One of the most pressing objections against Divine simplicity is that it entails what is commonly termed a ‘modal collapse’, wherein all contingency is eliminated and every true proposition is rendered necessarily true. In this paper, I show that a common form of this argument is in fact famously invalid and examine three ways in which the opponent of Divine simplicity might try to repair the argument. I conclude that there is no clear way of repairing the argument that does (...) not beg the question against the doctrine of Divine simplicity. (shrink)

Toward the end of his classic treatise An Essay on Free Will, Peter van Inwagen offers a modal argument against the Principle of Sufficient Reason which he argues shows that the principle “collapses all modal distinctions.” In this paper, a critical flaw in this argument is shown to lie in van Inwagen’s beginning assumption that there is such a thing as the conjunction of all contingently true propositions. This is shown to follow from Cantor’s theorem and a property of conjunction (...) with respect to contingent propositions. Given the failure of this assumption, van Inwagen’s argument against the Principle of Sufficient Reason cannot succeed, at least not without the addition of some remarkable and previously unacknowledged qualifications. (shrink)

Kathrin Koslicki argues that ordinary material objects like tables and motorcycles have formal proper parts that structure the material proper parts. Karen Bennett rejects a key premise in Koslicki's argument according to which the material ingredient out of which a complex material object is made is a proper part of that object. Koslicki defends this premise with a principle motivated by its power to explain three important phenomena of material composition. But these phenomena can be equally well explained by a (...) weaker principle that does not support the questioned premise in Koslicki's argument, Bennett argues. I show that Bennett's weaker principle, together with an appropriate strengthening of a different premise in Koslicki's original argument, still yields a sound argument for the existence of formal parts. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to state and describe realisations of the theoretical literary intertextuality at school. In the perception of literary works both at school and in the study of literature, operation of various categories of intertextuality can be distinguished, e.g. intratextual and intertextual, genological and intersemiotic, and even metatextual types. The materials studied confirm that the intertextual and intersemiotic types of analysis are most frequent.

Henryk Kurczab is a literature specialist, educator, lecturer and professor of Rzeszów Univertsity as well as Rzeszów College of Pedagogics. His book is a plenteous source of knowledge concerning dialogue, translatability and interaction of arts in the sense of semiotic ‘meaning’ and ‘sign’. The subject matter chosen by the author, i.e. arts correspondence, its own exemplification as well as interpretations, distinguish his work by individaulizing cognitive values.

This book is an attempt to demonstrate that the basic principles of phonological organization boil down to the interaction between the strength of nuclei as licensers of phonological structure and various non-rerankable scales of complexity occurring at different levels of phonological representation. The licensing relation between nuclei and the preceding onsets on the one hand, and governing relations between consonants, which are to a great extent determined by their internal melodic structure, allow us to view the phonological representation as a (...) self-organizing system, which is able to pr. (shrink)

One of the greatest challenges facing materialist theories of the human mind is the problem of intentionality. As many non-materialists of various stripes have pointed out, it is very difficult to say, if the human mind is a purely material thing, how this material thing can be about or represent another thing wholly distinct from itself. However, for their part, these same non-materialists have relied heavily or exclusively on this intuition that one material thing cannot be about another. In this (...) paper, that hole in the intentionality objection to materialist theories of mind is filled by way of providing the germ of a new theory of the metaphysics of intentionality. On this view, intentionality just is partial identity. Partial identity is a concept introduced by David Armstrong and used by Donald Baxter to give a metaphysics of instantiation. The aboutness exhibited by our mental activity is simply a partial identity relation between the mind and the object of thought. This thesis, I contend, is a faithful interpretation of Brentano’s “intentional inexistence,” which the objects of thought have in the mind and which he held to be characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. Some interesting and fortuitous consequences, including an elucidation of precisely why one material thing can never be about something distinct from itself, are then examined, and finally a defense against some objections is given. (shrink)

Skeptical theism is a popular response to the evidential problem of evil, but it has recently been accused of proving too much. If skeptical theism is true, its detractors claim, then we not only have no good reason for thinking that God’s reasons for action should be available to creatures like us, but we also have no good reason for thinking that the reasons which govern how we ought to act should be available to creatures like us. And given this (...) ignorance, we would be morally paralyzed, unable to decide what we ought to do in ordinary situations that call for a moral decision. In this paper, I present a simple solution to this problem of moral paralysis by drawing on Peter Geach’s now famous argument for the attributivity of “good.”. (shrink)

In their recent paper, Brandon Rickabaugh and Derek McAllister object to Paul Moser’s rejection of natural theology on the grounds that Moser is committed to a principle, Seek, which commits Moser to another principle, Access. Access in turn can be rationally motivated for at least some nonbelievers only by the arguments of natural theology. So Moser is in fact committed to the epistemic usefulness of natural theology. In this paper, we show that Seek by itself does not commit one to (...) Access, and that even if Moser is committed to Access, he is not thereby committed to the epistemic usefulness of natural theology for all nonbelievers. While we find this argument offered by Rickabaugh and McAllister lacking, we do not deny their conclusion that natural theology is epistemically useful to all nonbelievers. (shrink)

Child visual discourse: The use of language, gestures, and vocalizations by deaf preschoolers1 This exploratory study examined the linguistic activity and conversational skills of deaf preschoolers by observing child-child dyads in free-play situations. Deaf child of deaf parents - deaf child of deaf parents pairs were compared with deaf child of hearing parents - deaf child of hearing parents pairs. Children from the two groups were videotaped during dyadic peer interactions in a naturalistic play situation. The findings indicated that deaf (...) children were able to engage in successful communicative interaction. However, statistically significant differences were found between the two groups of deaf preschoolers with regard to some categories of communicative behaviors from the point of view of sign and spoken languages. For example, DCHP were found to be less actively than DCDP through using speech. The results of this study suggest that intervention efforts should be focused on improving the language learning environment by facilitating signing by the parents and increasing their skills in visual-gestural strategies. (shrink)

John Venn w Formal Logic zbudował pewien system sylogistyki, będący jedną z realizacji idei kwantyfikacji orzeczników. Interesującą rekonstrukcję tego systemu zaproponował V.I. Markin. Markin posługuje się pięcioma funktorami pierwotnymi {aa,ai,ia,ii,e}. Wyrażenia elementarne SaaP,SaiP,SiaP,SiiP oraz SeP są czytane odpowiednio: wszelkie S są wszelkimi P, wszelkie S są pewnymi P, pewne S są wszelkimi P, pewne S są pewnymi P oraz żadne S nie są P.Markin podaje aksjomatykę dla tego systemu. Proponuje też reguły translacji jego formuł na język sylogistyki klasycznej, o aksjomatyce (...) Łukasiewicza {SaS, SiS, MaP/\SaM ε SaP, MaP/\MiS ε SiP} oraz reguły translacji odwrotnej.To sformułowanie sylogistyki Venna można uprościć przez przyjęcie konwencji notacyjnej:SφΨP / SφP/\PΨS SφP/\PΨS / SφΨP dla φ,Ψε{a,ι}.Proponowana jest nowa aksjomatyka dla sylogistyki Venna z mocnym rozumieniem zdań szczegółowo-twierdzących. Badane są związki logiczne między sylogistyką Venna i systemem Łulasiewicza. Zostaje sformułowany system z mocnym rozumieniem zdań szczegółowo-twierdzących. Podany jest dowód, że systemy SI i SL są równowane. (shrink)

John Venn w Formal Logic zbudował pewien system sylogistyki, będący jedną z realizacji idei kwantyfikacji orzeczników. Interesującą rekonstrukcję tego systemu zaproponował V.I. Markin. Markin posługuje się pięcioma funktorami pierwotnymi {aa,ai,ia,ii,e}. Wyrażenia elementarne SaaP,SaiP,SiaP,SiiP oraz SeP są czytane odpowiednio: wszelkie S są wszelkimi P, wszelkie S są pewnymi P, pewne S są wszelkimi P, pewne S są pewnymi P oraz żadne S nie są P.Markin podaje aksjomatykę dla tego systemu. Proponuje też reguły translacji jego formuł na język sylogistyki klasycznej, o aksjomatyce (...) Łukasiewicza {SaS, SiS, MaP/\SaM ε SaP, MaP/\MiS ε SiP} oraz reguły translacji odwrotnej.To sformułowanie sylogistyki Venna można uprościć przez przyjęcie konwencji notacyjnej:SφΨP / SφP/\PΨS SφP/\PΨS / SφΨP dla φ,Ψε{a,ι}.Proponowana jest nowa aksjomatyka dla sylogistyki Venna z mocnym rozumieniem zdań szczegółowo-twierdzących. Badane są związki logiczne między sylogistyką Venna i systemem Łulasiewicza. Zostaje sformułowany system z mocnym rozumieniem zdań szczegółowo-twierdzących. Podany jest dowód, że systemy SI i SL są równowane. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz wird versucht, eine axiomatische logische Rekonstruktion einiger der logischen Positionen der Vertreter der Idee der Quantifizierung der Prädikate im XIX. Jahrhundert (Bentham, Hamilton, De Morgan, Boole) zu geben. Es wird gezeigt, daß diese Systeme eine wichtige Rolle in der weiteren Entwicklung der Logik spielen. Neben der syntaktischen Seite dieser Theorien werden auch damit verbundene semantische Ideen diskutiert und es wird gezeigt, daß diese Systeme als Namenkalküle zwischen der Syllogistik und der Ontologie Lesniewskis liegend betrachtet werden können. Die (...) dabei involvierten logischen Zusammenhänge werden untersucht und zuletzt wird eine Interpretation des Systems Booles in den Systemen Lesniewskis vorgeschlagen. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz wird versucht, eine axiomatische logische Rekonstruktion einiger der logischen Positionen der Vertreter der Idee der Quantifizierung der Prädikate im XIX. Jahrhundert (Bentham, Hamilton, De Morgan, Boole) zu geben. Es wird gezeigt, daß diese Systeme eine wichtige Rolle in der weiteren Entwicklung der Logik spielen. Neben der syntaktischen Seite dieser Theorien werden auch damit verbundene semantische Ideen diskutiert und es wird gezeigt, daß diese Systeme als Namenkalküle zwischen der Syllogistik und der Ontologie Lesniewskis liegend betrachtet werden können. Die (...) dabei involvierten logischen Zusammenhänge werden untersucht und zuletzt wird eine Interpretation des Systems Booles in den Systemen Lesniewskis vorgeschlagen. (shrink)