ONTOLOGY This book is a book about the world. I am concerned with ontology, not merely with language. Many ontological treatises concentrate largely on the ...

This volume is devoted to problems within analytic metaphysics. It defends an ontology and theory of categories inspired by Aristotle, but revised in such a way as to be compatible with modern science. The ontology of both natural and social reality is addressed, starting out from the view that universals exist but only in the spatiotemporal world. In attempting to bring Aristotle's ontology up-to-date, the author relies very much on the thinking of Edmund Husserl, conceiving the cement of the universe (...) as Husserlian relations of existential dependence and regarding intentionality as a non-reducible category in the ontology of mind. The work is thoroughly realistic in spirit, but large parts of it should nonetheless be of interest to conceptualists and nominalists, too. (shrink)

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

According to immanent realism, there are universals in the spatiotemporal world quite independently of language and the mind. The existence of these universals, furthermore, is not dependent upon there being Platonic universals existing outside the spatiotemporal world. In this paper I will try to show that immanent realism holds not only for many determinate universals, but for some determinable universals as well. In other words, there are ontological determinables as well as conceptual determinables.

The paper argues that causal systems and spatial patterns are species of the same genus, namely pattern, and that a clear view of spatial patterns throws light on some aspects of the ontological nature of causal systems. In particular, it is argued that all patterns (and systems) depend on a fiat delimitation of something which in itself is a unity without borders. Pattern realism is true.

This textbook introduces the reader to basic problems in the philosophy of science and ethics, mainly by means of examples from medicine. It is based on the conviction that philosophy, medical science, medical informatics, and medical ethics are overlapping disciplines. It claims that the philosophical lessons to learn from the twentieth century are not that nature is a 'social construction' and that 'anything goes' with respect to methodological and moral rules. Instead, it claims that there is scientific knowledge, but that (...) it is never completely secure; that there are norms, but that they are situation-bound; and that, therefore, it makes good sense to search for scientific truths and try to act in a morally decent way. Using philosophical catchwords, the authors advocate 'fallibilism' and 'particularism'; a combination that might be called 'pragmatic realism'. (shrink)

Summary The article argues thatceteris paribus clauses have to be separated from another type of clauses called closure clauses. The former are associated with laws and theories, the latter with test situations of a particular kind. It is also argued that closure clauses, but notceteris paribus clauses, make Popper's falsifiability principle untenable. In that way, it also resolves the quarrel between Popper and Lakatos aboutceteris paribus clauses and falsifiability by saying that both are partly wrong and partly right.

It is argued that medical science requires a classificatory system that (a) puts functions in the taxonomic center and (b) does justice ontologically to the difference between the processes which are the realizations of functions and the objects which are their bearers. We propose formulae for constructing such a system and describe some of its benefits. The arguments are general enough to be of interest to all the life sciences.

The paper ends with an argument that says: necessarily, if there are finitely spatially extended particulars, then there are monadic universals. Before that, in order to characterize the distinction between particulars and universals, Roman Ingarden’s notions of existential moments and modes (ways) of being are presented, and a new pair of such existential moments is introduced: multiplicity–monadicity. Also, it is argued that there are not only real universals, but instances of universals (tropes) and fictional universals too.

It is argued that medical science requires a classificatory system that (a) puts functions in the taxonomic center and (b) does justice ontologically to the difference between the processes which are the realizations of functions and the objects which are their bearers. We propose formulae for constructing such a system and describe some of its benefits. The arguments are general enough to be of interest to all the life sciences.

We defend the fundamental ontological-pragmatic principle that where there are continua in reality science is often forced to make partly fiat terminological delimitations. In particular, this principle applies when it comes to describing biological organisms, their parts, properties, and relations. Human-made fiat delimitations are indispensable at the level of both individuals and the natural kinds which they instantiate. The kinds of pragmatically based ‘fiatness’ that we describe can create incompatibilities and lack of interoperability even between properly designed ontologies, if not (...) appropriately handled. (shrink)

This essay expands on Barry Smith’s paper “Against Fantology” of 2005, which defends the view that analytic philosophy has throughout its history been marked by a tendency to conceive the syntax of first-order predicate logic as a key to ontology. I present fantology (or "F(a)ntology") in the light of a more general and in itself ontologically neutral operation that I call a default ontologization of a language. I then discuss Quine’s views, since he is the most outspoken fantologist in the (...) second half of the twentieth century. As Smith points out, “fantology sometimes takes the form of a thesis according to which the language of standard predicate logic can serve the formulation of the truths of natural science in a uniquely illuminating way”. Hence Quine’s doctrine according to which the ontological commitments of a theory become evident only when the theory has been regimented in fantological clothing. (shrink)

Since summer 2019 there is a new document that defines what in science should be regarded as being one second, one meter, and one kilogram, respectively. It is the ninth edition of the SI Brochure. Compared with older editions, a new definitional approach has been used. The seven base units are now defined by being directly related to a so-called defining constant. The paper discusses the second, the meter, and the kilogram. One odd salient, but nonetheless not discussed, feature of (...) the formulations of the definitions is that, from a purely linguistic point of view, they are circular. That is, symbols for what is to be defined appear also in the defining expressions. However, underneath the circularities there are, appearances notwithstanding, substantially non-circular definitions. The aim of the paper is to uncover these never before presented definitional structures. It is made by means of the two notions absolutely discrete quantities and metrical coordinative definitions. When the true definitional structures become visible, two important substantial metrological facts can be seen. First, the new definition of the kilogram is very much in need of further discussion. Second, contrary to what the Brochure hints at, there is no need to try to exchange the atomic parameter used in the definition of the second. (shrink)

The paper highlights a certain kind of self-falsifying utterance, which I shall call antiperformative assertions, not noted in speech-act theory thus far. By taking such assertions into account, the old question whether explicit performatives have a truth-value can be resolved. I shall show that explicit performatives are in fact self-verifyingly true, but they are not related to propositions the way ordinary assertions are; antiperformatives have the same unusual relation to propositions, but are self-falsifyingly false. Explicit performatives are speech acts performed (...) in situations where it is important that the speaker is self-reflectively aware of what he is doing in the speech act. Antiperformatives, on the other hand, are speech acts performed in situations where lack of direct self-reflectiveness is required. In order to situate performatives and antiperformatives, the analysis is embedded within a more general discussion of self-falsifying and self-verifying assertions. (shrink)

The International System of Units tries to find or construct something that does not change with time and place, since such constancy is the best possible ground for definitions of fundamental measurement units. This problem of constancy has received scant attention within the philosophy of science, but is the topic of the paper. The paper first highlights inevitable kinds of circularities, semantic and epistemic, that belongs to the search for constancy, and then discusses contingent dependencies between unit definitions. The New (...) SI proposal is criticized for not paying due attention to the fact that it defines units for one kind of quantity by means of a constancy that belongs to another. This inattention flaws the kilogram definition. The New SI definitions of the mole and the second neglect the distinction between discrete and continuous quantities; which make the definitions refer to constancies that are not invariants of nature. (shrink)

From a metaphysical point of view, it is important clearly to see the ontological difference between what is studied in mathematics and mathematical physics, respectively. In this respect, the paper is concerned with the vectors of classical physics. Vectors have both a scalar magnitude and a direction, and it is argued that neither conventionalism nor wholesale anti‐conventionalism holds true of either of these components of classical physical vectors. A quantification of a physical dimension requires the discovery of ontological order relations (...) among all the determinate properties of this dimension, as well as a conventional definition that connects the number one and mathematical unit vectors to determinate spatiotemporal physical entities. One might say that mathematics deals with numbers and vectors, but mathematical physics with scalar quantities and vector quantities, respectively. The International System of Units distinguishes between basic and derived scalar quantities; if a similar distinction should be introduced for the vector quantities of classical physics, then duration in directed time ought to be chosen as the basic vector quantity. The metaphysics of physical vectors is intimately connected with the metaphysics of time. From a philosophical‐historical point of view, the paper revives W. E. Johnson's distinction ‘determinates‐determinables’ and Hans Reichenbach's notion of ‘coordinative definition’. (shrink)

Properties like mass and temperature can be ordered on metrical scales. A property like hardness can perhaps only be ordered on an ordinal scale. Geometrical shapes seem to admit ordinal scales only in relation to specifically chosen families of shapes. The main claims of this paper are.

The paper presents and discusses phenomenological facts about perceptual spaces and percepts, but ends with a few thoughts about possible causal explanations of such spaces. The overarching double-sided hypothesis claims that - from a phenomenological point of view - each individual animal has at each consciously perceived moment of time a sense-modality-neutral perceptual space, and that these perceptual spaces are so-called container spaces. This means, to be concrete, that blind persons, deaf persons, and all perceptually non-handicapped persons have the same (...) kind of phenomenological perceptual space, a sense-modality-neutral container space. The causal reflections bring in James J. Gibson’s work on such matters. (shrink)

Kevin Mulligan a introduit la distinction entre les descriptions épaisses et minces dans la philosophie des relations. Cette distinction lui a permis d’affirmer les thèses suivantes : toutes les relations sont « minces » et internes, et aucune n’est « épaisse » et externe. J’accepte et j’utilise la distinction de Mulligan entre mince et épais afin de soutenir que ce ne sont pas toutes les relations internes qui sont minces. Il existe également des relations internes épaisses, et celles-ci abondent en (...) physique mathématique. Je soutiens en outre qu’il peut y avoir des relations externes minces. Cependant, en introduisant une distinction entre relations fortement et faiblement internes, je suis d’accord pour affirmer avec Mulligan que toutes les relations fortement internes sont des relations minces.Kevin Mulligan has brought the distinction between thick and thin descriptions into the philosophy of relations, and with its help he has put forward the theses that all relations are “thin” and internal, and that none is “thick” and external. Accepting and using Mulligan’s thin — thick distinction, I argue that not all internal relations are thin. There are thick internal relations, too ; and they abound in mathematical physics. Also, I claim that there might be thin external relations. However, introducing a distinction between strongly and weakly internal relations, I agree with Mulligan that all strongly internal relations are thin relations. (shrink)

The paper argues that there is a fruitful analogy to be made between classic pre-analytic Euclidean geometry and a certain kind of mechanism models, called ideal mechanisms. Both supply necessary truths. Bunge is of the opinion that pure mathematics is about fictions, but that mathematics nonetheless is useful in science and technology because we can go “to reality through fictions.” Similarly, the paper claims that ideal mechanisms are useful because we can go to real mechanisms through the fictions of ideal (...) mechanisms. The view put forward takes it for granted that two important distinctions concerned with the classification of fictions can be made. One is between ideal and non-ideal fictions, and the other between social and non-social fictions. Pure numbers, purely geometric figures, and ideal mechanisms are claimed to be ideal and social fictions. (shrink)

Can there be relational universals? If so, how can they be exemplified? A monadic universal is by definition capable of having a scattered spatiotemporal localization of its different exemplifications, but the problem of relational universals is that one single exemplification seems to have to be scattered in the many places where the relata are. The paper argues that it is possible to bite this bullet, and to accept a hitherto un-discussed kind of exemplification relation called ‘scattered exemplification’. It has no (...) immediate symbolic counterpart in any Indo-European natural language or in any so far constructed logical language. In order to remedy this, a notion called ‘many-place copula’ is introduced, too. (shrink)

The paper is an attempt to take Ingarden’s unfinished critique of idealism one step further. It puts forward a schematic solution to the external-world realist’sproblem of how to explain the fact that we can identify and re-identify fictions, entities that in one sense do not exist. The solution contains three proposals: to accept, with Husserl and Ingarden, that there are universals with intentionality (Husserl’s “intentional essences”), to accept, contra Husserl and Ingarden, an immanent realism for universals, and to accept Ingarden’s (...) view that there is a mode of being distinct from those put forward in traditional metaphysics, that of purely intentional being. Together, these views imply that all the instances of a specific intentional universal are directed towards the same intentional object; be this object a really existing object or a fiction, a purely intentional being. (shrink)

The paper claims that Hume ’s philosophy contains an ontology, i.e. an abstract exhaustive classification of what there is. It is argued that Hume believes in the existence of a mind-independent world, and that he has a classification of mind-related entities that contains four top genera: perception, faculty, principle and relation. His ontology is meant to be in conformity with his philosophy of language and epistemology, and vice versa. Therefore, crucial to Hume ’s ontology of mind-independent entities is his notion (...) of ‘supposing relative ideas ’. Entities that are referred to by means of ordinary ideas can be truly classified, whereas entities that are referred to by means of relative ideas can only be hinted at. When Hume ’s ontology is highlighted and systematised, his notion ‘the faculty of imagination’ becomes highly problematic. However, the exposition also makes it clear that Hume deserves the honorary title: the first cognitive scientist. (shrink)

If the logic of belief changes is extended to cover belief states which contain both factual and normative beliefs, it is easily shown that a change of a factual belief (an 'Is') in a mixed belief state can imply a change of a normative belief (an 'Ought') in the same state. With regard to Hume's so-called 'Is-Ought problem', this means that one has to distinguish its statics from its dynamics. When this is done, it becomes clear that changes of factual (...) beliefs can, for rational reasons, have far-reaching normative consequences. Similarly, a change of a factual belief can imply a change of a value belief. (shrink)

For many assertions, the correspondence theory of truth seems intuitively to give the best account of the difference between truth and falsity, but one of its problems is how to explicate the notions of “correspondence” and “truthmaking”. In conformity with the view of David Armstrong, it is claimed that truthmaking is an internal relation between a truthmaker and a truth(-value-)bearer. The truthbearer (a token proposition) can exist without the truthmaker (an object or a state of affairs), and vice versa, but (...) when both exist the truthmaker necessarily makes the truthbearer true and correspondence obtains. Contrary to Armstrong’s reductionist analyses of internal relations and propositions, however, it is argued that internal relations can have a mind-independent existence and “add to being”, that truthbearers and truthmakers are categorially different, and that the correspondence theory of truth requires a distinction between internal relations with heterogeneous and homogeneous relata, respectively. (shrink)

I find the book about metaphysics under review an important and remarkable book, some of my very critical remarks notwithstanding. It is divided into three parts of seven chapters each. The parts are called “The Early Modern Period” (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Hegel), “The Analytic Tradition” (Frege, Early Wittgenstein, Later Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine, Lewis, Dummett), and “The Non-analytic Tradition” (Nietzsche, Bergson, Husserl, Heidegger, Collingwood, Derrida, Deleuze). As can be seen, Moore has with respect to the third group deleted (...) the usual label ‘continental philosophy’; a good move.If I could have added one philosopher to each part, I would have chosen Kierkegaard, Thomas Nagel, and Sartre, three philosophers who, each in their own way, are much concerned with how to come to terms with human subjectivity in thought and action. There is, however, no reason to indulge in a discussion of Moore’s choice of philosophers. It is not easy to make a book like th. (shrink)

The paper argues, that a direct formalization of the way common sense thinks about the numerical identity of enduring entities, requires that traditional predicate logic is developed. If everyday language mirrors the world, then persons, organisms, organs, cells, and ordinary material things can lose some parts but nonetheless remain numerically exactly the same entity. In order to formalize this view, two new logical operators are introduced; and they bring with them some non-standard syntax. One of the operators is called ‘the (...) instantiation operator’; it is needed because the existential quantifier and its traditional relatives cannot do the job required. The other operator is called ‘the form-on-matter operator’, and it allows an individual (an instance of a form) to stay the same even though some of its parts (its constituting matter) is taken away from it. Also, a certain kind of predicates, called ‘nature terms’, is needed in order to represent what gives a particular its kind of identity. Both the operators and the nature terms introduced can be used in constructions of formal languages and formal systems, but no such constructions are made in the paper. The paper is structured as a comment on the philosophical problem called ‘the problem of the cats Tibbles and Tib’. (shrink)

One purely formal discipline, mathematics, permeates modern natural, social, and medical sciences as well as technology and engineering. Another purely formal discipline, formal mereology, has the last decades rapidly grown within philosophy. The obvious question now is: of what use can formal mereology be in the sciences and in engineering? In philosophy, this question has seldom so far been posed, but now there has appeared an anthology in which the editors C. Calosi and P. Graziani rightly state: “It should be (...) clear that the present volume fills indeed the gap between philosophical reflections on parts and wholes and the contemporary scientific context. Or better, it begins to fill this gap” . The book is truly to be welcomed. The editors have divided the contributions into four parts: I “Physics” , II “Mathematics” , III “Natural Sciences” , and IV “Computer Sciences and Engineering” . Each part is preceded by a brief two pages introduc .. (shrink)