Henri Pirenne et la révolution liégeoise de 1789 contribution á l'histoire de l'historiographie des révolutions

Notre article a pour objectif, après un bref rappel historique des épisodes de la Révolution liégeoise de 1789, de souligner l'apport de l'historien belge Henri Pirenne à l'historiographie des révolutions, de mieux cerner les fondements de sa pensée sur le sujet, et de comprendre la nature des oppositions qu'il a rencontrées et de l'héritage qu'il a laissé.     

La révolution scientifique les révolutions et l'histoire des sciences

In the paper Ernest Coumet presented at the conference on Koyré (Paris, 1986), he suggested that the term «scientific revolution» does not denote for Koyré an historical event, but an idealtype, in Weber's sense. First, the author discusses this thesis and presents the arguments Coumet advances to support it. In the second part of his paper, he criticises the use of the notion of revolution in the history of science. In particular, he argues against the distinction between scientific theories and a «scientific thinking», which would be influencedby the «philosophical thinking» and whose changes would produce a revolution.     

L'expérience des nombres de Bernard Frenicle de Bessy

Through the discussion of a problem posed around 1639 by Bernard Frenicle de Bessy, its solution and the replies of his correspondents, we shall describe several overlapping registers of Frenicle's exprience: an experimentation on numbers partly borrowed from the natural sciences, the demands of a collective practice cemented together by problems and their explicit construction, a personal training in attention and savoir-faire. All these come together in Frenicle's efforts to contest the supremacy of algebraic analysis and in the modes of conviction which are at the base of his work. In return, this account of a mathematical and collective experiment allows us to appreciate the difficulties for Frenicle in transmitting his results and for his historians in reconstructing his activity.     

République et démocratie de Montesquieu à Madison

Political theory has been for long committed to the idea that a republic is possible only in small states, where the diversity of interests is reduced to the point where it makes possible the formation of a genuine common interest. Montesquieu adheres to this thesis when he says that, far from looking for this chimerical common interest, modern politics must be an art of balancing particular interests. Madison answered this argument by showing how, on the contrary, a republic is possible in large states only; in such states, the variety of extant interests constrains each of them to look not for a compromise — which is impossible to find where the interests in play are so widely apart from each other — but for a genuine common interest transcending all particularities.     

Révolution industrielle logique et signification de l'opératoire

In England, during the first half of the xix^th century, a network organised around Charles Babbage (1791–1871), John F. W. Herschel (1792–1871), George Peacock (1791–1858), Duncan F. Gregory (1813–1844), Augustus de Morgan (1806–1871), George Boole (1815–1864), and other less known authors renewed the status of algebra in a peculiar way. As a result, their works are often considered to mark the birth of abstract algebra. But these algebraists were also involved, as reformers, in the new organisation of science. Taking this into account, I propose a more contextual reading of their works, which can then be understood as side-effects of the Industrial Revolution (1760–1830). These works are analysed as cultural mediators between the roots of University teaching, founded on fidelity to the Ancients on the one hand, and new forms of construction of knowledge on the other. Such a mediation brought together algebra and logic for the first time.     

L’histoire des mathématiques de l’Antiquité

Historical research, during the last half-century, has improved our knowledge of the mathematics of Antiquity. Texts from Egypt and Mesopotamia have been better understood and their elucidation has left behind the crude alternative between empricism and rationalism. The landscape offered by Greek science grew richer and became more varied: it is no longer possible to reduce it to the sole geometrical theory. The main problems which were raised by its history have been deeply discussed. Things being so, more general questions arise, from an epistemological or philosophical point of view. Does the search into some far past of a single «birth» of mathematics make any sense? What link, if any, is there between the form of mathematics in such and such a civilization and its social structure? Can cultural anthropology help to elucidate the variety and unity of mathematics among various peoples? From what time and under what conditions is it possible for a single united historical progress of mathematics to begin?     

Le Métier de Juriste Entre Règle de Droit et Expérience de l’Histoire

The activities of jurists, they may be judges, lawyers or university teachers, occupy a central role in the maintenance of the political and social order of modern societies. In Germany the confrontation of the recent past provoked in the early 1960’s a large debate about the real foundations of the modern state and his role in the crisis of the modernity which have been pursuit in the course of the eighties issuing in the beginning of the century in the discussions about integration and a general order of values to be recognized by everybody.     

Histoire de la logique floue une approche sociologique des pratiques de démonstration

Starting from an historical case study, this article addresses the general issue of the development of a social history of mathematics and logic. It aims at giving an account of certain features of recent history of fuzzy logic. For this purpose, it develops an approach based on a sociology of methods of demonstration and on the material analysis of logical activity, in particular of writing and reading activities. The formation of a social history of forms of demonstration is outlined.     

L'élargissement de 2004 au regard des précédents espagnol et portugais: un jeu de miroirs?

Le but de cet article est de mettre en perspective les principales conséquences qu'ont eues l'intégration de l'Espagne et du Portugal à la CEE dans ces Etats, et de se demander quel élément, de l'Europe ou des pays eux-mêmes, a été le plus actif dans la dynamique de changement, politique aussi bien qu'économique. Il a également pour propos de s'appuyer sur ce précédent afin d'en tirer quelques leçons qui pourraient s'appliquer aux pays de l'Est, concernant leurs propres processus d'entrée dans l'Union européenne. Il s'agira ainsi de voir les différences et les ressemblances qui caractérisent ces deux élargissements. Enfin, l'article s'intéresse aux conséquences que l'entrée des pays d'Europe centrale et orientale de 2004 a entraînées pour les Etats ibériques eux-mêmes, du point de vue des politiques communautaires comme celui de la place qu'occupent l'Espagne et le Portugal dans l'Union européenne élargie.     

Les Révolutions françaises. Les phénomènes révolutionnaires en France du moyenâgeànos jours

In this article, I examine friendship as a subject of political theory rather than as a social practice relevant to political life. As suggested by Francesco d'Altobianco Alberti in the poem recited at the first certame coronario, two ideas of political friendship existed side by side in Medicean Florence. They appeared in full in Palmieri's Vita civile and in Platina's De optimo cive. As I will show, the Ciceronian language of friendship is used in these works to resolve two key problems of Renaissance political thought: the need for political unity and the just way of appointing the governing elite. Palmieri placed friendship in the political sphere of concord: he was a republican imperialist who believed that civic friendship protected the political unity of the city, without which Florence would not have been able to expand. Platina, on the other hand, situated friendship in the political sphere of counsel: his concern was to support the selection of the most virtuous and knowledgeable citizens, worthy of access to public office. While Palmieri looked back to the city's medieval past, Platina cast light on the politics of friendship that allowed the Medici to stay in power.     

Une Histoire de L’universalité des Matrices Mathématiques

International matrix theory of the 1930s is influenced by multiple phenomena and may be analyzed by looking at how local practices were globalized via pathways which manifested a short-term reappropriation between the two world wars of work developed over the long term. This article interrogates the constitution of the universality of matrix terminology and focuses particularly on phenomena of the collective circulation of texts which present cultural aspects proper to networks with complex identities.     

L'Orthographe française au temps de la Réforme

In his writings between 1941 and 1951, Michael Polanyi developed a distinctive view of liberal social and political life. Planned organizations are a part of all modern societies, according to Polanyi, but in liberal modernity he highlighted dynamic social orders whose agents freely adjust their efforts in light of the initiatives and accomplishments of their peers. Liberal society itself is the most extensive of dynamic orders, with the market economy, and cultural orders of scientific research, Protestant religious inquiry, and common law among its constituents. Liberal society and its dynamic orders of culture are, Polanyi explained, directed at transcendent ideals (truth, beauty, and justice). He saw knowledge, rules of practice, and standards of value in these orders as being preserved in traditions that inform and constrain the initiatives of their members. Investing faith in a cultural enterprise, Polanyi's agents choose to act responsibly, dedicating their freedom to an ideal end. They are custodians and cultivators of the heritage of their dynamic order.     

Poteries anciennes décorées à la roulette dans la Région des Grands Lacs

Résumé L'article propose une classification générale de la poterie ancienne décorée à la roulette, dans la Région des Grands Lacs et en Afrique de l'Est. Un premier groupe de poterie, appelé ici W, caractérisé principalement par la roulette torsadée, est produit vraisemblablement dèsca 800 AD; cette poterie pourrait avoir été diffusée de la région Est vers la zone interlacustre par le sud du Lac Victoria. L'hypothèse que le groupe W est associé à des populations de langues sud-nilotiques permet de reconsidérer les débuts du Deuxième Age du fer en Afrique interlacustre. Cet article suggère l'installation de groupes de pasteurs sud-nilotes dans la zone interlacustre; leurs rapports avec les autochtones sont examinés, en particulier le cas du Rwanda.Le groupe X (roulette nouée) apparaît en Ouganda dans les premiers siècles du second millénaire, suivi du groupe Y (roulette torsadée fine); à partir de 1500 AD, ils remplacent le groupe W dans la région interlacustre. Dans cet ensemble céramique, que l'on sait associé à des groupes de langues ouest-nilotiques venus du nord, une distinction est suggérée entre trois styles régionaux, qui sont mis en relation avec l'histoire des migrations de leurs producteurs.

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This article offers a general classification of the ancient roulette-decorated pottery from the Great Lakes Region and from East Africa. A first pottery group, here named W, mainly characterised by twisted string roulette, appears as early asca 800 AD; this pottery might have been introduced to the interlacustrine area from the east and south of Lake Victoria. The hypothesis that the W group was associated with speakers of Southern-Nilotic languages is relevant to our view of the beginning of the Late Iron Age in interlacustrine Africa. This article suggests the establishment of pastoralist groups of Southern-Nilotic speakers in the interlacustrine zone and also examines their contacts with local populations, giving special attention to Rwanda.The X group (knotted string roulette) appears in Uganda in the first centuries of the second millennium, followed by the Y group (thin twisted string roulette). Fromca 1500 AD these groups replaced the W group in the interlacustrine area. In these last groups, which are associated with Western-Nilotes coming from the north, a distinction is made between three regional styles which are further correlated with the history of their makers.