This landmark work provides a systematic introduction to systems of modal logic and stands as the first presentation of what have become central ideas in philosophy of language and metaphysics, from the "new theory of reference" and non-linguistic necessity and essentialism to "Kripke semantics.".

Modern physics describes the mechanics of the Universe. We have discovered a new foundation for physics, which explains the components of the Universe with precision and depth. We quantify the existence of Aether, subatomic particles, and the force laws. Some aspects of the theory derive from the Standard Model, but much is unique. A key discovery from this new foundation is a mathematically correct Unified Force Theory. Other fundamental discoveries follow, including the origin of the fine structure constant and subatomic (...) particle g-factors, a slight correction of neutron magnetic moment, a geometrical structure for charge, the quantification of electromagnetic charge as separate from electrostatic charge, a more precise meaning of spin, the quantification of space-resonance in five dimensions, and a new system of quantum units. The Aether quantifies as a fabric of quantum rotating magnetic fields with electromagnetic, electrostatic, and gravitational dipole structures. Subatomic particles quantify as angular momentum encapsulated in a quantum, rotating magnetic field. All quantum, atomic, and molecular processes can be precisely modeled, leading to discrete physics with new understandings and insights. (shrink)

With Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri reinvigorated debates in political theory and radical philosophy about the cultivation of revolutionary subjectivity. Their theorization of Empire and multitude has also significantly affected the tenor of critical approaches to educational theory during the past two decades. In this article, we discuss Hardt and Negri’s contribution to what we call the biopolitical turn in educational theory, emphasizing the influence of autonomist Marxism on their work. Even more specifically, we discuss the impact of the (...) autonomist tradition on their formulation of the nature of the relationship between the multitude and Empire: that the multitude is the generative force of the social world, whereas Empire is merely an apparatus of capture. This autonomist approach reveals a set of questions regarding subjectivity, materialism, and social ontology, which we argue are ripe for engagement by educational theorists, and indicate the enduring relevance of Empire as a valuable text for educational theorists interested in matters of biopolitical production, collective opposition, and revolutionary subjectivity. (shrink)

Première parution dans Intermédialités — Intermediality, Rythmer, n° 16, Automne 2010, p. 185-206. — URI : id.erudit.org/iderudit/1001962ar — DOI : 10.7202/1001962ar. Nous remercions Lucie Bourassa de nous avoir donné l'autorisation pour cette nouvelle mise en ligne. Résumé : Cet article propose un rapprochement et une confrontation entre la notion de rythme d'Henri Meschonnic et celle d'articulation de Wilhelm von Humboldt. Ces notions présentent plusieurs parentés, bien - Linguistique et théorie du langage – Nouvel article.

Ce texte a déjà paru dans B. Lindorfer & D. Naguschewski, Hegel. Zur Sprache. Beiträge zur europäischen Sprachreflexion, Tübingen, Gunter Narr Verlag, 2002. Nous remercions Lucie Bourassa ainsi que les éditeurs de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. On a maintes fois relevé des affinités entre la poétique de Mallarmé et la philosophie de Hegel. Le poète a vraisemblablement lu des textes du philosophe, il a du moins pris connaissance de quelques-unes de ses propositions grâce à son ami (...) - Linguistique et théorie du langage – Nouvel article. (shrink)

This article focuses upon monstrously generous teaching styles, enacted in neocolonial educational contexts, where the interactions between students and teachers are sometimes tense and mistrustful. The tensions between students and teachers are explained by discussing the ways in which schools—in the theoretical perspective of Roberto Esposito—operate to immunize the society against youth deemed improper. Utilizing the theories of Antonio Negri, James Baldwin, and W.E.B. Du Bois, the characterization of students as monstrous is discussed and an inversion is suggested, whereby students (...) deemed to be monstrous are considered the source of reinvigorating visions of society. The pedagogical approaches of teachers who seek to welcome and nurture monstrous students are described, relying upon the accounts of great teachers offered by educators and sociologists. In practice, monstrously generous teachers make supererogatory gestures in their interactions with students, as a way of signaling to heavily-armored youth that they are willing to enter reciprocal relationships with them. Once youth drop their armor and begin to share their perspectives, monstrously generous teachers develop multiple means of helping youth develop their worldviews, without surveillance or censor. (shrink)

Appearing in English for the first time, Schelling’s 1842 lectures develop the idea that many philosophical concepts are born of religious-mythological notions.

René Descartes, émerveillé par la rigueur scientifique des théorèmes de géométrie, en vint à « imaginer » que pouvaient être démontrées avec la même rigueur les conclusions de la philosophie. Son but: s'accoutumer l'esprit « à se repaître de vérités ». Sa méthode : devant toute chose, « qu'on s'abstienne d'en recevoir aucune pour vraie qui ne le soit, et qu'on garde toujours l'ordre qu'il faut pour les déduire les unes des autres ». Son point de départ : les « (...) raisons certaines et évidentes ». En somme, une dialectique consistant àconduire par ordre mes pensées, en commençant par les objets les plus simples et les plus aisés à connaître, pour monter peu à peu, comme par degrés jusqu'à la connaissance des plus composés; en supposant même de l'ordre entre ceux qui ne se précèdent point naturellement les uns les autres. (shrink)

With precision and profundity born of 30 years of devoted study, John Boyle offers an essential introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas on Scripture, shedding helpful light on the goals, methods, and commitments that animate the Angelic Doctor's engagement with the sacred page. Because the genius of St. Thomas's approach to the Bible lies not so much in its novelty but rather in the fidelity and clarity with which he recapitulates the riches of the preceding interpretive Tradition, this initiation into St. (...) Thomas's vision of Scripture is itself an orientation to the Church's vision of Scripture, from the Fathers through and beyond the Middle Ages. St. Thomas's embeddedness within the Church's Tradition and his own historical context is integral to his approach to Scripture, yet it sets him at some distance from modern readers, for whom his interpretive vision may seem perplexing or even impenetrable. In this Primer, Boyle first provides an acclimation to this medieval context through a survey and explanation of pertinent technical terminology used by St. Thomas and characteristic of the scholastic theology of the time. With an eye to the medieval practice of considering Scripture according to the fourfold division of causes, Boyle builds on this initial foundation by exploring in turn St. Thomas's accounts of the end or use of Scripture (final cause), its divine and human authorship (efficient cause), its order and division (material cause), and its literary styles or genres (formal cause). Drawing on writings from across St. Thomas's corpus, but especially his work On the Commendation and Division of Sacred Scripture and the prologues to his biblical commentaries, Boyle masterfully elucidates both the hermeneutical principles and deep wisdom of the Angelic Doctor's approach to Scripture, imparting invaluable guidance not only for reading and understanding St. Thomas and other great masters of the Tradition, but also-and ultimately-for understanding Scripture in light of this Tradition and reading it with greater benefit and joy. (shrink)

The number of students with disabilities has increased by more than 900% in Québec universities Such an increase generates undue pressures on both the academic services available to that clientele and the personnel responsible for internships placement and supervision. In the past decade, a number of studies have attempted to make up for the lack of scientific knowledge on in-class support (measures to support the trainees.), and only a small number of studies worldwide, have focused specifically on accommodation in the (...) context of internships. This situation prompted the current researchers to conduct an exploratory research in partnership with university supervisors, field supervisors and internship coordinators. The research concentrated on three professional programs in order to highlight the specific challenges and issues supervisors must confront while providing support to students with disabilities. The study will eventually focus on testing the identified measures so as to assess their impact and help in developing required modifications. (shrink)

"The chief business of twentieth-century philosophy” is “to reckon with twentieth-century history," claimed R. G. Collingwood. In this remarkable collection of essays, Frank Ankersmit demonstrates the prescience of that remark and goes a long way toward meeting its challenge. Responding to the work of Hayden White, Arthur Danto, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, he examines such issues as the difference between historical representation and artistic expression, the status of metaphor in historical description, and the relation of postmodernism to historicism. Ankersmit's fluent grasp (...) of European thought and his ability to incorporate concepts from literary theory, art history, the philosophy of science, and political thought into his analyses assure that this collection will interest readers throughout the humanities. (shrink)

"Not only one of the best but also the most comprehensive treatment of Stoicism written in this century." --Times Literary Supplement.

Ethics for Enemies comprises three original philosophical essays on torture, terrorism, and war. F. M. Kamm deploys ethical theory in her challenging new treatments of these most controversial practical issues. First she considers the nature of torture and the various occasions on which it could occur, in order to determine why it might be wrong to torture a wrongdoer held captive, even if this were necessary to save his victims. In the second essay she considers what makes terrorism wrong--whether it (...) is the intention to harm civilians, rather than harm to them being 'collateral damage,' or something else--and whether terrorism is always wrong. The third essay discusses whether having a right reason, in the sense of a right intention, is necessary in order for a war to be just. Kamm then examines ways in which the harms of war can be proportional to the achievement of the just cause and other goods that war can bring about, so as to make the declaration of war permissible. (shrink)

This is an English translation of Schelling's Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (first published in 1797 and revised in 1803), one of the most significant works in the German tradition of philosophy of nature and early nineteenth-century philosophy of science. It stands in opposition to the Newtonian picture of matter as constituted by inert, impenetrable particles, and argues instead for matter as an equilibrium of active forces that engage in dynamic polar opposition to one another. In the revisions of (...) 1803 Schelling incorporated this dialectical view into a neo-Platonic conception of an original unity divided upon itself. The text is of more than simply historical interest: its daring and original vision of nature, philosophy, and empirical science will prove absorbing reading for all philosophers concerned with post-Kantian German idealism, for scholars of German Romanticism, and for historians of science. (shrink)

The limited aim here is to explain what John Dewey might say about the formulation of the grue example. Nelson Goodman’s problem of distinguishing good and bad inductive inferences is an important one, but the grue example misconstrues this complex problem for certain technical reasons, due to ambiguities that contemporary logical theory has not yet come to terms with. Goodman’s problem is a problem for the theory of induction and thus for logical theory in general. Behind the whole discussion of (...) these issues over the last several decades is a certain view of logic hammered out by Russell, Carnap, Tarski, Quine, and many others. Goodman’s nominalism hinges in essential ways on a certain view of formal logic with an extensional quantification theory at its core. This raises many issues, but the one issue most germane here is the conception of predicates ensconced in this view of logic. (shrink)

The essays in this collection address different aspects of Dewey's philosophy of logic, from his work at the beginning of the twentieth century to the culmination of his logical thought in the 1938 volume, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry.

Laughter as superiority -- The elements of laughter -- The one necessary thing -- Objections to the normative thesis -- Comic virtues and vices -- The social virtues -- The charismatic virtues -- Machine law -- Machine scholarship -- Machine art and machine cities -- The battle of the norms -- Resistance to laughter -- The sociability thesis -- Conclusion.

Neuroscience has studied deductive reasoning over the last 20 years under the assumption that deductive inferences are not only de jure but also de facto distinct from other forms of inference. The objective of this research is to verify if logically valid deductions leave any cerebral electrical trait that is distinct from the trait left by non-valid deductions. 23 subjects with an average age of 20.35 years were registered with MEG and placed into a two conditions paradigm (100 trials for (...) each condition) which each presented the exact same relational complexity (same variables and content) but had distinct logical complexity. Both conditions show the same electromagnetic components (P3, N4) in the early temporal window (250–525 ms) and P6 in the late temporal window (500–775 ms). The significant activity in both valid and invalid conditions is found in sensors from medial prefrontal regions, probably corresponding to the ACC or to the medial prefrontal cortex. The amplitude and intensity of valid deductions is significantly lower in both temporal windows (p = 0.0003). The reaction time was 54.37% slower in the valid condition. Validity leaves a minimal but measurable hypoactive electrical trait in brain processing. The minor electrical demand is attributable to the recursive and automatable character of valid deductions, suggesting a physical indicator of computational deductive properties. It is hypothesized that all valid deductions are recursive and hypoactive. (shrink)

I present a possible worlds semantics for a hyperintensional belief revision operator, which reduces the logical idealization of cognitive agents affecting similar operators in doxastic and epistemic logics, as well as in standard AGM belief revision theory. (Revised) belief states are not closed under classical logical consequence; revising by inconsistent information does not perforce lead to trivialization; and revision can be subject to ‘framing effects’: logically or necessarily equivalent contents can lead to different revisions. Such results are obtained without resorting (...) to non-classical logics, or to non-normal or impossible worlds semantics. The framework combines, instead, a standard semantics for propositional S5 with a simple mereology of contents. (shrink)

razdel I. Istoriko-filosofskie issledovanii︠a︡ -- razdel II. Filosofskie i sot︠s︡ialʹno-politicheskie problemy -- razdel III. Istorii︠a︡ v lit︠s︡akh.