Although Aristotle (Metaphysics, Book IV, Chapter 2) was perhaps the first person to consider the part-whole relationship to be a proper subject matter for philosophic inquiry, the Polish logician Stanislow Lesniewski [15] is generally given credit for the first formal treatment of the subject matter in his Mereology.1 Woodger [30] and Tarski [24] made use of a specific adaptation of Lesniewski's work as a basis for a formal theory of physical things and their parts. The term 'calculus of individuals' was (...) introduced by Leonard and Goodman [14] in their presentation of a system very similar to Tarski's adaptation of Lesniewski's Mereology. Contemporaneously with Lesniewski's development of his Mereology, Whitehead [27] and [28] was developing a theory of extensive abstraction based on the two-place predicate, 'x extends over y\ which is the converse of 'x is a part of y\ This system, according to Russell [22], was to have been the fourth volume of their Pήncipia Mathematica, the never-published volume on geometry. Both Lesniewski [15] and Tarski [25] have recognized the similarities between Whitehead's early work and Lesniewski's Mereology. Between the publication of Whitehead's early work and the publication of Process and Reality [29], Theodore de Laguna [7] published a suggestive alternative basis for Whitehead's theory. This led Whitehead, in Process and Reality, to publish a revised form of his theory based on the two-place predicate, 'x is extensionally connected with y\ It is the purpose of this paper to present a calculus of individuals based on this new Whiteheadian primitive predicate. (shrink)

The title of this volume -- Logic, God and Metaphysics -- is carefully chosen and, at the same time, descriptive of its main focus. In the twentieth century, the interests of most philosophers and theologians have fallen into only one of the three areas indicated -- logic, god or metaphysics. Since much of Anglo-American philosophy in this century has been analytic and antimetaphysical because of the influence of positivism, there have been few attempts at continuing metaphysical inquiry. In the early (...) part of the century, the logical atomists combined logic and metaphysics by arguing that the structure of reality is mirrored isomorphically in the structure of a formal, logically perfect, truth-functional language, but their effort was short-lived. Alfred North Whitehead and process philosophers have focused upon god and metaphysics but usually by adopting terminology and distinctions which are unique to certain systems -- making rigorous, logical analysis difficult or impossible. The papers included in this volume are illustrative of the application of careful, rigorous logical analysis to do critical philosophy of religion and what has been called constructive metaphysics. (shrink)

In Process and Reality, Whitehead explicitly states what he conceives his task to be: “Speculative Philosophy,” he writes, “is the endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted.” He then goes on to explain what he means by the key terms in this passage. By ‘in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted’, “I mean,” he explains, “that everything of which we (...) are conscious, as enjoyed, perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme.” This universality, or all-comprehensiveness, of the system is interpreted in terms of two characteristics: applicability and adequacy. Whitehead explains: “Here ‘applicable’ means that some items of experience are thus interpretable, and ‘adequate’ means that there are no items incapable of such interpretation.” It is these two characteristics of the system which give an explication of the term ‘necessary’ as applied to the system of general ideas: “The metaphysical first principles can never fail of exemplification. We can never catch the actual world taking a holiday from their sway.”. (shrink)

Rudolph Carnap’s Aufbau was one of the more ambitious philosophical programs of the twentieth century. His proposal was to begin with elementarerlebnisse —cross sections of one total stream of experience temporally limited by the least perceivable segment of time—and an undefined primitive relation, recollection of similarity, holding between the elementary experiences. Without any further non-logical terms, the goal was to utilize a logic, such as that of Principia Mathematica, and actually to construct logically, or to define formally, all the kinds (...) of entities, phenomenal, physical, psychological and cultural, which we usually take to make up our world. Unfortunately, the program is not completed. Only what Carnap refers to as the lower levels is actually formally constructed—that is, what might be called the phenomenal level. The remainder of the constructional program is only suggested in outline. (shrink)

In this work Ivor Leclerc argues for the contemporary need for a philosophy of nature, a discipline which he takes to be a casualty of the acceptance of the early nineteenth century conception of physics as a mechanics, the science of matter in locomotion in space and time. One of the main consequences of this conception of physics, which grows out of the seventeenth century conception of nature, has been that philosophy cannot have "nature" as its object; rather, the object (...) of philosophy is "science" itself, not nature. The result of this consequence has been, according to Leclerc, "an obscuring, indeed a blocking, of the realization of the full magnitude and extent of the twentieth-century developments in science, in particular of the most fundamental respects, namely, the ontological and metaphysical, in which those developments have affected the conception of nature". This has worked to the disadvantage of both the philosopher and the scientist. In Part 1 Leclerc is primarily concerned with making the above case, while Part 2 is devoted to a historical investigation into the development of the concepts involved in the conception of "physics as a mechanics" and Part III is primarily devoted to a criticism of this view of physics and a suggestion concerning the direction a philosophy of nature should take in the later part of the twentieth century. (shrink)

In referendum elections, voters are often required to register simultaneous votes on multiple proposals. The separability problem occurs when a voter’s preferred outcome on one proposal depends on the outcomes of other proposals. This type of interdependence can lead to unsatisfactory or even paradoxical election outcomes, such as a winning outcome that is the last choice of every voter. Here we propose an iterative voting scheme that allows voters to revise their voting strategies based on the outcomes of previous iterations. (...) Using a robust computer simulation, we investigate the potential of this approach to solve the separability problem. (shrink)

Clark Butler has given us an English version of Hegel’s 1831 Lectures on Logic, the last course he was to complete before his death. The course was transcribed by his son Karl and first published in 2001 . Although the manuscript is not Hegel’s own, its contents are unmistakably authentic, opening an interesting window on Hegel’s thinking while he was preparing a second edition of the Logic. Readers familiar with that work will find that the content of the lectures (...) conforms to the standard version. But the real interest of these lectures lies in Hegel’s freer discussion of the logical categories, in the course of which he frequently gives illustrations from ethics and history.Butler’s interest in the lectures is in keeping with Hegel’s intention to reach a wider audience ; accordingly, Butler has introduced numerous interpolations in order to “produce a readable text for those who are not Hegel scholars” and to “make the science of logic not only readable but teachable” . It may be questioned, however, to what extent Butler has succeeded. One difficulty stems from his intention to heed “Hegel’s professed true intent” , even where this brings him into conflict with the letter of the text. Noting that Hegel’s “panlogicist. (shrink)

The paper by Bowman-Smart et al. (2023) on noninvasive prenatal genetic testing (NIPT) for non-medical traits aims to set out the case for and the case against such testing. In response to their pa...

Nel 1726 lo scozzese Walter Bowman intrattenne una corrispondenza con Samuel Clarke su «the power of self-motion», un argomento che Clarke aveva trattato nella sua Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. Le due lettere inedite di Clarke, qui presentate, sono parte di quella vasta corrispondenza che il teologo ebbe con filosofi e uomini di lettere dopo la pubblicazione della Demonstration. In questo saggio si ricostruiscono gli argomenti di Clarke, in primo luogo quelli relativi alla dimostrazione dell’esistenza di (...) Dio, evidenziando le influenze di Cartesio, Locke e Newton. I commenti di Bowman, raccolti insieme alle lettere nella sua opera Fugitive Manuscripts, ci aiutano a vedere come Clarke elabori una teoria meccanicistica dell’azione e, come emerge dalle lettere, debba successivamente precisarla ricorrendo a due principi: «Pain is to be avoided and Novelties are to be attended with a sort of curiosity». (shrink)

This article argues against Bowman Clarke's attempt to eliminate futurity from the God of Process.

THE position I am going to consider here is that the proposition ‘There is a God’ is tautologous and yet not vacuous. This position was held by Bowman Clarke in his article, ‘Linguistic Analysis and the Philosophy of Religion’. Clarke was trying to refute Findlay’s ontological disproof of the existence of God. So let me first go briefly over Findlay’s ontological disproof.

Can what we know change what we see? Does language affect cognition and perception? The last few years have seen increased attention to these seemingly disparate questions, but with little theoretical advance. We argue that substantial clarity can be gained by considering these questions through the lens of predictive processing, a framework in which mental representations—from the perceptual to the cognitive—reflect an interplay between downward-flowing predictions and upward-flowing sensory signals. This framework provides a parsimonious account of how what we know (...) ought to change what we see and helps us understand how a putatively high-level trait such as language can impact putatively low-level processes such as perception. Within this framework, language begins to take on a surprisingly central role in cognition by providing a uniquely focused and flexible means of constructing predictions against which sensory signals can be evaluated. Predictive processing thus provides a plausible mechanism for many of the reported effects of language on perception, thought, and action, and new insights on how and when speakers of different languages construct the same “reality” in alternate ways. (shrink)

The Ethics of Need: Agency, Dignity, and Obligation argues for the philosophical importance of the notion of need and for an ethical framework through which we can determine which needs have moral significance. In the volume, Sarah Clark Miller synthesizes insights from Kantian and feminist care ethics to establish that our mutual and inevitable interdependence gives rise to a duty to care for the needs of others. Further, she argues that we are obligated not merely to meet others’ needs (...) but to do so in a manner that expresses "dignifying care," a concept that captures how human interactions can grant or deny equal moral standing and inclusion in a moral community. She illuminates these theoretical developments by examining two cases where urgent needs require a caring and dignifying response: the needs of the elderly and the needs of global strangers. Those working in the areas of feminist theory, women’s studies, aging studies, bioethics, and global studies should find this volume of interest. (shrink)

Many models of cognitive ability and disability rely on the idea of cognition as abstract reasoning processes implemented in the brain. Research in cognitive science, however, emphasizes the way that our cognitive skills are embodied in our more basic capacities for sensing and moving, and the way that tools in the external environment can extend the cognitive abilities of our brains. This chapter addresses the implications of research in embodied cognition and extended cognition for how we think about cognitive impairment (...) and rehabilitation, how cognitive reserve mitigates neural impairment, and the distinction between medical and social models of disability. (shrink)

The emerging neurocomputational vision of humans as embodied, ecologically embedded, social agents—who shape and are shaped by their environment—offers a golden opportunity to revisit and revise ideas about the physical and information-theoretic underpinnings of life, mind, and consciousness itself. In particular, the active inference framework makes it possible to bridge connections from computational neuroscience and robotics/AI to ecological psychology and phenomenology, revealing common underpinnings and overcoming key limitations. AIF opposes the mechanistic to the reductive, while staying fully grounded in a (...) naturalistic and information-theoretic foundation, using the principle of free energy minimization. The latter provides a theoretical basis for a unified treatment of particles, organisms, and interactive machines, spanning from the inorganic to organic, non-life to life, and natural to artificial agents. We provide a brief introduction to AIF, then explore its implications for evolutionary theory, ecological psychology, embodied phenomenology, and robotics/AI research. We conclude the paper by considering implications for machine consciousness. (shrink)