L'impensé du marché

The historiography of the United States in the xviii^th and beginning of the xix^th centuries stresses the key role of market development in the economic growth of the area. Various historical schools argue over the role of moral or household economic attitudes, and over the rhythm and extent of market integration. But because of the peculiar chronology of the economic development of the United States, compared to Great-Britain, it has long been assumed that this market integration, more than any technological progress, has been at the root of the industrial revolution and of industrial capitalism. The concept of market, however, has never been itself criticized and historicized. This paper offers a historically relevant modelization of merchant activity, and offers some hypotheses on the transition from this model to industrial capitalism.     

Résistance,moralité, identité nationale

Claudio PAVONE, Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 1991, xiv + 825 p., ISBN 8833906299.     

Relativité et réalité Nottale, Simondon et le réalisme des relations

The exhaustion of the controversy about realism in physics, which is an epistemological consequence of the radical discrepancy between quantum mechanics and relativity, indicates the irrelevance of the traditional opposition between realism and antirealism. Since its purpose is the reunification of microphysics and macrophysics by the means of fractal space-time and scale relativity, Laurent Nottale's theory of Scale Relativity gets over this opposition by postulating the ontological value of the physical relations. The physicist's relational realism hence confirms spontaneously the intuitions of Gilbert Simondon's philosophy of nucleation, which considers the necessary recognition of the ontological value of relations in order to establish the «great synthesis of relativity and quantum physics».     

Diversité des réactions réformées à la révocation

Starting from the analysis of the reactions of the Protestant groups to the Fontainebleau edict, this paper examines the development of two main concepts that are at the origin of political modernity, i.e. the distinction between religious and political domains on the one hand, and the popular sovereignty on the other. These two concepts emerged separately as a result of crossed and apparently paradoxal thoughts, whose coherence is to be sought in the anthropological positions underlying them. Therefore the study of the theological debates in the XVII^th century is a way by which the modern political concepts arose.     

Rationalité Contextuelle et Présupposé Cognitif le cas Lombroso

This article proposes an epistemological reflexion about the posture of the historian of human sciences towards his objects. Cesare Lombroso's theory of criminal anthropology was taken here as an example of the discussion because it seemed to be caricatural case. Considering that normative or whiggish perspectives cannot account for the logic of Lombroso's discourse, we attempt to develop here an alternative posture from which extrapolations could be made to other fields. This alternate is found in the introduction of the concepts of contextual rationality and cognitive presupposition and in a reconsideration of the time duration.     

Relativité d'échelle structure de la théorie

Résumé  La théorie de la relativité d'échelle développe les conséquences de l'abandon de l'hypothèse de différentiabilité des coordonnées spatio-temporelles. La première est he caractère fractal, c'est-à-dire explicitement dépendant des résolutions, qu'acquiert l'espace-temps. On redéfinit alors les résolutions comme caractérisant l'état d'échelle du référentiel, puis on postule un principe de relativité d'échelle, suivant lequel les lois de la nature doi vent être valides quel que soit cet état. Il s'agit ainsi de construire une extension des théories existantes de la relativité, qui s'appliquaient jusqu'à maintenant aux changements d'état de position, d'orientation et de mouvement. Par conséquent, la structure de la théorie suit un cheminement parallèle aux différents niveaux de la théorie relativiste (galiléenne, einsteinienne restreinte puis générale), auxquels s'ajoutent les effets du couplage entre échelle et mouvement. LaurentNottale, né en 1952, est directeur de recherche au Centre national de la recherche scientifique, à l'observatoire de Paris-Meudon. II est spécialiste d'astrophysique et de physique théorique.     

L'actualité de l'édit de Nantes

Sans résumé Nous remercions Hubert Bost pour l'aide qu'il nous a accordée dans la préparation de cette bibliographie.     

The Panthéonisation of André Malraux

Girard, A. and Gentil, G. (eds), André Malraux ministre (La Documentation Française, 1996), 508 pp., 140F., ISBN 2 11 003674 5

Lang, J., Lettre à Malraux (Hachette/Edition no, 1, 1996), 186 pp., 100F., ISBN 2 863 91792 7

Larrat, J.‐C., Malraux, théoricien de la littérature 1920–1951 (PUF, 1996), 335 pp., 158F., ISBN 2 13 047430 6

Lyotard, J.‐F., Signé Malraux (Grasset, 1996), 361 pp., 138F., ISBN 2 246 45991 5

Zarader, J.‐P., Malraux ou la pensée de l'art (Vinci, 1996), 249 pp., 110F., ISBN 2 910313 11 5     

Aimé Césaire 1913–2008

In a necessarily selective way, this paper explores the historiographical evolution of ‘settler colonialism’ as a category of analysis during the second half of the twentieth century. It identifies three main passages in its development. At first (until the 1960s), ‘settlers’, ‘settlement’ and ‘colonisation’ are understood as entirely unrelated to colonialism. The two do not occupy the same analytical field, pioneering endeavours are located in ‘empty’ settings and the presence and persistence of indigenous ‘Others’ is comprehensively disavowed. In a second stage (until the late 1970s), ‘settler colonialism’ as a compound identifies one specific type of diehard colonialism, an ongoing and uncompromising form of hyper-colonialism characterised by enhanced aggressiveness and exploitation (a form that had by then been challenged by a number of anti-colonial insurgencies). During a third phase (from the late 1970s and throughout the first half of the 1980s), settler colonialism is identified by a capacity to bring into being high standards of living and economic development. As such, settler colonialism is understood as the opposite of colonialism and associated underdevelopment and political fragmentation. It is only at the conclusion of a number of successive interpretative moments that ‘settler colonial’ phenomena could be theorised as related to, and yet distinct from, colonial ones. On the basis of this transformations, beginning from approximately the mid-1990s, ‘settler colonial studies’ as an autonomous scholarly field could then consolidate.     

Causalité Historique et Contemporanéité Relative: De la Relativité Einsteinienne aux Sciences Historiques

The construction of historical frame of reference based on the distinction between and articulation of phenomenological and chronological times. As it relativises the notion of simultaneity and inverts its relation to causality, the special theory of relativity can induce analogous modes of reflection on the themes of “contemporaneity” in the history of art (Panofsky) and in epistemology (Bachelard). This “relativist” method, often misunderstood, sheds light on both historical and presentist methods.     

La Société des Nations suppose la Société des Esprits: The Debate on Modern Humanism

This article focuses on the themes of the two conferences organized by the League of Nations—“Modern Man” and “The Foundations of Modern Humanism”—which were held in Nice and Budapest in 1935 and 1936, respectively. It was a time of deepening crisis, when the pervasive belief was that European civilization was declining. The more specific questions discussed in these conferences included the relation of modern man to the state, the impact of irrational theories on modern life, and the need for free education for everyone. Renowned writers and academics of the period participated in the debates, among them Thomas Mann, Jules Romains, Salvador de Madariaga, Alfred Zimmern, and Johan Huizinga. I present a critical overview of their debates, beginning with Paul Valéry, the initiator and chairman of these conferences, who coined the intriguing slogan “La Société des Nations suppose la Société des Esprits.”     

Le trait d'union musical tiré par mersenne entre encyclopédie et rhétorique académique

This paper is a survey of Father Mersenne's views about the classification of sciences, its reasons and its practical consequences. Some emphasis is put on the interconnection between Mersenne's two major ideas about the practice of science: scientific research is an activity mostly devoted to religious apology and to the edification of the people. This religious concern allows him to resist two of the most influential philosophical streams of his time, scepticism and alchemy, which provide some of the major opposition to his works. We also show how an analogical kinship based on theological considerations and on the classification of sciences leads to the same kind of arguments shaping his views about arithmetic, language, and music. Finally, we focus on the connection between Mersenne's theses, especially about the nature and virtue of language and sound, and a more general discussion of the scientific status of music and language in the context of the blooming of academies.     

Pour une sociologie de la société transnationale

Proposing a general framework for the study of the emerging transnational society, the article critically surveys predominant disciplinary perspectives in this field, and outlines an approach based on a core/periphery model with oligopolistic competition. Within this general framework, sociology finds its specific subject in the ties that connect human beings across national borders, directly or mediated by transnational institutions. An elaborated and amended version of this approach is illustrated, among others, by the dynamics of cultural globalization and the «world language system».