En este trabajo, inspirados por la mentalidad agustiniana, trataremos el libre albedrío como medio necesario para lograr la felicidad. Tras unas reflexiones generales sobre la mente, el libre albedrío y la felicidad, hablaremos acerca del libre albedrío como requisito para la felicidad y nos centraremos en el libertarismo. Los partidarios de esta corriente sostienen que el libre albedrío existe pero es incompatible con el determinismo, de modo que requiere alguna clase de indeterminismo. Esto trae consigo un problema de inteligibilidad: ¿acaso (...) el indeterminismo no conlleva aleatoriedad y, como consecuencia, carencia de control sobre lo que decidimos y hacemos? Sin embargo, describiremos dos propuestas libertaristas que tratan de dar una explicación inteligible al papel que desempeña el indeterminismo en el ejercicio de nuestro libre albedrío. La primera propuesta, que es ampliamente conocida internacionalmente, es la de Robert Kane. La segunda ha sido defendida por Carlos Moya, el más importante pensador libertarista dentro del ámbito hispano. (shrink)

This essay seeks a philosophical understanding of the nature of kairos that, in turn, discloses the nature of philosophizing. This essay claims that the kairos of philosophy is dialogue, and that dialogue is kairological in two ways: (1) Dialogue is not just a phenomenon that occurs in chronological time but, rather, imposes its own time in order to see how life (or being) itself is disclosed to us; (2) dialogue is kairological because it denotes a moment in which we are (...) pushed into the open, which demands our receptivity and response. Section I explains kairos as “circumstance” in Aristotle, as a required point of view in Heidegger, and as related to the beginning of creation in Schelling. Section II understands dialogue, as the kairos of philosophy, as a crisis—a breaking away from an ordinary understanding of and experience in the world. This destabilizing experience resonates with the untimeliness of philosophizing. (shrink)

This volume, with contributions from scholars in political science, literature, and philosophy, examines the mutual influence of reason and religion at the time of the American Founding.

Research on bilingualism has grown exponentially in recent years. However, the comprehension of speech in noise, given the ubiquity of both bilingualism and noisy environments, has seen only limited focus. Electroencephalogram studies in monolinguals show an increase in alpha power when listening to speech in noise, which, in the theoretical context where alpha power indexes attentional control, is thought to reflect an increase in attentional demands. In the current study, English/French bilinguals with similar second language proficiency and who varied in (...) terms of age of L2 acquisition from 0 to 15 years completed a speech perception in noise task. Participants were required to identify the final word of high and low semantically constrained auditory sentences such as “Stir your coffee with a spoon” vs. “Bob could have known about the spoon” in both of their languages and in both noise and quiet during electrophysiological recording. We examined the effects of language, AoA, semantic constraint, and listening condition on participants’ induced alpha power during speech comprehension. Our results show an increase in alpha power when participants were listening in their L2, suggesting that listening in an L2 requires additional attentional control compared to the first language, particularly early in processing during word identification. Additionally, despite similar proficiency across participants, our results suggest that under difficult processing demands, AoA modulates the amount of attention required to process the second language. (shrink)

Capricci are nonsense drawings that delineate an elusive but inevitable sense behind or, better, within the palpable nonsense of the elementary proposition of a drawing; they are capers on a tightrope stretched between the poles of pathos and the ridiculous. We shall succeed in not falling only if we step forward boldly and know not only what we are doing but also what we are up against in the making of a picture as well as in living in the world. (...) For the world, in its yawning impudence of death and the dance of blind eagerness, ambition, and noisy speechlessness, makes us look to art not, or not necessarily, to escape from the world but rather to learn how to take its measure.... There is a painting ["St. Vincent Ferrer Preaching"] joined to the Passion cycle in S. Polo which demonstrates as well as any paradox ever will how Giandomenico joined piety and irony in his religious art without curtailing the glory of either. He arrives, as it were, at a God-fearing irony. We see St. Vincent Ferrer preaching. He speaks so eloquently, so convincingly in praise of the divine truth, that light shines forth from him and angel's wings grow on his shoulders. Fascinated by the miracle but even more so by the saint's words, his audience sits spellbound at his feet; in the foreground, however, sits a youth, a fop perhaps, gorgeously dressed, with a singular smile on his face, his hand musingly poised to his cheek, who looks at us quizzically. He is the link between us and the miracle. "Can you believe it?" says the smile, and perhaps "I did not—and yes—how can you now not believe it, you need but look - as I did - for there it is!" It is, I think, the face of one who knows about the truth of the absurd and its inner logic. Credo quia absurdum: if it were not so, we could prove the existence of God by feeding data into a computer, and there would be many believers, whose faith, in turn, deserved but little credit. Needless to say, perhaps, the face that so speaks to us in laughter joined to wonder is a self-portrait.1 · 1. In S. Polo the painting of St. Vincent Ferrer Preaching hangs opposite a matching picture of The Finding of the True Cross. There is a beautiful young woman on the right who looks at us beseechingly and with her right hand points at the cross. Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo who looks out of St. Vincent Ferrer Preaching cannot help but see this lady and be affected by her earnest gesture. For a reproduction of the painting, see Maruz, G. D. Tiepolo, plate 22. Philipp P. Fehl is a professor in the department of art and design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has edited Franciscus Junius: The Literature of Classical Art. His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, "Turner's Classicism and the Problem of Periodization in the History of Art," appeared in the Autumn 1976 issue; the present essay was delivered in an earlier version at Stanford University in 1976 and is included in his collection of essays, Art and Mortality. His capricci, Birds with Titles, were exhibited in a one-man show at Kenyon College. (shrink)

Vincent Brümmer distinguishes in this article between three types of theology. While ‘revealed theology’ tends to lead into fideism and isolationism, ‘natural theology’ is in danger of decontextualising religious belief. Trying to steer a middle course Brümmers sets out to demonstrate that a Wittgensteinian ‘philosophical theology’ can be characterised by means of the Anselmian dictum “faith seeking understanding”. Faith is seen as a form of life; religious doctrine as a language game, and “God exists” as a tacit presupposition constitutive (...) of the religious form of life. This is not a fideistic project; neither does it make communication with religious outsiders impossible. Brümmer parts company with D.Z. Phillips when the latter propounds a non-realistic interpretation of the aforementioned tacit presupposition. Philosophical theology should demonstrate the coherence, intelligibility, credibility, relevance and adequacy of religious conceptualisations. Moreover, philosophical theology should fuffill an innovative role. (shrink)

Phillip R. Sloan - Performing the Categories: Eighteenth-Century Generation Theory and the Biological Roots of Kant's A Priori - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.2 229-253 Preforming the Categories: Eighteenth-Century Generation Theory and the Biological Roots of Kant's A Priori Phillip R. Sloan Situating Kant's philosophical project in relation to the natural sciences of his day has been of concern to several scholars from both the history of science and the (...) history of philosophy. Historians of philosophy have displayed an expanded awareness of, and interest in, the importance of the scientific context of the period in which Kant carried out his "Copernican" revolution. Most commonly among philosophers, this interest has been analyzed in relation to Kant's concerns with the foundations of mechanics, matter theory, and the epistemology of Newtonian science, with the central text of interest being the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe. On the other hand, historians of philosophy and historians of science, interested in the issues of the third Critique and in the several papers of Kant dealing with biological and anthropological issues, have emphasized the unified nature of Kant's inquiries into the natural sciences, and the importance of his continued interest in the life and human sciences alongside his interests in the foundations of the physical sciences. The effort to understand the unity of Kant's.. (shrink)

Metaphor has a double life. It can be described as a directional process in which a stable, familiar base domain provides inferential structure to a less clearly specified target. But metaphor is also described as a process of finding commonalities, an inherently symmetric process. In this second view, both concepts may be altered by the metaphorical comparison. Whereas most theories of metaphor capture one of these aspects, we offer a model based on structure-mapping that captures both sides of metaphor processing. (...) This predicts (a) an initial processing stage of symmetric alignment; and (b) a later directional phase in which inferences are projected to the target. To test these claims, we collected comprehensibility judgments for forward (e.g., “A rumor is a virus”) and reversed (“A virus is a rumor”) metaphors at early and late stages of processing, using a deadline procedure. We found an advantage for the forward direction late in processing, but no directional preference early in processing. Implications for metaphor theory are discussed. (shrink)

This paper seeks to show Kant’s importance for the formal distinction between descriptive natural history and a developmental history of nature that entered natural history discussions in the late eighteenth century. It is argued that he developed this distinction initially upon Buffon’s distinctions of ‘abstract’ and ‘physical’ truths, and applied these initially in his distinction of ‘varieties’ from ‘races’ in anthropology. In the 1770s, Kant appears to have given theoretical preference to the ‘history’ of nature [Naturgeschichte] over ‘description’ of nature (...) [Naturbeschreibung]. Following Kant’s confrontations with Johann Herder and Georg Forster in the late 1780s, Kant weakened the epistemic status of the ‘history of nature’ and gave theoretical preference to ‘description of nature’. As a result, Kant’s successors, such as Goethe, could draw from Kant either a justification for a developmental history of nature, or, as this paper argues, a warrant from the critical philosophy for denying the validity of the developmental history of nature as anything more than a ‘regulative’ idea of reason. (shrink)

Research teams have used extra-uterine systems to support premature fetal lambs and to bring them to maturation in a way not previously possible. The researchers have called attention to possible implications of these systems for sustaining premature human fetuses in a similar way. Some commentators have pointed out that perfecting these systems for human fetuses might alter a standard expectation in abortion practices: that the termination of a pregnancy also entails the death of the fetus. With Biobags, it might be (...) possible, some argue, that no woman has the right to expect that outcome if the technology is able to sustain fetal lifeafteran abortion. In order to protect the expectation that the termination of a pregnancy always entails the death of the fetus, Elizabeth Romanis has argued that fetuses sustained in Biobags have a status different than otherwise ‘born’ children. In support of that view, she argues that these ‘gestatelings’ are incapable of independent life. This argument involves a misunderstanding of the gestational support involved, as well as a misapprehension of neonatology practice. Here, we argue that any human fetus sustained in a Biobag would be as ‘independent’ as any other premature infant, and just as ‘born’. Neonatologists would seem to have certain presumptive moral responsibilities toward any human fetus gestating in a Biobag. It remains a separate question whether the perfection and widespread application of Biobags for premature human beings would or should alter the expectation that ending a pregnancy also entails fetal death. (shrink)

People may have open minds on whether a life-extending drug or technology is going to be developed before their sixties and may strongly desire that development. Do they therefore hope that it occurs? Do they hope for it in the substantive sense of “pinning their hopes” on the development? No, they do not. Hoping for a prospect in that sense certainly presupposes having an open mind on whether it will occur and having a desire for its occurrence. But, more crucially, (...) it means investing the prospect with a characteristic, galvanizing, and orientating role: it involves setting aside doubts about the possible nonoccurrence of the prospect and acting accordingly. This article offers a characterization of hope in that substantive sense and argues both that it can be rational and that it is ubiquitous. (shrink)

Composition as identity, as I understand it, is a theory of the composite structure of reality. The theory’s underlying logic is irreducibly plural; its fundamental primitive is a generalized identity relation that takes either plural or singular arguments. Strong versions of the theory that incorporate a generalized version of the indiscernibility of identicals are incompatible with the framework of plural logic, and should be rejected. Weak versions of the theory that are based on the idea that composition is merely analogous (...) to identity are too weak to be interesting, lacking in metaphysical consequence. I defend a moderate version according to which composition is a kind of identity, and argue that the difference is metaphysically substantial, not merely terminological. I then consider whether the notion of generalized identity, though fundamental, can be elucidated in modal terms by reverse engineering Hume’s Dictum. Unfortunately, for realists about possible worlds, such as myself,... (shrink)

In this chapter, I evaluate various conceptions of distance. Of the two most prominent, one takes distance relations to be intrinsic, the other extrinsic. I recommend pluralism: different conceptions can peacefully coexist as long as each holds sway over a distinct region of logical space. But when one asks which conception holds sway at the actual world, one conception stands out. It is the conception of distance embodied in differential geometry, what I call the Gaussian conception. On this conception, all (...) fundamental facts about distance are “local” facts.” But there is a problem: the Gaussian conception, notwithstanding its mathematical and physical credentials, appears metaphysically suspicious on Humean grounds. In the final section, I suggest that the Gaussian conception can be given a sound metaphysical footing in terms of non-standard analysis. (shrink)

Since the publication of the successful animal trials of the Biobag, a prototypical extrauterine support for extremely premature neonates, numerous ethicists have debated the potential implications of such a device. Some have argued that the Biobag represents a natural evolution of traditional newborn intensive care, while others believe that the Biobag would create a new class of being for the patients housed within. Kingma and Finn argued inBioethicsfor making a categorical distinction between fetuses, newborns and ‘gestatelings’ in a Biobag on (...) the basis of a conceptual distinction between ectogenesis versus ectogestation. Applying their arguments to the clinical realities of newborn intensive care, however, demonstrates the inapplicability of their ideas to the practice of medicine. Here, I present three clinical examples of the difficulty and confusion their argument would create for clinicians and offer a possible remedy: namely, discarding the term ‘artificial womb’ in favour of ‘Biobag’. (shrink)

According to David Lewis, a realist about possible worlds must hold that actuality is relative: the worlds are ontologically all on a par; the actual and the merely possible differ, not absolutely, but in how they relate to us. Call this 'Lewisian realism'. The alternative, 'Leibnizian realism', holds that actuality is an absolute property that marks a distinction in ontological status. Lewis presents two arguments against Leibnizian realism. First, he argues that the Leibnizian realist cannot account for the contingency of (...) actuality. Second, he argues that the Leibnizian realist cannot explain why skepticism about one's own actuality is absurd. In this paper, I mount a defense of Leibnizian realism. (shrink)

The article explicates a notion of prudence according to which an agent acts prudently if he acts so as to satisfy not only his present preferences, but his past and future preferences as well. A simplified decision-theoretic framework is developed within which three analyses of prudence are presented and compared. That analysis is defended which can best handle cases in which an agent's present act will affect his future preferences.

Combining historical, political, and textual analysis, the author develops a pattern of cinematic invention and experimentation from neorealism through the ...

If realism about possible worlds is to succeed in eliminating primitive modality, it must provide an 'analysis' of possible world: nonmodal criteria for demarcating one world from another. This David Lewis has done. Lewis holds, roughly, that worlds are maximal unified regions of logical space. So far, so good. But what Lewis means by 'unification' is too narrow, I think, in two different ways. First, for Lewis, all worlds are (almost) 'globally' unified: at any world, (almost) every part is directly (...) linked to (almost) every other part. I hold instead that some worlds are 'locally' unified: at some worlds, parts are directly linked only to "neighboring" parts. Second, for Lewis, each world is (analogically) 'spatio-temporally' unified; every world is 'spatio-temporally' isolated from every other. I hold instead: a world may be unified by nonspatio-temporal relations; every world is 'absolutely' isolated from every other. If I am right, Lewis's conception of logical space is impoverished: perfectly respectable worlds are missing. (shrink)

Modal sentences of the form "every F might be G" and "some F must be G" have a threefold ambiguity. in addition to the familiar readings "de dicto" and "de re", there is a third reading on which they are examples of the "plural de re": they attribute a modal property to the F's plurally in a way that cannot in general be reduced to an attribution of modal properties to the individual F's. The plural "de re" readings of modal (...) sentences cannot be captured within standard quantified modal logic. I consider various strategies for extending standard quantified modal logic so as to provide analyses of the readings in question. I argue that the ambiguity in question is associated with the scope of the general term 'F'; and that plural quantifiers can be introduced for purposes of representing the scope of a general term. Moreover, plural quantifiers provide the only fully adequate solution that keeps within the framework of quantified modal logic. (shrink)

Which mathematical structures are possible, that is, instantiated by the concrete inhabitants of some possible world? Are there worlds with four-dimensional space? With infinite-dimensional space? Whence comes our knowledge of the possibility of structures? In this paper, I develop and defend a principle of plenitude according to which any mathematically natural generalization of possible structure is itself possible. I motivate the principle pragmatically by way of the role that logical possibility plays in our inquiry into the world.

Humeans have a problem with quantities. A core principle of any Humean account of modality is that fundamental entities can freely recombine. But determinate quantities, if fundamental, seem to violate this core principle: determinate quantities belonging to the same determinable necessarily exclude one another. Call this the problem of exclusion. Prominent Humeans have responded in various ways. Wittgenstein, when he resurfaced to philosophy, gave the problem of exclusion as a reason to abandon the logical atomism of the Tractatus with its (...) free recombination of elementary propositions. Armstrong promoted a mereological solution to the problem of exclusion; but his account fails in manifold ways to provide a general solution to the problem. Lewis studiously avoided committing to any one solution, trusting simply that, since Humeanism was true, there had to be some solution. Abandonment; failure; avoidance: we Humeans need to do better. -/- In this paper, I present what I take to be the best account of quantities, tailoring it where needed to meet Humean demands as well as my own prior commitment to quidditism, and my own comparativist inclinations. In short: determinables, not determinates, are the fundamental properties, and freely recombine; determinates arise from the instantiation of determinables in an enhanced world structure; determinate quantities may be local (in a sense to be explained), but they are not intrinsic. Is the account I end up with Humean? Not, unfortunately, as it stands: the problem of exclusion still rears its ugly head. After dismissing a failed attempt at a solution, I consider in the final section the two viable Humean options. One attributes the source of the necessary exclusions to conventional definition, the other attributes it to logic. The first is safe and familiar, but not a response I can accept given my other commitments. The second is more radical and less familiar; but I am convinced it is on the right track. I don’t have space to develop it much here, but I put it out for future research. (shrink)

Darwin's art collection : the prints, drawings, and photographs Darwin collected in the 1860s and 70s -- Illustrations and illusion : strategies Darwin used in illustrating his books -- Art, experience, and observation : Darwin's knowledge of art history and use of illustration in his books -- Darwin and the passions : how passion manuals informed Darwin's research -- Photography and evolution meet : connections between photography and biology in the 1860s -- Method to their madness : how photography in (...) mental hospitals influenced Darwin -- Laughing and crying : Darwin's quest for pictures of expressive babies -- Darwin's eyes and ears : the artists who guided Darwin's search for pictures -- Darwin's art photographer : Oscar Rejlander, Darwin's favorite photographer -- Rejlander's performances : posing for Darwin's pictures -- Alice, eugenics, and the spirit world : the aftermath of Darwin's experiments. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that existing ‘self-representational’ theories of phenomenal consciousness do not adequately address the problem of higher-order misrepresentation. Drawing a page from the phenomenal concepts literature, a novel self-representational account is introduced that does. This is the quotational theory of phenomenal consciousness, according to which the higher-order component of a conscious state is constituted by the quotational component of a quotational phenomenal concept. According to the quotational theory of consciousness, phenomenal concepts help to account for the (...) very nature of phenomenally conscious states. Thus, the paper integrates two largely distinct explanatory projects in the field of consciousness studies: (i) the project of explaining how we think about our phenomenally conscious states, and (ii) the project of explaining what phenomenally conscious states are in the first place. (shrink)

According to the Truthmaker Principle: every truth has a truthmaker. Attempts to come to grips with the Truthmaker Principle played a prominent role in Lewis’s metaphysical writings over the last fifteen years of his career. Although Lewis agreed that the truth of propositions must somehow be ontologically grounded, the Truthmaker Principle was too strong: it conflicted with two of Lewis’s most fundamental metaphysical assumptions, the uniqueness of composition and the Humean denial of necessary connections. Lewis endorsed instead a weaker principle: (...) Truth Supervenes on Being. But towards the end of his career, he changed course, noting that his critique of the Truthmaker Principle rested on essentialist assumptions that he, as a counterpart theorist, does not accept. Once freed from those assumptions, a counterpart theorist can accept the Truthmaker Principle after all without buying into unmereological composition and mysterious necessary connections. (shrink)

The paper offers a running commentary on ps-Archytas’ On Intellect and Sense Perception (composed ca. 80 BCE), with the aim to provide a clear description of Hellenistic/post-Hellenistic Pythagorean epistemology. Through an analysis of the process of knowledge and of the faculties that this involves, ps-Archytas presents an original epistemological theory which, although grounded in Aristotelian and Platonic theories, results in a peculiar Pythagorean criteriology that accounts for the acquisition and production of knowledge, as well as for the specific competences of (...) each cognitive faculty. (shrink)

The most commonly heard proposals for reducing possible worlds to language succumb to a simple cardinality argument: it can be shown that there are more possible worlds than there are linguistic entities provided by the proposal. In this paper, I show how the standard proposals can be generalized in a natural way so as to make better use of the resources available to them, and thereby circumvent the cardinality argument. Once it is seen just what the limitations are on these (...) more general proposals, it can be clearly seen where the real difficulty lies with any attempt to reduce possible worlds to language. Roughly, the difficulty is this: no actual language could have the descriptive resources needed to represent all the ways things might have been. I conclude by arguing that this same difficulty spells doom for any nominalist or conceptualist proposal for reducing possible worlds. (shrink)

Shame is a puzzling emotion. On the one hand, to feel ashamed is to feel badly about oneself; but on the other hand, it also seems to be a response to the way the subject is perceived by other people. So whose standards is the subject worried about falling short of, his own or those of an audience? I begin by arguing that it is the audience's standards that matter, and then present a theory of shame according to which shame (...) is a response to the subject's perception that he is not thought of in the way he intrinsically values himself for being thought of by someone else. Then I go on to suggest some refinements to this basic view. First, the subject of shame is primarily concerned about his audience's attitudes toward him, not what they believe about him. And second, there may be one particular attitude which he values himself for inspiring. There is no very perspicuous term for this attitude, so I call it ‘proto-respect’ – the attitude a social animal directs toward those it regards as valuable allies or bad enemies. (shrink)

This chapter pursues an understanding of what Cicero thought 'Italic' philosophy to be, and proceeds to develop a broader account of how Cicero's version compares with the surviving textual evidence and testimonia from the Hellenistic period of the philosophy of the 'Italic' philosophers, including the Lucanians 'Ocellus', 'Eccelus', and 'Aresas/Aesara', and the Rudian Ennius. Special focus is placed on their theories of cosmology, psychology, and law. Collocation of 'Italic' with 'Pythagorean' philosophy of this era aids in building a more comprehensive (...) view of what Hellenistic Pythagoreanism may have looked like. Uploaded here is the pre-publication version; please email me for the printed version. (shrink)

Various captivity-related health problems have been described as arising in the farming of sea turtles at the Cayman Turtle Farm (CTF). Our study included a desktop review of turtle farming, direct onsite inspection at the CTF, assessment of visual materials and reports provided by investigators from the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), and a limited analysis of water quality for potential pathogens. In particular, we assessed physical and behavioural condition of animals for signs of stress, injury and (...) disease. During the onsite inspection we identified three distinct signs of physical injury and disease, six distinct signs of abnormal and problematic arousal- and discomfort-related behaviour; and three distinct signs of normal quiescence- and comfort-related behaviour. On evaluation of evidence provided by the WSPA we identified ten distinct signs of physical injury and disease, and management- or genetic-related conditions; six distinct signs of abnormal and problematic arousal- and discomfort-related behaviour; and three distinct signs of normal quiescence- and comfort-related behaviour. We conclude that sea turtles at the CTF manifested important physical and behavioural signs that are indicative of problematic management and captivity-related stress, and the limitations of sea turtle adaptive plasticity in captivity. The problematic physical and behavioural signs, in our view, related to the inherent nature of intensive turtle propagation which in particular involves overt- and crypto-overcrowding and understimulating environments, and an associated failure to meet all the physical, biological and innate behavioural needs of sea turtles. (shrink)

Chang-Rae Lee’s 2014 novel On Such a Full Sea uses the genre of speculative fiction to reflect on longstanding healthcare debates in the United States that have recently crystalized around the Affordable Care Act. The novel imagines the political economy of healthcare in a future America devastated by environmental illness. What kind of care is available and to whom? Who provides it? Who pays for it? What about distribution and access? The different healthcare systems governing each of three geo-social zones (...) in Lee's future society represent exaggerated versions of the scenarios participants in the ACA debate claim their opponents’ health policies would produce. The essay argues that Lee’s novel ultimately favors a version of universal government-funded care over a system based on supposed free-market principles, even as the novel also tries to make room for conservative Americans’ fears about the specter of so-called “socialized medicine.” More broadly, the essay contends that the health humanities should devote more attention to literary and artistic engagements with healthcare as a system: a complex set of financial models, public and private institutions, government policies, and actors whose roles range well beyond patient and care provider. (shrink)

When did kosmos come to mean *the* kosmos, in the sense of ‘world-order’? I venture a new answer by examining later evidence often underutilised or dismissed by scholars. Two late doxographical accounts in which Pythagoras is said to be first to call the heavens kosmos (in the anonymous Life of Pythagoras and the fragments of Favorinus) exhibit heurematographical tendencies that place their claims in a dialectic with the early Peripatetics about the first discoverers of the mathematical structure of the universe. (...) Likewise, Xenophon and Plato refer to ‘wise men’ who nominate kosmos as the object of scientific inquiry into nature as a whole and the cosmic ‘communion’ (koinônia) between all living beings, respectively. Again, later testimonies help in identifying the anonymous ‘wise men’ by associating them with the Pythagoreans and, especially, Empedocles. As Horky argues, not only is Empedocles the earliest surviving source to use kosmos to refer to a harmonic ‘world-order’ and to illustrate cosmic ‘communities’ between oppositional pairs, but also his cosmology realises the mutual correspondence of these aspects in the cycle of love and strife. Thus, if later figures posited Pythagoras as the first to refer to the universal ‘world-order’ as the kosmos, they did so because they believed Empedocles to have been a Pythagorean natural scientist, whose combined focus on cosmology and ethics exemplified a distinctively Pythagorean approach to philosophy. (shrink)

Moderate composition as identity holds that there is a generalized identity relation, “being the same portion of reality,” of which composition and numerical identity are distinct species. Composition is a genuine kind of identity; but unlike numerical identity, it fails to satisfy Leibniz’s Law. A composite whole and its parts differ with respect to their numerical properties: the whole is one; the parts (collectively) are many. Moderate composition as identity faces the challenge: how, in the absence of Leibniz’s Law, can (...) one characterize what counts as a genuine kind of identity? This paper explores a promising answer: a genuine kind of identity must satisfy a version of Leibniz’s Law restricted to properties that ascribe qualitative character. Strong composition as identity holds that there is only one identity relation, that it satisfies Leibniz’s Law, and that the parts are identical with the whole that they compose. Strong composition as identity faces the challenge of showing that numerical properties do not provide counterexamples to Leibniz’s Law, and doing so in a way that is compatible with the framework of plural logic that is needed to formulate the theory. The most promising way to do this is to hold that plural logic is fundamental at the level of our representations, but not fundamental at the level of being. At the level of being, portions of reality cannot be characterized as either singular or plural. It turns out that the proposed moderate theory and the proposed strong theory are one and the same. In spite of its many attractions, I reject it. The main issue has to do with whether slice-sensitive emergent properties are possible. I argue that they are, making use both of specific examples and general principles of modal plenitude. I do not claim that my arguments are irresistible. But they cannot be evaded as easily as a related argument against strong composition as identity given by Kris McDaniel. I critically examine McDaniel’s argument to pave the way for my own. (shrink)