The article describes an extension of the original idea of the fifth dimension model to pre-school age. We found out that small schildren are not able to use in their activity the tasks formulated by the adults. Learning tasks inbedded in different narratives were used in 5D environments. Experimental research lead to a hypothesis on the status of narrative learning as ”transitory activity system” between play and school learning. The hypothesis is presented and a transitory model sketched. Examples on children’s (...) sense making and narrative learning in problem situations are are offered at the end of the article. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a solution to an almost ignored problem in metaphysics and metametaphysics: what is categorial fundamentality and non-fundamentality? My proposal builds on E. J. Lowe’s view on the issue. By means of the newcomer notion of generic identity, I can give an account of something that Lowe did not explicate: the constitution of formal ontolog- ical relations. Formal ontological relations (e.g. instantiation) are internal relations that deter- mine ontological form and category-membership. I argue that categorial fundamentality (...) is hav- ing membership fully determined by a simple formal ontological relation or relations jointly in an order and categorial non-fundamentality is having membership at least partly determined by a derived formal ontological relation in an order. In contrast to Lowe, my proposal does not pre- suppose non-modal essentialism. (Please, ask for the penultimate draft.). (shrink)

I propose that metaphysical study is initially indifferent to the truth of Metaphysical Realism about Metaphysics (MRM) and Metaphysical Realism and does not presuppose them. Metaphysical Realism is a metaphysical doctrine the truth of which cannot be settled logically prior to metaphysical investigation. MRM presupposes Metaphysical Realism and therefore, one should not hold MRM uncritically. An epistemological consequence of this is that arguments against the possibility of cognition about metaphysically real entities (by e.g., Hume) are not arguments against the epistemic (...) legitimacy of metaphysics without further arguments for MRM. This paper is also a case study of the philosophical significance of having rich enough acquaintance with the history of philosophy, the recent history included. (shrink)

I defend a reading of David Hume’s nominalism that he comes close to Keith Campbell's contemporary trope theory in the specific case of spatial properties. I argue that Hume's view should be construed as classifying spatial properties as Campbellian tropes (particular properties): abstract, particular, determinate and qualitatively simple properties. This has implications for reconstructing Hume's answer to the problem of universals. I argue that Hume’s account of objects resembling each other in respect of spatial properties is grounded in the resemblance (...) of tropes rather than in the resemblance of objects. (shrink)

A specific variety of formal causation is dispositional essentialism. This chapter argues that dispositional essentialism is incompatible with any trope bundle theory committed to the primitive identity of tropes, such as Keith Campbell’s account and the authors’ own Strong Nuclear Theory. Dispositional essentialism would render at least some tropes identity-dependent on other tropes, while all tropes must be considered identity-independent existents in these trope theories. Furthermore, dispositional essentialism relies on the problematic notion of dispositional essence, and it remains unclear whether (...) dispositional essentialism gains any ontological economy in comparison with the views taking laws of nature as primitive. Finally, the chapter outlines an alternative view based on Deborah Smith’s non-recombinational quidditism. According to it, tropes as determinate particular natures necessarily play certain nomological roles. It is argued that this might be completed with a new conception of tropes as parts of causal processes, which further clarifies the necessary connection between tropes and certain nomological roles. (shrink)

Title in English translation: Metametaphysics - with and without Categories. A comment paper on An Introduction to Metametaphysics by Tuomas Tahko. Ehdotan artikkelissa uutta olevan ja sen muodon välistä erottelua. Erottelun avulla voidaan antaa täsmällinen käsitys ontologisen kategorian käsitteestä ja metafysiikan tutkimuskohteesta. Argumentoin myös, että metafysiikan epistemologiaa ja semantiikkaa sekä metafyysistä selitttämistä pitää lähestyä kategorianäkökulmasta. Artikkeli on kommentti Tuomas Tahkon oppikirjaan An Introduction to Metametaphysics.

This books is a must for anyone interested in consciousness research and the latest ideas in the forthcoming technology of mind.

In this paper, I argue that Hume has an insight into the heart of most of “new philosophy” when he claims that according to it, proper sensibles are not Real properties of material substance and Real bodies. I call this tenet “the Proper Sensibles Principle” (PSP). In the second part of the paper, I defend the interpretation - mainly against Don Garrett’s doubts - that the PSP is a rational tenet in Hume’s view and he thus endorses it. Its rationality (...) means that the PSP has a firm foundation in inductive-causal reasoning. (shrink)

The main problem of this study is David Hume’s (1711-76) view on Metaphysical Realism (there are mind-independent, external, and continuous entities). This specific problem is part of two more general questions in Hume scholarship: his attitude to scepticism and the relation between naturalism and skepticism in his thinking. A novel interpretation of these problems is defended in this work. The chief thesis is that Hume is both a sceptic and a Metaphysical Realist. His philosophical attitude is to suspend his judgment (...) on Metaphysical Realism, whereas as a common man he firmly believes in the existence of mind-independent, external, and continuous entities. Therefore Hume does not have any one position; accordingly, a form of “no one Hume” interpretation (Richard Popkin, Robert J. Fogelin, Donald L.M. Baxter) is argued for in the book. The key point in this distinction is the temporal difference between Hume’s philosophical and everyday views. It is introduced in order to avoid attributing a conscious contradiction to him (a problem which has not attracted enough attention in the literature). The method of the work is modelled on Peter Millican’s work on Hume and induction. The approach to the main problem is to study the two “profound” arguments against the senses that Hume presents in the Section 12 of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748). These arguments are first reconstructed in detail resulting in Millican-type diagrams of them and then Hume’s endorsement of them is established on the basis of the diagrams. The first profound argument concludes that Metaphysical Realism and thus any Realistic theory of perception is unjustified as well as the existence of God and the soul. The second argument goes further having first conceptual conclusion: the very notions of Real entitity, material substance, and bodies are completely out of the reach of the faculty of understanding. Therefore they ought to be rejected according to Hume. This is a consequence of the consistent use of the Humean faculty of reason: idea-analysis and inductive inference. The second profound argument thus concludes that believing in Metaphysical Realism is inconsistent with the rational attitude that is to refrain from this belief. Hence, if we attributed both of them to Hume, we would end up with a great philosopher who embraces a manifest contradiction. The study is finished by arguing that this sceptical and Metaphysically Realistic interpretation concurs well with (1) Hume’s professed Academical philosophy and (2) project of the science of human nature. (1) According to Hume, Academical philosophy is in the first place diffidence, modesty, and uncertainty including suspension on certain issues. Secondly, it is restriction of the range of topics for which experience can provide a standard of truth. This kind of empiricist epistemological realism is coherent with the sceptical attitude on Metaphysical Realism because the latter does not rule out inter-subjective consensus on what we experience. (2) Suspension of judgment on Metaphysical Realism coheres with the mind-dependency of the objects of Hume’s science of human nature: the understanding, passions, morals, aesthetics, politics, and the human culture in all of its manifestations. Although the study takes the first Enquiry to be Hume’s authorised word on the understanding, his juvenile work A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) is argued to support this “no one Hume” interpretation. Hume’s other works are also discussed when needed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dewey and the Aesthetic Unconscious: The Vital Depths of Experience by Bethany HenningPentti MäättänenBethany Henning Dewey and the Aesthetic Unconscious: The Vital Depths of Experience London: Lexington Books, 2022. 182 pp. incl. indexBethany Henning examines Dewey's conception of aesthetic experience by looking for connections to several trends and traditions. Henning relates pragmatism to Freudian psychoanalysis, feminism, wisdom from esoteric sources, erotic drive, and religion. "In the American thought (...) that we have surveyed thus far, the aesthetic, the religious, and the ethical stand as completions and realizations of one another" (p. 25). This variety of viewpoints is no doubt interesting and potentially fruitful, but there is a danger that the result may remain somewhat sporadic.One of the traditional problems and tasks in philosophy is to explain how the world is experienced as an organized, bounded whole. How are the various sensations and ideas of them related to each other? On what ground can we experience these relations between ideas? Henning refers to William James and says that these relations are directly experienced, we feel them (p. 46). According to Henning there is a unique force responsible for this, and it "can only be a kind of noncognitive, preverbal awareness, and for Dewey, it can only be the qualitative immediacy that is known to us only in aesthetic experience" (p. 25). How can we experience these relations? Here Henning appeals to Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) who provided his own view of habits, which account for "the relations between ideas by relating them through their spatiotemporal contiguity, causality, or through resemblances" (p. 21; italics in the original). This is how the American mind was firmly set on a theoretical path that distinguishes it from "the European conception" (ibid.).This is a surprising claim, indeed. Here is what David Hume has to say about the connexion or association of ideas: "The qualities, from [End Page 369] which this association arises, and by which the mind is after this manner convey'd from one idea to another, are three, viz. RESEMBLANCE, CONTIGUITY in time or place, and CAUSE and EFFECT."1 It is quite inconceivable how this simple relabeling of Hume's principles of association as habits might have any effect on any theoretical path, especially on the emergence of pragmatism. Edwards wrote decades before Charles Peirce entered the scene. Edwards' habit is just a new name for old European ideas. It is obvious that Hume's principles of association, which deal with internal mental processes, have not much to do with Peircean habits of action, which are about overt bodily action in the world where we meet also hard facts involving brute force, muscular effort, and resistance.The starting point of Henning's analysis is immediate qualitative experience, affective sensual awareness, which also prefigures and is the ground of signification (p. 107). Qualitative immediacy is felt, had, and undergone. There is a need to experience the world as meaningful, to move from that world as had and undergone to the world as known. Knowledge about this immediate experience becomes possible with the emergence of mind, when "situations, in their qualitative tone, are also socially significant so that interactions are aided by the mediation of symbols" (p. 88). We can give names to qualitatively different feelings. This knowledge is different from qualitative immediacy in that it is discursive, cognitive, and syntactical (p. 38). But how does this kind of knowledge emerge? What is the origin of names and symbols? What is the notion of meaning applied here? According to Henning, meaning "must be felt, had and undergone, in a way that is primarily qualitative rather than primarily cognitive" (p. 107). There is also "erotic need for meaningful connection" (p. 113). Further, Henning appeals to Julia Kristeva's semiotic theory, but Peirce's semiotics is not mentioned. An explicit definition of meaning would be in place here, especially as Peirce and Dewey have one to offer.According to Peirce, "what a thing means is simply what habits it involves" (CP 5.400).2 Note that there are no restrictions on this. If it is a linguistic expression, then we have Ludwig Wittgenstein's language games... (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Eino Kaila's (1890-1958) understanding of David Hume. Kaila was one of the leading Finnish philosophers of the 20th century and a correspondent of the Vienna Circle. He introduced logical empiricism into Finland and taught Georg Henrik von Wright. Final draft.

Formal ontology as a main branch of metaphysics investigates categories of being. In the formal ontological approach to metaphysics, these ontological categories are analysed by ontological forms. This analysis, which we illustrate by some category systems, provides a tool to assess the clarity, exactness and intelligibility of different category systems or formal ontologies. We discuss critically different accounts of ontological form in the literature. Of ontological form, we propose a character- neutral relational account. In this metatheory, ontological forms of entities (...) are their standings in internal relations whose holding is neutral on the character of their relata. These relations are “formal ontological relations”. Entities belong to ontological categories because they stand in the same formal ontological relations. We hold a nominalist relationalism about ontological categories and forms. We conclude by showing that our metatheory is useful for understanding categorial fundamentality/non- fundamentality, different formal ontologies, and for unifying metaphysical questions. (shrink)

Title in English: Hume's Definition of Cause. Esitän artikkelissa tulkintani Humen kuuluisista kahdesta määritelmästä ”syylle”. Väitteeni on, että Hume ei esitä kahta erillistä määritelmää, joiden suhde olisi ongelmallinen, vaan syyn kahden oleellisen aspektin määritelmät. Yhdistänkin lopuksi määritelmät yhdeksi Humen syyn määritelmäksi. Artikkelini on luonteeltaan tulkitseva ja väittävä. Tarkoituksenani on tulkita erästä kausaliteetin klassikkoa mahdollisimman tarkasti ja siten estää tiettyjä tyypillisiä väärinymmärryksiä, ilman että voin ottaa Humen määritelmää kritiikin kohteeksi. Artikkelin rajoissa ei ole myöskään mahdollista perustella tulkintaani yksityiskohtaisesti eikä tarkastella Humen (...) perusteita määritelmälleen. (shrink)

According to David Hume values do not belong to the world of facts and cannot be derived from facts. However, Hume’s argument is based on questionable presumptions. His conception of experience as sense perception is erroneous. On contemporary standards it is simply false because sense organs are not channels that passively receive inputs from the world. It is too narrow as it does not take the role of action into account. Further, Hume’s argument is based on the dichotomy between external (...) and internal. Mind is strictly separated from the external world of facts. This entails that experiences, perceptions and ideas do not belong to the world of facts. Causality and values cannot be literally perceived. Therefore they are beyond the scope of empirical knowledge. Hume’s presumptions can be rejected. The consequence is that mind is embodied, and bodies belong to the world of facts. And so do embodied minds. Broadening the notion of experience brings causality and values within the scope of experience. They are experienced on a daily basis in various practices. Values related to vital needs are based on biological facts. More generally, the relation of facts and values can be analyzed if one rejects the hidden causes of perceptions as the object of knowledge. The alternative is the operational conception of knowledge. To know is to know what to do in order to proceed from a problematic situation to future circumstances where the problems are solved. (shrink)

It is argued here that the phenomenon of consciousness is nothing more than a special way of a subjective internal appearance of information. To explain consciousness is to explain how this subjective internal appearance of information can arise in the brain. To create a conscious robot is to create subjective internal appearances of information inside the robot. Other features that are often attributed to the phenomenon of consciousness are related to the contents of consciousness and cognitive functions. The internal conscious (...) appearance of these is caused by the mechanism that gives rise to the internal appearances in the first place. A useful conscious robot must have a variety of cognitive abilities, but these abilities alone, no matter how advanced, will not make the robot conscious; the phenomenal internal appearances must be present as well. The Haikonen Cognitive Architecture (HCA) tries to facilitate both internal appearances and cognitive functions. The experimental robot XCR-1 is the first implementation experiment with the HCA. (shrink)

According to standard trope nominalism, there are simple tropes that do not have parts or multiply distinct aspects. Douglas Ehring’s reductio ad absurdum against this standard view concludes that there are no simple tropes. In this paper, we provide a response to Ehring defending the standard view. Ehring’s argument may be refuted by (1) distinguishing the ontological form of tropes from their contribution to the ontological content of the world, and (2) construing tropes as having primitive identity. At the same (...) time, standard trope nominalism is elaborated on by distinguishing between ontological form and content, for which there are also independent reasons. (shrink)

This article analyzes three approaches to resolving the classical Meno paradox, or its variant, the learning paradox, emphasizing Charles S. Peirce’s notion of abduction. Abduction provides a way of dissecting those processes where something new, or conceptually more complex than before, is discovered or learned. In its basic form, abduction is a “weak” form of inference, i.e., it gives only tentative suggestions for further investigation. But it is not too weak if various sources of clues and restrictions on the abductive (...) search are taken into account. We present three, complementary versions of abduction: as a sort of guessing instinct or expert-like intuition, where unconscious clues are important; as a form of inference, where a strategic point of view is essential; and as a part of distributed cognition and mediated activity, where the interaction with the material, social, and cultural environment is emphasized. Our starting point is Peirce’s own notion of abduction, but we broaden the perspective, especially to the direction of distributed cognition. (shrink)

Ontologiset kategoriateoriat pyrkivät vastaamaan metafysiikan klassiseen ongelmaan: kysymykseen siitä, mihin eri kategorioihin oliot eli entiteetit jakaantuvat. Olioilla tarkoitetaan tässä mitä tahansa, joka on olemassa. Olevan kategoriat eli ontologiset kategoriat (lyhyesti kategoriat) ovat alustavasti olioiden hyvin yleisiä lajeja. Jäsenyys olioiden kategoriassa ei niinkään kerro sitä, mitä piirteitä oliolla on, vaan sen olemisen tavan ¬– miten se esimerkiksi on tai voi olla maailman rakenneosa. Esimerkkejä mahdollisista kategorioista ovat konkreettiset partikulaariset yksilöoliot (substanssit), ominaisuudet, relaatiot, prosessit, tapahtumat ja joukot. -/- 1. Mitä ovat ontologiset (...) kategoriateoriat -/- 2. Uusaristoteelinen realismi -/- 3. Russellilainen realismi -/- 4. Universaalikimpputeoriat -/- 5. Nominalismi: substanssi-modus-teoriat -/- 6. Trooppiteoriat -/- 7. Jyrkkä nominalismi -/- 8. Tapahtuma- ja prosessiontologiat -/- 9. Ontologisten kategorioiden tutkimus Suomessa -/- 10. Suositeltavaa jatkolukemista -/- 11. Lähteet . (shrink)

In this article, we present a new conception of internal relations between quantity tropes falling under determinates and determinables. We begin by providing a novel characterization of the necessary relations between these tropes as basic internal relations. The core ideas here are that the existence of the relata is sufficient for their being internally related, and that their being related does not require the existence of any specific entities distinct from the relata. We argue that quantity tropes are, as determinate (...) particular natures, internally related by certain relations of proportion and order. By being determined by the nature of tropes, the relations of proportion and order remain invariant in conventional choice of unit for any quantity and give rise to natural divisions among tropes. As a consequence, tropes fall under distinct determinables and determinates. Our conception provides an accurate account of quantitative distances between tropes but avoids commitment to determinable universals. In this important respect, it compares favorably with the standard conception taking exact similarity and quantitative distances as primitive internal relations. Moreover, we argue for the superiority of our approach in comparison with two additional recent accounts of the similarity of quantity tropes. (shrink)