Let l be a commutative field; Bauval [1] showed that the theory of the ring l[X1,...,Xm] is the same as the weak second-order theory of the field l. Now, l[X1,...,Xm] is the ring of the monoid m, so it may be asked what properties of m we can deduce from the theory of l[;m], that is, if l[m] is elementarily equivalent to the ring of monoid k[G], with k, a field and G, a monoid, what do we know not only (...) about the first-order theory of G but also about more properties of G. We prove that in this case G is isomorphic to m.Bauval [1, Theorem V.2.1] proved that if a factorial ring A is elementarily equivalent to l[;X1,...,Xm], then A is isomorphic to F[X1,...,Xm], with F being the field of invertible elements of A.Our result is different from this property because, a priori, the field k is not the field of invertible elements . Furthermore, k[G]; is not always factorial or Neotherian: if G is isomorphic to the cartesian product ∏i<ω, then the number of irreducible elements that divide elements that divide X is infinite, and the ideal generated by the monomials X is not finitely generated.We recall that to be factorial of Neotherian are not elementary properties. (shrink)

Jean-Yves Leloup nous propose ici deux lectures magistrales de deux géants de la culture occidentale : Nietzsche, l'athée et Maître Eckhart, le théologien-mystique. Il tente de remettre "à l'endroit" un texte de Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, souvent cité pour justifier tous les athéismes. Leloup montre que le Dieu en lequel Nietzsche voyait une "antithèse de la vie" n'a rien à voir avec le Dieu des Evangiles qui est au contraire une puissance de vie et de libération, une claire lumière par laquelle (...) le monde est vu. L'auteur, avec Maître Eckhart, nous entraîne ensuite au-delà des contraires, au-delà même de Dieu et de tous les Absolus que nous imaginons, vers notre essentielle et silencieuse liberté... Ce livre délicieux et audacieux nous montre, comme le disait Pascal, que "l'athéisme est une marque de force d'esprit, mais jusqu'à un certain degré seulement". (shrink)

Based on genetic and biochemical advances on the molecular mechanism of circadian rhythms, a computational model for the mammalian circadian clock is used to examine the dynamical bases of circadian‐clock‐related physiological disorders in humans. Entrainment by the light–dark cycle with a phase advance or a phase delay is associated with the Familial advanced sleep phase syndrome (FASPS) or the Delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS), respectively. Lack of entrainment corresponding to the occurrence of quasiperiodic oscillations with or without phase jump can (...) be associated with the non‐24 h sleep–wake syndrome. In the close vicinity of the entrainment domain, the model uncovers the possibility of infradian oscillations of very long period. Perturbation in the form of chronic jet lag, as used in mice, prevents entrainment of the circadian clock and results in chaotic or quasiperiodic oscillations. It is important to clarify the conditions for entrainment and for its failure because dysfunctions of the circadian clock may lead to physiological disorders, which pertain not only to the sleep–wake cycle but also to mood and cancer. BioEssays 30:590–600, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Thanks to genetic and biochemical advances on the molecular mechanism of circadian rhythms in Drosophila, theoretical models closely related to experimental observations can be considered for the regulatory mechanism of the circadian clock in this organism. Modeling is based on the autoregulatory negative feedback exerted by a complex between PER and TIM proteins on the expression of per and tim genes. The model predicts the occurrence of sustained circadian oscillations in continuous darkness. When incorporating light‐induced TIM degradation, the model accounts (...) for damping of oscillations in constant light, entrainment of the rhythm by light‐dark cycles of varying period or photoperiod, and phase shifting by light pulses. The model further provides a molecular dynamical explanation for the permanent or transient suppression of circadian rhythmicity triggered in a variety of organisms by a critical pulse of light. Finally, the model shows that to produce a robust rhythm the various clock genes must be expressed at the appropriate levels since sustained oscillations only occur in a precise range of parameter values. BioEssays 22:84–93, 2000. ©2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Kant’s critique/doctrine distinction tracks the difference between a canon for the understanding’s proper use and an organon for its dialectical misuse. The latter reflects the dogmatic use of reason to attain a doctrine of knowledge with no antecedent critique. In the 1790s, Fichte collapses Kant’s distinction and redefines dogmatism. He argues that deriving a canon is essentially dialectical and thus yields an organon: critical idealism is properly a doctrine of science or Wissenschaftslehre. Criticism is furthermore said to refute dogmatism, by (...) which Fichte means Spinozism. Schelling repudiates Fichte’s position in his Philosophical Letters by reviving Kant’s distinction. First, ‘critique’ for Schelling names a canon that is valid for all systems—including Spinozism—and thus favours none—not even the Wissenschaftslehre. Second, Schelling coins ‘dogmaticism’ to refer to what Kant calls ‘dogmatism’: reason’s uncritical claim to doctrine. Hence, he says all systems—even Fichte’s—are susceptible to the ‘enthusiasm’ of mistaking themselves for doctrines or ‘objects of knowledge’, instead of subjectively valid ‘objects of freedom’. I reconstruct Schelling’s argument for reviving Kant’s distinction, while noting two consequences for German idealism. First, if criticism favours no system, a system’s origin cannot be an act of knowledge, e.g., intellectual intuition, but only an act of endorsement. Second, if dogmaticism entails enthusiasm, a system’s goal cannot be absolute knowledge, but only infinite striving. Hence, by retrieving Schelling’s notion of dogmaticism, we can both gain a better understanding of the Letters and register the impact of a core Kantian distinction on the German idealist project. (shrink)

Robinson and Zakon gave necessary and sufficient conditions for an abelian ordered group to satisfy the same first‐order sentences as an archimedean abelian ordered group (i.e., which embeds in the group of real numbers). The present paper generalizes their work to obtain similar results for infinite subgroups of the group of unimodular complex numbers. Furthermore, the groups which satisfy the same first‐order sentences as ultraproducts of finite cyclic groups are characterized.

Meillassoux seeks knowledge of transcendental reality, blaming Kant for the ‘correlationist’ proscription of independent access to either thought or being. For Meillassoux, correlationism blocks an account of the meaning of ‘ancestral statements’ regarding reality prior to humans. I examine three charges on which Meillassoux’s argument depends: (1) Kant distorts ancestral statements’ meaning; (2) Kant fallaciously infers causality’s necessity; (3) Kant’s transcendental idealism cannot grasp ‘the great outdoors’. I reject these charges: (1) imposes a Cartesian misreading, hence Meillassoux’s false assumption that, (...) for Kant, objects don’t exist without subjects; (2) misreads Kant, who infers causality’s necessity from the possibility of experience; (3) casts Kant’s idealism as subjective, ignoring his perspectival portrayal of it. (shrink)

Bazzocchi disposes the text of the Tractatus in a user-friendly manner, exactly as Wittgenstein's decimals advise. This discloses the logical form of the book by distinct reading units, linked into a fashioned hierarchical tree. The text becomes much clearer and every reader can enjoy, finally, its formal and literary qualities.

Knowledge of mechanisms is critical for causal reasoning. We contrasted two possible organizations of causal knowledge—an interconnected causal network, where events are causally connected without any boundaries delineating discrete mechanisms; or a set of disparate mechanisms—causal islands—such that events in different mechanisms are not thought to be related even when they belong to the same causal chain. To distinguish these possibilities, we tested whether people make transitive judgments about causal chains by inferring, given A causes B and B causes C, (...) that A causes C. Specifically, causal chains schematized as one chunk or mechanism in semantic memory led to transitive causal judgments. On the other hand, chains schematized as multiple chunks led to intransitive judgments despite strong intermediate links. Normative accounts of causal intransitivity could not explain these intransitive judgments. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

In this book William G. Lycan offers an epistemology of philosophy itself, a partial method for philosophical inquiry. The epistemology features three ultimate sources of justified philosophical belief. First, common sense, in a carefully restricted sense of the term-the sorts of contingentpropositions Moore defended against idealists and skeptics. Second, the deliverances of well confirmed science. Third and more fundamentally, intuitions about cases in a carefully specified sense of that term. The first half of On Evidence in Philosophy expounds a version (...) of Moore's method and applies it to each of several issues. This version is shown to resist all the standard objections to Moore; most of them do not even apply. It is argued, in Chapters 5 and 6, that philosophical method is far lesspowerful than most have taken it to be. In particular, deductive argument can accomplish very little, and hardly ever is an opposing position refuted except by common sense or by science. The final two chapters defend the evidential status of intuitions and the Goodmanian method of reflectiveequilibrium; it is argued that philosophy always and everywhere depends on them. The method is then set within a more general explanatory-coherentist epistemology, which is shown to resist standard forms of skepticism.In sum, William G. Lycan advocates a picture of philosophy as a very wide explanatory reflective equilibrium incorporating common sense, science, and our firmest intuitions on any topic-and nothing more, not ever. (shrink)

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Anscombe on thought, experience, sensation, and the ethics of virtue Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe is one of analytical philosophy's most prominent figures, the founder of consequentialism, and a leading mind in the field of virtue ethics. Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind: The collected Philosophical Papers of G.E.M. Anscombe, Volume 2, is part of a multivolume compilation of her life's work, providing insight into the mind of a groundbreaking 20th century philosopher. This volume's work explores memory, intentionality, causality and time, (...) delving into the language, actions, and logic of perception, sensation, and more. (shrink)

A directory of archives and manuscript repositories, with links to web pages for the repositories and to online finding aids. Searchable by: collection name; city; state; National Inventory of Documentary Sources (NIDS) number; and National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) number.

Est-il possible de trouver une herméneutique œcuménique pour que toutes les confessions chrétiennes puissent lire les Saintes Ecritures ensemble ? C'est à cette question que tente de répondre l'A. dans cet article. Après avoir formulé précisément la nature de sa problématique théologique en introduction, l'A. axe sa première partie sur l'état actuel de la question posée. En seconde partie, il propose un modèle possible d'herméneutique transconfessionnelle. En dernière partie, il procède à une étude comparative entrre les diverses confessions sur la (...) réflexion scripturaire. (shrink)