Enth.: De quoi faut-il s'étonner / par René Thom. Du point de vue du tiers... / par Claire Lejeune. Géométriser la signification / par Jean-Pierre Duport.

Over the last few decades there has been a revival of interest in virtue ethics, with the emphasis on the virtuous caregiver. This paper deals with the ‘virtuous patient’, specifically the patient with End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). We believe that a virtue approach provides insights not available to current methods of studying coping styles and coping strategies. Data are derived from seven semi-structured in-depth interviews. The transcripts of the interviews were subjected to an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The focus (...) of the analysis was on ‘living well with chronic illness’. It appears that the moral challenges faced by patients with an ESRD are manifold. When they are invited to tell the story of their illness, they do not explicitly speak of virtues, but they often refer to moral qualities, and to attitudes that can be regarded as virtuous. We identify several such concepts in the narratives of patients with ESRD. We conclude that the Aristotelian model of virtue ethics is particularly descriptively (and possibly also normatively) relevant to the explanation of the life narratives and the moral challenges of patients with an ESRD. (shrink)

Blood coagulation is regulated through a complex network of biochemical reactions of blood factors. The main acting enzyme is thrombin whose propagation in blood plasma leads to fibrin clot formation. Spontaneous clot formation is normally controlled through the action of different plasma inhibitors, in particular, through the thrombin binding by antithrombin. In the current study we develop a mathematical model of clot formation both in quiescent plasma and in blood flow and determine the analytical conditions on the antithrombin concentration corresponding (...) to different regimes of blood coagulation. (shrink)

The French school of theoretical biology has been mainly initiated in Poitiers during the sixties by scientists like J. Besson, G. Bouligand, P. Gavaudan, M. P. Schützenberger and R. Thom, launching many new research domains on the fractal dimension, the combinatorial properties of the genetic code and related amino-acids as well as on the genetic regulation of the biological processes. Presently, the biological science knows that RNA molecules are often involved in the regulation of complex genetic networks as effectors, e.g., (...) activators, inhibitors or hybrids. Examples of such networks will be given showing that there exist RNA “relics” that have played an important role during evolution and have survived in many genomes, whose probability distribution of their sub-sequences is quantified by the Shannon entropy, and the robustness of the dynamics of the networks they regulate can be characterized by the Kolmogorov–Sinaï dynamic entropy and attractor entropy. (shrink)

Par son enseignement et par ses traductions de Kant, Jean-Pierre Fussler a influencé plusieurs générations d'étudiants. Croisant les approches, ce recueil de travaux en son honneur fait dialoguer perspectives kantiennes, lectures et relectures des œuvres de Kant, commentaires de son œuvre et études de sa réception contemporaine, mais aussi, plus généralement, questions éthiques, essais phénoménologiques et diverses études philosophiques qui s'accordent toutes sur la nécessité de la méthode, la diversité du rationalisme et les impératifs de la pensée critique."--Page (...) 4 of cover. (shrink)

In a remarkable exchange between neuroscientist Jean-Pierre Changeux and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, this book explores the vexed territory between these...

Building on the storytelling, political storytelling, and religious storytelling literatures, I examined the role religious stories play in the formation of revolutionary convictions. This study’s primary sources of data are volumes I, II, and III of The Gospel in Solentiname, a historical record of religious discussions that took place in an isolated campesino community at a seminary-like setting under a growing national revolutionary scenario in 1970s Nicaragua. My analysis of these discussions reveals that religious discourse based on stories of prophecy, (...) Christian virtue, miracles, and social challenges to revolutionary action allowed story-users to assert, explore, and promote models of action and moral orientation consistent with the making of revolution. (shrink)

Here Jean-Pierre Changeux elucidates our current knowledge of the human brain, taking an interdisciplinary approach and explaining in layman's terms the complex theories and scientific breakthroughs that have significantly improved our ...

Jean-Pierre Dupuy, prophet of what he calls "enlightened doomsaying," has long warned that modern society is on a path to self-destruction. In this book, he pleads for a subversion of this crisis from within, arguing that it is our lopsided view of religion and reason that has set us on this course. In denial of our sacred origins and hubristically convinced of the powers of human reason, we cease to know our own limits: our disenchanted world leaves us (...) defenseless against a headlong rush into the abyss of global warming, nuclear holocaust, and the other catastrophes that loom on our horizon. Reviving the religious anthropology of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Marcel Mauss and in dialogue with the work of René Girard, Dupuy shows that we must remember the world's sacredness in order to keep human violence in check. A metaphysical and theological detective, he tracks the sacred in the very fields where human reason considers itself most free from everything it judges irrational: science, technology, economics, political and strategic thought. In making such claims, The Mark of the Sacred takes on religion bashers, secularists, and fundamentalists at once. Written by one of the deepest and most versatile thinkers of our time, it militates for a world where reason is no longer an enemy of faith. (shrink)

La mécanique quantique est l'un des domaines de la physique les plus surprenants et controversés. Depuis le début, elle a suscité les plus vifs débats quant à sa signification et à son lien avec le réel. L'atomisme, la lumière ou les théories relativistes ont aussi défrayé la chronique, mais rien ne semble devoir arrêter les polémiques qui entourent l'interprétation des phénomènes quantiques. De Heisenberg à Schrödinger en passant par la fameuse controverse entre Einstein et Niels Bohr, Jean-Pierre Pharabod (...) et Gérard Klein n'omettent aucune péripétie de cette saga de la physique quantique qui mène aujourd'hui à l'affirmation pour le moins surprenante de la "non-localité" de la nature. C'est un nouveau défi à nos modes de pensée ordinaires. (shrink)

In an age of nationalisation of international educational policy, or vice versa, the politics and conflicts behind such policies often take centre stage to the detriment of professional expertise. In response, this article develops a nuanced critical realism to propose a practice-based development and implementation of educational policy reforms. Based on empirical reports of head teachers’ subversive practice, the article concludes by highlighting that professional expertise is a central component, dubbed ‘formless capability’, that all stakeholders use to turn policy intentions (...) into policy actions. Actuality consists of the three traditional domains of critical realism – the real, the actual and the empirical – whose importance is derived from whether it is a means to or an end in itself. It is argued here that empirical experiences of leading schools are the stage of actuality that is directly... (shrink)

England in the 1650s was the scene of a long series of prophetic and protest exhibitions of naked men and women in public places (streets, churches, universities...), causing scandal and misunderstanding among most of the public. These women and men went naked “as a sign”, thus renewing an episode of the Old Testament (Isaiah 20.2-3) by which they denounced the spiritual “nudity”, of those before whom they were exhibiting themselves. This practice sought to demonstrate what God was about to inflict (...) on them : a laying bare, a complete stripping of all their possessions, powers and social prerogatives. A gendered approach to these exhibitions of nudity reveals the theological-political and social stakes of a phenomenon that accompanied the birth and development of the Quaker movement and spread as far as New England. (shrink)

Jean-Pierre Vernant delineates a compelling new vision of ancient Greece that takesus far from the calm and familiar images of Polykleitos and the Parthenon, and reveals a culture ofslavery, of blood sacrifice, of perpetual and ritualized warfare, of ceremonial hunting andecstasies.In his provocative discussions of various institutions and practices including war,marriage, and the city state, Vernant unveils a complex and previously unexplored intersection ofthe religious, social, and political structures of ancient Greece. He concludes with a genealogy ofthe study (...) of myth from antiquity to the present, and offers a critique of structuralism.Jean-PierreVernant is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Study of Ancient Religions at the College de France inParis. (shrink)

La théorie du Contróle du Métabolisme décrit comment un réseau métabolique répond à de petites perturbations au voisinage d'un état stationnaire. Deux types de coefficients sont définis: les coefficients d'élaslicité qui quantifient les variations des vitesses des étapes isolées et les coefficients de contrôle qui expriment la réponse globale du réseau aux perturbations d'une étape donnée. Des relations entre ces coefficients existent ).On ne fait pas toujours la distinction entre Contrôle et Régulation. En fait, il apparait que la notion de (...) régulation, si elle est trés claire lorsqu'il s'agit de la régulation de l'activité d'un enzyme, West plus du tout définie lorsqu'il s'agit d'un réseau métabolique dans son ensemble.Le but de l'exposé est de proposer une définition de la régulation d'un réseau métabolique et de montrer quelles relations peuvent exister entre lee phénomènes de régulation et la théorie du contrôle du métabolisme.Quelques exemples seront donnés pour illustration. (shrink)

Erst kommt das Leben, dann der Tod, denken viele. Doch schon das Verweilen vor einem Grab eröffnet einen Dialog, der das Band zwischen dem Vergangenen und Gegenwärtigen spürbar werden lässt: Das Band der Kommunikation zwischen den Toten und den Lebenden scheint unzerreißbar. Der Tod? der eigene und der der anderen - ist eine Kategorie des Lebens, die jeden von uns zur Auseinandersetzung zwingt.0Das Buch von Jean-Pierre Wils ist seit langer Zeit der erste, großangelegte Versuch einer Lehre vom Tod, (...) einer Thanatologie, die ein umfassendes Panorama entfaltet: Todesarten, Todesangst, Todeszeitpunkt werden zum Thema ebenso wie die Frage nach der Unsterblichkeit, dem angemessenen Trösten und den Riten der Bestattung. Angesichts des Todes kommt die Philosophie an ihre Grenze? darum holt der Autor der Philosophie eine?Weggefährtin auf der Erkundungsfahrt zum Tod? an die Seite, nämlich die Literatur. So wird das Buch zu einem einmaligen Grenzgang zwischen Philosophie und Literatur, zwischen Reflexion und Narration und beglaubigt den Satz von Saint-Exupéry:?Es wird aussehen, als wäre ich tot, und das wird nicht wahr sein.? (shrink)

1. ProlégomènesL’usage de méthodes mathématiques pour traiter de données textuelles a une longue tradition. On se souvient que c’est en étudiant Pouchkine que Markov a élaboré ses chaînes. La linguistique mathématique (qui dépasse de très loin l’analyse des données textuelles) a connu un peu partout un essor important et a fourni des modèles à bon nombre de travaux portant sur le langage (Chomsky, Harris, Montague, …). On connaît aussi, via des mathématiques fort sophistiquées, la profonde in...

Jean-Pierre Faye analyse la conférence méconnue de Carl Schmitt : « Economie saine dans un Etat fort », tenue le 23 novembre 1932 devant les membres de « L’Union au Long Nom » (ou « Union pour la conservation des intérêts économiques communs en Rhénanie et Westphalie »). Schmitt y énonce la nécessité pour l’Allemagne d’un « Etat total », équivalent allemand à ses yeux de « l’État totalitaire » de l’Italie fasciste. Cette prise de parole aura un (...) effet décisif : trente-cinq représentants de la finance et de l’industrie allemandes, auditeurs de la conférence, adresseront une pétition à Hindenburg, président du Reich. Ils l’inciteront à appeler le « chef du grand mouvement » au poste de chancelier du Reich. Ce « mouvement » est le déjà criminel NSDAP : le Parti national-socialiste ouvrier allemand, le parti « nazi ». Le 30 janvier 33, Hitler sera chancelier. En neuf semaines, la conférence de Schmitt aura eu pour effet d’abattre tous les obstacles à l’avènement du Troisième Reich. La formule de « l’Etat total » a donc su transmettre aux temps et aux langages une charge à l’énergie insoupçonnée, porteuse des plus grands crimes. Ainsi est révélée la responsabilité centrale de Schmitt dans la mise en place du nazisme. Ce juriste, qui étrangement apparaît pour beaucoup aujourd’hui comme un penseur politique de référence, n’a d’abord avancé qu’une seule carte d’un jeu mortifère. Mais c’était une carte maîtresse, elle était dangereusement efficace pour faire passer le pire dans l’Histoire. Il était intéressant de lire en parallèle les « Journaux » de Schmitt et de mesurer l’attention portée par le juriste aux événements, dans les semaines qui précèdent et suivent l’arrivée d’Hitler à la chancellerie du Reich. Ce qui frappe est cependant la banalité quotidienne qui transparaît dans ces notes. Si ce n’est, peut-être, qu’un mot va lui paraître acquérir un poids nouveau : « Jude », « juif ». C’est son propre rôle, dans le nazisme, à lui Carl Schmitt, qu’il va découvrir par là... (shrink)

The question of aesthetic judgment is related to a lot of paradoxes that have marked sustainably the reflection on arts, and even arts as such during their modern history. These paradoxes have found a first formulation, apparently clear, in the very famous Hume's essay: "On the standard of taste", but without to lead to a real resolution. In this paper, I would like to approach the question of Hume by starting from what Wittgenstein suggested about aesthetic judgment in his Cambridge (...) lectures. To this end, I will try to give a wittgensteinian reading of Hume's essay, in order to show that though the question of aesthetic judgment makes certainly sense, the way of considering it - like the way Kant shall consider it later - can be regarded as typical of difficulties Wittgenstein tried to overcome in his investigations on rules. By giving an alternative formulation to this question, we should be able to examine differently the problems of the aesthetic judgment, to underline more precisely the originality of Wittgenstein's approach, and perhaps to better grasp what are its consequences, not only for a better comprehension of the relationship between Wittgenstein’s philosophy and art, but for the type of perplexity to which we must face everytime we meet the paradox inherent to the question of aesthetic appreciation as such: how can we conceive the very idea of a standard involving a normative meaning without making to faint what gives to a work of art its value. We shall see that Wittgenstein’s suggestions, though their contribution to a better understanding of this question is still affected by some ambiguities, are to be reconsidered under the light of his anti-essentialism, and that these ambiguities can be dissipated by dissociating, on one hand, what belongs to his own tastes or to his related thoughts and on the other hand what we can conceive through the ways which were opened by his philosophy beyond his personal inclinations. Despite what gives to the sphere of Wittgenstein's artistic interests its limited character; despite also what drives his attention towards another kind of problems, it may well be that his thought cast a bright light on current artistic practices and therefore on the questions they ask to philosophy. (shrink)

The history of the Nicaraguan Revolution has received considerable analytical attention. Typically, the successful overthrow of the Somoza regime in the late 1970s is associated with the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, a Marxist/socialist inspired vanguard group. While the role Christians played in the revolution is often acknowledged as a significant one, in part because many Sandinista cadres were Christian revolutionaries, little attention has been paid to the degree to which Sandinismo, as a unique perspective on socialism, shares elective affinities (...) with liberation theology, a prophetic expression of Christianity. This manuscript sets out to explore the relationship between liberation theology and Sandinismo-as-socialism. It starts by considering the perspective of Christian revolutionaries on this relationship. It then identifies the electives affinities between the aforementioned cultural frameworks, and it evaluates the Nicaraguan Revolution in light of these elective affinities. The latter evaluation includes exploring the connection between Saint Paul and what it means to be a Sandinista revolutionary. (shrink)

The development of a scientific theory of mind was thus significantly delayed."--BOOK JACKET.

Jean-Pierre Dupuy a tenu pendant la pandémie un « journal de pensée » d'un genre spécial : il réagit moins aux événements que nous avons tous vécus depuis le mois de mars 2020 qu'à la manière dont ces événements ont été analysés, discutés. Il le fait à la lumière de sa contribution majeure à la pensée de la catastrophe développée dans un livre fameux et souvent mal compris, Pour un catastrophisme éclairé. Quand l'impossible est certain (Seuil, 2002 ; (...) 2004). Voici un livre de combat mû par la colère. La colère de voir des intellectuels relativiser la gravité de la pandémie en cours, s'engager dans une critique virulente de sociétés et de gouvernants qu'ils jugent obsédés par la « protection de la vie », au point de sacrifier l'avenir du monde, de l'économie et des libertés publiques. Avec rigueur et détermination, Jean-Pierre Dupuy leur répond et met au jour les erreurs logiques - et scientifiques - qui sous-tendent ces raisonnements, et propose par là même une réflexion passionnante et passionnée sur la mort et la vie au temps de la pandémie."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This is the first English-language introduction to Peter Sloterdijk, the distinguished German philosopher and controversial public intellectual. Sloterdijk, in the tradition of Nietzsche and Heine, is an iconoclast who uses humour and biting critique to challenge many of modernitys sacred thinkers, from Kant to Heidegger, in the process radically reinterpreting the canon of Western philosophy. In this unique textbook, leading Sloterdijk expert Jean-Pierre Couture explains in accessible language Sloterdijks exceptional contribution, breaking his thought down into five key approaches: (...) psychopolitics, anthropotechnics, spherology, controversy, and therapeutics. Sloterdijks frequent public controversies, with supporters of Habermas and the Frankfurt school in particular, are assessed and their significance for current philosophical debates explained. This fascinating book will be an essential companion for those interested in the hybrid aesthetics of thought situated at the crossroads of art and philosophy. Its up-to-date analyses of Sloterdijks recently translated corpus will make it essential reading for all students and scholars of modern European thought. (shrink)

The relationship between the imaginary and the political has many aspects and it is not possible to address them all in this paper. We will choose to focus on the relationship between myth and national idea, on the one hand, and myth and political ideologies on the other. Before considering these questions, we will first present the work of Gilbert Durand from his articles “Le social et le mythique” and “La cité et les divisions du royaume” ; then we will (...) focus on the study of the two axes announced. This paper thus emphasizes the importance of the imaginary in politics and society. We will conclude with the current development, particularly in Western Europe, where myth no longer plays its unifying role for society. (shrink)

A Study of the History and Philosophy of Category Theory Jean-Pierre Marquis. to say that objects are dispensable in geometry. What is claimed is that the specific nature of the objects used is irrelevant. To use the terminology already ...

1 INSERM-CEA Unit 562, Cognitive Neuroimaging, Service Hospitalier Fre´de´ric Joliot, Orsay, France, 2 CNRS URA2182 Re´cepteurs and Cognition, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.

It is commonly assumed across the language sciences that some semantic participant information is lexically encoded in the representation of verbs and some is not. In this paper, we propose that semantic obligatoriness and verb class specificity are criteria which influence whether semantic information is lexically encoded. We present a comprehensive survey of the English verbal lexicon, a sentence continuation study, and an on-line sentence processing study which confirm that both factors play a role in the lexical encoding of participant (...) information. (shrink)