The Italian Dominican Ptolemy of Lucca figures among the most significant political theoreticians of the Middle Ages. In his De regimine principum, a continuation of Thomas Aquinas’ De regno, Ptolemy paints a highly original picture of civil happiness. Taking the Roman Republic as his model, Ptolemy praises the “political” government that is presented as a sufficient condition for felicitas civilis, and this through the virtue of its citizens, the balance of its forces, and the harmonious and active collaboration of the (...) various groups that constitute the community. (shrink)

The basic principles of scientific research from the great French physiologist whose contributions in the 19th century included the discovery of vasomotor nerves; nature of curare and other poisons in human body; more.

Contrasting the properties of conscious and unconscious processes is crucial for understanding how consciousness occurs in the brain. In this chapter, we review the theoretical framework and empirical methods used to delineate and contrast conscious vs. unconscious perception. After outlining the main approaches to measure unconscious influences on brain and behavior, we describe some of the psychophysical tools employed to render stimuli unconscious, including the depletion of sensory signals, attentional resources, and vigilance states. We then provide an overview of the (...) extent and limits of unconscious perception, and conclude on the future of the contrastive approach to the study of consciousness. (shrink)

v. 1. From the Upanishads to the British empiricists.--v. 2. From Kant to the situation in 1963.--v. 3. Related readings.

To what level are invisible stimuli processed by the brain in the absence of conscious awareness? It is widely accepted that simple visual properties of invisible stimuli are processed; however, the existence of higher-level unconscious processing (e.g., involving semantic or executive functions) remains a matter of debate. Several methodological factors may underlie the discrepancies found in the literature, such as different levels of conservativeness in the definition of "unconscious" or different dependent measures of unconscious processing. In this research topic, we (...) are particularly interested in yet another factor: inherent differences in the amount of information let through by different suppression techniques. In the same conditions of well-controlled, conservatively established invisibility, can we show that some of the techniques in the "psychophysical magic" arsenal (e.g., masking, but also visual crowding, attentional blink, etc.) reliably lead to higher-level unconscious processing than others (e.g., interocular suppression)? Some authors have started investigating this question, using multiple techniques in similar settings. We argue that this approach should be extended and refined. Indeed, in order to delineate the frontiers of the unconscious mind using a contrastive method, one has to disentangle the limits attributable to unawareness itself, and those attributable to the technique inducing unawareness. The scope of this research topic is to provide a platform for scientists to contribute insights and further experiments addressing this fundamental question. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 214 Seiten: 249-257.

Claude Lefort is one of the leading social and political theorists in France today. This anthology of his most important work published over the last four decades makes his writing widely accessible to an English-speaking audience for the first time. With exceptional skill Lefort combines the analysis of contemporary political events with a sensitivity to the history of political thought. His critical account of the development of bureaucracy and totalitarianism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is a timely (...) contribution to current debates about the nature and shortcomings of these societies. His incisive analyses of Marx's theory of history and concept of ideology provide the backdrop for a highly original account of the role of symbolism in modern societies. While critical of many traditional assumptions and doctrines, Lefort develops a political position based on a reappraisal of the idea of human rights and a reconsideration of what "democracy" means today. The Political Forms of Modern Society is a major contribution to contemporary social and political theory. The volume includes a substantial introduction that describes the context of Lefort's writings and highlights the central themes of his work. (shrink)

We study the influence of the individual behaviour of animals on predator-prey models. Populations of preys and predators are divided into sub-populations corresponding to different activity classes. The animals are assumed to do many activities all day long such as searching for food of different types. The preys are more vulnerable when doing some activities during which they are very exposed to predators attacks rather than for others during which they are hidden. We study activity sequences of the animals and (...) also the effect of a change in the average individual behaviour of the animals on Lotka-Volterra prey-predator interactions. Numerical simulations are realized for the whole sets of equations (governing the subpopulations) and are compared to the simulations of the reduced sets of equation (governing the populations). We look for the validity of the method with respect to a scaling factor which measures the differences between the two time scales associated to the fast-varying variables and to the slow-time varying global variables. It is shown that when the two time scales differ of about two orders of magnitude, the approximation is satisfying. (shrink)

This article examines whether and how the participation of women in the firm’s board of directors and senior management enhances financial performance. We use the Fama and French (1992, 1993) valuation framework to take the level of risk into consideration, when comparing firm performances, whereas previous studies used either raw stock returns or accounting ratios. Our results indicate that firms operating in complex environments do generate positive and significant abnormal returns when they have a high proportion of women officers. Although (...) the participation of women as directors does not seem to make a difference in this regard, firms with a high proportion of women in both their management and governance systems generate enough value to keep up with normal stock-market returns. These findings tend to support the policies currently being discussed or implemented in some countries and organizations to foster the advancement of women in business. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce qu'un enseignement? Une pensée? Qu'autorisent-ils? À la suite de Claire Brunet, Sandra Laugier et Frédérique Ildefonse qui dirigent ce volume, d'anciens étudiants, aujourd'hui chercheurs renommés ou plus discrets, creusent à travers le sillon de leur discipline ce que leur a permis l'enseignement de leur maître commune à l'École normale supérieure. Les amitiés intellectuelles s'y joignent. Ce que l'on appelle communément communication dans le monde académique devient texte. Tous, en creux, décrivent l'influence d'un enseignement, la liberté qu'il permet à des (...) esprits pour s'épanouir et nous laissent découvrir un portrait intellectuel d'une grande originalité. La pensée de Claude Imbert, philosophe, logicienne, longtemps directrice du département de philosophie de la rue d'Ulm, n'a pas les honneurs médiatiques français en sus des "académiques" d'usage. S'y prêterait-elle? Pourtant, la philosophe française est depuis plus de vingt ans lue, reçue et écoutée dans les universités du monde entier, des Etats-Unis à la Chine en passant par l'Amérique du Sud. Tous les textes rassemblés ici, comme autant de variations, sans jamais le dire, souhaitent contribuer à la reconnaissance de l'oeuvre. Un inédit "Ne rien oublier et tout apprendre" de la philosophe et un texte de Pascalle Monnier, écrivain, accompagnent le volume."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

L’accompagnement, le traitement, la prévention de la souffrance psychique, individuelle ou conjugale, nécessitent qu’un travail patient-thérapeute soit possible. Pour cela, s’appuyant sur la théorie analytique, l’auteur propose un « penser ensemble » qui nécessite un décalage entre la psyché du thérapeute, qui doit entendre le contenu latent de ce qui se dit, et la psyché du patient réexperimentant son passé à partir du récit qu’il en fait et des interprétations et constructions proposées. Trois cas cliniques étayent ce travail analytique commun.

Considérant le travail psychique auquel nous sommes contraints – depuis l’excitation à la satisfaction pulsionnelle, mise en mouvement sublimée, inhibée « ou non » quant au but, avec ou sans abandon à la jouissance –, l’auteur tente d’approcher des mouvements d’installation identitaire (fonction, rôle, sexe, génération) à l’aide d’appuis théoriques et cliniques à travers deux cas d’analyse.

Infinite regress arguments are part of a philosopher's tool kit of argumentation. But how sharp or strong is this tool? How effectively is it used? The typical presentation of infinite regress arguments throughout history is so succinct and has so many gaps that it is often unclear how an infinite regress is derived, and why an infinite regress is logically problematic, and as a result, it is often difficult to evaluate infinite regress arguments. These consequences of our customary way of (...) using this tool indicate that there is a need for a theory to re-orient our practice. My general approach to contribute to such a theory, consists of collecting and evaluating as many infinite regress arguments as possible, comparing and contrasting many of the formal and non-formal properties, looking for recurring patterns, and identifying the properties that appeared essential to those patterns. Two very general questions guided this work: How are infinite regresses generated in infinite regress arguments? How do infinite regresses logically function as premises in an argument? In answering these questions I clarify the notion of an infinite regress; identify different logical forms of infinite regresses; describe different kinds of infinite regress arguments; distinguish the rhetoric from the logic in infinite regress arguments; and suggest ways of improving our discussion and our practice of constructing and evaluating these arguments. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Quelle sera la fonction d'une logique si le formalisme l'oblitère? On l'a caractérisée sur deux états disjoints : la phénoménologie catégoriale, dont Kant avait épuisé les ressources, et le formulaire quantificationnel. « Copyright Electre » Pages de (...) début Avant-propos - Des dimensions intelligibles Première partie - La seconde navigation Présentation Chapitre premier - Le prix de l'expérience Chapitre II - Logique, histoire formalisation Chapitre III - La logique stoïcienne et la construction du récit Chapitre IV - La dissidence des preuves Deuxième partie - Mises au point Chapitre V - Catégories, apophantique, énonciation Chapitre VI - La vérité d'Aristote et la vérité de Tarski Chapitre VII - Port-Royal et la géométrie des modalités subjectives Chapitre VIII - La philosophie critique et l'énigme du jugement de gout Troisième partie - Perspectives Chapitre IX - De l'expression et de ses recommencements Chapitre X - Le roman grec. Du protreptique à l'éducation sentimentale Chapitre XI - Ce que dit le « menteur crétois », cet agent double Chapitre XII - Entre logique naturelle et intelligence artificielleChapitre XIII - Logique, grammaire, style Index nominum Pages de fin. (shrink)

The inconclusiveness of previous research on the association between gender diverse boards and corporate social performance has led us to revisit the question in light of stakeholder management and institutional theories. Given that corporate social responsibility is a multidimensional concept, we test the influence of GDB on various groups of stakeholders. By considering the interaction between stakeholders’ power and directors’ personal motivations toward the prioritization of stakeholders’ claims, we find that GDB are positively related to CSR dimensions that are related (...) to less powerful stakeholders such as the environment, contractors, and the community. However, GDB do not appear to have a significant impact on CSR dimensions that are associated with stakeholders who benefit from more institutionalized power, such as employees and customers. (shrink)

Depuis le milieu des années soixante-dix, la pensée critique est soumise à rude épreuve dans le monde occidental. La tradition marxiste, incapable de se renouveler et de faire ses comptes avec le "socialisme réel", est entrée dans une crise dont elle ne s'est pas remise. Le discrédit qui l'a atteinte a rejailli très souvent sur les courants les plus novateurs des années soixante et soixante-dix. Beaucoup d'intellectuels qui s'étaient radicalisés au cours des années soixante sont ouvertement passés sur des positions (...) réactionnaires, soit par déception ou conviction, soit pour trouver un nouveau champ d'intervention. En outre, le recul de la pensée critique a été accompagné de façon significative d'une progression de la médiatisation des débats intellectuels, c'est-à-dire, là aussi, d'un renforcement des tendances à simplifier les questions. Dans le même sens vont également, au cours des années quatre-vingt, des courants divers, venus en général des milieux universitaires, désireux d'établir un rapport positif avec les sociétés démocratiques libérales, mais sans verser pour autant dans la facilité médiatique. Pour eux, la société occidentale est la meilleure des sociétés possibles aujourd'hui et il n'y a plus de sens à vouloir en faire une critique globale. Il faut donc se réconcilier avec l'existant et jouir de ses bons côtés en renonçant au négativisme et à l'utopie. Dans ce supplément de Futur antérieur, les auteurs ont voulu montrer que la pensée affaiblie n'était pas inéluctable et qu'une certaine forme de pensée n'a pas renoncé à une critique sans concessions. (shrink)

Novel forms of matter, such as states made of gluons (glueballs), multiquark mesons or baryons and hybrid mesons are predicted by low energy QCD, for which several candidates have recently been identified. Searching for such exotic states of matter and studying their production and decay properties in detail has become a flourishing field at the experimental facilities now available or being built - e.g. BESIII in Beijing, BELLE II at SuperKEKB, GlueX at Jefferson Lab, PANDA at FAIR, J-PARC and in (...) the upgraded LHC experiments, in particular LHCb. A modern primer in the field is required so as to both revive and update the teaching of a new generation of researchers in the field of QCD. These lectures on hadron spectroscopy are intended for Master and PhD students and have been originally developed for a course delivered at the Stefan Meyer Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. They are phenomenologically oriented and intended as complementary material for basic courses in particle and nuclear physics. The book describes the spectra of light and heavy mesons and baryons, and introduces the fundamental properties based on symmetries. Further, it derives multiplet structures, mixing angle, decay coupling constants, magnetic moments of baryons, and predictions for multiquark states and compares these with suitable experimental data. Basic methods of calculating decay angular distributions and determining masses and widths of resonances are also presented. The appendices provide students and newcomers to the field with the necessary background information, and include a set of problems and solutions. (shrink)

Ce texte, issu d’un exposé oral, a pour objectif de faire progresser les réponses à trois questions qui sont au cœur du projet de la revue Temporalités depuis son premier numéro. D’abord la question suivante : pourquoi est-il si difficile de « passer » de la notion de temps au singulier et sans spécification aux concepts de temporalités au pluriel, forgés par les « grandes disciplines scientifiques » (sciences physiques, neurologiques et soc..

In an (indirectly or involuntarily) iconoclastic subject, Claude Fintz proposes to put in perspective the conceptual universe of the humanities by confronting it with the thought of a master of contemporary Indian advaita, Nisargadatta Maharaj—as reflected by his disciple Ramesh S. Balsekar. In this “between” of the scientific and spiritual quest, the great notions of the philosophy of the subject will resonate. The author hypothesizes that this paradoxical encounter is likely to bring out the mystery of a first-person search (...) where, in the context of a certain philosophy of consciousness (resonating with the quest of Henri Michaux), the looking subject turns out to be the mirror of the looked object. This apocalypse projects vitriol on the conceptual bubbles that are the so-called subject (and his free will), knowledge and imagination—all constituents of the human “sciences”, bordered in fact by nothingness, according to a “vacant” anthropology. (shrink)

Writing involves risks—the risk that one will be misunderstood, the risk of being persecuted, the risks of being made a champion for causes in which one does not believe, this risk of inadvertently supporting a reader’s prejudices, to name a few. In trying to give expression to what is true, the writer must “clear a passage within the agitated world of passions,” an undertaking that always to some extent fails: writers are never the master of their own speech. In _Writing: (...) The Political Test, _France’s leading political philosopher, Claude Lefort, illuminates the process by which writers negotiate difficult path to free themselves from the ideological and contextual traps that would doom their attempts to articulate a new vision. Lefort examines writers whose works provide special insights into this problem of risk, both literary artists and political philosophers. Among them are Salman Rushdie, Sade, Tocqueville,m Machiavelli, Leo Strauss, Orwell, Kant, Robespierre, Guizot, and Pierre Clastres. In Tocqueville, for example, Lefort finds that the author’s improvisatory and open-ended expression represents the character of the democratic experience. Orwell’s work on totalitarianism shows up the totalitarian subject’s complicity in this political regime. And Rushdie is remarkable for his solid attack on relativism. With the character and fate of the political forms of modernity, democracy, and totalitarianism a central theme, Lefort concludes with some reflections on the collapse of the Soviet Union. This intriguing and accessible exploration of literature’s political aspects and political philosophy’s literary ones will be welcomed by those who have been stymied by current efforts to bridge these two fields. Taken together, the essays in this volume also stand as an intellectual autobiography of Lefort, making it an excellent introduction to his work for less experience students of political theory or philosophy. (shrink)

Until very recently, little attention has been paid to folklore, peasant history and French ethnology. After the 1970s, however, French folk traditions have become fashionable. Almost every French cultural institution has devoted time and money to promoting this “new” knowledge. Previously, French folklore and ethnology were considered the poor relatives in the social sciences. But then the Ministry of Culture sanctioned a social movement which had arisen in the early 1960s by creating a directorship and Committee for the patrimony to (...) promote research on popular traditions, the development of ecomuseums, and local campaigns to revive craftsmen's songs and popular theater. (shrink)