Dans sa prison, condamné à mort, Socrate se coupe de toute préoccupation terrestre pour se concentrer sur la vie de l'esprit. Sans faiblir devant la venue de la mort ni se défaire de son exigence morale, il révèle, dans le dialogue avec ses fidèles, sa force d'âme. Une vie, il s'est préparé à l'issue fatale, s'appliquant à purifier l'idée de la mort par la pensée en elle-même, cherchant une forme de sérénité dans ce compagnonnage. Aussi la conçoit-il comme une nécessité (...) inévitable qu'il faut aborder par la raison, sans la redouter ni même s'élever contre son injustice. Mais il est également porté par un élan spirituel qui repose sur la croyance dans l'éternité de l'âme, une belle espérance : mener une existence future auprès des dieux, ces maîtres sages et bons. Lorsqu'il livre ainsi son coeur, Socrate veut rassurer les siens, les consoler de sa disparition. Surtout, en révélant ce qui guide son esprit de la façon la plus digne qui soit, il solidifie ses principes. S'il se montre plein de piété, il reste ce maître à penser, soucieux avant tout de connaître la nature de la vertu pour mieux en parler et la donner en exemple jusqu'à la fin. (shrink)

Pour Aristote, si la vertu ne naît pas naturellement en l'homme, néanmoins celui-ci est par sa nature même prédisposé à l'acquérir, dans la mesure où il appartient à chacun de la cultiver par de bonnes habitudes de vie et de la concrétiser dans des actes. Aussi, par son comportement vertueux, l'homme a-t-il la possibilité d'accomplir dans l'action ce qui lui convient le mieux et ce qui profite à la Cité. En l'occurrence, il ne s'agit pas de viser le bien en (...) soi mais de se montrer capable de faire du bien. (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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

L’objectif de l’article est de proposer une théorie de l’engagement psychologique dans le langage. C’est-à-dire de présenter une vue systématique de l’implication de la psyché des sujets parlants dans leur accomplissement d’actes de langage ou encore de ce à quoi ils sont assujettis sur le plan psychologique quand ils parlent. Cette théorie a la forme d’une série de thèses chacune relative à un trait spécifique de la performance langagière. Prenant appui sur la philosophie du langage de John Searle et Daniel (...) Vanderveken, elle est élaborée à partir d’une notion originale d’engagement à avoir des états mentaux.The aim of this article is to propose a theory of the psychological commitment in the language. In other words, it is to present a systematic view of how the mental states of the speakers are present in their performance of speech acts, of what are the psychological states to the possession of which the speakers are committed when they speak. This theory is based on several thesis, each of which is about a specific aspect of the performance of speech acts. It is proposed in the perspective of the philosophy of language of John Searle and Daniel Vanderveken on the basis of an original concept of commitment to have mental states. (shrink)

The aim of the present article is to examine the paradox that while Bourdieu appears to be highly favorable to Marx, there is a radical disagreement between their two theoretical systems. In Bourdieu’s writing, comments favorable to Marx outweigh criticism by a ratio of 4,5 to 1. Marxists, in contrast, come in for ten times more criticism than support. Bourdieu’s approval of Marx in fact concerns only what are secondary aspects, while the few critiques he addresses delineate a structural opposition (...) between the two authors. Bourdieu rejects the theory of surplus value, the Marxist theory of exploitation, and the communist project. Among other things, he draws up a critique of Marx’s analyses of the State, legitimation, social classes. Explanation for the paradox is to be sought in the strategy deployed by Bourdieu in the field of the social sciences. (shrink)

Binding arbitration is generally less available in tort suits than in contract suits because most tort plaintiffs do not have a pre-dispute contract with the defendant, and are unlikely to consent to arbitration after the occurrence of an unforeseen injury. But the Federal Arbitration Act applies to all “contract[s] evincing a transaction involving commerce,” including contracts for healthcare and medical services. Given the broad trend towards arbitration in nearly every other business-to-consumer industry, coupled with some rollbacks in tort reform measures (...) that have traditionally favored medical professionals in the judicial system, it is very possible that we may witness in the near future more medical contracts containing arbitration provisions. As a consequence, all manner of tort claims might be hashed out in the sequestered universe of arbitration. (shrink)

Let X be a non-reflexive Banach space such that X ∗ is separable. Let N be the set of all equivalent norms on X , equipped with the topology of uniform convergence on bounded subsets of X . We show that the subset Z of N consisting of Fréchet-differentiable norms whose dual norm is not strictly convex reduces any difference of analytic sets. It follows that Z is exactly a difference of analytic sets when N is equipped with the standard (...) Effros–Borel structure. Our main lemma elucidates the topological structure of the norm-attaining linear forms when the norm of X is locally uniformly rotund. (shrink)

Given a 4-tuple of Boolean variables (a, b, c, d), logical proportions are modeled by a pair of equivalences relating similarity indicators ( \({a \wedge b}\) and \({\overline{a} \wedge \overline{b}}\) ), or dissimilarity indicators ( \({a \wedge \overline{b}}\) and \({\overline{a} \wedge b}\) ) pertaining to the pair (a, b), to the ones associated with the pair (c, d). There are 120 semantically distinct logical proportions. One of them models the analogical proportion which corresponds to a statement of the form “a (...) is to b as c is to d”. The paper inventories the whole set of logical proportions by dividing it into five subfamilies according to what they express, and then identifies the proportions that satisfy noticeable properties such as full identity (the pair of equivalences defining the proportion hold as true for the 4-tuple (a, a, a, a)), symmetry (if the proportion holds for (a, b, c, d), it also holds for (c, d, a, b)), or code independency (if the proportion holds for (a, b, c, d), it also holds for their negations \({{(\overline{a},\overline{b}, \overline{c}, \overline{d})}}\) ). It appears that only four proportions (including analogical proportion) are homogeneous in the sense that they use only one type of indicator (either similarity or dissimilarity) in their definition. Due to their specific patterns, they have a particular cognitive appeal, and as such are studied in greater details. Finally, the paper provides a discussion of the other existing works on analogical proportions. (shrink)

The development and utility of genetically modified crops for smallholders around the world is controversial. Critical questions include what traits and crops are to be developed; how they can be adapted to smallholders’ ecological, social and economic contexts; which dissemination channels should be used to reach smallholders; and which policy environments will enable the greatest benefits for smallholders and the rural poor. A key question is how the voices of smallholders who have experience with or desire to use GM technologies (...) enter the larger debate. Africa has the greatest number of smallholders and poor with the least exposure to GM crops. Because of the well-established use of GM crops in South Africa by commercial farmers, we formed a community of practice involving smallholders, extension, researchers, non-profits and agribusiness in KwaZulu-Natal to examine the conditions under which GM crops are used by smallholders, how smallholders interact with GM technologies and what insights smallholders and other stakeholders can provide regarding these questions. One of the advantages of the CoP approach is that it brings stakeholders together in a non-hierarchical way that encourages new ways of thinking and new partnerships. Such interaction around a specific project can enhance the voice of smallholders in a variety of ways. In our project, smallholder participants have increased their knowledge and can make better decisions about GM technologies, which had been barriers for them. Notably, they have also improved their knowledge of maize production practices, accessed new practice networks, and met new researchers and resource providers. They are now being integrated into these networks in a way that should improve their livelihoods and make the wants and needs of smallholders better known. Such knowledge and experience has improved their voice in agriculture and rural development discussions. (shrink)

Product differentiation has emerged as a central dynamic in contemporary agrofood systems. Departure from the mode of standardization emblematic of agrofood modernization raises questions about future technical trajectories and the ways in which learning will be sustained. This article examines two innovation trajectories: the rapid coupling of biotechnologies and information technologies to yield products differentiated by constituent components—a model based on a cognitive logic of decomposition/ recomposition—and the proliferation of product networks that mobilize distinctive, localized resources to create complete identities—a (...) model based on a cognitive logic of identity. The article analyzes the information structures—institutional mechanisms that support information exchange and learning—in each of these opposed development paradigms. We find that knowledge creation under each of the logics occurs through mechanisms not recognized within the respective paradigms. On this basis, we derive institutional hybridity as a fundamental resource in systems of innovation. (shrink)

Widespread preservation of fossilized biomolecules in many fossil animals has recently been reported in six studies, based on Raman microspectroscopy. Here, we show that the putative Raman signatures of organic compounds in these fossils are actually instrumental artefacts resulting from intense background luminescence. Raman spectroscopy is based on the detection of photons scattered inelastically by matter upon its interaction with a laser beam. For many natural materials, this interaction also generates a luminescence signal that is often orders of magnitude more (...) intense than the light produced by Raman scattering. Such luminescence, coupled with the transmission properties of the spectrometer, induced quasi‐periodic ripples in the measured spectra that have been incorrectly interpreted as Raman signatures of organic molecules. Although several analytical strategies have been developed to overcome this common issue, Raman microspectroscopy as used in the studies questioned here cannot be used to identify fossil biomolecules. (shrink)

With the case of Belgium as a negative example, this paper will evaluate the legitimacy of using mentally incompetents as organ sources. The first section examines the underlying moral dilemma that results from the necessity of balancing the principle of respect for persons with the obligation to help people in desperate need. We argue for the rejection of a radical utilitarian approach but also question the appropriateness of a categorical prohibition. Section two aims to strike a fair balance between the (...) competing interests at stake and to define the conditions under which organ harvest from mentally incompetents might be morally acceptable. To this end, we morally assess the main requirements that have been put forward to allow organ removal from incompetent donors. We conclude that the current Belgian legislation is far too permissive and that national regulations that do not permit the harvest of non-regenerable organs from mentally incompetents in exceptional circumstances are too restrictive. On the basis of this discussion, we propose a number of guiding principles for decision-making in this area. (shrink)

Dans le cadre de la collecte des corpus oraux et multimodaux en Sciences Humaines et Sociales (SHS), le respect de l’application du nouveau Règlement Général sur la Protection des Données à caractère personnel provoque un profond bouleversement dans l’organisation et les méthodes de travail des chercheurs. C’est aussi le cas de la Loi Jardé, relative aux recherches impliquant la personne humaine, qui a étendu la notion de protection des personnes au-delà du champ de la recherche biomédicale. Ces deux importants changements (...) de cadre législatif obligent aujourd’hui la communauté scientifique à s’interroger à la fois sur la protection de la personne et sur la protection des données à caractère personnel.En définitive, avant d’initier un travail de recherche, un important travail de réflexion et d’actions est à mettre en place pour collecter des données dans le respect de la réglementation de protection des données et du cadre législatif de protection de la personne humaine. Identifier les difficultés pour envisager les solutions les plus adaptées est la mission que s’est fixée le groupe de réflexion constitué autour de la question « éthique » au Laboratoire Parole et Langage (LPL 2020). Nous proposerons dans cet article les réflexions argumentées de notre groupe sur l’impact de ces nouvelles réglementations sur les recherches en linguistique. (shrink)