Présence de Ferdinand Gonseth dans la pensée de Gaston Bachelard

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of Ferdinand Gonseth's epistemological and philosophical reflection on Gaston Bachelard. This will be done on at least two levels: on the one hand, on the level of direct quotations of Gonseth's texts and notions made by Bachelard; on the other, on the level of an agreement between the two conceptions concerning some central issues— agreement that lets one suppose an influence of Gonseth on Bachelard or an identity between their views. One concludes recalling the notion of «subjectivité quelconque», suggested to Bachelard by the gonsethean idea of «logique comme physique de l'objet quelconque», and seeking to grasp the differences between Bachelard's notion of «sujet quelconque», and Gonseth's one ofhomo phenomenologicus. One could define Bachelard's and Gonseth's epistemologies as two phenomenologies of the man of science: this is their main common feature.     

Le Texte et le corps: la pensée dialectique de Diderot dans Le Supplément au voyage de Bougainville

By using a dialogical method in Le Supplément au voyage de Bougainville (1772), Diderot contrasts two places: the civilized European world and the primitive island of Tahiti. The dialogical structure of his work entails a questioning of the concept of libertinage through the theme of the corporeal. Indeed, the dialectical method he employs in the text unifies his vision on what the body represents. This work will demonstrate that for Diderot the body can be defined as three entities: the text, the physical, and the social. All these three categories are intertwined for him. Using them as a leitmotiv enables him to call into question the moral and social conventions of his own country.     

Un pasteur actuaire? Ordre de la mortalité, durée de la vie et rentes viagères dansL’Ordre divin de Johann Peter Süssmilch

The government of Providence builds the order which pastor Süßmilch sees in the demographic events and especially the order of mortality. God governs the length of human life and assigns to each person a just balance between fear of death and expectation of life. This authorizes Süßmilch to clarify the notions of probable life and life expectancy with the design to treat of their main application in the field of political arithmetic, that is the computations of Government loans under the form of annuities on lives. So he treats of an important question which concerns the history of actuarial calculation as well as the history of probability, of statistics and demography. We cannot forget also the political and philosophical points of view which the pastor underlines vividly: what sort of contract joins the individual together with the State? And, above all, what sort of contract joins the creature and his God? This study of the contingent but optimal regularities which Providence makes in the world builds an important contribution to the physico-theological current.     

Mobilité de la population et pauvreté dans une vicomté normande de la fin du Moyen-Age

Important in number and spread very evenly throughout the fifteenth century, the Norman rolls of the monnéage are a very important source for statistical study of the population of Normandy. The information about names they provide allows one to grasp the importance of mobility of population in urban and rural areas. Information about the different categories of exempted persons permits a study of the problem of poverty. The region under scrutiny in this article is the vicomté or vice-county of Bayeux and the city of Caen. Documents concerning this region reveal a highly mobile population, a fact which war by itself cannot explain. The highest rates of mobility are to be found among the populations of the different parishes of Bayeux and Caen. As one might expect, the poor are amongst the most mobile of all. Moreover, the persistence of poverty throughout the fifteenth century, as seen in the rolls of the monnéage, raises the problem of the continued stagnation of this part Normandy.     

Catholicisme,protestantisme et laïcité: Réflexion sur la trace religieuse dans l'histoire contemporaine de la France

This article examines the traces of Protestantism in contemporary French history and political culture. After contextualising the legacies of Protestantism and Catholicism and recalling the latter's primary role in conceptions of French identity, the study focusses on how Protestant cultural influences came to bear. The article weighs the contributions of renowned Protestant historians and politicians, in the case of the latter, right down to the contemporary period.