This paper deals with causal analysis in the social sciences. We first present a conceptual framework according to which causal analysis is based on a rationale of variation and invariance, and not only on regularity. We then develop a formal framework for causal analysis by means of structural modelling. Within this framework we approach causality in terms of exogeneity in a structural conditional model based which is based on (i) congruence with background knowledge, (ii) invariance under a large variety of (...) environmental changes, and (iii) model fit. We also tackle the issue of confounding and show how latent confounders can play havoc with exogeneity. This framework avoids making untestable metaphysical claims about causal relations and yet remains useful for cognitive and action-oriented goals. (shrink)

Conscious states—state that there is something it is like to be in—seem both rich or full of detail and ineffable or hard to fully describe or recall. The problem of ineffability, in particular, is a longstanding issue in philosophy that partly motivates the explanatory gap: the belief that consciousness cannot be reduced to underlying physical processes. Here, we provide an information theoretic dynamical systems perspective on the richness and ineffability of consciousness. In our framework, the richness of conscious experience corresponds (...) to the amount of information in a conscious state and ineffability corresponds to the amount of information lost at different stages of processing. We describe how attractor dynamics in working memory would induce impoverished recollections of our original experiences, how the discrete symbolic nature of language is insufficient for describing the rich and high-dimensional structure of experiences, and how similarity in the cognitive function of two individuals relates to improved communicability of their experiences to each other. While our model may not settle all questions relating to the explanatory gap, it makes progress toward a fully physicalist explanation of the richness and ineffability of conscious experience—two important aspects that seem to be part of what makes qualitative character so puzzling. (shrink)

Our aim is to analyze the position of the leader in relation to the ethical dimension of truth-telling within the organization under his/her control. Based on Michel Foucault’s study of truth-telling, we demonstrate that the role of the leader toward the corporation and the imperative of organizational performance place the leader in an ambiguous position: he/she is obliged to take the lead in “telling the truth” internally and externally, but also to bear the consequences of this “truth-telling” for the organization (...) and for himself/herself. In this process of construction and implementing the truth, the leader is organizer and figurehead of the corporation’s truth-telling practices: determining the frontiers between truth that can be said and that which should remain hidden, both inside and outside the corporation; establishing a dialogue based on truth ; guaranteeing that the rules of truth-telling are respected; and offering a truth which is compatible with the firm’s economic and ethical interest. Invested with the authority—the office—of managing truth within the corporation, the leader can be considered to be the “Chief Truth Officer.” From this perspective, we demonstrate that this role requires specific skills, like courage and practical wisdom. (shrink)

The practice and development of modern medicine requires large amounts of data, particularly in the domain of cancer. The future of personalized medicine lies neither with “genomic medicine” nor with “precision medicine”, but with “data medicine”. The establishment of this DM has required far-reaching changes, to establish four essential elements connecting patients and doctors: biobanks, databases, bioinformatic platforms and genomic platforms. The “transformation” of scientific research areas, such as genetics, bioinformatics and biostatistics, into clinical specialties has generated a new vision (...) of care. Molecular tumor boards are one response to these changes and are now providing better access to next-generation sequencing and new cancer treatments to patients with inoperable or metastatic cancers, and those for whom the usual treatment has failed. However, MTB face a crucial ethical challenge: maintaining and improving the trust of patients, clinicians, researchers and industry in academic medical centers supported by private or public funding rather than providing genetic data directly to private companies. We believe that, in this era of DM, appropriate modern digital communication networks will be required to maintain this trust and to improve the organization and effectiveness of the system. There is, therefore, a need to reconsider the form and content of informed consent documents at all academic medical centers and to introduce dynamic and electronic informed consent. (shrink)

The development of phenomenology in nineteenth‐century German philosophy is that of a particular stream within the larger historical‐philosophical complex of Austro‐German philosophy. As the “grandfather of phenomenology” resp. the “disgusted grandfather of phenomenology,” but also as the key figure on the “Anglo‐Austrian Analytic Axis”, Brentano is at the source of the two main philosophical traditions in twentieth‐century philosophy. This chapter focuses mainly on his place in nineteenth‐century European philosophy and on the central themes and concepts in his philosophy that were (...) determinant in the development of the philosophy of his most gifted student: Edmund Husserl. Despite the variety of stances which Brentano expressed on ontology, metaphysics, and psychology over the course of his career, the five general principles remain central to his whole philosophy throughout: they have an important place in what could be called Brentano's philosophical worldview or system. By extension, they also are essential to his conception of phenomenology. (shrink)

Services offered to children require more and more family resources. The family is becoming not only a beneficiary of services, but also a privileged partner. This transformation tinges relationships between parents and professionals in such a way that each partner must adjust to this new reality. Parental development of empowerment lies within the scope of this transformation in which professional intervention is based on values of partnership and collaboration. The development of empowerment constitutes a conceptual framework for intervention within the (...) family and is defined equally as both process and result. Through this process, the parent develops perception of control and thus uses resources more frequently. This article presents the results of some research conducted on parental experiences which support the development of empowerment. Data was gathered from parents of children that receive services from the Rehabilitation Center for Intellectual Disabilities and Pervasive Developmental Disorders. Preliminary analyses indicate that parents often encounter enabling experiences and the relationship between parents and professionals is a determining factor in the development of empowerment within families, which can either harm or help this relationship. (shrink)

The continuum between involuntary autobiographical memories and déjà vu, as proposed by Barzykowski and Moulin, can be better defined by considering research on autobiographical retrieval in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Although autobiographical retrieval in patients with Alzheimer's disease can generally be associated with a sense of familiarity, involuntary retrieval can trigger an autonoetic experience of retrieval in these patients.

Bergson définit le temps par la succession, qui est création de nouveauté. Mais il prend des exemples qui relèvent non de la succession mais de la simultanéité, garante d’une autre différence, entre deux choses qui coexistent en même temps, c’est-à-dire l’individualité. Dans Le Rire, on trouve en outre un type de comique qui joue sur la duplication simultanée du même. Ces cas de comique engagent la différence entre la simultanéité naturelle d’individus différents et la simultanéité artificielle d’êtres identiques. Si la (...) simultanéité mécanique du même fait rire, c’est bien que la simultanéité naturelle fonde les différences. Cet oubli de Bergson est d’autant plus surprenant que sa conception du temps repose sur une critique de celle de Kant, lequel avait précisément inclus la simultanéité dans le temps comme un de ses modes ; garant du « divers simultané ». Finalement, Bergson est contraint par sa controverse avec Einstein à réintégrer la simultanéité dans le temps. (shrink)

En 2021 est sorti le film By the throat, du duo d’artistes Effi & Amir. Ils y explorent la manière dont les dispositifs scientifiques de compréhension de la langue tracent des frontières langagières et fonctionnent main dans la main avec des politiques d’assignations identitaires. Dans le cadre de ce numéro de Multitudes, nous avons décidé de les faire dialoguer avec Amalini Simon, psychologue clinicienne et directrice du centre Babel, dont le travail clinique et de recherche gravite autour de la question (...) du plurilinguisme et de la médiation transculturelle. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe judgment of blame was studied in a group of 28 teenagers, 14 with Asperger syndrome and 14 typically developed. Teenagers in each group were matched by age, cognitive development and academic level. They were presented with 12 short vignettes in which they had to judge an action according to the intent of the actor, the consequences of the action and the seriousness of the situation. Results showed a significant difference in the patterns of judgment of both groups. The AS (...) group judged the action according to the physical consequence of the action more than the intent of the actor; the opposite was observed with the control group. In addition, the AS teenagers were less capable than the control group of grading injury to a person when apportioning blame especially when they were not familiar with the social situations. This result suggests that the judgement of the seriousness of the outcome of the social interactio... (shrink)

Quizá no sea desacertado destacar que cuando Étienne Balibar afirma que el sujeto-ciudadano rousseauniano constituye una «figura propiamente revolucionaria», no está simplemente mencionándolo desde una perspectiva teórico-política, pues está haciendo ver que la dualidad que comporta supone una figura revolucionaria en un sentido lingüístico y especulativo. En este artículo, nuestro propósito no es otro que analizar el triple alcance de la «invención teórica de Rousseau». Que las significaciones conceptuales no puedan ser simples o unívocas, es lo que en buena medida (...) intentaremos poner de relieve siguiendo su interpretación de algunas de las nociones medulares del Contrato social de Rousseau. (shrink)

La réflexion philosophique, dont l'ouverture à l'univers dans lequel nous nous découvrons - avec une acuité proportionnelle à un étonnement renouvelé - n'a pas de limites, n'en est que plus tributaire des sciences et des techniques, des arts et de multiples activités qui régissent plus ou moins fructueusement notre expérience. Or, au sein des sciences humaines, privilégiées pour éclairer une condition que nous ne saurions cesser d'interpréter, peu d'oeuvres du dernier siècle auront enrichi en le précisant notre être-au-monde, comme la (...) théorie linguistique de Gustave Guillaume, assez solitaire, et les recherches multiformes de Jean Piaget - où la psychologie de l'enfant a souvent occulté la visée épistémologique et son enracinement biologique (cf Biologie et connaissance, 1967) et ses prolongements pédagogiques, voire éthiques. Le Cinquantenaire et le Trentenaire de leur disparition appelaient un hommage d'autant plus impératif qu'ils sont restés marginaux ou ignorés dans les milieux philosophiques, malgré la centralité de leurs élucidations. Leur commune orientation génétique et structurale n'ayant suscité aucun échange, pendant la contemporanéité de publications d'un tiers de siècle (1923-1960), mesurer leur complémentarité s'impose d'autant plus. S'ils peuvent aider à repenser la condition humaine, c'est qu'ils auront contribué à dissiper le "mystère de la pensée". L'un cherchant à habiliter les caractères systématique et cinétique des langues, irremplaçables moyens de penser ; l'autre dans un vis-à-vis cognitif et opératoire de Freud, en relavant sur les plans épistémologique et logique, notamment, l'élan révolutionnaire de la seconde modernité, autour de l'évolutionnisme. Mais les thèmes majeurs du constructivisme, du schème et de la symbolisation - et plus largement du temps et du langage - auront sans doute aidé à spécifier les mutations autorisées par la révolution critique. Entre l'Instant du je parle et un décentrement exigible pratiquement (éthique) comme théoriquement (épistémique), c'est bien la condition humaine dans son ensemble qui est concernée. Si repenser cette Condition s'impose en permanence, il importe de ne pas manquer des oeuvres qui, par-delà toute mode, proposent à notre expérience des fondations résistant à d'inéluctables vicissitudes. (shrink)

This is the first volume to apply insights from the material turn in philosophy to the study of play and games. At a time of renewed interest in analogue gaming, as scholars are looking beyond the digital and virtual for the first time since the inception of game studies in the 1990s, Material Game Studies not only supports the importance of the turn to the analogue, but proposes a materiality of play more broadly. Recognizing the entanglement of physical materiality with (...) cultural meaning, the authors in this volume apply a range of theoretical approaches, from material eco-criticism to animal studies, to examine games and play as existing within worlds of matter. Different chapters focus on the material properties of board, card and role-playing games, how they are designed and made, how they are touched and played with, and how they connect with other human and nonhuman things. Bringing together international scholars, Material Game Studies defines a new field of material game studies and demonstrates how it is a valuable addition to wider debates about the material turn and the place of embodied humans in a material world. (shrink)

Stylèmes et corpus génériques : un essai de confrontation au service de la stylistique des genres Existe-t-il des indices susceptibles de caractériser un genre littéraire du point de vue stylistique? La confrontation, chez un même écrivain, de textes de référent identique, mais dans des genres littéraires différents, serait susceptible d’apporter des éléments de réponse à cette brûlante question, naguère posée par Pierre Larthomas. Mais ces éléments ne pourront être utilement recueillis que si l’on procède à une sélection rigoureuse et attentive (...) du corpus de référence, du corpus d’étude et des outils d’investigation. On proposera ici un exemple de confrontation : les descriptions issues des voyages qu’un certain nombre d’écrivains français ont réalisés entre le tournant des Lumières et la fin du XIXe siècle, descriptions que l’on retrouve en particulier dans les œuvres narratives fictionnelles et les récits de voyage de ces mêmes écrivains. On étudiera entre autres l’usage d’un procédé particulièrement significatif dans ce contexte : les figures de l’analogie. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous chercherons à nouer un dialogue entre les philosophies de Ravaisson et de Jankélévitch. Tous deux mettent en évidence une manière « oblique » de saisir l’être, en tant que celui-ci ne peut être présenté de manière directe dans et par une intuition. Toutefois, il ne s’agit pas tant de relever l’impuissance de la pensée que de mettre en évidence l’excès de ce qui est à penser. Si la philosophie est en effet mue par une inadéquation initiale (...) vis-à-vis de ses objets, ce manque ne la condamne pas pour autant. Si l’on peut constater une filiation entre ces deux auteurs, la question de la saisie oblique va également mettre au jour une divergence entre eux. Pour le premier, la réflexion sur les médiations est soutenue par l’identité de l’être et de la pensée. Pour le second, en revanche, cette identité est sans cesse mise en question, au point que la discontinuité paraît caractériser l’essence de la réalité. C’est également l’examen de la philosophie de Bergson qui va permettre de mettre en évidence une telle divergence, au sens où le rapport de Jankélévitch à celui-ci se donne à la fois dans un héritage et dans une rupture. (shrink)

Modern thinking about the ground tends to take it as a purely material base for the unfolding of history and ideas emerging on its surface. In this article, I question above-ground visions of city building by drawing on both the history of ground engineering and ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Paris with geotechnicians. I address the difficulties that theorists have faced over past centuries in modelling soils, and the contemporary practice of building piles underneath buildings to anchor them. From this (...) unfolds an understanding of the ground as produced through an equilibrium between forces and materials in which buildings become participants, rather than a solid base upon which they stand. Looking at the activities of foundation builders, we find that the inertia of the urban soil no longer betokens an absence of activity or movement, but is rather a continuous achievement, a slow and dangerous process of balancing tensions. (shrink)

This article analyzes the influence of Chinese Neo-Confucianism on the development of German idealism. Information obtained by Leibniz from Jesuit missionaries included key concepts in Neo-Confucian philosophy that not only confirmed Leibniz’s belief in the universality of his organic image of the cosmos but also influenced Leibniz’s later writings. Such influence is also exhibited in Kant’s work, especially in his crucial noumenon-phenomenon distinction, as well as in Hegel’s phenomenology and philosophy of history. Recognition of these influences, unacknowledged by either Kant (...) or Hegel, enhances our assessment of the import of both Neo-Confucianism and German idealism in international religio-philosophical discourse. (shrink)

Like most bilaterian animals, the annelid Platynereis dumerilii generates the majority of its body axis in an anterior to posterior temporal progression with new segments added sequentially. This process relies on a posterior subterminal proliferative body region, known as the "segment addition zone" (SAZ). We explored some of the molecular and cellular aspects of posterior elongation in Platynereis, in particular to test the hypothesis that the SAZ contains a specific set of stem cells dedicated to posterior elongation.We cloned and characterized (...) the developmental expression patterns of orthologs of 17 genes known to be involved in the formation, behavior, or maintenance of stem cells in other metazoan models. These genes encode RNA-binding proteins(e.g., tudor, musashi, pumilio) or transcription factors(e.g., myc, id, runx) widely conserved in eumetazoans. Most of these genes are expressed both in the migrating primordial germ cells and in overlapping ring-like patterns in the SAZ, similar to some previously analyzed genes(piwi, vasa). The SAZ patterns are coincident with the expression of proliferation markers cyclin B and PCNA. EdU pulse and chase experiments suggest that new segments are produced through many rounds of divisions from small populations of teloblast-like posterior stem cells. The shared molecular signature between primordial germ cells and posterior stem cells in Platynereis thus corresponds to an ancestral "stemness" program. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to assess the relevance of somatic evolution by natural selection to our understanding of cancer development. I do so in two steps. In the first part of the paper, I ask to what extent cancer cells meet the formal requirements for evolution by natural selection, relying on Godfrey-Smith’s (2009) framework of Darwinian populations. I argue that although they meet the minimal requirements for natural selection, cancer cells are not paradigmatic Darwinian populations. In the second (...) part of the paper, I examine the most important examples of adaptation in cancer cells. I argue that they are not significant accumulations of evolutionary changes, and that as a consequence natural selection plays a lesser role in their explanation. Their explanation, I argue, is best sought in the previously existing wiring of the healthy cells. (shrink)

C'est en réponse aux effets délétères du progrès que se conçoit la notion salutaire de "Tradition". Ce terme, issu du latin tradere qui signifie "transmettre", recouvre l'ensemble des valeurs et des réalités immuables à travers le temps. Loin d'engager la tension purement manichéenne entre le spirituel et le temporel, l'appel de la Tradition conduit, au contraire, à réintroduire dans la société et l'Histoire religion et mode de vie différencié. Combat perdu d'avance? Utopie vouée à la dérision ou quête spirituelle portée (...) par l'exigence et la hauteur de vues? Arnaud Guyot-Jeannin en révèle l'ambition particulière et la sensibilité hors norme, à travers douze portraits singuliers, pour la plupart marqués par une conversion éclatante au catholicisme et un désir de réenchanter le monde, d'en retrouver les racines sacrées, profondes et universelles. De Vladimir Soloviev à Tolkien en passant par René Guénon, Simone Weil, Chesterton ou Gustave Thibon, l'auteur nous offre un vrai plaisir de découverte et de méditation. (shrink)

Previous research suggests that social anxiety symptoms are maintained and intensified by inflexible emotion regulation (ER). Therefore, we examined whether trait-level social anxiety moderates ER flexibility operationalised at both between-person (covariation between variability in emotional intensity and variability in strategy use across occasions) and within-person (associations between emotional intensity and strategy use on a given day) levels. In a sample of healthy college-aged adults (N = 185, Mage = 21.89), we examined overall and emotion-specific intensities (shame, guilt, anxiety, anger, sadness) (...) and regulatory strategies (i.e. experiential avoidance, expressive suppression, and rumination) in response to each day’s most emotionally intense event over 6 days. During the study period, we found a positive association between variability in emotional intensity and variability of experiential avoidance in individuals with lower, rather than higher, levels of trait social anxiety after controlling for key covariates (i.e. gender, personality traits, and stress exposure). However, we did not find evidence for the moderating role of trait social anxiety in ER flexibility assessed at within-person levels. Our findings highlight the need to delineate dynamic ER flexibility across everyday events. (shrink)

Open and shut -- Thinking about technology -- The problem with technology -- Evil and the empire of good -- Hall of mirrors -- Our faith -- Thinking past technology -- Living among things -- Less is more.