According to the structured theory of propositions, if two sentences express the same proposition, then they have the same syntactic structure, with corresponding syntactic constituents expressing the same entities. A number of philosophers have recently focused attention on a powerful argument against this theory, based on a result by Bertrand Russell, which shows that the theory of structured propositions is inconsistent in higher order-logic. This paper explores a response to this argument, which involves restricting the scope of the claim that (...) propositions are structured, so that it does not hold for all propositions whatsoever, but only for those which are expressible using closed sentences of a given formal language. We call this restricted principle Closed Structure, and show that it is consistent in classical higher-order logic. As a schematic principle, the strength of Closed Structure is dependent on the chosen language. For its consistency to be philosophically significant, it also needs to be consistent in every extension of the language which the theorist of structured propositions is apt to accept. But, we go on to show, Closed Structure is in fact inconsistent in a very natural extension of the standard language of higher-order logic, which adds resources for plural talk of propositions. We conclude that this particular strategy of restricting the scope of the claim that propositions are structured is not a compelling response to the argument based on Russell’s result, though we note that for some applications, for instance to propositional attitudes, a restricted thesis in the vicinity may hold some promise. (shrink)

It is no accident that the book Benjamin wrote as a reader of himself, A Berlin Childhood, also begins with the description of a park, that of the Tiergarten zoo. However great the difference may seem between this collection of short prose pieces and Proust's three-thousand-page novel when viewed from the outside, Benjamin's book illustrates [his] fascination... A sentence in his book points to the central experience of Proust's work: that almost everything childhood was can be withheld from a person (...) for years, suddenly to be offered him anew as if by chance. "Like a mother who holds the new-born infant to her breast without waking it, life proceeds for a long time with the still tender memory of childhood" . Also reminiscent of Proust is the description of the mother who, on evenings when guests are in the house, comes in to see her child only fleetingly to say good night; so, too, is that of the boy attentively listening to the noises which penetrate into his room from the courtyard below and thus from a foreign world. The studied elevation of the newly invented telephone to the level of a mythical object is anticipated in Proust as well. And the relationship to and influence of the earlier work can be demonstrated even in the use of metaphor. But little is gained by this approach, and it would not be easy to refute the objection that such similarities lie in the authors' common raw material: childhood, the fin de siècle epoch, and the attempt to bring them both into the present. Peter Szondi was professor of comparative literature at the Free University of Berlin at the time of his death in 1971. His many influential works include Theorie des modernen Dramas , Versuch über das Tragische , and a five-volume collection of his lectures. Harvey Mendelsohn is the principle translator of the fourteen-volume Dictionary of Scientific Biography; he is currently working on translations of a French commentary on Heraclitus and a selection of Szondi's essays to be published by Yale University Press. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to illustrate four properties of the non-relativistic limits of relativistic theories: that a massless relativistic field may have a meaningful non-relativistic limt, that a relativistic field may have more than one non-relativistic limit, that coupled relativistic systems may be "more relativistic" than their uncoupled counterparts, and that the properties of the non-relativistic limit of a dynamical equation may differ from those obtained when the limiting equation is based directly on exact Galilean kinematics. These properties (...) are demonstrated through an examination of the non-relativistic limit of the familiar equations of first-quantized QED, i.e., the Dirac and Maxwell equations. The conditions under which each set of equations admits non-relativistic limits are given, particular attention being given to a gauge-invariant formulation of the limiting process especially as it applied to the electromagnetic potentials. The difference between the properties of a limiting theory and an exactly Galilean covariant theory based on the same dynamical equation is demonstrated by examination of the Pauli equation. (shrink)

It is argued that awareness of the distinction between dynamical and variational symmetries is crucial to understanding the significance of Noether's 1918 work. Specific attention is paid, by way of a number of striking examples, to Noether's first theorem, which establishes a correlation between dynamical symmetries and conservation principles.

The impossibility theorem of Dekel, Lipman and Rustichini has been thought to demonstrate that standard state-space models cannot be used to represent unawareness. We first show that Dekel, Lipman and Rustichini do not establish this claim. We then distinguish three notions of awareness, and argue that although one of them may not be adequately modeled using standard state spaces, there is no reason to think that standard state spaces cannot provide models of the other two notions. In fact, standard space (...) models of these forms of awareness are attractively simple. They allow us to prove completeness and decidability results with ease, to carry over standard techniques from decision theory, and to add propositional quantifiers straightforwardly. (shrink)

This systematic introduction to Buddhist ethics is aimed at anyone interested in Buddhism, including students, scholars and general readers. Peter Harvey is the author of the acclaimed Introduction to Buddhism, and his new book is written in a clear style, assuming no prior knowledge. At the same time it develops a careful, probing analysis of the nature and practical dynamics of Buddhist ethics in both its unifying themes and in the particularities of different Buddhist traditions. The book applies (...) Buddhist ethics to a range of issues of contemporary concern: humanity's relationship with the rest of nature; economics; war and peace; euthanasia; abortion; the status of women; and homosexuality. Professor Harvey draws on texts of the main Buddhist traditions, and on historical and contemporary accounts of the behaviour of Buddhists, to describe existing Buddhist ethics, to assess different views within it, and to extend its application into new areas. (shrink)

Internal global symmetries exist for the free non-relativistic Schrodinger particle, whose associated Noether charges---the space integrals of the wavefunction and the wavefunction multiplied by the spatial coordinate---are exhibited. Analogous symmetries in classical electromagnetism are also demonstrated.

We consider formal theories synonymous with various free categories . Their Lindenbaum algebras may be described as the lattices of subobjects of a terminator. These theories have intuitionistic logic. We show that the Lindenbaum algebras of second order and higher order arithmetic , and set theory are not isomorphic to the Lindenbaum algebras of first order theories such as arithmetic . We also show that there are only five kernels of representations of the free Heyting algebra on one generator in (...) these Lindenbaum algebras. (shrink)

Abstract The Suttas indicate physical conditions for success in meditation, and also acceptance of a not?Self life?principle (primarily viññana) which is (usually) dependent on the mortal physical body. In the Abhidhamma and commentaries, the physical acts on the mental through the senses and through the ?basis? for mind?organ and mind?consciousness, which came to be seen as the ?heart?basis?. Mind acts on the body through two ?intimations?: fleeting modulations in the primary physical elements. Various forms of r?pa are also said to (...) originate dependent on citta and other types of r?pa. Meditation makes possible the development of a ?mind?made body? and control over physical elements through psychic powers. The formless rebirths and the state of cessation are anomalous states of mind?without?body, or body?without?mind, with the latter presenting the problem of how mental phenomena can arise after being completely absent. Does this twin?category process pluralism avoid the problems of substance?dualism? (shrink)

The understanding of conditioned co‐arising is central to Buddhist practice and development. This chapter presents the principle of conditionality, which can be applied to all processes, events, and things, physical or mental, in the universe. Besides explaining the origin of dukkha, the conditioned co‐arising formula also explains karma, rebirth, and the functioning of personality, all without the need to invoke a permanent self. Buddhism sees the basic root of the pain and stress of life as spiritual ignorance, rather than sin. (...) The between‐lives period has three phases: inclining to a further rebirth, seeking it here and there, and falling from one's previous identity into a new rebirth. In the Mahāyāna movement, various uses were made of the conditioned co‐arising. As a general point on conditioned co‐arising, it should be noted that it presents a “middle” way of understanding that echoes the Buddhist path as a “middle way” of practice. (shrink)

This paper critiques the standard translation of ariya-sacca as ‘Noble Truth’ and argues that the term refers to four saccas as ‘true realities’, rather than as verbalised ‘truths’ about these realities; the teachings about them are not, as such what the term ariya-sacca refers to. Moreover, only one of the ariya-saccas is itself ever described in the suttas as ‘noble’. The four are ‘true realities for the spiritually ennobled’: the fundamental, basic, most significant genuine realities that the Buddha and other (...) noble ones see in the flow of experience of themselves and/or others. The first of them is not best translated as ‘suffering’ but as ‘pain’ – in all its many senses – or indeed ‘the painful’: the up?d?na-kkhandhas as ‘bundles of grasping-fuel’ which are described, adjectivally, as ‘painful’. The paper includes a new translation of the Dhamma-cakka-ppavattana Sutta in line with this analysis. (shrink)

In what is portrayed as Buddha's first sermon, the Dhamma‐cakka‐ppavatana Sutta (DCPS), the Buddha highlighted four key aspects or dimensions of existence to which one needs to become attuned so as to become deeply spiritually transformed and end dukkha. Though the DCPS emphasizes dukkha, this is in fact only one of three related characteristics or “marks” of the five khandhas. These “three marks” of all conditioned phenomena are that they are impermanent, painful, and non‐Self. Buddhism emphasizes that change and impermanence (...) are fundamental features of everything. The Four True Realities for the Spiritually Ennobled and statements which point to these realities, such as “This is dukkha,” form the structural framework for all higher teachings of early Buddhism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article focuses on how Buddhist ethics contains ideas and principles that would urge those in a combat situation to minimise the harm they do to others, within the requirements of their military goal. This international humanitarian law principle is in line with both compassion for others and a concern to limit the bad karmic results to the combatant of their intentional killing and maiming. The motive for an act of killing can worsen or lessen its karmic results, and (...) non-combat actions such as helping the wounded can generate good karmic results which can dilute, though not cancel, the bad karma of killing. Harm to both humans and non-humans is to be avoided wherever possible, but killing a human is worse than killing an animal. The Mahāvaṃsa passage on combatants killed by King Duṭṭhagāmaṇi’s army as mostly being less than human, such that killing them produced little or no bad karma, is a totally implausible statement to put in the mouths of monks whom the text says were Arahats, spiritually enlightened ones. (shrink)

Buddhist Sutras: Origin, Development, Transmission. Kogen Mizuno. Kosei, Tokyo 1982. 220pp. £5.20.

This introduction reflects on some key passages on illness in the P?li suttas, especially as regards the relationship of illness and karma, and whether Buddhist meditative qualities might be seen to alleviate or cure physical illnesses.