing or listening, which amounts to more than the actualization of a taste `already there', for they are redefined during the action, with a result that is partly uncertain. This is why amateurs' attachments and ways of doing things can both engage and form subjectivities, rather than merely recording social labels, and have a history, irreducible to that of the taste for works. (shrink)

Although Boorse’s and Wakefield’s accounts of health are generally regarded as competing ones, they are in fact so only if they are aimed at the same concept. Some remarks made by Boorse and Wakefield, however, leave it unclear whether they are. On one possible interpretation, Boorse’s account aims at analysing a theoreticalconcept of abnormality, which ought to be distinguished from a more clinicalor therapeuticconcept, whereas Wakefield’s account aims at analysing a clinicalor therapeuticconcept. The debate between Boorse and Wakefield would then (...) either be merely terminological, or would boil down to whether Boorse is correct to assert the existence of a theoreticalconcept of abnormality which ought to be distinguished from a clinicalor therapeuticone. This paper aims to clarify what is at stake between Boorse and Wakefield, by maintaining that their accounts are most plausibly interpreted as both being aimed towards a theoreticalconcept of abnormality. (shrink)

Danchin argues that if scientists can reach a level of understanding of genomes, they will be able to resolve the major biological puzzle of the 21st century: the enigma of the living machine that creates the living machine.

The Malebranchian Reception of Pascal’s Anthropology. The Question of the Transmission of Original Sin. The comparison between the theoretical positions of Pascal and Malebranche on the opportunity to shed light rationally on the ways of original sin proves to be highly instructive from three perspectives. On the one hand, it enlightens us on the strategy adopted in each of these apologetic projects towards the mobilization of physiological arguments with strong materialistic undertones. In return, it injects a little dynamism into their (...) thwarted reception, especially at the time of the Enlightenment. Finally, this comparison establishes a subtle link between two authors who have been dealt with very sparsely by traditional commentaries, concerning their conception of the use of skepticism in epistemology. Thus, through the problem of the ways of sin transmission, this is not a rethinking of the relationships between reason and faith, but is, rather, a particular use of reason and of Descartes’ analyses. (shrink)

Background: Even in countries with an opt-out or presumed consent system, relatives have a considerable influence on the post-mortem organ harvesting decision. However, their reflection capacity may be compromised by grief, and they are, therefore, often prone to choose refusal as default option. Quite often, it results in late remorse and dissatisfaction. So, a high-quality reflection support seems critical to enable them to gain a stable position and a long-term peace of mind, and also avoid undue loss of potential grafts. (...) In practice, recent studies have shown that the ethical aspects of reflection are rarely and often poorly discussed with relatives and that no or incomplete guidance is offered. No review of the literature is available to date, although it could be of value to improve the quality of the daily practice. Objectives: The objective was to review and synthesize the main concepts and approaches, theories and practices of ethical reflection support of the relatives or surrogates of potential post-mortem organ donors. Research design: A narrative review was performed in the medical, psychological and ethical fields using PubMed, PsycArticles and Web of Science databases (1980–2020). Results: Out of 150 papers, 25 were finally retained. Four themes were drawn: the moral status of the potential post-mortem organ donor, the principlistic approach with its limits and critics, the narrative approach and the transcendental approach. Discussion: This review suggests an extension of psychological support towards ethical reflection support. The process of helping relatives in their ethical exploration of post-mortem organ donation is psychologically and morally characterized. The need for specialized professionals educated and experienced both in clinical psychology and in health ethics to carry out this task is discussed. Practical impact: This review could contribute to optimize the quality of the ethical reflection support by initiating an evolution from an empirical, partial and individual-dependent support to a more systematized, professionalized and exhaustive support. (shrink)

: This article argues that the agreed-upon periodization of early Islam is an Abbasid-era construct that became a binding framework for later generations of historians down to modern times. It also contends that scholars have tended to ignore the fact that this periodization was first and foremost an Abbasid claim to power. It investigates the Abbasid-era construction of the past and demonstrates that alternative periodizations were used prior to these massive efforts to enclose the past into a rigid structure, and (...) so it sheds light on forgotten alternative pasts. The links between periodization and space are emphasized, focusing on the example of early Islamic Syria. Indeed, this province largely vanished from the map with the coming of the Abbasids to power since Syria’s memory came to be limited to its Umayyad past. Elaborating upon alternative periodizations, the paper offers a fresh attempt at a history of the meanings of a long Syrian eighth century, articulated around memory and power. (shrink)

L’auteur, après avoir rappelé les différentes étapes qu’a connues l’ordre public de solidarité, examine son caractère encore aujourd’hui composite et incomplet mais relève également ses progrès graduels vers l’universalité.

Des magasins Disney aux boutiques de musées, les produits dérivés sont désormais incontournables. En réutilisant une grande variété de formes et de volumes, ces phénomènes marketing semblent se faire l’écho d’une situation culturelle particulière pour laquelle un personnage de bande dessinée et un tableau de maître peuvent être imprimés sur un mug ou un carnet sans aucune distinction. Malgré ces goûts éclectiques, les produits dérivés semblent dessiner un savoir-faire spécifique, motivé à première vue par des raisons commerciales. Quelle est l’histoire (...) des produits dérivés et comment pouvons-nous les définir? En regardant les pratiques des concepteurs de produits dérivés et en les replaçant dans leurs contextes de vente, nous comprenons que la reproduction n’est pas la seule raison de leur succès. Une motivation décorative fait également partie intégrante de leur nature. Cet aspect des produits dérivés, qui appartient plus au champ esthétique qu’économique, nous offre des informations sur la place des arts appliqués dans notre société et sur leur traduction par le capitalisme contemporain. (shrink)

La partie supérieure d'une grande amphore Bichrome découverte en 1987 dans le sanctuaire d'Aphrodite à Amathonte est décorée sur une face de deux taureaux respirant une fleur qui encadrent une inscription syllabique, sur l'autre d'un taureau marchant vers un «arbre de vie» et un arbre. Ce décor exceptionnel s'inspire étroitement des ivoires du type de Nimroud et des coupes en argent chypro-phéniciennes, ce qui situe probablement le vase dans.

in Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness edited by Zelazo P., Moscovitch M. and Thompson E. (2007).

This paper analyzes community ecologist Charles Elton’s ideas on animal communities, and situates them with respect to the classical opposition between organicist–holistic and individualistic–reductionist ecological views drawn by many historians of ecology. It is argued that Elton espoused a moderate ecological holism, which drew a middle way between the stricter ecological holism advocated by organicist ecologists and the merely aggregationist views advocated by some of their opponents. It is also argued that Elton’s moderate ecological holism resonated with his preference for (...) analogies between ecological communities and human societies over more common ones between communities and individual organisms. I discuss, on the one hand, how the functionalist-interactionist approach to community ecology introduced by Elton entailed a view of ecological communities as more or less self-maintaining functionally organized wholes, and how his ideas on this matter were incorporated into their views by organicist ecologists Frederic Clements, Victor Shelford, and Warder C. Allee et al. On the other hand, I identify some important divergences between Elton’s ecological ideas and those of organicist ecologists. Specifically, I show how Elton’s ideas on species distribution, animal migrations, and ecological succession entailed a view of animal communities as exhibiting a weaker degree of part-whole integration than that attributed to them by Clements and Shelford; and how Elton’s mixed stance on the balance of nature idea and his associated views on community stability attributed to communities a weaker form of self-regulation than that attributed to them by Allee et al. (shrink)

Attention to internal body sensations is practiced in most meditation traditions. Many traditions state that this practice results in increased awareness of internal body sensations, but scientific studies evaluating this claim are lacking. We predicted that experienced meditators would display performance superior to that of nonmeditators on heartbeat detection, a standard noninvasive measure of resting interoceptive awareness. We compared two groups of meditators (Tibetan Buddhist and Kundalini) to an age- and body mass index-matched group of nonmeditators. Contrary to our prediction, (...) we found no evidence that meditators were superior to nonmeditators in the heartbeat detection task, across several sessions and respiratory modulation conditions. Compared to nonmeditators, however, meditators consistently rated their interoceptive performance as superior and the difficulty of the task as easier. These results provide evidence against the notion that practicing attention to internal body sensations, a core feature of meditation, enhances the ability to sense the heartbeat at rest. (shrink)

The Rhetoric to Alexander (about 340 B.C.) contains a list of proofs (pisteis) and other types of argumentation which may be seen as the oldest surviving typology of argumentation schemes (avant la lettre). In the present article this typology is derived and compared with modern proposals. The conclusion is that the oldest typology is surprisingly similar to the most recent classifications.

Nonlocal “realistic” Leggett models can be considered refuted by the before-before experiment. “Single preferred frame” models are not refuted by this experiment but bear severe oddities.

A plusieurs reprises, mais de manière assez allusive, Sartre, dans L'être et le néant, met en cause une perspective éthique inavouée à l'oeuvre dans Etre et temps. Ne peut-on, à partir de cette critique fragmentée de Heidegger, saisir les jeux de miroir qui existent entre ces deux oeuvres ? Ne doit-on pas interpréter ce mouvement de distanciation comme une tentative désespérée de différer le problème moral ? Une lecture conjointe de L'être et le néant et de Etre et temps centrée (...) sur la distinction entre réflexion complice et réflexion pure ne permet-elle pas d'entrevoir les difficultés que pose à l'ontologie phénoménologique la question de l'éthique ? (shrink)

Cet ouvrage porte, dans une première partie, sur le contexte de la réception de l'utopie au XVIIIe siècle (en particulier dans l'Encyclopédie) et sur les diverses critiques de l'utopisme rousseauiste jusqu'à nos jours ; dans une seconde partie, sur les sources, les formes, les lieux et la méthode de l'utopie dans l'œuvre de Rousseau ; dans une troisième partie, sur la dimension cosmotopique de sa philosophie politique. Une telle relecture, qui prend en compte les marges du corpus rousseauiste (notamment Les (...) Solitaires ou Le Nouveau Dédale), fait apparaître qu'invitant à revisiter les non-lieux de l'utopie, la cartographie rousseauiste dessine les linéaments d'un utopisme critique, et qu'au-delà des principes et des limites de l'État insulaire (tel que le présente le Projet de constitution pour la Corse) se pose aussi chez Rousseau le problème de l'utopique dans le cadre des relations internationales. Au croisement des études rousseauistes et de l'utopologie, cette étude des thèmes et des modèles utopiques au siècle des Lumières (de Voltaire à Kant) révèle une composante importante de l'œuvre de Jean-Jacques Rousseau et permet de ressaisir un moment de transition entre l'âge classique du genre utopique et les utopies modernes. (shrink)

Examines the theories of translation by German romantics in the early 19th century, from Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel, and A.W. Schlegel to Schleiermacher, and compares them briefly to the contemporary, but contrasting, theories by Herder, ...

La revendication de la capacité de la science mécaniste nouvelle à prolonger la vie, dans des proportions dont on s’est souvent complu à exhiber le caractère irrationnel, est plus complexe qu’il n’y paraît. L’étude du détail des textes de Descartes, en particulier de la correspondance, montre ainsi que ce n’est pas d’abord l’étude de la médecine, si parfaite et démonstrative soit-elle, qui peut fournir à l’homme les moyens de vivre mieux et plus longtemps. C’est, inversement, la mise au jour des (...) pouvoirs de l’âme sur ses représentations, donc sur le corps auquel elle est jointe, qu’il faut privilégier. La problématique de la conservation de la santé se résout ainsi dans une éthique de la joie entée sur une psychophysiologie radicalement singulière. (shrink)

Antoine C. Dussault Cet article renforce l’objection des dysfonctions bénignes soulevée par Jerome Wakefield contre la théorie biostatistique de Christopher Boorse, en en présentant une version qui prend acte d’une critique importante de l’analyse conceptuelle comme visée pour une théorie de la santé et de la pathologie. Cette objection prend pour cible la considération, par la théorie de Boorse, que la dysfonction de la partie d’un organisme est suffisante pour la pathologie de cet organisme. Situant sa critique dans le (...) cadre méthodologique de l’analyse conceptuelle, Wakefield soutient que cet aspect de la théorie de Boorse pose problème au regard des dysfonctions qui, parce qu’elles sont bénignes, ne sont pas considérées comme pathologiques par la médecine. Je présente une version de l’objection des dysfonctions bénignes intégrant les apports méthodologiques de l’explication philosophique telle que caractérisée par Peter Schwartz. Je fais valoir que sa considération des dysfonctions bénignes comme pathologiques fait échouer la théorie de Boorse à rendre compte de la portée pratique qu’ont les concepts de santé et de pathologie dans la médecine occidentale. (shrink)

It is common to argue that something x is distinct from something y by pointing out that x and y do not share all their essential properties. I show that arguments of this type are unsound. This unsoundness is rooted in the fact that sentences of the form ‘x is essentially F’ are ambiguous. Under one reading, the sentence says of x that it has a property of a unique and special kind. Interpreted in that way, the sentence is false, (...) for there are no such properties. Under another reading, the sentence says of x that it has a property and adds that this property is essential to x. Interpreted in that way, the sentence may be true but it does not allow to reach the desired conclusion that x is distinct from y. Thus, if someone argues that x is distinct from y by pointing out that x and y differ in essential properties, they face the following dilemma: either one of the argument’s premises implies the existence of the special property and it is false, or none of the premises implies the existence of the special property and the argument is invalid. (shrink)