This article is about specific uses of the thought of Spinoza, studied through a selection of books concerning personal development and philosophy of management. Through a discourse of truth and authority, these texts give rise to the formulation of a Spinozism that philosophically justifies the ideal types of neoliberalism and make Spinoza the father of this social, political, and economic model. Thus, the authors want to convince individuals that they must concentrate on their affects, by postulating that happiness and freedom (...) can only be achieved by working on oneself. However, this means minimising the influence of a social exteriority that remains crucial to Spinozian philosophy. This article studies what has been retained from the Spinozian corpus, to make it correspond to neoliberalism and to apply these practices of personal development and philosophy of management. We also point out the limits of this singular interpretation of Spinoza, while questioning the relevance of this type of adaptation of his philosophy to contemporary times. (shrink)

Adopting a broadly compatibilist approach, this volume's authors argue that the behavioral and mind sciences do not threaten the moral foundations of legal responsibility. Rather, these sciences provide fresh insight into human agency and updated criteria as well as powerful diagnostic and intervention tools for assessing and altering minds.

This paper deals with predicate logics involving two truth values (here referred to as bivalent logics). Sequent calculi for these logics rely on a general notion of sequent that helps to make the principles of excluded middle and non-contradiction explicit. Several formulations of the redundancy of cut are possible in these sequent calculi. Indeed, four different forms of cut can be distinguished. I prove that only two of them hold for positive sequent calculus (which is both paraconsistent and paracomplete) while (...) all of them hold for classical sequent calculus. As for complete and consistent sequent calculi (which are respectively paraconsistent and paracomplete), I prove that they only admit one form of cut in addition to the two that hold for positive sequent calculus. (shrink)

The traditional distinction between retributive and distributive justice misconstrues the place of the criminal law in modern regulatory states. In the context of the regulatory state, the criminal law is a coercive rule-enforcing institution – regardless of whether it also serves the ends of retributive justice. As a rule-enforcing institution, the criminal law is deeply implicated in stabilizing the institutions and legal rules by means of which a state creates and allocates social advantage. As a coercive institution, the criminal law (...) requires justification as an instance of legitimate state authority. The operation of criminal justice institutions should therefore not be evaluated by reference to a distinct set of criteria, but should be evaluated by the same criteria that apply to coercive public institutions generally. (shrink)

A Moral Justification for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights Legislation.

L�usage, dans un contexte liturgique, du poème le plus connu de Paul Celan, Tenebrae, pose problème. Quel «projet de réalité» se déploie-t-il dans ce texte ? Une interprétation est ici proposée qui prend particulièrement en considération l�univers poétique de l�auteur jusqu�en 1957 ainsi que les nombreuses réminiscences littéraires et spécialement bibliques qui lui permettent d�élaborer un contre-langage. Les étapes préliminaires du poème que nous révèlent les éditions critiques récentes fournissent des pistes précieuses pour affiner le sens de ce poème splendide (...) et mystérieux. (shrink)

The relationship between law and morality has for some years been the object of a new investment by legal doctrine, in search of a new balance between individual freedom on the one hand, and the assertion of rights or values seen as imperative, as well as dignity or the principle of non-discrimination, on the other. In this article is proposed a modelling of the concepts of neutrality attached to the definition of public order, whose potentialities are in a second time (...) tested in the field of the treatment of religion in the enterprise. (shrink)

The present study is not a series of disconnected essays concerning select ed Western philosophies. All its parts belong organically together and constitute one whole. For this reason, the reader is warned not to use it as a reference book for one or another philosopher here treated. The study begins with the declaration of the exposition of fundamental event in Western philosophy which prevails with a different hue in each of the major philosophies and which relates these to pre-philosophical or (...) mythical thought. The study then treats selected Western philosophies se parately with the tendency to disclose the major event of philosophy in them. Finally it approaches contemporary man from the perspective of the fundamental event in philosophy. An inquiry into Western man's greatness is maintained here all along as intimately bound up with the historical development of philosophy. Philosophy involves greatness - not one of many philosophies, how ever, but Philosophy as such. Philosophy as such is not a composite of the various major philosophies in history; it precedes these, and is present in each one of them in a concealed way. It holds sway over them, and they belong to it. Philosophy rules the thought of thinkers; it is the Ordinance which directs the way of thought, and which is responded to by the thought of the thinkers. In this way, the major philosophies in history are diverse phases which, like the bends and turns of a river, belong to Ordinance - to Nature's thought. (shrink)

Explores the generic foundations of political theory in the twentieth century. It sorts and analyses the overarching perceptions of the political theory, at a broad level of generality, during the bulk of the century. The five positions outlined are normative political theory, institutional theory, historical political theory, empirical political theory, and ideological theory.

The religious question in China is not limited to the contemporary tensions between the Catholic and Protestant churches and the Beijing regime, the repression suffered by Tibetan Buddhists or Uighur Muslims and the problems associated with so-called ‘sectarian’ movements. Though these issues are very important and worthy of interest in themselves, they have to be understood in a wider context which takes in the totality of religious realities in China, including those we in the West do not see because they (...) fall outside our representations of what is religious. Furthermore, the contemporary religious question assumes meaning only if we consider all the struggles between the Chinese state and society's religious structures since the end of the 19 th century. In another publication I have sketched out the modern history of relations between the Chinese state and the religious structures of the society. Here I should like to show the importance of the concept of religion itself and of the controversies around it in the history of those conflicting relations. We shall see that the concepts, such as religion, used in the humanities and social sciences have consequences that go far beyond the context of academic debates and can help to feed repression and social conflict. (shrink)

L’auteur, qui se propose de publier, pour le bicentenaire de la naissance d’Édouard Reuss , sa correspondance avec Michel Nicolas , présente l’état de ces lettres inédites et les circonstances de leur rédaction. Il montre qu’elles éclairent l’élaboration de la production littéraire des deux protagonistes et l’évolution de la théologie protestante au XIX e siècle en France. Pour illustrer le combat commun des deux correspondants pour le progrès des sciences théologiques en France, il présente enfin les passages qui concernent le (...) projet de création d’une revue scientifique. Il suggère au passage l’influence insoupçonnée de M. Nicolas sur la théologie protestante française, en particulier sur l’évolution des sciences bibliques. The author, who proposes to publish, for the bicentennial of Edouard Reuss’ birth , his correspondence with Michel Nicolas , presents the state of these yet unpublished letters and the circumstances in which they were written. He shows that they enlighten the literary production of both protagonists and the evolution of French Protestant theology in the 19th century. To illustrate their common struggle for the advance of theological sciences in France, he presents at last passages which concern the project to create a scientific periodical. He also suggests the unsuspected influence of M. Nicolas on French Protestant theology, in particular on the evolution of biblical sciences. (shrink)

Solidarité est un maître-mot des discours éthiques et politiques contemporains. Sa relative banalisation ne devrait pourtant pas faire oublier l'intense travail de pensée, pluridisciplinaire, qui sous-tend son élaboration, en particulier au sein du solidarisme. On s'intéressera ici tout particulièrement à l'apport du protestantisme aux idées de coopération, d'équité, de service public et de don. Des idées qui témoignent de la force d'un projet éthique souvent inspiré de Kant mais aussi de la liberté critique des solidaristes, qui n'ont pas hésité à (...) réinterpréter le Kantisme dans le cadre d'une anthropologie soucieuse de pratiques concrètes. Solidarity is a keyword of contemporary ethical and political views. Although it has become a relatively commonplace term, one should not forget the hard work of underlying multidisciplinary thinking behind its elaboration, especially in Solidarism. This paper deals particularly with the contribution of Protestantism to the ideas of cooperation, equity, public service, and donation. These ideas witness to the power of an ethical project that is often inspired by Kant, but also by the critical freedom of the Solidarists, who did not hesitate to reinterpret Kantianism in the setting of an anthropology preoccupied with concrete practices. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce has a great deal to contribute both to understanding and to solving many of the philosophical problems which puzzle contemporary thinkers. In fact it is probably true that in some ways philosophers of our time are in a better position to understand Peirce's thought than those of his own day. In this paper I would like to consider two puzzling notions: 1) the substantiality of things, and 2) the foundations of human knowledge.