One of Heidegger’s enduring concerns was to develop an original meditation on the meaning of the present. Integral to this attempt is his critique of the understanding of the bein...

This paper undertakes an in-depth examination of the intriguing argument for the existential import of negative propositions by the fifteenth-century Ottoman scholar Hatibzâde Mehmed (d. 1496) and the counterarguments by his disciple, Taşköprizâde Kâsım (d. 1513). It argues that this discussion is a significant example of Ottoman scholars engaging in long-standing disputes concerning the nature and ontological ground of negative propositions, which date back to Plato and Aristotle. It is also intended to underline the need for considering not only logic (...) texts but also works primarily associated with other disciplines in order to attain a comprehensive picture of logical discussions in the post-classical period of Islamic thought. (shrink)

What is the so-called “question of ontology?” Is the question of ontology genuinely a question about “categories” (Lowe 2006), “structure” (Sider 2011), “existence” (Thomasson 2015), or rather “reality” (Fine 2009)? In this article, I defend the neo-Sellarsian approach to the question of ontology, a novel, naturalistic approach according to which the foundational question of ontology is about “understanding the manifest and the scientific images of the world, and their multiple relationships.” First, I argue for the thesis of Impure Eliminativism, a (...) form of constructive pluralism about the question of ontology by which the substantivity of questions of ontology which are not the neo-Sellarsian one is to be built upon certain relations with the neo-Sellarsian question of ontology. Second, I argue for the categorial plasticity of the two images and their relations in connection with the hypothesis of Weak Epistemic Factualism. Third, and lastly, I argue for a person-based ontology framed in terms of the crucial notions of “fact” and “understanding” in response to the eliminativist categorizations of the two images and their relationships proposed by substantialism and structuralism. (shrink)

Categories play a major role in contemporary metaphysics. They have not only been invoked in a number of philosophical theories but are themselves objects of epistemological and metaphysical scrutiny. In this article, we will discuss the following questions: How do we know when something belongs to a certain category? Is there a fundamental category of the world? Can we give a satisfactory account of the number of categories and the completeness of systems of categories? Are categories the genuine subjects of (...) ontology? (shrink)

For some time now moral psychologists and philosophers have ganged up on Aristotelians, arguing that results from psychological studies on the role of character-based and situation-based influences on human behavior have convincingly shown that situations rather than personal characteristics determine human behavior. In the literature on moral psychology and philosophy this challenge is commonly called the “situationist challenge,” and as Prinz has previously explained, it has largely been based on results from four salient studies in social psychology, including the studies (...) conducted by Hartshorne and May, Milgram, Isen and Levin, and Darley and Batson. The situationist challenge maintains that each of these studies seriously challenges the plausibility of virtuous personal characteristics by challenging the plausibility of personal characteristics more generally. In this article I undermine the situationist challenge against Aristotelian moral psychology by carefully considering major problems with the conclusions that situationists have drawn from the empirical data, and by further challenging the accuracy of their characterization of the Aristotelian view. In fact I show that when properly understood the Aristotelian view is not only consistent with empirical data from developmental science but can also offer important insights for integrating moral psychology with its biological roots in our natural and social life. (shrink)

The author contends that the Objectivist epistemology has lacked a viable model of propositional knowledge for nearly fifty years, due to neglect of Rand's unit-perspective view of concepts. This pioneering insight, he says, not only is an essential building block of her concept theory, but also welds together the three levels of logical theory and provides the clearest X-ray picture of our multilayered conceptual knowledge. Using the unit-perspective to expand Rand's theory of concepts, the author then devises a theory of (...) the proposition, giving considerable attention to axioms and statements about nonexistent subjects. (shrink)

Eu examino cada meandro do esforço de Aristóteles identificar vários usos de termos filosóficos essenciais em sua Metafísica, V.9-17.

This paper explores some aspects of Aristotle’s notion of subject for predications. I examine the argument Aristotle develops in Posterior Analytics I.22, 83a1-14. I argue that the notion advanced by Aristotle in that argument is different from the one found in his Categories, although they are far from being incompatible with each other. I also add some philological considerations to justify the Portuguese translation of “hypokeimenon” as “algo subjacente” (“underlying thing”) instead of “sujeito” (“subject”).

A coletânea apresenta, sob a forma de artigos, problemas e soluções associados ao conceito e substância ao longo da história da filosofia. Sem pretender exaurir esse percurso, a coletânea contém 29 artigos redigidos por diversos especialistas brasileiros em Filosofia. Sua proposta é oferecer uma visão clara, acessível, precisa e atualizada desse recorte da história do conceito de filosofia, na expectativa de contribuir para o aperfeiçoamento do ensino e debate de filosofia no país. -/- The anthology presents, through a series of (...) articles, the intricacies of problems and solutions intertwined with the concept of substance across the annals of philosophical history. While not seeking to comprehensively cover this vast terrain, the collection comprises 29 articles penned by a diverse array of Brazilian specialists in Philosophy. Its overarching aim is to furnish a lucid, accessible, precise, and contemporaneous perspective on this facet of philosophical inquiry, with the aspiration of enriching the landscape of philosophical education and discourse in Brazil. (shrink)

Hypersequents are a natural generalization of ordinary sequents which turn out to be a very suitable tool for presenting cut-free Gentzent-type formulations for diverse logics. In this paper, an alternative way of formulating hypersequent calculi (by introducing meta-variables for formulas, sequents and hypersequents in the object language) is presented. A suitable category of hypersequent calculi with their morphisms is defined and both types of fibring (constrained and unconstrained) are introduced. The introduced morphisms induce a novel notion of translation between logics (...) which preserves metaproperties in a strong sense. Finally, some preservation features are explored. (shrink)

This thesis proposes a perspective on language and its development by starting from two approaches. The first is the ecological-enactive approach to cognition. In opposition to the widespread idea that cognition is information-processing in the brain, the ecological-enactive approach explains human cognition in relational terms, as skilful interactions with a sociomaterial environment shaped by practices. The second is the metalinguistic approach to language, which holds that reflexive or metalinguistic language use – talking about talking – is crucial for understanding language (...) and its development. In particular, I defend two theses: 1. A child’s initial communicative behaviour can be explained in terms of attentional actions: social actions that function by directing someone else’s attention. 2. In order for the child’s communicative behaviour to be sensitive to key properties of language, such as semantic content and normativity, she needs to learn metalinguistic skills. The development of this ecological-enactive perspective on language serves two functions. First, the ecological-enactive approach started by considering basic behaviour, such as locomotion and grasping. An approach in the cognitive sciences, however, should be able to account for the full gamut of human cognition. If the perspective developed in this thesis is viable, this is a contribution to extending the ecological-enactive approach to typically human forms of cognition. Second, this perspective throws new light on philosophical problems concerning language. In the different chapters, I deal with questions concerning the nature of linguistic knowledge, explanations of communicative behaviour, and the origins of semantic content and linguistic normativity. (shrink)

Philosophers of perception frequently assume that we see actual states of affairs, or facts. Call this claim factualism. In his book, William Fish suggests that factualism is supported by phenomenological observation as well as by experimental studies on multiple object tracking and dynamic feature-object integration. In this paper, I examine the alleged evidence for factualism, focusing mainly on object detection and tracking. I argue that there is no scientific evidence for factualism. This conclusion has implications for studies on the phenomenology (...) and epistemology of visual perception. (shrink)

The section 18b16–⁠25 of the famous chapter 9 of Aristotle’s De interpretatione presents two objections against the assumption that both members of a contradictory pair of future singular statements might be false. This section is unlikely to be genuine, because (1) the first objection is either directly begging the question or misusing a previous argument in a question-begging way, (2) the second objection includes irrelevant observations, and (3) the rebuttal of the said assumption interrupts the intimate connection between the immediately (...) preceding and following sections. (shrink)

In this paper, we would show how the logical object “square of opposition”, viewed as semiotic object, has been historically transformed since its appearance in Aristotle’s texts until the works of Vasiliev. These transformations were accompanied each time with a new understanding and interpretation of Aristotle’s original text and, in the last case, with a transformation of its geometric configuration. The initial textual codification of the theory of opposition in Aristotle’s works is transformed into a diagrammatic one, based on a (...) new “reading” of the Aristotelian text by the medieval scholars that altered the semantics of the O form. Further, based on the medieval “Neo-Aristotelian” reading, the logicians of the nineteenth century suggest new diagrammatic representations, based on new interpretations of quantification of judgements within the algebraic and the functional logical traditions. In all these interpretations, the original square configuration remains invariant. However, Nikolai A. Vasiliev marks a turning point in history. He explicitly attacks the established logical tradition and suggests a new alternation of semantics of the O form, based on Aristotelian concepts that were neglected in the Aristotelian tradition of logic, notably the concept of indefinite judgement. This leads to a configurational transformation of the “square” of opposition into a “triangle”, where the points standing for the O and I forms are contracted into one point, the M form that now stands for particular judgement with altered semantics. The new transformation goes beyond the Aristotelian logic paradigm to a new “Non-Aristotelian” logic, i.e. to paraconsistent logic, although the argumentation used in support of it is phrased in Aristotelian style and the context of discovery is foundational. It establishes a bifurcation point in the development of logic. No unique logic is recognized, but different logics concerning different domains. One branch of logic remains to be the “Neo-Aristotelian” one, while the new logic is “Non-Aristotelian”. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

In the domain of information systems ontologies, the notion of completeness refers to ontological contents by demanding that they be exhaustive with respect to the domain that the ontology aims to represent. The purpose of this paper is to analyze such a notion, by distinguishing different varieties of completeness and by questioning its consistency with the open-world assumption, which formally assumes the incompleteness of conceptualizations on information systems ontologies.

In the past decade, the meaning of Hegel's idea of a ‘science of logic’ has become a matter of intense philosophical debate. This article examines the two most influential yet opposed contemporary readings of the Science of Logic—often referred to as the ‘metaphysical’ and ‘non-metaphysical’ interpretations. I argue that this debate should be reframed as a contest between logic as ontology (LAO) and logic as metaphysics (LAM). According to Stephen Houlgate's interpretation of logic as ontology, the science of logic is (...) a progressively explicit unfolding of the categories of thought, which is at the same time the process by which being itself determines what it is to be. A second interpretation has been pursued by Sebastian Rödl and Robert Pippin, who read Hegel's logic as metaphysics. On this reading, the science of logic is a progressively coherent unfolding of the categories of thought, which articulate all that it could intelligibly mean to be. This article intervenes in this debate in three key ways. First, I argue that Houlgate's ontological approach undermines his attempt to establish the objective validity of the categories. Second, I show that the LAM emphasis on the crucial idea of apperception enables it to succeed where Houlgate fails by doing justice to the rational necessity with which the Logic unfolds. Third, I argue that, despite this success, the LAM program remains unrealized because of its neglect of Hegel's understanding of cognition as a form of life. While LAM has compellingly unfolded the ‘thought of being’, it has ignored the inverse question of the ‘being of thought’. I attempt to fulfil the LAM program by elaborating Hegel's account of what it means to be a thinker. (shrink)

According to the Greek Commentators in late antiquity, Aristotle's Categories is primarily concerned with simple expressions in so far as they signify things. But what is it for a simple expression to signify a thing? As for (non-empty) singular terms, it is safe to say that they denote things. But what about general terms? How do they signify things? The question is crucial to the theory of the Categories , since, as is argued in the first section of this paper, (...) there is some truth in the Commentators' thesis that (part of) the Categories aims to elucidate the signification of simple expressions, including general terms. Of course, various prima facie plausible accounts of how general terms signify things are available; the second section discusses the basic assumptions which underlie them. A detailed analysis of Cat. 2a19-34 in the third section shows that the Categories ' account is two-fold: On the one hand some general terms denote things (among the latter, the most prominent are τα καθ' υπoκειμενoυ λεγoμενα). What is denoted by a given general term does not stand in any relation to the objects falling under the term but is something that they are . Some general terms, on the other hand, connote things. What is connoted by a general term is a property which the objects falling under the term are related to by virtue of having it (τα εν υπoκειμενω oντα are such properties). (shrink)

According to the Categories, predicates can be ‘said of’ their subjects or they can be ‘present in’ their subjects. The said-of relation has received relatively little scholarly attention, and scholars disagree on the answers to four foundational questions about the relation. (i) What is it? (ii) Is it an essential relation? (iii) How is it related to predication? (iv) Is it primitive? I argue that A is said-of B just in case A is a formal part of B. On this (...) account, said-of is an essential relation and it is definable, but it is not defined in terms of predication. (shrink)

This dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise – in the spirit of those of Carroll and Hofstadter – argues against the idea, identified with the “traditional” interpretation of Aristotle’s “sea battle argument”, that future contingents are an exception to the Principle of Bivalence. It presents examples of correct everyday predictions, without which one would not be able to decide and to act; however, doing this is incompatible with the belief that the content of these predictions lacks a truth-value. The cost (...) of using a non-classical logic to cope with that may be too high for Stagirite’s defenders, and they would still need to explain why our ordinary predictions seem to have a binary truth-value. In the end, the paper suggests that the problem of future contingents – and of free will – is not a logical problem at all, but rather a limit on what an agent can believe before taking a decision. (shrink)

1. Hegel’s Doctrine of the Concept advances a theory of conceptual determinacy. As I will demonstrate, Hegel’s theory of conceptual determinacy leads him to endorse self-predication and existential...

Some Carrollian posthumous manuscripts reveal, in addition to his famous ‘logical diagrams’, two mysterious ‘logical charts’. The first chart, a strange network making out of fourteen logical sentences a large 2D ‘triangle’ containing three smaller ones, has been shown equivalent—modulo the rediscovery of a fourth smaller triangle implicit in Carroll's global picture—to a 3D tetrahedron, the four triangular faces of which are the 3+1 Carrollian complex triangles. As it happens, such an until now very mysterious 3D logical shape—slightly deformed—has been (...) rediscovered, independently from Carroll and much later, by a logician , a mathematician and a linguist studying the geometry of the ‘opposition relations’, that is, the mathematical generalisations of the ‘logical square’. We show that inside what is called equivalently ‘n-opposition theory’, ‘oppositional geometry’ or ‘logical geometry’, Carroll's first chart corresponds exactly, duly reshap.. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that attempts in the philosophy of biology to show that organisms are processes rather than substances fail. Despite what process ontologists have said, I argue that substance ontology is perfectly able to accommodate the dynamic nature of organisms, their ecological dependence, and their vague boundaries, and that their criticisms are not directed at substance ontology simpliciter, but only at specific (perhaps untenable) characterisations of substances. The paper ends by considering what a processual philosophy of biology (...) that is radically in conflict with an ontology of substances might look like. (shrink)

In Categories 7, Aristotle gives two different accounts of relatives, and presents the principle of cognitive symmetry, which seems to help distinguish between relatives and some secondary substances. I suggest that the long-disputed difference between the two accounts lies in a difference in the determination of the categorial status of the object in question, and I formulate the principle of cognitive symmetry such that it plays a crucial role in making explicit how one conceptualizes the categorial status of the object. (...) I then set out some consequences following from this understanding for certain interpretive issues, such as the unity of the Categories. (shrink)

In his groundbreaking work of 1969, Spinoza's Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation, Edwin Curley attacked the traditional understanding of the substance-mode relation in Spinoza, according to which modes inhere in substance. Curley argued that such an interpretation generates insurmountable problems, as had already been claimed by Pierre Bayle in his famous Dictionary entry on Spinoza. Instead of having modes inhere in substance Curley suggested that the modes’ dependence upon substance should be interpreted in terms of (efficient) causation, i.e., as committing (...) Spinoza to nothing over and above the claim that substance is the (efficient) cause of the modes. These bold and fascinating claims generated one of the most important scholarly controversies in Spinoza scholarship of the past thirty-five years. In this paper I argue against Curley’s interpretation and attempt to reestablish the traditional understanding of Spinozistic modes as inhering in God and as predicated of God. I also criticize Curley’s philosophical motivation for suggesting this interpretation. In order to show that, for Spinoza, modes are predicated of - and inhere in - substance, I will proceed in the following manner. First, I will summarize Curley’s arguments against substance-mode inherence and present his alternative interpretation of the substance-mode relation. I will then present what I consider to be the most compelling arguments against Curley’s interpretation. Some of these arguments have already been suggested in the literature of the past thirty years (and by Bayle); however, as far as I know, most of the arguments I will be making are new. In the subsequent section I will respond to objections that Curley and Bayle advance against Spinoza’s view of God as the substratum in which all things inhere. Finally, I will address whether Spinozistic modes are predicated of (and not only inhere in) substance, and whether Spinoza considered modes to be particular properties (or “tropes,” in the jargon of contemporary metaphysics). Since Bayle’s claims will be used both in support of and against Curley’s interpretation, it would be appropriate to say a few introductory words on Bayle’s stance. In his Spinoza entry, Bayle criticizes Spinoza’s claim that all things are modes of God, claiming that it “is the most monstrous hypothesis that could be imagined, the most absurd, and the most diametrically opposed to the most evident notions of our mind.” Bayle, however, has no doubt that when Spinoza claims that all things are modes of God, Spinoza means that all things inhere in God. Curley embraces Bayle’s arguments against Spinoza, but uses them in order to claim that we should not ascribe to Spinoza a view which is allegedly shown by Bayle to be absurd. What we should do, Curley argues, is to reinterpret the substance-mode relation as a relation of causal dependence, which would set Spinoza free from Bayle’s hook. Interestingly, as we shall soon see, Bayle himself discusses and rejects a very similar revisionary interpretation of the substance-mode relation. (shrink)

In this article, I will argue that the argument for fatalism based on the relativity of simultaneity fails. The original proponents of the argument called the thesis in terms of ‘determinism’, but Levin refers to it as ‘relativistic fatalism’. Relativistic fatalism is a view supported by the alleged dependence of the property of being future on an arbitrary choice of some coordinate system. First I will try to explain the classic argument, attributed to it a dialectic that justified to call (...) it in the same terms as Levin did. Subsequently, I will refuse the relativistic fatalism using many strategies to deal with it. (shrink)

This paper establishes two facts. The first is that a recently presented problem for supervaluationism applies equally to the branching-time cousin of the theory. The second fact is that a new version of branching-time supervaluationism avoids this and related problems.

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 725-739, June 2022.

Social sensitivity is a crucial aspect of interpersonal relationships, as it is intrinsic to the understanding of other selves as subjects situated in a social world. In revitalizing such a concept in the philosophical literature, this article examines the relation between habit, attention, and critical self‐awareness that lies at the core of social sensitivity. On the one hand, I reconsider the so‐called “passivity” of habit and tackle the role of attention as the power of varying point of view. On the (...) other hand, I contrast Husserl's view of attentiveness with Murdoch's account of loving attention, arguing that social sensitivity centers on a type of striving that is closer to Husserl's methodology than Murdoch's approach to moral perfectionism. (shrink)

The physical sciences include highly developed fields that investigate intensities in the form of intensive quantities like speeds, temperatures, pressures and altitudes. Some contemporary readers of Deleuze interested in the physical sciences at times attribute to Deleuze a common, contemporary scientific concept of intensive magnitude. These readings identify Deleuze's philosophical conception of intensity with an existing scientific conception of intensity. The essay argues that Deleuze does not in fact lift a conception of intensity from the physical sciences to embed it (...) as the fundamental term in his differential ontology. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to elucidate Franz Brentano's concept of immanent object through his own words and from his own perspective. The prevalent account of Brentano's revival of intentionality, his initial failure to distinguish between object and content, and his wrong‐headed immanentism, is largely derived from his students. Brentano's objection to it, although well known, is seldom heeded. In fact, plenty of guidelines have been provided by Brentano himself in his writings on how his concept of immanent object (...) is to be understood. I begin with his distinction between two senses of “object,” which, I argue, must be clearly set apart from distinction between two modes of object. I then examine three different interpretations of the term “in‐existence”: the locative, the inherentist, and the objective interpretation. In the end, after dismissing the first two interpretations, I argue that Brentano is best understood as maintaining an objective and deflationary account of mental in‐existence. (shrink)

In the history of ethics, it remains remains unclear how Christians of the Middle Ages came to see God-given virtues as dispositions (habitus) created in the human soul. Patristic works could surely support other conceptions of the virtues given by grace. For example, one might argue that all such virtues are forms of charity, so that they must be affections of the soul, or that they consist in what the soul does, not anything the soul has. Scholars usually assume that (...) the explanation lies in the impact of Aristotle's philosophy on medieval theology. This essay argues that the dispositional account of God-given virtues was already entrenched by the end of the twelfth century and probably owes more to the influence of Augustine's treatise On the Good of Marriage. (shrink)

This paper illuminates the explanatory role of vagueness und species membership against the background of scientific developments in recent stem cell research. With the help of the Neo-Aristotelian concept of “life form naturalism” ontologically vague entities such as stem cells, all above induced pluripotent stem cells, could be described as necessary constituents for the correct sorting and naming of natural processes and its bearers. Furthermore this specific assessment allows drawing some important ontological and ethical consequences.

Moral obligation and permissibility are usually thought to be interdefinable. Following the pattern of the duality definitions of necessity and possibility, we have that something’s being permissible could be defined as its not being obligatory to not do it. And that something’s being obligatory could be defined as its not being permissible to not do it. In this paper, I argue that neither direction of this alleged interdefinability works. Roughly, the problem is that a claim that some act is obligatory (...) or permissible entails that there is a moral law, whereas a negative claim that some act is not obligatory or not permissible does not. Nevertheless, one direction of the interdefinability can potentially be salvaged. I argue that, if we do not require the conceptual possibility of moral dilemmas, then there is a way to plausibly define obligation in terms of permissibility. I conclude that permissibility is the only feasible deontic primitive. (shrink)

The central claim of this paper is that the Aristotelian metaphysics of objects is incompatible with physicalism. This includes the contemporary variant of Aristotelianism I call ‘sortalism’. The core reason is that an object’s identity as an instance of a (natural) kind, as well as its consequent persistence conditions, is neither physically fundamental nor determined by what is physically fundamental. The argument for the latter appeals to what is commonly known as ‘the grounding problem’; in particular I argue that the (...) physicalist has no solution, and this requires that the physicalist jettison the traditional concept of objects having kind-specific identity and persistence conditions. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze the concept of ineffability: what does it mean to say that something cannot be said? I begin by distinguishing ineffability from paradox: if something cannot be said truly or without contradiction, this is not an instance of ineffability. Next, I distinguish two different meanings of ‘saying something’ which result from a fundamental ambiguity in the term ‘language’, viz. language as a system of symbols and language as a medium of communication. Accordingly, ‘ineffability’ is ambiguous, too, (...) and we should make a distinction between weak and strong ineffability. Weak ineffability is rooted in the deficiencies of a particular language while strong ineffability stems from the structure of a particular cognitive system and its capacities for conceptual mental representation. Mental contents are only sayable if we are able to conceptualize them and then create signs to represent them in communication. (shrink)

This paper explains Sebastián Izquierdo's (1601-1681) theory of priority. Izquierdo was a seventeenth-century Spanish scholastic philosopher who was best known in the seventeenth century for his ambitious work, Pharus Scientiarum (“Lighthouse of the Sciences”), which attempts to carry out the Baconian project of establishing a universal art of acquiring and disseminating knowledge. Disputation 15 of the Pharus contains one of the most detailed treatments of priority in the history of philosophy. The purpose of this paper is to limn the contours (...) of that theory. Taking Aristotle as a source of inspiration, Izquierdo distinguishes between absolute and relative priority, and the former he divides into priority of duration, priority of worth, priority of origin, and priority of non-mutual connection. These priorities can also be “chained” and “mixed” in various ways. The task for Izquierdo is to explain what unifies the various priority relations: why do they all count as instances of a single phenomenon (or do they)? I argue that Izquierdo answers this question by means of his notion of a series, which is central to his theory of priority. I explain what a series is, and I explain how Izquierdo’s entire theory of priority is generated from his notion of a series. In the end, Izquierdo’s theory is admirably simple, yet remarkably flexible and able to accommodate a wide variety of priority claims. (shrink)

SUMMARY Major theories of philosophical psychology and philosophy of mind are examined on the basis of the fundamental questions of ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, semantics and logic. The result is the choice between language of eliminative reductionism and dualism, neither of which answers properly the relation between mind and body. In the search for a non–dualistic and non–reductive language, Wittgenstein’s notion of language–games as the representative links between language and the world is considered together with Peirce’s semeiosis of cognition. The result (...) is a redefined notion of cognition as the goal–oriented ability to instantiate strategies from the rules of the language–games. Cognition is considered within the four-dimensional languagegames: rules/strategies, primitive/complete language-games, family-resemblances/forms of life, and non-temporal continuum as the language-games’ modality. Cognition is seen as a continuum process of non–individualized elements that unites perception, volition, emotion, will and thought against the commonly accepted understandings of cognition in exclusive terms of perception and thinking. The alternative to the mind/body problem is the continuity of cognition where rules and strategies, syntax and semantics, are considered inseparable within language–games. This continuity of cognition is explained in terms of virtual (univocal) identity, replacing the old philosophical paradigm of the mind/body problem. -/- SOMMARIO Le teorie maggiori della psicologia filosofica e filosofia della mente sono esaminate a partire dalle questioni fondamentali di ontologia, metafisica, epistemologia, semantica e logica. Il risultato è la scelta tra un linguaggio riduzionista eliminativo e un dualismo che però non confronta in modo adeguato la relazione tra mente e corpo. Nella ricerca per un linguaggio non-dualistico e non-riduttivo, viene considerata la nozione del gioco linguistico di Wittgenstein come un legame rappresentativo tra il linguaggio e il mondo insieme con la semiosi cognitiva di Peirce. Il risultato è la nozione ridefinita della cognizione come abilità goal-orientata di creare le strategie dalle regole dei giochi linguistici. La cognizione è considerata entro le quattro dimensioni dei giochi linguistici: regole/strategie, giochi linguistici primitivi/completi, somiglianze di famiglia/forme di vita, e la continuità atemporale come la modalità dei giochi linguistici. La cognizione diventa un processo continuo degli elementi non-individualizzati che tende ad unificare la percezione, volizione, emozione, la volontà e il pensiero contro un concetto generalmente accettato di vedere la cognizione nei termini esclusivamente di percezione e di pensiero. L’alternativa al problema della mente/corpo è la continuità della cognizione, dove le regole e le strategie, la sintassi e la semantica, sono considerate inseparabili nei giochi linguistici. Questa continuità della cognizione è spiegata nei termini dell’identità virtuale (univoca) sostituendo un paradigma filosofico previo del problema della mente/corpo. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the first part of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics A-33, 88b30-89a10. I claim that Aristotle is not concerned with an epistemological distinction between knowledge and belief in general. He is rather making a contrast between scientific knowledge (which is equivalent to explanation by the primarily appropriate cause) and some explanatory beliefs that falls short of capturing the primarily appropriate cause.

This essay is the first part of an analysis on the form and matter in the works of Aristotle. Within the whole analysis, I shall examine passages taken from different works of Aristotle that are relevant to the investigation on form and matter. In this essay, I shall focus exclusively on the chapter Metaphysics Zeta 3. The concepts of substance, matter, ontological subject, form, composite substance, this something and separated, which are consistently used by Aristotle within the development of the (...) mentioned chapter, will be part of my survey of the contents of the chapter. The central argument of Metaphysics Zeta 3, which maintains the equivalence between substance and the feature represented by ontological subject, and which leads, through this first equivalence and through the equivalence between matter and ontological subject, to the result that matter is (the only) substance, will be investigated step by step so that all presuppositions, entailments, and consequences of the argument itself can be clearly shown. The problems which are caused by the mentioned equivalence of substance and ontological subject will be pointed out during my look at the chapter’s contents. In particular, Aristotle cannot accept that, in spite of the ontological subject being a correct feature of substance qua substance, substance is therewith reduced to matter. Being the ontological subject does not represent the only ontological feature of substance qua substance; the ontological features too of substance qua substance that are represented by being a this something and being separated belong to the concept of substance: they can never be forgotten within a right interpretation of substance. The identification of substance only with matter can never be accepted. Only the ontological values of substance represented by the form and by the composite substance possess the ontological features “being a this something” and “being separated”. Therefore, the ontological values of substance as form and as a composite substance must always be reckoned with in a correctly interpreted ontology. Neither of these values can be forgotten within an accurate inquiry of ontology. Hence, regardless of whether matter is substance and is correctly interpreted as substance, the values of substance as form and as composite substance must belong, in Aristotle’s view, to any right ontological system whatsoever. The plurality of values for substance, which I personally advocate, finds confirmation thanks to chapter Metaphysics Zeta 3: Matter, form, and composite substance all represent values for substance, despite the differences which they have as regards their own ontological features. (shrink)

No tratado intitulado Segundos Analíticos, Aristóteles desenvolve uma teoria da demonstração científica e da ciência demonstrativa. Ali, o conhecimento científico é descrito pelo filósofo como envolvendo uma certa "necessidade". Alguns intérpretes associam esta noção de necessidade à necessidade modal, pertinente à silogística modal de Aristóteles. Esta interpretação, todavia, tornaria o modelo de ciência proposto nos Analíticos incompatível com os explananda das ciências da natureza, cuja cientificidade o próprio Aristóteles reiteradamente defendeu. A fim de evitar este inconveniente, abordamos e reconstruímos a (...) mencionada interpretação, reconhecemos suas falhas e propomos, seguindo outra tendência da literatura secundária, uma leitura alternativa da noção de necessidade como adequação explanatória, a qual garantiria a cientificidade dos fenômenos naturais. (shrink)