This paper inquires into how the new techniques of 14th-century physics, especially the doctrines of the maxima and minima of powers and the latitudes of forms, were applied to the issue of propagation of light. The focus is on several Prague disputed questions, originating between 1377 and 1409, dealing with whether illumination has infinite or finite reach and whether illumination’s intensity remains constant (uniformis) or is rather uniformly decreasing (uniformiter difformis). These questions are contextualised through examination of Oxford, (...) Paris, and Prague sources of the era (John Dumbleton, John Buridan, Nicole Oresme, Albert of Saxony, Henry of Langenstein, John of Holland) to construct a fresh survey of late medieval theories of light. Along the way, the discovery of a hitherto unknown Prague disputation from the 1370s is announced, and new evidence for the dating and Central European dissemination of Jacobus de Sancto Martino’s De latitudinibus formarum and Nicole Oresme’s Questiones super Geometriam is uncovered. (shrink)

This paper centers on the implicit metaphysics beyond the Theory of Relativity and the Principle of Indeterminacy – two revolutionary theories that have changed 20th Century Physics – using the perspective of Husserlian Transcedental Phenomenology. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) abolished the theoretical framework of Classical (Galilean- Newtonian) physics that has been complemented, strengthened by Cartesian metaphysics. Rene Descartes (1596- 1850) introduced a separation between subject and object (as two different and self- enclosed substances) while Galileo (...) and Newton did the “mathematization” of the world. Newtonian physics, however, had an inexplicable postulate of absolute space and absolute time – a kind of geometrical framework, independent of all matter, for the explication of locality and acceleration. Thus, Cartesian modern metaphysics and Galilean- Newtonian physics go hand in hand, resulting to socio- ethical problems, materialism and environmental destruction. Einstein got rid of the Newtonian absolutes and was able to provide a new foundation for our notions of space and time: the four (4) dimensional space- time; simultaneity and the constancy of velocity of light, and the relativity of all systems of reference. Heisenberg, following the theory of quanta of Max Planck, told us of our inability to know sub- atomic phenomena and thus, blurring the line between the Cartesian separation of object and subject, hence, initiating the crisis of the foundations of Classical Physics. But the real crisis, according to Edmund Husserl (1859-1930) is that Modern (Classical) Science had “idealized” the world, severing nature from what he calls the Lebenswelt (life- world), the world that is simply there even before it has been reduced to mere mathematical- logical equations. Husserl thus, aims to establish a new science that returns to the “pre- scientific” and “non- mathematized” world of rich and complex phenomena: phenomena as they “appear to human consciousness”. To overcome the Cartesian equation of subject vs. object (man versus environment), Husserl brackets the external reality of Newtonian Science (epoché = to put in brackets, to suspend judgment) and emphasizes (1) the meaning of “world” different from the “world” of Classical Physics, (2) the intentionality of consciousness (L. in + tendere = to tend towards, to be essentially related to or connected to) which means that even before any scientific- logical description of the external reality, there is always a relation already between consciousness and an external reality. The world is the equiprimordial existence of consciousness and of external reality. My paper aims to look at this new science of the pre- idealized phenomena started by Husserl (a science of phenomena as they appear to conscious, human, lived experience, hence he calls it phenomenology), centering on the life- world and the intentionality of consciousness, as providing a new way of looking at ourselves and the world, in short, as providing a new metaphysics (as an antidote to Cartesian metaphysics) that grounds the revolutionary findings of Einstein and Heisenberg. The environmental destruction, technocracy, socio- ethical problems in the modern world are all rooted in this Galilean- Newtonian- Cartesian interpretation of the relationship between humans and the world after the crumbling of European Medieval Ages. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) comments that the modern world is going toward a nihilism (L. nihil = nothingness) at the turn of the century. Now, after two World Wars and the dropping of Atomic bomb, the capitalism and imperialism on the one hand, and on the other hand the poverty, hunger of the non- industrialized countries alongside destruction of nature (i.e., global warming), Nietzsche might be correct: unless humanity changes the way it looks at humanity and the kosmos. The works of Einstein, Heisenberg and Husserl seem to be pointing the way for us humans to escape nihilism by a “great existential transformation.” What these thinkers of post- modernity (after Cartesian/ Newtonian/ Galilean modernity) point to are: a) a new therapeutic way of looking at ourselves and our world (metaphysics) and b) a new and corrective notion of “rationality” (different from the objectivist, mathematico- logical way of thinking). This paper is divided into four parts: 1) A summary of Classical Physics and a short history of Quantum Theory 2) Einstein’s Special and General Relativity and Heisenberg’s Indeterminacy Principle 3) Husserl’s discussion of the Crisis of Europe, the life- world and intentionality of consciousness 4) A Metaphysics of Relativity and Indeterminacy and a Corrective notion of Rationality in Husserl’s Phenomenology . (shrink)

The Divine Comedy is a poem of Dante Alighieri representing, allegorically, the journey of a soul towards God, in the framework of Dante’s metaphysics of the divine light. However, besides metaphysics, we can find in the poem several passages concerning the natural phenomena. Here we discuss some them, in order to investigate Dante’s knowledge of Physics and, in particular, of Optics.

This article presents the proposal of the principle of sound and light from mathematics and physics, as the origin of nature and the universe, using the Cartesian plane, together with the triadic plane of potential manifestation and complex organisation, starting from the contributions of four pre-Socratic philosophers, Pythagoras of Ephesus, Parmenides of Elea, Heraclitus of Samos and Democritus of Abdera, thus identifying essential principles of the origin of these, to conclude with the most important demonstrations of this theory, (...) which allow its articulation with current science. (shrink)

Wormhole is a popular tool for interstellar travel in science fiction. It connects two different space-time points directly although such an astrophysical object is not yet observed, but in 2015, researchers in Spain created a tiny magnetic wormhole for the first time ever. They used it to connect two regions of space so that a magnetic field could travel 'invisibly' between them. This article presents a model of making a wormhole of light on the principle of conversion of energy (...) so that light going from one end could come out of another end; hence it can be called a wormhole of light. Materials including solar cell, amplified speaker, one way walkie talkie, alligator clips, light emitting diode, transistors and clapping switch have been used. The method of conversion of energy is used and light is transferred into sound first and then back into light. The preparation of such wormhole of light is split into two parts. One end includes a circuit that would accept light through a box and the other end would provide light coming from another box. In order to utilize a wormhole of light to two locales of room the goal was to make light travel between them. Sound made from light would travel the distance between the two boxes. For this purpose a one way walkie-talkie will provide the connection between the two boxes and thus as a whole it would work as a wormhole of light. (shrink)

This study, presenting a history of the measurement of light intensity from its first hesitant emergence to its gradual definition as a scientific subject, explores two major themes. The first concerns the adoption by the evolving physics and engineering communities of quantitative measures of light intensity around the turn of the twentieth century. The mathematisation of light measurement was a contentious process that hinged on finding an acceptable relationship between the mutable response of the human eye (...) and the more easily stabilised, but less encompassing, techniques of physical measurement. -/- A second theme is the exploration of light measurement as an example of ‘peripheral science’. Among the characteristics of such a science, I identify the lack of a coherent research tradition and the persistent partitioning of the subject between disparate groups of practitioners. Light measurement straddled the conventional categories of ‘science’ and ‘technology’, and was influenced by such distinct factors as utilitarian requirements, technological innovation, human perception and bureaucratisation. Peripheral fields such as this, which may be typical of much of modern science and technology, have hitherto received little attention from historians. -/- These themes are pursued with reference to the social and technological factors which were combined inextricably in the development of the subject. The intensity of light gained only sporadic attention until the late nineteenth century. Measured for the utilitarian needs of the gas lighting industry from the second half of the century, light intensity was appropriated by members of the nascent electric lighting industry, too, in their search for a standard of illumination. By the turn of the century the ‘illuminating engineering movement’ was becoming an organised, if eclectic, community which promoted research into and standards for the measurement of light intensity. -/- The twentieth-century development of the subject was moulded by organisation and institutionalisation. Between 1900 and 1920, the new national and industrial laboratories in Britain, America and Germany were crucial in stabilising the subject. In the inter-war period, committees and international commissions sought to standardise light measurement and to promote research. Such government- and industry-supported delegations, rather than academic institutions, were primarily responsible for the ‘construction’ of the subject. Practitioners increasingly came to interpret the three topics of photometry (visible light measurement), colorimetry (the measurement of colour) and radiometry (the measurement of invisible radiations) as aspects of a broader study, and enthusiastically applied them to industrial and scientific problems. -/- From the 1920s, the long-established visual methods of observation were increasingly replaced by physical means of light measurement, a process initially contingent on scientific fashion more than demonstrated superiority. New photoelectric techniques for measuring light intensity engendered new commercial instruments, a trend which accelerated in the following decade when photometric measurement was applied with limited success to a range of industrial problems. Seeds sowed in the 1920s – namely commercialisation and industrial application, the transition from visual to ‘physical’ methods, and the search for fundamental limitations in light measurement – gave the subject substantially the form it was to retain over the next half-century. (shrink)

Subjectivity or the problem of ‘qualia’ tends to make the accessibility and comprehension of psychological events intangible especially for scientific exploration. The issue becomes even more complicated but interesting when one turns towards mystical experiences. Such experiences are different from other psychological phenomena in the sense that they don’t occur to every one, so are difficult to comprehend even for their qualifications of existence. We conducted a qualitative study on one such experience of inner-light perception. This is a common (...) experience reported by meditators of all kinds. However, we chose to study this phenomenon in Vihangam Yoga practitioners because of frequent occurrence of this experience in them as well as their reports of having it for hours at a stretch. During this study, it was noted that it arose many questions there we need to answer not only to explain such phenomena but also for having a better understanding of philosophy of science. In the search for these answers, we proceeded towards another complicated branch of science, quantum mechanics. Our present work is about creating an interface between a unique subjective phenomenon and principles of philosophy as well as of quantum mechanics. We explore the constructs of physical and critical realisms and their coincidence, quantum information theory and the measurement problem of Copenhagen interpretation and their possible applications in such an experience. In this endeavour, we also address the possibility that inner-light perception as experienced by Vihangam Yogis is a quantum event in brain. For this purpose, we specifically analyse the Zeilingers information concept and try to apply it to this phenomena. (shrink)

A deconstruction of the implicit notion of Absolute space that dominates modern physics. The deconstruction is enacted by juxtaposing the common notion of Absolute space abstracted from Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica with Levinas’ particular present treatment of space in Otherwise than Being: Or Beyond Essence.

By identifying the formal role of light in relativity theory with the formal role of text in Gadamer’s theory of hermeneutics, the two theories are brought into relationship. Through this fusion, the privileging of “space” in physics and the privileging of “time” in hermeneutics are reciprocally interrogated as horizons of truth.

Recent studies in the History of Botany put forth that the books translated to and authored in Arabic have circulated from the East of the Caspian Sea, to the centre of Iberian Peninsula, strengthening the ‘traditional uses’ of plants and alike. An ancient genre of writing called the ‘book on the Materia medica’ was especially the most favourite in Medieval Islamic Geography. In these books, algae have been mentioned among the kinds of medicinal plants. In this study, I investigate (...) several Materia medica books among which I shall first focus on Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine, then have a look at Aliboron’s Book of Pharmacy since these two were contemporary sources from the 11th century. I shall also investigate two illustrated sources, an Arabic copy of Dioscorides’ Materia Medica and al-Ghafiqi’s Book on Simple Drugs, both from the 13th century. In doing so, on the one hand, I will be able to compare the drawings of algae, and on the other I will shed light on the transfer of knowledge on algae. These two methods will result in the textual apparatus and the illustrative apparatus in my study. (shrink)

Plotinus resolved the paradox of the immanent transcendence, characterizing the relation between the One and the universe, through his theory of the two energeiai. According to this doctrine, all existents have an internal activity and an external activity: the internal activity comprises the true essence and substance of each being; the external activity is emitted outwards as its image. The source of the emission is thus present in the lower layer of being by virtue of its manifold images. The prominence (...) given to light in elucidating this solution led to a distinction between two types of lights: an original light, corresponding to the internal energeia of every existent, and a secondary light, which is the outflow and image of the first light, existing outside of the luminous body.This paper demonstrates the striking similarity between these two Plotinian lights and the concepts of lux and lumen developed by two thirteenth-century philosophers: Robert Grosseteste and Albertus Magnus. Moreover, the paper contends that the purpose of these two medieval concepts of light was identical to what Plotinus had in mind when he first made the distinction: to account for the relation between the one and the many.Keywords: Plotinus; Albertus Magnus; Robert Grosseteste; Light; Lux; Lumen. (shrink)

The original proposal of H. H. Pattee (1971) of basing quantum theoretical measurement theory on the theory of the origin of life, and its far reaching consequences, is discussed in the light of a recently emerging biological paradigm of internal measurement. It is established that the "measurement problem" of quantum physics can, in principle, be traced back to the internal material constraints of the biological organisms, where choice is a fundamental attribute of the self-measurement of matter. In this (...) light, which is shown to be a consequence of Pattee's original suggestion, it is proposed that biological evolution is a gradual liberation from the inert unity of "subject" and "object" of inanimate matter (as "natural law" and "initial conditions"), to a split biological existence of them and, as a consequence, the "message of evolution" is freedom, rather than complexity in itself. Some classical philosophical systems are brought into context to show that the epistemologies of several strictly philosophical systems of the social sciences are well acquainted with the problem and their solutions support our conclusions. (shrink)

The concept of inertial frame of reference in classical physics and special theory of relativity is analysed. It has been shown that this fundamental concept of physics is not clear enough. A definition of inertial frame of reference is proposed which expresses its key inherent property. The definition is operational and powerful. Many other properties of inertial frames follow from the definition, or it makes them plausible. In particular, the definition shows why physical laws obey space and time (...) symmetries and the principle of relativity, it resolves the problem of clock synchronization and the role of light in it, as well as the problem of the geometry of inertial frames. (shrink)

This article analyzes the treatment of natural philosophy in the work of Thomas Aquinas from the point of view of assimilation of the Aristotelian physical corpus. It focuses primarily on the Aquinas’s defense of the conception of the fallibility of the natural reason, the provisional and revisable character of all physical theories, the necessity of intercultural dialogue to discover the truths about nature, and Aquinas’s role in the development of the skeptical attitude in scientific research of the mobile’s world.

This paper links the conjecture that the physical world is a virtual reality to the findings of modern physics. What is usually the subject of science fiction is here proposed as a scientific theory open to empirical evaluation. We know from physics how the world behaves, and from computing how information behaves, so whether the physical world arises from ongoing information processing is a question science can evaluate. A prima facie case for the virtual reality conjecture is presented. (...) If a photon is a pixel on a multi-dimensional grid that gives rise to space, the speed of light could reflect its refresh rate. If mass, charge and energy all arise from processing, the many conservation laws of physics could reduce to a single law of dynamic information conservation. If the universe is a virtual reality, then its big bang creation could be simply when the system was booted up. Deriving core physics from information processing could reconcile relativity and quantum theory, with the former how processing creates the space-time operating system and the latter how it creates energy and matter applications. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is twofold. First, it provides a quick look at the foundations of modern relational mechanics by tracing its development from Julian Barbour and Bruno Bertotti's original ideas until present-day's pure shape dynamics. Secondly, it discusses the most appropriate metaphysics for pure shape dynamics, showing that relationalism is more of a nuanced thesis rather than an elusive one. The chapter ends with a brief assessment of the prospects of pure shape dynamics in light of quantum (...) physics. (shrink)

The aim of this thesis is to defend a presentist metaphysics. I respond to a series of objections against presentism, including some that draw on our best physics. I also explore ways in which presentism might play an active role in interpreting and constraining physical theory, beyond merely being consistent with it. -/- A unifying theme of this thesis is that I advocate for a reduction of presentism to its bare essentials. Within the proposed ontology, reality is three-dimensional. Time (...) only exists in the sense that three-dimensional reality primitively changes. I reject any temporal dimension, extension, or direction. I reject any primitively tensed facts or nonpresent-tensed truths. I also reject any notion of simultaneity, beyond the mere fact that multiple entities exist in the three-dimensional world. I accept and embrace that if ontology is ‘stripped back’ to the present, then other features of metaphysics that depend on ontology should be stripped back too. -/- The world, under this view, is a forgetful one. What we call the ‘past’ has been utterly lost from existence: there are not even any absolute facts or truths about how things once were. All that remain are records, memories, and the like, but there are no objective underlying truths to which those records correspond. This has implications for physics. In a forgetful world particles have positions, but no entire trajectories. The present may be certain and determinate, but the past and future are at best modelled using probabilistic mathematics. -/- I believe that the world is likely to be as I describe. I will not attempt to argue, however, that this view is intuitive. Instead I will argue that it can account for our experiences and observations, including those from physics, in a simple and effective way. Most importantly, I argue that this view succeeds in the face of challenges where other versions of presentism fail. (shrink)

The dynamic nature of physics cannot be captured through an exclusive focus on the static mathematical formulations of physical theories. Instead, we can more fruitfully think of physics as a set of distinctively social, cognitive, and theoretical/methodological practices. An emphasis on practice has been one of the most notable aspects of the recent “naturalistic turn” in general philosophy of science, in no small part due to the arguments of many feminist philosophers of science. A major project of feminist (...) philosophy of physics has been to shine a critical light on the social and cognitive practices in physics, and how those ultimately influence other aspects of the science. Here we argue that traditional philosophy of physics has focused exclusively on the theoretical/methodological practices of physics, and that feminist philosophy of physics seeks to broaden the focus to include the social and cognitive practices as well. (shrink)

Physical dimensions like “mass”, “length”, “charge”, represented by the symbols [M], [L], [Q], are not numbers, but used as numbers to perform dimensional analysis in particular, and to write the equations of physics in general, by the physicist. The law of excluded middle falls short of explaining the contradictory meanings of the same symbols. The statements like “m tends to 0”, “r tends to 0”, “q tends to 0”, used by the physicist, are inconsistent on dimensional grounds because “m”, (...) “r”, “q” represent quantities with physical dimensions of [M], [L], [Q] respectively and “0” represents just a number—devoid of physical dimension. Consequently, due to the involvement of the statement “q tends to 0'', where q is the test charge” in the definition of electric field leads to either circular reasoning or a contradiction regarding the experimental verification of the smallest charge in the Millikan–Fletcher oil drop experiment. Considering such issues as problematic, by choice, I make an inquiry regarding the basic language in terms of which physics is written, with an aim of exploring how truthfully the verbal statements can be converted to the corresponding physico-mathematical expressions, where “physico-mathematical” signifies the involvement of physical dimensions. Such investigation necessitates an explanation by demonstration of “self inquiry”, “middle way”, “dependent origination”, “emptiness/relational existence”, which are certain terms that signify the basic tenets of Buddhism. In light of such demonstration I explain my view of “definition”; the relations among quantity, physical dimension and number; meaninglessness of “zero quantity” and the associated logico-linguistic fallacy; difference between unit and unity. Considering the importance of the notion of electric field in physics, I present a critical analysis of the definitions of electric field due to Maxwell and Jackson, along with the physico-mathematical conversions of the verbal statements. The analysis of Jackson’s definition points towards an expression of the electric field as an infinite series due to the associated “limiting process” of the test charge. However, it brings out the necessity of a postulate regarding the existence of charges, which nevertheless follows from the definition of quantity. Consequently, I explain the notion of undecidable charges that act as the middle way to resolve the contradiction regarding the Millikan–Fletcher oil drop experiment. In passing, I provide a logico-linguistic analysis, in physico-mathematical terms, of two verbal statements of Maxwell in relation to his definition of electric field, which suggests Maxwell’s conception of dependent origination of distance and charge ) and that of emptiness in the context of relative vacuum. This work is an appeal for the dissociation of the categorical disciplines of logic and physics and on the large, a fruitful merger of Eastern philosophy and Western science. Nevertheless, it remains open to how the reader relates to this work, which is the essence of emptiness. (shrink)

Levi ben Gerson was a medieval astronomer who responded in an unusual way to the Ptolemaic tradition. He significantly modified Ptolemy’s lunar and planetary theories, in part by appealing to physical reasoning. Moreover, he depended on his own observations, with instruments he invented, rather than on observations he found in literary sources. As a result of his close attention to the variation in apparent planetary sizes, a subject entirely absent from the Almagest, he discovered a new phenomenon of Mars (...) and noticed a serious flaw in Ptolemy’s treatment of the Moon. (shrink)

Using Peirce as a guide, this paper explores the way in which light mediates finitude through the relational process of semiosis. Embodying the triadic logic of identity, difference and return, light creates space, time and matter. Attention is on simple bodily forms and the meta-physics of their relationality. The first section introduces the mathematical and metaphysical contours of Peirce’s approach. The second section motivates Peirce’s three categories as interwoven process. In the third section, Peirce’s formalism of the (...) sign is presented and applied to simple physical and biological bodies. (shrink)

The concept of time is examined using the second law of thermodynamics that was recently formulated as an equation of motion. According to the statistical notion of increasing entropy, flows of energy diminish differences between energy densities that form space. The flow of energy is identified with the flow of time. The non-Euclidean energy landscape, i.e. the curved space–time, is in evolution when energy is flowing down along gradients and levelling the density differences. The flows along the steepest descents, i.e. (...) geodesics are obtained from the principle of least action for mechanics, electrodynamics and quantum mechanics. The arrow of time, associated with the expansion of the Universe, identifies with grand dispersal of energy when high-energy densities transform by various mechanisms to lower densities in energy and eventually to ever-diluting electromagnetic radiation. Likewise, time in a quantum system takes an increment forwards in the detection-associated dissipative transformation when the stationary-state system begins to evolve pictured as the wave function collapse. The energy dispersal is understood to underlie causality so that an energy gradient is a cause and the resulting energy flow is an effect. The account on causality by the concepts of physics does not imply determinism; on the contrary, evolution of space–time as a causal chain of events is non-deterministic. (shrink)

Medieval and early modern devotional works rarely receive serious treatment from philosophers, even those working in the subfields of philosophy of religion or the history of ideas. In this article, I examine one medieval devotional work in particular—the Middle High German image- and verse-program, Christus und die minnende Seele (CMS)—and I argue that it can plausibly be viewed as a form of medieval public philosophy, one that both exhibited and encouraged philosophical innovation. I address a few objections (...) to my proposal—namely, that CMS is neither public enough nor that it counts as proper philosophy—and I attempt to defend CMS’s public philosophical credentials in light of these objections. I conclude with a brief discussion of how devotional texts like CMS can help us do innovative public philosophy today. (shrink)

Our concept of the universe and the material world is foundational for our thinking and our moral lives. In an earlier contribution to the URAM project I presented what I called 'the ultimate organizational principle' of the universe. In that article (Grandpierre 2000, pp. 12-35) I took as an adversary the wide-spread system of thinking which I called 'materialism'. According to those who espouse this way of thinking, the universe consists of inanimate units or sets of material such as atoms (...) or elementary particles. Against this point of view on reality, I argued that it is 'logic', which exists in our inner world as a function of our mind, that is the universal organizing power of the universe. The present contribution builds upon this insight. Then I focussed on rationality; now I am interested in the responsibility that is the driving force behind our effort to find coherence and ultimate perspectives in our cosmos. It is shown that biology fundamentally differs from physics. Biology has its own fundamental principle, which is formulated for the first time in history in a scientific manner by Ervin Bauer. This fundamental principle is the cosmic life principle. I show that if one considers the physical laws as corresponding to reality, as in scientific realism, than physicalism becomes fundamentally spiritual because the physical laws are not material. I point out that the physical laws originate from the fundamental principle of physics which is the least action principle. I show that the fundamental principle of physics can be considered as the "instinct of atoms". Our research has found deep and meaningful connections between the basic principle of physics and the ultimate principles of the universe: matter, life and reason. Therefore, the principle of least action is not necessarily an expression of sterile inanimateness. On the contrary, the principle of physics is related to the life principle of the universe, to the world of instincts behind the atomic world, in which the principles of physics, biology, and psychology arise from the same ultimate principle. Our research sheds new light to the sciences of physics, biology, and psychology in close relation to the basic principles. These ultimate principles have a primary importance in our understanding of the nature of Man and the Universe, together with the relations between Man and Nature, Man and the Universe. The results offer new foundations for our understanding our own role in the Earth, in the Nature and in the Universe. Even the apparently inanimate world of physics shows itself to be animate on long timescales and having a kind of pre- human consciousness in its basic organisation. This hypothesis offers a way to understand when and how the biological laws may direct physical laws, and, moreover, offers a new perspective to study and understand under which conditions can self-consciousness govern the laws of biology and physics. This point of view offers living beings and humans the possibility of strengthening our natural identity, and recognising the wide perspective arising from having access to the deepest ranges of our own human resources and realising the task for which human and individual life has been created. (shrink)

Deely's chief orientation, in his Medieval Philosophy field days, was to frame the field's thematic concern in light of the gestation of semiotic awareness. He argued that semiotic awareness was expressed fully for the first time in history by Poinsot, although he said that the process of gestation only resulted in a community-binding Way after the arrival of the Semiotics of Peirce. Between Poinsot and Peirce, a period of darkness preceded a full dawn. In this paper, we provide (...) an introductory picture of Deely's understanding of Medieval Philosophy and strive to convey a preview of the angle adopted by the semiotician. (shrink)

There is a standard way of interpreting physicalism. This is as a completeness thesis of some kind. Completeness physicalists believe there is or in principle could be some future physics that provides a complete explanatory or ontological basis for our universe. And this provides a sense in which physics is special among the sciences, the sense in which it is fundamental. This paper contrasts this standard completeness physicalism with what is a more plausible maximality physicalism. Maximality physicalists believe (...) physics is special only in its providing an epistemic framework that is ontologically or explanatorily superior in some respect. This paper shows how completeness physicalists cannot, while maximality physicalists can, provide an adequate explanation of the empirical support for and the pragmatic usefulness of physicalism. It also shows how maximality physicalism is better supported in light of several developments from late twentieth century philosophy of science. (shrink)

Following the proposal of a new kind of selective structural realism that uses as a basis the distinction between framework and interaction theories, this work discusses relevant applications in fundamental physics. An ontology for the different entities and properties of well-known theories is thus consistently built. The case of classical field theories—including general relativity as a classical theory of gravitation—is examined in detail, as well as the implications of the classification scheme for issues of realism in quantum mechanics. These (...) applications also shed light on the different range of applicability of the ontic and epistemic versions of structural realism. (shrink)

The main aim of my paper is to analyse Aristotle’s theory of language in the context of his Physics I.1 and via an analysis and an interpretation of this part of his Physics I try to show that (i) the study of human language (logos) significantly falls within the competence of Aristotle’s physics (i.e. natural philosophy), (ii) we can find the results of such (physical) inquiry in Aristotle’s zoological writings, stated in the forms of the first principles, (...) causes and elements of the human speech (logos) and (iii) the analogies (Phys. 184b13-14) made by Aristotle at the very end of the first chapter make better sense if we consider them in the broader context in which Aristotle recognizes language as a complex natural phenomenon we are born into and which has to be not only biologically, but also socially developed through our lives. Hence, I aim towards a more naturalistic reading of Aristotle’s views on language. (shrink)

This paper seeks to examine the thought of philosophers about the influence of the environment on humans' physical, mental and moral habits, as well as how these philosophers used this influence to categorise individuals according to their habitat. As such this research begins with Herodotus and Hippocrates, and briefly discusses Plato, Aristotle, and seven medieval philosophers belonging to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions (Al-Kindi, Eriugena, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Tufail, Averroes, and Moses Maimonides). Also, this study investigates Montesquieu from (...) the seventh century, eight modern thinkers from the 19th through the 21st centuries, determinism (Carl Ritter, Ellen Churchill Semple, and Ellsworth Huntington), geography of possibilism (Vidal de Blacche, Lucian Febwer, and Cari Sauer), bioregionalism (Richard Evanoff), and meteorology (Frederik Nebeker). Lastly, this study concludes that all aforementioned 19th philosophers agreed that the environment influences human behaviour and physical condition. -/- . (shrink)

The neoclassical interpretation of quantum mechanics which re-introduces older conceptual models of gravity and electromagnetism transformed by modern advancements in the field is discussed as a natural outcome from the interchangeability of quantum mechanics and fluid dynamics in light of recent macro-level experiments which show behaviors previously believed to be confined to the quantum world. This superfluid model of mechanics and the known behaviors of superfluids is suggested as a possible substrate and system for the storage and processing of (...) data. Methods of data storage found in natural systems such as the brain are compared via extensive use of analogies to support the conjecture that a rational and mechanical basis for spirituality can be supported under the neoclassical interpretation because of the inherent persistent structure and interaction of the suggested pervasive medium. This model of information theory spiritualism is suggested as a basis for the unification of physics with more philosophical approaches in the study of metaphysics. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE. (shrink)

The enigma of the Emergence of Natural Languages, coupled or not with the closely related problem of their Evolution is perceived today as one of the most important scientific problems. The purpose of the present study is actually to outline such a solution to our problem which is epistemologically consonant with the Big Bang solution of the problem of the Emergence of the Universe}. Such an outline, however, becomes articulable, understandable, and workable only in a drastically extended epistemic and scientific (...) oecumene, where known and habitual approaches to the problem, both theoretical and experimental, become distant, isolated, even if to some degree still hospitable conceptual and methodological islands. The guiding light of our inquiry will be Eugene Paul Wigner's metaphor of ``the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in natural sciences'', i.e., the steadily evolving before our eyes, since at least XVIIth century, ``the miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics''. Kurt Goedel's incompleteness and undecidability theory will be our guardian discerner against logical fallacies of otherwise apparently plausible explanations. John Bell's ``unspeakableness'' and the commonplace counterintuitive character of quantum phenomena will be our encouragers. And the radical novelty of the introduced here and adapted to our purposes Big Bang epistemological paradigm will be an appropriate, even if probably shocking response to our equally shocking discovery in the oldest among well preserved linguistic fossils of perfect mathematical structures outdoing the best artifactual Assemblers. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to apply the metaphysics of John Duns Scotus in constructing a new conception of matter which does not stand in opposition to the mental realm, but is rather composed of both physical and mental elements. The paper is divided into four parts. Section one addresses Scotus’ claim that matter is intelligible and actual in itself. Section two aims to show that matter can be seen as a deprived thinking being. Section three analyzes Scotus’ conception (...) of place. The final section brings together the conclusions of the three preceding parts to confront the Cartesian psycho-physical problem anew and to suggest a viable solution. (shrink)

The paper discusses Hilbert mathematics, a kind of Pythagorean mathematics, to which the physical world is a particular case. The parameter of the “distance between finiteness and infinity” is crucial. Any nonzero finite value of it features the particular case in the frameworks of Hilbert mathematics where the physical world appears “ex nihilo” by virtue of an only mathematical necessity or quantum information conservation physically. One does not need the mythical Big Bang which serves to concentrate all the violations of (...) energy conservation in a “safe”, maximally remote point in the alleged “beginning of the universe”. On the contrary, an omnipresent and omnitemporal medium obeying quantum information conservation rather than energy conservation permanently generates action and thus the physical world. The utilization of that creation “ex nihilo” is accessible to humankind, at least theoretically, as long as one observes the physical laws, which admit it in their new and wider generalization. One can oppose Hilbert mathematics to Gödel mathematics, which can be identified as all the standard mathematics until now featureable by the Gödel dichotomy of arithmetic to set theory: and then, “dialectic”, “intuitionistic”, and “Gödelian” mathematics within the former, according to a negative, positive, or zero value of the distance between finiteness and infinity. A mapping of Hilbert mathematics into pseudo-Riemannian space corresponds, therefore allowing for gravitation to be interpreted purely mathematically and ontologically in a Pythagorean sense. Information and quantum information can be involved in the foundations of mathematics and linked to the axiom of choice or alternatively, to the field of all rational numbers, from which the pair of both dual and anti-isometric Peano arithmetics featuring Hilbert arithmetic are immediately inferable. Noether’s theorems (1918) imply quantum information conservation as the maximally possible generalization of the pair of the conservation of a physical quantity and the corresponding Lie group of its conjugate. Hilbert mathematics can be interpreted from their viewpoint also after an algebraic generalization of them. Following the ideas of Noether’s theorem (1918), locality and nonlocality can be realized both physically and mathematically. The “light phase of the universe” can be linked to the gap of mathematics and physics in the Cartesian organization of cognition in Modernity and then opposed to its “dark phase”, in which physics and mathematics are merged. All physical quantities can be deduced from only mathematical premises by the mediation of the most fundamental physical constants such as the speed of light in a vacuum, the Planck and gravitational constants once they have been interpreted by the relation of locality and nonlocality. (shrink)

Abstract In the light of the analysis of Avicenna’s definition of “nature” we can discover the main principles of his physics, which are: ‘The agency of the nature’, ‘the directness of this agency’, ‘the natural object’, and ‘the essential agency of the nature’. One of the main consequences of this analysis is that the nature could be considered as the direct cause of the motion, immobility and spatial balance of the material objects. Moreover, it shows that natural objects (...) are essentially capable of possess natural properties. Accordingly, Avicenna considers that the natural properties are the same as the essential properties, which material objects have them necessarily. (shrink)

William of Ockham (d. 1347) is well known for his commitment to parsimony and for his so-called ‘razor’ principle. But little is known about attempts among his own contemporaries to deflect his use of the razor. In this paper, I explore one such attempt. In particular, I consider a clever challenge that Ockham’s younger contemporary, Walter Chatton (d. 1343) deploys against the razor. The challenge involves a kind of dilemma for Ockham. Depending on how Ockham responds to this dilemma, his (...) razor will, Chatton argues, either prove unacceptably dull when it comes to determining ontological commitment or prove unacceptably sharp when it comes to determining commitments entailed by certain theological doctrines. While Chatton’s objection is subtle and interesting in its own right, the broader significance of the debate between these thinkers lies in the light it sheds on medieval approaches to issues surrounding metaphysical methodology. (shrink)

A physical model was utilized to show that the neural system can memorize a target position and is able to cause motor and sensory events that move the arm to a target with more accuracy. However, this cannot indicate in which coordinates the necessary computations are carried out. Turning off the lights causes the error to increase which is accomplished by cutting off one feedback path. The geometrical properties of arm kinematics and the properties of the kinesthetic and visual sensorial (...) systems should be better known before inferences about higher levels of processing can be drawn. (shrink)

It is shown by means of general principles and specific examples that, contrary to a long-standing misconception, the modern mathematical physics of compressible fluid dynamics provides a generally consistent and efficient language for describing many seemingly fundamental physical phenomena. It is shown to be appropriate for describing electric and gravitational force fields, the quantized structure of charged elementary particles, the speed of light propagation, relativistic phenomena, the inertia of matter, the expansion of the universe, and the physical nature (...) of time. New avenues and opportunities for fundamental theoretical research are thereby illuminated. (shrink)

In The Age of the World Picture, philosopher Martin Heidegger claims that scientific representations do not reduce themselves to pure appropriations of what they present. Rather, they convey investigations that confine being to rules of appropriation. Those rules govern how natural science accesses phenomena. The choice of natural science as the predominant mode of representation of reality entails what Heidegger calls a process of objectification (Vergegenständlichung). In his Zollikon Seminars, Heidegger questions the tribute paid by the sciences of the mind (...) to the logic of the natural sciences, and stresses that Freud, by thinking of the mind as a machine driven by instinctive powers, assigns to human phenomena the objective features set by the natural sciences. This paper purports to show that Winnicott, by formulating a theory of personal maturing, disagrees with the objectifying requirements of the natural sciences. For Winnicott, traditional psychoanalysis uses categories that are inadequate for describing the changes babies undergo in the environment that gives them care and attention, because its analysis is confined to the field of libido relations. With that in mind, it is not possible to speak about human maturation processes using an objectifying language; Winnicott stresses (in The newborn and his mother) that “I cannot sacrifice a patient on the altar of science”. This paper argues that Winnicott disagrees with the naturalistic imperative, which reduces the real to what is objective and places physics as a model for the sciences. The paper also broaches on the issue of how far the considerations of Heidegger and Winnicott regarding access to human phenomena allow us to discuss the current overwhelming process of medicating everyday life. (shrink)

This thesis is a study of the notion of time in modern physics, consisting of two parts. Part I takes seriously the doctrine that modern physics should be treated as the primary guide to the nature of time. To this end, it offers an analysis of the various conceptions of time that emerge in the context of various physical theories and, furthermore, an analysis of the relation between these conceptions of time and the more orthodox philosophical views on (...) the nature of time. In Part II I explore the interpretation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics in light of the suggestion that an overly Newtonian conception of time might be contributing to some of the difficulties that we face in interpreting the quantum mechanical formalism. In particular, I argue in favour of introducing backwards-in-time causal influences as part of an alternative conception of time that is consistent with the picture of reality that arises in the context of the quantum formalism. Moreover, I demonstrate that this conception of time can already be found in a particular formulation of classical mechanics. One might see that one of the central themes of Part II originates from a failure to heed properly the doctrine of Part I: study into the nature of time should be guided by modern physics and thus we should be careful not to insert a preconceived Newtonian conception of time unwittingly into our interpretation of the quantum mechanical formalism. Thus, whereas Part I is intended as a demonstration of methodology with respect to the study of time, Part II in a sense explores a confusion that can be seen as arising in the absence of this methodology. (shrink)

An imaginative exploration of space and time in which light mediates the relationship between finitude and the Infinite. Light becomes the creative source through which interiority and exteriority are manifested and brought into synchronicity as time, space and mass. The exploration probes the relational logic of relativity theory using the meta-physical insights of Augustine, Hegel, Levinas, and Peirce.

This paper describes a thought experiment that shows that people can travel faster than the speed of light: we are not bound by Einstein’s speed limit. Of course, any two-bit sci-fi story can describe faster-than-light travel. The difference is that the thought experiment proposed here is consistent with Einstein’s theory. The way to extricate ourselves from this seeming contradiction is to acknowledge that persons are not entirely physical. In other words, the explanation for why faster-than-light travel is (...) possible for persons, yet consistent with our best physics, is that persons are not wholly physical. The thought experiment also has implications for our understanding of death, specifically, the death of the body may not be the death of the person. (shrink)

If one can judge a society by how it treats its prisoners, one can surely judge a society by how it treats cognitively- and learning-impaired children. In the United States children with physical and cognitive impairments are subjected to higher rates of corporal punishment than are non-disabled children. Children with disabilities make up just over 13% of the student population in the U.S. yet make up over 18% of those children who receive corporal punishment. Autistic children are among the most (...) likely to receive corporal punishment. -/- Although they may deny or redescribe particular instances of corporal punishment or their use of restraints, educators defend such actions as legitimate punishment. In this paper, I assess the logic underlying the use of restraints and corporal punishment on autistic children by educators. The rationalizations for the corporal punishment or restraint of autistics stems from the educator’s desire to control the autistic children so as to end typical autistic behaviors such as rocking, repetitive verbalizations, or “flapping” but also the autistic child’s non-affective responses such as not appearing to feel remorse or shame or the absence of a verbal acknowledgement of remorse or shame. The educators assume that the autistic’s failure to exhibit the desired responses is evidence of the autistic’s moral incorrigibility and is, therefore, evidence of the appropriateness of corporal punishment. But this assumption of the incorrigibility of the autistic child is questionable. -/- Indeed accepting this incorrigibility assumption reveals two important problems. First, instructors using physical punishment on autistic children do not understand autism. Second, they are not working with a tenable conception of punishment. Any action undertaken to induce socially acceptable behaviors (whether it be the end of autistic acts or responses such as remorse) is to fail to understand what the legitimate punishment of children is about. (shrink)

This paper examines the Hegelian moment of the for-another in its negative relation to the other moment of particularity: the for-itself. I identify the dissolving, fluidifying action of the for-another by examining figures within the Philosophy of Nature, particularly comets and moons, but also Hegel’s physics of light and sound. The dissolution of the lunar for-itself at the hands of the cometary for-another illustrates how the dynamic relation between the two moments of particularity participates in the presentation of (...) essence, within the Hegelian syllogism, i.e. as mediating between the universal and the singular. The dynamic action of cometary negativity occurs throughout the Philosophy of Nature and therefore should be pivotal to how the work is read. (shrink)

This contribution offers an interpretation of the last half of chapter 1 of book 5 of Aristotle’s Physics in the form of a commentary. Among other things, it attempts an explanation of why Aristotle calls the termini of changes ‘something underlying’ (ὑποκείμενον) and ‘something not underlying’ (μὴ ὑποκείμενον). It also provides an analysis of Aristotle’s argument for the claim that what is not simpliciter does not change in the light of this interpretation.

Willem Jacob ’s Gravesande is widely remembered as a leading advocate of Isaac Newton’s work. In the first half of the eighteenth century, ’s Gravesande was arguably Europe’s most important proponent of what would become known as Newtonian physics. ’s Gravesande himself minimally described this discipline, which he called «physica», as studying empirical regularities mathematically while avoiding hypotheses. Commentators have as yet not progressed much beyond this view of ’s Gravesande’s physics. Therefore, much of its precise nature, its (...) methodology, and its relation to Newton’s actual work remains unclear. This article discusses one particular methodological element that ’s Gravesande himself often stressed in detail, namely the use of mathematics in philosophy and physics. In doing so, it takes exception to the claim that mathematics played only a minor role in ’s Gravesande’s work, a view put forward in recent historiography. Besides that, this article casts new light on the interpretation of ’s Gravesande’s philosophical notion of «mathematical reasoning», a notion that has remained somewhat obscure thus far. (shrink)

How much value can our decisions create? We argue that unless our current understanding of physics is wrong in fairly fundamental ways, there exists an upper limit of value relevant to our decisions. First, due to the speed of light and the definition and conception of economic growth, the limit to economic growth is a restrictive one. Additionally, a related far larger but still finite limit exists for value in a much broader sense due to the physics (...) of information and the ability of physical beings to place value on outcomes. We discuss how this argument can handle lexicographic preferences, probabilities, and the implications for infinite ethics and ethical uncertainty. (shrink)

1.Summary The key terms. 1. Key term: ‘Sunyata’. Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) is known in the history of Buddhism mainly by his keyword ‘sunyata’. This word is translated into English by the word ‘emptiness’. The translation and the traditional interpretations create the impression that Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) declares the objects as empty or illusionary or not real or not existing. What is the assertion and concrete statement made by this interpretation? That nothing can be found, that there is nothing, that nothing exists? Was (...) Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) denying the external world? Did he wish to refute that which evidently is? Did he want to call into question the world in which we live? Did he wish to deny the presence of things that somehow arise? My first point is the refutation of this traditional translation and interpretation. 2. Key terms: ‘Dependence’ or ‘relational view’. My second point consists in a transcription of the keyword of ‘sunyata’ by the word ‘dependence’. This is something that Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) himself has done. Now Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) central view can be named ‘dependence of things’. Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) is not looking for a material or immaterial object which can be declared as a fundamental reality of this world. His fundamental reality is not an object. It is a relation between objects. This is a relational view of reality. This is the heart of Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) ideas. In the 19th century a more or less unknown Italian philosopher, Vincenzo Goberti, spoke about relations as the mean and as bonds between things. Later, in quantum physics and in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead we are talking about interactions and entanglements. These ideas of relatedness or connections or entanglements in Eastern and Western modes of thought are the main idea of this essay. Not all entanglements are known. Just two examples: the nature of quantum entanglements is not known. Quantum entanglements should be faster than light. That's why Albert Einstein had some doubts. A second example: the completely unknown connections between the mind and the brain. Other examples are mysterious like the connections between birds in a flock. Some are a little known like gravitational forces. 3. Key terms: ‘Arm in arm’. But Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) did not stop there. He was not content to repeat this discovery of relational reality. He went on one step further indicating that what is happening between two things. He gave indications to the space between two things. He realized that not the behaviour of bodies, but the behaviour of something between them may be essential for understanding the reality. This open space is not at all empty. It is full of energy. The open space is the middle between things. Things are going arm in arm. The middle might be considered as a force that bounds men to the world and it might be seen as well as a force of liberation. It might be seen as a bondage to the infinite space. 4. Key term: Philosophy. Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva), we are told, was a Buddhist philosopher. This statement is not wrong when we take the notion ‘philosophy’ in a deep sense as a love to wisdom, not as wisdom itself. Philosophy is a way to wisdom. Where this way has an end wisdom begins and philosophy is no more necessary. A.N. Whitehead gives philosophy the commission of descriptive generalization. We do not need necessarily a philosophical building of universal dimensions. Some steps of descriptive generalization might be enough in order to see and understand reality. There is another criterion of Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) philosophy. Not his keywords ‘sunyata’ and ‘pratityasamutpada’ but his 25 philosophical examples are the heart of his philosophy. His examples are images. They do not speak to rational and conceptual understanding. They speak to our eyes. Images, metaphors, allegories or symbolic examples have a freshness which rational ideas do not possess. Buddhist dharma and philosophy is a philosophy of allegories. This kind of philosophy is not completely new and unknown to European philosophy. Since Plato’s allegory of the cave it is already a little known. (Plato 424 – 348 Befor Current Era) The German philosopher Hans Blumenberg has underlined the importance of metaphors in European philosophy. 5. Key terms: Quantum Physics. Why quantum physics? European modes of thought had no idea of the space between two this. They were bound to the ideas of substance or subject, two main metaphysical traditions of European philosophical history, two main principles. These substances and these subjects are two immaterial bodies which were considered by traditional European metaphysics as lying, as a sort of core, inside the objects or underlying the empirical reality of our world. The first European scientist who saw with his inner eye the forces between two things had been Michael Faraday (1791-1867). Faraday was an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism. Later physicists like Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg and others followed his view in modern physics. This is a fifth point of my work. I compare Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) with European scientific modes of thought for a better understanding of Asia. I do not compare Nagarjuna (kumarajiva) with European philosophers like Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein. The principles and metaphysical foundations of physical sciences are more representative for European modes of thought than the ideas of Hegel, Heidegger and Wittgenstein and they are more precise. And slowly we are beginning to understand these principles. Let me take as an example the interpretation of quantum entanglement by the British mathematician Roger Penrose. Penrose discusses in the year of 2000 the experiences of quantum entanglement where light is separated over a distance of 100 kilometers and still remains connected in an unknown way. These are well known experiments in the last 30 years. Very strange for European modes of thought. The light should be either separated or connected. That is the expectation most European modes of thought tell us. Aristotle had been the first. Aristotle (384 - 322 Before Current Era) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great. He told us the following principle as a metaphysical foundation: Either a situation exists or not. There is not a third possibility. Now listen to Roger Penrose: “Quantum entanglement is a very strange type of thing. It is somewhere between objects being separate and being in communication with each other” (Roger Penrose, The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, Cambridge University Press. 2000 page 66). This sentence of Roger Penrose is a first step of a philosophical generalization in a Whiteheadian sense. 6. Key terms: ‘The metaphysical foundations of modern science’ had been examined particularly by three European and American philosophers: E. A. Burtt, A.N. Whitehead and Hans-Georg Gadamer, by Gadamer eminently in his late writings on Heraclitus and Parmenides. I try to follow the approaches of these philosophers of relational views and of anti-substantialism. By ‘metaphysical foundations’ Edwin Arthur Burtt does not understand transcendental ideas but simply the principles that are underlying sciences. 7. Key terms: ‘Complementarity’, ‘interactions’, ‘entanglements’. Since 1927 quantum physics has three key terms which give an indication to the fundamental physical reality: Complementarity, interactions and entanglement. These three notions are akin to Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) relational view of reality. They are akin and they are very precise, so that Buddhism might learn something from these descriptions and quantum physicists might learn from Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) examples and views of reality. They might learn to do a first step in a philosophical generalisation of quantum physical experiments. All of us we might learn how objects are entangled or going arm in arm. [The end of the summary.]. (shrink)

According to the Cambridge Platonist Henry More, individual spirits--the souls of humans and non-human animals--are extended but cannot be physically divided. His contemporaries and recent commentators have charged that More has never given an explication of the grounds on which the indivisibility of spirits is based. In this article, I suggest that exploring the usage that More makes of the analogy between spirits and light could go some way towards providing such an explication. More compares the relation between spirit (...) and matter to the relation that, according to Aristotelian theories of light, holds between ?intentional species? and matter. I will argue that the purpose of his comparison is to highlight that both intentional species and spirits are existentially independent from matter. The existential independence of intentional species from matter expresses itself in the fact that light is not moved through the motion of the illuminated body. The existential independence of spirits from matter expresses itself in the fact that when a body that is coextensive with a spirit is divided, the spirit is not thereby divided but rather contracts into the remaining living organism. (shrink)

The paper explicates the stages of the author’s philosophical evolution in the light of Kopnin’s ideas and heritage. Starting from Kopnin’s understanding of dialectical materialism, the author has stated that category transformations of physics has opened from conceptualization of immutability to mutability and then to interaction, evolvement and emergence. He has connected the problem of physical cognition universals with an elaboration of the specific system of tools and methods of identifying, individuating and distinguishing objects from a scientific theory (...) domain. The role of vacuum conception and the idea of existence (actual and potential, observable and nonobservable, virtual and hidden) types were analyzed. In collaboration with S.Crymski heuristic and regulative functions of categories of substance, world as a whole as well as postulates of relativity and absoluteness, and anthropic and self-development principles were singled out. Elaborating Kopnin’s view of scientific theories as a practically effective and relatively true mapping of their domains, the author in collaboration with M. Burgin have originated the unified structure-nominative reconstruction (model) of scientific theory as a knowledge system. According to it, every scientific knowledge system includes hierarchically organized and complex subsystems that partially and separately have been studied by standard, structuralist, operationalist, problem-solving, axiological and other directions of the current philosophy of science. 1) The logico-linguistic subsystem represents and normalizes by means of different, including mathematical, languages and normalizes and logical calculi the knowledge available on objects under study. 2) The model-representing subsystem comprises peculiar to the knowledge system ways of their modeling and understanding. 3) The pragmatic-procedural subsystem contains general and unique to the knowledge system operations, methods, procedures, algorithms and programs. 4) From the viewpoint of the problem-heuristic subsystem, the knowledge system is a unique way of setting and resolving questions, problems, puzzles and tasks of cognition of objects into question. It also includes various heuristics and estimations (truth, consistency, beauty, efficacy, adequacy, heuristicity etc) of components and structures of the knowledge system. 5) The subsystem of links fixes interrelations between above-mentioned components, structures and subsystems of the knowledge system. The structure-nominative reconstruction has been used in the philosophical and comparative case-studies of mathematical, physical, economic, legal, political, pedagogical, social, and sociological theories. It has enlarged the collection of knowledge structures, connected, for instance, with a multitude of theoreticity levels and with an application of numerous mathematical languages. It has deepened the comprehension of relations between the main directions of current philosophy of science. They are interpreted as dealing mainly with isolated subsystems of scientific theory. This reconstruction has disclosed a variety of undetected knowledge structures, associated also, for instance, with principles of symmetry and supersymmetry and with laws of various levels and degrees. In cooperation with the physicist Olexander Gabovich the modified structure-nominative reconstruction is in the processes of development and justification. Ideas and concepts were also in the center of Kopnin’s cognitive activity. The author has suggested and elaborated the triplet model of concepts. According to it, any scientific concept is a dependent on cognitive situation, dynamical, multifunctional state of scientist’s thinking, and available knowledge system. A concept is modeled as being consisted from three interrelated structures. 1) The concept base characterizes objects falling under a concept as well as their properties and relations. In terms of volume and content the logical modeling reveals partially only the concept base. 2) The concept representing part includes structures and means (names, statements, abstract properties, quantitative values of object properties and relations, mathematical equations and their systems, theoretical models etc.) of object representation in the appropriate knowledge system. 3) The linkage unites a structures and procedures that connect components from the abovementioned structures. The partial cases of the triplet model are logical, information, two-tired, standard, exemplar, prototype, knowledge-dependent and other concept models. It has introduced the triplet classification that comprises several hundreds of concept types. Different kinds of fuzziness are distinguished. Even the most precise and exact concepts are fuzzy in some triplet aspect. The notions of relations between real scientific concepts are essentially extended. For example, the definition and strict analysis of such relations between concepts as formalization, quantification, mathematization, generalization, fuzzification, and various kinds of identity are proposed. The concepts «PLANET» and «ELEMENTARY PARTICLE» and some of their metamorphoses were analyzed in triplet terms. The Kopnin’s methodology and epistemology of cognition was being used for creating conception of the philosophy of law as elaborating of understanding, justification, estimating and criticizing legal system. The basic information on the major directions in current Western philosophy of law (legal realism, feminism, criticism, postmodernism, economical analysis of law etc.) is firstly introduced to the Ukrainian audience. The classification of more than fifty directions in modern legal philosophy is suggested. Some results of historical, linguistic, scientometric and philosophic-legal studies of the present state of Ukrainian academic science are given. (shrink)