Martin Heidegger: El Sendero del Campo

Corre desde el portón del jardín hacia el Ehnried. Los viejos tilos del parque del castillo lo siguen con su mirada por encima de la muralla, ya cuando reluce claro hacia Pascuas entre los sembrados nacientes y los prados que despiertan, ya cuando se pierde, hacia Navidad, detrás de la colina cercana, bajo las nevadas. Al llegar al crucifijo campestre dobla hacia el bosque. Al bordearlo saluda al roble alto a cuyo pie hay un banco de rústica carpintería.

Sobre él había, a veces, algún escrito de grandes pensadores que una joven inhabilidad trataba de descifrar. Cuando los enigmas se agolpaban sin salida el sendero del campo ayudaba, pues guiaba serenamente el pie en lo sinuoso, a través de la amplitud de la sobria campiña.

De vez en cuando el pensamiento vuelve a aquellos escritos - o hace sus propias tentativas- y retoma la huella que el sendero traza a través de los campos.

Éste queda tan próximo del paso del que piensa como del paso del campesino que en la madrugada sale a guadañar.

Frecuentemente -con los años, el roble del camino induce al recuerdo de los juegos primeros y del primer elegir. Cuando -a veces caía bajo los golpes del hacha un roble en medio del bosque, el padre se apuraba a buscar a través de la foresta y los soleados claros, la madera que se le había asignado para su taller. Allí operaba lenta y cuidadosamente en las pausas de su trabajo, al ritmo del reloj de la torre y de las campanas, pues ambos sostienen su propia relación con el tiempo y la temporalidad.

De la corteza del roble cortaban los niños sus barcos que, provistos de remo y timón, navegaban en el arroyo Mettenbach o en la fuente Schulbrunnen. En los juegos, los viajes a través del mundo llegaban todavía fácilmente a su meta y lograban encontrar de vuelta las costas. La ensoñación de aquellos viajes permanecía envuelta en un brillo entonces todavía apenas visible, pero que existía sobre todas las cosas. ojo y mano de la madre delimitaban su reino. Era como si su tácito cuidado abrigara toda esencia.

Aquellos viajes del juego no sabían aún de las travesías en las cuales toda orilla queda atrás. Pero, en cambio, la dureza, y el perfume de la madera del roble empezaban a hablar más perceptiblemente de la lentitud y constancia con las cuales crece el árbol. El roble mismo decía que sólo en tal crecimiento está fundamentado lo que perdura Y fructifica: que crecer significa abrirse a la amplitud del cielo y -al mismo tiempo- estar arraigado en la oscuridad de la tierra, que todo lo sólidamente acabado prospera sólo cuando el hombre es de igual manera ambas cosas: dispuesto a la exigencia del cielo supremo y amparado en la protección de la tierra sustentadora.

Eso es lo que sigue diciéndole el roble al sendero que pasa con seguridad a su lado. El camino recoge todo lo que tiene sustancia en su entorno y le aporta la suya a quien lo recorra. Los mismos sembrados y ondulaciones de la pradera acompañan al sendero en cada estación en una siempre cambiante vecindad. Sea que las montañas de los Alpes se sumerjan en el crepúsculo sobre los árboles; sea que -donde el sendero salta sobre la ondulación de la colina- ascienda la alondra en la mañana estival; sea que el viento del Este llegue atormentado desde la región donde está la aldea natal de la madre; sea que un leñador cargue al anochecer, rumbo a la cocina del hogar, su haz de leña; sea que regrese el carro de la cosecha balanceándose en los surcos del camino; sea que los niños recojan al borde del prado las primeras flores de primavera; sea que la niebla mueva sobre la campiña durante días su lobreguez y su peso: siempre y en todas partes rodea al camino del campo el consejo alentador de lo mismo:

Lo sencillo conserva el enigma de lo perenne y de lo grande. Sin intermediarios y repentinamente penetra en el hombre y requiere, sin embargo, una larga maduración. Oculta su bendición en lo inaparente de lo siempre mismo. La amplitud de todas las cosas crecidas, que permanecen junto al sendero nos otorga mundo. En lo tácito de su lenguaje, Dios es recién Dios, como lo señala Meister Eckhardt, ese viejo maestro de la vida y de los libros.

Pero el consejo alentador del camino del campo habla solamente mientras haya hombres que, nacidos en su ámbito, puedan oírlo. Ellos son siervos de su origen pero no sirvientes de maquinaciones.

Cuando el hombre no está en el orden del buen consejo del camino del campo, trata en vano de ordenar el globo terráqueo con sus planes. Amenaza el peligro que los hombres de hoy permanezcan sordos a su lenguaje. A sus oídos llega sólo el ruido de los aparatos que toman por la voz de Dios. El hombre deviene así distraído y sin camino. Al distraído lo sencillo le parece uniforme. Lo uniforme harta. Los hastiados encuentran solo lo indistinto. Lo sencillo escapó. Su quieta fuerza está agotada.

Disminuye rápidamente, por cierto, el número de aquellos que conocen todavía lo sencillo como su propiedad adquirida. Pero los pocos serán en todas partes los que permanecerán. Gracias a la suave fuerza del sendero del campo, podrán alguna vez perdurar frente a las fuerzas colosales de la energía atómica, artificio del cálculo humano y atadura de su propia acción.

El buen consejo del sendero del campo despierta un sentido que ama lo libre y que trasciende, en el lugar adecuado, la turbia melancolía hacia una ultima serenidad. Combate la necedad del mero trabajar que efectuado sólo porque sí, fomenta únicamente la inanidad.

En el aire del sendero del campo, que cambia según la estación, prospera la sabia serenidad, cuyo aspecto parece a veces melancólico.

Este saber amable es la serenidad campesina[i]. No la adquiere quien no la posea. Los que la poseen, la tienen del sendero del campo. Sobre su senda se encuentran la tormenta invernal y el día de la cosecha; el ágil estremecimiento de la primavera y el calmo morir del otoño; se contemplan mutuamente el juego de la juventud y la sabiduría de la vejez. Pero en una sola consonancia, cuyo eco el sendero del campo lleva y trae silenciosamente consigo, todo queda armonizado.

La sabia serenidad es un portal hacia lo eterno. Su puerta gira en goznes que han sido alguna vez forjados de los enigmas de la existencia por un herrero conocedor.

Desde el Ehnried regresa el sendero al portón del jardín. Pasando por la última colina, su estrecha cinta conduce por una llana hondonada hasta la muralla de la ciudad. Brilla opaco en el resplandor de las estrellas. Detrás del castillo se eleva la torre de la iglesia de San Martín. Lentamente, casi con retardo, resuenan once campanadas en la noche. La vieja campana cuyas sogas frecuentemente frotaron manos de niño hasta calentarse, tiembla bajo los golpes del martillo de las horas, cuya cara sombría-graciosa nadie olvida.

El silencio se vuelve aún más silencioso con la última campanada. Alcanza a aquellos que en dos guerras mundiales fueron sacrificados antes de tiempo. Lo sencillo se ha vuelto aún más sencillo. Lo siempre mismo extraña y libera. El consejo alentador del sendero del campo es ahora muy claro.

¿Habla el alma? ¿Habla el mundo? ¿Habla Dios?

Todo habla de la renuncia en lo mismo Esta renuncia no quita. La renuncia da. Da la inagotable fuerza de lo sencillo. Ese buen consejo hace morar en un largo origen.

[Traducción y nota de Sobine Langenheim y Abel Posse, publicada en el matutino La Prensa el 12 de agosto de 1979 - Source: Heideggeriana]

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Lacan et la Révolution



From "Grandes Pensadores del Siglo XX"

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Catalogue des Oeuvres d'Henri Ey

BIBLIOGRAPHIE DES OEUVRES D'HENRI EY

Elaborée à partir des travaux de J. GRIGNON (1977, 1994)
révisée et mise à jour par P. BELZEAUX (1998) et R.M. PALEM (1998)
à partir des travaux de J. GARRABE (1997), et de leurs propres recherches sur la
Bibliothèque et les Archives d'Henri Ey à Banuyls dels Aspres.
Adaptation Internet: P. BELZEAUX

link

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Helen McCabe: Mill on Freedom

Helen McCabe introduces John Stuart Mill on his own free will.

[Clipping: Philosophy Now] John Stuart Mill himself believed On Liberty would be one of the works for which he was best remembered. It has certainly proved the most influential. Published in 1859, it caused an outcry, and interest in it has not died. From the rise of totalitarianism in the early twentieth century, through the debates about censorship and privacy in the 1960s, right up to contemporary discussions about free speech and surveillance, events continue to bring the book back into the limelight as answers are sought from its pages.

Mill the Man

Mill was born in 1806, a child both of James Mill and of the Utilitarian project. The experimental education devised by his philosopher father and Jeremy Bentham rendered him, like forced rhubarb, mature before his time – intellectually at least. By the time he was twenty Mill was working at the East India Company; writing articles for radical newspapers; campaigning for universal suffrage, women’s emancipation and economic and legal reform; trying to educate people about contraception and family planning, and sparring with a wide spectrum of opponents at the London Debating Society. In his ‘spare’ time he was editing his father’s and Bentham’s works; teaching his siblings, and studying economics and psychology. Mill was fundamentally committed to Bentham’s utility principle: we ought to act so as to bring about the greatest happiness of the greatest number. He also supported ‘classical’ economic theory; representative government elected by universal suffrage, and a theory of psychology known as associationism, which amongst other things argued that all our ideas come from outside our selves, and that therefore our characters are moulded entirely by external circumstances. Based on these commitments, Mill identified his happiness with the radical reforms proposed by his father’s friends, and everything he did was intended to aid their achievement.

In the winter of 1826/7, the foundation on which this busy hot-house of radical thought and campaigning was built collapsed. Mill was plunged into a depression brought on by the dreariness of the season. In the midst of it he realised that even if all the reforms he championed came about, he would not be happy because his over-rational education had rendered him incapable of emotion. His life appeared to have no purpose, and he seriously considered ending it.

Although it returned at many other times in his life, Mill eventually pulled himself out of this depression, with the aid of poetry (especially Wordsworth and Coleridge, though he was also the earliest critic to appreciate Tennyson), music (Mozart was his favourite composer, and he also composed his own pieces on the piano), Romantic authors (especially Goethe and Coleridge), and falling in love with Harriet Taylor. After a difficult twenty-five years while her first husband was still alive, she eventually became his wife. On Liberty is dedicated to her.

Importantly for understanding On Liberty, much of Mill’s core political thought changed as well. In particular, he embraced a wider understanding of happiness, and a Romantically-inspired concept of the self.

Happiness and Individuality

Mill was still a utilitarian in many respects, and he certainly still believed that the right moral action is that which tends to bring about the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Yet he now believed that many more things could contribute to our happiness than in Bentham’s conception – including loving, being loved, admiration, the pursuit of aesthetic and personal perfection, sympathy, a thirst for knowledge, self-respect, integrity, and virtue. In short, happiness is the knowledge that we’re living as much as possible in accordance with our own conception of a good life, where ‘good’ means morally admirable, enjoyable, full and fulfilling.

This conception of happiness involved a much more active idea of the self. Rather than seeing the self as an essentially passive bundle of connected ideas, Mill adopted Coleridge’s idea of a self which was self-conscious and which could also be self-developing and self-creating. Thus, Mill no longer saw people as being entirely moulded by their environment, but believed that they might also help form their own characters in keeping with their own ideas about what was good, right, noble, beautiful, perfect and sympathetic. The founder of associationism had argued that if it was possible to ensure two people were subjected to exactly the same external stimuli up to a certain event, they would have exactly the same responses to that event. Mill now believed that if two people had been subjected to the same external stimuli their responses would be different, depending on how they had reflected on these stimuli and what their ideas were about the right response. This creation of a character by a choice-making and reflective self as well as by outside circumstances, is what Mill calls ‘individuality’.

For Mill it is this self-created individuality which allows us to pursue all the things that make us happy. Firstly, because it is through reflecting on circumstances and on our own ideas and feelings, making choices and building our own character, that we know what makes us happy, and hence what we want to pursue. Secondly, because it is through a similar process of self-creating reflection that we know what we think is right, and Mill did not think we could ever really be happy if we were not doing what we fundamentally thought was right (as opposed to what we want, which can be a very different thing). Lastly, because in creating and perfecting our characters to the best of our ability, we gain the sympathy, admiration and affection of others, and feel sympathy, admiration and affection for others, all of which are also very important for happiness.

Therefore, happiness – that most important ethical goal for Mill – lies in the free development of individuality, that is, in our free ethical self-createdness. It is this that Mill is championing in On Liberty. It is also what Mill is trying to protect, because he believed that we can only develop our individuality if there was some space in which we’re free from coercion.

This point is important, because On Liberty is often quoted in discussions on the nature, size or justification of government, but it is not primarily the government that Mill is concerned with in On Liberty: Mill is not just talking about personal liberties in the legal sense. Mill is aware that social pressure, through public opinion in particular, is every bit as coercive as state power, and can be even more insidious, since it makes us our own oppressors. After reading about America, Mill felt that democracies had to be especially aware of this type of coercion, where there’s almost continual pressure for everyone to conform to the majority’s idea of what’s right, good or respectable. He insists that although democracies have historically been formed by those fighting for political liberties, they ought not to become complacent and think this is all the freedom their citizens need. Rather, we need to be protected from the coercive effect of public opinion operating in areas the law does not cover, and also from pressure to oppress minorities through the law, which is possible when a majority elects the government.

In On Liberty, then, Mill wants a ‘moral sphere’ of free choice around people, with which neither the state nor any individual or group may interfere. This sphere must protect the individual from the coercive power of public opinion, state power and individual interference. In particular, it is supposed to ensure the free development of that individual’s individuality, and to prevent their character from being warped, twisted or cropped by the ideas of government, society, or other individuals. Mill’s own metaphor is that of a tree which is allowed to grow freely, compared to being cut into topiary, or pollarded.

Harm and Coercion

Mill is only concerned with unjustified coercion. There are many things he thinks society and the state are completely justified in coercing people to do; and indeed, one of his tasks in On Liberty is to try and draw the line between what is and what is not justified coercion. The principle upon which he drew this line is perhaps deceptively simple: coercion is only justified if an action is causing or directly threatens to cause harm. For example, Mill felt it so harmful to an individual’s chance of happiness to prevent them from having an education that he thought society was completely justified in forcing parents to educate their children. Thus he supported free, nationally-provided schools; although he was concerned that if these were the only schools, then the government’s power over the curriculum would form an unwarranted threat to individuality.

Of course, this opens up a philosophical can of worms as to what ‘harm’ means. You may recall that Mill embraced the principle that right action was that which tended to cause happiness (or pleasure), and wrong action that which tended to cause pain. It would be wrong, however, to make the mistake of equating harm with pain. Harm may well be painful, but this is not its most important feature. Rather, for Mill, harm is something which prevents the free development of our individuality. Stubbing my toe on the bath definitely causes me pain, but it does not cause me harm: being tortured until I acquiesce certainly does. Mill was aware that pain can have a harmful effect on individuality, when it warps our actions and hence warps the development of our individuality. Thus Mill was heavily involved in the campaign against domestic violence, because as well as causing immediate pain (which is in itself wrong), it also warps the behaviour and so development of those who are abused. Mill also argued that an education which trains us to close off a vast number of possible actions as out-of-bounds is also harmful, although it may never have been attended by pain. Thus, women’s education, which trained them to believe they were inferior to men, and to place all their hopes and aspirations in marriage, was harmful, even if the women thus educated were contended, and lived well-fed, pampered lives.

Harm can be caused just as much through inaction as through action. But Mill believed that certain actions could never cause harm, even if they could be shown to cause pain. He called these self-regarding actions, because they are entirely concerned with our selves. Our faith, or lack of faith, in any particular religion; our code of ethics; what we read, listen to, watch or believe; and anything done in private with consenting adults, are all included in this self-regarding sphere.

A common objection to this idea is that no action is completely self-regarding – everything we do has some impact on someone else. However, this objection is misplaced for On Liberty, since here self-regarding actions are those pertaining to the very creation of our selves. Mill believed that actions consistent with the freedoms we need for this, for example, the freedom of conscience and thought, could never interfere with the free development of another person’s individuality. Hence, for example, no matter how unhappy a religious fundamentalist is made by the knowledge that other people do not believe what he believes or act in a manner he considers to be sinful or wrong, this unhappiness does not count as harm because it does not impede the free development of his individuality.

Freedom and Persuasion

Yet some things both are tightly bound up with the development of our individuality and have the potential to cause harm to others – freedom of speech comes under this heading, for example. If even an action (or inaction) which is important for the free development of our individuality can be shown to cause harm which is not outweighed by the harm of preventing that action, then society is justified in forcibly preventing it. The possible harm in the prevention is not only to the individual who is prevented from acting (or who is forced to act), but also to the rest of society. Mill believed that every person’s individuality, now and for future generations, is jeopardised by the censorship of opinions, even if those opinions were definitely wrong. Despite what we may now believe, those opinions might be true, and we would therefore be robbing both ourselves and future generations of the chance of realising the truth. Or they might be partially true; but then we’re robbing ourselves and future generations of the chance of working out which parts are true and so which parts of our own opinions are false. Mill thinks there is value even in the challenge of false opinions: if our true opinions are not regularly challenged, they become dead dogmas – things we believe, but passively, and thus without their having any real impact on our lives. Mill believed even very important ideas could degenerate into such shibboleths, to which we pay little more than lip-service, if they were not continually challenged. The very progress of humanity, then, depends on hearing potentially untrue opinions.

On the other hand, Mill was not unaware that the expression of some ideas can cause harm outweighing even the benefit to society of being able to hear them. Where the balance lies depends on the context. For example, when there is a risk of violence following their expression, the censorship of opinions may be justified. Mill’s example is the opinion that corn-dealers starve the poor because they keep prices high for their own benefit. Writing this in a newspaper or book, or expressing it in most circumstances, is completely warranted, however much such an accusation upsets the corn-dealers. However, expressing such opinions to a hungry and angry mob massed with fire-brands outside a corn-dealer’s house is not justifiable. In short, Mill is attempting to draw a line between expression, which should always be tolerated, and incitement, which by no means need be. He demands society’s toleration for all expressions and actions which are primarily self-regarding and which do not cause harm to others. Mill believes this is the only way in which we can secure the freedom necessary for the protection of individuality; and without individuality, no one can be happy.

Mill has been accused of desiring that we should all be completely unengaged with the other individuals around us, pursuing our own conception of the good life with no consideration for others, merely tolerating their existence, and allowing them to do whatever they think best so long as it does not harm us. Yet this is by no means what Mill desires. It is an exercise of our own freedom and individuality to engage with the beliefs of others: to learn from them, to help them learn from us, and to do our best to see that they live a good life, up to the point of using force. In On Liberty Mill is concerned with protecting individuality from unjustified coercion. However, he was well aware that there are many, many ways of influencing people besides coercion – and all of these methods he wholeheartedly embraces. Unless harm is concerned we may not force, but we can do a great deal up to that point, and Mill wants us to. In On Liberty we are actively encouraged to argue with people, cajole them, beg them, plead with them, attempt to persuade them, debate with them, and in extreme cases, avoid and ignore them; we may even counsel others to abjure them, although not to the extent that this forms some kind of social punishment amounting to coercion. As far as Mill is concerned, we ought to care what our fellow-men believe, and how they live.

That is the crux of On Liberty: we ought to care about other people’s happiness, hence we have to care about the free development of their individuality. Thus, we must strive to ensure that there is an inviolable sphere of freedom around them, protecting their self-regarding actions. When it comes to other-regarding actions, society is justified in coercing individuals to prevent harm to others, so long as that harm is serious compared with the harm caused by preventing the action, and is sufficiently directly linked to that individual’s actions. Society is never justified in coercing either action or inaction when it comes to self-regarding action, or actions which are other-regarding but non-harmful, but that does not mean that society is not justified in engaging with the individual in other ways. Indeed, if we do care about other people’s happiness, we have to engage with them.

Mill rules out from this analysis those who are incapable of freely developing their individuality, either through age or natural inability. He also allows coercion even for self-regarding action in certain extreme situations. His example is of a man whom we witness running onto a bridge we know to be unstable. It is rational to presume he does not want to kill himself or risk injury: therefore, if there is no time to warn him by shouting, we are justified in tackling him to physically prevent him from crossing. These provisos aside, however, Mill’s assertion that “over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign” is the core of On Liberty. We must respect this sovereignty, but also have regard for the well-being of the individual who wields it. Coercion is ruled out – engagement is most certainly not.

After Liberty

The period surrounding the publication of On Liberty was blighted for Mill by the death of his much-beloved Harriet. He wrote the book at a time when he was beginning to return to an active engagement in politics, after spending much of the 1850s with his wife in seclusion and illness. He would shortly become the MP for Westminster, introducing an amendment to the 1867 Reform Act which would have given women the vote on equal terms with men. However, his parliamentary career was most famous for his attempt to bring Governor Eyre before an English court of justice. Eyre’s rule of Jamaica had been particularly brutal, though he was considered by many to be a national hero. Mill was also involved in the campaign for women’s education and other economic, social, political and legal reforms. He died in 1873, and is buried with Harriet in a quiet graveyard in Avignon, beneath a tombstone engraved with the eulogy he wrote for her just as On Liberty was being published.

That the arguments of On Liberty still need making would probably have disappointed but not surprised Mill: he was well aware that in throwing down such a gauntlet to society, he made a challenge it would take a great number of generations to achieve. It was, however, one he believed it would always be worth striving to meet.

Helen McCabe is doing a DPhil on Mill at Oxford University.

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Emmanuel Delille: L’organo-dynamisme d’Henri Ey : l’oubli d’une théorie de la conscience considéré dans ses relations avec l’analyse existentielle

Delille, Emmanuel . L’organo-dynamisme d’Henri Ey : l’oubli d’une théorie de la conscience considéré dans ses relations avec l’analyse existentielle. L'Homme et la société, n° 167-168-169 2008/1-2-3

Henri Ey incarna en France une figure de « rassembleur » au sein de la psychopathologie française. En s’appuyant sur les concepts de J. H. Jackson, il tenta de subsumer les maladies mentales sous une théorie de la conscience, notablement inspirée de la tradition philosophique spiritualiste, et de la méthode pathologique de Th. Ribot et P. Janet. Même si Ey ne s’est jamais revendiqué comme psychologue, il est tout à fait justifié de se questionner sur le peu de diffusion de sa doctrine « organo-dynamique » dans le champ de la psychologie. En parcourant un choix de textes théoriques jusqu’au livre La conscience (1963, collection « Initiation Psychologique », P.U.F.), nous essayerons de problématiser la marginalisation de l’« organo-dynamisme » à partir des années 1960, telle qu’elle se manifeste dans les fascicules rédigés par les collaborateurs de Ey au Traité de Psychiatrie de l’« Encyclopédie Médico-Chirurgicale ». Nous proposons alors de resituer l’« organo-dynamisme » dans les marges de la psychologie, où restèrent confinées, à plus long terme, les analyses d’inspiration phénoménologique, ou l’analyse existentielle de Binswanger, auxquelles Ey adhéra. In France, Henri Ey personified the figure of unifier in the field of the french psychopathology. From the J. H. Jackson’s concepts he attempted to subsume the mental illnesses under a theory of consciousness inspired by the philosophical spiritualist tradition and the pathological method of Th. Ribot and P. Janet. Even if Ey never defined himself as a psychologist, nevertheless one may wonder why the spreading of his « organo-dynamique » theory had been so restricted. From selected theorical papers to the book La Conscience (Paris, PUF, collection « Initiation psychologique, 1963), I will try to put the problem of the marginalization of the Ey’s theory from the sixties as it expresses itself in the papers written by the Ey’s colleagues to be published in the Traité de Psychiatrie, part of the Encyclopédie médico-chirurgicale. In the same margin where Ey’s theory is located, we find the analysis of phenomenological inspiration and the existential analysis of Binswanger.

• Introduction
• 1. La psychopathologie néo-jacksonienne
2. Henri Ey et l’« Essai d’application des principes de Jackson à une conception dynamique de la neuropsychiatrie » (années trente)
• 3. L’organo-dynamisme (années quarante)
4. Les Études Psychiatriques, le Traité de Psychiatrie de l’« Encyclopédie Médico-Chirurgicale » (années cinquante)
• 5. La conscience (années soixante)
• 6. Problématisation : l’organo-dynamisme face à l’inconscient des psychanalystes et le cerveau des neurologues
• Conclusion

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Plato, Sophist 261d

[261d] Ξένος

φέρε δή, καθάπερ περὶ τῶν εἰδῶν καὶ τῶν γραμμάτων ἐλέγομεν, περὶ τῶν ὀνομάτων πάλιν ὡσαύτως ἐπισκεψώμεθα. φαίνεται γάρ πῃ ταύτῃ τὸ νῦν ζητούμενον.

Θεαίτητος

τὸ ποῖον οὖν δὴ περὶ τῶν ὀνομάτων ὑπακουστέον;

Ξένος

εἴτε πάντα ἀλλήλοις συναρμόττει εἴτε μηδέν, εἴτε τὰ μὲν ἐθέλει, τὰ δὲ μή.

Θεαίτητος

δῆλον τοῦτό γε, ὅτι τὰ μὲν ἐθέλει, τὰ δ' οὔ.

Ξένος

τὸ τοιόνδε λέγεις ἴσως, ὅτι τὰ μὲν ἐφεξῆς λεγόμενα [261e] καὶ δηλοῦντά τι συναρμόττει, τὰ δὲ τῇ συνεχείᾳ μηδὲν σημαίνοντα ἀναρμοστεῖ.

261dStranger

Then let us now investigate names, just a we spoke a while ago about ideas and letters; for in that direction the object of our present search is coming in sight.

Theaetetus

What do we need to understand about names?

Stranger

Whether they all unite with one another, or none of them, or some will and some will not.

Theaetetus

Evidently the last; some will and some will not.

Stranger

This, perhaps, is what you mean, that those which are spoken in order

261e and mean something do unite, but those that mean nothing in their sequence do not unite.

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Aristotle: De Interpretatione

Aristoteles. De Interpretatione [PDF] (Da Interpretação, Trad. Giovanni da Silva de Queiroz).

Aristotle. De Interpretatione (On Interpretation, tr. E. M. Edghill).

Commentary and links by Raul Corazzon

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Michel Onfray on L´Express

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Restoration Of French Philosopher’s Work Online In Argentina Seen As An Opening

By Catherine Saez

An Argentinean judge’s recent decision to drop charges against a philosophy professor for alleged copyright infringement is being seen as a stepping stone to drawing attention to copyright issues in Latin America, according to advocates.

Professor Horacio Potel created open source websites to post foreign philosophers’ work in Spanish. The websites were named “Nietzsche in Spanish,” “Heidegger in Spanish,” and “Derrida in Spanish.”

On 13 November, the Argentinean justice decided that Potel’s actions did not justify penal prosecution, and he was declared free of charges, according to the Fundación Vía Libre, an Argentinean nongovernmental organisation focussed on civil rights in the digital area, who posted the court decision [pdf] on their website.

In December 2008, French publishing company “Les Editions de Minuit,” owner of the rights on some of Derrida’s books, lodged a complaint then passed on to the French Embassy in Argentina. The Argentina Book Chamber then started a legal action against Potel. (IPW, Access to Knowledge, 12 May 2009).

The professor had told Intellectual Property Watch in a previous interview that access to Derrida’s work was very difficult in Argentina, because of the cost of the books imported from Spain, priced in euros, and because of the scarcity of bookstores in the country side. The photocopying of textbooks is a major issue for academics and students, Roberto Verzola of CopySouth had told Intellectual Property Watch previously.

“In our legal system,” Beatriz Busaniche of Vía Libre told Intellectual Property Watch this week, “this case will not be considered as jurisprudence, but the case as a whole helped us spread the word about copyright issues.”

“One of the main results is that now social sciences universities here are aware of this conflict and really committed to open the debate around copyright,” she said.

Contacted by email, Les Editions de Minuit said they were not aware of the Argentinean judicial decision.

Both of the websites that were objects of the lawsuit are active again: http://www.jacquesderrida.com.ar/ , and http://www.heideggeriana.com.ar/.

Catherine Saez may be reached at csaez [at] ip-watch.ch. [source]

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Le coran est-il vraiment applicable "en tout temps et en tout lieu?"


Le Magazine Tel Quel a publié en 2008 un dossier polémique sur le Coran, avec la question: Le coran est-il vraiment applicable "en tout temps et en tout lieu?"

Texte de Abdellah Tourabi
Mohamed Moâtassim, conseiller du roi, transmet aux membres du Conseil consultatif des droits de l’homme une décision du souverain : le Maroc lève ses réserves relatives à la Convention internationale sur l’élimination des discriminations à l’égard des femmes. Des réserves émises par le Maroc, et d’autres pays musulmans, pour des considérations religieuses. Pour le camp moderniste, cette décision s’inscrit dans un long processus de réformes initiées par le roi et dont le nouveau Code de la famille était l’annonciateur. Dans le camp conservateur, la décision royale est plutôt perçue comme une erreur, une provocation, dans tous les cas une maladresse à “corriger”. Polémique. Pour désamorcer la crise, le Conseil supérieur des Ulémas intervient et donne sa réponse.

Selon les vénérables membres du Conseil, la levée des réserves sur ce texte international par le Maroc ne doit pas prêter à confusion, car les choses sont claires : les dispositions contenues dans le Coran, exemple des textes relatifs à l’héritage, sont intouchables et ne sont susceptibles d’aucune interprétation. La messe est dite. L’argument est un classique du genre : pas d’ijtihad (effort interprétatif) en présence d’un texte coranique. Cette phrase n’est qu’un slogan qui, à force d’être répété, enseigné dans les manuels scolaires, ressassé dans les prêches, scandé dans les débats, finit par acquérir un caractère sacré et devient, à son tour, une vérité et une règle inviolable.

Parce que, explique-t-on, le texte coranique traverse le temps, les spécificités culturelles, les changements sociaux, les contextes politiques, sans que son sens et son application ne puissent faire l’objet d’aucune acclimatation ou adaptation possible. Ainsi donc, et toujours d’après cette logique, les dispositions coraniques sont valables en tout temps et en tout lieu. Elles ne sont pas le résultat d’un contexte social et culturel particulier et leur portée est universelle et intemporelle. Quelques exemples puisés dans l’histoire de l’islam permettent, cependant, de contrebalancer, voire d’invalider, cette “vérité”. [full text]

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Philosophers finally question academic journal publishers who profit from unpaid work by academics

why should I give my time gratis to help Springer or Elsevier make money?

, Warren Goldfarb asks about publishing on for-profit journals. At last!

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Dialogue entre Nicholas Sarkozy et Michel Onfray


Dialogue entre Sarko et Onfray realizé avant l'élection présidentielle, publié dans le magazin "Philomag".

D'un côté, un philosophe athée, antilibéral, hédoniste et libertaire. De l'autre, un candidat à la présidentielle n'hésitant pas à remettre en cause la loi sur la séparation de l'Église et de l'État, un ministre de l'Intérieur rêvant au rétablissement de l'autorité. À notre initiative, les deux hommes se sont rencontrés. On s'attendait à un choc frontal, il a été question de la croyance, du mal, de la liberté, de la transgression.

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Claude Lévi-Strauss, une vie décentrée

Dossier publié dans le magazine Philomag:

Pour fêter les 100 ans de l'ethnologue, les éditions Gallimard font entrer son oeuvre dans la collection de la Pléiade. L'occasion de redécouvrir le travail de celui qui, après avoir introduit le structuralisme en France et connu le succès avec Tristes Tropiques, récit de ses aventures brésiliennes, se tient aujourd'hui à distance du monde.

Par Vincent Debaene

3 articles composent ce dossier

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Michael Hardt: The Common in Communism (2009)

Video on Youtube,



And the entire conference published on samizdat:

The economic and financial crisis that exploded in Fall 2008 resulted in an extraordinarily rapid sea-change in the realm of political imaginaries. Just as a few years ago talk of climate change was ridiculed and dismissed in the mainstream media as exaggerated and apocalyptic but then almost from one day to the next the fact of climate change became the nearly universal common sense, so too the economic and financial crisis has rearranged the dominant views of capitalism and socialism. Only a year ago any critique of neoliberal strategies of deregulation, privatization, and the reduction of welfare structures – let alone capital itself – was cast in the dominant media as crazy talk. Today Newsweek proclaims on its cover, with only partial irony, “We are all socialists now.” The rule of capital is suddenly open to question, from Left and Right, and some form of socialist or Keynesian state regulation and management seems inevitable.

We need to look, however, outside this alternative. Too often it appears as though our only choices are capitalism or socialism, the rule of private property or that of public property, such that the only cure for the ills of state control is to privatize and for the ills of capital to publicize, that is, exert state regulation. We need to explore another possibility: neither the private property of capitalism nor the public property of socialism but the common in communism. ... [pdf archive]

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Michel Foucault on Bachelard

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Michel Onfray: Misérias (e grandeza) da filosofia

Depois do que atualmente se chama o fim dos grandes discursos – cristianismo, freudismo, marxismo, estruturalismo – e não obstante sua pretensa morte, nunca a filosofia esteve tão bem. E, ao mesmo tempo, nunca esteve tão mal... Bem, porque, sem descontinuar, esperam-se dela sentido, respostas a questões éticas e políticas, existenciais portanto: como pensar, viver e agir sem referências transcendentais num mundo submetido unicamente às leis do mercado? Mal, porque, diante dessa demanda generalizada, a oferta permite aos medíocres, aos comerciantes, aos cínicos, aos oportunistas passarem adiante uma série de mercadorias de má qualidade.

link

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L´Abecedaire de Michel Onfray

A l'occasion de la parution du quatrième tome de son Journal hédoniste et en exclusivité pour Lire, Michel Onfray propose, de A comme anarchie à Z comme Zoé, une introduction à ses idées et surtout un regard rafraîchissant et vivifiant sur le monde: on y croise Jacques Tati et Simone de Beauvoir, on y savoure la meilleure cuisine, on vibre au théâtre: bref, on fuit le ressentiment! Tant il est vrai que cette allégresse explique en bonne part la fantastique audience du philosophe.
Liser le texte entier ici

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Philosopher Reading (Rembrandt)

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Michel Onfray: Le recours aux forêts. La tentation de Démocrite



Démocrite fut dans la Grèce antique un philosophe matérialiste fêté, qui parcourut le monde. Lors de son périple jusqu’en Inde, il a constaté la vilenie des hommes, à la suite de quoi il fit construire une petite cabane au fond de son jardin pour y finir en sage le restant de ses jours. Je nomme tentation de Démocrite et recours aux forêts ce mouvement de repli sur son âme dans un monde détestable.

Le monde d’avant-hier, c’est celui d’aujourd’hui, ce sera aussi celui de demain : les intrigues politiques, les calamités de la guerre, les jeux de pouvoir, la stratégie cynique des puissants, l’enchaînement des trahisons, la complicité de la plupart des philosophes, les gens de Dieu qui se révèlent gens du Diable, la mécanique des passions tristes – envie, jalousie, haine, ressentiment… –, le triomphe de l’injustice, le règne de la critique médiocre, la domination des renégats, le sang, les crimes, le meurtre…

Le repli sur son âme consiste à retrouver le sens de la terre, autrement dit, se réconcilier avec l’essentiel : le mouvement des astres, la logique de la course des planètes, la coïncidence avec les éléments, le rythme des saisons qui apprennent à bien mourir, l’inscription de son destin dans la nécessité de la nature.

Fatigué des misères de ce temps qui sont les ancestrales souffrances du monde, il faut planter un chêne, le regarder pousser, débiter ses planches, les voir sécher et s’en faire un cercueil dans lequel on ira prendre sa place dans la terre, c’est-à-dire dans le cosmos.

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Books of the decade (The Guardian)

The world was rocked by terrorism, climate change became an emergency, celebrity culture moved from our TVs to our bookshelves, and a boy wizard held millions spellbound. Love them or hate them, these are the 50 books that defined the decade
The books of the decade, according to The Guardian

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Gilbert Simondon: Form and Matter

Simondon, Gilbert. L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 1964. Original Translation by Taylor Adkins.


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Michael Hardt and Toni Negri: Common Wealth (book)

When Empire appeared in 2000, it defined the political and economic challenges of the era of globalization and, thrillingly, found in them possibilities for new and more democratic forms of social organization. Now, with Commonwealth, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri conclude the trilogy begun with Empire and continued in Multitude, proposing an ethics of freedom for living in our common world and articulating a possible constitution for our common wealth.

Drawing on scenarios from around the globe and elucidating the themes that unite them, Hardt and Negri focus on the logic of institutions and the models of governance adequate to our understanding of a global commonwealth. They argue for the idea of the “common” to replace the opposition of private and public and the politics predicated on that opposition. Ultimately, they articulate the theoretical bases for what they call “governing the revolution.”

Though this book functions as an extension and a completion of a sustained line of Hardt and Negri’s thought, it also stands alone and is entirely accessible to readers who are not familiar with the previous works. It is certain to appeal to, challenge, and enrich the thinking of anyone interested in questions of politics and globalization.

Publisher Harvard University Press, 2009 ISBN 0674035119, 9780674035119 Length 330 pages

Link to book

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Frederic Worms: A concepção bergsoniana do tempo

Resumo

Trata-se aqui de mostrar como a filosofia de Bergson decorre da constatação da passagem do tempo enquanto fato primordial e originário; nessa medida, as suas obras podem ser consideradas como diferentes tentativas de esclarecer tal experiência da temporalidade que, filosoficamente considerada, consiste na intuição da duração. Para isso, examina-se a forma pela qual o tratamento dado a problemas filosóficos distintos e discutidos em cada um de suas obras efetiva-se como meditação sobre o fato primitivo e seu esclarecimento progressivo. Em primeiro lugar, acompanhamos o percurso de dedução das principais características da duração, sucessão, conservação e ato, sublinhando algumas de suas conseqüências filosóficas. A seguir, examinamos a dimensão crítica da filosofia de Bergson pela análise do pensamento do instante, aquele que desfigura a experiência do tempo e origina a via equivocada da metafísica tradicional; nesse exame procuramos diferenciar tal pensamento da experiência da simultaneidade, que é constitutiva de nossa relação concreta com as coisas.

The bergsonian Conception of Time
Abstract

The aim of this article is to show how Bergson´s philosophy derives from the understanding of the passing of time as an original and primordial fact. In this way, his works can be considered to be different attempts to explain this experience of temporality which, philosophically considered, consist of the intuition of duration. Thus, we examine the way in which the treatment given to distinct philosophical problems discussed in each of his works takes place as a meditation on the primitive fact and its progressive clarification. Firstly, we follow the course of deduction of the main characteristics of duration, succession, conservation and act, emphasizing some of his philosophical consequences. We then examine the critical dimension of Bergson´s philosophy through the analysis of the thought of the instant, which distorts the experience of time and gives rise to an equivocal way of traditional metaphysics; in this examination we shall seek to differentiate this idea from the experience of simultaneity that constitutes our concrete relationship with things.

Fonte, Texto Completo: PDF

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Parrhesia on Simondon

http://www.parrhesiajournal.org/

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Herman Melville: Thinkers and divers

Now, there is a something about every man elevated above mediocrity, which is, for the most part, instinctuly perceptible. This I see in Mr Emerson. And, frankly, for the sake of the argument, let us call him a fool; — then had I rather be a fool than a wise man. — I love all men who dive. Any fish can swim near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go down stairs five miles or more; & if he don’t attain the bottom, why, all the lead in Galena can’t fashion the plumet that will. I’m not talking of Mr Emerson now — but of the whole corps of thought-divers, that have been diving & coming up again with bloodshot eyes since the world began. [Letter to Evert Duyckinck, March 3 1849]

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"All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place already within a system. And this system is not a more or less arbitrary and doubtful point of departure for all our arguments; no it belongs to the essence of what we call an argument. The system is not so much the point of departure, as the element in which our arguments have their life."
- Wittgenstein

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"Le poète ne retient pas ce qu’il découvre ; l’ayant transcrit, le perd bientôt. En cela réside sa nouveauté, son infini et son péril"

René Char, La Bibliothèque est en feu (1956)


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