Unlike in physics, the category of thought experiment is not very common in biology. At least there are no classic examples that are as important and as well-known as the most famous thought experiments in physics, such as Galileo’s, Maxwell’s or Einstein’s. The reasons for this are far from obvious; maybe it has to do with the fact that modern biology for the most part sees itself as a thoroughly empirical discipline that engages either in real natural history or in (...) experimenting on real organisms rather than fictive ones. While theoretical biology does exist and is recognized as part of biology, its role within biology appears to be more marginal than the role of theoretical physics within physics. It could be that this marginality of theory also affects thought experiments as sources of theoretical knowledge. Of course, none of this provides a sufficient reason for thinking that thought experiments are really unimportant in biology. It is quite possible that the common perception of this matter is wrong and that there are important theoretical considerations in biology, past or present, that deserve the title of thought experiment just as much as the standard examples from physics. Some such considerations may even be widely known and considered to be important, but were not recognized as thought experiments. In fact, as we shall see, there are reasons for thinking that what is arguably the single most important biological work ever, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, contains a number of thought experiments. There are also more recent examples both in evolutionary and non-evolutionary biology, as we will show. Part of the problem in identifying positive examples in the history of biology is the lack of agreement as to what exactly a thought experiment is. Even worse, there may not be more than a family resemblance that unifies this epistemic category. We take it that classical thought experiments show the following characteristics: They serve directly or indirectly in the non-empirical epistemic evaluation of theoretical propositions, explanations or hypotheses. Thought experiments somehow appeal to the imagination. They involve hypothetical scenarios, which may or may not be fictive. In other words, thought experiments suppose that certain states of affairs hold and then try to intuit what would happen in a world where these suppositions are true. We want to examine in the following sections if there are episodes in the history of biology that satisfy these criteria. As we will show, there are a few episodes that might satisfy all three of these criteria, and many more if the imagination criterion is dropped or understood in a lose sense. In any case, this criterion is somewhat vague in the first place, unless a specific account of the imagination is presupposed. There will also be issues as to what exactly “non-empirical” means. In general, for the sake of discussion we propose to understand the term “thought experiment” here in a broad rather than a narrow sense here. We would rather be guilty of having too wide a conception of thought experiment than of missing a whole range of really interesting examples. (shrink)

Although Wilhelm Dilthey and Franz Brentano apparently were pursuing roughly the same objective—to offer a description of our mental functions and of their relations to objects—and both called their respective research programs ‘descriptive psychology’, they seem to have used the term to refer to two different methods of psychological research. In this article, I compare analyses of these differences. Against the reading of Orth but also against a possible application of recent relativist accounts of the epistemology of peer disagreement to (...) this case, I argue that their apparent shared objective is not enough to support an understanding of their views as two alternatives within a given historical or scientific context, or as a mutual peer disagreement. I show that the impression of a shared objective can be explained away as stemming from the influence of their teacher Adolf Trendelenburg, and I stress that the case of introspection strongly suggests that an account in terms of peer disagreement is not plausible. Finally, I conclude that the opposition between two traditions, Austrian philosophy and historicism, might be better suited to account for the dispute and its apparent common historical context. (shrink)

Many theories about the teaching of logic and critical thinking take for granted that theoretical learning, the learning of formal rules for example, and its practical application are sufficient to master the tools taught and to take the habit of using them. However, this way of teaching is not efficient, a conclusion supported by much work in cognitive science. Approaching cognition evolutionarily with dual-process theories allows for an explanation of these insufficiencies and offers clues on how we could teach critical (...) thinking and logic more efficiently. In this article, we want to present this approach and explore these leads in order to make some pedagogical recommendations and lay the foundations of a framework. We will put forward an example of the application of this research program with philosophy for children. (shrink)

There are empirical grounds to doubt the effectiveness of a common and intuitive approach to teaching debiasing strategies in critical thinking courses. We summarize some of the grounds before suggesting a broader taxonomy of debiasing strategies. This four-level taxonomy enables a useful diagnosis of biasing factors and situations, and illuminates more strategies for more effective bias mitigation located in the shaping of situational factors and reasoning infrastructure—sometimes called “nudges” in the literature. The question, we contend, then becomes how best to (...) teach the construction and use of such infrastructures. (shrink)

The development of phenomenology in nineteenth‐century German philosophy is that of a particular stream within the larger historical‐philosophical complex of Austro‐German philosophy. As the “grandfather of phenomenology” resp. the “disgusted grandfather of phenomenology,” but also as the key figure on the “Anglo‐Austrian Analytic Axis”, Brentano is at the source of the two main philosophical traditions in twentieth‐century philosophy. This chapter focuses mainly on his place in nineteenth‐century European philosophy and on the central themes and concepts in his philosophy that were (...) determinant in the development of the philosophy of his most gifted student: Edmund Husserl. Despite the variety of stances which Brentano expressed on ontology, metaphysics, and psychology over the course of his career, the five general principles remain central to his whole philosophy throughout: they have an important place in what could be called Brentano's philosophical worldview or system. By extension, they also are essential to his conception of phenomenology. (shrink)

This paper introduces the category of b-frames as a new tool in the study of complete lattices. B-frames can be seen as a generalization of posets, which play an important role in the representation theory of Heyting algebras, but also in the study of complete Boolean algebras in forcing. This paper combines ideas from the two traditions in order to generalize some techniques and results to the wider context of complete lattices. In particular, we lift a representation theorem of Allwein (...) and MacCaull to a duality between complete lattices and b-frames, and we derive alternative characterizations of several classes of complete lattices from this duality. This framework is then used to obtain new results in the theory of complete Heyting algebras and the semantics of intuitionistic propositional logic. (shrink)

Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848) is commonly thought to have attempted to develop a theory of size for infinite collections that follows the so-called part–whole principle, according to which the whole is always greater than any of its proper parts. In this paper, we develop a novel interpretation of Bolzano’s mature theory of the infinite and show that, contrary to mainstream interpretations, it is best understood as a theory of infinite sums. Our formal results show that Bolzano’s infinite sums can be equipped (...) with the rich and original structure of a non-commutative ordered ring, and that Bolzano’s views on the mathematical infinite are, after all, consistent. (shrink)

The low representation (< 30%) of women in philosophy in English-speaking countries has generated much discussion, both in academic circles and the public sphere. It is sometimes suggested (Haslanger 2009) that unconscious biases, acting at every level in the field, may be grounded in gendered schemas of philosophers and in the discipline more widely, and that actions to make philosophy a more welcoming place for women should address such schemas. However, existing data are too limited to fully warrant such an (...) explanation, which therefore will not satisfy those in favor of the status quo or those who argue against the need to address gender imbalance. In this paper, we propose measures to improve the profession that ought to be implemented without referring explicitly to this underrepresentation or to the climate for women and other underrepresented groups. Such recommendations are based on empirical research already carried out in other disciplines and do not rest on whether it is possible to identify the cause of this low representation. We argue that we need not wait for new or better data to ensure that fairer practices are enacted for women, other underrepresented groups, and everybody else, if only out of precaution. (shrink)

Dans son article From Nihilism to Monism, Jonathan Schaffer montre que les partisans du Nihilisme de la Composition ont de bonnes raisons d’accepter le Monisme d’Existence plutôt que le Nihilisme. De manière analogue, nous souhaitons montrer ici que les partisans de l’Universalisme de la Composition ont de bonnes raisons d’accepter le Monisme de Priorité. Pour montrer cela, nous allons proposer et défendre l’argument suivant : Prémisse 1. Si l’Universalisme de la Composition est vrai alors le Cosmos existe. Prémisse 2. Si (...) le Cosmos existe alors le Cosmos est la seule entité concrète basique. Conclusion. Si l’Universalisme de la Composition est vrai alors le Cosmos est la seule entité concrète basique. (shrink)

Uncertainty is recognized as a key issue in water resources research, amongst other sciences. Discussions of uncertainty typically focus on tools and techniques applied within an analysis, e.g. uncertainty quantification and model validation. But uncertainty is also addressed outside the analysis, in writing scientific publications. The language that authors use conveys their perspective of the role of uncertainty when interpreting a claim —what we call here “framing” the uncertainty. This article promotes awareness of uncertainty framing in four ways. 1) It (...) proposes a typology of eighteen uncertainty frames, addressing five questions about uncertainty. 2) It describes the context in which uncertainty framing occurs. This is an interdisciplinary topic, involving philosophy of science, science studies, linguistics, rhetoric, and argumentation. 3) We analyze the use of uncertainty frames in a sample of 177 abstracts from the Water Resources Research journal in 2015. This helped develop and tentatively verify the typology, and provides a snapshot of current practice. 4) Provocative recommendations promote adjustments for a more influential, dynamic science. Current practice in uncertainty framing might be described as carefully-considered incremental science. In addition to uncertainty quantification and degree of belief (present in ~5% of abstracts), uncertainty is addressed by a combination of limiting scope, deferring to further work (~25%) and indicating evidence is sufficient (~40%) – or uncertainty is completely ignored (~8%). There is a need for public debate within our discipline to decide in what context different uncertainty frames are appropriate. Uncertainty framing cannot remain a hidden practice evaluated only by lone reviewers. (shrink)

Introduction au numéro spécial de la Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger en hommage au centenaire de la mort de Franz Brentano.

From the point of view of Husserl's critique of empiricist theories of abstraction in the Logical Investigations, it seems that Brentano and most of his students would have endorsed the presupposition of Locke's theory of abstraction, which Husserl labels as the 'psychological hypostatization of the general'. For Husserl himself, but also for most of his followers, the motivation behind this critique is that the descriptive psychology of the school of Brentano leads to psychologism if one doesn't accept Platonic ideal objects. (...) In the following article, I argue that Husserl's critique doesn't do justice to the accounts of abstraction developed in the school of Brentano. I take here the particular case of Carl Stumpf, showing that not only does Husserl's accusation miss its target, but also that it attributes indirectly to Stumpf a position that he didn't defend. I suggest that even before the Logical Investigations, Stumpf formulated the basis of an account of abstraction in terms of generalization, an account which will later turn out to be in many ways compatible with Husserl's theory of Spezies in the Logical Investigations, and which provide a viable alternative both to Platonism and to empiricism, thereby calling for a reassessment of the positions on abstraction in the School of Brentano. (shrink)

Histoire et utilisation du robot Bien que la robotique soit un marché économique relativement jeune et en pleine croissance, la genèse des robots remonte à l’Antiquité. Le premier robot à être déployé sur des lignes d’assemblage est Unimate, utilisé dès 1961 par General Motors. La robotique, en se di usant dans tous les pans de notre économie, va impacter les business modèles de nombreuses industries comme l’automobile et l’aéronautique mais aussi la construction ou l’agriculture. Aujourd’hui les robots industriels et de (...) service servent à de multiples tâches allant de la logistique à l’usinage en passant par la fonderie. La robotique constitue aussi et surtout un enjeu sociétal contribuant à relever les dé s de la mobilité, de la santé, de l’autonomie, du vieillissement et de l’éducation. Absence de dé nition et de régime juridique spéci que au robot En France, la notion de robot ne fait pas l’objet d’une dé nition juridique qui lui est propre. Les dé nitions relatives à l’environnement robotique peuvent tout de même se retrouver dans la norme ISO 8373:2012. Bien que les robots intéressent les juristes à plusieurs titres, le législateur n’a, à ce jour, pas adopté de régime juridique spéci quement applicable aux robots. Il convient donc de rechercher dans le droit positif le corpus de textes applicables aux robots. Ce corpus pourra alors recevoir l’appellation de « droit de la robotique ». Garanties Le vendeur d’un robot industriel et de service doit se conformer aux garanties légales que sont la garantie des vices cachés et la garantie d’éviction. Il doit également respecter les éventuelles garanties qui ont pu être convenues contractuellement Clauses contractuelles Le fournisseur d’un robot industriel et de service doit être particulièrement attentif aux clauses contractuelles rela- tives à la garantie, à la propriété intellectuelle, à la con dentialité, à la responsabilité et à la conformité aux directives techniques. Les spéci cités liées au robot, telles que les éléments relatifs à l’intelligence arti cielle, pourront être intégrées dans des annexes spéci ques. Intelligence arti cielle L’algorithme d’intelligence arti cielle dont est équipé un robot industriel et de service peut, dans certaines condi- tions, béné cier d’une protection grâce au droit d’auteur, à la protection du savoir-faire et au brevet. Aucun régime spécial n’existe à ce jour protégeant les œuvres conçues par le robot intelligent. Mobilité Les véhicules et drones autonomes utilisés au sein même de l’usine sont considérés comme des machines. Etant don- né les risques existants, il convient de xer de règles internes d’utilisation. Les véhicules autonomes ne peuvent à ce jour quitter l’espace privé. En revanche, les drones peuvent circuler dans l’espace aérien en respectant strictement le cadre réglementaire. Douanes Le taux de perception des droits de douanes d’un robot industriel et de service est conditionné par la connaissance de l’origine, préférentielle ou non préférentielle, du robot qui est déterminée par la position tarifaire de ce dernier. Le robot industriel et de service entre dans le chapitre 84, qui concerne notamment les machines, de la nomenclature du système harmonisé établi par l’Organisation mondiale de douanes. Sécurité En application de la « directive machines », le robot peut recevoir la quali cation de machine ou de quasi-machine. En vertu de cette directive, mais également au titre du Code du travail, de nombreuses obligations en matière de santé et de sécurité doivent être respectées pour la commercialisation et l’utilisation des robots. Conformité Le Code du travail, en transposant la « directive machines », a prévu de nombreuses obligations et procédures, appli- cables aux robots industriels et de service, permettant ainsi de s’assurer que ces derniers respectent les exigences de conformité nécessaires en matière de santé et de sécurité. Maintenance Dans le cadre de la maintenance, le fournisseur d’un robot industriel et de service est soumis à plusieurs obligations législatives aux titres de la disponibilité des pièces détachées et de la location. Les dispositions contractuelles de- vront prendre en considération les spéci cités propres au robot et ne pas ignorer la maintenance prédictive. Quali cation juridique Dans le cadre de la conception, de la fabrication et de l’utilisation du robot, il convient de porter une attention par- ticulière à quatre textes spéciaux qui peuvent être applicables aux robots industriels et de service : le règlement 428/2009 sur les biens à double usage, la directive 2014/35/UE applicable au matériel électrique basse tension, la directive 2014/53/UE applicable aux équipements radioélectriques et la directive 2014/30/UE sur la compatibilité électromagnétique. Responsabilité Bien que les régimes de responsabilité, civile et pénale, ne sont pas adaptés aux robots autonomes, la responsabilité civile de droit commun, la responsabilité du fait des choses, la responsabilité du fait des produits défectueux et la responsabilité des commettants du fait de leurs préposés peuvent s’appliquer en cas de fait dommageable causé par le robot tout comme la responsabilité pénale en cas d’infraction commise dans le cadre de l’utilisation du robot. Assurance La police d’assurance relative aux robots doit permettre de protéger le robot contre les risques auxquels ils sont confrontés mais également d’assurer la responsabilité pour les dommages qu’ils pourraient causer, on peut alors parler de « dommages robotiques ». Données et bases de données Les bases de données contenues dans un robot industriel et de service doivent respecter les droits dont dispose l’auteur sur la structure de la base de données et/ou les droits du producteur des bases de données dans lesquelles gurent les données utilisées. La réglementation Informatique et libertés est également applicable au robot lorsque celui-ci collecte et/ou traite des données personnelles. Droit de la robotique dans le monde Aucun Etat ne s’est à ce jour doté d’un régime juridique détaillé et spéci que à la robotique. Des dispositions juri- diques relatives aux robots peuvent tout de même se retrouver de façon éparse dans certains droits étrangers concer- nant notamment les drones et les véhicules terrestres autonomes. (shrink)

In his Bipartitum in morali philosophia, the Scottish philosopher William of Manderston, a pupil of John Mair, and an Ockhamist philosopher, is quoting a text of Antonin of Padua who distinguishes the factum opened to a juridical qualification from the inner belief, known by God alone. Quoting the same text, the authors of the Malleus maleficarum try hard to distinguish three distinct fields, the inner beliefs which belongs to God, the exterior acts, the facts, which are relevant for the judges, (...) and the third field, which establishes a relation between the fact and the beliefs. This third field is proper to the inquisitors. Against this ethics of imputability, Manderston, relying on Ockham’s ethics, advocates an intentionalist ethics which depends on a sharp separation between interiority and exteriority. The soteriological dimension of the question entirely belongs to the inner life, whereas the exteriority is strictly disciplinary. By his radicality, Manderston appears as a paradigm of the modern dichotomy between conscience and law, Paolo Prodi once pointed out as a cornerstone of the religious modernity. (shrink)

English translation of paper title: Action and Passion in the Renaissance. The Womanly and the Manly in Agrippa, Postel, and Bovelles. This paper uses the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa and the Querelle des Femmes as historic backgrounds for how Agrippa of Nettesheim, Guillaum Postel, and Charles de Bovelles reconcile the notions of "male" and "female" in their respective philosophies.

This article proposes the thesis that archeofuturism is a postmodern project of the International Alt-Right (IAR). By postmodern project we mean that: i) it is a project for a time after modernity; and ii) it is a project that, due to its content, can be classified as related to the ideas against modernity called postmodernism. As it is part of the IAR, archeofuturism is also a project of a fascist or far-right nature. To prove our thesis, we will first analyze (...) the Archefouturism developed by the French political scientist Guillaume Faye, a member of the IAR. Then what is IAR will be defined and its relationship with postmodernism will be evidenced. Finally, based on that connection called reactionary postmodernism, the existence of other archeofuturists theses that combine fascist rhetoric with postmodernism will be proposed. (shrink)

The first part of this paper will provide a reconstruction of Francis Bacon’s interpretation of Academic scepticism, Pyrrhonism, and Dogmatism, and its sources throughout his large corpus. It shall also analyze Bacon’s approach against the background of his intellectual milieu, looking particularly at Renaissance readings of scepticism as developed by Guillaume Salluste du Bartas, Pierre de la Primaudaye, Fulke Greville, and John Davies. It shall show that although Bacon made more references to Academic than to Pyrrhonian Scepticism, like most (...) of his contemporaries, he often misrepresented and mixed the doctrinal components of both currents. The second part of the paper shall offer a complete chronological survey of Bacon’s assessment of scepticism throughout his writings. Following the lead of previous studies by other scholars, I shall support the view that, while he approved of the state of doubt and the suspension of judgment as a provisional necessary stage in the pursuit of knowledge, he rejected the notion of acatalepsia. To this received reading, I shall add the suggestion that Bacon’s criticism of acatalepsia ultimately depends on his view of the historical conditions that surround human nature. I deal with this last point in the third part of the paper, where I shall argue that Bacon’s evaluation of scepticism relied on his adoption of a Protestant and Augustinian view of human nature that informed his overall interpretation of the history of humanity and nature, including the sceptical schools. (shrink)

If Mont Blanc is a vague object, then its vagueness will depend on the context in which reference is made. In a geological context the mountain might include only rock, perhaps together with a certain amount of air in the crevices and tunnels which have been formed beneath its surface. In a context of soil chemistry we might include also a surrounding thin layer of organic matter. In a skiing context we might include some snow. This essay sketches in (...) informal terms the theory of granular partitions, which is designed to do justice to this context-dependence of vagueness by means of what might be described as a contextualized supervaluationism. Granularity and vagueness, it is argued, are two sides of a single coin: what is vague at one level of granularity may appear crisp at another. The resultant theory can be shown to resolve certain problems in our description of perceptual content, for example when John says that he sees the wall, but that he does not see the molecules by which the wall is constituted. (shrink)

There are three slogans in the history of Socialism that are very close in wording, viz. the famous Cabet-Blanc-Marx slogan: "From each according to his ability; To each according to his needs"; the earlier Saint-Simon-Pecqueur slogan: "To each according to his ability; To each according to his works"; and the later slogan in Stalin’s Soviet Constitution: "From each according to his ability; To each according to his work." We will consider the following questions regarding these slogans: a) What are (...) the earliest occurrences of each of these slogans? b) Where does the inspiration for each half of each slogan come from? c) What do the Saint-Simonians mean by “To each according to his ability”? d) What do they mean by “To each according to his works”? e) What motivates the shift from “To each according to his ability” to “From each according to his ability”? f) How should we envisage the progression toward “To each according to his needs”? g) What is the distinction between from “To each according to his works” and “To each according to his work”? (shrink)

Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian "physics" or "natural philosophy" of the soul, conceived as an animating power that included vital, sensory, and rational functions. C. Wolff restricted the term " psychology " to sensory, cognitive, and volitional functions and placed the science under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Near the middle of the eighteenth century, Krueger, Godart, and Bonnet proposed approaching the mind with the techniques of the new natural science. At nearly the same time, Scottish thinkers (...) placed psychology within moral philosophy, but distinguished its "physical" laws from properly moral laws. British and French visual theorists developed mathematically precise theories of size and distance perception; they created instruments to test these theories and to measure visual phenomena such as the duration of visual impressions. By the end of the century there was a flourishing discipline of empirical psychology in Germany, with a professorship, textbooks, and journals. The practitioners of empirical psychology at this time typically were dualists who included mental phenomena within nature. Accordingly, psychology as a natural scientific disciplines was not invented in the 18th and 19th centuries, but *remade* from the extant empirical psychology. (shrink)

According to neo-Russellianism, in a sentence such as John believes that Mont Blanc is 4000 m high, any other proper name co-referring with Mont Blanc can be substituted for it without any change in the proposition expressed. Prima facie, our practice of translation shows that this cannot be correct. We will then show that neo-Russellians have a way out of this problem, which consists in holding that actual translations are not a matter of semantics, but also make an (...) attempt at preserving some pragmatic features of the sentences to be translated. We then turn to translations that only preserve the semantic characteristics of the sentences and we argue that, although these translations are unable to show that neo-Russellianism is incorrect, they still show that it relies on some theses that seem to have no justification, apart from saving neo-Russellianism itself. (shrink)

This is the introduction to a special issue of 'Science in Context' on vitalism that I edited. The contents are: 1. Guido Giglioni — “What Ever Happened to Francis Glisson? Albrecht Haller and the Fate of Eighteenth-Century Irritability” 2. Dominique Boury— “Irritability and Sensibility: Two Key Concepts in Assessing the Medical Doctrines of Haller and Bordeu” 3. Tobias Cheung — “Regulating Agents, Functional Interactions, and Stimulus-Reaction-Schemes: The Concept of “Organism” in the Organic System Theories of Stahl, Bordeu and Barthez” 4. (...) Charles T. Wolfe & Motoichi Terada — “The Animal Economy as Object and Program in Montpellier Vitalism” 5. Timo Kaitaro — “Can Matter Mark the Hours? – Eighteenth-Century Vitalist Materialism and Functional Properties” 6. Elizabeth Williams —“Of Two Lives One? Jean-Charles-Marguerite-Guillaume Grimaud and the Question of Holism in Vitalist Medicine” 7. Philippe Huneman — “Montpellier Vitalism and the Emergence of Alienism in France (1750-1800): The Case of the Passions” 8. Elke Witt —“Form – A Matter of Generation. The Relation of Generation, Form and Function in the Epigenetic Theory of C.F. Wolff” . (shrink)

Nous distinguons ordinairement le corps de l’esprit : nous parvenons aisément à concevoir (même si nous n’y croyons pas forcément) que notre esprit survive à notre corps, ou qu’il aille se loger dans un autre corps. Il y a là, pensons-nous, une véritable différence de nature. Mais bien que cette distinction nous soit très intuitive, dès lors que nous cherchons à spécifier le critère sur lequel elle repose, elle se dérobe. Tout se passe comme si nous n’avions aucun mal à (...) classer les choses d’un côté ou de l’autre de la frontière qui sépare le corps de l’esprit, mais que nous ne parvenions pas à la définir précisément. A quel critère obéissons- nous en effet lorsque nous opérons une bipartition entre phénomènes mentaux et phénomènes physiques dans un ensemble tel que : une croyance, le téléphone du salon, un aimant, l’envie d’un florentin, le Mont Blanc, la vue du Mont Blanc, un claquement de porte, un regret, le bruit d’un moulin, la connaissance du théorème de Thalès, la jalousie, la couleur de la neige, le souvenir d’un citronnier à Menton ? Nous serions probablement tous d’accord pour ranger du côté des phénomènes physiques le téléphone du salon, le claquement de porte, la couleur de la neige, l’aimant, le Mont Blanc et le bruit du moulin ; et du côté des phénomènes mentaux la croyance, l’envie d’un florentin, le regret, la vue du Mont Blanc, la connaissance du théorème de Thalès, la jalousie et le souvenir d’un citronnier de Menton. Mais nous divergerions probablement si nous avions à formuler le critère d’après lequel nous avons opéré cette bipartition. La première chose à faire est donc de tenter d’examiner les critères qui peuvent nous permettre d’établir la distinction entre le corps et l’esprit afin de retenir le plus pertinent. Dans la mesure du possible, celui-ci devra être à la fois informatif (ne pas nous renvoyer simplement à la distinction intuitive que nous pratiquons quotidiennement) et neutre (par exemple être acceptable aussi bien par un dualiste que par un matérialiste). Une fois cette distinction établie, nous serons en mesure de poser trois problèmes. (shrink)

Quando la biblioteca diventa un confessionale. Nel 1585, Giordano Bruno ritorna a Parigi dopo il soggiorno londinese, e comincia a frequentare l’abbazia di Saint Victor, famosa per la sua ” libraria “, immortalata da Rabelais. Il bibliotecario, Guillaume Cotin, trasforma lo “scriptorium” in un confessionale, dove il filosofo dà libero sfogo ai suoi ricordi e al suo impetuoso carattere. -/- When the library becomes a confessional. In 1585, Giordano Bruno, returns to Paris after his stay in London, and begins (...) to attend the abbey of Saint Victor, famous for his library, immortalized by Rabelais. The librarian, Guillaume Cotin, transforms the scriptorium into a confessional, where the philosopher gives free rein to his memories and his impetuous character. (shrink)

Mystical Theology and Platonism in the Time of Cusanus engages with the history of mystical theology and Neoplatonic philosophy through the lens of the 15th century philosopher and theologian, Nicholas of Cusa. The volume comprises nineteen essays that break down the barriers between medieval and Renaissance studies, reinterpreting Cusanus’ place in the history of thought by exploring the archive that informed his thinking, while also interrogating his works by exploring them from the standpoint of their later reception by modern philosophers (...) and theologians. The volume also offers tribute to the career of Donald F. Duclow, a leading scholar in the field of Cusanus studies in particular and of the history of mystical theology and Neoplatonic philosophy more generally. (shrink)

Metaphysics and psychology are two of Brentano’s main areas of interest in philosophy. His first writings, the dissertation On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle (1862) and the habilitation thesis, The Psychology of Aristotle (1867), bear witness to the duality of his concerns. As such, these works were not only significant contributions to the German Aristotelianism of the second half of the XIXth century, but they also played an important role in the development of Brentano’s later philosophy and in (...) defining his school of thought. At the same time, the dissertation, now celebrating the sesquicentennial of its first publication, was received beyond the immediate sphere of the Brentanian school, for its reading played a significant role in young Heidegger’s thought on being, and thus in his development of a new type of phenomenology, distinct from the Husserlian one. The studies comprising this volume examine the relevance of Brentano’s dissertation, of his metaphysics and psychology for contemporary philosophical research. Generally, the papers emphasize a tendency in Brentanian research, which has become more conspicuous in the last two decades, and can be described as a gradual shift in focus from the specific problems of Brentano’s late philosophy, towards his earlier philosophy, especially his first writings and manuscripts. Taking into account both Brentano’s published works, and the manuscripts of the dissertation and the Psychology, the contributions of this volume manage to emphasise unexplored aspects of Brentano’s philosophy and stand witness to the complexity and the historical dimension of a legacy whose richness still awaits full discovery. -/- Table of Contents -/- Ion Tănăsescu, Foreword Edoardo Fugali, Trendelenburg, Brentano und die Aristoteles-Renaissance in der deutschen Philosophie des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Frage nach dem Ursprung der Kategorien Dale Jacquette, Brentano on Aristotle’s Categories: First Philosophy and the Manifold Senses of Being Klaus Hedwig, „... eine gewisse kongeniale Denkweise“. Brentanos Rückgriffe auf Thomas von Aquin in seiner Dissertation Susan Krantz Gabriel, Heidegger’s Question and the Fundamental Sense of Being in Brentano Ion Tănăsescu, Franz Brentano’s Dissertation and the Problem of Intentionality Josef Seifert, Über das notwendige Dasein Gottes. Eine kritische Antwort auf Franz Brentanos Kritik des ontologischen Gottesbeweises Paul Janssen, Die Gottesrede bei Brentano Robin Rollinger, Brentano's Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint: Its Background and Conception Guillaume Fréchette, Deux aspects de l’intentionnalité dans la Psychologie de Brentano Denis Seron, The Fechner-Brentano Controversy on the Measurement of Sensation Carlo Ierna, Brentano and Mathematics Roberto Poli, Modes and Boundaries Federico Boccaccini, La vérité efficace. L’épistémologie de Brentano entre Evidenzphilosophie et pragmatisme Thomas Binder, Der Nachlass Franz Brentanos. Eine historische Annäherung an einen schwierigen Fall. (shrink)

Review of Le Wen zi à la lumière de l'histoire et de l'archéologie (The Wenzi in the Light of History and Archaeology), by Charles Le Blanc.