William Whewell’s 19th century philosophy of science is sometimes glossed over as a footnote to Kant. There is however a key feature of Whewell’s account worth noting. This is his appeal to Aristotle’s form/matter hylomorphism as a metaphor to explain how mind and world merge in successful scientific inquiry. Whewell’s hylomorphism suggests a middle way between rationalism and empiricism reminiscent of experience pragmatists like Steven Levine’s view that mind and world are entwined in experience. I argue however that Levine does (...) not adequately explain exactly how mind and world entwine. He could nonetheless do so if he appealed to Whewell’s hylomorphic metaphor. We may prefer a reductive metaphysical explanation, but I suggest that pragmatists only have recourse to metaphor in this case. Both reductive and metaphorical explanations can enjoy great explanatory power if they exhibit a suitable measure of what I will call sematic distance. Semantic distance measures how close or how far apart explanandum and explanans are from each other in meaning. Metaphorical explanation - as evident in Whewell’s hylomorphism and as detailed via the notion of semantic distance - presents a valuable new explanatory tool to those who hold that mind and world are entwined sans recourse to metaphysics. (shrink)

This book addresses how our revisionary practices account for relations between texts and how they are read. It offers an overarching philosophy of revision concerning works of fiction, fact, and faith, revealing unexpected insights about the philosophy of language, the metaphysics of fact and fiction, and the history and philosophy of science and religion. It will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophy of literature, literary theory and criticism, (...) and history and philosophy of science and religion. (shrink)

In this multi-disciplinary investigation we show how an evidence-based perspective of quantification---in terms of algorithmic verifiability and algorithmic computability---admits evidence-based definitions of well-definedness and effective computability, which yield two unarguably constructive interpretations of the first-order Peano Arithmetic PA---over the structure N of the natural numbers---that are complementary, not contradictory. The first yields the weak, standard, interpretation of PA over N, which is well-defined with respect to assignments of algorithmically verifiable Tarskian truth values to the formulas of PA under the interpretation. (...) The second yields a strong, finitary, interpretation of PA over N, which is well-defined with respect to assignments of algorithmically computable Tarskian truth values to the formulas of PA under the interpretation. We situate our investigation within a broad analysis of quantification vis a vis: * Hilbert's epsilon-calculus * Goedel's omega-consistency * The Law of the Excluded Middle * Hilbert's omega-Rule * An Algorithmic omega-Rule * Gentzen's Rule of Infinite Induction * Rosser's Rule C * Markov's Principle * The Church-Turing Thesis * Aristotle's particularisation * Wittgenstein's perspective of constructive mathematics * An evidence-based perspective of quantification. By showing how these are formally inter-related, we highlight the fragility of both the persisting, theistic, classical/Platonic interpretation of quantification grounded in Hilbert's epsilon-calculus; and the persisting, atheistic, constructive/Intuitionistic interpretation of quantification rooted in Brouwer's belief that the Law of the Excluded Middle is non-finitary. We then consider some consequences for mathematics, mathematics education, philosophy, and the natural sciences, of an agnostic, evidence-based, finitary interpretation of quantification that challenges classical paradigms in all these disciplines. (shrink)

Plural definite descriptions across many languages display two well-known properties. First, they can give rise to so-called non-maximal readings, in the sense that they ‘allow for exceptions’. Second, while they tend to have a quasi-universal quantificational force in affirmative sentences, they tend to be interpreted existentially in the scope of negation. Building on previous works, we offer a theory in which sentences containing plural definite expressions trigger a family of possible interpretations, and where general principles of language use account for (...) their interpretation in various contexts and syntactic environments. Our theory solves a number of problems that these previous works encounter, and has broader empirical coverage in that it offers a precise analysis for sentences that display complex interactions between plural definites, quantifiers and bound variables, as well as for cases involving non-distributive predicates. The resulting proposal is briefly compared with an alternative proposal by Križ, which has similar coverage but is based on a very different architecture and sometimes makes subtly different predictions. (shrink)

In this chapter I will argue against both of these interpretations and will begin to develop an alternate account of imagination in experience. Against those who minimize imagination’s role, I will highlight the distinctive contribution of the imagination to experience. In particular, I will foreground the specific role that the imagination plays in making possible the distinct mental act, intermediate between intuition and experience, that Kant calls “perception [Wahrnehmung]” as the “empirical consciousness [Bewußtsein]” of appearances (cf. B207). Because perception involves (...) images essentially (cf. A120), and because Kant understands experience itself to be a “synthesis of perceptions” (cf. B218), this strongly suggests (against minimalists) that experience, too, will incorporate images into the manner in which it allows us to cognize physical objects. By highlighting the contribution of imagination prior to experience, my own account, therefore, overlaps in part with the readings that seek instead to maximize the role of imagination. Against maximalists, however, I will argue that imagination contributes only in (and after) the transition from intuition to perception, rather than already being at work in the stage of intuition itself. More specifically, I will argue that Kant takes the activity of imagination to make perception possible by acting on already-formed intuitions in order to bring about the consciousness of them, rather than to bring the intuitions about in the first place. I will also argue that this synthesis of intuitions should be kept distinct from the activity of understanding. (shrink)

This paper is about conjunctions and disjunctions in the scope of non-doxastic atti- tude verbs. These constructions generate a certain type of ignorance implicature. I argue that the best way to account for these implicatures is by appealing to a notion of contex- tual redundancy (Schlenker, 2008; Fox, 2008; Mayr and Romoli, 2016). This pragmatic approach to ignorance implicatures is contrasted with a semantic account of disjunctions under `wonder' that appeals to exhausti cation (Roelofsen and Uegaki, 2016). I argue that (...) exhausti cation-based theories cannot handle embedded conjunctions, so a pragmatic account of ignorance implicatures is superior. (shrink)

As brightly shown by Mainzer [24], the science of complexity has many distinct origins in many disciplines. Those various origins has led to “an interdisciplinary methodology to explain the emergence of certain macroscopic phenomena via the nonlinear interactions of microscopic elements” (ibid.). This paper suggests that the parallel and strong expansion of modeling and simulation - especially after the Second World War and the subsequent development of computers - is a rationale which also can be counted as an explanation of (...) this emergence. With the benefit of hindsight, one can find three periods in the methodologies of modeling in the empirical sciences: 1st the simple modeling of the simple, 2nd the simple modeling of the complex, 3rd the complex modeling and simulation of the complex. Our main thesis is that the current spreading (since the 90’s) of complex computer simulations of systems of models (where a simulation is no more a step by step calculus of a unique logico-mathematical model) is another promising dimension of the science of complexity. Following this claim, we propose to distinguish three different types of computer simulations in the context of complex systems’ modeling. Finally, we show that these types of simulations lead to three different types of weak emergence, too. (shrink)

Today I want to talk about an element in the milieu in which Ludwig Wittgenstein conceived the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that has not been recognized to date: the generalization of the methodology of experimental scale models that occurred just about the time he was writing it. I find it very helpful to keep in mind how this kind of model portrays when reading the Tractatus — in particular, when reading the statements about pictures and models, such as:That a picture is a (...) fact ,That a picture is a model of reality ,That the “pictorial relationship” that makes a picture a picture is part of that picture , andThat a picture must have its pictorial form in common with reality in order to able to depict it. (shrink)

While avoiding the pretence of producing an exhaustive reading of such a complex object as Lars Von Trier's Dogville, this article selectively uses the film to explore the process of the emergence of a new legality and a new set of legal relationships within a community. Two superimposed layers of meaning, the biblical and the mythic, are considered and their interaction with two different reasons, the symbolic and the economic, is suggested and explored. The categories of ‘critical being’, by Fitzpatrick (...) and Tuitt, and homo sacer, by Agamben, are taken as useful tools to understand such interaction and the connected dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Throughout the article, it is argued that the perspective of the sacrifice, as framed especially by Girard, is useful to highlight an anthropological mechanism that can be retrieved in Dogville. (shrink)

La philosophie du droit a pour fonction d’assister la réflexion sur le monde du juridique, sur « le droit qui se fait », sur la doctrine juridique et notre façon de l’écrire, et sur l’appréciation (ou l’indifférence, l’hostilité, etc.) qu’un individu distancié peut éprouver à l’égard du droit et des juristes. Elle assiste et elle participe en examinant notre façon d’opérationnaliser les sources du droit, de forger des arguments pouvant être juridiques, d’évaluer les narrations qui se présentent au droit, d’examiner (...) la pertinence de la doctrine, notre façon de pratiquer le droit et de faire des jugements judiciaires. Elle ne réside de toute évidence pas « en haut » et elle ne « surplombe » pas l’écriture de la doctrine. Elle ne se glorifie pas en distribuant (en toute incompétence) l’étiquette de « scientificité » au bon candidat, que celui-ci soit auteur d’un article, d’un livre ou d’une théorie. Admettons plutôt lucidement que la philosophie du droit ne donne pas de certificat de « scientificité » et que toute revendication en ce « sens » n’a pas de « sens ». (shrink)

Fugue and chaos are used in their contemporary meaning. Elements of the fugue, albeit a ‎small number of universals, will be demonstrated in the area of visual and verbal colors. ‎Chaos dominates the internet, fashion, and everyday life. The visual and verbal colors are ‎differentiated and their communicative potential is indicated alongside the diachronic changes. The prototypes of colors are the interface between visual and verbal colors.‎.

Modelling became one of the primary tools of mathematical economic research in the twentieth century, but when we look at examples of how nonanalogical models were first built in economics, both the process of making representations and aspects of the representing relation remain opaque. Like early astronomers, economists have to imagine how the hidden parts of their world are arranged and to make images, that is, create models, to represent how they work. The case of the Edgeworth Box, a model (...) widely used for theoretical work in twentieth-century economics, provides a good example to explore the process of making mathematical representations of the economy. It shows how, in making these new representations, conceptual elements were developed which could not have been represented in the older verbal forms of economics. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the impact on structuralism of the quantum treatment of objects in terms of symmetry groups and, in particular, on the question as to how we might eliminate, or better, reconceptualise such objects in structural terms. With regard to the former, both Cassirer and Eddington not only explicitly and famously tied their structuralism to the development of group theory but also drew on the quantum treatment in order to further their structuralist aims and here I (...) sketch the relevant history with an eye on what lessons might be drawn. With regard to the latter, Ladyman has explicitly cited Castellani's work on the group-theoretical constitution of quantum objects and I indicate both how such an approach needs to be understood if it is to mesh with Ladyman's 'ontic' form of structural realism and how it might accommodate permutation symmetry through a consideration of Huggett's recent account. (shrink)

This text explores the problem of transcendental stupidity in Sigmund Freud, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida’s works, seeking to combine it with the paradoxical figure of Oedipus in psychoanalytical and philosophical tradition and the symptomatic situation of some important animals in analyses and therapies. The case of the Man of the Wolves, the case of Mr. Sergei K. Pankejeff described in Aus der Geschichte einer infantilen Neurose, a fundamental dream in contemporary culture history, would be the point of departure.