203 research outputs found
'L'Invisible Voyeur du Monde des Voyants': Critiques of French Society in Michel Tournier's La Goutte d'or and Guy Hocquenghem's L'Amour en relief
Since decolonisation, the increase in immigration from Franceâs former colonies in North Africa has prompted metropolitan writers to reconsider conceptions of French society. In their novels, Tournier and Hocquenghem present contemporary France through the defamiliarising eyes of a North African immigrant who serves as a device for the critique of French culture. This article investigates the opposition between the objectifying culture of the West, and the immigrantsâ desert culture. It argues that this opposition is flawed, and that the division is between actual practices of seeing and the cultural discourses around vision
Tres medici, duo athei? The Physician as Atheist and the Medicalization of the Soul
Until recently, examinations of the âmind-body problemâ in historical context paid only cursory attention to its specifically medical dimension, if at all. At best, some âfolk physiologyâ was entertained, usually to laugh at it (the pineal gland, animal spirits). Conversely, historians of neuroscience or of artificial intelligence (Jeannerod 1985, Dupuy 2000) often present figures like La Mettrie as heroic early cases of ânaturalizationâ, giving an experimental basis to materialism: their symmetrically inverse mistake is to take professions of medical authority too literally (although there are genuine cases where all of the above does coalesce â where âactorsâ categories mysteriously transcend historiographic projections â, such as Hieronymus Gaubâs reflections on the âregimen of the mindâ in the mid-eighteenth century, or, more theoretically, Guillaume Lamyâs Epicurean-inflected Anatomical Discourses on the Soul, eighty years earlier). Contrary to the denial of the relevance of medicine in early modern philosophy, as regards issues such as the body-soul (then body-mind) relation among others, it seems patently difficult to separate medical theory, medically nourished philosophical speculation, and metaphysics. This is the case, whether in Descartes, Gaub, the âanimistâ Georg-Ernest Stahl, or materialists such as Guillaume Lamy and La Mettrie: medicine, or rather âa certain idea of medicineâ, is everywhere.
Here I focus on the motif of a radical medicine â a medical precursor of the Radical Enlightenment (Israel 2001, 2006, 2007), symbolized negatively by the slogan, tres medici, duo athei, or âwhere there are three doctors, there are two atheistsâ, i.e. medicine as a basis for atheism. This theme runs through various works of medical or medico-theological propaganda: Thomas Browneâs 1643 De religio medici begins with Browne regretting rumors of doctors being atheists as the âgeneral scandal of my Professionâ; Germain de Bezançonâs 1677 Les mĂ©decins Ă la censure works hard at rebutting the saying, âBon Physicien, mauvais chrĂ©tien.â But these are examples of the fear of a radical medicine â a medicine that denies the existence of an immortal soul, or even defends materialism and atheism. Are there positive statements of this doctrine? Indeed, attacks on it are much more common than statements identifying with it, like medical versions of natural theology in general.
In fact, just as there were theologically motivated medical works, there were also medically motivated works of radical or heretical theology, like William Cowardâs Second Thoughts on the Human Soul (Coward 1702, building on Overton 1644), which engaged in polemics concerning the nature of the soul â mortal or immortal? (Thomson 2008). Parallel to the mortalist trend, but flowing into a common genre of radical, medico-materialist texts (sometimes anonymous, such as LâĂme MatĂ©rielle, from the 1720s) are at least two other strands of radical medicine: a post-Cartesian focus on medicina mentis and the nature of the mind (Henricus Regius, Hieronymus Gaub, Antoine Le Camus), and an Epicurean medicine, in which mind and body are organismically united, with an additional hedonistic component, notably in Lamy, Mandeville and La Mettrie (Wright 1991, Wolfe and van Esveld 2014). The focus on a medicine of the mind (Corneanu, ms. 2013) is obviously connected to a âmedicalization of the soulâ: there was a body-soul problem in and for medicine, a sort of medicalized âpneumatologyâ. Radical medicine is located somewhere in between the early forms of ânaturalizationâ or âmedicalizationâ of the soul and the pose of scientific neutrality that is characteristic of early nineteenth-century medicine (as in Cabanis, Bichat or Bernard): it is a short-lived episode. I seek to reconstruct this intellectual figure, in which mortalist, post-Cartesian and Epicurean strands intersect and sometimes come together. I suggest that medically influenced materialism in the Radical Enlightenment (e.g. in the later French cases, La Mettrie, MĂ©nuret and Diderot), is different from later, more experimentally focused and more quantitatively oriented forms of medical materialism, precisely because of its radical dimension. This radical medicine often insists on vitality, as opposed to âanatomie cadavĂ©riqueâ: it is vital and hedonistic, a medicine concerned with maintaining bodily pleasure.Until recently, examinations of the 'mind-body problem' in historical context paid only cursory attention to its specifically medical dimension, if at all. At best, some 'folk physiology' was entertained, usually to laugh at it (the pineal gland, animal spirits). Conversely, historians of neuroscience or of artificial intelligence (Jeannerod M, The brain machine. The development of neurophysiological thought, trans. D. Urion, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1985; Dupuy J-P, The mechanization of the mind: on the origins of cognitive science, trans. M.B. DeBevoise, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000) often present figures like La Mettrie as heroic early cases of 'naturalization', giving an experimental basis to materialism: their symmetrically inverse mistake is to take professions of medical authority too literally (although there are genuine cases where all of the above does coalesce where 'actors' categories mysteriously transcend historiographic projections -, such as Hieronymus Gaub's reflections on the 'regimen of the mind' in the mid-eighteenth century, or, more theoretically, Guillaume Lamy's Epicurean-inflected Anatomical Discourses on the Soul, eighty years earlier). Contrary to the denial of the relevance of medicine in early modern philosophy, as regards issues such as the body-soul (then body-mind) relation among others, it seems patently difficult to separate medical theory, medically nourished philosophical speculation, and metaphysics. This is the case, whether in Descartes, Gaub, the 'animist' Georg-Ernest Stahl, or materialists such as Guillaume Lamy and La Mettrie: medicine, or rather 'a certain idea of medicine', is everywhere.Here I focus on the motif of a radical medicine - a medical precursor of the Radical Enlightenment (Israel J, Radical enlightenment. Philosophy and the making of modernity, 1650-1750, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001; Israel J, Enlightenment contested. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, Israel J, Enlightenment, radical enlightenment and the "medical revolution" of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In: Grell OP, Cunningham A (ed) Medicine and religion in enlightenment Europe. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 5-28, 2007), symbolized negatively by the slogan, tres medici, duo athei, or 'where there are three doctors, there are two atheists', i.e. medicine as a basis for atheism. This theme runs through various works of medical or medico-theological propaganda: Thomas Browne's 1643 De religio medici begins with Browne regretting rumors of doctors being atheists as the "general scandal of my Profession"; Germain de Bezancon's 1677 Les medecins a la censure works hard at rebutting the saying, "Bon Physicien, mauvais chretien." But these are examples of the fear of a radical medicine - a medicine that denies the existence of an immortal soul, or even defends materialism and atheism. Are there positive statements of this doctrine? Indeed, attacks on it are much more common than statements identifying with it, like medical versions of natural theology in general.In fact, just as there were theologically motivated medical works, there were also medically motivated works of radical or heretical theology, like William Coward's Second Thoughts on the Human Soul (Coward W, Second thoughts on the human soul. R. Basset, London, 1702, building on Overton 1644), which engaged in polemics concerning the nature of the soul - mortal or immortal? (Thomson A, Bodies of thought: science, religion, and the soul in the early enlightenment. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008). Parallel to the mortalist trend, but flowing into a common genre of radical, medico-materialist texts (sometimes anonymous, such as L'Ame Materielle, from the 1720s) are at least two other strands of radical medicine: a post-Cartesian focus on medicina mentis and the nature of the mind (Henricus Regius, Hieronymus Gaub, Antoine Le Camus), and an Epicurean medicine, in which mind and body are organismically united, with an additional hedonistic component, notably in Lamy, Mandeville and La Mettrie (Wright JP, Locke, Willis, and the seventeenth-century epicurean soul. In: Osler MJ (ed) Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquillity: Epicurean and stoic themes in European thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 239-258, 1991; Wolfe CT, van Esveld M, The material soul: strategies for naturalising the soul in an early modern epicurean context. In: Kambaskovic D (ed) Conjunctions: body, soul and mind from Plato to the enlightenment. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 371-421, 2014). The focus on a medicine of the mind (Corneanu, (ms. 2013), The care of the whole man: medicine and theology in the late renaissance, 2013) is obviously connected to a 'medicalization of the soul': there was a body-soul problem in and for medicine, a sort of medicalized 'pneumatology'. Radical medicine is located somewhere in between the early forms of 'naturalization' or 'medicalization' of the soul and the pose of scientific neutrality that is characteristic of early nineteenth-century medicine (as in Cabanis, Bichat or Bernard): it is a short-lived episode. I seek to reconstruct this intellectual figure, in which mortalist, post-Cartesian and Epicurean strands intersect and sometimes come together. I suggest that medically influenced materialism in the Radical Enlightenment (e.g. in the later French cases, La Mettrie, Menuret and Diderot), is different from later, more experimentally focused and more quantitatively oriented forms of medical materialism, precisely because of its radical dimension. This radical medicine often insists on vitality, as opposed to "anatomie cadaverique": it is vital and hedonistic, a medicine concerned with maintaining bodily pleasure
Measurement of Ï production in pp collisions at âs = 2.76 TeV
The production of Ï(1S), Ï(2S) and Ï(3S)
mesons decaying into the dimuon final state is studied with
the LHCb detector using a data sample corresponding to an
integrated luminosity of 3.3 pbâ1 collected in protonâproton
collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of âs = 2.76 TeV. The
differential production cross-sections times dimuon branching
fractions are measured as functions of the Ï transverse
momentum and rapidity, over the ranges pT < 15 GeV/c
and 2.0 < y < 4.5. The total cross-sections in this kinematic
region, assuming unpolarised production, are measured to be
Ï (pp â Ï(1S)X) Ă B
Ï(1S)âÎŒ+ÎŒâ
= 1.111 ± 0.043 ± 0.044 nb,
Ï (pp â Ï(2S)X) Ă B
Ï(2S)âÎŒ+ÎŒâ
= 0.264 ± 0.023 ± 0.011 nb,
Ï (pp â Ï(3S)X) Ă B
Ï(3S)âÎŒ+ÎŒâ
= 0.159 ± 0.020 ± 0.007 nb,
where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic
- âŠ