Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Logic, Ancient'

Orientador: Lucas Angioni
Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
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Resumo: Nesta tese discuto aspectos da logica de Aristóteles que sao ressaltados por abordagens contemporâneas dos Primeiros Analíticos e que mostram uma teoria mais rica e sutil do que tradicionalmente se entende como sendo a lógica aristotelica. Em especial, abordo teses sobre como devem ser compreendidas as proposições categóricas, o que sao precisamente silogismos, o que sao silogismos perfeitos e quais problemas enfrenta a parte da lógica de Aristoteles que lida com proposicoes modais. Nessa direcao, abordo evidencias textuais para duas concepcoes de proposicao categorica e as dificuldades para coaduna-las com as proposicoes singulares. Alem disso, argumento que silogismos devem ser compreendidos como cadeias de predicacoes e que Aristoteles concebe um sistema logico quando procura justificar quais arranjos entre termos formam de fato tais cadeias. Argumento, tambem, que os silogismos perfeitos sao evidentes nesse sistema nao porque considerados indemonstraveis, mas porque podem ser deduzidos a partir de definicoes das proposicoes categoricas e de certas regras gerais, isto e, de regras aplicaveis nao apenas a um tipo de proposicao categorica. Por fim, apresento as caracteristicas gerais e as dificuldades de uma parte da logica de Aristoteles muito pouco associada a logica aristotelica como tradicionalmente entendida: a silogistica modal
Abstract: The present dissertation discusses aspects of Aristotle's Logic which are enhanced by contemporary approaches to Prior Analytics and display a logical theory richer and subtler than what traditionally is comprehended as being the Aristotelian Logic. My main claims concern how categorical propositions must be understood, what is the exact nature of syllogisms, what is a perfect syllogism, as well as some questions in the part of Aristotelian Logic which deals with modal propositions. From an examination of texts that support two different conceptions of categorical proposition, I discuss the difficulties in adjusting each of them to singular propositions. I also argue that syllogisms must be comprehended as chains of predications and that Aristotle conceives a logical system when he proceeds to justify which terms arrangement does produce chains of the required kind. I also argue that in this system perfect syllogisms must be understood as evident not because they are unproved, but because they are deduced from definitions for categorical propositions and from general rules, i.e. rules not applied just to some categorical propositions. Finally, I discuss general features and problems concerning a part of Aristotle's Logic rarely attached to the Aristotelian Logic as traditionally comprehended: the modal syllogistic
Doutorado
Filosofia
Doutor em Filosofia

Orientador: Lucas Angioni
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
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Resumo: A Definição Geral do Silogismo pode ser entendida como consistindo em duas partes de sua descrição de argumentos lógicos: as Condições Inferenciais e a Cláusula Final. Embora essa distinção clássica seja amplamente conhecida, a tradição interpretativa negligencia o papel que a Cláusula Final desempenha na silogística, concentrando-se apenas nas exigências estabelecidas pelas Condições Inferenciais. Tentamos mostrar que essa negligência da Cláusula Final descaracteriza não só a silogística, como também traz resultados indesejáveis para a exegese dos Primeiros Analíticos I. Por causa dessa negligência, tentamos propor uma análise da Cláusula Final e suas consequências para a própria silogística, apresentando-a como critério adicional próprio da Definição Geral do Silogismo e como fio condutor do primeiro livro da obra
Abstract: Aristotle's General Definition of the Syllogism may be taken as consisting of two parts: the Inferential Conditions and the Final Clause. Although this distinction being well known, traditional interpretations neglect the Final Clause and its influence on syllogistic. Instead, the aforementioned tradition focuses on the Inferential Conditions only. We intend to show that this neglect has severe consequences not just on syllogistic but on the whole exegesis of Aristotle's Prior Analytics I. Due to these consequences, our objective is to analyse the General Definition's Final Clause and its consequences on syllogistic. We propose a reading of the Final Clause as an additional criterion for distinguishing some arguments as properly syllogistic ones and as a main theme which connects all parts of the Prior Analytics I into one coherent piece of work
Mestrado
Filosofia
Mestre em Filosofia

Na Arte Retorica, duas formas podem ser utilizadas para realizar uma demonstracao: o exemplo, considerado por Aristoteles como inducao, e o entimema, com sua forma dedutiva. Trataremos neste trabalho do entimema como um gcorpo h (s.ma)que carregara consigo as provas do discurso. Mostraremos sua estrutura silogistica e dialetica para compreendermos o seu uso. Mas isso nao sera suficiente se nao entendermos tambem as materias primas pelas quais o entimema e nutrido. Essa forma dedutiva, adaptada ao discurso retorico, tirara suas premissas de lugares-comuns a todos os generos do discurso (deliberativo, judicial e epidictico) e lugares especificos a cada um deles. Mas a materia prima que nos interessa e aquela fornecida pelo carater moral (ethos) do orador e das disposicoes criadas por ele nos ouvintes (pathos). Estas sao as provas artisticas (entechnai pistis)que sao fornecidas pelo orador por meio do proprio discurso. Nosso objetivo nesta dissertacao e o de mostrar a estrutura logica do entimema, assim como sua relacao com esses dois tipos de provas.
In theRhetorical Art, there are two ways that can be used to perform a demonstration: the example, considered by Aristotle as induction, and the enthymeme, with its deductive form. We will treat in this work the enthymemeas a ``body´´(s.ma) which carries with it the evidence of speech. We´ll show its syllogistic and dialectic structure in order to understand their use. But it will not be enough unless we also understand the raw materials from which the enthymeme is nourished. This deductive form, adapted to rhetoric discourse, will take their premises from commonplacesbelonging to all genres of discourse (deliberative, judicial and epideictic) and specific to each one. But the raw material that interests us is supplied by the speaker´s moral character (éthos) and by the moods infused by him on the hearers (páthos). Those arethe artistic proofs (éntechnai pístis) provided by the rhetor through speech itself. Our goal in this dissertation is to show the logical structure of the enthymeme and its relationship with these two types of evidence.

There have been recent explosions of interest in two fields: Madhyamaka-Pyrrhonism parallels and Pyrrhonism itself, which seems to have been misunderstood and therefore neglected by the West for the same reasons and in the same ways that Madhyamaka traditionally has often been by the West and the East. Among these recent studies are several demonstrating that grounding in Madhyamaka, for example, reveals and illuminates the import and insights of Pyrrhonean arguments. Furthermore it has been suggested that of all European schools of philosophy Pyrrhonism is the one closest to Buddhism, and especially to Madhyamaka. Indeed Pyrrho is recorded to have studied with philosophers in Taxila, one of the first places where Madhyamaka later flourished, and the place where the founder of Madhyamaka, Nāgārjuna, may have received hitherto concealed texts which became the foundation for his school. In this dissertation I explore just how similar these two philosophical projects were. I systematically treat all the arguments in the Pyrrhonist redactor Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Against Dogmatists and compare them to the most similar arguments available in the Madhyamaka treatises and related texts. On this basis, I ask whether the Pyrrhonists and the Buddhists would satisfy each other’s self-identifying criteria, or what characteristics would disqualify either or both in the other’s eyes. I also ask what questions arise from the linguistic and historical evidence for interactions between the Pyrrhonist school and the Madhyamaka school, and how sure we can be of the answers. Did Pyrrho learn Buddhism in Taxila? Was Nāgārjuna a Pyrrhonist? Finally I bring the insights of the living commentarial tradition of Madhyamaka to bear on current scholarly controversies in the field of Sextan Pyrrhonism, and apply the subtleties of interpretation of the latter which have developed in recent scholarship to Madhyamaka and its various difficulties of interpretation, to scrutinize each school under the illumination of the other. With this hopefully illuminated view, I address for example whether Sextus was consistent, whether living Pyrrhonism implies apraxia, whether Pyrrhonism is philosophy at all, and whether Madhyamaka is actually nihilism.

Cette thèse se rapporte à la notion de contradiction, entendue en son sens logique ou formel. Plus précisément, elle vise à dégager une conception de la contradiction chez un philosophe qui, du point de vue chronologique, précède l’avènement de la syllogistique et de la logique : Platon. À partir de l’examen des dialogues réfutatifs de Platon, il s’agira de mettre en lumière la forme des propositions contradictoires, de déterminer la terminologie et les métaphores utilisées par Platon pour nommer et décrire la contradiction et d’évaluer le contexte dans lequel avait lieu la réflexion platonicienne. L’analyse révélera que Platon se faisait une idée somme toute assez précise de la contradiction logique et qu’il a même eu une influence sur Aristote lorsque ce dernier élabora son célèbre principe de non-contradiction
This thesis examines the notion of contradiction understood in its logical or formal sense. Specifically, it seeks to study that notion in a philosopher who, chronologically speaking, precedes the advent of syllogistic or logic: Plato. Based on an analysis of Plato’s refutative dialogues, this thesis will determine the form given by Plato to contradictory propositions, unveil the terminology and metaphors used by Plato to name and describe contradictions and evaluate the context in which Plato reflected upon contradiction. The analysis will reveal that Plato had a very clear idea of what is a logical contradiction and that he even had an influence on Aristotle when the latter defined his famous principle of non-contradiction

This thesis focuses on the ancient reception of the Categories of Aristotle, a work which served continuously, from late antiquity into the early modern period (Frede 1987), as the student’s introduction to philosophy.  There had previously been no comprehensive study of the reception of the Categories during the age of the first philosophical commentaries (c. 80 BC to AD 220). In this study, I have collected, assigned, and analyzed the relevant fragments of commentary belonging to this period, including some that were previously undocumented or inexplicit in the source texts, and sought to establish and characterize the influence of the early commentators’ activity on the subsequent Peripatetic tradition. In particular, I trace the early evolution of criticism and defense of the text through competing accounts of its aim (skopos), which would ultimately lead Stoic and Platonic philosophers to a partial acceptance of the Categories and frame its role in the later Neo-Platonic curriculum.

Les récits de voyage anciens proposent continuellement des configurations narratives ou descriptives récurrentes. La Topique de l'île est constituée par l'ensemble des lieux communs en relation avec l'île - espérée, découverte, explorée, puis exploitée, - dont le retour est prévisible. Ce retour n'entraine ni uniformité de perception et de pensée, ni lassitude chez le lecteur, comme le voudrait un préjugé tenace et toujours actuel. Un lieu commun est en réalité un trésor en indivision, que chaque voyageur s'approprie en modifiant l'une ou l'autre de ses composantes topiques. Ainsi l'île décrite n'est-elle jamais "ni tout à fait la même, ni tout à fait une autre", et le récit satisfait donc à deux exigences antinomiques : il conforte le lecteur dans une vision installée tout en continuant de surprendre sa sensibilité. L'étude de la Topique montre que la représentation de l'île relève en partie de l'utopie ; que les réinvestissements successifs de topoï souvent factuels ou techniques à l'origine, chargent progressivement la réalité référentielle de significations culturelles qui la dépassent largement ; que les lieux communs s'adaptent sans cesse à des situations évolutives, tombent éventuellement dans la légende, mais disparaissent rarement. En somme, c'est ce trésor commun qui permet à un homme de se construire comme voyageur authentique, puis comme narrateur original du voyage
Early modern travel narratives endlessly put to the fore recurring narrative or descriptive configurations. The “Topic of the island” - that is, the whole system of commonplaces or topoï consistently and predictably present in these texts - neither determines perceptive or cognitive uniformity, nor prompts the reader's boredom, despite the lasting prejudice that it does so. In truth, a commonplace is a joint treasure, which each traveller appropriates by modifying any of its constitutive topical elements. The island thus described is “never quite the same, nor someone else”. This study of the “Topic of the island” demonstrates that insular representations partly relate to utopia, that referential reality is progressively invested with cultural meanings through the successive and various uses of topoï, and that these commonplaces are flexible material – they sometimes degrade into legendary, but they rarely disappear

Comment dire le désir érotique et ses concrétisations ? Des épopées homériques aux odes de Pindare, de la cosmogonie hésiodique à l’invective moraliste et à la passion des lyriques, la présente étude passe au crible l’ensemble des textes grecs de la période archaïque pour éclairer ce phénomène linguistique. Le désir et la sexualité sont traités comme une langue à part, au sein du grec, convoquant un lexique, une syntaxe et une stylistique spécifiques. Le lexique détoure les mots de la langue commune et bâtit les concepts du désir dans une chronologie particulière, détaillant ce que le français construit souvent comme synonymes. Le désir se fait force implacable et artefact magique redoutable. La syntaxe de l’union et de la procréation – au cœur de l’élaboration des généalogies, notamment – se déploie sous de fortes contraintes. Elle oscille entre le frein de la bienséance – érotisme perçu comme inconvenant, alors qu’il joue un rôle incontournable dans la construction des personnages et la structuration de l’univers – et l’excès obscène qui le change en arme morale. Difficile à dire, l’érotisme s’énonce à demi-mot, ou mots grossis, dans un système complexe de conventions. Sa stylistique, enfin, lui donne corps : elle le dessine comme un objet palpable, proche des parures travaillées et des amulettes, lui donnant matière et éclat ; elle le met en scène, surtout dans la nature, qui reflète en profondeur ses ambivalences, entre fascination et danger. Les métaphores érotiques et sexuelles convoquent paysages, plantes et animaux pour ancrer l’homme et son désir dans le monde. La grammaire du désir est un mécanisme complexe qui joue de connivence et questionne la nature humaine
How to express erotic desire and its success? From Homeric epics to Pindar’s odes, from Hesiod’s cosmogony to the harsh moral invective, and the passion of lyrics poets, this study examines all the linguistic material from the archaic period to show that process. Desire and sexuality are considered an idiom of their own, within ancient Greek, using their own words, syntax and stylistics. Their words dwell in those of the common tongue and build concepts of desire inside a specific timeline. French is often blind to such a differentiation. Desire turns into an overpowering force and a formidable magical artefact. The syntax of sexual congress and procreation – at the heart of genealogies – thrives through strong constraints, such as decency – and, although eroticism is fundamental in building characters or structuring the world, it is seen as inappropriate – and obscene excess, while fighting for morality. Eroticism is hard to express: it uses the implicit or the caricature, and follows complex conventions. Its stylistics, at last, words its embodiment: desire becomes an object one can touch, wear like an amulet or an ornament, and see, thanks to its glow and material. It is staged, especially in nature, because it reflects its inner ambivalence, between fascination and danger. Erotic and sexual metaphors call out landscapes, plants, and animals, in order to insert desiring human beings into the world. The grammar of desire forms a complex mechanism based on complicity and the questioning human nature

Cette thèse propose une analyse comparée des politiques relatives à la mémoire historique de l'esclavage à Nantes, Bordeaux et Liverpool, trois anciens ports négriers. Nous explorons l'hypothèse selon laquelle l'intervention politique des villes dans le champ de la mémoire historique participe de l'exercice d'un pouvoir symbolique d'accréditation de identités légitimes. Une première logique d'action publique oriente ces politiques de mémoire vers la construction d'une "image sociale" : la gestion du "stigmate" négrier. Une seconde logique d'intervention dans le champ de la mémoire historique relève de la production des imaginaires d'appartenance : la politique de la reconnaissance. Cette thèse étudie d'abord comparativement les "mobilisations mémorielles" en interprétant les cadres de construction du "problème public" mémoriel à la lumière de l'expérience des discriminations raciales et de l'existence, dans certains groupes, d'une mémoire collective de l'esclavage. L'analyse rapporte également le développement de mobilisations et de politiques publiques mémorielles locales à la structure des opportunités offertes par les différents "modèles" de gestion des identité français et britannique. Elle envisage ensuite, pour les trois villes, les jeux d'acteurs qui font de la mémoire une instance de légitimation politique des pouvoirs municipaux, ou au contraire un instrument de déstabilisation. Les interactions qui façonnent les principes légitimes du rappel du passé sont finalement saisies à la hauteur des "instruments" de l'action publique municipale, commémorations, mémoriaux et musées
This doctoral thesis deals with the memory of slavery in three former European slave trade ports : Nantes (France), Bordeaux (France) and Liverpool (U. -K). It argues that the memory of slavery has been adopted by local political authoroties in these three cities as a means of policing symbolic identities. More particularly, two dimensions of "identity" are at stake. The first one-identity as social image-relates to the problem of managing the "stigma" associated with the slave trade. The second dimension-identity as belonging-relates to the politics of recognition. The first part of the essay offers a comparative analysis of social mobilisations in the field of memory. It analyses various memory movements in light of the experience of racial discrimination and in relation with the predominance of either a historical or a collective memory of slavery among the mobilised groups. Local social mobilisations and public policies of memory are also analysed with respect to the ideological "frames" of identity politics which are prevalent in each country, French "republicanism" and British "multiculturalism". Then, the author turns toward local policies of memory with a view to understanding how the "public problem" of memory is dealt with in each case, which actors are involved and which political outputs are at stake. Finally, the analysis deals with the policy instruments of memory, of which it distinguishes two main types. The first category (memorials, commemorations) includes instruments that seek to foster an emotional response to the slavery past. The second category (museums) are instruments which rely on the symbolic power of narratives and knowledge

Cette thèse de doctorat cherche à étudier la place de la satire dans l'œuvre littéraire et philosophique de Sénèque. En partant d'une œuvre souvent mise à l'écart du corpus sénéquien, l'Apocoloquintose, nous nous employons à identifier les caractéristiques de l'écriture satirique chez Sénèque, afin de comprendre comment celle-ci se diffuse à l'ensemble de son œuvre et devient l'un des outils majeurs de la parénèse philosophique. Cette esthétique du mélange et de la distorsion, qui repose sur un besoin de monstration, implique la création de figures passionnées et dépréciées, les antimodèles, qui deviennent les acteurs majoritaires de la pensée sénéquienne. En effet, Sénèque a plus souvent recours aux exemples d'hommes fous, voluptueux, colériques qu'aux modèles traditionnels pour illustrer sa pensée. Il s'agit pour lui de créer des figures de repoussoir qui auront sur le lecteur une influence positive, par le dégoût ou la dérision qu'elles provoqueront. Sénèque applique également cette stratégie rhétorique dans ses développements sur la philosophie politique. Sa place à la cour et les excès tyranniques des hommes au pouvoir l'ont néanmoins obligé à jouer avec les codes de la satire pour opérer de façon plus ou moins discrète une critique des puissants, afin d'éduquer les princes et de les entraîner vers une réforme morale qui fera d'eux des hommes heureux, des sages, mais surtout de bons gouvernants
This doctoral thesis aims at studying the place of satire in Seneca's literary and philosophical works. Starting with a work that is often left out of Seneca's corpus, the Apocolocyntosis, we endeavour to identify the characteristics of Seneca's satirical writing, in order to understand how it spreads throughout his work and becomes one of the major instruments of philosophical parenesis. These aesthetics of combination and distortion, which rely on a need for monstration, involve the creation of impassioned and disparaged figures, the antimodels, who become the major protagonists of Seneca's thought. Indeed, Seneca recourses more often to the examples of mad, voluptuous, angry men, than to the traditional models, to illustrate his thought. His aim is to create repellent figures who will have a positive influence on the reader, through the disgust or derision they will provoke. Seneca also applies this rhetorical strategy to his developments on political philosophy. His position at the Roman court and the tyrannical excesses of the governing men nevertheless forced him to play with the conventions of satire in order to criticise more or less discreetly the mighty, to educate the princes and to lead them towards a moral reform that would make them happy men, wise men, but above all good rulers

Cette thèse tente de souligner l'existence d'un lien entre l'esthétique libertine, telle qu'elle apparaît sous la Régence, et l'abolition des principes de l'Ancien Régime. Le libertinage est en effet indissociable de l'aristocratie, puisqu'il naît dans les milieux mondains des années 1730, et dans les cercles de cette noblesse oisive qui se consacre à la séduction. Il faut donc s'interroger sur le devenir de cette esthétique au tournant du siècle, lorsque la Révolution et avant elle la progression des valeurs bourgeoises amènent à nuancer, sur tous les plans, les prérogatives de l'aristocratie. Le roman libertin évolue en effet mais ne disparaît pas. La notion de " modèle " tente alors de rendre compte de sa présence diffuse, concurrencée par d'autres esthétiques et d'autres fonctionnements littéraires. Lorsque l'Ancien Régime bascule, le roman libertin subsiste, même sous une forme hybride
The object of this thesis is to highlight the existence of a connection between the libertine aesthetics, as it appears under the Regency, and the abolition of principles inherited from the Ancien Régime. Indeed libertinage cannot be dissociated from the existence of aristocracy, as it appears in mondain circles in the 1730s, and among idle nobles who practice the art of seduction. It is worth examining the evolution of the libertine aesthetics at the turn of the century, in a context where the French Revolution, and before that stronger values of the bourgeoisie, both tend to question all aspects of the aristocracy's prerogatives. .

La thèse porte sur le « canon » (au sens de « liste des auteurs considérés comme les meilleurs au sein d’un genre donné ») des poètes grecs et latins du chapitre 10.1 de l’Institution oratoire. Dans ce traité de rhétorique de l’époque flavienne, la liste-canon est issue d’une tradition littéraire et doctrinale qui sélectionne certains auteurs à inclure et les évalue les uns par rapport aux autres pour en faire des supports de lecture et des modèles d’éloquence. Le présent travail envisage la liste d’auteurs du chapitre 10.1 à la fois comme le point d’aboutissement d’un processus de constitution de « canons » effectué en diachronie et, en synchronie, comme une émanation du contexte culturel propre à la Rome flavienne. Il interroge sa dynamique de constitution en expliquant les motivations qui sous-tendent différentes opérations de « mise en liste » (sélection – ou exclusion – des auteurs, établissement entre eux de relations de hiérarchisation, et évaluation critique de leurs qualités). Il montre que les principales influences critiques qui s’exercent sur les différentes notices de la liste sont celles de Cicéron, d’Horace et de Denys d’Halicarnasse. Nous montrons notamment que cette dynamique de constitution de la liste est propre à chaque genre poétique. Notre travail entend s’inscrire ainsi au confluent de l’histoire de la rhétorique et de ses doctrines, de l’histoire de la philologie, de l’histoire littéraire et de l’histoire de la critique littéraire ancienne
This thesis deals with the "canon" (in the sense of "list of authors considered the best within a given genre") of Greek and Latin poets in chapter 10.1 of the Institutio oratoria. In this treatise on rhetoric from the Flavian period, the canon-list derives from a literary and doctrinal tradition that selects certain authors for inclusion and evaluates them in relation to each other as reading material and models of eloquence. The present work describes the list of authors in chapter 10.1 both as the culmination of a diachronous process of establishing "canons", and, in synchrony, as an emanation of the cultural context specific to Flavian Rome. It questions the dynamic of how the list was established by explaining the motivations behind different operations of "listing" (selection - or exclusion - of authors, establishment of hierarchical relations between them, and critical evaluation of their qualities). It shows that the main critical influences on the different entries in the list are those of Cicero, Horace and Denys of Halicarnassus. In particular, its show that the dynamics of how the list was established is specific to each poetic genre. Accordingly, the present work is located at the confluence of the history of rhetoric and its doctrines, the history of philology, literary history, and the history of ancient literary criticism

La question contemporaine de la place et du rôle du Parlement au sein des institutions françaises interroge la nature de l’autorité traditionnellement reconnue à la représentation nationale. Cette recherche a pour objet d’analyser les origines révolutionnaires de ce paradigme du droit constitutionnel français consistant à voir dans l’assemblée des représentants de la Nation le siège d’une autorité politique trouvant sa source dans l’expression représentative de la volonté générale.La Révolution française est longtemps apparue comme le moment matriciel du droit constitutionnel et du constitutionnalisme modernes en France. Mais à la différence de ses devancières d’Angleterre et d’Amérique du Nord, celle-ci eut moins pour objet de limiter le pouvoir que d’en régénérer à la fois le fondement et l’exercice. À cet égard, elle se présente au droit constitutionnel comme une révolution de l’autorité, c’est-à-dire comme un bouleversement total des fondements de l’existence politique tendant à substituer à l’ancienne monarchie, traditionnelle et sacrale, un ordre constitutionnel moderne prenant pour base l’égale liberté des citoyens et l’autonomie naturelle de la collectivité nationale. Le grand œuvre des révolutionnaires français fut donc de redéfinir la relation de commandement à obéissance en substituant à l’autorité transcendante du monarque celle, immanente, d’une Nation appelée à vouloir pour elle-même par l’intermédiaire de ses représentants. C’est en effet par le prisme de la représentation que la Révolution a entrepris de réconcilier autorité et liberté. L’avènement de la représentation nationale, appelée à devenir, et pour longtemps, le centre de gravité de la vie politique française, trouve donc son origine dans cette volonté de refonder l’obligation d’obéissance à travers la conjonction de l’autonomie individuelle et de l’autonomie collective.Ce projet libéral et émancipateur, consistant à réaliser l’emprise de la Nation sur elle-même par le canal de la représentation, souffre pourtant d’une ambivalence congénitale tenant aux aspirations contradictoires du constitutionnalisme révolutionnaire. Celui-ci est en effet partagé entre la nécessité de justifier la subversion de l’ordre ancien, et le souci de fonder pour l’avenir un gouvernement libéral et tempéré, tendant à rationaliser et à dépersonnaliser l’autorité publique. L’institution de la représentation nationale, à la fois produit et moteur de la Révolution, cristallise alors cette tension. Les travaux de l’Assemblée constituante et de la Convention nationale révèlent en effet que les constituants révolutionnaires n’ont cessé d’osciller entre deux conceptions de la représentation et du constitutionnalisme. L’une, moderne, se fonde sur l’altérité de la Nation et de ses représentants pour placer la Constitution et la garantie des droits au-dessus de l’autorité de ces derniers. L’autre, plus ancienne, tend au contraire à en opérer la symbiose en fondant l’autorité de la représentation nationale sur un impératif existentiel : prêter vie à cette nation souveraine qui ne peut advenir à l’existence juridique que par l’expression d’une volonté commune. Le constitutionnalisme révolutionnaire reste donc au milieu du gué, bloqué entre la tradition organiciste d’Ancien Régime, dans laquelle il plonge ses racines, et l’esquisse d’un constitutionnalisme moderne tendant au contraire à dissocier l’État et la Société, l’autorité et la liberté
The place and the contemporary role of Parliament in French institutions lead to question the nature of the traditionally recognized authority of national representation. The objective of this research is to analyze the revolutionary origins of French constitutional principle which consists in seeing, in the assembly of representatives of the Nation, the heart of a politicial authority whose source is the representative expression of the general will. The French Revolution has long appeared as the matrix moment of modern constitutional law and constitutionalism in France. However, unlike its predecessors in England and North America, it was less intended to limit power than to regenerate both its foundation and exercise. In this respect, it presents itself to constitutional law as a revolution of authority, that is to say as a total upheaval of the foundations of political existence tending to replace the old monarchy, traditional and sacral, with a modern constitutional order based on the equal freedom of citizens and the natural autonomy of national community. The great work of the French revolutionaries was, therefore, to redefine the relation of command to obedience by substituting the transcendent authority of the monarch, by the immanent authority of a Nation, which materializes itself through its representatives. It is in fact through the lens of representation that the Revolution undertook to reconcile authority and freedom. The advent of the national rpresentation, destined for a long time to become the center of gravity of French political life, finds its origin in this desire to refound the obligation of obedience through the conjunction of individual autonomy and collective autonomy. This liberal and emancipatory project, which consists in realizing the nation’s grip on itself through representation, nevertheless suffers from a congenital ambivalence due to the contradictory aspirations of revolutionary constitutionalism. It is divided between the need to justify the subversion of the old order, and the desire to establish for the future a liberal and temperate government, tending to rationalize and depersonalize public authority. The institution of national representation, produced and generated by the Revolution, crystalized this tension. The work of the Constituent Assembly and the National Convention reveals that the revolutionary constituents have constantly oscillated between two conceptions of representation and constitutionalism. One, modern, relies on the otherness of the Nation and its representatives to place the Constitution and the guarantee of rights above the authority of the latter. On the contrary, the older one tends to symbiosis with it by basing the authority of national representation on an existential imperative: to give life to this sovereign nation which can only come to legal existence by the expression of a common will. Revolutionary constitutionalism therefore remains in the middle, stuck between the organicist tradition of the Old Regime, in which it has its roots, and the outline of a modern constitutionalism tending instead to dissociate the state and the society, as well as authority and freedom

This study investigates six theoretical approaches offered as solutions to the paradox of the heap (sorites paradox), a logic puzzle dating back to the ancient Greek philosopher Eubulides. Those considered are: Incoherence Theory, Epistemic Theory, Supervaluation Theory, Many-Valued Logic, Fuzzy Logic, and Non-Classical Semantics. After critically examining all of these, it is concluded that none of the attempts to explain the sorites are fully adequate, and the paradox remains unresolved.
Philosophy
M.A. (Philosophy)

Cette thèse se rapporte à la notion de contradiction, entendue en son sens logique ou formel. Plus précisément, elle vise à dégager une conception de la contradiction chez un philosophe qui, du point de vue chronologique, précède l’avènement de la syllogistique et de la logique : Platon. À partir de l’examen des dialogues réfutatifs de Platon, il s’agira de mettre en lumière la forme des propositions contradictoires, de déterminer la terminologie et les métaphores utilisées par Platon pour nommer et décrire la contradiction et d’évaluer le contexte dans lequel avait lieu la réflexion platonicienne. L’analyse révélera que Platon se faisait une idée somme toute assez précise de la contradiction logique et qu’il a même eu une influence sur Aristote lorsque ce dernier élabora son célèbre principe de non-contradiction.
This thesis examines the notion of contradiction understood in its logical or formal sense. Specifically, it seeks to study that notion in a philosopher who, chronologically speaking, precedes the advent of syllogistic or logic: Plato. Based on an analysis of Plato’s refutative dialogues, this thesis will determine the form given by Plato to contradictory propositions, unveil the terminology and metaphors used by Plato to name and describe contradictions and evaluate the context in which Plato reflected upon contradiction. The analysis will reveal that Plato had a very clear idea of what is a logical contradiction and that he even had an influence on Aristotle when the latter defined his famous principle of non-contradiction.

This dissertation analyzes the performance of rabbinic expertise in the cultivation of donor and social networks in late antiquity. Through analysis of narrative depictions of rabbis and donors in Palestinian Rabbinic literature, I illustrate the social relationships created and maintained through gift-giving. I argue the rabbis used social networks to cultivate the legitimacy of the rabbinic project, facilitated by the authorizing power of donations. I demonstrate how donations to rabbis served as a means of legitimizing the rabbinic office as they formed into a self-conscious guild whose authority rested on the performance of expertise. These donations were not so simply received, however, as the rabbis disdained reciprocal forms of patronage associated with the broader Roman empire. Therefore, I demonstrate how the rabbis drew from systems of donation in the biblical text in order to assuage the association of their donors with formal patronage. In drawing from the biblical system and applying to their own historical times, the rabbis blended the gift types of tithes, charity, benefaction, and patronage. In this way, narrative accounts of tithes, charity, and informal gifts to rabbis can be read for the dynamics of reciprocal expectations sometimes encoded in the narrative account. With careful attention to rabbinic exegetical strategies, I trace the reception of biblical ideas about giving to their manifestation within the particular context of Roman Syria Palaestina.

Cette thèse se propose d’étudier les façons dont la pensée et l’imaginaire grec de l’époque archaïque se représentaient quelques pans du réel qui ne se laissaient jamais voir ni atteindre: l’éther, l’air et l’abîme marin. Vu le caractère insondable de ces espaces, l’imagination et l’abstraction se sont ingéniées à les appréhender par un discours spécifique et à les intégrer dans le système de connaissances et de croyances propre à l’époque en leur assignant une place dans le système de l’univers, en les rattachant à une hiérarchie de l’ordre cosmologique, en leur donnant une forme, en classant leurs objets et en les rapportant aux modèles du monde connu, en les aménageant par les moyens les plus divers. Une étude des formes d’expression de la pensée grecque archaïque, autant littéraires qu’iconographiques, permet de cerner les diverses formes de représentation des domaines inaccessibles et les modèles d’organisation spatiale issus de ce type de pensée. Grâce à la dialectique particulière qui ressort du rapport entre espace et mouvement, cette thèse se propose également d’interroger le corpus des sources grecques archaïques sous des angles jusqu’ici peu explorés: comment maîtrise-t-on l’espace par les déplacements physiques en dehors des parcours terrestres? Comment les schémas du mouvement dans l’espace se sont-ils forgés? Comment les dichotomies issues de la logique spatiale archaïque (haut/bas, droite/gauche, est/ouest, en deça/au-delà, etc.) influent-elles sur la structuration spatiale? Quelles espèces d’espace révèlent les déplacements à travers les différents niveaux du monde, que ce soit ceux des dieux, ceux des mortels et d’autres entités, forces physiques et substances privilégiées dans le commerce avec le divin et le monde d’en haut? Ces analyses mettent en valeur les façons dont l’imagination et l’abstraction plutôt que l’expérience vécue ont contribué, à leur façon, à structurer l’espace et à forger l’image du monde comme κόσμος, monde mis en ordre et soumis autant aux lois physiques qu’aux lois divines.
The present dissertation aims to study the ways in which archaic Greek thought symbolically came to grips with three elements of physical reality, which can never be thoroughly accessed by humans: the ether, the air, and the marine abyss. Due to the rather fathomless character of the different spaces underlying these elements, human imagination and abstract thought endeavored to apprehend them through a specific discourse and system of knowledge and beliefs. Both this discourse and its inherent epistemological system were specific to the abovementioned historical period. They assigned the spaces in question a place in the universe via a hierarchy of the cosmological order. Thus, these spaces acquired a definite shape, while their contents have been classified and connected with patterns of the known world, while being combined in multifarious ways. In my doctoral work, I argue that it is possible to define the various forms of representations of such inaccessible domains of being, together with the patterns of their spatial organization, by paying close attention to the manner in which the archaic Greek thought expressed itself through literature and iconography. Drawing on the particular dialectic that pertains to the relation between space and movement, this thesis wishes to analyze the corpus of ancient Greek sources from multiple vantages which so far have been only vaguely explored. To exemplify, I shall tackle the way, in which space is understood in view of journeys other than terrestrial. I also discuss how certain paradigms of movement in space have emerged in this regard. Another question I shall answer concerns the manner, in which certain dichotomies of archaic logic related to space (up/down, right/left, east/west, within/beyond, etc.) have influenced the structuring of space. With that in mind, I expand upon the issue of the types of spatiality revealed through the journeys across the different levels of the world, namely the journeys of the gods, mortals, and other forces involved in the human interaction with the divine and any other superior region. These analyses will jointly show that the philosophical structuring of space and the emergence of an image of the world understood as κόσμος – i.e., as a world ordered by and obeying both physical and divine laws – are the result of imagination and abstract reflective efforts rather than subjective experience.