P.H. Spaak and P. Harmel originnally were differently indoctrinated. They had very little in common, except that they both were brilliant diplomats. In addition they had the ability to lead Belgiums foreign policy. But due to Belgiums international context, «The continuation» was the most characteristic guidline in both men's successive policy. Owing to the force of circumstances, it is certainly not paradoxical that Belgium's options in the field of foreign policy are in any case limited.

There has been little serious work to integrate the constructionist approach and the cognitive approach in the domain of race, although many researchers have paid lip service to this project. We believe that any satisfactory account of human beings’ racialist cognition has to integrate both approaches. In this paper, we propose a step toward this integration. We present an evolutionary theory that rests on a distinction between various kinds of groups (kin-based groups, small-scale coalitions and ethnies). Following Gil-White (1999, 2001a, (...) b), we propose that ethnies have raised specific evolutionary challenges that were solved by a specific evolved cognitive system. We suggest that the concept of race is a by-product of that mechanism. To integrate the social constructionists’ and the cognitive theorists’ insights, we rely on the psychology that underlies Boyd and Richerson’s theory of cultural evolution (Boyd and Richerson 1985, forthcoming). (shrink)

The possible and revelation -- The saturated phenomenon -- Metaphysics and phenomenology: a relief for theology -- "Christian philosophy": hermeneutic or heuristic? -- Sketch of a phenomenological concept of the gift -- What cannot be said: Apophasis and the discourse of love -- The banality of saturation -- Faith and reason.

In a recently published paper, we argued that theories of cultural evolution can gain explanatory power by being more pluralistic. In his reply to it, Dennett agreed that more pluralism is needed. Our paper’s main point was to urge cultural evolutionists to get their hands dirty by describing the fine details of cultural products and by striving to offer detailed and, when explanatory, varied algorithms or mechanisms to account for them. While Dennett’s latest work on cultural evolution does marvelously well (...) on the first point, it has only whet our appetite on the second. Accordingly, the present paper aims to show what an evolutionary explanation of culture that takes the variety of cultural evolution mechanisms seriously would look like. We will focus on the cultural evolution of social epistemic mechanisms and we will propose that Darwinian algorithms should be complemented with a cultural analogue of the error reduction mechanism proposed to account for human cognition, with a particular emphasis on the necessity to build independencies between different sub-systems in charge of tracking states of the world. To illustrate our point, we will present how the evolution of the legal system as epistemic systems can be understood as a process of building increasingly better independencies and how various criticisms of the actual legal system calls for building even more of them. (shrink)

Die vorliegende Sammlung von Aufsätzen einiger der weltbesten Spezialisten der antiken griechischen Philosophie konzentriert sich auf die philosophischen Texte, die während der hellenistischen und kaiserlichen Zeit Pythagoras und den Pythagoreern zugeschrieben wurden. Ihre unbekannten Verfasser behaupten, die Positionen der ursprünglichen pythagoreischen Schule zur Metaphysik, Theologie, Zahlenphilosophie, Physik, Logik, politischen Philosophie, Ethik und zur richtigen Lebensweise zu vermitteln. Die kühnsten unter ihnen präsentieren sich als die Quellen, aus denen Platon und Aristoteles die Inspiration für den Timaios und die Kategorien geschöpft haben. (...) Da sie von den meisten antiken Denkern als maßgebend angesehen wurden, führte dies zu einer Renaissance der platonischen und pythagoreischen Tradition. (shrink)

A travers une analyse des concepts d’affirmation originaire, d’attestation et de reconnaissance, cet article tente de reconstituer le sens et les motivations du cheminement réflexif qui conduit Ricœur de L’Homme faillible à Soi-même comme un autre et à Parcours de la reconnaissance . Pour ce faire, il s’efforce d’abord de montrer ce qui fait la continuité profonde, de problématique et de méthode, du projet anthropologique ricœurien; afin de dégager ensuite les difficultés centrales liées à l’idée d’une constitution poétique du soi, (...) qui conduisent Ricœur à réélaborer les concepts directeurs de son herméneutique du soi. A la lumière du dialogue constant de Ricœur avec la philosophie de Nabert, il tente enfin de montrer comment les concepts d’attestation et de reconnaissance trouvent, pour l’essentiel, leur genèse dans un approfondissement de la notion d’affirmation originaire, lui-même prolongé par une réflexion sur le témoignage.  . (shrink)

A l'occasion du cinquantenaire de la mort de René Guénon, l'auteur retrace la vie de ce philosophe qu'un commentateur qualifia d'invisible, tant il fut discret et effacé. De son enfance en milieu catholique à son adhésion à l'islam, en passant par son intérêt pour l'ésotérisme, l'occultisme, l'hindouisme et son initiation maçonnique, Guénon surprend en se montrant un infatigable chercheur d'absolu et un précurseur du dialogue interreligieux. Cet ouvrage très complet propose une vivante évocation de la tradition symbolique, que René Guénon (...) a eu le mérite d'épurer. Sa pensée, tout en interrogeant les apports de l'Orient à l'Occident, les mythes et les symboles, dénonce les pseudo-religions, les sectes, le théosophisme ou l'erreur spirite, et évite le piège du syncrétisme. René Guénon estimait que tout homme doit tendre à la réalisation spirituelle et il fut un juge impitoyable de notre civilisation occidentale matérialiste. Jean-Luc Maxence éclaire l'itinéraire exceptionnel de cet auteur qui, en une vingtaine de livres, marqua plusieurs figures de son époque, de René Daumal à Louis Pauwels ou Raymond Abellio, et dont l'œuvre était considérée comme " l'une des plus singulières de ce temps " par le cardinal Daniélou, même si celui-ci ne partageait pas ses idées. Rebelle, inclassable, la pensée du " philosophe invisible " appartient au patrimoine de la philosophie. (shrink)

Starting from a genesis of the concept of narrative identity, this article attemps to interpret the constitution process of our narrative identities through a systematic and synthetic review of the main contributions of the Ricœurian theory of imagination, from Freedom and Nature to Oneself as Another. In its complex imaginative constitution, narrative identity can then be characterized as a poetico-practical mix that mediates and puts in a dialectical relation two distinct functions of the imagination: a poetic and a practical one, (...) which are themselves enlivened by a dialectic and an internal duplication. (shrink)

For over a century reconstructions of Alexandria have all, without exception, been based on the plan drawn by Mahmoud al-Falaki in around 1866. We are not concerned to give an exegesis of the many amendments and additions made to this plan since its publication, but to appraise in the light of new evidence the validity of the road network which he proposed. The recent discovery of several cartographie documents contemporary with Falaki's work makes possible a new interpretation of the indications (...) recorded in his report and to single out, in its reconstruction, the parts deriving from the excavations from the parts based on assumption. (shrink)

The medieval notion of instrumental cause is not limited to what we call today “instruments” or “tools.” It extends way beyond the realm of technology and includes natural entities, for instance, the accidents by which a substance acts on another substance, sensible species in the air acting on a visual faculty, sacraments, bodily organs, and sometimes creatures with respect to God’s action. In all these cases, instrumental causes, like secondary causes in general, are subordinated to a principal cause and contribute (...) to its action and effects. However, the manner in which they do so makes them different from regular secondary causes, and the specifics are not easy to pinpoint. At the occasion of discussions about creation ex nihilo and sacraments, John Duns Scotus challenges Thomas Aquinas’s theory of instrumental causality. Whereas Aquinas does not strongly distinguish between artifacts and natural agents, and postulates a complex superposition of layers of causation, Scotus offers a novel view that clearly separates artificial instrumentality and natural instrumentality, and in both cases explains causation with great economy. Scotus’s in-depth discussion has far-reaching implications. It completely transforms the understanding of instrumental causality in general. (shrink)

Comment une formation politique répond-elle, au XXIème siècle, à son électorat? Comment faire face aux défis futurs autrement que par le biais d'un débat politique bipolarisé? Cela passe nécessairement par la mise en avant d'un discours résolument démocrate... et toujours écologiste! A chaque instant, la recherche du positionnement juste doit être notre fil conducteur. Sur l'équité, la solidarité et l'engagement en faveur d'une transformation réelle de notre société, nous avons tous notre mot à dire afin de préparer l'avenir! Tel est (...) l'enjeu! Aux niveaux européen, national, régional et local, nous sommes invités à réagir. Parfois pour saluer certaines avancées courageuses, souvent pour rappeler l'existence de certaines lignes rouges déjà allègrement franchies et dénoncer les égarements des responsables politiques en place. Doucement mais sûrement, une autre voie se dessine! Cet ouvrage se propose de mettre en lumière les thèmes sur lesquels les démocrates français et européens doivent désormais avancer de manière significative. Sans avoir la prétention d'apporter toutes les réponses, Jean-Luc Bennahmias contribue au débat à travers des textes, réflexions et entretiens récents faisant sens dans son parcours politique. Il rappelle un certain nombre de ses prises de position historiques sur des questions essentielles, telles que l'action à mener envers les jeunes, les libertés, les minorités ou bien encore l'Union européenne. Et il réaffirme la vigueur de son combat pour une écologie omniprésente dans nos politiques publiques. (shrink)

Le syndrome de Kierkegaard est un essai libre de Jean- Luc Berlet, consacré à l'un de ses penseurs de prédilection, le Danois Seren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). Ce syndrome dont il est question, tel que défini par l'auteur, pourrait être conçu comme la tension qui résulte de l'impossible choix entre l'amour de la femme et l'amour de Dieu. Kierkegaard renonça en effet à l'amour charnel de la femme au profit d'une vie ascétique consacrée à I écriture et à la réflexion sur l'Amour. (...) A plus grande échelle ce syndrome pourrait être compris comme l'abandon du temporel au profit d'un idéal spirituel Et les regrets qui en découlent. En effet, comme nombre de contemporains opérant ce type de choix, Kierkegaard connut bien des tourments. Ces affres permirent néanmoins à Kierkegaard de développer une conception de l'Amour et du Divin d'une grande originalité qu'il est bon de redécouvrir dans notre époque marquée par le consumérisme sentimental. Tout au long des quatorze chapitres qui jalonnent cet ouvrage, Jean-Luc Berlet retrace le parcours littéraire de ce philosophe danois considéré par beaucoup comme le père de l'existentialisme, brossant ici un tableau complet de son énigmatique personnalité. En outre, chaque chapitre est accompagné d'un code QR, donnant chacun actes à une vidéo en ligne où Jean - Luc Berlet approfondit son développement et fournit des clefs de lecture pour une meilleure compréhension de l'oeuvre de Kierkegaard. (shrink)

According to a popular version of the current evolutionary attitude in cognitive science, the mind is a massive aggregate of autonomous innate computational devices, each addressing specific adaptive problems. Our aim in this paper is to show that although this version of the attitude, which we call GOFEP , does not suffer from fatal flaws that would make it incoherent or otherwise conceptually inadequate, it will nevertheless prove unacceptable to most cognitive scientists today. To show this, we raise a common (...) objection to the concept of innateness, not to mount an attack on GOFEP but to study how its proponents have attempted to meet that challenge. The aim of this move is to show that GOFEP cannot face the challenge without, as it were, losing its soul. There is, or so we will argue, something deep at the heart of GOFEP that prevents its proponents from meeting the challenge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Plutarchan Hypomnema on Self–LoveLuc Van der StocktHypomnemata and QuellenforschungPlutarch's "hypomnemata statement" in the introduction to De Tranquillitate Animi has elicited much industrious activity from the scholarly world, and rightly so. The sentence (464F) invites one naturally to apply the method of classical hermeneutics (as understood by Babilas 1961, 30, 51–52), consisting in the confrontation of an author's oeuvre (its inventio, dispositio, and elocutio) with all the elements of (...) its generating "context" (historical circumstances, literary antecedents, biography and psychology of the author, immediate reasons for the composition, etc.) that might shed some light on the work in question and help to understand it. In the case of De Tranquillitate Animi Plutarch himself mentions his hypomnemata as one of the elements that contributed to this work, thus provoking his reader to investigate the relationship between these hypomnemata and the text in hand.Under the positivist paradigm generated and promoted by the physical sciences, the interpretation of texts suffered from reduction: its aim became explanation by reducing the thematic, structural, and stylistic data of a text to its antecedents, that is, by simply equating text and context; moreover, this context was frequently reduced to literary antecedents. In the present case, it was the conviction of several scholars that De Tranquillitate Animi could be explained by reducing it to an amalgamation of literary sources (Quellen) and by assuming that the hypomnemata represented these sources without further ado.The consequences of this approach were considerable: in general, Quellenforschung created the image of "Plutarch the eclectic," copying and pasting together literary sources, and De Tranquillitate Animi in particular became a textbook case of his modus operandi—it was but a patchwork of the opinions of Panaetius, or Ariston, or Epicureanism,1 [End Page 575] and one even finds a meritorious scholar who is indignant because Plutarch "mutilates" his source by disturbing its composition!2 From the conflicting scholarly opinions, from their highly hypothetical nature, and from such awkward appreciations as that just mentioned, it is easy to see that the positivist approach failed really to understand Plutarch: his personality and writing activity were so utterly neglected that one wonders why ultimately even the sentence μνημάτων was not regarded as "aliunde petita"!3Nowadays the assumptions of Quellenforschung are rejected: Plutarch's personal contribution in the invention, composition, and style of his works in general is widely recognized. In regard to his writing technique, and especially the role of the hypomnemata in it, it has been observed that the very mention of the hypomnemata in De Tranquillitate Animi does not mean that Plutarch was simply copying, let alone copying only one source;4 moreover, we are not entitled to view hypomnemata as sources5 without any qualification. As to the general tendency of the work, Stoic influences in the presentation of its theme have been seriously questioned.6While fully agreeing with the critique of Quellenforschung and sympathizing with the more positive results of our recent understanding of Plutarch, I cannot but consider the question of Plutarch's hypomnemata a continuing challenge: their importance for his "Compositionsweise"7 cannot be doubted, even if we are somewhat at a loss concerning their size, content, and nature. With the aim of advancing our [End Page 576] knowledge in this matter,8 I here identify a hypomnema, make some observations on Plutarch's treatment of it, and consequently show its relevance for the interpretation of the meaning intended by Plutarch. But before doing so, an analysis of the "hypomnemata statement" and its immediate context seems appropriate: the sentence may trigger our search and condition our expectations.An Analysis of the "Hypomnemata Statement" and its ContextThe composition of De Tranquillitate Animi took place in urgent circumstances:9 Paccius, we are told, has asked for some exegesis of Pla-to's Timaeus and (apparently in dire need)10 for some advice on tranquility of mind. The obvious messenger, Eros, has been called away urgently to Rome by Fundanus, another representative of the genus irascibile.11 Plutarch adopts emergency measures: First, he does not want to disappoint his friend Paccius completely. Thus in this "letter– essay" (Betz 1978, 199) he will deal with the theme... (shrink)

_The VaKE Handbook: Theory and Practice of Values and Knowledge Education_ presents a theoretical model and many examples in various fields of education and training for the realization of the principle "Values without knowledge are blind, while knowledge without values is irresponsible".

Cet article propose une approche de la pensée du franciscain Gonzalve d’Espagne qui vise, d’une part, à renouveler l’intérêt des études médiévales pour ce penseur longtemps oublié et, d’autre part, à permettre la compréhension de sa doctrine de la foi et des rapports qu’elle entretient avec sa compréhension de la scientificité de la théologie. Nous cherchons ici à comprendre de quelle manière la réponse de Gonzalve à la question de la compossibilité des habitus de foi, opinion et science se présente (...) comme l’extension d’une psychologie de l’habitus et d’une épistémologie de la foi conceptualisant la scientificité pratique de la théologie. (shrink)

Partant de l'hypothèse selon laquelle l'élaboration d'une théorie générale de l'imagination constitue l'une des visées centrales de la philosophie ricoeurienne et l'un de ses legs les plus prometteurs, ce livre se propose de travailler à une genèse rigoureuse de cette philosophie de l'imagination, en s'appuyant principalement sur les trois oeuvres qui composent la Philosophie de la volonté. A travers une analyse des dialogues de Ricoeur avec Sartre, Nabert, Bachelard, Merleau-Ponty, Jaspers, Cassirer, Husserl et Heidegger autour de la question de l'imagination, (...) il s'agit de montrer comment cette première grande oeuvre philosophique ricoeurienne esquisse une théorisation très novatrice de la fonction poético-pratique de l'imagination - capable tout à la fois de poser les bases d'une réhabilitation générale de la fonction de l'imagination dans l'agir humain et d'initier une réflexion critique sur les usages méthodologiques de l'imagination dans le discours philosophique. (shrink)

Les Eléments de théologie de Proclus constituent un monument philosophique radicalement singulier tant par son architecture propre que par la façon dont la tradition l'a revisité. Ordonnant, sous une forme géométrique, les principes de la métaphysique néoplatonicienne, ils ont à la fois constitué celle-ci en système et opéré comme le principal relais de sa transmission aux pensées byzantine, arabe et occidentale. Ce sont ces effets d'héritage et d'adaptation que les textes ici réunis visent à évaluer. Du Liber de causis à (...) Hegel en passant par Thomas d'Aquin, Dietrich de Freiberg, Giordano Bruno, les Platoniciens de Cambridge et Leibniz, se reconstitue ainsi une a grande chaîne des "êtres", réarticulée par la chaîne des raisons, et à chaque fois revivifiée par celle de la transmission. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThat beauty [beauté] pertains to phenomenality, this may have long seemed self-evident. For however conveyed and crafted in sensible experience, beauty is to be seen, heard, touched; in short it makes itself manifest. Not only does beauty make itself manifest by taking shape, but it makes itself manifests par excellence, to a greater extent than what appears in the course of everyday life. The beautiful [beau] should therefore be seen as a phenomenon. Today, however, we can no longer take this (...) rule for granted; nor can we consider to be irrefutable the fact that beauty phenomenalizes itself as such, and that we can experience [éprouver] directly and as such a “phenomenon of the beautiful.”. (shrink)

Among the many difficulties, or even paradoxes, that phenomenology has imposed upon us by positing itself as a doctrine, or at least as a radical foundation for philosophy, one must first and foremost consider the operation typically referred to as the reduction. The reasons for detecting difficulties therein are many, but they take on even greater significance since Husserl proclaimed the reduction to be fundamental to any philosophy that wished to establish itself as a phenomenology. The history of phenomenology, then, (...) would appear not only as the history of all the difficulties encountered in the reduction, but principally as the history of Husserl’s own self-elucidation of his entire project. This brings us to the point of reformulating Ricoeur’s claim—that phenomenology is the sum of misinterpretations of Husserl’s doctrine—with this new contention: that phenomenology consists in the sum of discussions and disagreements about the doctrine and practice of the reduction. (shrink)

The Abidjan School is a school of thought that developed in the 1980s and 1990s in the Côte d'Ivoire inspired by the work of Louis-Joseph Lebret and Amartya Sen. It follows the empirical approach i...

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Maurice Merleau-Ponty undertook to interrogate Marxism, both in its rhetoric and in its practice. Our project, which is essentially didactic in nature and, for all intents and purposes, free of any secondary literature, consists in following his intellectual development in this respect, from his first political writings in 1945 until 1960 - only a few months before his sudden death, which occurred a hundred days before the erection of the Berliner Mauer. But (...) why is it relevant today to revisit contributions that approach, reach, or even exceed three quarters of a century? It is because the author, and this is certainly not insignificant from the point of view of the history of ideas, saw clearly before almost anyone else. In such a way that he succeeded, by deconstructing the intellectual framework of the System, in identifying, inscribed from the beginning in its own « software », the inevitable asphyxiation of the Soviet regime. This in turn requires us to take note - which Marx himself would not have disavowed, as a contrario - that one cannot unquestionably gag, rooted in the fabric of man, the Will-to-Freedom of these families born of History and Geography, which are the peoples and nations. (shrink)

Bien que l'on associat traditionnellement pensée hégélienne et affirmation péremptoire de la rationalité de la réalité , il n'est pas inopportun de tenter de saisir le fil d'Ariane qui, progressivement, conduit le philosophe de l'Idéalisme absolu à littéralement arraisonner la Raison. On comprendra dès lors que cette Raison est peut-être moins un FIAT originel né de l'arbitraire - fût-il celui, génial, d'un puissant esprit pensant - qu'une simple CONSTANTE du réel : nous sommes de raison dans la Raison. Aussi, lutter (...) contre celle-ci constitue sans doute non tant un acte de Liberté que d'entêtement Reste donc à s'en faire une alliée. Il nous faut épouser Athéna - et cultiver die Rose im Kreuze der Gegenwart, la rose dans la croix du présent.We will analyze how Hegel leads us from Absolute Idealism to the well-known thesis : Reality is Rationality. We will see thus that Reason is not produced by an arbitrary and theoretical decision but, on the contrary, that Reason reveals itself as a constant of Reality. The struggle against Reason cannot appear, therefore, as an act of freedom but as a form of the stubbornness which characterizes the activity of Reason. In this process, Reason is its own ally. (shrink)

In order to leave our debate open, it is important to end with a potentially crucial encounter between two domains whose representatives have not yet engaged in direct dialogue. Epistemology and anthropology, indeed, have many ideas to exchange and interactions to stimulate, particularly insofar as both of them consider the relations between a science of nature and a science of humankind.

Créativité et mathématiques ne font pas bon ménage dans l'inconscient collectif. Pourtant à l'heure d'Internet, il existe bien une manière de revisiter la géométrie, l'algèbre ou même la logique. Il suffit de prendre un peu de distance par rapport aux calculs, de se donner quelques libertés par rapport à l'histoire, de changer de point de vue... En vagabondant à travers l'histoire et l'application des mathématiques, les auteurs se livrent ici à un jeu de vulgarisation d'une saveur et d'une subtilité inédites. (...) [4e de couv.]. (shrink)

The position of the Belgian prime minister is hardly mentioned in the Belgian Constitution. lt was only after almost 140 years, in 1970 he was mentioned for the first time. lts power is rather a matter of common law. Since 1831 through the years, the position and power of the PM changed strongly. This often happened together with changes concerning the power of the King: the weaker the King, the stronger the PM.The existence of coalition governments puts forward bis role (...) as coordinator and even as arbitrator, whereas the federalisation process since the seventies places him as a conciliator between Regions and Communities. The growing importance of the European Council of Head of States have made him the most important decision-maker among the national politicians in the European integration process. The PM's skills concerning timing and agendasetting are very important because it is one of his most important power instruments. Other key skills are bis profound knowledge in certain issues but mostly as a generalist, his insisting on good minister nominations by the party leaders, the way he can motivate his cabinet members, a good team spirit among the government members and the existence of a clear government contract. In order to avoid a strongdependency on or tutelage from the political parties of the majority it is important to have their top politicians in the government. (shrink)

Maître Eckhart affirme dans son oeuvre latine (Commentaire au saint Évangile selon Jean) et dans sa prédication vernaculaire (Sermon allemand 08) son désir d’exposer par les outils de la physique les vérités révélées auxquelles il convient d’adhérer par la foi. Un tel programme exégétique a de quoi surprendre autant le lecteur des traités et sermons allemands qui, pour des raisons que rend évidentes l’histoire de sa réception, s’attend à trouver sous la plume du Thuringien une mystique, pensée aussi spéculative que (...) supra-rationnelle ; que le lecteur de l’oeuvre latine, qui pourrait s’attendre à trouver chez un dominicain du tournant des xiiie et xive siècles une forme de thomisme se refusant à toute tentative de rendre connaissables par la raison les mystères que révèlent les Écritures. Envisagée sérieusement, cette ambition d’expliquer la Révélation par les outils de la physique, science théorétique philosophique, pose donc au lecteur de Maître Eckhart un réel problème herméneutique dans la mesure où elle appelle une réflexion approfondie sur les limites de la connaissance humaine et sur la nature du savoir scientifique. En proposant une reconstruction de l’épistémologie procurant son cadre à la pensée eckhartienne, cette étude se veut l’occasion d’un nouvel éclairage de thèses bien connues de sa « mystique », qui permette de comprendre de quelle manière la conceptualité (méta-)physique de l’aristotélisme s’articule à la Révélation biblique pour rendre intelligible la nature et la surnature, ainsi que les rapports causaux les unissant l’une à l’autre. (shrink)