Online research in philosophy

Crombie's acceptance of the deliberate commission of a category mistake in his defense of the meaningfulness of theological statements raises a pointed challenge to the philosophy of Ryle which seems not to have been specifically addressed in subsequent literature. We review the analysis which leads Crombie into it, including concepts of anomaly, deficiency, affinity, and inadequate notion, noting basic differences in method and attitude from Ryle. We express our own agreements and disagreements in keeping with an overall concern (...) for the preservation of rationality in this sphere of language, finding acceptable distinct contributions to that end from both. (shrink)

If we want to assess whether or not a naturalized phenomenology is a desideratum or a category mistake, we need to be clear on precisely what notion of phenomenology and what notion of naturalization we have in mind. In the article I distinguish various notions, and after criticizing one type of naturalized phenomenology, I sketch two alternative takes on what a naturalized phenomenology might amount to and propose that our appraisal of the desirability of such naturalization should be (...) more positive, if we opt for one or both of the latter alternatives. (shrink)

The present article explores ‘anti-cosmopolitan’ arguments that shared institutions above the state, such as there are, are not of a kind that support or give rise to distributive claims beyond securing minimum needs. The upshot is to rebut certain of these ‘anti-cosmopolitan’ arguments. Section 1 asks under which conditions institutions are subject to distributive justice norms. That is, which sound reasons support claims to a relative share of the benefits of institutions that exist and apply to individuals? Such norms may (...) require strict equality, Rawls’ Difference Principle, or other constraints on inequality. Section 2 considers, and rejects, several arguments why existing international institutions are not thought to meet these conditions. (shrink)

The notion that there is a category mistake or some other conceptual confusion in regarding seeing, hearing, and other forms of perception as events, states, or processes is incorrect. Ryle's analysis of "seeing" as an achievement word does not rule out our regarding seeing as an event, but in fact suggests that we do so when we carry the analysis beyond the point where Ryle leaves it. Furthermore there are uses of "see" not noticed by Ryle which justify (...) our saying that within certain contexts seeing is a state and within other contexts a process. The question of what these events, states, and processes are cannot be met without recognizing a fundamental duality of aspect that characterizes perception. This duality can be formulated in terms of the way perception is known. One who observes a perceiver knows the perceiver's perception in a categorically different way than the perceiver knows it. From this it can be seen that perceptual events, states, and processes have both a physical aspect and an epistemological aspect. Any attempt to reduce one of these aspects to the other would involve a category mistake. (shrink)

This article seeks to defend the possibility of a metaphysical approach to philosophical theology. Challenging the claim that there can be nothing in commonbetween God (with whom theology or even a form of phenomenology such as Jean-Luc Marion’s deals) and being (as expounded for example in the metaphysical approach of Thomas Aquinas), the article develops a critique of Marion’s views with close reference to his interpretations of Aquinas.

Open peer commentary on the article “Radical Constructivism and Radical Constructedness: Luhmann’s Sociology of Semantics, Organizations, and Self-Organization” by Loet Leydesdorff. > Upshot: Leydesdorff emphasises the uncertainties involved in the communication of meaning. Luhmann posited three types of media, each of which reduces one type of communicative improbability. The theory of cultural evolution supports Leydesdorff’s emphasis on the uncertainty of communication, and agrees that different media are needed for communication within and across social boundaries. But it highlights the distinction between (...) media and the symbolic codes that give them structure; and it raises the question whether Luhmann’s symbolically generalized communication media are really media at all. (shrink)

Draft for Martinich and Hoekstra (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Hobbes. -/- Language was central to Hobbes's understanding of human beings and their mental abilities, and criticism of other philosophers' uses of language became a favorite critical tool for him. This paper connects Hobbes's theories about language to his criticisms of others' language, examining Hobbes's theories of propositions and truth, and how they relate to his claims that various sorts of proposition are absurd. It considers whether Hobbes in fact means anything (...) more by 'absurd' than 'false'. And it pays particular attention to Hobbes's categorization of causes of absurdity and of types of incoherent proposition, arguing that Hobbes's approach is only loosely related to later discussions of category mistakes. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to critically examine the Ryle’s conception of “Descartes Myth”. Ryle has two objectives in his book The Concept of Mind: (i) to refute a current philosophical theory about mind. (ii) to substitute at least in blue print, a satisfactory alternative. This paper gives a descriptive analysis of what Ryle calls Descartes-Myth and arguments for it. Conclusion of this paper drawn as he does not succeed in dispelling the myth but only substitutes a peculiar logical (...) monism for Descartes’ Myth. (shrink)

My research work title is “A Philosophical Study of the Concept of Mind (with special reference to Rene Descartes, David Hume and Gilbert Ryle).” In this study we have discussed three conceptions of mind presented by Rene Descartes, David Hume and Gilbert Ryle. All the three thinkers are related to different philosophical traditions known as Rationalism, Empiricism and Analytical Philosophy respectively. Each of these various approaches can be seen as at least partly successful, each provides answers to questions regarded as (...) especially pressing, each apparently solved certain problems. Notoriously, however, each leaves unanswered and unsolved a host of distinct problems as well. (shrink)

Category mistakes are sentences such as ‘Colourless green ideas sleep furiously’ or ‘The theory of relativity is eating breakfast’. Such sentences are highly anomalous, and this has led a large number of linguists and philosophers to conclude that they are meaningless (call this ‘the meaninglessness view’). In this paper I argue that the meaninglessness view is incorrect and category mistakes are meaningful. I provide four arguments against the meaninglessness view: in Sect. 2, an argument concerning compositionality with respect (...) to category mistakes; in Sect. 3 an argument concerning synonymy facts of category mistakes; in Sect. 4 concerning embeddings of category mistakes in propositional attitude ascriptions; and in Sect. 5 concerning the uses of category mistakes in metaphors. Having presented these arguments, in Sect. 6 I briefly discuss some of the positive motivations for accepting the meaninglessness view and argue that they are unconvincing. I conclude that the meaninglessness view ought to be rejected. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle never pursued research under Edmund Husserl. However, Ryle was indeed Husserl’s student in a broader sense, as much of his own work was deeply influenced by his studies of Husserl’s pre-World War I writings. While Ryle is the thinker whose name typically comes to mind in connection with the concern over category mistakes I argue that (1) Husserl deserves to be known for precisely this concern as well, and (2) the similarity between them is no accident. Developing (...) this reading of Ryle’s Husserlian pedigree forces a broader reevaluation of each of their roles in twentieth-century thought. (shrink)

Radical Ontic Structural Realism (ROSR) claims that structure exists independently of objects that may instantiate it. Critics of ROSR contend that this claim is conceptually incoherent, insofar as, (i) it entails there can be relations without relata, and (ii) there is a conceptual dependence between relations and relata. In this essay I suggest that (ii) is motivated by a set-theoretic formulation of structure, and that adopting a category-theoretic formulation may provide ROSR with more support. In particular, I consider how (...) a category-theoretic formulation of structure can be developed that denies (ii), and can be made to do work in the context of formulating theories in physics. Keywords: structural realism, category theory, general relativity.. (shrink)

Although a considerable degree of precision has been introduced both into the formulation and the discussion of ontological theories by the use of formal methods there is still a remarkable indefiniteness about foundational issues. In particular it is not clear what an ontological category is and why we regard something as an ontological category. This is amazing given that the notion of ontological category is in fact the most basic of the whole of ontology: it is what (...) this discipline is about. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze's notion of sense, as developed in Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense, is meant to be a fourth dimension of the proposition besides denotation, manifestation and signification. While Deleuze explains signification in inferentialist terms, he ascribes to sense some very unusual properties, making it hard to understand what sense is. The aim of this paper is to improve this situation by confronting Deleuzian sense with a more or less contemporary, but otherwise rather distant philosophical conception: Gilbert (...) Ryle's theory of categories and category mistakes. The leading idea is that to understand the sense of a proposition regarding X is to know the category of the concept X, which requires that one knows which questions may appropriately be asked with regard to X. Thus, sense, category and questions are intimately related to each other. Finally, it seems to be consistent with Deleuze's views to assume that abstract signification is contextually generated by concrete sense. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper I will characterize the specific nature of rational intuition. It will be claimed that rational intuition is an evidential state with modal content that has an a priori source. This claim will be defended against several objections. The second part of the paper deals with the so-called explanationist objection against rational intuition as a justifying source. According to the best reading of this objection, intuition cannot justify any judgment since there is no metaphysical (...) explanation of its reliability. It will be argued that in the case of intuition the very demand of such an explanation is based on a category mistake. (shrink)

From a number of quarters have come attempts to answer some form of skepticism—about knowledge of the external world, freedom of the will, or moral reasons—by showing it to be performatively self-defeating. Examples of this strategy are subject to a number of criticisms, in particular the criticism that they fail to shift the burden of proof from the anti-skeptical position, and so fail to establish the epistemic entitlement they seek. To these approaches I contrast one way of understanding Kant’s core (...) anti-skeptical arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant’s goal is the more modest one of showing the applicability of the concepts of substance and cause to experience, against those who might call such application incoherent, or a category mistake. I explain why this goal makes Kant’s approach more promising than those of neo-Kantian practitioners of otherwise structurally-similar strategies. (shrink)

1. Implicature: some basic oppositions IMPLICATURE is a component of speaker meaning that constitutes an aspect of what is meant in a speaker’s utterance without being part of what is said. What a speaker intends to communicate is characteristically far richer than what she directly expresses; linguistic meaning radically underdetermines the message conveyed and understood. Speaker S tacitly exploits pragmatic principles to bridge this gap and counts on hearer H to invoke the same principles for the purposes of utterance interpretation. (...) The contrast between the said and the meant, and derivatively between the said and the implicated (the meant-but-unsaid), dates back to the fourth century rhetoricians Servius and Donatus, who characterized litotes—the figure of pragmatic understatement—as a figure in which we say less but mean more (“minus dicimus et plus significamus”; see Hoffmann 1987 and Horn 1991a for discussion). In the classical Gricean model, the bridge from what is said (the literal content of the uttered sentence, computed directly from its grammatical structure with the reference of indexicals resolved) to what is communicated is constructed through implicature. As an aspect of speaker meaning, implicatures are by definition distinct from the non-logical inferences that the hearer draws; it is a category mistake to attribute implicatures either to hearers or to sentences (e.g. P and Q) and subsentential expressions (e.g. some). But we can systematically (at least for generalized implicatures; see below) correlate the speaker’s intention to implicate q (in uttering p in context C), the expression p that carries the implicature in C, and the inference of q induced by the speaker’s utterance of p in C. (shrink)

"New wave" reductionism aims at advancing a kind of reduction that is stronger than unilateral dependency of the mental on the physical. It revolves around the idea that reduction between theoretical levels is a matter of degree, and can be laid out on a continuum between a "smooth" pole (theoretical identity) and a "bumpy" pole (extremely revisionary). It also entails that both higher and lower levels of the reductive relationship sustain some degree of explanatory autonomy. The new wave predicts that (...) reductions of folk psychology to neuroscience will be located in the middle of this continuum; as neuroscientific evidence about mental states checks in, theoretical folk psychology will therefore be moderately revised. However, the model has conceptual problems which preclude its success in reviving reductionism, and its commitment to a syntactic approach wrecks its attempt to rescue folk psychology. Moreover, the architecture of the continuum operates on a category mistake that sneaks in an eliminativist conclusion. I argue that new wave reductionism therefore tends to be eliminativism in disguise. (shrink)

In discussions on mental causation and externalism, it is often assumed that extrinsic, or relational, properties cannot have causal efficacy. In this paper I argue that this assumption is based on a category mistake, in that causal efficacy (dependence among events or states of affairs) is confused with causal influence (persistence of and interaction among objects). I then argue that relational properties are indeed causally efficacious, which I explain with the help of Dretske's notion of a 'structuring cause'.

The belief that conscious will is merely "an illusion created by the brain" appears to be gaining in popularity among cognitive neuroscientists. Its main adherents usually refer to the classic, but controversial 'Libet-experiments', as the empirical evidence that vindicates this illusion-claim. However, based on recent work that provides other interpretations of the Libet-experiments, we argue that the illusion-claim is not only empirically invalid, but also theoretically incoherent, as it is rooted in a category mistake; namely, the presupposition that (...) neuronal activity causes conscious will. We show that the illusion-claim is based on the behaviorist 'input-output' paradigm, and discuss the notions of 'self-organization' and 'self-steering' to provide an alternative perspective on the causal efficacy of conscious will. In the final sections, a tentative theoretical picture is sketched of conscious will as an instance of self-steered self-organization. We conclude that the subjective experience of conscious will is not a misguided one, but rather that the mechanisms supporting conscious will are considerably more complex than mainstream cognitive neuroscience currently acknowledges. (shrink)

The paper argues that an important class of aesthetic terms cannot be used as metaphors because it is impossible to commit a category mistake with them. It then uses this fact to provide a general definition of 'aesthetic property'.

Metaphor is a crucially context-dependent linguistic phenomenon. This fact was not clearly recognized until some time in the 1970’s. Until then, most theorists assumed that a sentence must have a fixed set of metaphorical meanings, if it had any at all. Often, they also assumed that metaphoricity was the product of grammatical deviance, in the form of a category mistake. To compensate for this deviance, they thought, at least one of the sentence’s constituent terms underwent a meaning-changing ‘metaphorical (...) twist’, which deleted the objectionable selection restriction or semantic marker (e.g., Levin 1977) or turned one of the term’s fixed set of connotations into its denotation (e.g., Beardsley 1962). This situation changed as theorists began to pay more serious attention to how metaphors actually function. First, it was pointed out that not all sentences used metaphorically are logically or even pragmatically absurd (Cohen 1975). Second, it became increasingly obvious that in the context of different sentences, and in the context of the same sentence as uttered by different speakers on different occasions, the same word could be used metaphorically to express many, very different meanings. Semantic theories became increasingly bloated as theorists attempted to encompass all this variety within the lexicon. Eventually, semantic theories of metaphor were largely abandoned. Instead, theorists generally maintained either that metaphors are a type of speaker meaning, on which a speaker says one thing in order to mean something else (e.g., Grice 1975, Searle 1979), or else that metaphors don’t have any distinctive ‘meaning’ at all, but simply cause certain distinctive effects in their hearers (e.g., Davidson 1984, Rorty 1987). Philosophers of language have devoted much energy in the last 30 years to investigating the various ways in which context can affect communicated.. (shrink)

This paper evaluates the claim that it is possible to use nature’s variation in conjunction with retention and selection on the one hand, and the absence of ultimate groundedness of hypotheses generated by the human mind as it knows on the other hand, to discard the ascription of ultimate certainty to the rationality of human conjectures in the cognitive realm. This leads to an evaluation of the further assumption that successful hypotheses with specific applications, in other words heuristics, seem to (...) have a firm footing because they were useful in another context. I argue that usefulness evaluated through adaptation misconstrues the search for truth, and that it is possible to generate talk of randomness by neglecting aspects of a system’s insertion into a larger situation. The framing of the problem in terms of the elimination of unfit hypotheses is found to be unsatisfying. It is suggested that theories exist in a dimension where they can be kept alive rather than dying as phenotypes do. The proposal that the subconscious could suggest random variations is found to be a category mistake. A final appeal to phenomenology shows that this proposal is orphan in the history of epistemology, not in virtue of its being a remarkable find, but rather because it is ill-conceived. (shrink)

In The Second Person Standpoint, Darwall charges that all value-oriented foundations for ethics make a category mistake. Calling it Strawson’s point, he argues these foundations explain moral authority, which concerns whether someone has standing to hold another accountable, in terms of a value, which essentially concerns what makes the world go best. However, whether it would be good for me to blame you simply asks a different question than whether I have standing to blame you. I defend a (...) valueoriented foundation for contractualism by identifying one way to overcome Strawson’s point. At bottom, Darwall’s objection relies on the assumption that all values are worldregarding. I argue that another class of values exists: second-personal values. Grounding morality in one of these values does not make the category mistake at the heart of Strawson’s point. In particular, I argue that grounding morality on one secondpersonal value, the ideal of acting justifiably towards others, better captures traditional contractualist ideals than Darwall’s formal foundation. (shrink)

‘Good’ is nothing specific but is transcendentally or generally applied over specific, and specified, ‘categories’. These ‘categories’ may be seen—at least for the purposes of this note—as under Platonic Forms. The rule that instances under a category or form need a Form to be under is valid. It may be tautological: but this is OK for rules. Not being specific, however, ‘good’ neither needs nor can have a specifying Form. So, on these grounds, the Form of the Good is (...) otious. Any rule of the kind, ‘Everything needs a Form, so good needs a Form of the Good’ is mistaken, in that good is not a kind, but a transcendental. To give a Form to the transcendental ‘good’ is a mistake: it is a Rylian category mistake. And the Form of the Good either does no work, or works unprofitably in any but an aesthetic sense. (shrink)

It may seem strange to associate the name of Jan Patočka with artificial intelligence. Neither a mathematician nor a logician, the phenomenology he espoused, with its emphasis on lived experience, seems worlds apart from the formalism associated with the discipline. Yet, as I hope to show, the radicality and depth of Patočka’s thought is such that it casts a wide net. The reform of metaphysics that Patočka proposed in his asubjective phenomenology also affects artificial intelligence. It shows that what philosophers (...) take as its most difficult, yet primary problem may well be the result of a category mistake. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle accused Descartes of advancing what he called the “paramechanical hypothesis,” according to which the structure and operations of the mind can be understood on the model of the structure and operations of a physical system. The body is a complex machine – “a bit of clockwork” – that operates according to laws governing the mechanical interactions of material things. The mind, on the other hand, according to Descartes (according to Ryle), is an immaterial machine that operates according to (...) formally analogous laws governing the paramechanical interactions of immaterial things – “a bit of not-clockwork.” In other words, mental processes are the same as physical processes, only you don’t have the matter. I don’t know whether Descartes actually thought this. But, surely, if he did, he was making some kind of logical or conceptual error. Mental processes can’t be the same as physical processes, minus the matter, since the matter matters. The properties of physical systems have physical explanations, which are explanations in terms of physical properties and physical laws. But it is absurd – a category mistake – to suppose that mechanical explanations could apply to immaterial things with no physical properties, subject to no physical laws. (If matters of mind.. (shrink)

This paper argues that it is problematic for the future of Deleuze studies that it is difficult if not impossible to answer the question ‘what is the right thing to do?’ from a Deleuzian perspective. It then argues that one of the key reasons Deleuze studies has made limited progress in this area is its over-emphasis on desire and the corresponding tendency to extrapolate ‘ought’ from ‘is’, which as Hume showed is a category mistake. It proposes that to (...) develop a workable ethical discourse from Deleuze's work we need to rethink how we read his work and approach it afresh. (shrink)

Democratic politicians face pressures unknown to the prerogative rulers of the early modern period when toleration was first formulated as a political ideal. These pressures are less often expressed as demands by groups or individuals for the permission of practices they dislike than for their restraint or outright prohibition; tolerant dispositions are less politically clamorous. The executive structure of toleration as a virtue, together with the ‘fact of reasonable pluralism’, make conflicts over toleration peculiarly intractable. Political conflicts are apt to (...) take the form of mutual allegations ofintolerance; indeed, the problem of ‘tolerating the intolerant’, far from being a marginal case, is central to the theory and practice of toleration. Toleration thus exemplifies a category mistake committed in much contemporary political theory, particularly in its contractualist versions: the threshold of the political lies precisely where rational agreement proves impossible. The main prospects for democratic toleration are thus pre-emptive. The main way in which this can happen is by cultivating executive dispositions: in other words, encouraging people to detach themselves from strong evaluative commitments, so that toleration does not become politically contentious to start with. But this involves losses as well as gains. The gains in civil harmony and peace are obvious. The cost for tolerant political actors is alienation from what they have good reason to value. (shrink)

Introductory Note: This commentary developed out of an informal discussion of Part I (2000) of Jarvilehto?s two-part Consciousness & Emotion series with Ralph Ellis at the recent Amsterdam Symposium on Feelings and Emotions (June 13?16, 2001). Part II of Jarvilehto?s series appears in the present issue. Ellis asked me to share my critical concerns with Jarvilehto?s Part I in this commentary, with an advance copy supplied to Jarvilehto, who will reply in the next issue of Consciousness & Emotion. I think (...) most of us recognize the need for pluralism in the study of complex processes such as consciousness and emotions, but to place emotions and feelings so strongly into the environment as does Jarvilehto strikes me simply as a category mistake. I acknowledge that my commentary comes from my own unique (and by some standards radical) perspective on how the field might best move forward empirically. I believe an honest understanding of how natural psychological kinds emerge from specifiable brain functions, which are obviously modulated by environmental events, is presently the most important and most poorly studied aspect of modern mind-science. I felt that Jarvilehto?s holistic approach would only further serve to discourage investigators from pursuing those important issues neuro-empirically. (shrink)

A suggestion famously made by Peter Winch and carried through to present discussions holds that what constitutes the social as a kind consists of something shared -- rules or practices commonly learned, internalized, or otherwise acquired by all members belonging to a society. This essays argues against the explanatory efficacy of appeals to this shared something as constitutive of a social kind by examining a violation of social norms or rules, viz., mistakes. I argue that an asymmetric relation exists between (...) the notion of mistakes and that of the social. In particular, mistakes do not presuppose a concept of the social, but the concept of the social requires prior specification of a category of mistakes. But no such prior specification proves possible. The very notion of a mistake is so inchoate that it makes it impossible to provide the kind of regimentation required for a rule-governed domain. Thus, there may be recognized mistakes even in the absence of a unified system or common knowledge of norms. Later writers attempt to avoid Winch's over-strong assumption that something shared and internal constitutes the social but cannot. Extending recent work by Stephen Turner, I argue that "the social" is not a domain that is susceptible to lawlike treatment, but rather a heterogeneous, motley collection. For absent the assumption of a shared something, no social object exists to be explained. So, I conclude, we have at present no clear way of marking out the social as a coherent or unified domain of inquiry. (shrink)

A suggestion famously made by Peter Winch and carried through to present discussions holds that what constitutes the social as a kind consists of something shared – rules or practices commonly learned, internalized, or otherwise acquired by all members belonging to a society. This essays argues against the explanatory efficacy of appeals to this shared something as constitutive of a social kind by examining a violation of social norms or rules, viz., mistakes. I argue that an asymmetric relation exists between (...) the notion of mistakes and that of the social. In particular, mistakes do not presuppose a concept of the social, but the concept of the social requires prior specification of a category of mistakes. But no such prior specification proves possible. The very notion of a mistake is so inchoate that it makes it impossible to provide the kind of regimentation required for a rule-governed domain. Thus, there may be recognized mistakes even in the absence of a unified system or common knowledge of norms.Later writers attempt to avoid Winch's over-strong assumption that something shared and internal constitutes the social but cannot. Extending recent work by Stephen Turner, I argue that ``the social'' is not a domain that is susceptible to lawlike treatment, but rather a heterogeneous, motley collection. For absent the assumption of a shared something, no social object exists to be explained. So, I conclude, we have at present no clear way of marking out the social as a coherent or unified domain of inquiry. (shrink)

The fact that corporate responsibility supervenes on human action implies that there are two possible kinds of account of the former, namely reductive accounts in which the responsibility of the corporation devolves down without remainder to its officers, and those in which it does not. Two versions of the latter are discussed here. The first, due to Peter French, tries to satisfy the supervenience requirement by defining corporate action in terms of human action. It is argued that the corresponding view (...) of intention, intentions as plans, does not serve to show how the defined notion of corporate action also brings with it attributions of responsibility. An alternative account, taking its point of departure from Feinberg’s ideas of vicarious and collective responsibility, is therefore proposed. It is argued that when officers of a corporation substitute the “decision-making mechanism” of the corporation for their own, then responsibility, but not action, can transfer to the corporation. Furthermore, it is argued that this nonreductivist account can be defended against the reductivist charge that attributions of moral responsibility to corporations is a category mistake. (shrink)

The Christian Tradition has Consistently claimed that, somehow, God may be identified with the truth as such. The claim has a fine biblical pedigree: John’s gospel asserts that Christ, and therefore God, is truth (John 14:6, 16:13). It is prominent in the early church fathers, especially Augustine; and the medievals, including Anselm, largely followed his lead. Nor is the claim confined to the pre-Reformation era. It is also found in the Reformed Church’s Westminster Confession, for example.1 Despite its pedigree, the (...) claim that God is truth strikes modern sensibilities as bizarre, a gross category mistake. For example, many contemporary philosophers treat truth as a property of statements or .. (shrink)

This paper compares Dewey's and Russell's views of "immediate knowledge." Dewey was perhaps mistaken in attributing to Russell the view that immediate sense data provide incorrigible foundations for knowledge. Russell's characterization of sensing plus attention as the most immediate knowing of which we have experience nevertheless remains a valid target of Dewey's criticisms. These two philosophers developed very different theories of logic and knowledge, language and experience. Given the reconstructed notions of experience and knowledge at the root of Dewey's logical (...) theory, referring to knowledge as immediate or nearly immediate constitutes a serious category mistake. (shrink)

Hegel’s contextualization of ethics in history has often been understood as implying the possibility of “world-historical” justifications for unethical actions. Critics have seen this as a category mistake that violates the authority of the ethical sphere; defenders have argued that it represents one of Hegel’s most revolutionary insights, the idea that customary morality should not stand in the way of human liberation. In this essay, I argue that both of these reactions are based on failure to properly distinguish (...) between rational justification and contextual justification. Properly understood, Hegel’s practical philosophy is restricted to the former task; the authority to determine whether norms are binding in any given circumstance is retained by context-sensitive ethical judgment. (shrink)

In 1975 E. O. Wilson called for biologists to appropriate ethics.1 Few philosophers worried deeply about this potential usurpation because they felt firmly ensconced on the other side of the Humean wall from the biologists. Science can provide neither guidance (“oughts”) nor values. Perhaps nowhere is this more clear than in the crowning question of ethics; namely, what is the meaning of life? Since evolution proposes an ateleological account of the natural world, biologists can dismiss the question to which we (...) all desperately want an answer as a category mistake. If pressed to understand the question metaphorically, biologists begrudgingly reply that the meaning of life is to get as much of your genetic material .. (shrink)

Part of rethinking philosophy today, the author believes, is to rethink our logical concepts. The author questions the ontological existence of the proposition as the content of sentential utterances—written or spoken—as it was originally proposed by John Searle. While a performative is an utterance where the speaker not only utters a sentential or illocutionary content such as a statement, but also performs the illocutionary force such as the act of stating, the author reasserts John Austin’s constative as the general label (...) (genus) of specific utterances (species) that can be rendered true or false such as a statement, assertion, description, and prediction. In the remainder of the paper, the author tries to show that it is a category mistake for someone to assert a statement or to state an assertion. (shrink)

A suggestion famously made by Peter Winch and carried through to present discussions holds that what constitutes the social as a kind consists of something shared – rules or practices commonly learned, internalized, or otherwise acquired by all members belonging to a society. This essays argues against the explanatory efficacy of appeals to this shared something as constitutive of a social kind by examining a violation of social norms or rules, viz., mistakes. I argue that an asymmetric relation exists between (...) the notion of mistakes and that of the social. In particular, mistakes do not presuppose a concept of the social, but the concept of the social requires prior specification of a category of mistakes. But no such prior specification proves possible. The very notion of a mistake is so inchoate that it makes it impossible to provide the kind of regimentation required for a rule-governed domain. Thus, there may be recognized mistakes even in the absence of a unified system or common knowledge of norms. (shrink)

Against Danto's recent argument that the causation internal to basic actions is not a special, immanent causation, it is objected that (i) he introduces a notion of truncated action that involves a fallacious use of the Equals-subtracted-from-equals axiom, (ii) his version of the Identity Thesis turns upon a misleading notion of co-referentiality, and (iii) he falls into what, by his own theory of meaning, amounts to a category mistake concerning intentions as causes within actions. Hence Danto's arguments do (...) not warrant his materialist claim that causation is a univocal concept. (shrink)

Thomas Polger and Laurence Shapiro argue that Carl Gillett's much publicized dimensioned theory of realization is incoherent, being subject to a reductio. Their argument turns on the fact that Gillett's definition of realization makes property instances the exclusive relata of the realization relation, while his belief in multiple realization implies its denial, namely, that properties are the relata of the realization relation on occasions of multiple realization. Others like Sydney Shoemaker have also expressed their view of realization in terms of (...) property instances, yet they too have accepted the multiple realizability of properties. Thus I am interested in the more general issue raised by Polger and Shapiro's argument. Specifically, I show how to supplement a theory of realization with a category-inclusive auxiliary assumption, which avoids the stated reductio. I then offer a few reasons to justify the proposed category-inclusive view of realization, making some comparisons to supervenience and causation along the way. (shrink)

This article addresses two questions related to colour categorization, to wit, the question what a colour category is, and the question how we identify colour categories. We reject both the relativist and universalist answers to these questions. Instead, we suggest that colour categories can be identified with the help of the criterion of psychological saliency, which can be operationalized by means of consistency and consensus measures. We further argue that colour categories can be defined as well-structured entities that optimally (...) partition colour space. We provide some empirical support for this claim by presenting experimental results, which indicate that internal structure is a better predictor of colour categories than perceptual saliency. (shrink)

The acquisition of syntactic categories is a crucial step in the process of acquiring syntax. At this stage, before a full grammar is available, only surface cues are available to the learner. Previous computational models have demonstrated that local contexts are informative for syntactic categorization. However, local contexts are affected by sentence-level structure. In this paper, we add sentence type as an observed feature to a model of syntactic category acquisition, based on experimental evidence showing that pre-syntactic children are (...) able to distinguish sentence type using prosody and other cues. The model, a Bayesian Hidden Markov Model, allows for adding sentence type in a few different ways; we find that sentence type can aid syntactic category acquisition if it is used to characterize the differences in word order between sentence types. In these models, knowledge of sentence type permits similar gains to those found by extending the local context. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new argument against inclusive legal positivism. As I show, any theory which permits morality to be a condition on legality cannot account for a core feature of legal activity, namely, that it is an activity of social planning. If the aim of a legal institution is to guide the conduct of the community through plans, it would be self-defeating if the existence of these plans could only be determined through deliberation on the merits. I (...) also argue that, insofar as inclusive legal positivism was developed as a response to Ronald Dworkin's critique of H. L. A. Hart's theory of law, it was founded on a mistake. For once we appreciate the role that planning plays in legal regulation, we will see that Dworkin's objection is based on a flawed conception of legal obligations and rights and hence does not present an objection that inclusive legal positivists were required to answer. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify the role of category theory in the foundations of mathematics. There is a good deal of confusion surrounding this issue. A standard philosophical strategy in the face of a situation of this kind is to draw various distinctions and in this way show that the confusion rests on divergent conceptions of what the foundations of mathematics ought to be. This is the strategy adopted in the present paper. It is divided into (...) 5 sections. We first show that already in the set theoretical framework, there are different dimensions to the expression foundations of. We then explore these dimensions more thoroughly. After a very short discussion of the links between these dimensions, we move to some of the arguments presented for and against category theory in the foundational landscape. We end up on a more speculative note by examining the relationships between category theory and set theory. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against Twin-Earth externalism. The mistake that Twin Earth arguments rest on is the failure to appreciate the force of the following dilemma. Some features of things around us do matter for the purposes of conceptual classification, and others do not. The most plausible way to draw this distinction is to see whether a certain feature enters the cognitive perspective of the experiencing subject in relation to the kind in question or not. If it does, (...) we can trace conceptual differences to internal differences. If it doesn’t, we do not have a case of conceptual difference. Neither case supports Twin Earth externalism. (shrink)

More than a century ago, G. E. Moore famously attempted to refute ethical naturalism by offering the so-called open question argument (OQA), also charging that all varieties of ethical naturalism commit the naturalistic fallacy. Although there is consensus that OQA and the naturalistic-fallacy charge both fail, OQA is sometimes vindicated, but only as an argument against naturalistic semantic analyses. The naturalistic-fallacy charge, by contrast, usually finds no takers at all. This paper provides new grounds for an OQA thus restricted. But (...) it aims chiefly at vindicating a version of the naturalistic fallacy, „the semantic-naturalist fallacy‟ (SNF), that we think defensible. We first argue that the openness of the question OQA raises against such analyses hinges on self-ascriptive, comparative judgments of content, which may be considered a priori warranted. We then provide independent reasons for the claim that the sort of mistake committed by naturalistic analyses in fact amounts to a pragmatic fallacy of a kind familiar in petitio principii and other forms of viciously circular inference. Of interest here are naturalistic analyses of ethical terms or concepts, not of properties. Our OQA (OQA*) raises an objection to the former. For no such semantic analyses can get off the ground unless moral terms are content-equivalent to purely descriptive terms, which amounts to saying that they must instantiate the same semantic types. Suppose „good‟ is the analysandum and „pleasure maximizing‟ the analysans (whichever purely descriptive term or terms would turn out to be the correct descriptive analysis of the target analysandum) of a certain semantic analysis. The claim that such terms are content-equivalent appears to be open to doubt on a priori grounds. After 1 all, whether one‟s own tokens of „good‟ and „pleasure maximizing‟ have/don‟t have the same content is a first-person, comparative judgment of content. Evaluating the proposed analysis requires, then, a self-ascriptive, comparative judgment of content.1 Judgments of this sort are thought to have a special epistemic status, since they seem grounded in neither evidence nor inference.. (shrink)

Does category theory provide a foundation for mathematics that is autonomous with respect to the orthodox foundation in a set theory such as ZFC? We distinguish three types of autonomy: logical, conceptual, and justificatory. Focusing on a categorical theory of sets, we argue that a strong case can be made for its logical and conceptual autonomy. Its justificatory autonomy turns on whether the objects of a foundation for mathematics should be specified only up to isomorphism, as is customary in (...) other branches of contemporary mathematics. If such a specification suffices, then a category-theoretical approach will be highly appropriate. But if sets have a richer `nature' than is preserved under isomorphism, then such an approach will be inadequate. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is two-fold: (1) To contribute to a better knowledge of the method of the Argentinean mathematicians Lia Oubifia and Jorge Bosch to formulate category theory independently of set theory. This method suggests a new ontology of mathematical objects, and has a profound philosophical significance (the underlying logic of the resulting category theory is classical iirst—order predicate calculus with equality). (2) To show in outline how the Oubina-Bosch theory can be modified to give rise (...) to a strong paraconsistent category theory; strong enough to be taken as the basis for a paraconsistent mathematics which encompasses all classical mathematical results. (shrink)

According to normative judgment internalism (NJI), normative judgments -- that is, judgments of the form 'I ought to F' and the like -- are "essentially practical", in the sense that they are in some way essentially connected to practical reasoning, or to motivation for action. Many metaethicists believe that if NJI is true, then it would cast grave doubts on any robustly realist (RR) conception of normative judgments. These metaethicists are mistaken. This mistake about the relations between NJI and (...) RR seems to be due to hasty and undefended assumptions about the nature of belief. Any philosophical conception of belief that has the resources to deal with Frege's Puzzle (how to explain the apparent failures of referential transparency in belief ascriptions) will also have the resources to reconcile NJI and RR with respect to normative judgments. (shrink)

Among the main concerns of 20th century philosophy was that of the foundations of mathematics. But usually not recognized is the relevance of the choice of a foundational approach to the other main problems of 20th century philosophy, i.e., the logical structure of language, the nature of scientific theories, and the architecture of the mind. The tools used to deal with the difficulties inherent in such problems have largely relied on set theory and its “received view”. There are specific issues, (...) in philosophy of language, epistemology and philosophy of mind, where this dependence turns out to be misleading. The same issues suggest the gain in understanding coming from category theory, which is, therefore, more than just the source of a “non-standard” approach to the foundations of mathematics. But, even so conceived, it is the very notion of what a foundation has to be that is called into question. The philosophical meaning of mathematics is no longer confined to which first principles are assumed and which “ontological” interpretation is given to them in terms of some possibly updated version of logicism, formalism or intuitionism. What is central to any foundational project proper is the role of universal constructions that serve to unify the different branches of mathematics, as already made clear in 1969 by Lawvere. Such universal constructions are best expressed by means of adjoint functors and representability up to isomorphism. In this lies the relevance of a category-theoretic perspective, which leads to wide-ranging consequences. One such is the presence of functorial constraints on the syntax–semantics relationships; another is an intrinsic view of (constructive) logic, as arises in topoi and, subsequently, in more general fibrations. But as soon as theories and their models are described accordingly, a new look at the main problems of 20th century’s philosophy becomes possible. The lack of any satisfactory solution to these problems in a purely logical and set-theoretic setting is the result of too circumscribed an approach, such as a static and punctiform view of objects and their elements, and a misconception of geometry and its historical changes before, during, and after the foundational “crisis”, as if algebraic geometry and synthetic differential geometry – not to mention algebraic topology – were secondary sources for what concerns foundational issues. The objectivity of basic geometrical intuitions also acts against the recent version of structuralism proposed as ‘the’ philosophy of category theory. On the other hand, the need for a consistent and adequate conceptual framework in facing the difficulties met by pre-categorical theories of language and scientific knowledge not only provides the basic concepts of category theory with specific applications but also suggests further directions for their development (e.g., in approaching the foundations of physics or the mathematical models in the cognitive sciences). This ‘virtuous’ circle is by now largely admitted in theoretical computer science; the time is ripe to realise that the same holds for classical topics of philosophy. (shrink)

Probably to most students of Moral Philosophy there comes a time when they feel a vague sense of dissatisfaction with the whole subject. And the sense of dissatisfaction tends to grow rather than to diminish. It is not so much that the positions, and still more the arguments, of particular thinkers seem unconvincing, though this is true. It is rather that the aim of the subject becomes increasingly obscure. "What," it is asked, "are we really going to learn by Moral (...) Philosophy?" "What are books on Moral Philosophy really trying to show, and when their aim is clear, why are they so unconvincing and artificial?" And again: "Why is it so difficult to substitute anything better?" Personally, I have been led by growing dissatisfaction of this kind to wonder whether the reason may not be that the subject, at any rate as usually understood, consists in the attempt to answer an improper question. And in this article, I shall venture to contend that the existence of the whole subject, as usually understood, rests on a mistake, and on a mistake parallel to that on which rests, as I think, the subject usually called the Theory of Knowledge. (shrink)

E. J. Lowe, a prominent figure in contemporary metaphysics, sets out and defends his theory of what there is. His four-category ontology is a metaphysical system which recognizes four fundamental categories of beings: substantial and non-substantial particulars and substantial and non-substantial universals. Lowe argues that this system has an explanatory power which is unrivaled by more parsimonious theories and that this counts decisively in its favor. He shows that it provides a powerful explanatory framework for a unified account of (...) causation, dispositions, natural laws, natural necessity and many other related matters, thus constituting a full metaphysical foundation for natural science. (shrink)

Since its formal definition over sixty years ago, category theory has been increasingly recognized as having a foundational role in mathematics. It provides the conceptual lens to isolate and characterize the structures with importance and universality in mathematics. The notion of an adjunction (a pair of adjoint functors) has moved to center-stage as the principal lens. The central feature of an adjunction is what might be called "internalization through a universal" based on universal mapping properties. A recently developed "heteromorphic" (...) theory of adjoint functors allows the concepts to be more easily applied empirically. This suggests a conceptual structure, albeit abstract, to model a range of selectionist mechanisms (e.g., in evolution and in the immune system). Closely related to adjoints is the notion of a "brain functor" which abstractly models structures of cognition and action (e.g., the generative grammar view of language). (shrink)

This paper traces the history of uses of the word "gender". It suggests that though "gender" has been recuperated and become commonplace, many issues persist around the way "women" and "men", and the power relations between them, are defined and are evolving. Provided it still allows us to question the meanings attached to the sexes, how they are established and in what contexts, gender remains a useful, because critical, analytical category.

According to Hume, the idea of a persisting, self-identical object, distinct from our impressions of it, and the idea of a duration of time, the mere passage of time without change, are mutually supporting "fictions". Each rests upon a "mistake", the commingling of "qualities of the imagination" or "impressions of reflection" with "external" impressions (perceptions), and, strictly speaking, we are conceptually and epistemically entitled to neither. Among Kant's aims in the First Critique is the securing of precisely these entitlements. (...) Like Hume, he acknowledges the correlativity of the notions of temporal duration and persisting self-identical objects (i.e., continuant substances). Unlike Hume, however, he undertakes to establish the legitimacy or objective validity of the schematized category of substance and, correspondingly, of the representation of time as a formal unity with duration as one of its modes. (shrink)

We normally think that public health policy is an important political activity. In turn, we normally understand the value of public health policy in terms of the promotion of health or some health-related good (such as opportunity for health), on the basis of the assumption that health is an important constituent or determinant of wellbeing. In this paper, I argue that the assumption that the value of public health policy should be understood in terms of health leads us to overlook (...) important benefits generated by such policy. To capture these benefits we need to understand the ends of public health policy in terms of the promotion of 'physical safety'. I then go on to argue that the idea that 'health' is an important category for evaluating or estimating individuals' wellbeing in the normative context of social policy is confused. I then clarify the relationship between my arguments and QALY-based accounts of health assessment. In the final section of the paper, I defend this surprising conclusion against various attacks. (shrink)

The issue of what distinguishes systems which have original intentionalityfrom those which do not has been brought into sharp focus by Saul Kripke inhis discussion of the sceptical paradox he attributes to Wittgenstein.In this paper I defend a sophisticated version of the dispositionalistaccount of meaning against the principal objection raised by Kripke in hisattack on dispositional views. I argue that the objection put by the sceptic,to the effect that the dispositionalist cannot give a satisfactory account ofnormativity and mistake, in (...) fact comprises a number of distinct lines ofargument, all of which can be satisfactorily answered by the dispositionalist. (shrink)

Four requirements are suggested for an axiomatic system S to provide the foundations of category theory: (R1) S should allow us to construct the category of all structures of a given kind (without restriction), such as the category of all groups and the category of all categories; (R2) It should also allow us to construct the category of all functors between any two given categories including the ones constructed under (R1); (R3) In addition, S should (...) allow us to establish the existence of the usual basic mathematical structures and carry out the usual set-theoretical operations; and (R4) S should be shown to be consistent relative to currently accepted systems of set theory. This paper explains how all but parts of (R3) can be met using a system S extending NFU enriched by a stratified pairing operation; to meet more of (R3) a stronger system S∗ is introduced, but there are still some real obstacles to meeting this requirement in full. For (R4) it is sketched how both S and S∗ are shown to be consistent. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that category theory ought to be seen as providing the language for mathematical discourse. Against foundational approaches, I argue that there is no need to reduce either the content or structure of mathematical concepts and theories to the constituents of either the universe of sets or the category of categories. I assign category theory the role of organizing what we say about the content and structure of both mathematical concepts and theories. Insofar, (...) then, as the structuralist sees mathematics as talking about structures and their morphology, I contend that category theory furnishes a framework for mathematical structuralism. (shrink)

is a presentation of mathematics in terms of the fundamental concepts of transformation, and composition of transformations. While the importance of these concepts had long been recognized in algebra (for example, by Galois through the idea of a group of permutations) and in geometry (for example, by Klein in his Erlanger Programm), the truly universal role they play in mathematics did not really begin to be appreciated until the rise of abstract algebra in the 1930s. In abstract algebra the idea (...) of transformation of structure (homomorphism) was central from the beginning, and it soon became apparent to algebraists that its most important concepts and constructions were in fact formulable in terms of that idea alone. Thus emerged the view that the essence of a mathematical structure is to be sought not in its internal constitution, but rather in the nature of its relationships with other structures of the same kind, as manifested through the network of transformations. This idea has achieved its fullest expression in category theory, an axiomatic framework within which the notions of transformation (as morphism or arrow) and composition (and also structure, as object) are fundamental, that is, are not defined in terms of anything else. (shrink)

Category theory and topos theory have been seen as providing a structuralist framework for mathematics autonomous vis-a-vis set theory. It is argued here that these theories require a background logic of relations and substantive assumptions addressing mathematical existence of categories themselves. We propose a synthesis of Bell's many-topoi view and modal-structuralism. Surprisingly, a combination of mereology and plural quantification suffices to describe hypothetical large domains, recovering the Grothendieck method of universes. Both topos theory and set theory can be carried (...) out relative to such domains; puzzles about ‘large categories’ and ‘proper classes’ are handled in a uniform way, by relativization, sustaining insights of Zermelo. (shrink)

According to a famous maxim, ignorance or mistake of law is no excuse. This maxim is supposed to represent both the standard and the proper rule of law. In fact, this maxim should be qualified in both respects: ignorance and mistake of law sometimes are, and (perhaps even more often) should be, excused. But this dual qualification only reinforces the fundamental and ubiquitous assumption which underlies the discussions of the subject, namely, that the only ground of exculpation relevant (...) to ignorance or mistake of law is excuse due to lack of (sufficient) culpability. The paper challenges this consensus. I argue that, according to the best conception of justification, ignorance and mistake, including ignorance and mistake of law, could be justified. Generally, ignorance and mistake are justified when based on a rational analysis of the information the agent has and should have. The conceptual possibility of justified ignorance or mistake is demonstrated mainly with respect to ignorance or mistake of law due to reliance on the guidance of public officials or private lawyers. (shrink)

This paper considers the nature and role of axioms from the point of view of the current debates about the status of category theory and, in particular, in relation to the “algebraic” approach to mathematical structuralism. My aim is to show that category theory has as much to say about an algebraic consideration of meta-mathematical analyses of logical structure as it does about mathematical analyses of mathematical structure, without either requiring an assertory mathematical or meta-mathematical background theory as (...) a “foundation”, or turning meta-mathematical analyses of logical concepts into “philosophical” ones. Thus, we can use category theory to frame an interpretation of mathematics according to which we can be algebraic structuralists all the way down. (shrink)

The precondition of any feminist politics – a usable category of ‘woman’ – has proved to be difficult to construct, even proposed to be impossible, given the ‘problem of exclusion’. This is the inevitable exclusion of at least some women, as their lives or experiences do not fit into the necessary and sufficient condition(s) that denotes group membership. In this paper, I propose that the problem of exclusion arises not because of inappropriate category membership criteria, but because of (...) the presumption that categories can only be organised by identity relations or shared properties among their members. This criterion of sameness as well as the characterisation of this exclusion as essentialism attests to a metaphysics that is not conducive to resistance and liberatory projects. Following a strain of hybrid thinking in feminist and post-colonial theory, I outline an alternative pluralist logic that confronts oppressive binaries that impede theory work in gender, sexuality, and race theory, and limit political action and resistance. The problem of exclusion is neither irresolvable nor is it essentialism. Instead it is a denial of subjectivity due to pseudodualistic self/Other dichotomies that can be resisted by adopting a new categorial logic. While this paper focuses on the specific problem of formulating a category of ‘woman’, it has implications for other areas of gender, critical race, and postcolonial theory. Rather than working toward an inclusive category founded on sameness, theorists need to develop independent and positive categories grounded in difference. Our current categorial logic does not permit such a project, and therefore a new metaphysics must be adopted. (shrink)

Abstract There has been a strong tendency in economic thought to try to take human wants, desires, and preferences as the basis for deciding how to act. This essay argues that ?needs? constitute a distinct category which cannot be reduced to preference. The reductive strategy is partly connected with a philosophical mistake about the relation between the subjective and the objective. The distinction between needs and wants must be central to any continuing form of human action, but it (...) may also not be understood in such a way as to posit some purely objective (perhaps biological) needs that can be specified independently of people's wishes and desires; nor can those desires be specified outside the context of an account of the various ways in which they arise out of, are embedded in, and are directed to ?objective? features of our world. (shrink)

We develop a category theoretical scheme for the comprehension of the information structure associated with a complex system, in terms of families of partial or local information carriers. The scheme is based on the existence of a categorical adjunction, that provides a theoretical platform for the descriptive analysis of the complex system as a process of functorial information communication.

Different accounts of what it is for something to have a social nature have been given. Sociality does not appear to be a category worthy of philosophical focus, given some of these accounts. If sociality is construed as plural subjecthood, it emerges as a category crucial for our understanding of the human condition. Plural subjects are constituted by a joint commitment of two or more persons to do something as a body. Such commitments generate rights and obligations of (...) a special type, and underlie such phenomena as social conventions, agreements, shared action and social groups on one standard understanding of what these are. (shrink)

We defend the view that belief is a psychological category against a recent attempt to recast it as a normative one. Tamar Gendler has argued that to properly understand how beliefs function in the regulation and production of action, we need to contrast beliefs with a class of psychological states and processes she calls “aliefs.” We agree with Gendler that affective states as well as habits and instincts deserve more attention than they receive in the contemporary philosophical psychology literature. (...) But we argue that it is a serious error to align beliefs with the norm of rationality, while building a contrasting category whose members are characterized primarily by their failure to measure up to that normative standard, since these latter ones cannot constitute a distinct psychological category. First, we demonstrate that Gendler gets unwarranted conclusions about the existence of aliefs from belief-discordant cases. Next, we argue that the concept of alief is insufficiently clear. Aliefs cannot be distinguished from other types of states, such as beliefs. Also, when grouping many states under the category of aliefs, Gendler overlooks important differences between phenomena that are clearly distinct, such as habits and instincts. Aliefs simply do not constitute a legitimate psychological category. (shrink)

The concept that peope have of themselves as a 'person' is one of the most intimate notions that they hold. Yet the way in which the category of the person is conceived varies over time and space. In this volume, anthropologists, philosophers, and historians examine the notion of the person in different cultures, past and present. Taking as their starting point a lecture on the person as a category of the human mind, given by Marcel Mauss in 1938, (...) the contributors critically assess Mauss's speculation that ntions of the person, rather than being primarily philosophical or psychological, have a complex social and ideological origin. Discussing societies ranging from ancient Greece, India, and China to modern Africa and Papua New Guinea, they provide fascinating descriptions of how these different cultures define the person. But they also raise deeper theoretical issues: What is universally constant and what is culturally variable in people's thinking about the person? How can these variations be explained? Has there been a general progressive development toward the modern Western view of the person? What is distinctive about this? How do one's notions of the person inform one's ability to comprehend alternative formulations? These questions are of compelling interest for a wide range of anthropologists, philosophers, historians, psychologists, sociologists, orientalists, and classicists. The book will appeal to any reader concerned with understanding one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence. (shrink)

The article surveys some past and present debates within mathematics over the meaning of category theory. It argues that such conceptual analyses, applied to a field still under active development, must be in large part either predictions of, or calls for, certain programs of further work.

In this paper I argue for the thesis that Stout's category of abstract particulars (what Husserl calls "moments') has played a role in the transition from Bradleian idealism to British analytic philosophy. That category plays this role as part of a new theory of wholes, parts and relations that Stout develops in opposition to Bradley. In Stout's theory abstract particulars are dependent parts of wholes. The critical remarks that G. E. Moore and Kevin Mulligan have made concerning Stout's (...) identification of abstract particulars and predicates are elaborated in this paper. Notwithstanding the fact that Stout mistakenly identifies abstract particulars with predicates, the category of abstract particulars may be of value in a theory of individuals, universals and truthmakers. (shrink)

Does category theory provide a foundation for mathematics that is autonomous with respect to the orthodox foundation in a set theory such as ZFC? We distinguish three types of autonomy : logical, conceptual, and justificatory. We argue that, while a strong case can be made for its logical and conceptual autonomy, its justificatory autonomy turns on whether or not mathematical theories can be justified by appeal to mathematical practice. If they can, a category-theoretical approach will be fully autonomous; (...) if not, the most natural route to justificatory autonomy is blocked. (shrink)

We propose category theory, the mathematical theory of structure, as a vehicle for defining ontologies in an unambiguous language with analytical and constructive features. Specifically, we apply categorical logic and model theory, based upon viewing an ontology as a sub-category of a category of theories expressed in a formal logic. In addition to providing mathematical rigor, this approach has several advantages. It allows the incremental analysis of ontologies by basing them in an interconnected hierarchy of theories, with (...) an operation on the hierarchy that expresses the formation of complex theories from simple theories that express first principles. Another operation forms abstractions expressing the shared concepts in an array of theories. The use of categorical model theory makes possible the incremental analysis of possible worlds, or instances, for the theories, and the mapping of instances of a theory to instances of its more abstract parts. We describe the theoretical approach by applying it to the semantics of neural networks. (shrink)

Elementary axioms describe a category of categories. Theorems of category theory follow, including some on adjunctions and triples. A new result is that associativity of composition in categories follows from cartesian closedness of the category of categories. The axioms plus an axiom of infinity are consistent iff the axioms for a well-pointed topos with separation axiom and natural numbers are. The theory is not finitely axiomatizable. Each axiom is independent of the others. Further independence and definability results (...) are proved. Relations between categories and sets, the latter defined as discrete categories, are described, and applications to foundations are discussed. (shrink)

The standpoint of this paper is the distinguished Ode to Sport from Pierre de Coubertin, specifically the second part of the elegy, the one concerning beauty. Starting with ?O Sport, you are Beauty!?, Pierre de Coubertin mentions, beyond beauty, an assemblage of aesthetic categories such as sublime, abject, balance, proportion, harmony, rhythm and grace. He also mentions strength, power and suppleness. Although the first quoted categories are general categories of aesthetics, it seems quite relevant to emphasize the need of the (...) author to introduce specific categories that fits to body movement and sport, such as strength, power and suppleness. There is no doubt that the first group of categories also fits to sport and body movement, but it equally fits to different forms of art, while strength, power and suppleness can only be literally applied to sport and performing arts. The purpose of this paper is to analyze strength as an aesthetic category of sport, developing three main arguments: the feeling of achievement and its conservation, the fight against gravity and the multiple forms of strength?s expression. It is concluded that strength can improve the communicative power of sport and its emotional appeal. In sports such as gymnastics, diving or synchronized swimming, the appreciation of strength exhibited by the athletes communicates to the observer some king of ease and lightness that enhances the aesthetic judgment. In other sports like weightlifting, sumo or rugby, effort and heaviness are stamped on the athlete's faces, what contributes to a sort of communion between the observer and the athlete that can also improve the aesthetic experience. (shrink)