In recent years Fodor has repeatedly argued that nothing epistemic can be essential to, or constitutive of, any concept. This holds in virtue of a constraint which Fodor dubs the Compositionality Constraint. I show that Fodor's argument is fallacious because it rests on an ambiguity.

Adopting a communication as constitutive of organization (CCO) perspective on ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) invites us to create the conditions of a dialogue, discussion, or debate between various stakeholders, who can then try to confront their respective positions on a given issue, and possibly come to a decision regarding how a situation should be evaluated and/or responded to. As shown in this article, getting human stakeholders to voice their concerns about a specific situation is a way not only (...) to rationally confront multiple viewpoints on what should be done about it (à la Habermas) but also to allow elements of this situation to reveal themselves in a discussion. This is why any ethical decision has to experience a form of undecidability and surprisability. When beliefs and opinions can be called into question, it means that participants are ready to become attentive to what a situation might surprisingly call for. Communication is therefore a matter of ventriloquism, as human participants should also be considered the means by which elements of a situation manage to express themselves in a discussion, dictating specific courses of action over others. This concretely means that multiple voices can be heard in such a scene: not only the voices of the human stakeholders who speak to each other but also the voices of facts, principles, future generations, ecosystems, populations that are made to say things through these various turns of talk. (shrink)

SummaryIn this paper I discuss two influential views in the philosophy of mind: the two‐component picture draws a distinction between ‘narrow content’ and ‘broad content’, while radical externalism denies that there is such a thing as narrow content. I argue that ‘narrow content’ is ambiguous, and that the two views can be reconciled. Instead of considering that there is only one question and three possible answers corresponding to Cartesian internalism, the two‐component picture, and radical externalism respectively, I show that there (...) are two distinct questions: ‘Are mental contents internal to the individual?’ and, ‘Are mental contents analysable in two‐components?’ Both questions can be given a positive or a negative answer, in such a way that there are four, rather than three, possible views to be distinguished. The extra view whose possibility emerges in this framework is that which mixes radical externalism with the two‐component picture. It agrees with radical externalism that there cannot be ‘solipsistic’ contents: content is not an intrinsic property of the states of an individual organism, but a relational property. It also agrees with the two‐component picture, on a certain interpretation: the broad content of a psychological state depends upon what actually causes that state, but the narrow content depends only on what normally causes this type of state to occur. In the last section of the paper, I deal with internal representation which seem to be independent even of the normal environment. I show that such contents are themselves independent of the normal environment only in a relative sense: they are locally independent of the normal environment, yet still depend on it via the concepts to which they are connected in the concept system. (shrink)

To systematically answer the generalized Kretschmann objection, I propose a mean to make operational a criterion widely recognized as allowing one to decide whether the gauge symmetry of a theory is artificial or substantial. My proposition is based on the dressing field method of gauge symmetry reduction, a new simple tool from mathematical physics. This general scheme allows one in particular to straightforwardly argue that the notion of spontaneous symmetry breaking is superfluous to the empirical success of the electroweak theory. (...) Important questions regarding the context of justification of the theory then arise. (shrink)

We provide a Kripke semantics for a STIT logic with the "next" operator. As the atemporal group STIT is undecidable and unaxiomatizable, we are interested in strict fragments of atemporal group STIT. First we prove that the satisfiability problem of a formula of the fragment made up of individual coalitions plus the grand coalition is also NEXPTIME-complete. We then generalize this result to a fragment where coalitions are in a given lattice. We also prove that if we restrict the language (...) to nested coalitions the satisfiability problem is NP-complete if the number of agents is fixed and PSPACE-complete if the number of agents is variable. Finally we embed individual STIT with the "next" operator into a fragment of atemporal group STIT. (shrink)

The author argues that being-thought, in keeping with the ‘intellectualist choice’ of the Greeks, has narrowed the thinkable to the question of whether something is or is not. The discourse-reason (logos) of the Greeks necessarily lends itself to construction and to its result, which is knowledge. Knowledge in turn trades the singular for generality, e.g. beautiful things for beauty. Because what it seeks is nowhere to be found in the world, such philosophy has located pure in-itself-ness in the beyond of (...) metaphysics, reducing life to metabolism, a shuttling between the extrema of lack and satiety. The Chinese language, because it lacks morphological markers, an imperative mood, and a verb ‘to be’, sidesteps ontology (being-thought) and thus hints at a more fruitful perspective on living, elucidating the notion of ex-istence as a way to provide an exteriority from which to examine living, in all its immediacy, without recourse to any metaphysical beyond. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce qu'entrer dans une pensée? Qui ne souhaiterait par exemple entrer, le temps d'une soirée, dans une pensée aussi extérieure à la nôtre que la chinoise? Mais on ne peut y entrer en tentant de la résumer, ou d'en présenter des notions, ou d'y distinguer des écoles, voire en en traçant l'histoire. Car on reste toujours dépendant, pour le faire, de nos perspectives implicites et de nos concepts. On n'a pas encore quitté sa pensée. Donc on n'a pu entrer dans (...) l'autre. C'est pourquoi je proposerai ici, à titre de travaux pratiques, de commencer par lire une simple phrase de chinois : les premiers mots du Yi King sur le commencement. De la lire du dedans : dans son énoncée et dans son commentaire. Comme aussi du dehors, qu'il soit de la Bible, de la Grèce et de nos prochains et plus lointains Orients. S'érige alors progressivement un seuil qui fait entrer. Du même coup, se répartissent, de part et d'autre, divers possibles de la pensée. Et surgit soudain devant nous une tâche immense : concevoir une histoire de l'avènement de l'esprit qui ne relève plus de la seule Europe. (shrink)

Le problème théologico-politique posé par l'articulation de la religion et de l'Etat semble étranger à la philosophie hégélienne. Cette question n'est véritablement abordée qu'au sein de deux remarques annexes de la philosophie du droit et de l'esprit. Derrière ce thème se laisse pourtant découvrir l'enjeu fondamental de la pensée hégélienne comme réflexion essentiellement centrée autour de la notion de la liberté. A partir d'un retour à la philosophie de la religion cet ouvrage se propose donc d'interroger la place du christianisme (...) dans l'avènement de l'Etat moderne tel que le pense Hegel. (shrink)

This is an experimental piece of writing by François Laruelle. Via its origins in both Greek and Judeo-Christian thought, philosophy has risen up from the abysses of the world and made its assault on human identity. Philosophy dominates man, and as long as he lives under the philosophical decision or ?Ontological Statute? he lives also within an impotence of thought and within an infinite culpability. Yet ultimately man is an inalienable reality, and nothing ? not even philosophy ? can (...) substitute itself for man and for his identity. There is no reversibility between man and philosophy. Man itself is the abolition of the Statute. (shrink)

We prove that the statement “there is aksuch that for everyfthere is ak-bounded diagonally nonrecursive function relative tof” does not imply weak König’s lemma over${\rm{RC}}{{\rm{A}}_0} + {\rm{B\Sigma }}_2^0$. This answers a question posed by Simpson. A recursion-theoretic consequence is that the classic fact that everyk-bounded diagonally nonrecursive function computes a 2-bounded diagonally nonrecursive function may fail in the absence of${\rm{I\Sigma }}_2^0$.

Numismatique François de Callatay et Caroline Mattheeuws, À propos d'une série exceptionnelle de grands bronzes thasiens (fin ive- début me siècle) p. 481-490 L'acquisition par le Cabinet des Médailles de Bruxelles d'un lot de trente-cinq grands bronzes thasiens aux types «Tête de Déméter/Bustes des Dioscures» permet d'affiner la connaissance de cette émission exceptionnelle. Tous les exemplaires sont contremarques et beaucoup présentent des traces de surfrappe. L'étude du style combinée à celle des poids permet de déceler une manipulation monétaire qui (...) avait échappé jusqu'à présent. Avant de réaliser cette émission en surfrappant une émission existante au type de l'Héraclès imberbe, on s'était d'abord servi de nouveaux flans d'un poids lourd (ca 13 g). L'étude du contexte archéologique confirme d'autre part pour ces bronzes, sans toutefois qu'il soit permis de les situer à l'année près, une datation à l'extrême fin du ive s. av. J.-C. (shrink)

Nanomaterials have attracted much interest in the medical field and related applications as their distinct properties in the nanorange enable new and improved diagnosis and therapies. Owing to these properties and their potential interactions with the human body and the environment, the impact of nanomaterials on humans and their potential toxicity have been regarded a very significant issue. Consequently, nanomaterials are the subject of a wide range of cutting-edge research efforts in the medical and related fields to thoroughly probe their (...) potential beneficial utilizations and their more negative effects. We posit that the lack of standardization in the field is a serious shortcoming as it has led to the establishment of methods and results that do not ensure sufficient consistency and thus in our view can possibly result in research outputs that are not as robust as they should be. The main aim of this article is to present how NanoDiaRA, a large FP7 European multidisciplinary project that seeks to investigate and develop nanotechnology-based diagnostic systems, has developed and implemented robust, standardized methods to support research practices involving the engineering and manipulation of nanomaterials. First, to contextualize this research, an overview of the measures defined by different regulatory bodies concerning nanosafety is presented. Although these authorities have been very active in the past several years, many questions remain unanswered in our view. Second, a number of national and international projects that attempted to ensure more reliable exchanges of methods and results are discussed. However, the frequent lack of publication of procedures and protocols in research can often be a hindrance for sharing those good practices. Subsequently, the efforts made through NanoDiaRA to introduce standardized methods and techniques to support the development and utilization of nanomaterials are discussed in depth. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with the partners of this project, and the interviews were analyzed thematically to highlight the determined efforts of the researchers to standardize their methods. Finally, some recommendations are made toward the setting up of well-defined methods to support the high-quality work of collaborative nanoparticle-based research and development projects and to enhance standardization processes. (shrink)

_A mood for Philosophy_ __ _ _ _In this dialogue with Francois Laruelle Anne-Françoise Schmidt suggests that Laruelle's non-philosophy, which begins with an indecision, could be conceived as something that in the history of painting has been called figura serpentinata, "serpentine line". This line, which produces a kind of music by the use of concepts, is visible according her trough his whole work: from his first book on Ravaisson, _Phenomenon and Difference,_ through to his last one, _The Last Humanity: A (...) New Ecological Science_, published in French in 2015 and expected to appear in English in 2018._. (shrink)

L’exploration archéologique du site de l’Arkipiskopi dans la vieille ville de Nicosie, conduite par Fryni Hadjichristofi et son équipe (Département des Antiquités de Chypre) de 2009 à 2011 puis en 2016, a mis au jour les vestiges d’un puits à roue élévatrice appelé à Chypre αλακάτιν/alakatin et plus habituellement connu dans le monde méditerranéen sous le nom de sakieh. S’il en existe des exemplaires plus anciens dans l’île, c’est la première machine hydraulique à traction animale permettant de puiser l’eau dans (...) un puits profond fouillée à Nicosie pour les époques latine, ottomane et anglaise. Cette étude entend d’abord examiner et interpréter les vestiges de ces structures au regard des informations livrées par des documents d’archives et des récits de voyageurs, des dessins de la fin du xvie et du début du xviiie siècle, un plan de 1882 et le cadastre de 1948, afin d’en mieux saisir les contextes de fonctionnement sur une longue durée. Elle présente aussi les godets de terre fixés sur la roue pour le puisage de l’eau et qui, à de rares exceptions, ont complètement échappé aux études céramologiques conduites dans l’île. (shrink)

A internationally renowned philosopher - Francois Laruelle - takes on the perennially important topic of what is means to be human and the place of humanity within ecological and post-humanism concerns.

This paper examines the relationship between the puericulture of Adolphe Pinard and Léon Bourgeois’ solidarism. In an attempt to create a progressive and humanistic form of eugenics, Pinard links the science he was developing with the imperatives of social justice advocated by Bourgeois. This results in, on the one hand, the subordination of puericulture to principles of equality and fundamental rights for all individuals and, on the other, the idea of the need for a biological enhancement of the population as (...) a condition for the extension of liberty and solidarity. The first part of the article establishes a connection between the two authors through the neo-Lamarckian paradigm which they spoused, and details the how and the why of solidarism. A second part examines the nature of the assimilation of the “religion of humanity” into solidarity, which entails both the defence of love at a collective level and the sanctity of those deemed “abnormal”. A final part describes the solidarist-inspired levers envisaged by Pinard for preventing the degeneration of humanity. They are based on a redefinition of the criteria used to determine the value of the social function of the individual and have an impact on the family, on the one hand, and eugenic women on the other. (shrink)

A purely probabilistic-informational model of evolutions is sketched, basically free of any assumption concerning the nature and structure of the evolving system but apt to incorporatea posteriori any such assumptions needed for application to a specified evolution. The model produces an abstract extension of the second principle of thermodynamics. It also leads to an outline of a typology of irreversible evolutions.

The aim of this paper is both to use Kindleberger’s thesis to analyse banking crashes of the Middle Age and to give proof of whether the medieval banks do or do not raise the same theoretical analysis as the modern banks. This is of importance, because the theories that are invoked by Kindleberger concern banks very different from the medieval banks. If the financial instability of the 14th century is similar to that of the 19th or the 20th century, this (...) leads to amend the impact and generality of Kindleberger’s instability model.L’objet de cet article est d’utiliser la théorie de Kindleberger pour analyser les krachs bancaires du Moyen Age et vérifier si les banques médiévales relèvent ou non du même appareil théorique que les banques modernes. Cela représente un enjeu important car les banques médiévales sont très différentes de celles qu’étudie Kindleberger. Si l’instabilité financière du XIVe siècle est comparable à celle des XIXe et XXe siècles, cela nous amène à reconsidérer l’impact et la généralité du modèle de Kindleberger. (shrink)

Comme ses Cinq méditations sur la beauté, ce texte de François Cheng est né d'échanges avec ses amis, auxquels le lecteur est invité à devenir partie prenante. Il entendra ainsi le poète, au soir de sa vie, s'exprimer sur un sujet que beaucoup préfèrent éviter. Le voici se livrant comme il ne l'avait peut-être jamais fait, et transmettant une parole à la fois humble et hardie. Il n'a pas la prétention de délivrer un "message" sur l'après-vie, ni d'élaborer un (...) discours dogmatique, mais il témoigne d'une vision de la "vie ouverte". Une vision en mouvement ascendant qui renverse notre perception de l'existence humaine, et nous invite à envisager la vie à la lumière de notre propre mort. Celle-ci, transformant chaque vie en destin singulier, la fait participer à une grande Aventure en devenir. (shrink)

Philosophie du langage et philosophie de l'esprit constituent désormais un tout indissociable. Les expressions linguistiques «signifient». Qu'est-ce que cela veut dire? François Recanati distingue trois réponses possibles. Selon la première, signifier c'est (pour une expression linguistique) être associée à des représentations mentales. Selon la deuxième, signifier c'est «faire référence» et renvoyer à quelque chose dans le monde – une réalité extralinguistique. Selon la troisième, enfin, signifier, c'est jouer un rôle distinctif dans cette activité sociale qu'est la parole. La première (...) réponse renvoie aux représentations mentales. Mais qu'est-ce, pour une représentation mentale, que d'avoir un contenu? La vraie question, est-on tenté de penser, est plus générale : qu'est-ce que signifier ou avoir un contenu? Qu'est-ce qu'une représentation (linguistique ou mentale)? Les philosophes contemporains recherchent une théorie du contenu qui soit suffisamment générale pour s'appliquer à la pensée aussi bien qu'au langage. François Recanati nous introduit à leurs efforts, et conclut en faveur de l'approche «pragmatique» inspirée de Wittgenstein. Ce qui fait que la pensée et le langage représentent le monde, c'est avant tout le fait que la pensée et le langage sont dans le monde, qu'ils y ont leur place et y jouent leur rôle. (shrink)

This paper proposes to explore the mechanisms by which speaking, writing and, more generally, interacting pragmatically contribute to the mode of being and acting of social forms, whether these forms be identities, relations or collectives. Such an approach to pragmatics, which we propose to call constitutive, amounts to showing, both theoretically and empirically, that human interactants are not the only ones who should be deemed as “doing things with words”, but that otherfigures— which can take the form of policies, statuses, (...) tools, groups, collectives, etc. — can also be identified as beingactivein a given situation, especially through the way they are mobilized and staged in interaction. According to this approach, interactions can therefore be considered dislocated loci where specific con-figurations are produced and embodied. As we will see, such a constitutive view also allows us to deal with issues of power, authority and responsibility, three questions that tend to be relatively marginalized in pragmatic studies, especially when a performative and interactive viewpoint is adopted. (shrink)

Communitarians and liberals have long held vigorous discussions about the status of the self. The former argue that we do not actively choose our ends, but that they come to the fore through self-discovery. This implies that the self is encumbered and that the liberal self—one capable of choosing his ends—is unrealistic. In this article, we consider these two paradigms and especially Will Kymlicka’s position within this debate. Kymlicka defends a liberal theory without relying on an unencumbered self, and may (...) therefore have rescued liberalism from communitarian attacks. In the first part of our article, we argue that Kymlicka’s theory can only be sustained if it involves an unencumbered self that is prior to its ends. Ultimately, this means that the communitarian critique on liberalism can no longer be refuted. In order to support our argument, we introduce a distinction between the metaphysical depiction of the self as an unencumbered chooser and the psychological depiction of the self, which draws upon people’s understanding of themselves as being constitutively bound to certain ends. In the second part of our article, we invoke Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical theory in order to assert that neither communitarians nor liberals are entirely able to explain what is at stake when individuals describe being bound to ‘extimate ends’—ends they feel they did not choose, yet cannot relinquish. Although both philosophical paradigms cannot fully account for the ‘extimate subject’, in the policies they respectively defend, liberalism is the one that should be preferred. (shrink)

François Boucher | : Dans cet article, j’examine le rôle des villes dans l’aménagement de la diversité ethnoculturelle. Je me penche sur l’idée voulant que la prise en compte des spécificités du contexte urbain et de l’échelle géographique de la ville ait une certaine fonction heuristique. Une telle prise en compte nous mène à réviser notre compréhension des agent.e.s responsables d’honorer une conception de la justice, à revoir l’ordre du jour de la philosophie politique normative en mettant en lumière (...) des questions et problématiques spécifiques à ce contexte et, enfin, à discerner certaines possibilités et stratégies politiques visant à promouvoir la justice et le bien commun. Plus spécifiquement, dans le cadre d’une réflexion sur le multiculturalisme, une attention portée au contexte de la ville porte la promesse d’enrichir notre compréhension des politiques publiques susceptibles de promouvoir ou de compromettre l’intégration et la cohésion sociale dans les sociétés pluralistes. Ainsi, l’idéal de ville interculturelle propose de faire de la promotion des interactions interculturelles dans les espaces urbains un des piliers de la planification urbaine. Après avoir exploré le rôle spécifique des villes dans la mise en place d’une politique d’aménagement de la diversité ethnoculturelle visant à promouvoir l’intégration, je soulignerai quelques limites auxquelles se heurte l’idéal de la ville interculturelle. | : In this article, I examine the role of cities in the accomodation of ethnocultural diversity. I study the idea that there is a certain heuristic function in taking into consideration the specificities of the urban context and the geographic dimensions of the city. Such consideration leads us to revise our understanding of the agents called upon to honour a conception of justice; to take a second look at the agenda of normative political philosophy while shedding light on the questions and issues specific to this context; and, finally, to discern certain political possibilities and strategies aiming to promote justice and the common good. More specifically, paying attention to the context of the city within a reflection on multiculturalism promises to enrich our understanding of the public policies likely to promote or to jeopardize integration and social cohesion in pluralist societies. Thus, the ideal of the intercultural city offers to make the fostering of intercultural interactions in urban spaces one of the pillars of urban planning. (shrink)

François Duchesneau | : Nicolas de Béguelin, philosophe et scientifique, membre de l’Académie de Berlin, entreprit de concilier des thèses contrastées sur les fondements de la philosophie de la nature, qui semblaient suggérer une antinomie irréductible entre les principes leibniziens-wolffiens et les principes newtoniens. Dans une série de mémoires consacrés à ce projet, il tente d’établir qu’une philosophie expérimentale reste incertaine de ses hypothèses, si elle ne les confronte aux réquisits qu’imposent certains des principes architectoniques dérivant du principe de (...) la raison suffisante. Au coeur de l’argument figure une analyse visant à rattacher le concept de loi de la nature à la catégorie des vérités contingentes. Illustration en est fournie par la « déduction » des lois fondamentales de la mécanique : celles-ci ne sauraient être réduites à des propositions abstraites relevant de la seule nécessité géométrique. C’est en se fondant sur le réquisit de l’harmonie universelle que Béguelin propose des hypothèses sur l’intégration de forces motrices, intégration qui serait sous-jacente à l’inertie des corps, et sur l’espace comme ordre de coexistence des corps qui dépendrait de l’interrelation entre des éléments monadiques. | : Nicolas de Béguelin, philosopher and scientist and a member of the Berlin Academy, undertook to conciliate such conflicting views concerning the foundations of natural philosophy as seemed to suggest an irreducible antinomy between the Leibnizian-Wolffian and the Newtonian principles. In a series of memoirs, he argued that experimental philosophy would remain unsettled about the validity of its hypotheses as long as it failed to check them against requisites arising from architectonic principles and their source in sufficient reason. At the heart of his argument, one finds an analysis of the relationship that holds between laws of nature and contingent truths. Case studies were provided relative to the “deduction” of the fundamental laws of mechanics : these should be in no way equated with abstract statements featuring geometrical necessity. Relying on the requisites of universal harmony, Beguelin framed up hypotheses concerning the integration of motive forces underpinning inertia, as well as concerning space as an order of coexistent bodies that would depend on the interrelation between monadic elements. (shrink)

L'adversaire le plus dangereux de la psychanalyse est le révisionnisme. Au contraire, « l'axiome fondamental de la non- analyse est que le Réel de l'Inconscient et de l' Être est forclos à tout discours et que c'est justement cet être forclos qui détermine un discours et une pratique non analytiques ». La non- analyse n'est pas le retour à des préjugés philosophiques mais une « théorie unifiée de la philosophie et d'un savoir » qui peut prendre une couleur psychanalytique. Les (...) concepts fondamentaux sont: le Réel, l'imaginaire philosophico-analytique, l'apparaître phénoménal de l'Inconscient, la binante symbolique. The most dangerous adversary of psychoanalysis is revisionism. On the contrary, the fundamental axiom of non-analysis is that the Real of the Unconscious and of Being is forclosed to any discourse, and it is indeed this forclosed Being which détermines a nonanalytic discourse and practice. The non-analysis is in no way a return to philosophical prejudice but « a unified theory of philosophy and of a knowledge » which may sound psychoanalytical. The fundamental concepts are : the Real, the philosophico-analytical imaginary, the phenomenal appearing of the Unconscious, the symbolical binarity. (shrink)