In this paper, we put forward a new account of emergence called “transformational emergence”. Such an account captures a variety of emergence that can be considered as being diachronic and weakly ontological. The fact that transformational emergence actually constitutes a genuine form of emergence is motivated. Besides, the account is free of traditional problems surrounding more usual, synchronic versions of emergence, and it can find a strong empirical support in a specific physical phenomenon, the fractional quantum Hall effect, which has (...) long been touted as a paradigmatic case of emergence. (shrink)

Natural modalities are often analysed from an abstract point of view where they are associated with putative laws of nature. However, the way possibilities are represented in physics is more complex. Lagrangian mechanics, for instance, involves two different layers of modalities: kinematical and dynamical possibilities. This paper examines the status of these two layers, both in the classical and quantum case. The quantum case is particularly problematic: we identify four possible interpretive options. The upshot is that a close inspection of (...) the way possibilities are represented in physics could lead to new ways of thinking about natural modalities. (shrink)

Several advocates of the lively field of “metaphysics of science” have recently argued that a naturalistic metaphysics should be based solely on current science, and that it should replace more traditional, intuition-based, forms of metaphysics. The aim of the present paper is to assess that claim by examining the relations between metaphysics of science and general metaphysics. We show that the current metaphysical battlefield is richer and more complex than a simple dichotomy between “metaphysics of science” and “traditional metaphysics”, and (...) that it should instead be understood as a three dimensional “box”, with one axis distinguishing “descriptive metaphysics” from “revisionary metaphysics”, a second axis distinguishing a priori from a posteriori metaphysics, and a third axis distinguishing “commonsense metaphysics”, “traditional metaphysics” and “metaphysics of science”. We use this three-dimensional figure to shed light on the project of current metaphysics of science, and to demonstrate that, in many instances, the target of that project is not defined with enough precision and clarity. (shrink)

I. Introduction This paper aims to explain Nietzsche’s understanding of tragedy, and in particular his self-characterization as the “tragic philosopher.” What I shall claim is that, according to Nietzsche, to recognize the self-determining or self-creating character of our agency is to reveal it as tragic. Tragedy accordingly illuminates the most fundamental issue in Nietzsche’s mature philosophy: the possibility of affirmation.

On the Genealogy of Morality has become the most common point of entry into Nietzsche's thought. It offers relatively straightforward, sustained explanatory narratives addressing many of the main ideas of Nietzsche's mature thought, such as 'will to power', 'nihilism', 'perspectivism' and the 'value of truth'. It also directs its attention to what is widely taken to be Nietzsche's important philosophical contribution, the critique of morality. Yet it is challenging to understand because Nietzsche intended it as an expansion and elaboration of (...) his ideas developed elsewhere. Presupposing no prior knowledge of Nietzsche or the text, Robert Guay provides the interpretive and philosophical context to make Nietzsche's thought more accessible and shows how Nietzsche's narratives engage with philosophical issues about agency, self-knowledge, historical explanation and the critique of morality"-- Back cover. (shrink)

Of the distinctive terminology of nineteenth-century thought, perhaps no word has been more widely adopted than ‘genealogy’.1 ‘Genealogy’, of course, had a long history before Nietzsche put it in the title of a book, but the original sense of pedigree or family tree is not the one that has become so prominent in contemporary academic discourse.2 Nietzsche initiated a new sense of ‘genealogy’ that, oddly, has become popular despite a lack of clarity about what it is.3 My aim here is (...) to clarify this sense of genealogy by situating it in the context of nineteenth-century narrative argument and identifying its general features. I contend that the famous Nietzschean.. (shrink)

Specificity has been defined in the linguistic literature according to two different criteria: one corresponding to Quine's opaque and transparent contexts, and the other to criteria closely related to Donellan's referential/attributive distinction. The paper argues that only the former definition is a semantic one since it alone manifests linguistic correlates. The meaning changes involving referential/attributive factors are pragmatic in nature. In the concluding section is is argued that the semantics of specificity is completely independent of the relative scope interpretation of (...) an indefinite noun phrase in relation to other quantified nouns in the sentence. This is demonstrated using sentences which contain an indefinite interacting with both an opaque operator and a second quantifier. It is shown that such sentences can be four ways ambiguous. (shrink)

1. We are unknown to ourselves, we knowing ones, we to our own selves, and for a good reason. We have never sought ourselves – so how could it happen, that one day we would find ourselves? Someone once correctly said: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”;1 our treasure is where the beehives of our knowledge are. We are always on the way to finding it; as winged creatures and honey-gatherers of the spirit, we truly care (...) for only one thing from the heart: to “bring something home.” Whatever else concerns life, the so-called “experiences” – who among us has enough seriousness for them? Or enough time? In these matters we have been, I fear, somewhat distracted: our hearts have not quite been in it, and not even our ears! More often, like some divine scatter-brain absorbed-in-himself into whose ear the bell has tolled the twelve strikes of noon at full power, who then suddenly wakes up and asks himself, “What was really just struck?”, just like that we rub our ears afterwards and ask, completely amazed, completely embarrassed, “what did we really experience?” and further, “who are we really?” and afterwards, as said, count the twelve trembling bell-strikes of our experience, our life, our being – ugh! and miscount them . . . We necessarily remain strangers to ourselves, we do not understand ourselves, we must get ourselves wrong, for us the saying “Each is furthest from himself” holds for all eternity – we are not “knowing ones” with respect to ourselves. (shrink)

Le libéralisme et la liberté des médias sont-ils intrinsèquement liés, comme les deux faces d’une même pièce ? À première vue, ils semblent des corollaires puisqu’ils dérivent tous les deux du principe de liberté. Les mé­dias auraient donc d’autant plus d’espace que le libéralisme serait soli­de­ment implanté politiquement et économiquement. Inversement, un rejet du libéralisme politique irait de pair avec un rejet de la liberté des médias. Cette simplicité est cependant trompeuse. Les médias ne forment pas un ensemble homogène ; (...) il y a médias et médias. Il en va de même pour l’autre terme de l’équation : le libéralisme, même dans ses formes les plus classiques, fonde d’une manière plus éclectique qu’on le croit les libertés. (shrink)

Nietzsche, I once read, used to have nightmares about not being able to speak. My son has nightmares about tornadoes. I have nightmares about issues that can only be resolved by appeal to Hegel’s speculative logic. Stephen Snyder might indeed present us with several such issues, but fortunately his presentation is complex enough that I should be able to distract you by focusing on other things. First, let me review what I take to me the structure of Snyder’s argument. Snyder’s (...) argument, as I understand it, is (1) Danto offers an (essentialist) “definition” of art, where “definition” of course means something like “ontological account.” (2) That definition is borrowed (“directly”) from Hegel. (3) Because it is borrowed from Hegel, Danto’s definition is inherently problematic. (3a) The problem with the definition is that it is the same as Hegel’s. (3b) The problem with the definition is that it is different from Hegel’s. This diagnosis is no dialectical kettle logic, however. Snyder’s claim, rather, is that Hegel’s account comes with difficulties that could only be resolved through some grand “metaphysical” gesture. So Danto, in effect, offers us the cream cheese without the bagel. It’s not clear where Snyder thinks that this leaves us: we could metaphysicalize Danto or get rid of embodied meaning or do something else entirely. The distinctive part of Snyder’s account is accordingly the diagnosis: Danto’s definition of art is troubled because he adopts elements of Hegel’s account without the systematic context, leaving him without the resources to solve its inherent problems. I can therefore grant myself leave to skip over some Hegel and Danto, and focus on the problematic. As far as I can tell, Snyder identifies two problems – alternately called “oppositions”(5) or “contradictions”(1) or “dualisms”(4) or possibly “antinomies”(8) – within the Hegel/Danto complex of art theory. The first is that of Particular and Universal. According to Snyder, the Hegel-Danto theory requires the artwork to be a weird kind of thing, namely: “a particular universal, an impossible object”(1).. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s self-proclaimed ‘anti-political’(EH ‘wise’ 3; cf. TI 8.4) stance is often ignored.1 Commentators, that is, often interpret Nietzsche’s texts as responding to familiar issues within political philosophy, and as furnishing a novel position therein. This could indeed be the appropriate hermeneutic response. Dismissing one of Nietzsche’s proclamations is, on a variety of different grounds, hermeneutically reasonable. In this particular case, given all that Nietzsche has to say about sociality and the roles of public institutions in modern life, dismissal might even (...) seem compelling. Here, however, I wish to recuperate Nietzsche’s anti-political stance. That is, I shall argue that Nietzsche’s self-proclamation does in fact reflect his deep commitments, and thus compels a reassessment of the political interpretations of his thought. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that a basic problem in philosophical discussions of culture is what I call the “integration problem”: the need to provide an account of how distinctive considerations of culture can be integrated within practical deliberation in general. I then show how the failure to resolve this problem generates three paradoxes, which I call the “cosmopolitan paradox,” the “inclusion paradox,” and the “representation paradox.” I argue that these paradoxes arise from a common source, the attempt to separate (...) out determinations of worth from demands of recognition, and both from socially contested deliberative practices. I conclude by suggesting that resolving these paradoxes probably requires not a theoretical solution but the achievement of a fully inclusive, cosmopolitan culture. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the main issues and themes of the volume. Approaches to individuality from metaphysics and philosophy of science are contrasted. Recent philosophical developments regarding concepts of biological and physical individuality are exposed. These research trends show how philosophy of physics and philosophy of biology address differently the question of what an individual is. Five main divergences are identified: the centrality of part-whole questions, the issue of identical individuals, the importance of the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles and, (...) finally, the importance of structuralist concerns. At the end of the chapter, the structure of the book is explained in detail. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Will to Nothingness: An Essay on Nietzsche's by Bernard ReginsterRobert GuayBernard Reginster, The Will to Nothingness: An Essay on Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. viii + 202 pp. isbn: 978-0-19-886890-3. Cloth, $80.00.One might imagine making a rough division between two different modes of modern European philosophy. In one, the way that the world seems to proceed belies the actual ground (...) of things; the task of philosophy is to uncover the sources of our misunderstanding and identify the categories that account for genuinely real processes. The other mode of philosophy questions the determinacy and stability of the categories through which we make sense of the world. Here the task of philosophy is not to settle on the right categories or the actual ground, but to gain some purchase on our confusions and self-deceptions when we try to make sense of things. There may be some philosophers (Hegel and Wittgenstein, perhaps) who try to straddle the divide here. But in general the divide is great enough that if an interpreter mistakes one mode for the other it would be costly: no matter how circumspect the particular claims are, all the interpretive results will be misguided. Something like this, I want to claim, is the case with Bernard Reginster's The Will to Nothingness.There are many detailed discussions in Reginster's book. For the purpose of this review, however, I want to focus on the general critical argument, [End Page 104] in part because there is already at least one excellent review of the book (Mark Migotti's in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, June 1, 2022), and in part because I think it goes wrong at the level of its entire approach. On Reginster's account GM is composed of a series of "psychological studies" (3) of a version of Christian morality and its central aspects. These psychological studies treat moral judgments as symptoms of affective states, and in this way uncover the functional role that moralities play in the affective lives of agents. Moralities are "designed" (12), as it were, for emotional regulation. Christian morality, in particular, expresses the ressentiment of those beset by feelings of impotence and serves their will to power. Genealogical critique proceeds by uncovering the actual function of morality and then showing how well (or rather poorly) morality fulfills its proper function. Moral beliefs are supposed to enhance the agents' feeling of power, but instead work to sicken and enervate them, and indeed morality "incites" (46) such a pernicious functioning.While I am sympathetic to the idea that genealogy offers a functional assessment of morality, I think that Reginster has taken the wrong approach here. So now I want to draw a broad contrast between Reginster's approach and an alternative one, and then offer six sets of reasons for favoring the alternative approach.On Reginster's account, Nietzsche is interested in specifying and analyzing a precise conception of morality, with all of its attendant normative judgments, metaethical commitments, characteristic beliefs about moral psychology, and so on. These features were all, as constitutive of the morality in question, familiar to the believers in that morality. The purpose, then, of a historical account of origins is to give a unitary explanation for the adoption of the morality in terms of a single underlying affective condition and drive. Agents adopt moralities because, whether they realize it or not, holding moral beliefs facilitates a form of emotional self-regulation. To criticize these beliefs Nietzsche makes a sort of inverted teleological argument. He identifies the essential function of the beliefs and shows that they work against the fulfillment of their own function.Here, by contrast, is a different way of thinking about what Nietzsche is doing. He is not interested in explaining the moral beliefs of reflective, fully developed agents. Instead, he wants to explain how the semantic resources that contribute to morality could have become available at all. The puzzle, for Nietzsche, is how the basic terms of morality could ever even seem to make sense. So the historical account of genealogy is meant to suggest [End Page 105] social... (shrink)

Among the very architects of the recent re-emergence of emergentism in the physical sciences, Robert B. Laughlin certainly occupies a prominent place. Through a series of works beginning as early as his Nobel lecture in 1998, a lecture given after having been awarded, together with Störmer and Tsui, the Nobel prize in physics for its contribution in the elucidation of the fractional quantum Hall effect, Laughlin openly and relentlessly advocated a strongly anti-reductionistic view of physics – and, more particularly, of (...) the interface between condensed matter and particles physics – which culminated in what can be considered his emergentist manifesto: A Different Universe. Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (2005). In spite of this prominent role in the vindication of emergentism, rare are the philosophers, among whom even those sympathetic to the idea of emergence, who have paid serious attention to Laughlin’s insights. The subtleties of his view – it is true, often concealed in many technicalities – have accordingly, and somewhat unfortunately, mainly passed unnoticed. (shrink)

Summary This paper presents a case study that contributes to the current debate among historians of chemistry concerning the role and influence of pedagogy in science. Recently, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and her colleagues concluded that in nineteenth-century France, ?textbooks played an important role in discipline building and in creating theories?.1 Developing this idea further, this paper examines the dissemination of knowledge through face-to-face chemical lectures, showing that the influence of pedagogical strategy on theoretical content of the science is far from negligible. (...) The pedagogy of William Cullen was essentially responsible for the prevalence of the doctrine of affinity in British chemistry from the 1760s onwards. Cullen used his affinity theory as a pedagogical tool that to a large extent defined his discipline, and the pedagogical pyramid that he headed similarly ensured that the doctrine would remain at the heart of British chemistry. From a pedagogical tool, the doctrine of affinity was transformed over time into a chemical tool, offering British chemists a disciplinary common ground that both set and reinforced the boundaries to their discipline. 1A. Garcia-Belmar, B. Bensaude-Vincent and J.R. Bertomeu-Sánchez, ?The Power of Didactic Writings: French Chemistry Textbooks of the Nineteenth Century?, in Pedagogy and the Practice of Science: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, edited by D. Kaiser (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 243. (shrink)

Le risque comme l’expertise sont des sujets d’une rare richesse, comme le confirme la vaste littérature sur ces questions. Lorsqu’ils sont croisés, les difficultés que chacun d’entre eux soulève s’en trouvent renforcées. Le présent ouvrage est le produit des sixièmes conférences Pierre Duhem qui avaient pour thème : risque et expertise. Il rassemble les textes originaux de l’économiste Marc Fleurbaey et du philosophe Sven Ove Hansson, ainsi que les échanges qu’ils ont eu avec les commentateurs Mikaël Cozic, Minh Ha-Duong et (...) Emmanuel Henry. Un essai introductif, d’Alexandre Guay, complète le tout. (shrink)

This thesis is a philosophical analysis, and in particular an ontological one, of symmetries in modern physics. In the first two chapters, the thesis analyzes the foundation of the concept of symmetry, which is defined as an invariance under a possible change to the system being studied. In the rest of the thesis, various philosophical problems concerning particular symmetries are discussed. This begins in the third chapter with an analysis of the formalization of the definition of symmetry given above in (...) terms of groups and groupoids, highlighting their advantages and limitations. The fourth chapter gives a geography of the uses of symmetry in physics. To achieve this, different criteria for the classification of symmetries in physics are discussed. The thesis concludes with a detailed examination of the ontological status of local gauge symmetry in classical and quantum physics. In this chapter, it is argued that gauge symmetry is the result of a surplus of structure. This result is surprising because gauge symmetry is generally considered the most fundamental symmetry, and is in fact one of the cornerstones of virtually all theoretical attempts to describe the fundamental interactions. (shrink)

With Matthew we have an unusual opportunity. The text is in a sense very welcoming. Even among those who have no experience of it as a liturgical text, names and phrases are familiar; no one stumbles over the pronunciation of “Pharisee,” etc. – at least not with the frequency that “Agamemnon” and “Thucydides” are passed over. Even the parables, which as parables should be mysterious, do not alienate the students: it is already acknowledged that the text is one that demands (...) more than a superficial reading. It demands interpretation. (shrink)

The topic of my dissertation is the treatment of the fallacies of composition and division during the scholastic period , the compounded/divided sense distinction which grew out of that treatment, and the philosophical use to which the distinction was put. For instance, a recognition of these fallacies during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries helped theologians deal with certain problems having to do with foreknowledge and human freedom. In addition, a recognition of the distinction between the compounded and divided senses of (...) propositions allowed medieval logicians after the first quarter of the fourteenth century to get clearer about what might broadly be described as the logic of propositional attitudes. ;In Chapter 1, I briefly summarize and compare theories of composition and division from Peter Abelard to Paul of Pergula . And in Chapters 2 and 3, I examine the treatments of composition and division presented by Lambert of Auxerra , Roger Bacon , and William Ockham . In these treatments, composition and division are viewed in terms of ambiguity. ;By the second quarter of the fourteenth century, one sees the discussion of composition and division move from a concern with ambiguous expressions to a concern with arguments comprised of unambiguous sentences having either the compounded sense or the divided sense in virtue of the sentence's word-order. "Infinitely fast does Socrates run; therefore, Socrates runs infinitely fast" is, according to William Heytesbury , invalid: the premise has the divided sense, and is possibly true; the conclusion has the compounded sense, and is impossible. With Heytesbury there is an increasing emphasis on the compounded/divided sense distinction in connection with verbs signifying mental acts or acts of will: 'know,' 'believe,' 'desire,' 'understand,' etc. In Chapter 4 I explain why these shifts may have occurred in the medieval treatment of composition and division. And in Chapter 5, I consider the effect of Heytesbury's treatment of composition and division on logicians and commentators who come after him. I focus in particular on the work of four fifteenth- through sixteenth-century Italian logicians and their views on epistemic logic. (shrink)

What are individuals? How can they be identified? These are crucial questions for philosophers and scientists alike. Criteria of individuality seem to differ markedly between metaphysics and the empirical sciences - and this might well explain why no work has hitherto attempted to relate the contributions of metaphysics, physics and biology on this question. This timely volume brings together various strands of research into 'individuality', examining how different sciences handle the issue, and reflecting on how this scientific work relates to (...) metaphysical concerns. The collection makes a major contribution to clarifying and overcoming obstacles to the construction of a general conception of the individual adequate for both physics and biology, and perhaps even beyond. (shrink)

This paper identifies recent attributions to Nietzsche of skeptical arguments about the subject in its theoretical and practical capacities and argues that they are wrong. Although Nietzsche does criticize the picture of the subject as a unity that exerts influence in the world from outside it, he does so in order to replace it with a richer, more complex model of subjectivity. The skeptical arguments attributed to Nietzsche attempt to assimilate features of subjectivity to some alternative, purportedly more familiar explanatory (...) account, and then move from this assimilation to the denial of subjectivity altogether. There are three main strategies for making this latter move, which are referred to in this paper as appeal to ontology, appeal to justification, and appeal to explanation. Each fails for different reasons, but all misconstrue Nietzsche's explanatory interests regarding subjectivity. Those interests, this paper argues, are what lead Nietzsche to argue that a single person comprises a multiplicity of subjectivities, and that all explanation is ultimately telic in form. This paper then discusses some of the appeals that Nietzsche makes to account for the possibility of single, unitary subjectivity within this framework, including: his account of the relationship between constituent and corporate units within fully self-relating subjectivity, his account of the relation between "inner" and "outer", his account of pluralist individualism, and his account of unconscious "depth". This paper concludes by arguing that Nietzsche's distinctive approach suggests a way to relate theoretical questions about the mental to practical questions about the self and ethical commitment. (shrink)

In this study we examine college cheating behaviors of business students compared to non-business students, and investigate possible antecedents to cheating in an effort to better understand why and when students cheat. We specifically examine power values; we found that they were positively related to academic cheating in our sample, and that choice of major (business or non-business) partially mediated the relationship between power values and cheating. We also considered the extent to which students provide justifications for their cheating, and (...) found that business students were more likely to justify (rationalize) their cheating behaviors. Finally, we update the literature in terms of the ways students cheat. We assess newer forms of academic cheating, as increased accessibility to information via the Internet and smartphones may have changed the ways and ease with which students cheat – a particularly relevant topic currently, as many classes have moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our study, cheating was especially prevalent when taking quizzes or tests or completing homework online. We found that only 10% of participants reported never engaging in any of the cheating behaviors we examined. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that it is not a conceptual truth about laws of nature that they are immutable (though we are happy to leave it as an open empirical question whether they do actually change once in a while). In order to do so, we survey three popular accounts of lawhood—(Armstrong-style) necessitarianism, (Bird-style) dispositionalism and (Lewis-style) ‘best system analysis’—and expose the extent, as well as the philosophical cost, of the amendments that should be enforced in order to leave (...) room for the possibility of changing laws. (shrink)

The idea of deliberative democracy, together with its associated norm of public reason, forms a model of the legitimacy of constitutional regimes in pluralist societies. Where there are great and fundamental differences in value commitments, and coercive institutions are called upon to regulate the basic forms of social life, democratic deliberation both respects the diversity of commitment and produces policies that can command the assent of free persons. This in turn supports a shared political culture based on equality and respect.

Platon disait que ce qu’il en coûte aux gens de ne pas s’occuper de politique, c’est d’être gouvernés par des gens pires qu’eux-mêmes. La classe politique semble aujourd’hui condamnée sans appel. De telles condamnations ignorent la nature même de l’action collective qui est toujours bâtie sur le compromis, surtout dans le cadre d’organisations démocratiques, ouvertes et plurielles. L’exigence d’une correspondance terme à terme entre ce qu’on croit en tant qu’individu et ce que les organisations auxquelles on appartient proposent repose sur (...) un mythe, celui de pouvoir modeler la vie associative comme on règle sa vie privée. (shrink)

My dissertation concerns Nietzsche's ethical thought. At the center of Nietzsche's philosophical ethics was the attempt to provide some reassurance about the status of norms and values. On his diagnosis, intensifying self-scrutiny with regard to ethical commitments has led to a contemporary situation in which no way of life seems particularly authoritative or worthwhile. Nietzsche therefore sought some means to extend and satisfy critical scrutiny, so as to find norms and values that sustain their "force." ;In the first chapter I (...) trace the early development of Nietzsche's project, especially how his philosophical concerns about reassurance and the authority of norms arose out of his philological interest in the meaning of cultural phenomena. I argue that Nietzsche's philosophical concerns were "existential" in character, and that he eventually settled on a "rationalist" approach to addressing them. ;The second chapter concerns Nietzsche's argument for the inadequacy of appeals to truth or nature to resolve questions of an existential scope. Nietzsche argued that appeals to truth depend on prior normative commitments and thus cannot be decisive against critical doubt. ;Chapter III concerns the critical aspect of Nietzsche's project, namely genealogy. Genealogy recounts the history of ethical "ideals" in terms of their purposiveness, and assesses them in terms of their success or failure. Nietzsche argued that even ethical ideals are in some way functional, and one can thus assess whether or not they 'work.' This provides the critical leverage with which Nietzsche scrutinizes and finds fault with defective ideals: his account of their necessary failure. ;The final chapter concerns Nietzsche's constructive, or "affirmative" project. Nietzsche argued that an assessment of norms and values in terms of their ability to sustain "affirmation" is critically adequate. That is, for a norm or value to survive scrutiny, it has to serve to guide or structure a life that inspires an allegiance to that life that Nietzsche described as "erotic" in character. Nietzsche argued that some such commitment is necessary for one to be able to give meaning to one's life, and that this is a precondition for any determination of freedom. (shrink)

This document (in French) is an introduction to the philosophy of physics that I wrote for Anouk Barberousse (ed.), Manuel des Issambres, Gallimard, to be published.

Nietzsche called his sister “llama,” a nickname which, according to her, derived from a description in a children’s biology book. Such a book in the Nietzsche-Archiv declares that “the llama, as a means of defense, squirts its spittle and half-digested fodder at its opponent.”1 Thus we see Nietzsche, as he does frequently in his writings, drawing on the semantic resources made available by the investigation of animal nature and using them to illuminate human character. The editors of A Nietzschean Bestiary (...) had the superlative idea to advance the progression from zoology to anthropology one step further: starting from Nietzsche’s myriad trope of animality, to construct a philosophical bestiary that illuminates not only the status of human animality but also that of our metaphorical resources in general. The result comprises twenty-five essays from twentythree contributors, most of which are organized around a single creature (albeit no llama). These essays’ execution of the original idea is, on the whole, excellent. I do not think that they establish the two main conceits of the volume. But the volume nevertheless provides a vivid and diverse display of Nietzsche’s animal tropes that engages with broader philosophical concerns. Although it needs no defense, the volume presents a twofold apology. One declared aim of the volume is to show that Nietzsche’s pervasive use of animal imagery.. (shrink)

This paper concerns Marx’s case, especially in the German Ideology, for the relative privilege of his own conception of history. I argue, against what I call the standard interpretation, that Marx’s case does not rest on an inversion of Young Hegelian “idealism”; against the “revisionist interpretation,” I argue that Marx nevertheless sustains a concern with the justificatory adequacy of his position. Marx’s argument, on my interpretation, is that an account of productive agency is a necessary constituent of any understanding of (...) history, and in turn requires a reflexive component. The reflexive character of agency can only be adequately realized under conditions in which historical processes and the causal effectiveness of individual agency are aligned. Marx’s justification, then, relies on an account of the internal character of historical agency rather than on metaphysical claims about the real. Marx, I suggest, was attempting to offer a distinctively “practical” justification. (147 words). (shrink)

One can reasonably ask whether or not there is any distinct domain of the ethical. That is, one might wonder whether ethical issues are distinct from, for example, prudential or aesthetic ones, perhaps by invoking duty or obligation or a specific kind of value. But that question, at least for now, is outside the scope of our discussion. For now, we’ll assume that there are such things as ethical questions and that you recognize them when you see them.

The elucidation of the gauge principle ``is the most pressing problem in current philosophy of physics" Redhead. This paper argues two points that contribute to this elucidation in the context of Yang-Mills theories. 1) Yang-Mills theories, including quantum electrodynamics, form a class. They should be interpreted together. To focus on electrodynamics is a mistake. 2) The essential role of gauge and BRST surplus is to provide a local theory that can be quantized and would be equivalent to the quantization of (...) the non-local reduced theory. (shrink)

The transference theory reduces causation to the transmission of physical conserved quantities, like energy or momenta. Although this theory aims at applying to all felds of physics, we claim that it fails to account for a quantum electrodynamic effect, viz. the Aharonov-Bohm effect. After having argued that the Aharonov-Bohm effect is a genuine counter-example for the transference theory, we offer a new physicalist approach of causation, ontic and modal, in which this effect is embedded.

The elucidation of the gauge principle ‘‘is the most pressing problem in current philosophy of physics’’ said Michael Redhead in 2003. This paper argues for two points that contribute to this elucidation in the context of Yang–Mills theories. (1) Yang–Mills theories, including quantum electrodynamics, form a class. They should be interpreted together. To focus on electrodynamics is potentially misleading. (2) The essential role of gauge and BRST symmetries is to provide a local field theory that can be quantized and would (...) be equivalent to the quantization of the non-local reduced theory. If this is correct, the gauge symmetry is significant, not so much because it implies ontological consequences, but because it allows us to quantize theories that we would not be able to quantize otherwise. Thus, in the context of Yang–Mills theories, it is essentially a pragmatic principle. This does not seem to be the case for the gauge symmetry in general relativity. (shrink)

Descartes’ version of the Cosmological Argument in the Third Meditation is usually considered a failure, not because its conclusion doesn't follow from its premises, but because the truth of two of its premises is doubtful. One of these premises is that the objective reality of an idea is derived from a cause in which there is at least as much formal reality; the other, that only a being that possesses the qualities normally attributed to God could be responsible for the (...) idea of God. Typically there are two objections made in response to the first of these premises. First, we don't understand the concepts of formal and objective reality well enough to know whether or not the premise commands our assent. (shrink)

Dans cet essai, je compte me concentrer sur certains aspects épistémologiques de l’expertise car le risque engendre de nouveaux et difficiles défis dans ce domaine. Ma question sera d’identifier et de circonscrire des facteurs qui diminuent la confiance qu’un agent cognitif pourrait avoir envers un expert et ce, en contexte de risque. Ceci n’exclut bien sûr pas que d’autres aspects (par exemple sociaux et politiques) soient importants et je renvoie le lecteur à la vaste littérature sur le sujet. De manière (...) concrète, je mettrai en évidence comment la question du risque accentue le problème du rôle des valeurs contextuelles en épistémologie. Pour ce faire, dans la première section, je compte brièvement expliquer comment l’expertise scientifique implique une forme aigüe du problème de la connaissance par témoignage. Dans la deuxième section, j’exposerai comment la notion de risque introduit le problème des valeurs non-épistémiques en science et ce, de deux façons : par l’évaluation et la valorisation. La troisième section sera consacrée à exposer quelques approches pour sauvegarder l’intégrité et la crédibilité de l’expertise scientifique en contexte de risque. (shrink)

Christians, Allison, Benoît-Guay, Nicolas.

Il y a cent ans paraissaient un ouvrage de logique qui a marqué considérablement les études dans ce domaine tout au long du XXe siècle, soit que l’on en poursuivit le projet, soit, au contraire, que l’on en critiqua la démarche. Les Principia Mathematica de Russell et Whitehead sont donc une œuvre majeure sur laquelle il n’était par inutile de revenir en ce début du XXIe siècle. Certes la question à laquelle ils étaient censés répondre, c'est-à-dire celle d’un fondement rigoureux (...) et solide des mathématiques sur la logique formelle paraît aujourd’hui dépassée. Les travaux de Gödel dans les années trente du siècle précédent ont d’une certaine façon mis fin aux ambitions du formalisme et du logicisme tels qu’ils s’exprimaient dans cet ouvrage. Cependant, de nombreuses autres questions ont été soulevées par ce texte que l’ouvrage ici présenté tente d’élucider. Les articles qui le composent reprennent, entre autres, le débat qui opposa à la démarche de Russell aussi bien l’intuitionnisme que les travaux de Lesniewski. Le travail présenté ici montre combien demeure aujourd’hui vivante la philosophie de la logique en langue française, ce dont on peut se réjouir. (shrink)

La transformation du mode de production des connaissances scientifiques va de pair avec une évolution significative des attentes de la société vis-à-vis des sciences, et soulève pour le philosophe de nouvelles questions : qu’est-ce qui est vraiment nouveau dans le régime actuel de production des connaissances ? Quel rôle et quelle responsabilité pour le chercheur face à la demande croissante d’expertise scientifique ? Quelle attitude avoir face à des avancées technologiques touchant à la nature même de l’Homme ? Le citoyen (...) doit-il être davantage impliqué dans le choix des grandes priorités de la recherche ? Cet ouvrage offre une sélection variée et accessible de travaux actuels en philosophie des sciences explorant les facettes multiples des relations entre science et société. (shrink)

This chapter (in French) compares the ways to access to events in science and in art. In particular, the Déotte's concept of "appareil" is discussed. To be published in Jean-Louis Déotte and Sylvestra Mariniello (ed.), Appareil et Intermédialité, L'Harmattan, 2007.