In this paper, Aminata Diaw invites discussion on contemporary women’s struggle for equality, more equitable representation and complete parity. She argues that effective expression of democracy is dependent on taking gender factors properly into account. She discusses classical Rousseau’s position, and observes that the Social Contract needs to be integrated by a Gender Contract. She concludes that the question of the citizenship of women shows that the advent of Modernity did not constitute a veritable rupture with past thought. Modernity has not produced an integration of women into the political dimension and into citizenship.

In order to control language Chinese philosophy discovered methods other than the ‘rectification of names’. On one hand there is the total annihilation of language, and on the other a greater clarification of language than the one performed by the ‘rectification of language’. To understand this situation better it is necessary to go backwards in the genealogy from the controversy over the theory that ‘language exhausts meaning’ and the one that maintains ‘language does not exhaust meaning’, which took place in the period of the six dynasties (second half of the third century of the Christian era). We shall look at the controversy between the argument of Ouyang Jian and that of Xun Can. Then we reach the theory of Wang Bi, who synthesizes the controversy and invents another idea about language. This idea is a ‘forgotten language’ that tries to annihilate completely the alterity of language. What is aimed at in the annihilation of language is a world of pure meaning which increases profit, which is governed magnificently: it is a world where everything is reduced to the One.

With its recognition of the combined effects of the social categories of race, class and gender intersectionality has risen to the rank of feminism's most important contribution to date. Though the first intersectional research (American and British) gave visibility to the social locus of women who self-identified as “black” or “of colour”, current research goes beyond the confines of the English-speaking world and aims increasingly to develop an intersectional instrument to deal with discrimination. This project gives rise to two kinds of debate: one related to producing intersectional information and to ways of carrying out research in this area, the other to do with the use of this information in the political struggle for equality. The current paper, which is confined to the first debate, attempts to bring out the main tension points in present theorizations of intersectionality. Its objective is twofold: to demonstrate certain limits to the explanatory power of intersectionality, and to suggest ways forward in the light of discussions already in train. In order to do so four points are tackled: intersectionality as a research paradigm, the issue of levels of analysis, the theoretical difference of opinion on the ontological status of categories of difference and the issue of widening the theoretical scope of intersectionality.

This paper compares leibniz’s statements about Islamic fatalism with the way in which the question has been debated in Islamic theology and philosophy, in particular by Indian philosopher muhammad Iqbal. Speaking of destiny, Iqbal writes that it is “a word that has been so much misunderstood both in and outside the world of Islam”. he meant that, on the one hand, muslims themselves have misconstrued the notion as a strong belief in absolute predestination while, on the other hand, non-muslims have mischaracterized Islam as a religion based on blind fanaticism stemming from a faith in an already written fate. Such a characterization was given philosophical dignity by leibniz when, responding to the criticism that his philosophy inevitably led to necessity and fatalism, he insisted on establishing a distinction between what his doctrine did say about necessity and what it must not be mistaken for: Islamic fatalism, or fatum mahometanum. The author concludes on Iqbal’s philosophy of time as duration (Iqbal was a Bergsonian) as the condition for an amor fati without fatalism.

This paper focuses on the concept of sunna, and its great theoretical and historical complexity. The term “sunna” seems nowadays to be a label for the whole set of behaviors adopted by believers, from simple details of dress or diet to the most elaborate of ritual and cultural attitudes. The daily lifestyle of the prophet is invoked so as to imitate the way he washed, how he lay down to sleep, or “sat at table”, not to mention his ritual gestures during prayer, what he preferred to eat after breaking fasts, his slightest movements over the nights and days of pilgrimage. The author intends to show on the contrary, through an unprecedented study, that the Islamic society of a very large city, that of 10th century Baghdad, was for a considerable period of time completely disengaged from such obsessive scrupulousness of religious observance. It gives large evidence of this phenomenon, and tries to outline the historical reasons how the sunna eventually evolved into a rule defining the coercive power of the Islamic faith.

This is a paper in political philosophy. It starts by an analysis of Walter Benjamin’s notion of ‘‘baroque sovereignty’’ as an implicit transformation of Schimitt’s categories of sovereignty, decision and state of exception. It then discusses whether the dynamic between these concepts, as emanating from Benjamin’s work, is fit to make diagnosis of our own current condition, marked by fragilised sovereignties, by global-intensive governance apparatuses and by a horizon-less cata-strophe-world in which, paradoxically, the vision of the world diminishes in proportion as its technological visibility becomes ever greater through the simultaneous and instantaneous availability of images. To this effect, it discusses different theses in contemporary political reflection, and takes these concepts onto a concrete political and social situation, i.e. contemporary Argentina.

By focusing on the concept of “clinical philosophy”, this paper develops a Narrative/Trauma approach to deal with the philosophical problematic of oppression and violence. It establishes a link to a “philosophy of the feminine” and brings it together with clinical wisdom to describe a “sphere of intimacy without violence”. The ideology of motherhood so deeply embedded in Japanese society makes unavoidable for feminist philosophy in Japan to question femininity from the standpoint of the double nature of female self as woman and mother. Confronting the motherhood that regulates core Japanese culture and mentality requires a critique of the practice of matri-archy in the intimate sphere. Historically, post-war Japanese family appears in continuity with the matriarchal nature of the imperial and military regime in pre-war Japan. To be fully effective, feminism should therefore transform itself from a gender category to a philosophy, and create a concept of feminine that would be the core notion of feminism as a philosophy.

This essay proposes a re-reading of the process of establishing the post-colonial nation-state in Algeria, and of the dynamics of citizenship in the light of gender, in order to illuminate the hesitations of the political class as to the meaning of the principle of universal emancipation and sexual equality in the private sphere of personal status.

Whereas up to now readings studying the nature of the Algerian political regime and its ideological discourse have been solely concerned with denouncing the “moribund” character of modernism and/or “Algerian-style” socialism, the argument will deal mainly with the private domestic sphere in order to expose ideological references and representations that are decidedly traditionalist, if not archaic, as regards gender relations in the Algerian family, idealized by the legislation underlying the Family Code (1984/2005).

Finally a detailed review, based on an analysis by gender, of the minutes of parliamentary debates in the legislatures from 1982 to 1984 will demonstrate the highly patriarchal nature of the cultural representations of Algeria's decision-makers, who are reluctant to extend “modernization” to the female population.

One of the hallmarks of Kitaro Nishida (1870-1945) and the Kyoto School formed around him is their emphatic endeavor to reconsider perennial philosophical questions from what they called the “stand of the acting-self.” In this paper we begin by bringing into relief the contemporary significance of Nishida’s pioneering notions – such as “logic of place,” “acting-intuition,” and “historical body” – by relating them to some kindred meditations by James, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger. Along the way, we call into question some shortcomings that we consider inherent in these philosophical perspectives – with special attention to their expression in the thought of Nishida’s disciple, Kiyoshi Miki, who sought to advance his master’s thought critically under the headings of “dialectics of logos and pathos” and “formative imagination.” Then, we discuss some issues regarding inhuman weapons – particularly the so-called DU (depleted uranium) weapons, which we regard as the “nuclear shadow” – in order to illustrate the aspects of human reality to which Nishida and Miki failed to give adequate consideration. In particular, we examine the destructive capabilities of our “technological bodies” and the reality of the often invisible “pathos of others” – especially in times of war – which ultimately is ours as well.

If we think of artistic creation as a basic dimension of humanity we need to question the absence of female artists in history. We should also look at their gradual emergence in the late 20th century, an emergence that coincides with the feminist movement and a change in the conception of art itself, revealed chiefly by Duchamp.

But does art by women have some specificity? Without giving a definite answer as far as subject matter is concerned, we note that the conditions suited to both history and the history of art may affect their creation but without specifying it ontologically. If, moreover, some women artists define their work as feminist, it is through an act that combines artistic and political transgression. The exhibition currently arranged by the Georges Pompidou Centre, elles@beaubourg, provides new resources for these complex questions.

This paper discusses in critical terms muhammad ‘abd al-Jabiri’s influential philosophical work. It engages, in particular, in the analysis of the assumptions underlying the radical contrast that al-Jabiri sets up between avicenna’s philosophy – which is supposed to represent irrationality and Gnosticism – and that of averroes who, according to him, breaks decisively with that current of thought and thus makes exercising philosophical thought once again possible. after a close discussion of the positions of classical philosophers (falasifa), the author concludes that it is the very validity of the notion of “arab reason” that has to be questioned in al-Jabiri’s analysis.

Derrida perhaps most interests Chinese Marxist scholars through his way of separating the spirit of Marx from the ‘‘specter’’ of Marx. All those things interpreted by Derrida as ‘‘specters’’ are mainly practiced in China after 1949. Since China’s historical transition began in 1978 those ‘‘specters’’ considered by Derrida include the challenge of economic reform, and economic globalization, and could also include public ownership which has been replaced by multiple owner-ship or stock ownership, as well as allocation according to contribution which has been replaced by allocation according to contribution combined with allocation according to capital investment. The predictable result is that income equality in theory or in practice has now given way to great income difference. These phenomena are opposite to those ‘‘specters’’ of Marx, and they are the targets of the critical spirit of Marx. When Derrida name those things as ‘‘specters’’ presumably this means they could never be actualized. So when those things actually disappeared again, people would like to accept the supposition that they are only ‘‘specters’’ and could not be objectified, while what actually could be practiced is the critical spirit of Marx. It is just the paradox of the ‘‘specters’’ and the spirit of Marx in the actual situation of China that brings it about that Derrida’s deconstructive method interests some Chinese Marxist scholars, especially the younger ones. In order to understand Derrida’s appeal in China better, we need to look at the general situation of Western Marxism in China.

This paper closely examines Strauss’ conception of “medieval Enlightenment”. It focuses on the central role that arab philosophy has played in the development of Strauss’s thought and discusses the validity of the uses he makes of it. It also emphasizes the interest of Strauss’s analyses as regards arab philosophy while drawing attention to the tensions they create. It claims that Strauss’ involvement in the quarrel between ancients and moderns aims at showing that medieval philosophy cannot be reduced simply to the effort to reconcile philosophy and religion. The ideas of some arab philosophers cropped up throughout Strauss’s philosophical development and determined his interpretation of maimonides and Plato as well as his stance in opposition to the moderns. however Strauss’s idea of the “medieval Enlightenment” remains fundamentally ambiguous. Is that Enlightenment supposed to be an argument for the preservation of faith alongside reason or does it rather express a kind of atheism or disguised materialism?

In their respective fields of philosophy and sociology, Ludwig Wittgenstein and E´mile Durkheim are known for having associated two types of norms usually considered to be distinct: social norms and cognitive norms. They shared the same idea that the rules which govern the activity of the mind – for examples the laws of logic – are fundamentally linked to those which subtend social activity. For Wittgenstein and Durkheim, cognitive norms are thus a type of social norm.

The objective of this article is to compare the way in which Wittgenstein and Durkheim thematise the relationship between social norms and cognitive norms. It begins by clarifying the author’s understanding of ‘‘cognitive norms’’. It then presents Durkheim’s and Wittgenstein’s analyses of these norms, and it finally attempts to define some of the similarities and differences existing between their approaches to this problem.

The theme of gender in religion has not been dealt with homogenously given the many research areas that feed into the discipline of religious studies. This paper reviews the different uses of “gender” over the last 20 years. It notes that, though there is no single definition of the word, “gender” as a term has had a very great impact on the way women have formulated their demand for equality of treatment and renegotiated or even raised new claims as regards their integrity and identity.

In this paper, I would like to argue that brain-dead small children have a natural right not to be invaded by other people even if their organs can save the lives of other suffering patients. My basic idea is that growing human beings have the right to grow in the form of wholeness, and dying human beings also have the right to die in the form of wholeness; in other words, they have the right to be protected from outside invasion, unless they have declared their wish to abandon that right beforehand. I call this the principle of wholeness. Natural rights, which were discussed by Hobbes and Locke in the 17th century, have to be extended to include the right to grow and die in the form of wholeness in the age of scientific civilization, where peripheral human lives are being threatened by aggressive biomedicine and other advanced technologies.

This paper discusses the idea of an incompatibility between muslim beliefs and the demands of modernity. It claims that the idea of Islam as a religion that makes it difficult for muslim societies to bring about the changes necessary for their entry into modernity is fostering the rise of radical Islamism. Islamology as an academic discipline seems grounded on the idea that the explanatory models of the social sciences are not applicable to Islam: interpreting the history of muslim societies, both modern and classical, must of necessity involve a change in technique and method. Whereas chairs in Islamology are proliferating in universities, arab world specialists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists and demographers are almost abandoning the study of real living societies in favour of Islamic studies. Scholars are increasingly taken up with theology, religious history, interfaith conflicts, the relationship between dogma and modern values and ideas. The authors claims in favour of “getting rid” of this centrality of theological issues, in favour of a more secular analysis of the history and present state of muslim societies.

This paper aims to introduce my thought as an “anti”-Logocentrism. To begin with, I would like to point out two aspects of this theme. First, even if philosophical thinking is essentially based on logical form, it is sometimes exposed to illogicality. But this illogicality is meaningful. Second, it has to do with differences between Western and my thought. The former respects rational thinking and follows strictly formal logic. It is true that we cannot think without rationality, but when, for example, we deal with complex systems, we cannot follow the law of excluded middle because of the contradictory effects that coexist in interfaces which emerge in complex systems.

In terms of complex systems, it is not acceptable to choose only one possibility and to deny the other. It is not uncommon to see such ambiguous situations, but we often overlook them. These situations are, however, not as disordered as we think, and they can be accepted as they actually are. I refer to such thinking as “passive thinking”. In this way, there are two types of philosophical thinking. One is rational thinking, and the other is passive thinking. The latter stays often in contradiction without following logical form, which occurs in interfaces in complex systems. In such cases, we cannot think rationally, because contradictory effects coexist there. Furthermore, we find there something whole new, namely, “emergent property”; that is just what passive thinking deals with. Since early times, Japanese have attached more importance to passive thinking.

Philosophy is deeply rooted in human nature. On the one hand, thinking of an infinite essence of the universe may actualize an infinite essence of humans themselves and thus root them in the Cosmos infinity. On the other hand, to think of infinity is to acquire the power of infinity, i.e., an infinite power. In short, thinking in terms of infinity fills us with infinity. Philosophy allows individuals to overstep the limits of the lived experience, transcends their Selves beyond daily occurrence. Obviously, just this human transcendence into metaphysical reality, into the world of essential relationships ensures a therapeutic effect of philosophy.

Fifteen years after the first translations of Anglo-American feminist film theories, this gender approach is finding it hard to gain acceptance in France. The main reason is the elitist view of cinema d’auteur that is still prevalent in academic circles, where the art is seen as a genius's creation outside social determinations in general and gender relations in particular.

However, under the influence of historians and sociologists, who dominate gender research in France, French work on film privileges a historical and sociocultural approach, whereas American research is dominated by psychoanalytical approaches. French gender analyses privilege the expression of dominant relations but also of contradictions at work in the films, whether popular or by an auteur-e, as well as in the stars’ image or in tv fiction. Finally some research explores the changes brought about by the emergence of female film-makers on the French scene.