In recent years, the concept of evolvability has been gaining in prominence both within evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) and the broader field of evolutionary biology. Despite this, there remains considerable disagreement about what evolvability is. This article offers a solution to this problem. I argue that, in focusing too closely on the role played by evolvability as an explanandum in evo-devo, existing philosophical attempts to clarify the evolvability concept have been overly narrow. Within evolutionary biology more broadly, evolvability offers a (...) robust explanation for the evolutionary trajectories of populations. Evolvability is an abstract, robust, dispositional property of populations, which captures the joint causal influence of their internal features on the outcomes of evolution (as opposed to the causal influence of selection, which is often characterized as external). When considering the nature of the physical basis of this disposition, it becomes clear that the many existing definitions of evolvability at play within evo-devo should be understood as capturing only aspects of a much broader phenomenon. 1 Introduction2 The Problem of Evolvability3 The Theoretical Role of Evolvability in Evolutionary Biology3.1 The explanatory targets of evolutionary biology3.2 Selection-based explanations3.3 Lineage explanations3.4 Evolvability-based explanations3.5 What properties must evolvability have?4 What Evolvability Really Is4.1 Making sense of ft4.2 Making sense of x and b5 What of the Limbs? The Power of E6 Conclusion. (shrink)

Growing-Block theorists hold that past and present things are real, while future things do not yet exist. This generates a puzzle: how can Growing-Block theorists explain the fact that some sentences about the future appear to be true? Briggs and Forbes develop a modal ersatzist framework, on which the concrete actual world is associated with a branching-time structure of ersatz possible worlds. They then show how this branching structure might be used to determine the truth values of future contingents. They (...) point out three different ways of interpreting the logical connectives, which give rise to three different logics of the open future: one supervaluationist, one corresponding to Lukasiewicz's strong Kleene logic, and one intuitionist. (shrink)

Philosophers often talk about the things we say, or believe, or think, or mean. The things are often called ‘propositions’. A proposition is what one believes, or thinks, or means when one believes, thinks, or means something. Talk about propositions is ubiquitous when philosophers turn their gaze to language, meaning and thought. But what are propositions? Is there a single class of things that serve as the objects of belief, the bearers of truth, and the meanings of utterances? How do (...) our utterances express propositions? Under what conditions do two speakers say the same thing, and what (if anything) does this tell us about the nature of propositions? There is no consensus on these questions—or even on whether propositions should be treated as things at all. During the second Propositions and Same-Saying workshop, which took place on July 19–21 2010 at the University of Sydney, philosophers debated these (and related) questions. The workshop covered topics in the philosophy of language, perception, and metaphysics. The present volume contains revised and expanded versions of the papers presented at the workshop. (shrink)

June 2022 A Revolutionary New Metaphysics, Based on Consciousness, and a Call to All Philosophers We are in a unique moment of our history unlike any previous moment ever. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. As I write, the planet is in deep trouble, heat, fires, great storms, and record flooding, (...) weather patterns drastic everywhere. Capitalism has been so successful in supplying us with an endless array of consumer items, that we have never noticed there is a cost. But there is a cost, the cost is the very life of the Earth herself, and now the day of reckoning is here. Days of reckoning are most often days of rath. But I am hoping that this is a day of major Awakening over the entire planet. We have caused a crisis so great for the Earth we can hardly get our minds around it. But I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis are ideas, about who and what the Earth is, Ourselves, and what we are here for. I am proposing that this is a call to all philosophy and philosophers to rethink ourselves from the ground up. The human race has never gotten the Earth right and now we must, for the Earth is the true foundation for civilization. We are in deep trouble with the Earth, and it owes to the fact that the great male thinkers never got the Earth right, they could never make the connection between the life of mind and the life of the Earth. I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis we are in are ideas. And that in fact the planet is in the grip of a false metaphysics, and scientific image of nature that really comes most recently from Descartes. His conviction that matter, and with it the Earth, are simply the weighable, the measurable the extended in space and time, utterly devoid of any inner life of mind thoughts or Consciousness. This view of matter and the Earth goes back to the very dawn of thought, Descartes is just its most recent and comprehensive version of things. This view of matter is really a false metaphysics that dominates most of the modern world and underpins the whole scientific image of nature itself. I am proposing this is a false metaphysics and offering a new version of things based on Consciousness. If there is a single idea fueling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something without Consciousness. When you intend to ravage and savage the planet, turn it into consumer items to be converted into money in the bank, first pretend that all of the bright beings in the natural world are devoid of Consciousness, just “things” you do not have to have any conscious about destroying them. I am proposing that this term Consciousness, that has appeared as term and a problem for modern science, is the key to getting ourselves right with the Earth. I propose this new theory for science will ramify into every other disciplines as well, and the ways we think just about everything. This old paradigm based on a false theory of matter, has run its course, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction. We need new ideas, and we need them now. You will find my recent work in the Scientific God Journal under the title: Consciousness as the Organizing Principle, and a very complete version of my arguments for this term Consciousness, along with radical reinterpretation of modern science itself, on the Galileo Commission site. It is a radical moment for all of the thinkers among us, take this as my small contribution to rethinking ourselves in new terms, based on my understanding that the true basis for the whole of Being, the Universe, the Cosmos, and with them Ourselves, is this term Consciousness. And unpack it. And I predict that with this term Consciousness every intractable human problem in both science and the modern world will go down like a line of dominos before it. And so, here are a few new ideas I would offer you. These are the times of the Reappearance of the Feminine, a great Awakening as of Springtime after a long dark and lonely Winter. We are leaving behind us an old civilization based on male dominance, fear lies and control, now in decay, disease, and death disintegrating all around us. We are moving into a whole new civilization based on Love and Truth. A new civilization requires new basic terms values and first principles. And so, I return to Descartes. 1. Just over 300 years ago a young man travelling with the army found himself stranded in a foreign town in a bare room lit by a candle with nothing to do but think. And in a couple of nights Descartes laid the entire thought foundations for modern science and most of the modern world. It isn’t clear that modern philosophers with their funding sources of grants, their graduate students, their reputation and all the perks and privileges of academia can do any better. Descartes claimed there are just two principles in the Universe, Matter and Mind. God was pure mind; human beings were mind and matter. And we are the only ones on the planet with mind. Everything else all of the bright array of beings who share the planet with us are simply matter. And matter? The weighable the measurable the extended in space and time utterly devoid of any inner life of thoughts, feelings, or Consciousness This classification was a boon for developing science. Scientists did not have to worry about any inner life in nature, ideas or Consciousness, they could just set about weighing and measuring, as they have until the present day. But it was a disaster for the Earth. Earth was once worshiped as a Goddess. With Descartes she became almost overnight “things.” Simply commodities and resources, an endless of supply of consumer items, to be turned into money in the bank. And now Descartes concept of matter is up for us. If there is a single idea that is enabling and driving the destruction of the Earth, it is the conviction that Earth is something without Consciousness. This whole scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is driving the destruction of the Earth, and driving us all insane, and it needs to change. Ever since Descartes formulated Dualism, scientists and philosophers have been trying to get rid of it. They have done this by attempting to make matter the fundamental term of reality, and to explain mind or Consciousness in terms of matter. And now, Consciousness has emerged as term and a problem for modern science. 2. The prevailing Universe picture has been mainly based on the belief that Consciousness appears only at the end of evolution in ourselves and some of the higher animals when matter attains “a certain state of complexity” and it is produced by neurons in the brain. But Consciousness is nothing real in itself, the neurons are doing the work, Consciousness is simply a byproduct of neural activity. As William James summed up this position, not his: Consciousness is to the brain as a shadow to the runner, it runs beside him but never influences his stride. And so, the great problem of neuroscience: How do neurons produce Consciousness? So far, no one has been able to say how. All we have is parallelism. Two processes are running in parallel a train of neural events and a train of Consciousness events. And so, which one is primary? The face of neuroscience and much of the modern world is that the neural events are what is really real, Consciousness is secondary. The conviction that Consciousness is something produced by neurons is so deeply held and has been so for so long, that it seems like an obvious fact. It is in fact an assumption and a theory, and it could all well be the other way around. The scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is now up for us. It has enabled the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a unique place in our own evolution where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, there are the best reasons for rethinking Descartes concepts of matter. Scientists and philosophers have been trying to escape dualism by making matter the fundamental term. And now, this has not worked. In a nutshell: The mind body problem, the “hard problem of Consciousness” ---how do neurons in the brain, atoms and molecules give rise to ideas thoughts and feelings and who what and where is the “I” who sees them? And then, the near-death experience. I remind you of the truth of the near-death experience. The body in the bed is brain dead eeg flat, but the patient, pure Consciousness is hovering at the ceiling watching the doctors work over the body below, able to read dials he could not have seen from the bed, sometimes able to events in the corridor beyond the room, all subsequently confirmed by the doctors. Evidence as good as it gets that the patient really was out of his body. And so, the patient is able to see without eyes, hear without ears and to think and remember without a brain. There is not a single scientific principle that can account for this. And I am proposing that the near-death experience is a threshold and a key for a much deeper understanding of the Universe. These three problems are so hard they cannot be solved by present scientific principles and therefore call all present principles and ways of thought into question. When your axioms cannot account for the data, it is time to drop them and find better fundamental terms. We have not been able to solve the problems of Consciousness with the assumption that matter is the most basic and fundamental term. And so, if Cartesian dualism is to be overcome at all, we need to try it the other way around. 3. We are in the position of Copernicus. Remember Copernicus? He was making his calculations on the assumption that the Earth was the center of the Universe until they became so unwieldy that he decided to try it all the other way around. To make the sun the center, the Earth revolving around it. And lo, all of his data fell neatly into place. I am proposing a whole new Universe picture. Evolution makes us continuous with every other being, Consciousness would not be in us if it were not in them also, and then, in the atoms and molecules and cells that make up living beings. I propose to make Consciousness the most basic term and see what follows. I am in fact, proposing a new Copernican Revolution, that Consciousness is the true basis for the Universe and the right fundamental term, for science itself all other disciplines as well, and the whole of the modern world. And I predict that every intractable problem in science or the modern world, will go down like a line of dominos before it. In a nutshell: Consciousness and not matter is “first and fundamental” in the Universe, it is there from the very “Beginning” everything has it and all of the true causalities, the explanatory principles belong to it. Not to matter. What then is matter? All matter is an Appearance of something much more real, Consciousness. All matter is an expression of Consciousness, even the least little bit of matter contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. And so, we revise the scientific image of nature. Science at present is two termed, matter/energy. It needs to become three termed: Matter/energy/Consciousness, with the recognition that all of the basic principles, the true causalities of events, and of the Universe belong to Consciousness. And now physics. To accommodate this new Universe picture physics needs to alter just one term, energy. All energy contains Consciousness, that idea alone will change our world forever. The animals the trees the plants are just as conscious as we are, as is the Earth herself, a continuum of many forms of Consciousness of which our own is one. The Earth consists of interacting and intersecting forms of Consciousness, Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness. A remarkable work has just appeared entitled “Beyond Words What Animals Feel and Think.” Describing in detail how like ourselves all of the animals are. And the more we can see how like us everything else really is, the harder it will be for us to do them all in, in the interest of turning them into consumer items. And so, here is a new principle of understanding, that entails completely new forms of explanation, and a whole new Universe picture to be spelled out in terms of Consciousness and its various properties. This is a Universe that is aware awake and Enspirited throughout. And so, there is only one principle, not two. And so, how does Consciousness work? There is “no mind/body problem.” My Consciousness is aligning the Consciousness of neurons in the brain, that aligns the Consciousness of all other cells in the body, that aligns the Consciousness of molecules and atoms themselves. Mainly from the top down, but also interactive, and not reduction to the purely physical forces. 4. And so, here is a radical new Universe picture, and with it a new way to think about the Universe itself, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. It requires a complete revision of both of the terms of modern science itself. The problem of the modern world owes in deep measure to Descartes concept of matter as something devoid of interior life. But he is only the most powerful and simple expression of a whole tradition of thought that predates him, that goes back to the very dawn of thought itself. It owes to the conviction of both Plato and Aristotle that the Earth was something devoid of reason, or mind, and therefore something to be held in complete contempt. We are emerging from a civilization based on contempt for the Earth, and down the road, it will become contempt for the body, sex, women, the Native people, and people of color everywhere. And so, this entire tradition is now up for us, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction, and we need to get beyond it. I am proposing that this term Consciousness is the way out. The missing piece of the puzzle and the idea whose time has come. And it will enable us to move into a completely new civilization based on respect for the Earth, women, sex, people of color, that honors everyone and has a place for all. Revolutions in science occur when new data show up that cannot be accounted for by existing paradigms (Thomas Kuhns: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Consciousness, and all the properties and problems of Consciousness are just such data, and they compel a new scientific revolution. But we are a scientific age. A new Copernican revolution in science is such as revolution everywhere. And Consciousness is the key to getting every other reality at all levels and depths right as well. It will enable us finally to get the Earth right, get ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. Archimedes: Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world. I am proposing a new synthesis among our fundamental terms in which this term Consciousness is the new lynchpin. And so, I return once more to Descartes. Descartes in the Mediations was a dualist, they were two realities interacting in the pineal gland mind and body. But Descartes age was high on “Cartesianisms,” on Descartes concept of matter. Animals were simply cleverly wired machines (Hobbes called them automata). Rumor had it that Descartes followers went about kicking dogs reasoning that their howls were not due to any feelings of pain, but simply the wiring of the machine. We have been doing this to the Earth ever since, and now the Earth is not going to stand for it any longer. It is time we all woke up. There is no matter in Descartes sense of it, or in Plato and Aristotle’s sense of it. This old concept of matter is embedded in all of the crisis and catastrophes---fires, drought, pandemics, over population, the disintegrating economies, our ways of life, capitalism and consumerism themselves. All matter is Enspirited, contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. Now I tell you something about Descartes you may not know. In the Mediations was a dualist, there are minds and bodies. But by the end of his life, he knew the truth. Descartes guided his whole life by these vivid dreams, and toward the end of his life he had this dream: He saw the Universe as a giant machine and in the heart of the machine propelling the whole, was Consciousness. And so, out of the shades and shadows and into the light of day. Here is a renewed and a new science, a new cosmology. And with it, a revolutionary new metaphysics. The whole of the modern world is in the grip of a false metaphysics, based on Descartes theory of matter. Here is a new, and finally true metaphysics based on the single term, Consciousness. 5. And in all my works, I spell out this new metaphysics based on Consciousness, and what it means for how we think about virtually everything: The Universe, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. Of who, what and where Spirit is, that we may connect with Spirit everywhere. There is only one term for the Universe, and not two, this single term Consciousness, that manifests itself in two modes: Consciousness in Form, Consciousness Formless. And so, here is a sketch of what this new term Consciousness really means. For four great aspects of the real, four new cornerstones for a whole new civilization on Earth, based on Love and Truth. A. For the Universe: New causalities, all matter is an expression of Consciousness, awake and aware, Enspirited throughout, which has a place for the causalities of love ideas intent plan and purpose, what Aristotle called final causality, that for the sake of which. And it has a place for subjectivity, the greatest mystery in the whole of the Universe, knowable only in ourselves, but there in everything else as well, bedrock in the chain of causalities. The buck stops here. Here are two very different Universe pictures. The Cartesian Universe consists of things, pushed, and pulled around by the physical forces that function blind. The true Universe consists of selves and not things. Selves at least in ourselves, are organized and focused about an I, an I am, or a sense of self in everything, ever other being dear to itself. Just one aspect of subjectivity. And so, it is Consciousness all the way down, and subjectivity all the way down. Science proceeds on the basis of the negligible of what it can leave out as unimportant. Subjectivity is the ultimate animating principle of the Universe. What Descartes really did was to strip from nature what is most essential about it, its animating principle Consciousness. And so, we come out of a long history of “clunk.” The great male thinkers have killed creation. First in concepts and now in the lived life. And so, after centuries of fruitless search, not all of it in vain, finally, and just in time the true basic principle for the Universe has shown up in virtually all disciplines, this term Consciousness. B. And so, the Earth: What does this term Consciousness really mean for the Earth? It means that all of the bright array of beings around us have Consciousness. And the more we can realize how like us they are, the harder it will be to do them all in. Is this what it really means to be “made in the image of Spirit?” To destroy ever other living being? The god of Genesis is a creator god who has created billions and billions of living forms. Man, taking himself to be made in the image of Spirit has destroyed virtually all of it. The Earth is not things, not commodities and resources, not an endless array of consumer goods. The Earth consists of conscious living spiritual beings like ourselves, who need to be honored and respected, nurtured and cared for, to be Loved. And if the human race can finally pull it off and bring Love here and start helping the Earth rather than destroying her, even our vast numbers now at 8 billion, may not matter. Deeply embedded in the modern world is a false cosmology based on the hitherto useful but ultimately false metaphysics of Descartes. In particular it owes to Descartes concepts of matter, and of the Earth, as something devoid of Consciousness. And now this concept is up for us. If there is a single idea enabling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something devoid of Consciousness. And we all have a vested interest in keeping this false concept in place. When you intend to ravage and savage the Earth, to turn it into consumer items, and money in the bank, first pretend she has no Consciousness that way we need not have any conscious about it. We are in deep trouble with the planet. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, here are a few new guiding principles for the planet, based on Consciousness. Consciousness has field properties. The Earth is Consciousness throughout, connected and interconnected throughout, intersecting and interacting fields of Consciousness of which our own is one. To harm one is to harm all. Only this understanding of the Earth can set our destructive technologies, and capitalism, their goals, and their limits. The real problem with capitalism, and with civilization itself is it has no true understanding of the Earth, all the exquisite networks and webworks that connect all beings with one another. Nor it is about to admit that the Earth is our “life support system,” reason gone insane in the modern world. We are destroying our life support system, capitalism is the full expression of the human death wish in the modern world, and it needs to change. And now, let the barriers between ourselves and all other beings go down. C. And so, Ourselves. This new Universe picture based on Consciousness opens into and has a place for new concepts of human identity. In particular, it has a place for reincarnation, a process whereby one Consciousness dons’ bodies again and again and lays them down. This is a process wholly impossible on materialistic theories. This new view of things puts a higher perspective on Freudian determinism, which is a partial knowing in a greater account. We are something more than the victims of genes drives and childhood. We are immortally eternal evolving spiritual beings who take on a cycle of earthly lives in order to achieve certain goals and abilities, and then, our earthly cycle complete, we depart the Earth plane for other areas of the Universe physical or purely spiritual, to continue our evolution elsewhere. The scientific evidence for reincarnation is increasing on all sides, see for example the work of Michael Newton, a mainstream scientist forced to confront the fact of reincarnation. A completely new reincarnational picture is now emerging everywhere. We choose our parents for abilities we could acquire through them. We all come here with reasons for being here, and we all have free will, an original property of Consciousness, and we work out our issues accordingly. We all come here with the same reason for being here. It is to experience the Earth plane and human society at all levels and depths, in every social role, every climate, both sexes male and female and in all races. We are all here to acquire a deep understanding of the Earth plane with all its challenges and all of its present problems. We are not here to devour and consume the Earth, but to honor her for the learning experience she makes available for us. And so, reincarnation is the great equalizer, the fundamental basis for any bill of rights. Many of the problems of the modern world owe to the fact that reincarnation has not been taught in the West. Reincarnation was the center piece of Jesus teachings. It was banned by a fourth century council that decided the populous could best be controlled through fear. They edited all mention of reincarnation from the scriptures, and inserted fear terms instead, a judgmental god, and so on. If reincarnation had been taught, there would have been no suppression of women, but the gift of both sexes would have been honored and developed. And there would have been no reason for contempt for people of color because who they are, we have been or will be. There is no reason to look down on anyone when we know that our own identity includes membership in theirs. The truth of reincarnation needs to be the foundation for getting ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. D. And so, Spirit. This new Universe picture, based on Consciousness, has a place for Spirit as simply Infinite Consciousness. All universes all worlds are formed out of this Consciousness, divine and sacred throughout. And Spirit is everywhere in the Earth and can be connected everywhere. And the Native North American people had things right. Everything has its own Spirit, and without contradiction is also an expression of Spirit. And what I am really doing in terms of concepts of modern science is presenting the Native North American version of the Real. And this new Universe picture has a place for the essential insight of all religions almost smothered by church tradition: Love. Not an emotion but a great Oneness, that can be found everywhere, even in a busy city street. But especially in the Earth, that is levels and depths of Oneness everywhere. And so, for the first time in their long and bitter antagonistic history, science and religion now share a common base with this term Spirit, the lynchpin in a new conceptual framework. And I offer an interpretation of where we are in our history, this present moment of historical grace, and these tumultuous times in which we live, the return of the Goddess and the Divine Feminine, the Reappearance of the Feminine in history, the Advent of Women, this great Awakening, as of Springtime after a long dark Winter, the Awakening, the Second Coming. And so, stay tuned! (shrink)

Consciousness has appeared as a term and a problem in modern science. Most scientists believe that it can be accommodated and explained by existing scientific principles. But I say it cannot, that it points beyond present day science to a whole new view of the Universe, in which Consciousness, and not matter, or matter/energy, is the true basis of the Universe. Consciousness is for modern science exactly what Light was for classical physics, all of our concepts for Reality must change. (...) And I go on to lay out my arguments for this new principle Consciousness, and what it real means, for our ideas about the Universe, the Earth, Ourselves and Spirit. In a nutshell, the hard problem of Consciousness the mind/body problem and the near-death experience are so hard they cannot be explained by any present day scientific principles and therefore call all of modern science into question. My arguments are up on PhilPapers and on the Galileo Commission's website. What I now want to do is work out the implications of Consciousness as the basic new principle, for how we deal with monumental issues now facing us in these times. Here are a series of articles about my themes. (shrink)

Consciousness has appeared as a term and a problem in modern science. Most scientists believe that it can be accommodated and explained by existing scientific principles. But I say it cannot, that it points beyond present day science to a whole new view of the Universe, in which Consciousness, and not matter, or matter/energy, is the true basis of the Universe. Consciousness is for modern science exactly what Light was for classical physics, all of our concepts for Reality must change. (...) And I go on to lay out my arguments for this new principle Consciousness, and what it real means, for our ideas about the Universe, the Earth, Ourselves and Spirit. In a nutshell, the hard problem of Consciousness the mind/body problem and the near-death experience are so hard they cannot be explained by any present day scientific principles and therefore call all of modern science into question. My arguments are up on PhilPapers and on the Galileo Commission's website. What I now want to do is work out the implications of Consciousness as the basic new principle, for how we deal with monumental issues now facing us in these times. Here are a series of articles about my themes. (shrink)

Johnston presents an argument for a form of immortality that divests the notion of any supernatural elements. The book is packed with illuminating philosophical reflection on the question of what we are, and what it is for us to persist over time.

Some Radical New Ideas About Consciousness Consciousness and the Cosmos: A New Copernican Revolution -/- Consciousness is our new frontier in modern science. Most scientists believe that it can be accomodated, explained, by existing scientific principles. I say that it cannot. That it calls all existing scientific principles into question. That consciousness is to modern science just exactly what light was to classical physics: All of our fundamental assumptions about the nature of Reality have to change. And I go on, (...) in this work,to spell out a whole new view of Reality, and of the Universe. -/- And so, we'll have some fun! -/- Modern science is already in deep trouble... -/- Lorna Green. (shrink)

Traditional accounts of the role of learning in evolution have concentrated upon its capacity as a source of fitness to individuals. In this paper I use a case study from invasive species biology—the role of conditioned taste aversion in mitigating the impact of cane toads on the native species of Northern Australia—to highlight a role for learning beyond this—as a source of evolvability to populations. This has two benefits. First, it highlights an otherwise under-appreciated role for learning in evolution that (...) does not rely on social learning as an inheritance channel nor “special” evolutionary processes such as genetic accommodation (both of which many are skeptical about). Second, and more significantly, it makes clear important and interesting parallels between learning and exploratory behaviour in development. These parallels motivate the applicability of results from existing research into learning and learning evolution to our understanding of the evolution of evolvability more generally. (shrink)

We reply to recent papers by John Turri and Ben Bronner, who criticise the dispositionalised Nozickian tracking account we discuss in “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know.” We argue that the account we suggested can handle the problems raised by Turri and Bronner. In the course of responding to Turri and Bronner’s objections, we draw three general lessons for theories of epistemic dispositions: that epistemic dispositions are to some extent extrinsic, that epistemic dispositions can have manifestation conditions concerning circumstances where (...) their bearers fail to exist, and that contrast is relevant to disposition attributions. (shrink)

Some Scenarios for What is Coming Down on Us .

This study determined the challenges encountered by public secondary School Heads of Pangasinan II division during the Covid-19 pandemic and the coping mechanisms used by the School Heads to manage the challenges. It used the descriptive-correlational research design. -/- This study found out that in the profile variables of the respondent-School Heads, majority are females, 51 and above years old, Master’s degree holders with 11-15 years in service. Majority of the respondents are Principal III-IV who are mostly trained in leadership (...) and management relevant to the new normal. There are moderately high level of challenges encountered by School Heads during the Covid-19 pandemic along leadership and governance, curriculum and learning, and management of resources. A high level of challenges was encountered by School Heads during the Covid-19 pandemic along accountability and continuous improvement. -/- Findings also show that the level of coping mechanisms of the School Heads to manage the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic along production of instructional/ modular materials, training of teachers, and provision of technological tools are high. A moderately high level of coping mechanism was also found on school Heads’ management during the pandemic along production, distribution and retrieval of modules. There is a significant relationship that exists on the level of challenges encountered by the School Heads along leadership and governance, and the profile variables, sex and position. A significant relationship also exists between the level of challenges encountered along curriculum and learning and the School Heads’ highest educational attainment. Further, a significant relationship exists between the level of challenges encountered along management of resources and the profile variable, age. (shrink)

Consciousness is the true basis of the universe. Here is a story of how I came to this understanding, and where it has led me.

This concluding chapter of _Techno-Fixers: Origins and Implications of Technological Faith_ examines the widespread overconfidence in present-day and proposed 'technological fixes', and provides guidelines - social, ethical and technical - for soberly assessing candidate technological solutions for societal problems.

Aristotle is history’s most famous and influential proponent of the view that there are exactly five senses. But was he entitled to hold this view, given his other commitments? In particular, was he entitled to treat touch as a single sense, given the diversity of its correlated objects? In this paper I argue that Aristotle wished to individuate touch on the basis of its correlated objects, just as he had the other four senses. I also argue, contrary to what is (...) often supposed, that he was well-placed to do so, given his other commitments and views. (shrink)

The great philosophers missed it, and here are the reasons why, how to bring them all up to date, a woman's take on things, with new categories and concepts, like love, oneness, the feminine, the earth, Spirit, the end of the old order, and the beginning of the new.

Consciousness and not matter is the basis of the universe. Here is my biography and a list of some of my works.

I am proposing a new Copernican revolution, that Consciousness and not matter is the true basis of the universe. Here is an account of my graduate student days at the Rockefeller University as a woman pioneer in science, and a sense of what I am really about in all of my works. I am giving a woman's take on the universe.

Consciousness is more important than the Higgs-Bosen particle, because the whole of present day science founders on it. Consciousness is the true basis of the universe, and what this means for modern science, philosophy, religion, the earth, the universe, woman and men, the modern world, and where we are in our history, and with them, a new and truw firm footing, a whole new thought foundation, for civilization iteself, and a viable rooted future, the reappearance if the feminine, the advent (...) of women. (shrink)

On the origins of British chemical engineering,.

Canada, as one of the three Allied nations collaborating on atomic energy development during the Second World War, had an early start in applying its new knowledge and defining a new profession. Owing to postwar secrecy and distinct national aims for the field, nuclear engineering was shaped uniquely by the Canadian context. Alone among the postwar powers, Canadian exploration of atomic energy eschewed military applications; the occupation emerged within a governmental monopoly; the intellectual content of the discipline was influenced by (...) its early practitioners, administrators, scarce resources, and university niches; and a self-recognized profession coalesced later than did its American and British counterparts. This paper argues that the history of the emergence of Canadian nuclear engineers exemplifies unusually strong shaping of technical expertise by political and cultural context. (shrink)

(1) In the first part of this paper, I review Chomsky's meandering journey from the formalism/mentalism of Syntactic Structures, through several methodological positions, to the minimalist theory of his latest work. Infected with mentalism from first to last, each and every position vitiates Chomsky's repeated claims that his theories will provide useful guidance to later theories in such fields as cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. With the guidance of his insights, he claims, psychologists and neuroscientists will be able to avoid (...) costly dead-end lines of research. -/- (2) This never happened. As I have shown, this never could have happened. (See Johnston, 2018). What has happened, instead, is that current neurolinguistic research (with the arguable exception of the now-dated Lemma Model of Willem Levelt) proceeds without reference to Chomsky. It also wholeheartedly rejects the mentalism of the associated Language of Thought theory of Jerry Fodor. (See Johnston, 2018). -/- (3) I make this argument in the first part of this paper. I would also like to point out that most of my argument was developed in 1972, when I was a graduate student. I know of no other sustained criticisms of Chomsky at that time, and certainly none along the lines I had developed back then. -/- (4) In the second part of this paper, I present my own account of the methodology of science. When I was a graduate student, philosophy of science was dominated by an attempt to describe a methodology common to all the specific sciences, i.e. Hempel’s deductive-nomological model. These days, Hempel’s emphasis on the methodological unity of science has been rejected by such “dis-unity” philosophers of science as Ian Hacking, Patrick Suppes and Nancy Cartwright (see Cat, 2021). -/- (5) I view this change as the swing of a pendulum or, to change the metaphor, a journey from one end point of a continuum to another. As the level of abstraction at which one tries to describe scientific method is raised, the descriptions become increasingly general. Whether or not unity-of-science theories become so general as to be vacuous, is ultimately a subjective judgment. And so I expect that philosophers will eventually become tired of increasingly specific “close to the workbench” descriptions of how scientists work, and begin to turn back to methodological “big pictures”, finding in them powerful abstractions rather than empty irrelevancies. -/- (6) In the second part of this paper, I present my own account of the methodology of science, which I would situate somewhere between the “unity” and “dis-unity” accounts. However, I am not a scientist. My own views about scientific method have three origins: -/- (6a) my work as a graduate student from 1966 until I passed my comprehensive exams in 1973 (at a different university); -/- (6b) reading every issue of Scientific American from 1972 until nearly 2000, (at which point I continued to read it only sporadically, since I concluded that, around that time, it had evolved from a serious science magazine to a popular science magazine); and -/- (6c) my three-year immersion in the cognitive neuroscience of language after I retired, based on repeated study of and note-taking for (Banesh & Compton, 2018), (Kemmerer, 2015), several other books and, finally, numerous articles not hidden behind a paywall. -/- So, as always with my writings: caveat emptor. (shrink)

This paper argues that Heraclitus was deeply and centrally interested in ethical questions, understood broadly as questions about how human beings should live. In particular, I argue, Heraclitus held that wisdom is essential for living well, and that most people lack the kind of fundamental insight into the nature of reality in which wisdom consists. Topics covered include Heraclitus’ views on: the good and bad condition of the soul, the nature and sources of wisdom, the reasons why most people remain (...) oblivious to the world in which they live, and the connections between acquiring genuine insight into reality and becoming like god. (shrink)

Aristotle sometimes claims that the perception of special perceptibles by their proper sense is unerring. This claim is striking, since it might seem that we quite often misperceive things like colours, sounds and smells. Aristotle also claims that the perception of common perceptibles is more prone to error than the perception of special perceptibles. This is puzzling in its own right, and also places constraints on the interpretation of. I argue that reading Alexander of Aphrodisias on perceptual error can help (...) to make good sense of both of Aristotle’s claims. (shrink)

In this paper I consider two related issues raised by Aristotle 's treatment of hearing and sounds. The first concerns the kinds of changes Aristotle takes to occur, in both perceptual medium and sense organs, when a perceiver hears a sounding object. The second issue concerns Aristotle 's views on the nature and location of the proper objects of auditory perception. I argue that Aristotle 's views on these topics are not what they have sometimes been taken to be, and (...) that when rightly understood they compare favourably in many respects with leading contemporary accounts. (shrink)

In 'On the nature of truth and falsehood' Russell offers both a multiple relation theory of judgment and a correspondence theory of truth. It has been a prevailing understanding of the Tractatus that Wittgenstein rejects Russell’s multiple relation idea but endorses the correspondence theory. Ramsey took the opposite view. In his 'Facts and Propositions', Ramsey endorses Russell’s multiple relation idea, rejects the correspondence theory, and then asserts that these moves are both due to Wittgenstein. This chapter will argue that Ramsey’s (...) ascriptions are both correct. The extent of the agreement between Ramsey and Wittgenstein will be argued, moreover, to count definitively against standard understandings of Ramsey as a redundancy theorist of truth. Wittgenstein is no correspondence theorist and Ramsey is no redundancy theorist; rather, both philosophers offer identity theories of truth. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a new solution to the old problem of how best to understand the meaning of the word ‘logos’ in the extant writings of Heraclitus, especially in fragments DK B1, B2 and B50. On the view I defend, Heraclitus was neither using the word in a perfectly ordinary way in these fragments, as some have maintained, nor denoting by it some kind of general principle or law governing change in the cosmos, as many have claimed. Rather, (...) I argue, Heraclitus deliberately traded on the ordinary use of the word in his time (to refer to a written or spoken presentation of things as ‘thus and so’) to denote the world’s constant presentation of itself as ‘thus and so’ to all of us in our experience – a kind of cosmic self-revelation. I show how this captures the sense in which ‘the logos’ is said to be ‘common’ (xunos) and to be the kind of thing most people fail to comprehend even before hearing Heraclitus’ own account, all without detaching Heraclitus’ use of the word from its ordinary contemporary meaning. This interpretation suggests Heraclitus was a thinker more centrally concerned with human (mis)understanding than with speculative cosmology. (shrink)

Communities of nuclear workers have evolved in distinctive contexts. During the Manhattan Project the UK, USA and Canada collectively developed the first reactors, isotope separation plants and atomic bombs and, in the process, nurtured distinct cadres of specialist workers. Their later workplaces were often inherited from wartime facilities, or built anew at isolated locations. For a decade, nuclear specialists were segregated and cossetted to gestate practical expertise. At Oak Ridge Tennessee, for example, the informal ‘Clinch College of Nuclear Knowledge’ aimed (...) to industrialise the use of radioactive materials. ‘We were like children in a toy factory’, said its Director: ‘everyone could play the game of designing new nuclear power piles’. His counterpart at Chalk River, Ontario headed a project ‘completely Canadian in every respect’, while the head of the British project chose the remote Dounreay site in northern Scotland because of design uncertainties in the experimental breeder reactor. With the decline of secrecy during the mid-1950s, the hidden specialists lauded as ‘atomic scientists’ gradually became visible as new breeds of engineers, technologists and technicians responsible for nuclear reactors and power plants. Mutated by their different political contexts, occupational categories, labour affiliations, professional representations and popular depictions, their activities were disputed by distinct audiences. This chapter examines the changing identities of nuclear specialists and the significance of their secure sites. Shaped successively by Cold War secrecy, commercial competition and terrorist threats, nuclear energy remained out of site for wider publics and most nuclear specialists alike. The distinctive episodes reveal the changing working experiences of technical workers in late-twentieth and early twenty-first century environments. (shrink)

This chapter explores how science and technology studies (STS) have evolved over the past generation. It surveys the contrasting perspectives of philosophers, sociologists, scholars of the humanities, wider publics, and scientists themselves. It describes contrasting views about the practice and purpose for studying the history of science. -/- ISBN 978-1-85168-681-0.

In books 8 and 9 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates provides a detailed account of the nature and origins of four main kinds of vice found in political constitutions and in the kinds of people that correspond to them. The third of the four corrupt kinds of person he describes is the ‘democratic man’. In this paper, I ask what ‘rules’ in the democratic man’s soul. It is commonly thought that his soul is ruled in some way by its appetitive part, (...) or by a particular class of appetitive desires. I reject this view, and argue instead that his soul is ruled by a succession of desires of a full range of different kinds. I show how this view helps us better understand Plato’s depiction of corrupt souls in the Republic more generally, and with it his views on the rule of the soul, appetitive desire, and the nature of vice. (shrink)

In book 9 of Plato's Republic, Socrates describes the nature and origins of the ‘tyrannical man’, whose soul is said to be ‘like’ a tyrannical city. In this paper, I examine the nature of the ‘government’ that exists within the tyrannical man's soul. I begin by demonstrating the inadequacy of three potentially attractive views sometimes found in the literature on Plato: the view that the tyrannical man's soul is ruled by his ‘lawless’ unnecessary appetites, the view that it is ruled (...) by sexual desire, and the view that it is ruled by a lust for power. I then present my own account. On the view I defend, the tyrannical man's soul is to be understood as ruled by a single, persistent, powerful desire for bodily pleasure: as much as he can get, and however he can get it. Finally, I show how understanding the tyrannical man's soul in the way I recommend helps resolve some commonly expressed concerns about this part of the Republic. I suggest, on this basis, that Plato's procedure in constructing his catalogue o.. (shrink)

In Republic 8–9, Socrates describes four main kinds of vicious people, all of whose souls are “ruled” by an element other than reason, and in some of whom reason is said to be “enslaved.” What role does reason play in such souls? In this paper, I argue, based on Republic 8–9 and related passages, and in contrast to some common alternative views, that for Plato the “enslavement” of reason consists in this: instead of determining for itself what is good, reason (...) is forced to desire and pursue as good a goal determined by the soul’s ruler. (shrink)

The measurement of light and colour has always been a peripheral science. Light became a 'disciplined' quantity over the period of a century, but the specialist communities that measured it did not. The quantification of visible light (photometry), colour (colorimetry), and radiant intensity (radiometry) involved distinct communities of physicists, psychologists, technicians and engineers. -/- This chapter of _Science in the Shadows_ examines how the measurement of non-visible light became the domain of post Second World War military engineers and classified development (...) programmes. (shrink)

Aristotle claims, in his Nicomachean Ethics, that in addition to being, for example, just and courageous, and temperate, the virtuous person will also be witty. Very little sustained attention, however, has been devoted to explicating what Aristotle means when he claims that virtuous persons are witty or to justifying the plausibility of the claim that wittiness is a virtue. It becomes especially difficult to see why Aristotle thinks that being witty is a virtue once it becomes clear that Aristotle’s witty (...) person engages in what he calls ‘educated insolence’. Insolence, for Aristotle, is a form of slighting which, as he explains in the Rhetoric, generally causes the person slighted to experience shame and anger. In this paper, I attempt to bring some clarity to Aristotle’s claim that being witty is a virtue by examining why Aristotle thinks that the object of a witty person’s raillery will find this joking pleasant. (shrink)

To date there are no studies examining the ability to make a moral/conventional transgression distinction in adolescent offenders with psychopathic traits. Based on the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version, we compared males with high (HP, n = 45), medium (MP, n = 31) and low psychopathy scores (LP, n = 39) on the moral convention distinction task. Under normal rule conditions the psychopathy groups did not differ in their ability to make a moral/conventional distinction. The HP group tended to view both (...) transgression types as more permissible and conventional transgressions as less serious, than the LP group. Under modified rule conditions, the HP group exhibited reduced moral/conventional distinction scores com- pared to the MP group. The findings only partially replicate findings from previous M/C studies in children and adults with psychopathic traits. The work fits with more recent reports suggesting that psychopathy is not strongly associated with marked difficulties in cognitive theory of mind, perspective taking and moral judgements. Future studies should focus on the affective aspects of moral reasoning in offender samples. (shrink)

On the historical origins of technological fixes and their wider social and political implications.

Consciousness is more important than the Higgs-Bosen particle. Consciousness has emerged as a term, and a problem, in modern science. Most scientists believe that it can be accomodated and explained, by existing scientific principles. I say that it cannot, that it calls all existing principles into question, and so I propose a New Copernican Revolution among our fundamental terms. I say that consciousness points completely beyond present day science, to a whole new view of the universe, where consciousness, and not (...) matter or matter/energy is the true basis of the universe and the true fundamental term for the universe. And I go on to spell out this bold, brave and beautiful new understanding of the Universe, and with it the Earth, Spirit and Ourselves and with them a new and true foundation for Civilization itself. (shrink)

Anscombe’s published writings, lectures and notes on sensation point toward a sophisticated critique of sense-data, representationalist and direct realist theories of perception (in both their historical and contemporary forms), and a novel analysis of the concept of sensation. Her philosophy of perception begins with the traditional question, ‘What are the objects of sensation?’, but the response is a grammatical rather than ontological enquiry. What, she asks, are the characteristics of the grammatical object of sensation verbs? Anscombe’s answer is: sensation verbs (...) take ‘intentional objects’, where an ‘intentional object’ is a description which has the characteristics of the concept of intention—characteristics elucidated in great detail in her Intention. This simple manoeuvre allows Anscombe to reject two opposing positions in the philosophy of perception - that the objects of sensation are sense-data and that the objects of sensation are tables and chairs (etc). Both views, she argues, fail to recognise the grammatical fact that the verbs of sensation take intentional objects. This chapter outlines the case for a grammatical methodology in philosophy of perception, by framing an analysis of the ways in which the sense-data and direct-realist theories of perception arise out of the theoretical demands that are generated when the grammar of the concept of sensation is left unexplored. Along the way, it will be shown that Anscombe’s philosophy of perception should not be read as fore-running contemporary representationalism, and that reading it as such in fact runs counter not only to the letter but the spirit of Ancombe’s proposal. (shrink)

This paper traces the role of American technocrats in popularizing the notion later dubbed the “technological fix”. Channeled by their long-term “chief”, Howard Scott, their claim was that technology always provides the most effective solution to modern social, cultural and political problems. The account focuses on the expression of this technological faith, and how it was proselytized, from the era of high industrialism between the World Wars through, and beyond, the nuclear age. I argue that the packaging and promotion of (...) these ideas relied on allegorical technological tales and readily-absorbed graphic imagery. Combined with what Scott called “symbolization”, this seductive discourse preached beliefs about technology to broad audiences. The style and conviction of the messages were echoed by establishment figures such as National Lab director Alvin Weinberg, who employed the techniques to convert mainstream and elite audiences through the end of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The actual and potential uses of holograms in museum displays, and the philosophy of knowledge and progress that they represent. Magazine journalists, museum curators, and historians sometimes face similar challenges in making topics or technologies relevant to wider audiences. To varying degrees, they must justify the significance of their subjects of study by identifying a newsworthy slant, a pedagogical role, or an analytical purpose. This chasse au trésor may skew historical story telling itself. In science and technology studies, the problem (...) potentially is worst for those subjects that do not retain an enduring capacity for spectacle or do not readily conform to templates of progress or economic importance. The case of holography is an excellent illustration of these points. An unusually wide-ranging subject, holography has attracted competing interpretations of intellectual novelty, technological application, and cultural significance. This paper examines the history of museum collections and exhibits of holography from the explosion of interest in the technique in 1964 to the end of the twentieth century. I argue that holography presents a particular challenge to museum collections and to popular representations of the history of science and technology. (shrink)

This paper traces how media representations encouraged enthusiasts, youth and skilled volunteers to participate actively in science and technology during the twentieth century. It assesses how distinctive discourses about scientific amateurs positioned them with respect to professionals in shifting political and cultural environments. In particular, the account assesses the seminal role of a periodical, Scientific American magazine, in shaping and championing an enduring vision of autonomous scientific enthusiasms. Between the 1920s and 1970s, editors Albert G. Ingalls and Clair L. Stong (...) shepherded generations of adult ‘amateur scientists’. Their columns and books popularized a vision of independent nonprofessional research that celebrated the frugal ingenuity and skills of inveterate tinkerers. Some of these attributes have found more recent expression in present-day ‘maker culture’. The topic consequently is relevant to the historiography of scientific practice, science popularization and science education. Its focus on independent nonprofessionals highlights political dimensions of agency and autonomy that have often been implicit for such historical (and contemporary) actors. The paper argues that the Scientific American template of adult scientific amateurism contrasted with other representations: those promoted by earlier periodicals and by a science education organization, Science Service, and by the national demands for recruiting scientific labour during and after the Second World War. The evidence indicates that advocates of the alternative models had distinctive goals and adapted their narrative tactics to reach their intended audiences, which typically were conceived as young persons requiring instruction or mentoring. By contrast, the monthly Scientific American columns established a long-lived and stable image of the independent lay scientist. (shrink)

The title of this piece is meant to evoke at least three sources. The first – and perhaps the only obvious one – concerns the ability of holograms to display parallax, a shifting of visual viewpoint that allows a three-dimensional image to reveal background objects behind those in the foreground. This parallax view is a unique feature of holograms as visual media. A second allusion is to the American film The Parallax View (1974, director A. J. Pakula), a rather paranoid (...) thriller focusing on conspiracy theories concerning government and corporations. To a casual observer, the bare details of the military origins of holography suggest just such cynical and centrally-directed development, although I hope to dispel such simplistic ideas here. And a third passing reference is to the book The Parallax View (2006) by Slavoj Zizek, a wide-ranging and deep exploration of duality in political views, ontological interpretations and scientific methods, among other topics. Zizek’s theme, as well as Pakula’s, is relevant to my approach, which focuses on a parallax of both practice and intent. During the first successful decade of holography, conflicting viewpoints developed between distinct communities: the militarily-guided engineers who invented practical holography, and the later imaging scientists and artisans who stressed three-dimensionality and other attributes instead of the original goal of optical image processing. I argue that distinct groups of users had different perceptions of what holography is and what it is for. (shrink)

Albert Abraham Michelson (1852-1931), the American optical physicist best known for his precise determination of the velocity of light and for his experiments concerning aether drift, is less often acknowledged as the creator of new spectroscopic instrumentation and new spectroscopies. He devised a new method of light analysis relying upon his favourite instrument – a particular configuration of optical interferometer – and published investigations of spectral line separation, Doppler-broadening and simple high-resolution spectra (1887-1898). Contemporaries did not pursue his method. Michelson (...) himself discarded the technique by the end of the decade, promoting a new device, the ‘echelon spectroscope’, as a superior instrument. High-resolution spectroscopy was taken up by others at the turn of the century using the echelon, Fabry-Pérot etalon and similar instruments. Michelson’s ‘Light Wave Analysis’ was largely forgotten, but was rediscovered c1950 and developed over the following three decades into a technique rechristened ‘Fourier transform spectroscopy’. This paper presents Michelson’s interferometric work as a continuum of personal interests and historical context as an example of 'research technology' and 'peripheral science'. (shrink)

This article is a sequel to ‘The Liar Syndrome’. It answers in detail the various criticisms of the latter expressed by Roy T. Cook in his article, ‘Curing the Liar Syndrome’, appearing in SATS/Nordic Journal of Philosophy, 3 (2): 126-141 (2002).

Atomic energy developed from 1940 as a subject shrouded in secrecy. Identified successively as a crucial element in military strategy, national status and export aspirations, the research and development of atomic piles (nuclear chain-reactors) were nurtured at isolated installations. Like monastic orders, new national laboratories managed their specialist workers in occupational environments that were simultaneously cosseted and constrained, defining regional variants of a new state-managed discipline: reactor technology. This paper discusses the significance of security in defining the new subject in (...) the USA, UK and Canada – wartime allies with similar political traditions but distinct trajectories in this field during the Cold War. The intellectual borders and content of the subject developed differently in each country, shaped under the umbrella of secrecy by disparate clusters of expertise, industrial traditions, and national goals. The nascent cadre was contained until the mid 1950s by classified publications and state-sponsored specialist courses. The early context of high security filtered its members and capped enduringly both their professional aspirations and public engagement. (shrink)

This article explores the cultural contexts in which three-dimensional imaging has been developed, disseminated and used. It surveys the diverse technologies and intellectual domains that have contributed to spatial imaging, and argues that it is an important example of an interdisciplinary subject. Over the past century-and-a-half, specialists from distinct fields have devised explanations and systems for the experience of 3-D imagery. Successive audiences have found these visual experiences compelling, adapting quickly to new technical possibilities and seeking new ones. These complementary (...) interests, and their distinct perspectives, have co-evolved in lock-step. A driver for this evolution is visual culture, which has grown to value and demand the spectacular. As a result, professional and popular engagements with 3-D have had periods of both popularity and indifference, and cultural consensus has proven to be ephemeral. (shrink)

This article examines the various Liar paradoxes and their near kin, Grelling’s paradox and Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem with its self-referential Gödel sentence. It finds the family of paradoxes to be generated by circular definition–whether of statements, predicates, or sentences–a manoeuvre that generates the fatal disorders of the Liar syndrome: semantic vacuity, semantic incoherence, and predicative catalepsy. Afflicted statements, such as the self-referential Liar statement, fail to be genuine statements. Hence they say nothing, a point that invalidates the reasoning on which (...) the various paradoxes rest. The seeming plausibility of the paradoxes is due to the fact that the same sentence may be used to make both the pseudo-statement and a genuine statement about the pseudo-statement. Hence, if a formal system is to avoid ambiguity and consequent seeming paradox, it requires some sort of disambiguator to distinguish the two statements. Gödel’s Theorem presents a further complication in that the self-reference involved is sentential rather than statemental. Nevertheless, on the intended interpretation of the system as a formalization of arithmetic, the self-referential Gödel sentence can only be an ambiguous statement, one that is both a pseudo-statement and its genuine double. Consequently, the conclusions commonly drawn from Gödel’s theorem must be deemed unwarranted. Arithmetic might well be formalized in a proper system that either excludes circular definition or introduces disambiguators. (shrink)