Bruno Langlet

Alexius Meinong a proposé, au début du xxe siècle, une théorie de l’objet qui articule un hyper-réalisme des objets de pensée à une fine théorie des états mentaux. Cette conception dépend largement de la réflexion précoce de Meinong sur les relations, dont cet ouvrage présente le développement.

Meinong’s famous concept of assumption (Annahme) was integrated by Stout into his own work as the notion of «supposal» in 1911. this paper examines the rationale of such an explicit import into Stout’s views and reasoning. Initially interested in the problem of error and in the non-doxas- tic thinking that is involved in fictions, hypothetical reasoning, as well as in thoughts about alter- native possibilities, universals, and propositions, Stout incorporated the Meinongian concept of assumption into his views as a psychic attitude fitted for accounting for such thoughts. We argue in this respect, that such an integration could occur due to a strong analogy between Meinong’s realm of objects and Stout’s universe of alternative possibilities. Meinongian assumptions were dedicated to the non-doxastic grasping of objects through «objectives» while Stoutian supposals were dedicated to the non-doxastic consideration of alternative possibilities.

La théorie des vérifacteurs traite des entités qui, dans le monde, rendent vraies pensées, propositions, ou jugements. Elle fait dépendre la vérité de l'être. Cette approche, en tant que théorie développée, a été formulée à la fin du xx ème siècle. Les théoriciens des vérifacteurs traitent notamment du maximalisme vérifactionnel (toutes les vérités ont-elles des vérifacteurs ?), de la nature de la relation de « vérifaction », et de l'apport des vérifacteurs pour établir ce qui peut être dit exister (en vertu de la dépendance du vrai envers l'être). La notion de vérifacteur va à l'encontre des approches relativistes ou historicistes et peut être vue comme un antidote à l'idéologie de la « post-vérité ».

La réflexion directrice qui a motivé cette journée avait pour objet les « qualités » du philosophe, et plus précisément celles qui sont les siennes lorsqu'il se trouve dans un contexte de travail qui n'est pas celui de la philosophie « pure ». Sa capacité à penser les choses est ici objet d'interrogations : est-elle vertueuse dans les secteurs où l'approche philosophique n'est pas explicitement et directement supposée être à l'oeuvre ? Sa compétence peut-elle s'exercer tout en étant, à première vue, déconnectée des objets de pensée au contact desquels elle a d'abord été développée ? Comment repérer les dispositions du philosophe qui, dans des contextes très différents et professionnalisés, peuvent éventuellement se révéler porteuses de traits d'efficacité que ni le philosophe ni le professionnel ne s'attendaient à observer ? Des questions similaires se posent lorsqu'il s'agit de choisir une orientation dans une discipline spécialisée, notamment après avoir fait un premier ou un deuxième cycle en faculté de philosophie.

One of the classical insights of Brentano's philosophy of intentional states is that there is a close relationship between intentionality and consciousness of mental states. As a consequence, this means that the consciousness of emotions involves an immediate presentation of the presentation in which the 'affective' mind is directed toward some object. Somehow differently, contemporary philosophical and psychological emotion theories are more interested in the experiential criterion of emotions, and, assuming that they acknowledge the intentionality criterion, the relation between conscious phenomenality and intentionality, in this case, is conceived of as an extrinsic relation. In this article, I propose an examination of Brentano's theory of affective states, and a short analysis of his criticisms against Hamilton's phenomenal view of affective states, in order to show that the Brentanian approach of the connexion between intentionality and consciousness could reveal difficulties and prejudices that contemporary emotions theories have to face.

In his 1904 paper, "Über Gegenstandstheorie", Meinong said that Gegebenheit is
the universal feature of objects: it is the property of being potentially given to
the mind. Later, in Selbstdarstellung, Meinong stated that it is essential to
objects that they could be graspable: the mind’s having an object is the mind’s
being directed toward an object that is presented. Notions of Gerichtetsein,
Meinen and Präsentation capture what it is for an object to be apprehended,
and Meinong conceived of psychological states as they could insure the
apprehension of objects. This view is strongly connected with the role
Meinong attributed to the notion of “activity,” which he distinguished from the
notion of “act”. I propose here an investigation about the historical, progressive
and interpretative occurrence of the notion of activity in Meinong’s works.
This is connected with the issue concerning correct groundings of
representations of relations and complexions, the refusal of reflexion and the
criticisms of psychologism. In the mature period, such an activity is necessary
to explain how representations are directed toward an object and why objects
have to be grasped and not internally produced.

There is no complete theory of aesthetics in Meinong’s works, but more or lesssparse remarks about the way Object Theory is to deal with so-called aesthetic properties. The apprehension and status of such properties mark anew me-inongian problems about properties as abstracted from things, and as objects.Their status in object theory is to be clarified as they involve notions of inter-nal and external dependence. Such notions are operative in Meinong’s work since the psychological period, and they are linked with concepts of objects,higher order objects and objectives, which appear here to be also problematicregarding aesthetical objects. The late meinongian feeling-based theory aims toground directedness toward aesthetic properties, and to preserve their occur-rence in complex entities and their particular realistic status
.

(Traduction en français de « Dispositions and conditionals » de C.B. Martin,  pour le site du SEMa, par B. Langlet. URL : https://semaihp.blogspot.com/2021/02/traduction-de-cb-martin-dispositions.html) I Les dispositions d'une chose peuvent changer. Elles ont une certaine durée. Un morceau de verre peut être fragile pendant une heure et cesser de l'être pendant une autre heure. Ce changement de disposition peut être obtenu au moyen d'un changement de température. Une disposition et un changement de disposition n'ont pas eux-mêmes besoin d'avoir une occurrence. Pendant l'heure où il est fragile, il n'est pas requis que le verre se brise réellement. Il nous faut bien voir que les dispositions sont actuelles, tandis que leurs manifestations peuvent ne pas l'être. C'est une confusion élémentaire que de considérer comme des possibilia non actualisées les dispositions qui ne se manifestent pas, bien que cela puisse caractériser les manifestations non manifestées.(...)

La réduction ontologique ultime de Quine est radicale. Qu'est-ce qui existe ? Simplement l'ensemble vide, et les ensembles construits en le prenant comme élément. On entre, donc, dans un paysage véritablement désertique, et la réduction a l'ampleur d'une « débâcle ontologique » … « Une leçon à tirer de cette débâcle est que l'ontologie n'est pas ce qui compte principalement » ([5], p.189 ; les citations sont de Quine). La plupart des choses n'existent pas. Pour toute chose qui existe, comme par exemple le réacteur nucléaire de Three Mile Island (un produit bizarre de l'ensemble vide), il y a plusieurs choses qui n'existent pas, en premier lieu des abstractions comme l'ensemble vide et la propriété d'être ce réacteur. Et il y a un très grand nombre d'abstractions outre celles directement générées par l'ensemble vide et les choses qui existent. Ces vérités, nous les tenons pour élémentaires, et là où elles ne sont pas évidentes par elles-mêmes, il est possible d'argumenter en leur faveur[1]. Quine, toutefois, par un coup hardi, a dérobé la part la plus importante de la terminologie que d'ordinaire nous utilisons pour établir et défendre ces faits élémentaires-et aussi loin que la plupart des philosophes s'en inquiètent, il l'a fait en toute impunité.

Gilbert Ryle grommela un jour : « Ah Oui, Locke-un treize sur vingt (a two-two) ». Il venait juste de lui accorder l'équivalent oxfordien d'un « B-Moins » d'Amérique du Nord. Il est certain que Locke ne suivait pas la règle-avoir peu d'idées, plutôt pauvres, et les présenter de façon élégante. Comme il le reconnut lui-même, il n'était pas très « bon pour ce qui touche à l'expression ». Il est toutefois probable que Locke survivra à cette évaluation, puisqu'il a survécu à la lecture qu'on a faite de lui cinquante ans durant, à Oxford et ailleurs, à partir de cet abrégé d'assassin-l'édition Pringle-Pattison de l'Essai. Peut-être que Locke était à son plus haut niveau d'inélégance dans sa discussion des substrata (...)

[ Nous donnons ici à lire la traduction d'un court texte de George Frederick Stout, prononcé en 1899, en tant qu'adresse présidentielle de l'Aristotelian Society, et publié en 1900 dans la revue Mind (de laquelle il a été l'éditeur pendant presque 30 ans, y faisant paraître nombre de textes fameux, dont l'article « On Denoting » de Russell). Collègue de MacTaggart et contemporain de Bradley, professeur de Russell et de Moore, il a proposé un important ouvrage, Analytic Psychology, dont certaines discussions incluent les positions de philosophes comme Brentano, Ehrenfels et Meinong : un exemple des prémices de ces relations fécondes, entre la philosophie anglaise et la philosophie autrichienne de l'époque, qui structureront une partie des problèmes et concepts de la philosophie analytique naissante. L'article « Perception of Change and Duration », qui provoqua le courroux immédiat de Hodgson (toujours dans Mind), traite d'un problème dont les éléments remontent à Mach et à sa discussion de Helmholtz, et dont Ehrenfels s'était lui-même ressaisi, dans sa théorie des qualités gestaltiques, tout comme Meinong, dans sa théorie des objets d'ordre supérieur. La question porte ici sur la relation cognitive qu'il est nécessaire de supposer, entre la conscience et les constituants apparents d'un objet temporel, afin de pouvoir rendre compte de la saisie que nous avons de ce dernier ; ainsi que sur le statut psychologique et métaphysique des éléments entrant dans la configuration, sous tous rapports, de l'objet temporel total. B. L.

A quoi peuvent mener des études de philosophie ? A quelles activités professionnelles peuvent-elles préparer, directement ou indirectement, quelles « compétences » apportent-elles ? Y at -il, à côté de celles qui lui sont ordinairement attribuées, des caractéristiques du philosophe qui seraient susceptibles d'être tenues pour des qualités en milieu professionnel ? La journée rassemble autour de ces questions d'anciens étudiants du Département de Philosophie de l'Université d'Aix-Marseille.

Symposium on the objectivity of reasons in meta-ethics /Journée sur l'objectivité des raisons méta-éthiques. Speakers : John Skorupski, Davide Fassio, Isabelle Pariente-Butterlin, Pascal Engel.
Place : Château de Gordes (Vaucluse, France).
Organized by : SEMa, La Mairie de Gordes, Aix-Marseille Université.

Speakers : Richard CROSS ; Howard ROBINSON ; Hud HUDSON ; Fréderic NEF ; Peter VAN INWAGEN ; Dean ZIMMERMAN ; Annalisa COLIVA ; John HAWTHORNE ; Isabelle PARIENTE ; Francis WOLFF ; Nil Hours  ; Eric T. OLSON ; Maurizio FERRARIS ; Timothy CAMPBELL ; Alberto VOLTOLINI 
(Program: https://www.academia.edu/8516924/Symposium_program_Objet_et_Personne_-_16_17_18_October_Aix_en_Provence)

SEMa is proposing an international symposium on the topic of Object and Person in contribution to the profound and overall renewal of topics related to the reflexion on human nature which has occurred during the past fifteen years, specifically that of the relatively technical metaphysics sub-field of personal identity, which has in turn grown to include personal ontology – largely formalized in the Anglo-Saxon world by Eric Olson, Lynne Rudder-Baker and Peter Van Inwagen, but also nourished by the majority of the most influential metaphysicians.
In speaking of personal ontology, the dividing line between object and person (the question of personhood) is both precise and vast in order to provide a powerful angle of attack, achieved through calibrated interventions, while allowing one to raise the most urgent and recent issues. Variety, freshness and uniqueness of theories, here gathered, match with the importance of horizons into which they are de facto included: ethics, bioethics, medicine, philosophical and scientific anthropology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, philosophy of art, science of movement, and issues relative to the survival of the species (usually called: problem of trans-humanism).

Metaphysics does not intend to replace any of these disciplines. Instead, the analytical precision and logical rigor of its arguments belong to a specific dimension of thought, which involves unique reflections about the basic conceptual categories relevant from medieval thought until today, and still structuring entire sides of those disciplines we mentioned. Put in another way: contemporary metaphysics could provide regulatory instruments, putting into perspective some concepts which are extensively indistinguishable in principle, such as those involved in Humanities and Social Sciences: mind, body, intention, powers (eg intellectual powers), and finally object and person. In many ways, here, the evidence of the person has not been really questioned, remaining a rough concept that deserves much more than what philosophical archeology – including the most elegant ones, as shown by Alain de Libera – made it confess. Lynne Rudder Baker conceptualized anew this concept, through the notion of constitution-without-identity, in order to challenge the idea of identity between body and person. All these works are rooted in Derek Parfit’s early essays. Unlike identity, the constitutive relation is non- reflexive, non-symmetric and non-transitive. Rudder Baker sees also no objection in principle to the idea that our organic bodies might be, by hypothesis, entirely replaced by prostheses and artificial organs, i.e. by a bionic body that might properly be the person.

With animalism (the metaphysical view according to which we are nothing but biological organisms) Eric Olson defends an opposite thesis: we would strictly be identical to our biological bodies – the English thinkers are more Darwinian than the French ones on such a subject matter and have no problem to say that men and animals have the same pedigree. The Relationship to the prosthesis is an issue that should be addressed at the conference: is the disturbing intimacy that some amputees have with their prostheses (which eventually "hurt" – this is the old question of the phantom limb) nothing more than a proprioceptive illusion? Eric Olson also conceives of the person as a simple transient and accidental property of the animal: then, we are not primarily people. Are persons conceived in a serious manner in that case? Actually, in a reverse movement, to take them too seriously, are we not lead to believe in divine persons which constitute since Boethius an invincible yardstick, though this idea is also comprehensive of human persons, as it is reminded by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman thanks to metaphysical arguments paradoxically (both) materialistic and Christians? Can we go so far as to eliminate people on the basis of a claimed nihilism – which does not always depend on a Buddhist inspiration? (let us be clear : to eliminate the concept of person from our vocabulary). Neither Merricks nor Chisholm do encourage it. The first one conceives the person as a causal agent irreducible to the elementary particles that make up our body, although this body is similar to the other ones in a strict mereological (or constitutional) perspective. The second one also thinks, albeit from a different perspective, that the person introduces an ontological break in the world thanks to his ability to say “I” – that is, thanks to the occurrence of a grammatically first person and linguistically ineliminable. What matters now from the metaphysical point of view is not only to understand what is constitutive of us, but also to justify the ethical and epistemic importance that we attach to the notion of person – a question that naturally leads to a metaphysics of the self, as this is shown by V. Descombes and H. Hudson.

As it is really difficult to talk about these concepts independently of each other, and as these concepts semantically overlap, then some authors choose to revise them by modifying their epistemic contour: like Carol Rovane who tries to conceive, in particular, a « quasi- person », a « multiple person » and a « group person ». R. Tuomela is close to this line of thought. This metaphysical revisionism is neighboring with another strategy: devaluation (and symmetrical revaluation) of some of the key concepts contained in the categorical framework of metaphysics. For Olson, as we saw, the person is a simple accidental property – not an essence. Before this, Derek Parfit has famously disqualified the notion of identity for everything linked to our survival– the individual as well as the collective one (note that for him, they are the same, since no individual substance is the substrate of these bundle of thought occurring in our brains). Parfit had this formula: identity is not what matters – a much debated formula, which takes place as a chapter in one of the most important philosophical work in the twentieth century and still not translated into French: Reasons and Persons. A bilingual publication, in line with the best editorial standards, should follow the symposium.

We believe that this event represents an opportunity for our University and our Graduate School. The seminar of metaphysics (SEMa) includes, since several years in Aix en Provence, doctoral and post-doctoral enthusiast scholars. The aim is to share, in our language and in terms of our own philosophical tradition (called : Continental), texts, theories and debates that are raging everywhere else, and from which our country, by a very strange anti-low-pressure phenomenon, always seems sidelined. Object and Person Symposium resonates with the program and agenda of our Graduate School. The same theme of the Symposium will indeed build intellectual bridges and border zones to foster genuine interdisciplinary exchanges.

Speakers : Richard CROSS ; Howard ROBINSON ; Hud HUDSON ; Fréderic NEF ; Peter VAN INWAGEN ; Dean ZIMMERMAN ; Annalisa COLIVA ; John HAWTHORNE ; Isabelle PARIENTE ; Francis WOLFF ; Nil Hours ; Eric T. OLSON ; Maurizio FERRARIS ; Timothy CAMPBELL ; Alberto VOLTOLINI

https://www.academia.edu/8492920/International_Symposium_in_Aix_en_Provence_Objet_and_Personne_transhumanisme_animalisme_metaphysique_de_la_personne_et_emergence_du_soi._16-17-18_Octobre

SEMa is proposing an international symposium on the topic of Object and Person in contribution to the profound and overall renewal of topics related to the reflexion on human nature which has occurred during the past fifteen years, specifically that of the relatively technical metaphysics sub-field of personal identity, which has in turn grown to include personal ontology – largely formalized in the Anglo-Saxon world by Eric Olson, Lynne Rudder-Baker and Peter Van Inwagen, but also nourished by the majority of the most influential metaphysicians.
In speaking of personal ontology, the dividing line between object and person (the question of personhood) is both precise and vast in order to provide a powerful angle of attack, achieved through calibrated interventions, while allowing one to raise the most urgent and recent issues. Variety, freshness and uniqueness of theories, here gathered, match with the importance of horizons into which they are de facto included: ethics, bioethics, medicine, philosophical and scientific anthropology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, philosophy of art, science of movement, and issues relative to the survival of the species (usually called: problem of trans-humanism).

Metaphysics does not intend to replace any of these disciplines. Instead, the analytical precision and logical rigor of its arguments belong to a specific dimension of thought, which involves unique reflections about the basic conceptual categories relevant from medieval thought until today, and still structuring entire sides of those disciplines we mentioned. Put in another way: contemporary metaphysics could provide regulatory instruments, putting into perspective some concepts which are extensively indistinguishable in principle, such as those involved in Humanities and Social Sciences: mind, body, intention, powers (eg intellectual powers), and finally object and person. In many ways, here, the evidence of the person has not been really questioned, remaining a rough concept that deserves much more than what philosophical archeology – including the most elegant ones, as shown by Alain de Libera – made it confess. Lynne Rudder Baker conceptualized anew this concept, through the notion of constitution-without-identity, in order to challenge the idea of identity between body and person. All these works are rooted in Derek Parfit’s early essays. Unlike identity, the constitutive relation is non- reflexive, non-symmetric and non-transitive. Rudder Baker sees also no objection in principle to the idea that our organic bodies might be, by hypothesis, entirely replaced by prostheses and artificial organs, i.e. by a bionic body that might properly be the person.

With animalism (the metaphysical view according to which we are nothing but biological organisms) Eric Olson defends an opposite thesis: we would strictly be identical to our biological bodies – the English thinkers are more Darwinian than the French ones on such a subject matter and have no problem to say that men and animals have the same pedigree. The Relationship to the prosthesis is an issue that should be addressed at the conference: is the disturbing intimacy that some amputees have with their prostheses (which eventually "hurt" – this is the old question of the phantom limb) nothing more than a proprioceptive illusion? Eric Olson also conceives of the person as a simple transient and accidental property of the animal: then, we are not primarily people. Are persons conceived in a serious manner in that case? Actually, in a reverse movement, to take them too seriously, are we not lead to believe in divine persons which constitute since Boethius an invincible yardstick, though this idea is also comprehensive of human persons, as it is reminded by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman thanks to metaphysical arguments paradoxically (both) materialistic and Christians? Can we go so far as to eliminate people on the basis of a claimed nihilism – which does not always depend on a Buddhist inspiration? (let us be clear : to eliminate the concept of person from our vocabulary). Neither Merricks nor Chisholm do encourage it. The first one conceives the person as a causal agent irreducible to the elementary particles that make up our body, although this body is similar to the other ones in a strict mereological (or constitutional) perspective. The second one also thinks, albeit from a different perspective, that the person introduces an ontological break in the world thanks to his ability to say “I” – that is, thanks to the occurrence of a grammatically first person and linguistically ineliminable. What matters now from the metaphysical point of view is not only to understand what is constitutive of us, but also to justify the ethical and epistemic importance that we attach to the notion of person – a question that naturally leads to a metaphysics of the self, as this is shown by V. Descombes and H. Hudson.

As it is really difficult to talk about these concepts independently of each other, and as these concepts semantically overlap, then some authors choose to revise them by modifying their epistemic contour: like Carol Rovane who tries to conceive, in particular, a « quasi- person », a « multiple person » and a « group person ». R. Tuomela is close to this line of thought. This metaphysical revisionism is neighboring with another strategy: devaluation (and symmetrical revaluation) of some of the key concepts contained in the categorical framework of metaphysics. For Olson, as we saw, the person is a simple accidental property – not an essence. Before this, Derek Parfit has famously disqualified the notion of identity for everything linked to our survival– the individual as well as the collective one (note that for him, they are the same, since no individual substance is the substrate of these bundle of thought occurring in our brains). Parfit had this formula: identity is not what matters – a much debated formula, which takes place as a chapter in one of the most important philosophical work in the twentieth century and still not translated into French: Reasons and Persons. A bilingual publication, in line with the best editorial standards, should follow the symposium.

We believe that this event represents an opportunity for our University and our Graduate School. The seminar of metaphysics (SEMa) includes, since several years in Aix en Provence, doctoral and post-doctoral enthusiast scholars. The aim is to share, in our language and in terms of our own philosophical tradition (called : Continental), texts, theories and debates that are raging everywhere else, and from which our country, by a very strange anti-low-pressure phenomenon, always seems sidelined. Object and Person Symposium resonates with the program and agenda of our Graduate School. The same theme of the Symposium will indeed build intellectual bridges and border zones to foster genuine interdisciplinary exchanges.