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.

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 rational design of theoretical minimal RNA rings predetermines AUG as the universal start codon. This design maximizes coded amino acid diversity over minimal sequence length, defining in silico theoretical minimal RNA rings, candidate ancestral genes. RNA rings code for 21 amino acids and a stop codon after three consecutive translation rounds, and form a degradation‐delaying stem‐loop hairpin. Twenty‐five RNA rings match these constraints, ten start with the universal initiation codon AUG. No first codon bias exists among remaining RNA rings. (...) RNA ring design predetermines AUG as initiation codon. This is the only explanation yet for AUG as start codon. RNA ring design determines additional RNA ring gene‐ and tRNA‐like properties described previously, because it presumably mimics constraints on life's primordial RNAs. (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.

Many philosophers agree that there is an epistemic norm governing action. However, they disagree on what this norm is. It has been observed that the word ‘know’ is prominent in ordinary epistemic evaluations of actions. Any opponent of the knowledge norm must provide an explanation of this fact. Gerken has recently proposed the most developed explanation. It invokes the hypothesis that, in normal contexts, knowledge-level warrant is frequently necessary and very frequently sufficient (Normal Coincidence), so that knowledge-based assessments would be (...) a good heuristic for practical reasoning and epistemic evaluations of action. In this paper, I raise three problems for this approach. First, I argue that Normal Coincidence is ad hoc: it relies on an unsupported frequency hypothesis that we should expect to be false given the warrant account that Gerken also endorses. Second, I argue that, in any case, Normal Coincidence is insufficient to support the hypothesis that knowledge-based evaluation of action constitutes a good heuristic. Third, I consider three other hypotheses close to Normal Coincidence apparently more likely to support the heuristic hypothesis, but I argue that they seem even more ad hoc than Normal Coincidence. (shrink)

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)