The aim of this paper is to use a cultural-hermeneutic methodology to investigate how meaning is constructed in a contemporary social situation (co-culturally) and to suggest the Christian concept incurvatus in se as a critical theological resource (counter-culturally). Central to this account is how to think theologically in a secular situation. It could also be understood as a habermasian translation of a christian experience of the human problem as curved into themselves (homo incurvatus in se) into a existential language for a (possibly) universal experience. I liken this curvedness to the pervasive individualism of today’s society and argue that meaning-making based on the idea of individual freedom can lead to a lack of meaning and existential emptiness.  To arrive at a discussion of incurvatus in se as a theologically critical resource for the study of existential emptiness, I analyze film, parenting and worship to get an idea of what a meaning-making process can look like in these examples. The result of this analysis suggests that by viewing these activities as something that points beyond themselves, rather than something that only reflects the subjective, they can play a meaning-making role.  In light of this result and the interpretation of the situation, I propose a concept of humans as homo incurvatus in se as contrast to an idealization of individual freedom and selfrealization. Overall, this study develops a excurvatus ex se approach that is constituted by conscious and critical meaning-making and argues further that a modified understanding of the human problem as curved into themselves can serve as an incentive, or even a primus motor, to seek meaning outside the subjective in a responsible way.

In this work, we propose a specialization of the inductive incremental coverability algorithm that solves alternating finite automata emptiness problem. We experiment with various design decisions, analyze them and prove their correctness. Even though the problem itself is PSpace-complete, we are focusing on making the decision of emptiness computationally feasible for some practical classes of applications. We have obtained interesting comparative results against state-of-the-art algorithms, especially in comparison with antichain-based algorithms.

De nombreux critiques avaient détecté chez Jean Giono (1895-1970) la présence d’un vide affectant non seulement le sujet de son oeuvre mais aussi sa poétique. L’ennui, cette « brusque et radicale conscience du rien », le mensonge qui « reconstruit un monde au-dessus de l’abîme » (R. Ricatte) ou bien encore le « travail des sensations » vécu comme un « barrage contre le vide » (S. Vignes) sont des effets parmi d’autres d’un manque et d’une absence déterminante. Le vide explique aussi l’anonymat et les lacunes biographiques de ses personnages, les nombreux blancs et silences, les ellipses narratives et sémantiques, les césures et les discontinuités narratives... Il ne suffisait cependant pas de reconnaître l’existence d’un vide, d’un manque originaire dans cette oeuvre. Il fallait encore connaître sa nature. De quoi le monde gionien est-il vide ? La réponse se trouve paradoxalement dans ce que l’auteur s’est efforcé de ne jamais décrire ou plutôt dans ce qu’il a toujours décrit « en blanc » (J. Giono). En nous penchant sur ce qui, dans ses romans, était toujours décrit sans l’être, nous nous sommes aperçus que rien ne manquait davantage que Dieu. Dieu brille par son absence dans son oeuvre. Il est celui qu’il se refuse à décrire positivement car il est pour lui « le néant absolu », « l’absence de tout » (J. Giono). La théologie imprimée dans ses romans est une ‘‘théologie blanche’’. Sa vision du monde et de l’homme est toujours, et très délibérément, sans dieu/Dieu. Comme le dit le narrateur du Déserteur à propos des peintures pieuses et des ex-voto de son personnage : « il n’y a pas de dieu dans tout ça ». En analysant l’oeuvre gionienne à la lumière de cette absence, quatre ensembles de romans se sont dégagés selon un ordre qui dépasse les distinctions classiques établies, d’une part, entre une première et une seconde « manières », d’autre part, entre le « Cycle du Hussard » et les « Chroniques romanesques ». Ces quatre ensembles romanesques sont autant d’itinéraires de l’homme sans dieu/Dieu. Nous avons distingué celui de « l’humanisme païen », celui de l’héroïsme sublime, celui tragique voire tragi-comique des hommes condamnés à la chute, celui enfin des « âmes fortes » qui veulent se faire dieux en l’absence de dieu/Dieu. L’immense « chasse au bonheur » dont l’oeuvre romanesque de Giono est l’expression a rapport avec le ciel, un ciel sans dieu/Dieu. / Many critics spotted in Giono’s novels (1895-1970) the presence of a kind of emptiness which affected both his main topic and his poetry. Boredom « this sudden and drastic consciousness of nothingness », lie « which rebuilts a world on top of despair » (R. Ricatte) or « the work of sensations » (S. Vignes) felt as « a barrier against nothingness » reflect a void and a defining absence among other effects. This emptiness gives an explanation to his characters’ anonymity and gaps in biography, to the many gaps and silences, narrative and semantic ellipses, narrative caesura and discontinuities. Acknowledging the existence of a void, of an original emptiness, was not enough, its specific nature must be defined. What is missing in Giono’s world ? What is his world made of ? Paradoxically speaking the answer lies in what the author struggled not to describe or more precisely in what he described « en blanc » (J. Giono). Analysing what is described in his novels without really being described, I have realized that the One who is missing is God. God is conspicuous by his absence in his works. He is the one he refuses to describe positively as he is « the absolute absence ». The theology expressed is a ‘‘white theology’’. His view of the world and his vision of mankind, are always and in their tiniest details a vision without God. As the narrator of Le Déserteur puts it when he alludes to his main character’s votive offerings : « God is absent from all this. » Studying Giono’s works in the light of this absence, four collections of novels emerged according to an uncommon classification : on the one hand between a first and a second « manner » and on the other hand between « le Cycle du Hussard » and « les Chroniques romanesques ». These four collections of novels are routes taken by mankind without God. I have set apart : « a pagan humanist » route, a « sublime heroic » route, the tragic if ever tragicomic route of mankind doomed to their downfall, the last one the route of « strong souls » who strive to turn gods without God. The huge « quest for happiness » which is at the heart of Giono’s novels is related to heaven but a heaven without God.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In this work we use and develop Riemann-Hilbert techniques to study the asymptotic behavior of structured determinants. In chapter one we will review the main underlying definitions and ideas which will be extensively used throughout the thesis. Chapter two is devoted to the asymptotic analysis of Hankel determinants with Laguerre-type and Jacobi-type potentials with Fisher-Hartwig singularities. In chapter three we will propose a Riemann-Hilbert problem for Toeplitz+Hankel determinants. We will then analyze this Riemann-Hilbert problem for a certain family of Toeplitz and Hankel symbols. In Chapter four we will study the asymptotics of a certain bordered-Toeplitz determinant which is related to the next-to-diagonal correlations of the anisotropic Ising model. The analysis is based upon relating the bordered-Toeplitz determinant to the solution of the Riemann-Hilbert problem associated to pure Toeplitz determinants. Finally in chapter ve we will study the emptiness formation probability in the XXZ-spin 1/2 Heisenberg chain, or equivalently, the asymptotic analysis of the associated Fredholm determinant.

This paper examines the role played by death in the philosophy of Nishitani Keiji, through the nondual logic of contradictory identity developed by his teacher and founder of the Kyotoschool of philosophy, Nishida Kitarō. I explore Nishitani’s understanding of how Nothingness, nihility, through our awareness of death penetrates and nullifies existence itself, how the irreality of all being comes to the fore to make being itself unreal. The nullifying nothingness of nihility, however, is still nothingness represented as a something; it is a reified nothing, defined as the antithesis to being and thus still seen as a corollary of being itself. A truly absolute nothingness, what Nishitani calls Śūnyatā, emptiness, must be a nothingness so devoid of being as to not even be nothing; it must be absolutely nothing at all, and thus nothing else than being itself. The final chapter of my paper seeks to apply this nondual understanding of being and nothingness to the question of death itself; to understand the ontological meaning of death - the passage from being to non-being - when being and non-being have been one from the very beginning. The paper also seeks to blur the lines between what has traditionally been considered philosophy and religion, using the thinking of the Kyoto school to point to the deeper ties between the two in the borderland that is buddhist philosophy.

Au début du nouveau millénaire, aujourd’hui même, nous entendons sans cesse de part en part des clameurs sur la lutte entre les philosophies et entre la science et la philosophie, et des nouvelles de la fin de la philosophie au pireC’est pourquoi nous devons rechercher une Science radicale et universelle sans hiérarchie, ni primauté sur les autres. Or, dans les philosophies de la Différence contemporaines, l’autorité de la Différe(a)nce comme l’invariant philosophique s’installe subrepticement dans l’immanence qui retombe dans la transcendance métaphysique. Le cercle vicieux de la dualité transcendante y continue au nom du retour éternel, de la répétition, du chiasme du logos, et puis du Vide. Il semble que l’errance de la pensée contemporaine nous ramène à l’absurdité aporétique. En occurrence, Laruelle F. nous démontre une pensée du Milieu apaisant la dépression et le tourbillonnement de la pensée contemporaine. La non-philosophie dont le Milieu immanental parvient à la Science générique plus universelle comme avant-première. Du coup, cette Science générique forgée de la non-philosophie est sobre, mais libre à la force de l’immanence de l’Un ou/et de la Vision-en-Un. Par ailleurs, par les recherches et les expérimentations de la pensée du Milieu en Asie : le Vide (空性 Gongxing, śūnyatā) dans la théorie de Chungguan (中觀 Madhyamaka) comme la Vision-en-Milieu de Nāgārjuna, le Zhenru (眞如 tathatā) de Weishi (唯識 vijñāna–mātráta) comme l’Un et la Vision-en-UN, et puis le Yixin ermen (一心二門) comme la Dualité unilatérale dans Daichengqixin lun, nous pensons plus profondément au Milieu immanent et transcendantal comme Milieu-en-Un. Si bien que nous pouvons atteindre une Science du Milieu rigoureuse en vertu de la rencontre de la Science générique et des pensées du Milieu en Asie. Par conséquent, nous pratiquerons la Science du Milieu universelle à travers la Détermination de l’Homme en-dernière-instance ou de l’Homme-en-personne. La Détermination-en-dernière-instance consiste dans le Milieu-en-Un, la Dualité unilatérale de la Vision-en-Milieu et de la Vision-en-Un, ou de la Vision-en-Milieu-en-Un. / As the new millennium dawns, there is a growing debate about the conflict between philosophies and between science and philosophy, and even about the end of philosophy itself. For this reason, we must seek out a radical and universal science that does not claim hierarchical importance or primacy over the others. Yet in the contemporary philosophies of Difference, the overriding importance of Difference as the philosophical invariant finds its place in the theory of immanence and, in juxtaposition, metaphysical transcendence. The vicious circle of the transcendent duality persists here in the name of the eternal recurrence, repetition, the chiasmus of the logos, and Emptiness. It would appear that the meanderings of contemporary thinking about these matters is leading us towards aporetic absurdity. In this regard, F. Laruelle demonstrates one thought of the Middle, which alleviates the depression and chaos of contemporary thinking. (Non-) philosophy, such as the immanental Middle, manages to make Generic science more universal as an avant-première. Generic science carved out from non-philosophy is sober, but free from the power of immanence of One or immanence of the Vision-in-One. Besides, through the research and experimentation of the thinking of the Middle in Asia – Emptiness (空性 Gongxing, śūnyatā) in the theory of Chungguan (中觀 Madhyamaka), the Vision-in-Middle of Nāgārjuna, Zhenru (眞如 tathatā) of Weishi (唯識 vijñāna–mātráta), such as the One or the Vision-in-One, Yixin ermen (一心二門) and the Unilateral Duality in Daichengqixin lun – we now consider more clearly the immanent and transcendental Middle as the Middle-in-One. This enables us to attain a rigorous science of the Middle thanks to the coming together of Generic Science and the thinking of the Middle in Asia. As a result, we will be able to practice the universal Science of the Middle through the Determination of the man in-the-last-instance or the Man-in-person. The Determination-in-the-last-instance takes on board the notions of the Middle-in-One, the Unilateral Duality of the Vision-in-Middle and of the Vision-in-One, or of the Vision-in-Middle-in-One.

This work studies new algorithms and data structures that are useful in the context of program verification. As computers have become more and more ubiquitous in our modern societies, an increasingly large number of computer-based systems are considered safety-critical. Such systems are characterized by the fact that a failure or a bug (computer error in the computing jargon) could potentially cause large damage, whether in loss of life, environmental damage, or economic damage. For safety-critical systems, the industrial software engineering community increasingly calls for using techniques which provide some formal assurance that a certain piece of software is correct.<p>One of the most successful program verification techniques is model checking, in which programs are typically abstracted by a finite-state machine. After this abstraction step, properties (typically in the form of some temporal logic formula) can be checked against the finite-state abstraction, with the help of automated tools. Alternating automata play an important role in this context, since many temporal logics on words and trees can be efficiently translated into those automata. This property allows for the reduction of model checking to automata-theoretic questions and is called the automata-theoretic approach to model checking. In this work, we provide three novel approaches for the analysis (emptiness checking) of alternating automata over finite and infinite words. First, we build on the successful framework of antichains to devise new algorithms for LTL satisfiability and model checking, using alternating automata. These algorithms combine antichains with reduced ordered binary decision diagrams in order to handle the exponentially large alphabets of the automata generated by the LTL translation. Second, we develop new abstraction and refinement algorithms for alternating automata, which combine the use of antichains with abstract interpretation, in order to handle ever larger instances of alternating automata. Finally, we define a new symbolic data structure, coined lattice-valued binary decision diagrams that is particularly well-suited for the encoding of transition functions of alternating automata over symbolic alphabets. All of these works are supported with empirical evaluations that confirm the practical usefulness of our approaches. / Ce travail traite de l'étude de nouveaux algorithmes et structures de données dont l'usage est destiné à la vérification de programmes. Les ordinateurs sont de plus en plus présents dans notre vie quotidienne et, de plus en plus souvent, ils se voient confiés des tâches de nature critique pour la sécurité. Ces systèmes sont caractérisés par le fait qu'une panne ou un bug (erreur en jargon informatique) peut avoir des effets potentiellement désastreux, que ce soit en pertes humaines, dégâts environnementaux, ou économiques. Pour ces systèmes critiques, les concepteurs de systèmes industriels prônent de plus en plus l'usage de techniques permettant d'obtenir une assurance formelle de correction.<p><p>Une des techniques de vérification de programmes les plus utilisées est le model checking, avec laquelle les programmes sont typiquement abstraits par une machine a états finis. Après cette phase d'abstraction, des propriétés (typiquement sous la forme d'une formule de logique temporelle) peuvent êtres vérifiées sur l'abstraction à espace d'états fini, à l'aide d'outils de vérification automatisés. Les automates alternants jouent un rôle important dans ce contexte, principalement parce que plusieurs logiques temporelle peuvent êtres traduites efficacement vers ces automates. Cette caractéristique des automates alternants permet de réduire le model checking des logiques temporelles à des questions sur les automates, ce qui est appelé l'approche par automates du model checking. Dans ce travail, nous étudions trois nouvelles approches pour l'analyse (le test du vide) desautomates alternants sur mots finis et infinis. Premièrement, nous appliquons l'approche par antichaînes (utilisée précédemment avec succès pour l'analyse d'automates) pour obtenir de nouveaux algorithmes pour les problèmes de satisfaisabilité et du model checking de la logique temporelle linéaire, via les automates alternants.Ces algorithmes combinent l'approche par antichaînes avec l'usage des ROBDD, dans le but de gérer efficacement la combinatoire induite par la taille exponentielle des alphabets d'automates générés à partir de LTL. Deuxièmement, nous développons de nouveaux algorithmes d'abstraction et raffinement pour les automates alternants, combinant l'usage des antichaînes et de l'interprétation abstraite, dans le but de pouvoir traiter efficacement des automates de grande taille. Enfin, nous définissons une nouvelle structure de données, appelée LVBDD (Lattice-Valued Binary Decision Diagrams), qui permet un encodage efficace des fonctions de transition des automates alternants sur alphabets symboliques. Tous ces travaux ont fait l'objet d'implémentations et ont été validés expérimentalement. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

La pensée du vide anime les spiritualités de l’Extrême-Orient ; vide du taoïsme, vide du bouddhisme et leur rencontre dans des synthèses diverses. Elle est au cœur de l’art des lettres. Les artistes contemporains chinois ont reçu l’influence de l’art moderne occidental et, depuis une trentaine d’années de l’art contemporain ; certains d’entre eux ont su interroger cette matière nouvelle à l’aide d’une pensée clairement nourrie par la tradition. Loin d’être synonyme d’absence, le vide dans ces démarches rejoint une acceptation d’un réel lui-même soumis à la respiration du monde. Huang Yongping et Cai Guoqiang offrent deux exemples d’une approche où la question de l’identité et du dialogue avec l’Occident trouve son dépassement dans une stratégie récusant le dualisme qui prévaut habituellement dans ce genre de débat. Le monde occidental a été pour sa part fasciné depuis des siècles par l’art et par la pensée de l’Extrême-Orient. Le vide y a souvent pris les couleurs du néant dans un sens négatif (Hegel, Schopenhauer et Nietzsche). D’autres sources cependant sont venues enrichir l’ouverture à cette pensée. On ne citera ici que l'inspiration du bouddhisme zen si importante dans l'après-guerre (les publications récentes de Jacquelynn Baas, de Helen Westgeest et des auteurs rassemblés à l'occasion de l'exposition américaine The Third Mind en témoignent). Les artistes que j'ai retenus ici : Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein, Robert Irwin, ont chacun un rapport original avec ce corpus d’images, de notions et d’expériences sans ignorer des apports proprement occidentaux. / Eastern spirituality is driven by thought about emptiness : that of Taoism and of Buddhism and their coming together in various syntheses. It is at the heart of the art of scholars. Contemporary Chinese artists have been influenced by Western modern art and, for the last thirty years, by contemporary art. Some of these artists have succeeded in using thought nourished by tradition in order to examine this new field. Far from being synonymous with absence, emptiness in these processes corresponds to an acceptance of a reality itself subordinated to the breathing of the world. Huang Yongping and Cai Guoqiang provide two examples of an approach in which the questions of identity and of dialogue with the West find its overcoming in a strategy disclaiming the dualism which usually prevails in this kind of debate. The Western world has been fascinated by the art and thought of the East for centuries. Emptiness has often been treated as nothingness in a negative sense (Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche). Other sources, however, have made us more open to the thought about emptiness. The inspiration of Zen Buddhism is only one example : recent publications by Jacquelynn Baas, Helen Westgeest and the authors gathered together by the American exhibition The Third Mind, all bear witness to its importance in the post-war period. The artists that I have selected here, Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein and Robert Irwin, each have an original relationship with this corpus of images, concepts and experiences without ignoring the specifically Western contributions.

<div><div>In this work we use and develop Riemann-Hilbert techniques to study the asymptotic behavior of structured determinants. In chapter one we will review the main underlying</div><div>definitions and ideas which will be extensively used throughout the thesis. Chapter two is devoted to the asymptotic analysis of Hankel determinants with Laguerre-type and Jacobi-type potentials with Fisher-Hartwig singularities. In chapter three we will propose a Riemann-Hilbert problem for Toeplitz+Hankel determinants. We will then analyze this Riemann-Hilbert problem for a certain family of Toeplitz and Hankel symbols. In Chapter four we will study the asymptotics of a certain bordered-Toeplitz determinant which is related to the next-to-diagonal correlations of the anisotropic Ising model. The analysis is based upon relating the bordered-Toeplitz determinant to the solution of the Riemann-Hilbert problem associated to pure Toeplitz determinants. Finally in chapter ve we will study the emptiness formation probability in the XXZ-spin 1/2 Heisenberg chain, or equivalently, the asymptotic analysis of the associated Fredholm determinant.</div></div>

[pt] A partir da leitura de duas casas vizinhas no Butantã, na cidade de São Paulo, como um conjunto – uma casa bandeirante restaurada em 1954 pelo Sphan (Serviço do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional) e transformada em museu como parte das comemorações do IV centenário da cidade, e a casa que o arquiteto Paulo Mendes da Rocha construiu para si entre 1964 e 1967 – busca-se entender, através da dimensão material, construtiva e tátil da arquitetura, questões de escala continental que transpassam de um tempo ao outro; não por acaso dois momentos fundamentais para o estabelecimento das fronteiras nacionais, a partir do litoral atlântico para dentro do continente americano. Olhando simultaneamente para essas duas casas icônicas da história da arquitetura paulistana, construídas lado a lado e em uma mesma cota, é possível estabelecer associações entre as ideias de habitar que elas representam, e, na arquitetura, manifestações da construção de um território– visível não só nas duas casas, como também no plano comum que as atravessa. Uma terra batida que guarda expressões dos caminhos, dos meandros, da topografia transformada e recriada pela ação humana; t(T)erra que foi sendo minerada, escavada e revirada para caber em algum lugar no intervalo entre esses dois gestos; entre as duas casas, o Butantã. / [en] From the analysis of two neighbouring houses in the Butantã neighbourhood, in the outskirts of the metropolis of São Paulo, as a set - a Bandeirante house restored in 1954 by Sphan (National Historical and Artistic Heritage Service) and transformed into a museum as part of the celebrations of the IV centenary of the city, and the house that the architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha built for himself between 1964 and 1967 – the aim is to understand, mainly through the material, constructive and tactile dimensions of architecture, how issues of continental scale may cross from one time to another; not by chance two fundamental moments in the establishment of national borders, from the Atlantic coast to the interior of the American continent. Looking simultaneously at these two iconic houses when considering the history of São Paulo s architecture, built side by side and on the same level, it is possible to establish associations between the ideas of inhabiting that they represent, and, in their architecture, manifestations of the construction of a territory – visible not only in the two houses, but also in the common plane that traverses them. A beaten earth that carries expressions of the paths, the meanders, the topography transformed and recreated by human action; e(E)arth that was mined, excavated and turned over to fit somewhere in the interval between these two gestures; in between the two houses, Butantã.