R Paul

David Hume's theoretical philosophy was long dominated by the interpretation of him as a skeptical empiricist as found in the writings of Read, Beattie, Green etc. Although this has changed substantially the last half-century – especially with the advent of the «New Hume Debate» – there is much work that remains to be done, especially in regard to his analysis of causal induction. In this essay I argue that Hume's analysis of, and arguments surrounding, causal induction should not be read as an attempt at doing skeptical metaphysics and/or epistemology, but rather as an early form of cognitive psychology. I argue this thesis in three steps. In the first two sections I analyze Hume's account of his general and more specific project in the Treatise and the first Enquiry and show that Hume takes himself to be doing empirical and experimental psychology. I then turn to Hume's specific argumentation concerning causal induction, where I show that rather than establishing a skeptical position, his arguments prefigure contemporary poverty of stimulus-arguments for innate cognitive mechanisms unexplainable by general-purpose means, and that he can fruitfully be situated along other Scottish thinkers in advancing an early conception of the Duplex Mind.

Often-cited papal pronouncements regarding organ donation emphasize the importance of gift giving and the consent of the donor. However, a critical reading reveals an ill-defined separation of living organ donation and donation after death. Given that a corpse cannot engage in gift giving, nor can it give consent, the family, acting as good stewards, is the proper decision maker for organ donation after death. A historical examination of relics and human anatomical dissection reveals that the Catholic Church has primarily favored the decisional authority of the family over the first-person consent of the dead. Given this history, family-based consent (as opposed to opt-in or opt-out criteria) is the best model to ensure the dignity of the dead.

It is usually assumed in moral philosophy that a teleological approach, as exemplified by Aristotle's ethics of virtue, and a deontological approach, as heralded by Kant's ethics of duty, are incompatible; either the good or the right, to designate these two major traditions by their emblematic predicates. My purpose in this paper is to show that a theory of action, broadly understood, may provide the appropriate framework of thought within which justice can be done to both the Aristotelian and Kantian, the teleological and deontological moments of morality.

Al elegir el tema de «Hermenéutica y responsabilidad» como núcleo central de los VII Encuentros Internacionales de Filosofía en el Camino de Santiago, la Sociedad Interuniversitaria de Filosofía (SIFA) quiso mostrar el compromiso perenne de la filosofía con la realidad humana. Una realidad sometida a profundas transformaciones que deben ser examinadas para valorar su oportunidad y sus fines. Tal como expresa el subtítulo de este Simposio Internacional, la SIFA acordó rendir un homenaje al filósofo francés Paul Ricoeur, quien fatigado y convaleciente de una reciente enfermedad, realizó un notable esfuerzo para estar con nosotros. Contraviniendo los prudentes consejos de sus médicos, pronunció la conferencia inaugural. En el transcurso de la edición del presente libro llegó la noticia del fallecimiento del maestro, el 20 de mayo de 2005. Santiago de Compostela fue la última ciudad europea a la que Ricoeur se desplazó para participar en una reunión científica internacional.

The author probes Jullien on the problem of time, which is at the heart of European philosophy, while allowing himself to embrace an intelligibility of the ‘infra-philosophical’ leading to a ‘living in philosophy’. The question is both intriguing and rewarding: ‘what the Chinese have thought because they have not thought time’. Yet the author wonders: does Jullien pay more attention to the Greeks than to the Hebrews vis-à-vis China with regard to the concept of time? Jullien’s text on time of course is a piece in a much larger set of texts that bring to the fore questions of life; the author offers, with generosity, much broader thoughts on the possibility of Jullien speaking French while thinking Chinese, and the enigma of living (say in Augustine and Montaigne) within a philosophy of transcendence in the West as opposed to the immanence of philosophy of living in China.

Dans un texte bref et essentiel prononcé et publié en 1992, Paul Ricœur interrogeait l’expérience de la souffrance au cœur de l’existence humaine. Il en dépliait les horizons dans le rapport à soi et à l’autre, depuis la douleur corporelle jusqu’à la souffrance morale. Ce volume se propose de donner aujourd’hui à relire ce texte clé tant pour sa compréhension que pour une réflexion sur l’anthropologie philosophique et l’éthique du soin. Les contributions qui le suivent, chacune à leur manière, rebondissent sur les éléments d’analyse aujourd’hui particulièrement stimulants qui sont les siens, tout en les mettant en perspective avec certains enjeux très concrets du soin dans nos vies.

Ces dernières années, j'ai été conduit à penser que le juridique - appréhendé sous les traits du judiciaire, avec ses lois écrites, ses tribunaux, ses juges, et le prononcé de la sentence où le droit est dit- offrait au philosophe l'occasion de réfléchir sur la spécificité du droit, en son lieu propre, à mi-chemin de la morale et de la politique. Pour donner un tour dramatique à l'opposition que je fais ici entre une philosophie politique où la question du droit est occultée par la hantise de la présence incoercible du mal à l'histoire, et une philosophie où le droit serait reconnu dans sa spécificité non violente, je propose de dire que la guerre est le thème lancinant de la philosophie politique, et la paix celui de la philosophie du droit.

The Overture of the Colloquium on the Unconscious (Bonneval). This previously unpublished text comes from the Archives of the Fonds Ricoeur and from the series: De l’interprétation, essai sur Freud (1965). It is the manuscript of a speech given by Paul Ricoeur in 1960, at the opening of the colloquium on “The Unconscious” at Bonneval, where the philosopher was invited by Doctor and Psychiatrist Henry Ey, for whom the clinic was later named. Thus, Ricoeur evokes the three levels through which he arrived at psychoanalysis, before ending his speech by asking himself about some central themes of his reflection on psychoanalysis.