Online research in philosophy

This book is a collection of key readings on Minimalist Syntax, the most recent, and arguably most important, theoretical development within the Principles and Parameters approach to syntactic theory. Brings together in one volume the key readings on Minimalist Syntax Includes an introduction and overview of the Minimalist Program written by two prominent researchers Excerpts crucial pieces from the beginning of Minimalism to the most recent work and provides invaluable coverage of the most important topics.

Boskovic treated unobservables in two different ways. During his earlier period (1741-48) the difference between observables and unobservables was a significant element of his specific semantic instrumentalism. The sentences of unobservables (such as absolute space, time and motions) were treated only as convenient tools conceived to provide for the empirical success of a theory. Later, especially in his Theory of Natural Philosophy (1763), Boskovic relativized this distinction by positing absolute properties (continuity and impenetrability), which are common to both observables and (...) unobservables. As a scientific realist he was committed to his original unobservable entities, i.e. “points of matter”. Due to the intrinsic paradox contained in the concept of these points, his realist position was led to the absurd, which demands an anti-realist interpretation of Boskovic's theory. (shrink)

Resenha do livro de Loparic, Zeljko. Ética e finitude . Sáo Paulo: Escuta, 2004, 120 páginas.

Bo kovi 's explanatory procedure and his concept of explanation represents a certain departure from Newton's causal theory and his theory of explanation. Apart from particular elements of causal explanation, Bo kovi developed an alternative, non-causal explanatory strategy. In this paper two different elements of this strategy are discussed: (i) the micro-reductive explanatory strategy based on Bo kovi 's idea of determination, and (ii) a type of explanation of a theory by means of a more general (...) law, through a thought-experiment. In addition, an outline of the proposed (iii) 'argument theory' of explanation in his mature period is made. These aspects are considered with respect to the realist and anti-realist elements in Bo kovi 's epistemology. (shrink)

The main aim of shamanic initiation among the Yanomami people of the Upper Orinoco River region in Venezuela is the metamorphosis of the human body into a cosmic body, or what I term "corporeal cosmogenesis." During the initiatory ordeal, the neophyte undergoes an intense experience of death through dismemberment by the spirits and subsequent rebirth, thus overcoming the human condition and becoming an individual living spirit. But, at the same time, he becomes a "collection" of other spirits who leave their (...) natural habitats—located on the mountaintops and in the forest—and move into the initiate's body, which becomes their abode. As the candidate surrenders his soul and humanness to the spirits, the latter become his personal allies and sources of power while imbuing the shaman's postmortem ego with certain properties that can best be described in holographic terms. After the shaman's biological death, his personal spirits become disembodied again and disperse back into the forest and on the mountaintops. When the shaman dies, his soul multiplies, as each of the disembodied spirits becomes a carrier of the shaman's soul image. In this way, through initiations, the shaman becomes a part of a dynamic cosmic circuity, as his hekura can be called upon to invade the bodies of new shamans, and start a cosmogonic initiatory act anew. (shrink)

In this essay I provide a critical analysis of the Enlightenment program—focusing particularly on the thought of Hegel, Rouseau, Kant, and Nietszche—describing the central dangers inherent in the program. I conclude with reflections generated from the post-metaphysical responses to the Enlightenment made by Giddens and Heidegger.

We answer a question of Cassidy and Kolchin about the universality of the constrained closure of a differential field by working in a larger category of models.