Martin Heidegger's overt alliance with the Nazis and the specific relation between this alliance and his philosophical thought--the degree to which his concepts are linked to a thoroughly disreputable set of political beliefs--have been the topic of a storm of recent debate. Written ten years before this debate, this study by France's leading sociologist and cultural theorist is both a precursor of that debate and an analysis of the institutional mechanisms involved in the production of philosophical discourse. Though Heidegger is (...) aware of and acknowledges the legitimacy of purely philosophical issues, Bourdieu points out that the complexity and abstraction of Heidegger's philosophical discourse stems from its situation in the cultural field, where two social and intellectual dimensions--political thought and academic thought--intersect. Bourdieu concludes by suggesting that Heidegger should not be considered as a Nazi ideologist, that there is no place in Heidegger's philosophical ideas for a racist conception of the human being. Rather, he sees Heidegger's thought as a structural equivalent in the field of philosophy of the "conservative revolution," of which Nazism is but one manifestation. (shrink)

Like other members of the Vienna Circle, Carnap criticized traditional philosophy for its lack of clarity and precision, as is well-know from such papers as "The elimination of metaphysics through the logical analysis of language" (1932) and many other writings. In 'The Logical Syntax of Language' (1934), while still entertaining the idea that, in some sense, metaphysics is nonsense, Carnap's critique of philosophy is based on different grounds and aimed at different authors. In this book, his critique of philosophy actually (...) takes the form of an attempt at a reconstruction of philosophy on a new basis. I shall try to examine this attempt and to show why it fails. I shall also try to show how Carnap's thought evolved on this point in later writings, in particular in "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology" (1950). (shrink)

Some common notions about analytic philosophy - that it is uniformly anti-metaphysical or indifferent to the history of philosophy - are clearly misconceived. However the impression that analytic philosophers are essentially linguistic philosophers is not entirely false and hence less easy to refute.

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Les grands paradigmes des sciences humaines ont été constitués, au fil de l’histoire, par l’éviction progressive de la dimension affective des objets et méthodes scientifiques. Après un long désintérêt, pour partie dû à la préoccupation de l’objectivation des phénomènes retenus par l’analyse sociologique, mais aussi à l’hypostase du social, qui a trouvé notamment chez Durkheim un accomplissement encore plus accentué que dans la plupart des conceptions holistes, la question des émotions est l’...

Analyse historique et sociologique de la connaissance scientifique.

Dans le cadre d'une réflexion sur l'expérience de la vérité, l'évocation de la crise moderniste rappelle ou précise des enjeux dont l'acuité explique, pour une part, la convocation du Concile Vatican Il. Sans nier les « avancées salutaires » de ce concile, l'auteur pose en point de départ de sa réflexion la question : Peut-on dire que le concile n'a pas empêché le retour au sein de l'Église catholique d'un « antimodernisme » ? Examinant tour à tour le rapport de (...) la vérité révélée et de la méthodologie scientifique, le problème du pluralisme dans l'Église catholique et le rapport entre dogme et herméneutique, il aboutit à une réflexion sur ce qui constitue aujourd'hui, et constituera de plus en plus, la situation du chrétien par rapport à la vérité de sa propre foi qu'il expérimentera dans un monde interreligieux; ce qui ne peut que confirmer une inévitable tension: « L'expérience effective de la vérité est celle d'une recherche méthodique, mais elle est aussi celle de l'acquiescement à un don. »In the realm of a reflection on the experience of truth, the evocation of the modernist crisis is brought to mind and focuses on what is at stake, the acuteness which explains, for one thing, the convocation of Vatican Council II. Without denying the « salutary advances » of that council, the author begins his reflection with the question : « Can one say that the council did not forestall the return, in the heart of the Catholic Church, to an «anti modernism» ? The author examines one after the other the relationship of revealed truth and scientific methodology, the problem of pluralism in the Catholic Church, and the relationship between dogma and hermeneutics. He arrives at a reflection on that which constitutes today, and will constitute more and more, the situation of the Christian in relation to the truth of his own faith, which he will experience in an irreligious world. This can only confirm an inevitable tension : «The effective expe7ience of the truth is that of a methodological research, but is also that of accepting a gift». ». (shrink)

La notion d’intérêt général est, aujourd’hui, autant un concept du droit qu’un topos rhétorique. Elle est censée désigner l’ordre public, l’intérêt du peuple ou bien la priorité des décisions administratives sur les intérêts privés, sectoriels, les droits individuels et les contrats entre particuliers. Pourtant cette notion a une d...

Open peer commentary on the article “Excavating Belief About Past Experience: Experiential Dynamics of the Reflective Act” by Urban Kordeš & Ema Demšar. Upshot: I discuss four points: The “excavation fallacy” is a skeptical assertion, therefore, it is not a valid argument; Nisbett & Wilson’s results are experimental artefacts; Guiding to recall enables the exceeding of limits ruled by experimental psychology of memory; A typology of research situations must be introduced to the way we consider methodology.