Normativity is assessed as we evaluate and compare the environmental reporting practices of a sample of French and Canadian companies through the lens of institutional legitimacy. More specifically, we examine how French and Canadian firms changed their reporting practices in reaction to the promulgation of laws and regulations in their respective countries, i.e., the NER and Grenelle II Acts in France, and National Instrument 51-102 and CSA Staff Notice NR 51-333, issued by the Canadian Securities Administrators. The firms’ voluntary disclosures (...) according to GRI guidelines are also investigated. Substantive legitimacy theory is used to explore the level of substantive disclosures provided by Canadian and French firms. The findings reveal that the French parliamentary regime is more successful than the Canadian stock exchange regulation in triggering environmental reporting, and that the GRI combined with local regimes prompts environmental disclosures. Notwithstanding the improvements in environmental reporting under all three regimes, a very low level of substantive disclosure is noted in both countries. (shrink)

Assistive technology has great potential to contribute to health, functioning, and quality of life. To date, as exemplified in the Canadian context, variations and inequities in access to assistive technology are evident; the development of legislation, policies, and programs has not kept up with the increasing use of assistive technology. In this article, we apply ;Daniels’s (2008) theory of just health to argue that equitable access to assistive technology funding and services is necessary for justice. In doing so, we offer (...) theoretical guidance for the development of legislation, policies, and programs to guide such access in health and social services. (shrink)

Neuroconstructivism: How the Brain Constructs Cognition proposes a unifying framework for the study of cognitive development that brings together (1) constructivism (which views development as the progressive elaboration of increasingly complex structures), (2) cognitive neuroscience (which aims to understand the neural mechanisms underlying behavior), and (3) computational modeling (which proposes formal and explicit specifications of information processing). The guiding principle of our approach is context dependence, within and (in contrast to Marr [1982]) between levels of organization. We propose that three (...) mechanisms guide the emergence of representations: competition, cooperation, and chronotopy; which themselves allow for two central processes: proactivity and progressive specialization. We suggest that the main outcome of development is partial representations, distributed across distinct functional circuits. This framework is derived by examining development at the level of single neurons, brain systems, and whole organisms. We use the terms encellment, embrainment, and embodiment to describe the higher-level contextual influences that act at each of these levels of organization. To illustrate these mechanisms in operation we provide case studies in early visual perception, infant habituation, phonological development, and object representations in infancy. Three further case studies are concerned with interactions between levels of explanation: social development, atypical development and within that, developmental dyslexia. We conclude that cognitive development arises from a dynamic, contextual change in embodied neural structures leading to partial representations across multiple brain regions and timescales, in response to proactively specified physical and social environment. (shrink)

This research investigates the potential for a “fair” co-branding operation. A major corporate brand is fictitiously allied with a Fair Trade labelling organization brand. The sample for the study is composed of 540 respondents, representative of the French population. By considering commercial brands and Fair Trade labels as dissimilar in terms of customers’ perceived Fair Trade orientations, this article studies how this lack of similarity impacts perceived congruence between both entities and how prior brand attitudes and congruence influence customers’ evaluation (...) of the co-branded product. The results of this research demonstrate that: Consumer prior brand attitudes toward the partner brands influence very little customers’ evaluation. Perceived similarity of the partner brands has a strong influence toward congruence of the co-branding operation. Results also indicate that congruence has a strong influence upon customers’ evaluation. An inverted U-shaped relationship exists between perceived similarity and relevancy of the alliance, and between expectancy and customers’ evaluation. The results obtained through the test of a partial least square model, and inverted U-shaped hypothesis, represent a new insight into co-branding theory. The high discursive power of fair co-branding is a key issue: the corporate brand provides the alliance with its leading position, while the Fair Trade brand provides the ethical attribute. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to analyze the problem of the intensity of forms in the late Middle Ages and to show how this debate eventually gave rise to a new metaphysical project in the 14th century: the project of quantifying the different types of perfections existing in the universe – that is the project of “measuring being”. Cet ouvrage se propose d’analyser l’histoire du débat relatif à l’intensité des formes au Moyen Âge, et de retracer la manière dont (...) il conduisit au XIVe siècle à l’émergence d’un projet métaphysique nouveau : celui de quantifier les perfections contenues dans l’univers et, ainsi, de “mesurer l’être”. (shrink)

In this collection of essays, Bromberger explores the centrality of questions and predicaments they create in scientific research. He discusses the nature of explanation, theory, and the foundations of linguistics.

This paper studies ‘minority’ initiatives to organize sports games. A meta-analysis of published data in the literature identifies the formal appearance taken by each of these initiatives under the Olympic model. But it also conduces to build a number of indicators to answer a series of questions about their logic and strategies. All the initiatives studied are based on an ambivalent posture that, while based on the denunciation of a discriminating space, claim access to it. By an astonishing paradox, ‘non-normative’ (...) actors are driven to reclaim a model that, under cover of Universal, aims to establish a norm that is situated and dated. In practice, they use two types of strategies: a strategy for participation in the Olympics to transform them into a space which represents a fight against exclusion, or a strategy to create alternative events. Whatever the strategy, these initiatives are implemented according to their objectives. Differentiated in their forms—participatory or autonomy—they are also in their purpose. The comparison of these initiatives shows that ultimately, beyond strategies and logic inherent in different social, historical and organizational contexts, the mobilizations of the actors reveal the same ambivalence about the sports model conveyed by the Olympic institution. (shrink)

This opinion paper takes aim at an error made recently by Clarivate Analytics in which it sent out an email that congratulated academics for becoming exclusive members of academia’s most cited elite, the Highly Cited Researchers. However, that email was sent out to an undisclosed number of non-HCRs, who were offered an apology shortly after, through a bulk mail, which tried to down-play the importance of the error, all the while praising the true HCRs. When Clarivate Analytics senior management was (...) contacted, the company declined to offer an indication of the number of academics who had been contacted and erroneously awarded the HCR status. We believe that this regrettable blunder, together with the opacity offered by the company, fortify the corporate attitude about the value of the journal impact factor, and what it represents, namely a marketing tool that is falsely used to equate citations with quality, worth, or influence. The continued commercialization of metrics such as the JIF is at the heart of their use to assess the “quality” of a researcher, their work, or a journal, and contributes to a great extent to driving scientific activities towards a futile endeavor. (shrink)

Durant la fin des années 1940, les sections de sport et le comité national olympique soviétique intègrent les fédérations et le Comité international olympique, ce qui leur permet de prendre part aux compétitions et à la communauté mondiale des sportifs. Très vite, les championnes d’URSS remportent de francs succès. La participation soviétique y a une double fonction dans la « politique extérieure de l’image » (R. Frank). D’une part, elle donne à voir les succès en matière d’égalité femmes-hommes. D’autre part, (...) elle permet d’obtenir des médailles, essentielles à la mesure de la suprématie soviétique en matière de sport. Cet article étudie la manière dont l’administration et les médias soviétiques ont construit – en pratique et en représentations – la supériorité sportive féminine soviétique en interaction avec l’étranger. Loin d’être isolés, les acteurs du sport soviétique s’adaptent aux règlements internationaux, aux réactions que les performances des athlètes d’URSS suscitent et aux controverses qui surgissent dans la presse de l’adversaire. (shrink)

This paper examines the discussion about false pleasures in the "Philebus" (36 c3-44 a11). After stressing the crucial importance of this discussion in the economy of the dialogue, it attempts to identify the problematic locus of the possibility of true or false pleasures. Socrates points to it by means of an analogy between pleasure and doxa. Against traditional interpretations, which reduce the distinction drawn in this passage to a distinction between doxa and pleasure on the one hand and their object (...) on the other, it is argued that, rather, Socrates distinguishes between the mere fact of having a doxa or a pleasure, on the one hand, and the content of these acts, on the other hand. Consequently, the possibility for a pleasure to be false does not concern its relation to an object, but the affective content which defines it. In order to show how the affective content of a pleasure can be false, it is necessary to examine the three species of false pleasures described by Socrates in their relation to appearance and imagination. Appearance is not identical with perception for Plato: it consists in a mixture of perception and doxa. As for imagination, it consists in "illustrating" a doxa present in the soul by means of a "quasi-perception". It is the presence of a doxa in each of these processes which makes it possible for them to be true or false, while mere perception cannot be either true or false. It is then argued that according to the "Philebus" pleasure can be false precisely because its affective content is not a mere perception, but either an appearance or an imagination. (shrink)

Over the last 40 years or so, there has been an explosion of cultural evolution research in anthropology and archaeology. In each discipline, cultural evolutionists investigate how interactions between individuals translate into group level patterns, with the aim of explaining the diachronic dynamics and diversity of cultural traits. However, while much attention has been given to deterministic processes, we contend that current evolutionary accounts of cultural change are limited because they do not adopt a systematic stochastic approach. First, we show (...) that, in contrast with the intense debates in ecology and population genetics, the importance of stochasticity in evolutionary processes has generated little discussion in the sciences of cultural evolution to date. Second, we speculate on the reasons, both ideological and methodological, why that should be so. Third, we highlight the inadequacy of genetically-inspired stochastic models in the context of cultural evolution modelling, and ask which fundamental stochastic processes might be more relevant to take up. We conclude that the field of cultural evolution would benefit from a stochastic revolution. For that to occur, stochastic models ought to be developed specifically for cultural data and not through a copy-pasting of neutral models from population genetics or ecology. (shrink)

We provide characterizations of the equal division values and their convex mixtures, using a new axiom on a fixed player set based on player nullification which requires that if a player becomes null, then any two other players are equally affected. Two economic applications are also introduced concerning bargaining under risk and common-pool resource appropriation.

CorpusReader est un dispositif expérimental permettant d'articuler plusieurs instruments pour construire des corpus multi-annotés. L'objectif de ce dispositif est la description de corrélations entre niveaux de description pour caractériser des normes, comme par exemple des discours ou des genres. Dans ce cadre, toute annotation est une interprétation et le contexte est défini comme une pluralité d'interprétations réifiées dans un codage commun. CorpusReader permet à la fois de construire cette annotation contextualisante puis d'en extraire des sous-ensembles et des quantifications pour des (...) analyses quantitatives. (shrink)

CorpusReader est un dispositif expérimental permettant d'articuler plusieurs instruments pour construire des corpus multi-annotés. L'objectif de ce dispositif est la description de corrélations entre niveaux de description pour caractériser des normes, comme par exemple des discours ou des genres. Dans ce cadre, toute annotation est une interprétation et le contexte est défini comme une pluralité d'interprétations réifiées dans un codage commun. CorpusReader permet à la fois de construire cette annotation contextualisante puis d'en extraire des sous-ensembles et des quantifications pour des (...) analyses quantitatives. (shrink)

Although Pascal is a thinker of the figure of Christ, he seems to neglect the other Persons of the Trinity, in particular the Holy Spirit. This article examines the place Pascal gives to the third Person of the Trinity. It shows that, for Pascal, the Holy Spirit plays an important role in the conversion of man, insofar as he spreads in his heart the grace of Christ sent by the Father. Finally, this study comes to a difficult fragment of Pascal’s (...) in which he asks whether all Holy Scripture is dictated by the Holy Spirit, in order to propose a new reading. (shrink)

Cet article analyse les emplois schelérien et heideggérien de l’expression « logique du coeur ». Il revient sur l’origine de cette expression – forgée par Scheler, qui l’attribue à tort à Pascal en soulignant son opposition à la raison cartésienne – avant de reconstruire l’usage qu’en fait Heidegger. Trois phases sont mises au jour : Heidegger fait l’économie de cette expression dans ses jeunes années afin de prendre ses distances avec la doctrine schelérienne et pascalienne des sentiments ; il y (...) recourt dans les années trente et quarante pour signaler que cette doctrine est déterminée par la « logique » métaphysique cartésienne, qu’il oppose à deux logiques du coeur non métaphysiques (celles du λόγος grec héraclitéen et parménidien et du Λόγος johannique) ; dans les années cinquante, Heidegger abandonne pourtant cette expression au motif que toute logique – moderne (cartésienne) comme grecque et biblique – demeure métaphysique. (shrink)

The Newell Test is an ambitious and promising project, but not without pitfalls. Some of the current criteria are not theoretically neutral, whereas others are unhelpful. To improve the test, the learning and development criteria are reviewed and revised, which suggests adding a maturation criterion as well. Such changes should make the Newell Test more general and useful.

El artículo estudia el fragmento de una carta de Prisciliano recogida en el "Commonitorium de errore priscillianistarum et origenistarum" de Pablo Orosio, para recolocar el fragmento en el contexto orosiano. Posteriormente se estudia el fragmento en el contexto de las fuentes priscilianas, para ver si se puede hacer un acercamiento con las ideas de los "Tratados de Wurzburg", y las de E.-Ch.Babut y E. Spät principalmente.

Si le xixe siècle fut le temps de l’émergence de la figure de la “ grande voyageuse ”, on ne saurait surestimer cette innovation. La hiérarchie des genres de récits de voyage, l’importance du contre-exemple britannique, la condamnation morale de la voyageuse solitaire manifestent assez le sentiment de l’illégitimité du voyage féminin. Pourtant, pèlerines, valétudinaires et touristes se multiplièrent dans un siècle qui fut aussi celui de l’invention du voyage de noces. Cet article tente de prendre la mesure de l’ensemble (...) des normes qui ont alors commandé les pratiques, nombreuses et variées, du voyage féminin. (shrink)

Intuitive predictions and judgements under uncertainty are often mediated by judgemental heuristics that sometimes lead to biases. Our micro-developmental study suggests that a presumption of rationality is justified for adult subjects, in so far as their systematic judgemental biases appear to be due to a specific executive-inhibition failure in working memory, and not necessarily to a lack of understanding of the fundamental principles of probability. This hypothesis was tested using an experimental procedure in which 60 adult subjects were trained to (...) inhibit the classical conjunction bias on a frequency judgement task derived from Tversky and Kahneman's work. Pre- and post-test performance was assessed via a probability judgement task. The data indicated a training effect, suggesting that subjects traditionally labelled as "irrational" with respect to the classical rules of inductive reasoning are in fact "inefficient inhibitors". These findings are discussed in terms of a polymorphous view of rationality. (shrink)

La philosophie française actuelle se réduit souvent à de l’historiographie ou à de l’exégèse de textes, s’exposant ainsi au reproche de stérilité. Certes, la philosophie ne doit pas céder à une telle tendance sous peine de se discréditer ou de disparaître. Cependant, à l’inverse, l’histoire de la théorie et l’exégèse sont nécessaires à la théorie non seulement pour produire de nouvelles hypothèses mais aussi pour les justifier, ceci étant vrai pour toutes les disciplines scientifiques.

People meeting a robot for the first time do not know what it is capable of and therefore how to interact with it—what actions to produce, and how to produce them. Despite social robotics’ long-standing interest in the effects of robots’ appearance and conduct on users, and efforts to identify factors likely to improve human–robot interaction, little attention has been paid to how participants evaluate their robotic partner in the unfolding of actual interactions. This paper draws from qualitative analyses of (...) video-recorded interactions between a robot and groups of participants, in the framework of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. We analyse the particular ways in which participants shape their embodied actions, how they can reproduce a prior action that failed to obtain a response from the robot; and how they explore the robot’s embodied nature. We find a set of recurrent methods or practices, showing that robot-recipient design displays not only participants’ initial assumptions about the robot’s competences, but also more importantly perhaps their continuous assessment of the robot’s behaviour, and their attempts to adapt to it. Participants locally produce and constantly revise their understanding of the robot as a more or less competent co-participant, drawing from its past, current, and projected conduct and responsiveness. We discuss the implications of these findings for research in robotics and human–robot interactions, and the value of the approach to shed new light on old questions by paying attention to the quality of gesture and the sequential organisation of interaction. (shrink)

The doctrine of the “just price” is more than often described as the core of the “economic” thinking of the Scholastics (de Roover 1958; Baldwin 1959; Wilson 1975; Worland 1977). In fact, one could hardly contest that the notion occupies a place of high importance in the economic reflections of the Medieval Doctors. It is of no doubt that their study of economic reality led them to call up very frequently the said notion of “just price”. Yet the insistence with (...) which modern historiography has itself treated this – central but particular – element of the Scholastic economic thinking conceals, to our opinion, some of its important sights and interests. An “objective” approach of the scholastic theory seems to command such an interpretation. But why is the phrase “just price” so often used and developed by the Doctors? Such a simple question cannot be answered simply by focusing on the notion. From a more “methodological” point of view, just price appears only like the final result of a complex argumentation. Little attention has been given to the fact that (1) the issue at stake is less a problem of correctness in limited bargaining than a general question of social justice; (2) the method used to deal with this vast subject in the field of economic relations is a systematic “contractual” analysis. The second point forms the main theme of this paper. (shrink)

This paper investigates the late medieval controversy over the causal role of substantial forms in the generation of new substances. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, when there were two basic positions in this debate (section II), an original position was defended by Walter Burley and Peter Auriol, according to which accidents alone—by their own power—can generate substantial forms (section III). The paper presents how this view was received by the next generation of philosophers, i.e., around 1350 (section IV), (...) and how, even though some of the initial theoretical motivations for this view were quickly abandoned, the view was still defended by several philosophers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (section V). It is finally shown that this theory, still discussed by Suárez and early modern scholastics, and despite being generally rejected, contributed in its own way to the evolution of hylomorphism in the late Middle Ages and, to a certain extent, its gradual decline (section VI). (shrink)

We show that provability in the implicational fragment of relevance logic is complete for doubly exponential time, using reductions to and from coverability in branching vector addition systems.

Sylvain Luquet | : On tente ici de retracer aussi fidèlement que possible les tenants et les aboutissants du célèbre débat autour du bien commun et de la personne suscité par l’attaque du Père Eschmann contre le livre de Charles De Koninck, De la primauté du bien commun contre les personnalistes . On y verra vite à quel point il s’agissait d’un débat d’idées et nullement de conflits personnels. | : We attempt here to retrace as faithfully as possible (...) the whys and wherefores of the famous debate about the common good and the person that resulted from the attack by Father Eschmann against Charles De Koninck’s book, On the Primacy of the Common Good against the Personalists . It will soon be obvious how much the core of this debate were ideas, and not at all personal conflicts. (shrink)

Using the matching bias example, the aim of the present studies was to show that adults' reasoning biases are due to faulty executive inhibition programming. In the first study, the subjects were trained on Wason's classical card selection task; half were given training in how to inhibit the perceptual matching bias (experimental group) and half in logic without the inhibition component (control group). On the pre- and post-tests, their performance was assessed on the Evans conditional rule falsification task (with a (...) negation in the antecedent of the rule), a task that also involves matching bias. In addition, subjects were tested for perceptual field dependence/independence using the Embedded Figures Test. The results brought out a specific inhibition training effect, as well as a clear-cut relationship in the experimental group between receptiveness to training and perceptual field independence. In the second study, the training paradigm was the same except that on the pre- and post-tests, the negation was in the consequent of the conditional rule (in this case, the perceptual matching response corresponds to the logical response). The subjects succeeded on the pre-test, and the matching-bias inhibition training had a negative effect on post-test performance. This specific negative priming effect confirms the inhibitory impact of our experimental training and outlines the dissociation of inhibition and logical components. (shrink)

Genebanking, the process of preserving genetic resources, is a central practice in the modern management of crop genetics, especially for the species used for food and agriculture. Closely interrelated networks of local, national and global actors are responsible for ex situ conservation. They all seek to make plant genetic resources accessible for all and now face new challenges arising from digitisation. Plant sciences are entering the postgenomic era, moving fast from initially providing a single reference genome for each species (genomics), (...) to harnessing the extent of diversity within crop species (pangenomics) and among their relatives (referred to as postgenomics). This paper describes the extent to which ex situ collections have already undergone a digital shift, or are planning to do so, and the potential impact of this postgenomic-induced dematerialisation on the global governance of plant genetic resources. In turn, digitising material (seed) collection changes the relationship between genebanks and genomic databases. Comprehensive genomic characterisation of genebank accessions is ongoing, and I argue here that these efforts may provide a unique opportunity for genebanks to further embrace the moral, ethical and ultimately political principles on which they were built. Repurposing genebanks as decentralised digital biocentres could help relocate capabilities and stewardship over genetic resources. Empowering local farmers by providing access, promoting the use and unlocking benefits from state-of-the-art tools of modern plant breeding may allow bridging the breeding divide. However, to accomplish such a paradigm shift, genebanks require a strong political mandate that must primarily originate from the access and benefit-sharing framework. Only so may the global challenges associated with the loss of biodiversity and food insecurity be addressed. (shrink)

According to Scheler, since the 12th century, Europe and the West have gradually lost their way. They abandoned the Pascalian “logic of the heart”, that is, the knowledge of holy values, spiritual values and vital values through intentional feeling (Fühlen) of the heart, in favour of the logic of reason or understanding, that is, the knowledge of domination of the external world by reason. Nevertheless, Scheler notes that since that time, European thinkers have occasionally succeeded in rediscovering this knowledge of (...) the heart, and that there is even a powerful contemporary movement in this direction in Europe. The challenge for Europe, then, is to build on this momentum and rediscover the “logic of the heart” in order to achieve a harmony of knowledge forms, and then a harmony of world civilization. (shrink)

The controversy currently surrounding national literatures in foreign languages can be summed up by the famous statement: “to be or not to be, that is the question.”* But how is one to be oneself without having been that other whom one cannot deny (in the Marxist sense) since one sings as one grows? How, whatever effort one makes to deny one's father, can one fail to be presently what one is by separating oneself from the story of one's own birth (...) or from the birth of one's own story? (shrink)

Ce texte est consacré à la conception de la liberté absolue chez Schelling, telle qu’elle est exposée dans les Weltalter et accomplie dans la philosophie tardive. À partir d’une élucidation des rapports entre liberté, nécessité et contingence, nous souhaitons montrer que Schelling parvient à développer un nouveau concept de liberté absolue qui d’une part ne concerne pas seulement Dieu mais aussi l’homme, et qui d’autre part dépasse la liberté kantienne comme autonomie et autodétermination, mais aussi la liberté de l’É crit (...) sur la liberté de 1809 comme « pouvoir du bien et du mal ». En outre, nous soutenons que la liberté du Dieu « Seigneur de l’être » de la philosophie de Munich et Berlin se distingue de celle du Dieu seulement « sur-étant » des Weltalter. Seule la « liberté d’être et de ne pas être » du « Seigneur de l’être » représente une forme de liberté à laquelle l’homme peut et doit tendre, une liberté non pas de l’auto-anéantissement, mais du don de soi, liberté suprême qui n’est autre que celle de l’amour. (shrink)

Toute éthique, Heidegger l'a montré, est enfermée dans un paradoxe : alors qu'elle a pour objet de fonder a priori des règles universelles et nécessaires pour orienter notre comportement, l'éthique bute inéluctablement sur la particularité et la contingence des circonstances singulières. Surtout, une éthique qui dicte ainsi des principes risque fort de décharger l'être humain de sa responsabilité essentielle en le dispensant de la tâche de la pensée. Comment, alors, concevoir en conséquence notre rapport au monde? Comment repenser notre "séjour" (...) sur terre pour en faire une véritable préparation au bien-vivre, un soutien au mouvement même du désir, de l'action et de la décision? Comment ajuster notre besoin de règles universelles à l'irréductible singularité phénoménale des événements? La confrontation des philosophies de Schelling et de Heidegger permet de penser autrement l'ethos, radicalement opposé à toute tentative normative qui fixerait a priori les lois universelles censées régir la maxime de nos actions. Tel est le sens du présent essai, dont l'enjeu principal est de fonder l'ethos de l'im-possible, celui qui admet l'événement et le surgissement imprévisible du possible et y répond."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)