The currently burgeoning discussions on ‘socio-ecological resilience’ tend to mask the power relations, contradictions of interest, and inequalities that to a large extent determine how humans utilize the surface of the Earth. Resilience theory has the potential to radically confront such power structures by identifying some of the basic assumptions of economics as the very source of vulnerability, mismanagement, and crises. It has every reason to critically scrutinise the operation of general-purpose money, the global market, and neoliberal ideology. The ultimate (...) implications of resilience theory, in other words, are vastly more radical and subversive than its current proponents imagine. A strategy to enhance socio-ecological resilience would be to distinguish local from global economic scales by employing separate currencies for the two levels. Proponents of resilience theory are advised to engage more respectfully with social science, particularly its understandings of culture and power. Upon doing so, they would find the idea of a bi-centric economy, as sketched in this article, entirely consistent with the fundamental insights of resilience theory. (shrink)

The currently burgeoning discussions on ‘socio-ecological resilience’ tend to mask the power relations, contradictions of interest, and inequalities that to a large extent determine how humans utilize the surface of the Earth. Resilience theory has the potential to radically confront such power structures by identifying some of the basic assumptions of economics as the very source of vulnerability, mismanagement, and crises. It has every reason to critically scrutinise the operation of general-purpose money, the global market, and neoliberal ideology. The ultimate (...) implications of resilience theory, in other words, are vastly more radical and subversive than its current proponents imagine. A strategy to enhance socio-ecological resilience would be to distinguish local from global economic scales by employing separate currencies for the two levels. Proponents of resilience theory are advised to engage more respectfully with social science, particularly its understandings of culture and power. Upon doing so, they would find the idea of a bi-centric economy, as sketched in this article, entirely consistent with the fundamental insights of resilience theory. (shrink)

Translation: How did life originate? What were the first life forms? How did the cells of our body evolve? Is natural selection the only mechanism whereby evolution occurs? What did Darwin mean with the term natural selection and do we still use that definition today? Does evolution occur slow or fast? Are we determined by our genes? We all ask ourselves these questions from time to time. Scientists however often get too technical and philosophers too speculative in their answers. This (...) book aims to form a bridge between the life and human sciences. Questions on the origin and evolution of life are analyzed critically from within different disciplines. The result is a state of the art, accessible for philosophers and scientists as well as non-academics. Many of the answered proposed can thereby be understood as complements, deviations and alternatives to the standard paradigm of biology, the Modern Synthesis. These deviating statements are bundles into 15 theses. The question then becomes in how far the Modern Synthesis should become the subject of revision based upon these theses. Original: Hoe is leven ontstaan? Welke vorm nam het eerste leven aan? Hoe ontstonden de cellen waaruit ons lichaam is opgebouwd? Is natuurlijke selectie het enige mechanisme waarlangs evolutie zich voordoet? Wat bedoelde Darwin met natuurlijke selectie en gebruiken we deze definitie vandaag nog? Voltrekt evolutie zich traag of snel? Worden we gedetermineerd door onze genen? We stellen ons allemaal deze vragen wel eens. Wetenschappers worden echter algauw te technisch en filosofen te speculatief bij het beantwoorden ervan. Dit boek wil een brug slaan tussen de natuurwetenschappen en de menswetenschappen en de vragen omtrent de oorsprong en evolutie van leven, kritisch en nuchter, vanuit verschillende disciplines analyseren. Het resultaat is een huidige stand van zaken, leesbaar, zowel voor filosofen als wetenschappers en ook voor de leek. Vele van de voorgestelde antwoorden kunnen daarbij begrepen worden als aanvullingen, afwijkingen of alternatieven van het standaardparadigma in de biologie: de Moderne Synthese. Deze afwijkende stellingen werden gebundeld in 15 thesen. De vraag is in hoeverre de Moderne Synthese, in relatie met deze thesen, onderwerp voor herziening moet zijn. (shrink)

Written for non-experts, this volume introduces the mechanisms that underlie reticulate evolution. Chapters are either accompanied with glossaries that explain new terminology or timelines that position pioneering scholars and their major discoveries in their historical contexts. The contributing authors outline the history and original context of discovery of symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, hybridization or divergence with gene flow, and infectious heredity. By applying key insights from the areas of molecular (phylo)genetics, microbiology, virology, ecology, systematics, immunology, epidemiology and computational science, (...) they demonstrate how reticulate evolution impacts successful survival, fitness and speciation. Reticulate evolution brings forth a challenge to the standard Neo-Darwinian framework, which defines life as the outcome of bifurcation and ramification patterns brought forth by the vertical mechanism of natural selection. Reticulate evolution puts forward a pattern in the tree of life that is characterized by horizontal mergings and lineage crossings induced by symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, hybridization or divergence with gene flow, and infective heredity, making the “tree of life” look more like a “web of life.” On an epistemological level, the various means by which hereditary material can be transferred horizontally challenges our classic notions of units and levels of evolution, fitness, modes of transmission, linearity, communities, and biological individuality. The case studies presented examine topics including the origin of the eukaryotic cell and its organelles through symbiogenesis; the origin of algae through primary and secondary symbiosis and dinoflagellates through tertiary symbiosis; the superorganism and holobiont as units of evolution; how endosymbiosis induces speciation in multicellular life forms; transferrable and non-transferrable plasmids and how they symbiotically interact with their host; the means by which pro- and eukaryotic organisms transfer genes laterally (bacterial transformation, transduction and conjugation as well as transposons and other mobile genetic elements); hybridization and divergence with gene flow in sexually-reproducing individuals; current (human) microbiome and viriome studies that impact our knowledge concerning the evolution of organismal health and acquired immunity; and how symbiosis and symbiogenesis can be modelled in computational evolution. (shrink)

La valeur d’authenticité est intimement liée à la modernité. Elle se déploie sous de nombreux aspects : statut des œuvres d’art, psychologie de la création, éthique romanesque, conceptions religieuses, psychanalyse, droit, patrimoine, arts premiers, marques commerciales… Il s’agira ici de dégager, au-delà de la diversité de ses mises en œuvre, la constance et l’essor d’une exigence de pureté, inséparable de la conception que se font de la modernité tant l’historien et l’historien d’art que les gens ordinaires.

Since 2001, the Commission of the European Union has instigated Peer Reviews to help countries preparing to accede to the European Union. Added to this has been the provision of workshops and individual expert inputs. This article recounts the experiences of the author in this process. It focuses on how a single directive has revealed major ethical challenges for nurses, their national associations and state governments as they seek to implement the changes required. In particular a sub-agenda has emerged relating (...) to general education, access to higher education and the position of women in these countries. The ethical challenges include freedom to practice and creation of competent authorities to provide proper oversight of the health care professions. In 2011, the directive is being reviewed and this article offers arguments for its continuation, even in an unreformed state. (shrink)

David Abram est l’un des protagonistes les plus influents de la philosophie environnementale, aux confluents de l’écosophie d’Arne Næss et de l’ontologie de la chair de Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Cette brève contribution relève certains motifs et arguments centraux de la pensée d’Abram, en particulier son interprétation de la spécificité de l’animalité humaine et la perception du caractère animé du paysage. Elle ancre Abram dans une cosmologie animiste et donne une réponse à la question de la forme que pourrait prendre une sagesse (...) indigène contemporaine en Occident. (shrink)

L’authenticité est peu étudiée par les économistes, quand est abordée, c’est à travers les liens qu’elle entretient avec la qualité. Nous montrons que tant qu’il était possible d’établir la qualité artistique de l’œuvre à partir d’un étalon prédéterminé, la question de l’authenticité se réduisait à celle d’attribution : comment les faux, les copies perturbent-ils le déroulement normal des échanges. Nous montrons l’apparition de la convention d’originalité au milieu du xixe siècle a conduit a opacifier la notion d’authenticité a été opacifiée. (...) Son registre n’est plus celui de la simple attribution mais également celui de la sincérité d’une démarche. Par ailleurs elle n’intervient plus seulement en aval mais participe à la définition même de la qualité. Pour être reconnue comme artistique, l’originalité produite ne doit pas être fortuite, mais refléter la sincérité de l’artiste. (shrink)

Melancholia Africana argues that in the African and Afro-diasporic context, melancholy is rooted in collective experiences such as slavery, colonization, and the post-colony.

La sensation d'être soumis à une contrainte implacable peut déclencher une souffrance intense, une activité délirante, ou bien une créativité irrépressible. Elle peut prendre la forme d'une "machine" à influencer. Cette figure majeure de la maladie psychique depuis deux cents ans est le point de départ et le fil conducteur pour éclairer la structure complexe et paradoxale de la subjectivité. Loin d'être un outil technique, elle est un enjeu d'abord existentiel et esthétique. De Tausk à Szondi et Maldiney, de Merleau-Ponty (...) à Guattari et Deleuze, de Deligny à Nauman et Duchamp, de Sobchack à Epstein et Godard, et enfin, à nouveau, de Merleau-Ponty à Guattari, on voit émerger les contours d'une subjectivité en tension,toujours déjà habitée d'une altérité qui la garde en mouvement. Et l'ontologie de la chair apparaît finalement comme un champ essentiellement politique. (shrink)

Technical Delusions in Schizophrenia: productivity and Limits of an AnalogyIn the debates on psychosis, the cases of "technical delusions" or "influencing machines" are regularly coming back, both in phenomenological and psychoanalytical psychiatry. As Alfred Kraus points out in the 1990s, "Even if such delusions do not represent the most frequent content in schizophrenia, they receive relatively high consideration for the diagnosis of schizophrenia". And more recently, he notes that, "It is not by chance that people with schizophrenia so often use (...) technical metaphors to explain their schizophrenic experiences", but he then concludes that they are not in fact metaphors, at least... (shrink)

Applied Evolutionary Epistemology is a scientific-philosophical theory that defines evolution as the set of phenomena whereby units evolve at levels of ontological hierarchies by mechanisms and processes. This theory also provides a methodology to study evolution, namely, studying evolution involves identifying the units that evolve, the levels at which they evolve, and the mechanisms and processes whereby they evolve. Identifying units and levels of evolution in turn requires the development of ontological hierarchy theories, and examining mechanisms and processes necessitates theorizing (...) about causality. Together, hierarchy and causality theories explain how biorealities form and diversify with time. This paper analyzes how Applied EE redefines both hierarchy and causality theories in the light of the recent explosion of network approaches to causal reasoning associated with studies on reticulate and macroevolution. Causality theories have often been framed from within a rigid, ladder-like hierarchy theory where the rungs of the ladder represent the different levels, and the elements on the rungs represent the evolving units. Causality then is either defined reductionistically as an upward movement along the strands of a singular hierarchy, or holistically as a downward movement along that same hierarchy. Upward causation theories thereby analyze causal processes in time, i.e. over the course of natural history or phylogenetically, as Darwin and the founders of the Modern Synthesis intended. Downward causation theories analyze causal processes in space, ontogenetically or ecologically, as the current eco-evo-devo schools are evidencing. This work demonstrates how macroevolution and reticulate evolution theories add to the complexity by examining reticulate causal processes in space–time, and the interactional hierarchies that such studies bring forth introduce a new form of causation that is here called reticulate causation. Reticulate causation occurs between units and levels belonging to different as well as to the same ontological hierarchies. This article concludes that beyond recognizing the existence of multiple units, levels, and mechanisms or processes of evolution, also the existence of multiple kinds of evolutionary causation as well as the existence of multiple evolutionary hierarchies needs to be acknowledged. This furthermore implies that evolution is a pluralistic process divisible into different kinds. (shrink)

Sociologue hors normes, Norbert Elias, né en Allemagne en 1897, mort aux Pays-Bas en 1990, est considéré comme l'un des plus grands représentants de sa discipline. Son oeuvre n'a été introduite en France que dans les années 1970, mais bénéficie aujourd'hui d'une reconnaissance internationale et pluridisciplinaire. Pour introduire à cette oeuvre au croisement et de l'histoire, de l'anthropologie et de la psychologie et en restituer l'unité substantielle, Nathalie Heinich dégage d'abord les motifs sous-jacents aux grands travaux d'Elias sur le (...) processus de civilisation et ses choix : la contextualisation plutôt que la généralisation, les relations plutôt que les objets, la neutralité plutôt que le jugement de valeur. Comment penser avec Elias? C'est ce que propose cet ouvrage, à l'approche didactique. (shrink)

Comment l’art vient-il aux personnes, aux objets, aux activités? Comment passe-t-on d’une activité quelconque à un art, d’un simple artefact à une oœuvre et d’un praticien à un artiste? C’est cette opération qu’explore ce livre, sous le nom d’« artification » : un déplacement durable et collectivement assumé de la frontière entre art et non-art. Conditions pratiques, techniques, sémantiques, juridiques, institutionnelles, organisationnelles... Les enquêtes réunies ici explorent ces différentes dimensions avec les outils de la sociologie pragmatique, attentive à la matérialité (...) des actions observées en situation. Le lecteur circulera ainsi de la danse hip-hop à la photographie, du graf aux métiers d’art, de l’art naïf à l’art brut, des arts primitifs au théâtre, du cirque à la magie, de la typographie au cinéma, de la mode aux objets de culte et de la bande dessinée au patrimoine. Et c’est au terme de ce petit voyage en artification qu’il aura enfin réponse, précisément, à la question : quand y a-t-il art? (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir and the Colonial Experience presents a gendered and female perspective of French colonialism between 1946 and 1962. Beauvoir’s colonial reflections can help us to better gauge how women—White, Asian, Arab, Caribbean, Latina, mixed race, and Black—decipher the crimes and injustices of French colonialism.