ABSTRACT This paper aims to shed light on the concept of “problem” developed by Gilles Deleuze in Difference and repetition by analyzing the presence in that book of the Norwegian algebraist Niels Henrik Abel. Deleuze attributes to this mathematician having invented a method that breaks the “vicious circle” which consists in tracing the problems to the image and similarity of the solutions. We will argue that Deleuze’s interpretation is based on Jules Vuillemin’s work La philosophie de l’algèbre, which (...) draws a parallelism between Lagrange’s algebra and Fichte’s transcendental philosophy to show a common flaw in both their methods. We will begin by characterizing the aforementioned “vicious circle”, and then go through the general characteristics of the algebraic problem and its parallel with critical philosophy, in order to show, finally, the main features that Deleuze seeks to highlight in the abelian method – presented by Vuillemin as the overcoming of Lagrange (and, consequently, of Fichte). (shrink)

The concept of »systematic knowledge research« is being developed. Systematic knowledge research assumes an irreducible variety of types of knowledge. The focus lies on researching the intersections and interactions of the different types of knowledge. Clarifying the mechanisms of interaction of the knowledge types in everyday life, sciences, technologies, and arts represents a cross-cutting issue for philosophy and all scientific disciplines, technologies, and arts as well as an independent research subject. At the same time, expansions and re-orientations of epistemology are (...) connected with systematic knowledge research. What exactly knowledge research is capable of achieving and why it is of value is spelled out in this paper. Five examples shall illustrate knowledge research in action. (shrink)

A fascinating anthology of texts and interviews written over 20 years by renowned French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. "One day, perhaps, this century will be Deleuzian," Michel Foucault once wrote. This book anthologizes 40 texts and interviews written over 20 years by renowned French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who died in 1995. The early texts, from 1953-1966, belong to literary criticism and announce Deleuze's last book, Critique and Clinic. But philosophy clearly predominates in the rest of the book, with sharp (...) appraisals of the thinkers he always felt indebted to: Spinoza, Bergson. More surprising is his acknowledgement of Jean-Paul Sartre as his master. "The new themes, a certain new style, a new aggressive and polemical way of raising questions," he wrote, "come from Sartre." But the figure of Nietzsche remains by far the most seminal, and the presence throughout of his friends and close collaborators, Felix Guattari and Michel Foucault. The book stops shortly after the publication of Anti-Oedipus, and presents a kind of genealogy of Deleuze's thought as well as his attempt to leave philosophy and connect it to the outside—but, he cautions, as a philosopher. (shrink)

Mental Spaces is the classic introduction to the study of mental spaces and conceptual projection, as revealed through the structure and use of language. It examines in detail the dynamic construction of connected domains as discourse unfolds. The discovery of mental space organization has modified our conception of language and thought: powerful and uniform accounts of superficially disparate phenomena have become available in the areas of reference, presupposition projection, counterfactual and analogical reasoning, metaphor and metonymy, and time and aspect in (...) discourse. The present work lays the foundation for this research. It uncovers simple and general principles that lie behind the awesome complexity of everyday logic. (shrink)

La philosophie n'est ni contemplation, ni réflexion, ni communication. Elle est l'activité qui crée les concepts. Comment se distingue-t-elle de ses rivales, qui prétendent nous fournir en concepts? La philosophie doit nous dire quelle est la nature créative du concept, et quels en sont les concomitants : la pure immanence, le plan d'immanence, et les personnages conceptuels. Par là, la philosophie se distingue de la science et de la logique. Celles-ci n'opèrent pas par concepts, mais par fonctions, sur un plan (...) de référence et avec des observateurs partiels. L'art opère par percepts et affects, sur un plan de composition avec des figures esthétiques. La philosophie n'est pas interdisciplinaire, elle est elle-même une discipline entière qui entre en résonance avec la science et avec l'art, comme ceux-ci avec elle : trouver le concept d'une fonction, etc. C'est que les trois plans sont les trois manières dont le cerveau recoupe le chaos, et l'affronte. Ce sont les Chaoïdes. La pensée ne se constitue que dans ce rapport où elle risque toujours de sombrer. (shrink)

French journalist Claire Parnet's famous dialogues with Gilles Deleuze offer an intimate portrait of the philosopher's life and thought. Conversational in tone, their engaging discussions delve deeply into Deleuze's philosophical background and development, the major concepts that shaped his work, and the essence of some of his famous relationships, especially his long collaboration with the philosopher Félix Guattari. Deleuze reconsiders Spinoza, empiricism, and the stoics alongside literature, psychoanalysis, and politics. He returns to the notions of minor literature, deterritorialization, the (...) critical and clinical, and begins a nascent study of cinema. New to this edition is Deleuze's essay "Pericles and Verdi," which reflects on politics and historical materialism in the work of the influential French philosopher François Châtelet. An enduring record of Deleuze's unique personality and profound contributions to culture and philosophy, _Dialogues II_ is a highly personable account of the evolution of one of the greatest critics and theorists of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The question of Theodicy demands a reasonable justification of the nature, structures and goals of evil and suffering in the world. The paper attempts to explain the reasons for its presence in our lives and seeks to unveil its principles. If God is all knowing, almighty and also merciful, we must face the problem of the presence of evil and suffering in this world. The main goal of the paper is to show the way the New Testament deals with this (...) question, and further to show to what extent it has influenced the life of Christians from the point of view of teleology. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. The (...) book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

The replicability of findings in experimental psychology can be improved by distinguishing sharply between hypothesis-generating research and hypothesis-testing research. This distinction can be achieved by preregistration, a method that has recently attracted widespread attention. Although preregistration is fair in the sense that it inoculates researchers against hindsight bias and confirmation bias, preregistration does not allow researchers to analyze the data flexibly without the analysis being demoted to exploratory. To alleviate this concern we discuss how researchers may conduct blinded analyses. As (...) with preregistration, blinded analyses break the feedback loop between the analysis plan and analysis outcome, thereby preventing cherry-picking and significance seeking. However, blinded analyses retain the flexibility to account for unexpected peculiarities in the data. We discuss different methods of blinding, offer recommendations for blinding of popular experimental designs, and introduce the design for an online blinding protocol. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. The book (...) series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

This article presents a gnostic division of truth and the world, or between theory and philosophy. In the course of the article the structure of decision is articulated in both political and theoretical senses. Against the agnosticism of philosophy, always an alibi given over to the functioning of the capitalist world where life is not worth living, this article presents a gnosis that requires creating and beginning with the proletarian subject akin to the way the French Maoist group Gauche prolétarienne (...) began by taking theory into the factories in the late 1960s. (shrink)

Le langage est, pour l'homme, a la fois outil et objet. Philosopher sur le langage, c'est donc s'interroger a la fois sur les formes et les limites de son pouvoir, st sur l'etrange nature de cette realite exterieure a nous et dont nous ne pouvons pourtant dissocier ce que nous appelons notre pensee. L'auteur, par inclination personnelle et non point par principe, choisit d'orienter son enquete selon le point de vue de la connaissance scientifique. Ainsi se propose-t-il d'abord de definir (...) le role que joue le langage dans la constitution de la science. Il est alors conduit a examiner les pseudo-langages que celle-ci se construit, et, en precisant la fonction du symbolisme dans la connaissance objective, il met en lumiere, dans ce domaine, le privilege et l'infirmite des langues naturelles. C'est alors cette notion de langue naturelle qui devient le theme de sa reflexion : le linguiste en veut faire l'objet d'une science. Comment determine-t-il cet objet, par quelles demarches parvient-il a sa connaissance, qu'est-ce enfin qu'une " science du langage "? Sur cette science, encore aujourd'hui peut-etre a l'etat naissant, le philosophe ne peut faire de pronostics. Du moins lui appartient-il, en dehors des querelles d'ecoles, de tenter de reconnaitre jusqu'ou l'on s'est avance dans la voie du savoir. (shrink)

Experiments in cognitive neuroscience build a setup whose set of controlled stimuli and rules elicits a cognitive process in a participant. This setup requires researchers to decide the value of quite a few parameters along several dimensions. We call ‘’contextual factors’’ the parameters often assumed not to change the cognitive process elicited and are free to vary across the experiment’s repetitions. Against this assumption, empirical evidence shows that many of these contextual factors can significantly influence cognitive performance. Nevertheless, it is (...) not entirely clear what it means for a cognitive phenomenon to be context-sensitive and how to identify context-sensitivity experimentally. We claim that a phenomenon can be context-sensitive either because it is only triggered within a specific context or because different contexts change its manifestation conditions. Assessing which of these forms of context-sensitivity is present in a given phenomenon requires a criterion for individuating it across contextual variations. We argue that some inter-level experiments that, within the mechanistic approach to explanation, are required to identify relations of constitutive relevance between a phenomenon and a mechanism, are also necessary for individuating the phenomenon across its contextual variations. We articulate a criterion according to which behavioral variations across contexts indicate different phenomena if and only if the mechanistic activities, components and/or organizational properties recruited in each context are different. We support this approach by showing how it is applied in paradigmatic studies addressing cognitive performance differences resulting from contextual variations of task features, such as stimulus type and response modality. Finally, we address the challenge that a form of context-sensitivity possessed by the so-called ‘multifunctional mechanisms’ is incompatible with our proposal because it entails that the same mechanism can be recruited in different contexts to produce different phenomena. We examine key cases of multifunctionality and argue that they are consistent with our proposal because a single mechanism can have different components, activities and/or organizational properties in different contexts. Thus, these modifications may not affect the identity of a mechanism, and they could explain how it produced different phenomena in those contexts. (shrink)

Tolérance et laïcité sont des notions sans cesse convoquées dans le débat public. Sans grand souci de leur genèse, de leur histoire, de leur complexité théorique ou de la plurivocité de leur signification, ces notions sont, le plus souvent, soit confondues l’une avec l’autre, soit opposées de manière antinomique. La mécompréhension conceptuelle a resurgi, il y a peu, sous la forme d’une polémique sous-tendue d’arrière-pensées politiques : la laïcité elle-même serait devenue, dit-on, le masque de l’exclusion intolérante des confessions religieuses. (...) Cette affirmation aux consé­quences redoutables est l’occasion d’une rapide mise au point sur les concepts, connexes mais distincts, de laïcité et de tolérance, de leur filiation, de leur logique et de leur champ d’application. (shrink)

Neste artigo, apresentamos o intuicionismo como uma atitude epistêmica geral, caracterizada pelo rigor de suas exigências de verificação não apenas na matemática e na lógica, mas em todo conhecimento cientifico.

Machine generated contents note: -- Preface to the English edition \ Translators' Introduction \Preface to the French Edition \ 1. Theses on Movement: First Commentary onBergson \ 2. Frame and Short, Framing and Cutting \ 3. Montage \ 4. TheMovement-Image and its Three Varieties: Second Commentary on Bergson \ 5. ThePerception-Image \ 6. The Affection-Image Face and Close-Up \ 7. TheAffection-Image: Qualities, Powers, Any-Space-Whatevers \ 8. From Affect toAction: The Impulse Image \ 9. The Action-Image: The Large Form \ 10. (...) The Action-Image:The Small Form \ 11. Figures, or the Transformation of Forms \ 12. The Crisisof the Action-Image \ Glossary \ Notes \ Index. (shrink)

Research conducted in Montreal with schizophrenic patients was aimed at exploring the mode of Being-in-the-world and the kind of lifeworld associated with a positive evolution. Data were collected through open-ended interviews with patients who were contrasted for their rate of rehospitalization. The analysis combined structural analysis, inspired by hermeneutics, and discourse analysis. The interpretation of the data was guided by the framework provided by European phenomenological psychiatry. The research indicates that nonrehospitalization is associated with a specific mode of Being-in-the-world, which (...) is described at several levels: At the structural level, it is marked by a stance of "positive withdrawal" dominated by personal detachment; self-perceptions evidence various semiological and rhetorical strategies that contribute to the rearticulation of a sense of personal identity; narratives reveal that patients resort to a limited number of specific life strategies for relocating themselves within their own biography and within the present world. Hypotheses are posed regarding the potential influence of the North American culture on the restorative strategies drawn from the patients' narratives. (shrink)

A historical and systematic introduction to what the medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote about the Trinity. By focusing on the thought of one of the greatest defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity, Gilles Emery OP elucidates the classical Christian understanding of God.

We define a generic notion of cut that applies to many first-order theories. We prove a generic cut elimination theorem showing that the cut elimination property holds for all theories having a so-called pre-model. As a corollary, we retrieve cut elimination for several axiomatic theories, including Church's simple type theory.

Gilles Routhier | Résumé : En 1996, dressant un panorama de l’évolution des formes du discours chrétien, Christoph Theobald observait qu’avec Vatican II, l’Église catholique passait à une nouvelle étape, l’encyclique Humani generis (1950) marquant « la fin d’une époque de dogmatisation fondamentale ». Cinquante ans après Vatican II, on peut se demander si cette lecture, qui est tributaire d’une compréhension de la réception de Vatican II, tient toujours. En effet, on peut aujourd’hui observer des résurgences de formes anciennes (...) du discours chrétien montrant que les apprentissages proposés à l’Église catholique ne sont pas tous accomplis. Cet article, s’appuyant sur les analyses de Christoph Theobald, après avoir exposé les déplacements importants réalisés au moment de Vatican II et indiqué le « changement d’ordre » qu’il implique, montre que les évolutions proposées par le Concile n’ont pas toutes été reçues et que le modernisme connaît des avatars, au moins au jugement des dissidents intégristes, et que la crise moderniste continue en partie à définir la situation présente. Cela conduit l’auteur à conclure que la théologie doit reprendre ses travaux sur la tradition. |: In 1996, in a panorama of the evolution of forms of Christian discourse, Christoph Theobald observed that Vatican II opened a new era for the Catholic discourse, the encyclical Humani Generis (1950) marking “the end of a fundamental dogmatization time.” Fifty years after Vatican II, one may wonder if this interpretation, which is dependent on an understanding of the reception of Vatican II, still stands. Indeed, we can now see the resurgence of ancient forms of Christian discourse showing that what was proposed by the Council to the Catholic Church is far from being realised. The present article, based on the works of Christoph Theobald, describes the major shifts made at Vatican II and shows that the “change of order” introduced by the Council have not all been received and the modernist crisis continues partly to define the present situation. This leads to conclude that theology must resume his work on the tradition. (shrink)

Threat-related stimuli can capture attention. However, it remains debated whether this capture is automatic or not. To address this question, we compared attentional biases to emotional faces using a dot-probe task (DPT) where emotion was never goal-relevant (Experiment 1) or made directly task-relevant by means of induction trials (Experiments 2–3). Moreover, the contingency between the DPT and induction trials was either partial (Experiment 2) or full (Experiment 3). Eye-tracking was used to ascertain that the emotional cue and the subsequent target (...) were processed with peripheral vision. Experiments 1 and 2 both showed that negative faces captured attention, with faster target processing when it appeared on the same side as the preceding fearful face (i.e. fear-valid trials) compared to the opposite side where the neutral face was shown (i.e. fear-invalid trials), but also when it appeared on the side of the preceding neutral face (i.e. happy-invalid trials) compared to the happy face (i.e. happy-valid trials). Importantly, this preferential spatial orienting to negative emotion was not observed in Experiment 3, where the goal relevance of emotion was high. However, in that experiment, fearful faces produced a specific attentional bias during the DPT, which was mostly driven by the induction trials themselves. (shrink)

La philosophie théorique de Spinoza est une des tentatives les plus radicales pour constituer une ontologie pure : une seule substance absolument infinie, avec tous les attributs, les êtres n'étant que des manières d'être de cette substance. Mais pourquoi une telle ontologie s'appelle-t-elle Ethique? Quel rapport y a-t-il entre la grande proposition spéculative et les propositions pratiques qui ont fait le scandale du spinozisme? L'éthique est la science pratique des manières d'être. C'est une éthologie, non pas une morale. L'opposition de (...) l'éthique avec la morale, le lien des propositions éthiques avec la proposition ontologique, sont l'objet de ce livre qui présente, de ce point de vue, un dictionnaire des principales notions de Spinoza. D'où vient la place très particulière de Spinoza, la façon dont il concerne immédiatement le non-philosophe autant que le philosophe? (shrink)

In the Pensées, Pascal uses the astonishing phrase “the reality of things” to designate, not the actual existence of things, but the being-thing of all things (in accordance with the meaning of the Latin realitas rerum). It will be established that with this phrase, although it is of Cartesian origin, the analysis of “Disproportion of Man” aims at a criticism of the Cartesian ratio formalis infiniti sive infinitas, which Pascal shows not to be suitable to think God, but only to (...) describe and name nature asthe totality of thinkable objects. (shrink)

In banning religious symbols for civil servants in a position of authority, Québec's laicity law disproportionately burdens religious minorities. Nevertheless, politicians seem to somehow avoid this problem, and the law is largely supported by the population. This insensibility to religious discrimination calls for an explanation. I argue that part of the explanation for this unequal treatment of religion in secular society lies in active religious ignorance. Drawing a parallel from how white ignorance functions to protect racial inequalities, I argue that (...) a kind of active ignorance in the religious domain – that I name post-Christendom ignorance – makes it difficult to comprehend alternative understandings of religious experience and allows the majority to deny its religious positionality. Applying this framework, I criticize Québec's laicity law for wrongfully relying on inadequate hermeneutical resources about religion. Further, the failure to see that targeting only religious symbols worn by individuals is discriminatory is the result of the epistemic vice of closed-mindedness. This article aims to show how religious persons in secular society can suffer hermeneutical wrongs because of their religious identity, and it aims to show that this injustice in the epistemic domain can help explain the unequal treatment of religious minorities while providing grounds for criticism. (shrink)