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1. Manuel Liz, Lorenzo Peña, Philip Pettit & John McDowell, Subject, Thought and Context.
   `Houto') and XYZ (or whatever) in an alternative world (call it `Ekeino') being different stuffs. Of course the example is not by itself that important, since many other cases could be invented. Still, in the same way as that famous example has served to buttress Putnam's dictum about meaning not being in the head, the example's weakness detract plausibility from that sort of considerations. Now in fact there are such weaknesses. If the aquatic stuff in Houto is quite similar to (...) the one in Ekeino, they are linked by the same causal chains to any other things and events in their respective worlds. Then their different composition may be held to be immaterial for individuation (in fact that point has been made by some authors). That stuff may be thought to be composed by molecules of 2O in Houto and by molecules (or parts) of XYZ in Ekeino. (shrink)

   Metaphysics

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2. Lorenzo Peña, Cultural Relativism and Philosophy : North and Latin American Perspectives.
   Introductory Remarks Why Paradigm Variation is Ensuant upon Contradiction How Externalistic Warrant Parries the Threat of [Truth] Relativism Why Not to Ward Relativism off by Means of Foundationalistic Justification Defending a relativistic View of Warrant A Transcendental Argument against [Truth] Relativism Towards [Partial] convergence A Gradualistic Paraconsistent Way to Convergence 7.1. - Perspectivism and Non Copulative Paraconsistent Logics 7.2. - The Strength and Weakness of Two Copulative Approaches to Paraconsistent Logic 7.3. - The Logic of Contradictorial Gradualism 7.4. - Implementing (...) the Notion of Relative Truth Bibliographic References.. (shrink)

   Cultural Relativism in Social and Political Philosophy

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3. Lorenzo Peña, 1-Compatible Transitive Extensions of System Ct Logique Et Analyse.
   Da Costa's paraconsistent systems of the series Cm (for finite m) (see [C1], [C2], and esp. [C3], pp. 237ff.) share important features with transitive logic, TL (which has been gone into in [P1] and [P2]), namely, they all coincide in that: (c1) they possess a strong negation, `¬', a conditional, `⊃', a conjunction, `∧', and a disjunction, `∨', with respect to which they are conservative extensions of CL or Classical Logic; (c2) they possess a non strong negation, `N' (notations are (...) different for systems C) which does not possess all properties of classical negation, but for which the following schemata are theorematic (I use the letters `p', `q', etc as schematic letters; my notational conventions are basically Church's: associativity leftwards; a dot stands for.. (shrink)

   Logic and Philosophy of Logic

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4. Lorenzo Peña, Is Reasoning the Same as Relevant Inference?
   There are two main approaches to a theory of rationality: the positive one and the negative one. The latter, which has gained increasing acceptance, is primarily concerned with rejecting what is irrational, which usually is equated with what is inconsistent. The positive approach has a quite different purpose, that of studying reasoning and, insofar as possible, enhancing the patterns or standards of our reasoning practice.

   Epistemology

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5. Lorenzo Peña, Leibniz on the Principle of Transition.
   Arthur Lovejoy's masterful, highly influential interpretation of Leibniz's philosophy has been almost neglected for decades now. This paper tries to rehabilitate Lovejoy's construal (with a number of adaptations) by delving into the underlying logical links connecting Leibniz's principles of order and gradation (the latter also called `law of continuity', `principle of transition' or `principle of the jumpless change': natura non facit saltus ) with other fundamental principles of his mature philosophy.

   Gottfried Leibniz in 17th/18th Century Philosophy

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6. Lorenzo Peña, Naturalized Epistemology and Degrees of Knowledge.
   Still, it is but fair for me to point out that several of the mainstays of the present proposal owe very little to the influence of the philosophers whose epistemological views have attracted me most — or for that matter to that of other analytical philosophers. I am referring to my acknowledging degrees of truth and existence and, consequently, degrees of knowledge, too.

   Naturalized Epistemology in Epistemology

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7. Lorenzo Peña, Phonology.
   Phonemes are minimal segments within the spoken message whose presence is relevant for distinguishing one message from a different one with another meaning. Each phoneme underlies different phonetic realizations. What sets a phoneme from another is fuzzy cluster of the fuzzy features. Thus the study of phonemic structures is likely to have much to gain from a gradualistic approach. Through a gradualistic treatment synchronic phonology could tally with the diachronic study in a simpler way than is customary. In this connection, (...) an obstacle to be overcome is a widespread adherence to classical logic. (shrink)

   Phonology in Philosophy of Language

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8. Lorenzo Peña, Philosophy Research Archives.
   This essay belongs to a series of papers whose aim is to show that some differing accounts of relations in contemporary philosophy (commencing with Frege) are flawed because they resort to what can be labelled `hylomorphism'. Some standard difficulties of Aristotelianism reappear in these analytical approaches. All of them resort to «form» as playing the role of `«ctualizing» a given «matter» (objects taken as arguments, relata, or a relation along with the related terms -- the form then being, e.g., (...) a logical form, as Russell thought when writing his Theory of Knowledge) by making it into another entity. In these accounts the actualizing or structuring form lacks the quality (of actuality or objecthood or whatever) it bestows upon the matter it clings to. The puzzle lies in those forms' baffling slipperiness; for they cannot be meant or intended outside their role of actualizing or informing some matter. But, when we point to (the process or result of) their playing such a role, we cannot mean or intend the form itself, but only the informed matter -- or, if you please, the result of its being thus informed. For some approaches, a problem also arises concerning matter itself, one closely resembling Aristotelian problems with prime matter -- problems which have prompted some interpreters to deny that Aristotle posited any such entity Foot note 1_1 . What in these approaches plays the role of Aristotelian matter, when taken «prior to» or outside of its being «informed» by a form, lacks sufficient self being and endowment with qualities and ontological profile to be an entity directly meant as such. Such a problem e.g. affects Tractarian «objects», which are both form and content, but which can be meant as neither separately. It follows that their ipseity always eludes us and evades being meant or signified. As we are about to see, a similar problem affects Bergmann's new ontology. (shrink)

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9. Lorenzo Peña, Sofia.
   The main claim of this paper is that the boundary between scientific and non scientific knowledge does exist -- which means several things. First, it's not the case that anything goes: some irrationalists have been mistaken into acceptance of that wrong conclusion because they have remarked that, however the boundary might be drawn, some important scientific developments would fall afoul of the standards entitling a research practice to count as scientific. Second, the boundary is not an imaginary one, that is (...) to say besides what is scientific and what is unscientific there also is what lies at the boundary, certain research practices which are neither wholly scientific nor fully unscientific. Third, studying what is science is itself a kind of research belonging to the boundary, since the methods available in that research are not as strictly rigorous as those used in science proper; in fact, all of philosophy is included in the boundary in question. Fourth, the boundary (and in fact science itself) displays a characteristic structure pertaining to what are by now usually called «non wellfounded sets» -- sets, that is, which are somehow or other involved in themselves, whether as members, or as members of members or so on; the significance of the last thesis is that the best way of approaching philosophy of science is not standard set theory, but theories allowing non wellfounded sets are preferable. Fifth, and last, admission of the boundary's existence compels us to go beyond standard classical logic and to look for a more suitable logic, as for instance some kind of fuzzy paraconsistent logic. (shrink)

   General Philosophy of Science

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10. Lorenzo Peña, Sorites.
    Raúl Orayen's Lógica, significado y ontología Foot note is a profound book, a thorough inquiry into several important issues in the philosophy of logic. Raúl Orayen is one of the outstanding analytical philosophers in the Spanish speaking world. As in his other publications, he displays a masterly reasoning power. No patched up solutions in this book. Orayen is not going to let what he takes to be unsatisfactory treatments off the hook with vague considerations of their being able to cope (...) «somehow or other» with such difficulties as beset them. (shrink)

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11. Lorenzo Peña, To Be Delivered at the 3d Symposium Platonicum.
    It is widely known that Plato seems to be committed in a number of dialogues to the view that all perfections are “united” — whether such unity is construed as identity, which doesn’t lack textual evidence, or, more probably, as some kind of mutual “supervenience”. (See for instance Laches 199e3-4, Alcib. I 114d-116d, Protag. 329c-333d & 349a-c. Whatever the solution to those interpretive problems is, what anyway can be ascertained is that, when writing the Statesman, our philosopher is keen on (...) maintaining that not only is it not the case that all perfections are identical, but, moreover, some perfections do in fact clash with others, which means that a thing can possess one of them only to the extent it lacks the opposite perfection. However, as we’re going to see straight away, the Statesman’s main purpose and thrust is likely to be that of emphasizing the necessity of some unity among opposite qualities. The significance of such a contention can be set off against what will become the Aristotelian (and in effect the commonly received) view on the topic. In the Statesman Plato recognizes that in each case there is some desirable mean between the extremes, but where it lies changes according to circumstances. Trying to secure that convenient mean doesn’t debar us from loking upon the extremes under consideration as virtues or perfections themselves. Thus, when the Statesman is drawing towards its conclusion, the Foreigner abruptly brings up the issue of υπερβολην και την ελλειψιν (283c3-4), and thereby that of the art of measuring (η µετρητικη). Immediately the problem arises of the relations between the opposite extremes. In Theaet. 152d, 157a, 160b-c, it appears that Plato distinguishes relative from non-relative properties or determinations in the same way as he does between empirical, earthly, changeable things and the Forms. Yet in his later dialogues Plato is clearly committed to holding the view that the Forms themselves enter a number of relations, and even that some Forms partake of others. Since very early onwards he seems to have been concerned about some reciprocal relativity of opposite qualities (there are many places where such relativity is stressed, as Charm. 168b5-169a5, Phaed.. (shrink)

    Ancient Greek Philosophy

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12. Robert Sternfeld, Graeme Forbes, Ronald M. Green, Lorenzo Peña, Manuel Liz & Mark Rowlands (1994). Book Reviews. Philosophia 24 (1-2).
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13. Lorenzo Peña (1990). Partial Truth, Fringes, and Motion: Three Applications of a Contradictorial Logic. Studies in East European Thought 39 (3-4).
    Eastern European Philosophy in European Philosophy

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14. Lorenzo Pena (1984). Identity, Fuzziness and Noncontradiction. Noûs 18 (2):227-259.
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15. Lorenzo Peña, Graham Priest's `Dialetheism' -- Is It Althogether True?
    Graham Priest's book In Contradiction (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987) is a bold and well argued for defense of the existence of true contradictions. Priest's case for true contradictions -- or «dialetheias», as he calls them -- is by no means the only one in contemporary analytical philosophy, let alone in philosophy tout court . In some sense, other defenses of the existence of true contradictions are less philosophically «heterodox» than his is, since, unlike Priest's orientation, other approaches are closer to (...) prevailing ideas in mainstream («Quinean») analytical philosophy, whereas Priest's leanings are strongly anti realist, and not distant from the logical empiricism of the thirties. (shrink)

    Dialetheism in Logic and Philosophy of Logic

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