This article proposes a minimalist concept of autonomy that is consistent with determinism, but negates fatalism. Drawing on Nicolai Hartmann’s stratified ontology, it argues that autonomy is achieved not by suspending physical laws, but by introducing new, higher-level determinations unique to individual entities. The tension between general laws and individual autonomy is resolved by emphasizing the unique properties and individual laws that apply to each entity. The article also explains how this minimal autonomy makes sense of setting goals and attempting (...) to achieve them, demonstrating that even within a deterministic framework, individuals can have meaningful influence over their actions and outcomes. (shrink)

Many moral realists have employed a strategy for arguing for moral realism by claiming that if epistemic normativity is categorical and that if this epistemic normativity exists, then categorical normativity exists. In this paper, we will discuss that argument, examine a way out, and respond to the objections people have recently raised in the literature. In the end, we conclude that the objections to our way out will do little in the way of motivating those who already do not believe (...) in categorical normativity, thereby severing the power the aforementioned parity argument is designed to possess. (shrink)

For a long time, it was believed in Assyriology and related disciplines that šumma sentences, or grammatical conditionals, which appeared in cuneiform texts and tablets of astrology, exorcism, law, extispicy, oneiromancy, medicine, and divination, were linguistic expressions of logical conditionals. F. Rochberg (2010; 2016) extended this belief, suggesting that they are even material conditionals. Andrew Schumann (2017; 2020; 2021) followed this, claiming that, as a result, we can trace the origin of symbolic logic in cuneiform writings, through which it moved (...) to Greece. In this paper, after presenting this approach, I will challenge it by showing that šumma/IF sentences and similar constructs in cuneiform literature are arguments or implications that suffer from the same confusion between conditional and implication that Quine (1953/1966) highlighted when criticizing C.I. Lewis. (shrink)

The interview given by Gershon Trestman (born July 29, 1947, Minsk), a Russian-language Belarusian and Israeli poet, prose writer, publicist, and playwright. He is a member of the Union of Writers of Israel, the Commonwealth of Russian-Speaking Writers of Israel “Stolitsa,” and the International Federation of Russian Writers. His work has been recognized with the Yu. Stern and Yu. Nagibin awards, as well as a gold medal for “outstanding achievements in literature and the arts” from the California Academy of Sciences. (...) Selected works: The One Who Crossed the River (Tel Aviv, 1996); Golem, or Faust’s Curse (Moscow, 2007); A Small Country with a Great History (Israel, 2008, foreword by Avigdor Lieberman); The Great History of a Small Country (Israel, 2011); The Scroll of Esther (Jerusalem, 2013); The Land of Olive Guardians (Jerusalem, 2013); The Israeli Knot: The History of the Country – The History of Confrontation (Book-Sefer, 2014); The Land of Olive Guardians (Jerusalem, KKL-JNF, 2014); Job (Minsk, New Wineskins, 2014);... Where There Are No Coordinates. Poems and Epics (Jerusalem, 2017); The Book of Non-Being (Minsk, Logvinov, 2019); Alphabet for Elderly Children (Jerusalem, 2023). (shrink)