This paper examines a variety of contexts in metaphysics which employ a strategy I consider to be suspect. In each of these contexts, ‘The Suspect Strategy’ (TSS) aims at excluding a series of troublesome contexts from a general principle whose truth the philosopher in question wishes to preserve. We see (TSS) implemented with respect to Leibniz’s Law (LL) in the context of Gibbard’s defense of contingent identity, Myro and Gallois’ defense of temporary identity, as well as Terence Parsons’ defense of (...) indeterminate identity. Our example of (TSS) as implemented with respect to the Existence Principle (EP) is Terence Parsons’ defense of non-existent objects. Finally, the coincidence-theorist’s analysis of the problem of constitution as given by Baker, Fine and Yablo, as well as Deutsch’s recent defense of the relative-identity theory provide examples of (TSS) as implemented with respect to restricted indiscernibility principles of the form in (RI). While we of course cannot conclude from our exposure to extant versions of (TSS) that no exclusion-procedure could ever overcome the troubling features we encountered, my remarks in this paper should, I think, at least give us reasons to be skeptical that any strategy which proceeds by means of purely formal (e.g., syntactic) individuation-criteria could achieve its intended purpose; for we have seen that such strategies are in general too coarse-grained to individuate contexts correctly into those that should and those that should not be excluded from the reaches of the general principle under discussion. I suspect, moreover, though I do not argue for this stronger claim, that any strategy which does not proceed by means of purely formal criteria would in some way succumb to the charge of circularity. As a result, I recommend that we should learn to become accustomed to a universe populated with a surprising multitude of numerically distinct yet almost indiscernible objects, such as statues and the lumps of clay that constitute them. Given the large amounts of overlap among these almost indiscernible objects, such a densely populated universe is actually quite easy to live with, but that’s a story for a separate occasion. (shrink)

We give a model-theoretic account for several results regarding sequences of random variables appearing in Berkes and Rosenthal [12]. In order to do this,•We study and compare three notions of convergence of types in a stable theory: logic convergence, i.e., formula by formula, metric convergence (both already well studied) and convergence of canonical bases. In particular, we characterise א0-categorical stable theories in which the last two agree.•We characterise sequences that admit almost indiscernible sub-sequences.•We apply these tools to the (...) theory of atomless random variables (ARV). We characterise types and notions of convergence of types as conditional distributions and weak/strong convergence thereof, and obtain, among other things, the Main Theorem of Berkes and Rosenthal. (shrink)

What I call the argument from almost indiscernibles is an argument, put forward by Robert Adams in 1979, for the possibility of indiscernibles based on the possibility of almost indiscernibles. The argument is that if almost indiscernibles are possible, indiscernibles are possible, but since almost indiscernible are possible, indiscernibles are possible. The argument seems to be an improvement over the mere appeal to intuitions, like that suggested by Max Black, that situations in which there are (...) indiscernibles are possible, for the argument purports to give us a reason that indiscernibles are possible. In this paper I shall assess the argument by examining whether there is support for the conditional premise that if almost indiscernibles are possible, indiscernibles are possible. I shall argue that there are reasons to think that either the premise lacks support or almost indiscernibles are dispensable. If the premise lacks support, the argument does not establish the possibility of almost indiscernibles; if almost indiscernibles are dispensable, the argument is not needed to establish the possibility of indiscernibles. (shrink)

In pages 3005, 3006 and 3019, there is a sentence that begins: “If the premise lacks support, the argument does not establish the possibility of almost indiscernibles…”.

In this article I discuss identity and indiscernibility for person‐stages and persons. Identity through time is not an identity relation (it is a unity relation). Identity is carefully distinguished from persistence. Identity is timeless and necessary. Person‐stages are carefully distinguished from persons. Theories of personal persistence are not theories of identity for persons. I deal not with the persistence of persons through time but with the timeless and necessary identity and indiscernibility of persons. I argue that it is possible that (...) there are non‐identical but indiscernible temporally whole persons. I discuss the biographies of persons and develop the type or token distinction for persons. Twins in symmetrical or eternally recurrent universes are examples of indiscernible persons. I discuss temporal and modal branching, and I end with survival for person‐tokens and eternity for person‐types. (shrink)

The Academics offered an argument from twins or perceptually indiscernible objects and an argument from dreams or madness in support of the indiscernibility thesis: that every true perceptual impression is such that some false impression just like it is possible. I claim that these arguments, unlike modern sceptical arguments, are supposed to establish mere counterfactual rather than epistemic possibilities. They purport to show that for any true perceptual impression j, there are a number of alternative causal histories j (...) might have had which would not have resulted in any change in the way in which j represents its object. (shrink)

After sketching some aspects of truthmaker doctrines and "truthmaker projects", and canvassing some prima facie objections to the latter, I turn to an issue which might seem to involve confusion about the nature of character of truthmakers if such there be, viz for statements of identity and (specially) distinctness. The real issue here is versions of the Identity of Indiscernibles. I discuss ways of discriminating versions, which are almost certainly true but trivial, which almost certainly substantive but false, (...) and explore an interesting intermediate possibility which might if developed yield a plausibly true yet not-entirely-trivial version of the doctrine: it is equivalent to what I call "the Denial of Bare Distinctness". (shrink)

We associate with every first order structure [Formula: see text] a family of invariant, locally Noetherian topologies. The structure is almost determined by the topologies, and properties of the structure are reflected by topological properties. We study these topologies in particular for stable structures. In nice cases, we get a behaviour similar to the Zariski topology in algebraically closed fields.

Michael Scriven’s (1959) example of identical twins (who are said to be equal in fitness but unequal in their reproductive success) has been used by many philosophers of biology to discuss how fitness should be defined, how selection should be distinguished from drift, and how the environment in which a selection process occurs should be conceptualized. Here it is argued that evolutionary theory has no commitment, one way or the other, as to whether the twins are equally fit. (...) This is because the theory of natural selection is fundamentally about the fitnesses of traits, not the fitnesses of token individuals. A plausible philosophical thesis about supervenience entails that the twins are equally fit if they live in identical environments, but evolutionary biology is not committed to the thesis that the twins live in identical environments. Evolutionary theory is right to focus on traits, rather than on token individuals, because the fitnesses of token organisms (as opposed to their actual survivorship and degree of reproductive success) are almost always unknowable. This point has ramifications for the question of how Darwin’s theory of evolution and R. A. Fisher’s are conceptually different. (shrink)

In his well-known 1952 dialogue Max Black describes a counterexample to the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII). The counterexample is a world containing nothing but two purportedly indiscernible iron spheres. Reflecting on Black's example, Robert Adams uses the possibility of a world containing two almost indiscernible spheres to argue for the possibility of the indiscernible spheres world. One of Adams's almost indiscernible spheres has a small impurity, and, Adams writes, "Surely... the absence (...) of the impurity would not make such a universe impossible." The appeal to "surely" constitutes a gap in Adams's argument. This paper bridges the gap with a premise that exploits the counterfactual conditional and the related notion of causal independence. The paper then argues that causal independence bears in a similar way on an issue Nathan Salmon raises concerning Kripke's argument for the Essentiality of Origins. (shrink)

We examine combinatorial aspects and consistency strength properties of almost Ramsey cardinals. Without the Axiom of Choice, successor cardinals may be almost Ramsey. From fairly mild supercompactness assumptions, we construct a model of ZF + ${\neg {\rm AC}_\omega}$ in which every infinite cardinal is almost Ramsey. Core model arguments show that strong assumptions are necessary. Without successors of singular cardinals, we can weaken this to an equiconsistency of the following theories: “ZFC + There is a proper class (...) of regular almost Ramsey cardinals”, and “ZF + DC + All infinite cardinals except possibly successors of singular cardinals are almost Ramsey”. (shrink)

SummaryA detailed database on the genealogy of the Makarska region in Croatia has been created. The twinning rate for three villages in the region were analysed over the period 1870 to 1940 and factors such as mother's age and birth order are discussed. Of the three villages, Podgora was identified as having the highest twinning rate and consequently records for Podgora were examined further to include almost 400 years of historical data.

In this paper, I explore several versions of the bundle theory and the substratum theory and compare them, with the surprising result that it seems to be true that they are equivalent (in a sense of 'equivalent' to be specified). In order to see whether this is correct or not, I go through several steps : first, I examine different versions of the bundle theory with tropes and compare them to the substratum theory with tropes by going through various standard (...) objections and arguing for a tu quoque in all cases. Emphasizing the theoretical role of the substratum and of the relation of compresence, I defend the claim that these views are equivalent for all theoretical purposes. I then examine two different versions of the bundle theory with universals, and show that one of them is, here again, equivalent to the substratum theory with universals, by examining how both views face the famous objection from Identity of Indiscernibles in a completely parallel way. It is only the second, quite extreme and puzzling, version of the bundle theory with universals that is not be equivalent to any other view; and the diagnosis of why this is so will show just how unpalatable the view is. Similarly, only a not-so-palatable version of the substratum theory is genuinely different from the other views; and here again it's precisely what makes it different that makes it less appealing. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Jiri Benovsky argues that the bundle theory and the substratum theory, traditionally regarded as ‘deadly enemies’ in the metaphysics literature, are in fact ‘twin brothers’. That is, they turn out to be ‘equivalent for all theoretical purposes’ upon analysis. The only exception, according to Benovsky, is a particular version of the bundle theory whose distinguishing features render unappealing. In the present reply article, I critically analyse these undoubtedly relevant claims, and reject them.

Europe is a melting pot of diverse cultures, civilizations and amalgamation of various ethnicities. It is a land which faced many catastrophes, high intensity conflicts and wars. Two world wars have been fought on this land. Almost all the major nations participated directly or indirectly at massive scale. Franco-German axis is a term to explain the relations of both the countries in the context of their mutual cooperation and their significant role in contemporary political affairs of Europe. Post war (...) era 1945, congenial atmosphere of synchronization between both the countries replaced three century old French- German hostility. This tandem performed active role not only in the politically integrated European nation but also they played a vital role in the formation of single currency euro as well. Comparatively their functioning is becoming slow but they are still necessary for future of Europe. It is a general impression that the FrancoGerman alliance is facing critical phase, or in other words they are no longer being capable to act as the twin motor of European integration but Euro pe do not have an appropriate replacement. As far as the future of Franco-German relationship or leadership is concerned it acted necessary of European Union’s twin motor in the past but in recent years national interest became more supreme than the interest of European Union as a whole. (shrink)

Aquinas, Ockham, and Burdan all claim that a person can be numerically identical over time, despite changes in size, shape, and color. How can we reconcile this with the Indiscernibility of Identicals, the principle that numerical identity implies indiscernibility across time? Almost all contemporary metaphysicians regard the Indiscernibility of Identicals as axiomatic. But I will argue that Aquinas, Ockham, and Burdan would reject it, perhaps in favor of a principle restricted to indiscernibility at a time.

The twin theories of late 20th-century societal constellations, functionalist modernization theory and neo-Marxist theories of late capitalism, fell into crisis and disrepute during the 1970s and 1980s. Social theory responded to such double crisis of the theorizing of `capitalism' and of `modernization' by embracing the term `modernity', a term that, almost unknown in social thought before the end of the 1970s, appeared to provide a new common ground in terms of representing the present societal constellation. At the same time, (...) however, the move towards such a common reference term appeared to entail the loss of all possibility of critique. Traditionally, critique used to embrace modernity (even without using the term) and to denounce capitalism because of its inability to complete the project of modernity - or rather: because of the obstacles it posed to such completion. To use the term `modernity' for a contemporary reality that was without doubt capitalist as well, made such a conceptual strategy impossible. Instead of returning to standard theories of capitalism, however, it is argued here that both capitalism and critique need to be reconceptualized in the light of their relation to modernity if the both intellectual and sociopolitical transformations since the 1970s are to be taken seriously. (shrink)

Almost anyone seriously interested in decision theory will name John von Neumann's (1928) Minimax Theorem as its foundation, whereas Utility and Rationality are imagined to be the twin towers on which the theory rests. Yet, experimental results and real-life observations seldom support that expectation. Over two centuries ago, Hume (1739–40/1978) put his finger on the discrepancy. “Reason,” he wrote “is, and ought to be the slave of passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and (...) obey them.” In other words, effective means to reach specific goals can be prescribed, but not the goals. A wide range of experimental results and daily life behavior support this dictum. (shrink)

Until recently, an almost perfect parallelism seemed to hold between theories of identity through time and across possible worlds,as every account in the temporal case(endurantism,perdurantism, exdurantism) was mirrored by a twin account in the modal case (trans-world identity, identity-via-parts, identity-via-counterparts). Nevertheless, in the recent literature, this parallelism has been broken because of the implementation in the debate of the relation of location. In particular, endurantism has been subject to a more in-depth analysis, and different versions of it, corresponding to (...) different ways an entity can be located in time, emerged. In this article, we provide a precise map of the conceptions at stake, complete the debate by introducing a version of endurantism not yet considered in the debate — we call transcendentism — and show that it allows us to provide an effective interpretation of the relation of trans-world identity and an intuitive solution in the temporal case. (shrink)

Sacrificing one's own interests in order to serve another is, in general, supposed to be a good thing, an example of altruism, the hallmark of morality, and something we should commend to (but not always require of) the entirely-too-selfish human beings of our society. But let me recount a story that I hope will persuade the reader to start questioning this conventional philosophical wisdom. Last year, a friend of mine was talking with me about a mutual acquaintance whose two sons (...) were in the same nursery school as our sons. This woman, whom I will call Terry, had been pregnant with twins, but one of the twins had died during the fourth month of pregnancy, and the other twin had just been born prematurely at six months with a host of medical problems. We were discussing how stressful this woman's life had been while she was pregnant: she was a housewife, and her two boys, aged three and five, were lively, challenging, often unruly--a real handful to raise. Her husband worked long hours in a law firm, so the vast majority of the childcare and household chores fell on her shoulders. "You could see that she was exhausted by end of the first trimester," I maintained, "because her eyes were tired, and her cheeks were sunken--she looked almost like a cadaver." My friend agreed. I went on to blame her exhaustion on the fact that she had to do too much during a pregnancy that anyone would have found difficuIt. "I don't understand her husband," I maintained. "Surely he could how badly she looked. If he had concern for his future children, why didn't he do something to help her so that the pregnancy had a chance of going better? And if he loved her, why didn't he cut down his hours so that he could help out at home? Surely he could see just by looking at her that she was in trouble," My friend said nothing at the time, but after a week she called me, and told me that my criticism of this woman's husband had bothered her all week. "You're wrong about Terry's husband not caring enough about her, They have a good marriage," she insisted, and then she continued: "You know, you're not like us, We accept the fact that we should do most of the childcare and housework.. (shrink)

A is for Alice and astronomers arguing about acceleration -- B is for Bernard's body-exchange machine -- C is for the Catholic cannibal -- D is for Maxwell's demon -- E is for evolution (and an embarrassing problem with it) -- F is for the forms lost forever to the prisoners of the cave -- G is for Galileo's gravitational balls -- H is for Hume's shades -- I is for the identity of indiscernibles -- J is for Henri Poincaré (...) and alternative geometries -- K is for the Kritik and Kant's kind of thought experiments -- L is for Lucretius' spear -- M is for Mach's motionless chain -- N is for Newton's bucket -- O is for Olbers' paradox -- P is for Parfit's person -- Q is for the questions raised by thought experiments quotidiennes -- R is for the rule-ruled room -- S is for Salvatius' ship, sailing along its own space-time line -- T is for the time-travelling twins -- U is for the universe, and Einstein's attempts to understand it -- V is for the vexed case of the violinist -- W is for Wittgenstein's beetle -- X is for xenophanes and thinking by examples -- Y is for counterfactuals and a backwards approach to history -- Z is for Zeno and the mysteries of infinity. (shrink)

The notorious problem of the many makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that almost coincident with any ordinary object are a vast number of near-indiscernible objects. As Unger was aware in his presentation of the problem, this abundance raises a concern as to how—and even whether—we achieve singular thought about ordinary objects. This paper presents, clarifies, and defends a view which reconciles a plenitudinous conception of ordinary objects with our having singular thoughts about those objects. Indeed, this (...) strategy has independent application in the case of singular thoughts about other putatively ‘abundant’ phenomena, such as locations or lumps of matter. In essence, singular thought-vehicles need not express just one singular content. If there are many objects, one’s singular thought-vehicle may express as many thought-contents. (shrink)

A common concern with respect to cloning is based on the belief that cloning produces identical individuals. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what type of identity-relation cloning involves. The concept "identity" is ambiguous, and the statement that cloning produces "identical" individuals is not meaningful unless the notion of identity is clarified. This paper distinguishes between numerical and qualitative; relational and intrinsic; logical and empirical identity, and discusses the empirical individuation of clones in terms of genetics, physiology, perception, cognition and (...) personality. I argue that the only relation of identity cloning involves is qualitative, intrinsic and empirical: genetic indiscernibility , unlikely to include identity under other aspects mentioned. A popular argument against cloning claims our "right" to a "unique identity". This objection either implies (absurdly) the right not to be an identical twin, or assumes (incorrectly) that cloning involves identity other than genetic. Either way, the argument is untenable. (shrink)

Arthur Danto’s recent book, Andy Warhol, leads the reader through the story of the iconic American’s artistic life highlighted by a philosophical commentary, a commentary that merges Danto’s aesthetic theory with the artist himself. Inspired by Warhol’s Brillo Box installation, art that in Danto’s eyes was indiscernible from the everyday boxes it represented, Danto developed a theory that is able to differentiate art from non-art by employing the body of conceptual art theory manifest in what he termed the ‘artworld’. (...) The strength of Danto’s theory is found in its ability to explain the art of the post-modern era. His body of work weaves philosophy, art history and art criticism together, merging his aesthetic philosophy with his extensive knowledge of the world of art. Danto’s essentialist theory of embodied meaning provides him with a critical tool that succeeds in explaining the currents of contemporary art, a task that many great thinkers of art history were unable to do. If Warhol inspired Danto to create a philosophy of art, it is appropriate that Danto write a tribute to Warhol that traces how Warhol brought philosophy into art. Danto’s account of ‘Warhol as philosopher’ positions him as a pivotal figure in the history of twentieth-century art, effecting a sea change in how art was made and viewed. Warhol achieved this by conceiving of works that embodied the answers to a series of philosophical puzzles surrounding the nature of art. Warhol, as Danto describes him, manifests himself in his art because he had transformed himself, in a way, into an icon of the times. This pragmatist notion that art should undermine the dichotomies that exist between art and life would, by some accounts, position Warhol to be the philosopher that Danto claims him to be, for he dissolved the philosophical questions posted by late modern aesthetic thinkers by creating art that imploded the accepted notions of art at the time. One of Danto’s greatest contributions to aesthetics is his theory’s ability to distinguish art from non-art, recognizing that it is the artist’s intention that levels the sublimity of art into the commonplace, thereby transfiguring the everyday. However, acknowledging this achievement, I argue that Warhol’s philosophical contribution actually manifests itself in a manner different from that proposed by Danto. Danto maintains that the internal drive of art leads to the unfolding of art theoretical concepts that ineluctably shift the terrain of world of art. I would agree with Danto that Warhol, almost as Hegel viewed Napoleon as Geist on a horse, pushed forward the boundaries of art through the actualization of art’s internal drive. But I would disagree that the conceptual nature of art is one that unfolds merely as a relation of concepts that artists trace through a connection to the meaning of history they forge using their unmediated grasp of style. Rather, I would argue that the artist’s style is not bound so narrowly to the meanings they express. Through their aesthetic articulations, artists initiate a process of social interaction. This process employs the philosophical logic which Danto attributes to Warhol indirectly, and through it, it is able to transfigure the vocabulary of art—the concepts of the artworld—by superseding the language of modernism. Warhol’s philosophical contribution is seen in his mastery of both the medium of art and the underlying logic of the medium’s expression and reception. (shrink)

Externalism is the thesis that the contents of intentional states and speech acts are not determined by the way the subjects of those states or acts are internally. It is a widely accepted but not entirely uncontroversial thesis. Among such theses in philosophy, externalism is notable for owing the assent it commands almost entirely to thought experiments, especially to variants of Hilary Putnam's famous Twin Earth scenario. This paper presents a thought experiment-free argument for externalism. It shows that externalism (...) is a deductive consequence of a pair of widely accepted principles whose relevance to the issue has hitherto gone unnoticed. (shrink)

In his seminal work, McTaggart :457–484, 1908; The nature of existence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1927) dismissed the possibility of understanding the B-Relations as irreducibly temporal relations, and with it dismissing the B-Theory of time, which assumes the reality of irreducible B-relations. Instead, he thought they were mere constructions from irreducible A-determinations and timeless ordering relations. However, since, philosophers have almost universally dismissed his dismissal of irreducible B-relations. This paper argues that McTaggart was correct to dismiss the possibility of (...) B-relations, and that would be B-theorists should be C-theorists and its concomitant commitment to the unreality of time. I do this by first elaborating C-Theory, noting that B-relations appear indiscernible from C-relations on close examination. This establishes an onus on B-theorists to distinguish B-relations from C-relations by elaborating the distinctively temporal character of the former. I then present a problem for the possibility of accommodating temporal character in B-relations. Following this, I question from whence derives our sense of the temporal character that purportedly resides in the irreducible B-relations. Finally, I extend the challenge against irreducible B-relations to a series of irreducible abstract temporal relations—so called Ersatz-B-Relations—modelled on them. (shrink)

Thought experiments are windows into the fundamental nature of things. They can demonstrate a point, entertain, illustrate a puzzle, lay bare a contradiction in thought, and move us to provide further clarification. Some of the best science fiction tales are in fact long versions of philosophical thought experiments. From Arthur C. Clark's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which explored the twin ideas of intelligent design and artificial intelligence gone awry, to the Matrix films, which were partly inspired by Plato's Cave, (...) philosophy and science fiction are converging upon a set of shared themes and questions. Indeed, there is almost no end to the list of issues in science fiction that are philosophically intriguing. The chapter also provides an outline of the content available in other chapters of the book. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a work that bears comparison to Mahāyāna Buddhist literature in more ways than one. Nietzsche was turning against the Schopenhauerian doctrine of the denial of the will, which he read as symptomatic of a larger nihilistic trend swallowing up almost all existing spiritual culture, while the Mahāyāna was turning against the world-denying implications of the doctrine of Nirvana as the ending of desire and samsara that was so central to early Buddhism. In this (...) article, I explore one move made in both of these cases: the move from total negation to total affirmation seen as a convergence of these two apparently opposed extremes. Of central interest here is the “identity of indiscernibles” that applies structurally to these two opposite extremes, “willing nothing” and “willing everything,” with the latter effected only through “willing one thing intensely,” at once excluding and including all other things, and its liberative potential. (shrink)

The writer of the below thought he would do something clever and out of the way. I tried to dissuade him, but without success. I told him that readers would prefer a more sober scholarly approach. I tried to appeal to his other work and his systematic proclivities. Why not try like Schelling to produce a system of freedom? He looked at me queerly. I was a bit taken aback when he burst out laughing in my face, and blurted out: (...) “You must not have read Dostoevski’s Notes from the Underground!” I’m afraid he has spent too much time with the prodigals he has written about. He muttered something almost inaudible about Dostoevski’s double, but I said nothing.If I am not mistaken these pieces have to do with four great and very influential philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche. To help the reader I have put the abbreviation K, H, M and N before each ‘monologue.’ In fact, I am not sure if the writer was mocking me: as if my sober efforts to talk of these four thinkers was being doubled with voices like and unlike; voices as if spoken from within, and yet said to have come from beyond; ego and alter; an odd twin of my scholastic sobriety. (shrink)

In his seminal work, McTaggart :457–484, 1908; The nature of existence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1927) dismissed the possibility of understanding the B-Relations as irreducibly temporal relations, and with it dismissing the B-Theory of time, which assumes the reality of irreducible B-relations. Instead, he thought they were mere constructions from irreducible A-determinations and timeless ordering relations. However, since, philosophers have almost universally dismissed his dismissal of irreducible B-relations. This paper argues that McTaggart was correct to dismiss the possibility of (...) B-relations, and that would be B-theorists should be C-theorists and its concomitant commitment to the unreality of time. I do this by first elaborating C-Theory, noting that B-relations appear indiscernible from C-relations on close examination. This establishes an onus on B-theorists to distinguish B-relations from C-relations by elaborating the distinctively temporal character of the former. I then present a problem for the possibility of accommodating temporal character in B-relations. Following this, I question from whence derives our sense of the temporal character that purportedly resides in the irreducible B-relations. Finally, I extend the challenge against irreducible B-relations to a series of irreducible abstract temporal relations—so called Ersatz-B-Relations—modelled on them. (shrink)

Following Freud’s analysis of the fragile line between the uncanny double and its comic redoubling, I identify the doubling of the double found in critical moments of Hegelian dialectic as producing a kind of comic effect. It almost goes without saying that two provides greater pleasure than one, the loneliest number. Many also find two to be preferable to three, the tired trope of dialectic as a teleological waltz. Two seems to offer lightness, relieving one from her loneliness and (...) lacking the complications of a third who comes in between. And yet, we learn through Marx and Freud that the double (even the double of tragedy and farce) borders on something closer to horror than comedy. -/- In the following, I would like to explore why four is funnier than two in my staging of dialectic as the doubling of the double or, to borrow a movie title from Laurel and Hardy, “Twice Two” (Roach et al. 1933a). I will begin by exploring the formulations of the double in the form of a pair of opposites and in the form of a pair of twins. The literary tropes of the double as the odd couple, on one side, and the twins, on the other, appear to serve very different narrative functions, which incite different kinds of affective responses from the audience. However, the form of the opposed double sometimes conceals the realization that the empty or fragmented content of the first is only reduplicated in the second. The “straight man” of the odd couple cannot see himself in his counterpart “the comic.” The redoubling of the double, however, forces not only the audience, but the original double on stage to confront what was already present, but unrealized, from the beginning. To illustrate this redoubling of the double within the opening of Hegel’s Science of Logic, I consider two short films by Laurel and Hardy in which the comic duo redoubles itself. The formula (2 x 2) produces a comic excess through the dialectical redoubling of there uncanny double. (shrink)

Arthur Danto's theory of art contains a theological way of thinking about indiscernible realities that have been the subject of theological dispute for almost two millennia. This long tradition raises new questions for how to understand that theory. Transfiguration – metamorphosis – necessarily involves a change at some point in appearance or in what Danto treats as aesthetic properties inessential to the being of art. Transubstantiation means an ontological change that excludes a priori any perceptible difference. Danto often (...) insists on this very particular aspect when he explains the relationship between artworks and commonplace objects: a non‐art object can look exactly like an artwork. In the Catholic tradition, transubstantiation can occur only if those performing the sacrament act faithfully and in conformity to a tradition. Danto's theory is understand better by reference to transubstantiation than to transfiguration. (shrink)

The writer of the below thought he would do something clever and out of the way. I tried to dissuade him, but without success. I told him that readers would prefer a more sober scholarly approach. I tried to appeal to his other work and his systematic proclivities. Why not try like Schelling to produce a system of freedom? He looked at me queerly. I was a bit taken aback when he burst out laughing in my face, and blurted out: (...) “You must not have read Dostoevski’s Notes from the Underground!” I’m afraid he has spent too much time with the prodigals he has written about. He muttered something almost inaudible about Dostoevski’s double, but I said nothing.If I am not mistaken these pieces have to do with four great and very influential philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche. To help the reader I have put the abbreviation K, H, M and N before each ‘monologue.’ In fact, I am not sure if the writer was mocking me: as if my sober efforts to talk of these four thinkers was being doubled with voices like and unlike; voices as if spoken from within, and yet said to have come from beyond; ego and alter; an odd twin of my scholastic sobriety. (shrink)

The WIMP (weakly interacting dark matter) is currently the leading candidate for what is thought to be dark matter, the cosmological material claimed to make up almost 99% of the matter of the universe and which is indiscernible by means of electromagnetic radiation. There are many research groups dedicated to experimentally isolating WIMPs, and in this paper we describe the work of three of these groups, the Saclay group, DAMA and UKDM. This exploration into the recent history of (...) astroparticle physics serves to illuminate two philosophical issues. First, is confirmatory evidence more compelling if it coordinates results gleaned from independent experimental investigations? And secondly, in justifying experimental conclusions, how strong must this justification be? Are the high standards set by philosophers, in the spirit of Descartes, relevant to experimental research? (shrink)

In abstract algebraic logic, the general study of propositional non-classical logics has been traditionally based on the abstraction of the Lindenbaum-Tarski process. In this process one considers the Leibniz relation of indiscernible formulae. Such approach has resulted in a classification of logics partly based on generalizations of equivalence connectives: the Leibniz hierarchy. This paper performs an analogous abstract study of non-classical logics based on the kind of generalized implication connectives they possess. It yields a new classification of logics expanding (...) Leibniz hierarchy: the hierarchy of implicational logics. In this framework the notion of implicational semilinear logic can be naturally introduced as a property of the implication, namely a logic L is an implicational semilinear logic iff it has an implication such that L is complete w.r.t. the matrices where the implication induces a linear order, a property which is typically satisfied by well-known systems of fuzzy logic. The hierarchy of implicational logics is then restricted to the semilinear case obtaining a classification of implicational semilinear logics that encompasses almost all the known examples of fuzzy logics and suggests new directions for research in the field. (shrink)

SCIENTISTS HAVE DISCOVERED that water is H2O. Water is H2O is true. But is it a necessary truth? In other words, is it true in all possible worlds? Some people think it is. For example Hilary Putnam, in his well-known Twin Earth argument, concludes that "water is H2O" is necessarily true; thus a liquid which phenomenally resembles H2O and fits the description of water in almost all aspects, but has the chemical formula XYZ, cannot be water. Saul Kripke has (...) made a similar claim about the necessary identity between water and H2O. Because this type of truth is based on empirical discoveries, Kripke calls truths of this sort "necessary a posteriori." The thesis shared by Putnam and Kripke has two premises: a realist view that natural kinds exist independently of human cognition, and a theory of direct reference of natural kind terms. Opposing the view that natural kind terms pick out objects through descriptions, Putnam and Kripke hold that natural kind terms pick out natural kinds in the world in a direct way. Based on these two premises, they argue that, if two natural kind terms, A and B, designate the same thing in the world, "A = B" expresses a necessary identity. (shrink)

For more than a decade, the United States has been fighting wars so far from the public eye as to risk being forgotten, the struggles and sacrifices of its volunteer soldiers almost ignored. Photographer and writer Ashley Gilbertson has been working to prevent that. His dramatic photographs of the Iraq war for the New York Times and his book Whiskey Tango Foxtrot took readers into the mayhem of Baghdad, Ramadi, Samarra, and Fallujah. But with Bedrooms of the Fallen, Gilbertson (...) reminds us that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have also reached deep into homes far from the noise of battle, down quiet streets and country roads—the homes of family and friends who bear their grief out of view. The book’s wide-format black-and-white images depict the bedrooms of forty fallen soldiers—the equivalent of a single platoon—from the United States, Canada, and several European nations. Left intact by families of the deceased, the bedrooms are a heartbreaking reminder of lives cut short: we see high school diplomas and pictures from prom, sports medals and souvenirs, and markers of the idealism that carried them to war, like images of the Twin Towers and Osama Bin Laden. A moving essay by Gilbertson describes his encounters with the families who preserve these private memorials to their loved ones, and shares what he has learned from them about war and loss. Bedrooms of the Fallen is a masterpiece of documentary photography, and an unforgettable reckoning with the human cost of war. (shrink)

continent. 1.1 (2011): 60-67. At the beginning of Martin Heidegger’s lecture “Time and Being,” presented to the University of Freiburg in 1962, he cautions against, it would seem, the requirement that philosophy make sense, or be necessarily responsible (Stambaugh, 1972). At that time Heidegger's project focused on thinking as thinking and in order to elucidate his ideas he drew comparisons between his project and two paintings by Paul Klee as well with a poem by Georg Trakl. In front of Klee's (...) Saints from the Window and Death of Fire —though we wouldn’t absolutely understand what we were seeing—he writes, “we should want to stand…a long while.” In a similar manner, of Trakl’s poem “Septet of Death”—although it is likely we are unsure in what we hear—Heidegger states that, “we should want to hear…[it] often.” Heidegger further states that in appreciating these, “we “should abandon any claim that [they] be immediately intelligible” (1). So also we must we approach, Heidegger continues, the realm of theoretical physics, in which the difficult work of Werner Heisenberg, be listened to “without protest” and without “any claim that he be immediately understood.” These works, like his own project, merit the time they take to be originally (mis)understood. But this is not necessarily true for philosophy, Heidegger advises, because, “That thinking is supposed to offer ‘worldly wisdom’ and perhaps even a ‘way to a blessed life’” (1). Philosophy is in the unique position of being both abstract (what do we talk about when we talk?) and at the same moment, useful. There are demands that it make sense, that it be, grounded, immediate, and most importantly, rational. Heidegger draws these comparisons between the works of Klee and Trakl and Heisenberg not to claim that philosophy is totally irresponsible. He does not claim that the poet, the painter, nor the physicist have acted irresponsibly. Rather, he would say, they are rising to the highest levels of intelligibility, though it is perhaps an intelligibility that is commonly unavailable to us. In Trakl’s case, as we shall see, mastery is the end result of difficult words. Instead, Heidegger seems be making pleas: for a period of uninterrupted unintelligibility (pure unintelligibility); and that there is a time (that time is now) when, “thinking is…placed in a position which demands of it reflections that are far removed from any useful, practical wisdom” (1-2). Heidegger argues that philosophy requires a period of time in which, instead of focusing on the practical—or even on the worldly—the discipline draw its “determination” instead from the place of painting and poetry and physics. In doing so, “we should have to abandon any claims to immediate intelligibility” (2). But Heidegger doesn’t offer this as a way out. We still have to turn up, we “still have to listen, because we must think what is inevitable, but preliminary” (2). The point for Heidegger, is not to listen to a series of propositions, but instead to “follow the movement of showing” (2). I. … Maybe we're here only to say: house, bridge, well, gate, jug, olive tree, window— at most: pillar, tower … but to say them, remember, oh, to say them in a way that the things themselves never dreamed of existing so intensely.… Rainer Maria Rilke, “The Ninth Elegy” There is little more fundamental, preliminary, in the world than language. We use language, in the form of speech, constantly, whether we are saying anything or not. “Man speaks,” Heidegger writes, and goes on to describe in his essay “Language” (2001) the constant speaking that we do. “We are always speaking, even when we do not utter a single word aloud, but merely listen or read, and even when we are not particularly speaking or listening but are attending to some work or taking a rest” (187). Speaking is expression, an utterance of something internal. It is a recognition of a world. It is a way of communicating thought and it is an activity that we all do, inevitably. Speaking separates the human from the animal world, and despite advances in primatology that seek to give ‘voice’ to primates and other non-human animals, it can safely be said that our form of communication—what we call speech and know as language—is the most advanced, the most complicated. We use it to present and represent the world around us; through actual utterances (vocalization) or through the written word or through ‘unvoiced thoughts’ and dreams. We use language, but more specifically speech—naming—to transmit moods, thoughts, desires, aversions, and feelings. These expressions, mere utterances, nearly always find a source in words, whether spoken or not. Heidegger writes that this common view of language means “that only speech enables man to be the living being he is as man. It is as the one who speaks that man is—man” (187). Speaking then—utterance—surrounds us constantly, whether in the form of careful thought—in the form of an academic paper, say—or in the half mutterings and forgotten thoughts of a nearly remembered dream. Like scaffolding, the apparatus of speech sustains and explains the world, making, in a sense, the world rational, making it apparent. When we speak, we describe, and in doing so, name the world. We use words, through this process of naming, to interpret and sustain the world we see, and the world we imagine. Like Rilke’s naming of jug, and bridge, and window, and stream, we describe—and inscribe upon—the world through an activity of naming. Are we here, perhaps, to name? Is it possible not to name? Is it possible to regard and to view and to look around without naming what we see? Is it possible to feel—to experience—world without giving utterance to that feeling, that process? Sadness, grief, joy, ecstasy, hunger, thirst. Desk, light, room, pen, book, world. White, black, tomorrow, today. Each of these words is a name given to a thing I see in front of me, or a concept that I imagine (in the case of tomorrow or world). What arises in my mind has already existed. If I imagine it, it is named. The word for ‘tomorrow’ and ‘desk’ and ‘light’ precedes me, and precedes my concept of it. The idea of it is already pre-informed, and I must, in a certain sense, bend my ideas to it. When I imagine a table, I imagine my own table (or I imagine an idea of table) but that imagining must follow certain general rules; while, perhaps, it might not always require four legs and a horizontal surface, it must, at least not be, say, a pool of water, or a pile of excrement. It must have some tableness to it to be a table. It must, with Heidegger, table. Otherwise, speech is reduced to gibberish. For Heidegger however, the discussion of language points to something deeper than its “scientific and analytic” study as a communicative device. Indeed, Heidegger seeks to understand language not in reference to man or woman, not as an utterance of humanity, but in reference to itself. In doing so he abandons the conversation—that is, he casts away the traditional arguments surrounding philosophy of language; that it is a means of expression; that it is a human activity; and that it is somehow a representation of something that is—in order to seek to understand language as language, on its own terms. Heidegger is not a philosopher of language, but a philosopher of world, of being. Despite these “correct ideas” holding sway “over the whole field of the varied scientific perspectives on language…they ignore completely the oldest natural cast of language” (191). What is this “oldest natural cast of language? It is the act of language itself. Language is language and language speaks. “Most often,” Heidegger writes, “and too often, we encounter what is spoken only as the residue of a speaking long past” (195). Speech, as we normally encounter it, is like Echo herself calling out to Narcissus, doomed to repeat what has already been said, a mere remnant of what was once language, a trace left behind in the gathering silence of becoming. In both the essay “Language” and in his three lecture course “The Nature of Language” (1982), Heidegger attempts to unpack the seeming tautology of language as language. In each, he focuses on poetry as a way out, or into, a true discussion of the oldest natural cast of language. Poetry is pure speech. In poetry, language is brought to language and language speaks ( Die Sprach spricht ). In the act of poetry, the act of pure speech, the poet names (on the surface not different from how I name this table, this computer) but in the poet naming, the naming does not “hand out titles,” “apply terms,” but rather the naming is a call, a calling forth of entities that bring them into their own, allow them to take their place purely, without compromise. This calling, Heidegger (2001) states, “here calls into a nearness. But even so the call does not wrest what it calls away from the remoteness, in which it is kept by the calling there. The calling calls into itself and therefor always here and there—here into presence, there into absence” (196). II. Window with falling snow is arrayed, Long tolls the vesper bell, The house is provided well, The table is for many laid. Wandering ones, more than a few, Come to the door on darksome courses. Golden blooms the tree of graces Drawing up the earth’s cool dew. Wanderer quietly steps within; Pain has turned the threshold to stone. There lie, in limpid brightness shown, Upon the table bread and wine. Georg Trakl “A Winter Evening” Heidegger is often given short shrift as an abysmally difficult writer, as one that makes no sense and is needlessly difficult. In doing this though, we forget sometimes his eloquence, his simple beauty in writing. Of the above opening stanza, “Window with falling snow is arrayed/ Long tolls the vesper bell.” he writes (2001), This speaking names the snow that soundlessly strikes the window late in the waning day, while the vesper bell rings. In such a snowfall, everything lasts longer. Therefore the vesper bell, which daily rings for a strictly fixed time, tolls long. The speaking names the winter evening time (197). The speaking names the winter evening time. It is almost impossible to comment on that one line by Heidegger. It is as though it must exist on its own completely, without elucidation—as though in front of it we must stand as we do in front of a painting by Klee, that is, we must abandon any claim . Silent and devoted. The speaking of the poem here is not clearly different from common speech ( rede ) yet there is, via Heidegger, an invitation to experience that auracular quality of light and stillness that a gentle, dusk tinged snowfall gives; words evoking a quality so clear, so poignant that, in a sense, Heidegger’s work, at this moment, has been done. But what does this naming accomplish? What does the call call? Remember, it is not the poet that calls, but the naming which calls. The poet has only brought the words forward; it is now the words— snow, vesper bell, window— that take new life in the pure language of the poem. Entities are called forth into presence, like the speaking that names the winter evening time. Not to be present amongst us now, however; naming ‘table’ in the poem does not place it in front of us in this room. Rather, the naming places entities into a gathering which is also a sheltering. The naming brings them to be. In an act of appropriation, things come to be purely as their own, unimpeded by a predetermined expectation. They are called to themselves into an arrival. In Being and Time (1962), Heidegger famously describes the movement between present-at-hand and ready-to-hand in his analysis of the hammer, and of equipment in general. This analysis is already known, if not always clear, to most readers of Heidegger. Briefly, a hammer is ordinarily zuhanden or ready-to-hand; it is part of the background of the world, equipment used and never thought about, like this desk, this sheet of paper, this room. Our interaction with it is temporary and it is historically different for each entity and each relation. We need a hammer, we use a hammer. If all goes according to plan, the hammer remains ready-to-hand; it remains, in a sense, undisclosed and certainly unobtrusive. Our world is undisturbed by the hammer. Only when the hammer or the car or the computer is broken (or sometimes unused or unrecognized or missing) does it intrude into our world, become conspicuous as an object present-at-hand, or vorhanden . In this case, we reach for the hammer, it is broken and we suddenly notice it’s being, broken though it is. The thing which was always ready to hand—handy—is suddenly abstract, something to be examined, if only in its absence or disfunction. This can be exhibited for all entities, and it is important to note that in this analysis the zuhanden / vorhanden split is not restricted to a specific form of constructed material; zuhanden does not refer to the car, and vorhanden the sunset. No entity is ever exclusively ready-to-hand or present-at-hand; they are instead, interpenetrated with each others mode of being, one informing the other in a way that both brings things forth into the world—discloses is the word Heidegger chooses—and at the same time conceals them. As one mode is coming to be so another mode is withdrawing. This flux and movement between modes is precisely what brings the world forward, and what makes it manifest. It exists beyond where we tread and before man took dubious control of the world. We go to find a book or turn on the computer and it is missing or broken and we become aware of the object, as though for the first time. We walk to the water to glimpse the sunset and miss it, or it is less than stellar; in the sunset’s grayness, we become aware of it’s being sunset. The thing is disclosed in its withdrawal. Echoing Heraclitus, we can say that as something is coming to be, it is already becoming something other. Of similar importance to the fact that things are never all of one, or all of the other, they are also never alone. The hammer is never a single object, but is in relation always to the whole. Heidegger (1962) states, Equipment—in accordance with its equipmentality—always is in terms of its belonging to other equipment: ink-stand, pen, ink, paper, blotting pad, table, lamp, furniture, windows, doors, room. These ‘Things’ never show themselves proximally as they are for themselves…What we encounter as closest to us…is the room; and we encounter it not as something ‘between four walls’ in a geometrical, spatial sense, but as equipment for residing…it is in this that any ‘individual’ item of equipment shows itself. Before its does so, a totality of equipment has already been discovered (97). Equipment resides—dwells—in its relations, in its proximal being to other beings. Within the structure of totality, a series of relations is always occurring. The hammer is on the workbench in the carpenter’s hand in the workshop in the village under the sky and under the sun. It doesn’t stop there. Equipment surrounds us and the focus is not on what it does, or what one does with it—the carpenter with the hammer, the writer with laptop—but with the fact that it is. Equipment occurs in relation and is always occurring around us overhead, underfoot, by the stream and in the city. There is a constant exchange of relations happening, and as this occurs, so the world occurs, so the world both discloses and withdraws, into and out of itself. In a very real sense, language is also equipment. It is the thing that we use most often without thought, it is ready-to-hand (except when it’s not.) As we re- cognize the world around us, as we offer names for things and make lists, we are using language much like we might use a hammer, that is, bluntly. Most of the time it is invisible and we draw on it without wondering how we are going to say something. When language does intrude, it does so in an awkward moment, that moment when we can’t remember the right word, when we forget a phrase. At that second, it “speaks itself as language,” it reveals itself as malfunctioning equipment, and we “undergo” an experience with language, in Heidegger’s famous formulation. Language is not a tool anymore that we use to bludgeon an object, but something instead that we submit to, that we experience. In “The Nature of Language,” Heidegger (1982) writes, But when does language speak to us as language? Curiously enough, when we cannot find the right word for something that concerns us, carries us away, oppresses or encourages us. Then we leave unspoken what we have in mind and, without rightly giving it a thought, undergo moments in which language itself has distantly and fleetingly touched us with its essential being (59). The poet’s words become themselves, become appropriate, only when they no longer function in the prosaic world; they instead intrude as they come to be. Language itself brings itself to language. Names, like the entities they indicate, are always becoming something else. As noted above, language, through the poet, has brought forth entities from words previously “known.” I thought that I knew snow, but through Trakl’s re- presentation of the word, language calls forth a new image of snow, indeed calls forth snow itself. The vesper bell tolls longer, the table is for many laid. In bringing forth things , language has brought the world to presence. In everyday naming, word occludes world, preventing, in its everydayness, its coming forth, its disclosing. But what is this world that word has been brought forth into? In the same way that language speaks, world worlds. World, left alone, un-interfered with, comes into itself. It worlds. Again, this sounds like a tautology, but it is essential to Heidegger’s thought (and in my mind is more of a “god killer” than Nietzsche.) One of the most overlooked (and under-appreciated) aspects of Heidegger is his later examination and enthusiasm for the “fourfold,” or the system through which things come to be, through which things thing in a world worlding. The fourfold is the interaction of earth and sky, mortals and gods. Things come to be in the interstices and gathering of the fourfold. The fourfold provides both a place of being, and a sheltering, a place to dwell. Heidegger writes that “the things that were named, thus called, gather to themselves sky and earth, mortals and divinities. The four are united primally in being toward one another, a fourfold.” The poet has called, through the act of pure naming, things to come forth. In the purity of the fourfold—that is, when that is all that there is, when there are no other distractions, definitions, things—entities themselves can come to be. It is important to note that Heidegger is not saying that there are four formal things in the world, autonomous entities unto themselves. He is not evoking a pre-Socratic formula as to what makes up the world; instead, the four mirror each other constantly. (Heidegger calls this the ‘mirror-play.’) They interpenetrate in the same way that the modes of being of things interpenetrate themselves. There is no discrete exclusivity in being or the fourfold. What makes up things is not a precise recipe of the four main components; what makes up things is the action of the fourfold coming together, the movement of the fourfold which is a becoming. Heidegger (2001) writes that “this gathering, assembling, letting stay is the thinging of things.” And he later adds that “thinging, things are things. Thinging, they gesture—gestate—world” (197). Language brings the world to be. It works not again as a recipe added to things, but instead it is a bridge, or more precisely, a relation. Language relates world to thing, brings world to thing. In a sense, it does not say anything; rather it allows, or calls in its movement. Heidegger (2001) writes that, The intimacy of world and thing is not a fusion. Intimacy obtains only where the intimate—world and thing—divides itself cleanly and remains separated. In the midst of the two, in the between of world and thing, in their inter, division prevails: a dif-ference (199). It is in this inter that language prevails. Language is difference, it is the differential aspect between world and thing that brings world to thing. In the final stanza of Trakl’s poem “The Winter Evening,” Trakl evokes this difference in the second line when he writes, “Pain has turned the threshold to stone.” Christopher Fynsk, in his essay “Noise at the Threshold,” draws attention to this point when he writes “it is the figure of the threshold that is language itself, inasmuch as language is defined as the articulation of difference by which difference comes about” (25). Language, as used in the pure language of the poem, draws together world and thing, bridging relation between entity and world. The calling of language calls world to thing, world to being. Heidegger (2001) describes this difference as unique; “of itself, it holds apart the middle in and through which world and things are at one with each other” (200). III. Neither reading nor writing, nor speaking—and yet it is by those paths that we escape what has been said already, and knowledge, and reciprocity, and enter the unknown space, the space of distress where what is given is perhaps not received by anyone (99). Maurice Blanchot The Writing of Disaster So far, we have allowed Heidegger to put forward what language does, how it functions as a relation and how it operates as a threshold, as a bridge. What interests me is what happens beyond language, beyond the relation. What happens to the thing without the naming, without the poet, or even without the everyday chatter—Fynsk calls this ‘noise’—intruding on being? If language allows things to become by bringing thing to world, what happens when we remove this bringing, this threshold turned to pain? In “The Nature of Language,” Heidegger examines the work of the poet Stefan George, specifically “The Word”: Wonder or dream from distant land I carried to my county’s strand And waited till the twilight norn Had found the name within her bourn— Then I could grasp it close and strong It blooms and shines now the front along… Once I returned from happy sail, I had a prize so rich and frail, She sought for long and tidings told: “No like of these depths unfold.” And straight it vanished from my hand, The treasure never graced my land… So I renounced and sadly see: Where word breaks off no thing may be. That final line, “Where word breaks off no thing may be” is evoked on nearly every page of Heidegger’s essay. It is the line to which he returns over and over and bears repeating. Where word breaks off no thing may be. Where naming ends, no thing. We can interpret this in two ways (at least.) Where word—naming—breaks off, then there is nothing . Or, as I choose to read it, where word breaks off no thing may be. In this I see a hint forward, a marker left behind by Heidegger. What could this look like? What does no thing look like? Like a zen koan ( there is no mirror ) it is as thrilling and horrifying as contemplating what preceded the Big Bang. Because language as naming wasn’t always here; we weren’t always here. One or maybe two aspects of the fourfold (depending on your view of gods) were not always here, and there is no guarantee that we will always be around. What then? Heidegger (1982) describes the landscape that the poet finds, “It names the realm into which the renunciation must enter: it names the call to enter into that relation between thing and word which has now been experienced” (65). The poet, in renouncing, allows for the “may be” of “where word breaks off no thing may be.” This “may be” becomes “a kind of imperative, a command which the poet follows, to keep it from then on.” No thing is lacking. Where word breaks off, there may be, a totality, a completion. If we place the emphasis on may be , we make it affirmative, make it positive. One allows it. No thing is where the word, that is the name, is lacking. If we remove then (if we can remove) the word, the name, than that is where no thing is, that is where no thing may blossom, enrich, belong, become. What is no thing? Heidegger writes that “thing is anything that in any way is.” And just after this he writes that the “world alone gives being to the thing.” But what happens if there is no word? Word, in this formulation can be seen as an enframing, a challenging of language. By naming, by drawing a perimeter around an object, we hold it, by its definition (that is a brick) to an ordered future. If we borrow from Heidegger’s essay “The Question Concerning Technology” (1993) the idea of this standing-reserve of an ordered future, we see that “everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately on hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering” (322). What happens if there is no naming of the thing? Silence perhaps. Stillness. We can name—and do name—that which we know. We equate knowledge with knowing the name of something. A brick is a brick, a hammer is a hammer, the universe is the universe. By naming a thing, we create, and draw its parameters, the parameters of the thing, not as thing thinging in the fourfold, but as blunt object apparent. In the four dimensions relatively available to us, we observe (and name) that the brick takes up possibly six by four by two inches and is, in the sense that it currently occupies this time slot. It fulfills its destiny, its being, its brickness, it bricks . But what happens when we remove the name for this brick. We no longer know what to call this no-thing (if indeed we can even arrive at the point of uncalled calling.) In fact the it (this brick) is no longer a thing in the sense that by not naming—by removing the name—it still occupies the same dimension but is indiscernible from the world. It simply is , un-reliant, un- needed by me. By removing the subject (me) from it (the brick) do I not then also remove the object—or at least the duality objectifying it? Why is this important? Why does this matter? I have not really removed anything. I have not changed any thing , per se . The brick still occupies the same space in geographic and temporal dimensions. I have literally not even touched the brick sitting on my desk. But what I have done is removed the name, removed the word (the bridge, according to Heidegger) and in this (again, if this is even possible) there is something vertiginously liberating, not only for me (and my way of thinking) but also for the brick itself. Like the poet who calls the thing forward, by refusing to name, by avoiding any thing that demands me to name it, I release the thing into the fourfold. I am no longer challenging the thing to be there for me ; I do not en frame it through language. Rather I, in an act of extreme responsibility, am refusing the challenge. By refusing the name (refusing to name) one allows, (or no one allows no thing) the brick to be all things , to manifest its manifold being, to incorporate all things into its thinging . It becomes, quite literally, every thing . Because, in its infinite manifestness, it incorporates everything; the mud that gave it its current being, the water that formed the mud, the sun, the stars, the universe and it also allows it to become mud again, to become landfill, to become again, water and sun and stars and universe in an endless, infinite cycle of coming to be some thing (else). Perhaps this is what Heidegger is suggesting when he talks about the stillness at the end of his essay, “Language” (2001): The dif-ference stills particularly in two ways: it stills the things in thinging and the world in worlding. Thus stilled, thing and world never escape from the dif-ference. Rather, they rescue it in the stilling, where the dif-ference is itself the stillness (206). It is in this stillness that I can imagine a gellasenheit (here I mean both “releasement in the Heideggarean sense, as well as Meister Eckhart’s use of the term meaning “letting the world go and giving oneself to God”) of thing and world, a releasing into the stillness and silence of no thing beyond where word breaks off. It is here where I may no longer be, and yet no thing is, but may be. (shrink)

Our current age offers us dramatic new possibilities in terms of the exchange and development of textual research resources, as we can now gather and transmit information with an ease and rapidity which was inconceivable through earlier media. Although most people will no doubt always prefer to have a hard copy of a book or lengthy article to sit down and read, lexicographical and encyclopedic style reference materials, which have relatively brief and compartmentalized data formats, are extremely well-suited for the (...) digital domain, as they can be furnished with search and retrieval capabilities which are impossible in paper form. The twin CJK lexicographical models presented here stand as an early model of the possibilities such digital reference materials. They have special relevance in the fact that they are not created by a professional software company, or as the fruit of a large, endowed research team. Rather, they have been developed to their current state almost exclusively by a lone humanities scholar possessed of only the most minimal of programming skills with simple HTML techniques. (shrink)

A generalization of Příkrý's forcing is analyzed which adjoins to a model of ZFC a set of order type at most ω below each member of a discrete set of measurable cardinals. A characterization of generalized Příkrý generic sequences reminiscent of Mathias' criterion for Příkrý genericity is provided, together with a maximality theorem which states that a generalized Příkrý sequence almost contains every other one lying in the same extension.This forcing can be used to falsify the covering lemma for (...) a higher core model if there is an inner model with infinitely many measurable cardinals – changing neither cardinalities nor cofinalities. Another application is an alternative proof of a theorem of Mitchell stating that if the core model contains a regular limit θ of measurable cardinals, then there is a model in which every set of measurable cardinals of K bounded in θ has an indiscernible sequence but there is no such sequence for the entire set of measurables of K below θ. (shrink)

Philosophers often talk as though each ability is held by exactly one agent. This paper begins by arguing that abilities can be held by groups of agents, where the group is not an agent. I provide a new argument for—and a new analysis of—non-agentive groups’ abilities. I then provide a new argument that, surprisingly, obligations are different: non-agentive groups cannot bear obligations, at least not if those groups are large-scale such as ‘humanity’ or ‘carbon emitters.’ This pair of conclusions is (...) important, since philosophers who endorse large-scale non-agentive groups’ abilities almost universally endorse their obligations. More importantly, the twin arguments (one for abilities, one against obligations) make the following novel contribution: abilities imply agency-involving explanations, while obligations imply action-guidance. This general conclusion should be of interest beyond social ontology. (shrink)

Philosophers often talk as though each ability is held by exactly one agent. This paper begins by arguing that abilities can be held by groups of agents, where the group is not an agent. I provide a new argument for—and a new analysis of—non-agentive groups’ abilities. I then provide a new argument that, surprisingly, obligations are different: non-agentive groups cannot bear obligations, at least not if those groups are large-scale such as ‘humanity’ or ‘carbon emitters.’ This pair of conclusions is (...) important, since philosophers who endorse large-scale non-agentive groups’ abilities almost universally endorse their obligations. More importantly, the twin arguments (one for abilities, one against obligations) make the following novel contribution: abilities imply agency-involving explanations, while obligations imply action-guidance. This general conclusion should be of interest beyond social ontology. (shrink)

THE TWEET OF THE UNIVERSE. GRAVITATIONAL WAVES BETWEEN THEORY, EFFORTS AND MISTAKES The recent discovery of gravitational waves fills a substantial gap in the theory of general relativity, since these waves were the only phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s theory that had not yet been directly observed. This was mainly due to the fact that the passage of waves is an elusive phenomenon, almost imperceptible, up to the point that even Einstein thought that it was almost impossible to detect (...) it using “traditional” tools. This paper will explore the efforts made over the years to detect the passage of these waves, the mistakes made, and the recent results obtained through the use of the twin optical interferometers LIGO and VIRGO. This extraordinary discovery shows one more time that the history of science is full of trials, errors and sudden steps forward maybe due to the use of new technology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Brit Milah for Eliezer Herschel ben Yonatan AryehMolly SinderbrandFor observant Jews, the choice to circumcise one's son is not a choice. Technically, it is a contractual obligation; the belief is that male circumcision is part of a holy covenant with God. The word for ritual circumcision, brit milah or bris, literally means "covenant [of circumcision]." Circumcision is a physical symbol of a relationship with the divine. It is (...) the commandment that encompasses all other commandments. It is, thankfully, only required of men (women, they say, are naturally closer to divinity). Circumcision is when a baby boy enters the Jewish community, eight days after birth, and when he gets his name. He becomes somebody. To choose otherwise— and some may choose otherwise—is to choose not to be part of the contract, and by extension, not be part of the Jewish community. And a community is one of the most valuable things a person can have.I was not always an observant Jew, though I was raised in a Jewish household. I essentially fell into observance over a period of 10 years, starting with studying ancient Hebrew with a language-loving rabbi in high school and eventually leading to weekly attendance at an orthodox shul, which I joined shortly after first tasting the vegan cholent at kiddush. It was much easier to make friends in [End Page 91] the Jewish community than in my competitive and mildly misogynist graduate program, and frankly, I liked them better. I received kindness and support when I needed it, and gave it back equally, especially around having children. Having children is difficult under any circumstance, but it is especially difficult in social settings where it is seen as abnormal, strange, or even selfish. The Jewish community normalized having children and created a respite from the judgment of the secular world. When I was pregnant at work, I got comments like "It looks like you're having twins!" and "Are you sure you don't have pre-eclampsia? You look awfully large"; at shul, I got pep talks, encouragement, and the traditional "b'sha'a tova"—"may it happen at a good time."Eventually, after having two kids in a two-bedroom rowhome, my husband and I moved to a mostly-Jewish suburb just outside the city. It is the kind of place where everyone says "Gut Shabbes" (a good Sabbath) to each other on Saturdays, but not one in which all the men wear black hats and study Torah all day (though some do). That is, folks live Jewish lives, but interact with the outside world as well. After a few months, it felt like home.This was the context in which I decided—or rather, did not have to decide—to circumcise my son. It was the natural result of the decision to be part of a community that places value (and even membership) on the ritual of circumcision. I made that decision years earlier and have been continuously reaffirming it since. Every day I wake up is a day I decide to be an observant Jew, and I decide to do so in order to be a member of an observant community. The decision to circumcise was yet another decision to be part of that community, which has given me so much joy, support, and meaning. Why would I deny my son—and myself—that community?In addition, not needing to make any decisions was itself a kind of relief. I have heard of mothers—including my own—off in a room crying, needing comfort, unable to be there for the circumcision. That did not happen for me. Despite a history of rather severe perinatal depression and anxiety, including suicidal ideation less than a week before the event, I was completely fine. Maybe my comfort came from the fact that I already had two children; this was not my first newborn, though it was my first bris. Maybe, after almost two years of COVID, circumcision did not seem like such a big deal. Maybe I was just glad someone else would hold the baby for a while. But I think at least part of it was the happiness that... (shrink)