In this paper, I propose to reconstruct Schürmann’s early concept of translation in dialogue with Eckhart and Heidegger and in connection with the concept of releasement. Taking recourse to the different versions of his research on Eckhart’s German sermons, from his early thesis and dissertation to the French and American editions of Wandering Joy, I comment on Schürmann’s practice of translation and seek to elucidate the stylistic, existential and ontological dimensions of his translation theory. In conclusion, I discuss the relevance (...) of what I call “wandering translation” for contemporary philosophy of translation. (shrink)

This essay considers how deployments of the acronym “LGBT” often obscure and flatten the specificity of the terms the letters reference. Also of concern here is how the “T” might be the more fundamental letter, as reactions to “LGBT identity” are indexed in gender transgression, to which the “T” refers. I argue for holding the trouble of the acronym in the “T” and that the trans underlies how “LGBT,” as a marker of subjectivity or violence, becomes legible. To carry this (...) out, the essay makes a parallel to how “LGBT” functions similarly to “people of color” as the terms obscure the fundamentality of the trans and the black, respectively; clarifies the distinction between queer and trans, and subsequently trans and transgender; and demonstrates how transphobic readings are integral to homophobic responses. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous abordons le problème de la traduction des noms propres. Nous présentons notre hypothèse, selon laquelle la thèse très répandue de la non-traductibilité des noms propres peut être contredite. Puis, nous décrivons la construction du corpus multilingue aligné que nous utilisons pour illustrer notre propos. Nous évaluons enfin les apports et les limites de ce corpus dans le cadre de notre étude.

Opponents of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research claim that such research is incompatible with the moral principle that it is always wrong intentionally to end a human life. In this essay, I discuss how that principle might be revised so that it is subject to as few difficulties as possible. I then argue that even the most defensible version of the principle is compatible with the moral permissibility of hESC research.

Les militants et chercheurs dans le domaine du handicap attribuent généralement le manque de logements accessibles au manque de compréhension des normes d’accessibilité par les architectes, ou à un niveau insuffisant de soutien du public dû au validisme ou à des inquiétudes peu justifiées concernant les coûts de construction. Nous en savons cependant peu sur les expériences vécues en matière de logement accessible, qui pourraient fournir des explications complémentaires au faible soutien public. Cette étude vise à comprendre leurs expériences et (...) leurs perceptions des normes d’accessibilité à domicile, au travers de quinze entretiens avec des propriétaires et locataires de logements accessibles récemment construits dans des zones urbaines françaises, s’identifiant comme valides. Je décris comment les normes d’accessibilité entrent en conflit avec: les routines quotidiennes, parfois au point de limiter les activités; et les points de vue sur ce qui constitue une bonne maison, esthétiquement et fonctionnellement. Les expériences des participants varient, mais dans l’ensemble, les entretiens suggèrent qu’il est en effet difficile pour les habitants de s’adapter aux normes d’accessibilité, telles qu’elles sont actuellement appliquées. Comprendre les perceptions des habitants en matière de logement accessible pourrait ouvrir de nouvelles voies pour améliorer la mise en œuvre des normes d’accessibilité dans les logements. (shrink)

La confrontation des conceptions whiteheadienne et merleau-pontienne de l?expérience est loin de constituer une tâche aisée. La difficulté la plus apparente est relative à la divergence sur laquelle nous butons dès que nous plaçons l?une à côté de l?autre les deux entreprises philosophiques. Alors que dans Procès et réalité , la perspective adoptée par Whitehead consiste en une recherche à « entrées multiples », la phénoménologie pourrait être hâtivement décrite comme dérivant toute signification du monde d?une conscience constituante. En d?autres (...) termes, l?expérience perceptive posséde­rait une dimension anthropocentrée chez Merleau-Ponty alors que cette même dimension ne paraîtrait avoir chez Whitehead que le statut du cas particulier. La différence s?expliquerait alors par le fait que Whitehead cherche à analyser la structure de toute expérience du monde comme proces­sus, et pas seulement l?expérience d?une conscience humaine. Plu­sieurs passages de Procès et réalité se veulent d?ailleurs très explicites dans leur rejet, ou tout au moins dans leur « secondarisation » du rôle de la conscience : La conscience est seulement le dernier et le plus grand des éléments par lesquels la sélectivité qui caractérise l?individu masque la totalité externe dont il provient et qu?il incarne. [?] La tâche de la philosophie est de recouvrer la totalité rejetée dans l?ombre par la sélection. Elle remet. (shrink)

L’œuvre édifiante de Kierkegaard demeure objet de perplexité, tout particulièrement pour les lecteurs venant à elle depuis la philosophie. Que signifie l’« édifiant»s’il n’est pas encore le religieux, mais sa préparation dans l’éthique, et s’il n’est déjà plus simplement le spéculatif, mais le retournement de celui-ci contre lui-même à la lumière de l’Écriture sainte? En quoi consiste sa contribution essentielle à la philosophie? Cet article se propose de montrer que les Discours édifiants de 1843-1844 conduisent une méditation du temps et (...) de l’éternité qui demeure unique au sein de l’œuvre kierkegaardienne. Tout en approfondissant la catégorie de l’esprit, forgée par les pseudonymes, les Discours développent les catégories singulières de l’attente et de la patience. Ils offrent une description bouleversante de l’expérience du temps et cherchent à en opérer la transfiguration par l’acte de (se) comprendre. Par là, c’est l’éternité d’une Parole qui pénètre dans l’existence encore sujette au temps. Voué à la tâche de préparer l’intériorité en vue du religieux, l’édifiant apparaît comme le sérieux de la philosophie elle-même. (shrink)

La prise en compte des problématiques de genre en danse s’est faite tardivement en France. L’histoire de la danse a tout particulièrement longtemps résisté à l’introduction d’une perspective qui remettait en question une tradition historiographique et une certaine doxa. Cet article s’attache à restituer quelques étapes de l’introduction de cette nouvelle appréhension des problématiques historiques. Stimulée par les échanges internationaux, et notamment avec les pays anglo-saxons, elle a été rendue possible par une ouverture interdisciplinaire, croisant les études en danse avec (...) les autres domaines des arts vivants, les études de genre et l’histoire, plus spécifiquement l’histoire culturelle. Elle a aussi été renforcée par des échanges fructueux entre la recherche académique et des recherches et initiatives venant d’institutions culturelles ainsi que d’artistes de la danse. (shrink)

This article argues that De trinitate advocates a process of “reading” God through metaphor. For Augustine, as for Plotinus, human beings understand God not by analyzing him rationally but by seeing him through the metaphor of the human mind. But unlike Plotinus, Augustine claims that the imago dei, with its triadic structure of memory, understanding, and will, serves as metaphor only to the extent that it experiences Christ’s redemptive illumination. The act of metaphor is a kind of interior “reading” during (...) which the mind reads the imago dei as a mental text, interprets this text through Christ’s aid, and is simultaneously transformed into a better image. (shrink)

A Study of the History and Philosophy of Category Theory Jean-Pierre Marquis. to say that objects are dispensable in geometry. What is claimed is that the specific nature of the objects used is irrelevant. To use the terminology already ...

In this paper, we try to establish that some mathematical theories, like K-theory, homology, cohomology, homotopy theories, spectral sequences, modern Galois theory (in its various applications), representation theory and character theory, etc., should be thought of as (abstract) machines in the same way that there are (concrete) machines in the natural sciences. If this is correct, then many epistemological and ontological issues in the philosophy of mathematics are seen in a different light. We concentrate on one problem which immediately follows (...) the recognition of the particular status of these theories: the demarcation problem between ‘natural kinds’ and ‘artefacts’. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify the role of category theory in the foundations of mathematics. There is a good deal of confusion surrounding this issue. A standard philosophical strategy in the face of a situation of this kind is to draw various distinctions and in this way show that the confusion rests on divergent conceptions of what the foundations of mathematics ought to be. This is the strategy adopted in the present paper. It is divided into 5 (...) sections. We first show that already in the set theoretical framework, there are different dimensions to the expression foundations of. We then explore these dimensions more thoroughly. After a very short discussion of the links between these dimensions, we move to some of the arguments presented for and against category theory in the foundational landscape. We end up on a more speculative note by examining the relationships between category theory and set theory. (shrink)

This paper discusses three cultural narratives that threaten the health of people with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) and which have become more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. These meta-narratives are the medical model of health/disability; the population health approach to health inequalities; and policies premised on the assumption of the importance of national economic growth as an incentive for reducing health inequalities. Evidence exists that health research is more likely to become policy if it fits within a medical model and addresses (...) national economic growth. These two criteria are particularly problematic for people who have IDD. The paper also proposes a research model to facilitate the inclusion of IDD related issues in future policy regarding health inequalities. (shrink)

In this paper, we look at Bourbaki’s work as a case study for the notion of mathematical style. We argue that indeed Bourbaki exemplifies a mathematical style, namely the structuralist style.

The nature of truth has occupied philosophers since the very beginning of the field. Our goal is to clarify the notion of scientific truth, in particular the notion of partial truth of facts. Our strategy consists to brake the problem into smaller, more manageable, questions. Thus, we distinguish the truth of a scientific theory, what we call the "global" truth value of a theory, from the truth of a particular scientific proposition, what we call the "local" truth values of a (...) theory. We will present a new local theory of partial truth and will have few things to say about the global level. Moreover, we will also introduce some purely formal results, the most important being the introduction of a new class of algebraic structures which have some interesting connections with classical logic. (shrink)

Structuralism has recently moved center stage in philosophy of mathematics. One of the issues discussed is the underlying logic of mathematical structuralism. In this paper, I want to look at the dual question, namely the underlying structures of logic. Indeed, from a mathematical structuralist standpoint, it makes perfect sense to try to identify the abstract structures underlying logic. We claim that one answer to this question is provided by categorical logic. In fact, we claim that the latter can be seen—and (...) probably should be seen—as being a structuralist approach to logic and it is from this angle that categorical logic is best understood. (shrink)

This article queries the very question of and that is ‘gender’, from the vantage of transgender studies. In other words, it moves through Wiegman's question of the desires that propel us and asks what desires propel a feeling of gender's necessity, positing the possibility of relinquishing gender as a vector with the same kind of footing it currently has. In short, the question that is asked is gender itself, and the question is asked from a trans studies that excavates the (...) possibilities of radicality. (shrink)

In this paper, I introduce and examine the notion of “mathematical engineering” and its impact on mathematical change. Mathematical engineering is an important part of contemporary mathematics and it roughly consists of the “construction” and development of various machines, probes and instruments used in numerous mathematical fields. As an example of such constructions, I briefly present the basic steps and properties of homology theory. I then try to show that this aspect of contemporary mathematics has important consequences on our conception (...) of mathematical knowledge, in particular mathematical growth. (shrink)

In my essay, Why abortion is immoral, I criticised discussions of the morality of abortion in which the crucial issue is whether fetuses are human beings or whether fetuses are persons. Both argument strategies are inadequate because they rely on indefensible assumptions. Why should being a human being or being a person make a moral difference? I argued that the correct account of the morality of abortion should be based upon a defensible account of why killing children and adults is (...) wrong. I claimed that what makes killing us wrong is that our premature deaths deprive us of our futures of value, that is, the goods of life we would have experienced had we survived. This account of the wrongness of killing explains why killing is one of the worst of crimes and how killing greatly harms the victim. It coheres with the attitudes of those with cancer or HIV facing premature death. It explains why we believe it is wrong to kill infants. It does not entail that it wrongs a human being to end her life if she is in persistent vegetative state or if her future must consist only of unbearable physical suffering and she wants to die. This account of the wrongness of killing implies that abortion is immoral because we were fetuses once and we know those fetuses had futures of value. Mark Brown claims that this potential future of value account is unsound because it implies that we have welfare rights to what we need to stay alive that most people would reject. I argue that Brown is incorrect in two ways: a welfare right to what we need to stay alive is not directly implied by my account and, in addition, most of us do believe that dependent human beings have substantial welfare rights to what they need to stay alive. Brown argues that depriving us of a future of value of which we have mental representations both is a better explanation of the wrongness of killing and does not imply that abortion is immoral. I reply that if Brown's arguments against my view were sound, those arguments could be easily adapted to show that his view is unsound as well and Brown's view is both ambiguous and unsound on any interpretation. The most popular class of pro-choice argument strategies appeals to the view that some or all fetuses lack either a mental state or function or a capacity for a mental state or function necessary for possession of the right to life. Desires, interests, sentience, various concepts, moral agency, and rationality have all been suggested as candidates for this crucial mental role. Brown's analysis is one member of this class of strategies. I believe that it is possible to show that none of these strategies is reasonable. However, there are so many of these strategies that the required argument demands something more like a book and less like a short essay. The argument of the following essay is a piece of this larger argument. (shrink)

Fefermans argument is indeed convincing in a certain context, it can be dissolved entirely by modifying the context appropriately.

In this paper, I introduce the idea that some important parts of contemporary pure mathematics are moving away from what I call the extensional point of view. More specifically, these fields are based on criteria of identity that are not extensional. After presenting a few cases, I concentrate on homotopy theory where the situation is particularly clear. Moreover, homotopy types are arguably fundamental entities of geometry, thus of a large portion of mathematics, and potentially to all mathematics, at least according (...) to some speculative research programs. (shrink)

An apparent ethical dilemma arises when physicians consider enrolling their patients in randomized clinical trials. Suppose that a randomized clinical trial comparing two treatments is in progress, and a physician has an opinion about which treatment is better. The physician has a duty to promote the patient's best medical interests and therefore seems to be obliged to advise the patient to receive the treatment that the physician prefers. This duty creates a barrier to the enrollment of patients in randomized clinical (...) trials.1-10 Two strategies are often used to resolve the dilemma in favor of enrolling patients in clinical trials. (shrink)

Approximations form an essential part of scientific activity and they come in different forms: conceptual approximations (simplifications in models), mathematical approximations of various types (e.g. linear equations instead of non-linear ones, computational approximations), experimental approximations due to limitations of the instruments and so on and so forth. In this paper, we will consider one type of approximation, namely numerical approximations involved in the comparison of two results, be they experimental or theoretical. Our goal is to lay down the conceptual and (...) formal foundations of a local theory of partial truth. This is done by introducing and exploring the concept of truth space. (shrink)

How can the abortion issue be resolved? Many believe that the issue can be resolved if, and only if, we can determine when human life begins. Those opposed to abortion choice typically say that human life begins at conception. Many who favor abortion choice say that we will never know when human life begins. The importance of the when-does-human-life-begin issue is not so much argued for as it is taken to be self-evident. Furthermore, belief that this issue is fundamental is (...) taken for granted – at least outside of philosophy – by many of the people who seem to disagree about almost everything else concerning abortion. It has been my experience that – with rare exceptions – even those who insist that the issue of abortion should focus on the interests of pregnant women believe that this focus is warranted because fetuses are either not yet fully alive or not yet fully human. (shrink)