This article addresses nominal quantification in English in relation to discrete and continuous quantity, the two semantic categories of discrete and continuous / mass being analysed as interpretations of syntax. It re-examines the hypothesis of non-quantifiable continuous nouns as well as some theoretical questions such as overloaded definitions, unexploited oppositions or notions found without an explicit definition, as is sometimes the case with the concept of collective. The study then proceeds to examine semantic multiplicity in connection with grammatical number. Plural (...) is examined in association with numerals and fuzzy quantifiers. The singular category also also yields interpretations of multiplicity, whether with mass-nouns or with discrete collective nouns. This, together with the possible conversion of the latter into mass-nouns, draws one’s attention to a mode of reference shared by mass nouns and collective discrete nouns. (shrink)

En raison du lien direct et conventionnel entre le signifiant et le référent qui caractérise la catégorie du nom propre, celle-ci est affranchie de contraintes linguistiques visibles permettant sa délimitation. L’hétérogénéité résultant de cette particularité augmente lorsqu’il est considéré que cette dernière n’est pas incompatible avec une opérativité sémantique sous-jacente du signifiant, tant que cette opérativité n’interfère pas dans la désignation du référent et que la fonction de la dénomination est l’identification de celui-ci au sein d’une classe. Dans l’objectif d’attribuer (...) une cohérence à l’organisation interne de cette catégorie, nous proposons d’appréhender la diversité de ses membres par le biais d’une approche graduelle et bipolaire dans laquelle l’opposition nom propre vs nom commun est centrale. Cette approche a été transposée à deux des caractéristiques qui ont une incidence sur la typicalité des noms propres : la forme et la fonction sémantico-référentielle sous-jacente du signifiant. La structuration des occurrences de la transcription de l’émission C dans l’Air par ce biais est l’occasion de présenter les particularités de cette approche graduelle et bipolaire, ainsi que ses écueils et avantages. (shrink)

Cet article traite de la catégorie des pronoms, de sa définition et de la distinction entre les pronoms et les déterminants. L'article débute par un examen de la définition traditionnelle et étymologique du pronom comme mot mis « à la place d'un nom », une définition bien peu adaptée puisque seuls certains pronoms, par exemple, peuvent avoir un fonctionnement anaphorique. Une redéfinition est ensuite proposée, faisant des pronoms une classe fermée de noms grammaticaux qui ne prennent pas de déterminant et (...) dont les membres centraux s'emploient typiquement de façon anaphorique ou déictique. La dernière partie de l'article porte sur la distinction entre les pronoms et les déterminants et certains problèmes qui y sont liés, tels que l'ellipse nominale. Il y est argué que les déterminants sont eux aussi des noms grammaticaux, mais que le maintien d'une distinction déterminant vs pronom est motivé et descriptivement utile au regard d'au moins certains des mots concernés, à commencer par les articles et les pronoms personnels. (shrink)

En allemand moderne, les GN dépourvus d’actualisateur et soumis à l’indice de singulier (type [ØN]sg) encodent une visée non discrète et non définie. En ancien-haut-allemand, le marquage des catégories nominales est en cours d’élaboration, et l’interprétation d’un GN réduit à sa base (soumis à l’indice de singulier) émerge du contexte d’emploi. Dans l’exposé qui suit, on présentera les différentes interprétations sémantiques possibles pour la forme de GN [ØN]sg, dans le corpus de Otfrid (860), en analysant quels signes coprésents (...) dans l’énoncé guident le récepteur dans son travail interprétatif, en distinguant des contextes actualisants et des contextes désactualisants. Ce faisant, on s’interrogera sur le degré de grammaticalisation de l’opposition /discret/~/non discret/ dans cet état de langue. (shrink)

Depuis plus d’une cinquantaine d’années, les noms sous-spécifiés ou Nss ont fait l’objet de plusieurs tentatives de classification. Cette catégorie nominale, difficile à cerner, possède certaines caractéristiques comme l’incomplétude informationnelle, le besoin d’une spécification, la capacité à condenser l’information et à la catégoriser. Si ces propriétés sémantiques et discursives contribuent toutes deux à justifier l’existence d’une catégorie nominale particulière que constitueraient les Nss, à mi-chemin entre le mot plein et l’élément grammatical, elles pointent surtout vers une fonction des Nss dans (...) l’expression du point de vue du locuteur et donc d’une évaluation. C’est en ce sens que nous proposons une classification modale des Nss, inspirée des travaux de Chevalier et Léard et de Gosselin. Une telle typologie, mettant en lumière les schémas modaux qui sous-tendent le discours, permettrait ainsi de mieux rendre compte du fonctionnement global des Nss, à la fois sur les plans sémantique, textuel et discursif. (shrink)

Sémantiquement sous-spécifiés, les noms sous-spécifiés sont fonctionnellement très habiles, et assurent des fonctions de connexion ou d'indexation textuelle. Nous nous intéresserons dans cet article à l'actualisation des NSS au cours du processus d’écriture enregistré en temps réel, dans le but d'observer la mise en fonctionnement discursive de cette sous-catégorie nominale et la manière dont les NSS peuvent contribuer à structurer les dynamiques discursives. Nous défendons l'idée selon laquelle les stratégies d'actualisation des NSS au cours du processus d'écriture offrent un éclairage (...) inédit de leur fonctionnement textuel, et permettent aussi d'interroger la notion de sous-spécification, appréhendée dans la dynamique de l'actualisation online et, de ce fait, mise en relation avec la notion de complétion informationnelle. (shrink)

Ce livre est consacré à deux théories majeures pour les études sémantiques contemporaines : la Théorie des représentations du discours, et la Théorie des quantificateurs généralisés. La Théorie des représentations du discours introduit en sémantique une perspective dynamique sur l'interprétation, et étend le domaine de la sémantique formelle au discours. Depuis le travail fondateur de Hans Kamp en 1981, le point de vue et le langage de représentation de cette théorie sont largement utilisés en linguistique. La Théorie des quantificateurs généralisés (...) (Barwise et Cooper, 1981 ; Keenan et Stavi, 1986) offre à l'analyse linguistique un concept de quantification beaucoup plus puissant et flexible que celui de la logique du premier ordre. Le premier objectif de cet ouvrage est de donner une introduction à ces deux théories. On a cherché à rendre cette introduction accessible aux non spécialistes, et à l'illustrer au moyen d'exemples empruntés au français. La seconde partie du livre traite de la contribution de ces travaux à l'analyse de données complexes du français dans le domaine de la détermination nominale et de l'anaphore. On reprend sur ces bases nouvelles la typologie des groupes nominaux, et particulièrement la nature des catégories linguistiques de l'indéfini et du défini, en précisant ce qui les distingue de la quantification proprement dite. (shrink)

The postmodern rejection of essentialism does not mean that feminist theorists must abandon all categorizations of women. Indeed, while it is important to deconstruct identities and highlight the differences among women, we need to arrive at some notion of gender identity for political purposes. In paying careful attention to the distinction between nominal essences and real essences, the author shows that the category of women can be maintained without resorting to the problems of traditional essentialism. The author argues that the (...) marginalization of women is a product of culturally determined identities rather than ontological differences between men and women.Le refus postmoderne de l’essentialisme ne signifie pas que la théorie féministe doive abandonner toutes catégorisations de femmes. En effet, bien qu’il soit important de déconstruire les identités et mettre en valeur les différences parmi les femmes, il faut en arriver à une certaine notion d’identité sexuelle pour des raisons politiques. Se laissant guider par la distinction entre essences nominale et réelle,l’auteure montre que la catégorie de femme peut être maintenue tout en éludant les problèmes de l’essentialisme traditionnel. L’auteure soutient que la marginalisation des femmes est le produit d’identites determinées culturellement plutôt que de différences ontologiques entre hommes et femmes. (shrink)

The postmodern rejection of essentialism does not mean that feminist theorists must abandon all categorizations of women. Indeed, while it is important to deconstruct identities and highlight the differences among women, we need to arrive at some notion of gender identity for political purposes. In paying careful attention to the distinction between nominal essences and real essences, the author shows that the category of women can be maintained without resorting to the problems of traditional essentialism. The author argues that the (...) marginalization of women is a product of culturally determined identities rather than ontological differences between men and women.Le refus postmoderne de l’essentialisme ne signifie pas que la théorie féministe doive abandonner toutes catégorisations de femmes. En effet, bien qu’il soit important de déconstruire les identités et mettre en valeur les différences parmi les femmes, il faut en arriver à une certaine notion d’identité sexuelle pour des raisons politiques. Se laissant guider par la distinction entre essences nominale et réelle,l’auteure montre que la catégorie de femme peut être maintenue tout en éludant les problèmes de l’essentialisme traditionnel. L’auteure soutient que la marginalisation des femmes est le produit d’identites determinées culturellement plutôt que de différences ontologiques entre hommes et femmes. (shrink)

La recente pubblicazione delle note di corso Recherches sur l’usage littéraire du langage sono una conferma del ruolo giocato dal linguaggio poetico in Merleau-Ponty in quell’ambizioso e incompiuto progetto perseguito dal 1951 Sur la phénoménologie du langage. La convinzione che il linguaggio sia la questione cruciale per la fenomenologia avvicina le ricerche di Merleau-Ponty a quelle che Ricoeur svilupperà negli anni Settanta: è nella parola, nel discorso pronunciato, che avviene non solo il rapporto tra soggetti, ma anche quello con le (...) cose. Per entrambi i filosofi la Lebenswelt è una sorta di terra promessa della fenomenologia; un mondo che ci è dato cogliere soltanto in modo mediato. E a rappresentare una forma di mediazione esemplare è la figura retorica della metafora, negazione di ogni tentazione di presa diretta, di trasparenza del linguaggio stesso: nella parola metaforica, non riducibile alla dimensione nominale, viene delineata una ontologia “indiretta” o “abbozzata”. Tecnica stilistica da Merleau-Ponty, a differenza di Ricoeur, più praticata che teorizzata, la metafora poetica, o viva, realizza lo snodo tra pre-categoriale e categoriale, tra mondo sensibile e mondo dell’espressione, tra logos muto e logos pronunciato. Riprendendo l’analogia individuata da Valéry tra danza e linguaggio letterario, Merleau-Ponty traccia una teoria della figura come espressione degli ordini di senso percepiti che può trasfigurare il linguaggio ordinario; teoria molto vicina a quella ricoeuriana di “figurazione” che nel mondo della vita si radica per poi tornarvi.La publication récente des notes du cours Recherches sur l’usage littéraire du langage confirment le rôle joué par le langage poétique chez Merleau-Ponty dans le projet ambitieux et inachevé qu’il engage à partir de 1951 dans l’essai Sur la phénoménologie du langage. La conviction que le langage est la question cruciale pour la phénoménologie rapproche les recherches de Merleau-Ponty de celles que Ricoeur développera dans les années 1970 : c’est dans les mots, dans le discours prononcé, qu’advient non seulement les relations entre sujets, mais aussi nos rapports avec les choses. Pour les deux philosophes, la Lebenswelt est une sorte de terre promise pour la phénoménologie ; un monde qu’on ne peut saisir que de manière indirecte. Et c’est la figure de la métaphore qui représente une forme de médiation exemplaire, comme négation de toute tentative de prise directe, de transparence du langage lui-même. Dans l’expression métaphorique, non réductible à la dimension nominale, une ontologie « indirecte » ou « ébauchée » est esquissée. Technique stylistique chez Merleau-Ponty, plus pratiquée que théorisée à la différence de Ricoeur, la métaphore poétique, ou vivante, réalise la jonction entre le précatégorial et le catégorial, entre le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression, entre logos muet et logos proféré. Reprenant l’analogie de Valéry entre danse et langage littéraire, Merleau-Ponty trace une théorie de la figure comme expression des ordres de la perception qui peut transfigurer le langage ordinaire ; une théorie très proche de celle de Ricoeur de la « figuration » qui, enracinée dans le monde de la vie, y retourne ensuite.The recent publication of the lecture notes Research on the Literary Use of Language confirms the role played by poetic language in Merleau-Ponty’s ambitious and unfinished project that began in his 1951 essay “On the Phenomenology of Language.” The conviction that language is the crucial question for phenomenology in Merleau-Ponty’s work nears the research Paul Ricoeur would develop in the 1970’s: it is in words, in expressed discourse, that we encounter not only relations among subjects, but also our relation to things. For the two philosophers, the Lebenswelt is a sort of promised land for phenomenology, a world that we can grasp only indirectly. And, it is the figure of the metaphor that represents an exemplary form of mediation, as a negation of every attempt toward a direct grasp, of the transparency of language in itself. In the metaphorical expression, which is not reducible to a nominal dimension, an “indirect” or “outlined” ontology is sketched out. In the stylistic technique of Merleau-Ponty, more practiced than theoretical unlike Ricoeur, the poetic or living metaphor constitutes a junction between the pre-categorical and the categorical, between the sensible world and the world of expression, between silent logos and pronounced logos. Referring to Valery’s analogy between dance and literary language, Merleau-Ponty traces a theory of the figure as expression in the orders of perception that can transfigure ordinary language, a theory very similar to that of Ricoeur’s “figuration” which, rooted in the world of life, subsequently returns to it. (shrink)

Cet article est consacré à un emploi singulier des descriptions définies dans la presse people sur Internet. De nombreuses descriptions définies, telles le mari de Jill Biden, pour désigner Joe Biden, et le mari de Melania, pour désigner Donald Trump, y apparaissent sans lien avec le propos des articles, et cela parfois dans des contextes où un pronom personnel serait plus approprié qu’une expression nominale. Nous soulignerons d’abord combien ces descriptions définies s’écartent des emplois ordinaires des expressions référentielles très spécifiées (...) en général et des descriptions définies en particulier et quels risques certaines d’entre elles, relevant de la catégorie des « anaphores présuppositionnelles » de Milner, peuvent présenter pour la bonne interprétation référentielle. Nous spécifierons ensuite leur fonction, fonction liée à la fois à la coloration « people » de ce type de presse et à son support numérique. (shrink)

This paper investigates the typology of copulative predication in Tarifit Berber. Three main copulas are identified: (1) verbal, (2) nominal and (3) locative. Given that these elements can all be used as predicates, a uniform configuration which accounts for their derivation is proposed. The structure consists of a lower lexical layer occupied by the predicate (VP, NP etc.) and a higher functional projection represented by the Predicate Phrase (PredP). The Pred – head then enters into an agreement relation with the (...) lower head in the complement position, yielding a predicational copula sentence. Since these constructions are all marked for tense/aspect, the derivation is extended further to a TP projection where the relevant feature is valued. In view of the unified syntactic analysis, the difference between various copula predicates is optimally reduced to the categorial status of the basic predicate occupying the lower lexical projection. The paper identifies another copula construction, which correlates with the proxemics-locative. An examination of this configuration from a close range reveals that this particular locative occupies the subject position whereas the Pred – head is only filled with a bare syntactic feature but encodes no phonological information. (shrink)

Foundational ontologies, central constructs in ontological investigations and engineering alike, are based on ontological categories. Firstly proposed by Aristotle as the very ur- elements from which the whole of reality can be derived, they are not easy to identify, let alone partition and/or hierarchize; in particular, the question of their number poses serious challenges. The late medieval philosopher Dietrich of Freiberg wrote around 1286 a tutorial that can help us today with this exceedingly difficult task. In this paper, I discuss (...) ontological categories and their importance for foundational ontologies from both the contemporary perspective and the original Aristotelian viewpoint, I provide the translation from the Latin into English of Dietrich's De origine II with an introductory elaboration, and I extract a foundational ontology–that is in fact a single-category one–from this text rooted in Dietrich's specification of types of subjecthood and his conception of intentionality as causal operation. (shrink)

『논리연구』에서 후설이 탐구하는 범주적 직관은 단순히 감성적인 방식으로 이루어지지 않는 직관이다. 그리고 거기에서 등장하는 범주적 재현(Repräsentation) 이론은 범주적 직관이 재현이라는 이론이다. 『논리연구』에서 ‘재현’과 ‘파악(Auffassung)’은 외연이 같은 말이므로, 범주적 재현 이론은 범주적 직관이 파악이라는 이론이 된다. 그런데 20여년 후????논리연구????제2판 제2분책 서문에서 후설은 범주적 재현 이론을 더 이상 인정하지 않는다고 말한다. 하지만 후설이 실제로 이 이론을 포기하는가 하는 점은 논란의 여지가 있다. 나는 후설이 이 이론을 포기하지 않거나, 적어도 포기해서는 안 된다고 주장한다. 범주적 재현 이론은 『경험과 판단』 같은 후기의 저작에서도 채택되는 것처럼 (...) 보이며, 무엇보다도 범주적 직관을 이해하기 위하여 필수적이기 때문이다. 이 논문에서 나는 범주적 직관과 범주적 재현 이론을 자세하게 설명한 후, 범주적 재현 이론이 포기되거나 수정될 필요가 있다고 주장하는 투겐트하트(E. Tugendhat)와 로마(D. Lohmar)의 견해를 각각 비판한다. 이와 더불어 명확해지는 것은, 범주적 재현 이론을 통해 이해된 범주적 직관 개념이 선술어적 경험으로부터 술어적 인식의 발생을 규명하는 데 결정적인 역할을 한다는 점이다. (shrink)

Radical Ontic Structural Realism (ROSR) claims that structure exists independently of objects that may instantiate it. Critics of ROSR contend that this claim is conceptually incoherent, insofar as, (i) it entails there can be relations without relata, and (ii) there is a conceptual dependence between relations and relata. In this essay I suggest that (ii) is motivated by a set-theoretic formulation of structure, and that adopting a category-theoretic formulation may provide ROSR with more support. In particular, I consider how a (...) category-theoretic formulation of structure can be developed that denies (ii), and can be made to do work in the context of formulating theories in physics. Keywords: structural realism, category theory, general relativity.. (shrink)

L'objet de cet article est d'examiner en quoi la phrase nominale existentielle : (a) "Lecture pendant toute la matinée" (b) "Lecture d'un poème" (c) "Lecture" peut être concernée par la distinction aspectuelle télique / atélique. Nous avons examiné les phrases qui, notamment à cause du type d'expression nominale employé, renvoient à un événement, un processus ou un état. Celles qui renvoient à un événement sont téliques, les autres sont atéliques, comme dans le cas des expressions verbales. Nous avons étudié les (...) énoncés nominaux qui comportent un circonstant (a) pouvant influer sur l'aspect télique ou atélique de l'énoncé et les énoncés qui renferment uniquement un groupe nominal, comme en (b), ou un simple nom comme en (c). Il ressort de cette étude i) que le caractère télique ou atélique d'une phrase nominale existentielle dépend non seulement du type de nom utilisé, mais aussi de facteurs syntaxiques (circonstant, complément, adjectif et déterminant du nom) voire contextuels (l'énoncé précédent); ii) que la phrase nominale existentielle impose certaines contraintes d'emploi, notamment par rapport aux déterminants, ce qui peut freiner l'observation de la télicité pour certains groupes nominaux. (shrink)

This study of the interpretations of Aristotle's "Categories" in the thirteenth century provides an introduction to some main themes of medieval philosophical ...

Il s’agit d’étudier dans ce volume non pas juste une classe de mots, mais une fonction, qui a fait l’objet de grandes divergences théoriques quant à ses délimitations, sa définition exacte, et dont le concept même n’est pas utilisé par toutes les écoles de linguistique. Le but de ce volume est de faire le point sur les facteurs de divergence, sur les concepts limitatifs ou concurrents à celui de détermination, afin de voir si certaines...

Roderick Chisholm has been for many years one of the most important and influential philosophers contributing to metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. This book can be viewed as a summation of his views on an enormous range of topics in metaphysics and epistemology. Yet it is written in the terse, lucid, unpretentious style that has become a hallmark of Chisholm's work. The book is an original treatise designed to defend an original, non-Aristotelian theory of categories. Chisholm argues that there (...) are necessary things and contingent things; necessary things being things that are not capable of coming into being or passing away. He defends the argument from design, and thus includes the category of necessary substance (God). Further contentions of the essay are that attributes are also necessary beings, but not necessary substances, and that human beings are contingent substances but may not be material substances. (shrink)

Category mistakes are sentences such as 'Green ideas sleep furiously' or 'Saturday is in bed'. They strike us as highly infelicitous but it is hard to explain precisely why this is so. Ofra Magidor explores four approaches to category mistakes in philosophy of language and linguistics, and develops and defends an original, presuppositional account.

A comprehensive reference to category theory for students and researchers in mathematics, computer science, logic, cognitive science, linguistics, and philosophy. Useful for self-study and as a course text, the book includes all basic definitions and theorems, as well as numerous examples and exercises.

This essay endeavors to define the concept of indefinite extensibility in the setting of category theory. I argue that the generative property of indefinite extensibility for set-theoretic truths in category theory is identifiable with the Grothendieck Universe Axiom and the elementary embeddings in Vopenka's principle. The interaction between the interpretational and objective modalities of indefinite extensibility is defined via the epistemic interpretation of two-dimensional semantics. The semantics can be defined intensionally or hyperintensionally. By characterizing the modal profile of $\Omega$-logical validity, (...) and thus the generic invariance of mathematical truth, modal coalgebras are further capable of capturing the notion of definiteness for set-theoretic truths, in order to yield a non-circular definition of indefinite extensibility. (shrink)

There is growing support for the view that social categories like men and women refer to “objective types” (Haslanger 2000, 2006, 2012; Alcoff 2005). An objective type is a similarity class for which the axis of similarity is an objective rather than nominal or fictional property. Such types are independently real and causally relevant, yet their unity does not derive from an essential property. Given this tandem of features, it is not surprising why empirically-minded researchers interested in fighting oppression and (...) marginalization have found this ontological category so attractive: objective types have the ontological credentials to secure the reality (and thus political representation) of social categories, and yet they do not impose exclusionary essences that also naturalize and legitimize social inequalities. This essay argues that, from the perspective of these political goals of fighting oppression and marginalization, the category of objective types is in fact a Trojan horse; it looks like a gift, but it ends up creating trouble. I argue that objective type classifications often lack empirical adequacy, and as a result they lack political adequacy. I also provide, and in reference to the normative goals described above, several arguments for preferring a social ontology of natural kinds with historical essences. (shrink)

The concept that peope have of themselves as a 'person' is one of the most intimate notions that they hold. Yet the way in which the category of the person is conceived varies over time and space. In this volume, anthropologists, philosophers, and historians examine the notion of the person in different cultures, past and present. Taking as their starting point a lecture on the person as a category of the human mind, given by Marcel Mauss in 1938, the contributors (...) critically assess Mauss's speculation that ntions of the person, rather than being primarily philosophical or psychological, have a complex social and ideological origin. Discussing societies ranging from ancient Greece, India, and China to modern Africa and Papua New Guinea, they provide fascinating descriptions of how these different cultures define the person. But they also raise deeper theoretical issues: What is universally constant and what is culturally variable in people's thinking about the person? How can these variations be explained? Has there been a general progressive development toward the modern Western view of the person? What is distinctive about this? How do one's notions of the person inform one's ability to comprehend alternative formulations? These questions are of compelling interest for a wide range of anthropologists, philosophers, historians, psychologists, sociologists, orientalists, and classicists. The book will appeal to any reader concerned with understanding one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence. (shrink)

in a late note, dated 1797, Kant refers to the schematism of the pure understanding as one of the most difficult as well as one of the most important issues treated in the Critique of Pure Reason.1 His treatment of this theme is indeed notorious for its obscurity.2 As I see it, part of the problem is caused by the fact that Kant frames his discussion in terms that he could expect his readers to be familiar with, while he gradually (...) develops ideas that breach any traditional account of cognition. This holds for his references to the power of judgment and the related view that cognition is a matter of subsuming intuitions under concepts3 as well as for the suggestion that there is an initial gap between categories... (shrink)

We are women, we are men. We are refugees, single mothers, people with disabilities, and queers. We belong to social categories and they frame our actions, self-understanding, and opportunities. But what are social categories? How are they created and sustained? How does one come to belong to them? Ásta approaches these questions through analytic feminist metaphysics. Her theory of social categories centers on an answer to the question: what is it for a feature of an individual to be socially meaningful? (...) In a careful, probing investigation, she reveals how social categories are created and sustained and demonstrates their tendency to oppress through examples from current events. To this end, she offers an account of just what social construction is and how it works in a range of examples that problematize the categories of sex, gender, and race in particular. The main idea is that social categories are conferred upon people. Ásta introduces a 'conferralist' framework in order to articulate a theory of social meaning, social construction, and most importantly, of the construction of sex, gender, race, disability, and other social categories. (shrink)

The notion of 'natural kinds' has been central to contemporary discussions of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Although explicitly articulated by nineteenth-century philosophers like Mill, Whewell and Venn, it has a much older history dating back to Plato and Aristotle. In recent years, essentialism has been the dominant account of natural kinds among philosophers, but the essentialist view has encountered resistance, especially among naturalist metaphysicians and philosophers of science. Informed by detailed examination of classification in the natural and social sciences, (...) this book argues against essentialism and for a naturalist account of natural kinds. By looking at case studies drawn from diverse scientific disciplines, from fluid mechanics to virology and polymer science to psychiatry, the author argues that natural kinds are nodes in causal networks. On the basis of this account, he maintains that there can be natural kinds in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. (shrink)

Category Theory has developed rapidly. This book aims to present those ideas and methods which can now be effectively used by Mathe­ maticians working in a variety of other fields of Mathematical research. This occurs at several levels. On the first level, categories provide a convenient conceptual language, based on the notions of category, functor, natural transformation, contravariance, and functor category. These notions are presented, with appropriate examples, in Chapters I and II. Next comes the fundamental idea of an adjoint (...) pair of functors. This appears in many substantially equivalent forms: That of universal construction, that of direct and inverse limit, and that of pairs offunctors with a natural isomorphism between corresponding sets of arrows. All these forms, with their interrelations, are examined in Chapters III to V. The slogan is "Adjoint functors arise everywhere". Alternatively, the fundamental notion of category theory is that of a monoid -a set with a binary operation of multiplication which is associative and which has a unit; a category itself can be regarded as a sort of general­ ized monoid. Chapters VI and VII explore this notion and its generaliza­ tions. Its close connection to pairs of adjoint functors illuminates the ideas of universal algebra and culminates in Beck's theorem characterizing categories of algebras; on the other hand, categories with a monoidal structure lead inter alia to the study of more convenient categories of topological spaces. (shrink)

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw ends her landmark essay “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color” with a normative claim about coalitions. She suggests that we should reconceptualize identity groups as “in fact coalitions,” or at least as “potential coalitions waiting to be formed.” In this essay, I explore this largely overlooked claim by combining philosophical analysis with archival research I conducted at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society Archive in San Francisco about Somos Hermanas, (...) the solidarity project of the Alliance Against Women’s Oppression, based in the San Francisco Women’s Building (1984–90). I extend my analysis into the present by drawing on the oral history and published works of Carmen Vázquez, a key organizer in both Somos Hermanas and the Women’s Building. I argue that conceptualizing identities as in fact coalitions—as complex, internally heterogeneous unities constituted by their internal differences and dissonances and by internal as well as external relations of power—enables us to organize effective political coalitions that cross existing identity categories and to pursue a liberatory politics of interconnection. (shrink)

Category-based induction is an inferential mechanism that uses knowledge of conceptual relations in order to estimate how likely is for a property to be projected from one category to another. During the last decades, psychologists have identified several features of this mechanism, and they have proposed different formal models of it. In this article; we propose a new mathematical model for category-based induction based on distances on conceptual spaces. We show how this model can predict most of the properties of (...) this kind of reasoning while providing a solid theoretical foundation for it. We also show that it subsumes some of the previous models proposed in the literature and that it generates new predictions. (shrink)

The author of Categories We Live By replies to critics Linda Martín Alcoff, Judith Butler, and Abraham Sesshu Roth.

This is the first volume on category theory for a broad philosophical readership. It is designed to show the interest and significance of category theory for a range of philosophical interests: mathematics, proof theory, computation, cognition, scientific modelling, physics, ontology, the structure of the world.

In this paper we propose a very general de nition of combination of logics by means of the concept of sheaves of logics. We first discuss some properties of this general definition and list some problems, as well as connections to related work. As applications of our abstract setting, we show that the notion of possible-translations semantics, introduced in previous papers by the first author, can be described in categorial terms. Possible-translations semantics constitute illustrative cases, since they provide a new (...) semantical account for abstract logical systems, particularly for many-valued and paraconsistent logics. (shrink)