Marx says of alienated labor that it does not “belong” to the worker, that it issues in a product that does not belong to her, and that it is unfulfilling, unfree, egoistically motivated, and inhuman. He seems to think, moreover, that the first of these features grounds all the others. All of these features seem quite independent, however: they can come apart; they share no obvious common cause or explanation; and if they often occur together, this seems accidental. It is (...) not clear, then, how Marx’s concept of alienated labor could possess the strong unity that he takes it to have. This article defends a reinterpretation of the concept that explains this unity. The various features of alienated labor, the article argues, all follow from a single, hitherto underappreciated feature of its formal motivational structure: the fact that such labor is motivated not by its product but by an incentive. (shrink)

Previous chapter In a book that was only recently translated into English, Die Form des Werdens: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Embryologie, 1760-1830, Janina Wellmann has claimed that around 1800 the concept of rhythm emerged and penetrated the entire Western culture. In literature, in theoretical reflection on art, in philosophy, and above all in the newest life sciences, rhythm became, she argues, a common scientific “Paradigm” or better yet, a new “Episteme” - Sur le concept de rythme.

Since its origin, bioethics has attracted the collaboration of few social scientists, and social scientific methods of gathering empirical data have remained unfamiliar to ethicists. Recently, however, the clouded relations between the empirical and normative perspectives on bioethics appear to be changing. Three reasons explain why there was no easy and consistent input of empirical evidence into bioethics. Firstly, interdisciplinary dialogue runs the risk of communication problems and divergent objectives. Secondly, the social sciences were absent partners since the beginning of (...) bioethics. Thirdly, the meta‐ethical distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ created a ‘natural’ border between the disciplines. Now, bioethics tends to accommodate more empirical research. Three hypotheses explain this emergence. Firstly, dissatisfaction with a foundationalist interpretation of applied ethics created a stimulus to incorporate empirical research in bioethics. Secondly, clinical ethicists became engaged in empirical research due to their strong integration in the medical setting. Thirdly, the rise of the evidence‐based paradigm had an influence on the practice of bioethics. However, a problematic relationship cannot simply and easily evolve into a perfect interaction. A new and positive climate for empirical approaches has arisen, but the original difficulties have not disappeared. (shrink)

Presents results of free‐recall experiments conducted in France, Gabon and Nepal, to test predictions of a cognitive model of religious concepts. The world over, these concepts include violations of conceptual expectations at the level of domain knowledge (e.g., about ‘animal’ or ‘artifact’ or ‘person’) rather than at the basic level. In five studies we used narratives to test the hypothesis that domain‐level violations are recalled better than other conceptual associations. These studies used material constructed in the same way as religious (...) concepts, but not used in religions familiar to the subjects. Experiments 1 and 2 confirmed a distinctiveness effect for such material. Experiment 3 shows that recall also depends on the possibility to generate inferences from violations of domain expectations. Replications in Gabon (Exp. 4) and Nepal (Exp. 5) showed that recall for domain‐level violations is better than for violations of basic‐level expectations. Overall sensitivity to violations is similar in different cultures and produces similar recall effects, despite differences in commitment to religious belief, in the range of local religious concepts or in their mode of transmission. However, differences between Gabon and Nepal results suggest that familiarity with some types of domain‐level violations may paradoxically make other types more salient. These results suggest that recall effects may account for the recurrent features found in religious concepts from different cultures. (shrink)

In this critical introduction to contemporary philosophical issues in the theory of truth Pascal Engel provides clear and authoritative exposition of recent and current ideas while providing original perspectives that advances discussion of the key issues. This book begins with a presentation of the classical conceptions of truth - the correspondence theory, the coherence theory and verificationist and pragmatist accounts - before examining so-called minimalist and deflationist conceptions that deny truth can be anything more than a thin concept holding (...) no metaphysical weight. The debates between those who favour substantive conceptions of the classical kind and those who advocate minimalist and deflationist conceptions are explored. Engel argues that, although the minimalist conception of truth is basically right, it does not follow that truth can be eliminated from our philosophical thinking as some upholders of radical deflationist views have claimed. Questions about truth and realism are examined and the author shows how the realism/anti-realism debate remains a genuine, meaningful issue for a theory of truth and has not been undermined by deflationist views. Even if a metaphysical substantive theory of truth has little chance to succeed, Engel concludes, truth can keep a central role within our thinking, as a norm or guiding value of our rational inquiries and practices, in the philosophy of knowledge and in ethics. (shrink)

Ritualized behavior, intuitively recognizable by its stereotypy, rigidity, repetition, and apparent lack of rational motivation, is found in a variety of life conditions, customs, and everyday practices: in cultural rituals, whether religious or non-religious; in many children's complicated routines; in the pathology of obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD); in normal adults around certain stages of the life-cycle, birthing in particular. Combining evidence from evolutionary anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroimaging, we propose an explanation of ritualized behavior in terms of an evolved Precaution System geared (...) to the detection of and reaction to inferred threats to fitness. This system, distinct from fear-systems geared to respond to manifest danger, includes a repertoire of clues for potential danger as well as a repertoire of species-typical precautions. In OCD pathology, this system does not supply a negative feedback to the appraisal of potential threats, resulting in doubts about the proper performance of precautions, and repetition of action. Also, anxiety levels focus the attention on low-level gestural units of behavior rather than on the goal-related higher-level units normally used in parsing the action-flow. Normally automatized actions are submitted to cognitive control. This “swamps” working memory, an effect of which is a temporary relief from intrusions but also their long-term strengthening. Normal activation of this Precaution System explains intrusions and ritual behaviors in normal adults. Gradual calibration of the system occurs through childhood rituals. Cultural mimicry of this system's normal input makes cultural rituals attention-grabbing and compelling. A number of empirical predictions follow from this synthetic model. (Published Online February 8 2007) Key Words: childhood ritual; compulsion; event boundaries; evolutionary psychology; obsessive-compulsive disorder; ritual; thought intrusion. (shrink)

What is truth? What value should we see in or attribute to it? The war over the meaning and utility of truth is at the center of contemporary philosophical debate, and its arguments have rocked the foundations of philosophical practice. In this book, the American pragmatist Richard Rorty and the French analytic philosopher Pascal Engel present their radically different perspectives on truth and its correspondence to reality. Rorty doubts that the notion of truth can be of any practical use (...) and points to the preconceptions that lie behind truth in both the intellectual and social spheres. Engel prefers a realist conception, defending the relevance and value of truth as a norm of belief and inquiry in both science and the public domain. Rorty finds more danger in using the notion of truth than in getting rid of it. Engel thinks it is important to hold on to the idea that truth is an accurate representation of reality. In Rorty's view, epistemology is an artificial construct meant to restore a function to philosophy usurped by the success of empirical science. Epistemology and ontology are false problems, and with their demise goes the Cartesian dualism of subject and object and the ancient problematic of appearance and reality. Conventional "philosophical problems," Rorty asserts, are just symptoms of the professionalism that has disfigured the discipline since the time of Kant. Engel, however, is by no means as complacent as Rorty in heralding the "end of truth," and he wages a fierce campaign against the "veriphobes" who deny its value. _What's the Use of Truth?_ is a rare opportunity to experience each side of this impassioned debate clearly and concisely. It is a subject that has profound implications not only for philosophical inquiry but also for the future study of all aspects of our culture. (shrink)

Ownership is universal and ubiquitous in human societies, yet the psychology underpinning ownership intuitions is generally not described in a coherent and computationally tractable manner. Ownership intuitions are commonly assumed to derive from culturally transmitted social norms, or from a mentally represented implicit theory. While the social norms account is entirelyad hoc, the mental theory requires prior assumptions about possession and ownership that must be explained. Here I propose such an explanation, arguing that the intuitions result from the interaction of (...) two cognitive systems. One of these handles competitive interactions for the possession of resources observed in many species including humans. The other handles mutually beneficial cooperation between agents, as observed in communal sharing, collective action and trade. Together, these systems attend to specific cues in the environment, and produce definite intuitions such as “this is hers,” “that is not mine.” This computational model provides an explanation for ownership intuitions, not just in straightforward cases of property, but also in disputed ownership (squatters, indigenous rights), historical changes (abolition of slavery), as well as apparently marginal cases, such as the questions, whether people own their seats on the bus, or their places in a queue, and how people understand “cultural appropriation” and slavery. In contrast to some previous theories, the model is empirically testable and free ofad hocstipulations. (shrink)

Two experiments were conducted to show that the IF … THEN … rules used in the different versions of Wason 's selection task are not psychologically—though they are logically—equivalent. Some of these rules are considered by the participants as strict logical conditionals, whereas others are interpreted as expressing a biconditional relationship. A deductive task was used jointly with the selection task to show that the original abstract rule is quite ambiguous in this respect, contrary to deontic rules: the typical “error” (...) made by most people may indeed be explained by the fact that they consider the abstract rule as a biconditional. Thus, there is no proper error or bias in the selection task as it is still argued, but a differential interpretation of the rule. The need for taking into account a pragmatic component in the process of reasoning is illustrated by the experiments. (shrink)

Recent work in biology, cognitive psychology, and archaeology has renewed evolutionary perspectives on the role of natural selection in the emergence and recurrent forms of religious thought and behavior, i.e., mental representations of supernatural agents, as well as artifacts, ritual practices, moral systems, ethnic markers, and specific experiences associated with these representations. One perspective, inspired from behavioral ecology, attempts to measure the fitness effects of religious practices. Another set of models, representative of evolutionary psychology, explain religious thought and behavior as (...) the output of cognitive systems (e.g., animacy detection, social cognition, precautionary reasoning) that are not exclusive to the religious domain. In both perpectives, the question remains open, whether religious thought and behavior constitute an adaptation or a by-product of adaptive cognitive function. (shrink)

The last two decades have seen a massive increase in the scholarly interest in technology, and have provoked new lines of thought in philosophy, sociology and cultural studies. Gilbert Simondon (1924 - 1989) was one of Frances's most influential philosophers in this field, and an important influence on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Bernard Stiegler. His work is only now being translated into English. Chabot's introduction to Simondon's work was published in French in 2002 and is now available in (...) English for the first time. It is the most accessible guide to Simondon's important but often opaque work. Chabot provides an excellent introduction to Simondon, positioning him as a philosopher of technology, and he describes his theory of individuation including his crystalline ontology. He goes on to offer a bridge between these two concerns, exploring how they are related. (shrink)

How might good work – skilled, autonomous work which affords workers opportunities for meaningful social cooperation in decent conditions – be made available to all? I evaluate five commonly advanced strategies: an unregulated labor market, egalitarian redistribution of resources, state regulation, collective bargaining, and workplace democracy. Each, I argue, has significant limitations. An unregulated labor market ignores workers' unduly weak bargaining power vis-à-vis employers. Egalitarian redistribution alone fails to solve this problem due to distinctive and endemic imperfections of labor markets. (...) Direct state regulation is insufficiently context-sensitive and insufficiently dynamic in the face of technological and other developments. Collective bargaining gives workers only indirect and sometimes costly influence over their working conditions. And workplace democracy leaves workers vulnerable to collective action problems induced by competition between firms. I argue, however, that these strategies can be complemented in a promising way by ‘syndicalist economic democracy’: direct worker participation in the government of the economy, largely specific to particular occupations or economic sectors but above the level of the individual workplace. (shrink)

The domain of “folk-economics” consists in explicit beliefs about the economy held by laypeople, untrained in economics, about such topics as, for example, the causes of the wealth of nations, the benefits or drawbacks of markets and international trade, the effects of regulation, the origins of inequality, the connection between work and wages, the economic consequences of immigration, or the possible causes of unemployment. These beliefs are crucial in forming people's political beliefs and in shaping their reception of different policies. (...) Yet, they often conflict with elementary principles of economic theory and are often described as the consequences of ignorance, irrationality, or specific biases. As we will argue, these past perspectives fail to predict the particular contents of popular folk-economic beliefs and, as a result, there is no systematic study of the cognitive factors involved in their emergence and cultural success. Here we propose that the cultural success of particular beliefs about the economy is predictable if we consider the influence of specialized, largely automatic inference systems that evolved as adaptations to ancestral human small-scale sociality. These systems, for which there is independent evidence, include free-rider detection, fairness-based partner choice, ownership intuitions, coalitional psychology, and more. Information about modern mass-market conditions activates these specific inference systems, resulting in particular intuitions, for example, that impersonal transactions are dangerous or that international trade is a zero-sum game. These intuitions in turn make specific policy proposals more likely than others to become intuitively compelling, and, as a consequence, exert a crucial influence on political choices. (shrink)

Religions “in the wild” are the varied set of religious activities that occurred before the emergence of organized religions with doctrines, or that persist at the margins of those organized traditions. These religious activities mostly focus on misfortune; on how to remedy specific cases of illness, accidents, failures; and on how to prevent them. I present a general model to account for the cross-cultural recurrence of these particular themes. The model is based on features of human psychology—namely, epistemic vigilance, the (...) set of systems whereby we evaluate the quality of information and of sources of information, and threat-detection psychology, the set of evolved systems geared at detecting potential danger in the environment. Given these two sets of systems, the dynamics of communication will favor particular types of messages about misfortune. This makes it possible to predict recurrent features of religious systems, such as the focus on nonphysical agents, the focus on particular cases rather than general aspects of misfortune, and the emergence of specialists. The model could illuminate not just why such representations are culturally successful, but also why people are motivated to formulate them in the first place. (shrink)

I defend a necessary condition of local autonomy inspired by Aristotle and Marx. One does something autonomously, I argue, only if one does it for its own sake and not for the sake of further ends alone. I show that this idea steers an attractive middle path between the subjectivism of Dworkin- and Frankfurt-style theories of autonomy on the one hand and the objectivism of Raz-style theories on the other. By doing so, it vindicates and explains two important pieces of (...) common sense of which those theories struggle to make sense. First, it explains how external sources of compulsion, such as coercion by other people and duress by unfavorable circumstances, can compromise the autonomy of an activity. Second, it explains this by articulating the sense in which to act autonomously is to do what one really or truly wants to do, and the correlative sense in which to do something unfreely is instead to be forced or necessitated to do it. At the same time, my proposal brings into view distinctive species of external unfreedom beyond the traditional paradigm cases of coercion and duress. Most importantly, it implies that toil—labor which is not valued intrinsically but is done purely on account of its instrumental necessity—is essentially unfree. (shrink)

Cognitive developmental evidence is sometimes conscripted to support ''naturalized epistemology'' arguments to the effect that a general epistemic stance leads children to build theory-like accounts of underlying properties of kinds. A review of the evidence suggests that what prompts conceptual acquisition is not a general epistemic stance but a series of category-specific intuitive principles that constitute an evolved ''natural metaphysics''. This consists in a system of categories and category-specific inferential processes founded on definite biases in prototype formation. Evidence for this (...) system provides a better understanding of the limited ''plasticity'' of ontological commitments as well as a computationally plausible account of their initial state, avoiding ambiguities about innateness. This may provide a starting point for a ''naturalized epistemology'' that takes into account evolved properties of human conceptual structures. (shrink)

Etude sur la philosophie de la technique et la pensée de l'individuation chez Gilbert Simondon qui interroge les notions de progrès, d'aliénation et de mémoire et leur devenir lors des grands changements de l'histoire des techniques (tradition, révolution industrielle, cybernétique). Met également en lumière son rapport à la psychologie des profondeurs, au sacré et à la technoesthétique.

Pascal Engel | : À partir d’une typologie des formes de connaissance, je soutiens qu’il y a trois formes principales de connaissance littéraire : cognitive propositionnelle, affective et pratique. La conception propositionnelle est erronée : la littérature ne fournit pas directement une forme de savoir que. La conception affective ou expressiviste peut au mieux dire qu’il y a des effets cognitifs des oeuvres littéraires. La conception pratique a le plus de chances d’être correcte, mais seulement si l’on accepte l’idée (...) que le savoir pratique est en partie basé sur le savoir propositionnel. | : Starting from a typology of kinds of knowledge, I argue that there are three basic conceptions of literary knowledge : cognitive propositional, affective , and practical. The cognitive conception is misguided : literary knowledge cannot be directly a form of knowledge that. The affective or expressivist conception is too weak : it can at best amount to the idea that there are cognitive effects of literary works. The practical conception is the most promising, but only if one accepts that knowing how is partly based on knowing that and propositional knowledge. (shrink)

Résumé Considéré comme l’action individuelle par excellence, le dribble renvoie le plus souvent à l’exercice d’une maîtrise technique que seuls quelques protagonistes d’exceptions sont à même d’exécuter. Cette image purement descriptive, centrée sur le seul pratiquant, n’entretient qu’un lointain rapport avec la réalité de ce qui constitue la raison d’être profonde de cette action motrice. Le dribble, entendue comme un acte qui consiste à conduire un objet, – une balle, un palet –, en alternant des temps de contact et de (...) non contact, est avant tout à envisager dans sa dimension collective. Là est le point aveugle des analyses menées à son propos. Dans cette étude, on considérera le dribble comme un type de conduite motrice porteur d’intentions auxquelles sont attachées des significations de nature essentiellement sociale. Fondamentalement le dribble est relation, c’est-à-dire interaction. Il doit être envisagé sous l’angle de la sémiotricité, autrement dit des significations que les pratiquants lui accordent. Sa fonction est essentiellement d’annoncer les actions futures. À ce titre, il renvoie à une classe de comportements tactiques dont les significations relèvent d’une interprétation en situation sous la dépendance directe des règles du jeu sportif considéré. Loin d’être univoque, le dribble doit être envisagé comme un « signe » qui doit être décodé par les pratiquants en fonction de la grammaire du jeu considéré selon un double axe ; syntagmatique et sémantique. Ce travail à pour objectif de repérer les différentes significations possibles du « signe-dribble », considéré comme un praxème. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Publications are primarily a means of communicating scientific information to colleagues, but they are much more than that. Publications in peer reviewed journals are proof of academic competence, are used as a crucial component in evaluation criteria for academic promotion and fundraising and increase the prestige of research centres and universities. The urgent need for publications has also led to abuses in authorship. In the past the single‐author article was the rule, but over the past decades, the average number (...) of authors on scientific manuscripts has drastically increased. In the field of bioethics, however, no research has been undertaken to study whether the percentage of single‐author articles is decreasing, the proportion of multi‐author articles is increasing or the average number of authors per article is increasing. The objective of this research is to analyze these trends in authorship for the period 1990–2003 in peer reviewed journals in the field of bioethics. In the nine peer reviewed journals from the field of bioethics we studied, we observed a significant increase of the multi‐author article and of the average number of authors. This is mainly due to the increase in the number of publications with an empirical design. This growing trend is a challenge for the editors of journals in the field of bioethics to enhance awareness about the value and definition of authorship. (shrink)

Une relecture de ce philosophe anglais (1676-1729), à la lumière de ce que disaient de et contre lui ses adversaires théologiens (Clarke, Berkeley), et surtout, de ce qu'il disait de lui-même. Pour ce libre-penseur, le concept de Dieu est vide de sens ou contradictoire, le dualisme créationniste une hypothèse intenable, et le christianisme un simple produit du besoin anthropologique de croire.

According to Fink, self-reference is one of the distinct features of philosophy. This isn’t merely restricted to her referring to herself thematically. Self-reference is also the key feature of philosophy’s principles, inasmuch as any principle has to be a principle for the very philosophical position explicating this principle. Thus, in my article I will look at four ways in which Fink addresses the self-referential structure of philosophy: Firstly, I will recapitulate Fink’s concept of a “meontic” philosophy. Secondly, I will link (...) this “meontic” philosophy with Fink’s reading of Hegel’s concept of theophany, tracing it back to neoplatonic tradition. Thirdly, I will follow Fink’s reading of Hegel as it transforms his former phenomenological approach into a speculative dialectics of a metaphilosophy of philosophical principles. In a fourth and last step, I will try to give a sketch of Fink’s “phenomenology of the absolute” which combinesHusserl, Heidegger, and Hegel into a speculative phenomenology. (shrink)

Réduction du temps de travail, 35 heures, flexibilité accrue, vieillissement de la population, développement des loisirs, usage croissant des nouvelles technologies de l'information, autant de facteurs souvent évoqués comme responsables de ce qui serait une fluidification progressive de nos rythmes de vie. Certains vont même jusqu'à anticiper une ville 24 h sur 24, perpétuellement en mouvement... Pourtant l'analyse par Jean-Pascal Lavielle d'une série d'Enquêtes Ménages Déplacements étalées - Urbanisme – Nouvel article.

Background: Maximum safe resection of infiltrative brain tumors in eloquent area is the primary objective in surgical neuro-oncology. This goal can be achieved with direct electrical stimulation to perform a functional mapping of the brain in patients awake intraoperatively. When awake surgery is not possible, we propose a pipeline procedure that combines advanced techniques aiming at performing a dissection that respects the anatomo-functional connectivity of the peritumoral region. This procedure can benefit from intraoperative monitoring with computerized tomography scan and brain (...) shift correction. Associated with this intraoperative monitoring, the additional value of preoperative investigation combining brain mapping by navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation with various neuroimaging modalities has not yet been reported.Case Report: A 42-year-old left-handed man had increased intracranial pressure, left hand muscle deficit, and dysarthria, related to an infiltrative tumor of the right frontal lobe with large mass effect and circumscribed contrast enhancement in motor and premotor cortical areas. Spectroscopy profile and intratumoral calcifications on CT-scan suggested an WHO grade III glioma, later confirmed by histology. The aforementioned surgical procedure was considered, since standard awake surgery was not appropriate for this patient. In preoperative time, nTMS mapping of motor function was performed, combined with magnetic resonance imaging -based tractography reconstruction of 6 neural tracts and resting-state functional MRI connectivity of sensorimotor and language networks. In intraoperative time, DES mapping was performed with motor evoked response recording and tumor resection was optimized using non-rigid image transformation of the preoperative data to iCT data. Image guidance was updated with correction for brain shift and tissue deformation using biomechanical modeling taking into account brain elastic properties. This correction was done at crucial surgical steps, i.e., when tumor bulged through the craniotomy after dura mater opening and when approaching the presumed eloquent brain regions. This procedure allowed a total resection of the tumor region with contrast enhancement as well as a complete regression of IICP and dysarthria. Hand paresis remained stable with no additional deficit. Postoperative nTMS mapping confirmed the good functional outcome.Conclusion: This case report and technical note highlights the value of preoperative functional evaluation by nTMS updated intraoperatively with correction of brain deformation by iCT. This multimodal approach may become the optimized technique of reference for patients with brain tumors in eloquent areas that are unsuitable for awake brain surgery. (shrink)

This text was presented in the Conference “Rhythm as Pattern and Variation : Political, Social and Artistic Inflections, Goldsmiths College — University of London, on April 23, 2016. Recent Development of Rhythmic Studies The first thing that becomes obvious when you document, as I have been doing for the last five years, the studies dedicated in human and soc­ial science to rhythmic phenomena or using rhythm as operating concept—whatever its definition—is the rapid increase in their number. - Vers un nouveau (...) paradigme scientifique? – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Entre les années 1745 et 1835 s'est produite au sein de la poétique et de la théorie du langage, en trois temps successifs, une mutation théorique qui est venue renforcer la révolution ontologique et épistémologique des années 1660-1715. Tout d'abord en France dans les années 1745-1775 avec Diderot, puis en Allemagne dans les années 1785-1805 avec Moritz, Goethe, Schiller, Schlegel, Hölderlin, enfin encore en Allemagne mais aussi en France dans les années 1795-1835, avec Humboldt, le langage a été - Philosophie (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ici, danseurs et danseuses tentent d'harmoniser leurs rythmes, intimes et personnels, à celui du groupe, confrontant leurs corps et mouvements au seuil du collectif. Comment garder son propre rythme, tout en faisant partie d'un tout? Comment se laisser envahir par les mouvements des autres sans s'y perdre? En tentant de créer, à partir des danses de chacun et chacune, un flux de mouvements qui ne s'achève que pour renaître dans de nouveaux gestes, jusqu'à l'ivresse. Alors comment vivre - Danse, théâtre (...) et spectacle vivant – GALERIES – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ce texte a paru pour la première fois dans Zones Urbaines Partagées, Saint-Denis, Synesthésie Éditions, 2008, p. 8-20. Les villes sont au cœur des mutations que nous traversons depuis une trentaine d'années. C'est en leur sein que s'expérimentent les nouvelles façons de produire et de contrôler les individus singuliers et collectifs. Mais c'est là aussi que se dessinent les contours d'autres formes de vie, d'autres façons de faire fonctionner les corps, le langage et le social. Pour bien comprendre ce - (...) Urbanisme – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ce texte est l'avant-propos d'un ouvrage en cours. Der Rhythmus ist ein Versuch zur Individuation. Damit Rhythmus da sein könne, muß Vielheit und Werden da sein. Hier zeigt sich die Sucht zum Schönen als Motiv der Individuation. F. Nietzsche, Rhythmische Untersuchungen, KGW II 3, S. 338. Depuis une bonne trentaine d'années, il existe dans les sciences sociales et humaines, mais aussi en philosophie, un courant multiforme qui essaie de surmonter les nombreux dualismes qui les grèvent, que (...) - Philosophie – (...) Nouvel article. (shrink)

Extrait de P. Michon, Rythmes, pouvoir, mondialisation, Paris, PUF, 2005, p. 81-88. Dans son introduction à la réédition des Nuer, Louis Dumont a fait envers Evans-Pritchard une double opération analogue à celle que Lévi-Strauss avait effectuée en 1950 vis-à-vis de Mauss : il a cherché à montrer, d'une part, qu'Evans-Pritchard aurait anticipé le structuralisme, mais que, d'autre part, cette anticipation ne se serait pas réalisée de manière totalement pure - Anthropologie.

Ce texte est la suite d'une réflexion présentée ici. Diderot manifeste une très forte attention à la question du langage. Il bénéficie sur ce plan de la réflexion de Locke, de Maupertuis et de Condillac, mais aussi, ce qui est probablement aussi important nous allons le voir, de ses propres expériences et réflexions d'écrivain. On sait que Locke a engagé, dans le livre III de son Essai sur l'entendement humain (1690), ce que certains spécialistes ont appelé une « révolution sémiotique (...) ». Pour Locke, (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ce texte est la suite d'une réflexion présentée ici. Du point de vue épistémologique, son « empirisme spéculatif » donne à Condillac la possibilité de se départir de la méfiance traditionnelle à l'égard du langage encore éprouvée par Locke. Bien sûr, il conserve l'attitude critique héritée de Bacon à l'égard des imprécisions de terme ou de la réification des noms, mais il place désormais le langage sous un jour beaucoup plus lumineux. Alors que Locke voyait le langage comme un outil (...) très imparfait de la pensée, (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Ce texte est la suite d'une réflexion présentée ici. Rythmes des langues et rythmes d'avant le langage Dans la Lettre sur les sourds et muets (1751), Diderot se place d'entrée de jeu dans le sillage de Condillac : il commence ostensiblement sa réflexion par une spéculation sur la genèse du langage articulé fondée sur le primat gnoséologique des sens – tout en sautant l'étape du « langage d'action », il y reviendra plus tard. Frappés, tout d'abord, par les objets sensibles, (...) les hommes auraient commencé par (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Previous chapter In 1970, Michel Foucault was admitted to the Collège de France. Five years later, he published his most famous book, Surveiller et Punir – Discipline and Punish. Although the latter has been read for decades as an essay on supervision and control of space, centered on the figure of the Benthamian Panopticon, it proposed one of the most beautiful temporal study on social and body rhythms. In fact, as in Lefebvre's work, space and - Philosophie – Nouvel article.

Previous chapter In the previous chapter, we saw that Michel Foucault never explicitly thematized the concept of rhythm nor envisaged its possible use in his own approach to society, power and knowledge. Moreover, by ignoring Benveniste and his rhuthmic theory of language activity, he deprived himself of theoretical means which could have been used to solve some of the complex rhythmanalytical problems with which he was confronted in his theory of knowledge. Our description would not be - Philosophie – Nouvel (...) article. (shrink)

Extrait de P. Michon, Rythmes, pouvoir, mondialisation, Paris, PUF, 2005, p. 66-73. Selon Granet, cette caractéristique non dualiste de la pensée chinoise, son orientation vers l'immanence et le primat qu'elle donne, du coup, au rythme tiendraient à l'origine sociale, marquée sexuellement de ces catégories : « Tout en procédant à une distribution cohérente des sites, des occasions, des activités, des emplois, des emblèmes, on restaurait un ordre total en pensant célébrer des noces collectives, (...) - Etudes chinoises – Nouvel article.

Ce texte sera présenté dans le cadre des conférences mensuelles du Cercle Ernest Renan – Hôtel de l'Industrie, 4 place Saint Germain, Paris 75006, salle dite « des Trois consuls », le 17 octobre 2013 à 17 h 30. La conférence sera suivie d'un échange avec le public. L'anthropologie historique est aujourd'hui comme un bouquet sans vase. Au cours du demi-siècle qui vient de s'écouler, les historiens se sont intéressés à l'histoire du corps, dans toutes ses dimensions : sexualité, genres, (...) perception, goût, (...) - Histoire – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Previous chapter Rhuthmology as Achievement of Western Metaphysics? This conclusion seems to conflict with the very famous interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy proposed by Heidegger. Right at the start of his 1000-page long study on Nietzsche, Heidegger criticizes the view that Nietzsche would have radicalized Heraclitus. According to a very common opinion, he says, grounding the beings on the “will to power” would be another way to dynamite the concept of Being and to substitute it with - Sur le concept de (...) rythme – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Previous chapter As in 1896, Bücher ended his book with a chapter entitled “Der Rhythmus als ökonomisches Entwicklungsprincip – Rhythm as Principle of Economic Development,” which contained most of his ethical and—if much less explicitly—political suggestions. It is of great historical and theoretical interest to us because it proposed a complete ethics of rhythm which had rapidly very tangible consequences. Rhythm as Principle of Economic Development Chapter 9, which was - Économie et Marxisme – Nouvel article.

Previous chapter In the 1880s and the 1890s, there was a new turn in the use of the concept of rhythm in art history and aesthetics. Rhythm, which had been successively—and sometimes jointly—considered as a judgment criterion then as an analytical category, was increasingly considered as a form of process. This new trend was mainly influenced by the new development of psychology which began to be massively imported into aesthetics during this period, but it also resulted from the growing - (...) Esthétique – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Previous chapter In her book Die Form des Werdens: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Embryologie, 1760-1830, Janina Wellmann claims that around 1800 the concept of rhythm has emerged and penetrated the entire Western culture. In literature, in theoretical reflection on art, in philosophy, but especially in the newest life sciences, rhythm would have become a common scientific “Paradigm” or better yet, a new “Episteme”. It would be great if it is true. But I think - Sur le concept de rythme – Nouvel (...) article. (shrink)