This is the first of two special issues and the articles are grouped according to two themes: This first issue will feature articles that share a theme we call Technologies and the Political, while the second issue will feature the theme Subjectivities. However, we could equally consider them exercises in provincialization in the (counter)factual register in the first issue, and by affective historiography as conceptual-empirical labor(atory) in the second issue. What we have generally asked of all authors is to consider (...) that the relation between science and society is often heavily influenced by and identified in the intermediary figurations portrayed in the genre of science fiction. (shrink)

A response to complex problems spanning disciplinary boundaries, Worlds of ScienceCraft offers bold new ways of conceptualizing ideas of science, sociology, and philosophy. Beginning with the historical foundations of civilization and progress, assumptions about the categories we use to talk about minds, identities, and bodies are challenged through case studies from mathematics, social cognition, and medical ethics.

A propositional logic has the variable sharing property if φ → ψ is a theorem only if φ and ψ share some propositional variable. In this note, I prove that positive semilattice relevance logic and its extension with an involution negation have the variable sharing property. Typical proofs of the variable sharing property rely on ad hoc, if clever, matrices. However, in this note, I exploit the properties of rather more intuitive arithmetical structures to establish the variable sharing property for (...) the systems discussed. (shrink)

Since McCall (1966), the heterodox principle of propositional logic that it is impossible for a proposition to be entailed by its own negation—in symbols, ¬(¬φ→φ)—has gone by the name of Aristotle’s thesis, since Aristotle apparently endorses it in Prior Analytics 2.4, 57b3–14. Scholars have contested whether Aristotle did endorse his eponymous thesis, whether he could do so consistently, and for what purpose he endorsed it if he did. In this article, I reconstruct Aristotle’s argument from this passage and show that (...) he accepts this thesis. Further, I show that the argument he gives is, making plausible assumptions, a correct proof in a consistent fragmentary nonclassical metalogic for a metatheorem he previously states concerning his assertoric syllogistic. In this way, Aristotle’s argument emerges as a fascinating case study in the use of a nonclassical metalogic to prove a result about a nonclassical object system. (shrink)

A discussion of women thinkers in political philosophy, and the nature of political inquiry --Provided by publisher.

In the early 1970s, Alasdair Urquhart proposed a semilattice semantics for relevance logic which he provided with an influential informational interpretation. In this article, I propose a BHK-inspired reinterpretation of the semantics which is related to Kit Fine’s truthmaker semantics. I discuss and compare Urquhart’s and Fine’s semantics and show how simple modifications of Urquhart’s semantics can be used to characterize both full propositional intuitionistic logic and Jankov’s logic. I then present (quasi-)relevant companions for both of these systems. Finally, I (...) provide sound and complete labelled sequent calculi for all of the systems discussed. (shrink)

Subset Spaces were introduced by L. Moss and R. Parikh in [8]. These spaces model the reasoning about knowledge of changing states.In [2] a kind of subset space called intersection space was considered and the question about the existence of a set of axioms that is complete for the logic of intersection spaces was addressed. In [9] the first author introduced the class of directed spaces and proved that any set of axioms for directed frames also characterizes intersection spaces.We give (...) here a complete axiomatization for directed spaces. We also show that it is not possible to reduce this set of axioms to a finite set. (shrink)

This volume addresses the issues of the Third Age--that time after retirement when financial stability and reduced obligations to others, together, allow for freedom--and good health makes it possible to enjoy that freedom. How, in this special time of life, is meaning and purpose to be found? And what alternatives are available? These difficult questions are responded to by scholars in the field of aging, some themselves in the Third Age.

Critical posthumanists have observed that technoscientific developments are in the process of rewriting human ontology, fundamentally changing what it means to be human. While they argue that the posthuman breaks with the Cartesian liberal subject and embraces a more decentered ontology, their analyses remain firmly situated in a Cartesian world that marginalizes if not completely ignores questions about natality. This essay examines two filmic texts, Blade Runner 2049 and the AMC television show Humans, that are situated firmly in a posthuman (...) environment in which technoscience is seemingly rewriting the conditions of being human and blurring the boundary between human and machine, but which focus on natality and childhood and emphasize themes of parenting and growth and development. In doing so, they disclose shortcomings in critical posthumanism that can only be addressed when we give more serious attention to how natality shapes being human. (shrink)

The main object of this article is to give two novel proofs of the admissibility of Ackermann’s rule (γ) for the propositional relevant logic R. The results are established as corollaries of cut elimination for systems of tableaux for R. Cut elimination, in turn, is established both nonconstructively (as a corollary of completeness) and constructively (using Gentzen-like methods). The extensibility of the techniques is demonstrated by showing that (γ) is admissible for RQ* (R with constant domain quantifiers). The status of (...) the admissibility of (γ) for RQ* was, to the best of the author’s knowledge, an open problem. Further extensions of these results will be explored in the sequel(s). (shrink)

This commentary examines the interpretation of Parmenides developed by Rose Cherubin in her paper, “Parmenides, Liars, and Mortal Incompleteness.” First, I discuss the tensions Cherubin identifies between the definitions and presuppositions of justice, necessity, fate, and the other requisites of inquiry. Second, I critically assess Cherubin’s attribution of a sort of liar paradox to Parmenides. Finally, I argue that Cherubin’s handling of the Doxa, the section of Parmenides’ poem that deals with mortal opinion and cosmology, is unsatisfactory. I suggest that (...) her reading may contradict the text in denying that the Doxa contains truths. (shrink)

This essay argues that Aquinas's position regarding the killing of innocent people differs significantly from other representatives of the Christian just war tradition. While his predecessors, notably Augustine, as well as his successors, from Cajetan and Vitoria onward, affirm the legitimacy of causing the death of innocents in a just war in cases of necessity, Aquinas holds that causing the death of innocents in a foreseeable manner, whether intentionally or indirectly, is never justified. Even an otherwise legitimate act of just (...) war cannot legitimate causing the death of innocent people, as this can never advance the common good. This stance also contrasts sharply with much modern and contemporary double effect theorizing in relation to jus in bello. In this regard, Aquinas's position, shaped decisively by his biblical and theological commitments, may point the way towards an ethical orientation beyond the typical divisions of “pacifism” and “just war.”. (shrink)

1. Almost from the beginning of its history, it has tried to provide intelligible, systematic accounts of the world of actualities--the spatio-temporal objects which ground our daily experiences. Because of the great success of science in formulating cosmic schemes which are sustained by many widespread observations, multiple, daring predictions, and a host of desirable practical productions, many thinkers have been tempted to turn the entire task over to the sciences. Others have supposed that the philosopher has nothing more to do (...) than to occupy himself with historical studies, logical investigations, and perhaps some asides on ethics, aesthetics, and politics. (shrink)

Anamnesis (Swiatlo Dnia) was written as an aftermath of a six-day performative installation at the twelfth-century castle in Trancoso, Portugal with the participation of local women and men, mainly farmers. It was written concurrently while working on the editing of the video and the sound, which I filmed and recorded on site (or, as I think of it, layering of images, sounds and different time paths). The text addresses the act of drawing as related to speech, mark, trace, scripture, presence (...) and absence as it elaborates on the notion of gesture across the media and time. The vital connections between the performative act of drawing and the desire to mark since time immemorial and the contemporary virtual and cinematic mediums are crucial to the notion of anamnesis in both the physical installation in real time with performative inhabitation of space and in the virtual and altered memory of that occurrence in the resulting video piece. (shrink)

Students of Hegel will soon have at their disposal a complete translation of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, "the only complete, matured, and authentic statement of Hegel's philosophical system", and the last of the four major works published by Hegel in his lifetime to be fully translated into English. Early next year, the Clarendon Press at Oxford will issue a translation of the second part of the Encyclopaedia, The Philosophy of Nature, by A.V. Miller, recent translator of Hegel's Science (...) of Logic. The translation includes the valuable Zusätze, and was supervised throughout by Professor J.N. Findlay of Yale, who has also written an Introduction for it. With it will also be published a new edition of the Philosophy of Mind, the third part of the Encyclopaedia. The text of the paragraphs is the familiar Wallace translation, but added to this volume are the Zusätze newly translated by Mr. Millet, and a new Introduction by Professor Findlay. When the present edition of the first part of the Encyclopaedia, usually referred to as "the Lesser Logic" has been exhausted, if will also be republished with some revisions and additions. Professor Findlay adds that all the proofs were done last June, and that if will appear "at a price that students will not find prohibitive". (shrink)

This is the first complete English translation of Hasdai Crescas's Light of the Lord, a seminal work of medieval Jewish philosophy. Crescas challenges the Aristotelian underpinnings of medieval thought, introduces alternative physical and metaphysical theories, and presents service to the God of love and benefaction as the goal for humankind.

The technology in use in a country is determined less by the "supply push" of technologically oriented programs than by the "demand pull" from users. In a market economy, the latter is strong ly influenced by the level and structure of prices, wages, and exchange rates, by the price and avail abitity of credit, raw materials, and energy, by patterns of income distribution, and by the degree of competition among different producers. All of these are strongly influenced by government policies. (...) In a centrally planned economy, the demand for improved technology depends on the incentives facing decision-makers in factories and ministries. In both kinds of economies, the orientation and content of engineering education and general education, influence the values that engineers, entrepreneurs, and other decision-makers bring to the technological aspects of their development. (shrink)

A logical absurdity is self-contradictory. It results when a term and its negation are conjoined. It is intrinsically impossible; one need not look outside it to know that it is impossible everywhere It is not because every domain rebuffs it that it is unable to appear in any, but because it cannot attain the status of appearing anywhere at all.

Although there is wide agreement that ethics consults are at risk for conflicts of interest, ethics consultants have limited guidance with regard to how to identify and approach COIs. We aim to address these concerns and provide practical guidance. We will define and consider four categories of COIs: consult type, team composition, dual clinical roles and other concerns. We will define and consider six actions available for ECs to take in response to COIs: no action, disclosure only, obtaining a second (...) opinion, referring to another EC, referring to an institutional ethics committee or seeking an outside consult. We will then propose a points-based algorithm for ECs to use to determine the appropriate response to COI. Finally, we will discuss the strengths and limitations of our proposed algorithm. (shrink)