P. T. Geach, notoriously, holds the Relative Identity Thesis, according to which a meaningful judgment of identity is always, implicitly or explicitly, relative to some general term. ‘The same’ is a fragmentary expression, and has no significance unless we say or mean ‘the same X’, where ‘X’ represents a general term (what Frege calls a Begriffswort or Begriffsausdruck). (P. T. Geach, Mental Acts (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), p. 69. I maintain that it makes no sense to judge whether (...) things are ‘the same’, or remain ‘the same’, unless we add or understand some general term - ‘the same F’. (P. T. Geach, Reference and Generality, third Edition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1980), pp. 63f. I am arguing for the thesis that identity is relative. When one says ‘x is identical with y’, this, I hold, is an incomplete expression; it is short for ‘x is the same A as y’, where ‘A’ represents some count noun understood from the context of utterance - or else, it is just a vague expression of a half-formed thought. (P. T. Geach, ‘Identity,’ Review of Metaphysics 21 (1967-8), p. 3.) One of the ways Geach seeks to support this is by tying it to the well nigh universally admired Fregean thesis about cardinality. (shrink)

A consistent causal interpretation of the Klein-Gordon equation treated as a field equation has been developed, and leads to a model of entities described by the Klein-Gordon equation, i.e., spinless, massive bosons, as objectively existing fields. The question arises, however, as to whether a causal interpretation based on a particle ontology of the Klein-Gordon equation is also possible. Our purpose in this article will be to indicate, by making what we believe is a best possible attempt at developing a particle (...) interpretation of the Klein-Gordon equation, that such an interpretation is untenable. To resolve the nonpositive-definite probability density difficulties with the Klein-Gordon equation, we modify this equation by the introduction of an evolution parameter. We base our subsequent considerations on this modified Klein-Gordon equation. Partly to motivate the need for a relativistic causal interpretation and partly to give emphasis to aspects of the causal interpretation often overlooked, we begin our article with a brief historical survey of the causal interpretation. (shrink)

My intention is to consider Bernard Stiegler’s concept of ‘journeys of knowledge’. Open Humanities Press, 2020) and to explore how one might rethink the knowledge-creating potentialities of information itself. This has become all the more apparent in the time of lockdowns, physical distancing during the pandemic but the primary purpose of the paper is to look at the distinction between knowledge/information and the role of the teacher in using technology pharmacologically to safeguard the savoirs and to stem the proletarianization of (...) knowledge or stupidity as such. The point is that the pandemic is bringing home the question of the role of the teacher, the role of the school and the necessity of the co-production and co-creation of knowledge. It seems essential to understand the concept of ‘journeys of knowledge’ in the time of the pandemic as students are left at home without a journey to voyage upon. As such, there is a lack of futurally-bound collective protentions, an absence of any vision projection into the future. What is there in the concept of ‘journeys of knowledge’ that demonstrates how to use the Internet in bifurcatory ways, to produce what Stiegler calls negentropic knowledge or new forms of knowledge, or what I want to designate as experiments with truth-telling. What does it mean to produce negentropic knowledge without the teacher to guide, curate and care? With the above in mind, and by writing out of the wound of thinking, it is by rethinking the concept of curation in a different way that it is hoped one can contribute to educational research to produce unheard-of bifurcations of knowledge, to invoke Deleuze’s sense of the incomprehensible and Stiegler’s sense of the impossible, the improbable and the incalculable in educational concerns, to pave a path out of the aporia of the present—a present which is without decision and epoch. (shrink)

I argue that quantum optical experiments that purport to refute Bohr’s principle of complementarity fail in their aim. Some of these experiments try to refute complementarity by refuting the so called particle–wave duality relations, which evolved from the Wootters–Zurek reformulation of BPC. I therefore consider it important for my forgoing arguments to first recall the essential tenets of BPC, and to clearly separate BPC from WZPC, which I will argue is a direct contradiction of BPC. This leads to a need (...) to consider the meaning of particle–wave duality relations and to question their fundamental status. I further argue that particle and wave complementary concepts are on a different footing than other pairs of complementary concepts. (shrink)

All Galen's surviving shorter works on psychology and ethics - including the recently discovered Avoiding Distress, and the neglected Character Traits, extant only in Arabic - are here presented in one volume in a new English translation, with substantial introductions and notes and extensive glossaries. Original and penetrating analyses are provided of the psychological and philosophical thought, both of the above and of two absolutely central works of Galenic philosophy, Affections and Errors and The Capacities of the Soul, by some (...) of the foremost experts in the field. Each treatise has also been subjected to fresh textual study, taking account of the latest scholarly developments, and is presented with accompanying textual discussions, adding greatly to the value and accuracy of the work without detracting from its accessibility to a wider readership. The volume thus makes a major contribution to the understanding of the ancient world's most prominent doctor-philosopher in his intellectual context. (shrink)

Through the explicit introduction of hyperplane dependence as a form of relativistic dynamical evolution, we construct a manifestly covariant description of a single positive energy particle interacting with any one of a large class of “moving” external potentials. In1+1 dimensions, the simplified mathematics allows us to display a number of general properties of solutions to the equations of motion for evolution on hyperplanes.

The book offers an overview of experiences, theories and conceptions of time in the Graeco-Roman world. It presents the results of new research on neglected medical texts, relating to time management, aging and times of life, and the importance of t.

Science as a social institution today is experiencing a phase of profound transformation. Objects, methods, research technological tools, methods of institutional communication and mechanisms for commercializing new knowledge are changing. The creation of new interdisciplinary communication platforms is more relevant today than ever before. This review pro[1]vides key information about the First Conference «Mind, Body, Intelligence, Language in the Age of Cognitive Technologies». The organizers created an event that brought together IT developers, academic researchers, and business representatives.

The body-oriented approach in the philosophy of cognitive sciences is gaining in importance in the conditions of the formation of new high-tech contexts. The problem of interoception and integration of bodily data into socio-economic processes requires a comprehensive analysis and ethical assessment. This article examines the conceptual foundations of the body-oriented approach and its impact on the essence of cognitive processes. The main advantages and disadvantages of this approach are presented. We consider the methodological conflict zones of the bodily paradigm (...) and traditional methodological attitudes of the cognitive sciences. The system ofinteroceptive sensations is a special «layer» of bodily experience. The social functions of interoceptive sensations are an interdisciplinary research area that focuses on the mechanisms of interaction between the private content of bodily experience and systems of social interaction. The regularity between interoceptive sensations and human behavioral patterns reflects the importance of examining bodily data. Today, the market for bodily data is just beginning to form, but at the same time it is already playing an important role in global digital transformation processes. A multitude of applications and wearable digital devices that track bodily activity and generate gigantic amounts of data are used today by millions of people around the world. The identification of bodily activity leads to the emergence of new forms of interaction between a person and socio-institutional systems, the specific properties of which are also considered in this article. (shrink)

This article examines some of S. Lem’s statements about his philosophical and worldview positions regarding the mysterious nature of language and the linguistic sign, the connection between language, mind and reality. The main goal of the paper is to understand what texts on the philosophy of language the Polish thinker read and what attitude he has formed towards them. Lem is the follower of an analytical intellectual culture that focuses on the naturalistic worldview and the consequences of the “linguistic turn” (...) in Western philosophy. For Lem, language is not only an interesting philosophical object, but also a complex precise instrument of his own creative thinking. In this regard, the philosophy of language for a writer cannot be based only on logical-linguistic atomistic methodology. Lem seeks in his contemporary interdisciplinary methods ways to combine realistic and anti-realist positions. Many concepts, such as “the effect of semantic transparency”, “polymorphic language model”, “variation model” are quite correlated with modern theories of language and require additional philosophical comments. (shrink)

In this experimental piece of writing I want to think about the pedagogy of contact and the plight of the hikikomori or social recluse in Japan. I am interested in exploring how the hikikomori practices a kind of contactlessness or what I will call a deadly ipseity of desire. What does it mean to resist contact, to be without contact, to be without desire? What does it mean to risk contact, to risk being tactile with the other, to risk affirming (...) one’s desires? I want to generate a discussion about what has happened to desire, to its promise and possibility and why it is so difficult to anticipate or forecast what is to come. For me the BwO of hikikomori is the ruin of desire, the collapse of desire, a disaster of desire. I am pursuing a line of thought which highlights the loss of the possibility of processual schizophrenic breakthrough and in its place the becoming-autistic of the self, the perilous breakdown of the self. (shrink)

The 50th anniversary of the publication of Anti-Oedipus in 1972, just a few years after the events in May-June 1968 in Paris, affords us the opportunity to reflect on the very simple question, what...

The theory of mental models and its computer implementations have led to crucial experiments showing that no standard logic—the sentential calculus and all logics that include it—can underlie human reasoning. The theory replaces the logical concept of validity (the conclusion is true in all cases in which the premises are true) with necessity (conclusions describe no more than possibilities to which the premises refer). Many inferences are both necessary and valid. But experiments show that individuals make necessary inferences that are (...) invalid, e.g., Few people ate steak or sole; therefore, few people ate steak. Other crucial experiments show that individuals reject inferences that are not necessary but valid, e.g., He had the anesthetic or felt pain, but not both; therefore, he had the anesthetic or felt pain, or both. Nothing in logic can justify the rejection of a valid inference: a denial of its conclusion is inconsistent with its premises, and inconsistencies yield valid inferences of any conclusions whatsoever including the one denied. So inconsistencies are catastrophic in logic. In contrast, the model theory treats all inferences as defeasible (nonmonotonic), and inconsistencies have the null model, which yields only the null model in conjunction with any other premises. So inconsistences are local. Which allows truth values in natural languages to be much richer than those that occur in the semantics of standard logics; and individuals verify assertions on the basis of both facts and possibilities that did not occur. (shrink)

Here, I wish to pursue an analysis of the potential link between the thinkers Félix Guattari and Bernard Stiegler as I see in both thinkers a profound rumination of the question of therapeutic care and curation at the institutional level. My concern is with the institutional object and its deadly repetitions. By and through agitating the coefficient of transversality, my argument is that this might problematize the dyadic and sometimes dysfunctional transindividual relationships between doctor and patient, teacher and pupil. My (...) concern is with the passage from the machinic objet petit ‘a’ in Lacan to Winnicott’s transitional object (objet petit ‘b’), and then beyond their functions to the institutional object itself which Guattari idiosyncratically calls the objet petit ‘c’. The rationale behind this move is to consider how the mediating third object needs to be recast in light of the poisonous and addictive nature of transitional objects such as smartphone technology. My point is that we must rethink the pharmacological possibility of the incorporation of the transitional object at the institutional level, which is to say, to understand the relationship between institutional objects such as the therapeutic club and the transitional object (digital technologies) in order to appreciate critically the toxic effects of the latter. Yet we also must understand the pharmacological or therapeutic aspects of the transitional object in itself, which is to say to understand its precise curative usage at the institutional level. (shrink)

Building upon previous research on the therapeutic object, specifically the objet re-petit-ive abc, which draws from Lacan, Winnicott, and Guattari, I explore the generation, contribution, and erosion of knowledge in the so-called smart city. I will investigate how digital pedagogical objects, functioning as transitional objects, can serve as therapeutic purposes both within and outside institutional settings. I examine the notions of the dérive and psychogeography and compare them with Bernard Stiegler’s concept of the “journey of knowledge” and then delve into (...) the curation of “negentropic forms of knowledge” and the mnemonic technique of the dérive. Taking ecological and ecosophical perspectives into account, I consider mnemonic techniques as a means to critically reflect upon the urban landscape and its transformation into a technical milieu. My overall goal is to contemplate the possibility of a Stieglerian and/or Guattarian détournement (philosophical hijacking) of the smart city. (shrink)