In this paper, I attempt to look at the differential (as in interventionist) readings undertaken by speculative realists (A school of contemporary thought reacting against post-Kantian 'Correlationism') Iain Hamilton Grant and Ray Brassier, with the former concentrating on reading Schelling's naturalism relating to reason, while the latter claiming the constancy of thought's connection to thought. For Brassier, thought must be transcendentally separate from nature, or what he calls 'exteriority', and Grant insists on nature's thinking as plain nature. This (...) doesn't mean 'interiority' is given weight in Grant's thought, but, on the contrary isn't a concern, as for him, the limiting factor of thinking (dichotomy in subject-object relationality) is the regionality of a particular identity attempting to grasp nature's infintude. Brassier maintains scientific statements as capable of supplying reasons for believing in the possibilities of determining thought's tracking and missing nature. He accomplishes this by clarifying notions of concept and distinguishing objects from concepts. This alien-ness of thought generates the possibilities of questioning the human production as against nature. This cardinal issue tries to answer the repercussions probably generated in the wake of either apathetic aspects of mind or the deepest powers of speculation. Not only that, a simultaneous questioning of the legitimacy of ontology and epistemology in the natural world is encountered. Grant advocates the objectifying of the self to grasp the productivity of self's thinking, but at the same time considering objectifying as an ongoing process, a kind of 'becoming'. In other words, it is the questioning of the limits of 'being' in the creation of episteme that takes precedence in Grant. Brassier on the other hand is concerned with the doing away of the dichotomy of being and thinking of meaning. This tension raises the issue of nature philosophy in a duel of 'eliminativism' and 'materialism', between the extent that calls for grounding nature without reliance on a structure undermining the discovery of contemporary science or supporting an anthropic view. (shrink)

This essay confronts Ray Brassier’s vindication of nihilism with other two important but frequently underexamined philosophical attempts to overcome nihilism: Hans Jonas’ and Keiji Nishitani’s. By putting these different takes on nihilism into dialogue, it explores some blind spots in Brassier’s position, as well as some of the practical consequences, for our current planetary situation, of undertaking a radical divorce between the normative and the natural that results from his radical nihilism. The article opts for a more moderate (...) acceptance and eventual self-overcoming of nihilism, according to which, even if natural entities are indifferent to human reasons and meanings, this does not entail that nature is bereft of a human-independent normative dimension. In other words, the essay argues that care must be taken not to confuse criticisms of an anthropocentric conception of reasons and meanings with the belief that meaning is completely absent from the natural world. Thus, the central contention of the article is that, given our current climate and ecological catastrophe, one of the most pressing tasks of contemporary philosophy is to understand normativity in non-anthropocentric ways, so that humans are no longer considered as the only entities that respond to normativity. Such an attitude conceives humans as estranged normative creatures amidst a meaningless, indifferent natural world, toward which they would have no ethical responsibilities. The essay finishes by suggesting ways in which to develop an account that does not fall into this ethical vacuum. (shrink)

Propositions are the things we believe, intend, desire, and so on, but discussions are often less precise than they could be and an important driver of this deficiency has been a focus on the objects but a neglect of the attitudinal relations we bear to them. In what follows, we will offer some thoughts on what it means for a proposition to be the object of an attitude and we will argue that an important part of the story lies with (...) the attitude relations rather than the propositions. As we will see there are infinitely many relations we might bear to a proposition, but the propositional attitude relations are special amongst them. Accounting for what makes them special will be an important component in the discussion that follows. We will argue that once one appreciates certain facts about propositional attitude relations, various claims that metaphysicians often make regarding propositions themselves begin to look undermotivated. In fact, many views on the metaphysical nature of propositions come to look like plausible candidates for being that to which our propositional attitudes relate us. As will emerge, we will see that the principle role of propositions in the theory of mind is simply to keep track of how our attitudinal states represent things as being. But, we argue, in order to do this work, very few constraints must be placed on the nature of propositions themselves. In particular, contra much of the recent work on the metaphysics of propositions, they need not represent nor must they be structured. In light of these observations, we conclude by sketching our own favored minimalist view of propositions. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that our use of vague language poses an intractable problem for any account of content and communication on which (i) the things we assert are propositions and (ii) understanding an assertion requires recognizing which proposition the speaker asserted. John MacFarlane has argued that this problem concerning vague language is itself a species of an even more general problem for such traditional accounts – the problem posed by “felicitous” underspecification. Repurposing certain ideas from Allan Gibbard, MacFarlane (...) offers a novel theory of vagueness, plan-expressivism, as an account that can handle both vagueness and such underspecification in communication. -/- In this paper, I argue that despite its many virtues, plan-expressivism fails as a general account of meaning and communication. In particular, I show that when it comes to the problem of felicitous underspecification, plan-expressivism fares no better than the more traditional accounts of content and communication it is intended to replace. Along the way, I argue that the problem of felicitous underspecification puts considerable pressure on an assumption that is at the core of both plan-expressivism and the accounts of its more traditionalist rivals - namely, that in cases of successful linguistic communication, we must always be able to find something -- whether a propositional content or a conversational update -- that the speaker is intending to share with her audience. (shrink)

In ‘What Reference Has to Tell Us about Meaning’, Stephen Schiffer argues that many of the objects of our beliefs, and the contents of our assertoric speech acts, have what he calls the relativity feature. A proposition has the relativity feature just in case it is an object-dependent proposition ‘the entertainment of which requires different people, or the same person at different times or places, to think of [the relevant object] in different ways’ (129). But as no Fregean or Russellian (...) proposition can possibly have such a feature, we must either (i) give up on these traditional theories of propositional content in favor of an account that can allow for the relativity feature, or else (ii) explain why the things we believe, and say, oftentimes seem to have this feature even though they, in fact, do not. Schiffer pursues the former option; in this essay, I pursue the latter. (shrink)

Credences are beliefs about evidential probabilities. We give the view an assessment-sensitive formulation, show how it evades the standard objections, and give several arguments in support.

Abstract: Smoke detectors are critical devices for early fire detection and life-saving interventions. This research paper explores the application of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) in smoke detection systems. The study aims to develop a robust and accurate smoke detection model using ANNs. Surprisingly, the results indicate a 100% accuracy rate, suggesting promising potential for ANNs in enhancing smoke detection technology. However, this paper acknowledges the need for a comprehensive evaluation beyond accuracy. It discusses potential challenges, such as overfitting, dataset size, (...) and class imbalance, and presents strategies employed to address these issues. Additionally, the paper emphasizes the importance of alternative evaluation metrics, including precision, recall, and F1-score, to assess the model's performance comprehensively. Detailed information regarding the model architecture, data preprocessing, and hyperparameter tuning is provided to enhance the reproducibility of the research. The study also discusses ethical considerations and the implications of false positives and false negatives in smoke detection applications. While achieving 100% accuracy is a notable accomplishment, this paper calls for cautious interpretation and further validation in real-world settings. It concludes by highlighting areas for future research and improvement in smoke detection technology, emphasizing the need for practical deployment and the reduction of false alarms. (shrink)

This work in metaphysics, adheres to the critical demands of Immanuel Kant, for what Kant would call 'a science of metaphysics'; as it consits of a priori principles and judgments that, while formed through pure reason, help make sense of the world of our experience. The work puts forth the explanation of a causal process that accounts for the origination of the universals: space, time, mass (or substance), and mind (or consciousness), and it necessitates the existence of an Absolute Mind/Being. (...) The premise begins with what we can call the Absolute, and it ends with the Absolute, but there is a process or movement that accounts for a beginning and an end, where we have God at His simplest of all possible states of Being, and at the end of the process we have God at His greatest possible state of Being; which finds no conflict, but rather agreement with what is found in the final chapter of the book of Revelation: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." The statement in Revelation suggests a movement from one state to the other, and the causal process explained in the work, accounts for that process. It also conforms to the science of big bang cosmology, and it necessitates a 'singularity' at the beginning of time. (shrink)

In what way might the new classicism gain support from evolutionary theory? My rough answer is that evolutionary theory can help defend a return to more classical artistic standards and also explain why classical standards are not simply imposed by social conditioning or by powerful elites, but arise naturally from something more fundamental in the human constitution. Classical standards and themes are an expression of our evolutionary history. The mind can be seen as a biological organ or function, produced by (...) evolutionary selection pressure. The most arguable and interesting expression of this point of view is that which says that the human mind is more like a Swiss army knife than a general-purpose computer or sponge for information. Our minds are modular. First propounded by Jerry Fodor, the idea was taken up by evolutionary psychologists and fleshed out with a history. Evolution has given us cognitive modules, partly self-contained mental “machines” that are attuned to solving problems with a narrowly defined domain. Darwinian evolution has shaped our minds in particular ways that fundamentally affect our evaluation of everything we perceive and therefore our appreciation of art. I draw out a surprising implication of combining the modular view with evolution: that our aesthetic standards may, to some extent, be fragmented and not quite as universal as held by the orthodox defence of classical art. (shrink)

A science of metaphysics adhering to Immanuel Kant's critical demands as set forth in his "Critique of Pure Reason", and "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic...." The work includes an Appendix that quotes Kant's most relevant remarks in this regard, along with his criterion for objective validity that, given the technical jargon, can be next to impossible to interpret even for those most familiar with Kant. The Appendix allows Kant to interpret himself, the point being that many secondary works enter into (...) conflict with Kant most notably the somewhat understandable notion that Kant was opposed to speculative metaphysics; however, an understanding of Kant's criterion for objective validity undermines this closed-to-speculative-metaphysics interpretation of Kant. As an actual science in the Kantian sense this work (in this latest edition there is a 2/3 page abstract diagram of the science that makes it more conceptually clear) offers an opportunity for Kantians to reassess their interpretations, for as yet (outside of the a priori science presented in this work that cannot be justifiably compared in any way to any other attempts at a science--as with Hegel, for instance), there is just as Kant states, no such thing as metaphysics. The objectives are just as Kant mentions in the introduction to his CPR: God, Freedom, and Immortality; and that these problems can be dealt with rationally can be seen in this work; and without fear of violating Kant's reasonable and justifiable strictures, the main one being that where anything offered in the name of pure reason is concerned, it must be such that it helps us to make sense of our phenomenal world. And as to Kant's prerequisite test: "How are synthetic cognitions, a priori possible?" I refer only to my essay "Beyond Kant and Hegel (In Answer to the Question ...)" ... in "The Review of Metaphysics", March 2013. The premise advanced in the essay may be seen to be fully apparent in this science of metaphysics. (shrink)

For the Intentionalist, utterance content is wholly determined by a speaker’s meaning-intentions; the sentence uttered serves merely to facilitate the audience’s recovering these intentions. We argue that Intentionalists ought to be Particularists, holding that the only “principles” of meaning recovery needed are those governing inferences to the best explanation; “principles” that are both defeasible and, in a sense to be elaborated, variable. We discuss some ways in which some theorists have erred in trying to tame the “wild west” of pragmatics (...) and context-sensitivity -- including recent work that makes essential appeal to the information structure of a discourse -- and in so doing, offer a general recipe for defending the Particularist picture of utterance content and its recovery that we favor. (shrink)

“What is it that agitates you, my dear Victor? What is it you fear?” -/- “The monster now becomes more vengeful. He murders Victor’s friend Henry Clerval and his wife Elizabeth on the night of her wedding to Victor, and Victor sets out in pursuit of the friend across the icy Artic regions. The monster is always ahead of him, leaving tell tale marks behind and tantalizing his creator. Victor meets with his death in the pursuit of the monster he (...) had created with a noble objective.” [ http://philpapers.org/profile/112741] . (shrink)

One of the standard approaches to the metaphysics of personal identity has some counter-intuitive ethical consequences when combined with maximising consequentialism and a plausible doctrine about aggregation of consequences. This metaphysical doctrine is the so-called ‘multiple occupancy’ approach to puzzles about fission and fusion. It gives rise to a new version of the ‘utility monster’ problem, particularly difficult problems about infinite utility, and a new version of a Parfit-style ‘repugnant conclusion’. While the article focuses on maximising consequentialism for simplicity, the (...) problems demonstrated apply more widely to a range of ethical views, especially flavours of consequentialism. This article demonstrates how these problems arise, and discusses a number of options available in the light of these problems for a consequentialist tempted by a multiple occupancy metaphysics. (shrink)

David Lewis (1974, 1994/1999) proposed to reduce the facts about mental representation to facts about sensory evidence, dispositions to act, and rationality. Recently, Robert Williams (2020) and Adam Pautz (2021) have taken up and developed Lewis’s project in sophisticated and novel ways. In this paper, we aim to present, clarify, and ultimately object to the core thesis that they all build their own views around. The different sophisticated developments and defenses notwithstanding, we think the core thesis is vulnerable. We pose (...) a dilemma by considering the two sides of a current epistemological controversy over the relation between evidence and rational belief: permissivism vs. uniqueness. As we argue, the prospects for the Lewisian project look dim when either supposition is clearly made. (shrink)

[ https://plus.google.com/108060242686103906748/posts/cwvdB6mK3J6 ]"As Literature germinates within me, my words are-“Literature is something, that I need to be acclaimed for, I need to know more...it’s my life that has given me birth, my way of thoughts that I am visualizing in the perspective of all dimensions, my frailties, my faults...my every comprehensive discussion even after my death, my spiritualism, my haunting towards the ecology of the cosmic world, and the way that I have brought up at my elbows to enhance myself (...) more in the bloom of dissolved doomed tragedy of a human life! It is indeed ravenous…but we the beings to run through this midst of life, as I need to pace up with at every inception and the idealistic phenomenal moments…!”. . (http://philpapers.org/profile/112741.). (shrink)

Your belief that Obama is a Democrat would not be the belief that it is if it did not represent Obama, nor would the pain in your ankle be the state that it is if, say, it felt like an itch. Accordingly, it is tempting to hold that phenomenal and representational properties are essential to the mental states that have them. But, as several theorists have forcefully argued (including Kripke (1980) and Burge (1979, 1982)) this attractive idea is seemingly in (...) tension with another equally attractive thesis, namely, the token-identity thesis; the thesis according to which every mental state token is identical with some or other token physical state. In this paper, we show that these seemingly incontrovertible essentialist intuitions are in fact compatible with “token physicalism” regarding the mental. Given a suitably plentitudinous ontology of objects, we argue that there are physical things with which our token mental states can be identified. This is preferable to existing views that give up the essentiality claims or simply reject the token-identity thesis. (shrink)

[ https://plus.google.com/108060242686103906748/posts/cwvdB6mK3J6 ] The phenomenal description on own thoughts regard me to describe Coleridge, along with William Wordsworth, was instrumental in initiating a poetic revolution in the early nineteenth century which is known as the Romantic Movement. Coleridge invokes the Divine Spirit that blows upon the wild Harp of Time. Time is like the stringed musical instrument on which the Spirit produces sweet harmonious melodies. Coleridge is perhaps best known for his haunting ballad Rime of Ancient Mariner, the dream-like Kubla (...) Khan and the unfinished Christabel, but he wrote several other smaller poems, quite remarkable for their imaginative power. (Edited with own analysis)…[http://philpapers.org/profile/112741] http://www.academia.edu/18834746/LITERATURE_I_DO-_THE_ROMANTICS_AND_SUBJECTIVITY_SAMUEL_TAYLOR_COLER IDGE. (shrink)

In performing an act of assertion we are sometimes responsible for more than the content of the literal meaning of the words we have used, sometimes less. A recently popular research program seeks to explain certain of the commitments we make in speech in terms of responsiveness to the conversational subject matter. We raise some issues for this view with the aim of providing a more general account of linguistic commitment: one that is grounded in a more general action‐theoretic notion (...) of responsibility. (shrink)

"Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love."Satyajit Ray Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia 2015 .

"Let you see, whether it can help you- on topic of discussion..I cannot claim I am right, but I can suggest you.." LET PEOPLE DECIDE ON THE LANGUAGE, ON TOPIC OF DISCUSSION. ( http://philpapers.org/profile/112741 ).

Confirmation and falsification are different strategies for testing theories and characterizing the outcomes of those tests. Roughly speaking, confirmation is the act of using evidence or reason to verify or certify that a statement is true, definite, or approximately true, whereas falsification is the act of classifying a statement as false in the light of observation reports. After expounding the intellectual history behind confirmation and falsificationism, reaching back to Plato and Aristotle, I survey some of the main controversial issues and (...) arguments that pertain to the choice between these strategies: the Raven Paradox, the Duhem/Quine problem and the Grue Paradox. Finally, I outline an evolutionary criticism of inductive Bayesian approaches based on my assumption of doxastic involuntarism. (shrink)

This book shows, "Nothing is permanent in this World" consisting of true events in span of life when matches with Classical Literature of reality against illusions..

I argue that Carl Jung's theory of archetypes is incompatible with the darwinian theory of evolution.

According to the classical account, propositions are sui generis, abstract, intrinsically-representational entities and our cognitive attitudes, and the token states within us that realize those attitudes, represent as they do in virtue of their propositional objects. In light of a desire to explain how it could be that propositions represent, much of the recent literature on propositions has pressured various aspects of this account. In place of the classical account, revisionists have aimed to understand propositions in terms of more familiar (...) entities such as facts, types of mental or linguistic acts, and even properties. But we think that the metaphysical story about propositions is much simpler than either the classical theorist or the revisionist would have you believe. In what follows, we argue that a proper understanding of the nature of our cognitive relations to propositions shows that the question of whether propositions themselves represent is, at best, a distraction. We will argue that once this distraction is removed, the possibility of a very pleasing, minimalist story of propositions emerges; a story that appeals only to assumptions that are shared by all theorists in the relevant debate. (shrink)

Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) is considered the founder of modern philosophy. Profoundly influenced by the new physics and astronomy of Kepler and Galileo, Descartes was a scientist and mathematician whose most long-lasting contributions in science were the invention of Cartesian coordinates, the application of algebra to geometry, and the discovery of the law of refraction, what we now call Snell’s law.His most important books on philosophy were The discourse on method(1637) and The meditations(1642). Descartes’ writings display an exemplary degree (...) of clarity and an aversion to pedantry. I explore Descartes' break with Aristotle, but also shine a light on the intellectual continuity Descartes had with Aristotle's thought. I also draw attention to some overlooked but interesting possibilities for an experimental test of a dualistic theory of mind. (shrink)

The traditional conception of knowledge is justified, true belief. If one looks at a modern textbook on epistemology, the great bulk of questions with which it deals are to do with personal knowledge, as embodied in beliefs and the proper experiences that someone ought to have had in order to have the right (or justification) to know. I intend to argue that due to the explosive growth of knowledge whose domain is “outside the head”, this conception has outlived its relevance. (...) -/- On the other hand, Karl Popper’s (1934) Falsificationism, with its emphasis on the objective character of knowledge, is not only a sounder, but also a more appropriate theory of knowledge for understanding the nature and growth of civilization. Later, Popper (1945) generalized this approach to obtain critical rationalism, in which all claims to knowledge, whether scientific or otherwise, are understood as objective solutions to objective problems and can be evaluated by other non-observational - types of criticism. I will first argue that Popper’s methodology is quite suited to the view that knowledge is an objective autonomous product and then adduce his theory of world 3, an ontology that neatly wraps up various considerations. World 3 is the domain of abstract products of the human mind that now have a life of their own, outside of human heads: theories, arguments, problems, plans, etc. I then adduce some other arguments for the autonomous quality of knowledge. (shrink)

A brief intellectual biography of Sir Karl Popper.

In the film classic Blade Runner, the story explores the notion of personal identity through that of carefully crafted androids. Can an android have a personality; can androids be persons? The title of the original story by Philip K. Dick is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The story suggests that our sense of being a person depends on our having memories that connect us with our childhood. In the movie, the androids are only a couple of years old, but (...) have adult bodies. To complete them as persons they are given simulated memories of childhood. Some psychiatrists have decided that even humans dream only of electric sheep. I explore how Popper’s world 3 can help to defend a notion of personhood that can be used to criticize the thesis that persons are simply complex physical processes and that all their serious life-problems can be conceptualised as a form of physical illness. (shrink)

It is facile and factually incorrect to represent suicide terrorists as simply seeking mass destruction, as demented or believing that they will be rewarded by "seventy-two virgins in paradise". In my book The Myth of the Closed Mind: Understanding How and Why People are Rational I felt it was important to deal with the issue of terrorism by consulting explanatory theories of human behaviour and the substantial research on the strategic pattern of terrorist incidents over the decades, led principally by (...) Professor Robert Pape of Chicago University. -/- To defeat your enemy, you must first understand him. Strangely, we must first grant that, though morally depraved, terrorists are rational: they concoct and execute detailed plans with definite strategic goals in mind. Only once we have granted the terrorist a rational mind can we, in the end, create peace. My argument is that while religion may have a small role in terrorism, it is principally politics, or the logic of territorial control, that is the key to understanding the threat we face. -/- This extract from my book is principally about Al Qaeda, but a similar analysis applies to ISIS, the current greatest threat to our peace in the west. -/- The strategic goal of Al Qaeda was simply to repulse what they saw as foreign intervention. ISIS has the same goal, but in order to continue its growth as a state in the sense of a monopoly of coercion over a given geographical area. -/- ISIS, a rogue state that arose in ungoverned space created unintentionally by foreign intervention in Iraq, is now lashing out at foreign governments that have severely shrunk the territory ISIS occupies. Before October 2015, ISIS confined its terrorism to the goal of extending its territory in Iraq and Syria, and there were no significant ISIS-led or inspired suicide terrorist attacks outside Iraq and Syria. But now, as their territory collapses, they are attacking the countries that have strangled their control of territory in Iraq and Syria: the coalition of western governments – Britain, Belgium, Canada, France, Morocco, Turkey, Russia, the U.S.A. and others – exactly the countries that have recently seen an explosion of suicide terrorism. (shrink)

In this paper, we outline an approach to giving extensional truth-theoretic semantics for what have traditionally been seen as opaque sentential contexts. We outline an approach to providing a compositional truth-theoretic semantics for opaque contexts which does not require quantifying over intensional entities of any kind, and meets standard objections to such accounts. The account we present aims to meet the following desiderata on a semantic theory T for opaque contexts: (D1) T can be formulated in a first-order extensional language; (...) (D2) T does not require quantification over intensional entities­i.e., meanings, propositions, properties, relations, or the like­in its treatment of opaque contexts; (D3) T captures the entailment relations that hold in virtue of form between sentences in the language for which it is a theory; (D4) T has a finite number of axioms. If the approach outlined here is correct, it resolves a longstanding complex of problems in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language. (shrink)

A brief survey of British philosophy of education.

No evangelistic erroneous network of ideas can guarantee the satisfaction of these two demands : (1) propagate the network without revision and (2) completely insulate itself against losses in credibility and adherents through criticism. If a network of ideas is false, or inconsistent or fails to solve its intended problem, or unfeasible, or is too costly in terms of necessarily forsaken goals, its acceptability may be undermined given only true assumptions and valid arguments. People prefer to adopt ideologies that (i) (...) are logically consistent, (ii) are more truth-like and of higher information content than their rivals, (iii) are systematically organised, (iv) solve their problems better than their rivals, (v) do not contain unfeasible demands, and (vi) do not contain uneconomic demands. Truth and validity therefore act as Darwinian-like filters on ideologies. Using Popper's notion of situational analysis and with reference to Darwinian evolution, considered as a special case of the former, and Bartley's theory of comprehensively critical rationalism I argue that a propagandist cannot guarantee his message or his movement from sound criticism. All positions are in a methodological sense open to argument. Moreover, the logic of a propagandist's situation constrains him into making his message and himself open to criticism in order to maximize its chances of being propagated through the population. But he then loses control of the message in two respects. Firstly, his audience are disposed to select from the competing ideas they encounter those that satisfy (i) to (vi) because of man's evolutionary history. Secondly, he cannot guarantee protection from criticism even a privileged section of his message because he cannot predict in a systematic way what logical repercussions each protective reformulation of the ideology will have on other sections of the ideology and what criticism the ideology will encounter. He cannot do the latter because of certain logical properties of theories that endow them with unfathomable depths. Marxism and Freudianism serve as case studies, especially for the analysis of Popper's notion of the immunizing stratagem, a methodological/logical device that is supposed to save theories from criticism. "Immunizing stratagems" either abandon the ideology they are meant to protect or seriously lower its chances of being reproduced. (shrink)

This chapter argues that while quotation marks are polysemous, the thread that runs through all uses of quotation marks that involve reference to expressions is pure quotation, in which an expression formed by enclosing another expression in quotation marks refers to that enclosed expression. We defend a version of the so-called disquotational theory of pure quotation and show how this device is used in direct discourse and attitude attributions, in exposition in scholarly contexts, and in so-called mixed quotation in indirect (...) discourse and attitude attributions. We argue that uses of quotation marks that extend beyond pure quotation have two features in common. First, the expressions appearing in quotation marks are intended to be understood, and that they are intended to be understood is essential to the function that such quotations play in communication, though this does not always involve the expressions contributing their extensional properties to fixing truth conditions for the sentences in which they appear. Second, they appeal to a relation to the expression appearing in quotation marks that plays a role in determining the truth conditions of the sentences in which they appear. (shrink)

A sorites argument is a symptom of the vagueness of the predicate with which it is constructed. A vague predicate admits of at least one dimension of variation (and typically more than one) in its intended range along which we are at a loss when to say the predicate ceases to apply, though we start out confident that it does. It is this feature of them that the sorites arguments exploit. Exactly how is part of the subject of this paper. (...) The majority of philosophers writing on vagueness take it to be a kind of semantic phenomenon. If we are right, they are correct in this assumption, which is surely the default position, but they have not so far provided a satisfactory account of the implications of this or a satisfactory diagnosis of the sorites arguments. Other philosophers have urged more exotic responses, which range from the view that the fault lies not in our language, but in the world, which they propose to be populated with vague objects which our semantics precisely reflects, to the view that the world and language are both perfectly in order, but that the fault lies with our knowledge of the properties of the words we use (epistemicism). In contrast to the exotica to which some philosophers have found themselves driven in an attempt to respond to the sorites puzzles, we undertake a defense of the commonsense view that vague terms are semantically vague. Our strategy is to take fresh look at the phenomenon of vagueness. Rather than attempting to adjudicate between different extant theories, we begin with certain pre-theoretic intuitions about vague terms, and a default position on classical logic. The aim is to see whether (i) a natural story can be told which will explain the vagueness phenomenon and the puzzling nature of soritical arguments, and, in the course of this, to see whether (ii) there arises any compelling pressure to give up the natural stance. We conclude that there is a simple and natural story to be told, and we tell it, and that there is no good reason to abandon our intuitively compelling starting point. The importance of the strategy lies in its dialectical structure. Not all positions on vagueness are on a par. Some are so incredible that even their defenders think of them as positions of last resort, positions to which we must be driven by the power of philosophical argument. We aim to show that there is no pressure to adopt these incredible positions, obviating the need to respond to them directly. If we are right, semantic vagueness is neither surprising, nor threatening. It provides no reason to suppose that the logic of natural languages is not classical or to give up any independently plausible principle of bivalence. Properly understood, it provides us with a satisfying diagnosis of the sorites argumentation. It would be rash to claim to have any completely novel view about a topic so well worked as vagueness. But we believe that the subject, though ancient, still retains its power to inform and challenge us. In particular, we will argue that taking seriously the central phenomenon of predicate vagueness—the “boundarylessness” of vague predicates—on the commonsense assumption that vagueness is semantic, leads ineluctably to the view that no sentences containing vague expressions (henceforth ‘vague sentences’) are truth-evaluable. This runs counter to much of the literature on vagueness, which commonly assumes that, though some applications of vague predicates to objects fail to be truth-evaluable, in clear positive and negative cases vague sentences are unproblematically true or false. It is clarity on this, and related points, that removes the puzzles associated with vagueness, and helps us to a satisfying diagnosis of why the sorites arguments both seem compelling and yet so obviously a bit of trickery. We give a proof that semantically vague predicates neither apply nor fail-to-apply to anything, and that consequently it is a mistake to diagnose sorites arguments, as is commonly done, by attempting to locate in them a false premise. Sorites arguments are not sound, but not unsound either. We offer an explanation of their appeal, and defend our position against a variety of worries that might arise about it. The plan of the paper is as follows. We first introduce an important distinction in terms of which we characterize what has gone wrong with vague predicates. We characterize what we believe to be our natural starting point in thinking about the phenomenon of vagueness, from which only a powerful argument should move us, and then trace out the consequences of accepting this starting point. We consider the charge that among the consequences of semantic vagueness are that we must give up classical logic and the principle of bivalence, which has figured prominently in arguments for epistemicism. We argue there are no such consequences of our view: neither the view that the logic of natural languages is classical, nor any plausible principle of bivalence, need be given up. Next, we offer a diagnosis of what has gone wrong in sorites arguments on the basis of our account. We then present an argument to show that our account must be accepted on pain of embracing (in one way or another) the epistemic view of “vagueness”, i.e., of denying that there are any semantically vague terms at all. Next, we discuss some worries that may arise about the intelligibility of our linguistic practices if our account is correct. We argue none of these worries should force us from our intuitive starting point. Finally, we cast a quick glance at other forms of semantic incompleteness. (shrink)

This work addresses and resolved Kant's first antinomy, and brings metaphysics in line with advances in he science of big bang cosmology, introduces a new philosophical argument for the existence of a Supreme Being, and is presented in three versions, with the first version quoting Kant's most relevant remarks with regard to what he calls a science of metaphysics, and an abbreviated version without any quotes, as well as a one page abstract diagram of the argument.

THE IMMORTAL FLY: ETERNAL WHISPERS. WHO IS SHE? Author: Rituparna Ray Chaudhuri. Hello, Recently my book named, ‘The Immortal Fly: Eternal Whispers : Based On True Events of a Family' been published from Partridge (USA) In Association with Penguin Random House (UK) and achieved a separate Google identity. -/- As being # the author of the book, I thought to define self in the book what is definition of 'Depression'. I wanted to explain self in many ways, but the best (...) quotation appeared to me : “My life will end someday, but it will end at my convenience.’’ -/- ***** I am missing "her". By now, years passed without 'her' . Even though, unlike before, everything is becoming to be more scattered, gloomy and desolate. She is no-where whom I share my feelings. Even now, when I do close my eyes, I can visualize the same that I had left years since on 7th February, 2019 at 8.20 A.M. in the hospital struggling a continuous period of fifty days : on the fifty one day, my father said, ”The End of our Fifty Years relationship has been completed with the Fifty Days”….’Whoever’ she was to others , but she is our legend…To me, she is ‘My Ma’. -/- The story could begin, 'I failed preciously on success of my life.' Simplicity, Innocence, Belief, Faith and Personality met unknowingly with filthy waves skillfully immersed in Betray, Sorcery, Jealousy, Greediness, Revenge, Lie... ‘’ ******* The Daughter writes, “I had asked Ma many times, but her ‘impenetrable personality’ and dynamic words to everyone with a tinge of smile as reflected on her face, she was reluctant to continue her conversation with me. I had thought, hence, I must not be indefinite on my spoken words. Who shall I blame!” Based on true story of a family came from South Calcutta (India) to a suburb, on staying at home of the Daughter’s maternal grandmother’s house, this book reveals in facts and true events how Destiny had unknowingly ‘further’ played an abominable role to Fate of The Daughter, when eventually one day on 7th February, 2019 everything was finished within 8.20A.M. The Daughter is, therefore, left alone on terrestrial with immortal words as written in her Diary, ‘Eternal Whispers’: “My words to self that I am to fulfill my Ma’s - wish. ’’ ‘’ -/- • Keywords: 1. Diary and True Events 2. The Chaotic Society 3. Fatality 4. Of A-Family 5. Science , Philosophy and Literature 6. Severe Depression 7. Medical Journey. -/- The Alternative Title of the Book: The Greatest Mistake or Fortune:: The book is mainly carrying with intense words of a journey of the relationship between a Mother with her Daughter has left readers in an abrupt situation where ,perhaps, I can define "Man is the innocent creature with 'his' personality under circumstances..." -/- . (shrink)

"Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn: And Lip to Lip it murmur'd-"While you live Drink!-for once dead you never shall return." " [http://philpapers.org/profile/112741] .

( http://philpapers.org/profile/112741 )"Let generation know to procure the love, the concept, knowledge and ideas with thoughts they are acquiring on versatile English Language, instead of making themselves to be felt dealing with only burden." -/- I too realize, -/- "Literature is not merely going through a book, It is the moment of definition of per feeling that : I am acquiring through an imagery.".

As a philosopher, psychologist, and physician, the German thinker Hermann Lotze defies classification. Working in the mid-nineteenth-century era of programmatic realism, he critically reviewed and rearranged theories and concepts in books on pathology, physiology, medical psychology, anthropology, history, aesthetics, metaphysics, logic, and religion. Leading anatomists and physiologists reworked his hypotheses about the central and autonomic nervous systems. Dozens of fin-de-siècle philosophical contemporaries emulated him, yet often without acknowledgment, precisely because he had made conjecture and refutation into a method. In spite (...) of Lotze's status as a pivotal figure in nineteenth-century intellectual thought, no complete treatment of his work exists, and certainly no effort to take account of the feminist secondary literature. Hermann Lotze: An Intellectual Biography is the first full-length historical study of Lotze's intellectual origins, scientific community, institutional context, and worldwide reception. (shrink)

Justificationism is the epistemology that enjoins us to choose our beliefs according to this principle: choose all and only those beliefs and at an appropriate degree of confidence that one can justify, either by an intellectual certificate or empirical warrant. My article argues that most forms of justificationism require the truth of doxastic voluntarism, the doctrine that one may choose ones specific beliefs. However, since belief is involuntary, justificationism is severely undermined. Justificationism as stated couldn’t be practised; since believing is (...) not something we can do at will as a basic action. Although devastating to any subjectivist justificationism, it does not undermine our ability to cultivate, through long-term choices, the most rational attitude in the search for truth and the growth of knowledge. A major rival of subjective justiticationism (SJ) is critical rationalism (CR). CR is the doctrine that progress in the growth of knowledge occurs through the unrelenting criticism of competing unjustified conjectural attempts to solve problems. The objective methods and standards involved in CR are unaffected because following (or not) an objective method is something we can do at will. (shrink)

Natural resources are infinite. This is possible because humans can create theories whose potential goes beyond the limited imaginative capacity of the inventor. For instance, no number of people can work out all the economic potential of quantum theory. Economic Resources are created by an interaction of Karl Popper's Worlds 1, 2 and 3, the worlds of physics, psychology and the abstract products of the human mind, such as scientific theories. Knowledge such as scientific theories has unfathomable information content, is (...) universally applicable, and infinitely copyable. The point can be made with technological knowledge such as that embodied in the wheel. The theory of the wheel has un- bounded potential to be embodied in unforeseeable new technologies, is useful on the Moon as on Earth, and can be infinitely copied. Unlike a piece of land (using fixed factors), such knowledge shows increasing returns. This helps to explain Julian Simon's observation that "natural" resources are now less scarce than they used to be and why an increasing population can increase resources in the long-run. It was Simon's breakthrough to elaborate on the abstract character of "natural" resources. I further explore this abstract character and thereby explain why natural resources are infinitely expandable. Economic growth and the creation of natural resources depends on the rate of invention. F. Machlup's suggestion (Machlup 1962) that the opportunity for new inventions increases geometrically with the number of inventions at hand is acknowledged for its suggestiveness, but criticised for its conservative position. Frank Tipler's fascinating argument for indefinite economic growth (Tipler 1994), is reinforced by my argument by making a distinction between information in the engineer's sense and the infinite potential "information" in our scientific knowledge based on Popper's notion of information content. (shrink)

Richard Dawkins tries to establish an analogy between computer viruses and theistic belief systems, analyzing the latter in terms of his concept of the meme. The underlying thrust of Dawkins' argument is to downplay the role of truth and logic in the survival of theories and to emphasize humankind's helpless liability to incurable infection by doctrines that Dawkins regards as absurd. Dawkins supplies a list of "symptoms” of mind-infection. However, on closer investigation these characteristics are found to be either rather (...) weak protection against criticism or quite virtuous. Dawkins relies on a crude justificationism that could just as well be called a mind-virus. Applying Dawkins’ own selection of the general characteristics of a good meme protector and propagator leads to the conclusion that his particular theistic examples would actually impair copyability. -/- Scientific theories are better examples of memes with high longevity, fecundity, and fidelity. A Darwinian analysis of wishful and fearful thinking as useful to hypotheses-testing and goal-seeking organisms undermines Dawkins' attribution of absolute irrational stubbornness to theists. To counterbalance Dawkins' emphasis on the propagation of the absurd, I rehabilitate the Socratic emphasis on the importance of truth and logic in rhetoric, interpreted broadly as the theory of the successful propagation of a message. I use Popper's notion of situational analysis, and an evolutionary perspective to argue that rational standards of a message enhance its copyability. I further apply Popper’s notions of World 3, 2, and 1 to memes; this helps us see the perpetuation of a doctrine as a logical task. (shrink)

A brief introduction to the debate about scientific induction.

The poem, has also highlighted the theme of isolation. The Darkling Thrush is the symbol of perseverance. Men at times is all by himself. There is none around. The frail, gaunt, aged , weather-beaten bird has stood against all odds. There is an air of self doubt and the poet is in a dilemma how to welcome the advent of a new era. It has endured all the odds of time and is happy today singing its joyful song.

"ON DEMAND OF A PUBLISHING HOUSE IN GERMANY, I WAS ASKED TO WRITE ON SCIENTIFIC METHODS THAT I HAD imbibed ON WRITING THE DOCUMENT" [Thanks to accept my work Christopher Marlowe's Edward The Second from Presidency College,Kolkata of interest to international audience] .

This phenomenological study aimed to determine the challenges, coping strategies, and significant insights of COVID-19 frontliners during the pandemic. The study utilized a qualitative phenomenological approach, and using purposive sampling technique, the eight (8) participants who worked as a COVID-19 frontliner in General Santos City were identified for an in-depth interview. Thematic analysis was used as a data analysis tool to interpret the data gathered. The results found that COVID-19 frontliners experienced different challenges during the pandemic, including the fear of (...) being infected with the disease, dealing with different patients, long and busy working hours, and mental health disturbance. As for their coping strategies in dealing with those challenges, the COVID-19 frontliners used their families’ support, taking care of themselves, as well as having strong faith in God. Also, valuing public health measures, the importance of self-care, and extending patience and understanding toward the patients were the significant insights shared by the COVID-19 frontliners. Moreover, understanding the impact of COVID-19 on the frontliners’ mental health can be the key to implementing plans and effective interventions to help them function more efficiently. (shrink)