In this paper, we study some classes of logical structures from the universal logic standpoint, viz., those of the Tarski- and the Lindenbaum-types. The characterization theorems for the Tarski- and two of the four different Lindenbaum-type logical structures have been proved as well. The separations between the five classes of logical structures, viz., the four Lindenbaum-types and the Tarski-type have been established via examples. Finally, we study the logical structures that are of both Tarski- and a Lindenbaum-type, show their separations, (...) and end with characterization, adequacy, minimality, and representation theorems for one of the Tarski–Lindenbaum-type logical structures. (shrink)

Using covariant derivatives and the operator definitions of quantum mechanics, gauge invariant Proca and Lehnert equations are derived and the Lorenz condition is eliminated in U(1) invariant electrodynamics. It is shown that the structure of the gauge invariant Lehnert equation is the same in an O(3) invariant theory of electrodynamics.

In the opening section of Ovid's Ars Amatoria 3 the poet, in an attempt to gain favour with his female addressees, lists a number of legends where it is men who are the deceivers. In this list he includes Aeneas, et famam pietatis habet, tamen hospes et ensem I praebuit et causam mortis, Elissa, tuae . The terms in which Aeneas' guilt is cast are striking. Aeneas is criticized not for his lover's faithlessness, but for his shattering of the rules (...) of hospitium. At the heart of hospitium, in as much as it is friendship between strangers, lay the ideals of duty, loyalty, reciprocity, and the exchange of services, pietas includes, in this context, a reference to the guest's sense of, or actual fulfilment of, the duty to pay a proper return on the hospitality received. Aeneas had a reputation for doing his duty as a hospes, i.e. as someone who was conscientious about his duty to make an appropriate return. But, according to Ovid, the return which he actually made was diametrically opposed to a proper return, and consisted of a sword and a reason for Dido to kill herself with it. Ovid's decision to frame Aeneas' guilt in terms of hospitium reflects and emphasis adopted both in his own earlier epistle from Dido to Aeneas , and in the Aeneid itself. The erotic relationship between Dido and Aeneas in Book 4 of the Aeneid evolves out of the hospitium relationship established between them in Book 1. When Aeneas leaves Dido he asserts that their relationship is that of host and guest rather than of husband and wife, and that he has acted and will act well in this hospitium relationship . 9). Dido, for her part, even after she has been forced to drop the argument that she and Aeneas are married , continues to attack Aeneas and the Trojans as bad or faithless hospites , and ends by renouncing hospitium with them. (shrink)

Nursing as a profession has a social mandate to contribute to the good of society through knowledge-based practice. Knowledge is built upon theories, and theories, together with their philosophical bases and disciplinary goals, are the guiding frameworks for practice. This article explores a philosophical perspective of nursing's social mandate, the disciplinary goals for the good of the individual and society, and one approach for translating knowledge into practice through the use of a middle-range theory. It is anticipated that the integration (...) of the philosophical perspective and model into nursing practice will strengthen the philosophy, disciplinary goal, theory, and practice links and expand knowledge within the discipline. With the focus on humanization, we propose that nursing knowledge for social good will embrace a synthesis of the individual and the common good. This approach converges vital and agency needs described by Hamilton and the primacy of maintaining the heritage of the good within the human species as outlined by Maritain. Further, by embedding knowledge development in a changing social and health care context, nursing focuses on the goals of clinical reasoning and action. McCubbin and Patterson's Double ABCX Model of Family Adaptation was used as an example of a theory that can guide practice at the community and global level. Using the theory-practice link as a foundation, the Double ABCX model provides practising nurses with one approach to meet the needs of individuals and society. The integration of theory into nursing practice provides a guide to achieve nursing's disciplinary goals of promoting health and preventing illness across the globe. When nursing goals are directed at the synthesis of the good of the individual and society, nursing's social and moral mandate may be achieved. (shrink)

We disagree with Almaatouq et al. that no realistic alternative exists to the “one-at-a-time” paradigm. Seventy years ago, Egon Brunswik introduced representative design, which offers a clear path to commensurability and generality. Almaatouq et al.'s integrative design cannot guarantee the external validity and generalizability of results which is sorely needed, while representative design tackles the problem head on.

Diabetes is one of the most common metabolic diseases that cause high blood sugar. Early diagnosis of such a condition is challenging due to its complex interdependence on various factors. There is a need to develop critical decision support systems to assist medical practitioners in the diagnosis process. This research proposes developing a predictive model that can achieve a high classification accuracy of type 2 diabetes. The study consisted of two fundamental parts. Firstly, the study investigated handling missing data adopting (...) data imputation, namely, median value imputation, K-nearest neighbor imputation, and iterative imputation. Consequently, the study validated the implications of these imputations using various classification algorithms, i.e., linear, tree-based, and ensemble algorithms, to see how each method affected classification accuracy. Secondly, Artificial Neural Network was employed to model the best performing imputed data, balanced with SMOTETomek ensuring each class is represented fairly. This approach provided the best accuracy of 98% on the test data, outperforming accuracies achieved in prior studies using the same dataset. The dataset used in this study is concerned with gender and population. As a prospect, the study recommends adopting a larger population sample without geographic boundaries. Additionally, as the developed Artificial Neural Network model did not undergo any specific hyperparameter tuning, it would be interesting to explore tuning on top of normalized data to optimize accuracy further. (shrink)

A popular goal in psychological science is to understand human cognition and behavior in the ‘real world’. In contrast, researchers have typically conducted their research in experimental research settings, a.k.a. the ‘psychologist’s laboratory’. Critics have often questioned whether psychology’s laboratory experiments permit generalizable results. This is known as the ‘real-world or the lab’-dilemma. To bridge the gap between lab and life, the concept of ecological validity has been widely used to evaluate whether laboratory experiments resemble and generalize to the ‘real (...) world’. However, researchers seldom define what they mean with this concept, nor are there any guidelines or criteria available for evaluating a study’s ecological validity. In our view, the popular concept of ecological validity is ill-formed, lacks specificity, and falls short of adequately addressing the fundamental problem of generalizability. In order to move beyond this ‘real-world or the lab’-dilemma, we believe that researchers should be more specific about the contexts of behaviors they are interested in, instead of aiming to understand human cognition and behavior in the ‘real world’. We argue that this is a more constructive way of uncovering the context-specific and context-generic principles of human cognition and behavior. (shrink)

The ontological model framework for an operational theory has generated much interest in recent years. The debate concerning reality of quantum states has been made more precise in this framework. With the introduction of generalized notion of contextuality in this framework, it has been shown that completely mixed state of a qubit is preparation contextual. Interestingly, this new idea of preparation contextuality has been used to demonstrate nonlocality of some \(\psi \) -epistemic models without any use of Bell’s inequality. In (...) particular, nonlocality of a non maximally \(\psi \) -epistemic model has been demonstrated from preparation contextuality of a maximally mixed qubit and Schrödinger’s steerability of the maximally entangled state of two qubits (Leifer and Maroney, Phys Rev Lett 110:120401, 2013). In this paper, we, show that any mixed state is preparation contextual. We, then, show that nonlocality of any bipartite pure entangled state, with Schmidt rank two, follows from preparation contextuality and steerability provided we impose certain condition on the epistemicity of the underlying ontological model. More interestingly, if the pure entangled state is of Schmidt rank greater than two, its nonlocality follows without any further condition on the epistemicity. Thus our result establishes a stronger connection between nonlocality and preparation contextuality by revealing nonlocality of any bipartite pure entangled states without any use of Bell-type inequality. (shrink)

This manual is the product of a normative research program carried out over four years with Spanish-speaking populations in two geographically distinct regions: Madrid, Spain and the USA/Mexico border region. The manual describes a comprehensive system of procedures and normative data designed to assist the clinical researcher and the clinical practitioner in the neuropsychological assessment and diagnosis of adults whose main language is Spanish. Together the procedures comprise a brief and practical battery of eight tests for a basic examination of (...) attention, learning and memory, and executive function. The level of performance on these tests is assessed according to normative data. This is accomplished by adjusting test scores according to demographic criteria that simultaneously take into account the traditional factors of age and education, as well as the patient's place of origin. (shrink)

We begin with a prepositional languageLpcontaining conjunction (Λ), a class of sentence names {Sα}αϵA, and a falsity predicateF. We (only) allow unrestricted infinite conjunctions, i.e., given any non-empty class of sentence names {Sβ}βϵB,is a well-formed formula (we will useWFFto denote the set of well-formed formulae).The language, as it stands, is unproblematic. Whether various paradoxes are produced depends on which names are assigned to which sentences. What is needed is a denotation function:For example, theLPsentence “F(S1)” (i.e.,Λ{F(S1)}), combined with a denotation functionδsuch (...) thatδ(S1)“F(S1)”, provides the (or, in this context, a)Liar Paradox.To give a more interesting example,Yablo's Paradox[4] can be reconstructed within this framework.Yablo's Paradoxconsists of an ω-sequence of sentences {Sk}kϵωwhere, for eachnϵω:WithinLPan equivalent construction can be obtained using infinite conjunction in place of universal quantification - the sentence names are {Si}iϵωand the denotation function is given by:We can express this in more familiar terms as:etc. (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following articles: Sonia Roca‐Royes, ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic, and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 54–64. doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2010.00363.x. Sonia Roca‐Royes, ‘Essential Properties and Individual Essences.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 65–77. doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2010.00364.x. Author’s Introduction Intuitively, George Clooney could lose a finger and he would still be him. Also intuitively, he could not lose his humanity without ceasing to be altogether. So while he could have one less finger, he could not be other than human. These intuitions suggest that (...) there are two kinds of properties: on the one hand, there are essential properties and, on the other, there are accidental properties. Essentialism is the view that captures those intuitions and claims that some of an object’s properties are essential and some are accidental. Essential properties are often appealed to in metaphysical arguments. Consider the famous Goliath–Lumpl example. Goliath is a clay‐statue, and Lumpl is the piece of clay from which Goliath is made. Are Goliath and Lumpl the same entity, or are they distinct, despite coinciding in the same spatial region (at least for a period of time)? An argument in favour of their distinctness appeals to essential properties. Let s be Goliath’s shape. Lumpl’s current shape is therefore also s. It seems that Lumpl could lose its current shape and still exist. Yet, if Goliath – the statue – were melted, for instance, it would cease to exist. Behind this reasoning is the belief that having shape s is essential to Goliath but not to Lumpl. Goliath and Lumpl can therefore be distinguished by their essential properties. Consequently, and by Leibniz’s Indiscernibility of Identicals– according to which identicals cannot be distinguished – Goliath and Lumpl are distinct objects. The essentialist intuition appealed to in this argument is that shapes are essential to statues but not to pieces of clay. Of course, this particular argument – like any other – can be resisted. It is all the same a good illustration of how essentialism is put to work in metaphysics. A good understanding of the broad phenomenon of essentialism is therefore an unavoidable task, since the credit of a lot of metaphysical arguments partially depends on it. Although the topic has been studied for millenniums, the two papers that this guide accompanies are focused on contemporary issues in essentialism, and so will do this guide too. Author Recommends Fine, Kit. ‘Essence and Modality.’Philosophical Perspectives 8 (1994): 1–16. One of the most cited and influential papers against the modal account of the notion of essence and in favour of what has subsequently been referred to in the literature as ‘the Finean account of the notion of essence’. Forbes, Graeme. The Metaphysics of Modality. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. A foundational work in modality and essentialism. The first two chapters provide a valuable introduction to propositional and first order modal logic. Chapters 5–8 constitute a comprehensive essentialist theory and contain some of the most cited arguments for individual essences. Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1972/1980. Another foundational work. With this book – which is, among other things, a defence of a Direct Theory of Reference – Kripke rescues, after Quine’s powerful attacks against it, and using the semantic rigidity of proper names, (Aristotelian) essentialism. Mackie, Penelope. How Things Might Have Been: Individuals, Kinds and Essential Properties. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006. An extremely valuable recent contribution to the field. Here, Mackie defends that, although essentialism is a real phenomenon, there are much fewer essential properties than is standardly believed, and labels this view ‘Minimalist Essentialism’. Beyond the intrinsic interest of the defence of Minimalist Essentialism, the book is also highly recommended for its clear reconstructions – and discussions – of some of the most influential essentialist arguments. In addition, the book’s bibliography is very comprehensive and updated, and it might be a useful resource for students. Plantinga, Alvin. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: OUP, 1974. Yet another foundational work. Here, Plantinga offers his essentialist theory which, like Forbes’, also incorporates individual essences although of a very different sort from Forbes’. Plantinga believes in purely non‐qualitative individual essences, whereas Forbes’ aims at purely qualitative ones. The book is also excellent to provide a solid background to those unfamiliar with the topic. Roca‐Royes. ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass, 6/1 (2011): 54–64, doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2010.00363.x. This is one of the two papers this guide accompanies. It contains a comparative examination of two opposed responses to the problem of possibilia. One solution crucially appeals to individual essences and another – compatible with them, but not dependent on them – makes existence a necessary‐whenever‐possible property. Salmon, Nathan. Reference and Essence. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981. Against what Kripke’s Naming and Necessity might have induced us to believe, Salmon’s Reference and Essence argues that essentialism cannot be derived from the Direct Theory of Reference. Our commitments to essentialism should therefore come from somewhere else. It also contains one of the most cited and influential arguments against the transitivity of the accessibility relation between worlds, which relies on flexible essential properties. Online Materials The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy publishes extremely valuable entries on a vast variety of topics which are conveniently updated and revised. On essentialism, the following are to be highlighted: Teresa Robertson, ‘Essential vs. Accidental Properties’: Takashi Yagisawa, ‘Possible Objects’: Penelope Mackie, ‘Transworld Identity’: PhilPapers is an interactive directory of online philosophical publications to which one can subscribe, and which allows authors to submit their latest work. One might find it useful to check this on a regular basis, since contents are constantly updated. The following link is to the site’s resources on essentialism:. Sample Syllabus Because the phenomenon of essentialism is very broad, one can design an entire course on it, thereby having enough time to see some of the issues in considerable depth. The sample syllabus suggested here is of one such course, focusing exclusively on contemporary issues in essentialism. Less deeply, the topic of essentialism can also be introduced in a general course on metaphysics or on modality. To this effect, focusing on some of the topics suggested in weeks 1–6 below would perhaps be more appropriate than focusing on the more complex issues suggested for weeks 7–10. Week 1. Introduction to Essentialism. Two Notions of Essential Property: The Modal Account and the Finean Account Fine, Kit. ‘Essence and Modality.’Philosophical Perspectives 8 (1994): 1–16. Robertson, Teresa. ‘Essential vs. Accidental Properties.’Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy (Fall 2008 Edition). Ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL:. Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essential Properties and Individual Essences.’Philosophy Compass, 6/1 (2011): 65–77. Sections 1–2. Week 2. Essentialist Principles, I: Three Arguments for the Essentiality of Origin Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1972/1980. Lecture III. Mackie, Penelope. ‘Identity, Time and Necessity.’Proceedings for the Aristotelian Society 98 (1998): 59–78. Rohbraugh, Guy and deRosset, Louis. ‘A New Route to the Necessity of Origin.’Mind 133 (2004): 705–25. Week 3. Essentialist Principles, II: Essentiality of Kind Brody, Baruch. ‘Natural Kinds and Real Essences.’Journal of Philosophy 64 (1967): 431–46. Mackie, Penelope. How Things Might Have Been: Individuals, Kinds and Essential Properties. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006. Chapters 7 and 8. Wiggins, David. Sameness and Substance Renewed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. Chapter 3. Week 4. Essentialist Principles, III: Natural Kind Essentialism Kripke, Saul. ‘Identity and Necessity.’Identity and Individuation, Ed. M. K. Munitz. New York: New York University Press, 1971. 135–64. Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1972/1980. Lecture III. Putnam, Hilary. ‘The Meaning of “Meaning”.’Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7 (1975): 215–71. Week 5. Sufficient‐for‐Existence Properties (and Cross‐World Identification Principles) Chisholm, Roderick. ‘Identity through Possible Worlds: Some Questions.’Noûs 1.1 (1967): 1–8. Mackie, Penelope. How Things Might Have Been: Individuals, Kinds and Essential Properties. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006. Chapter 3. Salmon, Nathan. Reference and Essence. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981. Chapter 7. Week 6. Individual Essences Mackie, Penelope. ‘Transworld Identity.’The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition). Ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL:. Section 4. Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essential Properties and Individual Essences.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 65–77. Sections 3–4. Week 7. Flexible Essential Properties and S4 Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic, and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 54–64. Section 3. Salmon, Nathan. Reference and Essence. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981. Appendix 1. Week 8. Individual Essences and Possibilia Peacocke, Christopher. ‘Principles for Possibilia.’Noûs 36.3 (2002): 486–508. Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic, and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 54–64. Section 2. Week 9. Necessitism and Essentialism: A Third Notion of Essential Property Linsky, Bernard and Zalta, Edward. ‘In Defense of the Contingently Nonconcrete.’Philosophical Studies 84 (1996): 283–94. Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic, and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 54–64. Section 5. Williamson, Timothy. ‘Bare Possibilia.’Erkenntnis 48 (1998): 257–73. Week 10. Essentialism and Modal Logic: The Barcan Formula Menzel, Christopher. ‘Actualism.’The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition). Ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL:. Section 2. Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic, and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 54–64. Section 4. Focus Questions • There is a debate as to whether essential properties– as well as individual essences and sufficient‐for‐existence properties– should be specified in purely qualitative terms or whether, by contrast, non‐purely qualitative – or even purely non‐qualitative – specifications are allowed. What are the main arguments against the availability of purely qualitative specifications? • Flexible essential properties seem to be more plausible than non‐flexible ones. Yet, together with sufficient‐for‐existence properties, they imply flexible individual essences. How plausible are these? Should we revise our intuitions supporting flexible essential properties? • What are, ultimately, the ontological differences between a necessitist approach to possibilia and an individual‐essences‐based approach? • According to necessitism, essential properties do not impose necessary conditions for an object’s existence. Can the necessitist, nonetheless, capture this role of essential properties by saying that, when it comes to possibly concrete entities, essential properties provide necessary conditions for an object’s concreteness? Can they, on a similar vein, also offer sufficient‐for‐concreteness properties as a surrogate for the (non‐necessitist’s) sufficient‐for‐existence properties? • Even after the enormous amount of literature that essentialism has generated, we are far from reaching a general agreement as to which properties are essential and which are accidental. Should this be a reason to reflect, critically, on the methodology that is being used in the arguments for or against essential properties? Is reliance on intuitions inescapable? (shrink)

"The papers in this volume are extended versions of presentations at the fourth International Workshop on Extensions of Logic Programming, held at the University of St Andrews, March/April 1993. Among the topics covered in the volume are: defintional reflection and completion, modules in lambda-Prolog, representation of logics as partial inductive definitions, non-procedural logic programming, knowledge representation, contradiction avoidance, disjunctive databases, strong negation, linear logic programming, proof theory and regular search spaces, finite sets and constraint logic programming, search-space pruning and universal (...) algebra, and implementation on transputer networks."--PUBLISHER'S WEBSITE. (shrink)

Javanese people have unique characteristics and traditions that make them appealing for research. One of the unique things of the Javanese tradition called bancaan is that it is aimed at appreciating children. Bancaan is a simple banquet of gratitude on the occasion of a child’s birthday by inviting their playmates to pray together for their good. This tradition is rich in the value of hospitality but began to disappear as influences of current development overtake. Given this reality, this study discovered (...) Christian values of hospitality in the bancaan tradition. This discovery is based on a survey by Lee Roy Martin and Michele Hersberger. This research is based on the paradigm of qualitative research. Data collection was conducted by examining the literature and studying the Bible. The problem was analysed using interactive analysis, revealing Christian hospitality values in the bancaan tradition. The values showed are as follows: bancaan is open to everyone in nature despite their backgrounds, bancaan is a form of interaction of hospitality in simplicity and bancaan is a form of regeneration of hospitality values to the child.Contribution: This manuscript provided an overview of one form of Javanese culture, which was then linked to the principles of hospitality from Jesus. This culture was a form of Javanese culture towards children’s appreciation. It is hoped that this manuscript contributes to the preservation of Javanese bancaan culture. (shrink)

Hegel's treatment of the Sublime is both self-consistent and distinctive. He not only defines sublimity, but discovers and ranks its types or stages from one select point of view—the viewpoint of God-world relation; and the way he does this, on the one hand, distinguishes him from many others who have contributed to an understanding of the concept, and, on the other hand, enables him to suggest, if but implicitly, a criterion for distinguishing the sublime from allied concepts. Besides, he discusses (...) the matter in the wide context of diverse cultures, making quite a few insightful references to Eastern literature; and, consistently with his own conception of philosophy, also from the viewpoint of historical necessity, so that the sublime appears, in his Aesthetik, as a specific stage which the evolving story of art must in fact traverse. (shrink)

This essay seeks to clarify Gandhi's logic of self-suffering. Its inner accents have not received the attention they deserve. So I propose to emphasize them, though the context of such suffering and its impact on men too must be given due regard.

This is the first volume compiling English translations of Leibniz's journal articles on natural philosophy, presenting a selection of 26 articles, only three of which have appeared before in English translation. It also includes in full Leibniz's public controversies with De Catelan, Papin, and Hartsoeker. The articles include work in optics, on the fracture strength of materials, and on motion in a resisting medium, and Leibniz's pioneering applications of his calculus to these issues by construing them as mini-max and inverse (...) tangent problems. Other topics covered by the articles include: criticisms of the Cartesian estimate of motive force and Leibniz's proposal of a different way of estimating force to replace it; a proposed theory of celestial motions and gravitation, and derivation of the inverse square law; challenge problems concerning the isochronous curve and the catenary; a sample of work on gaming theory; and Leibniz's critique of atomism. (shrink)

In this work, S.K. Chakraborty develops the themes propounded in his earlier work to provide a systematic presentation of the relevant vedantic and allied principles in a conceptual and empirical framework. From an overall perspective of vedantic ethical vision and its application to managerial and corporate ethical morality, the book examines what the Vedantic ethical system, and great thinkers like Tagore, Gandhi, Burobindo and others, can teach us about such questions as individual leadership, transformation of the work ethos, ethics and (...) productivity, and others. Throughout, the conceptual and the empirical are closely intertwined, and substantial graphic appendices on the Tata leadership crisis of 1991 and the securities scam of 1991-92 give an immediacy and relevance to the analysis. (shrink)

During the sixteenth century in England the logocentrism of the Middle Ages was confronted by a materialism that heralded the modern world. With remarkable tenacity in music, poetry, and painting, the orthodox aesthetic persisted as formal features which served as nonverbal signs and provided a subtext of form. In opposition, however, a radical aesthetic emerged to accommodate the new attention to physical nature. The growing force of materialism occasioned a fundamental rethinking of what an artifact might represent and how that (...) representation might be achieved. This book explores the ontological and epistemological issues that poststructuralist thought raises about that shift in our cultural history. In doing so, it charts a course for Renaissance studies, now in disarray, that avoids the old positivism while not succumbing to the new nihilism. (shrink)

In this concise text, Roy Bhaskar sets out to diagnose, explain and resolve the "problems of philosophy". _Plato Etc._ reviews all the main areas of the subject: the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science; the philosophy of logic and language; the philosophies of space, time and causality; the philosophy of the social and life sciences and of dialectic; ethics, politics and aesthetics; and the history and sociology of philosophy. Among the issues discussed are the problems of induction and universals, (...) the question of relativism, Heidegger’s "scandal of philosophy", the nature of moral truth and the conundrum of free will and determinism. The last two chapters consist of a synoptic account of the development of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratics to poststructuralism. _Plato Etc._ seeks to revindicate the philosophical project, and to demonstrate that the author’s "dialectical critical realism" has the categorical power to remedy the problem fields of philosophy. The book serves both as a critical introduction to philosophy and as an invaluable resource for the scholar. (shrink)

Although we believe the results reported below to have direct philosophical import, we shall for the most part confine our remarks to the realm of mathematics. The reader is referred to [4] for a philosophically oriented discussion, comprehensible to mathematicians, of tense logic.The “minimal” tense logicT0is the system having connectives ∼, →,F(“at some future time”), andP(“at some past time”); the following axioms:(whereGandHabbreviate ∼F∼ and ∼P∼ respectively); and the following rules:(8) fromαandα → β, inferβ,(9) fromα, infer any substitution instance ofα,(10) fromα, (...) inferGα,(11) fromα, inferHα.A tense logic is a systemTwhose language is that ofT0and whose axioms and rules include (1)–(11). The axioms and rules ofTother than (1)–(11) are calledproperaxioms and rules.We shall investigate three systems of semantics for tense logics, i.e. three notions ofstructureand three relations ⊧ which stand between structures and formulas. One reads⊧αas “αis valid in.” A structureis amodelof a tense logicTif every formula provable inTis valid in. A semantics isadequateforTif the set of models ofTin the semantics is characteristic forT, i.e. if wheneverT ∀ αthen there is a modelofTin the semantics such that∀ α. Two structuresand, possibly from different semantics, are calledequivalent(∼) if exactly the same formulas are valid inas in. (shrink)