There is perhaps no part of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason which has called forth such severe criticism as his deduction of the System of Categories in the Transcendental Analytic. I am not aware of even one among his many followers who holds to this part of Kant’s doctrine. And the reason for this disagreement is obvious. Kant’s deduction of his System of Categories is based on Formal Logic, the theory of syllogism, first laid down by Aristotle. Mediaeval scholars had (...) changed some details and partly systematized the subject. Kant himself had added some finishing touches to produce his famous number of a dozen categories, but the gist of this logical theory was the same as that found in Aristotle’s Organon. (shrink)

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird ein Begriffsrahmen entwickelt, in dem sich Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen drei Arten von Kulturprodukten klar aufzeigen lassen: Dichtung, Mythos und Wissenschaft. Die allen drei Phänomenen gemeinsame Struktur erfassen wir in §II und §III mit dem Begriff eines Repräsentationssystems, welcher in Anlehnung an die formale Modelltheorie semiotische Vorstellungen mit einem Denken in Systemen zusammenbringt. Die relevanten Unterschiede werden durch Differenzierung (§IV) jenes Begriffs festgemacht, d.h. die drei Phänomene werden durch jeweils spezielle Arten von Repräsentationssystemen erfaßt (§V). (...) Unser spezielles Augenmerk gilt dabei dem Mythos (§I), der sich in letzter Zeit eines wachsenden Interesses -- oft außerhalb des etablierten Wissenschaftsbetriebs -- erfreut. Es zeigt sich, daß der Mythos eine Mittelstellung zwischen Dichtung und Wissenschaft einnimmt: als "Bindeglied" vermittelt er sowohl zwischen der rein begrifflichen Struktur der Phänomene "Dichtung" und "Wissenschaft" als auch zwischen deren Unterschieden in Methode und Wahrheitsanspruch (die in engem Zusammenhang mit der begrifflichen Struktur stehen). Der hier entwickelte begriffliche Rahmen soll in weiteren Untersuchungen als Grundlage zur Herausarbeitung von Unterschieden in der Methode und im Wahrheitsanspruch dienen, die sich aus unserem Ansatz in natürlicher Weise ergeben. Diese müssen jedoch aus Platzgründen einer weiteren Arbeit vorbehalten bleiben. (shrink)

If one starts from de Broglie's basic relativistic assumptions, i.e., that all particles have an intrinsic real internal vibration in their rest frame, i.e., hv 0 =m 0 c 2 ; that when they are at any one point in space-time the phase of this vibration cannot depend on the choice of the reference frame, then, one can show (following Mackinnon (1) ) that there exists a nondispersive wave packet of de Broglie's waves which can be assimilated to the nonlinear (...) soliton wave U 0 introduced by him in his double solution model of wave mechanics. (2) Since de Broglie's linear pilot waves can be considered to be real waves propagating as collective motions on a covariant subquantum chaotic “aether,” (3) these new solition waves can be considered as describing the particle's immediate neighborhood, i.e., the aether's reaction to the particle's motion in the stochastic interpretation of quantum mechanics. The existence of such a physical aether (which provides a perfectly causal interpretation of the action-a-distance implied by the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiments) can now be proved by establishing the reality of de Broglie's waves in realizable experiments. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to discuss and compare major aspects of Saussure’s linguistic theory — including his recently discovered manuscript, published as Écrits de linguistique générale — and Derrida’s philosophy, focusing on its structuralist (not Kantian or phenomenological, or supposed pragmatist) foundations, in order to show the radical debt of Derrida to Saussure. To see Derrida as a structuralist is crucial for the understanding of his work. A major Saussurean concept, adopted by Derrida as the foundation of his (...) deconstruction, is the concept of “value”; this concept leads to the impossibility of a positive and stable delimitation of signification, which thus is shown to be a phantasmatic entity emerging from the nodes of a network of differences. In this context, I focus on three issues concerning limits, the one leading to the other: the above limitlessness of the linguistic signified, the ensuing limitlessness of linguistic semiosis, in the sense that there is no clear limit between it and the referent, and thus the limit imposed by semiosis in preventing the possibility of knowledge of material reality. I examine Saussure’s ambiguous view on this issue and argue that Derrida’s approach is contradictory, since he occasionally reintroduces the referent in the form of empirical evidence with no theoretical justification. (shrink)

The research question of the present paper is what relation exists between biology and cultural semiosis and I examine as a token of this question the relation between the physiological senses of proprioception and the cultural concepts corresponding to them. While the origins of semiosis are biological, the origin of proprioceptive concepts is debated. Against the biological view that the proprioceptive senses define directly the concepts corresponding to them, there is an opposite view supporting that these concepts are culture-specific. The (...) concept of “classification system” is counter-proposed as the structural framework for the study of proprioceptive concepts. The paper discusses the senses and concepts of proprioception on the basis of a large corpus of anthropological and archaeological material concerning the semiotic systems of precapitalist societies and with the help of a set of metalinguistic spatial concepts. These metalinguistic concepts are up vs. down, front vs. rear, and right vs. left. The senses corresponding to them lead to the senses and concepts of spatial orientation and presuppose a point of reference, closely related to the sense of equilibrium. My conclusion is that the cultural concepts corresponding to these senses are not directly extrapolated from the senses themselves, but are culture-specific and each time integrated within a different cultural and social environment. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to discuss and compare major aspects of Saussure’s linguistic theory — including his recently discovered manuscript, published as Écrits de linguistique générale — and Derrida’s philosophy, focusing on its structuralist (not Kantian or phenomenological, or supposed pragmatist) foundations, in order to show the radical debt of Derrida to Saussure. To see Derrida as a structuralist is crucial for the understanding of his work. A major Saussurean concept, adopted by Derrida as the foundation of his (...) deconstruction, is the concept of “value”; this concept leads to the impossibility of a positive and stable delimitation of signification, which thus is shown to be a phantasmatic entity emerging from the nodes of a network of differences. In this context, I focus on three issues concerning limits, the one leading to the other: the above limitlessness of the linguistic signified, the ensuing limitlessness of linguistic semiosis, in the sense that there is no clear limit between it and the referent, and thus the limit imposed by semiosis in preventing the possibility of knowledge of material reality. I examine Saussure’s ambiguous view on this issue and argue that Derrida’s approach is contradictory, since he occasionally reintroduces the referent in the form of empirical evidence with no theoretical justification. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to review the main aspects of a major super-paradigm running through spatial studies, a paradigm that I have called “subjectivism” and that may also be called the “conceptual” paradigm, with emphasis placed on postmodern approaches to space; it is opposed to another super-paradigm, the “objectivist” or “materialist” paradigm. While the objectivist paradigm approaches space as a material entity, the conceptual paradigm studies the conceptual world of social subjects, either the meaning that spatial objects have (...) for them or the ideas associated with them. Thus, the conceptual orientation is a semiotic orientation in the wide sense and hence a cultural orientation.Postmodern theorizing is only the latest subjectivist tendency in spatial studies, and there is a whole series of antecedents, which are thus a kind of “pre-postmodern” approaches. In this context, I discuss sociocultural human ecology, environmental psychology, behavioral geography, and humanistic geography from the Anglo-Saxon tradition, and structural anthropology and the semiotics of space from the French tradition. My discussion also covers the postmodern approaches to space in human geography , social anthropology, archaeology, and architecture and urban design.Subjectivism and objectivism in spatial studies are opposed and antagonistic paradigms. However, I believe that both of them are partial approaches that need to be articulated into a unified theory. Works of major authors show how this articulation may be realized, something which implies the integration of subjectivism with political economy. (shrink)

The general inorganic nature of traditional selection theory (based on differential growth between any two systems) is pointed out, wherefrom it follows that this theory cannot provide explanations for the characteristics of organic evolution. Specific biophysical aspects enter with the complexity of macro-molecules: vital physical conditions for the perpetuation of the system, irrevocable extinction (= death) and random change leading to novelty, are the result of complexity per se. Further biophysical properties are a direct function of the pathway along which (...) random mutation in nucleic acids is converted into continuous protein — (specifically enzyme) — function, from there into organismic phenotype with fitness components which may, or may not, correspond to identifiable structural units in DNA. The general machine-like properties of enzymes, in that there is no additive relationship between structural (amino acid) composition and functional output, is discussed in more detail. The continuous growth functions of molecular concentrations, directed by enzyme turnover, determine simple laws of growth and morphogenesis in the organic hierarchy and thus of phenotype. Thus, the combined effect of DNA-structure and of environmental parameters (temperature, pressure, pH, etc.) on protein function determines ultimately the actual phenotype and hence, quality and intensity of genotypic selection. (shrink)

In this review essay, I first set out and then subject to criticism the main claims advanced by William Talbott in his excellent recent book, “Which Rights Should be Universal?”. Talbott offers a conception of basic universal human rights as the minimally necessary and sufficient conditions to political legitimacy. I argue that his conception is at once too robustly liberal and democratic and too inattentive to key features of the rule of law to play this role. I suggest that John (...) Rawls’s conception of human rights comes closer to hitting the mark Talbott sets for himself and that Talbott incorrectly rejects Rawls’s view. I conclude that what likely divides Talbott and Rawls is that Rawls, but not Talbott, explicitly frames the inquiry into the minimally necessary and sufficient conditions to political legitimacy in terms of a liberal democratic people attempting to determine, as a matter of its just foreign policy, whether or not to recognize other organized polities as independent and self-determining within the international order. (shrink)

Protagoras u Sekstusa Empiryka (PH I 216) a platoński Teajtet Dzieła Sekstusa Empiryka stanowią ważne źródło doksograficzne, zawierając m. in. fragmenty i przekazy poświęcone sofistyce. Są wśród nich omówienia poglądów Protagorasa. W świetle problemów, jakie stwarza rekonstrukcja myśli tego sofisty, warto poddać badaniu źródła i perspektywę Sekstusa, zwracając szczególną uwagę na krótkie przedstawienie tez Protagorasa zawarte w Zarysach Pyrrońskich (PH I 216). Porównując omówienie Sekstusa i przedstawienie Platona w Teajtecie, dostrzec możemy podobieństwo prezentowanych poglądów. W przekazie Seksusa podobnie jak w (...) Teajtecie główny akcent położony jest na tezę homo-mensura, z którą wiąże się dwa inne podstawowe dla platońskiego dialogu wątki: zmienności rzeczy oraz "prywatności" spostrzeżeń. Mimo charakterystycznej dla sceptycyzmu modyfikacji strony pojęciowej, nadinterpretacji oraz wyrwania tez z dialogowego kontekstu przedstawienia obu wątków wykazują daleko idące paralele z Teajtetem. Bez względu na to, czy omówienie to jest dziełem samego Sekstusa, czy zaczerpnięte zostało z jakiegoś wcześniejszego źródła mającego charakter sceptycznej "ściągawki", możemy na jego podstawie wnioskować, że dialog Teajtet uważany był w późnej starożytności za wiarygodne źródło informacji na temat poglądów Protagorasa. Należy jednak podkreślić, że przekaz Sekstusa stanowi jedynie interpretację treści zawartych w platońskim Teajtecie i – wbrew praktyce wielu uczonych - nie może być brany pod uwagę jako niezależne źródło wiedzy o myśli Protagorasa. (shrink)

Cytoplasmic protein-tyrosine kinases (PTKs) are enzymes involved in transducing a vast number of signals in metazoans. The importance of the Tec family of kinases was immediately recognized when, in 1993, mutations in the gene encoding Bruton's tyrosine kinase (Btk) were reported to cause the human disease X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA).(1,2) Since then, additional kinases belonging to this family have been isolated, and the availability of full genome sequences allows identification of all members in selected species enabling phylogenetic considerations. Tec kinases are (...) endowed with Pleckstrin homology (PH) and Tec homology (TH) domains and are involved in diverse biological processes related to the control of survival and differentiation fate. Membrane translocation resulting in the activation of Tec kinases with subsequent Ca2+ release seems to be a general feature. However, nuclear translocation may also be of importance. The purpose of this essay is to characterize members of the Tec family and discuss their involvement in signaling. The three-dimensional structure, expression pattern and evolutionary aspects will also be considered. BioEssays 23:436–446, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Sperm motility and respiration are tightly coupled processes, both activated by an increased intracellular pH (pHi). As the sperm pHi increases, the flagellar motor driving motility is activated, leading to ATP consumption. Energy for motility is provided by mitochondrial respiration; energy transport from sperm mitochondrion to tail involves distinct isozymes of creatine kinase that effect a phosphorylcreatine shuttle. The activation of sperm motility and respiration can be described as a linked series of biochemical reactions that form a cell behavioural pathway (...) analogous to the reaction sequences of intermediary metabolism. (shrink)

This thesis examines the claim that the sciences are disunified. Chapter 1 outlines and introduces different accounts of the stratification of the sciences in the literature, in particular, Unificationism, Disunificationism, Eliminativism and Human Science Disunificationism. I argue that all of these competing views are informed by an ideal model for successful science. In particular, all of the views discussed are committed to the claim that a science requires laws to be considered scientifically legitimate. At the end of this chapter, the (...) narrower topic of the thesis is revealed: do the special sciences have real legitimate ceteris paribus laws? (shrink)

Văn khắ c Chămpa tại Ba̓ o tàng ̃ Điêu khắ c Chăm–Đà Nă ̃ ng. The Inscriptions of Campā at the Museum of Cham Sculpture in Đà Năng. By Arlo Griffiths, Amandine Lepoutre, William A. Southworth, and Thành Phn. Published in collaboration between École française d’Extrême-Orient, Hanoi, and Center for Vietnamese and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University H̀ô Chí Minh City. H̀ô Chí Minh: VNUHCM Publishing House, 2012. Pp. 288, 67 pl., 38 (...) photos. VND 170.000. (shrink)

In this paper I sketch the evolution of the main theories of the relationship between time and motion from Descartes to Newton, by defending an hypothesis that traces back Newton’s realism about time to Barrow’s “metric realism”, which Newton developed as the claim that measuring a magnitude X implies that X exists independently of our measures.

The article examines the role of narrative discourse in religious education and communication as represented in Kirsten M. Andersen’s Kantian approach. In Hegel’s Lutheran perspective figurative thinking is deconstructed in forms of interpretive narrative, the topos of the speculative Good Friday. On this account the words of Jesus should be understood as an unprecedented revolutionary parrhesia. Hegel’s pervasive awareness of the linguistic mediation, translation and appropriation anticipates the role of language and communication in hermeneutics and deconstruction. The proposed alternative to (...) the Kantian account is inspired by Paul Ricoeur, Günter Bader, Niklas Luhmann, Jacques Derrida and Catherine Malabou. (shrink)

At Outlines of Pyrrhonism (PH) 2.227–8, Sextus Empiricus argues that certain entities which his adversaries hold to be one and the same for different individuals are in fact not. This he does by, among other things, considering the truth-value of sentences of which the subject is a common noun, thereby drawing an interesting connection between metaphysics and semantics. In this article, I provide a careful analysis of Sextus’ arguments at PH 2.227–8 and explore the origins and limits of such a (...) connection. In particular, I argue that Sextus’ argument at PH 2.227 probably reflects a Stoic argument against Aristotelian essences, thereby relying on specifically Stoic doctrines about universals and common nouns, whereas his next argument at PH 2.228 targets accidents. If this is true, it follows that the overall structure of PH 2.227–8 fits well with the typically Aristotelian distinction between essence and accident. (shrink)

We introduce multifunction algebras B i τ where τ is a set of 0 or 1-ary terms used to bound recursion lengths. We show that if for all ℓ ∈ τ we have ℓ ∈ O then B i τ = FP Σ i−1 p , those multifunctions computable in polynomial time with at most O )) queries to a Σ i−1 p witness oracle for ℓ ∈ τ and p a polynomial. We use our algebras to obtain independence results (...) in bounded arithmetic. In particular, we show if S 2 i proves Σ j b = PH for some j⩾i then S 2 i ≼ B S 2 . This implies if P NP ≠ P NP then S 2 1 does not prove the polynomial hierarchy collapses. We then consider a subtheory, Z , of the well-studied bounded arithmetic theory S 2 = ∪ i S 2 i . Using our algebras we establish the following properties of this theory: Z cannot prove the polynomial hierarchy collapses. In fact, even Z+ Π ̂ 0 b -consequences of S 2 cannot prove the hierarchy collapses. If Z ⊆ S 2 i for any i then the polynomial hierarchy collapses. If Z proves the polynomial hierarchy is infinite then for all i , S 2 i ⊢ Σ i p ≠ Π i p. (shrink)