Using web standards, such as uniform resource identifiers (URIs), XML and HTTP, for naming and describing resources which are not information objects is the key difference between the Web as we know it today and the Semantic Web. Naming and interlinking this type of resources by HTTP URIs (instead of individual constants in a formal language) is the key feature which distinguishes traditional knowledge representation from web-scale knowledge representation. However, this use of URIs brought back attention to the old philosophical (...) problem of identity and reference in a new form. In this paper, we analyze the new version of the problem, provide a formal model for dealing with it when interlinking knowledge on the Web, and argue for the need of a distinction between the use of URIs for describing and accessing resources, and the use of URIs for fixing the reference . We show that in the current practice of linking data these roles are not clearly distinguished, and that this fact may cause unwanted effects and prevent some basic forms of data integration. We also discuss the role of an entity name system as a potential piece of infrastructure for fixing the reference in the Semantic Web. (shrink)

Most human thinking is thoroughly informed by context but, until recently, theories of reasoning have concentrated on abstract rules and generalities that make no reference to this crucial factor. _Perspectives on Contexts_ brings together essays from leading cognitive scientists to forge a vigorous interdisciplinary understanding of the contextual phenomenon. Applicable to human and machine cognition in philosophy, artificial intelligence, and psychology, this volume is essential to the current renaissance in thinking about context.

Context has emerged as a central concept in a variety of contemporary approaches to reasoning. The conference at which the papers in this volume were presented, CONTEXT 2001, was the third international, interdisciplinary conference on the topic of context, and was held in Dundee, Scotland on July 27-30, 2001.

In this benchmark five-volume study, originally published between 1922 and 1955, Surendranath Dasgupta examines the principal schools of thought that define Indian philosophy. A unifying force greater than art, literature, religion, or science, Professor Dasgupta describes philosophy as the most important achievement of Indian thought, arguing that an understanding of its history is necessary to appreciate the significance and potentialities of India's complex culture. Volume I offers an examination of the Vedas and the Brahmanas, the earlier Upanisads, and the six (...) systems of Indian philosophy. (shrink)

Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude" is a far better tool to analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people." Globalization is forcing us to rethink some of the categories—such as "the people"—that traditionally have been associated with the now eroding state. Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude," elaborated by Spinoza and for the most part left fallow since the seventeenth century, is a far better tool to (...) analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people," favored by classical political philosophy. Hobbes, who detested the notion of multitude, defined it as shunning political unity, resisting authority, and never entering into lasting agreements. "When they rebel against the state," Hobbes wrote, "the citizens are the multitude against the people." But the multitude isn't just a negative notion, it is a rich concept that allows us to examine anew plural experiences and forms of nonrepresentative democracy. Drawing from philosophy of language, political economics, and ethics, Virno shows that being foreign, "not-feeling-at-home-anywhere," is a condition that forces the multitude to place its trust in the intellect. In conclusion, Virno suggests that the metamorphosis of the social systems in the West during the last twenty years is leading to a paradoxical "Communism of the Capital.". (shrink)

The philosophical analysis of mathematical explanations concerns itself with two different, although connected, areas of investigation. The first area addresses the problem of whether mathematics can play an explanatory role in the natural and social sciences. The second deals with the problem of whether mathematical explanations occur within mathematics itself. Accordingly, this entry surveys the contributions to both areas, it shows their relevance to the history of philosophy and science, it articulates their connection, and points to the philosophical pay-offs to (...) be expected by deepening our understanding of the topic. (shrink)

At the same time, the book is a contribution to recent philosophical debates, in particular on the prospects for a successful nominalist reconstruction of .

The period from 1900 to 1935 was particularly fruitful and important for the development of logic and logical metatheory. This survey is organized along eight "itineraries" concentrating on historically and conceptually linked strands in this development. Itinerary I deals with the evolution of conceptions of axiomatics. Itinerary II centers on the logical work of Bertrand Russell. Itinerary III presents the development of set theory from Zermelo onward. Itinerary IV discusses the contributions of the algebra of logic tradition, in particular, Löwenheim (...) and Skolem. Itinerary V surveys the work in logic connected to the Hilbert school, and itinerary V deals specifically with consistency proofs and metamathematics, including the incompleteness theorems. Itinerary VII traces the development of intuitionistic and many-valued logics. Itinerary VIII surveys the development of semantical notions from the early work on axiomatics up to Tarski's work on truth. (shrink)

Using panel data of 4,244 company years, we examine whether and how corporate social performance (CSP) affects a firm’s capacity to achieve profitable sales in foreign markets. Based on our extension of instrumental stakeholder theory into the international arena, we hypothesized a U-shaped relationship between CSP and multinationality. Results supported our contention that multinational enterprises (MNEs) need to be substantially committed to social performance objectives if they are to recoup the cost of their CSP investments, and improve their capacity to (...) compete in foreign markets. MNEs engaged in intermediate levels of CSP achieve lower levels of multinationality than firms operating at either anchor of the social performance continuum. In addition, this study demonstrates that CSP moderates a well-established relationship in international business literature – the relationship between R&D investment and a firm’s multinationality. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Using panel data of 4,244 company years, we examine whether and how corporate social performance affects a firm's capacity to achieve profitable sales in foreign markets. Based on our extension of instrumental stakeholder theory into the international arena, we hypothesized a U-shaped relationship between CSP and multinationality. Results supported our contention that multinational enterprises need to be substantially committed to social performance objectives if they are to recoup the cost of their CSP investments, and improve their capacity to compete in (...) foreign markets. MNEs engaged in intermediate levels of CSP achieve lower levels of multinationality than firms operating at either anchor of the social performance continuum. In addition, this study demonstrates that CSP moderates a well-established relationship in international business literature - the relationship between R&D investment and a firm's multinationality. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

The temporality of intentions and actions in situations of social interaction can sometimes be paradoxical. I argue that in these situations it may sometimes be possible to conceive of individual acts that can, in a strong sense, be intended retroactively. This could happen when the relational patterns in social interaction literally alter the virtual structure of a participant's past corporeal intentions resulting in an odd experience of having intended something all along without knowing it. I propose that this possibility should (...) be interpreted as more than just a narrowly epistemic phenomenon. Examining this claim involves clarifying the enactive perspective on intentionality, which I do here. The enactive approach rejects the model of a causal relation between intention and action for one of an intrinsic qualitative relation between the two as facets of sense-making. I develop this idea and compare it with Merleau-Ponty's Fundierung model of the mutual relation between corporeal and reflexive intentionality to show that co-regulated moves/affections during social interaction may modulate both arcs of this relation, creating the possibility of a re-signification that alters not the actuality but the virtual tendencies that preceded the social act. (shrink)

This paper explores the epistemology of extrapolation from model organisms to humans in molecular medicine. We take into account two common views on the issue, the homology view and the disanalogy view. In response to both interpretations, we argue that the foundational basis of extrapolations cannot simply be provided by homology and that relevant disanalogies can, thanks to the techniques of molecular biology, be experimentally controlled and exploited to allow useful and reliable extrapolations. The case of "humanised mice" in the (...) context of cancer stem cell research provides evidence of how animal models can be construed to approximate bona fide causal analogue models of human diseases. To supplement this view we show how the epistemology of model organisms needs to take into account the engineering side of molecular medicine. Model organisms are often manipulated to create analogies or remove disanalogies with the target system. We maintain that highlighting this feature is fundamental to explain what warrants extrapolation in the search for the molecular causes of disease. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Bringing together contributors from philosophy, international relations, security studies, and strategic studies, New Wars and New Soldiers offers a truly interdisciplinary analysis reflective of the nature of modern warfare. This comprehensive approach allows the reader to see the broad scope of modern military ethics, and to understand the numerous questions about modern conflict that require critical scrutiny. Aimed at both military and academic audiences, this paperback will be of significant interest to researchers and students in philosophy, sociology, military and strategic (...) studies, international relations, politics, and security studies, acting as an ideal course text or as supplementary reading. (shrink)

Christ as symbol in Kant¿s religion -- Hegel's conception of God -- The reality of religion in Hegel's idealist metaphysics -- Hegel's version of the ontological argument for the existence of God -- The trinity and the I -- The death of God and recognition of the self -- Beyond subjectivism -- The relevance of Hegel's philosophy of religion today.

Summary This article presents three hitherto unpublished letters by Frank Plumpton Ramsey on the foundations of mathematics with commentary. One of the letters was sent to Abraham Fraenkel and the other two letters to Heinrich Behmann. The transcription of the letters is preceded by an account that details the extent of Ramsey's known contacts with mathematical logicians on the Continent.

The Relationship of Philosophy to Religion Today is a collection of texts authored by philosophers with an interest in contemporary philosophy of religion, its merits and its limitations. The collection has been stimulated by such questions as: "What ought philosophy of religion be?" and "How ought philosophy relate to religion today?" In pursuing such questions, the editors have asked the contributors to offer their insights and reflections on issues that they see as important to contemporary philosophy of religion, with the (...) goal of producing a collection of texts offering the reader a variety of perspectives without privileging any particular philosophical, religious or irreligious orientation. The book covers such themes as the relationship between religion and modernity, faith in keeping with reason, contemplation, the merits and limitations of the atheism, and the relationship between philosophy, religion and politics. (shrink)

In Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, the year of 2020 marked a dramatic escalation of military activities of the Islamist insurgent group locally known as Al-Shabab or mashababe. This intensification was accompanied by a more immaterial phenomenon: the rise in prominence of social media, both as battleground and as public forum. While the insurgents sacked and occupied major towns and district headquarters, the Web 2.0 networks - Facebook and WhatsApp especially - became the central arena in which the war was apprehended and (...) discussed. This essay is an exploration of the entwining of social media with the 'new war' in Cabo Delgado, focussing on the events that surround the conquest of the Makonde plateau, mythical cradle of the Mozambican liberation struggle. Building on a budding literature on digital militarism, the essay dwells especially on orality and the use of the voice note as a medium to convey information deemed to be more trustworthy and stable than images. Tracking these media and their interrelations, the essay establishes a narrative, however fragmentary, of the downfall of the Makonde plateau; highlights recurring features of violence in the Cabo Delgado conflict; and provides fresh insight into the formation of the Local Force (Força Local), a State-sponsored militia largely constituted by war veterans. (shrink)

The literature on indicative conditionals contains two appealing views. The first is the selectional view: on this view, conditionals operate by selecting a single possibility, which is used to evaluate the consequent. The second is the informational view: on this view, conditionals don’t express propositions, but rather impose constraints on information states of speakers. Both views are supported by strong arguments, but they are incompatible on their standard formulations. Hence it appears that we have to choose between mutually exclusive options. (...) But the options are not exclusive. This paper develops a theory of the semantics and assertability of conditionals that is both selectional and informational. The theory vindicates the signature inferences of both selectional and informational theories, including so-called Conditionals Excluded Middle and principles about the interplay between conditionals and ‘might’. It also predicts some interesting and puzzling facts about the assertion of conditionals. (shrink)

Heinrich Behmann (1891-1970) obtained his Habilitation under David Hilbert in Göttingen in 1921 with a thesis on the decision problem. In his thesis, he solved - independently of Löwenheim and Skolem's earlier work - the decision problem for monadic second-order logic in a framework that combined elements of the algebra of logic and the newer axiomatic approach to logic then being developed in Göttingen. In a talk given in 1921, he outlined this solution, but also presented important programmatic remarks on (...) the significance of the decision problem and of decision procedures more generally. The text of this talk as well as a partial English translation are included. (shrink)