The main objective of this dissertation is to philosophically assess how the use of informational concepts in the field of classical thermostatistical physics has historically evolved from the late 1940s to the present day. I will first analyze in depth the main notions that form the conceptual basis on which 'informational physics' historically unfolded, encompassing (i) different entropy, probability and information notions, (ii) their multiple interpretative variations, and (iii) the formal, numerical and semantic-interpretative relationships among them. In the (...) following, I will assess the history of informational thermophysics during the second half of the twentieth century. Firstly, I analyse the intellectual factors that gave rise to this current in the late forties (i.e., popularization of Shannon's theory, interest in a naturalized epistemology of science, etc.), then study its consolidation in the Brillouinian and Jaynesian programs, and finally claim how Carnap (1977) and his disciples tried to criticize this tendency within the scientific community. Then, I evaluate how informational physics became a predominant intellectual current in the scientific community in the nineties, made possible by the convergence of Jaynesianism and Brillouinism in proposals such as that of Tribus and McIrvine (1971) or Bekenstein (1973) and the application of algorithmic information theory into the thermophysical domain. As a sign of its radicality at this historical stage, I explore the main proposals to include information as part of our physical reality, such as Wheeler’s (1990), Stonier’s (1990) or Landauer’s (1991), detailing the main philosophical arguments (e.g., Timpson, 2013; Lombardi et al. 2016a) against those inflationary attitudes towards information. Following this historical assessment, I systematically analyze whether the descriptive exploitation of informational concepts has historically contributed to providing us with knowledge of thermophysical reality via (i) explaining thermal processes such as equilibrium approximation, (ii) advantageously predicting thermal phenomena, or (iii) enabling understanding of thermal property such as thermodynamic entropy. I argue that these epistemic shortcomings would make it impossible to draw ontological conclusions in a justified way about the physical nature of information. In conclusion, I will argue that the historical exploitation of informational concepts has not contributed significantly to the epistemic progress of thermophysics. This would lead to characterize informational proposals as 'degenerate science' (à la Lakatos 1978a) regarding classical thermostatistical physics or as theoretically underdeveloped regarding the study of the cognitive dynamics of scientists in this physical domain. (shrink)

FROM THE HISTORY OF PHYSICS TO THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICS By Antonino Drago, formerly at Naples University “Federico II”, Italy – drago@unina,.it (Size : 391.800 bytes 75,400 words) The book summarizes a half a century author’s work on the foundations of physics. For the forst time is established a level of discourse on theoretical physics which at the same time is philosophical in nature (kinds of infinity, kinds of organization) (...) and formal (kinds of mathematics, kinds of logic). This double side of the two dichotomies assures a deep comprehension of theoretical physics by avoiding both a purely philosophical analysis and a purely formal analysis, each manifestly insufficient for representing all the aspects of theoretical physics. Among the many formulations of a physical theory, e.g. Mechanics, also Mach(1) recognized technical differences only, Instead my suggestion is to consider their differences as revealing the characteristic features of their foundations. No more radical differences may exist than those concerning both their kinds of Mathematics and their kinds of Logic. As a fact, after the 20th Century within each of these sciences there exist two antagonist foundations, within Mathematics either the classical one or the constructive one(2); within Mathematical Logic either the classical logic or the intuitionist one(3). Let us take Mechanics as an instance. Being the choices of the Newton’s formulation respectively the actual infinity of the differential equations relying on the infinitesimals and the classical logic, a formulation based on the alternative choices is Lazare Carnot’s,(4) whose mathematics is no more than algebraic-trigonometric and the logic is the intuitionist one, because this formulation makes use of doubly negated propositions, whose corresponding affirmative propositions are idealistic or false; i.e. in these cases the law of double negation fails, as in intuitionist logic occurs. By considering these two dichotomies as the foundations of the physical theories, each couple of choices upon them fashions one out four models of scientific theory, which are baptized through the authors of their most representative theories: Newtonian, Carnotian, Lagrangian, Descartesian. In correspondence four versions of the principle of inertia are recognized, as suggested by respectively: Descartes. Lazare Carnot, Enriques and Cavalieri.(5) All that suggests that the four models of scientific theory may be graphically represented as a compass orientating our minds amid the so numerous physical theories. By taking these dichotomies as interpretative categories, a new interpretative history of Physics including both classical and modern physics results according to a quadrilinear development. The birth of modern physics is characterized by the two theories - Einstein’s paper on special relativity and Einstein’s first paper on quanta - whose choices are the alternative ones to those of the previously dominant physical theory, Newtonian mechanics: in the latter paper Einstein i) declares the dichotomy on the kinds of mathematics (“Introduction”) and then he chooses the discrete mathematics; ii) by using doubly negated propositions he organizes his theory in an alternative way to the deductive-axiomatic one.(6) Moreover, a new history of Philosophy of knowledge results. Kant’s first two a priori transcendental categories represent the physical interpretation of the two choices out of the four pairs of choices on the two dichotomies, i.e. the choices of the dominant theory of mechanics, Newton’s. Hegel’s dialectic was a misleading attempt of anticipating the subsequent intuitionist logic. The book starts by a comparison of different formulations of thermodynamics in order to recognize the first dichotomy on the kind of organization. In chapter 2 the dichotomy on the kind of infinity is recognized through a comparison of Newrton’s mechanics and Lazare Carnot’s. A quickly history of the other classical physical theories is illustrated in chapter 3; it results a foundational conflict between the last two theories, and hence a conflict between their opposite couples of choices. The two main theories of modern physics, special realtivity and quantum mechanics confirm the foundational role played by the two dichotomies which gives reason for the radical change in the history of theoretical physics. Indeed, the opposition of the two main pairs of choices gives reason of the crisis in theoretical physics in the early 1900s. As a global result, the book represents the first interpretation of the entire history of Physics, both classical and modern; This fact proves that the four models of scientific theories can works as a compass (that of the front cover) suggesting a direction among the many physical theories. This new history of physics leads to re-visit both Koyré’s and Kuhn’s historiographies. Their interpretative categories are interpreted and explained through the two dichotomies so that it is possible to suggest à la Koyré categories based on the alternative choices theories to Newton’s as the suitable categories for interpreting the alternative theories to Newton’s mechanics. All that suggests a new interpretation of the crucial step in the history of Western philosophy of knowledge, i.e. the passage from Leibniz to Kant: Leibniz’s suggestion of the two labyrinths of human minds may be seen as a close anticipation of the two above dichotomies. Kant applied them in order to construct the well-known four cosmological proofs, which however he misinterpreted as leading to contradictions, instead to tow different methods of investigation corresponding to the two different kinds of logic.(7) Bibliography 1. Mach E. (1883), Die Mechanik, Leipzig: Brockhaus, Chap. IV, Sect. III. 2. Bishop E. (1967), Constructive Analysis, New York: Mc Graw-Hill. 3. Heyting A. (1962), Intuitionism. An Introduction, Amsterdam: North-Holland. 4. L. Carnot (1783), Essai on the Machines en général, Defay, Dijion (Enlish translation: Springer, Berlin, 2020). Drago A. (2004), “A new appraisal of old formulations of mechanics”, Am. J. Phys., 72(3), pp. 407-9. 5. Vella M.R. (2007), “Le quattro versioni del principio di inerzia”, in M. Leone et al. (eds.), L’eredità di Fermi, Majorana e altri Temi. Napoli: ESI, pp. 147-151. 6. Drago A. (2014), “The emergence of two options from Einstein°s first paper on Quanta”, in Pisano R., Capecchi D., Lukesova A. (eds.), Physics, Astronomy and Engineering. Critical Problems in the History of Science and Society, Scientia Socialis P., Siauliai, 2013, pp. 227-234. 7. This and all in the above points are illustrated by the book Drago A. (2017), Dalla Storia della Fisica ai Fondamenti della Scienza, Roma: Aracne. (shrink)

This dissertation is concerned with two of the largest questions that we can ask about the nature of physical reality: first, whether physical reality begin to exist and, second, what criteria would physical reality have to fulfill in order to have had a beginning? Philosophers of religion and theologians have previously addressed whether physical reality began to exist in the context of defending the Kal{\'a}m Cosmological Argument (KCA) for theism, that is, (P1) everything that begins to exist has a cause (...) for its beginning to exist, (P2) physical reality began to exist, and, therefore, (C) physical reality has a cause for its beginning to exist. While the KCA has traditionally been used to argue for God's existence, the KCA does not mention God, has been rejected by historically significant Christian theologians such as Thomas Aquinas, and raises perennial philosophical questions -- about the nature and history of physical reality, the nature of time, the nature of causation, and so on -- that should be of interest to all philosophers and, perhaps, all humans. While I am not a religious person, I am interested in the questions raised by the KCA. In this dissertation, I articulate three necessary conditions that physical reality would need to fulfill in order to have had a beginning and argue that, given the current state of philosophical and scientific inquiry, we cannot determine whether physical reality began to exist. -/- Friends of the KCA have sought to defend their view that physical reality began to exist in two distinct ways. As I discuss in chapter 2, the first way in which friends of the KCA have sought to defend their view that physical reality began to exist involves a family of a priori arguments meant to show that, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, the past must be finite. If the past is necessarily finite, then the past history of physical reality is necessarily finite. And if having a finite past suffices for having a beginning, then, since the past history of physical reality is necessarily finite, physical reality necessarily began to exist. I show that the arguments which have been offered thus far for the view that the past is necessarily finite do not succeed. Moreover, as I elaborate on in chapter 5, having a finite past does not suffice for having a beginning. -/- As I discuss in chapter 3, the second way in which friends of the KCA have sought to defend their view that physical reality began to exist involves a family of a posteriori arguments meant to show that we have empirical evidence that physical reality has a finite past history. For example, the big bang is sometimes claimed to have been the beginning of physical reality and, since we have excellent empirical evidence for the big bang, we have excellent empirical evidence for the beginning of physical reality. The big bang can be understood in two ways. On the one hand, the big bang can be understood as a theory about the history and development of the observable universe. Understood in that sense, then I agree that the big bang is supported by excellent empirical evidence and by a scientific consensus. On the other hand, some authors (particularly science popularizers, science journalists, and religious apologists) have wrongly interpreted big bang theory as a theory about the beginning of the whole of physical reality. As I argue, while a beginning of physical reality may be consistent with classical big bang theory, classical big bang theory does not provide good reason for thinking that physical reality began to exist. -/- In part II, I turn to discussing three necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, conditions for physical reality to have a beginning. Before discussing the three conditions, in chapter 4, I introduce three metaphysical accounts of the nature of time (A-theory, B-theory, and C-theory) as well as some formal machinery that will subsequently become useful in the dissertation. I introduce the first of the three conditions in chapter 5. According to the Modal Condition, physical reality began to exist only if, at the closest possible worlds without time, physical reality does not exist. I show that this condition helps us to make sense of various views in both theology and philosophy of physics. In chapter 6}, I introduce the second of my three conditions, the Direction Condition, according to which, roughly, physical reality began to exist only if all space-time points agree about the direction of time, so that all space-time points can agree that physical reality's putative beginning took place in their objective past. In chapter 7, I discuss the third condition, the Boundary Condition, according to which physical reality began to exist only if there is a past temporal boundary such that physical reality did not exist before the boundary. I show that there are two senses in which physical reality could be said to have had a past temporal boundary. Lastly, in chapter 8, I show that there is a relationship between my three conditions and classical big bang theory, even though the relationship is not the one usually identified in the literature. -/- In part III, I present four arguments for the view that, at the present stage of philosophical and scientific inquiry, we cannot know whether physical reality satisfies the three necessary conditions to have had a beginning and, consequently, we cannot know whether physical reality had a beginning. As I will prove in chapter 9, no set of observations that we currently have, when conjoined with General Relativity, entails that physical reality satisfies the Direction or Boundary Conditions. As I show in chapter 10, considerations in the philosophical foundations of statistical mechanics entail either that the Cosmos violates the Modal Condition or else that there is a transcendental condition on the possibility of our knowledge of the past that prevents our access to data we would need to gather to determine whether physical reality satisfies the Boundary Condition. In chapter 11, I show that there are a number of live cosmological models according to which physical reality does not satisfy the Boundary Condition. As long as we don't know whether any of those cosmological models are correct, we do not know whether physical reality satisfies the Boundary Condition. Lastly, I turn to confirmation theory and show that, at our present stage of inquiry, ampliative inferences for the conclusion that physical reality satisfies the Modal, Direction, and Boundary Conditions are not successful. (shrink)

Perhaps there has been no greater opportunity than in this “VOLUME FIFTEEN of our Death And Anti-Death set of anthologies” to write about how might think about life and how to avoid death. There are two reasons to discuss “life”, the first being enhancing our understanding of who we are and why we may be here in the Universe. The second is more practical: how humans meet the physical challenges brought about by the way they have interacted with their environment. (...) Many persons discussing “life” beg the question about what “life” is. Surely, when one discusses how to overcome its opposite, death, they are not referring to another “living” thing such as a plant. There seems to be a commonality, though, and it is this commonality is one needing elaboration. It ostensibly seems to be the boundary condition separating what is completely passive (inert) from what attempts to maintain its integrity, as well as fulfilling other conditions we think “life” has. In our present discussion, there will be a reminder that it by no means has been unequivocally established what life really is by placing quotes around the word, namely, “life”. Consider it a tag representing a bundle of philosophical ideas that will be unpacked in this paper. (shrink)

The Community of Shared Future for Mankind (CSFM) concept is a comprehensive Chinese proposal for a better future of mankind. In this article, we provide a comprehensive analysis of this concept by focusing on its origin, evolution and philosophical foundation. This article deals with the origin and evolution of the CSFM concept. We show that the concept originated during the presidency of Hu Jintao, who initially used it for the domestic affairs of China. However, the usage of the concept (...) was later extended from domestic to international affairs. Though Hu Jintao conceived the CSFM concept, it is president Xi Jinping who became its greatest advocate. We explore the CSFM concept’s development and evolution into one of the most influential, diverse and dominant concepts of international relations under president Xi. Furthermore, the article explores the philosophical foundation of the CSFM concept. We argue that although CSFM concept is seen as a 21st century Chinese idea, the roots of the concept can be traced back to much earlier time in history. The concept is based on three major philosophical thoughts: Marxism, Confucianism and the philosophy of Mencius. We show that the CSFM concept is greatly influenced by Marx’s ideas such as the transformation of the world, the free association of producers, historical materialism and dialectics. We also point to a number of Confucian principles that are adopted by the CSFM concept. The CSFM concept not only adopts Confucian principles but also extends their scope from the individual level to international relations. Similarly, we also highlight that the CSFM concept is influenced by Mencius’ concepts such as universal brotherhood, responsibility towards the betterment of the world, humane governance, free trade, equal sharing of wealth and the conservation of natural resources. (shrink)

1.Summary The key terms. 1. Key term: ‘Sunyata’. Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) is known in the history of Buddhism mainly by his keyword ‘sunyata’. This word is translated into English by the word ‘emptiness’. The translation and the traditional interpretations create the impression that Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) declares the objects as empty or illusionary or not real or not existing. What is the assertion and concrete statement made by this interpretation? That nothing can be found, that there is nothing, that nothing exists? (...) Was Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) denying the external world? Did he wish to refute that which evidently is? Did he want to call into question the world in which we live? Did he wish to deny the presence of things that somehow arise? My first point is the refutation of this traditional translation and interpretation. 2. Key terms: ‘Dependence’ or ‘relational view’. My second point consists in a transcription of the keyword of ‘sunyata’ by the word ‘dependence’. This is something that Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) himself has done. Now Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) central view can be named ‘dependence of things’. Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) is not looking for a material or immaterial object which can be declared as a fundamental reality of this world. His fundamental reality is not an object. It is a relation between objects. This is a relational view of reality. This is the heart of Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) ideas. In the 19th century a more or less unknown Italian philosopher, Vincenzo Goberti, spoke about relations as the mean and as bonds between things. Later, in quantum physics and in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead we are talking about interactions and entanglements. These ideas of relatedness or connections or entanglements in Eastern and Western modes of thought are the main idea of this essay. Not all entanglements are known. Just two examples: the nature of quantum entanglements is not known. Quantum entanglements should be faster than light. That's why Albert Einstein had some doubts. A second example: the completely unknown connections between the mind and the brain. Other examples are mysterious like the connections between birds in a flock. Some are a little known like gravitational forces. 3. Key terms: ‘Arm in arm’. But Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) did not stop there. He was not content to repeat this discovery of relational reality. He went on one step further indicating that what is happening between two things. He gave indications to the space between two things. He realized that not the behaviour of bodies, but the behaviour of something between them may be essential for understanding the reality. This open space is not at all empty. It is full of energy. The open space is the middle between things. Things are going arm in arm. The middle might be considered as a force that bounds men to the world and it might be seen as well as a force of liberation. It might be seen as a bondage to the infinite space. 4. Key term: Philosophy. Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva), we are told, was a Buddhist philosopher. This statement is not wrong when we take the notion ‘philosophy’ in a deep sense as a love to wisdom, not as wisdom itself. Philosophy is a way to wisdom. Where this way has an end wisdom begins and philosophy is no more necessary. A.N. Whitehead gives philosophy the commission of descriptive generalization. We do not need necessarily a philosophical building of universal dimensions. Some steps of descriptive generalization might be enough in order to see and understand reality. There is another criterion of Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) philosophy. Not his keywords ‘sunyata’ and ‘pratityasamutpada’ but his 25 philosophical examples are the heart of his philosophy. His examples are images. They do not speak to rational and conceptual understanding. They speak to our eyes. Images, metaphors, allegories or symbolic examples have a freshness which rational ideas do not possess. Buddhist dharma and philosophy is a philosophy of allegories. This kind of philosophy is not completely new and unknown to European philosophy. Since Plato’s allegory of the cave it is already a little known. (Plato 424 – 348 Befor Current Era) The German philosopher Hans Blumenberg has underlined the importance of metaphors in European philosophy. 5. Key terms: Quantum Physics. Why quantum physics? European modes of thought had no idea of the space between two this. They were bound to the ideas of substance or subject, two main metaphysical traditions of European philosophical history, two main principles. These substances and these subjects are two immaterial bodies which were considered by traditional European metaphysics as lying, as a sort of core, inside the objects or underlying the empirical reality of our world. The first European scientist who saw with his inner eye the forces between two things had been Michael Faraday (1791-1867). Faraday was an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism. Later physicists like Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg and others followed his view in modern physics. This is a fifth point of my work. I compare Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) with European scientific modes of thought for a better understanding of Asia. I do not compare Nagarjuna (kumarajiva) with European philosophers like Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein. The principles and metaphysical foundations of physical sciences are more representative for European modes of thought than the ideas of Hegel, Heidegger and Wittgenstein and they are more precise. And slowly we are beginning to understand these principles. Let me take as an example the interpretation of quantum entanglement by the British mathematician Roger Penrose. Penrose discusses in the year of 2000 the experiences of quantum entanglement where light is separated over a distance of 100 kilometers and still remains connected in an unknown way. These are well known experiments in the last 30 years. Very strange for European modes of thought. The light should be either separated or connected. That is the expectation most European modes of thought tell us. Aristotle had been the first. Aristotle (384 - 322 Before Current Era) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great. He told us the following principle as a metaphysical foundation: Either a situation exists or not. There is not a third possibility. Now listen to Roger Penrose: “Quantum entanglement is a very strange type of thing. It is somewhere between objects being separate and being in communication with each other” (Roger Penrose, The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, Cambridge University Press. 2000 page 66). This sentence of Roger Penrose is a first step of a philosophical generalization in a Whiteheadian sense. 6. Key terms: ‘The metaphysical foundations of modern science’ had been examined particularly by three European and American philosophers: E. A. Burtt, A.N. Whitehead and Hans-Georg Gadamer, by Gadamer eminently in his late writings on Heraclitus and Parmenides. I try to follow the approaches of these philosophers of relational views and of anti-substantialism. By ‘metaphysical foundations’ Edwin Arthur Burtt does not understand transcendental ideas but simply the principles that are underlying sciences. 7. Key terms: ‘Complementarity’, ‘interactions’, ‘entanglements’. Since 1927 quantum physics has three key terms which give an indication to the fundamental physical reality: Complementarity, interactions and entanglement. These three notions are akin to Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) relational view of reality. They are akin and they are very precise, so that Buddhism might learn something from these descriptions and quantum physicists might learn from Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) examples and views of reality. They might learn to do a first step in a philosophical generalisation of quantum physical experiments. All of us we might learn how objects are entangled or going arm in arm. [The end of the summary.]. (shrink)

The orphans of Romania were participants in what is sometimes called “the forbidden experiment”: depriving human infants of intimacy, affection, and human contact is an inhuman practice. It is an experiment which no ethical researcher would set out to do. This paper examines historical data, case histories, and research findings which deal with early deprivation and performs a phenomenological analysis of deprivation phenomena as they impact emotional and physical development. A key element of deprivation is the absence of intimate relationships (...) with other human beings. However, the absence of intimacy impacts not only the social/emotional abilities of infants, but their very ability to perceive the world. Philosophically and from a radically Merleau-Pontean perspective, the intimate face of the other appears to be a world opening event for the child. Its absence has a profound impact on the child’s experience of embodiment, coexistence, spatiality, temporality, and language. When seen through early deprivation, intimacy appears as a necessary foundation for establishing the transcendence of the world beyond perceptual presence, and it provides the possibility for language, culture, and history. (shrink)

The revolution brought about by quantum mechanics in the early 20th century was nothing short of remarkable. It shattered the foundational principles of classical physics, giving rise to a plethora of controversial and intriguing conceptual questions. Questions that still perplex and confound the scientific community today. Is the quantum mechanical description of physical reality complete? Are the objects of nature truly inseparable? And most importantly, do objects not have a specific position before measurement, and are there non-causal quantum jumps? (...) These vital problems continue to garner more attention as time passes, particularly with the fading of positivism. If you're a student seeking to explore the fascinating philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics, this book might be just what you need. Written in Persian, brings you closer to the heart of quantum controversies and the fascinating world of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This book is an anthology with the following themes. Non-European Tradition: Bussanich interprets main themes of Hindu ethics, including its roots in ritual sacrifice, its relationship to religious duty, society, individual human well-being, and psychic liberation. To best assess the truth of Hindu ethics, he argues for dialogue with premodern Western thought. Pfister takes up the question of human nature as a case study in Chinese ethics. Is our nature inherently good (as Mengzi argued) or bad (Xunzi’s view)? Pfister ob- (...) serves their underlying agreement, that human beings are capable of becoming good, and makes precise the disagreement: whether we achieve goodness by cultivating autonomous feelings or by accepting external precepts. There are political consequences: whether government should aim to respect and em- power individual choices or to be a controlling authority. Early Greek Thinking: Collobert examines the bases of Homeric ethics in fame, prudence, and shame, and how these guide the deliberations of heroes. She observes how, by depending upon the poet’s words, the hero gains a quasi- immortality, although in truth there is no consolation for each person’s inevi- table death. Plato: Santas examines Socratic Method and ethics in Republic 1. There Socrates examines definitions of justice and tests them by comparison to the arts and sciences. Santas shows the similarities of Socrates’ method to John Rawls’ method of considered judgments in reflective equilibrium. McPherran interprets Plato’s religious dimension as like that of his teacher Socrates. McPherran shows how Plato appropriates, reshapes, and extends the religious conventions of his own time in the service of establishing the new enterprise of philosophy. Ac- cording to Taylor, Socrates believes that humans in general have the task of helping the gods by making their own souls as good as possible, and Socrates’ unique ability to cross-examine imposes on him the special task of helping others to become as good as possible. This conception of Socrates’ mission is Plato’s own, consisting in an extension of the traditional conception of piety as helping the gods. Brickhouse and Smith propose a new understanding of Socratic moral psychology—one that retains the standard view of Socrates as an intellectualist, but also recognizes roles in human agency for appetites and passions. They compare and contrast the Socratic view to the picture of moral psychology we get in other dialogues of Plato. Hardy also proposes a new, non-reductive understanding of Socratic eudaimonism—he argues that Socrates invokes a very rich and complex notion of the “Knowledge of the Good and Bad”, which is associated with the motivating forces of the virtues. Rudebusch defends Socrates’ argument that knowledge can never be impotent in the face of psychic passions. He considers the standard objections: that knowledge cannot weigh incom- mensurable human values, and that brute desire, all by itself, is capable of moving the soul to action. Aristotle: Anagnostopoulos interprets Aristotle on the nature and acquisition of virtue. Though virtue of character, aiming at human happiness, requires a complex awareness of multiple dimensions of one’s experience, it is not properly a cognitive capacity. Thus it requires habituation, not education, according to Aristotle, in order to align the unruly elements of the soul with reason’s knowledge of what promotes happiness. Shields explains Aristotle’s doctrine that goodness is meant in many ways as the doctrine that there are different analyses of goodness for different types of circumstance, just as for being. He finds Aristotle to argue for this conclusion, against Plato’s doctrine of the unity of the Good, by applying the tests for homonymy and as an immediate cons- equence of the doctrine of categories. Shields evaluates the issue as unresolved at present. Russell discusses Aristotle’s account of practical deliberation and its virtue, intelligence (phronesis). He relates the account to contemporary philo- sophical controversies surrounding Aristotle’s view that intelligence is neces- sary for moral virtue, including the objections that in some cases it is unnecessary or even impedes human goodness. Frede examines the advantages and disadvantages of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. She explains the general Greek con- ceptions of happiness and virtue, Aristotle’s conception of phronesis and compares the Aristotle’s ethics with modern accounts. Liske discusses the question of whether the Aristotelian account of virtue entails an ethical-psy- chological determinism. He argues that Aristotle’s understanding of hexis allows for free action and ethical responsibility : By making decisions for good actions we are able to stabilize our character (hexis). Hellenistic and Roman: Annas defends an account of stoic ethics, according to which the three parts of Stoicism—logic, physics, and ethics—are integrated as the parts of an egg, not as the parts of a building. Since by this analogy no one part is a foundation for the rest, pedagogical decisions may govern the choice of numerous, equally valid, presentations of Stoic ethics. Piering interprets the Cynic way of life as a distinctive philosophy. In their ethics, Cynics value neither pleasure nor tradition but personal liberty, which they achieve by self-suffi- ciency and display in speech that is frank to the point of insult. Plotinus and Neoplatonism: Gerson outlines the place of ordinary civic virtue as well as philosophically contemplative excellence in Neoplatonism. In doing so he attempts to show how one and the same good can be both action-guiding in human life and be the absolute simple One that grounds the explanation of everything in the universe. Delcomminette follows Plotinus’s path to the Good as the foundation of free will, first in the freedom of Intellect and then in the “more than freedom” of the One. Plotinus postulates these divinities as not outside but within each self, saving him from the contradiction of an external foundation for a truly free will. General Topics: Halbig discusses the thesis on the unity of virtues. He dis- tinguishes the thesis of the identity of virtues and the thesis of a reciprocity of virtues and argues that the various virtues form a unity (in terms of reciprocity) since virtues cannot bring about any bad action. Detel examines Plato’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of normativity : Plato and Aristotle (i) entertained hybrid theories of normativity by distinguishing functional, semantic and ethical normativity, (ii) located the ultimate source of normativity in standards of a good life, and thus (iii) took semantic normativity to be a derived form of normativity. Detel argues that hybrid theories of normativity are—from a mo- dern point of view—still promising. Ho ̈ffe defends the Ancient conception of an art of living against Modern objections. Whereas many Modern philosophers think that we have to replace Ancient eudaimonism by the idea of moral obligation (Pflicht), Ho ̈ffe argues that Eudaimonism and autonomy-based ethics can be reconciled and integrated into a comprehensive and promising theory of a good life, if we enrich the idea of autonomy by the central elements of Ancient eudaimonism. Some common themes: The topics in Chinese and Hindu ethics are perhaps more familiar to modern western sensibilities than Homeric and even Socratic. Anagnostopoulos, Brickhouse and Smith, Frede, Liske, Rudebusch, and Russell all consider in contrasting ways the role of moral character, apart from intellect, in ethics. Brickhouse / Smith, Hardy, and Rudebusch discuss the Socratic con- ception of moral knowledge. Brickhouse / Smith and Hardy retain the standard view of the so called Socratic Intellectualism. Shields and Gerson both consider the question whether there is a single genus of goodness, or if the term is a homonym. Bussanich, McPherran, Taylor, and Delcomminette all consider the relation between religion and ethics. Pfister, Piering, Delcomminette, and Liske all consider what sort of freedom is appropriate to human well-being. Halbig, Detel, and Ho ̈ffe propose interpretations of main themes of Ancient ethics. (shrink)

The view that contradictions cannot be true has been part of accepted philosophical theory since at least the time of Aristotle. In this regard, it is almost unique in the history of philosophy. Only in the last forty years has the view been systematically challenged with the advent of dialetheism. Since Graham Priest introduced dialetheism as a solution to certain self-referential paradoxes, the possibility of true contradictions has been a live issue in the philosophy of logic. Yet, despite (...) the arguments advanced by dialetheists, many logicians and philosophers still hold the opinion that contradictions cannot be true. -/- Rather than advocating the truth of certain contradictions, this thesis offers a different challenge to the classical logician. By showing that it can be philosophically coherent to propose that true contradictions are metaphysically possible, the thesis suggests that the classical logician must do more than she currently has to justify her confidence in the impossibility of true contradictions. Simply fighting off the dialetheist’s putative examples of true contradictions at the actual world isn’t enough to justify the classical logician’s conclusion that true contradictions are impossible. -/- To aid the thesis dialectically, we introduce a new position, absolutism, which hypothesises that it’s metaphysically possible for at least one contradiction to be true, contrasting with the dialetheic hypothesis that some contradictions are true in the actual world. We demonstrate that absolutism can be given a philosophically coherent interpretation, an appropriate logic, and that certain criticisms are completely toothless against absolutism. The challenge put to the classical logician is then: On what logical or philosophical grounds can we rule out the metaphysical possibility of true contradictions? (shrink)

The theoretical foundations of climate science have received little attention from philosophers thus far, despite a number of outstanding issues. We provide a brief, non-technical overview of several of these issues – related to theorizing about climates, climate change, internal variability and more – and attempt to make preliminary progress in addressing some of them. In doing so, we hope to open a new thread of discussion in the emerging area of philosophy of climate science, focused on theoretical (...) class='Hi'>foundations. (shrink)

his article will focus on the mechanistic origins of the computer metaphor, which forms the conceptual framework for the methodology of the cognitive sciences, some areas of artificial intelligence and the philosophy of mind. The connection between the history of computing technology, epistemology and the philosophy of mind is expressed through the metaphorical dictionaries of the philosophical discourse of a particular era. The conceptual clarification of this connection and the substantiation of the mechanistic components of the computer metaphor (...) is the main goal of this article. The statement is substantiated that the invention of mechanical computing devices, having a long history in the European engineering tradition, formed the prerequisites for the emergence of machine functionalism in the modern philosophy of mind. The idea of multiple implementation stems from the principle that a formal symbol system prescribes rules for the use of rational abstractions through the physical architecture of a computational engine. The article considers the reasons for the conceptual shift and reveals the semantic foundations for the metaphorical transfer of the properties of abstract objects from the theory of automata to the field of modern philosophy of mind. The criticism and ways of protecting the philosophical program of machine functionalism are analyzed by changing the content of the metaphor “Mind as machine”. The reasons for the stability of the information-computer approach in cognitive sciences are also disclosed and explained. (shrink)

This article investigates the philosophical history of European universalism with the aim of differentiating between its two senses: the modern and the Ancient. Based on Edmund Husserl’s late interpretations on the unique character of Greek philosophy, this distinction is articulated in terms of “substantial” and “formal” accounts of universalism. Against the modern (substantial) idea of universalism, which took its point of departure especially from the natural law theories of the early modern period, Husserl conceived Greek universalism as an (...) essentially formal notion, which relied on the critique of one’s cultural-historical situation on the basis of the shared faculty of reason. Instead of a ready-made position, this idea of universalism is best described in terms of a “task”, which has its peculiar temporal horizon in infinity. By discussing the political implications of philosophical universalism, the article aims at uncovering its latent cultural implications, that is, the ideas of self-critique and self-renewal nurturing the utopian motive of culture. Thus by broadening the philosophical scope of universalism, the article will insist on its relevance for contemporary debate on Eurocentrism. (shrink)

How does one formalize the structure of structures necessary for the foundations of physics? This work is an attempt at conceptualizing the metaphysics of pregeometric structures, upon which new and existing notions of quantum geometry may find a foundation. We discuss the philosophy of pregeometric structures due to Wheeler, Leibniz as well as modern manifestations in topos theory. We draw attention to evidence suggesting that the framework of formal language, in particular, homotopy type theory, provides the conceptual building (...) blocks for a theory of pregeometry. This work is largely a synthesis of ideas that serve as a precursor for conceptualizing the notion of space in physical theories. In particular, the approach we espouse is based on a constructivist philosophy, wherein ``structureless structures'' are syntactic types realizing formal proofs and programs. Spaces and algebras relevant to physical theories are modeled as type-theoretic routines constructed from compositional rules of a formal language. This offers the remarkable possibility of taxonomizing distinct notions of geometry using a common theoretical framework. In particular, this perspective addresses the crucial issue of how spatiality may be realized in models that link formal computation to physics, such as the Wolfram model. (shrink)

Feminist philosophers are right to criticize Hegel’s prejudices against women. In many of his works, Hegel reduces women to their physiology as means of explaining why they occupy a subordinate role in nature and in society. Such treatment seems arbitrary at best, for the gendering of roles disrupts Hegel’s dialectical approach to spirit without any meaningful gain. Despite this defect in Hegel’s work, what is positive in Hegelian social and political philosophy remains intact. In this paper I argue that the (...) sexist claims that Hegel makes about women are irrelevant to his theory of the family in the Philosophy of Right. Therein, Hegel outlines three components that are necessary for the completion of the family: marriage, property and assets, and the raising of children. Hegel also includes a description of the different roles occupied by family members and divides these roles along gender lines. Given the three components that are essential to the family, I argue that there is no necessary basis for familial roles to be divided by gender. (shrink)

To provide metaphysical grounds for the physics of her time, Du Châtelet argued for the notion of an active force. This was different from the impressed force in Newton’s second law. The former force was a property of a body, whereas the latter was an external cause. I shall study this discrepancy and argue that the interactive concept of force in Newton’s third law is consistent with Du Châtelet’s standards for an intelligible physics. Consequently, the interaction entailed by (...) the law of universal gravitation complies with Du Châtelet’s principles of human knowledge. (shrink)

Most commentators on Spengler's philosophy tend to focus on the details of his cyclical theory of world-history, according to which history should be understood in terms of the rise and fall of great cultures. I argue that Spengler's philosophy of history is itself an expression of his primary concern with philosophical analysis of the structures of human consciousness, and that an awareness of Spengler's account of the existential structures of subjective consciousness enables one to grasp the (...) reasoning behind some of the key features of his philosophy of history, such as his cultural isolation hypothesis and critique of Eurocentric historiography. I further argue that the way to access Spengler's theory of consciousness, and the ways in which it informs his philosophy of history, is via his critical engagement with the Kant character that recurs in the first volume of The Decline of the West. (shrink)

It is now well-known that Newton–Cartan theory is the correct geometrical setting for modelling the quantum Hall effect. In addition, in recent years edge modes for the Newton–Cartan quantum Hall effect have been derived. However, the existence of these edge modes has, as of yet, been derived using only orthodox methodologies involving the breaking of gauge-invariance; it would be preferable to derive the existence of such edge modes in a gauge-invariant manner. In this article, we employ recent work by Donnelly (...) and Freidel in order to accomplish exactly this task. Our results agree with known physics, but afford greater conceptual insight into the existence of these edge modes: in particular, they connect them to subtle aspects of Newton–Cartan geometry and pave the way for further applications of Newton–Cartan theory in condensed matter physics. (shrink)

Our concept of the universe and the material world is foundational for our thinking and our moral lives. In an earlier contribution to the URAM project I presented what I called 'the ultimate organizational principle' of the universe. In that article (Grandpierre 2000, pp. 12-35) I took as an adversary the wide-spread system of thinking which I called 'materialism'. According to those who espouse this way of thinking, the universe consists of inanimate units or sets of material such as atoms (...) or elementary particles. Against this point of view on reality, I argued that it is 'logic', which exists in our inner world as a function of our mind, that is the universal organizing power of the universe. The present contribution builds upon this insight. Then I focussed on rationality; now I am interested in the responsibility that is the driving force behind our effort to find coherence and ultimate perspectives in our cosmos. It is shown that biology fundamentally differs from physics. Biology has its own fundamental principle, which is formulated for the first time in history in a scientific manner by Ervin Bauer. This fundamental principle is the cosmic life principle. I show that if one considers the physical laws as corresponding to reality, as in scientific realism, than physicalism becomes fundamentally spiritual because the physical laws are not material. I point out that the physical laws originate from the fundamental principle of physics which is the least action principle. I show that the fundamental principle of physics can be considered as the "instinct of atoms". Our research has found deep and meaningful connections between the basic principle of physics and the ultimate principles of the universe: matter, life and reason. Therefore, the principle of least action is not necessarily an expression of sterile inanimateness. On the contrary, the principle of physics is related to the life principle of the universe, to the world of instincts behind the atomic world, in which the principles of physics, biology, and psychology arise from the same ultimate principle. Our research sheds new light to the sciences of physics, biology, and psychology in close relation to the basic principles. These ultimate principles have a primary importance in our understanding of the nature of Man and the Universe, together with the relations between Man and Nature, Man and the Universe. The results offer new foundations for our understanding our own role in the Earth, in the Nature and in the Universe. Even the apparently inanimate world of physics shows itself to be animate on long timescales and having a kind of pre- human consciousness in its basic organisation. This hypothesis offers a way to understand when and how the biological laws may direct physical laws, and, moreover, offers a new perspective to study and understand under which conditions can self-consciousness govern the laws of biology and physics. This point of view offers living beings and humans the possibility of strengthening our natural identity, and recognising the wide perspective arising from having access to the deepest ranges of our own human resources and realising the task for which human and individual life has been created. (shrink)

A homeomorphism is built between the separable complex Hilbert space (quantum mechanics) and Minkowski space (special relativity) by meditation of quantum information (i.e. qubit by qubit). That homeomorphism can be interpreted physically as the invariance to a reference frame within a system and its unambiguous counterpart out of the system. The same idea can be applied to Poincaré’s conjecture (proved by G. Perelman) hinting at another way for proving it, more concise and meaningful physically. Furthermore, the conjecture can be generalized (...) and interpreted in relation to the pseudo-Riemannian space of general relativity therefore allowing for both mathematical and philosophical interpretations of the force of gravitation due to the mismatch of choice and ordering and resulting into the “curving of information” (e.g. entanglement). Mathematically, that homeomorphism means the invariance to choice, the axiom of choice, well-ordering, and well-ordering “theorem” (or “principle”) and can be defined generally as “information invariance”. Philosophically, the same homeomorphism implies transcendentalism once the philosophical category of the totality is defined formally. The fundamental concepts of “choice”, “ordering” and “information” unify physics, mathematics, and philosophy and should be related to their shared foundations. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that—and how—Plato’s notion of the receptacle in the Timaeus provides the conditions for developing a mathematical as well as a physical space without itself being space. In response to the debate whether Plato’s receptacle is a conception of space or of matter, I suggest employing criteria from topology and the theory of metric spaces as the most basic ones available. I show that the receptacle fulfils its main task–allowing the elements qua images of the Forms (...) to exist as sensible things by being that in which the elements appear, change and move–in virtue of being pure continuity. All further qualifications required for a full notion of space are derived solely from the content of the receptacle. (shrink)

Nagarjuna and Quantum physics. Eastern and Western Modes of Thought. Summary. The key terms. 1. Key term: ‘Emptiness’. The Indian philosopher Nagarjuna is known in the history of Buddhism mainly by his keyword ‘sunyata’. This word is translated into English by the word ‘emptiness’. The translation and the traditional interpretations create the impression that Nagarjuna declares the objects as empty or illusionary or not real or not existing. What is the assertion and concrete statement made by this interpretation? (...) That nothing can be found, that there is nothing, that nothing exists? Was Nagarjuna denying the external world? Did he wish to refute that which evidently is? Did he want to call into question the world in which we live? Did he wish to deny the presence of things that somehow arise? My first point is the refutation of this traditional translation and interpretation. 2. Key terms: ‘Dependence’ or ‘relational view’. My second point consists in a transcription of the keyword of ‘sunyata’ by the word ‘dependence’. This is something that Nagarjuna himself has done. Now Nagarjuna’s central view can be named ‘dependence of things’. Nagarjuna is not looking for a material or immaterial object which can be declared as a fundamental reality of this world. His fundamental reality is not an object. It is a relation between objects. This is a relational view of reality. Reality is without foundation. Or: Reality has the wide open space as foundation. 3. Key terms: ‘Arm in arm’. But Nagarjuna did not stop there. He was not content to repeat this discovery of relational reality. He went on one step further indicating that what is happening between two things. He gave indications to the space between two things. He realised that not the behaviour of bodies, but the behaviour of something between them may be essential for understanding the reality. This open space is not at all empty. It is full of energy. The open space is the middle between things. Things are going arm in arm. The middle might be considered as a force that bounds men to the world and it might be seen as well as a force of liberation. It might be seen as a bondage to the infinite space. 4. Key term: Philosophy. Nagarjuna, we are told, was a Buddhist philosopher. This statement is not wrong when we take the notion ‘philosophy’ in a deep sense as a love to wisdom, not as wisdom itself. Philosophy is a way to wisdom. Where this way has an end wisdom begins and philosophy is no more necessary. A.N. Whitehead gives philosophy the commission of descriptive generalisation. We do not need necessarily a philosophical building of universal dimensions. Some steps of descriptive generalisation might be enough in order to see and understand reality. There is another criterion of Nagarjuna’s philosophy. Not his keywords ‘sunyata’ and ‘pratityasamutpada’ but his 25 philosophical examples are the heart of his philosophy. His examples are images. They do not speak to rational and conceptual understanding. They speak to our eyes. Images, metaphors, allegories or symbolic examples have a freshness which rational ideas do not possess. Buddhist dharma and philosophy is a philosophy of allegories. This kind of philosophy is not completely new and unknown to European philosophy. Since Plato’s allegory of the cave it is already a little known. The German philosopher Hans Blumenberg has underlined the importance of metaphors in European philosophy. -/-. (shrink)

This is the first book in a two-volume series. The present volume introduces the basics of the conceptual foundations of quantum physics. It appeared first as a series of video lectures on the online learning platform Udemy.]There is probably no science that is as confusing as quantum theory. There's so much misleading information on the subject that for most people it is very difficult to separate science facts from pseudoscience. The goal of this book is to make you (...) able to separate facts from fiction with a comprehensive introduction to the scientific principles of a complex topic in which meaning and interpretation never cease to puzzle and surprise. An A-Z guide which is neither too advanced nor oversimplified to the weirdness and paradoxes of quantum physics explained from the first principles to modern state-of-the-art experiments and which is complete with figures and graphs that illustrate the deeper meaning of the concepts you are unlikely to find elsewhere. A guide for the autodidact or philosopher of science who is looking for general knowledge about quantum physics at intermediate level furnishing the most rigorous account that an exposition can provide and which only occasionally, in few special chapters, resorts to a mathematical level that goes no further than that of high school. It will save you a ton of time that you would have spent searching elsewhere, trying to piece together a variety of information. The author tried to span an 'arch of knowledge' without giving in to the temptation of taking an excessively one-sided account of the subject. What is this strange thing called quantum physics? What is its impact on our understanding of the world? What is ‘reality’ according to quantum physics? This book addresses these and many other questions through a step-by-step journey. The central mystery of the double-slit experiment and the wave-particle duality, the fuzzy world of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the weird Schrödinger's cat paradox, the 'spooky action at a distance' of quantum entanglement, the EPR paradox and much more are explained, without neglecting such main contributors as Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Feynman and others who struggled themselves to come up with the mysterious quantum realm. We also take a look at the experiments conducted in recent decades, such as the surprising "which-way" and "quantum-erasure" experiments. Some considerations on why and how quantum physics suggests a worldview based on philosophical idealism conclude this first volume. This treatise goes, at times, into technical details that demand some effort and therefore requires some basics of high school math (calculus, algebra, trigonometry, elementary statistics). However, the final payoff will be invaluable: Your knowledge of, and grasp on, the subject of the conceptual foundations of quantum physics will be deep, wide, and outstanding. Additionally, because schools, colleges, and universities teach quantum physics using a dry, mostly technical approach which furnishes only superficial insight into its foundations, this manual is recommended for all those students, physicists or philosophers of science who would like to look beyond the mere formal aspect and delve deeper into the meaning and essence of quantum mechanics. The manual is a primer that the public deserves. (shrink)

In my dissertation, I present Hermann Cohen's foundation for the history and philosophy of science. My investigation begins with Cohen's formulation of a neo-Kantian epistemology. I analyze Cohen's early work, especially his contributions to 19th century debates about the theory of knowledge. I conclude by examining Cohen's mature theory of science in two works, The Principle of the Infinitesimal Method and its History of 1883, and Cohen's extensive 1914 Introduction to Friedrich Lange's History of Materialism. In the (...) former, Cohen gives an historical and philosophical analysis of the foundations of the infinitesimal method in mathematics. In the latter, Cohen presents a detailed account of Heinrich Hertz's Principles of Mechanics of 1894. Hertz considers a series of possible foundations for mechanics, in the interest of finding a secure conceptual basis for mechanical theories. Cohen argues that Hertz's analysis can be completed, and his goal achieved, by means of a philosophical examination of the role of mathematical principles and fundamental concepts in scientific theories. (shrink)

Abstract. By the 7th century a new form of Buddhism known as Tantrism had developed through the blend of Mahayana with popular folk belief and magic in northern India. Similar to Hindu Tantrism, which arose about the same time, Buddhist Tantrism differs from Mahayana in its strong emphasis on sacramental action. Also known as Vajrayana, the Diamond Vehicle, Tantrism is an esoteric tradition. Its initiation ceremonies involve entry into a mandala, a mystic circle or symbolic map of the spiritual universe. (...) Also important in Tantrism is the use of mudras, or ritual gestures, and mantras, or sacred syllables, which are repeatedly chanted and used as a focus for meditation. Vajrayana became the dominant form of Buddhism in Tibet and was also transmitted through China to Japan, where it continues to be practiced by the Shingon sect. This is the usual understanding of Tibetan Tantra. With a feeling of great dismay, I regret to say that this is an understanding without any foundation. This is nothing more than an exotic superstition when separated from its metaphysical foundations. What Alfred North Whitehead tells us about Christianity can be transmitted with small changes to Buddhism. Whitehead says: "Christianity would long ago have sunk into a noxious superstition, apart from the Levantine and European intellectual movement, sustained from the very beginning until now. This intellectual movement is the effort of Reason to provide an accurate system of theology. Indeed, in outlying districts where this effort at rationalization died away, the religion has in fact sunk into the decrepitude of failure" (A.N.Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, The Free Press Paperback Edition 1967, page 162). In this short history in images I will present the Metaphysical Foundations of Tibetan Tantra. That is mainly the philosophy of the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna (2nd century CE) in comparison to the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). [The end of the abstract] . (shrink)

All contributions included in the present issue were originally prepared for an “Author Meets Critics” session organized by Carl Sachs for the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Savannah, Georgia, on 5th January, 2018.

The present study defines the function of the foundation of science in early modern Dutch philosophy, from the first introduction of Cartesian philosophy in Utrecht University by Henricus Regius to the acceptance of Newtonian physics by Willem Jacob ‘s Gravesande. My main claim is that a foundation of science was required because the conceptual premises of new ways in thinking had to be justified not only as alternatives to the established philosophical paradigms or as an answer to the (...) “sceptical crisis” signalled by Richard Popkin, but also in order to be introduced in the academia. This being my general thesis, different kinds of foundation of scientific knowledge are analysed in the light of the specific problems philosophers had to face. To this end, foundational theories are analysed in the light of 1) the overall aim of their philosophy, 2) the relations of disciplines they thought out, 3) what they regarded as scientific knowledge. Through this analysis, I assess that the foundation of science was carried out by metaphysical, logical and theological arguments, which fitted the needs of answering the didactical and introductory requirements of new paradigms, assessed the reliability of new methodology in leading us to grasp the truth, and provided philosophy with its conceptual apparatus. Finally, I demonstrate that a philosophy of science as a reflection on the principles, methods, concepts and application of modern science emerged in the Dutch Republic. (shrink)

Philosophy of Physics has emerged recently as a scholarly important subfield of philosophy of science. However outside the small community of experts it is not a well-known field. It is not clear even to experts the exact nature of the field: how much philosophical is it? What is its relation to physics? In this work it is presented an overview of philosophy of physics that tries to answer these and other questions.

In this study, we examine the philosophical bases of one of the leading clinical psychological methods of therapy for anxiety, anger, and depression, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). We trace this method back to its philosophical roots in the Stoic, Buddhist, Taoist, and Existentialist philosophical traditions. We start by discussing the tenets of CBT, and then we expand on the philosophical traditions that ground this approach. Given that CBT has had a clinically measured positive effect on the (...) psychological well-being of individuals, it becomes important to study the philosophical foundations on which this therapy is based. (shrink)

We review the spiritual cosmology of the 20th-century Indian mystic and yogi Sri Aurobindo. Our aim is twofold. First to furnish a basic philosophical understanding of Aurobindo’s vision, and secondly, that of making a comparative analysis with present scientific knowledge that could furnish an alternative metaphysical interpretation of the physical world. The rationale of our study is to question whether the observation of the physical world from the standpoint of the mystic experience could suggest some new theoretical framework for (...) the metaphysical ontology of the world itself. Taking perspectives from the states of consciousness described by mystics may furnish us with a deeper understanding of the material and metaphysical character of physical categories such as matter, energy, force, space, time, and space-time. This is an introductory overview of Aurobindo’s relevance for physical sciences and the conceptual foundations of physics, with particular attention paid to quantum physics. (shrink)

What are the metaphysical foundations of Buddhism and modern science? Nagarjuna is not looking for a material or immaterial object which can be declared as a fundamental reality of this world. His fundamental reality is not an object. It is a relation between objects. This is a relational view of reality. This is the heart of Nagarjuna’s ideas. In the 19th century a more or less unknown Italian philosopher, Vincenzo Goberti, spoke about relations as the mean and as bonds (...) between things. Later, in quantum physics and in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead we are talking about interactions and entanglements. These ideas of relatedness or connections or entanglements in Eastern and Western modes of thought are the main idea of this essay. Not all entanglements are known. Just two examples: the nature of quantum entanglements is not known. Quantum entanglements should be faster than light. That's why Albert Einstein had some doubts. A second example: the completely unknown connections between the mind and the brain. Other examples are mysterious like the connections between birds in a flock. Some are a little known like gravitational forces. (shrink)

The paper explains why the de Broglie-Bohm theory reduces to Newtonian mechanics in the macroscopic classical limit. The quantum-to-classical transition is based on three steps: (i) interaction with the environment produces effectively factorized states, leading to the formation of effective wave functions and hence decoherence; (ii) the effective wave functions selected by the environment–the pointer states of decoherence theory–will be well-localized wave packets, typically Gaussian states; (iii) the quantum potential of a Gaussian state becomes negligible under standard classicality conditions; therefore, (...) the effective wave function will move according to Newtonian mechanics in the correct classical limit. As a result, a Bohmian system in interaction with the environment will be described by an effective Gaussian state and–when the system is macroscopic–it will move according to Newtonian mechanics. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic raises the need for an ethical framework addressing unique questions of airborne infectious disease. In particular, are you ethically obliged to wear a face mask? If so, why and when? The Respiratory Ethics Framework (REF) herein derives answers from ethical norms. Always covering coughs and sneezes just in case you might be infectious is an ethical norm. But if you are infectious with an airborne illness, you are probably spreading germs even with every breath and vocalization. Therefore, (...) given that respiratory covering should be done to prevent spreading germs, you should wear a mask if you believe you are infectious because it also provides covering while breathing and vocalizing. REF is grounded in the non-harm principle. Why should we avoid spreading infections to others? Because they can cause bodily physical harm and we should act to prevent causing such harm to others without justifiable reason. Under REF, the magnitude of your obligation to mask is proportional to the magnitude of risk you pose to others by way of airborne germs. This functional relationship is logically modeled and visually mapped with a decision matrix in this essay. (shrink)

The paper explains why the de Broglie–Bohm theory reduces to Newtonian mechanics in the macroscopic classical limit. The quantum-to-classical transition is based on three steps: (i) interaction with the environment produces effectively factorized states, leading to the formation of _effective wave functions_ and hence _decoherence_; (ii) the effective wave functions selected by the environment—the pointer states of decoherence theory—will be well-localized wave packets, typically Gaussian states; (iii) the quantum potential of a Gaussian state becomes negligible under standard classicality conditions; therefore, (...) the effective wave function will move according to Newtonian mechanics in the correct classical limit. As a result, a Bohmian system in interaction with the environment will be described by an effective Gaussian state and—when the system is macroscopic—it will move according to Newtonian mechanics. (shrink)

There is a common misconception across the lntelligence Community (IC) to the effect that information trapped within multiple heterogeneous data silos can be semantically integrated by the sorts of meaning-blind statistical methods employed in much of artificial intelligence (Al) and natural language processlng (NLP). This leads to the misconception that incoming data can be analysed coherently by relying exclusively on the use of statistical algorithms and thus without any shared framework for classifying what the data are about. Unfortunately, such approaches (...) do not yield sustainable results where we are dealing with widely distributed, highly heterogeneous and often changing bodies of data. We argue here that the needed integration requires the use of what we call an lntegrating Semantic Framework (ISF), which provldes a consistent set of categories and relationships that can be reused over and over again to tag successive bodies of data in ways which foster more coherent representation and reasoning. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical review of the debate over the philosophical foundations of mixed methods research and examines the notion of philosophical foundations. It distinguishes axiology-oriented from ontology-oriented philosophical foundations. It also identifies three different senses of philosophical foundations of mixed methods research. The weak sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., pragmatism) merely allows the possibility of the integration of both quantitative and qualitative methods/data/designs. The moderate sense of philosophical (...) foundations (e.g., transformativism) provide a good reason to use mixed methods in (at least some) social scientific research. The strong sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., dialectical pluralism) justifies a normative thesis that mixed methods research should be encouraged in (at least some) social scientific research. (shrink)

Ancient Greek philosophers were the first to postulate the possibility of explaining nature in theoretical terms and to initiate attempts at this. With the rise of monotheistic religions of revelation claiming supremacy over human reason and envisaging a new world to come, studies of the natural order of the transient world were widely considered undesirable. Later, in the Middle Ages, the desire for human understanding of nature in terms of reason was revived. This article is concerned with the fundamental reversal (...) of attitudes, from “undesirable” to “desirable”, that eventually led into the foundations of modern science. One of the earliest, most ingenious and most interesting personalities involved was Eriugena, a theologian at the Court of Charles the Bald in the 9th century. Though understanding what we call nature is only one of the several aspects of his theological work, his line of thought implies a turn into a pro-scientific direction: the natural order is to be understood in abstract terms of ‘primordial causes’; understanding nature is considered to be the will of God; man encompasses the whole of creation in a physical as well as a mental sense. Basically similar ideas on the reconciliation of scientific rationality and monotheistic religions of revelation were conceived, independently and nearly simultaneously, by the Arab philosopher al-Kindi in Bagdad. Eriugena was more outspoken in his claim that reason is superior to authority. This claim is implicit in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa with his emphasis on human mental creativity as the image of God’s creativity; and it is the keynote of Galileo’s ‘Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina’ some 800 years later, the manifesto expressing basic attitudes of modern science. -/- This article in English is based on the monography (in German): A. Gierer “Eriugena, al-Kindi, Nikolaus von Kues - Protagonisten einer wissenschaftsfreundlichen Wende im philosophischen und theologischen Denken”, Acta Historica Leopoldina 29 (1999), Barth Verlag in MVH Verlage Heidelberg, ISBN: 3-335-00652-6, which is also available online on this server. -/- -/- . (shrink)

The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism’, has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The arts and the humanities have been devalued, genuine science has been crippled, and the quest for autonomy and democracy undermined. The resultant (...) trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization is a wide-ranging and scholarly analysis of this failure. This book reframes the dynamics of the debate beyond the discourses of economics, politics and techno-science. Reviving natural philosophy to align science with the humanities, it offers the categories required to reform our modes of existence and our institutions so that we augment, rather than undermine, the life of the ecosystems of which we are part. From this philosophical foundation, the author puts forth a manifesto for transforming our culture into one which could provide an effective global environmental movement and provide the foundations for a global ecological civilization. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify the role of category theory in the foundations of mathematics. There is a good deal of confusion surrounding this issue. A standard philosophical strategy in the face of a situation of this kind is to draw various distinctions and in this way show that the confusion rests on divergent conceptions of what the foundations of mathematics ought to be. This is the strategy adopted in the present paper. It is (...) divided into 5 sections. We first show that already in the set theoretical framework, there are different dimensions to the expression foundations of. We then explore these dimensions more thoroughly. After a very short discussion of the links between these dimensions, we move to some of the arguments presented for and against category theory in the foundational landscape. We end up on a more speculative note by examining the relationships between category theory and set theory. (shrink)

The present work is focussed on the completeness of physics, or what is here called the Completeness Thesis: the claim that the domain of the physical is causally closed. Two major questions are tackled: How best is the Completeness Thesis to be formulated? What can be said in defence of the Completeness Thesis? My principal conclusions are that the Completeness Thesis can be coherently formulated, and that the evidence in favour if it significantly outweighs that against it. In opposition (...) to those who argue that formulation is impossible because no account of what is to count as physical can be provided, I argue that as long as the purpose of the argument in which the account is to be used are borne in mind there are no significant difficulties. The account of the physical which I develop holds as physical whatever is needed to fix the likelihood of pre-theoretically given physical effects, and hypothesises in addition that no chemical, biological or psychological factors will be needed in this way. The thus formulated Completeness Thesis is coherent, and has significant empirical content. In opposition to those who defend the doctrine of emergentism by means of philosophical arguments I contend that those arguments are flawed, setting up misleading dichotomies between needlessly attenuated alternatives and assuming the truth of what is to be proved. Against those who defend emergentism by appeal to the evidence, I argue that the history of science since the nineteenth century shows clearly that the empirical credentials of the view that the world is causally closed at the level of a small number of purely physical forces and types of energy is stronger than ever, and the credentials of emergentism correspondingly weaker. In opposition to those who argue that difficulties with reductionism point to the implausibility of the Completeness Thesis I argue that completeness in no way entails the kinds of reductionism which give rise to the difficulties in question. I argue further that the truth of the Completeness Thesis is in fact compatible with a great deal of taxonomic disorder and the impossibility of any general reduction of non-fundamental descriptions to fundamental ones. In opposition to those who argue that the epistemological credentials of fundamental physical laws are poor, and that those laws should in fact be seen as false, I contend that truth preserving accounts of fundamental laws can be developed. Developing such an account, I test it by considering cases of the composition of forces and causes, where what takes place is different to what is predicted by reference to any single law, and argue that viewing laws as tendencies allows their truth to be preserved, and sense to be made of both the experimental discovery of laws, and the fact that composition enables accurate prediction in at least some cases. (shrink)

Here, I lay the foundations of a high-level ontology of particulars whose structuring principles differ radically from the 'continuant' vs. 'occurrent' distinction traditionally adopted in applied ontology. These principles are derived from a new analysis of the ontology of “occurring” or “happening” entities. Firstly, my analysis integrates recent work on the ontology of processes, which brings them closer to objects in their mode of existence and persistence by assimilating them to continuant particulars. Secondly, my analysis distinguishes clearly between processes (...) and events, in order to make the latter abstract objects of thought (alongside propositions). Lastly, I open my ontological inventory to properties and facts, the existence of which is commonly admitted. By giving specific roles to these primitives, the framework allows one to account for static and dynamic aspects of the physical world and for the way that subjects conceive its history: facts account for the life of substances (physical objects and processes), whereas events enable cognitive subjects to account for the life story of substances. (shrink)

In recent decades, interest in the history and philosophy of the natural sciences has increased significantly. This interest has made scholars aware of the existing knowledge gap in these areas and has brought a kind of 'pressure' for more articles and books on the subject. Indeed, it also motivates academics to start new projects related to these disciplines. Volumes like this are much needed for scholars in the field, given the high amount of information they contain. This rich volume (...) aims at stimulating the field by presenting current research papers on Avicenna's influence on the fields of physics and cosmology. In order to achieve this goal, this work contains thirteen articles related to the reception of the Persian philosopher's thought in these areas in the Middle Ages. The book revolves around the three different languages and cultures which were crucial for the reception of Avicenna's thought. Hence, the volume is arranged in three main sections focusing on the Arabic, Hebrew and Latin traditions. It also contains an Index of Avicenna's Works with Passages Cited and an Index of Names. The introduction is rather short compared to other sections of the book. It covers the general topics presented in the volume. The first six chapters deal with the Arabic tradition ; the next two have to do with the Hebrew reception of Avicenna, and the last five analyse the Latin reception of Avicenna's physics and cosmology. (shrink)

This study is a phenomenological inquiry into several relatively unexplored phenomena, including certain key methodological issues. It seeks to elicit and explicate the grounds of free-fantasy variation, which Husserl insists contains his “fundamental methodological insight” since it articulates “the fundamental form of all particular transcendental methods…” In the course of pursuing the full sense of this method and its grounds, the essay also uncovers the origins and eventual presence of “self” and explores the multiple connections among self, mental life, embodiment (...) and the surrounding world. To that end, it is necessary to take seriously Husserl’s otherwise odd declaration that “‘feigning’ [‘Fiktion’] makes up the vital element of phenomenology as of every other eidetic science…”, and thus that every philosopher must “fertilize” his or her “fantasy” through works of art and history as well as other areas and practices of human life. The essay offers an in-depth probing of several striking but largely unexplored phenomena: exemplifying and possibilizing, and concludes with an exploration of one of the most pervasive themes in phenomenological inquiry: intersubjectivity. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the dynamical dark matter problem in twentieth century astrophysics from the point of view of History and Philosophy of Science. The dynamical dark matter problem describes the situation astronomers find themselves in with regard to the dynamics of large scale astrophysical systems such as galaxies and galaxy clusters: The observed motions are incompatible with the visible distribution matter given the accepted law of gravitation. This discrepancy has two classes of possible solutions: either there exists copious amounts (...) of some kind of matter that neither emits nor absorbs radiation , or the law of gravitation must be revised. ;Chapter 2 describes the physical and philosophical foundations of dynamical inferences---inferences from discrepancies between well-founded theoretical expectations and reliable observations to the characteristics of candidate solutions. Chapter 3 discusses the history of dark matter . Chapter 4 reviews the present evidence bearing on the dark matter problem. Chapter 5 evaluates the important candidate matter solutions in light of the available evidence. Chapter 6 evaluates two candidate gravitational solutions on evidential and methodological grounds, and addresses the problem of theory choice. I do not try to solve the dark matter problem, but to uncover and evaluate patterns of inference involved in evidential arguments for and against candidate solutions. ;I show that Newton's "Reasoning from Phenomena" is a good framework from which to understand what is going on in this field. I argue that "higher order" and especially non-dynamical evidence is the best hope for solving this problem in dynamics. This is so in part because of "the dark matter double bind": the very existence of the dark matter problem means that we cannot be sure of the overall matter distribution in astrophysical systems, and this in turn means that the observed motions by themselves cannot provide relative confirmation of any theory of gravitational interactions taking place at these scales. I use Newton's Rules of Reasoning to argue that we should retain General Relativity as our theory of gravity at galactic and greater scales, despite the lack of positive evidence to confirm it over its rivals at these scales. (shrink)

We have a much better understanding of physics than we do of consciousness. I consider ways in which intrinsically mental aspects of fundamental ontology might induce modifications of the known laws of physics, or whether they could be relevant to accounting for consciousness if no such modifications exist. I suggest that our current knowledge of physics should make us skeptical of hypothetical modifications of the known rules, and that without such modifications it’s hard to imagine how intrinsically (...) mental aspects could play a useful explanatory role. Draft version of a paper submitted to Journal of Consciousness Studies, special issue responding to Philip Goff’s Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. (shrink)

Practical wisdom (hereafter simply ‘wisdom’), which is the understanding required to make reliably good decisions about how we ought to live, is something we all have reason to care about. The importance of wisdom gives rise to questions about its nature: what kind of state is wisdom, how can we develop it, and what is a wise person like? These questions about the nature of wisdom give rise to further questions about proper methods for studying wisdom. Is the study of (...) wisdom the proper subject of philosophy or psychology? How, exactly, can we determine what wisdom is and how we can get it? In this chapter, we give an overview of some prominent philosophical answers to these questions. We begin by distinguishing practical wisdom from theoretical wisdom and wisdom as epistemic humility. Once we have a clearer sense of the target, we address questions of method and argue that producing a plausible and complete account of wisdom will require the tools of both philosophy and empirical psychology. We also discuss the implications this has for prominent wisdom research methods in empirical psychology. We then survey prominent philosophical accounts of the nature of wisdom and end with reflections on the prospects for further interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

A variety of philosophical positions have been proposed and developed to motivate, justify, and guide mixed methods research. This chapter provides a brief overview of the main positions in the debate over the philosophical foundations of mixed methods research. It shows that ‘philosophical foundations’ means differently while different positions provide ‘philosophical foundations’ in different senses. It also highlights the significance of the collaboration between researchers and philosophers in the examination of the philosophical (...) foundations of mixed methods research. (shrink)