"The importance of questions is beyond doubt. But the degree of attention paid to them in logic and linguistics is still less than they deserve." What is a question? How to represent questions in formal languages? How to model reasoning in which questions are involved? Can we prove anything by means of pure questioning? How to model goal-directed problem solving? These are the main issues of Andrzej Wi niewski's "Questions, Inferences, and Scenarios." This book offers a state-of-the-art exposition of (...) Inferential Erotetic Logic, that is, an approach to the logic of questions focused on inferences which lead to questions as conclusions. Wi niewski characterizes semantic relations which determine validity of these inferences within the framework of Minimal Erotetic Semantics, applicable to a wide range of formal languages. He elaborates in detail the concept of erotetic search scenario, a tool for modelling problem solving. Moreover, the author presents some applications of Inferential Erotetic Logic in proof theory. Andrzej Wi niewski is one of the most prominent contemporary researchers in the logic of questions. Currently, he is a full professor at the Department of Logic and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna, Poland. (shrink)

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)

In this paper we show that some standard topological constructions may be fruitfully used in the theory of closure spaces (see [5], [4]). These possibilities are exemplified by the classical theorem on the universality of the Alexandroff's cube for T 0-closure spaces. It turns out that the closure space of all filters in the lattice of all subsets forms a generalized Alexandroff's cube that is universal for T 0-closure spaces. By this theorem we obtain the following characterization of the consequence (...) operator of the classical logic: If is a countable set and C: P() P() is a closure operator on X, then C satisfies the compactness theorem iff the closure space ,C is homeomorphically embeddable in the closure space of the consequence operator of the classical logic.We also prove that for every closure space X with a countable base such that the cardinality of X is not greater than 2 there exists a subset X of irrationals and a subset X of the Cantor's set such that X is both a continuous image of X and a continuous image of X. (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.

The article attempts to characterize three key doctrinal controversies in the Carolingian Renaissance, namely: the disputes over the Eucharist, the so-called trina deitas, and predestination. The core of the article is an exposition of the controversy concerning predestination, whose main protagonist is Gottschalk of Orbais. The article discusses four crucial issues related to the problem: (i) the concept of God, (ii) the understanding of grace, nature and free will, (iii) the relation of foreknowledge to predestination, and (iv) the doctrine of (...) redemption, i.e., specifically the relationship betweenjustice and mercy. The article is largely an attempt at an interpretation of the texts of the epoch, mainly those of Gottschalk of Orbais and his adversary, Hincmar of Reims. The conclusions point to difficulties in the issues discussed and outline what attempts at solving this problem have taken place in the coming centuries. (shrink)

The author reflects on the Warsaw Uprising and its effects on his contemporaries and subsequent generations. The Uprising has evoked conflicting emotions, the hottest debates whether it was justified in light of the ensuing losses and the destruction of Warsaw. A frequently-asked question is whether it was worth sacrificing so many people for an obviously lost cause.The Warsaw Uprising also functions as a national legend of selflessness, sacrifice, solidarity, and courage, its protagonists displaying uncommon determination and perseverence in their struggle (...) to free their country. A legend which successive generations of Poles have kept alive despite the years that have elapsed. (shrink)

D. Scott in his paper [5] on the mathematical models for the Church-Curry -calculus proved the following theorem.A topological space X. is an absolute extensor for the category of all topological spaces iff a contraction of X. is a topological space of Scott's open sets in a continuous lattice.

In this paper, we want to present the genesis of Stanisław Leśniewski’s mereology. Although ‘mereology’ comes from theword ‘part’, mereology arose as a theory of collective classes. That is why we present the differences between the concepts of being a distributive class and being a collective class. Next, we present Leśniewski’s original mereology from 1927, but with a modern approach. Leśniewski was inspired to create his concept of classes and their elements by Russell’s antinomy. To face it, Leśniewski had to (...) define the concept of being an element of based on the concept of being part of. Leśniewski showed that in his theory, there is no equivalent to Russell’s antinomy. We will show that his solution has nothing to do with the original approach because, in both cases, we are talking about objects of a different kind. Russell’s original antinomy concerned distributive classes, and Leśsniewski’s considerations concerned collective classes. (shrink)

We give an idea of uniform approach to the problem of characterization of absolute extensors for categories of topological spaces [21], closure spaces [15], Boolean algebras [22], and distributive lattices [4]. In this characterization we use the notion of retract of the closure space of filters in the lattice of all subsets.

The Philosophy of Hermann Cohen: An Attempt to SystematizeThe article adressess the problem of evolution of Hermann Cohen’s thinking. In the first part, the evolution is shown in the historical-problematic context and the main idea is to show the basic concepts organizing the author’s most important books. Part two is an attempt to capture the motives of his understanding of philosophy and the central concept is the logic of validity Geltungslogik. As a result it is shown that throughout his whole (...) life Cohen struggled with the problem of such an understanding of philosophy. (shrink)

The current system of international law is experiencing profound transformations. Indeed, the simultaneous processes of globalization combined with the disintegration of international systems of governance and law-making pose complex challenges for legal scholarship. The doctrinal response to these challenges has been theorized within two seemingly contradictory discourses in international law: fragmentation and constitutionalisation. This book takes an innovative approach to international law, viewing the processes of the fragmentation and constitutionalisation as being profoundly interconnected and reflective of each other. It brings (...) together a select group of contributors, including both established and emerging scholars and practitioners, in order to explore the ways in which the problems of fragmentation and constitutionalisation are viscerally linked one to the other and thus mutually conditioning and stimulating. The book considers the theory and practice of international law looking at the two phenomena in relation to the various fields of international law such as international criminal law, cultural heritage law and international environmental law. (shrink)

For a complete Heyting lattice , we define a category Etale (). We show that the category Etale () is equivalent to the category of the sheaves over , Sh(), hence also with -valued sets, see [2], [1]. The category Etale() is a generalization of the category Etale (X), see [1], where X is a topological space.

We will present an elementary theory in which we can speak of mereological sets composed of distributive classes. Besides the concept of a distributive class and the membership relation , it will possess the notion of a mereological set and the relation of being a mereological part. In this theory we will interpret Morse’s elementary set theory (cf. Morse [11]). We will show that our theory has a model, if only Morse’s theory has one.

In introductory logic courses the authors often limit their considerations to the truth-value operators. Then they write that conditionals and biconditionals of natural language ("if" and "if and only if") may be represented as material implications and equivalences ("⊃" and "≡"), respectively. Yet material implications are not suitable for conditionals. Lewis' strict implications are much better for this purpose. Similarly, strict equivalences are better for representing biconditionals (than material equivalences). In this paper we prove that the methods from standard first (...) courses in logic can be used for testing arguments with strict implications, strict equivalences and other operators which may represent connectives from natural language. (shrink)

The protagonist of Thomas Mann’s short story "The Clown" cannot became an artist because he hasn’t got enough talent. He is also unable to live among people as an ordinary citizen because his social competencies haven’t been completely developed. That is why he can be regarded as a literary figure who tries to leave the real world and to penetrate the literary world. The devil who appears in Charles Gounod’s opera "Faust" based on Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s drama "Faust" and who (...) is watching the protagonist from the stage during the opera performance seems to be the only person who can help him to find his existential space. (shrink)

In the vast literature on architectural theory and practice, the ways in which architectural knowledge is actually taught, debated, and understood are too often ignored. The essays collected in this groundbreaking volume address the current state of architecture as an academic and professional discipline. The issues considered range from the form and content of architectural education to the architect's social and environmental obligations and the emergence of a new generation of architects. Often critical of the current paradigm, these essays offer (...) a provocative challenge to accepted assumptions about the production, dissemination, and reception of architectural knowledge. Contributors: Sherry Ahrentzen, U of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Stanford Anderson, MIT; Carol Burns, Harvard U; Russell Ellis, UC Berkeley; Thomas Fisher, U of Minnesota; Linda Groat, U of Michigan; Kay Bea Jones, Ohio State U; David Leatherbarrow, U of Pennsylvania; A. G. Krishna Menon, TVB School of Habitat Studies, India; Garth Rockcastle, U of Minnesota; Michael Stanton, American U, Beirut; Sharon E. Sutton, U of Washington; David J. T. Vanderburgh, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium; and Donald Watson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. (shrink)

Author: Szahaj Andrzej Title: CULTURAL SCIENCES AS FUNDAMETAL AND CRITICAL SCIENCES (Nauki o kulturze jako nauki podstawowe (i krytyczne)) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.12, number: 2011/1, pages: 183-188 Keywords: FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCES, CULTURE, CRITICISM, CAPITALISM Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The main goal of the article is to prove that today cultural sciences replace sciences on nature in the role of fundamental sciences. Author tries to show that cultural sciences are (...) now fundamental ones taking into account two different aspects of being fundametal: theoretical one and political one. He uses some arguments taken from Jerzy Kmita’s works to support his own position. They are connected mostly with Kmita’s thesis about the primary role of culturally created vision of the world as the necessary background of each knowledge. The political aspect of fundamental role playing today by cultural sciences is linked with the main role played by information in today world and especially in so called cognitive capitalism. Author’s thesis is that cultural sciences can take critical shape showing the relative character of all dogmas of today capitalism or they can play effective role in capitalist world as important and useful element of its mechanisms. (shrink)

We present the first effectively presentable fully abstract model for Starkʼs Reduced ML, a call-by-value higher-order programming language featuring integer-valued references. The model is constructed using techniques of nominal game semantics. Its distinctive feature is the presence of carefully restricted information about the store in plays, combined with conditions concerning the participantsʼ ability to distinguish reference names. We show how it leads to an explicit characterization of program equivalence.