Yehoshua Bar-Hillel (1915-1975) was one of the leading intellectuals of Israel and of the world. His work ranged over mathematics, applied logic, communication theory, analytic philosophy, philosophy of science, and linguistics. Creative, patient, attentive, and critical, Bar-Hillel was a superb philosopher. In addition, how humane he was may be learned from the memorial tributes to him which initiate this volume. Bar-Hillel was born in Vienna, and came to Israel, then Palestine, in 1933. He took his M. A. (1938) and Ph. (...) D. (1949) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where his subsequent career continued, as Research Fellow (1949-53), Senior Lecturer in Philosophy (1953-58), Associate Professor of Philosophy (1958-61), and Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Sci ence (1961-75). He was often abroad as visiting professor (Berkeley, 1960- 61; Michigan, 1965; La Jolla, 1966-67; Konstanz, 1971; Berlin, 1972), or as a research scholar, notably at the M. lT. Research Laboratory for Elec tronics during the early 1950's. Bar-Hillel was the Secretary and guiding spirit of the Organizing Committee for the 3rd International Congress for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, held in Jerusalem in 1964. During 1966-68, he was President of the Division of Logic, Method ology and Philosophy of SCience of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science, and in 1967 President of the International Union. From 1963 he was a Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. (shrink)

In my reply to Boyle, Rosenthal, and Tumulty, I revisit my view of avowals’ security as a matter of a special immunity to error, their character as intentional expressive acts that employ self-ascriptive vehicles, Moore’s paradox, the idea of expressing as contrasting with reporting and its connection to showing one’s mental state, and the ‘performance equivalence’ between avowals and other expressive acts.

I critically discuss the account of self-knowledge presented in Dorit Bar-On’s Speaking My Mind (OUP 2004), focusing on Bar-On’s understanding of what makes our capacity for self-knowledge puzzling and on her ‘neo-expressivist’ solution to the puzzle. I argue that there is an important aspect of the problem of self-knowledge that Bar-On’s account does not sufficiently address. A satisfying account of self-knowledge must explain not merely how we are able to make accurate avowals about our own present mental states, but how (...) we can reasonably regard ourselves as entitled to claim self-knowledge. Addressing this aspect of the problem of self-knowledge requires confronting questions about the metaphysical nature of mental states, questions that Bar-On’s approach seeks to avoid. (shrink)

Heyes presents a compelling account of how cultural evolutionary processes shape and create “rules,” or norms, of social behavior. She suggested that normativity depends on implicit, genetically inherited, domain-general processes and explicit, culturally inherited, domain-specific processes. Her approach challenges the nativist point of view and provides supporting evidence that shows how social interactions are responsible for creating mental processes that assist in understanding and behaving according to rules or norms. We agree. In our commentary, we suggest that it is not (...) only that mental processes for grasping norms are recreated in each generation but also that social interactions shape the kinds of social groups that are recognized (for a more extensive discussion, see Kish Bar-On & Lamm, 2023). We highlight evidence showing that accounts of norm psychology thus require a richer notion of human groups. (shrink)

“Is logic a physical variable?” This thought-provoking question was put forward by Michael Heller during the public lecture “Category Theory and Mathematical Structures of the Universe” delivered on 30th March 2017 at the National Quantum Information Center in Sopot. It touches upon the intimate relationship between the foundations of physics, mathematics and philosophy. To address this question one needs a conceptual framework, which is on the one hand rigorous and, on the other hand capacious enough to grasp the diversity of (...) modern theoretical physics. Category theory is here a natural choice. It is not only an independent, well-developed and very advanced mathematical theory, but also a holistic, process-oriented way of thinking. (shrink)

Success in economic life is a result of the interaction of many factors, which in different ways are developed from the individual characteristics of the person, a specific way of thinking and the ability to perceive oneself in the future. At the same time, more and more attention is focused on the influence of the entrepreneurial characteristics of individuals on their career development and career building process. The impact of personal experience on the perception of individual chances on the labour (...) market is also emphasized. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to identify the differences in enterprising attitudes of students of the humanities and students of economics, as well as compare the characteristics of entrepreneurial abilities between both student groups on the basis of empirical research conducted among students at the University of Lodz. (shrink)

This experiment investigated the effect of format (line vs. bar), viewers’ familiarity with variables, and viewers’ graphicacy (graphical literacy) skills on the comprehension of multivariate (three variable) data presented in graphs. Fifty-five undergraduates provided written descriptions of data for a set of 14 line or bar graphs, half of which depicted variables familiar to the population and half of which depicted variables unfamiliar to the population. Participants then took a test of graphicacy skills. As predicted, the format influenced viewers’ interpretations (...) of data. Specifically, viewers were more likely to describe x–y interactions when viewing line graphs than when viewing bar graphs, and they were more likely to describe main effects and “z–y” (the variable in the legend) interactions when viewing bar graphs than when viewing line graphs. Familiarity of data presented and individuals’ graphicacy skills interacted with the influence of graph format. Specifically, viewers were most likely to generate inferences only when they had high graphicacy skills, the data were familiar and thus the information inferred was expected, and the format supported those inferences. Implications for multivariate data display are discussed. (shrink)

The contributions gathered here demonstrate how categorical ontology can provide a basis for linking three important basic sciences: mathematics, physics, and philosophy. Category theory is a new formal ontology that shifts the main focus from objects to processes. The book approaches formal ontology in the original sense put forward by the philosopher Edmund Husserl, namely as a science that deals with entities that can be exemplified in all spheres and domains of reality. It is a dynamic, processual, and non-substantial ontology (...) in which all entities can be treated as transformations, and in which objects are merely the sources and aims of these transformations. Thus, in a rather surprising way, when employed as a formal ontology, category theory can unite seemingly disparate disciplines in contemporary science and the humanities, such as physics, mathematics and philosophy, but also computer and complex systems science. (shrink)

Ghazzālī, 1058-1111; Kīmiyā-yi saʻādat -Criticism and interpretation ; Ghazzālī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, -1126; Savāniḥ -Criticism and interpretation ; Ghazzālī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, -1126; Baḥr al-muḥabbat fī asrār al-muvaddat fītafsīr Sūrah-i Yūsuf -Criticism.

a single life-span. Philosophers, then, do not see more or know more, and they do not see less or know less. They aim to see less detail and more of the abstract. Their details, if you like, are abstractions. Walking on God’s earth as a pedestrian, as a farmer working his fields or as a passer-by, one’s picture of one’s surroundings is every bit as intelligent as that of the pilot riding the sky. The views of the field are radically (...) different, however. One sees only a specific field and in all lively detail: the exact pattern of the land, or even the exact outline of a given leaf, grasshopper, grain of sand even. Acquaintance with minute detail is not without its price: details may stand in the way of conjuring the big picture. It may be difficult to compare whichever field one happens to be in with far off fields, with respect to their size or shape or any other quality. One may wish to inquire if far off fields were already planted, harvested, or even if they exist. A pedestrian may find it hard or even impossible to do so. The pedestrian view contains fine points that the pilot’s map never would, but it does not necessarily contain more information, for it lacks the general context. After all, there are only so many items that one can observe and account for at a single glance, a single map, a single book, a single life-span. (shrink)

We propose a modification of the exhaustivity operator from Fox Presupposition and implicature in compositional semantics, Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp 71–120, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230210752_4) that on top of negating all the Innocently Excludable alternatives affirms all the ‘Innocently Includable’ ones. The main result of supplementing the notion of Innocent Exclusion with that of Innocent Inclusion is that it allows the exhaustivity operator to identify cells in the partition induced by the set of alternatives whenever possible. We argue for this property of (...) ‘cell identification’ based on the simplification of disjunctive antecedents and the effects on free choice that arise as the result of the introduction of universal quantifiers. We further argue for our proposal based on the interaction of only with free choice disjunction. (shrink)

An argument is presented to the effect that the ability to feel or to experience meaning conditions the ability to mean, and is thus essential to our notion of meaning. The experience of meaning is manifested in the "fine shades" of use and behavior. Theses, so obvious in music, constitute understanding music, which makes music understanding so relevant to understanding language. Applying these notions of understanding, feeling, and experience--as well as their explication in terms of comparisons, internal relation, and mastery (...) of technique--to music, where they are so apt and natural, is fertile both for the philosophy of language and the philosophy of music. (edited). (shrink)

It is a well-known fact that mathematics plays a crucial role in physics; in fact, it is virtually impossible to imagine contemporary physics without it. But it is questionable whether mathematical concepts could ever play such a role in psychology or philosophy. In this paper, we set out to examine a rather unobvious example of the application of topology, in the form of the theory of persons proposed by Kurt Lewin in his Principles of Topological Psychology. Our aim is to (...) show that this branch of mathematics can furnish a natural conceptual system for Gestalt psychology, in that it provides effective tools for describing global qualitative aspects of the latter’s object of investigation. We distinguish three possible ways in which mathematics can contribute to this: explanation, explication and metaphor. We hold that all three of these can be usefully characterized as throwing light on their subject matter, and argue that in each case this contrasts with the role of explanations in physics. Mathematics itself, we argue, provides something different from such explanations when applied in the field of psychology, and this is nevertheless still cognitively fruitful. (shrink)

From an ontological point of view, virtuality is generally considered a simulation: i.e. not a case of true being, and never more than an illusory copy, referring in each instance to its real original. It is treated as something imagined — and, phenomenologically speaking, as an intentional object. It is also often characterized as fictive. On the other hand, the virtual world itself is extremely rich, and thanks to new technologies is growing with unbelievable speed, so that it now influences (...) the real world in quite unexpected ways. Thus, it is also sometimes considered real. In this paper, against those who would regard virtuality as fictional or as real, I claim that the virtual world straddles the boundary between these two ways of existence: that it becomes real. I appeal to Roman Ingarden’s existential ontology to show that virtual objects become existentially autonomous, and so can be attributed a form of actuality and causal efficaciousness. I conclude that the existential autonomy and actuality of virtual objects makes them count as real objects, but also means that they undergo a change in their mode of existence. (shrink)

This paper argues that functionalist metasemantic views, such as Conceptual Role Semantics and Interpretivism, face a Euthyphro challenge. The challenge, put roughly, is this: functionalist metasemantic views reverse the order of explanation. According to such views, representational mental states have the contents that they do partly because they play certain roles in our mental lives. According to an intuitive picture of the roles that representational mental states play in our mental lives, however, these states play the roles they do partly (...) because they have the contents that they do. Since explanations—even partial ones—are asymmetric (call this principle ‘the Euthyphro Principle’), we can’t accept both this intuitive picture and a functionalist metasemantics. Hence, we should reject all versions of the latter. This paper can be seen as an attempt to better articulate an intuition that has been suggested in various forms in the literature. The paper proceeds as follows. First, it shows that functionalist metasemantic views imply certain ‘partly because’ claims. Second, it argues for the Euthyphro Principle. Third, it defends the intuitive picture of representational mental states and shows that it implies ‘partly because’ claims that conflict with those made by functionalist metasemantic views. Finally, it considers ways of relaxing the intuitive picture and finds them all wanting. (shrink)

We show that the principle of ω model reflection for Π1n − 1 formulas is equivalent over ACA0 to the scheme of Π1n bar induction. This extends and refines previous results of Friedman and Simpson.

This article argues that the English-language nonsense words “foo,” “bar,” “baz,” and others in a more or less standardized sequence of so-called metasyntactic variables commonly used in computer programming ought to be understood as meta-abstractive, re-representing a linguistically derived code’s abstraction of language and the abstraction of the programming language hierarchy itself, making it legible in a manner that rewards culturally oriented study: for example, of programming as a culture and of cultures of software development or engineering.

This chapter contains sections titled: Playing the Blues Defining the Blues Wittgenstein to the Rescue Good Blues, Bad Blues, Walking Dead Blues Notes.

People’s attitudes towards social norms play a crucial role in understanding group behavior. Norm psychology accounts focus on processes of norm internalization that influence people’s norm following attitudes but pay considerably less attention to social identity and group identification processes. Social identity theory in contrast studies group identity but works with a relatively thin and instrumental notion of social norms. We argue that to best understand both sets of phenomena, it is important to integrate the insights of both approaches. Social (...) status, social identity, and social norms are considered separate phenomena in evolutionary accounts. We discuss assumptions and views that support this separation, and suggest an integrated view of our own. We argue that we should be open to the early origins of human social complexity, and conjecture that the longer that the human social world involved multi-level societies the more probable it is that norm psychology and social identity interacted in rich ways. (shrink)

This article argues that the English-language nonsense words “foo,” “bar,” “baz,” and others in a more or less standardized sequence of so-called metasyntactic variables commonly used in computer programming ought to be understood as meta-abstractive, re-representing a linguistically derived code’s abstraction of language and the abstraction of the programming language hierarchy itself, making it legible in a manner that rewards culturally oriented study: for example, of programming as a culture and of cultures of software development or engineering.

We show how two iterated products of selection functions can both be used in conjunction with systemTto interpret, via the dialectica interpretation and modified realizability, full classical analysis. We also show that one iterated product is equivalent over systemTto Spector’s bar recursion, whereas the other isT-equivalent to modified bar recursion. Modified bar recursion itself is shown to arise directly from the iteration of a different binary product of ‘skewed’ selection functions. Iterations of the dependent binary products are also considered but (...) in all cases are shown to beT-equivalent to the iteration of the simple products. (shrink)

It is a well-known fact that mathematics plays a crucial role in physics; in fact, it is virtually impossible to imagine contemporary physics without it. But it is questionable whether mathematical concepts could ever play such a role in psychology or philosophy. In this paper, we set out to examine a rather unobvious example of the application of topology, in the form of the theory of persons proposed by Kurt Lewin in his Principles of Topological Psychology. Our aim is to (...) show that this branch of mathematics can furnish a natural conceptual system for Gestalt psychology, in that it provides effective tools for describing global qualitative aspects of the latter’s object of investigation. We distinguish three possible ways in which mathematics can contribute to this: explanation, explication and metaphor. We hold that all three of these can be usefully characterized as throwing light on their subject matter, and argue that in each case this contrasts with the role of explanations in physics. Mathematics itself, we argue, provides something different from such explanations when applied in the field of psychology, and this is nevertheless still cognitively fruitful. (shrink)

Naive realism in philosophy of perception is the view that (successful) perception involves a direct relation between perceiving subjects and the world. The naive realist says that your perception of a cat on the mat is a worldly relation which is partially constituted by the cat and the mat; a spatio-temporal chunk of the world is presenting itself to you. Recently, Elijah Chudnoff and John Bengson have independently developed an extension of this view to intellectual experiences, or intuitions, for traditionally (...) a priori domains. We argue that this view, which we call ‘Intuitional Naive Realism’ (INR), will not have the epistemic advantages that Chudnoff and Bengson claim that it does. In perception, but not intuition, there is a deeper explanation of what makes it the case that one experience is constituted by the world while another is not. Whether or not INR is true, then, it does no interesting epistemological work for traditionally a priori domains. (shrink)

This article argues that the English-language nonsense words “foo,” “bar,” “baz,” and others in a more or less standardized sequence of so-called metasyntactic variables commonly used in computer programming ought to be understood as meta-abstractive, re-representing a linguistically derived code’s abstraction of language and the abstraction of the programming language hierarchy itself, making it legible in a manner that rewards culturally oriented study: for example, of programming as a culture and of cultures of software development or engineering.

Virtual objects, such as online shops, the elements that go to make up virtual life in computer games, virtual maps, e-books, avatars, cryptocurrencies, chatbots, holograms, etc., are a phenomenon we now encounter at every turn: they have become a part of our life and our world. Philosophers—and ontologists in particular—have sought to answer the question of what, exactly, they are. They fall into two camps: some, pointing to the chimerical character of virtuality, hold that virtual objects are like dreams, illusions (...) and fictions, while others, citing the real impact of virtuality on our world, take them to be real—an actual part of the real world, just like other real objects. In this article, we defend the thesis that both sides are wrong. Using Roman Ingarden’s phenomenological ontology, we advocate a position according to which a virtual object is a computationally grounded intentional object that has its existential foundation in computational processes, which are compliant with a certain model of computation. We point out that virtuality is framed by some kind of ideal mathematical objects: i.e., mathematical models of computation, which in turn fall, each of them, under their respective ideas. We also refer to the idea of natural computation, which in conjunction with the ontological analysis carried out leads to the thesis that an object can be more or less virtual. (shrink)

In the business ethics literature, many argue that managerial decision making ought to be improved by more robust ethical concerns. Some see the virtue of “practical wisdom” as the key for improved managerial decision making. However, because of the epistemic limitations confronting decision makers in the face of irreducible market complexity, there is a risk that practical wisdom, employed in the context of day‐to‐day managerial decision making, becomes an impractical concept. Nevertheless, if the attempt to incorporate virtue ethics (and its (...) related concepts) into business practices is laudable, if indeed a virtuous life is worth pursuing and practical wisdom plays an essential role toward that end, it is important to attempt to salvage practical wisdom and uncover its appropriate usage. Thus, this article pursues two major ends. First, upon surveying some of the prominent and standard usages of the term, it articulates concerns, rooted in epistemic limitations, about the way that practical wisdom appears in business ethics literature. Second, it offers a new way forward for understanding “practical wisdom.” By contextualizing day‐to‐day, rule‐based managerial decision making within the ethical value of the market order, practical wisdom reappears as the higher‐order capacity to pursue vocations, as morally worthwhile projects, in business. (shrink)

This article argues that the English-language nonsense words “foo,” “bar,” “baz,” and others in a more or less standardized sequence of so-called metasyntactic variables commonly used in computer programming ought to be understood as meta-abstractive, re-representing a linguistically derived code’s abstraction of language and the abstraction of the programming language hierarchy itself, making it legible in a manner that rewards culturally oriented study: for example, of programming as a culture and of cultures of software development or engineering.