LE "COSMOS" ET LE "LOGOS" : LA QUESTION DE LA LIBERTE. LE "SALUT" : FOI, TRANSCENDANCE ET BONHEUR VERITABLE. LES MODELES HUMAINS D'OUVERTURE A L'AU-DELA ASSIGNES A L'ACTION. "L'HUMANISME": LES HUMANITES, LES HOMMES ET LA PERSONNE. LES "LUMIERES" : LE PROGRES DES SAVOIRS ET LA RAISON UNIVERSELLE. LE "PROGRES" : TRANSFORMATION, DEVELOPPEMENT OU IDEAL MORAL?. "L'HISTOIRE PHILOSOPHIQUE" : AMELIORATION OU DECLIN.?. LE PARADOXE DU RELATIVISME.

As one of the leading figures of the idealist movement, Bernard Bosanquet (1848-1923) made major contributions to philosophy and had a significant role in the formation of British social policy. This set contains previously uncollected articles and essays that were first published in little known journals or magazines. Each volume includes new introductions and primary and secondary bibliographies.

After more than a decade teaching ancient Greek history and philosophy at University College, Oxford, British philosopher and political theorist Bernard Bosanquet resigned from his post to spend more time writing. He was particularly interested in contemporary social theory, and was involved with the Charity Organisation Society and the London Ethical Society. He wrote numerous articles before beginning this book, which was his first and was published in 1885 as a response to the Principles of Logic, published in 1883, (...) by his contemporary F. H. Bradley. Bosanquet, who was deeply influenced by the German philosopher Hegel, argues that there are 'signs of a philosophical movement in this country which may assimilate what is really great in European philosophy, without forfeiting the distinctive merits of English thought'. With this as the framework, the book examines the relationship of judgment and logic to knowledge. (shrink)

Review of Lenn Goodman's On Justice (1st 3d.).

En 1657, Nicolas Poussin peint une Fuite en Égypte au voyageur couché. La toile disparaît ensuite pendant plusieurs siècles. Dans les années 1980, plusieurs versions du tableau réapparaissent, de grands experts mondiaux s'opposent, des laboratoires d'analyse et des tribunaux s'en mêlent et nombreux sont ceux - galeristes, experts, directeurs de musée, conservateurs, etc. - à vouloir authentifier et s'approprier le chef-d'oeuvre. L'une des versions sera finalement acquise pour 17 millions d'euros par le musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. De quoi nous (...) parle cette histoire aux allures d'intrigue policière? Pourquoi une telle débauche d'énergie, de controverses et d'argent pendant autant d'années? Qu'est-ce qui fait la valeur - économique, esthétique - d'une oeuvre d'art? Et d'où vient cette aura attachée aux créateurs et aux oeuvres? (shrink)

While Kwasi Wiredu’s name is associated with the genesis of modern African philosophy, there are some aspects of his work that are in tension. Although Wiredu is an advocate of a modernized and science-based philosophical orientation, on the African continent, he is also equally committed to a possibility of the existence of philosophy in traditional African society. In the development of his philosophical theses, it appears that he relies on both sources for his method and argument. It is this dual (...) usage of two conflicting systems that leads to a tension in some aspects of his philosophy. In addition, Wiredu’s philosophy is in serious respects shaped by the postcolonial era it emerges from. In part, his thinking is a response to colonialism, and in another part, an attempt at overcoming the effects of colonialism. My aim is to show how Wiredu’s philosophy is ultimately a product of these contradictory forces. (shrink)

The problem of interdependence is crucial for understanding the climate, with its interactions between land, water and atmosphere, as well as with human activities, past and future. The concept of interdependence expresses two types of relationship, that of causality and that of responsibility. For the problems of climate governance as understood as a statistical average in the Conferences of the parties (COP), causal dependence is impossible to reconstruct precisely, notably because of the complexity of these phenomenons. However, dependence does not (...) only concern the domain of being, falling within the natural sciences and social sciences and human descriptivo-predictive. It also concerns the ought-to-be and therefore the normative sciences (ethics, political thery, law and normative economy). Here interdependence is much more problematic since it is opposed to freedom. The article discusses the various interdependencies and political solutions that are offered to take care of this needs, architectures for discussing climate change politically: systems (N. Luhmann) and deliberation (J. Habermas). He proposes then another solution, that of the moral and political consediration. (shrink)

Historically, society has not had a robust, institutionalized ethic for how animals should be treated. Before the Animal Welfare Act, the only laws constraining animal use in society were the anticruelty laws forbidding sadistic, deviant, purposeless, deliberate, unnecessary infliction of pain and suffering on animals, or outrageous neglect. These laws, both by statute and by judicial interpretation, did not apply to socially accepted animal uses such as research or agriculture. Because the overwhelming use of animals in society was in agriculture, (...) aimed at providing food, fiber, locomotion, and power, and because the key to agricultural success was having healthy animals, good husbandry and good care were enforced by the most powerful sanction, self‐interest; the anticruelty laws were only there for society to manage sadists and psychopaths unmoved by self‐interest. But with the emergence of new kinds of “normal” animal use—such as intensive agriculture and animal research, both of which caused animal pain and suffering that did not fall under the anticruelty ethic—society was forced to create a new ethic for animals that went “beyond cruelty.” The Animal Welfare Act was a start, but it did not address all of the ethical concerns that society has had about the treatment of animals. As evidence of the need for a new ethic for animals, thousands of bills pertaining to animal welfare have been promulgated across the United States in the last decade. The new ethic for animals essentially applies much of our social ethic for humans, mutatis mutandis, to the treatment of animals and embodies the desired protections in the legal system. (shrink)

Presented at the Israeli Philosophical Association, at the Technion, in Spring 1988.

"It seems that the human mind has first to construct forms independently before we can find them in things ... Knowledge cannot spring from experience alone, but only from a comparison of the inventions of the intellect with observed fact.".

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)

Historical aspects of the issue are also broached. Intuitions relative to self-organization can be found in the works of such key Western philosophical figures as Aristotle, Leibniz and Kant. Interacting with more recent authors and cybernetics, self-organization represents a notion in keeping with the modern world’s discovery of radical complexity. The themes of teleology and emergence are analyzed by philosophers of sciences with regards to the issues of modelization and scientific explanation. (publisher, edited).

Book reviewed in this article:Claude Lefort, La Complication: Retour Sur Communisme.