The emerging field of quantum mereology considers part-whole relations in quantum systems. Entangled quantum systems pose a peculiar problem in the field, since their total states are not reducible to that of their parts. While there exist several established proposals for modelling entangled systems, like monistic holism or relational holism, there is considerable unclarity, which further positions are available. Using the lambda operator and plural logic as formal tools, we review and develop conceivable models and evaluate their consistency and distinctness. (...) The main result is an exhaustive taxonomy of six distinct and precise models that both provide information about the mereological features as well as about the entangled property. The taxonomy is well-suited to serve as the basis for future systematic investigations. (shrink)

This paper provides a short historical and systematic survey of parameters, problems, and proposals concerning the theoretical treatment of indivisible temporal boundaries throughout the ages. A very early trace of thinking about them is identified in Aristophanes’ comedy The Clouds. The approach of logicians in the late Middle Ages is placed in a broad context. Links of this topic to the issues of vagueness, modality, space and quantized time are discussed.

The paper re-evaluates Prior's tenets about indeterminism and relativity from the point of view of the current state of the debate. We first discuss Prior's claims about indeterministic tense logic and about relativity separately and confront them with new technical developments. Then we combine the two topics in a discussion of indeterministic approaches to space-time logics. Finally we show why Prior would not have to "dig his heels in" when it comes to relativity: We point out a way of combining (...) the existential import of the distinction between past, present, and future with a frame-relative notion of the present. (shrink)

The so-called materially valid inferences have come to new prominence through the work of Robert Brandom. This paper introduces a fragment of a logic of concepts that does not reduce concepts to their extensions. Concept logic and ist semantics allow us to represent the conceptual knowledge used in material inferences and thus suggests a way to deal with them.

There is hardly an analogy in the history of philosophy that has been referred to as often as the one that Kant himself draws in the second preface of the Critique of pure reason between Copernicus′ revolution in astronomy and his own revolution in metaphysics; and yet there is to the present day no detailed analysis thereof. The analogy is much more complex than meets the superficial eye: In the first passage , Kant does not draw a simple comparison to (...) Copernicus′ famous heliocentric hypothesis . In the second passage , Kant connects the reference to Copernicus with a reference to Newton by drawing an extremely rich analogy between the law of gravitation and the moral law of freedom. The revolution in metaphysics is related to the revolution in ethics; that famous analogy of Kant really is a Copernican-Newtonian analogy. (shrink)

Die Zeiten, in denen der Leib-Seele-Dualismus als Ansatz der Philosophie des Geistes durch ein herrschendes Dogma als diskussionsunwürdig galt, sind vorbei. Der Dualismus darf wieder diskutiert werden. Er muß diskutiert werden, wenn in diskussionswürdiger Strenge für ihn argumentiert wird – auch wenn das, wie sich zeigen wird, manchmal ein ziemlich technisches Geschäft ist. In diesem Sinne soll im folgenden Richard Swinburnes Versuch behandelt werden, die Existenz einer Seele und damit die Wahrheit des Substanzdualismus aus einigen zunächst recht unspektakulär aussehenden Prämissen (...) mit Hilfe der modernen Modallogik formal zu beweisen. Zugleich sei damit auf eine kleine Debatte aufmerksam gemacht, die sich inzwischen um Swinburnes Argument entwickelt hat. Die Untersuchung führt zu einem doppelten negativen Ergebnis: Zum einen sind Swinburnes Prämissen nicht plausibel, zum anderen ist ein wichtiger Teil seines Beweisversuches formal nicht in Ordnung. Swinburnes Argument ist also weder überzeugend noch gültig . Allerdings ist das nicht auf den ersten Blick ersichtlich, denn Swinburnes Argument ist alles andere als trivial. Eine eingehende Kritik dieses Arguments soll zeigen, daß, selbst wenn der Dualismus wahr sein sollte, er nicht ganz so einleuchtend ist, wie Swinburne meint. (shrink)

This paper discusses Tugendhat's project of a "modern ethics" (moderne Moral) in contrast to "traditional ethics" (traditionelle Moral). We argue that this distinction is not as clear cut as Tugendhat would like it to be, and that Tugendhat's modern ethics shares important features with traditional ethics.

In this article, I want to focus on time and development in Kripke’s “Naming and Necessity” by considering two topics: (1) the evolution of scientific knowledge; (2) the evolution of biographies. In connection with (1) I suggest the introduction of a sentence operator for epistemic possibility and argue that some of Kripke’s strong metaphysical statements are finely counterbalanced by rather “Popperian” epistemological considerations. In connection with (2) I consider the idea of exploiting necessity of origin for a crossworld identity criterion.

In diesem Aufsatz wird im Rahmen des Projekts einer Logik des Lebens die Ebene der Zellen und die Beziehung zwischen Lebewesen und Zellen behandelt. Es werden die Beziehungen "ist Zell-Vorfahre von", "ist Zelle von" und "ist Zelle desselben Lebewesens wie" untersucht. Postulate für Lebewesen werden umgedeutet und auf die Zellebene übertragen. Es werden Möglichkeiten diskutiert, die Vorfahren-Relation für Lebewesen auf der Grundlage der Vorfahren-Relation für Zellen zu definieren. Eine besondere Rolle spielen dabei Einzellflaschenhälse ("one-cell bottlenecks" / "single-cell bottlenecks").

This paper is about one of Arthur Prior’s earliest publications in philosophy, “The Nation and the Individual”. Its aims are to show that Prior made a remarkable contribution to social ontology in the 1930s which should be read with some attention to its historical background, which closely follows John Wisdom as to its theoretical elements, in particular the notion of a “logical construction”, but which is more clearly eliminativist with regard to nations and which is original in terms of rather (...) bold ethical consequences; to interpret Prior’s/Wisdom’s proposal as a promise of reduction by translation and to connect Prior’s/Wisdom’s ideas with John Searle’s recent work on social ontology. (shrink)

Ever since Quine’s „No entity without identity“ questions about identity and ontology have been closely connected. The present article aims at a survey of ontologies of space and space-time by considering questions such as how to identify places across possible worlds, how to identify places through time, how to identify places across possible worlds in space-time, and how to identify Minkowski events across possible worlds. In the course of considering these questions, the classical debate betwen Leibniz and Clarke and Kant’s (...) systematic contribution to this debate, his famous 1768 article on the distinction between left and right, is scrutinized by means of only recently developed three-dimensional products of modal logics. (shrink)

In diesem Text möchte ich den Versuch machen, exemplarisch die große Wirkung einzufangen, die Moritz Schlick über den engen Kreis seiner Fachkollegen hinaus auf die akademische Öffentlichkeit Wiens hatte, und sie mit des von Ludwik Fleck geprägten Begriffs des Denkstils genauer zu beschreiben. War Schlick Werbetexter eines Zeitgeistes? Ein wertvolles Dokument für eine Antwort auf diese Frage sind die Erinnerungen an Moritz Schlick und den Wiener Kreis im 2. Kapitel des autobiographischen Essays "Unmeisterliche Wanderjahre" von Jean Améry. Die Rolle, die (...) Schlick darin spielt, wird hier zum ersten Mal eingehend untersucht. Dies fördert eine überraschende politische Dimension seines Wirkens zu Tage. (shrink)

Der Status des sogenannten syllogismos ex hypotheseôs Hypothese") in Aristoteles' Organon mag als kleines rätselhaftes Detail der Logikgeschichte gelten. Interessant ist dieses Detail, weil man leicht in Versuchung gerät, in ihm eine Schnittstelle zwischen antiker Begriffs- und Aussagenlogik zu erblicken. Im folgenden soll dafür plädiert werden, dass man dieser Versuchung lieber nicht nachgeben sollte. Schließlich soll die Vermutung geäußert werden, dass es näherliegend ist, innerhalb der aristotelischen Argumentationslehre eine ganz andere Identifikation vorzunehmen als die übliche.

In this article, I want to focus on time and development in Kripke’s “Naming and Necessity” by considering two topics: the evolution of scientific knowledge; the evolution of biographies. In connection with I suggest the introduction of a sentence operator for epistemic possibility and argue that some of Kripke’s strong metaphysical statements are finely counterbalanced by rather “Popperian” epistemological considerations. In connection with I consider the idea of exploiting necessity of origin for a crossworld identity criterion.