This article surveys the theory of the part relation (mereology), quantified modal logic, and Kripke and Putnam’s notion of natural kinds. It shows how the former two bear on the macroscopic understanding of the notions of substance and phase, which stands in contrast to the microphysical essentialism of Kripke and Putnam, and can be used to explicate Aristotle’s and the Stoic conceptions of mixture. The article concludes with some comments about the relevance of the issues raised by these ancient theories (...) to modern views of element, compound and mixture. (shrink)

I present a high-level account of the semantical distinction between count nouns and non-count nouns. The basic idea is that count nouns are semantically either singular or plural and non-count nouns are neither.

Chemistry builds on distinctions of substance, which presupposes that matter can be divided into substances and compared with other matter and itself on different occasions as being of the same substance. Even identifying a quantity of matter as comprising a single substance presupposes the same substance relation, it being a quantity all of whose spatial parts are the same substance. But criteria of purity have been important for isolating substances and investigating their characteristic properties, which can in turn (...) be used for establishing sameness of substance. With the development of chemistry into a theoretical science it became important that such criteria and characteristics should have a systematic theoretical basis. Thermodynamics was, perhaps, the first comprehensive theory to systematically divide the mass of the bodies with which it deals into distinct substances and offer general criteria governing the number of substances present. But the applicability of such macroscopic criteria is restricted to equilibrium conditions on a macroscopic time scale. They can be compared with microscopic conceptions of molecular structure, with which they have been complemented—some would say superseded. Since many substances are not molecular, however, the general formulation of a microscopic sameness of substance criterion remains unclear. (shrink)

Everything around us is made of 'stuff', from planets, to books, to our own bodies. Whatever it is, we call it matter or material substance. It is solid; it has mass. But what is matter, exactly? We are taught in school that matter is not continuous, but discrete. As a few of the philosophers of ancient Greece once speculated, nearly two and a half thousand years ago, matter comes in 'lumps', and science has relentlessly peeled away successive layers of (...) matter to reveal its ultimate constituents.Surely, we can't keep doing this indefinitely. We imagine that we should eventually run up against some kind of ultimately fundamental, indivisible type of stuff, the building blocks from which everything in the Universe is made. The English physicist Paul Dirac called this 'the dream of philosophers'. But science has discovered that the foundations of our Universe are not as solid or as certain and dependable as we might have once imagined. They are instead built from ghosts and phantoms, of a peculiar quantum kind. And, at some point on this exciting journey of scientific discovery, we lost our grip on the reassuringly familiar concept of mass.How did this happen? How did the answers to our questions become so complicated and so difficult to comprehend? In Mass Jim Baggott explains how we come to find ourselves here, confronted by a very different understanding of the nature of matter, the origin of mass, and its implications for our understanding of the material world. Ranging from the Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus, and their theories of atoms and void, to the development of quantum field theory and the discovery of a Higgs boson-like particle, he explores our changing understanding of the nature of matter, and the fundamental related concept of mass. (shrink)

Paul Tillich ; Volltext // Exemplar mit der Signatur: München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- Var. 382 t-1/2.

The present article has three sections. The first one discusses the relationship of the theological theory of transubstantiation to that of transignification and transfinalization , ideas that were introduced just before the time of Vatican II by northern European theologians. The second section develops a holistic view of the nature of matter. Our present scientific knowledge seems to require that we abandon the Aristotelian theory of hylomorphism in favor of a theory in which real beings of a certain level ‘sublate’ (...) real but subordinate beings of lower levels. For example, a human being is a substance that includes within itself many smaller substances. When he was in the flesh, the physical body of Christ included within itself a vast number of interconnected atoms and molecules. The third section discusses ideas of Teilhard de Chardin about the relationship of Christ to matter. (shrink)

The present article has three sections. The first one discusses the relationship of the theological theory of transubstantiation to that of transignification (change of meaning) and transfinalization (change of finality), ideas that were introduced just before the time of Vatican II by northern European theologians. The second section develops a holistic view of the nature of matter. Our present scientific knowledge seems to require that we abandon the Aristotelian theory of hylomorphism in favor of a theory in which real beings (...) of a certain level ‘sublate’ real but subordinate beings of lower levels. For example, a human being is a substance that includes within itself many smaller substances. When he was in the flesh, the physical body of Christ included within itself a vast number of interconnected atoms and molecules. The third section discusses ideas of Teilhard de Chardin about the relationship of Christ to matter. (shrink)

The paper takes off from the problem of finding a proper content for the relation of identity as it holds or fails to hold among ordinary things or substances. The necessary conditions of identity are familiar, the sufficient conditions less so. The search is for conditions at once better usable than the Leibnizian Identity of Indiscernibles (independently suspect) and strong enough to underwrite all the formal properties of the relation.It is contended that the key to this problem rests at (...) the level of metaphysics and epistemology alike with a sortalist position. Sortalism is the position which insists that, if the question is whether a and b are the same, it has to be asked what are they? Any sufficiently specific answer to that question will bring with it a principle of activity or functioning and a mode of behaviour characteristic of some particular kind of thing by reference to which questions of persistence or non-persistence through change can be adjudicated.These contentions are illustrated by reference to familiar examples such as the human zygote, the Ship of Theseus and Shoemaker's Brown-Brownson. The first example is hostage for a mass of unproblematical cases. The problems presented by the second and third sort of examples arise chiefly (it is claimed) from an incompleteness in our conceptions of the relevant sort—the what the thing in question is. That incompleteness need not prevent us from knowing perfectly well which thing we are referring to. In the concluding section, sortalism is defended against various accusations of anthropocentrism.The paper touches on the interpretation of Heraclitus, Leibniz's theory of clear indistinct ideas, the difficulties of David Lewis's ‘perdurantist’ or stroboscopic view of persistence, four-dimensionalism, and the relation of personal identity both to experiential memory and to the particular bodily physiognomy of a subject. At some points—as in connection with the so-called Only a and b rule—the paper corrects, supplements or extends certain theses or formulations proposed in the author's Sameness and Substance Renewed (2001). (shrink)

Simple mass nouns are words like ‘water’, ‘furniture’ and ‘gold’. We can form complex mass noun phrases such as ‘dirty water’, ‘leaded gold’ and ‘green grass’. I do not propose to discuss the problems in giving a characterization of the words that are mass versus those that are not. For the purposes of this paper I shall make the following decrees: (a) nothing that is not a noun or noun phrase can be mass, (b) no abstract (...) noun phrases are considered mass, (c) words like ‘thing’, ‘entity’ and ‘object’ are not mass, (d) I shall not consider such words as ‘stuff’, ‘substance or ‘matter’, (e) measures on mass nouns (like ‘gallon of gasoline’, ‘blade of grass’, etc.) are not considered, (f) plurals of count terms are not considered mass. Within these limitations, we can say generally that mass noun phrases are those phrases that ‘much’ can be prefexed to, by ‘many’ cannot be prefexed to, without an0maly.l Semantically, such phrases usually have the property of collectiveness- they are true of any sum of things of which they are true ; and of divisiveness - they are true of any part (down to a certain limit) of things of which they are true. All of this, however, is only ‘generally speaking’ - I shall mostly use only the simple examples given above and ignore the problems in giving a complete characterization of mass nouns. In the paper I want to discuss some problems involved in casting English sentences containing mass nouns into some artificial language; but in order to do this we should have some anchoring framework on which to justify or reject a given proposal. The problem of finding an adequate language can be viewed as a case of translation (from English to the artificial language), where the translation relation must meet certain requirements. I shall suggest five such requirements; others could be added. (shrink)

One of the great and persistent technological dreams of science fiction has been the invention which would nullify or reverse the force of gravity. H. G. Wells in The First Men in the Moon did it in 1901 with Cavorite, a substance which shields objects behind it from gravitational lines of force. James Blish in the Cities in Flight series used the Spindizzy, a device which converts rotation and magnetism into gravity fields and forces. And, of course, "floaters", "null-g speeders" (...) and "grav sleds" have abounded as techno-props in science fiction stories for many years. (shrink)

This thesis promotes a therapeutic revision of fundamental assumptions in contemporary ontological thought. I show that none of the extant standard theories of objects provides a viable account of the numerical, qualitative, and trans-temporal identity of objects, and that this is due to certain substance-ontological premises. I argue that in order to state the identity conditions of objects we must abandon these premises, together with the idea that objects enjoy ontological primacy. ;I follow a methodological program of formally criticizing an (...) ontological framework by demonstrating that each of the theories developed within this framework is incoherent, i.e., either inconsistent or subject to vicious regress. I proceed in three steps. First, I show that the substance-ontological paradigm cannot be characterized in terms of its basic entities, since there is no extensional, intensional, or functional definition of the notion of substance common to all extant substance ontologies; consequently, I propose to describe the substance-ontological paradigm in terms of its basic assumptions. ;Second, I analyze the contemporary discussion of the problem of individuality, the problem of universals, and the problem of persistence, and uncover 22 characteristic implicit assumptions of substance ontology. I show on the basis of representative examples that, due to their commitment to substance-ontological presuppositions, all extant types of solutions to the three mentioned problems are incoherent. In particular, I take issue with the bare particular view, the qualified particular view, and the bundle view of individuality; different varieties of platonist and nominalist theories of universals and of relational and functional theories of predication; and the endurance and perdurance approaches to persistence. ;Third, while historical process-ontological schemes have dropped some of the revealed substance-ontological presuppositions, I finally explore the result of rejecting all of them and sketch a scheme based on dynamic masses which promises to yield coherent explanations of the ontological features of those complex processes which we commonly consider to be objects. (shrink)

Since something cannot be conscious without being a conscious subject, a complete physicalist explanation of consciousness must resolve an issue first raised by Thomas Nagel, namely to explain why a particular mass of atoms that comprises my body gives rise to me as conscious subject, rather than someone else.In this essay, I describe a thought-experiment that suggests that physicalism lacks the resources to address Nagel's question and seems to pose a counter-example to any form of non-reductive physicalism relying on (...) the mind-body supervenience thesis, which would include William Hasker's emergent dualism. Since the particular thought-experiment does not pose any problems for classical substance dualism (CSD) and since the problem, as I call it, of explaining subjectivity is the central problem of mind, I conclude that CSD is better supported than any form of non-reductive physicalism. (shrink)

Since something cannot be conscious without being a conscious subject, a complete physicalist explanation of consciousness must resolve an issue first raised by Thomas Nagel, namely to explain why a particular mass of atoms that comprises my body gives rise to me as conscious subject, rather than someone else. In this essay, I describe a thought-experiment that suggests that physicalism lacks the resources to address Nagel's question and seems to pose a counter-example to any form of non-reductive physicalism relying (...) on the mind–body supervenience thesis, which would include William Hasker's emergent dualism. Since the particular thought-experiment does not pose any problems for classical substance dualism and since the problem, as I call it, of explaining subjectivity is the central problem of mind, I conclude that CSD is better supported than any form of non-reductive physicalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME'S USE OF ILLICIT SUBSTANCES Now as every perception is distinguishable from another, and may be consider 'd as separately existent; it evidently follows, that there is no absurdity in separating any particular perception from the mind; that is, in breaking off all its relations, with that connected mass of perceptions, which constitute a thinking being. 1. The Problem Hume is often classified as an 'atomist'. He (...) is alleged to hold that every simple perception (impression and idea) is 'independent': to say that a simple perception P. exists does not entail the existence of any other entity. As the passage above makes clear, part of this atomism is a neutral monism. That is, no perception is intrinsically mental, or material. Yet, he is also claimed to adhere staunchly to the so-called theory of ideas. Indeed, Stroud devotes the entire second chapter of his book Hume to discussion of Hume's adaptation of it. Now we shall argue that any plausible reading of the theory of ideas identifies that which is directly perceived -in Hume's case, (at least) simple perceptions -- as intrinsically mental. This means either that every perception P_ must be in some mind, thus violating one tenet of atomism, or that perceptions themselves are intrinsically mental, thus compromising their neutrality. Can Hume escape this apparent dilemma? The answer seems reasonably clear if one knows Hume. He claims that the mind is a bundle of perceptions. As a member of the bundle, a perception is mental. However, this notion of the mental is genuinely contextual; that is, no perception is, despite appearances, intrinsically mental, due to some nonrelational quality it has. To say the same thing differently, Hume holds merely that perceptions must, as a matter of fact, be 'in' minds in order to exist. Why he thinks this, according to Stroud (and others), is probably at least a function of the reasons other members of the way of ideas tradition classify the directly perceived as mental. More accurately, the following two propositions are considered to be merely contingent, i.e., non-necessary truths for Hume; one can imagine their contradictories: (1)In order to exist, a perception must be 'in' a mind, i.e., some mind or other. (2)If a person S_ has a perception P., then P_ is 'in' S., in the sense that P is a member of a collection of perceptions that constitute S_. Thus, if a perception exists, it must as a matter of fact be in some mind or other, but it is not connected necessarily to any mind. Hence perceptions are mental, yet independent i.e., neither necessarily in the collections they are in fact in, nor necessarily in any collections at all. Given (1) and (2), the existence of a perception entails the existence of a mind only in a contingent, not a logical, sense. As the reader shall see, this defense of Hume comes in the end to classifying him as some sort of phenomenalist, who reconstructs the 1 notions of mental and physical from a given data base. Ne are not satisfied with this answer. Indeed, we think it quite inadequate. To begin to show that, let us turn to a set of passages in the Treatise that set the problem we have been trying to outline. Hume himself speculates, in an infamous passage in the Appendix, that something is radically wrong with his claims about the self, that somewhere in his system there is a contradiction and, indeed, he senses that the contradiction has something to do with his atomism (T 633ff). We think he is right. Our thesis is as follows. The contradiction Hume senses is that he both holds and disavows the claim that g perceptions are mind dependent in an intrinsic sense. Thus, though a given perception is (perhaps) not necessarily in a given mind, it must either be in some mind or other in a logical sense of "must," or intrinsically mental in the sense of being intentional. As we explain in detail in section 2, the argument from perceptual variation, a cornerstone of the theory of ideas, leads inevitably to the view that there are intentional entities. Not only is... (shrink)

A funny, touching look at the life of a social media influencer who starts to question the #goals life she has created for herself. Every day, Élie motivates her hundreds of thousands of followers to become the best versions of themselves by posting videos of exercise routines and high-protein breakfast recipes. Far from the shy teenager that she was, she is now in a very public relationship with singer Samuel Vanasse, and together they have become one of the most popular (...) influencer couples in the country. She has succeeded. She shines. And yet, Élie worries that her life is not as flawless as she makes it seem on YouTube and Instagram. Between her obsession with the "ideal weight," her growing attraction to another man, her family's disdain for her career as a content creator and a collaboration with another influencer who Élie can't stand, a thought haunts her. What if, by trying to become everything she wanted to be, she's lost herself along the way? Suck it In and Smile is an intimate exploration of our obsession with appearances and the hypocrisies that appear when you must craft the perfect online life. (shrink)

"Die Logik der Erfahrung" stellt eine Systematisierung der wissenschaftsphilosophischen Gedanken der klassischen Pragmatisten (Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey) dar. Die pragmatistische Erfahrungstheorie sowie die Bestimmung des Verhältnisses von Theorie und Praxis bilden die Grundlage einer holistischen Wissenschaftsphilosophie, deren Aktualität durch die exemplarische Anwendung auf klassische wissenschaftstheoretische Fragestellungen gezeigt wird. Die AutorinTina Massing ist Akademische Rätin am Institut für Philosophie der Universität Koblenz. In ihrer Forschung beschäftigt sie sich insbesondere mit wissenschaftsphilosophischen Themen und dem Klassischen Pragmatismus.

Qu'entend-on par enchantement et désenchantement du monde? Quelles seraient les voies à suivre pour susciter un réenchantement du monde qui sera le fait de l’humain lui-même? La raison et la rationalité sont-elles les causes des maux de nos errements ou des outils pour les contrer? Suffira-t-il d’avoir « foi en la raison » pour surmonter les défis que l’humanité s’est elle-même imposés par négligence et irresponsabilité.

The text confronts the elements of which Luhmann theorizes the educative system, from a critical form to center the suitable approach to know the multiplicity of elements from the educative system. Luhmann’s foundations are criticized and other levels are proposed, from a critical vision of social..