The modal object calculus is the system of logic which houses the (proper) axiomatic theory of abstract objects. The calculus has some rather interesting features in and of itself, independent of the proper theory. The most sophisticated, type-theoretic incarnation of the calculus can be used to analyze the intensional contexts of natural language and so constitutes an intensional logic. However, the simpler second-order version of the calculus couches a theory of fine-grained properties, relations and propositions and serves as a framework (...) for defining situations, possible worlds, stories, and fictional characters, among other things. In the present paper, we focus on the second-order calculus. The second-order modal object calculus is so-called to distinguish it from the second-order modal predicate calculus. Though the differences are slight, the extra expressive power of the object calculus significantly enhances its ability to resolve logical and philosophical concepts and problems. (shrink)

In the course of his long development, Kant's concept of matter changed somewhat, while his concept of scientific explanation changed considerably. Both developments achieved a coherent integration in Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Using this developmental background, the present paper argues that the Foundations should be interpreted as an attempted rational reconstruction of the mechanics of Newton and Euler. Kant attempted to do this by constructing a concept of matter that would confer a Leibnizian intelligibility on Newtonian mechanics, and (...) also accord with Kant's theories on the nature of concepts and their role in scientific explanation. (shrink)

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: A NEW UNIVERSITY AND THE CHALLENGE OF THE NEW SCIENCE Despite the recent and continuing controversy concerning the proper role of ...

If beliefs are a map by which we steer, then, ceteris paribus, we should want a more accurate map. However, the world could be structured so as to punish learning with respect to certain topics—by learning new information, one’s situation could be worse than it otherwise would have been. We investigate whether the world is structured so as to punish learning specifically about moral nihilism. We ask, if an ordinary person had the option to learn the truth about moral nihilism, (...) ought she to take it? We argue, given plausible assumptions about ordinary human preferences, she should not. (shrink)

The little-known story of the architectural project that lay at the heart of Paine's grand political vision for the United States. Thomas Jefferson praised Tom Paine as the greatest political writer of the age. The author of 'Common Sense' and Rights of Man, Paine helped make revolutions in America and France. But beyond his inspiring calls to action, Paine harbored a deeper political vision for his adopted country. It was embodied in an architectural project that he spent decades planning: an (...) iron bridge to span the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia. The bridge was Paine's answer to the political puzzle of the new nation: how to sustain a republic as large and geographically fragmented as the United States. Among its patrons were other giants of the time, including Benjamin Franklin and Edmund Burke, Paine's ideological opponent. Set against the background of the American Revolution, the story of his iron bridge reveals a new Tom Paine and connects this revolutionary to the vast program of internal improvements that soon transformed America"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

This book is a treatise on time and on background independence in physics. It first considers how time is conceived of in each accepted paradigm of physics: Newtonian, special relativity, quantum mechanics (QM) and general relativity (GR). Substantial differences are moreover uncovered between what is meant by time in QM and in GR. These differences jointly source the Problem of Time: Nine interlinked facets which arise upon attempting concurrent treatment of the QM and GR paradigms, as is required in particular (...) for a background independent theory of quantum gravity. A sizeable proportion of current quantum gravity programs - e.g. geometrodynamical and loop quantum gravity approaches to quantum GR, quantum cosmology, supergravity and M-theory - are background independent in this sense. This book's foundational topic is thus furthermore of practical relevance in the ongoing development of quantum gravity programs. This book shows moreover that eight of the nine facets of the Problem of Time already occur upon entertaining background independence in classical (rather than quantum) physics. By this development, and interpreting shape theory as modelling background independence, this book further establishes background independence as a field of study. Background independent mechanics, as well as minisuperspace (spatially homogeneous) models of GR and perturbations thereabout are used to illustrate these points. As hitherto formulated, the different facets of the Problem of Time greatly interfere with each others' attempted resolutions. This book explains how, none the less, a local resolution of the Problem of Time can be arrived at after various reconceptualizations of the facets and reformulations of their mathematical implementation. Self-contained appendices on mathematical methods for basic and foundational quantum gravity are included. Finally, this book outlines how supergravity is refreshingly different from GR as a realization of background independence, and what background independence entails at the topological level and beyond. (shrink)

IMAGINING and remembering, two of the most frequent and fundamental acts of mind, have long been unwelcome guests in most of the many mansions of philosophy. When not simply ignored or over-looked, they have been considered only to be dismissed. This is above all true of imagination, as first becomes evident in Plato’s view that the art of making exact images tends to degenerate into the making of mere semblances. Kant, despite the importance he gives to imagination in the first (...) edition of The Critique of Pure Reason, nevertheless considers images to be lowly "monograms" that are unruly and thus untrustworthy. In more recent times, Sartre, who is nearly as ambivalent as Kant on the subject, has stressed imagination’s "essential poverty"—its character as "debased thought"—while Ryle, in covert counterpoint, has attempted to conceive imagining as parody and pretense: as mere make-believe. (shrink)

This paper responds to an essay by Elena Ferrante on male literary figures acknowledging the influence of female ones. She poses a question about her reception by males which I address.

This paper describes a kind of poem which reveals an exception to the instruction to know thyself.

Każde nowe zjawisko literackie zagraża tożsamości literatury, ale i jej tożsamość potwierdza. Nowość inicjuje zmianę hierarchii tematów, powoduje deregulację norm wysłowienia, wzmaga zamieszanie pośród gatunków, wymusza rewizję granic oddzielających literaturę od nieliteratury i paraliteratury oraz komunikację werbalną od niewerbalnej. Najgłębsze wstrząsy i najgwałtowniejsze zwroty nie niszczą jednak uniwersalnego modelu literackości, dlatego pozostaje on nieodmiennie atrakcyjny dla pisarzy, tłumaczy, czytelników, krytyków, historyków i teoretyków sztuki słowa. Spośród wielu teorii „tego, co literackie”, wyróżnia się teoria sprzecznościowa. Powtarza się ona w kolejnych epokach (...) i poetykach, utworach i manifestach – zachowawczych i nowatorskich, rodzimych i wzorowanych na inwencji cudzej. Literackość polega tu na zawieszeniu obowiązującej poza sztuką słowa formalno-logicznej normy niesprzeczności(lex contraditionis), wedle której nie mogą być uznane za równocześnie prawdziwe dwa przeciwstawne sądy na temat tego samego przedmiotu, ujęte w tym samym trwaniu. W komunikacji praktycznej nie jest dopuszczalne, by jednocześnie było A i nie-A; w komunikacji literackiej jest to nieodzowne. Nie chodzi tylko o sądy, ale o napięcia między aktywnymi w danym dziele literackim składnikami: sztucznością a naturalnością mowy, porządkiem a chaosem fabuły, eksperymentem a wznowieniem chwytów oswojonych, bezstronną obserwacją a stronniczą oceną świata, jego widzialnością a niewidzialnością, wyrażalnością a niewyrażalnością intuicji autorskich, orientacją realistyczną a imaginatywną itd. Model sprzecznościowy jest otwarty dla odmiennych stylów i poetyk – z uwagi na gradacyjny charakter wyzwalanych w literaturze energii. (shrink)

This essay examines the terms of the Judicial Oath sworn by the judges in the Athenian courts during the classical period. There is general agreement that the oath contained four basic clauses: to vote in accordance to the laws and decrees of the Athenian people, to vote about matters pertaining to the charge, to listen to both the accuser and defendant equally, and to vote or judge with one’s most fair judgment . Some scholars believe that the fourth clause gave (...) judges the right to vote according to their conscience and to ignore the law if they found it unjust. The first part of the essay shows that this clause gave judges the right to make decisions solely on the basis of their most just judgment only where the laws gave no clear guidance. It was a default clause invoked only twice in the extant orations; it was never used as justification to ignore the written laws. The second part addresses the view that the courts took political factors into account during trials. Although some trials involved leading politicians, the courts were bound by their oath to decide whether the defendant was guilty of the charge brought by the accuser. The only part of a trial where a defendant might mention his political achievements or his public largesse was at during the assessment of the penalty in a trial on a public charge. (shrink)

Dismantling Glorydeals with the poetry written about the honors and horrors of battle by the very soldiers who put their lives on the line. Focusing on American and English poetry from World Wars I and II and the Vietnam War, Lorrie Goldensohn presents the move from a poetry largely bound to trench warfare to a global war poetry dominated by air power, invasion, and occupation. Civilians, prisoners, and children enter this poetry in new and compelling ways, as do issues of (...) race and gender, changing and complicating the representation of war, and expanding the scope of antiwar thinking. (shrink)

What is bound to mislead us is the dichotomist assumption that keeping in mind must be either an entirely active or an utterly passive affair. This assumption has plagued theories of memory as of other mental activities. On the activist model, keeping in mind would be a creating or recreating in mind of what is either a mere mirage to begin with or a set of stultified sensations. Much as God in the seventeenth century was sometimes thought to operate by (...) continual creation, so the mind was given the same lofty powers in the Romantic thought that represented a reaction to much of what the seventeenth century stood for. But the activist model is by no means limited to the Romantic idealists or Natur-philosophen. It reappears in more than one phase of phenomenology, and it informs the sober theorizing of Bartlett and Piaget on the nature of remembering. On the passivist model, on the other hand, the mind is mute and unconfigurating. It takes in but does not give back other than what it takes in. It is a recording mechanism only. Something like this view is at work in empiricist theories of memory, considered as restricted to the contents of Humean "impressions" and arranged according to their order and position in time; it continues in Kant's notion of "reproductive imagination" as operating by association alone; and it is found flourishing today in psychological accounts of what is revealingly called "human associative memory.". (shrink)

HAMILTON WORRIED THAT THERE WERE REPRESENTATIVE ELEMENTS\nIN REID'S EPISTEMOLOGY, WHILE J S MILL FLATLY CHARACTERIZED\nTHE SCOT AS A REPRESENTATIVE REALIST. I ARGUE THAT HAMILTON\nAND MILL WERE MISTAKEN AND THAT THEIR MISTAKES AROSE FROM\nAN INSUFFICIENT UNDERSTANDING AND APPRECIATION OF THE\nNATIVISTIC ELEMENTS OF THE UNDERSTANDING INTRODUCED BY\nREID; AND TO INSUFFICIENT AWARENESS OF REID'S\nCHARACTERIZATION OF PERCEPTION AS ACTIVE IN CONTRAST TO\nBRITISH EMPIRICIST RELIANCE ON A PASSIVELY GIVEN EPISTEMIC\nBASE. REID REJECTED EVERY VARIETY OF THE "MESSENGER"\nTHEORY.