It is shown that a complete axiomatization of classical non-tautologies can be obtained by taking F (falsehood) as the sole axiom along with the two inference rules: (i) if A is a substitution instance of B, then A |– B; and (ii) if A is obtained from B by replacement of equivalent sentences, then A |– B (counting as equivalent the pairs {T, ~F}, {F, F&F}, {F, F&T}, {F, T&F}, {T, T&T}). Since the set of tautologies is also specifiable by (...) purely syntactic means, the resulting picture gives an improved syntactic account of classical sentential logic. The picture can then be completed by considering related systems that prove adequate to specify the set of contradictions, the set of non-contradictions, and the set of contingencies respectively. (shrink)

An overview of the way I picture the amorphous world we live in, built around my comments and responses to nine festschrift essays by A. Borghini (on the Fedro metaphor and the art of butchery), F. Calemi (on the predication principle and metalinguistic nominalism), C. Calosi (on the argument from mereological universalism to extensonality), E. Casetta (on the role of “monsters” in the realism/antirealism debate), V. Giardino (on inductive reasoning, spatial representation, and problem solving), P. Graziani (on mereological notation), P. (...) Pedrini (on the distinction between natural and artificial boundaries), D. Santoro (on causation by omission), and G. Torrengo (on absolute vs. relational space and the problem of incongruent counterparts). (shrink)

In the years around 1900 one of the most significant practical consequences of new styles of bacteriological thought and practice was the development of preventive vaccines and therapeutic sera. Historical scholarship has highlighted how approaches rooted in the laboratory methods of Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur and their collaborators were transformed in local contexts and applied in diverse ways to enable more effective disease identification, prevention and treatment. Amongst these, the anti-anthrax serum developed by the Italian physician Achille Sclavo (1861–1930) (...) has received little to no attention from historians. This article positions Sclavo's serum as a neglected but significant presence in British microbiology, which achieved widespread uptake amidst a wave of optimism, despite prolonged uncertainty about its mechanism of action and dosage. After being introduced to Britain in 1904 by the enterprising first medical inspector of factories Thomas Morison Legge, within a matter of months the serum became regarded by medical practitioners as an effective treatment of cutaneous anthrax, though access to ‘fresh’ serum and the necessary speedy diagnosis remained problematic. Like the disease anthrax itself, discussion of ‘Sclavo's serum’ was out of all proportion to the relatively low number of cases, reflecting a deep-seated fascination with the wider possibilities afforded by effective serum therapy. (shrink)

The aim of my contribution is to try to analyse some points of similarity and difference between post-Parsonian social systems theory models for sociology — with special reference to those of W. Buckley, F.E. Emery and N. Luhmann — and expert systems models1 from Artificial Intelligence. I keep specifically to post-Parsonian systems theories within sociology because they assume some postulates and criteria derived from cybernetics and which are at the roots of AI. I refer in particular to the fundamental relevance (...) of the system-environment relationship in both sociology and AI. (shrink)

Physical and biological measurements might display range values extending towards infinite. The occurrence of infinity in equations, such as the black hole singularities, is a troublesome issue that causes many theories to break down when assessing extreme events. Different methods, such as re-normalization, have been proposed to avoid detrimental infinity. Here a novel technique is proposed, based on geometrical considerations and the Alexander Horned sphere, that permits to undermine infinity in physical and biophysical equations. In this unconventional approach, a continuous (...) monodimensional line becomes an assembly of countless bidimensional lines that superimpose in quantifiable knots and bifurcations. In other words, we may state that Achilles leaves the straight line and overtakes the turtle. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes on Hesiod's Works and Days, 383-828E. F. BeallErrata: In E. F. Beall's "Notes on Hesiod's Works and Days, 383- 828," AJP 122.2 (June 2001):155-71, the references to the works of Hoekstra and Solmsen were inadvertently switched in proofs to cite the wrong work of each author. Page 156, notes 5 and 9 should have referred to Hoekstra's "Hésiode, Les Travaux et les jours..."; page 158, note 14 should (...) have referred to Solmsen's Hesiodi: Theogonia, Opera et Dies, Scutum. We regret the error. [End Page 154]In the interests of stimulating critical attention to the works and days proper of the Works and Days, lines 383-828, I offer some remarks on selected problems of the text.11. The poem's addressee will need(405-6)West2 and others suspect 406,3 mostly becfause Aristotle does not observe it and sees the gunē as a wife (Oec. 1343a, Pol. 1252b),4 but several critics beginning with Scaliger (sixteenth century) have noted that this is no [End Page 155] basis for doubt. Although some merely impugn the philosopher's memory without evidence, Lanzi in his 1808 commentary and Erbse (1993, 24) make a substantive point: marriage upon starting farming (prōtista) is inconsistent with Hesiod's advice to wait until age thirty at 696-97.5 One can respond that Aristotle may have different recensions from ours here (one without 406 and 695-705) and elsewhere.6 But if the issue is whose recensions are best, then despite any feeling that Aristotle is "closer" to the originals, other epic citations hurt the case for his texts. For example,7 we read today that trembling (tromos) seized (hele) Hector upon meeting Achilles (Il. 22.136), and he fled for a time (to 22.225); yet Aristotle says (EE 1230a) that what seized (heile) him at the encounter was shame (aidōs), making him brave and able to face the danger. At first sight this conflates the actual line with an earlier one, 22.105 (= 6.442): Hector is ashamed (aideomai) for urging battle at another time.8 But possibly Aristotle has, rather, a version of the Iliad without character development, where Hector and Achilles get right to their contest. If so, our version is superior: the temporary flight allows introduction of a wealth of detail; see Richardson 1993, 121-32. With Hesiod, Metaphysics 984b omits Theogony 118, to make Gaea/Earth support not just all the gods of Olympus but simply "all," a role few would now agree the poem could intend for her. Lesser concerns about 406 being easily met,9 it may be kept in the text bequeathed to us. [End Page 156]2.10(410-13)Etōsioergos is often construed as "lazy" or the like. Thus West explains the word as the man's neglect of his ergon rendering it etōsios, "useless." But as Lehrs says against Voss's equivalent, "säumiger," etōsio-ergos is really frustra-laborans: acting uselessly, that is, without purpose; it is not causing uselessness via inaction.11 Thus, for example, Tandy and Neale: "works at vain tasks." Etōsioergos should be different from anaballomenos in 412, given ou... oude, contra West's forced interpretation of hendiadys. The "lazy" construal may stem from belief that gar indicates explanation of anaballesthai in 410, but this particle's causal thrust is inherently loose. Moreover, it can govern more than a clause or sentence (de Jong), and it is natural to take the entire segment 411-13 as the quasi-explanation of 410.12 In short, 411 and 412 single out two distinct modes of avoiding serious work, puttering and putting off, rather than simply attack the avoidance in broad strokes twice. It is also possible that 413 adds yet a third mode: Amboliergos might be "working sporadically" rather than delaying the required labor all at once. Anabolē in its sense of "thrown upward" can refer to an intermittent process (as a boiling liquid makes bubbles; Arist., Pr. 936b), so that the delay of any entity to which it was prefixed might be thought fragmented. [End Page 157... (shrink)

ABSTRACT Necropolitical arrangements of bifurcations delineate those ontological antagonisms that code Blackness as ontological lack (as non-position). In this article, I attempt to think about this evacuation of being in terms of the necropolitical’s fleshy excess, as what Alexander Weheliye’s work names “habeus viscus.” In so doing, I explore the implications, for our understanding of the “repressed proximities” of which the necropolitical consists, of arrangements that always-already include entanglements with their fleshy excess. In other words, if the nonposition of the (...) excluded is always positioned within, then living in/against the death-logics of necropolitics is always happening from that “nonposition within.” Hence, a reading of Achille Mbembe’s account of necropolitics must reckon with what Katherine McKittrick names “the creative consequences of the plot and the plantation,” with the implications of the inextricable proximal entanglements between the killing of life and the living that persists, despite. This article focuses on this “living despite.” Through a constellation of thinkers like Katherine McKittrick, Alexander Weheliye, and Zakiyyah Iman Jackson (to name a few), it aims to show that there are, perhaps, other futures that are already “now,” shattering what Édouard Glissant refers to as the “stone of time,” shattering (necropolitical) history as destiny. (shrink)

Much of the debate about the mathematical refutation of Zeno’s paradoxes surrounds the logical possibility of completing supertasks—tasks made up of an infinite number of subtasks. Max Black and J.F. Thomson attempt to show that supertasks entail logical contradictions, but their arguments come up short. In this paper, I take a different approach to the mathematical refutations. I argue that even if supertasks are possible, we do not have a non-question-begging reason to think that Achilles’ supertask is possible. The justification (...) for the possibility of Achilles’ supertask lies in the possibility of him completing other supertasks of the same kind, and the justification for the possibility of him completing these other supertasks lies in the possibility of him completing yet more supertasks ad infinitum. (shrink)

The following paper takes up an old question about the correct identification of the person that is mentioned or addressed in the first line of a short fragment from Aeschylus’ Phrygians. It is argued that the person is indeed Andromache, as the ancient authorities attest, and not Briseis, as some modern authors have claimed. However, the fragment continues a tendency to bring Andromache and Briseis in close connection with each other, that started already with Homer and his epic forerunners. Aeschylus, (...) therefore, locates Andromache at Lyrnessos, the traditional place of Briseis, because he, too, wants to bring the two heroines in close connection and he therewith gives a hint to the parallel fates their husbands or lovers, Hektor and Achilles, will be exposed to. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Poetics of Consent: Collective Decision Making and the Iliad by David F. ElmerWilliam G. ThalmannDavid F. Elmer. The Poetics of Consent: Collective Decision Making and the Iliad. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. x + 313 pp. Cloth, $55.In this book, David Elmer takes a fresh approach to some large questions that have occupied Homeric scholarship: how and under what conditions the epics took shape, the (...) political dynamics and relations of authority in the society they depict, the relation (if any) of that society to historical Greek society, the nature of performances of the poems and the relations between performer and audience, and, within the Iliad, how human action is related to decisions of the gods and the political and social implications of various characters’ conduct, particularly that of Agamemnon and Achilles. Any one of these questions is usually enough for a full-length study. But, drawing on such recent work as that of Gregory Nagy, Johannes Haubold, and Elton Barker, as well as on speech act theory and Indo-European linguistics, Elmer brings these questions together in a fresh and illuminating examination of the Iliad and its performative context.The basis for his study is the observation that, whereas ainein / -os can have various meanings in and outside Homer (“praise,” “[coded] story”), in the Iliad the compound epainein (the noun does not occur in Homer but he uses it for convenience) is limited to contexts of collective deliberation. There it describes the approving response of the community to a proposal by a leader that normally translates the proposal into action. Such a scenario represents the formation of a speech act; one distinctive feature of the book is that it draws attention away from enunciation to its reception by an audience, which is crucial to the completion of a speech act and especially to its effectiveness in shaping reality. This usage of the verb, Elmer argues in an excellent chapter (2), is a vestige of the importance of speech to the creation and maintenance of social order (a prominent theme of the book) in Indo-European societies. It thus refers to socially efficacious and constructive speech. Conversely, the cognate anainesthai and apēnēs are associated with verbal behavior that is socially destructive.The consent signaled by epainos results from consensus, which (following Egon Flaig) Elmer carefully distinguishes from majority rule, and which, he says in connection with the Thersites episode, seems egalitarian but is consistent with social hierarchy. Scholars have often depicted the role of the people (laos) in Homeric assembly scenes as limited to ratifying decisions actually made by their leaders (basilēes), but Elmer makes a strong case that the people’s epainos is necessary for a proposal to become action. The evidence is negative but telling: the many instances in which epainos does not occur and decisions are either [End Page 281] not made or lead to failure. On the other hand, Elmer might have been more explicit about the relation between the authority of the basilēes and the need for consensus. Is a tension between them one of the fault lines of Iliadic society exposed by the narrative? Is the role of a good leader to see that both are somehow accommodated? At any rate, Elmer’s argument that a basileus cannot set aside the opinion of the community, and in particular that Agamemnon’s rebuff of Chryses, despite the people’s support of him at the beginning of the poem, cannot be taken as the norm is persuasive and welcome.Strangely but significantly, an explicit statement of the norm of epainos comes only late in the poem, at Il. 23.539–42, when the Achaeans “express an epainos” at Achilles’ proposal to award the second-prize mare to Eumelos; this response would have been the basis of his doing so if not for Antilochos’s objection. These lines, Elmer argues, show the need for community approval to enact a proposal. The lines also show the power given to individual dissent in a system of consensus. It is a key point in Elmer’s overall argument that in the episode which shows the norm most clearly... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliadby Lorenzo F. GarciaJonas GrethleinL orenzoF. G arcia. Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliad. Hellenic Studies 57. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2013. Distributed by Harvard University Press. viii + 321 pp. Paper, $22.50.The philosophy of Heidegger continues to cast a spell on some Classicists. It is less Heidegger’s own interpretations of Greek authors that serve as stimulus than the (...) main work of his early career, Sein und Zeit(Halle 1927), that seems to invite applications to ancient texts. Reading such studies as Shanske’s Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of History(Cambridge 2007), I keep wondering to what extent the attractiveness of Heidegger to some Classicists ultimately derives from the impact that ancient texts may have had on the formation of his philosophy. Attending a humanistisches Gymnasium, Heidegger received a thorough training in Greek and must have read a fair amount of ancient texts in the original. Besides tying in with the existentialism of his day, the gloomy nature of Heidegger’s philosophy is highly reminiscent of what is traditionally referred to as Greek pessimism. It is easy, for instance, to sense in the concept of “ Sein zum Tode” an echo of the sentiment of the Herodotean Solon that “we must look to the conclusion of every matter and see how it will end” (Hdt. 1.32.9). The common tenor notwithstanding, applying Heidegger’s philosophy of Being to the interpretation of ancient literature is a daunting task.In Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliad, Garcia draws on Heidegger to show that “the subject of the Iliad... is time itself and the durability of its objects to withstand time’s withering flow” (5). Garcia claims that the tenet of Heidegger’s philosophy of time plays out in the Iliadat various levels. For Heidegger, Daseinis defined by death, which is always impending and thereby constitutes its totality. Daseinis essentially Sein zum Tode(“being-toward-death”). This, Garcia argues, is reflected in the temporal economy of the Iliadwhich hinges on the notion of “not yet” already encapsulating a “no longer.” Various physical objects, humans, and, to some extent, also gods are presented as enduring, but fated to fade. Garcia’s central argument is that they thereby reflect the temporal dynamics of epic poetry itself. To him, kleos aphthitondoes not imply the idea of eternity, but a duration that entails its own ending. Before discussing the soundness of this argument in conjunction with its deployment of Heidegger, let me give a brief synopsis of the individual chapters.In chapter 1, Garcia elaborates on “the rhetoric of time and memory”; while “time has disintegrating effects..., memory in a pure or ideal form, on the other hand, preserves its object against time” (45). This dialectic comes to the fore in Iliad2 where the rotting of the ships and the flagging morale of the [End Page 481]Greeks indicate the “loss of cohesion through waiting” (55). At the same time, Garcia claims, Odysseus’ intervention illustrates the power of memory. Odysseus reminds the Achaeans of Calchas’ prophecy which he remembers as if “it was either yesterday or the day before” and “thereby seeks to undo the disintegration of the Achaeans’ emotional resolve” (63). The tension between the decaying force of time and the attempt at recuperation through memory yields the framework for the investigation of various entities and their temporal dynamics in the main part of the book.The second chapter is devoted to the fate of the bodies of Sarpedon, Patroclus, and Hector. In the eyes of Garcia, “the preservation of these exquisite corpses serves as an analogue within the poem for the very project of the epic commemoration of Achilles—as if the epic were a ‘freezing’ of temporal flow against the ravages of time” (66). However, neither the application of ambrosia and nectar nor funeral rites achieve permanent preservation: bodies can be removed from time only temporarily. They are subject to “the logic of the ‘still perfectly’ and ‘not yet’” (94) and thereby mirror the fame of Achilles which, despite its longevity, carries its termination in itself.In chapter... (shrink)

Dans les sociétés démocratiques, le droit est le texte où s'écrivent nos croyances fondatrices : croyances en une signification de l'être humain, croyances dans la force des lois et l'empire de la justice, croyances dans les valeurs sociales de l'Interdit. Le droit impose donc un sens commun qui permet aux individus de se lier entre eux et de vivre ensemble, il fonctionne aussi comme une vérité du moment. Il se nourrit et accompagne les transformations sociales et culturelles qui touchent non (...) seulement les sociétés nationales, mais également l'espace mondialisé. Le droit enregistre, selon ses propres temporalités, les changements de valeurs, l'émergence de nouvelles inquiétudes, l'évolution des techniques et des connaissances. Depuis quelques années, nous assistons à une "demande" accrue de droit et de régulation juridique. Nous chercherons tout d'abord à repérer et identifier les nouveaux territoires du droit en montrant comment la norme juridique contribue en permanence à réinventer le réel, à fabriquer inlassablement la condition humaine, à se présenter sans cesse comme l'instituteur du social. Ce mouvement de juridicisation du social et du politique se traduit non seulement par une prolifération et une diversification de la règle de droit, mais également par un processus parallèle de judiciarisation qui voit un certain nombre de problèmes être traités par l'institution judiciaire (politiques de santé, de sécurité, phénomènes de criminalité internationale, etc.). Entrons-nous dans un nouvel âge du droit? Ces nouvelles interactions entre la société et le droit inaugurent-elles l'ère d'une future démocratie juridique? C'est à ces questions que cet ouvrage essaie de répondre grâce à des contributions de F. Bellivier, J. Commaille, M. Delmas-Marty, M. Hastings, I. De Lamberterie, S. Leverd, A. Lourdelle, E. Millard, M. Quillé, D. Salas, J-F. Thony. (shrink)

Philosophical questions about events lie at the crossing of several disciplines, from metaphysics and logic to philosophy of language, action theory, the philosophy of space and time.

Brain-centered theories of consciousness seem to face insuperable difficulties. While some philosophers now doubt that the hard problem of consciousness will ever be solved, others call for radically new approaches to conscious experience. In this article I resurrect a largely forgotten approach to consciousness known as neorealism. According to neorealism, consciousness is merely a part, or cross-section, of the environment. Neorealism implies that all conscious experiences, veridical or otherwise, exist outside of the brain and are wholly independent of being perceived (...) or not; nonveridical perceptions of the environment over an arbitrarily short period of time are supposed to be objective constituents of the environment over a more extended time scale. I argue here that neorealism fares at least as well as brain-centered theories of consciousness on a number of fundamental issues. On one fundamental issue—the nature of the relation between veridical and nonveridical perceptions—neorealism outperforms its competitors. (shrink)

An alternative semantic framework is proposed in the following to reconstruct and make sense of “Eastern logics”: a Question-Answer Semantics (thereafter: QAS), including a set of questions-answers and a finite number of ensuing non-Fregean logical values. Thus, meaning is provided by yes-no answers to corresponding questions about relevant properties. These logical values help to show that the saptabhaṅgī (and its dual, viz., the Buddhist Mādhyamaka catuṣkoṭi) is not a many-valued paraconsistent logic but, rather, a one-valued proto-logic: a constructive machinery that (...) serves as a formal theory of judgment, rather than a Tarskian-like theory of consequence. Such an explanatory model of contradiction assumes a deep redefinition of logical values. (shrink)

This is a brief sequel to Max Black 's classic dialogue on the Identity of Indiscernibles. Interlocutor A defends the bundle theory by endorsing the view according to which Black 's world does not contain two indiscernible spheres but rather a single, bi-located sphere. His opponent, B, objects that A cannot distinguish such a world from a world with a single, uniquely located sphere, hence that the view in question adds nothing to A's original response to Black 's challenge. A (...) is simply denying that there can be worlds with two or more indiscernible entities. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical reconstruction of the motivations that led to the development of mereology as we know it today, along with a brief description of some problems that define current research in the field.

Two mereological theories are presented based on a primitive apartness relation along with binary relations of mereological excess and weak excess, respectively. It is shown that both theories are acceptable from the standpoint of constructive reasoning while remaining faithful to the spirit of classical mereology. The two theories are then compared and assessed with regard to their extensional import.

Ordinary reasoning about space—we argue—is first and foremost reasoning about things or events located in space. Accordingly, any theory concerned with the construction of a general model of our spatial competence must be grounded on a general account of the sort of entities that may enter into the scope of the theory. Moreover, on the methodological side the emphasis on spatial entities (as opposed to purely geometrical items such as points or regions) calls for a reexamination of the conceptual categories (...) required for this task. Building on material presented in an earlier paper, in this work we offer some examples of what this amounts to, of the difficulties involved, and of the main directions along which spatial theories should be developed so as to combine formal sophistication with some affinity with common sense. (shrink)

According to the cliché a picture is worth a thousand words. But this is a canard, for it vastly underestimates the expressive power of many pictures and diagrams. In this note we show that even a simple map such as the outline of Manhattan Island, accompanied by a pointer marking North, implies a vast infinity of statements—including a vast infinity of true statements.

Some forms of analytic reconstructivism take natural language (and common sense at large) to be ontologically opaque: ordinary sentences must be suitably rewritten or paraphrased before questions of ontological commitment may be raised. Other forms of reconstructivism take the commitment of ordinary language at face value, but regard it as metaphysically misleading: common-sense objects exist, but they are not what we normally think they are. This paper is an attempt to clarify and critically assess some common limits of these two (...) reconstructivist strategies. (shrink)

Exploring the connection between Bentham and Byron forged by the Greek struggle for independence, this book focuses on the activities of the London Greek Committee, supposedly founded by disciples of Jeremy Bentham, which mounted the expedition on which Lord Byron ultimately met his death in Greece. Rosen's penetrating study provides a new assessment of British philhellenism and examines for the first time the relationship between Bentham's theory of constitutional government and the emerging liberalism of the 1820s. Breaking new ground in (...) the history of political ideas and culture in the early nineteenth century, Rosen advances striking new interpretations based on recently published texts and manuscript sources of the development of constitutional theory from Locke and Montesquieu, the conflicting strands of liberalism in the 1820s, and the response in Britain to strong claims for national self-determination in the Mediterranean basin. He sets out to distinguish between Bentham's theory and the ideological context against which it is usually interpreted. (shrink)