The papers that follow were read and discussed at the first Symposium on Exact Philosophy. This conference was held at Montreal on November 4th and 5th, 1971, to celebrate the sesquicentennial of McGill University and establish the Society for Exact Philosophy. The expression 'exact philosophy' is taken to signify mathematical phi losophy, i.e., philosophy done with the explicit help of mathematical logic and mathematics. So far the expression denotes an attitude rather than a (...) fully blown discipline: it intends to convey the intention to try and pro ceed in as exact a manner as we can in formulating and discussing phi losophical problems and theories. The kind of philosophy we wish to practice and promote is disciplined rather than wild, systematic rather than disconnected, and capable of being argued over rather than oracular. We believe that even metaphysics, notoriously riotous, can be subjected to the control of logic and mathematics. Even the history of philosophy, notoriously unsystematic, can benefit from an exact reconstruction of some classical ideas. (shrink)

The papers that follow were read and discussed at the first Symposium on Exact Philosophy. This conference was held at Montreal on November 4th and 5th, 1971, to celebrate the sesquicentennial of McGill University and establish the Society for Exact Philosophy. The expression 'exact philosophy' is taken to signify mathematical phi losophy, i.e., philosophy done with the explicit help of mathematical logic and mathematics. So far the expression denotes an attitude rather than a (...) fully blown discipline: it intends to convey the intention to try and pro ceed in as exact a manner as we can in formulating and discussing phi losophical problems and theories. The kind of philosophy we wish to practice and promote is disciplined rather than wild, systematic rather than disconnected, and capable of being argued over rather than oracular. We believe that even metaphysics, notoriously riotous, can be subjected to the control of logic and mathematics. Even the history of philosophy, notoriously unsystematic, can benefit from an exact reconstruction of some classical ideas. (shrink)

This book consists of a series of papers "read and discussed at the first Symposium of Exact Philosophy" at Montreal in 1971. "Exact philosophy," the editor says, means "mathematical philosophy, i.e., philosophy done with the explicit help of mathematical logic and mathematics." Judging from the contents, a more accurate statement would be that "exact philosophy" means formal semantics and modal logic. Two thirds of the papers are on these topics. The others include (...) an essay on "Concepts of Randomness" by Peter Kirschenmann; a characteristically difficult paper on "Plato’s Phaedo Theory of Relations" by Hector Castañeda; a somewhat inexact discursus on "Foundations as a Branch of Mathematics" by William Hatcher with a reply by Charles Castonguay; and a paper by Raimo Tuomela on "Deductive Explanation of Scientific Laws", or, more exactly, on Ohmer’s discussion of that topic. The subject’s are highly specialized and their treatment is complex. In addition to those mentioned, other essays are "Matters of Relevance" by Hugues Leblanc, with an answer by Brian Chellas; "Translation and Reduction" by Lars Svenonius; "A Program for the Semantics of Science" by Mario Bunge; "S-P Interrogatives" by Nuel Belnap; "The Logic of Conditional Obligation" by Bas C. Van Frassen with commentary by Harry Beaty; and "The Intuitive Background of Normative Legal Discourse and Its Formalization" by Carlos E. Alchourron.—M.H. (shrink)

The Society tor Exact Philosop-hy was founded :in·l97D at a meeting held at McGill University in Montreal on 4-5 November at which was organised iby Mario Bunge. Funding for the meeting iwas provided by SDiii the International Union of Hsistory and Philosophy of cience (vson..

The nature of motion -- Causes, forces, and resistance -- The concept of the function in fourteenth-century physics -- The significance of the theory of impetus for Scholastic natural philosophy -- Galileo and the Scholastic theory of impetus -- The theory of the elements and the problem of their participation in compounds -- The achievements of late Scholastic natural philosophy.

This paper analyses the attitude of the contemporary philosophy to the problems associated with increasingly radical diagnoses concerning anthropogenic climate changes that may lead the human civilization on Earth to a global catastrophe. One can identify three approaches to this issue in contemporary philosophy: involvement in the breakthrough taking place; evaluation of the change process from an axiological perspective or ignoring the evolving phenomena on the grounds that it is not possible to define them meaningfully from the perspective (...) of theoretical orientations that currently dominate the contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Liminaires--Le livre du temps--Spatiologie--Succession et discontinuité--Le discontinu et le géométrie--Pour l'atomisme.

l. Bd. Logik, Dialektik, Metaphysik.--2. Bd. Naturphilosophie auf dem Grunde der Erfahrung.--3. Bd. Philosophie des Geistes.--4.-5. Bd. Philosophie der Geschichte. l. Abt.: Die Urwelt, der Orient, Griechenland. 2. Abt.: Rom, das christliche Europas, America, die Nachwelt.

In this paper we propose that the term skill acquisition, as commonly used in traditional psychology, and the philosophy, education, movement science and performance development literatures, has been biased by an organismic asymmetry. In cognitive and experimental psychology, for example, it refers to the establishment of an internal state or representation of an act which is believed to be acquired as a result of learning and task experience. Here we elucidate an ecological perspective which suggests that the term skill (...) acquisition may not refer to an entity but rather to the emergence of an adaptive, functional relationship between an organism and its environment, thus avoiding an inherent organismic asymmetry in theorizing. In this respect, the terms 'skill adaptation' or 'skill attunement' might be more suitable to describe this process. (shrink)

Our lives are full of inexactitude. We say a person is tall or an action is just without the precision of measurement on a dial. In this engaging account, Kees van Deemter explores vagueness, cutting across areas such as language, mathematical logic, and computing. He considers why vagueness is inherent, and why it is important in how we function.

(2000). CASSIRER, SCHLICK AND ‘STRUCTURAL’ REALISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE EXACT SCIENCES IN THE BACKGROUND TO EARLY LOGICAL EMPIRICISM. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 71-106.

Physicien de formation, Francois Bastien a enseigne dans de nombreux domaines: mathematiques, electricite, optique, thermodynamique, physique des vibrations, physique des capteurs, acoustique des solides, informatique, electronique numerique et electrotechnique. Il a tenu un blog ou se sont regroupees certaines interrogations sur les sciences exactes. Son livre presente donc des reflexions sur la recherche scientifique. Un changement d'echelle de la communaute scientifique entraine necessairement un bouleversement. L'auteur tend a sortir de la doctrine hors de l'ecole point de salut qui freine la (...) promotion sociale, en proposant par exemple un Musee de la Science inconnue. Il invite egalement a lutter contre les effets de la multiplication des publications scientifiques, en faisant naitre des journaux de critiques scientifiques comme il en existe pour la litterature. Par ailleurs, la prise en compte des limites de la science, d'un point de vue philosophique et pratique, est discutee. (shrink)

In this new book, Michael Friedman argues that Kant's continuing efforts to find a metaphysics that could provide a foundation for the sciences is of the utmost ...

This is a very important book. It has already become required reading for researchers on the relation between the exact sciences and Kant’s philosophy. The main theme is that Kant’s continuing program to find a metaphysics that could provide a foundation for the science of his day is of crucial importance to understanding the development of his philosophical thought from its earliest precritical beginnings in the thesis of 1747, right through the highwater years of the critical philosophy, (...) to his last unpublished writings in the Opus postumum. In the course of articulating this theme, Friedman has made extensive use of detailed historical information about their scientific and mathematical background to illuminate Kant’s texts. Over and over again, such information is used to suggest interesting and quite subtle interpretations for texts that may have seemed puzzling or just wrong-headed. (shrink)

The paper seeks to contribute to clarifying agnotology as an ‘epistemic strategy’, conceived as ‘epistemically damaging and hurt[ing] the production of knowledge’. My general claim is that the grammar of intentions ‘embedded’ in agnotological arguments is often not considered accurately. I use considerations from the philosophy of action as a theoretical framework to make more explicit what is implied in agnogenetic manoeuvres. Agnotology, as a ‘theory’ about epistemic states, in particular knowledge and ignorance, would be seriously incomplete without that (...) component. The following can thus be read as a contribution to an analysis of the presuppositions of the strategic variant of Agnotology. My first claim is that the more common objections to the introduction of intentions are in no way definitive. My second, more specific, claim is that we need a room, in our conceptual toolbox, for ‘anti-epistemic intentions’, which play a key role in agnotological arguments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What, Exactly, Does the Madperson Lack?Sofie Jeppsson, PhD (bio)Justin garson has already received well-earned recognition for his Madness: A philosophical exploration (2022), in which he distinguishes the view of madness as a dysfunction from madness as a strategy—a distinction that cuts across traditional distinctions between, for example, biological/neurological and psychological/social views. On the dysfunction view, going mad might be comparable to something like having an asthma attack or, more (...) long-term, developing type 1 diabetes. If the trachea closes up and prevents air from passing through, that is a dysfunction in the breathing apparatus. If the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas cease to produce insulin, making the person dependent on insulin shots to stay alive, that is a dysfunction. On the strategy view, going mad is rather like getting a fever when already infected with some pathogen. Given that you have the pathogen reproducing inside you, a rising body temperature provides a strategy (although not, of course, something the ill person chose) to keep the reproduction rate down, thus giving the immune system a better chance at vanquishing the infection. That does not mean that fevers are harmless—if a fever becomes high enough, it might itself do damage to the body. Still, it is a strategy, not a mere dysfunction. Analogously, on the Madness as strategy view, going mad might help a person deal with old traumas or an ongoing terrible situation, even as the madness may also be damaging in itself.In this paper, Garson introduces us to another interesting distinction: between seeing madness as a lack of reason, or as a perversion of or difference in reason. Garson writes that present-day psychiatry tends to see madness as a lack, whereas the late modern thinkers conceived of it as a perversion of reason. The late moderns clearly saw madness as something negative, but if we retain something like their basic view, merely change our evaluation from the negative perversion to the more neutral difference, we have a better basis for regarding Madness as a complicated and problematic but still cherished identity, and for Mad Pride.This is another interesting distinction well worth calling attention to. I’m uncertain how well the J.C.A. Heinroth example works—the text cited seems to show that he had a Madness as strategy view, but is it a Madness as a different kind of reason view?—but the other examples work better. Nevertheless, I want to push back a little against the claim that present-day psychiatry and philosophy of psychiatry tend to regard madness as a lack of something whereas the early moderns saw it as a difference. (Just a friendly little push, mind you, but still.)Arthur Wigan’s description of two brains, one functional and one dysfunctional, still seems to posit a lack of proper function in one of them. Sure, he does not say that the madperson lacks as much as the [End Page 313] idiot, who has two dysfunctional brains whereas the madperson has one functional and one dysfunctional. Still, there’s a lack. This two-brain picture also has its modern analogues: It brings to mind (albeit in a less biologically concrete and reified form) much psycho-educational material on, for example, how to live with bipolar disorder, according to which a supposed sane and rational part of the psychiatric patient’s mind should learn to handle and control the other, mad part (e.g., Miklowitz, 2012).According to John Locke, madpeople reason just fine, but they start from false premises. Is not this, too, something that madpeople are supposed to lack? Correct and realistic premises to start from? Locke writes that madpeople have “taken their fancies for realities,” but “make right deductions from them.” Moreover, Locke’s theory is reminiscent of modern bottom-up theories like Brendan Maher’s (1999)—madpeople have bizarre experiences on the basis of which they form bizarre beliefs, but we need not postulate that they suffer from any problems with, for example, reasoning and drawing inferences to explain why they believe what they do. Theorists who instead argue for a top-down or two-factor account of why madpeople stick... (shrink)

Gary Becker and others have done important work to broaden the content of self interest, but have not departed from seeing rationality in terms of the exclusive pursuit of self-interest. One reason why committed behavior is important is that a person can have good reason to pursue objectives other than self interest maximization (no matter how broadly it is construed). Indeed, one can also follow rules of behavior that go beyond the pursuit of one's own goals, even if the goals (...) include non-self-interested concerns. By living in a society, one develops possible reasons for considering other people's goals as well, which takes one beyond an exclusive concentration on one's own goals, not to mention the single-minded pursuit of one's own self interest. The recognition of other people's goals may be a part of rational thought. If rational behavior may depart from the relentless pursuit of one's own goals, commitment has to be important in a theory of rationality. Furthermore, seeing the role of commitment in human behavior can have explanatory importance in allowing us to understand behavior patterns that are hard to fit into the narrow format of contemporary rational choice theory. Commitment is, thus, important both for practical reason and for causal explanation. (shrink)