The COVID-19 global pandemic has led to significant disruptions in the lives of high-performance athletes, including the postponement of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, the cancellation of many international and national competitions, and drastic changes in athletes’ daily training environment. The purpose of this research was to examine the interplay between the mental health and mental performance of Canadian national team athletes and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these variables from the perspective of mental performance consultants and (...) mental health practitioners. Twelve individuals working in these roles with national team athletes participated in focus groups and interviews during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Findings from the inductive reflexive thematic analysis revealed three main themes: factors impacting athlete mental health, consequences of COVID-19 for athletes, and impact of the pandemic on practitioners. Interestingly, athletes with prior good mental performance skills were perceived to be more equipped to cope with challenges related to the pandemic, which concurrently seemed to facilitate good mental health throughout the pandemic. Furthermore, even though the pandemic had several debilitative consequences on athletes’ mental health, it imposed a break from training and competition that allowed them to rest and enjoy their life outside of sport. Finally, participants discussed the need for more mental health resources and better access to practitioners supporting mental performance and mental health in the Canadian sport system. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

The French philosopher Renaud Barbaras remarked that late in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s career, “The phenomenology of perception fulfills itself as a philosophy of expression.” In _Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty: Aesthetics, Philosophy of Biology, and Ontology, _Véronique M. Fóti_ _addresses the guiding yet neglected theme of expression in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. She traces Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about how individuals express creative or artistic impulses through his three essays on aesthetics, his engagement with animality and the “new biology” in the second of his lecture courses (...) on nature of 1957–58, and in his late ontology, articulated in 1964 in the fragmentary text of _Le visible et l’invisible _. With the exception of a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s 1945 essay “Cezanne’s Doubt,” Fóti engages with Merleau-Ponty’s late and final thought, with close attention to both his scientific and philosophical interlocutors, especially the continental rationalists. Expression shows itself, in Merleau-Ponty’s thought, to be primordial, and this innate and fundamental nature of expression has implications for his understanding of artistic creation, science, and philosophy. (shrink)

Is the principal concern of political philosophy the source of political authority? And, if so, can this source be located in individual consent? In this article I draw on Rousseau to answer the second question negatively; and in rejecting that answer, why we might answer the first question in the negative as well. We should be concerned with questions of legitimacy rather than with the source of authority and political obligation. Our principal concern, that is, should be with the question (...) how well political institutions meet the needs of individuals. I pursue these issues in the context of interpreting Rousseau's distinctive contribution to political thought. I start out by asking the question ‘What problem is the General Will designed to solve?’ I argue that Rousseau's challenge to Hobbes represents a crucial step in the move from the source of authority and political obligation to a focus on legitimacy. (shrink)

Are there distinctively political values? Certain egalitarians seem to think that equality is one such value. Scheffler 's contribution to the symposium seeks to articulate a division of moral labour between norms of personal morality and the principles of justice that regulate social institutions, and using this suggests that the egalitarian critique of Rawls can be deflected. In this paper, instead, I question the status of equality as an intrinsic value. I argue that an egalitarianism which focuses on the status (...) of equality as valuable in itself embraces a theory of value with the worst elements of utilitarianism while leaving behind any of the intuitive appeal that utilitarianism has. In its place I press that we need a political conception of egalitarianism which stresses the role of equality as a political ideal without presupposing any values with which we engage beyond those found in the norms of personal morality. (shrink)

Veronique Foti delves into the full range of Heideggerian texts to elaborate the problematics of historicity, language, and the structure of disclosure or "manifestation" in connection with the Herman poets whom Heidegger invoked along his path of thinking. Foti's reading of these ports is a probing inquiry into the aesthetic, ethical, and political implications of Heidegger's thought. She knows how technicity and poetizing are opposed yet brought together in Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology, how they are both politicized and linked with ethical (...) praxis, and how technicity, poetizing, and praxis cannot be dissevered from Heidegger's essential thinking. (shrink)

La philosophe étudie le concept d'amour du monde de H. Arendt. Il permet de dévoiler toute la complexité du rapport d'Arendt au christianisme, livrant un nouvel éclairage sur son oeuvre. Du souci du politique, qui s'mpose en 1933, à l'amour du monde, choisi librement en 1955, la pensée d'Arendt ne cesse de s'élargir, dans un dialogue serré avec le christianisme.

Gallagher hardly refers to the central issue of the phenomenological reduction, and he perpetuates the historical blunder of Chisholm, misinterpreting Husserlian intentionality as linguistic intensionality. This misunderstanding opens the way to a “naturalization” of phenomenology, which misses the very method of the phenomenological reduction as well as the essential dimension of subjective lived experience.

We agree with Nuñez that the Mundurucu do not master the formal propreties of number lines and logarithms, but as the term "intuition" implies, they spontaneously experience a logarithmic mapping of number to space as natural and "feeling right.".

Human adults are thought to possess two dissociable systems to represent numbers: an approximate quantity system akin to a mental number line, and a verbal system capable of representing numbers exactly. Here, we study the interface between these two systems using an estimation task. Observers were asked to estimate the approximate numerosity of dot arrays. We show that, in the absence of calibration, estimates are largely inaccurate: responses increase monotonically with numerosity, but underestimate the actual numerosity. However, insertion of a (...) few inducer trials, in which participants are explicitly (and sometimes misleadingly) told that a given display contains 30 dots, is sufficient to calibrate their estimates on the whole range of stimuli. Based on these empirical results, we develop a model of the mapping between the numerical symbols and the representations of numerosity on the number line. (shrink)

Humans possess two nonverbal systems capable of representing numbers, both limited in their representational power: the first one represents numbers in an approximate fashion, and the second one conveys information about small numbers only. Conception of exact large numbers has therefore been thought to arise from the manipulation of exact numerical symbols. Here, we focus on two fundamental properties of the exact numbers as prerequisites to the concept of EXACT NUMBERS : the fact that all numbers can be generated by (...) a successor function and the fact that equality between numbers can be defined in an exact fashion. We discuss some recent findings assessing how speakers of Munduruc (an Amazonian language), and young Western children (3-4 years old) understand these fundamental properties of numbers. (shrink)

Compromises are arrived at when, in spite of the efforts of those participating to mediate and defend their position in a rationally acceptable manner, each remains with his judgment while, at the same time, a decision must be made without further delay. What this means is that the parties agree to an option about which they are not, in their heart of hearts, entirely convinced. This article examines the notion of moral compromise, concentrating thereby on the case of political praxis. (...) It asks whether, in view of the complexity and multiplicity of morally relevant decisions encountered in a pluralist society, it is at all realistic to expect much else from political institutions than what Rawls dismissively refers to as a modus vivendi and whether a conception of justice that is true or reasonable only given the reasonable pluralism of comprehensive doctrines is still a conception of justice, and not simply a compromise between the contending doctrines. (shrink)

This article explores the connections between eugenics, politics and the state, taking the Swiss case as a particular focus. It is argued that Switzerland provides a historical example of what Bauman [Bauman, Z. . Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press.] describes as ‘gardening states’: states that are concerned with eliminating the ‘bad weeds’ from the national garden and thereby constructing sharply exclusionary national identities. The Swiss experiments with eugenics can be seen as an example of an ongoing struggle against (...) ‘difference’. Against this backdrop I will examine, first, the ways in which state regulation of reproductive sexuality, and other eugenic measures, became central mechanisms for dealing with cultural and other ‘differences’ in the Swiss nation. Second, I will analyse the gendered nature of such mechanisms, as well as the preoccupation with racial ‘difference’ exemplified by eugenic policies towards ‘Gypsies’. To conclude, I will examine the impact of political institutions and political ideology, in particular, social democracy, on these eugenic gardening efforts. (shrink)

Examines the construction of vision in the works of Heraclitus, Plato, Descartes, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Nancy, and Derrida.

L’invention de la ménopause au xixe siècle puis celle de l’andropause dans la seconde moitié du xxe siècle ont eu pour effet d’accroître la surveillance des médecins sur les corps féminins et masculins vieillissants et, plus spécialement, sur la sexualité de cette période de la vie. Or, si ce coup d’état médical a si bien réussi, c’est qu’il a tout autant bénéficié du soutien très actif des femmes que de l’incapacité des hommes à lui résister. C’est aussi qu’il s’inscrivait dans (...) le prolongement de très anciennes pratiques sociales qu’il légitimait. Et qu’on ne s’y trompe pas. Loin de se desserrer, l’étau s’est définitivement refermé. En effet, les hommes, qui ont longtemps tenté d’échapper maladroitement à cette surveillance, ont, aujourd’hui, fini par s’y soumettre, acceptant, de fait, tout le discours silencieux sur les défaillances de leur puissance virile qu’elle suppose. (shrink)

Face à la sidération provoquée par la pandémie, devant l’incertitude des lendemains et un avenir anxiogène, il est nécessaire plus que jamais de mettre en valeur l’importance de nos affects, de nos émotions, et de retrouver du lien. Les ateliers d’écriture à l’hôpital et en Ehpad sont emblématiques de la place cruciale l’artiste, de l’écrivain, dans les lieux où résident les populations vulnérables. Il ne s’agit pas de saupoudrer une activité vaguement socio culturelle, afin de légitimer la place de l’art (...) dans la cité grâce à des intervenants bienveillants… mais d’inventer de véritables situations à l’intérieur desquelles prendra forme une communauté de dialogue. Le quatuor formé par le soignant, le patient, le parent (en pédiatrie), et l’auteure, instaure une dimension sensible qui viendra adoucir, transformer la médecine traditionnelle fondée sur le diagnostic et les traitements. (shrink)

Here a group of philosophers, economists and political theorists discuss the work of David Gauthier, which seeks to show that rational individuals would accept certain moral constraints on their choices. The possibilities and limitations of a contractarian approach to issues of justice is analyzed.

The conception of social relationships as contractual lies at the core of our ideology. Indeed, that core is constituted by the intersection of this conception with the correlative conceptions of human activity as appropriate and of rationality as utility-maximizing. My concern is to clarify this thesis and to enhance its descriptive plausibility as a characterization of our ideology, but to undermine its normative plausibility as ideologically effective.

Cet article a déjà paru dans la revue brésilienne Psicanàlise & Barroco em revista en juillet 2020. Nous remercions Véronique Verdier de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. Résumé : Cet article esquisse l'itinéraire de reconquête des rythmes de l'existence. Partant d'un constat, l'existence est en fait rythmée mais ces rythmes sont le plus souvent passivement subis et ne sont pas ceux choisis par le sujet, nous nous demandons comment retrouver une maîtrise de ces rythmes car cette maîtrise (...) est - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Examines the German poet Hölderlin’s philosophical insights into tragedy.

This paper explores anthropomorphism in human-animal interactions from the theoretical perspectives of pragmatism and anthropology of communication. Its aim is to challenge the conception of anthropomorphism as the attribution/inference of human properties to a nonhuman animal, i.e. as a special case of the theory of mind, and to articulate and make plausible an alternative conception of anthropomorphism as a situated direct perception of human properties by someone who is engaged in a given situation, and let themselves be affected by the (...) animal. The paper offers an original perspective for in depth ethnographic and empirical studies of anthropomorphism-in-situation. Such studies could bring new insights in the study of how ordinary people make sense of animal’s behaviors in real-life situations. (shrink)

Geometry defines entities that can be physically realized in space, and our knowledge of abstract geometry may therefore stem from our representations of the physical world. Here, we focus on Euclidean geometry, the geometry historically regarded as “natural”. We examine whether humans possess representations describing visual forms in the same way as Euclidean geometry – i.e., in terms of their shape and size. One hundred and twelve participants from the U.S. (age 3–34 years), and 25 participants from the Amazon (age (...) 5–67 years) were asked to locate geometric deviants in panels of 6 forms of variable orientation. Participants of all ages and from both cultures detected deviant forms defined in terms of shape or size, while only U.S. adults drew distinctions between mirror images (i.e. forms differing in “sense”). Moreover, irrelevant variations of sense did not disrupt the detection of a shape or size deviant, while irrelevant variations of shape or size did. At all ages and in both cultures, participants thus retained the same properties as Euclidean geometry in their analysis of visual forms, even in the absence of formal instruction in geometry. These findings show that representations of planar visual forms provide core intuitions on which humans’ knowledge in Euclidean geometry could possibly be grounded. (shrink)

In 1994, the European Parliament published a resolution on the right of humanitarian intervention. Interestingly, the declaration maintains that such intervention is not in contradiction with international law, although it formulates the concept of right in a way that is translatable into the vocabulary of individual rights. I analyze some implications of the resolution for the mutual duties of states. I thereby focus my attention on two possible applications: by way of Rawls's duty of assistance and by way of the (...) cosmopolitan theory of global distributive justice. I conclude that the latter theory promises better results for protecting individuals' basic rights, but I also show that it is at the cost of a strongly interventionist structure requiring a powerful supranational institution. Finally, I envision the conditions under which such an increase of interventionism in favor of human rights can be acceptable. (shrink)

Des millions d'années avant l'apparition de l'homme, la vie avait déjà inventé la roue, le moteur atomique, le sonar, le vol stationnaire, la capture de l'énergie solaire, l'éclairage électrique, le GPS et des myriades de techniques qui nous dépassent encore complètement : cicatrisation, reproduction, congélation suivie de réanimation, et des cerveaux dont chacun des milliards de neurones est un univers informatique. Pour le comprendre, il a fallu attendre que nos propres technologies atteignent les profondeurs moléculaires du vivant, nous révélant que (...) les inventions de la nature étaient infiniment plus complexes que les nôtres. " Le service Recherche et Développement de la nature a 3,8 milliards d'années d'avance sur ceux de nos entreprises ", aime dire Janine Benyus, la naturaliste américaine qui a inventé le concept de biomimétisme. " Il s'agit de nous en inspirer pour pousser plus loin nos propres inventions, mais surtout pour corriger le tir de ces dernières, qui nous ont conduits dans les impasses écologiques que l'on sait. " Il existe trois niveaux de biomimétisme. Le premier consiste à imiter les formes de la nature. Le second, de plus en plus prisé des industriels, repose sur l'imitation des matériaux et des processus naturels. La vraie révolution repose cependant sur le troisième niveau, qui consiste à imiter les stratégies du vivant, sa philosophie. Ce troisième niveau a des implications fascinantes. Ainsi, contrairement à l'image que nous nous faisons de la " loi de la jungle ", la nature ne pratique la compétition que dans 10 % des rapports entre organismes. Les 90 % restants sont fondés sur la coexistence, le mutualisme, la coopération, le commensalisme, le parasitisme et la symbiose. A imiter absolument! (shrink)