The foundation of Mathematics is both a logico-formal issue and an epistemological one. By the first, we mean the explicitation and analysis of formal proof principles, which, largely a posteriori, ground proof on general deduction rules and schemata. By the second, we mean the investigation of the constitutive genesis of concepts and structures, the aim of this paper. This “genealogy of concepts”, so dear to Riemann, Poincaré and Enriques among others, is necessary both in order to enrich the foundational analysis (...) with an often disregarded aspect (the cognitive and historical constitution of mathematical structures) and because of the provable incompleteness of proof principles also in the analysis of deduction. For the purposes of our investigation, we will hint here to a philosophical frame as well as to some recent experimental studies on numerical cognition that support our claim on the cognitive origin and the constitutive role of mathematical intuition. (shrink)

In this paper we want to focus on Husserl’s critique of Kantian ethics and to develop the following questions. Against the merely empiristic orientation of Hume’s ethics, the Kantian foundation of ethics has an aprioristic character; but does this aprioristic character have to be identified with the origin of ethical principles in the pure subjectivity, and if not, which is its phenomenological signification? The sense of the Copernican revolution is that the structures of the objects are in accordance with the (...) universal structures of the finite subject; a contrario, Husserl refuses this Copernican principle and assumes that every sort of object determines a regulative structure in the subject; is it possible to apply this anticopernican principle to the ethical sphere? As opposed to the Kantian principle of the supremacy of practical reason, we find in Husserl’s thought a supremacy of the theoretical reason; but which is the sense of this inversion? The concept of foundation has in Husserlian phenomenology a cardinal importance: all sorts of truth of superior degree are founded on the inferior level of sensible truth; is it possible to apply this principle of foundation to the ethical sphere, so that ethical consciousness would be founded on feelings? At last the Kantian concept of liberty is not an empirical one, but a cosmological and practical idea; which is the phenomenological sense of liberty? (shrink)

Resumen La cuestión del tiempo es uno de los principales objetos de estudio que ocuparon a Simone Weil. En efecto, está intensamente presente en su obra desde sus primeros textos hasta sus últimos escritos. La razón es de peso: para esta autora es a través del tiempo que accedemos a la realidad y a toda posibilidad de sentido en sta. Ahora bien, nuestra intención es mostrar que si bien es cierto que la concepción del tiempo de S. Weil, en sus (...) años de madurez, se erige desde una perspectiva espiritualista, mística y religiosa, en su primera época la filósofa se instala en una ontológica fuertemente influenciada por Kant, que la lleva a restringir lo temporal al marco de la experiencia posible, en el sentido que le da el pensador alemán.The question of time is one of the most important subjects in Simone Weil’s philosophy. Indeed, time’s issue is intensively present in her works from her earlier texts until her last writings. This can be explained by the fact that, for this author, it is through time that we can access to reality and find any sense into the latter. That being said, our goal is to show that, if certainly it can be affirmed that S. Weil’s conception of time in her maturity years is constructed from a spiritual, mystic and religious perspective, at the opposite, in her first period, the philosopher settles her views through an ontology strong influenced by Kant, which conducts her to limited temporal matters into the frame of possible experience, according to the definition of this expression given by the German thinker. (shrink)

Selon Hegel,« la philosophie ne fait rien d'autre que changer les représentations en pensées » et, ultérieurement, « la simple pensée en concept ». La philosophie politique ne doit rien faire d’autre non plus : elle doit changer en « pensées » les représentations que nous nous faisons de nos institutions sociales et politiques, mais aussi les représentations que nous adoptons comme buts de nos actions. Elle doit montrer qu’un «concept» ou, en fin de compte, une Idée est comprise en (...) elles: l’idée de liberté. Tel est le sens de cet idéalisme politique, clarifié ici à partir de l’analyse de la distinction fondamentale établie par Hegel entre une philosophie de la subjectivité ou de la conscience, et un idéalisme de l’esprit. (shrink)

The mimetic theory forged by René Girard is completely closed by its own violence. Given that human violence was contained for centuries, by the victimary mechanism, its deconstruction by the Cross has unleashed a complete and total violence, leading us to the possibility of a real Apocalypse. We show here that this closure is based on a metaphysical view of desire, guiding us from the objet to the being of the model. Since Girard is always confined into metaphysics by his (...) constant use of the paradigm of the image, the presence and, consequently, the idol, we demonstrate that there is still a way out of violence, the same way that is today the way out of metaphysics. With Jean-Luc Marion and his phenomenology of givenness, we oppose the paradigm of the icon to the one of the idol, and therefore the model of the sign to the one of the image. We demonstrate then that global mimetic violence can be stopped if we no longer desire objects and start desiring saturated phenomena, which implies a complete shift in the way we think and receive phenomena. (shrink)

Polarization is a generalized feature of intellectual life. Few authors however have studied polarities as they actually occur in every day life and discourse. This paper proposes two hypotheses to account for the pervasiveness of polarities. The first relates to uncertainty. Almost everything that touches our lives is filled with irreducible uncertainty. As a rhetoric, polarization uses arguments from (future) consequences in order to manage the future. The second hypothesis relates to phenomenology: body and behavior incorporate tensions or dualistic properties (...) which are easily reproduced in language and thinking. Polarized thinking helps people to imagine extremes so that they may better anticipate the spectrum of possibilities available for action. The article concludes with remarks on the dangers of (over)generalizing and universalizing particulars (or extremes) in polarity based argumentation. (shrink)

En este artículo analizamos la cuestión de la presencia del mundo en los escritos de juventud de Simone Weil, con el objetivo de aprehender su concepción del tiempo. En ese sentido, intentaremos elucidar las relaciones ontológica y epistemológica que ella establece entre el hombre y el mundo. Esta perspectiva nos permite explorar la primera filosofía de la percepción weiliana y trazar las implicaciones existenciales que se desprenden de la experiencia del presente. Igualmente, examinamos la dificultad de pensar la inmovilidad en (...) la realidad humana a partir de la tensión problemática que plantea S.Weil entre las nociones de continuidad y eternidad. Palabras clave: Simone Weil, presencia, mundo, continuidad, eternidad, tiempo. (shrink)

The philosopher has always been engrossed with the notion of death. Schopenhauer understood this and elevated the idea to the rank of the Muses:“Death is the true inspiring genius and the musagete of philosophy. This is why Socrates defined it as θανἑτoν μɛλέτη” (Plato, Phaedra, 81a).This notion has been presented to us by turns in its various aspects, at times as a metaphysical concept, at other times as an ethnological or religious reality.

The concept of possibility has an essential function within Husserlian phenomenology. Firstly Husserlian phenomenology is an eidetical one, which is based on a subjective relation towards mere poss...

ABSTRACT: The analytic method by which Descartes established the first principle of his philosophy is a unique cognitive process of direct insight and non-logical inference that differs markedly from the deductive model of noetic apprehension long associated with seventeenth-century rationalism. In this paper, it is shown that the same analytic process is at work in the Third Meditation proof of the innateness of the idea of God, where, however, there are serious doubts about its legitimacy.

L’objectif de cet article est d’interroger la transition Kant-Fichte sur le double plan de la systématicité et du primat de la raison pratique. S’il est admis que Kant voyait dans l’exercice critique l’occasion de renouveler, plutôt que de supprimer, la possibilité d’une métaphysique positive, il est aujourd’hui convenu de rapporter son ébauche de «système» au seul héritage de laSchulmetaphysik. A contrario, on cherche ici à prendre à la lettre l’exigence kantienne d’un système qui attend du «pratique» une nouvelle et absolue (...) «fondation», plutôt qu’il ne devrait être complété en l’état. La perspective fichtéenne impose alors son fil rouge.In this article, I examine two aspects of the transition from Kant to Fichte: systematicity and the primacy of practical reason. It is commonly agreed that Kant saw the critical exercise as an occasion to renew, rather than supress, the possibility of a positive metaphysics; however, most scholars now consider the “system” he sketched to be the sole heritage ofSchulmetaphysik. However, I take literally Kant’s demand for a system that expects from the “practical” a new and absolute “foundation,” rather than a system that must be completed. Here, Fichte’s perspective gives us the common thread. (shrink)

resumo É possível distinguir ao menos três etapas principais nas abordagens filosóficas da noção de sujeito: na etapa metafísica a estrutura do sujeito é pens a da em termos de substância; na etapa transcendental , o sujeito é visto como polarida de unificadora de horizontes; na etapa psic a na l í t ica, o sujeito é de f i n ido como estrutura vazia. O sujeito tra ns c e nde ntal é uma estrutura para o mu ndo, enqua (...) nto o sujeito psicanalítico precisa ter uma estrutura em si me s mo para estruturar sua ausênc ia ontológica. Para Lacan, essa ausênc ia ont o l ó g ica se torna manifesta me d ia nte a ling ua gem. A estrutura do sujeito é concebida como uma estrutura de significação. Este artigo compara esses três pontos de vista sobre o sujeito e discute que relevância a idéia de estrutura pode ter para a compreensão do conceito. palavras-chave Sujeito metafísico; sujeito transcendental; sujeito psic a nalítico; estrutura; Platão; Kant; Fichte; Lacan. (shrink)