The double look on complex dimension
Abstract: Authors write about people, not for them. Essential nuance and yet misunderstood by editors assisted by ‘sensitivity readers’. A misunderstanding caused by a misconception of the collective? Bram Stoker redacted by Dracula Dracula, hired as Bram Stoker’s sensitive reader, rewrote his vampire classic. How did this author of the Barbarian Ages have the audacity … Read more
Abstract: The errors of top-down/teleological causality make one think that only the bottom-up/ontological has fundamental value. It is however the first which is entirely creative of our mental scenes, including by lending to reality per se its models, without having direct access to it. Bottom-up causality is fundamentally constitutive of our reality, which hovers over … Read more
Abstract: Do things own their image? They were at the beginning of knowledge, with animism, lost this spirit with monotheism and then naturalism, its ontological equivalent. They are now regaining their autonomous image with the pragmatic scientist, who attributes specific models to them, after having abandoned transcendental theories. From animism to monotheism then to naturalism … Read more
Abstract: We have always loved good stories, says Aristotle Array to reconnect us with conspiracy theorists. The problem, I retorted, is that today we no longer know how to differentiate the real good stories from the fake ones, under the pressure of relativism and a certain weakening of the level of education. “I don’t understand … Read more
Thinking about evil is not just about burning yourself in it With ‘Evil in modern thought‘, essayist Susan Neiman revisits Nietzsche and Arendt to condemn a resignation from contemporary philosophy about evil. She sees the Holocaust as such an exorbitant evil that it requires a complete overhaul of ethics, not just deconstructing world history. An … Read more
Pure altruism does not exist When I transmit information on the net, do I do so out of altruism, for the simple pleasure of spreading knowledge? I would like to be selfless, but no. ‘Simple pleasure’ is far more important than it seems. I seek to stimulate my reward circuits. Without this initial starter, I … Read more
The retreat of the unknown What can make one aware of one’s ignorance? The unknown. The unknown draws a boundary to our individual knowledge. What if the unknown disappears? We are no longer faced with our ignorance. In our own eyes we become omniscient. Yet the unknown recedes and disappears from everyday life. The media … Read more
Incomplete collectivist look Without the double look the researcher often misses his subject. Example with an article on violence in Pour La Science (in french), published by Charles-Édouard de Suremain, anthropologist. He usefully walks the collectivist eye of his specialty on the contexts and forms of violence, but at no time allows to grasp its … Read more