This article attempts to rehabilitate the concept of fetishism and to contribute to the debate on the social role of objects as well as to fashion theory. Extrapolating from Michel Serres’ theory of the quasi-objects, I distinguish two phenomenologies possessing almost opposite characteristics. These two phenomenologies are, so I argue, essential to quasi-object theory, yet largely ignored by Serres’ sociological interpreters. They correspond with the two different theories of fetishism found in Marx and Durkheim, respectively. In the (...) second half of the article, I introduce the fashion object as a unique opportunity for studying the interchange between these two forms of fetishism and their respective phenomenologies. Finally, returning to Serres, I briefly consider the theoretical consequences of introducing the fashion object as a quasi-object. (shrink)

Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres' work in the context of late 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres' philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers. Simons situates Serres' unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres' work into a (...) promising philosophy of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres' commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres' philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history, and sociology of science. Showing how Serres' philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life. (shrink)

Among the contemporary philosophers using the concept of the Anthropocene, Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers are prominent examples. The way they use this concept, however, diverts from the most common understanding of the Anthropocene. In fact, their use of this notion is a continuation of their earlier work around the concept of a ‘parliament of things.’ Although mainly seen as a sociology or philosophy of science, their work can be read as philosophy of technology as well. Similar to Latour’s claim (...) that science is Janus-headed, technology has two faces. Faced with the Anthropocene, we need to shift from technologies of control to technologies of negotiations, i.e., a parliament of things. What, however, does a ‘parliament of things’ mean? This paper wants to clarify what is conceptually at stake by framing Latour’s work within the philosophy of Michel Serres and Isabelle Stengers. Their philosophy implies a ‘postlinguistic turn,’ where one can ‘let things speak in their own name,’ without claiming knowledge of the thing in itself. The distinction between object and subject is abolished to go back to the world of ‘quasi-objects’ (Serres). Based on the philosophy of science of Latour and Stengers the possibility for a politics of quasi-objects or a ‘cosmopolitics’ (Stengers) is opened. It is in this framework that their use of the notion of the Anthropocene must be understood and a different view of technology can be conceptualized. (shrink)

This essay juxtaposes the position in metaethics defended, expressivism with quasirealistic trimmings, with the ancient problem of relativism. It argues that, perhaps surprisingly, there is less of a problem of normative truth on this approach than on others. Because ethics is not in the business of representing aspects of the world, there is no way to argue for a plurality of moral truths, simply from the existence of a plurality of moral opinions. The essay also argues that other approaches, which (...) superficially seem better adapted to defending robust and substantive conceptions of moral truth, in fact face more danger from the threat of relativism. This is particularly so in the case of 'secondary quality' or 'response-dependent' approaches, but also in the case of certain kinds of constructivism. (shrink)

Brentano famously changed his mind about intentionality between the 1874 and 1911 editions of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (PES). The 1911 edition repudiates the 1874 view that to think about something is to stand in a relation to something that is within in the mind, and holds instead that intentionality is only like a relation (it is ‘quasi-relational’). Despite this, Brentano still insists that mental activity involves ‘the reference to something as an object’, much as he did (...) in the 1874 edition of PES. The question is what Brentano might have meant by this, given that he rejects a relational account of intentionality. The present paper suggests an answer. It draws on recent work on pretence theory to provide a model of Brentano’s notion of the quasi-relational nature of mental phenomena, as well as of the notion of mental reference to an object, and argues that the model helps to explain why Brentano might have been able discern a clear continuity between the views of the 1874 and 1911 editions of PES, despite the differences. (shrink)

Quasi-fideism accounts for the rationality of religious belief by embracing the idea that a subject’s most fundamental religious commitments are essentially arational. It departs from standard forms of fideism, however, by contending that this feature of religious commitment does not set it apart from belief in general. Indeed, the quasi-fideist maintains, in keeping with the Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology that underlies the view, that it is in the nature of belief in general (i.e. religious or otherwise) that it presupposes (...) essentially arational commitments, and hence that there can be no specific epistemic objection to religious belief due to it having this feature. This paper explores how quasi-fideism deals with the problems raised by fundamental religious disagreement. In particular, how is quasi-fideism to avoid the charge of epistemic relativism? It is argued that once we understand the arational nature of these fundamental commitments correctly, then quasi-fideism is able to avoid a problematic form of epistemic relativism. Relatedly, it can also explain how a subject’s basic religious commitments can change over time in rational ways. (shrink)

Quasi-set theory is a ZFU-like axiomatic set theory, which deals with two kinds of ur-elements: M-atoms, objects like the atoms of ZFU, and m-atoms, items for which the usual identity relation is not defined. One of the motivations to advance such a theory is to deal properly with collections of items like particles in non-relativistic quantum mechanics when these are understood as being non-individuals in the sense that they may be indistinguishable although identity does not apply to them. According (...) to some authors, this is the best way to understand quantum objects. The fact that identity is not defined for m-atoms raises a technical difficulty: it seems impossible to follow the usual procedures to define the cardinal of collections involving these items. In this paper we propose a definition of finite cardinals in quasi-set theory which works for collections involving m-atoms. (shrink)

Quasi-set theory $\cal Q$ allows us to cope with certain collections of objects where the usual notion of identity is not applicable, in the sense that $x = x$ is not a formula, if $x$ is an arbitrary term. $\cal Q$ was partially motivated by the problem of non-individuality in quantum mechanics. In this paper I discuss the range of explanatory power of $\cal Q$ for quantum phenomena which demand some notion of indistinguishability among quantum objects. My main focus (...) is on the double-slit experiment, a major physical phenomenon which was never modeled from a quasi-set-theoretic point of view. The double-slit experiment strongly motivates the concept of degrees of indistinguishability within a field-theoretic approach, and that notion is simply missing in $\cal Q$. Nevertheless, other physical situations may eventually demand a revision on quasi-set theory axioms, if someone intends to use it in the quantum realm for the purpose of a clear discussion about non-individuality. I use this opportunity to suggest another way to cope with identity in quantum theories. (shrink)

This article describes well quasi orders as a category, focusing on limits and colimits. In particular, while quasi orders with monotone maps form a category which is finitely complete, finitely cocomplete, and with exponentiation, the full subcategory of well quasi orders is finitely complete and cocomplete, but with no exponentiation. It is interesting to notice how finite antichains and finite proper descending chains interact to induce this structure in the category: in fact, the full subcategory of (...) class='Hi'>quasi orders with finite antichains has finite colimits but no products, while the full subcategory of well founded quasi orders has finite limits but no coequalisers. Moreover, the article characterises when exponential objects exist in the category of well quasi orders and well founded quasi orders. This completes the systematic description of the fundamental constructions in the categories of quasi orders, well founded quasi orders, quasi orders with finite antichains, and well quasi orders. (shrink)

Quasi-set theory Q is an alternative set-theory designed to deal mathematically with collections of indistinguishable objects. The intended interpretation for those objects is the indistinguishable particles of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, under one specific interpretation of that theory. The notion of cardinal of a collection in Q is treated by the concept of quasi-cardinal, which in the usual formulations of the theory is introduced as a primitive symbol, since the usual means of cardinal definition fail for collections of indistinguishable (...) objects. In a recent work, Domenech and Holik have proposed a definition of quasi-cardinality in Q. They claimed their definition of quasi-cardinal not only avoids the introduction of that notion as a primitive one, but also that it may be seen as a first step in the search for a version of Q that allows for a greater representative power. According to them, some physical systems can not be represented in the usual formulations of the theory, when the quasi-cardinal is considered as primitive. In this paper, we discuss their proposal and aims, and also, it is presented a modification from their definition we believe is simpler and more general. (shrink)

In 1986, Mikenberg et al. introduced the semantic notion of quasi-truth defined by means of partial structures. In such structures, the predicates are seen as triples of pairwise disjoint sets: the set of tuples which satisfies, does not satisfy and can satisfy or not the predicate, respectively. The syntactical counterpart of the logic of partial truth is a rather complicated first-order modal logic. In the present article, the notion of predicates as triples is recursively extended, in a natural way, (...) to any complex formula of the first-order object language. From this, a new definition of quasi-truth is obtained. The proof-theoretic counterpart of the new semantics is a first-order paraconsistent logic whose propositional base is a 3-valued logic belonging to hierarchy of paraconsistent logics known as Logics of Formal Inconsistency, which was proposed by Carnielli and Marcos in 2002. (shrink)

Bishop Butler objected to Locke's theory of personal identity on the grounds that memory presupposes personal identity. Most of those sympathetic with Locke's account have accepted Butler's criticism, and have sought to devise a theory of personal identity in the spirit of Locke's that avoids Butler's circularity objection. John McDowell has argued that even the more recent accounts of personal identity are vulnerable to the kind of objection Butler raised against Locke's own account. I criticize McDowell's stance, drawing on a (...) distinction introduced by Annalisa Coliva between two types of immunity to error through misidentification. (shrink)

Democracy may well be the primary virtue of political systems. Yet European politics is marked by a democracy deficit that will not disappear spontaneously. While legal and political theory on this issue is dominated by supporters of civic institutionalism and constitutional republicanism, liberal nationalists seem to be split. They justify the civic nationhood of member states, but they shrink away from the idea of a European people. This essay claims that a quasi-national conception of European identity can be conducive (...) to the rise of a democratic political union of Europe. It discusses the mechanisms and rules for Europeanization of the sense of equal dignity and solidarity. This approach to supranational identity is explicitly instrumental and orientated towards the long run. However, the main liberal objections against it can be countered. (shrink)

Quasi-realists have proposed an “internal” reading of the mind-independence claim embedded in our moral discourse, according to which the claim to mind-independence itself is a moral claim. I argue against such a quasi-realist “internal” reading. My objection is that quasi-realists cannot plausibly explain why the majority of us, either implicitly or explicitly, take moral mind-independence to be a metaethical notion. Quasi-realists either must attribute a quite obvious mistake to most metaethical theorists without explaining why they cannot (...) recognize it, or give us an intolerably ad hoc explanation about why ordinary moral speakers fail to understand their own words. Without properly addressing this problem, we have good reason to reject the quasi-realist account of moral mind-independence. (shrink)

Democracy may well be the primary virtue of political systems. Yet European politics is marked by a democracy deficit that will not disappear spontaneously. While legal and political theory on this issue is dominated by supporters of civic institutionalism and constitutional republicanism, liberal nationalists seem to be split. They justify the civic nationhood of member states, but they shrink away from the idea of a European people. This essay claims that a quasi-national conception of European identity can be conducive (...) to the rise of a democratic political union of Europe. It discusses the mechanisms and rules for Europeanization of the sense of equal dignity and solidarity. This approach to supranational identity is explicitly instrumental and orientated towards the long run. However, the main liberal objections against it can be countered. (shrink)

This paper defends the use of quasi-experiments for causal estimation in economics against the widespread objection that quasi-experimental estimates lack external validity. The defence is that quasi-experimental replication of estimates can yield defeasible evidence for external validity. The paper then develops a different objection. The stable unit treatment value assumption, on which quasi-experiments rely, is argued to be implausible due to the influence of social interaction effects on economic outcomes. A more plausible stable marginal unit treatment (...) value assumption is proposed, but it is demonstrated to severely limit the usefulness of quasi-experiments for economic policy evaluation. (shrink)

Devising an appropriate formal framework for structural realism has long been an issue in the development of this position. Décio Krause has suggested that quasi-set theory might offer such a framework and here I explore that possibility in the context of so-called ‘moderate’ and ‘radical’ forms of Ontic Structural Realism (OSR). However, although the central claims of the former can indeed be captured by quasi-set theory, I argue that these claims cannot bear the metaphysical weight placed upon them (...) and conclude that the search for an appropriate formal framework for OSR remains open.Over the past 35 years or so, structural realism has become one of the dominant positions in the realism-antirealism debate. As is now well-known, it broadly divides into two versions: epistemic structural realism, which, also broadly, states that all that we can know, is structure (Worrall, 1989); and ontic structural realism (OSR), which insists that all that there is, is structure (Ladyman, 1998). One of the questions that is most often asked about this position (asked so often in fact that I’m not going to bother with any citations here!) is the following: What is this structure that we are supposed to be realists about? As I’ve pointed out in what might be seen as a companion piece to this paper, it is remarkable that critics of this view never seem to bother to ask the same question of their own, ‘object-oriented’ stance (French, forthcoming-a, hopefully). It is almost as if they think that the notion of ‘object’ is so metaphysically transparent that no such question needs to be asked of it (reader, it isn’t and it does!). In that other paper I adopted the ‘toolbox’ view of the relationship between science and metaphysics, according to which the latter can be thought of as providing various devices and frameworks with which the theories of the former can be furnished (see French & McKenzie, 2012). (shrink)

This paper is a reply to Simon Blackburn's 'Is Objective Moral Justification Possible on a Quasi-realist Foundation?' Inquiry 42, pp. 213-28. Blackburn attempts to show how his version of non-cognitivism - quasi-realist projectivism - can evade the threat of ethical relativism, the thought that all ways of living are as ethically good as each other and every ethical judgment is as ethically true as any other. He further attempts to show that his position is superior in this respect (...) to, amongst other accounts, sensibility theory. According to Blackburn, sensibility theory succumbs easily to the relativistic challenge because it depends on some 'substantive' notion of truth. It is agreed with Blackburn that the threat of relativism is less of a threat to him than at first appears, although I think that it retains some menace, but not agreed that sensibility theorists cannot also counter the threat of relativism. The point is that the threat of ethical relativism depends less on truth than Blackburn supposes. Thus sensibility theorists can counter ethical relativism in much the same way that quasi-realist projectivists can. (shrink)

Varieties like groups, rings, or Boolean algebras have the property that, in any of their members, the lattice of congruences is isomorphic to a lattice of more manageable objects, for example normal subgroups of groups, two-sided ideals of rings, filters (or ideals) of Boolean algebras.algebraic logic can explain these phenomena at a rather satisfactory level of generality: in every member A of a τ-regular variety ������ the lattice of congruences of A is isomorphic to the lattice of deductive filters on (...) A of the τ-assertional logic of ������. Moreover, if ������ has a constant 1 in its type and is 1-subtractive, the deductive filters on A ∈ ������ of the 1-assertional logic of ������ coincide with the ������-ideals of A in the sense of Gumm and Ursini, for which we have a manageable concept of ideal generation. However, there are isomorphism theorems, for example, in the theories of residuated lattices, pseudointerior algebras and quasi-MV algebras that cannot be subsumed by these general results. The aim of the present paper is to appropriately generalise the concepts of subtractivity and τ-regularity in such a way as to shed some light on the deep reason behind such theorems. The tools and concepts we develop hereby provide a common umbrella for the algebraic investigation of several families of logics, including substructural logics, modal logics, quantum logics, and logics of constructive mathematics. (shrink)

The article comments upon Husserl’s attempts to outline, in a brief text dated 1922/23, the concept of Quasi-Konstitution. With its help, Husserl wishes to address the way objects are and can be constituted in the realm of pure phantasy. In discussing the various strata of their constitution, he reaches several problematic issues, concerning concordance, individuality, inter-subjectivity or reality. However, the chief aspect that governs Husserl’s reflections is the questionable relation between phantasy and the manifold senses of “possibility”.

Democracy may well be the primary virtue of political systems. Yet European politics is marked by a democracy deficit that will not disappear spontaneously. While legal and political theory on this issue is dominated by supporters of civic institutionalism and constitutional republicanism, liberal nationalists seem to be split. They justify the civic nationhood of member states, but they shrink away from the idea of a European people. This essay claims that a quasi-national conception of European identity can be conducive (...) to the rise of a democratic political union of Europe. It discusses the mechanisms and rules for Europeanization of the sense of equal dignity and solidarity. This approach to supranational identity is explicitly instrumental and orientated towards the long run. However, the main liberal objections against it can be countered. (shrink)

Quasi-set theory has been proposed as a means of handling collections of indiscernible objects. Although the most direct application of the theory is quantum physics, it can be seen per se as a non-classical logic (a non-reflexive logic). In this paper we revise and correct some aspects of quasi-set theory as presented in [12], so as to avoid some misunderstandings and possible misinterpretations about the results achieved by the theory. Some further ideas with regard to quantum field theory (...) are also advanced in this paper. (shrink)

Paraconsistent logics are logics that can be used to base inconsistent but non-trivial systems. In paraconsistent set theories, we can quan- tify over sets that in standard set theories, if consistent, would lead to contradictions, such as the Russell set, R = fx : x =2 xg. Quasi-set theories are mathematical systems built for dealing with collections of indiscernible elements. The basic motivation for the development of quasi-set theories came from quantum physics, where indiscernible entities need to be (...) considered. Usually, the way of dealing with indiscernible objects within clas- sical logic and mathematics is by restricting them to certain structures, in a way so that the relations and functions of the structure are not sufficient to individuate the objects; in other words, such structures are not rigid. In quantum physics, this idea appears when symmetry conditions are introduced, say by choosing symmetric and anti-symmetric functions in the relevant Hilbert spaces. But in standard mathematics, such as that built in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, any structure can be extended to a rigid structure. That means that, although we can deal with certain objects as they were indiscernible, we realize that from out- side of these structures these objects are no more indiscernible, for they can be individualized in the extended rigid structures: ZF is a theory of individuals, distinguishable objects. In quasi-set theory, it seems that there are structures that cannot be extended to rigid ones, so it seems that they provide a natural mathematical framework for expressing quantum facts without certain symmetry suppositions. There may be situations, however, in which we may need to deal with inconsistent bits of infor- mation in a quantum context, even if these informations are concerned with ways of speech. Furthermore, some authors think that superposi- tions may be understood in terms of paraconsistent logics, and even the notion of complementarity was already treated by such a means. This is, apparently, a nice motivation to try to merge these two frameworks. In this work, we develop the technical details, by basing our quasi-set theory in the paraconsistent system C1. We also elaborate a new hierarchy of paraconsistent calculi, the paraconsistent calculi with indiscernibility. For the finalities of this work, some philosophical questions are outlined, but this topic is left to a future work. (shrink)

Suárez's discussion of time in the Metaphysical Disputations is one of the earliest long treatises on time (extending over sixty pages), and includes detailed arguments supporting the view that physical actions take place within an absolute temporal reference frame. Whereas some previous thinkers, such as John Duns Scotus and Peter Aureole, had made tantalising suggestions that time exists independently of physical changes, their ideas were primarily negative theses in response to perceived problems with the dominant view that time was caused (...) by the celestial motion. Suárez, in contrast, provides a positive thesis based on his revision of traditional, Scholastic metaphysics. He argues that the ordering of earlier and later events can only be understood by conceiving events as existing within the embrace of a ?flowing and successive space? which he refers to as ?entirely necessary and immutable in its own flux? (omnino necessarium et immutabile in suo fluxu) - something at least very like an absolute temporal reference frame. Yet it would be simplistic to describe Suárez's work on time only in terms of its nascent absolutism, since for him there is a second kind of time, a more properly ?real? time, which is an accident of material being. This kind of time is ontologically tied to the most intimate existence of objects, creating a plurality of individual continua of time - one for each distinct being. He calls this kind of time ?intrinsic time? (tempus intrinsecum). Suárez's dualistic account of time, in which he proposes an ?intrinsic time?, linked to being, which exists within a second order absolute temporal reference frame, or ?imaginary succession?, forms a bridge between scholasticism and early modern philosophy providing a foundation for the work of later absolutists like Gassendi and Newton. (shrink)

Contemporary accounts on fictional emotions, i.e., emotions experienced towards objects we know to be fictional, are mainly concerned with explaining their rationality or lack thereof. In this context dominated by an interest in the role of belief, questions regarding their phenomenal quality have received far less attention: it is often assumed that they feel “similar” to emotions that target real objects. Against this background, this paper focuses on the possible specificities of fictional emotions’ qualitative feel. It starts by presenting what (...) I call the “phenomenological question” about the qualitative feel of fictional emotions (section 1) and by showing that this is irreducible to questions about their cognitive, intentional, evaluative, and embodied nature (section 2). Drawing on some insights from early phenomenologists, the next two sections elaborate criteria to distinguish between real and sham emotions on the one side (section 3) and between genuine and non-genuine emotions on the other (section 4). Finally, I apply this orthogonal distinction to the particular case of fictional emotions (section 5). The paper argues that fictional emotions are neither sham emotions nor quasi-emotions, but full-fledged emotional experiences, despite them displaying the distinctive phenomenology of emotions experienced as non-genuine. In the particular case of fictional emotions, they are non-genuine because our psychology is in fact in a state dominated by aesthetic enjoyment. (shrink)

Indexicals are inevitably autobiographical, even when we are not talking about ourselves. For example, if you hear me say, "That portrait right there is beautiful," you can surmise not only that I ascribe beauty to an object of my immediate awareness but also something about my spatial relation to it. Again, if I praise you directly within earshot of others by using the words, "You did that very well!," my concern need not be to cause them to think the (...) exact thought I have; they might not be in a position to address you as you and I might not care what they think of your performance. My purpose is to get them to ascribe to me an attitude that I express with a second-person indexical, to convince them that I am an encouraging and supportive person inasmuch as I addressed someone with words of praise. Indexicals are autobiographical not only because they issue from a speaker--all utterances do--but because they reveal something about the speaker's orientation toward and encounter with objects in a way that non-indexical language fails to do. For this reason, care must be taken in reporting indexically-expressed thoughts. Suppose the Chair of my Department informs me, (1)I am upset about the Dean's report. I cannot relate what he said by reiterating his words within indirect discourse, viz., (2)The Chair said that I am upset about the Dean's report. Because 'I' expresses speaker's reference, my assertion of (2) would cause a hearer to misconstrue who is said to be upset.i Alternatively, the sentence, (3)The Chair said that the Chair is upset about the Dean's report. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the kind of idealism defended by Berkeley is a natural and almost unavoidable expression of his theism. Two main arguments are deployed, both starting from a theistic premise and having an idealist conclusion. The first likens the dependence of the physical world on the will of God to the dependence of mental states on a mind. The second likens divine omniscience to the kind of knowledge which it has often been supposed we have of (...) the contents of our own minds. After rebutting objections to these arguments, I conclude that both theists and non-idealists should be surprised and discomforted by my contentions. (shrink)

Abstract:I argue that, since the legal order is a public good, an act of legal punishment may be viewed as the imposition of a kind of tax, which I label ‘a quasi-tax’. Once punishment is viewed as a quasi-tax, the traditionally opposed approaches to punishment may be reconciled, as both utility and retribution jointly justify an act of legal punishment. I discuss objections to my argument and I reply to them.

Quasi-set theory????\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}$$\end{document} is a first order theory which allows us to cope with certain collections of objects where the usual notion of identity is not applicable, in the sense that x = x is not a formula, if x is an arbitrary term. The terms of????\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}$$\end{document} are either collections or atoms (empty terms who are not collections), in a precise (...) sense. Within this context,????\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}$$\end{document} is supposed to be some sort of generalization of ZFU (ZF with atoms). Strangely enough, no one published any permutation model of quasi-set theory until now, although this theory is already 30 years old. In this paper I introduce a class of permutation models of????′\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}'$$\end{document} defined as????−{Axiom of Choice and all axioms involving quasi-cardinality}\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}-\{\text{Axiom of Choice and all axioms involving quasi-cardinality}\}$$\end{document}. I show, for example, that all permutation models of????′\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathfrak {Q}'$$\end{document} are models of ZFU−{Axiom of Choice}. (shrink)

The method of Quasi-Analysis used by Carnap in his program of theconstitution of concepts from finite observations has the following twogoals: (1) Given unsharp observations in terms of similarity relations thetrue properties of the observed objects shall be obtained by a suitablelogical construction. (2) From a single relation on a finite domain,different dimensions of qualities shall be reconstructed and identified. Inthis article I show that with a slight modification Quasi-Analysis iscapable of fulfilling the first goal for a single (...) observable dimension. Weobtain a partition of the so-called Quality Classes representing thepairwise disjoint and exhaustive extensions associated to the ``values'''' ofthe observable. On the other hand, an example demonstrates that the methodfails, as Goodman has pointed out, for a relation expressing similarity withregard to at least one out of many properties.Since it seems to be impossible in general to reconstruct more-dimensionalqualities from a single similarity relation, the constitution of at least asmany similarity relations as there are qualities have to be presumed. Thenit is possible to state adequate sufficient conditions for the dimension ofthe observable space, even if some of the similarity relations might dependon others. The concept of topological dimension cannot be used for thispurpose on finite sets of observations. We replace it by a set-algebraicalcondition on the Quality Classes. (shrink)

Armstrong’s combinatorial theory of possibility faces the obvious difficulty that not all universals are compatible. In this paper I develop three objections against Armstrong’s attempt to account for property incompatibilities. First, Armstrong’s account cannot handle incompatibilities holding among properties that are either simple, or that are complex but stand to one another in the relation of overlap rather than in the part/ whole relation. Secondly, at the heart of Armstrong’s account lies a notion of structural universals which, building on an (...) objection by David Lewis, is shown to be incoherent. I consider and reject two alternative ways of construing the composition of structural universals in an attempt to meet Lewis’ objection. An important consequence of this is that all putative structural properties are in fact simple. Finally, I argue that the quasi-mereological account presupposes modality in a way that undermines the reductionist aim of the combinatorialist theory of which it is a central part. I conclude that Armstrong’ quasi-mereological account of property incompatibility fails. Without that account, however, Armstrong’s combinatorial theory either fails to get off the ground, or else must give up its goal of reducing the notion of possibility to something non-modal. (shrink)

A ubiquitous assumption about composite material objects is that—if they exist at all—they are single things. This chapter articulates and defends manyism, which rejects that assumption. According to manyism, each composite object is simply its many parts. Since manyism accepts the existence of composite objects, it is distinct from nihilism; since manyism denies that composite objects are each one in number in addition to being many in number, it is distinct from the view known as composition as identity (CAI). (...) What’s more, manyism is both coherent and attractive. Manyism is coherent because it can be underwritten by a defensible quasi-Quinean metaontology, and because it’s not analytic that objects are each one in number. Manyism is attractive because it shares all of the benefits of CAI without having to join CAI in objectionably positing many–one identities, and without incurring other serious costs. (shrink)

Major difficulties for readers of Foucault’s The Order of Things concern the historical function and the logical construction of the episteme. Our proposal is to link it with another notion, the ‘point of heresy’, less frequently addressed. This leads to asserting that irreconcilable dilemmas are in fact determined by the type of rationality governing the emergence of common objects of knowledge. It also introduces a possibility of ‘walking on two roads’: a dialogical adventure within rationality. Foucault is not content with (...) either accepting or rejecting the ‘transcendental’ question ‘What is Man?’: with the help of quasi-transcendental categories performing a ‘transdisciplinary’ function, he wants to reach the ‘heretical’ point where anthropology becomes historicity within the horizon of finitude. (shrink)

Through the examination of the lives of several immortal beings, this paper defends a version of Moritz Schlick’s claim that the meaning of life is play. More precisely: a person’s life has meaning to the extent it there are things in it that the person values intrinsically rather than merely instrumentally and above a certain threshold of intensity. This is a subjectivist account of meaning in life. I defend subjectivism about meaning in life from common objections by understanding statements about (...) life’s meaning in quasi-realist terms. (shrink)

Quasi-set theory is a theory for dealing with collections of indistinguishable objects. In this paper we discuss some logical and philosophical questions involved with such a theory. The analysis of these questions enable us to provide the first grounds of a possible new view of physical reality, founded on an ontology of non-individuals, to which quasi-set theory may constitute the logical basis.

I briefly discuss the epistemological role of quasi-set theory in mathematics and theoretical physics. Quasi-set theory is a first order theory, based on Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with Urelemente. Nevertheless, quasi-set theory allows us to cope with certain collections of objects where the usual notion of identity is not applicable, in the sense that $x = x$ is not a formula, if $x$ is an arbitrary term. Basically, quasi-set theory offers us some sort of logical apparatus for (...) questioning the need for identity in some branches of mathematics and theoretical physics. I also use this opportunity to discuss a misunderstanding about quasi-sets due mainly to Nicholas J. J. Smith, who argues, in a general way, that sense cannot be made of vague identity. (shrink)

These arguments are fairly well known today. It is interesting to note that v. Kries already knew them, and that they have been ignored by Reichenbach and v. Mises in their original account of probability.2This observation leads to the interesting question why the frequency theory of probability has been adopted by many people in our century in spite of severe counterarguments. One may think of a change in scientific attitude, of a scientific revolution put forward by Feyerabendarian propaganda- and who (...) would deny that Reichenbach was an excellent propagandist!My suggested explanation is the following:J. v. Kries is still a mentalist in the tradition of Descartes and Locke. This can be shown very well from his logic, which he wrote even much later (1916). A mentalist does not pose semantical questions in a proper sense: he rather asks which ideas in the human mind make up a concept. And studying probability in this way, he will find in any case that what is in the human mind is first of all an expectation. Therefore, his analysis of the concept of probability will be centered around the concept of expectation.People tended to approach the problem in quite a different way after the scientific revolution which led from mentalism to lingualism. They tended in many cases to use operationalism and to ask how probabilities are determined in science, if they wanted to clear up the meaning of probability. This new aspect of probability, which was caused by looking at it from a new position or standpoint, suggested it to be the limit of relative frequencies in the first instance. This suggestion was so strong that all objections were ignored, and all counterarguments encountered deaf ears.Of course I have used here an oversimplification. Neither was J. v. Kries untouched by Poincaré's conventionalism, which is essentially a movement leading to the breakdown of mentalism; nor was Reichenbach, when he wrote his thesis in 1915, already a lingualist in any respect.Nevertheless, I think that the lingualist revolution, which took place particularly in mathematics and physics, has also changed the attitude towards probability. It would be interesting to corroborate this thesis by extensive study of the history of science in the late 19th century.Besides this historical aspect of v. Kries' theory, there is a systematic one which should be noticed. Though his theory still has a mentalist outlook, many of v. Kries' statements can be translated into the present lingualist idiom and then become most interesting contributions to the present discussion. We shall then state that for v. Kries probabilities appear first of all in probabilistic hypotheses which may or may not be confirmed by empirical data. Therefore, they have a role similar to theoretical concepts.3But that is not the only predominant feature of v. Kries' theory. He is approaching objective probability in a way which is quite unfamiliar to present day philosophers or mathematicians. Objective probabilities are connected with other concepts in three different ways. First of all, probabilistic hypotheses are confirmed by empirically found relative frequencies in a finite series of events. Secondly, they serve as an aid for decisions. And finally, there is a third relationship. Probabilities have to be explained by theories which are in many cases not formulated in probabilistic terms themselves. We can try to understand probability in one of the first two ways via their connection to other concepts. That is what is usually done by interpretations in terms of frequencies or decisions. A third approach, however, is to understand the nature of probability by the way probabilities are explained, and that is what v. Kries does. Such an approach does not seem unusual at all. In many cases the nature of a kind of objects is characterized by giving an explanation. If somebody asks what an eclipse of the moon is, we shall answer - as Aristotle already proposed - by giving an explanation of it. Thus it is quite natural to answer a question as to the nature of probability by describing the general type of explanation of probability distributions in natural or social science. The answer given by v. Kries is - as we know today — of limited validity. Quantum mechanical probabilities are not explainable by Spielräume. V. Kries solution, however, is remarkable in one important respect. It accounts for the time direction of objective probabilities, which are always predictive or forward probabilities, while retrodictive or backward probabilities are always subjective. The relation of objective probabilities to time direction is surely of utmost importance for natural philosophy. I do not know of any other philosophical foundation of probability which takes into account this deep-rooted relation. Therefore, v. Kries' interpretation may help us to understand one of the most intricate puzzles of philosophy. It may be nearly one hundred years old, but is by no means out of date. (shrink)

Contrary to the emotions we feel in everyday contexts, the emotions we feel for fictional characters do not seem to require a belief in the existence of their object. This observation has given birth to a famous philosophical paradox (the ‘paradox of fiction’), and has led some philosophers to claim that the emotions we feel for fictional characters are not genuine emotions but rather “quasi-emotions”. Since then, the existence of quasi-emotions has been a hotly debated issue. Recently, (...) philosophers and psychologists have proposed to solve this debate by using empirical methods and experimentally studying differences between ‘real’ and ‘fictional’ emotions. In this paper, our goal is to assess the success of these attempts. We begin by surveying the existing empirical literature and stressing the methodological problems that plague most studies that might seem relevant to the debate, before focusing on recent studies that avoid this pitfall. We then argue that, due to conceptual problems, these studies fail to be relevant to the philosophical debate and emphasize new directions for future empirical research on the topic. (shrink)

For ordinary judgements it is often the case that it may be justifiable to change one's mind given that others agree in holding an opposing view. In the case of judgements of beauty this is never the case; these are autonomous. Robert Hopkins has discussed the following (familiar) explanation: Judgements of beauty are not genuine assertions at all; rather they are expressions of some response or experience. Since to acknowledge the disagreement of others is not to respond to objects as (...) they do, this acknowledgement needn't (nor could it) render it appropriate to change one's aesthetic judgement (Hopkins 2001: 166-189). (shrink)

Although the standard objections to Harry Frankfurt's early hierarchical analysis of identification and its variants are well known, more recent work on identification has yet to be subjected to the same degree of scrutiny. To remedy this I develop in this paper objections to Frankfurt's most recent analysis of identification as satisfaction that he first outlined in his paper ?The Faintest Passion?. With such objections in place I show that they demonstrate that Frankfurt's analysis fails because it is based on (...) the attitudes that the person whose identification with his desires is in question adopts towards them. I then develop a new (objective and cognitive) analysis that avoids the difficulties that Frankfurt's subjective approach is prey to. I conclude by considering and rebutting some preliminary objections to this new analysis. (shrink)

The problem of the many poses the task of explaining mereological indeterminacy of ordinary objects in a way that sustains our familiar practice of counting these objects. The aim of this essay is to develop a solution to the problem of the many that is based on an account of mereological indeterminacy as having its source in how ordinary objects are, independently of how we represent them. At the center of the account stands a quasi-hylomorphic ontology of ordinary objects (...) as material objects with multiple individual forms. (shrink)

Carnap’s quasi-analysis is usually considered as an ingenious but definitively flawed approach in epistemology and philosophy of science. In this paper it is argued that this assessment is mistaken. Quasi-analysis can be reconstructed as a representational theory of constitution of structures that has applications in many realms of epistemology and philosophy of science. First, existence and uniqueness theorems for quasi-analytical representations are proved. These theorems defuse the classical objections against the quasi-analytical approach launched forward by Goodman (...) and others. Secondly, the constitution of various kinds of structures is treated in detail: order structures, comparative similarity structures, mereological, mereotopological, and topological structures are considered. In particular, it is pointed out that there exist interesting relations between quasi-analysis and modern theories of pointless topology. (shrink)

Tyler Burge has recently argued that quasi-memory-based psychological reductionist accounts of diachronic personal identity are deeply problematic. According to Burge, these accounts either fail to include appropriately de se elements or presuppose facts about diachronic personal identity—facts of the very kind that the accounts are supposed to explain. Neither of these objections is compelling. The first is based in confusion about the version of reductionism to which it putatively applies. The second loses its force when we recognize that reductionism (...) is a metaphysical thesis, not an epistemological one. (shrink)

Abstract:In this paper, I analyze the wilderness kind in terms of both natural and social elements. As a natural kind, wilderness has a historical essentialist analysis in terms of a lineage defined by historical, relational properties. The wilderness kind also has a social component, for only those spaces humans can access and develop can count as wilderness. Advantages to the view include a good fit with intuitive cases, as well as satisfying a plausible set of general conditions on social kinds. (...) I also consider and reply to objections concerning lineages and kind membership, vagueness, developability as accidental to wilderness, anthropocentrism, and the distinction between kinds and concepts. (shrink)

In, the author proposes a survey of Zalta’s Object Theory and, more specifically, of the Modal Axiom of Encoding. MAE claims that if something x possibly encodes a property F, then x necessarily encodes F. According to Bourgeois-Gironde, MAE fails to account for intentional phenomena which occur in conceivability-contexts. His solution is based on the notion of quasi-encoding: x quasi-encodes F iff x possibly encodes F. In this paper, I show that Bourgeois-Gironde’s concern is misguided and that (...) Zalta’s framework captures the conceivability-phenomena at issue by modeling Husserl’s notion of Noemata. I then argue that his solution is superior to Bourgeois-Gironde’s. The philosophical significance of such a discussion nonetheless goes well beyond the debate between these two authors. Indeed, Zalta’s theory of Noemata is only sketched and needs to be further explored to see, on the one hand, whether and how Object Theory successfully describes the behavior of objects in conceivability-contexts, and, on the other hand, to test the efficacy of its primitive notions that are – as the contemporary debate on Neomeinongianism largely shows – anything but uncontroversial. (shrink)

Background Ethics education can be developed in undergraduate nursing curriculum using a variety of teaching and learning strategies, and the content of narrative-based stories has rarely been evaluated in ethics courses. Objective This study aimed to compare the effect of teaching ethical principles through narrative ethics and lectures on the moral sensitivity of undergraduate nursing students. Methods This was a pretest and posttest quasi-experimental study with a control group. A total of 105 undergraduate nursing students from the nursing department (...) of Kerman University of medical science were included in the study. The narrative-based story and lecture lasted for four two-hour sessions. The outcomes were measured by a moral sensitivity questionnaire. Results The study results showed that teaching ethical principles had a significant effect on the mean score of moral sensitivity in the intervention groups after the intervention, but it was not significant in the control group. Based on the mean score of moral sensitivity, the students in the narrative story group got a higher score in all subscales of moral sensitivity questionnaire. Conclusion Based on this study’s findings, it can be concluded that narrative-based education is an effective way for undergraduate nursing students to promote their moral sensitivity and the ability to make ethical decisions. (shrink)