I use the collection of “carnal ethnographies” of martial arts and combat sports assembled by Raul Sanchez and Dale Spencer under the title Fighting Scholars to spotlight the fruitfulness of deploying habitus as both empirical object (explanandum) and method of inquiry (modus cognitionis). The incarnate study of incarnation supports five propositions that clear up tenacious misconceptions about habitus and bolster Bourdieu’s dispositional theory of action: (1) far from being a “black box,” habitus is fully amenable to empirical inquiry; (2) the (...) distinction between primary (generic) and secondary (specific) habitus enables us to capture the malleability of dispositions; (3) habitus is composed of cognitive, conative and affective elements: categories, skills, and desires; (4) habitus allows us to turn carnality from problem to resource for the production of sociological knowledge; and (5) thus to realize that all social agents are, like martial artists, suffering beings collectively engaged in embodied activities staged inside circles of shared commitments. (shrink)

Written in the form of a dialogue with Brussels sociologist Dieter Vandebroeck, this article retraces the social and intellectual trajectory of Loïc Wacquant as stepping stone to reviewing and discussing the major concepts coined and theoretical propositions elaborated in the course of his research on comparative urban marginality, racial domination, the ghetto, the penal state, neoliberalism, and carnality. This provides an opportunity to specify the relationships between ethnography, history and theory; the dialectic of domination and resistance; the role of public (...) (dis)honor in social life; the uses of Bourdieu's bureaucratic field; and the social and academic conditions of incubation, diffusion, and death of scholarly myths such as the “underclass.” The article closes on a call to clearly distinguish the rhetorical, metaphorical, and analytical usages of concepts and reaffirms the need for epistemic reflexivity as sine qua non for the articulation of robust scientific problematics. (shrink)

Both the physiological and the pathological morphogenetic processes that we can meet in embryogenesis, neogenesis and degenerative dysgenesis present common features: they are ruled by three different kinds of mechanisms, one related to cell migration, the second to cell differentiation and the third to cell proliferation. We deal here with an application to the cambial growth which essentially involves the third type of mechanism.Woody plants produce secondary tissue (secondary xylem and phloem) from a meristematic tissue called vascular cambium, responsible for (...) the radial growth of a tree. This paper focuses on the formation of secondary xylem, considered in two dimensions in a cross-section framework. A new discrete modelling approach is used, based on the cellular scale, in order to attain a more accurate understanding of how the elementary microscopic behaviour of each cell takes part in the macroscopic morphogenesis. The mathematical model essentially uses an occurrence method simulating the main features of radial growth with simple geometric rules, such as Thom's division rule (Thom,1972)to account for the cell proliferation. The study applies to concrete instances in which the changes made in the geometrical cellular patterns of the vascular cambium clearly affect the shape of the tree, as in Pinus radiata (D. Don.). (shrink)

We propose that interaction rules derived from polyamine exchange in connected cells may explain the spatio‐temporal organization of gap junctions observed during tissue regeneration and tumorigenesis. We also hypothesize that polyamine exchange can be considered as signal that allows cells to sense the proliferation status of their neighbors. Polyamines (putrescine, spermidine, and spermine) are indeed small aliphatic polycations that serve as fuels to sustain elevated proliferation rates of the order observed in cancer cells. Based on recent reports, we consider here (...) that polyamines can be exchanged through gap junction channels between mammalian cells. Such intercellular exchange of polyamines has critical consequences on the local control of growth. In line with this hypothesis, the complex protein network that keeps polyamine levels finely tuned in mammalian cells can translate polyamine efflux or influx into integrated signals controlling transcription, translation, and cell communications. (shrink)

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has some basic structural features similar to that of most judicial bodies. According to the treaties, the members of the Court are chosen from individuals whose independence is beyond doubt and who possess the ability required for appointment to higher judicial offices. The involvement of the Court and its president in the most important reforms of the European Union's judicial architecture in recent years is a striking feature which may be called (...) judicial self‐government. International courts have shifted away from being principally committed to dispute settlement towards pursuing other goals, such as advancing international norms and facilitating cooperative international arrangements. The reinforcement of the cooperation of the Court with national courts on the one hand, and with international courts and tribunals on the other, is one of the great current challenges facing the Court. (shrink)

Cet échange avec l’association grenobloise À bientôt j’espère retrace un travail singulier de diffusion itinérante de films documentaires qui expérimente depuis plusieurs années des possibilités alternatives de visionnage cinématographique. Comment organiser des milieux conviviaux de rencontre entre publics hétérogènes, non spécialisés et formes cinématographiques méconnues?

L’installation et le développement de la discipline universitaire « Sciences et techniques des activités physiques et sportives » ne peuvent être pleinement compris que si l’on voit qu’ils résultent de l’action conjointe de facteurs cognitifs et sociaux. La perspective sociohistorique montre que ce qui est arrivé récemment a d’abord été préparé par un long processus non linéaire et complexe. Mais il a encore fallu sur le court terme un dynamisme cognitif interne et des effets sociaux multiples, enchevêtrés, voulus et non (...) voulus, afin que s’établissent l’instutionnalisation irréversible de cette nouvelle discipline universitaire, son « académisation », puis son expansion « démographique ».The setting-up and development of the « sport sciences » as an academic discipline can only be fully grasped by acknowledging that it results from the combined action of both cognitive and social factors. Viewed in a social and historical light, what has recently taken place proves to have come at the end of a long, complex and winding process. But, in the short run, internal cognitive dynamics as well as multiple and intertwined social effects – whether intended or not – were also necessary for the non-reversible institutionalization of this new academic discipline, its establishment as part of the academia and eventually its « demographic » expansion. (shrink)

Résumé Cet article présente l’analyse d’une expérience de construction de savoirs mathématiques en rapports avec les machines, dans les années 1950 et 1960, à une époque où le calcul analogique cohabitait avec le calcul digital (c’est-à-dire le futur « ordinateur », terme introduit dans la langue française pour désigner principalement les « digital computers »). Les mathématiques en jeu relèvent des théories des systèmes dynamiques, c’est-à-dire des outils mathématiques construits pour comprendre la dynamique de différents types de systèmes, qu’ils soient (...) mathématiques, physiques, biologiques, mécaniques, etc. L’objet du présent article est à la fois un groupe de chercheurs, leurs pratiques de « mathématiques pour l’ingénieur », leurs efforts pour construire des calculateurs analogiques (mécanique ou électronique) pour étudier la dynamique, le programme baptisé « Dynamique théorique » qu’ils se sont fixés, et l’épistémologie des mathématiques sous-tendant leur pratique. (shrink)

À partir de textes officiels, de publications professionnelles et de représentations d’enseignantes d’EPS ayant vécu la mise en place de la mixité, cet article analyse la construction du genre en éducation physique durant les années 68. Si la mixité est d’abord évacuée au profit de l’officialisation sportive de l’éducation physique, les dissidences acquièrent une légitimité certaine durant la crise de mai-juin 68. Pourtant, l’organisation de l’EPS conserve une frontière et maintient les distinctions sexuées. Au terme des années 68, la mixité (...) n’est plus ignorée et les discriminations se sont déplacées. Elles sont paradoxalement le fruit des enseignantes elles-mêmes qui déconsidèrent la féminité au regard de leurs attentes sportives. (shrink)

The Business of a Flesh-Merchant : Passion, Power, Profit in the Economy of Professional Boxing. France has witnessed a significant rise in the recourse to sub-contracting over the last twenty years. The article is the result of an inquiry carried out by way of observation and participation in a boxing club located on the outskirts of Chicago’s «South Side », close to the University of Chicago. The paper focuses on the matchmaker as a particular figure in the world of boxing. (...) A close study of what is a crucial function in the world of boxing throws light on the way the milieu of boxing operates, in its recruitment of young underprivileged Afro-Americans with a view to turning them into competent boxers. In his role as an intermediary, the function of the matchmaker is to oversee the encounter between supply and demand in what, to a large extent, is the body market of boxing. As the individual around whom all the transactions revolve, the matchmaker is the figure on whom the milieu’s various tensions and oppositions are projected. Regarded as an exploiter and a body-trafficker by most of the young men whom he hires, his peers deem him “an honest businessman”. He thus epitomises the general economy of boxing, here understood as a system of exchange of bodies, incorporated within a system of social relations, requiring both the general collaboration of its subjects and the celebration of the success of certain individuals, at the expense of others. The article thus puts forward an empirically grounded economic anthropology, based on the exchange and the wearing-away of what is the most precious possession of those young candidates for success: their own bodies. (shrink)

Seemingly contrary ideas of Nirvana are found in early Buddhist literature. Whereas some texts describe one who attains Nirvana as being conscious of everything, others depict Nirvana as a state in which consciousness has no object but emptiness or Nirvana. In this paper I deal with this paradox of Nirvana consciousness by exploring the correlations between several statements in early Buddhist texts. A number of sutta passages are cited to show that they contain doctrinal elements which, when considered collectively, may (...) cast valuable light on how to reconcile this paradox. Two pivotal notions are ‘non-abiding consciousness’ and ‘consciousness that is infinite, pervasive all around’. These two notions are connected to each other and seem to subsume or bridge the two strikingly distinct forms of Nirvana consciousness mentioned above. Nirvana consciousness said to be ‘non-abiding’, which is analogous to ‘without object’, does ‘not abide’ in any objects in the sense that it does not cling to them or rest on them. The ‘infinite, all-pervasive’ consciousness, based on stopping normal consciousness, does not depend on any sense objects, and hence it is unconditioned by them and operates unhindered. Nirvana consciousness thus constitutes the infinite realization free from all conditioning and hindrance. This resonates with the idea that one who attains Nirvana is conscious of everything. (shrink)

In this response to my critics, I amplify the conceptual clarification and methodological stipulation of habitus begun in ‘Homines in extremis’ to help us move from a sociology of the body as socially construc-ted object to a sociology from the body as socially construc-ting vector of knowledge, power, and practice. The specification of habitus by membership in collectives, attachment to institutions, and analytic purpose makes it a flexible multi-scalar notion with which to construct the epistemic individual and account for both (...) reproduction and change, conformity and creativity, as well as self-revision. For this, we must reject theological interpretations that rigidly lock habitus into Bourdieu’s framework; avoid conflating the formal properties of the notion with its concrete features in specific settings and cases; and distinguish between the rhetorical invocation of his concepts (‘speaking Bourdieuese’) and their effective deployment in the construction of the empirical object. As embodied and embedded capacity, habitus brings temporality, depth, and desire to the analytic epicenter. It reminds us that the social world is not transparent, open-ended, and instantaneous, but endowed with gravity, opacity, and asymmetry. Treating the sentient and skilled organism as fount of both social intelligence and sociological acumen can help historical social science connect with enactive psychology and recover the carnality of action that conventional accounts of social life routinely erase. (shrink)

Morphogenesis is a key process in developmental biology. An important issue is the understanding of the generation of shape and cellular organisation in tissues. Despite of their great diversity, morphogenetic processes share common features. This work is an attempt to describe this diversity using the same formalism based on a cellular description. Tissue is seen as a multi-cellular system whose behaviour is the result of all constitutive cells dynamics. Morphogenesis is then considered as a spatiotemporal organization of cells activities. We (...) show how this formalism relies on Reaction–Diffusion/Positional Information approach and how it permits to generalize its modelling possibilities. Three quite different applications for concrete morphogenetic processes are presented. The first one is a model for epithelial invagination, the second is a model of cellular differentiation by local cell–cell signalling. The last example is the secondary radial growth of conifer trees. From the mathematical point of view, different modelling tools are used according to the specificity of each process. (shrink)

Reasonning in naive set theory (with unlimited comprehension), we derive a paradox (a formal contradiction) which can be seen as a variant of the Burali-Forti paradox.

Of the four complete Āgama collections, the Ekottarika Āgama (EĀ) has generated the most controversy about whether it can be attributed to any early Buddhist school and, if so, which school it could belong to. This paper examines the various hypotheses about the sectarian affiliation(s) of the EĀ. It shows that a considerable part of this corpus is likely to be of Mahāsāṃghika derivation, and that the EĀ contains numerous salient features of Mahāsāṃghika doctrine, particularly the transcendence of Buddhas and (...) Bodhisattvas. This study also argues that the seeming affinity between several legends in the EĀ and those in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya is likely to have resulted from Mahāsāṃghika influence on the Mūlasarvāstivādins. The Mahāsāṃghika hypothesis for the school affiliation of the EĀ is substantially strengthened in this inquiry while the others are shown to be probably untenable. (shrink)

Cet article a pour objet la conception de matériel pédagogique pour l’apprentissage endolingue de la relation entre le passé composé et l’imparfait dans le récit en FLE. Faut-il privilégier le choix d’une visée sur le procès ou bien montrer que la distribution des temps s’effectue à partir d’indices contextuels qu’il faut repérer? La première position a été représentée, par exemple, dans le manuel Libre Échange, mais délaissée par la suite. Notre propre analyse de 17 manuels publiés entre 2006 et 2016 (...) confirme la tendance. On constate en outre qu’il n’y a aucun exemple d’un même procès sous les deux aspects accompli et inaccompli, comme si cette option avait été bannie. Toutefois, l’approche aspectuelle n’est pas tout-à-fait absente : on considère le cas d’un manuel tendant à intégrer présence d’un sujet opérant des choix de visée et emplois normés des temps. Finalement, on propose un matériel qui exploite la syntaxe distincte des énoncés avec l’imparfait et le passé composé. Dans un cadre énactif, on envisage que l’énonciateur prend deux états différents, où il perçoit un présent imaginé, ou bien où il devient « possesseur » d’un accompli. On détaille la conception théorique, décrit des visuels extraits du matériel, et suggère une gestuelle pédagogique pour montrer comment cette approche peut soutenir l’apprentissage des temps du récit. (shrink)

We have developed an approach to implementing a system for managing situated knowledge for complex instruments. Our aim is to develop a system that guides a user through the steps for operating complex scientific instruments. A user manual is often inadequate support for a community of users, so direct communication with an expert is often required. One reason for this is that not all of the author’s expert knowledge was included in the manual, thus limiting the contents to explicit knowledge. (...) This is a main concern of modern knowledge management practitioners who are attempting to design systems that consider both explicit and tacit knowledge. The key is to distribute explicit knowledge through interaction with the real world so that users can develop tacit knowledge as well as acquire explicit knowledge. We describe technical difficulties related to referencing the real world, which is required for interaction, and describe a novel approach to building a low-cost three-dimensional pointer for obtaining the required knowledge, which constitutes our preliminary result. (shrink)

Using undergraduate students from the Waikato University in New Zealand as a sample, this study compared the ethical positions of students of different field of study and demographic characteristics. It was found that the ethical standard of business students are not significantly different from that of non-business students. The findings also suggest that female students are more ethical than male students, and senior students are more ethical than junior students.Besides sex and year of study, other variables studied were parents' occupation, (...) religiosity and household income of the students. All these variables were found to have no significant impact on the ethical position of the students. Furthermore, all the interaction effects between the variables studied and the students' major field of study were nonsignificant. (shrink)

Using as case studies the initiatives developed by two museum curators, the Belgian bibliographer Paul Otlet (1868–1944) and the Austrian social scientist Otto Neurath (1882–1945), and their subsequent collaboration with an extended network of scientists, philanthropists, artists, and social activists, this article provides a portrait of the general movement toward the creation of a new form of museum: the “museum of the future,” as Neurath labeled it. This museum would be able to enlighten the people by showing the nature of (...) modern industrial civilization. The promoters of the “museum of the future” intended to reform museum practices by organizing exhibitions of social facts, but also by integrating several dimensions – architecture, commerce, entertainment, pedagogy, and science and technology – to create a holistic frame to address their audience. However, the effortlessly circulating museum Neurath and Otlet envisioned stood in sharp contrast to the many, often immaterial, boundaries they encountered in their attempt to implement their vision. Ever-growing nationalism, the professionalization of social science, and the increasing commercialization of scientific vulgarization are some of the factors that help explain their failure. (shrink)

Scholars have pointed out that the arguments for not-self recurring in the Buddhist texts are meant to refute the “self” in the Upani?ads. The Buddha’s denial of the self, however, was not only pointed at Brahmanism, but also confronted various?rama?ic trends of thought against Brahmanism. This paper investigates the extant three versions of a Buddhist text which records a debate between the Buddha and Saccaka, an adherent of a certain?rama?ic sect, over the relationship of the self and the five aggregates. (...) There exist divergences among the three versions in regard to the account of this debate. The account in sutta 35 of the Majjhima Nik?ya is generally consistent with that in s?tra 110 of the Sa?yukta?gama in Chinese translation, whereas s?tra 10 of Chapter 37 of the Ekottarika?gama in Chinese translation tells a very different story. Judging from Saccaka’s title, Niga??haputta, and his background as given in the Pali commentary, he was an adherent of Jainism. This paper demonstrates that Saccaka’s view, which was refuted by the Buddha, as stated in the two similar versions has nothing to do with Jainism, but rather it is an “invention” created by distorting Brahmanical thought. This “invention” has led the Pali commentaries and contemporary scholars to interpret the ‘self’ denied by the Buddha as what comes under one’s mastery or control, and to understand the statement “Each of the five aggregates is not self” in the Buddhist texts as denying the idea that each of the five aggregates can be seen as what comes under control. This, however, misses the point. The mainstream thought in India at that time conceived the ‘self’ or the essence of the individual or of the universe as a ‘controller’, and it is this concept that the Buddha exerted all his energy to overturn. Therefore, the account in those two versions of the text apparently has some mistake. As to the Ekottarika?gama version of the text, Saccaka’s view as stated therein is very different from what is found in the above two versions. An examination of this version shows that the views rebutted by the Buddha are very similar to those of the?j?vikas. Since the Buddhist texts frequently confuse the?j?vikas with the Jains, it is very likely that Saccaka was actually an adherent of the?j?vika faith and that this discourse is meant to criticize the?j?vika doctrines. Since the Ekottarika?gama version seems to make better sense, this version may be fairly close to the original account, while the other two versions have considerably deviated from the original. By comparing these three versions of the text, I also attempt to explore some important issues regarding the sectarian development of Buddhism, and to shed some light on the unique values of the Chinese Ekottarika?gama, which is, in terms of sectarian affiliation, significantly distant from the Pali Majjhima Nik?ya and the Chinese Sa?yukta?gama that belong to two closely related schools. (shrink)

The "thing-in-itself" theory occupies a pivotal position in the whole of Kantian philosophy, and scholars have expressed varying views on the intricate content of the theory. In the realm of epistemology, the theory implies at least three things: the origin of sensation, the limits of knowledge, and the rational idea. The last implication leads directly to moral reality in the realm of ethics. Interwoven and mutually comprehended, these implications are dipped in the general meaning of agnosticism. The first and third (...) implications are the opposites of a "thing-in-itself," and the second is a transition from the first to the third. (shrink)

In both the A?guttara Nik?ya in Pali and the Ekottarika?gamain Chinese translation, the suttas are grouped into eleven nip?tas, from the Ekaka-nip?ta/Eka-nip?ta to the Ek?dasaka-nip?ta – though in the Ekottarika?gama the nip?tas are not labelled as such. This grouping into nip?tas is based on the number of doctrinal items dealt with in the component suttas. In the Ones and Twos, it is often the case that a single original sutta has been subdivided so that its component sections become a series (...) of similarly structured derivative suttas superficially appropriate for inclusion in the Ones or Twos. Moreover, material for this process of subdividing has sometimes been provided by multiplying doctrinal sets with formulaic statements. In most of the remaining nip?tas the phenomena noted in the Ones and Twos are also present, but on a much smaller scale. In view of their Chinese counterparts in the Sa?yukta?gama, some groups of suttas in the A?guttara Nik?ya with sa?yutta-like nature were probably moved from the Sa?yutta Nik?ya to the A?guttara Nik?ya within the Pali tradition. Evidence of a comparable movement into the Ekottarika?gama is also available. The artificial suttas created by subdivision and the original suttas shared by the Ekottarika?gama and the A?guttara Nik?ya largely retained their original places at the beginning of each nip?ta, while the genuine suttas, probably earlier located in the Sa?yukta?gama and Madhyama?gama, were added progressively at the end of the growing nip?ta. (shrink)

Ideological indoctrination is explicit and pervasive in China, with the school curriculum used to mould the spirit and character of adolescents, fulfilling ideological and political purposes. But the exact content varies over time. Comparing two versions of textbooks published in 1997 and 2005, this paper depicts the continuities and change in the curricular discourses centred on the notion of ‘good citizen’. While keeping the official status of socialism and the Party leadership untouched, the new textbooks soften the presentation and packaging (...) of the ideological content, very much in tandem with the soft authoritarianism practised since the post‐Deng era when China has been deeply involved in the processes of marketisation, liberalisation and globalisation. The new textbooks also adopt a stance of greater reconciliation with human rights and global citizenship. While being granted more autonomy and rights, young citizens are still expected to shoulder the mission of national revival and socialist modernisation—very much derived from official policies. (shrink)

The focus of this review is on positive emotional granularity. Emotional granularity is the level of specificity that characterizes verbal representations of an affective experience. Although there has been research on negative emotional granularity, relatively less attention has been given to the study of positive emotional granularity. Positive emotions are theorized to motivate an individual to “broaden and build” one’s scope of cognition, attention, and behavior. Distinct positive emotion concepts may provide individuals with more informational value than that provided by (...) global mood. Indeed, individuals who are higher in positive emotional granularity report being better at coping with stressful experiences. In this review, we discuss growing research on positive emotional granularity and well-being. Issues of measurement, interventions, and considerations for future lines of research are discussed. (shrink)

Résumé Loin d’être un programme de recherche tourné uniquement vers l’abstraction, la physiocratie comporte une dimension empirique tout à fait centrale dans sa constitution et dans son développement. L’étude de cette dimension permet de mettre au jour les liens généalogiques et méthodologiques qui ont uni le mouvement physiocratique et les traditions anglaise et française de l’arithmétique politique. En outre, une attention portée à l’inventaire des différentes activités agricoles et à la mesure de leurs productions respectives témoigne d’une autre influence importante (...) dans la construction de l’économie politique de Quesnay, à savoir l’agronomie, alors en plein renouveau sous l’impulsion de Duhamel du Monceau. (shrink)

Most decisions concerning insurance and self-protection have to be taken in situations in which the effort exerted precedes the moment uncertainty realizes, and the probabilities of future states of the world are not perfectly known. By integrating these two characteristics in a simple theoretical framework, this paper derives plausible conditions under which ambiguity aversion raises the demand for insurance and self-protection. In particular, it is shown that in most usual situations where the level of ambiguity does not increase with the (...) level of effort, a simple condition of ambiguity prudence known as decreasing absolute ambiguity aversion is sufficient to give a clear and positive answer to the question: Does ambiguity aversion raise the optimal level of effort? (shrink)

This paper reflects on the notion of partial ambiguity. Using a framework decomposing ambiguity into distinct layers of analysis, among which are risk and model uncertainty, and allowing for different attitudes toward these layers, I show that partial ambiguity may prove less desirable than full ambiguity, even under ambiguity aversion. This observation poses difficulties for interpreting the notion of partial ambiguity in relation to the partial information available to determine the potential compositions of an ambiguous urn. Two Ellsberg-style thought experiments (...) are described to challenge the meaning of partial ambiguity further, and an alternative interpretation, based on a more ambiguous relation, is discussed. (shrink)

We introduce a notion of syntactical truth predicate (s.t.p.) for the second order arithmetic PA 2 . An s.t.p. is a set T of closed formulas such that: (i) T(t = u) if and only if the closed first order terms t and u are convertible, i.e., have the same value in the standard interpretation (ii) T(A → B) if and only if (T(A) $\Longrightarrow$ T(B)) (iii) T(∀ x A) if and only if (T(A[x ← t]) for any closed first (...) order term t) (iv) T(∀ X A) if and only if (T(A[X ←▵]) for any closed set definition $\triangle = \{x \mid D(x)\}$ ). S.t.p.'s can be seen as a counterpart to Tarski's notion of (model-theoretical) validity and have main model properties. In particular, their existence is equivalent to the existence of an ω-model of PA 2 , this fact being provable in PA 2 with arithmetical comprehension only. (shrink)