Cette thèse de doctorat est consacrée à la pensée du philosophe américain Nelson Goodman (1906-1998). Nous y défendons, à l’encontre de la plus grande partie de la critique, une lecture métaphysicienne de son œuvre. Il est démontré que Goodman, dans tous ses travaux, développe une métaphysique technique et méconnue, dont les piliers sont le nominalisme, le pluralisme, le perdurantisme, l’actualisme, et l’universalisme méréologique. Cette lecture permet de réévaluer l’ensemble de la pensée goodmanienne. Elle établit aussi ses liens insoupçonnés avec la métaphysique analytique contemporaine / This PhD dissertation is dedicated to the philosophy of Nelson Goodman (1906-1998). We defend, against most critics, a metaphysical interpretation of Goodman’s works. It will be shown that the latter developed a technical and often overlooked metaphysics, whose pillars are nominalism, pluralism, perdurantism, actualism, and mereological universalism. This reading allows for a critical reevaluation of Goodman’s views. It also brings to light his unexpected links with contemporary analytic metaphysics

Fait de langue omniprésent et multiforme (impliquant des données morpho-syntaxiques et lexicales), la négation constitue véritablement un stylème de la moralistique classique. Focalisation, incidence, forclusion, négation uniceptive, implicite, préfixale, lexématique, problèmes de polarité et de scalarité : le statut central de la négation permet de saisir un positionnement énonciatif commun aux quatre auteurs du corpus autant qu’une prise de position philosophique spécifique à chacun d’eux. L’ambiguïté pragmatique communément associée à la négation est levée, dès lors que l’on admet la possibilité d’une lecture à plusieurs niveaux : la négation descriptive correspond à la représentation traditionnelle du discours moraliste comme une parole solitaire, isolée entre deux blancs typographiques. Mais précisément, lorsqu’on considère cette parole comme un discours adressé, la dimension polémique de la négation apparaît pleinement, plus précisément sa portée contre-doxique et métalinguistique. Les moralistes dénoncent le caractère faussé du discours commun ; ils conçoivent la négation comme un moyen de rompre le lien de référentialité abusif établi par celui-ci entre des concepts moraux et des comportements qui n’ont de vertueux que l’apparence. De l’héritage apophatique, sensible chez Pascal, jusqu’au prénihilisme chamfortien, en passant par l’anthropologie négative de La Rochefoucauld et l’immanentisme anti-artificialiste de la morale chez Vauvenargues, la négation offre une grille de lecture nouvelle pour étudier l’évolution du genre moraliste. / Based on quantitative data, this study shows how essential negation is in the understanding of moralistique as a literary genre that can be identified as such through precise formal elements. I examine many aspects of negation, including the questions of scope, internal and external negations, restricted negation, forclusion, implicit negation, prefixal and lexematic negation and polarity scales. Not only is negation a linguistic scheme (involving various morpho-syntactic as well as lexical patterns) but it also works as a stylistic device which the moralists make a constant and specific use of. Whereas it is commonly held that negation is pragmatically ambiguous, I argue that, in focusing on the moralist as a spectator of society, the critiques have implicitly considered negation to be mostly descriptive. While correct, this interpretation should be qualified. The main aspect of the moralists’ negation rests in its polemical power. The moralists intend to rectify a biased use of words resulting from a false conception of moral values. Therefore, these writers do not say what things are as much as what they are not. From Pascal’s apophatic views, through La Rochefoucauld’s negative anthropology and Vauvenargues’ refusal of artificial morality, to Chamfort’s prenihilistic philosophy, negation appears as a new way to get a better understanding of the evolution of moralistique.

The American poet Susan Howe (1937-present) began her career as a visual artist, but owing to a dearth of information about her early collages it has been difficult to say anything substantive about how they might have shaped her poetic practice. In 2010, she placed her collages on archive. Along with a number of personal interviews with Howe, this heretofore unavailable material has enabled me to consider Howe's subsequent work in a new light and to establish significant links between her early visual aesthetics and the poetics of bibliography, historiography, and elegy for which she is now known. Howe's collages, like her poetry, focus on details that are at risk of vanishing from cultural memory and printed record. For this reason, I argue that her work evinces an 'elegaic materialism', or a way of reading, viewing, and thinking about texts that is attuned to loss. If “history is the record of the winners,” as Howe says, then one way of rescuing marginalized perspectives is by regarding manuscripts as drawings, thereby rescuing the concrete particulars deemed irrelevant by editors and historians. As Howe's late work turned increasingly toward elegy, her early aesthetic contributed to a nuanced poetics of personal loss and to a series of astonishing new formal tropes. The Introduction to this thesis discusses Howe's materialism in the context of current literary theory and textual scholarship. Chapter 1 concerns itself with Howe's art historical context. Chapter 2 analyses a selection of her word-drawings. Chapter 3 considers Howe's transition to poetry. Chapter 4 addresses her turn to archival documents in her middle period. Chapter 5 looks at the influence on Howe of documentary film, especially in connection with the task of representing a lost loved one, and Chapter 6 discusses her two most recent elegies, The Midnight and THAT THIS. A Coda completes the circle by once more considering Howe in the context of the visual arts at the moment she was selected to exhibit at the 2014 Whitney Biennial.

Si nos théories physiques peuvent décrire les traits les plus généraux de la réalité, on sait aussi que pour le faire, elles utilisent le langage des mathématiques. On peut alors légitimement se demander si notre capacité à décrire, sinon la nature intime des objets et phénomènes physiques, du moins les relations et structures qu’ils instancient, ne vient pas de cette application des mathématiques. Dans cette thèse, nous soutenons que les mathématiques sont si efficacement applicables en physique tout simplement parce que la réalité décrite par les physiciens est de nature quantitative. Pour cela, nous proposons d’abord une ontologie des quantités, puis des lois de la nature, qui s’inscrit dans les débats contemporains sur la nature des propriétés (théorie des universaux, théorie des tropes, ou nominalisme), et des lois (régularités, ou relations entre universaux). Ensuite, nous examinons deux sortes d’application des mathématiques : la mathématisation des phénomènes par la mesure, puis la formulation mathématique des équations reliant des grandeurs physiques. Nous montrons alors que les propriétés et les lois doivent être comme notre ontologie les décrit, pour que les mathématiques soient légitimement, et si efficacement, applicables. L’intérêt de ce travail est d’articuler des discussions purement ontologiques (et très anciennes, comme la querelle des universaux) avec des exigences épistémologiques rigoureuses qui émanent de la physique actuelle. Cette articulation est conçue de manière transcendantale, car la nature quantitative de la réalité (des propriétés et des lois) y est défendue comme condition d’applicabilité des mathématiques en physique. / Assuming that our best physical theories succeed in describing the most general features of reality, one can only be struck by the effectiveness of mathematics in physics, and wonder whether our ability to describe, if not the very nature of physical entities, at least their relations and the fundamental structures they enter, does not result from applying mathematics. In this dissertation, we claim that mathematical theories are so effectively applicable in physics merely because physical reality is of quantitative nature. We begin by displaying and supporting an ontology of quantities and laws of nature, in the context of current philosophical debates on the nature of properties (universals, classes of tropes, or even nominalistic resemblance classes) and of laws (as mere regularities or as relations among universals). Then we consider two main ways mathematics are applied: first, the way measurement mathematizes physical phenomena, second, the way mathematical concepts are used to formulate equations linking physical quantities. Our reasoning has eventually a transcendental flavor: properties and laws of nature must be as described by the ontology we first support with purely a priori arguments, if mathematical theories are to be legitimately and so effectively applied in measurements and equations. What could make this work valuable is its attempt to link purely ontological (and often very ancient) discussions with rigorous epistemological requirements of modern and contemporary physics. The quantitative nature of being (properties and laws) is thus supported on a transcendental basis: as a necessary condition for mathematics to be legitimately applicable in physics.

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Ce mémoire propose une étude critique des chapitres 14 à 17 de la première partie de la Summa logicae de Guillaume d’Ockham (v. 1285-1347), philosophe et théologien du bas Moyen-Âge. Ces quatre chapitres présentent la position d’Ockham dans la querelle des universaux, débat intellectuel marqué qui a opposé plusieurs écoles de pensée du milieu universitaire médiéval. Pour sa part, Ockham défend une position nominaliste selon laquelle 1. tout ce qui existe est de soi singulier; et 2. les universaux, ces concepts uniquement accessibles par l’esprit, n’existent pas. S’opposant au réalisme, Ockham s’y adresse notamment à l’un de ses collègues franciscain, Jean Duns Scot (v. 1266-1308). Ce mémoire a pour objectif d’identifier d’abord les mérites de la position nominaliste face au réalisme quant au statut des universaux et à la philosophie du langage et ensuite les tensions internes au nominalisme ockhamiste lorsque nous tentons de concilier celui-ci à l’ontologie et à la théologie catholique. Il s’agira donc de montrer que l’antiréalisme parvient à défaire le réalisme dans une perspective logique, mais que certains problèmes demeurent lorsque nous l’analysons dans une perspective ontologique ou théologique. Mots-clés : Guillaume d’Ockham, philosophie médiévale, Moyen-Âge, universaux, Jean Duns Scot, scolastique, ontologie, théologie catholique, logique, sémantique / This thesis proposes a critical study of chapters 14 to 17 of the first part of William of Ockham’s Summa logicae, a philosopher and theologian of the late Middle Ages (c. 1285-1347). These four chapters present Ockham's position in the problem of universals, a marked intellectual debate that opposed several philosophical and theological schools of the medieval academic world. For his part, Ockham defends a nominalist position according to which 1. everything that exists is inherently singular; and 2. universals, those concepts only accessible to the mind, do not exist. Opposing realism, Ockham addresses one of his Franciscan colleagues in particular, John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308). This thesis’s first aim is to identify the merits of a nominalist position vis-à-vis realism in regard to the status of universals, and second, to mark the tensions internal to Ockham’s nominalistic approach in its conciliation with ontology and catholic theology. It will thus be shown that antirealism succeeds in defeating realism from a logical perspective, but that some problems remain when we analyse it from an ontological or theological perspective. Keywords: William of Ockham, medieval philosophy, Middle Ages, universals, John Duns Scotus, scholastic, ontology, catholic theology, logic, semantics.

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[pt] Esta tese é um estudo sobre a teoria dos símbolos de Nelson Goodman. Abordamos o tema da relação entre mundo e linguagem a partir da teoria da arte deste autor. O principal objetivo da tese é mostrar como Goodman concilia uma teoria referencial das linguagens da arte com a tese da construção de mundos através do uso de sí­mbolos. Em primeiro lugar buscamos explicitar como essa teoria da linguagem permite pensar a representação sem os compromissos metafí­sicos tradicionalmente associados à  ela - quer dizer sem a implicação de espelhamento da realidade pela linguagem. Em segundo lugar, dentro do quadro nominalista da filosofia de Goodman, procuramos apresentar a referência - em seus vários modos - como uma relação entre objetos reais. Por último, mostramos como os mundos da linguagem tornam-se mundos reais pelo processo de instauração destes mundos dentro da cultura. Ao serem instaurados os sí­mbolos tornam-se passí­veis de serem experimentados e é essa experiência que constitui aquilo que chamamos mundo real. / [en] This thesis is a study of Nelson Goodman s theory of symbols. We approach the question of the relationship between world and language starting from Goodman s theory of art. The main objective of the thesis is to show how Goodman reconciles a referencial theory of the languages of art with the thesis of the construction of worlds through the use of symbols. First, we try to make explicit how this theory of language allows us to treat the notion of representation without the metaphysical commitments traditionally associated with it - that is, without the implication of mirroring of reality by language. Secondly, within the nominalistic framework of Goodman s philosophy, we discuss reference - in its many aspects - as a relation among real objects. Finally, we show how the worlds of language become real worlds by the process of implementation of these worlds within the culture. Symbols can be experienced by being implemented, and it is this experience that constitutes what we call the real world.

Contemporary philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright (b. 1944) has raised many an eyebrow with her books How the Laws of Physics Lie (1983) and The Dappled World (1999), among others. The primary task of this dissertation is to link her philosophy with that of Charles S. Peirce (1839–1914)—a link that includes Duns Scotus. My focus is especially on the criticism Peirce would have of Cartwright, and on the philosophical support he can offer her. The question is this: Given her stated philosophy of science, to what else must Cartwright be philosophically committed? This includes discussions of metaphysics, scholastic realism, laws of nature, and the very possibility of science. There are many striking similarities between Peirce and Cartwright, but I argue that he sees further and deeper into the metaphysical implications of her views on science. / Graduate

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