Arguing for mathematical realism on the basis of Field’s explanationist version of the Quine–Putnam Indispensability argument, Alan Baker has recently claimed to have found an instance of a genuine mathematical explanation of a physical phenomenon. While I agree that Baker presents a very interesting example in which mathematics plays an essential explanatory role, I show that this example, and the argument built upon it, begs the question against the mathematical nominalist.

The Dignity of the Children according to the New Testament teaching should be a landmark for modern era. New Testament raised the dignity of the unborn child, from a simple mass of cells to a child who has the right to be born and live. The child born has the value of a person that to enjoy family and society not only for economic potential but for the soul value as they bear the image of God. Children of different ages (...) have the right to be baptized, have access to the grace of the Sacraments and become saints. In fact the true dignity of man is his power to become a saint. And the child is the image of the saint, heir of the Heaven. (shrink)

This paper presents an analytical framework for analyzing how multimodal resources of emotion expression are semiotically materialized in discursive interactions specific to political discourse. Interested in how political personae are emotionally constructed through multimodal meaning-making practices, our analysis model assumes an interdisciplinary perspective, which integrates facial expression analysis – using FaceReader™ software –, the theory of emotional arcs and bodily actions (hand gestures) analysis that express emotions, in the analytical framework of multimodality. The results show how the multimodal choices that (...) political actors make during discursive interactions allow them to build their political brand and make connections with the audience on an emotional level. (shrink)

The temple from Jerusalem was never more defended by Jewish servants and believers, as when the Apostle Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews. We are not referring to the armies of the revolutionaries. We should know that in Sanhedrin was judged every word that a Jew talked about the temple. But when St. Stephan was killed, and after too, St. James, because they have seen the True temple of Christ, the Levites and the Priests became killers not worshipers. With (...) diplomacy, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Jews this letter without even saying a word about the Temple, but asking them to remember the way they can fulfil the ideals of unity and freedom patented by Moses and the Tent: through Christ and through the Church. (shrink)

The interpretation of the Holy Bible has always done in two distinct environments: in the Church and outside it. If for the Holy Fathers the Church was the only institution that can guarantee the integrity, apostolicity, inspiration and canonicity of the sacred text, as well as the right way of interpreting, heretics have read the Bible for widening an already created gap between them and the Church. The current Protestant exegesis tends to reconsider the interpretative tradition, inquiring about the effects (...) or the understanding of the Holy Scriptures texts, quoting as Wirkungsgeschichte a summary of the directions of where some pericopes were understood. But is this new approach sufficient for an accurate understanding of the Holly Bible message? (shrink)

Această carte pretinde să-i ajute pe cetățeni să facă o alegere în scrutinul prezidențial de anul acesta. În realitate, nu face nimic mai mult decât să exprime opiniile, dorințele și idiosincraziile fiecăruia dintre autori, expunându-le în vitrinele librăriilor Humanitas. Spunând prea puțin despre nevoile și interesele marii mase a alegătorilor, lucrarea este o fereastră spre universul politic imaginar al intelectualilor români cu vederi de dreapta, care, din nou deziluzionați de politicienii pe care i-au sprijinit sau cu care au colaborat, încearcă (...) să renoveze iluziile despre binele politic ale acelei părți a publicului elitist din România care încă mai simte nevoia să-i imite. (shrink)

Extra-mathematical explanations explain natural phenomena primarily by appeal to mathematical facts. Philosophers disagree about whether there are extra-mathematical explanations, the correct account of them if they exist, and their implications (e.g., for the philosophy of scientific explanation and for the metaphysics of mathematics) (Baker 2005, 2009; Bangu 2008; Colyvan 1998; Craver and Povich 2017; Lange 2013, 2016, 2018; Mancosu 2008; Povich 2019, 2020; Steiner 1978). In this discussion note, I present three desiderata for any account of extra-mathematical explanation and (...) argue that Baron’s (2020) U-Counterfactual Theory fails to meet each of them. I conclude with some reasons for pessimism that a successful account will be forthcoming. (shrink)

Within the context of the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument, one discussion about the status of mathematics is concerned with the ‘Enhanced Indispensability Argument’, which makes explicit in what way mathematics is supposed to be indispensable in science, namely explanatory. If there are genuine mathematical explanations of empirical phenomena, an argument for mathematical platonism could be extracted by using inference to the best explanation. The best explanation of the primeness of the life cycles of Periodical Cicadas is genuinely mathematical, according to Baker (...) :223–238, 2005; Br J Philos Sci 60:611–633, 2009). Furthermore, the result is then also used to strengthen the platonist position :779–793, 2017a). We pick up the circularity problem brought up by Leng Mathematical reasoning, heuristics and the development of mathematics, King’s College Publications, London, pp 167–189, 2005) and Bangu :13–20, 2008). We will argue that Baker’s attempt to solve this problem fails, if Hume’s Principle is analytic. We will also provide the opponent of the Enhanced Indispensability Argument with the so-called ‘interpretability strategy’, which can be used to come up with alternative explanations in case Hume’s Principle is non-analytic. (shrink)

In two recent articles I have argued that Kant’s legal and political philosophy can shed new light on his much-contested account of moral autonomy and that important changes in his political theory help to explain why in his later work the Formula of Autonomy disappears. In the present essay, I respond to comments by Sorin Baiasu and Marie Newhouse, who argue that the changes in Kant’s political theory fail to explain the disappearance of the Formula of Autonomy, since in (...) both phases Kant held that laws are given by the people’s representatives. I offer additional support for my original argument by developing a more detailed account of Kant’s conception of the relation between the legislating representatives and the people they are taken to represent. I argue that Kant’s conception of the proper representation relation changed, and that it changed so fundamentally that the analogy at the basis of the Formula of Autonomy was no longer apt, thus providing a plausible explanation for its disappearance. I also address several related comments and propose an explanation for why Kant dropped the very idea of autonomy as a property of the will. (shrink)

According to Steiner (1998), in contemporary physics new important discoveries are often obtained by means of strategies which rely on purely formal mathematical considerations. In such discoveries, mathematics seems to have a peculiar and controversial role, which apparently cannot be accounted for by means of standard methodological criteria. M. Gell-Mann and Y. Ne׳eman׳s prediction of the Ω− particle is usually considered a typical example of application of this kind of strategy. According to Bangu (2008), this prediction is apparently based (...) on the employment of a highly controversial principle—what he calls the “reification principle”. Bangu himself takes this principle to be methodologically unjustifiable, but still indispensable to make the prediction logically sound. In the present paper I will offer a new reconstruction of the reasoning that led to this prediction. By means of this reconstruction, I will show that we do not need to postulate any “reificatory” role of mathematics in contemporary physics and I will contextually clarify the representative and heuristic role of mathematics in science. (shrink)

Review of: Sorin Baiasu and Alberto Vanzo, Kant and the Continental Tradition: Sensibility, Nature and Religion. Milton, Routledge, 2020, 255 pp. 978- 1138503748.

The aim of this dissertation is an analysis of agreement in relation to genitival constructions. It proposes that the Apulian non-prepositional enitives of San Marco in Lamis can be described as regulated by a definiteness agreement mechanism manifesting itself in the necessity of articled heads (excluding vocatives) and genitival nouns, coupled with an adjacency requirement which limits the realization of post-nominal modifiers of the head in a post-genitival position, where they might only refer to the genitive noun. This work thus (...) proposes that such agreement for definiteness is the same holding in Romanian non-al genitives which result in the linker construction when agreement is disrupted. In chapter 1 we thus introduce Kartvelian genitives by Suffixaufnahme which notoriously represent a genitive-head noun morphological agreement phenomenon. Plank (1995) also shows that in a series of genitives, Suffixaufnahme shows up only on the last one, demonstrating that when it comes to agreement in genitives, local dynamics of sorts are often at stake (as it happens with the Costruct State). In 2 we move to linkers; linkers have been connected to agreement in Suffixaufnahme genitives at least since Plank (1995) and later works such as Larson and Yamakido (2006), Manzini et al (2016), and Manzini (2018), according to which linkers can be assimilated to agreement. In fact, in synthetic systems such as Romanian and Aromanian, Albanian and Arbëresh, and Kurdish varieties, linkers agree for φ with either the head or the genitive noun. Giurgea and Dobrovie-Sorin (2013: 126) further show that in Romanian non-linker constructions possessives agree for case with the head noun. In linker constructions, agreement for case is not present: it’s the linker itself which agrees with the head noun, this time for φ. Chapter 3 deals with genitival modification in Hebrew and a number of Arabic varieties. It proposes that the pseudoprepositions found in Arabic varieties are nouns in the Construct State. This was previously proposed for Palestinian Arabic in Mohammad (1999), which also shows that such elements agree for φ with the modified noun. 3.2 takes into account the Semitic preposition l-, dealing with the question of whether this lement can be characterized as possessive and locative as it happens for Romance a. 4 analyzes Apulian non-prepositional genitives and proposes as anticipated that the necessity of articled nouns in the construction is to be linked to an agreement relation taking place via D. Lastly, 5 subsumes the conclusions of this work. (shrink)

Review of: Sorin Baiasu and Mark Timmons (eds.), The Kantian Mind. London and New York: Routledge, 2024, 596 pp. 978-1138827486.

This paper reflects on Kantian exchanges between A. W. Moore and Sorin Baiasu. After briefly situating their exchange, I highlight Baiasu’s clarification regarding Kant’s distinction between knowledge and cognition. Although convincing, I suggest that Baiasu’s objections could be strengthened with further discussion of the notion of a thing in itself as a limiting concept, as well as emphasis on Moore’s use of ‘concern’, which might require further clarification. I conclude with broader reflections on what is at stake: not just (...) armchair knowledge, but the coherence and relevance of Kant’s practical philosophy under the assumption of its dependence on transcendental idealism. (shrink)