From the perspective of praxeological scientific research as well as quantitative methods and on the basis of archival materials, it becomes apparent that it is not in the ›geistesgeschichtliche‹ method, but in the implicit recognition of disciplinary, methodological, and theoretical plurality that the unity of literary studies lies that the DVjs expects from its articles.

Plurality, Conjunction and Events presents a novel theory of plural and conjoined phrases, in an event-based semantic framework. It begins by reviewing options for treating the alternation between `collective' and `distributive' readings of sentences containing plural or conjoined noun phrases, including analyses from both the modern and the premodern literature. It is argued that plural and conjoined noun phrases are unambiguously group-denoting, and that the collective/distributive distinction therefore must be located in the predicates with which these noun phrases combine. (...) More specifically, predicates must have a hidden argument place for events; the collective/distributive distinction may then be represented in the part/whole structure of these events. This allows a natural treatment of `collectivizing' adverbial expressions, and of `pluractional' affixes; it also allows a unified semantics for conjunction, in which conjoined sentences and predicates denote groups of events, much like conjoined noun phrases denote groups of individuals. (shrink)

The evolutionary maintenance of sexual reproduction is a case of explanatory pluralism of central importance to evolutionary biology. I analyze this pluralism from an epistemological perspective. My thesis is that the various explanations of sex are explanatory by virtue of local factors and hence are importantly distinct from one another and cannot be subsumed under a single unifying framework. A critic may argue that philosophical accounts of mechanism can provide just such a framework. I show that this attempt at unification (...) fails because the accounts of sex are not explanatory simply in light of being their being mechanistic; rather they are explanatory because they are particular kinds of mechanisms. The explanatory power of a mechanism is dependent on its epistemological context and the contexts of these mechanisms differ. (shrink)

Innovative modes of collaboration between archaeologists and Indigenous communities are taking shape in a great many contexts, in the process transforming conventional research practice. While critics object that these partnerships cannot but compromise the objectivity of archaeological science, many of the archaeologists involved argue that their research is substantially enriched by them. I counter objections raised by internal critics and crystalized in philosophical terms by Boghossian, disentangling several different kinds of pluralism evident in these projects and offering an analysis of (...) why they are epistemically productive when they succeed. My central thesis is that they illustrate the virtues of epistemic inclusion central to proceduralist accounts of objectivity, but I draw on the resources of feminist standpoint theory to motivate the extension of these social -cognitive norms beyond the confines of the scientific community. (shrink)

Ordinary English contains different forms of quantification over objects. In addition to the usual singular quantification, as in 'There is an apple on the table', there is plural quantification, as in 'There are some apples on the table'. Ever since Frege, formal logic has favored the two singular quantifiers ∀x and ∃x over their plural counterparts ∀xx and ∃xx (to be read as for any things xx and there are some things xx). But in recent decades it has been argued (...) that we have good reason to admit among our primitive logical notions also the plural quantifiers ∀xx and ∃xx. More controversially, it has been argued that the resulting formal system with plural as well as singular quantification qualifies as ‘pure logic’; in particular, that it is universally applicable, ontologically innocent, and perfectly well understood. In addition to being interesting in its own right, this thesis will, if correct, make plural quantification available as an innocent but extremely powerful tool in metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophical logic. For instance, George Boolos has used plural quantification to interpret monadic second-order logic and has argued on this basis that monadic second-order logic qualifies as “pure logic.” Plural quantification has also been used in attempts to defend logicist ideas, to account for set theory, and to eliminate ontological commitments to mathematical objects and complex objects. (shrink)

This book is a defense of modal realism; the thesis that our world is but one of a plurality of worlds, and that the individuals that inhabit our world are only a few out of all the inhabitants of all the worlds. Lewis argues that the philosophical utility of modal realism is a good reason for believing that it is true.

This paper defends 'plural reference', the view that definite plurals refer to several individuals at once, and it explores how the view can account for a range of phenomena that have been discussed in the linguistic literature.

This paper criticizes George Boolos's famous use of plural quantification to argue that monadic second-order logic is pure logic. I deny that plural quantification qualifies as pure logic and express serious misgivings about its alleged ontological innocence. My argument is based on an examination of what is involved in our understanding of the impredicative plural comprehension schema.

PG (Plural Grundgesetze) is a predicative monadic second-order system which exploits the notion of plural quantification and a few Fregean devices, among which a formulation of the infamous Basic Law V. It is shown that second-order Peano arithmetic can be derived in PG. I also investigate the philosophical issue of predicativism connected to PG. In particular, as predicativism about concepts seems rather un-Fregean, I analyse whether there is a way to make predicativism compatible with Frege’s logicism.

Plural predication is a pervasive part of ordinary language. We can say that some people are fifty in number, are surrounding a building, come from many countries, and are classmates. These predicates can be true of some people without being true of any one of them; they are non-distributive predications. However, the apparatus of modern logic does not allow a place for them. Thomas McKay here explores the enrichment of logic with non-distributive plural predication and quantification. His book will be (...) of great interest to philosophers of language, linguists, metaphysicians, and logicians. (shrink)

Plural and conflicting values are often held to be conceptually problematic, threatening the very possibility of ethics, or at least rational ethics. Rejecting this view, Stocker first demonstrates why it is so important to understand the issues raised by plural and conflicting values, focusing on Aristotle's treatment of them. He then shows that plurality and conflict are commonplace and generally unproblematic features of our everyday choice and action, and that they do allow for a sound and rational ethics.

Robert Kilwardby on the Human Soul examines Kilwardby’s role in conciliating Aristotelian and Augustinian views on the soul, soul-body relation, and cognition.

A plurality or plural object is a single object that is also many, and pluralitism is the thesis that there is such an object. This paper argues that pluralitism and closely related theses (e.g., the many-one identity thesis and the composition as identity thesis) violate logic. To do so, it formulates an approach to the logic and semantics of plural constructions that results in plural logic and relates treatments of plural constructions to accounts of natural number. And it gives (...) a critical examination of Frege’s views of numbers and plural constructions, and sketches the view of plural constructions as devices for talking about the many (as such), and an account of natural numbers as properties of a special kind, plural properties. (shrink)

Consider one of several things. Is the one thing necessarily one of the several? This key question in the modal logic of plurals is clarified. Some defenses of an affirmative answer are developed and compared. Various remarks are made about the broader philosophical significance of the question.

I formulate a theory of groups based on pluralities and counterparts: roughly put, a group is a plurality of entities at a time. This theory comes with counterpart-theoretic semantics for modal and temporal sentences about groups. So this theory of groups is akin to the stage theory of material objects: both take the items they analyze to exist at a single time, and both use counterparts to satisfy certain conditions relating to the modal properties, temporal properties, and coincidence properties (...) of those items. (shrink)

What is the relation between some things and the set of these things? Mathematical practice does not provide a univocal answer. On the one hand, it relies on ordinary plural talk, which is implicitly committed to a traditional form of plural logic. On the other hand, mathematical practice favors a liberal view of definitions which entails that traditional plural logic must be restricted. We explore this predicament and develop a “critical” alternative to traditional plural logic.

Beauty and the End of Art shows how a resurgence of interest in beauty and a sense of ending in Western art are challenging us to rethink art, beauty and their relationship. By arguing that Wittgenstein's later work and contemporary theory of perception offer just what we need for a unified approach to art and beauty, Sonia Sedivy provides new answers to these contemporary challenges. These new accounts also provide support for the Wittgensteinian realism and theory of perception that make (...) them possible. -/- Wittgenstein's subtle form of realism explains artworks in terms of norm governed practices that have their own varied constitutive norms and values. Wittgensteinian realism also suggests that diverse beauties become available and compelling in different cultural eras and bring a shared 'higher-order' value into view. With this framework in place, Sedivy argues that perception is a form of engagement with the world that draws on our conceptual capacities. This approach explains how perceptual experience and the perceptible presence of the world are of value, helping to account for the diversity of beauties that are available in different historical contexts and why the many faces of beauty allow us to experience the value of the world's perceptible presence. -/- Carefully examining contemporary debates about art, aesthetics and perception, Beauty and the End of Art presents an original approach. Insights from such diverse thinkers as Immanuel Kant, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Arthur Danto, Alexander Nehamas, Elaine Scarry and Dave Hickey are woven together to reveal how they make good sense if we bring contemporary theory of perception and Wittgensteinian realism into the conversation. (shrink)

One of the explicit objectives of Darwin's Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex was to explain cultural differences seen in human beings. Such an explanation, Darwin believed, was to rest upon an understanding of sexual selection. I examine the role that the beautiful plays within the mechanism of sexual selection as it works to differentiate isolated groups. It is suggested that an examination of the relationship between sexual selection and artificial selection — a relationship mediated by the (...) beautiful — will illuminate key issues of the Descent as well as contemporary debates regarding the relationship between evolution and ethics. The beautiful, originally rooted in sexual selection, can become de-coupled from sexual selection and utilized in some selective process which is conscious. (shrink)

This article departs from a mereological conceptualization of the Daoist metaphysi- cal system in the Daodejing 道德經. I discuss what parthood status applies to dao 道. Whereas it is quite intuitive that you 有—the region of concrete objects—has parthood relationships and compositions (entities made from parts), the other, undif- ferentiated region, dao, poses a considerable problem. This problem can be charac- terized in the following way: (a) dao cannot be characterized as a particular com- position, which entails that it does (...) not include parts. However, (b) dao underpins compositions in you, which entails that it contains compositions or at least parts that make compositions in you. This generates a problem of how compositions are possi- ble with an undifferentiated ontological foundation. I focus on one possible approach to this problem––mereological nihilism, according to which no composition is pos- sible. Assuming nihilism entails dao composed of mereological simples––funda- mental entities, which are not parts. (shrink)

A literary, historical and philosophical discussion of attitudes to blindness by the sighted, and what the blind 'see'.

Connecting several strands of Aristotle's thought, Zoli Filotas sheds light on one of the axioms of Aristotle's ethics and political philosophy - that every community has a ruler - and demonstrates its relevance to his ideas on personal relationships. Aristotle and the Ethics of Difference, Friendship, and Equality reveals a pluralistic theory of rule in Aristotle's thought, tracing it through his corpus and situating it in a discussion among such figures as Gorgias, Xenophon, and Plato. Considering the similarities and differences (...) among various forms of rule, Filotas shows that for Aristotle even virtuous friends must exercise a version of rule akin to that of slaveholders. He also explores why Aristotle distinguishes the hierarchical rule over women from both the mastery of slaves and the political rule exercised by free and equal citizens. In doing so, he argues that natural and social differences among human beings play a complex, and troubling, role in Aristotle's reasoning. Illuminating and thought-provoking, this book reveals Aristotle's ambivalence about political relations and the equal treatment they involve and offers an engaging inquiry into how he understood the common structures of human relationships. (shrink)

There has been very little discussion of the appropriate principles to govern a modal logic of plurals. What debate there has been has accepted a principle I call (Necinc); informally if this is one of those then, necessarily: this is one of those. On this basis Williamson has criticised the Boolosian plural interpretation of monadic second-order logic. I argue against (Necinc), noting that it isn't a theorem of any logic resulting from adding modal axioms to the plural logic PFO+, and (...) showing that the most obvious formal argument in its favour is question begging. I go on to discuss the behaviour of natural language plurals, motivating a case against (Necinc) by developing a case that natural language plural terms are not de jure rigid designators. The paper concludes by developing a model theory for modal PFO-f which does not validate (Necinc). An Appendix discusses (Necinc) in relation to counterpart theory. Of course, it would be a mistake to think that the rules for "multiple pointing" follow automatically from the rules for pointing proper. Max Black—The Elusiveness of Sets In some influential articles during the 1980s George Boolos proposed an interpretation of monadic second-order logic in terms of plural quantification [4, 5]. One objection to this proposal, pressed by Williamson [22, 456-7], focuses on the modal behaviour of plural variables, arguing that the proposed interpretation yields the wrong results in respect of the modal status of atomic predications. In the present paper I will present this objection and argue against it. In the course of developing the argument, I will have cause to consider the under-investigated question of how a logic for plurals should be extended to incorporate modal operators. (shrink)

It will be shown in this article that an ontological approach for some problems related to the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (QM) could emerge from a re-evaluation of the main paradox of early Greek thought: the paradox of Being and non-Being, and the solutions presented to it by Plato and Aristotle. More well known are the derivative paradoxes of Zeno: the paradox of motion and the paradox of the One and the Many. They stem from what was perceived by classical (...) philosophy to be the fundamental enigma for thinking about the world: the seemingly contradictory results that followed from the co-incidence of being and non-being in the world of change and motion as we experience it, and the experience of absolute existence here and now. The most clear expression of both stances can be found, again following classical thought, in the thinking of Heraclitus of Ephesus and Parmenides of Elea. The problem put forward by these paradoxes reduces for both Plato and Aristotle to the possibility of the existence of stable objects as a necessary condition for knowledge. Hence the primarily ontological nature of the solutions they proposed: Plato’s Theory of Forms and Aristotle’s metaphysics and logic. Plato’s and Aristotle’s systems are argued here to do on the ontological level essentially the same: to introduce stability in the world by introducing the notion of a separable, stable object, for which a ‘principle of contradiction’ is valid: an object cannot be and not-be at the same place at the same time. So it becomes possible to forbid contradiction on an epistemological level, and thus to guarantee the certainty of knowledge that seemed to be threatened before. After leaving Aristotelian metaphysics, early modern science had to cope with these problems: it did so by introducing “space” as the seat of stability, and “time” as the theater of motion. But the ontological structure present in this solution remained the same. Therefore the fundamental notion ‘separable system’, related to the notions observation and measurement, themselves related to the modern concepts of space and time, appears to be intrinsically problematic, because it is inextricably connected to classical logic on the ontological level. We see therefore the problems dealt with by quantum logic not as merely formal, and the problem of ‘non-locality’ as related to it, indicating the need to re-think the notions system, entity, as well as the implications of the operation ‘measurement’, which is seen here as an application of classical logic (including its ontological consequences) on the material world. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Habermas’s method of rational reconstruction faces limitations when it comes to analysing newly emerging and contested political practices. As rational reconstruction aims to criticize existing practices by determining their normative meaning as reflected in the participants’ idealizing presuppositions, it reaches its limits where emerging and contested practices make it impossible to identify a shared self-understanding and a single participants’ perspective. Using the example of membership politics, I argue that this is often the case where (...) nationally constituted forms of politics become controversial or are fundamentally questioned. Building on the work of Benhabib and Fraser, I develop an alternative reconstructive method of plural reconstruction, which modifies the basic premises of rational reconstruction, adjusting it to emerging and contested political contexts. (shrink)

It has been argued that quantum mechanics forces us to accept the existence of metaphysical, mind-independent indeterminacy. In this paper we provide an interpretation of the indeterminacy involved in the quantum phenomena in terms of a view that we call Plural Metaphysical Supervaluationism. According to it, quantum indeterminacy is captured in terms of an irreducibly plural relation between the actual world and various misrepresentations of it.

Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley provide a new account of plural logic. They argue that there is such a thing as genuinely plural denotation in logic, and expound a framework of ideas that includes the distinction between distributive and collective predicates, the theory of plural descriptions, multivalued functions, and lists.

Research groups around the world are currently busy trying to invent new life in the laboratory, looking for extraterrestrial life, or making machines increasingly more life-like. In the case of astrobiology, any newly discovered life would likely be very old, but when discovered it would be new to us. In the case of synthetic organic life or life-like machines, humans will have invented life that did not exist before. Together, these endeavors amount to what we call the emerging plurality (...) of lives because we see a future where we are surrounded by, and interact with, life of many different origins, as well as entities that we have not traditionally seen as being alive. In the future these entities will likely possess properties that we so far have only associated with living beings, thereby transcending and perhaps blurring the borders between life and non-life. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that interdisciplinarity (ID) is very diverse. Our contribution is a demonstration that considerable diversity exists also on the level of understandings of ID that researchers working in the same ID field express. Specifically, we analyse qualitatively, building on the method of culture contrast, six interviews with researchers working in computational linguistics and language technology in Estonia. We identify six understandings of ID expressed by the interviewees: centred on an ID method; a disciplinary method in an ID (...) field; an ID way of seeing and thinking; ID education; ID interests; one’s field as naturally ID. We show how understandings of ID are significant for analysing research practice, since they are involved in how researchers form a positive picture of themselves and their colleagues. We also show how an awareness of different understandings of ID is useful for discussing the significance of integration in ID. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 11, November 2019, Page 78-80.

In the past few decades, liberal and democratic thought has been subjected to attacks from the adherents of nationalism, populism, and social radicalism. Much of these attacks involve suspicions about liberalism’s association with the contents and purveyors of structured knowledge, scientific and humanistic alike. I suggest that an examination of the history of liberal beliefs may add to our understanding of what is at stake. Such an examination may reveal how liberal thought in the twentieth century shifted away from its (...) earlier individualist and constitutional position towards the pluralist position that grants a special place to educated knowledge, to experts and professionals, and thus invites allegations of elitism. In particular, I focus on the differences between the ideas that conventional liberal authors elaborated during early modernity and the nineteenth century, on the one hand, and the version of liberal values and the polity based on them that were tacitly adopted during the mid-twentieth century, on the other hand. The examination involves highlighting the common denominators of mid-century authors on right, left, and centre, such as Laski, Popper and Hayek, as well as asking what in their shared worldview could attract allegations of elitism from later generations. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article présente une critique de la position dite de l’ «ironie morale», une position philosophique passablement répandue dans la culture intellectuelle con temporaine et dont la caractéristique centrale est de mettre en question de façon radicale le concept de vérité morale. En m’appuyant sur la lecture de Foucault pro posée par Robert Réal Fillion, je dégage les présuppositions qui sont au cœur de la position en question. Je souligne ensuite ses implications pragmatiques; en acceptant le gambit épistémologique, crucial (...) en l’occurrence, selon lequel toutes les affirmations d’ordre moral sont en dernière analyse des descriptions fausses, nous renonçons en fait à notre capacité de juger d’une manière signifiante qu’un état de choses, une ligne de conduite, etc., est qualitivement supérieur à un autre. La question ici posée est donc la suivante: étant admis que la conception ironique de la moralité implique cette perte considérable, les raisons fournies en sa faveur sont-elles suffisamment bonnes pour étayer une attitude aussi forte et aussi radicale à l’endroit de la moralité et de la vérité? Ma thèse est qu’elles ne le sont pas et qu’en réalité on s’abuse en acceptant pour nécessaire et inévitable cette conception débilitante de la moralité. Les raisons sur la foi desquelles cette conclusion est admise semblent inattaquables à première vue, mais il se révèle à y regarder de plus près qu’elles sont non concluantes et inadéquates, ou qu’elles requièrent à tout le moins une révision sérieuse. (shrink)

It is an issue of already longstanding significance in philosophy of religion after John Hick, that is of differing models of religious consciousness, in the frame of interreligious relations which is tackled in the paper but it is done on the basis of the texts of a concrete philosopher and the narratives around his figure. One of the most eminent Naiyayikas, Udayana, is singled out, as the author of the very renown composition in verse Nyāyakusumaňjali offering arguments for the existence (...) of God in the framework of polemics with the anti-theistic schools and the anti-Buddhist fundamental compendium Ātmatattvaviveka, along with the stories about his very resolute and victorious struggle against Buddhism in the epoch of the latter’s final extirpation from India. The author comes to conclusion that the features of exclusivism, inclusivism and gradualism are detected in his texts and traditions around him and, therefore, any univocal authentication of his attitude to otherwise-minded and those of other faiths is impossible. While participating in the supplantation of Buddhism from India, Udayana displays very resolute exclusivism. When he addresses the educated audience sermonizing his philosophical theism, he uses purely inclusivistic strategy of uncovering implicit knowledge of Īśvara even with those very far removed from the truth. And when he attempts to locate Nyāya on the map of philosophical world-views he uses gradualism as “philosophy of ascent” of the truth from lower to higher levels. As is impossible as well to mark out of his attitudes the so-called pluralism considered by Hick as fundamental advantage of Eastern religions over the Western ones. Comparativistic parallels along with differences and some specification of the main categories of interreligious relations are also offered in the paper. (shrink)

Barry Schein proposes combining a second-order treatment of plurals with DonaldDavidson's suggestion that there are positions for reference to events in ordinary predicates inorder to account for several of the more puzzling features of ...

Put together to honour one of the most influential philosophers in recent times, Mrinal Miri, this book brings together articles on philosophy, politics, literature and society, and updates the status of enquiry in each of these fields. In his philosophical writings, Miri has broken the stranglehold that early training has on academics and written on a range of themes and areas, including analytical philosophy, political philosophy, tribal identity, ethics and, more recently, an abiding engagement with the ideas of Gandhi. The (...) articles in this volume mirror some of Miri’s concerns and philosophical interests, but go beyond the format of a festschrift, as they seek to enhance and restate themes in moral philosophy, ethics, questions of identity, Gandhi’s philosophy, and offer a fresh perspective on themes such as secularism, religion and politics. (shrink)

Put together to honour one of the most influential philosophers in recent times, Mrinal Miri, this book brings together articles on philosophy, politics, literature and society, and updates the status of enquiry in each of these fields. In his philosophical writings, Miri has broken the stranglehold that early training has on academics and written on a range of themes and areas, including analytical philosophy, political philosophy, tribal identity, ethics and, more recently, an abiding engagement with the ideas of Gandhi. The (...) articles in this volume mirror some of Miri’s concerns and philosophical interests, but go beyond the format of a festschrift, as they seek to enhance and restate themes in moral philosophy, ethics, questions of identity, Gandhi’s philosophy, and offer a fresh perspective on themes such as secularism, religion and politics. (shrink)

Drawing on the knowledge of highly experienced academics, this authoritative Handbook explains how ethics can inform the teaching of economics. It includes state-of-the-art moral theory alongside traditional approaches to emphasise why ethics should be an important consideration for economic practitioners. The Handbook of Teaching Ethics to Economists keenly demonstrates how economic analysis can reflect implicit moral judgements. Chapters include guidance on course design and lesson content, providing insight into important topics such as ecological and grassroots economics. They offer pedagogical advice (...) alongside philosophical analyses, setting out teaching guidance and significant case-study profiles on key theories, such as Kantian and Aristotelian ethics. Importantly, they reflect on the potential of economics to cause harm and use ethics to mitigate this possibility. This expansive Handbook will be essential for academics preparing to teach courses relating to ethics and economics. Due to its detailed explanations of the societal role of economics, students of economics and finance will additionally find this Handbook to be incredibly useful. (shrink)

What kind of relationship subsists between an "organism" and a "monas dominans"? In some texts, Leibniz claims that the soul "actuat" the organic body and in the late debate with Stahl he describes the "monas dominans" as a "monas actuatrix". But how does the monas "actualize" the organic body? And what is implied by Leibniz's use of the word "agere" to describe this? Is it also possibile to describe this event in terms of "whole/part" relationship? The aim of this paper (...) is to sketch out the status quaestionis of the topic by discussing some of the most recent studies. More specifically to propose an interpretation of the "monas dominans" as the "nota distinguens" of the whole organism. (shrink)