Même si toute l'expression humaine ne saurait se réduire à l'esthétique littéraire et cinématographique, celle-ci n'en occupe pas moins une place importante dans ce qui révèle le sentiment de l'homme dans son adhésion à l'existence, aussi élaboré soit le cri qu'explicite et déploie cette expression. Liées à des moments de l'histoire, ces formes d'expression les expriment en même temps qu'elles s'en distancient, disant, de façon originale en chaque oeuvre ou en chaque courant, cette résistance de l'humanité à ce qui normalement (...) devrait l'anéantir. De la Shoah aux images de violence dans la cinématographie contemporaine, le témoignage de l'expression et de la résistance interroge le théologien.Even if all expression cannot be reduced to a literary and cinematographic esthetic, the latter does not occupy a place of lesser importance in that which reveals the sentiment of man in his adhesion to existence, however elaborated the cry may be that makes explicit and spreads about this expression. Tied to moments of history, these forms of expression manifest them at the same time that they take a distance from them, depicting,in an original way in each work or in each current, this resistance of humanity to that which normally should destroy it. From the Shoah to the images of violence in contemporaneous film, the witness of the expression and of the resistance questions the theologian. (shrink)

Research on the influence of industry on chemical regulation has mostly been conducted within the framework of the production of ignorance. This special issue extends this research by looking at how industry asserts its interests––not just in the scientific sphere but also at other stages of policy-making and regulatory process––with a specific focus on the types of tools or instruments industry has used. Bringing together sociologists and historians specialized in Science and Technology Studies, the articles of the special issue study (...) the arenas in which instruments and practical guidelines for public policy are negotiated or used. The aim is to observe the devices in the making or in action, from the selection of actors to the production of thresholds, criteria, and other technical regulations. The introduction highlights how industry influence on expertise and regulation is undoubtedly far more pervasive and multifarious than has been conceptualized to date by social scientists. Putting this issue back at the heart of both the STS and social sciences research agendas is increasingly urgent and could lead to new inquiries able to highlight these logics even more widely, using fresh empirical examples. (shrink)

Esquisses, plans, documents et photographies présentent l'exposition en cours de construction. Un texte explicatif donne les principales clés de lecture du poème de Rimbaud "Après le déluge", extrait des "Illuminations", et de la scénographie adoptée pour le mettre en scène.

Food standards, which are used to signal adherence to sustainability goals or a specific origin, have deep political implications. Standards crafted by retailers, processors, or third-party actors such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) often disempower farmers. Moreover, due to the liberalization and globalization of many food value chains, producer organizations (POs) lost some of their legal privileges and market protections. This paper analyzes how POs in the Global North sought to regain their control over food markets by establishing their own standards. (...) These strategies and their consequences are considered across three dimensions: the internal life of the PO, the relevant market institutions, and the relationship between the PO and the state. Our case studies (N = 5) performed in France and in Québec, a French-speaking province of Canada, span across a variety of food sectors. Drawing on qualitative material, we designed our explanatory framework through an abductive, iterative method. Although standards crafted by POs have, in some cases, reshaped market institutions to their advantage and have repositioned them in the governance of food markets, they come at a cost. They may create tensions within POs and clash with the agrarian values of solidarity, democracy, and autonomy. Overall, this article challenges the assumption that food standards are mainly governed by private actors and sheds light on the new alliances and new identities of POs. (shrink)

From its ornamental and often bookish exterior to its use as an exegetical tool for understanding the Book of Nature, the 18th-century microscope was socialized as an instrument of letters as well as of science. This essay proposes a reading of the microscope as a literary artifact by examining its bindings, its texts and its illustrations. While the instrument promised to extend human sense perception and to give its user access to invisible worlds, it simultaneously threatened to alter received views (...) concerning both aesthetics and social hierarchy. Nevertheless, the destabilizing effects of the microscopic message entered polite society cloaked in a veil of familiarity in the binding of a good book. The nostalgia-encrusted instrument absorbed the shock of the new. (shrink)

The Arts and the Revolution. Some Theoretical and Practical Elements of the Overall Problematic In the strict sense, there is no “Marxist aesthetics”. The writings of Marx and Engels on the question, whatever their riches, are too disparate and fragmentary to amount to a system. What does however exist is a history of the links and articulations between art, creation, and the perspectives of emancipation, and in this history the writings of Marx and Engels can legitimately claim a place. This (...) history is neither linear nor homogenous. The purpose of the introduction is thus to address four major debates which resonated through the 20th century: about the avant-gardes, about realism, about militant art, about the utopian dimension of art. These debates, whose importance and influence is variable, mobilised artists and thinkers in the 20th century. They could either crystallise in a particular time and place or, on the contrary, they could span several decades. Unresolved, these debates still remain, today, laden with productive contradictions. (shrink)

While COVID-19 spreads aggressively and rapidly across the globe, many societies have also witnessed the spread of other viral phenomena like misinformation, conspiracy theories, and general mass suspicions about what is really going on. This study investigates how exposure to and trust in information sources, and anxiety and depression, are associated with conspiracy and misinformation beliefs in eight countries/regions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in an online survey fielded from May 29, 2020 to June 12, 2020, resulting in (...) a multinational representative sample of 8,806 adult respondents. Results indicate that greater exposure to traditional media is associated with lower conspiracy and misinformation beliefs, while exposure to politicians and digital media and personal contacts are associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. Exposure to health experts is associated with lower conspiracy beliefs only. Higher feelings of depression are also associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. We also found relevant group- and country differences. We discuss the implications of these results. (shrink)

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

Several philosophers have recently tried to define natural kinds in epistemic terms only. Given the persistent problems with finding a successful metaphysical theory, these philosophers argue that we would do better to describe natural kinds solely in terms of their epistemic usefulness, such as their role in supporting inductive inferences. In this paper, I argue against these epistemology-only theories of natural kinds and in favor of, at least partly, metaphysical theories. I do so in three steps. In the first section (...) of the paper, I propose two desiderata for a theory of natural kinds. In the second section, I discuss one example of a ‘general’ epistemology-only theory, proposed by Marc Ereshefsky and Thomas Reydon, and argue that theories like theirs fail to provide adequate criteria of natural kinds. In the third section, I focus on one example of a ‘specific’ epistemology-only theory, proposed by P. D. Magnus, and use it to show why such theories cannot justify the claim that the proposed epistemic criteria account for the naturalness of kinds. (shrink)

Les detracteurs du materialisme le donnent pour poussiereux, triste, deplace, ennuyeux. C'est aussi la reputation de la philosophie. Que dire de leur histoire! L'auteur, qui, en trente annees de philosophie, n'a pas trouve matiere a s'ennuyer, propose au lecteur quelques elements pour en juger: du materialisme de l'Antiquite a celui du dix-septieme siecle, de celui des Lumieres aux materialismes historiques, il l'invite a decouvrir des lieux inapercus ou de nouvelles perspectives dans l'histoire de la philosophie. Ceux qui veulent rester philosophes (...) pourront savoir gre aux materialistes de ce que la philosophie leur doit. En compagnie d'Epicure et de Hobbes, de Marc-Aurele et de Cyrano, de Gassendi et de Marx, et d'autres plus clandestins, il y a encore matiere a s'instruire, a se divertir, a s'etonner. (shrink)

Droit et morale Sous la direction de Dominique Bureau, France Drummond et Dominique Fenouillet Véritable « pont aux ânes de la pédagogie juridique », la question des relations qu'entretiennent Droit et Morale appelle une réponse doctrinale presque invariable: la séparation de principe n'exclurait pas l'influence réciproque. Le droit contemporain semble pourtant traversé par deux courants a priori antinomiques: ici, la référence morale est invoquée comme une sorte de « tabou » qui justifierait le retrait du droit, alors que, là, elle (...) est appelée en renfort pour justifier telle solution ou fonder telle réforme. C'est de cette étrange coexistence du « retour offensif » et du « tabou » qu'est née l'idée d'organiser un colloque sur le thème « Droit et Morale. Aspects contemporains » en privilégiant une approche interdisciplinaire. Le 4 juin 2010, dans le cadre des journées d'étude qu'il consacre au pluralisme, le Laboratoire de sociologie juridique de l'Université Paris II accueillait donc les réflexions croisées d'Olivier Descamps, Dominique Fenouillet, Michel Germain, Valérie Malabat, Horatia Muir Watt, Cécile Pérès, Marc Pichard, Jean-Emmanuel Ray et Jean-Louis Sourioux. L'ouvrage ici présenté s'est enrichi des contributions supplémentaires d'Éric Martin-Hocquenghem et de Mustapha Mekki. Puisse cette publication contribuer à éclairer les relations singulières qu'entretiennent le Droit et la Morale. Contributeurs Olivier Descamps Dominique Fenouillet Michel Germain Valérie Malabat Éric Martin-Hocquenghem Mustapha Mekki Horatia Muir Watt Cécile Pérès Marc Pichard Jean-Emmanuel Ray Jean-Louis Sourioux. (shrink)

Le livre de Cyril Olivier est issu de sa thèse soutenue à l’université de Poitiers en 2002. Certes, les ouvrages sur la période de Vichy sont nombreux. Plusieurs ont, ces dernières années, abordé la question de la politique familiale, du contrôle des corps par Vichy (Francine Muel-Dreyfus, Michèle Bordeaux et Marc Boninchi en France, Miranda Pollard aux États Unis, Insa Meinen en Allemagne). Mais le travail de Cyril Olivier est incontestablement novateur. Il s’inscrit, comme il le souligne (...) en... (shrink)

Evaluative theories of emotions purport to shed light on the nature of emotions by appealing to values. Three kinds of evaluative theories of emotions dominate the recent literature: the judgment theory equates emotions with value judgments; the perceptual theory equates emotions with perceptions of values, and the attitudinal theory equates emotions with evaluative attitudes. This paper defends a fourth kind of evaluative theory of emotions, mostly neglected so far: the reactive theory. Reactive theories claim that emotions are attitudes which arise (...) in reaction to perceptions of value. (shrink)

If a potential person would have a good life if he were to come into existence, can we coherently regard his coming into existence as better for him than his never coming into existence? And can we regard the situation in which he never comes into existence as worse for him? In this paper, we argue that both questions should be answered affirmatively. We also explain where prominent arguments to differing conclusions go wrong. Finally, we explore the relevance of our (...) answers to issues in population ethics. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This study examines whether the empirical evidence on the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) differs depending on the publication outlet in which that evidence appears. This moderator meta-analysis, based on a total sample size of 33,878 observations, suggests that published CSP-CFP findings have been shaped by differences in institutional logics in different subdisciplines of organization studies. In economics, finance, and accounting journals, the average correlations were only about half the magnitude of the findings published (...) in Social Issues in Management, Business Ethics, or Business and Society journals (mean corrected correlation coefficientof.22 vs..49, respectively). Specifically, economists did not find null or negative CSP-CFP correlations, and average findings published in general management outlets (=.41) were closer to Social Issues in Management, Business Ethics, and Business and Society results than to findings reported in economics, finance, and accounting journals. (shrink)

There has been some theoretical and empirical debate that the positive relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and firm financial performance (FFP) is spurious and in fact caused by a third factor, namely large firm size. This study examines this question by integrating three meta-analyses of more than two decades of research on (1) CSP and FFP, (2) firm size and CSP, and (3) firm size and FFP into one path-analytic model. The present study does not confirm size as a (...) third factor which would confound the relationship between CSP and FFP. That is, even if firm size is controlled for across studies (comprising, on average, over 15 000 observations), CSP and FFP remain positively correlated, showing a "true-score" corrected path coefficient p of 0.37. (shrink)

This paper concerns the relation between a proof’s beauty and its explanatory power – that is, its capacity to go beyond proving a given theorem to explaining why that theorem holds. Explanatory power and beauty are among the many virtues that mathematicians value and seek in various proofs, and it is important to come to a better understanding of the relations among these virtues. Mathematical practice has long recognized that certain proofs but not others have explanatory power, and this paper (...) offers an account of what makes a proof explanatory. This account is motivated by a wide range of examples drawn from mathematical practice, and the account proposed here is compared to other accounts in the literature. The concept of a proof that explains is closely intertwined with other important concepts, such as a brute force proof, a mathematical coincidence, unification in mathematics, and natural properties. Ultimately, this paper concludes that the features of a proof that would contribute to its explanatory power would also contribute to its beauty, but that these two virtues are not the same; a beautiful proof need not be explanatory. (shrink)

The heart of the matter -- The evolution of the French medicine -- Coping with physicians' conflicts of interest in France -- The rise of a protected medical market : the United States before 1950 -- The commercial transformation : the United States, 1950-1980 -- The logic of medical markets : the United States, 1980 to the present -- Coping with physicians' conflicts of interest in the United States -- The evolution of Japanese medicine -- Coping with physicians' conflicts of (...) interest in Japan -- Reforms -- Professionalism reconsidered. (shrink)

The amount of information conveyed by linguistic conventions depends on their precision, yet the codes that humans and other animals use to communicate are quite ambiguous: they may map several vague meanings to the same symbol. How does semantic precision evolve, and what are the constraints that limit it? We address this question using a multiplayer gaming app, where individuals communicate with one another in a scaled-up referential game. Here, the goal is for a sender to use black and white (...) symbols to communicate colors. We expected that the players’ mappings between symbols and colors would grow more specific over time, through a selection process whereby precise mappings are preferentially copied. We found that players become increasingly more precise in their use of symbols over the course of their interactions. This trend did not, however, result from selective copying of precise mappings. We explore the implications of this result for the study of lexical ambiguity, Zipf's Law of Meaning, and disagreements over semantic conventions. (shrink)

Any advanced theory of physics contains modules defined as essential components that are themselves theories with different domains of application. Different kinds of modules can be distinguished according to the way in which they fit in the symbolic and interpretive apparatus of a theory. The number and kind of the modules of a given theory vary as the theory evolves in time. The relative stability of modules and the variability of their insertion in other theories play a vital role in (...) the application, comparison, construction, and communication of theories. Modularity conveys some global unity to physics through the sharing of modules by diverse theories. This alternative to rigid hierarchies and holistic totalities permits a dynamical, plastic, and symbiotic approach to physical theory. (shrink)

The “species-as-individuals” thesis takes species, or taxa, to be individuals. On grounds of spatiotemporal boundedness, any biological entity at any level of complexity subject to evolutionary processes is an individual. From evolutionary theory flows an ontology that does not countenance universal properties shared by evolving entities. If austere nominalism were applied to evolving entities, however, nature would be reduced to a mere flow of passing events, each one a blob in space–time and hence of passing interest only. Yet if there (...) is genuine biodiversity in nature, if nature is genuinely carved into species, and taxa, then these evolutionary entities will be genuinely differentiated into specific kinds, each species being one of its kind. Given the fact that evolving entities have un-sharp boundaries, an appropriately weak, “non-essentialist” concept of natural kind has to be invoked that does not allow for strong identity conditions. The thesis of this paper is that species are not either individuals, or natural kinds. Instead, species are complex wholes (particulars, individuals) that instantiate a specific natural kind. (shrink)

This essay discusses attempts that have been made to explain the striking similarities between two theories propounded in 1905 by Albert Einstein and Henri Poincaré without any mutual reference.

Using the Western tradition of metaphysical and political thought as a backdrop, Critique of Sovereignty (a work in 4 volumes) re-examines the concept of sovereignty in order to better understand why our ethical values and technical capacities often seem so divorced from our lived realities. On the one hand, ostensibly self-enclosed entities like the nation-state and the person are rhetorically bolstered as sites of technical agency and/or moral responsibility. On the other hand, these same entities appear fragile -- if not (...) purely fictional -- in relation to ever ongoing tidal processes such as the migration, diffusion, and conglomeration of bodies, capital, ideas, etc. While some of our institutions might work some of the time, they always seem to work differently than we like to think they do. Accordingly, the forging of more humane institutions might very well entail if not require ways of thinking that strive to undo the self-imagined binds, exceptions, and sureties of thought for the sake of embracing a continuity with all that withers, decays, and falls away. Book I, "Contemporary Theories of Sovereignty," compares the varied interpretations of sovereignty given by a range of 20th-century political theorists (Maritain, Foucault, Derrida, Schmitt, Agamben, Hardt, and Negri) with Jean Bodin's initial outline of the concept, rendered at the outset of modern political thought in the 16th century. The analytic framework of sovereignty encountered in these comparative readings provides an initial point of departure for unfolding a method of critique appropriate to the concept of sovereignty. Sovereignty is an ideal starting point for a critique of the deadlocks between thought and reality for a simple reason: it doesn't actually exist. When it serves as a guide to action, sovereignty may be regarded as a particularly captivating fantasy. The closer it appears, the further it recedes, and, too often, the more vigorously it is pursued. (shrink)

In this paper, after presenting three challenges that any knowledge-based demarcation between science and non-science should meet, namely, the skeptical, triviality, and mimicry challenges, I show how a recent contender in epistemology, viz., presuppositional epistemic contextualism, allows these challenges to be met, hence pointing toward a novel solution to the perennial demarcation problem. Conceiving of scientific knowledge from the vantage point of contextualism forces us to consider science as being first and foremost a distinctive epistemological context, which has the peculiarity (...) of coming with a very high degree of stringency for the truth conditions of putative knowledge attributions. The fact that science imposes particularly stringent norms on knowledge is measured by the extension of the set of counterpossibilities that science is (i) in the business of eliminating on the basis of available evidence and (ii) ready to take seriously (insofar as they are consistent with the scientific community’s pragmatic presuppositions at a given time and place). (shrink)

Galilée, Descartes et Newton avaient brillamment inauguré une ère scientifique qui s'achève, celle de la science analytique, déterministe et mécaniste. Les sciences de la complexité ouvrent de nouveaux continents à explorer. Sur d'autres principes, sur d'autres dimensions, sur d'autres prémices. De fondements, l'espace, le temps, la force, le mouvement, la matière deviennent des conséquences, des produits, des faits seconds. Tout est processus, et cela rejoint les vieilles intuitions, grecque de Logos, chinoise de Tao ou indienne de Brahman. Sciences, philosophies, spiritualités (...) et mystiques convergent enfin! (shrink)

Jesus embodies for the Christian the model of true service, which should be discernibly distinct from secular service. Even for non-Christian services, the Church offers relevant models and teaching. Contemporary service structures often lose sight of the dignity of served and server, and have grown dependent upon technology and technique, straying outside the realm of relationality. An example of this within certain service fields is reliance on physical and mechanical restraints to restrict movement, causing harm to recipients and to the (...) relationship between server and served. Such techniques overshadow the nature of Christian service, which is personal, relational, and communal. Catholic social doctrine, and many personalist frameworks, build on the pillars of dignity, responsibility, and subsidiarity. Rules alone will not be protective against service-mediated harm; however, principled servers can protect vulnerable people, particularly when guided by a concern for the common good, fraternity and solidarity. (shrink)

In the vast field of Roman Ingarden’s ontology, film seems to occupy very little space. Indeed, Ingarden dedicated only two short texts to it. This paper aims at reconstructing Ingarden’s theory of film by expanding on the intuitions and sketches presented in those texts, using Ingarden’s general inquiries on aesthetics and specific inquiries on various forms of art The paper first focuses on the mode of being of film, trying to elaborate the distinctions made by Ingarden between physical foundation, work (...) of art, and aesthetic object and elucidating the relations between film and reality. The paper then moves on to the investigation of silent pictures as an art of pure visibility, then to talking pictures, taking into consideration all the modifications induced by sound and music. Ontological and aesthetical considerations jointly underpin this attempt to show the richness and significance of Ingarden’s theories. (shrink)

Qu'y a-t-il de commun entre le personnage du Marchand de Venise de Shakespeare, Portia, le philosophe de la démocratie moderne, Spinoza, et le penseur de l'inconscient, Freud? Ils inventent tous les trois une manière " marrane " d'être juif, en jouant la comédie de l'universalité pour laquelle ils cryptent ce qu'ils cherchent. Persécutés par l'inquisition, obligés de mimer la vie chrétienne, les Marranes portent en eux et au-delà un double jeu, une comédie judéo-chrétienne. Il ne s'agit pas pour eux d'une (...) nouvelle religion, mais d'un secret et de nouvelles Lumières qui constituent peut-être un signe adressé aux temps à venir. La scène judéo-chrétienne, habitée par les Marranes, est comme l'inconscient de la démocratie européenne, elle a été enterrée par l'histoire et on a tenté d'effacer les traces. Les Marranes déjouent le trait d'union judéo-chrétien, en rejouant les équivoques des épîtres de Saint Paul. Ils nous invitent à repenser et à subvertir le théâtre qui commande, depuis ces épîtres, la pensée politique (notamment celle du sacrifice et de la guerre) et à libérer une tout autre idée de la démocratie : une vie libérée de la politique religieuse et de la religion politique (qui se développent, aujourd'hui, sur l'économie abyssale de la dette, de la pauvreté et de la misère). Les Marranes nous obligent aussi à interroger la philosophie contemporaine qui oscille entre l'anamnèse et l'amnésie du théâtre judéo-chrétien de la pensée politique. (shrink)