Le Droit pénal nippon. Une histoire du châtiment au Japon.

Cet article relate l’évolution de la répression du crime du Japon médiéval à ses mutations durant l’époque Edo puis l’ère Meiji, afin de retracer le glissement socio-historique entre une mentalité du châtiment et une législation de la punition – aujourd’hui matérialisée par l’emprisonnement en établissement carcéral. Le développement historique des concepts fondamentaux à une société, telle la criminalité, forment ici une manière distincte d’appartenir au monde contemporain et influencent comportements et schèmes de pensée : la réalité historique est une réalité sociale

Ageing and Death: A Focus on How to Transcend Diseases for Transhumanist Movements

The concept of transhumanism is based on a specific understanding of human limitations that should or could be transcended. Among them, the question of overcoming our own corporeality through the delaying of ageing or death is of major importance for a new understanding of human plasticity and fluidity when shaping ourselves and our environment. As transhumanism advocates for human enhancement through technological means, it considers ageing and death as diseases and criticizes their necessity in the human evolutionary process. In light of this transhumanist question, this article discusses ageing and death as diseases for which there must be technological solutions. It underlines that a philosophical approach is necessary to highlight how correlated and interrelated those subjects are and tries to go beyond humanist dichotomies to make clearer how major notions (health, enhancement, etc.) are intertwined with each other and consequently shape our socio-political subjectivities. Given this context, this article discusses the fact that medicine is traditionally structured on a limit that seems to be more and more plastic to pave the way for new debates, such as human enhancement, morphological freedom, and biocultural capital. It then discusses how transhumanism tries to transcend what is considered human structures by examining death as a fatal degeneration that could be overcome through biological amortality and informational immortality

De la chose sensible à la chose esthétique. Le passage de l’instrumentalisation à la configuration du monde

Through Heidegger’s re-reading of Descartes, this article explores a fundamental issue in the contemporary conception of worldliness. In a restricted sense, the human being is the maker of the world in that he appropriates what composes it, i.e., the worldly beings or things. Greatly influenced by the Cartesian notion of extensio, this tendency no longer entails the world as a thing in itself, but as a set of measurable things, thus available and open to activity. This article articulates the threat relative to the idea of the forming, by the human being, of the essence of the world. Every being, be it an object, an animal or even a human being, seems to be considered as a producer of energy and a structure that could be possessed. For example, such natural space is not campaign or land, but automatically field, that is to say, an agricultural deposit that is symbolically exploited and empirically exploitable. This ontological device prevents us from grasping the world in any other way than in terms of use and productivity. As a result, the ontology of the thing becomes an aesthetic issue in its own right. This issue does not involve here the capture of the object as a bearer of Beauty, but an aesthetic relation in the fundamentally etymological sense (αἰσθητικός) of what is felt, of what is sensible and perceptible. The need for an aesthetic rereading of the world and the things that stand in it presupposes, therefore, the evolution of the human gaze and a metaphysical approach to worldliness, detached from the instrumentalization of the beings and focused on their presence or their proximity. This article aims at demonstrating the necessity of a real human aesthetic responsibility, which can be concretized in the metaphysical thought of the thing that the human being unfolds, by considering it as the persistence in the world of an object whose ontological disposition could never be neutral.Through Heidegger’s re-reading of Descartes, this article explores a fundamental issue in the contemporary conception of worldliness. In a restricted sense, the human being is the maker of the world in that he appropriates what composes it, i.e., the worldly beings or things. Greatly influenced by the Cartesian notion of extensio, this tendency no longer entails the world as a thing in itself, but as a set of measurable things, thus available and open to activity. This article articulates the threat relative to the idea of the forming, by the human being, of the essence of the world. Every being, be it an object, an animal or even a human being, seems to be considered as a producer of energy and a structure that could be possessed. For example, such natural space is not campaign or land, but automatically field, that is to say, an agricultural deposit that is symbolically exploited and empirically exploitable. This ontological device prevents us from grasping the world in any other way than in terms of use and productivity. As a result, the ontology of the thing becomes an aesthetic issue in its own right. This issue does not involve here the capture of the object as a bearer of Beauty, but an aesthetic relation in the fundamentally etymological sense (αἰσθητικός) of what is felt, of what is sensible and perceptible. The need for an aesthetic rereading of the world and the things that stand in it presupposes, therefore, the evolution of the human gaze and a metaphysical approach to worldliness, detached from the instrumentalization of the beings and focused on their presence or their proximity. This article aims at demonstrating the necessity of a real human aesthetic responsibility, which can be concretized in the metaphysical thought of the thing that the human being unfolds, by considering it as the persistence in the world of an object whose ontological disposition could never be neutral

Pour une onto-anthropotechnie de la sphère humaine. La question de l'interdit technologique au prisme d’une lecture phénoménologique du transhumanisme.

The discussion about the extent to which technology structures the human sphere is nowadays severely hampered by the popularization of mythological (Promethean threat, etc.) or narrative analogies (threat of AI, cyborg, etc.). Many authors who have questioned the essence of technology in detail have come to divide it into two categories, roughly summarized as (post)modern technology and ancient technology, thus evacuating the formal quality of technology. The feeling of anxiety that our societies experience in front of the autonomy and empowerment of technology would be explained by the ontological discontinuity of the human-technology relations. Isn't transhumanism, incidentally, the concrete embodiment of this rupture? Our thesis postulates that in order to correctly interpret the emergence of phenomena such as transhumanism, we need a philosophical reading of the phenomenon of technique. Now, a philosophical reading of the technique is only possible by questioning the anthropological and ontological roots of technology itself. Our intention to use philosophy to tackle this complex and highly mediatized issue of transhumanism leads us to reinvest pre-existing and absolutely fundamental metaphysical questions regarding the relationship between technology and human beings. We have chosen to take a phenomenological approach to better understand transhumanism, in order to outline the metaphysical issues at stake in our technical imaginary, as well as to serve as a new entry point to the question of technology itself. The eidetic reduction allows us to identify the internal divergences of transhumanism in order to express a minimal discourse, the desire to improve the human being through technology. This dialogue can from then on be assumed by the philosophy of technology and serve as a revealing phenomenon, while taking part in a major discussion that is still ongoing. In spite of the cultural and anthropological evolution of technology and its objects, we defend the hypothesis that there is no rupture between a modern technology and an ancient one, and that the emergence or the solidification of forms of contemporary technical imaginaries contributes to the ontological sphere of human existence. Our purpose is to return to the questions that technology raises towards the being of the human, instead of staying at the human that raises questions about the impact of science and technology. The transhumanism is considered as a starting point to the question of technology, which allows to reinstate the human-technology relations in the temporality of a continuous evolution, and induces a renewed and plastic adaptation of the human being to his environment. Our first part introduces the conceptual framework of the understanding of the technical object, as an object embedded in human mediations. We question this object from familiar landmarks, between mechanism and finalism, gesture and mediation, organ and tool. This allows us to determine some phenomenological aspects regarding body unity and the relation between "paraphernalia" and technical object. These defining elements are embodied in the analysis of contemporary techno-scientific objects, which determines the convergences and divergences between the mode of existence of technical objects and the one of emerging objects, in order to induce the possibility of a formal continuity in the ontology of the technical object. It is then necessary to question the relationship of the human being to his materiality, and thus his relationship to his milieu and temporality. Our second part aims at revitalizing the phenomenology of the dwelling through anthropology, in order to bring technology into play at the center of the human experience. We put our technical milieu back at the center of an epistemology that focuses on the notions of intention, invention and imagination, in order to reconstruct the relation of technology to human virtuality and to propose an analysis of the evolution of technology outside the ontic framework of human historicity. This apparent independence of technology requires us to question the reasons behind the feeling of threat that contemporary technology gives rise to. Our third part reshapes the rational and irrational dangers of which technique is the scapegoat by placing them outside the essence of technology itself. We start from a metaphysics of the substance of worldly objects which locates these concrete perils within the framework of the anthropological evolution of production modes and technical progress. We present these elements as the symptom of the transition from a humanist imaginary to a form of technical imaginary. This transition participates in a redefinition of the humanism that is able to overcome the technological ban and to testify of the cultural reality of technology. The emblematic example of these new technical imaginaries is the emergence of transhumanism. The fourth part thus extends these concrete questionings by focusing on the way in which transhumanism reclaims the metaphysical stakes of our materiality. It is based on the transhumanist conception of the human body through the difference therapy/enhancement, which reveals the invariant of the body phenomenon and revitalizes the truly disruptive viewpoints of transhumanism on immortality. They contrast with the existential relation of the human to finitude, considered as a structuring horizon of time. The opening of finitude to new temporalities invites us to question the way in which transhumanism brings into play the thought of eschatology and transcendence as a measure of lived time. Therefore, our fifth and last part questions the notion of transhumanist Grand Narrative in the light of emblematic technical myths, in order to unveil the metapoetics of imaginaries that support transhumanist and anti-transhumanist discourses. We locate the mythification of transhumanism in a more general eschatological and temporal process, taking into account the chosen recourse of transhumanist movements to technophilic optimism. These interrogations allow us to reinvest our analyses of the milieu and temporality to synthesize the continuistic evolutionism that makes transhumanism a consistent and metaphysical vector of the technical organization of the human sphere.Le débat visant à évaluer dans quelle mesure la technique structure la sphère humaine est aujourd’hui grandement bridé par la vulgarisation d’analogies mythologiques (menace prométhéenne, etc.) ou narratives (menace de l’IA, du cyborg, etc.). De nombreux auteurs qui ont questionné en détail l’essence de la technique la scindent aujourd’hui selon deux modalités, résumées schématiquement en une technique (post)moderne et une technique ancienne, en évacuant la quiddité formelle de la technique. Le sentiment d’inquiétude qu’éprouvent nos sociétés face à l’autonomisation et à la puissance technique s’expliquerait par la discontinuité ontologique des relations humain-technique. Le transhumanisme, d’ailleurs, ne se fait-il pas l’incarnation concrète de cette rupture ? Notre thèse postule qu’afin de correctement interpréter l’émergence de phénomènes comme le transhumanisme, nous avons besoin d’une lecture philosophique du phénomène de la technique. Cette lecture philosophique de la technique nécessite de réinterroger les racines anthropologiques et ontologiques de la technique elle-même. Nous adoptons pour cela une approche phénoménologique de l’objet transhumaniste, qui se propose d’esquisser les enjeux métaphysiques propres à nos imaginaires techniques, en plus de servir d’entrée nouvelle à la question de la technique elle-même. La réduction eidétique nous permet de localiser les divergences internes au transhumanisme pour les rendre à l’expression d’un discours minimal, la volonté d’amélioration de l’homme par la technique. Ce discours manifesté et manifestant peut dès lors être pris en charge par la philosophie de la technique et servir de phénomène dévoilant, en prenant part à une discussion majeure et au demeurant largement entamée. Malgré l’évolution culturelle et anthropologique de la technique et de ses objets, nous défendons l’hypothèse qu’il n’y a pas de rupture entre une technique moderne et une technique ancienne, et que l’émergence ou la solidification de formes d’imaginaires techniques contemporains participe ontologiquement de la sphère d’existence humaine, et non accidentellement. Notre intention est donc de revenir aux questions que soulève la technique envers l’être de l’humain, au lieu d’en rester à l’humain comme l’être soulevant des questions sur l’impact de la science et de la technique. Le transhumanisme est pensé comme une porte d’entrée à la question de la technique, permettant de réinscrire les relations humain-technique dans la temporalité d’une évolution continue, induisant l’adaptation renouvelée et plastique de l’homme à son milieu. Notre première partie introduit le cadre conceptuel de la compréhension de l’objet technique, comme objet s’insérant dans les médiations humaines. Nous interrogeons cet objet à partir de points de repères familiers, entre mécanisme et finalisme, geste et médiation, organe et outil. Ces éléments nous permettent de déterminer certains apports phénoménologiques quant à l’unité organique et au rapport entre « util » et objet technique. Ces éléments de définition sont concrétisés dans l’analyse d’objets technoscientifiques contemporains, qui détermine les convergences et divergences entre le mode d’existence des objets techniques et celui des objets émergents, afin d’induire la possibilité d’une continuité formelle dans l’ontologie de l’objet technique. Il devient nécessaire de questionner le rapport de l’humain à l’engagement de sa matérialité, et donc de ses rapports au milieu et à la temporalité. Notre seconde partie cherche à revitaliser la phénoménologie de l’habitat par l’anthropologie, afin de faire jouer la technique au centre de la notion de vécu humain. Nous y replaçons le milieu technique au centre d’une épistémologie faisant travailler les notions d’intention, d’invention et d’imagination, pour reconstruire la relation de la technique à la virtualité humaine et proposer une analyse de l’évolution de la technique et de ses objets hors du cadre ontique de l’historicité humaine. Cette apparente autonomisation de la technique nous enjoint dès lors à questionner les ressorts du sentiment de danger que fait naître la technique contemporaine. Notre troisième partie participe d’une tentative de redéfinition de l’humanisme, apte à dépasser l’interdit technologique et à témoigner de la réalité culturelle de la technique. Elle restructure les dangers rationnels et irrationnels dont la technique se fait le bouc-émissaire en les resituant en dehors de l’essence de la technique elle-même, à partir d’une métaphysique de la substance des objets mondains qui replace ces périls concrets dans le cadre de l’évolution anthropologique de modes de production et de la notion de progrès technique. Nous présentons ces éléments comme le symptôme du passage d’un imaginaire humaniste vers une forme d’imaginaire technique, dont l’exemple emblématique est l’émergence du transhumanisme. La quatrième partie prolonge donc ces questionnements concrets en s’appuyant sur la façon dont le transhumanisme se réapproprie les enjeux métaphysiques de notre matérialité. Elle s’appuie sur la conception transhumaniste du corps humain à travers la différence thérapie/augmentation, qui dévoile l’invariant du phénomène corporel et vient revitaliser l’aspect véritablement rupturel des considérations immortalistes transhumanistes. Celles-ci viennent en contrepoint à la relation existentiale de l’humain à la finitude, considérée comme horizon de structuration du temps et du monde. L’ouverture de la finitude à de nouvelles temporalités nous invite alors à questionner la façon dont le transhumanisme fait jouer une pensée de l’eschatologie et de la transcendance comme mesure d’un temps vécu. Notre cinquième et dernière partie interroge par conséquent la notion de Grand Récit transhumaniste à l’aune de mythes techniques emblématiques, pour dévoiler la métapoétique de l’imaginaire qui sous-tend les discours transhumanistes et anti-transhumanistes. Nous en venons à resituer la mythification du transhumanisme dans un processus eschatologique et temporel plus général, prenant en compte le recours choisi des mouvements transhumanistes à l’optimisme technophile. Ces interrogations nous permettent de réinvestir nos analyses du milieu et de la temporalité pour synthétiser l’évolutionnisme continuiste faisant du transhumanisme un vecteur consistant de la structuration onto-anthropotechnique de la sphère humaine

Ageing and Death: A Focus on How to Transcend Diseases for Transhumanist Movements

The concept of transhumanism is based on a specific understanding of human limitations that should or could be transcended. Among them, the question of overcoming our own corporeality through the delaying of ageing or death is of major importance for a new understanding of human plasticity and fluidity when shaping ourselves and our environment. As transhumanism advocates for human enhancement through technological means, it considers ageing and death as diseases and criticizes their necessity in the human evolutionary process. In light of this transhumanist question, this article discusses ageing and death as diseases for which there must be technological solutions. It underlines that a philosophical approach is necessary to highlight how correlated and interrelated those subjects are and tries to go beyond humanist dichotomies to make clearer how major notions (health, enhancement, etc.) are intertwined with each other and consequently shape our socio-political subjectivities. Given this context, this article discusses the fact that medicine is traditionally structured on a limit that seems to be more and more plastic to pave the way for new debates, such as human enhancement, morphological freedom, and biocultural capital. It then discusses how transhumanism tries to transcend what is considered human structures by examining death as a fatal degeneration that could be overcome through biological amortality and informational immortality

Culture traditionnelle et criminalité dans la société japonaise

En matière de criminalité, le Japon fait figure d’exception. La population incarcérée y diminue en moyenne de 3,6 % par an et le taux de criminalité est en baisse depuis 2007. La densité d’incarcération dans les prisons japonaises n’est que de 74 % contre 120 % en France en avril 2017. Le Japon partage l’appareil démocratique et le développement économique des pays occidentaux mais se distingue par son éloignement géographique et culturel. Or les sciences criminologiques étudiant la philosophie d’un pays et ses traditions idéologiques sont fondamentales dans la réflexion sur la criminalité. Elles témoignent du fait que le crime est autant influencé par le droit, l’histoire et l’économie d’un pays, que par l’ancrage culturel d’une civilisation qui possède ses propres schèmes mentaux et comportementaux. Nous nous proposons d’attester de quelques-unes de ces pistes de réflexion

Evaluation of Vascular Control Mechanisms Utilizing Video Microscopy of Isolated Resistance Arteries of Rats

This protocol describes the use of in vitro television microscopy to evaluate vascular function in isolated cerebral resistance arteries (and other vessels), and describes techniques for evaluating tissue perfusion using Laser Doppler Flowmetry (LDF) and microvessel density utilizing fluorescently labeled Griffonia simplicifolia (GS1) lectin. Current methods for studying isolated resistance arteries at transmural pressures encountered in vivo and in the absence of parenchymal cell influences provide a critical link between in vivo studies and information gained from molecular reductionist approaches that provide limited insight into integrative responses at the whole animal level. LDF and techniques to selectively identify arterioles and capillaries with fluorescently-labeled GS1 lectin provide practical solutions to enable investigators to extend the knowledge gained from studies of isolated resistance arteries. This paper describes the application of these techniques to gain fundamental knowledge of vascular physiology and pathology in the rat as a general experimental model, and in a variety of specialized genetically engineered designer rat strains that can provide important insight into the influence of specific genes on important vascular phenotypes. Utilizing these valuable experimental approaches in rat strains developed by selective breeding strategies and new technologies for producing gene knockout models in the rat, will expand the rigor of scientific premises developed in knockout mouse models and extend that knowledge to a more relevant animal model, with a well understood physiological background and suitability for physiological studies because of its larger size

Covid-19, numérique et libertés

Durant la pandémie, le numérique s’est révélé un outil précieux pour assurer une continuité de la vie professionnelle, de l’éducation, de la vie familiale et amicale, et assurer une appétence pour la vie culturelle disponible en ligne. La bataille contre le coronavirus grâce au numérique se joue également sur d’autres plans : des gouvernements, avec l’appui d’entreprises privées, développent de nouvelles politiques de surveillance de l’épidémie et des personnes infectées. Ces usages technologiques sont des gages d’efficacité mais également des facteurs de risques pour les libertés des citoyens

Canagliflozin extends life span in genetically heterogeneous male but not female mice.

Canagliflozin (Cana) is an FDA-approved diabetes drug that protects against cardiovascular and kidney diseases. It also inhibits the sodium glucose transporter 2 by blocking renal reuptake and intestinal absorption of glucose. In the context of the mouse Interventions Testing Program, genetically heterogeneous mice were given chow containing Cana at 180 ppm at 7 months of age until their death. Cana extended median survival of male mice by 14%. Cana also increased by 9% the age for 90th percentile survival, with parallel effects seen at each of 3 test sites. Neither the distribution of inferred cause of death nor incidental pathology findings at end-of-life necropsies were altered by Cana. Moreover, although no life span benefits were seen in female mice, Cana led to lower fasting glucose and improved glucose tolerance in both sexes, diminishing fat mass in females only. Therefore, the life span benefit of Cana is likely to reflect blunting of peak glucose levels, because similar longevity effects are seen in male mice given acarbose, a diabetes drug that blocks glucose surges through a distinct mechanism, i.e., slowing breakdown of carbohydrate in the intestine. Interventions that control daily peak glucose levels deserve attention as possible preventive medicines to protect from a wide range of late-life neoplastic and degenerative diseases