Dominique Raynaud

In this chapter, I discuss the "common mind thesis" that social integrates have mind of their own – a thesis which is built on a kind of aggregation paradox named doctrinal paradox. External analysis objects its very name: there is no paradox, but non-commutativity of the function composition involved in the aggregation process (Part I). Internal analysis shows that the doctrinal paradox works only when premises are separable. However premises turn out to be hardly separable in the examples cited in the literature (Part II). As the doctrinal paradox is sometimes considered as an argument of holism, its flaws questions the thesis that groups have minds of their own.

Most studies on scientific sources are conducted using the text parallels method, which consists in presenting two texts opposite each other in order to establish or exclude a correspondence between a «source text» and a «target text.» We have explained elsewhere the limits of this method, especially when (exact) text parallels turn into (approximate) doctrinal parallels, and when the potential sources are numerous. In this context, the search for sources is doomed to failure. In order to operate in this difficult environment, we therefore propose to enhance this method with a special focus on words with low lexical frequency, called «tracers,» in order to better detect their offspring in the target…

Ce texte est une exploration des manifestations de la « pensée partisane » aux marges de la science. La science répondant à une norme d’objectivité et l’objectivité étant incompatible avec l’esprit partisan, repérer la présence d’une pensée partisane en science revient à pointer une contradictio in adjecto. Par suite, les éléments partisans qui auront été identifiés devront être placés à la limite ou au-delà du domaine de la science. L’expression « pensée partisane » se trouvant dans le voisinage immédiat de l’idéologie, je rappellerai le sens de ces mots en indiquant sur quelle base on peut les distinguer. J’introduirai ensuite deux exemples – anthropocène et technique – qui me paraissent illustrer la pensée partisane dans le domaine des sciences et techniques. Par des voies très différentes, ces deux idées sont débitrices du contexte de la Guerre froide, ce qui n’est évidemment pas indifférent pour comprendre les mécanismes de leur formation et de leur diffusion.

This article explores how “partisan thinking” presents itself in the borderlands of science. As science conforms to an objectivity norm, and objectivity is incompatible with the partisan mindset, to discover a latent partisan notion in scientific discourse is to lay bare a contradictio in adjecto. It follows that any partisan elements identified should be placed on the edges of, or even outside, the domain of science. The term “partisan thinking” is a close neighbor to ideology, and so I will briefly review the meaning of each word and explain how they might be distinguished. I will then introduce two examples – the Anthropocene and the French concept of technique – that illustrate the presence of partisan thinking in the realm of science and technology. By two very different routes, each of these ideas carries echoes of the Cold War, and this is clearly of interest to us in seeking to understand how they came to be formed and to pass into popular usage.

Cet article compare les modèles explicatifs en architecturologie et en philosophie analytique de l’action, l’une et l’autre postulant l’existence d’actions finalisées. Cette similitude pose la question de l’identité des échelles de référence et des raisons d’agir. On montre que les échelles sont un sous-ensemble des raisons d’agir. Ce résultat a deux conséquences : 1. Le pouvoir explicatif des raisons d’agir est supérieur à celui des échelles de référence. 2. Raisons d’agir et échelles de référence ont un intérêt pour l’explication ex post du travail de conception. D’où l’orientation de l’« opératoire pur » défendue ici, qui consiste à abandonner les raisons d’agir aux concepteurs pour se concentrer sur la description des opérations de conception par des schèmes d’action. This paper compares the explanatory models in architecturology and analytic philosophy of action that both postulate the existence of willful actions. This likeness questions to what extent architectural reference scales are identical to reasons-to-act. It is shown that the scales are a subset of the reasons-to-act, and this result has two effects : 1. The reasons-to-act have greater explanatory power than the reference scales. 2. Reasons-to-act and reference scales are helpful for the ex post explanation of the design work. Hence the position of « dynamic design » advocated here, which involves abandoning the reasons-to-act to the designers and focusing on the description of design operations through action schemes.

The discovery of the Higgs boson is one of the most significant advances of particle physics in recent years. It led to the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 to Englert and Higgs for the theory explaining the origin of the particle mass. The Nobel Prize cannot conceal the fact that the results about the new particle have been achieved by the experimental physicists of the ATLAS and CMS collaborations, who are among the largest international collaboration of scientists in the world (2898 and 2932 physicists, respectively). This article is dedicated to the study of the organization and operation of the ATLAS and CMS international collaborations. The disparities between countries, structure of collaborative networks, physicists’ cooperative vs. competitive preferences, and emerging properties of research work in large scientific collaborations are reviewed. Одним из наиболее значительных достижений в области физики элементарных частиц за последние годы стало открытие бозона Хиггса. Это привело к тому, что в 2013 году Нобелевскую премию по физике получили Энглерт и Хиггс за их теорию, объясняющую происхождение массы частиц. Однако Нобелевская премия не может скрыть тот факт, что результаты о новой частице были получены физиками-экспериментаторами коллабораций ATLAS и CMS, которые являются одними из крупнейших международных коллабораций ученых в мире (2898 и 2932 физика соответственно). Эта статья посвящена изучению организации и функционирования международных коллабораций ATLAS и CMS. В работе рассматриваются вопросы неравенства между странами, структуры научных коллаборативных сетей, кооперативных или конкурентных предпочтений физиков, а также новых свойств научно- исследовательской работы; возникающих в крупных научных коллаборациях.

L’article étudie l’inflation du nombre de coauteurs qui touche aujourd’hui plusieurs disciplines comme la physique des particules et les sciences biomédicales. Approfondissant l’exemple des collaborations ATLAS et CMS du CERN qui ont découvert expérimentalement le boson de Higgs en 2012, l’article précise les modalités de signature dans ce champ, étudie les facteurs responsables de l’inflation du nombre de signataires, se demande si cette inflation a provoqué l’apparition de phénomènes inédits, caractérise ces nouveautés, et précise le seuil temporel et numérique auquel elles sont apparues. L’article conclut que l’inflation du nombre d’auteurs en physique des particules est un phénomène émergent (non additif), visible notamment à l’activité normative engagée au sein de ce champ.

This article aims at clarifying sociological definitions with the help of an original tool, the logical table of contingency, which has characteristics in common with both the statistical table of contingency and Carroll’s bilateral diagram. The unclear notion of ghetto is taken as a test-case. Successive tables of contingency are applied to various defining properties and various sociohistorical situations. Cladistic methods are then used to make the relationships between all ghetto-like situations explicit.

This paper examines the hypothesis that early perspective paintings were drawn arithmetically, without vanishing points. The best argument for this hypothesis is that the division of two parallel lines by straight lines intersecting each other at the vanishing point (geometrical method) is equivalent to the division of those parallel lines in proportional parts (arithmetical method). If arithmetical method had been used, then the vanishing points exhibited ex post should be purely fortuitous. But the lack of multiples and submultiples of measurement units, the absence of proportionality ratios, the length of the operating series, and the correspondence of vanishing points to visible loci of the picture offer sound objections for this hypothesis. The use of optics and geometrical method is more probative – though it does not mean that painters were using concepts of linear perspective, which would be an anachronism.

Why are architects faced with a long-standing crisis of legitimacy in democratic countries, even though going to an architect is required by law in most of these countries ? Design work and project management have now turned into a competitive partnership within an egalitarian trend. The crisis of the architectural profession results from the undermining of architects' powers relative to other actors. This fact clearly evokes a Tocquevillian paradigm : in democratic societies, the passion for equality tends to abolish all status differences. This article analyzes the relevance of this paradigm, comparing the unexpected consequences professionals complain about to the features of egalitarism described by Tocqueville. Finally, the author raises the question as to why this egalitarian phenomenon affected architects only from the second half of the XXth century on.

French architects professional crisis is often said to result from the impact of two oil crises on the building trade. Several years of prosperity force to change this diagnosis. In spite of recent building records, French architects still claim to exercise a “disaster profession” that can be no more a sign of economic crisis. The two rival hypotheses, economic crisis vs. crisis of legitimacy, are tested during the ‘Trente Glorieuses’ prosperous period. Architects’ testimonies of these years present all the warning signs of the current crisis. They describe the harmful consequences of design offices’ breaking into the market, and the independence claims of a growing number of actors.

Early modern physiological optics introduced the concept of correspondence through the study of the con- ditions for the fusion of binocular images. The formulation of this concept has traditionally been ascribed to Christiaan Huygens (1667) and to an experiment often attributed to Christoph Scheiner (1619). How- ever, Scheiner’s experiment had already been conceptualized, first by Ptolemy (90–168 AD), then by Ibn al-Haytham (d. after 1040). The extent of the latter’s knowledge of the mechanisms of binocular vision is analyzed. It is explained why Ibn al-Haytham, who addressed this problem as an experimentalist, suc- ceeded in discovering the theoretical horopter (the locus of points in space that yields single vision) and yet failed to recognize that the horizontal line of the horopter could be described as a circular plane around the viewer’s head, credit for which goes to Vieth (1818) and Müller (1826). Through his experiments, Ibn al-Haytham established the notion of corresponding points, explored the cases of homonymous (direct) and heteronymous (crossed) diplopias, and prepared the ground for the discovery of Panum’s fusional area. Finally, the influence of al-Haytham’s pioneering treatise Kitāb al-manāẓir (Book of Optics) on West- ern science is examined, by studying the translations and commentaries that were available in the Latin world.

L’article s’intéresse aux rapports entre problèmes inverses et causalité, et aux procédures concrètes de résolution des problèmes inverses. La comparaison des définitions existantes aboutit à une nouvelle définition des problèmes inverses, intégrative et non causale. De nombreux problèmes inverses étant mal posés, les résoudre implique de les régulariser pour assurer l’existence, l’unicité et la continuité de la solution (en analyse), l’existence et l’unicité (en géométrie). Les procédures concrètes de résolution des problèmes inverses sont étudiées dans le domaine de la synthèse d’image, sur des problèmes projectifs inverses consistant à reconstruire la forme d’un solide à partir de sa représentation perspective. Constatant que les reconstructions 3D s’accompagnent parfois d’un relâchement des exigences méthodologiques, on s’interroge sur les motivations à produire des « solutions » qui ne reposent pas sur des bases scientifiques solides.

This article aims at identifying the sources of fols. 395r and 686r-686v of the Codex Atlanticus. These anonymous folios, inserted in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, do not deal with the duplication of the cube proper, nor do they derive from Giorgio Valla’s De expetendis et fugiendis rebus (1501), as has been claimed. They deal specifically with the extraction of the cube root by geometric methods. The analysis of the sources by the tracer method reveals that these fragments are taken from the Practica geometrie by Leonardo Fibonacci (1220) and, more precisely, from a volgarizzamento that appears in the Praticha d’arismetrica by Benedetto da Firenze (1463). Leonardo could have consulted this text in one of his two Florentine periods, around 1463-1482 or around 1503-1506.

L'étude de la perspective a longtemps souffert d'un a priori dommageable : celui qui consiste à en faire un système culturel « inventé » à la Renaissance, ou, tout au moins, coupé de ses sources médiévales. Depuis une quinzaine d'années, nombre de recherches se sont attachées à montrer ce que devait la perspective aux connaissances du passé, en postulant tour à tour son origine dans l'optique, l'ars metrica, la statique, la géographie ou l'astronomie... Ce livre montre qu'il n'est pas besoin de convoquer l'ensemble de ces sources et défend la thèse d'un courant de diffusion prépondérant, qui va de l'optique élaborée à Oxford au XIIIe siècle, vers les premières représentations picturales italiennes obéissant aux règles de la perspective linéaire. De fait, ce livre délaisse le regard classique que portent l'histoire et la sociologie de l'art sur la perspective, pour s'intéresser essentiellement au réseau des hommes qui ont rendu possible l'avènement de la perspectiva artificialis en diffusant l'optique d'Oxford. Au croisement de l'histoire et de la sociologie des sciences, cette enquête tente de comprendre les raisons politiques et religieuses qui ont déterminé cette transmission culturelle, tout autant, d'ailleurs, que celles qui ont voulu effacer le passé médiéval de la perspective en créant de toutes pièces un « mythe de la perspective ». Ce livre éclaire les rapports entre la science optique et les techniques de représentation, en interrogeant les mobiles des hommes qui ont transmis, et transformé le contenu de la perspective.

“La obra que usted está examinando es el primer estudio de todas las facetas de la tecnología, desde la concepción del artefacto hasta los problemas filosóficos y jurídicos que suscitan el saber y el hacer tecnológicos… Además, Raynaud califica de tóxica para la propia tecnología a la política utilitarista de dar prioridad al ‘desarrollo’ por sobre la investigación básica, ya que todas las innovaciones tecnológicas han utilizado conocimientos básicos… El utilitarismo que pregonan los economistas neoclásicos y los estadistas miopes es el peor peligro que enfrenta la tecnología, la que languidece sin el apoyo de las ciencias básicas. Como decía Guido Beck, mi maestro de física, no han entendido que no puede haber leche de vaca sin vaca”. – Mario Bunge

To students and practitioners of anamorphic art, the name of Jean-François Niceron is more than preeminent; it has become iconic. La Perspective Curieuse was first published in 1638. An augmented version was then translated into Latin by Mersenne in 1646. A newly amended and augmented version was retranslated into French by Roberval in 1652. This book is an English translation of the 1652 text, with reference to the 1638 and 1646 versions. Considering the continued high reputation of the book, the mathematics have been checked for correctness and consistency, and the authors have provided a full commentary, pointing out the most difficult turns of the 17th-century French, the respective contributions of Niceron, Mersenne and Roberval, and explaining Niceron's greatest insights and weaknesses.

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography.

Ce livre est un livre d’épistémologie de la sociologie. L’objectif est d’appliquer des méthodes analytiques pour clarifier le vocabulaire, expliciter des relations non-apparentes entre concepts, dégager la portée d’une méthode, ou souligner les incohérences d’un programme de recherche. Les questions épineuses ne sont pas écartéees: Comment clarifier des notions confuses? Peut-on mathématiser les concepts sociologiques? Peut-on pratiquer la sociologie comme on pratique les sciences naturelles? Quelle est la place du déterminisme? Chaque question est examinée à la fois dans sa structure logique et sur des cas concrets. La mathématisation est étudiée sur les mécanismes agrégatifs et sur les modèles de diffusion des innovations. La sociologie expérimentale – généralement méconnue dans la sociologie française – est étudiée sur des programmes de relogement, la diffusion de l’information, ou la genèse de la solidarité sociale. Le livre aborde frontalement la question du déterminisme, du naturalisme, du matérialisme et du scientisme, réputés intenables en sociologie. L’enquête montre que leur rejet résulte généralement de confusions conceptuelles. Une fois écartées, peu d’obstacles s’opposent à leur emploi en sociologie. L’objet de ce livre est la sociologie fondamentale: ensemble des mécanismes qui structurent la production des connaissances sociologiques de base à partir de concepts, programmes ou principes, c’est-à-dire tout ce qui ne relève pas de l’expérience immédiate du terrain et des mondes sociaux.

650 pp. – This book is a continuation of the research on the representation of the eye initiated by Prof. Ludwig Choulant (University of Dresden) and Prof. Hugo Magnus (University of Breslau) at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The aim of the book is to provide all those who need information on how the eye was conceived in a given historical context, with clear and concise iconographic and lexicographic data. The first section contains about 700 images of the eye (first handwritten, then printed) distributed among 450 authors. Each record reproduces the figures of the eye with their own specific anatomical terminology. The second section provides a cluster analysis of the eye figures: the result is a dendrogram, which accounts for the main types of representation of the eye found in the history of ocular anatomy. The work is complemented by a 40-page Index of Concepts containing all the anatomical terms found in the book.

Notwithstanding what the champions of post-truth may think, truth remains a key concept of scientific research. In this contribution, several theories of factual truth are evaluated with the help of a simple and straightforward tool, i.e., a logical table of contingency. Its application shows that most contemporary disconcerting theories of truth have critical flaws, and that, albeit imperfect, truth-as-correspondence is still the best theory. Further criticism of correspondence as adaequatio, compliance and isomorphism suggests that correspondence-as-mapping constitutes a more acceptable theory. This contribution provides a definition and examples in the empirical sciences.

In Résolution des quatre principaux problèmes d’architecture (1673) then in Cours d’architecture (1683), the architect–mathematician Nicolas-François Blondel addresses one of the most famous architectural problems of all times, that of the reduction in columns (entasis). The interest of the text lies in the variety of subjects that are linked to this issue. (1) The text is a response to the challenge launched by Curabelle in 1664 under the name Étrenne à tous les architectes; (2) Blondel mathematicizes the problem in the “style of the Ancients”; (3) The problem is reformulated and solved through the continuous drawing of the curve; (4) Blondel refutes the uniqueness of the curve by enumerating a variety of solutions (conchoid, spiral, parabola, ellipse, circle, hyperbola). This exuberance responds to an intention that does not coincide with the state of the art of mathematics at the end of the seventeenth century, nor with the taste for geometry of the Ancients, nor with any pedagogical project. This feature is explained by Blondel’s plan to found architecture on scientific bases. The reasons for his failure are analysed.

In this article, we publish the critical edition of Andalò di Negro’s De compositione astrolabii, with English translation and commentary. The mathematician and astronomer Andalò di Negro presumably redacted this treatise on the astrolabe in the 1330s, while residing at the court of King Robert of Naples. The present edition has three purposes: first, to make available a text missing from the previous compilations of works by Andalò di Negro; second, to revise a privately circulated edition of the text; and third, to help disseminating one of the rare Latin texts presenting the principles of the stereographic projection which underlie the construction of the astrolabe.

This article is a study of geometric constructions. We consider, as an illustration, the methods used for dividing the straight line into n equal parts (n-section). Architects and practicioners of classical Europe had at their disposal a broad range of geometric constructions: ancient ones were edited and translated, whereas new solutions were constantly published. The wide variety and reasons for selection of these geometric constructions are puzzling: the most widespread construction was not the simplest one. This article wonders why so many constructions were used to solve the same problem and why tedious methods were used. It is argued that the practical conditions and scale at which the problem was tackled could account for such diversity.