Le bonheur : idée neuve ou trop vieux rêve? Douce utopie ou vrai projet? En tout cas, quand un philosophe se lève avec Jean- Jacques Rousseau en 1749, c'est en son nom : le bonheur constitue son horizon et son programme, sa vocation et son présent, à la fois sa quête personnelle et le seul don qu'il estime devoir à l'homme. Or il se trouve que, face au philosophe Rousseau, se met bientôt à parler aussi le romancier Jean-Jacques, et du (...) même coup face au penseur le croyant. Quant au bonheur, les deux instances sont d'accord sur sa définition et sur tous les aspects qui en sont parties intégrantes, conscience, estime de soi, liberté, dignité, sagesse ; de même, elles sont d'accord pour identifier ses pires ennemis, ces fétiches que sont l'avoir, le pouvoir et la gloire, tout ce qui suscite les croyances constitutives du " religieux mondain ". Mais une fois les idoles écartées, il reste Dieu, ou le " religieux divin ". Que devient alors le bonheur pris ainsi entre Jean-Jacques et Rousseau? Peut-il être compatible avec cette ultime croyance? C'est tout le rapport du bonheur et de la croyance, quelle qu'elle soit, qui est ici étudié à travers l'oeuvre du Citoyen de Genève. (shrink)

L'Analyse ontologique étudie l'humain et l'individu, étant à ce titre une anthropologie ; il se trouve qu'elle recoupe celle de Rousseau sur certains points précis. Cette coïncidence permettant en particulier une exploration du phénomène de la croyance, c'est sur elle que se fonde cette étude pour mettre en lumière le coût ontologique de la croyance aussi bien pour l'individu que pour l'humanité - le coût de Dieu - à travers le cas spécifique de Jean-Jacques Rousseau lui-même, à la fois philosophe (...) et Croyant. L'étude se structure en trois temps : I. Rousseau et la tentative philosophique envisage comment le philosophe Rousseau, après avoir récusé le Religieux dans ses Discours, fonde le Politique, par une éducation avec L'Émile et une institution avec le Contrat social...."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This is the third volume of Joel Feinberg's highly regarded The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, a four-volume series in which Feinberg skillfully addresses a complex question: What kinds of conduct may the state make criminal without infringing on the moral autonomy of individual citizens? In Harm to Self, Feinberg offers insightful commentary into various notions attached to self-inflicted harm, covering such topics as legal paternalism, personal sovereignty and its boundaries, voluntariness and assumptions of risk, consent and its counterfeits, (...) coercive force, incapacity, and choice of death. (shrink)

Feinberg is one of the leading philosophers of law of the last forty years. This volume collects recent articles, both published and unpublished, on what he terms "basic questions" about the law, particularly in regard to the relationship to morality. Accessibly and elegantly written, this volume's audience will reflect the diverse nature of Feinberg's own interests: scholars in philosophy of law, legal theory, and ethical and moral theory.

Im vorliegenden Beitrag setzt der Autor eine früher begonnene Debatte mit Axel Honneth über die Interpretation psychoanalytischer Konzepte, insbesondere die Donald W. Winnicotts, fort. Honneths philosophische Aneignung der Psychoanalyse sieht der Autor in der Tradition der »Relationalen Linken«; wie bei dieser stelle die Winnicott-Interpretation auch bei Honneth eines der zentralen Elemente des Versuchs dar, die eigene philosophische Position zu formulieren. Dabei werde Winnicotts komplexes, hochdifferenziertes und subtiles Denken einer erheblichen Vereinfachung unterworfen. Der Autor zeigt, dass und wie der entscheidende Punkt, (...) in dem Honneths Position und die des Autors sich unterscheiden, in der Anthropologie liegt. (shrink)

Winner of the 2015 Pierre-Antoine Bernheim Prize for the History of Religion by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-LettresAfter a century during which Confucianism was viewed by academics as a relic of the imperial past or, at best, a philosophical resource, its striking comeback in Chinese society today raises a number of questions about the role that this ancient tradition might play in a contemporary context. The Sage and the People is the first comprehensive enquiry into the "Confucian revival" that (...) began in China during the 2000s. Based on extensive anthropological fieldwork carried out over eight years in various parts of the country, it explores the re-appropriation and reinvention of popular practices in fields as diverse as education, self-cultivation, religion, ritual, and politics.The book analyzes the complexity of the "Confucian revival" within the broader context of emerging challenges to such categories as religion, philosophy, and science that prevailed in modernization narratives throughout the last century. Exploring state cults both in Mainland China and Taiwan, authors Sébastien Billioud and Joël Thoraval compare the interplay between politics and religion on the two shores of the Taiwan strait and attempt to shed light on possible future developments of Confucianism in Chinese society. (shrink)

Questions for Further Consideration and Recommended Further Reading, which follow each relevant chapter, encourage readers to think further and to craft their own perspectives.

In the face of escalating Medicaid costs and anticipated reductions in federal Medicaid spending, states are increasingly converting from fee-for-service to managed health care systems. The interrelated issues of enrollment and auto-assignment are fundamental to the overall success or failure of Medicaid managed care programs. The purpose of this article is to suggest how policy makers, consumer advocates, and providers should address these issues. My major premise is that implementation of managed care will proceed more smoothly if states adopt enrollment (...) strategies that promote voluntary selection of health plans by Medicaid consumers, minimize the likelihood of auto-assignment, and mitigate the negative consequences of mandatory assignment of consumers to managed care organizations.States seeking to implement Medicaid managed care must apply for a waiver from the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Two different types of waivers are available to implement Medicaid managed care. (shrink)

Under the enlightened rule of the Buyid dynasty the Islamic world witnessed an unequalled cultural renaissance. This book is an investigation into the nature of the environment in which the cultural transformation took place and into the cultural elite who were its bearers.

In A Question of Time, Joel Pearl offers a new reading of the foundations of psychoanalytic thought, indicating the presence of an essential lacuna that has been integral to psychoanalysis since its inception. Pearl returns to the moment in which psychoanalysis was born, demonstrating how Freud had overlooked one of the most principal issues pertinent to his method: the question of time. The book shows that it is no coincidence that Freud had never methodically and thoroughly discussed time and that (...) the metaphysical assumption of linear time lies at the very heart of Freudian psychoanalysis. Pearl¿s critical reading of Freud develops through an original dialogue that he creates with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and, specifically, with the German philosopher¿s notion of temporality. Pearl traces the encounter between Freud and Heidegger by observing the common inspiration shaping their thinking: philosopher Franz Brentano, who taught both Freud and Edmund Husserl, Heidegger¿s mentor. The book travels down an alternate path, one overlooked by Freudian thought ¿ a path leading from Brentano, through Husserl and onto Heidegger¿s notion of time, which is founded on the ecstatic¿ interrelation of past, present and future. Dr. Joel Pearl specializes in phenomenology and psychoanalysis on which he has published several articles. He teaches philosophy at the Academic College of Communication, Rishon LeZion, Israel. In addition, Pearl is a dynamic psychotherapist and a member of The Tel-Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. (shrink)

In the years shortly before and after the publication of his classic _Truth and Method_, the eminent German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer returned often to questions surrounding religion and ethics. In this selection of writings from _Gesammelte Werke_ that are here translated into English for the first time, Gadamer probes deeply into the hermeneutic significance of these subjects. Gadamer raises issues of importance to ethicists and theologians as well as students of language and literature. In such outstanding essays as "Kant and (...) the Question of God," "Thinking as Redemption: Plotinus between Plato and Augustine," and "Friendship and Self-Knowledge: Reflections on the Role of Friendship in Greek Ethics," Gadamer discusses the nature of moral behavior, ethics as a form of knowing, and the hermeneutic task of mediating ethos and philosophical ethics with one another. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging historical introduction to philosophical hermeneutics, Jean Grondin discusses the major figures from Philo to Habermas, analyzes conflicts between various interpretive schools, and provides a persuasive critique of Gadamer's view of hermeneutic history, though in other ways Gadamer's _Truth and Method_ serves as a model for Grondin's approach. Grondin begins with brief overviews of the pre-nineteenth-century thinkers Philo, Origen, Augustine, Luther, Flacius, Dannhauer, Chladenius, Meier, Rambach, Ast, and Schlegel. Next he provides more extensive treatments of such major nineteenth-century (...) figures as Schleiermacher, Böckh, Droysen, and Dilthey. There are full chapters devoted to Heidegger and Gadamer as well as shorter discussions of Betti, Habermas, and Derrida. Because he is the first to pay close attention to pre-Romantic figures, Grondin is able to show that the history of hermeneutics cannot be viewed as a gradual, steady progression in the direction of complete universalization. His book makes it clear that even in the early period, hermeneutic thinkers acknowledged a universal aspect in interpretation—that long before Schleiermacher, hermeneutics was philosophical and not merely practical. In revising and correcting the standard account, Grondin's book is not merely introductory but revisionary, suitable for beginners as well as advanced students in the field. (shrink)

In the preface to the Yale edition of Samuel Johnson’s poems, the editors remark that “for a modern reader who can recreate the situation in which [“London”] was written, it may still be exciting enough. But to one with less imaginative capacity or historical knowledge, its appeal lies in Johnson’s skillful handling of the couplet.”2 To assist us in re-creating the milieu of 1738, the editors supply the usual notes identifying various historical personages and events which are no longer in (...) the domain of common knowledge. In this respect they follow Johnson’s lead. “London” is manifestly an occasional poem; and its occasion—in part, Walpole’s timidity abroad and corruption at home—like all occasions, passed.3 Indeed it passed so quickly that Johnson himself felt called upon in the fifth edition to annotate, for instance, his mention of “the Gazetteer”: “the paper which at that time contained apologies for the Court.” By 1750 Walpole was long out of court, the Gazetteer extinct, and “London” as outdated as yesterday’s newspaper.For poems like “London” whose contents are neither au courant nor immortal but rather historical or simply dead, the Yale editors suggest two avenues of resuscitation: the reader may either restore the background by means of historical imagination or, failing that, admire Johnson’s couplet art, which perhaps has a better chance at perennial appeal. Either content or form, either history or art—both options require a sacrifice on our part, and that sacrifice is our occasion, our need. Even assuming that the poem’s context could be exhumed and that we could participate once again in all the rage of the “patriot” opposition to Walpole, Why would we want to? The problem is that not only “London” but the Walpole regime itself is now defunct. Yet the same question must be asked of the poem’s art, even and especially if it is eternal. Why are we interested in the aesthetic knowledge of couplets that have been drained of all substance? Is understanding “London” in either case an end in itself? The pure content of the poem is too concrete, its pure form too abstract, to answer our occasions. Thus to understand the poem as either history or art demands a leisure that has no exigencies and is therefore free for the bygone and ethereal.42. E.L. McAdam, Jr. and George Milne, eds., Poems, vol. 6, The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson , p. xvii.3. For a detailed exposition of the social and political background of “London,” see Donald Greene, The Politics of Samuel Johnson , pp. 88-92, and James Clifford, “London,” Young Sam Johnson , pp. 175-94.4. John Locke explains the infinite leisure we can take in understanding the obscurities of ancient authors in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Alexander Campbell Fraser, 2 vols. , 2:110:There being no writings we have any great concernment to be very solicitous about the meaning of, but those that contain either truths we are required to believe, or laws we are to obey, and draw inconveniences on us when we mistake or transgress, we may be less anxious about the sense of other authors; who, writing but their own opinions, we are under no greater necessity to know them, than they to know ours. Our good or evil depending not on their decrees, we may safely be ignorant of their notions: and therefore in the reading of them, if they do not use their words with a due clearness and perspicuity, we may lay them aside. (shrink)

In this paper I look at a specific Hebrew religious term, Tikkun Olam, to examine the manner in which it signifies differently in two specific cases. While we understand that meaning is carried in both denotation and connotation, and while a genealogy of meaning is often useful to understand the manner in which meaning has changed across time, this paper recounts the manner in which a single word may signify differently synchronically, at a single point in history.

Biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme” by which he meant a unit of culture. Dan Dennett continued by defining a meme as a bunch of bits of information. This paper explores the “meme” and how it is semiotic, both in its technical sense and in its popular sense and explores how memes signify both in terms of classical semiotics and also in terms of post-structuralist thought.

Now that the more overtly political controversies of the recent past have subsided in Telos, it is possible to examine the deeper theoretical issues that lie behind them. Despite the importance of the manifest political content of those controversies — and they were indeed important — it is my contention that the fractiousness of the discussion can only be accounted for in terms of the underlying theoretical situation. What was in fact happening with those debates was that the old theoretical- (...) political consensus that had more or less united Telos since its inception had fragmented. There had been a shared sense from the beginning, however illusory it might have been, that the Hegelian Marxist or Western Marxist paradigm provided a common project that could encompass the various tendencies within the journal. (shrink)

This chapter illustrates character as the fundamental facet of ethics. This book explores, analyzes, and defines character in different ways. Character involves habits and tendencies of thought and action that are not, or at least need not have been, original to a person. It has a vital role in how we act. It can provide the threads that bind together the various episodes and commitments of a person's life. The word personality is sometimes treated as interchangeable with character. On the (...) other hand, the word character is less concerned with distinctiveness and individuality than the word personality. Nevertheless, how people take on and handle various kinds of responsibility best describe the role of character in ethical behavior. (shrink)

Resumo Este artigo analisa a influência da filosofia de Rousseau na teoria antropológica de Kant. No primeiro momento, apresentam-se as semelhanças e diferenças acerca do modo como cada autor compreende o estado de natureza. No segundo momento, estabelece-se uma comparação entre o conceito de sociabilidade insociável de Kant e os conceitos de piedade e amor próprio, na filosofia de Rousseau.This paper analyses the influence of Rousseau’s philosophy on Kant’s anthropological theory. Firstly, the similarities and differences between each philosopher’s understanding of (...) the state of nature is presented. Secondly, a comparison between Kant’s concept of unsocial sociability and Rousseau’s concepts of piety and self-love is presented. (shrink)

Diante do lema “sapere aude”, com o qual Kant apresenta sua caracterização de esclarecimento, colocaseimediatamente a questão: o que signifi ca pensar por si mesmo? Apesar de Kant procurar respondera isso ao longo do texto, muitas difi culdades permanecem enquanto as teses ali defendidas não foremintegradas no horizonte da fi losofi a crítico-transcendental. Em primeiro lugar, mostra-se como o esclarecimentoé uma noção ambivalente, por um lado se refere ao indivíduo, por outro, se refere a uma época.Em segundo lugar, o esclarecimento (...) implica essencialmente uma mudança no método e não necessariamenteno conteúdo do pensamento, nesse sentido, o esclarecimento exige um determinado modo depensar , que se caracteriza pela disposição de se fazer um uso público da razão, ou seja, adisponibilidade pública de pedir e oferecer razões para justifi car determinada posição. Em terceiro lugar,defende-se que na expressão “fazer uso de teu próprio entendimento”, o termo entendimento deve serinterpretado em um sentido lato, isto é, de forma a abarcar tanto a razão no seu uso teórico quanto noseu uso prático. Mais do que isso, defende-se que o principal objetivo do Esclarecimento, segundo Kant,é o estabelecimento de um modo de pensar autônomo em sentido moral. Perpassando todos esses trêspontos, evidencia-se a importância desempenhada pela fi losofi a, seja enquanto aquela que deve zelarpelos princípios do uso público da sã razão, seja enquanto doutrina da sabedoria.Facing the dilemma “sapere aude”, with which Kant introduces his enlightenment characterization, immediately appears the question: what means to think by oneself? Despite Kant tries to answer to that along the text, many dif culties will remain while the thesis defended there are not integrated in the horizon of critical-transcendental philosophy. First, it is showed how the enlightenment is an ambivalent notion, on one side it refers to the individual, on the other, it refers to an epoch. Second, the enlightenment implies essentially a change in the method and not necessarily in the thought content, in this sense, the enlightenment demands a certain way of thinking , that is characterized by the disposition to make a public use of reason, in other words, the public availability to request and offer reasons to justify determined position. Third, it is defended that in the expression “make use of your own understanding”, the term “understanding” should be interpreted in a lato sensu, that is, in order to taking into account the reason in its theoretical as well as in its practical use. Furthermore it is defended that the main goal of Enlightenment, according to Kant, is to establish an autonomous way of thinking in a moral sense. Passing by all of these three points, it stays evident the importance performed by philosophy, both as the one that should look after the principles of the public use of the sane reason, and as wisdom doctrine. (shrink)

This chapter describes character as a second self or, on the other hand, as a first self. To understand the importance of character in human life, we must appreciate who it is that has a character. Full understanding of what character is will have to include the background of a metaphysical account of the self. The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates to its own (...) self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self. Everyone is born with a self, which remains strictly self-identical throughout that person's life, in that, whatever character the person develops or however he or she changes, the self remains itself. (shrink)

This chapter explores ways in which an ethical theory can develop through time and, in particular, variations in Kantian ethical theories. The chapter argues that a Kantian could say that we have duties to particular people as part of ongoing commitments, but an adequate and sufficient account of good and poor decisions in personal relationships cannot be based entirely on the categorical imperative, nor can we do justice to seriously wrong decisions by regarding them as violations of duty. Any ethical (...) philosophy, which includes an adequate account of ongoing personal commitments, will have to recognize that our judgments of what is wrong are of more than one sort and are made, so to speak, in more than one kind of voice. (shrink)

During the first two decades of the Cold War, a new kind of academic figure became prominent in American public life: the credentialed social scientist or expert in the sciences of administration who was also, to use the parlance of the time, a “man of affairs.” Some were academic high-fliers conscripted into government roles in which their intellectual and organizational talents could be exploited. McGeorge Bundy, Walt Rostow, and Robert McNamara are the archetypes of such persons. An overlapping group of (...) scholars became policymakers and political advisers on issues ranging from social welfare provision to nation-building in emerging postcolonial states. Many of these men—and almost without exception they were men—were also consummate operators within the patronage system that grew up around American universities after World War II. Postwar leaders of the social and administrative sciences such as Talcott Parsons and Herbert Simon were skilled scientific brokers of just this sort: good “committee men,” grant-getters, proponents of interdisciplinary inquiry, and institution-builders. This hard-nosed, suit-wearing, business-like persona was connected to new, technologically refined forms of social science. No longer sage-like social philosophers or hardscrabble, number-crunching empiricists, academic human scientists portrayed themselves as possessors of tools and programs designed for precision social engineering. Antediluvian “social science” was eschewed in favour of mathematical, behavioural, and systems-based approaches to “human relations” such as operations research, behavioral science, game theory, systems theory, and cognitive science. (shrink)

The two contrasting theoretical approaches to visual perception, the constructivist and the ecological, are briefly presented and illustrated through their analyses of space and size perception. Earlier calls for their reconciliation and unification are reviewed. Neurophysiological, neuropsychological, and psychophysical evidence for the existence of two quite distinct visual systems, the ventral and the dorsal, is presented. These two perceptual systems differ in their functions; the ventral system's central function is that of identification, while the dorsal system is mainly engaged in (...) the visual control of motor behavior. The strong parallels between the ecological approach and the functioning of the dorsal system, and between the constructivist approach and the functioning of the ventral system are noted. It is also shown that the experimental paradigms used by the proponents of these two approaches match the functions of the respective visual systems. A dual-process approach to visual perception emerges from this analysis, with the ecological-dorsal process transpiring mainly without conscious awareness, while the constructivist-ventral process is normally conscious. Some implications of this dual-process approach to visual-perceptual phenomena are presented, with emphasis on space perception. Key Words: constructivist; dual-process approach; ecological; size perception; space perception; two visual systems; visual perception theories. (shrink)

Some recent developments in Artificial Intelligence—especially the use of machine learning systems, trained on big data sets and deployed in socially significant and ethically weighty contexts—have led to a number of calls for “transparency”. This paper explores the epistemological and ethical dimensions of that concept, as well as surveying and taxonomising the variety of ways in which it has been invoked in recent discussions. Whilst “outward” forms of transparency may be straightforwardly achieved, what I call “functional” transparency about the inner (...) workings of a system is, in many cases, much harder to attain. In those situations, I argue that contestability may be a possible, acceptable, and useful alternative so that even if we cannot understand how a system came up with a particular output, we at least have the means to challenge it. (shrink)

We analyze the precise modal commitments of several natural varieties of set-theoretic potentialism, using tools we develop for a general model-theoretic account of potentialism, building on those of Hamkins, Leibman and Löwe [14], including the use of buttons, switches, dials and ratchets. Among the potentialist conceptions we consider are: rank potentialism, Grothendieck–Zermelo potentialism, transitive-set potentialism, forcing potentialism, countable-transitive-model potentialism, countable-model potentialism, and others. In each case, we identify lower bounds for the modal validities, which are generally either S4.2 or S4.3, (...) and an upper bound of S5, proving in each case that these bounds are optimal. The validity of S5 in a world is a potentialist maximality principle, an interesting set-theoretic principle of its own. The results can be viewed as providing an analysis of the modal commitments of the various set-theoretic multiverse conceptions corresponding to each potentialist account. (shrink)