The paper addresses O'Neill's view that her version of Kant's Categorical Imperative, namely, the requirement of followability (RF), marks the supreme principle of reason; it takes issue with her claim that RF commits us to Kantian constructivism in practical philosophy. The paper distinguishes between two readings of RF: on a weak reading, RF ranges over all (practical) reasoning but does not commit to constructivism, and on a strong version RF commits to constructivism but fails to meet its own test, and (...) so is self-defeating. The paper argues that RF, if understood strongly, depends for its reasonableness on reasons that cannot coherently be required to meet RF, so that RF cannot be the supreme principle of reason. The paper considers several responses to this problem in order to suggest that RF depends for its reasonableness on perfectionist considerations. (shrink)
We describe a recent program from the study of definable groups in certain o-minimal structures. A central notion of this program is that of a (geometric) lattice. We propose a definition of a lattice in an arbitrary first-order structure. We then use it to describe, uniformly, various structure theorems for o-minimal groups, each time recovering a lattice that captures some significant invariant of the group at hand. The analysis first goes through a local level, where a pertinent notion of pregeometry (...) and generic elements is each time introduced. (shrink)
Discussion of J. Kevin O’Regan’s “Why Red Doesn’t Sound Like a Bell: Understanding the Feel of Consciousness” Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s13164-012-0090-7 Authors J. Kevin O’Regan, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS - Université Paris Descartes, Centre Biomédical des Saints Pères, 45 rue des Sts Pères, 75270 Paris cedex 06, France Ned Block, Departments of Philosophy, Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, 5 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA Journal Review of Philosophy and (...) Psychology Online ISSN 1878-5166 Print ISSN 1878-5158. (shrink)
The essays in this volume explore current work in central areas of philosophy, work unified by attention to salient questions of human action and human agency. They ask what it is for humans to act knowledgeably, to use language, to be friends, to act heroically, to be mortally fortunate, and to produce as well as to appreciate art. The volume is dedicated to J. O. Urmson, in recognition of his inspirational contributions to these areas. All the essays but one have (...) been specially written for this volume. (shrink)
In The Twentieth-Century Humanists from Spitzer to Frye, William Calin examines the contributions of eight scholar-critics who produced their most important work between the mid-1930s and the early 1960s, before the advent of contemporary critical theory. Five are from Continental Europe. Leo Spitzer, Robert Curtius and Erich Auerbach were German-language students of Romance literatures, while Albert Béguin and Jean Rousset, both speakers of French, were leading figures of the Geneva school. Calin also includes English-language scholars: the Oxford don C. S. (...) Lewis, the American F. O. Mathiessen, and the Canadian Northrop Frye. Calin's goal is threefold. He wants to draw distinctions between the mid-twentieth .. (shrink)
Epistemic foundationalism is confronted with a serious objection in relation to the basic beliefs placed as the foundation of justification and knowledge: the well-known Sellars’s problem. We try to characterize the problem advanced by Sellars and show some plausible answers which depend on the understanding of sensory experience and the very nature of perception, which allows us to avoid the objection and defend a moderate version of foundationalism.
This study examines business students’ individual values and their perception of their university’s values and the relationship between these values and affective organisational commitment. Findings indicate that both groups of business students rated their personal values as consistent with the rankings of the major pan—cultural values with strong ethical orientation and self—development and learning values. In both educational institutions organisational vision values and individual conservatism values predicted affective commitment. Findings also indicate statistically significant differences between the students’ personal values and (...) their perception of their university’s values, suggesting a degree of lack of P—O fit between the students’ values and their university’s values. (shrink)
Kantian constructivists accord a constitutive, justificatory role to the issue of scope: they typically claim that first-order practical thought depends for its authority on being suitably acceptable within the right scope, or by all relevant others, and some Kantian constructivists, notably Onora O'Neill, hold that our views of the nature and criteria of practical reasoning also depend for their authority on being suitably acceptable within the right scope. The paper considers whether O'Neill-type Kantian constructivism can coherently accord this key role (...) to the issue of scope while adhering to the universalist, ‘cosmopolitan’ commitments at its core. The paper argues that this is not so. On the one hand, it shows that O'Neill's attempt to ‘fix’ the scope of practical reasoning supposes, rather than establishes, a view of ethical standing and the scope of practical reasoning. On the other hand, the paper argues that Kantian constructivism should endorse a non-constructivist, perfectionist view of the good to determine that scope. The paper thereby supports the perfectionist conjecture that Kantian constructivism, in order to defend its universalist commitments, should take refuge in non-constructivist, perfectionist considerations, and that Kantian constructivism should therefore construe perfectionism as a partial, though uneasy, ally. (shrink)
In his PhD thesis (1938) Turing introduced what he described as 'a new kind of machine'. He called these 'O-machines'. The present paper employs Turing's concept against a number of currently fashionable positions in the philosophy of mind.
What are the states of consciousness in themselves, those pulses of mentality that follow one upon another in tight succession and constitute the stream of consciousness? William James conceives of each of them as being, typically, a complex unitary awareness that instantiates many features and takes a multiplicity of objects. In contrast, Brian O?Shaughnessy claims that the basic durational component of the stream of consciousness is the attention, which he understands to be something like a psychic space that is simultaneously (...) occupied by several experiences. Whereas, according to the first conception, emotion is a feature of a temporal segment of the stream of consciousness and colors through and through each consciousness state that instantiates it, the second conception considers an emotion to be a distinct one of a system of simultaneous experiences that interact with each other, for example, limiting each other?s number and intensity. Among other matters discussed is the two theorists? mutually contrasting conception of how the non-inferential awareness which we have of our states of consciousness is accomplished. (shrink)
O'Keefe's contention that Epicurus devised the atomic swerve to counter a threat to the efficacy of reason posed by the thesis that the future is fixed regardless of what we do, is not supported by the evidence he adduces. Epicurus' own words in On nature XXV, and testimony from Lucretius and Cicero, tell far more strongly in favour of the traditional view, that Epicurus' concerns were causal determinism and its threat to moral responsiblity for our actions and characters.
Years ago, when I was an undergraduate math major at the University of Wyoming, I came across an interesting book in our library. It was a book of counterexamples t o propositions in real analysis (the mathematics of the real numbers). Mathematicians work more or less like the rest of us. They consider propositions. If one seems to them to be plausibly true, then they set about to prove it, to establish the proposition as a theorem. Instead o f setting (...) out to prove propositions, the psychologists, neuroscientists, and other empirical types among us, set out to show that a proposition is supported by the data, and that it is the best such proposition so supported. The philosophers among us, when they are not causing trouble by arguing that AI is a dead end or that cognitive science can get along without representations, work pretty much like the mathematicians: we set out to prove certain propositions true on the basis of logic, first principles, plausible assumptions, and others' data. But, back to the book of real analysis counterexamples. If some mathematician happened t o think that some proposition about continuity, say, was plausibly true, he or she would then set out to prove it. If the proposition was in fact not a theorem, then a lot of precious time would be wasted trying to prove it. Wouldn't it be great to have a book that listed plausibly true propositions that were in fact not true, and listed with each such proposition a counterexample to it? Of course it would. (shrink)
In the contemporary debate on moral status, it is not uncommon to find philosophers who embrace the following basic moral principle: -/- The Principle of Full Moral Status: The degree to which an entity E possesses moral status is proportional to the degree to which E possesses morally relevant properties until a threshold degree of morally relevant properties possession is reached, whereupon the degree to which E possesses morally relevant properties may continue to increase, but the degree to which E (...) possesses moral status remains the same. -/- One philosopher who has contributed significantly to the contemporary debate on moral status and embraces the Principle of Full Moral Status is Mary Anne Warren. Warren holds not only that it is possible for some entities to possess full moral status, but that some entities actually do, e.g., normal adult human beings. I argue that two of Warren’s primary arguments for the Principle of Full Moral Status—the Argument from Pragmatism and the Argument from Explanatory Power—are significantly flawed. (shrink)
Timothy O’Connor presents a novel and powerful version of the cosmological argument from contingency. What distinguishes his argument is that it does not depend on the Principle of Sufficient Reason. This version thus avoids powerful objections facing the Principle. We present and develop the argument, strengthening it in various ways. We fill in big gaps in the argument and answer criticisms. These include the criticisms that O’Connor considers as well as new criticisms. We explain how his replies to a Kantian (...) criticism and to the demand for contrastive explanation fail, and properly answer the criticism and the demand. We develop two new criticisms, the objection from opaqueness and the objection from constitution, and explain how these objections can be answered. (shrink)
So begins "For Anne Gregory," published by W. B. Yeats in 1933. It is surely one of his most charming poems.1 The poem's lilting rhythm and affectionate tone effectively soften—even disguise—what is arguably a dark and dismaying message. Anne is destined to be loved not for herself alone, but for an accidental physical attribute—her blond hair. Why do I claim that the poem's message is dark? Why should it dismay Anne if she is loved for the beauty (...) of her hair? Is that not better, after all, than not being loved in the first place? And what would it be to love Anne for herself "alone"? Love Anne for her sweet disposition; for her ability always to say the right thing; for her kindness; but for her yellow hair? .. (shrink)
A Martian reading contemporary work on perception might be forgiven for thinking that humans had only one sense: vision. Witness the title of one popular recent collection: Vision and mind: selected readings in the philosophy of perception. Our obsession with sight is stifling. It leads to distorted vision-based models of the other senses, and it means that the distinctive puzzles raised by non-visual modalities are routinely neglected. With this pioneering and long-overdue collection of essays on auditory perception, Nudds and O’Callaghan (...) aim to start correcting this state of affairs. They deserve much praise, not least for their own substantial contributions and splendid introduction. (shrink)
abstract This article briefly examines Onora O'Neill's account of the relation between normative principles and practical ethical problems with an eye to suggesting that philosophers of practical ethics have reason to adopt fairly high moral ambitions to be edifying and instructive both as educators and as advisors on public policy debates.
_The Sub ject of Con scious ness_ is a rich, strik ingly orig i nal and ambi tious work. It makes an impor tant and timely con tri bu tion to cur rent debates on a num ber of issues which over the last few years have been tak ing cen tre stage in the phi los o phy of mind: for exam ple, self-consciousness, selec tive atten tion and the nature of bodily aware ness. What makes this achieve ment (...) some what unusual, and all the more remark able, is that _The Sub ject of Con scious ness_ was pub lished thirty years ago (Evans, 1970). The reviews it received at the time ranged from the hos tile to the deri sory. (shrink)
The second word in the subtitle of this article is crucial. For there can be no doubt but that the possibility of sociobiology below the human level has already been abundantly realized in, for instance, the main body of E. O. Wilson's enormous and encyclopedic treatise Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. What may more reasonably be doubted, and what is in fact questioned here, is whether, as Wilson and others hope and believe, there is much room, or indeed any, for a (...) sociobiology of our own notoriously wayward and idiosyncratic species. In proposing this particular project Wilson and his colleagues have seen themselves as promoting a climactic conquest for evolutionary biology. For surely, they seem to have thought, now, more than a century after Darwin, it is high time and past time to launch the final assault upon the last citadel. But, as we shall proceed to argue, there are reasons—reasons which were available at least in outline even to Darwin himself—why the ideas which have been so triumphantly successful in explaining The Origin of Species cannot properly be applied to what is in truth a fundamentally different task. They cannot, that is to say, properly be transferred to explain developments either within or out of the particular problem species of which the author of that book, along with both all the authors and all the readers of all other books, have been themselves members. (shrink)
Propósito deste ensaio é apresentar uma nova abordagem ao velho problema que é o acesso filosófico ao Deus cristão. Isto acontece dentro do esquema de uma nova metafísica cujo ponto de partida é a capacidade que a mente tem de percepcionar a totalidade do ser, facto este que o artigo apresenta como sendo justamente uma estrutura central do intelecto. Dado que as distinções entre intelecto e mundo, conceitos e realidade, sujeito e objecto, etc., já pressupõem a totalidade do ser dada (...) perceptivamente e nela está baseada, esta totalidade, assim concebida, torna-se mais fundamental que todas aquelas famosas distinções. A tarefa dessa nova metafísica aqui em questão consiste em explicitar uma explicação desta totalidade. No presente artigo, esta explicação é desenvolvida apenas numa direcção, a saber, a explicação no sentido de como proceder da totalidade do ser para o Deus cristão. Neste sentido, uma distinção fundamental é feita entre "o Absoluto" e "Deus (cristão)". A filosofia (cristão) tradicional acreditou frequentemente que a filosofia só poderia explicitar a "determinação" do absoluto como criador do universo finito. O autor do artigo visa justamente demonstrar que outras determinações do Absoluto podem ser filosoficamente alcançadas; mas isto pressupõe que a história da liberdade do Absoluto seja radicalmente tomada em consideração. Ora isto, por sua vez, significa que a história e interpretação da religião - especialmente da religião segundo a tradição judaico-cristã - tem de ser vista como um tópico filosófico verdadeiramente central. Assim compreendido, o Absoluto é apropriadamente designado por "Deus (cristão)". Segue-se que uma das consequências desta abordagem é a de que uma vincada distinção entre filosofia tradicional e teologia tradicional cristã deve ser abandonada. /// The purpose of this essay is to present a new approach to the old problem of philosophical access to the Christian God. This is done within the frame of a new metaphysics whose starting point is the mind's perception of the totality of being which is shown to be a central structural feature of the mind as such. Since the distinctions between mind and world, concepts and reality, subject and object, and the like, already presuppose the perceptually given totality of being and are based on it, this totality, so concei-ved, is more fundamental than all those famous distinctions. The task of the envisaged new metaphysics consists in working out an explication of this totality. In this paper this explication is developed only in one direction: the explication in the sense of how to proceed from the totality of being to the Christian God. To this effect, a fundamental distinction is made between "the Absolute" and "(Christian) God". Traditional (Christian) philosophy had constantly believed that philosophy could only work out the "determination "of the Absolute as the creator of the finite universe. The paper endeavours to demonstrate that further determinations of the Absolute can be philosophically reached; but this presupposes that the history of the freedom of the Absolute is radically taken into account. And this, in turn, amounts to the claim that the history and interpretation of religion - most especially according to the Judaic-Christian tradition -must be seen as a central philosophical topic. Thus understood, the Absolute is appropriately called "(Christian) God". One of the consequences of this approach is that the sharp distinction between traditional philosophy and traditional Christian theology should be abandoned. (shrink)
Two readings of the much-discussed περιτρoπη argument of Theaetetus 170c-171c have dominated the literature. One I call "the relativity reading". On this reading, the argument fails by ignoratio elenchi because it "carelessly" omits "the qualifications 'true for so-and-so' which [Protagoras'] theory insists on" (Bostock 1988: 90). The other reading I call "the many-worlds interpretation". On this view, Plato's argument succeeds in showing that "Protagoras' position becomes utterly self-contradictory" because "he claims that everyone lives in his own relativistic world, yet at (...) the same time he is forced by that very claim to admit that no one does" (Burnyeat 1976b: 48). I discuss and criticise both readings, and present a third, according to which the point of the argument is, very roughly, that Protagoras is committed to equating truth and truth-for, and so, further, to their intersubstitutability. This further commitment proves fatal to his argument. (shrink)
In this paper I want to propose that we see solipsism as arising from certain problems we have about identifying ourselves as subjects in an objective world. The discussion will centre on Wittgenstein’s treatment of solipsism in his Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus. In that work Wittgenstein can be seen to express an unusually profound understanding of the problems faced in trying to give an account of how we, who are subjects, identify ourselves as objects in the (...) world. We have in his compressed remarks, the kernels of a number of arguments which all come together to form what can be called the problem of self-identification. I want to argue that the solipsism of the Tractatus arises at least in part as a solution to, or – to put it less optimistically – as a symptom or articulation of this problem. In approaching Wittgenstein’s early discussion of solipsism in this way I will obviously be in disagreement with some other interpretations of the work. For example, there are those who think that there is no ‘solipsism of the Tractatus’.1 In fact, the Tractarian arguments presented below as motivating solipsism have been seen as fulfilling the quite opposite function of refuting it. I do not intend in this piece to engage with alternative interpretations. Let me say a little bit about why I have granted myself the licence not to do so. First, the focus of my concern with solipsism is on how it connects with what I have called the problem of self-identification. While it is a concern that emerged in an attempt to make sense of Wittgenstein’s remarks in.. (shrink)
In her book, Moral Status, Mary Anne Warren defends a comprehensive theory of the moral status of various entities. Under this theory, she argues that animals may have some moral rights but that their rights are much weaker in strength than the rights of humans, who have rights in the fullest, strongest sense. Subsequently, Warren believes that our duties to animals are far weaker than our duties to other humans. This weakness is especially evident from the fact that Warren (...) believes that it is frequently permissible for humans to kill animals for food. Warren’s argument for her view consists primarily in the belief that we have inevitable practical conflicts with animals that make it impossible to grant them equal rights without sacrificing basic human interests. However, her arguments fail to justify her conclusions. In particular, Warren fails to justify her beliefs that animals do not have an equal right to life and that it is permissible for humans to kill animals for food. (shrink)
The papers by Macpherson, O’Callaghan, and Batty reveal some startling differences in the objects and properties represented by different modalities. They also reveal some tensions between different ways of understanding what it is for any one modality to represent objects and properties.
This paper evaluates four competing psychological explanations for why the jury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial reached the verdict they did: explanatory coherence, Bayesian probability theory, wishful thinking, and emotional coherence. It describes computational models that provide detailed simulations of juror reasoning for explanatory coherence, Bayesian networks, and emotional coherence, and argues that the latter account provides the most plausible explanation of the jury's decision.
Jacques Maritain tells us that, apart from St. Thomas himself, his “principal teacher” in Thomism was John Poinsot. Poinsot, like Maritain and Thomas, expressly teaches that the basis of “Thomist realism” lies in the distinction between sentire, which makes no use of concepts, and phantasiari and intelligere, which together depend essentially on concepts. O’Callaghan makes no discussion of this point, resting his notion of realism rather on the widespread quo/quod fallacy, that is, the misinterpretation of concepts as the id quo (...) of knowing. Poinsot demonstrates that this view conflates the distinct notions of species expressae and species impressae, demonstrating further that concepts as such cannot provide the cognitive basis of realism. O’Callaghan in effect suppresses the distinction betweenobjects and things in his effort to achieve the impossible. In this review, I show that it is a question of semantics vs. semiotics over which O’Callaghan stumblesin misrepresenting “Thomist realism.”. (shrink)
V kontextu české filosofie, kde není nouze o vzdělané a chytré lidi, ale kde se to nijak nehemží skutečnými individualitami, představuje Petr Vopěnka zcela zvláštní případ. Je matematik nejenom vzděláním, ale v matematice i leccos dokázal. Jeho knihy o filosofii matematiky, zejména jeho tetralogie Rozprav s geometrií1, jsou velice vyhraněné: Vopěnka v nich předkládá svůj originální obraz a příliš se nestará o to, aby ho konfrontoval s tím, co si o tom myslí jiní. Jak sám připouští, i historické osoby, o (...) kterých ve svých knihách píše, mu slouží spíše jako kompars, na jehož pozadí rozehrává svá barvitá líčení ‚dobrodružství poznání‘. Vopěnka ve svých knihách protestuje proti tomu, že moderní věda do obrazu světa, který buduje, vůbec nevpustila tak zásadní determinanty našeho přirozeného světa, jakými jsou neostrost či existence horizontu, který činní náš obraz světa v jistém smyslu ‘nehomogenní‘. Proti tomu se samozřejmě nabízí námitka, že to je v podstatě věci, že vědecký obraz světa je svou podstatou ostrý a homogenní. Že chtít po něm, aby byl jiný, pramení pouze z nepochopení jeho povahy a hlavně jeho role: neboť svět vykreslovaný vědou má být světem pouze v metaforickém slova smyslu, je jenom jakýmsi ‚orientačním plánkem‘, který nám má pomoci orientovat se ve světě ‚přirozeném‘. (Tím ovšem nechci říci, že by tohle nepochopení nebylo fakticky dosti rozšířené.) Vopěnka však ukazuje, že vědu, zejména matematiku, by bylo možné dělat i jinak, než jak se to považuje za víceméně samozřejmé: že je možné vytvořit matematizovaný obraz světa, ze kterého nejsou neostrost či horizont vymeteny. (I tento obraz si samozřejmě zachovává jistý druh ostrosti a homogenity, která z něj činí něco kvalitativně odlišného od přirozeného světa, avšak k přirozenému světu má blíže než ten standardní.) Tento jeho návrh je velice originální a pozoruhodný a je škoda, že mu není věnována větší pozornost a není předmětem soustavnější diskuse, ve které by se ověřila jeho nosnost. Originalita.. (shrink)
Many philosophers of language have held that a truth-conditional semantic account can explain the data motivating the distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions, but I believe this is a mistake. I argue that these data also motivate what I call “dual-aspect” uses as a distinct but closely related type. After establishing that an account of the distinction must also explain dual-aspect uses, I argue that the truth-conditional Semantic Model of the distinction cannot. Thus, the Semantic Model cannot (...) explain the data for which it is developed and so fails as an account of the referential/attributive distinction. (shrink)
w a y s h a v e b e e n . W e a l l r e m e m b e r M a r x ' s p o l e m i c a g a i n s t P r o u d h o n , t h e Manifesto's critique of "historical action [yielding] to personal inventive action, historically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones, and the gradual spontaneous class (...) organizations of the proletariat to an organization of society specially contrived by these inventors" (Marx and Engels, 1986, 64), and the numerous other occasions when the fathers of "scientific socialism" went a f t e r t h e " u t o p i a n s . " I n general this Marxian aversion to drawing up blueprints has been healthy, fueled at least in part by a respect for the concrete specificity of the revolutionary situation and for the agents engaged in revolutionary activity: it is not the business of Marxist intellectuals to tell the agents of revolution how they are to construct their postrevolutionary economy. (shrink)
This paper responds to Philipona & O’Regan (2006), which attempts to account for certain color phenomena by appeal to singularities in the space of “accessible information” in the light striking the retina. Three points are discussed. First, it is unclear what the empirical significance/import is of the mathematical analysis of the data regarding the accessible information in the light. Second, the singularity index employed in the study is both mathematically and empirically faulty. Third, the connection drawn between their findings and (...) some data from the World Color Survey is lacking in quantitative analysis in places where it is needed. The difficulties raised prevent Philipona & O’Regan’s conclusions from being accepted. (shrink)
The work of Spinoza, Descartes and Leibniz is cited in an attempt to develop, both expositorily and critically, the philosophy of Anne Viscountess Conway. Broadly, it is contended that Conway's metaphysics, epistemology and account of the passions not only bear intriguing comparison with the work of the other well-known rationalists, but supersede them in some ways, particularly insofar as the notions of substance and ontological hierarchy are concerned. Citing the commentary of Loptson and Carolyn Merchant, and alluding to other (...) commentary on the Cambridge Platonists whose work was done in tandem with Conway's, it is contended that Conway's conception of the "monad" preceded and influenced Leibniz's, and that her monistic vitalism was in many respects a superior metaphysics to the Cartesian system. It is concluded that we owe Conway more attention and celebration than she has thus far received. (shrink)
Nos Ensaios de Montaigne, encontramos um dos mais célebres textos filosóficos sobre a morte voluntária, o capítulo 3 do livro II. Muitos comentadores qualificam o posicionamento de Montaigne como sendo o mesmo de Sêneca e de alguns autores antigos, qual seja, uma defesa da moralidade do ato de se matar. Outros estudiosos detectam no ensaio uma oscilação inconclusa do autor francês sobre o tema. Procuro, em contrapartida, apresentar argumentos que evidenciam que a opinião final de Montaigne é irrestritamente contrária ao (...) suicídio. Para tanto, é feito um mapeamento das várias ocorrências do problema do suicídio no livro que vão além do citado capítulo. Além disso, é ressaltada a distinção entre as camadas de escrita do texto em suas várias edições, contrapondo as inovações de Montaigne aos modelos argumentativos de suas influências clássicas. In Montaigne's Essays, we find one of the most famous philosophical texts on voluntary death, the third chapter of Book II. Many commentators assess Montaigne's position as similar to Seneca's and to some other ancient authors', that is, a defense of the morality of killing oneself. Other scholars detect an unsolved oscillation of the French author on the subject. However, I try to present arguments showing that Montaigne's final opinion is against suicide. Therefore, it is undertaken a mapping of the multiple occurrences of the issue in the book, which go beyond the said chapter. Moreover, the distinction between the writing layers of the Essais in its various editions is stressed, putting in contrast the novelty of Montaigne's argumentative models to his classical influences. (shrink)
A large body of literature agrees that persons with schizophrenia suffer from a Theory of Mind (ToM) deficit. However, most empirical studies have focused on third-person, egocentric ToM, underestimating other facets of this complex cognitive skill. Aim of this research is to examine the ToM of schizophrenic persons considering its various aspects (first vs. second order, first vs. third person, egocentric vs. allocentric, beliefs vs. desires (...) vs. positive emotions vs. negative emotions and how each of these mental state types may be dealt with), to determine whether some components are more impaired than others. We developed a Theory of Mind Assessment Scale (Th.o.m.a.s.) and administered it to 22 persons with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and a matching control group. Th.o.m.a.s. is a semi-structured interview which allows a multi-component measurement of ToM. Both groups were also administered a few existing ToM tasks and the schizophrenic subjects were administered the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale and the WAIS-R. The schizophrenic persons performed worse than control at all the ToM measurements; however, these deficits appeared to be differently distributed among different components of ToM. Our conclusion is that ToM deficits are not unitary in schizophrenia, which also testifies to the importance of a complete and articulated investigation of ToM. (shrink)
O'Regan and Noe present a wonderfully detailed and comprehensive defense of a position whose broad outline we absolutely and unreservedly endorse. They are right, it seems to us, to stress the intimacy of conscious content and embodied action, and to counter the idea of a Grand Illusion with the image of an agent genuinely in touch, via active exploration, with the rich and varied visual scene. This is an enormously impressive achievement, and we hope that the comments that follow will (...) be. (shrink)
O presente artigo começa por reconhecer que a crítica ao cerne dos pressupostos do Positivismo Lógico acerca da natureza da Ciência começou alguns anos antes do aparecimento da obra de Thomas Kuhn A Estrutura das Revoluções Científicas, obra esta que se haveria de constituir como charneira na Filosofia da Ciência mais recente. Em vez de olhar para a Ciência como uma estrutura proposicional intemporal, Kuhn defende que ela deve ser tratada como um empreendimento essencialmente histórico, no qual a subjectividade humana (...) desempenha um papel fundamental e em que os factores sociais de vario tipo são em certo sentido verdadeiramente constitutivos. Segundo o autor do artigo, grande parte dos escritos em Filosofia da Ciência desde então têm sido devotados ao tratamento das consequências de uma tal mudança de perspectiva. Dois tópicos tradicionais foram particularmente afectados: como se deve agora caracterizar a racionalidade cientifica? De que modo, se for esse efectivamente o caso, poderá o realismo científtco, a crença mais segura da maioria dos cientistas, sobreviver a essa nova ênfase na historicidade do conhecimento cientifico? Objectivo principal do artigo é, portanto, demonstrar de que modo no âmbito da disciplina que é a Filosofia da Ciência um novo desafio emergiu, nomeadamente o de saber até que ponto ela não deveria ser substituída pela Sociologia do conhecimento científico, ou seja, por um modo de pensar em que os factores sociais sejam finalmente determinates tanto na certificação dos dados experienciais como na justificação das teorias. /// The critique of the core assumptions of logical positivism about the nature of Science began years, before the appearance of Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that finally marked the parting of the ways in recent Philosophy of Science. Instead of regarding Science as a timeless propositional framework, Kuhn argued that it should be treated as an essentially historical enterprise, in which human subjectivity plays a crucial role and in which social factors of various sorts are in an important sense constitutive. Much of the writing in the philosophy of science since then has been devoted to working out the consequences of this shift in perspective. Two traditional topics have been particularly affected: how ought scientific rationality now be characterized? How (if at all) can scientific realism, the firm belief of most scientists, survive the new emphasis on historicity? And a new challenge arose to Philosophy of Science itself as a discipline: ought it not be replaced by a Sociology of scientific knowledge that would take social factors to be finally determinative both in the certification of experimental data and in theory assessment? (shrink)
The recent Supreme Court decision upholding Roe v. Wade and in particular, the dissent by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, sheds new light on the issue of abortion. Let us consider any stage of a pregnancy when abortion is medically safe for the mother. If at that stage it is also medically viable to save the fetus, is an abortion performed at that stage of pregnancy morally justifiable? For example, if it is, or becomes, medically safe to perform abortions after first (...) trimester of pregnancy and at the same time saving a fetus is, or becomes, medically viable or not unusual during some stage of the second trimester, can abortions during and after that stage of pregnancy be justified? With a number of qualifications I shall argue the thesis that as a general rule, but not an absolute rule, abortion in these instances is not usually justifiable. For if it is, then one will also have to grant the moral justification for a number of other highly questionable medical practices. This thesis is not to be identified with the stronger claim that abortions of viable fetuses can never be performed. There are surely exceptions such as when the life or health of the mother is in danger. But, I shall argue, the justification for making such exceptions is on different grounds than is sometimes claimed because one must weigh the health of the mother against the life of another human being. (shrink)
David O’Connor has criticized my arguments for the conclusion that God’s existence is compatible with genuinely gratuitous natural evil. In this reply, I show that his own arguments fail to achieve their objective; in addition, I point out several respects in which he has misstated my position.
Marcel Gauchet to mało znany w Polsce historyk i filozof francuski. Żadna z jego książek nie została do tej pory przetłumaczona na język polski. Dostępny w tym języku jest jeden z esejów pochodzący z La démocratie contre elle-même (Demokracja przeciwko sobie samej), opublikowany w kwartalniku „Res Publica Nowa” w grudniu 2002 r. pt. Nowy wiek osobowości. Próba psychologii współczesnej, przełożony i opracowany przez Wiktora Dłuskiego. W tekście tym Gauchet stawia tezę o mającej miejsce we współczesnym świecie rewolucji antropologicznej, polegającej na (...) zmianie roli rodziny ze wspólnoty ustanawiającej i podtrzymującej więzi społeczne na grupę społeczną niemającą wpływu na kształt życia społecznego. Przybliżenie sylwetki Gaucheta wydaje się niezbędne, albowiem jego myśl stanowi ważki i godny uwagi głos w dyskusji nad stanem współczesnej polityki oraz świata. -/- W niniejszym artykule skupię się na dwóch poruszonych przez Gaucheta zagadnieniach. Pierwsze z nich to ideologiczne konsekwencje ostatniego kryzysu gospodarczego, m. in. pokonanie lewicowej frakcji politycznej przez prawicową czy kryzys demokracji objawiający się dominacją interesów jednostkowych nad wspólnotowymi. Drugą kwestię stanowi kryzys liberalizmu polegający na występowaniu dwóch sprzecznych trendów na scenie politycznej, mianowicie,dominacji idei państwa interwencjonistycznego, dążącego do zbudowania dobrze funkcjonującego państwa opiekuńczego oraz rosnącego w siłę domagania się praw jednostki, co odbywa się, zdaniem Gaucheta, kosztem państwa. -/- Źródła będące podstawą niniejszego tekstu to przede wszystkim wywiad Macieja Nowickiego z Marcelem Gauchetem pt. Nie ma już lewicy, prawica zwyciężyła na zawsze opublikowany w miesięczniku „Europa. Magazyn Idei Newsweeka” w 2009 r. oraz wydane w 2007 r. I i II tom L’Avènement de la démocratie (Nadejście demokracji) Gaucheta. (shrink)
Sensory Motor Contingencies belong to a functionalistic framework. Functionalism does not give any explanation about why and how objective functional relations should produce phenomenal experience. O’Regan and Noe as well as other functionalists do not propose a new ontology that could support the first person subjective phenomenal side of experience.
Lying and dysfunctional impression management have been identified as two serious forms of deviant behavior in organizations. One manifestation of such behavior is distortion of one's résumé. In 1981, Janet Cooke lost American journalism's highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize, and her job when her work was exposed as a hoax. The revelation surfaced after it was discovered that she had lied on her résumé and her biographical record. Twenty years later, football coach George O'Leary resigned from one of the most (...) coveted jobs in college sports when it was discovered that he had falsified his academic and athletic accomplishments decades earlier. This paper summarizes the two cases - their similarities and differences - and places them in the context of organizational deviance. The case studies provide discussion points, practical advice and instructional material for students in business ethics and management classes. Lessons include the importance of preparing accurate, unvarnished résumés and the morally bankrupt nature of allegedly minor distortions that can later cause huge trouble for the individuals and the institutions involved. (shrink)
While much of James O. Young’s Art and Knowledge is devoted to showing how works of art might be of cognitive value, we will focus on a prior claim, defended in the first chapter of Art and Knowledge, that “art” ought to be defined such that only works with cognitive value count as artworks. We begin by noting that it is not very clear—despite the considerable attention Young devotes to the matter—just what it is for an artwork to have cognitive (...) value. If by this claim he means only that we can learn something from a work, then the claim is trivial. We might learn from Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, for example, that a urinal can become an artwork. But Young assumes that if Fountain is a work of art, then some works of art do not have cognitive value. So he must have a richer, narrower conception of cognitive value in mind. For the moment let us not worry what this richer, narrower conception of cognitive value is. Rather, let us just assume, along with Young, that Fountain does not have cognitive value. Why, then, is this not a counterexample to Young’s claim that “art” ought to be defined such that only works with cognitive value counts as artworks? Shouldn’t we define “art,” if we are going to define it, such that all and only works of art count as art? Why ought we adopt a definition of something which excludes from the category being defined things that, on the definer’s own grounds, are properly within that category. Surely, for any definiendum the definiens ought to pick out all and only those things that have the necessary and sufficient properties for being labeled by the definiendum. (shrink)
Ve FČ 4/2000 demonstroval Petr Koťátko svůj soustavný kritický zájem o mé práce tentokrát polemikou s názory, které jsem vyslovil ve své knize Význam a struktura (OIKOYMENH, Praha, 1999). Nad mým chápáním významu jakožto ‘zhmotnění’ inferenční role si Koťátko klade otázku „co je za takovými formulacemi, a především: co je zde reálně navíc v porovnání s funkcí, kterou strukturám (včetně inferenčních) běžně přiznáváme, aniž bychom se deklarovali jako strukturalisté“. Nemohu než konstatovat, že o tom, co za nimi je, je moje (...) kniha. Nevím ovšem, jakou roli strukturám přiznává Koťátko a ti ostatní, za které mluví – mojí zkušeností je, že inferencialismus, který v knize obhajuji (ať už úspěšně nebo ne), je pro většinu lidí zabývajících se jazykem dost těžko stravitelnou věcí (viz například moji diskusi s Pavlem Maternou ve FČ 5/2000). (shrink)
Este trabalho tem como objetivo discutir aspectos relacionados à virtualização e à liberdade presentes nos jogos eletrônicos que se configuram como novos espaços de vivências, interação e subjetivação. Para tanto, buscamos captar a singularidade presente na relação que os jogadores estabelecem com o espaço virtual, utilizando como inspiração metodológica a cartografia. Na pesquisa, cinco jovens foram observados e relataram suas experiências com os jogos eletrônicos. A partir disso, identificamos que os jogos eletrônicos como espaços virtuais permitem lidar com a noção (...) de tempo de forma diferenciada, aumentam o grau de liberdade e flexibilizam aspectos morais, trazendo à tona a noção de ciberética. (shrink)
A discrição da presença do princípio de reciprocidade na formulação hobbesiana oblitera importantes dimensões na sua teoria. Entre estas, a necessidade intrínseca de que os súditos estejam instados a utilizar a sua capacidade de produzir juízos. Apresentam-se diversas circunstâncias que corroboram essa tese, o que mostra que a atividade de julgar não foi confiscada pelo soberano. Ao contrário, ela é mesmo necessária para o seu sistema.
After stressing the shortcomings of Darwinian accounts of self-consciousness and knowledge - i.e. in terms of their survival value - Anthony O'Hear presents Peirce's metaphysical hypotheses on cosmic evolution as an alternative approach that avoids those shortcomings. Although O'Hear does not straightforwardly defend Peirce's views, his argument suggests that only some teleological account of self-consciousness and knowledge is reasonable. The argument, though correct, is not enough to establish the metaphysical point O'Hear defends. Before developing his metaphysical ideas, Peirce's rejection of (...) natural selection as an explanation for every phenomenon brought him to consider the more appropriate question of how natural selection could give rise to a different kind of evolution. This involved outlining an evolutionary account of the origin of self-consciousness and of the mechanisms of belief fixation. The point is not one about Peirce, of course, but about the relationship between, on the one hand, biological and, on the other, psychological and cultural phenomena. (shrink)
Lying and dysfunctional impression management have been identified as two serious forms of deviant behavior in organizations. One manifestation of such behavior is distortion of one's résumé. In 1981, Janet Cooke lost American journalism's highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize, and her job when her work was exposed as a hoax. The revelation surfaced after it was discovered that she had lied on her résumé and her biographical record. Twenty years later, football coach George O'Leary resigned from one of the (...) most coveted jobs in college sports when it was discovered that he had falsified his academic and athletic accomplishments decades earlier. This paper summarizes the two cases — their similarities and differences — and places them in the context of organizational deviance. The case studies provide discussion points, practical advice and instructional material for students in business ethics and management classes. Lessons include the importance of preparing accurate, unvarnished résumés and the morally bankrupt nature of allegedly minor distortions that can later cause huge trouble for the individuals and the institutions involved. (shrink)
O. Renn, P.-J. Schweizer, M. Dreyer, A. Klinke: Risiko. Über den gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit Unsicherheit Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s10202-009-0071-9 Authors Stephan Lingner, Europäische Akademie zur Erforschung von Folgen wissenschaftlich-technischer Entwicklungen Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH Wilhelmstr. 56 53474 Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler Germany Journal Poiesis & Praxis: International Journal of Technology Assessment and Ethics of Science Online ISSN 1615-6617 Print ISSN 1615-6609 Journal Volume Volume 6 Journal Issue Volume 6, Numbers 3-4.
Pretendo usar o exemplo dos nomes de percursos de valores como prova de que, contrariamente ao que Michael Resnik e Michael Dummett sustentam, Frege nunca abandonou o seu princípio do contexto: “Apenas no contexto de uma sentenya tem uma palavra significado”. Em particular, pretendo mostrar que a prova da completude com relação ao significado, que Frege tentou introduzir na linguagem formal das Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, baseia-se em uma aplicação do principio do contexto, e que, em consequencia, tambem nomes de percursos (...) de valores tem significado apenas nocontexto de uma sentença. A teoria Fregeana do sentido e do significado somente pode ser entendida adequadamente sob o pano de fundo do princfpio do contexto.Taking course-of-values names as an example, I want to show that, contrary to what Michael Resnik and Michael Dummett claim, Frege never abandoned his context principle “Only in the context of a sentence do words have meaning”. In particular, I want to show that Frege’s attempted proof of referentiality for the formal language of Grundgesetze der Arithmetik rests on the context principle and that, consequently, course-of-values names have a reference only in the context of a sentence. It is only in the light of the context principle that Frege’s theory of sense and reference can be understood appropriately. (shrink)
O artigo interpreta o pensamento de Heidegger como transformação da filosofia transcendental que conduz à sua radicalização e, ultimamente, destruição. A este projecto contrapõe Apel a sua tentativa de estabelecer uma filosofia transcendental linguístico-pragmática que procura estabelecer um compromisso entre as temáticas da constituição antepredicativa do sentido e da exigência de validade intersubjectiva. /// L'article interprète la pensée de Heidegger comme transformation de la philosophie transcendantale qui conduit à sa radicalisation et, en dernier lieu, à sa destruction. A ce projet, (...) Apel oppose sa tentative d'établir une philosophie transcendantale linguistique pragmatique qui cherche à faire un compromis entre les thématiques de la constitution anteprédicative du sens et de l'exigence de validité intersubjective. /// The author interprets Heidegger's thought in terms of a transformation of transcendental philosophy, leading to its radicalization and finally its destruction. In the place of this project, the author proposes a transcendental philosophy of a linguistic and pragmatic kind, wich seeks to establish a compromise between the thematics of ante-predicative constitution of sense and the demand for intersubjective validity. (shrink)
We examine two-cardinal problems for the class of O-minimal theories. We prove that an O-minimal theory which admits some (κ, λ) must admit every (κ , λ ). We also prove that every “reasonable” variant of Chang’s Conjecture is true for O-minimal structures. Finally, we generalize these results from the two-cardinal case to the δ-cardinal case for arbitrary ordinals δ.
A relação de Hegel com o ceticismo está longe de ser clara. A par de existirem alguns poucos trabalhos sobre o assunto, e de Hegel abordar o tema em várias obras, não está bem determinado se Hegel possui uma teoria global sobre o ceticismo ou se apenas é um mero crítico de posturas céticas clássicas na antiguidade e na modernidade. Em que pese Hegel ser um crítico ferrenho do ceticismo moderno (por ex., em textos como Sobre a relação do Ceticismo (...) com a Filosofia, as Preleções sobre História da Filosofia e a Enciclopédia das Ciências Filosóficas), a sua crítica não se restringe a esta ou aquela forma de ceticismo, mas se funda numa teoria geral do saber que compreende o ceticismo como uma atividade negativa constitutiva da consciência e pretende refutá-lo enquanto ele reifica essa negatividade numa pretensão de verdade. A refutação consiste na descrição do modo como o ceticismo filosófico seria um saber parcial, e por isso auto-refutativo. O presente trabalho pretende sugerir que isto ocorre, sobretudo, na Fenomenologia do Espírito, cujo caráter “fenomenológico” propriamente dito não parece poder ser bem compreendido, sem tomar como pano de fundo o problema do ceticismo. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Hegel. Fenomenologia. Ceticismo. Refutação. ABSTRACT Hegel’s position towards skepticism is far from being clear. On the one hand, there are just a few studies on the subject and Hegel faces the issue in several of his writings; on the other hand, it is not established yet if Hegel has a global theory about skepticism or if he is just a critic of Ancient and Modern skeptical attitudes. In spite of Hegel being known as a sharp critic of Modern skepticism (for example, in works like On the relationship of skepticism to philosophy, Lectures on the history of philosophy and Encyclopedia of philosophical sciences), his criticism is not restricted to specific forms of skepticism, but it is rather founded upon a general theory of knowledge which takes skepticism as a negative activity constitutive of our natural consciousness and intends to refute the skeptical attitude as that negative activity of self-consciousness is reified and turned out into a special kind of truth claim. Hegel’s refutation consists in describing the way philosophical skepticism would be understood as a partial and self-defeating attitude of knowing. The present study suggests that this procedure is to be seen above all in the Phenomenology of Mind, whose “phenomenological” character cannot be rightly understood without taking properly into account the problem of skepticism. KEY WORDS: Hegel. Phenomenology. Skepticism. Refutation. (shrink)
The essay’s point of departure is O’Callaghan’s insistence that verbum mentis is for Aquinas not a philosophical doctrine, but “a properly theological topic.” The principal evidence for this interpretation consists in the functioning of verbum mentis in certain theological passages as well as its absence in others characterized as philosophical. The essay proceeds by situating Aquinas’s doctrine of verbum mentis within the tradition from which the expression is drawn and by examining the nature of the Summa theologiae. Consequently, Aquinas is (...) seen to espouse a philosophical doctrine of verbum mentis whose presence or absence in a particular passage is a function of both the passage’s goal and the nature of the audience for whom the passage was originally intended. (shrink)
While Ç ´Ò¿ µ methods for parsing probabilistic context-free grammars (PCFGs) are well known, a tabular parsing framework for arbitrary PCFGs which allows for botton-up, topdown, and other parsing strategies, has not yet been provided. This paper presents such an algorithm, and shows its correctness and advantages over prior work. The paper finishes by bringing out the connections between the algorithm and work on hypergraphs, which permits us to extend the presented Viterbi (best parse) algorithm to an inside (total probability) (...) algorithm. (shrink)
We consider a family of differential algebras of real functions on real euclidean spaces, stable under right composition by affine maps. We prove that under a weak finiteness property, there is an o-minimal expansion of the ordered field of real numbers in which all these functions are definable.
Nesse artigo analisamos alguns aspectos do Programa Um Computador por Aluno (UCA), recentemente implantado na rede municipal de ensino de Erechim (RS), buscando apresentar reflexões sobre as possibilidades desse Programa à formação docente e lançando luzes para as implicações dessa formação nos processos de ensino e aprendizagem e na promoção da inclusão digital na escola pública. Nosso estudo sinaliza que a inclusão digital tornou-se desafio e compromisso no referido município, ao tempo que a formação tecnológica de professores é entendida como (...) prioridade para que essa inclusão se concretize. O estudo mostra que mudanças estruturais e pedagógicas são vislumbradas pelos professores, os quais sugerem a necessidade de formação tecnológica contínua para que possam mudar suas práticas, e, ainda, que a inclusão digital é entendida pelos gestores e docentes como via para a qualificação dos processos de ensino e aprendizagem. Para tanto, entendemos que o processo de inclusão digital precisa fomentar novas formas de conhecimento e participação social para professores e estudantes. (shrink)
The concept of o or "pre-emotions" is known not only to the Roman Stoics and Christian exegetes but also to Philo of Alexandria. Philo also supplies the term o at QGen 1.79. As Philo cannot have derived what he knows from Seneca (despite his visit to Rome in 39), nor from Cicero, who also mentions the point, he must have found it in older Stoic writings. The o concept, rich in implications for the voluntariness and phenomenology of the passions proper, (...) is thus confirmed for the Hellenistic period. It is not to be expected that Philo's handling of this or any concept will necessarily conform to the usage of his Stoic sources. His evidence is nonetheless of great value where it coincides with that of other witnesses. In QGen 4.73 the emphasis falls upon involuntariness and the mechanisms of impression and assent as in Epictetus fr. 9. The o saves the virtuous person's insusceptibility to emotion exactly as it does for the Stoic spokesman in Gellius NA 19.1; this point is of some interest in view of the Christological use of this concept in Origen and Didymus. QGen 1.55 and 3.56 indicate that the occurrence of the o is dependent upon uncertainty, and further, that for Philo, as for Seneca in Ira 2.3.4, a thought not acted upon can count as a o. In QGen 4.15-17 and 1.79, Philo indicates that hope and perhaps laughter may be related to joy as o to o; these assertions are not paralleled in extant Stoic texts. Further, in QGen 2.57, he names "biting and contraction" as the shrink)
The relationship between corporate social responsiveness and profitability is investigated in a sample of corporate directors. The findings show there is no relationship between the level of director social responsiveness and corporate profitability. The implications of these results are discussed, especially as they relate to concerns about corporate governance.
O conceito de memes surgiu em 1976 com Richard Dawkins, como um análogo cultural dos genes. Deveria ser possível estudar a cultura através do processo de evolução por seleção natural de memes, ou seja, de comportamentos, ideias e conceitos. O filósofo Daniel Dennett utilizou tal conceito como central em sua teoria da consciência e pela primeira vez divulgou para o grande público a possibilidade de uma ciência dos memes chamada "memética". A pesquisadora Susan Blackmore (1999) foi quem mais se aproximou (...) de uma defesa completa de tal teoria. No entanto, a memética sofreu pesadas críticas e ainda não se constituiu como uma ciência, com métodos e uma base empírica bem definida. The concept of memes was created by Richard Dawkins in 1976 as a cultural analogue of genes. It suggests the possibility of studying culture through a process of evolution through natural selection of memes, that is, of behaviors, ideas and concepts. The concept became central for the philosopher Daniel Dennett, who employed it in his theory of consciousness and made the possibility of a science of memes, called "memetics", known to the general public. Susan Blackmore (1999) comes closest to giving a complete defense of such a theory. However, memetics has been the target of heavy criticism, and has still not established itself as a science, with specific methods and a well-defined empirical basis. (shrink)
O objetivo deste artigo é analisar o conceito de vivência (Erlebnis) na filosofia de Nietzsche, desde o seu primeiro emprego em língua alemã, seu significado e a recepção que Nietzsche faz da palavra no interior da sua filosofia. O conceito de Erlebnis, particularmente caro à filosofia de Nietzsche, mas também à fenomenologia, possui originariamente uma tríplice significação: a) a imediatez (Unmittelbarkeit) entre homem e mundo; b) a significabilidade (Bedeutsamkeit) para o caráter global da existência; e c) a incomensurabilidade (Inkommensurabilität) do (...) conteúdo da própria vivência, conferindo a ela também uma dimensão estética. A tríplice significação de Erlebnis implica na sua estreita associação a pathos. This paper aims to analyze the concept of experience (Erlebnis) in the Nietzsche's philosophy, since its first use into the German language, its meaning and reception of Nietzsche inside his philosophy. The concept of Erlebnis, especially dear to the philosophy of Nietzsche, but also to phenomenology, originally has a triple meaning: a) the immediacy (Unmittelbarkeit) between man and world, b) meaningfulness (Bedeutsamkeit) to the global nature of existence and c) incommensurability (Inkommensurabilität) of the experience's content itself, giving it also an aesthetic dimension. The threefold meaning of Erlebnis implies its close association with pathos. (shrink)
Let (M, ≤,...) denote a Boolean ordered o-minimal structure. We prove that a Boolean subalgebra of M determined by an algebraically closed subset contains no dense atoms. We show that Boolean algebras with finitely many atoms do not admit proper expansions with o-minimal theory. The proof involves decomposition of any definable set into finitely many pairwise disjoint cells, i.e., definable sets of an especially simple nature. This leads to the conclusion that Boolean ordered structures with o-minimal theories are essentially bidefinable (...) with Boolean algebras with finitely many atoms, expanded by naming constants. We also discuss the problem of existence of proper o-minimal expansions of Boolean algebras. (shrink)
O objetivo do texto é propor uma interpretação do conceito de sublime na Teoria estética de Theodor Adorno, partindo do confronto com leituras significativas de outros comentadores, de modo a fornecer uma concepção que associe o movimento de transcendência e alteridade da forma estética à dinâmica histórico-processual das obras. The objective of this paper is to propose an interpretation of the concept of sublime in the Aesthetic Theory of Theodor Adorno, starting with the confrontation with meaningful readings of other commentators, (...) in order to provide a conception that links the movement of transcendence and otherness of the aesthetic form to the process-historical dynamics of the works. (shrink)
An o-minimal structure is any relational structure in any relational type in the first order predicate calculus with equality, where one symbol is reserved to be a dense linear ordering without endpoints, satisfying the following condition: that every first order definable subset of the domain is a finite union of intervals whose endpoints are in the domain or are ±•. First order definability always allows any parameters, unless explicitly indicated otherwise.
O presente texto tem como objetivo estabelecer algumas relações entre o poema de Parmênides e as Investigações Lógicas, de Frege. Mais especificamente, nosso objetivo é iluminar certos aspectos do poema de Parmênides por meio de uma comparação com certas noções utilizadas por Frege para caracterizar aspectos centrais de seu pensamento. The aim of this paper is to establish some relationships between Parmenides' Poem and Frege's Logical Investigations. More specifically, our objective is to illuminate some aspects of the Parmenides' Poem by (...) comparing it to certain notions used by Frege in his Logical Investigations. (shrink)
