Theories of consciousness have a long and controversial history. One well-known proposal — integrated information theory — has recently been labeled as ‘pseudoscience’, which has caused a heated open debate. Here we discuss the case and argue that the theory is indeed unscientific because its core claims are untestable even in principle.

We use the Drozd-Warfield structure theorem for finitely presented modules over a serial ring to investigate the model theory of modules over a serial ring, in particular, to give a simple description of pp-formulas and to classify the pure-injective indecomposable modules. We also study the question of whether every pure-injective indecomposable module over a valuation ring is the hull of a uniserial module.

The seven deadly sins have provided gossip, amusement, and the plots of morality plays for nearly fifteen hundred years. In Wicked Pleasures, well-known philosopher, business ethicist, and admitted sinner Robert C. Solomon brings together a varied group of contributors for a new look at the old catalogue of sins. Solomon introduces the sins as a group, noting their popularity and pervasiveness. From the formation of the canon by Pope Gregory the Great, the seven have survived the sermonizing of the Reformation, (...) the Inquisition, the Enlightenment, the brief French reign of supreme reason, the apotheoses of capitalism, communism, secular humanism and postmodernism, the writings of numerous rabbis and evangelical moralists, two series in the New York Times, and several bad movies. Taking their cue from this remarkable history, the contributors, including Thomas Pynchon, allowed one sin apiece, provide a non-sermonizing and relatively light-hearted romp through the domain of the deadly seven. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage montre ce qu'une réflexion historique et philosophique peut apporter à la vie politique. La France et l'Europe sont confrontées à des mutations, des crises et des risques de grande ampleur. 'Face à cela, on invoque la raison tous les jours et nous l'opposons à l'irrationnel' observe l'auteur, mais cette opposition binaire n'est pas féconde car 'il faut explorer les failles de la raison elle-même: celles des Lumières et du libéralisme; celles d'un système économique que les peuples ne peuvent (...) maîtriser ; celles de la géopolitique et de la prétention universaliste occidentale.' Philippe Herzog appelle à un profond renouvellement de la méthode en politique, reprenant la question que s'était posée Descartes pour bien guider notre raison et il la situe dans le contexte actuel. Recouvrer nos libertés de choix et nos responsabilités exige une révolution de l'éducation et la participation de chacun pour repenser les finalités et transformer les institutions. Alors que les risques de délitement de l'Union européenne et de guerre à l'échelle du monde sont avérés, notre Union doit se rendre non alignée afin de promouvoir des solidarités concrètes en son sein et avec toutes les régions du monde. Régénérer nos idéaux de paix et de développement avec l'ambition d'une conscience commune de l'humanité pour échapper au naufrage de la raison est au cœur de ce livre."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This article edits and examines a little-known epistolary treatise datable to 1322, which survives in a fifteenth-century manuscript in the Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. The author of this work was engaged in a heated argument with the Parisian philosopher Jean de Jandun over the status and rationality of astrology. Jean’s pro-astrological stance is documented in a letter dated 28 October 1321, which survives for having been appended to the main treatise. In responding to Jean de Jandun’s letter, the author delivered a (...) trenchant critique of astrology grounded almost entirely in philosophical, as opposed to theological, ideas, addressing issues such as empirical evidence, causality, and contingency. The author’s way of pointing out ruptures between astrology and Aristotelian natural philosophy marks him out as an intellectual precursor to the much better-known anti-astrological polemics written later in the same century by Parisian thinkers such as Nicole Oresme and Heinrich von Langenstein. (shrink)

We present some recent technical results of us on the incompleteness of classical analysis and then discuss our work on the Arnol'd decision problems for the stability of fixed points of dynamical systems.

Political violence in the form of wars, insurgencies, terrorism and violent rebellion constitutes a major human challenge. C. A. J. Coady brings a philosophical and ethical perspective as he places the problems of war and political violence in the frame of reflective ethics. In this book, Coady re-examines a range of urgent problems pertinent to political violence against the background of a contemporary approach to just war thinking. The problems examined include: the right to make war and conduct war, terrorism, (...) revolution, humanitarianism, mercenary warriors, the ideal of peace and the right way to end war. Coady attempts to vindicate the contemporary relevance of the just war tradition to current problems without applying the tradition in a merely mechanical or uncritical fashion. (shrink)

The National Gallery, London. 3 October 2020–24 January 2021.

Our trust in the word of others is often dismissed as unworthy, because the illusory ideal of "autonomous knowledge" has prevailed in the debate about the nature of knowledge. Yet we are profoundly dependent on others for a vast amount of what any of us claim to know. Coady explores the nature of testimony in order to show how it might be justified as a source of knowledge, and uses the insights that he has developed to challenge certain widespread assumptions (...) in the areas of history, law, mathematics, and psychology. (shrink)

I argue that beliefs about what appears possible are justified in much the same way as beliefs about what appears actual. I do so by chisholming, and then modalizing, the epistemic principle associated with phenomenal conservatism. The principle is tested against a number of examples, and it gives the intuitively correct results. I conclude by considering how it can be used to defend two controversial modal arguments, a Cartesian argument for dualism and an ontological argument for the existence of God.

C. A. J. Coady; VIII*—Descartes' Other Myth, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 83, Issue 1, 1 June 1983, Pages 121–142, https://doi.org/10.1093/ar.

In this volume C.A. (Chet) Bowers, whose pioneering work on education and environmental and sustainability issues is widely recognized and respected around the world, brings together a carefully curated selection of his seminal work on the ideological, cultural, and linguistic roots of the ecological crisis; misconceptions underlying modern consciousness; the cultural commons; a critique of technology; and educational reforms to address these pressing concerns. In the World Library of Educationalists, international scholars themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to (...) be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/practical contributions - so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field, as well as the development of the field itself. Contributors to the series include : Michael Apple, James A. Banks, Joel Spring, William F. Pinar, Stephen J. Ball, Elliot Eisner, Howard Gardner, John Gilbert, Ivor F. Goodson, Peter Jarvis. (shrink)

This book seeks to examine the mutual interplay between existentialism and Christian belief as seen through the work of three existentialist thinkers who were also committed Christians - a Spaniard, a Russian, and a Frenchman. They are compared with each other and with leading non-religious existentialists. The major themes studied include reason, freedom, the self, belief, hope, love, suffering, and immortality.

Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt. Upshot: Siegfried J. Schmidt’s process-oriented constructivism, with which he proposes to dissolve the debate about realism, offers myriad intellectual challenges to constructivists from numerous different disciplines. While “From Objects to Processes” seems to represent a review of Schmidt’s work rather than a new addition to the debate, it derives in a convincing fashion the importance of a process- and action-based (...) unending constructivism from a combination of Schmidt’s own previous positions and a number of central epistemological questions. (shrink)

The Three Papers comprising this series, together with my earlier [34] also published in this journal, constitute an attempt to set out the major issues in the theoretical domain of reduction and to develop a general theory of theory reduction. The fourth paper, [34], though published separately from this trio, is integral to the presentation and should be read in conjunction with these papers. Even so, the presentation is limited in scope – roughly, to intertheoretic reduction among empirical theories – (...) and informal in presentation – not least because a satisfying formal account of theories has yet to be offered. And despite the length, the treatment is still condensed; often corroborating and/or intuitively helpful detail has had to be consigned to footnotes or omitted. I approach the problem from within my own naturalistic realist philosophy of science and formal analysis of abstract hierarchy in theory. The sources for the former are [25], [29], [31], and [32] and those for the latter essentially [27] and [30]. Hierarchical notions played a significant role in the already published [34]. (shrink)

Let R be an associative ring with identity. It is shown that every Σ-cotorsion left R-module satisfies the descending chain condition on divisibility formulae. If R is countable, the descending chain condition on M implies that it must be Σ-cotorsion. It follows that, for countable R, the class of Σ-cotorsion modules is closed under elementary equivalence and pure submodules. The modules M that satisfy this descending chain condition are the cotorsion analogues of totally transcendental modules; we characterize them as the (...) modules M for which , for every countably presented flat module F. (shrink)