Introduction to " Gnosticism ": Ancient Voices, Christian Worlds is the first textbook on Gnosticism, guiding students through the most significant of the Nag Hammadi texts, grouping them by theme and genre, and revealing to the uninitiated their most inscrutable mysteries.

Biological ontologies are used to organize, curate, and interpret the vast quantities of data arising from biological experiments. While this works well when using a single ontology, integrating multiple ontologies can be problematic, as they are developed independently, which can lead to incompatibilities. The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies Foundry was created to address this by facilitating the development, harmonization, application, and sharing of ontologies, guided by a set of overarching principles. One challenge in reaching these goals was that the (...) OBO principles were not originally encoded in a precise fashion, and interpretation was subjective. Here we show how we have addressed this by formally encoding the OBO principles as operational rules and implementing a suite of automated validation checks and a dashboard for objectively evaluating each ontology’s compliance with each principle. This entailed a substantial effort to curate metadata across all ontologies and to coordinate with individual stakeholders. We have applied these checks across the full OBO suite of ontologies, revealing areas where individual ontologies require changes to conform to our principles. Our work demonstrates how a sizable federated community can be organized and evaluated on objective criteria that help improve overall quality and interoperability, which is vital for the sustenance of the OBO project and towards the overall goals of making data FAIR. Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Few figures of the Middle Ages command the attention of so many modern disciplines as Robert Grosseteste (c. 1170-1253). Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science are all areas which his life and thought continue to have significance and to inspire re-interpretation. Accompanied by a series of original commentaries, this new edition of Grosseteste's work, with English translation, draws together the perspectives of modern scientists and medieval specialists. Volume I of a six volume series, Knowing and Speaking presents two of the earliest (...) of Grosseteste's works, the treatises On the Liberal Arts and On the Generation of Sounds. These are accompanied by a significant Middle English treatise on the Seven Liberal Arts whose anonymous fifteenth-century author translated and excerpted passages from Grosseteste's treatises in a re-imagining of their structure and function.0Each work is treated separately within the volume, which is constructed in three parts. On the Liberal Arts sets Grosseteste's thoughts on the arts subjects and emphasises moral concerns about the purpose of learning. On the Generation of Sounds builds on the theories and statements of On the Liberal Arts in connection to the production of sound, elaborating the earlier position, relating the generation of sounds to human vocal and speech production. (shrink)

The study of anarchism as a philosophical, political, and social movement has burgeoned both in the academy and in the global activist community in recent years. Taking advantage of this boom in anarchist scholarship, Nathan J. Jun and Shane Wahl have compiled twenty-six cutting-edge essays on this timely topic in New Perspectives on Anarchism.

The phenomenon of performativity has recently sparked debates about the status of the economic discourse. This paper aims to discuss the subjectivist idea that if economics ‘performs’ social reality, rather than merely reflects it, then every theory can be considered ‘true.’ My main goal is to point out three limits of performativity. First, not all theories can be performative since some do not produce empirical landmarks for agents. Second, social institutions restrict performativity. Third, I emphasize the necessity that a theory (...) to be self-fulfilling. This article is a prelude to a new kind of performative studies based on an original definition: a theory performs the world if it implies a behavioral regularity which leads to a general coordination between agents. That is to say, if it becomes a convention à la David Lewis. (shrink)

This paper examines the perceptual and reasoning processes that underpin regularities in behaviour. A distinction is made between situations as they are, or as described by an omniscient external observer, and situations as agents see or frame them. Different frames can stem from differences in culture, experience and personality, as well as from other context-specific factors. Drawing upon David Lewis’s Convention, I show that consistency between reasoning and experience does not preclude individuals from understanding the same state of affairs (...) differently, and that agents’ beliefs about others’ beliefs may well be wrong. As a result, cases may occur in which conventions are sustained by false but mutually consistent and self-confirming beliefs. (shrink)

This paper addresses a specific issue inherent to David Lewis’s conception of possible worlds, namely whether or not they are liable to being limited in size. The paper purports to show that, if a certain argument against unlimited worlds’ size is valid, then the way of countering it by means of positing an upper limit to size (as Lewis himself and John Divers have suggested) leads to a troublesome distortion of some modal phenomena, such as de re ascriptions (...) of properties. Even if somewhat disagreeing with Lewis’s favoured solution of the topic at issue, it must be remarked that what follows should not be intended either as a defence or as an attack on Lewis’s overall modal ontology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Seven Poems NICOLAS CALAS (Translated by Avi Sharon) hellenizing surrealism: a greek door to europe Nicolas calas (Kalamares) may be considered merely a minor Greek poet, but he had a major global persona and influence. In the middle of the last century he played a catalyzing role in the international avant garde: He was a Zelig-like polemicist in three languages (Greek, French, and English) and across three cultural (...) capitals (Athens, Paris, and New York). But he always fought on a singular front: surrealism. Born in Lausanne in 1907, he grew up in Athens and by the later 1920s began to stand out in literary circles (he was over 6' 4") for his modernist if not revolutionary views. Starting from an interest in Freud and Marx, the subconscious and the revolutionary, Calas soon arrived at their natural synthesis—surrealism. Around the time when a distinctly Greek form of surrealist poetry emerged, with the 1935 publication of “Blast Furnace” by Andreas Embiricos, Calas was on his way to becoming its unofficial spokesman. He moved to the epicenter of the movement in Paris and with the 1938 publication of Foyers d’Incendie became the “most lucid and audacious” of founder André Breton’s acolytes, both prophet and demagogue of the group. Carried along in the current of European artists and thinkers leaving Europe for New York, he would continue the fight on the western wing of the faction (literally, coming to blows at a cocktail party with Clement Greenberg, representing the opposing Abstract Expressionist side). In 1942 he published another clarion pamphlet, Confound the Wise, giving the movement voice in English and befriending its most visible local supporters and practitioners, from Peggy Guggenheim to Marcel Duchamp. arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 The Wyndham Lewis of the operation, Calas was a cross-border catalyst, evangelizing the role of surrealism as a liberating and generative force in modern literature and art. For him and other writers and poets, the weapon that would most effectively derange the reader’s habitual conformism into revelatory and revolutionary perception was the surrealist image, poetry’s lingua franca. For Greek practitioners it was completely natural for that magical representation to arise out of their god-infested, sun-filled landscape. Here they had a force that was both blinding and enlightening, penetrating and transformative, local and universal. For Calas, the primary echo or reflection of that essential image was the island of Santorini, referenced in several of the translations here (and reminiscent of his fellow national Nikos Gatsos’s use of the island of Amorgos in a similar context). It stood as the very symbol of fiery transformation, an image monstrous enough to shock the reader into a super-rational embrace of its own form of logic. This Hellenization of surrealism, like the Hellenization of modernism itself, was to become an important, transformative power in its own right. For many, the origin (and likewise, for many, the enclosing border ) of surrealism was France. “But it is French. It is their invention,” was how William Carlos Williams saw it, to his chagrin. Williams was convinced that the objective concentration on the image itself (“no ideas but in things”) could offer a salutary corrective to American poetry of his time. “It is the surrealists who have invented the living defense of literature,” he wrote in a 1929 essay. But for a poet so at one with the American Grain to be reconciled with surrealism’s ‘Francite’ he needed some way to cross the divide. His admiration for Calas’s work in clarifying and promoting the group’s ideas enabled the Greek poet to serve as a mediator, to allow the creative transference of its rebellious wisdom into Williams’s poetry. To borrow the title of one of his early American essays, Calas provided Williams a “Greek door to Europe.” In translating four of Calas’s French poems into English, published in 1941 with a frontispiece by the surrealist painter and magician Kurt Seligman, Williams leveraged Calas as the vehicle through which the “enabling foreignness” of surrealism could be grafted into the grain of his American modernist work, just as he set out on his magnum opus, Paterson. In a similar way... (shrink)

Duncan Purves and Nicolas Delon have argued that one’s life will be meaningful to the extent that one contributes to valuable states of affairs and this contribution is a result of one’s intentional actions. They then argue, contrary to some theorists’ intuitions, that non-human animals are capable of fulfilling these requirements, and that this finding might entail important things for the animal ethics movement. In this paper, I also argue that things besides human beings can have meaningful existences, but I (...) disagree with Purves and Delon’s theory of meaning, and some of the practical implications they suggest arise from their conclusion. Specifically, I argue that Purves and Delon are wrong to suggest that intentional agency is necessary for one’s life to be meaningful; contributing to valuable states of affairs can be sufficient by itself. Purves and Delon’s objection to such a claim is that it would allow even inanimate objects’ existences to count as meaningful. However, while I accept this... (shrink)

In this paper I explore whether three different approaches to connexivity – namely, Lewis and Langford’s, Wansing’s and Egré and Politzer’s – can be non-trivially related. Lewis and Langford’s approach consists of the definition of the conditional in terms of consistency via the definition of possibility in terms of consistency and Lewis’ definition of the (strict) conditional in terms of possibility; Wansing’s approach is based on his definition of the falsity condition for the conditional as “if A (...) is true then B is false”; Egré and Politzer’s approach relies on the modalization of the falsity condition for the conditional in its conditional form (A→◇~B). With this background in mind, I build upon Estrada-González’s work relating connexivism and possibilism, the thesis according to which everything is possible. Estrada-González’s work relates Lewis and Langford’s connexive approach with Nelson’s idea that every proposition is self-consistent. He does so using a fragment of LP augmented with a special conditional. This relation has resulted in the study and postulation of several truth-functional modalities, some of which have already been discussed elsewhere. I employ several truth-functional modalities to evaluate Egré and Politzer’s falsity conditions for the conditional. I show that in using Béziau’s truth-functional modality ◇B, definable in Estrada-González’s framework, one can retain in a single framework the three different approaches. More specifically, distinguishing the notion of logical equivalence from the notion of interderivability and these two from the notion of coimplication, it is possible to relate ~(A→B) and (A→◇~B) as interderivable schemas and in a valid biconditional. I also show some consequences of this for Béziau’s negative appraisal of three-valued truthfunctional modalities. (shrink)

Il problema di fondo da cui la discussione sui mondi possibili scaturisce è quello di fornire una teoria circa l’interpretazione delle espressioni modali. È quindi da un’analisi di queste espressioni che partiremo per la nostra discussione sui mondi possibili. Nel linguaggio naturale il discorso modale è segnalato da una molteplicità di espressioni come avverbi, modi verbali ed operatori enunciativi: 'potere', 'dovere', 'avere la capacità', 'avere l’opportunità', 'possibilmente', 'doverosamente', et coetera. In seguito ad una semplificazione non priva di conseguenze, si è (...) generalmente ritenuto che le espressioni paradigmatiche del discorso modale (a cui tutte le altre potessero essere in qualche modo ridotte) fossero. (shrink)

The logic of Conditional Beliefs has been introduced by Board, Baltag, and Smets to reason about knowledge and revisable beliefs in a multi-agent setting. In this article both the semantics and the proof theory for this logic are studied. First, a natural semantics forCDLis defined in terms of neighbourhood models, a multi-agent generalisation of Lewis’ spheres models, and it is shown that the axiomatization ofCDLis sound and complete with respect to this semantics. Second, it is shown that the neighbourhood (...) semantics is equivalent to the original one defined in terms of plausibility models, by means of a direct correspondence between the two types of models. On the basis of neighbourhood semantics, a labelled sequent calculus forCDLis obtained. The calculus has strong proof-theoretic properties, in particular admissibility of contraction and cut, and it provides a decision procedure for the logic. Furthermore, its semantic completeness is used to obtain a constructive proof of the finite model property of the logic. Finally, it is shown that other doxastic operators can be easily captured within neighbourhood semantics. This fact provides further evidence of the naturalness of neighbourhood semantics for the analysis of epistemic/doxastic notions. (shrink)

This volume is devoted to Lewis's work in metaphysics and epistemology. Topics covered include properties, ontology, possibility, truthmaking, probability, the mind-body problem, vision, belief, and knowledge. The purpose of this collection, and the volumes that precede and follow it, is to disseminate more widely the work of an eminent and influential contemporary philosopher. The volume will serve as a useful work of reference for teachers and students of philosophy.

This book is a defense of modal realism; the thesis that our world is but one of a plurality of worlds, and that the individuals that inhabit our world are only a few out of all the inhabitants of all the worlds. Lewis argues that the philosophical utility of modal realism is a good reason for believing that it is true.

The intellectual history of the last quarter of this century has been marked by the growing influence of Africana thought--an area of philosophy that focuses on issues raised by the struggle over ideas in African cultures and their hybrid forms in Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. Existentia Africana is an engaging and highly readable introduction to the field of Africana philosophy and will help to define this rapidly growing field. Lewis R. Gordon clearly explains Africana existential thought to (...) a general audience, covering a wide range of both classic and contemporary thinkers--from Douglass and DuBois to Fanon, Davis and Zack. (shrink)

David Lewis (1941-2001) was Class of 1943 University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. His contributions spanned philosophical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and epistemology. In On the Plurality of Worlds, he defended his challenging metaphysical position, "modal realism." He was also the author of the books Convention, Counterfactuals, Parts of Classes, and several volumes of collected papers.

A lineage of prominent philosophers who have discussed the second-person relation can be regarded as advancing structural accounts. They posit that the second-person relation effects one transformative change to the structure of practical reasoning. In this paper, I criticise this orthodoxy and offer an alternative, substantive account. That is, I argue that entering into second-personal relations with others does indeed affect one's practical reasoning, but it does this not by altering the structure of one's agential thought, but by changing what (...) reasons can become available. The importance of second-personal thought for action is heterogenous. Second-person relations make possible the emergence of a wide variety of different kinds of practical reasons: creating some, revealing others. Recognising this diminishes the appeal of the traditional, structural accounts of the practical significance of such second-personal relations. Moving away from structural accounts facilitates a more thorough understanding of the intersubjective form of action. (shrink)

This book is the first extensive treatment of Husserl's phenomenology of time-consciousness. Nicolas de Warren uses detailed analysis of texts by Husserl, some only recently published in German, to examine Husserl's treatment of time-consciousness and its significance for his conception of subjectivity. He traces the development of Husserl's thinking on the problem of time from Franz Brentano's descriptive psychology, and situates it in the framework of his transcendental project as a whole. Particular discussions include the significance of time-consciousness for other (...) phenomenological themes: perceptual experience, the imagination, remembrance, self-consciousness, embodiment, and the consciousness of others. The result is an illuminating exploration of how and why Husserl considered the question of time-consciousness to be the most difficult, yet also the most central, of all the challenges facing his unique philosophical enterprise"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

In his note "can there be vague objects?" ("analysis", 1978), Gareth evans presents a purported proof that there can be no vague identity statements. Some readers think that evans endorses the proof and its false conclusion. Not so. His point is that those who put vagueness in the world, Rather than in language, Will have no way to fault the proof and no way to escape the false conclusion.

Enhanced by many innovative exercises, examples, and pedagogical features, The Power of Critical Thinking: Effective Reasoning About Ordinary and Extraordinary Claims, Second Edition, explores the essentials of critical reasoning, argumentation, logic, and argumentative essay writing while also incorporating material on important topics that most other texts leave out. Author Lewis Vaughn offers comprehensive treatments of core topics, including an introduction to claims and arguments, discussions of propositional and categorical logic, and full coverage of the basics of inductive reasoning. Building (...) on this solid foundation, he also delves into areas neglected by other texts, adding extensive material on "inference to the best explanation" and on scientific reasoning; a thorough look at the evaluation of evidence and credibility; and a chapter on the psychological and social factors that can impede critical thinking. Additional notable elements are a chapter on moral reasoning, advice on how to evaluate Internet sources, and guidelines for evaluating occult, paranormal, or supernatural claims. The Power of Critical Thinking, Second Edition, integrates many pedagogical features including hundreds of diverse exercises, examples, and illustrations; progressive, stand-alone writing modules; numerous text boxes; step-by-step guidelines for evaluating claims, arguments, and explanations; a glossary of important terms; and many reminders, summaries, and review notes throughout. The text is supplemented by a companion website at www.oup.com/us/criticalthinking (offering a student study guide and more), and an Instructor's Manual with Test Questions (available both in print and on a CD). This unique text features a modular structure that allows instructors to teach the chapters in almost any order. Written in a student-friendly style and enhanced by humor where appropriate, it is ideal for courses in critical thinking, introduction to logic, informal logic, argumentative writing, and introduction to argumentation. New to the Second Edition * Full-color throughout and an expanded art program (37 more photos and illustrations) * A new writing module--an annotated sample student paper--and five additional essays for analysis * A new section on evaluating news reports and advertising * Timely discussions of intelligent design and population (nonintervention) studies * Expanded coverage of experts and authors and reasons to doubt their reliability * More "Field Problems" and exercise questions * Chapter objectives and key terms with definitions for each chapter. (shrink)

Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart was born in Yorkshire in 1907 to second generation Jewish immigrants. Having won a scholarship to Oxford University, he went on to become the most famous legal philosopher of the twentieth century. From 1932-40 H.L.A Hart practised as a barrister in London. He was pronounced physically unfit for military service in 1940, and was recruited by MI5, where he worked until 1945. During his time at the Bar he had continued to study philosophy and at M15 (...) his interest was further stimulated by his philosopher colleagues in M16, Stuart Hampshire and Gilbert Ryle. After the war, Hart returned to Oxford to take up a philosophy fellowship, later to become Professor of Jurisprudence. H.L.A Hart single-handedly reinvented the philosophy of law and influenced the nation's thinking in the 1960s on abortion, the legalization of homosexuality, and on capital punishment. Hart's approach to legal philosophy was at once disarmingly simple and breathtakingly ambitious, combining as it did the insights of Austin and Bentham and the new linguistic philosophy of J.L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He sought to elucidate a concept of law which would be of relevance to all forms of law, wherever or whenever they arose: his bestselling book, The Concept of Law, has sold tens of thousands of copies worldwide. In 1941, he married Jenifer Williams (a high-ranking civil servant, later an Oxford academic) with whom he had four children. Their relationship was an enduring if unconventional one. In the early 1950s, Jenifer was rumoured to be having a long-standing affair with Isaiah Berlin, one of Hart's closest friends. She was also, falsely, accused by the Sunday Times of having been a Russian spy, an allegation which was all the more scandalous given Hart's position at MI5 during the War. Nicola Lacey draws on Hart's previously unpublished diaries and letters to reveal a complex inner life. Outwardly successful, Hart was in fact tormented by doubts about his intellectual abilities, his sexual identity and his capacity to form close relationships. Her biography also sheds fascinating light on the origins of his ideas, and assesses his overall contribution. Above all, it chronicles of a life which had a depth ands impact far greater than many of Hart's readers have realized. (shrink)

According to a recent paper by Tim Maudlin, Bell’s theorem has nothing to tell us about realism or the descriptive completeness of quantum mechanics. What it shows is that quantum mechanics is non-local, no more and no less. What I intend to do in this paper is to challenge Maudlin’s assertion about the import of Bell’s proof. There is much that I agree with in the paper; in particular, it does us the valuable service of demonstrating that Einstein’s objections to (...) quantum mechanics have nothing to do with its indeterminism. But I do think that Maudlin’s conclusion is overly cut-and-dried. Quantum mechanics is far from a unified edifice, and what Bell’s theorem shows depends on what version of quantum mechanics you look at. In particular, I’ll try to make the case that there’s an interesting, if ultimately uncompelling anti-realist construal of the import of Bell’s theorem. And I also want to suggest that locality isn’t quite as decisively defeated as Maudlin claims. (shrink)

Shows that many of our understandings about scientific thought can be corrected once we realise just how unnatural science is. Quoting scientists from Aristotle to Einstein, the book argues that scientific ideas are, with rare exceptions, counter-intuitive and contrary to common sense.

The empirical study of belief is emerging at a rapid clip, uniting work from all corners of cognitive science. Reliance on belief in understanding and predicting behavior is widespread. Examples can be found, inter alia, in the placebo, attribution theory, theory of mind, and comparative psychological literatures. Research on belief also provides evidence for robust generalizations, including about how we fix, store, and change our beliefs. Evidence supports the existence of a Spinozan system of belief fixation: one that is automatic (...) and independent of belief rejection. Independent research supports the existence of a system of fragmented belief storage: one that relies on large numbers of causally isolated, context-sensitive stores of belief in memory. Finally, empirical and observational data support at least two systems of belief change. One system adheres, mostly, to epistemological norms of updating; the other, the psychological immune system, functions to guard our most centrally held beliefs from potential inconsistency with newly formed beliefs. Refining our under- standing of these systems can shed light on pressing real-world issues, such as how fake news, propaganda, and brainwashing exploit our psychology of belief, and how best to construct our modern informational world. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A thriving project in contemporary epistemology concerns identifying and explicating the epistemic virtues. Although there is little sustained argument for this claim, a number of prominent sources suggest that curiosity is an epistemic virtue. In this paper, I provide an account of the virtue of curiosity. After arguing that virtuous curiosity must be appropriately discerning, timely and exacting, I then situate my account in relation to two broader questions for virtue responsibilists: What sort of motivations are required for epistemic (...) virtue? And do epistemic virtues need to be reliable? I will sketch an account on which curiosity is only virtuous when rooted in a non-instrumental appreciation of epistemic goods, before arguing that curiosity can exhibit intellectual virtue irrespective of whether one is reliable in satisfying it. (shrink)

We aim to do two things in this article. On the positive end, our goal is to explain how some seemingly incompatible aspects of belief live together, by presenting distinct mechanistic explanations of each of them: in particular we want to show how belief can be discerning, credulous, rational, and irrational. After clarifying our positive view, we take aim at some competitor views in the second half of the paper, particularly offering critiques of epistemic vigilance and social marketplace accounts of (...) belief. We conclude by inviting proponents to provide an architecture for belief that can be tested against existing models. (shrink)