Vers une stylistique des imaginaires langagiers Si la description du matériau langagier mis en jeu dans tel ou tel corpus se situe à la base de toute analyse stylistique, la visée ultime de l’opération est d’approcher un style, catégorie littéraire éminemment polysémique. L’analyse stylistique, en effet, peut avoir pour finalité de dégager les habitudes langagières de tel auteur ; elle peut aussi vouloir évaluer cette pratique en l’historicisant – ne serait-ce que parce que depuis le milieu du xixe siècle, la (...) langue littéraire présente des formes particulières, et que la conception du style, dès lors, s’en trouve modifiée. C’est là le postulat méthodologique dont on partira. Le corollaire d’une telle perspective est qu’une œuvre, quelle qu’elle soit, reflète un imaginaire langagier inscrit dans tel ou tel « moment » de l’histoire littéraire. La démarche ne peut être que comparative ; elle suppose donc la constitution d’un corpus pluriel dont la pertinence est définie par une proximité d’effets, qui reposent eux-mêmes sur la récurrence de « patrons » stylistiques. Mais afin de ne pas fausser le jeu, il faut nécessairement solliciter des corpus périphériques (et on se demandera comment les définir), permettant de mettre en évidence des ressemblances et des filiations aussi bien que des divergences : ce n’est qu’ainsi que l’on rendra compte de la complexité mais aussi de l’organisation du champ littéraire à un moment donné. C’est cette méthode d’analyse stylistique que l’on essaie de mettre en œuvre à partir des romans de Samuel Beckett, Robert Pinget et Claude Simon parus dans les années 1950. (shrink)

Contextualist approaches to the Liar Paradox postulate the occurrence of a context shift in the course of the Liar reasoning. In particular, according to the contextualist proposal advanced by Charles Parsons and Michael Glanzberg, the Liar sentence L doesn’t express a true proposition in the initial context of reasoning c, but expresses a true one in a new, richer context c', where more propositions are available for expression. On the further assumption that Liar sentences involve propositional quantifiers whose domains may (...) vary with context, the Liar reasoning is blocked. But why should context shift? We argue that the paradox involves principles of contextualist reflection that explain, by analogy with well-known reflection principles for arithmetic, why context must shift from c to c' in the course of the Liar reasoning. This provides a diagnosis of the Liar Paradox—one that equally applies to two revenge arguments against contextualist approaches, one recently advanced by Andrew Bacon, the other mentioned by Charles Parsons and more recently revived by Cory Juhl. (shrink)

The emotions are at the centre of our lives and, for better or worse, imbue them with much of their significance. The philosophical problems stirred up by the existence of the emotions, over which many great philosophers of the past have laboured, revolve around attempts to understand what this significance amounts to. Are emotions feelings, thoughts, or experiences? If they are experiences, what are they experiences of? Are emotions rational? In what sense do emotions give meaning to what surrounds us? (...) -/- The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction introduces and explores these questions in a clear and accessible way. The authors discuss the following key topics: -/- the diversity and unity of the emotions the relations between emotion, belief and desire the nature of values the relations between emotions and perceptions emotions viewed as evaluative attitudes the link between emotions and evaluative knowledge the nature of moods, sentiments, and character traits. -/- Including chapter summaries and guides to further reading, The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction is an ideal starting point for any philosopher or student studying the emotions. It will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as psychology and the social sciences. (shrink)

Introduction Pour le lecteur de la Phénoménologie de l’Esprit de Hegel, il y a quelque chose d’étrange à entendre parler de « raison théorique » et de « raison pratique » dans la mesure où Hegel n’utilise jamais ces termes ni ne les définit explicitement dans sa première grande œuvre systématique. Il peut sembler ainsi a priori difficile d’évoquer voire de déterminer, sans plus de précautions, une raison théorique et une raison pratique dans la Phénoménologie de l’Esprit , à tel (...) point que nous pourrions être tentés de renoncer tout simplement à une telle détermination. Toutefois, nous vou­drions montrer dans le présent article que Hegel identifie bien, de façon précise, une dimension théorique et une dimension pratique de la raison dans la Phénoménologie de l’Esprit , dimensions qu’il s’emploie à caractériser et à articuler tout au long de la section Raison. Pour ce faire, nous procéderons en trois temps. Dans un premier temps, nous tenterons de mettre en évidence la genèse de la raison théorique et de la raison pratique à partir de l’introduction à la section Raison. Ce faisant, nous voudrions souligner le caractère institué de la raison. Dans un deuxième temps, nous examinerons la structure et l’agir de la raison théorique et de la raison pratique dans ses différentes figures, respectivement comme raison observante puis légisprobatoire, d’une part, et comme raison effectuante puis. (shrink)

One puzzle concerning highly idealized models is whether they explain. Some suggest they provide so-called ‘how-possibly explanations’. However, this raises an important question about the nature of how-possibly explanations, namely what distinguishes them from ‘normal’, or how-actually, explanations? I provide an account of how-possibly explanations that clarifies their nature in the context of solving the puzzle of model-based explanation. I argue that the modal notions of actuality and possibility provide the relevant dividing lines between how-possibly and how-actually explanations. Whereas how-possibly (...) explanations establish claims of possible explanations, how-actually explanations establish claims of actual ones. Models, in turn, simply provide evidence for these claims. (shrink)

This chapter introduces inferential role semantics (IRS) and some of the challenges it faces. It also introduces inferentialism and places it into the wider context of contemporary philosophy of language. The chapter focuses on what is standardly considered both the most important test case for and the most natural application of IRS: logical inferentialism, the view that the meanings of the logical expressions are fully determined by the basic rules for their correct use, and that to understand a logical expression (...) is to use it in accordance with the appropriate rules. It discusses some of the benefits of logical inferentialism, chiefly with regard to the epistemology of logic, and considers a number of objections. The chapter critically examines Robert Brandom's inferentialism about linguistic and conceptual content in general. Finally, it considers a number of general objections to IRS and possible responses on the inferentialist's behalf. (shrink)

Is shame social? Is it superficial? Is it a morally problematic emotion? Researchers in disciplines as different as psychology, philosophy, and anthropology have thought so. But what is the nature of shame and why are claims regarding its social nature and moral standing interesting and important? Do they tell us anything worthwhile about the value of shame and its potential legal and political applications? -/- In this book, Julien Deonna, Raffaele Rodogno, and Fabrice Teroni propose an original philosophical account (...) of shame aimed at answering these questions. The book begins with a detailed examination of the evidence and arguments that are taken to support what they call the two dogmas about shame: its alleged social nature and its morally dubious character. Their analysis is conducted against the backdrop of a novel account of shame and ultimately leads to the rejection of these two dogmas. On this account, shame involves a specific form of negative evaluation that the subject takes towards herself: a verdict of incapacity with regard to values to which she is attached. One central virtue of the account resides in the subtle manner it clarifies the ways in which the subject's identity is at stake in shame, thus shedding light on many aspects of this complex emotion and allowing for a sophisticated understanding of its moral significance. -/- This philosophical account of shame engages with all the current debates on shame as they are conducted within disciplines as varied as ethics, moral, experimental, developmental and evolutionary psychology, anthropology, legal studies, feminist studies, politics and public polic. (shrink)

Infallibilism is the claim that knowledge requires that one satisfies some infallibility condition. I spell out three distinct such conditions: epistemic, evidential and modal infallibility. Epistemic infallibility turns out to be simply a consequence of epistemic closure, and is not infallibilist in any relevant sense. Evidential infallibilism i s unwarranted but it is not an satisfactory characterization of the infallibilist intuition. Modal infallibility, by contrast, captures the core infallibilist intuition, and I argue that it is required to solve the Gettier (...) problem and account for lottery cases. Finally, I discuss whether modal infallibilism has sceptical consequences and argue that it is an open question whose answer depends on one’s account of alethic possibility. (shrink)

In this article, I provide a detailed characterization of being moved, which I claim is a distinct emotion. Being moved is the experience of being struck by the goodness of some specific positive value being exemplified. I start by expounding this account. Next, I discuss three issues that have emerged in the literature regarding it. These concern respectively the valence of being moved, the scope of the values that may constitute its particular objects, and the cognitive sophistication required for experiencing (...) it. My main contention is that when we understand that the presence of the specific positive value must be apprehended as finally, importantly, and impersonally good to trigger being moved, these issues do not arise. (shrink)

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-51), author of Machine Man (1747), was the most uncompromising of the materialists of the eighteenth century, and the provocative title of his work ensured it a succès de scandale in his own time. It was however a serious, if polemical, attempt to provide an explanation of the workings of the human body and mind in purely material terms and to show that thought was the product of the workings of the brain alone. This (...) fully annotated edition presents a new English translation of the text together with the most important of La Mettrie's other philosophical works, translated into English for the first time, and Ann Thomson's introduction examines his aims and the scandalous moral consequences which he drew from his materialism. (shrink)

Ne serait-ce que par son titre, dont l’oxymore est d’emblée assumée (p.11) et dont les protagonistes sont associés d’une manière qui ne laisse de surprendre, l’ouvrage de Julien Boudon publié dans la collection « Les sens du droit » des éditions Dalloz, mériterait de retenir l’attention.Dans ce court opus, l’auteur entend, à travers un examen qui puise tout à la fois aux sources de l’histoire, de la philosophie, du droit, de la science politique, et qui emprunte à la fois (...) au style de la monog.. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop a fresh understanding of the sense in which emotions are evaluations. We argue that we should not follow mainstream accounts in locating the emotion–value connection at the level of content and that we should instead locate it at the level of attitudes or modes. We begin by explaining the contrast between content and attitude, a contrast in the light of which we review the leading contemporary accounts of the emotions. We next offer reasons to think (...) that these accounts face substantial problems since they locate the link emotions bear to values at the level of content. This provides the incentive to pursue an alternative approach according to which emotions qualify as evaluations because they are specific types of attitudes, an approach we substantiate by appealing to felt bodily stances. We conclude by considering two reasons why this approach may be resisted; they respectively pertain to the alleged impossibility of drawing the attitude–content contrast in the case of the emotions and to the suspicion that so doing raises qualia-related worries. (shrink)

Figure majeure de l'Aufkliirung, Johann Nicolaus Tetens (1736-1807) s'interroge sur la réalité des concepts métaphysiques et formule le projet d'une "philosophie transcendante" dont les principes seraient objectivés. La "physique de l'entendement", propédeutique à l'ontologie, a alors pour tâche d'examiner les modes d'action par lesquels ce dernier élabore ses propres concepts. Le problème est le suivant : comment une vérité peut-elle être objective si toutes nos représentations sont subjectives? La solution apportée dans les Essais philosophiques sur la nature humaine et son (...) développement (1777) consiste à fonder l'objectivité de la connaissance sur les principes a priori de la raison humaine."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Analyse de l'herméneutique du mouvement, ainsi que de son imprégnation dans la philosophie occidentale moderne, notamment en utilisant les figures centrales de Bachelard et de Merleau-Ponty. Les contributions tentent de mettre au jour les rapports qu'entretiennent imagination et mouvement, images dynamiques et schèmes moteurs.

Dans cet ouvrage, l'auteur discute d'abord un un ensemble d'idees de sens commun qui permettent de mieux cerner la notion de connaissance: nous savons beaucoup de choses, ce que nous savons ne vient pas toujours des sciences, tout ce que nous savons est vrai, la connaissance est le but de l'enquete, on ne doit croire et affirmer que ce que l'on sait, on ne doit agir que sur la base de ce que l'on sait, la connaissance a de la valeur. (...) Il donne ensuite une vue d'ensemble des debats contemporains en philosophie de la connaissance en les resituant dans une perspective historique. (shrink)

There is a traditional conception of knowledge but it is not the Justified True Belief analysis Gettier attacked. On the traditional view, knowledge consists in having a belief that bears a discernible mark of truth. A mark of truth is a truth-entailing property: a property that only true beliefs can have. It is discernible if one can always tell that a belief has it, that is, a sufficiently attentive subject believes that a belief has it if and only if it (...) has it. Requiring a mark of truth makes the view infallibilist. Requiring it to be discernible makes the view internalist. I call the view Classical Infallibilism. (shrink)

How can we use models to understand real phenomena if models misrepresent the very phenomena we seek to understand? Some accounts suggest that models may afford understanding by providing causal knowledge about phenomena via how-possibly explanations. However, general equilibrium models, for example, pose a challenge to this solution since their contribution appears to be purely mathematical results. Despite this, practitioners widely acknowledge that it improves our understanding of the world. I argue that the Arrow–Debreu model provides a mathematical how-possibly explanation (...) which establishes claims of mathematical dependence. The account developed reveals how mathematical knowledge can inform claims about the world, allow ‘what-if-things-had-been-different’ inferences, and thus improve our understanding. (shrink)

Questionnement sur le rapport entre psychanalyse et religion. Sous l'angle historique, l'ouvrage étudie trois courants, Freud, Jung, Lacan, chacun à partir d'une origine familiale différente : juive, protestante, catholique. L'auteur en déduit que la religion n'existe pas, mais qu'il existe des religions particulières s'incarnant dans le psychisme humain.

It is undeniable that Thomas Aquinas showed great metaphysical originality among his contemporaries. However, his advances concerning the meaning of the uniqueness of the substantial form cannot be adequately grasped independently of an equally original understanding of matter, conceived in particular as pure power. This study attempts to grasp the implications of the Thomasian conception of matter in the various fields of his thought, from physics to metaphysics, passing through the foundations, in the very constitution of substance, theories of knowledge, (...) of moral action and apprehension of the beautiful. We discover a conception of the substance-subject in the strong sense which nevertheless shows itself, at the very heart of its constitutive principles, radically open to the originality of Otherness in its various forms. (shrink)

Written in 1936, this work was compiled by a key Surrealist entrepreneur to promote the movement in America. It includes: sculpture by Duchamp and Oppenheim; photographs by Atget and Man Ray; poems by Peret and Picasso; paintings by Arp, Magritte and Miro; and essays by Breton and Bachelard.

Ces quelques pages tentent de ressaisir les structures et la mobilité existentiale de l’angoisse et de la mortalité, en suivant la description phénoménologique qu’en propose Heidegger dans Sein und Zeit . On y soutient la thèse selon laquelle les analyses phénoménologiques de l’angoisse et de la mort visent une seule et même donnée phénoménale, et l’on essaie d’en mettre en évidence le caractère systématique central dans le traité de 1927. On montre enfin en quoi l’étude de la description phénoménologique de (...) l’« angoisse de la mort » permet une saisie plus profonde des concepts de finitude et d’ horizon de la temporalité. (shrink)

Que sont les « lois de la nature » que les sciences empiriques, et en premier lieu la physique, tentent de saisir? Et si les scientifiques ne peuvent les découvrir, ou du moins les confirmer, que sur la base de l’expérience, quels sont la nature et le fondement de leurs opérations inductives? Comment garantir la possibilité d’une authentique connaissance de ces lois qui structurent la réalité? Ce livre propose une enquête épistémologique et métaphysique au cours de laquelle deux fils directeurs (...) s’entremêlent. Il s’agit d’une part de s’interroger sur la nature ontologique des lois, à partir des débats contemporains en philosophie analytique des sciences. Les lois de la nature sont-elles, comme le pensent les empiristes humiens, de simples régularités factuelles universelles? Ou bien devraient-elles être conçues comme des faits nomiques d’un autre ordre, capables de rendre nécessaires les régularités que nous observons? Il s’agit d’autre part de remettre sur le métier le problème classique de l’induction que nous héritons de Hume. L’induction n’est-elle que l’opération de généralisation qualitative à partir de l’expérience? Exige-t-elle, comme on le suppose souvent, de montrer que la nature est uniforme et que les lois sont stables dans le temps? Pour résoudre ces problèmes, nous développons une théorie inédite des lois, centrée sur l’analyse de leur nature quantitative, et proposons un fondement nouveau à l’induction scientifique, qui repose sur l’existence, dans la réalité physique, de structures quantitatives. Nous montrons ainsi que c’est la possibilité d’appliquer les mathématiques, dans la formulation des lois physiques, qui garantit la connaissance inductive. (shrink)

On a widespread naturalist view, the meanings of mathematical terms are determined, and can only be determined, by the way we use mathematical language—in particular, by the basic mathematical principles we’re disposed to accept. But it’s mysterious how this can be so, since, as is well known, minimally strong first-order theories are non-categorical and so are compatible with countless non-isomorphic interpretations. As for second-order theories: though they typically enjoy categoricity results—for instance, Dedekind’s categoricity theorem for second-order and Zermelo’s quasi-categoricity theorem (...) for second-order —these results require full second-order logic. So appealing to these results seems only to push the problem back, since the principles of second-order logic are themselves non-categorical: those principles are compatible with restricted interpretations of the second-order quantifiers on which Dedekind’s and Zermelo’s results are no longer available. In this paper, we provide a naturalist-friendly, non-revisionary solution to an analogous but seemingly more basic problem—Carnap’s Categoricity Problem for propositional and first-order logic—and show that our solution generalizes, giving us full second-order logic and thereby securing the categoricity or quasi-categoricity of second-order mathematical theories. Briefly, the first-order quantifiers have their intended interpretation, we claim, because we’re disposed to follow the quantifier rules in an open-ended way. As we show, given this open-endedness, the interpretation of the quantifiers must be permutation-invariant and so, by a theorem recently proved by Bonnay and Westerståhl, must be the standard interpretation. Analogously for the second-order case: we prove, by generalizing Bonnay and Westerståhl’s theorem, that the permutation invariance of the interpretation of the second-order quantifiers, guaranteed once again by the open-endedness of our inferential dispositions, suffices to yield full second-order logic. (shrink)

In this paper, we contrast the different ways in which the representationalist and the attitudinalist in the theory of emotions account for the fact that emotions have evaluative correctness conditions. We argue that the attitudinalist has the resources to defend her view against recent attacks from the representationalist. To this end, we elaborate on the idea that emotional attitudes have a rich profile and explain how it supports the claim that these attitudes generate the wished-for evaluative correctness conditions. Our argument (...) rests on the idea that emotional attitudes manifest a sensitivity to evaluative evidence and that this sensitivity secures the kind of normativity we expect of the emotions. We bring our discussion to a close by assessing whether the psychological underpinnings of this sensitivity to evaluative evidence are such as to threaten the foundation of attitudinalism: the idea that emotions do not represent values. Given the available models of how we might access values prior to emotional experience, we conclude that the attitudinalist is still in the game. (shrink)

Since Saul Kripke’s influential work in the 1970s, the revisionary approach to semantic paradox—the idea that semantic paradoxes must be solved by weakening classical logic—has been increasingly popular. In this paper, we present a new revenge argument to the effect that the main revisionary approaches breed new paradoxes that they are unable to block.

When spelled out properly infallibilism is a viable and even attractive view. Because it has long been summary dismissed, however, we need a guide on how to properly spell it out. The guide has to fulfil four tasks. The first two concern the nature of knowledge: to argue that infallible belief is necessary, and that it is sufficient, for knowledge. The other two concern the norm of belief: to argue that knowledge is necessary, and that it is sufficient, for justified (...) certainty. With such a guide in hand infallibilism can be evaluated on its own merits. The most controversial parts are the first and fourth. The idea that knowledge requires infallible belief is thought to be excessively sceptical. The idea that knowledge warrants certainty is thought to be excessively dogmatic. The present paper addresses the first. It argues that knowledge requires infallible belief. (shrink)

RNA polymerase II (RNAP II) non‐coding transcription is now known to cover almost the entire eukaryotic genome, a phenomenon referred to as pervasive transcription. As a consequence, regions previously thought to be non‐transcribed are subject to the passage of RNAP II and its associated proteins for histone modification. This is the case for the nucleosome‐depleted regions (NDRs), which provide key sites of entry into the chromatin for proteins required for the initiation of coding gene transcription and DNA replication. In this (...) review, recent data on the effects of pervasive transcription through NDRs are summarized and a model is proposed to explain how RNAP II‐driven transcription is able to modify the nucleosomes flanking the NDRs, leading to nucleosome repositioning and NDR closure. Even though much of the mechanistic detail underlying these events remains to be elucidated, such a model provides a basis to explain how non‐coding transcription through NDRs can regulate the initiation of coding gene expression and DNA replication. (shrink)

This article brings together two independent lines of research on numerally quantified expressions, e.g. two girls. One stems from work in linguistic theory and asks what truth conditional contributions such expressions make to the utterances in which they are used--in other words, what do numerals mean? The other comes from the study of language development and asks when and how children learn the meaning of such expressions. My goal is to show that when integrated, these two perspectives can both constrain (...) and enrich each other in ways hitherto not considered. Specifically, work in linguistic theory suggests that in addition to their 'exactly n' interpretation, numerally quantified NPs such as two hoops can also receive an 'at least n' and an 'at most n' interpretation, e.g. you need to put two hoops on the pole to win (i.e. at least two hoops) and you can miss two shots and still win (i.e. at most two shots). I demonstrate here through the results of three sets of experiments that by the age of 5 children have implicit knowledge of the fact that expressions like two N can be interpreted as 'at least two N' and 'at most two N' while they do not yet know the meaning of corresponding expressions such as at least/most two N which convey these senses explicitly. I show that these results have important implications for theories of the semantics of numerals and that they raise new questions for developmental accounts of the number vocabulary. (shrink)

One can find in the literature two sets of views concerning the relationship between understanding and explanation: that one understands only if 1) one has knowledge of causes and 2) that knowledge is provided by an explanation. Taken together, these tenets characterize what I call the narrow knowledge account of understanding. While the first tenet has recently come under severe attack, the second has been more resistant to change. I argue that we have good reasons to reject it on the (...) basis of theoretical models that provide how-possibly explanations. These models, while they do not explain in the strict sense, afford understanding. In response, I propose an alternative epistemology of understanding, broad KAU, that takes cases of theoretical modelling into account. (shrink)

"À son décès, Julien Freund laissait parmi ses papiers un recueil de textes inédits, sous forme épistolaire, adressés à ses amis et collègues : les Lettres de la vallée. Dans ces méditations, rédigées en sa retraite vosgienne - qui n'est pas sans évoquer la Hütte de Heidegger, de l'autre côté du Rhin - et loin des servitudes propres aux écrits universitaires, l'auteur de L'Essence du politique s'exprime en toute liberté, à bâtons rompus, sur ses sujets de prédilection (le politique, (...) l'idéologie, la guerre, les totalitarismes, l'utopie, la décadence), mais également l'enseignement, le journalisme, la connaissance, le droit, la morale, la métaphysique, les limites... Ce livre forme la clef de voûte où se rejoignent les grands thèmes de sa pensée."--Page 4 de la couverture. (shrink)

The principle of human moral equality is poorly understood. I criticize standard accounts and propose a mildly subversive alternative based in a certain view of the phenomenology of conceptual thought. First, a formulation of the principle: -/- (E) Every person has a basic moral worth equal to that of any other. -/- E is vague, as it should be. It is neutral regarding rival theories of the nature of the equalizing property or its value, or how we recognize either. But (...) I impose two constraints on the principle that seem to reflect a universal consensus among its proponents: E asserts a kind of worth (or status or value) that (i) is indifferent to ordinary moral judgments of character, merit, or desert and (ii) forbids political arrangements we intuitively judge to be at odds with the spirit of basic equality. The first constraint protects against absurdity or nihilism, the second against vacuity. (shrink)

Si ce qu?il est convenu d?appeler le « mouvement phénoménologique » est, selon une formule célèbre de Paul Ric?ur, « l?histoire des hérésies hus­serliennes » 1 , alors l?hérésie sartrienne mérite probablement une place à part dans cette histoire tant elle donne, du moins dans ces premières formulations, l?apparence de l?orthodoxie, en ce qui concerne des aspects aussi essentiels que la définition de la conscience par l?intentionnalité ou l?exigence d?intuitivité du « principe des principes ». Lorsque Sartre écrit ainsi, dans (...) La transcendance de l?ego : « Nous croyons volontiers pour notre part à l?existence d?une conscience constituante. Nous suivons Husserl dans cha­cune de ses admirables descriptions où il montre la conscience transcen­dan­tale constituant le monde en s?emprisonnant dans la conscience empi­rique ; nous sommes persuadés comme lui que notre moi psychique et psycho­physique est un objet transcendant qui doit tomber sous le coup de l? épochè » 2 , comment ne pas croire ici à une fidélité doctrinale pleine et entière ? Et pourtant, cette fidélité méthodologique est mise au service d?un projet bien distinct de celui de Husserl, comme le montre exemplairement le bref article intitulé « Une idée fondamentale de la phénoménologie de Hus­serl : l?intentionnalité » 3 . Au moment même où, à Fribourg dans ses manu­scrits de recherche, Husserl pousse jusqu?à ses. (shrink)