This paper articulates an account of causation as a collection of information-theoretic relationships between patterns instantiated in the causal nexus. I draw on Dennett’s account of real patterns ...to characterize potential causal relata as patterns with specific identification criteria and noise tolerance levels, and actual causal relata as those patterns instantiated at some spatiotemporal location in the rich causal nexus as originally developed by Salmon. I develop a representation framework using phase space to precisely characterize causal relata, including their degree(s) of counterfactual robustness, causal profiles, causal connectivity, and privileged grain size. By doing so, I show how the philosophical notion of causation can be rendered in a format that is amenable for direct application of mathematical techniques from information theory such that the resulting informational measures are causal informational measures. This account provides a metaphysics of causation that supports interventionist semantics and causal modeling and discovery techniques.
The present article, while emphasizing the field and time leading to the emergence of analytical and continental philosophy, tries to study the main and fundamental origins of their emergence in ...Kant’s philosophy and to identify the strengths and weaknesses of both, to analyze the positive and efficient and the negative aspects of Kant’s philosophical heritage. To reach this purpose, at first some characteristics and differences of the two approaches are described. Then after presenting necessary introductions, through Kant’s general and strong philosophy, we get the two general outputs of analytic and continental approaches. In this way we develop from Kant’s episteme-sophia controversy to his nomen-phenomen dualism to get closer to his uninvited philosophy, i.e., nihilism so as to put into test the analytic-continental controversy. Finally, we try to present some conjectures regarding the required accompaniment of both.
In the paper we prove the existence of an arithmetical set without subsets of higher weak truth-table degree. Mistakenly, we believed that there were no known reducibilities strictly contained in the ...Turing reducibility (on all 2w) incomparable with ≤wtt and having the corresponding degree notion. ...
In this paper, we follow Gödel’s remarks on an envisioned theory of concepts to determine which properties should a logical basis of such a theory have. The discussion is organized around the ...question of suitability of the classical predicate calculus for this role. Some reasons to think that classical logic is not an appropriate basis for the theory of concepts, will be presented. We consider, based on these reasons, which alternative logical system could fare better as a logical foundation of, in Gödel’s opinion, the most important theory in logic yet to be developed. This paper should, in particular, motivate the study of partial predicates in a certain system of three-valued logic, as a promising starting point for the foundation of the theory of concepts.
Problem setting. The paper is the Part II of the large research, dedicated to both revision of the system of basic logical categories and generalization of the modern predicate logic to functional ...logic. Basic categories of functional logic are the following: an individual, a function, representation, and a sequence. Paper objective. The main task of the paper is to describe every one of the categories in question. The more expansive task of all the paper series is to expose the whole system of functional logic and to prove its advantagies.Recent research and publications analysis. Functional logic was discovered by the author in 1997, and there is no investigation in this field up today except of papers of the autor.Paper main body. An individual is any theoretical object regarded as atomic. Functions are regarded as ambiguous in general case, maybe nullary, and are treated as methods to represent some (any) objects. Most important types of functions are individuals’ functions (for example, arithmetic operations), functionals, and operators. Representation is the ultimate generalization of equality; we treat representation as any specification of an object, as a way to make it present. Fundamentals of the theory of representation are following: any individual can be represented either by itself as a function, or by a nullary function, or via other objects by a function with argument places. The corrected form (with respect to the Paper I) of representation formulas, i. e., atomic formulas of functional logic are involved. The form of terms that represents general names in formal languages of functional logic is present. Both these corrections use the machinery of choice functions, i. e., functions that “elect” one value of any ambiguous function in any case of its use. A sequence treated as a basic nondefinable logical notion. The nondefinability of the notion of a sequence will be proved in another paper. When we operate with individuals, functions, and representation, we structure them in sequences such that every latter has the first element and is discrete (and many of them also have the last element). Conclusions of the research. An individual and a function are relative categories because, first, when we start to talk about a function, it became an individual with the name “such and such a function” and, secondly, when an individual is represented by itself, it became a function. Also, categories of an individual, a function, representation, and a sequence are basic but not universal for logic, i. e., not every logical object is either an individual or a function or representation or a sequence. Say, semantical categories of an expression, a sense, and a denotation are independent of four described above. This means that we described above the field of logic, independent from semantics. The author calls this field (and its theory) logistics.
I revisit my paper, ‘Grace de Laguna’s 1909 Critique of Analytic Philosophy’ and respond to the commentary on it. I respond to James Chase and Jack Reynolds by further analysing the difference ...between speculative philosophy as de Laguna conceived of it and analytic philosophy, by clarifying how her critique of analytic philosophy remains relevant to some of its more speculative forms, and by explaining what justifies the criticism of established opinion that goes along with her rejection of analytic philosophy’s epistemic conservatism. In response to Andreas Vrahimis, I contextualise my reading of de Laguna’s work in 1909. This clarifies her critique of pragmatism, distinguishes it from her critique of epistemically conservative philosophy, and shows that she was not only already aware of the full scope of the latter critique but is likely to have identified the then incipient analytic philosophy as its primary target. Also, contra Vrahimis, her argument is effective against Bertrand Russell’s later, epistemically conservative approach to philosophy. In response to Cheryl Misak, I point out that her argument that de Laguna is, despite herself, a pragmatist rests on a misunderstanding of the differences between pragmatism and idealism, and I show that de Laguna’s main early influences were Herbert Spencer and her teacher, James Edwin Creighton. I further argue that Misak’s rejection of de Laguna’s critique of pragmatism rests on a misrepresentation of the critique.
Grace A. de Laguna was an American philosopher of exceptional originality. Many of the arguments and positions she developed during the early decades of the twentieth century later came to be central ...to analytic philosophy. These arguments and positions included, even before 1930, a critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction, a private language argument, a critique of type physicalism, a functionalist theory of mind, a critique of scientific reductionism, a methodology of research programs in science and more. Nevertheless, de Laguna identified herself as a defender of the speculative vision of philosophy, a vision which, in her words, ‘analytic philosophy condemns’. I outline her speculative vision of philosophy as well as what is, in effect, an argument she offers against analytic philosophy. This is an argument against the view that key parts of established opinion, e.g. our best theoretical physics or most certain common sense, should be assumed to be true in order to answer philosophical questions. I go on to bring out the implications of her argument for the approaches to philosophy of Bertrand Russell, Willard V. Quine and David Lewis, and I also compare the argument to recent, related arguments against analytic philosophy. I will suggest that de Laguna offers a viable critique of analytic philosophy and an alternative approach to philosophy that meets this critique.
IX—How Is Metaphysics Possible? Stang, Nicholas F
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
10/2023, Letnik:
123, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Abstract
In the Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason Kant raises a famous question: how is metaphysics possible as a science? Kant posed this question for his predecessors in early modern ...philosophy. I raise this question anew for the resurgence of metaphysics within analytic philosophy. I begin by dividing the question of the possibility of metaphysics into separate questions about its semantic and epistemic possibility, and translate them into contemporary terms as: (1) Why do terms in metaphysical theories refer? (2) How do we have knowledge in metaphysics? I then argue that the inflationary conception of metaphysics cannot explain the semantic possibility of metaphysics and, consequently, cannot explain its epistemic possibility. I then argue, more briefly, that a deflationary conception cannot satisfactorily answer the Kantian questions either. The critical path alone remains open.
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