The subjective Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics and Rovelli’s relational interpretation of quantum mechanics are both notable for embracing the radical idea that measurement outcomes correspond to events whose occurrence is relative to an observer. Here we provide a detailed study of their similarities and especially their differences.

Wrestling with the Angel is a meditation on contemporary political, legal, and social theory from a psychoanalytic perspective. It argues for the enabling function of formal and symbolic constraints in sustaining desire as a source of creativity, innovation, and social change. The book begins by calling for a richer understanding of the psychoanalytic concept of the symbolic and the resources it might offer for an examination of the social link and the political sphere. The symbolic is a crucial dimension of (...) social coexistence but cannot be reduced to the social norms, rules, and practices with which it is so often collapsed. As a dimension of human life that is introduced by language--and thus inescapably "other" with respect to the laws of nature--the symbolic is an undeniable fact of human existence. Yet the same cannot be said of the forms and practices that represent and sustain it. In designating these laws, structures, and practices as "fictions," Jacques Lacan makes clear that the symbolic is a dimension of social life that has to be created and maintained and that can also be displaced, eradicated, or rendered dysfunctional. The symbolic fictions that structure and support the social tie are therefore historicizable, emerging at specific times and in particular contexts and losing their efficacy when circumstances change. They are also fragile and ephemeral, needing to be renewed and reinvented if they are not to become outmoded or ridiculous. Therefore the aim of this study is not to call for a return to traditional symbolic laws but to reflect on the relationship between the symbolic in its most elementary or structural form and the function of constraints and limits. McNulty analyzes examples of "experimental" (as opposed to "normative") articulations of the symbolic and their creative use of formal limits and constraints not as mere prohibitions or rules but as "enabling constraints" that favor the exercise of freedom. The first part examines practices that conceive of subjective freedom as enabled by the struggle with constraints or limits, from the transference that structures the "minimal social link" of psychoanalysis to constrained relationships between two or more people in the context of political and social movements. Examples discussed range from the spiritual practices and social legacies of Moses, Jesus, and Teresa of Avila to the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière. The second part is devoted to legal and political debates surrounding the function of the written law. It isolates the law's function as a symbolic limit or constraint as distinct from its content and representational character. The analysis draws on Mosaic law traditions, the political theology of Paul, and twentieth-century treatments of written law in the work of Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, Pierre Legendre, and Alain Badiou. In conclusion, the study considers the relationship between will and constraint in Kant's aesthetic philosophy and in the experimental literary works of the collective Oulipo. (shrink)

Deux textes composent cet adieu : l'hommage prononcé par Derrida aux obsèques d'Emmanuel Levinas suivi d'une lecture de Levinas à partir de la notion d'accueil et l'élaboration "subjugante" du concept d'accueil.

Traite des rapports entre force et raison au sein des démocraties. Deux conférences de J. Derrida se font écho pour interroger le concept de souveraineté de l'Etat.

Professor Dreze is a highly respected mathematical economist and econometrician. This book brings together some of his major contributions to the economic theory of decision making under uncertainty, and also several essays. These include an important essay on 'Decision theory under moral hazard and state dependent preferences' that significantly extends modern theory, and which provides rigorous foundations for subsequent chapters. Topics covered within the theory include decision theory, market allocation and prices, consumer decisions, theory of the firm, labour contracts, and (...) public decisions. (shrink)

The Political Illusion, examines modern man's passion--political affairs--and the role he plays in them and in the modern state.

David Gray Carlson and Peter Goodrich argue that the postmodern legal mind can be characterized as having shifted the focus of legal analysis away from the modernist understanding of law as a system that is unitary and separate from other aspects of culture and society. In exploring the various "other dimensions" of law, scholars have developed alternative species of legal analysis and recognized the existence of different forms of law. Carlson and Goodrich assert that the postmodern legal mind introduced a (...) series of "minor jurisprudences" or partial forms of legal knowledge, which both compete with and subvert the modernist conception of a unitary system of law. In doing so scholars from a variety of disciplines pursue the implications of applying the insights of their disciplines to law. Carlson and Goodrich have assembled in this volume essays from some of our leading thinkers that address what is arguably one of the most fundamental of interdisciplinary encounters, that of psychoanalysis and law. While psychoanalytic interpretations of law are by no means a novelty within common law jurisprudence, the extent and possibilities of the terrain opened up by psychoanalysis have yet to be extensively addressed. The intentional subject and "reasonable man" of law are disassembled in psychoanalysis to reveal a chaotic and irrational libidinal subject, a sexual being, a body and its drives. The focus of the present collection of essays is upon desire as an inner law, upon love as an interior idiom of legality, and represents a signficant and at times surprising development of the psychoanalytic analysis of legality. These essays should appeal to scholars in law and in psychology. The contributors are Drucilla Cornell, Jacques Derrida, Peter Goodrich, Pierre Legendre, Alain Pottage, Michel Rosenfeld, Renata Salecl, Jeanne L. Schroeder, Anton Schutz, Henry Staten, and Slavoj Zizek. David Gray Carlson is Professor of Law, Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. Peter Goodrich is Professor of Law, University of London and University of California, Los Angeles. (shrink)

Sous un titre éminemment symbolique, Salima Ghezali, par ailleurs engagée dans la défense des droits de la femme, dresse le portrait d'une famille algérienne éclatée. Des paroles d'hommes et de femmes se succèdent, comme des cris de muezzins dans la nuit, unis par le même amour d'une mère.

Twelve essays exploring aspects of literacy and art criticism, retrospective sociology and the effects of relativism on moral behavior.

Censures au XVIIIe siecle, les ecrivains-philosophes des Lumieres demeurent controverses ou singes de nos jours. Cette etude privilegie leurs idees-forces sans negliger les porte-parole. Celebres (Bayle, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Helvetius, d'Holbach...) ou reconnus (d'Argens, Mably, Mirabeau, d'Alembert, Volney, Mme de Stael...) ils n'enferment point leur oeuvre dans le moule d'une pensee unique. Ne parlant jamais d'une seule voix, tous associent l'invention de la liberte et l'idee neuve de bonheur. La Mettrie, materialiste medecin des ames, ecrit en precurseur de Freud. (...) Immoraliste visionnaire, Sade anticipe les derives d'une philosophie deshumanisee. Les debats seculaires avec les apologistes (Abbadie, Barruel, Bergier, Gerard, Holland, Vernes...) elaborent les fondements universels d'une morale non confessionnelle. Du refus des dogmes et de tout esprit de systeme nait une ethique transcendant les revelations. (shrink)

The discussion about the concept of enlightenment runs through the conception of Immanuel Kant, who thematized it as an exit from the individual from his condition of intellectual minority and guardianship of those who prevent the exercise of thinking for himself, impelling the achievement of autonomy that requires freedom and to make public use of reason. Such problematization about the difficulties interposed to the process of enlightenment can be related to the problem of estrangement in Marx, making the necessary considerations (...) in relation to the historical and social context of both philosophers. In this way, through philosophical investigation, it is possible to establish correlations of complementarities, differences and counterpoints between the different conceptions of Kant and Marx. Thus, we realize that the search for enlightenment depends on overcoming the material determinations of the set of alienations produced by the capitalist mode of production, aiming at the achievement of human emancipation understood as effective autonomous freedom. (shrink)

Pricing algorithms are computerized procedures a seller may use to adapt instantaneously its price to market conditions, including to prices quoted by its rivals. These algorithms are related to the extensive use of web-collectors which contribute in many industries to identifying the best price. In such settings, price competition operates between algorithms, no longer between executives of brick and mortar companies. In this context, the question is to know how implicit forms of collusion may arise between the sellers. This paper (...) is aimed at discussing this conceptual issue in a price-setting homogeneous product oligopoly with decreasing returns to scale where algorithms implement matching policies. Using fixed point argument, we find a family of equilibrium prices encompassing Cournot and Pareto efficient solutions, if matching is allowed upward and downward. Dynamical stability is studied in the linear demand constant return case. When matching operates only for price undercutting, this family is extended up to a bottom value of the market price, close to the Walrasian price. Pricing algorithms may solve the Bertrand–Edgeworth paradox. (shrink)

Femmes, quel titre eût été plus juste et plus résonnant? Prononcée en 1972, cette conférence fut en effet scandée ou jouée par telles propositions : "la femme sera mon sujet", "il n'y a pas d'être ou d'essence de la femme ou de la différence sexuelle", "la femme n'aura donc pas été mon sujet"... Pour "déchiffrer cette inscription de la femme" l'écriture ne doit plus recevoir ses ordres de la philosophie ou de la littérature.

At head of title: The Johns Hopkins University. Institute for the Study of Law.

The aim of this paper is to make a comparison between two philosophical theories on convention, totally independent from each other, and produced by two thinkers of this century yet totally unknown to each other, in order to assess to what extent both theories meet the same facts or are verified by the same features. The result of this inquiry is that each theory is autonomous, but that both theories are quite compatible with each other, that they even fairly coincide (...) with each other, and that there where they emphasize different aspects of a convention they are complementary to each other. In a general introductory paragraph we lay stress upon the distinction between something conventional and something arbitrary and assign a place to conventionalism between rationalism and relativism. In the second part of the paper we examine D. K. Lewis's conception and analysis of the notion of a convention, which he defines in terms of the theory of games of pure coordination, in terms of coordination equilibrium, of orders of mutual expectations, of preferences and of regularities. In the third part of the paper we show that Dupréel's sociological concept of 'being of one mind' is the analogue of Lewis's definition. We also compare Lewis's remarks on the phenomenon of the imitation with Dupréel's theory of the consolidation and endorse the latter's view that a convention has a creative function so that it cannot be reduced to being a pure sign of something else. In the fourth part of our paper we analyze the relation between value and convention and claim that in Dupréel's philosophy the main values may not be identified with conventions. Lastly we justify our conclusion as already stated at the beginning of this summary. (shrink)

The vision of la Storta, usually interpreted as a decisive confirmation of the apostolic charism of the Society of Jesus, poses a delicate historical-critical problem. The greater part of recent essays base themselves on the study by H. Rahner, written during the 1930's. Yet an attentive analysis of the primary source - Ignatius of Loyola's own declarations - demonstrates that, contrary to what is suggested by other sources, particularly the testimony of Laynez taken up in large part by Nadal, the (...) apparition of 1537 did not concern the future mission to be carried out as much as its interior Trinitarian form and the attitude of filial obedience it requires. (shrink)