Life's Solution builds a persuasive case for the predictability of evolutionary outcomes. The case rests on a remarkable compilation of examples of convergent evolution, in which two or more lineages have independently evolved similar structures and functions. The examples range from the aerodynamics of hovering moths and hummingbirds to the use of silk by spiders and some insects to capture prey. Going against the grain of Darwinian orthodoxy, this book is a must read for anyone grappling with the meaning of (...) evolution and our place in the Universe. Simon Conway Morris is the Ad Hominen Professor in the Earth Science Department at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St. John's College and the Royal Society. His research focuses on the study of constraints on evolution, and the historical processes that lead to the emergence of complexity, especially with respect to the construction of the major animal body parts in the Cambrian explosion. Previous books include The Crucible of Creation (Getty Center for Education in the Arts, 1999) and co-author of Solnhofen (Cambridge, 1990). Hb ISBN (2003) 0-521-82704-3. (shrink)

This chapter explores some fundamental consequences of the correspondence between physical process and computations. Most physical questions may be answerable only through irreducible amounts of computation. Those that concern idealized limits of infinite time, volume, or numerical precision can require arbitrarily long computations, and so be considered formally undecidable. The behavior of a physical system may always be calculated by simulating explicitly each step in its evolution. Much of theoretical physics has, however, been concerned with devising shorter methods of calculation (...) that reproduce the outcome without tracing each step. Computational irreducibility is common among the systems investigated in mathematics and computation theory, but it may well be the exception rather than the rule, since most physical questions may be answerable only through irreducible amounts of computation. (shrink)

In this, his latest book, Wolfram Hogrebe continues to unfold his project of an informal epistemology with an analysis of ties ("ligatures") to be found below the level of theoretically discussed norms, laws, and institutional regulations and nevertheless indispensable for a humane coexistence. Risks associated with such often hidden constellations of knowledge are also discussed. Master thinkers such as Schelling, Hegel, Heidegger, but also more marginal figures such as Felix Hausdorff alias Paul Mongré or artists such as Beuys are (...) discussed. In his inimitable style of concise yet succinct sketches, Hogrebe thus causes thinking to confront the often subtle nuances of being in a state of wonderment"--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Apologies. The purpose of the following talk is to give an overview of the present state of aims, methods and results in Pure Proof Theory. Shortage of time forces me to concentrate on my very personal views. This entails that I will emphasize the work which I know best, i.e., work that has been done in the triangle Stanford, Munich and Münster. I am of course well aware that there are as important results coming from outside this triangle and I (...) apologize for not displaying these results as well.Moreover the audience should be aware that in some points I have to oversimplify matters. Those who complain about that are invited to consult the original papers.1.1. General. Proof theory startedwithHilbert's Programme which aimed at a finitistic consistency proof for mathematics.By Gödel's Theorems, however, we know that we can neither formalize all mathematics nor even prove the consistency of formalized fragments by finitistic means. Inspite of this fact I want to give some reasons why I consider proof theory in the style of Gentzen's work still as an important and exciting field of Mathematical Logic. I will not go into applications of Gentzen's cut-elimination technique to computer science problems—this may be considered as applied proof theory—but want to concentrate on metamathematical problems and results. In this sense I am talking about Pure Proof Theory.Mathematicians are interested in structures. There is only one way to find the theorems of a structure. Start with an axiom system for the structure and deduce the theorems logically. These axiom systems are the objects of proof-theoretical research. Studying axiom systems there is a series of more or less obvious questions. (shrink)

Properly understood, Kant’s moral philosophy is incompatible with constitutivism. According to the constitutivist, being subject to the moral law cannot be a matter of free choice, and failure to c...

“Ethical life” is Hegel’s term for the actuality of what Kant calls an “ethical community.” As members of the same ethical community, human beings are related to one another as persons in and only in acting from nothing but respect for the same practical law. Kant and Hegel both take ethical life to be a necessary, nay, the highest, end of pure reason. I argue that this is correct. And I identify the idea of ethical life with the idea of (...) a peculiar form of love. Kant and Hegel disagree—in a curiously reciprocal fashion—about the reach of ethical life and about our capacity to know it to reside within our power: while Kant identifies ethical life with the actuality of the ethical community of all possible human beings, Hegel holds that it is necessarily limited to some particular body politic; and while Hegel thinks that to be a human being is to self-knowingly co-constitute an ethical community, Kant believes that it is to be unable to know oneself to even be apt for this. With Hegel and against Kant, I argue that the only way to have the idea of ethical life is to live it. But with Kant and against a naïve form of Hegelianism, I argue that to be conscious of oneself as a human being, a practically rational animal, is to be conscious of oneself as morally evil, i.e. as actively prone to deeming one’s own particularity the supreme law. I show that this entails Hegelian particularism. And I end by noting that this saddles the Hegelian with the task of demonstrating that ethical particularization belongs to the very idea of pure reason itself, objectively conceived. (shrink)

Internalism is an explanatory strategy that makes the internal structure and constitution of the organism a basis for the investigation of its external function and the ways in which it is embedded in an environment. It is opposed to an externalist explanatory strategy, which takes its departure from observations about external function and mind-environment interactions, and infers and rationalizes internal organismic structure from that. This paper addresses the origins of truth, a basic ingredient in the human conceptual scheme. I suggest (...) the necessity of pursuing an internalist line of explanation for it, as adopted in the biolinguistic program and generative grammar at large. According to this view, the concept of truth is a presupposition for the way language is used in relation to the world, rather than a function of that use or a consequence of language-world relations. (shrink)

First published in 1989. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Who thinks historically?A historian as such is like Melchizedek, fatherless and motherless, and without genealogy. When you ask him, “Where do you come from?” he must answer, “…I am a citizen of the world, and serve neither the Emperor, nor the King of France, but serve only the truth…”1But what is truth in historical thinking? What, or to be more precise, how, does it represent? How does it establish a certain relationship between its objective correlates, “[f]or falsity and truth have (...) to do with combination and separation”?2In our language the term History [Geschichte] unites…. (shrink)

***Angaben zur beteiligten Person Kann: Christoph Kann ist Professor für Philosophie an der Universität Düsseldorf.

Evolutionary pressure selects for the most efficient way of information processing by the brain. This is achieved by focussing neuronal processing onto essential environmental objects, by using focussing devices as pointers to different objects rather than reestablishing new representations, and by using external storage bound to internal representations by pointers. Would external storage increase the capacity of cognitive processing?

In a recent paper, Kit Fine offers a reconstruction of Cantor's theory of ordinals. It avoids certain mentalistic overtones in it through both a non-standard ontology and a non-standard notion of abstraction. I argue that this reconstruction misses an essential constructive and computational content of Cantor's theory, which I in turn reconstruct using Martin-Löf's theory of types. Throughout, I emphasize Kantian themes in Cantor's epistemology, and I also argue, as against Michael Hallett's interpretation, for the need for a constructive understanding (...) of Cantorian ?existence principles? (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 46 Heft: 1 Seiten: 1-40.