Many criticisms have been made of optimization theory (Laville, 1999a). These objections may be explained by the fact that human rationality is bounded – that decisions are constrained by cognitive limitations (Simon, 1982). In the present paper, I will show that if rationality is bounded, then we must study the processes of decision. My thesis is that cognitive limitations lead to procedural rationality. Although this assertion has already been sustained implicitly by Simon (1959) and explicitly by Mongin (1986), it (...) has not been argued in sufficient depth. (shrink)

Ecological fitness has been suggested to provide a unifying definition of fitness. However, a metric for this notion of fitness was in most cases unavailable except by proxy with differential reproductive success. In this article, I show how differential persistence of lineages can be used as a way to assess ecological fitness. This view is inspired by a better understanding of the evolution of some clonal plants, colonial organisms, and ecosystems. Differential persistence shows the limitation of an ensemblist noncausal understanding (...) of evolution. Causal explanations are necessary to understand the evolution by natural selection of these biological systems. †To contact the author write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Montreal, P.O. Box 6128, Station Centre‐Ville, Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3J7 Canada; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

One of intuitions driving the acceptance of a neat structured tree of life is the assumption that organisms and the lineages they form have somewhat stable spatial and temporal boundaries. The phenomenon of symbiosis shows us that such ‘fixist’ assumptions does not correspond to how the natural world actually works. The implications of lateral gene transfer (LGT) have been discussed elsewhere; I wish to stress a related point. I will focus on lateral function transfer (LFT) and will argue, using examples (...) of what many would call ‘superorganisms’, that the emergence of symbiotic individuals revives the importance of functional and adaptationist thinking in how we conceptualize the lineages of biological individuals. The consequence of the argument is that, if we really want to hold onto tree of life thinking, we had better accept that new saplings appear and disappear all the time. (shrink)

Why and how do norms emerge? Which norms emerge and why these ones in particular? Such questions belong to the ‘problem of the emergence of norms’, which consists of an inquiry into the production of norms in social collectives. I address this question through the ethnographic study of the emergence of ‘norms against violence’ in the political collective Occupy Geneva. I do this, first, empirically, with the analysis of my field observations; and, second, theoretically, by discussing my findings. In consequence (...) of two episodes categorized as sexual assaults that occurred in their camp, the members of Occupy Geneva decided to tackle those issues in a general assembly. Their goal was to amend their first charter of good conduct in order to reform its norms and complete it with norms aiming to regulate ‘facts’ of ‘unjustified violence’. During a collective deliberation, new norms were devised, debated and consensually adopted. The writing of the new charter took place in a second general assembly during which the wording of the written norms was collectively decided. I show that indignation over the sexual assaults was the main motive that led to the collective deliberation, and that the entire process of the making of these norms was characterized by different collective emotions. Indeed, indignation, contempt and fear played major roles in the emergence of norms prohibiting violence, allowing punishment and exclusion of wrongdoers, and prescribing collective intervention against an aggressor to neutralize the threat represented. These findings prompt me to hypothesize that social norms emerge from emotions thanks to the latters’ internal structure; and that emotions provide causal and grounding explanations for this emergence. Thus, emotions allow us to answer the questions: ‘Why do norms emerge?’ and ‘Why do they have their specific forms?’ In short, I argue that social norms have emotional foundations. (shrink)

At the phenomenal level, consciousness can be described as a singular, unified field of recursive self-awareness, consistently coherent in a particualr way; that of a subject located both spatially and temporally in an egocentrically-extended domain, such that conscious self-awareness is explicitly characterized by I-ness, now-ness and here-ness. The psychological mechanism underwriting this spatiotemporal self-locatedness and its recursive processing style involves an evolutionary elaboration of the basic orientative reference frame which consistently structures ongoing spatiotemporal self-location computations as i-here-now. Cognition computes action-output (...) in the midst of ongoing movement, and consequently requires a constant self-locating spatiotemporal reference frame as basis for these computations. Over time, constant evolutionary pressures for energy efficiency have encouraged both the proliferation of anticipative feedforward processing mechansims, and the elaboration, at the apex of the sensorimotor processing hierarchy, of self-activating, highly attenuated recursively-feedforward circuitry processing the basic orientational schema independent of external action output. As the primary reference frame of active waking cognition, this recursive i-here-now processing generates a zone of subjective self-awareness in terms of which it feels like something to be oneself here and now. This is consciousness. (shrink)

An argument opposing the unrestricted use of quantification in modal logic has been put forward by Quine. Central to this argument are the two phrases, The Morning Star, The Evening Star.One form of the argument is obtained by considering the following two statements: It is necessary that the Morning Star is identical with the Morning Star. It is not necessary that the Evening Star is identical with the Morning Star.

A system of natural deduction rules is proposed for an idealized form of English. The rules presuppose a sharp distinction between proper names and such expressions as the c, a (an) c, some c, any c, and every c, where c represents a common noun. These latter expressions are called quantifiers, and other expressions of the form that c or that c itself, are called quantified terms. Introduction and elimination rules are presented for any, every, some, a (an), and the, (...) and also for any which, every which, and so on, as well as rules for some other concepts. One outcome of these rules is that Every man loves some woman is implied by, but does not imply, Some woman is loved by every man, since the latter is taken to mean the same as Some woman is loved by all men. Also, Jack knows which woman came is implied by Some woman is known by Jack to have come, but not by Jack knows that some woman came. (shrink)

Fengshui is a practice and skill whose origins go back to Chinese antiquity. It is about finding the best possible arrangement in space to position a grave or a habitation in such a way that human beings who have a link with that place might have success and happiness. The basic idea is that a good geomantic site will fill the distant ancestors with peace in their grave and that they will thus do everything to help their family. The text (...) deals with the history of fengshui, its methods as well as its conception of nature. (shrink)

Max Weber and Georg Simmel are considered as ideal-typical founders of sociology. Whereas Simmel pleaded for a large conception of sociology, which would include the epistemological and metaphysical issues as well, Max Weber explicitly excluded philosophical questions from the domain of sociology. A philosophical reading of Max Weber's sociology, which uncovers his philosophy in the margins of his sociological texts, shows, however, that his sociology is predicated on a disenchanted Weltanschauung, a decisionistic ideology and a nominalist epistemology. Key Words: critical (...) theory • decisionism • disenchantment • epistemology • foundations • nominalism • philosophy • realism • Simmel • sociology • value-freedom • Weber. (shrink)

Recent years have featured the existence of a variety of structuralisms, with an important partition between methodological versus philosophical structuralism. Inside philosophical structuralism, many trends can be identified, corresponding to various ontological stances. We argue here that another main partition has contributed to organize structuralism in the twentieth century, rooted in different technical and theoretical interests. This partition is largely transversal to the ones classically identified. Concretely, the paper will focus on possible differences between an arithmetical and logical notion of (...) structure that can be traced back to the writings of Bertrand Russell and Rudolf Carnap, and a mathematical notion of structure, exemplified in the works by Bourbaki. This coexistence gives rise to a fundamental ambiguity that affects contemporary structuralism. Philosophically, in one case the attention is rather centered on a foundational and reductionist perspective, as featured by the Whitehead-Russell Principia and the Carnapian project of the Aufbau: the scientific construction of the world around the idea of structure. In the other, the focus is on epistemological and dynamical issues, as exemplified by two key issues in Bourbaki’s treatise: understanding the architecture of mathematics, offering a tool-kit to mathematicians. These two distinct meanings still coexist inside contemporary scientific practices and lead to different theoretical interests, as we will show thanks to various recent examples. (shrink)

Une étude pluridisciplinaire sur la mobilité des connaissances dans le cadre de l'accroissement des moyens de communication. Les auteurs décrivent comment les savoirs issus de domaines différents se mêlent et s'enrichissent mutuellement, au profit de la résolution de problèmes jusqu'alors impossibles à solutionner depuis une seule matière.

The Positive Evolution of Religion CHAPTEB I ORTHODOX CRITICISM IT may surprise not a few, but it is certainly true that on general principles, in spirit, ...

CONTENTS: Introduction On the Supposed Necessity of Certain Metaphysical Problems The Subjective Synthesis Synthesis The Three Great Syntheses The Human ...

Symlog is a system for learning symbolic logic by computer that allows students to interactively construct proofs in Fitch-style natural deduction. On request, Symlog can provide guidance and advice to help a student narrow the gap between goal theorem and premises. To effectively implement this capability, the program was equipped with a theorem prover that constructs proofs using the same methods and techniques the students are being taught. This paper discusses some of the aspects of the theorem prover's design, including (...) its set of proof-construction strategies, its unification algorithm as well as some of the tradeoffs between efficiency and pedagogy. (shrink)

Un verbe exprime en français l'un des secrets de notre être et l'une des clés de notre époque maniaco-dépressive : ce verbe, c'est revivre. Il a deux sens que tout paraît opposer. Revivre, c'est en effet renaître, retrouver le sentiment d'être vivant et relié à autrui. Mais c'est aussi se laisser rattraper par "un passé qui ne passe pas » et se replier sur soi-même. Chacun de nous fait cette double expérience, souvent sans le savoir. Il faut pourtant la penser, (...) l'affronter, résister à ce qui nous enferme, accéder à ce qui nous délivre. Inventaire de nos blessures et de nos ressources, diagnostic du moment présent, parcours dans les idées et les oeuvres, ces propos renouent avec les actes les plus intenses de notre vie. Un art de vivre, c'est-à-dire de revivre, qui pourrait bien être le seul possible aujourd'hui. (4e de couv.). (shrink)

It is argued that, despite the neglect which Heidegger’s writings on science have generally received, the “fundamental ontology” of Being and Time reveals certain structures of experience crucial for our understanding of science; and that, as these insights cast considerable doubt upon the validity of the empiricist/positivist conception of science, Heidegger deserves considerably better treatment as an incipient philosopher of science than has been the case thus far. His arguments for the distortive effects of the alleged “change over” from praxis (...) to theoria, for the circularity of all human understanding (including scientific understanding), for the necessity of interpreting scientific method in terms of the hermeneutic circle, and for viewing scientific “crises” in ontological terms, are examined and evaluated. The article concludes with some reflections on the later Heidegger’s views on the limits of his earlier idea of science. (shrink)

Les nombreux traités sur la raison d’État relèvent d’un genre qui théorise a posteriori les actions politiques. Ne serait-il pas possible pour la raison d’État de s’exprimer directement et publiquement? Comment est-elle mise en scène par l’État lui-même? La littérature aulique, avec une fine dialectique de l’imitation et de l’idéalité, propose un abondant matériau exemplaire de cette manifestation comme représentation, d’autant plus significative quand elle concerne les interrègnes. La minorité du Dauphin, son sacre et la cérémonie de majorité sont des (...) moments essentiels auxquels s’attache la rhétorique de l’éloge et pendant lesquels l’État institue en lui la raison et sa raison: une raison d’État encomiastique. (shrink)

As alusões implícitas e as referências explícitas ao pensamento de Søren Kierkegaard pontuam toda a obra de Jacques Ellul. Com efeito, segundo o autor do artigo, sempre que trata de temas como a Bíblia, a fé, a esperança, o amor, a oração, a liberdade, a política, a técnica, a não-conformidade ao mundo, ou o sofrimento, Jacques Ellul recorre insistentemente a Kierkegaard em ordem a construir o seu próprio pensamento. Nesse sentido, o artigo pretende mostrar os modos de fidelidade, de retoma (...) e de reinterpretação de uma na outra obra de modo a, de algum modo, também poder esclarecer o significado da expressão "ser kierkegaardiano". /// Implicit allusions and explicit references to Søren Kierkegaard's thought punctuate the entire work of Jacques Ellul. Especially when dealing with topics like the Bible, faith, hope, love, prayer, freedom, politics, technology, nonconformity to the world, or suffering, Ellul calls frequently on Kierkegaard in order to build his own thought. The article shows the different modes of fidelity, resumption and reinterpretation of a work into the other, so that at the end it also clarifies what it means to be kierkegaardian. (shrink)