This summary is not exactly the way I would have done it myself but I must admit that my writing is sometimes a challenge to read. So I asked an AI to do this summary expecting that it will give an easily understandable although not totally accurate view on Ontology of Knowledge and from this general understanding help the reader to read the original papers. Jean-Louis Boucon’s works, "Introduction to the Ontology of Knowledge" and "Time, Space, and World (...) as Knowledge," delve into the intricate nature of reality, meaning, and the process of knowing. Boucon challenges traditional dichotomies in philosophy and science, presenting a cohesive framework where the knowing subject and the world are intertwined aspects of a single dynamic reality. His ideas provide a robust foundation for exploring ontological and epistemological questions, including the interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The text “The Ontology of Knowledge, Logic, Arithmetic, Set Theory, and Geometry” by Jean-Louis Boucon explores a deeply philosophical interpretation of knowledge, its logical structure, and the foundational elements of mathematical and scientific reasoning. -/- Here’s an overview condensed by an AI of the key themes and ideas, summarized into a quite general conceptual structure. These two pages are instructive on their own, but their main purpose is to facilitate the reading of the entire article, allowing the reader (...) to situate in the coherence of the whole both the meaning and the usefulness of each proposed idea. (shrink)

This paper shows that the NMA eluding the knowing subject would be nothing more than a profession of faith. Then it re-introduces the subject with the help of Ontology of Knowledge Using the example of the theory of Relativity it shows the difficulties resulting from the elision of the subject and propose a solution to include the subject into the NMA.

Knowledge of the subject only ever speaks to the subject himself and of nothing more than the subject himself. And yet, when due to their mode of emergence, objects of this knowledge seem to occupy part of a space (whatever it may be) which would contain them, it is tempting for the subject to give this space the name of Reality. The conventional western philosophies (and science) gave in to this temptation. They came to distinguish the Subject {place-of-the-mind} from the (...) Reality {place-of-the-objects} whereas Reality is only the "objectified" or rather "objectivized" aspect of knowledge of the subject. From this artificial distinction followed a great confusion, a dispute that lasted for centuries, and still does, between different -isms with infinitesimal differences, from which the most influential parties emerge victorious each at his turn. In reaction to this confusion a "pivotal" re-orientation is suggested, considering the way objects of knowledge emerge and are organized, not in correlation with objects of Reality but with the subject for himself and knowledge for itself. For this re-orientation the OK proposes to transcend the subject's mind to reveal its logical principles. That's the specific subject I would like to delve into here : the transcendence of meaning. This is necessary for understanding the OK and could be beneficial to “mental health counseling”. (shrink)

We can only know what determines us as being and by the fact that it determines us as being. Our knowledge is therefore logically limited to what determines us as being. Since representation is defined as the act that makes knowledge dicible, our representation is logically limited to what dynamically determines us as being. Our representation is included in our becoming. Nothing that we represent, no infinite, can exceed the mere necessity of our becoming. The world, my physical being and (...) my consciousness are subsumed by the necessity of my becoming. We know nothing but “we become” To the question "Is there anything else to know?" we can give no logical answer -/- Summary: Reality is pure logical interdependence, immanent, formless, unspeakable. Logos is a principle of order in this interdependence. Individuation is the necessary asymptote of any instance of the Logos. Each knowing subject is Individuation, a mode of order among infinites of infinites of possible modes of order. Everything that appears to the subject as Existing participates in his Individuation. This convergence into Individuation defines a perspective that gives meaning. The subject is representation. It is in this representation that exist the subject, objects and laws of the world. Without subject there are no objects, no laws, no framework. The representation is not isomorphism but morphogenesis. The physical world and the Spirit have the same logical nature: they are categories of representation. The representation is animated because meaning is an Act. Representation is limited by a horizon of meaning. Below this horizon the subject represents the universe and itself. Beyond this horizon there is no prevailing space, time or form. The predicate expresses, below the horizon of meaning, a necessity whose source is beyond this horizon, unfathomable. The OK is neither materialism nor idealism and frees itself from any psychological preconceptions. The OK does not propose an "other reality" than that described by common sense or science, but another mode of representation. The OK is compatible with the current state of science, while offering new interpretive avenues. The OK differs from ontic structural realism (OSR) in various ways: Just like being, the relationship is representation, The knowing subject is present in any representation, the real is non-founded. (shrink)

The knowing subject does not think nature, he is thought of nature and of himself, not of a world which would be other to him but of a world of which he is the meaning. This meaning emerges by separation of his own individuation into participating singularities. Then the question, on the epistemic level, is how the fundamental concepts of mathematics and physics emerge, including the One, the quantified, the continuous, the more and the less etc.. what relationship is there (...) between the (objectified) meaning of these concepts and their real nature in the subject? (shrink)

The following article will attempt to highlight four questions which, in my opinion, are left unanswered (or overlooked) by QBism and to show the answers that the Ontology of Knowledge (OK) can provide. ● How does the subject come to exist for itself, individuated and persistent? ● From what common reality do world, mind, and meaning emerge? ● How does meaning emerge from the mathematical fact of probabilistic expectation? ● Is meaning animated by its own nature?

According to the Ontology of Knowledge (OK) reality is unspeakable, it is subjected neither to form nor to time (see ref OK). The concepts of necessity and indeterminacy are central for the OK. It is important to understand their meaning in such a context. Relativity offers a model of reality: The block-universe which is not "in" time but "contains" time. The same questions of necessity and indeterminacy therefore arise, but this time in the context of a model of sayable reality. (...) Although the operational model of relativity is not an ontological model, it is in the context of relativistic space-time that we will try to understand the place left to indeterminacy. We will then try to transpose this understanding to the OK. (shrink)

According to the Ontology of Knowledge the Universe is representation: we will show in this article that : - The nature of meaning "animates" the subject's representation and imposes time on it. - "Becoming oneself", condition of possibility of any representation, imposes on the subject the aesthetic intuition of space. - The objects of my representation come to exist by separation of my own existence following the preprint of a multiplicity of meaning-attractors in my Individuation.

This paper explores how language and thought shape each other and what benefit can come from this interaction on both theoretical and epistemic aspects. In particular the consequences of abandoning any reference to the external object in the language sign are analysed.

The Ontology of Knowledge (OK) does not claim to expose the truth of reality but only to propose a coherent model of representation according to which: -Reality is not subject to form or time. -The Knowing Subject is a wave of meaning running through the immobile reality.

Despite the efforts undertaken to separate scientific reasoning and metaphysical considerations, despite the rigor of construction of mathematics, these are not, in their very foundations, independent of the modalities, of the laws of representation of the world. The OdC shows that the logical Facts Exist neither more nor less than the Facts of the world which are Facts of Knowledge. Mathematical facts are representation facts. The primary objective of this article is to integrate the subject into mathematics as a mode (...) of emergence of meaning and then to evaluate its consequences. (shrink)

The deterministic or probabilistic laws of our representations and our science do not link what “is” to what “will be” but what “I know” to what “I could know”. Consistency is not a predicate on the physical laws of the world but on the logical laws of Meaning. If you cannot convince yourself of that. If you want to believe that the Softmatter of the Meaning cannot be more consistent than the Hardmatter of the physical world. Think again ... ...and (...) try to answer this question : Why would it be less unlikely for a physical world to evolve from the big bang to individuated knowing persons than for an amorphous interdependence to assemble (logically) individuated representations of the world ? (shrink)

[issue 20211210] Qbism (quantum bayesism) is a philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM) that places the agent and its expectations at the heart of theory. The QBists advocate a "subjectivist" interpretation of probabilities that allows to understand the quantum laws of Born and to eliminate certain enigmas of interpretation of the QM going "beyond" the interpretation of Copenhagen. The Ontology of Knowledge (OK) is in agreement with the main ideas of the Qbism. For the OdC indeed: -The agent is the (...) focal point of the representation -Representation is specific to the agent -There are no "states of the world" but only "states of knowledge" -There is no probability of evolution of the "state of the world" but only probabilities, for the subject, of evolution of his Knowledge. -These probabilities lead to the future actions and experiences of the agent. The aim of this article is to propose, according to the OdC, ways for an extension of the explanatory power of the QBism. (shrink)

The Ontology of Knowledge (OK) states: The laws of the world cannot be distinguished from the laws by which representation emerges from intensional thought. The laws of a physical world in vis-à-vis are not necessary. The forms of the world resulting from these laws cannot be distinguished from the laws of thought. They have no object. (see appendix I) OK seems to make of Knowledge, the substance from which the subject gives rise for himself to a representation of the world (...) and himself. The OK is realistic in that it states that there is a reality, but it also states clearly that the Reality is informal and that there is no being in reality, no other beings than those created by the subject in representation. That justifies the title of this article: Would the knowing subject be, in fact, the only being in the world, all other beings being only representation? While the Cogito guarantees the Existence of the "I" that enunciates it, is there no other Me than this "I"? As much as our mind can consent to the idea that objects and material facts are only representations, including the atoms of our own body, as much as it seems absurd to us, paradoxical, contrary to the evidence of every moment, the idea that "I" would be the one and only knowing subject. The first part of this article proposes, by a clarification of concepts and terms, to answer specifically to the question of the existence of other “I's” The second part will try to widen the spectrum of our reflection to study, within the conceptual framework of the OK, the possibility of a supra-human thought/knowledge. Of a “Us” . (shrink)

Objective The relations between thought and reality are studied in many fields of philosophy and science. Examples include ontology and metaphysics in general, linguistics, neuroscience and even mathematics. Each one has its postulates, its language, its methods and its own constraints. It would be unreasonable, however, for them to ignore each other. In the pages that follow we will try to identify areas of proximity between the ideas of contemporary philosophers of language and those issued mainly by Ontology of Knowledge (...) but also by mathematics and neuroscience. We will try to take advantage of the clarity and the perfect structuring of the lecture « La philosophie contemporaine du langage » (the contemporary philosophy of language) given by Professor Denis Vernant . We will make use of this lecture, both for the ideas presented and as a reference process. The goal of this article is to bring out, through a benevolent confrontation, new ideas for the benefit of knowledge in general. (shrink)

"The earth revolved around the sun long before man and all conscious beings appeared on its surface." Yes really, how could I imagine otherwise? The problem is precisely in the : "How could I imagine?" The difficulty is indeed twofold: 1) Whenever we represent the world without our presence, whether it is the earth a hundred million years ago or a Cartesian space only flanked by its 3 axes, we are in reality at the very center of this representation. 2) (...) Nothing can be said about the world that is not previously knowledge (s) having made sense. Not only can the knowing subject in no way extract himself from his representation of the world, but he does not have any concept of representation which is not subject to the preliminary laws of formation of meaning. It follows that the proposition "reality has form" is unprovable. We will not come back to the idea according to which time and space are “something” in which reality would bathe, something “in addition” to reality and which therefore escapes this question of form. 1) the necessary presence of the subject at the centre of any representation, 2) the precedence of the laws of formation of meaning over meaning and therefore over form. (shrink)

From 1) the main ideas of the Kantian CRP - 2) a reinterpretation of the concept of transcendental subject and - 3) the logical principle of Individuation, we propose a new ontology in which subject and object are of the same reality. We describe the dynamic principle by which the Existence of the subject emerges from formless meta-substance and separates into an animated representation of the world.

In this article, we would like to clarify the concept of singularity-subject according to the Ontology of Knowledge (OK), not with the idea of contradicting but with that of completing the Kantian vision of transcendental Subject. We would nevertheless like to show how Kant's lack of a true transcendence of the subject limits and disorients the development of his thought. We would finally like to trace some tracks towards new ontological (and scientific) options that the OK makes possible beyond those (...) which the Kantian critique entailed. (shrink)

Is logic empirical? Is logic to be found in the world? Or is logic rather a convention, a product of conventions, part of the many rules that regulate the language game? Answers fall in either camp. We like the linguistic answer. In this paper, we want to analyze how a linguistic community would tackle the problem of developing a logic and show how the linguistic conventions adopted by the community determine the properties of the local logic. Then show how to (...) move from a notion of logic that varies from community to community to a notion of logic that is in a sense universal. The framework is conventional up to a point: we have sentences, atomic and composite, the connectives are interpreted, values are computed, and the value of a composite sentence is a function of the values of its subsentences. Less conventional is the use of a plurality of truth values, and the sharp distinction we draw between sentences and statements, in the spirit of the distinction between proposition and judgment that one may find in proof theory. The linguistic community will face many choices. What are the good ones, the ones to avoid? Are there, in some sense, optimal choices? These are the kind of issues we are addressing. Where do we end up? With some kind of universal bivalent logic, ironically enough. We start from an arbitrarily large number of truth values, atomic sentences and connectives, construct a generic many-valued logic, recover more or less the usual results and issues, and in the end it all comes down to a positive bivalent logic with two connectives, `and' and `or', as if logic is nothing more than a mere accounting of possibilities. (shrink)

For the OK, there is in fact no opposition between the logical and the material or the spiritual: reality is a formless logical substance. Representation is morphogenesis and the terms 'material' and 'spiritual' only denote categories of morphogenesis. Our constant experience shows us that spiritual and material interact. The border between understanding and becoming, between meaning and act, which seems trivial to us, is elusive when we try to approach it. For example: when the subject follows the object of his (...) attention with his gaze, where to draw the line between material and spiritual ? Representation is morphogenesis and the OK uses the term 'horizon', not to separate the material from the spiritual, but to distinguish the formless from the representable, the unspeakable from the speakable. For the OK the speakable is not 'something else' than the unspeakable, it is a mode of order: The rainbow is not 'an other thing' than rain, light, sun, the walk that brought me here and now, my sense of vision, my culture etc ... all this unspeakable set of logical interdependencies from which emerges, for me subject, the meaning of the rainbow. And above all, this horizon is not 'in my mind'. The ordaining of the unspeakable is not carried out 'by my understanding'. The emergence of the meaning from the unspeakable logic is not happening 'in' and 'by' my mind. On the contrary, it is a process of pure logic*, a progressive aglomeration of interdependance, which makes the subject emerge as a representation of the world and of his own existence. The logical transcends the Existing. This is the key to understanding this article: We have not left the Garden of Eden. The representation is not 'overhanging' the world, it is 'the' world. Representation is not "grasping form" but "morphogenesis", not as "attribution of form" but as "necessary ordering mode of logical reality". Common sense (including science and logic) does not represent reality, it emerges from it in the form of modes of order of reality, of logic. My representation of this white stone is not 'something else' than the unspeakable logic from which the meaning of 'white stone' emerges for me, it is only a mode of order. There are no "other things" than the things which represent themselves in me and which are modes of order. The Existing is representation. Existence is a mode of order *. The amorphous logical "substance" precedes (transcends) its representation. The logical transcends logic. (shrink)

Radical democratic thinking is becoming intrigued by the material situatedness of its political agents and by the role of nonhuman participants in political interaction. At stake here is the displacement of narrow anthropocentrism that currently guides democratic theory and practice, and its repositioning into what we call ‘the nonhuman condition’. This Critical Exchange explores the nonhuman condition. It asks: What are the implications of decentering the human subject via a new materialist reading of radical democracy? Does this reading dilute political (...) agency? Or should this be seen, on the contrary, as an invitation for new voices and demands to enter into democratic assemblages? How might engagement with the more-than-human disrupt or extend theories of radical democracy? Hans Asenbaum and Amanda Machin discuss the human democratic subject both through radical democratic and new materialist lenses. They suggest that a new materialist decentred subject does not lose agency but further gains political responsibility in radical democracy. Jean-Paul Gagnon highlights the possibility of becoming through loss. In losing our anthropocentric arrogance—our understanding of being other and better than animal—we become more connected and discover our place in human-nonhuman assemblages. Melissa Orlie agrees that something can be gained through renouncing dominant human fantasies and presents a ‘radical democratic naturalism’. By renouncing land violence and acknowledging nature’s subjectivity, we can further nonexploitative radical democratic politics. This is where the notion of ‘tidalectic’ processes introduced by James L. Smith is helpful. Focusing on water and the Indigenous knowledges around rivers, he considers how democracy and community can be reimagined as plural, cyclical and attentive to the nonhuman with which the human is inevitably entangled. Diana Leong offers a different approach. Considering the nonhuman from the perspective of Black Studies demands an awareness to how blackness has long been constituted as non- or partially human. (shrink)

Book review of Jean-Louis Schefer's The Ordinary Man of Cinema (2016) with particular attention to Schefer's conception of affect and its influence on Deleuze.

Debemos distinguir el pensamiento del conocimiento, en particular en lo que respecta a la Modernidad, desde el Renacimiento italiano, que vio emerger el conocimiento objetivante (Koyré, 1977), que es siempre nuestro ideal de conocimiento, incluso en la época de la escritura numérica. El pensamiento, como lo recuerda H. Arendt (1993), es un flujo natural ilimitado que habita a cada uno de nosotros, sin relación con la cultura, la instrucción, el género sexual, la clase social, los modos de legitimación de los (...) discursos e, incluso, las cosméticas. Es lo que indicaba Lenin cuando reivindicaba el comunismo como la posibilidad de un conserje de hacer política. Rancière no dice algo diferente cuando evoca la igualdad de las inteligencias. (shrink)

The philosophy of Louis Althusser is often contrasted with the ideas of Michel Foucault. At first sight, the disagreement seems to be about the concept of ideology: while Althusser seem to be huge advocate of the use of the concept, Foucault apparently dislikes and avoids the concept altogether. However, I argue in this article that this reading is only superficial and that it obscures the real debate between these two authors. Althusser, especially in his recently posthumously published Sur la (...) reproduction (1995), appears to agree on many points with Foucault. The real dispute lies not in the concept of ideology, but in its connection with its counterpart ‘science’. Both Althusser and Foucault were in a way epistemologists, focusing on the question on how sciences develop and how scientific practice works. Focussing on their shared background in the French epistemology, with authors such as Gaston Bachelard and Jean Cavaillès, the real discussion appears to be about whether science can really be opposed to ideology or not. Focusing on these aspects of their works can shed new lights on their oeuvre as well as on the nature of scientific practice. (shrink)

The study of John Locke’s theological thought has yet to be combined with emerging historical research, pioneered by Jean-Louis Quantin, into the apologetic uses of Christian antiquity in the Restoration Church of England. This article will address this historiographical lacuna by making two related arguments. First, I will contend that Locke’s Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul (1705–1707) marked a definitive shift in his critique of the appeal to Christian antiquity. Prior to 1700, Locke had (...) largely contested these references to the precedent of the early Christian Church by making a narrowly philosophical case against arguments from authority in general. However, the controversial reception of Locke’s theological writings in the 1690s, compelled him to develop historical and methodological arguments in the Paraphrase against the witness of Christian antiquity. Secondly, I will argue that Locke’s repudiation of the witness of Christian antiquity was the primary motivation for the diverse responses to the Paraphrase by early eighteenth-century Anglican writers, such as Robert Jenkin, Daniel Whitby, William Whiston, Winch Holdsworth and Catharine Cockburn. (shrink)

This contribution offers an analysis of the essays gathered and published by François Courtine in 1992 (Phénoménologie et Théologie), and authored by Jean-Louis Chrétien, Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, and Paul Ricoeur. Attention is paid to the possibility of investigating the phenomena of the ‘religious sphere’, by taking into account the historical-cultural context typical of contemporary society, the role of art, and the problem of intersubjectivity. -/- .

Fizik disiplininde astronomiye yönelik sorular Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) ve Isaac Newton (1643-1727) gibi fizik alanında devrim yaratan düşüncelerin ortaya çıkmasına yol açmıştır. Kepler ‘Yeni Astronomi’ (Astronomia Nova), ‘Dünya'nın Uyumu’ (Harmonice Mundi) ve ‘Kopernik Astronomisinin Özeti’ (Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae) adlı çalışmalarından hareketle ileri sürdüğü gezegensel hareket yasaları, Newton ise 1687 yılında yayımlanan ‘Doğa Felsefesinin Matematiksel İlkeleri’ (Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica) isimli çalışmasında yer verdiği hareket yasaları ile fizik disiplininde Aristoteles fiziğinin terk edilerek yeni bir fizik anlayışının ortaya çıkmasına ve böylece fizik (...) alanında bir devrimin meydana gelmesine sebep olmuşlardır. Fizik disiplininde gerçekleşen bu devrimin bir benzeri ise canlıların çalışılması ya da biyoloji disiplini söz konusu olduğunda 1800’lerden biraz daha geç bir zamana rastlamaktadır. Biyolojide gerçekleşen devrimsel düşünce doğal seçilim mekanizması ile canlılarda zaman içerisinde gerçekleşen değişim ve dönüşüm sürecini açıklayan Charles Darwin’in evrim kuramına yönelik görüşlerini ortaya koymasına tekabül etmektedir. Bu kapsamda çalışmada öncelikli olarak canlılarda meydana gelen değişim süreçlerine yönelik tespitleri ile Darwin’in görüşlerinin olgunlaşmasına katkıda bulunan Fransız Transformistler (Dönüşümcüler) olarak da bilinen Georges-Louis Leclerc (Comte de Buffon), Jean-Baptiste Lamarck ve George Cuvier’in görüşlerine yer verilmektedir. Ardından bu bilim insanlarının canlılardaki dönüşümsel ya da evrimsel değişime ilişkin argümanlarının Darwin’in evrim kuramını nasıl etkilediği ve bu etkilerin sonucunda biyoloji biliminde nasıl bir devrimin ortaya çıkmasına yardımcı oldukları aktarılmakta ve bu çerçevede Darwin’in on dokuzuncu yüzyılda biyoloji biliminde devrime yol açan tespitlerine ve evrim kuramının ayrıntılarına yer verilmektedir. (shrink)

Opening a revolutionary new era in the unification of physics, by a breakthrough understanding of space, time, particles, and cosmology… For more than a century now, physicists have been attempting to unify the whole of physics and in so doing, gain a greater understanding of our cosmos. In Microbits: A New Unified Physics, scientific philosophers M. Muslim and Nadeem Haque, describe in detail, a compelling new view of physics that unites both the micro and the macro domains of matter and (...) energy. Specifically, they deconstruct Einsteinian Special and General Relativity and aspects of Quantum Mechanics, discussing their epistemological and empirical problems by their own original analyses, as well as the crucial but neglected works of prominent, astute and intellectually fearless critics of relativity and current interpretation of Quantum Mechanics such as Professors: Thomas E. Phipps, Bo Lehnert, Herbert E. Ives, Louis De Broglie, David Bohm, Jean-Pierre Vigier, Paul Marmet, Herbert Dingle, Stephan Gift, and G. Burniston Brown. Muslim and Haque establish an understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena in our universe, based on absolute space and what they term the ‘microbit’, the smallest type of particle next to absolute nothingness, from which all matter is comprised, and likewise, all forces. In doing so, in one master-stroke, they eliminate the traditional gulf between what they consider as being the partial/faulty theories of Quantum Mechanics and Einsteinian Relativity. They extend ‘Newton’s laws’ by two more ‘laws’, that remarkably unify the whole of physics. This fresh new perspective, whose time is long overdue, makes a plethora of new predictions that are now surfacing as possibilities in experiments published by leading scientific journals. Microbits: A New Unified Physics, thus calls for a radical shift in our way of looking at the cosmos, based on evidence, consistency, causation and determinism, leading to both wider and deeper implications for humanity. Publishers ISBN: 978-0-9699605-7-7. (shrink)

The Louvre Museum is the largest of the world's art museums by its exhibition surface. These represent the Western art of the Middle Ages in 1848, those of the ancient civilizations that preceded and influenced it (Oriental, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman), and the arts of early Christians and Islam. At the origin of the Louvre existed a castle, built by King Philip Augustus in 1190, and occupying the southwest quarter of the current Cour Carrée. In 1594, Henri IV decided (...) to unite the palace of the Louvre with the palace of the Tuileries built by Catherine de Medicis. The Cour Carrée was built by the architects Lemercier and then Le Vau, under the reign of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. The Department of Paintings currently has about 7,500 paintings (of which 3,400 are exposed), covering a period that goes from the Middle Ages to 1848 (date of the beginning of the Second Republic). By including the deposits, the collection is, with 12,660 works, the largest collection of ancient paintings in the world. With rare exceptions, the works after 1848 were transferred to the Musée d'Orsay when it was created in 1986. CONTENTS: Louvre Museum - Variety of exhibited works - The Royal Palace - The collections - - Eastern antiquities - - Arts of Islam - - Egyptian Antiquities - - Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities - - Paintings - - - French school - - - Northern Schools (Flanders, Netherlands, Germany) - - - Italian School - - - Other schools Painting - Definitions - Painting genres - - The landscape - - Still life Paintings - FRANCOIS BOUCHER - - Vulcan presenting arms to Venus for Aeneas - RAPHAEL - - Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione - RUBENS - - Helena Fourment with children - LOUIS DAVID - - Madame Récamier - REMBRANDT - - Portrait of Heindrickje Stoffels - VELAZQUEZ - - Portrait of the Infanta Margarita - SIMONE MEMMI - - Jesus Christ walking on Calvary - JAN STEEN - - The Bad Company - HANS HOLBEIN - - Erasmus - CORREGGIO - - Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine - LANCRET - - Conversation - JAN VAN DER MEER (VERMEER) - - The Lacemaker - VAN DYCK - - Charles I at the Hunt - FRANÇOIS CLOUET - - Elisabeth of Austria (1554-1592), Wife of Charles IX and Queen of France (1570 - 1574) - DELACROIX - - The Barque of Dante - EL GRECO - - Saint Louis, King of France, and a page - REMBRANDT - - Pilgrims at Emmaus (The Supper at Emmaus) - GERARD DAVID - - Marriage at Cana - RAPHAEL - - Portrait of Dona Isabel de Requesens, Vice-Queen of Naples - RUBENS - - La Kermesse (The Village Fête, or Noce de village) - FRANS HALS - - The Gypsy Girl - DECAMPS - - The Sonneurs - HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER - - Anne of Cleves - P. PRUD’HON - - Psyche transported to Heaven - PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE - - Portrait of Richelieu - LANCRET - - The Autumn - L. DAVID - - Madame Seriziat - COROT - - Recollection of Mortefontaine - LEONARDO DA VINCI - - La belle ferronnière - CORREGGIO - - Venus and Cupid with a Satyr - WATTEAU - - Pilgrimage to Cythera (The Embarkation for Cythera) - NICOLAS POUSSIN - - The Inspiration of the Poet - PRUD’HON - - The Empress Josephine (1763-1814) - FRAGONARD - - The Bathers - H. RIGAUD - - Louis XIV (1638–1715) - TERBURG - - The Concert - LEOPOLD ROBERT - - The Pilgrimage to the Madonna of the Arch - LARGILLIERE - - Family Portrait - MANTEGNA - - Parnassus - MEMLING - - The Virgin and Child between St James and St Dominic - FRAGONARD - - The Music Lesson - JEAN VAN EYCK - - The Virgin of chancellor Rolin - PAOLO VERONESE - - Susannah and the Elders - FRANÇOIS BOUCHER - - Diana leaving her bath - GÉRICAULT - - The Raft of the Medusa - MURILLO - - Assumption of the Virgin - CLAUDE GELLEE (LORRAIN) - - Ulysses returning Chryseis to her father (Marine, setting sun) - INGRES - - Madame Riviere - E. MURILLO - - The Young Beggar - GREUZE - - The Broken Pitcher - PIETER DE HOOCH - - Card players in an opulent interior - POUSSIN - - Et in Arcadia ego - QUENTIN MATSYS - - The moneylender and his wife - ANDREA SOLARIO - - Madonna with the Green Cushion - TITIEN - - Woman with a Mirror - DAVID TENIERS (the Younger) - - The Works of Mercy - LEONARDO DA VINCI - - Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) - Armand Dayot . (shrink)

HISTÓRIA DA SOCIOLOGIA: O DESENVOLVIMENTO DA SOCIOLOGIA I -/- A SOCIOLOGIA NOS ESTADOS UNIDOS -/- -/- HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY: THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY I -/- SOCIOLOGY IN UNITED STATES -/- -/- Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva – IFPE-BJ, CAP-UFPE e UFRPE. E-mails: [email protected] e [email protected] WhatsApp: (82)9.8143-8399. -/- -/- PREMISSA -/- A Sociologia nos Estados Unidos desenvolveu-se no contexto de dois grandes eventos que marcaram profundamente a história do país. -/- O primeiro foi a Guerra de Secessão (também conhecida como (...) Guerra Civil Americana), que ocorreu entre 1861 e 1865 e gerou ressentimentos e atritos entre a população do sul e a do norte dos Estados Unidos. -/- Em contrapartida, houve a urbanização das terras do oeste e das áreas centrais do país, o que contribuiu para o crescimento da economia e a expansão industrial. No norte, graças ao esforço de guerra, houve um grande crescimento, principalmente na metalurgia, no transporte ferroviário, na indústria de armamentos e na indústria naval. O comércio também se expandiu de maneira exponencial em todo o território estadunidense. -/- O padrão de cultura dos Estados Unidos passou a ser o ideal nortista de “trabalho duro, educação e liberdade econômica a todos”. Houve ainda um grande desenvolvimento de escolas e instituições de ensino superior. -/- O segundo grande evento que marcou a história estadunidense foi a chegada em massa de estrangeiros. Entre 1860 e 1900, os Estados Unidos passaram de país agrícola, com população em torno de 4 milhões, para país industrial, com uma das maiores economias do mundo e com 75 milhões de habitantes. -/- O incremento populacional e a industrialização redundaram em um processo de urbanização sem precedentes que continuou até a década de 1930. Para se ter uma ideia, em 1860 viviam em Chicago 102 260 pessoas; em 1900, a população da cidade passou a 1 698 575 e, em 1930, a 3 375 329. Em virtude desses fatores, consolidaram-se nos Estados Unidos uma burguesia industrial, comercial e financeira significativa, uma classe trabalhadora majoritariamente formada por imigrantes e uma classe média em ascensão. -/- As principais cidades passaram a ser um espaço de conflito e alvo de preocupações. Temas como imigração, aculturação, conflitos étnicos, comportamentos desviantes e políticas públicas foram importantes na Sociologia desenvolvida inicialmente no país. -/- Entre os principais fundadores da Sociologia nos Estados Unidos estão William Graham Sumner (1840 -1910), Lester Frank Ward (1841-1913), Albion Woodbury Small (1854-1926), Franklin Henry Giddings (1855-1931), Thorstein Bunde Veblen (1857-1929), William Isaac Thomas (1863-1947), Robert Ezra Park (1864-1944), Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) e George Herbert Mead (1863-1931). -/- A herança cultural desses fundadores é muito diversa: foram influenciados principalmente pela tradição religiosa protestante disseminada em quase todo o território, pelo liberalismo econômico clássico conservador, do tipo laissez-faire, pelo evolucionismo do inglês Charles Darwin (1809-1882) e pelo darwinismo social de Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). Acrescente-se a esse cadinho de concepções de mundo e ciência o pragmatismo do filósofo e psicólogo William James (1842-1910) e do filósofo Charles Pierce (1839-1914). -/- Essa herança permite compreender as duas grandes características da Sociologia nos Estados Unidos: -/- • multiplicidade de temas, problemas e propostas e diversidade teórica e metodológica; -/- • desenvolvimento desse campo do conhecimento em universidades, nas quais as atividades eram financiadas pelo Estado e pelo setor privado (Fundação Rockefeller, comitês e associações normalmente religiosas). -/- Por causa dessa segunda característica, optei por analisar o desenvolvimento da Sociologia nos Estados Unidos em três importantes universidades estadunidenses: a de Chicago, Harvard e Columbia. -/- 1. A Universidade de Chicago -/- A Universidade de Chicago foi fundada em 1890 pelo magnata do petróleo John D. Rockefeller e recebeu os primeiros alunos em 1892. Nela foi criado o primeiro departamento de Sociologia dos Estados Unidos, sob a direção de Albion Woodbury Small. -/- No início de seus trabalhos sociológicos, a Universidade de Chicago deu primazia à pesquisa empírica, procurando conhecer, por meio da observação direta, a dinâmica das relações sociais. Desenvolveu uma forte tendência pragmática e microssociológica, que viria a ser conhecida como a Escola de Chicago. A maior preocupação dos integrantes dessa Escola foi com os problemas das grandes cidades dos Estados Unidos, como a marginalidade social, o alcoolismo, as drogas, a segregação racial e a delinquência, estabelecendo uma relação entre a pesquisa sociológica e a intervenção dos organismos públicos na sociedade. -/- Os sociólogos de Chicago também se dedicaram ao que chamaram de ecologia humana, em oposição à ecologia animal e vegetal. -/- Em 1895, Albion Woodbury Small fundou o American Journal of Sociology e, em 1907, participou ativamente da fundação da Sociedade Americana de Sociologia. Ele publicou, com Georges Vincent, em 1894, talvez o primeiro manual de Sociologia para estudantes, intitulado Introdução ao estudo da sociedade. Tendo estudado na Alemanha, Small foi o principal divulgador do pensamento de Georg Simmel nos Estados Unidos. -/- Entre os integrantes da Escola de Chicago mais conhecidos no Brasil, podemos citar William I. Thomas (1863-1947) e Florian Znaniecki (1882-1958), cuja principal obra foi O camponês polonês na Europa e na América, editada em 1918. -/- Destacam-se ainda Robert E. Park (1864-1944) e Ernest W. Burgess (1886-1966), que escreveram, entre outras obras, Introdução à ciência da Sociologia, em 1921. -/- Os dois, com Roderick Mackenzie, escreveram o clássico A cidade, em 1925. Outro membro de destaque foi Louis Wirth (1897-1952), autor de O gueto, escrito em 1928, e de um artigo que se tornou famoso, “Urbanismo como modo de vida”, publicado em 1938, no American Journal of Sociology. -/- A Escola de Chicago congregou, ainda, sociólogos e antropólogos com ligação com a Psicologia Social, que desenvolveram uma abordagem sociológica das relações sociais conhecida como interacionismo simbólico. A principal figura dessa vertente foi George Herbert Mead (1863-1932), que trabalhou em diversas áreas, sobretudo como psicólogo social e como professor de várias gerações de antropólogos e sociólogos. Seus escritos foram sistematizados por seus alunos e publicados com o nome Mind, self and society (A mente, o eu e a sociedade), em 1934. -/- Além da tradição intelectual dos Estados Unidos, os integrantes da Escola de Chicago receberam a influência de Jean-Gabriel de Tarde, Émile Durkheim e Georg Simmel. Seus continuadores foram Herbert Blumer (1900-1987) e Everett C. Hughes (1897-1983). -/- 1.1 Erving Goffman (1922-1982) -/- O representante da Sociologia desenvolvida na Universidade de Chicago mais influente no Brasil é Erving Goffman, que nasceu em Manville, Alberta, no Canadá, em 1922, e faleceu nos Estados Unidos em 1982. Obteve o grau de bacharel pela Universidade de Toronto, em 1945, e concluiu mestrado (1949) e doutorado (1953) na Universidade de Chicago, onde estudou Sociologia e Antropologia Social. Em 1958, tornou-se professor da Universidade da Califórnia e, em 1968, ingressou na Universidade da Pensilvânia, onde foi professor de Antropologia e Sociologia. -/- Entre 1981 e 1982, Goffman foi presidente da Sociedade Americana de Sociologia e realizou pesquisas na linha da Sociologia interpretativa e cultural, iniciada por Max Weber, desenvolvendo a ideia de que o mundo é um teatro e cada um, individualmente ou em grupo, interpreta papéis de acordo com as circunstâncias em que se encontra. Essas circunstâncias são marcadas por rituais e posições distintivas em relação a outros indivíduos ou grupos. Para ele, é possível distinguir indivíduos, grupos e classes com base, por exemplo, em aspectos como as formas de vestir ou de se apresentar publicamente. -/- O sociólogo considera a interação social como um processo fundamental de identificação e de diferenciação dos indivíduos e grupos, analisando-a no cotidiano, especialmente em lugares públicos. Goffman estudou com especial atenção o que chamou de “instituições totais”, lugares onde o indivíduo é isolado da sociedade, como prisões e manicômios. -/- De acordo com o sociólogo brasileiro Édison Gastaldo: -/- O trabalho de Goffman trouxe à luz aspectos da vida cotidiana que não se julgavam “sociologicamente relevantes”. Seus insights sobre as interações ordinárias, sobre o deslocamento dos pedestres, sobre a ocupação social dos espaços públicos, sobre a atuação dos vigaristas, mendigos, loucos, espiões, jogadores e de todos aqueles que passam cotidianamente debaixo de nossos narizes sem que prestemos atenção modificaram o pensar sociológico no mundo. Sua descrição etnográfica de um hospital para doentes mentais colaborou decisivamente para deflagrar a luta antimanicomial no mundo inteiro. Vinte e dois anos depois de sua morte, os temas e os conceitos desenvolvidos por Goffman ainda estão em pleno uso e vitalidade (GASTALDO, 2004, p. 9/10). -/- Suas três obras mais conhecidas são: A representação do eu na vida cotidiana (1959), Manicômios, prisões e conventos (1961) e Estigma: notas sobre a manipulação da identidade (1963). -/- 2. A Universidade Harvard -/- A história de Harvard começa em 1636, quando foi fundada, na cidade de Cambridge, no estado de Massachusetts, uma instituição de ensino denominada New College. Em 1639, essa instituição recebeu o nome de Harvard College, em homenagem a John Harvard, seu principal mecenas. -/- A Sociologia desenvolvida na Universidade Harvard é marcada por uma preocupação teórica e tem dois sociólogos como expoentes: Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (1889-1968) e Talcott Edgar Frederick Parsons (1902-1979). Este último influenciou muito o desenvolvimento da Sociologia no mundo e no Brasil. -/- 2.1 Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) -/- Talcott Parsons nasceu no Colorado, nos Estados Unidos. Em 1924, graduou-se em Biologia e Filosofia na Faculdade Amherst. Em 1925, pós-graduou-se em Ciências Sociais na Escola de Economia de Londres, na Inglaterra, e, em seguida, doutorou-se na Universidade de Heidelberg, na Alemanha. -/- Nos Estados Unidos, lecionou Economia e Sociologia na Universidade Harvard durante 45 anos (1927-1973). Em 1944, tornou-se presidente do Departamento de Sociologia, transformando-o, dois anos depois, no Departamento de Relações Sociais, a fim de unir a Sociologia a outras ciências sociais. -/- Assim como Sorokin, Parsons voltou-se para a Sociologia europeia, tendo por base as ideias de Max Weber, Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) e Émile Durkheim, além das do economista inglês Alfred Marshall (1842-1924). Fundamentado nesses autores, desenvolveu uma grande obra teórica, que dominaria a Sociologia estadunidense desde então. -/- Parsons é o sociólogo estadunidense mais conhecido no mundo. Em geral, seus críticos entenderam-no como um pensador conservador, preocupado basicamente com o bom ordenamento da sociedade. Seu interesse era determinar a função que os indivíduos desempenhavam na estrutura social. Entendia o indivíduo como expressão dessa estrutura, a qual devia ser mantida e preservada. Caso isso não ocorresse, deviam entrar em ação os mecanismos de controle social (moral, ética, sistema jurídico e penal etc.), como instrumentos preventivos ou corretivos. -/- Seu trabalho exerceu influência em diversos países e ambientes acadêmicos (particularmente nas décadas de 1950 a 1970), até mesmo na então União Soviética, onde, em 1964, ministrou aulas sobre a Sociologia estadunidense a convite da Academia de Ciências da União Soviética (URSS). -/- Suas principais obras foram: A estrutura da ação social (1937), O sistema social (1951), Economia e sociedade (1956, com N. Smelser), Estrutura e processo nas sociedades modernas (1960), Sociedades: perspectivas evolucionárias e comparativas (1966), Teoria sociológica e sociedade moderna (1968), Política e estrutura social (1969), Sistemas sociais e a evolução da teoria da ação (1977) e Teoria da ação e a condição humana (1978). -/- 3. A Universidade Columbia -/- A King’s College foi fundada em 1754, em Nova York, nos Estados Unidos. Quando as colônias inglesas se declararam independentes da Grã-Bretanha, a instituição passou a se chamar Universidade Columbia. A partir da última década do século XIX, essa universidade se destacaria por uma importante produção no campo da Sociologia, tendo como pioneiro Franklin Giddings (1855-1931), fundador da cadeira de Sociologia. Fortemente marcado pelo evolucionismo e pelo pragmatismo, foi um dos primeiros a usar métodos quantitativos e experi-mentais no estudo dos fenômenos sociais. -/- Dois sociólogos de Columbia merecem destaque, por serem muito conhecidos no Brasil: Robert K. Merton e Charles Wright Mills. -/- 3.1 Robert King Merton (1910-2003) -/- Merton nasceu na Filadélfia e faleceu em Nova York. Graduou-se em Sociologia na Universidade Temple e pós-graduou-se na Universidade Harvard, onde trabalhou com Pitirim Sorokin e Talcott Parsons até a defesa de seu doutorado, em 1936. -/- Em 1941 Merton transferiu-se para a Universidade Columbia, onde permaneceu durante 38 anos, até aposentar-se. Nessa universidade procurou integrar teoria à prática sociológica. Estudou o comportamento desviante e os processos de adaptação social, tendo por base pesquisas qualitativas e quantitativas do exercício profissional em ambiente de solidariedade e de conflito. Com Paul Lazarsfeld (1901-1976), desenvolveu o Departamento de Pesquisa Social Aplicada. -/- O nome de Merton está vinculado à proposta de criação de teorias de alcance médio, segundo a qual os sociólogos seriam mais úteis à sociedade se deixassem de lado as grandes teorias (criticando Parsons) e criassem outras de médio alcance. Essas teorias estariam situadas entre as hipóteses de trabalho rotineiras na pesquisa e as amplas especulações. Mediariam, dessa forma, as abstrações, generalizações e fundamentos empíricos da pesquisa. -/- Merton tinha uma visão humanista da função social da ciência, demonstrando influência clara de Max Weber. Concebia a ciência como um conjunto de conhecimentos compartilhados por todos os membros da sociedade, que deveriam julgar a credibilidade das postulações científicas de acordo com suas expectativas e valores morais. Mas as decisões acerca do fazer científico não caberiam à sociedade, e sim ao próprio cientista, sempre adequando seus valores aos da sociedade. -/- 3.2 Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962) -/- Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962) nasceu em Waco, no Texas, Estados Unidos. Mestre em Artes, Filosofia e Sociologia pela Universidade do Texas, concluiu, em 1942, seu doutorado em Sociologia e Antropologia pela Universidade de Wisconsin. Foi professor de Sociologia nas universidades de Maryland e Columbia, onde passou a lecionar em 1947 e permaneceu até a morte, em 1962. -/- Charles Mills representa uma tendência quase marginal na Sociologia dos Estados Unidos, por apresentar uma visão crítica e militante da sociedade estadunidense e da própria Sociologia. -/- Influenciado por Karl Marx e Max Weber, Mills procurou conciliar o conceito de classe social com o de status, visando esclarecer processos e mecanismos dos conflitos e das mudanças sociais. Por meio de pesquisas, tentou elucidar a complexidade de estruturas de poder, particularmente das elites (em lugar de classes dominantes), e de seu papel na mudança social, fugindo da ideia de revolução como única via para a transformação social. -/- Charles Wright Mills é conhecido principalmente por seu livro A imaginação sociológica, publicado originalmente nos Estados Unidos em 1959. Nele, o autor propõe que os sociólogos, ao exercer a profissão, não deixem a imaginação e a criatividade de lado em favor de uma pretensa objetividade e neutralidade do trabalho científico. Para Mills, os grandes intelectuais da história nunca abriram mão da reflexão e da criatividade e mantiveram uma postura crítica diante da realidade. -/- Atribuindo aos sociólogos a responsabilidade de agentes ativos na sociedade, cabendo-lhes tomar parte nos debates públicos de sua época, Mills defendia a ideia de que a Sociologia deveria ser compreensível para o grande público. Para ele, a ciência social era inseparável da vida pessoal do cientista: a intuição, a imaginação e o comprometimento com o tempo em que se vivia eram fundamentais para compreender cientificamente a sociedade. Suas obras foram publicadas em vários idiomas. Além da citada anteriormente, as mais importantes são: A nova classe média (1951), A elite do poder (1956), Sobre o artesanato intelectual (1959) e Os marxistas (1962). -/- Mills escreveu também artigos em revistas e dois livros que tiveram grande exposição na mídia dos Estados Unidos, por seu caráter polêmico: As causas da Terceira Guerra Mundial (1958), no qual discute a corrida nuclear, e A Revolução em Cuba (1960), em que analisa a fase inicial da Revolução Cubana. -/- Outros sociólogos que defendem uma postura crítica na Sociologia estadunidense, continuadores ou não de Charles Wright Mills, são Irving Louis Horowitz (1929-2012), Martin Nicolaus (1928-) e Alvin Gouldner (1920-1980). -/- REFERENCIAL TEÓRICO -/- BOTTOMORE, T.; et al. Dicionário do pensamento social do século XX. Trad. Eduardo Francisco Alves. Álvaro Cabral. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1996. -/- COULON, A. A Escola de Chicago. Trad. Tomás R. Bueno. 1ª ed. Campinas: Papirus, 1995. -/- CUIN, C. H.; GRESLE, F. História da Sociologia. Trad. Roberto Leal Ferreira. São Paulo: Ensaio, 1994. -/- DOMINGUES, J. M. A sociologia de Talcott Parsons. 1ª ed. São Paulo: Annablume, 2008. -/- GASTALDO, É. (org.); et al. Erving Goffman, desbravador do cotidiano. 1ª ed. Porto Alegre: Tomo Editorial, 2004. -/- NOVA, S. V. Introdução à Sociologia. 6ª ed. São Paulo: Atlas, 2004. -/- SILVA, A. et al. Sociologia em movimento. 2ª ed. São Paulo: Ática, 2016. -/- VALLADARES, L. do P. A Escola de Chicago: impacto de uma tradição no Brasil e na França. 1ª ed. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2005. -/- VÁRIOS, autores. O livro da sociologia. As grandes ideias de todos os tempos. Trad. Rafael Longo. 1ª ed. São Paulo: Globo, 2015. -/- SBS - Sociedade Brasileira de Sociologia PUCRS - PPG em Ciências Sociais Avenida Ipiranga, 6681 - Partenon CEP: 90619-900 - Porto Alegre, RS [email protected] Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva ©2019 -/- Estimule a criatividade. Respeite os direitos autorais. (shrink)

When this article was first planned, writing was going to be exclusively about two things - the origin of life and human evolution. But it turned out to be out of the question for the author to restrict himself to these biological and anthropological topics. A proper understanding of them required answering questions like “What is the nature of the universe – the home of life – and how did it originate?”, “How can time travel be removed from fantasy and (...) science fiction, to be made scientific and practical?”, and “How can the proposed young age of genus Homo be made to actually be reasonable – when simply stating it would be solid ground for instant rejection and dismissal?” The result is that the article also talks about subjects like Artificial Intelligence, General Relativity, and cosmology. -/- From where did life originate? God? Evolution? Panspermia? If the tendency of humans and scientists to regard undiscovered science as pseudoscience can be overcome, Einstein gave another alternative to consider when he introduced General Relativity. Time isn’t linear – progressing in a straight line from past to present to future. That assumption ignores Relativity which states that space AND TIME are curved. Where did life and the genetic code come from? Can the answer build AI? -/- The first question can be answered by the section of this article titled SETI, Evolution, and Time which says life (possibly multicellular and intelligent) and the genetic code came from humans acquiring knowledge of these things over the centuries, then applying that knowledge – via terraforming, accumulation of raw materials like amino acids and nucleic acids, genetic engineering - to a time in the past when life didn’t exist. From that origin, life evolved through innumerable mutations and adaptations, with humans once again acquiring knowledge of it in cyclic (nonlinear) time. -/- The second question is answered by saying artificial intelligence (AI) as the product of life is only half of the equation. The other half refers to Relativity’s curved space-time and violation of the notion that time always travels from past to future. We have always lived in an artificially intelligent, non-probabilistic universe where everything in time and space is connected into one thing by quantum entanglement – making the brain and genes products of binary-digit activity or artificial intelligence (life is not merely dependent on biology’s “lock and key” mechanisms but also possesses AI). -/- The earliest documented representative of the genus Homo is Homo habilis, which evolved around 2.8 million years ago. Scientists used to believe there was a straight line from H. habilis to us, Homo sapiens. This article will use the “advanced” waves loved by Physics Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, view the history of science through the lens of Conic Sections applied to Relativity’s curved space-time, and incorporate the necessity of so-called imaginary time * – popularized by Prof. Stephen Hawking. While the evolutionary proposals are more in agreement with this early straight line than with modern theories, Albert Einstein’s General Relativity is used to transform the straight line into a curved line, ultimately concluding that Homo habilis (H. habilis) originated only (and unbelievably, as far as today’s science and technology is concerned) ~250,000 years ago. Other branches and dead ends of Homo – e.g. Neanderthals – are the result of mutations and adaptations, with the resultant modifications to anatomy and physiology. The surprisingly young age of H. habilis allows nearly 200,000 years for habilis, or one of its descendants, to reach Australia … if this country’s indigenous Aboriginal population did, as claimed, reach this “island continent” 60,000 years ago. -/- * The ultraviolet catastrophe, also called the Rayleigh–Jeans catastrophe, is a failure of classical physics to predict observed phenomena: it can be shown that a blackbody - a hypothetical perfect absorber and radiator of energy - would release an infinite amount of energy, contradicting the principles of conservation of energy and indicating that a new model for the behaviour of blackbodies was needed. At the start of the 20th century, physicist Max Planck derived the correct solution by making some strange (for the time) assumptions. In particular, Planck assumed that electromagnetic radiation can only be emitted or absorbed in discrete packets, called quanta. Albert Einstein postulated that Planck's quanta were real physical particles (what we now call photons), not just a mathematical fiction. From there, Einstein developed his explanation of the photoelectric effect (when quanta or photons of light shine on certain metals, electrons are released and can form an electric current). So it appears entirely possible that another supposed mathematical trickery (imaginary time and the y-axis of Wick rotation) will find practical application in the future. -/- The article includes mathematical references to cosmology (spoiler alert – you’ll read about things like Vector-Tensor-Scalar Geometry, topology, the “eternal present”, Einstein’s Unified Field, the inverse-square law, and there being no Big Bang and no multiverse - but there will also be no equations). -/- The other subheadings in this essay are – -/- NONLINEAR TIME AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING (about a 2009 electrical engineering experiment at America’s Yale University, and cosmic wormholes) -/- BITS AND TOPOLOGY (base-2 maths aka Binary digiTS, Mobius strips, and figure-8 Klein bottles) -/- WICK ROTATION, CAUSALITY, AND UNITING TIME (do past, present and future co-exist in an “eternal present”?) -/- DIGITAL BRAIN, DIGITAL UNIVERSE (if the brain and the universe are ultimately composed of binary digits, we'll someday be able to do the same things with the brain and universe that we now do with computers) -/- PROPOSAL: HUMAN AND ANIMAL INSTINCTS ARE THE RESULT OF THE UNIVERSE BEING UNIFIED BY BINARY DIGITS (AND TOPOLOGY) (If everything in the universe is ultimately composed of electronic BITS, then the universe must possess Artificial Intelligence - some prefer the term Cosmic Consciousness) -/- INFORMATION THEORY CONQUERS A RED GIANT (preserving Earth by keeping the Sun near today’s level of activity forever). (shrink)

A compelling idea holds that reality has a layered structure. We often disagree about what inhabits the bottom layer, but we agree that higher up we find chemical, biological, geological, psychological, sociological, economic, /etc./, entities: molecules, human beings, diamonds, mental states, cities, interest rates, and so on. How is this intuitive talk of a layered structure of entities to be understood? Traditionally, philosophers have proposed to understand layered structure in terms of either reduction or supervenience. But these traditional views face (...) well-known problems. A plausible alternative is that layered structure is to be explicated by appeal to explanations of a certain sort, termed / grounding explanations/. Grounding explanations tell us what obtains in virtue of what. Unfortunately, the use of grounding explanations to articulate the layered conception faces a problem, which I call /the collapse/. The collapse turns on the question of how to ground the facts stated by the explanations themselves. In this paper I make a suggestion about how to ground explanations that avoids the collapse. Briefly, the suggestion is that the fact stated by a grounding explanation is grounded in its /explanans/. (shrink)

Consider the kinds of macroscopic concrete objects that common sense and the sciences allege to exist: tables, raindrops, tectonic plates, galaxies, and the rest. Are there any such things? Opinions differ. Ontological liberals say they do; ontological radicals say they don't. Liberalism seems favored by its plausible acquiescence to the dictates of common sense abetted by science; radicalism by its ontological parsimony. Priority theorists claim we can have the virtues of both views. They hold that tables, raindrops, etc., exist, but (...) they aren't fundamental. The ontological liberal's ontology provides the correct inventory of existent individuals. The ontological radical's more restricted ontology provides the correct inventory of fundamental individuals. The priority theorist claims that the derivative individuals are "no addition in being" to the fundamental ones, so we can have our cake and eat it too. It would be nice if priority theorists were right. In this paper I argue, with regret, that they are not. One upshot is that the sort of explanations which underwrite the priority theorist's distinction between fundamental and derivative individuals do not mitigate our ontological commitments. Another is that we still have to choose between the charms of liberalism and radicalism. (shrink)

The market for environmental, social and governance (ESG) rating and data is expected to grow immensely in the next decades. This brief zooms in both on the integration of ESG risks into “traditional” operations of Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) as well as on the emergence of a market exclusively dedicated to ESG rating. As will become clear, the market for ESG ratings suffers from serious shortcomings, a lack of transparency and standardisation, significant biases and conflicts of interests, and a dependence (...) on large, oligopolistic, credit rating agencies. (shrink)

The idea that some objects are metaphysically “cheap” has wide appeal. An influential version of the idea builds on abstractionist views in the philosophy of mathematics, on which numbers and other mathematical objects are abstracted from other phenomena. For example, Hume's Principle states that two collections have the same number just in case they are equinumerous, in the sense that they can be correlated one‐to‐one:. The principal aim of this article is to use the notion of grounding to develop this (...) sort of abstractionism. The appeal to grounding enables a unified response to the two main challenges that confront abstractionism. First, we must explicate the metaphor of metaphysical “cheapness.” Second, we must rebut the “bad company” objection, which rejects abstraction principles like (HP) as tarnished by their similarity to inconsistent principles like Frege's Basic Law V. By enforcing a simple requirement that all abstraction be properly grounded, we propose a unified solution to these two hard, and prima facie unrelated, problems. On our view, grounded abstraction simultaneously ensures “cheap” abstracta and permissible abstraction. (shrink)

In "Analyticity and Ontology," I argued that there are counterexamples to the claim that the sentences analytically entailed by a claim $\phi$ require nothing more of the world for their truth than does $\phi$. The counterexamples involve sentences which, I argued, are analytically entailed by certain truths, but which nevertheless require more of the world for their truth. John Horden has offered two interesting criticisms of this argument. First, he contends that its conclusion is inconsistent. Second, he contends that the (...) argument faces a dilemma, depending on which of two hypotheses about the meanings of the sentences involved in the counterexamples turns out to be true. Here I reply to Horden's criticisms and briefly indicate what I take their lesson to be. (shrink)

Louis Pojman and Robert Westmoreland have compiled the best material on the subject of equality, ranging from classical works by Aristotle, Hobbes and Rousseau to contemporary works by John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Michael Walzer, Harry Frankfurt, Bernard Williams and Robert Nozick; and including such topics as: the concept of equality; equal opportunity; Welfare egalitarianism; resources; equal human rights and complex equality.

This paper establishes a sound and complete semantics for the impure logic of ground. Fine (Review of Symbolic Logic, 5(1), 1–25, 2012a) sets out a system for the pure logic of ground, one in which the formulas between which ground-theoretic claims hold have no internal logical complexity; and it provides a sound and complete semantics for the system. Fine (2012b) [§§6-8] sets out a system for an impure logic of ground, one that extends the rules of the original pure system (...) with rules for the truth-functional connectives, the first-order quantifiers, and λ-abstraction. However, no semantics has yet been provided for this system. The present paper partly fills this lacuna by providing a sound and complete semantics for a system GG containing the truth-functional operators that is closely related to the truth-functional part of the system of Fine (2012b). (shrink)

The scientific successes of the last 400 years strongly suggest a picture on which our scientific theories exhibit a layered structure of dependence and determination. Economics is dependent on and determined by psychology; psychology in its turn is, plausibly, dependent on and determined by biology; and so it goes. It is tempting to explain this layered structure of dependence and determination among our theories by appeal to a corresponding layered structure of dependence and determination among the entities putatively treated by (...) those theories. In this paper, I argue that we can resist this temptation: we can explain the sense in which, e.g., the biological truths are dependent on and determined by chemical truths without appealing to properly biological or chemical entities. This opens the door to a view on which, though there are more truths than just the purely physical truths, there are no entities, states, or properties other than the purely physical entities, states, and properties. I argue that some familiar strategies to explicate the idea of a layered structure of theories by appeal to reduction, ground, and truthmaking encounter difficulties. I then show how these difficulties point the way to a more satisfactory treatment which appeals to something very close to the notion of ground. Finally, I show how this treatment provides a theoretical setting in which we might fruitfully frame debates about which entities there really are. (shrink)

Research in experimental philosophy has increasingly been turning to corpus methods to produce evidence for empirical claims, as they open up new possibilities for testing linguistic claims or studying concepts across time and cultures. The present article reviews the quasi-experimental studies that have been done using textual data from corpora in philosophy, with an eye for the modeling and experimental design that enable statistical inference. I find that most studies forego comparisons that could control for confounds, and that only a (...) little less than half employ statistical testing methods to control for chance results. Furthermore, at least some researchers make modeling decisions that either do not take into account the nature of corpora and of the word-concept relationship, or undermine the experiment's capacity to answer research questions. I suggest that corpus methods could both provide more powerful evidence and gain more mainstream acceptance by improving their modeling practices. (shrink)

Alternative currencies are means of payment that circulate alongside—as an alternative or complement to—official currencies. While these currencies have existed for a long time, both society and academia have shown a renewed interest in their potential to decentralize the governance of monetary affairs and to bring people and organizations together in more ethical or sustainable ways. This article is a review of the ethical and philosophical implications of these alternative monetary projects. We first discuss various classifications of these currencies before (...) analyzing the ethical challenges linked to the way they tackle social and environmental issues. We also examine the incentive-based and coercive mechanisms used by these currencies from an ethical perspective and debate the promises and perils of monetary decentralization and democracy. We conclude by identifying an agenda for future research. (shrink)

This article aims to defend a novel account of pluralism in economics. First, it argues that what justifies pluralism is its epistemological benefits. Second, it acknowledges that pluralism has limits, and defends reasonable pluralism, or the view that we should only accept those theories and methods that can be justified by their communities with reasons that other communities can accept. Clearly, reasonable pluralism is an ideal, which requires economists of different persuasions to respect certain norms of communication while evaluating each (...) other’s theories. The article ends with a discussion of the conditions under which reasonable communication becomes possible. (shrink)

/Analyticity theorists/, as I will call them, endorse the /doctrine of analyticity in ontology/: if some truth P analytically entails the existence of certain things, then a theory that contains P but does not claim that those things exist is no more ontologically parsimonious than a theory that also claims that they exist. Suppose, for instance, that the existence of a table in a certain location is analytically entailed by the existence and features of certain particles in that location. The (...) doctrine implies that the table's existence requires nothing more of the world than that those particles exist and bear the features in question. Analyticity theorists have alleged that this idea may be used to defend controversial existence claims against a battery of objections. I argue that this style of defense fails, because the doctrine faces counter-examples. An existence claim may be analytically entailed by some truth and still report a substantial further fact. (shrink)

Philosophers have spilled a lot of ink over the past few years exploring the nature and significance of grounding. Kit Fine has made several seminal contributions to this discussion, including an exact treatment of the formal features of grounding [Fine, 2012a]. He has specified a language in which grounding claims may be expressed, proposed a system of axioms which capture the relevant formal features, and offered a semantics which interprets the language. Unfortunately, the semantics Fine offers faces a number of (...) problems. In this paper, I review the problems and offer an alternative that avoids them. I offer a semantics for the pure logic of ground that is motivated by ideas already present in the grounding literature, and for which a natural axiomatization capturing central formal features of grounding is sound and complete. I also show how the semantics I offer avoids the problems faced by Fine’s semantics. (shrink)

An impressive variety of new forms of money has aroused in recent decades from various groups of people and various kinds of institutions. These currencies are at the heart of intense debates, which raise important, but often neglected, normative issues. The diversity of their goals, uses and charac-teristics is so large that it makes some preliminary distinctions necessary. This paper aims at provid-ing a proper background for the discussion of the possible merits and drawbacks of different kinds of currencies. It (...) proposes a classification that demarcates currencies according to how they relate to several crucial normative issues. Its aim is to show, for every type of currency, and as unambiguously as possible, to which side of these controversies it lies. (shrink)

A dialogical essay prioritizing understanding to knowledge, and justification to truth.

Local Currencies, Local Exchange Trading Systems, and Time Banks are all part of a new social movement that aims to restrict money's purchasing power within a certain geographic area, or within a certain community. According to their proponents, these restrictions may contribute to building sustainable local economies, supporting local businesses and creating “warmer” social relations. This article inquires whether the overall enthusiasm that surrounds alternative currencies is justified. It argues that the potential benefits of these currencies are not sufficient to (...) justify the restrictions they impose on money's purchasing power. Turning these currencies into effective channels of change, by increasing their scope and their strength, could severely hinder the pursuit of social justice, in a way that is probably not even necessary for achieving their objectives. The paper concludes that large-scale limitations of money's purchasing power are, therefore, undesirable. (shrink)