Les Cahiers La Boétie accueillent des travaux interdisciplinaires explorant tous les aspects et les enjeux de l'oeuvre de La Boétie.

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)

This paper is devoted to the proof of the following upward categoricity theorem: Let K be a tame abstract elementary class with amalgamation, arbitrarily large models, and countable Löwenheim-Skolem number. If K is categorical in ‮א‬₁ then K is categorical in every uncountable cardinal. More generally, we prove that if K is categorical in a successor cardinal λ⁺ then K is categorical everywhere above λ⁺.

Recently there has been a strong movement towards reflections about the “geography of reason,” especially among philosophers who deal with postcolonial thinking. There is also a renewed interest among different schools of thought, both analytical and continental, in the ways our “life world,” or “embodiment,” or “situated cognition,” shape our minds and eventually the philosophy we do. As a result, we have seen some recent publications on the nature and import of the concept of “place” by authors such as Edward (...) Casey, Jeff Malpas, and Bruce Janz. In Philosophy in an African place, Bruce Janz introduces the concept of “philosophy-in-place” with the question as to what it is to do philosophy in a particular context of lived experience or, more specifically, what it is to do philosophy in an African place. This paper expands on Janz's “philosophy-in-place” by developing what will be called a “philosophy through place.” It starts with Janz's discussion of the problem of placing philosophy and a philosophy-in-place. Then it attempts to develop an argument for a “philosophy through place” and its implications for considering the place of philosophy in Africa and the challenge it poses to philosophy. (shrink)

Epistemic Logic: 5 Questions is a collection of short interviews based on 5 questions presented to some of the most influential and prominent scholars in the field. We hear their views on the field, the aim, the scopes, the future direction of research and how their work fits in these respects.

The rise in computing and multimedia technology has spawned an increasing interest in the role of diagrams and sketches, not only for the purpose of conveying information but also for creative thinking and problem-solving. This book attempts to characterise the nature of "a science of diagrams" in a wide-ranging, multidisciplinary study that contains accounts of the most recent research results in computer science and psychology. Key topics include: cognitive aspects, formal aspects, and applications. It is a well-written and indispensable survey (...) for researchers and students in the fields of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and graphics and visualisation. (shrink)

_Les philosophes face au vice, de Socrate à Augustin_ explore la manière dont les philosophes de l’Antiquité ont tracé une cartographie des vices, analysé leurs causes et leurs effets, et se sont interrogés sur leurs usages. _Les philosophes face au vice, de Socrate à Augustin_ explores how ancient philosophers described the vices, delineated their various kinds, accounted for their causes and effects, and reflected on how to use them.

Comment aborder de manière pédagogique la question de l'identité de l'homme dans l'enseignement et l'apprentissage des sciences humaines? Dans cet essai de philosophie pédagogique, voilà l'unique préoccupation à laquelle s'efforce de répondre Olivier Nkulu Kabamba en sa double qualité d'enseignant universitaire en sciences humaines et de philosophe formé en sciences humaines.

Urban agriculture is an important source of food and income throughout Africa. The majority of cultivators on the continent are women who use urban agriculture to provide for their family. Much research on urban agriculture in Africa focuses on the material benefits of urban agriculture for women, but a smaller body of literature considers its social and psychological empowering effects. The present study seeks to contribute to this debate by looking at the ways in which urban agriculture empowers women on (...) the Cape Flats, a region of Cape Town where urban agriculture is supported by nongovernmental organisations. Based on interviews with cultivators, the findings show that NGO-run urban agriculture projects not only aid food security, but also help women to develop supportive networks that unlock benefits across the personal, social and economic spectrum. (shrink)

Violence -- Poliltical philosophy -- Critical theory -- Science and arts in international relations -- Psyche -- Aesthetics -- Tolstoi's War and peace.

When individuals hold expectations about other people, they can elicit from these targets behaviors that are consistent with their expectations, even if these expectations are independent of the target’s real characteristics. In this paper, we consider the role that this phenomenon, known as behavioral confirmation, plays in shaping the social perceptions of perceivers, targets, and outside observers. As well, we address the value of laboratory research on behavioral confirmation for understanding the dynamics and outcomes of social interactions in naturally occurring (...) settings. Building on these considerations, we then examine the role of behavioral confirmation phenomena in shaping intergroup relations, with particular reference to delineating conditions in which such phenomena serve to preserve these relations. Based on this analysis, we suggest that dyadic confirmation phenomena are likely to occur in naturally occurring settings and may contribute to the maintenance and perpetuation of social stereotypes and societal structures. (shrink)

In Why pains are not mental objects Guy Douglasrightly argues that pains are modes rather than objects ofperceptions or sensations. In this paper I try to go a stepfurther and argue that there are circumstances when pains canbecome objects even while they remain modes of experience.By analysing cases of extreme pain as presented by Scarry,Sartre, Wiesel, Grahek and Wall, I attempt to show thatintense physical pain may evolve into a force that, likeimagination, can make our most intense state of experiencebecome (...) a mental object. I shall finally argue that, thoughextreme pains cannot serve as paradigm cases, they do showthe general importance of taking pain states to be objects. (shrink)

Comment interpréter le regain d'intérêt pour les réflexions sur la transcendance, la quête de sens, la morale et l'éthique dans nos sociétés contemporaines? C'est ce sur quoi Lawrence Olivier et Yves Boisvert se sont penchés dans cet ouvrage ; le premier accuse les théoriciens de la postmodernité d'être de grands fabulateurs qui font la promotion de la reconfiguration des systèmes moraux, tandis que le second reproche aux nihilistes d'être de grands nostalgiques de la Vérité qui ont sombré dans un (...) fatalisme total et un individualisme radical face à l'échec du projet de la modernité. Leur désaccord portant principalement sur l'interprétation à donner à ce retour des grands questionnements sur les valeurs et le sens de la vie, l'hypothèse de base est que les individus ont besoin de croire à une certaine forme de transcendance et qu'ils ressentent un profond besoin de donner un sens à leur vie. Invités à se prononcer sur cette question, anthropologues, philosophes, politicologues, sociologues et théologiens livrent ici leurs propres analyses de cette problématique par un riche panorama des réflexions sur la sexualité, la mort, la mode, l'art, les jeunes de la rue, les activités extrêmes, la religion et la pop psycho. Sans épuiser la problématique de la transcendance contemporaine, cet ouvrage stimulera la curiosité de tous les lecteurs intéressés aux nouvelles valeurs culturelles ou aux nouveaux comportements sociétaux. (shrink)

The title of this essay may look surprising, if not provocative. What connection is to be found between education and slogans? The latter, first and foremost, are part of the world of publicity and propaganda; they obey a concise, punch-packing formula which aims not to instruct, but to provoke action. The word slogan is furthermore distinctly pejorative. Well…?Well, I shall raise two questions. First: does not education in effect make use of slogans, unintentionally? After all, the slogan is not confined (...) to the area of publicity and propaganda; slogans existed before them, and they exist apart from them; they are a function of language. It is therefore justifiable to look for slogans where one least expects to find them, and where it is hardest to recognize them for what they are. (shrink)

« L’une des manifestations principales de l’emprise du néolibéralisme autoritaire sur la vie des individus consiste dans la destruction des systèmes publics d’éducation ayant pour fonction de former le citoyen et d’émanciper l’homme. s’agit-il seulement d’un échec des politiques d’éducation? Ou ne s’agit-il pas plutôt de projets de non-éducation? La philosophie de Theodor W. Adorno permet de penser les conditions de ce que nous appelons ici la non-éducation, en suivant une approche critique, négative et dialectique. Nous en actualisons, dans cet (...) article, plusieurs thèmes, permettant d’éclairer la situation présente : 1) la pensée mythique, 2) l’industrie culturelle, 3) les pratiques autoritaires. À cela s’ajoute une condition portant sur 4) les tabous liés à la sexualité. certes, lorsqu’Adorno traite de l’éducation et de l’émancipation, la question de la sexualité – ou de sa répression – n’apparaît pas au premier plan. permet-elle de mettre au jour des limites du projet critique lui-même? Ou d’éclairer certains tabous qui lui seraient inhérents, lesquels refléteraient aussi certains tabous du monde enseignant? ». (shrink)

The somewhat disturbing success of bioethics as a discipline is probably due to the unique nature of its subject matter. Indeed what is it that happens when scientific interest, with its particular resources and language, turns toward the study of the human body? Can this body be instrumentalized like any other object, or do the sciences have to give way here before a taboo subject? Have the sciences not, without their knowing it, taken on an unprecedented signification? The truly prodigious (...) growth of new fields of biological knowledge has thrust biology into the public arena. Extending more than ever beyond the status of narrowly scientific knowledge, these new fields have taken on a mythological and normative character in the social imagination. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is mainly to give a model of paraconsistent logic satisfying the "Frege comprehension scheme" in which we can develop standard set theory (and even much more as we shall see). This is the continuation of the work of Hinnion and Libert.

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)

This article focuses in a comparative manner on the thought of Merleau-Ponty and Lyotard with a view to lending sup port to Busch's claim, that 'existentialism' preceded poststructuralism and postmodernism as far as criticism of certain features of modern philosophy are concerned. Attention is first given to Lyotard's critique of artificial intelligence, especially in so far as it displays a dependence on and development of insights on the part of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological-existential understanding of human embodiment and the specificity of human (...) perception. The focus then shifts to Merleau-Ponty in order to demonstrate the remarkable extent to which his understanding of human embodiment and related issues such as perception and creativity, paved the way for the work of, among others, Lyotard, and anticipated the critique of artificial intelligence on the part of the latter. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.21(1) 2002: 45-62. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of evil from an ethical and discourse-analytical perspective, taking Joan Copjec's commentary on Kant's notion of ‘radical evil' and its relation to human freedom as its point of departure. Specifically, Copjec's argument, that for Kant (and, one may add, for Lacan) the subject is always ‘in excess of itself', provides an important foil for, or corrective to what may seem to be the upshot of Foucault's notion of discourse (its heuristic value notwithstanding). The latter entails (...) that, insofar as the subject is ineluctably discursively constructed, its actions could be understood as being ‘determined' by the discursive structure of (its) subjectivity. That is, the subject as agent may seem to lack volitional freedom in the sense that it is merely an instrument of a certain discourse by which it is ‘spoken'. However, Kant's idea of ‘radical evil', it is further argued, presupposes that the subject is free, in other words, that it always exceeds itself. In Foucault's terms, this would mean that the subject of discourse is able to adopt a counter-discursive position – something Foucault sometimes seems to make room for. What Kant calls ‘radical evil' may be understood as something that occurs in the world through human agency, in the face of the possibility of an alternative course of action; that is, it is chosen – even if we only know this in retrospect through the phenomenon of guilt. If, in contrast, it is understood as being ‘diabolical' in the sense of being unavoidably and irresistibly part and parcel of human ‘nature', no one could condemn it in moral terms. This line of thinking is fleshed out, or given concrete significance by means of a discourse-analysis of documents pertaining to the so-called ‘ripper-rapist' (criminal) case in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in the mid-1990s. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.22(4) 2003: 328-347. (shrink)

À propos de : Nathalie Heinich, Des valeurs. Une approche sociologique, Paris, Gallimard, coll. « Bibliothèque des Sciences humaines », 2017, 416 p. Si jusqu’à présent les articles publiés par Nathalie Heinich sur la question des valeurs restaient modestes dans leurs ambitions et à ce titre inconsistants dans leurs propositions, Des valeurs. Une approche sociologique constitue à l’inverse une somme soigneusement élaborée. Et au-delà des polémiques extra-scientifiques suscitées par l’obtention...

In times in which we ask ourselves how political cruelty and torments can be forgotten, Nietzsche's pleadoyer for pain to serve the purpose of education, surprises. What might sound like a mere provocation, rather lies at the heart of the Nietzschean philosophy. As is pointed out, Nietzsche's contention that pain is the most powerful aid to mnemonics, originates from his philosophy of pain as the main condition of all forms of creation. The title “educating (bilden) pain” expresses Nietsche's advocacy of (...) an education towards pain as the dynamo of creation. In this paper I explore how Nietzsche's notion of pain is linked to two concepts of Bildung. In the first part I investigate the relation between pain and “Bildung” in the sense of “creation”, and in the second part I link this to the relation between pain and “Bildung” in the sense of “education”. By these means, I try to answer the question: how far can pain, which is seen as the condition of creation, be linked to conditions of education. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.21(2) 2002: 122-132. (shrink)

Deux des trois tablettes en linéaire Β trouvées en 1990 à La Canée (datées avec certitude par les fouilleurs de la fin du MR IIIB1 : + 1250) ont été écrites par un scribe déjà connu à Knossos (lequel était supposé — suivant l'opinion la plus généralement acceptée — avoir exercé son activité au début du MR IIIA2 : + 1370). L'établissement de cette évidence épigraphique devra faire revoir — à la baisse — la datation d'au moins une des destructions (...) (la dernière?) du palais mycénien de Knossos et aura des conséquences non négligeables sur ce que l'on croyait savoir de plus d'un siècle de l'histoire de la civilisation mycénienne en Crète. (shrink)

XV, Les rois de Paphos avant et après le siège de 498 : l'Étewandros connu par les bracelets du « trésor de Curium » peut être le roi Ituandar de la liste assyrienne de 672. Pillage de Paphos en 498. Contrairement à ce qu'on avait pu croire, l'onomastique des rois postérieurs au siège reste grecque. XVI, Notes sur le « trésor de Curium » : les récits de la fouille de la nécropole de Courion, dans la correspondance de Cesnola, montrent (...) comment a été forgé, peu à peu, le mythe du « trésor de Curium ». XVII, Quelques inscriptions difficiles de Kouklia-Paphos et un trait de la phonétique paphienne : l'étude de certains noms montre comment, en dialecte paphien, le xi peut se simplifier en sigma. (shrink)

Les inscriptions en linéaire Β des nodules de Thèbes (1982) : la fouille, les documents, les possibilités d'interprétation. P. 103-184 Les inscriptions en linéaire Β portées par les 56 nodules en argile — lesquels présentent également une empreinte de sceau — qui ont été trouvés en 1982 à Thèbes avaient déjà été glosées ici ou là mais jamais véritablement éditées. On trouvera ici photographie, dessin et transcription des faces portant les groupes de signes, le tout accompagné d'un apparat critique et (...) d'index. L'édition est précédée d'une introduction archéologique et suivie de commentaires épigraphiques, paléographiques et philologiques. Enfin, l'on s'interrogera sur l'interprétation qu'il convient de donner de ce groupe homogène de documents, lesquels avaient été réunis dans un but bien précis : la solution est sans doute fournie par une tablette en linéaire Β de Pylos qui présente des similitudes chiffrées étonnantes avec notre ensemble de nodules inscrits. (shrink)