This chapter provides a systematic overview of topological explanations in the philosophy of science literature. It does so by presenting an account of topological explanation that I (Kostić and Khalifa 2021; Kostić 2020a; 2020b; 2018) have developed in other publications and then comparing this account to other accounts of topological explanation. Finally, this appraisal is opinionated because it highlights some problems in alternative accounts of topological explanations, and also it outlines responses to some of the main criticisms raised by the (...) so-called new mechanists. (shrink)

Considering topology as an extension of mereology, this paper analyses topological variants of mereological essentialism (the thesis that an object could not have different parts than the ones it has). In particular, we examine de dicto and de re versions of two theses: (i) that an object cannot change its external connections (e.g., adjacent objects cannot be separated), and (ii) that an object cannot change its topological genus (e.g., a doughnut cannot turn into a sphere). Stronger forms of structural (...) essentialism, such as morphological essentialism (an object cannot change shape) and locative essentialism (an object cannot change position) are also examined. (shrink)

Hobbes emphasized that the state of nature is a state of war because it is characterized by fundamental and generalized distrust. Exiting the state of nature and the conflicts it inevitably fosters is therefore a matter of establishing trust. Extant discussions of trust in the philosophical literature, however, focus either on isolated dyads of trusting individuals or trust in large, faceless institutions. In this paper, I begin to fill the gap between these extremes by analyzing what I call the (...) class='Hi'>topology of communities of trust. Such communities are best understood in terms of interlocking dyadic relationships that approximate the ideal of being symmetric, Euclidean, reflexive, and transitive. Few communities of trust live up to this demanding ideal, and those that do tend to be small (between three and fifteen individuals). Nevertheless, such communities of trust serve as the conditions for the possibility of various important prudential epistemic, cultural, and mental health goods. However, communities of trust also make possible various problematic phenomena. They can become insular and walled-off from the surrounding community, leading to distrust of out-groups. And they can lead their members to abandon public goods for tribal or parochial goods. These drawbacks of communities of trust arise from some of the same mecha-nisms that give them positive prudential, epistemic, cultural, and mental health value – and so can at most be mitigated, not eliminated. (shrink)

I argue that it may well be the case that space and time do not consist of points, indeed that they have no smallest parts. I examine two different approaches to such pointless spaces : a topological approach and a measure theoretic approach. I argue in favor of the measure theoretic approach.

I explain the difficulty of making various concepts of and relating to probability precise, rigorous and physically significant when attempting to apply them in reasoning about objects living in infinite-dimensional spaces, working through many examples from cosmology. I focus on the relation of topological to measure-theoretic notions of and relating to probability, how they diverge in unpleasant ways in the infinite-dimensional case, and are even difficult to work with on their own. Even in cases where an appropriate family of spacetimes (...) is finite-dimensional, and so admits a measure of the relevant sort, however, it is always the case that the family is not a compact topological space, and so does not admit a physically significant, well behaved probability measure. Problems of a different but still deeply troubling sort plague arguments about likelihood in that context, which I also discuss. I conclude that most standard forms of argument used in cosmology to estimate the likelihood of the occurrence of various properties or behaviors of spacetimes have serious mathematical, physical and conceptual problems. (shrink)

We provide three innovations to recent debates about whether topological or “network” explanations are a species of mechanistic explanation. First, we more precisely characterize the requirement that all topological explanations are mechanistic explanations and show scientific practice to belie such a requirement. Second, we provide an account that unifies mechanistic and non-mechanistic topological explanations, thereby enriching both the mechanist and autonomist programs by highlighting when and where topological explanations are mechanistic. Third, we defend this view against some powerful mechanist objections. (...) We conclude from this that topological explanations are autonomous from their mechanistic counterparts. (shrink)

We reformulate a key definition given by Wáng and Ågotnes to provide semantics for public announcements in subset spaces. More precisely, we interpret the precondition for a public announcement of ???? to be the “local truth” of ????, semantically rendered via an interior operator. This is closely related to the notion of ???? being “knowable”. We argue that these revised semantics improve on the original and offer several motivating examples to this effect. A key insight that emerges is the crucial (...) role of topological structure in this setting. Finally, we provide a simple axiomatization of the resulting logic and prove completeness. (shrink)

This paper argues that besides mechanistic explanations, there is a kind of explanation that relies upon “topological” properties of systems in order to derive the explanandum as a consequence, and which does not consider mechanisms or causal processes. I first investigate topological explanations in the case of ecological research on the stability of ecosystems. Then I contrast them with mechanistic explanations, thereby distinguishing the kind of realization they involve from the realization relations entailed by mechanistic explanations, and explain how both (...) kinds of explanations may be articulated in practice. The second section, expanding on the case of ecological stability, considers the phenomenon of robustness at all levels of the biological hierarchy in order to show that topological explanations are indeed pervasive there. Reasons are suggested for this, in which “neutral network” explanations are singled out as a form of topological explanation that spans across many levels. Finally, I appeal to the distinction of explanatory regimes to cast light on a controversy in philosophy of biology, the issue of contingence in evolution, which is shown to essentially involve issues about realization. (shrink)

In the last 20 years or so, since the publication of a seminal paper by Watts and Strogatz :440–442, 1998), an interest in topological explanations has spread like a wild fire over many areas of science, e.g. ecology, evolutionary biology, medicine, and cognitive neuroscience. The topological approach is still very young by all standards, and even within special sciences it still doesn’t have a single methodological programme that is applicable across all areas of science. That is why this special issue (...) is important as a first systematic philosophical study of topological explanations and their relation to a well understood and widespread explanatory strategy, such as mechanistic one. (shrink)

The spatial organization of the genome is intimately linked to its biological function, yet our understanding of higher order genomic structure is coarse, fragmented and incomplete. In the nucleus of eukaryotic cells, interphase chromosomes occupy distinct.

This paper intends to further the understanding of the formal properties of (higher-order) vagueness by connecting theories of (higher-order) vagueness with more recent work in topology. First, we provide a “translation” of Bobzien's account of columnar higher-order vagueness into the logic of topological spaces. Since columnar vagueness is an essential ingredient of her solution to the Sorites paradox, a central problem of any theory of vagueness comes into contact with the modern mathematical theory of topology. Second, Rumfitt’s recent (...) topological reconstruction of Sainsbury’s theory of prototypically defined concepts is shown to lead to the same class of spaces that characterize Bobzien’s account of columnar vagueness, namely, weakly scattered spaces. Rumfitt calls these spaces polar spaces. They turn out to be closely related to Gärdenfors’ conceptual spaces, which have come to play an ever more important role in cognitive science and related disciplines. Finally, Williamson’s “logic of clarity” is explicated in terms of a generalized topology (“locology”) that can be considered an alternative to standard topology. Arguably, locology has some conceptual advantages over topology with respect to the conceptualization of a boundary and a borderline. Moreover, in Williamson’s logic of clarity, vague concepts with respect to a notion of a locologically inspired notion of a “slim boundary” are (stably) columnar. Thus, Williamson’s logic of clarity also exhibits a certain affinity for columnar vagueness. In sum, a topological perspective is useful for a conceptual elucidation and unification of central aspects of a variety of contemporary accounts of vagueness. (shrink)

Fundamental concrete particulars are needed to explain facts about non-fundamental concrete particulars. However, the former can only play this explanatory role if they are properly discernible from the latter. Extant theories of how to discern fundamental concreta primarily concern mereological structure. Those according to which fundamental concreta can bear, but not be, proper parts are motivated by the possibilities that all concreta bear proper parts and that some properties of wholes are not fixed by the properties of their proper parts. (...) In response, theorists who hold that the fundamental concrete particulars can be proper parts may appeal to the possibility that every concrete particular is a proper part—that there is no mereologically maximal whole world, as well as to the intuition that fundamental concreta are qualitatively homogeneous “blocks” from which non-fundamental concreta are built. After motivating the plausibility of gunk and junk, the present essay proposes a constraint on fundamental concrete particulars based on topology instead of mereology: the fundamental concrete particulars must be appropriately connected. This constraint has the unique advantage of consistency with each of gunk, emergence, junk, and the building block intuition. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that topology has a bearing on<br><br>combinatorial theories of possibility. The approach developed in this article is “mapping account” considering combinatorial worlds as mappings from individuals to properties. Topological structures are used to define constraints on the mappings thereby characterizing the “really possible” combinations. The mapping approach avoids the well-known incompatibility problems. Moreover, it is compatible with atomistic as well as with non-atomistic ontologies.It helps to elucidate the positions of logical atomism and (...) monism with theaid of topological separation axioms. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the newly developed network approach in neuroscience and biology provides a basis for formulating a unique type of realization, which I call topological realization. Some of its features and its relation to one of the dominant paradigms of realization and explanation in sciences, i.e. the mechanistic one, are already being discussed in the literature. But the detailed features of topological realization, its explanatory power and its relation to another prominent view of realization, namely the (...) semantic one, have not yet been discussed. I argue that topological realization is distinct from mechanistic and semantic ones because the realization base in this framework is not based on local realisers, regardless of the scale but on global realizers. In mechanistic approach, the realization base is always at the local level, in both ontic and epistemic accounts. The explanatory power of realization relation in mechanistic approach comes directly from the realization relation-either by showing how a model is mapped onto a mechanism, or by describing some ontic relations that are explanatory in themselves. Similarly, the semantic approach requires that concepts at different scales logically satisfy microphysical descriptions, which are at the local level. In topological framework the realization base can be found at different scales, but whatever the scale the realization base is global, within that scale, and not local. Furthermore, topological realization enables us to answer the “why” questions, which according to Polger 2010 make it explanatory. The explanatoriness of topological realization stems from understanding mathematical consequences of different topologies, not from the mere fact that a system realizes them. (shrink)

This paper considers a generalisation of the sorites paradox, in which only topological notions are employed. We argue that by increasing the level of abstraction in this way, we see the sorites paradox in a new, more revealing light—a light that forces attention on cut-off points of vague predicates. The generalised sorites paradox presented here also gives rise to a new, more tractable definition of vagueness.

Understanding of elementary topological equivalencies is impaired by preconceptions about the topological structure of ordinary objects, so that the equivalencies turn out to be counterintuitive. Here I will discuss some of these preconceptions, namely the dominance of gestalt properties of the visual display of the configuration, the neglect of holistic properties, the dominance of transformations the preserve metric properties over those that preserve topological properties only, the assumption that holes are objects of their own. These factors delineate an empirical research (...) field, intuitive topology. An explanatory hypothesis for the preconceptions suggests that they are hard-wired. (shrink)

The basic methodology of rough set theory depends on an equivalence relation induced from the generated partition by the classification of objects. However, the requirements of the equivalence relation restrict the field of applications of this philosophy. To begin, we describe two kinds of closure operators that are based on right and left adhesion neighbourhoods by any binary relation. Furthermore, we illustrate that the suggested techniques are an extension of previous methods that are already available in the literature. As a (...) result of these topological techniques, we propose extended rough sets as an extension of Pawlak’s models. We offer a novel topological strategy for making a topological reduction of an information system for COVID-19 based on these techniques. We provide this medical application to highlight the importance of the offered methodologies in the decision-making process to discover the important component for coronavirus infection. Furthermore, the findings obtained are congruent with those of the World Health Organization. Finally, we create an algorithm to implement the recommended ways in decision-making. (shrink)

We present a bimodal logic suitable for formalizing reasoning about points and sets, and also states of the world and views about them. The most natural interpretation of the logic is in subset spaces , and we obtain complete axiomatizations for the sentences which hold in these interpretations. In addition, we axiomatize the validities of the smaller class of topological spaces in a system we call topologic . We also prove decidability for these two systems. Our results on topologic relate (...) early work of McKinsey on topological interpretations of S4 with recent work of Georgatos on topologic. Some of the results of this paper were presented at the 1992 conference on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge. (shrink)

Stalnaker, 169–199 2006) introduced a combined epistemic-doxastic logic that can formally express a strong concept of belief, a concept of belief as ‘subjective certainty’. In this paper, we provide a topological semantics for belief, in particular, for Stalnaker’s notion of belief defined as ‘epistemic possibility of knowledge’, in terms of the closure of the interior operator on extremally disconnected spaces. This semantics extends the standard topological interpretation of knowledge with a new topological semantics for belief. We prove that the belief (...) logic KD45 is sound and complete with respect to the class of extremally disconnected spaces and we compare our approach to a different topological setting in which belief is interpreted in terms of the derived set operator. We also study belief revision as well as belief dynamics by providing a topological semantics for conditional belief and belief update modalities, respectively. Our setting based on extremally disconnected spaces, however, encounters problems when extended with dynamic updates. We then propose a solution consisting in interpreting belief in a similar way based on hereditarily extremally disconnected spaces, and axiomatize the belief logic of hereditarily extremally disconnected spaces. Finally, we provide a complete axiomatization of the logic of conditional belief and knowledge, as well as a complete axiomatization of the corresponding dynamic logic. (shrink)

In this work, we investigate the relationship between paraconsistent semantics and some well-known topological spaces such as connected and continuous spaces. We also discuss homotopies as truth preserving operations in paraconsistent topological models.

Using recent results in topos theory, two systems of higher-order logic are shown to be complete with respect to sheaf models over topological spaces-so-called "topological semantics". The first is classical higher-order logic, with relational quantification of finitely high type; the second system is a predicative fragment thereof with quantification over functions between types, but not over arbitrary relations. The second theorem applies to intuitionistic as well as classical logic.

Since antiquity well into the beginnings of the 20th century geometry was a central topic for philosophy. Since then, however, most philosophers of science, if they took notice of topology at all, considered it as an abstruse subdiscipline of mathematics lacking philosophical interest. Here it is argued that this neglect of topology by philosophy may be conceived of as the sign of a conceptual sea-change in philosophy of science that expelled geometry, and, more generally, mathematics, from the central (...) position it used to have in philosophy of science and placed logic at center stage in the 20th century philosophy of science. Only in recent decades logic has begun to loose its monopoly and geometry and topology received a new chance to find a place in philosophy of science. (shrink)

The relationship between topological explanation and mechanistic explanation is unclear. Most philosophers agree that at least some topological explanations are mechanistic explanations. The crucial question is how to make sense of this claim. Zednik (Philos Psychol 32(1):23–51, 2019) argues that topological explanations are mechanistic if they (i) describe mechanism sketches that (ii) pick out organizational properties of mechanisms. While we agree with Zednik’s conclusion, we critically discuss Zednik’s account and show that it fails as a general account of how and (...) when topological explanations are mechanistic. First, if topological explanations were just mechanism sketches, this implies that they could be enriched by replacing topological terms with mechanistic detail. This, however, conflicts how topological explanations are used in scientific practice. Second, Zednik’s account fails to show how topological properties can be organizational properties of mechanisms that have a place in mechanistic explanation. The core issue is that Zednik’s account ignores that topological properties often are _global_ properties while mechanistic explanantia refer to _local_ properties. We demonstrate how these problems can be solved by a recent account of mechanistic completeness (Craver and Kaplan in Br J Philos Sci 71(1):287–319, 2020; Kohár and Krickel in Calzavarini and Viola (eds) Neural mechanisms—new challenges in the philosophy of neuroscience, Springer, New York, 2021) and use a multilayer network model of Alzheimer’s Disease to illustrate this. (shrink)

Medical explanations have often been thought on the model of biological ones and are frequently defined as mechanistic explanations of a biological dysfunction. In this paper, I argue that topological explanations, which have been described in ecology or in cognitive sciences, can also be found in medicine and I discuss the relationships between mechanistic and topological explanations in medicine, through the example of network medicine and medical genetics. Network medicine is a recent discipline that relies on the analysis of various (...) disease networks in order to find organizing principles in disease explanation. My aim is to show how topological explanations in network medicine can help solving the conceptual issues that pure mechanistic explanations of the genetics of disease are currently facing, namely the crisis of the concept of genetic disease, the progressive geneticization of diseases and the dissolution of the distinction between monogenic and polygenic diseases. However, I will also argue that topological explanations should not be considered as independent and radically different from mechanistic explanations for at least two reasons. First, in network medicine, topological explanations depend on and use mechanistic information. Second, they leave out some missing gaps in disease explanation that require, in turn, the development of new mechanistic explanations. Finally, I will insist on the specific contribution of topological explanations in medicine: they push us to develop an explanation of disease in general, instead of focusing on single explanations of individual diseases. This last point may have major consequences for biomedical research. (shrink)

Justification Logic is a family of epistemic logical systems obtained from modal logics of knowledge by adding a new type of formula t:F, which is read t is a justification for F. The principal epistemic modal logic S4 includes Tarski’s well-known topological interpretation, according to which the modality 2X is read the Interior of X in a topological space (the topological equivalent of the ‘knowable part of X’). In this paper, we extend Tarski’s topological interpretation from S4 to Justification Logic (...) systems with both modality and justification assertions. The topological semantics interprets t:X as a reachable subset of X (the topological equivalent of ‘test t confirms X’). We establish a number of soundness and completeness results with respect to Kripke topology and the real topology for S4-based systems of Justification Logic. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that (elementary) topology may be useful for dealing with problems of epistemology and metaphysics. More precisely, I want to show that the introduction of topological structures may elucidate the role of the spatial structures (in a broad sense) that underly logic and cognition. In some detail I’ll deal with “Cassirer’s problem” that may be characterized as an early forrunner of Goodman’s “grue-bleen” problem. On a larger scale, topology turns out to (...) be useful in elaborating the approach of conceptual spaces that in the last twenty years or so has found quite a few applications in cognitive science, psychology, and linguistics. In particular, topology may help distinguish “natural” from “not-so-natural” concepts. This classical problem that up to now has withstood all efforts to solve (or dissolve) it by purely logical methods. Finally, in order to show that a topological perspective may also offer a fresh look on classical metaphysical problems, it is shown that Leibniz’s famous principle of the identity of indiscernibles is closely related to some well-known topological separation axioms. More precisely, the topological perspective gives rise in a natural way to some novel variations of Leibniz’s principle. (shrink)

How do concepts of topology such as that of a boundary apply to the empirical world? Take the example of a chess board, represented here with black squares in black and red squares in white. We see by looking at the board that the squares of any one color have common boundaries only with squares of the opposite color, but each square has corners in common with other squares of the same color, which are points at which their common (...) boundaries intersect. For example, the white square labelled ‘A’ has common boundaries with the black squares that surround it, and common corners with the white squares like square B that are diagonally adjacent to it. (shrink)

In the natural sciences higher order structures often occur. There seems to be a need for good methods of describing what we mean by higher order structures in various contexts. This is what hyperstructures are intended to do. We motivate and introduce this new concept. Next we illustrate how it can be applied in various types of genomic analysis—particular the correlations between single nucleotide polymorphisms and diseases. The suggested structure is quite general and may be applied to a variety of (...) situations. Finally we discuss how data sets (f. ex. genomic) may lead to topological spaces, giving new invariants and lead to the prediction of hyperstructures. (shrink)

In this article, we develop tame topology over dp-minimal structures equipped with definable uniformities satisfying certain assumptions. Our assumptions are enough to ensure that definable sets are tame: there is a good notion of dimension on definable sets, definable functions are almost everywhere continuous, and definable sets are finite unions of graphs of definable continuous “multivalued functions.” This generalizes known statements about weakly o-minimal, C-minimal, and P-minimal theories.

The standard presentation of topological spaces relies heavily on (naïve) set theory: a topology consists of a set of subsets of a set (of points). And many of the high-level tools of set theory are required to achieve just the basic results about topological spaces. Concentrating on the mathematical structures, category theory offers the possibility to look synthetically at the structure of continuous transformations between topological spaces addressing specifically how the fundamental notions of point and open come about. As (...) a byproduct of this, one may look at the different approaches to topology from an external perspective and compare them in a unified way. Technically, the category of sober topological spaces can be seen as consisting of (co)algebraic structures in the exact completion of the elementary category of sets and relations. Moreover, the same abstract construction of taking the exact completion, when applied to the category of topological spaces and continuous functions produces an extension of it which is cartesian closed. In other words, there is one general mathematical construction that, when applied to a very elementary category, generates the category of topological spaces and continuous functions, and when applied to that category produces a very suitable category where to deal with all sorts functions spaces. Yet, via such free constructions it is possible to give a new meaning to Marshall Stone’s dictum: “always topologize” as the category of sets and relations is the most natural way to give structure to logic and the category of topological spaces and continuous functions is obtained from it by a good mix of free – i.e. syntactic – constructions. (shrink)

It is a well-known fact that mathematics plays a crucial role in physics; in fact, it is virtually impossible to imagine contemporary physics without it. But it is questionable whether mathematical concepts could ever play such a role in psychology or philosophy. In this paper, we set out to examine a rather unobvious example of the application of topology, in the form of the theory of persons proposed by Kurt Lewin in his Principles of Topological Psychology. Our aim is (...) to show that this branch of mathematics can furnish a natural conceptual system for Gestalt psychology, in that it provides effective tools for describing global qualitative aspects of the latter’s object of investigation. We distinguish three possible ways in which mathematics can contribute to this: explanation, explication and metaphor. We hold that all three of these can be usefully characterized as throwing light on their subject matter, and argue that in each case this contrasts with the role of explanations in physics. Mathematics itself, we argue, provides something different from such explanations when applied in the field of psychology, and this is nevertheless still cognitively fruitful. (shrink)

The paper is aimed at studying the topological dimension for sets definable in weakly o-minimal structures in order to prepare background for further investigation of groups, group actions and fields definable in the weakly o-minimal context. We prove that the topological dimension of a set definable in a weakly o-minimal structure is invariant under definable injective maps, strengthening an analogous result from [2] for sets and functions definable in models of weakly o-minimal theories. We pay special attention to large subsets (...) of Cartesian products of definable sets, showing that if X, Y and S are non-empty definable sets and S is a large subset of X × Y, then for a large set of tuples $\langle \overline{a}_{1},\ldots,\overline{a}_{2^{k}}\rangle \in X^{2^{k}}$ , where k = dim(Y), the union of fibers $S_{\overline{a}_{1}}\cup \cdots \cup S_{\overline{a}_{2^{k}}}$ is large in Y. Finally, given a weakly o-minimal structure ������, we find various conditions equivalent to the fact that the topological dimension in ������ enjoys the addition property. (shrink)

The publication of Michel Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de France in the late 1970s has provided new insight into crucial developments in his late work, including the return to an analysis of the state and the introduction of biopolitics as a central theme. According to one dominant interpretation, these shifts did not entail a fundamental methodological break; the approach Foucault developed in his work on knowledge/power was simply applied to new objects. The present article argues that this reading — (...) which is colored by the overwhelming privilege afforded to Discipline and Punish in secondary literature — obscures an important modification in Foucault’s method and diagnostic style that occurred between the introduction of biopolitics in 1976 (in Society Must Be Defended) and the lectures of 1978 ( Security, Territory, Population) and 1979 ( Birth of Biopolitics). Foucault’s initial analysis of biopolitics was couched in surprisingly epochal and totalizing claims about the characteristic forms of power in modernity. The later lectures, by contrast, suggest what I propose to call a ‘topological’ analysis that examines the ‘patterns of correlation’ in which heterogeneous elements — techniques, material forms, institutional structures and technologies of power — are configured, as well as the redeployments through which these patterns are transformed. I also indicate how attention to the topological dimension of Foucault’s analysis might change our understanding of key themes in his late work: biopolitics, the analysis of thinking, and the concept of governmentality. (shrink)

Provability logic GLP is well-known to be incomplete w.r.t. Kripke semantics. A natural topological semantics of GLP interprets modalities as derivative operators of a polytopological space. Such spaces are called GLP-spaces whenever they satisfy all the axioms of GLP. We develop some constructions to build nontrivial GLP-spaces and show that GLP is complete w.r.t. the class of all GLP-spaces.

In this highly original text, Christopher Steinsvold explores an alternative semantics for logics of rational belief. Topologies, as mathematical objects, are typically interpreted in terms of space; here topologies are re-interpreted in terms of an agent with rational beliefs. The topological semantics tells us that the agent can never, in principle, know everything; that the agent's beliefs can never be complete. -/- A number of completeness proofs are given for a variety of logics of rational belief. Beyond this, the author (...) explores the philosophical question of why our beliefs can never be complete, and considers the possibility that a totality of truths is a dialethia. -/- This work will be of interest to all philosophers interested in epistemology, and modal logicians as well. (shrink)

The standard mathematical account of the sub-metrical geometry of a space employs topology, whose foundational concept is the open set. This proves to be an unhappy choice for discrete spaces, and offers no insight into the physical origin of geometrical structure. I outline an alternative, the Theory of Linear Structures, whose foundational concept is the line. Application to Relativistic space-time reveals that the whole geometry of space-time derives from temporal structure. In this sense, instead of spatializing time, Relativity temporalizes (...) space. (shrink)

Drawing from Andean cosmological, mythological and aesthetic lineages, this paper is about the possibility of a phenomenology of things at catastrophic ends. In this regard, I approach things under the sway of a (de)formative emptiness. In the first part, I develop a relational ontology on the basis of the Andean notion of pacha or cosmos, which provides a phenomenological frame for a determination of “place,” “world” and “topology.” I also contrast an elemental topology of the cosmos configured by (...) ouranic sunlight with an elemental catastrophism that overturns it. In the second part, I study a chronological series of artifacts in an Andean aesthetic lineage in order to attempt a phenomenology of “things” (utensils, buildings, mountains) that “spectrally” hover in overturns of the cosmos (pachakuti). (shrink)

The quantization of the magnetic flux in superconducting rings is studied in the frame of a topological model of electromagnetism that gives a topological formulation of electric charge quantization. It turns out that the model also embodies a topological mechanism for the quantization of the magnetic flux with the same relation between the fundamental units of magnetic charge and flux as there is between the Dirac monopole and the fluxoid.

Dynamic topological logic provides a context for studying the confluence of the topological semantics for S4, topological dynamics, and temporal logic. The topological semantics for S4 is based on topological spaces rather than Kripke frames. In this semantics, □ is interpreted as topological interior. Thus S4 can be understood as the logic of topological spaces, and □ can be understood as a topological modality. Topological dynamics studies the asymptotic properties of continuous maps on topological spaces. Let a dynamic topological system (...) be a topological space X together with a continuous function f. f can be thought of in temporal terms, moving the points of the topological space from one moment to the next. Dynamic topological logics are the logics of dynamic topological systems, just as S4 is the logic of topological spaces. Dynamic topological logics are defined for a trimodal language with an S4-ish topological modality □ , and two temporal modalities, ○ and * , both interpreted using the continuous function f. In particular, ○ expresses f’s action on X from one moment to the next, and * expresses the asymptotic behaviour of f. (shrink)

Dynamic topological logic provides a context for studying the confluence of the topological semantics for S4, topological dynamics, and temporal logic. The topological semantics for S4 is based on topological spaces rather than Kripke frames. In this semantics, is interpreted as topological interior. Thus S4 can be understood as the logic of topological spaces, and can be understood as a topological modality. Topological dynamics studies the asymptotic properties of continuous maps on topological spaces. Let a dynamic topological system be a (...) topological space X together wError: Corrupted memory profileError: read ICCBased color space profile errorith a continuous function f. f can be thought of in temporal terms, moving the points of the topological space from one moment to the next. Dynamic topological logics are the logics of dynamic topological systems, just as S4 is the logic of topological spaces. Dynamic topological logics are defined for a trimodal language with an S4-ish topological modality, and two temporal modalities, and ∗, both interpreted using the continuous function. (shrink)

Stephen Hawking, among others, has proposed that the topological stability of a property of space-time is a necessary condition for it to be physically significant. What counts as stable, however, depends crucially on the choice of topology. Some physicists have thus suggested that one should find a canonical topology, a single ‘right’ topology for every inquiry. While certain such choices might be initially motivated, some little-discussed examples of Robert Geroch and some propositions of my own show that (...) the main candidates—and each possible choice, to some extent—faces the horns of a no-go result. I suggest that instead of trying to decide what the ‘right’ topology is for all problems, one should let the details of particular types of problems guide the choice of an appropriate topology. (shrink)

Dynamic topological logic provides a context for studying the confluence of the topological semantics for S4, topological dynamics, and temporal logic. The topological semantics for S4 is based on topological spaces rather than Kripke frames. In this semantics, □ is interpreted as topological interior. Thus S4 can be understood as the logic of topological spaces, and □ can be understood as a topological modality. Topological dynamics studies the asymptotic properties of continuous maps on topological spaces. Let a dynamic topological system (...) be a topological space X together with a continuous function f. f can be thought of in temporal terms, moving the points of the topological space from one moment to the next. Dynamic topological logics are the logics of dynamic topological systems, just as S4 is the logic of topological spaces. Dynamic topological logics are defined for a trimodal language with an S4-ish topological modality □, and two temporal modalities, ○ and *, both interpreted using the continuous function f. In particular, ○ expresses f’s action on X from one moment to the next, and * expresses the asymptotic behaviour of f. (shrink)

Recent philosophical work has explored the distinction between causal and non-causal forms of explanation. In this literature, topological explanation is viewed as a clear example of the non-causal variety–it is claimed that topology lacks temporal information, which is necessary for causal structure. This paper explores the distinction between topological and causal forms of explanation and argues that this distinction is not as clear cut as the literature suggests. One reason for this is that some explanations involve both topological and (...) causal information. In these “borderline” cases scientists explain some outcome by appealing to the causal topology of the system of interest. These cases help clarify a type of topological explanation that is genuinely causal, but that differs from standard topological and interventionist accounts of explanation. (shrink)

A general method for constructing a new class of topological Ramsey spaces is presented. Members of such spaces are infinite sequences of products of Fraïssé classes of finite relational structures satisfying the Ramsey property. The Product Ramsey Theorem of Sokič is extended to equivalence relations for finite products of structures from Fraïssé classes of finite relational structures satisfying the Ramsey property and the Order-Prescribed Free Amalgamation Property. This is essential to proving Ramsey-classification theorems for equivalence relations on fronts, generalizing the (...) Pudlák–Rödl Theorem to this class of topological Ramsey spaces. To each topological Ramsey space in this framework corresponds an associated ultrafilter satisfying some weak partition property. By using the correct Fraïssé classes, we construct topological Ramsey spaces which are dense in the partial orders of Baumgartner and Taylor generating p-points which are k-arrow but not \-arrow, and in a partial order of Blass producing a diamond shape in the Rudin-Keisler structure of p-points. Any space in our framework in which blocks are products of n many structures produces ultrafilters with initial Tukey structure exactly the Boolean algebra \\). If the number of Fraïssé classes on each block grows without bound, then the Tukey types of the p-points below the space’s associated ultrafilter have the structure exactly \. In contrast, the set of isomorphism types of any product of finitely many Fraïssé classes of finite relational structures satisfying the Ramsey property and the OPFAP, partially ordered by embedding, is realized as the initial Rudin-Keisler structure of some p-point generated by a space constructed from our template. (shrink)

Dynamic Topological Logic ( ) is a modal logic which combines spatial and temporal modalities for reasoning about dynamic topological systems , which are pairs consisting of a topological space X and a continuous function f : X → X . The function f is seen as a change in one unit of time; within one can model the long-term behavior of such systems as f is iterated. One class of dynamic topological systems where the long-term behavior of f is (...) particularly interesting is that of minimal systems ; these are dynamic topological systems which admit no proper, closed, f -invariant subsystems. In such systems the orbit of every point is dense, which within translates into a non-trivial interaction between spatial and temporal modalities. This interaction, however, turns out to make the logic simpler, and while s in general tend to be undecidable, interpreted over minimal systems we obtain decidability, although not in primitive recursive time; this is the main result that we prove in this paper. We also show that interpreted over minimal systems is incomplete for interpretations on relational Kripke frames and hence does not have the finite model property; however it does have a finite non-deterministic quasimodel property. Finally, we give a set of formulas of which characterizes the class of minimal systems within the class of dynamic topological systems, although we do not offer a full axiomatization for the logic. (shrink)