A homonymy analysis is proposed to explain the so-called “demonstrative use” of personal pronouns. This analysis explains why some pronouns (_it_) do not allow a demonstrative use, as demonstrated in Nunberg (1993). The absence of a demonstrative feature in _it_ can also account for the fact that it does not allow deferred reference. It is argued on the basis of the structure of the nominal demonstrative paradigm that the homonymy analysis is more parsimonious than a single-item analysis.

The literature on demonstratives mostly focuses on DPs (demonstrative pronouns and determiners), which denote in the entity domain. However, demonstratives can also belong to other categories and denote in the domains of manners _(she acted like this/like that/thus_), locations (_she was here/there_), degrees (_she was yay tall_), amounts (Russian: _ona vypila stolʲko vody_ ‘she drank that_much water’), qualities (Russian: _ona uže pila takoe vino_ ‘she drank that_kind_of wine’), and even times (_she arrived then_). The problem I address is twofold. How (...) can we define a unified semantics for these expressions that incorporates a single concept of demonstration, yet allows denotations to vary across domains? And how can we make sense of demonstrative feature values such as proximal or distal in domains that have no spatial component, such as degrees or manners? I argue that the solution comes from a generalized application of the familiar phenomenon of deferred reference: all demonstrative reference outside the entity and (possibly) spatial domains is deferred. (shrink)

One takes advantage of some basic properties of every homotopic $\lambda$-model (e.g. extensional Kan complex) to explore the higher $\beta\eta$-conversions, which would correspond to proofs of equality between terms of a theory of equality of any extensional Kan complex. Besides, Identity types based on computational paths are adapted to a type-free theory with higher $\lambda$-terms, whose equality rules would be contained in the theory of any $\lambda$-homotopic model.

The intention here is that of giving a formal underpinning to the idea of ‘meaning-is-use’ which, even if based on proofs, it is rather different from proof-theoretic semantics as in the Dummett–Prawitz tradition. Instead, it is based on the idea that the meaning of logical constants are given by the explanation of immediate consequences, which in formalistic terms means the effect of elimination rules on the result of introduction rules, i.e. the so-called reduction rules. For that we suggest an extension (...) to the Curry– Howard interpretation which draws on the idea of labelled deduction, and brings back Frege’s device of variable-abstraction to operate on the labels (i.e., proof-terms) alongside formulas of predicate logic. (shrink)

In this paper I shall venture into an area with which I am not very familiar and in which I feel far from confident; namely into phenomenology. My main motive is not to get away from standard, boring, methodological questions like those of induction and demarcation; but the conviction that a phenomenological account of the empirical basis forms a necessary complement to Popper's falsificationism. According to the latter, a scientific theory is a synthetic and universal, hence unverifiable proposition. In fact, (...) in order to be technologically useful, a scientific hypothesis must refer to future states-of-affairs; it ought therefore to remain unverified. But in order to be empirical, a theory must bear some kind of relation to factual statements. According to Popper, such a relation can only be one of potential conflict. Thus a theory T will be termed scientific if and only if T is logically incompatible with a so-called basic statement b, where b is both empirically verifiable and empirically falsifiable. In other words: T is scientific if it entails ¬b; where b, hence also ¬b, is an empirically decidable proposition. (shrink)

Este trabajo, hasta hoy inédito. fue leído en inglés durante el Coloquio Wittgenstein realizado en la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú en julio de 1989 con la participación de la autora. Cora Diamond, Juan Bautista Ferro, Peter Geach, Mario Montalbetti y Jorge Secada. La versión original que se publica ahora acompañada de mi traducción al castellano incorpora algunos agregados y correcciones que la profesoraAnscombe hizo en el manuscrito durante y después de la lectura del trabajo. Los únicos cambios que he (...) introducido yo en el texto inglés son unas mínimas alteraciones y correcciones gráficas y una corrección ortográfica evidente.Las menciones a términos del original inglés que he incluido en el texto en castellanovan entre corchetes angulares. Salvo las notas, éstas son las únicasinterpolaciones que he hecho en el cuerpo del artículo. (shrink)

The article discusses major biographical milestones and provides a general evolution of philosophical views of the Russian philosopher Simon L. Frank. At the initial stage of the creative way, Frank is an economist and critical Marxist. Appeal to philosophy in the 1900s characterized by the influence of neo-Kantianism, the immanent philosophy and philosophy of life. Around 1908-12 Frank’s transition to the position of metaphysics begins to take shape his own philosophical system, absolute realism. One of the main features of the (...) work of Frank is consistency. Throughout his creative career, the philosopher developed the deepened and detailed original philosophical intuition - the intuition of the supra-rational unity of being - which was already fixed in his early philosophical works. Absolute being is a concrete metalogical reality, revealed in the living knowledge Simultaneously, the potentiality and transfiniteness of absolute being acts as the basis of individuality and creativity of man, the source of his freedom. The philosophical method of Frank, rational comprehension of rationally incomprehensible, based on the principle of antinomic monodualism. Philosophy of religion unfolds as a phenomenological analysis of religious experience. In the social political field Frank justifies the position of liberal conservatism and Christian realism. (shrink)

This book comprises material on colour which was written by Wittgenstein in the last eighteen months of his life. It is one of the few documents which shows him concentratedly at work on a single philosophical issue. The principal theme is the features of different colours, of different kinds of colour and of luminosity—a theme which Wittgenstein treats in such a way as to destroy the traditional idea that colour is a simple and logically uniform kind of thing. This edition (...) consists of Wittgenstein's basic German text, together with an English translation. (shrink)

Classification learning is a preeminent human ability within the animal kingdom but the key mechanisms of brain networks regulating learning remain mostly elusive. Recent neuroimaging advancements have depicted human brain as a complex graph machinery where brain regions are nodes and coherent activities among them represent the functional connections. While long-term motor memories have been found to alter functional connectivity in the resting human brain, a graph topological investigation of the short-time effects of learning are still not widely investigated. For (...) instance, classification learning is known to orchestrate rapid modulation of diverse memory systems like short-term and visual working memories but how the brain functional connectome accommodates such modulations is unclear. We used publicly available repositories (openfmri.org) selecting three experiments, two focused on short-term classification learning along two consecutive runs where learning was promoted by trial-by-trial feedback errors, while a further experiment was used as supplementary control. We analyzed the functional connectivity extracted from BOLD fMRI signals, and estimated the graph information processing in the cerebral networks. The information processing capability, characterized by complex network statistics, significantly improved over runs, together with the subject classification accuracy. Instead, null-learning experiments, where feedbacks came with poor consistency, did not provoke any significant change in the functional connectivity over runs. We propose that learning induces fast modifications in the overall brain network dynamics, definitely ameliorating the short-term potential of the brain to process and integrate information, a dynamic consistently orchestrated by modulations of the functional connections among specific brain regions. (shrink)

Using a recent result of Busch and Gudder, we reconsider a theorem of Ludwig which allows one to identify a class of effect automorphisms as the symmetry transformations in quantum mechanics.

I prefix to this paper for convenience of reference the three extant chapters of the law: K.L. III. Quae colonia hac lege deducta quodue municipium praefectura forum conciliabulum constitutum erit, qui ager intra fines eorum erit, qui termini in eo agro statuti erunt, quo in loco terminus non stabit, in eo loco is, cuius is ager erit, terminum restituendum curato, uti quod recte factum esse uolet: idque magistratus, qui in ea colonia municipio praefectura foro conciliabulo iure dicundo praeerit, facito ut (...) fiat. (shrink)