A topological model of elementary semiotic schemes is presented. Implications are discussed with respect to the establishment of abstract terms and the search for ultimate meaning.

This biography of Jacques Derrida tells the story of a Jewish boy from Algiers, excluded from school at the age of twelve, who went on to become the most widely translated French philosopher in the world – a vulnerable, tormented man who, throughout his life, continued to see himself as unwelcome in the French university system. We are plunged into the different worlds in which Derrida lived and worked: pre-independence Algeria, the microcosm of the École Normale Supérieure, the cluster of (...) structuralist thinkers, and the turbulent events of 1968 and after. We meet the remarkable series of leading writers and philosophers with whom Derrida struck up a friendship: Louis Althusser, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean Genet, and Hélène Cixous, among others. We also witness an equally long series of often brutal polemics fought over crucial issues with thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, John R. Searle, and Jürgen Habermas, as well as several controversies that went far beyond academia, the best known of which concerned Heidegger and Paul de Man. We follow a series of courageous political commitments in support of Nelson Mandela, illegal immigrants, and gay marriage. And we watch as a concept – deconstruction – takes wing and exerts an extraordinary influence way beyond the philosophical world, on literary studies, architecture, law, theology, feminism, queer theory, and postcolonial studies. In writing this compelling and authoritative biography, Benoît Peeters talked to over a hundred individuals who knew and worked with Derrida. He is also the first person to make use of the huge personal archive built up by Derrida throughout his life and of his extensive correspondence. Peeters’ book gives us a new and deeper understanding of the man who will perhaps be seen as the major philosopher of the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

This paper studies proof systems for the logics of super-strict implication ST2–ST5, which correspond to C.I. Lewis’ systems S2–S5 freed of paradoxes of strict implication. First, Hilbert-style axiomatic systems are introduced and shown to be sound and complete by simulating STn in Sn and backsimulating Sn in STn, respectively(for n=2,...,5). Next, G3-style labelled sequent calculi are investigated. It is shown that these calculi have the good structural properties that are distinctive of G3-style calculi, that they are sound and complete, and (...) it is shown that the proof search for G3. ST2 is terminating and therefore the logic is decidable. (shrink)

Modal knowledge accounts that are based on standards possible-worlds semantics face well-known problems when it comes to knowledge of necessities. Beliefs in necessities are trivially sensitive and safe and, therefore, trivially constitute knowledge according to these accounts. In this paper, I will first argue that existing solutions to this necessity problem, which accept standard possible-worlds semantics, are unsatisfactory. In order to solve the necessity problem, I will utilize an unorthodox account of counterfactuals, as proposed by Nolan, on which we also (...) consider impossible worlds. Nolan’s account for counterpossibles delivers the intuitively correct result for sensitivity i.e. S’s belief is sensitive in intuitive cases of knowledge of necessities and insensitive in intuitive cases of knowledge failure. However, we acquire the same plausible result for safety only if we reject his strangeness of impossibility condition and accept the modal closeness of impossible worlds. In this case, the necessity problem can be analogously solved for sensitivity and safety. For some, such non-moderate accounts might come at too high a cost. In this respect, sensitivity is better off than safety when it comes to knowing necessities. (shrink)

This paper studies proof systems for the logics of super-strict implication \(\textsf{ST2}\) – \(\textsf{ST5}\), which correspond to C.I. Lewis’ systems \(\textsf{S2}\) – \(\textsf{S5}\) freed of paradoxes of strict implication. First, Hilbert-style axiomatic systems are introduced and shown to be sound and complete by simulating \(\textsf{STn}\) in \(\textsf{Sn}\) and backsimulating \(\textsf{Sn}\) in \(\textsf{STn}\), respectively (for \({\textsf{n}} =2, \ldots, 5\) ). Next, \(\textsf{G3}\) -style labelled sequent calculi are investigated. It is shown that these calculi have the good structural properties that are distinctive (...) of \(\textsf{G3}\) -style calculi, that they are sound and complete, and it is shown that the proof search for \(\mathsf {G3.ST2}\) is terminating and therefore the logic is decidable. (shrink)

Discrimination is a central epistemic capacity but typically, theories of discrimination only use discrimination as a vehicle for analyzing knowledge. This paper aims at developing a self-contained theory of discrimination. Internalist theories of discrimination fail since there is no compelling correlation between discriminatory capacities and experiences. Moreover, statistical reliabilist theories are also flawed. Only a modal theory of discrimination is promising. Versions of sensitivity and adherence that take particular alternatives into account provide necessary and sufficient conditions on discrimination. Safety in (...) contrast is not sufficient for discrimination as there are cases of safety that are clearly instances of discrimination failure. The developed account of discrimination between objects will be extended to discrimination between kinds and between types. (shrink)

L’ouvrage qu’on va lire se veut être une fondation transcendantale des logiques développementales (essentiellement celle de Lesniewski). Une telle démarche n’a jamais été tentée. Pour ce faire, il a fallu remonter aux sources immanentes de la Critique de la Raison Pure et de son architectonique. L’auteur a ainsi produit une apparence ontologique correspondant à l’ontologie du logicien polonais. Pour saisir la portée des définitions de la vérité et de l’objet, Marc Peeters convoque quatre concepts : la discrépance, le simulacre, (...) la reprise et l’historicité transcendantale. Ces concepts et les principes qui les régissent servent à repenser la logique chez Kant et à poser la question renouvelée, historique et logique, de la métaphysique. (shrink)

Hassin recently proposed the “Yes It Can” (YIC) principle to describe the division of labor between conscious and unconscious processes in human cognition. According to this principle, unconscious processes can carry out every fundamental high-level cognitive function that conscious processes can perform. In our commentary, we argue that the author presents an overly idealized review of the literature in support of the YIC principle. Furthermore, we point out that the dissimilar trends observed in social and cognitive psychology, with respect to (...) published evidence of strong unconscious effects, can better be explained by the way how awareness is defined and measured in both research fields. Finally, we show that the experimental paradigm chosen by Hassin to rule out remaining objections against the YIC principle is unsuited to verify the new default notion that all high-level cognitive functions can unfold unconsciously. (shrink)

The book aims at a comprehensive account of the relationship between Wittgenstein s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Russell s philosophy as it developed between 1903 and 1918. The focus is on the central nucleus of the Tractatus, i.e., on its ontology and the picture theory of language. On Russell s side, the multiple-relation theory of judgment has been chosen as the leading theme around which the presentation of several other issues is organized. Whereas the similarity between Russell s and Wittgenstein s (...) problems is pointed out, the deep difference between their solutions is acknowledged, in particular with reference to the opposition between objects and names on the one hand, and facts and propositions on the other.". (shrink)

Vogel argues that sensitivity accounts of knowledge are implausible because they entail that we cannot have any higher-level knowledge that our beliefs are true, not false. Becker and Salerno object that Vogel is mistaken because he does not formalize higher-level beliefs adequately. They claim that if formalized correctly, higher-level beliefs are sensitive, and can therefore constitute knowledge. However, these accounts do not consider the belief-forming method as sensitivity accounts require. If we take bootstrapping as the belief-forming method, as the discussed (...) cases suggest, then we face a generality problem. Our higher-level beliefs as formalized by Becker and Salerno turn out to be sensitive according to a wide reading of bootstrapping, but insensitive according to a narrow reading. This particular generality problem does not arise for the alternative accounts of process reliabilism and basis-relative safety. Hence, sensitivity accounts not only deliver opposite results given different formalizations of higher-level beliefs, but also for the same formalization, depending on how we interpret bootstrapping. Therefore, sensitivity accounts do not fail because they make higher-level knowledge impossible, as Vogel argues, and they do not succeed in allowing higher-level knowledge, as Becker and Salerno suggest. Rather, their problem is that they deliver far too heterogeneous results. (shrink)

The concept underlying Prigogine's ideas is the asymmetric "lifetime" he introduces into thermodynamics in addition to the symmetric time parameter. By identifying processes by means of causal chains of genidentical events, we examine the intrinsic order of lifetime adopting Grunbaum's symmetric time order. Further, we define the physical meaning and the actuality of the processes under consideration. We conclude that Prigogine's microscopic temporal irreversibility is tacitly assumed at macroscopic level. Moreover, his "new" complementarity lacks any scientific foundation. Finally, we put (...) forward the fact-like origin of temporal irreversibility referring to classical thermodynamics. (shrink)

According to predictive processing, an increasingly influential paradigm in cognitive science, the function of the brain is to minimize the prediction error of its sensory input. Conceptual engineering is the practice of assessing and changing concepts or word meanings. We contribute to both strands of research by proposing the first cognitive account of conceptual engineering, using the predictive processing framework. Our model reveals a new kind of implementation problem as prediction errors are only minimized if enough agents embrace conceptual changes. (...) This problem can be overcome by emphasizing the importance of social norms and conceptual pluralism. (shrink)

That bootstrapping and Moorean reasoning fail to instantiate persuasive argumentation is an often informally presented but not systematically developed view. In this paper, I will argue that this unpersuasiveness is not determined by principles of justification transmission but by two straightforward principles of rationality, understood as a concept of internal coherence. First, it is rational for S to believe the conclusion of an argument because of the argument, only if S believes sufficiently many premises of the argument. Second, if S (...) doubts that a source O is reliable and believes that information i is delivered by O, then S rationally suspends judgment about the truth of i. This paper aims to accomplish two tasks. First, it provides a thorough analysis of why bootstrapping argumentation is not an instance of rational persuasion. Second, it contains a more general theory about preconditions and limits of persuasive argumentation. (shrink)

Guido Adlers Studie über den Stil in der Musik bietet einen tiefgehenden Einblick in die musikalischen Strömungen vom Mittelalter bis zur Renaissance. Für alle, die ein tiefes Verständnis der Entwicklung von Europas Musikgeschichte gewinnen möchten. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, (...) you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The article concentrates on the possibilities of bringing into dialogue two different theoretical frameworks for conceptualising social reality and power: those proposed by Ernesto Laclau, one of the leading current theorists of hegemony, and Juri Lotman, a path breaking cultural theorist. We argue that these two models contain several concepts that despite their different verbal expressions play exactly the same functional role in both theories. In this article, however, we put special emphasis on the problem of naming for both theorists. (...) We propose to see naming as one of the central translating strategies in the politico-hegemonic discourse. Our main thesis is that through substituting some central categories of Laclau’s theory with those of Lotman’s, it is possible to develop a model of hegemony that is a better tool for empirical study of power relations in given social formations than the model proposed by Laclau, who in his later works tends more and more to ground it in psychoanalytic ontology. (shrink)

How should sociologists use the word theory? Gabriel Abend’s recent insistence that this question should be tackled politically raises two important issues: Is sociology political? And if so, what normative implications follow for its organization? Drawing on Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance and post-Gramscian theories of hegemony, I argue that Abend’s proposal that semantic questions about theory can be addressed separately from ontological, evaluative, and teleological ones is untenable. Disagreements about the latter are constitutive, not merely supplementary to the meaning (...) of theory. Against Abend’s deliberative-democratically oriented vision, I propose an agonistic politics of theory. In doing so, I consider both the internal inconsistencies of deliberativism and the practical advantages and sociological relevance of agonism. (shrink)

This paper provides a thorough analysis of two often informally stated claims. First, successful argumentation in the sense of persuasive argumentation requires agreement between the interlocutors about the rationality of arguments. Second, a general agreement about rationality of arguments cannot itself be established via argumentation, since such an attempt leads to an infinite meta‐regress. Hence, agreement about the rationality of arguments is a precondition for successful argumentation. As the paper argues, these plausible claims hold under the assumption that interlocutors are (...) subjectively rational and follow their own standards of rationality when engaging in argumentation. (shrink)

The article sets out to initiate a dialogue between two normative conceptions of democratic society, overwhelmingly depicted as irreconcilable by the partisans of each position: the political liberalism of John Rawls and the radical democracy of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. The paper argues that both approaches share the same underlying ethos in envisioning society (called the “the ethos of contingency” in the paper) informing Laclau and Mouffe’s notion of radical democracy and hegemony, as well as Rawls's view of justice (...) as fairness conceived in terms of reciprocity with its accompanying idea of public reason and reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

Modern society is challenged by a loss of efficiency in national governance systems values, and lifestyles. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourse builds upon a conception of organizational legitimacy that does not appropriately reflect these changes. The problems arise from the a-political role of the corporation in the concepts of cognitive and pragmatic legitimacy, which are based on compliance to national law and on relatively homogeneous and stable societal expectations on the one hand and widely accepted rhetoric assuming that all members (...) of society benefit from capitalist production on the other. We therefore propose a fundamental shift to moral legitimacy, from an output and power oriented approach to an input related and discursive concept of legitimacy. This shift creates a new basis of legitimacy and involves organizations in processes of active justification vis-à-vis society rather than simply responding to the demands of powerful groups. We consider this a step towards the politicization of the corporation and attempt to re-embed the debate on corporate legitimacy into its broader context of political theory, while reflecting the recent turn from a liberal to a deliberative concept of democracy. (shrink)

Con "Fede e critica", saggio inedito del 1955-1956, Guido Morselli volle innanzitutto spiegare a se stesso, ragionando con quella lucidità ben nota ai lettori dei suoi romanzi, un passaggio decisivo della sua vita, in cui si sentì ricondotto, dalla sua posizione di «uomo qualsiasi... senza alcuna particolarità pia o edificante» a quella di uomo religioso. Piuttosto che darci ancora una volta «il racconto, drammatico o più spesso patetico, di una conversione», illuminato perciò da un punto d’arrivo, Morselli ha voluto (...) offrirci la sua vicenda «nella successione degli aspetti che le cose hanno mostrato via via che si presentavano». Perciò, al sorprendente manifestarsi di una ‘fede’ si accompagna qui a ogni passo la lama affilata della ‘critica’, una dura critica che vuole continuamente mettere «con le spalle al muro» le giustificazioni teologiche – innanzitutto per quanto riguarda il rapporto fra Dio e il male – e insieme mettere alla prova quell’ignoto personaggio che, all’interno del soggetto, dichiara appunto di credere. Nulla di apologetico, conciliativo o acquietante si troverà dunque in questo libro, che rivela l’altra parte, saggistica e speculativa, del narratore Morselli, ma una mobilissima e pulsante «fisiologia della vita religiosa», in forma di resoconto scritto da uno spirito disincantato sulla scoperta del mistero. Tutti i più grandi temi ed enigmi della religione cristiana vengono toccati in questo percorso: dalla carità al "Libro di Giobbe", dall’esistenza del male alla preghiera, dalla Trinità al peccato originale. E su tutti questi punti il ‘dilettante’ Morselli parla con rigoroso acume ‘critico’, ma soprattutto con una straordinaria capacità di rendere concreto ciò che ciascuno di quei grandi temi veniva a rappresentare, come d’improvviso, nella sua esperienza personale. Così egli ci offre un saggio che è anche un prezioso frammento di autobiografia e vuole consapevolmente «confermare la sentenza di Nietzsche: essere la nostra filosofia nient’altro che il compendio delle nostre memorie». E anche delle memorie future: sicché non saremo meravigliati quando, alla fine di un capitolo, troveremo alcune parole che poi sarebbero comparse, in forma quasi uguale, nel romanzo Roma senza papa: «E in ogni caso, non dimentichiamolo: Dio non è teologo. Dio non è prete». (shrink)

I discuss Edouard Machery’s claim that philosophers and psychologists when using the term ‘concept’ are really theorizing about different things. This view is not new, but it has never been developed or defended in detail. Once spelled out, we can see that Machery is right that the psychological literature uses a different notion of concept. However, Machery fails to acknowledge that the two notions are not only compatible but complementary. This fits more with the traditional view according to which philosophers (...) and psychologists are merely interested in different aspects of the same kind. The main aim of this paper is then to show how precisely the two notions of ‘concept’ relate. Distinguishing them resolves the long-standing debate on whether concepts can be prototypes and allows me to formulate success conditions of a theory of categorization that are independent of the success conditions of a theory of concepts. (shrink)

This chapter proposes a radically enactive account of remembering that casts it as creative, dynamic, and wide-reaching. It paints a picture of remembering that no longer conceives of it as involving passive recollections – always occurring wholly and solely inside heads. Integrating empirical findings from various sources, the chapter puts pressure on familiar cognitivist visions of remembering. Pivotally, it is argued, that we achieve a stronger and more elegant account of remembering by abandoning the widely held assumption that it is (...) rooted in the retrieval of stored information or content in order to represent past events. We demonstrate how a radically enactive account of the roots of remembering can successfully handle classic cases discussed in the extended memory literature while, at same time, accommodating experientially rich forms of episodic memory. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2014 Heft: 202 Seiten: 365-393.