This study examined the usage of the relative clause as a wealthy, crucial and complicated syntactic procedure in modern English Literature through the examination of Amaka Azuike’s Violated, a short play. The study determined the use of relative clauses in terms of their frequency of occurrence and type used, and it showed that English language speakers mostly attempt to use the "easier" type of the relative clauses to combine sentences for clarity of relaying messages. The (...) paper extracted examples of relative clauses from Violated to determine its aim of identifying the types of relative clauses used and the frequency of occurrence as well as the functions of the relative clauses in the play. The study also exposed the clarity the reader derives from the author’s use of relative clauses in creating a visible mental picture of issues presented in the story. The study adopted the descriptive grammar framework to account for the way relative clauses have been used in the play by the author. The study found that the author of the text used finite relative clauses and only one complex relative clause. Also, it discovered that the usage of relative clauses made the story quite state-of-the-art in style. (shrink)

NPs with intensional relative clauses such as 'the book John needs to write' pose a significant challenge for semantic theory. Such NPs act like referential terms, yet they do not stand for a particular actual object. This paper will develop a semantic analysis of such NPs on the basis of the notion of a variable object. The analysis avoids a range of difficulties that a more standard analysis based on the notion of an individual concept would face. Most (...) importantly, unlike the latter, the proposed analysis can be carried over NPs such as 'the number of people that fit into the bus', which describe tropes (particularized properties). (shrink)

NPs with intensional relative clauses such as 'the impact of the book John needs to write' pose a significant challenge for trope theory (the theory of particularized properties), since they seem to refer to tropes that lack an actual bearer. This paper proposes a novel semantic analysis of such NPs on the basis of the notion of a variable object. The analysis avoids a range of difficulties that an alternative analysis based on the notion of an individual concept (...) would face. (shrink)

The dissertation is a contrastive analysis. It deals with the acquisition of English relative clause (RC) by German and Turkish students(in Germany and Turkey) learning English as a second and third language and attending the 11th grades of a German school. The main question of the study is to find out whether the acquisition of English RCs is more difficult for German or for Turkish learners. The other study is the corpus analysis of the English relative clauses. (...) For this research I have chosen various school books from the fields such as History, Chemistry and Literature. The target is to find out how often the English relative clauses are used. They are from the same school level (11th grade) where I have applied the tests. I wanted to know which difficulties exists for the students. Moreover the frequency of English relative clauses in the school books has been given. (shrink)

We will begin with seemingly simple interactions in our daily lives, examine how they originate on a deeper level, come to understand the essentials of consciousness, and finally recognize that we create our reality in its entirety. In the course of this quest, we will uncover little-heeded paths to accessing our subconscious, other individuals, and that which can be understood by the term "God". And the solution to the classical problem of free will constitutes the gist of the concepts is (...) thus revealed. The present text is a very abridged version of a book I wrote out of the desire to examine the structure of our reality from a standpoint unbiased by established teachings, be they academic- scientific, popular- esoteric, or religious in nature. (shrink)

Hobbs (2010) introduced ‘clause-internal coherence’ (CIC) to describe inferences in, e.g., ‘A jogger was hit by a car,’ where the jogging is understood to have led to the car-hitting. Cohen & Kehler (2021) argue that well-known pragmatic tools cannot account for CIC, motivating an enrichment account familiar from discourse coherence research. An outstanding question is how to compositionally derive CIC from coherence relations. This paper takes strides in answering this question. It first provides experimental support for the existence of CIC (...) via offline evidence that attributive (non-)deverbal adjectives can trigger the same causal inferences within clauses that their predicative counterparts can trigger across clauses, albeit more weakly. To explain the experimental results, we use tools in Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT), which allows us to show that causal inferences can be derived in various ways, depending on whether deverbal adjectives are used attributively or predicatively. If the former, they are presupposition triggers and the coherence relations Elaboration/Continuation compete with Background; if the latter, Explanation/Result compete with Background. These different competitions -- cashed out in terms of interaction between default axioms -- correlate with the difference in the relative salience of the causal inferences. (shrink)

We propose that the restrictive/non restrictive distinction found in relative clauses corresponds to the Inalienable vs Alienable distinction of the Nominal Possessive constructions. We propose to extend this distinction to adjectives suggesting that is not construction specific.

I have two aims for the present paper, one narrow and one broad. The narrow aim is to show that a class of data originally described by Lynsey Wolter empirically undermine the leading treatments of complex demonstratives that have been described in the literature. The broader aim of the paper is to show that Wolter demonstratives, as I will call the constructions I focus on, are a threat not just to existing treatments, but to any possible theory that retains the (...) uncontroversial assumptions that relative clauses always form a constituent with the nouns they modify, and that semantic composition proceeds sequentially and locally, with the inputs to interpretation having the structure syntax tells us they do. (shrink)

Determiner phrases embedded under a propositional attitude verb have traditionally been taken to denote answers to implicit questions. For example, 'the capital of Vermont' as it occurs in 'John knows the capital of Vermont' has been thought to denote the proposition which answers the implicit question 'what is the capital of Vermont?' Thus, where 'know' is treated as a propositional attitude verb rather than an acquaintance verb, 'John knows the capital of Vermont' is true iff John knows that Montpelier is (...) the capital of Vermont. The traditional view lost its popularity long ago, because it was thought to rest on the controversial assumption that determiner phases embedded under a propositional attitude verb function semantically in the same way as the corresponding wh-clauses. Here we defend the traditional assumption against objections. We then argue that wh-clauses are not to be given a uniform treatment as indirect questions. When occurring under a propositional attitude verb, wh-clauses are better treated as having a predicate-type semantic value. We conclude by considering some possible objections to the predicate view. (shrink)

This paper addresses a certain objection to the quantificational theory of definite descriptions. According to this objection, the quantificational account cannot provide correct interpretations of definite descriptions embedded in the non-doxastic attitude ascriptions and therefore ought to be rejected. In brief, the objection says that the quantificational theory is committed to the view that a sentence of the form “The F is G” is equivalent to the claim that there is a unique F and it is G, while the ascription (...) such as, e.g., “S wants the F to be G” is not equivalent to the statement that S wants there to be a F and for it to be G. I argue that this objection is invalid as it rests on a false assumption concerning the substitutivity of the relative clauses in the non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. (shrink)

Rooth & Partee (1982) and Rooth (1985) have shown that the English-specific rule-by-rule system of PTQ can be factored out into function application plus two transformations for resolving type mismatch (type lifting and variable binding). Building on these insights, this article proposes a universal system for type-driven translation, by adding two more innovations: local type determination for gaps (generalizing Montague 1973) and a set of semantic filters (extending Cooper 1983). This system, dubbed Cross-Linguistic Semantics (XLS), is shown to account for (...) various phenomena — including scope relations in English and Greenlandic Eskimo, internally headed relative clauses in Lakhota, serial verbs in Yoruba and VP ellipsis in English. (shrink)

We pose two arguments for the view that sentences containing definite descriptions semantically express multiple propositions: a general proposition as Russell suggested, and a singular proposition featuring the individual who uniquely satisfies the description at the world-time of utterance. One argument mirrors David Kaplan's arguments that indexicals express singular propositions through a context-sensitive character. The second argument mirrors Kent Bach's and Stephen Neale's arguments for pluralist views about terms putatively triggering conventional implicatures, appositive, and nonrestrictive relative clauses. After (...) presenting these arguments, we show that rival explanations (appeals to implicature, referential use, presupposition, etc.) do not offer equally compelling explanations of the data, and defend the methodology employed in the arguments against some criticisms. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that many of the dramatic changes that took place in the course of the history of the English complementation system are the result of a simple morphological Change in the determiner system. We propose that Old English (OE) evolved from a system in which 'complements' clauses, relative clauses and DP were interpreted as adverbials to a system in which they are interpreted as arguments of the verb. As the determiner acquired certain certain (...) type of morphological feature , a complementation system developed. We show that this claim is is reinforced by the fact that apparently unrelated changes all follow from the nature of the determiner system. (shrink)

Uniformity in human actions and attitudes incumbent with the ceteris paribus clause of folk psychology lucidly transits moral thoughts into the domain of subject versus object-centric explorations. In Zettel, Wittgenstein argues, “Concepts with fixed limits would demand uniformity of behaviour, but where I am certain, someone else is uncertain. And that is the fact of nature.” (Wittgenstein 2007, 68). Reflecting on the moral principle of “ethical giving” revives a novel stance in modern moral philosophy. An “ethical giving” is a moral (...) position that looks at giving from the context of harmonizing the changing demands of situations with normative ethical principles. Despite giving more prominence to the query of intuition, the chapter brings up the justification of normative moral principles pertaining to their applications and purports. Human activities aimed at decision-making goals conducted by the moral compass are nothing but the sanction of certain ethical norms and rules. In this context, two principles, the normative aspect and the perspective aspect need to be expounded in parallel. The perspective-based principle seeks practical guides to action, whereas the normative aspect principle looks for the concrete moral justification behind it. Normatively based moral decisions hinge on the probabilities and interests of agents that can sometimes lead towards a better choice. Thomas Nagel’s thought sounds more appealing, since his idea of practical conflict bends towards “...conflict between values which are incomparable for reasons apart from uncertainty about the facts.” (Nagel 2013, 128). Positions on moral personality and equality of justice collide with the conception of verities of the agents’ reason that cogitate a minimal aspect on the morally significant properties (range properties), which can hardly be possessed by all human beings equally. This argument sounds reasonable in light of Singer’s thought of “the principle of equal consideration of interests.” (Singer 2003, 21–22) The concern of this section is deliberative about how an agent could balance the demand of moral situations and the spirit of the moral principle devoid of being close to the relative truth. The conception of the moral decision remains capricious in line with the agent’s mood, time, and situation. The germane queries are: (a) How could one get the simpliciter of moral balance in “ethical giving” or offering help to the poor, orphans, and so on, who need helps from the agents and society? (b) Can we find any universalized principle in defense of ethical giving? (shrink)

Recent discoveries of semantic compositionality in Japanese tits have enlivened the discussions on the presence of this phenomenon in wild animal communication. Data on semantic compositionality in wild apes are lacking, even though language experiments with captive apes have demonstrated they are capable of semantic compositionality. In this paper, I revisit the study by Boesch (Hum. Evol. 6:81–89, 1991) who investigated drumming sequences by an alpha male in a chimpanzee (_Pan troglodytes_) community in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire. A (...) reanalysis of the data reveals that the alpha male produced semantically compositional combined messages of travel direction change and resting period initiation. Unlike the Japanese tits, the elements of the compositional expression were not simply juxtaposed but displayed structural reduction, while one of the two elements in the expression coded the meanings of both elements. These processes show relative resemblance to blending and fusion in human languages. Also unlike the tits, the elements of the compositional expression did not have a fixed order, although there was a fixed distribution of drumming events across the trees used for drumming. Because the elements of the expression appear to carry verb-like meanings, the compositional expression also resembles simple verb-verb constructions and short paratactic combinations of two clauses found across languages. In conclusion, the reanalysis suggests that semantic compositionality and phenomena resembling paratactic combinations of two clauses might have been present in the communication of the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, not necessarily in the vocal modality. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Assistance Principle is common currency to a wide range of moral theories. Roughly, this principle states: if you can fulfil important interests, at not too high a cost, then you have a moral duty to do so. I argue that, in determining whether the ‘not too high a cost’ clause of this principle is met, we must consider three distinct costs: ‘agent-relative costs’, ‘recipient-relative costs’ and ‘ideal-relative costs’.

Hasan's (1984) Model of Cohesive Harmony Analysis (CHA) represents one of the first attempts within the SFL framework to devise a relatively objective index for measuring a text's coherence. As a development of the classic "cohesion analysis"(Halliday & Hasan 1976), it probes into the coherence of a text by considering discourse structure as being based in both the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic semantic relations between components of clauses. More than thirty years later, it is still widely used as an (...) effective tool for language teaching and linguistic pathology. This paper will trace its origin, introduce its basic concepts and analytical procedure, describe its applications and consider its possible future development. (shrink)

Histoire et utilisation du robot Bien que la robotique soit un marché économique relativement jeune et en pleine croissance, la genèse des robots remonte à l’Antiquité. Le premier robot à être déployé sur des lignes d’assemblage est Unimate, utilisé dès 1961 par General Motors. La robotique, en se di usant dans tous les pans de notre économie, va impacter les business modèles de nombreuses industries comme l’automobile et l’aéronautique mais aussi la construction ou l’agriculture. Aujourd’hui les robots industriels et de (...) service servent à de multiples tâches allant de la logistique à l’usinage en passant par la fonderie. La robotique constitue aussi et surtout un enjeu sociétal contribuant à relever les dé s de la mobilité, de la santé, de l’autonomie, du vieillissement et de l’éducation. Absence de dé nition et de régime juridique spéci que au robot En France, la notion de robot ne fait pas l’objet d’une dé nition juridique qui lui est propre. Les dé nitions relatives à l’environnement robotique peuvent tout de même se retrouver dans la norme ISO 8373:2012. Bien que les robots intéressent les juristes à plusieurs titres, le législateur n’a, à ce jour, pas adopté de régime juridique spéci quement applicable aux robots. Il convient donc de rechercher dans le droit positif le corpus de textes applicables aux robots. Ce corpus pourra alors recevoir l’appellation de « droit de la robotique ». Garanties Le vendeur d’un robot industriel et de service doit se conformer aux garanties légales que sont la garantie des vices cachés et la garantie d’éviction. Il doit également respecter les éventuelles garanties qui ont pu être convenues contractuellement Clauses contractuelles Le fournisseur d’un robot industriel et de service doit être particulièrement attentif aux clauses contractuelles rela- tives à la garantie, à la propriété intellectuelle, à la con dentialité, à la responsabilité et à la conformité aux directives techniques. Les spéci cités liées au robot, telles que les éléments relatifs à l’intelligence arti cielle, pourront être intégrées dans des annexes spéci ques. Intelligence arti cielle L’algorithme d’intelligence arti cielle dont est équipé un robot industriel et de service peut, dans certaines condi- tions, béné cier d’une protection grâce au droit d’auteur, à la protection du savoir-faire et au brevet. Aucun régime spécial n’existe à ce jour protégeant les œuvres conçues par le robot intelligent. Mobilité Les véhicules et drones autonomes utilisés au sein même de l’usine sont considérés comme des machines. Etant don- né les risques existants, il convient de xer de règles internes d’utilisation. Les véhicules autonomes ne peuvent à ce jour quitter l’espace privé. En revanche, les drones peuvent circuler dans l’espace aérien en respectant strictement le cadre réglementaire. Douanes Le taux de perception des droits de douanes d’un robot industriel et de service est conditionné par la connaissance de l’origine, préférentielle ou non préférentielle, du robot qui est déterminée par la position tarifaire de ce dernier. Le robot industriel et de service entre dans le chapitre 84, qui concerne notamment les machines, de la nomenclature du système harmonisé établi par l’Organisation mondiale de douanes. Sécurité En application de la « directive machines », le robot peut recevoir la quali cation de machine ou de quasi-machine. En vertu de cette directive, mais également au titre du Code du travail, de nombreuses obligations en matière de santé et de sécurité doivent être respectées pour la commercialisation et l’utilisation des robots. Conformité Le Code du travail, en transposant la « directive machines », a prévu de nombreuses obligations et procédures, appli- cables aux robots industriels et de service, permettant ainsi de s’assurer que ces derniers respectent les exigences de conformité nécessaires en matière de santé et de sécurité. Maintenance Dans le cadre de la maintenance, le fournisseur d’un robot industriel et de service est soumis à plusieurs obligations législatives aux titres de la disponibilité des pièces détachées et de la location. Les dispositions contractuelles de- vront prendre en considération les spéci cités propres au robot et ne pas ignorer la maintenance prédictive. Quali cation juridique Dans le cadre de la conception, de la fabrication et de l’utilisation du robot, il convient de porter une attention par- ticulière à quatre textes spéciaux qui peuvent être applicables aux robots industriels et de service : le règlement 428/2009 sur les biens à double usage, la directive 2014/35/UE applicable au matériel électrique basse tension, la directive 2014/53/UE applicable aux équipements radioélectriques et la directive 2014/30/UE sur la compatibilité électromagnétique. Responsabilité Bien que les régimes de responsabilité, civile et pénale, ne sont pas adaptés aux robots autonomes, la responsabilité civile de droit commun, la responsabilité du fait des choses, la responsabilité du fait des produits défectueux et la responsabilité des commettants du fait de leurs préposés peuvent s’appliquer en cas de fait dommageable causé par le robot tout comme la responsabilité pénale en cas d’infraction commise dans le cadre de l’utilisation du robot. Assurance La police d’assurance relative aux robots doit permettre de protéger le robot contre les risques auxquels ils sont confrontés mais également d’assurer la responsabilité pour les dommages qu’ils pourraient causer, on peut alors parler de « dommages robotiques ». Données et bases de données Les bases de données contenues dans un robot industriel et de service doivent respecter les droits dont dispose l’auteur sur la structure de la base de données et/ou les droits du producteur des bases de données dans lesquelles gurent les données utilisées. La réglementation Informatique et libertés est également applicable au robot lorsque celui-ci collecte et/ou traite des données personnelles. Droit de la robotique dans le monde Aucun Etat ne s’est à ce jour doté d’un régime juridique détaillé et spéci que à la robotique. Des dispositions juri- diques relatives aux robots peuvent tout de même se retrouver de façon éparse dans certains droits étrangers concer- nant notamment les drones et les véhicules terrestres autonomes. (shrink)

This article arises indirectly out of the development of a particular approach, called ATT-Meta, to the understanding of some types of metaphorical utterance. However, the specifics of the approach are not the focus of the present article, which concentrates on some general issues that have informed, or arisen from, the development of the approach. The article connects those issues to the questions of metaphorical meaning and truth. -/- A large part of the exploration of metaphor in fields such as Cognitive (...) Linguistics and natural language Pragmatics takes metaphor to rest on complex mappings between a target subject matter and a source subject matter (see, e.g., Lakoff 1993, 2008). This is one main way in which some aspects of the source, generally including some structural aspects, can have parallels in the target. It is typical for much, and perhaps the whole, of the meaning of a metaphorical expression to be explained by means of these parallels. We will talk about “parallelism” rather than “isomorphism,” or even “analogy,” because “isomorphism” implies a strict one-to-one correspondence between items in the source scenario and items in the target scenario, and analogy theorists often hold that analogy rests on isomorphism. We wish not to prejudge the question of whether looser, messier forms of parallelism are sometimes needed. Also, we will talk about parallels rather than mappings, because our discussion will embrace the question of parallelism that may be discernible, albeit implicitly, in accounts of metaphor that are not presented as being based on mappings. Three main cases of such accounts are Relevance Theory (RT: e.g., Sperber & Wilson 2008, Wilson & Carston 2006), the categorization-based or "class-inclusion“ approach (Glucksberg 2008), and Ritchie’s (2006) CLST account (Context-Limited Simulation Theory). -/- One main issue we will address is that of substantial non-parallelism that can exist between source and target subject-matters in metaphor: more precisely, the issue that there may be source aspects that are exploited by the utterance and have a deep effect on metaphorical interpretation but that do not themselves have a natural parallel in the target subject-matter (although we will point out that artificial parallels can generally be created). This is part of a broader point that the content of metaphorical discourse should often be seen as being derived in a rather holistic way from several metaphorical bits of the discourse, which conspire to describe some source-domain scenario, rather than being derived by putting together metaphorical meanings of each metaphorical bit (even if each bit could in principle be assigned its own separate metaphorical meaning). As a result, we suggest that it is misguided to think of the propositions making up the content (or, if you like, "meaning“) about the target scenario that is being described is a matter of metaphorical meaning of specific grammatical units such as sentences, clauses or other constituents that a traditional semantic theory would assign propositional meaning to. Rather, grammatical units (that are to be taken metaphorically) have meanings in source-domain terms; content in target-domain terms is derived from the source-domain scenario depicted by those units and fleshed out through inference; and the target-domain content is only (in general) fuzzily relatable to particular grammatical units. This view is on a spectrum at whose extreme point we could place Davidson’s (1984) view that metaphors only have literal (i.e., source-domain) meanings, with other effects on the understander not being a matter of propositional content. However, on our view it is proper to take metaphorical discourse as having non-literal meaning, couched as a collection of propositions, among other things possibly; it is just that the propositions are not to be thought of (in general) as meaning of specific sentences, clauses or other grammatical units rather than of a possibly only fuzzily delineated piece of discourse. -/- A second main concern of the article is the question of how much, and what types of, inference are involved in the derivation of metaphorical meaning. While our own ATT-Meta approach accords with, amongst other accounts, Relevance Theory (RT) as to the centrality of inference in metaphor interpretation, we disagree with RT on its claim that metaphor interpretation is a matter of (a relatively high degree of) concept "broadening“ and (often) "narrowing“. We argue that almost all inference can in fact be theoretically re-described as concept broadening and/or narrowing, and what is left over should be included in the metaphor interpretation process anyway. Thus, the RT claim about broadening and narrowing really just says that inference, of unrestricted type, is involved in metaphor understanding, in accord with what ATT-Meta claims. (shrink)

This paper examines the almost ineradicable misconception of Wittgenstein's alleged antagonism to science as evidenced through some characteristic disparaging comments by world-renowned scientists, notably by Anton Zeilinger. Above all, he criticizes Wittgenstein on the basis of the opening sentence of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, "The world is all that is the case", which he regards as expressing *"the naive world-view"*1 of a *"typical philosopher of classical physics"*. He proposes an extension in agreement with the findings of quantum theory, namely by the (...) clause *"… and all that can be the case"* (Zeilinger 2003, 231). -/- It will become apparent, however, that this amplification is redundant, that Wittgenstein was in tune with modern physics, that a surprising number of his philosophical concepts are in agreement with it, and that various quantum pundits consider them to be relevant. (shrink)

Reflective equilibrium (RE) is often regarded as a powerful method in ethics, logic, and even philosophy in general. Despite this popularity, characterizations of the method have been fairly vague and unspecific so far. It thus may be doubted whether RE is more than a jumble of appealing but ultimately sketchy ideas that cannot be spelled out consistently. In this paper, we dispel such doubts by devising a formal model of RE. The model contains as components the agent’s commitments and a (...) theory that tries to systematize the commitments. It yields a precise picture of how the commitments and the theory are adjusted to each other. The model differentiates between equilibrium as a target state and the dynamic equilibration process. First solutions to the model, obtained by computer simulation, show that the method allows for consistent specification and that the model’s implications are plausible in view of expectations on RE. In particular, the mutual adjustment of commitments and theory can improve one’s commitments, as proponents of RE have suggested. We argue that our model is fruitful not only because it points to issues that need to be dealt with for a better understanding of RE, but also because it provides the means to address these issues. (shrink)

In den vergangenen Jahren hat die Europäische Union (EU) wiederholt versucht, ihre Institutionen zu reformieren. Als der Entwurf für eine Europäische Verfassung und später der Vertrag von Lissabon ausgehandelt wurden, betraf einer der meistdiskutiertesten Streitpunkte die Frage, nach welcher Entscheidungsregel der EU-Ministerrat abstimmen sollte. Diese Frage ist eine genuin normative Frage. Deshalb sollten auch politische Philosophen und Ethiker etwas zu dieser Frage beitragen können. Im folgenden wollen wir uns dieser Herausforderung stellen und alternative Entscheidungsregeln für den EU-Ministerrat bewerten. Dabei erweisen (...) sich die Methoden der probablistische Modellierung und der Simulation sozialer Prozesse als unerlässlich.1 Damit wird deutlich, wie Simulationen auch innerhalb der angewandten politischen Philosophie als Methode eingesetzt werden können. (shrink)

This essay argues that what is provoking about Ibn Rushd today is not his stance on such topics as the eternity of the world, God's knowledge of singular things, or the immortality of the soul. It is rather his radical philosophical elitisim, i.e., his view that every religion has room for philosophy, but only for the few - the majority must simply follow holy writ and leave all questioning and allegorical interpretation to those few individuals who possess sufficient training in (...) apodictic thinking. I start out with chapters on Salman Rushdie and his view of Ibn Rushd in the novel Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights and the reception of Ibn Rushd in the Latin scholastic tradition. I then switch to Ibn Rushd’s biography and the context of his work in Almohad Andalusia. I provide an overview of the development of Islamic philosophy up until Ibn Rushd. I then, in five chapters, offer a detailed reading of his fatwa in defense of philosophy (called the Decisive Treatise). I conclude with some general remarks on the relationship between metaphysics and politics in Ibn Rushd’s works, drawing parallels to other thinkers both in the Islamic and in the Western tradition. The book ends with a selection of Danish-language translations of texts by Ibn Rushd that were translated into Latin during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (his Letter to a friend concerning God’s knowledge of singular things, the last chapter of the Incoherence of the Incoherence, and commenta 5 and 36 from the Commentary on De anima III). (shrink)

This article is not an attempt to explain consciousness in terms basically of quantum physics or neuro-biology. Instead I should like to place the term "Consciousness" on a broader footing. I shall therefore proceed from everyday reality, precisely where we experience ourselves as conscious beings. I shall use the term in such a general way as to resolve the question whether only a human being enjoys consciousness, or even a thermostat. Whilst the difference is considerable, it is not fundamental. Every (...) effect exists in the perception of a consciousness. I elaborate on its freedom of choice, in my view the most important source of creativity, in a similarly general way. The problems associated with a really conscious decision do not disappear by mixing determination with a touch of coincidence. Both must enter into a higher unity. In so doing it will emerge that a certain degree of freedom of choice is just as omnipresent as consciousness - an inherent part of reality itself. (shrink)

What George Spencer-Brown wants to rationalize out of existence is alternation itself – the prerequisite of his whole operation. By that he simplifies (identifies) more than he says. And he does not say all that is important.

Everything is in motion. "Inertness" arises from (approximative) repetition, that is, through rotation or an alternation that delineates a focus of consciousness. This focus of consciousness, in turn, must also move/alternate (the two differ only in continuity). If its alternation seems to go too far - physically, psychically or intellectually - it reaches into the subconscious. In this way, interconnection is established by the alternation of the focus of consciousness. Therefore, in a world in which everything is interconnected, all focuses (...) must reciprocally transition into each other. "Reality" is a common "goal", a focus which all participants can switch into and which is conscious to them as such, as a potential one. Its "degree of reality" is the probability of its fully becoming conscious (or more simply: its current degree of consciousness). Thus, a reality is created when all participants increase its probability or, respectively, their consciousness of it. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to re-assess reflective equilibrium (“RE”). We ask whether there is a conception of RE that can be defended against the various objections that have been raised against RE in the literature. To answer this question, we provide a systematic overview of the main objections, and for each objection, we investigate why it looks plausible, on what standard or expectation it is based, how it can be answered and which features RE must have to meet (...) the objection. We find that there is a conception of RE that promises to withstand all objections. However, this conception has some features that may be unexpected: it aims at a justification that is tailored to understanding and it is neither tied to intuitions nor does it imply coherentism. We conclude by pointing out a cluster of questions we think RE theorists should pay more attention to. (shrink)

What is the status of a cat in a virtual reality environment? Is it a real object? Or part of a fiction? Virtual realism, as defended by D. J. Chalmers, takes it to be a virtual object that really exists, that has properties and is involved in real events. His preferred specification of virtual realism identifies the cat with a digital object. The project of this paper is to use a comparison between virtual reality environments and scientific computer simulations to (...) critically engage with Chalmers’s position. I first argue that, if it is sound, his virtual realism should also be applied to objects that figure in scientific computer simulations, e.g. to simulated galaxies. This leads to a slippery slope because it implies an unreasonable proliferation of digital objects. A philosophical analysis of scientific computer simulations suggests an alternative picture: The cat and the galaxies are parts of fictional models for which the computer provides model descriptions. This result motivates a deeper analysis of the way in which Chalmers builds up his realism. I argue that he buys realism too cheap. For instance, he does not really specify what virtual objects are supposed to be. As a result, rhetoric aside, his virtual realism isn’t far from a sort of fictionalism. (shrink)

The Formalist tradition in late-scholastic philosophy has gone unnoticed in standard historiography. This article’s overall objective is to add the Formalist tradition to what we know about Renaissance philosophy. I first show how the Formalist tradition was born out of some innovative considerations of hierarchies of distinctions in the wake of the Franciscan John Duns Scotus’s teaching on the formal distinction in the beginning of the fourteenth century (especially Francis of Meyronnes’s model of four distinctions and Petrus Thomae’s more elaborate (...) doctrine of seven kinds of distinctions). I then trace how Formalist literature developed from being an exclusively Franciscan affair to becoming a much more widespread phenomenon. Thus, from the decades up to 1500 and onwards, authors from various late-scholastic schools (Thomism, Lullism, Averroism, and others) produced Formalist literature, i.e., treatises on multiple kinds of distinctions. I highlight particularly how one Franciscan philosopher of the sixteenth century, Jean Du Douet, proposed to view the Formalist preoccupation with distinctions as a discipline in its own right, a proper scientia formalitatum. I finally argue that while this proposal met with dismissive reactions, Du Douet’s idea does in fact reflect the role Formalism played in the scholastic curriculum in the late sixteenth century, at least in Franciscan milieus. (shrink)

The uniqueness of each standpoint, each point of effect, can only be "overcome" by the standpoint changing to other standpoints and returning. In such alternation, which can also appear as constant change, lies the unity of the world. The wholeness of an alternation, however, is a structure of consciousness due to the special relationship between the circumscribing periphery and the infinitesimal center. This process structure unites determinacy and indeterminacy also totally in every place. Therefore, everywhere we are dealing with forms (...) of consciousness with more or less freedom of choice and an increasingly unknown depth. We live in a world of choosing consciousness, or rather awareness. In this respect, our environment expresses a deep truth about ourselves. (shrink)

Over the last decades, network-based approaches have become highly popular in diverse fields of biology, including neuroscience, ecology, molecular biology and genetics. While these approaches continue to grow very rapidly, some of their conceptual and methodological aspects still require a programmatic foundation. This challenge particularly concerns the question of whether a generalized account of explanatory, organisational and descriptive levels of networks can be applied universally across biological sciences. To this end, this highly interdisciplinary theme issue focuses on the definition, motivation (...) and application of key concepts in biological network science, such as explanatory power of distinctively network explanations, network levels, and network hierarchies. (shrink)

This chapter uncovers a less investigated aspect of the relationship between the two most important scholastic schools of the Renaissance, Thomism and Scotism: the influence of Scotist literature on distinctions as seen in some sixteenth-century Thomists. The chapter has a primary focus on Chrysostomus Javelli’s engagement in his discussion of divine attributes with the Scotist doctrine of distinctions, but also considers other Thomist sources. First, the beginnings of the highly specialised Scotist literature on distinctions are traced back to the start (...) of the fourteenth century; I show how some early followers of Duns Scotus, in particular Francis of Meyronnes and Petrus Thomae, systematised Scotus’ ontology of the various grades of being by compiling lists of subtle distinctions to be applied to various levels of reality. I give some indications as to the later reception of these models of distinctions in the Scotist school. Special attention is paid to Étienne Brulefer, since his summary of Petrus Thomae’s model of seven distinctions was Javelli’s source for the Scotist doctrine. I then investigate how Javelli worked with Brulefer’s summary, and how he sought to integrate the Scotist doctrine into his own discussion of divine attributes. Thomists traditionally allowed only a rational or mental kind of distinction among divine attributes, and between them and the divine essence. Javelli, however, endeavours to show how the Thomist position may be reconciled with the Scotist doctrine of a formal or ex natura rei distinction. He did not always endorse this conciliatory approach; I hypothesise that he changed his mind on the subject over time. Finally, I show how other Renaissance Thomists reacted to the Scotist system of distinctions; in particular, I draw attention to the Thomists Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Bartolomeo Manzoli, and Mattia Gibboni da Aquario, who all wrote treatises on Thomist distinction theory modelled on the Scotist system of distinctions. In some of this literature, lists of distinctions based on Thomist metaphysics were compiled in order to replace the Scotist system. I argue that Javelli’s approach is more conciliatory and, in fact, has some overlap with the concordist thought of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who himself considered Scotus and Aquinas to be in fundamental agreement as regards the distinction between divine attributes. (shrink)

The mean majority deficit in a two-tier voting system is a function of the partition of the population. We derive a new square-root rule: For odd-numbered population sizes and equipopulous units the mean majority deficit is maximal when the member size of the units in the partition is close to the square root of the population size. Furthermore, within the partitions into roughly equipopulous units, partitions with small even numbers of units or small even-sized units yield high mean majority deficits. (...) We discuss the implications for the winner-takes-all system in the US Electoral College. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Philosophical Context in Jena around 1800 A Metaphysics of Freedom Analytic and Synthetic Philosophy Metaphysics of Humanity Socioeconomic Philosophy The Natural World Harmonious Freedom Krause's Philosophy in Spain Ideal de la humanidad (the ideal of humanity) Latin American Reception Conclusion References Further Reading.

This paper details the content and structure of the folk concept of life, and discusses its relevance for scientific research on life. In four empirical studies, we investigate which features of life are considered salient, universal, central, and necessary. Functionings, such as nutrition and reproduction, but not material composition, turn out to be salient features commonly associated with living beings (Study 1). By contrast, being made of cells is considered a universal feature of living species (Study 2), a central aspect (...) of life (Study 3), and our best candidate for being necessary for life (Study 4). These results are best explained by the hypothesis that people take life to be a natural kind subject to scientific scrutiny. (shrink)

Abstract The first part argues that being an image is an (at least) four part relation between the image itself (x2), properties of recipients (B), the object (x3), and properties of the object (M). Referring to Grice, Schiffer, and Meggle, a distinction is made between communicativity and non-communicativity (manipulativity) of x2 regarding to B, x3, and M. The second part substitutes sign and image by explicates that denote properties relevant for x2 being an image regarding to B, x3, and M, (...) making thus clear why images are signs. Intentional relations and causal relations are the basis of this explication (influenced by Posner) that is also meant to give an idea of those properties that are typical of pieces of fine arts and of some other cultural practices. Additionally, it helps in understanding the difference between typical images and more abstract symbols. -/- Im ersten Abschnitt werden Gründe dafür genannt, Bildsein als mindestens vierstellige Beziehung aufzufassen: als Beziehung zwischen dem Bild (x2), Rezipienteneigenschaften (B), dem Bildgegenstand (x3) und Eigenschaften (M) des Bildgegenstandes. Dabei wird – anknüpfend an Grice, Schiffer und Meggle – zwischen Kommunikativität und NichtKommunikativität (Manipulativität) von x2 bzgl. B, x3 und M unterschieden. Im zweiten Abschnitt wird die Rede von ›Zeichen‹ und von ›Bildsein‹ ersetzt durch Explikate, die Eigenschaften bezeichnen, welche relevant dafür sind, dass x2 ein Bild bzgl. B, x3 und M ist – derart, dass deutlich wird, inwiefern Bilder Zeichen sind. Basis dieser – von Posner angeregten – Explikationen sind intentionale Beziehungen und Bewirken. Aus den Begriffspräzisierungen ergeben sich Einsichten sowohl in Bezug auf Eigenschaften, die typisch für Werke Bildender Kunst und einige andere kulturelle Praktiken sind, als auch in Bezug auf eine Abgrenzung zentraler Vertreter der Kategorie ›Bild‹ von eher nur bildhaften Symbolen. (shrink)

There are striking parallels between current capability theories and the moral philosophy of Karl Christian Friedrich Krause. This article reconstructs central arguments of Krause’s ethics and correlates them with passages from the works of Martha Nussbaum, showing that such similarities extend not only to what, substantially, is being professed in either philosophy but also, procedurally, to the question of how the respective moral conclusions are reached. As Krause correlates responsibility with capability, the article begins with an examination of Krause’s idea (...) of human — as compared to animal — freedom and their respective normative implications. Next, the argument is extended to the social responsibilities of personal freedom, before widening the scope to the cosmopolitan plane. The paper then briefly examines historical links between Krause and current capability theorists, before concluding. (shrink)

This article is an account of an electronic discussion which took place between November 1995 and June 1996. A number of specialists in relevant research areas had been invited to take part in the discussion from the very beginning, and some were added later. Altogether 30 individuals subscribed to the list. The “target paper,” written by Allen Renear, was sent to the list on November 27, 1995. The target paper alone comprised 8,500 words. The ensuing discussion, to which 9 of (...) the members on the list made one or more individual contributions, comprises 30 entries of altogether 37,000 words. It is the function of this printed article to provide a brief summary and a key to the full electronic discussion which accompanies it. (shrink)

2024 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of Theodor Smising’s giant volume De Deo Uno (printed in Antwerp in 1624), which was soon followed by a second volume, De Deo Trino (printed in Antwerp in 1626). Smising’s work was the first printed output of what developed into a specific tradition within early modern thought, the Louvain tradition of Scotism, itself but one part of the broad Scotist tradition that build upon the thought of John Duns Scotus (ca. 1266–1308). This (...) Louvain tradition was primarily based in the Franciscan Convent of the Holy Trinity in the famous university town. The convent itself was much older, dating back to around 1230, when the Franciscan Order was in its very beginnings and long before the University of Louvain was founded (in 1425). In 1607 a second Franciscan Convent was founded in Louvain, St. Anthony’s College, one of a series of convents established by the Irish Franciscans as a result of their persecution in their homeland by the English Protestant rulers. The Irish Franciscans in Louvain, and in their other convents on the European continent, also cultivated the intellectual heritage of Duns Scotus, editing and commenting on his works and writing new works “ad mentem Scoti.” Both of the Franciscan convents in Louvain were closed in the turmoil after the French Revolution. The buildings of St. Anthony’s College still exist, whereas the older “Minderbroedersklooster” (on our exhibition poster) completely vanished from the cityscape. In recent decades, the Maurits Sabbe Library has acquired a large fund of Franciscan books, mostly from various houses of the Franciscan Order in Belgium that have closed their doors. Our exhibition “Scotism Made in Louvain – The Scholastic Culture of the Franciscans in Belgium” explores this material, complemented by material from the KU Leuven Central Library’s Special Collections and two manuscripts from the archives of KADOC (Documentatie- en Onderzoekscentrum voor Religie, Cultuur en Samenleving). The exhibition tells the story of a significant local scholarly tradition which is placed in the context of the broader Scotist tradition of the Early Modern Period. Whereas Scholasticism as such is often seen as an exclusively medieval phenomenon, our exhibition highlights one important aspect of early modern scholastic culture. The three brief articles included in this catalogue provide an introduction to John Duns Scotus’s thought, investigate the institutional background of Louvain Scotism, and explore some of the most important aspects of the scholastic output of the Franciscans in Louvain. The numbers attached to the images refer to the annotated list of all exhibits. A virtual exhibition with additional photo material will accompany, and last beyond, the library exhibition. (shrink)

Bartolomeo Mastri’s Disputations on Metaphysics is the single most important work on metaphysics produced in the Scotist school during the Early Modern period. This contribution guides through the work by highlighting a selection of key passages that convey an impression of its historical-literary context, its subject matter, its main motifs and scientific aims, but also its limitations. Especially, we see Mastri emphasizing the theological aspect of theology, though he in the end refrains from exploring this aspect of metaphysics within his (...) work on metaphysics. I suggest that this discrepancy between Mastri’s concept of metaphysics and his work on metaphysics showcases the difficulty of organizing this discipline during the phase of transition from the traditional commentary format typical of medieval scholasticism to the Early Modern scholastic Cursus philosophicus literature. (shrink)

In this exploration of self-identity, I argue that the self is not a standalone entity but an integral part of a broader consciousness. Deep meditation reveals the self as a construct beyond egoistic confines, interlinked with the external world and others' experiences. Decisions arise from an awareness that transcends individual ego, suggesting that our sense of self is an inexhaustible center of dynamic consciousness rather than an ultimate emptiness.

Can we trace back consciousness, reality, awareness, and free will to a single basic structure without giving up any of them? Can the universe exist in both real and individual ways without being composed of both? This dialogue founds consciousness and freedom of choice on the basis of a new reality concept that also includes the infinite as far as we understand it. Just the simplest distinction contains consciousness. It is not static, but a constant alternation of perspectives. From its (...) entirety and movement, however, there arises a freedom of choice being more than reinterpreted necessity and unpredictability. Although decisions ultimately involve the whole universe, they are also free in varying degrees here and now. The unity and openness of the infinite enables the individual to be creative while this creativity directly and indirectly enters into all other individuals without impeding them. A contrary impression originates only in a narrowed awareness. But even the most conscious and free awareness can neither anticipate all decisions nor extinguish individuality. Their creativity is secured. (shrink)

The main argument in this book is the undeniable openness of every system to the unknown. And the fundamental question goes: What does this openness produce? We are a part of the infinite universe and an incorporation of its wholeness. Both for us means an individualized reality, through which the universe expresses itself and on the other hand through which it is built up with. It also means our necessity, importance and indestructibility for the sum of its incorporations. Most connections (...) among ourselves are hardly conscious for us. Meanwhile the infinitesimality structure of all consciousness guarantees not only the logical lack of inconsistency of these connections but also the freedom of choice of every individual. Our goal by no means can be to decide completely consciously. Responsibility contains spontaneity or rather trust in a meaningful working together of the forces. We increasingly become aware of our role in the entire relationship and we learn to contribute optimally to the value fulfillment of all individuals, ourselves included. Beyond the supposed differences between objective and subjective reality, we at some point of awareness comprehend that we create our reality out of our innermost depths. (shrink)

Biosemiotics is a growing fi eld that investigates semiotic processes in the living realm in an attempt to combine the fi ndings of the biological sciences and semiotics. Semiotic processes are more or less what biologists have typically referred to as “ signals, ” “ codes, ”and “ information processing ”in biosystems, but these processes are here understood under the more general notion of semiosis, that is, the production, action, and interpretation of signs. Thus, biosemiotics can be seen as biology (...) interpreted as a study of living sign systems — which also means that semiosis or sign process can be seen as the very nature of life itself. In other words, biosemiotics is a field of research investigating semiotic processes (meaning, signification, communication, and habit formation in living systems) and the physicochemical preconditions for sign action and interpretation. -/- (...). (shrink)

Das Hauptargument dieses Buches ist die unleugbare Offenheit jedes Systems zum Unbekannten hin. Und die Grundfrage lautet: Was ergibt sich aus dieser Offenheit? Wir sind ein Teil des unendlichen Universums und eine Verkörperung seiner Ganzheit. Beides bedeutet für uns eine individualisierte Wirklichkeit, durch die sich das Universum ausdrückt und durch die es andererseits mit gebildet wird. Es bedeutet ebenfalls unsere Notwendigkeit, Wichtigkeit und Unzerstörbarkeit für die Gesamtheit seiner Verkörperungen. Die meisten Verbindungen untereinander sind uns kaum bewusst. Indessen gewährleistet die Infinitesimalstruktur (...) allen Bewusstseins nicht nur die logische Widerspruchsfreiheit dieser Verbindungen, sondern auch die unaufhebbare Wahlfreiheit jedes einzelnen Individuums. Unser Ziel kann jedoch keineswegs darin liegen, vollkommen bewusst zu entscheiden. Verantwortung schließt Spontanität beziehungsweise das Vertrauen auf ein sinnvolles Zusammenwirken der Kräfte ein. Wir werden unserer Rolle im Gesamtzusammenhang zunehmend gewahr und lernen, einen optimalen Beitrag zur Werterfüllung aller Individuen, einschließlich uns selbst, zu leisten. Jenseits der vermeintlichen Unterschiede zwischen objektiver und subjektiver Wirklichkeit begreifen wir, dass wir unsere Realität aus unserem tiefsten Innern heraus erschaffen. (shrink)

Statements such as “X is beautiful but I don’t like how it looks” or “I like how X looks but it is not beautiful” sound contradictory. How contradictory they sound might however depend on the object X and on the aesthetic adjective being used (“beautiful”, “elegant”, “dynamic”, etc.). In our study, the first sentence was estimated to be more contradictory than the latter: If we describe something as beautiful, we often intend to evaluate its appearance, whereas it is less counterintuitive (...) to appreciate an appearance without finding it beautiful. Furthermore, statements including “beautiful” appeared more contradictory than those including “elegant” and “dynamic”, pointing to its greater evaluative component. When related to artworks, sentences could appear less contradictory due to readers’ consideration of the divergence between conventional beauty and art-related sensory pleasures that can even include negative valence. Such ambivalence might be more frequent in art-objects than in other artefacts. Indeed, in our study, sentences referring to artworks were estimated to be less contradictory compared to sentences referring to other artefacts. Meanwhile, an additional small group of graphic design students showed a less clear difference between art-related and non-art-related sentences. We discuss the potential influence of art experience and interest as well as theoretical and methodological challenges like the conceptualization of beauty. (shrink)

Terms loaded with informational connotations are often employed to refer to genes and their dynamics. Indeed, genes are usually perceived by biologists as basically ‘the carriers of hereditary information.’ Nevertheless, a number of researchers consider such talk as inadequate and ‘just metaphorical,’ thus expressing a skepticism about the use of the term ‘information’ and its derivatives in biology as a natural science. First, because the meaning of that term in biology is not as precise as it is, for instance, in (...) the mathematical theory of communication. Second, because it seems to refer to a purported semantic property of genes without theoretically clarifying if any genuinely intrinsic semantics is involved. Biosemiotics, a field that attempts to analyze biological systems as semiotic systems, makes it possible to advance in the understanding of the concept of information in biology. From the perspective of Peircean biosemiotics, we develop here an account of genes as signs, including a detailed analysis of two fundamental processes in the genetic information system (transcription and protein synthesis) that have not been made so far in this field of research. Furthermore, we propose here an account of information based on Peircean semiotics and apply it to our analysis of transcription and protein synthesis. (shrink)

This paper argues that "that"-clauses do not reference propositions because they are not intersubstitutible with other expressions that do reference propositions. In particular, "that"-clauses are shown to not be intersubstitutible with propositional anaphors like "so." The substitution failures are further argued to support a semantics on which "that"-clauses are predicates.