Françoise Dastur describes her efforts to practice history of philosophy in a non-historical fashion. She discusses her concept of the historical, and argues that the only true way to be of one's time is to be against one's time.

Françoise Dastur describes her efforts to practice history of philosophy in a non-historical fashion. She discusses her concept of the historical, and argues that the only true way to be of one's time is to be against one's time.

Signifiance du monde propose une "harmonisation intégrale" entre la linguistique saussuro-guillaumienne des langues naturelles et la pensée phénoménologique heideggérienne de la vérité de l'être en tant qu'alètheia, dans son sens grec de "ce qui sort de la latence" et que Jean-Louis Tristani nomme illatence. En d'autres termes, cet essai donne accès à une compréhension des "relations grammaticales évidentes qui articulent l'être, dans sa vérité, et la pensée, telles qu'elles sont a priori données dans le système linguistique de n'importe quelle (...) langue naturelle". Cette mise au jour de la co-originarité de la langue et de la pensée corrobore la formule du linguiste français Antoine Meillet, maintes fois citée par Gustave Guillaume, selon laquelle, en ce lieu intelligible de la langue "tout se tient et a un plan d'une pleine rigueur". Une rigueur qui intègre le système morpho-lexical d'une langue, en tant qu'intégrale des conditions d'effection du discours, avec les conditions existentiales de possibilité du Dasein en tant qu'être-au-monde. D'où Signifiance du monde, ce titre qui annonce la composante linguistique de notre présence au monde."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

How, asks Françoise Dastur, can philosophy account for the sudden happening and the factuality of the event? Dastur asks how phenomenology, in particular the work of Heidegger, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty, may be interpreted as offering such an account. She argues that the “paradoxical capacity of expecting surprise is always in question in phenomenology,” and for this reason, she concludes, “We should not oppose phenomenology and the thinking of the event. We should connect them; openness to phenomena must be identified (...) with openness to unpredictability.” The article offers reflections in these terms on a phenomenology of birth. (shrink)

With the advent of CRISPR gene-editing technology, designer babies have become a reality. Françoise Baylis insists that scientists alone cannot decide the terms of this new era in human evolution. Members of the public, with diverse interests and perspectives, must have a role in determining our future as a species.

Issu de la thèse de l'auteur soutenue en 1987, cet ouvrage a pour visée de redéfinir l'anthropologie, en dissipant le malentendu instauré par le modèle galiléen de scientificité appliqué aux sciences sociales afin d'opérer un retour à la fondation historique de la discipline dans l'epistêmê politikê des anciens Grecs. Trois voies d'accès sont parcourues : G. Dumézil, M. Heidegger et G. Guillaume. ©Electre 2018.

oise Baylis, 1234 Le Marchant Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3P7. Tel.: (902)-494–2873; Fax: (902)-494-2924; Email: francoise.baylis{at}dal.ca ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> . Abstract Recently, there has been a growing interest in public health and public health ethics. Much of this interest has been tied to efforts to draw up national and international plans to deal with a global pandemic. It is common for these plans to state the importance of drawing upon a well-developed (...) ethics framework and we argue that this framework should reflect the values and insights of feminist relational theory. More specifically, we argue that pandemic planning must be squarely situated in the larger realm of public health and that an ethics framework for public health will be one that recognizes the need to pay particular attention to the vulnerability of subpopulations lacking in social and economic power. We propose an ethics framework for public health that builds on the notions of relational personhood (including relational autonomy and social justice) and relational solidarity. In this way, we aim for a public health ethics that, as appropriate, promotes the public interest and the common good. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Suddenly, COVID-19 has changed the world and the way people work. Companies had to accelerate something they knew was imminent in the future, but not immediate and extremely humongous. This situation poses a huge challenge for companies to survive and thrive in this complex business environment and for employees, who must adapt to this new way of working. An effective e-leadership, which promotes companies’ adaptability, is needed. This study investigates the existing knowledge on teleworking and e-leadership; and analyzes the supposed (...) challenges. The literature review shows that companies with effective e-leadership can view teleworking as an opportunity. It is advantageous for not only companies’ productivity but also the environment and people who work remotely. However, a traditional or no leadership can result in some risks. Thriving in remote work environments implies that managers must adjust the companies’ structure, making them less hierarchical, and developing new abilities to establish a strong and trustworthy relationship with their employees to maintain their competitiveness, while retaining a genuine concern for their employees’ well-being. Similarly, successful e-leadership must be able to consolidate and lead effective virtual teams to accomplish organizational goals. This study contributes to the literature and leaders during the pandemic. (shrink)

The primary objective of The Health Care Ethics Con sultant is to focus attention on an immediate practical problem: the role and responsibilities, the education and training, and the certification and accreditation of health care ethics consultants. The principal questions addressed in this book include: Who should be considered health care ethics consultants? Whom should they advise? What should be their responsi bilities and what kind of training should they have? Should there be some kind of accreditation or certification program (...) to ensure that those who call themselves ethics consultants are in fact qualified to advise, consult, research, and write in health care ethics? The distinguished authors ofthese articles are persons with diverse backgrounds, interests, presumptions, and val ues. Not surprisingly, therefore, diverse responses have emerged to the questions posed. Though the book's chapters are individually authored, they are informed by the group discussions that went on during active workshop sessions, and by knowledge of the contributions of others. All of the chapters meaningfully represent their consensus. This is not to say that there were no disagreements regarding specific details, but rather that there were no fundamental objections on the book's basic content among a panel of authors who share basic premises regarding the role, responsibilities, education, and certifica tion of health care ethics consultants. (shrink)

In this note we argue that the theoretical approach, developed in the field of quasicrystals, may prove to be useful in a completely different area, namely biology, and more precisely for the transmission electron microscopy observation of biological structures this sections. Whenever the real three-dimensional structure is periodic, a generic cut will produce a quasiperiodic pattern. This is illustrated in a theoretical example inspired by the 3D organization of annelid cuticle. In addition, we discuss recent results on dislocations in quasicrystals, (...) and their possible consequence about observation in biology. Finally, this analysis could be extended to images obtained from other technics, like freeze-fracture, and other materials, provided that certain length scale relations be satisfied. (shrink)

Telling Time takes up Heidegger's ideas of a "phenomenological chronology" in an attempt to pose the question of the possibility of a phenomenological language that would be given over to the "temporality of being" and the finitude of existence. The book combines a discussion of approaches to language in the philosophical tradition with readings of Husserl on temporality and the early and late texts of Heidegger's on logic, truth and the nature of language. As well as Heidegger's "deconstruction" of logic (...) and metaphysics Dastur's work is informed by Derrida's deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence and Nietzschean genealogy. Appealing as much to Humboldt's philosophy of language as to Hölderlin's poetic thought, the book illuminates the eminently dialectical structure of speech and its essential connection with mortality. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that there is no compelling therapeutic ‘need’ for human nuclear genome transfer to prevent mitochondrial diseases caused by mtDNA mutations. At most there is a strong interest in this technology on the part of some women and couples at risk of having children with mitochondrial disease, and perhaps also a ‘want’ on the part of some researchers who see the technology as a useful precedent – one that provides them with ‘a quiet way station’ in (...) which to refine the micromanipulations techniques essential for other human germline interventions and human cloning. In advance of this argument, I review basic information about mitochondrial disease and novel genetic strategies to prevent the transmission of mutated mitochondria. Next, I address common features of contemporary debates and discussions about so-called mitochondrial replacement. First, I contest the cliché that science-and-technology is fast outpacing ethics. Second, I dispute the accuracy of the term ‘mitochondrial replacement’. Third, I provide a sustained critique of the purported ‘need’ for genetically-related children. In closing, I call into question the mainly liberal defense of human nuclear genome transfer. I suggest an alternative frame of reference that pays particular attention to issues of social justice. I conclude that our limited resources should be carefully expended in pursuit of the common good, which does not include pandering to acquired desires. (shrink)

We need to distinguish two sorts of natural kinds, scientific and common NKs, because the notion of NK, which has to satisfy demands at three different levels—ontological, semantic and epistemological—, is subject to two incompatible sets of constraints. In order to prove this, I focus on the much-discussed case of jade. In the first part of the paper, I show that the current accounts are unsatisfactory because they are inconsistent. In the process, I explain why LaPorte’s analysis of “jade” as (...) a vernacular NK-term with an open-texture meaning does not offer a way out. Using a reductio ad absurdum argument, I conclude that according to the main tenets of NK-term theories, today’s “jade” has to be an NK-term, and jade thereby an NK. In the second part of the paper, I argue for this conclusion in a positive manner. First, I present a series of thought experiments demonstrating that today’s “jade” has the specific features of an NK-term. Then, I show that the kind that we presently call “jade” exhibits the typical ontological and epistemological features of an NK. More generally, I expound on why common NKs are more than mere classes, and why categories such as “jade” are useful in many inferences and explanations. (shrink)

A chain-closed field is defined as a chainable field which does not admit any "faithful" algebraic extension, and can also be seen as a field having a Henselian valuation $\nu$ such that the residue field $K/\nu$ is real closed and the value group $\nu K$ is odd divisible with $|\nu K/2\nu K| = 2$. If $K$ admits only one such valuation, we show that $f \in K$ is in $\mathbf{\Sigma} K^{2n} \operatorname{iff}$ for any real algebraic extension $L$ of $K, "f (...) \subseteq \mathbf{\Sigma}L^{2n}"$ holds. The conclusion is also true for $K = \mathbf{R})$, and in the case $n = 1$ it holds for several variables and any real field $K$. (shrink)

Given a model-complete theory of topological fields, we considered its generic differential expansions and under a certain hypothesis of largeness, we axiomatised the class of existentially closed ones. Here we show that a density result for definable types over definably closed subsets in such differential topological fields. Then we show two transfer results, one on the VC-density and the other one, on the combinatorial property NTP2.

Aucune discussion d'ensemble des ecrits de Lyotard sur l'art n'avait ete entreprise. Or sa reflexion sur les arts - musique, cinema, peinture surtout - est une part essentielle de son oeuvre, comme en temoignent les analyses proposees dans Discours, figure, Que peindre?, Moralites postmodernes, L'Inhumain et Les Ecrits sur l'art contemporain et les artistes. Moins remarque pourtant est le fait que Lyotard a collabore avec des peintres (Monory, Guiffrey, Adami, Sam Francis, Appel, Buren, etc). Il a ete commissaire d'une exposition (...) en 1985 qui a fait date, " Les Immateriaux ", au Centre Georges-Pompidou. Plusieurs textes du volume ainsi qu'un entretien inedit avec Bernard Blistene sont consacres a cette manifestation. Pour ce livre Francoise Coblence et Michel Enaudeau ont sollicite non seulement des lecteurs avertis de Lyotard (Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Elisabeth de Fontenay, Jean-Michel Rey, Jean-Loup Thebaud, Herman Parret, Anne Cauquelin, Gerald Sfez, Jean-Claude Rolland, Claudine Eizykman et Guy Fihman, Jean-Francois Nordmann, Jean-Patrice Courtois), mais aussi de plus jeunes chercheurs (Gaelle Bernard, Frederic Fruteau de Laclos, Claire Pages, Jerome Glicenstein, Maud Pouradier, Evelyne Toussaint) qui decouvrent pour leur propre compte le travail de Lyotard sur les arts. Les contributions rassemblees analysent les concepts forges par Lyotard, tels que " figural ", "libidinal ", " sublime ", " immateriau ", " matiere ", " impresentable " " affect ", " ecriture ". A travers eux, cette pensee de l'art veut rompre avec l'esthetique au sens academique du terme pour voir ou entendre dans les oeuvres l'evenement de la couleur ou du son. C'est donc bien d'un enjeu " ontologique " qu'il y va : l'art est seul a nous presenter la frappe sensible de l'etre. (shrink)

On se propose ici de tenter de rapprocher la critique wittgensteinienne des propositions métaphysiques du projet heideggérien de « destruction phénoménologique de l’histoire de l’ontologie ». Il s’agit donc d’abord de rappeler que dans le Tractatus Wittgenstein établit une différence « transcendantale » entre ce qui peut se dire et ce qui ne fait que « se montrer » et qu’il faut plutôt taire. Mais chez Wittgenstein la mise en évidence de cette différence conduit au refus du métalangage, et à (...) l’interdiction d’une interrogation sur sa propre démarche de philosophe, c’est-à-dire à ce que l’on pourrait nommer un « transcendantalisme paradoxal ». Chez Heidegger en revanche la mise en évidence de la différence ontologique, laquelle ne permet ni de faire de l’être un prédicat réel ni d’énoncer l’être sous la forme de propositions prédicatives conduit à interroger le fondement antéprédicatif du langage énonciatif, qui n’est autre que la transcendance du Dasein. Il répond ainsi à la paradoxie du Tractatus en montrant qu’il n’y a d’apophansis que sur la base d’une hermeneia plus originaire. Une mise en parallèle de l’« herméneutique de la facticité » heideggérienne et de l’analyse wittgensteinienne des jeux de langage en tant que formes de vie peut alors être tentée, dans la mesure où la dimension herméneutique du comprendre n’est pas entièrement absente chez le second Wittgenstein, en dépit de sa conception instrumentale du langage.The object of this paper is to try a comparison between Wittgenstein’s critique of metaphysical statements and Heidegger’s project of a « phenomenological destruction of the history of ontology ». It is at first necessary to recall that in Tractatus Wittgenstein establishes a transcendental difference between what can be said and what can only show itself and has to be passed over in silence. But this leads Wittgenstein to refuse metalanguage and to prohibit all questioning of his own position as a philosopher, that is to say to what could be named a « paradoxical transcendentalism ». On the contrary, Heidegger, in bringing to light the ontological difference, which does not allow to define Being as a real predicate or to enunciate Being in the form of predicative statements, is led to question the antepredicative foundation of the propositional language or logos apophantikos, which is nothing else than the transcendence of Dasein. He thus gives an answer to Wittgenstein’s parodoxy by showing that there is apophansis only on the basis of a more originary hermeneia. A comparison between Heidegger’s « hermeneutics of facticity » and Wittgenstein’s analysis of language games as life forms can then be performed, in so far as the hermeneutic dimension of understanding is not completely absent in Wittgenstein’s Investigations, in spite of his instrumental conception of language. (shrink)

On trouve de nombreuses références à Marx dans les textes de Heidegger, ce nom étant souvent associé à celui de Hegel, et l’on sait qu’il a probablement commencé à véritablement lire les textes de Marx au début des années 1930, au moment où Siegfried Landshut, qui avait suivi ses cours (ainsi que ceux de Husserl) à Freiburg, puis à Marbourg, découvrit les Manuscrits de 1844 de Marx et en fut l’éditeur, avec Jacob-Peter Mayer, en février 1932. C’est d’ailleurs un passage (...) de l’un des textes du... (shrink)

Translated by David Farrell Krell. This essay continues the project, also found in "Qui est le Zarathoustra de Nietzsche?" published in first issue of this journal, of discerning the importance of Asian sources for emergent modern European thought. It explores Novalis's relation to the now mostly neglected Sanskrit myth (and play by Kālidāsa) of Shakuntala, clarifying its importance for Novalis's view of the interpenetration of the visible and the invisible and the need for a visual symbol, such as the ring, (...) as pointer and reminder of the invisible's fullness and pervasiveness, in this world, as Love. (shrink)

Françoise Lauwaert Dans cet article, après un essai de définition de ce que l’on entendait par « rites » dans les premiers traités normatifs qui leur furent consacrés, sera retracée l’évolution ayant mené à la constitution d’un « système rituel » à visée totalisante. Or, la recherche de « l’ordre parfait » à laquelle s’adonnaient les ritualistes a suscité des débats infinis et n’a pu aboutir à construire un édifice aussi solide que ces derniers l’auraient souhaité. Pour l’anthropologue Philippe (...) Descola, ce mélange de fascination pour un système quasi totalitaire et d’incapacité à se mettre d’accord sur sa physionomie réelle caractérise l’ontologie analogiste qui fut celle de la Chine à l’époque où ces traités ont été rédigés (la fin de la période des Royaumes Combattants). C’est la première cause, d’ordre logique, que l’on peut trouver à la fragilité d’un système décrit par Yuri Pines comme « the Universal Panacea ». La deuxième cause est plutôt d’ordre psychologique. Elle trouve sa source dans le doute et l’anxiété provoqués par la pression qu’exerce sur les sujets l’injonction de recréer en soi un ordre idéal et toujours déjà perdu. Cette dernière partie s’appuie sur les travaux récents de deux auteurs, Mark Csikzentmihalyi et Michael David Kaulana Ing, lesquels montrent, à partir d’une analyse détaillée de deux ouvrages normatifs : le Wuxing 五行 (Les Cinq types d’actions vertueuses) et le Liji 禮記 (Livre des rites), comment furent abordées les questions de la faillite du rituel et de la faillibilité humaine, indiquant ainsi la voie vers une sortie possible du fantasme de l’ordre parfait. (shrink)

This work was supported, in part, by a Stem Cell Network grant to Françoise Baylis and Jason Scott Robert and a CIHR grant to Françoise Baylis. We sincerely thank Alan Fine, Rich Campbell, Cynthia Cohen, and Tim Krahn for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks are also owed to Tim Krahn for his research assistance. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Department of Bioethics and the Novel Tech Ethics research team. (...) We thank the participants at each of these meetings for their helpful comments. (shrink)

The current debate on the ethics of cloning humans is both uninspired and uninspiring. In large measure this is because of mistakes that permeate the discourse, including the mistake of thinking that cloning technology is strictly a reproductive technology when it is used to create whole beings. As a result, the challenge this technology represents regarding our understanding of ourselves and the species to which we belong typically is inappropriately downplayed or exaggerated. This has meant that important (albeit disquieting) societal (...) issues and species-type concerns have not been fully explored. This paper, intended as a corrective, suggests that we take an alternate view of human cloning as both an enhancement and a reproductive technology. This proposed shift in the framework for analysis counters the current narrow framing of the issues and introduces new questions about the prospect of modifying the species. (shrink)

Dastur is well respected in France and Europe for her mastery of phenomenology as a movement and her clear and cogent explications of phenomenology in movement. These qualities are on display in this remarkable set of essays. The book is organized into four areas of inquiry: Language and Logic, Ego and Other, Temporality and History,and Finitude and Mortality. In each, Dastur guides the reader through a series of phenomenological questions that also serve to call phenomenology itself into question, testing its (...) limits and pushing it in newdirections. Taking a cue from Merleau-Ponty, Dastur sees phenomenology not as a doctrine, a catalogue of concepts and catchphrases authored by a single thinker, but rather as a movement in which several thinkers participate, each one contributing to and inflecting the development of the movement in unique ways. She thus draws inspiration from Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Ricoeur, Gadamer, Fink, and Patocka, moving with ease from one thinker's conceptual vocabulary and outlook to the next's, feeling at home in each, and communicating their central ideas with clarity.Through her critical and productive dialogue with multiple phenomenological thinkers, Dastur concisely shows one thinker's debts to and departures from another and reveals the limits of one's approach while highlighting the innovation of another's. She does this judiciously, without choosing sides, because for her, phenomenology is above all a way of thinking through a problem and practicing a method. The fecundity of the movement is appreciated only by participating in it--it has always thought of itself as philosophical research undertaken by and through a community of thinkers who share certain fundamental questions and ways of approaching those questions, even if their responses to these questions often differ. In this regard, Dastur is both one of the clearest guides to phenomenology and one of France's most able practitioners of phenomenology. (shrink)

This article explores the notion of the dislocated self following deep brain stimulation (DBS) and concludes that when personal identity is understood in dynamic, narrative, and relational terms, the claim that DBS is a threat to personal identity is deeply problematic. While DBS may result in profound changes in behaviour, mood and cognition (characteristics closely linked to personality), it is not helpful to characterize DBS as threatening to personal identity insofar as this claim is either false, misdirected or trivially true. (...) The claim is false insofar as it misunderstands the dynamic nature of identity formation. The claim is misdirected at DBS insofar as the real threat to personal identity is the discriminatory attitudes of others towards persons with motor and other disabilities. The claim is trivially true insofar as any dramatic event or experience integrated into one’s identity-constituting narrative could then potentially be described as threatening. From the perspective of relational personal identity, when DBS dramatically disrupts the narrative flow, this disruption is best examined through the lens of agency. For illustrative purposes, the focus is on DBS for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. (shrink)

Proust interrogates Gilles Deleuze's notion of resistance in relation to death as that which is “turned against death.” She questions a concept of resistance which is “no more than impassivity and indifference.” How, she asks, can we know if the force of resistance is on the side of death or life? Characterizing life as movement, she speaks for a concept of resistance as on the side of life.

Now that stem cell scientists are clamouring for human eggs for cloning-based stem cell research, there is vigorous debate about the ethics of paying women for their eggs. Generally speaking, some claim that women should be paid a fair wage for their reproductive labour or tissues, while others argue against the further commodification of reproductive labour or tissues and worry about voluntariness among potential egg providers. Siding mainly with those who believe that women should be financially compensated for providing eggs (...) for research, the new stem cell guidelines of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) legitimise both reimbursement of direct expenses and financial compensation for many women who supply eggs for research. In this paper, the authors do not attempt to resolve the thorny issue of whether payment for eggs used in human embryonic stem cell research is ethically legitimate. Rather, they want to show specifically that the ISSCR recommended payment practices are deeply flawed and, more generally, that all payment schemes that aim to avoid undue inducement of women risk the global exploitation of economically disadvantaged women. (shrink)

In January 2008, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority issued two 1-year licenses for cytoplasmic hybrid embryo research. This article situates the HFEA's decision in its wider scientific and political context in which, until quite recently, the debate about human embryonic stem cell research has focused narrowly on the moral status of the developing human embryo. Next, ethical arguments against crossing species boundaries with humans are canvassed. Finally, a new argument about the risks of harm to women egg providers resulting (...) from research involving the creation of humanesque cytoplasmic hybrid embryos is elaborated. Taken together these ethical concerns about the moral status of the human embryo, about the ethics of crossing species boundaries with humans, and about the potential harms to women, provide good reason to eschew humanesque cytoplasmic hybrid embryo research in favor of less ethically controversial means to the laudable end of successful regenerative medicine. (shrink)

This paper is dedicated to the analysis of some important points of Patočka’s Heretical Essays on the Philosophy of History in order to question his major thesis of the common origin of philosophy, politics and history shared by Hannah Arendt and based on Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenological conception of the Greek beginning. It tries to show the complexity of Patočka’s conception of Europe, which on one side can be understood as falling into Eurocentrism, but on the other side brings to (...) light the dark face of modern European nihilism and planetary domination and tries to find a remedy for it by appealing to a philosophical conversion leading to the recognition of the diversity of human culture. (shrink)