Following the lead of Gustav Bergmann ( 1967 ), if not his precise terminology, ontologies are sometimes divided into those that are ‘relational’ and those that are ‘constituent’ (Wolterstorff 1970 ). Substance ontologies in the Aristotelian tradition are commonly thought of as being constituent ontologies, because they typically espouse the hylemorphic dualism of Aristotle ’s Metaphysics – a doctrine according to which an individual substance is always a combination of matter and form. But an alternative approach drawing more on the (...) fourfold ontological scheme of Aristotle’s Categories is not committed to this doctrine and may regard individual (or ‘primary’) substances as having no constituent structure, their only possible complexity residing in their possession, in some cases, of a multiplicity of substantial parts. However, as we shall see, this does not imply that such an ontology falls instead into the relational camp: for although it invokes, in addition to the category of individual substance, also those of substantial kind (‘secondary’ substance), attribute, and mode (or ‘individual accident’), it need not and arguably should not take there to be external relations between entities in the different categories. On this view, truths of exemplification and instantiation, such as ‘Dobbin is white’ and ‘Dobbin is a horse’, do not need relational truthmakers. Hence, it can be maintained that there are no such relations as ‘exemplification’ and ‘instantiation’, at most only certain relational truths of exemplification and instantiation – truths whose logical form is relational. Th is being so, I shall argue, such an ontology cannot fairly be classified as a ‘relational’ one. (shrink)

In search of general generative principles I start from the postulate of a reality which comprises both materialistic and psychic aspects. This overall reality, described by others as the world of archetypes, is not directly accessible to sensory perception. Yet, by studying archetypical manifestations, it is possible to distinguish different structures or generative principles in it. Comparison of three models, which depict developmental processes in different disciplines, shows that they have the same basic structure. The effects of the archetypes involved (...) can be described as four general generative principles: 1st the principle of wholeness (connection and integration of conflicting opposites), 2nd the principle of complementation and compensation (periodic change of opposite influences); 3rd the enstructuring principle (relative stability or spatial aspect of a manifest structure), and 4th the principle of gesture (change or temporal aspect of that structure). (shrink)

The views of the Enlightenment in European countries are in general well known, while the attempts to introduce the Enlightenment to countries in the periphery of Europe, like Greece, are not known in the same degree. How did the scientific revolution migrate to the Greek‐speaking regions occupied by the Ottoman Empire? How did the Greeks accept the truly revolutionary ideas of the French Revolution and liberalism? What were the reactions of the conservative Greek Orthodox Church and who sacrificed their lives (...) in the cause of their ideas? Theophilos Kairis (1784–1853), a scholar, philosopher, and priest, was the tragic victim of clerical bigotry. The creator of Theosebism in Greece, Kairis suffered the tragic end reserved by fate for those who, being pioneers, tried to introduce to Greece the liberal ideas of Western Europe and the Enlightenment. (shrink)

Résultat des recherches du philosophe allemand positiviste ayant pour objectif d'établir un système logique de constitution des concepts par dérivation, à partir d'un petit nombre de concepts fondamentaux.

In propounding his unified logico-linguistic theory W. S. Cooper [4] maintains that “...meaning... is so surrounded by unresolved debates and controversial distinctions that the modem investigator is sometimes well advised to dissociate himself from all precedent and define his terms afresh”. This is the line that will be adopted for this presentation carried out within the framework of Glottodidactics [5] and [10], i.e. in terms of this language-teaching discipline’s purposes as different from those of linguistics and, therefore, offering, hopefully, a (...) new angle of approach to the problem of meaning. (shrink)