This article addresses paucity in literature on the conceptualising of the true nature of a Protestant revival. Through a literary review and document study, the article aims to compile a Protestant revival evaluation criterion to assess protestant revivals. This was done by integrating the distinctives of Evangelical revivals throughout history as described by prominent scholars such as Armstrong, Cairns, Edwards, Lloyd-Jones and Sprague in general. In addition, various past and present examples and exponents of true and juxtaposing anti-revivals were investigated (...) and beacons set for sustainable revival. From the PREC, three levels were established by which to assess revivals: individuals, the church and surrounding communities. For the case study, information was gleaned from multiple sources, including interviews, documents, sermons, newsletters, observations and research reports. Applying the PREC in a case study, demonstrates how it operates as a valuable tool; in this case, the revival among the Zulus in KwaSizabantu, South Africa. (shrink)

François Jullien’s Living off Landscape, or the Unthought of in Reason,, is another outstanding work in a series of...

When “general physiology” emerged as a basic field of research within biology in the early nineteenth century, Henri Ducrotay de Blainville (1777–1850) on the one hand and Johannes Peter Müller (1801–1858) on the other appealed to chemical analysis to account for the properties and operations of organisms that were observed to differ from what was found in inorganic compounds. Their aim was to establish laws of vital organization that would be based on organic chemical processes, but would also be of (...) use to explain morphological and functional differences among life forms. The intent of this paper is to specify for each of these leading physiologists the different presuppositions that provided theoretical frameworks for their interpretation of what they conceived of as laws of organization underpinning the dynamics of vital phenomena. Blainville presumed that the properties of organic compounds depended on the chemical properties of their constitutive molecules, but combined according to patterns of functional development, and that the latter could only be inferred from an empirical survey of modes of organization across the spectrum of life forms. For Müller, while all vital processes involved chemical reactions, in the formative and functional operations of organisms, these reactions would result from the action of life forces that were responsible for the production of organic combinations and thus for vital and animal functions. As both physiologists set significant methodological patterns for their many disciples and followers, their respective quasi-reductionist and anti-reductionist positions need to be accounted for. (shrink)

Un siècle avant la parution posthume du Cours de linguistique générale de Ferdinand de Saussure, la linguistique moderne a émergé en Allemagne avec les études de Wilhelm von Humboldt pour la linguistique générale et (entre autres) de Franz Bopp, Jacob Grimm, August Schleicher et Karl Brugmann pour la grammaire historico-comparative des langues indo-européennes. Dès les années 1830, les instituts allemands de philologie et de linguistique ont attiré nombre de jeunes chercheurs de Scandinavie, de France, de Suisse, de Pologne, des USA, (...) etc. Et avec la diffusion de la nouvelle "Science allemande" à l'étranger des échanges intenses se sont épanouis tout au long du XIXe siècle. Ce volume collectif, riche de neuf contributions d'historiens de la linguistique de France, d'Allemagne, de Suisse et des Pays-Bas, vise à retracer certains de ces échanges parmi les plus instructifs, notamment entre Franz Bopp et Michel Bréal, Max Müller et William Whitney, le psychologue Wilhelm Wundt et Albert Sechehaye ou Georg von der Gabelentz et Antoine Meillet. Des voies fécondes étaient ainsi ouvertes à la linguistique du XXe siècle en Europe et en Amérique. (shrink)

This paper compares and contrasts the main metaphysical and religious ideas of the eighteenth-century political theorist and chemist Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) with those of his correspondent Ruder Boscovic (1711–1787), astronomer, poet, mathematician, diplomat and Jesuit priest. It points out the theological differences between the two thinkers resulting from the divergent ontological and metaphysical implications of the theory of point atomism that they shared. This theory they placed in a wider context, considering both its limits and its value as a contribution (...) to ongoing speculations concerning the nature of space and time, theological conundrums such as free will and the mind-body problem. Where they differed, however, was that Priestley, a chemist rather than a mathematician, used point atomism mainly to support his campaign to further materialism and discredit Christianity. Boscovic, on the other hand, carefully distinguished the truths of faith and reason and was therefore indignant at Priestley's misuse of his speculations. Boscovic's protest was probably motivated in part by the materialism of atheists such as the Baron d’Holbach (1723–1789). Priestley was no atheist, however. Interestingly, François Arouet de Voltaire (1698–1778), unaware of the works of either Boscovic or Priestley, devised a theistic materialism in his last years that in many respects resembled Priestley's. I begin with brief biographies of the two thinkers, and outline their intermittent relationship. (shrink)

In the first English translation of his work, Laruelle explores the major European thinkers from Nietzsche to Derrida to define his own 'non-philosophical' ...

The term body integrity identity disorder (BIID) describes the extremely rare phenomenon of persons who desire the amputation of one or more healthy limbs or who desire a paralysis. Some of these persons mutilate themselves; others ask surgeons for an amputation or for the transection of their spinal cord. Psychologists and physicians explain this phenomenon in quite different ways; but a successful psychotherapeutic or pharmaceutical therapy is not known. Lobbies of persons suffering from BIID explain the desire for amputation in (...) analogy to the desire of transsexuals for surgical sex reassignment. Medical ethicists discuss the controversy about elective amputations of healthy limbs: on the one hand the principle of autonomy is used to deduce the right for body modifications; on the other hand the autonomy of BIID patients is doubted. Neurological results suggest that BIID is a brain disorder producing a disruption of the body image, for which parallels for stroke patients are known. If BIID were a neuropsychological disturbance, which includes missing insight into the illness and a specific lack of autonomy, then amputations would be contraindicated and must be evaluated as bodily injuries of mentally disordered patients. Instead of only curing the symptom, a causal therapy should be developed to integrate the alien limb into the body image. (shrink)

Cumulative technological culture (CTC) refers to the increase in the efficiency and complexity of tools and techniques in human populations over generations. A fascinating question is to understand the cognitive origins of this phenomenon. Because CTC is definitely a social phenomenon, most accounts have suggested a series of cognitive mechanisms oriented toward the social dimension (e.g., teaching, imitation, theory of mind, and metacognition), thereby minimizing the technical dimension and the potential influence of non-social, cognitive skills. What if we have failed (...) to see the elephant in the room? What if social cognitive mechanisms were only catalyzing factors and not thesufficient and necessaryconditions for the emergence of CTC? In this article, we offer an alternative, unified cognitive approach to this phenomenon by assuming that CTC originates in non-social cognitive skills, namely technical-reasoning skills which enable humans to develop the technical potential necessary to constantly acquire and improve technical information. This leads us to discuss how theory of mind and metacognition, in concert with technical reasoning, can help boost CTC. The cognitive approach developed here opens up promising new avenues for reinterpreting classical issues (e.g., innovation, emulation vs. imitation, social vs. asocial learning, cooperation, teaching, and overimitation) in a field that has so far been largely dominated by other disciplines, such as evolutionary biology, mathematics, anthropology, archeology, economics, and philosophy. (shrink)

Das typologische Spektrum der Denkformen von Alterität ist breit. Es erstreckt sich zwischen leerer Gleichheit und unzugänglicher Fremdheit. Eine besondere Zuspitzung erfährt das Thema in der Theologie im Gottesgedanken. Das Buch behandelt diesen Problemzusammenhang anhand von Fallstudien zu Schleiermacher und Luther. Bei der Interpretation geht es zugleich um die Frage nach Genese und Quellen von Alterität in übergreifenden Zusammenhängen. Im Mittelpunkt stehen hierbei die grossen theologischen Gegensatzverhältnisse zwischen Gott und Sünde im Horizont, ebenso die vielfältigen Differenzkorrelationen von Selbst und Welt. (...) Dies findet eine Zuspitzung in der Fokussierung von Entsprechungen zwischen Gottes-, Sozial- und Selbstverhältnissen: Theologie wird mit der Logik von Soziologie und Psychologie verknüpft."-- Back cover. (shrink)

This essay criticizes the current approach to epistemic democracy. Epistemic democrats are preoccupied with the question of how a society can best exploit a given stock of knowledge. This article argues that the problem-solving capability of a society depends on two factors rather than one. The quality of decision-making depends both on how a democracy is able to make use of its stock of knowledge and on the size of the knowledge stock. Society’s problem-solving capability over time is therefore a (...) function of its ability to develop its knowledge exploitation mechanisms and the growth rate of its knowledge stock. Based on this enhanced model of social problem-solving, this essay compares two different political ideal types: experimental democracy, as commonly defended by epistemic democrats; and polycentric democracy, a model defended most commonly by political economists. (shrink)

The paper addresses the following question: why do human beings, on Aristotle’s view, have an innate tendency to badness, that is, to developing desires that go beyond, and often against, their natural needs? Given Aristotle’s teleological assumptions (including the thesis that nature does nothing in vain), such tendency should not be present. I argue that the culprit is to be found in the workings of rationality. In particular, it is the presence of theoretical reason that necessitates the limitless nature of (...) human non-rational desires. (shrink)

La philosophie bergsonnienne a rendu le monde de ses contemporains moins opaque, les aidant à lui trouver un sens. Si la France cartésienne coïncide avec les partisans de la démocratie parlementaire ancrée à gauche, celle de Bergson recrute ses plus gros bataillons dans la droite nationale, conservatrice, mais également dans une gauche antiparlementaire, révolutionnaire.

Dans la partie de la philosophic que l'on appelle habituellement philosophie du langage, la vieille opposition entre le réalisme et le nominalisme est toujours actuelle. D'un côté, les thèses nominalistes trouvent de nouveaux défenseurs qui apportent quelquefois des arguments originaux ou qui reprennent d'anciennes argumentations. D'un autre côté le réalisme est violemment attaqué sur tous ses flancs.

La notion de passage n’a pas été conceptualisée en linguistique ; cependant, elle se révèle utile dans des domaines d’application aussi divers que la thématique, la recherche d’information ou la représentation des connaissances.En s’appuyant sur l’expérience de la sémantique de corpus, cette étude précise la notion de passage par l’examen des rapports de sémiosis entre contenu et expression du passage, comme par l’étude des rapports contextuels au sein du passage et entre passages. Tenant compte des rapports entre fonds et formes (...) sémantiques, puis des transformations entre passages, l’investigation conduit à préciser des phénomènes qui intéressent tant la textualité que l’intertextualité, de la citation à la traduction. (shrink)

This article presents a relational criticism of the "morphogenetic theory" of M. Archer. This theory is founded and representative of the most influential mode of perception of the social universe of the last few decades: co-determinism (structure ↔ agency). Co-determinism's influence can be explained by its integration of modern general presuppositions like freedom, individualism, and the quest for a new social order. By identifying five basic principles of relational sociology, we see that Archer's co-deterministic theory offers a complicated solution to (...) avoid voluntarism and co-determinism, limits the potential of sociological imagination, cannot adequately see the fluidity of social processes, produces a certain reification of social structures and agency, and is based on an inconsistent use of egocentric and relational perspectives. These problems can be avoided if we use a relational approach (actor ↔ actor ⇒ structures) based on the study of complex and empirical trans-actions. (shrink)

Thinking involves many elements of sound that philosophical tradition has repressed. Breathing, rhythms and collateral noises participate in the making of idealities, even the most abstract. In order to hear them, the voice needs to be considered as one sound among others and as multiple, even when it comes from the same speaker, following different protocols of enunciation. Listening to the recordings of seminars and studying the role played by modern sound technologies make it possible to hear subterranean meanings and (...) tensions at the heart of mental elaboration. Thinkers and writers could be defined by the way they handle the acoustic environments favourable to the way they speak and write, whether by selection, mixing or silence. An ‘acousmatic’ reading aims to listen to this sonic investment in texts and to hear the complex vibrations of their thought. (shrink)

Some recent studies have shown that the critique of rhetoric in the Gorgias itself has a rhetorical dimension. The following analysis deals only with the first part of the dialogue, in which Socrates questions Gorgias, from two complementary perspec­tives. First, since it is ad hominem in character, Socrates’ argumentation mimics and transforms the techniques of contemporary rhetoric, but its goals are protreptic and ethical rather than eristic. Secondly, insofar as he is the controlling author of the dialogue,, Plato displays strategies (...) that of course are to be distinguished from Socrates’ argumentative strategies - just as the historical Gorgias is to be distinguished from the figure represented by Plato. The distinction here focusses on the problem of interpreting the different ways in which both the character Socrates and the author Plato employ irony and indirect communication. (shrink)

À partir d’une certaine idée de la finitude, nous avons voulu simplement dénoncer le fantasme d’un monde sans frontières.

Hundreds of clinical trials of potential treatments and vaccines for the “coronavirus 19 disease” (COVID-19) have been set up in record time. This is a remarkable reaction to the global pandemic, but the absence of a global coordination of clinical research efforts raises serious ethical concerns. Some COVID-19 patients might carry the burden of clinical trial involvement even though their trial cannot be completed as researchers are competing for patients. A shortage of medicines can occur when existing drugs are diverted (...) for clinical trials. Research ethics committees are overburdened with multiple applications. A multitude of trials can also overstretch medical staff and risk neglecting non-COVID-19 patients. And finally, conflicting conclusions from a multitude of heterogeneous trials might lead to delays in public health decisions about life-saving issues. These challenges are made worse by the unpredictable evolution of epidemics, the active involvement of political decision-makers in scientific issues and the pressure of social media globally. While freedom to conduct research must be safeguarded, global health emergency situations would greatly benefit from effective international coordination mechanisms for clinical research. (shrink)

Following decades of neglect, the work of the German Jewish philosopher, literary author, cultural critic, and poet Günther Anders (1902–1992) is gaining increasing recognition in the English-speaking world. This translation of “Résistance heute” (Resistance Today) makes one of Anders’s most programmatic and polemical short texts available. Published at the height of his anti-nuclear activism, “Resistance Today” is the written version of a speech Anders delivered in November 1962 upon acceptance of the northwest Italian city of Omegna’s Resistance Prize (other notable (...) recipients included Jean-Paul Sartre and Frantz Fanon). It first appeared in print in the West German left-wing journal Das Argument in November 1963. Clearly written for the occasion, the text condenses (and often further radicalizes) key premises about the end of history, the amoral character of work, and the continuity between Nazi totalitarianism, the nuclear age and the world of consumerism that are developed in great nuance across a range of books that Anders had recently published. Key co-ordinates include: Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen 1 (The Obsolescence of Human Beings 1, 1956), his groundbreaking critique of technology; Der Mann auf der Brücke (The Man on the Bridge, 1959), a philosophical travel diary occasioned by Anders’s 1958 visit to Japan and his participation at the World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs in Tokyo; Burning Conscience (1961), a correspondence with the American reconnaissance pilot Claude Eatherly, who scouted the target area before the Enola Gay went on to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima. It seems likely that Burning Conscience, which turned into an international bestseller, occasioned the award of the prize. (shrink)