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On responding to a query as to whether he had ecstatic experiences through anesthetics (ether, etc.), the celebrated poet Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) responded: I have never had any revelations through anesthetics, but a kind of waking trance—this for lack of a better word—I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone. This has come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently, till all at once, as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state but the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words—where death was an almost laughable impossibility—the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true life. I am ashamed of my feeble description. Have I not said the state is utterly beyond words?1

A thousand years ago, Jewish merchants from Persia were invited from a Chinese seaport synagogue community to the then capital of Kaifeng. Within a century, they built a synagogue that eventually became one of largest in the world. The Kaifeng synagogue community continued until external circumstances led to its demise in the mid-eighteenth century. As Jews in Europe, they assimilated linguistically, culturally and physically, and achieved government positions out of proportion to their numbers. When they left Basra, the most prominent Jewish theologian was Saadia Gaon. Over the centuries, their theology was influenced by Chinese philosophy, as Maimonides was influenced by Greek philosophy via Arab learning. The result was a theology close to Saadia’s, compatible with Maimonides, yet in harmony with Chinese literati philosophy, but one that differed from later European Jewish theology. This was due to their unique circumstances, for in China, the Jews encountered no persecution whatsoever.

Le " Principe divin ", la Bible du Moonisme. Son analyse revele que la secte de Sun Myung Moon est le fruit de l'influence d'une ideologie etrangere, le protestantisme fondamentaliste, sur la conception du monde sino-coreenne : taoisme, neo-confucianisme et chamanisme. Un messianisme nationaliste (les epoux Moon comme messie), un millenarisme seculier (faire du monde une seule famille). L'influence du chamanisme est particulierement evident dans la conception mooniste de la Chute : Eve a eu une relation sexuelle avec le Serpent

T HE QUESTION OF whether or not there was an aboriginal high god in the Americas has continuously reflected European ideological concerns. The late nineteenth century theories propounding an evolution of religion, with Christianity placed at the pinnacle of human development, were countered by Andrew Lang followed by Father Wilhelm Schmidt who, in his Ursprung der Gottesidee (1912), proposed a naive and pure monotheism at the very beginning of human culture. Each side utilized American Indian examples to bolster its argument. Those sympathetic with Native Americans tended to reflect Schmidt's views and assume a "primitive" monotheism as the basis of American Indian religions. American students of Native American cultures tended to avoid the controversy and concentrate on specific ethnological instances, usually finding the high god a reflection of missionary influence. W. J. McGee (1897: 182) early on pointed to "the popular fallacy concerning the aboriginal 'Great Spirit' " as an "erroneous interpretation" of the Siouan term wakanda: "Among these tribes the creation and control of the world and the things thereof are ascribed to 'wakan-da', just as among the Algonquin tribes omnipotence was assigned to 'ma-ni-do'; yet inquiry shows that wakanda assumes various forms, and is rather a quality than a definite quantity". (McGee's linguistic analysis is to be distinguished from simplistic evolutionist positions; e.g., William Jones [1905]). Alanson Skinner (1913: 79) thought in reference to the Algonkin Menomini, "Probably the sun was originally the head of the Powers above and Mati Haiwit ik [Great Spirit] is but a modern development of the old idea, through missionary influence." Frank Speck (1977/1935: 28-29) developed the same understanding in regard to the Algonkin Montagnais-Naskapi beliefs: "To the influence of missionary priests, I am now inclined to believe, may be attributed the concept of an anthropomorphic supreme deity-the historic and often discussed Tcetcimantti, 'Great Power,' commonly interpreted as 'Great Spirit.' " (Paul Radin, the eminent scholar of Amerindian religion

Stochastic independence has a complex status in probability theory. It is not part of the definition of a probability measure, but it is nonetheless an essential property for the mathematical development of this theory. Bayesian decision theorists such as Savage can be criticized for being silent about stochastic independence. From their current preference axioms, they can derive no more than the definitional properties of a probability measure. In a new framework of twofold uncertainty, we introduce preference axioms that entail not only these definitional properties, but also the stochastic independence of the two sources of uncertainty. This goes some way towards filling a curious lacuna in Bayesian decision theory., Comment: In Proceedings TARK 2017, arXiv:1707.08250

The standard, Bayesian account of rational belief and decision is often argued to be unable to cope properly with severe uncertainty, of the sort ubiquitous in some areas of policy making. This paper tackles the question of what should replace it as a guide for rational decision making. It defends a recent proposal, which reserves a role for the decision maker’s confidence in beliefs. Beyond being able to cope with severe uncertainty, the account has strong normative credentials on the main fronts typically evoked as relevant for rational belief and decision. It fares particularly well, we argue, in comparison to other prominent non-Bayesian models in the literature.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has developed a novel framework for assessing and communicating uncertainty in the findings published in its periodic assessment reports. But how should these uncertainty assessments inform decisions? We take a formal decision-making perspective to investigate how scientific input formulated in the IPCC’s novel framework might inform decisions in a principled way through a normative decision model.

French Abstract: Les economistes ont coutume de distinguer entre une composante positive et une composante normative de leurs travaux, ce qui est une singularite de leur discipline, car cette distinction n'a pas de repondant exact dans les autres sciences sociales. Elle a fortement evolue au cours du temps et les differentes manieres de la concevoir aujourd'hui en refletent l'histoire. On se propose ici d'en retracer les origines et les premieres formes, de l'economie politique classique anglaise de la premiere moitie du XIXe siecle jusqu'a l'apparition de l'economie du bien-etre dans la premiere moitie du XXe siecle. Ce parcours sequentiel vise aussi a identifier les positions les plus representatives et les arguments invoques pour les soutenir, en preparant ainsi une discussion qui serait moins historique et plus strictement conceptuelle. English Abstract: Economists are accustomed to distinguishing between a positive and a normative component of their work, a distinction that is peculiar to their field, having no exact counterpart in the other social sciences. The distinction has substantially changed over time, and the different ways of understanding it today are reflective of its history. Our objective is to trace the origins and initial forms of the distinction, from the English classical political economy of the first half of the 19th century to the emergence of welfare economics in the first half of the 20th century. This sequential account will also serve to identify the main representative positions along with the arguments used to support them, and it thus prepares the ground for a discussion that will be less historical and more strictly conceptual.

The paper addresses one of the episodes in the history of the early Renaissance polemic about the theory and practice of translation, namely, the views on the goals and methods of translation as presented in Leonardo Bruni’s treatise De interpretatione recta and in the writings of one of the most talented and prolific translators of the time, George of Trebizond. Although the basic principles of translation which guided both authors dated back to the Antiquity, their views on the medieval practice of literal translation are rather different: while Bruni believed that medieval translators “distorted and mutilated” the works of ancient authors, George considered their methods to be the most suitable for the translation of “scholarly” writings (such as treatises of Aristotle and other philosophers)., Статья посвящена одному из эпизодов полемики о теории и практике перевода, развернувшейся в эпоху раннего Ренессанса, а именно тому, как цели и методы перевода представлены в трактате Леонардо Бруни «О правильном переводе» и в сочинениях одного из самых талантливых и плодовитых переводчиков того времени Георгия Трапезундского. Хотя основные принципы, которыми руководствовались оба автора, были сформулированы ещё в Античности, их взгляды на средневековую практику буквального перевода существенно отличаются: если Бруни считал, что средневековые переводчики «коверкали и уродовали» произведения древних авторов, то Георгий считал их методы наиболее подходящими для перевода «научных» сочинений (таких, как трактаты Аристотеля и других философов).

De tous les problèmes conçus par la théorie de la décision, le paradoxe d'Allais est peut-être celui qui aura suscité l'intérêt le plus persistant. La théorie y a consacré assez de travaux techniques remarquables pour qu'il soit désormais possible à l'histoire et à la philosophie des sciences de l'examiner réflexivement. Dans sa partie historique, l'article restitue le contexte d'apparition du paradoxe - le colloque de Paris, en 1952, auquel assistaient les principaux théoriciens de la décision du moment. L'axiomatique de von Neumann et Morgenstern en 1947 leur avait donné des raisons nouvelles d'approuver l'hypothèse de l'utilité attendue, et le contre-exemple d'Allais visait précisément à ébranler leur conviction. Les questions de la controverse étaient de type normatif, mais elles se perdirent quand le "paradoxe d'Allais" gagna tardivement la célébrité dans des travaux des années 1980 qui le traitaient comme une simple réfutation empirique. Ils en firent l'enjeu de "théories de l'utilité non-espérée" qu'ils développaient de même sous le seul angle empirique. Dans sa partie philosophique, l'article cherche à évaluer ce déplacement d'interprétation. D'un certain côté, les théoriciens de la décision firent bien de libérer leur travail expérimental des complications du normatif, car ils parvinrent ainsi à des résultats éclairants : l'hypothèse de l'utilité espérée était empiriquement réfutée, la responsabilité principale en revenait à l'axiome d'indépendance de von Neumann-Morgenstern, et l'étape suivante était de transformer adéquatement cet axiome. D'un autre côté, ils eurent tort de négliger un trait fondamental de leur domaine : les comportements observés ne sont informatifs que si les agents sont prêts à les assumer de manière réfléchie, c'est-à-dire à leur prêter une certaine valeur normative. D'après la reconstruction proposée ici, Allais ne voulait faire porter les expériences de choix que sur des sujets rationnels, ou bien sélectionnés au départ, ou bien révélés comme tels par l'expérience. L'article développe ces intuitions en revenant aux travaux des années 1970, aujourd'hui très peu connus, qui, sous l'influence d'Allais, proposèrent des traductions expérimentales de la rationalité, et il invite finalement la théorie de la décision à diversifier ses méthodes en s'inspirant de ces tentatives originales. Few problems in decision theory have raised more persisting interest than the Allais paradox. It appears that sufficiently many brilliant works have addressed it from within decision theory proper for history and philosophy of science now to enter stage. In its historical side, the paper recounts the paradox as it arose, i.e., in 1952, at a Paris conference attended by the main decision theorists of the time. They had drawn renewed confidence in expected utility theory (EUT) from the way von Neumann and Morgenstern had axiomatized it in 1947, and Allais devised his puzzle precisely to shaken their confidence. The issues between the two camps were normative, but they became lost in the developments of the 1980s that belatedly brought fame to the "Allais paradox". These works restricted the paradox to be a straightforward empirical refutation, turning it into a stake of also exclusively empirically oriented non-EU theories. In its philosophical vein, the paper tries to evaluate this shift of interpretation. To an extent, decision theorists were right because their experimental work was thus freed from a major complication and amenable to illuminating results: EUT was empirically refuted, the independence axiom of von Neumann and Morgentern was the main culprit, and the next theoretical stage was to modify this axiom appropriately. However, they were also wrong in not addressing an essential feature of their field, i.e., that observed behaviour is informative only if agents are prepared to endorse it reflectingly, i.e., to endow it with some normative value. As reconstructed here, Allais meant to reserve choice experiments to rational subjects, who were either selected at the outset, or identified as such by the experimental results. The paper tries to flesh out Allais's intuitions by turning to by now little known works of the 1970s, which under his influence provided experimental renderings of rationality, and it eventually suggests that decision theory might diversify its methods by taking inspiration from these original attempts.