Dans le cadre de leur démarche permanente d’innovation, les équipes de la protection juridique du groupe Covéa ont expérimenté les nouveaux outils dits « prédictifs » à l’appui des conseils qu’elles donnent au titre des litiges dont elles ont la gestion. Parmi les objectifs, mesurer leurs apports dans la perception par nos assurés de leurs chances de succès et risques de condamnation, afin de faciliter leur prise de décision sur les suites à donner à leur dossier, et bien sûr, préparer (...) de nouveaux services à leur attention. (shrink)

'Humanism of the Other' argues that it is not only possible but of the highest exigency to understand one's humanity through the humanity of others.".

** This piece was originally titled "Beyond Borders: Exploring Ubuntu as a Lived Philosophy" but was later retitled "African thought can rescue Western philosophy" by the publisher. ** -/- Western philosophy is often abstract and disconnected from the real ethical problems we face today. Emmanuel Chiwetalu Ossai and Lloyd Strickland argue that the African philosophy of ubuntu, with its emphasis on community, interconnectedness, and practical application of ethical principles, offers a compelling alternative.

La théorie deweyenne de la nature humaine permet de clarifier le sens du naturalisme deweyen ainsi que ses implications politiques. La première partie de l’article analyse la manière dont Dewey défend une conception processuelle, interactionnelle et intégrative de la nature humaine. La deuxième partie analyse la fonction classificatoire du concept de nature humaine et la troisième la manière dont Dewey attribue une fonction explicative à ce concept en discutant les références politiques conservatrices ou progressistes, voire révolutionnaires, à la nature humaine.

In this paper, I explore Hegel’s concept of freedom as self-liberation. I consider the struggle between the soul and the body within Hegel’s Anthropology as an example of how conflict can act as a condition for asserting one’s freedom through self-improvement or Bildung. In this regard, there are reminiscent aspects of the famous ‘Lordship and Bondage’ dialectic within Hegel’s treatment of the body-soul relation. If the initial dominion of nature over the soul can be described as madness for Hegel, habit (...) constitutes the mean through which spirit acquires its freedom. (shrink)

" Le besoin d'évasion écrit Emmanuel Lévinas, nous conduit au cœur de la philosophie. Il nous permet de renouveler l'antique problème de l'être en tant qu'être... " C'est dore que, dans ce texte, il choisit - à la faveur d'un thème fortement heideggerien - d'aller à la rencontre des questions qui, toujours, ont guidé sa quête : le besoin d'évasion n'est-il pas le propre d'un être fini? N'aspire-t-il pas à franchir les limites de l'être plutôt qu'à le fuir? Et (...) pourquoi l'être aurait-il besoin de sortir de soi? Sur tous ces points, la méditation d'Emmanuel Lévinas s'affirme ici souveraine et féconde. A s'y engager, tout lecteur se rapprochera de la vérité de son destin au cœur d'une modernité tragique et opaque. (shrink)

This article examines the controversy that has arisen in the last decade about Michel Foucault’s supposed “fascination” with neoliberalism, especially around the contributions of Daniel Zamora and Michael C. Behrent. Their theses are contrasted with Foucauldian writings and reconsidered from a different approach to the historical, political and intellectual context of the French 1970s, which, in our opinion, shows a lack of complexity in the studies of those authors. Thus, this paper tries to establish that the limitations of Michel Foucault’s (...) approach to neoliberalism do not respond to any sort of neoliberal “sympathies”, but to another kind of problems-mainly analytical-. (shrink)

Certain questions have recurred throughout the history of philosophy. They are the big questions-about happiness and the good life, the limits of knowledge, the ultimate structure of reality, the nature of consciousness, the relation between causality and free will, the pervasiveness of suffering, and the conditions for a just and flourishing society-that thinkers in different cultures across the ages have formulated in their own terms in an attempt to make sense of their lives and the world around them. The essays (...) in this book turn to the major figures and texts of the Buddhist tradition in order to expand and enrich our thinking on these enduring questions. Examining them from a comparative and cross-cultural perspective demonstrates the value of alternative ways of addressing philosophical problems, showing how different approaches can produce new and unexpected kinds of questions and answers. Engaging with the Buddhist tradition, this book shows, helps return philosophy to its practical as well as theoretical aim: not only understanding the world but also knowing how to live in it. Featuring striking and generative comparisons of Buddhist and Western thought, Philosophy's Big Questions challenges our thinking in fundamental ways and offers readers new conceptual tools, methods, and insights for the pursuit of a good and happy life. (shrink)

Les soixante-dix nations : tel était le thème choisi par le 27e colloque des intellectuels juifs de langue française. Quel sens prenait pour le judaïsme, conscient de procéder de l'Histoire sainte, sa présence à l'Histoire universelle, auprès des nations et parmi elles? Ce thème avait déjà été approché au cours de quatre rencontres précédentes. Le présent ouvrage reproduit les cinq " lectures talmudiques " qu'Emmanuel Levinas donna devant cet auditoire de 1981 à 1986. S'y ajoutent des textes consacrés à (...) l'exégèse rabbinique touchant l'amour du prochain et de l'étranger, au concept de " kénose ", mais aussi aux problèmes de l'intégration et de la distance que pose au judaïsme l'Europe issue du siècle des Lumières. Un débat réunissant en Hollande des penseurs juifs et chrétiens permet de souligner la féconde originalité, sur ce plan, de la pensée de Franz Rosenzweig. Et un entretien avec Françoise Armengaud aborde quelques thèmes essentiels de la philosophie juive dans le cadre de la philosophie générale. (shrink)

Preoccupation with multiparty aggregative democracy in Africa has produced superficial forms of political/electoral choice-making by subjects that deepen pre-existing ethnic and primordial cleavages. This is because the principles of the multiparty system presuppose that decision-making through voting should be the result of a mere aggregation of pre-existing, fixed preferences. To this kind of decision-making, I propose deliberative democracy as a supplementary approach. My reason is that deliberation, beyond mere voting, should be central to decisionmaking and that, for a decision to (...) be legitimate, it must be preceded by deliberation, not merely the aggregation of pre-existing fixed preferences. I agree with arguments that when adequate justifications are made for claims/demands/conclusions, deliberation has the potential to have a salutary effect on people’s opinions, transform/evolve preferences, better inform judgments/voting, lead to increasingly ‘common good’ decisions, have moral educative power, place more burden of account-giving on public officers, and furnish subjects/losers/outvoted with justifications for collectively binding decisions. I argue that a deliberative turn in politics in Africa will have a mitigating effect on tribal and money politics. (shrink)

The “private” dimension of social life is problematic, posing conceptual, political, and ecological challenges. Some of these problems arise from the very nature of private property as it is enshrined in social life, which demands special privileges be granted to “private” matters on the grounds that these are private, because the predominant representation of the involved rights is that they reflect claims of the holders, rather than legitimate claims of society as a whole in allocating responsibilities, benefits, and duties. The (...) claim to the rationality of allocations of property rights, this article argues, must be questioned in light of the kind of commonality that is revealed in a striking manner by environmental issues (although it is not restricted to environmental matters). This questioning makes sense in relation to an analysis of social interactions, beyond the problematic opposition between the private sphere and public life. (shrink)

Hitherto, the African intellect had been decimated by notable European scholars such as David Hume, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Hegel, Lucien Levy-Bruhl to name a few. The common denominator among these male scholars is that the African intellect is not yet developed to the extent that it can accommodate logical reasoning. Whereas notable African scholars have responded to these charges as misleading whilst exploring ways of coming up with a logic system that can mediate the theory, thought and practice peculiar to (...) Africans yet applicable in other climes, the role of women in this journey has usually been downplayed. This research thereby seeks to fill this void by making a case for the contribution of the Australian Helen Verran who did not engage in armchair scholarship as most of her European male counterparts who deny the African the ability to reason logically, but journeyed to Nigeria to perform some experiments with the Yorùbá numerical system. She is persuaded that through the traditional Yorùbá numerical pattern, an underlying logic system is implied. Even when her conclusions are questionable on several fronts, this research concludes that her role in instilling confidence in the development of artificial logic in Africa must not go unmentioned. (shrink)

La pensée d'Emmanuel Lévinas a d'emblée été connue des philosophes et des universitaires, dès son premier ouvrage, La théorie de l'intuition chez Husserl, en 1930. Avec " Totalité et Infini " (en l963), il fut reconnu comme un innovateur puissant et originel pour son développement de la phénoménologie. Pourtant, plus récemment, l'immense intérêt du public pour Lévinas s'est déplacé, plutôt, vers les conséquences ou les marges de son projet initial. Ce déplacement a sa légitimité, prouvant au moins la pertinence (...) politique et religieuse de la parole la plus conceptuelle. Mais il nous a semblé aussi légitime, voire urgent, de restituer l'enjeu original de l'initiative de Lévinas : poursuivre la phénoménologie de Husserl, non pas en la déployant vers la question de l'être (comme le fit Heidegger), mais en lui assignant l'éthique comme philosophie enfin première. Bref, Lévinas fut d'abord un phénoménologue et apparaît aujourd'hui de plus en plus comme tel. Cinq textes inédits ou difficiles d'accès de Lévinas et treize études de phénoménologues ou d'historiens de la philosophie moderne permettent, ici, d'évaluer quel apport intime unit Lévinas au nouveau commencement que Husserl entreprit de donner à la philosophie. J.- L. M. (shrink)

Thomas d’Aquin n’a pas simplement écrit une somme « contre » les gentils ( contra Gentiles), mais aussi et surtout une somme « pour » les gentils ( pro Gentilibus ). La raison naturelle, unique recours pour les mahométans et les païens lorsqu’il n’y a pas d’Écriture en commun (contrairement aux juifs et aux hérétiques), n’est pas que le lieu vertical de l’accès à Dieu ; elle désigne aussi le topos horizontal d’une communauté d’humanité capable de nous rassembler. La « (...) raison » hier (Thomas d’Aquin) joue le rôle de la « finitude » aujourd’hui (Heidegger) – à savoir ce qui fait notre « en commun ». Telle est l’unique perspective d’une apologétique qui ne se tiendra plus dans une sorte de « transcendance de surplomb » (Merleau-Ponty), comme si l’absolu était immédiatement donné. On cessera alors d’opposer « métaphysique » et « théologie », dans un discours prétendument pur et faussement recherché. C’est à transformer la tradition plutôt qu’à la dépasser que nous convie la leçon du concile de Nicée (325). Le « c’est-à-dire » de la même substance du Père ( homoousios ) traduit bien le biblique en hellénique, plutôt qu’il ne tente de sortir de l’hellénique comme tel. Ainsi, le fameux « ce que tous nomment Dieu » ( et omnes dicunt Deum ) à la fin de chacune des cinq voies de Thomas d’Aquin indique moins l’idole d’un Dieu conceptuel à dépasser, que l’icône d’un Dieu rationnel qui, dans sa kénose, habite aussi notre propre nature pour la transformer. De la théo -logie où « seul Dieu parle bien de Dieu » (génitif subjectif), on passera donc à la théo- logie où « l’homme peut aussi, et en partie au moins, parler de Dieu » (génitif objectif). Un nouveau rapport de la métaphysique à la théologie s’instaure ici, capable d’initier une autre relation du croyant au monde. (shrink)

The time of the confrontation between psychoanalysis and philosophy seems to belong in the past, and even to be outdated. A new path, however, is available to us today. We must concern ourselves less with the benefits of philosophy for psychoanalysis (claiming, for example, that it could illuminate that which it looks for differently) and more with the shockwaves that psychoanalysis has generated within philosophy. Philosophy, and phenomenology in particular, has reached its “limits.” These limits are not the limits of (...) a discipline, but those of thought itself. “Can we think the unthinkable?” – such is the question that psychoanalysis asks phenomenology. By retracing Freud’s trajectory, and in particular his passage from the first to the second topical, which was caused by phenomena leading him to radicalize his thought (First World War, death of his daughter Sophie, cancer), this essay attempts to make visible how phenomenology, too, must now deepen its project. The expression « Ça n’a rien à voir » (in which Ça refers to the Freudian id) will say, strictly speaking, that the “Ça” in the second topic cannot be seen because it can neither be seen nor aimed at, and yet it always stays there. This obscure point of thought is also that which phenomenology today must attempt. It is on this basis, and on this basis only, that the confrontation between psychoanalysis “and” philosophy will find its impetus and be renewed. (shrink)

It is all the rage today to speak about the “power" of images. Yet while it seems hardly disputable that images generate fascination or repulsion and that they provoke laughter, tears or delight, it is by no means clear what it entails to grant them an agency of their own. The article sets out to chart the current literature on the topic, and to indicate why it is not the same to ask what it means for images to do things (...) to us and what it means do things with images. While the former question often leads, under a disguise of object-oriented thinking, to reintroduce mentalism, the latter gets caught up in inextricable problems that Austin’s speech act theory already had to struggle with. In the last section, at alternative account is proposed: the performance of image is not an event of causation, it is a process of visualization that lets appear what can only appear in images. (shrink)

Gareth Evans was first to express the idea that our perceptual experience is more detailed than what our concepts possess and this brings in the idea of nonconceptualism. The nonconceptualist claims that creatures without conceptual ability can be in a content-bearing state since they do not possess concept, memory or linguistic ability. Concepts are the constituents of those intentional contents that are the complete truth-evaluable contents of judgment and belief. This paper examines the possibility of nonconceptual content in human perception (...) and considers the complementarism of conceptualism and nonconceptualism as a more viable basis for explaining human perception. This synthesis, the paper suggests, overcomes the epistemological deficiencies inherent in any unilateral approach to understanding the nature, character, and process of cognition thereby providing a more comprehensive understanding of the human cognitive process. (shrink)

L’influence du pragmatisme sur l’institutionnalisme, et notamment sur celui de John Commons, est désormais largement reconnue. En particulier, l’importance des règles et des habitudes dans les comportements a été bien mis en évidence dans le pragmatisme. Néanmoins, l’importance, dans ce courant de pensée, de la réflexion sur la bifurcation ou la rupture par rapport aux règles et aux habitudes a été minorée. Cet article souligne que John Dewey, un des pragmatistes les plus influents, a pensé ces transformations. Celles-ci sont analysées (...) chez lui à partir de trois concepts clés : l’expérience, la transaction et l’émotion. Il en découle une nouvelle piste de réflexion pour l’analyse économique, en particulier dans le rôle que les émotions peuvent jouer dans les changements par rapport aux règles et aux habitudes de comportement. Dewey nous invite ainsi à une économie de l’émotion plus riche que ce que l’analyse économique n’a produit pour l’instant. Classification JEL : B25, B40. (shrink)

This paper reports an experimental comparison of attitudes toward time and toward money in experience-based decisions. Preferences were elicited under rank-dependent utility for prospects with two or three consequences expressed either in time or in monetary units. Probabilities were unknown but learned through sampling. More specifically, time and money were compared under two conditions. In a first experiment, both consequences and probabilities of prospects were unknown and learned through sequential sampling. In a second experiment, the possible consequences were revealed after (...) the sampling. A real incentive system was implemented for both time and money. The heterogeneity of preferences was assessed for time and for money through individual and mixed modeling estimations. We observe that the nature of consequences (time or money) modifies probability weighting in terms of elevation and sensitivity. Subjects exhibit more optimism and less sensitivity to probability changes when deciding about time than about money. Revealing the consequences impacts the shape of the utility function and leaves probability weighting unchanged. We also observe that the real incentives have no effect except for the reduction in decision errors. This effect is stronger for money than for time. (shrink)

Die Phänomenologie stellt eine der Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie dar und findet in zahlreichen Wissenschaften sowie in Praxis und Therapeutik starke Resonanz. Nach 120 Jahren Wirkungsgeschichte füllt die Bibliothek phänomenologischer Werke zahllose Bücherregale und selbst für Expert:innen ist die Forschungsliteratur mittlerweile unüberschaubar geworden. An allgemeinen Einführungen sowie spezialisierter Fachliteratur mangelt es dabei keineswegs, wohl aber an einem Handbuch, in dem sowohl der Vielfalt der historischen Entwicklungen als auch dem berechtigten Wunsch nach innerer systematischer Kohärenz Rechnung getragen wird. Das Handbuch Phänomenologie schließt (...) diese Lücke. Ausgewiesene Autor:innen bereiten in eigens für diesen Band verfassten Artikeln komplexe sachliche Zusammenhänge übersichtlich auf. Durch seinen Aufbau eignet sich das Handbuch sowohl für Anfänger:innen als auch für Fortgeschrittene. Anhand bündig präsentierter Grundbegriffe und Verfahren konturiert das Handbuch die Spezifik der phänomenologischen Methode, spart dabei jedoch nicht die Kontroversen und methodologischen Neuausrichtungen aus, die von ihrer Lebendigkeit und Vielstimmigkeit zeugen. Ein umfangreicher Schlussteil ist der Rezeption und Anwendung in einzelnen Wirkfeldern gewidmet. Als Hilfsmittel zur eigenständigen Erschließung der phänomenologischen Denkrichtung und zu ihrer Anwendung auf aktuelle Probleme zeichnet sich das Handbuch durch seine Leser:innenfreundlichkeit und einen stark forschungspraktischen Bezug aus. Ein Kompendium, das sich bald als ABC der Phänomenologie etablieren dürfte. (shrink)

This research exposes the connection between economic inequality and racism. The central argument is that racism is predicated on the economic superiority of the racist. The corollary argument is that conceptions of skin colour are consequences rather than causes of racism: racism does not arise because of skin colour, but because different skin colours have become associated with certain economic conditions for a very long period of time in history. The argument is in fact extended to posit that the topography (...) of the racist relationship would be reversed if the economic tables were also reversed. The conclusion is that the relationship between racism and economic inequality is, therefore, more significant than the relationship between racism and skin colour. This conclusion has consequences regarding how races at the receiving end of racism should respond to racism. (shrink)

Présente le parcours philosophique de Merleau-Ponty tant dans sa formation que dans ses objectifs. Ses références : Descartes, Leibniz, Gabriel Marcel. Ses concepts opératoires : le concret, l'incarnation, l'intentionnalité, les chiasmes.

La création physique peut-elle être sujet d’espérance? Quelle est l’aspiration de la création matérielle et que signifie-t-elle pour les croyants? Écouter le cri de la Terre et le « gémissement de la création » dévoile nos péchés systémiques contre elles. En prenant appui sur la Lettre aux Romains, il est toutefois possible d’entendre aujourd’hui la plainte de la création, pas tant comme une accusation que comme un Évangile ; à savoir une heureuse annonce et un appel à la conversion. La (...) création et nous, nous partageons la même espérance de la gloire. Le cri de la création, qui dénonce nos péchés contre elle, est aussi paradoxalement un témoignage de notre aspiration commune vers la gloire filiale, selon l’argument de Paul en Romains 8. L’issue de cette espérance est avant tout suspendue à la fidélité de Dieu. Relier la plainte de la création au cri du Fils de Dieu dans notre chair confirme la solidité d’une telle espérance de la gloire. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eucharistic Adoration:Veils for VisionEmmanuel Perrier O.P.Translated by Amy Christine DevaudTo the Virgin of the AnnunciationEucharistic adoration is an eminently personal form of prayer.1 Not in the sense that each one of us could fill this time spent in the presence of the Lord with what he or she wants; if this were to be the case, there would be no adoration at all, since it would simply be a (...) matter of meeting oneself and one's ideas about God. Eucharistic adoration is a personal prayer in the sense that the adorer welcomes in his soul the divine person of the eternal Son, through the vision of the human body united to the Son in the womb of the Virgin Mary, just as this body is offered by faith in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Therefore, what is crucial to this meeting is that prayer be guided by the truth of the Eucharistic mystery and not by the feelings of the adorer, even less by the introspection of himself while adoring. In presenting the theological foundations of Eucharistic adoration, the following pages have a threefold goal: to enlighten beginners about the very things which shape this prayer; to help those who are progressing in their adoration to align it to the vision of the Word who became flesh; and [End Page 397] to accompany and support those who are more advanced in putting into words what they are already experiencing.After having specified the foundations of Eucharistic adoration, we will address the themes that sustain it in the same order in which the soul welcomes the mystery of the Word become flesh. This is an order that can be followed as steps to take during a time of adoration. One will then take care to allow enough time for each step. But it may be more relevant to focus on a limited number of themes, or even on a single one. We will be careful to ensure that we do not neglect any of the themes presented throughout the various meditations for adoration.The Hope of VisionEucharistic adoration begins and is consumed in vision, in the gaze toward the Body of Christ in his sacrament. God has accustomed us to listen to him, ever since he began to speak to Abraham, to Moses, to David, through the prophets. The Law begins with this commandment: "Hear now, O Israel!" To hear the Word is to welcome it, to put it into practice, and in doing so, to let it bear fruit within us. But seeing God is quite different.In the days of Christ, the central part of the Temple in Jerusalem, one of the wonders of the world, had two rooms, one called the Holy Place and the other called the Holy of Holies. The entrance to each room was obstructed by a huge curtain (see Exod 26:31–32). The priests usually celebrated their services behind the curtain of the Holy Place. However, they did not enter the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of God among men (see Exod 29:43–46), which sheltered, before its destruction (probably in 587 BC), the Ark of the Covenant containing the tables of the Law given at Sinai, as well as a relic of the manna, the bread that came down from heaven to feed the people of Israel during the Exodus (see Heb 9:4). Only once a year the High Priest would cross the veil of the Holy of Holies to stand in the presence of God and pronounce the Name above all names, in remembrance of God's encounters with Moses:Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose up, and every man stood at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the door of to the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the door of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship. … The Lord used to speak with Moses... (shrink)

In this paper, I claim that to understand Hegel’s theory of psychiatric treatment, we must frame the relation between the psychiatrist and her patient using Hegel’s concept of genius as developed in the Anthropology section of the Encyclopedia (§405). As I argue, this notion of genius is both complex and ambiguous, since Hegel presents examples both of good and evil geniuses. What is interesting is that the psychiatrist can potentially correspond to both figures, which reveals what is perhaps Hegel’s greatest (...) contribution to contemporary psychiatry as a practice: the imperative for the practitioner to reflect on its own motivation in the treatment, its own role of authority and, conversely, the condition of its patients. (shrink)

The author argues, with reference to a number of Merleau-Ponty’s unpublished manuscripts, that the philosopher’s notion of encroachment (empiétement) has origins in Simone de Beauvoir’s 1945 novel The Blood of Others. He examines how the two philosophers approach the encroachment of freedoms, the political stance of pacifism, and the interpretation of Voltaire’s Candide (Part I). The impact of Élisabeth Lacoin’s death on Beauvoir’s and Merleau-Ponty’s philosophies, as well as their relationships with Jean-Paul Sartre is also considered (Part II).

In contemporary philosophy, many attempts were made to rehabilitate the everyday. However, such a reappraisal of the everyday is ambivalent, as it tends to objectify what is profoundly elusive due to its diffuse, ambient character. The two prevailing strategies (the,celebration‘ of the everyday and the,critique‘ of the everyday) both miss the everyday because they treat it as a positive entity. Whether by celebrating or by understanding it – in both cases they kill it. This article argues that part of the (...) problem lies in the objectifying bias inherent in these approaches and sketches an alternative phenomenological approach, which suggests that the character of the everydayness first and foremost lies in its,backgroundness‘ (Hintergründigkeit). (shrink)