Un biologiste fait une découverte incompatible avec des conceptions religieuses de la vie bonne. En classe, un professeur d'université profite de son exposé magistral pour faire la promotion d'une idéologie politique. Un fonds de recherche des sciences sociales refuse de financer un projet visant à résoudre le problème de la sous-représentation des femmes en politique, affirmant qu'une telle recherche n'est pas scientifique. Tous ces exemples témoignent de l'interaction constante entre, d'une part, l'enseignement et la recherche scientifique, et d'autre part, les (...) enjeux normatifs au sein de sphères d'influence. Les sciences doivent-elles être neutres? La normativité des sciences est-elle inévitable? Et de quoi parle-t-on lorsque nous faisons référence à la neutralité scientifique? Cette entrée exposera les principales réponses à ces trois questions. Après avoir clarifié le cadre conceptuel et la problématique de cette entrée, nous explorerons les approches wébérienne et positiviste en faveur de la neutralité des sciences. Ces deux perspectives seront confrontées à divers objections, notamment celles du pragmatisme américain. En réponse à l’ethos mertonien des sciences, nous présenterons finalement la critique féministe selon laquelle les disciplines scientifiques ne peuvent pas faire l’économie d’objectifs éthiques, politiques ou sociaux. Pour des raisons de simplicité, cette entrée approfondira surtout des modèles et arguments issus de l’économie, de la biologie et des sciences de la santé, des disciplines ayant été au cœur des controverses entourant la neutralité des sciences. (shrink)

My anthropological analysis of bionics is basedon the representations of engineers concerningthe definition of humankind and its future. Thedifference between repairing and improving onhuman beings is disappearing and we strive toreach a kind of `perfection', whose criteriaare evolving with technical developments.Nowadays, in the so-called information society,information is described as the best value: aperfect human being would be a free braindirectly connected to the web, and without abody because it is considered as an impedimentto the circulation of information. But what isconsidered (...) as good today won't be good enoughtomorrow. And `improving' the human being moreand more could make it evolve into a verydifferent human being, or even into a newspecies: post-humankind. For some people, thisis not a problem, because the goal is to be`better' than we are, human or not. As for me,I think that we risk losing something veryimportant: our social ability. (shrink)

The concept of value is often discredited for its ambivalence: value increases and decreases, and is valid for one person but not necessarily for the next. Philosophies of value are subjectivist or contaminated by economic rationality. I show, from Gilbert Simondon, that value can be conceived of as a variable quantity without falling into levelling or axiological relativism. This implies dismissing the neo-Kantian separation of ontology and axiology, rejecting the conception of culture as a set of values and the bipolarity (...) of value oppositions, and finally thinking of value from a physical-mathematical rather than an economic analogy. (shrink)

L’objectif de cette article est de comprendre la neutralité axiologique non pas comme une exigence épistémologique, mais plutôt comme un idéal éducationnel. Max Weber propose une science basée sur la description factuelle, de laquelle on exclut la formulation de jugements de valeur. Or, il faut démontrer pourquoi il est préférable de séparer les jugements descriptifs des jugements évaluatifs. L’objectif de Weber est de préserver l'autonomie intellectuelle des étudiants. Pour Weber, la classe et l'académie en général sont des lieux politiques. Ces (...) rapports au sein de la classe sont nécessaires pour transmettre des connaissances, des méthodes et le goût de l'autonomie intellectuelle. Or, il serait contraire au principe d'autonomie de laisser le professeur influencer et convaincre ses étudiants, de façon partisane, d'adhérer à certaines thèses normatives. Weber propose ainsi un mécanisme pour éviter que le professeur n'ixnfluence ses étudiants de manière illégitime. (shrink)

The paper offers a modelling of the sense of justice as it is displayed in ordinary situated disputes. While this model accounts for a plurality of legitimate forms of evaluation which are used in the process of critique and justification, it escapes a relativism of values by demonstrating that all these forms satisfy a set of common requirements. The reasonable character of the everyday sense of justice is also anchored in a reality test involving the engagement of objects which qualify (...) for a certain form of evaluation. The paper discusses this model in relation to competing theories of justice, and models of social action and interaction. (shrink)

Business research and teaching institutions play an important role in shaping the way businesses perceive their relations to the broader society and its moral expectations. Hence, as ethical scandals recently arose in the business world, questions related to the civic responsibilities of business scholars and to the role business schools play in society have gained wider interest. In this article, I argue that these ethical shortcomings are at least partly resulting from the mainstream business model with its taken-for granted basic (...) assumptions such as specialization or the value-neutrality of business research. Redefining the roles and civic responsibilities of business scholars for business practice implies therefore a thorough analysis of these assumptions if not their redefinition. The taken-for-grantedness of the mainstream business model is questioned by the transformation of the societal context in which business activities are embedded. Its value-neutrality in turn is challenged by self-fulfilling prophecy effects, which highlight the normative influence of business schools. In order to critically discuss some basic assumptions of mainstream business theory, I propose to draw parallels with the corporate citizenship concept and the stakeholder theory. Their integrated approach of the relation between business practice and the broader society provides interesting insights for the social reembedding of business research and teaching. (shrink)

This paper is intended to draw the main theoretical lines of the notion of value, in order to avoid some flaws in the quantitative surveys on values as well as in some qualitative studies of value judgements. Through a number of redefinitions based on a pragmatic approach, inspired not only by Dewey’s concept of ‘valuation’ but also by the new French pragmatic sociology and by the pragmatist trend in linguistics, it tries to specify the conditions under which sociology can address (...) the notion of ‘value’ while avoiding their reduction to scholarly supports for morals or normative guides for action and evaluation. Meanwhile, it tries to construct a unified concept of value that would work for all the concerned disciplines: not only sociology but also economics, psychology, anthropology, and even philosophy. (shrink)

: The Winnicott's theory of processes of maturation offers more than a new clinical standpoint on human being and its fundamental problems. It also allows a new, teleological understanding of human nature in general and the tasks that makes life worth living. Moreover, without suggesting an explicit philosophical scheme, Winnicott offered a whole new vision of philosophy as expression of the maturation itself. Should philosophy avoid that point of view on itself? In this talk, my aim is to explain how (...) Winnicott's thought allows a radical revision of philosophy as living process and its basic questions. I would call this perspective “anthropoteleological”. Keywords : antropoteleologia; Winnicott; filosofia contemporânea. Resumo: A teoria winnicottiana do amadurecimento não só renovou a abordagem clínica do ser humano e seus problemas fundamentais, como também ofereceu uma compreensão teleológica da natureza humana em geral e das tarefas que são a base da própria vida. Ainda que sem propor um pensamento explicitamente filosófico, Winnicott permite uma visão diferente da própria filosofia como expressão do próprio amadurecimento. Hoje a Filosofia pode ignorar este discurso sobre ela-mesma? Neste trabalho tentarei mostrar como o pensamento de Winnicott oferece uma revisão radical da filosofia e dos seus problemas fundamentais, por meio de uma perspectiva que eu denomino de “antropo-teleológica”. Palavras-chave: anthropoteleological; Winnicott; philosophy. (shrink)

The article identifies elements of national experience that became the preconditions for such revival, as well as determined the originality of French political philosophy. Based on the publi- cations of V. Descombes, G. Labelle, D. Tanguay, M. Foessel,. Jourdain, the author distin- guishes between French political philosophy in the narrow sense, which is represented by C. Castoriadis, C. Lefort, P. Rosanvallon, M. Gauchet, P. Manent, Ph. Raynaud (paying special atten- tion to the Ukrainian translations of their works), and the articulation (...) of political questions in terms of philosophical theory by well-known representatives of French theory. The reasons that hindered the development of political philosophy in France were the dominance of the positiv- ist paradigm in the social sciences and Marxism in the French intellectual milieu. The impulsion for the revival of political philosophy in France was the crisis of Marxism and preparations for the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution of 1789. The distinguishing features of French political philosophy, according to the author, are the study of political problems in the context of intellectual, social, cultural history and ethnology, as well as through the prism of the works of classical French authors. The author also pays attention to the special role of R. Aron in the revival of French political philosophy. (shrink)

Ce texte a déjà paru dans la revue Quaderni, N° 78, 2012, p. 5-22. Il est disponible en ligne également ici. « Est réel ce qui résiste dans l'épreuve. » Bruno Latour Le lecteur trouvera rassemblées dans ce dossier quatre études de sociologie et d'anthropologie de l'État qui, par-delà la diversité des terrains traités, partagent un même horizon : elles examinent des processus dans et par lesquels l'État se redéfinit et se recompose relativement à des contextes et à des problèmes (...) donnés. Ces processus (...) - Sociologie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

The concept of school inclusion applied to disabled children knows an international distribution and is more or less used in national contexts, but with wide variations in interpretation. The concept of disability tends to be supplanted by other terms such as «special needs». These notional transformations are at the heart of the tensions that exist within the education system and also perform in their relations with various external partners, including experts of disability and parents. The major issues are those of (...) the educational finalities of the institutions and practices for these children: separate or common socialization, people development or acquisition of knowledge, perspectives of skilled labor or not etc. Among the possible approaches to the current problem, the first step is the analysis of the regulatory and institutional legislative, established in France for so-called «disabled» children. The second step is favored by the approach of ethnographic field which has the advantage of showing the representations and practices of actors in everyday life. The example developed is that of an elementary school in the city of Paris, which seeks to meet the challenge of hosting the difference while maintaining the goal of «academic excellence.» In this tension, how are teachers, specialists, parents, children with disabilities among their peers? What finally are the evolutions outlook? (shrink)