«Obra en Blanco» es un libro sobre la obra temprana de Julio Enrique Blanco de la Rosa (1890-1986), un olvido más en la historia de la filosofía colombiana. Salvo en notas al margen, a Blanco no se lo encuentra en los estudios sobre la historia de la filosofía. Algunos han atribuido su desconocimiento a la incomprensión de un medio que no supo de su genialidad, otros creen que se debe a que su filosofía fue una necedad que consistió en poner (...) nuevos nombres a las viejas cosas. «Obra en Blanco» no intenta defender su genialidad o censurar a quienes lo han acusado de necedad: analiza y presenta una selección de un periodo juvenil de su obra, comprendido entre 1909-1920. Con ello sólo se busca aportar a la construcción de una historia de la filosofía nacional, y alimentar la discusión sobre la historia de la contribución filosófica de un hombre, cuyas páginas se encuentran aún en blanco. (shrink)

Alors que le débat sur le caractère scientifique ou pseudo-scientifique de l’agriculture biodynamique occupe régulièrement le débat public, l’histoire et la philosophie des sciences ne semblent que très peu s’être emparées de ce sujet. La thèse défendue ici est double : tout d’abord, si l’agriculture biodynamique rencontre un relatif succès aujourd’hui, cela tient sans doute au fait que son théoricien, R. Steiner, a été un des premiers à critiquer le paradigme qui domine l’agronomie, ou en tout cas l’agriculture, depuis plus (...) d’un siècle. Cette critique semble d’ailleurs se maintenir dans ses motifs tout au long du XXe siècle, jusqu’à une certaine critique contemporaine de l’agro-industrie et de ses conséquences désastreuses sur l’environnement. Or, et c’est la seconde thèse défendue ici, cette critique semble méconnaître voire occulter la réalité des débats internes qui ont traversé l’agronomie au cours du XXe siècle et qui continuent de l’agiter aujourd’hui : l’agronomie système a ainsi par exemple intégré dans ses objets des éléments de l’agriculture biodynamique. Selon nous, le problème principal est que l’agronomie est souvent abordée selon une approche externaliste, qui doit impérativement être complétée par une approche internaliste afin tout d’abord de distinguer ce qui relève de la science et ce qui relève du mysticisme, et ensuite de saisir toute la richesse historique et épistémologique de l’agronomie. (shrink)

Turing progressions arise by iteratedly adding consistency statements to a base theory. Different notions of consistency give rise to different Turing progressions. In this paper we present a logic that generates exactly all relations that hold between these different Turing progressions given a particular set of natural consistency notions. Thus, the presented logic is proven to be arithmetically sound and complete for a natural interpretation, named the formalized Turing progressions interpretation.

El artículo documenta y analiza las vicisitudes en torno a la incorporación de Hilbert de su famoso axioma de completitud, en el sistema axiomático para la geometría euclídea. Esta tarea es emprendida sobre la base del material que aportan sus notas manuscritas para clases, correspondientes al período 1894–1905. Se argumenta que este análisis histórico y conceptual no sólo permite ganar claridad respecto de cómo Hilbert concibió originalmentela naturaleza y función del axioma de completitud en su versión geométrica, sino que además (...) permite disipar equívocos en cuanto a la relación de este axioma con la propiedad metalógica de completitud de un sistema axiomático, tal como fue concebida por Hilbert en esta etapa inicial.The paper reports and analyzes the vicissitudes around Hilbert’s inclusion of his famous axiom of completeness, into his axiomatic system for Euclidean geometry. This task is undertaken on the basis of his unpublished notes for lecture courses, corresponding to the period 1894–1905. It is argued that this historical and conceptual analysis not only sheds new light on how Hilbert conceived originally the nature of his geometrical axiom of completeness, but also it allows to clarify some misunderstandings regarding this axiom and the metalogical property of completeness of an axiomatic system, as it was understoodby Hilbert in this initial stage. (shrink)

Sobre la base que aportan las notas manuscritas de David Hilbert para cursos sobre geometría, el artículo procura contextualizar y analizar una de las contribuciones más importantes y novedosas de su célebre monografía Fundamentos de la geometría, a saber: el cálculo de segmentos lineales. Se argumenta que, además de ser un resultado matemático importante, Hilbert depositó en su aritmética de segmentos un destacado significado epistemológico y metodológico. En particular, se afirma que para Hilbert este resultado representaba un claro ejemplo de (...) uno de los rasgos más fructíferos y atractivos de su nuevo método axiomático formal, o sea, la capacidad de descubrir y exhibir conexiones estructurales o internas entre diferentes teorías matemáticas. On the basis of a set of unpublished notes for lecture courses on geometry, the paper seeks to contextualize and analyze one of the most important and original contributions of David Hilbert's celebrated monograph Foundations of Geometry, namely its arithmetic of line segments. It is argued that Hilbert attributed to his arithmetic of segments an important epistemological and methodological meaning, in addition to its relevance as an original mathematical result. In particular, it is claimed that for Hilbert his arithmetic of segments represented a clear example of one of the most fruitful and attractive traits of his new formal axiomatic method, i.e., the power to discover and exhibit inner or structural connections among different mathematical theories. (shrink)

The logics of formal inconsistency are logics tolerant to some amount of contradiction, but in which some versions of explosion still hold. The main result of this paper is a reconstruction of two such logics in the dialogical framework. By doing so, we achieve two things. On the one hand, we provide a formal approach to argumentative situations where some contradictions may occur while keeping the idea that there may still be situations in which some propositions are ‘safe’ in the (...) sense of immunity to the contradictions. On the other hand, we open a new line of study on these logics, in the context of the game-theoretical approach to semantics born in the 1960s, with various interesting perspectives, some of which are discussed at the end of this article. (shrink)

En este breve comentario discuto algunos aspectos de la interpretación de la epistemología de Davidson que sugiere Willian Duica en su reciente libro. Luego de una presentación somera del libro me centro en tres asuntos centrales de la interpretación de Duica. En primer lugar, argumento que su lectura de la crítica de Davidson al dualismo esquema/contenido es muy restrictiva y deja abierta la posibilidad de un realismo directo empirista. En segundo lugar, argumento que en su lectura el propio Duica se (...) compromete inadvertidamente con un empirismo de este tipo y, de este modo, su interpretación entra en tensión con el coherentismo de Davidson. Finalmente, discuto algunos aspectos de la interpretación que hace Duica de la tesis davidsoniana de la triangulación. In this short comment I discuss some aspects of William Duica's interpretation of Davidson's epistemology in a recent book. After a brief review of the book, I focus on three central issues of Duica's interpretation. First, I argue that his reading of Davidson's criticism of the scheme/content dualism is too restrictive and leaves open the possibility of an empiricist direct realism. Second, I argue in his reading Duica inadvertently commits himself to an empiricism of this sort and, as a result, his interpretation is in tension with Davidson's own coherentism. Finally, I discuss some aspects of Duica's interpretation of Davidsonian triangulation. (shrink)

This paper seeks to highlight the methodological contributions developed by Michel Foucault in regard to a critical history. We propose a tour through various passages of the thinker´s work, with the aim of bashing the main elements that allegedly make up his method. From this exercise we maintain that, in order to record the existence of a Foucauldian method, it is necessary to reproblematize this notion beyond the displacements around the well-known three moments of his work -archeological/genealogical/ethical-, reorienting the look (...) towards the critical tension possible to peer around the unique place that occupies the question of history in his work. The novelty of our proposal is to point out that, beyond the well-known substantial contributions foreshadowed around Foucault's conceptual rig, his work must be understood as an eminently practical historical-philosophical methodology, aimed at disarticulating the canonical principles that legitimize knowledge produced by the historiographic method, thus opening a region of indiscernibility and rarity in historical practice that, we maintain, can be thought of in the vicinity of a parahistory. In sum, we propose the thesis that the displacement in Foucault's work takes on a singular power from the introduction of a strategic artifice ― anonymous ―, aimed at forcing a fold of history on itself, showing how historiographical plots actively tax to sustain and legitimize the regimes of knowledge, power and truth present in them. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone examinar la historia de la recepción inicial de las vanguardias históricas en la literatura hispanoamericana a través de la obra de Alfonso Reyes. Sin ignorar el estallido de la Revolución Mexicana y de la Primera Guerra Mundial, el futurismo y el cubismo responden a la praxis cotidiana relacionada con el belicismo. Ambos pueden encontrarse en otros textos de Reyes escritos entre 1914 y 1924 en Madrid, donde él se había autoexiliado. Este ensayo termina comparando el vanguardismo (...) inicial de Reyes con el de Borges y Huidobro. (shrink)

No. 135: LOS VALORES DEL PAISAJE Ponencias del Seminario del Paisaje (2008) que abordan con distintos puntos de vista los valores del paisaje, buscando entender mejor los significados del paisaje en el horizonte de la modernidad, las cualidades que se le atribuyen y el sentido que de esa manera adquiere.

O texto situa em seu contexto as Conferências Públicas e apresenta o seu papel no projeto de Instrução Pública e Organização do Ensino, proposto por Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquês de Condorcet , que deu origem ao decreto sobre Instrução Pública aprovado na Assembléia Nacional da França Revolucionária em 1792. Ao final, caberá uma breve comparação entre os objetivos das Conferências Públicas dispostos por Condorcet com o recente programa Escola da Família, do governo do Estado de São Paulo, para (...) evidenciar o contraste entre duas políticas liberais para a educação. The essay places in context the Public conferences and presented his paper on the design of Public Instruction and Education Organization, proposed by Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet , which led to the decree on Public Instruction approved National Assembly of Revolutionary France in 1792. In the end, it will be a brief comparison between the objectives of Public Conferences arranged by Condorcet at the recent Family School program, the state government of St. Paul, to highlight the contrast between two liberal policies for education. (shrink)

The work of several thinkers of the Salamanca University was crucial in the passage of medieval political thought, dominated by St. Thomas Aquinas, to modern political thought, the main referent of which is Hobbes. In this direction, in the works of Francisco Suarez, a theologian of this University, we can see this transition insofar as he rooted his proposal in the Scholastics’ lineaments, which recovered the Aristotelian conception of political nature, while at the same time, through the concept of community, (...) he began to give consistency to the action of men as the decisive element of their life together. (shrink)

Desde que Hegel declarara el arte como “cosa del pasado”, diversas posturas han discutido sus posibilidades de existencia y ocaso, mientras el arte mismo se ha visto en la incomodidad de la indefinición de sus condiciones ontológicas y de sus espacios de circulación. Esa indefinición, no obstante, permitió que ciertas operaciones y modos de hacer artísticos se desplazaran hacia escenarios abiertos y no institucionales. Una vez trazada una ruta hermenéutica desde la estética hegeliana hasta la actualidad, a partir de modelos (...) de análisis como los Estudios visuales, la teoría de Boris Groys o Nicolas Bourriaud, o el sistema modal de Jordi Claramonte, es posible pensar las condiciones de posibilidad actuales del arte en la medida de sus entrecruzamientos y del desplazamiento de su objeto desde la creación hacia la circulación. Sin que haya desaparecido la plataforma de legitimación institucional, las variaciones en las que se despliegan los códigos artísticos en la cultura visual contemporánea desestiman la posibilidad de reclamarse como obras de arte, y se limitan a hacer un uso táctico de formas de relación y producción. De ahí que la demarcación de los escenarios de supervivencia del arte pueda resumirse en el traslado de la categoría arte, como sustantivo, hacia la movilidad versátil del adjetivo artístico. (shrink)

El ajedrez nunca ha sido un mero juego de tablero sino también reflejo de las tensiones filosóficas, ideológicas y sociales que vivieron sus jugadores en muchos periodos de la historia. Así pues, cuando los musulmanes reciben este juego a partir de las conquistas de Persia, lo modifican para que sea compatible con su sociedad. Con la expansión del Islam en la Península Ibérica, el juego entra en contacto con el mundo latino y español donde el rey Alfonso X hereda algunas (...) problemáticas filosóficas en torno al juego, y lo utiliza como alegoría de los conflictos socio-políticos que atraviesa su propio reinado. (shrink)

Este artículo se ocupa de la primera recepción de la obra de Nicolás Gómez Dávila, que se encuentra en la presentación que de él hizo Hernando Téllez en la revista Mito. El artículo analiza la aparición de las formas argumentativas breves en la revista colombiana Mito y, en particular, el uso que le dieron allí Hernando Téllez y Nicolás Gómez Dávila. En primer término, se discuten las relaciones de ambos autores con formas como el escolio, el aforismo, la entrada de (...) diario y el ensayo. Luego, se examina el uso de formas marginales en la revista Mito por autores como Alfonso Reyes, Jorge Gaitán Durán y Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot. Por último, se analiza la aparición de textos argumentativos de Téllez y Gómez Dávila en la revista para establecer un diálogo entre los dos principales cultivadores de la forma argumentativa breve en la literatura colombiana de los años cincuenta. (shrink)

Este trabajo reúne tres entrevistas al cineasta guatemalteco Jayro Bustamante, al director de fotografía Nicolás Wong Díaz y al ingeniero de sonido Eduardo Cáceres Stackmann. Los tres colaboraron en la elaboración de la película La Llorona (2019), tercer capítulo de una trilogía cinematográfica inaugurada por Ixcanul (2015) y Temblores (2019), dedicada a las problemáticas sociales y políticas de la Guatemala contemporánea. Se trata aquí de explorar los ejes creativos de dicho tríptico y se ubican en perspectiva las experiencias y (...) sensibilidades de estas tres figuras destacadas del cine centroamericano. (shrink)

In this article, we will present a number of technical results concerning Classical Logic, ST and related systems. Our main contribution consists in offering a novel identity criterion for logics in general and, therefore, for Classical Logic. In particular, we will firstly generalize the ST phenomenon, thereby obtaining a recursively defined hierarchy of strict-tolerant systems. Secondly, we will prove that the logics in this hierarchy are progressively more classical, although not entirely classical. We will claim that a logic is to (...) be identified with an infinite sequence of consequence relations holding between increasingly complex relata: formulae, inferences, metainferences, and so on. As a result, the present proposal allows not only to differentiate Classical Logic from ST, but also from other systems sharing with it their valid metainferences. Finally, we show how these results have interesting consequences for some topics in the philosophical logic literature, among them for the debate around Logical Pluralism. The reason being that the discussion concerning this topic is usually carried out employing a rivalry criterion for logics that will need to be modified in light of the present investigation, according to which two logics can be non-identical even if they share the same valid inferences. (shrink)

In some recent articles, Cobreros, Egré, Ripley, & van Rooij have defended the idea that abandoning transitivity may lead to a solution to the trouble caused by semantic paradoxes. For that purpose, they develop the Strict-Tolerant approach, which leads them to entertain a nontransitive theory of truth, where the structural rule of Cut is not generally valid. However, that Cut fails in general in the target theory of truth does not mean that there are not certain safe instances of Cut (...) involving semantic notions. In this article we intend to meet the challenge of answering how to regain all the safe instances of Cut, in the language of the theory, making essential use of a unary recovery operator. To fulfill this goal, we will work within the so-called Goodship Project, which suggests that in order to have nontrivial naïve theories it is sufficient to formulate the corresponding self-referential sentences with suitable biconditionals. Nevertheless, a secondary aim of this article is to propose a novel way to carry this project out, showing that the biconditionals in question can be totally classical. In the context of this article, these biconditionals will be essentially used in expressing the self-referential sentences and, thus, as a collateral result of our work we will prove that none of the recoveries expected of the target theory can be nontrivially achieved if self-reference is expressed through identities. (shrink)

Who Comes After the Subject offers the most comprehensive overview to date of contemporary French thinking on the question of the "subject." Nineteen philosophers and critics offer diverse perspectives on the subject as it has manifested itself in our modern discourses: the subject of philosophy, of the State, of history, of psychoanalysis. Each contribution asks What has become of the subject? or What has the subject become? in the wake of its critiques and deconstructions .

In order to describe the logic of morality, "contractualist" philosophers have studied how individuals behave when they choose to follow their moral intuitions. These individuals, contractualists note, often act as if they have bargained and thus reached an agreement with others about how to distribute the benefits and burdens of mutual cooperation. Using this observation, such philosophers argue that the purpose of morality is to maximize the benefits of human interaction. The resulting "contract" analogy is both insightful and puzzling. On (...) one hand, it captures the pattern of moral intuitions, thus answering questions about human cooperation: why do humans cooperate? Why should the distribution of benefits be proportionate to each person's contribution? Why should the punishment be proportionate to the crime? Why should the rights be proportionate to the duties? On the other hand, the analogy provides a mere as-if explanation for human cooperation, saying that cooperation is "as if" people have passed a contract-but since they didn't, why should it be so? To evolutionary thinkers, the puzzle of the missing contract is immediately reminiscent of the puzzle of the missing "designer" of life-forms, a puzzle that Darwin's theory of natural selection essentially resolved. Evolutionary and contractualist theory originally intersected at the work of philosophers John Rawls and David Gauthier, who argued that moral judgments are based on a sense of fairness that has been naturally selected. In this book, Nicolas Baumard further explores the theory that morality was originally an adaptation to the biological market of cooperation, an arena in which individuals competed to be selected for cooperative interactions. In this environment, Baumard suggests, the best strategy was to treat others with impartiality and to share the costs and benefits of cooperation in a fair way, so that those who offered less than others were left out of cooperation while those who offered more were exploited by their partners. It is with this evolutionary approach that Baumard ultimately accounts for the specific structure of human morality. (shrink)

Rejecting the Cut rule has been proposed as a strategy to avoid both the usual semantic paradoxes and the so-called v-Curry paradox. In this paper we consider if a Cut-free theory is capable of accurately representing its own notion of validity. We claim that the standard rules governing the validity predicate are too weak for this purpose and we show that although it is possible to strengthen these rules, the most obvious way of doing so brings with it a serious (...) problem: an internalized version of Cut can be proved for a Curry-like sentence. We also evaluate a number of possible ways of escaping this difficulty. (shrink)

How might a human communication system be bootstrapped in the absence of conventional language? We argue that motivated signs play an important role (i.e., signs that are linked to meaning by structural resemblance or by natural association). An experimental study is then reported in which participants try to communicate a range of pre-specified items to a partner using repeated non-linguistic vocalization, repeated gesture, or repeated non-linguistic vocalization plus gesture (but without using their existing language system). Gesture proved more effective (measured (...) by communication success) and more efficient (measured by the time taken to communicate) than non-linguistic vocalization across a range of item categories (emotion, object, and action). Combining gesture and vocalization did not improve performance beyond gesture alone. We experimentally demonstrate that gesture is a more effective means of bootstrapping a human communication system. We argue that gesture outperforms non-linguistic vocalization because it lends itself more naturally to the production of motivated signs. (shrink)

This paper compares two explanations of the process by which human communication systems evolve: iterated learning and social collaboration. It then reports an experiment testing the social collaboration account. Participants engaged in a graphical communication task either as a member of a community, where they interacted with seven different partners drawn from the same pool, or as a member of an isolated pair, where they interacted with the same partner across the same number of games. Participants’ horizontal, pair‐wise interactions led (...) “bottom up” to the creation of an effective and efficient shared sign system in the community condition. Furthermore, the community‐evolved sign systems were as effective and efficient as the local sign systems developed by isolated pairs. Finally, and as predicted by a social collaboration account, and not by an iterated learning account, interaction was critical to the creation of shared sign systems, with different isolated pairs establishing different local sign systems and different communities establishing different global sign systems. (shrink)

Anti-exceptionalism about logic states that logical theories have no special epistemological status. Such theories are continuous with scientific theories. Contemporary anti-exceptionalists include the semantic paradoxes as a part of the elements to accept a logical theory. Exploring the Buenos Aires Plan, the recent development of the metainferential hierarchy of ST\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbf {ST}}$$\end{document}-logics shows that there are multiple options to deal with such paradoxes. There is a whole ST\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} (...) \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbf {ST}}$$\end{document}-based hierarchy, of which LP\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbf {LP}}$$\end{document} and ST\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbf {ST}}$$\end{document} themselves are only the first steps. This means that the logics in this hierarchy are also options to analyze the inferential patterns allowed in a language that contains its own truth predicate. This paper explores these responses analyzing some reasons to go beyond the first steps. We show that LP\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbf {LP}}$$\end{document}, ST\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbf {ST}}$$\end{document} and the logics of the ST\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbf {ST}}$$\end{document}-hierarchy offer different diagnoses for the same evidence: the inferences and metainferences the agents endorse in the presence of the truth-predicate. But even if the data are not enough to adopt one of these logics, there are other elements to evaluate the revision of classical logic. Which is the best explanation for the logical principles to deal with semantic paradoxes? How close should we be to classical logic? And mainly, how could a logic obey the validities it contains? From an anti-exceptionalist perspective, we argue that ST\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbf {ST}}$$\end{document}-metainferential logics in general—and STTω\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbf {STT}}_{\omega }$$\end{document} in particular—are the best available options to explain the inferential principles involved with the notion of truth. (shrink)

Many of us, even on our happiest days, struggle to quiet the constant buzz of anxiety in the background of our minds. All kinds of worries--worries about losing people and things, worries about how we seem to others--keep us from peace of mind. Distracted or misled by our preoccupations, misconceptions, and, most of all, our obsession with ourselves, we don't see the world clearly--we don't see the world as it really is. In our search for happiness and the good life, (...) this is the main problem. But luckily there is a solution, and on the path to understanding it, we can make use of the rich and varied teachings that have developed over centuries of Buddhist thought. With clarity and compassion, Nicolas Bommarito explores the central elements of centuries of Buddhist philosophy and practice, explaining how they can improve your life and teach you to live without fear. Mining important texts and lessons for practical guidance, he provides a friendly guide to the very practical goals that underpin Buddhist philosophy. After laying out the basic ideas, Bommarito walks readers through a wide range of techniques and practices we can adopt to mend ingrained habits. Rare for its exploration of both the philosophy that motivates Buddhism and its practical applications, this is a compassionate guide to leading a good life that anyone can follow. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of iconicity in spoken language and other human communication systems. First, we concentrate on graphical and gestural communication and show how semantically motivated iconic signs play an important role in creating such communication systems from scratch. We then consider how iconic signs tend to become simplified and symbolic as the communication system matures and argue that this process is driven by repeated interactive use of the signs. We then consider evidence for iconicity at the level (...) of the system in graphical communication and finally draw comparisons between iconicity in graphical and gestural communication systems and in spoken language. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of iconicity in spoken language and other human communication systems. First, we concentrate on graphical and gestural communication and show how semantically motivated iconic signs play an important role in creating such communication systems from scratch. We then consider how iconic signs tend to become simplified and symbolic as the communication system matures and argue that this process is driven by repeated interactive use of the signs. We then consider evidence for iconicity at the level (...) of the system in graphical communication and finally draw comparisons between iconicity in graphical and gestural communication systems and in spoken language. (shrink)

In her recent (2009) book, The Origins of Concepts, Susan Carey argues that what she calls ‘Quinean Bootstrapping’ and processes of analogy in children show that the expressive power of a mind can be increased in ways that refute Jerry Fodor's (1975, 2008) ‘Mad Dog’ view that all concepts are innate. I argue that it is doubtful any evidence about the manifestation of concepts in children will bear upon the logico-semantic issues of expressive power. Analogy and bootstrapping may be ways (...) to bring about the former, but only by presupposing the very expressive powers Carey is claiming they explain. Analogies must be understood, and bootstrapping involves confirmation of hypotheses already expressible; otherwise they can't select among an infinitude of hypotheses compatible with the finite data the child has encountered, a fact rendered vivid by Goodman's ‘grue’ paradox and Chomsky's poverty of stimulus argument. The problems have special application to minds, since there is no reason to expect a child's concepts to be ‘projectible’ or to correspond to mind-independent natural kinds. I conclude with an ecumenical view that concepts are reasonably regarded as both innate and often learned, and that what is learned can in fact increase what really concerns Carey, the functioning psychological expressive power of the child, even if it leaves untouched what concerns Fodor, the semantic expressive power. Less ecumenically: maybe Fodor (2008) miscast the debate, and the real issue that bothers people concerns not nativism, but an issue on which Carey and Fodor surprisingly agree, his conceptual Atomism, or the view that all mono-morphemic concepts are primitive and unanalyzable. The issue deserves further discussion independently of Mad-doggery. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Chomsky's Commitment to CRTT Prospects and Problems of CRTT Technical Notions? Does Chomsky Need Intentionality? Chomsky's Dilemma.

When discussing Logical Pluralism several critics argue that such an open-minded position is untenable. The key to this conclusion is that, given a number of widely accepted assumptions, the pluralist view collapses into Logical Monism. In this paper we show that the arguments usually employed to arrive at this conclusion do not work. The main reason for this is the existence of certain substructural logics which have the same set of valid inferences as Classical Logic—although they are, in a clear (...) sense, non-identical to it. We argue that this phenomenon can be generalized, given the existence of logics which coincide with Classical Logic regarding a number of metainferential levels—although they are, again, clearly different systems. We claim this highlights the need to arrive at a more refined version of the Collapse Argument, which we discuss at the end of the paper. (shrink)