The passionate and staunch defence of logic of the controversial thinker Ibn Ḥazm, Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Saʿīd of Córdoba (384-456/994-1064), had lasting consequences in the Islamic world. Indeed, his book Facilitating the Understanding of the Rules of Logic and Introduction Thereto, with Common Expressions and Juristic Examples (Kitāb al-Taqrīb li-ḥadd al-manṭiq wa-l-mudkhal ilayhi bi-l-alfāẓ al-ʿāmmiyya wa-l-amthila al-fiqhiyya), composed in 1025-1029, was well known and discussed during and after his time; and it paved the way for the studies (...) of his compatriots Ibn Bājjah (d. 1138), Ibn Ṭufayl (1185), and Ibn Rushd (1198), who each gave demonstrative reasoning a privileged place within the methods of attaining knowledge. Unfortunately, as too often in the history of science, Ibn Ḥazm’s innovative perspectives and contributions in logic have been overlooked or considered with an attitude of contempt. On the one hand, his work has been seen, at best, as promulgating the benefits of studying Aristotle’s logic, so that his contribution is assessed as more didactical than conceptual. And on the other hand, those who do examine his innovations often consider them to be mistaken. As indicated by Chejne (1984, p. 2) contempt towards the logical work of Ibn Ḥazm was also present in its reception by the Eastern philosophers who accused him of deviating from Aristotelian logic and of dabbling in things beyond his capability. However, a reassessment of his work on logic has since begun, by delving into the ways the thinker of Córdoba studied the links between deontic and modal qualification of propositions. In this context Lameer’s (2013) paper on the logical sources of Ibn Ḥazm is worth mentioning; the author (p. 417, footnote 1) observes that, although, strictly speaking, it was al-Fārābī who first drew the parallelism between deontic and modal concepts, it was Ibn Ḥazm who developed it and worked it out in a more precise manner. A primary aim of this paper is to help fill some of these gaps by stressing the role of the work of Ibn Ḥazm in developing a notion of deontic necessity deeply rooted in legal normativity, and in explicitly discussing the transference between deontic and modal concepts. According to our view; the basic units of Islamic deontic logic are what we might call, indulging in terminological anachronism, heteronomous imperatives. As it turns out, the heteronomy of imperatives within Islamic legal systems contrasts with those of the purely moral realm, which seem to be closer to an autonomous conception of moral law. There it concurs again with Leibniz’s proposal to define obligatory as “what is necessary for a good person to do”. In the present paper, we will focus on the heteronomous imperatives of legal systems rather than on the imperatives of the purely moral realm. In this context, the work of Ibn Ḥazm extends the parallelism between the necessity of events and that of human actions stressed by his predecessors. According to our understanding, Ibn Ḥazm’s parallelism can be rendered explicit formally by means of a conditional (or hypothetical) structure shared by both deontic and modal propositions. Moreover, this structure makes apparent that this parallelism displays an underlying system of “degrees”. Indeed, while in the domain of events, given some conditions, it makes sense to distinguish between an event that is more likely to happen than another. Ibn Ḥazm speaks of near and distant possibility (such as the higher degree of likelihood of rain, given the condensation of clouds in December, and its lower degree, when the condensation occurs in summer); and, in the domain of actions, the Islamic notion of weighting actions determines degrees of virtue (or of legal and moral value). So whereas the degree of virtue of performing a forbidden act as determined by the distribution of sanction and reward is 0, we obtain the same value by pondering the likelihood of an impossible event to take place. Furthermore, as discussed in section II.3.2, the system of values at work in the parallelism can be seen as opening the way to a more direct correspondence. Thus, while in the realm of nature, likelihood of occurrence of an event is dependent upon the conditions specific to the occurrence of that event; while, in the realm of jurisprudence, likelihood of performing an action is dependent upon the distribution of reward and sanction specific to that action (being that, given the choice to perform or not perform a given action, those that will be rewarded are more likely to be performed than those that are not). According to this perspective, the point of the parallelism is that both deontic and modal qualifications measure the degree of an action or event to become actual; that is – indulging once more in anachronism (but this time from the Leibnizian background) – the degree measures how feasible (facile) an action or event may be. This suggests that Ibn Ḥazm’s perspectives already herald the links to probability and possibility explored by Leibniz six centuries later – see for example Leibniz’s (1671, A VI, I, p. 424-26) use of probability in the context of conditional right. Nevertheless, it also shows a crucial difference to the approach developed in the Elementa Jura Naturalis: whereas Leibniz’s studies seek to define what is to be just or virtuous, the logical system of deontic imperatives within Islamic jurisprudence presupposes that what is to be virtuous has already been settled. Determining what is to be virtuous is not achieved by logical reasoning within the system of legal jurisprudence, but by delving into the higher objectives of the Sharīʿa. While developing our point, we will delve into the logical structure of the heteronomous imperatives. This distinguishes our contribution from the existing literature, such as the papers of Chejne (1984), Lameer (2014), and Guerrero (1997, 2010, 2014), which do not provide a logical analysis of the deontic concepts put into work by Ibn Ḥazm. The true antecedent to the present paper is the work of Farid Zidani (2007, 2015), who, so far as we know, was the first to undertake such a task. Some of our own developments and general epistemological thoughts go beyond Ibn Ḥazm’s framework and motivations; mainly those contained in sections II.3.2 and IV. However, according to our view, these reflections suggest that Ibn Ḥazm’s approach has the substance for a broader and deeper exploration of the logic of norms. The paper is structured as follows:I.Ibn Ḥazm’s Logic of Heteronomous Imperatives. After presenting some extracts of the relevant text, we proceed by providing a formal reconstruction of the five forms of deontic modalities. II. A Landmark in the History of the Logical Analysis of Norms. Duties and Modalities. In this section, we study the transferences from deontic to modal necessity and possibility. We briefly compare the deontic system of Islamic Jurisprudence with that of Leibniz.III. Leibniz and Hypothetical Imperatives in Law.IV. Beyond Ibn Ḥazm: Conclusions and the Work Ahead. We will conclude the paper by discussing briefly some conceptual points that distinguish the logic of heteronomous imperatives from contemporary deontic logic. Our final words will discuss deontic-modal parallelism in the context of Ibn Ḥazm’s rejection of reasoning by conjecture and what we call “the internalization of nature.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.2 (2003) 168-172 [Access article in PDF] Logic and the Art of Memory: The Quest for a Universal Language. Paolo Rossi. Trans. Stephen Clucas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Pp. xxviii + 333. $32.00 cloth. Of the traditional five canons of rhetoric—inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and actio—the most circuitous and fascinating history belongs to memoria. From its propulsion of Homeric lore to its grounding of (...) rhetorical invention to its exile under print culture to its recent revival in public memory studies, the promiscuous and perplexing history of memory in the West may be one of the least appreciated, and perhaps least understood, elements of rhetorical and intellectual history. The publication in 1966 of Frances Yates's highly praised The Art of Memory drew the attention of contemporary scholars to the importance of mnemotechnics to the culture of late medieval and early modern Europe. 1 Yates persuasively argued that the art of memory is an integral element of European intellectual history, one that can enrich our understanding of everything from Dominican theology to Shakespearian theater. However, six years earlier, in 1960, the Italian intellectual historian Paolo Rossi published in Italian an important precursor to Yates's work entitled Clavis Universalis: Arti Della Memoria e Logica Combinatoria da Lullo a Leibniz. The book traces the encyclopaedic and mnemotechnical traditions from Aristotle through Cicero and Raymond Lull and into the early-modern period, arguing that the art of memory provides an important antecedent to the advent of method in seventeenth-century philosophy, especially in the works of Bacon, Descartes, and Leibniz. Yates, in her preface to The Art of Memory, acknowledges her debt to Rossi's work, and now this work has been made available in English translation. Stephen Clucas's translation, under the title Logic and the Art of Memory, will no doubt stimulate and supplement research into the mnemotechnical tradition in the English-speaking world, and perhaps lead us to reconsider the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric.Rossi argues that the neglect of the mnemotechnical tradition in its Ciceronian and Lullian strands has distorted our understanding of the "new" science and philosophy of the seventeenth-century, which is often interpreted as constituting, in a Kuhnian sense, a drastic paradigm shift from a [End Page 168] Renaissance worldview that still retained occult elements. Rossi places the work of Bacon, Descartes, and Leibniz within the historical strand of the logico-encyclopaedic and mnemotechnical traditions, suggesting that these figures culminate late medieval and early modern intellectual and cultural ambitions as much as they give rise to new ones. Rossi makes his argument by providing a history of mnemotechnics from Aristotle into the fifteenth century in chapter one; by examining the fascination with encyclopaedism, combinatoria, and memory in the sixteenth century in chapters two and three; by investigating the role of artificial memory in the works of key intellectual figures in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in chapters four through six; and by tracing the impulse toward universal knowledge and its connection to mnemotechnics among seventeenth-century Cartesians, Baconians, and in the work of Leibniz, in chapters seven and eight.Chapter one, after showing the pervasiveness of Renaissance mnemotechnical literature, surveys its classical and medieval antecedents in philosophy and rhetoric. Rossi argues that Aristotle's De memoria et reminiscentia, Cicero's De oratore, Quintilian's De institutione oratoria, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, and the works of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas were each important to the mnemotechnical tradition into the seventeenth century. Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century treatises on the ars memorativa and the ars predicandi, drawing on these classical and medieval theories, emphasize the importance of memory places (loci), images (imagines), and order or arrangement (dispositio) in mnemotechnics. Additionally, they intimately link the memory to the imagination, stressing the importance of exciting and stimulating the imagination in memorization. The Italian Pietro da Ravenna, for example, attributed the might of his memory to, in his own words, turning "the images of the most beautiful virgins into memory places" (22). Such imaginative mnemonic techniques were considered to... (shrink)

The history of contemporary modal logic dates back to the writings of C. S. Lewis in the early part of this century. Since then, a growing body of literature has attested to professional interest in the area, and in a number of related issues in philosophical logic which have received wide attention. The recent development of powerful formal techniques for modal system building, together with an increasing interest in modal logic as a tool for philosophical analysis, have created a (...) need for an up-to-date text to introduce students to this material. Snyder's book attempts to answer this need. Assuming an understanding of elementary propositional logic, Snyder introduces a reductive technique called cancellation for detecting the theorems of a system of logic. This technique, analogous to the construction of Smullyan trees but more compact, is extended to modal and quantified contexts. Cancellation versions of the systems M and Mn of G. H. von Wright, and S4 and S5 of Lewis are developed. Snyder uses a Hintikka type of semantics, showing how the various formal systems are differentiated at the semantic level by differing conditions which must be imposed on the model systems used as interpretations for them. These model systems, and the conditions imposed upon them, are in turn described by means of a metalanguage which is essentially first-order quantificational logic. The power of this technique stems from the fact that for every object language formula of a system, there is a corresponding formula in the metalanguage which describes the conditions an interpretation must meet in order to satisfy the original formula. The conditions that the interpretations of a given system of logic must meet are reflected in this metalanguage as "antecedent assumptions," and these in turn correspond to cancellation rules for the object language. This correspondence is constructed in such a way that the metalinguistic counterpart of each theorem of the system will be a theorem of first-order logic. Snyder's primary interest is in showing how modal logic can be used, with the help of these techniques, to build a large variety of formal systems and to "tailor" such systems to meet a variety of analytical tasks. Simple modal systems are developed for the articulation of a number of modal concepts, in addition to the classic alethic ones. Examples are taken from temporal, deontic, and epistemic logic to show how specific interpretations of the meanings of the relevant operators lead to the incorporation of appropriate conditions in the formal systems used to articulate them. An entire chapter is devoted to a discussion of the paradoxes of material and strict implication, and to an attempt to articulate the notion of entailment through the development of formal systems which include a dyadic modal operator that is free of these paradoxes. The final chapter discusses such classical issues as proper names, reference, fictional entities, definite descriptions, and existence presuppositions. Appendices deal with such matters as the equivalence of the cancellation systems to more classical axiomatic-deduction systems, and the sketch of a proof of soundness and completeness for all the modal systems presented. While designed as a text, this volume should be of interest to both logicians and those working in metaphysics and language analysis, since the primary concern of the author is to develop techniques that will facilitate the usefulness of modal logic as a tool for philosophical analysis. The instructor's manual contains many suggestions derived from the author's experience in teaching this non-standard treatment of the subject.--K. T. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the theory of historical explanation presented by Arthur Danto in his book, Analytical Philosophy of History (1965).Our thesis is that Danto is mistaken in his assertion that a phenomenon can be covered by a general law only insofar as we produce a description of it which contains no uneliminable particular designations of it. It is possible to cover such particular statements with general laws provided one can bridge the logical gap between the two types (...) of sentence with other statements which need not be redescriptions of the phenomenon but can be independently established premises for a deductive argument.We further show that some of the analogies which Danto attempts to make between deduction and narrative are mistaken because of errors in Danto's understanding of logical theory, specifically, Danto's notion that no predicate may appear in the conclusion of a deductive argument which is not antecedently contained in the premises and his claim that the same variable must be replaced by the same constants throughout an argument. (shrink)

We present a meta-analytic review on the processing of negations in conditional reasoning about affirmation problems (Modus Ponens: "MP", Affirmation of the Consequent "AC") and denial problems (Denial of the Antecedent "DA", and Modus Tollens "MT"). Findings correct previous generalisations about the phenomena. First, the effects of negation in the part of the conditional about which an inference is made, are not constrained to denial problems. These inferential-negation effects are also observed on AC. Second, there generally are reliable effects of (...) a negation in the clause referred to by the categorical premise, and these referred-negation effects are constrained to the logically fallacious AC and DA inferences. All findings are presented and discussed in relation to contemporary mental model (MM) and mental logic (ML) theories. It is argued that a double-negation elimination hypothesis provides a sufficient explanation of inferential-negation effects within both MM theory and ML theory, if the latter is extended by a validating search for counter examples. Both MM and ML theories adhere to a processing scheme that allows them to incorporate an account of referred-negation effects based on the thesis that counter-example frequency is modulated by the scope of a contrast class delineated by a false affirmative. We conclude that MM and ML theories provide adequate processing schemes to accommodate for the explanatory hypotheses, at least in principle. In practice, both approaches remain equivocal as regards the connectivity and interactivity with long-term memory knowledge invoked in generating, manipulating, and testing the mental representations of negative state of affairs. (shrink)

We present a meta-analytic review on the processing of negations in conditional reasoning about affirmation problems (Modus Ponens: “MP”, Affirmation of the Consequent “AC”) and denial problems (Denial of the Antecedent “DA”, and Modus Tollens “MT”). Findings correct previous generalisations about the phenomena. First, the effects of negation in the part of the conditional about which an inference is made, are not constrained to denial problems. These inferential-negation effects are also observed on AC. Second, there generally are reliable effects of (...) a negation in the clause referred to by the categorical premise, and these referred-negation effects are constrained to the logically fallacious AC and DA inferences. All findings are presented and discussed in relation to contemporary mental model (MM) and mental logic (ML) theories. It is argued that a double-negation elimination hypothesis provides a sufficient explanation of inferential-negation effects within both MM theory and ML theory, if the latter is extended by a validating search for counter examples. Both MM and ML theories adhere to a processing scheme that allows them to incorporate an account of referred-negation effects based on the thesis that counter-example frequency is modulated by the scope of a contrast class delineated by a false affirmative. We conclude that MM and ML theories provide adequate processing schemes to accommodate for the explanatory hypotheses, at least in principle. In practice, both approaches remain equivocal as regards the connectivity and interactivity with long-term memory knowledge invoked in generating, manipulating, and testing the mental representations of negative state of affairs. (shrink)

This volume presents the proceedings from the Eleventh Brazilian Logic Conference on Mathematical Logic held by the Brazilian Logic Society in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. The conference and the volume are dedicated to the memory of professor Mario Tourasse Teixeira, an educator and researcher who contributed to the formation of several generations of Brazilian logicians. Contributions were made from leading Brazilian logicians and their Latin-American and European colleagues. All papers were selected by a careful refereeing processs and were revised and updated (...) by their authors for publication in this volume. There are three sections: Advances in Logic, Advances in Theoretical Computer Science, and Advances in Philosophical Logic. Well-known specialists present original research on several aspects of model theory, proof theory, algebraic logic, category theory, connections between logic and computer science, and topics of philosophical logic of current interest. Topics interweave proof-theoretical, semantical, foundational, and philosophical aspects with algorithmic and algebraic views, offering lively high-level research results. (shrink)

The dispute between two of Princeton Theological Seminary's leading Barth scholars concerning theological ontology invites engagement from the contemporary Thomistic tradition. On the one hand, McCormack argues that, in a fully Barthian theological ontology, divine triunity is constituted by the pretemporal election of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, Hunsinger contends that this election is expressive of an antecedent trinity. In the light of scholastic disputes between Dominican and Franciscan theologians, McCormack's proposal is seen to resemble aspects of the (...) Bonaventurean account of triune relationality, particularly the account of procession as constitutive of personal distinction and the affirmation of a primordial ‘primity’ adhering to the Father's innascibility. Whilst McCormack seeks to avoid an undetermined originary plenitude, his treatment of the divine attributes as logically consequent to election risks attributing to pretemporality a status akin to originary primity. Affirming, with Hunsinger, an eternal trinity antecedent to election, the Thomistic tradition nonetheless contains the resources necessary to prevent this antecedence becoming a dissociative antecedence. As such, Thomism preserves divine aseity whilst equally safeguarding against the disconnection of logos asarkos from logos incarnandus that McCormack regards as an unwarranted metaphysical speculation that bypasses the particularity of revelation in Jesus Christ. (shrink)

Heeding the call for a deeper understanding of how cross-sector social partnerships can be managed across different contexts, this article integrates ideas from institutional theory with current debate on cross-boundary collaboration. Adopting the point of view of business actors interested in forming a CSSP to address complex social problems, we suggest that “appropriateness” needs shape business approaches toward partnering for social change, exerting an impact on the benefits that can be gained from it. A theoretical framework is proposed that identifies (...) and frames four CSSP styles, as resulting from combinations of dominant institutional orientations in a field and its general level of coherence. We show how, depending on prevailing institutional logics, intervention models underlying the CSSP have to emphasize either the business soundness of the initiative or its social value, together with a consistent leadership style. Moreover, while directive approaches based on concentrated governance structures aimed at setting the rules of the game are shown to prevail in fields characterized by low level of institutional coherence, participative models emerge in more established fields, with CSSP’s promoter playing an integrative role through distributed governance structures. The article concludes with a summary and implications of an institutional-based view of CSSPs. (shrink)

In John Dewey’s logical theory, qualities or qualitative relations account for the capacity to distinguish and associate the objects of reflective thought; they are antecedent to reflective analysis and necessary for coherent processes of inquiry. In Dewey’s writings that are specifically “metaphysical” in orientation, he is much more vague about the function of qualities, but does call them “generic traits of existence.” As such, they appear to be central to his mature ontological theory. In order to more fully understand (...) the metaphysical import of qualitative relations, I first examine the details of Dewey’s logical theory, and then generalize those details in accordance with Dewey’s larger theory of nature. The end result is a novel interpretation of Dewey’s metaphysics. (shrink)

When the author of Identity and Reality accepted Langevin's suggestion that Meyerson "identify the thought processes" of Einstein's relativity theory, he turned from his assured perspective as historian of the sciences to the risky bias of contemporary philosophical critic. But Emile Meyerson, the epis temologist as historian, could not find a more rigorous test of his conclusions from historical learning than the interpretation of Einstein's work, unless perhaps he were to turn from the classical revolution of Einstein's relativity to (...) the non-classical quantum theory. Meyerson captures our sympathy in all his writings: "... the role of the epistemologist is... in following the development of science" (250); the study of the evolution of reason leads us to see that "man does not experience himself reasoning... which is carried on unconsciously," and as the summation of his empirical studies of the works and practices of scientists, "reason... behaves in an altogether predict able way:... first by making the consequent equivalent to the antecedent, and then by actually denying all diversity in space" (202). If logic - and to Meyerson the epistemologist is logician - is to understand reason, then "logic proceeds a posteriori. " And so we are faced with an empirically based Par menides, and, as we shall see, with an ineliminable 'irrational' within science. Meyerson's story, written in 1924, is still exciting, 60 years later. (shrink)

Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence will be the twenty-first century logic development of the main power source, and in the twenty-first century will largely determine the face of logic. At least in the early twenty-first century, logic will focus on the following topics: how to deal with common sense reasoning in the logic of Eph coordination, non-monotonic and fault tolerance factors? how to make robots with human intelligence and creativity, as established from the empirical evidence used to guide future action (...) in the induction of judgments can be wrong? how the knowledge representation and knowledge reasoning, in particular, is based on the existing knowledge base and between the cognitive subject knowledge and the reasoning? how contextual factors, combined with a variety of natural language understanding and reasoning, so that intelligent robots to employing natural language for successful communication with people? . . . . And so on. (shrink)

This provocative but persuasive book is essentially a radical attack upon the Humean conception of causality and the presentation and defense of a counter-theory, closer to everyday experience and pre-Humean traditional views. As formulated by empiricist philosophers, the Humean approach depends on two basic postulates. The philosophical analysis of any non-empirical concept must be a formal explication; any residue elements have to be accounted for in terms of their psychological origins. The world as experienced can be conceived adequately as a (...) logically independent system of things or flux of events, without the unwarranted assumption that individuals persist diachronically. As the grounds for undermining these assumptions, the authors develop a conception of causes as "powerful particulars," i.e., things which have both a nature and powers. So long as the nature remains unchanged the agent in question will continue to behave in this fashion with a natural necessity, stemming from the individual’s nature and specific powers. The opening chapter discusses the problem of conceptual and natural necessity—as distinct from logical necessity which alone is allowed by the Humean empiricists. Natural necessity is the mark of the relationship between real causes and their respective effects, whereas conceptual necessity characterizes the way our statements about such are themselves related. Later the irreducibility of natural necessity is emphasized and its differences from logical entailment spelled out. Chapter two takes up the subject of the "regularity theory and its allies." Characteristic of such are two claims: the empirical content of a causal-relationship statement is exhausted by the actual or hypothetical regularity between independent entities, and the necessity ordinarily attributed to causal production is an illusion, to be accounted for in various ways. Subsequent chapters are devoted to assaulting the pillars of the Humean notion either directly or indirectly through an illuminating and attractive account of their own theory of nature, causal powers, and natural necessity. The final chapter, entitled "Fields of Potential," indulges in speculation about the nature of ultimate entities on the basis of an extended generalization of the notion of the powerful individual, and concludes with a brief account of the historical antecedents of Faraday’s modern field theory and the metaphysical implications of a generalized field theory.—A.B.W. (shrink)

Most foundationalists allow that relations of coherence among antecedently justified beliefs can enhance their overall level of justification or warrant. In light of this, some coherentists ask the following question: if coherence can elevate the epistemic status of a set of beliefs, what prevents it from generating warrant entirely on its own? Why do we need the foundationalist’s basic beliefs? I address that question here, drawing lessons from an instructive series of attempts to reconstruct within the probability calculus the classical (...) problem of independent witnesses who corroborate each other’s testimony. Starred section headings indicate sections omitted here, but available on the author’s USC website. (shrink)

The concept of the universe is used in physical cosmology differently from the usual meaning of the term, naively considered as the entire reality. Traditionally, thinking about the whole led to logical contradictions. Taking as reference the Kantian antecedent, different contemporary philosophical notions of the universe are analysed in the first part of this paper, including realist and constructivist approaches, as well as a notion of the universe as a physical object. In the second part, the specific notion (...) from the standard physical cosmology is discussed. Although modelling the universe as a physical system provides a specific way to define some global properties, the universe as a whole remains empirically inaccessible. Hence, the discussion about the under-determined global properties depends ultimately on philosophical preferences. Under these circumstances, it is argued that the realist interpretation of such properties becomes problematic because it leads to unstable conclusions. Finally, it is argued that the notion of the universe as conceived in standard cosmology is not necessarily consistent with an approach that considers it to be a physical object. (shrink)

Tense logic is a branch of contemporary logic which includes formal devices that allow us to deal with the temporal relations between propositions. The aim of our paper is threefold: 1) to reveal how Aristotelian philosophical ideas about time, truth, possibility and necessity were reinterpreted by the founder of contemporay tense logic Arthur Prior; 2) to discuss what novel solutions to the classical problem of future contingents are available using Priorean invention; 3) to describe how the tools of tense (...) logic have transcended their original theoretical purposes. (shrink)

Mitate is the name used to describe a typically Japanese visual trope, in which one object is meant to be seen as something else. While mitate is a defining element of Edo period haikai and ukiyo-e, a this kind of overlapping meanings can be found in much earlier sources. Its aesthetic effects are often smile, laughter, and parody, but mitate can also bestow a hidden depth to the commonplace and the contemporary through explicit and implicit connections to more noble (...) and remote cultural antecedents. In this paper I examine mitate and mitate-like configurations throughout the history of Japanese aesthetics, and conclude by asking whether mitate is indeed a uniquely Japanese phenomenon and by analysing whether and how it can be relevant to some philosophical discussions (Husserl's and Wittgenstein’s) concerned with the phenomenological and ontological status of images. (shrink)

Distributive justice is the paradigmatic philosophical position regarding matters of contemporary justice. Distributive justice often focuses on issues of resource allocation and/or welfare allocation. In this essay I argue that this paradigm has ‘the cart before the horse’ because issues of productive justice—logically and normatively—are of antecedent concern. The way in which people work, and the nature of the productive workplace, conditions the conceptual and concrete possibilities of obtaining distributive justice, thus productive justice is of antecedent concern for realizing (...) justice overall. Contra Rawls, it is productive justice which in the ‘first instance’ ought to provide ‘a conception of social justice’. But even if this claim is hasty, it remains the case that distributive justice theorists have not allowed productive justice into their considered judgments and thus are operating with something short of serious reflective equilibrium. Productive justice therefore deserves unprecedented analysis and philosophical consideration. (shrink)

The logical form of an inductive step figures as a deductive fallacy: concluding the antecedent from affirming a conditional and its consequent. In the sphere of practical rationality, however, where concerned with the presuppositions of action and the interactions between beliefs and desires, certain schemata have been proposed that express rational demands on agents who desire things to happen in the world. In this context, if agent A desires to φ and believes that ψ brings about φ, then, A (...) is rationally expected to desire to ψ. But it is equally rational to expect that A’s desire to φ presupposes her belief that a certain state of affairs obtains where φ is a possibility. It then follows that assuming a desire to φ and a belief that ψ brings about φ, we can derive an logical form that approximates that of the above inductive step: the beliefs that φ is possible and that ψ brings about φ entail the belief that ψ is possible. It remains an open question whether this conclusion adequately supports the rationality of the exact inductive schema. (shrink)

The logic of worldviews provides a consistent method of comparison between multiple worldviews. The present paper connects the logic of worldviews to important historical and contemporary influences. Beginning with its roots in semiotics, an account of epistemology emerges which is mediated by a belief system. We show that Charles Peirce’s pragmatistic theory of inquiry is the bedrock beneath the logic of worldviews. We formulate it as a generalized version of inquiry with underlying game-theoretic semantics. In this paper, we extend (...) Peirce’s triadic model of signs to cover knowledge mediated by systems of beliefs. Michael Polanyi’s account of personal commitment includes a subsidiary/focal distinction that views theoretical frameworks as tools for interpreting orders of reality through actual practices of research. We also see how a precedent is set by Johan Georg Hamann’s epistemology of belief, recovered by Ludwig Wittgenstein, using reason as an interpretation of God’s speech in nature. We argue that Thomas Kuhn’s theory of inquiry and worldviews (or paradigms) may be fruitfully contrasted with Peirce’s theory, with reasoning by abduction, deduction, and induction occurring within the community of inquirers. The upshot is that although worldviews may be adopted for non-rational reasons, one can meaningfully compare worldviews through a method proposed by Alasdair MacIntyre: the proponent of a theory learns the language of competing theories and uses them as a metatheory to show how one’s own theory may not have the resources to resolve certain problematic situations. Our result is a meta-linguistic falsification in the sense of Peirce’s semiotics and pragmaticism: the competing theory may be used to show that the object theory does not have a strategy at its disposal to interpret the anomalous phenomenon. (shrink)

Mathematics is everywhere and yet its objects are nowhere. There may be five apples on the table but the number five itself is not to be found in, on, beside or anywhere near the apples. So if not in space and time, where are numbers and other mathematical objects such as perfect circles and functions? And how do we humans discover facts about them, be it Pythagoras’ Theorem or Fermat’s Last Theorem? The metaphysical question of what numbers are and the (...) epistemological question of how we know about them are central to the philosophy of mathematics. These and related philosophical questions are of particular interest because of mathematics’ unusual status. Mathematics is exceptional in that, on the one hand, it appears unhesitatingly true—no one doubts that 2 + 3 = 5—but on the other, as just noted, it is not about the physical world. This ambivalent status is what gives the philosophy of mathematics its special interest. The philosophy of mathematics is also one of the oldest academic fields, more or less coeval with philosophy itself. But contemporary philosophy of mathematics is rather different from its pre-twentieth-century antecedents, largely for three reasons. The first is that since the seventeenth century, mathematics has become integral to science. Science has over the past few centuries become increasingly mathematical, and indeed the fundamental science of nature, physics, is today recognised as a branch of applied mathematics. The second is that mathematics underwent a transformation in the course of nineteenth century: having started the century as a rather traditional-looking science of quantity it emerged a hundred years later a radically transformed abstract theory of structure. The final factor in the transformation of the philosophy of mathematics is the rise of modern logic. Developed by Frege, Cantor and others in the late nineteenth century, modern logic pervades contemporary mathematics, philosophy and computer science, and has had an immeasurable effect on the philosophy of mathematics. These volumes will collect the major works in this major field, with a focus on the last few decades. The anthology will include technical work, which interprets philosophically significant mathematical results or subfields of mathematics, as well as purely philosophical writing, aimed at those without advanced mathematics. The collection should be of interest to both philosophers and mathematicians, as well as to anyone who is susceptible to wondering what the main intellectual tool used in science, economics and finance, and indeed everyday life is ultimately about. (shrink)

From Parmenides to the present, philosophers have been attracted by characterizations of being as being uttered or utterable, formulated or formulable. But what for Parmenides was presumably a valid co-entailment between antecedently understood concepts reappears in contemporary thought as a proffered explication of what it is to be. Without presuming to discredit Parmenidean views in general, my purpose here is to examine certain members of a modern family of theories of existence that fall into place around Quine’s. Depending on (...) the methodology of explication espoused, the theories in this family are either semantic commentaries on ideal languages, or they are themselves interpreted formalized languages. The former may be called, after Quine, theories of ontological commitment. The theories of the latter sort I wish to consider are called, after Karel Lambert, free logics, i.e., logic systems the singular terms of which are free of existential import. My conclusion about theories of both kinds is that, while unexceptionable on their own terms, from a broader point of view they beg the question of what it is to be. In arguing that these theories thus fail to clarify the concept of existence, I believe I am not so much propounding a new insight as articulating an objection many thinkers have felt in the face of views akin to Quine’s. (shrink)

Marx said that a science attains perfection when it is successful in employing mathematics.

This interesting and imaginative monograph is based on the author’s PhD dissertation supervised by Saul Kripke. It is dedicated to Timothy Smiley, whose interpretation of PRIOR ANALYTICS informs its approach. As suggested by its title, this short work demonstrates conclusively that Aristotle’s syllogistic is a suitable vehicle for fruitful discussion of contemporary issues in logical theory. Aristotle’s syllogistic is represented by Corcoran’s 1972 reconstruction. The review studies Lear’s treatment of Aristotle’s logic, his appreciation of the Corcoran-Smiley paradigm, and (...) his understanding of modern logical theory. In the process Corcoran and Scanlan present new, previously unpublished results. Corcoran regards this review as an important contribution to contemporary study of PRIOR ANALYTICS: both the book and the review deserve to be better known. (shrink)

In this paper I consider Hegel’s idea of logic in different passages of his work (in the Introduction to the Science of Logic, in the Vorbegriff of the Encyclopaedia Logic, in the Lectures on the History of Philosophy), and I compare it with some contemporary conceptions of logic. In my view, such a comparison is relevant in at least two senses. First, it makes possible to address the controversial question: «what kind of logic is Hegel’s logic?». Second, it allows (...) to locate Hegel’s view within contemporary debates, assessing its actuality. In this perspective, Hegel’s reflections reveal to be crucial in order to deal with some questions at the very core of contemporary debates in the philosophy of logic. (shrink)

The present volume stems from a book-proposal made about two years ago to College Publications, London. The main idea was that of illustrating the interplay between the contemporary work in logic and the mainstream mathematics. The division of the volume in two sections - topics in 'logic' vs topics in 'computing' - is more or less conventional. Some contributions are focussed on historical and technical details meant to put in perspective the impact of the work of some outstanding mathematicians (...) and philosophers on the contemporary research in logic and computing science. Some other papers, also with a historical flavour, were supposed to evidentiate punctual methods of research and specific concepts or topics, as, e.g., decidability, computability, randomness, and computational or descriptive complexity. In general, the papers were intended as specific surveys of results. Other volumes - to be issued subsequently in the same series - will hopefully delineate aspects of the contemporary logic landscape that have not been illustrated here. The intended audience of the book includes graduate students in mathematical logic, foundations of matematics, and computing science, as well as philosophers, mathematicians, and, possibly, other scientists interested in the recent research on logic and computing. (shrink)

The theory of transference and the centrality of transference interpretation have been hallmarks of psychoanalysis since its inception. But the time has come to subject traditional theory and practice to careful, critical scrutiny in the light of contemporary science. So holds Joseph Schachter, whose _Transference: Shibboleth or Albatross?_ undertakes this timely and thought-provoking task. After identifying the weaknesses and inconsistencies in Freud's original premises about transference, Schachter demonstrates how contemporary developmental research across a variety of domains effectively overturns (...) any theory that posits a linear deterministic relationship between early childhood and adult psychic functioning, including the adult patient's treatment behavior toward the analyst. No less trenchantly, he shows how contemporary chaos theory complements developmental research by making the very endeavor of historical reconstruction - of backward prediction - suspect on logical grounds. Nor, Schacter continues, does the clinical evidence normally adduced in support of transference theory provide the firm bedrock of data that most analysts suppose to exist. What one finds, he holds, are endlessly reiterated claims of identifying determining historical antecedents sustained only by descriptions of current behaviors through a gloss of theory. Less a polemic than a call to order, _Transference: Shibboleth or Albatross?_ is cogently argued and straightforwardly written. It is destined to be a thorn in the side of analysts who resist change and a spur to those who seek to bring analytic theory into closer alignment with contemporary science in the interest of improves treatment efficacy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Renaissance Project of Knowing:Lorenzo Valla and Salvatore Camporeale’s Contributions to the Querelle Between Rhetoric and PhilosophyMelissa Meriam BullardThe Journal of the History of Ideas has published two symposia devoted to examinations of Lorenzo Valla's place in Renaissance intellectual history, both of which sought to situate Valla in his appropriate contemporary context and to assess his contributions to developing tools of rhetorical analysis and textual criticism in the (...) fifteenth century. In the first JHI debate published in 1989, Salvatore Camporeale's foundational reexamination of Valla's views on language, rhetoric, and theology was frequently cited; and his assessment served as a fulcrum in the disparate interpretations offered by John Monfasani and by Richard Waswo and Sarah Gravelle.1 In the second forum published in 1996, Camporeale was invited to contribute an essay on Valla's famous critique of the false Donation of Constantine; therein the Roman humanist had appealed for Christian renewal inspired by an early Christianity, unburdened by medieval ontological discourse, and seeking to subvert the imperial (Constantinian) model of the church that had dominated since the fourth century.2More than half a century later in the early sixteenth century, reform-minded intellectuals such as Erasmus, More, Luther, and Melanchthon picked up Valla's pleas and used his insights and textual criticism to buttress their own calls for ecclesiastical reform, challenging the claims to authority of the [End Page 477] Roman church. But despite the popularity among the reformers of Valla's two most noted and provocative texts, his rhetorical and philological refutation of the Donation of Constantine and his annotations for a new translation of the New Testament from Greek, his legacy gradually faded from prominence after the sixteenth century. By then when the Protestants' split from Rome had become an accepted reality, and their battle to achieve a place in a divided Christian world won, the reformers' use of Valla's arguments no longer seemed so controversial. For its part, Catholic discourse in the Tridentine era had reverted to reassertions of papal hierarchy along the Constantinian model. Valla's other contributions to understanding rhetorical hermeneutics and philosophy gradually receded, especially from Anglophone intellectual consciousness and in some quarters even from the metanarratives of intellectual history.3 His legacy frequently goes unacknowledged in reconstructions of antecedents to modern intellectual history and philosophy despite the late twentieth century's lingering love affair with philosophies of language and the stress on contextualization pioneered by Heidegger and Wittgenstein, which share many of the same concerns Valla had plumbed for his day.4 The present group of essays attempts to address that lacuna in various ways, by revisiting Valla's contributions to the philosophy of language, by casting his story forward to understand the nature of his legacy beyond the Renaissance and Reformation, and by exploring why his and other Renaissance humanists' contributions to the project of human knowledge have been minimized or overlooked in more recent times. It is the contention of all the contributors that Valla, and to wit Camporeale's Valla, richly deserves our attention and that his overlooked legacy endures.Beginning in the 1970s Salvatore Camporeale, the leading modern Valla specialist, wrote and lectured widely to highlight the Roman humanist's place in the history of thought and to discuss him in an idiom reflective of modern sensitivities to issues of rhetoric, philosophy, language, and historical context.5 Camporeale's massive tome, Lorenzo Valla. Umanesimo e teologia (Florence, 1972) has only slowly made its fortune beyond Italy and Europe. The book, densely written and daunting for its close philological examination of variant texts and datings, has been more often consulted than read outside [End Page 478] the select circle of Valla devotees, this despite Eugenio Garin's clearly stated appreciation in his presentation of the volume. Garin lauded the depth and precision of Camporeale's scholarship and the lucidity with which he brought into focus the rich fabric of fifteenth-century theological disputes that engaged Valla and that invested his understanding of language and philology.6 Through careful and insightful analysis, Camporeale not only established Quintilian as the major inspiration behind Valla's rhetorical theory, but, logical step by logical step, he... (shrink)

Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science are devoted to symposia, con gresses, colloquia, monographs and collected papers on the philosophical foundations of the sciences. It is now our pleasure to include A. A. Zi nov'ev's treatise on complex logic among these volumes. Zinov'ev is one of the most creative of modern Soviet logicians, and at the same time an innovative worker on the methodological foundations of science. More over, Zinov'ev, although still a developing scholar, has exerted a sub stantial (...) and stimulating influence upon his colleagues and students in Moscow and within other philosophical and logical circles of the Soviet Union. Hence it may be helpful, in bringing this present work to an English-reading audience, to review briefly some contemporary Soviet investigations into scientific methodology. During the 1950's, a vigorous new research program in logic was under taken, and the initial published work -characteristic of most Soviet pub lications in the logic and methodology of the sciences - was a collection of essays, Logical Investigations (Moscow, 1959). Among the authors, in addition to Zinov'ev himself, were the philosophers A. Kol'man and P. V. Tavanec, and the mathematicians and linguists, S. A. Janovskaja, A. S. Esenin-Vol'pin, S. K. Saumjan, G. N. Povarov. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: A comprehensive introduction to ancient (western) logic from earliest times to the 6th century CE, with a focus on issues that may be of interest to contemporary logicians and covering important topics in Post-Aristotelian logic that are frequently neglected (such as Peripatetic hypothetical syllogistic, the Stoic axiomatic system of propositional logic and various later ancient developments).

The “official” history of connexive logic was written in 2012 by Storrs McCall who argued that connexive logic was founded by ancient logicians like Aristotle, Chrysippus, and Boethius; that it was further developed by medieval logicians like Abelard, Kilwardby, and Paul of Venice; and that it was rediscovered in the 19th and twentieth century by Lewis Carroll, Hugh MacColl, Frank P. Ramsey, and Everett J. Nelson. From 1960 onwards, connexive logic was finally transformed into non-classical calculi which partly concur with (...) systems of relevance logic and paraconsistent logic. In this paper it will be argued that McCall’s historical analysis is fundamentally mistaken since it doesn’t take into account two versions of connexivism. While “humble” connexivism maintains that connexive properties only apply to “normal” antecedents, “hardcore” connexivism insists that they also hold for “abnormal” propositions. It is shown that the overwhelming majority of the forerunners of connexive logic were only “humble” connexivists. Their ideas concerning connexive implication don’t give rise, however, to anything like a non-classical logic. (shrink)

The coterie of commentators represented in the present volume include some of the clearest voices for Heidegger’s way of thinking among the second and third generations of American Heidegger scholars. Two of the contributors, who are also the volume’s editors, have just published a new translation of Einführung in die Metaphysik, an event that would appear to be one of the reasons for the project published here. Its thirteen essays are organized under three headings: the question of being, Heidegger and (...) the Greeks, and Politics and Ethics. The first part begins with Thomas Sheehan’s “prolegomenon to a fresh reading of Introduction to Metaphysics ” from the perspective of Heidegger’s later ruminations on Ereignis, “what brings about being,” that is “the opening of a clearing in which entities can appear as this or that”. Professor Sheehan’s discussion is both comprehensive of Heidegger’s major concepts and comprehensible to the beginning student. For specialists, the essay challenges the standing interpretation of one of the recurring topics in Heidegger scholarship, the so-called Kehre in which his way of thinking is said to have been implicated. According to Charles Guignon, Introduction to Metaphysics “undertakes the task of recovering the earliest ways of understanding Being for the purpose of revitalizing our contemporary understanding” of Being. He distinguishes in Heidegger’s thinking an “event ontology” that contrasts with the “ substance ontology” of metaphysics in effect since the classic Greek philosophers. Professor Guignon’s comments focus on Heidegger’s understanding of the early Greek concept of phusis and “how such a notion is illuminating in trying to make sense of things that the substance ontology fails to make intelligible”. He observes that history “provides a prime example of an entity whose Being is that of phusis”. Such an interpretation of phusis is in striking contrast to the standard understanding of phusis as physical nature. Later, in part 2, Susan Schoenbohm continues the discussion of Heidegger’s interpretation of phusis, noting that, according to Heidegger, in its fundamental sense, phusis does not mean nature but rather “the emerging, for the fist time, of something out of no determination at all.” It is “a name for the emerging of the originary difference of determination and no determination”, and, as such, must for certain reasons itself be “determinately ambiguous”. For Heidegger, she observes, phusis and Being are the same. Richard Polt, who is one of the volume’s editors, attempts “to lay the foundation for an adequate interpretation of Heidegger’s ‘Nothing’” in the context of the question brought into philosophical focus and prominence by Lebiniz: Why is there something instead of nothing? He notes that “the closest antecedents of Heidegger’s Nothing are to be found in nineteenth-century thought”, but that there are resonances of the topic as Heidegger treats it to be found in Eastern thought as well. In both traditions, “the question of Nothing forms part of the question of Being”, and that “precisely because Nothing is Being’s other, the question of Nothing is included in the question of Being”. Professor Polt points out the rich history of the notion of Nothing in Heidegger’s way of thinking. “We have found,” he writes, “that Heidegger uses ‘Nothing’ to refer to a wide variety of phenomena, including inauthenticity, uncanniness, death, guilt, meaninglessness, and the withdrawal of Be-ing”. He concludes that Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics does not contain a “‘doctrine’ of Nothing,” but rather should be understood as “a voyage and a provocation, not a treatise”, adding that “Heidegger himself did not always view the text as a success”, which may account for why he chose not to publish it for nearly twenty years after first presenting it in public. Daniel Dahlstrom sees Heidegger’s text as “an introduction to the end of metaphysics and [the] beginning of a new way of thinking.” He suggests that Heidegger is in search of understanding “what it means to say that something is at all”. The author’s focus is on Heidegger’s interpretation of the sense of logos in pre-Socratic philosophy. Professor Dahlstrom examines what he terms the “logical prejudice” in Western philosophy as Heidegger construes it and attempts to show why, for Heidegger, such a way of understanding the relation between thinking and being “is understandable but not inevitable”, but, regrettably, “disables thinking about being”. According to the author, Heidegger discovers among the pre-Socratics an understanding of thinking that is “more rigorous and original than judgmental or propositional thinking”. On Dahlstrom’s assessment, Introduction to Metaphysics is, in fact, an introduction to logic. Part 1 of the Companion concludes with a refreshingly challenging analysis of “a complication in Heidegger’s theory of language and its consequences” for his way of thinking about being as a whole. In his text, Dieter Thomä sets out to “turn the tables and claim that shortcomings in both the early and late thinking of Heidegger can be pointed out by means of the Introduction to Metaphysics … in the respective conceptions of language”. He uses “an approach that takes Heideggerian arguments as incentives for a way of thinking that leads beyond him”. Focusing on the philosophical possibility of the declaration “I am,” that is “indexical being”, Professor Thomä discusses changes in Heidegger’s view of language from Being and Time to the Introduction, which he claims, by the way, “is not to be regarded as one of Heidegger’s strongest texts,” in particular “[i]n terms of systematic cohesion and unity”: “The tone of the book is uneven, changing among bold appeals, philological details, simple mistakes and bold arguments”. Thomä’s discussion of Heidegger’s concept of naming is respectful of and fully conversant with the texts, without, however, being reverential in tone, a feature that unaccountably has characterized so much Heidegger scholarship. (shrink)

In terms of ontology, the so-called dialectical contradiction is precisely the unity of opposites of the objective world itself, in other words, the objective dialectics. In terms of subjective thinking, dialectical contradiction is the reflection of the objective world, the unity of opposites inherent in thinking and understanding, in other words, the subjective dialectics. Said Engels: "The so-called objective dialectics dominates the entire nature; the so-called subjective dialectics, that is, dialectical thinking, is nothing but the reflection of contradictory motions prevalent (...) everywhere in nature …" . Therefore there is a fundamental difference between dialectical contradiction and logical contradiction. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing by Jeanne-Marie JacksonAvram AlpertThe African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing, by Jeanne-Marie Jackson; 232 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021.The world of postcolonial literary studies harbors a well-earned suspicion of claims to promoting liberal ideals like civility, rationality, and individuality. The liberal worldview, after all, arose in (...) the same era as European colonial expansion. To many critics, this was not a coincidence: liberal ideals were often crafted in opposition to the peoples that Europeans were encountering around the world. Whereas these other peoples were supposedly bound to collective myths, unaware of the primacy of the individual, and condemned to violent passions, liberals claimed that Europeans used rationality to perceive the value of individual life, and, in so doing, had unlocked the key to promoting civilizational harmony. All that everyone else had to do to experience this new way of life was, in one of history's most wretched paradoxes, to succumb to colonial violence and join the empire of liberty. It is thus quite logical that anticolonial criticism would call into question the basic features of the liberal worldview.But in recent years, an interdisciplinary cohort of scholars—including Sankar Muthu in political science, Sanjay Subrahmanyam in history, Mukti Lakhi Mangharam in literary studies, and Ato Sekyi-Otu in philosophy—have come to question this consensus.1 Their challenge rests on an ironic problem of the critique of ideologies associated with colonialism: by criticizing topics like civility, rationality, and individuality as such, do we not play into the very Eurocentric idea that these ideas were invented by Europeans in the first place? As these scholars have shown across various disciplines, geographies, and time periods, this critique risks giving modern Europe too much credit. Ideals often associated with liberalism have antecedents around the world. Sometimes they are used to advance general equality and well-being; sometimes they subvert these ideals. As Jeanne-Marie Jackson argues in her trenchant new book intervening in these debates, The African Novel of Ideas, we thus need a criticism that is as much attuned to the critique of "false universalisms" as it is open to "the promise of one that is true" (p. 189).Throughout her book, Jackson argues that a reconstructed liberalism is not only fundamental to literature from Africa but that the critical neglect of this fact has distorted the general understanding of literature today. Critics—especially but not exclusively in the West—have become so accustomed to sniffing out hints of liberal, individualist ideology that they routinely cast aside the ways in which African philosophers and novelists have themselves sought to explore and transform these ideals. Jackson's argument is not that liberalism, as it stands, is a noble philosophy that has been unfairly jettisoned. Rather, she posits that African writers are developing a fundamental innovation by considering how they—who were so long exploited by European ideals—can nonetheless find [End Page 495] meaning in both alternative and emergent versions of these very same ideals. What their work emphasizes is the "process of getting from an African locality to its universal resonance" (p. 185). In other words, whereas Europeans had simply presumed that their view of the world should apply everywhere, the contemporary novelists and philosophers discussed in this book engage in thorough intellectual and conceptual labor to tease out how ideas generated in one place might speak (without force) to peoples around the world.Jackson advances this argument through an innovative mix of philosophy and literature. Rather than evoking the standard series of French philosophers summoned to explicate literature, Jackson frames her readings through the work of philosophers such as Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Emmanuel Eze. This allows her to shift the focus of her readings of literature from questions of language and close reading to underanalyzed topics in philosophy and literature, especially about how African literature enacts philosophical questions. She discusses topics ranging from the nature of the self and the meaning of rationality to a meta-interrogation on the purpose of philosophizing itself (pp. 16–17). That purpose... (shrink)

Val Plumwood argued for a reworking of our concept of wilderness in ways that would both recognize indigenous influence and expand the official "fake" history to include perspective from the Others'side. Borrowing from Plumwood's logic of colonization, I explore how the official history of wilderness in the United States of America is similar to Tasmania's "fake" history. I offer a philosophical analysis of Chief Justice John Marshall's opinion in the case of Johnson v. M'Intosh (1823) where the "wilderness" finds its (...) first legal articulation. I argue that although multiple erasures of the Other as found in Marshall's concept of wilderness are serious problems, they do not support wilderness scepticism. Rather, in order to reshape the concept of wilderness in a new non-colonizing way, its antecedents must be clearly understood. Only then can we escape the precedents of control and find an ethical basis to repair the nature/culture split ending the war on the Other. (shrink)

There is an intimate relation between these two aspects of the judgment: the predictive judgment is certainly not a priori. It presupposes some antecedent judgment that the sugar in the spoon does taste sweet or that it did taste sweet. This does not necessarily presuppose the antecedent direct experience of tasting the sugar, for its antecedent could be an inferred judgment, or a communicated and believed judgment. But, on the other hand, neither is the produced judgment of an experienced sweetness (...) clearly a posteriori; for to determine that what was tasted is sweet involves a subtle interplay of expectation and antecedent definition of sweetness which is of the nature of the judgment event, and which is, broadly speaking, predictive. It would be terribly neat if predictions were clearly a priori and postdictions clearly a posteriori and both logical atomism and its correlate functional form, mechanism, would be able to build unassailable causal systems on such hard "givens.". (shrink)

Schelling’s Naturphilosophie was, from the outset, more concerned with ontogeny than ontology, i.e. not on what nature is but on what it does: ubiquitous creation. Therefore, the processes articulated in the Philosophy of Mythology remain instances of a philosophy driven by what might be called a post-naturalist naturalism. The two aims of this paper are, firstly, to demonstrate this nature-philosophical continuity throughout Schelling’s so-called Protean philosophical projects in order, secondly, to re-prepare Schellingian themes for current debates concerning ontology. To this (...) end, I draw on the worldmaking and abundance postulates of Goodman and Feyerabend, respectively, to demonstrate the persistence of Schellingian ontogenetic pathways for remodelling process metaphysics for contemporary philosophy. Finally, the paper argues that the logical form of the hypothesis (antecedent and consequent) is itself consequent upon the ontogeny it hypothesises. (shrink)

Conditional logics were originally developed for the purpose of modeling intuitively correct modes of reasoning involving conditional—especially counterfactual—expressions in natural language. While the debate over the logic of conditionals is as old as propositional logic, it was the development of worlds semantics for modal logic in the past century that catalyzed the rapid maturation of the field. Moreover, like modal logic, conditional logic has subsequently found a wide array of uses, from the traditional (e.g. counterfactuals) to the exotic (e.g. conditional (...) obligation). Despite the close connections between conditional and modal logic, both the technical development and philosophical exploitation of the latter has outstripped that of the former, with the result that noticeable lacunae exist in the literature on conditional logic. My dissertation addresses a number of these underdeveloped frontiers, producing new technical insights and philosophical applications. -/- I contribute to the solution of a problem posed by Priest of finding sound and complete labeled tableaux for systems of conditional logic from Lewis' V-family. To develop these tableaux, I draw on previous work on labeled tableaux for modal and conditional logic; errors and shortcomings in recent work on this problem are identified and corrected. While modal logic has by now been thoroughly studied in non-classical contexts, e.g. intuitionistic and relevant logic, the literature on conditional logic is still overwhelmingly classical. Another contribution of my dissertation is a thorough analysis of intuitionistic conditional logic, in which I utilize both algebraic and worlds semantics, and investigate how several novel embedding results might shed light on the philosophical interpretation of both intuitionistic logic and conditional logic extensions thereof. -/- My dissertation examines deontic and connexive conditional logic as well as the underappreciated history of connexive notions in the analysis of conditional obligation. The possibility of interpreting deontic modal logics in such systems (via embedding results) serves as an important theoretical guide. A philosophically motivated proscription on impossible obligations is shown to correspond to, and justify, certain (weak) connexive theses. Finally, I contribute to the intensifying debate over counterpossibles, counterfactuals with impossible antecedents, and take—in contrast to Lewis and Williamson—a non-vacuous line. Thus, in my view, a counterpossible like "If there had been a counterexample to the law of the excluded middle, Brouwer would not have been vindicated" is false, not (vacuously) true, although it has an impossible antecedent. I exploit impossible (non-normal) worlds—originally developed to model non-normal modal logics—to provide non-vacuous semantics for counterpossibles. I buttress the case for non-vacuous semantics by making recourse to both novel technical results and theoretical considerations. (shrink)

The historical antecedents of Frege's treatment of binocular vision in "The thought" were the physiological writings of Johannes Mueller, Hermann von Helmholtz, and Emil du Bois-Reymond. In their research on human vision, logic was assigned an unexpected role: it was to be the means by which knowledge of a world extended in three dimensions arises from stimuli that are at best two-dimensional. An examination of this literature yields a richer understanding of Frege's insistence that a proper epistemology requires us (...) to recognize the existence and importance of nonsensible sources of knowledge. (shrink)

Since its inception in the late 1970s, behavioural economics has gone from being an outlier to a widely recognized yet still contested subset of the economic sciences. One of the basic arguments in behavioural economics is that a more realistic psychology ought to inform economic theories. While the history of behavioural economics is often portrayed and articulated as spanning no more than a few decades, the practice of utilizing ideas from psychology to rethink theories of economics is over a century (...) old. In the first three decades of the 20th century, several mostly American economists made efforts to refine fundamental economic assumptions by introducing ideas from psychology into economic thinking. In an echo of contemporary discussions in behavioural economics, the ambition of these psychology-keen economists was to strengthen the empirical accuracy of the fundamental assumptions of economic theory. In this article, we trace, examine, and discuss arguments for and against complementing economic theorizing with insights from psychology, as found in economic literature published between 1900 and 1930. The historical analysis sheds light on issues and challenges associated with the endeavour to improve one discipline’s theories by introducing ideas from another, and we argue that these are issues and challenges that behavioural economists continue to face today. (shrink)