Although Aristotle (Metaphysics, Book IV, Chapter 2) was perhaps the first person to consider the part-whole relationship to be a proper subject matter for philosophic inquiry, the Polish logician Stanislow Lesniewski [15] is generally given credit for the first formal treatment of the subject matter in his Mereology.1 Woodger [30] and Tarski [24] made use of a specific adaptation of Lesniewski's work as a basis for a formal theory of physical things and their parts. The term 'calculus of individuals' was (...) introduced by Leonard and Goodman [14] in their presentation of a system very similar to Tarski's adaptation of Lesniewski's Mereology. Contemporaneously with Lesniewski's development of his Mereology, Whitehead [27] and [28] was developing a theory of extensive abstraction based on the two-place predicate, 'x extends over y\ which is the converse of 'x is a part of y\ This system, according to Russell [22], was to have been the fourth volume of their Pήncipia Mathematica, the never-published volume on geometry. Both Lesniewski [15] and Tarski [25] have recognized the similarities between Whitehead's early work and Lesniewski's Mereology. Between the publication of Whitehead's early work and the publication of Process and Reality [29], Theodore de Laguna [7] published a suggestive alternative basis for Whitehead's theory. This led Whitehead, in Process and Reality, to publish a revised form of his theory based on the two-place predicate, 'x is extensionally connected with y\ It is the purpose of this paper to present a calculus of individuals based on this new Whiteheadian primitive predicate. (shrink)

In Process and Reality, Whitehead explicitly states what he conceives his task to be: “Speculative Philosophy,” he writes, “is the endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted.” He then goes on to explain what he means by the key terms in this passage. By ‘in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted’, “I mean,” he explains, “that everything of which we (...) are conscious, as enjoyed, perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme.” This universality, or all-comprehensiveness, of the system is interpreted in terms of two characteristics: applicability and adequacy. Whitehead explains: “Here ‘applicable’ means that some items of experience are thus interpretable, and ‘adequate’ means that there are no items incapable of such interpretation.” It is these two characteristics of the system which give an explication of the term ‘necessary’ as applied to the system of general ideas: “The metaphysical first principles can never fail of exemplification. We can never catch the actual world taking a holiday from their sway.”. (shrink)

Rudolph Carnap’s Aufbau was one of the more ambitious philosophical programs of the twentieth century. His proposal was to begin with elementarerlebnisse —cross sections of one total stream of experience temporally limited by the least perceivable segment of time—and an undefined primitive relation, recollection of similarity, holding between the elementary experiences. Without any further non-logical terms, the goal was to utilize a logic, such as that of Principia Mathematica, and actually to construct logically, or to define formally, all the kinds (...) of entities, phenomenal, physical, psychological and cultural, which we usually take to make up our world. Unfortunately, the program is not completed. Only what Carnap refers to as the lower levels is actually formally constructed—that is, what might be called the phenomenal level. The remainder of the constructional program is only suggested in outline. (shrink)

The title of this volume -- Logic, God and Metaphysics -- is carefully chosen and, at the same time, descriptive of its main focus. In the twentieth century, the interests of most philosophers and theologians have fallen into only one of the three areas indicated -- logic, god or metaphysics. Since much of Anglo-American philosophy in this century has been analytic and antimetaphysical because of the influence of positivism, there have been few attempts at continuing metaphysical inquiry. In the early (...) part of the century, the logical atomists combined logic and metaphysics by arguing that the structure of reality is mirrored isomorphically in the structure of a formal, logically perfect, truth-functional language, but their effort was short-lived. Alfred North Whitehead and process philosophers have focused upon god and metaphysics but usually by adopting terminology and distinctions which are unique to certain systems -- making rigorous, logical analysis difficult or impossible. The papers included in this volume are illustrative of the application of careful, rigorous logical analysis to do critical philosophy of religion and what has been called constructive metaphysics. (shrink)

In this work Ivor Leclerc argues for the contemporary need for a philosophy of nature, a discipline which he takes to be a casualty of the acceptance of the early nineteenth century conception of physics as a mechanics, the science of matter in locomotion in space and time. One of the main consequences of this conception of physics, which grows out of the seventeenth century conception of nature, has been that philosophy cannot have "nature" as its object; rather, the object (...) of philosophy is "science" itself, not nature. The result of this consequence has been, according to Leclerc, "an obscuring, indeed a blocking, of the realization of the full magnitude and extent of the twentieth-century developments in science, in particular of the most fundamental respects, namely, the ontological and metaphysical, in which those developments have affected the conception of nature". This has worked to the disadvantage of both the philosopher and the scientist. In Part 1 Leclerc is primarily concerned with making the above case, while Part 2 is devoted to a historical investigation into the development of the concepts involved in the conception of "physics as a mechanics" and Part III is primarily devoted to a criticism of this view of physics and a suggestion concerning the direction a philosophy of nature should take in the later part of the twentieth century. (shrink)

In referendum elections, voters are often required to register simultaneous votes on multiple proposals. The separability problem occurs when a voter’s preferred outcome on one proposal depends on the outcomes of other proposals. This type of interdependence can lead to unsatisfactory or even paradoxical election outcomes, such as a winning outcome that is the last choice of every voter. Here we propose an iterative voting scheme that allows voters to revise their voting strategies based on the outcomes of previous iterations. (...) Using a robust computer simulation, we investigate the potential of this approach to solve the separability problem. (shrink)

Clark Butler has given us an English version of Hegel’s 1831 Lectures on Logic, the last course he was to complete before his death. The course was transcribed by his son Karl and first published in 2001 . Although the manuscript is not Hegel’s own, its contents are unmistakably authentic, opening an interesting window on Hegel’s thinking while he was preparing a second edition of the Logic. Readers familiar with that work will find that the content of the lectures (...) conforms to the standard version. But the real interest of these lectures lies in Hegel’s freer discussion of the logical categories, in the course of which he frequently gives illustrations from ethics and history.Butler’s interest in the lectures is in keeping with Hegel’s intention to reach a wider audience ; accordingly, Butler has introduced numerous interpolations in order to “produce a readable text for those who are not Hegel scholars” and to “make the science of logic not only readable but teachable” . It may be questioned, however, to what extent Butler has succeeded. One difficulty stems from his intention to heed “Hegel’s professed true intent” , even where this brings him into conflict with the letter of the text. Noting that Hegel’s “panlogicist. (shrink)

The paper by Bowman-Smart et al. (2023) on noninvasive prenatal genetic testing (NIPT) for non-medical traits aims to set out the case for and the case against such testing. In response to their pa...

Nel 1726 lo scozzese Walter Bowman intrattenne una corrispondenza con Samuel Clarke su «the power of self-motion», un argomento che Clarke aveva trattato nella sua Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. Le due lettere inedite di Clarke, qui presentate, sono parte di quella vasta corrispondenza che il teologo ebbe con filosofi e uomini di lettere dopo la pubblicazione della Demonstration. In questo saggio si ricostruiscono gli argomenti di Clarke, in primo luogo quelli relativi alla dimostrazione dell’esistenza di (...) Dio, evidenziando le influenze di Cartesio, Locke e Newton. I commenti di Bowman, raccolti insieme alle lettere nella sua opera Fugitive Manuscripts, ci aiutano a vedere come Clarke elabori una teoria meccanicistica dell’azione e, come emerge dalle lettere, debba successivamente precisarla ricorrendo a due principi: «Pain is to be avoided and Novelties are to be attended with a sort of curiosity». (shrink)

This article argues against Bowman Clarke's attempt to eliminate futurity from the God of Process.

Inherent in providing healthcare for youth lie tensions among best interests, decision-making capacity, rights, and legal authority. Transgender youth experience barriers to needed gender-affirming care, often rooted in ethical and legal issues, such as healthcare provider concerns regarding youth capacity and rights to consent to hormone therapy. Even when decision-making capacity is present, youth may lack the legal authority to give consent. The aims of this paper are therefore to provide an empirical analysis of minor trans youth capacity to consent (...) to hormone therapy and to address the normative question of whether there is ethical justification for granting trans youth the authority to consent to this care. Through qualitative content analysis of interviews with trans youth, parents, and healthcare providers, we found that trans youth demonstrated the understandings and abilities characteristic of the capacity to consent to hormone therapy and that they did consent to hormone therapy with positive outcomes. Employing deontological and consequentialist reasoning and drawing on a foundation of empirical evidence, human rights, and best interests we conclude that granting trans youth with decisional capacity both the right and the legal authority to consent to hormone therapy via the informed consent model of care is ethically justified. (shrink)

Connectionism and classicism, it generally appears, have at least this much in common: both place some notion of internal representation at the heart of a scientific study of mind. In recent years, however, a much more radical view has gained increasing popularity. This view calls into question the commitment to internal representation itself. More strikingly still, this new wave of anti-representationalism is rooted not in armchair theorizing but in practical attempts to model and understand intelligent, adaptive behavior. In this paper (...) we first present, and then critically assess, a variety of recent anti-representationalist treatments. We suggest that so far, at least, the sceptical rhetoric outpaces both evidence and argument. Some probable causes of this premature scepticism are isolated. Nonetheless, the anti-representationalist challenge is shown to be both important and progressive insofar as it forces us to see beyond the bare representational/non-representational dichotomy and to recognize instead a rich continuum of degrees and types of representationality. (shrink)

This article takes as its starting point the recent work of Frank Ankersmit on subjective historical experience. Such an experience, which Ankersmit describes as a ‘sudden obliteration of the rift between present and past’ is connected strongly with the Deweyan theory of art as experiential, which contains an account of aesthetic experience as affording a similar breakdown in the polarization of the subject and object of experience. The article shows how other ideas deriving from the phenomenological tradition and the philosophy (...) of perception can fruitfully be applied to the same terrain, and an account of aesthetic experience is built up that stresses embodied, differential and virtual aspects in the perception of aesthetic objects. The disruption and/or enhancement of these aisthetic aspects of perception, coupled with the self-conscious reflection thereby occasioned, is put forward as an account of aesthetic experience that links Ankersmit’s ideas with those of others, and a critical reading is made of a section of Ankersmit’s Sublime Historical Experience that centers on his experience of a painting by Francesco Guardi. The fijinal section aims at strengthening aspects of Ankersmit’s ideas and renews his critique of the radical constructivism of Oakeshott. (shrink)

We applied TETRAD II, a causal discovery program developed in Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Philosophy, to a database containing information on 204 U.S. colleges, collected by the US News and World Report magazine for the purpose of college ranking. Our analysis focuses on possible causes of low freshmen retention in U.S. colleges. TETRAD II finds a set of causal structures that are compatible with the data.

Books reviewed in this article: The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman with Gary A. Herion, David F. Graf, John David Pleins. The Gospel of Matthew. By Daniel J. Harrington. Paul: An Introduction to his Thought. By C. K. Barrett. A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identiy. By Daniel Boyarin. New Testament Theology. By G. B. Caird, completed and edited by L. D. Hurst. The Fatherhood of God from Origen to Athanasius. By Peter Widdicombe. Dieu et (...) le Christ selon Grégoire de Nysse. By Bernard Pottier. Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure. By Robert Sokolowski. Theological Hermeneutics: Development and Significance. By Werner Jeanrond. Theologie aus Efahrung der Gnade. Annäherungen an Karl Rahner: Edited by Mariano Delgado and Mathias‐Lutz Bachmann. Bernhard Welte's Fundamental Theological Approach to Christology.. By Anthony J. Godzieba. Sacred Identity: Exploring a Theology of the Person. By Jane Kopas. A Salvation Audit. By Colin Grant. Medical Ezhics: Sources Of Catholic Teachings, Second Edition. Edited by Kevin O'Rourke and Philip Boyle. Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire. By Martin Goodman. Literacy and Power in the Ancient World. Edited by Alan K. Bowman and Greg Woolf. St Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy. Its History, Theology and Texts. By John A. McGuckin. Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital. By Neil B. McLynn. Basil of Cuesareu. By Philip Rousseau. Augustine. By Mary T. Clark. Irenaeus. By Dennis Minns. Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople. By Vasiliki Limberis. The Irish Tradition in Old English Literature. By Charles D. Wright. Relics, Apocalypse and the Deceils of History: Ademar of Chabannes, 989–1034. By Richard Landes. Huguccio: The Life, Works, and Thought of a Twelfth‐Centuy Jurist. By Wolfgang P. Müller. The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, Volume II: The Growth of Mysticism. By Bernard McGinn. Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the Thirteenth Century. By Christoph T. Maier. Mary Ward: A World in Contemplation. By Henriette Peters. The Letters of Teilhard de Chardin and Lucile Swan. Edited by Thomas M. King and Mary Wood Gilbert. Pseudo‐Marry: By John Donne. Edited, with an Introduction and Commentary, by Anthony Raspa. Donne and the Politics of Conscience in Early Modern England. By M. L. Brown. The Caroline Captivity of the Church: Charles 1 and the Remoulding of Anglicanism. By Julian Davies. Érudition et religion aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siécles. By Bruno Neveu. Cardinal Lavigerie: Churchman, Prophet and Missionary. By François Renault. Dom Columba Marmion: A Biography By Mark Tierney. Christian Mission in the Twentieth Century. By Timothy Yates. Religion in Africa: Experience and Expression. Edited by Thomas D. Blakely, Walter E. A. van Beek and Dennis Thomson. (shrink)

What is the relation between the material, conventional symbol structures that we encounter in the spoken and written word, and human thought? A common assumption, that structures a wide variety of otherwise competing views, is that the way in which these material, conventional symbol-structures do their work is by being translated into some kind of content-matching inner code. One alternative to this view is the tempting but thoroughly elusive idea that we somehow think in some natural language (such as English). (...) In the present treatment I explore a third option, which I shall call the "complementarity" view of language. According to this third view the actual symbol structures of a given language add cognitive value by complementing (without being replicated by) the more basic modes of operation and representation endemic to the biological brain. The "cognitive bonus" that language brings is, on this model, not to be cashed out either via the ultimately mysterious notion of "thinking in a given natural language" or via some process of exhaustive translation into another inner code. Instead, we should try to think in terms of a kind of coordination dynamics in which the forms and structures of a language qua material symbol system play a key and irreducible role. Understanding language as a complementary cognitive resource is, I argue, an important part of the much larger project (sometimes glossed in terms of the "extended mind") of understanding human cognition as essentially and multiply hybrid: as involving a complex interplay between internal biological resources and external non-biological resources. (shrink)

The possibility of extended cognition invites the possibility of extended knowledge. We examine what is minimally required for such forms of technologically extended knowledge to arise and whether existing and future technologies can allow for such forms of epistemic extension. Answering in the positive, we explore some of the ensuing transformations in the ethical obligations and personal rights of the resulting ‘new humans.’.

Mind, it is increasingly fashionable to assert, is an intrinsically embodied and environmentally embedded phenomenon. But there is a potential tension between two strands of thought prominent in this recent literature. One of those strands depicts the body as special, and the fine details of a creature’s embodiment as a major constraint on the nature of its mind: a kind of new-wave body-centrism. The other depicts the body as just one element in a kind of equal-partners dance between brain, body (...) and world, with the nature of the mind fixed by the overall balance thus achieved: a kind of extended functionalism (now with an even broader canvas for multiple realizability than ever before). The present paper displays the tension, scouts the space of possible responses, and ends by attempting to specify what the body actually needs to be, given its complex role in these recent debates. (shrink)

Recent work in cognitive and computational neuroscience depicts human brains as devices that minimize prediction error signals: signals that encode the difference between actual and expected sensory stimulations. This raises a series of puzzles whose common theme concerns a potential misfit between this bedrock informationtheoretic vision and familiar facts about the attractions of the unexpected. We humans often seem to actively seek out surprising events, deliberately harvesting novel and exciting streams of sensory stimulation. Conversely, we often experience some wellexpected sensations (...) as unpleasant and to-be-avoided. In this paper, I explore several core and variant forms of this puzzle, using them to display multiple interacting elements that together deliver a satisfying solution. That solution requires us to go beyond the discussion of simple information-theoretic imperatives and to recognize the essential role of species-specific prestructuring, epistemic foraging, and cultural practices in shaping the restless, curious, novelty-seeking human mind. (shrink)

This paper investigates how intuitions about scientific discovery using artificial intelligence can be used to improve our understanding of scientific discovery more generally. Traditional accounts of discovery have been agent-centred: they place emphasis on identifying a specific agent who is responsible for conducting all, or at least the important part, of a discovery process. We argue that these accounts experience difficulties capturing scientific discovery involving AI and that similar issues arise for human discovery. We propose an alternative, collective-centred view as (...) superior for understanding discovery, with and without AI. This view maintains that discovery is performed by a collective of agents and entities, each making contributions that differ in significance and character, and that attributing credit for discovery depends on various finer-grained properties of the contributions made. Detailing its conceptual resources, we argue that this view is considerably more compelling than its agent-centred alternative. Considering and responding to several theoretical and practical challenges, we point to concrete avenues for further developing the view we propose. (shrink)

THE position I am going to consider here is that the proposition ‘There is a God’ is tautologous and yet not vacuous. This position was held by Bowman Clarke in his article, ‘Linguistic Analysis and the Philosophy of Religion’. Clarke was trying to refute Findlay’s ontological disproof of the existence of God. So let me first go briefly over Findlay’s ontological disproof.