Here we investigate the classes RCA $^\uparrow_\alpha$ of representable directed cylindric algebras of dimension α introduced by Nemeti[12]. RCA $^\uparrow_\alpha$ can be seen in two different ways: first, as an algebraic counterpart of higher order logics and second, as a cylindric algebraic analogue of Quasi-Projective Relation Algebras. We will give a new, "purely cylindric algebraic" proof for the following theorems of Nemeti: (i) RCA $^\uparrow_\alpha$ is a finitely axiomatizable variety whenever α ≥ 3 is finite and (ii) one can obtain (...) a strong representation theorem for RCA $^\uparrow_\alpha$ if one chooses an appropriate (non-well-founded) set theory as foundation of mathematics. These results provide a purely cylindric algebraic solution for the Finitization Problem (in the sense of [11]) in some non-well-founded set theories. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive study of the Derveni Papyrus. The papyrus, found in 1962 near Thessaloniki, is not only one of the oldest surviving Greek papyri but is also considered by scholars as a document of primary importance for a better understanding of the religious and philosophical developments in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Gábor Betegh aims to reconstruct and systematically analyse the different strata of the text and their interrelation by exploring the archaeological context; the interpretation of (...) rituals in the first columns of the text; the Orphic poem commented on by the author of the papyrus; and the cosmological and theological doctrines which emerge from the Derveni author's exegesis of the poem. Betegh discusses the place of the text in the context of late Presocratic philosophy and offers an important preliminary edition of the text of the papyrus with critical apparatus and English translation. (shrink)

Several other commentators capably articulate and defend an important objection to Christie, Brusse, et al.: the claim that the existence of a trait is entirely, rather than partially explained by the effects for which it was selected is stronger than the selected effects theorist needs or seeks to defend. Nonetheless, Christie, Brusse, et al.’s cases do draw our attention to a point about the explanatory relation between selected effects functions and their bearers that has not been emphasized by selected effects (...) theorists, although some have quietly accommodated it. This is the idea that, for a trait T to be for performing F, T’s ability to perform F must figure in an explanation of T’s existence in a particular way. It is not T’s absolute propensity to produce F as an effect but its comparative propensity, as compared with alternatives to T, that must figure in the explanation. The pattern of explanation sought by selected effects theorists to underwrite function attributions therefore requires a correct choice of comparison class. When we spell this idea out, we arrive at a hypothesis about what is bothering Christie, Brusse, et al. about the cases they find problematic. Consider their Gouldian finches. Focusing on the role of comparative propensities, the difficulty becomes clear: the claim that the red-heads’ hormonal levels have persisted in the finch population because they have had the effect of dislodging competitors more reliably than the black-heads’ hormonal levels is incorrect. The red-head phenotype doesn’t stick around by outdoing the black-heads at dislodging, since the black-heads can’t be outdone at something they are not in the business of doing in the first place. However, this point is not in the end a serious problem for selected effects theories because the problem comes from a wrong choice of comparison class: namely, black-heads, rather than inferior red-heads. If the hormonal trait of today’s red-heads reached or persists at its present frequency because of some historical selection against other, perhaps quite similar, hawkish variants, this trait will be for dislodging competitors, since it is around because it outdid those alternatives at dislodging. (shrink)

Recent work in social and cultural studies of science and technology has shown that the ‘epistemic dependence’ of laypeople on experts is not a relation of blind trust, but typically and necessarily involves critical assessment of expert testimonies. Normative epistemologists have suggested a number of criteria, mostly of contextual nature since expert knowledge means restricted cognitive access to some epistemic domain, according to which non-experts can reliably evaluate expert claims; while science studies scholars have concentrated on how laypeople can come (...) to warranted decisions about technical matters on non-technicalgrounds. Instead of addressing the problem transcendentally (how such decisions are possible) or normatively (how such decisions should be reached), this paper contrasts the recommendations available in the literature with the empirical findings of a rough case study concerning the public reaction to the H1N1 vaccine issue. Awareness of how lay people do come to such decisions may inform and refine normative philosophical investigations. (shrink)

Résumé Loin d’être un objet à manipuler, ou même à oublier, notre corps propre est appelé à devenir une source d’initiatives spontanées et créatrices. On tente de mettre ici en lumière le rôle important du dynamisme corporel autonome dans la vie humaine, d’une véritable « sagesse du corps » en ce sens.Far from being an object to manipulate or even forget, our own body is meant to become a source of spontaneous and creative initiatives. We try here to bring out (...) the important role of an autonomous dynamism of the body in human life, of a genuine “wisdom of the body” in that sense. (shrink)

Abstract The paper is an attempt to interpret Imre Lakatos's methodology of scientific research programmes (MSRP) on the basis of his mathematical methodology, the method of proofs and refutations (MPR). After sketching MSRP and MPR and analysing their relationship to Popper's and Poly a's work, I argue that MSRP was originally conceived as a methodology in the same sense as MPR. The most conspicuous difference between the two, namely that MSRP is fundamentally backward?looking, whereas MPR is primarily forward?looking, is due (...) to the fact that Lakatos could not carry out his project in the full sense. I also explain why he could not. (shrink)

Based on the existence of polysemy (e.g., lunch can refer to both food and events), it is argued that central tenets of externalist semantics and Fodorian concept atomism, an externalist theory on which words lack semantic structure, are unsound. We evaluate the premise that these arguments rely on—that polysemous words have separate, finer‐grained senses. We survey the evidence across psychology and linguistics and argue that it shows that polysemy does not exist, at least not in this “sense”. The upshot is (...) that if polysemy does not exist, it cannot pose a problem for atomism or externalism. (shrink)

The uniform halting problem (UH) can be stated as follows:Give a decision procedure which for any given Turing machine (TM) will decide whether or not it has an immortal instantaneous description (ID).An ID is called immortal if it has no terminal successor. As it is generally the case in the literature (see e.g. Minsky [4, p. 118]) we assume that in an ID the tape must be blank except for some finite number of squares. If we remove this restriction the (...) UH becomes the immortality problem (IP). (shrink)

"In this book, Gabor Csepregi describes in detail the nature and scope of the body's innate abilities and reflects on their significance in human life."--BOOK JACKET.

Motivated by the known mathematical and physical problems arising from the current mathematical formalization of the physical spatio-temporal continuum, as a substantial technical clarification of our earlier attempt (Etesi in Found Sci 25:327–340, 2020), the aim in this paper is twofold. Firstly, by interpreting Chaitin’s variant of Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem as an inherent uncertainty or fuzziness present in the set of real numbers, a set-theoretic entropy is assigned to it using the Kullback–Leibler relative entropy of a pair of Riemannian (...) manifolds. Then exploiting the non-negativity of this relative entropy an abstract Hawking-like area theorem is derived. Secondly, by analyzing Noether’s theorem on symmetries and conserved quantities, we argue that whenever the four dimensional space-time continuum containing a single, stationary, asymptotically flat black hole is modeled by the set of real numbers in the mathematical formulation of general relativity, the hidden set-theoretic entropy of this latter structure reveals itself as the entropy of the black hole (proportional to the area of its “instantaneous” event horizon), indicating that this apparently physical quantity might have a pure set-theoretic origin, too. (shrink)

In this short study, I attempt to reconstruct the main conceptual components of Edmund Husserl’s concept of death following the leading clue of his late transcendental phenomenological methodology. First, I summarise his thoughts on death, from the point of view of “the natural attitude”, as an event in the world. Then, I try and explore the manifold senses of the limit phenomenon of death as a multidimensional transcendental phenomenological problem in all of its intersubjective-world constitutive, personal-primordial, and metaphysical-constructive layers of (...) meanings, respectively. By doing so, I also hope that the path we travel can serve the reader as an opportunity for a personal and reflective confrontation with death. (shrink)

The uniform halting problem (UH) can be stated as follows.Give a decision procedure which for any given Turing machine (TM) will decide whether or not it has an immortal instantaneous description (ID).An ID is called immortal if it has no terminal successor. As it is generally the case in the literature (see e.g. Minsky [3, p. 118]) we assume that in an ID the tape must be blank except for some finite numbers of squares. If we remove this restriction the (...) UH becomes the immortality problem (IP). The UH should not be confused with the initialised uniform halting problem (whether or not a TM has an immortal ID when started in a specified state) which can easily be shown to be undecidable (see e.g. Minsky [3, p. 151]). (shrink)

Chemists do not interpret the world in various ways; their point is to change it. This variation on Karl Marx’ Feuerbach thesis came to my mind while reading the new Philosophy of Chemistry volume.The 11th thesis originally sounds like this: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”. The thick book contains more than forty studies related to the relatively new field. In this short review, it would be too much even to (...) list all the authors and subjects touched in these pages. The volume was originally intended to be the proceedings of a workshop held in Paris in 2010, but the organizer and editor, Jean-Pierre Llored, also invited authors who had not participated in the conference to contribute a paper. The papers are organized under seven subtitles, such as “Historical Approaches”, “Analytical Approaches”, “Transcendental Approaches” and others, but the material is much richer than the grouping would suggest.The editor’s idea was t. (shrink)

The paper’s main task is to show how much Hume’s philosophy of passions is indebted to and continues the tradition of the philosophy of affects of the 17th century, in spite of the obvious fact that he departed from the main philosophical project of the 17th century, the tripartite unity of mathematics, metaphysics, and mechanical physics. A restructuring of Hume’s order of passions and its comparison to the order followed by Descartes will show up a special „cognitivist” character of Hume’s (...) thinking on emotion, even if the special experimental framework of Hume’s theory of passions prevents him from theorizing about the free will’s distinguished role in our lives or about the will’s grounding in the concept of a providentially active biblical God. (shrink)

In this paper a simple (i.e. free of fine-tuning, etc.) new mechanism for primordial black hole formation based on the collapse of large antimatter systems in the early Universe is introduced. A peculiarity of this process is that, compared to their material counterparts, the collapse of large antimatter systems takes much less time due to the reversed thermodynamics of antimatter, an idea which has been proposed in our earlier paper Etesi (2021). This model has several testable predictions. The first is (...) that the photon-baryon ratio is roughly computable and is equal to \(3.03\times 10^9\) which is quite close to its experimentally confirmed value. The second is that the mass of black holes arising from this mechanism is at least \(10^5\) - \(10^6M_\odot\) hence they contribute to the super- or hypermassive end of the primordial black hole mass spectrum. The third prediction is that these sort of primordial black holes constitute at least \(20\%\) of dark matter. Last but not least the observed current asymmetry of matter and antimatter, even if their presence in the Universe was symmetric in the beginning, acquires a natural explanation, too. (shrink)

Istvan Bibó was the clandestine politological authority during the late Kadar period, and was rediscovered after the fall of communism. The essay examines and reconstructs the notions of elite and legitimation in Bibó''s political philosophy. As a young thinker he confronted the value crisis between the two world wars. He was influenced by Oswald Spengler''s and Ortega y Gasset''s theories of elites. The essay analyses the similarities and differences in their views. In Bibó''s conceptual world, the theory of elites is (...) connected with the issue of legitimation, because in his opinion the crisis of elites always results in a crisis of legitimation. Bibó''s analysis of elites, their social responsibilities as well as the types of legitimization are highly instructive for us since they help us rethink our conceptions of the social roles of elites and political legitimation under conditions of globalisation. (shrink)

The iconic revolution changing the routine of everyday communication is gradually leading to the creation of a linguistic structure that combines visual and verbal tools in both formal and semantic aspects. Computer and mobile applications today enable high-tech imaging that ensures the spread of iconic communication in mundane interactions and the possibility of a creative combination of verbal and iconic codes for language users who navigate in a world of images in an increasingly confident manner. The iconic revolution that accompanies (...) this expansion of new communication technologies thus leads to serious changes in language use, thereby enhancing the transmission of verbal and iconic language to become a key element of mundane communication. This article argues that this turn in communication technology guided the attention of Kristóf Nyíri, an eminent figure in contemporary Hungarian philosophy, to the problem of the relationship between icon, language, and tradition. The aim of the present essay is twofold: to shed light on the relevance of Nyíri’s analysis and thoughts on the relationship between tradition and language in the history of communication, and to identify, using Nyíri’s model of pictorial meaning as a starting point, the relevant aspects of the conception of technological determinism in answering questions from the philosophy of language and mind. (shrink)

Taking the real Newtonian colour circle – and not the one Palmer depicts as Newton's – we don't have to wait 300 years for Palmer to say no to the Lockean aperçu about the inverted spectrum. One of the aims of this historical detour is to show that one's commitment about the “topology” of the colour space greatly affects Palmer's argument.

The paper first discusses the metaphysical framework that allows the soul's integration into the physical world. A close examination of B36, supported by the comparative evidence of some other early theories of the soul, suggests that the word psuchê could function as both a mass term and a count noun for Heraclitus. There is a stuff in the world, alongside other physical elements, that manifests mental functions. Humans, and possibly other beings, show mental functions in so far as they have (...) a portion of that stuff. Turning to the physical characterization of the soul, the paper argues that B36 is entirely consistent with the ancient testimonies that say that psuchê for Heraclitus is exhalation. But exhalations cover all states of matter from the lowest moist part of atmospheric air to the fire of celestial bodies. If so, psuchê for Heraclitus is both air and fire. The fact that psuchê can manifest the whole range of physical properties along the dry-wet axis guarantees that souls can show different intellectual and ethical properties as well. Moreover, Sextus Empiricus, supported by some other sources, provides us with an answer how portions of soul stuff are individuated into individual souls. The paper closes with a brief discussion of the question whether, and if so with what qualifications, we can apply the term 'physicalism' to Presocratic theories of the soul. (shrink)

SUMMARYThis study is centred on events in 1580 surrounding a scandalous publication of Machiavelli’s The Prince by Pietro Perna in Basel. With the presentation of new documents the paper fully reconstructs the judicial case that followed its publication, raising new questions about the author of the infamous book Vindiciae contra tyrannos. However, this fascinating story will serve only as a starting point for the investigation of Machiavelli's late-sixteenth-century reception, providing insights into not only the political and religious but also the (...) scientific context of its publication. These fields, it will be argued, were thoroughly interrelated, all sharing similar epistemological premises. (shrink)

We show that there is a restriction, or modification of the finite-variable fragments of First Order Logic in which a weak form of Craig's Interpolation Theorem holds but a strong form of this theorem does not hold. Translating these results into Algebraic Logic we obtain a finitely axiomatizable subvariety of finite dimensional Representable Cylindric Algebras that has the Strong Amalgamation Property but does not have the Superamalgamation Property. This settles a conjecture of Pigozzi [12].

Play is not only a kind of activity, but also a set of attitudes. We may join a card game in a casino without assuming a play attitude; conversely we may transform a seemingly tedious action, such as a walk to the store, into a pleasant experience of spontaneous movements by adopting an attitude of play. Attitudes of Play is a comprehensive study of the persistent human tendency to bring a cheerful and good-humoured outlook to any kind of situation, including (...) the serious and the mundane. Gabor Csepregi offers a phenomenological description of forms of playfulness, showing how, time and again, our attitudes of play redefine and shape diverse activities and experiences – from teaching, healing, or worshipping to political conflict or walking down the street. With play attitudes, we exercise our freedom to colour these scenes or give them an altogether new form, evoking in us more refined sentiments and more acute perceptions. This book seeks to distinguish play activities from attitudes of play, showing that the latter hold value not merely for their educational or other instrumental benefits but also, and perhaps most importantly, for the overall fulfillment and well-being they offer in all stages of human existence. (shrink)

In vivo explore des questions fondamentales et des moments cruciaux de l’existence humaine – l’entrée en interaction avec une culture étrangère, la décision de se sortir d’une condition de vie routinière ou malheureuse, une action généreuse posée dans un contexte quotidien ordinaire – en fonction de leur potentiel de transformation de l’existence. En recourant à des illustrations tirées de la vie réelle et d’œuvres de fiction, Gabor Csepregi révèle le rôle primordial des sentiments personnels dans le façonnement de la vie (...) humaine et démontre le pouvoir formateur de la spontanéité en dehors du contexte traditionnel de l’éducation formelle. Ces moments, et notamment la façon dont ils perturbent l’ordre temporel ordinaire constituent des expériences vécues de notre vitalité. « Recourant à un langage clair et précis, In vivo captivera les philosophes et les intellectuels. Csepregi engage un dialogue entre diverses traditions, faisant appel aux meilleurs courants de plusieurs philosophies pour développer un point de vue unique ». - Gaëlle Fiasse, Université McGill. (shrink)

In a recent book C.S. Jenkins proposes a theory of arithmetical knowledge which reconciles realism about arithmetic with the a priori character of our knowledge of it. Her basic idea is that arithmetical concepts are grounded in experience and it is through experience that they are connected to reality. I argue that the account fails because Jenkins’s central concept, the concept for grounding, is inadequate. Grounding as she defines it does not suffice for realism, and by revising the definition we (...) would abandon the idea that grounding is experiential. Her account falls prey to a problem of which Locke, whom she regards as a source of inspiration was aware and which he avoided by choosing anti-realism about mathematics. (shrink)