Nihilism -- Overcoming disorientation -- The will to power -- Overcoming despair -- The eternal recurrence -- Dionysian wisdom.

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Current thinking and research on consciousness and the brain.

1.1 Bilateral damage to the thalamus abolishes waking consciousness. The critical site of this damage is believed to be a relatively small cluster of neurons, about the size of a pencil eraser on either side of the brain's midline, called the Intra-Laminar Nuclei (ILN) because they are located inside the white layers (laminae) that divide the two thalami into their major groupings of nuclei. The fact that bilateral damage to the ILNs abolishes consciousness is very unusual. There is no other (...) site in the brain that has this property, except the reticular formation in the brain stem. In contrast, huge chunks of cortex can be damaged without abolishing the STATE of consciousness. (Cortical damage does change the CONTENTS of consciousness, of course). (shrink)

Revonsuo argues that current brain imaging methods do not allow us to ‘discover’ consciousness. While all observational methods in science have limitations, consciousness is such a massive and pervasive phenomenon that we cannot fail to observe its effects at every level of brain organization: molecular, cellular, electrical, anatomical, metabolic, and even the ‘higher levels of electrophysiological organization that are crucial for the empirical discovery and theoretical explanation of consciousness’ . Indeed, the first major discovery in that respect was Hans Berger's (...) finding that scalp EEG is massively different between waking and deep sleep, already seven decades ago. We now have perhaps a dozen sophisticated methods for monitoring consciousness-related activity at multiple levels of brain observation. Theoretical progress has come quite rapidly. Recently, E.R. John and colleagues have made fundamental findings using Quantitative EEG, showing consistent brainwide changes as a result of several types of general anaesthetics . John has proposed a neuronal ‘field theory’ to account for those results. Another promising new method involves frequency-tagging of competing stimuli, allowing us to follow the activity of billions of neurons synchronized to particular conscious stimuli, always compared to very similar unconscious input . A fundamental theoretical account of such results has been provided by Tononi & Edelman . Such results and theory are in broad agreement with the cognitive theory proposed by Baars. (shrink)

Maine de Biran a toujours été considéré comme un représentant exemplaire de l'anti-matérialisme dans la philosophie française du début du XIXe siècle. N'a-t-il pas tenté, sur la base de l'expérience du fait primitif, de fonder une doctrine dualiste? Certes, mais des textes récemment publiés montrent que cela n'a pas toujours été le cas: vers 1800, sous l'influence des Idéologues, et particulièrement de Cabanis, il a, pour un temps, épousé les thèses du naturalisme matérialiste. Ce sont ces textes que nous examinons (...) ici, avant d'envisager certaines objections que l'on pourrait faire à notre interprétation. In the french philosophy of the XIXth century's beginning, Maine de Biran has always been regarded as a supporter of anti-materialism. Has he not tried to establish the foundations of a dualistic doctrine, on the basis of the « fait primitif »? Certainly, but some recently published texts show that it has not always been so: about 1800, under the influence of the Ideologists, Cabanis particularly, Biran has for a while endorsed materialistic-naturalistic theses. We examine here these texts and survey some objections against our interpretation. (shrink)

Ce livre interroge le sens donné par les jésuites à l'idée de Beau. Dans la quête d'un 'je ne sais quoi' mystérieux frappant l'âme humaine comme un 'feu céleste' pour l'élever au Beau absolu, les religieux veulent montrer l'alliance du Beau et du Vrai, point de rencontre avec la Vérité divine. Les 'extraits' critiques des Mémoires de Trévoux, dont ils assurent la rédaction entre 1701 et 1762, analysent les publications européennes en Sciences, Lettres, Arts et Mœurs. A cote de la (...) mise en valeur de l'harmonie de la nature par les physiciens et les naturalistes, les 'Trévousiens' soulignent la beauté des mathématiques, tout particulièrement la 'sublime et transcendante' géométrie. Parmi les productions artistiques et les 'ouvrages de l'esprit', la musique donne lieu a une intense querelle autour de la nature du son. Le potentiel didactique des vers latins est mis en avant, et l''expression mesurée de la nature' fait de la poésie une philosophique authentique. Quant a la peinture, elle doit prioriser 'la vérité'. Pour autant, le discours anthropologique trévousien ne se borne pas à un panorama 'raisonné' d'une culture moderne qui s'émancipe des pesanteurs traditionnelles. Il correspond aux exigences ignatiennes d'une spiritualité active et féconde. (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)

In addition to this much-needed clarification of the uses and abuses of the term "modernity," Yack here provides a fresh look at familiar modern ideas and practices such as nationalism, constitutionalism, and liberal democratic politics. Our world, the author suggests, offers us far stranger and more unexpected combinations that are dreamt of in modernist and postmodernist philosophies. His critique of the tendency to treat modernity as an integrated and coherent whole will expand the reader's vision to take in the broader (...) landscape of surprising and inconsistent features in the social and political world that surrounds us. The Fetishism of Modernities will be of interest to social, political and cultural theorists, intellectual historians and philosophers, as well as anyone with a stake in current debates about modernity and postmodernity. (shrink)

This paper explores a remarkable convergence of ideas and evidence, previously presented in separate places by its authors. That convergence has now become so persuasive that we believe we are working within substantially the same broad framework. Taylor's mathematical papers on neuronal systems involved in consciousness dovetail well with work by Newman and Baars on the thalamocortical system, suggesting a brain mechanism much like the global workspace architecture developed by Baars (see references below). This architecture is relational, in the sense (...) that it continuously mediates the interaction of input with memory. While our approaches overlap in a number of ways, each of us tends to focus on different areas of detail. What is most striking, and we believe significant, is the extent of consensus, which we believe to be consistent with other contemporary approaches by Weiskrantz, Gray, Crick and Koch, Edelman, Gazzaniga, Newell and colleagues, Posner, Baddeley, and a number of others. We suggest that cognitive neuroscience is moving toward a shared understanding of consciousness in the brain. (shrink)

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

Avant de s'inquiéter de la variété des perversions et même de la volonté perverse, l'auteur s'interroge sur l'énigme de la volonté, sur la lente émergence de sa reconnaissance explicite. Non pour opérer une réduction historienne, morale ou psychopathologique, mais pour mieux approcher la perversion comme intensité. La perversion n'est pas une simple perturbation de la finalité supposée du désir ni seulement l'expression d'une défaillance, mais d'abord une forme d'affirmation de la volonté libre, une intensification qui affecte aussi bien le rapport (...) au fini que celui à l'infini. Oui. la volonté perverse est révélatrice du dépassement que la liberté désire introduire dans les hasards et les nécessités de l'opinion, des lois et des sciences physiques, humaines ou théologiques ; elle est aspiration à toujours plus d'accomplissement de soi. l'impuissance à saisir le moment favorable est le coeur de la perversion : non pas avant tout une méprise d'objet. La perversion de la volonté libre est d'abord une intensité de fixation sur le bonheur voulu immédiatement et en soi, et non par égard à ce qui advient. Une réflexion qui vient à point nommé. (shrink)