The ArgumentStarting from the thesis that a science constructs the knowledge of the part of the world allotted to it, the present paper aims at bringing together all the various aspects of physics under a unified conceptual framework — that provided by the Marxian concept “mode of production.” After an introduction providing the initial plausibility grounds for the undertaking, the concept is analyzed into its conceptual elements in Part I of the paper. The analysis presents the reconstruction initiated by Louis (...) Althusser and developed by his followers. Part II starts from a characterization of physical problems. This offers a basis for “reading” physics in the terms introduced in Part I. The rest of Part II is devoted to the identification of all the aspects of physics with the conceptual elements in question. The paper aims at three things: to uncover the connections holding among seemingly disparate aspects of physics, usually discussed in almost total independence from each other; to take full account of the social dimensions of physics without vindicating social constructivism; to show that the boundaries separating the disciplines of philosophy, history and sociology of science are more arbitrary than usually considered. (shrink)

Shen-yi Liao and Vanessa Cabonell’s “Materialized Oppression in Medical Tools and Technologies,” joins the long list of groundbreaking papers whose importance is obscured by an innocuous title. Som...

As is predictable, several comments raise issues about our characterization of relativism. We will focus on these first before discussing Paul Boghossian’s comm.

In explaining the notion of a fundamental property or relation, metaphysicians will often draw an analogy with languages. The fundamental properties and relations stand to reality as the primitive predicates and relations stand to a language: the smallest set of vocabulary God would need in order to write the “book of the world.” This paper attempts to make good on this metaphor. To that end, a modality is introduced that, put informally, stands to propositions as logical truth stands to sentences. (...) The resulting theory, formulated in higher-order logic, also vindicates the Humean idea that fundamental properties and relations are freely recombinable and a variant of the structural idea that propositions can be decomposed into their fundamental constituents via logical operations. Indeed, it is seen that, although these ideas are seemingly distinct, they are not independent, and fall out of a natural and general theory about the granularity of reality. (shrink)

This paper argues that the theory of structured propositions is not undermined by the Russell-Myhill paradox. I develop a theory of structured propositions in which the Russell-Myhill paradox doesn't arise: the theory does not involve ramification or compromises to the underlying logic, but rather rejects common assumptions, encoded in the notation of the $\lambda$-calculus, about what properties and relations can be built. I argue that the structuralist had independent reasons to reject these underlying assumptions. The theory is given both a (...) diagrammatic representation, and a logical representation in a novel language. In the latter half of the paper I turn to some technical questions concerning the treatment of quantification, and demonstrate various equivalences between the diagrammatic and logical representations, and a fragment of the $\lambda$-calculus. (shrink)

Dasgupta :35–67, 2009) has argued that material individuals, such as particles and laptops, are metaphysically objectionable and must be eliminated from our fundamental theories of the world. He proposes to eliminate them by redescribing all the fundamental facts of the world in a variant of predicate functor logic. We study the status, on this theory, of a putative fact particularly recalcitrant to a formulation within predicate functor logic: his own claim that there are no fundamental or primitive material individuals. We (...) consider three regimentations of the denial of primitive individuals and show that—under some plausible hypotheses about fundamental truths and the fundamentality operator—they cannot be consistently translated in predicate functor logic by Dasgupta’s usual strategy. We conclude by discussing two approaches to salvage Generalism, in the absence of such a translation. (shrink)

All sides in the recent debates over the Quine‐Putnam Indispensability thesis presuppose Quine's criterion for determining what a discourse is ontologically committed to. I subject the criterion to scrutiny, especially in regard to the available competitor‐criteria, asking what means of evaluation there are for comparing alternative criteria against each other. Finding none, the paper concludes that ontological questions, in a certain sense, are philosophically indeterminate.

Some of the most interesting questions about Kant, and more particularly about his moral philosophy, arise when he is placed alongside the giants of antiquity. Where does he come together with Plato? Where with Aristotle? Where does he diverge from each? He comes together with Plato in a shared conception of Ideas. When he first outlines how he is using the term ‘Idea’ in the Critique of Pure Reason , he insists that he is using it in none other than (...) its original Platonic sense; and he explains away certain discrepancies with the comment: It is by no means unusual… to find that we understand [an author] better than he has understood himself. As he has not sufficiently determined his concept, he has sometimes spoken… in opposition to his own intention. (shrink)

Although philosophy has undergone a number of revolutions since the turn of the century, the existence of universals is still debated largely in the terms employed by Moore and Russell around 1910. A recent article by Alan Donagan illustrates this nicely, for Donagan expounds and defends what he takes to be the principal argument for universals given by Russell in The Problems of Philosophy. I shall comment critically on the case Donagan makes for Russell's metaphysical realism, but my main concern (...) is to establish a point of more general interest—namely, that the most plausible strategy for defending a commitment to universals actually raises more problems than it promises to solve. (shrink)

At Oxford University, in the context of WW2, when men were largely obliged to abandon the university benches to take part in the war effort, four women philosophers, Iris Murdoch (1919-1999), Mary Midgley (1919-2018), Elizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001) and Philippa Foot (1920-2010), formed a group of philosophical reflections that would become a competitor, after the war, to John L. Austin’s famous ‘Saturday Mornings’. At the heart of the concerns of this ‘wartime quartet’: putting the importance of being human back at the (...) centre of ethics. They opposed “modern moral philosophy” and its many presuppositions, including the claim that ethical questions are independent of the facts of human life or concern a purely rational subject abstracted from everyday issues and from its belonging to the human species. By putting the importance of being human back at the heart of their ethical reflections, these philosophers came to reflect on issues that directly concern human life, far from the philosophical abstractions that interested their men homologues. In this paper, I explore the extent to which this re-inscription of philosophy into everyday life and into ordinary human concerns, opens the way to a feminist philosophy and ethics. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of the mechanisms of the emergence of structure and meaning in the biological and physical sciences. It proceeds from an examination of the concept of intentionality and proposes a model of intentional behavior on the basis of results of computer simulations of structural and functional self-organization. Current attempts to endow intuitive aspects of meaningful complexity with operational content are analyzed and the metaphor of DNA as a computer program (the `genetic program') is critically examined in (...) relation to an alternative metaphor of DNA as data. It is argued that relatively simple networks of boolean automata can classify and recognize patterns of binary strings on the basis of non-programmed, self-generated criteria, but lack a capacity for self-observation and interpretation. To overcome this problem it is necessary to clarify the relationships between the goals and underlying mechanisms of a process and between a system and its environment. It will be shown that memory devices that record the histories of interactions are essential for models of conscious and unconscious intentional behavior and that the possibility of infinitely sophisticated - and therefore unprogrammable - machines cannot be avoided. It will be argued that the notion of infinite sophistication allows the ideas of self-organization and physical determinism to be reconciled. These models will be used to suggest how the voluntary aspect of decision-making in general can emerge out of functional self-organizing processes. The conclusion will introduce the notion of `underdetermination' of theories, which imposes an intrinsic limitation on models of complex natural systems - a limitation that, at the same time, may be precisely what makes possible mutual understanding and intersubjectivity. (shrink)

The idea that religious belief is ‘almost inevitable’ is so forcefully argued by Justin Barrett that it can warrant justifiable concern – especially since he claims atheism is an unnatural handicap. In this article, I argue that religious belief in Homo sapiens isn’t inevitable – and that Barrett does agree when pushed. I describe the role played by a Hyperactive Agency Detection Device in the generation of belief in God as necessary but insufficient in explaining religious culture – I distance (...) myself from some common conceptions of HADD and the view I take of it is unorthodox. I point out that the conclusion to Barrett’s book, ‘Why Would Anyone Believe in God?’ is a fine example of the very hyperactive agency detection Barrett himself describes, and is therefore highly suspect. (shrink)

One of the motivations for the researches leaded by the members of Vienna Circle with regard to the foundations of scientific language is found on Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus Logico-Philophicus”. Even though there are divergences about the legitimacy of this influence, thebook was, in effect, taken as a theoretical motivation for the structuring of scientific language, developed by logical empiricists. This paper will present the theories developed by members of Vienna Circle emphasizing the elements presents in Tractatusthat were taken, largely, as influence (...) over the “criterion of meaning” of a philosophical proposition adopted by logical empiricists in an attempt to set a foundation for knowledge. (shrink)

I want to defend a Combinatorialtheory of possibility. Such a view traces the very idea of possibility to the idea of the combinations – all the combinations which respect a certain simple form – of given, actual, elements. Combination is to be understood widely enough to cover the notions of expansion and contraction. The combinatorial idea is not new, of course. Wittgenstein gave a classical exposition of it in the Tractatus. Perhaps its charter is 3.4: ‘A proposition determines a place (...) in logical space. The existence of this logical place is guaranteed by the mere existence of the constituents’. There is a small additional combinatorial literature. I myself was converted to a combinatorial view by Brian Skyrms’ brief but fascinating article ‘Tractarian Nominalism.’. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente artículo es múltiple. Primero, pondera una serie de razones por las cuales la mística aún es relevante para el análisis de la condición humana del hombre actual. Segundo, propone a la promesa y a la ausencia como dispositivos de la mística. Tercero, expone, desde la lectura que hacen Alois Haas y Amador Vega de algunos sermones alemanes del Maestro Eckhart y de El peregrino querúbico de Angelus Silesius, los planteamientos fundamentales de la mística de estos autores, (...) a saber: el vaciamiento del alma, el coengendramiento, el abismo de Dios y la unión mística. Al mismo tiempo esboza cómo el pensamiento de Eckhart y Silesius, además de ser estudiado, produce ecos en algunas de las formulaciones filosóficas más importantes del siglo XX. The aim of this article is multiple. First, it weighs a series of reasons for which mysticism is still relevant for the analysis of man’s current human condition. Second, it proposes promise and absence as the devices of mysticism. Third, it exhibits, according to the reading of Alois Haas and Amador Vega of some of Meister Eckhart’s German sermons and Angelus Silesius’ The Cherubic Wanderer, the fundamental expositions of these authors’ mysticism, namely: voidance of the soul, co-conceivement, God’s abyss and mystical union. At the same time it outlines how the thought of Eckhart and Silesius, besides being studied, produces echoes in some of the most important philosophical formulations of the 20th century. (shrink)

Starting from the context in which Wittgenstein thinks of the concepts of “seeing-as” and “hearing-as”, the basic relation is clarified between the question of representation, musical understanding, and the theory of musical expressiveness. The points of views of Wollheim, Scruton, Levinson, and Ridley are discussed, in a re-consideration of the notions of hearing and understanding within Wittgenstein’s “last philosophy”.

The aim of this paper is to clarify why propositional logic is Post complete and its weak completeness was almost unnoticed by Hilbert and Bernays, while first-order logic is Post incomplete and its weak completeness was seen as an open problem by Hilbert and Ackermman. Thus, I will compare propositional and first-order logic in the Prinzipien der Mathematik, Bernays’s second Habilitationsschrift and the Grundzüge der Theoretischen Logik. The so called “arithmetical interpretation”, the conjunctive and disjunctive normal forms and the soundness (...) of the propositional rules of inference deserve special emphasis. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of the origins, vicissitudes, and abandonment of ‘metapsychology’, the psycho-biological scientific core of the Freudian opus, and introduces the authors’ key revisions. Although couched in the language of metaphor and analogy from 19th century physics, the conceptual foundations of Freud’s theories contained the seeds of a bio-semiotic theory of mind and of human nature in the natural world. Its updated, modernized, version opens the door to an inter-penetrative epistemology leading to universal principles of logical form, (...) applicable to all types of vital inter-action. (shrink)

Claims (or the implicit assumption of the inherent worth of life) are pervasive and remain virtually unchallenged. I have already argued that these outright moral dictates are thinly veiled vestiges of theological ethics which, following the removal of their theological foundations, remain little more than nebulous claims supported only by fear of the consequences of a challenge. In my previous work, I rejected an a priori claim of an objective life’s worth, which is the worth that we should assign to (...) others’ lives, and elucidated a principled framework that gives rise to the said worth immediately, as a consequence of the experiences of its sentient environment. Herein, I address the complementary question of the value of one’s own life, which is the subjective value of life and, thus, Camus’s (in)famous view that “there is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide”. As before, I rejected the inherency of a life’s worth, showing it to be contradictio in adjecto, and instead show how this worth too can in large part be seen to emerge from sentient experiences of the subject. Many of these are innately linked to experiences of other sentient beings as objects, thus erecting a framework that is both principled and thoroughly humane with Schopenhauer’s ‘loving kindness’ running through it. Practically, my framework illuminates an understanding of suicide as a real-world phenomenon, helping those who remain living to understand a deceased one’s decision, and paving the way to answering questions, such as when there should be an attempt to prevent suicide, and what means of suicide prevention are ethically permissible. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 7, July 2022.

The overall goal of this article is to show that aesthetics plays a major role in a debate at the very center of philosophy. Drawing on the work of David Bell, the article spells out how Kant and Wittgenstein use reflective judgment, epitomized by a judgment of beauty, as a key in their respective solutions to the rule-following problem they share. The more specific goal is to offer a Kantian account of semantic normativity as understood by Wittgenstein. The article argues (...) that Wittgenstein's reason for describing language as a collection of language games is to allow for a perspective that shows those games as internally purposive without any extralinguistic purpose. This perspective also allows for that union of the general rule and its particular application in practice that the original paradox of rule-following is wanting. (shrink)

Personal reflections on the philosophical career of Henry Johnstone, B.S. Haverford College, 1942, and Ph.D. Harvard, 1950, professor at Williams College 1948-1952 and Pennsylvania State University, 1952 - 2000. Founder and editor of Philosophy and Rhetoric, Johnstone wrote eight books, including two logic texts, three monographs, and over 150 articles or reviews. The focus is on his efforts to resolve problems stemming from the conflict between the logical empiricism Johnstone embraced in his dissertation, and the arguments of his absolute idealist (...) colleagues at Williams, efforts he pursued in Philosophy and Argument (1959), and Validity and Rhetoric in Philosophical Argument (1978). (shrink)

In sections 18 and 73 of Carnap’s Logical Syntax of Language , Carnap famously presents what he understands to be decisive objections to Wittgenstein’s Tractarian distinction between saying and showing. However, Carnap has been criticized in recent literature for severely misinterpreting that distinction. Against this criticism it is argued that Carnap reads that distinction as applying to two distinct classes of expressions ( Unsinn and sinnlos ) that he holds to emerge from his reading of Tractatus 4.1212 and related Tractarian (...) theses. It is then argued that Carnap’s counterexamples to Wittgenstein’s theses are successful given his reading, and that our analysis of his counterexamples puts us in a unique position to reevaluate his conventionalism. (shrink)

Suele entenderse la Filosofía como el desarrollo de problemas guiados por un método que el autor del texto propone, siendo este generalmente un método racional. Pero la propuesta que aquí se hace es que los textos capitales de Miguel de Unamuno se configuran como una estrategia, para que el lector se implique con el autor en problemas y métodos que deben comprenderse en claves distintas a los usuales. Los textos de Unamuno entienden la tarea del lector como condición de posibilidad (...) para su propia comprensión. Y en este sentido necesitan al lector. Pero el tipo de lector que requiere no es un lector científico sino un lector mitológico. Mostrar esta propuesta, en la lectura Del sentimiento trágico de la vida, es lo que me propongo en este trabajo. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to throw light on the reciprocal exchanges between legal philosophy and the theory of speech acts (as developed by Austin and Searle). The first part concerns the contributions to legal philosophy made by the theory of speech acts with a view to developing new perspectives. The second part deals with the contributions of legal philosophy to speech act theory.

So-called evolutionary error theorists, such as Michael Ruse and Richard Joyce, have argued that naturalistic accounts of the moral sentiments lead us to adopt an error theory approach to morality. Roughly, the argument is that an appreciation of the etiology of those sentiments undermines any reason to think that they track moral truth and, furthermore, undermines any reason to think that moral truth actually exists. I argue that this approach offers us a false dichotomy between error theory and some form (...) of moral realism. While accepting the presuppositions of the evolutionary error theorist, I argue that contract-based approaches to morality can be sensitive to those presuppositions while still vindicating morality. Invoking Stephen Darwall’s distinction between contractualism and contractarianism, I go on to offer an evolutionary-based contractarianism. (shrink)

Philosophy has four forms: wonder, faith, doubt and scepticism. These are not separate categories, but separate ideal possibilities. Modern academic philosophy has fallen, for several centuries, into an error: which is the error of supposing that philosophy is only what I call doubt. Philosophy may be doubt: indeed, it is part of my argument that this is undeniably one element of, or one possibility in, philosophy; but doubt is only one of four points of the compass. In this essay I (...) indicate the nature of each point of the compass as it has been found in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

What we observe, through our usually limited lens, is that differential growing of space determines forms -characterized by their shape, size and coloration. As non-Euclidean geometrical mathematics have proclaimed: forms are manifestations of the curvature of space. Physics and other natural laws impose mathematical structural restrictions to biological forms. The molecules comprising any living form become arranged in specific ways in response to physical forces as well as chemical and biochemical conditions. Over time, such forms inherit additional historical restrictions that (...) make up their meaning, their semiotics. Color does not escape from this orthogenic reality. In this study, we present the colored pattern of the connexivum of Triatoma maculata, an insect vector of the etiologic agent of Chagas disease. This model is used as an example to appreciate mimicry under a heterodox and provocative approach. We unveil that beyond 1) mathematical and 2) historical semiotic restrictions of T. maculata mimesis of a yellowish-black alternating pattern, there are also 3) artistic interpretations; where metaphysics of life, beyond human perspective, is included. (shrink)

It has been commonplace to maintain of the phenomenon that occurred during classical times, the change from relying on myth to trusting in reason: (1) that the emergence of philosophy from myth was marked by an abrupt discontinuity; (2) that mythical thinking was left behind once philosophy was invented or discovered; and (3) that the ancient Greeks were the agents of this miracle. This paper suggests that the so-called “Greek miracle” was, in fact, a miracle manqué and, more importantly, that (...) close examination of this failed miracle offers valuable insight into the philosophical crisis facing the world today. (shrink)

John Dewey points out in A Common Faith (1934) that what stands in the way of religious belief for many is the apparent commitment of Western religious traditions to supernatural phenomena and questionable historical claims. We are to accept claims that in any other context we would find laughable. Are we to believe that water can be turned into wine without the benefit of the fermentation process? Are we to swallow the claim that there is such a phenomenon as the (...) spontaneous conception of a child without the intervention of the traditional technique? Were we to confront these claims in any but a religious context, we would dismiss them as the workings of an overactive imagination or simple cover for an overactive sex life. But for the devout believer, there is no doubt even with a paucity of evidence. At the same time, the rise of science has forcibly suggested the idea that the natural world is self-contained and, if explainable, that explanation will come from within. There seems to be no room for the traditional God and, much as one might wish otherwise, nothing for him to do. Perhaps... (shrink)

W artykule analizuję pewną odmianę kosmologicznej argumentacji za istnieniem Boga – „dowód ze skończoności”. W punkcie wyjścia opieram się na intuicjach Georga W.F. Hegla, które rozwijam. W swoich heglowskich inspiracjach ograniczam się do Wykładów z filozofii religii. W konkluzji wskazuję na niebezpieczeństwo pomieszania porządku poznawczego z porządkiem ontycznym. --------------- Zgłoszono: 30/10/2020. Zrecenzowano: 17/12/2020. Zaakceptowano do publikacji: 24/04/2021.

Dainton and Robinson’s Companion traces lines of descent of analytic philosophy from ancestors. They characterize analytic philosophy as a movement, a tradition, a style, and a commitment to the va...

Marc Lange offers a stale anthology that reflects the sad state of affairs in the camp of analytic philosophy. It is representative in a few respects, even in its maltreatment of Russell, Wittgenstein, and Popper. Despite its neglect of Wittgenstein, it shows again that Wittgenstein is the patron saint of the analytic school despite the fact that it does not abide by his theory of metaphysics as inherently meaningless.

Einstein considered fallibilist methodology obvious and metaphysics the challenging heuristic of physics. This philosophy is a minority view in academic philosophy. Most commentators on Einstein reject it and either refuse to ascribe it to him or declare it an impediment to his researches, his own opinion to the contrary notwithstanding.

Inducing aspect-experiences – the sudden seeing of something anew, as when a face suddenly strikes us as familiar – can be used as a philosophical method. In seeing aspects, I argue, we let ourselves experience what it would be like to conceptualize something in a particular way, apart from any conceptual routine. We can use that experience to examine our ways of conceptualizing things, and re-evaluate the ways we make sense of them. I claim that we are not always passive (...) with regard to these experiences, and explain how we can actively induce them. I distinguish this method from other standard Wittgensteinian philosophical methods. (shrink)

I defend the view that aspect-perception – seeing as a duck, or a face as courageous – typically involves concept-application. Seemingly obvious, this is contested by Avner Baz: ‘aspects may not aptly be identified with, or in terms of, empirical concepts […]’ – In opposition, I claim that they may. Indeed, in many cases there is no other way to identify aspects.I review the development in Baz’s view, from his early criticism of Stephen Mulhall, to his recent recruitment of the (...) discussion about aspects to criticize John McDowell’s conceptualism, and his claim: ‘the dawning of Wittgensteinian aspects reveals our power to perceive unity and sense that are not aptly thought of as conceptual’.I accept many of Baz’s claims against Mulhall and McDowell. However, his arguments go too far. Aspect-perception, I argue, typically involves a special kind of application of concepts. Denying that is denying much of what is important and of interest in the phenomena of aspect. The world revealed in aspect-perception is not the conceptualized world of science; but it is also not the pre-conceptualized ‘phenomenal’ world which, according to Baz, we normally have in perception, and which he wants to bring into view. (shrink)

We argue that abduction does not work in isolation from other inference mechanisms and illustrate this through an inference scheme designed to evaluate multiple hypotheses. We use game theory to relate the abductive system to actions that produce new information. To enable evaluation of the implications of this approach we have implemented the procedures used to calculate the impact of new information in a computer model. Experiments with this model display a number of features of collective belief-revision leading to consensus-formation, (...) such as the influence of bias and prejudice. The scheme of inferential calculations invokes a Peircian concept of ‘belief’ as the propensity to choose a particular course of action. (shrink)