Que ce soit sur le plan réglementaire ou à travers un calendrier événementiel qui leur est spécifique, les sports ont partie liée avec différentes formes de temporalités. De ce point de vue, il est possible de classer les compétitions sportives selon trois catégories de rapport au temps : les sports où le temps est systématiquement mesuré mais ne fixe pas les conditions de lʼaccomplissement de lʼépreuve, les...

v. 1. A dialectical examination of the conceptions of freedom.--v. 2. A dialectical examination of the controversies about freedom.

One of the major concerns of advocates of common morality is that respect for cultural diversity may result in moral relativism. On their part, proponents of culturally responsive bioethics are concerned that common morality may result in moral imperialism because of the asymmetry of power in the world. It is in this context that critics argue that global bioethics is impossible because of the difficulties to address these two theoretical concerns. In this paper, I argue that global bioethics is possible (...) if we adopt a culturally responsive and self-critical attitude towards our moral values and those of others. I use the example of women’s reproductive autonomy in indigenous African culture to show that the difference between the leading Euro-American and indigenous African construal of autonomy is that the former ascribes greater weight on individual self-determination while the latter emphasizes responsibilities towards the community. One develops dignity in virtue of their capacity for communing with others. Hence, women have rights, but as members of the community, they also have obligations including the duty to procreate. The involvement of the family in reproductive decisions does not contravene women’s dignity and human rights. In applying the principle of autonomy in this communitarian context, one has to be sensitive to these ontological and moral specificities. The aim of global bioethics should not be to reach common grounds at all costs; any common norms should be the result of a negotiated democratic dialogue between cultures and not the result of imposition by the preponderant culture(s). (shrink)

This article discusses the common ground between William James and the tradition of philosophical anthropology. Recent commentators on this overlap have characterised philosophical anthropology as combining science (in particular biology and medicine) and Kantian teleology, for instance in Kant’s seminal definition of anthropology as being concerned with what the human being makes of itself, as distinct from what attributes it is given by nature. This article registers the tension between Kantian thinking, which reckons to ground experience in a priori categories, (...) and William James’s psychology, which begins and ends with experience. It explores overlap between James’s approach and the characteristic holism of 18th-century philosophical anthropology, which centres on the idea of understanding and analysing the human as a whole, and presents the main anthropological elements of James’s position, namely his antipathy to separation, his concerns about the binomial terms of traditional philosophy, his preference for experience over substances, his sense that this holist doctrine of experience shows a way out of sterile impasses, a preference for description over causation, and scepticism. It then goes on to register the common ground with key ideas in the work of anthropologists from around 1800, along with some references to anthropologists who come in James’s wake, in particular Max Scheler and Arnold Gehlen, in order to reconceptualise the connection between James’s ideas and the tradition of anthropological thinking in German letters since the late 18th-century, beyond its characterisation as a combination of scientific positivism and teleology. (shrink)

This text introduces university students to the philosophical ethos of critical thinking, as well as to the essential skills required to practice it. The authors believe that Critical Thinking should engage students with issues of broader philosophical interest while they develop their skills in reasoning and argumentation. The text is informed throughout by philosophical theory concerning argument and communication—from Aristotle's recognition of the importance of evaluating argument in terms of its purpose to Habermas's developing of the concept of communicative rationality. (...) The authors' treatment of the topic is also sensitive to the importance of language and of situation in shaping arguments, and to the necessity in argument of some interplay between reason and emotion. Unlike many other texts in this area, then, Good Reasons for Better Arguments helps to explain both why argument is important and how the social role of argument plays an important part in determining what counts as a good argument. If this text is distinctive in the extent to which it deals with the theory and the values of critical thinking, it is also noteworthy for the thorough grounding it provides in the skills of deductive and inductive reasoning; the authors present the reader with useful tools for the interpretation, evaluation and construction of arguments. A particular feature is the inclusion of a wide range of exercises, rich with examples that illuminate the practice of argument for the student. Many of the exercises are self testing, with answers provided at the back of the text; others are appropriate for in-class discussion and assignments. Challenging yet accessible, Good Reasons for Better Arguments brings a fresh perspective to an essential subject. (shrink)

We prove a local normal form theorem of the Gaifman type for the infinitary logic L∞ωω whose formulas involve arbitrary unary quantifiers but finite quantifier rank. We use a local Ehrenfeucht-Fraïssé type game similar to the one in [9]. A consequence is that every sentence of L∞ωω of quantifier rank n is equivalent to an infinite Boolean combination of sentences of the form ψ, where ψ has counting quantifiers restricted to the -neighborhood of y.

This paper studies the expressive power that an extra first order quantifier adds to a fragment of monadic second order logic, extending the toolkit of Janin and Marcinkowski [JM01].We introduce an operation existsn on properties S that says "there are n components having S". We use this operation to show that under natural strictness conditions, adding a first order quantifier word u to the beginning of a prefix class V increases the expressive power monotonically in u. As a corollary, if (...) the first order quantifiers are not already absorbed in V, then both the quantifier alternation hierarchy and the existential quantifier hierarchy in the positive first order closure of V are strict.We generalize and simplify methods from Marcinkowski [Mar99] to uncover limitations of the expressive power of an additional first order quantifier, and show that for a wide class of properties S, S cannot belong to the positive first order closure of a monadic prefix class W unless it already belongs to W.We introduce another operation alt on properties which has the same relationship with the Circuit Value Problem as reach has with the Directed Reachability Problem. We use alt to show that Πn⊈ FO, Σn⊈ FO, and Δn+1⊈ FOB, solving some open problems raised in [Mat98]. (shrink)

The quantifier Q m,n binds m + n variables. In the κ-interpretation $M \models Q^{m,n} \bar{x}, \bar{y}\phi\bar{x}, \bar{y}$ means that there is a κ-powered proper subset X of |M| such that whenever ā ∈ mX and b̄ ∈ n X̃ then $M \models \phi\bar{a}, \bar{b}$. If σ ∈ L m,n has a model in the κ-interpretation does it have a model in the λ-interpretation? For σ ∈ L 1,1, κ regular and uncountable, and λ = ω 1 the answer is (...) yes. (shrink)

Preface by Dr. Franz Alexander - Director, Psychiatric and Pychosomatic Research Institute Mount Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles. Vol. 9.

CHAPTER ONE Plato IT is a mark of wisdom in Greek political thought that the form and content of education receive primary consideration from those who are ...

This work exposes the practices that are controlling education and reducing it to little more than skills development in preparation for work. It questions the strategy of mentoring to show how its dynamic requires docility from the learner and thus perpetuates inequality.

La distinction des sexes dans l’au-delà médiéval. On s’efforce ici de préciser dans quelle mesure la dualité des sexes, assumée positivement par l’anthropologie augustinienne, trouve une expression spatialisée dans les représentations de l’au-delà, ce monde entièrement ordonné par la justice divine : la distinction des sexes s’exprime-t-elle par une distinction de lieux? Aux XI-XIIIe siècles, la distinction des sexes n’a guère de place que dans la coupable promiscuité de l’enfer, tandis que le paradis propose une image idéale de la fraternité (...) spirituelle des baptisés, qui efface les distinctions de statuts et de sexes. Puis, l’ancienne hiérarchie patristique et liturgique des choeurs des élus se fraie un chemin dans l’image et sert d’appui à une amplification de la place spécifique des femmes dans les lieux paradisiaques. Enfin, dans la représentation ordonnée et hiérarchisée de la cour céleste, image dominante du paradis aux XIVe et XVe siècles, la dualité des sexes est désormais assumée positivement et mise en évidence visuellement comme l’un des aspects inhérents à l’humanité réconciliée. (shrink)

L’autonomie zapatiste, qui se construit dans les territoires rebelles du Chiapas, peut être considérée comme l’une des utopies réelles les plus remarquables que l’on puisse observer aujourd’hui. On proposera ici une description sommaire de cette expérience et de certains de ses apports plus réflexifs, afin d’en tirer quelques enseignements pour une approche renouvelée de l’utopie, en lien avec l’émergence de régimes d’historicité inédits. Car si l’utopie se meurt sous la chape de plomb présentiste, elle doit aussi défaire ses liens avec (...) les futurs désormais intenables de la modernité – ce qui ne laisse pas d’autre option que de traquer des modalités inédites du futur. (shrink)

Many theories require empirical patches or ad hoc assumptions to work properly in application to chemistry. Some examples include the Bohr quantum theory of atomic spectra, the Pauli exclusion principle, the Marcus theory of the rate-equilibrium correlation, Kekule’s hypothesis of bond oscillation in benzene, and the quantum calculation of reaction pathways. Often the proposed refinements do not grow out of the original theory but are devised and added ad hoc. This brings into question the goal of constructing theories derived from (...) first principles and the concept of ranking the merit of theories according to their freedom from empirical contamination. (shrink)

R. E. Jennings has recently provided us with two formal renderings of the motto of the view he calls ‘pseudo-subjectivism’, viz., ‘One ought to do what one thinks one ought to do’. These renderings are.

This article explores the debate that has surrounded the use of analogies in coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, analyzing in depth two ‘analogy affairs’ on the basis of a LexisNexis corpus: the 2002 Auschwitz-Saramago affair and the 2006–2007 Apartheid-Carter affair. Using the classic Aristotelian tripartition of logos, ethos, and pathos, the article unfolds the argumentative structure of the controversies. Carter and Saramago used the combination of their own personal status and the controversial nature of their analogies to trigger a debate. (...) Commentators focused very much on the ethos and the pathos, and tended to ignore the logos. Opponents, who made up the majority of commentators, considered analogies as a way of passing judgment on and mobilizing against one of the actors in the conflict. This analysis suggests that despite the call for a more cautious use of the analogies discussed, participants in the debate on the Israeli–Palestinian conflicts are bound to resort to them – even if only to condemn them. (shrink)

Résumé La question des fondements d’un revenu garanti n’est pas une question d’experts, réservée aux spécialistes du capitalisme historique ou de la crise de l’État-providence. Par delà la caution élégante ou l’habillage théorique qu’elle peut fournir, la philosophie de Spinoza, en tant qu’elle se formule comme projet d’augmentation de la puissance d’agir, permet à la fois de comprendre tout ce peut nous apporter un revenu garanti dans la conjoncture actuelle, et de problématiser un certain nombre de débats, propositions, critiques, qui (...) se font jour autour de cette revendication. La petite fantaisie métaphysique que se permet le défenseur du RG quand il lit Spinoza l’amène à problématiser deux choses : la justification du RG, de manière générale, à partir des transformations sociétales les plus récentes (théorie du postfordisme), et, plus particulièrement, sa justification en termes de revenu primaire rémunérant l’activité au-delà du travail directement productif. (shrink)

La diffusion de méthodes de conception empruntant à l’univers du design et à l’image du design thinking restitue une forme renouvelée de mobilisation des cadres. La mobilisation recherchée se traduit par l’appréhension de l’innovation sous la forme d’une injonction managériale et d’une définition de dispositifs de gestion de la créativité. Il s’agit tout autant d’activer des dynamiques d’innovation que d’en assurer le cadrage dans un espace-temps spécifique. Dans cette perspective, l’article analyse les dynamiques temporelles produites par l’introduction d’un accélérateur de (...) projet s’illustrant par une intensification et une fragmentation du temps de travail des cadres engagés. Il s’agit de montrer comment ce type de dispositif de gestion de la créativité, loin d’être une réponse à la « critique artiste », prolonge le projet de rationalisation des activités de conception initié par la gestion de projet. Par-delà la rationalisation du travail de conception, l’article s’attache à appréhender les modes de réinvestissement du dispositif étudié sous l’angle des bénéfices symboliques retirés par les participants. (shrink)