Formal principles governing best practices in classification and definition have for too long been neglected in the construction of biomedical ontologies, in ways which have important negative consequences for data integration and ontology alignment. We argue that the use of such principles in ontology construction can serve as a valuable tool in error-detection and also in supporting reliable manual curation. We argue also that such principles are a prerequisite for the successful application of advanced data integration (...) techniques such as ontology-based multi-database querying, automated ontology alignment and ontology-based text-mining. These theses are illustrated by means of a case study of the Gene Ontology, a project of increasing importance within the field of biomedical data integration. (shrink)

One aim of the Critique of Practical Reason is to establish that reason alone can determine the will. To show that it can, it suffices to show that there are practical principles given by reason alone – what Kant terms ‘practical laws’, or (roughly) requirements of reason on action. Chapter I of the Analytic accomplishes this aim by arguing that the moral law is an authoritative practical principle given as a ‘fact of reason’. The chapter begins in section 1 (...) with a ‘Definition’ (Erklärung) of a practical law as a practical principle that.. (shrink)

One of the main motivations for having a compositional semantics is the account of the productivity of natural languages. Formal languages are often part of the account of productivity, i.e., of how beings with finite capaci- ties are able to produce and understand a potentially infinite number of sen- tences, by offering a model of this process. This account of productivity con- sists in the generation of proofs in a formal system, that is taken to represent the way (...) speakers grasp the meaning of an indefinite number of sentences. The informational basis is restricted to what is represented in the lexicon. This constraint is considered as a requirement for the account of productivity, or at least of an important feature of productivity, namely, that we can grasp auto- matically the meaning of a huge number of complex expressions, far beyond what can be memorized. However, empirical results in psycholinguistics, and especially particular patterns of ERP, show that the brain integrates informa- tion of different sources very fast, without any felt effort on the part of the speaker. This shows that formal procedures do not explain productivity. How- ever, formal models are still useful in the account of how we get at the seman- tic value of a complex expression, once we have the meanings of its parts, even if there is no formal explanation of how we get at those meanings. A practice-oriented view of modeling gives an adequate interpretation of this re- sult: formal compositional semantics may be a useful model for some ex- planatory purposes concerning natural languages, without being a good model for dealing with other explananda. (shrink)

Formalizing Euclid’s first axiom. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic. 20 (2014) 404–5. (Coauthor: Daniel Novotný) -/- Euclid [fl. 300 BCE] divides his basic principles into what came to be called ‘postulates’ and ‘axioms’—two words that are synonyms today but which are commonly used to translate Greek words meant by Euclid as contrasting terms. -/- Euclid’s postulates are specifically geometric: they concern geometric magnitudes, shapes, figures, etc.—nothing else. The first: “to draw a line from any point to any point”; the last: (...) the parallel postulate. -/- Euclid’s axioms are general principles of magnitude: they concern geometric magnitudes and magnitudes of other kinds as well even numbers. The first is often translated “Things that equal the same thing equal one another”. -/- There are other differences that are or might become important. -/- Aristotle [fl. 350 BCE] meticulously separated his basic principles [archai, singular archê] according to subject matter: geometrical, arithmetic, astronomical, etc. However, he made no distinction that can be assimilated to Euclid’s postulate/axiom distinction. -/- Today we divide basic principles into non-logical [topic-specific] and logical [topic-neutral] but this too is not the same as Euclid’s. In this regard it is important to be cognizant of the difference between equality and identity—a distinction often crudely ignored by modern logicians. Tarski is a rare exception. The four angles of a rectangle are equal to—not identical to—one another; the size of one angle of a rectangle is identical to the size of any other of its angles. No two angles are identical to each other. -/- The sentence ‘Things that equal the same thing equal one another’ contains no occurrence of the word ‘magnitude’. This paper considers the problem of formalizing the proposition Euclid intended as a principle of magnitudes while being faithful to the logical form and to its information content. (shrink)

In this paper I try to answer four basic questions: (1) How the concept of God is to be represented? (2) Are there any logical principles governing it? (3) If so, what kind of logic lies behind them? (4) Can there be a logic of the concept of God? I address them by presenting a formal-logical account to the concept of God. I take it as a methodological desideratum that this should be done within the simplest existing logical (...) formalism. I start with first-order logic (FOL) with identity, and then show that its simplest modal extension (SQML, or the simplest quantified modal logic) is enough for us to formalize a minimally satisfactory theory of the concept of God. I focus exclusively on the monotheistic concept of God. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to explore different ways of understanding Kant’s Formula of Humanity as a formal principle. I believe that a formal principle for Kant is a principle that is constitutive of some domain of cognition or rational activity. It is a principle that both constitutively guides that activity and serves as its internal regulative norm. In the first section of this essay, I explain why it is desirable to find a way to understand the (...) Formula of Humanity as a formal principle in this sense. In sections II and III I discuss two interpretive approaches to Kant’s idea that rational nature or humanity is an end in itself, both of which may be construed as treating the Formula of Humanity as a formal principle. By focusing on the notion of formal principle, I hope to raise a set of issues about how to understand the idea of rational nature or humanity as an end in itself, and about the relation of the Formula of Humanity [FH] to the Formula of Universal Law [FUL]. I do not resolve the issues in this paper, though I briefly sketch some resolution at the end. (shrink)

Ontology and theology cannot be combined if ontology excludes non physical causes. This paper examines some possibilities for ontology to be combined with theology in so far as non physical causes are permitted. The paper builds on metaphysical findings that shows that separate ontological domains can interact causally indirectly via interfaces. As interfaces are not universes a first universe is allowed to be caused by an interface without violating the principle of causal closure of any universe. Formal theology can (...) therefore be based on the assumption that the (first) universe is caused by God if God is defined as the first cause. Given this, formal theology and science can have the same ontological base. (shrink)

In a recent paper, “The Concept of Logical Consequence,” W. H. Hanson criticizes a formal-structural characterization of logical consequence in Tarski and Sher. Hanson accepts many principles of the formal-structural view. Relating to Sher 1991 and 1996a, he says.

This special issue of the Logic Journal of the IGPL includes revised and updated versions of the best work presented at the fourth edition of the workshop Formal Ap- proaches to Multi-Agent Systems, FAMAS'09, which took place in Turin, Italy, from 7 to 11 September, 2009, under the umbrella of the Multi-Agent Logics, Languages, and Organisations Federated Workshops (MALLOW). -/- Just like its predecessor, research reported in this FAMAS 2009 special issue is very much inspired by practical concerns. This (...) time the authors of all the five selected papers are concerned with knowledge and beliefs in multi-agent settings: How to create a group belief in a fair way from individual plausibility orderings? How to close gaps and resolve ambiguities in a tractable way, when information comes from multiple sources? How to reason about a spatial environment? How to compare the strengths of an agent's beliefs in a principled way? How to decide as efficiently as possible whether a given formula concerning group beliefs is valid? These questions and their answers lead to a multi-faceted and at the same time coherent special issue. We concisely introduce the five articles. (shrink)

When we ask ourselves about the meaning of life, two analyses are possible in principle: 1. that we are asking something about the purpose or the reason of being of life or of a life, or 2. that we are asking something the value of life or of a life. At the present article, I do not approach 1 neither the life as a whole, but I take the individual lives in the context of 2. I briefly explain what would (...) be to someone to have an objectivist conception of the meaning of life and what would be to someone to have a subjectivist one; and, then, I try to show how we can think in formulas that can capture the intuitions of those conceptions, without acquiring commitment with none of them. My way is to show that both objectivist and subjectivist conceptions think the meaning of life as related to projects or realizations that fulfill principles of value (the value can be objective or subjective according to the adopted conception), and ten I try to indicate that the projects or realizations from a person’s life come together through a simple sum to make the meaning of life of such a person’s life. The way I suggested for us to find the value of one of those realizations does not seem to present none theoretical problem. But the simple sum of realizations (and/or projects) to represent the value of the meaning of a person’s life simply did not work. That’s because it seems to lack some kind of index that is able to formalize the relations between realizations. Thus, although we couldn’t properly formalize the relation between the realizations that achieve the meaning of someone’s life at a certain moment, we get a good intuitive formalization of the value of a realization and we hope to have started an interesting investigation for future logicians, metaphysicians, mathematicians and theorists of value. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new proposal for defining actual causation, i.e., the problem of deciding if one event caused another. We do so within the popular counterfactual tradition initiated by Lewis, which is characterised by attributing a fundamental role to counterfactual dependence. Unlike the currently prominent definitions, our approach proceeds from the ground up: we start from basic principles, and construct a definition of causation that satisfies them. We define the concepts of counterfactual dependence and production, and (...) put forward principles such that dependence is an unnecessary but sufficient condition for causation, whereas production is an insufficient but necessary condition. The resulting definition of causation is a suitable compromise between dependence and production. Every principle is introduced by means of a paradigmatic example of causation. We illustrate some of the benefits of our approach with two examples that have spelled trouble for other accounts. We make all of this formally precise using structural equations, which we extend with a timing over all events. (shrink)

Formal ontologies are nowadays widely considered a standard tool for knowledge representation and reasoning in the Semantic Web. In this context, they are expected to play an important role in helping automated processes to access information. Namely: they are expected to provide a formal structure able to explicate the relationships between different concepts/terms, thus allowing intelligent agents to interpret, correctly, the semantics of the web resources improving the performances of the search technologies. Here we take into account a (...) problem regarding Knowledge Representation in general, and ontology based representations in particular; namely: the fact that knowledge modeling seems to be constrained between conflicting requirements, such as compositionality, on the one hand and the need to represent prototypical information on the other. In particular, most common sense concepts seem not to be captured by the stringent semantics expressed by such formalisms as, for example, Description Logics (which are the formalisms on which the ontology languages have been built). The aim of this work is to analyse this problem, suggesting a possible solution suitable for formal ontologies and semantic web representations. The questions guiding this research, in fact, have been: is it possible to provide a formal representational framework which, for the same concept, combines both the classical modelling view (accounting for compositional information) and defeasible, prototypical knowledge ? Is it possible to propose a modelling architecture able to provide different type of reasoning (e.g. classical deductive reasoning for the compositional component and a non monotonic reasoning for the prototypical one)? We suggest a possible answer to these questions proposing a modelling framework able to represent, within the semantic web languages, a multilevel representation of conceptual information, integrating both classical and non classical (typicality based) information. Within this framework we hypothesise, at least in principle, the coexistence of multiple reasoning processes involving the different levels of representation. (shrink)

The Sure-Thing Principle famously appears in Savage’s axiomatization of Subjective Expected Utility. Yet Savage introduces it only as an informal, overarching dominance condition motivating his separability postulate P2 and his state-independence postulate P3. Once these axioms are introduced, by and large, he does not discuss the principle any more. In this note, we pick up the analysis of the Sure-Thing Principle where Savage left it. In particular, we show that each of P2 and P3 is equivalent to a dominance condition; (...) that they strengthen in different directions a common, basic dominance axiom; and that they can be explicitly combined in a unified dominance condition that is a candidate formal statement for the Sure-Thing Principle. Based on elementary proofs, our results shed light on some of the most fundamental properties of rational choice under uncertainty. In particular they imply, as corollaries, potential simplifications for Savage’s and the Anscombe- Aumann axiomatizations of Subjective Expected Utility. Most surprisingly perhaps, they reveal that in Savage’s axiomatization, P3 can be weakened to a natural strengthening of so-called Obvious Dominance. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a prevailing view by which logical terms determine forms of sentences and arguments and therefore the logical validity of arguments. This view is common to those who hold that there is a principled distinction between logical and nonlogical terms and those holding relativistic accounts. I adopt the Tarskian tradition by which logical validity is determined by form, but reject the centrality of logical terms. I propose an alternative framework for logic where logical terms no longer (...) play a distinctive role. This account employs a new notion of semantic. (shrink)

Husserl’s theory of manifolds was developed for the first time in a very short form in the Prolegomena to his Logical Investigations, §§ 69–70 (pp. 248–53), then repeatedly discussed in Ideas I, §§ 71–2 (pp. 148–53), in Formal and Transcendental Logic, §§ 51–4 (pp. 142–54), and finally in the Crisis, § 9 (pp. 20–60). Husserl never lost sight of it: it was his idée fixe. He discussed this theme over forty years, expressing the same, in principle, ideas on it (...) in different terms and versions. His discussions of it, however, were always cut short and inconclusive, so that he never developed his theory of manifolds in detail. Main claim in this essay is that Husserl’s theory of manifolds is twofold. It is (1) a theory of theories, advanced in the good German tradition of Wissenschaftslehre, launched first by Bernard Bolzano. The latter, in turn, is an offspring of the ancient tradition of mathesis universalis, explored in the modernity by Descartes and Leibniz. Further, (2) the theory of manifolds is also a formal theory of everything. Its objective is to provide a systematic account of how the things in the world (its parts) hang together in wholes of quite different kind. It is to be noted that Husserl explicitly speaks about (1) and only implicitly about (2). In this paper we shall also show that the theory of everything is intrinsically connected with the theory of theories. (shrink)

I defend a new reading of Spinoza's account of causation that reconciles the strengths of the mechanist and formal cause interpretations by locating instances of nature's fixed and unchanging laws inside individual natures; natures are efficacious because that's where the laws are. God's necessity, for instance, follows from certain logical principles contained within God's nature. Causes between finite particulars likewise stem entirely from finite natures. They do so, I argue, because finite instances of nature's fixed and unchanging laws (...) are inscribed within those natures. In each of these instances, effects follow from natures on account of laws contained within them. (shrink)

The logics of formal inconsistency (LFIs, for short) are paraconsistent logics (that is, logics containing contradictory but non-trivial theories) having a consistency connective which allows to recover the ex falso quodlibet principle in a controlled way. The aim of this paper is considering a novel semantical approach to first-order LFIs based on Tarskian structures defined over swap structures, a special class of multialgebras. The proposed semantical framework generalizes previous aproaches to quantified LFIs presented in the literature. The case of (...) QmbC, the simpler quantified LFI expanding classical logic, will be analyzed in detail. An axiomatic extension of QmbC called QLFI1o is also studied, which is equivalent to the quantified version of da Costa and D'Ottaviano 3-valued logic J3. The semantical structures for this logic turn out to be Tarkian structures based on twist structures. The expansion of QmbC and QLFI1o with a standard equality predicate is also considered. (shrink)

Cohen’s hostility to Rawls’ justification of the Difference Principle by social facts spawned Cohen’s general thesis that ultimate principles of justice and morality are fact-insensitive, but explain how any fact-sensitive principle is grounded in facts. The problem with this thesis, however, is that when facts F ground principle P, reformulating this relation as the "fact-insensitive" conditional “If F, then P” is trivial and thus explanatorily impotent. Explanatory, hence justificatory, force derives either from subsumption under more general principles, or (...) precisely exhibiting value in light of relevant (actual or hypothetical) facts. In examples where no subsumption occurs, actual facts trivially become hypothetical facts in "fact-insensitive" conditionals, an empty formalism. Indeed, Rawls’ grounding of principles of justice in “conditions of life” can easily be reformulated as a conditional principle “sensitive” only to hypothetical such conditions, and thus formally fact-insensitive in Cohen's sense, for all Cohen’s ire against Rawls’s grounding.Moreover, any plausible “ultimate fact-insensitive principle” must be intricately qualified, which tacit ceteris paribus clauses mask. Each qualification implies prioritisation of one principle over another in conceivable circumstances, and wherever the now qualified principle is given scope, that too implies prioritisation over competing principles in typical circumstances. Any principle is thus sensitive to conceivable circumstances of application, as recognised by more sophisticated intuitionisms. Non-trivial ultimate principles – luck egalitarianism, act utilitarianism, etc. - require defense, which inevitably involves showing how they best interpret and respond to facts about human needs, goals, and capacities in predictable circumstances. Finally, the substantive debate between Rawls and Cohen about which facts are relevant to the DP is only obscured by the doctrine of fact-insensitivity. (shrink)

Fichte’s Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre 1794 is one of the most fundamental books in classical German philosophy. The use of laws of thought to establish foundational principles of transcendental philosophy was groundbreaking in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and is still crucial for many areas of theoretical philosophy and logic in general today. Nevertheless, contemporaries have already noted that Fichte’s derivation of foundational principles from the law of identity is problematic, since Fichte lacked the tools (...) to correctly present the formal parts of Foundations. In this paper, however, we argue that Fichte’s approach intuitively offers an important contribution to transcendental philosophy, and especially to philosophy of logic. We first point out the difficulties of Fichte’s logic in the Foundations and improve it in a second part on the basis of a formal system in which both propositional logic and syllogistic are combined. (shrink)

Customer behavior, market dynamics, and technological advances have made it challenging for marketing theorists to provide comprehensive explanations and actionable insights. Although there are numerous substantive marketing frameworks, no formal marketing theory exists. This study aims to develop the first formal grounded theory in marketing by incorporating artificial intelligence and Forde's conceptual framework as a guiding lens. Charmaz's constructivist grounded theory tradition and Forde's conceptual framework and data analysis strategy were employed for this purpose. The data analysis strategy (...) used with grounded theory’s constant compare-and-contrast method comprises holistic and systems thinking, dramaturgical and situational analysis, perspective-taking, and deconstruction. To evaluate Glaser’s assertion that all is data, artificial intelligence was incorporated into the research as the data source for retrieving the theoretical samples to address the primary research question: How can Forde's conceptual framework and artificial intelligence be leveraged to develop a formal marketing theory grounded in evidence? Of significance was the emergence of democratic marketing behaviors and the normalization of anti-democratic marketing approaches leveraged to manipulate buyers or gain access to segments of customers. Buyers and sellers can simultaneously benefit from and be prejudiced by marketing exchange dynamics. This finding lends credibility to the newly emerged framework of strategic actions where empowerment and disempowerment are leveraged to achieve specific goals. Considering this finding, it is suggested that businesses view marketing as a symbiotic relationship between two power centers, buyers and sellers, who respectively strive to maintain human dignity and sustainability. Researchers are encouraged to apply the framework across substantive areas, international markets, public relations, political campaigns, and others. (shrink)

This is an informal presentation of the theory of niches understood as ecological contexts. The first part sets out the basic conceptual background. The second part outlines the main principles of the theory and addresses the question of how the theory can be extended to aid our thinking in relation to the special types of causal integrity that characterize niches and niched entities.

This paper offers a fine analysis of different versions of the well known sure-thing principle. We show that Savage's formal formulation of the principle, i.e., his second postulate (P2), is strictly stronger than what is intended originally.

In his “Bridging mainstream and formal ontology”, Augusto (2021) gives an excellent analysis of Dietrich von Freiberg’s idea of using causality as a partitioning principle for upper ontologies. For this Dietrich’s notion of extrinsic principles is crucial. The question whether causation can and indeed should be used as a partitioning principle for ontologies is discussed using mathematics and physics as examples.

The integration of information resources in the life sciences is one of the most challenging problems facing bioinformatics today. We describe how Language and Computing nv, originally a developer of ontology-based natural language understanding systems for the healthcare domain, is developing a framework for the integration of structured data with unstructured information contained in natural language texts. L&C’s LinkSuite™ combines the flexibility of a modular software architecture with an ontology based on rigorous philosophical and logical principles that is designed (...) to comprehend the basic formal relationships that structure both reality and the ways humans perceive and communicate about reality. (shrink)

A principle, according to which any scientific theory can be mathematized, is investigated. Social science, liberal arts, history, and philosophy are meant first of all. That kind of theory is presupposed to be a consistent text, which can be exhaustedly represented by a certain mathematical structure constructively. In thus used, the term “theory” includes all hypotheses as yet unconfirmed as already rejected. The investigation of the sketch of a possible proof of the principle demonstrates that it should be accepted rather (...) a metamathematical axiom about the relation of mathematics and reality. The main statement is formulated as follows: Any scientific theory admits isomorphism to some mathematical structure in a way constructive. Its investigation needs philosophical means. Husserl’s phenomenology is what is used, and then the conception of “bracketing reality” is modelled to generalize Peano arithmetic in its relation to set theory in the foundation of mathematics. The obtained model is equivalent to the generalization of Peano arithmetic by means of replacing the axiom of induction with that of transfinite induction. The sketch of the proof is organized in five steps: a generalization of epoché; involving transfinite induction in the transition between Peano arithmetic and set theory; discussing the finiteness of Peano arithmetic; applying transfinite induction to Peano arithmetic; discussing an arithmetical model of reality. Accepting or rejecting the principle, two kinds of mathematics appear differing from each other by its relation to reality. Accepting the principle, mathematics has to include reality within itself in a kind of Pythagoreanism. These two kinds are called in paper correspondingly Hilbert mathematics and Gödel mathematics. The sketch of the proof of the principle demonstrates that the generalization of Peano arithmetic as above can be interpreted as a model of Hilbert mathematics into Gödel mathematics therefore showing that the former is not less consistent than the latter, and the principle is an independent axiom. The present paper follows a pathway grounded on Husserl’s phenomenology and “bracketing reality” to achieve the generalized arithmetic necessary for the principle to be founded in alternative ontology, in which there is no reality external to mathematics: reality is included within mathematics. That latter mathematics is able to self-found itself and can be called Hilbert mathematics in honour of Hilbert’s program for self-founding mathematics on the base of arithmetic. The principle of universal mathematizability is consistent to Hilbert mathematics, but not to Gödel mathematics. Consequently, its validity or rejection would resolve the problem which mathematics refers to our being; and vice versa: the choice between them for different reasons would confirm or refuse the principle as to the being. An information interpretation of Hilbert mathematics is involved. It is a kind of ontology of information. The Schrödinger equation in quantum mechanics is involved to illustrate that ontology. Thus the problem which of the two mathematics is more relevant to our being is discussed again in a new way A few directions for future work can be: a rigorous formal proof of the principle as an independent axiom; the further development of information ontology consistent to both kinds of mathematics, but much more natural for Hilbert mathematics; the development of the information interpretation of quantum mechanics as a mathematical one for information ontology and thus Hilbert mathematics; the description of consciousness in terms of information ontology. (shrink)

Judaic Logic is an original inquiry into the forms of thought determining Jewish law and belief, from the impartial perspective of a logician. Judaic Logic attempts to honestly estimate the extent to which the logic employed within Judaism fits into the general norms, and whether it has any contributions to make to them. The author ranges far and wide in Jewish lore, finding clear evidence of both inductive and deductive reasoning in the Torah and other books of the Bible, and (...) analyzing the methodology of the Talmud and other Rabbinic literature by means of formal tools which make possible its objective evaluation with reference to scientific logic. The result is a highly innovative work – incisive and open, free of clichés or manipulation. Judaic Logic succeeds in translating vague and confusing interpretative principles and examples into formulas with the clarity and precision of Aristotelean syllogism. Among the positive outcomes, for logic in general, are a thorough listing, analysis and validation of the various forms of a-fortiori argument, as well as a clarification of dialectic logic. However, on the negative side, this demystification of Talmudic/Rabbinic modes of thought (hermeneutic and heuristic) reveals most of them to be, contrary to the boasts of orthodox commentators, far from deductive and certain. They are often, legitimately enough, inductive. But they are also often unnatural and arbitrary constructs, supported by unverifiable claims and fallacious techniques. Many other thought-processes, used but not noticed or discussed by the Rabbis, are identified in this treatise, and subjected to logical review. Various more or less explicit Rabbinic doctrines, which have logical significance, are also examined in it. In particular, this work includes a formal study of the ethical logic (deontology) found in Jewish law, to elicit both its universal aspects and its peculiarities. With regard to Biblical studies, one notable finding is an explicit formulation (which, however, the Rabbis failed to take note of and stress) of the principles of adduction in the Torah, written long before the acknowledgement of these principles in Western philosophy and their assimilation in a developed theory of knowledge. Another surprise is that, in contrast to Midrashic claims, the Tanakh (Jewish Bible) contains a lot more than ten instances of qal vachomer (a-fortiori) reasoning. In sum, Judaic Logic elucidates and evaluates the epistemological assumptions which have generated the Halakhah (Jewish religious jurisprudence) and allied doctrines. Traditional justifications, or rationalizations, concerning Judaic law and belief, are carefully dissected and weighed at the level of logical process and structure, without concern for content. This foundational approach, devoid of any critical or supportive bias, clears the way for a timely reassessment of orthodox Judaism (and incidentally, other religious systems, by means of analogies or contrasts). Judaic Logic ought, therefore, to be read by all Halakhists, as well as Bible and Talmud scholars and students; and also by everyone interested in the theory, practise and history of logic. (shrink)

The topic of this paper may be introduced by fast zooming in and out of the philosophy of information. In recent years, philosophical interest in the nature of information has been increasing steadily. This has led to a focus on semantic information, and then on the logic of being informed, which has attracted analyses concentrating both on the statal sense in which S holds the information that p (this is what I mean by logic of being informed in the rest (...) of this article) and on the actional sense in which S becomes informed that p. One of the consequences of the logic debate has been a renewed epistemological interest in the principle of information closure (henceforth PIC), which finally has motivated a revival of a skeptical objection against its tenability first made popular by Dretske. This is the topic of the paper, in which I seek to defend PIC against the skeptical objection. If I am successful, this means – and we are now zooming out – that the plausibility of PIC is not undermined by the skeptical objection, and therefore that a major epistemological argument against the formalization of the logic of being informed based on the axiom of distribution in modal logic is removed. But since the axiom of distribution discriminates between normal and non-normal modal logics, this means that a potentially good reason to look for a formalization of the logic of being informed among the non-normal modal logics, which reject the axiom, is also removed. And this in turn means that a formalization of the logic of being informed in terms of the normal modal logic B (also known as KTB) is still very plausible, at least insofar as this specific obstacle is concerned. In short, I shall argue that the skeptical objection against PIC fails, so it is not a good reason to abandon the normal modal logic B as a good formalization of the logic of being informed. (shrink)

In previous works, an ontology of properties for quantum mechanics has been proposed, according to which quantum systems are bundles of properties with no principle of individuality. The aim of the present article is to show that, since quasi-set theory is particularly suited for dealing with aggregates of items that do not belong to the traditional category of individual, it supplies an adequate meta-language to speak of the proposed ontology of properties and its structure.

Much has been written about the free energy principle (FEP), and much misunderstood. The principle has traditionally been put forth as a theory of brain function or biological self-organisation. Critiques of the framework have focused on its lack of empirical support and a failure to generate concrete, falsifiable predictions. I take both positive and negative evaluations of the FEP thus far to have been largely in error, and appeal to a robust literature on scientific modelling to rectify the situation. A (...) prominent account of scientific modelling distinguishes between model structure and model construal. I propose that the FEP be reserved to designate a model structure, to which philosophers and scientists add various construals, leading to a plethora of models based on the formal structure of the FEP. An entailment of this position is that demands placed on the FEP that it be falsifiable or that it conform to some degree of biological realism rest on a category error. To this end, I deliver first an account of the phenomenon of model transfer and the breakdown between model structure and model construal. In the second section, I offer an overview of the formal elements of the framework, tracing their history of model transfer and illustrating how the formalism comes apart from any interpretation thereof. Next, I evaluate existing comprehensive critical assessments of the FEP, and hypothesise as to potential sources of existing confusions in the literature. In the final section, I distinguish between what I hold to be the FEP—taken to be a modelling language or modelling framework—and what I term “FEP models.”. (shrink)

The free energy principle is notoriously difficult to understand. In this paper, we relate the principle to a framework that philosophers of biology are familiar with: Ruth Millikan’s teleosemantics. We argue that: systems that minimise free energy are systems with a proper function; and Karl Friston’s notion of implicit modelling can be understood in terms of Millikan’s notion of mapping relations. Our analysis reveals some surprising formal similarities between the two frameworks, and suggests interesting lines of future research. We (...) hope this will aid further philosophical evaluation of the free energy principle. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In its strongest unqualified form, the principle of wholistic reference is that in any given discourse, each proposition refers to the whole universe of that discourse, regardless of how limited the referents of its non-logical or content terms. According to this principle every proposition of number theory, even an equation such as "5 + 7 = 12", refers not only to the individual numbers that it happens to mention but to the whole universe of numbers. This principle, its history, (...) and its relevance to some of Oswaldo Chateaubriand's work are discussed in my 2004 paper "The Principle of Wholistic Reference" in Essays on Chateaubriand's "Logical Forms". In Chateaubriand's réplica (reply), which is printed with my paper, he raised several important additional issues including the three I focus on in this tréplica (reply to his reply): truth-values, universes of discourse, and formal ontology. This paper is self-contained: it is not necessary to have read the above-mentioned works. The principle of wholistic reference (PWR) was first put forth by George Boole in 1847 when he espoused a monistic fixed-universe viewpoint similar to the one Frege and Russell espoused throughout their careers. Later, Boole elaborated PWR in 1854 from the pluralistic multiple-universes perspective. (shrink)

An outstanding group of leaders left evidence that a richer and more sustainable democracy could be achieved with American independence and democratic principles integrated into a new republican form of government. They were moved by principles that are the very spirit of democracy. These principles are needed to enhance democracy and improve well-being. Using the constructivist tradition of grounded theory and Aristotle’s conception of abstraction, the article proposes a theory of the first principles of democracy based (...) on substantive data: the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. Knowledge, fairness, human dignity, hope, unity, and security are the first principles of democracy and are regarded as the bedrock of democracy and a government framework for the people. This theory contributed to a formal model of democratic social change. It also contributes a conceptual framework that supports Solum’s semantic originalism, a theory of constitutional interpretation. The principles of democracy can revitalize democracy and provide new possibilities by protecting education as an innate human right, abolishing capital punishment, criminalizing private prisons on the stock market, and reevaluating the proportionality of prison sentences. (shrink)

The principle of maximal entropy (further abbreviated as “MaxEnt”) can be founded on the formal mechanism, in which future transforms into past by the mediation of present. This allows of MaxEnt to be investigated by the theory of quantum information. MaxEnt can be considered as an inductive analog or generalization of “Occam’s razor”. It depends crucially on choice and thus on information just as all inductive methods of reasoning. The essence shared by Occam’s razor and MaxEnt is for the (...) relevant data known till now to be postulated as an enough fundament of conclusion. That axiom is the kind of choice grounding both principles. Popper’s falsifiability (1935) can be discussed as a complement to them: That axiom (or axiom scheme) is always sufficient but never necessary condition of conclusion therefore postulating the choice in the base of MaxEnt. Furthermore, the abstraction axiom (or axiom scheme) relevant to set theory (e.g. the axiom scheme of specification in ZFC) involves choice analogically. (shrink)

We discuss the philosophical implications of formal results showing the con- sequences of adding the epsilon operator to intuitionistic predicate logic. These results are related to Diaconescu’s theorem, a result originating in topos theory that, translated to constructive set theory, says that the axiom of choice (an “existence principle”) implies the law of excluded middle (which purports to be a logical principle). As a logical choice principle, epsilon allows us to translate that result to a logical setting, where one (...) can get an analogue of Diaconescu’s result, but also can disentangle the roles of certain other assumptions that are hidden in mathematical presentations. It is our view that these results have not received the attention they deserve: logicians are unlikely to read a discussion because the results considered are “already well known,” while the results are simultaneously unknown to philosophers who do not specialize in what most philosophers will regard as esoteric logics. This is a problem, since these results have important implications for and promise signif i cant illumination of contem- porary debates in metaphysics. The point of this paper is to make the nature of the results clear in a way accessible to philosophers who do not specialize in logic, and in a way that makes clear their implications for contemporary philo- sophical discussions. To make the latter point, we will focus on Dummettian discussions of realism and anti-realism. Keywords: epsilon, axiom of choice, metaphysics, intuitionistic logic, Dummett, realism, antirealism. (shrink)

The quantification theory of propositions in Russell’s Principles of Mathematics has been the subject of an intensive study and in reconstruction has been found to be complete with respect to analogs of the truths of modern quantification theory. A difficulty arises in the reconstruction, however, because it presents universally quantified exportations of five of Russell’s axioms. This paper investigates whether a formal system can be found that is more faithful to Russell’s original prose. Russell offers axioms that are (...) universally quantified implications that have antecedent clauses that are conjunctions. The presence of conjunctions as antecedent clauses seems to doom the theory from the onset, it will be found that there is no way to prove conjunctions so that, after universal instantiation, one can detach the needed antecedent clauses. Amalgamating two of Russell’s axioms, this paper overcomes the difficulty. (shrink)

In the social sciences, within the explanatory paradigm of structural individualism, a theory of action – like rational choice theory – models how individuals behave and interact at the micro level in order to explain macro observations as the aggregation of these individuals actions. A central epistemological issue is that such theoretical models are stuck in a dilemma between falsity of their basic assumptions and triviality of their explanation. On the one hand, models which have a great empirical success often (...) rest on unrealistic or even knowingly false assumptions; on the other hand, more complex models, with additional more realistic hypotheses, can (trivially) adapt to a wide range of situations and thus loose their explanatory power. Our purpose here is epistemological and consists in wondering to which extent demanding realistic assumptions in such cases is a relevant criterion with respect to the acceptance of a given explanatory model. Via an analogical reasoning with physics, we argue that this criterion seems too strong and actually irrelevant. General physical principles are not just idealized or unrealistic, they can also be formulated in many different yet equivalent ways which do not imply the same fundamental unobservable entities or phenomena. However, the classification of phenomena that such principles allow to highlight does not depend, at the end, on any particular formulation of these basic assumptions. This suggests that some hypotheses in theoretical models are actually not genuine empirical statements that could be independently tested but only substrates of modeling embodying a classification principle. Thus, we develop a structural invariance criterion that we then apply to rational choice models in the social sciences. We argue that this criterion allows to escape from the epistemological dilemma without condemning formal approaches like rational choice theory for their lack of realisticness nor being stuck to any antirealist viewpoint. (shrink)

Biological ontologies are used to organize, curate, and interpret the vast quantities of data arising from biological experiments. While this works well when using a single ontology, integrating multiple ontologies can be problematic, as they are developed independently, which can lead to incompatibilities. The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies Foundry was created to address this by facilitating the development, harmonization, application, and sharing of ontologies, guided by a set of overarching principles. One challenge in reaching these goals was that (...) the OBO principles were not originally encoded in a precise fashion, and interpretation was subjective. Here we show how we have addressed this by formally encoding the OBO principles as operational rules and implementing a suite of automated validation checks and a dashboard for objectively evaluating each ontology’s compliance with each principle. This entailed a substantial effort to curate metadata across all ontologies and to coordinate with individual stakeholders. We have applied these checks across the full OBO suite of ontologies, revealing areas where individual ontologies require changes to conform to our principles. Our work demonstrates how a sizable federated community can be organized and evaluated on objective criteria that help improve overall quality and interoperability, which is vital for the sustenance of the OBO project and towards the overall goals of making data FAIR. Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. (shrink)

The conjunction of wireless computing, ubiquitous Internet access, and the miniaturisation of sensors have opened the door for technological applications that can monitor health and well-being outside of formal healthcare systems. The health-related Internet of Things (H-IoT) increasingly plays a key role in health management by providing real-time tele-monitoring of patients, testing of treatments, actuation of medical devices, and fitness and well-being monitoring. Given its numerous applications and proposed benefits, adoption by medical and social care institutions and consumers may (...) be rapid. However, a host of ethical concerns are also raised that must be addressed. The inherent sensitivity of health-related data being generated and latent risks of Internet-enabled devices pose serious challenges. Users, already in a vulnerable position as patients, face a seemingly impossible task to retain control over their data due to the scale, scope and complexity of systems that create, aggregate, and analyse personal health data. In response, the H-IoT must be designed to be technologically robust and scientifically reliable, while also remaining ethically responsible, trustworthy, and respectful of user rights and interests. To assist developers of the H-IoT, this paper describes nine principles and nine guidelines for ethical design of H-IoT devices and data protocols. (shrink)

The principle of least action, which has so successfully been applied to diverse fields of physics looks back at three centuries of philosophical and mathematical discussions and controversies. They could not explain why nature is applying the principle and why scalar energy quantities succeed in describing dynamic motion. When the least action integral is subdivided into infinitesimal small sections each one has to maintain the ability to minimise. This however has the mathematical consequence that the Lagrange function at a given (...) point of the trajectory, the dynamic, available energy generating motion, must itself have a fundamental property to minimize. Since a scalar quantity, a pure number, cannot do that, energy must fundamentally be dynamic and time oriented for a consistent understanding. It must have vectorial properties in aiming at a decrease of free energy per state (which would also allow derivation of the second law of thermodynamics). Present physics is ignoring that and applying variation calculus as a formal mathematical tool to impose a minimisation of scalar assumed energy quantities for obtaining dynamic motion. When, however, the dynamic property of energy is taken seriously it is fundamental and has also to be applied to quantum processes. A consequence is that particle and wave are not equivalent, but the wave (distributed energy) follows from the first (concentrated energy). Information, provided from the beginning, an information self-image of matter, is additionally needed to recreate the particle from the wave, shaping a “dynamic” particle-wave duality. It is shown that this new concept of a “dynamic” quantum state rationally explains quantization, the double slit experiment and quantum correlation, which has not been possible before. Some more general considerations on the link between quantum processes, gravitation and cosmological phenomena are also advanced. (shrink)

"Paraconsistent Belief Revision Based on a Formal Consistency Operator" delves into Belief Revision—a significant area of research in Formal Philosophy that uses logic to model the ways in which human and artificial agents modify their beliefs in response to new information and examines how these changes can be considered rational. -/- Originally authored as a PhD thesis (previously published in Portuguese), this work provides a novel epistemic interpretation of Paraconsistency through Paraconsistent Belief Revision systems. It explores the concept (...) of paraconsistency from the standpoint of epistemic attitudes of acceptance and rejection. -/- This work challenges the traditional notion that accepting a new belief requires retracting its negation from the current epistemic state. The author contends that such reflexive retraction goes against the principle of informational economy, which is a crucial aspect of rationality in the context of belief change. Consequently, the phenomenon of paraconsistency is further examined from this fresh perspective of belief change, shedding light on the complexities of the Logics of Formal Inconsistency (LFIs). These LFIs provide the foundational logic, offering a comprehensive framework for understanding and implementing paraconsistent principles within belief revision systems. -/- This thesis was supervised by Marcelo Esteban Coniglio and co-supervised by Márcio Moretto Ribeiro, as part of Rafael Rodrigues Testa's doctoral studies at the University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil. (shrink)

David Hume is an ardent supporter of the practice of religions toleration. For Hume, toleration forms part of the background that makes progress in philosophy possible, and it accounts for the superiority of philosophical thought in England in the eighteenth century. As he puts it in the introduction to the Treatise: “the improvements in reason and philosophy can only be owing to a land of toleration and of liberty” (T Intro.7; SBN xvii).1 Similarly, the narrator of part 11 of the (...) First Enquiry comments: -/- Our conversation began with my admiring the singular good fortune of philosophy, which, as it requires entire liberty above all other privileges, and chiefly flourishes from the free opposition of sentiments and argu­ mentation, received its first birth in an age and country of freedom and toleration. (EHU 11.2; SBN 132) -/- The toleration to which Hume refers is broader than religious toleration, but in the context of the eighteenth century, religious toleration is clearly the paradigm case. Indeed, religious toleration represents one of the key accomplishments of the culminating event of Hume’s History of England: the Glorious Revolution of 1688. -/- Yet even though religious toleration forms the background of philosophy in general—or perhaps just because it does so—Hume offers precious few arguments for it, and they are, for the most part, given implicitly rather than as formal argu­ ments. Nevertheless, we can distinguish three different, though interrelated, lines of support for toleration in Hume’s thought: (i) an argument based on a general skepticism; (ii) an argument based on a contempt for organized religion; and (iii) a pragmatic argument based on the need for peace and orderly government. From our point of view, what is striking about all of these argument is how un-Lockean they are: Hume does not rely on the idea of a fundamental conceptual separation of church and state, nor on a natural right to freedom of conscience that character­izes writers working in the Lockean tradition. However, of the arguments he gives, only the last, I will argue, has any hope to provide a useful case for toleration. (shrink)

The problem of demarcating between what is scientific and what is pseudoscientific or merely unscientific - in other words, the problem of defining scientificity - remains open. The modern debate was firstly structured around Karl Popper's falsificationist epistemology from the 1930's, before diversifying a few decades later. His central idea is that what makes something scientific is not so much how adequate it is with data, but rather to what extent it might not have been so. Since the second half (...) of the century, and in the wake of criticisms, such as the Duhem-Quine thesis, that were raised against falsificationism(s), most approaches to the problem of scientific demarcation are now multicriteria and holistic. However, the approach presented in this paper does not follow the same guideline. The present work can be seen as an attempt to adapt Popper's (sophisticated) falsificationism to a model-based view of scientific knowledge. Using formalization and focusing on a particular epistemic unit of analysis (namely, empirical models) allows to properly define the popperian corroboration degree and to view scientificity as the maximization of this degree of corroboration over all available models and data. We eventually recover, in a natural way, well-accepted scientificity criteria: empirical adequacy, Lakatos' progressive problemshifts, balance between strength and simplicity, parsimony, and coherence as special cases of this general scientificity principle. From this viewpoint, the language dependency of our empirical knowledge no longer appears as a limitation of falsificationism but as one more reason to take it as a good epistemological framework. (shrink)

This paper investigates a set of issues connected with the so-called conservativeness argument against deflationism. Although I do not defend that argument, I think the discussion of it has raised some interesting questions about whether what I call “compositional principles,” such as “a conjunction is true iff its conjuncts are true,” have substantial content or are in some sense logically trivial. The paper presents a series of results that purport to show that the compositional principles for a first-order (...) language, taken together, have substantial logical strength, amounting to a kind of abstract consistency statement. (shrink)

In a recent revision (chapter 4 of Nowakowa and Nowak 2000) of an older article Leszek Nowak (1992) has attempted to rebut Niiniluoto’s 1990 critical suggestion that proponents of the Poznań idealizational approach to the sciences have committed a rather elementary logical error in the formal machinery that they advocate for use in the analysis of scientific methodology. In this paper I criticize Nowak’s responses to Niiniluoto’s suggestion, and, subsequently, work out some of the consequences of that criticism for (...) understanding the role that idealization plays in scientific methodology. (shrink)

The idea that healthcare should become more person-centred is extremely influential. By using recent English policy developments as a case study, this article aims to critically analyse an important element of person-centred care, namely, the belief that to treat patients as persons is to think that care should be ‘co-produced’ by formal healthcare providers and patients together with unpaid carers and voluntary organizations. I draw on insights from political philosophy to highlight overlooked tensions between co-production and values like equality (...) and liberty. Regarding equality, I argue that co-production compounds both problems of gender inequality in the distribution of care labour and the challenges associated with securing equal access to care. Turning to liberty, I identify important commonalities between co-production and republicanism in political philosophy, given their shared insistence on common citizens’ civic virtue. Then, I use against co-production some liberal arguments against republicanism, to highlight a problem of over-demandingness. In bringing my argument to a close, however, I wish to caution against hastily rejecting co-production as a policy programme. (shrink)

A realist theory of truth for a class of sentences holds that there are entities in virtue of which these sentences are true or false. We call such entities ‘truthmakers’ and contend that those for a wide range of sentences about the real world are moments (dependent particulars). Since moments are unfamiliar, we provide a definition and a brief philosophical history, anchoring them in our ontology by showing that they are objects of perception. The core of our theory is the (...) account of truthmaking for atomic sentences, in which we expose a pervasive ‘dogma of logical form’, which says that atomic sentences cannot have more than one truthmaker. In contrast to this, we uphold the mutual independence of logical and ontological complexity, and the authors outline formal principles of truthmaking taking account of both kinds of complexity. (shrink)

This paper delves into Hegel's critique of Kantian ethics, focusing on the accusation that Kant's Categorical Imperative (CI) represents an abstract ethical philosophy. Hegel argues that Kantian ethics relies on an unproductive form of abstract thinking, exemplified in Kant's emphasis on universalizing maxims without considering the concrete particularities of situations. The author contends that Hegel's critique remains valid even when considering Christine Korsgaard's responses. The paper unfolds by elucidating Hegel's notion of "abstract thinking" and explaining how the CI's emphasis on (...) formal principles leads to abstract ethical judgments. It critically analyzes Korsgaard's defense, asserting that her responses do not sufficiently address Hegel's concerns. The paper underscores Hegel's claim that the CI lacks concrete content, rendering it unable to accommodate the complexities of real-world ethical situations. Furthermore, this analysis explores how the inheritance of abstract thinking from Kantian ethics continues to detrimentally impact contemporary approaches to ethical challenges. Ultimately, the paper upholds Hegel's assertion that the CI's abstract nature hinders its effectiveness as a comprehensive ethical framework and that any abstract approach to ethics is destined to fail when it comes to teaching someone how one ought to act. (shrink)

French translation of "Truth-Makers" (1984). A realist theory of truth for a class of sentence holds that there are entities in virtue of which these sentences are true or false. We call such entities ‘truthmakers’ and contend that those for a wide range of sentences about the real world are moments (dependent particulars). Since moments are unfamiliar we provide a definition and a brief philosophical history, anchoring them in our ontology by showing that they are objects of perception. The core (...) of our theory is the account of truthmaking for atomic sentences, in which we expose a pervasive ‘dogma of logical form’, which says that atomic sentences cannot have more than one truthmaker. The authors uphold the mutual independence of logical and ontological complexity. The theory is compared with that of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, and the authors outline formal principles of truthmaking taking account of both kinds of complexity and suggesting how to overcome Wittgenstein’s problem of negation. (shrink)

In the Aristotelian tradition, there are two broad answers to the basic question "What is soul?" On the one hand, the soul can be described by what it does. From this perspective, the soul seems to be composed of various different parts or powers (potentiae) that are the principles of its various actions. On the other hand, the soul seems to be something different, namely, the actual formal principle making embodied living substances to be the kinds of things (...) that they are. Contemporary Aristotelians are split on how to interpret Aristotle: Anna Marmodoro (2013, 18), Thomas Johansen (2012, 81), and most others argue that the soul is nothing but a kind of cluster or group of powers. Rebekah Johnston (2011), however, strongly disagrees and argues that the soul is only the actual principle of embodied substance. Aquinas provides a novel and neglected solution to this problem and would argue that both sides are partly right but that either side is insufficient without the other. (shrink)