Natural selection is commonly seen not just as an explanation for adaptive evolution, but as the inevitable consequence of “heritable variation in fitness among individuals”. Although it remains embedded in biological concepts, such a formalisation makes it tempting to explore whether this precondition may be met not only in life as we know it, but also in other physical systems. This would imply that these systems are subject to natural selection and may perhaps be investigated in a biological framework, where (...) properties are typically examined in light of their putative functions. Here we relate the major questions that were debated during a three-day workshop devoted to discussing whether natural selection may take place in non-living physical systems. We start this report with a brief overview of research fields dealing with “life-like” or “proto-biotic” systems, where mimicking evolution by natural selection in test tubes stands as a major objective. We contend the challenge may be as much conceptual as technical. Taking the problem from a physical angle, we then discuss the framework of dissipative structures. Although life is viewed in this context as a particular case within a larger ensemble of physical phenomena, this approach does not provide general principles from which natural selection can be derived. Turning back to evolutionary biology, we ask to what extent the most general formulations of the necessary conditions or signatures of natural selection may be applicable beyond biology. In our view, such a cross-disciplinary jump is impeded by reliance on individuality as a central yet implicit and loosely defined concept. Overall, these discussions thus lead us to conjecture that understanding, in physico-chemical terms, how individuality emerges and how it can be recognised, will be essential in the search for instances of evolution by natural selection outside of living systems. (shrink)

Francouzský osvícenský filosof vydal Esej o původu lidského poznání anonymně v r. 1746 v Amsterodamu. V díle, které podává nárys Condillacovy filosofie, se pokouší formulovat a řešit záhady poznání a zejména povahu lidské zkušenisti. Bojuje proti metafyzickým systémům svých předchůdců a vytváří vlastní teorii radikálního senzuálního empirismu.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

Entendant " rendre justice au droit ", Paul Ricoeur a placé le lieu propre du juridique à mi-chemin de l'éthique et du politique.Philosophes, linguistes, praticiens du droit, d'autres encore analysent et critiquent dans leur propre champ d'action...

We discuss the latent variables construct, particularly in regard to the following: that latent variables are considered as the sole explanatory factor of a disorder; that pragmatic concerns are ignored; and that the relationship of these variables to biological markers is not addressed. Further, we comment on the relationship between bridge symptoms and causality, and discuss the proposal in relationship to other constructs (endophenotypes, connectionist-inspired networks).

Vous menez depuis plusieurs années des enquêtes sur le personnel politique en France, avec l’ambition de reconsidérer la notion de « professionnel » de la politique et par extension les ressorts d’une « professionnalisation » de la vie politique en France. Un point de départ, semble-t-il, de votre réflexion porte sur le fait que ces termes servent souvent (à l’instar du vocable péjoratif de « politicien » auquel ils se substituent souvent) à dévaloriser le personnel politique. Ils avaient pourtant été (...) conçus par les sciences sociales pour mettre à distance tout jugement de valeur à propos des élus. On pense bien sûr à Max Weber, mais aussi aux travaux fondateurs de Daniel Gaxie ou Jacques Lagroye, notamment. Comment vos propres travaux se situent-ils par rapport à la dimension normative inévitablement attachée à cet objet qu’est le « métier » de député? Il est vrai que je mène une critique des « professionnels de la politique », mais pas tout à fait dans le sens de celle qui domine... (shrink)

First published in French in 2010, _Equaliberty_ brings together essays by Étienne Balibar, one of the preeminent political theorists of our time. The book is organized around _equaliberty_, a term coined by Balibar to connote the tension between the two ideals of modern democracy: equality and liberty. He finds the tension between these different kinds of rights to be ingrained in the constitution of the modern nation-state and the contemporary welfare state. At the same time, he seeks to keep rights (...) discourse open, eschewing natural entitlements in favor of a deterritorialized citizenship that could be expanded and invented anew in the age of globalization. Deeply engaged with other thinkers, including Arendt, Rancière, and Laclau, he posits a theory of the polity based on social relations. In _Equaliberty_ Balibar brings both the continental and analytic philosophical traditions to bear on the conflicted relations between humanity and citizenship. (shrink)

Etienne Gilson Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages, first delivered as the Richard Lectures in 1937, was published in 1938 and became an immediate success. Not only does it contribute to a major question of debate in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic philosophy and religion in the medieval period but it also insists on the validity of truth obtainable through reason as well as revelation, on rational argument alongside religious faith. This message is as important in the twenty-first century (...) as it was in the fourth century of the young Augustine, the thirteenth of St Thomas Aquinas, and the twentieth of the mature Gilson. (shrink)

CHAPTER I LOGICISM AND PHILOSOPHY In the preface to his Phenomenology of Mind, Hegel rightly remarks that knowing a philosophical system is something more ...

**** A reprint of Gilson's estimable book of 1936 (Sheed and Ward) (endorsed by BCL3). These 20 lectures were delivered as Gifford Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

A collection of Essays over the last 20 years, exploring different dimensions of the philosophical debate on "subjecthood" and "subjectivity" in Modernity, as it was framed by the "Controversy on the subject" from the 1960's, and showing how it is now continued in a "controversy on the Universal.".

Les archives, bien que fondamentales dans la pratique des historiens, tiennent une faible place dans leur réflexion épistémologique, alors que la notion, employée le plus souvent au singulier, a été davantage analysée par certains philosophes, dont en dernier lieu Paul Ricoeur. Il s'agira donc de comprendre l'usage que ce dernier fait du concept d'archive dans son dernier ouvrage, La Mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli, puis de montrer sa filiation avec les travaux de Michel Foucault et de Michel de Certeau. Enfin, on voudrait (...) montrer en quoi cette« archive», liée intimement à la notion de témoignage, peut conduire à des difficultés du point de vue de l'épistémologie historique, et qu'il semble possible de lui opposer un autre usage de la notion, soucieux d'en souligner l'historicité et la matérialité face à une interprétation plus textuelle et herméneutique. (shrink)

"As one of Louis Althusser's most brilliant students in the 1960s, Etienne Balibar contributed to the theoretical collective masterpiece of Reading Capital. Since then he has established himself amongst the most subtle philosophical and political thinkers in France. In Politics and the Other Scene Balibar deepens and extends the work he first developed with Immanuel Wallerstein in Race, Nation, Class. Exploring the theme of universalism and difference, he addresses questions such as "European racism, " the notion of the border, (...) whether a European citizenship is possible or desirable, violence and politics, identity and emancipation"--provided by publisher. (shrink)

In this final edition of his classic study of St. Thomas Aquinas, Etienne Gilson presents the sweeping range and organic unity of Thomistic philosophical thought. The philosophical thinking of Aquinas is the result of reason being challenged to relate to many theological conceptions of the Christian tradition. Gilson carefully reviews how Aquinas grapples with the relation itself of faith and reason and continuing through the existence and nature of God and His creation, the world and its creatures, especially human (...) beings with their power of intellect, will, and moral life. He concludes this study by discussing the life of people in society, along with their purpose and final destiny. Gilson demonstrates that Aquinas drew from a wide spectrum of sources in the development of his thought-from the speculations of the ancient Greeks such as Aristotle, to the Arabic and Jewish philosophers of his time, as well as from Christian writers and scripture. The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas offers students of philosophy and medieval studies an insightful introduction to the thought of Aquinas and the Scholastic philosophy of the Middles Ages, insights that are still revelant for today. (shrink)

In this classic work, the eminent Catholic philosopher Étienne Gilson deals with one of the most important and perplexing metaphysical problems: the relation between our notion of God and demonstrations of his existence. Gilson examines Greek, Christian, and modern philosophy as well as the thinking that has grown out of our age of science in this fundamental analysis of the problem of God. “[I] commend to another generation of seekers and students this deeply earnest and yet wistfully gentle little essay (...) on the most important of all metaphysical—and existential—questions.... The historical sweep is breathtaking, the one-liners arresting, and the style, both intellectual and literary, altogether engaging.” —Jaroslav Pelikan, from the foreword “We have come to expect from the pen of M. Gilson not only an accurate exposition of the thought of the great philosophers, ancient and modern, but what is of much more importance and of greater interest, a keen and sympathetic insight into the reasons for that thought. The present volume does not fail to fulfill our expectations. It should be read by every Christian thinker.” —Ralph O. Dates, _America_. (shrink)

A biological function is supposed to be performed adequately, and hence may fail to do so: this is dysfunction. This raises two questions. One is how to make explicit the way in which function can be discriminated from dysfunction without confusing dysfunction with non-function. The second question is how what is “right” and “wrong” can be legitimated by natural regulatory norms. A function can be viewed as a quality to which at least one variable with a definite set of values (...) is associated. Accordingly, function and dysfunction are the same quality of the same trait, but differ in the values associated to this variable. Dysfunction occurs when the associated set of values does not match this normal state. Biological systems have the epistemic singularity that their existence is the consequence of two distinct causal regimes, the so-called “proximate” and “ultimate” causes, whose convergence defines a system’s prescriptive normality. Each cause imposes restrictive rules that limit the possible ways these systems can putatively exist. When a system is insensitive to ultimate cause, it is determined by proximate causation alone, and hence escapes its own prescriptive norms. In conclusion: The normality of a biological system is defined by the convergence of proximate and ultimate causes. A function is a variable-associated quality whose values are defined relative to the norms of the system. Dysfunction occurs when the set of values of the same variable does not match the normality of the system, which can occur when the system is insensitive to ultimate causation. (shrink)

Western European liberal democracies have recently enacted laws that prohibit the diffusion of fake news on social media. Yet, many consider that such laws are incompatible with freedom of expression. In this paper, I argue that democratic governments have strong pro tanto reasons to prohibit fake news, and that doing so is compatible with free speech. First, I show that fake news disrupts a mutually beneficial form of epistemic dependence in which members of the public are engaged with journalists. Second, (...) I contend that laws against fake news enhance rather than thwart personal autonomy. If these suggestions are plausible, then the same considerations about truth and autonomy that underpin the value of free speech give us reasons to prohibit fake news. (shrink)

Etienne Balibar, one of the foremost living French philosophers, builds on his landmark work 'Spinoza and Politics' with this exploration of Spinoza's ontology. Balibar situates Spinoza in relation to the major figures of Marx and Freud as a precursor to the more recent French thinker Gilbert Simondon's concept of the transindividual. Presenting a crucial development in his thought, Balibar takes the concept of transindividuality beyond Spinoza to show it at work at both the individual and the collective level.

Ya-t-il une vie après Merleau-Ponty? Peut-on considérer l'œuvre du phénoménologue français, non pas comme un objet d'exégèse, mais plutôt comme une matrice philosophique encore féconde aujourd'hui? Faut-il prendre au sérieux la synthèse attendue de l'empirique et du transcendantal, la réconciliation programmée de la philosophie et de la science, bref le géométral de l'ambiguïté? C'est le pari que lance cet ouvrage : confrontant Merleau-Ponty à d'autres qui vinrent après lui, et chez qui sa pensée mène une vie seconde, il tente de (...) montrer que le paysage conceptuel merleau-pontien est encore le nôtre, et qu'il n'a rien perdu de son relief. Merleau-Ponty et Foucault, Merleau-Ponty et Bourdieu, Merleau-Ponty et les neurones miroirs... : autant de dialogues fictifs, engageant l'essentiel d'une pensée dans des prolongements inattendus, lui posant des questions qu'elle ne se posait pas forcément, la poussant sur des chemins nouveaux pour elle. Où l'on verra que l'étonnante torsion que Merleau-Ponty avait imprimée à la phénoménologie husserlienne, la subjectivité transcendantale réformée depuis les pouvoirs du corps propre, et par là délestée de ses tentations absolutisantes, représentent une véritable proposition philosophique: une proposition riche de virtualités inexplorées, et qui a tout son avenir devant elle. (shrink)

L'anthropologie de Merleau-Ponty déplace la question de l'humanité en direction d'un questionnement de type ontologique, ayant vocation à redéfinir les catégories de l'expérience, et d'une philosophie de la nature qui seule peut rendre compte du phénomène humain.

Les pages reunies dans ce volume sont le divertissement d'un philosophe qui sut aussi etre honnete homme: celui dont le nom reste attache a des textes plus austeres n'a pas neglige de relire, au soir des journees passees sur des commentaires medievaux d'Aristote, certaines pages de Villon, de Dante, de Rabelais ou de Rousseau, et de les eclairer d'une lumiere nouvelle, faisant ainsi entrevoir toute la fecondite d'une entente entre philosophe et litteraires. L'histoire des idees ne pourrait-elle devenir une science (...) auxiliare de l'histoire litteraire? A travers les frontieres mouvantes entre litterature et philosophie, Etienne Gilson fraye une interpretation erudite et sensible, propore a suciter un authentique plaisir du texte. (shrink)

Kant’s discussion of the highest good is subject to continuous disagreement between the proponents of two interpretations of this concept. According to the secular interpretation, Kant conceived of the highest good as a political ideal which can be realized through human agency alone, albeit only from the Critique of the Power of Judgement onwards. By way of contrast, proponents of the theological interpretation find Kant’s treatment of the highest good in his later works to be wholly coherent with the discussions (...) of this concept found in the second Critique. In their view, however, Kant never conceived of the highest good as a political ideal, and some go as far as to argue that it is the work of God alone. In this article, I defend a theologico-political account of the highest good that avoids the pitfalls of both readings. (shrink)

étienne Balibar has been one of Europe's most important philosophical and political thinkers since the 1960s. His work has been vastly influential on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the humanities and the social sciences. In We, the People of Europe?, he expands on themes raised in his previous works to offer a trenchant and eloquently written analysis of "transnational citizenship" from the perspective of contemporary Europe. Balibar moves deftly from state theory, national sovereignty, and debates on multiculturalism and European (...) racism, toward imagining a more democratic and less state-centered European citizenship. Although European unification has progressively divorced the concepts of citizenship and nationhood, this process has met with formidable obstacles. While Balibar seeks a deep understanding of this critical conjuncture, he goes beyond theoretical issues. For example, he examines the emergence, alongside the formal aspects of European citizenship, of a "European apartheid," or the reduplication of external borders in the form of "internal borders" nurtured by dubious notions of national and racial identity. He argues for the democratization of how immigrants and minorities in general are treated by the modern democratic state, and the need to reinvent what it means to be a citizen in an increasingly multicultural, diversified world. A major new work by a renowned theorist, We, the People of Europe? offers a far-reaching alternative to the usual framing of multicultural debates in the United States while also engaging with these debates. (shrink)