The curious case of Bronze Age Pervert (BAP, for short), of unfortunate name, or “handle,” in his world. Author of the self-published Bronze Age Mindset (2018), BAP is present in 4Chan discussion threads and on YouTube, and he produces weekly subscription-only podcasts with approximately 6,500 paying clients (I am among them). He was banned from Twitter but reinstated in December 2022, and he now has over 100,000 followers. A Google search turns up scores of articles addressing or discussing his work, (...) all written in palatable forms. But BAP’s own subjects and rhetoric are for adults only. Who is BAP, what does he espouse, and what compels the attention of orthodox Catholics? (shrink)

This dissertation concerns the active role of the organism in evolutionary theory. In particular, it concerns how our conception of the relationship between organism and environment, and the nature of natural selection, influences the causal and explanatory role of organismic activity and behavior in evolutionary explanations. The overarching aim is to argue that the behaviors and activities of organisms can serve both as the explananda (that which is explained) and the explanantia (that which explains) in evolutionary explanations. I attempt to (...) achieve this aim by offering three central arguments. First, that the organism-environment relation is the ontologically basic unit of biology. A common way of conceiving the relationship between organism and environment is as a duality—as two causally independent systems that overlap through interaction. I think this is a mistake. There cannot be organisms without environments and vice versa. They are codependent and codetermined. Second, that natural selection is an ecological process. By this I mean that natural selection acts primarily on organism-environment interactions. It is only in virtue of organisms interacting with their environments that there can be fitness differences amongst individual organisms in a population. The ecological approach to natural selection also entails that the nature of the system(s) of inheritance involved in the reoccurrence of favorable organism-environment interactions is, in principle, immaterial to the process of selection. It only matters for selection that organism-environment interactions actually do reoccur in subsequent generations. Third, that niche construction theory—the most well-developed theoretical and conceptual framework for studying how the activities of organisms influences evolutionary dynamics—can be seen as fully a compatible and integrated part of evolutionary theory. Together, these three arguments constitute an overarching argument. Namely that we both can, and should, take organismic activity and behavior to be crucial explanatory elements in evolutionary theory. Throughout the dissertation I also show how these three arguments have consequences for other debates in the philosophy of evolutionary theory, such as the nature of evolutionary processes, the structure of selection-based explanations, the validity and utility of the proximate-ultimate distinction, and the nature of teleology in evolutionary systems. (shrink)

Close examination of the works of David Hume shows that his aim to explain the problem of evil is to attack natural theology and introduce it as a situation that is non-epistemological and unsystematic. So, contrary to what the majority of interpretations which typically express that he makes an argument against the existence of God, Hume wants to show that the statements of natural theology are rationally unprovable, and he does not want to totally decline them. As a matter of (...) fact, they ontologically exist, and are epistemologically out of human cognition. This article shows that the popular interpretation is false, and this would be done in two ways: the first is Hume’s statements about the cause of the world, and the second is Hume’s solutions for the problem of evil, that have mystical streaks. Based on these fact, it will be shown that Hume is not an atheist, but he is a mystical fideist. (shrink)

As he moves closer to half of his term as president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Roa Duterte has continually been in friction with the Catholic Church, specifically with certain members of its hierarchy. Mainly identifiable as the dividing line between Duterte’s administration and the Church is the issue on human rights particularly the extrajudicial killings (EJK) of suspected users and pushers of illegal drugs. This paper argues that Duterte’s attitude and positioning towards the Catholic Church neither strengthen nor advance the (...) Philippine state towards a greater degree of secularization. On the contrary, the Church has become more politically and publicly involved. Consequently, it has remained a key actor or interest group providing an alternative moral discourse to that of the government. (shrink)

Social work is a contested tradition, torn between the demands of social governance and autonomy. Today, this struggle is reflected in the division between the dominant, neoliberal agenda of service provision and the resistance offered by various critical perspectives employed by disparate groups of practitioners serving diverse communities. Critical social work challenges oppressive conditions and discourses, in addition to addressing their consequences in individuals’ lives. However, very few recent critical theorists informing critical social work have advocated revolution. A challenging exception (...) can be found in the work of Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–97), whose explication of ontological underdetermination and creation evades the pitfalls of both structural determinism and post-structural relativism, enabling an understanding of society as the contested creation of collective imaginaries in action and a politics of radical transformation. On this basis, we argue that Castoriadis’s radical-democratic revisioning of revolutionary praxis can help in reimagining critical social work’s emancipatory potential. (shrink)

This present study aims at exploring the meaning of the building of Santa Maria de Fatima Catholic Church (abbreviated as: SMFCC) or Toasebio Parish located in District Glodok, Jakarta, Indonesia. The author exposes in advance the meaning of the physical elements of the building SMFCC as understood by history writers and building experts. These meanings are not inseparable from the elements of human activities in the building. Through qualitative methods and literature review, the author describes in the Results section, how (...) those meanings can be further interpreted through the existing studies and expressions of the SMFCC Parish Head. It is found that these meanings are contested − from the direction of religious faith and of culture − but complete our understandings of the church which is well-known as an Indonesian cultural heritage and dominated by Chinese and pastors from Europe. (shrink)

The recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) and their deployment in social settings prompt an important philosophical question: are LLMs social agents? This question finds its roots in the broader exploration of what engenders sociality. Since AI systems like chatbots, carebots, and sexbots are expanding the pre-theoretical boundaries of our social ontology, philosophers have two options. One is to deny LLMs membership in our social ontology on theoretical grounds by claiming something along the lines that only organic or X-type (...) creatures belong in our social world. Second, expand our ontological boundaries. I take the second route and claim LLMs implemented as social chatbots are social agents. Utilizing Brian Epstein's concepts of grounding and anchoring, alongside Dee Peyton's criteria for what makes a property social, I posit that the capacity for conversations is a social property. Further, within a framework where social agency is considered multi-dimensional, akin to agency, possessing a social property is sufficient for attaining social agency. Thus establishing chatbots as social agents. A helpful concept here is Levels of Abstraction (LoA). The LoA framework allows for extracting relevant and important information from the target domain (the social world). For example, the property of being a 'boy' and the capacity for conversation are social properties; hence, they are part of the social domain. LLMs have the capacity for conversations. So, if we focus on the conversational-LoA and not the gender-LoA, then LLMs occupy a dimension of sociality (i.e., conversational dimensions). (shrink)

El presente libro constituye una propuesta para la educación en este siglo XXI. El autor entiende la educación como un proceso de humanización: la educación es una acción que posibilita que el ser humano pueda vivir cada vez más humanamente. A lo largo de estas páginas, insiste en que la educación se refiere al ser humano que es persona, lo que significa que tiene un valor infinito, que es un ser libre, autónomo y responsable, que la educación no tiene como (...) objetivo centrar al individuo sobre sí mismo, sino descentrarlo, para que sea capaz de abrirse hacia los demás. hacia la sociedad, porque la educación debe suscitar una sociedad de personas, una verdadera humanidad. El autor entiende, además, que cualquier intento de reducir la educación a una simple transmisión de conocimientos o a una mera información. es un verdadero atentado contra el ser humano. No existe razón alguna que pueda Justificar el descuido en esta tarea y, menos aún, transformarla en una imposición arbitraria por motivos sociales. políticos. económicos y religiosos. (shrink)

Vagueness has gotten some attention in aesthetics, but deserves more. Vagueness is universally acknowledged to be ubiquitous. It has played a substantive role in some recent writing on the definition of art. It has figured importantly in analyses of the concept of literature, and (in connection with a thought experiment of Arthur Danto’s), of the ontology of art. Vagueness was a locus of contention in a debate between Alan Goldman and Eddy Zemach about the reality of aesthetic properties. This paper’s (...) aim is to advance that debate, by focusing on the relevance of vagueness to the familiar argument that moves from premises about aesthetic disagreement to the conclusion that aesthetic properties are not real. In what follows, it is argued that, vis-á-vis aesthetic disagreement, the vagueness of aesthetic properties can do important theoretical work for aesthetic realism. (shrink)

I shall in this paper, assume three basic moments. My principal objective is to show that belief in reincarnation from the Igbo narrative is logically coherent with simultaneous subsistence in the ancestral realm. In the first, I engage the question of metaphysics from a socio-hermeneutic perspective to decipher its position as characteristically Igbo; in the second, I propose a scale of eschatology and juxtapose it with the Christian schema such that, I exploit my provision of an Igbo anthroposophy to show (...) how a unique individual exists that is still, the reincarnation of an ancestor. In the final analysis, I demonstrate the uniqueness of the eschatological schemes of the Igbos and Christians, in an effort to interpretatively spell out their fundamental differences and apparent similarities. With this in mind, I am pledged by intellectual troth to portraying the consistence of individual haecceity and reincarnation, making use of Igbo anthroposophy as my operative argumentatory legerdemain. (shrink)

The summativists generally analyze group belief in terms of belief of the majority. The non-summativists counterargue that it is possible for a group to believe that p even if “none” of its members believes that p. In doing so, they usually appeal to hypothetical cases in which groups are “structured” groups like committees, research groups, governments, as opposed to “collective” groups like Finns, America, Catholic Church. In this paper, I raise the objection that non-summativist cases involve summativism. While most contemporary (...) objections to non-summativism tend to be rejectionists, i.e., showing that non-summativist cases involve group acceptance rather than group belief, my objection is newfangled in that it grants non-summativist cases group belief but shows that group belief in such cases is majority belief. (shrink)

The scant scholarship associated with Newman’s Anglican views about Judaism has focused on his negative rhetoric against Judaism and portrayed him as anti-Semitic. His Anglican writings, however, applied terms associated with Judaism in a typological sense to the political and religious realities of his day, primarily to support his apologetic agenda and to highlight threats to the Church of England. Simultaneously, he stressed the positive characteristics of Judaism, illustrated the continuity between Judaism and Christianity, and pointed out that the religious (...) system of Judaism was divinely inspired and contained worthy examples for Christian living. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is threefold. First, I seek to trace a brief history of the concept of catholicity within the Reformed tradition and offer this historical context as an explanation for its resistance to traditional conceptions of the Church. Second, I will show how Georges Florovsky’s work “The Boundaries of the Church,” offers a better point of reference for Orthodox dialogue with Churches of the Reformed Tradition than other Orthodox ecclesiologies, such as those based solely on St. Cyprian’s (...) model, and the ecclesiology of N. Afanassieff. Last, I will use John Calvin’s ideas on the church in Institutes of the Christian Religion to show that certain contemporary Reformed ecclesiologies do not take into consideration the early Calvinist emphasis on catholicity. Using the early Christological controversies of Monophysitism and Nestorianism and applying them to ecclesiology, I will illustrate how both the traditionalist Orthodox and evangelical Reformed views of the Church are weak, make extreme claims on the nature of the Church, and must come closer to the center for dialogue. There is hope if doctrinal agreement could be made in two areas— the existence of the Church, at least to some degree, outside the formal walls of any given denominational, canonical structure in a “charismatic” sense, and the intrinsic unity of the Church as a catholic reality. Both these statements must be affirmed for the sides to agree, though agreement must not come at the expense of doctrinal suicide for either tradition. (shrink)

There is a need recognized by the National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research and the National Cancer Institute to advance basic, translational and clinical saliva research. The goal of the Salivaomics Knowledge Base (SKB) is to create a data management system and web resource constructed to support human salivaomics research. To maximize the utility of the SKB for retrieval, integration and analysis of data, we have developed the Saliva Ontology and SDxMart. This article reviews the informatics advances in saliva (...) diagnostics made possible by the Saliva Ontology and SDxMart. (shrink)

Discussions about the extended mind have ‘extended’ in various directions in the last decades. While applied to other aspects of human cognition and even consciousness, the extended-mind hypothesis has also been criticized, as it questions fundamental ideas such as the image of a dual world, divided between an external and an internal domain by the border of ‘skin and skull’, the idea of a localized and constant decision center, and the role of internal representations. We suggest that the main virtue (...) of the hypothesis is not as a theory per se, but as a vaccine against persistent metaphysical prejudices about the mind’s structure, functions and borders. Being an hypothesis about the most efficient ways to combine resources and problems, and not a theory about the mind’s a-priori constitution, the extended mind view moves the focus from ontology to pragmatics and helps purify philosophy of mind from metaphysical remainders. (shrink)

The Salivaomics Knowledge Base (SKB) is designed to serve as a computational infrastructure that can permit global exploration and utilization of data and information relevant to salivaomics. SKB is created by aligning (1) the saliva biomarker discovery and validation resources at UCLA with (2) the ontology resources developed by the OBO (Open Biomedical Ontologies) Foundry, including a new Saliva Ontology (SALO). We define the Saliva Ontology (SALO; http://www.skb.ucla.edu/SALO/) as a consensus-based controlled vocabulary of terms and relations dedicated to the salivaomics (...) domain and to saliva-related diagnostics following the principles of the OBO (Open Biomedical Ontologies) Foundry. The Saliva Ontology is an ongoing exploratory initiative. The ontology will be used to facilitate salivaomics data retrieval and integration across multiple fields of research together with data analysis and data mining. The ontology will be tested through its ability to serve the annotation ('tagging') of a representative corpus of salivaomics research literature that is to be incorporated into the SKB. Background Saliva (oral fluid) is an emerging biofluid for non-invasive diagnostics used in the detection of human diseases. The need to advance saliva research is strongly emphasized by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), and is included in the NIDCR's 2004- 2009 expert panel long-term research agenda [1]. The ability to monitor health status, disease onset, progression, recurrence and treatment outcome through noninvasive means is highly important to advancing health care management. Saliva is a perfect medium to be explored for personalized individual medicine including diagnostics, offering a non-invasive, easy to obtain means for detecting and monitoring diseases. Saliva testing potentially allows the patient to collect their own saliva samples at home, yielding convenience for the patient and savings in health costs, and facilitating multiple sampling. Specimen collection is less objectionable to patients and easier in children and elderly individuals. Due to these advantages. (shrink)

We describe the rationale for an application ontology covering the domain of human body fluids that is designed to facilitate representation, reuse, sharing and integration of diagnostic, physiological, and biochemical data, We briefly review the Blood Ontology (BLO), Saliva Ontology (SALO) and Kidney and Urinary Pathway Ontology (KUPO) initiatives. We discuss the methods employed in each, and address the project of using them as starting point for a unified body fluids ontology resource. We conclude with a description of how the (...) body fluids ontology initiative may provide support to basic and translational science. (shrink)

This chapter presents an overview of the life, work, and philosophical contributions of Śāntarakṣita (c. 725–788), who is known for his synthesis of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka with elements of the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti tradition of logic and epistemology. His two most important independent treatises, the Compendium of True Principles (Tattvasaṃgraha) and the Ornament of the Middle Way (Madhyamakālaṃkāra), are characterized by an emphasis on the indispensable role of rational analysis on the Buddhist path as well as serious and systematic engagement with competing Buddhist (...) and non-Buddhist schools of thought. Śāntarakṣita employs a pedagogical-rhetorical device of provisionally adopting what he deems to be successively more rational views to reject less rational ones. Using this approach, in the Ornament of the Middle Way, he recommends a gradual path to arrive at an understanding of the Madhyamaka ultimate truth by incorporating Yogācāra idealist ontology into his presentation of conventional truth. In this same text, he presents an influential iteration of the neither-one-nor-many argument for the Madhyamaka ultimate truth, the emptiness of intrinsic nature—i.e., the universal negation of ontologically independent being—leaving a lasting and significant impact on both Indian and Tibetan Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy. (shrink)

According to Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophers, everything depends for its existence on something else. But what would a world devoid of fundamentalia look like? In this paper, I argue that the anti-foundationalist “neither-one-nor-many argument” of the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta commits him to a position I call “metaphysical indefinitism.” I demonstrate how this view follows from Śrīgupta’s rejection of mereological simples and ontologically independent being, when understood in light of his account of conventional reality. Contra recent claims in the secondary literature, I (...) clarify how the Madhyamaka metaphysical dependence structure is not a straightforward infinitism since it does not honor strict asymmetry or transitivity. Instead, its dependence relations are irreflexive and extendable, admitting of dependence chains of indefinite (though not actually infinite) length and dependence loops of non-zero length. Yet, the flexible ontology of Śrīgupta's Madhyamaka can accommodate a contextualist account of asymmetry and support a revisable theory of conventional truth, delivering significant payoffs for the view, including the capacity to accommodate developments in scientific explanation. (shrink)

An increasing number of writers (for example, Kim ((1992), (1999)), Bechtel and Mundale (1999), Keeley (2000), Bickle (2003), Polger (2004), and Shapiro ((2000), (2004))) have attacked the existence of multiple realization and wider views of the special sciences built upon it. We examine the two most important arguments against multiple realization and show that neither is successful. Furthermore, we also defend an alternative, positive view of the ontology, and methodology, of the special science. In contrast to the claims of recent (...) critics, we show that methodological connections between the neurosciences and psychology are plausibly often the result of multiple realization. (shrink)

In this work Husserl makes the distinction between expressions and indications that Derrida will later plant the bomb of Husserl's own Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness underneath it in order to undermine the dream for presence and inaugurate Deconstruction. Logic, as Husserl sees it, is concerned in the first place with meanings (propositions, concepts) and with associated meaning-instantiating acts. Most importantly, it is concerned with that sort of deductively closed collection of meanings which constitutes a scientific theory. For Husserl, as (...) for Bolzano, logic is a theory of science. Only where we have an appropriate unity and organization also on the side of the objects (states of affairs, properties) to which the relevant acts refer, however, will we have a scientific theory, so that the unity which is characteristic of the latter must involve both (1) an interconnection of truths (or of propositional meanings in general), and (2) an interconnection of the things to which these truths (and the associated cognitive acts) are directed. Where formal logic relates in the first place to meaning categories such as proposition, concept, subject and predicate, its sister discipline of formal ontology relates to object categories such as object and property, relation and relatum, manifold, part, whole, state of affairs, existence and so on. Logic in a broader sense therefore seeks to delimit the concepts which belong to the idea of a unity of theory in relation to both meanings and objects, and the truths of logic are all the necessary truths relating to those categories of constituents, on the side of both meanings and objects, from out of which science as such is necessarily constituted (including what we might think of as bridge-categories such as identity and truth which span the division between meanings and objects). The best way to deal with Husserl's theory of formal ontology, therefore, is to explicate both the connections between the formal and material, and those between the ontological and the logical. In introducing his distinction between formal and material ontology, Husserl asserts that the former is descriptive and involves analytic a priori judgements, and that the latter involves synthetic a priori judgements. In its most general sense formal ontology concerns itself with characterizing the simple 'something'. The sphere of material ontology in this sense are the laws of non-independence (2) which delimit the ontological regions. For the genetic interpretation, material ontology precedes formal ontology; for the descriptive interpretation it is the other way round (1913, art. 10). Here emerges 'the fundamental distinction between formal and material ontology': namely, the distinction between analytic a priori and synthetic a priori (Introduction to Formale und transzendentale Logik, 1929). (shrink)

Reading Peter Sloterdijk's concept of spheres Bubbles : Spheres 1 - Irfan Ajvazi .

The rapid pace of technological advancements offers an essential field of research for a deeper understanding of man’s relationship with artifacts of her design. These artifacts designed by humans can have various mental and physical effects on their users. The human interaction with the artifact is not passive; on the contrary, it exhibits a potential that reveals the inner dispositions of human beings and makes them open to new creations. In this article, we will examine the impact of technology on (...) human life through the dispositional compatibilism perspective of the contemporary philosopher Kadri Vihvelin, arguing for a system of metaphysics in which ontology of properties depend on dispositions. In this context, the emerging phenomenon of dispositional compatibilism opens the door to developing new philosophical ideas for evaluating the concepts of compatibilism and freedom in the context of technology. Thus, it is emphasized that although technological devices shape human life, new and unforeseen powers may emerge due to human-artifact interaction. This article will examine the idea of dispositional compatibilism by specifically considering human interaction with text-based AI applications. The ability of AI to collaborate with human thought patterns is a meaningful example of the observation of dispositional compatibilism. In conclusion, the article aims to address the effects of technology on human freedom by approaching the human-artifact relationship from a dispositional perspective. It also aims to defend the claim that technological artifacts can positively contribute to human freedom from the perspective of dispositional compatibilism. (shrink)

This study asserts that W.V.O. Quine’s eliminative philosophical gaze into mereological composition affects inevitably his interpretations of composition theories of ontology. To investigate Quine’s property monism from the account of modal eliminativism, I applied to his solution for the paradoxes of de re modalities’ . Because of its vital role to figure out how dispositions are encountered by Quine, it was significantly noted that the realm of de re modalities doesn’t include contingent and impossible inferences about things. Therefore, for him, (...) all the intrinsic forces and elements of entities such as powers and causal or teleological dispositions for ontology demand to be seen necessarily as bound variables from a monist perspective. Although his denial of analyticity and the elimination of dispositional field of ontology, S. Mumford criticizes the monist perspective of Quine’s paradoxical approach to superveniences. Because superveniences create problems while determining type-type identities from a monist mereological perspective. It is observed that Quine faces with a reduction again in terms of his dispositional monism despite his critiques to repulse vagueness from the ontology in his well-known article Two Dogmas of Empiricism. -/- . (shrink)

This paper discusses the possibility of a metaphysical event theory that incorporates the concept of hope as a disposition. Hope is interp- reted as an expectation regarding future events while representing certain manifestations expected to occur in certain future events. In this sense, for ontologies that deny change or claim that its degree is purely fundamental, hope is a redundant concept in a metaphysical context. Additionally, in a world governed by fatalism or theological determinism it is meaningless to hope for (...) an alternative result. These two interpretations are compatible with a form of Stoicism as they depict a world where hope is redundant. To make hope more meaningful within the framework of event theory, we can propose an alternative view in which hope is considered not merely a psychological pheno- menon but also related and more active to metaphysical events. To strengthen this relation, we will change our perspective on our feature ontology and argue that what is hoped for can exist as a dispositional property that is realized as a particular consequence of an event, when it encounters certain stimuli. In examining the relationship between hope and event theory from different ontological perspectives, the first two view hope as a redundant concept for event theories. In contrast, the third perspective reinterprets hope as a disposition, making it more significant for a fundamental ontology. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to reveal al-Ghazali's understanding of God and world on the ontological basis. He bases the purpose of existence of the world with to know God. In such a study, it is difficult to distinguish ontology from epistemology. Al-Ghazali classifies beings in different perspectives. However, all beings consist of the God and acts of God. God is a unique entity, which is compulsory, source of existence and sacred. His adjectives are with him. God is completely (...) different from what he created. Creatures cannot fully grasp it. God is not far from the world, but he is very close to his servants. The world is everything outside of God and his attributes. All beings are acts of God. The world owes its existence and continuation to God. The world that is the act of the God actually introduces us to the God. The purpose of the creation of the world is to introduce God. -/- . (shrink)

This paper is a reflection on the puzzle of life after death. It explores the meaning, types and causes of death so as to contemplate the purpose of life. Thus, the paper takes into consideration metaphysical, moral and epistemic issues in the belief in life after death (or life after life). This exploration is done considering the Yoruba philosophy of death (iku), life (iye) and life after death (aye atun wa). We note that, for the Yoruba, life as seen in (...) the body is ephemeral, whereas death (that is, the separation of the soul from the body—iku ara) is a transitory process of life to a renewed life. The paper shows that the Yoruba’s idea of death is not an end to life but a change in its form. It is argued, then, that the Yoruba ontology has the implications that: (a) life is a continuum and, (b) man is not his body, (c) hence, a theory of immortality of the soul is implied. The paper observes that, though certain contradictions exist in the Yoruba worldview, the ethos of the belief seems significant. The paper examines the notions of imo (knowledge) and igbabo (belief) in Yoruba epistemology and thus advances the thesis that their belief in life after death cannot be corroborated, though not unreasonable. (shrink)

This thesis analyses Deleuze & Guattari’s notion of becoming through certain performative encounters in contemporary political art, and re-conceptualizes them as “art(s) of becoming”. Art(s) of becoming are actualizations of a non-representational –minoritarian– mode of becoming and creation as well as the political actions of fleeing quanta. The theoretical aim of the study is, on the one hand, to explain how Platonic Idealism is overturned by Deleuze’s reading of Nietzsche and Leibniz, and on the other hand, how Cartesian dualism of (...) mind and body is surpassed by following a Spinozistic theory of affects. In this respect, the dissertation has both theoretical and practical dimensions. Since art(s) of becoming are bodies without organs which constitute their own lines of flight through a process of minoration, the concepts of body, affect, becoming, and intensity are central to this study. For the same reason, this is an attempt to show the intersections of philosophical, political and aesthetic domains in Deleuze’s theory of sensation which is part of his general practice of philosophy, that is, a quest for establishing an ontology of immanence as opposed to identitarian metaphysics. (shrink)

We describe an experimental approach toward implementing a commonsense "microtheory" for buying and selling. Our prototype system characterizes how intelligent agents hold items and money, how they buy and sell items, and the way money and items are transferred. The ontology of the system includes money (cash, check, credit card), agents (people, organizations), items (movable, real estate, service), barter, and the notions of transfer, loan, buying by installments, profit, and loss.

A lot of words investigated by philosophers get their inception for conventional or extra-philosophical dialect. Yet the idea of substance is basically a philosophical term of art. Its employments in normal dialect tend to derive, often in a twisted way, different from its philosophical usage. Despite this, the idea of substance differs from philosophers, reliant upon the school of thought in which it is been expressed. There is an ordinary concept in play when philosophers discuss “substance”, and this is seen (...) in the concept of object, or thing when this is contrasted with properties, attributes or events. There is also a difference in view when in the sense that while the realists would develop a materialistic theory of substance, the idealist would develop a metaphysical theory of substance. The problem surrounding substance spans through the history of philosophy. The queries have often been what is substance of? And can there be substance without its attributes? This paper tends to expose the historical problems surrounding substance. This paper criticizes the thinking which presupposes that there could be a substance without its attributes or substance existing alone. This paper adopts complimentary ontology principles which state that for anything to exist, it must serve as a missing connection to reality. This suggests that everything interconnects to each other and substance cannot exist in isolation. (shrink)

Our computational metaphysics group describes its use of automated reasoning tools to study Leibniz’s theory of concepts. We start with a reconstruction of Leibniz’s theory within the theory of abstract objects (henceforth ‘object theory’). Leibniz’s theory of concepts, under this reconstruction, has a non-modal algebra of concepts, a concept-containment theory of truth, and a modal metaphysics of complete individual concepts. We show how the object-theoretic reconstruction of these components of Leibniz’s theory can be represented for investigation by means of automated (...) theorem provers and finite model builders. The fundamental theorem of Leibniz’s theory is derived using these tools. (shrink)

Both Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger have defined what science is. Einstein includes not only physics, but also all natural sciences dealing with both organic and inorganic processes in his definition of science. According to Schrödinger, the present scientific worldview is based on the two basic attitudes of comprehensibility and objectivation. On the other hand, the notion of religion is quite equivocal and unless clearly defined will easily lead to all sorts of misunderstandings. Does science, as defined, encompass the whole (...) of reality? More importantly, what is the whole of reality and how do we obtain data for it? The Christian worldview considers a human as body, mind, and spirit (soul), which is consistent with Cartesian ontology of only three elements: matter, mind, and God. Therefore, is it possible to give a precise definition of science showing that the conflicts are actually apparent and not real? (shrink)

Although Nicholas of Cusa occasionally discussed how the universe must be understood as the unfolding of the absolutely infinite in time, he left open questions about any distinction between natural time and historical time, how either notion of time might depend upon the nature of divine providence, and how his understanding of divine providence relates to other traditional philosophical views. From texts in which Cusanus discussed these questions, this paper will attempt to make explicit how Cusanus understood divine providence. The (...) paper will also discuss how Nicholas of Cusa’s view of the question of providence might shed light on Renaissance philosophy’s contribution in the historical transition in Western philosophy from an overtly theological or eschatological understanding of historical time to a secularized or naturalized philosophy of history. (shrink)

William Oliver Martin published "The Order and Integration of Knowledge" in 1957 to address the problem of the nature and the order of various kinds of knowledge; in particular, the theoretical problem of how one kind of knowledge is related to another kind. Martin characterizes kinds of knowledge as being either autonomous or synthetic. The latter are reducible to two or more of the autonomous (or irreducible) kinds of knowledge, viz., history (H), metaphysics (Meta), theology (T), formal logic (FL), mathematics (...) (Math), and generalizations of experimental science (G). Metaphysics and theology constitute the two domains of the ontological context while history and experimental science are the two domains of the phenomenological context. The relation of one kind of knowledge to another may be instrumental, constitutive, and/or regulative. For instance, historical propositions are constitutive of G, metaphysical propositions are regulative of G, and propositions in formal logic and mathematics are instrumental to G. Theological propositions are not related to G and so there is no conflict between science and theology. Martin's work sheds light on the possible areas of incompatibility between science and religion. (shrink)

This paper has a dual character, combining a philosophical ontological exploration with a conceptual modeling approach in systems and software engineering. Such duality is already practiced in software engineering, in which the current dominant modeling thesis is object orientation. This work embraces an anti-thesis that centers solely on the process rather than emphasizing the object. The approach is called occurrence-only modeling, in which an occurrence means an event or process where a process is defined as an orchestrated net of events (...) that form a semantical whole. In contrast to object orientation, in this occurrence-only modeling objects are nothing more than long events. We apply this paradigm to (1) a UML/BPMN inventory system in simulation engineering and (2) an event-based system that represents medical occurrences that occur on a timeline. The aim of such a venture is to enhance the field of conceptual modeling by adding yet a new alternative methodology and clarifying differences among approaches. Conceptual modeling’s importance has been recognized in many research areas. An active research community in simulation engineering demonstrates the growing interest in conceptual modeling. In the clinical domains, temporal information elucidates the occurrence of medical events (e.g., visits, laboratory tests). These applications give an opportunity to propose a new approach that includes (a) a Stoic ontology that has two types of being, existence and subsistence; (b) Thinging machines that limit activities to five generic actions; and (c) Lupascian logic, which handles negative events. With such a study, we aim to substantiate the assertion that the “occurrence only” approach is a genuine philosophical base for conceptual modeling. The results in this paper seem to support such a claim. (shrink)

Conceptual models as representations of real-world systems are based on diverse techniques in various disciplines but lack a framework that provides multidisciplinary ontological understanding of real-world phenomena. Concurrently, systems’ complexity has intensified, leading to a rise in developing models using different formalisms and diverse representations even within a single domain. Conceptual models have become larger; languages tend to acquire more features, and it is not unusual to use different modeling languages for different components. This diversity has caused problems with consistency (...) between models and incompatibly with designed systems. Two main solutions have been adopted over the last few years: (1) A currently dominant technology-based solution tries “to harmonize or unify” models, e.g., unifies EER and UML. This solution would solidify modeling achievements, reaping benefits from huge investments over the last thirty years. (2) A less prevalent solution is to pursuit deeper roots that reveal unifying modeling principles and apparatuses. An example of the second method is a “category theory”-based approach that utilizes the strengths of the graph and set theory, along with other topological tools. This manuscript is a sequel in a research venture that belongs to the second approach and uses a model called thinging machines (TMs) founded on Stoic ontology and Lupascian logic. TM modeling contests the thesis that there is no universal approach that covers all aspects of an application, and the paper demonstrates that pursuing such universality is anything but a dead-end method. This paper continues in this direction, with emphasis on TM foundation (e.g., existence and subsistence of things) and exemplifies this pursuit by proposing an alternative representation of set theory. (shrink)

Basic abstraction principles are reached through ontology, which was traditionally conceived as a depiction of the world itself. Ontology is also described using conceptual modeling (CM) that defines fundamental concepts of reality. CM is one of the central activities in computer science, especially as it is mainly used in software engineering as an intermediate artifact for system construction. To achieve such a goal, we propose Stoic CM (SCM) as a description of what a system must do functionally with minimal ambiguity. (...) As a case study, we apply SCM to investigate the ontology of BPMN (business process modeling notation). Such an undertaking would demonstrate SCM notions and simultaneously may offer a viable ontological foundation for BPMN. SCM defines the being of things and actions in reality based on Stoic notions of existence and subsistence. It has two levels of specification: (1) a subsistence static model where things and actions subsist and (2) an existence dynamic model where things and actions exist in time. From the Stoic ontological point of view, while a thing existing has a clear denotation, subsistence indicates the thing is “being there,” but it is inactive (does not participate in an event). We apply SCM to BPMN processes that involve buying a new car with many notions, such as activity, task, event, and message. The result indicates that SCM produces a tighter representation of reality, thus providing the necessary description of the part in the application world to be used as requirements for developing the software system. (shrink)

Hegel's logic has been interpreted in different ways so far, generally divided into two types: metaphysical and non-metaphysical encounters. In this article, based on what Hegel himself says about his logic and his intended purpose, we will first try to elucidate Hegel's goal in that part of his philosophical system. Then we will try to explain the interpretative standpoints of two of the most prominent Hegel scholars, namely Robert Pippin and Stephen Houlgate, and elucidate the differences between these two interpretative (...) approaches to find out what is it that separates their approaches toward Hegel`s logic. Finally, relying on Hegel's insistence on systematic thinking, and the relation between the Phenomenology of Spirit and Logic as the first two major parts of his system, we will try to show which interpretive approach can clarify Hegel's philosophical project as a whole better. (shrink)

As a counter-argument to Moore's "Refutation of Idealism," this article explains how the application of non-dualistic idealism reveals the underlying problem in both narrowly defined "esse is principi" brands of idealism and Moore's realism. The issue at hand, this article suggests, is the presupposition that experience naturally forks off into subjective consciousness and particular objects of consciousness. Rather than agree with either Moore or dualistic forms of idealism, the Vedanta-inspired view set forth in this article provides a third option to (...) reject the ontological commitments of the former two philosophical stances. This third stance suggests that reality amounts to consciousness, and, thus, motivates the conclusion that modes of consciousness are what differentiate experience, not the bifurcation of experience into subject and object. (shrink)

dynamic ontologies must be inferred and populated in part from the reference corpora themselves, but ontological rela-.

Do conceivability arguments work against physicalism if properties are causal powers? By considering three different ways of understanding causal powers and the modality associated with them, I will argue that most, if not all, physicalist powers theorists should not be concerned about the conceivability argument because its conclusion that physicalism is false does not hold in their favoured ontology. I also defend specific powers theories against some recent objections to this strategy, arguing that the conception of properties as powerful blocks (...) conceivability arguments unless a rather implausible form of emergence is true. (shrink)

Archimedes of Syracuse has long provided a touchstone for considering how we make and acquire knowledge. Since the early Roman chroniclers of Archimedes’ life, and especially intensively since Descartes, scholars have described, sought, or derided the Archimedean point, defining and redefining its epistemic role. “Knowledge,” at least within modernity, is rhetorically tied to the figure of the Archimedean point, a place somewhere outside a regular and constrained world of experience. If this figure still leads to useful ways of thinking about (...) knowing, we are left with the question of how different modes of making knowledge approach their “Archimedean” points. The question is especially important today as a renewed .. (shrink)

This article presents formal correspondences between the ontological and logical structures of Deleuze’s theory of sense-events in the Logic of Sense as a “post-Cantorian orientation of thought” (Livingston 2012), grappling with an essential incompleteness or inconsistency at the heart of both Being and thought, one which Deleuze champions positively under the equation Ungrounding = Becoming. Through it, Deleuze’s sometimes slippery use of the concept of singularity (and its relation to the virtual) is elaborated, elucidating a post-Cantorian metaphysics of events, distinct (...) from and preceding Badiou’s, that concretely defines the role of the singular in Deleuze’s early major works. (shrink)

The author challenges both the eliminative idealist's contention that physical objects do not exist and the phenomenalist idealist's view that statements about physical objects are translatable into statements about private mental experiences. Firstly, he details how phenomenalist translations are parasitic on the realist assumption that physical objects exist independently of experience. Secondly, the author confronts eliminative idealism head on by exposing its heuristic sterility in contrast with realism's predictive success.

The materialist version of the mind/brain identity theory has met with considerable challenges from philosophers of mind. The author first dispenses with a popular objection to the theory based on the law of indiscernibility of identicals. By means of discussing the vexatious problem of phenomenal qualities, he explores how the debate may be advanced by seeing each dualist and monist ontology through the lens of an evolutionary epistemology. The author suggests that by regarding each ontology as the core of a (...) scientific research programme, each of these logically irrefutable hypotheses can be tested rationally. (shrink)

It has been contended that an event as a whole does not occur but, rather, is only occurring when any one of its temporal parts occurs1 I shall consider here the mereological implications of drawing a distinction between the time of an event’s occurrence- its duration- and the times of its occurring- the duration of any one of its proper temporal parts. In particular, I intend to see whether it allows one to avoid having co-located events in one’s ontology.

Absolutist systems of ethics have come in for harsh criticism on a number of fronts. The Principle of Double Effect was formulated by Catholic ethicists to overcome such objections. In this essay, Leslie Allan addresses four of the most prominent problems faced by an absolutist ethic and evaluates the extent to which the Principle of Double Effect is successful in avoiding or mitigating these criticisms.