The formalist point of view maintains that formal derivations underlying proofs, although usually not carried out in practice, contribute to the confidence in mathematical theorems. Opposing this opinion, the main claim of the present paper is that such a gain of confidence obtained from any link between proofs and formal derivations is, even in principle, impossible in the present state of knowledge. Our argument is based on considerations concerning length of formal derivations. Thanks to Jody Azzouni for enlightening discussions concerning (...) the subject of this paper and to anonymous referees whose important remarks permitted us to correct the arguments and improve presentation. The remaining flaws remain, of course, solely the responsibility of the author. This research was partially supported by NSERC discovery grant and by the Research Chair in Distributed Computing at the Université du Québec en Outaouais. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Musik stellt heute soziale Beziehungen her, die kein Eigentum mehr verlangen. Aber sie kann trotzdem nicht systemunabhängig agieren, ohne selbst Teil einer kapitalen Verwertungslogik zu sein. Dieser unauflösbare Konflikt ist die Basslinie für einen Mix, den Andrzej Steinbach und Achim Szepanski in Ultrablack of Music: Feindliche Übernahme vorlegen. Steinbach montiert drei unterschiedliche Texte: Eine TV-Talkshow als Kammerspiel, eine Namensliste aller RAF-Mitglieder in Form einer Partitur und einen Computercode einer zerhackten McKinsey Werbung. 1971 hatte der WDR die Sendung "Ende offen: (...) Pop und Co - die andere Musik zwischen Protest und Kommerz!" ausgestrahlt, bei der Nikel Pallat, Mitglied der Band Ton Steine Scherben, eine Axt unter seiner Jacke hervorholte und mehrmals mit voller Kraft auf den Tisch einschlug. Er ging dabei nicht kaputt, aber die Geste war unmissverständlich. (shrink)

This is the first, out of two papers, in which we identify all logics between C1 and S5 having the same theses without iterated modalities. All these logics canbe divided into certain groups. Each such group depends only on which of thefollowing formulas are theses of all logics from this group:,,, ⌜∨ ☐q⌝,and for any n > 0 a formula ⌜ ∨ ⌝, where has not the atom ‘q’, and and have no common atom. We generalize Pollack’s result from [12],where (...) he proved that all modal logics between S1 and S5 have the same theseswhich does not involve iterated modalities. (shrink)

This is the second, out of two papers, in which we identify all logics between C1 and S5 having the same theses without iterated modalities. All these logics can be divided into certain groups. Each such group depends only on which of the following formulas are theses of all logics from this group:,,, ⌜∨☐q⌝, and for any n > 0 a formula ⌜ ∨ ⌝, where has not the atom ‘q’, and and have no common atom. We generalize Pollack’s result (...) from [1], where he proved that all modal logics between S1 and S5 have the same theses which does not involve iterated modalities. (shrink)

This book presents the theory of the validity of legal norms, aimed at the practice of law, in particular the jurisdiction of the constitutional courts. The postpositivist concept of the validity of statutory law, grounded on a critical analysis of the basic theories of legal validity elaborated up to now, is introduced. In the first part of the book a contemporary German nonpositivist conception of law developed by Ralf Dreier and Robert Alexy is analysed in order to answer the question (...) whether the juristic concept of legal validity should include moral standards or criteria. In the second part, a postpositivist concept of legal validity and an innovative model of validity discourse, based on the juristic presumption of the validity of legal norms, are proposed. The book is a work on analytical legal theory, written from a postpositivist, detached point of view. (shrink)

Visages de l'histoire. Essais de l'entour de la méthodologie et d'histoire de l'historiographie.

Commentary by the translator on the publication of HLA Hart, ‘The New Challenge to Legal Positivism ’ 36 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 459.