According to one productive and influential approach to cognition, categorization, object recognition, and higher level cognitive processes operate on a set of fixed features, which are the output of lower level perceptual processes. In many situations, however, it is the higher level cognitive process being executed that influences the lower level features that are created. Rather than viewing the repertoire of features as being fixed by low-level processes, we present a theory in which people create features to subserve the representation (...) and categorization of objects. Two types of category learning should be distinguished. Fixed space category learning occurs when new categorizations are representable with the available feature set. Flexible space category learning occurs when new categorizations cannot be represented with the features available. Whether fixed or flexible, learning depends on the featural contrasts and similarities between the new category to be represented and the individual's existing concepts. Fixed feature approaches face one of two problems with tasks that call for new features: If the fixed features are fairly high level and directly useful for categorization, then they will not be flexible enough to represent all objects that might be relevant for a new task. If the fixed features are small, subsymbolic fragments (such as pixels), then regularities at the level of the functional features required to accomplish categorizations will not be captured by these primitives. We present evidence of flexible perceptual changes arising from category learning and theoretical arguments for the importance of this flexibility. We describe conditions that promote feature creation and argue against interpreting them in terms of fixed features. Finally, we discuss the implications of functional features for object categorization, conceptual development, chunking, constructive induction, and formal models of dimensionality reduction. Key Words: concept learning; conceptual development; features; perceptual learning; stimulus encoding. (shrink)

: In the 1980s, the analysis of presupposition projection contributed to a ‘dynamic turn’ in semantics: the classical notion of meanings as truth conditions was replaced with a dynamic notion of meanings as Context Change Potentials. We argue that this move was misguided, and we offer an alternative in which presupposition projection follows from the combination of a fully classical semantics and a new pragmatic principle, which we call Be Articulate. This principle requires that a meaning pp’ conceptualized as involving (...) a pre-condition p should be articulated as … … rather than as … pp’ …, unless the full conjunction is ruled out because the first or the second conjunct is semantically idle. In particular, … … is infelicitous - and hence … pp’ … is acceptable - if one can determine as soon as p and is uttered that no matter how the sentence ends these words could be eliminated without affecting its contextual meaning. An equivalence theorem guarantees that this condition suffices to derive Heim’s results in almost all cases. Extensions of the condition lead to several new predictions, in particular concerning some ‘symmetric readings’, as well as presupposition projection in quantified structures, which displays a complex interaction between the nature of the trigger and the monotonicity of the quantifier. (shrink)

As part of a recent attempt to extend the methods of formal semantics beyond language, it has been claimed that music has an abstract truth-conditional semantics, albeit one that has more in common with iconic semantics than with standard compositional semantics. After summarizing this approach and addressing a common objection, we argue that music semantics should be enriched in three directions by incorporating insights of other areas of Super Semantics. First, it has been claimed by Abusch 2013 that visual narratives (...) make use of discourse referents akin to those we find in language. We argue that a similar conclusion extends to music, and we highlight it by investigating ways in which orchestration and dance may make cross-referential dependencies more explicit. Second, we show that by bringing music semantics closer to the semantics of visual narratives, we can give an account of the semantics of mixed visual and musical sequences. Third, it has been claimed that co-speech gestures trigger characteristic conditionalized presuppositions, called ‘cosuppositions’, and that their semantic status derives from their parasitic character relative to words. We argue that the same conclusion extends to some instances of film and cartoon music: it may trigger cosuppositions that can be revealed by embedding film excerpts or gifs in sentences so as to test presupposition projection. We further argue that under special discourse conditions, pro-speech gestures and pro-speech music alike can trigger cosuppositions as well. These results suggest that new insights can be gained not just by extending the methods of semantics to new objects, but also by drawing new connections among them. (shrink)

We argue that a formal semantics for music can be developed, although it will be based on very different principles from linguistic semantics and will yield less precise inferences. Our framework has the following tenets: Music cognition is continuous with normal auditory cognition. In both cases, the semantic content derived from an auditory percept can be identified with the set of inferences it licenses on its causal sources, analyzed in appropriately abstract ways. What is special about music semantics is that (...) it aggregates inferences based on normal auditory cognition with further inferences drawn on the basis of the behavior of voices in tonal pitch space. This makes it possible to define an inferential semantics but also a truth-conditional semantics for music. In particular, a voice undergoing a musical movement m is true of an object undergoing a series of events e just in case there is a certain structure-preserving map between m and e. Aspects of musical syntax might be derivable on semantic grounds from an event mereology, which also explains some cases in which tree structures are inadequate for music. Intentions and emotions may be attributed at several levels, and we speculate on possible explanations of the special relation between music and emotions. (shrink)

We develop a formal semantic analysis of the alarm calls used by Campbell’s monkeys in the Tai forest and on Tiwai island —two sites that differ in the main predators that the monkeys are exposed to. Building on data discussed in Ouattara et al. :e7808, 2009a; PNAS 106: 22026–22031, 2009b and Arnold et al., we argue that on both sites alarm calls include the roots krak and hok, which can optionally be affixed with -oo, a kind of attenuating suffix; in (...) addition, sentences can start with boom boom, which indicates that the context is not one of predation. In line with Arnold et al., we show that the meaning of the roots is not quite the same in Tai and on Tiwai: krak often functions as a leopard alarm call in Tai, but as a general alarm call on Tiwai. We develop models based on a compositional semantics in which concatenation is interpreted as conjunction, roots have lexical meanings, -oo is an attenuating suffix, and an all-purpose alarm parameter is raised with each individual call. The first model accounts for the difference between Tai and Tiwai by way of different lexical entries for krak. The second model gives the same underspecified entry to krak in both locations, but it makes use of a competition mechanism akin to scalar implicatures. In Tai, strengthening yields a meaning equivalent to non-aerial dangerous predator and turns out to single out leopards. On Tiwai, strengthening yields a nearly contradictory meaning due to the absence of ground predators, and only the unstrengthened meaning is used. (shrink)

There are two main approaches to the problem of donkey anaphora (e.g. If John owns a donkey , he beats it ). Proponents of dynamic approaches take the pronoun to be a logical variable, but they revise the semantics of quantifiers so as to allow them to bind variables that are not within their syntactic scope. Older dynamic approaches took this measure to apply solely to existential quantifiers; recent dynamic approaches have extended it to all quantifiers. By contrast, proponents of (...) E-type analyses take the pronoun to have the semantics of a definite description (with it ≈ the donkey, or the donkey that John owns ). While competing accounts make very different claims about the patterns of coindexation that are found in the syntax, these are not morphologically realized in spoken languages. But they are in sign language, namely through locus assignment and pointing. We make two main claims on the basis of ASL and LSF data. First, sign language data favor dynamic over E-type theories: in those cases in which the two approaches make conflicting predictions about possible patterns of coindexation, dynamic analyses are at an advantage. Second, among dynamic theories, sign language data favor recent ones because the very same formal mechanism is used irrespective of the indefinite or non-indefinite nature of the antecedent. Going beyond this debate, we argue that dynamic theories should allow pronouns to be bound across negative expressions, as long as the pronoun is presupposed to have a non-empty denotation. Finally, an appendix displays and explains subtle differences between overt sign language pronouns and all other pronouns in examples involving ‘disjunctive antecedents’, and suggests that counterparts of sign language loci might be found in spoken language. (shrink)

The folk picture of agency suggests that human beings have basic agency over some of their omissions. For example, someone may follow through on a decision never to support a political party without doing anything in order to make themselves omit. A number of features appear to signal their agency: the omission is not just called intentional, it is also seen as an achievement and explained in terms of the reasons for the decision. Some philosophers have tried to debunk the (...) appearance and argue that agency over omissions always proceeds from agency over actions (on the model of Ulysses ordering his crew to tie him to the mast). Others have tried to uphold the appearance by understanding basic agency over omissions on the model of their theories of action (and most often on the model of causal theories). Against both groups, I argue for a vindication of the appearance in terms of a theory of sui generis basic agency over omissions. Basic intentional omissions are the behavioral outcomes of fluent control by their agents’ intentions. When an intention to omit fluently controls for the right omission, the omission is an intentional achievement performed because of the intention. The intention appropriately regulates the agent’s behavior so as to ensure the intended omission. We can therefore see basic agency over omissions as regulative and distinct from the agency exercised over actions. (shrink)

This paper argues that one can advocate a moral imperative to pursue enhancement technologies while at the same time rejecting the historical reality of progress and holding a pessimistic view of the future. The first half of the paper puts forth several arguments for why progress is illusory and why one has good reason to be pessimistic about the future of humanity (and posthumanity). The second half then argues that this is entirely consistent with also championing the futurological vision of (...) transhumanism. The claim is that, relative to the alternatives proposed, this vision actually offers the safest route into the future, even if it also entails an increase in the probability of self-annihilation. (shrink)

We want to highlight the strong link between learning systems such as deep learning neural networks and neutrosophy. The latter is above all a representation considering a neutral state which is at the heart of many phenomena of reality as well as mathematical and information theories. Here, we start from the recent understanding of neural networks, which considers their internal functioning and the learning that characterizes them as based on adapted representations (both of the information to be processed and of (...) the task to be performed) that are in fact optimal compressions. Compression means discriminating the similar and the different between cases by identifying representative characteristics through focusing on the most significant and rejecting of the rest. These three operations of neural processing, learning and compression owe their existence to non-linear treatments which essentially amount to distinguishing a neutral zone between two filtered zones, corresponding to the neutrosophical approach. (shrink)

This volume handles in various perspectives the concept of function and the nature of functional explanations, topics much discussed since two major and conflicting accounts have been raised by Larry Wright and Robert Cummins’s papers in the 1970s. Here, both Wright’s ”etiological theory of functions’ and Cummins’s ”systemic’ conception of functions are refined and elaborated in the light of current scientific practice, with papers showing how the ”etiological’ theory faces several objections and may in reply be revisited, while its counterpart (...) became ever more sophisticated, as researchers discovered fresh applications for it. Relying on a firm knowledge of the original positions and debates, this volume presents cutting-edge research evincing the complexities that today pertain in function theory in various sciences. Alongside original papers from authors central to the controversy, work by emerging researchers taking novel perspectives will add to the potential avenues to be followed in the future. Not only does the book adopt no a priori assumptions about the scope of functional explanations, it also incorporates material from several very different scientific domains, e.g. neurosciences, ecology, or technology. In general, functions are implemented in mechanisms; and functional explanations in biology have often an essential relation with natural selection. These two basic claims set the stage for this book’s coverage of investigations concerning both ”functional’ explanations, and the ”metaphysics’ of functions. It casts new light on these claims, by testing them through their confrontation with scientific developments in biology, psychology, and recent developments concerning the metaphysics of realization. Rather than debating a single theory of functions, this book presents the richness of philosophical issues raised by functional discourse throughout the various sciences.​ Content Level » Research Keywords » Causal role theory of functions - Determination of content - Ecosystem selection - Etiological theory of function - Evolutionary biology - Functional explanations - Historical concepts in biology - Larry Wright - Neurosciences - New mechanism - Selected effects functions - Systemic theory of functions - William Wimsatt Related subjects » Anthropology & Archaeology - Epistemology & Philosophy of Science - Evolutionary & Developmental Biology - Neuroscience - Philosophy TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction.- Section I. Biological functions and functional explanations: genes, cells, organisms and ecosystems.- Part 1.A. Functions, organization and development in life sciences.- Chapter 1. William C. Wimsatt. Evolution and the Stability of Functional Architectures.- Chapter 2. Denis M. Walsh. Teleological Emergence: The Autonomy of Evo-Devo.- Chapter 3. Jean Gayon. Does oxygen have a function, or: where should the regress of biological functions stop?.- Part 1.B. Functional pluralism for biologists? Chapter 4. Frédéric Bouchard. How ecosystem evolution strengthens the case for functional pluralism.- Chapter 5. Robert N. Brandon. A general case for functional pluralism.- Chapter 6. Philippe Huneman. Weak realism in the etiological theory of functions.- Section 2. Section II. Psychology, philosophy of mind and technology: Functions in a man’s world.- Part 2.A. 2A. Metaphysics, function and philosophy of mind.- Chapter 7. Carl Craver. Functions and Mechanisms in Contemporary Neuroscience.- Chapter 8. Carl Gillett. Understanding the sciences through the fog of ”functionalism.’.- 2.B. Philosophy of technology, design and functions.- Chapter 9. Fran¸ coise Longy. Artifacts and Organisms: A Case for a New Etiological Theory of Functions.- Chapter 10. Pieter Vermaas and Wybo Houkes. Functions as Epistemic Highlighters: An Engineering Account of Technical, Biological and Other Functions.- Epilogue.- Larry Wright. Revising teleological explanations: reflections three decades on. (shrink)

This article debunks Bruno Latour’s seemingly pro-scientific and well-intentioned posture. I briefly summarize Latour’s constructivist, relativist, hybridist, and mystic philosophy, insisting on his radicalization in his last two books. I show that Latour’s conception is akin to “pseudo-profound bullshit”, inasmuch as he tries to hide his mysticism behind the invocation of scientific facts. I then concentrate on Latour’s politicization of climate science, showing that it is: self-contradictory from an epistemological point of view, since it presupposes scientifically established facts while at (...) the same time undermining their objectivity; counterproductive, and even dangerous, from the political point of view, since it recommends a full politicization of climate science and ignores its harmful effects. I conclude by advocating a distinction between science and politics, and by showing that Latour’s philosophy fosters our current post-truth predicament. (shrink)

Οί πλατεῖες τῆς Δήλου, συγκεντρωμένες σέ τρεῖς κατηγορίες, πλατεῖες συνάθροισης — Ἀγορά τῶν Δηλίων καί Ἀγορά τῶν Ἰταλῶν —, πλατεῖες συναλλαγῶν — Ἀγορά τῶν Κομπεταλιαστών καί 'Αγορά τοῦ Θεόφραστου — καί ἕνας ἐνδιάμεσος τύπος πού ἀντιπροσωπεύεται ἀπό τό ἄνδηρο τῶν λεόντων, χρησιμεύουν στήν εἰκονογράφηση μιᾶς μεθόδου ἀνάλυσης ἐλευθέρων χώρων πού ἀποκάλυψαν οἱ ἀνασκαφές. Στή Δῆλο ὁ ὅρός « πλατεία » πρέπει νά χρησιμοποιεῖται μέ προσοχή σέ σχέση μέ τά μορφολογικά δεδομένα. Ἀντίθετα ἡ χρήση του φαίνεται ἐντελῶς κατάλληλη ἄν πάρουμε ὑπ' (...) ὄψη μας τόν προορισμό ὁρισμένων πολεοδομικῶν χώρων. (shrink)

Au Sud-Est du Cynthe, dans un paysage où prédomine le granit, on remarque une lentille de marbre blanc légèrement bleuâtre sur laquelle on peut observer les nombreuses marques d'une exploitation dans l'Antiquité. Les trois secteurs qui constituent cette carrière révèlent les traces du travail des carriers ; leur examen permet d'établir quelques hypothèses sur le fonctionnement de l'installation depuis les travaux préparatoires nécessaires à l'extraction jusqu'au levage et à l'embarquement des blocs prélevés pour leur transport par mer. L'utilisation de ce (...) marbre pour la construction de certains édifices déliens nous aide à préciser les dates de l'exploitation et permet de conclure que la carrière, dont le rendement semble avoir été faible, a connu une activité sporadique entre la première moitié du vie s. et la fin du IVe S. (shrink)

In several sign languages, plurals can be realized with unpunctuated or punctuated repetitions of a noun, with different semantic implications; similar repetition-based plurals have been described in some homesigns and silent gestures. Unpunctuated repetitions often get approximate ‘at least’ readings while punctuated repetitions typically correspond to ‘exactly’ readings. The prevalence of these mechanisms could be thought to be a case in which Universal Grammar does not just specify the abstract properties of grammatical elements, but also their phonological realization, at least (...) in the visual modality. We explore an alternative in which punctuated and unpunctuated repetitions arise from general properties of iconic representations. On an empirical level, we argue that in ASL, punctuated and unpunctuated repetitions are unlikely to be an exclusively grammatical mechanism, as they can be found with purely iconic representations. On a theoretical level, we argue for a modular account with three components. First, repetition-based plurals can create a simplified pictorial representation. Second, unpunctuated repetitions give rise to pictorial vagueness, resolved by way of quantification over precisifications. Third, a pragmatic process involving strategic reasoning maps these vague representations onto a set of candidate linguistic meanings, including some ‘at least’ plural readings that are best expressed by unpunctuated repetitions. (shrink)

Self-awareness is viewed here as the phenotypic expression of an interaction between genes and the environment. Brain and behavioral development of fetuses and newborn infants are a rich source of information regarding what might constitute minimal self-awareness. Research indicates that newborns have feeling experience. Unlike automata, they do not just sense and respond to proximal stimulations. In light of the explosive brain growth that takes place inside and outside of the womb, first signs of feeling as opposed to sensing experience (...) are discussed. Feeling experience is considered as the necessary condition for having minimal self-awareness. Both would co-emerge in development. However, minimal self-awareness is rapidly supplemented with an awareness that is not just perceptual, but also conceptual and ethical, primarily defined in relation to and by others. (shrink)

This book addresses several key issues in the biological study of death with the intent of capturing their genealogy, the assumptions and presuppositions they make, and the way that they open specific new research avenues. The book is divided into two sections: the first considers physiology and the second evolutionary biology. Huneman explains that biologists in the late 1950s put forth a research framework that evolutionarily accounts for death in terms of either an effect of the weakness of natural selection (...) or a by-product of natural selection for early reproduction. He illustrates how the biology of death is a central field and that studying it provides insight into the way that the epistemic structure of this knowledge has been constituted, persists until now, and may conflict with some traditional philosophical ideas. (shrink)

Dans cet article, on montre que l’hypothèse de la « matière pensante » introduite spéculativement dans le livre IV de l’Essai sur l’Entendement humain, n’est pas seulement l’instrument d’une critique épistémologique destinée à souligner les limitations de notre connaissance, elle est aussi révélatrice des inclinations métaphysiques réelles de Locke. S’il est impossible de s’assurer par la connaissance de la nature de la substance pensante, il est permis néanmoins d’entretenir à son égard une opinion fondée sur des arguments probables. La croyance (...) est en effet aux yeux de Locke un champ d’exercice légitime de la rationalité, un champ qu’il sera particulièrement nécessaire de cultiver lorsque la connaissance manquera et qu’il s’agira de se déterminer sur des questions cruciales – au nombre desquelles il faut compter assurément celle de la substance et de la destination de l’âme. On examine ici les textes et les arguments qui ont conduit la plupart des interprètes de Locke à lui prêter une croyance « dualiste » de type cartésien, favorisant l’opinion de l’immatérialité de l’esprit humain. On montre que ces textes et ces arguments non seulement ne sont pas concluants mais peuvent même être mis au service de la thèse adverse. Que Locke ait cru en la probable matérialité de l’âme humaine est d'autant plus plausible que les arguments donnés dans la troisième lettre à Stillingfleet en faveur de la concevabilité de l'hypothèse, fonctionnent aussi tacitement comme des arguments de probabilité : l'hypothèse ne contredit pas le message scripturaire, elle permet une meilleure conception de l'analogie générale du vivant, elle est mieux conforme aux requisits ontologiques de l'existence et de l'identité. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) à travers son itinéraire semé d'embûches, a dû affronter l'arrivée au pouvoir des nazis. Amené à sillonner l'Europe il développe une activité de critique littéraire et une philosophie de l'histoire, notamment dans ses ultimes « thèses » de 1940. Ce testament philosophique est influencé par le messianisme juif et le marxisme. Décrit comme sentinelle messianique, l'œuvre de Walter Benjamin se déploie aux confins de la sociologie, de l'esthétique et de la théologie. Sa philosophie de l'histoire contraste avec (...) celle de Nietzsche, mais le rapproche de Simone Weil. Analyste privilégié des tourments de l'Europe, il participera indirectement à l'Ecole de Francfort. (shrink)

The social sciences underwent rapid development in postwar America. Problems once framed in social terms gradually became redefined as individual with regards to scope and remedy, with economics and psychology winning influence over the other social sciences. By the 1970s, both economics and psychology had spread their intellectual remits wide: psychology's concepts suffused everyday language, while economists entered a myriad of policy debates. Psychology and economics contributed to, and benefited from, a conception of society that was increasingly skeptical of social (...) explanations and interventions. Sociology, in particular, lost intellectual and policy ground to its peers, even regarding 'social problems' that the discipline long considered its settled domain. The book's ten chapters explore this shift, each refracted through a single 'problem': the family, crime, urban concerns, education, discrimination, poverty, addiction, war, and mental health, examining the effects an increasingly individualized lens has had on the way we see these problems. (shrink)

Des premiers rites baptismaux à la confession moderne, les références au christianisme sont constantes dans l'œuvre de Michel Foucault. Cette constance s'inscrit dans un questionnement philosophique plus large sur notre actualité : comprendre le rapport que nous avons aujourd'hui à nous-mêmes demande de s'interroger sur les actes de vérité que l'Occident a instaurés depuis les premiers siècles chrétiens. Que faut-il dire et manifester de soi pour être transformé dans son être, pardonné, sauvé, jugé ou guéri)? Ce livre propose une étude (...) critique de l'ensemble des lectures chrétiennes de Foucault, avec une attention particulière portée au cours Du gouvernement des vivants. Ni chronologique ni thématique, le parcours suivi espère retrouver la logique d'un travail à la fois philosophique et historique : quand et comment le christianisme a-t-il été constitué par Foucault en objet de recherche, avec quelles pratiques de lecture et quelles conséquences sur l'interprétation)? (shrink)

Musical performance requires the ability to master a complex integration of highly specialized motor, cognitive and perceptual skills developed over years of practice. It often means also being able to deal with a large amount of pressure within dynamic environments. Consequently, many musicians suffer from health-related problems and have a large number of physical and psychological complaints. Research has shown that making music can present challenges for musicians’ wellbeing. Therefore, our research aims to evaluate and analyze the wellbeing of two (...) distinct groups of respondents, college music students compared with amateur musicians in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, this second group serving as our comparison group. This article presents the results of a sample of 126 musicians (mean age ± SD = 22.4 ± 4.5 years, 71 male). The wellbeing was assessed through the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF questionnaire evaluating two general measures, Quality of Life and General health, and four specific dimensions, Physical health, Psychological health, Social relationships and Environment. The respondents’ Quality of Life was high on each measure: median scores were higher than 4 for the first two measures and higher than 70 for the four specific dimensions. Among the dimensions, respondents had the highest mean score for Social relationships and Physical health (74.0 and 73.8, respectively) and, finally, on Psychological health (70.3). Our overview of musicians’ wellbeing in Western Switzerland underlines the importance of helping musicians to be aware of their health in order to take care of themselves. This research offers an important insight into musicians’ health and point out the importance of involving different actors (teachers, administrators or support staff) to promote their wellbeing and empower musicians. (shrink)

O presente artigo pretende sustentar que o diagnóstico adorniano sobre perda da experiência qualitativa do tempo no expressionismo de Schoenberg pode ser desdobrado a partir da mobilização de dois conceitos da musicologia: o trabalho temático e a harmonia tonal. Ambos os conceitos estão associados a procedimentos compositivos em virtude dos quais logrou-se, na música anterior ao expressionismo, uma continuidade temporal que obedecia a uma necessidade, isto é, não contingente, ou fortuita. A dissolução da continuidade temporal na obra expressionista de Schoenberg (...) é, portanto, resultado do abandono destes mesmos procedimentos. (shrink)

‘Statisticalists’ argue that the individual interactions of organisms taken together constitute natural selection. On this view, natural selection is an aggregated effect of interactions rather than some added cause acting on populations. The statisticalists’ view entails that natural selection and drift are indistinguishable aggregated effects of interactions, so that it becomes impossible to make a difference between them. The present paper attempts to make sense of the difference between selection and drift, given the main insights of statisticalism; basically, it will (...) disentangle the various kinds of indistinguishability between selection and drift that happen within biology, by examining the epistemological and metaphysical nature of the distinction between selection and drift. It will be based on a ‘difference-making account’ of selection. The first section will explicate the inscrutability of selection and drift, its various types in the statisticalist writings, and its implications. The second section specifies concepts of natural selection and drift in the difference making account of selection I am using, and shows that one can derive from this the statistical signatures of selection and drift. On this basis I focus on one sort of indistinguishability issue about selection and drift, which I call epistemic opacity, and explain why it mostly affects small populations. The last section explains why epistemic opacity does not raise an genuine epistemic problem for evolutionary biology. (shrink)

Van Heijenoort's main contribution to history and philosophy of modern logic was his distinction between two basic views of logic, first, the absolutist, or universalist, view of the founding fathers, Frege, Peano, and Russell, which dominated the first, classical period of history of modern logic, and, second, the relativist, or model-theoretic, view, inherited from Boole, Schröder, and Löwenheim, which has dominated the second, contemporary period of that history. In my paper, I present the man Jean van Heijenoort (Sect. 1); then (...) I describe his way of arguing for the second view (Sect. 2); and finally I come down in favor of the first view (Sect. 3). There, I specify the version of universalism for which I am prepared to argue (Sect. 3, introduction). Choosing ZFC to play the part of universal, logical (in a nowadays forgotten sense) system, I show, through an example, how the usual model theory can be naturally given its proper place, from the universalist point of view, in the logical framework of ZFC; I outline another, not rival but complementary, semantics for admissible extensions of ZFC in the very same logical framework; I propose a way to get universalism out of the predicaments in which universalists themselves believed it to be (Sect. 3.1). Thus, if universalists of the classical period did not, in fact, construct these semantics, it was not that their universalism forbade them, in principle, to do so. The historical defeat of universalism was not technical in character. Neither was it philosophical. Indeed, it was hardly more than the victory of technicism over the very possibility of a philosophical dispute (Sect. 3.2). (shrink)

In this chapter I consider Newton’s use of the Baconian label experimentum crucis in his famous 1672 paper on Light and Colors. I take it to be a sort of ‘signpost’, or methodological clue, which, properly understood, can help us to assess the kind of ‘empiricist’ commitment that may be ascribed to Newton. In order to dispel persistent misunderstandings, the first part of the chapter shows how our present understanding of crucial experiments has been shaped by nineteenth-century philosophers of science, (...) as part of a characteristically anti-Baconian methodology. It also shed light on the particularly ambiguous character of Newton’s methodological legacy. In the remaining parts of the paper, muting these retrospective overtones, I show what crucial instances, or crucial experiments, really meant for Bacon, and for his heirs, in order to elucidate Newton’s usage in the light of its actual context. I argue that the crucial experiment in Newton’s 1672 paper is not devised to arbitrate between competing full-blown and empirically grounded theories, but rather to make the abstract structure of a new, and still unclear, phenomenon entirely transparent. It functions as a ‘perceptual’ index rather than a judgmental criterion. Finally, I explain why the expression has been dropped in the published text of the 1704 Opticks. The ‘exhibiting’ function of the experimentum crucis is now taken over by a long and complex pattern of experiments. It is the whole complex composition of these optical experiments that is now ‘crucially’ exhibiting the abstract structure of refraction. (shrink)

L’objet de cet article est d’examiner la lecture par Henri More de la Dioptrique de Descartes et particulièrement des éléments qui relèvent de la théorie de la vision, dans ses dimensions physiques, physiologiques, et psychologiques. More prend son point de départ dans ce qui semble être une apparente adhésion au cadre général de la « mécanisation du regard » cartésienne. Néanmoins dans cette structure cartésienne, More parvient à reverser de larges pans du savoir ancien de la vision et à subvertir (...) entièrement le programme cartésien d’une réduction mécaniste du processus sensoriel et d’une déprise du réalisme « sensualiste » aristotélicien. Le fond du phénomène visuel apparaît désormais dans sa vérité : dans la vision, et plus précisément à la surface interne de l’œil, là ou se dépeignent les images rétiniennes, s’opère une sorte de confluence entre l’esprit du monde et l’esprit du voyant : un acte commun du sensible et du sentant en quelque sorte, si on peut ici s’autoriser de l’espèce de syncrétisme platonico-aristotélicien qui caractérise la théorie de la vision que More, qui n’a gardé que les oripeaux de la doctrine cartésienne, entend faire couler dans cette enveloppe vide. (shrink)

John Locke’ famous Essay is often regarded as a work in epistemology, determining the limits and scope of knowledge. By contrast, this chapter aims to revive the Enlightenment view of Locke as an experimental philosopher and natural historian who developed an experimental natural philosophy of human understanding. Through an analysis of Locke’s experimental ‘ethos’, and in particular his emphasis on autoptic experience, Hamou argues that Locke’s approach to natural philosophy in the Essay is both a subtle critique of the optimism (...) of some of the fellows of the early Royal Society and the key to explaining his own reluctance to pursue physical inquiries of the mind. (shrink)

Note introductive au numéro thématique de ERRS 2020 11 1.

Cet article montre comment Ricœur a constitué une théorie de la causalité adaptée à sa philosophie pratique. D’abord, on étudie la définition alternative (« non-humienne ») de la causalité qu’élabore Ricœur pour les sciences historiques, caractérisée par la conditionnalité, la processualité et la singularité. Ensuite, on souligne l’effort de justification objective de cette nouvelle catégorie causale par une démarche logico-transcendantale, qui lie les conditions de possibilité d’une connaissance objective de l’action non pas à une subjectivité fondatrice, mais à des dimensions (...) (sémantique, pragmatique, narrative) du discours. D’un point de vue épistémologique, la causalité fait l’objet d’un jugement d’imputation singulier, qui joue un rôle intermédiaire entre l’explication structurale (ou « nomologique ») et l’explication narrative. D’un point de vue métaphysique, elle permet d’établir un gradient d’abstraction dans l’événementialité, puisqu’elle sert tout particulièrement à expliquer non pas des événement génériques ou virtuels, mais singuliers et propres, qui sont, de ce fait, inscrits dans un contexte riche ; elle dessine ainsi la forme d’un monde d’événements non impersonnels et non atomiques. (shrink)

This essay draws some consequences affecting juridical rationality, particularly its normative theory, from the discussion of Ricoeur’s philosophy of law by Alain Papaux and François Ost. It emphasizes in particular the ambiguities of Papaux’s position regarding the notion of abduction and stresses the irreducibility of the hermeneutic dimension of legal argument.

I investigate the relationship between adaptation, as defined in evolutionary theory through natural selection, and the concept of emergence. I argue that there is an essential correlation between the former, and “emergence” defined in the field of algorithmic simulations. I first show that the computational concept of emergence (in terms of incompressible simulation) can be correlated with a causal criterion of emergence (in terms of the specificity of the explanation of global patterns). On this ground, I argue that emergence in (...) general involves some sort of selective processes. Finally, I show that a second criterion, concerning novel explanatory regularities following the emergence of a pattern, captures the robustness of emergence displayed by some cases of emergence (according to the first criterion). Emergent processes fulfilling both criteria are therefore exemplified in evolutionary biology by some so-called “innovations”, and mostly by the new units of fitness or new kinds of adaptations (like sexual reproduction, multicellular organisms, cells, societies) sometimes called “major transitions in evolution”, that recent research programs (Maynard-Smith and Szathmary 1995 ; Michod 1999 ) aims at explaining. (shrink)

The problem of generation has been, for Kant scholars, a kind of test of Kant's successive concepts of finality. Although he deplores the absence of a naturalistic account of purposiveness (and hence of reproduction) in his pre-critical writings, in the First Critique he nevertheless presents a "reductionist" view of finality in the Transcendental Dialectic's Appendices. This finality can be used only as a language, extended to the whole of nature, but which must be filled with mechanistic explanations. Therefore, in 1781, (...) mechanism and teleology are synonymous languages. Despite the differences between its two authors, the Wolffian embryology, exposed in the Theorie der Generation (1764), and debated by Blumenbach's dissertation on Bildungstrieb, enabled Kant to resolve the philosophical problem of natural generation, and subsequently to determine what is proper to the explanation of living processes. Thus, in the Third Critique he could give another account of purposiveness, restricted to the organism, and more realistic than his former one; this philosophical reappraisal of purposiveness in embryology required the new concept of "simply reflexive judgement", and the correlated notion of "regulative principle". Thus framed, this naturalized teleology provided some answers to the Kantian problem of order and contingency after the end of classical (Leibnizian) metaphysics. (shrink)

This book is a collection of current theoretical views and research on the self in early infancy, prior to self-identification and the well-documented emergence ...

Aux États-Unis, les évangéliques blancs ont massivement soutenu Donal Trump aux élections de 2016 et 2020, dont le projet politique était clairement associé à un nationalisme chrétien, promoteur des valeurs du suprémacisme blanc. Cet article propose de rappeler les faits en se plaçant depuis la perspective de baptistes opposés à l’extrême-droite chrétienne, en revenant sur le sur le cas du Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) qui, appuyé par plusieurs figures de militants évangéliques, fait activement campagne pour dénoncer les (...) dérives de ce christianisme suprémaciste et ses dangers pour la démocratie. Cependant, malgré sa médiatisation et ses relais politiques, son influence demeure restreinte au sein de la mouvance évangélique elle-même. (shrink)