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Cette étude vise à démontrer que les propos des protagonistes libertins de Sade tendent toujours vers une démarche autarcique, qu’on peut associer à une volonté exacerbée d’autonomie. Pour faire état de ce postulat, nous examinerons les convictions naturalistes et matérialistes de Sade, qui le poussent à critiquer si fortement le système religieux, qu’il considère comme une antinomique au geste de libération entamé par les philosophes. C’est que Sade est radical par son matérialisme et par son athéisme. Lorsqu’il se prononce quant au mouvement prioritaire de la nature, en faisant d’elle une force destructrice et meurtrière, Sade annihile toute possibilité d’un objet absolu et, par le fait même, de la possibilité du bonheur dans un cadre moral. Nous montrerons que c’est ce qui le force à fonder les conditions de possibilités du bonheur sur l’individualité, en ce que le plus grand plaisir est un choc issu de l’acte criminel. Influencé par le libertinage, Sade examine les conditions de possibilités du plaisir absolu, de la jouissance, comme une dernière tentative d’adéquation avec le monde. La démarche est donc complexe, ardue et interminable. Devant la difficulté de faire état d’un monde qui se conforme à ses préceptes, Sade est forcé de recourir à la communauté close, qu’on associera à l’autarcie. Cette société ne respecte pourtant pas le formalisme immoral dont on l’accuse, bien qu’elle soit souvent associée à un prosélytisme pour le despotisme. / This study aims to demonstrate that Sade’s libertine protagonists tend towards an autarchic approach, which can be associated with an exacerbated desire for autonomy. To demonstrate this premise, we will examine Sade's naturalistic and materialistic convictions, which lead him to so strongly criticize the religious system. To demonstrate this postulate, we will examine Sade's naturalistic and materialist convictions, which lead him to so strongly criticize the religious system, which he sees as an antithesis to the gesture of liberation initiated by philosophers. When he speaks out about the movement of nature, making it a primarily destructive and murderous force, Sade annihilates all possibility of an absolute object and, therefore, of the possibility of happiness in a moral framework. We will show that this is what forces him to base the conditions of happiness on individuality, in that the greatest pleasures come from a shock resulting from criminal acts. Patently influenced by libertinism, Sade is brought to examine the conditions of possibility of absolute pleasure as a last attempt at equilibrium with the world. The process is therefore complex, arduous and unending. Faced with the difficulty of describing a world that conforms to its precepts, Sade is forced to resort to the closed community, to autarky, that however does not respect the immoral formalism of which he is accused, although it is sometimes akin to proselytize for despotism.

Entrepreneurship is a major economic force and a salient personal behavior through which individuals achieve personal goals. A better understanding of entrepreneurial intention is crucial to fostering entrepreneurial behavior since intention precedes behavior. Considering the importance of the concepts of social and commercial entrepreneurs, the study examined whether social and commercial entrepreneurial intentions are motivated by a similar set of attitudes and personal values. It provided an answer to why and how an individual intends to become either a social or a commercial entrepreneur.To understand motivational similarities and differences between social and commercial entrepreneurial intention, the conceptual framework relying on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Basic Human Values Theory was proposed. In the developed model, the value set of entrepreneurial intentions is differentiated and categorized through Schwartz’s personal values and materialism. And perceived behavioral control and attitude towards entrepreneurship, two constructs capturing attitudinal differences, were used as two main explanatory variables with subjective norms (SN) as a moderator to represent its motivating power on attitudes, values, and intentions. Analyses of survey data collected from 1029 participants demonstrated a significant direct effect of attitude towards entrepreneurship, perceived behavioral control, self-enhancement values, and materialism on both entrepreneurial intentions. Self-transcendence affects social entrepreneurial intention significantly. Further, in the presence of positive subjective norms, a positive change in perceived behavioral control led to the development of both entrepreneurial intentions. And in the presence of openness to change values, a positive change in attitude toward commercial entrepreneurship motivated the development of commercial entrepreneurial intention. The remaining personal values negatively moderated the relationship between attitudinal components and entrepreneurial intentions. In the presence of materialism, a positive change in attitudinal components led to a negative intention to pursue entrepreneurship as a career. The corroborating evidence of the effect of materialism on social entrepreneurial intention development supported the underlying economic motive of social entrepreneurs. SPSS hierarchical regression technique tested proposed hypotheses using data collected from student subjects and the MTurk sample.

This essay tries to, in a post humanist approach, answer questions regarding the agency of materials, things and art in relation to the body; the bodily experience of art. This is also an essay about an artistic practise that has developed during three years in a context where the craft skill and knowledge about certain materials have been in focus while the artist herself has been interested in a more emotional and theoretical approach to the materials and what they do. The text is a result of what happens when those two different ways of relating to art and craft are encountered.

While there has been a relatively large number of studies conducted to investigate associations between financial problems and marital outcomes, little research has been done to examine possible relationships between materialistic attitudes, perceived financial problems, and marital outcomes. This study has been designed to examine a conceptual model linking materialism, perceived financial problems, and relationship satisfaction among married couples. Data obtained from 600 married heterosexual couples who took the RELATE test fit the model well. Findings indicate that wives' materialism is negatively related to husbands' marital satisfaction. Husbands' and wives' materialism is positively related with increased perception of financial problems which is in turn negatively associated with marital satisfaction. As expected, income was positively related to marital satisfaction, however, income had no relation to perception of financial problems. Materialism had a stronger impact on perception of financial problems than income. Distinct gender findings indicate that although husbands' variables had no significant relation with wives' outcomes, wives' variables were significantly related to husbands' outcomes. Specifically, wives' materialism is positively related with husbands' increased perception of financial problems, and wives' perceived financial problems is negatively associated with husbands' marital satisfaction. These findings support the notion that materialism is indirectly related to marital satisfaction, and in some ways directly related to marital satisfaction.

Using data from 584 individuals identifying themselves as married, the purpose of this study was to examine how personal and relational characteristics were linked to financial attitudes, knowledge, and capabilities and financial well-being using the family financial socialization framework (Gudmunson & Danes, 2011). Supporting the first two hypotheses, marital quality, materialism, age, and household income were found to directly predict financial prudence as a measure of financial attitudes, knowledge, and capabilities and to indirectly predict retirement savings rate as a measure of financial well-being. Financial prudence supported the first hypotheses as well by directly predicting retirement savings rate. Education also supported the first hypothesis, in that it directly predicted an individual's measure of financial prudence. In support of the third hypothesis, education was associated with retirement savings rate. Results suggest the importance of considering both financial and non-financial predictors of saving for retirement.

Thing theorist Bill Brown writes that “the thing names less an object than a particular subject-object relation.” This article examines the subject-object relation between African things and African bodies in Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's first novel, Purple Hibiscus. While the main character, Kambili, eventually learns to assimilate Western Catholicism into her Nigerian reality, her Christian fundamentalist father, Eugene, uses Catholicism to justify his self-hating destruction of African things and bodies. This article argues that both reactions are rooted in the characters' ability or inability to see African material things, including both objects and bodies, as autonomous subjects. Adichie's novel demonstrates that religious syncretism centered in an ethics of things is a viable, fruitful reaction to the colonizers' religion, and that religious practice can be healthily enacted through the medium of things and bodies.

Vårt syfte med studien är att undersöka och analysera samtalsämnen som kommer upp under bildskapande aktiviteter i förskolan, samt relationen mellan barn-bildmaterial och förskollärare-bildmaterial inspirerade av ett sociomateriellt perspektiv. Då den forskning vi läst mest handlar om den färdiga produkten inom bildskapande aktiviteter vill vi inrikta oss på samtal under bildskapande aktiviteter. Detta gör vi inspirerade av ett sociomateriellt perspektiv då vi inte sett detta tidigare. För att analysera använder vi oss förutom det sociomateriella perspektivet även av begreppen relationell materialism och aktörsskap. Vi använder oss av kvalitativ metod i vår observation då vi har intresse för olika innebörder, tolkningar och meningsskapande som människor i ett specifikt sammanhang är aktörer i. Det vi har sett i våra observationer är att samtalen mest handlar om det konkreta bildskapandet. De vanligaste aktörerna var samspelare vilket stärker synen om att bildaktiviteter är en viktig arena för samspel. Vår slutsats är att vuxnas närvaro och delaktighet i bildskapande verksamhet tillför inspiration och möjlighet till utveckling, men förutsatt att förskollärarna har kunskap och eget intresse.

In this paper, I examine if strong artificial intelligence can be achieved or not. Can machines have a mind, be conscious, think and have subjective experiences, just like a human? I analyze David Chalmers arguments supporting the possibility of strong AI and conclude that his emulation argument and principle of organizational invariance is not a sufficient condition for strong AI. Instead, I defend the thesis that life is a necessary condition for any conscious agent, human or machine (or other), to have a mind, be able to think and have subjective experiences. I revisit the ideas of the soul and of vitalism and the need for a life force energy, an élan vital as introduced by Henri Bergson. In the investigation of life I also examine if strong artificial life can be achieved or not, since this would be a prerequisite for strong AI.

This study turns to what is for many an everyday item – yogurt – as a critical zone observatory, a synergistic, place-based laboratory which aims to integrate heterogenous representations of planetary phenomena as they are registered at a common surface. Yogurt has an impressive cultural endurance largely derived from its prominence in various paradigms of health. The product has culturally endured in another sense: as a common cultural medium where humans and microbes have met for generations. This study begins with a profile of yogurt as most encounter it today to consider how normative notions of health interface with the temporal and spatial imaginaries entailed in commodity geographies. Commoditized yogurt is characterized by a low and limited microbial biodiversity compared to yogurts produced outside of the commodity context. Yogurt is therefore presented as a micro case study to consider modes by which we sense and valuate ecological phenomena beyond the perceptible surface, how such sens-abilities intersect models of health, and to what effect. To trace a history of yogurt along these contours, I introduce it as a particular kind of artefact: a global object. As an object of environmental history, I define a global object as a global commodity with a high potential to be re-localized, and therefore with a high potential to re-shape commodity geographies. However, this trajectory is contingent upon framing yogurt as a critical zone observatory – a site where global phenomena like human-microbial interaction may become familiar and intimate. Guided by new materialist theory, I weave together historical and ethnographic case studies from the following consortium: resident yogurt bacteria, artisanal yogurt producers and home fermenters, a mystical immunologist, and an 11th century linguistic scholar. Through these perspectives, I both sketch and apply a framework for de-centered, interspecies histories of cultural (re)production through an extended metaphor of biofilm: the coagulative bacterial structure giving yogurt its characteristic texture. In so doing I provide a re-articulation of “the probiotic” as an integrative case of human and more-than-human health. The study concludes by directing these implications towards a consideration of aesthetic engagement by displaying how fermentation practice may enliven matters of re-diversification and re-localization.