I present two logical systems to show the “analogy of proportionality„ common to several interpretations: modality (necessity and possibility), quantification, truth-functional relations, moral attitudes (deontic logic), states of knowledge (epistemic logic), and states of belief (doxastic logic). To display the two underlying analogical relations, I call upon the originally Scholastic convention, recently put to use again, of using squares, hexagons, and octagons “of opposition„. A combined epistemic–deontic logic happens to be found in the traditional “probabilist„ theory of the “good conscience„, (...) and I shall then briefly explain how this is so. (shrink)

This book provides both an introduction to the philosophy of scientific modeling and a contribution to the discussion and clarification of two recent philosophical conceptions of models: artifactualism and fictionalism. These can be viewed as different stances concerning the standard representationalist account of scientific models. By better understanding these two alternative views, readers will gain a deeper insight into what a model is as well as how models function in different sciences. Fictionalism has been a traditional epistemological stance related to (...) antirealist construals of laws and theories, such as instrumentalism and inferentialism. By contrast, the more recent fictional view of models holds that scientific models must be conceived of as the same kind of entities as literary characters and places. This approach is essentially an answer to the ontological question concerning the nature of models, which in principle is not incompatible with a representationalist account of the function of models. The artifactual view of models is an approach according to which scientific models are epistemic artifacts, whose main function is not to represent the phenomena but rather to provide epistemic access to them. It can be conceived of as a non-representationalist and pragmatic account of modeling, which does not intend to focus on the ontology of models but rather on the ways they are built and used for different purposes. The different essays address questions such as the artifactual view of idealization, the use of information theory to elucidate the concepts of abstraction and idealization, the deidealization of models, the nature of scientific fictions, the structural account of representation and the ontological status of structures, the role of surrogative reasoning with models, and the use of models for explaining and predicting physical phenomena. (shrink)

Disputationes in universam logicam Aristotelis.,. BNMX: xiii, 8, (NI, 297; VTA 429; VTB). 2. Philosophia Naturalis. Disputationes in octo libros Physicorum ...

The development of philosophical ideas throughout history has sometimes been assisted by the use of handcrafted instruments. Some paradigmatic cases, such as the invention of the telescope or the microscope, show that many philosophical approaches have been the result of the intervention of such instruments. The aim of this article is to show the determining role that stringed musical instruments with frets had in the crisis and generation of philosophical paradigms. In fact, just as the observations of the moon with (...) the telescope broke more than a thousand years of Aristotelian hegemony, the fretted string instruments, predecessors of the guitar, played a central role in the collapse of one of the most influential approaches in the history of Philosophy: Pythagorism. We focus on the fundamental hallmarks of Pythagorism and on how, during the 16th century and from the fretted string instruments, the mathematical-musical notion of equal temperament emerged, which from the middle of the 19th century will be established as the prevailing philosophical-musical paradigm of the West. (shrink)

The development of philosophical ideas throughout history has sometimes been assisted by the use of handcrafted instruments. Some paradigmatic cases, such as the invention of the telescope or the microscope, show that many philosophical approaches have been the result of the intervention of such instruments. The aim of this article is to show the determining role that stringed musical instruments with frets had in the crisis and generation of philosophical paradigms. In fact, just as the observations of the moon with (...) the telescope broke more than a thousand years of Aristotelian hegemony, the fretted string instruments, predecessors of the guitar, played a central role in the collapse of one of the most influential approaches in the history of Philosophy: Pythagorism. We focus on the fundamental hallmarks of Pythagorism and on how, during the 16th century and from the fretted string instruments, the mathematical-musical notion of equal temperament emerged, which from the middle of the 19th century will be established as the prevailing philosophical-musical paradigm of the West. (shrink)

St. Thomas Aquinas has been considered a kairos in intellectual history for seeing God’s essence as being. Martin Heidegger criticized philosophers forrepresenting being as a be-ing and identifying it with God, and Jean-Luc Marion speaks of “God without being.” In her Potency and Act Edith Stein introduced thecategory of being without essence, but such being is not God but “the opposite.” For St. Augustine sin was an approach to nonbeing, and Stein saw it leading to a“displacement into nonbeing,” to an (...) “annihilation” where only a “null being” is retained. This eschatological reflection is an intriguing aspect of her “fusion” ofscholasticism and phenomenology. (shrink)

St. Thomas Aquinas has been considered a kairos in intellectual history for seeing God’s essence as being. Martin Heidegger criticized philosophers forrepresenting being as a be-ing and identifying it with God, and Jean-Luc Marion speaks of “God without being.” In her Potency and Act Edith Stein introduced thecategory of being without essence, but such being is not God but “the opposite.” For St. Augustine sin was an approach to nonbeing, and Stein saw it leading to a“displacement into nonbeing,” to an (...) “annihilation” where only a “null being” is retained. This eschatological reflection is an intriguing aspect of her “fusion” ofscholasticism and phenomenology. (shrink)

Probabilism is a Scholastic discussion of conscience beginning in the sixteenth century and lasting over four hundred years. To tackle historical issues in normative ethics, the participants had to work out a general "metaethical" theory relating epistemic and deontic logics, the logics of knowledge and virtue. May I act if I am unsure that I may? How, when I am in doubt, can I acquire the critical mass of rationality that virtue demands? The normative aspect of the controversy has been (...) studied in its historical setting, but its interesting and original metaethics has been largely ignored outside the Scholastic circle itself. The discussion is obviously relevant, even practical, today; in fact, any treatment of conscience and relativism already includes the material of probabilist analyses. (shrink)

Recent literature on dialogical logic discusses the case of tonk and the notion harmony in the context of a rule-based theory of meaning. Now, since the publications of those papers, a dialogical version of constructive type theory has been developed. The aim of the present paper is to show that, from the dialogical point of view, the harmony of the CTT-rules is the consequence of a more fundamental level of meaning characterized by the independence of players. We hope that the (...) following paper will contribute to a better understanding of the dialogical notion of meaning. (shrink)

In this article I will present two arguments. First, the argument that the time travel television series historically provided viewers with a spectacular temporal and spatial alternative to the routine of everyday life, the regulation of television scheduling, and the small-world confines of domestic subjectivity. Taking the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, predominantly in a UK viewing environment, I will suggest that the special effect rendering of the time travel sequence expanded the viewer’s material universe, and affectively wrenched the (...) television set free from the strictures of scheduling and realist programming. Further, the time travel series readily and regularly took the domestic space, the ordinary day and the everyman/person into awesome environments and situations that suggested alternative lifestyles and behaviours, with a different existential tempo and rhythm. At a narrative, thematic, meta-textual, and aesthetically spectacular level, television time travel saw to the wonderful end of the working day. Case studies include Sapphire and Steal, Dr Who, and Quantum Leap. Second, the article will argue that rather than the contemporary time travel television series being an extraordinary alternative to ordinary life, they instead articulate convergence culture, deregulation, multiple channel viewing, and time-shift culture where there is no such thing as an ordinary working day or domestic viewing context. (shrink)

Nuestro objetivo es analizar críticamente el enfoque de la noción de modelo de Alfred Tarski que Patrick Suppes integra en su concepción semanticista de las teorías científicas. En efecto, mostraremos cómo esta noción se configura en Suppes (1969; 1970) desde una revisión formal de la noción de modelo en Tarski (1936), focalizando nuestro análisis en tres ejes principales: i) una crítica a la perspectiva estática del semanticismo; ii) un análisis de las condiciones restrictivas y el lenguaje para la axiomatización de (...) teorías; y iii) la revisión de las nociones de ‘sistema axiomático’, ‘sistema formal’ y ‘método axiomático’. (shrink)

This introduction to a special issue of Thesis Eleven devoted to science fiction begins by exploring the way the genre has been handled by German and French critical theory and their Anglophone equivalents. It proceeds to a discussion of the historical sociology of the genre and, thence, to an account of what it terms the dialectic of science fiction endangerment. Finally, it concludes with a brief overview of the various contributions to the issue.

The evidence for the effectiveness of rehabilitation of three types of attention—selectivity, sustained attention, and attentional switching—is reviewed. Limited but significant effects in all three domains are observed, though evidence for generalization to wider everyday life functions remains relatively sparse. In the case of sustained attention and also in the case of spatial selectivity, the modulating effects of arousal are shown to be important, and higher level executive deficits may at times be exacerbated or even caused by lowered levels of (...) arousal. Conversely, methods of modulating arousal may be used to improve sustained attention and executive functions in a range of clinical conditions. Attentional functions are key to other cognitive domains such as attention and perception, and so the promising evidence for attentional rehabilitation may contribute to the rehabilitation of other cognitive domains also. (shrink)

Mediante un estudio dialógico de la noción de igualdad definicional de la teoría constructiva de tipos, se mostrará que tal igualdad, que en la TCT provee el criterio de identidad asociado a un tipo, puede comprenderse, desde el punto de vista lúdico, como resultado de una forma específica de interacción dialógica regida por la regla formal, más conocida recientemente como la regla socrática, que prescribe el uso de jugadas de espejo. Esto se ilustrará con el desarrollo dialógico de las partes (...) esenciales de la demostración del axioma de elección de Per Martin-Löf, quien basó su prueba en la igualdad definicional entre la función que prueba el antecedente y la función que ocurre en el consecuente. (shrink)

En este artículo delineamos una propuesta para elaborar una lógica de las ficciones desde el enfoque lúdico del pragmatismo dialógico. En efecto, centrados en una de las críticas mayores al enfoque clásico de la lógica: la esquizofrenia estructural de su semántica, recorremos los compromisos ontológicos de las dos tradiciones mayores de la lógica para establecer sus posibilidades y límites en el análisis del discurso ficcional, y la superación desde una perspectiva lúdico pragmática.

This article aims to present a Free Dialogic Logic [FDL] as a general framework for hypothesis generation in the practice of modelling in science. Our proposal is based on the idea that the inferential function that models fulfil during the modelling process (surrogate reasoning) should be carried out without ontological commitments. The starting point to achieve our objective is that the scientific consideration of models without a target is a symptom that, on the one hand, the Applicability of Logic should (...) be considered among the conditions of adequacy that should take into account all modeling process and, on the other, that the inferential apparatus at the base of the surrogate reasoning process must be rid of realistic assumptions that lead to erroneous conclusions. In this sense, we propose as an alternative an ontologically neutral inferential system in the perspective of dialogical pragmatism. (shrink)

This article responds to Nicholas Wolterstorff's attempt to ground human rights in the condition of being loved by God.

This paper aims to propose an inferential and dynamic approach to understanding with models in biology. Understanding plays a central role in the practice of modeling. From its links with the other two central elements of scientific research, experimentation, and explanation, we show its epistemic relevance to the case of explanation in biology. Furthermore, by including the notion of understanding, we propose a non-referentialist perspective on scientific models, which is determined by their use.

This paper aims to propose an inferential and dynamic approach to understanding with models in biology. Understanding plays a central role in the practice of modeling. From its links with the other two central elements of scientific research, experimentation, and explanation, we show its epistemic relevance to the case of explanation in biology. Furthermore, by including the notion of understanding, we propose a non-referentialist perspective on scientific models, which is determined by their use.

The aim of this paper is to propose the notion of dialogical assertion as a minimal unit of knowledge in the frame of dialogical pragmatism. We argue that this minimal unity is the dialogue for the p thesis, accompanied by its game of giving and asking for reasons for a winning strategy for the proponent. Thereby, we explore the problem from the semantic framework proposed by Shahid Rahman to present a dialogical definition of that concept. Furthermore, we show how the (...) notion of proposition ceases to be the primordial logical concept and how it is replaced by the notion of assertion as an act in the process of a dialogue game and following the fundamental insights of Brandom and Martin-Löf. This pragmatic approach to logic will abandon the idea that the proposition is the minimum logical unit of true knowledge. (shrink)

Aristotle identifies the eye as the organ of sight, the ear as the organ of hearing, and the nose as the organ of smell. However, rather than identify the flesh as the organ of touch and that particular bit of flesh, the tongue, as the organ of taste, Aristotle makes what he admits to be the surprising claim that the organ of both touch and taste is located further inward (near the heart). The flesh is merely the medium that comes (...) between the sense organ and their respective sense objects. Focusing on the sense of touch in particular, I consider what reasons Aristotle offers in support of this claim. After carefully wading through De Anima 2.11, I argue that the only argument that Aristotle offers there relies on an assumption about the unity of the senses that provides as much support for alternative views about the organ and medium of touch as it does for the view that Aristotle endorses. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es proponer una justificación lógica del proceso de razonamiento sustitutivo en la práctica del modelado en ciencia. Para ello, definimos la generación de hipótesis como la creación de un diálogo interactivo y formal entre el modelo y el sistema objetivo. Para describir esta idea desde un punto de vista lógico, nos basaremos en el enfoque pragmático de la Dialógica como marco ideal para ilustrar las interacciones lógicas.

Recent literature on dialogical logic discusses the case of tonk and the notion harmony in the context of a rule-based theory of meaning. Now, since the publications of those papers, a dialogical version of constructive type theory (CTT) has been developed. The aim of the present paper is to show that, from the dialogical point of view, the harmony of the CTT- rules is the consequence of a more fundamental level of meaning characterized by the independence of players. We hope (...) that the following paper will contribute to a better understanding of the dialogical notion of meaning.La bibliografía reciente sobre lógica dialógica, estudia el caso de tonk y la noción de armonia en el contexto de una teoría del significado basado en reglas. Ahora bien, desde la publicación de tales textos, la teoría dialógica ha sido vinculada con la Teoría Constructiva de Tipos (CTT). El objetivo principal del presente artículo es mostrar que, desde un punto de vista dialógico, la armonía de las reglas de la CTT es consecuencia de un nivel más fundamental de significado caracterizado por la independencia de los jugadores. Esperamos que el presente trabajo contribuya a una mejor comprensión de la nocion dialógica de significado. (shrink)

I describe a “logic of creating” inspired by the “existential” argument of the existence of God in St. Thomas Aquinas’s De Ente et Essentia. suggest a modal reading of his reasoning based upon states-of-affairs said to be actual, contingent, necessary and the like. I take “creating” as teasing actuality out of possibility. After explaining the modal logic that I am assuming and relating it to Christian understandings of meaning and being, I present my modal interpretation, contrasting it with the views (...) of three modern philosophers. In an appendix I will analyze the text of St. Thomas’s existential proof. (shrink)

El autor, empeñado desde hace algún tiempo en recuperar la enseñanza de la filosofía en Latín, pone frente a frente en este estudio la teoría evolucionista de Darwin y la "quinta vía" tomística. Ello es ocasión para unas disquisiciones sobre la finalidad teleológica del mundo, la admiración aristotélica como principio del filosofar, y la verosimilitud.Palabras llave: Evolucionismo; teleología; verosimilitud.The author, who has made efforts over time to recover the teaching of philosophy in Latin, confronts in this paper Darwin’s Evolutionist Theory (...) and the Tomistic "Fifth Way". This confrontation lends itself to the rendering of some elaborations on the teleological finality of the world, Aristotilian admiration of the beginning of the philosophical task, and verisimilitude.Palabras llave: Evolutionism; teleology; verisimilitude. (shrink)

El autor, empeñado desde hace algún tiempo en recuperar la enseñanza de la filosofía en Latín, pone frente a frente en este estudio la teoría evolucionista de Darwin y la "quinta vía" tomística. Ello es ocasión para unas disquisiciones sobre la finalidad teleológica del mundo, la admiración aristotélica como principio del filosofar, y la verosimilitud.Palabras llave: Evolucionismo; teleología; verosimilitud.The author, who has made efforts over time to recover the teaching of philosophy in Latin, confronts in this paper Darwin’s Evolutionist Theory (...) and the Tomistic "Fifth Way". This confrontation lends itself to the rendering of some elaborations on the teleological finality of the world, Aristotilian admiration of the beginning of the philosophical task, and verisimilitude.Palabras llave: Evolutionism; teleology; verisimilitude. (shrink)

I wish to reflect briefly on what logic “is” and what the “is” is founded upon. Logic has traditionally been linked with argumentation. I shall examine a simple argument relative to a “miniworld”, and with the help of current logic and traditional ontology, extract from it a modest theory of logical entities and relations. “Current logic” involves modal semantics and the “traditional ontology” is that of Plato, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, and some later philosophers.