What distinguishes academic administration from administration or managing in business? Rudolph Weingartner, arugues that colleges and universities are founded to serve certain purposes; they are supported by governments and private individuals; and, as professional institutions, they have students, among others, as clients to whom they owe education services in ways analogous to the obligations hospitals have via-à-vis their patients. Academic administration is not just another job of managing, but a calling that importantly assists institutions to carry out their missions.

With his theory of descriptions Russell wanted to solve two problems concerning denotation and reference, which are formulated here as Problem I and Problem II. After presenting each problem, we describe the main points of Russell’s solution. We deal with Russell’s concepts of existence and then elaborate his presuppositions concerning the relation of denoting and referring. Next we discuss the presuppositions or principles which underlie Russell’s understanding of the _objects_ of reference. These principles are such that if the objects of (...) reference are material objects, they are objects of classical mechanics, or very close to such an interpretation. Finally we show how these principles have to be relaxed if the objects of reference are objects of quantum mechanics or special or general relativity. (shrink)

Herbert Clark argues that language use is more than the sum of a speaker speaking and a listener listening. It is the joint action that emerges when speakers and listeners, writers and readers perform their individual actions in coordination, as ensembles. In contrast to work within the cognitive sciences, which has seen language use as an individual process, and to work within the social sciences, which has seen it as a social process, the author argues strongly that language use (...) embodies both individual and social processes. (shrink)

The contributions to this volume are from participants of the international conference "Kreisel's Interests - On the Foundations of Logic and Mathematics", which took place from 13 to 14 2018 at the University of Salzburg in Salzburg, Austria. The contributions have been revised and partially extended. Among the contributors are Akihiro Kanamori, Göran Sundholm, Ulrich Kohlenbach, Charles Parsons, Daniel Isaacson, and Kenneth Derus. The contributions cover the discussions between Kreisel and Wittgenstein on philosophy of mathematics, Kreisel's Dictum, proof theory, the (...) discussions between Kreisel and Gödel on philosophy of mathematics, some bibliographical facts, and a collection of extracts from Kreisel's letters. (shrink)

Zawiera materiały konferencji zorganizowanej przez Instituts Görresgesellschaft für interdisziplinäre Forschung (31.8-5.9.1989).

Zwart and Franssen’s impossibility theorem reveals a conflict between the possible-world-based content-definition and the possible-world-based likeness-definition of verisimilitude. In Sect. 2 we show that the possible-world-based content-definition violates four basic intuitions of Popper’s consequence-based content-account to verisimilitude, and therefore cannot be said to be in the spirit of Popper’s account, although this is the opinion of some prominent authors. In Sect. 3 we argue that in consequence-accounts , content-aspects and likeness-aspects of verisimilitude are not in conflict with each other, but (...) in agreement . We explain this fact by pointing towards the deep difference between possible-world- and the consequence-accounts, which does not lie in the difference between syntactic (object-language) versus semantic (meta-language) formulations, but in the difference between ‘disjunction-of-possible-worlds’ versus ‘conjunction-of-parts’ representations of theories. Drawing on earlier work, we explain in Sect. 4 how the shortcomings of Popper’s original definition can be repaired by what we call the relevant element approach. We propose a quantitative likeness-definition of verisimilitude based on relevant elements which provably agrees with the qualitative relevant content-definition of verisimilitude on all pairs of comparable theories. We conclude the paper with a plea for consequence-accounts and a brief analysis of the problem of language-dependence (Sect. 6). (shrink)

The volume deals with the history of logic, the question of the nature of logic, the relation of logic and mathematics, modal or alternative logics (many-valued, relevant, paraconsistent logics) and their relations, including translatability, to classical logic in the Fregean and Russellian sense, and, more generally, the aim or aims of philosophy of logic and mathematics. Also explored are several problems concerning the concept of definition, non-designating terms, the interdependence of quantifiers, and the idea of an assertion sign. The contributions (...) concerned with Wittgenstein's investigations into the philosophy of logic and mathematics pursue issues relating to logical necessity, the undeniability of the law of the excluded middle, and the source of self-evidence, often characterized in the literature as the "rule-following considerations". Additionally, they examine Wittgenstein's attitudes towards the very idea of set-theory as a possible foundation for arithmetic. The volume also includes a number of contributions on specific issues concerning Wittgenstein's views on moral and religious judgements. (shrink)

Alfredo Traps in Durrenmatt’s tale discovers that he has brought off, all by himself, a murder involving considerable ingenuity. The mock prosecutor in the tale demands the death penalty “as reward for a crime that merits admiration, astonishment, and respect.” Traps is deeply moved; indeed, he is exhilarated, and the whole of his life becomes more heroic, and, ironically, more precious. His defense attorney proceeds to argue that Traps was not only innocent but incapable of guilt, “a victim of the (...) age.” This defense Traps disavows with indignation and anger. He makes claim to the murder as his and demands the prescribed punishment—death. (shrink)

Der Atheismus erlebte in den letzten Jahren eine Renaissance. Durch verschiedene Publikationen wurde der Atheismus in der Offentlichkeit und in den Wissenschaften wieder zum Thema. Religioser Glaube sei mit einem wissenschaftlichen Weltbild nicht vereinbar, so viele Atheisten. Diese Bewegung fasst man unter dem Namen Neuer Atheismus zusammen. Aber ist tatsachlich etwas neu am neuen Atheismus? Gibt es in den modernen Naturwissenschaften noch einen Platz fur Gott? Konnen Argumente der neuen Atheisten uberzeugend zeigen, dass es unvernunftig und unwissenschaftlich ist, an die (...) Existenz eines Gottes zu glauben? Dies sind nur einige Beispielfragen, die die Autoren dieses Bandes versuchen werden zu beantworten. Die Autoren kommen aus unterschiedlichsten Disziplinen: Aus der Physik, der Biologie, der Mathematik, der Philosophie und der Theologie.". (shrink)

The foundation of historical materialism.--A study on authority.--Sartre's existentialism.--Karl Popper and the problem of historical laws.--Freedom and the historical imperative.

Dewey’s book is the first systematic attempt at a pragmatistic logic (since the work of Peirce). Because of the ambiguity of the concept of pragmatism, the author rejects the concept in general. But, if one interprets pragmatism correctly, then this book is ‘through and through Pragmatistic’. What he understands as ‘correct’ will become clear in the following account. The book takes its subject matter far beyond the traditional works on logic. It is a material logic first in the sense that (...) the matter of logic (the ‘objects’, that with which logical thought has to do) is thoroughly included in the cycle of investigation, and logical ‘forms’ are discussed only in their constitutional connection with this .. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1. The Computability Concept;2. General Recursive Functions;3. Programs and Machines;4. Recursive Enumerability;5. Connections to Logic;6. Degrees of Unsolvability;7. Polynomial-Time Computability;Appendix: Mathspeak;Appendix: Countability;Appendix: Decadic Notation;.

The paper offers a matrix-based logic (relevant matrix quantum physics) for propositions which seems suitable as an underlying logic for empirical sciences and especially for quantum physics. This logic is motivated by two criteria which serve to clean derivations of classical logic from superfluous redundancies and uninformative complexities. It distinguishes those valid derivations (inferences) of classical logic which contain superfluous redundancies and complexities and are in this sense from those which are or in the sense of allowing only the most (...) informative consequences in the derivations. The latter derivations are strictly valid in RMQ, whereas the former are only materially valid. RMQ is a decidable matrix calculus which possesses a semantics and has the finite model property. It is shown in the paper how RMQ by its strictly valid derivations can avoid the difficulties with commensurability, distributivity, and Bell's inequalities when it is applied to quantum physics. (shrink)