Here the philosopher and physicist David Z Albert argues, among other things, that the difference between past and future can be understood as a mechanical phenomenon of nature and that quantum mechanics makes it impossible to present the entirety of what can be said about the world as a narrative of “befores” and “afters.”.

Split preorders are preordering relations on a domain whose composition is defined in a particular way by splitting the domain into two disjoint subsets. These relations and the associated composition arise in categorial proof theory in connection with coherence theorems. Here split preorders are represented isomorphically in the category whose arrows are binary relations and whose composition is defined in the usual way. This representation is related to a classical result of representation theory due to Richard Brauer.

It is proved that equations between arrows assumed for cartesian categories are maximal in the sense that extending them with any new equation in the language of free cartesian categories collapses a cartesian category into a preorder. An analogous result holds for categories with binary products, which may lack a terminal object. The proof is based on a coherence result for cartesian categories, which is related to model-theoretic methods of normalization. This maximality of cartesian categories, which is analogous to Post (...) completeness, shows that the usual equivalence between deductions in conjunctive logic induced by βη normalization in natural deduction is chosen optimally. (shrink)

The interaction between philosophy and political parties is one of the most lively questions in the discipline of the history of philosophy and in the battle of ideas today. It affects both specialists in philosophy and representatives of other professions, particularly in the broad realm of creative intellectuals. It excites people of different generations living under different social systems and belonging to different and often opposed classes.

Our Book Review Editor, James Keller, invited William Hasker to write a review of the Book by D. Z. Phillips, "The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God" and then in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief invited Phillips to respond. Aware of both their respect for each other and their philosophical differences we planned that Hasker's review and Phillips' response would appear in the same issue of the "International Journal for Philosophy of Religion." Unfortunately that was not to be. Dewi, (...) as he was known to his many friends throughout the world, collapsed at his desk on 25 July, 2006 in the library of his beloved University of Wales, Swansea. Although we were not able to have the review and response appear in the same issue as we had all planned, we are now printing his response to Hasker's review, "D. Z. Phillips's Problems with Evil and with God," which appeared in IJPR, Vol. 61,3. Dewi had completed the review and thanks to the efforts of Helen Baldwin who prepared the manuscript and Dewi's wife, Monica, and family we are able to print it here. Since Dewi was responding to an earlier version of Hasker's review, a few minor editorial changes have been made. Dewi's death is a great loss to the philosophical community and a deep personal loss to his family and friends, but I am confident that he would be pleassed to have this response appear. He might even have a story to tell, a comment that those who knew him well will fully understand. Eugene Thomas Long. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Painting in Tongues:Faith-Based Languages of Formalist ArtKevin Z. Moore (bio)A philosophical problem is created by the incoherence between the earlier state and the later one.—Ian Hacking, Historical OntologyWhatever is happening to evidence-based treatment? When the facts contravene conventional wisdom, go with the anecdotes?—New York Times, "Science Times," February 14, 2006Cephalopods have a visual language that may be considered artful; humans have written and vocalized languages that are sometimes artful; (...) but it is doubtful that there is such a thing as a "language of art," particularly in the sense that twentieth-century formalists and their critics carelessly speak of one or many. Cephalopods flash color-forms on their hides to communicate intents and emotions, maybe even to project plans. They speak in tattooed tongues through neurologically embossed patterns and color field designs displayed on the skin. The large-eyed sea creatures communicate voicelessly in a visual language of pure color-forms, each species perhaps having its own dialect. Though not a full or official language by any means, their color-forms display the ideal that twentieth-century formalist artists sought to graphically realize (referential and conceptual immediacy, emotional coloring, communication via pure, that is, nonpictorial, form). Formalist inspired artists and their critic-expositors describe abstract pattern-painting as though it were a visual language equal to that of the cephalopod. Yet [End Page 40] although we can reasonably imagine cephalopods getting the correct message by observation, we cannot reasonably imagine observers getting any message at all, let alone the intended message, from abstractionist painting. This casts suspicion on the formalists' claims about visual language. Observers cannot and famously do not get anything "out" of formalist pattern paintings, though they do project quite a lot "into" them. The telling difference between octopus and artist? Cephalopods communicate visually—their survival depends on it. Formalists do not, though the survival and flourishing of their art depends upon the belief that they do.Notably, explanations of what exactly a formalist language of art is goes missing from accounts of sense and reference in the relevant literature, where we learn that this or that painting exhibits this or that language of art but never how this or that painting functions as a language of any sort. The "language of art" phrase, it seems, has the same force as mentioning truth or existence: it explains nothing. Talk of a language of art suggests merely that a painting exhibits a communicative intent; it does not explain how that intent is linguistically mediated. The phrase is ostensive and nominal, not descriptive and expository.Prior to the twentieth century there may have been some justification for this language since art was shaped by objective reference, identifiable codes (sign and symbol systems), and recognizable scenes (compositions) that made painting a language-like public media. Observers could see immediately or "read" paintings by observation as though they were reading a language. Images were shaped by observation; reference was fixed by convention. The formalist revolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries dismantled the public character of representation in painting. After the revolution, the new art that appeared was a sort of visual humpty-dumptyism, to invoke a language metaphor. Formalist imagery functioned the way words did for Mr. Carroll's Mr. Dumpty: they meant what the artist intended them to mean and not what observation or convention constrained them to mean. Reference and meaning were as arbitrary as the visual forms chosen to bear them. Once a communicative medium, painting became an expressive medium, the values of the latter superseding those of the former wholly or in part. Even when a formalist painting alluded to a conventional arrangement (a landscape or portrait, for example), the composition was as visually parodic of genre as Mr. Carroll's Jabberwocky was verbally parodic of narrative poetry, preserving syntax (form) but not the integrity of the formal agents of communication. Both are forms of nonsense, yet only one intentionally so.Styles of formalism do not facilitate the observation of intended reference; they are not effective forms of communication because they are not languages. If the basic function of a visual art is to communicate a specific... (shrink)

Arab countries; intellectual life; congresses.

Rush Rhees was a philosopher, and a pupil and close friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein. While some of Rhees's own published papers became classics, most of his work remained unpublished during his lifetime. After his death, his papers were found to comprise sixteen thousand pages of manuscript on every aspect of philosophy, from philosophical logic to Simone Weil. This collection of unpublished papers, edited by D. Z. Phillips, includes Rhees's outstanding work on philosophy and religion. Written over an academic lifetime, some (...) of the papers are sympathetic to religion while others are not. It is Rhees's ability to interweave the personal and philosophical, and his integrity and intellectual honesty, which make this one of the most impressive books in twentieth-century philosophy of religion. (shrink)

On the dominant contemporary accounts of how practical considerations affect what we ought to believe, practical considerations either encroach on epistemic rationality by affecting whether a belief is epistemically justified, or constitute distinctively practical reasons for belief which can only affect what we ought to believe by conflicting with epistemic rationality. This paper argues that Søren Kierkegaard offers a promising alternative view on which practical considerations can affect what we ought to believe without either encroaching on or (necessarily) conflicting with (...) epistemic rationality by determining which among the epistemically permitted outright doxastic attitudes one should all‐things‐considered adopt. (shrink)

Wearing facial masks became a common practice worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated (1) whether facial masks that cover adult faces affect 4- to 6-year-old children’s recognition of emotions in those faces and (2) whether the duration of children’s exposure to masks is associated with emotion recognition. We tested children from Switzerland (N = 38) and Brazil (N = 41). Brazil represented longer mask exposure due to a stricter mandate during COVID-19. Children had to choose a face displaying (...) a specific emotion (happy, angry, or sad) when the face wore either no cover, a facial mask, or sunglasses. The longer hours of mask exposure were associated with better emotion recognition. Controlling for the hours of exposure, children were less likely to recognise emotions in partially hideen faces. Moreover, Brazilian children were more accurate in recognising happy faces than Swiss children. Overall, facial masks may negatively impact children’s emotion recognition. However, prolonged exposure appears to buffer the lack of facial cues from the nose and mouth. In conclusion, restricting facial cues due to masks may impair kindergarten children’s emotion recognition in the short run. However, it may facilitate their broader reading of facial emotional cues in the long run. (shrink)

The paper is composed of two parts. The first part covers juvenile delinquency with all its characteristics. When analyzing the delinquency, we gave a special place to the socio-pathological phenomena which is more and more present and the rate is higher from year to year. Social pathology is a huge issue that requires special commitment, first, for its detection and then prevention. Within the delinquency, we also cover the most common crimes committed by juveniles. In the second part of this (...) paper, the authors deal in more details with a specific form of crime which can also be committed by juveniles: child sexual abuse and pedophilia. First, the difference between child sexual abuse and pedophilia will be discussed, a difference that is of particular importance in cases where minors are abusers. Furthermore, the main characteristics of cases when both perpetrators and victims of sexual abuse are minors will be addressed. Although these criminal offenses are rarer in practice unlike the criminal offenses and deviant behaviors treated in the first part, however, knowing the main characteristics and specifics of such cases is of particular importance for the legal-criminal treatment of the perpetrators of these criminal offenses. (shrink)

The authors of the book believe that utopia is a multidimensional concept, hence best understood with a multidisciplinary perspective. The book seeks utopian thinking in political theory, international law, populism, Turkish Islamism, and it dilates on the themes of modernism and classless society in the selected utopias.

Anaphora resolution is one of the most active research areas in natural language processing. This study examines focusing as a tool for the resolution of pronouns which are a kind of anaphora. Focusing is a discourse phenomenon like anaphora. Candy Sidner formalized focusing in her 1979 MIT PhD thesis and devised several algorithms to resolve definite anaphora including pronouns. She presented her theory in a computational framework but did not generally implement the algorithms. Her algorithms related to focusing and pronoun (...) resolution are implemented in this paper. This implementation provides a better comprehension of the theory both from a conceptual and a computational point of view. The resulting program is tested on different discourse segments, and evaluation and analysis of the experiments are presented together with the statistical results. (shrink)

This article aims to make a distinction among contemporary artworks that use algorithmic technologies. Departing from Science, Technology and Society (STS) studies, the focus is given to artworks that use algorithmic agencies, as assemblages of human and nonhuman entities. Making an ethno-methodological analysis of three artworks, The Pitiful Story of Deniz Yılmaz (2015–present) of Bager Akbay, Artificial Intelligence for Governance, the Kitty AI (2016) of Pınar Yoldaş and Plantoid (2015) of Primavera Di Filippi, the article examines paratactical use of algorithmic (...) agencies in contemporary artistic practice. Exploring, revealing and learning from the tactics used by platforms, corporations and institutions that control and govern, paratactical use of algorithmic agencies generates a self-reflexive perspective on such tactics of control. Paratactical works also explore absurdities and contingencies embedded in algorithmic technologies. They work within failures and errors, and perform subversive ways of thinking, acting and enacting. In conclusion, paratactical works deal with the reproduction, distribution and normalization of ignorance, extinction, degeneration, corruption and destruction. (shrink)

Becoming productive with grammatical categories is a gradual process in children's language development. Here, we investigated this transition process by focusing on Turkish causatives. Previous research examining spontaneous and elicited production of Turkish causatives with familiar verbs attested the onset and early stages of productivity at ages 2 to 3 (Aksu-Koç & Slobin, 1985; Nakipoğlu, Uzundag, & Sarıgül, 2021). So far, however, we know very little about children's understanding of causatives with novel verbs. In the present study, we asked: (a) (...) When does the generalization of causative morphology in a novel context emerge? and (b) What role does child-directed input play in this development? To answer the first question, we conducted comprehension-judgment experiments with children aged 2;6–6;11 using pseudo-verbs (Study 1 & 2). Results showed that children preferred the Turkish causative suffix -DIr over an unrelated or no suffix to denote caused events earliest at age 4;10. To answer the second question, we analyzed child-directed speech from a longitudinal corpus of Turkish language acquisition (Study 3). Results showed that when addressing children younger than age 3, caregivers used the -DIr suffix with little variation considering the overall variability of verbs they could utter. Overall, these findings suggest that productivity with morphological causatives in a novel context emerges in a later stage of acquisition. This later development might partly be accounted for by the insufficient variation of morphological causatives in the early input. (shrink)