-/- A schema (plural: schemata, or schemas), also known as a scheme (plural: schemes), is a linguistic template or pattern together with a rule for using it to specify a potentially infinite multitude of phrases, sentences, or arguments, which are called instances of the schema. Schemas are used in logic to specify rules of inference, in mathematics to describe theories with infinitely many axioms, and in semantics to give adequacy conditions for definitions of truth. -/- 1. What is a Schema? (...) 2. Uses of Schemas 3. The Ontological Status of Schemas 4. Schemas in the History of Logic Bibliography. (shrink)

Natural mimicry is ubiquitous. Plants mimic animals, animals mimic plants, animals mimic each other and animals may even mimic counterfactual states that deceive or distract other animals. Almost all natural mimicry is based on iconicity which hence anchors it in real world resemblances. The vast majority of natural mimicry is done unconsciously but when humans mimic, they know what they are doing. As Merlin Donald suggest, mimicry may in fact have played a crucial role in the emergence of the human (...) condition, allowing new forms of cognition to emerge. Here it is suggested that the role played by mimicry may have involved the evolution of a capacity for metaphorical perception, where an object may not only be seen ‘as is’ but also ‘as if’ it was a functional mimic of something else. This new form of mimicry made possible new forms of communication, co-operation and creative engagement with the environment. Once these developed to the point where they produced symbolic systems and other cultural tools, the nature of human mimicry expanded radically. No longer anchored in resemblance, it became detached and qualitatively distinct from natural forms. The consequences of this detachment are now becoming clear. (shrink)

Oliver's and Rodriguez-Pereyra's important interpretation of the problem of universals as one concerning truthmakers neglects something crucial: that there is a numerical identity between numerically distinct particulars. The problem of universals is rather how to resolve the apparent contradiction that the same things are both numerically distinct and numerically identical. Baxter's account of instantiation as partial identity resolves the apparent contradiction. A seeming objection to this account is that it appears to make instantiation symmetric, since partial identity is symmetric. Armstrong's (...) standard reply is that the difference between a particular and a universal is what makes instantiation asymmetric. Brown suggests, though, that the instantiation of a universal by a universal is sometimes symmetric. However, the examples on which he relies are not universals. (shrink)

Some philosophers, like Alex Rosenberg, claim that natural science delivers epistemic values such as knowledge and understanding, whereas, say, literature and, according to some, literary studies, merely have aesthetic value. Many of those working in the field of literary studies oppose this idea. But it is not clear exactly how works of literary art embody knowledge and understanding and how literary studies can bring these to the light. After all, literary works of art are pieces of fiction, which suggests that (...) they are not meant to represent the actual world. How then can they deliver knowledge and understanding? I argue that literature and literary studies confer knowledge and understanding in at least five ways: they give us insight into the work and the world of the work of art in question, they shape our intellectual virtues, they invite us to apply various hypotheses, they deliver moral propositional knowledge, and they increase or bring about full understanding with respect to meaning, virtue, and significance. In the course of my argument, I refer at several junctures to Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Edith Wharton’s Summer, in order to illustrate each of these claims. (shrink)